Denor dashed out of the hills toward the village, sword in hand, a grin stretching across his face like a madman's dream come true. Sensible scouts would have headed south and secured the area, where sensible things presumably awaited. Like sensibly making sure there were no other Temrit invaders in the area. But not Denor. No, he charged straight for the spot where he'd previously seen the last Temrit fleeing, aiming to circle back and snatch the glory he so fervently craved.

Pure, unadulterated joy flooded him. He envisioned himself slicing through a dozen savages with the ease of slicing through a particularly cooperative cake. Perhaps those few he had already slain were merely the advance guard of a grander warband! The one he hadn’t thought about scouting. Though deep down, he suspected their tattered state hinted otherwise, he fervently wished it were true. A grander story, after all, demanded grander enemies.

That sobering notion yanked him back to reality. While his father’s opinion loomed large in his mind, he couldn't ignore the reactions of the others. The other young men bore expressions of shame—appropriately so—and anger. They had panicked and fled while a younger lad had not. Even at his tender age, Denor knew they’d eventually forget their shame, remembering only that they were there when Denor Kara the Great returned with glorious tales of his deeds.

The warriors’ reactions would be a different story altogether. Some would dismiss his tale outright. Battle-hardened, they would find it hard to believe such feats from a youngling. Others, knowing the grit required, would doubt a lone youngster could manage it when his peers had fled. But the majority, those who recalled the training he had been doing, would see his return and achievement as confirmation of his destiny. This would be largely met with indifference, though a few would no doubt avert their eyes, foreseeing said destiny to be mostly devoid of peace and happiness for Denor.

Tamet, after all, endowed men with luck, expecting them to survive by their wits and fortune, guaranteeing nothing more—certainly not peace or happiness. Denor was an Andronian warrior, destined to live a warrior’s life, and the village would learn to accept that!

Unfortunately for our hero’s one track mind, he didn’t realise that he would have to learn to accept it too.

He half-sprinted, half-tumbled through the forest, akin to some kind of bizarre galloping snowball careening down the haphazard slopes, hoping against hope that one of the other villagers hadn’t taken care of his prey. At the crest of a hill, crouching to catch his breath and survey the footprints, he heard the groaning of machinery chewing up snow. Below, half a dozen warriors, heavily armored in unfamiliar garb, rode by. Their shielding was up, reflecting the cool sunlight and hurting Denor’s eyes, and even he could tell that they weren’t Andronians, nor were they Temrit.

Crouching behind a fallen tree, Denor watched. These men were unlike any he’d seen, even when journeying north to see his grandfather. Tycho had spoken of such men in one of his wild stories of distant and exotic planets, but he had never believed them to be real. Why were they here in the flesh?

The men slowed, easily spotting his trail. Their leader glanced at the cliff face where the tracks ended and shook his head, then peered back along the route that Denor had taken. The forest and deep winter snowdrifts offered no easy passage for the men, and so a large silver machine was ploughing a direct route. With a curt wave and a harsh command, he sent his men down the trail leading to the village that their machine had cut its way through to.

Denor’s joy was immediately forgotten, his chest swelling with a mix of indignation, contempt, and fear. This was a lot of emotions for Denor’s chest to contain, but necessary since his mind could only carry one at a time. That such invaders dared set foot upon Andron VII so soon after the Temrit enraged him, which was the singular emotion in his brain rather than his chest. They were either terrifying or foolish in their brazen approach, and a tiny part of his already distracted mind wondered if they were settling a score with Tycho.

The lead rider dismissed the cliff, reinforcing Denor's belief in their folly. Outsiders! Denor spat in disgust, then sprinted around the hill. In truth it turned out that the cliff couldn't be mated with, eaten, used as currency, or mercilessly attacked, so it was of no interest to the invaders.

Following their path cautiously, he stepped only in their tracks before veering into the undergrowth, heading slightly south. If he ran fast and stayed out of trouble, he could reach the village before them and warn his father. The absence of any calls of alarm from other Andronians bolstered his resolve—not for heroism's sake, but to protect his village.

That was when the shielded men seemed to blur, and then they were no longer there.

Denor blinked in disbelief, while it had never crossed his mind that these intruders might be innocent tourists from New Titania, their movements sealed it. They looked like trained warriors, the sort that didn't have friends. The nearest they would ever get to the idea was an enemy who was still alive. They had now moved quicker than he had ever thought possible towards future enemies. The village.

With a sinking realisation, he knew now that his people wouldn’t be forewarned of their coming by a brave young hero.

Bursting from the forest, lungs burning, Denor’s heart sank at the sight of his village. Flaming bolts shot from the south, streaking like malevolent stars, setting people and buildings alike ablaze. Dark smoke billowed, carried by the wind over the Andronian countryside.

In the center stood Ledo, completely transformed from the mechanic and gunsmith Denor knew as a father figure on occasion, wielding a blaster in one hand and firing bolts from his other. He directed the defense of the village, rallying men with higher power levels to make a stand against the invaders. Denor instinctively understood his father's strategy and yearned to be at his side. Snow-covered fields lay between him and the village, so he rose and sprinted.

A clanking noise, loud and ominous, sounded to Denor’s right, causing him to halt in his tracks. From the forest's shadowy depths emerged more shielded men in armor, advancing in tight formation. These were definitely Trunians, without a doubt, for Denor could spot their type from a mile away. The swords they drew in perfect synchronization were a death knell to his hopes. Their shimmering shields, unmistakably imperial, were covered in lingering wisps that snapped their jaws like the serpents old Tycho had spoken of. The sight sent a shiver down Denor’s spine, the kind of shiver one gets when a cat suddenly stares at an empty corner of the room with unblinking eyes. Something uncanny and disturbing lingered here beyond his comprehension. Granted, things being beyond his comprehension was a daily occurrence, but for our hero this sheer level of uncomprehending had not been reached up to this point.

The Trunians marched towards the village with a precision that would make a metronome jealous, their steps kept in rhythm by a drumming thud coming from the rear. Denor’s heart, however, was on a different beat—an erratic double-time that propelled him forward, his sprint easily outpacing the soldiers’ advance.

Suddenly, trumpets blared, and low-flying craft exploded from the edges of the forest, soaring across the snow-blanketed fields. These weren’t mere scouts but heavily armored skimmer craft, sheathed in protective shields of energy. They brandished huge forward guns designed for one purpose: the swift elimination of Denor’s village. The ground melted beneath the thunderous propelling of engines, and they were headed straight for him. Denor ducked and dodged, narrowly evading the deadly craft as they ignored him entirely. He rolled to the ground, just barely avoiding the last low-flying craft, landing on his knees with his back to the village. Scrambling to his feet, he turned to see the Trunian ranks part like a theatrical curtain, revealing a solitary man.

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This man could easily have been mistaken for another soldier, with his similar armor and shield. But there was something distinct about him—the way he held himself, surveying the battlefield with the calm, keen eyes of a hawk. His shield, adorned with more flowing serpents was not merely a weapon but a show of force. The kind that would probably make the village’s power readers say ‘How high? You’re having a laugh’.

You had to hand it to the man, Denor admitted grudgingly. If you didn't, he was the sort who’d send men to come and take it anyway.

He didn’t know who this man was, but he knew he was trouble—the kind of trouble that makes you rethink all your life choices. The kind of trouble that has bandits jumping out at them from behind rocks then saying things like, ‘Oh. Sorry. I thought you were someone else.’

Spinning around, Denor dashed toward the village, certain that if this man reached it, no one would survive to tell the tale. Never mind the craft or the invaders far ahead of him!

The young Andronian sprinted directly into the maelstrom of battle, his senses heightened to degree that his peers would almost consider ‘passable’. The cacophony of war flooded his mind: the brutal clash of energies flowing back and forth, the sickening sizzle of punctured shields and flesh, the desperate hiss of air escaping pierced lungs, and the wet gush of coppery blood spilling onto the ground. Men screamed—some barking orders, others pleading for mercy—in guttural tongues and pleading whines. Glowing imbued energy blades glinted in the light, severing machine and armour and flesh alike, blood sprayed in thick arcs, saturating the air with a sour tang that obliterated the scent of smoke and fire from the energy impacts and exploding crafts.

This battle was not a mindless frenzy but a dark dance with its own rhythm and flow. Strength surged against weakness, until the weak could strike back at the weaker. Lines rippled and broke, gaps appeared and were filled by Ledo’s barking commands and verbal ripostes from the approaching Trunian figure that Denor had sprinted clear of. To move with the flow was to survive; to hesitate or defy it was to drown in a river of blood. Having died multiple ways already, he didn’t really fancy that particular one.

Bolts of energy from hands and blasters alike crackled through the air. Denor grabbed an Trunian by the arm, spinning him around to use his unshielded form as a human shield of his own. Multiple energy discharges thudded into the man's chest. As his smoking body slumped, Denor slipped out from under it and slashed wildly at another Trunian.

He got a better look at the men who had led the invasion now. They were massive warriors, seemingly carved out of rock with skin a craggy grey. They charged through the village with huge swords imbued with crackling energy, impaling anyone in their path. Before Denor could finish off a Trunian that had fallen beside him, one of the huge stone warriors knocked him to the ground with a contemptuous swat of his hand. Denor fell awkwardly, preventing the sword thrust from pinning him down and scrambled to his feet, already putting distance between himself and certain death.

He raced toward the center of the village where he had seen defences organised, but the Andronian lines were shattered. Bodies littered the ground, cooked by dark energies. The bolts had shown no pity for their lack of protection. A boy lay curled around a smoking hole in his chest, but in truth everywhere Denor looked there was a story, of other Andronians lying amidst heaps of foes, but no amount of skill could outlast the sheer numbers that opposed them.

It was about then that he realised the massacre would spare no one, and he would be left alone on this planet to repeatedly die in the wastes. A fate much worse than any singular death. Even the choking in blood one that sounded particularly distasteful not a moment ago.

Wherever he looked, he could not find his father. He darted through the village, striking and stabbing, too lucky to be hit, too unimportant to be followed, too easily lost in the conflagration to be hunted down, and constantly on the brink of falling over. Denor's enemies didn't want to see a lack of agility that couldn't possibly exist, so his feet happily obliged them.

The surviving Temrit staggered out of a house to his left, one red hand raised high to display a necklace of copper beads. Denor took off his head with a swift swipe of his blade before he had even realized this was the one he had been hunting. He did not care. He was one enemy among hundreds now, and he still couldn’t find his father. He didn’t want to think that Ledo was dead, but the worry had rented space in his head and was rather enjoying the roomy interior.

He reached his father’s workshop and was relieved to see that the fires consuming the southern half of the village had not yet reached it. He slipped through the open door, saw several figures inside, and retreated until he had a perfect view of these intruders for expository purposes.

What he saw made his stomach turn, but he held the vomit in his throat, as Ledo’s cooking was only marginally worse coming up than going down.

His father stood encircled by enemies, his shoulders slumped with fatigue. His tattered armour was soaked in blood. A black burn mark was present his right shoulder. One of the invaders, sporting form-fitting armour and a shielding much nearer to her than the grunts, smiled grimly, making Denor believe she was responsible for the attack.

The others gathered there seemed to be leaders of the various contingents that still flooded the village. A corpulent Trunian general with unkempt hair and armor remarkably free of blood watched Ledo with pig-like eyes. Another man, even larger and obviously a pilot of the craft that had skimmed over the snow fields, had supplemented his armor with a helmet in the crook of his arms. The rock creature towering beside him carried a massive glowing war club coated in blood. The last man bore facial tattoos that Denor could not recognize but would never forget, and eyed Ledo as a cat would a dying mouse.

And there, towering among them by presence alone, stood the man who had walked through the parting ranks of the Trunians. Ledo showed no fear of him, but the others did. Denor smiled proudly for his father, but his green eyes flashed with cold contempt for the others.

The leader, his hand resting on the hilt of what appeared to be a double-edged scimitar free from any energy manipulation, strutted before Denor's father with princely airs, certain this place contained strange and terrible things because he was present.

"There is no shame in kneeling before Val Madoon of Trunia. All these fighters you see before you have surrendered, abandoned their planets, and sworn fealty to me." The man examined his fingernails and then picked up Ledo’s sword. "They did it because they know that one day I will be the ruler of the Trunian Star Empire."

Now that Denor saw the man up-close, he realised that he didn’t need the intimidation tactic of displaying his true power. It exuded from him like an aura with every movement.

Ledo's eyes narrowed. "Empires rise and empires fall, you may well take the seat of power, but one day you will fall too."

The leader rolled his eyes, then with a wave of his hand summoned a robed figure from the shadows. The acolyte wore a mask that looked exactly like the snakes on the invaders' shields, except that a piece was missing. The brown-gold of old bones covered with scaly flesh made the mask unspeakably old and evil. Denor stared at it, fascinated and disgusted at the same time.

The bandit leader glanced at the mask and then smiled when he saw its reflection on the sword blade. "You know what this is, of course. The Mask of Vernia. One piece is still missing. You have it here."

Ledo's face betrayed nothing to outsiders, but Denor could read his expression well enough to know that the bandit was telling the truth. That made him shudder, for he knew no mask, knew no secret. Perhaps it was something known only to warriors, and that was why his father had not yet told him. Or was it something that Tycho had? That had to be it; there could be no other explanation. They had gone after the wrong man. His father had no crazy mask piece, he was just a gunsmith. This was all a terrible misunderstanding.

The bandit chuckled, amused by some joke he hadn’t told. "I appreciate bravery, Andronian, but I need that last piece urgently. You can give it to me now... or die, and I will find it myself."

Ledo smiled, his expression as calm as it was defiant. "Death it is then, but you will find that this decision will haunt you."

Val Madoon nodded. "I thought so. Rhysio, you deserve this honor."

The other Trunian in the room drew his sword, igniting the imbued energy to a blinding sheen, and approached, raising it to behead the now-smiling Andronian.