Speed Is Life

Chona

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“Did we hit the wyvern?!” Tinvel screamed.

“No! Fell short! It’s up and coming after us!”

“Shit!”

The Foresight’s engines rattled their way up to combat speed, props biting hard into the dense low-altitude air. With her focus on the control panel before her, Chona only saw the army through her peripheral vision.

Gods, there’s so many!

Tinvel kept the plane steady and level as they rocketed over the teeming horde, doing his best to maintain all the speed their dive had bought them. The Royal Sporaton Army— and that was the only thing it could be, considering the glittering armor of uncountable Knights— was sheltering beneath a lamellar hide of spellcrafted energies, the plethora of colors blurring together into a bright smear as they shot overhead. Chona could see the gargantuan formation lurching forward in stages, rank after rank of soldiers beginning a hasty advance toward the North Star Fort. Those at the outer flank turned away from the main body, their lines loosening as they began to jog west-southwest, likely aiming to encircle the entire city. The Knights were galloping ahead of them, breaking into dozens of hundred-strong groups that were, rather than the fort, making for the hills.

Where are they going?

A bestial roar thundered across the skies, calling Chona’s attention to the rising sight of a massive wyvern. The quivering speed gauge was jittering back up towards the ten mark as fast as it could, yet it didn’t feel fast enough. Green scales flashed in the sun as the wyvern began to pick up speed, each crashing wingbeat audible even over the wind and engines.

“TCA to AF! Get airborne and form up!” Tinvel yelled into his communication crystal. “We’re stuck engaging the wyvern, tactical control transfers to Affe!” He shoved the crystal away. “Are we maintaining distance?”

Chona spun her seat around— it could now rotate, allowing her to face any direction while still secured— and tightened the strap on her speaking tube, keeping it smashed against her lips.

“No… shit, maybe? Hard to tell!”

“Not good enough!”

Tinvel tipped the Foresight down, taking them within a single wingspan of the ground. Chona spun around to adjust the prop pitches to their lowest altitude settings, then looked back to the wyvern.

It was flying all-out to reach them. Its wings were rotated forward, maybe forty-five degrees to its body, the bony sockets of its shoulders visibly straining on every downbeat. The great swathes of pale, lightly scaled skin, each more than twice the width of the Foresight, would collapse as they were pulled forward, then billow out to sweep through the skies as massive oars, throwing the creature closer in bounding leaps. The time it took for the wings to fold inward for another sweep was enough that the Foresight was keeping a lead, but only just. Maybe five hundred meters separated them, but that number was variable, dropping and gaining a hundred meters depending on where they were in the wyvern’s lunging flight pattern.

“Do we have more rockets?”

“I don’t know!” Tinvel replied. “How many did you fire?”

“I don’t know!” Chona echoed, looking over her instrument panel. “Shit! We didn’t put the counter in yet! One second!” She loosened her seatbelt and pushed against the floorboard, leaning over the right wing. The rockets were just long enough that she could see the yellow-painted tailfins over the trailing edge. “Uh… looks like one on the right wing, and… two on the left!”

“Might be enough! Let’s keep drawing them away!”

Tinvel banked the plane a few degrees to the left, heading away from the coastline. Right as they passed over the edge of the Sporaton army, a pillar of earth erupted, spiraling upward right ahead of their flight path.

Tinvel didn’t even have time to gasp. He stomped the right rudder down to the floorboard as he rolled left, their wingtip throwing up a wake of green clippings as it scythed through the tall grass. Chona felt the air whump against her chest as they skated past the summoned obstacle, followed milliseconds after by an ominous, rattling jerk that seemed to imply some part of the plane had actually collided with the pillar of dirt and stone, even if it didn’t cause immediately catastrophic damage.

The worst part was the resulting deceleration. The harsh turn bled away their speed, the minor collision acting as a knife twisting in the wound. Chona didn’t even have to look behind her to know the distance had closed. She could feel the heat of boiling wyvern-flame rising against her back already.

“Get ready!” She yelled, grabbing a bag of mixed blackpowder and iron filings from its storage compartment.

“Should I dodge or keep us level?!”

She spun her chair around, eying the distance. “Level!”

The wyvern had closed to within two or three hundred meters, its massive jaws gaping wide as fire began to bubble up its throat. The air shimmered with heat for a dozen meters around it. Chona had seen that before, though, and she knew what to do.

Eyes lidded and her feet braced against the cockpit walls to keep herself steady, she flung her right hand out, intense focus sending a swirling tornado of powder out into the air. Unlike before, she didn’t hold the spell. She severed her connection to the energies, leaving the powder floating in midair.

Damnit!

The wyvern remembered that trick, clearly. The moment the dusty cloud appeared, its jaws snapped shut, fire contained safely within. Unlike their earlier encounter, it burst through the blackpowder fog without igniting a single shred of powder, then opened its mouth again, flames readying themselves once more.

“Hold on tight!” Tinvel yelled. Chona did so before she knew why, latching her fingers to the walls beside her.

The Foresight snapped into a hard right roll a heartbeat later, the world spinning dizzily around her. She felt herself get crushed down into her seat as Tinvel pulled with all his strength on the control column. Looking upward, Chona saw the side of a hill flashing past. They were on a perfect 90-degree knife edge, zipping through the hills that rose and fell beyond the borders of the North Star Fort’s flattened killing field.

She lost sight of their pursuer right as flames boiled forth, a grassy mound interspersing itself between plane and wyvern just in time for the overwhelming fires to strike the hillside and shoot outward in all directions in a volcanic eruption of blinding heat. Even from hundreds of meters away, Chona could still feel it against her fur. The entire hill ignited in a flash, the intensity so great that storm-wet grass burst into smoldering smoke for dozens of meters beyond the directly struck area. A distant part of her mind, the one not consumed by adrenaline-spiking panic, wondered how many degrees of temperature those flames had to reach in order to achieve such an effect.

The wyvern smashed through the resulting tower of smoke with a furious roar, flapping to gain altitude. The gap between them grew again as it flew higher and higher, keeping the Foresight beyond the range of its flames, but not without purpose. With its next burst aimed from on high, it wouldn’t need to worry about a hill getting in the way.

“TCA to Affe and North Star!” Tinvel called out, pressing his lips against the leather pocket that held the crystal in the hopes that his screams might be heard through what was doubtlessly a tumultuously overwhelmed network. “Trying to lure wyvern into vulnerable position! Assist if you can!”

With that, Tinvel resumed his lefthanded turn, seeking an angle that would send them circling back to the city without sacrificing the speed that was keeping them out of the wyvern’s grasp.

Chona glanced toward the skies over the city. She could see maybe a dozen planes rising into the air, flying in twos or fours, but they weren’t alone. Small, nimble griffons sliced through the rising wingmates, flashes of spellcraft bursting to life over the city like a thunderstorm.

Below the burgeoning air battle, the city itself was almost impossible to see; the North Star Fort was spitting so much fire and smoke that the defenses were entirely obscured, an effect that was worsened by the rail-mounted cannons atop the walls of Tulian. The white, lingering smoke of blackpowder was joined by brief bursts of black emcotton, speckles of white-hot small arms fire adding texture to the tableau. Occasionally there would be a bigger burst than the rest as one of the 64-pounders fired, sending the world’s most powerful artillery shell arcing down into the Sporaton army.

When she’d seen the live fire drills of the Tulian army, Chona had allowed herself to think that nothing could survive the volume of fire that could be spat out by the North Star and its occupants. The Sporatons were currently proving her wrong. They came on still, mage-shields holding strong under the assault. By the last war’s standards, the withering fire should have completely obliterated the enemy army. Not anymore. Even if they refused to pick up firearms for themselves, the Sporatons had clearly learned.

A high-altitude bloom of white dragged Chona’s attention back to the skies over Tulian. She saw one, then two silken parachutes spill open. A flaming Fulleye spiraled to the ground nearby, shattering into a thousand pieces as it impacted a field just beyond the city. A griffon screeched in victory.

At least the parachutes work.

Behind them, the wyvern roared.

Not that I think we’ll get a chance to use ours.

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Artillery Lieutenant Shale

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“Keep firing! Keep firing! Keep fuckin’ firing!” She grabbed a runner by the shoulder as the girl passed, roughly spinning her around and shoving her toward the wall. “I don’t care what your message is! You got a gun, you better be firing it! Do other shit when there’s enough regulars on the wall for you to not have a spot!”

“Aye, ma’am!”

“Saying ‘aye’ is for the Navy!” Shale laughed, following behind the girl as they threw themselves up the concrete steps two at a time. “Just give me a yes ma’am and get to shooting!”

“Yes, ma’am!”

Shale was breathing hard by the time she was halfway up the walls. She’d tried to keep herself fit while in prison, but she’d only been allowed out of the cell for a couple hours a day. Besides that, she was in her damned fifties. She’d been a carpenter her whole damn life! She’d never thought she’d need to run from anything other than a toppling shelf she’d put together while drunk, much less sprint up three flights of stairs. But here she was! Huffing and puffing her way up to the top level of the fort.

Gods be thanked that General Evie isn’t here for this, she thought, chuckling nervously between panting breaths. I know she said I’d be released to command the fort if it was necessary, but she was too damned mad for me to feel sure she’d really let me out.

Two letters had been sent back to Tulian after Shale’s little misadventure in a naval vessel: the public one, disseminated as orders to the military at large, and the sealed and stamped one addressed to Shale herself. The first was well known by now; an explanation of what Shale had done, why it was illegal, and what would happen to her. The second, though…

Shale still had it. Tucked into her pocket, its creases worn from unfolding and refolding. The public letter had been written in a light, elegant script, the pen gliding across the page. The one Shale had received looked like it had been written with a fist-clenched dagger, lines dug so deep into the paper that Shale knew the next five pages in the stack would’ve had the words imprinted in them. Evie had explained in direct, absolute, and painfully clear terms what she expected from Shale. She’d outlined Shale’s anticipated behavior whilst in prison, how she would talk to others through the bars about the experience, and what she would say after she’d been released, deciding all of them for her well before they happened.

The instructions were all bent toward one critical idea: precedent. Publicly and prominently establishing what would happen to the powerful Irregulars of the Tulian Republic if they disobeyed government edicts. Shale’s entire life for the last few months had been scripted out for her, every day and every expression dictated long in advance, and she’d played her part obediently.

Lady Evie’s letter had never explicitly threatened her. Hardly even implied a threat, in fact. She’d never said ‘or else’ or even ‘I expect you to obey’ or anything remotely along those lines. She’d just given Shale the instructions and calmly, primly signed her name at the bottom.

Shale shuddered, a chill sending goosebumps down her arms. She’d not disobeyed the orders once, and if Lady Evie showed up and told her to get back in her cell, she’d do so with a crisp salute and a pep in her step. She prayed that wouldn’t happen.

Even if it would be a hell of a lot easier on my poor knees.

The acrid scent of sulfur and siren’s call of thudding artillery was a fine incentive, she had to admit. Her heart sang with joy at the prospect of what was to come, and she found her aching body redoubling its efforts, the pain briefly forgotten. It had been months since she’d fired a cannon herself. She couldn’t wait.

“Lieutenant Shale!” A voice called as she cleared the last few steps. She bent double, hands on her knees as she sucked in gulps of powder-laced air. Looking around for the speaker, she found a gun captain hurrying her way, the woman’s face a picture of barely-constrained panic.

“Lieutenant Shale!” The woman repeated. “The enemy’s mage-shields aren’t breaking. We’ve been pouring everything we have into them, but—”

“You firing solid shot or shell?”

“Mostly shell, ma’am! Trying to crack ‘em open-”

Shale took a deep breath, cupping her hands around her mouth. “Switch to solid shot! Every wall, coordinate targets! One mage per section! Wear ‘em down then shell ‘em down!”

Her voice carried unnaturally far over the sounds of artillery, reaching gun captains and crews across the fort. She pointed at the woman who’d come up to her.

“Back to your gun! I don’t care how well you aim, so long as you keep pounding the same shield over and over again!”

Shale shoved past the woman, heading for the closest 32-pounder. The gun captain saw her coming and saluted sharply, clearing room for her to take his position. She crouched behind the golden-bronze weapon, looking through the concrete gap that its muzzle would soon protrude through.

Resting her palm on the breech, she found the gun was hot to the touch. It had already been doing good work, she could tell. Its crew was loading fast and efficiently, wet swab hissing with steam as they mopped out the last shot’s unburnt powder. Shale watched a package of iron ball and blackpowder bag get crammed into the muzzle, then felt it thump home as the rammer shoved it into place. She joined the rest of its crew as they threw their backs into rolling the gun forward, until a meter and a half of lethal metal protruded from the white bastion.

Looking down the simple three-pronged sights, Shale was given her first view of the approaching enemy. A tsunami of shimmering mage-shields had washed up on the fields of Tulian, carrying with them the flotsam of uncountable soldiers. Formations washed to and fro, blocks of spearmen pounding the grass to mud as they marched grimly forward, flinching under every echoing shot that rebounded off the shields above.

Those mages are better for sure, she decided, sweeping her practiced eye across the enemy army. Not quite standardized, but they’ve clearly trained. They’re not all casting the exact same spell, but they’re all opaque, all angled, and they’re not struggling to keep them up while on the move like they did before.

Shale twisted the elevation gear on the 32-pounder, lowering its sights by three degrees, then slammed her palm against the left rear of the gun, tapping its muzzle right. The gun weighed just over two thousand kilos, but her blows edged it over all the same, the wheels moving as if they were on greased ice. It normally took most of the ten-man guncrew to move the gun like that. Shale, meanwhile, had to give it a single extra tap on the opposite side, having sent it a touch farther than she wanted. She cursed herself. Out of practice.

She could have gone straight to the fort’s big guns. The precious few 64-pounders were booming away, sending colossal rounds zipping toward the enemy faster than any other gun in the whole fort. But she didn’t. Those guns were more modern, firing a tapered, leaden slug, one that dug deeply into whatever it hit, the ground included. That made the 64-pounders the best armor-piercing weapon in the world by a vast, unimaginable margin, but that came with its own disadvantages. At least when you had the Skills that Shale did.

“Section four!” She roared. “Discharge shots, load shell, hold fire, and make ready for targeting section at degree zero-one-eight!” She turned to her own gun crew, grinning madly. “Firing!”

Standing aside, she clicked the 32-pounder’s cryslock trigger, sending the gun bucking back against the ropes that kept it from flying off the fort’s walls. A ten-meter lance of flame jetted from its muzzle, providing the centerpiece to a burst of white smoke that was easily twice as large. It was blinding, too thick to see through, yet Shale watched the cannonball sail anyway.

The iron sphere hit the ground just before a line of spearmen, dug a meter-long trench in the soil, then, unlike would have been possible with the armor-piercing rounds of the 64-pounders, rebounded upward at a sixty degree angle, passing beneath the narrow gap at the front of the angled shield.

It took the first spearman in the gut, blowing him apart. Fountains of blood erupted behind him, spraying those nearest the cannonball’s path with chunks of flesh as it traveled at hip height beneath the mage-shield.

Her intuition rang true. The Sporatons had learned this much, apparently: their mages were wearing the same standard clothing as any other soldier, making it impossible to tell who was who. But that didn’t change how some spells had to be cast. As the cannonball tore a straight line through the dead middle of the shield, the spellcrafted energy vanished.

The mages are always in the center of the shield, give or take a meter to the left or right, she thought, grinning savagely. I’ll have to make sure the rest of the gun captains know that.

The block of spearmen were racked by indecision as their protective barrier flickered out of existence above them. Some started to sprint forward, trying to get away from the cluster of their comrades. Others shoved and screamed as they broke to the left, right, and rear, seeking shelter under the nearby shields. Most, however, chose the worst of any option: they froze in place, unsure of what to do.

“My section, FIRE!”

Even as Shale’s commandeered gun crew began reloading the 32-pounder, the wall around her came alive with gunfire. Shale focused on her duties, plugging the vent hole with a thumb to make sure wind didn’t stir lethal sparks to life within the gun as it was reloaded, but she could see in her mind’s eye what was happening. Shell after shell was falling down upon the exposed spearmen, 24-pounders and 32-pounders and even the occasional 64-pounder shell detonating with the cataclysmic force of emcotton charges. The land was churned to bloody mud by the cannonade, leaving nothing more than craters and hissing shrapnel where there had once been dozens of men and women.

As her gun was loaded, Shale was met by a sight she hadn’t expected: the new guard kid, Tavin, jogging up from behind her to kneel at the slot cut out for the cannon, raising a musket.

“What’re you doing, kid?” Shale called. “They’re still three-quarters of a kilometer out! Don’t waste your shots!”

Tavin ignored her. He had one of the latest rifles of Tulian: the trapdoor rifle, its breech cut open to allow a round to be loaded straight into the firing position instead of muzzle loading. The boy dropped an emcotton-wrapped dowel rod into place, lead pellet atop it, and clicked the trapdoor shut, adjusting the sliding sights as he rested the musket against the concrete divider.

“I swear to the gods, I’ll have you up on charges if you waste ammunition on-”

Tavin’s rifle barked, spitting the black smoke that was unique to emcotton ammunition. He didn’t so much as blink at the recoil, both eyes kept wide open as he stared into the distance. A full second later, his blank expression quirked into a satisfied smile. He rolled to the side to clear the cannon’s path, flipping open an ammunition pouch at his side with practiced grace.

“Were you saying something, ma’am?”

Shale peered at the enemy lines. Her Artillery Officer Class gave her better sight than most, but even she couldn’t track the path of a single bullet amidst the ongoing fusillade. She squinted at the boy.

“Did you hit your target, Private Tavin?”

“I did, ma’am,” he confirmed, his awkward discomfort at speaking to a high-ranking officer returning to his adrenaline-trembling voice. “Saw a peasant with a breastplate instead of a gambeson. Figured that meant he was important enough to shoot. Officer or some such.”

Shale pursed her lips. “You’re an Irregular, then? A rifle Irregular?”

“Striking to be one, ma’am,” he nodded. He focused on loading as she helped the cannon crew shove the gun back into position.

“Go get with the riflemen, then,” Shale ordered. She peered down the sights, adjusting them toward a different mage shield.

“Afraid I can’t, ma’am. I’m supposed to be keeping an eye on you.”

Lady Evie put a sniper amidst my prison guards, then, Shale thought. She snorted. How lovely it is to know I’m valued.

“Section four! Prepare for shelling target at zero-two-one! Firing!”

An iron cannonball leapt from the gun, crashing through another line of soldiers. This time the mage, improbably, saw it coming, and tried to shift their shield downward to block the blow. They weren’t quick enough. They died alongside a dozen others, leaving the block of spearmen exposed. The shelling began.

Two down. Three hundred more to go.

Shale patted her sides. She didn’t have a pistol, bayonet, or even a knife. As the Sporaton tide continued to sweep in, she had a feeling she’d want to find one soon.

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Evie Brown

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The battle going on below was, to say the least, an unpleasant surprise for Evie and Hurlish’s homecoming. Fanlah had brusquely announced that she saw significant gunfire on the horizon, but Evie had blithely assured the wyvern that it was almost certainly the defensive gunners running a large-scale training exercise. While Tulian’s ammunition production had not yet reached the point that it could be thrown away cheaply, they at least had enough that the value of training gun crews was beyond that of the cost required to do so. Evie hadn’t been concerned until she saw the smoke.

With the city still a blur on the horizon, Fanlah had overflown a burning village. Swooping down low upon their request, the sight of marauding Knights had confirmed the worst. They hadn’t asked Fanlah to stop. The wyvern had simply flown past the village, heading for the city at a far greater speed.

Evie could feel her exhaustion burning away as the full scale of the unfolding disaster became clear. She wondered how long ago it had begun; she had no way of knowing. Immediately after the meeting with General Borek, she had been ejected from the Empire in two trips. She and Sara flew first to the Blackpowder Army, where Graf departed, replaced on Fanlah’s back by Hurlish, Keo, Tahn, their guards, and several crates of smithing product that Fanlah obligingly strapped to her belly for transport.

There had been little to no time for Sara to discuss with her what had happened in the capital, nor what should happen next. The hostility of the army towards Evie’s presence had been palpable, bordering on riotous. The Powdered Lead had been forced to form a cordon to keep any of the Imperials from entering their portion of the camp. The mercenaries had been bombarded by thrown stones and shaking spears, common Imperial soldiers calling out demands for Evie to be brought to justice. She’d been forced to leave as quickly as possible. In the hours of flight since, Evie had told the story to a stone-faced Hurlish, covering Keo’s ears while he sat between them.

Hurlish hadn’t spoken a word since. Evie’s stomach had been tying itself into knots with nerves. A condition that hadn’t improved as Tulian came into view.

The city was under siege. Waterfalls of blackpowder smoke fell from every gun position, accompanied by the pop of small-arms fire and the occasional flash of roving steel. She could see a thin trickle of refugees running towards the city’s walls from the farms surrounding the capital, the unfortunate souls not knowing that they were heading straight for a force of many thousands of enemy combatants. Blood stained the grass where the refugees met the Sporatons. None were being spared. Unarmored peasant cavalry was even then sweeping through the farms, dodging scattered long-range artillery as they bore down on clumps of panicking civilians.

Even overburdened by the load of supplies and riders she’d accepted upon her, Fanlah was more than swift enough to dodge the cannonfire that tried to intercept her approach to the city. Evie didn’t blame the gunners for the attempt; they had no idea that a ‘friendly’ wyvern even existed, much less that one would be visiting the capital that day. She did, however, take exception to their inaccuracy. It was a concerning omen for how well they would fare against the coming swarm of Imperial wyverns.

At Evie’s direction, Fanlah landed at the far end of the University’s runway, the speed of her descent leaving claw-shaped impact marks in the pale concrete. Seeing Fanlah’s landing, a squad of the nearby city guard showed a good deal of wisdom when they elected to abandon their duties in favor of sprinting straight away from the wyvern, screaming at the gawking crowd to evacuate the area. Evie felt a brief flicker of disappointment at their lack of bravery, but she suppressed it. That wasn’t Sara’s command philosophy. Disobeying orders in the face of overwhelming odds in order to fight another day was a core part of Tulian’s new military doctrine. Aside from purely humanitarian justifications, it was practical. They simply didn’t have the number of troops required to fight every battle to the last.

“Get this crap off her!” Fanlah’s rider, Devi, barked harshly. “I don’t want those trigger-happy bastards coming back with a cannon.”

“Of course,” Evie quickly replied, leaping off Fanlah’s back. She opened her mouth to remind Devi not to swear around her children, only to slowly close it. She doubted she still commanded the respect required to scold a member of the Empire.

Evie did not waste time as she freed Fanlah from her burdens. She summoned her rapier and sliced straight the leather straps that secured the crates to her belly, letting them fall to the ground with a crash of bouncing steel. The contents had been padded with straw. She hoped that would be enough to protect them from damage.

Hurlish’s bodyguards fell from Fanlah’s side a moment later, spreading out to cover the immediate surroundings. With Tahn pressed to her chest with one palm and Keo’s hand taken in her other, Hurlish waited until Fanlah lowered a wing for her benefit, walking carefully down the wyvern’s back.

When Fanlah was free of her last burdens, Evie stepped around to the wyvern’s front, speaking up to be heard over the rolling thunder of artillery.

“I thank you for your assistance in reaching the city, Honored Wyvern, and apologize for the mistaken-”

“It was a favor for the Scalebreaker,” Devi interrupted from atop Fanlah, sneering down at Evie. “Not you.”

Without so much as a glance at Evie, Fanlah lifted her wings high, giving her and Hurlish barely enough time to brace, then snapped them down. Evie barely stayed standing as the wyvern shot into the sky, heading south.

She licked her lips, that peculiar twisting sensation returning to her gut. Had she not done what she did, would Fanlah have been a true ally to Tulian? Perhaps not. But if there had ever been a possibility of such a thing, it was now gone. Blinking the dust from her eyes, Evie made her way to Hurlish, who had opened one of the crates to inspect its contents for damage. Looking thankfully unwounded, Ketch quickly scurried out from amongst the straw, disappearing into the shade of a nearby alleyway.

“I will go to the Central Armory first,” Evie said. As Keo still hadn’t learned much of the Continental language, she kept speaking Kemari for his benefit. “Sara will have been informed of what is occurring by now, and I need to learn what she wishes us to-”

“No,” Hurlish grunted.

Evie paused. “No…?”

Hurlish silently searched through the crate for a silent moment, apparently found herself satisfied by what she found, then shut it. Only then did she turn to face Evie.

“We need to talk.”

Evie flicked her ears in confusion, looking at the city’s walls. Though there were far fewer cannons on the ancient walls of Tulian than were located within the Star Forts, they were all mounted on a newly developed rail system, allowing them to be taken to face the strongest point of the enemy assault. Concerningly, they weren’t massed at the moment. They were firing in every direction.

“Are you referring to experimental weaponry? I am sure that Sara will wish to discuss whether or not we reveal-”

Hurlish stepped up to Evie, still holding Keo’s hand, Tahn’s prominent ears hidden beneath his earmuffs as he rested against her chest. In a low rumble, Hurlish spoke in Continental.

“You killed kids, Evie.”

She stiffened. It was the last thing she’d expected Hurlish to say. She didn’t know why she didn’t expect it, but she hadn’t. Keo looked up at Hurlish, then to Evie, plainly petrified by what little he could grasp of the conversation, but Hurlish didn’t acknowledge him.

“I did,” Evie stiffly replied. “I didn’t-”

“Shut up.”

Evie flinched. Hurlish stepped forward, leaning down. She met Evie’s wide eyes, her own face seeming… sad. Like she was about to cry, but was too angry for the tears to well up.

“You’re not gonna do that shit again, okay? Not now, not tomorrow, not ever.”

“The circumstances-”

“I don’t care.” Hurlish looked away. “I just… I don’t care why you did it, Evie. I thought you were better than that.”

Evie stared at her wife, lips parted. She… didn’t know what she was feeling. It was the same feeling in her gut from earlier, a clenching pain, now multiplied a hundred times over. She swallowed several times, trying to clear the lump in her throat, only to find it hurt dearly to do so.

“You can’t just… shit, girl.” Hurlish ran a hand through her hair, bouncing one foot anxiously. “I don’t know what to say. I’m just… I’m disappointed, Evie.” She shook her head again, adjusting her grip on Tahn’s back. “I know you probably thought it was worth it or whatever. It wasn’t. Don’t do anything like that shit again, alright? Never.”

“But Sara-” she croaked.

“I’m gonna talk to her, too. Later. But that’s not… even if she tells you to…” Hurlish blew out a breath, looking up, avoiding direct eye contact with Evie. “I guess that’s all I can say. I’m disappointed, Evie. You still think you did it for us, right? Well don’t. Someone who does that kind of shit isn’t who I want raising our kids.”

The words struck with the force of a gunshot. She swayed on her feet, staring without sight. Her eyes burned terribly, but she couldn’t muster the wherewithal to so much as blink.

Hurlish let go of Keo’s hand long enough to pat her on the shoulder, switching back to Kemari.

“I’m gonna go to the house, grab some of my gear, then head to the foundry to help out. We’re going to talk more later, alright?” She gave Evie’s shoulder a small shake. “Alright?”

Evie jerked her head in a tiny, infinitesimal nod.

“Good. I’ll see you later.”

Hurlish put her back to Evie, walking away. Keo glanced back, concern on his face. She mustered the barest flicker of a smile, nodding him on. When Hurlish turned down a side street to exit the runway, Evie found herself standing alone, two wooden crates her only company.

She stood there for a long time. The city roared around her, battle raging beyond its walls, but she barely heard it. She found herself drifting off to one side, slumping down to sit on the steps leading up to the University. Several squads of city guards returned, hauling with them one of Tulian’s new thin anti-cavalry cannons, only to be plainly relieved that the wyvern they’d come to try it on had long since left. Spotting both Evie and the crates, one of them tried to ask her a question. She simply flicked her wrist at them dismissively. They took that as an order to move the crates out of the runway in the direction of her gesture. She didn’t really care.

The cannons kept firing. Evie’s ears were pressed flat to her skull, one still rendered hairless by her injuries. Some of her scars would be permanent, she knew. Her eyes had lost their color, irises turned a thin, gray shadow of their former piercing blue, and the healers doubted they would ever return to their full lustre. Her arms and legs were pockmarked by pale, round scars, where pus-filled boils had burst, been healed, and reformed several times over. They were hard to see unless one knew what to look for, but they were still there.

She brought her knees to her chest, lifting the hem of her right pants leg to inspect the marks. Then she left her legs there, arms wrapped around them. Hugging herself. She watched nothing in particular. Just the dots of motion and color moving from place to place.

A door creaked open behind her. She heard men whispering, one more insistent than the other, then the sound of the door shutting. Heavy footfalls approached her, stopping just behind her back.

“Hello, Professor Brown,” she muttered.

Her father-in-law hesitated. Then he stepped up to her left, visible in her peripheral vision. He groaned loudly as he brought himself down to her level on the steps, joints popping audibly as he managed to sit beside her.

“Hey, Evie,” he said back, nearly as quiet. “Um. Garen says that you, uh, probably gained a Level or two. You set off his wards that warn when someone powerful is approaching.”

“I did,” she replied. It wasn’t a question or a statement. Just something that she said.

“You don’t look so good,” Professor Brown ventured after a moment of silence.

“My injuries were severe, but I have been healed. It is only cosmetic damage that remains.”

“Glad to hear that, but… not what I was talking about.”

“Ah.”

Evie felt something stirring in her. She tried to shove it down. The awful something in her gut was rising with it, and she didn’t want anything to do with it.

With a few huffing breaths, Professor Brown scooted closer to her, until their sides were touching. Then, hesitantly, as if she were a wounded, feral animal, he put one arm around her shoulders. When she didn’t move in response, he gave her a squeeze.

She didn’t pull away. But she did speak hoarsely.

“Do you know why I am here?”

“The stuff in the Empire?”

“After a fashion.”

“Then I guess I do know. After a fashion.”

Despite the heat, Evie kept hugging herself. Professor Brown’s bulk was warm against her. Surprisingly soft. She spoke again.

“You are too kind a man, Professor. It worries me deeply. Your life is dangerous now. You will not live long if you trust as easily as this.”

“Maybe.” He rubbed her shoulder. “But… right now, if it helps you to know, I’m pretty sure I’m doing something real practical. Being nice can be practical a lot of the time. You’ve got some stuff you need to go help with, don’t you?”

“I do,” she agreed. She didn’t move.

“Evie…”

They sat for a minute or so in silence. His large body was very warm. They both began to sweat.

“I,” Evie announced, apropos of nothing, “do not trust my own judgement. I am to be in command of the city’s defenses. But I cannot be trusted with the role.” She glanced at him through the corner of her eyes. “You have been in the city for longer than I. You have had extensive contact with the military. Do you recommend any particular officer for the duty?”

He screwed up his face, thinking hard. “That’s… okay, you’re talking about what you did in the Empire, right? So you can’t be trusted because of that? It’s, like, a metaphor? For your self doubt or regret or whatever?”

Evie slowly turned her head to him, blinking in disbelief. “You are outright asking if… it is a metaphor for…” She searched his face. “You are Sara’s father, yes?”

“DNA test said I am,” he said with a shrug. “And either way, I did raise her. Where do you think she got her penchant for being all direct from? I was a single dad. I really didn’t have the time to figure out what she meant by stuff. Sara was a hard kid to raise.” He smiled wanly at her. “But I guess that’s a yes, right? You screwed up in one place, so now you’re nervous that you might do it again?”

“Nervous?” She sniffed. “Yes, I suppose. Though your daughter would call it a nervous breakdown, more specifically.”

“We don’t have to call it that if you don’t want to.”

“It is accurate enough.”

“But if it’s not a helpful word, we don’t have to use it. You’re just nervous. That’s alright. That’s not a diagnosis. It’s just a thing you feel, right?”

Against her will, Evie found her mind rousing. More out of a sense of incredulity than anything else, disbelief rocking her at the words of the old man embracing her, but rousing all the same.

“What is your… why are you here, Professor Brown?”

“Um.” He scratched his stubble with his free hand. “I didn’t really have a plan. Garen and I came over here to see what was up with the wards, and we saw you, and you weren’t doing alright, so I came out here and… now we’re here?” Again he tightened his hug for a few seconds, then loosened it. “I don’t know. I was never great at helping Sara. When she got angry as a kid I just tried to hug her until she stopped hitting stuff. When she was real little she’d even get so mad she’d hit me, y’know. Glad she’s over that,” he added with a chuckle. “Really wouldn’t want to be hit by her now. It didn’t hurt when she was five, but I’m pretty sure that these days I’d, like, actually die.”

Evie found herself consumed by disbelief. Confusion. Enough that it was warring for prominence with the twisting pain. She didn’t understand why Professor Brown was here, why he was saying what he was. It seemed like he was rambling more than anything. When he’d first appeared, seemingly intent on comforting her, Evie had imagined he would do something like Sara might. Kind-yet-pointed words, a reassuring explanation, and solid arguments against her negative emotions. Instead he was just… talking. And hugging her.

And he knows what you did in the Empire.

“She got better as she got older, of course,” he continued, gesturing with his other hand as he spoke. “Sure, she eventually dropped out of school, but I couldn’t really blame her for that. I really wanted her to at least graduate highschool, but she got her GED just fine, so I didn’t push it, even when she got that real crappy job. I’m pretty sure she still thinks I don’t know what exactly she was doing, but I definitely do. Most of it, anyway. I mean, she was only sixteen! I talked to her boss when she wasn’t there, y’know? Don’t tell her that, but I did. I wasn’t going to let her work for a chop shop without at least making sure there wasn’t too much risk for her. If she was still working there when she turned eighteen I would’ve had to get on her case about it, since she wouldn’t be tried as a minor anymore, but luckily she was already done with it by then. Welding was good work. And I was super glad she didn’t go too far when she moved out. I probably would’ve had to move, too, and that would’ve made her really mad, saying I was being a helicopter dad and all that. You know how she is.”

Evie couldn’t take it anymore. He was speaking of Sara so tenderly, so lovingly, and he was embracing her all through it, as if such a kind man had any place at her side—

No. She couldn’t listen to him so confidently associate with someone like her. She brushed his hand off her shoulder as she stood sharply, making him jump with the suddenness of her movement.

“Woah!”

“I have duties to attend to, Professor,” she informed him stiffly. “Thank you for your… time, I suppose.”

“Uh, no problem? Are you going to be alri-”

“Please tell Garen that his services in defending the University are appreciated, and, if he will allow it, we would like to use its halls and rooms as shelter for the injured awaiting healing. If his oaths will only allow him to defend non-combatants, please inform us so that we may distribute the wounded appropriately. As I left my communication crystal with Sara, it will be some time before I am readily able to be contacted, but I should have one by the end of the day.” For some reason she couldn’t fathom, she bowed to the sitting man. “I will see you at a later time, Professor Brown.”

She began walking away before he could say much more. She only heard him call out one last thing as she began jogging toward the crates across the runway.

“Promise me you’ll be safe!”

Her tail flicked wildly, eyes blinking a dozen times over. She had no idea how to respond to that. It was… it didn’t make sense for him to ask that of her. But there was only one response, wasn’t there?

“I promise!”