A Perverted Path to Victory

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Tinvel

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With the sun only now sliding past its apex, the Mage’s Respite wasn’t a particularly bustling tavern. Most of the university’s students wouldn’t be done with their work for hours yet, and the same could be said of the city’s other denizens that frequented the small business that had cropped up outside Tulian University. Light streamed lazily through the open windows, a sea-scented breeze carrying away the smell of last night’s spilled beers and upturned stomachs. A small group of sailors occupied a table set against the far wall, but they were fresh off a hard-run ship, drooping with exhaustion. They’d probably only bothered to walk this far into the city so that they could find a quiet place to get drunk.

Aside from the dozing sailors and a single bartending woman sweeping the floors, he and Affe had the place to themselves. They each had a plate of grilled fish, bread, and a mug of beer, and they mirrored the sailor’s lethargy as they picked at their meals.

“Training’s going good,” Affe said, pushing a piece of meat around his plate. “They’re learning fast. They know they’ve got to.”

“Even without me there to teach them?” Tinvel replied, half-joking.

“Yeah.”

They both looked at each other, considering. The old habitual bickering was at the tip of their tongues, ready to flow forth as it had so many times before.

Affe heaved a sigh, looking back down at his plate. Tinvel picked up his mug and took a sip. Not a big one. Just something to do with his hands.

“The Foresight is almost ready for its first test flight,” he said.

“Foresight?”

“What I’m calling the next plane. The replacement for the Fulleyes.”

“Ah.” Affe plucked up a small piece of fish and popped it in his mouth, chewing slowly. He swallowed. “We had the Halfeye, then the Fulleye, and now the Foresight. I half expected you to call it the Threeeye or something.”

“Too many e’s in a row.”

“Makes sense.”

Another long silence.

“I’m not sure if it’s going to be something the less-experienced pilots can fly,” Tinvel ventured. “It’s fast, but it’s got a lot of quirks. We still haven’t made a big breakthrough in engine power, so I had to compromise on a lot of things to get the speed I wanted from it. It’s going to be hard to fly.”

“Fulleyes for the rookies, Foresights for the veterans, then?”

“Probably.” Tinvel tore off a piece of bread, twisting it between his fingers. “It’s going to be a good plane, though. A proper fighter. You’ll like it.”

“I’m sure you’d think that.”

Affe’s jab was lifeless. Lacking spit or venom, it was tossed out more as a matter of habit than anything else. Tinvel sighed. He dropped the piece of bread, rubbing his eyes and leaning back in the chair.

“We should probably stop this shit, shouldn’t we?”

Affe blinked. “What?”

“Arguing.” Tinvel gestured between them. “We’ve fought together. Watched some of the people we’ve taught to fly end up dead. Does us bitching back and forth matter anymore?”

Affe leaned back in his chair as well. He took a long pull from his beer.

We’re not even twenty years old, Tinvel thought. Professor Brown thinks we’re still kids.

Affe set the mug down, wiping his mouth. He had a stony, gray face. Like he hadn’t slept right in months. Tinvel knew he probably looked the same.

“No.” Affe looked aside, staring out a window. There was nothing to see there. Just the blank wall of the opposite building. “No, it doesn’t. So. What’s the plane like?”

“Monoplane. Twin engine, push-pull configuration, with a better dope formulation. Stiffer wings and larger control surfaces. It’s slim enough that I’m worried it’ll get fast enough for the controls to lock up in a dive, so I tried to give us the best chance of pulling up, but that means it’s twitchy at lower speeds.”

“You figure out retractable landing gear yet?”

“I had a few ideas of how to do it, but none of them are worth it. Artifice engines may only weigh fifty kilograms or so, but they’re still not as powerful as the engines on the monoplanes Professor Brown knows of. The weight of extra machinery would cost us more speed than folding landing gear would gain. And that’s assuming any of my ideas would actually be reliable enough to put on a plane, which I doubt they are.”

Affe scowled. “Damn. Do you have anyone working on it?”

“No,” Tinvel said with a scoff. “Are you kidding me? Do you know how overbooked our artificers are? I’m the aeroplane guy. Some other people are working on stuff that I’ve asked them to do, like alchemy for the canvas dope or enchantments for stronger props, but no one at the Artificer’s Union is gonna let me jump the project line just to waste some of their worker’s precious time fiddling with a landing gear design that may or may not work out.”

“You’re an Air Force Commander. Can’t you command them to do some stuff?”

Tinvel shook his head. “The Artificer Union is civilian. Even General Voth wouldn’t have the right to tell them to prop a door open for him.”

“That’s stupid.”

“Sara Brown is the one that said military officers have no civilian authority. Take it up with her.”

Affe chuckled darkly. “No thanks. I like my head on my shoulders.”

Tinvel’s eyes rolled. “She’s not that bad.”

Affe’s eyebrows raised. “Oh yeah? You ever go to the public executions? The ones after the first war, when they were hanging the captured Knights and nobility?”

Tinvel shifted in his seat. “No.”

“I did. A few times. The way I heard it, she was there for every single one. Brought her work and a desk with her so she could get stuff done, but she always paid attention when the hangings started.” Affe took another drink. When he lowered his mug, his lips were turned down. “I always thought she looked like she was trying really hard not to smile when she heard their necks crack. Like it took a lot of work for her to not enjoy their deaths.”

Tinvel absorbed that silently. When he didn’t say anything for a while, Affe made a light wave his way.

“Well, what do you think? You’ve spent more time with the Governess than anyone else I know. Except the Professors, I guess, but they’re not going to say anything.” Affe leaned forward. “People love her, but they’re scared of her, too. You think that sounds about right?”

Tinvel tried to deflect. “From what I’ve heard, people are more afraid of Lady Evie than they are of Sara.”

“Oh, obviously, but she’s old blood.” Affe waved dismissively. “People are afraid of her like they used to be afraid of every blue-blooded noble. Lady Evie might be a murderer, might be downright terrifying, but that’s nothing new. Everyone says the Governess is a different kind of scary. You spent a few days flying with her. Are they right?”

It was Tinvel’s turn to take a long drink of his beer. It had gotten warm a long time ago, but he didn’t really care. When he set it down, he sighed.

“I get why people would be afraid of her, and I don’t blame them, but me? I’m not scared.”

“Yeah? Why’s that?”

Tinvel met Affe’s eyes. “Sara Brown treats her people right. She always has, she always will. She’s loyal to us in a way that’s hard to understand. But I’ve heard her talk about the fights she’s been in, heard her explain why she plans for the war the way she does, so I know how she treats other people. The people she considers a threat, an obstacle. The way she talks about them, it’s like she just sees… meat. Nothing living. If you’re in her way, you’re just a pile of meat that needs to be cut down.”

“Sounds like you should be scared then,” Affe said. “She’s strict. Everyone knows it. She’s operating on a whole different set of rules that she hasn’t even finished explaining them to everyone else. What if you screw up bad enough that she decides you’re one of those obstacles? That’s what scares me.”

“Doesn’t scare me.”

“Bullshit.” Affe waited a moment, then sighed. “Why?”

Tinvel chuckled. He probably shouldn’t be this honest, but screw it. Not like Affe was going to snitch. There wasn’t anyone to snitch to.

“Because I’m too much of a coward to get on her bad side,” he said matter-of-factly. “I don’t care what she tells me to do. I’ll do it. I don’t have the spine to disobey her. So that means I’ve got nothing to worry about.”

Affe considered that. He took another bite of his fish, made a face at the feeling of meat that had long since lost its warmth, and swallowed.

“Even if she told you to fly on a suicide mission? If she sent your plane up against a hundred wyverns?”

“...Yeah,” Tinvel said, after considering it for a moment. “Yes, I’d obey that order. Still better than finding out what happens when you make her angry.” He took a bite of his bread, giving his jaw a workout on the stale dough. “But I don’t think she’d give that kind of order. She’s not that type of person. Even if she did, it’d probably be because she knew something I didn’t. That the enemy had been planning to break and run at the first sign of resistance or something. So I’d give it a shot and hope it all somehow worked out.”

“Damn. I don’t know if I could do that.”

Tinvel shot him a warning glance. “You should. If she gives you an order like that, you should follow it. Trust me.”

“Sure, I bet you’d say that,” he said, turning his nose up. “But I’m not like you. I’d tell her to…” Affe trailed off, expression souring. He rubbed his eyes. “Alright, fine. I’ll trust you. She scares me, too.”

“Funny how that’s what everyone says, isn’t it?” Tinvel poked at his food. “None of us have seen her get really angry, have we? But everyone I’ve talked to about it…” He shrugged. “Well. They know what I mean.”

“Yeah.” Affe tore off a piece of bread, pinching and kneading at it mindlessly. “Yeah, it’s funny. All you have to do is talk to her once, and you just… know. That something bad’s gonna happen if she goes off. Like when you’re walking out in the fields and feel something staring at your back. You don’t know what it is. Just that it scares the piss out of you.”

Tinvel paused, fork halfway to his mouth. “You’ve spent time in the fields?”

“Uh, yeah?” Affe gave him an odd look. “My parents were farmers in a village up north. Gone now, of course, but it’s where I grew up. Came to the city once Professor Garen found me.”

“Huh. I just sorta… assumed you grew up in the city. Like me.”

“Why? Because I’m an arrogant piece of shit?”

“Kinda, yeah.”

Affe rolled his eyes. “Well I didn’t. I came to the University already knowing how to cast some heavy-duty offensive magic. You think I would’ve learned that trading fish hooks and ropes on the docks?”

“Guess I never thought about it. We never talked.”

“No. We didn’t.”

“Mm.”

This time the silence was a bit more intentional. They ate their food with more vigor, finishing it off before the flies discovered the waiting feast, then washed it down with warm beer. Cold fish and warm beer. Their own fault, really. Should have eaten it quicker.

Tinvel tapped his fingernail on the table, thinking. He’d spent the whole meal expecting his mage rival to broach the topic of Tinvel and Chona, to crack jokes or ask if the rumors about vanara heats were true, but it hadn’t come. When the table was cleared, Affe reached down beneath his chair and fiddled with a leather bag he’d brought with him, bringing out a stack of papers that he dropped atop the table.

“So,” he said, picking up the first sheet. “Since you’ve been too busy to attend most of the flight lessons, I started taking notes on pilot performance. It’s in order of seniority, juniors on top.” He handed Tinvel a bundle of three papers, surprisingly neat handwriting scribbled across the front and back. “You haven’t worked much with Alena. These are her records. She’s showing a lot of promise, but she’s reckless. She keeps trying to push up her maneuver training time table, and I’ve caught her flying off during group exercises to pull stunts above her paygrade twice now. Almost crashed last time. I told her if she pulled something like that again she’d be out of the program, but I was mostly bluffing. You’ll get why when you look at the report, I think.”

Tinvel’s eyes widened as he glanced down at the paper. Not because of anything unique to Alena— though she was showing promise, as Affe said— but rather because of the detail. Dates of training flights, a single-sentence rating on different performance metrics, and a more comprehensive series of freely written notes explaining what Affe thought of the pilot. Glancing at the rest of the stack, it looked like he’d done the same for every other person he’d been training in Tinvel’s absence.

“Damn,” he breathed.

“She’s good,” Affe said with a nod.

That wasn’t what Tinvel had been reacting to. But he nodded all the same, turning his chair to one side, so that the window’s light could hit the papers square-on.

“I know you’ve got to get going soon,” Affe said. “So just look those over real quick. But I want you to come to at least a couple more practices. We need to show the recruits the thatch weave again.” His expression darkened, turning severe. “That’s the only thing that saved us from that wyvern. It might save their life, too. We need them drilling it.”

“Okay.” Tinvel flipped Alena’s papers over, picking up the next set. “Sure. I’ll try and make it to this evening’s session. Launching from the aerodrome, right?”

“Right. I’ll see you there.”

“If Chona will let me,” Tinvel muttered, the words slipping out under his breath before he could think better of it. He winced, bracing for whatever wisecrack was sure to come.

Affe didn’t smile. Didn’t crack a joke. He just picked up the next set of papers, scanning them for himself. After a moment, he turned them around, pointing at a spot on the first page.

“Pretty much every recruit is falling behind what we expected in formation flying. We need to change the training schedule, I think. Emphasize that more heavily.”

Tinvel nodded slowly. He glanced at Affe's mug of beer. It was empty. So was his own, now that he thought about it.

We might be kids, Professor Brown, but if we are, we’re some sorry-ass kids.

He frowned.

I guess that’s what you warned me about, isn’t it?

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Evie Brown

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Steadying her elbow atop Sara’s head, Evie peered at the ramshackle fortifications. Knowing she was being watched, she did not allow a dismissive sneer to crawl up her face, though she felt the paltry display ahead of her was worth the expression.

It couldn’t be called a castle, nor fortification, nor even a palisade. She felt generous describing the piles of wood as a barricade, in fact. The peculiar beaver creatures that she had seen in Sara’s nature documentaries would have turned away in shame from such a construct. Rough-cut logs from the surrounding jungle had been tossed atop one another in next to no order, kept in loose order by hand-applied spatters of muddy clay until the lopsided scaffolding reached some three meters in height. Though technically tall enough to prevent a soldier from scaling it in one crude leap, they hadn’t even bothered to trim the logs smooth. The handholds that remained were more frequently placed and easier to grasp than the climbing walls used in the drilling of Tulian recruits.

Imperial culture truly does despise defensive fortifications. She snapped the spyglass closed, tucking it back into Sara’s belt pouch. It seems they drew the wrong conclusion from decades of warfare waged by such large armies: that if creating a truly insurmountable defense is impossible, any reliance on defensive structures is folly. That a culture so physically constrained by the jungle created an army predicated on field battles is strange indeed.

After riding all of yesterday at an average pace of eight miles per hour— thirteen kilometers per hour in the new measurement parlance— she’d begun to wonder if the Imperial scouts complaining of heavy opposition had simply been lying in order to shirk their duties. Stumbling across this measly engineering disaster had proven that theory wrong, at least. Pathetic as it was next to the stone bastions of Sporatos, it served its purpose of blocking the progress of a handful of scouts.

Four hundred riflemen, however, should make short work of it.

“The enemy has spotted us,” she announced, speaking loud enough to be heard by more than just Sara, with whom she’d been sharing a bicycle. “They are armored similarly to other rebel troops, but do appear to possess some form of musket-like handheld firearm. I cannot determine from this range if they were as poor a quality as those we captured before, but find myself doubting it. Those weapons could not have survived a few short weeks of training without either being tossed aside in disgust or killing their operators.”

A polite chuckle from the listeners. Sara was not surrounded by her officers, preferring the company of common soldiers as a matter of course, but the Powdered Lead had become something of an elite company. Evie believed that even the dullest of their number were now physically talented enough to lead traditional army squads— if only by example, rather than tactical acumen. It was thus worthwhile to keep the common soldiers appraised of their opponent’s relative capabilities.

Master Graf proven right yet again, she thought, turning to face the Powdered Lead. If King Sporatos had allowed his peasants even a few short weeks of training, much less the months we have allowed our commoners, the wars in which the kingdom was victorious could have spared entire lakes of blood from being drained in the King’s name.

Of course, in the King’s view of the world, some types of blood were worth less than others. The loss of peasants was not worth compensating for, he believed.

The faces that peered back at Evie now were alert and focused, patiently waiting for orders that, she knew, they would follow to the best of their considerable ability.

Master Graf always said that grit, determination, and loyalty won battles, but he never explained how to summon it in one’s underlings.

Sara had achieved it, of course. It was why Evie would never be half the general that her wife was, no matter how fiercely the woman insisted otherwise. An army that did not break won the day. That was as close to fact as could be found. There had been times, of course, that such a force had been so overwhelmed that they were killed to the last, but when one looked at the larger body of studied history? Sufficiently motivated armies had losses so few and far between that they could be disregarded as statistical outliers. If you did not break, you won. The Powdered Lead had become such a force.

She stepped off the bike, speaking into Sara’s ear so that her recommendations could not be overheard. For all Sara’s belief that open honesty was an excellent policy, it wouldn’t do to have the troops witness their commanders disagreeing.

“We’re going to take the enemy head-on,” Sara loudly declared once Evie had finished speaking. She stepped off her bike and let it rest on the kickstand as she unslung her massive break-action gun, prompting the rest of the Powdered Lead to do the same. “Advancing fire at the quick march, three ranks, squads two and three to start with, with one and four following twenty meters behind to take over front-line duties if called upon! Volley fire only, and I want it clean, one big boom, none of that ripple-fire crap, understand?”

Prompted by their officers, a loud chorus of “Yes ma’am!” ran through the ranks.

“Bayonets are to be affixed at a hundred and fifty meters, the charge is to begin at fifty meters! We don’t know what’ll be on the other side of the wall, but I know that they’re going to be trying their damndest to get a message back to their army! Sixth squad, that’s what you’re for! You’re to stay back, bicycles ready to head up and begin tearing down that wall the instant you get the word! I want us riding through as soon as goddamn possible to catch whatever warning runner they sent back to their army, understand me? Hack it up, blow it up, whatever you decide on, so long as it’s gone, I don’t care! This whole fight is gonna be about hitting them hard and fast enough that they can’t get even a whisper out to their main army, and I expect everyone to fight like that! Lieutenants and squad commanders to me for details! Dismissed!”

Preparations began in an instant. Squads began breaking up according to Sara’s orders, every soldier diving into their last-minute preparations. Some did practical things, like swabbing their barrels down one last time or testing their bayonet’s sharpness, while others knelt and muttered a prayer, and still others checked on the small trinkets and talismans they kept affixed to their weapons and armor. Sara had wanted to discourage that last group, believing it to be useless superstition, but Evie had pushed back on that. Though it was unlikely in the extreme for a common mercenary to benefit from divine providence in the midst of a minor skirmish, she’d happily accept any aid the heavens might deign to offer. The soldiers asking for a god’s favor cost nothing.

The closer-knit officer’s meeting did not last long, and Evie’s input was not required. The plan itself was numbingly simple, considering the fact that they were being funneled into a head-on assault. The difficulty wasn’t in deciding what to do. It was in executing the plan with skill enough to prevent undue losses.

Listening to proceedings with only half an ear, it was easy enough to catch the sound of Mui Thom’s clanking approach. His Imperial armor had a distinct ring to it, different enough from the Powdered Lead that she knew it by heart. She addressed him without turning around.

“You will be participating in the battle, I presume?”

He stopped, adjusting his stance. Evie turned to face him.

As predicted, he was dressed in his full battle regalia, polished Imperial armor shining beneath the Hot Rifle resting on his shoulder. He had a catfolk’s foamy sweat dotting his fur, though not enough to indicate exhaustion, and his panther’s muzzle was resting in a fairly neutral, unimpressed expression. That was not surprising. Though it was easy for Evie to forget, the man had fought in more battles than she’d ever seen, and all of them had been in armies that dwarfed near any northern force.

“Advancing fire,” Mui stated, forgoing a greeting. “I’ve heard of the tactic, but I’ve never practiced it. Will I be an obstacle if I join the line?”

“You haven’t been present for the drills?”

“No.”

“Then yes, you will be an obstacle.” Evie’s lips turned down. “But you would be an asset when we come to grips with the enemy. A spear in your hands is worth ten of the Powdered Lead’s bayonets.”

“An exaggeration,” he said immediately.

“I only give insincere flattery to children and those my wives are trying to seduce, Mui, and you have already been seduced.” Evie pursed her lips, considering. “Take a place next to me on the front line and follow my instructions exactly. You will learn as we go.”

His weight shifted from foot to foot as he looked around. “Is there no time for at least some rudimentary form of training?”

“Powdered Lead!” Sara bellowed, her voice loud enough to send flocks of birds squawking from the trees. “Form lines!”

“There is not.” Evie grabbed Mui by the arm and dragged him along, heading for Second Squad. “We will march at the quick time, not the double, which means one seventy-five centimeter step at a rate of one hundred and ten per minute.”

“I at least know that much of Tulian’s marching routines.”

“Good.” Evie dragged a member of the second squad out of line without a word of explanation, shoving Mui into the woman’s spot. “You will maintain a distance of seventy centimeters between your shoulders and those beside you. Advance five steps, shoulder your weapon, and fire when commanded. Begin reloading immediately, so that you are reloaded by the time your rank has cycled back to the front.”

“Simple enough.”

“It is not.”

Mui opened his mouth to say something, likely to ask a question, but was interrupted by Sara appearing off his right side, placing herself in the center of the line as she shouted out.

“My rank, you’re rank one! Repeat it!”

“I am rank one!” Evie yelled, her voice blending into a barrage of identical cries.

Sara pointed at the second row of mercenaries. “You are rank two! Repeat it!”

“I am rank two!” Chorused the soldiers.

Sara pointed further back. “Which means?”

“I am rank three!” The third row yelled.

Some distance behind them, a similar process of affirming relative positions was being undertaken. The narrow road only allowed for ranks to be so wide, and that meant that the full brunt of four hundred riflemen couldn’t be brought to bear.

If only we’d brought our artillery with us.

Leaving the ten Napoleons and their hundred operators behind had been General Borek’s sole caveat to the proposed scouting mission. The golden miracle workers had caused too much devastation to the Blackpowder Army’s enemies for the general to countenance spending even a few days without them. Sara had agreed, mostly on the fairly reasonable grounds that a rapid reconnaissance mission had little need of heavy artillery, and that even a single one of them being captured would be a disaster too great to risk. Had they had those cannons, however, this idiotic barricade would have been blasted apart in a single volley.

“Five steps of seventy-five centimeters,” Evie repeated. “No more, no less. There will be dozens of men and women loading rifles behind your back. Remember that. Any mistake in alignment could put you in the line of fire.”

“They would not shoot me in the back, surely?”

“You are correct, unfortunately. Which means your mistake would simply throw a portion of the line into disarray, slowing our rate of fire, allowing the enemy to begin responding.” Though she still had her true rifle on her back, Evie drew one of her cryslock pistols, dropping a paper cartridge down the barrel and giving it a hard ram home. “Watch the enemy wall closely so that you can be ready to fire at wherever you last saw a figure moving. You won’t have time to pick a specific target.”

“Rank one!” Sara barked. “Hold fire and advance!”

Evie’s legs moved instantly, countless hours spent drilling the Powdered Lead carrying her five carefully measured steps with an automaton’s unthinking precision. The barricade was some five hundred meters down the road. Technically within the range of the Powdered Lead’s rifle-muskets, but only by the thinnest of margins. Considering that an unrifled musket could only be accurate to a fifth of that range, conserving ammunition during the early advance was a prudent measure.

Evie stopped at exactly five steps, cryslock pistol held ready. Though its short barrel left it nowhere near as accurate as a proper rifle, Hurlish had still built it herself. Evie was more than confident it would do the job once the distance had closed. Even if she couldn’t hit a specific target, the enemy would still hear the whine of a zipping ball and the crack of its impact. Injuring morale was often more important than injuring the enemy.

“You moved slightly too far,” she informed Mui. “Overshot by ten centimeters or so.”

“Damn,” he cursed, stepping back a touch.

“Rank two, hold fire and advance!”

A soldier passed between Evie and Mui, ignoring them both, their eyes locked straight ahead.

“While it’s not as much a concern in these narrow confines, every soldier in an advancing line must rely on their fellows to maintain course. Those who step too far or too little will steadily steer the entire line off course.”

“Rank three, hold fire and advance!”

“It seemed simple enough,” he said, watching the second soldier go past. “But there’s no room for error, is there?”

“None at all.”

“Rank one, hold fire and advance!”

Evie marched forward. The monotony of the stutter-stopping charge began to sink into Mui quickly enough. He proved a quick learner, as always. Though Evie continued to correct him at times, none of his mistakes were major, and soon he had turned his attention toward the steadily-nearing barricade, his eyes narrowed and muzzle twitching, scenting the wind.

“Would a general charge not be more effective?” He eventually asked.

“Possibly,” Evie admitted. “But we would inevitably take casualties during the approach. What we are attempting now is predicated upon suppressing fire. A constant fusillade of bullets will hopefully prevent the enemy from mounting an effective resistance until it is too late. We will ideally whittle down their numbers enough throughout the process that our final charge will be more decisive than otherwise.”

Mui eyed the barricade. “But to do so we must walk headlong into gunfire.”

“Yes. This will not be a bloodless battle.”

“It never is.”

The monotony was broken at a range of three hundred meters. The difference in commands given was subtle, but everyone present was well-trained enough to notice.

“Rank one, advance!”

Evie joined the rest in taking five quick steps forward, her gaze peering straight ahead, searching for a target. She found many. Perhaps two dozen faces were peering over the barricade, the grey iron of their own muskets bobbing beside their heads. She picked the individual most directly ahead of her and, when she stopped, raised her pistol.

“Fire!”

The day’s first gunshots cracked like lightning, a single, harsh strike that drilled into her ears, even with the wads of waxy cotton stuffed deep inside. The battle had begun.

Music began to float into the air. Evie felt her steps steady as the tinny rattle of a beating drum echoed along the road, emanating from Sara at a volume that should have been deafening, yet didn’t so much as make her ears twitch.

When Johnny comes marching home again,

Hurrah, hurrah!

We'll give him a hearty welcome then,

Hurrah, hurrah!

An interesting choice, by Evie’s reckoning. Not because it was a bad marching song— it was a marching song popularized in the same period that had produced the Powdered Lead’s rifle-muskets— but rather because she didn’t expect Sara to pick it. She didn’t usually prefer music that was so… comprehensible.

When Johnny comes marching home again

Hurrah! Hurrah!

We'll give him a hearty welcome then

Hurrah! Hurrah!

The Powdered Lead took up the familiar song quickly, adding their voices to each refrain. Bolstered by Champion’s Inspiration, it suddenly became trivial for their assembled ranks to match one another. Even Mui was marching in perfect lock-step with the others, moving with the ease of a practiced veteran.

Oh, the men will cheer and the boys will shout

The ladies they will all turn out

And we'll all feel gay

When Johnny comes marching home!

And we'll all feel gay

When Johnny comes marching home!

As laughter and poor-taste jokes worked their way up and down the line between refrains, the reasoning for Sara’s song choice became clear. That one simple line: we’ll all feel gay. Of course. In Sara’s world, and in the context Evie had first heard the song, the word ‘gay’ was synonymous with happiness. Not so for the Powdered Lead. The titular Johnny was, to them, a sex symbol. The Powdered Lead saw Johnny as a hero so famous that his village’s women swooned and the village’s men turned gay at the mere sight of him. Of course they’d love it. Though Sara hadn’t enjoyed the original song, she certainly loved her troop’s new interpretation of it.

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