Crank

Mui Thom

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The birds are gathering already, Mui thought, squinting into the morning sun. Black silhouettes darted behind the haze of rising fires, swooping from tree to tree, spiraling in lazy circles, or simply standing on open ground, beaks rooting through their feathers while they watched the approach of marching armies. Squawking fights broke out here or there amongst the flock as the army marched. Soon there will be more than enough for all of you, Mui silently assured them. By the end of the day you’ll be too fat to fly. 

The battlefield was the strangest of any Mui had yet seen. Immense logging efforts had artificially recreated the open expanse of Tulian fields, leaving thousands upon thousands of tree stumps standing as headstones for the once-dense jungle that had been so thoroughly felled. Zig-zagging barricades of untreated wood held back the jungle that remained, creating the impression that the road was traveling down the center of a wide, flat valley. The only foliage that remained in any appreciable size were those trees atop steeper hills, where the rebels had apparently found it too bothersome to haul logs up and down the steep slopes. The rest had been hacked and sliced away. 

The First Blackpowder Army deployed from the jungle in the quick march, heavy footfalls pounding the dirt to a thick mud. It was the fastest pace an army could maintain cohesion at, almost a jogging run, yet Mui worried it was too slow. Thirty thousand troops deploying from one long column into a series of wide, multi-staged lines was a lengthy affair at the best of the times, and the enemy now had their own artillery. He couldn’t imagine the carnage that might result from iron cannonballs carving a bloody path through the column’s dense length. 

He was glad to be with the Powdered Lead, even if it was exhausting work. Their cannons were to his left, the open field to his right, and his musket was clutched close as he matched the unrelenting beat of a marching cadence. Sara’s Blessings thrummed through the air, keeping him in perfect synchronicity with the other riflemen. At the moment it was nothing more than a quiet drumbeat, but he knew that would change in time. Sara’s music never stayed so simple for long. 

Mui adjusted the Hot Rifle on his shoulder, palm running over the humidity-slicked wood. It was going to be a hard day of work for the weapon, and it wouldn’t be long until he knew when that was to begin. The lightweight equipment of Imperial skirmishers rattled off the formation’s sides as they passed the Powdered Lead, heading for the hilly tree line that was to be their objective. Mui did not envy them. Their only protection was a steel helmet and a shield on their back, their long shirts girded up overtop short breeches and leather boots. Most now carried muskets, but there were a good few that had chosen to retain their weathered bows. Considering the risk of their occupation, running ahead of the main force to harass the enemy regulars, they were afforded greater leeway than most in choosing their equipment. They’d earned that much. 

In the distance, now behind the Powdered Lead, Mui could still hear the bulk of the army grinding the land to dust beneath their boots. Drummers pounded on leather instruments to keep time, their staccato rhythm punctuated by the harsh shouts of hundreds of officers. Even with the early morning rain having turned the land to mud, a great dust column was rising from their footfalls, obscuring the far side of the battlefield. Behind that wall, Mui knew, were the new Imperial cannons. General Borek and his Warriors would be with them, personally escorting the powerful weapons as they marched to the most commanding point on the battlefield. Listening to the Tulian artillery crews around him, Mui slowly understood why they had such a low opinion of the weapons. Though more numerous than their northern inspirations, the Imperial guns were heavier, less mobile, and couldn’t be trusted to keep pace with the infantry. The Napoleons, even when hauled by sweating soldiers rather than beasts of burden, could keep themselves in line with their rifleman guards. 

“They’re getting ready for us.”

Mui jumped as Sara’s voice echoed in his ear. Shaking his head, he glanced aside, where the woman— or an apparition of her, anyway— had just appeared. 

“I expect they’ve been readying themselves for quite a while,” he replied. “We haven’t exactly snuck up on them.”

“Yeah.” Sara rolled her neck, thinking hard. “But they’re starting to march forward. I thought they were going to stay in their trenches.”

“You can see them from here?” Mui squinted into the distance. He could spot vague blurs moving this way and that, but the figures too often disappeared behind the rolling terrain for him to get a firm grasp of what they were doing. 

“No. But I can hear people that can. They’re sending a big wave to try and meet us outside their trenches.”

“Ah.”

Cannon carriages creaked and feet fell to the beat of a magical drum for a time. The small column of Powdered Lead and the artillery bent to pass between two small hills, aiming for the raised tree line ahead. This battle was such a strange thing. He’d spent his career slamming shield against shield in narrow passes or suffering through sprawling, prolonged sieges. To have the enemy in sight for so long, both sides marching steadily toward the other, yet for battle to not yet be joined? The tension was twisting his guts into a knot. 

A distant, unassuming pop split the air. Mui was one of several hundred whose heads jerked up, looking for the source. 

More pops followed the first. Scattered at first, then growing steadily in intensity, until the crack of gunshots was raining down across the field. 

“Skirmishers are engaging the enemy,” Sara noted, scowling. “Looks like the rebels weren’t stupid enough to leave that hill for us to grab.”

Mui and the rest of the Powdered Lead watched as the Imperial skirmishers dropped to a knee or their bellies, using what cover they could find from the tree stumps that littered the field. Pink flashes of fire spat from the far-off treeline, throwing up splashes of mud all around the Imperial’s feet. The skirmisher’s discipline was commendable. They didn’t give ground or fall back as booming volleys erupted from the trees. Propping their elbow on a knee or their muskets on a tree stump, they began to respond with rapid, individual fire. 

“Stupid,” a woman muttered. Mui and Sara both glanced at the mercenary, causing her to shrink a touch. “Begging your pardon, ma’am,” she added. 

“No need,” Sara replied simply. “Who is it being stupid?”

“Er. Both sides, ma’am,” the woman replied. “What’s the range between those fellows up there and the skirmishers? A hundred and fifty, maybe two hundred meters? They can’t hit a damn thing at those ranges with a smoothbore.”

“The skirmishers aren’t being stupid,” Mui replied firmly. “Their job is to harass the enemy into making mistakes, and that’s exactly what they’ve done.”

“Huh. S’pose you’re right.” The woman shook her head, patting her rifle with a grin. “They’d be doing a lot better job of that if they had a proper rifle, though.”

“Yeah…” Sara muttered. She produced a spyglass from a belt pouch, stopping for a moment to inspect the enemy. After a few seconds, she made a face. “There’s a damn lot of them in those trees. They’ve got trenches, too. It’s gonna be rough to get them out of there.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure.” Mui pointed. “Look. They seem to have noticed their shots were having no effect.” 

The smoke-shrouded trees rippled with movement as armored figures emerged from the foliage to form broad, thick lines. The smoke over the forest began to dissipate as their firing slowed, a low fogbank drifting away on the wind. The smoke over the skirmishers, however, continued to grow as they poured shots in the enemy’s general direction. The mercenary woman had been right about the range, Mui saw. The Imperial’s stuttering gunshots were doing next to nothing.

“Shit, they’ve got more behind them,” Sara suddenly announced. “The trenches are being filled by more coming from further back. They must be keeping a lot of damn troops up behind that hill.”

“They know we want it,” another woman said. Her green uniform had the stripes of a Lieutenant in the Powdered Lead, though Mui didn’t know her name. “Any sign of enemy artillery?”

“Nothing yet.” Sara pursed her lips. “I don’t want to set up the cannons unless we have a target that’s worth it. You think your squads can keep the rebels off the skirmishers with rifle fire alone?” 

“Might be able to, ma’am,” the Lieutenant replied hesitantly, “but I think the Imperials would be damn grateful if we didn’t take the risk. They’re stacked up nice and tight, and I don’t see any sign of mage shields. Emcotton shells will shred ‘em.”

“And delay us getting to our objective.”

“They’re stacked up in the trenches either way. We’ve all heard your stories about charging trenches, ma’am. I don’t want to try a frontal assault without the artillery unless we absolutely gotta.”

“Yeah.” Sara snapped the spyglass closed, taking a deep breath. “Artillery to firing positions! Get up on the closest hill to you and knock a hole through the enemy before they run the skirmishers under!” Sara dropped her voice, turning to the Lieutenant. “I just sent a runner to General Borek to tell him that we’re facing resistance on the hill and won’t be in position for a while. I want First and Second Company guarding the west flank of our cannons.” Her voice shifted timbre, gaining that unnatural quality that told Mui she was speaking to more people than he could see. “Third through Sixth Company are going to get ahead of the cannons and start dumping shots once the skirmishers are clear! Keep a lane open for them to retreat through, but be ready to close ranks and meet a bayonet charge!”

The Powdered Lead reacted instantaneously. Hundreds of men and women twisted like the limbs of a single creature, fanning out with mechanical precision. Seeing their opposites reacting, the rebel musketmen began to fire faster, alternating between volleys and reloading on the march. Sulfur smoke began to choke the air, a light westward breeze carrying the growing smog along the enemy’s ranks. The rebels’s western wing came to a stop where a small lake fed a thin stream, using the water as a bulwark to anchor their flank. 

For a short time, Mui wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do. Sara jogged off without a word, yelling orders up and down the ranks, leaving him on his own. Though it hadn’t been formally declared, he decided to become a part of Sixth Company, slipping into the formation at the dead center of the Powdered Lead’s lines. He and several dozen others jogged forward, the front rank taking a knee, the second standing tall, the third waiting behind. 

He was in the second rank, flipping open a pouch to grab at the new ammunition. His fingers pinched unassuming paper-wrapped fluffy cotton wrapped around a thin piece of wood, a lead pellet sitting atop it. He winced, thinking back to the sight of Sara nearly breaking her shoulder with this ammunition’s power, though he’d been assured the emcotton’s brutal kick was more than worth the power it gave every shot. At this range Mui would’ve had to aim ten or more yards over his target’s head if he were firing blackpowder loads, but the emcotton, supposedly, was inordinately more accurate. If the promises were true, he’d barely need to consider his aim. A shot aimed at the head would take the enemy in the gut. 

Mui dropped the round down his musket as the Imperial skirmishers dashed away from the oncoming wall of muskets, shouting taunts and insults at the enemy even as they abandoned the fight. As they neared the Powdered Lead’s lines, he took a deep, calming breath, trying to control his heart rate. 

“First rank, make ready!”

The air was filled with the rattle of rifles being loaded, double-checked, and gripped tightly.

“First rank, aim!”

Guns went to shoulders. The last of the skirmishers sprinted between the Powdered Lead’s lines, the sight of their own ally’s guns pointing their way providing a last second burst of speed. 

“First rank, fire!” 

Sara’s Blessings ensured an inhuman, absolutely perfect synchronicity to the action. Dozens of muskets barked as a single thunderclap, spewing the strange, wispy black smoke that was emcotton’s hallmark.

The Sixth Company’s commander didn’t afford him any time to inspect the shot’s effects on the enemy. 

“Second rank, aim!”

Mui lifted his musket high, then let it droop slowly downward in a long, smooth motion, coming to a gentle stop when the thin sights were aligned with the oncoming enemy. Three hundred yards away, he estimated. He aimed just over the heads of the third rank, not quite trusting the promises he’d been given regarding the emcotton’s performance. 

“Second rank, f-!”

Mui’s finger twitched on the trigger before he even comprehended that the order had been given. The recoil sent the rifle’s muzzle leaping half a foot upward, the metal-plated butt slamming into his shoulder like a Warrior’s kick. Dozens of shots joined his, sparks and black smoke flying, dissipating, throwing a deadly hail of lead at the enemy. 

He’d drilled often enough with the Powdered Lead that dropping to a knee was an ingrained instinct. As his hands flew across his Hot Rifle without conscious thought, Mui peered at the enemy. 

“Artillery’s opening up,” the woman to his left noted. 

“What?” Mui glanced over his shoulder right as the third rank loosed their volley. The Napoleons were still being hauled up the short hills, not even unhitched from their carriers. 

“Not ours.” The woman spat to one side, then gestured to the right. “Theirs. Hear it?”

Flicking his ears, Mui tried to pierce the muffling of protective cotton he’d placed before the battle. After a few seconds of focus, he heard it. 

Whump. Whump. Whump.

The slow, steady heartbeat of an artillery barrage. He’d never heard one from so far away before, but there was no mistaking it. Nothing else in the world sounded like that. 

“First rank, make ready!” Mui double-checked his rifle, nodding in satisfaction, then stood. “First rank, aim! Fire!” A concussion battered him once again, but the Company commander afforded no time for recovery. “Second rank, make ready! Second rank, aim!”

Good gods, Mui thought, stunned. His sights had landed on an absolutely devastated enemy. He didn’t know how many had first charged down the hill, but it had to have been several thousands. After four volleys from the combined Powdered Lead, they’d been torn to ragged shreds. The dead and dying lay in heaped lines behind the rebels, whose lines had become jagged and disorganized. It seemed every last one of the half-thousand shots had found their targets— more than that, even. So many were dead that the bullets had to have been passing through one soldier and into another. 

Even more than that physical harm was the disorganization that had been wrought. Mui could see countless rebel soldiers stumbling awkwardly forward, their heads swiveling from left to right in confusion. None of them, not a single one, had the insignia of an officer. The Powdered Lead’s murderously accurate fire had killed or wounded everyone of higher rank than private. There was no one in charge. 

“Second rank, fire!”

This time Mui allowed himself to watch the effect his volley had on the target. He saw his own target fall, the bullet taking them in the neck amidst a spray of arterial blood. The woman to the target’s right froze in mid step, staring at her comrade. 

“Third rank, fire!”

The woman Mui had been watching went down to a bullet in the gut. It passed straight through her breastplate, spattering the soldier behind her with viscera. 

“Step it up!” Sara’s voice roared, shoving aside the battlefield’s chaos as if it were no louder than late-night whispers. “We need that fucking hill! They’ve got a whole shitload of cannons that are dumping shots into the Imperials, and we’re the only ones who can do a goddamn thing about it! Independent fire, independent fire! Pour it on!” 

A rapid crackle of piercing gunfire replaced the calamitous volleys. Mui joined the others in firing shot after shot into the paralyzed rebels, barely taking the time to aim at anything more than clumps of soldiers. 

The assault withered under the storm of gunfire. With the dead underfoot and no one in command to rally the troops or even give orders, the rout wouldn’t be long in coming. That it took so long for the enemy to break under such a brutal fusillade was remarkable, even if the end was inevitable. By the time the Napoleons finished setting up and threw in a few high-velocity shells, there was hardly anyone left to run. 

“Hold position!” Sara roared. “Reload and hold! Second and First Company, affix bayonets!” 

Mui, who’d been among those preparing to break into a pursuing sprint, blinked in confusion. The First and Second Company were on the west flank, and that was facing the enemy pressed up against the lake, wasn’t it? What kind of charge could they be bracing for? 

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Sara Brown

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“Of fucking course they can swim,” Sara cursed. “Of fucking course they can! What the fuck’s wrong with me?”

Rendered in horrifying detail by her spyglass, a veritable horde of the massive crocodilian krapeu were churning up a wake on their way across the small lake that, until thirty seconds ago, she’d thought was pinning the enemy in place. But no. Of course they could swim straight across it. They were giant fucking crocodiles, and their tails were propelling them through the water faster than most of her own troops could’ve run on flat ground.

“Get those cannons loaded, goddammit!” Sara roared. “Now, now, now! Faster!”

A waterfall of information was blazing through her skull. Her Blessings were picking up, logging, and parsing tens of thousands of voices, divine influence alone all that could have possibly allowed her to so rapidly assemble a picture of what she was being told. Her troops were optimistic. Giddy, even. They were killing the people who were going to invade Tulian, and they were doing it faster than they’d ever done before. 

They didn’t understand what Sara did. The gap between armies hadn’t yet closed enough for her Blessings to leapfrog across and into the rebel forces, but she could hear every last message and report that was being carried across the Imperial Army. Evie had ensured she had enough training to understand just how dismal a picture it was. 

There were so many. It was one thing to hear the numbers bandied about before the battle, but another entirely to see it for herself. A hundred thousand troops. The Powdered Lead were celebrating after turning away an attack by a few thousand. They didn’t understand that there were more behind them. And more behind them. And more and more and more after that. They couldn’t hear the breathless gasps of wounded scouts describing the seemingly endless column of soldiers marching up the road, nor the sergeants of every last Imperial squad bracing for an assault. 

The Powdered Lead also didn’t hear the shrieks and wails of those being shot dead by the rebel artillery. They had brought cannons forward with their infantry just like Sara had, but they’d done it fast. They weren’t using the weapon’s own crews to haul the weapons. They’d conscripted professional couriers and jungle-traipsing merchantmen, had used slave collars on captured Warriors, and had trained them all to work together, perfecting their ability to get the guns in position as rapidly as possible. Sara’s war against Sporatos, where elite Knights led hapless underlings, hadn’t prepared her for what it looked like when generals in this world actually pushed their troops to the limit. 

It seemed like the smiths who’d made the rebel cannons had been pushed to their own limits. The artillery pieces were absolutely massive. Crude, but absolutely massive. None of the reports Sara overheard had given exact dimensions, but they were always described as dwarfing the 12-pounders by a factor of twice or more. So far that had come with a corresponding decrease in accuracy, with more than half of the gargantuan cannonballs missing what would’ve been an easy shot for any Tulian gunner, but that wouldn’t last forever. The gun crews were pushing the weapons up between every shot, creeping ever closer to Imperial lines, and they’d be in effective firing range long before the Imperial’s smoothbore muskets could shoot back. 

“Get me a runner!” One of Sara’s illusory bodies barked. The one that was as far east as she could manage. Her spellcasting range was still limited, and that self was occasionally flickering out of existence, ruining any chance it might’ve had at fooling an onlooking assassin. It was still useful to disguise her ability to cast her voice, however, so she kept it up and running. 

A young Imperial girl leapt up to the illusion, saluting sharply. Sara tilted the illusion’s head down, looking the kid in the eye. 

“Inform General Borek that we’re going to have a hell of a time getting up on the hill, if we ever manage it at all. They’re dug in harder than we expected, and they’re willing to lose a lot of lives to keep us off there. So long as they keep coming at us, we won’t be able to commence the planned artillery duel.”

Sara bit her lip. She wanted to tell General Borek that he needed to do that himself, maybe even advise him to push his own cannons closer, but she held back. She was nowhere close to being in good enough standing to poke her nose around like that. He’d either ignore the advice or end up determined to go against it. Best to hope he’d figure it out for himself.

“That’s all,” Sara said. “Go.”

As the girl took off, Sara’s real body turned to the onrushing krapeu. They had paused to reorganize and prepare as they reached the lakeshore, their riders reaching down to unlock the iron bands that kept their steed’s jaws pinned shut. The krapeu immediately began to snarl and snap at one another, jostling for position. More than a few riders had to fend off the snipping teeth of the animals next to them, knocking away the questing jaws with the but of their spears. 

“Where are the fuckin’ cannons?!” Sara demanded. “Come on! You going to let them stand there while they sit on their ass, or are you going to do something about it?”

“Almost ready, ma’am!” A gun captain hollered back. “You want volleys or-”

“Fire when ready! Target the enemy cavalry! Any cannon that doesn’t have an angle on them, start shredding that trench line! First gun to go off gets double shares of the battle loot!”

If she’d done her job right, no one on the battlefield knew for certain that Sara’s real body was with the artillery’s leftmost flank. They could guess, though. She’d seen the value of cannons long before her dad had come to this world, but his historical knowledge had really driven it home. Napoleon himself (who the Napoleon cannons weren’t actually named after, it turned out) had said that ‘God fights on the side with the best artillery.’ Sara didn’t know if she’d go quite that far, having personally met the gods and found herself generally nonplussed, but she knew what he was going for. 

The gun directly to Sara’s right won the race for first shot, but only by a hair. Two near-simultaneous shockwaves shook her bones, the hissing whistle of a spiraling shell audible for the precious moments before the rest of the cannon battery erupted, spitting a chorus of shrieking high-explosives.

As smoke drowned the hillside, Sara once more cursed the fact that they couldn’t use emcotton propellants for the Napoleons. Her jaw clenched hard enough to crack a tooth as she waited for the breeze to carry away enough of the acrid cloud to show the effect on their target. When it finally did, her lips split in a feral grin. 

A half-dozen krapeu were fighting their reins as they were choking down chunks of flesh from the obliterated bodies of their fellow animals. One of the massive crocodilians had taken a direct hit, spraying torso-sized gobs of flesh for dozens of meters. In that strange fashion of events only explosives could produce, the spot where the krapeu had originally stood was maybe the cleanest ground in the area, as it was merely blasted into a blackened crater. A dozen other animals were on the ground, long legs scraping in the mud as they spun and thrashed, biting at anything and everything while they struggled to comprehend the source of their pain. Sara watched one of the riders fail to escape the jaws of a krapeu, the last moments of their life spent as a helpless, thrashing victim of their own steed’s death throes. 

They’re fucking terrifying animals, but I’d take a warhorse every day. Sara thought. As the Powdered Lead’s artillery reloaded, however, the majority of the krapeu were brought under control, and Sara scowled. For riding on and fighting against.

Given a new target for their bestial aggression, the long-legged monsters began loping across the fields, thick globs of freshly-bloodied saliva dripping from their jaws. The riders pulled long glaives off the animal’s saddles, keeping them in one hand as they crouched low, sheltering behind their krapeu’s thick, tall skulls. 

“First and Second Companies, aim for the riders and open fire! Keep bayonets fixed!”

Sara knew that firing a rifle with the bayonet attached wasn’t something anyone enjoyed, but she figured emcotton rounds changed that. Without the need to shove the lead bullet past a shitton of powder fouling, all you had to do was drop the round down the barrel and give it a good thump against the ground to ensure it was settled. The misfire rate went up from that practice, owing to the occasional round that didn’t make it far enough down the barrel to be ignited by the spark crystals, but it was more than worth the tradeoff in this instance. Those krapeu were coming on fast.

“If they get to our lines, we’re gonna have to go in, aren’t we?” Sara muttered. Her guard, standing behind her in the illusory guise of an Imperial message runner, gave the subtlest twitch of acknowledgement. Not agreeing or sharing an opinion. Just noting that they’d heard. Sara brought her spyglass back to her eye, swallowing back a round of profanity. 

Evie wouldn’t want me fighting so many of them up close, she noted. There’s gotta be what, ninety, a hundred of them? That’s long odds. The First and Second are about to get their shit pushed in.

Despite her best efforts to curtail it, the officers of the Powdered Lead had started to view Sara as something of a miraculously talented general. It wasn’t hard to imagine why they did. The Powdered Lead had won multiple major battles without losing more than thirty troops. That was a damn impressive record, but Sara hated that they thought it was her actual tactical acumen that had been responsible. With her combination of Blessings, from the ability to monitor the entire battlefield at once to judging with exacting precision which enemy formation was nearest to breaking, you’d be hard pressed to lose a battle. She had advantages that would’ve had Alexander the Great weeping with envy.

More than that, however, was the real source of her success. All the information in the world wouldn’t matter if she had no idea what to do with that. At the moment, Sara’s thought process was simple:

What would Evie want me to do?

She scanned her eye across her little section of the battlefield. Enemy infantry advancing out of the treeline, massive cannons to follow, and hideously lethal cavalry coming for her flank. She’d become an extremely powerful Irregular, even by the standards of this centuries-old war, but there was a reason the Imperial generals held their Warriors back. The moment she committed to the fight, the enemy would know where she was, and they could respond accordingly, either massing their Warriors to put her down or sending them out to attack places she could no longer defend. 

What would Evie do? She asked herself again. There was more than one option. If she threw herself and her bulletproof armor against the infantry, she might be able to free up enough of the infantry to go help against the krapeu’s charge. But would she reach them in time, and could the companies redeploy in time to save the First and Second from devastation? Further, were the enemy’s Warriors embedded amongst the infantry line, or were they elsewhere? If they met her at the infantry line, not only would she fail to free up the Companies to reinforce the First and Second, she might well end up needing them to reinforce her. That would ruin the entire line.

On the other hand, throwing herself against the krapeu was the most personally dangerous course she could take. Irregular or otherwise, she was a General, the leader of Tulian, and a mother. She couldn’t die. No matter what, even if it required the death of every living creature on the field, she couldn’t die. And if she let herself get surrounded by a hundred cavalrymen riding massive crocodiles, there was a good chance that’s exactly what would happen. 

Sara glanced at her guard, blurring her eyes to pierce the illusions laid over their skin. Their oversized Grease Gun was well-oiled, extra magazines tucked close to wrap their waist. Hurlish had re-tooled their precious few modern shells to use emcotton, and that meant every shot from the gun hit like a truck. It would take the finest of enchanted armor to deflect even a single shot from the monstrous gun. With that thing fighting at her side, she’d probably make it through. But she wouldn’t be able to kill everyone who saw it, and that would mean letting the idea of automatic weapons loose into the world. 

Sara’s nose wrinkled as she watched the krapeu break the halfway mark. Rifle fire began to pop, sending lead balls skating off scales or burying into tough hide. The Warriors on their back began to shout, slapping their steed’s sides with the flat of their glaives. The krapeu let out their own roars, slitted eyes glittering with malice. 

So what would Evie do? Sara rolled her neck, shaking out her arms. She bent down to touch her toes, then dropped into a crouch, bouncing on her heels for a few seconds as she stretched one leg out to the side. With her face hidden behind her helmet, she didn’t bother to suppress her manic grin. 

“Hey Mui,” she said, casting her voice into the catfolk’s ears, “I’m going to do what Evie would do.”