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  Evie

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  Sara didn’t believe her. That this pce was… vile. Contemptible. Her wife thought of the jungle in the ways of her old world, influenced by her father’s teachings. That it was a haven for life, the final bastion of nd left unspoiled by human avarice.

  It was not. It was a cesspit of utterly contemptible misery. It was a haven only for swarming insects and hissing snakes. A bastion, though? Evie could agree with that. Bastions were specific things. Structures built within the walls of a fort not to protect those within, but to deal death to those who try to enter. They spat hissing acid and breathed poison fme, created only to spew sputtering, stuttering evil down on those who dare thought to gain entry. They piled corpses high beneath thick, impenetrable walls, and left those corpses to rot so the scavengers would pick them clean, until an obelisk of ivory stood as testament to the fate of all who might attempt the same.

  Yes, by Evie’s own definition, Sara was correct; this jungle was most certainly a bastion.

  They had slipped within its fetid walls three days ago, and Evie had not truly slept since. She no longer slid her rifle on her back while she traveled. She kept it in both hands, loaded, happily accepting the arduous cleaning required each evening to prevent the bck powder from fouling the steel. Her revolver she kept loaded even as she slept, and she only periodically dared unloading it to check for rust. There was still no evidence that bcksteel had an adverse reaction to bck powder like its more common cousin did, but she was not going to risk a potential misfire in this environment.

  The secret jungle pathway seemed to be stretching its leafy fingers inward, yearning to cw at her throat. She had never seen so many pnts with thorns in all her life, and certainly none whose spires grew to five, six inches long, tipped by a subtle discoloration that seemed to be the hallmark of insidious poison. The hidden trail Mui and his squadron had revealed was not difficult to hide from outsiders by simple virtue of the fact that it barely existed at all. Even with the ‘road’ measuring fifteen paces wide, the dark canopy had only the thinnest sliver of clear space to reveal the sky above, the glummest streak of light directly above the center of the trail where the branches couldn’t quite reach. Even this small comfort often disappeared as the path twisted and curved.

  Evie knew that most considered her paranoid. And she was, to a degree. It seemed only natural to her that she, who had so long lived without anything, having fallen into having everything, should be afraid of losing it. She did not begrudge the criticism, and she did not intend to change, no matter what insinuations or snted gnces were sent her way.

  And so it seemed somewhat ironic that it was here, where there was faint hope of a single political rival, assassin, or marauding bandit horde, that her paranoia was finding the most respect.

  “How many like those pashta nah?” Mui asked, coming up beside her as they trod their way down the trail. Her proficiency with the Imperial nguage, Kemari, was improving, but it was not yet perfect. He nodded to her rifle, however, which left it easy to make the relevant inferences.

  She rolled the rifle in her hand, letting the scant sunlight bounce off the weapon’s intricate engravings. Molten silver had been poured into thin grooves cut in the steel, polished to a sheen that almost tricked the eye into believing the rifle’s barrel was wrapped in dripping mercury. It had a number of sheaths across its lengths, metal covers which hid certain more advanced features from prying eyes. There was little doubt that the world had begun to try and copy Sara’s firearms, and there existed no better example of the type than this test gift of Hurlish’s.

  She couldn’t bring herself to hate them for it. The weapon was a work of art. While its enchantments were presently precious few, it had been built with an artificer’s work in mind. The sweeping curves of its etched patterns ebbed and flowed along the stock, pooling in whirlpool eddies exactly where a gemstone was meant to be empced. The steel barrel was so dense with artistry that Hurlish had needed to use the newly invented ‘magnifying gss’ to guide her hand as she chiseled, spending days locked inside her workshop. In bold, traditional iconography, the weapon depicted Evie’s role in the First War of Tulian, beginning at the sight with her hiding Lady Vesta from the Sporatons, spiraling down to her training of new Irregurs above the grip, and ending with her defeat of the Knight Emeric just beneath the muzzle. David, upon first seeing it, had been so taken by the engravings that he begged her to promise the weapon would not be destroyed after it was obsolete, as she’d done for the Mark One through Six. He compared it to something called the Bayeux Tapestry, and believed it would someday be an important historical artifact.

  Evie did not much care for the preservation of history, but she had agreed. It would have been a shame to destroy something so wonderful.

  “How many are like this?” Evie gave the weapon a fond, possessive pat. “None. This is the…” She stretched for a word in Kemari to transte the weapon’s name. For all she looked down her nose at those who gave grandiose names to their weapons, this new age of rapid advancement had made some form of moniker necessary. Acquiescing to her desire for simplicity, Hurlish had simply dubbed the rifle the Mark Seven. Then, as there were likely to be many devices named simirly, her father-in-w had suggested a more specific name, after the nickname the troops had given to Hurlish’s rifles: the Mark Seven HOT Rifle. Or, as Hurlish and Sara had soon begun abbreviating it, the Hot Seven, a title which Evie had begrudgingly accepted.

  She did however draw the line at their more common nickname for it. There was no eventuality which would see her calling the weapon Hot Wife’s HOT Rifle.

  The nuance of this complex name, regrettably, was well beyond her basic grasp of Kemari.

  “This is the… Warm Seventh Marker,” she said. “Made for me by my wife. There are not any others.”

  Mui frowned, eying the beautiful weapon. “I… okay. I would have thought there would be six others, but…”

  “Destroyed, to protect their knowledge.”

  “Ah.” He flicked his gaze up at the wall of trees, then back down to the weapon. “Well. Not like yours, then. How many normal rifles are out there in Tulian?”

  As if I’d give this fool such information, Evie thought with a tight smile.

  “Enough for an army, Mui.”

  “Would have certainly liked to bring a few for my squad,” he said, either not catching or skilfully ignoring the implied threat. “Spears do well enough against the beasts, but I don’t like traveling through the jungle in such a small group.”

  Evie arched an eyebrow, looking about them. Beside Sara and herself, there were two dozen armored soldiers Evie had hand-picked from the Tulian army. With Mui and his squad added on top, they numbered thirty men and women cd in steel.

  “Is this not good protection?” She asked.

  “No,” Mui answered frankly. “But it never will be. I have only ever traveled between cities in an army, ma’am, and still we lost troops.” He gnced meaningfully at her rifle once more. “I think we would have lost less, if we had those.”

  “Of course you did have- would have,” Evie said, correcting herself. “They better than any of your weapons.”

  “I know. That’s why I want one.”

  Rather direct, isn’t he?

  “We do not have more here now.”

  “Unfortunate.”

  Mui continued marching beside her for a time, silent, until he eventually drifted away, returning to his comrades.

  Evie fixed her attention on the jungle walls once more. An entire army suffered casualties from beasts? When she thought of what she had seen of Mui’s ‘small’ army, it was difficult to conceive of; she would have to ask Sara ter if Mui had been telling the truth.

  Then again, she thought, sweeping her gaze across the trail. If you’re trying to march an army along a trail of this size, what difference is there between a thousand and a million? Their column must have been miles long.

  In such a scenario, it would be simple enough for one of the monstrosities described by Voth’s jungle-wall reports to scythe through a column, mouth stretched wide to scoop up a handful of helpless soldiers before melding into the vines.

  As she continued to run her mind through the practicalities of the situation, Evie found her thumb twitching forward, itching to pull the hammer back on her rifle. She brought the disobedient digit back into line, but only for fear of a misfire. Attracting one of the beasts with a gunshot wouldn’t be ideal.

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  By the sixth day of travel, Evie estimated that they were approximately a hundred and twenty miles beyond the Tulian border. That was a poor estimate, as it assumed a directly southern course, something which was difficult to be certain of given the sporadic nature of the sun’s peeking through the canopy. In other circumstances, Evie would have already ordered an immediate reversal of her troops, long since assuming they were being led in endless circles until they were exhausted enough to be easily killed. Thankfully, she had Sara’s reassurance that Mui was honest, as well as other evidence that they were approaching something of significance.

  Throughout the te hours of the fifth day, and increasingly so on the sixth day, Evie had begun noting an increasing frequency of paths intersecting theirs. None had been occupied by a single traveler, and many were thinner and less well-maintained than their own, but their presence spoke to at least some sign of civilization. A simir trip in Sporatos would have seen them passing a dozen vilges each day, while she had seen none in this interim.

  According to Mui, this was intentional. They were traveling along a main thoroughfare cut through the jungle, one which was used as a lifeline of trade for many smaller vilges to the east and south of its course. He expined that this far out on the frontier the allegiance of individual vilges was difficult to rely upon, and so he did not want to risk unnecessary conflict, no matter how easily their thirty pseudo-Irregurs could sweep aside a simple militia. That they had encountered no traders was normal, too, for they traveled in far rger caravans than their northern equivalents, composed of many small vilges banding their numbers together to hopefully make a safe trip through the jungle. Only poisonous spells salted liberally upon the trail’s soil was capable of curbing otherwise rampant growth in the absence of regur travel– a type of magic which Evie had quietly written a note about, considering Tulian’s difficulties with checking the jungle’s advance.

  It was approaching noon when Mui announced that they were finally approaching a vilge. He told Sara and Evie that they should stay put while he and his troops went forward, to determine that it had not been captured by the oft-discussed, rarely-seen rebellion.

  Sara had rejected this outright, of course. Six days spent with the gregarious Champion of Amarat was something not even the most callous of personalities could resist, and all of Mui’s squad considered her a good friend, if not a woman who had their outright loyalty. She wouldn’t let them be potentially killed without her.

  Evie had agreed, if for different, more practical reasons. She did not relish the idea of losing their only guides through the jungle immediately after stumbling upon a significant concentration of hostile soldiers. Of course Sara could almost certainly talk her way through the situation, as happy to meet the so-called “rebellion” (who, they had gathered, were truly an equally-sized splinter faction of the original empire) as she was Mui’s own people. As far as the Governess of Tulian was concerned, any Empire was an existential threat to Tulian, in addition to an ideologically incompatible rival.

  Which was why the entire vilge of ‘Chamleabanteay’ received the fright of their lives just as they paused for lunch, having gathered beneath a small pavilion in the outer fields to dine without the sun on their backs.

  Evie could only imagine how her troops looked to the people of this vilge. The terror of armored soldiers was of course its own shock to those who had never seen them, but worse still, even the more world-wise they looked to for guidance would be at a loss.

  The Tulian soldiers Evie had selected were chosen for their individual prowess in combat, a trait which had afforded them their pick of looted equipment from Sporaton Knights. They wore an eclectic mix of half-enchanted armor, often lopsided and distributed to whoever a particur piece could fit. The glowing left piece of one pauldron would be on one man, the right upon a woman nearby, while both wore ste-gray chestpieces utterly unlike anything worn by the Imperial forces more familiar to the vilgers. Her troops were exhausted and covered with the grime of a week’s hard marching, specked with mud from head to toe, save for their weapons of inexplicable design, the barrels of which were polished to a blinding gre. That they were headed by seven more familiar Imperial soldiers served only to highlight their exceedingly alien nature.

  Then there was Sara and Evie themselves, of course. Evie’s wife was wearing what she had begun to refer to as her “peace time armor,” the set that had been enchanted in Hagos for her over a year ago. With its feminine curves and garish purple-pinkish enchantments, even the vilge’s children would recognize it as the suit of a showman, a braggart, a woman who not only demanded attention, but was extraordinarily used to receiving it.

  Evie, meanwhile, wore only her pin cuirasser’s chestpte, across the front of which sat her massive bcksteel revolver within its leather pouch. She wore no armor beside it, not even gloves across the hands which held her glittering rapier. She did not know if any of the vilge’s citizens were veterans of war, but if they were, they would recognize what she was. Only two kinds of soldier went into battle without armor, and only one kind made it through to repeat the feat.

  “Hey!” Sara called out in fwless Kemari, excitedly waving an outstretched arm as she bounced on her toes. “Hot damn are we gd to see you! How much for a hot meal ‘round these parts?”

  The stunned vilgers did not know how to take this. They looked at one another, aghast, searching for some figure of authority. Their eyes went first to one man, who immediately made a show of looking to another woman, who herself outright pointed at a final woman, jabbering something Evie couldn’t catch.

  This third woman, realizing there was no one else willing to speak for the group, stepped hesitantly forward. She was an older woman wearing what seemed to be the clothes of a common farmer, her dark skin wrinkled by the sun.

  “S-something could maybe be found,” she timidly replied. “Are you perhaps the, ah, Chosen we were told to expect?”

  “She is!” Mui called out, relief in his own voice as he stepped forward. “If you’ve received word of our arrival, I take it that you are still aligned to the True Adjutant’s forces?”

  The woman’s smile was wan. Evie quickly intuited why; both sides of this conflict would certainly refer to themselves as the true rulers of the Empire. A fact that seemed lost on Mui.

  “Aren’t we all?” The woman cautiously replied. “We were told to help see you on to Tony, and to reserve a riverboat for you.”

  “Excellent,” Mui said, letting his hand fall off the hilt of his sword. His squad followed his example, and after a brief moment of consideration, just enough to ensure the vilgers knew they were not under Mui’s authority, Evie dismissed her sword, prompting the Tulian troops to shoulder their rifles.

  Evie kept a careful eye on the small crowd beneath the pavilion as she dismissed her rapier. As expected, several flinched. These would be the former soldiers, those who knew what it meant to see an enchanted weapon. She committed their faces to memory; she would allow none of them within sword’s length of Master.

  A difficult proposition, considering the way Sara immediately jogged forward, lifting her helmet to dazzle the crowd with her smile.

  “My name’s Sara Brown. Nice to meet you, ma’am,” she said, offering the woman a handshake.

  “Song-lep,” the woman replied, tentatively reaching her own hand out. For a moment Evie thought handshakes were not a common practice here, but then the woman gripped Sara’s hand gently, as if afraid the skin of a fabled Chosen might burn her impure self to ash. She gave it one half-hearted shake, then darted backward, diving into the familiar relief of a waist-deep bow.

  Good gods, Evie thought, astounded. Did they all used to be like that? It was a shocking reminder of just how much Sara had managed to change so much of Tulian’s culture in so short a time.

  “Nice to meet you, Song-lep,” Sara said. “Are you in charge of- oh, what is that?” Sara took a half step to the side, looking around the woman at a steaming pte of food. “Is that spicy food?” She sniffed. “It smells spicy. Gods, do you know how long it’s been since I had anything that wasn’t the same goddamn bnd mush?” She started to step toward the pte, only to prompt a reflexive flinch from the crowd, which rippled away from her in a wave.

  “Sorry,” she said, holding her hands up. “Sorry, I don’t mean anything by it. Just that I can’t believe you guys have some real food there. I mean, the stuff we have up north ain’t too bad, but that?” She pointed to one of the rger ptes at the center of a table, where others had been picking their food from. “That looks a lot like some of the stuff I used to love back home.” She reached into a pocket. “I can pay for it, I think. Do you guys still use gold here, or…?”

  The looks of awe and fear that had characterized the crowd inexorably shifted with each word Sara spoke, until they had been entirely repced by bewilderment and amusement. Then, when Sara’s coin bag opened to reveal an unbroken sheen of gold without a hint of petty copper, to opportunity.

  Several ptes were hurried forward for her as the vilge’s natives began to babble. Evie couldn’t catch half of it, but what little she did seemed to be expnations that no, truly, their ptes had the best sort of food the Empire had to offer, not those other dull farces their neighbor preferred, and that they really should buy from them, not those other fools.

  Sara split the difference by ughing uproariously as she began happily handing out a gold coin to each visitor, turning the natural strength and grace of her warrior’s Css to bancing ptes up and down her arms. A space was soon cleared for her at one of the tables, far too rge, and so Sara waved for Mui’s squad to sit down beside her, creating a buffer of familiarity against the alien visitor at the core.

  Evie, remembering other Imperial’s reactions to her wife’s open dispy of sexuality, slipped into the bench seat beside her, rather than into her p. Sara gnced at her, fshing her the briefest expression of a pout, then returned to her meal.

  Evie soon found a steaming pte pced before herself as well, but before she began to eat, she waved over one of the Tulian sergeants so she could pass the order for the others to begin breaking out their own rations, eating nearby. It seemed her Master had chosen to ingratiate herself to these vilges as her first priority, something that wouldn’t be helped by a few dozen soldiers standing behind her, gring down at them all.

  That done, Evie finally pulled her food towards herself, leaning away from the wafting steam that was still arising from the stone pte. It was a clever little device; a wooden ring was pced around its edges so that the burning-hot pte could be gripped without pain. Looking about, she found that Sara and the others were eating without utensils, popping morsels of food into their mouths with bare fingers, a sight that Evie would have thought little of, before academic lectures of germ theory had wormed their way into her mind. Now she found it incredibly distasteful, even more than her formal dining lessons would suggest.

  To dey the inevitable, she leaned forward into the steam, taking a careful sniff of her food.

  She recoiled. Her eyes immediately began to water as her nose scrunched up, a sneeze threatening to burst out of her throat. She had no sense of scope for what the scent was, but she was absolutely certain it belonged nowhere near her mouth.

  Several of the vilgers saw her reaction and ughed, pointing, which drew Sara’s attention over.

  “Hey, northern girls, am I right?” Sara called, giving Evie an affectionate pat on the back. Despite the fact that no one present had ever met someone from the ‘north,’ the joke’s delivery was fwless enough that the table broke into ughter. Lighthearted teasing of those from other regions was universally appealing, it would seem.

  Ignoring them, Evie brought her own travel rations out and pced them on a clear portion of the pte, accepting from the vilgers only a mug of drink that smelled lightly alcoholic. She began to eat beside Sara, careful to not let herself fall into the almost festive atmosphere that had erupted across the pavilion.

  Whatever Mui had been intending to do in the moment of their arrival, it had been forgotten, even by the catfolk man himself, who was sitting across from Evie, merrily enjoying his first taste of familiar food in weeks. Sara raised her cup and shouted another joke, the meaning of which was lost on Evie, and then began scarfing down her second pte.

  Evie brought out a knife and fork and began to cut her dried meat into bite-sized pieces, which she brought delicately, properly, to her mouth. And as she did so, she scanned the crowd, one part of her mind always ready to summon her rapier, fly for her revolver, or snag her rifle off her back.

  She doubted there would be any need. Not five minutes had passed since Sara’s arrival in the vilge, and already things were almost back to normal. So effective had her efforts been that many of the vilgers were already continuing their own conversations from earlier, as if there were not a mythical Champion of the Gods sitting in their midst. Evie’s swiveling ears overheard talk of the coming rainy season and the price of crops, rather than the astonished, almost worshipful whispers she would have expected.

  Astounding.

  Evie considered herself an able statesman, a trained and competent conversationalist. Perhaps among the best of her generation in the Sporaton capital. Yet she knew with absolute certainty that she could not have achieved in a week what her wife had in five minutes.

  And so Evie ate her meal in retive silence, only occasionally raising her head to respond to some question or another. She often flicked her eyes over to her troops, reassuring herself that those she trusted most were doing as they had been trained.

  She was satisfied by what she saw. Several of them had taken out their muskets and begun to make a show of cleaning them, as if doing nothing more than routine midday maintenance. It would be difficult if not impossible for those unfamiliar with the weapons to recognize that they were still loaded, each resting on their owner’s p such that they were pointed towards the closest potential threats to Sara. Should a fight break out, the first volley of musketfire wasn’t more than two seconds away.

  She was proud of that, but only in a limited capacity. Evie had grown up with a house Guard trained by, or outright composed of, the Night’s Eye Mercenaries. The soldiers of Tulian were nowhere near meeting that standard, and likely never would, but she couldn’t deny that they were improving.

  Her appraisal of the situation was interrupted by Sara subtly elbowing her, leaning down to whisper in her ear.

  “OhmygodpleasegivemeyourwatermymouthisonFIRE.”

  Evie slid the wooden mug over casually. Sara grabbed it and immediately smmed it back, continuing her conversation with a vilger the moment it was drained.

  Evie, eternally obedient, discreetly refilled the mug from her canteen. The moment she finished, Sara gripped it and threw it to her mouth before draining it in two quick gulps, tossing it aside as she once more leaned over.

  “This shit is so fucking hot I’m gonna die,” she gasped, nearly inaudible.

  “White chicks indeed, Master,” Evie muttered in Continental as she refilled the mug.

  Sara smmed it down, said something to another vilger, then threw her shoulder against Evie’s.

  “You weren’t supposed to get that reference earlier,” she whispered.

  “You’ve taught me too much about your home for your own good,” Evie murmured back.

  “Just keep giving me water or something, Jesus,” Sara rasped. “Shit. So spicy. Wish we had milk.”

  “We could have brought along Hurlish.”

  “Not what I meant.”

  Evie smirked, refilled the mug once more, then leant back, enjoying her wife’s silent suffering. Really, it was her own bravado that had gotten her into this situation. She shouldn’t have expected any sympathy from Evie.

  A mercifully short time ter, most of the vilgers had finished consuming their meals, returning to their work in the nearby fields. Many seemed to want to stay, to hear more of what this strange Chosen had to say, but the toil of a farmer was always married to the remorselessly marching hours of daylight.

  Just as Evie began to pack up her silverware, expecting a return to the day’s intended purpose, one vanara woman approached them, grabbing fistfuls of her clothing as she looked at Sara with an expression of pure anxiety. Several of the vilgers, unhesitatingly ceded their seats upon seeing her approach, allowing the woman to face Sara unobstructed.

  Oh, fantastic, Evie growled, if only to herself. The woman was in her middle years, dressed even more humbly than the other farmers, with discolored patches dotted across her clothing. Her brown fur was slicked with the white foam of sweat, and her tail was twisted in knots behind her back. She seemed petrified by merely contempting the thought of speaking to Sara, yet something clearly drove her forward, something more important than her fear of the awe-inspiring Chosen of the Gods.

  Sara, of course, as Evie knew she always would, waved her forward, pstering a comforting expression across her face.

  “Is something the matter, ma’am?” Sara asked.

  “You have been Chosen by the pantheon of Bonds, yes?” The woman’s hands twisted further in her shirt, tight enough to test the strength of its tired threads.

  “I’m the Chosen of Amarat, which I think is the same-ish thing,” Sara said, gncing at Mui. The catfolk nodded, which made Sara nod. “Yes. Yes, I am.”

  “Then may I…” she took a deep breath, steeling herself. “It is my daughter,” she blurted, the words coming fast. “She is ill in the mind and our vilge’s healer fears a possession, but we have not heard back from the cities yet, will not hear back for days or maybe weeks, and it is told in old stories that you can help but I do not know and do not want to assume–”

  “Hey,” Sara said, holding her hands in the air and bending lower over the table, as if calming a dog. “It’s okay. Yes, I’ll try and help you. Whatever it is, I’ll try and help. You said you think she’s possessed? I don’t know if I can help, but I’ll try. I always try. That’s all we can do, right?”

  The woman opened her mouth to reply, only to burst into tears, the suddenness of it shocking even herself. Sara immediately leapt up, moving to hug her, but was beaten to the punch by several nearby vilgers, who began whispering small comforts into her ear.

  Good gods, Evie privately mented. Here we go once again.

  Evie stood and cinched up her belt, double-checking the fit of her revolver’s holster. After a dispy like that, only the gods knew how long they’d be here.

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  The vilge they were led through was as strange to Evie’s sentiments as the rest of the nd. The crop fields they walked beside were half-submerged in clear puddles of ankle-deep water, with colorful fish darting this way and that. There was no masonry to speak of, not in the road, the homes, or even the fencing. Everything was made of the omnipresent dark jungle wood. The vilge’s buildings were elevated several feet above the ground, standing on stilts, with roofs made of sturdy overpping pnks and walls of carefully connected tree trunks. Despite the absence of brickwork and iron, Evie suspected the vilger’s houses were as sturdy as any Sporaton equivalent. They were built to weather storm, flood, and beast. They had no choice but to be strong.

  Evie suspected floods in particur were the most pressing concern for this vilge. The woman led them along a riverside trail, expining what little she knew of her daughter’s circumstances to Sara as they went. Evie mostly ignored this conversation; it was full of ignorant superstition, positing that the girl’s supposed possession was the fault of immorality, diet, or equally inane theories. Evie’s tutors had drilled into her that possession could find anyone at any time, and there was precious little to be done preventatively. All one could do was fight the demon as best they were able when it appeared.

  So she focused on the river. It was their purpose in reaching this vilge, Mui had expined. While Sara went to help the vilger, the catfolk sergeant had gone to arrange their transport on a river boat of some description, which should carry them to their destination far faster.

  Looking at the river for herself, Evie was not eager to travel it. The waters were an opaque brown from shore to shore, save where the swift current rose over some unseen obstacle to break into white rapids, happy to smash the hull of even the shallowest vessels. The vilgers had lined the entire shoreline with a dense array of sharpened stakes, and they passed a pair of carpenters walking amongst the stakes, repcing those that had been snapped. The two carpenters were guarded by four vilgers with loaded crossbows, and they all looked nervous.

  Evie resisted the itching desire to double-check that her revolver was properly loaded.

  “That is my home,” the woman said, pointing to another of the identical log cabins. “I will go ahead, to warn my husband of your arrival.”

  “Is that safe?” Sara asked, just as the woman began to hurry away. “If your daughter’s really possessed, wouldn’t the demon freak out once it knows I’m coming?”

  The woman blinked. “Ah. I had not… I will not speak in front of her, Your Holiness.”

  “Name’s still just Sara,” she said, not for the first time. “Go ahead, then. We’ll catch up.”

  The woman set off at a light jog, her posture wrought with anxiety. Sara watched her go, frowning lightly.

  “Do you know what I’m supposed to do here?” She asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like, helping with possessions.” Sara gestured to the woman’s home. “Apparently some girl’s got a demon in her head over there, and I’m supposed to get it out. I’ve got no idea how to do that.”

  “I imagine that you would have discovered any relevant Abilities far earlier, had you lived the life expected of most Champions of Amarat.”

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t.” Sara sniffed, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. “So. Possession. You ever dealt with it?”

  “No, thankfully. It’s supposed to be a dreadful affair. The worst thing a mortal soul can experience on this pne of existence.”

  “Lovely. Do you know anything about, like, exorcizing demons? Even if you’ve just read something? Because I’ve got literally nothing.”

  Evie wracked her brain for a moment, then shook her head. “I’m afraid not, dear. All I ever knew of it was that it was best to restrain the individual if possible, then summon a Priest of Amarat.”

  “Cool. Welp.” Sara took a deep breath. “Here’s hoping I know more than I think I do.” She gnced out at the soldiers marching in a box around her. “Any of y’all know anything about possession? No? Okay. Please don’t tell the family I asked you that, by the way.”

  Despite herself, Evie smirked. Even when she wasn’t intending it, Sara had a way with words that was remarkably well-suited for easing tension.

  “I will go in first, to ensure your safety,” Evie decred as they neared the house. “First Squadron, you will be between the home and the river, muskets loaded. Second squadron, remain outside, but have your shortswords drawn and your helmets lowered, ready to break in at my word. Third Squadron, you will be on the opposite side of the house from First Squadron, muskets ready. Ensure your positions are offset enough to avoid inadvertent friendly fire. Should a retreat be necessary, I want all forces to begin backing towards the main vilge, to commandeer a home for a defensive position or return to the trail as the situation necessitates. Understood?”

  A chorus of confirmations answered her, the Tulian soldiers breaking up to their assigned tasks. The woman emerged from the front door of her home, waving them forward.

  “Is all that really necessary?” Sara asked. “I know you like to keep me safe, but you usually don’t pn for a retreat ahead of time.”

  “If we are to be facing demons, there is no contingency too comprehensive.”

  “Hey, I’m not saying you shouldn’t. Just wondering.” They stepped onto the home’s porch. “After you.”

  The woman who had asked for Sara’s help held the door open, smiling nervously. Evie summoned her rapier as she stepped across the threshold, eyes flicking left to right.

  The woman. A vanara man. Neither armed. A cy brick hearth, a low table, a rug of woven grass. No weapons save cutlery. Three doors, two open. One led to the rear exterior, the other to a bedroom, and the third was closed, its handle wrapped with many loops of rope.

  She turned her ears to the closed door. Something behind it was mumbling, breathing unsteadily.

  Satisfied that there were no immediate threats, Evie returned her attention to the two individuals.

  “I am Evie Brown, wife of Sara Brown,” she said, nodding her head. “I am sorry for becoming your home armed. I hope you understand, considering the… the things.” She frowned slightly, disappointed in herself. She hadn’t learned half of the Kemari she needed to negotiate this situation gracefully.

  Thankfully, the two parents were so frazzled they barely noticed. “I am Siang,” the man replied. “And I believe you’ve met my wife, Song-lep. And if what she says is true, that you and your wife are here to help our daughter, you are welcome to be armed any which way you please.”

  “Thank you.” Evie gnced at the closed door. “Your daughter is there?”

  “Yes.”

  “I will come inside before my wife. For safety.”

  Sing blinked, hesitating, then seemed to gather her meaning. “Of course, of course,” he said, moving over to loosen the many knots which had been keeping the door shut. “She is not dangerous to others, but we restrained her all the same. We did not want her to hurt herself or others. The lord decred that possessed which pose a danger to others must be killed at once, should the local healers be unable to exorcize the demon.”

  “Harsh,” Evie lied, knowing it was the response they were looking for. The policy was only reasonable. What sane ruler would allow a violent demon to remain in their nds? “No need for worry. I am strong.”

  “I believe you,” Siang replied simply. He undid the st knot, then took a step back. “Please understand. She is… she is not normally like this.”

  “Of course,” Evie murmured, reaching for the handle. Moving so that her rapier would not be blocked by the swinging door, she stepped inside.

  Once more, her eyes flitted from corner to corner. The girl on a straw-stuffed mattress, limbs tied together. A small storeroom, cramped. Shelves lined the walls, filled with farming implements and foodstuffs. No window, a single candle for light, and nowhere to hide. Good.

  Evie focused her full attention on the girl.

  She was younger than Evie had expected. Vanara were too unfamiliar to Evie for her to feel confident in her guess, but she doubted the girl could have been older than thirteen. She had the same mottled brown coat of her parents, but it was difficult to tell exactly how well her patterning matched them. Like horses, vanara sweat tended to turn into an opaque, thery foam, which now covered the girl from head to toe. Her tail repeatedly lifted, curled, then dropped, seemingly without reason, and her eyes were bnkly staring at the ceiling. If it weren’t for her muttering, Evie would have assumed the child was in the throes of a fever-induced delirium.

  “Better better better better must be better better better better better better better will be better better better with them with them with them better better better so much better better better better-”

  It was unending. The girl did not pause for breath, did not seem to be addressing anyone or anything, and seemed generally unaware that she was speaking in the first pce. It sent shivers down Evie’s spine.

  Suddenly, the girl’s head lurched, eyes rolling down, too far downward, as her spine arched, body bending into a bow.

  Evie brought her rapier up, bracing for the girl’s bindings to snap as she leapt forward.

  Instead, tears welled in the child’s eyes.

  “You’re not mom,” she whispered. “Where’s mom? I want my- better better better better better better better-”

  The moment of lucidity passed. The girl colpsed back onto the mattress.

  Evie shuddered. “Sara!” She called, switching to Continental. She kept her rapier pointed at the girl. “There is no danger beyond the possession. Come in!”

  There was the creak of floorboards straining under the weight of Sara’s boots, then the breathless thank-yous of the girl’s parents. Evie listened, but did not take her eyes off the child.

  “I promise, I’m going to do everything I can to help her,” she heard Sara say. “What’s her name?”

  “Feng,” the father said. “She’s not responding to much right now, I’ll warn you. Not even to us. She doesn’t mean anything by it, Your Holiness.”

  “That’s alright. And you can just call me Sara.”

  “Nonsense, Your Holiness. For one doing us such an honor as this, there is no title too high.”

  Evie stepped to one side as Sara approached the door. Sara was still looking back at the girl’s parents as she entered.

  “If you really want to thank me, you can just call me Sara. It’s a lot easier.” Sara stepped into the room, slowly turning her head to look at the sickly child. “Honestly, I don’t even-”

  Sara’s eyes nded on the girl.

  “Holy shit Evie, shoot that fucking thing!”

  A shot broke the air, Evie’s revolver barely clearing its holster before she pulled the trigger. The bullet took the child under the left eye, spraying blood and bone across the mattress.

  “NO!” Siang cried.

  “Get the fuck out of here!” Sara cried, shoving the man away. “Back, back! Squad two-”

  The ringing in Evie’s ears was overwhelmed by an abhorrent wail, a deafening, agonized cry roaring out of the child’s throat. The girl’s jaw stretched wide, wider, until the skin tore, then wider still, until her jaw extended further back than her temples, vomiting a gurgling torrent of blood.

  Evie dropped the revolver to her waist, using her palm to cock the hammer as fast as she was able. She fired once, twice, thrice, each shot tearing a gaping hole in the child’s chest, but still she continued to rise, her bindings disintegrating like wet paper. Evie couldn’t hear her own gunshots over the screeching, which was growing in volume with every passing moment.

  The girl found her feet as the sixth shot blew a hole through her pelvis. She lunged with abruptly cwed hands, reaching for Sara, who was still shoving the parents away.

  Evie dropped her revolver as she extended into a lunge, rapier fshing.

  She caught the girl in the chest as she flew past. Evie’s stab slid through her ribcage from right to left, ending when the bde dug into the wall, pinning the child in pce. The screeching ended as abruptly as it had begun, but her mouth didn’t close.

  “Sara!” Evie barked, csping her rapier with her other hand, throwing her full weight to drive the weapon into the wall. “You need to-”

  The girl gripped the rapier and, with one savage pull, dragged herself forward. The bde sliced through her heart, lungs, and spine, but she barely noticed, continuing her mad dash.

  Only to meet a fist as Sara spun around, catching the girl directly in her malformed jaw.

  Sara’s blow filled the air with the sound of a thousand snapping sticks. The girl’s head snapped back, neck broken, but her jaw tched shut.

  Evie dismissed and resummoned her rapier just as the demonic child began to thrash wildly, jerking her head from side to side like a rabid animal.

  Evie’s new lunge took the child in her much-reduced neck. She whipped her sword to the side, parting what was left, decapitating the demon.

  The detached head continued to bite at Sara’s fist, teeth rapidly distending into fangs, while the body dropped to all fours, snapping with nauseating crackles as red spines emerged from its limbs.

  The Champion of Peace and Diplomacy screamed at the top of her lungs as she brought her fist high, then smmed it down, crushing the girl’s malformed corpse with her own head.

  The skull shattered like gss, spraying the room with bloody needles. The body folded, spine broken, but began righting itself almost immediately.

  “Fucking get it!” Sara screamed. “Kill it!”

  Evie joined her wife as they began raining blows down on the twitching thing, rapier blurring, fists pounding.

  The demon tried to dart away, a tticework of thin lines sprouting across the floor to impale the wood with a thousand skittering legs, but Sara grabbed the pulsating network at the base and jerked, snapping it, then threw it across the room.

  A mere handful of seconds had passed. The girl’s parents hadn’t yet regained their feet after Sara’s initial shove, and Squad Two was just entering the home.

  “Pommels!” Evie cried. “Hammers! Break it!” She moved forward to lead by example.

  In a matter of moments the demon was surrounded by a dozen soldiers, all of whom were throwing their entire weight into every one of their countless swings. Evie pulled back, not wanting to inadvertently injure her troops with her rapier, using the opportunity to pull the Hot Seven off her back, aiming at the bloodbath. Every time she caught sight of the demon through the filing limbs, it was more malformed, more broken, but always moving, always trying to fight.

  The hail of swings sted for the better part of a minute before Sara finally called out.

  “Hold! Hold, I think it’s dead!”

  Reluctantly, the soldiers stopped swinging. The thing might have been dead for quite a while, but it was impossible to tell. Many of the soldiers had gripped their shortswords by the bde, using the entire hilt as a weapon, while others had taken their shields in both hands, smashing the metal down as hard as they were able. The demon had been covered by steel more often than not.

  Sara was the first to sit back on her heels, wiping her forehead. A swathe of the home was stained with blood, which was spattered across the ceilings, walls, and floor. It was far more blood than should have been contained in such a small child.

  To make matters worse, many of the bloodstains were accompanied by pieces of red… somethings. Little sticks composed of an unidentifiable substance, thin rods that held a slight sheen, as if made of a dull ruby. Many of these chunks were still squirming, filling the room with a quiet click-click-click as they bumped against one another.

  “Shit,” Sara gasped, breathing hard. She turned to look at the child’s parents. “Why the hell did you let that thing in your house?”

  The vanara couple were trembling in pce, half-covered by the gore of what they thought had been their child.

  “What… what have you done?” Song-lep whispered. “You are a monster. A-”

  “That was not your kid.” Sara slowly dragged herself off her knees. “I don’t know what the hell it was, but that thing wasn’t alive. Your daughter wasn’t possessed. She was repced.”

  “But she knew our names,” Siang said, his shocked expression devoid of emotion. “She spoke to us. She asked for help. For food, and water, and comfort.”

  “I don’t know what to say,” Sara replied, pulling the gauntlet off her injured hand. Her wrist was punctured a dozen times over, dripping fat drops of blood. She began wrapping it in a bandage. “That wasn’t your daughter. I don’t know how you thought it was.”

  “The child looked perfectly natural to me,” Evie said. “I would not bme them, dear.”

  “Really?” Sara gnced at the bloody pile of broken demon parts, scowling. “That wasn’t a possession. There was no life in that thing’s eyes. No thoughts, no emotion, nothing. It didn’t look like a little girl. It looked like a leather bag full of snakes.”

  “She was alive!” Sian repeated.

  “I don’t know what to say, other than the fact that it wasn’t. You saw that for yourselves.”

  “I suspect it is your Champion’s nature that made such a revetion obvious to you,” Evie interjected. “Beyond the child’s aberrant behavior, nothing appeared amiss.”

  “That’s hard to believe, but I’ll take your word for it.” Sara finished wrapping up her wrist, then knelt down before the two vanara, bowing her head. “It is my deepest regret that I could not help your daughter. I do not know what happened to her, but I swear on the name of Amarat, the thing that I and my troops just destroyed was not her.”

  The mother’s eyes began to water. “If that wasn’t her… then… is she…?”

  “I don’t know,” Sara said. She gnced behind herself, wincing. “Let me escort you outside. My troops will do their best to clean what they can of this mess. My wife will contact someone who may have answers that I do not.”

  The two parents gave dull, empty-eyed nods. Evie wasn’t sure if it was the harshness of jungle life or simple shock which was keeping them from breaking down, but whichever it was, she was grateful. To be forced to restrain hysterical parents would do little for the goodwill that had been established in this vilge.

  While Sara escorted the two from their home, Evie slipped the communication crystal from her bag, activating it with a pulse of Intent.

  “Professor Brown?” She asked, returning to Continental. “This is Evie. Are you with Garen at this time?”

  There was the sound of shuffling, then Evie’s father-in-w’s cheery voice.

  “Hey, Evie. Yeah, I’m with Garen right now, but we’re teaching a css. Is it important?”

  “We have destroyed a demon that was impersonating a child, and wish to investigate its nature. The location and fate of the real child is unknown. If they are still alive, time is of the essence.”

  Rather than a response from the professor, Evie was met by an explosion of chattering from eavesdropping students.

  “Uh. Demons are real?”

  The chattering turned into ughter.

  “Okay, apparently that was a stupid question. Give us a minute to get back to my office, alright?”

  “Of course,” Evie said, walking over to the shattered corpse. Some of the red needles were still twitching. She rolled a rger chunk over with her foot.

  The lower left quarter of the child’s face stared back at her, lips still moving. No noise came out, but it was easy to read.

  “Better with them it’s better to be with them better to be with them-”

  Evie’s lip curled in disgust as she flipped the head back over, hiding its twitching mockery of humanity.