A Perverted Path to Victory

Anaka

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Anaka took a deep breath, taking care to pinch her quill with the lightest of grips as she dipped it into the inkwell. At times like this, it was difficult to control herself, but she was determined to not lose her focus once more. She had lived a life of lustful sin, and this was to simply be another page in her life’s story. With a carefully controlled inhale, she pressed nib to parchment.

Addressed to one Sara Brown, for the Eyes of her and her Wives only,

Anaka licked her lips, hesitating. This one was at least a good, proper introduction. She had thrown three other letters away already. The first because she had accidentally referred to Sara as a Chosen, against the explicit instructions she had given regarding her preferred form of address, and the second because she had addressed it exclusively to Sara, only to realize that the woman’s wives would almost certainly handle much of her correspondence, and it would be rude to exclude them. The third failure could be accounted for by a certain sort of… distraction.

It is with great pleasure and considerable humility that I write you. The time you spent in my establishment already seems like it was a lifetime ago.

Anaka bit her lip, considering. Was that too much? It shouldn’t be. She had written similar letters before, and never thought much of it. Saying that a pleasant evening had taken place too long ago was a simple thing to say, an easy flattery. Yet she felt uneasy writing it this time. Perhaps because there was more truth in the claim than there ever had been before.

I understand that the army to which you are attached shall be departing tomorrow morning. Unfortunately, this was only made apparent to me only today. Had I known of your departure earlier, I would most certainly have contacted you at an earlier, more convenient time.

She swallowed, eyelashes fluttering. Images of “contacting” Sara Brown danced involuntarily behind her eyelids. The woman’s touch on her skin, the gentle press of weight on her trembling body. Her legs shifted, thighs sliding against one another as her dress began to tent. With all the will she could muster, Anaka pressed onward.

I, as of yet, have not publicized the fact that you visited my business. To treat such a wonderful night as nothing more than a mercantile transaction feels injust, and I could not stomach the thought.

Anaka giggled quietly. “Wonderful night.” What an inadequate word. It had been exquisite. Fulfilling. Depraved. Perhaps it had even been damaging. The healers claimed it had been.

She did not care what they said.

Knowing well the trials of travel on the road, I seek only to give thanks for your presence by inviting back you and any you see fit to bring. I know that at least one of your lovers, of which I feel certain you must have many, could not attend, which strikes me as a tragedy. I would gladly allow them to sample all the delights at my disposal, free of charge. It would be my honor, truly.

She giggled again, slightly louder. What a strange lie to be making. Anaka couldn’t care less who Sara brought. She wanted the Chosen. She needed her. Ever since she had awoken in the Temple of Emotion, her cock and her pussy had tortured her by alternating their pulsing need. She ached with desire constantly, and had found no true satisfaction no matter how many times she reached climax. This arousal was coupled with an inhuman, impossible stamina, for which she (and her career) was certainly grateful, but the constant lack of satisfaction had proven to be its own beautiful agony. She knew, deep in her bones, that there was only one woman capable of sating her body’s demands.

I will be sending this letter with the fastest courier in the city, knowing that you are doubtlessly pressed for time. Feel no need to proffer a response; whatever is occuring at my establishment at the time of your arrival, I will certainly postpone it in your favor. Take no concern for interrupting the efforts of my employees, as well. Rest assured that those who sampled your services are more than willing to set aside their duties in order to honor your presence.

Anaka shivered. Her cock was as stiff as it had ever been, its tip wetting her skirt with stains nearly as dark as that which coated her panties. She still struggled to imagine what depraved acts had been committed to create the scene she had been greeted with in the brothel’s lobby. Though she returned from the healers some twelve hours after Sara’s departure, she’d found a dozen of her employees laid out on the floor, furniture, and rugs of the room, dazed eyes wandering in an exhausted bliss. Women had been resting with hands cupping their pussies, trying to keep the Chosen’s cum within them for as long as possible, while the men occasionally woke to grind their cocks against whatever surface was closest. Even those who firmly cared for the boundaries of man and woman had abandoned the notion, hedonistically seeking the touch of whatever warm flesh was nearest. What she would have given to see those events in person. As she kept writing, Anaka couldn’t stop herself from sliding forward in her chair, rubbing her rigid cock against the table’s edge.

I understand if you cannot attend my business due to unavoidable commitments, of course. But please know that you are welcome to peruse my

Anaka’s quill froze. She had been a stroke away from writing “you are free to peruse myself.” Not only was it debasing and pathetically desperate, it was nonsensical. What would it mean to peruse an individual? Was Anaka offering to have her body put on display like some merchant of rugs, offering herself up to the Chosen’s clinically roving hands? To have her body inspected like a piece of furniture, her stomach prodded, her breasts cupped and squeezed, her hair stroked and pried apart and her mouth forced open so she could look inside, all while the Chosen maintained an idle conversation with some disinterested merchant regarding the merits of Anaka’s flesh?

The quill in her hand quivered. She was panting heavily. Her body ached with a need for release. Until that fateful evening, even with all her years lost in the throes of another’s passion, she had never known what it was like to be truly aroused. To be at the utmost mercy of her baser instincts, kept quivering on the edge of a mindless, animalistic need. To be taken again and again, used until her exhausted body had not only had its fill, but finally lacked the energy to muster her burning desire once more.

With a low, shaking breath, Anaka set her quill down. She couldn’t focus. She needed to finish the letter, but she couldn’t focus. Self-pleasure was even less of a salve for her stinging arousal than the services of a partner, but it was still a salve.

You promised yourself you would wait until you finished the letter, she whispered to herself. Are you really this pathetic? This needy? The healers are right. You shouldn’t have left so soon.

Anaka ignored her better self. The feeling of her dress brushing against her cock was a more beautiful torture than any she’d known before the Chosen. Slowly, looking down through the valley of her heaving chest, she wrapped her hands around the thick shaft.

Anaka groaned. She couldn’t help the noise, and she didn’t want to. Even the moan squeezing itself from her throat felt amazing.

The Chosen never used my throat, she whined. Oh, gods, how can I convince her to? I’ll beg. I’ll do anything.

One of Anaka’s hands began to pump her cock, the other sliding to her throat. She imagined the bulge that would form there when the Chosen began to use her. She closed her hand tight, tighter, enough to turn her moans to whiny rasps, leaving her dizzy.

She had wanted to suck cock before. She was a whore. It was what she did. But never before had she been so consumed by the thought of choking on cock. Never before had she fantasized about the pleasure she would get from having her throat fucked, instead of her partner’s pleasure. The Chosen would feel so, so amazing. She had Skills like Anaka, did she not? To bring physical delights to the area of the body where there should be none? What would it be like to have her throat given that treatment?

Her hips rose uncontrollably off her chair, slapping against her curled palm. She could not help it. After what Sara Brown had done to her, it seemed the barest graze of wind had become better than the most talented of her old lovers. The healers saw this in her, recognized the signs, and they’d offered to take it from her. They didn’t understand. When all she needed to drift on untold bliss was the touch of a lover’s hand, why would she ever ruin it? What Anaka had received was a gift. They claimed she was addicted, and maybe she was, but what they could not believe was that there was no end to it, no weakening of the effects, none of the things that made addiction so dangerous. She now drew her utmost pleasure not from selfish wants, but from pleasuring others. An honest, angelic duty. She knew, deep in her soul, that a hundred years would not dull this joy she felt from her body. She would not chase this pleasure into deeper and darker catacombs, seeking something to replicate the half-forgotten wonders of her first experience, as she had seen happen to so many unfortunate souls. This was different. The greatest heights of pleasure could be reached with nothing more than the kind touch of a willing partner.

Her lower half could take it no more. She twisted in her chair, sliding urgently forward, still pumping her cock all the while, and lifted her dress so that she could push her sodden pussy against the table’s leg.

She whined. Like a pathetic, needy dog. The pleasure of contact, even through her undergarments, had her arms losing strength, fuzzy bolts of lightning crackling through her body.

She began to hump the table. Her cock in one hand, her pussy against the leg, choking herself all the while. Sparks burst in her vision, dancing specters that decorated the ceiling with every strangled, ecstatic gasp. Unbidden, but not unwelcome, she began speaking to the fantasy which had her so enraptured.

“Goddess, goddess, please,” she moaned, barely above a whisper. “Oh gods, I need it. I need you. P-please.”

The heat between her legs began to rise. She began to curl in on herself, legs shaking, toes curling.

“C-come to me. T-take me. Use me as you please, Goddess. Anything, anything- oh!” She’d found the angle. She shoved against the table, grinding it against the spot where her clit abutted the base of her cock. “Oh. Oh, my gods. Puuuh… lease…”

Tears beaded her eyes. It hadn’t been a minute, but she was already at the weeping edge of climax. Rapture filled her, body and soul, as she envisioned her Goddess taking her.

It struck like lightning. Her already strained muscles first went taught, then dissolved into useless puddles. She twitched and shudder her way through her climax, wrapping her legs around the table, imagining that it was the divine form of the Chosen, while her dress was steadily ruined by spurt after spurt of cum. She should have quieted herself, should have bit her knuckle or choked herself even tighter, but the coordination to attempt any such thing had fled her entirely. She was at the mercy of her body, and she would have it no other way.

When her climax subsided, she sagged, resting her heaving chest against the desk. She had to lick her lips constantly to keep the drool from spilling out. It had been so wonderful. And thanks to Sara Brown, it always would be.

By the time she had recovered her wits, the arousal was already building again. It felt different, however. It wasn’t an ache, not anymore. In the throes of her self-driven ecstasy, she had discovered something.

What Sara Brown had given her truly was a gift. It was hers, forever. The woman herself was exquisite, a Goddess, and she was a kind and just Goddess. Even if the Chosen never graced her bed again, Anaka was better for it. She could enjoy life like no other could.

Anaka took up her pen, looking at what she had written. Taking a deep breath, she changed tacks.

But please know that you are welcome to peruse my collection of sexual aids. Many, I believe, are unique to my brothel, and cannot be found elsewhere. There is a great deal that I believe you can make use of, and it is only fair that you are allowed to take whichever you please. Crystal-set toys which hum and buzz, enchanted restraints which can never truly harm the limbs of those they embrace, and a great deal more. Whatever takes your fancy, it is yours to collect. I am confident in my belief that your services, rendered unto my staff and myself, have exposed us to techniques which will bring us riches enough to replace our entire stock.

Collect what is yours as and when you please, Sara Brown. If you would prefer, I can have them delivered to you however you so wish, and at any time in the future you prefer. I am also able to get you in contact with artificers of adequate discretion for you to commission your own works, if my collection is not appropriate for your desires.

However you wish me to show my gratitude, it is yours to ask.

-Faithfully yours, Anaka

She set the paper down, sighing in relief. It had taken hours to work her way through the various attempts to write the letter. The last section of her final draft had a distinct shakiness to her penmanship, the aftershocks of orgasm still rolling through her, but she suddenly found herself caring far less.

Quickly changing into unsoiled clothes– of which she noted she had very few left– Anaka hurried out of her office and into the street, moving to a courier building. She paid an extortionate sum to have the letter raced out to the Chosen, then returned to her business just as quickly.

When she slipped through the door, she found Veyoh waiting for her. The elven woman, the very best earner across Anaka’s entire brothel, stood with hands on her hips, a teasing smile on her face.

“You know,” she said, speaking with that sing-songy lilt every elf seemed to use, “your office isn’t as soundproof as you think it is.”

A bolt of fear shot straight through Anaka’s core. She didn’t know why; she was the owner of a brothel. Yet being caught calling a client “goddess” in her own fantasies was a step too far.

Thankfully, the pounding arousal was beginning to well up once more. It smothered her shame in reassuring lust, and, as if falling from a distant, higher place, a fully-formed idea landed in her head.

“I have a proposal for you, Veyoh.”

The elf blinked, pulling back. She’d clearly just come by for some light teasing. “Ma’am?”

“There’s no need to call me ma’am. You’re four times my age.”

“You’re still my employer.”

“Yes,” Anaka hummed. “Yes, I am. How would you feel about changing that?”

“...I don’t follow.”

“Don’t worry. It’s quite simple, I assure you. I believe that, after my recent… experiences… it might be best for someone else to take over the day-to-day operations of the business. You have worked here longer than I have been alive, Veyoh. Who better to take over my role?”

“That’s… um. Why?”

Anaka stopped hiding the dreamy smile. “Well, I’m a different woman, of course. And I have a duty to my employees, do I not? To provide them the most success I can muster. And after that night…” She licked her lips. “I believe my services are best used elsewhere. Outside of an office. Permanently.”

“Um.” Veyoh took a step forward, resting a hand on Anaka’s shoulder. It made her moan. “Okay. Okay, then.” Conflict was writ large across her face. A rare thing to see in elven features. “I, uh, guess I can try that, ma’am. For now. But you can always reconsider it later.”

“I won’t.”

Veyoh swallowed nervously. “Alright. Well, we’ll see about that. For now, it seems like you might need…” her eyes turned down. Anaka was leaking through her dress again. Veyoh sighed. “...some attention. I’ll see if we have any clients coming in. Do you have the keys to your office?”

“Here,” Anaka said, retrieving them from within her dress.

“Thank you. I’ll just go check the ledger and…” she looked Anaka up and down. “Are you, um, okay? To be left on your own for a little while?”

“I’d rather be left in the company of a great many people.”

Veyoh pinched the bridge of her nose. “Okay. Well, then, I guess follow me. I’m sure there’s someone that can-” she looked at Anaka, who stared blankly back. “-figure something out. ‘Cause you didn’t want the healer’s help, right?”

“No. No, of course not.”

Veyoh sighed. “Yeah. Of course not. Alright, well, let’s just see if we can… get you situated.” As the lithe elf began to make her way towards her new office, Anaka heard her muttering to herself. “...And here I thought it was human kids that were supposed to fuck up by getting pets when they’re too young. Gods, I’m going to have to use my family’s mages, aren’t I? My parents are going to kill me.”

Her arousal was building further, to the point that Anaka didn’t properly understand what the elf meant. She did, most decidedly, like the idea of being a pet.

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Sara Brown

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The fields surrounding Ta-Pet’s walls teemed with puffs of white smoke bursting from the black dots of roving soldiers. The smoke was driven this way and that by a light but ever-shifting breeze, creating oddly shaped swirls that decorated the mud-tamped grass. Seen from above, it looked like an ant hill picking apart and carrying away pieces of sugar.

Away from the many dispersed groups of soldiers, a black blob was forming up just within the city’s gates. The First Imperial Blackpowder Army had been relieved by garrison troops from nearby cities, freeing them to leave the suppression of Ta-Pet’s disloyal populace to a less valuable force. They were preparing to march, and had been all morning, but organizing tens of thousands of soldiers into neat infantry columns was an inordinately time-consuming process. Only two groups had been allowed to exit the city early: the Powdered Lead mercenary company, who were working on their drills, and select squadrons of Imperial skirmishers, who were working alongside their mercenary allies.

Sara, despite being the one who had set in motion the complex dance of marching soldiers, was thinking of how little others understood her limitations. Despite Evie’s efforts to train her for the role, she didn’t consider herself a proper commander, much less the vaunted “General of Tulian” that some of the legends were starting to describe her as. She could see how defeating an army led by Graf Urs in battle might lend some to imagining her as some Napoleonic genius, but the truth was much simpler.

She cheated.

The Powdered Lead were incessantly working through the drills that they’d begun as soon as the sun had crept over the forest canopy. Without the slightest effort on her part, Sara’s Blessings swept over the fields, taking in more information than she could ever need. Of the four hundred and eighty-four soldiers under her command, three hundred and seventy were currently engaged in rifle drills, thirty six were taking breaks for water, while the remainder were repeatedly loading and dry-firing the 12-pounder Napoleons. Second squadron was currently leading in the officer-profanity-per-minute ranks, with their sergeant averaging thirteen curses every every sixty seconds, while Squad Four was in last place, at a measly two insults per minute. Even when accounting for individual personalities and propensity for cursing, Sara knew Sergeant Pinyin was struggling to motivate their soldiers.

“Go help out second squadron,” Sara murmured to Evie. “They’re lagging behind on their accuracy qualifications. Keep an eye on Pinyin while you’re at it. I understand she’s frustrated, but I don’t like how little she’s praising her soldiers when they do manage to improve their performance. If they have no incentive to get better, they never will. Give me your opinion on her behavior, please.”

“Of course,” Evie said, dismissing her rapier.

They’d been drilling together at the center of the fields of organized chaos, Evie leading Sara through the advanced sword forms that she expected her to commit to rote memorization. Unlike her sense of military strategy, Sara felt confident in her skills with a sword. She had been interested in fighting even before she’d been dragged into this new life, and she took to the art of swordsmanship with a passion. Though she knew she’d ever equal Evie’s innate mastery of the blade, chasing the ideal was nearly as satisfying as actually achieving it.

Plus, it’s really nice to get my ass whooped by a hot girl.

With her practice partner sauntering away, however, Sara folded her sword, sheathing it. Taking a long drink from her canteen, she cast an eye over the fields.

The Powdered Lead were lined up squad by squad, individual soldiers aiming at stumps of wood roughly the size of a human being. Their Model 1862s were excellent, incredibly accurate rifle-muskets, but they were just tools. If the soldiers didn’t know how to use them properly, it wouldn’t matter if the guns were accurate to five hundred yards or five thousand. Everything depended on how well you aimed.

She and Evie had learned early on that blackpowder rifles, no matter how finely made, weren’t the equal of the modern weapons Sara had learned with on Earth. The (questionably legal) AR-15 she’d once owned fired its rounds at a whopping three thousand feet per second, more than triple the speed of the 1862. Not only that, its 5.56 ammunition was a smaller, highly aerodynamic round. At five hundred yards, aiming her AR-15 at someone’s head would put the round in their groin. With the Model 1862’s blackpowder-propelled, .58 caliber bullets? The bullet trajectory looked more like a catapult than it did a rifle. You had to aim so high that you couldn’t even see your target.

The advice being distributed to her troops to help rectify the weapon’s deficiencies was constantly washing over her. Much of it was something Sara had told them from the start, knowing what she did from her time at Michigan gun ranges, but a lot of it was now supplemented by the rifle manual her dad had the Tulian printing presses create. Though he’d hardly ever gone shooting, he’d read far more history books than Sara. He understood the intricacies of rifle muskets in ways she didn’t. The Powdered Lead soldiers were now training on exactly which part of their finger to place against the trigger, how to control their breathing, how to monitor their heartbeat and its effect on their rifle, and even how to watch the waving grass to account for wind. That last part was something Sara never would have thought mattered at the ranges of musket combat. She’d ignorantly thought wind was solely the concern of modern, high-performance sniper rifles. Yet the fat, slow bullets of the Model 1862 had proved more easily affected by not just the wind, but by every factor that could affect a shooter’s accuracy. It took incredible skill– itself acquired only by a constant expenditure of the expensive blackpowder necessary for training– to equal the abilities of weapons she once took for granted.

In some small way, Sara was almost grateful for the difficulty of musketry. It meant the Powdered Lead, benefitting from centuries of Earthly lessons only they had access to, could easily maintain their superiority.

For now, Sara pointedly reminded herself. The societies of this world weren’t stupid. They would catch up. Either with training, Classes, or enchantments, the gap could be closed. Evie had drilled that into her. Pride in her troops was one thing, but Sara couldn’t let herself grow complacent.

Speaking of which…

Sara turned her eye toward a certain section of the field. Part of the morning’s training was about better integrating the Powdered Lead and the Imperial Army. For the mercenaries, that meant learning from veteran Imperial skirmishers, men and women who had spent literal years on the field of battle. They were well-versed in harrassing enemy formations with shortbows and javelins, and knew exactly when to melt back to their own lines to avoid an enemy push. The mercenaries, in turn, were teaching the skirmishers how to best utilize their new firearms, affording them the precious opportunity to learn from the Powdered Lead’s instructors.

That wasn’t all of the integration efforts, however. The Powdered Lead’s Third Squadron, unlike their fellows, weren’t shooting at distant targets. They were aiming at one very close, very bright target:

A mage shield.

The elven mage Mayaran, the insufferable woman who had nearly had her shoulder crushed by Hurlish during the celebratory party on the eve of Ta-Pet’s capture, was on the field as well. She had a cadre of non-elven followers surrounding her, young nobles who made up the aspiring mages of Ta-Pet’s population. They were listening intently to her instructions as she shifted and shaped the mage shield to better weather Third Squadron’s rapid-fire volleys.

Though Sara was loath to admit it, the woman was doing a good job of it. She seemed to have stumbled across a similar strategy to Garen’s method of catching cannonballs, lessening the upper layer of her shield’s rigidity, using a soft surface to better catch the easily-deformed lead projectiles. Beneath the wall of absorbent material was another, denser layer, one more akin to the mage shields that Tulian cannonfire had smashed open so many times before. The few times a musketball penetrated the soft layer above, Mayaran explained to her pupils, the tough second layer was there to stop it cold.

It was a solid strategy, irritatingly enough. Third Squadron had fired four times as many rounds as any other squadron that morning, and they still hadn’t penetrated it. Sara still felt certain that a few well-timed shots from a pair of Napoleons would shatter the spell like glass, but that wasn’t what it was for. It was meant to stop musket fire, and in that role, it was proving maddeningly effective.

Maybe Hurlish is right, Sara thought. Musket-fired specialty rounds might have a place on the battlefield after all.

It was something to investigate. The rounds would be expensive as hell, but if they let her troops kill even a single Sporaton mage, they’d make their cost back tenfold.

As the Third Squadron’s fire began to slacken, their sergeant recognizing that no amount of further fire would penetrate Mayaran’s spell, Sara began to make her way over. She had to find some way to fill her time while Evie made her rounds with the troops.

“...though I doubt any of you will be capable of replicating it any time soon, of course,” Mayaran was saying to the flock of simpering mages. Their worshipful expressions nearly had Sara rolling her eyes. Remembering Evie’s endless begging for her to act polite to potential Imperial allies, Sara schooled her expression into something more appropriate for the occasion. She shifted into the bearing of an unerringly polite but unrefined commoner, carrying herself as gracefully as her supposed lack of formal upbringing could allow. It was exactly what most Imperials expected from a mythical Chosen, and anyone who got what they were expecting was that much easier to manipulate.

“Hello, Mayaran!” Sara called out, raising her hand in a polite greeting. “I see your spellcrafting work progresses well.”

“Chosen Sara,” Mayaran replied, dipping her head exactly as much as their relative stations required, and not a hair further. “I am finding it helpful indeed to have live weaponry to experiment with. Your troops are as capable as their reputation suggests.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Sara said, the lie slipping automatically from her lips. Their last conversation had ended poorly, but neither wanted to restart the argument. The exchanging of compliments was as socially necessary as it was dishonest. “I’m curious to test it for myself. With so much of my time spent developing firearms, my spellcasting abilities have gone sadly ignored.”

Some of the junior mages listening to the conversation seemed surprised to hear that Sara could cast spells. She couldn’t blame them; she didn’t have much use for them outside of battle, and even then, they were a last resort. All of her spells were powerful, flashy, exhausting displays. She didn’t use them unless she had to.

“You wish to learn of my spellcasting methodology?” Mayaran smiled a toothless grin. “I can certainly attempt to explain the fundamentals, but I’m afraid it takes considerable time to master the craft. Unless your nature as a Champion allows you to more easily cast spells…?”

Sara hit her with an equally mirthless smile. “Oh, no, I wasn’t talking about casting the spell for myself.” She reached up and over her back, grabbing the thick barrel of her personal gun. The shoulder-fired cannon was a comforting weight in her hands. “It seems to me that your spell excels in stopping large volumes of small-caliber fire. I can imagine you’re rather curious about how it might fare against something a little heavier?”

Mayaran regarded the weapon in Sara’s hands like it was a rotten rat carcass.

But you’re not gonna puss out now, are you? Sara thought, biting back a predatory glint. Not in front of all those noble magelings you were working so hard to impress.

“It will be an interesting experiment, I’m sure,” Mayaran said, her hesitation brief enough that only Sara could have caught it. “I have created separate shield spells for artillery, of course, but I hadn’t considered such an intermediate weapon.”

Maintaining bravado, but setting up an explanation for potential failure. She can think ahead, I’ll give her that much.

“Excellent,” Sara chirped happily, breaking open the barrel and pulling a massive paper-wrapped cartridge from her belt. Two pounds of lead slipped into the chamber, which closed with a satisfying click. “I assume you’ll want me to fire away from the center of the shield, so that any penetration doesn’t end poorly for you?”

“Of course,” Mayaran said, rolling up her robe’s sleeves. She glanced at the gaggle of magelings, adopting the air of a lecturer. “No battle mage should see sense in abandoning caution, no matter how confident you might be in your own success.”

She’s nervous, Sara noted. The first preemptive excuse for failure should’ve been enough. Does she really think I’m going to get through her shield in one shot?

She looked closer at Mayaran. Champion close. She analyzed the woman’s heartbeat, pore dilation, blinking frequency, and a dozen other metrics. The data that poured into Sara’s skull was inhuman in its depth, incomprehensible to anyone save Amarat’s Champion.

Not really nervous, Sara concluded, but something close to it. Seems like she doesn’t like taking risks, no matter how small. Bad habit for a soldier.

Sara turned and walked a solid distance away, far enough that she hopefully wouldn’t have to worry about any shrapnel bouncing back at her. She was only wearing her diplomat’s armor, without her blacksteel breastplate, and she didn’t want to end up with a sliver of lead through a lung. That wouldn’t achieve much for anyone.

“Ready?” She called.

Mayaran raised her hands. Drops of pale, ghostly energy began to gather around her hands, an otherworldly condensation which rolled up to concentrate at the tips of her fingers. She closed her eyes, muttering a few words.

The shield came into existence with a whumph of displaced air, a translucent wall of white. Seeing it from up close, Sara could see that the absolute thinnest layer of its skin, the very edge, was running like water. The wind was stirring small circles in it, creating a shifting, rippling pattern. It was, in its own way, rather beautiful.

Sara put her gun to her shoulder, snuggling her cheek against a well-worn wooden stock. She dug her feet into the mud, bracing for the recoil. She wasn’t aiming at the center of the shield; that was where Mayaran was. She aimed ten feet to the left of the woman, deliberately pointing the muzzle at the dirt. Even if the round penetrated the shield with enough force to bounce off the ground, there was nothing but the enchanted walls of Ta-Pet for it to end up striking.

“I am ready,” Mayaran announced.

Sara pulled the trigger.

Sara’s shoulder-cannon did not have the crack of a rifle. It had a deafening, thudding boom, as a two-pound steel-cored lead slug was launched out of a two foot barrel. Her shoulder felt like it had taken a mule kick, powerful enough that she was turned nearly forty degrees aside by the recoil, her heels twisting a trench in the mud.

The round hit the shield with a splash. Spellcrafted droplets sprayed the dirt like rain, evaporating with a hiss of steam. The lead projectile itself became a visible spray of molten sparks, slivers of glowing cherry exploding in every direction.

Didn’t get through.

“As you can see,” Mayaran began to lecture, “while a more energetic weapon creates a more spectacular reaction, the same, simple principles remain adequate for shock absorption, so long as–”

Sara finished loading her second round, throwing the gun to her shoulder in nearly the same instant she pulled the trigger.

Another boom, another spray of violently distributed shrapnel. The lead fragments were far brighter than hitting something like solid stone, Sara noted. Some interaction between the bullet and its target was producing more heat than was normal.

“General Sara!” Mayara called out from behind her shield. “I believe the demonstration has achieved its purpose.”

“How do you figure that?” Sara asked, clicking the breech shut on. The barrel was already burning-hot to the touch. “It’s not like I’d only ever fire one shot in battle.”

Before Mayaran could respond, the third round launched from Sara’s gun. This time, there wasn’t a single droplet of magical fluid flying through the air.

Sara had noticed it earlier. The elven mage’s spell, while impressive, didn’t have a truly liquid surface. It flowed more like mud than water. She didn’t know much about proper spellcasting technique, what with the way Amarat had helped Sara cheat her way to relevance, but she could figure a few things out for herself. Any amount of time required for a protective layer to reform was also a moment of vulnerability.

Sara couldn’t see her target anymore. The amount of blackpowder smoke poured out by her gun was only exceeded by thousand-pound artillery pieces. She was awash in the scent of sulfur.

Soil shook as she fired again.

Sara couldn’t see the effect on her target, but she knew it hadn’t been good for Mayaran. No quip, no retort. The mage was focusing.

And Sara was finally obscured by the smoke.

Heavy as they were, she normally carried only six rounds for her shoulder-cannon. Recently, she’d added a seventh. Sara reached into the hidden leather pouch kept beneath her shirt, flipping the cover off a gleaming lump of brass, dull lead protruding from its shining container. She slid it into the gun as quickly as she could, spending the briefest moment to align herself with the same place she’d shot three times before.

This is gonna fuckin hurt.

She pulled the trigger.

And woke up on the ground.

Two pounds of lead launched by a fist-sized bundle of primitive mill-ground blackpowder already had one hell of a kick. This? This was something else. Her dad had run the numbers for her on just how much more powerful this new round was, and from what she’d managed to decipher of his math, Sara thought she could take it. Four times the kinetic energy was a lot, but she was literally superhuman. It should be possible to deal with.

As she woke with a pounding ache in her head, gun laying in the mud beside her, Sara’s first coherent thought was simple:

Evie’s gonna kill me.

Guncotton, it turned out, did not fuck around.

She’d gone totally deaf, for starters. Couldn’t hear a damn thing, even with her Blessings. Her shoulder felt more fucked up than even a dislocation could explain, and a brief glance revealed why. The metal plate which had borne the brunt of the gun’s recoil had caved in, entirely immobilizing the joint. Blood seeped through the cracks.

Great. Now Hurlish is gonna kill me, too.

The smoke around her was fading. Sara had only moments to recover her wits. She felt sure she’d blown right through the shield, but she damn sure wasn’t going to let her incapacitation allow Mayaran to declare some kind of tie. She had to look the part of a victor.

Reaching over with her good hand, Sara activated her armor’s enchantments, turning the metal to putty. She lifted and tugged at the broken metal, doing her best to align the shattered pieces, then slapped a hasty Illusion over the less-than-perfect repair job. That done, she tried to stand, only to realize that she’d hit her head pretty hard on the way down. She was dizzy to the point of debilitating nausea. She quickly downed a healing potion, then snagged her helmet off her belt, propping it up behind her head like a pillow. She crossed her legs theatrically, arms folded for comfort, and waited for the smoke to dissipate.

The first sign of her hearing returning was the coughing of a number of noble brats, who were unaccustomed to the noxious fumes of burning blackpowder. After that, picked up through her Blessings alone, she was privy to Marayan’s growling frustration.

“That last round was not normal,” she insisted, presumably speaking to some confidant nearby. “I do not know what it was, but it was several multiples as powerful as her earlier gunshots. Damn General Borek’s orders; we must send agents into their camp to discover what she has created.”

With all the air of a royal reclining on their throne, Sara pulled a notebook from her pocket, taking her time to jot down a note for Evie to increase the guard around the guncotton storage. When the wind finished carrying away the smoke, Mayaran and her magical paparazzi were treated to the sight of Sara relaxed as could be, whiling away the time with a bit of journaling. She looked up only after they had a moment to gape at her, treating them to a proper, beaming smile.

“Well?” She asked. “Did I get through the shield?”

“Yes.” Mayaran said the word without emotion. “In the future, I believe the parameters of our tests should be communicated more clearly. Though no injury came of it, I was not anticipating you firing multiple rounds.”

“Well, I’m glad no one was hurt,” Sara said, folding her notebook to stand. “Now, there was another matter I was curious about.”

Mayaran grit her teeth, her polite facade on the verge of failing. “And that would be?”

“In the past, due to the shock and unfamiliarity of firearms, most any mage of the Tulian-Sporatos war was unable to prove a true challenge. You are different. You now understand more about the weaponry you face than any Sporaton mage.” Sara held up a hand, indicating the empty air off her shoulder. “I’m rather interested in how well someone like, say, my wife would fare against your spells.”

Appearing with the perfection of timing normally reserved for masterfully directed stageplays, Evie emerged from the press of Third Squadron spectators. Sara, who’d been tracking her path with her Blessings, had placed her palm to perfectly frame the woman, such that it looked like the feline was standing on her hand.

“She has received some measures of counter-mage-training,” Sara continued, “but due to regrettable circumstances, there have been precious little opportunities for her to practice against a proper practitioner of the arts. Seeing as you are a combat mage of elven blood, I can imagine no better test for her skills.”

“What is going on, dear?” Evie asked as she stepped up, pressing herself into Sara’s side.

“I’ve arranged a duel for you.”

There was no hesitation. Evie’s rapier flashed into her palm as she bared her fangs. “Excellent. Who?”

“Now, now,” Mayaran said, patting the air in a calming motion. “I understand, and perhaps even admire your tenacity, but mage’s duels are not the realm of those who lack Talavan’s Gift. I am confident of my victory, but there is much you must consider before accepting such a challenge. Though blades may easily be dulled or wrapped in enchantments, spells are a different matter entirely. The risk is considerable.”

Evie pushed herself off Sara’s side, frowning in disappointment. “So the duel is not to the death, then?”

The young mages visibly recoiled, whispering to one another. They’d certainly heard limited rumors regarding Evie Brown over the last few days, but having lived in Ta-Pet their entire lives, none of them knew much about her.

The rumors, they were learning, were not exaggerated.

“No,” Mayaran said, drawing the word out with a touch of discomfort. “No, I do not believe I believe it best I attempt to kill the wife of a Divine Chosen.”

Evie’s frown deepened. “Without death, what is the point of a duel? What slight of honor could be avenged by childish skirmishes?”

“It’s a training bout, Evie,” Sara explained, letting her amusement slip through. “Maybe I shouldn’t have called it a duel. This is just a test to see how you do against mages. It’s been pretty long since you had a chance to train, so I thought you’d appreciate the chance.”

“I do, of course,” Evie said, “but I question how worthwhile an endeavor this would be when so limited in scope. As Honored Elven Mayaran says, mages cannot dull their flames or lightning as I can my blade. It would be an unfair contest in my favor.”

To Sara, even without her Blessings, it was obvious what Evie meant by her comment. She’d been speaking literally. She was simply trying to work her way towards a more lethal contest out of interest in the fight itself. There was nothing more to it than that.

Well. She also relished the idea of killing a political figure overtly hostile to Sara’s interests. But that was besides the point.

Mayaran, on the other hand, had lived an entire human lifetime solely within the realms of courtly politics. She never once would have considered the thought that Evie was being genuine. Honesty simply wasn’t done. No, to the elven mage, Evie’s comments had been cold and calculated. The feline was insulting her spellcraft, making a presumptive assertion that Mayaran had no hope of victory unless she brought every weapon and spell at her disposal to the duel. A comment that was insulting enough at the best of times, for an elf to hear it from the mouth of a woman twenty-two years old was the gravest of insults.

Predictably, the mage’s hackles raised.

“I do not believe you need to concern yourself with that,” she snapped bitterly. “We have healers on standby, and any injuries you suffer will be quickly resolved. So long as I do not put a pillar of ice through your skull, the only consequence you suffer will be pain.”

“And I am to dull my blade in turn?”

Mayaran’s smile finally revealed teeth. “As I said. It does no good to suffer from bravado. Dull your blade if you please.”

“Of course.”

Evie’s tail began to flick with excitement as she drew her hand over her rapier, casting the shimmering glow of protective enchantments. Mage Mayaran straightened out her robes, tying back her voluminous hair. A large space began to clear out around them, everyone with an iota of sense recognizing that this “practice bout” would not be constrained to the regular perimeters of a dueling field.

Sara retreated to the ranks of Third Squadron, gratefully accepting a folding chair someone offered her. They began to break out ration packs, preparing snacks for the show.

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