Sara hadn't gone into this march with much in the way of preconceived expectations for how it would progress, yet she still found herself surprised by how things ended up. The snaking column of men and women, three wide and twenty long, was an ungainly mess.

  It wasn't like it was hard for the group to follow the road, of course. What complicated things was Voth's borderline fanatic obsession with keeping the entire group in rhythm, having assigned one of the younger boys to keep beat on a drum. Every time the thump of boots fell out of tune Voth would whip around from his position at the front of the column, eyeing the entire assembly like they'd spat on his mother. Then began the prolonged process of shouting and cajoling, the entire march slowing as people stutter-stepped back into line.

  "Goddamn," Hurlish swore as Voth began shouting for the third time in an hour. She sighed in frustration, side-eying Sara. "Can't you do something?"

  Sara scrunched her face up. "What? You want me to help them keep the beat? I'm more of a one-on-one type of gal, not a marching band conductor."

  "Y'did it with the oars on Nora's ship, didn't you? Kept 'em all swinging at the same time?"

  "Yeah, but that was just for a few seconds. We're gonna be marching for hours."

  Evie hummed thoughtfully. "But the ability does seem relevant, Master. And your description of it did say 'through speech, dance, or song.' A song certainly sts longer than a few seconds."

  Sara didn't recall the wording as well as Evie, evidently. With a brief thought she pulled up the invisible screen that listed her abilities.

  Champion's Inspiration

  The Champion of Amarat reaches out to the souls of those around her. Whether through dance, speech, or song, she may show a truth that fans the embers of fading spirits into roaring bonfires.

  "It also says I 'show a truth', though," Sara said. "I don't know if there's any profound truth I can reveal to them about the importance of marching real good."

  "Still worth a shot," Hurlish argued. "If Amarat's anything like you, half that shit's there just to sound fancy."

  Sara pressed a hand to her breastpte, gasping. "Hurlish! Are you implying that I'm the type to add unnecessary fre to my actions even when a simpler approach would suffice?"

  "Unnecessary fre?" Hurlish sniffed disdainfully. "You usually call it 'style points'."

  Sara ughed. "Alright, fair enough. I guess I can give it a shot."

  Sara turned her attention inward, searching for that strange internal reservoir from which she drew her spells. It was some strange not-space in her thoughts, an area of mentality so defined that accessing it felt strangely physical.

  Amarat's abilities, with the exception of Gift of Lust , had so far been activated entirely without her input. Her eyes lidded and her walking grew drunken as more and more of her focus was devoted to rooting about in her mind, prying at the reservoir holding Champion's Inspiration.

  Like an overstressed rubber band, Sara felt the restraints in her mind snap. Hurlish and Evie startled as a snappy staccato cracked through the air, a drumroll rattle that leveled off into a regur beat. The same odd expansion of her memory that had taken her when summoning images of the USS Constitution for Nora took hold of her once more, this time crystallizing an even older memory.

  "See, it's not that bad, is it?" Sara's dad asked. They were pressed side-by-side in a cheap tent, snuggled down in their own sleeping bags. The summer nights of Richmond, Kentucky didn't need it, but her dad had insisted; it wasn't real camping without a sleeping bag. "I know it's probably not your favorite way to end summer break, but c'mon, it's kind of cool, right? We're right where all this really happened, a hundred and fifty years ago."

  Sara's dad was holding up his new iPad, its dimmed screen showing scenes of graycoated men marching to the beat of old-timey music. Sara's face was all squeezed up, doing her best to appear interested. Her dad really didn't seem to get what twelve-year-old girls were into, but she knew he was excited for the reenactment tomorrow. So she bobbed her head mechanically, listening to the tinny rattle of drums and fifers piddling out of the iPad's speakers.

  "It's pretty crazy. A hundred and fifty years is like... forever ago."

  "Oh, it's closer than you might think," Sara's dad said, switching hands that held the iPad. "My granddad used to tell me about how there was this old guy on his street when he was growing up that fought in the civil war. He was nearly a hundred, but he told my granddad all kinds of stories."

  Sara watched a cloud of white pop out of the graycoated men's muskets, then watched as rows and rows of bluecoated men fell to the ground, theatrically throwing their weapons in the air. Old movies always had such silly acting.

  "That guy probably wouldn't have liked this pce, though," Sara said. "The bad guys won here, didn't they?"

  "They did," her dad admitted, "But it didn't st forever. They lost in the end."

  Sara watched the graycoated men march on, drums and fifes still pying as the battle raged.

  "Well," she huffily decred, "If I'd been in charge back then, I would've at least made sure my guys had better music."

  Sara straightened, coming back to the present. Evie had a hand on her shoulder, ears fttened. Just like in her memory, there was the sound of drums and fifes rattling through the air, the high pitch of snares easily carrying through the humid air.

  "Are you alright, Master?" Evie asked, raising her voice over the cmor. "You nearly fell over."

  "Woah." Sara shook her head. "Yeah, I'm fine. I just had a really vivid fshback-type thing. It was like I was a little kid again. Super weird."

  Sara shaded her eyes from the high sun, half of her still surprised she wasn't back in that old tent. Voth's column was already straightening itself, their combined footfalls evening out to act as their own percussive instrument. Many were looking back towards her with surprised or confused expressions, but none fell out of step.

  "See? I told you'd it work," Hurlish said, stepping a few feet away from Sara. "Loud as hell, though."

  "Is it actually coming from me?" Sara asked, moving closer to Evie.

  "Yes it is, Master." The catgirl shrunk away, feline ears pressing tighter to her head. "And for once I'd rather you kept your distance."

  "Sorry," Sara said, jogging a few steps to the side. "I would've thought it'd be, like, magically shoved in their heads or something. Not turn me into a bluetooth speaker."

  "Maybe the ability will progress with you, Master?" Evie guessed. "If the accounts of prior Champions of Amarat influencing entire armies are truthful, I have to imagine the skill wouldn't simply scale the volume by the group size. That would end up deafening."

  "Here's hoping," Sara said. She returned the appreciative wave Voth sent her from the front of the column. "But more importantly: Do you think I can change the song? This shit sucks ass."

  Hurlish shrugged. "Sounds like marchin' music to me. Don't know what else you expected."

  "I expect style points, that's what I expect. If I can be a human speaker, I better not be stuck pying Civil War music."

  "It can't hurt to try, Master. I must admit, I am rather curious about the music of your old world. Your descriptions of it were... curious."

  Sara grinned. "Hey, what's so weird about my favorite song from semi-underground rapper NAH, Paint Some Lines On It? Doesn't your world have electro hip-hop deep cuts?"

  Hurlish narrowed her eyes at Sara. "You're fuckin' with us."

  Oh, now I've gotta get this to work, Sara decided.

  Sara spent a moment doing the mental equivalent of violently rattling a junk drawer until the appropriate tool floated to the top, fumbling about in that spell reservoir in search of its more fundamental controls. After a few moments of consideration, her trawling snagged on something. The snare drums and fifes slowly faded away.

  The simple instruments were repced by a pulsing scratch, almost like a downshifted car arm. Hurlish raised an eyebrow.

  "That doesn't seem-"

  The grass around Sara was fttened by a wave of bass, complete with a perfect recreation of her shitbox Civic's rattling windows. Messy sets of drums fell over a warbling electronic wail, double beats of bass impacting like artillery shells. The wail rose in pitch for a moment as the other instruments fell away, just quiet enough for intelligible speech.

  "Master, that is-"

  Evie was interrupted by the return of the bass, twice as loud as before, hitting hard enough to ctter the tiles of Sara's armored skirt.

  Sara threw her head back and ughed, delighted. Amarat may not have given her impossible wizard powers or inhuman strength, but she had turned Sara into a one-woman concert, and that was way better.

  Despite the ragged beat and irregur rhythm, the song seemed to provide the same aid to the marching soldiers. Sara kept her pce at the back of the column, cycling through deafening songs that repced her conversations with Evie and Hurlish, toying with the limits of her newly recognized abilities. Even though she was unimaginably far away from her Earth, and consequently anyone who could recognize the songs, Sara still felt the old compulsion to make sure all of the songs she pyed for others were appropriately unpopur. It just didn't sit right with her to py a Top 40's song, some stubborn part of her convinced it would be an embarrassment to admit she had anything other than the most bizarrely refined auditory pate.

  And then there were the other things she could do with the music. She couldn't alter the beats on the fly or modify the lyrics, but she could choose what memory's rendition to py. That included her time spent at 3am smming it down I-96 in her '98 Civic, rusted out trunk shaking apart from the jostling of subwoofers drawing enough power to dim her headlights. She could swear she even heard the occasional crash and scrape of her rotted suspension failing to take the minor hops between bridges and pavement types, bringing her back to the early days of working at her first shop. God, she'd been stupid, but it'd been the fun kind of stupid.

  Eventually, as Sara was working her way through practice forms to the beat of Bitchsword , she spotted Voth walking back down the column to her. He made a motion, imitating a conductor calling for silence. Sara cut the music, flicking her sword closed and sheathing it.

  "Sorry, Champion, but we're getting too close to the enemy. Sixty marchin' folk can't exactly hide, but hollering our position from the hilltops still doesn't seem wise."

  Sara hid her smirk as she wiped sweat from her brow. "All it took to convince you I was a Champion was pying some music, huh? I wish I'd known that before I spent hours on the road."

  "Yeah, well, I ain't ever heard music like that before. Don't think I recognized a single instrument in there." Voth sniffed, scratching one of his tusks. "Can't say I was eager to believe you, all things considered, but my parents taught me right. It's rude not to take some divine intervention when you're offered it."

  "Your mom had some oddly specific life lessons for you."

  Voth snorted. "My dad did say she was always two steps ahead." He turned to Evie. "I'm expecting them to intercept our column sometime in the next hour. You want to split off your squad now or wait?"

  Evie's tail swiped curiously. "Intercept us, Captain Voth? You believe they've anticipated such an impromptu assault?"

  "Nah. But I do believe that some people in our vilge have been eating more meat than their herds can expin, and they drop more coin in the taverns than they oughta. I think the bandits knew we were the only vilge that might give 'em trouble, so they paid a couple people off to keep them posted. It took us a couple hours to get going, which was plenty of time for someone riding hard to pass word. Can't watch everyone, after all."

  "Mm." Evie digested this silently, eyes locked on empty space. Sara and Hurlish waited patiently while Voth awkwardly shifted in pce, gncing between three silent faces.

  Without prompting, Evie suddenly nodded sharply, rapier dropping into her hand. "We will scout ahead and prepare a position. Engage them where you please. Our squad will adapt."

  Voth started, staring at the jeweled weapon. Sara could tell he was thinking about his earlier request to disarm them, now recognizing its impossibility. With a subtle shake of his head he forced himself to focus.

  "Alright. There's a decent clearing not too far from here according to some folk that traded with 'em before they went bandit. Good bit of dip in the road, with the treeline close enough for y'all. I'd bet they'll want the same pce for the fight, but if they're not already there we'll make like we're taking a break to lure 'em in. You need anything for us, before you head off?"

  "A crossbow for Master, if you have one. A longbow if you do not."

  Voth whistled, waving over a young man with a shortbow slung across his chest.

  "Sorry Marcos, your bow is getting commandeered by a Champion. We don't have any longbows. Does this one look good?"

  Sara accepted the bow from a wide-eyed Marcos. She ran her fingers along the grooved wood, picking at the string. Just like the bow from earlier, it probably had a sixty or seventy pound draw weight, which she somehow intuited was absurdly heavy for a shortbow.

  "You people really don't fuck around with your bows, do you?" Sara asked, drawing the string to her cheek.

  "Northern shortbows are too weak for jungle beasts," Hurlish chimed in, answering for the stammering Marcos. "You'd need a northern longbow flinging bodkins to get through their hide. We make 'em proper down here."

  Sara eased the bowstring down, then accepted a quiver of arrows. The points weren't anything more than needle caps on the end of the arrow, no wider than the shaft itself. The arrow also felt remarkably heavy, like it had a lead pellet embedded in the wood.

  "Well it makes for a good bow." She pointed an arrow at Marcos. "That is, if you don't need this more than me. I'm not going to leave you unarmed."

  "I-I-I don't need it, Madam," Marcos replied. "I'm a spearman. Just keep it on me because it might be handy."

  "Okay. I appreciate it. And you can just call me Sara."

  Marcos tried to reply, but all that came out was a squeak. Sara resisted the urge to roll her eyes. It hadn't been since Sporatos that she'd had to deal with such btant kowtowing, and she hadn't missed it. Voth shoved the man off toward the line, doing Sara the favor of rolling his own eyes in her pce.

  "Sorry about that. Country kids get starstruck easy. Half of 'em acted like that when I showed up saying I'd been in an army before, so I'm half surprised he didn't piss himself while chatting up a Champion. You three good to go?"

  Sara gnced at her companions, confirming that there were no other concerns.

  "Ready to go. See you after while, big guy."

  "Good luck."

  Sara fell back behind Evie, who took off at a double pace to overtake the slowly snaking column. The dirt road was mostly paved by passing feet, not concerted effort, which lent it an irritatingly twisty route, avoiding the straightest paths in favor of weaving through shallow valleys and over the shortest hills, avoiding the thickets of vine-strewn trees entirely. Traveling in a straight line let them easily dart past Voth's force, even if it required Sara to use her sword as a machete to clear the way.

  Much like every other rural pce of this world, Sara was baffled by the ecology on dispy. The clusters of trees were frequent enough to limit sightlines to a half mile at the most, crowded trunks clogged with thick bushes to block any idea of forward progress, yet they were isoted and lonely, long stretches of pcid grass all that covered the ground between. Seen from above, Sara could imagine, it probably looked like a thoroughly trashed parkinson's patient had tried to draw a checkerboard. Random smatterings of tangled jungle dotted the hills at vaguely regur intervals, a byrinth of green with only a single stretch of worn dirt to navigate by. Sara fell in behind Hurlish and Evie, hoping they would be better at recognizing their destination than she would've been.

  In the end, Sara shouldn't have worried. It was only twenty minutes of skirting the treeline before the road abruptly dipped low, diving into a long valley cut by a swift-flowing stream. The road crossed it perpendicurly, three long logs tossed loosely in pce to form a bridge. The trees grew more densely here, ringing the entire half-mile valley save for three or four narrow entrances.

  "Looks like the bandits aren't here yet," Sara noted helpfully, stepping out to scan the empty grasses with a hand shading her eyes.

  Evie snagged the back of her armor and drug her into the shadow of the trees, hissing quietly. "You don't know that, Master. Voth said they had a mage with them, if you'll recall?"

  Sara blinked. "Surely one mage couldn't hide fifty-odd dudes all by themselves, right?"

  "The sort of mage willing to turn bandit? Likely not. Yet it's still best practice not to assume. The three of us together are formidable, but we could not assault an army by ourselves."

  Sara stepped further back into the shadows, nodding. Evie released her, focusing on her march forward.

  They walked half-crouched along the edge of the trees, hiding themselves as best they could when the foliage allowed. Sara was no stranger to skulking about, even if she wasn't skilled, and Evie's grace allowed her to take to the task with ease. What surprised Sara, though, was the way Hurlish stalked behind them.

  Sporting a chestpte thicker than Sara's fist that weighed more than Evie, Sara had expected the smith to be a stomping, clumsy mess, a seven-foot behemoth announcing their location to half the world. Yet the moment they'd begun their stealthy pace through the forest, the permanently casual air that Hurlish exuded had vanished. The orc kept a hand pressed against her breastpte, stilling its clinking metal, and she used the knuckles of her other hand to walk in an ape-like crawl, eyes alert and darting. It was as palpably nervous as Sara had ever seen her girlfriend, and she didn't miss the way that Hurlish's attention was more on the dark spaces of the jungle than the entrances to the clearing.

  Sara tapped her thumb against one of the heavy arrows in her quiver, thinking. Y'know, I'm starting to get the feeling I wasn't giving these 'jungle beasts' enough credit.

  But it was too te to ask questions. Sara kept walking, filing the thought away as yet another issue that needed investigation.

  They forded the stream, which luckily only came up to Sara's knees, though it was brutally cold, likely spring-fed. Despite her companion's paranoia, there was no sign of hidden army nor stalking beasts as they walked. Eventually Evie whispered for them to stop, their small group having reached the far end of the clearing. The catgirl tucked back into the shade, whispering to Sara.

  "Can you cut us a small cubby to hide in, Master? It would be best if you could avoid cutting the frontmost foliage, so we can better conceal ourselves."

  "Sure."

  Sara took out her bde, using its edge to begin hacking away the densest part of the lower bushes and shrubs. Hurlish reached over to pry the rger branches out of the way, so Sara could reach--

  Evie's ears flicked up, rotating towards the road. Sara and Hurlish immediately froze, staring at her.

  "...Cut faster, Master."

  Sara began sshing haphazardly, grunting with effort. Hurlish reached a massive paw in and began ripping chunks out, tossing them further into the foliage. Evie stood frozen, ears still locked on the road, whispering for them to hurry. Sara kept hacking even as she strained her ears, listening for whatever Evie had heard.

  She finished making a clearing rge enough for the three of them right as she picked up the first distant sound, a bark of ughter just loud enough to carry through the forest. Hurlish peeled a treebranch back, cupping them both in her other arm and shoving them in.

  Sara fell face-first into the mud just as the first shining boots emerged from the road, a clump of mismatched troops walking into the open air. Hurlish nded on top of her, armor scraping against armor.

  "Get off--"

  "I'm tryin'-"

  "Quiet! " Evie hissed.

  They quieted. Heartbeat pounding in her ears, Sara listened to the troops slowly filing out into the clearing. There was the cnk of metal and thump of boots, the sound of distant conversations, but no cries of arm. Evie remained perfectly still, crouched beside the awkward tangle of Hurlish and Sara, so they froze as well, waiting for her approval to move.

  Only when the entire force had entered the clearing did Evie release her held breath, shifting her stance to something more comfortable. Sara and Hurlish began the slow process of separating, taking care that their armors didn't hook on one another's.

  "So they've chosen this ground for the battle as well," Evie whispered, ignoring the graceless game of Twister occurring behind her. "Positioning themselves a dozen yards before the stream, so they can choose to engage Voth while his troops are mired in the water. Unfortunate."

  Sara managed to get to her feet and crouched, squinting through the gaps between leaves. "Unfortunate? That kinda seems like the only reasonable option."

  "They're vilgers turned bandit, Master. I was hoping they would ck the sensibilities required for sound tactics."

  "They got a mage," Hurlish grunted, kneeling on the other side of Evie. "Those types aren't stupid. Bet the spellcaster's probably in charge of the whole bunch."

  "Perhaps. I still remain surprised someone of learning thought it best to turn to base robbery, however. It seems uncharacteristic of a mage to be so short-sighted."

  "How do you know they're educated, though?" Sara asked. She scanned the force, searching for those she thought might be irregurs. "It's been ten years since there was any kind of school in Tulian. Can a mage be self-taught?"

  "It is technically possible, but incredibly unlikely. Uncontrolled spells, particurly combat spells, are more likely to kill the caster than their opponent."

  "Great," Hurlish said sarcastically. "So we better hope they're not self-taught, because that'd mean they're either crazy enough to be scary or some kind of savant."

  Evie cursed under her breath. "I should have asked Voth for more information on our opponents. Can either of you see one that strikes you as a mage?"

  Sara kept looking, evaluating the force. Voth had said there would be three archers, a mage, and a pair of swordsmen. Among the milling crowd were plenty of people who might fit the description, but nothing about any one individual screamed talent. She searched all the same.

  "What about that one, there?" Sara asked, pointing towards a lightly armored man near the group's rear. "That guy doesn't have any weapons. Think he could be the mage?"

  "Mages don't usually bother with armor," Hurlish said, squinting. "But you're right. He doesn't have any weapons."

  "Lacking armor is a trait of the most experienced mages, who have little need of physical protection, but the same can't be said for their protégé. He's a solid candidate, Master, but we will only know once battle is met."

  Sara nodded, continuing her evaluation of the force. Even without Evie's fancy training, Sara could tell these troops weren't hardened veterans. Much like Voth's troops, gambesons far outnumbered metal breastptes, while the spears they carried were simple and unadorned. They milled about idly, as Evie had said troops shouldn't, preferring to talk and chat with friends rather than prepare for battle.

  What marked them as actual threats, though, were the little adornments on their armor. Sara saw plentiful trinkets made of hide and bone, the remnants of hunted animals turned into trophies. Several wore neckces strung with six-inch-long needle teeth, while others kept aged and dried lizard feet dangling from their person. Among the various animal remains Sara saw, most looked reptilian, and none of them could have come from something smaller than a Komodo dragon. Voth's story of the bandits having got their start as hunters was proven by the tapestry of their equipment, and Sara didn't like what their prey implied of their abilities.

  Studying the troops could only distract Sara for so long, unfortunately, and once she'd noted all she could, the wait began. Her palms were sweating under her gauntlets, anticipation of a fight never letting the razor edge of adrenaline fade. Voth had said he was under an hour away from the clearing, but Sara didn't have a watch. She could only count time by the impatient tapping of her foot and the chirping of hidden insects, every stretched minute winding the spring inside her tighter. Tick-tick-tick, tap-tap-tap, she waited and waited, all too eager.

  After a subjective eternity, Sara finally spotted the head of Voth's troops emerging from the far end of the miniature valley. The orc himself was at the head of the three-wide column, joining the men beside him with shields raised high. With the battle finally near, his troops had no issue keeping their footfalls in time, and the metronomic beat of heavy stomping rose to rival the shouting jeers of the bandit force.

  "Watch closely," Evie instructed tersely, no longer concerned with whispering. "Mark the archer irregurs."

  Sara and Hurlish leaned forward, keeping their eyes peeled. A dozen or so of the bandits were hurriedly unslinging bows, shouting and shoving through the disorganized crowd to give themselves a clear shot.

  "How will we know which are the irregurs?"

  "You'll know once you see them, Master."

  Sara bit her tongue, pulse pounding. Voth's column was marching out into the open air at the double time, the formation swinging on an invisible hinge to present its widest face to the bandits. Not all the troops had shields, and many of those that did only possessed tawdry wood and leather protection, obviously selfmade.

  The first few bandit archers freed themselves from the press of their comrades, lifting their bows and drawing it to their cheeks. In an instant Sara felt certain she identified at least one of the irregurs, by virtue of the fact that her bow was a head taller than the woman herself. She had to hold it an angle just to keep its bottom limb off the ground, a bowstring thick as rope csped in a balled fist. The woman threw her entire back into the draw, squinting down the length of a two-foot arrow.

  Sara's ears rang with the whipcrack of her bowstring's release, arrow vanishing between blinks. Sara spotted its impact among Voth's troops by tracking flying splinters, some poor fellow's shield detonated on impact. The man dropped bonelessly, a gaping hole in his chest.

  Two more simir whipcracks sounded from various pces in the still-assembling bandit line, followed by a simir spray of broken wood among Voth's troops. One arrow actually darted towards Voth himself, but unlike most of his troops, he wore armor made of steel.

  Voth took the brunt of the impact on the right side of his cuirassier's pte, fortunately nding in such a way that the angle was nearly gncing. The force of its ricochet was still enough to shove him sideways, stumbling onto the shoulder of his nearest troop. The woman shoved him off her, allowing him to quickly fall back into the march.

  More mundane arrows began falling upon the line, answered by scattered return fire. Sara bounced to her feet as folk on both sides began to fall, moving to sprint out of the clearing.

  Evie caught her arm. "Not yet, Master," she hissed. "We have to wait until the lines meet."

  "What? Why? People are dying!"

  "And we'll be among them, if we attack now. Their line will fall upon us, pinning us in pce until the irregurs sughter us."

  "Look at them!" Sara stabbed a finger towards the bandit mob. Voth's troops were already nearing the stream, having formed into a loose line thirty wide and two deep, while the bandits were still disentangling from one another. "They can't coordinate shit! We'll be halfway through them before they even notice us."

  "Never assume your enemy will make a mistake, Master. Only seize the advantage once they have."

  "Oh, fuckin' thanks, Sun Tzu," Sara growled. Despite her words, she didn't dart out of their hiding space. Evie was right, and all present knew it. That didn't make her any less pissed about hiding in a hole while others fought, though.

  Sara didn't drop back down into her crouch, instead standing and shifting her weight from foot to foot, clutching the pommel of her sheathed sword.

  "Y'seen the mage yet?" Hurlish asked.

  Evie shook her head. "No. I would have expected them to reveal themselves by now. Voth's troops could have been devastated while still packed into column. If we're fortunate, they're weaker than reported. If we're not, then they're reserving themselves to deal with any unforeseen threats, like we intend to be."

  "I wonder how much whoever tipped them off knew about me before they left," Sara murmured. "If they know a Champion's coming, they'd be ready for anything..." Her words trailed off as she watched the battle's progress. Voth's troops, nearly at the river, had suddenly grown timid. Their steady march had turned into a timid shuffle, eying the stream as if afraid of getting their feet wet. "The hell are they doing?"

  "Voth is trying to lure them towards the stream, Master. The more entrenched the common bandits are in the melee, the less they will be able to answer our assault upon their irregurs."

  "It's fuckin' costing him, though," Sara whispered, tracking the arc of falling arrows. Voth's six or seven archers were giving as good or better than they got from the ten bandit archers, but it was impossible for them to answer the snap of the irregur's longbows.

  Evie's gentle voice took on the oratory tones of someone quoting scripture. "No action in battle is without cost. Victory may only be purchased with the currency of blood. The greatest generals are those who spend the least."

  "Christ."

  The bandits were, Sara thanked the gods, taking the bait. The moment their line was sorted out they began moving forward, taking up a half jog to meet their opponent before they cleared the river. They wanted Voth's troops there for the same reason he did; it was harder to escape, once you started losing. Somehow, both sides assuming they'd win only served to make the battle bloodier.

  Evie began whispering under her breath, little meaningless mutterings that fell from her as she studied the battle. The bandits, despite their inferior numbers, spread themselves thinner, angling to envelop Voth's fnks when they met. Voth responded by ordering his own troops to spread out somewhat, but kept them in pairs, each group just able to reach their fellow with the full extension of their spears. The bandits didn't alter their strategy save to ball up slightly at the left and right ends of their lines, a cluster of four troops surrounding a single swordsman on each side. Sara guessed those would be the melee irregurs, then. The archer irregurs stayed thirty feet or so behind their main line, just enough that the hill let them shoot over the heads of their allies. In the archer trio's center was that same unarmed man, hands shoved casually into his pockets.

  Sara was ripped from her analysis by the fsh of Evie's rapier, housecat turning tiger as she burst from the foliage. Sara and Hurlish swore profusely, breaking free of the branches, taking far longer to accelerate the nimble feline.

  Sara was fast. Faster than she'd ever been back on Earth, that was for sure, and hell, without her armor, she'd probably be in the runnings for an olympic team. That said, with the high of adrenaline roaring through her veins, the hundred yards she had to cover between their cover and the enemy archers felt like a mile. Evie was ten feet ahead of them and gaining distance, still wearing the sideslit red dress that covered her leather armor. It caught and snagged on the grass, staining the ruby hem green.

  Evie reached the archers in total surprise, lunging into a fencer's stab without slowing a step. Her jeweled rapier slipped soundlessly through the archer's light armor, the woman's dying cry nothing more than air being driven from her lungs.

  Evie's momentum carried her into the archer's back, bowling them both over. There was a wet rip as Evie tore her sword free halfway through the fall, tucking into a roll that bounced her back onto her feet, fangs bared in a feral hiss at the closest archer.

  The distraction worked. Hurlish lowered a shoulder, greeting the man's spine with three hundred and fifty pounds of sprinting muscle, steel pauldron connecting between his shoulder bdes. Bones broke in firecracker strings, a hundred sickening pops driving the light from the man's eyes.

  Sara arrived st, and she didn't go for the final archer. She plowed straight on to the suspected mage, who was still watching the battle unfold without a care in the world. She drew her shortsword back, aiming for the nape of his neck, and swung.

  A glowing hand sprouted from the man's shoulder, sickly skin covered by a shell of spectral blue. The hand caught Sara's bde, stopping it with a spray of purple sparks, then grabbed and spun, trying to wrench the weapon from Sara's hands.

  Sara didn't release her sword, but the consequence of that was being thrown from her feet, the momentum too much for her. She felt air whip by for a half second before pain fred in her shoulder, then everywhere else along her body as she tumbled down the hill.

  Even before she came to a stop Sara was cwing tracks in the mud, dragging herself to all fours. Her eyes snapped to the mage just as his old body finished fading away, illusory mirage degrading into chips of light.

  The real man was nothing like the average-looking facade. His skin was pale and ill-looking, pulse visible in the webwork of distended blue veins. Tallymarks of bck ash scoured every open patch of skin, from the face to the ankles, and he wore nothing but a loose patchwork skirt that draped half past his knees. That same blue light cloaked his arms from shoulder to fingertip, narrowing to lethal cws. He stalked toward Sara with a mad grin, arms outstretched.

  "Ah, providence! How I love her so." His voice was crackly and weak, appropriate for the condition of his body, but he showed no signs of frailty in his movements. "She with delusions of grandeur comes to meet me?"

  Sara used the muddy trenches she'd dug as sprinter's chocks, leaping forward. She raised her sword up high as she charged, as if to cleave him down the middle, then threw out a kick just as she neared him.

  Her foot connected solidly with his knee as he pointlessly raised his hands to catch her bde, but rather than snapping it backward as she'd intended, the limb simply slipped away. The mage was shoved backward, spinning a half turn as if he were standing on ice rather than muddy grass.

  "Now that's no way to treat a respected opponent, is it, fine one?" He chided, shaking a finger.

  Sara huffed and reset her stance, studying him while she caught her breath. Did he cast a spell to prepare for the kick, or is he always like that? And where are Hurlish and Evie?

  "You're the one who cims to be a Champion, yes? I do hope you're true, friend. It would mean a great many great things."

  Sara found Hurlish and Evie. They'd been separated, two of the closest bandits having peeled off the line to engage them. Judging by the fact that neither of her girlfriend's opponents were immediately dead, Sara must have misjudged where they'd pced their swordsman irregurs.

  "Tell me, what could prove it to me? What makes you a god's chosen?"

  She gnced behind herself, taking an appraisal of the battle.

  Voth's troops were slowly falling apart. The bandit's experience in honest-to-god combat was overwhelming Voth's well-trained but inexperienced troops, who were collecting a variety of wounds that either took them out of the battle or dropped them on the spot. Sara could see Voth's lines wavering, fear superseding bravery in many of the soldier's eyes.

  "Well, Champion? If you really can cim such an ignominious title, I fail to see why I even need to concern myself with this battle. Your types are famed for their weak wills, their over-reliance on fairytale mercy. What is it so many have said? Killing me would make you just as evil? So fight me, Champion, and see if I show you the same mercy when I stand victorious. Fight me! Show me what you are!"

  Sara bared her teeth, grass about her fluttering to the tune of a rusted engine spitefully sputtering to life. A single wailing guitar struck as thunder, echoing across the valley, followed just behind by a screeching, overpping chant.

  BEENTHEREDONETHATHADALOOK-

  Sara dove towards the mage, bck bde flinging out to its full extension. The mage caught the tip just before his gut, but Sara'd been ready for it, tugging her sword back while reaching for his throat with her offhand.

  THREEPILLSIMUPFORDAYSWITHYOURSPILLS-

  Voth's line snapped to rigid attention, and rather than dissolve, they began to compress, dozens of spears falling into parallel porcupine barbs. Sara was dimly aware of the drummer having taken back up their instrument, meeting the beat of her song.

  ISTHISTOOMUCHFUNFORREGRETS-

  Sara and the mage spun about one another, the hiss of enchanted steel sparking off mageskin drowned out by booming guitars. Fighting the ensorcelled mage was as unique a challenge as she'd ever had, her sword less maneuverable by far than his enchanted limbs, yet the bde was all that kept her away from his razor fingertips. He constantly snagged for her weapon, trying to tear it from her grip, but the blue light he'd summoned was slick as steel, keeping it just possible for her to slip away.

  "WELL, CHAMPION?" The mage bellowed, bouncing her sword away from the eye she'd been aiming for. "SMELL THE SLAUGHTER! BREATH IN THE SCENT OF DEATH! WHAT THINK YOU OF WHAT YOU'VE WROUGHT?"

  Just visible beneath the steel of her helmet, Sara's grin grew feral. She dug within herself, trying to see just how loud she could get the music going.

  TOOOOMUUUUUUUCHFUUUUUUUUN

  The mage's expression fell, delighted hysteria fading to depraved disgust. He brought his hands together before his face, meeting her charge with the first signs of apprehension.

  SAMEOLDSTORYDIFFERENTBED-

  The fight changed. No longer distracted by megalomania, the mage struck with precision, treating his limbs as knives rather than clubs. Sara settled more firmly into her stances, not affording a single opportunity for him to break through the whirlwind of her swings. Though she was armored, he constantly made jabs for even the thickest part of her breastpte, so she decided to trust his judgement on what those razor nails could and couldn't damage.

  OHWELLWELLWELLWELLWELLGOODFRIEND-

  Sara dumped her first spell into her next swing, lightning rearing up to jump away from bck steel. The mage's arms acted as lightning rods, drawing in every crackling branch, their impact points fsh-boiling blue energy into wispy vapor. The mage shoved away after only a moment of contact, his second skin now as pitted and degraded as the first.

  THOUGHTYOUDBEENTHEREANDDONETHAT-

  With the holes she'd busted open in his armor already closing, Sara pushed the attack, not letting him escape. The moment she was in range she sprang into an overextended lunge, ice now forming miniature mountain ranges along her sword's razor edge.

  THESEKEYSDONTOPENUPYOURLOCK-

  Brittle chips scored a line across his blocking forearm, bde finally slipping through to open a strip of red. Sara brutally see-sawed the sword, working the ice into his flesh as deeply as she could before he managed to rip himself free, stumbling backward, strips of filleted muscle dangling in the open air. He was breathing hard, eyes wild, looking for his irregurs.

  They were dead. The archers long since gone, taken from behind at the start, with the two swordsmen faced by Evie and Hurlish lying bleeding and broken. He turned back to Sara, trembling with rage and fear.

  "You can't be the spawn of pathetic Amarat! What are you?!"

  Sara's grin grew.

  TOOOOOO MUUUCHH FUUUUUUN

  Sara's bde fell on crossed arms, true thunder booming through the valley as blue tendrils six feet long spasmed into the air. She felt only a half second of resistance when she hit his armor, then her swing continued through meat and bone to skull, splitting him from nose to chin. He jerked like a hooked fish as lightning spiraled directly into his brain, random neuron impulses firing off for a brief few seconds before his body went limp, falling off the end of her sword.