Chapter 39: The River Offensive Part 4

"Watch it!" Seacat yelled. "There's rougher water ahead! Make sure you won't fall overboard! Don't stand up!"

She looked over her shoulder to check if the landlubbers with her were obeying. Their 'ship' was just three rafts tied together, so you would have to be a damned fool to treat it as a real ship - but as she found out while loading half an army on rafts, there was no shortage of such fools among the soldiers of Bright Moon and Plumeria. Unlike Salinean marines, they had no experience with ships and tended to see rivers as larger brooks, which meant they severely underestimated the dangers when they were travelling on water.

At least the few dozen soldiers with her were supposed to be the best of the bunch, but that often came with arrogance, which was about as dangerous as foolishness for a soldier. Or for the people relying on them.

She glanced to the southern shore. She couldn't see Adora, nor any sign of the three skiffs of the screening force, but she hadn't heard any shots being fired, either. That meant they weren't fighting. Unless… a catapult was silent compared to a cannon. The sound of its release wouldn't carry far. But would they manage to hit a moving skiff? Much less three of them?

No. Seacat firmly shook her head, but she couldn't help worrying a little anyway.

Then they reached the rougher waters, and she was busy keeping the raft on course. It wasn't an actual challenge, of course - if it were, the army following them was doomed. But still… keeping the raft stable so the idiots with her wouldn't panic required some care and attention. Some.

But they cleared the spot quickly, and the river slowed down and smoothed out. If not for the danger of a Horde ambush, it would be a pleasant trip. Sunny weather, a light breeze, fresh food… Seacat had had worse trips.

She looked back. The main convoy - if a bunch of rafts could be called that - would be hitting the spot any time now. Yes, there they came. Alcy was handling the first raft, and she had things under control. And the soldiers were sitting and holding on to the ropes and other handhelds on the rafts. As they should be.

But just as Seacat was about to turn away, she spotted some fool standing up and going after… something rolling the raft. She squinted as the thing fell into the water. What idiot would…?

"Sit down!" Alcy yelled, but it was too late - the man stumbled, the raft wobbled, and he went overboard, his scream cut short as soon as he hit the water. Seacat hissed and kicked the rudder, slowing down her raft. "Look out for the idiot in the water," she snapped. He would be surfacing any moment now…

But the man didn't come up. Damn.

"Where is he?" the sergeant in charge of the Bright Moon forces with her asked.

"I don't see him," Seacat told her. "He wasn't wearing armour, so he shouldn't sink. Unless he hit his head somewhere. Or came up under a raft and was pushed underwater again."

"Maybe he couldn't swim."

Right. Some of those landlubbers couldn't swim. She clenched her teeth. There wasn't much they could do. Not much she could do. She could slow the raft, but to paddle upriver? No chance. And the current would've dragged the idiot away by now.

Damn. "Let's hope that'll teach the rest not to stand up when they're in rough water," she muttered. "Damn fool."

The soldiers nearby glared at her, but she ignored them. The man had been a fool. Alcy had given strict commands, and the idiot hadn't listened.

What a waste.

"If we only lose one soldier, we're lucky," she told the soldiers. "The idiot could've caused the raft to capsize, throwing everyone on it into the water."

"What?" Even the sergeant was now looking at their raft as if it might sink any moment."

"Well, it wouldn't have been easy - but if he had resurfaced, screaming, and the entire load had gone to one side to pull him in…" She shook her head. "That might do it."

And the landlubbers definitely were stupid enough for such a thing to happen. That was why she had sent Horas with Perfuma. He was massive enough to rebalance a raft by himself - and he could throw a fool or three overboard if he had to.

Perfuma would disagree, but the princess was worth dozens of those fools.

Around noon, Seacat heard shots. Swivel guns. Horde ones or captured ones used by Lonnie and the others. "Look sharp!" she yelled. "We've got company!"

She couldn't see whoever was shooting, though - as had happened often, Adora and the others were hidden behind the forest that lined the riverbank at this point. But the shots had been fired ahead of them.

She scoffed and guided her raft closer to the shore. "Sergeant!" she snapped. "Take five soldiers and scour the riverbank ahead of us. I don't want to run into an ambush."

"Yes, ma'am! Bonetti, Greo, Lars, Kepel, Anna - with me!" the woman bellowed.

The five the sergeant had named groaned but were ready to jump on the shore as soon as Seacat manoeuvred close enough. They weren't Salinean marines, but close enough.

She pressed her lips together as the soldiers started moving through the forest. She should be leading them, not staying on the raft. But no one else could steer the vessel as well as she could. And if they came under fire, an inexperienced helmsman could doom the entire force.

She still hated it. "Brad!" she yelled. "Stick the pole in at the stern! We need to hold back a little so we won't overtake the others!"

"Aye aye, ma'am!"

She swallowed the rebuke - the man wasn't a sailor. "Reta! Signal the main force to slow down! Combat ahead!"

"Yes, ma'am!" The goatwoman quickly started waving her flags. Again, not quite as deft as a signals ensign in the Navy - or Seacat herself - would have been, but good enough. Seacat had certainly seen worse on some frigates.

One she saw that Alcy had slowed down, she gave the go-ahead to go on. They couldn't let the landing party get too far ahead either, or they would be left without support.

They entered the next turn of the river - a northward one, the river snaking around a hill on its route eastward. That was an ideal ambush spot - forest to conceal a gun, and the turn meant they could be sailing right into the firing arc of a gun but be too far away to rush it.

And the swivel guns ahead hadn't stopped firing. That wasn't a mere scouting force - Adora could have crushed such a force by herself. That was a skirmishing group; if it were a larger force, Adora would've sent the shrimp to inform them.

They advanced slowly, Seacat pushing a pole into the riverbed to counteract the current. She could catch glimpses of the advance party as they approached the turn. Was that movement ahead of them?

Her eyes widened as something reflected the sun in the middle of a bush. "Hold on!" she yelled and pushed the raft to the side, away from the shore.

A moment later, a gun fired and a shell ploughed into the river next to the raft - then detonated underwater. "Hold on!" Seacat yelled, digging her claws into the raft's deck as the shockwave pushed them up. She heard screams from the soldiers as the raft tilted before falling back, then even more screams followed by splashes.

Snarling, she steered the raft back towards the riverbank. "Everyone off!" she yelled.

"We've got people in the water!"

"And we'll be dead if we don't get on land!" she bellowed. "Off the raft! And charge that position! Brad! Tie it off!"

Everyone in her force could swim, anyway. Or should be able to. They hit the shore, and she grabbed a line, then jumped off and secured the line to the next tree. Unfortunately, Brad wasn't fast enough - he didn't manage to tie up the raft's stern before it swung out, dragging him into the water.

The slower soldiers, those who hadn't been able to jump on land, cried out, and two more fell into the water. "Hold on!" Seacat yelled. "The raft'll hit the shore again!"

But before the raft could turn around fully, the gun fired again.

And half a dozen soldiers on the raft were blasted to pieces by shrapnel.

Seacat turned to look at the gun. At that distance, with this reloading rate… "Get them out of the water! Get the wounded!" she screamed.

And started to sprint through the woods. If she pushed herself, she could reach the gun before they could reload.

She dashed between the trees, jumping on and to branches at a particularly thick spot, and quickly overtook the landing party. "Follow me!" she yelled, rushing past the sergeant, jumping and clearing a dense patch of underbrush before scrambling up a tree leaning over the water, launching herself towards another tree.

Her claws found purchase on a thick branch, and she used her momentum to swing around it and land on her feet on top of it. Almost. She could see the gun from this spot - they were just ramming the powder charge into it.

Too close. She clenched her teeth and launched herself towards the next tree. And the next. And the next.

One of the Horde scum manning the gun spotted her and cried out in alarm. But she was too close. Too fast. One more tree, then she pounced, claws extended, down on the gun captain.

The woman raised her shock rod, but Seacat batted it aside with a kick before slamming into the officer and smashing her into the ground - away from the gun. She rolled with the impact, tumbling over the ground, and came up in a crouch, baring her fangs at the Horde scum.

The gun crew was turning towards her, one of them reaching for the gun, but Seacat was still faster. She dashed forward, one foot hitting the groaning officer's head before the woman could react. She shattered the faceplate and raked her with the other foot, then brought her blade down on the sailor's arm before he could fire the cannon.

He screamed, clutching his ruined arm, and collapsed on his knees as she whirled. She parried a strike from a burly man with a ramrod, then gutted the scum with a swipe of her free hand. Another came at her, screaming like a madwoman, but Seacat ducked away from the first wild blow and slid around her, then slashed at her knees from behind.

One more Horde scum down. That left two of the gun crew. And...Damn! There were more Horde scum coming at her through the woods. Seacat jumped on top of the gun, kicking out to knock the second loader down and into the water, before whirling and slashing her sword across the face of the lizardman trying to catch her from behind. If she could turn the gun around and face the oncoming Horde… No. It was too heavy. And the sergeant's party wouldn't reach her in time.

But there was the ammo dump! All those shells and powder bags! She grinned as she grabbed a fuse and a match.

She lit the fuse, dropped it, and jumped into the water, past the groggy loader dragging herself out of the river. Seacat dived, scraping over the ground, the pebbles scratching her skin as she pushed herself further. The fuse wouldn't burn long… and she needed to be as deep under the water as possible before…

Something hit the water next to her, slamming into the ground and throwing up a cloud of mud. She looked over her shoulder and up and saw dozens of pieces splashing into the water. Wooden splinters. And metal ones. And body parts. The powder had gone up, then.

She kicked her feet, swimming deeper, as more and more pieces hit the river and sank - or shot - into the water around her. None touched her - and the water would slow them down anyway.

But she couldn't hold her breath much longer. She pulled her legs under her, brought the feet down into the mud covering the riverbed, then pushed and shot towards the surface.

She broke it and inhaled deeply, looking around. Smoke still covered the spot where she had set off the powder charges, but she could see more Horde soldiers moving in the woods nearby. More than enough to overwhelm the marines in the advance party.

And the river's current was dragging her away, around the turn. Had the Horde scum seen her? She couldn't tell. But she had to return to the shore.

She took a deep breath and dived again, swimming underwater towards the riverbank. She didn't surface until she could see the riverbed rising in front of her - she was almost at the shore. If anyone had seen her… She resurfaced again to breathe and take a look.

No one shot at her - no bolts or arrows flew towards her. No one yelled, either. They must have missed her.

Or they were waiting in ambush for her to expose herself by coming out of the water.

She scoffed. The soldiers she had killed hadn't been good enough to think of something, much less pull it off. Not with reinforcements bearing down on them from upriver. She dived again, swam forward, then climbed out of the water behind an overhanging tree.

Still no one - but she heard yells and commands ahead of her. Unless her men had been far slower than they should've been, they would be hitting the enemy right now.

Once more, she climbed the closest tree, her claws quickly taking her up into the canopy. Hidden by the foliage, she could see more people moving alongside the shore - both Horde scum as well as Alliance soldiers - and clashing near the former gun emplacement.

Perfect.

She turned, then ran down the angled trunk, jumping off in the middle of it. She hit the ground running and weaved through the forest towards the battle ahead of her, drawing her blade.

The Horde scum were still trying to form lines but the underbrush hampered their movement. She caught a straggler from behind, slashing her neck and left her bleeding out while she ran past. There was a lizardman stuck in a denser bush - his uniform had gotten entangled with a thicker branch. He turned towards her and snapped. "Help me, damn it…"

She saw his eyes widen when he realised that she wasn't another Horde soldier. He opened his mouth, gasping, about to scream, and she stuck her blade through his mouth, turning his attempt to warn the others into a short gagging noise before he fell over, blood gushing out of his mouth.

She was already running forward again when she heard someone yelling: "Stand! Stand and hold!"

That sounded like an officer. She bared her fangs in a feral grin and changed direction towards the man. Dodging behind a tree, she almost ran over a Horde straggler hiding there. The woman gasped, staring at her with wide-open eyes.

Seacat cut her down before she could warn the others. And kept going. She jumped over a fallen trunk, then scaled a tree - and saw the officer still screaming at his troops, many of them apparently giving ground under the assault of the Bright Moon and Plumerian soldiers.

For a moment, she hesitated. The man was surrounded by half a dozen soldiers, one of them holding a flag. Attacking him would be dangerous. But the Alliance forces were obviously advancing, and if the Horde soldiers lost their leader at this point, when they were falling back under pressure…

She hissed and dashed forward on the thickest branch of the tree, then jumped off, gripping her blade with both hands - and brought it down on the officer with all her weight behind it.

Her sword bit into the man's shoulder - he had moved at the last moment - but it didn't matter; the force behind the blow was enough to drive it through most of his chest. He jerked, then started to fall in a shower of blood. And Seacat found her sword stuck. Caught on the chest plate, or a rib or whatever.

And the soldiers around her were reacting. She ducked under a wild swing with a shock rod and kicked the soldier in the stomach, pushing him into the way of another who stumbled over him. But before she could exploit that or free her sword, she had to jump back to avoid a spear thrust, then drop when a goatman tried to decapitate her.

She rolled over the ground, slashing his ankles with her claws, and came up… to drop down again and scramble to the side to avoid two shock rods and another spear. She cut the spear shaft with her claws, then jumped, pouncing on the suddenly disarmed soldier. One swipe with her claws shattered his faceplate and left him clutching his slashed face, and she jumped off his falling body, launching herself towards the closest tree...

...and was hit in the side and smashed to the ground by the Minotaur wielding the flagpole. She tried to roll with the impact, but her ribs burned with pain, and she gasped, freezing for a moment.

Three soldiers were charging her, howling like madmen. She hissed at them - and counter-charged. Two faltered; the third pressed on, and his spear traced a bloody line across her already wounded side when she was a little too slow to dodge.

But now she was inside his reach, and before he could react, she lashed out with both arms and raked her claws across his arm and throat. She grabbed the spear and whirled - and barely managed to bring it up to parry a sword strike. The blade cut deep into the shaft, but not through it, and she twisted the spear, wrenching the stuck sword out of the Horde soldier's hands.

But more were pressing her. She threw the spear and sword at the legs of the closest soldier, making him jump back and collide with another, then lunged to bury her claws into the side of the disarmed soldier.

He screamed like a stuck pig and stumbled back, and she whirled again. "Who's next?" she snapped, baring her fangs.

For a moment, the Horde soldiers were frozen. Looking at each other, not at her. They were breaking…

Then something hit her left shoulder, forcing her back and almost sending her falling. Crossbow bolt. Stuck in her. Rendering her left arm useless. The sheer pain made her hiss.

Worse: Her getting hit had rallied the Horde soldiers. They were charging her.

The tree was too far away. Her arm was useless. She was bleeding.

She charged them, hissing and screaming. One of them gasped, slowing down. Another stumbled over a root. The other two kept coming at her. She ran on, eyes on the man with the shock rod. He lifted his rod, ready to strike, and she dropped, sliding over the torn ground, into his legs.

Her shoulder made her scream with pain, but she reached up with her good hand, claws extended, and ripped through the inside of his thigh and into his groin.

He collapsed with a shriek that was heard through the forest - and was cut off when the other Horde soldier hit him instead of Seacat with her sword.

Seacat pushed the wounded scum off and launched herself at the woman, her right arm reaching for the Horde scum's sword arm before the woman could raise her blade again. Grabbing the wrist, she twisted and rammed her hip into the enemy, then pulled - and slammed her into the ground.

Another crossbow bolt flew past her, and she ducked, then dropped on her back and rolled over her good shoulder to avoid the clumsy Horde soldier who had managed to get up. The one who had hesitated was gone, his weapon on the ground.

She jumped up, kicked the woman she had thrown in the face, then charged the crossbow shooter. His eyes widened, and he fumbled his weapon, then dropped it to draw his sword.

But he only managed to get his hand on its hilt before she reached him, raking her claws against his sword arm, then ramming him with her good shoulder and smashing him against the tree behind her.

His head was thrown back, and she ripped his throat out on the backswing while she whirled to face the last Horde scum.

Who was fleeing.

For a moment, Seacat stood there, chest heaving, blood from her and others running down her front. The bolt was still stuck in her shoulder. The pain was terrible, but if she pulled it out, she'd bleed. A lot. Damn.

Looking around, she saw more Horde scum running - away. Past her. And the yelling and sounds of combat were coming closer. Good. But if she got caught in the melee when the Alliance soldiers arrived… She looked at the tree. She could climb it. Even without one arm.

Then she heard screams and yelling from the other side. And saw Horde scum running back towards her. Gritting her teeth, she dug her claws into the trunk and started scaling it, trying to ignore the pain every movement caused in her shoulder. But she had to clear the ground or she'd be caught between… well, everyone.

She reached the lowest branch and groaned as she pulled herself up on it to rest. Just a moment. Her shoulder… She hissed as she touched the shaft of the bolt and felt the blood dripping down.

And she had to climb higher - anyone with a crossbow could pick her off where she was. She just had to…

Below her, the Horde scum retreating from the Alliance soldiers clashed with the others running from whoever had gotten into their rear. Oh. That's where Adora and the others had gone. She should've realised that.

Scoffing at her slow mind, she started to climb higher. Just another branch. Then she could rest and hide and wait.

By the time she was sprawled out on the next branch, limbs pulled up, the fighting had reached the tree. She turned her head and glanced down. The Horde soldiers were getting massacred. They were trying to escape into the river now, but their armour wasn't good for swimming. And Seacat doubted that they would have the time to strip out of it.

"Stand! Hold! Damn you!"

Oh. One officer - no, a squad leader - tried to rally the Horde. To make a stand. But an arrow hit her head before she could say anything else. Then Adora appeared, throwing a Horde lizardman at a clump of soldiers hiding near a tree.

"For the Alliance!" she yelled as the Horde scattered, raising her sword. "Forward!"

Damn, she looked hot like that! Really hot. For a moment, even Seacat's shoulder didn't seem to hurt as much.

Then she shifted a little and gasped with pain. Damn. At least the tree below was now surrounded by Alliance soldiers.

"Hey, Adora!"

"Ca-Seacat?" Adora looked around.

"Up here, you dummy!" Seacat giggled, then winced.

"Seacat!" Adora's smile only lasted a moment before turning into a horrified expression. "You're wounded!"

"Yes. Crossbow got me in the shoulder," Seacat told her. "I got him and the commander of this lot but had to hide afterwards. Give me a moment to climb down."

But Adora was already climbing - or jumping - up the tree. "Seacat!"

"It's not that…" Seacat stopped trying to defend herself in favour of holding on to the branch when Adora, all seven feet of her, landed on it and sent it shaking so much, it almost threw Seacat off.

"Oh, no! I'm so stupid!"

"Well, no argument from me," Seacat said, flashing her fangs in a grin.

Adora shook her head and didn't answer. Instead, she bent down and picked her up.

Seacat tried and failed not to wince when she was lifted off the branch into bridal carry.

"You're badly hurt!"

Well, yes, that should've been obvious. "And you're going to jump down with me?" Seacat clenched her teeth. That would hurt.

"Of course not! Glimmer! Glimmer!"

The shrimp appeared a few moments later next to them in a shower of sparkles. "Oh, no!"

Seacat closed her eyes and sighed. She wasn't that hurt. "I beat half a dozen Horde soldiers like that," she snapped at the princess. "And then climbed the tree."

But no one was listening to her. The shrimp reached out and grabbed her hand, and a moment later, all three of them were on the ground.

"I'm going to heal you!" Adora declared. "Just a second!" She looked around.

"Just drop me on the ground. I'll live," Seacat mumbled. "The battle's still going on." She could hear the sounds of people fighting. And dying.

Once more, no one listened to her. Adora kicked a corpse out of the way and set her down on some moss at the foot of a tree, then took a step back. "Uh… I need to get the bolt out, or it might… mess up the healing."

"Just do it," Seacat told her. She could take it.

Adora grimaced. "Glimmer? Can you pull it out? So I can heal her right away?" She levelled her sword at Seacat.

The shrimp grimaced but nodded. "Sure."

Seacat rolled her eyes. "Just Do iAAAGH!" The bloody shrimp had done it!

But the pain vanished at once. Seacat closed her eyes, relieved.

"Now stay here - we'll finish the fight! You!" Adora bellowed as she pointed at a soldier nearby. "Watch her! Don't let her engage anyone! And protect her with your life!"

The Alliance soldier - a Plumerian ranger, Seacat noticed - nodded a little shakily. Seacat snorted - when Adora was like that, there was no arguing.

Then Adora left, followed by the princess - on foot, not teleporting. Saving her magic for essential tasks since she wouldn't be able to recharge until she returned to Bright Moon.

And the princess had teleported once - no, twice - for Seacat.

She sighed. If she hadn't climbed the tree, that wouldn't have been necessary. But if she hadn't climbed the tree, she might've been killed. She wouldn't have had to climb the tree if she hadn't been wounded, of course. But they were fighting a war - you couldn't play it safe. Not too safe, at least.

She turned to face her freshly appointed guard. "How was the fighting going before…" She shrugged. "...before all this?"

"We had them on the run," he replied. "They were trying to flee through the river or overland, but we had them encircled, so all that left was the river."

She nodded. That fit with her observations.

"We've beat their blocking force! They couldn't stop us!" the ranger added with a smile as if this was a great victory.

"We were facing the dregs of the Horde," she corrected him. "They broke easily. When we're facing their best, things will be much harder." Soldiers trained to fight princesses wouldn't break easily - or at all.

He didn't like that. "But we have She-ra and the Princesses with us!"

"And the Horde is prepared for them." She snorted again. "Don't underestimate them."

"But they weren't prepared for us, not here."

She shrugged, half-wincing when the expected pain didn't come. "Their leaders didn't expect them to win; at best, they were meant to delay us. They had a single gun on the river and not enough troops to hold our forces, much less the entire army."

"But why sacrifice them like that?"

"To gain time for more training and preparations. To make us feel overconfident." She shrugged again. "Perhaps their commander wanted to get rid of a rival?"

He looked shocked at the last suggestion. "But… their own troops?"

"They blow them up for a chance to get a princess," she reminded him. "In the Horde, soldiers are expendable. Everyone is. With the exception of Hordak."

He shook his head. "That's…"

"That's why we're fighting them." She leaned against the tree and crossed her arms.

"We aren't fighting them right now." He sounded mulish.

"We've got our orders." She grinned. "You'll get your fill of fighting soon enough." And then some. For a Plumerian, he was rather eager to fight - but that could just be the effect of running into battle with your friends and driving the enemy off.

"I suppose so."

And Seacat would get her lecture from Adora. She wasn't looking forward to it. And she still needed to recover her sword.

"...and what were you thinking, attacking the enemy by yourself?" Adora shook her head, hands on her hip.

"I didn't attack the enemy on my own," Seacat defended herself. "I attacked a single gun and its crew to save the rest of my soldiers, and then I took out an enemy commander and a few of his guards."

"The enemy commander, surrounded by his best soldiers!" Adora shook her head. "That was… That was reckless!"

"And necessary," she retorted. "He was rallying the troops."

"And you were alone and almost died! Ca-Seacat!"

Being snippy and telling her lover that almost only counted with artillery shells wouldn't be a good idea. Seacat bit her lower lip. "That was bad luck. But I had to take out the gun, and then I saw the leader before they saw me. And I saw the opportunity to decapitate the enemy forces, as Mermista would call it."

"You almost died!"

"Sorry."

"You better be sorry!"

But others had actually died. Soldiers Adora hadn't been able to heal.

Neither of them mentioned that.

"Well, we need to continue our trip," Seacat said instead. "We need to make landfall by nightfall." Otherwise, the operation would be delayed at best. Ruined at worst.

Adora slowly nodded, then reached out and grabbed her. Hugged her.

"Never do this again," Seacat heard her whisper. "Promise me."

She hugged her back, but she didn't promise. She couldn't. And Adora knew it.

Getting the convoy going again in a semblance of order took longer than the battle had lasted, even including the time spent looking for wounded and prisoners. And there were a lot of empty spots on Seacat's rafts, even with Adora healing the wounded. A few of them were soldiers who hadn't been able to swim as well as they had claimed. But most had been killed by the gun ambush.

Morale was high, though - most soldiers didn't seem to realise that the Horde troops had been pushovers. Seacat wondered, privately, if this was the result of the Horde concentrating their best troops in a few elite companies. If there had been a few more officers and sergeants rallying the others, a few more soldiers holding the line instead of panicking...

"I don't know if the Horde's new strategy is working for them," she muttered.

"Pardon?" the sergeant - she had been wounded, but healed - asked from behind her as their raft drifted down the river.

"They pulled out their best troops from the line companies to form the Headhunters," Seacat explained. "That left the regulars without their best soldiers and officers. Easy to break."

"Ah." The sergeant shrugged. "They were easy to break before as well - at least when the princesses took to the field."

Seacat nodded. Of course, Horde scum wouldn't last long when facing Adora and her friends. And if you were losing the soldiers anyway, then pulling out their best troops and forming the Headhunters was a sensible if cold tactic. Better to concentrate their best troops and have a chance of killing princesses than losing both their regular and their veteran soldiers for no gain.

It was hard on the regulars, of course. But then, if they were doomed either way… She shook her head and muttered a curse. She had almost been killed by those 'easily broken' troops, after all. Numbers did count, and if soldiers thought there was no way out anyway… "In any case, our next battle will be hard," she said.

"The Headhunters?"

She nodded. "They'll be waiting for us at the yards."

"They're going for the princesses first," one of the soldiers on her raft said. "Not for us."

Seacat narrowed her eyes at the mothwoman. "We'll be right next to the princesses. We're the vanguard."

The sergeant frowned. "You think they'll send Headhunters to stop us?"

Seacat nodded. "If they want to stop us from linking up with the Sallinean forces, they have to send their best."

"They could stop the Salineans instead!" the mouthy soldier added.

Seacat snorted. "Good luck stopping one or two frigates."

"But the Salineans only have two princesses, and one of them doesn't fight," the mothwoman retorted. "We have five! They're the easier target!"

Seacat scoffed. "Have you ever seen a Salinean frigate? Twenty guns per broadside, and swivel guns and carronades on top of that! The Horde would need dozens of field guns to equal them - and the Salineans have the better gunners."

The mothwoman looked stubborn. "But they have only one princess, and she's limited to water."

"We're on a river," Seacat told the dumbass. "That's ideal for Mermista's powers. And Entrapta is a genius. Her bots fight for her."

"We've dealt with bots before. They're worse than the regular Horde soldiers."

The mothwoman was starting to piss her off. "You haven't dealt with her bots." Seacat glared at the woman. "I've fought at the sides of Princess Glimmer and She-Ra as well as Mermista and Entrapta. And I've fought at sea. The Salineans aren't the easy target you think they are."

"Shut your mouth, you fool," the sergeant growled. "And don't try to lecture veterans."

"Yes, sergeant," the mothwoman replied, ducking her head. But Seacat's ears picked up her muttered "dumb cat", and she had to suppress the urge to kick the woman into the river.

This trip couldn't end soon enough.

They reached their destination with a few hours delay. Instead of late in the afternoon, they arrived at the area surrounding the Horde yards early in the evening. "Signal the convoy to hold!" Seacat ordered.

"If we wait too long, it'll be night before we can disembark the troops," the sergeant said.

"We're close to the yards. If we start disembarking troops and the Horde hits us with fast troops and artillery…" Seacat shook her head.

"We've got the princesses protecting our flanks!" dumbass chimed in.

"They won't be able to keep us safe if the Horde sends their Headhunters after us," Seacat replied. The Headhunters would have their best guns and gunners, too. They could spread out and set up to shell whatever beachhead the troops established - from too far to be easily dislodged. And Seacat would bet half her pay that the Headhunters would be lying in ambush for any force trying to go after the guns.

"If we're fast enough, we can push them back!" the idiot added.

"Are you faster than a skiff?" Seacat retorted.

"We have skiffs ourselves."

"We can't spend the night on the rafts," the sergeant pointed out.

"We need to scout the area before we can land troops," Seacat said. "Let's get closer to the…"

Shots interrupted her order. Horde guns.

"Not again," she muttered. What had Adora blundered into now?

"Signal to the convoy to disembark the troops on the northern shores!" she snapped. "We'll land on the southern shore and see how we can support the princesses!"

Cheers answered her - first and foremost, and closest to her, the dumbass's.

"And signal to Alcy to prepare three rafts to evacuate skiffs and send them over!" Seacat added.

"Do you think we'll have to retreat?" the Sergeant asked.

"If we're facing the entire force of the Headhunters?" Seacat scoffed. They would be lucky to escape.

Then they reached the shore, and she jumped off. "Tie them up and form a perimeter!" she yelled. "I'm going to take a look up top."

She didn't wait for anyone to acknowledge her order and ran up the slope of the riverbank. She had to check on Adora. And the others.