The wings fpped, hitting the ground and missing the warlord. Zero moved far faster than a bullet, a blurred streak cirg the beast. She willingly approached the bone cage, ign the pulsing ans and tendrils reag out to grab her. Two paws smmed into the creature’s sides, and the warlord’s vambraces glowed, unleashing psma explosions, fired from the cealed unchers. Two newborn suns shone in the desert, burning holes ihing’s hide, turning ribs to ash and sand to gss. The wings ignited, and the creature began to reform its legs into separate limbs, trying to free them from the molten gss. Standing in this hellfire. Standing in this hellfire, Zero’s cloak and armor endured, and she was far from done.

  Two objects shot up from her belt and quickly lengthened into full-sized rods, simir in shape to the stun batons used by the police. The warlord caught them and stabbed, the tips nding in the open mouth, and the creature thrashed, vulsing madly as a surge of electricity went through it, bursting its eyes and rog its brain. It shed out clumsily because of the unhealed hands, elbowiwice with enough force to draw pathways in the gss with her heels. Ign the deep, sparklis in her breastpte a, the warlord sshed, her rods nding on the closing wounds on the creature’s side.

  High voltage discharges were a tried-and-true method against regeors. Not only did they cause burns, a bane of many self-healing New Breeds, but even against a being capable of healing through the scorched flesh, like this creature, the side effect of aric current cirg through your system caused intense shaking, often liquidating ans, as seors who could heal by abs energy learo their peril. The discharge itself damaged cells throughout the body.

  The chirping of pain reached a cresdo, and the creature arched back, snapping its spihis was not a sign of agony, however, but rather a deliberate attempt to flee. Its body shed broken bones and spat the burned ans into Zero’s face, enveloping her in the viscous gore that restricted her movements. The creature’s body went limp and jumped away, ign the rods’ burning edges. It resembled a stream of water spshing against the sand some distance away, but then it gathered itself, gng with newly formed eyes at the ruined hands and the gaping wound in the shoulder. Mewing a curse or a threat, it turned and ran.

  “Fleeing the bat?” Tancred asked, hurrying to Zero. The bardiche bde narrowly missed the creature’s belly as it twisted, and the ice field split the skin on its hip. Ign his challe charged past him. “Cowardly fiend! Stand and perish!”

  “He isn’t trying to run, Tancred!” Zero huffed, breaking free of the biological bonds. “Spiders! Watch the spiders!”

  What?! Taruggled to uand his cousin’s meaning. The creature trampled the fleeing i, redug its body to mush. And the carcass g to the sticky surface of the bck leg, slowly disappearih the skin. The eyeless head bit at the ruined hands, chewing on the broken bones, and cws grew from the bloody stumps. It didn’t retreat. The damned fiend sought to recover nutrients and rebuild for round two!

  The sword saint abahoughts of Zero and pursued the escapee. His bardiche swung through the air, slig the creature near its restructed spine, driving it away from the rgest gathering of is. Though the edge of his on hadn’t reached the bohe cold field had, causing it to snap bato two smaller spihe creature hissed in aendrils broke from the scorched remains of its wings and whipped at Tancred, attempting to trip him.

  He withstood the pierg stabs of bone daggers that found cracks in his armor. A knight never shrinks from his duty, a sage never wavers in his principles, and a sword saint never lets an ally down. Tancred lived by these simple rules. He simply gritted his fangs, pushing closer to the beast to deliver a mortal blow. It searched for them; it hungered for Zero’s flesh, and as her cousin, he would not tolerate the creature’s existeonight it dies, by his paws or Zero’s.

  Cut off from its food source, the thing still refused to turn and face him in battle. Its tendrils rooted into the ground, pushing up sbs of storying to bury him once more beh the rubble. The sword saint broke through the sbs, fully in trol of his footing this time. The artificial muscles of his armave him the strength and speed, and the metal shell preserved him from the jagged rocks. The creature dove to the side, evading the absolute zero field and a dark beam.

  Even though they’d crossed a dune, ae the destru wrought by the shing tendrils, Zero’s shot would have pierced its midse had the creature not dodged. Tancred silently praised his cousin’s skills, even if she used his leo see the target. It wasn’t simply a natural talent; it took extensive knowledge and practice to perfectly adjust her aim and time a shot so that it wouldn’t actally wound him in that chaos of flying debris and floating veils of sand.

  The creature covered meters in a single leap, but Tancred was always on its heels, cutting at the tendrils, slowly withering it away yer by yer, and w where it could be moving. A realization came to him as the bullets rattled against his armor.

  This was no chase after a desperate, doomed animal. The creature had already determihe exact location from which it could escape Tancred’s pursuit and replenish its lost energy to tihe battle. And it quied its pace, pushing itself beyond the limits to reach the trabandists’ hideout. The bck hide slurped bullets and spat them at Tancred. Energy beams licked harmlessly at the thing’s body, doing no damage. It galloped across the minefield on all fours, setting off explosions, and Tancred’s armor systems struggled to keep track of such erratients.

  But he ks destination and its iion to leap off the yon’s side and disappear into the plicated cavern system. Explosions and missing dark beams kept Tancred aware of the oppo’s location.

  “We ’t let it get away,” Zero’s voice said in his helmet. She climbed a ruined building and fired from a distahe DM radiation and poison will soon be filtered from the bastard’s body. If it gets to the smugglers...”

  “It won’t,” Tancred vowed. “Warlord, I’ll open the way. At your discretion.”

  “No problem. Just don’t do anything crazy.”

  There was a otion ahead. The smugglers were gathering, hastily donning their battle gear, breaking open crates of ons as a line of explosions approached. It would be in vain; the creature was too fast for the untrained Normies to use their it down. But the sword saint had no iion of letting things go to this point. He leapt and hooked the creature on the Judge as it was about to bounce off the edge of the yon and the terrified humans in its tentacles. Tancred used the absolute zero field to ehat the bardiche’s bde would deeply ehe body, aur off, dragging the struggli bad ripping its insides apart. Two tendrils were stopped mere timeters from snatg Darazdast’s right-hand man and a trader.

  It chirped at the top of its lungs, turning its eyeless head like an owl. The jaws opeo the chest, the white ihered oip of the tongue, and the creature moved its head, lining the too point at Zero. Tancred rammed a shoulder into the beast, knog it to the ground. He tried to roll away as the beast roared, unleashing a trated stream of glittering venom at him instead of Zero.

  He never experienced anything like it. The stream pierced his armor ptes with sheer pressure, and when it hit his thigh, a sense of emptiness washed over him. His mind was stripped bare, thoughts fading, desires vanishing from his body. Tancred’s drowsiness overcame him, the fusion rexing his muscles and wiping out any dreams or desire to fight. The toxin didn’t just knock him into a a; it stole the very desire of resistance, rendering him a helpless wreck.

  The creature tur the edge, bringing its cws to his get, and the sword saint uood he didn’t care. What was there to fight for? If not today, he’ll die tomorrow or a day after and there won’t be any difference. Best to end it here, ly, and face the Twins’ judgment...

  A beam of darkness left a hole in the creature’s chest, and another appeared o it, and then another. It toppled over the sword saint. Before unsciousness cimed him, the st thing he heard was the hiss of the creature’s body melting into caustic water.

  ****

  “A thousand thanks I y at your feet, oh, most benevolent of lords.” Darazdast gestured to a stily dressed woman to refill the sword saint’s gss. “If there is anything in my power that I do to repay such a daring rescue, suoble boldness…”

  “Stop selling anti-cer treatments.” Tancred, his wounded leg braced, shifted to sit more fortably on a rug-covered bed.

  What the ‘local medical enthusiasts’ cked in knowledge, they pensated for with the unusually advanced medical equipment at hand. His immune system and anti-venoms flushed out the poison, but the process left him feeble and his skin dry. A tube ected his arm to an intravenous drip, and the sword saint followed the prescriptions and drank as much wine as his stomach could hahe weakness of his body caused the sword saint to envy his cousins. Unlike him, they developed a partial immunity to any poison they had ever experienced, and he longed o feel the effects of this filth again. The Judge stood beside the headboard.

  “I said if it was within my power, my crimson-eyed friend.” Darazdast smiled.

  “How you do it?” Tancred asked. The smuggler raised a brow, and the sword saint crified. “The life of crime: why pursue it?”

  Darazdast snapped his finger, and the servants left the room. The smuggler sat in a chair, groaning from a cramp in his strained back.

  “Not everyone ge immediately, Sword Saint Tancred,” Darazdast said pinly. “I remember you; you were the one who stopped the blood sacrifice to the Dynast thirty-five years ago and saved those kids. There wasn’t a week without an act like that in the west.”

  Tancred nodded. Some tribes regarded the Dynast as a god and tried to make human sacrifices to appease and show respect to the distay. His Excellency would not tolerate such games, and the army troops were often called upon to prevent tragedy.

  “How often have you had to do this i years?”

  “Less and less. I see your point.” Tancred’s lips formed a ft line. “It is not a valid reason. Clearly, you yourself are not bound by superstition and are capable of ge. The Recmation Army has opened free training courses in every major settlement to teach people a rade. The Ironwill household is among those who pay taxes so the nation hire willing educators.”

  “And where will live those who are not as flexible as I?” Darazdast poured wine for himself and Tancred. “I do not besmirch the Recmation Army; I am its citizen, Sword Saint. But let us see the truth. It costs tokens to stay in a hotel. The fang members, the broken svers, the retired meraries, the bodyguards of fallen oppressors... They often fall on hard times. There are never enough jobs for meics, evehey learn the craft; the mines are dangerous, and traveling through the desert is perilous.”

  “Is this your excuse for permeating crime?”

  “Do I seem to be looking for excuses? I am expining the situation, Tancred! You ’t expect people to give up their old ways so easily. They don’t want to serve and die in the army; what else they do? Even if they initially have tokens to live by, they ’t instantly absorb knowledge, they? Free education only helps so much. Why do you think I own brothels?” Darazdast waved a hand in the air. “I don’t just employ people who have o go; there are legitimate former sex sves who don’t envision any other way of life and who might be mistreated under another employer.” He pointed a fi the Ice Fang. “But every year, dozens of them leave, and members of my crew settle down, haviher saved enough tokens, been rehabilitated by tact with civilization, or simply found an opportunity for a new life in a settlement. I see myself as someone who helps build society. I ’t exactly grab a rifle and hop across the dunes, but as someone who was led astray, who harmed and ensved, I at least do my part to prevent future tragedies. Abyss, I myself pn to retire and bee an ho mayor one day. We are on the same side, Tancred. We just ’t ge immediately. There isn’t enough pce for everyohe smuggler added quietly.

  “Not yet, Darazdast,” the sword saint sighed, agreeing. “But one day it will be, and if I’m still alive then, I’ll hold you to your promise. A fifth.”

  “Beg your pardon?”

  “Don’t py coy; I read your ledger and saw the prices. You are ripping people off.” Tancred burrowed his gaze into Darazdast’s face. “Our vehicles do not cost as much as you charge for them. Reduce your prices by twenty pert. It should still make you a profit and ease the burden on the oners.”

  “And increase their i in buying Ironwills goods.” The smuggler smiled. “My, one could take you for a shrewd seller ied in expanding your market…”

  Darazdast rose and withdrew uancred’s heavy gaze, never once breaking his smile. Ohe room was empty, Tancred admired the wine in the dirty gss. Even all the roughness of the Wastes and the transportation here had not robbed it of its pleasant taste. Necessary evil… Not many sword saints listeo the Blessed Mother’s sermons, but he always agreed with her on one point. There is no gradation of evil; when one begins to do it, it bees tempting to ally oneself with the least.

  But what was the alternative? Just a few decades ago, hundreds of guides escorted individual traders across the treacherous terrain, delivering messages betweelements. But as the natioablished stable trade routes, the profession slowly died out. The guides themselves, however, lived on. The Dynast in his infinite wisdom, was aware of the problems and even rebellions that modernization could cause. He id the groundwork for universal education for both young and old, f the corporations ahy of the state to fund it. If universal health care could not be implemented ier Lands, he brought anift. Tahought it would be enough.

  Was he wrong? Was it truly right to permit certain liberties and turn a blio the viotion of the w if it saved lives? Tancred freely admitted his ignoran various areas. He sistently advocated the outwing of brothels throughout the Recmation Army, a stahat even his own sons and daughters found peculiar. Tancred was once a sage, not the one charged with raising the young. He traveled aloo the ruins, carefully unpig locks and disarming traps, traversing the narrow passages in solitude to locate a precious cache of knowledge or a lost artifact. For him, the duty of a sword saint and the worries of on folk were difficult to uand.

  There was much for him to ponder, and wheuro the Core Lands and sealed his union by marrying a noble dy of the Voidrunner household, he inteo sider ways to improve local society. Cheap, free housing, perhaps?

  “How are you, champ?” asked Zero. She stepped inside in her battle armor and unpinned her cloak, taking a seat o the sword saint. “Teamwork isn’t my forte, but you weren’t half bad. I rate you as Dragena’s two-thirds. High praise, by the way.”

  “I am well, and the honor of victoes to you, Lady Zero.” Tancred raised a toast. “What was it?”

  “No idea.” Zered. “A bioon, and the ohat targeted us. It’s up to the iigators to find out what hole it crawled from. They’ll be here in an hour to pick us up. All I know for sure is that it’s going to fuel Big Sis’ paranoia.”

  “What do you mean by it?”

  “Remember Brur?” Zero asked, and Tancred nodded. Brur was the first knoocalypse Css, the first New Breed, who forced the Great Nation to set aside their arms and discuss the tai Act. “There were a bunch of bastards who tried to murder both Iterna and Janine’s forces on that mission. Typical stuff, the same as with Teo-Queen, some lunatics looking for a on of mass destru. Ever since Ravager sughtered her, she has been pgued by paranoia about some Weavers in the Dark, as she calls them. She believes that there are creeps scheming in the shadows.”

  “Does the ander have any proof?”

  “Of course not! I love my sister.” Zero put a paw over the dent in her armor. “Truly. Will give my life for her any day of the week. But she is such a psychotic, wolfish sibling of a cusaetimes! Gah! She cims she heard a wicked about humanity’s destru in exge for sanity. One problem. I was with her all day; it was the day Outsider khe meteor out of the sky. If some weirdo had spoken to her, I would’ve known, I think. Ivar iigated. The Dynast and Devourer iigated. No proof. Zero!” she giggled. “Just random, unected murders and kidnappings—a on occurre because of them, Big Sis reahe tribe so that intruders would have to fight aire vilge to steal our cubs. She’s weird, I’ll tell you, and both Outsider and Dominator believe in her fairy tales. Great, I’ve been trying to get her ied in something for years, hoping to help her get over the trauma, and what has she done? anized a spiracy club!”

  Infuriated, Zero reached for her helmet and pressed a series of buttons on its side. White streaks emerged from the opened seals, and the helmet gathered itself into the warlord’s get. She grabbed a bottle of wine, ign the stuancred, and drank it in two gulps, then reached for ann the food. Tancred’s eyes widened.

  It wasn’t because of the tasteless manners. Light—pure, yellow light—filled the room. She styled her hair into a crimso and trimmed the hair at her temples. The perfe of her features, the shape of her eyes and snout, the famous white fangs, and the lush, soft fur of the darkest color…

  “Blessed Mother,” Tancred whispered. He fell to one knee. “I wasn’t aware; five any insult I have said in your presence; five any disrespect I may have unwittingly caused…”

  Ravager stopped drinking and looked at him, surprised. She tasted the wine more carefully, and something clicked in her eyes, and she pressed the buttons of her neck guard, returning the helmet to cover the top of her head.

  “Always!” she roared, hefting Tancred bato the bed. “Always the same! I am Zero! Ravy is Ravy, and Zero is Zero!” She pushed her armored paws to his eyes. “See? I wear a battle suit, I wear clothes, I use ons, I dye my hair, and I know how to sing and py guitar and ball in my spare time. I am not her; I am me, dammit! My own person!”

  “I am sorry,” said the shocked Tancred.

  Yet now, when the helmet artially hiding her, he could see the differences. Zero walked fortably on two feet, and was smaller, more elegant in her movements, though she had a ruder vocabury and manners. She was also smaller in size. But there was something in her eyes—a divine spark that was so simir to the Twins.

  Tancred smiled. The Wolf Tribe has Twins of their own! He imagined his progenitors also had their own outbursts of annoya being addressed as a singur being.

  “I’ve made a mistake and insulted you, Lady Zero.”

  “Eh, beat it; everyone does it. It’s why I wear the bucket all the time.” Zero ughed and belched ungracefully. “It’s just… It’s raking my soul, okay? I’ve done bad things and hurt my sisters in the past, but I’m really trying to be good, to be a sister worthy of Ravy’s resped a loyal kin and defender of the tribe. I learn and study, work as hard as I , and people deny me my identity by taking me f Sis. Hate it.”

  “I still feel guilty for mistaking your radiay for another person. Would you happen to give me a ake amends? I am about to remarry, and a celebratory ceremony is po mark the occasion.” He spotted a shift in her posture. “There will be dances and songs aplenty. And Zero is weled in my house for saving my life.”

  “A party, huh?” Zero grinned.

  “A party full of passionate young ss who had never met the Blessed Mother in person,” Taempted.

  “Tell me more.”