Dantai ughed triumphantly; his voice carried far along the wall. He ignored Brood Lord’s summon. He was no lowly servant to run and cling to his leg like a calf. If the khan was unable to put down a single obstacle, that was his problem. He paid no attention to the soldiers firing at him from the ruined buildings or to a nearby duel, reveling in the twitching of the one destined to end him.

  He had won! He faced his fate and overcame it! Terror had filled his veins when he had noticed the brightening image of the bck-headed white bird on the artillery, for in his visions, following a blinding light, that creature had torn him to pieces. Night after night he had groaned, tormented by the same outcome, no matter how hard he tried to untangle the threads of fate. It all led to the same conclusion: this damned city would be his end.

  But it was over! That explosion that had ravaged the battlement must have been the light, but he refused to cower and reverted the tide of time, proving his worth to the Sky. His doom was sealed, trapped in the inescapable time loop and subjected to experiencing the punishment eversting. Victory!

  No obstacle remained. Dantai eagerly awaited the return of his future sight to chart the proper course for the Gilded Horde’s utter supremacy. The figure inside the cocoon disintegrated and reassembled, growing younger and then older, never knowing rest as the wounds on her body kept reopening. As amusing as it was, he had never enjoyed senseless cruelty, but today was a bloody day, a memorable day demanding a touch of horror to prove the Sky’s superiority.

  “Heathens! Mislead! Unbelievers!” Dantai roared proudly, using spatial control to send the sound of his voice into the ears of the defenders. Bullets and energy beams formed a rainbow wall before him, frozen forever in the solidified space. “Fall to your knees!”

  He pointed a talon, and a dozen defenders shouted their st cry as the time loops closed around them. Unlike with the raven, he had shown mercy. They’ll be stuck in this earthly hell until dusk, but not beyond. A single step carried him through a hundred meters, and he reappeared on the road behind the furred beasts and oblivious, unblessed.

  “Abandon your superstitions and embrace the Sky’s guidance!” They didn’t heed his sermon and fired at him, but a panic grenade explosion merely hurt their own. “See how the one true god protects his faithful! Your champion has fallen!” He swiped his hand, compressing the distance between his talons and the rabble. Gurgles and screams followed as he tore at throats, lungs, arms, and everything else. The crowd surged away. “Do not run! There is no salvation in flight; there is no future in resistance! Get down on your knees and repent! The Sky is a strict father, but His methods are just! Join me as brothers and sisters, and I shall enlighten and guide you to a better future!”

  He no longer harbored even the slightest irritation at noticing a shaman wearing a symbol of the Pnet. A day ago, it would have sent him into a foaming rage, but after facing and changing his future, he understood the childishness and unworthiness of his old ways. Nothing would please the Sky more than to see a former heathen learn the truth and join the flock.

  “Yessss….” Dantai purred in revetion. Cruelty served to make a point, but to bring peace, he had to eradicate the delusions properly. How foolish he had been to torture and invert the shamanic false preachers when integrating them into the priesthood would have brought the desired change sooner and less painfully.

  Laser rays fizzled out, failing to reach him; with a single wave of his arm, a charging tank appeared half a kilometer above the city and fell on the snipers perched on a rooftop. He stepped, tensing to overcome a resistance, and the head of a crawling doggie ten paces from him burst. A rocket exploded at his legs, but the bst scattered the defenders without harming him in the slightest.

  “Misguided! Pitiful and lost souls!” Tears ran down his cheeks. “It pains me to end your existence! Like you, I wasn’t perfect, but I swear, if you will only accept the breeze of truth, the loving touch of our Father, I will introduce you to his kinder side. Every person is assigned their role. Yours…” He pointed at the shaman, and the mist of the future dissipated, granting him a vision of the bloodied man dying. “…is to die here. But it need not be so. Embrace me as a brother, and I will change it! Together, we will bring peace!”

  “Peace?” The shaman reloaded his gun. “You have brought devastation and svery to these nds. By your deeds, we know you! I’d sooner die than betray…” His speech ended in a wheezing as Dantai’s fist closed around the empty space. He clenched his fingers, breaking the windpipe, and the shaman spat red.

  “Then so be it.” Dantai nodded graciously, walking to the retreating soldiers.

  They hurried into a tunnel leading underground, the silly fools. Was it truly so hard for them to understand that he wished no harm to them? If they would just obey, then nothing would happen to them. As any good gardener, he had to be stern to root out superstitions. It didn’t bring him any joy besides the righteous indignation, and even that he had discarded. But war had many faces, and as the chosen savior, he had to be stern in his hand and strong in his convictions. Otherwise, what were the sacrifices for?

  He will scour the opposition from beneath Houstad and bring them back to the surface to face the light.

  Time touched the closed bunker door, and it rusted enough for him to kick it in. He stepped inside, and wires stretching the length of the corridor turned to tatters as safety pins reappeared in grenades. Pnted explosives didn’t go off; their expiration date had long passed. A single cut brought down four turrets. Dantai passed through the long corridor, raising an eyebrow in surprise that the heathens had escaped so far already. No brave trooper tried to bar his path, and no champion tried to end him. Their footsteps echoed through the corridor, fading as he descended.

  In the pitch darkness, he walked, growing more curious and less worried about traps. Nothing could kill him anymore. He entered a spacious room and found the escaped group lying unconscious on the floor next to a man and a woman in blue and green medical robes. Dantai walked cautiously around them, sniffing the air for poison, but then he noticed dark darts in the back of their necks. His curiosity piqued, he looked around.

  This was a pce allocated for healing; Dantai was sure of it. Pungent smells of drugs, blood, used bandages, extracted bullets and shrapnel, instruments in sinks, mechanical devices hanging from the ceiling, and even removed limbs in rather crude bowls proved it beyond doubt. Yet there was a single patient here, a badly wounded woman whose breathing grew weaker by the second. The tracks leading to another corridor proved that the rest of the patients had been wheeled to safety.

  He stepped beside the patient, examining her open belly. A bondsman, not carrying a single trace of divinity in her regur veins. Most likely injured in the first hour of battle, a shell or piece of one had impaled her, destroying her stomach, damaging her lungs, and shattering her spine. Even the tubes in her mouth did little to provide the woman with oxygen, and if it weren’t for a variety of medical devices attached to her body, she would have been dead long ago.

  What a waste. He considered, wondering why the locals would try so hard to save an ordinary person. He drew a hand over her injuries, reversing time, and the bloody lips trembled, stretching toward each other as the missing organs reformed. The soldier gasped and opened her eyes to his calm beak.

  “You were saved by the Sky’s grace.” He took her by the throat and held her lightly on the bed. He gave her a moment to concentrate, feeling her pulse quicken under his grip. “Your city has fallen, your comrades have lost, and I have come to judge you. Tell me, do you wish to repent and denounce your false rulers after your salvation?”

  “I’d rather die,” the soldier spat at him.

  “A pity.” He let go of her, and the time loop popped into reality around her. She twisted and contorted, trying to escape the reality where the wound in her stomach opened and closed. “I was hoping you’d be more reasonable. Perhaps your friends will see the truth upon witnessing my miracle and the punishment you have brought upon yourself.”

  “Step away from the patient.” Dantai heard a deep, pleasant voice.

  Orange light danced in the dark corridor, sending Dantai’s shadow hiding behind him. The priest obliged the request and returned to the entrance, not out of fear, but emboldened by amusement. A figure wreathed in fmes was approaching the surgery chamber, and through the going-up-and-down crackling leaves, he had noticed a blue robe trimmed with gold and the emblem of a coiled golden serpent eating its own tail. Dantai saw his face when the fire parted briefly as the man removed the robe, reducing it to ashes.

  His hair and short mustache were bck as coal, accentuating the tanned skin and perfect, chiseled patrician features. Rings covered his fingers; under the robe, the man wore a silken white shirt and a short red cape, fmboyantly thrown over one shoulder. The man’s approach raised the temperature, drying Dantai’s skin, but had no effect on the sleeping humans. As he stepped inside, the fiery tongues spread across the room, closing protectively over the group and pointing their tips at the priest.

  It didn’t bother him. Another deluded imbecile who had caught a whiff of the divine and now dreamed about challenging the Sky’s chosen conduit in this realm. A simple exertion of will surrounded Dantai in the pleasant breeze of his home.

  “And who are you, little candle?” Dantai asked.

  The newcomer didn’t answer, stopping near the patient. He let him see what fate awaited those resisting the providence. As he was about to ask the blessed if he would submit, the man thrust his arm into the murky cocoon of the time loop, and Dantai sighed. Too bad. He will be trapped as well…

  But it didn’t happen. The arm glowed the same bright orange as the disks of the man’s eyes. Energy coursed through his body, dissipating the cocoon that tried to consume him and integrate him into the loop. The quivering, barely visible walls of time shook and burst, dissolving into nothing as the soldier screamed, arching her back from the intense pain. Unharmed. Brought back to the present.

  The man produced a bck dart from a pocket and jabbed it into the soldier’s neck, while his fmes harmlessly touched her, without so much as a reddish stain. She slumped, closing her eyes.

  “Remove their memories of the st ten minutes,” the fming man said to no one. “No, no elimination. No patient dies on my table. I don’t care; we don’t do that. Not my methods. Would you really do that? Yes, there are mutants among them. Don’t dodge the question. Would you do that? Then what is there to argue about? We are of the same mind! Thanks, honey, you’re the best. I’ll make it up to you. Only four? Come on. Don’t leave me dry like… Yes, let’s use the concussions for the legend.”

  “How did you do it?” Dantai demanded, narrowing his eyes. Only the khatun had ever broken free of his time manipution. Nothing, neither nukes nor psma, had ever harmed the prisoners of his power, let alone freed them.

  There was no fear. He had transcended death.

  “Sweetie, let’s postpone discussing the details. I have to incinerate an undesirable. Kiss you. Me too.” The man, enveloped in fmes, clicked his fingers and turned to Dantai. “Has no one ever told you that all women are goddesses and must be treated with befitting respect?”

  “I give respect for the deeds performed, not based on gender or lineage.” Dantai said.

  “No wonder you have the savage appearance of a freak.” Smiled the burning man. “Svery aside, your kind is riddled with treachery and barbarism to the core. What part of your marauding through my city deserves respect? Should I be impressed by your torture of a helpless woman? Bah. The fairer sex is the reason for the continued existence of our species. That’s far more impressive than any act of cruelty perpetrated by your rabble. The least we can do to honor their gracious gifts is to give them the reverence they so richly merit.”

  “How courteous of you. Your name, my opinionated outnder,” Dantai demanded.

  “I bear many titles and monikers, but to you I offer none. For what good is knowledge to a corpse?” He began lifting his hand.

  Dantai was faster. The fming tongues tried to spear him and got tangled in the expanded space, as the distance between them had grown to a hundred kilometers, while visually it remained the same. The talon pointed at the narrow channel of unchanged space, causing both the fmes and the man to freeze, trapped at that moment. His fming tongues no longer danced or radiated heat. They became solid. He didn’t breathe, and even the light no longer left his form, and darkness returned. This wasn’t the reversal of time; Dantai had stopped all activity in the arrogant heretic’s body, rendering him immune to aging. He will stand here for thousands of years, imprisoned in eternal stasis. Another tangible proof of the Sky’s superiority.

  Suddenly, Dantai heard a crackle of fme, and the solidity shattered as reality itself unraveled. The newcomer resumed his movements, pointing his palm at the priest, and a bright blue dot shone in the middle of it.

  “Taste the glimmer of a star pulse, you ugly, distasteful, subhuman pest.”

  A fsh erupted from the palm, startling Dantai as it approached him, crossing the kilometers he had constructed in the blink of an eye. He hastily increased the distance, pushing his spatial control to the limit, putting thousands of kilometers between himself and the attacker. The blue light advanced, consuming all in its path, and the priest froze the air itself, using his control of time to create an impregnable obstacle, performing the same miracle he had done with the khatun’s scimitars. His manipution of time had many applications, and if he wished, he could construct a shield strong enough to withstand anything. Once stopped, he pnned to bnket the unusual energy, reverting it back to the point of origin.

  It didn’t work. His protection and his will on reality faltered, and the blue wave hit his body, carrying him through the walls and plowing him to the solid ground. Only his st-ditch effort to put his core into stasis, essentially immobilizing himself, had saved Dantai from being vaporized by the intense heat that steamed the surroundings and pushed him back to the surface. He spun in the air, undoing the seal as the heat disappeared. He shortened the distance to the street to remain high above the bck hole leading into the underground.

  The fme was there, an orange, dancing fire. It slowly diminished, heading into the corridor and not pursuing the priest. Dantai prepared to leap and face it, fully intent on overcoming this challenge. However, abruptly, a white light pierced the smoke-filled heavens, tingling him with an unexpined fear.

  ****

  Halina panted as she struggled to drag the three bodies through the broken gates of the orphanage. T, the clone T, had fainted and colpsed midway through the journey, and she cursed under her breath, sweating profusely as she had to switch between the wounded, moving first one and then another with her single working hand. It took her nearly two hours to reach the destination.

  “You better run, kiddo. You did all you could.” Mark coughed, using an arm to help move herself as much as she could. “We’ll… catch up.”

  “Uh-huh.” Halina snorted.

  Mark’s knee had been pierced by a piece of stone, and the woman was dangerously pale. Halina had used both Mark’s and the officer’s belts to fashion tourniquets, but that had been a while ago, and the blood was still seeping. Even with her limited medical training, she knew that a tourniquet couldn’t be left on for that long without risking amputation.

  Not that it matters, dummy! She chastised herself. Dirt, dust, smog, soot, whatever chemicals lingered in the air… Yeah, none of her group were getting out of it without losing more of their parts. But they’ll survive! They had to. What are you looking at?! She flipped a bird at the horrid, cerated statue of a nameless girl, the supposed victim whom the state had failed to save. The crafted bloodshot eyes sent goosebumps all over her as she imagined them trailing the group. Halina instantly believed in T’s stories about how this mess stepped down during the nights and haunted the corridors in search of careless children to rip apart and repce its missing flesh.

  “Jay told me that there is a medical room in the orphanage,” Halina said kindly, almost dropping from exhaustion. Her broken arm hurt. Badly, but it helped the girl stay conscious. Just twenty meters until the entrance. She will do it. “Dad taught me the basics; I should be able to keep you alive. We are getting out of here together!”

  “Not a person worth wasting your efforts on.” Mark licked her lips, blinking. “Take the officer, he seems like a decent fellow, and escape.”

  “No one is going to be left behind!” Halina said strictly. She sat, giving her legs a moment to rest. “Your orange robe… Are you a criminal?”

  “Yep. All the more reason for you to drop me.”

  “What did you do?” Halina asked.

  “Shivved a girl. Around your age,” Mark answered, looking up.

  “What? Why would you do that?! Did she attack you…”

  “Pnet, no.” Mark spat. “We were robbing a gas station; everything went smoothly, the cashier hadn’t noticed anything, and we were skittering back to the car when that girl… Mina… came round a corner. My power screamed a warning that Mina would tell the green hides that she saw us, and the next thing I knew, I was stabbing her in the chest. It was a spontaneous decision; I didn’t think I… didn’t think of her. Just about me. But that doesn’t excuse what I did, does it? I fucking killed her over nothing.”

  “Her parents must be so sad,” Halina said quietly. Then she bit her lower lip and grabbed Mark by her colr, pulling the woman closer to T and the officer. “So you better apologize and tell them how sorry you are.”

  “It doesn’t work that way, girlie.” Mark breathed heavily. “You can’t just say you’re sorry for taking a life.”

  “Well, it’s infinitely better than deciding that you can’t change and giving up. Dying is a cheap way out,” Halina said vehemently, confused where the anger came from. “There are myriads ways you can help others or simply do good: a soup kitchen work, a charity, an honest job. I don’t know, a cashier or something.”

  Her ears perked at the intense shrieking. Mark tried to push Halina away, but the girl froze. The noise increased, shaking the remaining windows of the orphanage. The building trembled; vibrations passed through the fence, and then the top corner of the upper floor disappeared into dust. A human figure flew through it, covered by a tattered brown robe and fnked by the two simir individuals. Their mouths were stretched open, emitting the screeches that speared through the row of buildings on the other side of the street.

  Senselessly and pursuing no goal. They were destroying for fun, and Halina’s heart sank when one of them noticed them, giggled, and pointed a curved finger at them. Monsters. Monsters reigned in Houstad, and there wasn’t anyone to rein them in.

  “Halina, right?” Mark hissed. “Run. Now!”

  “Want us?!” Halina yelled at the flying invaders. Her legs trembled, but she was done abandoning others. As long as there was a hint of life in her, she intended to follow Dad’s example. “Catch me if you can!”

  Their mouths widened, half smirking, half inhaling. It was a disgusting sight; the folds of their flesh closed their eyes, and Halina ran to lead them away from the wounded. Three screams combined into one, popping one of her eardrums and making Clone T disappear. The stream of sound crashed into the ground, knocking her off her feet like a rag.

  She flew four steps as the ripples passed through the surface, ruining the tiles. She nded hard, hitting her head and hearing her own skin rip along with her hair. Her broken arm pulsed with agony during the roll and swelled. The girl cried, cursing her helplessness. The sound missed Mark and the officer, but their ears were bleeding, and she herself survived thanks to the statue, which had half of its own torso sheared off, but partially blocked the noise beam.

  “Thank you, friend,” Halina ughed through her tears. The statue’s head rolled towards her, its one remaining eye staring at her. “You aren’t useless or scary. Sorry I flipped you off.”

  The trio descended, snickering and jeering in the foreign nguage. She didn’t understand why they wanted to kill her or why such strong people would deliberately hunt down the weak. It seemed so stupid and ridiculous. Why wage war, destroy, and be killed when they all could live in peace together? Why struggle and fight, be afraid for one’s back? Halina wanted to ask them that, but their crazed appearance scared the soul out of her. Her toy slipped out of her pocket and broke into pieces.

  At least I tried. Sorry, Dad. There is no one left to rescue me. The mister was wrong. Halina smiled, wiped tears, and took the broken head, hugging it in search of any comfort. It didn’t seem fair. Just when she had decided to go on, they took everything away. Heroes fought all across the city, and she was just a stupid girl who thought she could save anyone. Worse, she put T and Jay in danger. She deserved it.

  Motes of white fell from above, surprising Halina. It wasn’t winter yet. She let go of the head and reached out, caught a single mote, and it disappeared just out of reach, filling her with wonder. Were these the angelic feathers heralding that she’ll meet Dad soon? The hordemen’s faces stretched, and she didn’t try to dodge, too caught up in the strange phenomena.

  They screamed. And the wave of destruction stopped, blocked by a bck-cd figure nding heavily. The sound washed over the cloak of pure void, not disturbing the fabric, let alone tearing it. A ball of light formed around Halina, shielding her from the bst that shattered the statue’s head and sent a puff of dust into the sky. Two silver disks, resembling stars in the night sky, looked at the girl from inside the depths of the dark cowl.

  A bck gauntlet appeared from beneath the cloak, moving the side of it and briefly revealing the inverted knee. The sharp fingers barely twitched, but a pilr of pure white rose from below the hordemen, fully covering them. They lingered, briefly, bck shapes in the pale stream, and then vanished without a trace.

  “A child on the battlefield?” Halina heard a click, as if a bone or a pnk of wood struck something. “What are you doing here? Have you been abandoned?”

  “You…” The words stuck in her throat. She wanted to bang her fist on his pte, screaming her frustration for not saving Dad, for letting the sister die, for failing her friends. But that wasn’t important right now. “Sir! These people are injured and need immediate medical attention. My friends are missing. They are the same age as me and…”

  Outsider, the grand commander of the Recmation Army, the deadliest bde among the Dynast’s servants and the leader of the First, took her in his arms. His cloak was surprisingly soft and warm, and the constant hum of his suit calmed her a little. A light ran over her broken arm, straightening it with a painful crunch. It coalesced around the limb, forming a new sling, and simir shimmering motes covered the soldiers.

  “Take a breath,” he said. “You are safe. No harm will come to you or them.”

  “It isn’t about me! I can wait!” Halina screamed.

  “No, you can’t. The young are ever our priority, for you are to inherit the fruits of our bor.”

  “My friends! Everyone! The city! Please save it…”

  “We will,” Outsider assured.

  “We?”