Draz got up on all fours, gasping for air, finding himself on the ceiling, the sound of a plasma cutter cutting through the entrance door. Chaos reigned around him. Some operators were hanging upside down, strapped to their seats, but many more had fallen when the spire, embedded in the ground, bent, passing through a heat-weakened section of armor and reaching the command bridge.

  Overloads and explosions in the power feeds injured many and tore out panels. The captain’s seat melted, covering the navigator with multiple burns. Despite his nausea, Draz pulled him away from the blazing metal and secured an oxygen mask, taken from a recess in the ceiling that had become the floor. The engineers who had designed the Dauntless had clearly not expected this mobile bastion to collapse, and Draz didn’t blame them one bit.

  Debris filled the room. Draz rose to trembling legs, hearing orders to begin boarding coming over the comms from the officer who had assumed command. Madness. They still intended to fight instead of rescuing the wounded. What was the point of victory if the gang lost too many members to continue to exist as an independent force?

  Repair drones scrabbled across the floor on long, flexible legs or buzzed in the air, collecting fragments and welding them back together. Why couldn’t humans be as intelligent? Draz hoarsely called for his crew and hurried to the aid of the faintly responding voices buried beneath sheets of metal and heavy beams. He grimaced, pulling a steel rod covered in sticky blood from his side. The edges of the wound immediately drew toward the center, healing the damage and making subsequent breaths easier. Draz spun around, realizing how many had died in this pointless adventure, pursuing the paltry goal of pleasing Paikan.

  “Draz... Governor!” Feda’s speakers spat out the words. “I’m trapped. Can’t get out...”

  Feda ended up being buried under operator terminals that had fallen on him, along with the partially collapsed ceiling. His hand tapped the cable, drawing attention.

  “Hold on. I’m coming.”

  He stopped, frozen in disbelief, halfway to the officer. Rounding a mountain of broken processors, Draz came across Souzan. His faithful assistant lay on her back. A sharpened sheet of metal had severed everything below her waist, and the weight of the turret falling from above had crushed her skull. Draz sank to his knees, speechless at the cries for assistance. He took Souzan’s hand in his, not believing she was dead. Just recently, they’d fought on the bridge; she’d watched his back, and he’d shielded her from blows. How could she have vanished like that? Not in battle, not from a knife in the back, not even from a stray bullet. A lifeless, useless weight had taken her. Latke, Souzan, his honor, influence, future, lost authority over Rabor—had his loyalists really died in vain?

  What prize could he demonstrate to them? A senseless vendetta against a woman he barely knew? It wasn’t worth a single soldier!

  “Tired of defeats and losses yet?”

  Light brought warmth to Draz, and Feda’s hand paused in the middle of a demanding tapping. A solemn, thunderous horn replaced the moans, pleas, and sounds of the plasma cutter. A chorus of singing cherubs heralded the arrival of a body of the purest white, brighter than the sun itself, materializing on the bridge. But the impossible light didn’t irritate the eyes. Two crimson portals to an otherworldly realm stared at the kneeling governor, assessing him.

  “At last, you greet me in the proper manner,” the stranger said. He pointed at Souzan. “Her death was not necessary. The losses of your troops were not necessary. Such is the price of your stubbornness, which led you to the wrong answer. You served a worthless master who used you as a source of entertainment. Your blood, groveling, and humiliation invigorated his spirits, but he found a better toy, rewarding you with ruins.”

  “Shut up,” Draz growled. Wisps of white-hot steam escaped his nose and mouth.

  “But if your ambitions keep smoldering, if the loyalty of your people mattered to you, you will not collapse, you will not overlook the insults inflicted,” the glowing figure continued, spreading his arms. “My child, even the blind see your potential. Fate has given you a second chance to gain power, more than sufficient to restore justice. What do you desire?”

  The question stumped Draz. He glanced back at the motionless bridge, noticing his subordinates and remembering every soldier that had fallen, not to establish his kingdom, but because of his cowardice and blind obedience to a stronger one. All his plans had gone awry. The senseless waste of resources disgusted him. The demise of his loyal comrades ignited a wild hatred in his soul.

  He grew tired of plotting against a fool endowed with gifts by a stroke of fate.

  “I want to regain control. To see Paikan vanish. To punish the outsiders who insulted me,” Draz replied.

  “So be it, my child.” The snow-white hand reached out to him.

  Draz shook it. His body shuddered, a momentary glimmer of alarm in the corner of his mind instantly replaced by bliss. He rose with a smile on his lips, unconcerned by the trickle of drool running down his chin or Feda’s pleas. What a fool! How ignorant he had been, not listening to God immediately, not accepting the all-encompassing care and boundless sincerity of an intellect far beyond his meager capabilities. The servant wanted to sob, falling to his knees, but the creator’s calm assurance touched him.

  Now they would never be separated.

  His foot stomped on Souzan’s corpse, crushing it. He punched the wall, opening a gaping hole into the corridor, stepping faster than ever, and heeding God’s instructions, guiding his consciousness towards the highest purpose.

  ****

  No! Grisha grabbed his shoulders, rising from the floor. Visions swirled before his eyes, inevitably repeating the same scene. The two-headed hound stretched a hand larger than any Crusader’s towards him, pulling the screaming boy out. The details shifted: sometimes the creature would break into the medical bay, incinerating his friends with infernal heat, or find him on the command bridge, pulling the veins from the captain standing in its way, or flee from a snow-white star of destruction, snatching him along the way.

  But the end result refused to change. The beast would come for him. Grisha would be taken, broken, and made a loyal slave of something horrific. But he refused to accept such an outcome. Among the thousands of possible futures flooding his vision, there remained one, one that promised salvation with a ten percent probability. Enough to try it out and to ignore the monstrous headache.

  Everyone here was a fighter. He would be no exception and would claw his dream from fate.

  As the cruiser fell, Grisha gave himself over completely to his power, not for anyone’s pleasure, but for himself and those around him. The medical bay shook, flipping up and down, the floor and ceiling swapping positions several times, and he stepped out of bed, barely able to stand. He saw the future, knowing exactly when Bahran was flying past, struggling to hold on. The boy maintained his balance, dodging objects flying at him seconds before they landed and finding footholds in secured hospital beds. He clapped Gosha on the shoulder, whispering an apology, and the startled Malformed released his grip on the support, falling toward the approaching Bahran. Their collision prevented the boy in the compartment's corner from suffering lacerations.

  Tsereg held up surprisingly well through the shaking, and he felt her testing gaze. Sorry, but I won’t let you take any risks. Grisha sniffled. He was afraid to be alone. Nevertheless, he grabbed the access card from Bahran’s belt, cursing and pleading with his body not to give in, not to fail him now.

  The instant the fall ended, Grisha dashed for the door, dripping with sweat. Using the card, he rushed out, ignoring Decimus’s question. Don’t notice me. Forget me. His finger reached for the buttons, and the force helpfully suggested the probable combinations for an emergency lockdown of the compartment, ensuring the safety of everyone inside until the period of darkness passed.

  The first combination, guaranteeing success with an eighty percent probability, failed.

  “Come on, come on!” Grisha panicked. Tsereg and Gosha were moving towards the exit. Seventy-five percent success rate. The second option should work.

  He didn’t make it. The Shroud of Darkness groaned as it tilted, following a paltry, pathetic five percent probability, and Grisha flew back screaming, tumbling the entire length of the corridor. He broke his nails grabbing at doors flashing past, failing to hold on with his weak arms, and finally crashed with a thud against a bulkhead. Fire flared in his side; he had broken a rib. Grisha got up on trembling legs, wildly looking around, half-confused by the visions of possible futures overlaying the present.

  The clatter of claws above frightened him, and Grisha limped into the left corridor, relying on the lesser percentage probability that his friends wouldn’t find him. The cruiser tilted in the opposite direction, and he fell onto the familiar floor. Distant explosions rolled through the pyramid, merging with the furious crackle of automatic and energy weapons fire. The invasion had begun. The corridor lights flickered, restoring. In the brief darkness, Grisha didn’t notice the crack before him and fell into the lower corridor, whimpering from the pain in his ribs and broken toes.

  I won’t give up. The vision of the two-headed hound flashed before his closed eyes. You will lose. You! He pushed himself up on one hand, startled by heavy footsteps. Strangers, clad in dark armor adorned with the emblem of a golden serpent eating its tail, fought their way through the bay, slicing two retreating infantrymen in half at the waist with armor-piercing machine gun fire.

  Gushing, bloody chunks of bodies fell, still twitching and splattering blood on Grisha’s face. He grimaced, understanding the fury plaguing dear Auntie Ruda. The weapons rose.

  “Want to disobey the boss?” he rasped at the invaders, seizing a vision guaranteeing success with a ninety-five percent probability. “Think he won’t find out about your insubordination?”

  “Stop!” A taller soldier knocked aside the barrel of an automatic rifle aimed at the boy. “The maggot’s right. The overlord ordered not to touch the little ones. Take him.”

  The branching fates of this place coalesced into a single tunnel, crashing down on the boy’s mind like an uninvited guest, stabbing his brain with nonexistent searing needles.

  “You don’t know why you do evil,” Grisha whispered, foreseeing their fate. “For you, it’s a habit. Nothing special.”

  “I’m tired of his yapping. Gag him and tie him up…”

  Fury, in the form of a mass of bones, sharp spikes, and muscles, descended upon the approaching soldier from above. Gosha overcame the hydraulics of the power armor, pinning the opponent to the floor, squeezed his helmet between his paws, and delivered a crushing headbutt, shattering the faceplate and the nose beneath.

  “Animal!” The soldier jerked his head aside, dodging a bite. His comrades reached for swords and hammers, unwilling to injure their comrade or perhaps hit Grisha.

  Confusion cost them their lives when Bahran dropped down, unleashing a cloud of needles at the belatedly reacting humans. The biological projectiles lodged in the plates, not reaching the skin, but the former mercenary immediately opened machine gun fire, smashing into the enemy ranks.

  Gosha raised his arm, driving a spike growing above his wrist into the unprotected face. The invader twitched weakly, dying, and the corridor filled with the inhuman howl of the Malformed, triumphant in victory. The forty-five percent probability had been right. His friend had lost control at the smell of blood and sunk his teeth into the dead body, tearing out chunks and greedily stuffing his belly. Meanwhile, the tall soldier stepped forward, drawing his sword.

  “Remember who you want to be!” Among the myriads of options, this one promised a better chance of success. Pain exploded in the limping boy’s head. The eye without a pupil turned to him, frightening with the potential possibility of being mistaken for prey. Grisha refused to doubt his friend. “To the right! Now!”

  The Malformed released the corpse, obeying. The sword’s swing etched a line on the ceiling, descending onto Gosha’s shoulder instead of his head. The blade cut a path through the bony shell, striking the floor faster than Grisha could see. Laughing, the invader grabbed the arm dangling by a bunch of muscles and tore it off.

  Grisha screamed in horror, hating himself for his inability to prevent his friend’s injury.

  Gosha didn’t care.

  The bone spike met the rising sword, catching its hilt. Gosha kicked the raider, denting his breastplate. With unnatural speed, the man struck the Malformed between the legs and followed with a punch to the bleeding stump on his shoulder. Pain blotted out the boy’s consciousness, transforming into another surge of animal rage. Gosha rushed forward, biting…

  Empty air. His opponent sidestepped, preparing to plunge his sword into the exposed stomach.

  But the other one didn’t miss. The raider let out a drawn-out scream, dropping his weapon and grabbing for his automatic to fire, when jaws larger than his body snapped shut on the man’s back and knees. Long lips, teeth stretched to comical lengths, and a jawbone connected to the Unni standing behind him. She closed her mouth, dividing the man into several pieces right before Grisha’s wide eyes. Even Gosha hesitated. The human body, or what was left of it, vanished along with the armor down the girl’s narrow, ordinary throat, immediately dissolving in supernatural intestinal juices.

  Unni burped, her jaw crunching as it retracted back to its normal size.

  Strong arms grabbed Grisha. He found himself in Tsereg’s embrace.

  “Everyone back!” the girl shouted. “Bahran, you too.”

  Clutching his wound with a paw, Gosha trudged towards Tsereg, supported by Unni. Bahran shoved two raiders away, fired a bullet that ricocheted off a third one’s stomach, and ran to the children, reloading. Deep lacerations covered their guard, but Bahran bravely turned to face the wave of black-clad opponents surging towards him.

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  A descending section of ceiling crushed their front ranks into paste. Looking up, Grisha spotted Decimus standing by a panel. If the young Troll was troubled by the killing of at least three people, he gave no sign of it.

  “The mind equalizes the inequality of any confrontation.” Decimus tapped his temple, descending. “What was that about, Grisha?”

  “Doesn’t matter!” The boy tried to break free. “I need to go! I must! Or something terrible will happen here!” He looked desperately into Tsereg’s eyes.

  “A premonition? Then you won’t go alone,” she declared.

  “You don’t understand! I… if you go… I foresaw what happened to Gosha!”

  “Nothing happened. Just lost a bit of weight,” the Malformed chuckled hoarsely, wincing as he touched the wall.

  Planet, he wanted to lean on his left arm. Grisha’s breathing quickened at the red trail on the wall. He knew the future; he knew! So why couldn’t he find options to keep his friends safe?!

  “Hey.” Gosha flicked him on the nose. “I don’t regret it, so why are you worrying? Did you see me, Bahran?”

  “Did brilliantly for an untrained lout. We need to get you to safety,” declared Bahran. Fresh spikes were growing on his torn-up face. Still, he smiled, pleased with the fight. He pulled off his belt, examining the gaping wound framed by the bony shell. “No idea how to apply a tourniquet here,” he admitted. “Eh, it’s fine; when you want to survive, medicine is powerless. Bite my belt, I have a portable burner…”

  A shot whizzing past startled the guard, and he shielded Tsereg with his back. Grisha heard the stomping of several feet on metal and rasping groans further down the corridor. Turning to his power, he calmed down even before Bahran exhaled. On the upper side of the ramp stood an adult Troll, clad in crusader armor and armed with a large cannon. To the left of the children stood Cenfus, standing on two legs. Each of his arms branched into three separate limbs. In two, he held the corpse of a raider whose eyes had been pierced by syringes. Four others were buried to their full length in the necks of two invaders, ripping out their tracheas.

  Uncle no longer looked like a dangling pear. He had acquired a humanoid shape and was clad in a hodgepodge of crusader armor, interspersed with welded-on exoskeleton parts, holding numerous vials and syringes inside armored portable containers. Judging by the notches and dark marks, the mace and laser rifle attached to his stomach seemed to serve only as additional plating.

  “Step away from the patient, layman,” ordered the Insectone, discarding the dead. “Fire, what an idea…” Producing a grey ring and a tube from a container, he fitted it around the wound. The material immediately began to expand, sealing the ends of the stump. Gosha groaned, and the doctor patted his head encouragingly, covering the wound with a hardening salve. “The splint isn’t ideal, but you’ll live. Why are you in the boarding action zone?”

  “Got hungry,” Unni joked.

  “Don’t talk about that.” Decimus pressed a fist to his mouth, suppressing vomit.

  “I need to find Rustam, Ney, and Sylvie,” said Grisha, clenching his small fists. Blood bubbled on his lips. “I won’t die,” he assured them. “My… our only chance is if I reach them.”

  “Power?” asked Cenfus, touching Grisha’s side.

  “Yes,” he replied. “This time, I asked the correct questions. For my dream.”

  “The enemy is trying to burn through to the level above,” said the Troll.

  The doctor sighed, injecting Grisha with a painkiller.

  “Go. Today I’m a line-flattener, not a healer. You! Get the wounded to the medbay.”

  “And miss the greatest battle of my life?” Bahran was surprised. “The kids will find their way back… Ah. Got it.” He glanced at Gosha. “Let’s go, runts.”

  “I’m not going,” declared Tsereg.

  “Grisha will need an escort,” said Decimus, joining her.

  “Don’t you dare die!” demanded Unni, hugging Gosha around the waist.

  “Don’t be silly,” said Grisha, wiping his lips. “I want… No. I will see the Land of the Oath.” A light electric tingle ran over his skin, and he looked at Tsereg, gesturing which way to go. His friends helped him move his legs. “The Flame Whip is near,” he whispered conspiratorially.

  Tsereg’s eyes widened. She gave a slight smile, picking up a dead raider’s machine gun.

  Behind them, the Troll and uncle stood by the rising section of the passage, revealing a view of the eight raiders busy burning through the ceiling. Grisha didn’t consult his foresight. Uncle’s speed, crashing into the ranks of stunned people, was enough for him. The unusually durable syringe needles pierced thick plates, injecting something vile into bodies, causing the killers to fall, breaking limbs in convulsions that seized them, and wheezing at the top of their lungs.

  Cenfus could be terrifying.

  ****

  Szarel spread an invisible telekinetic canopy over the cliff, hovering three meters above the ground. The magister’s mind coldly counted the hundreds breaching the Shroud of Darkness, running through defense schematics that would allow the defenders to repel such a massive assault. Even in their darkest hour, the hope born of competence and training remained unconquered. The cruiser would soon activate its internal automatic turrets; the crusaders and infantry would regroup, holding critical points and constructing a solid defense that could withstand the onslaught.

  If he succeeded in his task.

  The battlefield below was obscured by rising, dense clouds of smoke and steam engulfing the cliff. Immediately to his right, the canopy broke, giving way to a geyser spitting rock fragments upward. Szarel applied pressure to this area, his eyes flickering to the side as the canopy shifted behind him. The pressure crushed the pebbles into dust.

  The tyrant was beneath him.

  A hand shot out, barely grazing Szarel’s foot, but mere contact was enough to twist the ankle, tearing the tendons. The magister moved to the side, scooping up a chunk of the mountain with telekinesis and lifting it above the cliff, crushing everything inside the resulting sphere with a pressure of five thousand tons. Compressed to five meters, the shrinking sphere burst, unable to withstand the counter-pressure, and a dark body leaped down.

  Paikan twisted, dodging the trajectories of invisible blades that carved furrows across his body. The tyrant rolled to the side, mockingly waggling a finger. His armor had long since fused to his body, becoming a single piece of slag; his long hair had burned away, and new sparse hairs were growing on his scalp, now darkened with grime. But the destroyed eye did not regenerate.

  The sinner was not invulnerable. In the immense boulder that Paikan represented to Szarel, there was a sufficient crack to gradually mine the entire object.

  “I like this!” Paikan laughed. “The risk, the chance of death from a wrong decision, the adrenaline rush, the need to think… I feel mortal again!”

  “You are mortal,” said Szarel, engaging in discussion to buy time for regeneration.

  “I know, but perception plays tricks on us. Don’t try to lie that it doesn’t happen to you,” said Paikan. “Crushing people with the same ease we squash gnats under our boots evokes a false sense of divinity. That’s why I value rare fights with equals so much.” He breathed heavily, drawing in air like a noisy propeller.

  “If you enjoy an equal fight so much, why did you kill everyone capable of challenging you?” Szarel pointed the tip of his staff at the opponent. “The evil you wrought did not bring you fulfillment. By choosing destruction over creation, you deprived yourself of happiness with your own hand.”

  “It’s true what they say: when you meet an Oathtaker, you find a preacher.” Paikan chuckled. “But doesn’t the same apply to you? You are here for the sole purpose of killing me.”

  “My satisfaction does not lie in fighting equal or superior opponents.” Szarel shook his head. His foot cracked, returning feeling to his toes and dulling the pain. “Honor, mutual assistance, and loyalty to the Order’s ideals bring me joy through tangible evidence of society’s improvement. Our morality makes us better than a creature like you.”

  “A prude leading an army… Not a very high opinion of fighters, I presume?” Paikan inquired. A thick head of hair had returned to his scalp.

  “Do not equate yourself with representatives of that worthy profession. There is nothing shameful in self-improvement through the path of rivalry. Slavery, atrocities, and violence lie far beyond the acceptable line. With these vile ingredients, you have emptied your own soul and are desperately willing to commit any villainy for a fleeting chance to feel not even joy, but a typical thrill. For this, you will disappear.”

  “If morality decides the outcome, then why will you lose?” Paikan thrust his right leg and arm forward, shielding the damaged eye socket with his shoulder.

  “The day isn’t over yet,” Szarel promised.

  He prepared to unleash pressure on the remaining eye when footsteps halted both combatants. A tall, four-meter figure stepped onto the cliff through the smoke. From his subordinates’ reports, Szarel recognized the stranger as Draz, Governor of Rabor. He tensed, expecting intervention, but the man stared at Paikan with a gaze full of pure hatred. Flakes of white flickered in his eyes. Draz’s neck bulged as if a worm was coiling around his vertebrae.

  “Pleasant to see you survived the consequences of your cowardice,” Paikan uttered with mocking courtesy. “I’ll be happy to tease your decisions, my friend, but I have urgent matters to attend to. Be a dear and take the pyramid for yourself…”

  “Enough,” said Draz, without raising his voice. “Your business is with me.”

  “Hm? Are you sure? Once you’ve taken this road, there’s no turning back...”

  Draz covered the distance to Paikan in a single step. His figure stretched, moving monstrously fast and displacing air with a resulting sonic boom. Draz’s armor burst like an overripe fruit; seething flesh swelled, expanding. He grew to six meters, acquiring a brownish hue. Long fangs slid out and crowned his fingers. Muscles covered every centimeter of his once-human body, hardening into a solid wall. Draz’s face elongated, his jaws snapped, fangs glowing orange, scattering drops of lava. To the predatory clatter, additional melodies joined as two other heads, identical to the first, emerged from the governor’s shoulders. Three necks were pierced by black spikes of forming bone collars.

  Paikan didn’t get a word out. A giant hand swatted him, sending the tyrant careening into the mountainside. The violent collision triggered another avalanche, but Draz wasn’t finished. His central head spat an orange sphere into the resulting cave, right at the prone man, and the entire mountain shuddered from the explosion. House-sized cracks stretched for a kilometer in all directions.

  The flattened, sturdy left head with square ears turned toward the magister. Szarel flew to the right, trusting his instincts. The fangless maw opened. Nothing escaped it, but a circle of emptiness, eighteen meters in diameter, appeared on the cliff, reaching all the way to the ground.

  This was unheard of! Szarel had carefully studied everything related to powers. When enduring near-death experiences, the Blessed sometimes received an enhanced version of their ability, as if something within rewarded the bearer for stubbornness. Decades ago, the Reclamation Army witnessed the first case of an adult woman manifesting a power, an event considered impossible.

  But Draz already had a power! Where did the mass alteration and this strange ability come from?

  Setting aside investigative curiosity for later vivisection, the magister focused on acquiring a fresh rug for his chambers. Bloody pits opened on Draz’s legs, moistening the growing short fur. Szarel formed a pyramid of telekinesis, sending it toward the central head, intending to rip it to shreds along with the brain and strike the main spinal column.

  The mutant bared his fangs, laughing. With his left hand, he traced a stripe in the air before him, and the pyramid vanished, falling into an opening window in reality. The eyes of the right head flashed blue, and Szarel’s heart twinged. Panic—a wild, unjustified fear—gripped him, delaying him as the mutant’s right hand raised its palm upward. A tornado formed on it, instantly expanding and slamming into the magister.

  The barrier collapsed, and gray clouds struck him, instantly filling his nostrils with ash and driving smoke into his lungs. Shedding the shackles of mental shock, Szarel immediately restored the barrier, vertically splitting and redirecting the halves of the magma sphere hurtling toward him. Fiery death passed to his right and left, creating two tracks of heated glass.

  “Fools!” Draz barked with three voices. “Morality! Loyalty! Obsession! Petty sentiments! For a true believer, devotion is enough! Suffer the divine punishment of the exalted servant of the one true god!”

  ****

  Eloise climbed onto the wounded cruiser, touching the searing-hot surface with her soulless, dead hand. Had there been skin on her fingers, they would have been scorched by heat that would take days to cool. But the metal didn’t care. It served, conveying no feeling, blindly executing whatever was demanded of it.

  The corpses of a dozen invaders—her final offering to the people who had accepted her—tumbled down in a heap of meat. Eloise ignored the captain’s orders, climbing out. Only the magister knew the reasons for such disobedience. He had added an explanation classified as “top secret” to her personal file. A last gesture vindicating the commander.

  She let down her hair, bidding farewell to her pride. Truth be told, Eloise never blamed the gossips who doubted her competence in war. She regretted not saving more cadets and willingly listened to theoretical suggestions on how she should have acted, supplementing her personal writings on the proper retreat in a biohazard situation. If there was guilt upon her, today she would apologize to the fallen in the next world and accept any punishment.

  The torn breastplate fell under the Shroud of Darkness. That was it. Officially, she had been crushed. Grisha wouldn’t worry. The thruster extended from her back, and the commander flew upward toward the cliff like a rising star. Fire engulfed her hair, and she rolled, dodging falling stones, relying on the filters of the oculars implanted in her eyes to detect dangerous obstacles. A vortex of air whipped her face, nearly knocking her off course. She gripped the lance’s hilt with all the strength of her hydraulics.

  Forget it! You must not listen to me! I shouldn’t have said that! Sorry, Grisha, but a man won’t tell a girl what she can do. A playful smile touched Eloise’s lips. Her body’s sensors had detected Draz as soon as he left the ship, but she waited until she heard the thunder.

  The prediction had been accurate so far.

  Eloise flew over the three-headed dog, noting Grisha had been wrong about the number of heads. The creature paid her no attention. To him, she was a gnat. All the better. She nodded to Szarel, wordlessly asking him to watch over the guys in her squad. Like a comet, Eloise headed toward the smoking cave, relying on the sensors in her chest. They transmitted her vision of Paikan lying on his back. Mouth open, tongue lolling, arms spread.

  He is the key. By attempting to strike, you will save us all. How? The bastard is unconscious.

  The tip of her jousting lance aimed at the slaver’s chest. Flying closer, she realized his eye was open. The pupil was tracking her. Irritated, Paikan sighed, revealing the pretense.

  And his skin cracked. Snow-white light enveloped Eloise, stripping away layer after layer from her. The spearhead dissolved. Her hand followed. She experienced very brief agony, unable to twist her smile into a grimace.

  Saving the young is the duty of their elders. She regretted only her inability to graduate another class of cadets or sariants. But as long as her fledglings lived, perhaps they would break the cycle of misfortune that had pursued her, even without Eloise herself. Don’t die, friends…

  Then Eloise was no more. She vanished, triggering a chain of events based on precognition for the safety of her subordinates.

  ****

  A sun touched the battlefield. Draz stopped laughing, turning toward the source of lifeless light, and Szarel saw particles of white rolling forward in waves, licking Commander Eloise, stripping the flesh from her face, and exposing the inner parts of her mechanical body. He forever imprinted her sacrifice in his memory, paying tribute to the brave woman’s loyalty.

  The mountainside vanished. It didn’t crumble or collapse but simply thinned, turning into nothing under the pressure of unnatural light. A five-hundred-meter depression appeared in the mountain range, and Paikan stepped out, treading on molten mass.

  His remaining eye had become an elongated ruby, set tightly in a vertical socket. The other socket was empty. Dirt, metal scraps, and scale no longer covered the wax-yellow body, marked by thin red veins in places of recent wounds and radiating light. Paikan hadn’t grown or become physically more powerful, but his manhood and mouth were gone, no longer marring the perfect curves of his body. He took another slapping step and bowed, holding his hand to his chest.

  “It’s sad to see how cheaply you valued your will, Draz.” Paikan spoke despite the absence of a mouth. “At least you answered my question. For that, I grant you the privilege of dying by my hand. Remember this in hell. A true warrior needs only one ability to win.”

  “How right you are…” whispered the three heads.

  Paikan gained momentum, not running, but gliding forward like a skater on ice. His legs softened the surface, turning it into a liquid mass, and the tyrant moved in a zigzag, ready to evade attack. Reaching the immobile governor, he leaped at his rival.

  The mutant’s left hand raked the air with its claws, opening a window into an unknown space. Paikan’s red ruby flashed in surprise or anger, and he fell into the widening seam in the air, immediately closed by the reverse motion of the claws.

  “And using one power, I got rid of you!” Draz roared with laughter, scattering droplets of lava. “Incredible! He’s finally gone! The loser will die of hunger and thirst in the void, who proved to be the best! I am the victor!” He paused, staring at Szarel. “First, the infidel. Next, the heretic.” Air began gathering in the palm of his right hand.

  “Try it.” The magister strengthened the barrier, rising above the surface.

  A hiss stopped them both. Where Paikan had disappeared, space rippled, trembling. Black, physical bands touched reality, and with the roar of a bunker-buster bomb, it spilled forward, shattering into fragments. The tyrant jumped out, standing as the gash in existence healed, restoring the integrity of the wounded world. The mutant recoiled from him, three muzzles bristling. A layer of hide was missing from his left hand, exposing muscle.

  “I hope I didn’t miss anything, boys?” he asked cheerfully. “Draz, in Volnitsa, there is only one master. Me.”

  Szarel remained motionless, waiting. In the battle of the strong, the patient prevailed.