Sara literally sprinted across the city, leaving her partners behind. She'd spent enough time with Garen that it was just after sunset when she reached the eastern gate, the streets growing dark. She found the scout easily enough, as they were surrounded by a rapidly swelling crowd of soldiers, word passing through the ranks that something was going to be happening. Sara's approach was heralded by the thudding clomp of a hundred pounds of armor, the sound of which sent many of the soldiers scattering out of her way. She shoved her way through those that didn't note her approach, until she was in the center of the crowd.

  The scout was sprawled out on their back, pressing her skin against the cool cobblestones as her chest heaved. Her horse y beside her, foaming at the mouth, sweat thering its hide. As Sara emerged from the press, some thoughtful soldier came over with a bucket of water fresh from a well, tossing it over the poor animal's hide.

  "Healer!" Sara snapped, kneeling down next to the woman. Her face was flushed red, her eyes fluttering and unfocused. She was either suffering a heatstroke, or well on the way to one. "Someone get her water!"

  Several canteens were shoved forward. Sara took one at random, putting it to the scout's lips while holding the back of her head, helping her lift it up.

  The woman drank greedily between heavy breaths, nearly choking herself with every gasp. After several deep gulps she pulled away from the canteen, bleary eyes trying to focus on Sara.

  "There... there was.... reporting..."

  "Save it," Sara snapped, pressing the canteen back to her lips. "There's no report to give if you drop dead."

  The woman barely seemed to understand that, but she drank anyway. It took several minutes for someone to produce a healer, during which time the scout slowly gathered her wits, shifting into a sitting position.

  "Daze first," she said as the healer approached, pulling away from the priest's glowing hands. There was a moment of confusion, until the scout pointed to her horse, which was still ying on its side, chest rising and falling in an unsteady pattern. "Daze first," the scout repeated, pointing more insistently.

  The healer gnced at Sara. She nodded. Reluctantly, looking irritated to waste their energy on an animal, the healer begrudgingly moved to the horse. Sara didn't care. As far as she was concerned, any animal willing to run itself half to death was one she wanted to keep around.

  "Can you talk now?" Sara asked the scout.

  The scout opened and closed her mouth, swallowing hard, then nodded. "I can," she croaked.

  "Your report, then," Sara said. "Daze is going to be alright."

  "T-thank you, ma'am," the scout ground out. The effort caused her to cough, so Sara offered her a second canteen, the first one emptied. After taking several long gulps from it, she wiped her mouth and cleared her throat. "I found the Sporaton army. Twenty miles north-north-east, give or take. Camped, fortified."

  Evie finally made her way through the crowd, which split respectfully before her. Hurlish was right behind her, the reason it had taken a while for the feline to catch up. They weren't going to make their pregnant girlfriend sprint across the city, after all.

  Evie immediately set to creating a cordon around the scout, not wanting to let any of them overhear the report. Sara fully intended to let everyone know regardless, but she wasn't going to waste her time arguing with Evie right now.

  "They're, uh, the whole army," the scout said, briefly stumbling over her words. It seemed the gravity of the situation had finally set in, seeing the rest of the army be shoved away from her. "The entire army was there," she crified. "Knights, peasants, nobles. I got a good count of them all."

  "Were you spotted?" Sara asked. It was the only reason she could imagine the scout had so nearly run herself to death returning to the city.

  "Eventually, ma'am, but not before I got a good look at everything." Her voice cracked on the st word, and she fumbled for the canteen, taking yet another shaky draught.

  "So you're certain it was the entire army, then?"

  The scout nodded tiredly. "The enemy was easy to count, ma'am, because they weren't in camp."

  "What do you mean by that?"

  "They were on the field outside the camp, ma'am," the scout said. "I thought they were fighting each other, at first. Like a civil war had broken out. No such luck, sadly," the scout said, mirroring Sara's own thoughts. "I got close enough to see their weapons glowing, ma'am. They were, uh, training. Like we did, before the war. Drilling."

  Sara felt her stomach sink. Evie, who had been walking circles around the perimeter, froze.

  "Some were working on formations," the scout continued, oblivious to the growing pit in Sara's gut. "Marching back and forth, working on signal fgs, that stuff. Others were doing mock battles, practicing back and forth." She paused, taking a shaky breath. "Funniest thing was the Knights. They weren't on their horses, ma'am. Didn't even realize who they were at first. Was hiding in the brush, couldn't see too well. Eventually figured out that the Knights were in there too, training with the commonfolk. Leading 'em, a few knights in each line." She chuckled raggedly, looking up at Sara. "Funny sight, that was. Can't imagine those high-and-mighty types were too happy about it. That was... uh... ma'am?"

  Sara was slowly standing, the scout forgotten. She turned to look at Evie, who met her eyes. The feline's rapier fshed into being, causing the crowd to reflexively flinch away. She took several long steps over to Sara, her eyes scanning the crowd even as she leaned in close.

  "We are leaving," she hissed.

  "We don't know he's in charge."

  "You think the King would train the peasants?"

  "He could be following his advice."

  "The King would never. This is Graf's work."

  "You don't know that."

  "We are leaving," Evie repeated, grabbing Sara by the forearm. Sara found herself being dragged through the crowd, leaving the scout sitting on the cobblestone, baffled.

  "Back!" Evie snapped, waving her sword at the soldiers. "No one within ten feet, or I'll kill you where you stand!"

  "Evie," Sara whispered, "we don't know. We can't just abandon everything now!"

  "You made a deal, Master," the feline hissed back. "If the war is unwinnable, you would flee. You would not become a martyr."

  "Even if Graf is in charge, that doesn't mean we've lost!"

  "Is that so, Master?" Evie ughed, hysteria edging into her voice. "You studied his battles, Master. Be honest with me. Do you really think you can beat him?"

  Sara bit her cheek. Hard. "No," she said, after a moment. "Not normally. But he's lost battles before, Evie."

  "When he was outnumbered ten-to-one, Master," Evie snapped. "When those that had hired him sabotaged his strategies with their unfathomable incompetence. Do you have the ninety thousand soldiers required to defeat him on hand? Hidden in some jungle grove, perhaps?"

  "What's going on?" Hurlish asked, jogging to catch up. Evie was still bodily dragging Sara down the street, a cluster of confused soldiers trailing behind.

  "We are leaving," Evie repeated, reaching over to tear Sara's cannon off her shoulder. She handed it to Hurlish, producing a packet of ammunition from her enchanted bag next. "Graf is in charge of the Sporaton forces. Load canister. His first order will have been to send assassins."

  "Evie, please," Sara pleaded. "We don't have to do this."

  "You promised!" Evie screamed, throwing Sara forward, so she was standing before the far smaller woman. They were stopped in the middle of the road, the soldiers following them further cowed by the sight of Hurlish loading the massive gun. Evie reached up, stabbing a cw into Sara's breastpte. "You promised me that you would retreat when it became necessary. Is your word worth anything? Well? Is it?" She reached up and clenched her colr in a fist. "Or will you order me to desist?"

  The words hit Sara like a punch to the gut. Tears began to bead at the corner of her eyes.

  "Evie, no. No, I wouldn't do that. You know that."

  "Then follow me! A hidden ship waits in the harbor. There is enough room for the three of us, Vesta, Oddry, and six sailors. We will flee to the nearest Carrion colony, after consulting Nora on the likely vectors of interception the Sporaton Navy may pursue."

  "I will," Sara said, taking a deep breath. "I will, if you really think we need to. But Evie, please, let me try. Let me see if I can win."

  Evie ughed again, high-pitched and wild. "You think you can, Master? You really do?"

  "Yes, Evie!" Sara stepped closer, lowering her voice. "We have advantages he doesn't. Weapons he doesn't understand. He's not invincible."

  "And what do you propose, hm?" Evie asked incredulously. "As we speak, he trains his troops twenty miles from the city. Over a day's march. Plenty of warning for him if we emerge for battle. Will you sally out to attack him, three thousands to twelve on the open field? Or will you wait behind the walls until he is satisfied with the quality of his troops, when the greatest general of the century is certain that he can overwhelm your defenses? Which trap will you spring, Master?"

  "That's– we don't have to–" Sara clenched her firsts, pressing her knuckles into her eyes. "I don't know. I don't know what I'm going to do, okay? But the war isn't lost yet. I said I'd run when it was, right? And it's not. Not yet. There's still a chance." Evie scoffed, but Sara didn't let her retort. "I know, okay? I know who he is. What he is. You've shown me his career. You've told me enough about him that it scares me to fight him, okay? Scares me shitless. I'm not underestimating him. But Evie, please, we're so close. It'll be years until we get another opportunity like this. If I run now, I'll have to fight a revolution to achieve what I did in half a year here. Amarat put me next to the only empty nation on the pnet for a reason, right? This is it. The best chance I'll ever get."

  "If this is the best chance you will ever get, we are doomed."

  "Hey, Evie?" Hurlish mumbled. The question went ignored.

  "You don't know if he's really in control of everything," Sara tried. "The King could have given him permission to train the troops, but it'll be the King in command during the battle."

  "A faint hope."

  "But it's still there. I want to know, before I abandon everything. I've worked so hard for this, Evie. We've worked so hard. We've changed the world for this, and you want to just leave?"

  "Evie," Hurlish repeated, more insistently.

  "I don't give a damn about the world, Sara," Evie snapped. "I care about you. About Hurlish. About our child. I admire your morality, the passion you hold for your ideology, but those values are yours, not mine. As far as I am concerned, the rest of the world can rot under the boot of tyranny for all eternity. I will accept that happily, if it means those I love are safe."

  Before Sara could respond, there was a click. The two women froze, finally turning to Hurlish.

  The orc had the massive gun raised to her shoulder, pointing it at the crowd of soldiers and civilians. The audience began to flee at the sight of the gun, panic and confusion running through them.

  But not all. Four soldiers, four civilians. They stared at Hurlish as the rest of the crowd melted away. The soldiers rested their halberds casually against the stone, while the civilians were reaching under their shirts.

  Evie snarled, cws tearing through her shirt as she ripped it off, exposing her cuirass. She took her stance in front of Hurlish, one hand holding her rapier before her, the other reaching for the leather holster strapped across her chestpte.

  Sara dropped her helmet onto her head, drawing her sword and flicking it out to its full length. The eight individuals slowly spread out, forming a semi-circle that blocked the road.

  "Night's Eye?" Sara asked.

  "No," one replied. A woman, dressed in civilian garb. She was telling the truth.

  "Leave Hurlish alone and she won't fight," Sara said.

  "Bullshit," The orc stated, thumbing the hammer back on the gun.

  All hell broke loose.

  ----------------------------------

  Evie

  ----------------------------------

  She had never known such fear in her life. Not as a child suffering her mother's irate rants. Not when her carriage had been assaulted by brigands as a young girl. Never in her life had anything put fear into Evie's soul like the eight individuals before her.

  The world seemed to blur as the click of the cannon's flintlock echoed through the air. Her vision narrowed, gray pulsing inward with every beat of her heart, sapping color from all reality. Her ultimate fear, the deepest of terrors, realized. They were coming for Master. They were coming for Hurlish. Slowly, agonizingly, daggers emerged from hidden pockets, halberds were brought down. It was her fault. Her panic, so visible to the public, had prompted the assassins to unch their assault, knowing she was fleeing. If she had maintained her decorum, had used the years of training she had been subjected to, they could have escaped silently. Because she hadn't– because she had failed– she was fighting for the lives of those she loved.

  The first faux-soldier began to take a step forward, the fastest to react. That was his mistake to make. Hurlish swung the barrel towards him.

  The street was suddenly filled by a cloud of white, Evie's ears splitting with an exquisite agony. Fifty pellets of lead ripped through the air, passing through the armored soldier with hardly a stutter. What had been a man became nothing more than scattered viscera, limbs tossed in bloody arcs across the cobblestones.

  The others charged. Reality still had not resumed its normal speed.

  Evie's fist slowly clenched around the mahogany handle sprouting from her chest holster. She drew with her offhand, rapier still held defensively before her. Even through the ringing in her ears, she heard the rasp of bcksteel sliding against leather. From handle to muzzle the weapon was long, difficult to draw, too unwieldy to carry on her hip. She felt the dey of drawing the pistol as a nearly physical pain, every moment spent pulling it from its sheath allowing the assassins to take another step.

  But Evie was fast. She had practiced her draw over and over again since Hurlish had given her the weapon, nearly every free moment she was not in public spent repeating the task, until every required action had become one smooth motion. Her fingers slipped around the grip with an intimate familiarity, index finger sliding in to rest on the trigger. Her thumb was already moving to the hammer as she pulled the gun up and out of the holster, resting on the textured metal, pushing down with the same force that was pulling the weapon free. Finally, after so long waiting, the end of the muzzle cleared the holster. Her wrist flicked to the right, bringing the weapon's muzzle up and around. The hammer clicked in her hand, signaling that it was ready to fire. She lifted her thumb free. She did not wait to steady her stance. One eye was already closed, the other squinting. She continued to raise the weapon, until her arm was straight and her elbow locked, braced for the recoil. The sight passed before her eye, a tiny instant in which the metal bead was aligned with the sternum of the closest assassin. Unsure of her target, all of the assassins tried to duck, diving to one side or the other to avoid her shot.

  It was too te. She pulled the trigger.

  A second cloud of smoke joined the first. The pistol bucked violently in her hand, a fre of pain rattling its way through the joints of her arm. A half-inch hole opened in the center of her target's chest, a fountain of blood erupting from behind them. The group of assassins began to recover from their stutter-step, resuming their sprint forward, confident now that Hurlish and Evie had both fired the only shots they had avaible to them.

  As the recoil faded and Evie's pistol fell back down, the way the recoil had angled the weapon skyward allowed her to easily reach up with her thumb, drawing the hammer down once more. She did not know if the gods had any sway over the world of Master's father, but on the chance they did, she offered a brief prayer for the man's life to be lived well.

  "Now this one's one you're gonna like," Master's father had said. As the weapon he had described cycled in her hand, striving to save his daughter's life, Evie almost believed he was speaking to her personally. "The biggest, baddest pistol there ever was. They didn't build a more powerful one for almost a hundred years after this one. It was so damn big they couldn't make a normal hip holster for it, only one for a saddle. It was built to kill a horse at three hundred feet, and it actually managed it. They didn't make that many, but the cavalry loved it, since most of them had never even seen a revolver before. Colt named it after the cavalryman that gave him the idea, one Samuel Walker."

  Too te, the next assassin realized Evie hadn't discarded the gun. He tried to drop to the ground as her aim swung to him, but there was no outrunning a bullet. The crystal-tipped hammer fell, sparks flying through a minuscule tube to light the bckpowder charge. A half-inch bullet ripped through the side of the man's neck, spraying blood across the cobblestones.

  The trance broke. The assassins reached Evie in a blink, halberd and dagger swinging. She blocked the halberd with her rapier, twisting aside to send the dagger scraping thinly across her ribs. She used the revolver as a parrying dagger to knock aside the next swing of the assassin's knife, thrusting her rapier towards the halberdier's helmet in the same moment, all while things continued to devolve around her.

  Hurlish was jogging backward, breaking open the cannon to load another round. One assassin ducked past Evie as she engaged the first two, trying to reach the orc, only to be met by the hideous crackle of lightning tearing out of Master's sword. As soon as the smoking corpse fell, Master was being savaged by a flurry of swings from two of the assassins, bcksteel daggers sparking off her breastpte. Master swung at them like a brute, forgoing finesse in favor of raw strength to shove them off of her, gaining distance. Several swings of the enchanted dagger had pierced the mundane steel that covered her arms, cerations that dripped blood.

  Evie's thrust for the halberdier was turned aside by a flick of his weapon's haft, which the man turned into a riposte that tried to drive the butt of his weapon into her gut. She had no choice but to take the blow as the dagger-wielding woman circled around her, trying to attack her from behind.

  Evie sucked wind as the halberd's wood dug into her stomach, stumbling backward as she just barely knocked aside yet another lunge of the dagger. She raised the revolver, trying to line up the muzzle with the woman, but the assassin ducked to the side just as the shot rang out, sending the lead ball blowing chunks out of the stone building behind her.

  Evie was forced to take another step back as the halberdier choked up on his weapon, trying to run it through her chest like a shortspear. She barely turned the weapon aside, the distraction earning a fre of sensation in her side.

  Evie looked down to see the woman's fist pressed up against her, crossguard of her dagger flush with Evie's skin. The pain hadn't hit yet.

  She spun to one side as hard as she could, trying to use her own body to rip the dagger from the woman's hand. The assassin's grip was too strong, however, and all Evie achieved was tearing a long wound across her skin, tracing a gaping wound just above her hipbone.

  Master was engaging the other two assassins. Both were wielding enchanted daggers, using them less as weapons of war, more the implements of a back-alley murder. They circled the Champion of Amarat like wolves hounding a lion, lunging the instant they thought Master distracted. The Champion, in turn, trusted to her armor, not even bothering to parry the stabs. Her greatsword crackled with lightning as she threw out massive sweeping blows, trying to cut the assassins in half with every swing. Between her armor and comparatively unwieldy weapon, she couldn't match their speed. Her best hope was to cut one down on the spot, allowing her to focus her full attention on the remaining assassin. The tactic was taking its toll, the armor covering her extremities collecting dozens of thin, bloody cuts. The assassins couldn't nd a definitive blow through her bcksteel chestpte, but it was only a matter of time until the accumuted wounds took Master to the ground.

  Behind them both, Hurlish continued to steadily backpedal. She had reloaded the massive weapon and brought it to her shoulder, but couldn't fire. The assassins were too close to Master and Evie, constantly shifting in and out of the line of fire. A string of muttered profanities were falling from her lips, directed at anyone and everyone as she tracked her targets, waiting for any opportunity to pull the trigger.

  Evie felt her left leg give as she backstepped yet again, the deep gouge in her side gushing blood. She stumbled, nearly dropping to her knee, but steadied herself just in time to ssh at the dagger-wielding assassin's arm, digging a deep gash across the muscles of her forearm. The woman's only response was to step away and shift her dagger from her right to left hand, a move that would have cost her life, if not for the way the halberdier immediately seized the moment, swinging for Evie's head. She ducked, cursing, leaving a trail of ever-darker blood on the stones as she continued to retreat.

  They were not formal assassins, she now recognized. She had trained against those kept under Graf's employ. A true Assassin was one who struck from afar by poison or bolt, working silently and alone. Had they truly been Night's Eye assassins, she likely would have died without ever drawing her sword. Instead, the pair she was fighting against were skilled, not just as individuals, but in working with other Irregurs. Those were the skills of a soldier, not an assassin, and it was what had likely saved Master's life for the few days they must have been in the city. Unfortunately, seeing as the soldiers had been forced into an open confrontation, their skills were now exactly suited to the task at hand.

  Her thoughts had begun to wander, she realized. The left side of her body from the hip down was dripping rivers of blood, clothes wetly clinging to her skin, made worse with every pump of her pounding heart. She slowly became aware of dim lines of fire scorching along her arms, her shoulders, wounds she had not noticed receiving fring to life.

  Beside her, she heard the sounds of Sara still fighting. Hurlish was shouting, sounding ever more distant. She needed to end this.

  Better her life than another's.

  Evie suddenly dropped her rapier, throwing a desperate kick from her good leg into the woman's stomach. The ploy worked– she'd known Evie was wounded, hadn't expected it. She was caught square in the gut by Evie's heel, shoved backward several feet. She looked up, surprised, confused that Evie would waste the st of her energy on such an ineffectual blow.

  Then her body cartwheeled to the side, everything from her shoulders up torn to ragged shreds. The report of Hurlish's gun was dull, Evie long since deafened.

  Evie's leg finally colpsed. She fell limply to the ground, twisting so she would at least nd on her back.

  She watched as a halberd flew down from the sky, embedding itself in her gut. It was strange. She didn't feel it. A solid chunk of steel had disappeared into her belly, yet it felt as if nothing had happened at all. She couldn't even get her lungs to suck in air.

  Evie shot the man. Her eyes fell closed, satisfied.