Steam Legion by Evan Currie

of them. Even the ones who try so hard not to be.
    ****
    Heron had done a great many things in his life. He’d attended parties with Emperors, invented wonders to entertain the masses, and created horrors to kill them. He wasn’t a complicated man, however, despite all belief to the contrary.
    Of his simple joys, the purest was simply seeing his inventions in operation.
    As he watched the sun climb into the sky, Heron reflected on what he had seen the night before. The magnificent cannons devised by Archimedes had worked as designed. At closer ranges they were so much more powerful than anything else in the armory. However, even he recognized that they were too complex to be utilized by common soldiers.
    Archimedes’s design was predicated on certain common factors, primary among them being the availability of a multitude of highly skilled hands. In Syracuse that was no great difficulty, not for Archimedes. The man had nearly unlimited resources when applied to the defense of his homeland, as his many great weapons and many dead invaders could attest.
    Here in Alexandria, too, they had that resource. Men of the most brilliant of minds, and women too. One woman at least.
    Educated hands, skilled and motivated. These were things that the Legion did not have aplenty, and certainly not enough to waste. As amazing as the cannons were, they were too fragile and complicated to survive as Legion tools.
    Good enough to defend the Library, which is something of note, but what can be done to make them easy enough for a common Legionnaire?
    Feeling younger than he had in decades, Master Heron of Alexandria set to work. He knew of men in the city, not of the Library but well respected nonetheless, who might just be able to help.
    “Andri,” he called, beckoning to a slave waiting near the far door.
    “Yes, Master Heron.”
    “I want all craftsmen of significant skill summoned to the Library,” he ordered, “in my name. We have work for them to do.”
    “Yes, Master Heron,” the slave said and left to post the announcement.
    Damnation to troublesome Emperors and their foolish ideas of what is important.
    ****
    Dyna awoke a few hours after she’d been put to bed, stretching comfortably and almost deciding not to awake, until she was struck by the sheer oddity of feeling so comfortable in the first place.
    Her eyes opened, darting around the room in confusion.
    My rooms at the Library. I…I remember. She sat up slowly, letting the linen drop from her body. She winced and rubbed her shoulders and breasts where her skin had been pinched by the armor and paused when she felt that she’d been oiled down and powdered.
    She cast the linens aside, rising from the bed, and walked across the room to the mirror. Bruises were beginning to show, both where the men had grabbed her and where the armor had pinched and squeezed her flesh. She gauged her fitness, however, and was pleased with the state of things given the events of the night before.
    For a woman who just lived through two battles and a fight for your life, you look to be in excellent shape.
    She brushed her black hair back, dark eyes examining her face and flesh. She had never felt so weak, or so strong, as the previous night. When the damned fools assaulted her, there had been no fear, just the cold rage that they would dare lay a hand on her body.
    Their deaths meant less than nothing to her; she felt neither sorrow for them nor true victory in their defeat. They were thugs, untrained and unworthy. There was nothing to be prideful of in that brawl.
    What came after, those were things she felt some real pride in. The defeat of a superior force, even if only in terms of numbers, with military might was something that sang to her blood. Something her ancestors could be proud of, something she could bring with her to the fields to show them when her time came.
    Afterward, however…afterward.
    She closed her eyes, turning away from the mirror. When it was all over, that feeling of