Ye Ao stood on the wall above the West City Gate, looking down at the distant fighting beyond the wall guns' range. The reinforcements had engaged the Minisians, gunfire and cannon fire roaring amid billowing smoke.
The sight left him sighing helplessly.
"Fuck, they're too far away. These little guns on the walls can't reach them."
"Even if they could, we need to save the gunpowder."
Alibaba grumbled beside him.
"Look at how fast they're firing. By the time they get inside, they'll have burned through all the ammunition they're carrying. We need to keep gunpowder for them, or their flintlocks will be nothing but scrap iron."
"Fine, fine... So should we do anything now?"
"Do what? Rest. There's plenty more fighting ahead. The city's crawling with Minisians."
The smoke was thick enough to choke on, like clumps of hot, acrid gray cotton packed tightly into Dorok's nose and throat.
Every breath carried the sting of burnt gunpowder, tightening his throat until he nearly coughed, but some deeper numbness suppressed even that urge.
His vision was a haze. The indistinct enemy line that should have been ahead had vanished behind the rolling smoke, leaving only shadowy human silhouettes swaying like ghosts.
A constant ringing filled Dorok's ears. Sharp gunshots, dull cannon blasts, screams, and shouted orders seemed to reach him through deep water, distorted and stripped of meaning.
Another muffled roar seemed to come from far away, but the crucial word, "fire," pierced the ringing in Dorok's ears like an invisible needle.
There was no thought, no hesitation, not even fear or excitement. The word seemed to act directly on his spinal cord.
His body moved before his mind. His sweat-soaked, powder-stained shoulder instinctively thrust forward against the familiar weight of the wooden stock.
Almost simultaneously, his smoke-reddened, barely