----------------------------Ignite Parables----------------------------

  Five thousand pounds of iron swung precariously overhead, dangling from a tangled spiderweb of thick ropes. The wooden crane which had lifted the cannon groaned ominously as its gears turned, a dozen shirtless sailors shining with sweat as they worked the massive machinery. Ignite felt he should have been using his strength at the wheel with the others, but he had been ordered otherwise. Someone needed to coordinate the loading of the cannon, and he was the most senior unoccupied officer.

  “Halt!” Ignite yelled, holding up a hand. The sailors operating the crane scraped to a stop, bracing against the mechanism until the supervising engineer threw the brake lever. That had been one of the Governess’s personal additions to otherwise common cargo cranes. Ignite had never heard of dockyard which featured half the ‘safety features’ she insisted upon.

  “Begin lowering!” Ignite called. The sailors moved now to a different spoked wheel, this one attached to the multitude of ropes securing the cannon, and braced themselves against the wood.

  After confirming all were in their pce, the engineer threw a different lever. The entire crane lurched as the cannon’s weight was allowed to shift, prevented from crashing to the deck only by counterweights and the efforts of the sailors.

  “Slowly, carefully now. You’ve done it before, you know what to do!”

  At Ignite’s prompting, the sailors shuffled their feet, allowing the wheel to push them around in a slow turn. The cannon began lowering, inch by inch, foot by foot. This was always the tensest moment. If the cannon were dropped, or even allowed to hit the deck too quickly, it would smash straight through the thin wood. Sinking one own’s fgship in the process of outfitting its weaponry was decidedly not on Ignite’s list of priorities.

  Thankfully, after many fraught minutes, the cannon disappeared through the cargo hatch. Gunner Balon was waiting below with a carriage, which he rolled underneath the weapon. After ensuring the pcement was exact, Ignite gave the order for the final release of tension from the crane.

  The test cannon of the TRS Waverake settled into its home with nary a bump nor creak. Ignite felt his shoulders slump in relief as he heaved out a long sigh.

  Ignite had helped load ten cannons over the st two months, and each one had filled him with the same profound anxiety. Not only was the potential for loss of life or limb great in every moment, the cannons themselves were absurdly expensive. The TRS Waverake now mounted twenty 24-pounders in addition to ten 32-pounder carronades, and each one had cost a fortune. An entire fleet of more conventional warships could have been built with what had been spent on her weaponry. The Governess had been importing raw iron, copper, and tin in as rge a quantity as other cities were capable of sending her, afforded only through the accumution of considerable debts.

  Privy as he was to the Governess’s innermost council, Ignite knew that she was completely confident that her industrialization efforts would provide the necessary material to pay off what was becoming an otherwise insurmountable debt. Governance was not his pce, yet he could not help growing wary of his new nation’s burgeoning foreign commitments.

  Ignite could do only two things to assist in the matter. Firstly, pray that Sara’s gambling would yield the expected dividends, and secondly, ensure that not a single one of the gargantuan weapons would go to waste.

  But a waste for who? Ignite wondered. He began heading to the aft of the ship, where Admiral Nora was giving yet another of her naval lectures to the newest crewmembers.

  As he went, he found his stomach churning. His loyalties were yet again at odds with one another.

  It was clear to Ignite and the Waverake’s other officers that their Captain was preparing the ship for a voyage. She had been ordering repeated inspections of the hull, loading salted meats and preserved fruits, and stuffing stocks of wood and cloth for repairs into the hold. She inspected the trim of the ship at least twice a day, often more, and had been spending her every free moment educating the least experienced hands on the intricacies of the Waverake’s incredibly complex rigging.

  Normally, Ignite would have uded any commander who was so diligent in their preparations. Unfortunately, in this instance, it was clear that his Captain’s intent and the Governess’s were at direct odds.

  From their meetings, Ignite knew that Sara had no intention of deploying the Waverake farther than Tulian’s territorial waters. Nora, meanwhile, had accumuted supplies enough to sail thousands of miles without a single port call. There was a conflict brewing, and Ignite feared he would once again be called upon to determine his loyalties.

  “The st cannon is loaded, Captain,” Ignite said, stepping into the circle of adult students who were listening to Nora’s expnation of rigging the ship for a storm. “Gunner Balon is pcing it in the bow now, and the armory has been filled to capacity.”

  “Thank ye, First Sergeant,” Nora said, fshing a smile at him. In her sleek bck uniform, with its shining epaulets and golden tassels, no one could say she was not a charming commander, despite her oddities. To many, those eccentricities only furthered their awe for the half-elf woman. “Fifteen on either broadside, with two long guns fore and aft. It’ll be a wonder if ye ever find yourself needing to repel boarders again, Ignite.”

  “One can only hope,” Ignite replied politely. He knew that it was an unlikely supposition. The Waverake was only one ship, and any vessel could be overwhelmed by sheer numbers. “Have you any other duties for me, ma’am?”

  “Not at the moment, nae. But I’d ask to see ye in the stateroom, come evening. Pass the word to yer fellow officers, would ye?”

  “Of course, ma’am.” Ignite retreated with a salute, which the Admiral returned. Compared to the low bow he had been raised to address Admirals with, the simple salute was one of Sara’s most welcome changes.

  Ignite spent a few minutes doing as instructed. He walked up and down the Waverake’s many decks, finding the scattered officers and informing them of the meeting. A ship that held over five hundred sailors required quite the number of superiors to manage them, and it took him some time. He did not even bother trying to track down those that were away in the city; either they were on tasks best not interrupted, or they were too drunk to be of any use. He wished he could begrudge them for this, but there was no use. Habitual drunkenness in port was a tradition as ancient as the first water-logged raft.

  When he had ensured each man and woman understood his message, Ignite was left without much to do. It wasn’t as if there was another cannon to load. Hurlish’s foundries (and they were Hurlish’s, no matter what the Governess said) could only produce one cannon a week at the best of times, and that was with their efforts siphoning every scrap of ore the government could get its hands on.

  Technically, he supposed, he was off duty. He did not know what to do with that. He had a home in the city, but he had not visited it in weeks. Even now, months after her commitment to the Church of Amarat’s treatments, Pupils was everywhere. The twice-traitorous woman that Ignite had fallen into the arms of was a specter at the edges of his mind, always threatening to drag him under the waves.

  Fifteen years of proud service in the Carrion Navy had been ruined in one short hour. He had abandoned his ship, watching the brave sailors he had served alongside sink into the deep.

  Unlike him, they had done their duty. The Carrion Navy’s secrets had sunk with them.

  The lone woman who had been saved alongside him had been one he fell for. It had been a quiet, gentle coming together, two souls bound by mutual loss. Slowly, he realized he loved her.

  Too slowly, too softly.

  He had seen the pain in her eyes, and in his search to soothe it, missed the treachery lurking behind. He had not known she was betraying their saviors until it was too te. And so he, a man of two homes, two peoples, had betrayed them both.

  Summoned by his dour thoughts, he became aware of the sickly, cloying miasma of depression licking at his mind. His hand fell reflexively to his hip, where his revolver sat.

  If you cannot trust yourself, let this weapon be the proof of my trust in you.

  Evie’s words, written in simple, clinical script, echoed with a force beyond their measure. A pin statement, but a profound one. Even now, months after the war had concluded, there existed two revolvers in all the world. They were powerful, unique weapons, so much so that their mere existence was a secret. He had been instructed in no uncertain terms that, should he draw his revolver, it must be with the intent to kill all who witnessed its use. As far as Ignite was aware, the weapon’s design was a secret without equal in the Tulian Republic.

  And Evie Eliah, wife of a Champion, the most paranoid woman in the nation, had entrusted the weapon to him.

  Ignite took a deep breath, drawing strength from the cool steel under his palm. Kate, the weapon had been named. For the first sve that the Champion of Amarat had saved. Under Captain Nora’s command, Ignite had helped free hundreds more, all in the name of Sara Brown’s vision for the future. For the first time in his life, he had fought not for a nation, but a cause. It was a privilege that had been afforded him only through service to the Champion.

  Before he consciously realized he had made the decision, Ignite turned sharply, moving with purpose to the helm. The Captain was still speaking to a group of sailors, making flowing, animated gestures as she expined the nature of breaking waves near peninsus.

  “Captain, I must speak with you,” Ignite said. The firmness of his voice surprised him.

  “Oh?” Her eyebrows rose in surprise. “I’ll be with ye in a moment, First Sergeant.”

  “Immediately, ma’am.”

  At this, Nora paused. Her eyes, always swirling through shades of oceanic blue, bored into him. Ignite held her gaze.

  “Dismissed,” she said, waving her students off. “In the stateroom, Ignite?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Ignite followed Nora into the Waverake’s expansive stateroom, which had been enrged by the sleepless captain’s deconstruction of her personal cabin. After growing used to meetings in which so many officers were stuffed into the room that the air grew stale, it was decidedly odd to be alone with the Captain.

  “Yer concern, Ignite?” Nora asked.

  Ignite began without preamble, standing in parade rest, arms folded behind his back, staring straight ahead. “Where are we going, Captain? The Governess’s orders were clear. We are to patrol Tulian territorial waters, asserting the Republic’s sovereignty by maintaining historical border cims.”

  “Who says we aren’t?”

  “You have emptied the city’s siege stores in order to load fifty tons of food, most of which is preserved for long-term storage, in addition to six hundred barrels of fresh water. The armory is beyond capacity, requiring storage of cannonballs amongst the hold, and you have exchanged the ship’s muskets for newer production examples. I am not a quartermaster, Captain, but I am not a fool, either. We are comfortably provisioned to spend at least four months at sea, with the ammunition required to spend much of that time fighting. The Waverake is capable of covering forty leagues a day. There is no location we might travel to which requires the sheer volume of provisions you have prepared, Captain. We could travel to the Locks of the Sea and back twice over without once stopping for resupply.”

  Ignite kept his attention fixed firmly on the rear of the cabin. There was a stained gss rendition of Daygon pced there, a mural which had taken on something of a firmer importance in Ignite’s mind, considering recent events.

  “Until recently, I believed that my loyalty was firm. Uncomplicated. You, as Admiral of the Navy, serve Tulian, and through you, so do I. But if you intend to disobey orders, to desert with the fgship…”

  Ignite let the implication hang. Truthfully, he did not know how he would finish the sentence.

  “And if I do?” Nora asked, forcing the issue. “What will you do, Ignite?”

  “Make a difficult decision, ma’am.”

  “Mm.” She settled into her chair, appraising Ignite. “So, then. Yer question, at the heart of it, is whether I’ll be sailing for Sara, or at my own pleasure.”

  “That is one way to phrase it, ma’am.”

  Nora steepled her fingers, narrowing her eyes at Ignite. Once, he might have maintained his stoicism. Now, after all he had seen of the woman, his feet shifted, itching to take a runner’s stance.

  Instead of growing irate at his questioning, however, Nora O’Gallison smirked. She stood, smile growing, and walked to the shelves which lined the stateroom’s walls.

  Nora slipped a rolled-up map out from its pce amongst its fellows, moving to spread it across the table. He was surprised to see what it depicted. The known seas, depicted in their entirety. He’d never heard of a journey which required three thousand miles of ocean to be seen at once.

  “This ship is too big for the pond we’ve put her in,” Nora purred, lovingly smoothing the edges of the paper. “The st year’s seen me bestowed with two gifts, Ignite. A ship, from a Champion. And a Css, from a God. And I’ve no intention to put either to waste.”

  Ignite watched her fingers trail along the yellowed papyrus, tracing the ocean’s curves with the sensuality of a nguid lover. She was reaching east, steadily, following the shoreline with a single digit.

  He’d known that Nora idolized Admiral Sinti. He knew that she’d been trained by him, even. He’d hoped that she was different. That she hadn’t fallen into the same cult of personality which had swept up so many promising Captains.

  His hopes died as her finger came to rest on the Locks of the Sea, fingernail digging an indentation into the paper. The great gate which held back the ocean beyond, and the beasts which lurked within.

  Nora’s breath came in trembling, ecstatic puffs.

  “We set sail for no queen’s orders, Ignite. We sail for a God. And tomorrow?” She giggled. “Tomorrow, we will paint our sails bck.”

  ---------------------------

  Evie

  ---------------------------

  Sara had once suggested to Evie that she tie her tail down. It was a (rgely sarcastic) response to Evie’s frustration that the limb, which she had precious little control over, was a constant vector for potential interpretation by others. Should she be in a tense discussion with an individual sufficiently familiar with felines, it would be a vulnerability akin to cking the ability to moderate her facial expressions. A disastrous weakness, so far as concealing her thoughts was concerned. Of course, Evie had never done so preposterous a thing as wrapping a rope around her tail. The most she’d ever done was wear a hip-hugging garment with her tail tucked down, forcing it to still.

  As she watched the pne circle above her, Evie was beginning to seriously consider her prior reluctance.

  Her tail battered the air like a drunken brawler, fury sending its tip ripping repeatedly through the grass. In her fist was clutched an utterly imbecilic note, dropped from the fools up in that buzzing, circling bird. Written by two hands, the first portion of the note was penned in cleaner calligraphy, though clearly shaken by the craft’s vibration. It was not the cause for her present aggravation.

  Crystal difficulties Cant slow down Waiting for power to deplete If wwe fall please catch Thanks Help

  Then, beneath it, in an ugly scrawl.

  TWO ARMMIES FEN MILESS SSOUTHEAST

  WAY WWAAAY BIG

  MABYE WILL FIGHT

  Evie’s fist clenched around the note, cws poking pinprick holes in the cheap paper. When she had managed accounts and reports for her mother, Evie had received a number of ill-advised, uninformative letters. They had frustrated her immensely. No one that sent her such a report more than twice had remained on the House’s payroll. She had made sure of it. She couldn’t do the same now, but oh how she yearned for that same authority.

  Intellectually, she understood why the note was so poor. Firstly, it had been tossed from an experimental aircraft, one that, by the sound of its violent overhead cttering, had been possessed by a burning desire to shake itself to pieces. Brevity could be excused in such circumstances. Clearly, Tinvel had written it, then handed it to Chona to be tossed over the side. He had known better than to provide Evie any information about these ‘armmies’ before reaching the ground.

  Chona had disagreed, it would seem. She likely thought Evie would like to know about the armies as soon as possible. The girl had been correct. She had also admirably tried to provide details. Unfortunately for her, what exactly “fen miles southeast” meant was utterly opaque. Had the girl intended to write ‘ten’ or ‘few’? And what in the world did ‘mabye will fight’ mean? The armies would be coming to Tulian to fight? They would fight one another? Chona and Tinvel intended to fight them on their own? Evie desperately, desperately wanted an expnation.

  And she would not have one until they nded. Which, depending on the rate at which the untested crystalline engine’s energies were depleted, could be up to half an hour.

  I should be in the capital! Evie raged. She’d begun pacing the moment she received the note, and she hadn’t slowed a bit since. The few guards and amateur artificers which had accompanied her on this journey had retreated some fifty odd feet away, watching her with prudent concern.

  Far away, oh so far away, were her wives, one of them heavily pregnant. It could be any day now that Hurlish went into bor. True, there were two weeks left until Hurlish was properly due, assuming the date of conception was calcuted correctly, but that meant little. Pregnancies, Evie knew, were not predictable affairs. Rationally, she had been right to volunteer as an escort on this single-day journey south, knowing it was unlikely that a pair of days away could lead to her missing the birth of their child.

  Evie’s tail struck the ground again, this time hard enough to draw blood. The others flinched, retreating a few steps further.

  Unfortunately for everyone involved, Evie had discovered she was not a perfectly rational person.

  With a sudden, clicking drumroll, the buzz from above tapered away. Evie’s head snapped up, finding the bipne’s engine having seized.

  Finally!

  The pne began a glide towards the ft piece of ground that they had designated as a nding strip, the edges of its wings twisting and bending as Tinvel guided it down. Evie forced herself to wait well away from the inbound contraption, having long since been made aware of the potential disasters of a failed engine.

  Sara and her father had thought that gemstone-powered engines would be a safer alternative to chemically powered devices in the event of catastrophic failure. Their first attempt at mating the crystal engine to the pne had disabused them of the notion. Fragments of wood and metal had been flung over the city walls, a quarter mile away.

  Thankfully, the disaster was not recreated. The bipne smmed into the ground once, bounced up, then fell back down again, its entire frame shuddering as it began to bite the soil. In a few seconds the rubber-cd wheels had dragged the vehicle to a stop, their stiff hide digging deep lines in the mud as a result. Pressurized tires, Evie knew, were something Mr. Brown was aching to recreate.

  Evie reached the vehicle at the same time its two occupants were cmbering out, hurrying to rid themselves of their heavy flight gear. The Tulian dry season was approaching its end, but that did not mean it was any less sweltering. They tossed aside their heavy scarfs and leather jackets with sighs of relief, sweat already beading at their every pore.

  Evie afforded them no time to recover themselves. She appeared at the edge of the wing in a blink, startling them both.

  “What is this?” She demanded, thrusting the paper forward. It fell apart, long since shredded by her cws.

  Tinvel pulled off his cap, frowning in confusion. “The engine wasn’t working-”

  “Not that,” Evie hissed, staring daggers at Chona. “The armies. Expin.”

  “You told her about-!”

  “Expin!”

  Both young artificers jumped. Chona spoke first, breathlessly cmbering out of her seat.

  “About twenty miles to the southeast, we saw an army,” she babbled, even as she shucked off her heavy overcoat, “this absolutely massive army coming out of the jungle. It had to be an army, because they were way too organized to be anything else.”

  “And they were wearing armor, almost all of them,” Tinvel added, still in the seat of his cockpit. He was twisted around to look at the inset crystals, prodding them with a finger, but he spoke rapidly, as if he weren’t the slightest bit distracted. “I know you’re going to ask how many there were, but I don’t know. More people than I’ve ever seen in one pce. Way more than the crowd when the Governess announced the Republic.”

  Evie’s mind raced. After the Sporaton army had well and truly fled the country, when Sara had released the people to return to their farms, she had held a speech beyond the city walls to expin the nature of their new governance. The speech had been repeated several times, as not everyone could exit the city at once, and so each crowd had numbered approximately twenty thousand. A full fifth of the Tulian popuce.

  “How much rger?” She snapped. “A factor of two? Three?”

  “At least two,” Chona said. “Probably more. And like he said, they were all wearing metal armor.”

  “And then there was the other army,” Tinvel added. “We were flying back to tell you about the first one when we saw it. They were marching towards the first one, but they were all spread out, like they were going to fight.”

  “Did they have supply carts with them?”

  “Uh, I think?” Tinvel looked to Chona for support. The girl pretended not to notice, forcing him to continue on his own. “But they were behind the army, the, uh, supply carts, I mean, whereas the other one had their carts up in front.”

  “For the second army, were the carts protected or abandoned?”

  “There were people with armor near them…” Tinvel hedged.

  “Protected, then.” Evie paced, mind a maelstrom. “They are fighting, then. Two armies of a size not seen since the Northern Empire's colpse, sitting on our southern border, going to war.” Her eyes snapped up, pinning the artificers in pce. “How far apart were they at the time you st saw them?”

  “Um… maybe five miles?”

  When Chona remained silent, trying to avoid her ire, Evie fixed her with a gre.

  “Five miles sounds right,” she squeaked out.

  “And how long ago was this?”

  “An hour or so, maybe? I think? We haven't finished watches yet.”

  “Then the battle hasn’t yet begun, if there is to be one.”

  Evie abandoned the two artificers without another word, darting back to her escorts. They were members of the Tulian Guard, ostensibly here for the protection of Evie and the prototype vehicle. In reality, Evie considered them little more than another set of eyes, useful for looking wherever she wasn’t. If something were to appear that was a threat to Evie, they would be dead before they could level their muskets.

  “My crystal,” she said, holding out her hand. The woman shoved her hand into a bag, retrieving it as fast as she was physically capable. Evie brought the crystal to her lips, moving far enough away that no one could overhear.

  “Sara?” She asked. There was a moment of silence, then the sound of cloth rustling against the crystal’s skin.

  “Hey, what’s up?”

  “How is Hurlish?” Evie asked. It hadn't been her intended question, but the moment she realized she could ask it, the priority overrode all others.

  “She’s doing fine. You haven’t missed anything.”

  “Thank goodness.” Evie sighed her relief. Then she paused, hesitating. “There has been a… development.”

  “Yeah?”

  ------------------------------

  Mui Thom

  ------------------------------

  The battle could have gone worse.

  It also could have gone far, far better.

  Mui’s hope that the Warriors of his army had some secret strategem for dealing with combat on the open pins had been dashed. He had succesfully negotiated with other Sergeants to have his squad pced in the mid-left of the formation, well behind the head of the column, with two squads positioned to his left. Conventional wisdom held that this was amongst the safest positions, so that a squad’s fnk could be protected by the jungle. Mui had chosen to pce himself slightly inset of the normally vaunted position, so that any fnking manuever would not be met by his squad, but the others to his side. In a normal battle, his squad would have struggled to even see the enemy, much less become meaningfully engaged.

  He had not been clever enough.

  The two armies had begun the battle in proper fashion, like the tips of two long spearheads colliding into one another. Just as he had feared, however, tradition had failed them. Warriors had ordered squad after squad to abandon the rear ranks, sending them rushing forward to meet the enemy that was doing the same, both sides trying to envelop their opposites. The rectangur column that had defined every battle he had ever fought was consumed by a chaotic melee, individual squads wandering the open ground in utter confusion.

  Instead of two great armies colliding in a press of steel against steel, the battle had dissolved into a scattered series of skirmishes, single squads against single squads. Warriors roamed through the open nes, smming into the rear of spear blocks too distracted to prepare for their arrival. In all his years of battle, he had never seen so much blood spilled in so short a time.

  His squad, unbelievably, had gotten the better of it. Twelve of his original twenty had lived. Compared to much of the army, that was remarkable. Six of his remaining dozen were too injured to walk, and he had already spent his promotion bonus and then some on bribes to the appropriate officers, who would order the healers to his squad before their wounds festered beyond recovery.

  It had been a Warrior that did the damage, of course. Some armored bastard riding a massive krapeu. He had not seen them coming until the beast had bit the head off the first man, its rider killing the others in a blurred flurry of swings. The Warrior had been gone before Mui could so much as turn around; he had only seen the massacre from the corner of his eye.

  Mui groaned, rubbing his face. The eastern horizon had begun to brighten, and without trees to dim the light, it felt as if each beam were a knife sliding into his eyes. He had not slept since the previous sunrise. There had been too much work to do. Finding and bribing the appropriate officers had taken much of his time, followed thereafter by recording a report of the Warrior which had devestated his squad. It was a terrible duty, to put such a tragedy in callous ink, but it was equally important. Should his army one day capture the Warrior responsible, the account would be used as leverage for forcing the man to pay reperations to the fallen’s family. All of the st twenty four hours had been an exhausting trial, first physically, then mentally.

  He looked around himself in the early dawn, trying to ignore the white froth of sweat which still oozed from his fur. What had they to show for all this effort? The weeks of marching, the day of sughter. Nothing more than an indecisive battle in which both sides would cim victory, knowing in truth that they had each routed in disarray. A stupid, wasteful battle. The cries of the wounded and the tepid fires which still flickered across the camp was proof enough of that.

  Just after he had leant back on the pile of dirt he called a seat, there were the sounds of approaching footsteps. Mui flicked his ears towards them, but did not bother to open his eyes. He hoped that whoever it was would simply pass him by, on their way to the trines. At least his squad's losses had allowed them to be forgiven the duty of digging the trines.

  "Hey," a woman's voice whispered. Involuntarily, Mui's ears flicked to the sound, giving him away.

  Without opening an eye, Mui turned to the voice, ensuring that the Sergeant's Flower on his shoulder would be visible.

  "Do you need something?" He growled.

  "Kind of," the woman replied, sounding nervous.

  With a groan, Mui forced his eyes to peel open.

  Then they shot open.

  The woman standing before him was unlike any he had ever seen before. Though her tan skin and ft face marked her as a pure human, she more closely resembled a teenage orc. Even bent over slightly to meet his eyes on the ground, she towered, casting a long shadow from the morning sun. Her bck hair was wrapped in a rge, practical pony tail, one that reached well past her shoulder bdes. As could be expected of a woman her height, her army-issued shirt was undersized, such that it could barely contain her chest, the fabric pulled tight across her breasts. She had a face of such sculpted beauty that Mui could scarcely believe he was not speaking to a statue. Even the expression of jittery anxiety that was pstered across her face could do nothing to mar her appearance.

  In fact, her elegance was so great that Mui's first response was arm.

  A succubus?

  He had never faced a demon, thank the gods, but he had heard endless tales. If ever there were some creature spawned by hellish designs to ensnare the souls of thinking creatures with its beauty, he could imagine it with no other form. It would make sense for these dead nds to contain roving demons, he reasoned. Why else would they bear so little fruit, if not for a great curse weighing upon the ndscape?

  But then the woman sat down next to him, frowning severely, and the concern was dashed. She looked to be nearing tears.

  "What do you need?" He asked, forcing himself to sit up properly.

  "Um. Help, I guess?" She shuddered. "I... my whole squad..."

  She trailed off, growing distant. He had seen that look before. He knew what it meant.

  "Hey," he said calmly, quietly, almost in a whisper. "Eyes forward, soldier. The sky doesn't have anything worth staring at."

  She blinked, coming back to herself. "Sorry," she said, shaking her head. "I was just... my whole squad. I'm the only one left. I joined up just before we went north, and my Sergeant, he wasn't the best... he didn't tell me what to do without him. I guess he didn't think he'd die, that all of them would die, but..." She looked at him, tears beading at the corner of her eyes. "Who do I talk to? Where do I go? I-I'd never even left home, before this. I thought I knew what I was doing, finally, but now it's all..." She looked out at the shattered camp, awash in the leavings of a battle lost.

  "I understand," Mui said, moving closer to her. She leant away, and he froze. Whoever she had been before, this woman was presently as delicate as spun gss. Careful to keep his distance, he began to talk. "Do you still have all your equipment?"

  "N-no," she said, looking away. "I dropped it. When we... when I ran."

  "That's alright. You'll want to go to the quartermasters first, get re-equipped. You don't have to tell them you ran; just say your spear broke, your armor got damaged. If you can, talk to Charya. He was a soldier. He knows what it's like. He won't ask questions."

  "And then?" She asked.

  "You will need reassignment to a new squad. Do you think you can fight again? Some may say there is shame in refusing, that you would be a coward, but it is a far greater shame to break in the midst of battle. If you cannot stomach the fight, do not try. You would only endanger your soldiers in arms. You don't have to answer right now. I don't need to know. Just... consider it, yes?"

  The woman's expression, to Mui's slight surprise, firmed.

  "I can fight," she said. "I want to. I need to. I didn't join for any real reason, sir. Just money. But now I feel like I have to. They killed them, sir. I think I've got a right to return the favor." She looked away, as if ashamed to admit such a thing. "That's not a good reason to fight, is it? I should be fighting for something better than that. I don't even know why we're here, sir. Just that we got told to march. And then... I fought people over that. Killed people. Because I was told to."

  "It's the way of a soldier," Mui said. He wished to give her a reassuring press on her shoulder, but her entire countenance was still drawn inward, defensive. He remained where he was. "We go where we are ordered, and we fight because we were ordered to."

  "But... why this? Why here?" She waved to the unnerving openness of the pins, a scowl growing. "There's nothing here. Why did they drag us into this? Why did we fight for nothing?"

  "I don't know," Mui admitted. "But it must be important. The enemy met us here, fought us for it. The Warriors and Generals know far more than us. There must be something worth dying for in this empty wastend."

  The woman's scowl deepened. Mui knew it wasn't the answer she had been looking for, but what could he say? It was the truth, at least as far as he knew it. It was hard for many soldiers to accept that, early in their careers. That they simply wouldn't be privy to their commander's reasoning, that they would have to put their trust in those above them, simply because there was no other alternative.

  "Thank you," the woman said, standing. She extended her hand, as if to pull him to his feet. He waved the offer off. "Charya, right?" She asked. "That's who you said to go to?"

  "If you can. He'll be busy. All the quartermasters are, after a battle."

  "Thank you. I'm sorry to keep you up."

  "You're welcome. And I am sorry for what happened to your squad. Not all battles are like this, soldier. This one was... strange. It all has been, under this open sky."

  "I'll... take your word for it. Good luck, sir."

  "Good luck, soldier."

  The woman walked off, still seeming as dejected as she had before. As she went, a second woman walked up beside her, speaking in a hushed tone. He wondered who they were. What their fate would be. Whatever it was, he knew that hers was not a face he would ever be able to forget.

  -----------------------------Sara-----------------------------

  "Nobody here knows a goddamn thing," Sara hissed. "It's like they just fucked off in a random direction and decided to fight the first group they saw."

  "There is clearly some sort of pn in pce," Evie argued, speaking under her breath. She wore a leather cap to hide her ears, her tail tucked into her pants. The army Sara had infiltrated had far more catfolk, orcs, and vanara than Tulian, but felines were still entirely absent. "The commanders of this force have obviously traveled northward with purpose for several weeks. Just because the rank and file do not know why does not mean no reason exists."

  "If there is a reason, they're keeping it goddamn close to the chest," Sara said. "That sergeant didn't know, those two lieutenants didn't know, and I haven't heard a single peep with my Blessings. If anyone knows, at this point it's just the general. Maybe some of the Warriors, too."

  Sara had learned quite a lot since entering the camp, on account of her Blessings, but the most critical elements were still missing. She knew that these soldiers considered themselves the 'true' version of an Empire, and thought of their opponents as treasonous vilins. She knew they had been marching northward for weeks, and that they had thought this assignment would be completed without conflict or difficulty.

  But not a one of them seemed to know what they were trying to accomplish, much less why. After so long ensuring her own army was motivated by knowledge of their goals, she found the secrecy present in this army maddening. Worse still, Evie hadn't been able to help much at all.

  Sara gnced at Evie, who was wearing her colr beneath thick bandages, pretending to have suffered a neck wound. "Any luck with that yet, by the way?"

  "No, unfortunately." Evie tapped the colr thoughtfully. "I still cannot understand but a scant few words of their nguage."

  "Damn."

  Sara understood everything that was being said in the camp as if the soldiers were speaking pin old American English, but Evie insisted it was an utterly foreign nguage to her. They'd tried to use the colr's Connection to transfer knowledge of the nguage to her, but it wasn't working. Even ordering Evie to understand the nguage hadn't worked; giving an impossible order didn't allow her to suddenly manifest new skills.

  "Alright. Do you think it's worth it, trying to sneak into the officer's tents?"

  "While the value of what we might learn is considerable, I cannot imagine we would succeed."

  "We've done pretty well so far."

  "Because you have seduced anyone intelligent enough to question your presence, Master. A well-trained guard, one of these 'Warriors,' would not fall so easily to your charms."

  Sara arched an eyebrow.

  "Not immediately, that is," Evie temporized. "They would insist you wait until they are off-duty, at the very least. And they likely work in groups. It would be considerably more difficult to seduce them all at once."

  "I bet I could manage it."

  "Perhaps, but the resulting orgy might draw unwanted attention. Regardless, we have other duties to be attending to."

  Evie was referring to Hurlish, of course. Every hour spent away from their wife grated on Evie like a knife scraping against her spine, driving her paranoia to a fever pitch. No amount of assurances, pnning, and regur communication had eased her anxiety. Evie seemed convinced that without her present, Hurlish would somehow end up giving birth atop a pile of back alley garbage. Never mind the fact that Sara had at least one healer following their wife around at all times, along with a pair of midwifes who had temporarily moved into the home next door, in addition to a detachment of Guards hand-picked by Evie for their skill and loyalty. Hurlish couldn't so much as twitch without a half-dozen people taking note of it.

  "Alright," Sara said, because, hypocrite that she was, all of that paranoia she criticized Evie for was equally present in her, "we'll go back. But I'm not going to just let them think they got away with this."

  Evie froze. Hidden beneath her clothes, her tail began to squirm nervously.

  "What exactly does that mean?"

  Sara grinned.

  -------------------------------------Mui Thom-------------------------------------

  Two hours after he had finally fallen asleep, he was woken by the sudden cnging of an arm. He leapt up on instinct alone, blindly patting for his sword on the ground beside him. Only when he had a weapon in his hand did he finally turn about, looking for the army that he could only assume had emerged from the jungle to attack.

  Instead, he found his attention drawn upward. A hideous rattling noise was cttering away up above, the sound of a hundred children senselessly banging away on metal instruments. His ears swiveled to track the noise while his eyes did their best to adjust to the morning sunlight, squinting at the sky.

  What he found was without description. A wooden thing hung in the sky above, an undead vulture circling the camp. It swooped and buzzed with none of the grace he had seen of the Empire's message-runners or scouts, but it was fast, moving at a constant speed without any fpping of its wings. He did not know why it had not been noticed earlier, why the arm had not been sounded before it was already above the encampment.

  Skywreathe fires were being lit off all around, the second time in as many days, but it was clearly too te. Whatever this thing was, it had already learned everything it needed to know about the army's disposition. In fact, he did not understand why it had not already left. Every scout he had ever witnessed did so in a dive, blurring past the army as rapidly as it was able, disappearing in a matter of minutes. Instead, this creature circled, circled, as if it hadn't a care in the world for being noticed.

  It must know we have nothing to answer it with, Mui realized. Just how much has it learned already? And what does it intend to do?

  One of his questions was answered promptly. The thing entered a shallow dive, aiming to sweep along the center line of the camp.

  "Up!" Mui roared at his squad. "Grab the wounded! We move southeast!"

  His squad, having also been woken by the arms, reacted instantly. They likely had as little an idea of the thing's intent as he, but they all shared the same concern. Though nowhere near rge enough to be considered a viable ptform for a mage, the possibility always remained that some fool had risked pcing one on such a small creature. As it dipped lower, he could see two individuals sitting within the wooden tticework. His mind taunted him with images of a roaring streak of fire emerging from the creature's mouth, a column of devastation wrought through the army.

  "Move, move!" Mui yelled, running over to grab one of his squad's wounded. They were directly in the thing's path. "I am sorry, friend," he whispered as he picked up a man, the sudden motion squeezing a horrible groan from his half-conscious lips. With the soldier now firmly on his shoulders, he yelled "Run !", then made to follow his own order.

  Despite himself, he could not help but look behind as he ran. The camp erupted into chaos, many fire-tenders abandoning their skywreathe piles as they fled the impending attack. What should have become an impenetrable wall of poisonous smoke turned into a scattered few pilrs, dispersed to near uselessness by the breeze.

  The wooden creature continued on, unperturbed.

  Mui redoubled his efforts as the thing passed over the farthest edge of the camp. He expected a torrent of fme to erupt, but there was nothing, which somehow terrified him even more. He imagined it taking a great, deep breath, readying itself to unleash its hellish onsught as the thing leveled off, shooting a bare hundred feet over the heads of the army.

  Mui's desperate sprint began to slow as he saw the figure in the front of the thing lean to one side, turning a bag inside out. Even then, he expected something awful. Packets of poisonous thistle to make the ground untenable, or bundles of disease-carrying insects, or some other half-forgotten horror.

  But no. To Mui's utter, complete shock, papers began to flutter free.

  The wooden creature dumped sheet after white sheet over the camp, hundreds of them fluttering free. Many were caught by the wind, dispersing in a wide cloud.

  "Hold!" Mui called, slowing to a halt. His squad came to a stop, breathing hard, the agonized groans of their wounded comrades filling the air. He looked at them, searching their expressions for understanding of what they saw, and found nothing.

  "Set them down here, guard them, and be ready to run if the beast returns," Mui instructed them. "I am going to inspect the papers. If I do not return, but the thing does, continue to flee from the angle of advance. Am I understood?"

  "Yes, sir!" They barked. Mui nodded, grateful, and took off running the way he had come.

  He arrived shortly after the earliest papers had begun to nd. He was not the only one among the camp who was slowly approaching, regarding the thin sheets with apprehension. Mui had never heard of dangerous enchantments being pced on paper, but he wasn't willing to be the origin of a cautionary tale.

  Thankfully, a plethora of others were fool enough to try for him. When he saw men and women lifting and inspecting the papers without any ill effect, he picked one up for himself.

  It took a moment for him to read the words, despite the fact they were written in rge sshes. It looked like some illiterate had copied the appropriate letters line-for-line, without any understanding of what they represented. Still, with effort, it was legible.

  FORCES OF THE EMPIRE

  YOU HAVE WARRED ON THE LANDS OF THE TULIAN REPUBLIC

  THE CHAMPION OF AMARAT DEMANDS YOUR LEADER'S EXPLANATION

  A FORCE OF ONE HUNDRED WILL BE ALLOWED TO ENTER THE CAPITAL

  ALL OTHERS WILL BE TURNED AWAY BY FORCE

  PAPERS ARE NOT THE ONLY THING WE CAN DROP

  Mui's lips curled as he read the message, revealing the fangs hidden within his muzzle. What arrogance! The northern barbarians thought they could make demands of the Empire? And they had the gall to cim their outrageous presumptions were endorsed by a Champion, of all things? There had not been a Champion borne since Emperor Aydrion's coronation. A ughably easy lie to see through.

  Mui tossed the paper aside, returning to his squad. Though he had been struck through by a terrible fear at first, it was clear that there was nothing of consequence to be seen from these barbarians. They were clearly insane. In a few short minutes, he had brought his squad back to their assigned location, returning to his desperately needed sleep.

  A day ter, when Mui's squad was selected to be among those heading to the capital, his apprehension returned.