With the battle's conclusion, Sara found herself taking to what had slowly become a habit over the weeks: nurse duty.

  In a battle with over two thousand combatants, the casualties were considerable. Sara had ordered multiple massive tents pced in the field to shade the wounded from the bzing afternoon sun. The Tulian weather had no mercy for them, even as the northern regions were beginning to slip into fall and winter. Down in Tulian, the only notable change in seasons came from the volume of water that soaked the country each morning, and Sara wasn't going to take the risk of a sudden thunderstorm shoving mud into the wounds she and the medical corp were endeavoring to dress.

  And the gods knew they had plenty to dress. Though the battle had been a victory, it was nearly pyrrhic, a preliminary headcount of the wounded tallying over four hundred. Of those, half were injuries warranting considerable treatment, and half again were at risk of death in the coming hours. The healers were already moving among the most precariously injured, glows of various colors emanating from hands and staves as they sealed the greatest of each individual's injuries.

  That particur practice, of sealing only the most grievous wounds on each injured combatant, was one that Sara had implemented only after considerable effort. Those granted healing magic usually came to their powers by divine providence, and the gods seemed to have a habit of picking only the most astoundingly idealistic individuals as their representatives. The healers who'd volunteered to follow her army were vilgefolk through and through, most of the younger ones having never seen so many people in one pce.

  Their isoted lives had allowed them certain freedoms in the treatments of their patients that simply weren't practical at such a scale. If a Tulian commoner went to a vilge healer with a broken arm, they'd likely leave with their sore back soothed, their headache dealt with, and holding a questionably effective tonic for nightmares that the rumors in town cimed they suffered from. Targeting specific wounds wasn't even something most healers knew how to do, but Sara's prolonged arguments had convinced them to do their utmost to learn.

  Some, Sara noted, weren't taking the request well. Like the woman across from her, who was stubbornly healing each and every person around wherever Sara was working. She was in her middle forties, with a matronly build, years of home cooking puffing out the 'proper' dress she apparently insisted on wearing even in the accursed Tulian humidity. Sara figured it was fortunate that the getup was daisy yellow, as it would help hide the inevitable sweat stains. The woman's glowing hand raised from a young man's no-longer-sshed forearm, her attention still fixed unerringly on Sara.

  "I don't see how you can expect us to ignore so many in pain, Lady Sara--"

  " Governess Sara," she corrected, yet again.

  "--when it certainly cannot be any god's will for innocents to suffer, especially not wondrous Amarat, whose domain of emotion should give you the empathy to end this ridiculous order that my fellow healers have so foolishly agreed to follow--"

  Sara's attention was supposed to be on the forehead cut she was trying to stitch together on a young woman, but the healer's unending tirade was a brutal trial to endure. She had intended to use this time to speak to the traditional surgeons she and Nidd had selected to be trained, but after fifteen minutes of the healer's fussing, the small crowd who were supposed to listen to her lessons dissipated, finding somewhere quieter to practice their stitching.

  Hurlish had repced Evie on bodyguard duty for the time being, hovering imperiously behind Sara with hammer resting on her shoulder, but that clearly didn't bother the woman in the slightest. If Sara had found herself being interrupted like this by anyone else, she'd have asked Hurlish to physically haul them away, but the woman was a healer. Her talents were valuable enough that Sara wanted to win her over, but Sara's utilitarian loyalty to duty was gradually being overwhelmed by baser emotions.

  Like irritation. A whole lot of irritation.

  "--suffering of any kind is an equal evil, and as such, there can be no priority pced on aiding those in need--"

  "What god do you follow?" Sara abruptly asked, cutting the st thread on the stitches she'd been applying. She stood from the wounded soldier's side and faced the healer, looking down at her without hiding her irritation. "If you really want to talk this out, let me get some perspective to start with. What god gave you your powers?"

  The healer sniffed. "None, Lady Sara. My quest to aid those in need is my own, and when my own two hands were not enough, I sought out the talents required."

  Now that got Sara's attention. The woman was a self-taught healer? Sara knew little about how magic was 'supposed' to work, as her limited selection of spells came prepackaged with her Champion's status, but the only other healer she'd met whose talents weren't divine in origin was Garen. He'd been a mage of the caliber that left Evie's knees shaking.

  "What's your name?" Sara asked.

  "Dian. A pleasure to finally make your acquaintance, Governess Sara, after you spent so long ignoring me."

  Sara picked up her tools, beginning the process of washing the blood off in boiled water. "Trust me, for all I was trying to, I never succeeded at ignoring you. As for your compints about the treatment of patients, I have nothing to offer other than a blunt refusal to compromise. I will not let anyone die who could've lived, and that's final. Quite frankly, your insistence to work to the contrary is baffling."

  Dian eyed Sara's bloodied tools with distaste. Sara could imagine how barbaric the implements looked to anyone who could heal with a whisper and wave.

  "You cannot prioritize suffering, Governess Sara. All will be treated, and I py no favorites."

  Sara began wiping blood off her needles. "Look, Dian, I'd bet we'll agree on a lot of things in a vague, nebulous sort of way, but the fact remains that I won't have the rest of the healers change tactics. For one thing, I didn't order them to do what they're doing, I convinced them it was necessary. Your sort are too valuable to risk offending. For the other, that ck of orders extends to you. Heal who wish, when you wish, but don't go trying to convince the other healers to fix papercuts before sucking chest wounds. I will have you thrown out if I get word of you trying."

  Dian straightened up, leveling a tremendously powerful motherly stare up at Sara. It was a look of offended reproach so authentic that even Sara, who'd never known nor cared for a mother's gaze, felt a foreign sting of guilt.

  "Governess Sara," Dian breathed, righteous haughtiness palpable, "I will do what is right . No amount of brutish threatening will force me to do otherwise."

  "Hurlish?" The orc grunted inquisitively, eyes focusing, having zoned out before the conversation even started. Sara pointed. "Haul her out of camp, and tell the sentries not to allow her back in under my personal order."

  Dian hurriedly backpedaled for several seconds, gaining a gap that Hurlish covered in one step. The orc rested a meaty hand on Dian's shoulder, spinning her towards the edge of the camp, and sighed.

  "C'mon, crazy dy. I swear, if it weren't for the magic hands, I'd never talk to any of you healer types for more than a minute."

  Dian stumbled forward as Hurlish began to push her, briefly trying to drag her heels in the mud. When she realized the futility, she tossed her gaze back at Sara.

  "Wait! Wait a moment, Governess."

  Sara rolled her eyes, but called to Hurlish. "Alright, give it a second. Don't let go of her, though."

  Hurlish obediently stopped in pce, spinning Dian around to face Sara. The woman huffed once more, squirming under an impcable grip.

  "Fine. Fine, you called my bluff. It is more important to help those in need than educate those who do not understand the importance of their duty. I will remain in your camp."

  Sara crossed her arms. "Without spreading any bullshit around?"

  Dian's nose wrinkled. "Yes."

  Sara waved, prompting Hurlish to release Dian. "Alright, good. If you're interested in helping the people that no one else cares about, go to the bandit wounded. Pretty sure no one's bothered to give them jack shit."

  Dian gave one st high-pitched "Hmph!" before spinning on a heel, stalking off in the direction of the captured bandit troops. There weren't many of them, fifty or so, but they were an appropriately pitiable target for an overzealous healer. They'd only been captured after being rendered unable to flee in some capacity, whether that was a leg injury, concussion, or something less obvious to the naked eye. Sara watched Dian approach, rolling up her sleeves as she shoved past a few of the guards watching the subdued group.

  "Weird fucker, isn't she?" Hurlish said from beside Sara.

  "Yeah. Hell of a healer, though. You catch how many people she's worked on?"

  "Nah. I did a better job than you at ignoring her, apparently."

  "Well, it was a lot. More than any of the other healers by at least double, and she doesn't look tired at all." Sara sighed. "Damnit. I'm gonna have to get her working for us, aren't I?"

  Hurlish chuckled. "Prolly. Good luck."

  "Thanks. I'll need it." Sara returned to the tents, searching for those that most needed tending. "I really need to get someone in charge of this kind of thing," Sara noted idly.

  "What kinda thing? You're already training surgeons."

  "Yeah, but they need somewhere decent to work, and they need to know who to work on first. We need administrators, nurses, people who can keep things from becoming... this." Sara stepped over one of the dozens of lesser wounded awaiting treatment, all of them id out on dirty cloth mats. "If we took four-tenths our number in casualties against some cobbled-together bandits, the Royal Army will shred us. Even if we win, half the army could bleed out from their wounds in the hours afterwards." Sara stepped over another man, whose too-pale chest had stopped moving. "I know we can win the war, Hurlish. I just worry about what we'll have to give up to get there."

  "You talkin' morals, or lives?" Hurlish bent down to close the eyes of the man Sara had stepped over, two calloused fingers uncharacteristically gentle as they eased his eyelids down. "'Cause I know you're the sort that prefers winning right or not winning at all, but I ain't."

  Sara stopped at a woman with a deep gash running through the soft meat of her left shoulder, whispering a few words of warning and encouragement as she knelt and prepared to stitch the wound closed. As she pressed the needle into flesh, to distract herself from the woman's agonized whimpering, she continued the conversation with Hurlish.

  "I didn't say I'd rather lose. If it comes down to it, if there's really no other choice left, I'll throw all the horrors at my disposal into the Royal Army. Ending svery's worth it, even if I'll go down in the history books as the woman who took honorable warfare and turned it into mindless sughter."

  Hurlish scanned the tent, soaking in the misery wafting into the air, and clicked her tongue. "Well. Way I see it, there won't be much changed. Anyone that thinks there's honor in this shitshow is the kind of moron whose opinion I wouldn't put much faith in."

  "Trust me, Hurlish, your mind'd be changed if a wizard figured out a way to conjure mustard gas. My old world created things that make Demons look kind."

  Sara finished the st stitch, tying and cutting the silk thread as she gave the injured soldier a set of stern instructions regarding wound care. Hopefully she would only need the stitches for a short time, as the exhausted healers would be slowly working their way through the wounded in the coming days, but Sara didn't take risks like that. She stood and wiped her hands on her pants, giving one st scan of the tent.

  Seeing none in immediate need, she offered her supplies to one of the surgeons still working. She was exhausted from the battle, hands trembling from hours spent pumped full of adrenaline, and that was no way to be doing stitches. She'd already told the surgeons the basics of how infection spread, along with the importance of keeping wounds clean, and it would have to be enough for now. She doubted her expnations would do much good at the moment, anyway.

  She stepped out from the tent's shade, wincing at the sun's heat baking down on her steel armor. Appearances as a ruler mattered, but that didn't make the getup any more comfortable. She began the slow trudge back to their tent, Hurlish taking two steps for each of hers.

  Speaking low, Hurlish said, "Did you really mean that back there? That you can win the war?"

  Sara checked that none were close enough to overhear before speaking. "Yeah. It'd take a little bit of prep to get things rolling, but even the most basic gun in enough people's hands would win us the whole thing. I'd shatter the King's army, hang him and all his Irregurs, then march on Hagos and blow its walls down the first day we get there. After that I'd give the city back to the new King in exchange for a sting peace treaty, then start building our defenses up so high no one can ever try it again. I'm sure some stuff would go wrong, but not enough to stop us."

  "Oh, is that all?" Hurlish snorted. "You got balls, I'll give you that." She paused to shake her head, looking amused. "Literally, too. Well, sometimes. You know what I mean." She shifted her hammer to her other shoulder, its massive head shading Sara. "I know you seem to hate that gun shit, but the Royal Army's put the fear of the gods in people before. Why not just let us build a few of your spooky doodads, just in case?"

  Sara's jaw clenched. "I never expined what a gun was to you, did I?"

  "You've talked about 'em a few times, but no, you never gave a proper expnation."

  "The best way I've thought about expining it, and trust me, I've put a lot of thought into it, is that they're better crossbows." Sara put her hands up, tracking the shape of a rifle in the air. "Imagine a crossbow that shoots bolts faster than the speed of sound, accurate for a couple hundred yards, that's easy enough to learn how to use in an afternoon. They're cheaper than crossbows, their ammunition costs less, and they can be built quicker and easier. From what I've seen of your bcksmithing, I'd bet you could make fifty a day on your own, easy. Probably more. With the rest of the smiths and a few months, we'd have enough to arm every man, woman and child in Tulian."

  Sara's eyes locked onto some distant memory. "And that's just muskets. They were the first version, hundreds of years old to my world. Now we've got guns that shoot a thousand bolts a minute, accurate to a couple miles out, that explode when they hit their target. Not to mention a million other weapons that are deadlier by far. The st big war on Earth killed eighty million in six years, and most of the stuff they did with that was child's py compared to what's been built since."

  Hurlish chewed on her cheek silently as she absorbed that. Sara plowed on, really starting to work herself up.

  "That st big war, by the way? They didn't even use the worst of what they could've. Chemical weapons, stuff that turns the air into poison for miles around. They could've wiped out entire cities in an afternoon with that shit, and it's not a quick death. You give me five years with a few real high-tier alchemists, and I bet we could whip some of that godforsaken shit up too. Then we could just straight-up wipe Sporatos off the map whenever we wanted. Hell, that's not even necessary, because once I've got the big guns, leveling a city's just a matter of a few days and a whole lot of ammo."

  Hurlish opened her mouth to say something, but Sara was on a roll, driven by the passion in her disgust.

  "I could take these little shoving matches that people here call war and break it. Ruin it. No more knights in shining armor, no more setpiece battles and parys under white fgs of truce. No contest of strength against strength, man against man, two people looking each other in the eye and knowing that the most skilled will win. Just mud and blood in trenches, pounding the very hills until the whole pnet's one ft puddle of misery."

  Seeing that they were coming up on the rest of the camp, Sara took a deep breath, calming herself. "So no, Hurlish. I pray to every god there is that I won't have to do that. I won't let us lose, but I'll try just about everything else before I resort to that. That shit's a genie that can't get put back in the bottle."

  "Sounds good to me," Hurlish grumbled. Mindful of the tents that now surrounded them, Hurlish lowered her voice. "But I think you better be ready to do more than you're hoping. This ain't gonna be easy."

  Sara's expression fell into a steely scowl. "I know. Like I said, I've been thinking about it. But how could I do it? The moment I teach one person how to make something, that's it. It's not my secret to control anymore. There've been hundreds of Champions that visited this pnet, Hurlish, and none of them ever brought the worst of what my world has to offer for a damn good reason. I was chosen by the Gods, and I have to believe that means there's a way to do this without going too far."

  "But if you had someone you trusted?" Hurlish asked, the question kept cautiously hypothetical. "Someone you knew wouldn't give up the secret, someone you knew wouldn't fly off the handle?"

  "I guess it'd be stupid of me not to have them getting them ready for it, in that case," Sara admitted. "It takes time to build up to everything I'd need, and all the knowledge in the world can't save me if I start too te. But who?" Sara bumped her pauldron against Hurlish's side. "I don't know if Evie could do it on her own, and sure, you probably could, but I'll be damned if I'm sending you off on your own." She kept leaning against Hurlish's side. "I need both of you here. You're too important." The words to me dangled, unspoken. Sara trusted Hurlish to catch it.

  "Well. I'll start tryin' to find one, I guess. Gotta be someone else out there that doesn't suck."

  Sara sighed. "A part of me hopes there is. A part of me hopes there isn't."

  They reached their tent, one of the rgest in the camp on account of it being built for up to five occupants. Sara was briefly disoriented as she entered, the ck of Evie as wrong as things falling up, rather than down.

  After a moment of confusion, she remembered. Evie had said she'd start looking for recruits to train into Irregurs. Sara sat down on the edge of their mattress and began to clean herself, wondering how that was going.

  ---------------------------------------------

  Evie

  ---------------------------------------------

  Though she may have made a promise to Master, it could not be honestly said that Evie took to the task of training recruits with any sense of eagerness. She had seen the look in Master Graf's eye when he had first taken her under his wing, and knew it was not one of gleeful anticipation. Taking someone that could barely be considered an adult and turning them into a warrior was an unenviable task, one that no amount of necessity could make her look forward to.

  "Up," she snapped at the filing youth, whose fall had been taken poorly on the shoulder. Learning how to properly fall was, evidently, not knowledge that Voth or Ignite imbued their trainees with. She circled the child, a fiery-eyed boy whose fervor far outstripped his ability.

  "Come now," Evie taunted. "I am an Irregur, a foe you cim yourself capable of someday equaling. Where is the speed that blinds the eye when you need it most, child?"

  The youth finally managed to get his feet beneath him, knuckles white around his sword's hilt. Evie's own bde was covered in protective light, incapable of truly wounding him, but his own steel was barren. If he could strike her true, she would die.

  It wasn't going to happen.

  The child began the process of lunging at her. Evie patiently watched his feet twist, the motion following up to his hips, then to his shoulder and arms, which extended behind the tip of his sword, aligning the weapon so that the maximum amount of force would be behind the lunge.

  Evie considered the attack.

  It was exceptional form, with even his rearmost foot extended to form a perfectly straight line that began at his heel, carried to his shoulders, and ended pointed at her sternum. Every ounce of power the boy possessed was put behind the stab, nothing more to give in all his soul.

  Evie reached her rapier's tip up and nudged the sword to the side, aiming it to sail over her left shoulder. The boy's momentum would have carried him on, forehead colliding directly with Evie's chin, so she arrested the motion by moving her left hand to intercept his throat.

  The boy smmed to a stop, shout turning to a gurgled yelp as his windpipe smmed into Evie's palm. He lost his grip on his sword, which thudded onto the grass some distance away, and began to cw at her hand on his throat.

  "Good," she said simply, dropping him after a moment of helpless pawing. He immediately lunged for his fallen weapon, but Evie tripped him on the way there. "The duel is done, child. You are accepted."

  With red spreading around his throat and bruises no doubt blossoming beneath his armor, he stared up at her, uncomprehending.

  "What?" He croaked. The effort forced a cough from him. "How am I accepted? I didn't even touch you."

  "The criteria is my own. You are accepted. The regimen of training has not been determined, but you will report when ordered."

  Evie walked back to the center of the small dirt circle she had ordered to be cleared, ignoring the thirty or so failed applicants nursing bruises on the sidelines. Though they had failed, they stayed to watch each attempt of the long line of prospects nervously winding their way towards the edge of the dueling circle. Word of Evie's 'try-outs' had spread fast.

  She nodded to the next in line. "Begin."

  The woman, rather old for such an aspiration, roared into battle. Despite what Evie had said, the youth refused to leave, hovering at the edge of the circle. As Evie brushed aside an overly enthusiastic blow, he cleared his throat.

  "What do I do next? Return to my squad?"

  "Of course. It will be some time yet before you are capable of standing your ground without comrades in arms to support you."

  "So all of us, then? We just go back to our units like normal until you call for us?" The boy looked about for support in his question, then realized for the first time that he was the only applicant Evie had approved of.

  "Of course," Evie replied, amused. The woman in front of her seemed convinced she could wail her way to Evie's good graces, judging by her form. She disabused the woman of the notion with a tap of her rapier on the knee, reminding her to guard, not just attack.

  "But if someone that's good enough to meet your standards is so rare," the boy waved to the rejects, "Why risk us in battle before we're ready? It doesn't matter how skilled we are, when we're not Irregurs. Anyone can catch an arrow in the neck by chance."

  "That is true," Evie agreed, battering the woman on the head after she failed to react to adjust her tactics for defense. "But that is well and good. After all, I hardly want unlucky fellows under my employ."

  When Evie's opponent yet again failed to adjust her stance in response to the successful attacks, Evie ended the fight with a tap of her swordtip against the woman's exposed throat. The woman recoiled out of bounds, choking on air. Evie walked back to the center of the circle, waving for the next to attack her.

  As she stepped around the next flurry of attacks, she gnced the child's way. Really, it was unfair of Evie to refer to him as such, but she couldn't shake the assessment. The southern sun aged the Tulian people more harshly than those in Sporatos, but even when she accounted for that, Evie would guess the child was several years her senior. All the same, he had two months of training and a single battle to his name, all his life before then spent farming in some half-abandoned hovel. He might as well be a child to Evie, at least in the ways that mattered to armed conflict. She watched him sit and rub at his throat, watching the battles progress.

  As Evie went through the applicants, hours passing by, he continued to sit and observe, attention locked on her and her alone. His gaze was not lustful, an indulgence some of the mercenaries she'd trained alongside thought they could get away with, nor was it envious. Simply... appraising. Evaluating, perhaps. He watched her fight, tracked her decisions in the duels, and wondered to himself why each choice was made. Even as she found others who met her standards, Evie became convinced that this child was the one who would be most worth her effort.

  When the sun had begun to slip towards the western horizon, Evie dismissed her rapier. By then the line of applicants had begun to include the wounded, who did not want to miss such a unique opportunity.

  She wondered if Master truly understood what an audition format implied to the Tulian peasantry, who had little direct exposure to Master's strange ways. Many of the people Evie had callously rejected would be anguished at their failure, believing they had lost their only opportunity to be promoted to Knighthood, perhaps even to one day own nd if their military careers proved illustrious enough. They did not understand that Master intended any and all to own property, nor that Irregurs would possess no greater comforts than what could be bought on their rger army stipend.

  Evie briefly thought to expin such to the dejected prospects fading away from her, but held her tongue. She did not have Master's way with words and would likely only confuse things, or worse yet, make assurances Master could not follow through on. Better to be silent than provide false hope.

  Which, she reflected, was a troubling ideology when faced with one too stubborn to accept dismissal. The boy had sat through the entire set of bouts, staying even after his fellow accepted prospects had returned to their squads. She could see him working up the courage to speak even as Evie went through the process of removing her armor.

  The bck boiled leather was composed of yered melr, nimbler than full steel, and easier to shuck and don, and as she pulled the set off over her head, she did think that she caught the slightest hint of eyes darting towards her exposed stomach before her shirt fell back down. She did not have Master's uncanny sense for these things, however, and couldn't be sure. Even if the look was untoward, when she faced him properly, there was no sign of distraction.

  "Well?" She prompted, tucking her armor beneath one arm. "Spit it up before you choke, child."

  "My name is Jaran," he snapped, the rebuke rolling off his tongue so quickly it surprised even him. His cheeks quickly colored as he realized the rudeness of the remark, but to his credit, he didn't backpedal. "My name is Jaran, ma'am. Not 'child'."

  Evie tilted her head in acknowledgement. "So you say, Jaran. What did you spend hours waiting to tell me?"

  At this, he seemed to struggle. Evie watched him flounder patiently, deciding that her favorable assessment of his potential earned him at least a few minutes of her time. After a few half-started sentences, he took a deep breath and lowered his hands to his side, speaking slowly.

  "I want to ask what the point of training us is, ma'am. I watched you fight nearly two hundred of our troops in a row, without pause, and you never made a single mistake. When people like you can do things like that, what's the point of an army? A handful of fighters like you could sughter your way through a city."

  Evie's cws tapped a pattern on her armor as she considered her response. "Your observation is astute, Jaran, but your conclusion faulty. While it is true that I may possess the physical capability to kill hundreds, in practice, I would never succeed at such an endeavor. Against so many foes, fought for so long, a lethal mistake would be inevitable. There are also tactics designed specifically to address concerns such as yours, and professional forces are well versed in dealing with unsupported Irregurs."

  "But still, ma'am. You're young, and by your own admission, nowhere near the peak of your skill. If you're this capable today, surely you won't have any trouble burying an army by the time you consider yourself truly experienced."

  Evie might have ended the conversation there, not interested in backchat from someone so far beneath her, but she didn't. There was an earnestness to the boy's questions. He was not wheedling, or attempting to shirk duty, but seeking to grasp what he didn't yet understand. She set her armor back down and walked to the dueling circle.

  "Which is to say, Jaran, that you believe when my level is high enough, I would be capable of wading into an arbitrarily rge army and ying waste?"

  Jaran flushed at the reference to levels, unused to the direct discussion of such a private topic. Master had accustomed Evie to breaking the taboo months ago. Despite his discomfort, he nodded.

  To answer the question, Evie summoned her rapier, running a hand along its edge to remove the dulling enchantments that blurred its form.

  When seen in pin daylight, Hurlish's work was dazzling. The basket guard was carved with the precision of a faberge egg, bde thin enough to disappear when viewed from either edge. Despite the inherent fragility such thin material should have induced in the weapon, the ensorcelled jewels studding the hilt kept it free of any defect.

  Evie flipped the weapon up and caught it by the tip, extending the handle to Jaran.

  "This weapon is the work of a true master, Jaran. It is the product of a lifetime spent perfecting art, of a bcksmith wading through burning coals in pursuit of a light no one else knew existed. Take it."

  Jaran gingerly reached out, sliding his fingers through the hilt. Evie released her end without warning. Jaran, trying to compensate for a weight that did not manifest, jerked it up. Evie moved back, putting her arms behind her back as Jaran accustomed himself to the rapier.

  "With that weapon in your hand, you would find no equal among the common ranks of the Tulian Army. It would allow you to carve through steel like leather, leather like air, while its weight freed you to swing faster than most could react." Evie slid her right foot behind her left, lips curling mischievously. "Now, use it to kill me."

  It seemed Jaran predicted the beats of Evie's lecture, because he swung with reckless abandon the moment the words left her lips. Keeping her hands behind her back, she stepped to the side, watching the bde slide through the empty space she'd occupied a breath before. Jaran immediately flung the rapier to the side, rightfully abandoning any pretext at precision in favor of speed. After her earlier talk of an Irregur inevitably being felled by misfortune, he sought to give Evie as many chances as possible to end up unlucky, which was exactly the tactic Evie would have utilized in simir circumstances.

  "As an Irregur advances in skill, it is tempting to think that they are growing quicker, more dextrous." Her tone remained level even as she stepped and ducked through his swings, sporting the same smug smile that had so infuriated her when she trained under Master Graf. "Certainly, they grow stronger with time, that much is measurable. But quicker?"

  She spun past a stab to end up with her chest nearly touching Jaran's, then darted away before he could bring the rapier back around. "No. This speed is an illusion, though the distinction hardly matters to one of your skill. I move faster than is possible for most, true, but only just, and all the rest is in my knowledge of the fight. I cannot cover great distances in the blink of an eye, and I could not scour the whole front of an army in a matter of moments. What you mistake for speed is the fruit of knowledge. I see your eyes jump, your muscles twitch, and I read from them as I might a book. Not only has my training given me intimate familiarity with each maneuver you could possibly attempt, I know by your very body which you shall select."

  Evie took several smooth steps backward and stopped, facing Jaran straight-on. She raised her right hand up, as if bancing an invisible ptter on the back of her knuckles, and put her left hand before her sternum, palm facing outward. Seeing her hold the position, Jaran composed himself just long enough to lunge forward, once more utilizing the single stab he had so elegantly perfected.

  As Evie failed to move from her position, his eyes widened. He tried to divert the swing, but there was no time.

  Just when the bde's tip would have pierced her chest, the sword vanished, appearing in Evie's right hand. Her left hand caught his wrist, dragging it up and to the side, arresting his momentum just before his neck would have been carried into the razor edge of the rapier now hanging from her right hand.

  Jaran was left immobile, one hand held in the air, his throat flush against cool steel. Even the slightest of squirming would open a wound, so he froze, panting, staring into her eyes.

  Evie grinned. "But, eventually, I must commit to the attack, and the moment I strike, I am vulnerable. Were I surrounded by foes, my attention would be split, diverted too often to fully absorb all I need to know to ensure my safety."

  She released Jaran with a shove, spinning him away. "These are the principles that the common man has against Irregurs, Jaran. I am too slow, too distracted, and too singur to be invincible. While I sughter my way through one regiment, another may ready a ballistae to strike me down, or make ready to bombard me with arrows, or prepare any number of alternatives. The power of sheer numbers is the dirty secret of warfare, one which our noble foes wish to hide, and that which my Master intends to expose."

  She dismissed her rapier once more, gathering her armor from where she'd discarded it. "In the time between now and our first training session, you will not consider how best to conduct yourself as an Irregur, but rather how your squad might successfully engage one in their present state. You are dismissed."

  With that, Evie finally turned her back on the child, heading to the appointment she was so terribly te for.

  --------------------------

  -----------------------

  Evie arrived at the command tent at sunset, to much grumbling from the assembled commanders, who'd grown frustrated at being kept from their duties for so long. As her colr pulsed Master's approval into her skin, she ignored their gres, sliding happily into her pce in Master's p.

  The command tent was, even for an army of such meager means, utterly austere. Master had ordered that a premium be pced on weight for all the command staff's comforts, and so ended up with a tent filled by folding wooden chairs, a paper-thin table, and protected by undyed cloth walls nearly translucent in their thinness. Only the roof had any sturdiness to it, to keep out rain, a small indulgence she'd been mildly surprised to see Master allow for.

  The guards outside the tent would certainly hear everything, but seeing as Master intended to divulge all she could of their pns to the common troops, it hardly mattered. Evie had desperately urged her to reconsider such a tack, certain beyond doubt that Sporatos had already embedded spies in their force, but Master had been unyielding. She argued that the common soldier, willing to y their life down for her, had the right to know her intentions for their sacrifice.

  As she curled up into her customary pce in Master's p, knees tucked beneath herself as Master obligingly leaned back to keep her steady, she felt a whisper tickling her ear.

  "Thanks for showing up te. I really needed that nap."

  Evie said nothing, but nuzzled closer into the crook of Master's neck, uncaring of who saw the childish behavior. This was not the first or st dispy she put on before the soldiers, and while they may have initially thought less of her for it, personally decorating the battlefield with gore did wonders for correcting misconceptions.

  Papers shuffled and wood scraped as the rest of the army's commanders took their seats, muttered conversations hurriedly resolved. Evie kept her eyes closed, but knew the sight well. Sitting directly at the table were the five Lieutenants, who each commanded one of the Infantry Regiments, and behind them sat a selection of the Sergeants they thought most promising for promotion when the army grew. Voth, Evie, and Hurlish were each technically attending in the role of Irregurs, though by the nature of such a title, their exact purpose in the discussions was hard to pin down.

  As the officers finished up their conversations, Evie found herself still amused at how often the purely human thought she couldn't hear their whispers. Did they think the ears that stood four inches tall atop her head were cosmetic?

  "So," Master began, leaning forward, sliding a paper to the center of the table. "The final casualty reports are in. Fifty-five dead in the battle, with thirty more likely to follow before the morning. Our wounded, in contrast, number nearly four hundred."

  There were rumbles of discontent, even among those who'd found their current station rather abruptly and cked any formal training. It didn't take much thought to recognize how abysmal a toll the bandits had extracted from them.

  "As you are all aware, such a ratio of wounded to dead is peculiar, a fact that I have my own thoughts on. Before I speak my mind, however, I want to hear each of your contributions, to avoid biasing your view."

  Voth leaned forward first, as always, elbows thumping onto the table.

  "We're too heavy on swords, of course. You might've thought turning the whole army into heavy infantry would be a great way to keep our limited supply of troops intact, but it wasn't. Their armor may have kept our total deaths down, but it meant we had to fight too hard to shove through their spears. If the enemy had retreated instead of routing, we'd have been fucked.

  Voth swung his gre across the table. "Don't give me that look, the rest of you. You all know there's no two ways about it. Sara's magery keeping people on their feet may have won us the battle, but it also put us in this situation, with half our army down for the count. It'll be days before the healers work their way through the wounded, and if an enemy attacked us in that time, we'd have just enough time to pray before we're swinging by our necks."

  Voth ended this brutal assessment with a sniff, chair creaking as he leaned back. Though Evie's face was still buried in Master's neck, she could imagine the rest of the officer's expressions, and it delighted her.

  She'd spoken to Voth earlier, and he'd pyed his role perfectly. Evie had instructed him to start as rude as one could be without offering direct insult, and when Master inevitably failed to rebuke him for the remarks, those less familiar with Master's ways would realize just how much they could get away with. It was far mor desirable for them to think Voth untoward than Master, whose own method of breaking the ice would certainly have been appallingly crude.

  "Thank you," Master said to Voth, exactly as unruffled as Evie had anticipated. Evie felt Master's attention shift to the next in line at the table. "Lieutenant Shale, if you would present your assessment of the battle, disregarding Voth's comments for now? We can hash out who agrees with who after all of you present the view you held immediately following the battle."

  Lieutenant Shale cleared her throat, trying to force away the smoker's rasp that came from a lifelong indulgence of southern pipes.

  "While I wouldn't have put it such... blunt terms, Irregur Voth's opinions rgely mirror my own. We can't force our way through an unbroken spearwall without taking some injuries, not unless every soldier was covered in Knight's ptemail, which isn't possible without years of preperation. In particur, several of my Sergeants reported difficulty with..."

  The discussion continued on in much the same manner, freeing Evie's attention to wander. The conclusions to be drawn were obvious to her, as they likely were to Master, but to satisfy the presentation of equality the discussion was still necessary. Master valued the concept of egalitarianism far more than she did the input of her Lieutenants, and at least in that respect, Evie had to admit the discussions served their purpose.

  After an hour even the Sergeants were speaking in casual tones, little whispered debates occurring at the fringes in a way that told her the tension introduced by formality was long since abandoned. That came at the cost of efficacy, however, and it took nearly an hour and a half to firmly establish what Evie had known before the battle had concluded:

  They needed spears. Skirmishers. Cavalry. Heavy infantry alone couldn't win battles, their bulk too inflexible to counter all that a more varied army could bring to bear, and Master would inevitably have to accept that some couldn't be as protected as others. Troops lightly armored enough that they could wear down the enemy, allowing the Heavy Infantry to bring in the final crushing blow. Through their bond Evie could feel the concept burned her Master's conscious something fierce, but it was a truth that needed to be confronted.

  From there, the discussion turned to who would compose the reformed regiments, how much armor they could be allowed to wear without sacrificing mobility, and a variety of other minutia that could've been solved with a five minute consultation of a military manuscript. Evie's patience wore thin rather quickly, but she stopped herself from interrupting when she noticed something strange.

  She first noticed it when Voth, normally so self-assertive, had choked off his tedious tangent the moment he'd caught sight of mild displeasure on Master's face. Once she'd noticed that, she picked up on other subtle clues, and the depth of the oddity became clear.

  Master was in absolute control of the conversation. Not a word was said by any who didn't have Master's attention, and nothing she viewed as irrelevant was allowed to continue for longer than a sentence or two. None of the participants realized, too taken in by the discussion, but Evie could recognize it from the fringes. For all her touting of equality, Master was the lone puppetmaster in a room full of puppets, and it seemed only Evie could see the strings.

  Evie couldn't bme the others for not noticing, not really. The subtlety of it was dazzling. When Lieutenant Ese began speaking of taking command of the spearmen, Master had shifted in her seat, gncing at Lieutenant Sarig, who Evie sensed she favored for the position, and that gnce prompted him to speak up, arguing for his own assumption of the role. When Ese had taken a deep breath to argue back, Master's gaze flicked to Voth, who had been eagerly waiting to fill the brief silence with discussion of what sort of spear the troops should be equipped with. Sarig had replied he was personally familiar with halberds, and despite the fact Evie had been present for his telling of the tale to Master the day before, Master inquired about his polearm skills with an interested "Oh?"

  And with a single word spoken, it was done. The conversation rolled on, soon even Ese taking for granted that Lieutenant Sarig would be in charge of the reformed regiment. Ten seconds of entirely natural conversation had passed, and with hardly a breath, Master had enforced her desires upon three separate people. She doubted even Master realized how extreme the effects were, her guidance of the conversation so obviously unconscious in its ease.

  It was uncanny when viewed from afar. Master's maneuverings filled Evie with the sort of nausea she'd once felt as a child witnessing a housecat pying with an injured bird. It was an unfair contest, the outcome inevitable, but it was also so clearly natural that she couldn't convince herself to intervene. What else did one expect, when canary met cat?

  Nature sought food.

  Champions sought victory.

  Always would their desires be met.

  The hours ticked by until the sky was pitch bck, none but the sentries awake. Sensing the building exhaustion of those under her employ, Master finally called for a halt, satisfied that the army would conduct itself appropriately in her absence. Master, Evie, and Hurlish were set to begin their return trip to Tulian at first light, and would need the sleep.

  Of course, that was rather unfortunate for Master, who had spent the entire day without attending to her partners. With a tug at Hurlish's hand, the two of them began to trail further behind Master, freeing her to whisper sordid pns in Hurlish's bent ear.