A Perverted Path to Victory

Sara Brown

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“There’s not much more to it than what y’can see from here,” the scout reported breathlessly. “A standard palisade facing the road’s exit, about ten feet high and a couple hundred feet long, pretty firmly set into the dirt. Well-made, I’d say. Not easy to knock down without artillery. No way to exit the road without passing well within even their shoddy musket’s range, but the walls don’t go much further than those curves you can see tapering off to the left and right. After that, it’s just piles of dirt and some half-finished stakes. Looks like we caught ‘em before they could turn this into a proper fort, ma’am.”

Studying the defenses through her spyglass, Sara grunted. “Huh. Dirt?”

“Piles of it, ma’am. Not my place to say, since I couldn’t rightly see behind ‘em, but I think they’re digging trenches.”

“Don’t like that,” Sara said to no one in particular. “They’re learning too fast.” Thick piles of dirt outperformed both wood and stone in resisting cannonfire, so long as neither of the latter were enchanted. And using trenches already showed that they were picking up the advantages and disadvantages of flat-trajectory weapons.

“Won’t help ‘em here though, will it?” The scout asked.

Sara snapped her spyglass closed. “No. Not in the end. But it’ll make this whole thing more of a pain in the ass than I wanted.” She shot the scout a cocky, reassuring grin. “‘Course, I’ll always be saying that. My favorite sort of battle is when they roll over and give up before we pull a single trigger.”

The scout grinned. “Too right, ma’am.”

The previous day, General Borek had finally decided to put the Powdered Lead’s superior mobility to use. Four hundred riflemen had been sent ahead on their bikes to scout in force, trying to reach a large clearing in the jungle before one of the three opposing rebel forces could seize and fortify it. What would have been three or four days marching became not even a single day’s ride, an advantage Sara had hoped to use by putting her Combat Engineers to work constructing defenses of their own.

The original plan for the campaign, that of marching up to various rebel cities and blowing their walls down with cannonfire, had been dashed by the unprecedented speed that their enemies were adapting. By the scattered reports of Imperial spies– and secretly confirmed by a letter Graf had sent to Evie– the rebels were planning to assemble a massive blackpowder army north of the jungle wall. The Imperials were terrified that, free of the jungle which forced their marching speed down to a crawl, the enemy could capture any and every loyalist city in the northern jungle regions at their whim.

Sara, of course, had her own paranoia. Those three armies were marching toward Tulian. She didn’t know if they’d fully turn it into an assault, not when Tulian itself wasn’t technically at war with the rebellious half of the Empire, but if they did, that would be it for the fledgling Republic. She was already dealing with a vague warning of powerful entities stirring across the world, anticipating the impending Sporaton invasion, and now she might have to deal with the world’s second blackpowder army all bearing down on Tulian. She wasn’t confident in defeating even one of those threats, much less all three. The North Star fortress had been completed, but the South Star wasn’t even a quarter of the way through its construction, and wouldn’t be finished for months. The city’s walls were being repaired, but even if they could replicate Old Tulian’s enchantments– and that was a big if– they still wouldn’t be able to resist cannonfire. The Artificer’s Union had been working on methods to enchant reinforced concrete, but it was slow going. Materials that weren’t uniform in their composition, their research was showing, had a nasty habit of resisting enchantments.

“What are your orders, ma’am?” A Lieutenant asked.

“Skirmish formation,” Sara said immediately. “Advance slowly, try to draw them out, then drop to the mud and start turning heads inside out. If we can’t bait them into showing their faces, or if we’re not getting the better of the exchange of fire, we’ll pull back and re-evaluate.”

A chorus of “Yes ma’am!” answered her, officers breaking to jog back to their positions.

If they’d brought the artillery with them, this wouldn’t even be a battle. She could have bounced iron cannonball after iron cannonball right through the enemy defenses, scattering wood and limbs alike. But there was no way that a bunch of people on bikes could reasonably pull the giant bronze weapons at the kind of speed that they could reach when uninhibited.

Of course, if Sara had known they’d be facing any type of fortification, she might have been more willing to take her time in arriving.

Whistles blew sharp notes across the road, Lieutenants passing orders to Sergeants who began yelling at their squads. The Powdered Lead was maybe a half-mile back from the rebel palisade, bunched in by the nature of the road. Based on Hurlish’s testing, the rebel muskets had an accurate range of about fifty meters, and a lethal range of about a hundred and twenty meters. Her dad said that was more pitiful than the very worst of Earth’s muskets, at least once the technology moved beyond matchlocks and arquebusiers. Still, that didn’t change the fact that, within a hundred meters or so, their oversized lead balls could punch straight through a Tulian soldier’s helmet or breastplate. The steel might deflect a shot at greater ranges than that, but the enemy surely had to know better than to waste shots beyond that.

Sara eyed the palisade. Even still, after so long spent away from Earth, it was a little bit surreal to see something so antiquated with her own two eyes. Tall logs had been stripped of their bark, tips sharpened, then lashed together with thick ropes. The row of giant toothpicks showed no signs of movement. Whoever was in command of the enemy had clearly recognized the green-clothed Powdered Lead for what they were. None of them would be showing their faces at a distance that her riflemen could pick them off with impunity, as she had in every other battle.

Two hundred years of war teaches some bitter lessons, she mused. Sara doubted that a single one of the soldiers in that half-finished fort really understood how their new muskets worked, but they didn’t need to. That was the terrible beauty of guns: load, aim, kill. When it came to defending a static defensive area, you didn’t need to be a West Point graduate to figure out the best way to hold your ground.

But you might need to be one to figure out how to take it without casualties. God, I wish Evie was here.

Despite her guards, Evie had felt uncomfortable leaving Hurlish alone for the time that the Powdered Lead would be off scouting. It could be two entire days, after all. Sara had suggested that Mui be trusted with her protection instead, but to her surprise, Evie and Mui had both refused the idea. Evie was staying with Hurlish, and that was a declaration, not a suggestion.

As the Powdered Lead gathered up steam, Sara sent her Blessings radiating outward, searching for the catfolk man who’d come with her. He’d been more than twitchy around her for the past few days, and he’d asked her not to pry. So far, she’d tried her best. Mui had asked for his privacy, and that was the least she could give him. It was hard to narrow her Blessings in such a way that they excluded him, especially when he was in a group she was analyzing, but she’d put the effort in.

She found Mui’s voice murmuring amongst the soldiers of Second Squadron, his thick accent stark against the others. Sara began making her way toward the man, absentmindedly giving the usual smiles, nods, and salutes to the soldiers she passed.

“So,” Sara announced as she walked up behind Mui, taking care to make sure his ears had swiveled her way before speaking. “You’re going with Second Squadron this time? Not going to serve as an Irregular?”

“The only Warrior– Irregular– present here is you, Sara,” Mui said, focusing on one last wipe-down of his rifle. “I couldn’t keep up with you if I tried.”

Sara’s instincts pinged like radar that had just discovered a mountain coming in for a landing. With a concerted mental effort, she shut off every last one of her Blessings. Even without them, she could have probably drawn her own conclusions, but she refused to. Amarat’s Blessings were too much. They made her inhuman. Even that little hint was something she couldn’t stomach using.

“We’ll mostly be riflemen for the first part of the assault,” Sara said, “but if it comes down to a melee, there’s no better spear to have at my back than yours.”

“Which squadron will you be serving with?” Mui asked. He wrapped a cloth rag around his rifle’s ramrod and pushed it down the barrel. It came out spotless. He pushed it back down again, with more force.

“Third squadron, on the right flank. If they’ll let us, I might want to flank around, see if we can pop some shots off at anyone hiding behind the wall.”

“I see.” He ran the ramrod through a third time, pulling out a rag as spotless as the first and second, then flipped the gun around, lifting the hammer to inspect the ignition crystal’s casing. “And I assume that if you see an opening, you’ll charge Third Squadron in against the wall itself?”

“If I see an opportunity? Yeah, no shit. I’d expect the same from fourth squadron on the other side. We’ve already pre-arranged a signal to avoid crossfire. It’d be awful to end up shooting past the enemy into our own troops.”

“Yet, by the words making their way through the ranks, you don’t expect to achieve anything more than a probing of the defenses.”

“Yep. Planning for the unexpected includes failure and success both.”

Mui’s ears flicked. Though still sitting to inspect his rifle, he looked up at Sara, bemused. “I’ve trained only twice with Evie, and that’s more than enough to recognize the way those words were spoken. A maxim she appropriated from her old mentor, yes?”

Sara laughed. “You got me. Probably, I mean. I don’t know if it’s really from Graf, but it’s definitely from Evie. She and Graf could write a whole book of crap like that.” Sara rested her own rifle butt on the ground, offering a hand to Mui. “So. Want to shuffle over to Third Squadron?”

Though he spent a few seconds looking visibly conflicted, he took her hand quickly enough. She pulled him to his feet, then hooked her foot beneath his sheathed bayonet and tossed it into the air next to his head. In one smooth motion he caught the blade and slotted it onto the barrel, nodding at her.

“If you do charge into battle,” he warned her, “remember that I won’t be able to follow. Stay close.”

She smirked, dropping her voice. “Oh, don’t worry about me staying close.”

Mui just stared at her.

Sara felt something clench in her gut. She did her best to ignore it.

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Four hundred riflemen of the Powdered Lead approached the palisade in a loose skirmish formation. Though pinned in by the thin jungle road, every soldier maintained at least six feet or so of distance from their fellows, forming a checkerboard pattern that was steadily marching its way towards the simple wooden wall.

It was the first time they’d be going into battle under such an arrangement, and Sara found herself unexpectedly paranoid. Once upon a time, Sara had bought into the idea that the British armies of the Revolutionary War, fighting in unwieldy blocks of red-coated soldiers, had been defeated by Native American-inspired colonial tactics. She’d thought, like many people, that standing in a line through a gunfight was one step removed from patiently queuing for a bullet through the eye. Suicidal, in a word.

Evie, then her dad, had taught her better. While it was far harder to hit a single target than it was a thick-pressed line of soldiers, it was equally difficult to force your way through a wall of bayonets. When the battle came down to a melee— and it almost always did— isolated soldiers would be run under and trampled by determined squads, helpless to fight back. Not to mention what would happen against the Sporaton Cavalry; even a ten-deep line had barely been enough to repel enchanted horsemen. A skirmish line really was suicide when cavalry was on the field.

So, though veteran Imperial skirmishers had personally trained the Powdered Lead in the tactic at hand, Sara was nervous. Not for herself. She could lean on the inherent arrogance of being a god’s chosen soldier. Her concern was leaving her troops so exposed. They’d be safer from errant arrows and bullets, but it was far harder to issue orders to such a widely-spread group. Scouting reports said that the enemy didn’t have enough soldiers to risk a charge out of their half-finished fort, but what if they’d missed something? She hated it.

She hated going into battle without Evie even more. Regardless of what was going on between her and Mui, her wife would have been right there beside Sara if she’d known there would be a battle. Sara felt certain that Evie would know exactly what was waiting behind that palisade, scouting reports be damned.

She’s going to be furious when she finds out I went into battle without her. Nothing for it, though.

“Halt!” Sara called out.

They’d almost reached the point where the jungle began to spread wider than the road, curving outward. The palisade was about a hundred and twenty meters away. Just far enough that the hidden enemy wouldn’t be wasting bullets and powder by taking potshots.

“Begin preparations!” Sara shouted as she took a knee, setting down the large box she’d been carrying. With a practiced motion, she swung her shoulder-cannon off her back with one hand, the other cracking open the ammunition locker’s lid. The cloth-lined interior bristled with the dull lead tips of two pound bullets sitting atop an equally-sized bag of blackpowder.

She broke open her gun, inspecting the barrel for obstructions. All around her, the Powdered Lead began to ready themselves in a way quite unusual to this world:

Stretching.

To the rhythmic counting of their officers, the Powdered Lead mercenaries began bending over to touch their toes, rolling out their shoulders, and working out any kinks in their back they might have. A number of soldiers even called over a fellow to rub at some knot or other in their back, massaging out the tension.

To the spectating Imperials, it had to be a borderline comedy show. Stretching out your muscles for exercise was something people were known to do in the Empire, but it was mostly associated with old, wrinkled soldiers and workers, the sort who genuinely needed to pop their joints before doing hard labor. To the Imperial eye, the Powdered Lead looked like four hundred young, fit men and women doing their best impression of an arthritic grandfather.

“You ready, Mui?” Sara asked, clicking her gun closed.

“I am,” he confirmed, looking about with mild amusement. He had his musket in his hand, and hadn’t joined the group exercise. “You intend to begin the battle with that horrifying thing?”

“Yup. I know it won’t do much to actually knock down the walls,” at least until I get explosive shells for it, “but it’ll help keep their heads down while the Powdered Lead deploy. Remember, we’re on the rightmost flank, so we’re going to have to run hard to catch up.”

“That is why you selected me, yes? So that you would have an ‘Irregular’ capable of matching your pace?”

Sara lifted her gun, pressing the wooden stock against her smirk. “Oh, is that it? You think you can match my pace?”

“I-”

BOOM!

Sara’s shoulder wrenched backward, a cone of smoke painting the air before her. Through the haze, she saw wood splinters fly. A touch higher than she’d been aiming for.

The ground rumbled as she snatched up another round, breathing deeply of the smoke which rolled from her gun’s breach as she snapped it open. The Powdered Lead broke into a dead sprint, moving to take their positions as soon as possible. Sara glanced down her gun’s barrel to search for lingering sparks, then shoved the next round into place, closing the piece.

BOOM!

Another layer of drifting smoke joined the first, turning the haze to a fog. The pops and crackles of distant musketfire answered her, heads popping up over the palisade for just long enough to squeeze off a half-aimed shot.

Yep, they’ve heard about us. She smiled toothily. Heard enough about us to be afraid.

She loaded another round, aimed for the densest bit of smoke lingering around the palisade, and sent a round that way.

BOOM!

The process sped up. She loaded, fired, and loaded again, doing her best to remind the rebels that their palisade wasn’t enough to keep them perfectly safe. Rather quickly, the first squads of Powdered Lead reached their positions and dropped to the grass, waiting for an enemy face to appear between their crosshairs. The distance they’d put their fort from the road became a mixed blessing for the rebels. It kept their attackers close enough to suffer from return fire, true, but it was also only a hundred meters. The Powdered Lead trained to hit a man-sized target at five hundred.

Macabre paintings began leaking down the front of the palisade, the gore of heads which had been burst like overripe fruit. Sara was glad that she wasn’t in earshot of the rebels. She didn’t need her Blessings feeding her their panicked shouts.

As she blindly reached for another round, Sara was surprised by one getting pressed into her hand too early. She looked to the right to find Mui, onyx fur even more distinctive amongst the white powder smoke. He held several rounds in one hand, the other ready to give her the next.

They were both too deaf to hear a word, but she shot him a grateful smile. The next round fell into her gun even faster than the last, a quick jerk of the trigger sending it off to punch another fist-sized hole through the wooden fortress.

With Mui feeding her ammunition and musketfire revealing rebel positions, Sara’s rate of fire increased even further. She chewed into the ammunition crate’s supply faster than ever before, shot after shot, until she felt her shoulder-cannon protesting every time she broke it open, grains of unburnt blackpowder choking up even that simplest of mechanisms. She should have stopped to clean it, but she could literally see the effect she had on the battle. Everywhere she shot, the fire would die down for ten, twenty seconds, the rebels temporarily cowed by the sight of a bullet ripping straight through their protection. Every moment Sara spent not shooting was another bullet sent toward troops that had entrusted her with their lives.

As she cracked open the gun yet again, a worrying volume of sparks spraying out into the air behind her, she accepted another round from Mui. It felt different in her hand, but in the heat of the moment she barely thought about it. There wasn’t enough time to care.

Until she pulled the trigger.

She felt muscles tear as her shoulder wrenched backward, her entire body twisting hard around as she was shoved into the dirt. Black smoke, not white, belched from the barrel, and the lead which flew forth broke the sound barrier with that all-too-distinctive crack!

“Sara!” Mui cried, lunging after her.

“Mmmgood,” she mumbled through a mouthful of mud, shoving herself up with her good arm. “Shit,” she breathed, shaking her head to clear the hallucinatory doubling of her vision.

Mui helped her up, inspecting her for what he doubtlessly expected to be terrible wounds. “What happened? Did the gun fail?”

“Hurlish made it,” Sara said, because that was all the answer that should be required as to whether or not the gun failed. “And that was a type of round I really should have warned you about.”

“What?” Mui’s fingers reached for her dented shoulderplate, which was, for the second time, digging deeply into the flesh of her shoulder. His claws popped out as he tried to pry it back. “The gun was supposed to do that?”

“The gun was, but I wasn’t,” Sara said. The right side of her jaw ached. The stock must have somehow kicked her head aside with the recoil. “You can’t tell anyone about that round, okay? Secret shit.”

He paused, looking up to meet her eyes. Catfolk expressions should have been hard for a human to read, but they weren’t for Sara. He met her gaze with an intensity that didn’t quite fit what otherwise would have been a simple question: “Why?”

“Secret shit,” Sara repeated. “Promise I’ll tell you later. Don’t have time now. Gotta get going.”

“Your shoulder-”

“Watch this.” Sara popped open a belt pouch and dragged a health potion to her mouth in the same motion, downing it in a single swig. Then she stood, dragging Mui up with her. “Alright. Far right flank. Fast as you can. Let’s go.”

Taking one last just-in-case round of ammunition with her from the otherwise empty crate, Sara shoved Mui ahead of herself, letting the catfolk man set the pace.

Ever the soldier, Mui didn’t hesitate to follow orders. He broke into a sprint, bayonet-tipped musket held close to his chest as he ran across the field. They kept close to the tree line, not wanting to end up in front of their own troop’s barrels.

Sara tried to work at her dented shoulderplate as they went, dragging the piece away from the blacksteel breastplate she always wore, but it became a progressively more painful effort as time went on. The potion was regrowing her flesh straight into the metal, wrapping the dented material in fresh pieces of meat. She could feel jagged pieces of shrapnel slicing open new wounds with every movement, her fingers growing bloodier every time she got a chance to glance at them.

With a curse, she reached up and dug her fingers under the entire piece, then heaved.

“FUCK!”

“What?” Mui didn’t stop running.

“Fucking… nothing!” She tossed the broken metal to the ground. Chunks of her body went with it. She grabbed a second health potion from her belt and downed it; only one left, now.

A stupid thing to do, a voice echoed in her head. It wasn’t her own; it was Evie’s. Apparently her subconscious wouldn’t accept the idea that she was actually going into a fight without her wife.

“Down!” Mui called.

Sara dropped without thought, momentum sending her skidding several feet further. She covered her head with both hands, bracing for impact.

A few seconds passed. She opened her eyes, looking around.

“What was it?”

Her answer came in two forms, neither of which were Mui’s voice: a sudden and violent escalation in the bark of rifles around her, and then the whoosh of something large and fast passing overhead.

Sara had just enough time to squeeze her eyes shut for the second time before her body was jolted by numerous fragments of something hard and cold, her armor making a sound like hail as projectiles bounced off her right side- the side not facing the enemy.

“Mage!” A voice called out. “All rifles target that raise between the divot and post!”

“Sara!” Mui yelled. “Are you injured?”

Sara quickly ran a hand down her right side, feeling the places she’d been hit. There were no severe puncture wounds, but there was a sliver of something cold in the soft meat of her knee. She plucked it from her skin, only for it to snap in half in her fingers before she could inspect it closely.

Ice mage. Must have cast something that hit the trees and exploded. How the hell did Mui see it coming so soon?

“No, I’m fine!” Sara rolled onto her side, grabbing her Hot Rifle. “Let’s get his ass!”

“Agreed!”

Sara brought her long, unwieldy rifle up to her shoulder, sweeping the sights left and right in search of the location described by the sergeant she’d overheard. A four-and-a-half foot musket was great for accuracy, but a pain in the ass to handle while prone.

She found the spot quickly enough. She and Mui had been forced to halt right in line with the end of the wooden palisade, where the solid defenses were replaced by a wall of loose, muddy soil. Between the last post of the palisade and a small latrine ditch was a particularly large lump of dirt, one that had been cratered with five times the bullet impacts as any other stretch of land.

The fire on the entire right flank had died down in the aftermath of the mage’s spell. The rebels didn’t miss the opportunity. Heads and musket barrels emerged in quick, darting flashes, spitting lead and smoke towards the long grass that two squadrons of the Powdered Lead were sheltering within.

“Hold!” The same sergeant from earlier yelled.

“Hold!” Sara called, her voice booming loud enough to shake the ground. “You know what to do! Wait for the bastard to show his face!”

She spoke in Continental, a language no Imperial rebel could have ever understood.

The Powdered Lead waited under the gradually intensifying gunfire of the enemy. Just like Sara, they held their fire, waiting for the right moment. They were a damned well-disciplined group of soldiers. Evie would have been proud to see them taking such a beating without so much as a single errant shot flying off. For the first time, Sara even noticed the addition of arrows in flight, arcing projectiles loosed from shortbows behind the wall. They came in sporadic, poorly-aimed volleys, a smattering of broadheads thumping into the dirt within the vague area that the enemy knew some of the Powdered Lead to be. Thanks to the skirmish formation they’d adopted, it was completely ineffective. Even if an arrow managed to get a lucky hit in, the Powdered Lead soldiers still wore partial steel plate armor, their heads and chests well-protected from such low-velocity bows.

In the end, the mage was smart enough that they didn’t end up showing themselves in the same place. They appeared about a dozen feet to the right of the rise Sara had been watching, their hands already glowing as they stepped up into view. Their left hand was covered in a shimmering grey, one that matched the discoloration of the air in front of them, while the other was a cool blue, a lump of ice half-finished emerging from their palm.

“To the right!” The sergeant yelled.

Forty rifles cracked in near-perfect unison as the Powdered Lead drew a bead on the mage, every last shot aimed for the dead center of their chest.

The mage staggered back, mouth open in shock. The ice in their hand slipped loose and burst into a wide spray of chromatic steam, the gray light flickering and nearly failing.

Sara put their shocked expression just above the metal bead of her rifle’s sight. She squeezed the trigger.

The forty-first shot to break the air was uniquely loud, producing that same telltale puff of black smoke as the one that had broken her shoulder. The bullet carved a laser-straight path through the air.

The mage’s shield failed with the sound of ripped stitching, a strange grey discoloration splattering itself across the ground for a dozen yards in every direction. A spray of blood from their chest almost hid the way they bonelessly dropped, limply rolling down and out of sight.

A cheer went up from the Powdered Lead, followed an instant later by the berating of officers who shouted at their troops to keep up the fire.

“Let’s go!” Sara yelled to Mui.

“A moment! Finishing loading!” Sara watched him shove his loading rod down the barrel, taking care not to slice his hand open on the weapon’s bayonet, then jerk the rod out and place it in its holder. “Ready!”

“Go!”

They both leapt up, sprinting forward in a half-crouch. Partially covered by the shade of the treeline, they didn’t attract much undue fire as they covered the fifty meters or so left to their destination.

“Alright, here’s good!” Sara called out, dropping to a knee. “Comence firing!”

“Yes ma’am!”

For a time, Sara and Mui did nothing more than act as common Tulian riflemen, though they both moved and loaded noticeably faster than the other soldiers. Sara didn’t keep using her emcotton ammunition. She’d only brought a few, since the cotton-wrapped bullets were difficult to discretely store on her person, and she was saving them for tougher targets. The Powdered Lead already knew about emcotton and its effectiveness, but the Imperials and rebels most certainly hadn’t. The less she used it, the longer it would remain effective.

The exchange of fire progressed at a grinding pace. The long grass hid her mercenary soldiers well, but they didn’t have much in the way of physical cover. They were half-hidden by the long grass, true, but that wasn’t enough to stop a bullet. The rebels were firing at puffs of smoke, hoping to get a lucky hit on targets they could barely see. Conversely, the Powdered Lead had clear, obvious silhouettes of enemy faces to shoot at, but could only do so when the enemy was kind enough to pop their heads over their defenses.

The Powdered Lead were still getting the better of it, of course. Rifled muskets carried by experienced, well-trained troops simply couldn’t be countered by primitively-constructed smoothbores. Unfortunately, luck still played the same role it always did in a battle. Sara was forced to listen to the occasional shouts of pain and shock as a lead projectile found its way into one of her soldiers’ bodies, often tearing straight through their armor. Though the dead center of a Tulian soldier’s breastplate was thick enough to deflect lower-speed projectiles, they were each laying in the grass, which was far from the best angle for protection. Bullets slipped between shoulderplates, smashed into helmets, and carved chunks from exposed limbs.

Sara hated it. Her troops were tearing the enemy apart, plucking their heads from the fortifications like feathers from a bird, but they were suffering for it. If they kept fighting like this, she knew they’d eventually win. There was only so much death a group of soldiers could take, only so many living bodies to replace the corpses at the wall.

But it would cost her. People who trusted her would die. Even though they were winning, doing so while laying so passive and still, practically providing target practice for the enemy, was grating at her terribly. The only alternative was to charge, of course, to fix bayonets and run the enemy under, but wouldn’t that be a far greater risk? They would be exposed in the open field while they closed the distance, every soldier giving their enemy a tall, wide target. She was convinced that the Powdered Lead would devastate the enemy when they finally came to grips, as the rebels still lacked any form of attachable bayonet, but was it worth it? Which path would cost more blood?

Gods, I wish Evie was here!

Forced to make the decision on her own, Sara’s eventual conclusion wasn’t surprising. She wasn’t built to let her troops sit there and suffer. Maybe a charge would be worse, maybe it would be better, but no matter what happened, at least she’d be doing something.

“Powdered Lead!” Sara’s voice hit the air like a cannonball, echoing across the entire battlefield. “Give ‘em lead, give ‘em steel!”

The absolute cacophony of cheers which rose in response to her call was profoundly gratifying. All across the battlefield, the cry was echoed back: “Give ‘em lead, give ‘em steel!” roared from nearly four hundred throats.

The rebels didn’t understand Continental, but they knew something was wrong. Sara’s voice alone partially cowed them, causing their gunfire to stutter, a hesitation which noticeably worsened when the Powdered Lead echoed her cry. All across the field, the crack of rifles abruptly stopped. To the enemy, that was the final sign that something was wrong.

The rebels surged forward, every single man and woman who had a musket taking a place on the dirt and wood fortifications. They poured shot after disorganized shot at the vague shapes in the field beyond their defenses, but with the Powdered Lead’s rifles silent, the puffs of smoke vanishing with the wind, it was almost impossible for them to find something worth aiming at.

Sara counted breaths, watching blackpowder clouds envelop the enemy. They fired desperately, trying to put a stop to a plan they couldn’t predict.

Then, almost as one, the fire tapered away. The enemy had fired off a massive, ragged, ill-aimed volley. Now they were stuck reloading.

“CHARGE!”

For the first time in the battle, music burst from Sara’s form. A groaning rumble of an abused synthesizer filled the air, heavy drums pounding emphatically behind a jumping chant. It was little more than bass put to a rhythm, but that was fine. It would serve its purpose.

Sara leapt to her feet in perfect, inhuman synchronicity with four hundred other soldiers. As if they were the many limbs of a single body, every mercenary on the field ducked into a hard sprint, bayonet-tipped rifles lowered to their waist. Their feet hit the ground in the same instant, their lungs filled with the same breath, and they raised a shout in one voice.

Sara bore her teeth as she watched the rebels ripple away from the wall, recoiling in fear. It was time to make them hurt.

Mui flew past the other mercenaries, even his five Levels sending his legs through three paces for every one that the others managed. Sara followed right behind, careful not to overtake him. In a handful of seconds, they’d broken through the mercenary crowd, boots throwing clumps of dirt as they tore across the open field.

For the first time in the battle, Sara heard the enemy’s words. One man screamed in a shrill panic, pointing.

“Shoot them! Shoot them!”

By the time he’d finished the second order, Mui was up and over the dirt wall.

He fired a shot while still in a dead sprint, sending a bullet through someone’s face. Without breaking stride, his bayonet tore into the eye socket of a woman who’d been too late to raise her musket in self-defense, jerking her off the wall entirely, momentum carrying her corpse and Mui over the hump.

Sara hit next. She didn’t even drop to a crouch. She just swung her rifle’s butt like a golf club, sending it through the skull of the soldier next to Mui’s victim. She pulled the trigger as her musket swung past another figure, dropping them with a bullet to the gut.

Then they were in the thick of it.

Sara thrust her bayonet through the neck of one soldier and jerked it out and to the side, slicing open the throat of a second soldier. The rest of those around her pulled knives and clubs, rushing forward with a terrified cry.

No one could deny their bravery.

Just their intelligence.

She broke one woman’s ribs with the butt of her rifle, caving in the face of a second with a left-handed punch. They fell in around her then, too close for the five-foot-plus rifle and bayonet, and so she dropped the gun.

And drew her sword.

Blood flew in wide arcs as she laid into the enemy. Sara realized that they were fighting in the same place where she’d downed the mage, because the soil was soaked an unnatural grey, like it had been rendered in black and white. She added color to it in the forms of blood and corpses, her blacksteel shortsword tearing through flesh and steel alike. Even those who managed to block her with their muskets found themselves dropping dead, the force of her swings driving the iron barrels into their bodies with awful, wet crunches.

She’d maybe killed a dozen or so by the time the rest of the Powdered Lead arrived. They mounted the dirt pile and came to a stop, putting their muskets to their shoulder as they aimed down.

Joined together by her Blessings, a single crackling volley ripped across the entire field. Hundreds of rebels dropped dead.

Then the Powdered Lead jumped down to begin the real slaughter.

Sara leapt over the piles of corpses she’d left, finding Mui. The catfolk’s armor was coated in almost as much blood as her own, but unlike Sara, not all of it was from others. He had several small cuts on his upper body, chance blows slicing neat lines in the few places his armor did not cover. None were life-threatening, and he didn’t seem to be in any pain.

“Where to next?” He’d shouldered his rifle, its bayonet covered in slowly-dripping gore, and replaced it with his still-unmarred Sergeant’s sword. “They will surrender soon, surely.”

“Not soon enough for me,” Sara snapped. She pointed into the center of the camp. “We’re gonna kill anyone who looks important.”

“Understood.”

The camp at the center of the fortifications, which had been hidden from view until this moment, was actually made up of a second ring of improvised fortifications. It was only another ring of piled-up dirt, not a full stockade, but it was still something. The few rebels who had escaped the Powdered Lead’s charge were retreating to it, harried the whole way by heavy rifle fire.

“Ma’am!” Someone shouted. Private Vadrill, her Blessings told her. “We need you over here!”

Sara and Mui didn’t exchange a single word before they darted toward the call, weapons drawn.

Private Vadrill was one mercenary amongst perhaps a dozen who’d surrounded a figure sprawled on the ground. He made way for Sara as she jogged up, pointing.

“She’s still trying to heal herself. Won’t stop no matter what we tell her.”

Her soldiers were aiming rifles at the mage from earlier, one who was, shockingly, still alive. Her robes were positively soaked in blood from the sternum down, flaking crimson half-dried and already attracting a thick collection of buzzing flies. She was impossibly, inhumanly pale, shivering violently, but her hands were aglow with magic, pressed tightly to her chest wound.

Out of an abundance of caution, Sara drew her pistol, pointing it at the woman’s forehead. She was about to start speaking when, to her utter shock, Mui stepped forward, pointing his rifle at the mage.

In a desperate lunge, Sara swung her pistol barrel up and to the side, knocking his gun off-target a bare millisecond before it went off. A chunk of dirt leapt into the air mere inches from the fallen mage’s head, making her flinch.

“What the fuck are you doing?!” She screamed.

“Killing the mage!” Mui yelled back. “Why has she been left alive?!”

“She’s harmless! Look at her!”

“A mage is not harmless until they are dead!”

Another of Evie’s maxims ran through her mind: until their body was stiff and cold, a mage was still dangerous.

“Hold your fire!” Sara barked, both to Mui and the mercenaries, half shocked she had to give the order at all. “Do not fire unless she attempts to cast a spell!”

“You will get us killed,” Mui snapped. “She will not surrender! She is gathering her strength even now!”

Sara was about to roar at him, fury tinting the edges of the world red, but she drew up short.

Mui was trembling, holding his rifle with all his strength. His eyes were filled with a wild rage as he glared at the mage, every muscle trembling under an incredible tension.

“Mui, get back,” Sara ordered, softening her words as much as her anger would allow. “I will deal with this.”

“But-!”

“Back! Now!” Sara took a breath, then raised her voice so the entire field could hear her. “Surround the enemy, but do not push further! Surviving officers of the Imperial Rebellion, decide amongst yourself who will discuss terms of surrender! You have five minutes!”

Mui did retreat as ordered, but he did so by jogging backward, loading his rifle as he went. He didn’t let his attention leave the mage for a single instant.

Sara closed her eyes, concentrating. She’d have to deal with that later. She was already trying to temper her anger. Mui had spent five years at war, she reminded herself. Gods knew what horrific things he’d seen mages do to his friends.

Sara, still keeping her pistol pointed at the mage, crouched down. She met the woman’s eyes. Even when surrounded by the ashen skin of a dying woman, there was a bubbling, furious hatred on her face.

“Surrender,” Sara said. “Stop casting that spell, accept being bound, and we’ll give you healing potions.”

A quiet, furious hiss was all the mage could manage.

“No.”

“I will kill you if I have to. I don’t want to. There’s no point.”

“Mad Champion. Bastard child of divinity. Your employers will torture me. Enslave me. Turn my mind against itself.” She shuddered, eyes fluttering. “I would rather die.”

Sara met the woman’s eyes. She imbued her words with every ounce of truth she could dig up from her soul.

“They won’t torture you. If they do, I’ll kill them myself.”

The truth of her statement, the honesty of it, all but reverberated in the air. This woman didn’t have much time left. Sara had every Blessing driving at its maximum power. When she spoke honestly, any who listened could recognize its truth.

“Mad…” the woman whispered.

“Downright pissed off,” Sara agreed.

They stared at one another for a time. Finally, whether she finally came to a decision or simply ran out of strength, the woman sagged, hands falling away from her wound.

Sara darted forward before the rest of the mercenaries could blink. She dropped one knee onto the mage’s wrist, pinning her other arm down with one hand. Sara slipped her pouch open as quickly as possible, retrieving her last healing potion. She shoved its open end into the mage’s mouth, tilting her head back to force her to swallow.

“Get her secured with some ropes, chains if you can find them,” Sara ordered. “Hands, feet, fingers, tie them all up. Put some fuckin’ mittens on her or something. I don’t want her twitching a goddamn muscle. If she does, shoot her.” She looked the mage in the eye. “You hear that?”

“Yes…”

“Good.”

Sara held the mage down until her orders had been followed, several mercenaries running up with bindings. Sara stayed close as the healing potion did its work, making sure the mage stayed under control. Normally, she would have been able to tell if the woman would betray her word, but the mage was borderline insensible. If the woman herself didn’t know what she intended to do, Sara certainly couldn’t guess at it, Blessings or not.

Finally, when she was wrapped up in enough rope to outfit a ship, Sara stood, dusting her hands off. She nodded to the mercenaries nearby.

“Keep your rifles loaded and pointed. At least three at a time, equidistant points. Follow Evie’s protocols for securing Irregulars. I’ll be back to deal with her once I’ve gotten the official surrender from the enemies. Any questions?”

“No ma’am!”

“Good. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

As she stepped away, Sara caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of her eye. A small lead ball on the ground, right where she and Mui had been standing. She crouched, picking it up.

That’s my pistol’s shot, she realized, eyes widening. It must have come out when I hit Mui’s rifle.

She’d been threatening the mage with an unloaded gun. That… wasn’t the best. Evie would have been furious.

Sara pocketed the pistol ball, shaking her head. It was plain good luck everything had finished as well as it had.

Sara walked back over to Mui, who had finally shouldered his rifle once more. His lower jaw was thrust out as he ground his teeth, pacing back and forth.

“What are you thinking?” He hissed at her. “Leaving a mage alive? Leaving soldiers in her presence? You’ll get them all killed!”

“That’s my decision to make,” Sara said. Mui had something wild behind his eyes. Something that wasn’t going to be pried out with simple logic and a short conversation. She didn’t have the time to do it right now, not without leaning on her Blessings, which she still refused to do with him.

“If it is your decision, then you’ve made the wrong one!” He pointed his sword at the woman, its tip trembling. “Have you any idea what she’s capable of? The horrifying deaths that await those she will betray? If I had left an enemy mage alive in the Imperial Army, they would have me executed for sabotage! She must be killed!”

“No.”

Mui whirled on Sara, grabbing her by the shoulders. “You do not understand!”

She didn’t budge. “I do understand. I accept the risk.”

“I thought you cared for your soldiers!” He snarled.

“Mui.” Sara reached up with one hand, peeling his clenched fingers off her shoulder. “It’s okay. She’s one exhausted woman, one who has three riflemen pointing loaded guns at her head. I am the Champion of Amarat, and I told her what would happen if she resisted. I promise you, she won’t. Not for hours yet, at least.”

Mui was still shaking. Sara didn’t need a single Blessing to see that his distant gaze was locked on some horror known only to him, torturing him with memories he’d rather forget.

“You…”

All at once, he sagged. Sara reached out quickly, catching him in a way that made it look like he didn’t need her support.

“It’s… she will…” He shook himself, trying to smooth down his raised fur. “I am… sorry, Sara. I spoke out of turn.”

“Bullshit.” She let him go, allowing him to stand under his own strength. “You disagreed with me. You thought I was fucking up, and you told me that. I respect that.”

“I tried to shoot your prisoner…”

Sara grit her teeth. “Yes, you did. And if you were a member of the Powdered Lead, I’d have you in front of a firing squad for that. But you’re not, so I won’t. There’s clearly some shit you’ve been through that explains why you acted like that, so I’ll let it slide. This time.” She locked eyes with him. “You’re not going to do that again. Are you?”

Mui glanced from Sara, to the mage, then back again. He licked his lips.

“No,” he said. “No, I will not. I apologize. You are different from my old commanders. The reasons you do things, the way you do them, and what you are capable of, none are the same as any in the Empire. I will do my utmost to trust your judgement in the future.”

“Thank you. And Mui?” She laid a hand on his shoulder. “I promise I’ll explain some stuff to you, like I said. I wasn’t lying when I said I trust you. And thank you again, for giving me a warning about that mage. I wouldn’t have been as cautious in dealing with them without you.”

He snorted softly. “Ah, yes. A warning. That is what I gave you.”

“Still helped. Now go get some rest. We’ve won this battle.”

“We have?” He gestured to the interior of the camp. “There are still a number of soldiers ready and willing to fight you. It will not be easy to convince them to surrender.”

Sara smiled. “Probably not. But if I can manage it with a mage, why not them?”

“I suppose so.”

Sara left him, giving him one last reminder to patch up his minor wounds before he allowed too much dirt to get in them. As she walked through the captured enemy camp, she passed dozens of situations similar to what had happened with the mage, only with a common soldier. The Powdered Lead were walking amongst the enemy’s wounded, gathering them up on stretchers and concentrating them in the cleanest and driest patches of ground. No healing potions were being used on them, that much was true, but the soldiers most experienced in stitching up wounds were plying their trade, helping to staunch the wounded rebels from losing their life.

Eventually, Sara made her way to a cluster of her officers. The squad leaders and lieutenants had gathered themselves behind a stolen bit of the palisade wall that someone had placed, giving them shelter from any opportunistic musket shots the enemy might fling their way. Sara shuffled into the middle of them, pretending that she was only now picking up the thread of their conversations.

“So,” Sara asked, “they pick someone to speak for them?”

“They did, ma’am, but you’re not gonna like ‘em,” a gruff orcish Sergeant said. “Some noble type, by the sounds of ‘em. I don’t speak Imperial all that well, but I’d recognize his sort by stench alone.”

“Lovely,” Sara grumbled. “Alright, let’s see how this goes.” She raised her voice. “Hello! Soldiers of the Empire, are you ready to negotiate?”

“We are!” A man called back. As predicted, his voice was quick and nasally, an intentional affection stylish amongst the Imperial nobility. “I am General Song, of the esteemed House Saphat! Do I have the honor of speaking to the Divine Chosen herself?”

Sara rolled her eyes. A general. Sure. If he really had been assigned the rank of general, only to be put in charge of a few hundred soldiers throwing together wooden walls in the middle of a road, she couldn’t think of a more politically-appointed commander for the life of her. A real Imperial General wouldn’t be wasted on a job like this. At the very least, they’d be doing it with better troops.

“Yeah, I’m the bitch!” Sara called. Her mercenaries snickered. “I want you and your troops to come out unarmed and with your hands up, Seng. You’ve got my word that none of you will be harmed.”

“I am afraid that we cannot do that, Chosen!” Seng replied. “There is too much at stake! The very soul of our Empire rests upon the shoulders of my fine soldiers, and I will not put such a great burden at risk!”

“...the fuck do you mean by that?” Sara began scraping the blood off her face, dried flakes of it floating away. “You’re in the middle of nowhere, surrounded, and your entire force is wounded or low on ammunition. I could root you outta there with twenty of my soldiers and a bit of patience. I’ve got three hundred and fifty raring to go, though, so it’ll be even easier than that.”

“It is not a matter of practicalities, I am afraid! You must understand, dear Chosen, that our Empire is in the most drastic of struggles. To surrender our lives to you is to admit defeat, to profoundly damage the honor of our great people!”

“You’ll also get to live!” Sara pointed out. She began loading her rifle. “Isn’t that worth something? You know, all your soldiers getting to go home someday, see their spouse and kids? Don’t you care about that?”

“I do!” He said, and Sara could practically see him puffing his chest up with self-important pride. “I even have a wife and child myself. But it is both the duty and the privilege of the Empire which allows our citizens to fight for their future! What would we be, if we failed in this most basic of tasks?”

“Again, you’d be alive!” Sara called, steel entering her words. “Dying here and now does nothing, means nothing. You won’t change anything! You say you’re a general, that you’re loyal, then prove it! Spare your soldier’s lives. They want to live. We both know it!”

“Unfortunately,” the so-called General said, “sacrifices must be made! When this battle is over, and we meet face to face, I am sure you will understand the nobility of their deaths!”

Sara felt blood pulse through her neck, turning her face red. He was talking about the coming slaughter like he knew he’d live. As if he wasn’t going to die with his troops.

And why wouldn’t he? That was the Imperial way. The common soldiers were killed, but the wealthy and powerful, they were captured. They were negotiation pieces, convenient little bundles of ransom money and propaganda wins. Of course General Song, of some supposedly important noble house, would be confident he lived through the battle.

“Why wait?” Sara challenged. She stepped out from behind the wooden palisade, abandoning her Blessings so she could cast her voice using only her lungs. Her left arm stretched behind the wood, just out of sight, but the rest of her was in plain view. “I’m here, General Song Saphat! Will you look me in the eye, face to face?”

The silence stretched. Sara could only imagine how many soldiers were itching to pop out from behind the dirt, trying to blast her head into paste. None did, however, and a moment later, General Song emerged.

“Noble Chosen,” he said, holding a hand to his chest. “I believe you, more than anyone else, understand what is just-”

Sara jerked her gun out and to her shoulder, pulling the trigger.

The bullet took General Song in the neck, a spray of arterial blood painting the ground before him as he folded bonelessly forward, empty of life.

As Sara stepped back into cover, the Powdered Lead began to laugh and jeer, some throwing stones at the General’s corpse.

She raised her voice once more.

“So! Does anyone else have a different offer of surrender?”

After a long moment, a commoner’s voice carried over the barricade.

“Yes! We do!”

“Good.”

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