Broken World

Chapters

a1

Broken World

Captain Jraden kept close to the walls of the tunnel. It was wet and filthy, but he shrank as near to it as he could. Insects crawled onto his tattered uniform but he kept still. Bandits passed by on the intersecting tunnel shaft, chatting away merrily before disappearing once again. Jraden pressed on.

He'd been on the hunt for a while. Four days of trailing the same prey through the dead ends and endless turns of the mines, all in complete darkness. He did not dare create light. Not when he was alone. Had his team survived the things that lurked deeper where they'd entered, he might have braved some illumination, but now even the sound of his heart filled him with dread.

He passed several more crossroads in complete darkness, never certain of where he was or where he was going, but driven by something nevertheless. He could not be sure, but something pushed him forth.

The palm of his hand felt around a section of wall until his hand touched wood and a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. He applied force to it, gently at first, and then more strongly when it refused to budge.

The door slid open after a few seconds, and Jraden slid away, sword in hand, ready to strike at anyone or anything that passed through the threshold.

He waited a few seconds, but nothing happened.

Satisfied, Jraden forced his eyes to look into the room. The yellow light of a blinking lamp, blinding after the darkness, illuminated it, and cells filled its every corner. He walked to the nearest one and took a look. Men were being kept inside them. Their sleeping forms relatively peaceful despite the multiple bruises and scars they had. There were some thirty of them, all in a coma and connected to a whirring machine at the end of the room by cables and wires that stuck out of their skin. Jraden cleared his throat and fought to silence a coughing fit.

He made his way to the machine and spat.

"I'll complete the mission..." he said and battered the rusted keys of the machine's writing board and pulled on a lever until it gave way and lowered before breaking. "No matter the cost." He turned to face the men as the whirring of the machine died away and the room was plunged into silence once more.

In the darkness he waited, as one by one they awoke.

***

Martian opened his eyes. He felt groggy and the world swam around him, unfocused. The light of the chamber had been dulled, he noticed. Struggling to his feet, he looked around and saw a man standing against the wall, looking at him.

"Who are you?" he asked. The man removed his officer's cap and took a step forward.

"I am Captain Jraden, and you will serve me now." he said. He'd walked the distance between the two of them and now stood right before him.

"What?" Martian asked, wiping dirt from his face.

"Your freedom in exchange for your aid." the man called Jraden said. His hand was resting on the holster of a sidearm strapped to his hip.

"My..." Martian cleared his head as best he could. "I don't think you'll let me refuse." he said, looking down at the firearm.

Jraden smiled.

"You can. There is always a choice." he muttered the latter and stepped aside. Martian found himself looking at four bodies slumped against the wall, all with a centered bullet-wound in their foreheads.

***

"It is the same offer to you all. Serve a higher cause and be free, or refuse." Jraden called out amid the thunderous sound of gunfire. The bandits had found them.

"Now is the time! Make a decision." he roared above the screams that called men to action just beyond the door. The distinct sound of a dozen men kicking at the door filled their ears. The metal that barred it would give in at any moment. The men began to bicker and yell, and Jraden found his patience ending.

"I have had enough." he told the man beside him— short and smartly dressed, from the Old East, by the looks of him.

"Show time." the man said then, an expression that seemed out of place among the grim-faced officers at his sides.

"It's your command, Captain." a third man, standing at the side of Jraden, said from behind his gas-mask.

The door caved in then, just as the first of the mob of prisoners stepped forward to accept Jraden's offer. The first shot went through his head.

Screams then followed. Men fell to the ground with agonized cries as bullets tore through them from all sides. Visibility was poor, the situation demanding, and collateral damage unavoidable. The room was far too small, and as Jraden and his newly drafted force opened fire, they could not be certain that all friendly losses were at the hands of the enemy. The bandits had cut the power and flooded the room by the time the last of those wounded was dead.

Jraden produced a grenade from within his coat and threw it. The men who saw it took cover, and those that did not felt shrapnel pierce their faces. A man threw himself at him with a wrench, but the masked man put a shot between his shoulder-blades.

"Take one and do as I did. Offer no warning, just throw. I cannot lead too large a force." Jraden said and passed the two men half a belt of grenades. They did as told, and the room was soon drowned by explosions.

Blood, organs, and limbs were scattered across the room in the afterglow of the battle. The sounds of the earth trembling after the commotion sent clouds of dust that filled the air, and Jraden had to cover his face with his sleeve.

"Your name." he demanded of the masked man, who sat behind a battered crate. The eastern man had stood from behind his cover and walked toward them.

"Valerian, Captain. We are of a similar cause, sir." he replied.

"I'm Ye Xiaowen, Captain. Same cause too." the eastern man said.

"The cause may not be lost yet, then. The True and Tried may yet see this task accomplished." Jraden smiled and rested a hand on each man's shoulder.

"Now round the survivors and arm them with the bandits' weapons. Take care of the pistols I gave you. They belonged to good men." he said, and the other two officers left to do as commanded.

Jraden then looked to the remnants of his force. Eleven, as far as he could tell. Eleven out of thirty.

He nodded to himself. Small and maneuverable, he thought. Far easier to move about in the depths of the mines, and easier to keep supplied.

***

Russell coughed violently. The dust was not the worst of it, but the blow he'd taken to the stomach was. A man with a heavy mustache and a hammer were all that he remembered. After that there was only the chaos of combat. He did not even remember picking up the pipe he held in his hands at the moment. He hoped the blood on it wasn't there on his account.

"Stand up." a man said. He was a slim, white man with short, blond hair. He wore what seemed to be combat armor over a ragged set of clothes. Russell took the hand he offered and looked about. There were others, all armed and with a dazed look about them. A varied assortment the likes which only a prison could gather.

"Are you hurt?" the man asked him. Russell shook his head with a certain grade of uncertainty. He didn't feel injured, at least.

"What's happened?" he asked. The man looked sideways and shook his head.

"I don't know. The man, that one," he pointed at the officer who'd waken them up, "says he has an offer. I'm just not sure how he wants us to serve."

Russell looked at the dead. Most of them had been torn to pieces by the grenades, to the point that he could not recognize any of them. Not that he knew them, or at least he hoped not.

"If you'll excuse me, I have to check on the others."

The man left before anything else could be asked, and Russell came face to face with a tall figure covered in a black coat. His face was obscured by a gas-mask.

"Can you fight?" the figure asked.

"I can." Russell replied, dusting himself. He wanted to ask something, but he was handed a falchion before he could.

"You'll be under my command for the remainder of the mission. What is your name?" the figure asked.

"What mission?" Russell asked, eyeing the falchion. He turned to face the man who'd freed them.

"What does he want from us?"

The masked man shook his head.

"You'll know when you must. Your name, please."

"Russell." he said, frowning. The man nodded.

"I am Valerian. As I said, you'll answer to me for the remainder of the mission. Has Julius checked on you yet?"

"I think so." Russell said and turned to look at the man as he went from one to another, tending to their wounds with nothing but what he had on his person and what could be found amid the wreckage.

"Good. Get moving then, I have a task for you."

Before Russell could say anything more, Valerian had left and moved on to the next man.

***

"I want scouts on these tunnels." Jraden said, as he flattened a map on the floor. "These mines are extensive, but I know of a way straight to its vaults. From there we should be able to discover the target's location."

Valerian cleared his throat.

"Pardon me, Captain, but what exactly are we looking for?" he asked.

"Nothing these men need to hear about. Not now. Preferably not ever." Jraden replied, and the other two men looked at each other.

"Perhaps not, but the True and Tried keep no ranks. We are all equal." Valerian replied.

"We have a right to know." Xiaowen said.

Jraden raised his eyes to the two men before him. He sighed and produced a small, thumb-sized, cardboard box from within his coat.

"The Old Bugger wants this delivered to the Army. It will turn the tide of the war in Sah."

Valerian reached out and opened the small box, and a light, blue-ish glow shone over his gas-mask— strong as a flashlight.

"What is that?" Xiaowen asked. Valerian retracted his hand when he felt his fingers grow numb.

"Some form of fuel. The Army found enormous deposits of it in Slaughter Town, right under the protection of the demon cult that fortified itself in it. They've spent the past seven months in bloody war against that cult for that insignificant town in the middle of nowhere. Lost hundreds of men and resources, and yet they seem to think this is worth it."

The glow seemed to intensify and expand outwards across the floor, as though it were a liquid. Jraden was swift to close the box once more.

"It reacts to light and heat. We're not sure how strong the reaction is in its pure form, but we think the sample you just witnessed is much more powerful. These bandits have a box of it the size of a man's chest somewhere inside these tunnels. The Old Bugger wants that box to fuel the Army's energy cannons in Sah."

"Understood." Valerian said.

"Such hassle for a light bulb." Xiaowen said, and Jraden put away the little box.

"Gather your men. Valerian, I want you on point. Have your men spread out through the tunnels ahead and report back anything they see. If one of them does not return, consider him dead. You know what to do if the dead come back to life later on, I suppose."

Valerian nodded.

"Traitors will be dealt with. Do not worry, Captain." he said, and Jraden nodded.

"Xiaowen, take your men and arm them with the firearms we scavenged. You'll be the main force. I will take the rear and cover your back in case anyone tries to cross us."

Xiaowen nodded and they both saluted. Jraden saw them leave to gather their ragtag forces.

And the hunt began.

a2

Broken World

Jraden looked at the men. Three of them. Two seemed ready for combat, the third looked like a civilian. The former seemed to be slowly regaining their senses from Jraden's tampering with the machine's mind-numbing chemicals, while the third simply kept a far-away look in his eyes.

Three prisoners per officer should keep the scales balanced, he thought. At least he hoped so. The other two men, Valerian and Xiaowen, seemed capable, but if the mixture had rendered them ineffective and their charges regained their senses fully only to rebel, they may not survive. He was hopeful that in such an event the traitors would merely flee and abandon the rest, leaving him to continue the mission, but if bad came to worse, being in the rear of the group, he was certain he could swiftly dispose of his own company and retreat to plan anew.

"My head..." one of the men in combat gear moaned.

"It will wear off. It's the effects of the machine." Jraden said. He patted the man on the back and motioned for them to follow him.

"Wait." the other man, not the civilian, said.

"Yes?" Jraden asked, turning around half-way, careful not to let them see his hand reaching for his sidearm. The three prisoners had been armed with nothing but crude melee weapons, at Jraden's command, so he was not overly worried. The only group with firearms was Xiaowen's, and two of his' were sporting mild wounds, that while not lethal, would make them unlikely to best him in a fight. With each group separated from the other so that visual contact was null, he was as safe as he could be.

"Where are you taking us?" the man asked. He was holding his weapon tightly, Jraden did not fail to notice.

"To kill bandits. A leader, to be specific. My superiors tasked me with killing him and retrieving a set of machinery." Jraden replied. Valerian and Xiaowen had instructions to repeat the lie should they be pressed.

"Is that so? Then who's he? Why won't you arm us properly if you need us, why won't you share the plan, and why're we splitting up? You seemed quick enough to talk to those other two and toss them some guns."

The other two men had stopped walking and were standing beside him, all looking intently at Jraden— expecting his reply.

"Curiosity is a trait of useful, if dangerous appliances. You need not know who the man is or how he wronged my superiors. All you need to know is that freedom will be yours once the mission is accomplished. Is that not enough?"

The man had grown a light shade of red, but he kept quiet, arched an eyebrow, and smiled. His grip on the weapon did not relax.

"Well, let's kill him then. It's the only thing bandits are good for." he said.

"Who's to guarantee you'll set us free in the end? You seemed quick enough to kill men that did you no wrong back there." the second man, the one who'd complained of his headache, spoke. His jaw was clenched and he held his head with his hand, but his weapon was still tightly held in the other.

Jraden's hand moved to slowly remove his pistol from its holster, but the first man who'd spoken put a hand on the other's chest.

"No, no. He's saved us and all he wants is our help. Thank you, sir." he said, looking back at Jraden with a grin that screamed insolence. "We'll gladly aid you. Isn't that right?"

"Completely." the second man replied. "Forgive me, I was not thinking clearly." he said, spat, and turned around brusquely, not looking at Jraden. He walked to the front of their small group of four. They resumed their march in silence, with Jraden slowly falling behind until he had a clear view of all three of the others' backs. His hand never left the grip of his pistol.

***

"Their names are Adam Smith and Neslo Noremac." Saint Kelly murmured. He didn't outright trust the man called Jraden, but he was entertaining. In a way, and after the endless chore of being held inside a prison, he considered him the best thing to have happened to him since he was taken from his beloved.

"Formerly Army. They sometimes babbled that their comrades would rescue them from the cells before we were put to sleep." he continued. Certainly, the battle with the grenades had been entertaining. If the man called Jraden could supply some more of that, he'd gladly follow him, for a bit, at least. Ida was waiting for him, after all. Somewhere, he knew. That crazy, lovely, lovely, crazy bitch was out there.

"How do you know these things?" Jraden asked. The man looked like such a moron, that much Kelly knew. Stone-faced all the time, except when he smiled that fake, mocking smile. He did not know how to do it, it just came off as arrogant. No, the real talent was elsewhere.

Kelly smiled, the way it should be done.

"I have kept close attention. I knew the bandit leader here would be sought out and killed. I never doubted it. I wanted to make sure that when someone did come, I could be of service." he said. Jraden's face moved slightly, almost imperceptibly, and Kelly grinned in thought, but not in body, no. That would ruin it. Now he knew. There was no leader. There was something else.

"What of it? This information is worthless. Go back to your post. Take point."

"Of course, sir. I will obviously share anything worthwhile I find." he said and moved back to the front. He stood somewhat off to the side, not close enough that Jraden would think something of it, but close enough that he could speak without having to leave the safety of whispering.

"He plans something." he murmured. Smith, the man who'd almost had them all shot a while before, the fool, turned slightly. "No. Stare ahead." he added.

Smith obeyed, but he was impatient and his whispering was loud. Wrong, wrong. Kelly wondered how exactly he was supposed to work with such people. Then again, he had made do with way worse. If someone was able to pull through, it would be him. Not Smith, not Jraden, but him.

"What do you mean?" Smith had asked.

Kelly shook his finger, 'no', in front of his chest so Jraden would not see. He then pulled out a cigarette and chewed on it. He couldn't light it—that pestersome Jraden would not risk the smell of it, but it brought him comfort to bite down on it.

"Later." he whispered, and walked on.

***

Xiaowen was gagging. His face was red, with the veins on his neck and face protruding to the point that they seemed ready to burst. He was on his knees, trying desperately to breathe. Martian looked on from behind.

"Is that what you meant?" he asked Dingu, the fat man of skin that was blacker than the darkness around them. They'd been walking some hundred meters ahead of Jraden's group when Xiaowen first started to react badly to the captain's treachery.

"It is. Look how he squirms. It's the venom, it is. It's surging through his veins, causing a rare, but extremely potent allergic reaction. One in a thousand men, or so I've heard." Dingu said, and he laughed a deep, grave laugh that sounded like a cross between a growl and the rumble of an earthquake. "It's the work of the Gates, Martian. The Gates of Madness themselves. That this should happen to us..." he whistled and winced. Blood was seeping out of a dozen shrapnel cuts on his massive belly.

"I don't understand. Why would that bastard do this to one of his own?" Grayson asked, running a hand through his beard. He himself was badly battered. His left arm was suspended in a sling and thoroughly bandaged to keep the burns from becoming infected.

Xiaowen wheezed and struggled to rise, but his knees gave way and he fell. His breathing was erratic as he lay on the floor, barely moving.

"Couldn't have known. I tell you, it's the Gates. They're working for us now, but not for long. We ought to move and fast." Dingu said and started to walk away through an opposite tunnel.

"Wait, where are you going?" Martian asked as the gigantic man blended into the darkness.

"I'm leaving these madmen. You can come with if you want. I wouldn't mind someone to watch my back. You too, Grayson. It's a large back I've got after all!" he laughed and hurried, wheezing out a few pained breaths of his own.

"Shouldn't we help him?" Grayson asked, reaching for the first aid kit he kept with himself. He looked at Martian.

Martian cast his gaze over to Xiaowen, lying on the ground, barely managing to breathe. He felt a pang of pity for the man. He had been nothing but polite since they'd started down the tunnel. Perhaps it would be wrong to leave him.

Then he remembered the grenades and just how many of them there had been at the start.

"Fuck him." he said, and turned to follow after Dingu. Grayson looked at Xiaowen one last time, and then he followed behind Martian.

They walked in darkness for a while, not daring to light their way for fear that Jraden would see the light and follow. Still, the tunnel did not open into a crossroads or make sharp twists, so they negotiated the lack of light fairly well. They walked on until they bumped into something large and soft.

"Watch it." Dingu said with alarm. "You don't want me to fall on you."

Martian cursed and wiped away sweat from his face— enough to soak up a sponge, and none of it was his.

"Do you even know where we're going?" Grayson asked from behind them. He was guarding their backs, aiming down the sights of the rifle he'd been given.

"Sure do. I've seen the blueprints of this mine a time and a hundred. I know my way around it." Dingu said cheerfully. He seemed at ease in the darkness.

"What? How?" Grayson asked. He turned to face Dingu's back, even if he couldn't see him.

"Let's just say me and a couple of friends had been thinking of paying these people a visit in the near future." the large man said, and chuckled. He slid further down into the tunnel, with his small retinue close behind. Martian mulled over his words for a while and then he placed a hand on Dingu's shoulder as firmly as he could despite the sweat that covered it. His fingers were almost fully extended— so large were Dingu's shoulders.

"If you knew so much, why did you not leave the moment you woke? Why did you follow Jraden's commands?" Martian asked. He felt— not saw, but felt as Dingu turned around. A current of air hit him that had been previously blocked by the frame of the giant man. It smelled of fresh air.

"Why did you?" Dingu asked, and Martian moved to reply, but found that he couldn't. He thought back, and it was all a blur. Waking up, exchanging words with the man, then the explosions, the gunfire, the killing. After that it was a haze. As though he held a paper sheet between his fingers with the reasons for his inaction written on it, but the more he tried to read it, the more unfocused they became. He struggled for a moment, and then Dingu chuckled in his booming voice.

"You can't explain it, can you? You remember what you did. You can recall every movement and second of it, but you can't explain why, now can you, Martian?" Dingu gave a few, short laughs, and his stomach bounced a little with each one.

"You should pay more attention, Martian. For all your skills and abilities, the obvious escapes you. Jraden found us all asleep and defenseless. Xiaowen paid the price of that. We all did. Martian, when was the last time you were drugged by industrial-grade othrio?"

"Othrio?" Grayson spat, frowning. "We should go back there and shoot that son of a-"

"No. What is done is done." Dingu chuckled. "Yes, we all were under heavy-duty drugs to keep us asleep, and when Jraden found us he must have slipped a few drops of othrio into the tubes feeding us right before he woke us. I don't doubt you know the way the drug works in its simple form— making beasts out of men, but I don't doubt you ignore how it works when refined either.

"In my line of work," Dingu continued as he walked, "we sometimes need to make men malleable. Susceptible to suggestion. It's simpler to move about a herd of human cattle rather than a mob of captives. Jraden must be a darker shade of coal-black in his heart if he was willing to drug us all to further his cause." Dingu laughed. "He basically made meat-shields of us all. Sent us ahead of him, like dogs sweeping a minefield. Separated us. Three of us per every one of his. Even without the drugs, that's a losing battle. The True and Tried are well-known for taking the fight to Grand Demons. What battle will three ordinary men give them?

"Now, it's true that they were also drugged," he added once Martian began to debate, "but I still wouldn't bet my meal on our side." he laughed. "Truth is, Jraden mustn't have really cared if we turned on the others. Way he saw it, we'd run, and like you can see, we have. He's still free to do as he likes. He can go on with his mission. By Madness, he'll probably leave Xiaowen where he is. It's not hard to figure out a man like Jraden. You just need to think of the most heartless course of action."

"So he drugged us? How would that turn us into obedient slaves without addling our brains? You said the stuff was industrial-grade." Grayson said.

"Don't look at me. I just use the stuff. I don't make it. Demon nutcases brew it inside their lairs. Only the Gates know what goes into the mixture, but it's damn useful." Dingu chuckled again and slapped his belly. "We're near a large hall. I'll be needing a brave, slender soul to move up ahead and tell me if my fine self will be able to pass unnoticed."

"Not yet." Martian said and moved in front of Dingu. "I still need to know more."

"Oh? How may I help you?" Dingu asked, smiling broadly.

"What of the others?" Martian asked.

"What about them?"

"We left them with that mad bastard, that's what." Grayson said, shifting his arm inside its sling.

"Oh, was that not the plan?" Dingu laughed.

"We need to help them." Martian stated. He knew them not, but he felt it was necessary. "That bastard is abusing his self-granted power. He's drugged and manipulated men who owe him nothing, and if what we think of him is true, not one of those people will leave these mines alive. You know of a way out, Dingu. There's more of us, and we are armed. If we can catch that bastard unawares while he is distracted with Xiaowen, we can set the rest free."

"Damn right." Grayson growled. "So will you? Will you help us?" Grayson said, moving beside Martian with his rifle leaning against his shoulder. The massive black man arched an eyebrow.

And he smiled.

***

Valerian was standing at the first major crossroads of tunnels since they'd left the prison. Jraden had told him of the location of some of them, the ones that he wanted explored, and sent him ahead with the most agile-looking men in the group. Stealth was their mission, and it would soon begin.

We passed an exit a while ago, he thought to himself. The fleeting notion of escape had entered his mind at that point, but he dismissed it as soon as it came. The mission was all that mattered. His time serving the True and Tried had taught him that. If the lives of the men who stood alongside him, or his own life was needed to achieve the greater well-being of mankind, then so be it. Had he the right to decide for them? Perhaps not, but theirs was no longer a world of good and bad. It was a world of needs.

And the needs of the many far outweigh the needs of the few, he murmured in his mind.

They had stopped at his behest.

"Russell. Go down that tunnel, return in five minutes. Julius, cover him. Alex, with me." he said. They split as he had demanded, and each group went down their tunnel.

Russell and Julius caught a glance of Valerian as he disappeared into the darkness, keeping behind Alex. They then moved on into the darkness themselves.

"What are you thinking?" Julius asked after a while.

Russell was caught unawares. He hadn't been paying attention.

"I'm just keeping tabs on the time. We have to be back in five-"

"Minutes. Yes." Julius smiled. Russell couldn't see it in the darkness, but he could sense it. The man was smiling.

They walked on for a while longer, until Russell reached three hundred inside his head.

"We have to go back." he said.

"Do we?" Julius asked, and Russell frowned. Of course they had to go back, or had he not been paying close attention? Were they five minutes? He thought back on the exchange. It had definitely been-

"Russell," Julius said and raised a small flashlight to Russel's eyes. He pointed it at each of his eyes for a few seconds and watched the pupils contract. "Russell, Russell... It seems to have hit you rather hard."

"What?" he asked, not sure if he meant the explosions of the grenades or the man with the hammer. His thoughts went back to the pipe he had held, and his grip tightened on the falchion Valerian had given him.

"Hold still." Julius said, and Russell almost cried out as his skin was pierced by a needle. Julius injected something into his bloodstream, and the entirety of his flesh around the area began to burn.

"Better?" Julius asked when Russell had recovered. The man nodded slowly.

"What was that for?" he hissed, and Julius smiled.

"To clear your head. Give it a few seconds, think back on what has happened, and tell me if you still want to go back."

Russell began to protest, when a feeling of uncertainty began to slowly creep into him.

"What did you inject me with?" he whispered.

"What do you care?" Julius replied, and Russell's head snapped up to look him in the eye.

"What do I care? There could have been any number of things inside that syringe." he squared up to the smiling man. Julius chuckled.

"So concerned of the contents of a syringe, and yet he doesn't give a damn where he's going." Julius looked down the tunnel to the beginning of the crossroads, where they had parted ways with Valerian.

"We need to leave this place, and quickly. Valerian has been free of the drug's effects for at least ten minutes, and he still hasn't deviated from Jraden's command. He has either been damaged beyond repair, or he truly believes in what he does. I don't know which is more dangerous."

Russell mulled over his words for a second.

"What drugs?" he asked in a hushed voice even as he slowly thought back on every event, every action he'd taken and had not taken. A particular memory struck him, when Valerian commanded something of him and he'd followed. How he'd let Julius walk away, how he'd let Valerian walk away without pressing either of them for answers. How he'd seen Jraden maneuver men he'd never met as though they were drilled soldiers.

"Othrio." Julius said, a sad smile on his lips. "I noticed its effects soon after I regained consciousness. Dilated pupils, confusion, compliance... Many more. I will not bore you with them, but I think we all were under their effects until just a few minutes ago. I recovered quickly, but others took longer. I was hoping that Valerian would break ties with Jraden when he recovered. I planned to approach him then, but I do not know anymore. If he has definitely sided with Jraden, I'm not sure what lengths he will go to achieve his mission. The True and Tried can be real bastards."

"We need to warn the others." Russell said. "We have to go back and-"

"And?" Julius asked, the sad smile still on his lips. "Try to reason with mindless zombies? Gamble it all on the possibility that Valerian will choose us over his comrade? Die valiantly in defense of what is right?"

"The others might have woken by now." Russell pressed. "If we can appeal to them-"

"-we'll be gunned down by Jraden the moment he realizes we know. Then he'll gun down his zombies, crawl back into a tunnel, and weave another web." Julius shook his head. "No. Russell, we have to either kill Jraden and subdue his men, or get out of here and find help. Just remember, these are the True and Tried. They're not called that for their honesty and 'we tried' attitude."

Russell ran a hand through his hair and sighed. It was a lot to take in, yet he could not run and abandon the others. There had to be a way out. There had to be.

"We need to try and talk to Valerian." he said. "He can help us-"

"Do what?" Julius asked, not impolitely. "Fight Jraden? Perhaps. If we can convince him before Xiaowen reaches us in less than five minutes. We may be able to subdue one, if we are lucky, but never two. Xiaowen's group is better armed as well, even if wounded. If they haven't regained their senses, or if Xiaowen is so in league with Jraden that he commands them to open fire under threat of death, how long would we last? It's a large gamble in many ways, no matter which path we take. But I've chosen mine."

Julius then turned around and kept walking into the darkness of the tunnel. Russell was left alone, unable to call to him in case Valerian or Xiaowen heard him. He stood in the darkness for a moment, wondering.

"Damn this all." he muttered then, and rushed down the tunnel, to try his luck against Valerian.

***

Alex whistled merrily as he went. A tune he'd heard played sometimes in some place that was more like a dream now. His gask-mask muffled it, but still it seemed to bother Valerian.

"Stop that, you fool. You will set the bandits on our tracks." the man said. Alex didn't quite like the mask he wore, he felt his own was better.

He kept on whistling.

"Did you not hear me? Stop that this instant." Valerian growled and landed a heavy hand on Alex's shoulder and turned him around. Both men faced each other then.

"Sorry, sir." he said then, smiling, though Valerian could not see that. "Just thought I'd lighten the mood, after all, it's fairly grim at the moment. What with all the men you helped Jraden kill."

He grunted as Valerian's hand punched him. His nose bled behind the mask, but his smile was still there.

"I have shot men for lesser offences." Valerian growled, aiming the pistol Jraden had given him right at Alex's head. "But we have a mission that is greater than us. A task that is beyond our anger and insolence. By God, I swear I will see it accomplished. If you can't see the greater scheme of things, then that is your curse, but I will not have you soil mankind's future for your petty arrogance."

Alex nodded and tilted his head to the side a tad— the closest he could get to letting Valerian see his sneer.

"As you command, sir. For the greater scheme, then." he said and turned to walk. Valerian followed shortly after, though Alex never did hear him holster the gun. They walked in silence for a while, until they reached a dead end, with a small, waist-high tunnel sticking out to the left.

Alex knelt and took a look inside.

"Sir, you may want to look at this." he muttered, and Valerian took a step forward, but did not kneel.

"What is it?" he asked, keeping his sidearm trained on the opening of the small tunnel.

"Some form of camera..." Alex said, and Valerian immediately cursed.

"Get back then, you moron!" he reached down and shoved Alex out of the way, hoping against hope that the camera had not seen him. He turned to face him then, rage welling up inside him at the man's carelessness— debating whether he should shoot him.

Then he felt the blade slide into him, just beneath the sternum.

a3

Broken World

Jraden felt a tremor course through his spine as he heard the shouting behind them. It was impossible to know how close they were, as the tunnels played tricks on the sounds. Still, he would not risk it.

"Run. Keep quiet, but run. I want to clear these tunnels now." he spat. The men looked back at the darkness of the tunnel and then at one another. They didn't move to obey, and instead blocked his path. Jraden eyed them for a moment, wondering if they would rebel so soon. He drowned out the shouting, the thundering steps, and ignored the steady glow increasing as the light of torches and flashlights shone somewhere behind them. The world shrank down until it was populated only by the men looking at him with weapons in their hands, his own arm and the pistol he carried, and the dire need to complete his task.

All four of them stood in the tunnel without moving, as the bandits bellowed for their blood somewhere behind them. Jraden's hand had reached the grip of his pistol, when an inhuman scream pierced the tension.

"What in the..?" Neslo muttered, eyes wide as he took a step back and the walls rumbled causing dust to fall around them. The scream came again after a few seconds, definitely louder. Soon enough the sound of it was everywhere, and nothing else could be heard.

Jraden smiled at them. It was a humorless, tired smile filled with frustration and a deep desire to put a bullet through each of their heads. He wished to blame them, he truly wanted to, but he knew it was just fate's final insult to him. One last way of telling the man how much his life was worth in Hell.

The fingers of the creature coiled around the bend in the tunnel behind them— large as a man's arm. Each one was covered in pus and long, deep gashes that bled a yellow mucus and gave off stench. From the thing's knuckles, four pairs of eyes fixed on them, and all three men finally obeyed Jraden's order.

They ran.

***

Martian cursed under his breath. He knew he couldn't blame Dingu for not wanting to stay and help, but it still made him angry. Between the three of them they stood a better chance of gunning down Jraden before he could do anything about it. In any case, he knew it would be useless to ponder on it. They had better focus on the task at hand. At least Grayson had stuck around, he thought.

"Scissors." Grayson muttered.

Martian sighed.

"I don't think now's the best time for that." he whispered back. They'd been in the darkness longer than they thought they'd be, and it had started to gnaw at Martian's mind. What if Jraden had slipped away before they'd taken position? Xiaowen was where they had left him still, though they were not sure if he was still alive, but Dingu could have been right. Maybe Jraden was enough of a monster to abandon his own in the depths of the mines. Then again, he could be dead, and they'd left nothing but his corpse behind.

"It's better than sitting in silence." Grayson said, and Martian smiled.

"Rock." he said. Grayson tutted and shook his head.

"No fair. It has to be-"

A scream tore through the quiet. Both men jumped slightly, but immediately readied their weapons. Martian was lying on the floor of the small tunnel where they had left a while ago, and Grayson had to aim single-handedly and sitting up on account of his arm. They had a clear view of the entirety of the tunnel as far back as three meters, where the darkness grew too thick for them to distinguish anything. They had dropped a small flashlight right beside Xiaowen to make certain that Jraden saw the man, but they'd taken care to cover the light with some cloth for it to be impossible to determine if he was dead or alive. He would have to stop right before them if he wanted to know.

They held their breath, even if they were not aware of it. Their thumping hearts seemed to echo across the darkness of the mines. In it they waited, until the sounds of hurried steps against the ground filled their ears.

"They ain't slowin' down." Martian muttered. Grayson swallowed slowly— sweat building on his forehead. They both had one shot. Their breech-loading rifles would not give them time to reload, and Grayson couldn't anyway, because of his arm.

In the darkness they waited. Nothing but the sound of what would soon be upon them was in their minds, and the anticipation of battle flooded their bodies with adrenaline. Somewhere in the shadows, Martian saw him.

Jraden's face was illuminated faintly by a light-source he couldn't quite place. His features were creased into an expression of fury, desperation, and exertion. Still, Martian had hoped he could see fear in him before the end. Perhaps regret for the lives lost, even if he knew how unlikely that was. For a moment, he wondered if perhaps he could see him there in the darkness of the tunnel. The thought that the anger in his face was caused by the sight of the barrel of his gun trained on him caused a smile to appear on Martian's face.

"Imma tap dance on your grave, boy." he muttered, more to himself than anything, but Grayson chuckled. For a brief moment he thought of telling him to be quiet, but with his finger on the trigger and Jraden's face so close... Fuck it, he thought, and fired.

The entire tunnel's entrance was illuminated as the two rifles discharged.

***

"I'm sorry, Valerian. But I've been mind-controlled before, and I won't let anyone do so again, much less with othrio." Alex said and twisted the blade. A trickle of blood oozed out of the wound and the man's breathing grew slow, but he didn't cry out and there was not nearly as much as there should have been. Alex's smile slowly faded as his arm was gripped strongly and the masked man drew closer.

"You fool." Valerian said, and raised his pistol above their heads. Before Alex could move away, Valerian brought it down with all the strength he could muster. Alex felt the gas-mask he wore cave in as the force of the blow impacted. Then he felt the warm trickle of blood as it coated his face. He grunted and fell back, but Valerian did not let go. He raised his pistol once more and brought it back down, time and again. Alex swung his blade as best as he could, but Valerian had his arm tightly held.

In the shadows they seemed to dance. A bloody, merciless dance of pain and rage, as Valerian used all the force in his arm to pummel Alex's face until the cartilage of his nose was deformed beyond recognition. His breathing was jagged and he could hear his heartbeat in his his ears by the time he was too tired to continue. At a sudden contraction of his stomach, he peeled off his mask and retched violently against the wall. Alex had long lost consciousness, and was now splayed on the floor, still breathing, if barely.

Valerian stared at the man for a moment. His anger was subsiding slowly, and now that he looked at what he had done, he felt ill. He reached back to undo the belts of the body armor he wore and inspected the wound. Alex's blade had thrust true and without fault—managing to hit the spot where a previous blow had weakened the armor, but despite his luck, Valerian would live. He would need a medic soon enough, but the adrenaline rushing through him should keep him going for a while longer.

Othrio, he thought to himself— remembering what Alex had said. The war drug that makes men into beasts. He knew of its use by bandits and slave traders— how it made men docile when refined and used in a certain quantity, but was it possible he had received a different dose? He felt nauseous, but despite it all, he slowly came back to his senses.

He walked over to Alex's unconscious body and took the battered mask off. He clenched his jaw and breathed out heavily at the sight. Offering a quick prayer for forgiveness, Valerian lifted the wounded man and slung him over his shoulder, careful to keep him face-down so he would not drown with his own blood. Slowly, he began to make his way back.

Russell was waiting for him when he returned. The man was holding his weapon tightly, ready to strike. Valerian stopped a few steps away.

"What happened?" Russell asked, suspicion thick in his voice. He didn't drop his stance or lower his weapon. Valerian didn't care.

"I have committed a great mistake, Russell." he said, and moved sideways, so that Alex's body was visible.

Russell swallowed hard and took a step back.

"What have you done?" he whispered, and Valerian lowered his head slightly.

"I will give no excuses for myself. Julius is not with you, so I assume you both know of the othrio, and you just cared more for the rest of us than him. If so, know that I am no longer under its influence. I do not believe that exempts me from the responsibility of my acts, but you can be assured, I will not harm you." he said.

"Put Alex on the ground and back away. Julius knew you had been free of the othrio's influence long before we parted ways." Russell said.

"I was not-"

"On the ground and back away!" he shouted. Valerian stopped. He did not know what to do anymore. The goal, so clear before, was no longer visible. Shame, confusion, anger... they all battled away inside him. He had believed in doing what had to be done. To fight for humanity. To do the right thing, not for an individual, but for the greater well-being of everyone.

But what was the greater good? What did he have to do, and just who was he fighting for? Men were dead, and he had almost killed one himself. This would not faze him at times were the mission was clear, but now it was so uncertain. Jraden had manipulated them all. So to whom did he do good? To a single man, or to the majority of men around him?

He put Alex on the ground, and at Russell's behest, he slid away into the darkness of a different tunnel.

***

Saint Kelly remembered Ida. Beautiful, crazy, crazy woman. She must have been. How else would she ignore the beauty of the world around her? It was a mad, mad world, and one had to be crazy not to enjoy it. Still, there she was. Shy and timid as a singing bird. So quick to dart away at the slightest show of danger. He was not like that. No, no. He was a little smarter, a little better. So when he saw those fools playing heroes in the darkness of such a small, tiny tunnel, he knew he had to act.

Jraden was the bigger fool. He was, yes, but he also knew the way out. If those men were stupid enough to kill his only way back to Ida, that beautiful, shy, lovely, crazy woman, they'd first have to outdo him. And of course they couldn't. He was he, and they were they.

He threw himself at the fool, the biggest fool of them all, because, even as his worthless life was saved by him, he had the nerve to try and shoot his savior. Kelly was smarter than that, of course. He made sure to push the pistol to the side. The shot flew off somewhere ahead of them, toward the darkness of the tunnel ahead of them. The two shots fired by the idiots-playing-heroes hit the beast behind them, and what a song it sang. A scream of pure, blind, rage, the likes which Kelly grew to admire men by. Only the maddest roared like that.

He did not waste time. Noremac Neslo and Adam Smith darted ahead blindly, the fools. Kelly made sure to get his way-out-man back on his feet and running again. Jraden was bewildered, and what a funny look he had on his face. Kelly was laughing inside, but only there. Outside he looked concerned, as he should.

"Are you alright?" he screamed over the roaring of the beast. Jraden stared, like the idiot he was.

"I am." he finally replied, and they both ran ahead. As they passed the tunnel where the shots had come from, he noticed that no one was there. Kelly smiled as he remembered the direction in which Jraden's shot had gone. There was blood on the floor.

"Wait." Jraden called out, and Kelly almost groaned when he saw why he'd stopped. "Help me." Jraden said, and Kelly had to make such an effort not to run ahead.

"You take his legs." Jraden said, and Kelly did so. Xiaowen wasn't very heavy, but he knew they did not have time.

"We can't outrun that thing like this, sir." Kelly reminded the fool, fool, fool. He was fighting the urge to rip his throat out himself for being such an idiot.

"The exit is almost upon us. Xiaowen will recover, and we need his help." Jraden said and they ran once more, as fast as that useless, worthless, pestersome dead weight would allow. Kelly was grinding his teeth together in a rage. He wondered if he'd have been better off letting those two shoot Jraden full of holes.

Still, the man was full of surprises.

The beast bellowed again and leapt, for its massive steps could not be heard for a few seconds, and Jraden pulled something out of his coat. Two black, round, and deadly spheres that shone with a green light the moment the pins were pulled from them. Kelly smiled. Jraden dropped them, and they hurried away.

An inferno was produced.

The monster screeched as it landed on top of the combusting grenades. The dark-green flames exploded outwards into a massive column of fire that engulfed it in a matter of seconds. Its screams soon turned into agonized shrieks, and it stopped pursuing as it died. Kelly had felt the flames lick at his heels, but Jraden had timed them perfectly, that much he would grant the moron. A second earlier and he'd be crisped.

Together they raced further into the darkness, as the sounds of a dozen angry men echoed behind them.

***

Noremac Neslo and Adam Smith were rushing through the tunnels without knowing where they went. Still, anyplace was better than what they had left behind.

"Where the fuck are we?!" Smith roared as the sounds of an explosion reached their ears.

"I don't know." Noremac said. They ran for a while longer, until they saw movement up ahead.

"Wait." Smith said and pointed the light of his flashlight ahead. It was one of theirs. Both men sighed at the sight and walked on further.

"Where's Valerian?" Noremac asked, and Russell shook his head. He was struggling to carry the body of another man, Alex, he thought he was called.

"Son of a... What happened to his face?" Smith asked, and Noremac glanced down only to realize that there actually wasn't much of a face left. He grimaced and turned to leave.

"Wait!" Russell said. "You have to help me carry him."

Noremac turned slightly and looked back at Russell. He shook his head.

"You're on your own, little man." he said, and ran ahead. He didn't look back to see if Smith had followed. He didn't really care.

The tunnel stretched on for what seemed like an eternity, but finally he found an exit to it. With a sigh of relief, Noremac shouldered his way through a fragile wooden door and entered a massive chamber, only to curse himself and wish he hadn't.

"What 'ave we got 'ere?" a man said. He was a fat, greasy one, the bandit. A thick mustache adorned his face, and he had rough stubble growing out of his chin and neck. He leveled a rifle at Noremac's forehead.

"Fuck off." Noremac said after a moment. The bandit chuckled. A hundred or so many more did as well. The chamber was full of them.

"Oh, we're going to 'ave a blast with you, kid. We just 'ave to get the dogs here. They'll tear meat from bone real good." the man chuckled and several others moved forward, all training rifles, pistols, and even a flamethrower at him. "Now, were's the others?"

Noremac spat. The men chuckled, and the greasy man smiled.

"Kill him. Search the tunnels, and-"

A shot went through his head.

Noremac fell back with a scream as he felt a searing heat going through his right shoulder. The pain was agonizing, and with a startled epiphany, Noremac realized it had been a laser bolt.

"What the fu-?!" a man to the right shouted and another shot went through his eye. His body was pierced five more times before it hit the floor. The room was a light show.

Shots rang out. Bullets rushed through the air as the bandits tried to retaliate, but they did not seem to hit anything. Noremac could see little and less, but what he could see was mesmerizing. A massive hole in the roof of the chamber that had not been patched properly was now the entrance point for dozens of Assault Troopers. A chuckle escaped Noremac as he saw the bandits falling around him with horror in their eyes. The Assault Troopers were not in the prisoner-taking business.

One of them landed before him. Noremac kept quiet as the Trooper shrugged off the propulsion pack. He smiled. He considered whistling or calling out to her, but she swatted the thought from his mind the moment she put three shots through a man's neck.

She muttered something into an earpiece she wore inside the helmet and moved on, shooting down anyone that appeared in her path. Coordinated, effective, and deadly— the Assault Troopers used their propulsion packs to dart in and out of the action and disrupt the bandit's attempts to retreat into the tunnels or form a resistance in the chamber, while the ground troopers advanced steadily and without mercy upon the exposed and terrified bandits.

Noremac considered joining in, but he decided against it. The troopers seemed to have it under control. He contented himself with watching and wincing as his shoulder screamed whenever he accidentally moved it.

The troopers seemed to have the bandits contained, and Noremac considered calling their attention, when two massive doors opposite of the chamber burst open. The Assault Troopers rapidly moved away and repositioned themselves, but the ground troopers were not as lucky.

Something crawled out of the darkness of the doors, being urged on by a band of bandits clad in heavy armor. The woman Noremac had seen before was in their path, and the beast locked dozens of its eyes on her.

"Oh shit." Noremac said, and rushed to his feet despite the pain. The trooper fired away even as the beast advanced on her. She ran and fired, as the thing wobbled on unsteady, horribly deformed legs towards her. Behind it, the bandits spilled out into the room and fired the massive 'bull-breaker' guns they carried. Ammunition packs the size of a pig hung from their backs, and the sound and light of the guns was blinding as it was deafening. The troopers were forced to retreat on all sides as the beast opened its fanged maw and brought it down on the woman. The gunfire never ceased.

Noremac screamed in anger and agony but did not slow down. He ran. Weapon raised. Heart thumping fiercely, and adrenaline rushing. He threw himself forward with all the strength his legs had. But he would be too late. The woman had turned to fire one last time before death. The monster's jaws closed down together, and a scream echoed throughout the chamber.

Noremac bellowed as he felt bone crack and flesh break, blood gushing out. He felt the beast raise its head and shake it violently. He caught a glimpse of its eyes and saw nothing but terror in them. Then he was flying. Like some form of bird, he flew until he crashed against a wall and his vision darkened, but he did not pass out.

As he looked down at himself, he wished he had. Blood was pooling around the stumps where his knees should have been.

***

Jraden screamed in anger. He had been so close. So very damn close.

The Army's Assault Troopers had ruined it all. They dashed in and out of combat, raining down laser fire and death unto all that they saw. The bandit, the mutant, and the convict. Jraden lay against a wall, glaring at the troopers as they closed in on him. His hand was pressed tightly against the wound in his stomach where he'd been shot. A low-intensity laser bolt had hit him, so the wound was not a harbinger of death, but it still hurt enough to immobilize a demon.

The troopers had swarmed him and put a shot through him and the rest of the men the moment they saw them. They were all the same. No dead men would come from their group. The same could not be said of the bandits.

The massive beast was shrieking in terror. Not anger, but absolute fright. The others may not have been able to see it, but Jraden had fought mutants in the past. The bigger they were, the dumber, and the dumber they were, the more innocent as well. Past the brutish exterior, should one know where to look, a small glint of intelligence shone in their eyes. The mutated beast would be begging for its life and in tears if it had ever been born with the ability to speak or think clearly. All it could do was shriek in agony as laser fire tore through its arms, its legs, its eyes. Burn marks that went as deep as a man's forearm dotted its body, and all it could do was lash out in absolute confusion as it died.

"It doesn't understand..." Jraden found himself muttering as the darkness commenced to envelop him. "It doesn't understand what is happening..."

The bandits had fled the moment the troopers had switched from regular shot to the highest intensity they could muster. Heavy armor would not let the lasers through, but with concentrated fire the metal would heat to the point of fusing with the skin beneath. It would be a matter of time now, Jraden knew. The bandits would be sought out and murdered.

He had failed. If he didn't die, he'd be questioned. He would never speak. He would never be released... He only hoped that the army would not find the fuel. All his faith rested in the Old Bugger sending someone else. Anyone. The mission could not fail...

"No one understands..." he muttered one last time, and the darkness took him.

***

"We've found something." Pat'lestia said into the earpiece within her helmet. She was kneeling down next to the man who'd saved her. He was almost dead. "We need a medical team and transport for several prisoners. Over."

"Negative. No prisoners. Execute... and... to the base. Over."

"You'll be interested in these ones, sir." she said, looking over to the rest of the men they'd found deep within the mines. Many were bandits, she was certain, but a number of them most likely belonged to the unconscious man by the wall. "It's the Bastard of Lin. Over."

A silence befell the other end of the line. Pat'lestia wondered, but not for long. Soon the silence was broken.

"Understood. Sending... now. Ove-..."

"Yes, sir. Over and out." Pat'lestia smiled sadly at the man who'd saved her. The anesthetics they had given him had worked wonders, lest he would still be screaming in pain. They'd had to sear the wounds with laser shots.

Her gaze eventually wandered and fell on him. The Bastard of Lin. She wondered too about him. Whether they'd hang him, or leave him to the people of Lin. Either way it seemed too light a punishment. As far as she, or anyone who'd been to the former region of Lin was concerned, the man deserved nothing but Hell.

And Hell would be given. Of that she was certain.

b1

Broken World

He didn't know where he was. It was dark and suffocated, and his hands were bound behind his back. Somewhere in the distance he could hear men shouting and laughing. It made him angry, and the thought that they laughed at his failure swam through his mind every now and then. Though he knew it was not the case, it was difficult to believe it.

If only they could understand, he thought. But they would never believe him. Not after Lin.

He stared at the darkness of his cell for a while longer. Days seemed to pass without a sign of human life. Nothing shared the darkness with him but the rats that crawled by occasionally, and even they did not linger.

Jraden kept himself busy by thinking of the things that might transpire outside of his cell. The Old Bugger was not the type of man to rely on a single act and pray for the best. He knew better than to trust the fate of mankind to a single man, a single mission. Perhaps there were others on the move even as he lay captured. Dozens of teams moving into the mines, recovering the fuel and setting out for Sah, so that his failure did not matter.

The thought made him smile. It would be grand to have that certainty and accept his fate at the hands of his captors, but to do so would be stupid. He could not hope for the best. He had to prepare and act in order to prevent the worst. That was his purpose and reason to live. The day people no longer needed to fear the worst was the day he was no longer of use.

Voices sounded somewhere behind him.

Jraden sighed and steeled himself for the worst. If the Army wanted to get answers out of him, he would fight them for as long as he could. Still, he could not rely fully on his strength. Swiftly he reached down and grasped the collar of his coat between his teeth. He bit and ground the threads of fabric until they came loose, and a single, small pill fell in his mouth. He hid it under his tongue and waited.

Three men entered the room. Two of them were army— an officer and a guard, while the other one wore a coat so ragged and torn that it would be impossible to recognize it as that of a colonel. But Jraden knew it. He'd spent too long fighting beside the man to not immediately appreciate every rip and hole in the uniform. Here and there he saw old ones he'd been told about, while there were more than a few that he himself had seen made in some distant battlefield when they were younger and the world was calmer. A few were new.

The men stood before him in complete silence, until the Army officer turned to look at the colonel-in-rags.

"There will be no repercussions then?" he asked— gaze moving from Jraden to the colonel.

"No. Escort us to Sah and he's yours. My lord promises it." the colonel said placing a hand over his heart.

"Very well then... I will contact General Karnald."

The officer left, and at the colonel's behest, the guard did so too. Jraden was left alone with him.

The man stared at him for a while, in silence. He struggled to transform thoughts into words, but it was in vain. There was too much to say and they had no more time. Years and years were gone in the space of a few moments. Thousands of things left unsaid would soon be of no more relevance. In the end, there was too little to say that was worth hearing.

"I'm sorry." he said at last. His eyes were downcast, his hands had a slight tremble to them, and he felt unsteady. Jraden looked at him from where he sat, bound by men who could not see beyond the immediate future. He looked up at the colonel and sighed. His shoulders slumped and he spat out the pill.

"Don't be." he said and turned his gaze from him, blinking away tears. "You've done all you could. I know you. This was not your first option."

"I moved mountains to save you, Jraden." the colonel said. "By whatever force rules over our lives, I raised the men we have in Seban, the clansmen of Jahir, and the riders from Duna. I assembled them all under nothing more than my word and the hope of saving an old friend. Those men remember you, Jraden. Down to the last one of them, they have not forgotten the Savior of Shah."

Jraden smiled. He sniffed and blinked hard to clear his vision.

"Those were good days, where they not? Savior of Shah... the Maurading Janissaries of Joh... How long has it been?" his voice cracked and he exhaled deeply. The colonel's smile had turned from one of sadness to one of yearning.

"Not too long ago. Those men remember you and all you did, Jraden. They left homes and families to see you saved... but..." He stopped and sighed; ran a hand through his hair and sat down.

"The Bastard of Lin won out in the end." Jraden whispered, gaze lost, looking down at the nothing. The colonel shook his head vigorously and took both of Jraden's shoulders in his hands.

"Don't let that haunt you. You did what had to be done. Nothing else matters."

Jraden looked into the colonel's eyes and smiled sadly at him.

"It does matter. They all did." his gaze wandered once more, and his breathing grew shallow. "But the world mattered more. One or the other, my friend. Never both. The world or the people of Lin. The world or my soul..."

Silence fell over both men. Time seemed to pass slowly, until Jraden quietly asked the question he had been dreading.

"Will they kill me?" he croaked. Death. Never feared before in the field of battle, now loomed over him with its dark embrace, and Jraden felt cold.

"You know the answer to that." the colonel murmured. He turned his back to him and stared at his hands, wishing he had the authority to make things right. "The Army threatened to attack our strongholds in the North unless we let them kill you. Once they had you in their hands, they went rabid. Like dogs, generals threw themselves at the chance to be the ones to execute you. General Karnald-"

"-allowed the Old Bugger to let you witness the execution. You'll deliver the fuel as they parade my corpse around Sah. It's all part of the plan..." Jraden sighed and leaned back against the chair with the ghost of a smile tugging at his lips. "The fuel?"

"We have it." the colonel replied, turning around to smile at Jraden. "Safe and secure. We will accompany Master Corporal Pat'lestia's platoon back to Sah and make certain that the fuel powers Sah's energy cannons. It is all as planned. Do not worry."

"The Anarchists?"

"Haven't moved yet." The colonel sighed. "Don't worry, Jraden. It's all as we planned it. You leave us well-prepared for the final fight. The world will not forget you."

"It doesn't matter. As long as it lives to remember anything." Jraden said, closed his eyes, and accepted his death.

***

Adam Smith wolfed down the loaves of bread given to him. The stew was not half-bad either, and he drank it greedily. The rest of the soldiers laughed, joked, and chatted with one another, but Smith had only eyes for the food before him. It had been days since last he'd eaten. Maybe more, and only the bandits could have possibly known how long. He was not keen on asking, of course. The least he saw of those mongrels, the better.

"Hey." a voice called out from behind.

Adam turned around, and standing there was Russell. He nodded at him and chewed a little faster to be rid of the bread in his mouth.

"Hey, what's up?" he said after swallowing. Russell set down his tray of food next to him and sat down. They were both wearing army garments to replace their tattered clothes. They'd get them back, but most of them had decided to stick with wearing the army fatigues over the burnt, ragged, dirt-stained garments.

"Not much. Just I've got a guard now." he chuckled, and Adam turned to see that it was true. A trooper stood some distance away but kept a close watch on Russell as he ate. The guard was armed and ready to fire, he did not doubt.

It had been a strange ride since the mines. He had been only bothered to produce information that identified him as Army, which was simple enough, and that had been the end of it for him. He was free to roam until they reassigned him to a new unit. The others, however, had a rougher ride. Russell was allowed to roam while under guard, and only because Adam had vouched for him. The others were all confined to a cell, except for Noremac, who was kept in the infirmary until he either died or recovered. Jraden had not been seen.

He and Russell talked a while, mostly wondering about the mines. Russell told him about the othrio, and Adam shared what little he knew. They finished their meal and stood to leave, when an alarm blared from the speakers. Russell and Adam watched as the men around them lost their cheer and groaned while the sound invaded their spare time. The soldiers stood from their tables and rushed from the mess hall.

"What is going on?" Adam asked as best he could over the sound of the speakers. Russell shook his head.

"I don't-" he started to say, but his voice was soon drowned out by the sounds of an encampment readying itself for war.

Still, what caught their eye was a familiar figure, quietly making his way out the back door. Half-opened handcuffs dangled from his left hand, and he held a laser pistol in one hand.

"Is that...?" Russell started.

"...Kelly." Adam muttered, and they both watched as he slid away.

***

"Thanks, Pat!" the first of them said, "Best meal of the year right there, Patty!" went the second, and a third blew a kiss her way before dashing away, laughing as he powered on his laser rifle.

Pat'lestia beamed even as she adjusted the helmet on her head and slapped a new battery onto her rifle. The moon was shining outside and it was refreshingly cool. She was certain it would be a lovely night.

Rushing out of the mess hall, she looked around the encampment. Up on the hills, hidden from sight and easily defendable, the 'tin cans', as the soldiers liked to call the mobile barracks, were near invisible to anyone who couldn't fly, and a few mortars lined up along the ridge with stationary machine guns to protect them turned the entire place into a small fortress.

Pat'lestia reached the clearing between the barracks and the improvised arsenal they kept, and looked around. She checked the charge on her rifle, and smiled— seventy-eight percent. Still in the green.

"Pat! Good God, Pat!" a tiny, shrieking voice squeaked out from somewhere behind her. She turned around with a question in her eyes, and out into view came a short, wobbly boy, still shy of his eighteenth birthday. He was huffing and puffing as he reached her, carrying in his arms her propulsion pack.

"Thanks!" she smiled, "But you have to address me by rank, eh. We're totally in the middle of combat!"

She took the propulsion pack from his trembling hands and chuckled at the terrified expression plastered across his face.

"S-sorry, Master Corp-"

"Just kidding, Carl. Go along now. Find your corporal." she laughed and put on the pack. With a flick of a switch, the thing revved up and came to life with a low growl from its engine. She shot a quick smile at the boy, and then she was off.

The world seemed to shrink as she went up into the air, leaving the earth behind. There were others around her, all up in the sky and aiming down the sights of their weapons. With a press of a small button on the side of her weapon, she brought the earpiece in her helmet to life. Static crackled for a few seconds, but it was mostly audible.

"Popov here, sir. Section one is in the air. Over." she said. The static came back, stronger, for a few seconds, and then it was gone and replaced by a suave and cocky voice.

"Well, hello... -ere, sweet-... -art. How've you... een?"

Pat'lestia rolled her eyes and gave the propulsors another boost to keep her in the air.

"What's the problem, Roger?" she said

“Oh, it’s no-… to worry about. Just a few… -utants. You know, beautiful, the… sual.” There was a brief pause— broken by the rapid reading of several coordinates. Pat’lestia nodded and started on her way.

“Alright. Gotcha. First section moving out.” She signaled her troopers to follow and gave another boost to her propulsors. She flew off into the darkness, trailed by her men, until the position was reached.

It was a barren, desolate piece of land that looked no different than any other. Still, the closer Pat’lestia got, the eerier it became. A sound was coming out of it. From the land itself, it seemed, a high-pitched cry was resonating. It was loud and ululating, like several waves that gently crashed against her. She frowned and hovered over the plot of land for a few seconds, and then she signaled her men to spread out and surround the area, lining up across the perimeter.

She touched land some thirty meters away from the spot and changed the channel of her earpiece with another button on her weapon.

“Eyes open. Spread out and be ready to jump. On my signal, third firing team move in and investigate. Copy?” she said into the earpiece, and several voices replied over the line: ‘affirmative.’

She waited a few seconds before she gave the signal, and then she did. The two men moved in, weapons raised, and approached the center of the location where the noise was coming from. It was pitch black and the Army’s quartermaster in Sah had only issued out six pairs of night vision goggles to each platoon. Pat’s was the lucky section that got to play with them that night.

“Careful, boys.” Pat said as the men drew closer. There was a small circle of stones in the middle of the clearing, and despite the darkness, Pat was sure something was moving within. The soldiers reached it. One of them knelt before it…

“Shit.”

“What’s that, Richard? What is it?” Pat asked into the earpiece, a little louder than she wanted to. The noise came again, louder than before, and the man, Richard, stood up and scratched the side of his helmet.

“Hey, Pat. You know how you’re always playing mom with us?”

“Now's not the time, soldier.” Pat replied. “What is it in there?”

“Ah, au contraire, mademoiselle…” the second man said. “I do consider it is the correct time.”

Pat’lestia frowned and prepared to bark an order into the earpiece once more, when a sound burst forth from the circle of stones. A sound that sent a shiver down her spine.

“Maaaaamaaaaaaaaa!”

***

He had seen them locked away deeper into the tunnels. None of the others knew because he had not told them before. It did not seem to matter at the moment, and when Jraden appeared, he hadn't dared tell him. Only God knew what he would have done, if anything, to the girls.

“It’s not much farther.” he said, smiling down at the young ones that trailed behind him. Twelve frightened, skinny girls that had been kept locked away in the deeper recesses of the mines for a purpose he did not wish to imagine. The girl at the front smiled at him and extended her hand. It was a dirty, scrawny thing with more bone than skin on it. Scabs covered it and it shook slightly. Kuperjanov took it in his own and walked on.

They’d been walking for a while now, the sun glowering at their backs, braving the heat of the desert and the cold nights that came with it. Julius could have been considered mad to go down that path instead of following the Assault Troopers, but he had a certainty tugging at the edge of his mouth that caused him to grin every so often. A feeling that was more than that, and all things considered, was rather a fact.

Their steps led them to the base of a hill where nothing grew and skulls dotted the landscape. The girls huddled close together, but Julius sighed with relief. From where they stood he could see the opening of a great tunnel that led to the innards of the world. He started up the hill, leading the girls, when he felt the one holding his hand yank free.

“I won’t go in there!” she screamed, and Julius could see tears welling up in her eyes. The others were close to tears as well. He couldn't blame them, but the need was dire, and he couldn't risk losing time.

"It's okay." he told them. "No one is going to harm you anymore. I promise. I'll look after you."

The girls looked at him without certainty of anything. They had suffered much and more, Still, under the heat of the desert, they chose to follow him into the darkness.

Julius did not need to walk much further than a few meters shy of the tunnel's entrance before a pair of men approached him. They each held both a spear and a light machine gun, but they kept their distance and did not question Julius as he drew closer.

He finally reached them, and they raised their eyebrows questioningly at him. Tired and covered in dust, Julius Kuperjanov spoke.

"Tell Dingu that Julius Kuperjanov is here." He paused, drew in a deep breath, and steeled himself for what was about to come. "Tell him to make ready for war."

The men smiled.

b2

Broken World

The child was beautiful. A beauty that frightened as much as it awed. It was pale-white to a fault, and it had four, large eyes that were a silver color. The lips she had were full and red as a ruby, with teeth so small, yet sharp enough to tear through bone in one bite. She was weeping and thrashing— her arms were long and slender, like the rest of her body, and had long claws instead of fingernails, and they were blood-red and sharper than blades.

Pat'lestia looked down at the child, horrified. Her men did so as well, all standing in silence as the creature wept before them. The night had grown heavy around them, and the dreaded sound of silence felt thick in their ears. Pat'lestia took a step back and motioned for her corporal to follow. She led him a ways back from the group.

"I don't like this." she told him. The corporal was a heavy man of broad shoulders. Only Madness itself knew how the propulsion pack was able to lift him without trouble. He stroked his beard and arched his eyebrows. A small smile adorned his face.

"It doesn't matter whether you do." he said, "All that could have been done has been done. All that remains is the damage control." he shook his head slightly, smiling all the while. Pat'lestia frowned, and moved to ask what he meant, when a shrill scream pierced the night.

"What is that?" a man asked, and others took up the question. They looked around, weapons raised and ready.

The corporal sighed.

"Damage control." he whispered, and before Pat'lestia's eyes, a bullet tore through his head.

***

Saint Kelly cursed as the others saw him. He hurried away, making certain to keep out of sight from the rushing soldiers as they went to man the defenses. He had to hurry. Escape was within his reach, and all it took was a swift dash away from the camp to be back with Ida.

He passed the courtyard, moving from cover to cover, until he was at the arsenal's door. There was a guard, a lock, and then freedom. Kelly had been through too much. He was annoyed to death by the nonsense of being captured, bored beyond possibility by the tedium of being restrained, and, more importantly, he had a gun. Why suffer it any longer?

He didn't even bother calling out to the guard to see the look in his face. He couldn't be bothered. It had been a while.

The first shot went through the man's cheek, the next one through his shoulder, and the third through his chest. Kelly grinned as he discharged as much of the pistol as he could into the man, who had not the time to scream before his throat was punctured by half a dozen laser shots.

The man lay dead at his feet, and the rest of the encampment was plunged into chaos around him. Why, he didn't know, but what a sight it was. The soldiers manning the defensive turrets were dead, torn to pieces before their posts, while the rest of the encampment suddenly fell into an orgy of blood and violence around him. It was not his mind this time, he could smell the blood in the air and hear the demonic laughter seeping from the soldiers that now gleefully chased after their former comrades to tear them to pieces.

With a smile, Kelly took a few grenades from the dead soldier and set upon the task of opening that door.

***

Russell and Adam stood amid the chaos.

"What in-" Adam cursed as his bodyguard was tackled to the ground by two of his former comrades. The man screamed and cursed at them, but it was in vain. With savage brutality, the two maddened soldiers used teeth and nail to mutilate him beyond recognition. The man screamed and begged as his blood pooled around him, and his murderers laughed and squealed in sadistic joy as they set to work on his innards.

Russell and Adam could not help him. Even as they moved to shove away the killers, a dozen more soldiers burst into the room from the far end. They all had wild smiles on their faces and a symbol clawed into their foreheads— one that needed no introduction and allowed none. The soldiers howled demonically at the two startled men, and charged.

***

Valerian had heard the screams long before any of the others. It did not take too much to recognize demonic taint when one knew what to look for.

He groaned as he moved, always mindful of the wound in his chest. Still, he made certain not to make too much noise. The servants of Madness were loose, and nothing but steel and shot would keep them down.

"There is no more time." he muttered at the terrified guard that stood outside his cell. The man was young and frightened, fumbling desperately with his laser rifle as the sounds of slaughter rose ever higher on the neighboring corridor. "You must choose. Release me and fight, or stand your ground and die."

The man looked from Valerian to the only door between him and the madmen. A single, tiny window allowed some vision of what happened outside. Or it would, if blood and viscera had not stained it. Through the window, a man peeked into the corridor where Valerian was kept. The guard felt his heart stop as the soldier beyond the door saw him, and smiled.

***

Xiaowen was breathing heavily. He could barely stand, yet he held the sword as firmly as he could nevertheless.

"Until the end, friends." a dark man muttered beside him. There were five of them. All True and Tried, except for Alex. If Xiaowen was in bad shape, Alex must have been dead. Bandages covered the entirety of his face and no nose could be seen whatsoever. Even all the prowess of the medics could not keep him awake much longer. They either broke through the madmen's lines and escaped in a single strike, or they died.

"Are you up for it?" Xiaowen asked with a tired chuckle at Alex. The beaten man did not turn to face him. he just raised his fist slowly and flipped him the bird. Xiaowen smiled, and then the madmen tore through their makeshift barricade.

Choruses of "Death! Death! Blood! Blood!" swarmed the room along with the maddened soldiers as the wooden door and the furniture barricading it broke down. The True and Tried shouted out a single cry of vengeance for mankind, and they all charged forward, swords and maces raised.

***

Noremac was awake. That was the only thing he knew for a certainty.

That, and that he was not going to be killed so that a bunch of lunatics could get a kick out of it.

He lay against the wall on his bed, firing away at the encroaching mass of demented soldiers that threw themselves at him. In their bloodlust, they had all discarded their weapons and charged him barehanded. He was glad for it.

Brains and blood splattered over the running horde of madmen as they tried to reach him from the corridor. Bodies fell beneath the feet of the men behind them as they all rushed to the far end of the medical bay, stepping over their own dead and stopping to tear the other patients to pieces. Noremac thanked whatever deity was looking after him that they had placed him at the very far end of the room.

Still, they drew closer...

***

Saint Kelly stood before the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Weapons. Hundreds of them. Everywhere. Of all types. They were all lined up in neat rows for the soldiers to get them. Still, most rows were now empty. The soldiers must have rushed to them at the blare of the alarm. Still, Kelly was surprised no one was around. What with the massive slaughter going on, he assumed people would be killing each other for a better gun.

He shrugged and set about finding something he liked.

He passed by the heaviest weapons without paying them any mind and instead moved on to the lighter ones. Smiling, he carefully selected his weapons: a sub machine gun, two pistols, and a nice-looking motor-sword. The thing was heavier than he liked, but it was just so good. He had to have it.

Satisfied with his choice he moved to leave, when he caught a glimpse of a few of the mad soldiers loitering about in the courtyard by themselves. They were not mindlessly tearing into the dozens of hopeless men around the encampment, all surrounded by vicious killers, and instead watched as things unfolded. Kelly knew they were mad as well, for they too bore the symbol that did the others.

With a gleeful smile, Kelly decided to spice things up, and he went for a cart.

***

Pat'lestia screamed. Bullets tore through her section within moments of the first shot being fired. The shots came from every direction and mercilessly reduced her men to corpses before she could react. She herself felt her right leg snap as gunfire dug through the flesh and shattered the bone beneath. Her own weight collapsed what remained of her leg as it folded in a way it was never meant to. Blood and pain were hers to suffer as dozens of mutants swarmed the valley from all directions.

Few of her soldiers were able to even react, much less fight back. The intelligent ones tried to fly out of the battle and died swiftly as the shots tore through their propulsion packs and detonated the fuel, killing them instantly. The less fortunate ones, like her, were on the ground, agonizing as the mutant infection coated over the bullets slowly seeped into their bloodstream.

She stared at the sky, feeling her life blood leaving her, as the mutants walked up to them.

The last thing she remembered before passing out was the image, carved into her eyes and mind, of a mutant reaching down and cradling the demonic child in her arms. The creature stopped weeping and looked around— looked at her, and smiled.

Then the world went black.

***

Russell and Adam were running away from the crazed murderers, but that was as much as they knew. Without weapons or the vaguest idea of what to do, they could only run as the murderers gained ground. Adam cursed for the eleventh time as he stepped on the innards of some unfortunate soldier and almost slipped. Behind them, the hordes of demented men and women cheered and urged him to fall.

They passed a bundle of dead men who had tried to make a stand, and Russell stopped.

"Wait!" he called out, eyes fixed on something in the distance. "We have to go this way."

Adam shouted out a string of curses as Russell ran off, but he could do little other than follow.

They ran until they stood before the makeshift hangar of the encampment. Russel and Adam both stopped before the opened gates, and smiled. A Light Desert Galley stood inside, just waiting to be brought to life.

***

Valerian roared as he brought the wrench down against the maddened soldiers with all the strength he could muster. His arm was bloodied up to the shoulder, and most of him was covered in both blood and viscera. Still, he fought on. One after the other the soldiers threw themselves at him, and one by one he destroyed them within that small corridor. The soldier who'd guarded him lay dead at his feet, a fact that Valerian lamented, but that he could do nothing about. The man had died fighting, and that was all that mattered.

When the last of the murderers stood alone before him, Valerian, drenched in blood, looked him in the eye and slammed the wrench against the wall, taunting the madman to attempt an assault. He did, for he was not sane, but before the end of his life, Valerian was certain that a shade of fear had crossed his eyes.

Tired and bloodied, Valerian left the corridor behind and his cell as well, as he made his way out and into the madness.

***

Xiaowen and Alex stood amid the carnage, surrounded by the sounds of battle. Both of them swung madly at the enemy with the swords they held, and blood splattered the walls. Bones broke, men screamed in pain, and laughter filled the air as the madmen died. The True and Tried that had aided them were now pushing past the broken barricade and joining forces with another small group of soldiers that had managed to survive the first onslaught. Xiaowen and Alex followed behind, both of them aware of their fading strength.

The two groups merged into one and advanced through the encampment, dealing swift dead to any madman that dared place foot near them. Slowly they reached the medical area, where the marks of battle were vividly painted.

However...

***

Noremac smiled at the new arrivals, recognizing a few of them.

"Took you long enough." he called out, flipped them off, and blacked out— surrounded by a dozen corpses and twice as many empty pistol magazines, courtesy of the small cadre some paranoid nurse had left hidden under the bed.

b3

Broken World

He had been the first casualty of them all. The thought made him smile despite the circumstances and he closed his eyes. The sounds thundered throughout the room where he was kept, yet none of them were close enough to bother him. The colonel had left him a long while ago and returned to his team of True and Tried while the soldiers readied themselves for his execution. Now he doubted anyone had survived.

Jraden set to work on his restraints with a sigh. The soldiers had done a mediocre job immobilizing him and he would not be contained so easily. He was free in a moment and his mission was his own again. He rubbed his wrists and made a face. They'd not bound him too well, but too tightly? Definitely.

He took his officer garments and moved on. The code on the door was a simple thing; the corridor was deserted, and as he broke into a jog, a smile threatened to appear on his face. He could not fight it. He was free. The air, even within the underground, felt wonderful against his face. He was alive, and there was another fight to be won. The thought filled him with more joy than he thought possible. He still had a purpose, and even if it culminated in his death, he would see it done.

Bodies were strewn everywhere, victims of the madness, but no enemies. The stairs. Not too many, and the way to the surface was open for him to travel it. Soon he stood before the last door, and the smile he now boasted was grander than any other he'd felt on his old face.

He passed the door, and the Gates themselves seemed to have been opened. Still, as the madmen turned to focus on him and smiles of their own formed on their faces, Jraden let out a chuckle and took a step toward them. This, he thought, was his purpose.

"Mankind prevails!"

***

It was the shout that echoed through the corridors as the True and Tried clashed once more against the hordes of the maddened. A scream filled with hope and trust in a cause that was greater than themselves and larger than anyone. Blades were swung, firearms discharged, and blood was spilled by the liter.

They had waged a bitter battle against the enemy from the medical bay to the courtyard, giving no ground, but taking it mercilessly. The soldiers advanced without pause and fired without hesitation. The officers covered their flanks with blade and pistol, ready to step in should the advancing firing line be threatened by yet another charge of the infuriated madmen. Xiaowen and Alex kept the pace and fought their share, but they were exhausted. It had been soon after the fifth madman had launched himself at them that they'd realized their strength was failing them. It had taken both of them to dispatch the crazed fighter, who assaulted them with nothing but his blood-stained claws and a furious determination to claw out their eyes.

"Rest, friend," a broad man had told Xiaowen at one point, but he had refused. They'd left a few men behind in the medical bay to care for the wounded, but that was not the place where he was needed. He would fight. Alex had been of the same mind. They would not be left behind.

So they moved on. The corridors became more of a nightmare with each passing step as the decorations the madmen had left in their wake were revealed to them. Entrails, organs, blood, and corpses. Dozens of them, and some still live enough to plead for the end as the men went by.

The group had reached the mess hall when a roar thundered throughout the complex.

***

"Do you even know how to drive this thing?!" Adam shouted as Russell pressed yet another button and pulled one more lever. The Desert Galley gave another roar and spewed a torrent of flame from its bow that reached ahead by a distance of twenty meters. The fire hit the mobs of madmen that had been chasing them, and it turned their reality into an inferno. Their laughter and death-screams were suffocated by the uproar of the fire as it engulfed their flesh and burned through them until nothing but charred remains were left.

Adam and Russell stared at the bodies in silence as the machine slowly settled down until it emitted nothing but a quiet humming noise.

"That was decent," Russell muttered.

Adam looked around and tried to see what the situation was. It wasn't too difficult to realize that the initial surprise of the assault had worn off. All around the camp one could see pockets of resistance joining together and advancing to rescue yet another group of stranded soldiers. The madmen had not been as numerous as they seemed, and less than two dozens now ran freely through the encampment. Bodies covered a great part of the place, and the sounds of gunfire finally seemed to be drowning the laughter of the madmen.

"Look," Russell called out after a moment, and Adam turned his head to face the mess hall.

From the building, a group of soldiers was emerging. It was the largest one they'd seen thus far, and it was accompanied by friendly faces.

They began to call out to them, when a roar broke through the sounds of battle.

***

Valerian emerged from the darkness of the prisons a nightmare covered in blood. He was a horror to behold, drenched in gore and advancing as though he were himself a tank. He had discarded the wrench for a laser rifle and a saber he'd taken from the corpse of a dead corporal when leaving the prisons, and as he made his way out into the courtyard, the sight that he witnessed was strong enough to make weaker men pause.

It wasn't the bodies, nor the way they had been mutilated, but the symbols. The symbols were what terrified, and what they represented instilled more than terror into the soul of the common man. In Valerian, it did nothing if not fuel his hatred. With a snarl, he took a step forward, and then another. He advanced onto the middle of the field and stood before the symbol of a demon painted in blood and organs on the sand. It was a human skull with four curved horns and six eyes that was depicted.

Valerian did not know the demon, but he did not doubt that it was out there. With a disgusted grunt, he turned away from the symbol and walked away towards the mess hall. There he could see a group of survivors was assembling. He had not taken his seventh step when the ground beneath him trembled and parted.

He stood atop a growing mound of earth that was slowly rising even as it was broken by a force from beneath; trying to rise to the surface. Valerian growled a curse and threw himself to the side. He rolled across the dirt and then rose to his feet in time to see the first bright, crimson claws rise from the ground.

The demon raised its head above the ground. It was like that which had been painted, Valerian realized, in the beast's likeness. Its six eyes opened then and so did its mouth.

With a roar, it silenced the world.

***

She felt like retching. Little else could describe the feeling in her stomach, but no matter how hard she tried and willed her body to be rid of the vile thing that brought her such pain, it simply would not. She heaved and coughed as violent spasms wracked through her body. Her leg was not the worst of it, by far it must have been her heart. Every beat of it burnt and ached terribly. It was an evil warmth that spread throughout her chest with every contraction of it.

Damage control, was all that resounded in her thoughts. What is that? she had asked. Damage control.

Footsteps, somewhere nearby. Also the whimpering of a man. She was not sure whom, but maybe it was Richard, if he had not died by then. They drew closer and closer and she thought of asking for a final mercy, but she couldn't. It was not that her body would not speak the words, but something felt terribly wrong. A creeping sensation of unholiness seemed to take hold of her, and it made any contact with whatever was near impossible out of sheer terror. She closed her eyes then and prayed that whatever it was would not see her.

The shuffling of feet could be heard. A few more whimpers. A child's giggle.

Cold sweat was forming on her brow. She prayed some more and imagined her own voice to be so loud that it hurt; anything to keep the footsteps away. One step closer, a stone moved out of place, and that hellish laughter. One move ahead of her desperation and terror, it drew nearer.

In the darkness of the night, surrounded by the corpses of her men, she felt a cold, dead claw against her cheek and heard the laughter once more. A flowing sound that slid through the air like water and sawed through her sanity with all the ferocity of an electrical saw.

She had always thought of herself as a strong woman. Not a bastion or an example to follow; a saint without flaw, but she would never have believed that so few words would have been enough to destroy her.

In the darkness of the night, lying on a pool of her own blood, she felt the kiss of a demon. Won't you sing for me, mother? it said, and its claws yanked the screams from her throat.

***

Dingu took another piece of food from the tray and bit down on it; chewing eagerly on the morsel he already had inside his mouth. The cold air of the desert night had no effect on him, or none that could be seen. He enjoyed his meal and waited. For Martian, that was the worst part of it all. The waiting.

"We have to act," he said. "If what Julius says is true, then we can't let them reach Sah."

"Be patient, Martian," Dingu said. He licked his fingers clean and smiled. "Jraden will not reach the city. His mission will not be completed. I will see to it, I swear, but we must wait."

"He must not only be stopped," Julius said. He had one of the girls he had found in his arms, sound asleep. "He must never be able to undergo another one of these missions again. That man must be ended."

Martian sighed and looked down at the encampment from the hill where they stood. It was chaos within, that much was obvious. Whatever had happened to the soldiers was wreaking havoc without restrain. It would take but to do nothing and perhaps Jraden would die. If it could end in such a way then it would be excellent, but he could not leave such a thing to fate alone.

"I'm goin' in," he said. Julius and Dingu turned to look at him as he walked down the hill to the small encampment they had built. It had been a full day's ride without stopping. They had lost two horses and a man to the heat, but the prey was now at their feet; bleeding and unaware. Blind luck could not be the decisive factor of the final battle for Sah. Jraden would die by his hand, Martian knew. He needed but to reach out and put an end to him and his mission.

Dingu's men were a ragged lot. They lounged about when not patrolling or enjoying themselves. Several of them were playing betting games around a tiny, seemingly powerless heater about the size of a shoe. The night was cold, and Martian could see it in the men. He could feel it as well. His own skin trembled from time to time as a breeze swept over him, and he realized how his breath misted before him.

"What the-?" It was then that it sounded, from somewhere down in the valley, the most horrible sound a man can hear and survive without damage. It was a roar that thundered through and over the earth and made the bones tremble and the knees go weak. It made the flesh of his arms tingle and the muscles of his jaw tense. The faded shade of terror crawled at the edge of his mind, receding into the darkness soon after showing a gnarled smile. He forced himself to turn around and look back up at the hill. He did not want to walk back to Dingu and Julius, and the fleeting idea of fleeing seemed, for a moment as short as the time it takes a claw to tear through skin, so very possible.

Too possible. Too easy. Not acceptable. Shaking himself free of the thoughts, he took a step forward and then another, until he passed over the crest of the hill and stood behind four immobile men; staring into the darkness of the night, and the raging fire that had been born from amid the darkness. It was a pyre of a size that made it hard to believe it had been born so swiftly and without need for an explosion of some giant airship. It rose into the night sky and illuminated all within a large radius.

Martian stopped a few meters away from Dingu and Julius. The world had become darker and more terrifying, and the sensation to run had become a necessity. Like the flame as it touches the skin without warning, so was the urge to turn away and run. To simply flee the scene and never return. To never conjure the visage again and die with a clean mind would have been a blessing, but the same terror that urged them to flee seemed to grasp them in a vicious hold that would not be lessened, and they could do nothing but feel their heartbeat quicken at the sight that unfolded before them.

The girl in Julius' arms screamed even as she slept. It was a howl of agony and horror that shook the men to the core and drove her to convulse violently before finally dying, without anyone ever diverting their horrified eyes from the shape and the aura of the Great Demon as it rose from the ashen ground and unfurled its wings.

Its roar deafened the universe.

***

Noremac was dreaming. In his dream he was dead or dying, perhaps alive. He could not be certain, for he walked, and he saw, and he felt, but the trail of blood that he knew was his own would not stop flowing. There was too much of it, and it was fresher than it should have been. It did not clot. It dripped from him and fell to the floor; pure and beautiful, untouched by the darkness of the world. Simply red and brighter than the sun.

He did not feel any pain from the bleeding gashes under his knees. There was no pain as he walked, even though he knew it should be there. Starting under the knees and circling around both legs were cuts so deep he could feel the bone— no, that was not right. He could hear the bone where it had been broken in two by the jaws of the mutant. One end of it scraped ever so insistently against the other, and he could see the blood spurting out from the wounds. An air current swept by and he realized that there was nothing keeping his calves attached to the rest of his legs. Not a vein, an artery, or even a strand of flesh. The air passed through the gap, and he could feel it, though he did not know how.

He walked further down the endless hallway, even as it transformed into a cave. It never stayed the same. Windows turned to smaller cave entrances, which then transformed into large, purulent eyes that followed him as he passed. No sound seemed to reach him but that of the endless dripping of his own blood.

'Am I dead?' he thought from time to time. He did not think so, not entirely. Death would not be so confusing. It would be simple. Something that is accepted, not questioned. In this realm, there were nothing but questions. Noremac stopped. Something peered at him from behind a street sign. It had the shape of a man but all the appearance of a shadow. A thing of darkness.

"Are you dead?" it asked, and its voice was an echo of the echo it once may have been. Noremac shook his head, and he felt naked before the thing. Exposed. Somehow unsure of how much could be seen, not of his body, but of his soul. What secrets long held by him were now common knowledge to the thing? How much of himself was still his own? The creature walked toward him.

"Are you alive?" it asked, and Noremac shook his head. Somehow, someway, neither answer seemed to apply to him. He was not dead, but he did not belong to the living. He was something between both states, a being that shouldn't exist, as much as the world around him ought to be impossible. The walls of the mining tunnel where they stood pulsed and transformed, and they were standing inside something living and warm. Veins and flesh surrounded them, and the faint beating of a massive heart could be heard somewhere in the far distance.

"I am," Noremac said. He did not try to continue. He was. That was all that could be certain. He existed. If nothing else was certain, then at least that much was truth. The beating stopped in the distance, and the flesh and muscle tissue around them contracted violently. Veins burst and blood sprayed around them. The world around Noremac convulsed and writhed in absolute agony. The creature of darkness before him tilted its head to the side and a sad smile appeared on its featureless face.

"Not even that," it said, and the life around Noremac transformed into steel and the blood became oil. The sounds of pain became the howling screech of steel being shredded and steam escaping from leaks across massive tubes. Noremac turned away from the creature of darkness and walked in the opposite direction. He left the world of dreams and saw that reality was waiting for him, but it was not his reality.

He was not. Yet, he would be.

***

The Demon looked not at the men who stood before it. The Demon looked beyond them.

This was the first thing he had been taught of the creatures long ago, and he had never forgotten. The Colonel took a step forward and immediately regretted it. The eyes were on him. They were on him, through him... beyond him. The eyes of the Demon were everywhere and at all possible and impossible places. They were everywhere. No, to believe they would focus on him was foolish. It was stupid. Stupid. The Demon saw it all. It would not focus on him. There was no reason.

The Colonel was on his feet, but he wondered if it would be best to let himself fall as had everyone else. The screaming was agonizing, but his training helped control— no, not control. It was impossible to control the Demon. To think so was idiotic. The Demon controlled all. He must remember so. He must not let his mind forget. He was merely allowed to maintain his sanity. The Demon permitted it.

He opened his mouth to speak, but no words would come out. The Demon did not impede his speech, but he did not know how to address it. The flames were all around him, dancing, flickering from place to place; kept at bay just because it wanted him to live, for whatever reason. The Colonel fell to his knees before it. No titles or honors would appear in his mind. He fiercely suppressed the urge to praise it. To do so meant to offend, for he could not understand it. He could never hope to understand the greatness of it.

He could not talk to it. That was the bitter truth of it all. It had been a sacrifice so grand to summon even just a pale shadow of its greatness, and he would never be able to address even that. The Colonel fell to the ground, defeated. The Demon towered above him. It towered above everything in more than just size. It was grander, greater, and everlasting. Ever powerful. It was. Nothing else was certain but that. The Demon existed, because it willed itself to exist. The Colonel simply suffered in silence as he realized the futility of summoning the great creature. In silence he awaited it to end him. But the end of his life did not arrive.

"You h-have summoned the Great One..." someone's voice called out, and The Colonel knew it was not it. It would never speak to the mortals. It was greater than them all. The voice was broken and tired. It sounded of defeat, as were all men before it.

The Colonel raised his head and saw a woman approaching. Her face was pale and seemingly without flesh. Her arms were so thin that the bones were visible under such a thin layer of skin that seemed so easily broken. Veins and arteries pulsed violently throughout her body; dark and red as they pumped a fluid that was not blood. Her eyes were lost and dead, and a creature clung to her. Its claws were deeply stuck inside the bone of her shoulders, and the thing's fangs were biting into the flesh of the woman's neck. It sucked the black liquid viciously from her body.

"Master Corporal?" The Colonel felt the whisper leave his mouth. The woman did not react, she simply trembled as the thing on her shoulder growled and ground its teeth deeper into her body. The Colonel swallowed hard and nodded. "I am but a man. I have not summoned as much as I have pleaded and begged for a sliver of his attention."

The woman shuddered.

"You h-ha—" her knees buckled and she almost fell, but with a growl the thing bit harder into her shoulder and some strength seemed to be born from the pain. She straightened up, but her voice sounded drier, the words clumsier, and her eyes looked as dead as the earth around them. "You have summoned the Great One..."

The Colonel nodded.

"I have," he said.

"Your s-s..." She did not need to finish. He did not want her to finish. Somehow, if a kindness existed in the universe, not hearing the word, the price, might null the transaction. A dead hope inside a man that was now more than dead. He grew deaf to the sounds of the world and leveled his sidearm to his own head.

"It's his," he murmured and pulled the trigger.

The world was then a mass of nothing and a sea of all that existed. It became one with it all and was separated, severed from it with such ferocity that it all ceased to exist and was born again at the exact same moment. It was and it was not. They were and they were not. The deal had been made. Not one soul but many and not one favor but a thousand, perhaps a million. Billions, in time, might have been included. Nothing may have been gained. All could be won. The end of the war or the beginning of a new one. It had all been included and bargained for. Men and Gods stood as equals for a brief moment, and then the world returned to normal.

The Demon was gone, and Valerian, Xiaowen, Alex, Russell, Adam, Jraden, and Kelly found themselves screaming as the pain slowly receded. The only evidence that anything had happened at all was a single corpse lying on the ground between them all, with a bullet hole in his head, and charred holes where his eyes should have been.

In the distance a mutant war horn screamed.