A Perverted Path to Victory

Tinvel

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

The powder mill wasn’t hard to find. All Tinvel had to do was follow the thousand-foot column of bubbling smoke. It bent as it rose to meet the clouds, dragged into a sweeping curve by the prevailing winds, the tail end of a spiral that seemed to lead to…

Nothing.

Behind him, even over the wind, he heard his and Chona’s passenger begin to retch.

Sauvin’s blackpowder mill was– had– been the second of Tulian’s two ammunition facilities to be constructed, and it was far more modern-looking for it. Rebar-reinforced concrete had formed a cage around and over a swift-flowing river, waterwheels and windmills jutting from white boxes in strategic locations, those traditional power sources juxtaposed by the exhaust vents of crystal-powered steam engines. A firmly-packed dirt road marched out of a loading dock that abutted the river, with some shipments being marched overfoot to Tulian, while larger deliveries floated down the river to eventually skate down the coast into the capital’s harbor. Tinvel had flown over it several times, and he could still remember the starkly painted lines the Governess and Professor Brown had demanded. Yellow arrows and boldly demarcated signage had once directed traffic in and out of the powder mill, with the road and river both containing guardhouses that inspected any visitors for so much as a thimble of flint which might strike a spark. Professor Brown had told them that his home’s powder mills suffered explosions twice or more a year. He had been determined to not set the same example.

It hadn’t worked.

The powder mill was gone. What remained was a charred, smoking stretch of land, as if a festering cyst had been burst. The river swirled and pooled in the crater which dented the landscape, creating a wide blot in the center of what once was a straight-running flow. The green water darkened to black as it swept through the site of Sauvin’s powder mill, carrying dirt and debris downstream, an infected vein that now disfigured the fields. The central, gargantuan pillar of smoke wasn’t alone. There were hundreds of smaller wisps of burning somethings scattered in every direction, sparking grassfires wherever they landed. By Tinvel’s rough reckoning, chunks of concrete and wood had been hurled for well over a mile by the force of the explosion.

The mill itself was largely obscured by the smoke, yet as they flew closer, he began to pick out details. Two planes were landed nearby, using the dirt road as a strip of runway, and he couldn’t see their crews anywhere near. They were probably one of the innumerable figures crawling over the wreckage, moving with the utmost of urgency.

As the Sunrise began to descend, Tinvel heard the retching sound again. He turned around to look.

Professor Brown was clutching the side of the plane, neck bent and face turned opposite the wind. He was vomiting properly now, bile burst into mist by the wind to slap wetly against the Sunrise’s canvas side. Chona, who was forced to sit in Professor Brown’s lap by her own insistence that Tinvel would never fly without her, had a gruesome look on her face. She looked ready to crawl out onto the wing rather than remain anywhere near their puking professor.

By the time Tinvel and Chona had returned to Tulian, most of the city’s available healers had set off on foot for Sauvin’s powder mill. As the closest thing Tulian had to an engineering expert, save perhaps the Governess herself, Professor Brown was the only person in hundreds of miles who was qualified to investigate what had happened. The sooner he arrived, he’d clinically explained, as if in the middle of a University lecture, the less altered the disaster site would be by the recovery efforts. If they wanted to get the truth, it was critical that he begin inspecting it as quickly as possible.

Professor Brown clearly hadn’t been ready for the reality of it. His shoulders were trembling violently between bouts of vomiting, his skin shaded an unhealthy, corpse-like grey. Tinvel couldn’t imagine what the man was feeling. Sauvin’s powder mill had been designed by Professor Brown almost single-handedly, from the ground-up, all with the goal of preventing exactly what had just happened. Being confronted with the eye-watering scent of the smoking corpses his failure had left must be… something Tinvel almost couldn’t fathom. A few months ago, before Hunes and Docks, Tinvel wouldn’t have had even an inkling of that sensation.

He set the Sunrise down as gently as he could, occasionally pulsing the engine back to life in order to skim as far along the dirt road as he dared. When they finally puttered to a stop some few hundred yards away from the ruined crater, Chona flung herself overboard. The scent of burnt powder was far worse on the ground, and Professor Brown had begun to heave again.

Tinvel secured the Sunrise while he waited for the last remnants of the Professor’s meal to be spewed down the side of the Sunrise.

That stomach acid is going to mess up the canvas, isn’t it?

Tinvel shook his head. Not the time to be thinking about that.

“I’m… I’m alright,” Professor Brown panted. “I just… oh, god, I can’t believe it.” He spat. “Jesus. Jesus fucking Christ.”

Tinvel didn’t know what that meant, but it wasn’t hard to guess. He moved around to one of the Sunrise’s pontoons, grabbing the ladder from the stowage space and setting it against the airframe. A sixty-year-old, three hundred pound man couldn’t hop in and out of the plane like he and Chona could.

Professor Brown grabbed the top rung with a nod of thanks, still breathing hard.

“Okay. I’m okay. We need to get over there. God. Can either of you cast healing spells? Go ahead without me, if you can.”

Tinvel and Chona shared a look. Professor Brown attended the same Garen-led spellcrafting lessons that they did. He should have known perfectly well that none of the University’s students had ever healed more than a scratch.

“Come on,” Tinvel said, grabbing a hold of his shirt to help haul him out of the seat. “We’re here with you. Pretty sure your daughter would kill us if anything happened to you.”

“Yeah,” he panted, stopping to swallow another retch as he swung his feet onto the ladder. “Yeah, you really shouldn’t let me get hurt. It, uh. It wouldn’t be good for you.”

Behind the Professor’s back, Chona raised an eyebrow at Tinvel. That wasn’t the frank admission they expected from him, either. Everyone knew the Governess had a temper befitting a Champion of Amarat, but it wasn’t something you were supposed to talk about.

Once he was on solid ground, Professor Brown spent a few moments collecting himself. Then, with a deep, intentionally slowed breath, he squared his shoulders.

“Okay. Let’s go. Remember, don’t get in the way of anyone helping people out.”

Chona cast a doubtful look at the shattered building. “Are there even going to be any survivors?”

“Yes. Yes, there will be,” Professor Brown said, with more conviction than Tinvel thought reasonable. “Blasts like this can be bizarre. You would be shocked how many people can survive. Not…” he swallowed. “...not many. But more than you’d expect. With the Oklahoma City bombing…” he trailed off, shaking his head. “Well, no. That’s a bad example. There’s no floors to collapse here like there was there. But the point is, explosive pressure is strange. If some people were around the right corners, or in the basement, or sheltered by debris from early explosions before the big one, they could have survived the initial blast.”

“Good,” Tinvel said. “We’ll need to talk to them.”

“Yes,” Professor Brown agreed. “Yes, finding some witnesses should be our first priority. God, I hope there are some.”

“Pretty sure whoever lit the fire isn’t going to be one of the lucky survivors,” Chona said. “We’re probably breathing in whatever’s left of them.”

“If they were standing right over the powder when they lit it, sure,” Tinvel said. “But that’s not what we’re worried about.”

“No,” Professor Brown agreed. “No, as bad as it sounds, we’ve got to hope that this really was an accident. People are already talking. If we find evidence of a fuse, or witnesses say someone broke in, or if there’s, I don’t know, whatever magical echoes you might feel or something, it could be bad. Too many people heard about those Magecraft to keep them secret. If people find out the Sporatons did this…”

“See, that’s what I don’t get.” Chona waved at the towering cloud of smoke. “This is bad. It’s very, very bad. But it’s not… unusual, right? I mean, I was just a kid when Old Tulian fell, but even I can remember what it was like before that. There were raids. Skirmishes. I remember hearing about a village being burned down, once. Different lords would fight for territory, or the Sporatons would try and make some point. If the Sporatons did this, isn’t that just… kinda what we expected?”

“It doesn’t make it any better,” Tinvel snapped. “Gods, how can you say that? Look at all this!”

“I said it was bad,” Chona countered. “But it’s also war. If every single person in the powder mill died, it still wouldn’t be a tenth as bad as what happened to the capital last year.” She turned to fix the Professor with a curious look. “Why are you so nervous about it?”

Professor Brown had begun to sweat. He’d worn a jacket for the brief flight over, out of habit more than anything else, and he was now taking it off to fold over his shoulder. Breathing hard, he answered Chona.

“Because,” he panted, “things have changed. Maybe you’re right. Maybe the Sporatons did this, but they just considered it a raid. A little thumbing of their nose at Tulian. But the people won’t see it that way. Sara’s already…” He paused to curse as his foot found a divot in the dirt road. “Sara’s already taught them all about the ‘right’ way to fight a war. Declarations, limits, treaties. Most people don’t know much about politics, especially after they’ve spent the last decade of having no real government to speak of, but I can tell you this. They’re going to be furious. They’ll want something done about it. And unlike before, they’ve got a Parliament. They’ve got a way to actually force something to be done.”

“And,” he said, stopping as they crested the last small hill before the smoking ruin, “like I’ve said. Things have changed. I’ve changed things. If the Sporatons really did do this, they don’t… surely they don’t understand what we can do in retaliation. Not yet.” He turned around, looking Chona in the eyes. “Have you ever wondered what boiling thermite would do to a city? How impossible it would be for them to stop you? We’ve got six working planes right now, and we could have a lot more very, very fast. Boiling thermite is cheap, and most buildings in Sporatos are made of wood. How many cities do you think our planes could burn down? How many people would those fires kill?” His attention moved to Tinvel. “What about the Navy? You and I helped design their explosive shells. Not blackpowder shells, but high-explosive guncotton, with real, reliable contact fuzes. If the Navy anchored twenty cannon-armed ships off a Sporaton city, how long do you think it would take for that fleet to destroy everything their guns can reach? How many people would die before they had time to run away?”

Professor Brown started to adjust the jacket on his shoulder, only for it to slip off. He caught it, placing it on his shoulder again. As he started to turn around, it began to fall. Seizing it with a sudden growl of frustration, he balled it up in both fists and flung it at the ground. Leaving it in a crumpled heap, he shook his head as he continued toward the powder mill.

“I still don’t know enough about magic to know if they could stop that from happening. Garen thinks they could, but he’s got advantages they don’t, had more time to think of ways to stop our guns. Sara says she doesn’t know what the King has been getting ready for use against Tulian, but she knows it definitely wouldn’t be a shield for his cities. He wouldn’t think we’d ever dare. Whatever gods you two pray to, you should. I hope they’ll listen. Because if the Sporatons really did this, and we find proof of it, what happens next will be out of anyone’s control.”

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

Voth

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

There were a lot of reasons Voth had never been too heartbroken that his career in Old Tulian’s army had never gone all that far. First among them was the danger, of course– important people got important positions in battle, and when you weren’t noble enough to be worth a ransom, that meant you got killed– but second among them had been politics.

He’d heard the higher-up officers arguing about stupid shit all the time. Threatening to beat each other over getting a shitty stock of spear hafts, or raging about whose turn it was to sit next to some blue-blooded bastard, and endless moaning and groaning about the paperwork and arguments of their higher-ups that they got swept up in. Voth had thought long and hard about whether or not the pay was worth the trouble, and ultimately decided against it. But a part of him had always kept wondering what those important meetings in the big tents with the fancy chairs had really been like.

He didn’t think New Tulian was ever going to satisfy that curiosity. This was a damn mess.

A Parliamentary Minister of Tulian, the one closest to Voth’s seat, crumpled up a wad of papers and spat on it, roaring as he threw the phlegm-covered ball at his opponent. “Which one of your uncles did your mother fuck to make you so godsdamned stupid?! Which one! Was it the lame donkey or the cross-eyed fuckpig?!”

“Maybe if your mother fucked a donkey it might have given you something between your legs to be proud of!” The opposite minister jeered, ignoring the spit-covered ball which flew wildly off course, landing several rows back in the seats. Two of his fellow ministers were holding him by the arms, forcefully restraining him from leaping over a desk to get at his opposite. “A donkey for a father might have made you less of a coward!”

To Voth’s left, Admiral B’Leary snorted. The naval officer that Admiral Nora had left in charge of the Tulian Navy in her absence was downright ancient, with papery skin, wrinkles like cracked leather, and the fading bulge of a beer gut once so prodigious that it could only have come from a man who’d been halfway done drinking himself to death. By all accounts, though Voth found it hard to believe, B’Leary somehow looked better than he once had.

“Don’t think you should be laughing at this shitshow,” Voth rumbled, keeping his voice low enough to not be heard over the madhouse.

“How can I not?” B’Leary retorted. “The gentleman on the left has a way with words.”

“I’ve heard better,” General Alsen mumbled, and Voth knew it was true.

It was odd to be calling the young officer a general. Alsen had gotten his start under Voth, joining the army when the Governess had ordered the fields of Tulian scoured of bandits. He’d distinguished himself well, earning promotion after promotion, flying up the ranks at a rate that would have been impossible in any military which wasn’t being built from the ground up. Voth still didn’t think the hot-tempered boy– a man now, he supposed– was worthy of being a general.

Course, I don’t think I am, either, Voth gently chastised himself. Alsen, like everyone else in Tulian, was taking up work they’d never even dreamed of. He’d been one of the Governess’s Lieutenants in the first Sporaton-Tulian war, and with Evie and Sara both indisposed and Voth in control of the air force, he was as good a choice as any.

Their little trio was sitting in the Peasant’s Theatre, acting as the official representatives of the Republic’s military forces. While Voth’s pilots were off actually dealing with real problems, he was stuck watching what could only be called a circus madhouse.

As soon as the thought came to him, Voth found himself suddenly and without warning overcome by a burst of laughter. He had to stifle it into a cough.

“What?” B’Leary demanded. “Did I miss a good one? You gotta tell me, I don’t have such good ears anymore.”

“No, no,” Voth said, thumping his chest. “Just… realized what the Governess was doing, when she called this place the Peasant’s Theatre.”

Dozens of parliamentary ministers were locked into screaming matches, shoving and jostling and insulting one another in a wild frenzy. What had begun as a terse and nerve wracking meeting to discuss what should be done about the combination of Sporaton Magecraft and the destruction of Sauvin’s Powder Mill had devolved into utter anarchy.

From what Voth could pick out, there were two main arguments going on: some folks were arguing whether or not the powder mill had been ignited as part of a Sporaton raid, while others took it for granted that the Sporatons had done the deed, and were instead arguing about what exactly should be done about it.

Beyond that, Voth lost track. Schoolyard insults were tossed alongside long, impressive-sounding words, terms being thrown back and forth fast enough that he doubted anyone using them really understood what they meant. Some lady shouted about the sanctity of sovereign territory and the injustice of its perversion, and another told her Tulian would be better if her mouth was used for swallowing manure instead of spewing it. Another minister would proudly chest thump about the prowess and strength of the Tulian Army, and someone across the row loudly reminded them that they’d been sick in bed both times Parliament had been invited to tour the city’s armory.

And above them all, watching from a row of ringed seating, were the lucky few commoners who’d won the proverbial lottery to get a front-row seat to the shitshow.

“Governess must have known this was how it’d turn out,” Voth said, waving to the ministers. “Can you believe this shit?”

“Well, no one can accuse them of caring too little,” B’Leary temporized.

“Unless they’re faking it for the audience,” Alsen said. “I don’t think half of them would be so up in arms if they didn’t know their voters were watching.”

“If they cared what the voters thought, I’d think they’d be making less of a fool of themselves,” Voth said. “But what do we know? We’re just here to tell them what we think they should do.”

“If they ever get around to us,” Alsen grumbled.

It took several minutes more before order could be fully restored. The bulkier of the hundred or so ministers, those who had worked manual labor jobs before becoming paper-pushers, took up the work of physically separating quarreling individuals, dragging them off to different seats as if they were squabbling children who couldn’t be trusted around one another. When all was said and done, the hush that had fallen over the room was far from amiable, but it was at least quiet enough to be heard over.

“Now,” announced the woman who had won the literal lottery required to be assigned Parliamentary Speaker for the day, “that we have aired our thoughts, I believe it is time to hear from our guests. Their expertise should be invaluable.” She waved at the back of the room. “General of the Skies Voth, if you would begin? You have been allotted twenty minutes to speak.”

“Thank you,” Voth said, standing up. He scanned the room as people scooted their chairs aside, making way for him to head to the center. He took a breath.

“I have nothing to say until Professor Brown’s investigation is complete. Thank you for your time.”

He sat back down.

Parliament’s reaction was mixed. A few men and women, a number of army veterans among them, laughed loudly, joined by a great many of the visiting spectators. Most of the ministers only scowled at him. They’d wanted more than that, clearly.

I don’t have anything more than that, you crusty bastards, Voth thought, meeting them scowl for scowl. On his scarred face, he suspected the expression held a hell of a lot more weight than theirs did.

“I see,” the speaker said, after a long pause to confirm he was truly done. “Then… Admiral B’Leary, I believe it is your turn to speak.”

The cranky old captain put a hand on Voth’s shoulder as he began to stand, using it to slowly and painfully lever himself up. When he got to his feet, he turned around, squinting at the wall in search of his cane. His eyes scanned back. And forth. And back. And forth. His knees began to tremble slightly.

“Please, there is no need for you to make the trip down,” the speaker said kindly. “You may speak from where you stand.”

“Thank ye!” Admiral B’Leary boomed, spinning sharply on a heel to address the assembled ministers with a snappy salute. “Now, there’s a lot I could say about those Sporaton Magecraft in our waters, from their numbers to their capabilities to what I think they could or couldn’t be doing, but a whole lot of it won’t be of particular interest to you all. If I’m understanding how things work here, I’d rather just wait until the second round of talking when you all folk can ask me all the questions you want. Easiest way to not waste my breath explaining things you don’t need to know. Is that alright with you, Miss Speaker?”

She blinked, plainly furious at the old man’s faking of his feebleness. Whoever this speaker was– Voth didn’t keep up with Parliament enough to know all hundred of their names– she didn’t yet have a politician’s control over her expression.

“Yes,” she said, biting the word off. “General Alsen?”

“I’ve delivered more reports to this room than I can even remember,” he said, beginning even before he finished standing. “You know the army’s disposition. We’ve got the North Star Fort done, and we’re working on the South Star as fast as we can. Together with the walls, we’ve got every approach to and from Tulian covered with as many cannons as the foundries have given us, and we’ve got plenty of room for more. Every day that Sporatos waits to assault us is another day we’re getting stronger. And no, before anyone asks, we have not made any kind of preparations or provisions for an attack of our own. If we want to win, we’ve got no better place to do it than when we’re fighting behind these walls.”

Alsen sat without being dismissed. Voth bit back a chuckle. He didn’t know what Parliament had expected from the not-really-heads of Tulian’s militaries. They’d each been either appointed by, or at least approved by, the Governess herself. Sara Brown seemed like a practical enough woman to put someone in charge that she thought was an asshole, but she was still human. She liked people who were like her. Tulian’s military leadership didn’t have much respect for pomp and circumstance, and that was never more obvious than the times they were forced to speak before Parliament.

“Very well,” the speaker snipped. She really needed to work on her self-control. “Because the high commanders of the military are not available to us at the moment,” referring to Sara and Evie Brown, “Let us proceed to the questioning phase. It is understood by this assembled Parliament that the appropriate actions to be taken may depend on information which is not yet available, and it is in this light that we ask our questions.” She grabbed a stack of papers and tapped them on the pulpit, scanning down the list of questions various ministers had submitted.

“Admiral B’Leary,” she began, prompting the elderly man to stand. “Is there any purpose beyond the making of war that such a force of Sporaton Magecraft would violate the bounds of Tulian waters?”

“Of course,” B’Leary answered frankly, his thick accent turning the words into something closer to ah-kurrs. “But most of ‘em are about war in one way or another, if not conducting it here and now. First and most likely, they coulda been testing our defenses, seeing how well we patrol our waters. Or they could’ve been training together, getting used to having Magecraft patrolling as a group, seeing as Sporatos hasn’t ever gathered more than a handful of ‘em in one place before.”

“You suggest that they sailed a hundred miles south of the border in order to train?” Some minister challenged.

B’Leary shrugged. “From what I’ve heard, they don’t see much of a border at all, at least not officially. Don’t consider us a real people, and aren’t interested in recognizing our borders either. That coulda be the whole point of it, too. Proving to everyone else that Tulian can’t really be defending our borders, since we didn’t even show up. Most accords and treaties say that a territory someone can’t defend isn’t theirs at all.”

“I see,” the speaker said neutrally. “But what of the obvious question, Admiral? Could the purpose of this Magecraft fleet have been the delivery of an agent of sabotage?”

“Don’t see why it couldn’t. But if that’s what they were doin’, I don’t see why they’d bother with sending a big ol’ force like that. Would’ve been a might bit easier to slip a little fishing vessel in, drop their fellows off, and be away into the night before anyone was the wiser.”

“So you’re saying that this could have been a deliberate message? That they wished to ensure the people of Tulian were aware that it was an agent of Sporatos responsible for the destruction of Sauvin’s Powder Mill?”

Up above, the enraptured audience began to murmur to one another. Voth groaned, rolling his eyes. With a comment like that, it wasn’t hard to see where this Speaker chick stood on the war.

“Don’t you be putting words in my damn mouth, girl!” Admiral B’Leary snapped, his leathery face contorting into a cruel snarl. “I didn’t say a thing like that, and you damn well know it. I cut my teeth in the Carrion Navy, where I was chatting with warhawks that make you look like a pretty little dove. You want me to keep talking, you’ll keep that kinda shite to yourself.”

The muttering increased in volume. Voth once more had to pound his chest, forcing himself into a bout of loud coughing to hide his laugh.

Governess sure knows how to pick ‘em, doesn’t she? Grizzled soldiers that don’t want to fight, paying heed to peasant rulers that’re choking on their own bloodlust. What a world.

As the Speaker rankled, preparing her next question, Voth leaned back into his chair, settling in for a long, long wait. There wasn’t going to be much of use getting done.

I just hope they don’t decide to do something stupid before they actually get Sara involved in the talks.

Though Tulian’s “provisional Governess” may have put a dozen different official limits on her authority, emphasizing the impermanence of her station, Voth had never put much stock in the letter of those laws. The reality of it was, no matter what she said otherwise, the Champion of Amarat was Tulian. She didn’t have to pass any kind of law or give any kind of order; she was too much of a hero for anyone to dare go up against her. If she said something should be done, hells, if she even whispered an idea, it was getting done. There wasn’t any way around it.

As far as that influenced Voth’s opinion of ongoing events, it mostly meant that he didn’t much care what Parliament had to say about all this. Whatever orders Parliament gave, whatever vote they held, they’d toss it straight out the window if the Governess sent a message saying she disagreed. And Voth thought they’d be right to do it. That woman and her wife knew what they were about when it came to fighting. Voth had seen them in combat first-hand, and he’d talked to the people who’d served under them in the Sporaton invasion. Voth and Alsen, they were just figureheads. Neither of them thought they knew better than Sara or Evie Brown. B’Leary, for his part, seemed pretty beholden to that Admiral Nora that so much had been said about, but she wasn’t anywhere near, so he was in the same boat as the rest of them.

“General of the Sky Voth,” came the announcement. It seemed the lady had finished getting tongue-lashed by B’Leary. “If it is determined that Sporaton agents were responsible for this attack, could your aerial forces aid in any form of retaliation?”

“No. Sporatos is too far. Our planes are fast, but they can’t go that far yet.”

“Could you not collaborate with the Navy, then?” The speaker pressed. “Several of your aeroplanes are capable of launching from water, and they are small enough to be fit upon the largest of ships. Would that not–”

“Do you really want to be talking about the exact limits of our secret weapons out here?” Voth interjected. He jabbed a thumb at the audience ringing the Peasant’s Theatre. “I’m sure all those folk are fine people, not a spy among them, but I don’t think they’re the best at keeping secrets, either. Might be best to keep things like that under wraps, yeah?”

“General of the Skies Voth,” the speaker said, bristling, “your role in this Parliament is to answer the questions of Tulian’s duly elected ministers. Are you refusing to do so?”

“Are you refusing to ask a straight question?” Voth snapped back. He stood once more, his chair creaking as it was relieved of his weight. “Because I think you’ve forgot how the Governess set up this military stuff. We,” he waved to himself, B’Leary, and Alsen, “can’t do shit until you give us the orders. We don’t have the authority to launch an attack. But you,” he waved to Parliament as a whole, “don’t have the authority to tell us how to attack. If Tulian goes to war with Sporatos again, it’s not your job to say how we’re gonna do it. That’s what generals are for, if you didn’t know. And like I said, ma’am, I don’t have much to say until the Professor finishes figuring out if the mill really was attacked.”

Voth put his hands in his pockets to hide the way his fingers wanted to drum impatiently against his sides. “In fact, now that I’m thinking about it, I won’t have much to say even after he finishes his investigation. As far as I’m concerned, I’ve got two jobs. One’s to get ready for fighting, and the other’s to fight. So if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go get on that. Let me know if you people ever decide one way or the other. I’ve got actual work to do.”

Voth stepped around B’Leary and Alsen, jaw clenched to hide his frustration. So damn stupid. They put him in charge of a bunch of kids– and they were kids! Little mage brats barely out of diapers, it felt like– only to expect him to start chucking them at the enemy like their planes and lives were cheap as wads of spit. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

And probably pretty stupid of you to be acting like that, too, Voth reflected as he shouldered his way out of the Parliament’s doors. You better hope Sara’s got your back, dumbass. Or else you’re gonna be out of a job soon.

Voth ducked out onto the street, blinking at the glaring sunlight that pounded down on him. He needed to get back to the aerodrome. He couldn’t have answered half of Parliament’s questions if he’d stuck around. He needed to keep nosing his way through that stack of notebooks on his desk that Professor Brown had given him, and then he needed to start working on the other, much thicker stack of notebooks that Tinvel had given him. Politics, he thought, spitting into a ditch.

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

Captain Vazere

43 Leagues West of the Tavinon Isles

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

When she would later come to speak at her court martialing, Captain Vazere would argue that her actions had been more than justified by the information that she had at hand. She would argue that military honor left her little choice to pursue any other course of action, and even went so far as to claim that she not only didn’t deserve reprimand, but her actions had actually deserved accolade. Say, a medal and a promotion. It was only fair.

No one could accuse Captain Vazere of being unambitious.

The report of the disaster in Tulian had reached her two days after the event itself occurred, news carried on a swift-sailing courier returning to the Tavinon Isles. The captain of the Tavinon vessel had hailed the TRS Backpay with standard flags as they passed, intending at first only to relay the information by signal. Coincidence and fortune had however seen the breeze shifting to a stiff south-south-easterly course, causing the two vessel’s journeys to briefly require tacking close enough to shout through speaking trumpets.

When the crew of the TRS Backpay had heard the fateful news, they’d been incensed, and their captain and officers had been nearly as furious. The Backpay was a ship which had followed the newly-found tradition of the Tulian Navy, its name having been suggested and voted upon by the first crew who had sailed her out of dock. Being mostly freed oarslaves and former impressed sailors, their ships taken during Admiral Nora’s brief yet productive stint at piracy, they had been near unanimous in choosing the name “Back Pay” once it had been suggested. Captain Vazere felt certain there existed no crew more eager to seek battle than hers, so eager were they to collect their years of unpaid wages.

And she further doubted that there existed a better ship for those with such a desire to crew. Most of the Tulian Navy were captured converts, merchants and ships of war given fine sails, copper-plated hulls, and pierced with portholes from which their black cannons bloomed. The Backpay, on the other hand, was the second ship to be built in Tulian harbors since the fall of the old kingdom, commissioned by the Navy as a ploy to keep in service the experienced shipwrights that Admiral Nora had gathered for her flagship’s construction. With little more complex work to be done than conversions, many had begun to wander off, seduced by the exorbitant pay rates that had been offered by foreign shipyards for their knowledge of the Waverake’s construction. Without the Admiral present to teach successors, the Navy’s captains had been desperate to keep their services, and, seeing as they could not match Carrion or merchant republic wages, enticed them with novelty.

Thus, the Backpay. Not a cog, hulk, quinquereme, or any such primitive vessel. She was a Brig of War, a twin-masted vessel built from the keel up to carry cannons. Her hundred-foot hull was built with rigid timbers fresh out of Tulian’s steampowered sawmills, the planks seasoned to rigidity by storage beneath the shimmering exhaust vents of the same foundries which had cast her ten 32-pounder carronades. Her internal structure, already the superior of any mundane ship save the Waverake, was further reinforced by crossed braces of riveted steel, while her masts had been strengthened by beams of iron so long that Captain Vazere once would have thought only an archmage could have created them. Yet they were, if the steelworkers were to be believed, the rejects of the steelyard’s attempt at making transport rail, and it had been necessary to considerably shorten them in order to fit them for the Backpay’s masts.

Yes, she was a finely built ship, and if her crew was not quite as finely trained, they lacked absolutely nothing in the realm of enthusiasm. Behind every pupil lurked memories of years slaving under the whips of cruel captains, childhoods cut short by pressgangs lurking in dark alleyways, or the screams of Tulian’s rape and pillage by foul mercenaries. By her crew’s reckoning, it seemed unlikely all Sporatos had the wealth equal to the interest their back pay had accrued.

This, too, was something she would use in her court martial defense. Captain Vazere would claim that she had tried to restrain her crew, but it had been like holding the reins of an oxen herd just before a stampede. By her ship’s log, it was a mere four hours after they had received news of the disaster that she heard a cry from the mainmast.

“Two sails sighted to the nor’west, ma’am!” The lookout cried. “They’re flying the Sporaton crown!”

Every head on the deck whipped hard about, looking either to the horizon or to their Captain. Vazere took a deep breath, stifling the malevolent grin crawling up her face.

“You know your duties, boy! Heading, range, description, give me more!”

“Ah, heading due east, one sail to a ship, looking like they may not be pierced for oars. Can’t be certain, they’re just at the horizon!”

“First Lieutenant!” Vazere barked. “Get on the helm and get me a course for interception! Raise sail!”

A cheer went up from the crew as they took to their duties. First Lieutenant Yaren, a swarthy human who’d taken far better to the mathematical lessons contained within Professor Brown’s pamphlet Calculations of The Sailor, used his first moments to order the Second Lieutenant to the helm, while he himself began gamely climbing the ship’s rigging, looking to take his own measurements with his spyglass.

“Enemy’s changing tack, ma’am!” The lookout cried. “Heading due north, barely a touch west!”

Captain Vazere stomped up to the helm, calling for her maps to be brought up from below. She cast a quick glance at the mainmast, judging the wind’s direction, then accepted the rolled paper she was handed.

“Lieutenant Yaren! What is the enemy’s shape?”

“Seem to be trading cogs, Cap’n!”

Unassuming, single-masted Sporaton trading ships, ones heading as straight away from Tulian waters as they could manage, only to flee at first sight of a proper warship.

She used a charcoal nub to mark the sighting location on the map, as well as her own vessel’s position, then rolled it back into its waterproofed leather casing, returning it to the steward-girl who’d brought it.

“Return this to my quarters, if you would, then get to your station. Tell the quartermaster I’d like to have the crew fed before meeting the enemy, but only if a meal might be ready in time. I won’t have us going into battle with a fire aboard.”

“Aye, Cap’n!”

That done, Captain Vazere quick-marched to the prow of the ship, taking care not to run. That had been one of Admiral Nora’s first lessons to the Navy’s officers. Only a panicked officer had reason to be running aboard a ship. Marching was the sign of a calm and steady hand.

Reaching the prow, Vazere stepped up onto the boom, moving up to the very end of the bobbing protrusion, careful to avoid the taut jib sails. With a single foot, she tossed a tight coil of rope overboard, then dove headfirst after it.

Hitting the water was as much of a shock as it was refreshing. Azarketi liked to argue amongst themselves if their rightful place in the world was on land or sea, citing this or that to support their argument, but Vazere had always been the spoilsport in the age-old argument. Why would the gods have given them the ability to move between the realms if they didn’t intend for them to do exactly that? And, she argued further, why did so few azarketi take to the ships which sailed faster than they could hope to swim?

She caught the loose rope as it was towed past her by the Backpay’s momentum, then drew it taut by kicking downward. When she heard the ship begin to rumble past overhead, she flipped onto her back, inspecting the hull with that mix of senses none other than an azarketi could understand.

Sheets of bolted copper slid gracefully past, free from the usual detritus of marine growth which thrived across purely wooden vessels. The Backpay’s svelte hull had only a single sign of wear, and that was the tinge of green that had begun to creep in at the edges of some of the copper plates. She took careful note of the discoloration as the ship cut through the water overhead. Vazere had been told that it was exposure to air which caused copper to turn, so how was it that her ship’s hull was doing so? Something to discuss with the shipwrights, she supposed. It wouldn’t affect anything today.

It did not take long until the ship’s entire hundred-foot hull had finished sliding by. The wind was strong, and she was sailing with the breeze a quarter off her stern, the best position for any square-rigged vessel.

Just as she finished her inspection of the rudder, the rope began to tug her forward. Vazere wrapped it several times around one wrist, then began pulling herself along. It was even more exhilarating to travel so fast under the waves than through the air. She could feel the rush of water rippling over her skin, tugging hard at her body. She wished more of her crew had gills to experience in the manner as she did.

Her head broached the water, throwing up spray as she groped blindly for the ladder placed on the stern. Finding the rungs, she hauled herself up, dripping water to the deck as she heaved herself over the gunwhale.

“All in shape?” First Lieutenant Yaren asked. He was at the helm now, carefully guiding the ship onto its intercept course.

“Her hull’s slick as oil,” Vazere confirmed. “Is the enemy doing anything other than running?”

“No ma’am.”

“Their speed?”

“Lookout’s guessing they’re doing well for themselves. Making seven, perhaps eight knots. Decent sailors aboard, I’d suspect.”

Captain Vazere chuckled. “Unusual for Sporaton vessels. Maybe they actually know what they’re about.”

“Won’t matter, though,” Yaren grinned.

“No. No, it won’t.” Vazere raised her voice. “Set the stud sails! I want those bastards under our guns ‘fore the afternoon is up! Ready the bow guns!”

A second jubilant cry went up among her crew. They were as hungry for battle as Vazere was. She’d been honored with command of Tulian’s second purpose-built warship, yet she’d sailed her as nothing more than a fast ship of trade. Now that the Sporatons had finally given in to their baser nature, it was time to see what she could do.

Vazere raised her own spyglass to her eye, inspecting her prey. The Sporaton cogs were built typically for their type, with a single square sail that was a few feet wider than their twenty foot width. It was attached to a tall mast, atop which was a wooden bucket for a lookout to keep an eye for obstacles. The ships likely weighed some two hundred tons empty, pressed further into the sea by the weight of their cargo.

They could not be more different from the Backpay. Though her hull was a work of art, it was not the deciding factor. The Sporaton cog’s single mast, with its lonesome square sail, was being pursued by a veritable spider’s web of roped rigging. Against the cog’s single sail was arranged a weave of rigging whose complexity could not be understated. Most prominent were the main and fore mast, the main mast sprouting a wide mainsail, a smaller top mainsail, and an even smaller topgallant sail, all of which could be independently adjusted to better catch the wind. Jutting off the rear of the mainmast was a long boom, a wooden pillar set perpendicular to the square rigging that could be swung to port or starboard, allowing the ship to sail side-on to the wind without requiring a rotation of the mammoth mainmast. The foremast was equipped similarly, with two square mainsails and a topsail, the center of the mast tied to the long bowsprit which jutted from the prow. Along those ropes were tied three further sails, patterned after the triangular lateen sails of fishing feluccas, which gave the Backpay unparalleled maneuverability even in the lightest of breezes. As sailors followed Vazere’s direction, even more sails began to sprout from the mainmast, additional studding sails sprawling outward to catch as much of the breeze as was physically possible.

The enemy cogs were sailing well for their type. Eight entire knots.

By Captain Vazere’s reckoning, the Backpay’s four hundred tons were currently accelerating past sixteen.

The captains of the two Sporaton cogs, to their credit, quickly realized the impossible speed at which they were being run down. They adjusted their course, abandoning the ideal sailing angle in favor of turning west, aiming for a dark stretch of clouds that looked ready to burst into a squall. It was a risk, as it allowed the Backpay to cut the corner, but it was their only hope. Vazere had no doubt that they were busying themselves with prayers for a shift or dying of the wind, which would be their only hope for escape.

“Gun crews ready,” Called the gun captain. “Awaiting your order, Cap’n.”

“Hold fire until I give the word. I want to take the ships intact, if we can.”

“Aye, Cap’n!”

The chase continued. In any other ship, it should have been an all-day affair. With the studding sails deployed, however, the Backpay steadily clawed its way up to a blistering eighteen knots. It was as fast as the crew had ever managed to push her, and if only they’d had a bit stiffer of a breeze, Vazere felt certain she could have squeezed out a few more knots.

It was enthralling. Only Magecraft Skimmer could outpace her, and for the first time in history, even a Skimmer would not have the overwhelming advantage they took for granted.

“This ship is a pirate’s dream,” Vazere muttered. “Nothing can escape us. Nothing at all. What a gift we’ve been given.”

“Aye, cap’n,” Yaren said from the helm, his smile mirroring her own. “Had we a Magecraft’s enchantments, I dare suggest the entire Carrion Navy could not catch us.”

“Suggest?” Vazere scoffed. “I am certain of it. There’s never been a finer ship.”

“I imagine the Sporatons will soon disagree, Cap’n.”

“Oh? And why’s that?”

Yaren beamed a toothy grin. “Because they’ll soon be calling us devils.”

Vazere laughed, tasting the salty spray thrown up by her ship’s hull splitting the waves. The Brig-of-War TRS Backpay continued her pursuit, a wolf on the heels of fat oxen.

The Sporaton’s gamble to head toward the developing squall did not bear fruit. The Backpay cut their corner, keeping the wind firmly at her stern throughout the pursuit, while the clouds, though dark and foreboding, petulantly refused to burst into a concealing storm. Even if they had, it wouldn’t have mattered. Long before the cogs could reach its dark shadow, the Backpay had closed to within a mile of the vessels.

“They’re hauling up flags!” The lookout called.”They’re… calling for a parley!”

“Send up our refusal!” Vazere replied without hesitation. “We won’t get within spell or bow shot of those vessels, no matter what they say!”

“Is that wise, ma’am?” Yaren asked, keeping his voice low. Admiral Nora encouraged junior officers to voice dissent to their superiors, but Vazere didn’t believe it was proper to let the crew hear such disagreements. “They’re ships of trade. They have every right to parley, even if only to surrender.”

“If they wanted to surrender, they should’ve sent up a white flag,” Vazere rumbled. “And seeing as they were fleeing directly away from Tulian waters, fresh off an unprovoked attack, I won’t take the risk of being caught by treachery.”

“Understood, ma’am.”

It wasn’t long until the mile separating the ships had halved. Vazere ordered most of the sails brought in, preventing her ship from massively overshooting their prey. The cogs continued to ask for parley, but when Vazere sent up a demand for surrender, their signals didn’t budge. That was as good as confession, Vazere felt. Trade ships should only have paltry arms to defend themselves, simple crossbows and half-rotten pikes. If that was truly all they had, they wouldn’t have refused to make a show of laying down such paltry arms.

“Bow guns!” Vazere called as the range closed to five hundred yards. “Load emcotton shells!”

“Loading emcotton!”

Vazere watched with a hawk’s piercing gaze as the guns were carefully loaded. The Backpay had been equipped with Tulian Army cast-offs, taking up the iron ten-pounder Parrot Rifles. The Army had only built a few of the long-range guns before the Tulian-Sporaton war had concluded, with post-war inspections finding dangerous webs of cracks developing in most every Parrot Rifle’s barrels. The only exceptions were the two cannons built by the HOT foundries, both of which now sat in the Backpay’s bow. With a maximum firing range of over a mile, they were perfect choices for gunning down a fleeing enemy. Now mounted on a rocking, rolling ship, Vazere couldn’t expect accuracy a quarter so excellent, but they were still incredible weapons.

Especially if these emcotton shells are all they’re cracked up to be. She thought as the crews worked. The contact-detonated shells were something that had haunted the nightmares of every Tulian captain since they’d been brought aboard. Their powerful explosives were triggered by the simplest of fuses: a pin in the tip of the shell which, when depressed, struck a spark against the bursting charge. They were supposed to be set on stiff enough springs that they could survive typical handling, even being dropped directly on their head, but she couldn’t bring herself to fully trust those claims.

“Loaded!” The gun captains reported.

“One cannon is to aim for the right enemy’s mast, one shot only! I want them captured, not killed!”

“Aye, cap’n!”

The gun captain crouched down behind his weapon, twisting wooden screws to align the barrel with his target. The Backpay was not as stable a gun platform as a larger vessel, rocking and rolling with the waves, her massive sails giving her a noticeable heel in all but the weakest of winds.

Captain Vazere didn’t rush them. They had all the time in the world to run their prey under. This would be the first firing of their weapon in combat, and she wanted a good performance.

Satisfied with his adjustments, the gun captain wrapped the firing cord around his fist. He couldn’t look straight down the gun’s sights while he waited to fire, not without getting crushed by nine hundred pounds of recoiling cannon. He had to lean overtop the barrel, peering out of the gunport, trusting to nothing more than a keen eye and instinct.

Without a word of warning, he jerked the string. The gun barked, spitting a cloud of gleaming white smoke. Half the crew, tense in their anticipation, seemed to jump out of their skin at the concussive force.

Captain Vazere’s eyes flicked up just in time to see the impact.

Emcotton was everything she’d hoped.

The shot hit low and to the side, piercing the front quarter of the hull before exploding. It had covered the vast distance between hear heartbeats, such that she could only tell where it struck by tracking the violent eruption of boards and splinters, columns of spray spattering the water for dozens of yards.

The sound of the detonation reached her an instant later. If blackpowder explosions were a bassy, rolling roar, the bursting of emcotton was the earsplitting crack of lightning striking an arm’s length away. There was no ball of flame or smoke. Just invisible shrapnel and an unbridled wave of force, powerful enough to be felt in her chest from a thousand feet away.

If the gun captain had been angry that he missed his target, he didn’t have long to suffer the emotion. Just as Vazere was about to call for a second shot, the enemy’s mast began to shudder. For a moment it seemed the structure had been weakened enough that the force of the sail was enough to tear it off at the base, but that quickly proved an illusion.

The entire ship was dipping forward.

“Good gods!” Someone cried. “They’re sinking!”

They were right. The bow of the cog was drooping further and further with every passing second. In the span of half a minute it was entirely underwater. The ship’s crew began leaping overboard, swimming for whatever floating planks had been scattered by the gunfire.

“Well,” First Lieutenant Yaren said drolly, “I don’t think we’ll be capturing any of their cargo.”

“No,” Captain Vazere agreed, pursing her lips. “No, it doesn’t seem we will be.” She raised her voice. “Make ready to capture survivors! I want them alive, and that includes the captain! If they’ve slaves aboard, we’ll hang the bastard properly!”

The cheer that raised in response to this order sounded different. More subdued. None of the Backpay’s crew had expected a single shot to sink an entire ship. They were all sailors. There was a sympathy to the plight of a sinking vessel that none could fully suppress.

“Captain! The second ship is hauling down her sails!”

Captain Vazere peered closely, watching the enemy crew work. Sure enough, their sails were disappearing. The flag of parley remained flying from their mast, but there was no clearer sign of surrender than abandoning any attempt of escape.

“Ready the ship’s boat,” Vazere ordered. “Have them pick up the Sporatons in the water and bring them aboard, then prepare to ferry marines aboard the enemy ship. I want them to go aboard bayonet-first, and they’ll search it from stem to stern. If there’s even a trace of a trap, I won’t have the Backpay be caught in it.”

“And the Backpay, Cap’n?” Yaren asked.

“Reef the sails and maintain station at four hundred yards from the enemy cog, bow first. That should be far enough to be out of spellshot.”

“Not broadside-on, ma’am?”

“No. The carronades won’t reach, and if they have some trick up their sleeves, I won’t give them a better target. And besides,” she pointed to the last remnants of the first cog. “Now that we have emcotton shells, the bow guns are more than enough.”

“That they are.”

The recovery of the enemy crew proceeded slowly. The ship’s boat was propelled only by oars, and several of the Sporaton crew were less than eager to be picked up by their pursuers. Others had been terribly injured by shrapnel, requiring a lift to be rigged to lift them aboard. The ship’s surgeon began work on these individuals immediately, doing their best to suture the worst of the wounds. That was a minor miracle for the Sporatons, as no ship so small, even a military vessel, would have been afforded a precious healer.

Eventually, after her marines had confirmed there was nothing suspicious aboard the Sporaton ship, Captain Vazere boarded it personally. The captain greeted her with an admirable attempt at civility, though she could feel hostility simmering beneath.

It was only during this process that Captain Vazere began to realize the depth of her error. Not only was there no evidence of Sporaton sabotagers aboard, it was clear that her foreign opposite knew more about the powder mill detonation than even she did. He had been trading with islands further to the south, where the news had reached him a day before, and he had only turned east to avoid Tulian territorial waters out of caution. He carried no slaves, yet suspected that Tulian military vessels would not be kind to any Sporaton vessel in their waters, regardless of legality. A prescient concern.

And now I’ve attacked two Sporaton vessels in the Deep Waters, sinking one, capturing another. And if he and his crew are to be believed, there has been no declaration of war, pending an investigation of the explosion’s cause.

Captain Vazere felt her gut begin to twist as afternoon turned into evening. Eventually, as the Sporaton logs were pored over and the peasant crewmembers interviewed, it became more and more clear that there was no intentional fiction. They really were simple trading vessels.

Captain Vazere was then faced with an awful choice. She could place a prize crew aboard the Sporaton cog and sail it into Tulian, as she’d first intended. If the Sporaton crew never reached their homeland, theoretically, none would be the wiser. Perhaps Tulian had even declared war since either captain last heard news; that was her best hope, as it meant no one would think a thing of her capturing a Sporaton trading vessel.

But that would also mean committing yet another crime. Piracy, in effect. The assault and theft of an innocent crew and their vessel. Not only was it against every Naval Accord recognized by civilized peoples, it was expressly illegal in Tulian. Under the harshest interpretations of the law, she could be hanged for murder– a punishment reserved only for members of the city guard and military found to have abused their authority.

In the end, she had no choice but to transfer the surviving crew of the first cog to the second, authorizing her surgeon to use as many of the emergency supplies as was necessary to keep them alive. Further, she penned a special writ for the Sporaton captain, explaining his circumstances to any other Tulian vessel he might encounter, and instructed him on which flags to fly should he be chased by another patrolling vessel.

She did not do all this for free, however. Captain Vazere was no politician, but she had a decided interest in keeping her neck intact. In return for her surgeon’s aid and a transfer of the Backpay’s remaining stock of healing potions, she convinced the Sporaton captain to write a record of her good conduct. It said, in effect, that the “accident” had been precipitated by suspicious behavior on behalf of the Sporaton vessels, that Vazere thus had little blame, and, once the confusion had been rectified, acquitted herself honorably in all ways.

It was… not quite the truth. She didn’t know how much of it might be contradicted by her own crew’s accounts, but she wasn’t going to coach them through lying on her behalf. Tulian had not yet seen a military trial of such caliber conducted, but everyone assumed the Governess herself, being the head of the military, would preside as judge. Captain Vazere was not arrogant enough to think she could lie to the Champion of Amarat.

Instead, she prayed to the Governess’ patron deity. Not for exoneration, of course. What had been done was done. No.

She prayed that the war had already begun in her absence.

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!