Jaited blood, froh, and the remains of his breakfast onto the stone pavement as he tried desperately to get to his feet. His legs hurt, and he retty sure that the st stomp had liquefied the bones in his foot. His fingers swelled and refused to obey, f the trucker to use his elbows to lift himself up. A trickle of blood ran down his jawline. Lights dimmed, and his poor head ached even more than it had when the mad Orais had puhrough his truck’s geor that oime.

  “One,” a mog voice bleated, ting down the seds.

  How did it e to this? Just this m, he stopped at Susie’s for breakfast and a chat about the iher, when the windows were shattered and strange freaks raced through the streets, firing at everyone. He had dropped to the floor, praying to the P for his life, when he saw Susie’s head being blown off! Where was the stable?

  Oh... His fiouched the brain matter of a dead friend. There he was, lying in the middle of this makeshift cage. Unknown soldiers, all suited in gold and steel armor, had dragged everyo into the open, jeering and cheering, drinking alcohol, emptying houses, and f the prisoo eaiwo elderly truckers were forced to run bad forth across overheated coals until their feet bed and the poor ds fell face down into the fmes. The lucky ones just had to py the tune while these hordemen rounded up the rest, meticulously cheg young men and women and arguing over their share of ‘bondsmen’, ign the pleading cries of children deafened by the crag fires.

  Desperate and brazen, Jack stood up and shouted obsities at the scum, demanding they stop when two riders dragged a woman into a ruined shop. He had half expected to be shot, but the raiders’ leader had burst into ughter and given the and to stru arena of iron beams, the citizens a choice. If they so much as touched her, she had promised to leave them in peace. But failure to rise within three seds meant the loss of forty lives. Elders and wounded children were lined up against a wall of their ruiown, tight ied around their necks.

  Jack, the wounded stable, and five others had agreed to front the ht woman. Surely it could not be this difficult to touch this three-meter-tall bald ugly fiend, with burly arms and cusack steaks fs barely cealed by armht? The raider had smirked, praised their bravery, a her swords sheathed, pig up two iron staffs. The first to lu her and scream in pain was Jack. She simply disappeared, moving too fast for his eyes to track. The armor had scraped against the cage as she circled him nimbly as a dancer, bringing the staff down on his shoulder bde. The bitch could have broken it, but she had deliberately prolohe fight, pulling her punches.

  For half an hour, their hapless team had chased her around the arena, getting their shit kicked and desperately trying to y a finger oal ptes of her suit. Their cries of pain had rang out as she had thihe group, and soon Jack stood alone, unsure why he hadn’t been murdered like his friends.

  Laughter was the worst of it. She ughed, and her soldiers ughed. The mog voices had drowned out Jack’s screams. He didn’t even hear himself and wasn’t sure if he wasn’t halluating himself speaking. Laughter seemed to envelop him like a thick co, never ceasing to hurt Jack’s head.

  “Two,” the raider sang, chug.

  “Don’t you worry, sses and ds, Uncle Jack was in a worse rumble. This? Ain’t nothing,” he mumbled, knowing full well it was a lie. He was a trucker, damn it! The only dead body he had ever seen in his life was his old grandfather’s! And now here he was, surrounded by death and blood, his pants wet, his bones broken. Still, he forced himself to raise his wobbly legs, swaying like a drunkard, and prepared his skinless knuckles for a punch.

  For there was no one else here, and Jack would be damned if he stopped before his body was broken. Strangely, all he could hear now was the leader’s ughter, but even that noise was akin to a needle slowly entering his head through the eye and raking his brain. A touch. A touch. His lips whispered soundlessly.

  Jack charged at the raider, a tiny ant against the mountain of muscle and fat. Her wide lips parted in a gleeful smile, and her beady eyes followed his feeble swing, which moved so much slower than before. This time she humiliated him pletely, dodging the blow as his fingers were a millimeter from the jewel-encrusted surface of the armor, promising him false hope before snatg it away to plunge him into despair. A searing hit across his back sliced through his tattered jacket, carrying aiece of skin.

  “Ohe raider repeated her t, tapping him on the with her staff.

  I ’t do it anymore. Jack cried, trying to stand up. His back was on fire, even worse than that oime whehrew it during loading. His legs simply refused to listen. And the knog tiap. Tap. Tap.

  “You are b. You bored me,” she chided. “What say you? I give you life if you choke the life out of them? Nice deal, yes?”

  He froze, remembering his own mother ba Houstad. If he died here, who would briea and massage her legs? Will anyone drive her to a hospital in a time of need? He was a nobody, a simple man; it’s the damn Army’s job to fight and protect them, and there wasn’t a single one of those mouth breathers anywhere. He paid his taxes; he had dreams, and he might even do the hostages a favor by ending their suffering, he…

  Was a man. A human being. What was he thinking? There were kids among the hostages. What kind of vile scum was he to even sider harming them?

  “I…” He heard her lean closer. “Fuck you!” Jack forced o smile and lunged, hoping to grab the attacker’s leg. His fists closed on the empty air, and the cruel woman chuckled.

  The armored hand moved, preparing to make a swing that would slice his head off. The raider had finally grown weary of this mockery. And the staff came down, screaming as it passed through the air like a helicopter bde. At least it will be… The strike never reached his neck, stopped dead by a bck gauhe first ched, crumbling the metal steel as the attacker leapt back, shouting words in an unknown nguage.

  “Two, whore,” a voice growled, and Jack looked up.

  A figure o Jack stood as tall as the raider—no, even taller! Armor of the darkest color reflected no daylight; twin crimson lenses focused at the raider, while an elongated helmet, fashioned after a wolfish head, revealed an open mouth filled with the sharpest fangs. As his savior stepped forward silently, a golden symbol of the Recmatilittered on the elbow.

  A Wolfkin! Jack had seen the news of their arrival in Houstad, but before that he had worked for white-furred ones, pleasant sirs and dies who carried themselves with dignity. When they marched to war, magnifit suits of armor shielded their bodies, and cloaks flowed proudly from their shoulders. And this ht here was their wild cousin. Rumors of their savagery were well known; other truckers spoke in hushed voices that these monsters often stole infants from cribs, dev the g babies to instill fear in mothers, and ibalized ahey entered duriain seasons, devastatiire regions. The horrors of the Wastes and the barbaric m star of the Dynast.

  “We have secured the hostages and taken care of the trash, Wolf Hag Kaisa!” an icy voice said, and Jack swung his head with difficulty toward a se of age.

  The bodies of the raiders littered the ground; their suits were pried open, and many had their spines ripped off. Blood rolled down from the building where their scouts had kept watow, bck-cd wolfish figures scoured the rooftops, crude rifles on their backs and their cws painted crimson. Several Wolfkins teo injured civilians and freed hostages from the ropes. Drunk on stolen liquor aatic over an effortless victory, the would-be svers had lost their vigihere were no horns heralding a challenge or the nobility of the Ice Fang order. The murder of over sixty people had been done so quietly and effitly that her Jaor his oppo had noticed.

  “My friends!” A girl with a broken arm cried out. “We escaped from the Wall, but I fell, and they saved me, and then we lost each other! Don’t let them die, please! Find them and run, before the Horde kills everyone again…”

  “Hush, little one.” A soldier snatched her and pressed her to his armored chest, gently patting her head. “Breathe. Owo, three. That’s a brave girl! My name’s Kirk, and do you know what this is?” He pulled a toy from his belt. “It’s ander Outsider, and he’s going to keep you safe. Bro, her arm,” he told a nearby Wolfkin.

  “Not a medic, Kirk.” The soldier raised his hands. “I’ll break more than I heal. Ask her where she lost her friends.”

  “Ask her yourself; she won’t bite!”

  “Oh no, no way, Kirk. You are the Normie-Talker, so talk.”

  “Normie-Talker? Who even came up with this?”

  “Soulless Oowed this Grand Name upon you. Be honored,” the Wolfkin said reverently.

  Am I going insane? Jack thought, w if the reinforts weren’t his imaginatiht into reality by a severe beating. Maybe he was slowly dying and his brain was halluating to cope with the harsh reality.

  “Good. arucks, bahe wounded, pack up our people, and keep your eyes wide open. We don’t want to get jumped on like these suckers,” the wolf hag grumbled, and hands lifted Jack, carrying him out of the cage. “I want to save at least a thousand lives before nightfall!”

  “Don’t you mean kill a thousand, Wolf Hag?” icily asked the smaller Wolfkin, and Jaderstood from their voices that they were both women.

  “I know what I said. There will be plenty of fools to sacrifice to honor our warlord and the fallen. Besides, we multi-task; Ygrite and Jaine have taught us well. Give me a sed or two. o work out my ahrough evisceration.”

  Kaisa rocked her ned advanced on the raider. Cws slipped from her gaus, and the raider reached for her curved swords, seemingly undaunted by the iable demise.

  “Two whores, you said?” she shorter woman. “One being carried ahysically and another metaphorically, correct?”

  “Funny,” Kaisa replied, dug low and crossing her arms. “I heard your joke. Sing me a so.”

  She disappeared, blinking away, and bounced off the metal beams behind the raider, sending two of them flying. The raider shrieked in pain, stumbling backwards as one of her arms dropped to the ground, severed ly at an elbow.

  “You’re a damn hero, you know that, buddy?” said the soldier who carried Jack. “You distracted them long enough for us to sneak in.”

  “I am no hero,” Jack muttered, feeling that he was about to pass out. “I even lost my trucker hat.”

  “Are all Normies this weird?” The Wolfkin smirked and sniffed him. “Don’t you worry, I’ll find it.”

  The hag and screaming in the cage didn’t st long.

  ****

  Maria hurried through the forest, ign the sharp brahat tore at her clothes, leaving bloody slices on her forearms. Trees around her vilge had been altered during the terraf, their branches sported long thorns capable of carving bone-deep gashes into the flesh of an unwary traveler. As a child, she had once run into one such spike, earning herself a bck eyepatch for life.

  The forest was unnaturally dark; dense foliage swallowed up all but the ti rays of light, and the sound died amidst the shadowy bark of colossal trees. It ce to be feared and respected, easy to get lost in if you did not use the roads. Even a gover iion had found no reason for su unnatural ge, and Maria had usually steered clear of this darkness, preferring the weling, green and lush forests to the south.

  But now she didn’t care. Three soldiers of the provincial army formed a triangle around them, helping Maria, an Iterniaer Jaakarevich, and two kids back to their feet wheumbled. Another kid, a boy around two years old, ressed to her chest, and Jacob was carrying an infant. The Iternian had arrived in their vilge two days ago, paying well, staying impeccably kind ale as he filmed their everyday lives and searched fuide to enter and explore the forest. Maria didn’t know him or any of these children well, but this m, the soldiers from the garrison had arrived in a panic, yelling at everyoo flee.

  They had barely mao get a few people on the bus when the first strike came. A shell had fallen from the skies, cleaving through Old Ben’s house. Loud engine screams assaulted Maria’s ears , and blurred bikes fshed through the square, filling it with corpses as they rammed anyone in their path. It was her cue to grab the kids and flee into the woods, dragging the Iternian after her, joined by the soldiers.

  There was no more shooting or shouting from the dire of the vilge, probably meaning that the brave souls of the Provincial Army had lost. Maria didn’t think much of it; she just kept going, her heart beating so hard she wondered how it hadn’t burst by now. A sorrowful chuckle left her lips. The teacher always said she should’ve takeer care of her form and cardio. Both children bore this escape better than she did, and there was not even a trace of sweat on Jacob’s face.

  But I will persevere. Get the children to safety, then you die, you stupid, useless girl! She cried, thinking of her cat bae, of the small, cozy house she had poured her life into. I am sorry, Tisha; I am so sorry… Dynast, please watch over him. Take my life; preserve his, please.

  “Shit!” a soldier cursed, whirling around.

  Horrified, Maria heard the deafening screaming again. It grew louder and louder, hurting her head—a hideous sound demanding immediate submission. Flying shapes appeared behind them, weaving nimbly around the trees, their riders ign the spiked brahat broke harmlessly against their armor as they pursued the group.

  Jacob’s backpack ballooned and exploded, spilling small terminals and data disks onto the ground. A drone hovered up and headed for the pursuers, its projector fshing brightly. A single shot ripped through the ter of the unusual mae, shattering it into pieces.

  “Up! We’ll distract them!” The soldier roared, dropping to a knee and levelling his rifle.

  “I wao see my mum,” whimpered another soldier, unsteadily aiming her grenade uncher.

  “Get a grip!” her rade said. “It won’t be long. Hold, for the sake of the living.”

  “Don’t even think about it!” Jacob snapped. “You’ll die!”

  “Part of the duty. Go! Dynast protects.”

  “Dynast protects,” his rades agreed.

  They ran, never looking back, missing the st stand of those who gave their lives for them. A grenade explosion nearly knocked Maria over, but Jacob held her steady, and soon a wheezing moan reached them through the screaming of those infernal engines. Maria kept moving even after the barking of the rifles and the roar of the energy ons had died down. The younger kids maintaiheir pace, ign the long bleeding cuts on their legs.

  Think, think! She pleaded with her brain. Maria had never been smart. It was one of the reasons she had barely finished school and had to stay in her vilge. After the spike ruined her eye, her brain was he same, preventing the young woman from learning new words and rendering her fetful. But when she saw a narrow gully ahead, a smile pyed on her lips. She came up with a pn! And it was a fantastie!

  She almost pushed the kids down the gully, double-checked that they had nded safely, and hahe youo the serious-looking girl. Smiling weakly, Maria whispered, “Crawl to the left, okay? When the bad guys pass, just run until you find a poli, got it? Nothing bad will happen. You’ll get lots of cookies and people will help you.”

  Maria and Jacob shared a single g where the lights were fshing through the darkness of the forest. They exged no words, both uanding that whoever these people were, they were looking for runaway adults.

  “Sorry,” Maria mused and inhaled, recalling obsities she had picked up in her career as a waitress in the local pub. “Hey, you bitchless ts! If you had finished sug your own dicks, e and try to get us, you impotent, giggling hyenas!” She wasn’t sure what a hyena was, or half of the words she had spoken, but the st time a trucker had used less than half of suguage, he had earned himself a broken nose.

  Jacob choked back a ugh and caught Maria by the arm, leadio the right of the gully as the first bright sparks flew through the air, burning holes irees. The two of them led the hoverbikes away from the children, and Maria quietly prayed to the Dynast, begging him to show her this one small mercy.

  Please. I’m not clever. A spike pierced her in the shoulder, drawing blood and scratg against the bohe wailing engines hem, smashing small trees and bushes as the furious riders tried to get to them. I am not important. But please, Dynast, please! One single miracle! Give me the strength to save the children!

  They didn’t get more than fifty meters. A spike as long as an arm tore through Jacob’s thigh, bug his leg, and another branch whipped against Maria’s face, knog her down. Her breath was hard, and her blood turned ice from fear. Maria faced their pursuers, g, her knees giving way. Still young. She was so young. Why did these cruel bdes want to hack through her and Jacob? She wao scream at the cruelty of the world but instead pressed her palms to the mouth, reg a prayer to the Dynast taught to her by her mom and dad.

  Modest statues of their lord adorned every house in their vilge, always hidden from the eyes of outsiders. Priests and agents cimed that the Dynast himself had forbidden belief in him, but everyone k was bollocks. The Dynast was real, a deity who had persuaded the gods themselves to serve humanity. His ge firm hand guided the restoration, and his spirit instilled bravery in every member of the Recmation Army. There were no formal prayers to him because, as Mom had expined, as an absolute deity, he had no need for rituals to hear his faithful. A det life was enough..

  What would Ma say if she saw me now? ht. o guess. We are about to meet…

  A dark shadow smmed into the leading bike, hurling it to the ground like a battered toy. The rider had no ce to scream; a limb formed from pure emptiness snatched his head, tossing it upward. The head was still spinning as the remaining riders swerved their steel beasts to the side, aiming at the shadow.

  Their energy shots missed, lighting a faint stream of darkness lingering in the air. The darkouched the riders, and the forest spoke. Not with the rustle of foliage or the creaking of wood. But with a r tornado of hail of steel that gouged fist-sized holes in the riders’ armor. Dark hands seized those who tried to flee, shredding them to pieces. Vehicles exploded, throwing Mary and James onto their butts, and a shadow flickered itest of pyres.

  Just as suddenly as the age had begun, the sileuro the forest. No curious bird swooped in or sang a warning song. Wild animals crawled under roots and burrowed deep into holes, sensing superior predators. Even is fled the area. The trees seemed to surround Maria, drawing closer, as if the Dynast himself had e to collect the debt. The shadow that murdered riders so effortlessly crouched at her feet, filling the young woman with dread.

  She had never seen it approaever heard it either. It wasn’t here a breath ago, and now crimson lights streamed from the round eyes staring at her, the fangs in a mouth surrounded by thick hair gleaming pale, a set of white torches burning against the hole leading into the maw. Its skin was smooth, darkened metal with no curves. Even crouched, the thing was bigger than her, and as it rose, Maria’s heart tried to hide in her heels. So big. She had never imagined anyone could be so tall! Streaks of shadow oozed from the figure’s joints, resembling sepulchral shrouds.

  Silly girl. She imagined hearing those words in the rustling of the branches. You asked. You received. Pay up.

  A tree ghost, a terrifying monster from the stories Ma had told her, walked silently towards her, breaking no stone, snapping no branch, moving with the fluid grace of a dancer. Dad was wrong. There were horrors in this dark forest. But tree ghosts always hu full moon, and it was still day! Everyone khat!

  irl. You had slipped away once, but atieernal. Water our roots with your blood and feed us your nutrients. The trees hungrily promised her, and she thought of the sharpest thorns surrounding her on all sides, so she could not escape this time.

  The skin—no, the shell!—oree ghost’s head cracked; one part moved onto its chest, and another disappeared at the back. A cloud of swirling, oily, thick darkness danced around its head, but the two amber orbs examihe people.

  “Why must the spirits torment me in this fashion?” The tree ghost said a femihoughtful voiot mangling any words. “Is this a test? Haven’t I passed enough of them?”

  Jacob coughed, but Mary was quicker.

  “I uand,” Maria whimpered, trying to face the end with dignity. “I am ready to pay the price. Spare my panion, please.”

  The beast lifted its eyebrows, puzzled, looking almost ical for a sed.

  “We found cubs, Warlord!” a voice shouted.

  “No!” Maria crawled on her ko the massive body, breaking her nails against the impregnable shell. “I was the one who offered myself! They have dohing wrong! Don’t you dare hurt them …”

  “Maria, everything is alright.” Jacob ed his arms around her and rocked her, trying to calm her down.

  “You are safe, civilian; no harm will e to you. My name is Onyxia.” The beast k and touched her wound, cheg it. “Iternian. I suppose I had to pay your nation for their help in Houstad.”

  “Iterna helped in Houstad?” Jacob asked inquisitively. “Why? How? Did anything happen…”

  He stopped when a cw’s tip appeared against his forehead. Onyxia’s arm didly move; it shifted like a body in a skipped frame of a film. A trickle of blood rolled down Jacob’s face, over the bridge of his nose, and then dropped to the ground.

  “Fet my words and do not iigate it, Iternian,” Onyxia warned, and Jacob shrugged, not afraid in the least, curiosity dang in his eyes. “Your home was attacked, am I right?” She addressed Maria in a softer tone. “Poio it; I’m freezing my ass off sitting out here.”

  Freezing? Maria wao ugh at the absurdity of this cim. It was summer! Despite her fear and horror, her body was drenched i; pleasant sunlight struggled to e through heavy leaves; warm and fortable weather domihe region. How could her furry savior think it was cold here in the slightest?

  “There.” Maria poio the south. “Thank you for resg us. Bad people came today, hurting everyohere were so many of them…”

  “How you tease me so,” Onyxia chided pyfully, tilting her head. Streaks of shadow licked Maria’s neck, almost tangible. “More fun. Hey? What’s wrong with you?”

  Maria fell face down into the beast’s breastpte, her whole body shaking. She felt hot… no, hot was an ie word for a fme that raged behind her eyepatch after the shadow touched her. Pain speared her body, twisting and t it. The pressure was s that she broke easily from Jacob’s embrace, and to keep her from actally shattering her own limbs, her rescuer carefully pinned her down. Mary’s throat arched, soreouched every finger, and her heart ounding so hard it ounding in her ears. A tear appeared from the er of her remaining eye and dried immediately.

  “Scout! Hold her down; the girl has a bad activation!” Onyxia spoke, and a set of new hands held Maria’s body. “I’ve seen it a few times. Keep her on the ground; try not to get killed, and she’ll be fine in a few minutes.”

  Fine? Maria wao ugh. Everything hurt. Her heart was about to burst into a myriad of pieces. Her lungs had colpsed to the size of a nut, her fingers were swollen, and blood was dripping from under her eyepatch. A hand reached into her mouth, proteg her to the expense of her teeth. Maria was grateful; otherwise she would have bitten it off. Someourned her on her side, and she vomited the tents of her stomach. Why did Onyxia say killed? Weren’t they safe? How could anyone die here? Feverish thoughts bounced around her brain, demanding an expnation.

  “Is she going to be okay?” asked a male voice.

  “I don’t freaking know, male! I’ve never seen anything like that!” snapped a female voice. “Look! A light is shining from under her eyepatch!”

  “Should we remove it?”

  “Keep your paws away; it might be dangerous! Dammit, her heart is pushing at the sternum! The bones are moving out of alig! What in the Abyss is going on?”

  “Have the Spirits touched her?” asked a new voice. “Is she being a New Breed?”

  “Impossible.” It was Jacob. “Unless you’re born one, or bee ohrough surgical intervention, it’s not possible to turn into an Abnormal. There hasn’t been a single recorded case sihe Extin. I had heard theories about the influence of the Glow, but they are …” He paused. “This forest. Why do the trees here have dark bark?”

  Maria remembered a story her Pa had told her once. When you ask something from the Dynast or the P—and ask truly, with your entire soul—they will often respond. But there was always a price. Often an unbearable one.

  Her missing eye’s eyelid opened wide, and a brilliant ray beamed out, tearing through the cloth and narrowly missing the scout as she jumped aside. The pilr of light struck a tree, halving the number of its branches. In horror, Maria closed her eyes, trapping the radiant energy in her socket. But even with her eyes closed, she could see. And there was iness where her missing eye had been.

  Thoughts flooded her mind, bringing all the words she had been told and fotten, rekindling long-lost memories, and a vision of her parents came to the young woman. She remembered everything: the happiness of getting a kitten, the joy of eating her first ice cream, the embarrassment of the first bad grade she got after a trauma at school. Good and bad, everything Maria thought she had lost came flooding back, bringing more with it. Her muscles crept under her skin, pressing hard against it, but it leasant agony, even with the tighteniion in her chest. Bones melted and reformed, lengthening her limbs and shortening her legs in favor of her arms. With a crack, the thoracic doubled in size, nearly tearing the no longer soft skin and freaking out the soldiers even further.

  The person who stood up on wobbly legs bore little resembo Maria. A glowing orb shone brightly behind the eyelid; her hands touched her toes in surprise; the stomach rumbled, demanding immediate nourishment. Mighty ropes of muscles flexed, the white skin healed every scratch. Her neck was thicker than her former waist; several hearts quieted, and blood flowed calmly through the newly formed arteries. Maria’s mind was clear at long st. Better than clear. She felt fantastic. But through this etion, a single w her, and the first words to leave her lips were:

  “How are the kids? Are they fine? Nhtened? Oh! There were soldiers with me; we must find them; what if they need help!? And my cat! We must help them all; we have to…”