One moment, Geoffrey was in the heat of battle, surrounded by blood and gunsmoke in the dead of Night. The next, he was in a strange place, brightly lit, with a raven-haired Mewnee brave charging right at his group.

Hearing Karl scream, Geoffrey looked over his shoulder at the young man, only to see Karl fire his musket, hitting the other, older Mewnee square in the chest. The man reached for the gunshot wound as he. Smoke from the musket’s barrel swept over the strange chairs as the room’s sickly crowd scattered and screamed.

The ends of young Mewnee’s odd gown billowed as he bellowed in fury. His katana glinted in the light as it swung, lopping off William’s head. Blood spilled as the soldier’s decapitated corpse fell to the ground.

“Will!” Duncan screamed.

William’s body toppled over as his severed head fell to the floor.

Geoffrey brandished his halberd without hesitation. “Bever!” he yelled.

The burly axeman raised his weapon. “I follow!” he said.

The two Trenton knights rushed the Mewnee brave.

Bever shoved Karl down to the floor, pushing off him to boost himself forward. Karl lost his grip on his powder flask and spilled gunpowder all over the floor. Behind him, Duncan rushed to load his own rifle.

The Mewnee warrior stepped forward, spinning to build momentum as he brought his katana down in a falcon strike. Bever caught the oncoming blade with the head of his axe. Sparks flew. Before the Mewnee could pull away, Bever rebuffed him with his arm, shoving him with his shoulder. The katana’s edge grazed down the axeman’s layered iron armor, causing the Mewnee to stagger.

There was his opening!

Geoffrey struck, cleaving his halberd in a wide sweep that knocked aside a cluster of strange-looking chairs. But just as its blade was about to bite into the young warrior’s stomach there was a scream from the older Mewnee down on his knees. The man threw himself in the way of Geoffrey’s attack, gurgling up blood as the halberd tore into his chest.

The raven-haired warrior rolled out of the way.

“By the Angel!” Karl shrieked, cowering at the horse’s flank.

Geoffrey stepped back in horror.

This was no man. His blood was not man’s blood. It was black and green.

Demon’s blood? Geoffrey thought.

He pulled his halberd out of the body without a second to spare. The stench of the place finally hit him, coming at him in waves of rot and earth, sweetness and death.

“Up, Duncan!” Bever yelled. “Up!” He pulled the rifleman off the floor.

“Fink!” Karl yelled. “Easy boy! Easy!”

Geoffrey heard horse hooves clacked on the floor behind him. He looked back to see Fink rearing up, flicking his hooves in the air. The horse’s whinnies strut among the crowded screams.

The people scattered like rats—sick, twisted and strange. They cowered behind uncanny furniture, among heaps of weird debris.

Geoffrey was no stranger to battle. The New Trenton Empire was being forged through battle—a battle he fought in, longing for the day when his homeland would be free and the violence could end, the Mewnee finally driven out of the Holy Land. But, for the Second Count of Seasweep, no battle was ever so strange as this.

Still, his duty came first.

Lifting his weapon, Geoffrey swung his halberd down on the dying Mewnee’s neck like a headsman’s axe. The man’s eyes widened in his last moment, but then the halberd struck. His head rocked side to side on the ground as more of the black blood spilled from his neck. Trails of red, human blood mixed among it. The black was almost… fibrous.

The sight made Geoffrey’s stomach churn.

The raven-haired warrior shrieked a war cry. Black spittle flicked off his lips.

Geoffrey didn’t need to know the Mewnee language to know what the young man had yelled. There was a click as Duncan fired, spitting musket shot directly in the young Mewnee’s chest and face. The warrior’s katana clattered to the floor as he staggered back and fell.

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The crowds screamed—and they screamed in Trenton. And not just men, but women and children, too.

“By the Angel!”

“No! No!”

“Run! Run!”

“Is that a fucking horse?!”

Bever rushed forward, to finish the Mewnee brave while he was down, but then Geoffrey yelled, “To me! To me!” and the axeman stepped back.

Men were streaming into the room from the nearby hallways. They wore black armor with stout, round, visored helmets that swept back from their heads like raindrops in the wind.

One of the newcomers raised his forearm to the side of his helmet.

“Sir, the targets are armed.”

“All,” Geoffrey shouted, “to me!”

Beside him, the horse whinnied and fussed about, shaking its head in fear.

“Damn the horse, Karl!” Bever yelled. “Damn us all!” He raised his axe. “Quick, boy, quick!”

The knights huddled together, back to back, holding their weapons at the ready.

Death could come when they least expected it.

Geoffrey surveyed the scene.

Himself, Duncan, the rifleman—lanky and long-faced; Karl, their packhorse’s handler—a young man, stout and curly-haired; Bever, their strong-man—broad-chested, with a grizzled face and earthy eyes; master of weights and ale. Eylon, the bastard with a bastard-sword—with hair like fire and temper to match. Will lay dead on the floor, beside his sword, handsome even when beheaded. Morgan huddled in between Geoffrey and Bever, his eyes darting about much like the head of his pike, as paranoid as ever.

But where was Geren…?

“What is this place?” Geoffrey asked, under his breath.

He wracked his thoughts as he looked around.

It was like nothing he’d ever seen. The more he looked, the more alien it became. It was a place of contradictions, filled with naked surfaces and stark, ugly angles. The furnishings were little more than sketches and delusions. The lights up on the ceiling and the walls were brighter than any tallow candle, as if they’d bottled up the Sun itself. Though Geoffrey couldn’t make heads or tails of the armored men, everyone else—civilians, he imagined—looked monstrous and sickly. Maybe, once, they’d been human, but now they were creatures of rot and black lightning, more pestilence than flesh. Yet, they wore sumptuous clothes. The colors seemed ripped from the rainbow.

Seemingly everywhere he looked, where there was a surface, there was a window in it, filled with glowing panes bearing text and images.

“Wings and thunder!” Bever screamed. “Look, there! By the Angel! Geren!”

Geoffrey followed Eylon’s hand. What he saw made him shudder. He tightened his grip on his halberd’s haft.

That was the greatest horror of all.

Geoffrey gasped. “What happened to him…?” He could hardly believe his eyes.

Geren wasn’t Geren anymore. He was an abomination—a pagan idol. His body had fused with another man and part of a chair, superimposed upon it in a mound of flesh and limbs that sat wet and dead, staring into nothingness.

“It’s no use, man,” Eylon said. “He’s dead! And we’re soon to follow.”

Figures stepped forward, trickling out from behind the men in black armor. Their dress was absurd: transparent shields, frightening masks, full-body aprons, cauliflower-things on top of their heads, and goggles as thick as bricks.

“No one move!” one of them said. “Everyone, please, stay calm!”

The people cowering behind chairs and long-seats screamed for help, even as they coughed and wretched.

“They have weapons!” a woman shrieked. “They killed people!” She sobbed.

Holy Angel, Geoffrey prayed, please, guide me. I do not understand.

“This is Hell,” Karl whispered, staring at the walls in terror. “It must be…”

Morgan spat on the ground. “’Tis a den of sorcerers and devils!” he said. “What next, the Norms themselves?”

“I’d fight a Norm,” Bever said. “I’d like to see it try to best me.”

One of the masked figures stepped forward, their hands held up.

“Please, whoever you are, just…” the man said, staring down the barrel of Duncan’s rifle. He glanced at Geoffrey’s halberd. “Please,” he said, “set the weapons down.”

“Get out of here, doctor!” one of the armored men said. “It’s not safe.”

“I don’t know what the fuck is going on,” the doctor replied, “but I know the answer isn’t bullets!”

Geoffrey looked as he felt Morgan stir. His pike shook in his hands. “No, no! You shan’t take me. I am faithful! Evil will not triumph!”

Casting his pike to the ground. Morgan unsheathed a dagger from his belt and darted over to a nearby wall, reaching for one of the sobbing, cowering figures.

She tried to crawl away.

“Doctor!” the armored men shouted.

“No!” the doctor yelled. “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!”

The woman screamed as Morgan hoisted her off the floor. She lashed back at him.

“Morgan!” Geoffrey bellowed. “What are you doing?!”

Morgan dragged the woman toward the rest of their group. Gagging, she wretched, spewing green-speckled black ooze over Morgan’s face and chest. The ick dripped down his breastplate.

He pointed his dagger at her throat. The sickly woman trembled and begged.

Eylon stared at Morgan, dumbfounded. “Do you want to die?”

“Stay back!” Morgan screamed, his gaze darting about.

He’d gone mad!

“Back,” he yelled. “All of you, back! Demons! Witches! Whore-sons! Stay away from me! Send us back!” he yelled. “Undo what was done! The power of the Angel compels you!”

Some of the armored men stepped forward, reaching to pull the doctor off to the side while others raised some strange-looking guns. A ruckus broke out behind one group of the armored men as several more doctors pushed their way through the line of soldiers, waving their arms.

“Don’t shoot!” they yelled. “Don’t shoot!”

“Morgan!” Geoffrey yelled, brandishing his halberd.

The woman screamed. Morgan’s dagger trembled in his grip

The pikeman wept. “Don’t you see?” he said, with manic zeal. “These are the Last Days. These are the Last Days, and we have been judged, Geoffrey; we have been judged! Do what you want,” he added. “I, for one, will not be found lacking!”

One of the armored men raised his forearm to his head.

“Sir, we’ve got a hostage situation, and the doctors aren’t coöperating.”

And then, rearing up, hooves flailing, Fink charged forward.