My heart tried to rip its way out of my chest as SIGHT gave me a clearer picture of what was happening than I could have ever wanted.

I saw the heavy chain stretched before Chowwick, and I saw him hurtling toward it like a meteor.

The field around him began to fade and dissipate as he approached the chain. It all happened in fractions of a second, but each fraction seemed to slam into my mind, frame by frame, tense moment by agonizingly tense moment.

The gargantuan form of Chowwick emerged from the haze of the field. He had no time to slow his momentum, so his massive body scrambled and wheeled for balance as he decelerated so sharply.

The Hordesmen spread around the intended point of impact. The two holding the chain braced themselves. With their armor, their capes, and their furs, they seemed bulky, huge, and terrifyingly alien. These were nightmares, not men.

There was a distortion as Chowwick struck the chain. Even SIGHT couldn’t reveal the details. Chowwick went down in the long grass. The Hordesmen moved on him like predators on a wounded beast.

The light of power weapons flashed in their hands. Horde gear wasn’t meant to work far outside an Entropy Storm. In a sudden gasp, I realized that many of the men I had found around my father’s body had been weaponless. The scarcity of power weapons is something I haven’t made clear. In an army of ten thousand men, it would be exceptional to find even ten power weapons. Every figure in the distance seemed to be holding one.

My mind reeled in horror at what might have become of Chowwick. I could imagine the chain wrapping through his being, the atoms of man and steel intertwined. I knew the stories.

But even as I watched, a Hordesman was sent reeling backward. My ally was down, possibly injured, but he was very much alive.

I was moving before I even realized it.

The voice in my ear growled, "We’re going for it? Fuck yeah!"

I embraced the pulse of Footfield. Chowwick was a mile away. I could get there in a minute. Maybe less—maybe 45 seconds if I pushed everything I had and exited the field dangerously close to the Hordesmen.

As the field folded around me, I became aware of Tacita starting to move as well.

But Cassius’s voice rang out, "Tacita, no! We must prepare defenses!"

The Griidlords of the West were obedient soldiers, it seemed. They were not the free-agent warriors of my homeland. Tacita halted her impulse to join me.

I was alone as I folded into the field and began to streak across time and space toward my endangered teammate.

The voice said, "Stragglers. They must have strayed too far from the storm, or the storm moved away from them unexpectedly. This will be a rock and roll moment for you, son. You’re either going to add to your legend or... well, you know... end it."

What the voice said made sense. There were stories of Hordesmen being left behind by the storms they rode. And there was no other reason I could imagine for them to be here, ambushing a veteran Griidlord.

The space between me and the scrambling figures collapsed—I was closing fast. I saw their glowing blades flashing up and down through the haze of the field. I realized suddenly that I might be charging to my own death, all for the sake of another corpse on the ground.

he voice said, "Oh, this needs a song... something pacey and hard... how does Evenflow go again? Buh-duh-duuuuh. No, that’s not it."

I pushed as close to the Hordesmen as I dared. Some of them turned toward my field. I didn’t want to mangle my atoms with another chain—or with one of them. I began to relinquish the field, bracing myself for the deceleration.

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The voice was still babbling. "Eye of the Tiger? Duh-dudu-duh-dudu-duh… shit, that’s not right."

Time came crashing back to normal. I was maybe thirty yards from the nearest of them. Three came charging, seemingly unworried that they were rushing a Griidlord. I drew my sword, its surface glowing with the blacks and reds of drying blood. I tried to draw courage from the blade, from what I had become.

I’ve never killed a man, I realized.

As we closed in on each other and the first glowing blade flashed toward me, the voice said, "Fuck it, work with what you know..."

My CUT met the first blade—a glowing power axe. The formidable strength of the Hordesman wielding it was nothing compared to the surge of POWER I felt as my visor blazed.

"Dancing Queeeeeeen! Young and sweeeeet, only seventeeeeeeen!" the demented voice warbled in my ear. I had no idea what song it was singing.

The axe was thrown back. The Hordesman's torso was wide open for a counter, but even with the SPEED I felt under the influence of POWER, I couldn’t take advantage of the opening while defending myself from the glowing sword thrusting toward me. I danced aside, but the sword followed unerringly. I had to flash an unbalanced CUT to deflect it.

"Dancing Queeeeeen! Feel the beat of the tambouriiiiiiiine! Oh yeeeaaaah!"

I gained a moment's space. By the Oracle, these men were fast. Inhumanly fast. And they gave no respite. Even as I moved to create space, they charged in with total abandon. Against a Griidlord!

"You can dance!"

I pulsed BEAM, striking the nearest one. The force sent him flying through the air, black tendrils of smoke trailing his path. I pulsed SHIELD to deflect the axe I stepped past.

"You can jive!"

Then I closed in on the third of the trio. His sword was raised over his head, poised for an overhand stab. Everything moved so slowly. POWER gave me a sense of SPEED that was supernatural. His torso was open. I swung my CUT in a horizontal arc, and my blade passed through his armor and flesh as if they weren’t there. I was nearly thrown off balance by the lack of resistance. I turned to watch as the man—this human being—stumbled past me, his torso gradually sliding into two pieces as his steps faltered. He collapsed, severed in two. Blood was everywhere. In the air. On the ground. Sprayed across my suit.

I had just killed a man.

"Having the time of your liiiiiife!"

The other two came at me. It was as though they hadn’t just seen their comrade sliced in half. They charged without hesitation. I didn’t have time to process the human life I had just snuffed out. I didn’t have time to register the explosion of adrenaline as I saw two power weapons coming at me from both sides.

These were power weapons. They could pierce the armor!

I gave myself to AGILITY. I leapt up, over them. For a moment, I was suspended in the air above them, feet to the sky, head below me. I watched them stagger away from each other, pulling their weapons out of each other's paths.

"See that girl! Watch that scene!"

I landed without thinking. My CUT flashed. The glowing blade of my sword passed through the neck of the man whose back was to me. There was a sickening unreality to the way his head left his neck. The kinetic force of the blade helped it, lifting the head up, blood gushing from the wound.

"Diggin' the Dancing Queeeeeen!"

I stepped forward. It was all training, all instinct. But a cold vileness rose in my gut at what had just happened. These were men. They might have been of the Horde, but they were human. Through the gaps in the furs and helmets, I had seen eyes as human as mine, as Lauren’s, Katya’s, or Harold’s. And those eyes would see no more.

The third Hordesman was pulling his blade back to the side, preparing for a swing. That was the last thing he would ever prepare for. The last voluntary action he would ever take. He was breathing his last. He was thinking his last.

I chopped down with CUT.

I saw a vertical line appear, running from the top of his helmed skull down to his groin. At first, it was just a faint line, more black than red. But everything about him froze. His eyes stopped, vaguely shocked. The sword he had been raising back slowed and started to fall limp. Then his body peeled into two pieces, one falling left, the other falling right. Tendrils of black-red connected the halves as they collapsed. The strands of gore snapped and separated as the body fell into two remnants of what had once been a living thing.

I couldn’t freeze. I wanted to. I wanted to pay homage to what I had done, to respect them. But I had to turn if I wanted to live.

I twisted to face the rest of them.

Seven.

Seven Hordesmen still stood, skipping and hacking at the form on the ground.

But all seven heads started to turn toward me.

I lowered my sword.

They charged.

"Friday night and the lights are looooow! Looking out for the place to gooooooo!"