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

  Colonel Shale

  --------------------------

  She couldn't quite understand why the Champion had let her join this little walkalong. It was te into the night, most of the army taking advantage of the brief truce to drop into a death-like sleep, and yet Sara was still up, slowly matching the pace of the illusion beside her.

  It was a middle-aged man, dressed in foreign clothes of a make Shale couldn't pce. He wore an awkward, floppy hat on his head, connected beneath his chin by a string that was pulled tight enough to dig a line in his neck, and he stopped and started his sentences as he walked, gesticuting wildly at the various cannons Sara's illusions had also recreated.

  "And this one, see this one? It's nice, right, but it's not just- it's not, like, as cool as the Napoleon, right, because it wasn't as good, but– oh, it's called the Parrott rifle, by the way, the ten pounder– because it was made of iron and stuff, right, which was cheaper than bronze but too weak, and it could fracture sometimes, blowing up the whole thing, and so the artillerymen didn't really like it as much as the Napoleon, even though it was rifled–"

  The rambling lecture continued on, Sara nodding to the illusion as if it could see her. Really, the whole occasion was strange, and not just because Shale had been invited along. For one, Sara had pced the illusion up a bit, so the man and the cannons he was pointing to were standing on air, Sara's head not quite reaching his elbows. There was also the fact that Evie wasn't present, having apparently been sent off on some task or another, which left the Champion's visage looking rather lopsided. It seemed wrong to Shale's eye, to see the woman without her ever-present partner.

  "–And really, the only iron one they really liked was the Three-inch Ordnance Rifle, y'know, because it didn't actually blow up– well, blow up as much, it still did this one time, but not as often as the Parrots– and they'd use it for, like, real accurate stuff, even better than the Napoleon, but you couldn't do the bouncing shots I was talking about earlier– you remember that, right?"

  Sara nodded to the illusion, often mumbling a little "mm-hm" as they walked. That was another strange thing, to see the Champion of Amarat so quiet. She was a woman of words, after all, not humming and silent observation. This contemptive attentiveness was far out of character.

  The illusion suddenly froze, Sara coming to a stop as well. She was looking at one of the cannons with her hands csping her wrists behind her back, and Shale slowly walked up beside her.

  "It's a bit smaller than the others," she noted, seeking to break the silence.

  Sara nodded to the man in the illusion. "Like he said, it's built for accuracy, not firepower."

  The illusion jumped forward a few steps. "–so crazy for the time, hitting single targets a whole mile out, and there were stories of people even putting shots through, like, specific windows, which is just wild for back then–"

  The illusion paused again, the man having moved on far enough to give Shale a proper look at the cannon.

  At a gnce, she couldn't quite see why the Champion had picked this example out of the illusory line. It was smaller than most of the others, with a lighter carriage and ammunition that was long and thin. Moving closer, Shale could see that the barrel had the spiral grooves the Champion called "rifling," which expined the accuracy the man had been talking about, but her gut still told her that the 12-pounders were a better gun. Accurate or not, she wanted a gun that'd dig a trench of blood through the enemy, not smash one head through before a pointed tip dug the cannonball into the earth.

  After Sara spent another few minutes quietly staring at the gun, Shale spoke up.

  "That going to be the next gun we get?"

  Sara started, as if surprised Shale was still present.

  "Maybe," she said. "Can't bet on it, though. No way to tell if we'll be able to make 'em. I hope we will, but when we're just pouring casts and beating it into shape with hammers..."

  Sara trailed off, forcing Shale to prod the conversation onward once more.

  "As opposed to what?"

  "Lathes," Sara said, as if the word meant something. "Gods, we need a proper the. Hurlish can do some insnae stuff, but I was still thinking I should keep it secret..." She shook her head. "Not to mention the metal quality. Iron guns explode, you know. It's why we use bronze, even though it's so much more expensive."

  "That's an iron gun," Shale helpfully pointed out.

  "Yeah." Sara mimed tapping the cannon, disturbing its surface like water. "So why didn't it blow up all the time? It worked great, apparently, whereas that one," she pointed to one of the 'Parrott' guns, "Was more likely to kill its crew than the enemy. It's not purely the material, at least I don't think so, because it's still made of wrought iron, instead of pure steel, but it could also be a million other parts of the process. The casting, the cooling, the carbon content, or maybe just pin quality control, for all I know. So what's the goddamn difference?"

  Shale looked between the two weapons, even though she knew the question was rhetorical. She could see plenty of differences at a gnce. The unfamiliar gun was slightly thinner, slightly longer, and was of course made of rifled iron. Sara had wondered if the thing was made of steel, which was an absurdity in and of itself. The expense of a thousand pounds of steel would be unimaginable, enough to equip the entire Tulian army with halberds again. What made the thing not go up in fmes like a novice spellcaster, she had no idea.

  "Did that man tell you anything about it?" She asked.

  Sara sighed, and the illusion lurched forward.

  "–of course they wanted to put them on the ships and stuff, but without gyroscopic stabilization it didn't do much, and besides naval cannons were way bigger, and they were experimenting with turrets then which didn't– oh, they have a mockup of the the USS Monitor here, we've got to see that–"

  She stopped the illusion with another, even deeper sigh.

  "No, he didn't. As you could probably tell, my dad has a tendency to ramble when he's excited for something."

  Shale blinked, gd Sara was facing away to miss her shock. Her first gut reaction was that she'd been rude by walking along with Sara, even if she'd been explicitly invited to join her. Everyone knew how Champions worked, how the gods ripped them from their homes. The mencholic depression brought on by a father trapped in another world wasn't something she was qualified to address.

  "It's alright," Sara abruptly reassured her. "I'm used to it, had months to adjust. I'm half being quiet because of how fuckin' tired I am. No need to tiptoe around stuff with me."

  Shale winced. What did Sara have, eyes in the back of her head?

  "Still," she temporized, "not an easy thing to deal with, I'm sure. He ever get back around to saying anything useful?"

  "Not that I can remember," Sara put a hand on the pommel of her sword, dismissing the illusion. "He probably did, at some point in one of his ten thousand rants about old war stuff, but hell if I can dig it up. I probably could've made the Ordnance Rifle, if I'd started months ago, but I didn't think I'd need it. He always told me the Napoleon was the best gun of the war, and so I thought it'd be all I need to build."

  Shale pursed her lips. "If what we've already got was the best, why're you worrying about second pce?"

  "Because it's not the same war." Sara stared at a bnk face of the wall, as if she could see the Royal Army beyond. "In my world, there wasn't much need to have cannons hitting with pinpoint accuracy. Every soldier was every other soldier's equal, and none of them had anything more to protect them than shitty cloth. If you really wanted to target an officer or something, you could do it with a rifle." Her eyes darkened, turning to her left. "Here, though? Shit's different."

  Shale followed her gaze, nding on the forty foot gap in the wall. Its edges were still ragged from the acidic spell, and though the bodies had been removed for burial, the oily stains their desecration had left behind could not be washed away. Before Sara had gone to the parley, she and the other colonels had debated on whether or not to attempt emergency repairs on the broken section. In the end they'd decided against it, hoping to lure any enemy assault into a predictable pattern. Sara looked at the gap in Fort Midwich with a burbling disgust more often reserved for those leveled between demons and holy warriors.

  "You want to hit mages with our cannons, then?"

  "Yeah. 'Course I do. Killing those fucks would be the quickest way to end the war. I got a report recently, by the way. The mages are even teleporting in bulk numbers of enchanted bags, stuffed to the gills with food. Not enough for the whole army, they still need supply wagons, but if we killed the mages..." She chuckled darkly, rocking back on her heels. "I was stupid, back when I started this. I thought that what worked best back home would work here, because we were so much more advanced than you. Fucking colonizer attitude, and I didn't even see it. Can't believe myself. That's another fuck-up to add to the list." Her jaw clenched. "Evie told me how dangerous the mages and Knights were. I believed her, and I thought the cannons would handle them, but it was stupid to assume the mages would be the same as Knights. Shit, I'd seen some of what Garen could do for myself. Stupid."

  Seeing the enigmatic general locked into self-recrimination was disorienting enough that Shale felt compelled to argue.

  "You've had six months to build an army, Sara, and you built it to the point that it stopped the Royal Army cold. If that's something only the idiotic do, I can count the number of 'smart' people I've met on one hand."

  Sara snorted. "It's only impressive because you don't understand what I could have done. I may not have been able to end the war on the first day, but..." She trailed off yet again, then shook herself. "Well, if they gave me ten years to prepare I could have. You're right in some ways. The metallurgy and industry of this world just isn't up to the task. I'm stuck with all this halfway crap, muskets and bronze cannons and..." Her chest rose and fell, and she brushed her hair from her eyes. "It'll work. It'll work. It has to."

  "Permission to speak freely, ma'am?" Shale asked, straightening her posture.

  "You're not on duty, Shale."

  She stood silently, until the Champion rolled her eyes.

  "Permission granted, Colonel Shale."

  "You should go to your tent, ma'am. The battle resumes at sunrise, and the night is half gone already."

  A smirk and frown fought for prominence on Sara's face.

  "Sometimes I wonder if training you all to talk back to me was all that good an idea."

  "You know what is a good idea, ma'am?"

  "Going to–"

  "Going to your tent, ma'am."

  Sara chuckled, forcing herself to turn away from Midwich's walls.

  "Alright, you win. Interested in joining us, tonight?"

  "I believe your rules would consider that fraternization between ranks," Shale noted, studiously keeping a straight face.

  "I'm a hypocrite," Sara said with a frank shrug.

  Shale ughed, taken off guard, but still shook her head. "Not tonight, Sara. After napping through the storm, I doubt I'd be able to sleep tonight, regardless. I'd rather spend the time making sure things are ready for tomorrow morning."

  "Evie won't bite your head off, you know. She got caught by some vilgers, but she's more into it than even she's willing to admit. As long as she gets a taste of you herself, she'll forget all about it."

  "Then why won't you tell her yourself?"

  "Because she won't let me. Thinks it's cheating."

  "Your retionship with that woman is baffling, Sara."

  She fshed a brilliant smile. "I know, right?"

  Shale ughed once more, then made her farewells. The Champion of Amarat wasn't anything like she'd expected when she'd heard the news of her appearing in Tulian, save for one respect. The woman never got tired of other's bodies, or sharing her own. She could hardly imagine what Sara would be like, if she didn't have the pressure of a war forcing her into the barest sembnce of decorum.

  Probably spend half her time walking the streets naked, entertaining anyone that offers, Shale thought. Her imagination briefly taunted her with the image she'd created, which she had to shove down.

  She did hope she'd be able to see the Sara of peacetime some day, though. She'd be one hell of a fun girl to spend a night with, Shale bet.

  All the more reason to make sure the cannons are ready, she forcefully reminded herself.

  When she'd come back from the meeting with the Sporaton King, Sara had been... peculiar. Whipshing between giggles and piercing silence, recounting the events in fitful spurts. Not unlike her father, Shale realized. She'd gotten her point across to the King, clearly, and put the fear of her god into the nobility, but that wasn't without risks. She'd warned them all that whatever happened tomorrow, it would be different. For better or worse, the King had finally accepted that he was fighting a war. Not some border scuffle, not some putting down of bandits or rabble-rousers. From now on, the Royal Army would be coming at them like they had the coastal city states, like they had the shattered remains of the Northern Empire.

  Shale swallowed hard, returning to her cannons. She was no fool; she knew the Champion would survive this war. She was blessed by the gods, the progenitor of a legend that would be told for centuries, at least until the next Champion arrived, if not longer. Shale had grown up listening to those stories, and never had she heard of a Champion being killed on the field of battle.

  Their followers, however? Their companions, the clingers-on, the faceless footnotes that were towed along in their wake?

  Oh, yes. They could die.

  Shale stepped up her pace. Sleep be damned, she had work to do.

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  ---------------------------

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  Shale was covered to either shoulder with soot-stained sweat when she first noticed the lengthening shadows, the cannon barrel she'd stuffed her arm down glinting with a bit of extra light. She took a few steps to the wall's edge, shading her eyes as she looked to the east.

  She caught the moment the sun peaked over the eastern horizon, a fsh of yellow that broke through the glittering dew of Tulian's grassnds. Yellow rays bounced and danced through the dotted isnds of jungle trees, stirring to life a cacophony of tropical birds and their beautiful cries. Shale had never left the country herself, and in fact was currently as far from home as she'd ever been, but she'd heard from sailors and merchants alike that there were few pces in all the world with a better sunrise than Tulian. Times like this, she liked to think they were telling the truth.

  Unfortunately, when she turned left, towards the north, she was treated to a much less gmorous sight. The Sporaton army down the valley, a mile or so distant. Dozens of fgs and crests fluttered in the wind, turning the ndscape into a diorama of Sporaton noble houses. She didn't have the political acumen to understand what meant what, but she'd heard it cimed where one chose to set their command tent could be a subtle sign of political allegiance.

  How exhausting that'd be, caring where you slept each night.

  She stooped back to the cannon, focusing on her inspection. Sara had warned them all that the Sporatons would likely be unching an assault as soon as possible this morning. True to her word, the Sporaton army was stirring with the sun, rousing itself like a waking beast. She could ever so faintly hear the sounds of whistles and bugles calling the troops to order.

  Shale's duties, already well beyond her comfort level, had grown ever more muddied over the st few days. She's known she was going to be in charge of the muskets and cannons for months now, but that didn't mean she'd been ready for the realities of it.

  For starters, the difference between musket and cannon was as great as that of a shortbow and ballistae. She'd spent most of her preparation thinking of what could be done with the muskets, how they'd be employed, and how she might supply them. Until she'd seen them used in actual battle, she'd thought of the cannons as rger versions of those smaller weapons, albiet more expensive and and with considerably greater range. If they'd first employed them during a field battle, she'd have pced them in among the troops, defending important portions of the line with bursts of smoke and iron shot.

  Now she'd seen what they could do. She'd seen cannonballs nce through armies, ying low the greatest warriors of the continent. She'd seen them sail through the sky like missiles of the gods themselves, heard the violent crack of twelve pounds of iron breaking sound itself. She'd heard the horrifying whine of a ball spinning end over end, felt the rumble of shots impacting the dirt only to go bouncing high again, ripping through whatever stood in their way.

  And she'd fallen in love.

  Colonel Shale loved her cannons. She loved them more than her muskets, more than her rifle, which could strike a man down at five hundred paces. Why would she care about killing one hapless fool, when she could rip apart a dozen at thrice the range?

  Sara had said the bronze artworks under her command were called Napoleons, named for the greatest military commander of her old world. She could understand why. With a steady hand and a fine eye, there was nothing in the world which could stand against her.

  They'd consumed her thoughts over the past few days. She was supposed to be a Colonel, a fifth of the army's highest command structure, and at one time she'd been proud of that. Not anymore. She'd be the first to admit that her time these past few days hadn't been spent wisely, that she'd left the duties of commanding the 1st Combat Engineers to her Lieutenants. She barely even felt ashamed. She was interested in one thing only, and it was made of sleek bronze.

  She'd sent off a runner with a letter a few short hours ago, tendering her official request for demotion. She didn't care if she got paid less, if she had less prestige. Not if it meant more time with her cannons.

  "Caissons ready?" She asked Lieutenant Cig. The lumbering orc woman nodded.

  "Got 'em set down into the stone, just like you asked. Still think we should get iron boxes, for the record."

  "Not iron," Shale said, "but metal's not a bad idea. Bronze storage for the ammunition would do wonders."

  "Why not iron?" Cig asked, chewing a wad of gummy tree sap. Her moniker was a nickname, one Shale had never learned the origins of.

  "Sparks," Shale answered. "If we're going to be storing fifty pounds of powder in one pile, we don't want someone's gauntlet's scraping and setting the whole thing off."

  Cig bnched. "Damn. Yeah. Can't imagine."

  Shale could. When Sara had told her about bck powder, she'd shown her illusions of what it could do if handled improperly. Explosions that dug monumental craters in the earth, leaving nothing of the perpetrator but floating ash. She'd rather not see it personally.

  "I'll add bronze storage boxes to the list," Shale said. She took out a rag to polish the barrel of her Napoleon. "Supposed to be a hell of a fight today. Check on the other cannons, if you would."

  "Already did."

  "And are you doing something else right now?"

  Cig huffed, but turned around to follow instructions.

  The rest of the Tulian Army's limited artillery were spaced out along the centermost section of the wall, having been boriously, agonizingly pulled up by teams of Combat Engineers over the night. Though Shale had no idea how big a bang their ammo storage going off would really make, she'd decided to put at least fifty feet between the cannons, just in case. It made it harder to coordinate their fire, but at least they wouldn't lose all four of the precious cannons the moment some mage got a lucky fireball tossed their way.

  What I'd give for a mage of our own, Shale thought. There was a bloody lesson to be learned there. No matter how much she was certain her cannons could outgun any half-baked Sporaton university brat, they couldn't do a damn thing to defend themselves. If they didn't kill a threat before it could reach them, they were as open and exposed as any common soldier. If she had even a single mage to shield her crews, she could concentrate her fire so much more effectively.

  Shale stopped polishing the cannon as she heard a voice come through her crystal. Pulling it out of her pocket, she wiped beads of sweat from her forehead with the same rag she'd used to clean the cannon. Gods, she loved the smell of sulfur.

  "I just got word," Sara's voice announced. "They're going to be trying some bullshit again today. Don't know what. Keep an eye out, and if you see what they're up to, notify the rest of us ASAP. Over."

  Shale had to resist the urge to confirm she'd heard the news. If everyone with a crystal did that, the whole network would come tumbling down, and she'd likely be down a hand. Not many healers that could regrow a limb, not in Tulian.

  Trying some bullshit, huh? She walked to the wall, reseting her knuckles on its edge. The Sporaton army was continuing to lumber to life, cook fires so numerous that their columns of smoke merged into a single towering cloud. A meal for the peasants, then the march. It was how they always did it.

  Wonder if they've got something for my cannons? She thought. Of course, they'd have to. Nothing else worth worrying about, really. Nothing like them in all the world.

  She smiled, a thought occurring to her. They still didn't have as much powder as they'd have preferred, though other sources were slowly stirring to life, and at Sara's behest she'd been reluctant to waste powder. But if the Sporaton army was really going to be coming straight for her...

  "Colonel Shale speaking. Requesting to use time before assault for gunnery practice. Over."

  A dey. Then a response that sounded like it was hiding ughter.

  "Sure, Shale. But make sure you keep the range under a thousand yards."

  She frowned, but acknowledged the order. What good was practice when you were making easy shots? A week ago striking a target at a thousand yards had been a dream, the thing of legends. Now it bored her.

  Regardless, a chance to fire cannons was a chance to fire cannons, and she sent a runner to distribute word of their target. A rock in the middle of the stream, around which a muddy isnd was gathering.

  While she waited for word to get passed, she id a hand on her cannon and looked down its barrel, twisting the gun carriage's wooden screws until the bronze notch was pointed directly at the isnd. Compared to her rifle's elevating sights, the simple metal bead was a primitive thing, but it served its purpose. The isnd was perhaps five hundred yards away, a good range for warming up. She'd rather have practiced at the cannon's maximum range, nearly three times that, but that would have been close to striking the Sporaton camp, and Sara didn't want them retreating out of view, nor knowing the weapon's maximum range.

  Shale spent another moment adjusting the gun's elevation, then took a step back. Pced atop the wall as it was, they'd had to wrap thick restraint ropes around the gun's carriage, so that the recoil wouldn't send it crashing through the wooden railing to the ground below. The gun had already been loaded, the friction primer pced. All she needed to do was fire.

  "All ready?" She called out. A chorus of confirmations answered her, and without further ceremony, she pulled at the string.

  Her ears rang as a mule kick reverberated in her chest, the cannon leaping backward as smoke filled the air. Shale squinted through the fog, tracking the ball through its flight.

  A second and a half after firing, a plume of water was ripped out of the stream, a conical spray that started a dozen or so yards before the isnd, ending fifty yards behind it. The ball visibly bounced up and off the water, skipped like a stone before crashing down again some distance away, this time digging deeper into the water with a second cascade of white.

  Shortly after, Shale felt the boom of a cannon to her right firing, adding to the fogbank that the first shot had created. This shot nded simirly to the first, perhaps slightly shorter, and dug immediately into the water, rather than skipping. A few seconds ter came the third shot, this one overshooting the isnd, and then the fourth, which had the range down exactly, but was off thirty or so yards to the right, gouging a line through the grass.

  "Load!"

  Shale joined the rey line that was transferring ammunition up from the storage crate, taking a powder bag and tossing it forward, followed by the cannonball. In her head, she kept a count.

  Five, six, seven...

  The cannon was rolled back into position, the sponger wetting their brush.

  Nine, ten, eleven...

  The ammunition reached the loaders, who waited for the barrel to finish being swabbed, then rushed forward.

  Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen...

  The powder charge was put at the mouth of the barrel, shoved in with a curled fist, then the ball was pced on top.

  Twenty, twenty one, twenty two...

  The brush was spun around to the ramming side, the loader throwing their whole back into getting the ball down the barrel as fast as possible.

  Twenty eight, twenty nine, thirty...

  The cannon was loaded, and Shale joined the others in shoving its carriage back into position. Its bck maw poked from between the crenetions, a viper nestled in its den.

  Thirty three, thirty four, thirty five...

  Shale looked down the sights once more as one of the crew repced the friction primer, and, spinning the wooden screw two rotations to the left, she gripped the string.

  At forty seconds, the cannon barked once more. Shale leaned to one side to watch the ball soar, checking the fall of shot.

  This time it was an eruption of mud that signaled the cannonball's impact, chunks rger than a torso flung into the air. It was a closer shot to the rock, hardly fifteen feet off the mark, and barely a second after her shot nded the second cannon leapt back, a warbling whine marking the passage of its projectile.

  Another plume of water this time, then more, the cannonball bouncing dozens of times as it bounced along a jagged path before rolling to a stop. The smoke of the second cannon was blown in front of Shale, obscuring her vision of the subsequent third and fourth shots, but she trusted they were good. She'd picked her crews for a reason.

  When she had a clear view of the Sporaton camp once more, she allowed herself a sordid smile. The preparations for the assault had ground to a halt, the army balking as the thunder of her cannons washed over them. They eventually ground back into motion, spurred on by the abuse of their commanders, but it was a much slower affair. Shale could only imagine the thoughts of the common soldiers, who were forced to watch what would soon be coming for them.

  As she adjusted her sights once more, preparing for another shot, she was interrupted by a messenger boy calling her name. With a growl, she pulled herself away from the cannon, going to receive whatever report she'd been forced to deal with.

  Gods, she hoped Sara accepted her request for demotion. She'd take being an Artillery Lieutenant over Colonel any day.

  ----------------------------------

  Sara

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  "Fuck," Sara intoned.

  "Indeed."

  "Graf's gotta be behind this, right?"

  "More likely Hearth, Master. Master Graf usually defers to his mages on matters of spellcrafting."

  "Still the Night's Eye, though."

  "Unfortunately."

  The Sporaton Army's advance had changed. Faced with weapons whose power and range they had no answer, they hadn't done as Sara had hoped they would, blundering into fire until their morale was shattered.

  No, instead they'd developed what was quite possibly one of the most callous military strategies Sara had ever witnessed.

  As twelve thousand marching soldiers bore down on Fort Midwich, they did so under the shimmering cover of a mage's shield. Multicolored ptes sheltered the army, snted forward until they nearly dug into the ground before the front ranks, rising a dozen feet above the heads of the rearmost soldiers. They were thicker, more opaque than their former versions, presumably tuned to reflect more physical projectiles, rather than spells.

  Ordinarily, Sara wouldn't have been overly concerned. The spells were designed to repel arrows and ballistae, after all, and she had cannons. Based off of her testing with Garen, the mages should've had their shields shattered in a handful of shots.

  The problem arose when the enemy had first broached the thousand yard mark, freeing Shale's cannons. Her gunners had been so eager their cannons had barked near simultaneously, treating Sara to the sight of four gray balls vomited forth as one. She'd at first been happy to let the mages try to shield the troops; the effort would exhaust them well before they reached the walls, freeing Sara to sweep the Sporaton spearblocks from the field with a withering fusilde of close-range musket fire, uncaring of potential spells in response.

  Somehow, she still hadn't anticipated just how willingly the King would lead his citizens to sughter.

  The moment the clouds of smoke had signaled the cannon's firing, the shields had disappeared. Plunging fire had dropped down into the ranks of the Sporaton commoners, tearing limb from limb and leaving gaping holes where bodies used to be. Only a set of small, far denser shields had remained, protecting a tightly-pressed core of armored nobility.

  She could practically hear the King's arrogant sneer. "After all, they're just peasants. It's their duty to die for their king, is it not?"

  Sara matched the imaginary sneer of the King with a very real one of her own. If he thought she'd be overwhelmed with sentiment for the conscripts she was butchering, he was wrong. All it did was further soil an ever-festering pit of anger.

  She'd ordered Shale to continue the barrage, trying to aim for the partially obscured Knights hiding beneath the mage's shields, with the caveat that "only" sweeping aside dozens of soldiers with each shot was more than acceptable. Marching at the double, it would take nearly ten minutes for the army to cross the open field. That meant they would be subjected to ten minutes of withering, gruesome cannon fire.

  Before she'd spent six months getting military strategy drilled into her very soul by Evie, Sara had been the type to think all those redcoats and revolutionary war soldiers were idiots for marching in one big line. She'd bought into the idea (that she could only now assume to be propaganda) that America had beaten Britain by fighting dishonorably, refusing to stand in lines and get shot, preferring more sane tactics.

  She knew better, now. Without any kind of communication beyond shouting, any group of soldiers so spread out were effectively little more than a violent mob, utterly uncoordinated. Further, they had no defense against cavalry, who could run down isoted clusters with impunity, hacking them to death with sabers. Volleys, too, made more sense than individual fire, because there was nothing more likely to get a soldier to break and run than seeing five of their friends simultaneously drop dead beside them.

  This, though? With the Sporaton Army marching in ten-deep lines, rather than the two or three deep ranks of musket-wielding soldiers?

  It was everything her ignorant self had imagined. The devastation left by each cannonball was horrific, literal columns of red jetting into the air wherever they nded. Shale was trying to aim for the frontmost ranks, so that the ball would skip off the ground to continue plowing through the rest of the troops, and while it didn't always work, when it did? The effect was nauseating. As the army crawled onward, Sara could see literal lines of corpses left in the churned-up mud, eery tally marks of casualties chalked up by each cannonball. Not all were dead. Some y in the grass thrashing, moaning deliriously, blood gushing from missing limbs or gaping holes.

  And still the nobility ushered them onward, uncaring of the casualties. Against a force of twelve thousand, the ultimate effect was, as far as numbers were concerned, paltry. As Evie constantly reminded her, war was a matter of arithmetic. Ten minutes of marching, four cannons, thirty seconds per shot. With the ranks pressed ten deep, even if every shot nded perfectly– which they most certainly didn't– that would be eight hundred casualties. More casualties than her entire army had suffered thus far, condensed into a handful of minutes, but frustratingly impotent when compared to the size of the horde the Royal Army had at their disposal.

  The situation was made worse still by the fact that the Knights and their nobility hadn't yet suffered a single wound. The dense shields that they sheltered under were only seldom struck, infrequently enough that they could easily regain their proverbial breath before the next shot happened to crash against them. Shale briefly ordered her cannons to focus on a single shield, hoping for several shots to hit simultaneously and thus force a breakthrough, but all that achieved was the surrounding commoners backing away from the target area. Several shots were thus wasted, killing no one, forcing Shale to return to a more distributed targeting.

  The apathy towards the commoner's casualties couldn't st forever, thankfully. As they came into range of the muskets, Champion's Inspiration began to thrum, taking hold of her army. Musketballs were rammed down barrels, stocks were put to shoulders, and for a brief moment, the world seemed to wait with baited breath.

  "Hold," Sara murmured into the crystal, watching the army approach. They entered the maximum range of her muskets without fanfare, shields flickering in and out as cannons fired.

  "Hold," Sara said again, practically whispering it. It was unnecessary. Her troops knew their orders. The shields began to flicker out of being for less and less time, expecting the first volley at any minute.

  "Shale, load and hold fire," Sara ordered. Then, whispering, "Almost, almost..."

  Evie raised her rifle, taking aim at a distant noble. The troops around them shuffled from foot to foot, anxious, practically leaning in to hear Sara. Somewhere down the line, a single musket cracked, causing a brief burst of sympathy fire which was silenced by an irate sergeant.

  The Royal Army reached three hundred yards.

  "Cannons, fire!"

  Four booms shook the morning air, cannonballs ripping through the blocks of spears in a single instant.

  "Muskets, fire!"

  Before the mages could repce their shields, the entirety of Fort Midwich exploded. Twelve hundred muskets sounded as one, a concussive rattle that shook Sara's skull with the sheer pressure of it. The entire world was immediately wrapped in a cloak of white, acrid sulfur stuffing her nose and burning her eyes. She hadn't the slightest clue what had happened to the enemy, not until her ears stopped ringing and the screams became audible.

  "Take cover!" Sara yelled, amplifying her voice until it roared across the entire fort. Troops dropped their ammunition as they comprehended her order, throwing their armored arms over the gaps in their neck and helmet.

  A few tense seconds passed, troops sheltering in pce. Sara alone stood tall, trusting in her armor.

  Still deafened by the bst of muskets, there was no warning when the arrows pierced the fog. Thousands of them whistled gracefully downward, the archers having advanced under the cover of gunsmoke to release a single camitous volley.

  The cck and ctter of iron arrows bouncing off metal armor and concrete fortifications was nothing as world-shaking as the roar of musketry, but it wasn't to be underestimated. Sara heard a number of people cry out in pain, luck failing to save them from the sheer volume of arrows. Sergeants began calling out the order to reload even as Sara somehow sensed the second volley being drawn back.

  Thankfully for her army, the Tulian heat came with a stiff breeze on this particur morning, quickly pulling the curtain of smoke away, revealing the loose spread of Sporaton archers. Their second volley was already in mid-flight.

  Evie was the first to let off a second shot, muttering something profane just before her rifle bucked against her shoulder. Sara knew from experience in her old world how much of a kick the ten pound musket had, yet Evie hardly twitched, absorbing the recoil without a second gnce. Her ears fttened while she leaned forward, peering at her target.

  After a moment, her lips quirked, the cw of her index finger popping out. She scratched a mark at the mouth of the barrel, a single miniscule tally, then began reloading.

  "Got an Irregur?" Sara guessed.

  "A noble," she happily replied. "Their visor was open."

  "That was stupid."

  "Quite."

  Sara dispensed with micromanaging the musket firing, trusting in her commanders. The lightly armed and armored archers had sprinted ahead of the spear blocks, scattered in loose formation across the pin as they traded shots with Fort Midwich. Even with eight hundred of her old archers and twelve hundred new musketeers, the Sporaton archers still outnumbered her ranged forces two to one. The odds were at least evened by the defenses inherent to Fort Midwich, and the fact that most of the Sporaton fair were wielding shortbows, being huntsmen or the like that had been conscripted with their personal weapons.

  A not inconsiderable number did however sport massive warbows. Sara grabbed her own rifle, picking out those as her targets. They'd be doing the same to her, of course. There was no doubt in her mind that the King had asked for her head on a silver ptter.

  Several minutes of lopsided fire was traded between the two forces, arrows and musket balls tearing bloody holes in their opposite number. She couldn't tell who was getting the better of the exchange. The loose spread of the archers made it nearly impossible to aim musket volleys through the smoke, while her own forces were pressed into a thin line atop the fort's walls, a static target. That said, her troops could take shelter while they reloaded, a luxury not afforded to the Sporatons, and the traditional archers Sara had trained were effectively invulnerable while loosing their shots from within the wall. It was a slow, grinding slugging match, one that Sara could contribute very little to beyond Champion's Inspiration and an occasional shout of encouragement.

  Eventually, the maddening grind shifted. The spear blocks entered musket range, and Sara ordered her troops to ignore the archers. They wouldn't be storming the walls.

  Like tendrils of sea grass floating in the current, the combined mass of over a thousand muskets moved upward. Sara took a savage satisfaction in watching the mage's shields fre to a dazzling brilliance, morphing into scales of opaque energy.

  Of all the things Sara had expected to find on the battlefield, beauty hadn't been among them. A thousand lead bullets crashed into shields with a sound like a tornado's hail, audibly whizzing and ripping through the air as they were repulsed. Sara was treated to the sight of gray streaks suddenly dotting the multicolored shields, sheared in half by the force of the connection and spread wide across the spellcraft, such that it reminded her of raindrops rolling blown back along a windshield. The spells flickered and fizzed as they endured the onsught, rainbow sparks and crystalline cracks spiderwebbing their way across their surfaces, some briefly glowing so bright Sara had to squint just to look in that direction. The shield near the densest collection of muskets did actually shatter, warping like a dying beast for the briefest of moments before heaving upward, its corporeal form torn into uncountable threads that whipsawed through the air.

  "Reload!" Sara cried. "Fire at the empty shield! All guns, fire!"

  Her soldiers weren't stupid, and barely needed the reminder. All around her the troops reloaded with a singurly unique fervor, desperate to seize their hard-fought opportunity. Sara brought her own rifle up alongside Evie's, firing off a shot at something that looked to be armored, though it was nearly impossible to tell through the haze. She rejoined her troops in their desperate loading.

  "Aim for the–!"

  Before she could even finish the order, she was drowned out by a ragged ripple of gunfire, troops firing their muskets the very moment they were loaded. The advantages of actually teaching your soldiers basic tactics proved itself yet again, as nearly every shot was pointed directly at the cluster of heavily armored Knights who had lost their shields.

  The effect was obvious.

  With only a hundred yards between a target occupying several dozen yards, only the hastiest and least trained shot could have gone wide. It looked as if a machine gun was ripping its way through the Knights, dozens upon dozens of musket balls raining down until the entire area was erupting into a constant spray of mud. Having fired as fast as they were able rather than as a volley, the barrage sted one second, two, then three, an achingly long time to witness such a thing.

  Sara wouldn't have turned away for the world, of course.

  The first row of Knights had shields in their hands, optimistically keeping the enchanted equipment between them and the wall. The implements absorbed a bare handful of shots before detonating in a spray of splinters, exposing their owners to an ever-increasing fusilde. The strongest sets of armor sted all the way through the first second of the barrage before failing, cumutive dents digging deeper and deeper until the metal could take no more, giving way with a shriek of metal and man. The weaker sets evaporated immediately, owner and armor ripped to ragged chunks. Twelve hundred musket balls in three seconds did a lot of damage, Sara learned. When the staccato gunfire finally petered out, there was nothing more than mincemeat left in the mud.

  A bloodcurdling cheer rose up from her forces, a nearly hysteric joy rushing up and down the line as they realized what they'd just done. Sara could physically feel the etion of her troops, manifesting in her skull as a heady, beating rush, amplified by the way her Blessings kept her appraised of the entire army's chatter. Hundreds of eted conversations were breaking out, curses and celebrations alike flooding her mind.

  "We haven't won yet!" Sara roared, activating her crystal. "Keep fighting, damnit!"

  The high of even such a minor victory was a powerful thing, but slowly the combined shouts of Sara and other commanders began to bring the troops to heel.

  The crystal hummed to life.

  "Permission to withdraw the cannons?" Shale asked.

  Sara blinked. Shale, wanting to pull back her cannons? The fuck was going on?

  "Details, Shale."

  "Mages are getting too close for my liking," Shale said. "Can do a lot of killing up here, but we've only got the four. Better safe than sorry, I figure."

  Sara cursed under her breath. There wasn't much to say to that. Either Shale was right and the mages would be turning their cannons to sg shortly, or she was wrong and they'd lose a massive chunk of their killing power.

  Fuck, I hate being in charge.

  "Evie!"

  "Master?" The feline gnced back, then rolled to hide behind the concrete as she loaded another minié ball down her rifle.

  "Shale wants to pull the cannons. Thinks the mage's will get them."

  "They will certainly be trying, that much is sure."

  "But do you think they can actually do it?"

  "I haven't the faintest clue. It will cost them, if they do, but they can afford losses we cannot."

  "Shit." Sara chewed her lip for a few seconds longer, then pulled the crystal to her lips. "Permission granted, Shale, but don't pull any of the muskets off the line to work the crane."

  "Understood, ma'am."

  The instant Shale started talking, Sara caught sight of the crane she'd spent the st two days constructed beginning to swing around. It was a rickety wooden thing, based on Nora's knowledge of dockside loading equipment, and her stomach had been rebelling with dread the entire time the priceless cannons had been hoisted up, dangling thirty feet above the ground. Now they'd be doing the same, but in the midst of battle.

  And all to maybe save the cannons. Maybe the decision would lose her the battle. Maybe it would win her the next one. She had no way of knowing, not until it was far too te to change anything.

  God, I hate being in charge of this shit.

  Sara tore her eyes from the cannons, focusing on the enemy. It wouldn't be long before the Knights unched their attack, trying to break through the gap. She could only pray they'd do as she pnned.

  She knew it wouldn't be, of course. Nothing was ever that easy. But that was the whole point of prayer, right?