The crunch of her transforming body momentarily drowned out the blare of the sirens for Ruda. Her fingertips stretched, thickening and acquiring new phalanges; her neck lengthened, supporting her increasingly square jaw. Fangs pried her tongue as her armor expanded, making room for her scaly skin. Captain Mikhas had ordered that the engine be protected at all costs, and she intended to ensure that.

  An unknown device hung on the control panel next to the engine compartment door. Without stopping, she punched her way through the door, shaking off the arcs of electricity that had reached her from the mine. Debris was still falling, but Ruda was already scanning the room, noting the motionless bodies of mechanics scattered across the spacious chamber.

  The engine generating the antigravity field continued to operate. A two-hundred-meter-long polyhedron, half-buried in the depths of the compartment, extended left to right of the door and ended in two platforms for inspection and maintenance. On the right platform sat the senior mechanic, head bowed, leaning against a hissing control panel. A dart lodged in the man’s chest emitted a faint chemical odor. A series of chopping blows had rendered the external displays and terminals inoperable, but the engine continued to hum steadily, surrounded by a magnetic field.

  Ruda, reaching the railing in two strides, glanced inside and jerked back, saved by her unusually sensitive perception, noticing a blob leaping from above. A scimitar longer than her arm sliced ??through the railing, leaping for her throat. Forewarned by Rustam’s conclusions, Ruda parried the attack, immediately switching to the defense of her cannon-raising arm, and retreated, planning to gain distance. The dark-cloaked, mind-controlling parasite was fast. The scimitar’s blade flashed before his watchful eyes, slashing at the crusader’s joints, never bogged down in prolonged resistance. She had to jerk the hand with the firearm back, dodging a swing aimed at severing her fingers.

  The assassin was hunting for a crippling or fatal blow, not intending to engage in a classic fight. His figure emitted shadows—smoked them—creating an intangible cocoon around the man and obscuring some of his movements.

  “Careful,” he said, maintaining the pace of his stabs. “The personnel are temporarily paralyzed. Skilled specialists are valuable in the market.”

  Ruda’s hoof hovered over the mechanic’s body behind her, and immediately her pauldron shook. The incision had torn it open from below, slicing the skin but failing to reach the axillary artery. If the assassin was surprised by her resilience, he didn’t show it, jerking the scimitar away before she could wedge it between her body and her arm.

  I won’t yield you any more luck. Ruda narrowed her eyes, trusting her ears as they caught the slow beats of hearts. With cold calculation, she fired with a half-bent arm. The projectile flew past the raider, ricocheting first off the edge of the cliff in front of the engine and then off the magnetic field. The shot passed through the assassin’s chest, causing no harm, striking Ruda in the helmet. Despite the double ricochet, the impact knocked her head back.

  The scimitar immediately struck the exposed gorget. The mace parried the deadly cut, sending the sword flying to the right, and the crusader lunged forward, striking at the waist. Her knee sank into the unknown man’s torso, meeting no resistance. For a moment, the two combatants merged, and Ruda’s mind was filled with white noise. Her thoughts were overwhelmed by an alien will, constantly pressing on her consciousness, trying to drag the knight into the embrace of unconsciousness. Insidious whispers poured into her ears, urging her to rest; intangible bands relaxed her muscles; an alien intelligence—much older than her—pushed her thoughts aside, demanding that Shabun rule this body.

  Ruda’s eyes glazed over, and she took an uncertain step forward, holding back the fading sparks of her own will only thanks to the Order’s intensive training. Every sariant had experienced firsthand the loss of control at the hands of another Abnormal and learned how to resist these tricks, or at least, having gathered their strength, warn their allies. But Shabun far surpassed all the mind-controlling wielders she knew. He hacked her psyche, infecting her desires with aspirations aimed at his benefit, turning her into a submissive slave. While one part of her “I” resisted, Shabun suppressed another, confusing her intentions, and Ruda almost missed the moment when she began to perceive him favorably.

  But she had a trump card of her own. Ruda turned to the power within her, awakening the beast and allowing the raw, animalistic aggression to surge through her, twitching her fingers, snapping her jaw, and speeding up her heartbeat many times over, casting off the clouding influence with a single, single-minded determination to break her opponent. Chemical and supernatural processes merged, and Shabun lost his balance, gasping and finding himself behind her.

  Ruda and the beast whirled around, cutting a bloody trail across the raider’s chest. At first, the knight thought she’d struck too quickly for Shabun to become intangible, but the subsequent kick passed through his knee without resistance. Rustam’s story about Ney’s mace lying nearby and the dodge of the shadow-emitting body answered the riddle.

  Electricity. Shabun couldn’t stand it.

  Laser beams stretched from the door, passing through the assassin and signaling the arrival of reinforcements. Ruda quickly circled Shabun, ensuring their backs weren’t to the engine or the doors. She raised her cannon arm, her fangs clenched against the cut that had ripped open her vambrace. But Shabun bought it.

  She released the cannon, lunging with her mace, and gripped the handle with both hands, driving the crackling spikes straight into her opponent’s chest. Shabun grunted, unable to avoid the blow as the crusader took a running start. She carried him across the hall, slamming his back into a panel. The man, not wearing power armor, was no match for the knight’s might, and Shabun opened his mouth in a silent scream, twitching as the electricity surged from both sides. His feet drummed against the metal.

  The assassin twisted, digging his fingers into the wound on Ruda’s vambrace, subjecting her too to a monstrous, vein-bursting strain of electric shock. She refused to retreat, continuing to split the bones of his chest, even as Shabun raised his scimitar, aiming the trembling blade at her neck. Ruda’s organs flailed wildly, a trickle of blood from her nose ran down her lip, her gaze turned red, but with incredible tenacity, she refused to release Shabun from the deadly trap.

  Her limp hand released the scimitar, and her fingers left the wound, ending the torture. The mace crunched through the already dead body. The Order’s infantry finished Shabun. Their laser beams turned the enemy’s face, unable to dodge or become intangible, into a scorched black-gray mass, spurting red.

  Ruda yanked her weapon free, fighting the urge to fall to her knees. There was still much unfinished business.

  “Remove the darts...” she ordered the soldiers with an unruly tongue, gesturing at the unconscious men. “They’ve been injected with a paralyzing poison...”

  “All personnel, brace for impact!” the officer’s dispassionate voice rang out from the bridge.

  With a click, recesses in the walls opened, releasing harnesses designed to preserve lives in the event of shock waves penetrating, causing monstrous shaking, deep into the cruiser’s deck. Ruda was torn between the urge to rush to the children and the vulnerable allies here. When she heard the groan of buckling bulkheads, she grabbed several technicians, began securing them in their seats, and prayed to the Planet for the safety of ones dear to her.

  Then everything turned upside down.

  ****

  Buds of red and white flame and violet discharges merged on the hull of the Shroud of Darkness. The barrage that penetrated the protective barrier reduced several large-caliber weapons to rubble, and plasma beams melted them. The heat detonated the ammunition inside, causing a section of the cruiser to bulge outward. Explosions comparable to the detonation of small nuclear discharges continually tested the Oathtakers’ strength.

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  A similar scenario unfolded on the pursuing transport, closing the distance. Hundreds of bright points lit up the mighty shield of the Old World, forcing their way inside and pouring destruction onto the shell-spitting batteries. The ornaments on the edges of the raider’s behemoth fell off, and the blackened skull crowning the tall spire toppled over with a crash, crushing the artillery mounts.

  Two technological marvels, designed to achieve superiority over distances of thousands of kilometers, clashed in hand-to-hand combat, eviscerating armor plates and blanketing the mountain road with fiery eruptions. The heat released into the atmosphere gathered dark clouds in the sky, a rare occurrence even on the border of the Land of the Oath. Rain poured upon the clashing titans, evaporating before reaching their intersecting shields.

  Szarel fought his battle right in the heart of this hell. He breathed thanks to an oxygen tube running from his gorget to the corner of his mouth. The magister didn’t wear a helmet out of vanity. The noise from the bridge, sensor data, and automated target acquisition systems would interfere with his greatly accelerated senses of perception and reaction. Whether he liked it or not, he would have to fight this duel alone, relying on his kin’s ability to win without him.

  A telekinetic shield hung around him like a cocoon. It wasn’t perfect, and a moment’s hesitation earlier had burned his forehead to the bone. Regeneration was already healing the wound, but Szarel couldn’t afford to waste too many resources on self-recuperation. Every lesson he’d learned, every experience gained from defeating his opponent, was now being tested. Death surrounded him on all sides. Molten rivers flowed beneath his levitating feet, highlighting him orange, and great danger lurked in the smoke ahead.

  A chunk of broken metal tore through the veil, hurtling toward him. Fingerprints appeared on the object, and an invisible hand compressed the multi-meter fragment into a palm-sized sphere. Less than a breath later, Paikan was already above Szarel, raining a hail of blows at him, trying to bring the magister onto his hull.

  But telekinesis operated according to slightly different laws of physics. Pressure applied to it didn’t move the user away from the incoming blow, as would happen with something possessing mass. Szarel’s will created this barrier, and it could be pierced, but not bent, unless he so desired. The momentum of Paikan’s attacks was evenly dispersed across the surface of the barrier, not reaching the magister, and he created a noose around the tyrant’s neck, slamming him into the boiling river.

  Molten metal filled Paikan’s empty eye socket, and his face disappeared into the depths. Through the constantly overlapping invisible shells on the tyrant, Szarel realized he had grabbed the chokehold around his neck, threatening to break it, and found a foothold. The magister sent a shockwave that knocked Paikan off his feet, tossing him onto his back.

  A bright flash nearby forced Szarel to abandon his attempts to drown his opponent. The pursuers fully penetrated the shield’s coverage, unleashing solid-state ammunition and energy beams on the weakened section of armor. Telekinesis coiled around the magister’s torso, carrying him away from the immediate kill zone, while his initial barrier cracked and shrapnel raked across his cheekbones. In frustration, he swept a row of laser turrets toward the looming behemoth, cutting off the stream of blue beams testing his defenses.

  Paikan surfaced, laughing and wiping the steel from his face. An explosion hurled him toward the edge of the pyramid. Szarel didn’t have time to attack the tyrant when the pursuers’ transport slammed into the Shroud of Darkness, adding to the land ship’s friction with stone and the roar. The massive war machine crushed the Shroud of Darkness into the mountainside, forcing the cruiser to plow its way through.

  Slaps echoed around Szarel. Paikan caught up with him, leaping too fast even for him, and the tyrant’s punch breached the magister’s barrier, denting his breastplate.

  “The party’s getting more and more fun...”

  “You’ve said enough,” Szarel interrupted.

  Blows to the kneecaps from behind brought Paikan to his knees. A strike to the back of his head sent him crashing back onto the hull. Szarel created a telekinetic spear, restoring his shield around himself and feeling the pungent smell of ozone and fumes burning his nasopharynx. Unlike his opponent, he couldn’t survive in the superheated environment. His physical abilities as a Blessed One were no match for Paikan’s potential, and Szarel administered another injection of the potion, unconcerned about the side effects. He had already injected himself with far more than the recommended dose, necessitating long meditations to break the chains of addiction to the drug.

  Every color in the world appeared to him much more vividly. Szarel fancied he saw individual particles of laser beams, but a logical part of his mind knew they were merely heat signatures. Instead of a pain in his nasopharynx, he experienced a wonderful, slow burning of the tissues, a truly exquisite sensation, incomparable to the sweet taste of wine, causing a bracing dizziness, or the juicy pieces of meat sliding into his throat.

  Past, present, and future blended in the magister’s perception. Szarel finally achieved the same purity of reaction as Paikan. The hurled spear cut through the side of the tyrant as he rolled away but did not penetrate the hull. This time, the memory of his two sons and his wife helped the magister maintain control. Paikan jumped up, his mouth moving, but no words came out. An incredible exchange of barrages between the transports evaporated the entire atmosphere.

  An invisible channel stretched upward above the battlefield, delivering rain-scented air to Szarel to replace the burnt-out tube. He followed Paikan, driving the tyrant toward the transport ripping into the side of the pyramid. Needles, circular disks, pressure enough to crush entire buildings—Szarel continued to shape his murderous weapons with his telekinesis, clawing at his opponent.

  The Shroud of Darkness flared, and a halo of yellow extended from the surfaces untouched by the explosions. Captain Mikhas activated the antigravity engine at full power, intending to push back the behemoth bearing down on the cruiser to avoid a collision with the mountainside overhanging the road sloping to the right.

  Flame erupted from the exhaust pipes of Paikan’s transport, and like their magister and overlord, the vehicles too reached the climax of their confrontation.

  ****

  “Into reverse!” Draz roared at the navigator.

  “Paikan ordered us to maintain the pressure...”

  “Our engine is about to overheat!” Souzan supported Draz, pointing to the instrument readouts.

  “The road is melting.” The loudspeakers carried Feda’s convulsive swallowing throughout the bridge.

  Draz began to have a nervous tic. The bridge was in chaos: half the crew were looking at him, expecting him to disobey their master’s orders, while the other half blindly trusted the word of Feda, who had staged a duel in the center of the bombardment. The Dauntless’ bulkheads were subjected to monstrous overloads, the outer armor was melting, they had lost some of their batteries and could not use the proton emitter at such close range.

  Feda, who had joined them after the procedure that had permanently sealed him in his armor, turned away from the outer cameras, taking a step toward the captain’s console. That was enough to spur Draz into action. They would retreat and incinerate the damned crusaders from maximum range.

  “Back.” He pushed the navigator aside, reaching for the switches.

  The thrusters stopped.

  ****

  Paikan turned, noticing a change in the vibrations beneath his feet. His transport was retreating. The tyrant opened his mouth, unable to shout a warning. Szarel unleashed a mixture of pressure and debris, ripping apart his opponent’s chest piece. The impact swept Paikan off the pyramid, first slamming him into another colossus, then sending him plummeting.

  The Shroud of Darkness moved to the right, pushing its opponent toward the cliff. At the limit of its engine, meeting only a fraction of its former resistance, the cruiser hurled the raiders downwards and lost its balance, lurching over the glass-turned cliff and plummeting into the canyon.

  Szarel had no choice but to rise above the falling cruiser, watching as two mountains of metal hurtled toward the ground, still barking shots. He channeled his telekinesis, managing only to slightly slow the Shroud of Darkness, hoping the crew would have time to brace themselves for a truly titanic shock.

  On the road below, Paikan emerged from a pool of solidifying slag just in time to see his own transport smash into him. The uneven ground cracked. Entire hills—entangled with subterranean plants and fragments of Old World buildings—rose, tearing apart the sand and stone. The tremors that ran through the landscape resembled an earthquake. The enemy transport crashed onto the spire, driving it many meters underground and becoming firmly lodged. Turrets began to open on the belly of the mechanical monster as the cruiser landed on it.

  Dust rose, reaching the descending Szarel. Air rushed back, filling the vanishing vacuum, and the grinding sound of bending parts filled the surrounding area. The Oathtakers cruiser, the pride and joy of any army, rolled off the raider’s transport, landing in a smoking heap nearby. The earthquake caused by the fall died down, and Szarel landed on a large cliff.

  He pulled out a ration pack, immediately chewing and swallowing the green mass. The simple movement of his teeth felt like hours to Szarel, and the nourishing mass filling his throat slightly frightened him, though he was perfectly aware that in real time, his movements had not slowed.

  The first ration pack was followed by a second, then a third, replenishing the depleted reserves. The magister looked at the staff in his hand. His armor was cracked; only his mirrored vambraces remained untarnished. His tabard and cloak had turned to ash, but the Order artifact remained sharp, beckoning him to use it to bring down yet another wicked champion.

  Below, a line of torn earth stretched from the fallen giants to the mountain range. Szarel took two breaths, surrounding himself with a barrier.

  His battle was far from over.