Crank 2

Sara Brown

-------------------------------------

Her sword swept from its sheath with a spinning flourish, blacksteel blurring in the thick air. Pale gunsmoke mixed and swirled with wind-blown skywreathe, coating her mouth, nose, and lungs with an indescribably foul taste. Looking out from amongst the wall of glittering bayonets and spark-flinging rifles, Sara judged the onrushing krapeu’s distance, waiting for her moment. 

The simple drumbeat her Blessings had been holding grew in complexity as the enemy neared, its pace accelerated, new instrumentation rising up. She couldn’t even remember where she’d heard this song, now that she thought about it. Only that her Blessings could reproduce it. A bassy throbbing and a shouting woman, pitches modified by electronic tools this world had never known. Exactly the kind of otherworldly current that she knew the enemy would find deeply unnerving. 

“You ready?” She asked her guard. Renata’s illusion of an Imperial messenger had been dropped, but the green cloak and blurred face remained. The woman’s nod was imperceptibly slight, but easily picked up by Sara’s Blessings. “Alright.” Sara rolled her shoulders, then raised her voice so the Powdered Lead could hear her over the rising music. “Protect the cannons, get ready to knock the riders off their animals, and keep the line together!” She took a step forward, grinning. “Also, hold fire until I give the word!”

Her illusory selves flickered out of existence as she tipped inexorably forward, nearly pitching over before one foot swung out, slamming into the dirt as she caught herself. Her heel dug deep into the mud as the music reached a thrumming crescendo, and then she was off, sprinting out across the field. 

The krapeu were a few hundred meters away. Her legs churned, armor clanking, the wind whistling past her helmet. She didn’t know exactly how fast she was these days, but it was damn fast. Fast enough that wind resistance was a real concern, requiring her to tuck her head down, keeping her arms close and angling her sword edge-on to the wind as she powered ahead. It reminded her of sticking her hand out of the car window on the highway, which had her guessing she was hitting sixty miles an hour. Maybe more. A hundred and eighty kilos of woman and armor tore across the field, sending chunks of grass flying with every footfall. Her armor clanked and crashed like a hardware store in an earthquake and still she picked up speed, heading straight for the krapeu. 

The lead rider pointed their glaive at her, shouting. Sara didn’t pick up their first few words, but the distance closed fast enough that she caught the tail end. 

“-on her, no matter what! That’s an order!”

They met before anyone could acknowledge the command. 

Sara’s sword burst afire with living lightning as she threw herself into the air with both legs, letting out a whooping shout as she aimed straight for the front krapeu’s face. The animal opened its jaws wide, preparing to lunge up at her. 

“Boom!”

Thunder shook the skies as a bolt of lightning tore through the air, passing straight through the animal’s face. It toppled in mid-stride, taking its rider with it, and Sara landed on the far side of the animal, feet digging into the mud as she dragged herself to a stop. 

“Come on!” She roared, spittle coating the inside of her faceplate as she pounded her chestplate with one hand. “COME ON! Who the fuck’s gonna try and take a Chosen’s head!”

The nearest of krapeu and their riders scraped to a stop, a chunk of the horde whirling to face her. The riders straightened in their saddles, lifting crossbows, javelins, and even a few primitive pistols, all swinging to aim at her as fast as fast as they could manage. 

A single word echoed into the ears of the Powdered Lead’s riflemen. 

“Fire!”

It was a mistake for the riders to raise themselves up, and it was exactly what Sara had wanted. No longer sheltered behind the thick skulls of their krapeu, they were abruptly subjected to a deadly hail of lead. Hundreds of bullets whined and whistled through the air, many skating off their enchanted armor, leaving dull streaks on glittering breastplates. These riders were more lightly armored than most Warriors, however. With three entire companies of veteran riflemen firing their way, it was inevitable that something would find its way through. As fragments of shattering lead found their way through their steel shells, riders began to drop.

Sara dropped back and ducked behind the smoking corpse her lightning had left as most of the now-riderless krapeu went mad, the combination of slack reins and stinging pain throwing them into a frenzy. Tails, claws, and teeth went wild, meaty thumps sounding as the uncontrollable animals threw themselves against one another, blaming their fellows for the inexplicable wounds they suffered. Several riders who’d survived the rifle volley were ripped from their saddles by the krapeu of fallen comrades, their screams silenced with a metallic crunch. 

Unfortunately, Sara had only managed to catch the attention of the formation’s center. The wings rushed on, dozens of the massive beasts sprinting straight for the Powdered Lead. Artillery shells began to burst amongst them, but these weren’t Sporaton Knights galloping in tight formation. They carved a serpent’s pattern as they weaved their way forward, spaced far enough apart that even emcotton shells couldn’t take out more than one or two at a time. They were going to make it to the Powdered Lead— and then it would be rifle against glaive, bayonet against jaws. 

Before she could decide what to do next, Sara’s Blessings caught a wave of radiant fury pressing into her spine. She leapt up and spun around just in time to avoid the whirling tip of a glaive, an audible whistle sounding as it slipped past her head. 

The man who’d been riding the krapeu she’d killed had managed to pull himself out from under the fallen animal’s side. As she brought her sword up, Sara saw that the man’s leg had been briefly broken, at least until he’d managed to down a potion. The joint was still in the process of re-knitting as he limped forward. 

And he’s a better fighter than me, she realized, barely batting aside a second lunge. He’d been in charge of the krapeu, and that kind of authority wasn’t given without reason. 

Sara was forced to fall back under several more lunges, each coming closer to her head than the last, the flat of the glaive actually scraping along her helmet’s side on the final blow. Still off-balance, she kicked for distance with both legs, reaching for the pistol on her belt. 

Only to be forced to drop onto her belly as a krapeu’s thickly muscled tail whipped overhead, fast enough it might have snapped her in half from the sheer weight of it if she hadn’t dodged. She pulled the hammer back on her pistol even as she was on the ground, but couldn’t lift it in time to stop the dismounted Warrior’s single-handed stab, their long glaive striking her in the joint over her shoulder. The steel tip didn’t pierce her pauldron, but she was shoved along the ground, careful to clutch her sword close so her rolling wouldn’t rip it from her hand. 

Another volley of riflefire rippled out of the Powdered Lead, causing the both Warriors assaulting her to flinch, but none of it was aimed for them. The krapeu had reached the Powdered Lead. Sara’s Blessings caught the way they impacted the line, scales and hide allowing the beasts to turn aside bayonets like they were rosebush thorns. Broken bodies flew through the air as the krapeu crashed into the mercenaries, followed quickly by swiping claws, gnashing teeth, and the whipcrack lashing of glaives from on high. 

Sara finally got to her feet, sword in her right hand, pistol in her left. She pointed the gun toward the dismounted Warrior and pulled the trigger, sending a lead bullet straight into his armored collarbone. He  staggered back, clutching at the spot where the lead hadn’t quite penetrated, and his half-healed knee gave out under the sudden motion. Sara leapt forward, trying to finish him off, but was driven back by another swipe from the nearby krapeu. 

Her Blessings were afire with information. She could feel the battle as a physical weight against her mind, a vast tidal wave of information trying its utmost to drown her. Fifty-six thousand, four hundred and eighty-five individuals were in her head, of which at least eight thousand were speaking at any given moment. The riot of emotions that were summoned up by battle swirled more thickly than the smoke of gunfire, each and every living soul vibrating with frenetic energy as they fought, and feared, for their lives. 

Her immediate surroundings were what she tried to focus on, if she could be said to be focusing on any one thing. Of the twenty-eight krapeu and riders that had been distracted by her bold charge, only eight hadn’t been killed by the volley of rifle and cannon fire, and half of those had continued on to attack the Powdered Lead. Of the four that remained, one was the dismounted leader of the formation, with the other three still riding atop their krapeu. Two of those three were still fighting to gain control of the animals, trying to direct them towards Sara instead of the more numerous and easier prey in other directions. It would only take them a handful of seconds to regain control, but in a fight between high-Level soldiers, that could be an eternity. 

The last rider, the one who was already attacking her, was different. She wasn’t fighting her animal at all. The pair moved in concert, one of the woman’s hands keeping the lightest touch on the reins, the other sending her glaive through elegant spirals. She did most of her krapeu-wrangling with gentle, almost imperceptible taps of her heels, and unlike the other riders, her boots weren’t spiked. Most interestingly of all, the krapeu didn’t have the gear that would have been required to place an iron latch on their jaws. The animal was clearly trusted to behave amiably without such a restraint.

Great,I’m fighting a fucking crocodile-Knight. 

Dropping her first pistol, Sara drew another and fired into the downed Warrior. The bullet hit the chainmail that drooped from a faceplate to cover his neck, not quite piercing the enchanted material, but retaining more than enough power to smash his larynx. The man fell over, clutching soundlessly at his throat. Sara’s Blessings sensed the panic setting into him as he realized there was no way he could drink a potion with such an injury— and so it was only a matter of time until he finished choking to death. She had no choice but to let him stew in it as she turned to face the woman atop the krapeu. 

-------------------------------------

Mui Thom

-------------------------------------

“Hold! Hold! Hold!” 

The cry was repeated up and down the line, dozens of voices added to the almost religiously fervent chorus. Mui was going to stay, of course, but he could understand why so many of the Powdered Lead worried that their comrades might not. 

Standing strong against a charge of scrambling krapeu was a challenge that very few could face. Dozens of them were chewing up the air, bloody jaws and weeping wounds leaving a crimson trail across the crushed grass their thrashing tails left in their wake. Mui had seen more than one Imperial line break at the mere sight of the snarling beasts, every soldier running for their lives, only to get run under and torn apart. It was unnatural for mere humans to think they could stop a thing. 

Usually wrong, too.

Much like the mercenaries at his side, Mui himself had never had the misfortune of facing down a krapeu charge. He’d heard plenty of stories from the Tulianites about their brave stand against enchanted Sporaton Knights, how they’d proved it was possible to stop the terrible assault if only you stood strong and kept your weapons braced, but these weren’t Knights riding horses. They were Warriors atop furious, starving predators, and with their animal’s blood up, there wasn’t a single person on the field who could stop what was coming. 

With his old, heavily-worn Imperial-issue spear pulled off his back and set into the ground, Mui stood loyally against the tide, refusing to give ground. No matter how much it seemed like the smart thing to do, he knelt and waited, his weapon the tallest tree amongst a forest of glittering sword-bayonets. 

“Third rank, make ready!” 

He could feel the pounding of the krapeu’s feet now. It reverberated through the points of contact he had with the ground, his left knee and right foot, and it seemed to rattle its way up through his very bones to shake his entire body, making it hard to find a proper grip on the sweat-slicked wrap of his spear. But he knew that was just an illusion, his mind playing tricks on him in the last moments before contact. It always happened. He’d seen more than one recruit dead to a last-second adjustment of their weapon, not realizing that the flaw they felt in their stance was nothing more than an anxiety that became near-overwhelming right before the fight began. But Mui had carried this spear for years, and he knew its feel like no one else. More than well enough to see through his mind’s tricks. His grip was firm as it had ever been. 

“Third rank…”

The seconds drew long. Mui watched the krapeu heading straight for him, meeting its slitted eye. Right as the animal reached a single body-length away, the command was barked. 

“Fire!” 

Sparks rained on Mui’s helmet, his shoulders, singing his fur even as every strand was battered by dozens of rifles. Black smoke obscured his vision for a single instant, then was shoved aside by a wide, green head, one that was turned aside, showing the mess of pulped flesh where an eye had been a moment before. 

Mui’s spear was wrenched from his hands as the krapeu’s chest hit the tip, then he was thrown with it, driven off his feet by an unstoppable force. His shout joined a hundred others as, rather than its gaping maw, Mui was struck by the broad front of the animal’s bony head. His arms and legs whirled without touching a thing for what felt like a short eternity, then he struck the ground, chestplate slamming painfully against the stump of a tree. 

More than any rational thought, instinct was what drove him to claw at the stump, pressing down against it. It might’ve been smarter to stay down, avoiding notice while he regained his bearings, but that wasn’t what he’d been trained to do. You couldn’t fight from your back. You fought on your feet. 

Tears of pain welled in his eyes as he shoved himself up. Something awful had happened to his left knee when he’d landed, but it would bear his weight, which meant it wasn’t broken. He blinked rapidly to clear his vision as he slapped at his back, all but weeping with relief when he found that the strap holding his rifle hadn’t snapped. He brought the pre-loaded weapon to his shoulder right as his vision cleared, showing him what had happened. 

The Tulian line had been blown wide open by the charge. Of course it had. Even if the enemy had been the Knights the tactic was originally devised to counter, three measly ranks never would have been enough to stop warhorses in enchanted armor, and krapeu were even worse. A dozen of the animals were amidst the Powdered Lead, long tails and thick jaws crashing through the soldiers. Mui had been thrown some twenty feet back by the impact, giving him a fine view of the same animal which had done the deed as it laid into the soldiers he’d been standing beside but a few seconds before. 

The krapeu was gushing blood from dozens of pinprick wounds. Its rider was slumped in the saddle, their harsh lean to the right showing that they’d been shot dead, but that barely mattered. The creature’s jaws had a man by the leg and was lifting itself up and down with bouncing hops of its forelimbs, using its entire body to smash the broken man against the ground. The man stopped screaming after the first impact, but the krapeu kept at it, jerking left and right, shaking the body like a dog with a rat, and all the while it was spinning in place, legs and long tail knocking aside anyone nearby. Mui could see its ruined eye still weeping blood, a strange, clear gelatin occasionally spurting in chunks from the wound. 

Less than a dozen of the Powdered Lead were on their feet near the animal, Mui included, but they were all backing sharply away from the thrashing monster, bayoneted rifles pressed firmly to their shoulders. With a final snarl of disgust, the krapeu released its prize, one good eye rolling and bulging as it spun to face them, searching for its next prey. 

In that first moment of stillness, Mui’s rifle was one of ten which barked. The animal reared back with a guttural, howling hiss as the entire hollow pocket of its good eye was obliterated. It stumbled a few steps back, tail flying madly from left to right, and then it dropped to its belly, forelimbs scrabbling over its face again and again as if it thought there was something cowl its head responsible for its blindness. 

One man— a braver man than Mui, he would readily admit— finished reloading his rifle and walked up to it, pointing the muzzle straight at the crater of bone around the creature’s eye. The instant the clawed forelimb moved away, the man pulled the trigger, sending a half-inch pellet of lead into the animal’s skull. Its entire body jerked once, as if it was about to leap to its feet, but instead fell back down, still. 

“I want that fucking armor!” The man yelled, pointing at the mostly-intact Warrior’s corpse that still sat on the krapeu’s back. His voice was shrill and young, but he didn’t stutter as he yelled. “I don’t care who wins the fuckin’ lottery for it, that armor’s mine, and you all damn well know it!”

“Form up, form up goddammit!” A woman yelled. Not the same voice as before. “Shaza’s dead, I’m sarge now, so form the FUCK up!”

Mui didn’t know what the chain of command had become for this random private to end up in charge, but she certainly had the voice for the duty. He leapt to follow her orders instinctively, limping up with the other survivors from the squad he’d been with, but the woman stopped him with a shove against his shoulder.

“And now you’re the sarge!” She yelled with just as much authority as before. She pointed behind herself, toward where the rest of the line of Powdered Lead were still engaging the krapeu. “You fought ‘em before, you tell us what to do!”

Mui hadn’t. He’d never fought a krapeu before. If he’d tried to fight a krapeu with nothing but a spear while in Imperial service, he’d have been long since dead. But the woman’s stern voice was at odds with her pleading expression, the attack was still ongoing, and-

And he spotted his spear on the ground. The dead krapeu’s left foot was laying atop it. 

“Get me that spear!” He ordered, pointing at the closest soldiers to the weapon. Then he drew his side sword and pointed it at the nearest krapeu. “We do it again! Shoot the rider off, surround it, wait for it to still, and-”

A spear of fire and white fog buried the krapeu, heralding the earth-shaking arrival of double-loaded 12 pound canister shot. A chunk of scaled meat slapped limply against the thigh of the woman he was speaking to, leaving a smear of blood as it slid off down to join the mud. 

“And do it again!” He continued in the silence that was rendered by his newfound deafness, lifting his sword to point at a slightly more distant krapeu. “Shoot the rider, wait for the animal to stop, then send lead through the eye!”

-------------------------------------

Sara Brown

-------------------------------------

Sara’s enthusiasm for this fight was fading. The adrenaline still roared through her veins, her heart still fluttered faster than a hummingbird’s wings, and she hadn’t yet been seriously wounded, but she was getting tired of the exchange. It had been almost a full minute of combat against the woman she’d dubbed a Krapeu-Knight, and that was about fifty seconds longer than she’d wanted to spend here. Fights between Irregulars were supposed to be fast. This one had been as well, but she was fighting something the size of a limo, and that meant it had plenty of blood it could afford to shed. This had been a colossal waste of time. 

The scarred beast was panting out a strange chuffing, wheezing tone, the air whistling through its gaping maw in every breath. Sara’s sword was absolutely soaked in gore from the criss-crossing blows she’d drawn across its side, matched in turn by the dents her own armor had gotten. The blacksteel of her breastplate was the next best thing to invincible, but the rest of her armor was plain steel. Thick, high quality steel, but still steel. She could feel a sharply angled dent over her left temple from her assailant’s glaive nearly smashing her skull, and she’d had to hack off her right sabaton after the krapeu had stepped on it, leaving that foot protected by nothing more than the thin leather boot beneath. Her armor may have been bulletproof by the standards of this world, but that didn’t mean it could stand up to the full force of a multi-ton stomp.

All that said, she had to admit it was still one hell of a fight. If she wasn’t aware of the ongoing struggle of the mercenaries behind her, she would’ve thrown herself into it with everything she had. The coordination of rider and animal was freakishly perfect. Impossible, if it had been on Earth. No amount of training or talent could have produced someone who fought like this. What’s more, she didn’t feel any real malice radiating from the human half of her opponent. Anger, sure, but Sara had just killed some of the lady’s friends, so that was understandable. Beyond that, though, there was just a simmering pot of frustration, irritation, and a dash of admiration that was wafting off the woman. She was right where Sara was: tired. Ready to end this. 

As their latest whirling clash concluded with the tip of the krapeu’s tail sending Sara spinning away, she dragged herself to a stop, spreading her arms like a gladiator. 

“Fight’s over! You don’t want that big guy to end up dead, do you?” She closed her greatsword, jabbing the tip at the krapeu’s head. “He’s hurt bad. I don’t see any point in it, but I’ll put ‘em down if I gotta.”

Her opponent’s answer was a harsh two-note whistle. The krapeu immediately whirled in on itself, jaws tugging at the saddle on its side, causing Sara to briefly think the animal had finally lost its shit. It hadn’t, of course. Instead it pulled its head back with, of all things, a pouch torn off the saddle bag. Its jaws closed, producing the sound of smashing pottery, and then Sara saw a new shade of red dripping from between its snaggle-toothed jaws: the gritty slurry of a healing potion, which the animal began greedily gulping down. Sara’s potions contained maybe a thumb’s length of potion, and thing thin was drinking an entire pot of it. 

“Oh, fuck that.” Sara raised a hand. “Renata!” 

The rider may not have realized the meaning of the call, but she could tell from Sara’s abrupt confidence that time was now of the essence. The Krapeu-Knight cracked the animal’s reins hard, sending it charging forward before it could finish drinking.

From her hiding spot behind a fallen krapeu, Renata began to rise, steel glinting in her hands. All across the battlefield, cannons and muskets were firing. The long-winded twhoom of rebel artillery was being answered by the sharper, harsher booms of the Imperial Napoleon look-a-likes, punctuated every now and then by the ear-splitting crack of an emcotton shell exploding. All the while there was a constant staccato of musketry that, if it hadn’t been overshadowed by the larger artillery pieces, would have been deafening in its own right. 

Renata’s gun drowned them all out. 

Sara couldn’t help but flinch as a THU-THU-THU-THU-THUD erupted from the fly-ridden corpse of a nearby krapeu, sending a spray of bullets zipping invisibly across the field of battle. The front left leg of the krapeu erupted in mid-stride as bullets stitched it from elbow to shoulder, ripping flesh off the bone in a way that, rather morbidly, reminded Sara of Tahn playing with the half-melted dough from a cookfire. He loved to squeeze pieces of it between his fingers and fling them every which way, a process that always ended with one of his mothers gently picking the cooling dough out of his hair and furry ears. 

The krapeu went down with a sickening ripple of snapping bone, the leg twisting over and over until, inevitably, the momentum of its collapse tore the limb entirely off the body. As the animal came to a stop, Sara belatedly remembered an old Kemari adage her Blessings had picked up a thousand times before. 

Never get between a beast and its master.

“NO!”

The wail that spilled from the woman’s throat was unlike anything she’d ever heard. She never even saw her move. One second the woman was in the saddle, the next she was clutching the animal’s head, her armored body thrown protectively across its face. 

No, Sara thought, eyes widening. No way she’s gonna fuckin…

Before her eyes, the entire krapeu, all fifteen meters of it, began to move. Dragged up. The woman’s leg armor, designed without concern for mobility outside the saddle, began to buckle, unable to take the weight that she was supporting. The krapeu let out a croaking moan, its head trying to shove the rider away. The bloody stump of its leg wiggled in the air as the krapeu tried to use the last of its limb to shove its rider away. 

Ah, fuck.

Renata was holding fire, waiting for Sara’s word. With a barrel-muffled curse, Sara dropped an illusory self next to the rider, even as her real body began running for the Powdered Lead’s lines. 

Bending low, the illusion caught the rider’s eyes, making the woman snarl. She was still holding the thing’s weight. Sara could hear the bones in the woman’s leg begin to give way, hairline fractures erupting under the strain her muscles were putting on them. 

“Can your loyalty be bought?” Sara asked. 

“By his life alone,” the woman hissed, “something that you have already-!”

“Deal. Renata!” The illusion waved the green-cloaked guard over, then pointed to the leg. “Suture and cauterize, show the rider your prosthetic, give them instructions on how to meet us after the battle, and please don’t tell Evie I kept fighting without you with me.”

“I can’t help but notice your last command was phrased as a request rather than order, Master,” Renata noted matter-of-factly, even as she dropped to a knee and produced a bag of medical supplies from within her robes. 

“Yeah, well, fuck you,” Sara cleverly countered. Then her illusion turned to the rider, speaking one last time as it flickered out of existence. “Congrats on getting to join the guards of a Chosen. If you think it’s a fancy job I’m gonna disappoint you.”

The rider opened her mouth to respond right as Sara’s real self reached the edge of her Blessing’s range. Her illusion spellcasting actually had a longer reach than that, but she couldn’t hear them anymore, as there wasn’t anyone to piggyback her eavesdropping Blessings across. She was forced to leave Renata alone with the krapeu and rider. 

Instead, Sara sent her illusory selves forward the instant her Blessings could once more hear the Powdered Lead. As the emotions floating over the field became more apparent, followed shortly by the beginning of reports she demanded from a dozen different people, two things became clear: that she’d made the right decision in going after the krapeu, and that the fight had been a fucking horror show in her abscence. 

Five minutes of close-quarters battle had downed more than half of the Powdered Lead’s four hundred riflemen, and the krapeu hadn’t been entirely devastated, only forced away to doubtlessly rejoin some less degraded force behind their own lines. The Powdered Lead’s potion stocks, the acquisition and purchasing of which had required debts that Imperial funding had only recently finished paying off, were almost completely consumed. Though Evie had maintained orders that no one was to share their potion with another, so as to prevent some selfish few from downing their own potions to salve minor pains with the thought that another’s would save their lives should it be needed, the cynical doctrine hadn’t survived contact with the enemy. The wounded had been stabilized with anyone and everyone’s potions, a practice which Sara was pleasantly surprised to see had remained virtually egalitarian, without any playing of favorites or some reserving potions for their friends. 

With half the force laid out on the ground, they damn well knew better, Sara reflected. She shaded her eyes as her real self reached the two small hills she’d chosen to utilize, looking at the treeline. The enemy muskets weren’t half as far as she expected. Fresh out of the treeline, just coming to the first bit of flat terrain. Her sense of time was always so warped by battles. 

The infantry had done their job, thank fuck. Not a single cannoneer had been required to draw a weapon and face the krapeu, and so the cannons had been roaring without cessation, firing endlessly into the oncoming enemy. Their target hill was being steadily stripped of vegetation, splinter-strewn craters replacing the jungle that had been there a mere twenty minutes before. 

“...could hardly get through somewhere important,” Mui was saying to one of her bodies, breathing hard as he hurriedly cleaned the bore of his blood-streaked musket. “My squad took down two of them, but we could only kill them with concentrated fire to the eye. The muskets can’t reach heart or lungs even when fired from an inch off the skin, though it clearly pains them greatly.”

“Your squad?” Sara asked, raising her illusion’s eyebrows. 

“They put me in charge,” Mui said with a shrug. Then, realizing what that meant, he hastily added, “ma’am.”

“I’d say there’s no need to start with that, but I don’t think we got bigger shit to worry about than fraternization between officers right now.” To save on what she considered her mental ‘processing power,’ most of Sara’s illusion began mirroring what her real body was doing, which was cleaning her sword and reloading her pistols while she spoke. “The chain of my Blessings have been broken, so I can’t hear the rest of the army right now. I’m sending those Imperial skirmishers over to our west flank to establish contact, telling them they’re there to fire at anyone who tries to flank us, but until they get there I don’t know how bad it’s getting in the army’s core.” She lifted her visor to spit, took a swig from her canteen and swished it, then spat again. “Judging by the emotions I’m seeing, it’s not great, but it’s not the worst, either. Lotta fear, lotta anger, not much panic.”

Mui turned to look, squinting. “What could be causing them fear? They aren’t firing, so they can’t be in musket range yet.”

“Rebel artillery. It’s starting to hit more and more often. Nothing people hate more than sitting under fire without being able to do a thing about it. If Borek doesn’t close the distance with ‘em soon, they’re gonna end up chewing through their leashes and either charging without orders or breaking for cover. Damn.” She took another drink, swallowing this time. “I’d hoped they’d last longer than that. Doesn’t fit dad’s guesses at how long people would stand under artillery fire. Guess it’s so new here that it spooks ‘em easily.” She turned her eye back to the treeline. “Good for us, I guess. If the Imperials don’t like cannonballs, the rebels are gonna fucking hate shelling. Especially when it’s supported by rifle fire.”

“Is that what we’re doing, ma’am?” Someone asked. Not Mui— the freshly field promoted Lieutenant of the Fourth Company, who’d been hearing basically the same spiel she’d been giving Mui. 

“Basically,” she confirmed. “This is the shitty part of the battle. They’re gonna come at us, we’re gonna shoot, and eventually they’ll either start running towards us or away from us.” She raised her voice, calling out across the entirety of the shredded infantry companies. “Get back in a fuckin’ line! Look at those pricks! Rude bastards think a bunch of lizards getting pissy means they can just jog up on us like it’s nothing! But we ain’t outta ammunition yet, are we?” 

“No!” Came the resounding, if tired, cry. 

As Sara’s illusions began to walk about, shouting and organizing and receiving reports, Mui’s voice floated toward her senses. 

“Sara.”

She stopped her closest illusion, glancing back his way. He ignored it, looking straight over its shoulder to stare at her real body, well behind the artillery pieces. 

“What?” She asked. 

“Calm down.”

“What?” She stopped pretending that illusion was speaking to him, sending it off to do something else while she sent her voice straight into the man’s ears. “How the fuck do you even know where I am.”

“You’re smoking.”

Sara started, opening her eyes. She was kneeling behind the cannons, trying to use brute force to attach a spare sabaton back onto her mangled cuisses. Looking down and to the side, she found a pool of deep purple mist, slowly gathering where it was leaking from the seams of her armor. Her jaw tightened. 

“Pretty sure I’ve told you I can’t control that one, Mui.”

“We’re about to get in a prolonged shooting match. You can’t go rushing off again.”

“The fuck’s that supposed to mean?” She snarled. 

“Sara.” Mui glanced around, then carefully lowered his voice. “I’ve never seen infantry repel a krapeu charge before. Not without Warriors of their own. You did wel-”

“One hundred and sixty-fucking three dead,” Sara growled. She grabbed the busted cuisses over her thigh with both hands and squeezed, arms trembling with effort as she forced the metal to conform. “At least thirty more are going to join them soon because we’re fucking out of potions. Even the cannoneers. Our first real battle, my first real battle without Evie, and half the fucking Powdered Lead are dead.”

“Sara,” Mui said, drawing her name out. Not in warning, but in fear. “Please, please calm yourself.”

With arcs of lightning rippling between her knuckles, Sara just barely forced the armor back into place, then slapped the sabaton on atop it. She drew her dagger when the armor began to buckle, hastily channeling a welding current through the blade. She felt the skin of her leg burning from the arc flash, but ignored it. 

“Fine,” she snapped. She finished the weld, permanently sealing her right foot into the armor, then stood. “I’ll… fucking do breathing exercises or something. Whatever.” 

“Thank you.” 

“Your squad is my personal guard now, by the way. Don’t tell Evie, but I sent Renata off to do some shit.”

Mui’s ears, previously twitching to follow the sounds of battle, froze in place. 

“...If she asks, I’m going to tell her.”

“Please don’t.”

“Neither you nor the Empire pays me enough to keep that secret.”

“Do I fuck you enough for it, though?”

“Absolutely not,” Mui said, the answer coming without hesitation. Sara felt his mood lightening a touch, however, probably because she was relieved to hear her joking again, and so she decided to push her luck.

“What would be an appropriate amount of fucking to make keeping the secret worth it? I promise I can get started on my debt as soon as the battle’s over.”

“Good gods, Sara,” the catfolk man said, turning away from her. Their conversation continued even as he began to gather up his newly-acquired squad, heading for the rifle line. “You can think like that? Even now?”

“Hey, I’m the Chosen of Lust or whatever. I blame the gods for making me like this.”

“From what I recall of your earthly stories, your behavior hasn’t much changed since your new life began.”

“Yeah, but… I don’t know.” She intentionally made the sound of smacking lips float into his ears. “What if I become a tiny catfolk girl again? I know for a fact that those barbed tongues can do some crazy shit.”

“Good fucking gods, Sara.”

She laughed. Despite herself, she laughed. A cagey, fragile, decidedly manic laugh, but a laugh nonetheless. 

“Don’t worry about it anyway,” Sara assured him. “Evie’s busy as hell right now too. It’ll be a long damn while before you have to decide which of us you want to make angry.”

“It’s you,” Mui snipped immediately. 

“Yeah, that’s probably the smart choice. Evie is… Well. Y’know.”

-------------------------------------

Evie Brown

-------------------------------------

Only fifty Knights with this group? She pursed her lips. Why so few?

She crept forward, dragging her belly through the grimy latrine. While it was understandable to regret the necessity of searching unpleasant environs, there was no excuse to forgo it entirely as these Knights had. If they had been his students, Master Graf would’ve been furious. When searching for a powerful Irregular, any space small enough to hide a person was a lethal threat. All avenues had to be explored without exception— even covered latrines outside a village work yard. 

She could see the Knights combing through the village. Her suspicions that they were following up on the report of the missing light cavalry force were confirmed when she saw the speed and force with which they searched. Doors were kicked through, windows smashed, and torches were flung behind Knights the moment they exited a building. They were even thorough enough to go back into the home when a torch didn’t elicit a fire that blazed to their satisfaction, which was one point she could say in their favor. A less competent force might have shrugged it off, assuring themselves the entire village would burn in time, but that was foolish. A building not catching fire could have been evidence that a hidden figure within had snuffed the flames out. 

Unfortunately for them, they weren’t thorough enough in the one place it mattered.

Evie had her pistol belt placed ahead of her, on dry ground, but the rest of her body was submerged in waste. Unpleasant, but most of the liquids and solids weren’t unknown to her experiences. In the wonderful few months that her family had spent between wars nestled safely within Tulian, possession of Evie had often been ‘lost’ in games of chance between Hurlish, Sara, and the members of the small BDSM club her wives had assembled. More individuals amongst their number than she was expecting had enjoyed subjecting her to a very particular form of degradation, and a few more daring ones had taken it a step further, if only after a nervous out-of-character session asking for her assurance that it was truly allowed. So no, the contents of the latrine weren’t appalling to her. They were the perfect place to stalk, ironically, unmolested. 

The village was of a common sort to the fields around Tulian. Built little more than a year before with abundant, sturdy timber, there was little to distinguish it as anything of importance amongst its kind in Tulian, yet it had to strike the Knights as ever so slightly strange. Strong roofs were braced against the rainy season’s storms with firm shingling rather than the northern thatch, complimented by thick shutters and heavy doors that were designed to deter the occasional slinking predator that might wander through the night. Stranger still was the town’s well, which didn’t stand open to all, but instead had a hand-crank that sent water up to collect in a tall cistern, itself capped by a heavy lid that the village healer could slide aside to purify the entire town’s drinking water at once. The road through the village core, as per Sara’s mandates, was wider than most, and the alleys between houses were built at exact right angles. The homes even had a strong outcropping of wood protruding from the roof that even the owners wouldn’t know the purpose of. Evie did. It was left so that a future telegraph wire could be strung between buildings without constructing additional ‘telephone poles.’ Much like the cellars, high standards for fire safety, and other features Sara had commanded be built into the homes, it was a relic of the time when they’d thought Tulian might have a few years of peace before King Sporatos invaded once more. 

That was why the village, like most of those built since Sara assumed her position over Tulian, was built to such rigid standards. It was why the Knights had a flat, straight road to walk down, and thus it was why they’d been forced to look at the dead body hanging from the cistern. 

It wasn’t a human body, mind. Though that might have sent a firmer message to the encroaching Knights, Evie knew it would also send an equally firm message to the Tulian soldiers she was working with. More importantly, it was too close to her prior actions, and that would offend Hurlish. 

It was a horse. Saddle and all, all four limbs and its head still attached, pinned to the cistern with several half-finished blades from the village smithy. Not only that, the horse had already been dead to a gunshot. It hadn’t even suffered; she’d taken it with a clean shot through the lungs and into the heart. The rider, a member of the peasant light cavalry that acted as the King’s messengers and scouts, was slumped below the cistern, near enough to where they had fallen. Some posing had been required to achieve the desired effect, but that wasn’t violating any taboo she was aware of. Not any significant ones. 

As the rest of the dismounted Knights circled around to keep burning the village, those still on their horses reached the central cistern. Evie, following them, reached the end of the latrine. She picked up the fine string that had been left there, watching closely. 

Conversation went back and forth amongst the Knights as they inspected the two bodies. Nothing of note, really, though Evie was mildly pleased to note that her predictions about their priorities had been correct. Few spared a word for the fallen peasant, but almost all grumbled about the horse. Barbaric to Sara, Evie knew, but it made sense through the lens of nobility. The King’s conscripts were interchangeable peasants like any other. A horse, if nothing else, could do the labor of many men, and even the lamest of animals amongst those selected to serve as a scout might prove useful for breeding into lower-quality stock. Peasant bloodlines, however, couldn’t be so uplifted. 

The leading Knight dismounted, kneeling to inspect the body. Evie drew her Colt from its place on her harness, holding it in her left hand, keeping the string in her right hand. She would give it a little bit longer, she supposed. Best to make sure all the necessary preparations had finished. 

“What killed him?” One of the Knights asked. 

“I believe it’s a mare,” another responded. “Unless the freaks cut off its manhood when they strung it up, I suppose.”

“Not the horse, you fool,” the first said, gesturing to the corpse on the ground. “The fool that got himself caught. We can all see it was one of those firearms which killed the animal.”

That much was true. Evie had pinned the horse with the exit side facing outward, so that the full gore of the head-sized exit wound was open to the air. Though it was now so infested with a carpet of wriggling flies that it might be hard for an inexperienced eye to tell that. 

“I’m not sure what killed him, Ser,” the Knight on the ground said. “I don’t see a gunshot anywhere.” 

“Keep looking.” The Knight pulled a hanky from a pouch, lifting their visor to put it to their nose. A young woman’s face, though wrinkled with disgust, was vaguely familiar to Evie. Had she met the girl at a ball, perhaps? Yes, that must have been it. Introduced herself as the daughter of a baron or somesuch when they’d ended up as dance partners during an event.

The kneeling Knight looked up. “Er… Ser?” 

“What is it?” The girl barked impatiently. 

“It’s just… the man was stabbed through the eye.”

Hm. It appears Master Graf was right. Sara’s penchant for dramatic moments HAS infected me.

Evie’s offhand gave the string a slight tug. The corpse’s hand opened, allowing a small sphere to roll free, a small spoon left behind. Several Knights turned to look at it, and the girl Evie had once danced with took a breath.

The explosion that erupted in their midst was absurdly violent. No flash of fire or ball of smoke. Just a chest-rattling thump and leaping dust, followed shortly thereafter by collapsing horses and screams of agony. 

Evie shot one horse through the eye, two Knights through the helm, and dumped her next three shots into the maddeningly resilient chest of a third figure. By the time she’d fired that sixth and final shot, the Tulian Army’s cannons had begun to sound. 

Not muskets. Cannons. The current pinnacles of Tulian industry were man-portable steel cylinders with screw-threaded breeches, allowing an emcotton charge to propel an iron-capped lead slug down eighty kilos of tightly banded barrel. They’d been based on armor-piercing rounds from Sara’s world, and when Evie saw them rip her too-sturdy target in half via the waist, she decided they’d earned the moniker. 

Evie ducked back into the latrine as more grenades began to fall. Though of a more primitive fusing design than the one she’d left in the bait corpse’s hands, they could be fired from strange hand-mortars of a sort, giving them a range and accuracy well beyond anything that could have been achieved with a simple toss. Tulian didn’t have very many of them produced yet, but they’d had more than enough in the stores for this small ambush force to take. 

When the pre-sighted hand mortars finished dousing the street with liberal volumes of shrapnel, Evie snagged one of her extra pistols and physically burst from the latrine, shattering the wood above her as she emerged from hiding. 

Only to find no one standing to face her. A few horses twitched spastically on the ground, a few Knights groaned weakly, and that was all. Hearing the rhythmic sound of hoofbeats, Evie spun to the left and raised her pistol just in time to see a glittering figure disappear around the corner, their horse in a full gallop as they fled the scene. 

“Did any hide in the buildings?!” She yelled, keeping her pistol up. After a few seconds spent either conferring amongst themselves or perhaps trying to find a speaking trumpet, the distant call came back. 

“Not that we saw, ma’am!”

Relieved, Evie lowered her pistol and shot the nearest twitching Knight in the temple, then lightly tossed the weapon back onto the belt she’d left behind, rather than tucking it into her waistband as she otherwise might have. There was no sense dirtying anything so valuable as one of Hurlish’s personal creations. 

“All forces, advance! Confirm non-presence of Knights, take what prisoners you care to bother with, then allow the civilians in to fight the fires! Do not join their efforts! Once the sweep is complete, form a scouting perimeter! I want brief performance reports on the new weapons delivered to me within ten minutes of the village being confirmed clear, and I want them in writing! Am I understood?!”

“Ah! Er, no, ma’am! Could you repeat yourself once we get a bit closer?”

Cursing, Evie began walking toward the neatly-advancing Tulian lines. Why did the gods give other peoples such poor hearing?

She swept her sword through the neck of a gurgling Knight as she passed them to end their misery, then summoned her handkerchief, wiping the blade clean. Realizing the irony of the action considering her current circumstances, she dismissed both tools and pulled her soiled shirt over her head, tossing it aside, then slid her pants and underclothes off. She kicked a Knight’s corpse over on its side, eyeing them up. Making a face, she discarded the idea. Few nobles were as short as her, unfortunately, so the shrapnel-specked clothes wouldn’t fit in the slightest. Sara had once said the height discrepancy between peasant and nobility was something to do with childhood nutrition. 

Evie chose to duck into one of the unburnt homes, finding a clothing dresser in the rear easily enough. By the time the Tulian soldiers were entering the village, she was dressed appropriately enough.

Hm. It seems they could SEE me well enough.

Most of the leading soldiers looked terribly uncomfortable, and several of the lighter-skinned humans were noticeably blushing. Not one man on the right, however. That man had a wide grin that, after glancing straight down to Evie’s chest the instant she emerged from the building, changed to a look of poorly-hidden disappointment. Evie made a mental note to learn and remember the brazen man’s name so he might be recommended to Sara later. 

“Are the civilians well?” She asked the squad’s commander. 

“Not a scrape or bruise among ‘em, ma’am,” the sergeant confirmed, saluting. Then she dropped her voice low. “Including the pair I figured y’might want us to keep a closer eye on, if I understood your meaning right earlier.”

“Excellent.” Evie said with a curt nod. Then she raised her voice and began repeating her earlier orders. 

That done, she turned her attention elsewhere. Amongst the crowd of civilians rushing toward the cistern were, notably, two very uncommon people to find in Tulian: a pair of mated vanara with silken-black fur. Evie inspected them for a moment, confirming for herself that the parents of Air Force Commander Chona were safe and sound. 

Sara doubtlessly wouldn’t have outwardly approved of Evie going out of her way to use this village for her ambush of the Sporaton Knights, but seeing as she was busy with her own far-off battle, Evie hadn’t needed to ask permission. She understood the ideological principle behind Sara’s egalitarian nature well enough. It made perfect sense in a vacuum. But they were a far cry from living in the perfect society Sara aimed to create, and there were practical realities that had to be acknowledged. Allowing the parents of Tulian’s most promising combat mage, the romantic partner of their most promising artificer, to be emotionally devastated in the midst of a war? That wasn’t something Evie could allow. And she felt certain she would have been able to convince Sara of the necessity, if given appropriate time to do so. But they hadn’t had that time, and so here she was. 

Of course, a snaking, maternal voice whispered in the back of her head, she wouldn’t approve of you abandoning your duties in the siege at all. Do you think she would enjoy knowing of her General wasting time here, playing in the piss and shit, toying with her lessers? Or do you think she would want you accomplishing something worth your talents?

As always, Evie silenced the doubt by brushing her fingers across the tattooed collar on her throat. She’d not cared what that voice thought since Sara had first given her a name. No matter how foul her situation was, she wouldn’t return to old habits now. 

Taking a knee, she summoned her rapier and handkerchief once more, giving the weapon a more thorough cleaning. As she did, she watched Chona’s parents join the bucket line, passing pales of water from the cistern and toward the fire.