“My name is Milo,” goes the leader. He saw that I was sort of like all aufgeshaken, you know? He looked down from his horse and shook his head, evidently deciding what he was going to do with me.

“You don’t have to do anything with me,” 1 go. “1 can take care of myself.”

Milo nodded. “I was just curious about how you got here.”

“1 don’t know.”

“Well, you’ve walked into the middle of a war. We have to keep moving; I plan to catch up with my army in the next few days. Maybe I’d better detail one of my men to take you to a safe—”

“Hold on, Milo, old buddy,” I go. I’ve never met anyone else named Milo. The only Milo I’d ever even heard of was the Venus de. “I don’t need you to look out for me. You don’t have to send one of your men—if that’s, you know, the right word for them—to escort me anywhere.”

“You appear to be very independent, Miss Birnbaum.” He gave me another smile.

I went immediately from merely haughty to fully stoked. “Get off that goddam elephant!" 1 yelled at him. 1 was stalking back to the bush to get 01’ Betsy. We were going to see about this right now. 1 was so mad I didn’t even like ask myself how he knew my last name.

I’m waving my trusty blade in his face and the three soldiers are just laughing their filthy, scungy heads off. Milo raised a hand and they stopped. He held a locked case in his other hand. “I haven’t used one of these in centuries,” he goes, taking a beautiful, gleaming saber from the case. Its basket hilt’s not jewel-encrusted like mine, but I can see it’s a nifty piece of work. “Toledo,” he goes. “That wouldn’t mean anything to the troopers of my Confederation, but perhaps you’ll appreciate it.”

“Appreciate this," I go. 1 salute him, spend a twelfth of a second en garde, and then lunge, apparently for his chest. I really meant to cut his wrist on the inside, but he saw that coming. He parried Quarte, with his blade nearly vertical, and merely tilted his forearm from the elbow, knocking my blade aside. His riposte came so damn fast that he almost got me. Milo shot his fist straight toward my chest, making a quick, short slash. I was forced to parry Quinte, which God only knows I’m not good at. My sword hand was high, near eye level. I caught his attack okay, turned my wrist over, and lunged at him. The two of us went back and forth like that for a few minutes. I knew right off that like maybe I’d made a mistake. This guy Milo was no Martian monster, for sure, and I didn’t have low gravity on my side. Milo could have diced me up any time he wanted. I’m just real, real glad he didn’t want to. Really.

Still, I was holding my own, you know, if only just barely. I could pick up on a murmured conversation behind me, the three hairball soldiers making comments. I like to think they were sort of astonished by how well I was handling their commanding officer. I hoped they couldn’t see that Milo was carrying me.

That is, like he carried me for a while until I made a dumb goof. He feinted at my wrist, then bent his elbow and brought his point up and cut at my left shoulder. I wasn’t sure what to do, and I parried wrong. Before I could attack, he scored with a remise, putting his saber completely through my shoulder just Above the armpit.

“Goddammit!" I yelled. “Goddam son of a bitch!" I was hopping around in pain and swearing like a, well, trooper. I dropped 01’ Betsy and clutched my shoulder. A little blood spurted out and stained my brand-new shirtdress. 1 hadn’t worn it more than a couple of hours. Milo was really sorry. He put his sword down and hurried to me.

“Are you all right?” he goes.

I just glared at him. “It hurts like homemade hell,'' I go.

“Let me see,” he goes.

“Are you kidding me? Here, just take all my clothes off and examine my booboo. Fat chance, buster.”

“I’m just—”

“I know, I know. It’s all my fault, I’m just being unreasonable, I asked for it. That’s what Daddy tells me all the time. Ouch."

His eyes narrowed a bit. “Take your hand away, at least.”

I did. The wound had stopped bleeding already.

Milo gave me a long, thoughtful look. “Lift up the material and tell me what you see.”

I did. “It’s healed!” I go. I was amazed, if you want to know the truth.

Milo rubbed his jaw with one hand. “I’d be grateful if you’d travel with me for a few days,” he goes. “I’d like to talk with you about a few matters that are important to this world.”

That was better. It showed he was a gentleman and not just some kind of gross, chauvinist Captain Future. “Will I get to see some of your war?” I go.

“You won’t be able to avoid it.”

“Neat. Let me get my things.” One of the soldiers helped stow my two bags on his huge horse. Milo lifted me up to his saddle, and I clung to him as we rode. His beautiful chestnut stallion was so big I couldn’t get my legs around it. 1 felt like I was doing splits on a gym floor, for Christ’s sake.

Milo talked as we traveled. Apparently, some upstart had formed a pocket kingdom he called Kehnooryees Ahkeeyuh, or New Achaea. This bozo, who crowned himself King Pahleebohaitees I, worked for a while making allies and raising an army. He merged the city of Ritchmuhnd and several nearby villages, and called the result his capital, Kehnooryees Spahrtuh. His Union of Pure-Blooded Ehleenee let the Undying High Lord Milo know that it was dropping out of his Confederation. Not only that, but like it was making a beasty pain of itself by raiding the prosperous lands to the north and west. It was all the combined forces of the Confederation, the Kindred dragoons of the Middle Kingdoms, the Ahrmehnee troops, and the Moon Maiden archers could do to contain the rebellion. It still wasn’t clear if they could defeat it. Milo expected me to know what the hell he was talking about, but like I was lost from Word One, I’m sure.

A few hours later we whammed into the tail end of his army. The soldiers all cheered for Milo like he was Napoleon or What’s-His-Name MacArthur or something. I could definitely handle inspiring that kind of reaction, but all my adventures have been one-on-one, you know, and like this was my first for-real war. Milo wanted to know which side I was going to be on, his or this bogue King Pahleebohaitees’ Union. I go, “I know who you are, what’s this Union?”

“Just renegade Ehleenee,” he goes.

That like decided it for me. “Illini?” I go, with a suitable avant-barf expression. “Oh my God, that’s like the Big Ten! Pammy, my stepmother, you know, she gave me three harsh rules about finding a husband: One, marry Yale first; if you can’t get Yale, marry Princeton; if you can’t get Yale or Princeton, devote yourself to a life of public service, like Mother Teresa. I’ll never have a house in Newport if I hang around with Illini ag-school jocks. Urrr."

Milo just shook his head again. He said something in that other language to one of the soldiers, then he turned back to me. “Just go with Duhlainee; he’ll take you to the armorer. You’re very good with that saber, but it won’t help you very much against the weapons you’ll be seeing soon.”

The armorer fixed me up with just what I wanted. I got a crushin’ longsword, lighter than what Milo carried. I could barely lift one of those big suckers off the ground, but I could swing the smaller sword with both hands. I figured like I’d be a hell of a lot quicker on the draw than those big zods. One of those guys takes a hack with his sword, he needs five minutes to recover for another swipe. Meanwhile, I could shred him with a combo of point and edge work. I also took this tasty dirk and a spear. I wanted a helmet, too—an open-faced helmet with the nosepiece like the ancient Greeks wore, okay? With the¹ spear and the helmet I’d look just so kill, like Athena, who was fully ruff and a legend in her own time.