I left the lieutenant with orders to keep the shelling going at full rate until and unless the mortars started to glow red-hot from being fired too often. He was, I informed him, free to use his discretion in guiding the fire. It isn’t clear to me when I learned it was a good idea to tell people to do exactly what they seemed to already think they ought to do, but this was one of the earliest times I remember doing it. The lieutenant straightened up taller and prouder, happy to know he was already doing exactly what he was supposed to do.

I cut the colonel’s argument with the mechanic short and asked if he would do me the kindness of going and fetching additional ammunition for the brave fellows firing off the rooftop. Then I told the mechanic to go fetch buckets of water and sand and try to make sure none of the soldiers blew themselves up or started any fires while firing the mortars. I didn’t bother asking what they were arguing about.

The sharpshooters I left to their own devices, or perhaps in truth to Katya’s devices; she exchanged a few quick words with them.

I brandished my sword dramatically for the benefit of my military audience, uttered a few words that may or may not have been inspiring, and then paused. How much patriotic fervor could an antique bronze sword infuse in modern imperial soldiers? I resheathed the awkward blade and hastened down the stairs. Katya followed behind me, trailing discreetly in my wake. On the lower levels, chaos reigned. I forged my way through, pretending to be as purposeful as possible. A grubby mechanic rushed towards me.

“Workshop’s this way, sir!” He panted, catching his breath for a moment before he jogged off.

What was in the workshop? Oh, right. My armor, and the other mechs. Having been given a good idea, I ran after him to the workshop, where Vitold was working on babying the mechs’ boilers up to full power. I climbed into my armor, told Vitold to stand clear, and flexed my mental control, revving the warm boilers of the steam knight armor suits the rest of the way to full steam in moments. It was easier than it had been before; were the elemental spirits growing to know and trust me, or was I growing stronger? I started to close up my armor, rediscovered my sword, made a few adjustments, and then finished the job. Awkward things, swords.

If I didn’t know better, I would swear it was trying to blood me with the more decorative parts of the hilt. As I tested the joints and pressure lines with the helmet open (for obvious reasons; if you spring a leak, you don’t want a closed helmet) I considered the wisdom of wrapping the thing up with some padding. I mused to myself that if I were a real officer, I would have had a lot of practice pushing it out of the way and fiddling it this way and that, and keeping the thing out of the way, but I wasn’t a real officer. I’d never owned a sword before.

Good thing I didn’t need to use the thing in battle. I grabbed my poleaxe out of its nook behind me, the heavy weapon light as a toy to the powerful artificial muscles of the suit. I let my mechanical brethren take the lead, and was pleased to see soldiers cheer as we marched out of the workshop and towards the main entrance. They had driven us back against the walls of the manor, forcing us into a defensive posture; now we would sally forth. I tromped out in tight formation with my mechs, and pointed my poleaxe forward, bellowing something vague and forgettable that at the time I thought was suitably patriotic sounding. It was probably drowned out by the noise of the steam engines.

There were three small problems with my glorious charge.

The first problem was that there was a friendly heavy mech just outside the doorway struggling with a pair of lighter but more agile enemy mechs; the heavy mech was taking orders from a particularly valiant crew of mechanics, who were very bravely hiding behind a pile of crates off to the side of the doorway. The lot of them were shouting conflicting commands at it as they boldly cowered low to the ground under cover, tool bags held over their heads protectively against the chance a bullet might manage to curve around the wall, take a high arc over the crates, and plunge down towards them from above.

If discretion were the better part of valor, these mechanics were among the most valorous soldiers the Golden Empire had to offer. I think the elemental spirit driving the mech was having some difficulty understanding what orders to follow, if it was following orders at all. It was simply standing in place and waving its weapons around in a vaguely threatening manner, making it difficult to pass safely. So our dramatic charge had to slow and turn as we passed the friendly heavy mech and coming around to the side of the pair of enemy mechs.

The second problem was that in spite of the armor, the crows recognized me as the generous fellow who’d been throwing shiny things around upstairs, and they started diving down to ground level as soon as I stepped out of the door, engulfing me in a sea of black wings and greedy cawing. Crows are very clever and learn to recognize the faces of humans, and humans are something they often gossip about. Crows you never met will know your face and know if you are kind or cruel to them. I had unfortunately placed myself in the former category; and one of the greedy pests must have been watching through the window of the workshop, letting the rest know that the man inside that armor suit was the same as the man who threw the shiny coins out the window.

The third was that the enemy wizard had sensed me coming, her arcane senses warning her of my approach. While I stood in the middle of the milling crows regretting my earlier generosity, she unleashed a powerful blast of force that slammed me against the stone wall of the manor. My poleaxe broke, the haft snapping just below the head; only the protective magic of my armor saved my bones from a similar fate. For several seconds, my attention was split between trying to regain an upright position and providing direction to my mechs. One I called to follow me; the rest I directed at the enemy mechs in the entrance before they finished off the friendly heavy. Crows cawed hungrily, their cries audible over the ringing in my ears.

A hail of bullets rattled off my armor as I lurched to my feet, looking at the wizard who had tried to smash me like a bug. I could feel her hate like a palpable force. The deep crack of Katya’s rifle sounded behind me, a familiar note in the hymn of battle. The man waving the banner dropped to the ground like a sack of beets, the flag standing by itself for a brief heartbeat, balanced precariously on end before it followed him to earth. The wizard’s concentration wavered as she glanced back at the man, her sword dipping towards the earth involuntarily.

One of the enemy mechs, a heavy, dropped the tip of its own much more massive sword into the dirt, turning in perfect unconscious sync with her own body. The death had taken her off-guard, and her link with the elemental spirit driving the machine’s hydraulics was so intimate as to defy separation. She shook herself; she and the mech both spun in place, pointing swords at me with the same synchrony. A bolt of fear shivered through my heart, and I grasped the broken shaft of my poleaxe in both hands. The rebel wizard shouted one word as she stalked forward, waving a sword that was now glittering with runes.

“Butcher!” she shouted.

Whether she was confusing me with a different imperial officer or simply saying that I was a vile murderer wasn’t clear to me. What was clear was that she intended to kill me. The hate in her voice, the hate in her eyes, the hate just filled the air between us. I was an imperial officer; I was responsible for this latest death, for the fall of the banner she fought under, both literally and metaphorically, and for the death of her kin. Perhaps this man; likely others before him. For this, only my death would sate her; and that probably only for a little while.

The crows were starting to drift back towards me. I needed to buy time for my mechanical comrades to catch up with me. I turned around.

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“Go bother her for a change,” I shouted at them through my helmet.

Then I (perhaps taking inspiration from my valorous comrade mechanics) cranked my suit’s arcane engine up to full and sprinted to keep distance between myself and the rebel wizard. Pressure valves strained at their limit as hydraulic pistons slammed to the limits of their motion. Bullets rang off my back as the enemy soldiers focused their fire on me, realizing I had been singled out by their commander as a special target. The raucous cawing behind me sounded angry – the enemy wizard had stopped to slice at the birds.

I also needed a weapon; something other than my sadly headless poleaxe. A sharp pain in my back reminded me that I had a weapon; it was just inside my armor. I raised my arms up, then pulled them directly inward, disengaging them from the armor. This left my suit’s arms up and out of the way and my own arms in position to scrabble around for the sword and open my helmet. I think I nearly dislocated my own shoulder trying to get the awkwardly-shaped sword out through my opened visor. I did gouge myself with the hilt, one of its talons tearing a bloody scratch from my neck up past my ear before the sword plunged into the dirt.

I stopped my headlong run, put my right arm back into place to control my suit’s arms, and overbalanced, lurching forward as I tried to grab for the sword. There was a flash of light just as I swung the visor shut with my left hand, the enemy wizard blasting me into the air. To one side, I could hear the approaching footfalls of an enemy heavy mech; and then I hit the dirt, a blinding flare of turquoise light reflecting off the inside of my helmet.

I called my other mechs forward to me. One of the enemy light mechs was a pile of scrap metal already, and the other was retreating steadily from the entrance away from the friendly heavy mech. My fellow imperial soldiers were now advancing under cover as best as they could, the crates, wagons, and boxes from the shopping expedition finding new purposes as bullet-blockers.

The sheath I found first, and then I saw the sword itself. Red blood seeped around the edges of the talons, leaving me wondering how much I had bled. The wings of the gilded crow were also spread wider than I thought I remembered, and the blade was glittering very brightly in the sunlight. The blood tracing down the cross-hatching of the grip made the shaft look like it had scales. Interesting, I thought to myself. A loud crash of metal on metal not five paces to my rear reminded me I didn’t have time for a close inspection of my weapon. I spun around.

The enemy heavy mech was standing over one of my mechs, its massive sword raised. The collision of the two war machines had gone poorly for the smaller one, which was mine. Beside it was the enemy wizard, sword in one hand, pistol in the other. I lunged; there was a clatter of metal as the enemy wizard parried my clumsy blow. The next thing I knew, she was in my face, her blade ringing off my helmet. The edge of her sword was not well suited for smashing through heavy armor, and the enchanted armor absorbed the shock with little trouble. She darted back out with a frown on her face.

I felt the mech’s elemental cage crack as the enemy mech’s much more massive sword smashed into it, close to a hundred grivnas of tempered steel creasing armor plate like paper. I took a cautious step, readying my blade, pointed at the enemy wizard, then swung hard to the side at the heavy mech, hoping to catch the machine off-guard and off-balance. If I could knock it over, I could escape.

The ancient bronze blade sliced deep into the hardened steel. The heavy mech lurched drunkenly, its control systems disrupted by the blow. I followed up with another blow while it was staggered, a high overhand swing that cut down between the enemy mech’s shoulders, biting into its control systems with a flare of deep green light. As the enemy mech toppled, I felt a sudden surge of pain across my left side, my muscles seizing up without my control.

The enemy wizard had come up behind me and severed one of the flux transmission cables of the arcane engine with a powerful lunge, the point of her enchanted blade proving equal to the task of puncturing a weak spot in my armor. I knew exactly which hydraulic line she’d been lucky enough to stab; the left leg of my armor would be stiff for the rest of the battle, the actuators unpowered. I turned, pivoting backwards on the frozen leg. My other three jury-rigged mechs were rapidly approaching, but at the moment only the crows kept the enemy soldiers away. I swung at the woman wildly.

She parried again, riposting smoothly. The tip of her enchanted blade dug into the gorget of my armor for a moment before skittering off. The crows swirled around us, pecking harmlessly at her armor as I swung back; but she was already darting away, giving the order that loosed a fresh volley of bullets at me. A hail of bullets battered my armor.

The arcane engine that powered my armor was damaged, I was bleeding from several places, and the protective enchantments that kept me alive were starting to fail. However, I still lived, and the attention I and my mechs had drawn had cost the enemy dearly; each of the scattered bullet holes and dents in my armor represented a bullet that was not sent to pester my less well-protected comrades. More steam knights were advancing from the manor.

A few shots pinged off my mostly-intact rear armor. I’ve watched new infantry on the training field; standard imperial practice is not to teach them to aim, but simply to load and fire repeatedly. It is not the most efficient practice when it comes to the consumption of gunpowder; nor is it especially comforting when unaimed fire clips you from behind. With the possible exception of the enemy wizard, however, the enemy’s armor was not as good as mine, and they were taking casualties.

Then the front door of the manor opened, revealing a dozen steam knights, and the enemy soldiers faltered. If four out of the first five steam knights were still standing after having withstood the brunt of their fire, what could they do against a dozen more steam knights? The artillery landing on their flank and the unnaturally aggressive crows (they were trying to harvest eyeballs from men still standing – usually such attention is reserved for corpses or at least the helplessly injured) did not much help.

Had they known that my mechs had enough spent bullets rattling around their inner works that their legs sounded like shaking coin purses whenever they took a step, perhaps they would not have been so discouraged. The real steam knights weren’t protected by enchantments as I was, and they had fragile flesh and bone on the inside.

The enemy wizard dashed back and forth along their lines, trying to inspire them, her agile form seemingly untouchable in its shining shell of form-fitted wizard armor, but she could not halt the tide. I watched an enemy officer drop out of his saddle; watched as his fellow cavalrymen turned deaf ears to her shouts and their backs to the battle. Our own dead lay mostly behind crates and walls, shielded from view by the cover that they had dared stick their heads out of; they saw mostly nearly invulnerable men in metal, and guns peeking out from behind cover. Many of their mechs had gone down, but nearly all of our steam knights were still standing.

I lurched forward with my squad, keeping the illusion of pursuit up as best as I could with a stiff leg and an engine on the verge of failure, my mechanical comrades waving their poleaxes menacingly. One bold squad of enemy halberdiers did rush us, their combined efforts putting Misha’s old suit on the ground. I felt nauseous as my makeshift weapon ripped through one of them, cleaving up from his armpit to the opposite side of his neck; watched sickly as his head hit the ground, helmet falling off. He had brown hair, a goatee, and a surprisingly well-combed mustache; the calm expression death imposed on his face seemed out of place in the chaos of the battlefield.

Then I was swinging again, striking at a man who I’d thought already dead, but who was now rolling over and trying to work his arquebus with his one remaining arm. In the distance, I could make out the bright form of the enemy wizard on top of a horse; and then in a different direction, Katya, perched up on the roof, aiming. She held her aim for a minute; then lowered the gun, a gesture of mercy. Katya slung her rifle over her shoulder, then patted her hip. Squinting, I could make out what she had patted: A bag at her waist.

It was over, but for the screaming; the looting; the taking of prisoners; the cutting of throats, from mercy or malice; the salvaging of enemy machinery; and the reckoning of what it meant for our mission. I didn’t feel like dealing with any of those things. I sat down and began to look over my weapon.

The bright blade had not so much as a bloodstain on it, though my armor was spattered to the point of looking mottled brown. The crow that made up the gilded crosspiece of the weapon (I now noticed it was a slightly pudgy crow with a bulging belly – how had I not noticed that before?) looked about as cheerful as the real ones did right now. I guessed that a well-made sword, being a smooth piece of metal, didn’t need cleaning after a battle. It must have dripped itself clean while I wasn’t looking.

I had a vague feeling I was supposed to oil it or something, but being a mechanic rather than an officer, I’d never really been taught about the care and feeding of swords. Sword steel was made differently than tool steel, and I had rarely dealt with any sort of bronze at all.