“Lieutenant Ognyan Spitignov reporting for duty, sir.”

  Major Iakov Maksimov Tsarevich of the House of the Sixth Heir-Son (albeit in a collateral line quite far from its line of inheritance), commandant of Hermonassa’s garrison, stared at the paper on his desk as if he had not just finished reading it and as if it were infinitely more important than the owner of the clear tenor voice that had just spoken. After a good ten heartbeats of staring at the line giving the number of turnips that had spoiled in storage the previous month (eighty-two, although a suspicious smudge suggested it might have been originally written down as eighty-one), Major Iakov looked up.

  And up.

  He recognized the style of uniform—it looked like the mass-produced kit produced by Khoryvsk’s imperial academy for its cadets—but he hadn’t known they came in quite that size, and surely a custom-made uniform would have been tailored to be more stylish and flattering. The new officer’s head brushed the doorframe, and so did his shoulders. Granted, it was not an exceptionally tall or wide door, but still, that made him the third or fourth tallest man in the garrison and the second widest, just behind the head cook. A thin scraggle of hair on the lieutenant’s chubby chin—rounded but not doubled—promised the eventual growth of a real beard and offered the disquieting possibility that the youth had not finished growing the rest of his body to full size.

  For a moment, the major found himself wondering if his new officer could eat eighty-two turnips in one sitting, then he pushed the intrusive thought aside. “Welcome to Hermonassa, kid,” he said. “I have your file somewhere, but I haven’t had a chance to look at it. Matters are always busy around here. Which one are you? I was supposed to get three new officers on the next packet.”

  The large, young man fished in his shirt pocket, unfolding a crumpled and stained envelope. “They sent it with me,” he said, holding it. “You were supposed to get a different cadet—er, lieutenant. I was available as a replacement to fill the gap.”

  “Who did you replace?” The major frowned. He’d been expecting two Ruthenian lieutenants and a Khazar banneret, all three fresh out of Tanais’s imperial academy, including a warding specialist, an elemental war mage rated proficient with both spirit command and offensive spellwork, and a thaumaturge cross-trained as a mechanic.

  “All of them, sir.” The lieutenant clasped his hands behind his back.

  “I’ve been shortchanged again. Someday, they’ll run a spur line from the capital down this way. We won’t have to shuttle troops back and forth by ship, and they won’t be able to keep using divination of poor weather as an excuse to keep postponing the packets.” The major’s nose wrinkled as he reached out to take the envelope, detecting an unpleasant scent as he leaned closer to the large, young man. It was marked confidential. Somehow, though, in spite of the physical the file had been through, the wax seal was still intact and attached. “You had your own confidential file in hand and didn’t look at it?”

  “Of course not, sir,” the lieutenant said. “That would be against the rules.”

  The major broke the seal on the ill-treated envelope, unfolding the rumpled and stained contents and smoothing them on his desk to read. The first page was standard nonsense—age (older than expected from the kid’s babyfaced appearance), height, weight, rank, date of commission into service (two years ago), prior postings (directly into the capital’s reserves rather than into active service—that explained why he was still calling himself a cadet), physical fitness evaluation (surprisingly good, considering the kid’s apparent weight), and any notable earned merits or demerits in service (none).

  The second page was an academy record, which was more interesting. Imperial scholarship—meaning no family of note—and an extended course of study that had stretched to seven years, based on truly remarkable magical aptitudes. They had graded him at journeyman competence in the command of elemental spirits within the first two years of its program and graduated him with comparable marks in offensive spellwork, defensive enchantments, and even thaumaturgy. In other words, a star prospect, other than the lack of family wealth or connections.

  Hermonassa was on the periphery of the Golden Empire, an outpost of sophisticated civilization located on the outskirts of the wild Caucasus region. Unless one was interested in taking sides in local sheep-rustling raids or bride-rustling raids, there was not very much to do, and the city was mainly populated by Khazars, the eponymous inhabitants of the westernmost of the Undying Emperor’s three kingdoms. Ognyan was an unusual name, but it was not a Khazar name. Why would a promising young war mage with that much magical talent be sent to Hermonassa?

  Ognyan was carefully folding his clothing when the bells started ringing. Back in Tanais, when he’d been given the assignment, he’d been told that Hermonassa was too large to face any real threat from pirates and too well-fortified to be threatened by Circassian raiders. The true threats were revolt from the peasantry, rebellion from the nobility, or—worse—both combined.

  After losing their Tanais palace, the House of the Sixth Heir-Son’s presence in the imperial capital had become more limited, and they had begun to invest more heavily in the south. The recent engagement of one of their more prominent daughters to Banneret Iosef ben Bulan had attracted the quiet attention of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The House of the Sixth Heir-Son had a wealth of daughters in its last two generations, so engagement to a talented young Khazar mage freshly graduated from the Tanais’s imperial military academy was not, by itself, unusual—but it had been the third such engagement in the space of less than two years, and it was not the only house of imperial nobility that had begun to take on a regional character.

  Equally suspicious was the fact that Major Iakov Maksimov, in three years at his post, had never failed to request specific junior officers as replacements for those rotating out. Hence the last-minute change in orders sending the junior officers to Tyras with Lieutenant Ognyan Spitignov sent in his place to Hermonassa.

  Personally, Ognyan would have preferred to go to Tyras himself—but even the mere possibility of treachery in the empire’s underbelly needed to be taken as seriously as guaranteed conflict beyond the Golden Empire’s borders. Hermonassa was too important as a junction of control over strait traffic, and the political maneuvers that had displaced the House of the Sixth Heir-Son from imperial favor also placed in question that house’s loyalty. His deployment served two purposes—one was to slow the growth of the noble house’s network of loyal affiliates in the city, and the other was to provide a reliable assessment of the risk of rebellion.

  Ognyan set the fully folded shirt in its place in a drawer, then quickly but methodically donned his armor. His sword belt went on over that, and the utility belt next, a dozen useful little tools counterbalancing the heavy blade. There was a chance that his arrival had been correctly interpreted as a sign of interest by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and precipitated a rebellion, advancing a traitorous timeline of planned rebellion. With Ognyan’s level of proficiency in the command of elemental spirits, the traitors might feel compelled to act while they still had full control over the garrison’s mech complement.

  Standing on top of a battlement of the walls west of Hermonassa’s harbor next to his commanding officer, Lieutenant Ognyan Spitignov stared at the unfamiliar craft in the distance, magnified and slightly distorted by the transparent orb in his hand. The wheel slowly turning at its rear and the black smoke pouring from its twin towers told him that it was a steamship; the comparative size and rippling wake of the fishing boat ahead of it told him that it was vastly larger and faster than the paddlewheel river barges he had sometimes seen plying the great rivers of the Golden Empire.

  “What the devil are they doing attacking Pantikapaion? It is not as if we are at war with the Sultanate,” the major muttered under his breath.

  Ognyan ignored the question. While he knew that answering the question of a superior officer was generally appropriate, he also knew that his superior officer was not one to be trusted with sensitive facts about the troops that, if all was proceeding according to schedule, were already marching west from Tyras. Additionally, he knew from his briefings that it generally took ships and news three weeks to transit the Axine Sea. Simple mathematics dictated that not enough time had passed for the sultan’s attack to be a response to the surprise invasion of Wallachia.

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  Not unless the sultan had a spy with a magic mirror and access to the Ministry of War’s inner circles. So, it could be a response, but if it was, it was one very swiftly and decisively launched by an enemy with dangerous levels of access within the Golden Empire.

  “Sir, I would gladly volunteer to direct mechs in a boarding action against the enemy.” Ognyan looked down at his superior officer, wondering about the man’s true allegiances.

  “That won’t be necessary,” Major Iakov said. “It would be extremely ill-advised to try to use mechs in a boarding action—not that you have any familiarity with our stable of spirits yet. This is not an academy exercise.”

  “Sir—are you proposing that we simply allow the Sultanate’s warship to command the strait?” Ognyan’s voice took on a sharp edge. A traitor could act very effectively by refusing to act.

  “Of course not—I have sent orders to commandeer every capable fighting ship to send them packing.” The major lowered his spyglass, looking up at the large junior officer. “Mechs are simply not practical instruments for boarding actions. They are simply too heavy; simply transporting them by ship is a difficult endeavor. You would lose at least half in your first crossing attempt, and we need them here to defend the city. Your interest in volunteering is appreciated, however—your file says you are capable with offensive spellwork. Report to Captain Manomir.”

  “Yes, sir,” Ognyan said. He jogged down the stairs, into the city, and east to the harbor. Finding Captain Manomir was a task in and of itself; the harbor was crowded with a chaotic mixture of sailors and soldiers, all shouting at each other at once, mostly not in Ruthenian.

  After several false starts, Captain Manomir was located at a tavern, supervising as a squad of soldiers went through the tavern’s clientele, looking at the hands of each man. If he had the callouses of an oarsman, he was sent out the front door to meet with more soldiers; if he did not, he was dismissed out of the guarded back door of the tavern.

  “You are lucky that we have not already left,” Captain Manomir told the large junior officer. “The ship’s captain let his crew out and about the city, and there weren’t enough ready oarsmen. We will likely be the last galley out—the one at the fourth slip to the left out of here, not that you can miss it. Go to the forecastle and stay there; you will be out of the way of the sailors.”

  “Yes, sir,” Ognyan said to the man’s already-turned back, then made his way back out of the tavern by the front door. There were two galleys already on their way out to the strait, another making ready to cast off, and a fourth galley still sitting in the harbor amidst an array of small boats, sailing craft, and little fishing boats. He followed the trickle of men with calloused hands from the tavern to the last galley.

  Nobody challenged him as he boarded and made his way to the forecastle, which Ognyan found concerning, especially as he passed an unguarded powder barrel. Even in a hasty deployment, security was important. The Sultanate could have seeded the docks with saboteurs prior to their assault, and a ship could be sunk by one suicidal saboteur with a phoenix stone and ten heartbeats alone with a powder barrel.

  He waited in the forecastle, looking back into the ship, a wand held concealed in one hand, watching each man that boarded the ship like a hawk. Then the ship set into motion, and he turned his eyes to the enemy. The decks were higher than the galley’s forecastle, by a margin large enough that Ognyan found himself forced to accept that a boarding action would require either specialized equipment or substantial climbing. Few mechs had the strength-to-weight ratio to climb well, and most were not equipped with hands with high-friction grips, either. Major Iakov was right to hold his mechs in reserve.

  Without so much as an arquebus at hand, Ognyan watched the battle, murmuring protective spells under his breath as he took out a silver knife—his athame—and a pouch of powdered silver. His skin tingled as he finished the first protective spell, scars carved into his body spelling out runes of protective power. He opened the pouch and swiped the athame’s tip over the surface of the railing as he continued to chant, carving out a ward around the forecastle with his left hand. He could at least try to shield himself from gunfire. Even if he did not have the necessary preparatory time or power to shield the whole ship from heavy cannons, no enemy arquebusier would be able to shoot any of the imperial arquebusiers gathered in the forecastle. The ward would likely hold against a cannon shot, at least a lighter one, and his personal ward would continue to protect his skin against arquebus fire even if the forecastle ward fell.

  His power streaming into the ward and waiting for an opportunity, Ognyan continued to watch and learn. The steamship was outnumbered four to one, but it had at least as many heavy guns aboard as all four galleys combined. It was a dedicated warship, with a thick hull sheathed in lead; but with only one source of motive power positioned directly at its rear, it maneuvered sluggishly, capable of great speed but not capable of turning as nimbly as a galley.

  Then there was a great noise from one side, and small pieces of debris rained down, wood and cloth and bloody bits of flesh bouncing off the ward with flashes of bluish-white light, and the steamship was only outnumbered three to one. Ognyan held his breath as the steamer rammed into the lead galley; then watched with horror as the men aboard the galley were raked with fire. But the fire was not driven by magic; no, it came from a tube.

  Ognyan’s wand slipped forward in his right hand, and he gripped it firmly as he stopped reinforcing the forecastle ward. He pulled his magnifying orb from another pouch on his belt, looking more closely at the damaged nose of the ship. There—a copper tank, connected to the fire. He shouted, pointing as he invoked a powerful lance of heated wind in a narrow channel, a sharpened shaft of air heated to its separation point and transmitted at the speed of his shout.

  The air cut into the copper tank, puncturing a hole into which a filled sail’s worth of heated air was injected into the flammable alchemical substance. The tank ruptured, generating its own undirected blast of heat and pressure and spreading clinging fire across the nose of the steamship.

  The steamship returned fire, a ragged volley of one bombard after another. Faint blue light flickered as the forecastle ward shattered, deflecting the first accurate shot into the water to the side. Three more shots landed harmlessly to either side in the water, and then a fifth shot skimmed along the left oarbank, shattering dozens of oars before punching a hole in the side of the ship. The ship slewed sideways as the men of the right oarbank unwittingly pulled one more time, the motion pulling water into the hole and the water pulling the left side of the ship down further.

  Ognyan slipped his wand back into its place on his belt, keeping a grip on his athame as he scrambled to keep standing as the ship slowly rolled sideways. Men screamed as they fell into the water. In the distance, the last of the four galleys turned around.

  “Traitorous cowards,” Ognyan said. Then the ship turned more, and he could not keep standing on the deck; the deck was above him, coated with a layer of retreating air bubbles. He grabbed at the railing as it receded away from him. A moment later, he had landed on the shallow sea floor, the surface of the water visible above him but very far away.

  Above him, silhouetted by the morning sunlight dancing through the gleaming surface of the shallow Cimmerian Sea, was a creature with two arms, a mane of hair, a feminine torso, and a long, powerful finned tail.

  “Hey!” he called out, a bubble of air escaping his mouth as he walked along the sandy sea bottom, waving his open left hand. His right hand stayed tucked behind his back, silver athame concealed within.

  The creature spun, swimming swiftly in his direction. A mermaid. Ognyan could recall from his lessons that sources were divided on the nature of mermaids—whether they were elemental spirits made flesh or some kind of magical creature or fictional was not clear. He could now eliminate one of those three possibilities. It had the face of a beautiful woman.

  He smiled as it came near, and it smiled back. When it reached out as if to grasp him by the shoulders, he suddenly pivoted against the sea floor, yanking the creature’s hair and pulling it into a chokehold with his left arm, hooking his legs around its hips. Its anatomy was humanlike enough that the familiar and well-practiced move worked, though instead of being pinned against the ground, the violent thrashing of the creature’s tail lifted Ognyan off the sea floor, both of them spinning weightlessly through the water.

  Ognyan ignored the disorienting movement around him, the hair obscuring his vision, and the burning of his lungs as he brought his right hand to bear with its silver blade. The mermaid screamed as he cut the first thin line into its back, but he kept his strokes steady and quick, connecting one line to another. Then he transferred the knife to his mouth, spots appearing in his vision as he pressed his ring finger against the blade.

  He pressed his right hand against the bleeding back of the mermaid. Three short chanted words, three bubbles of precious air gone. The mermaid shuddered and was still. He pulled the knife out from between his teeth.

  “Surface,” he said, bending forward to force one more word out without bringing water into his lungs.

  The burning sensation in his lungs grew ever stronger. Hair still covered his eyes. When he could not bear it any longer, he opened his mouth, gasping, pulling in a mixture of air, hair, and water. He coughed with a sense of relief. Then he pushed more magic into the bloody runes carved into the beautiful back of the mermaid, using his left hand to steer his mermaid mount by the hair, turning to face the morning sun as he breathed long, deep, ragged breaths, relieved to be alive. He was so low in the water that he could rarely see anything past the nearest waves lapping around his head, but the morning sun gave him the bearing he knew he needed to return to Hermonassa.

  Another head like that of a beautiful woman surfaced in the water to the south, nearer to the flaming wreckage floating on the water, a puzzled expression visible as the creature drew nearer. Ognyan stared back, the weight of the silver blade steady in his hand. The creature looked away first, its head turning away as it ducked back beneath the water, a rippling shadow moving away.

  Chapter 16 is already up on Patreon.