A Perverted Path to Victory

Evie Brown

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The meeting room was agonizingly full. Dozens of officers, dignitaries, and servants were shuffling around a thick wooden table some thirty feet long, its dark surface obscured by a multitude of maps and piles of paper notation. The most important of the meeting’s attendants were seated in finely etched chairs, silk cushions on the seat and thick cotton over the armrests. Evie recognized many of them at a glance. General Borek sat at the head of the table with his core officer cadre seated to his left and right, at the tail end of which was Mui, who looked wildly nervous to be offered a seat at the table, rather than standing with the servants.

At the opposite end of the table was a catfolk man Evie had only seen at a distance before: Battulen’s Visya, the Imperial version of a mid-upper member of the nobility. The catfolk had a tawny brown coat that was graying over his cheeks, his whiskers beginning to curl with age. Though Evie’s research of the man had not shown evidence of a military career, his rigid back and firm stare fit in well enough with the room’s other occupants. As Battulen was not a regional capital, Evie believed this particular Visya was roughly equivalent to a Sporaton Count, or perhaps a Marquess. Many of the people seated on his side of the table had the look of civilian bureaucrats about them, dressed in fine silks instead of practical soldiering gear. Evie suspected that the Visya was using this meeting to pay off a number of favors owed to local political figures, affording them the chance to see the mythical Chosen in the flesh.

Master entered the room confidently, flashing a smile at the milling crowd as she headed straight for the last pair of open seats. Evie followed after her, all her willpower honed to a fine point.

They cannot see, they cannot see, she chanted to herself, slipping into the chair beside her Master. She would have sat in her lap, as per their usual routine, but that would have been foolhardy. The possessiveness shown by resting in her owner’s lap always stoked a fire in her. That was normally acceptable, hidden as her arousal had been, but not today. She couldn’t take the risk.

Evie realized with a start that General Borek had already begun speaking. She had not even noticed.

“...as you can see, the logistics of the situation are complicated,” the General said, waving a hand at the map which was placed in front of him. “While the High Generals have given us a long leash for how we employ our new weapons, it is difficult to ascertain where they may best be employed. Our betters do not wish to risk the Empire’s first blackpowder army being overwhelmed by superior numbers. Until we have tested our tactics in combat, we are to avoid conflict with the true Rebel armies.”

Evie leaned forward, surveying the map that had been laid out in front of her and Master. It was one of several identical copies on the table, dense with neatly scribed intelligence on the known dispositions of enemy armies and garrisons.

Her eyes widened as she took in the fullness of the map. It was the first opportunity she had been afforded to see the true scale of the Imperial domain, and it was shocking. The northernmost cities numbered several dozen, all connected by a webwork of dense rivers and sparse roads. The further south one went, the larger the cities grew and the more closely they were placed. The trend continued all the way until the southern end of the continental peninsula, where any urban development disappeared. It was as if Imperial settlers had been unable to pass an invisible wall drawn fifty miles from the coast. Evie supposed the Empire of yesteryear had no interest in exposing itself to the outside world, even without a civil war to contend with.

Judging by the design of the map, General Borek’s interest was focused on the smaller, northernmost cities. These bordered not only Tulian, but also the sparsely populated swamps beyond Tulian’s historical borders, going so far as to abut even the southernmost Western Kingdoms. The Empire was not only more densely settled than Sporatos and Old Tulian, it dwarfed them geographically as well.

There was no clear frontline to this war. At least not one that Evie could see. Cities had been captured haphazardly throughout the jungle, armies easily avoiding one another as they traveled along the multitude of overlapping rivers and thin roads. Most of the northern city garrisons, both friendly and enemy, numbered some twenty thousand strong, with occasional addendums noting where one city or another was believed to have a particularly large or battle-hardened garrison. There were also circles drawn onto the map with dotted lines, the center of which indicated the last confirmed sighting of a Rebel army, while the circle itself represented the maximum possible distance the army could have traveled in the time since the report had been verified. Even in the north there were a half dozen armies, the circles of their potential locations overlapping in more places than she would have preferred.

“In light of this,” General Borek said, tracing a line along the jungle wall with a finger, “I have decided to continue focusing our efforts northward. The skirmish of the Northern Expeditionary Force reveals that the rebels seek to use the open fields to speed their travel, pursuing a campaign of-”

Evie’s eyes bulged as she felt Master’s hand come to rest on her thigh, a warm touch that landed a bare few inches from the tip of her erection. The hand began to rub slow, comforting circles, as if there was nothing amiss.

Evie resisted the urge to hiss. She kept her eyes locked on the map, using every ounce of her willpower to ignore the torturous feeling.

“-have any suggestions?” General Borek asked, looking up from the map.

Evie blinked, turning his way. Had he been talking to her? Surely not, right? Everyone knew she was the commander of the Powdered Lead in name only. A figurehead. Master was the true authority.

After a brief pause, to her incredible relief, Master spoke up.

“I don’t like the idea of using barges to transport the cannons,” Master said, tapping one of the rivers on the map with a fingernail. “We could load them easily enough, but it’s a long process. If we need to unload them in a hurry, it’s liable to end up a disaster.”

“Are the weapons truly so cumbersome?” The Visya asked, leaning forward with interest. Evie wondered if he had been introduced with his name, or if she’d missed that, too. “I must admit that I’m no soldier, but it was my understanding that most siege weapons are disassembled for transit, then assembled at the point of battle.”

Master opened her mouth to respond, taking a small breath.

Whatever she said, Evie didn’t hear it, because the hand on her thigh briefly lifted away, only to move a few inches back, landing on her erection.

Evie’s stomach clenched painfully as her every muscle went taut. She just barely resisted the instinctive urge to dig her claws into the wooden table as she fought off the urge to groan, to thrust herself forward into that painfully light touch. Her eyes fluttered into a half-lidded state, the only reaction she couldn’t stop herself from showing.

“...called field artillery,” Master was saying. “Trust me, you’ll want to have access to them when an enemy army comes calling.”

“Interesting,” the Visya hummed politely.

Oh, yes, absolutely fascinating, Evie thought, swallowing hard. If it wasn’t for Master’s touch, she could easily have engrossed herself in the discussion well enough to let her arousal fade.

Master wouldn’t allow that, unsurprisingly.

And she wouldn’t damn well allow anything else, either. Her palm was simply resting on the shaft of Evie’s cock, not moving, not squeezing, not doing the slightest thing. When she’d had her original body, Evie had found great satisfaction in simply having something in her, with or without moving. She had spent many long hours with Master buried in her body as they slept, utterly content.

Her new cock was far greedier. It craved movement, friction, any kind of pressure other than the almost-nothing it was being teased with now. In a strange way, it gave Evie even more respect for her Master. That she had so often simply stayed patiently still while inside Evie was a remarkable feat of self-control.

One that I must match, she reminded herself, taking a moment to draw in a deep, measured breath through her nose. Surely her body would adjust in time. Surely it would learn to ignore the hand on her cock. Evie forced her ears to flick up, tuning into the conversation once more.

“...deposits of sulfur in Pravang make it a tempting target,” one of General Borek’s officers said. “There is little infrastructure in place for the harvesting of sulfur and saltpetre. The sooner we capture large stores of it, the sooner we will be able to equip our larger armies with firearms.”

“They would be preparing for that,” Evie said, taking the risk of joining the conversation herself. She hoped it would help distract her. “The enemy will have doubtlessly determined the composition of blackpowder by now. They will be attempting to secure their stocks as rapidly as possible.”

“A point to be considered,” the woman officer acknowledged, bobbing her head before turning to General Borek, waiting for his appraisal.

Evie dearly hoped it wasn’t a follow-up question leveled at her, because Master saw fit to ‘reward’ her for her contribution. The hand over her cock clenched ever so slightly, slipping downward in a way that dragged her azarketi nylon leggings over the head of her erection.

This time, Evie could not stop herself. She had one hand overtop the table, the other beneath. Her claws sprang from her hidden fingers and stabbed into the underside of the table, scratching four lines in the fine hardwoods.

If anyone heard the scrape of claws against wood, none showed a sign of it. Master’s hand reached the base of her cock, pressing against her pelvis, and then eased. Evie let her lips fall open just the slightest bit, so she could pant as silently as possible into the stuffy air.

“If we allow them to establish the infrastructure, then swoop in to capture it, we would save ourselves a great deal of effort,” General Borek said.

“Would they not guard it with as many troops as they could?” Master asked. “I can’t imagine they’d spend a bunch of money making mines only to leave them undefended.”

“Ah, but if we seize the mines within the next few months, they surely would not have had the time to produce a large number of firearms. If your claims are to be believed, your weaponry’s superiority would win us the day, no?”

Master scowled. “I don’t like the idea of just letting them build up their defenses. Just because we could win doesn’t mean it won’t be bloody. The longer we wait, the more outnumbered we’ll be. The Empire building the mines for themselves surely isn’t that significant an expense, surely?”

Master’s hand began to slide forward, inch by inch, moment by moment, dragging the soft texture of her leggings with it. Evie’s right leg spasmed unexpectedly as a flash of pleasure shot through her, spreading from her cock to the rest of her body. The motion jostled Master’s hand, inadvertently causing her to press harder.

A quiet, near silent groan slipped from Evie’s lips. It was little more than the grunt of effort that might fall from her when she lifted something heavy, but to her paranoid mind, it may as well have been a scream of orgasmic bliss. Her cock throbbed hard, leaping against the tension of her leggings as fluid surged from its tip, staining both her clothing and Master’s palm. She felt blood rush to her cheeks as a blush grew, her chest beginning to rise more and more with every breath.

But worst of all was that Master lifted her hand away, robbing her of the pleasure it had been bringing her. Evie’s leg fell back down limply, but her hand shot into motion. She grabbed Master’s wrist and tugged hard, placing it back on her cock.

Please, she thought, shooting Master a needy glance. Don’t take it away. Don’t take it from me.

With the barest shadow of a smirk, Master allowed her hand to return to Evie’s cock, though she resumed the lighter, unmoving touch of earlier.

Evie sighed quietly, relief flooding her. The only thing worse than humiliating pleasure, she had discovered, was the utter absence of pleasure. She would do anything to keep her Master’s attention on her.

Anything.

With the razor edge of her limits discovered, the meeting faded into a hazy blur. The bulk of the discussion, she thought, was related to the path the Imperial army would be taking in the coming days, and of what cities were the most suitable targets for subjugation with cannon and musket. Evie offered a comment every once in a while, when her arousal had faded from a raging wildfire to a mere bonfire, but she had to do so carefully, strategically, doing her utmost to not provoke any response that came in the form of a question. Every time she spoke, her Master would realize that she had recovered some of her wits, which was a notion she took great offense to. Evie would invariably find pressure digging back down against the base of her cock, or the slow friction of a sliding palm, or even a quick flick of a thumb over the head of her erection, which was the worst of all. It would always take her minutes to recover, more precum leaking from her tip to be absorbed either by her leggings, or, depending on the positioning at the moment, Master’s palm.

She began to grow paranoid that the catfolk in the room would smell her arousal. How could they not? It was such a distinct, unique smell, so deeply familiar to Evie. She had licked it off her Master’s cock so many times. She could only hope that the present catfolk were less degenerate than her, that if they smelled anything unusual, they would not make the connection.

Eventually, an hour or two later, the meeting had moved from the discussion of abstract strategy to concrete logistics. Shortly after General Borek and his officers began discussing the provisioning of their army, Master stood, announcing that she had nothing more to contribute and would be leaving.

Evie rose unsteadily to her feet a moment later, one hand digging into the muscles of her legs in a desperate bid to stop their trembling. She did not know if anyone noticed her unsteady bobbing, did not know if her tight fist was pulling her shirt far enough down to hide her stained pants, and after hours of being kept at the precipice of orgasm, Evie did not even know if she still cared whether or not she’d been caught.

She was breathing hard. Too hard, as if she’d just finished a sparring session. She could feel her nipples rubbing against the rough cloth of her shirt, and desperately hoped that the material was stiff enough that her arousal was not overtly revealed– or, if it was, that it would only be noticed by those who would do something about it.

Her mind began to toy with that thought against her will. Taunting her with the idea that the others had noticed her, that the Warriors in this room, some of them so very much stronger than her, had noticed her arousal. She wondered if they would view her body as so many others once did, as an object of beauty that they wanted to possess, and if they would use that strength of theirs to grab her by the neck and throw her onto the table, tearing her clothes off so that all in the room could have their fill of her…

A snap echoed in her ears. She turned to Master, who was grinning at her, fingers raised.

“Alright, let’s go, Evie.”

Evie started to agree, but her tongue failed her. She was too far gone. She couldn’t bring herself to call Master anything other than Master, and she was not supposed to do that in public.

“If you see fit to leave so early,” General Borek said with mild irritation, “take Cultural Exchange Officer Mui with you. He has a number of matters that he ought to discuss with you.”

“Of course,” Master said, her smile shifting from one of smugness to genuine warmth. “I’m always interested to hear what you have to say, Officer Mui. After you.”

Evie was left standing in the middle of the room as they waited for Mui to make his slow, tepid way around the table, the catfolk man gathering up papers and equipment. Her body was operating on instinct, following the lessons that had been beaten into her as a child. She didn’t know if those lessons were enough, or if her raging arousal was obvious.

Some people were looking at her, she knew. Some of them were looking at her quite closely. But was it because they had noticed? Or simply because she and Master were the topic of discussion, and it was only natural to look her way? She didn’t know. If she’d been in her right mind, she could have told the difference, but she wasn’t.

Mui joined Master’s side after an eternity of dithering. They stepped out into the hallway together, Evie stumbling behind.

“Why did you decide to leave so early?” Mui asked as the door shut behind them.

“Had someone I needed to take care of,” Master responded, looking amused.

“Some… one?” Mui repeated, curious. He glanced about, looking for an attendant or courier or some such.

Then his eyes fell on Evie. He had a mild, curious expression, still unsure of what Master meant.

She could no longer control herself.

Evie’s head fell forward with a groan, her chin tucking into her chest as she pressed both hands over her cock, grinding her hips forward. Lightning crackled as relief shot through her veins, the pressure bringing her right to the cusp of orgasm. She did not have her collar on, and so it took everything she had to follow her Master’s orders not to cum, to not soil herself in the middle of a castle hallway.

“Good gods,” Mui exclaimed, stumbling to a stop. “What did you do to her?”

“Gave her a dick,” Master said casually, flinging an arm over Mui’s shoulder, dragging him close. She leaned in, whispering conspiratorially in his ear. “Do you think she’s handling it well?”

“You what? You gave her a… a penis?”

“Evie?”

She whined.

“Lift your shirt.”

Evie’s mind was at war with herself. She did not want to show Mui. He was an officer, the Powdered Lead’s liaison to the Empire. He knew more than most about her, but he did not know this. He did not know how pathetic she was.

But for all her mental anguish, her body knew who owned it. Her hands obeyed without hesitation, removing themselves from her cock to lift up the hem of her shirt, exposing her lower stomach and the outline of her pulsing erection. The stain at its tip was dark and sticky, plain to see even at a distance.

“A-ah,” Mui stuttered, eyes going wide. “I see. You were…” He coughed, looking away. Evie did not drop her shirt. “You were not exaggerating. This is a… a Chosen’s ability?”

“Isn’t it great?” Master asked, slapping him on the shoulder. Unlike Mui, she had not looked away. Evie squirmed as her Master kept staring, drinking in her ruinous arousal. “By the way,” Master said, “just let me know if you want to try it out, sometime. I can give you a pussy if you want.”

Mui’s only response was a strange choking noise.

Master laughed, spinning him around. “No rush, no rush. I’m sure we’ll get there eventually. Now, do you know your way around this castle?”

“N-no ma’am,” he said, seeking refuge in formality. “I have never been here before.”

“Damn. Guess we can’t just go find a janitor’s closet or anything, then. Let’s head out.” Master glanced over her shoulder as Evie began to follow her, rolling her eyes. “You can drop your shirt now, Evie. Unless you want the next guard that walks by to see the mess you’ve made, I guess.”

Evie let her shirt fall, quickly hiding her erection. She didn’t even try to find something to say. She doubted she could manage anything more than breathless, needy panting at the moment.

Master kept chatting with Mui as they worked their way out of the castle, pretending that the catfolk officer was not still lost in the stupor brought on by the twin reveals of Evie’s cock and Master’s blithe offer to do the opposite to him.

Evie wasn’t in a much better position, of course. Her breath felt hot enough that she felt it should be fogging the air with every puff, and she was so dizzy it was a miracle she could walk straight. She was walking behind Master, something that she was beginning to realize was a mistake, because she could no longer take her eyes off the shapely ass that was sashaying away from her.

Evie blinked. She normally didn’t think these sorts of thoughts. She loved Master’s body because it was hers, not because of how it looked. Had her new anatomy really changed even how she appreciated her owner?

Evie put a hand to her neck, trying to see if Master had somehow collared her without her realizing. It was… she felt such a need in her. It was alien, an urge to be inside her Master, to press her cock into the divine heat of her perfect body. Had Master’s Blessings given her this impulse, too?

Evie squinted as a door opened ahead of her, spilling in light from the outside. They had found their way outside. She followed after Master, trying to still her heaving chest. The courtyard was full of workers, guards, and servants, and for a time, she allowed herself the delusion that they were looking at her. That they were all watching her, that they had seen her pathetic nature for themselves, and that there would be no need to hide it any longer. She would be shamed, yes, but after that, the world would know. She would no longer have to hide her pitiful desires.

If her dream had come to pass, it did not do so in any obvious way. She stumbled out of the castle into the streets of Battulen without a single uttered comment from her spectators, following after Master and Mui in a daze.

They took several turns, none of which Evie noted nor understood. Her cock was throbbing in the waistband of her pants, pressing heat back into her own skin. She could feel the head grinding against the bottom of her stomach, could feel the pubic hair– why did Master give her pubic hair for her cock, when she so religiously shaved?– brushing against the base of her shaft. Every step was as debilitating as the twitch of a finger in her, and she was being consumed by a growing certainty that, Master’s orders or no, her body would have its way with her before long.

“Are you alright?” Mui suddenly asked, speaking quietly.

Evie’s head spun as she tried to bring her eyes into focus, looking into the catfolk man’s black muzzle. He’d stepped back from Sara to whisper to her, as if he thought she couldn’t still hear him.

“Wha-whuh?” She mumbled, resisting the urge to clutch his shirt for balance.

“It was risky, what you did,” Mui explained, his tone severe. “She did not… she did not make you, did she?”

The words slogged their way through Evie’s ruined consciousness, fighting against a tide of stupifying arousal.

“I… she wanted me to,” Evie managed. Her tongue felt thick as lead in her mouth.

“But did you want to?” Mui asked. “I know your concern for your reputation. This seems like a risk you would not take.”

“Repu-reputation?” Evie giggled, finally giving in to her impulse as she grabbed a hold of Mui’s shirt to steady herself. “I don’t waaant my reputation, Mui,” Evie breathed, pulling him close. She looked up into his eyes, distantly aware her hips were grinding against empty air. “I’m a slut. A whore. Master’s tight little toy. Why do I have to… have to pretend to be anything else?”

Mui bobbed his head in a tight little nod, then pulled Evie’s hand off his shirt. “Okay,” he said. “I was just making sure.”

Evie giggled again. She wondered how Master was going to reward the man for that question. He could not know it, thinking Master had only a human’s hearing, but he had just earned himself such a wonderful time between her owner’s legs.

“Evie,” Master suddenly snapped, her voice full of discipline. She pivoted into an alleyway, prompting Mui and Evie to follow behind. “Stand here,” Master ordered, pointing at a random bit of wall.

Evie stumbled eagerly forward, panting breathlessly. Mui watched her go, apparently appointing himself as this trist’s bodyguard, judging by the way he turned to face the entrance of the alleyway.

Before Evie could even come to stand in front of Master, she found herself grabbed by the shoulder and slammed against the wall.

“Did you follow orders?” Master asked, stepping close. She surrounded Evie in every direction, filling all the world with her body.

“Y-yes,” Evie breathed.

Master’s hand landed on her stomach, fingertips pointing downward.

“So if I move my hand lower, I’m not going to find anything?”

“I didn’t c-cum,” Evie said, squirming. “But so much c-comes out…”

Master’s hand began to slide downward at an agonizing, glacial pace. Her dark eyebrows rose, a challenge in her expression.

“If you made a mess, how can I even believe you?”

“You could collar me,” Evie whispered eagerly, going up on her tiptoes as she tried to force Master’s hand lower. Her palm was over her bellybutton, her fingers tickling just above her waist. “I couldn’t lie to you then, Master.”

“What’s the point of having a pet if I have to jerk her leash every time I want something done?” Master growled. “You should know better than to lie to me.”

“I’m not, I’m not,” she insisted. “Ask Mui. He would smell it on me.”

“Mui?”

A tired sigh from Evie’s right. “...no, I don’t believe she did, Sara. She doesn’t smell like… like she did what you’re asking about, I suppose.”

“Really?” Master purred, a dangerous lilt to the word. “I wonder why? A needy little whore like you having your first time out with a cock, and you managed to hold off? It’s almost impressive. Maybe I should let you keep going, see how long you can really last.”

“No,” Evie gasped, her hands flying to Master’s waist, trying uselessly to drag her closer. “No, please, no, don’t make me wait any longer.”

“What do you want from me, then?”

Evie did not like this. She did not like having to ask for her own pleasure. She was supposed to give it. That was her purpose.

But she needed it. Her body ached so badly, her legs quivering with unmet desire, and she could only think of one way to fulfill her duty and find her needs met.

“Inside you,” Evie gasped, fumbling for Sara’s belt. “Please, let me put it inside you, Master. I will do anything you ask of me.”

Master slapped her hands away and took a swift step closer, throwing her knee between Evie’s legs once more. Evie started to say something, only to be cut off as Master snagged her waistband and tugged it down, exposing her to the open air.

“You really think you’d last long enough?” Master asked. She ran a single finger down Evie’s cock, tracing a line from the tip of its head all the way to the base. Evie shuddered. “I don’t think you’d last ten seconds. What makes you think you deserve to be inside me?”

“I need to please you,” Evie groaned, hips grinding forward, rubbing the underside of her cock against the top of Master’s thigh. “I need to- to be used by you.”

“Oh, babe,” Master chuckled, her other hand patronizingly brushing against Evie’s cheek. She leaned close, whispering into Evie’s ear. “You never stood a chance.”

The world was drowned in white as Master’s hand closed around her cock. It encased her entirely, her erection just long enough to poke out from the edge of Master’s calloused palm.

Evie let out a keening whine as her Master began to squeeze and move, jerking her off with tiny, electrifying motions.

Evie tried not to give in. She tried to hold back. But she’d already lost. Lost control of herself, lost control of her impending orgasm. She was just another piece of putty in her Master’s hands.

Evie’s whines turned into gasps as her hips slapped forward, every spark of friction sending her eyes bouncing wildly behind her closed eyelids. Her face fell forward into Master’s chest, her hands on her shoulder as she desperately humped into Master’s hand, throwing herself against her with animalistic desperation.

Her stomach rolled and clenched as the hours of need roared up within her. She felt a clenching unlike anything she’d ever felt before take her from below, her hips throwing herself involuntarily into Master’s body, seeking her touch, her heat, then she went rigid, trying to find the bottom of something that her body was too senseless to realize wasn’t what she wanted.

Just as she felt her cock begin to throb, Master shoved against her, hard, pointing it upward, and her lips crashed into Evie’s.

She came with a moaning cry, mouth open against the press of her Master’s lips. Her hips drove themselves upward, upward, her legs shivering so hard she felt certain she would have fallen if not for being pinned against the wall, and all the while she felt herself pulsing, felt hot spurt after hot spurt unload itself onto her own body, coating her stomach in steaming white ropes. Master kept kissing her throughout it, devouring her cries of delight, muffling her with one hand on her cock, the other cupping her jaw so tenderly, so lovingly, that it almost ached.

Evie suddenly sagged, the last of her body’s strength abandoning her. Master dropped with her, gently quieting her insensible mumbles with little pecks of loving kisses that she peppered along Evie’s lips, jaw, and cheeks.

She sat back against the alley wall, breathing hard. Master stayed with her for a time, still holding her cock as each throbbing beat of her heart left it softer and softer. Then, when she was sure Evie was very nearly asleep, Master stood.

“See?” Master asked. “Didn’t that look like fun? You should try it sometime.”

“She looks dead.”

“Yeah, but have you never wanted to cum so hard it looked like you died?”

“Before I met you, I feel certain the thought never occurred to me.”

“But after?”

Mui sighed tiredly. “I don’t wish to try it any time soon, at least.”

“I’m marking that down as an ‘eventually,’ just so you know.”

“I am not shocked.”

“Mmmnh,” Evie groaned.

“Oh?” Master’s shadow passed over Evie’s face. “You still awake? I thought I was gonna have to carry you back.”

That sounds so wonderful, Evie tried to say. It mostly came out as a series of garbled groans.

Sara chuckled. “Might still have to, anyway. Hey Mui, you have anything to cover her up with? She kinda came all over herself.”

“I have my own shirt, but— Good gods that is a lot.”

“I know, right? I’m glad I pointed her at herself, not me. Look, it got all the way up onto her cheek.”

“It’s in her hair, Sara.”

“Oh, shit, you’re right. Uh, I don’t think a shirt’s gonna do it. Do you have, like, a poncho?”

“I don’t know what that is. Couldn’t you just clean it off her?”

“Oh, good idea. You wanna know the best way for one girl to get cum off another? Here, watch close.”

Evie felt Sara’s tongue suddenly press against her cheek, spreading flat as it slowly ran up her face.

She heard Mui swallow hard.

Sara continued licking her clean, almost certainly doing so just to taunt Mui, and somehow, despite everything, it was this which finally allowed Evie to drift off into sleep, chuckling to herself. The poor man really had no idea what he’d gotten into.

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Mui Thom

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One Week Later

“Why do so many think I am some sort of expert…” Mui shifted his grip on the stock of the rifle as he grumbled under his breath, trying to control himself so that it would not become a growl.

“B-because y’are, sir?” The girl asked. She was a younger human, and one from much farther south than Battulen, judging by the deep brown of her skin. Her thick, oaky complexion was growing paler with every passing moment as she watched Mui struggle with the weapon she’d brought him. She glanced side to side, fingers twitching, back slightly hunched as she watched him work.

Mui hid his irritation, ignoring the way the girl was trying to hide. If she’d wanted her mistake to be taken care of by someone who wouldn’t draw attention to it, there were few choices worse than the Imperial-Tulian Cultural Exchange Officer, who was known by everyone in the army to constantly be either in the presence of General Borek or the Chosen herself. He was a watched man, these days. He had no idea what the girl had been thinking.

Actually, he already knew she hadn’t been. She’d likely given her choice no more thought beyond the fact Mui had no damn idea who the girl’s sergeant was, nor what supply requisitions officer he might report her error to. And Mui most certainly would have reported her: this was a damn stupid thing to do.

She’d somehow, implausibly, gotten her bayonet stuck.

At a first glance, all seemed to be in order. The foot-long span of steel jutted out from underneath the iron barrel in a quite stately manner, its design calling to mind the bastard child (if a well-liked, well-cared-for bastard child) of a spearhead and machete. The girl had maintained the blade itself well enough, keeping it polished enough to catch and bounce away the bits of stray sunlight that made their way through the tangled canopy. Despite being intended to only be used in battle at the end of a musket, the Imperial Army’s new ‘bayonets’ had a long cutting edge that ended in narrow, upward swept tip, effectively affording each of the army’s spear-wielding troops the luxury of a fine knife to call their own. While the musket was only a weapon of war, the bayonet was helpful for all the things any long knife was, be it clearing brush, gutting wild game, or trimming the branches off logs to use in nightly fires.

Considering the length of the weapon, Mui was still surprised that Hurlish had convinced the Imperial quartermasters to make it part of a soldier’s standard equipment. With a blade two and a half handspans long, it was less than an inch away from legally being considered a sword. Traditionally, a knife became a sword when the sharp edge surpassed the length of its wielder’s forearm, which meant many of the shorter soldiers were already breaking the law by some definitions. Peasants could only earn the right to carry swords as Mui had, by advancing through the army’s ranks.

Which made him all the more irate that this particular girl had made… whatever mistake it was that she had to cause this problem. She’d been afforded a great honor by her placement in this army, and she’d already made such a mess of her gift. No matter which way Mui twisted, pulled or yanked, the bayonet simply refused to release from its mounting point. It was as if she had slathered it in glue before slipping it on the musket.

“Did you clean this as you have been trained?” Mui grunted, twisting his arms into a new angle.

“Of course I did!” The girl whispered anxiously, ducking even further down.

I doubt that.

The girl wrung her hands as she watched him work, looking very much like she wished to ask him to crouch as well, but knew how terrible an idea that would be.

Mui gave up on subtlety. He wrapped one hand around the top of the bayonet’s hilt and the other around the musket’s stock, putting all his strength behind one firm, powerful jerk.

The bayonet tore off the end of the barrel with a screech of metal against metal, a spray of dirty brown puffing into the air just an inch before Mui’s muzzle. He let it fall, staring down at the girl.

“Don’t,” he warned the girl, holding out the separated weapons, “tell a lie that’s only going to get you caught.”

“I clean it every day, I do,” the girl insisted, unwisely deciding to double down. Did she not recognize rust when she saw it flying before her eyes? “Even the days when we don’t shoot! That weapon’s my life, I know it. I wouldn’t never do anything wrong with it.”

Mui flipped the musket upside down, first inspecting the barrel, then the bayonet mount. The barrel was swabbed clean as a whistle, shiny as the day it had come from the forge, but the mount had been eaten away by rust. When he had jerked the bayonet off, what little remained of the thin mounting lugs had snapped, and they were likely still embedded in place within the bayonet’s hilt.

“As I said, do not tell obvious lies,” Mui said, turning both weapons around for her to see. “Did you think that when the quartermasters showed you how to clean your weapon, they added some extra steps in the middle just to keep you busy? That cleaning the bayonet mounting mechanism was just a bit of extra fun for them, a little prank on the common soldiers?”

She started to respond in the negative, then saw the rust for herself. She blanched, nerves overtaking her for a time. Then she cleared her throat, grimacing.

“I just…” she tried, “I thought if it was the powder that makes things rust, why should we worry about the underside where the powder doesn’t go…”

Mui groaned, rolling his eyes as he thrust the girl’s weapons back at her. “We march through the jungle. Everything rusts. Get back to your squadron.”

“T-thank you, sir,” she said, gathering the musket and bayonet in an awkward bundle. She scurried away, still crouched low, as if that would make it any less obvious what she was doing.

Mui shook his head, stretching out his aching fingers as he began to make his way back up the column. They’d come to a stop an hour or so before, and he’d occupied his time by pacing up and down the column. General Borek was awaiting scouting reports of the enemy’s disposition, sending them ranging further than he normally might have, had this not been the last fork in the road before their final target.

A sulfur mine, Mui thought, lips twisting in bemusement. What few mines the Empire possessed weren’t worth fighting over. They were common mines, hauling up iron and copper, the cheap ores of worksmen’s tools. There were a few mines of precious valuables, of course, recently discovered deposits of silver, gold, and gemstones, but they were incredibly rare, and often the nexus of an entire fortified city. One of the few curses of the Empire’s longevity was that most of its mineral wealth had been extracted thousands of years ago. No mine could remain productive for hundreds upon hundreds of years.

Which also meant, Mui knew, that this was going to be a strange battle for all involved. Across two hundred and fifty years of war, the True Adjutant’s armies had found little opportunity to engage in truly novel warfare. War was a rote, brutal skill. Battles were either protracted sieges, an entire city standing against an entire army, or they were desperate, clawing affairs, two armies accidentally stumbling across one another in the warren of rivers and roads. He could not think of a single instance, at least none that he had heard of, in which an Imperial force so small attacked something so open.

And that was assuming their target would be as they anticipated. The General’s advisors predicted that the sulfur mine would be built in a rapidly-swelling swathe of cleared forest. They didn’t even expect it to be a mine. Not yet. Many of the army’s authorities agreed that while the rebellion would have recognized the importance of the sulfur, perhaps even run the rough numbers on how much sulfur they would need, they could only have recently begun exploiting and fortifying the area. The current conjecture was that the Powdered Lead Mercenaries would be joining the Imperial Army for a rather strange battle: one occurring across an open field littered with half-finished defenses, where civilians and soldiery were intermixed.

Ultimately, how much the enemy had prepared, if in fact they had at all, was something they could not know until General Borek’s griffon scouts returned. For all they knew, the enemy had never even bothered to secure this sulfur, preferring to invest elsewhere for some reason or another. For Mui, who had spent his entire career in an army which chased tangible, unshifting goals, the uncertainty was nerve racking.

Mui reached the head of the army’s column with a light frown, tinged by many emotions. He was glad to be out of the eyes of the common soldiery, yet far from eager to return to the intensity of his official duties. A few short months ago, he had been concerned with nothing more than earning the loyalty of a new squad. Now he had more to worry about than he could even list from memory. It was not an adjustment that came easily.

When he found the ‘throuple’ he was nominally in charge of, they were, predictably, acting oddly. Sara was at the edge of the beaten trail, knelt in the mud with a speaking crystal put to her lips. Evie was beside her, legs folded beneath herself so that her thighs could provide a surface for her to draw upon. They were both looking down at something in the mud with a great deal of curiosity, but he couldn’t see what. Hurlish, in strange contrast to her two more socially inclined wives, was actually the only one standing among General Borek and his entourage, and her head was ducked as if in conference with the vanara general.

As Mui drew closer to Sara and Evie, he hesitated. Evie’s ears were flattened with irritation, her tail jerking up and down. That was not a good sign, and it immediately filled Mui with the urge to be anywhere else. The few times he had seen her truly irate, Evie’s cool, snapped reprimands had been more terrifying than any officer’s screaming rage.

However, as he inspected her back, he eventually realized that her ire seemed to be directed entirely inward. She was drawing something in her journal, and every time her unsteady hand made an apparently undesired motion, her ears would twitch further, tail thumping the mud. She was irritated with herself, not anyone else. That was… safer.

Mui finished approaching, making a point to do so loudly. He had used his privilege as Sara’s attendant to have his chestplate carried by the nobility’s wagons, leaving him in a light cotton undershirt that was oh-so-wonderful in the heat, but he hadn’t been arrogant enough to leave his greaves, musket, or sidesword behind. He let this equipment clank and rattle against one another as he approached, unwilling to startle the focused women.

“...but it’s like two feet long, Dad!” Sara was saying excitedly. “And it looks just like the ones you showed me when I was a kid!”

“That doesn’t mean it’s from a dinosaur,” her father replied through the crystal, his voice muted by her clenched fist. “You told me all about the griffons, and birds are just another kind of dinosaur. You could easily be looking at the tracks of a griffon or something.”

“Griffons have rear claws,” Mui said, crouching off Sara’s left to join the conversation. He pointed at the footprint they were inspecting, tracing an image with his mind. The foot of the beast had sunk deeply into the mud, creating a clear impression of a wide ‘palm’ and three long, claw-tipped toes. As Sara had said, it was very nearly two feet long when measured from the tip of its middle claw to the base of the heel, and the two other toes were nearly as long. The beast had not been moving quick when it left the mark, perhaps even standing still, as the mark was set very evenly in the soil.

“I have worked near griffon stables before,” Mui said. “I am very familiar with their tracks. This is not a griffon footprint.”

“See!” Sara flashed him a childish, excitable grin, eyes glittering with delight as she spoke into the crystal. “Mui agrees with me, Dad.”

“He doesn’t even know what a T-Rex is,” Professor Brown said, then hesitated. “...does he?”

“I am unfamiliar with the name, at the very least.”

Sara sat up, smile growing. “A giant-ass lizard-”

“Bird.”

“A giant-ass bird that looks like a lizard,” she sarcastically corrected herself, “that’s like two stories tall, bipedal, and has a head the size of a wagon. It’s got six inch teeth, tiny little arms that are up like this-” she put her wrists over her breasts and flapped them in a useless, comical display, “-and it can run faster than a horse. Strongest bite force of, like, anything ever. Back where I’m from, it was the biggest predator that ever lived, but it died out sixty million years ago, so we only know it from bones we’ve dug up.”

Mui blinked. That was… a lot. He sorted through her description of the beast, deciding on what to say.

“I can’t say I’ve heard of such a thing,” he eventually said, “though it does not seem so outlandish. I’ve heard tales of far larger, far more terrifying jungle beasts. You said it has not existed in your world for sixty million years?”

“Sixty-five million, actually,” the Professor corrected.

“I would have said that it surely must live on somewhere, but after so long… How did the gods allow an entire variety of animal to die?” Mui asked, aghast. “Any time Imperial hunters have tried to exterminate jungle predators from a region, they have suddenly grown vicious and unnaturally intelligent, and the various beastial pantheons usually involve themselves soon thereafter, ending the culling effort.”

“No gods on our world, remember?” the Professor said. “Besides, what killed them off was pretty close to divine intervention, if there’s ever been any on Earth. A giant meteor- a rock from space- hit the planet, killing off ninety-five percent of all species basically overnight. If they didn’t die in the firestorm and earthquakes, they died because the ash blocked out the sun for thousands of years. That’s what got the T-Rexes.”

Mui shuddered. He could not imagine what horrific sins humanity had committed in so ancient a time to deserve such an apocalypse. At least demonic incursions and otherworldly monsters could be fought, the people suffering them given an opportunity to prove themselves worthy of the gods’ favor. A single, momentous shattering of the world? That must have been earned by truly abominable sins.

“Which is why I so want this to be a T-Rex footprint,” Sara said, slapping the mud next to the large footprint. “Our scientists were always debating about what they really looked like. I want to know so bad.”

“Even if it resembles a T-Rex,” the Professor warned his daughter, “there’s no guarantee that it’s actually the same species. I mean, I guess some god or another could have just made a carbon copy of them, but that seems pretty unlikely. Real T-Rexes didn’t even live in the jungle. They were plains and forest predators. So this version could be evolved into a totally different ecological niche by now.”

“Do you really have to be so boring about everything, Dad?”

Mui stepped away from the conversation as father and daughter began to bicker good-naturedly, their barbs always traded behind a bitten-back laugh. It seemed they both wanted this footprint to truly be from one of their mythical beasts, and it was only Professor Brown’s desire to avoid his daughter’s disappointment that compelled him to disagree.

Mui turned his attention to Evie, instead, glancing over her shoulder.

She had a notebook spread on her lap, one of her wondrous fountain pens gripped tightly between her thumb and forefinger. The page was covered in dozens of half-started renditions of the beast’s footprint, each abandoned when some errant twitch sent her pen astray. In most of the abandoned copies, Mui could hardly see much of a flaw, but she had scratched them out in a fit of anger nonetheless.

“You could ask the Imperial scouts to record this mark for you,” Mui suggested. “They are accomplished sketch artists.”

“That is not the point,” Evie tersely replied.

“Ah.” Mui did not know what the point was, then. “Have you asked any of the scouts if they recognize the description of the beast your wife seeks? They would know more than I.”

“I’m sure she will at some point.”

Mui nodded, waiting for more to be said. When nothing was forthcoming, he awkwardly retreated, leaving Evie to her work.

Seeing as the entire army was waiting for the scouts to return, Mui wandered over to Hurlish, who was idly bouncing her child on her hip as she discussed matters with General Borek. Her four guards, as always, stood equidistant around her, facing outward with empty eyes.

This conversation, even more than the last, was not one Mui could contribute to. Hurlish was discussing weights and figures of various varieties of cannon with the General, who was frequently turning to the army’s Beastmaster for advice. Hurlish was keenly interested in finding pack animals of some sort to draw her cannons, giving the Powdered Lead soldiers a much-needed rest, but she didn’t seem to be having much success. It was a known fact throughout the Empire that humans were perhaps the ideal size of creature to travel safely through the jungle. Smaller animals were targets of predation from all sorts of myriad predators, while larger creatures only served to breach the threshold that would attract a true beast’s attention. Only a Warrior’s krapeu was expected to travel unmolested, as they were known by the monsters of the jungle as capable of defending themselves, but they were wildly unsuited to being hitched to a cart or wagon.

Hurlish was not abandoning the point, however. She seemed insistent that the few beasts of burden the Empire used in the cities, those that hauled heavy goods through the street, would be worth taking along in the army. As she went back and forth on the topic, increasingly addressing herself directly to the army’s Beastmaster rather than General Borek, Mui gleaned the impression that this was an oft-held argument. It did not seem to be one that would be reaching its conclusion any time soon, either.

Just as Mui began to leave, knowing there was nothing for him to add, he was startled by the sudden pivoting of Hurlish’s guards. All four snapped around, facing towards the head of the column, limbs shifting beneath their green robes.

General Borek reached up and put a hand on his glaive, peering in the direction the guards had been looking, a motion which sent nearly everyone scrambling for a weapon. Only Hurlish, ironically, seemed unconcerned, at least beyond a flicker of irritation as the Beastmaster began to ignore her.

Mui spotted what the guards had after several long, tense seconds: twin dots in the sky, returning with haste. They grew more detailed with each passing moment, from indistinct blobs to winged blurs, either griffon pumping its wings hard.

“Ah, finally,” General Borek said, moving forward through the crowd of his clingers-on. He moved toward the front of the column, where an open space had been provided for the griffons to land.

Mui felt his gut twist as the creatures drew closer. The left griffon had begun to jerk erratically in the sky, its wings frozen for brief moments as it tried to glide instead of flap, despite the fact that this was causing it to drop behind and below its fellow. The other griffon, perhaps even more concerningly, did not wait for its partner. It flew on without glancing back, straining with every wingbeat to reach the army.

By the time the first griffon arrived, a small semicircle of the army’s upper echelons had assembled. The griffon tucked itself into a steep dive and came crashing to the ground at a reckless pace, the earth jumping beneath Mui’s feet as it impacted the dirt.

The riders of flying beasts were a rare sort of soldier, and that provided them a leeway in the address of their superiors. Those capable of earning a griffon’s respect were too rare to be replaced, and they were well aware of that. It gave them an informal privilege that they now flagrantly abused. The creature’s two riders slipped from the saddle without a word to General Borek, one hurrying around to the griffon’s head, which was drooping low, its eyes lidded, the other barking out orders to the gathered soldiers.

“Get me a cask of water, a fresh one, and herbs for skywreathe lung! Bring the surgeons up immediately, and have them ready to treat Tas’van! She has a deep laceration at the base of her left wing, and she got a worse dose of skywreathe than Shimmer did! Go!”

A half-dozen soldiers sprinted away, including the Beastmaster himself. The griffon rider who had given the order joined her companion at the creature’s head, tearing her shirt off without the slightest thought for her audience. She wadded it up and began dabbing at the edge of the griffon’s mouth, where bloody foam was beginning to pool. The creature’s breath was incredibly labored.

“Report!” General Borek barked, striding forward. “Were you attacked?”

“In a minute, General,” the first rider said, ducking under his animal’s neck to bury his hands amongst its feathers, pressing his palms against the skin as if searching for something.

General Borek scoffed, but did not push the point. A griffon rider was likely the only one in the army save Sara and her wives who could so plainly dismiss him.

A minute later, just as the first round of supplies were beginning to arrive, the second griffon- Tas’van, apparently- arrived. Unlike the first beast, Tas’van did not scream to the ground in a blur of feathered muscle. The animal approached in a shallow dive, its trembling wings extended as far as it could reach. Even from hundreds of feet away, Mui could see drops of blood falling from its wing, holding their form for a brief moment before the wind shattered them into a red mist. Its legs hung limply beneath its body, head lolling from side to side as it drifted almost aimlessly downward.

“Back!” One of the griffon riders roared. “Back, back, clear the way! It’s going to be a bad landing!”

Mui joined the others in a mad scramble to the sides of the trail, pressing himself up against the tangled jungle.

As soon as it was aligned with the direction of the road, the griffon’s wings gave out, snapping upward. There was a scream of dismay from someone, maybe from the griffon’s riders, maybe from one of the audience, and then the beast hit the ground.

The two riders leapt free as their animal tried to dig its claws into the road, an effort which only served to flip it onto its side, causing the poor animal to roll several times, feathers tearing loose as it tumbled down the road.

In the end, it came to a stop more than a hundred yards away from the head of the column. Mui stepped away from the jungle wall, moving back to the middle of the road only to be bodily shoved aside, an Imperial and Tulian surgeon both sprinting past him as they dashed toward the fallen animal.

“Scout, report!” General Borek barked, stepping up to the first set of griffon riders.

“I said in a minute, General!” The man snapped, grabbing a bundle of wrapped herbs from a runner.

“That is an order, Scout Tilsa!” General Borek grabbed the man by the collar, dragging him away from his griffon. “One question, then you may tend to your beast! You have clearly been attacked. Is this army in danger from enemy scouts?”

The flash of rage that had spread across the scout’s face at being hauled away from his animal was replaced, for a very brief moment, by a tired, prideful grin.

“No, General. We won the fight. They’re dead.”

General Borek dropped the man, speaking a single word. “Good.” He stalked away, one hand reaching up to pinch and twirl his cheek fur.

Unlike the general, Sara seemed more than happy to wait for the scouts to finish tending to their animal. Mui sidled back over to her, hoping to avoid General Borek’s pacing anger by attaching himself to her person. She and her wives were discussing the worse-wounded griffon’s injuries in quiet murmurs, sounding shockingly concerned for its wellbeing. The northerners, Mui had learned, held a sense of awe for the flying beasts, a wonder for the abilities which most Imperials took for granted.

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