“Face down!”

  Unni obeyed, ruthlessly throwing Gosha onto the floor, and shots thundered over them. Bahran was thrown back: a bullet tore through his cheek, ricocheting off the bone, and his chest plate disappeared under a cloud of sparks. But the former mercenary didn’t fall: he blasted the necks of two raiders with precise fire and forced the rest to take cover, releasing a flurry of newly formed spikes that lodged in the plates of the enemy armor.

  Bahran grabbed the rising Unni by the scruff, pulling both children around the corner. His face was twisted in pain, skin hanging in tatters where his helmet had failed, but his torn lips curved into a blissful smile. The brute was reveling in this, caring more for their safety than his own survival.

  “I can help…”

  “Sit tight, chickie,” Bahran gurgled with a laugh. “I’m going to my ancestors! Farrin, witness me! I regret not one second of my life, can you say the same?” His blade traced along the floor, rising in an arc that sheared off the fingers of a boarding soldier who’d leaned out too far. “Sing! Sing for me! Today I grant you the honor of facing a true opponent.”

  Gosha growled and tried to move after him, but Unni held him back. Males were so strange! Skalds composed songs about victors. Tales of the fallen quickly went out of fashion, since any idiot could die in a mad charge.

  “Wrist, Gosh. Not that one,” she laughed nervously as he jerked his maimed shoulder.

  “My bad, Un.” He returned her smile, raising his working arm.

  Resting the barrel of a large-caliber pistol taken from a dead raider on her bony bracer and gripping it with both hands, Unni fired into the back of an enemy creeping up on Bahran from behind. The recoil painfully slammed the pistol into her chest, but the bullet pierced the generator on the metal-clad bastard’s back. He started to turn, caught a bullet in the knee, and crashed face-first from a chopping blow to the gap between his gorget and helmet. If not for Gosha, Unni would have dropped the pistol, but her friend gripped the handle, cushioning the recoil.

  Bahran was desperately fighting four raiders at once. Their numbers worked against them: only two could attack the mutant at a time. Torn cables from exoskeletons lashed at the former mercenary’s limbs, miraculously not slowing the damaged hydraulics of his armor. Two shots reached his skin, and he answered with a spit of small spikes, damaging the lenses of the nearest raider. Firing a burst at another and discarding the empty rifle, Bahran thrust with his blade. The thick, wide, short sword missed the recoiling enemy.

  That proved a mistake. Supported by a complex system of artificial muscles and machinery, the raider was a multi-ton pillar of metal that refused to fall. But as he lifted his leg to step back, he momentarily lost support, and Bahran pressed on his helmet with his sword, shoving the enemy to the right—straight onto the protruding spikes in the second fighter’s armor plates. The raider convulsed, his eyes falling onto that jumble; his movements hindered his comrade, and Bahran’s rising slash opened the second raider’s jaw, partially tearing his helmet from his head.

  Gosha aimed the pistol, and Unni put a hole in the wounded one.

  A shoulder slammed into Bahran’s chest, ramming him against the corner of the corridor. The raider’s axe met the mercenary’s blade. The enemy’s modified blue lenses flashed.

  “You don’t look like an Oathtaker. Local?” he rasped.

  “Found myself bosses not caked in centuries of dust.” Bahran grinned.

  “Traitor.”

  The boarder changed his grip, sharply jerking the axe haft upward, lifting Bahran’s sword with it. With a swift strike, he left a dent in the wall with the weapon’s pommel, tearing a strip of flesh from the ducking Bahran’s scalp. A heavy knee swung, glancing off the rolling mercenary’s arm. The blade struck the greaves, splitting the plate above the knee.

  “Cur,” the raider cursed.

  “Surprised a desert robber can stand against the crème de la crème of Volnitsa’s overlord? Even the best machine gun wears out from lack of maintenance! While you lounged in safety, we fought, overcame, and won every day, honing our instincts in skirmishes!” Bahran snorted, positioning the enemy between himself and the last raider. “You’re obsolete, old-timers! A new generation has ripened…”

  “For the harvest,” the enemy finished for him.

  With his left vambrace, he deflected Unni’s shot, immediately bringing the axe down on Bahran’s head. The mercenary blocked the swing, catching it on his blade, and the enemy, with his free hand, grabbed the rifle held to his belt by a magnetic lock. The barrel aimed at Bahran’s ravaged chest.

  A hail of fire cut them both down. Heavy shells pierced the power armor, shearing whole chunks from the raiders and flying like screaming spirits past the stunned children and the mercenary. The barrage suddenly stopped, the spinning of the rotary gun winding down as the thud of falling debris faded, and Unni heard loud footsteps.

  For a second, her mouth fell open, not recognizing their savior. Mechanical blocks replaced his right arm and leg; thickly implanted cybernetics enclosed the right side of his ribcage in a metal cage, and over this patchwork, body armor was hastily strapped. Smoke rose from six barrels set into a giant metal palm. On his bald head, covered in healed burns, a human eye—weary, swimming in a bloodshot sclera—shared space with a round gray orb in the other socket, emitting no light. Where moving parts entered his body, the flesh was swollen and reddened. His human side rose and fell rapidly with quick breaths. A dark eyebrow lifted in greeting.

  “Yeshua!” Gosha and Unni exclaimed together.

  “Greetings. el-Satanini awakened me against the cyberneticists’ advice,” the knight exhaled. “The battle calls, and I swear I will not let anyone harm you… even if I’m a bit late with that intention.”

  “Don’t worry about the arm, I lost it much earlier. You couldn’t have made it,” Gosha assured him. “Yeshua, are you sure you’re alright? Your heart…”

  “Stimulants. I’ll need a month to recover afterward, but we won’t have that month if we don’t survive today’s slaughter.” With uncanny agility, Yeshua spun, flooding the corridor to his left with fire. Three armored figures fell.

  A fourth opponent leaped, twisted in midair, pushed off the ceiling with his feet, and fired at Yeshua. The knight took the bullet on his armored shoulder, and a knife flashed in the hand of the bandit flying toward him. The lights went out for a second; anxious Unni heard a loud crash, and when the lamps flickered back on, she saw the enemy sprawled on the floor, pinned by the enormous sole of Yeshua’s artificial leg. Weight descended, crushing armor and organs beneath. With a pain-filled wheeze, red foam spilled onto the dying boarder’s neck.

  “Fall back to the medbay.”

  “Ah, and I was just hoping to see Farrin in the afterlife.” Bahran rose with a grunt, picking up a dead raider’s rifle and looting his grenades and ammo. “Chicks, you heard the boss. We live a little longer.”

  “Don’t call me that.” Unni’s mouth gaped, almost blocking her vision.

  She flinched. A second rifle hit her in the stomach.

  “Hit. There’s a gap of decades of experience between us, you little impudent thing.” Bahran wiped blood from his face, growing new spikes. “Take the rifle and give the Malformed the pistol. Better we’re all armed.”

  “Yes, sir.” Unni grimaced. “But I will surpass you! Don’t you dare die until then.”

  “You look adorable when you use your power,” Gosha whispered to her, taking the pistol in his teeth and pulling out the magazine to check its load.

  “Thanks,” dark lines that served as her blush covered Unni’s snow-white cheeks. “You’re not so bad yourself. Seeing anyone?”

  “Well, not in a combat situation, youth!” Yeshua barked. “Damn, I’m starting to talk like Chernogor. And getting bald too. I’m not that old yet.”

  ****

  “Hurry, hurry,” Grisha urged, desperately trying to break free from Tsereg’s grip.

  Visions threatened to overwhelm him. Countless variations of the future danced in his mind, dissolving and being replaced by other scenarios as time passed. He saw Commander el-Satanini’s death with eighty percent probability. But that sorrow hadn’t come to pass. As they skirted a pile of debris in the workshop via a bridge passing over the room, the kids saw the brave knight together with twenty infantrymen holding back a flood of boarders climbing through a breach.

  Just as the whispers of foresight had told him, a massive raider, whose body seemed ready to burst his armor, brought the commander down, looming over him, and fired three shots into his helmet. The protection held, and the sound of working elevators momentarily cut through the battle’s chaos. Heavy turrets rose, targeting the enemies and churning them into a bloody pulp with a storm of shells and stabbing laser beams. The would-be killer evaporated, and el-Satanini rose, splitting a retreating enemy’s back with his mace.

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  Another vision promised betrayal from the hired mercenaries, but Grisha saw those men holding together with the kitchen staff, shooting invaders climbing through ventilation shafts. Perhaps their loyalty was swayed by the appearance of the magnificent Carde, who brilliantly bypassed the landed enemy champion’s impenetrable defense in three moves and hoisted her on the spikes of his mace, but Grisha grasped the main point.

  No matter how bleak or grim the future, the chance to grasp a sliver of light remained only through the determination not to give up. Oh, his head would be splitting with pain for months after today. No matter. The main thing was he wouldn’t lose his freedom.

  The two-headed hound appeared. The creature was still relatively far, but they couldn’t waste time.

  Decimus lunged ahead of Tsereg, grabbed the closing stairwell door with his long fingers, and held it just long enough for them to slip inside. With a loud click, the passage sealed behind them.

  “Sylvie? Rustam?”

  “Here!” Voices came from below.

  Two flights down, they found their friends sitting beside a sprawled Ney. The crusader’s face was covered in bruises, one leg bent at an unnatural angle. The kids had similar injuries. Rustam’s face was a swollen blue mask, a long gash ran along Sylvie’s collarbone, and three fingers on her right hand were non-functional. Clearly, the cruiser’s fall hadn’t left them unscathed.

  “I must say, when I expected a rescue party, I didn’t expect to see you,” Rustam laughed.

  “What’s happening?” asked Sylvie. “We were tossed left and right like wet canned goods in a tin.”

  “We fell. The whole cruiser dropped off the cliff,” Decimus explained.

  Sylvie’s face fell, her mouth wide open.

  “Rabble are trying to board,” Tsereg added, releasing Grisha. “The crusaders are currently explaining their displeasure to the illegals.”

  “They’ll win,” Grisha promised. “Ney!” He approached the crusader and slapped him across the face. “Wake up.”

  “Hey, he tried to kill us… not of his own will! He was being controlled.” Rustam quickly recounted what had happened.

  “Hmm. Seems we weren’t the only ones having adventures…” Decimus remarked impassively.

  An explosion thundered several decks above, and fragments rained down. Decimus knocked aside a beam falling toward Sylvie and grabbed at a deep gash on his arm. His gray skin was already moving, closing the wound and rebuilding muscle.

  “Kids are down here! Capture them in Paikan’s name!” a raider’s voice boomed, amplified many times over speakers for a terrifying effect.

  “We’re so sick of you!” Tsereg straightened up.

  A sharp shard sliced across her bald head, cutting the skin, but she didn’t cry out. Flame danced on her upturned palms: first a small sphere, growing exponentially, creating a bright circle of light around the girl, and then a scorching column shot upward, searing the stairs. The roaring fire slammed into the scum peering down, changed direction, and hurled the slavers back through the breach they’d made. Grisha heard screams, quickly silenced by the detonation of grenades and portable explosives, and the walls shook again.

  “So you can burn stuff, eh?” Rustam exclaimed in admiration.

  “Compared to Dad, yeah, that’s all I can do,” Tsereg replied, blowing on her palms.

  “They were burned,” Sylvie giggled.

  Her laughter was cut short by the whir of servomotors. Ney rose after another slap from Grisha, raised his hand, and Sylvie found herself staring down the barrel protruding from under his metal gauntlet. A shot rang out, grazing a lock from the girl’s temple and striking a raider who had jumped down. The body slammed into the landing and tumbled down, spraying blood. Limp hands released two heat-reddened swords.

  “Good morning, Sylvie,” Ney rasped.

  “Cusack! You’ve deafened me!” the girl complained, pressing a hand to her ear. “Wait, are you… you, again?”

  “It’s him, it’s him.” Rustam nodded. “That other one didn’t know about this hidden weapon.”

  “The other one?”

  “You were being controlled,” Grisha laughed, no longer tense. His vision hadn’t shown a surprise attacker, but so far, everything was going according to plan.

  He sat down, rubbing the throbbing veins in his neck, while Rustam filled Ney in on what had happened. The knight’s face darkened upon hearing of Butylin’s fate.

  “I suppose the fact that I’m conscious means Ruda has already avenged the fallen.” He wheezed, barely moving one arm, spitting blood through broken teeth. Yet his tone was confident and encouraging. “Hmm, at least my priceless parents’ fears are officially laid to rest. Any girl capable of tenderizing me like a cutlet is more than worthy of bearing the Schwarzendruber bull. We need to…”

  “The cannons!” Grisha cried out. “The external weapons are still working.”

  “How do you know?”

  “My power told me.” Grisha clenched his small fists. In many variations of the future, Ney was forcibly dragging him to the bridge. “This attack isn’t the end. Something terrible has appeared near us. I can feel it, and I need you to believe me.”

  “If it’s necessary, then I believe.” Ney nodded and groaned in pain. “I’m afraid I won’t be of much use in a fight.”

  “You don’t need to be! The bridge can’t regain control of the external cannons; the operators in individual sections have lost consciousness. But the plasma emitters are charged, and we have to activate them! Otherwise, it will devour Ruda, and then us!” Grisha trembled.

  “Yes, Commander Grisha.” Ney removed a pair of pistols from his belt, handing them to Rustam and Sylvie. “Just as a precaution. If there’s danger, hide and run, don’t fight. Decimus, Tsereg, help me…”

  “It’s going to hurt,” the Troll warned.

  “Trust me, it’s nothing compared to the shame gnawing at me. I failed to protect my comrades, yet I survived. The least I can do is apply all my meager efforts to improving the situation,” Ney exhaled, leaning on Decimus and Tsereg.

  Sylvie offered her shoulder to Grisha, and he readily accepted the help, looking into her face. Doubt pricked at him.

  “Are you with us, Sylvie?”

  “To the end,” the girl promised. “I’m going to see Dad. And I’ll get you all to safety.”

  ****

  Two beasts clashed on the cliff. Draz’s space-rending claws touched Paikan’s chest, plowing bloody furrows into the snow-white body, and instantly recoiled as the skin on his hands vanished. The mutated governor leaped back to the very edge; the eyes of his right head flashed, and Paikan hesitated under the pressure of fear flooding his mind. Immediately, two circling tornadoes formed on the giant’s right palm, moving counterclockwise. Growing in size, they stretched left and right, flanking Paikan, while the central head of Draz spewed a stream of molten magma.

  A pillar of light cut through all three attacks, dissolving them before impact at a single point. Paikan surged forward, leaving behind a beam that melted the glassy coating forming on the ground and made stones flow. The lord’s fist, having closed the distance, vaporized the hide over Draz’s ribs. Air gathered around the governor, halting his disintegration into particles, and he struck with his knee, sending Paikan tumbling to the opposite edge of the cliff. A fireball followed the destroyer, exploding at his feet.

  Szarel merely wrapped his barrier more tightly around himself, impassively analyzing what he saw. Paikan had shaken off the mental shock faster than the Magister. The pale light emanating from his body certainly played a role in the power’s function. However, it had limits. Paikan hadn’t erased Eloise instantly, nor the bulk of the mountain. Some durable materials resisted the erasure much longer. And… His eyes critically examined Draz’s wounds. Jagged, uneven. Why? If the effect of the destructive field was uniform, what caused this result?

  Draz slashed through reality, disappearing into the created hole, and emerged from a freshly opened seam above Paikan, spewing a stream of flame that momentarily hid the white man. Milky white overcame orange, preventing the heat from reaching the lord, and he looked up. Draz landed beside him, plunging his hand forward. Space-rending claws scratched the ankle of Paikan as he rolled aside. Draz howled, losing an eye on his right head.

  The star and the arsenal of fury from five different powers converged and diverged, destroying the cliff. Draz’s palpable hatred sharpened his senses, manifesting in every movement, whether lunge or thrust. Paikan, on the other hand, carried himself with the faint satisfaction of an amused man finding himself at the center of a hilarious joke. In seconds, they exchanged hundreds of attacks and counterattacks, each striving for supremacy and a mortal wound.

  Finally, Draz’s wounds began to tell. He slipped in his own blood gushing from an artery in his left arm, and a snow-white leg chopped like the rising stroke of a naginata, cleanly severing tendons, muscle, and bone. Blood fountained from Draz’s mutilated left shoulder. The mutant spat magma into his remaining palm and slapped it over the wound.

  Paikan chuckled. And reached with his left hand toward Draz’s chest.

  Doing exactly what was expected of him. Szarel noticed the mutant’s eyes narrowing, and not because Draz’s eyelids were smoking and smoldering. With one foot still in the air after the attack and leaning forward, the lord was in an awkward position.

  Not one suited for dodging.

  Draz’s left maw gaped. As before, nothing left it, but now Szarel extended a thin beam of telekinesis forward, subtly causing the air to vibrate. Everything vanished in the path of that strange emission, which erased the atmosphere and licked away part of the corrosive light around Paikan. The lord’s arm disappeared, and a deep pit opened before him. Paikan retreated, pursued by mocking laughter. Szarel still couldn’t grasp the nature of the mutant’s left head’s power. It didn’t transmute matter, release energy, or manipulate space. It simply erased everything before it, overcoming any material.

  Dangerous.

  Paikan evidently thought so too. A narrow beam left his body, touching the neck of the distracted mutant. Draz froze, staring in disbelief at the falling part of his body. His left head—the deadly weapon that had changed everything in the battle—plopped into molten rock, its lips twitching. A roar, full of rage and agony, erupted from the two remaining throats, causing a nearby boulder to collapse into a pile of dust and sending a new avalanche down. Staggering, Draz moved to the cliff’s edge and fell backward, tumbling down.

  “No,” said Paikan. “This match ends with only one outcome.”

  He gathered himself to leap after the traitorous underling but spun sharply, snorting as a chunk of white was carved from his shin by an invisible blade. Red spread around the wound.

  “A true statement,” said Szarel. “Your execution has been delayed long enough.”

  “You’re sure? I expected you to show more prudence, allowing us to weaken each other to the end while studying our abilities…” Paikan pressed a hand to his absent mouth. “You’re worried about your subordinates. That’s why you don’t want to allow me onto the battlefield.”

  “Do not speak of them. One like you could never understand the value of responsibility.”

  “But I do understand.” Paikan crouched. “Love or duty—it doesn’t matter. When I hurl your mutilated, cold corpse at the crusaders, when your jackals finally deign to arrive here, the magnitude of your failure will echo across the Land of the Oath. Centuries later, people will remember the magister who lost the cruiser entrusted to him, lost his personnel, and failed to rescue civilians from slavery.”

  “In the end, you know nothing.” A blade formed around the finger pointing at the slaver. “By attributing idle obsession with ego to me, you betray your own fears. For the teachings of the Planet, for those we cherish, the Onyx Order will do everything possible, sacrificing flesh and pride.”

  “And fail,” Paikan sang.

  Standing motionless, he unknowingly gave Szarel a better opportunity to study his power. What he had taken for a single aura around the tyrant was actually a cluster of circling white flakes of various sizes: no larger than a finger, no smaller than a fingernail. Together, they formed a cocoon that contracted and expanded at the user’s will.

  “You will be forgotten, sinner,” Szarel promised.