Once again, Karl Prestingham was in the grip of a nightmare.

A merchant’s son has no business on the battlefield, they’d told him.

Alas, poor Karl had no business anywhere.

It was Night; the Third Crusade had come to Fortton. The Moon hung half-dead over the hilly settlement. The commune’s streets wound through the hills. Higher up on the hill, where the Mewnee had built their compounds, Karl spied their paper lanterns shining in the Night, seemingly afloat in the fog. It was a strangely peaceful sight, but that peace wouldn’t last much longer.

Fink neighed in terror.

“Get the damn horse out of here, Karl!” Bever hissed.

“Calm, Fink!” Karl whispered, running his hand across Fink’s furred flank. “Steel yourself.”

The horse brayed. Fink’s hooves clip-clopped on the gently sloping path’s pitched stone pavement.

Any moment now, Geoffrey would give the order. The question was who would strike first: their forces, or the Mewnee?

The plan was straightforward: Lord Onda was celebrating his son’s engagement to Sakuragi’s niece. A coterie of colonial governors and their traitorous Trenton vassals had gathered at Onda’s estate for the occasion. From what Karl remembered of Geoffrey’s explanation, Onda was well-known for his paranoia. Even the shoddiest assassination attempt would be enough to make him dismiss his guests, supposedly out of fear for their safety, but more because he wanted to horde his guards for himself.

“The disappointed guests will never expect an ambush waiting for them on the ride out of town,” Geoffrey had said.

“Gah!” Morgan cursed, under his breath. “They should have given the signal by now. Something’s wrong.”

“Quiet!” Duncan hissed. “Man your rifles. I think I see something moving around the bend. It might be the nobles’ carriages.”

Turning to his fellow gunman, Karl nodded shakily, and then grabbed his arquebus and took aim.

Swallowing hard, the fourth son of Markus Prestingham tried to blot out the sound of his racing heart and the images of the plague-struck dead, Geoffrey watching the bonfires. It might have been a miracle that darkpox had struck the Mewnees at this critical time, but, still, it wasn’t a fate Karl would have wished on anyone—not even the Mewnees.

Stay focused, Karl told himself. Don’t get distracted.

Looking over his shoulder, he saw Geoffrey creeping through the back lines of their battalion, giving last-minute orders.

The sight of his friend and mentor filled Karl with relief.

Geoffrey’s here, he thought. With him to guide me, I can do anything.

Then the Munine guards came charging down the hill, katanas slicing through the fog. The sight made Karl’s heart plummet.

“Argh!” Geoffrey snarled. “They saw through the ruse.”

“Geoffrey,” Karl yelled, “what do we d—”

“Fire!” Geoffrey roared. “Fire! Fire! Fire!”

The battalion’s riflemen took aim. Rifle barrels stuck out from the windows of the old stone buildings that overlooked the street, and from the pitched rooftops above them. The street was consumed by smoke and spitfire. Musket pellets sprayed through the Night’s fog, pelting the charging Mewnees. The Mewnee warriors’ strip-layered armor absorbed some of the fire, but not all of it. The spray of red-hot embers dug into the enemies’ flesh. Several Mewnees screamed as molten lead smote their eyes.

“Forward!” Bever yelled.

Geoffrey led the polearmsmen up the street with a wave of his arm. By the time the Mewnee warriors could see the pike-heads and halberd blades sticking out of the fog, it was already too late. Boots scraped against the pitched stone as Mewnees tried to stop and backpedal. Some of them toppled to the ground with a rude smack, but the rest were impaled on the approaching Trenton arms. For those that had fallen over, any hope that they would be passed over was speared through the guts as Geoffrey’s men bent down and finished them off with pointed thrusts.

Following his training, Karl began to clean out his gun.

Dump the slag, pour in new powder, he thought.

He bit his lip as he steadied his trembling hand. The last thing he wanted to do was spill the gunpowder out of his powder-flask.

Karl reloaded his gun at a furious pace. Every second counted, but the Mewnee fusillade fired while he was still loading powder into his arquebus.

He wasn’t good enough. He still wasn’t good enough.

The sound of the enemy spitfire filled Karl with terror. He spilled half his supply of gunpowder onto the stone pavement underfoot.

“No! Dammit!” Karl cursed.

Just like the Mewnees hadn’t seen the Trenton polearms, the Trentons hadn’t seen the enemy’s artillery.

Karl’s blood ran cold. He remembered seeing far too many cases on the nobles’ carriages when they’d been driving up to Onda’s manse earlier that day. Those had to have been the artillery he was seeing now, but—fool that he was—he didn’t think to mention it to Geoffrey.

“Fall back!” Geoffrey yelled.

Karl blamed himself. Once again, it was his fault.

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Everything is my fault, just like Father says.

The polearmsmen turned around and ran; the smart ones darted off to the sides, out of sight.

Another line of Geoffrey’s advice ran through Karl’s mind.

Never turn your back to the enemy.

By the time Karl yelled to warn the polearmsmen running down the hill, the second wave of Mewnee rifles had already fired. A line of musket shots sliced through the air, streaming smoke behind it. The gunfire pelted Trenton halberdiers in the backs. Geoffrey’s soldiers fell forward onto the street like bloody sponges, their bodies slapping on the pitched stone underfoot.

All of a sudden, one of the Mewnee riflemen toppled forward. He hit the pavement face-first.

At first, Karl looked around, thinking more Crusaders had joined the fight, but then a wind swept in from off the Bay and scattered the fog and the gun-smoke trails, giving him a clear, moonlit view of the enemies’ faces.

“By the Angel…” Karl muttered.

The soldiers were sick with the ‘Pox. Dried blood smeared their cheeks and lips where it had trickled out of their eyes and noses. Two more enemy musketeers collapsed where they stood. An ataxic samurai in full war-armor hobbled down the steps, barking orders at his men.

Nodding, the musketeers began reloading. Half of them couldn’t get the powder down the muzzles.

Karl stared in horror.

“Karl!” Geoffrey yelled. “Get back! Get back!”

There was fear in the Count’s eyes.

“Why are they—”

Karl started to ask a question, but cut himself off.

He knew why the Mewnees would fight, even when sick unto death.

They simply didn’t care. The Mewnees would force their sick to fight and die, rather than let go of Trenton lands.

They are a diseased people, Geoffrey had told him. For the sake of an idea, they make themselves slaves. There is nothing they will not sacrifice for the pursuit of their specious honor, not even God Itself.

“Praise the Angel!” Geren shouted. “It’s a miracle!” He waved his weapon through the air, beckoning his comrades. “Quickly!” he yelled. “Charge! Charge!”

Shouts erupted from the battalion as it shifted direction.

“Rally! Rally!”

“The enemy is crippled!”

Karl joined them in running forward, putting his equipment into his bandolier and grabbing his arquebus with both hands. He didn’t have time to load another round, so death by bayonet it would be. He ran out at the head of the group, as did Geoffrey and Bever and Morgan and Duncan and Geren.

Then a bright light flashed in front of them, streaming out from a tear in the air that trailed out in calligraphic swoops, widening and widening.

The others held back, but Fink couldn’t stop so quickly.

Fink neighed in terror. Hooves clopped against the pavement as the horse cantered forward.

Karl chased after Fink, following the horse into the light. And behind him, he heard Geoffrey yell:

“No, Karl, don’t!”

— — —

Karl’s eyes fluttered open, the nightmare ending. He found himself somewhere else, in a room filled with light.

He was lying on what felt like a bed, still in his clothes, coated in blood, sweat, gun smoke, and spilled powder. He blinked, trying to clear the gunk from his eyes.

Everything was blurry.

“Nurse, he’s coming to,” someone said, though the sounds were slightly distorted.

As Karl’s senses cleared, he almost wished he could go back to his nightmare. At least that was familiar.

He’d never had a dream—or nightmare—as vivid as this one. It was his memory of his last battle, before—before…

Karl let out a groan as he suddenly remembered everything that had happened.

Men turned to demons of madness and rot. The screams. The gunfire—faster and louder and harder than any he’d ever known before.

And the flash.

He could still feel his eyes burning.

He blinked again. His vision started to clear. Everything around him was bright and strange, from the metal girders at the sides of his bed, to the strange devices all around with their little windows filled with chirping colors and beeping numbers. Tubular structures embedded in the ceiling overhead shined with an impossibly bright light, yet there wasn’t any flame or wick in sight.

Sitting up—feeling a wet, icky pillow press against his back and neck—Karl looked over the edge of the bed. The floor was sleek and shiny, almost like marble, only decorated with uncanny patterns. Karl’s father had purchased Riscolt marble for the house, and though the stone could bear patterns like clouds or ink in water, nature could never make the geometric patterns he saw on the floor.

It had to be man-made.

Turning to face forward, he saw one of the glowing windows staring back at him as it hung from the fantastical crane that jutted out from beside the headboard of his bed.

Two figures stood by Karl’s bedside one tall, one not, and both clothed in unfathomable armor. The tall figure—a man—wore in dark, dark green armor—almost black. It had no visible plates, nor laminations, nor any mailing. The helmet was rounded, like a shortened raindrop, with a transparent visor sticking down in the front. Text, numbers, and images flashed across the visor, though backwards, as if seen through a mirror. And, beneath the visor, the stranger wore the oddest mask Karl had ever seen.

The short figure was a stout woman, and she dressed even more bizarrely than the man, with gloves and an apron and a strange mask of her own beneath a larger, fully translucent visor. Unlike the man’s, the woman’s visor didn’t have any text or glyphs flashing on its surface. She stood at the foot of Karl’s bed, holding onto the footboard, as if to steady herself.

Pushing up with his elbows, Karl sat up straight, and then blinked and gasped as he saw Geoffrey lying on a bed behind the two strangers.

Worried and afraid, Karl whipped his head around, trying to figure out where he was. Thick, pleated curtains flanked his bed to either side, dangling from tracks in the ceiling. Had the curtains not been drawn back, he suspected he wouldn’t have been able to see anyone at all.

Leaning forward, he saw Bever in a bed ahead of him, to the right. That bed, like Geoffrey and his own, was flanked by more curtains. Karl also spotted Morgan’s boots sticking out over the foot of the bed behind Bever’s.

“Hello sleepyhead,” the woman said, with a hoarse, ragged voice.

She must have been the nurse the man had mentioned.

“How did you get here?” the man asked. “Did you stop the zombies? What do you remember? Tell me, now,” he said, “that’s an order!”

Taking a closer look, Karl noticed the man’s armor was studded in Mewnee writing—those incomprehensible kanjee. He hadn’t noticed them at first, because they were embossed onto the armor’s dark material.

Karl inhaled sharply, suddenly fearful.

Unlike the demons, which he didn’t understand at all, Karl was keenly aware of what the Mewnees and the Trentons loyal to them would do to captured rebels.

Karl tried to pull away, but all he could do was push his back up against the pillow against the headboard of his bead. Narrowing his eyes, he looked around, trying to find a reassuring sight, but that only made things worse.

Those beasteaten kanjee were everywhere! He saw them at the edges of the glowing windows, and repeated in miniature beneath the Trenton text of the images they displayed. One of the glowing windows had Trenton text arranged in a strange pattern.

E, F, P, T, O, Z,…

Why were the letters getting smaller? Was it some kind of Mewnee code?

“Hey!” the man barked.

At the base of the glowing window on the crane by his bed, Karl saw the words:

Designed in Mu.

What was this place? Were these people traitors? Had they sided with the enemy? Were they here to interrogate him?

Panicking, Karl tried to get off the bed, only to feel something keeping his arms in place. Glancing down, find that restraints around his arms and legs.

“W-What is going on?” Karl said. “Who are you?” He craned his head toward Geoffrey’s unconscious body. “What have you done to Geoffrey? What have you… what have you done to us!?”

The woman held up her hands. They were covered in white gloves made from an uncanny, seamless material. “Hold your horses, buddy,” she said. “Calm the fuck down.”