A Perverted Path to Victory

Evie Brown

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It was only natural that a family of soldiers spoke of grisly things. Or at least Evie liked to think so. She enjoyed not having to censor herself around Hurlish. She and Sara plied a bloody trade, and Hurlish gave them tools to serve that purpose. The way they were used often came up in conversation, and she’d never shied away from describing the details in which they were employed.

As she sprinted across the camp, each stride carrying her across a distance that would have needed five paces from lesser men, Evie found herself thinking of one conversation in particular.

They had been gutting an animal Hurlish had killed. A large, fat thing, with thick scales and long tusks, like the hellish crossbreed of a boar and a river crocodile. Hurlish had shot it as it had been nosing through the belly of a soldier it had gored near the camp perimeter, then brought it back to cook for the children. Evie had helped with one of Hurlish’s fileting knives, but had found its hide remarkably tough, requiring her to carve along the lines of its scales as she worked to get at the usable meat beneath. Sara had been going at its tusks with a hacksaw, determined to take them as a trophy.

Hurlish had walked over, lifted it out of their hands, stuck two fingers in its mouth, and pulled downward. The thing had come undone like poor stitching, the pale material that connected skin to muscle popping and tearing loudly. In a matter of moments Hurlish held its inverted skin in one of her hands, the stripped carcass dangling from the other. Setting it back on the table, she took those same two fingers to the tusk Sara had been sawing at, pinched, twisted, and after a sickening, squelching wrench, had handed Sara the glistening ivory, pulled straight off the jaw it had grown from. That done, Hurlish had grabbed its exposed spine and given it a wrist-flicking pop, jerking it from the meat like it had been simmering in a pot for hours. She hadn’t grunted, flexed, or even hesitated as she did so.

That was a strength unfathomable to Evie. She hadn’t seen its equal amongst Knights, Warriors, or even in the storybooks. Struck by curiosity, she’d asked Hurlish what it felt like to rip that creature in half, asked if she had any memory of what effort it might be compared to, from before she’d gained her strength.

Hurlish had cocked her head, giving it some thought, and said to Evie that tearing flesh wasn’t much different to brushing aside cobwebs. Not spiderwebs, she quickly clarified. Those had too much tension in them, able to resist being plucked apart, if only for the briefest of moments. No, Hurlish meant cobwebs of the kind found in the back of forgotten cabinets, little more than lines of dust stuck together in stringy clumps. To rip apart the beast’s muscle was like that, she’d said. There was, just barely, enough resistance to make her aware she was doing anything at all.

A green uniform caught Evie’s eye as she raced through the camp. She caught the man by the shoulders, using him to drag herself to a stop, nearly sending them both crashing to the ground. The private of the Powdered Lead cursed and swatted at her for a moment, hand going to the bayonet at his waist before he recognized her.

“Oh! Ma’am, I’m sorry—”

“Yourself and a healer to Hurlish’s forge at once!” Evie snapped. “Give the boy your potion and send a runner to General Sara, telling her to seek Keo’s father!”

She shoved the man away and took off running once more. The tents blurred past, every drop of misty rain stinging at her skin.

Hurlish wasn’t a soldier. Not an Irregular, a Warrior, or even a conscript. But she was strong. She was a weaponsmith with twice the Levels even the finest artisans of Sporatos had ever achieved, and her Skills were wrong for that. Only soldiers reached such heights in the span of a human lifetime, and they were afforded the opportunity because of the life-threatening risk that was an intractable part of their career. Even if Hurlish had lived for the centuries that ought to have been required for her to reach her current Level, the Skills she would have developed over that time would have been very different. She would have spent years learning each new ability, honing her talents, and the methodology she pursued would naturally bend toward new directions as a result. As the years went by, as she reached her fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth Levels, it would have required decades for her to advance to a new Level. Her Skills would thus develop with corresponding grace.

That wasn’t what happened. Thanks to Sara, she had been dragged up through the ranks at impossible speed. Her Skills hadn’t flowered into many petals, adopting the elegant beauty of the elven or vast diversity of the dwarves. No, their stagnant nature had instead shot up into monolithic towers. She had started with Skills that helped her strike iron with greater force, to allow her to better withstand the heat of the forge, and to resist accidental cuts and bruises, and they were still all she had, but they had been… warped. By the admission of Amarat herself, Hurlish was living proof that the gods couldn’t predict everything. Particularly when Champions were involved.

No, Hurlish wasn’t a soldier. She didn’t have Skills for combat. But she was strong. Stronger than she should be. Than anyone should be, really.

And she was very, very angry.

Like gossamer strands. Evie was panting. She’d covered most of a mile in the last minute. What would it be like, to hold a person’s life in your hands, knowing that paper had once been tougher to you than their skin was now?

She was amongst the army’s baggage train by then. She slowed, ears rising from their flat running position, and she almost immediately heard a commotion. She pushed off with one foot, sprinting toward it.

She saw Hurlish’s head rising over the tents. She leapt, clearing the obstacle, and landed in a muddy thoroughfare.

Keo’s father had not been lying. His late wife had been a popular officer. Even now, years after her death, the old squad she’d commanded had come to her husband’s defense. Fifteen or so, at a glance, and his wife had either been a good commander or very lucky in the troops assigned to her, because a good number of her old subordinates had proven talented enough to work their way up the ranks. Many wore the flowers of Sergeants or Warriors-to-be, singled out for further training. They stood in a line before Keo’s father, bristling angrily.

Evie had never bothered to remember the man’s name, she realized. She’d learned it at some point, surely, but she’d forgotten it quickly. She’d never thought it would matter. Now he was protected by fifteen soldiers and Hurlish was bearing down on him, footsteps splashing in the rain.

Like an utter fool, Keo’s father stepped out of the line, shoulders held square as he raised his voice.

“I don’t care who you’re laying with, blacksmith,” he declared, slurring drunkenly. Evie could see bruises on his knuckles. “The boy is mine to raise as I see fit. Every law of the Empire says it.”

Hurlish’s boots threw water as she walked up to him at a steady, stomping pace, head lowered like a bull. Evie started to rush forward, to summon her blade and interpose herself, but… why? What could she do? She could no more stop Hurlish than she could a landslide.

One of the soldiers tried to drag Keo’s father back, but he shrugged her off. That woman was wearing a Lieutenant’s flower, Evie noted. That was bad. This was all very, very bad. Keo’s father sneered up at Hurlish as the distance closed.

“If you touch me, they’ll have you ha—”

The calloused fingers of Hurlish’s left hand fell upon his shoulder. As if time had slowed to a crawl, Evie watched her wife’s right hand float up and backward, clenching into a fist at its apex. Too late, Keo’s father began to flinch.

The fall of Hurlish’s fist reminded Evie of the steam trains from Sara’s world. Massive and unstoppable, moving with uncanny, disturbing speed. Keo’s father had time to blink. Once.

From the collarbone up, he vanished. The space he’d occupied was replaced by thick green skin. Blood sprayed across the street, across the gathered soldiers, across the onlookers behind them, and small pieces of his skull went even further, one tooth bouncing up to soar further than Evie could track. The impact was loud, a grizzly crunch, and it was made louder by the absolute silence that fell over the space an instant later.

Hurlish dropped the desecrated corpse without ceremony.

With furious cries, every hell broke loose. The Lieutenant who’d been standing behind Keo’s father was the first to act, sword flying from its sheath as she threw herself forward. The man at her side lunged a fraction of a second later, aiming a spear for Hurlish’s gut, and he was joined by two more thrusts from the closest soldiers. Four blades flew toward Hurlish as one, and she didn’t have the speed or experience to dodge them.

She wouldn’t have bothered if she did.

The woman’s sword clanged as it collided with the side of Hurlish’s stomach, bouncing away as a dented, misshapen lump. One spearhead sliced through Hurlish’s shirt, hit her belly, and was deflected up and to the side with an audible scrape, haft appearing beneath her armpit. Two more hit her chest above and below her breasts, achieving similar results, cutting nothing more than the cloth of her clothes.

The swordswoman released her weapon with a curse, the reverberation of its deflection doubtlessly sending shooting pains up her arm. Before it could fall an inch, Hurlish snatched the woman’s sword by the blade and jerked it inward. It embedded itself into the Lieutenant's ribcage pommel-first, hilt piercing her chest to the crossguard. The woman dropped without a word, hitting the mud face-first, eyes still open.

The spear caught beneath Hurlish’s armpit shattered as she clenched her arm down on it. She grabbed the remaining portion of the haft and tugged. The man who’d tried to stab her wasn’t clever enough to drop the weapon, and his grip on it sent him flying into her swinging elbow. His torso crunched as the limb passed through his flesh, removing a foot-wide chunk from the right side of his upper body.

The fight began to move faster. The two other spearmen tried to flee, but Hurlish was already reaching for one. Her palm landed on the back of his head, stopping him cold. He opened his lips to scream, but couldn’t draw a breath before Hurlish squeezed, sending his skull spurting between her fingers like potter’s clay. The second made it a step further before Hurlish’s other hand grabbed him by the back of the neck, lifting him. He kicked and screamed, grabbing a dagger from his belt that he began fruitlessly slapping against her arm again and again, her skin turning it away without a scratch each time.

Hurlish hit his hips with an open-palmed slap. It sounded like a cannonball striking the flat face of a wall, and the force of it tore him in half, legs pirouetting through the air to land a dozen meters away. Hurlish dropped him like trash, stepping over the corpses she’d left to move closer to the rest of the soldiers, most of whom had frozen in terror.

That single step was all she took. She stopped there, unmoving save for her eyes, which ran over the soldiers. She wasn’t so much as breathing hard. The misty morning was silent. The front of her body was dripping blood, her forearms covered in entrails, fingernails thick with gore.

The rest of the soldiers fled.

A mere four dead was better than Evie had expected.

“Damn,” Evie breathed, jogging up to Hurlish’s side. “Damn, damn, damn. Do you have any idea what kind of mess this is going to cause?”

Hurlish grunted, shaking some of the blood off her hands.

As Evie summoned her handkerchief to offer it to Hurlish, a pitiable gurgling sputtered into the misty air. They both looked down to find the man who had been torn in half, his upper body laying at their feet. His guts were spilled out in steaming coils beneath his broken ribcage, flies already gathering and chewing hungrily at them, and yet his hands were lifting his torso upward, an expression of incomprehensible terror on his face as he stared at his own devastated body. Evie had heard of things like this, but she’d never seen it herself. He stammered, teeth chattering, and he looked at her, taking a breath as if to say something.

She’d never know what. Hurlish’s steel-toed boot swung through the man’s chest, spraying him across the street.

“No,” Hurlish said matter-of-factly. “No, I don’t know what kind of mess this is gonna cause. But when the first important person shows up to bitch at you, I’ll deal with it.”

“Dear,” Evie sighed.

“No.” Hurlish bent down, grabbing the headless body of Keo’s father. “No, that wasn’t something I was asking you to do. I’m telling you to do it. I’ll deal with it.”

Holding the corpse, Hurlish stomped up to a tent. She snatched the canvas aside and grabbed the central pole, lowering it like a lancer. The man’s heart popped sickeningly as Hurlish ran him through on the pole. She gave it a few shakes, testing that he was well and truly impaled, and then stabbed a belt knife into the wood just below his flesh, preventing the body from falling any further. With that done, she stabbed the pole into the ground, right in the middle of the walkway.

“What are you going to do when someone shows up?” Evie asked.

“Deal with it.”

Evie sighed again. Hurlish’s jaw was working, ivory tusks bobbing in front of her face. There might not have been effort in her murder of those soldiers, but there had been plenty of anger. That was the only reason she was breathing hard.

Evie expected Sara to be the first one to show up. Her Blessings had doubtlessly overheard Evie ordering the Powdered Lead private around, after all. But Sara wasn’t the first to show. Instead it was, of all people, General Borek.

He had an escort around him, of course. Several mages, two Warriors for bodyguards, and a pair of Imperial Colonels. He’d probably been inspecting the army before the day’s march, starting at the rear and making his way forward. Terrible luck.

As the gaggle of Imperial elites approached the source of the commotion, Evie saw reactions flicker across their faces. The depth of the carnage, the severity of it, caused even the most battle-scarred of them to blanche. One woman stepped over the pair of shattered legs that Hurlish had tossed aside, lip curled in disgust. A Warrior nearby reached down with the bayoneted tip of his rifle and tried to lift the set of legs, probably to inspect them, only for them to fall apart like gelatin. They had been so devastated by the impact force of Hurlish’s strike that the flesh slid off their bones in one large lump, moving with the consistency of butter. One of the mages spotted the Lieutenant’s corpse and moved quickly to it, inspecting the lightly enchanted armor. Evie had no idea of the armor’s quality. Decent, probably, but it hadn’t mattered when Hurlish had decided to put the wrong end of a sword through the steel. Though they tried to hide it beneath their robes, Evie saw the mage shiver.

Borek was the most impassive of all of them. As was befitting his status as a self-made Warrior-General, he’d seen the worst, done the worst. He looked Hurlish up and down, flat vanara nose wrinkling at the chunks of human meat still dripping from her. Evie, though reluctant, obediently stepped behind Hurlish, leaving her alone to face the general. Taking Evie’s cue, General Borek nodded to Hurlish.

“Are you injured?” He asked.

“No.”

“Was this an assassination attempt?”

“Yeah.” She sniffed, jutting her chin to the corpse on the tent pole. “Mine. It went well.”

“I see.” Borek used his tail to lift one of the spears that had fallen around Hurlish, turning it over. The last half-inch of the blade was folded over, like a shaving razor that had been run over by a cart. “And the dead soldiers here, they…?”

“Attacked me,” Hurlish finished. “Didn’t go well for them.”

Borek pursed his lips and put his hands behind his back, using his tail to hand the spear off to an attendant. “I see. Was this about the boy?”

Hurlish’s eyebrows raised. “You know about that?”

“The wife of a Chosen publicly threatened to kill an Imperial citizen that traveled with my army. Of course I was informed.” He waved vaguely in the direction of the army. “Even if I hadn’t been, he’d made a number of complaints to the camp guards demanding something be ‘done about’ you.” General Borek took a tired breath, drawing a line with the tip of his boot through the blood puddle he stood in, then looked back up at Hurlish. “And what, exactly, prompted this?”

“He hit his kid.”

“Corporal punishment, no matter how distasteful you find it, is not illegal within the Empire.”

“I told him I’d kill him if he hit his kid again. He hit his kid again. Don’t know what he expected to happen, but…” Hurlish shrugged, spreading her palms face-up. “Here we are.”

“Yes.” General Borek glanced toward the dead Lieutenant, frowning. “Here we are.”

The general’s entourage had spread around, inspecting the carnage much more closely now, their disgust turning to curiosity. Wounds like this should have only been the product of powerful spellcraft, or perhaps some horrid jungle monstrosity. She could see on their faces that they wanted to know how a single woman could do this. Evie anticipated that the mages were particularly fascinated. Rumor held that the source of Hurlish’s famed strength had been of interest to them for quite some time.

As each of the entourage saw the rank insignia of the dead Lieutenant, however, their gazes hardened. Lieutenants weren’t critical to the army, but they weren’t insignificant. They were invited to important meetings, were allowed to speak their mind to their superiors, and were even allowed some degree of improvisational initiative in battles, trusted to deviate from their original orders if they believed circumstances called for it. Most of General Borek’s entourage would have known the woman by face and name, though they likely hadn’t been close friends. Borek himself would certainly have known her, as he would have personally approved her promotion.

Borek drummed his fingers against his armored thigh as he considered the situation. Hurlish waited. Not patiently, but she waited.

“What are we going to do about this?” Borek eventually asked. “You’ve killed an Imperial citizen and several officers, one of whom was fairly important. Even by the old laws that the Adjutant has lately been replacing with egalitarian edicts, your relationship with Sara never made you formally immune to prosecution. This was too public. Dozens witnessed it, and they have doubtlessly spread word to hundreds. I can’t sweep this under the rug.”

“Sure you can.”

Borek’s lips tightened. “No. No, even I am not above the law, and there will be powerful factions demanding punishment. No matter how much I wish that I could, there is—”

Hurlish took a half-step forward, leaning down. One bloody palm landed on Borek’s armored shoulder with a clank that made the rest of his entourage jump. They turned toward the pair, disturbed, but Hurlish’s head was already level with Borek’s, her voice low and quiet as she growled out her words.

“That fuck on the pole there beat his kid half to death. I killed him for that. When the people whose guts we’re standing in tried to do something about that, I killed them, too.” Hurlish’s fingers tightened. “Are you gonna try to do something about it?”

He blinked at her, undisturbed. “Are you threatening me, Master Smith?”

“Yeah.”

“And you think you are a threat to me?” Borek didn’t make a move toward his weapons, but Evie recognized the shift in his demeanor. The way he settled his weight low, joints loosening, ready to move in an instant. “I have spent decades in this war. Neither of your wives have the faintest chance of killing me in open combat, and I feel certain they’ve told you as much. Why would you ever think I might fear you?”

“Because,” Hurlish’s lips spread in a toothy grin, “I’m not talking about killing you later. And I’ve already got a hold of you.”

Her fingers tightened yet further. The elaborate gilding of General Borek’s armor, so intricate that it seemed better fit for display than use in war, began to crinkle. Enchantments flared to life, fighting against Hurlish’s grip.

General Borek shifted. His knees turned, his arms clenched, and his lower jaw jutted out as he strained with effort. He didn’t move. The enchantments of his armor began to smoke, strange colors filling the air between his face and Hurlish’s. He strained further, his feet digging into the ground, sinking him deeper into the bloody mess, and still he went nowhere.

Evie knew that this was nowhere near the man’s full strength or speed. She’d seen that from him when he’d tried to escape Master Graf, clearing fifty paces at a speed so great she hadn’t even seen him as a blur. Yet Borek didn’t need to fully exert himself to recognize the strength of someone who was this far beyond his ability to handle. Borek was learning firsthand what Evie had a long time ago: Hurlish’s strength had no sense to it.

“Now,” Hurlish whispered, ignoring the mages and Warriors who were circling like vultures into ambush positions, “Sara tells me you’re a man of your word. I’m gonna ask you a question: are you fine with people beating kids to death in your army?”

“Of course not!” He hissed. To his credit, there was no fear on his face, and he seemed more offended by the insinuation he approved of child abuse than he did Hurlish’s original threat.

“Alright, good. Got another question: you think I did anything wrong by killing that bastard?”

“No!” He snapped, and Hurlish began to relax. Unfortunately, Borek continued. “But the law does not depend upon-”

Hurlish’s fingers cinched down, beginning to crumple the steel. Piercing beams of light began to emerge from the gilding like sunbeams through blinds, dazzling in their intensity, only to sputter and fade. Several of Borek’s escorts surged forward, determined to rescue him, but they were stopped by two things: the flash of Evie’s rapier being summoned, and General Borek raising a hand to halt them.

“Fine,” he spat out, a grimace of pain on his face. “I will not prosecute you for this. I will not cost my people a Chosen’s loyalty.”

“Good.”

All at once, Hurlish released him. Borek was immediately flung back by the force of his own muscles, landing ten meters away, one hand gripping his shoulder. A deep impression was left in the armor, Hurlish’s clenched palm pressed into the enchanted steel like it had been made of mud. His mages and colonels rushed toward him, the two Warriors forming a defensive line between Hurlish and their general. Evie wondered if they recognized the irony of their positioning. They had placed themselves almost perfectly in the footprints of the last set of soldiers to stand before Hurlish.

General Borek’s grimace did not disappear until he and his helpers unclasped the armor, lifting it over his head. Only then did he finally master his expression, smoothing it back into the professional nonchalance he so often wore as his chosen mask.

He turned the armor around in his hands, inspecting it. The enchantments around the dented portion were still flickering in fits and starts, the gilding-covered runes too damaged to function properly. He looked up at Hurlish then, calculations running behind his eyes. Evie tensed, expecting some kind of reprimand or furious outburst. Borek could kill Hurlish. She wasn’t invulnerable, and he was likely the most powerful Irregular Evie had seen since King Sporatos— Master Graf, as always, excluded.

Instead of erupting into violence, however, he relaxed. Borek slapped his belly and let out what sounded like for all the world a hearty, genuine laugh. Still laughing, he stepped back toward Hurlish, grinning widely.

“I’m glad we got that little misunderstanding sorted, Master Smith, but I must admit I’m rather sad my armor became a casualty. Your strength is remarkable!” He was speaking loudly now, a volume easily heard by everyone present. “Thankfully I’ve already had a fresh set recently commissioned, nearly completed, but still! I’ll miss this one. But what you did to it? Ha!” He bounced the dented armor in his hands, then held it out to her. “I’m curious. How much further damage could you have done?”

Hurlish blinked, bewildered, but took the armor in her hands. “Well,” she rumbled, “I coulda just ripped it in half.”

“Truly?”

“Nah,” one of the Warriors drawled, eyeing Hurlish with suspicion. “No way you could.”

Borek shot a glance at his bodyguard. “Don’t make bets you don’t know you’ll win, Bevoun.” He looked back to Hurlish. “Well? Care to prove him wrong?”

Hurlish may not have understood what was happening, but Evie did. This was a quid pro quo. Hurlish had threatened General Borek and gotten away with it, but he didn’t want to scurry away empty-handed. If, however, he was in possession of armor that Hurlish had personally torn apart, it could tell his mages and artificers quite a lot. Evie was no expert in spellcraft, but she knew it would at least give them an idea of how strong they should be trying to make their next set. Beyond that, she had no doubt that many people within Borek’s circle were clamoring for any information they could get on a Chosen and those close to her. That was valuable information.

Hurlish didn’t seem to get that, though. She simply wasn’t politically minded enough, and Borek’s friendly facade was flawless. In fact, the more she thought about it, Evie herself wasn’t sure if it was a facade. He’d said it himself: he didn’t approve of people treating children like Keo had been treated, and it was only the law and politics which would force his hand to make an issue of Hurlish killing the boy’s father. As Sara would put it, Evie might be ‘projecting’ some of her own behaviors onto Borek. Were she in his place, she certainly wouldn’t have found herself willing to challenge her assaulter to a friendly contest. But she and Borek were not the same person, and they didn’t view the world the same way. She glanced around, trying to see if there was anyone close enough to overhear, and thus carry the conversation to Sara’s Blessings, but the civilians had wisely left the immediate surroundings a ghost town.

Damn it, Evie thought, hiding her scowl. She stepped away from the conversation as Hurlish tore the armor down the middle like tissue paper. Once upon a time I would have been certain of my analysis. Does that make my old self a fool, or my current self too hesitant?

Whatever the answer was, she wouldn’t have Sara’s more objective assessment to lean upon. General Borek and several of his Warriors gawked at the armor that Hurlish had just shredded, passing it around like children admiring a friend’s new toy. Borek had a career and reputation predicated upon martial talent and strategic wisdom alone, not political acumen. Of course he had to pick up things along the way, he wouldn’t have lasted long as a General without them, but he wasn’t a seasoned liar. Certainly not enough to fool her, which meant…

Evie was being too cynical, wasn’t she? She turned to look at Borek and Hurlish. The two were both smiling now, and he was chattering to one of his mages about the nature of his armor’s enchantments. Hurlish chimed in, explaining some technical detail she was familiar with from her smithing trade, and both she and the mage quickly agreed on whatever it was that they’d been considering.

There was no plot here. No conniving, no backstabbing, no favors exchanged. Borek had been reluctantly acknowledging that he’d be forced to do something about a murder he approved of, then found himself relieved when Hurlish gave him the excuse to ignore it. The companions of a Chosen were famously powerful, and no reasonable soul would blame him for caving to her threats when the original offense was so trivial. If Evie had been in Hurlish’s place, she would have made things worse because she’d simply never considered straightforward, virtuous honesty.

That’s the same problem Mother had in politics, isn’t it?

The mere thought of behaving like her mother had Evie shuddering, disgust turning her tail to a cottonball of fluff. She shook herself from head to toe, trying to shake the specter of her mother away like a dog did water.

Thankfully, the sound of footsteps provided a distraction from that particular line of thinking. Sara was approaching, Tahn swaddled on her left hip, Keo walking beside her while holding her hand, his face pink, healed, and freshly scrubbed of blood. Though his cheeks were still wet with tears, they were no longer tears of pain. All four of their guards followed behind, standing at an even more rigid attention than normal.

Sara was walking while looking down at Keo, smiling with enough radiant optimism that the air around her seemed to be (and might actually have been) physically brighter than the wider world. Keo giggled at something Sara said, smiling slightly, only to remember he was supposed to be sad, and thus quickly pushed his face back into a frown. Evie smirked at that. She remembered doing much the same in conversation with Graf and the other Night’s Eye. There was nothing more frustrating to a child than being forced to laugh when you were in the mood for sullenness.

As Sara turned the corner around a tent, Evie waved and loudly snapped her fingers to get Sara’s attention. Her wife looked up, first at Evie, and then at the utter carnage behind her— including the remains of Keo’s father impaled on a tent pole.

She immediately jerked back, squeezing Keo’s hand as she kept the short boy close enough to the tent that he couldn’t see down the street. She resumed her conversation with him before he could question her actions, saying something that made him laugh again, much to his adorable dismay. Evie strode quickly up to Sara’s side, switching to Continental so the boy couldn’t understand her.

“The father dead and four soldiers with him,” she summarized in a blunt whisper. “Two Sergeants, a Warrior-in-training, and a Lieutenant, and no, I do not know their names.”

Sara whistled low. “I thought she was going to wait until I showed up. Still, that’s fewer than I expected.”

Evie nodded, glancing at Hurlish and the others. “Borek was surveying the army and appeared less than a minute after the fight was over. He told Hurlish that politics would force some kind of punishment for the murders, and she threatened his life by destroying his armor.”

“Wha-”

“He was quite taken by that, it seems,” Evie said, speaking over Sara’s confusion. “Loved the display of her strength, in fact. Against all odds, I think that the only difficulty which remains is cleaning up the blood.”

Sara released Keo’s hand to swipe a palm down her face, groaning. The boy immediately tried to scurry around the tent to get a look, but Evie stepped over to block him.

“Why can’t I go see my Da?” He asked, staring up at her, still sniffling slightly.

“There’s been an incident in the camp,” Evie replied in Kemari. “I assure you, your father wouldn’t want you to see what’s over there.” Probably the most honest thing I’ve said today.

“Can you take care of Keo and Tahn while I go talk with Borek and the rest?” Sara asked, also switching to Kemari.

“Of course.”

“Where’s my Da?” Keo asked again, more insistent. As Evie accepted Tahn from her wife, she knelt down, one hand keeping Tahn pressed to her chest, the other pulling her belt knife, balancing the flat of the blade on a knuckle before giving it a spin.

“Your father is in quite a lot of trouble for hitting you like that,” Evie said. “I don’t think you’ll be seeing him any time soon.”

“What?” He stared at the knife dancing on Evie’s fingers, his attention split. “We’ve got work to do. That’s why he was so angry, y’know. I’d been spending too much time with Miss Hurlish, instead of mending clothes with him.”

“Look at this knife,” Evie said.

“Wha? No!” He tried once more to step around Evie, but she easily grabbed him and put him back in front of her. He sulked. “Stop tryna distract me! I want to see my Da!”

“This knife,” Evie insisted, “was made by Hurlish of Tulian. A master blacksmith. See how easily it balances on my fingers? How long it spins?” She raised one knuckle after the other, transferring the blade from each in succession. It stopped spinning right as it reached her pinky, coming to a stop with the handle pointing toward Keo. “She made this. She was teaching you how to make knives like this. Don’t you think that’s a better use of your time than sewing up soldier’s clothing for a pittance?”

He sniffled. “Da says it’s honest work. And that I wouldn’t ever find a smith who’d take me on when Miss Hurlish left, so I was just wasting my time.”

And where was this imaginary smith who wouldn’t take on the apprentice of a renowned weaponsmith? Good riddance to that fool of a father.

“I disagree,” was all she said aloud to Keo. “And what’s more, it seems likely that you’ll have quite a deal more time to learn from Hurlish.”

“And why’s that?”

Evie pursed her lips. Lying to children was… surprisingly difficult. Tahn squirmed on her chest as if in agreement with the thought, or perhaps in solidarity with his fellow youth. Children like Keo believed you so readily that you had to be careful just how much you said, lest they get some completely ludicrous idea in their head.

“Like I said,” she cautiously began, “he got in quite a lot of trouble for striking you. Do you have anything of yours in your tent that you’ll want? You’ll have to stay somewhere else for a time. Likely a long time.”

“What?” His eyes widened in shock. “Is he goin’ to a prison camp? Did you have him sent away?”

“No,” Evie quickly said, which technically wasn’t a lie. “But about your tent? Any clothes, tools, toys? I can have a runner sent to retrieve them.”

“Nothin’ that mattered,” he replied, still eyeing her doubtfully. “Just some clothes, and Miss Hurlish always said my Da shoulda spent more time patching my clothes than he did the soldiers. Not like I coulda paid him for the thread, though.”

Evie grit her teeth. The boy thought it was only natural that, because he couldn’t pay, his father didn’t fix his clothing.

Good riddance, she thought again.

Sara returned, now with Hurlish, Borek, and the others in tow. One of the mage women approached Keo and knelt down beside Evie, speaking in a low voice.

“You’ve seen a healer, it would seem.”

“Who’re you?”

“A mage,” she replied simply. “Turn your head, child. I need to see your wounds.”

Keo wasn’t eager to obey the strange robed woman, but did so reluctantly. As she poked and prodded Keo’s face, asking him questions about pain and the like, Sara put her hands on her hips, blowing out a long breath.

“This is a mess,” she said in Continental.

“Yes,” Evie agreed.

“I’m not sorry.” Hurlish was still using Evie’s handkerchief to clean her skin of blood. “Don’t regret it, either.”

“We know, dear,” Evie replied.

Sara looked down at Keo as the mage continued to inspect him. “This is such a mess. Shit.”

“Don’t,” Evie passively corrected, “swear in front of Keo.”

Sara started to reflexively apologize, only to freeze. She stared at Evie, who was now holding the boy’s hand, letting him squeeze her when the mage’s poking caused pain.

“Ah, shit.”

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

Tinvel

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

With eyes narrowed behind his goggles, Tinvel watched the plane before him shift and pivot. The shriek of wind was nearly deafening, kept barely tolerable by his thick ear muffs. He reached out with one hand, pressing down on a control column. The ailerons of the plane suspended some ten meters before him began to slowly shift, pulled taut by the cables that ran across the room.

The ‘wind tunnel’ of Tulian University was both a modern marvel and a laughably primitive construct. On one hand, the principles behind it were exceptionally advanced. Carefully placed smoke bombs were aligned in a grid before the wind source, organized in colored layers, creating an array that allowed precise visualization of the airflow over the skin of any object placed within the tunnel. Even if Professor Brown didn’t have any idea how to parse the complex aerodynamic mathematics that he knew existed on his home world, this project allowed them to brute-force the solutions.

On the other hand, there was no machinery powering the wind. It could have been constructed a hundred years ago or a thousand. Tinvel had no idea how to even approach the idea of blowing air at over two hundred kilometers an hour, not without a long period of development and experimentation, and so he’d been forced to cheat. The tunnel relied on Professor Garen casting a lengthy, highly energetic wind spell, and without his presence nothing would have functioned. The wind tunnel was still a useful tool, but it was nothing like the fancy machinery he daydreamed about eventually developing.

Tinvel pushed harder on the controls. The ailerons began to lift, warping the frame a touch as the plane tried to roll with the wind racing over its wings. For a moment, Tinvel thought all was going well.

Then the rattling began. The control stick shook in his hand, a rising flutter overcoming his ability to hold it steady. The experimental plane jerked in its mount, shuddering like it was ill, and then the entire thing began to leap and strain against the ties holding its landing gear to the ground.

“Stop!” Tinvel yelled. “Stop, stop, that’s enough!”

The wind died with unnatural speed, an instant quiet falling over the room. Tinvel hung his head, swearing to himself.

“Was there any damage to the craft?” Professor Garen asked, emerging from behind the poles supporting smoke bombs. He waved his hand, extinguishing them before the smoke could begin filling the room.

“No, I don’t think so,” Tinvel said, moving to inspect the plane. He had to step over cables that were haphazardly run along the pulley system that allowed him to control the plane from a distance. “But it was going to shake itself apart if we’d let it go any longer.” He bit his lip, staring at the assembly. “But why?”

Tinvel moved to the plane. It had been a bit over a week since the Tulian Air Force had skirmished with the Imperials over Port Agrith, and he’d spent the bulk of his mandatory rest period working in the University. Tulian still didn’t have a true fighter plane, and he needed to change that.

The design that sat before him was far from finalized. As it stood, it was essentially a chopped-up version of the Fulleye. Still a twin engine, push-pull arrangement, but with the wings savaged by ugly saw work, the remaining lumps lacquered over to avoid causing too much aerodynamic instability. Professor Brown had told Tinvel about the early days of Earth’s military aviation, when new models of vastly superior planes had been debuting every couple of months, and he intended to hold himself to the same standard.

A greater one, even. With access to high-Level carpenters that were adopting modern machine tools, Tinvel could have his sketches of an airframe turned into a full-size prototype in less than forty-eight hours. If they didn’t need engines and pilots to operate, the Air Force could have had hundreds of planes built over the last year.

I wonder what changed Lady Evie’s mind, he thought distantly. Word had reached Tulian earlier that week that the Navy was to remove several of the bronze ram bows that their captured ships still sported, selling the expensive material off in order to fund the Air Force. After their shaky performance over Port Agrith, Tinvel didn’t think they deserved it, but Lady Evie disagreed. Carpenters assigned to Navy vessels had been removed and placed under Air-General Voth’s direct command, and Voth had immediately pawned them off on Tinvel. He was grateful for it, but concern tinged his relief. Lady Evie wouldn’t have done that if she thought they were adequately prepared. There was something she knew that he didn’t.

A lot of things, probably, he admitted as he reached the plane. He took hold of the aileron, giving it a wiggle.

It creaked audibly, and he barely needed to prod it before the thing went bouncing. He sighed.

“Cables frayed again,” he said to Professor Garen. “The ailerons must still be too big. They can’t handle the force of full-speed maneuvering."

“Are our industries not capable of producing more robust wiring?” he asked, joining Tinvel, arms folded behind his back as he inspected the wing. “I was under the impression that creating steel cabling is not dissimilar to rope work, which our shipyards are intimately familiar with.”

“The twisting and binding is done well enough, as far as I can tell.” Tinvel gave the loose aileron a slap. “I think it’s material quality that’s screwing us over. The steel we’re getting out of the foundries is better than anything a smith could hammer together, but it’s still inconsistent compared to Earth quality. Tensile strength probably varies wildly depending on the batch.”

“Hm.” Garen spread his hand open, fingertips glowing. Every screw and bolt on the plane’s wing spun out of its place, the canvas cover peeling back to show the frayed cable. The Professor frowned. “Could you not simply test the materials, sending away poor quality?”

Tinvel made a face. “I’d love to, and if you’ve got a way to do it, let me know. But unless you want to send every cable to Hurlish for inspection before installation in a plane, I’ve got no clue. We’d have to run every single one through the wind tunnel to see if they start to fail at speed.”

“Which we do not have the time for.”

“No.”

Tinvel put his hands in his flight jacket’s pockets, thinking. This should have been good work, fun work, but he was tired. Really, really tired. His mandatory rest period had been anything but restful. He hadn’t seen any combat, true, but that only meant so much. He’d been training new pilots, working on the next generation of aircraft, constructing new artifice engines, advising the city armory on enchanted weapons, attending the occasional University lecture when he had the chance, and… spending time with Chona.

He rubbed his eyes, trying to force the weariness from them. That last one might be the biggest single contributor to his weariness, to be honest. He might have been able to deal with everything else if he’d been getting a full night’s sleep.

“I think we’ll just have to increase the size of the cabling,” he decided, stifling a yawn. “It’ll increase overall weight and make things a bit less responsive, but I don’t see a way around it. Not until we get better metallurgy.”

“For someone who barely understood how to lighten a tool when I first met you,” Garen mused, “you’ve certainly developed a wide array of talents.”

“Professor Brown once said he knew ‘just enough to be dangerous.’ Pretty sure I get what he means, now.” Tinvel rubbed his eyes. “Thanks for your help, Professor. I’ve still gotta go talk to the alchemists about boiling thermite production levels, so I can’t write up a report or anything, but these wind tunnel tests are saving me a ton of time.”

“And lives, I suspect.” Garen’s spells reassembled the wing, a glow surrounding the screws and bolts as they popped back into place. “I am glad that it is not necessary for these flaws to be discovered in midair.” He glanced at Tinvel, a smile twisting at the edge of his lips. “Of course, if any pilot had to experience such a failure, I’d rather it be someone with as much experience crashing as you have.”

Tinvel chuckled darkly. “Yeah. I guess that’s true. I don’t want any of my pilots getting in a crash if it could be me instead.”

“Ah.” Professor Garen’s smile faded. He sighed, coming up to put a hand on Tinvel’s shoulder. “You’ve trained them as well as you were able, I’m sure.”

“No. No, I haven’t.” He shook his head, shrugging Garen’s hand away. “I didn’t spend enough time teaching them. It should have been my priority from the start.”

“Tinvel…”

“Y’know what Ashtul’s parents did when I visited them?” Tinvel asked absent-mindedly. “He was the one who died in the battle over Port Agrith. Drowned, thanks to his wounds. I told his parents that.”

“I do not think you-”

“They thanked me.” He put his hands in his pockets, staring at the aeroplane. The next generation of Tulian weapons. It couldn’t be finished soon enough. “They cried. They sobbed. And then they thanked me for coming to tell them. His dad shook my hand. His mom hugged me. Because I came to tell them how their kid died.”

Garen stayed silent for a time. Eventually, he spoke in a gentle, quiet tone.

“We warned you of what war would entail. We asked you not to pursue this path.”

“Yeah. Yeah, you did.” Blowing out a breath, Tinvel blinked several times to clear his eyes, then looked at the Professor. “Is it alright if I leave the plane here? I’m going to visit the foundries and smiths after I’m done at the University, see how long it’ll take for thicker control cables to be made. Hopefully it’ll be quick enough that I can install and test them tomorrow.”

Garen looked at him, concerned. Tinvel met his gaze evenly. “You are the only one who uses this room, Tinvel.” Something of his sarcastic smile returned. “And not only are you the University’s prodigal artificer, you are a highly-ranked military commander, and I am a mere ‘civilian contractor.’ By all rights, you could simply order me to make sure the plane remains undisturbed.”

Tinvel let out a light laugh. “I guess I could, huh? Weird.”

“Quite.”

He shook his head. “But I’m not gonna do that. If it’s fine where it is, I’d appreciate you leaving it, but I can wheel it out if you need me to.”

“It is fine, I assure you.” Garen walked beside Tinvel as they left the room, opening the door with a wave of his hand. “Have you considered acquiring an assistant? Those in high stations have them for reasons other than vanity. At the very least, it seems you’d benefit from having a message-runner on hand.”

Tinvel made a face as they entered Tulian University’s dilapidated hallways. “I’ve thought about it, yeah. Chona says I should. But having someone following me around all day, listening to everything I say…”

“Mm. I believe I understand.” Garen nodded and waved to some students walking past, then waited until they were out of earshot to speak. “Speaking of which, how goes Chona’s… illness?”

Tinvel felt his neck begin to heat. “It’s, uh… she’s doing fine.”

“I see.” There was a laugh hiding behind Garen’s words, Tinvel just knew it. “Were the resources I located within the University’s collection of use to you?”

He swallowed. When Garen had learned of Tinvel and Chona being put on a mandatory two weeks of non-combat duty, the Archmage had easily put two and two together. A paper-wrapped stack of books had appeared in Tinvel’s bunk, the covers well-hidden from prying eyes. Opening them in private, Tinvel had found a pair of foreign language anatomical textbooks, a thin book on the cultural standards of a vanara-predominant society in a land Tinvel couldn’t find on any map, and quite a few… provocative… fictional accounts.

He licked his lips. “Um. Well, for starters, the textbooks were interesting. I didn’t realize that any research had been done on anatomy that was good enough that Professor Brown might respect it.”

“They are very rare, but yes,” Garen confirmed. “I had been looking for something like them for quite a while. Long before your current… predicament.” Garen was definitely smiling now, glancing at Tinvel from the corner of his eye. “And the other books?”

Tinvel coughed. “Uh. Well, I think those authors on the bottom of the stack had a pretty, um, idealized version of how this sort of thing goes.”

“Oh, how unfortunate,” Garen opined, shaking his head sadly. “And here I thought ‘The Wet Heat of Spring’ and ‘Tales of Vanara Tails’ would be invaluable resources for you in this troubling time.”

“Not, uh, really.” Tinvel cleared his throat. “They keep saying that spring for vanara is ‘the time of fevered romance’ and stuff.”

Garen was barely containing his laughter now. “Oh? Is it not a matter of romance, then?”

“Well…”

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