A Perverted Path to Victory

Sara Brown

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For the first time since entering the Empire, the common soldiers of the Powdered Lead were finding themselves unimpressed with an Imperial city. The density of habitation had gradually decreased the further and further north they’d traveled within the Empire, sprawling spires of regional capitals shrinking by degrees until, at last, they’d reached Ta-Tomo. As the last formally-declared city of the Empire in the north-western region, it had the air of a forgotten, unwanted colonial charter.

Though its fifteen thousand citizens roughly equaled the population currently ensconced within Tulian proper, they were living in borderline squalid conditions. Their thin stone walls were barely fifteen feet tall, lined with well-worn and visibly bloodstained spikes, a snaking, rain-streaked defensive structure currently patrolled by local citizenry who wore more scar tissue than armor. Their pikes, each twenty feet long, bobbed higher than the city’s tallest building, a dour, grey-faced castle in the center of the city. Despite two centuries of war sprawling up and down the lands she’d traveled through, Ta-Tomo was the first place Sara had seen in the Empire that looked to have been built for defense.

It definitely hadn’t been built for luxury. That central defensive structure excluded, the city’s buildings were wooden-walled and thatch-roofed, rickety construction rarely venturing to dare an attempt at a third story. What would have been a slum in Ta-Pet was, in effect, the entire city of Ta-Tomo. Though Sara couldn’t see the roads behind the wall, she would have been shocked if they used cobblestone anywhere other than the city center. There, at least, Sara could admit some grudging approval. Unlike other Imperial cities, this place hadn’t yet outgrown its founding. Something not unlike a proper castle sprouted above the rest of the buildings, a wide-walled interior compound that seemed like it actually could, in times of danger, be a useful redoubt to a meaningful chunk of the city’s population. Not everyone of course, but if you packed the common citizens shoulder-to-shoulder within its bounds and sent every able-bodied soul to defend the Keep’s walls, it might just be possible. If she believed scouting reports passing throughout the army, the man-sized granite blocks which made up its outer walls had even been enchanted. Ta-Tomo was built to take a pounding.

Not from armies, however. As the First Imperial Blackpowder Army emerged from the forest road, flowering out into a threatening pincer that was rapidly surrounding the city, the people on the walls barely reacted. Their patrols shifted, true, but they shifted away from the army, as if trusting the invading force to defend the walls for them. More than anything, Sara guessed, the city guards were relieved to have some assistance in repelling jungle beasts. It was a dim day of misty rain. Some of the larger and braver monsters might risk a daylight assault.

If anyone was confused about the behavior of Ta-Tomo’s guards, they found their answer a mere half hour after the army’s emergence into the cleared field around the city. The gates were thrown wide open long before General Borek’s forces finished forming an assault formation, a glittering honor guard jogging forth under a brilliantly white flag, a fancifully painted rickshaw at their core bumping and jostling over the grass. The white flag could have been the enemy commander calling for a pre-battle parley, true, but General Borek’s soldiers outnumbered Ta-Tomo’s entire population by nearly four to one. Anyone with a shred of common sense knew the so-called enemy was preemptively surrendering.

It was what General Borek had anticipated, even if he hadn’t made it public knowledge. Ta-Tomo had traded hands more than a dozen times in living memory, each and every time without a fight. The people here were too exhausted by a hard frontier life to care which tyrant was scraping off the top of their Imperial taxes. General Borek had only wanted to give the army practice in taking up an offensive posture, an exercise that had the happy side effect of allowing Ta-Tomo’s current leadership to save some face. At least this way, when the city was inevitably recaptured, they’d be able to say to their latest masters that the “enemy” had been well-prepared to batter their way through whatever paltry defense they may have mustered.

The rickshaw and its honor guards were getting close to the Imperial contingent which had gone to meet it. Signal flags went up, calling for the army’s commanders to gather. With a sigh, Sara closed her spyglass and handed it to Evie, who quickly slipped it away to protect the precious Carrion artifact from the misty rain. She was wearing her old raincloak, the one Sara had bought for her in Hagos nearly two years ago. A simple hooded garment of gray cloth, its oversized hood could be flipped comfortably over her tall ears, its front pulled closed to hide her body behind a wide triangle of cloth.

“Guess I count as one of the commanders who has to go listen to this crap, huh?” Sara mused.

“I’m afraid so,” Evie confirmed. “Even mere mercenaries should be present for an enemy’s surrender. And we are no mere mercenaries.”

“Ugh.” Sara wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “Almost wish we were.”

“It would certainly simplify things, wouldn’t it?”

“Maybe.” Sara tugged a gauntlet on, giving her hands a testing squeeze. “If we really were just mercenaries, I probably wouldn’t have taken this job. Pays like shit.”

“Don’t know about that, ma’am,” the nearby Captain Ziffi said, loudly chewing on some sort of local gum. She drew a sparkling sword from its scabbard, grinning lopsidedly as she gave the enchanted blade a spin. “It’s still got its perks, that’s for damn sure. And I think it pays pretty well, too.”

The weapon, unsurprisingly, was an Imperial officer’s blade. Like many of the more exotic pieces of weaponry that decorated the Powdered Lead’s soldiers, it had been looted from some musketball-riddled corpse in the hours after a battle’s end. The opportunity to loot and plunder was one of the most common ways that mercenary commanders paid their soldiers, in this world and the old, and Sara, while initially opposed, had reluctantly ended up as no exception. Evie’s arguments for allowing the practice had been simple enough to be convincing: if they didn’t take it, their Imperial allies would. And they didn’t damn well need it.

Sara had, naturally, implemented a more egalitarian form of the whole practice. Being partially paid by looting corpses was a recipe for disaster, both ethical and practical. To avoid the incentivization of brutality, Sara had ordered all post-battle loot to be collected, organized, and then distributed via lottery. Some had grumbled about the inequity of it, watching someone walk off with the prize won by their own effort, but Sara had squashed that by dressing the problem in a different light. The unit that brought in the most valuable loot— enchanted equipment that was sent back to Tulian to help train new artificers— were given a small cash award, a ribbon award, and a point on a published leaderboard. It was Sara’s hope that the scheme would incentivize officers and soldiers who fought in favor of Tulian’s needs, not their personal wealth.

It was working so far, but Sara suspected that had more to do with her own influence than anything else. A mercenary commander who wasn’t the Champion of Amarat probably wouldn’t be able to maintain the scheme for long.

“How’s that treating you, by the way?” Sara asked of Captain Ziffi, nodding to the enchanted weapon. “You find out if it does anything fun?”

The woman shrugged, swiping the blade from left to right, leaving a small afterglow in its wake. “So far as I can tell, all it does is sparkle. Found the lad who grabbed it, and he said the girl he shot to get it wasn’t dressed very fancy. Probably all she could afford.” She swiped the blade again, smiling. “Still nice to have, I’ll say. Can’t wait to show it off in a tavern.”

“If you’re gonna be flashing an expensive toy like that, you better not get too drunk,” Sara warned with a grin. Then she dropped her helmet onto her head and tapped Evie’s shoulder with her knuckles. “Alright. You ready to listen to a bunch of cowards groveling for a couple hours?”

“Very,” she hummed. “A battle avoided is a battle won.”

Sara rolled her eyes. “One day I’m gonna have to use a collar to make you forget all those Graf quotes.”

“I doubt it,” Evie replied. They began to move forward at a jog, leaving the Powdered Lead behind. “That very well might be one of the few commands you might give me which would induce a shattered collar’s safety mechanisms.”

“Probably,” Sara sighed. She lifted her helmet’s visor, latching the heavy slab open so it wouldn’t slam shut while she jogged. “Maybe I’ll end up having heard all of them, though, so you won’t need to keep rattling them off at me.”

“For me to abandon the reminders would require you to fully understand and reliably follow Master Graf’s military tenets. Something I very much doubt will occur in the foreseeable future.”

“My Blessings give me a perfect memory for conversations, you know.”

“Then why do you so often fail to follow my advice?”

Sara laughed.

By the time she and Evie arrived at the white-flagged meeting, things had escalated. Isolated from the rest of the army, and thus Sara’s Blessings, it was Evie’s keen ears that caught wind of the shouted exclamations. Fortunately, the mere fact that Evie caught wind of the argument then activated Sara’s Blessings, allowing her to begin catching herself up on the argument.

“I should have you deposed for such idiocy,” General Borek growled. “For a visya to be ousted from their own home is unforgivable.”

“How can I be blamed for falling to a coup while I was readying the city for your occupation?” A whiny, wheezing voice replied. Sheltered within the rickshaw’s cloth cover was the visya of Ta-Tomo. A portly, elderly man, he’d spent so long sheltered within his fortress home that his skin was paler than Evie’s, a pallor that looked terribly sickly on what should have been a bark-skinned Imperial. The porter that had pulled his rickshaw was thickly muscled and tan, however, as were the visya’s escort soldiers, even if their armor was far less exquisite than most of his rank. Though wealthier than most, this geriatric visya was clearly a man of relatively poor means. “They took us by surprise! Traitors all!” He shook a trembling fist in performative anger, then let the weak limb fall limply to his lap. “They must surely understand the consequences of such disastrous resistance. To live on the frontier is to live with risk. It is a most profound insult that they think their petty beliefs are worth the devastation of battle on our home.”

General Borek was not interested in the visya’s feeble excuses, ignoring the elderly man’s self-serving saber-rattling. “These mutineers only control the Keep, you said? They have no influence within the city itself?”

“Yes.” He coughed wetly, scowling. “Unless more of the cowards are hiding amongst their more sensible fellows in the city itself, I suppose.”

“Unlikely,” Borek stated. “Fanatics are ill-suited for patient restraint. The loyalists will have gathered within the Keep.”

“As your wisdom says, Sir,” the visya agreed with a respectful nod. Sara’s Blessings told her that the man was neither honest nor lying with that statement: he simply didn’t care if Borek was right. As a career politician who was utterly devoid of principle, the only purpose of his every word was the appeasement of General Borek.

Sara and Evie arrived then, coming to a stomping, clanking stop. Her new armor’s weight meant that it carried enough momentum for every piece’s rattling to be an ear-splitting crash. She couldn’t have snuck up on a deaf man wearing the getup. They’d simply feel her footsteps shaking the ground as three hundred and fifty pounds of woman and steel struck the dirt with every footfall.

“General and Commander Brown,” Borek greeted, glancing their way. He waved to the visya with a scowl. “There has been a complication.”

“So I overheard,” Evie said with a flick of her ears, already providing a cover story for Sara’s Blessings. “I assume that you will want the Powdered Lead’s artillery to resolve the problem?”

To Sara’s mild surprise, the visya responded before General Borek could. With a wheeze that was trying to sound authoritative, his wrinkled face emerged from the shadow of his rickshaw.

“The center of Ta-Tomo is no mere decoration piece, barbarian girl! It is a true Keep, fortified and enchanted to reap a horrible toll on anything which dares to assault its walls!” He fell into a coughing fit, exhausted by the mere exertion of raising his voice. The other officers surrounding General Borek glanced nervously between Evie and the visya, expecting some kind of cruel response to the insult, but Evie seemed little more than silently bemused by the elderly man’s misplaced indignation.

“Enchanted?” Sara asked Borek. “How well?”

“Enough to have withstood a century of attacks from the jungle’s foulest beasts!” The visya piously declared. Then his eyes narrowed as he focused on Sara, looking her armor up and down. “A second barbarian in the Empire? Who are you, girl? What is that abomination you are wearing?”

Sara ignored the idiot as easily as Evie had, instead flashing a cocky grin at General Borek. “I’m pretty sure we’ve all been wanting to see how the cannons do against a properly enchanted wall. Do you want us to take the city for you?”

“The Keep is considerable.” General Borek pointed with his long, blacksteel-bladed glaive. “Its walls are some hundred feet tall at the apex, and unlike those of our more civilized cities, it hasn’t been modified for the inhabitant's comfort. It maintains its original utilitarian construction. The fortress could easily contain several hundred combatants. Though there will be few veterans amongst their number, they are not to be discounted. Many, if not all of them, will have wet their blade on the worst creatures our homeland’s frontier has to offer. The assault will not be trivial.”

Evie stepped primly forward, lifting the Carrion spyglass to inspect the keep. “My wife is perfectly capable of asking for reinforcements should they be needed.” The corner of her lip twitched as she suppressed a smile. “However,” she all but purred, “I find it unlikely the request will come. I am neither an artificer nor engineer, but I suspect an artillery barrage of a hundred and twenty pounds of shot striking a wooden gate every twenty seconds will prove more than a match for its enchantment.”

“If it can be leveraged, yes, but the streets of Ta-Tomo are not nearly wide enough for such a bombardment,” General Borek said. “I doubt there is enough room for even three of your Napoleons to assume a firing position within sight of the Keep.”

Sara glanced behind their little trio, back to the Powdered Lead. Having noticed the delay in the surrender negotiations, the artillery officers had already begun unlimbering the guns and pointing them toward the city. Sara grinned.

“Who said anything about rolling them into the city? It’s not even a mile away.”

General Borek raised an eyebrow. “You have such faith in your soldier’s accuracy?”

Sara appraised the ramshackle city with a gleam in her eye. “I think they’re pretty good, even if they’re not perfect. But honestly, General, do you see anything out there you’d care about losing if a few shots go wild?”

The small crowd of advisors shifted nervously at that, trading glances. The 12-pounder Napoleons of the Powdered Lead had gained a reputation amongst the Imperials, though few agreed on their nature. Some viewed them as brutal, horrible weapons, just barely effective enough that they were worth the sinful dishonor of their barbarity. Others thought they were elegant, precise machines, the golden solution to an endless war filled with endless sieges. No matter where one fell on that axis, however, all knew that the Chosen of Emotion viewed them as a scalpel, not a bludgeon. Sara had made it painfully clear that she wouldn’t blindly bombard homes and infrastructure.

With a raised eyebrow, General Borek voiced the question his attendants were thinking. “I would have thought you cared more for the safety of the citizens than that, General Brown.”

Evie snorted indelicately. “Of course she does. Yet, while the Powdered Lead may prefer to avoid civilian casualties in all possible circumstances, my wife is more than capable of recognizing the practical realities of a situation. In this instance, if any of the city’s non-combatants see fit to remain in the shadow of a castle that is suffering the withering iron rain we intend to pour down upon it, their idiocy meant they were not long for the world in any case.”

The attendants absorbed that in silence, with some looking to Sara for confirmation. She shrugged. “She got me pegged pretty good, I’d say.”

“Which is strange, as that is normally Hurlish’s role,” Evie added, her tail swatting Sara’s side.

None of the meeting’s attendees caught the addendum’s double meaning. After hearing the conversation, it was the visya who spoke next, a deep frown creasing his withered face.

“I do hope you are not speaking of destroying my home, barbarian. I have surrendered the city honorably, as was demanded of me.”

Responding for her, General Borek did not bother to suppress his contemptuous sneer.

“If you wished to preserve the sanctity of your home, you would have been better served by weeding out the disloyal and ignorant amongst your retinue than by pleading with a conquering army. Our forces will soon be marching beyond civilized lands, and your Keep contains the supplies we must requisition for the journey. If you waste my time with further sniveling objections, I will have you replaced.”

The paper-skinned visya, staring up at the gleaming armor and black blade of an Imperial general, wisely shrunk back into his rickshaw. His only response was a defeated silence.

“Well? What do you think?” Sara asked, bouncing eagerly from foot to foot as she rolled the aches out of her neck. “You gonna give us the chance to see how cannons do against some proper magical defenses?”

The general’s vanara tail came up to stroke his chin, both hands holding his glaive as he squinted at the Keep. Several of his advisors and the army’s officers began to speak up, most supporting Sara’s plan, with a scarce few objecting on the grounds that a more traditional assault would be more than adequate, and likely require less time, though it was obvious the casualties would be greater.

General Borek didn’t take long to make his decision.

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“Citizens of Ta-Tomo! This is General Sara Brown of the Powdered Lead!” Her voice tore through the air, piercing the mist as it rolled across the dismal city. “We have no intention of harming you or yours! Our fight is with the traitors who have occupied the very heart of your home! If you wish to survive the following battle, flee for the shelter of the outer walls! The Keep will soon suffer the wrath of our guns, and we cannot guarantee the safety of those who stand near it! You have five minutes until our attack begins!”

The final syllables of her announcement echoed into the distance, a rolling thunder that befit the gloomy weather. Though her Blessings didn’t let her hear into the city, Evie already had the spyglass to her eye. After a moment of inspection, she nodded in satisfaction.

“We do still terribly need a replica of your father’s timekeeping piece,” she said, slipping the telescope beneath her rain cloak. “Not only am I constantly envious of his ability to plan events down to the minute or second, I found his arguments for its military importance rather convincing. The ability for disparate forces to coordinate the onset of an assault without a need for communication would be an excellent tool for our operations.”

“I’m sure you’ll have one soon enough,” Sara assured her wife, grunting with effort as she helped the cannoneers roll their artillery into place. “It’s been a few months since he sent the designs off to get made. First batch probably isn’t far from Tulian, I’d bet.”

“I still wish we had not allowed untrusted individuals to view its workings. I believe you have both underestimated how much of a technological marvel its function is.”

“Yeah, well,” Sara paused to throw her back into rolling the Napoleon’s muzzle to the right, aiming it at the city. When the cannoneer looking down the length of the barrel gave her a thumb’s up, she straightened, wiping sweat from her brow. “If you know any clockmakers that you do consider trustworthy, we’ll have them make ‘em. Until then, I think we’re gonna have to settle for letting people figure out how to make their own knockoff Rolexes.”

Evie pursed her lips, but didn’t argue. It wasn’t as if Tulian’s middling industrial base could replicate everything that she and her dad were capable of sketching up designs of. As far as technological secrets went, her dad’s wristwatch was a far cry from the highest priority.

She stepped back to inspect the artillery line. Each piece’s ten-strong crews were eagerly getting their pieces ready, buzzing with excitement. Despite cannons being best known as siege weapons on earth, no one in this world had yet tested blackpowder artillery against bonafide enchanted stonework. Though they didn’t dare voice the sentiment for fear of jinxing it, Sara could tell that many of the artillery crews considered this Imperial Keep a testing ground for how their weapons would fare against the much-feared Sporaton castles. Though the Keep was nowhere near the complexity of those distant northern fortifications, it was the next best thing, and there’d be plenty of lessons to be learned.

A tickling at her Blessings distracted Sara from her inspection. Cocking her head, she looked at Evie.

“Hurlish is coming this way. Mui and Tahn are with her, and the guards.”

“What? Why?” The hood of Evie’s cloak rustled as her ears flicked this way and that, her tail thumping nervously against the cloth.

“Dunno,” Sara said, turning to jab a thumb in the direction that they were approaching from. “They’re just talking about swords right now. Nothing important.”

Following Sara’s gesture, Evie darted away without a further word, paranoid concern, as usual, getting the better of her. Sara sighed, but let her go, pretending to focus on the Powdered Lead’s preparations as she focused on the steadily approaching conversation. Though Hurlish and Mui’s discussion of the relative merits of various swords continue for a few moments longer, it wasn’t long before Evie’s sharp voice cut in.

“What in the name of the gods are you doing here?” Evie demanded. “With Tahn in your arms? There is about to be an artillery barrage!”

“I finished these up,” Hurlish replied, lifting something to show Evie. When her Blessings were focused on a conversation out of her line of sight, Sara was only appraised of words and meaningful gestures, without being given true vision of the speakers. “And Tahn’s got his earmuffs. He’ll be fine.”

“What if one of the guns bursts?” Evie snapped testily, even as she fell in to walk beside Hurlish. “What if we receive some kind of spell counterattack?”

“If you were actually worried about that, you wouldn’t let Sara stand up near the guns,” Hurlish stated matter-of-factly. “And besides, I’m only going to be there for a minute.”

“Hmph.” Evie turned her attention to Mui. “And you, Sergeant? Have you been instructed to join us for another battle?”

“I haven’t been ordered to do so, but thought I should. With the chaos in camp since Sara’s return, I haven’t had a chance to speak with her.”

“Battles are hardly the time for idle conversation.”

“Oh, c’mon, Evie,” Hurlish bemoaned. “He’s fine. Didn’t you say he’s better in a fight than most of your soldiers, anyway?”

“I said that he was better with a spear than most any soldier of his Level,” Evie corrected. “But this battle will be fought with rifles and artillery.”

“Like you’re not gonna end up getting close and personal? It’ll be fine, Evie.”

“Hmph.” Evie turned her nose up and looked away, but didn’t argue. If Sara had to guess, Mui’s unfamiliarity with firearms wasn’t the real source of her irritation. Ever since her spat with the man in the jungle, which Sara had forced her to relay in full over crystal, Evie’s tendency to view Mui as being under her personal protection had reached new heights. For a woman who still didn’t so much as blink when cutting a person’s throat, Evie’s nasty protective streak was something else. Not only did Sara like Mui, Evie herself had started to respect him as well. That meant she wanted him nowhere near the battlefield. At least not until she could feel assured of his safety.

Sara didn’t need her Blessings to guess Mui’s motive in joining them. It had been several weeks since Evie had taken it upon herself to fuck everything up, if with admittedly good intentions, and it seemed like he was finally ready to talk about it. Unfortunately for them both, there’d been exactly no time for anything of the sort.

Though Sara had returned from the visit to Tulian two days earlier, she’d had no chance to give Mui more than a passing greeting as she’d bounced from meeting to meeting. After her stunt with Mayaran, the camp had been in a state of utter chaos, and accurate information on the cause was incredibly sparse for the common soldier. Mui still didn’t know what happened, but her eavesdropping Blessings told her that everyone at least knew something had happened in the upper echelons of the military. As far as Mui was likely to have figured out for himself, the well-known Lady Meang-Sok was dead, murdered in her own bed, and for some reason, this had prompted an investigation unlike anything most veterans had ever witnessed. Hundreds of the most experienced and loyal soldiers had combed the army from head to toe, searching through every nook and cranny of every tent, and they had all been sworn to secrecy on what, exactly, they were looking for. Mage Mayaran and several of her retinue had departed the army on the backs of griffons to find and ferry back experts of divination magic for the investigation— one of the many rumors that was actually true— and an announcement had been made that the nightly curfews were now rendered absolute. For the foreseeable future, being outside one’s tent in the deep hours of the night could possibly earn you a hanging.

What Mui had made of all that, Sara didn’t know. He’d been in the army for years, but he wasn’t the most politically savvy guy around. He knew Sara was involved, because of course she was, but she really doubted he’d guess she’d snuck into a fortified camp and killed someone with the sole motivation of fucking with Mayaran’s head. Particularly not when that act was mostly a revenge piece for Mayaran targeting him. He simply didn’t view himself as important enough to warrant such extreme action.

All that said, he still wasn’t here to discuss the ongoing political drama. Even before becoming a Champion, Sara would have known that the man was far more bothered by her Blessings and what they implied for him. Mui was a traditional man within an already traditional society. A romantic at heart, even. The idea that Sara simply enjoyed having sex with her friends was more foreign to him than the rifles and artillery she’d brought along with her. Someone of her status befriending and sleeping with him was unfathomable. There had to be an ulterior motive, and her Blessings creating an Imperial double-agent out of him was too compelling to ignore.

The trio of Sara’s friends and family finished approaching her, their green-cloaked bodyguards making a perimeter around them. Sara spent a moment longer inspecting the cannons before turning around, starting as if she’d been surprised by their arrival.

“Hey! What’re you doing here, Mui?”

He nodded politely at her. Too politely. Formal and stilted. Sara felt her gut squirm with guilt.

“I thought I should show up for the battle,” Mui said, waving to the cannons. “It seems to be my station as of late.”

“I guess it kinda is. You planning to fight or stay with the guns?”

“I was imagining that I would take whatever position you believe is best-”

Hurlish interrupted with a grunt, stepping forward. “Alright, I’m not waiting for y’all to pussy around about this.” With Tahn securely swaddled to her chest, she had both hands free to hold out a pair of gauntlets. “You two can figure out your weird crap after I’m done. I don’t have Tahn’s fancy earmuffs and those cannons are damned loud. Here ya go.”

“Oh shit, you finished them?” Sara asked.

“About an hour ago, yeah. Seeing as there’s gonna be a fight today after all, I figured I’d give you a chance to test ‘em out.”

A pair of pristine gauntlets dropped into the dinged and scraped gloves covering Sara’s hands. Her arms dropped a few inches, not expecting the weight, but she quickly adjusted, inspecting them with an eager eye.

For the most part, the shiningly new gauntlets were as brutally utilitarian as the rest of her armor. Though the harsh and ugly angles of her personal equipment were intended as a wearable slogan for Sara’s opinion on war, their angular simplicity had been a matter of practicality, too. Hurlish was a weaponsmith. Before meeting Sara, she’d never worked on a single piece of armor. Thick, angular pieces were easier to create, and they’d worked together to design Sara’s armor appropriately.

The gauntlets were similar. Rather than the parabolic sweep of fluted steel seen on a proper Knight’s armor, Sara’s new forearm coverings were thick, conical metal, with a visible crease where mighty hammer blows had forge-welded the material into a tapered cylinder. The portion that covered her forearms were joined to the gloves themselves in a similar manner, the wrist connecting to a flat plate of unpolished gray that protected the back of her hand. The fingers, individually articulated instead of the simpler mitten-style gloves Hurlish would have been forced to go with a year or so, possessed fewer movable joints than the half-dozen or so that a wealthy Sporaton Knight’s fingers would use.

There was something unique about them, however. Something that seemed to be totally unknown to any of the many peoples that Sara had met in her new life.

Across the gauntlet’s knuckles rose a thick ridge of blunt-faced steel. Half an inch thick and nearly as tall, Sara’s new gauntlets sported a brutalist set of brass knuckles.

“Oh, these are fucking sick,” she murmured, tugging one glove off to run her fingers over the knuckles. They were cool to the touch and completely immobile, solid as stone.

“Think they’ll work out?” Hurlish asked. Tahn yawned on her chest, prompting her to give the boy a few pats on the back. “They’re not gonna get in the way of anything I can think of, but you’re not exactly kind to your gear. We’ll have to see how well they hold up.”

“They’ll do great,” Sara said, flipping one of the gauntlets over and eagerly tugging it onto her hand. The leather that slipped over her palm was smooth and stiff, smelling of a fresh oiling. She tightened the gauntlet, then shook her other glove off, replacing it with the improved set. “How thick are these? Five millimeters again, right? Yeah. I’ll break my hands inside the glove before I screw the metal up on these, Hurlish.” Sara gave her fingers an experimental wiggle, watching the metal plates dance. She grinned up at her wife. “Thank you.”

“It’s what I’m here for,” Hurlish said with a shrug, though she smiled wide. “That’s about it for your new armor, I think. Guess that means I should start working on the next set.”

“You’ve got enough on your plate. We should work on something that’s not for me.”

Hurlish started to say something, but was interrupted by a Powdered Lead officer shouting their way.

“Ma’am! Five minutes are past!”

Hurlish winced and adjusted Tahn’s earmuffs.

“Begin firing!” Sara called back.

“All sections! Commence firing!”

Twenty-five pounds of blackpowder ignited in ten barrels, spitting dull iron into a cloud of shimmering smoke. The concussion rocked the skies and flattened the grass for a dozen yards in every direction, a pressure wave physically felt as it tore through Sara’s lungs. Tahn, even with his archmage-enchanted earmuffs deafening him to the blast, jumped in shock. The adorable little kid could still feel the air hitting him and smell the rolling smoke. Lifting his head from Hurlish’s chest and opening watery eyes, his shrill screams punctuated the rolling thunder of a ten-gun cannonade as he began to cry.

“I’m gonna head back!” Hurlish had to shout in order to be heard over their sudden deafness. “Tell me how the gauntlets did, alright?”

“Will do!”

As the cannons were rolled back into position and crews began to swab down the barrels, Sara turned her attention to Mui, jerking a thumb over her shoulder.

“Let’s get some distance so we can talk!”

“If you need to remain—” A hideously concussive series of booms, slightly less synchronous than the first, briefly drowned out his words. Wrinkling his snout at the sulfur scent, Mui tried again. “If you need to remain with the artillery, I wouldn’t want to interrupt!”

“Evie!” Sara pointed at the center of the formation, where a folding ladder had been deployed for the artillery commander to see over the artillery’s fogbank to inspect the cannon’s fall of shot. “Take command for a few minutes!”

“I am not a general!” She immediately protested. “You would know best how to handle the battle!”

“Fine! Just keep an eye on the guns for me and give them some orders if something unexpected comes up, alright?”

“If you insist!”

Evie stepped away, joining the artillery division’s commander on the high ladder. Mui walked with Sara a ways, heading upwind from the smoke-spitting cannons. Their shattering booms still hurt the ears from such a distance, but at least they could hold a conversation without screaming straight into each other’s ears.

“So,” Sara said between volleys, “what did you want to talk about?”

Mui drew himself up smartly, almost as if he were standing at attention. He had quite the collection of weapons on him. His standard-issue Imperial armor, the flowery emblem of a sergeant’s rank still proudly displayed on his shoulder, with both a spear and rifle sprouting up from his back. His officer’s sword was sitting snugly in its well-oiled scabbard, his hand resting on the pommel, a plain belt knife strapped beside it. He glanced toward the cannons with every volley, tracking the path of their iron projectiles before turning his attention back to her.

“Did you kill Lady Meang-Sok, Sara?”

She blinked.

“Shit.”

“Shit?”

“Yeah: Shit.” Sara tried to run a hand through her hair, only to stop when she remembered she had a helmet on. “My Blessings have got me too damn spoiled, apparently. I thought for sure that you were gonna ask me something totally different.”

His brow furrowed. “How could your Blessings have ‘spoiled’ you? Aren’t they merely a part of you?”

Sara made a so-so gesture with one hand. “I mean, I guess they are, but I can choose when to use ‘em. They’re good enough that I feel like a creep using them on my friends and stuff, so I try to avoid it. I thought I had you figured out, but apparently not.”

“I see.” Mui’s weight shifted from side to side. He glanced at the cannons as they fired again. “Well? Did you kill her?”

Sara snorted. “Yeah. Of course I did. Who else could’ve done it?”

“The rumors suggest it was her spurned lover.”

“I met Jan. He’s a nice guy, but he ran messages for a reason. Doesn’t have a mean bone in his body.” Which was probably why he was so easy for Meang-Sok to take advantage of, she cynically added, though she was careful not to speak the thought aloud.

“I see.” Mui took a breath through his nose, held it for a beat, then let it out through his mouth. “Sara. Why have you taken such an interest in me? From the very instant you made contact with my people, you demanded I in particular act as your Imperial liaison. You have worked hard to befriend me, and eventually, after much effort, you even bedded me. Now you have killed a noble, a Warrior of no small renown, and if I am not mistaken, you did so in retaliation for Mayaran’s choice to involve me in her schemes. Why?”

Rather deliberately, Sara didn’t respond with her first thoughts. She could have, because she was definitely confident in her reasoning, but that wasn’t the best way to handle it. She had to put the words in a frame that Mui would understand. More importantly, it had to be something he would believe.

Sure would be a lot easier if I let myself cheat with Blessings. Fuck you, morality.

“Because,” she began, only to pause as the echoes of another thunderous cannon volley faded, “I think you’re a good person, Mui. And professional soldiers, especially those that grew up fighting one of the dumbest fuckin’ wars I’ve ever heard of, are really, really not supposed to end up as good people. Somehow, you did. That got my interest. I wanted to see more, dig a little deeper, and every time I have, I keep turning up gold. You’re just a good guy, plain and simple. I like that about you. I’ve told you that before.”

Mui, for some reason, frowned. She watched his whiskers twitch as he chewed on her words, his focus elsewhere. After a minute or so of contemplation, he looked her in the eye.

“Evie said we were friends. She said it off-handedly, as if it was obvious, and yet before she said it, I would have struggled to think of a less applicable word. Friends do not serve in a foreign army, nor serve under their friend at the behest of a distant commander, and they most certainly do not sleep with one another.”

“Friends don’t.”

“Then you agree-”

“We’re good friends, though. I know that knowing what my throat feels like around your cock isn’t exactly the normal friendship experience for you, Mui, but if you ask me, it’s a pretty damn nice kind of friendship.”

Despite it all, Mui still managed to blush. His fur raised along his cheeks, tickling his whiskers, making them twitch like mad. He shook his head and rubbed his cheeks with both hands, smoothing his coat back down.

“That is…”

“You can’t say it doesn’t feel nice.”

“I did not say that,” he sighed tiredly. “But… Sara. Viewed from the outside, surely you see what it looks like from the outside. You created an Imperial sycophant, one whose new role had him working closely with the general of an entire army, and, as I’ve now learned, you are giving that sycophant an impossible rush towards the highest ranks of physical power. It is not the story of a friendship. It is the recipe for an assassin. An agent loyal only to you, one who will betray his people to destroy them from the inside out.”

Sara’s eyes rolled skyward in exasperation before she could stop herself. Huffing out a breath, she held up her new gauntlets to Mui, showing him their steel-studded knuckles.

“Mui. Look, man. I get it. You’re used to people being shitty. But do you really, honestly think that I need you to do that?” She held out a hand to her left, open palm facing upward, and spoke to the open air. “Ketch, hand me Mui’s belt knife.”

“Here you are,” a chipper voice rang out, the blade dropping into her hand. Ketch stepped back, grinning widely at Mui. “Hi, Mui. Haven’t talked in a while, have we?”

To his credit, unlike most people who saw Ketch emerge from nothing, Mui didn’t leap back with a startled yowl. Instead he snatched the dagger out of Sara’s hand, slamming it back into its sheath.

“I understand that you have powerful allies, but—”

“Oh, and his rifle, Ketch.”

An eye-aching blur twisted around Mui, a glint of steel flitting out to his shoulder. The leather strap of his Hot Rifle gave way as the blur appeared at Sara’s side, resolving itself into a smug-looking azarketi girl handing off a gun longer than she was tall.

“Thank you, Ketch,” Sara said as Mui swung an arm out, belatedly trying to catch the thief. As he recovered, Sara offered him the rifle.

“I get the point,” he snapped, jerking the rifle out of her hand. “But you can, apparently, share this Blessing with nearly anyone, no? Why would you not want more? Is that not why you gathered me into your… your harem?”

“I prefer to call it an open-relationship polycule.”

“I have no idea what those words mean.”

“I figured. But to be perfectly honest, Mui, do you really think that I need you to fuck over General Borek?” Sara pointed at the cannons just as they unleashed another hellish barrage. Three-quarters of a mile away, an enchanted gate that had once been thought nigh-invincible burst into miniscule splinters. “I don’t, Mui.” She pointed to Evie, whose gray raincoat was traipsing up and down the cannon line, the bulge of her rifle visible through the cloth. “If I decided I wanted the general dead right this instant, it wouldn’t take more than twenty minutes until his body was too mangled for any priest in the world to revive. Hell, have you seen Hurlish? The guns she makes?” Sara laughed. “You haven’t. Not really. Trust me, Mui, if I wanted the goddamned Adjutant dead, he’d be dead. I probably wouldn’t even have to do it myself. I’m a Chosen. Do you know how many letters are sitting on my desk in Tulian that are basically just important people begging to do favors for me? If I pulled every string I’ve been offered, I could drown an Imperial city in enough assassins that their target would be crushed by the crowds.”

She laughed again, a little sadly. “Mui, buddy, I respect you. Deeply, honestly, I do. I consider you a good friend, and hope you do, too. But if you’re not gonna believe that, I guess I’ve gotta remind you that you’re a soldier. Just a soldier. Chosen like me led millions of people like you.” She looked to the sky. “Amarat strike me down, the only reason I want you to actually get your boost in Levels is because I think it’d keep you safer in battle. Nothing else. No special plan, no convoluted plot, nothing like that. I just think you’re cool.”

As Sara invoked her patron goddess’s name, there was not, notably, a bolt of divine incinerating energy. Not even a lightning bolt to rumble dramatically through the skies, even though it was raining. Just the quiet strikes of raindrops against wet grass.

Mui, finally, sagged. Unable to shoulder his rifle after its strap had been cut by Ketch, he put it between his feet instead, grasping the barrel with two hands as he leaned tiredly forward.

“That is… not terribly reassuring, Sara.”

“I didn’t mean it to be. I was just being honest.”

He pursed his lips. “I can tell.”

They stood like that for a moment. Evie was heading Sara’s way, probably to report that the Keep’s gate had been broken down, but Sara didn’t go to her. She wanted to let Mui mull things over for as long as she could.

“Fine,” he eventually said, pushing himself up. “I understand. Just… friends, then?”

“Good friends,” Sara said, clapping him on the shoulder. “Right?”

“I suppose we are.” He sniffed, chuckling lowly. “If bedding one another is what you define as a good friendship.”

“Back where I’m from, it was called ‘friends with benefits’, actually. And…” she bumped his hip with her own, lips curling impishly. “If we’re good friends, does that mean we’re fuckin’ again?”

“Oh, by the gods, Sara,” he groaned.

“Because I’ve got some great ideas. You wanna see the new Blessing I got? I Leveled up last week.”

“I very much doubt that I do.”

“Wrong.” With a quick scan of her Blessings to ensure no one was paying too much attention to her, Sara triggered her freshly-upgraded Carnal Embrace, painting a picture in her mind for it to follow.

Warm tingles started at the base of her neck and trickled down her spine, which began to shift itself downward, flesh shifting and sliding inaudibly beneath her clothes. She went from staring down at Mui, to looking him in the eye, then to craning her neck back to look at him, all while she was still standing perfectly straight. A tail sprouted from her lower body in the same moment that fur burst through the pores of her skin like a field of grass, the gray and black spots of a leopard-patterned catfolk running across her entire body. Her face protruded forward like pinched potter’s clay, sharp fangs growing within a svelte, smirking muzzle. Finally, saving the best for last, a proud pair of cat’s ears popped out of her head, smushing uncomfortably against the top of her helmet. She pulled it off, letting them flick free, and smiled up at Mui, barbed tongue licking her chops.

“You…” He sputtered, eyes wide, looking at her from head to toe with wide eyes.

“I know, right?” Sara put her hands on her hips. “I saw how you looked at that tiny catfolk girl in the brothel. You like your girls small, don’t you?”

“This is…”

“Great, right?”

“I… but…” He finally shook his head, then looked at her again, with abruptly clearer eyes. Then he bellowed out a laugh. “Your armor does not fit you anymore!”

Sara crossed her arms with a huff. The loose collection of straps and metal that were now half-dangling off her new body, one a full foot shorter than her usual 5’10”, sounded like an avalanche of pots and pans.

“That’s not the point, Mui.”

“It looks like a child in her mother’s armor!”

“You call me a child again and I’m gonna take my top off and prove I’m not,” she warned.

“No, no, there’s no need!” He laughed, waving the idea away. “It’s just… the Chosen of Emotion is not supposed to look so small! Not in such large armor, at the very least!”

“Ugh.” Sara let her control of Carnal Embrace lapse, causing her body to begin reverting itself to its former size and shape. “You’re not gonna be saying that when I actually get my tits out looking like that, y’know.”

“I’m sure I won’t,” he agreed, still chuckling, “but if you wished to be seductive, doing so from within armor, particularly your armor, is as far from it as I can imagine.”

“Plenty of guys love a lady in uniform, Mui.” Sara finished reverting to her real body and dropped her helmet back on her head, face plate locked open. “Now let’s go see how many people Evie and I are gonna have to kill.” She shook out her sword arm, then let her hand fall onto the sword’s grip. “I’ve been doing way too much fuckin’ politics lately. I need to blow off some steam.”

Mui, understandably, did not seem to take that as an encouraging statement.

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