“Easy. We mean you no harm,” Bayorn said.

“You are a big Tarsi. Your teeth, they are sharp,” Adum said.

“That’s right. I am a true Tarsi. The way we were before our civilization fell.”

The smart hammerhead’s brow furrowed, and he placed his hand on his head as if in pain. “Your words. Too many, too fast,” he said.

“I am sorry. I will speak slower. My name is Bayorn, and this is Saul.”

“Hello. My name is Adum.”

“It is a pleasure to meet you. You know other Tarsi?”

“Yes. They live with us. They work with us. They build things good. They are good to the hammerheads. Help us reach things we cannot. Help us lift things we cannot.”

“Can you take me to the Tarsi?”

“Yes. I will take you to the place of dwelling.”

The air filled with the ear-shattering honk of alarm klaxons. They all winced, from both the shock of it and the physical pain it caused.

“That has to be Letho’s doing,” Saul shouted. “C’mon, Bayorn, we’d better go.”

“You go. I must find these Tarsi and speak to them,” Bayorn said.

“Are you crazy? I can’t leave you here!” Saul shouted.

“You must. It is my destiny to free these Tarsi. To restore them. So that they can fight.”

“Letho’s not going to like it.”

“Letho will understand.”

“Okay, you crazy bastard. But be careful!”

“You too. Now go!” Bayorn shouted.

They parted ways, Bayorn following the hammerheads, Saul heading back toward where he had last seen Letho.

****

Thresha jumped at the sound of the alarm. Alastor leapt up, drawing his sword, and moved toward Abraxas.

“Girl, come. Now!” Alastor shouted.

Thresha obeyed. Together they leapt down from the balcony and cleared the distance between themselves and Abraxas in a blur.

“What is going on?” Abraxas asked. His tone was almost nonchalant.

“I do not know, sire. I have ordered no drills. Perhaps mutant creatures have breached the perimeter,” Alastor replied.

Just then a sentry burst through the door. “Lord Alastor, there is a disturbance at one of the temples.”

“What sort of disturbance?” Alastor asked.

“Someone has attacked and killed one of our priests.”

“Who would dare such a thing? I will have them flayed for it,” Abraxas said.

“I know of someone who might do such a thing, though I can’t imagine that he would be such a fool as to show his face in my city,” Alastor said.

“Your city?” Abraxas said, sitting up straight from his reclined position.

“Forgive me, master. Your city.”

Abraxas nodded and waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. “Go, see that this person suffers greatly.”

“At once, sire. Thresha, come with me. It is time for you to prove yourself.”

Thresha, too, knew who might be willing to cause such a brazen disturbance, and she feared what came next.

****

“Deacon, get out of here! Find Bayorn and Saul!” Letho shouted. The throng was coming at him all at once, piling atop one another not unlike the herd of mutants that had taken his arm. But those had been mindless monsters, and these were people with intelligence. And misguided though they may be, they were once Fulcrum citizens nonetheless.

The first citizen to reach Letho was a large man with a thick beard and a mouth full of yellow teeth. Letho grabbed him by the collar and heaved him aside, being careful not to throw him hard enough to kill. Then, before the next attack could reach him, he leapt high above the crowd, grasping a chandelier and swinging out over the advancing horde. He let go and landed on the other side of them, among the benches that were still warm from having been sat on moments before.

Deacon had taken advantage of Letho’s distraction to slip away to the doors. But just as he reached them, two Mendraga warriors came striding through. Without hesitating, Deacon quickly elbowed one in the throat, grabbed his rifle, and dispatched both Mendraga with terse rifle blasts.

Letho leapt again, landed next to the fallen Mendraga, and took the other one’s rifle. He pointed to the doorway.

“Good job, Deacon. Now let’s get the hell out of here.”

Outside the cathedral people were succumbing to their instinctual reaction to frightening stimuli: they were running in all directions, climbing over one another, just trying to escape, even if they didn’t exactly know where they were trying to escape to.

A strange keening whine filled the air as several Mendraga arrived on hoverbikes. They quickly dismounted and unslung their rifles.

“Deacon, take cover!” Letho shouted.

“Yeah, no shit!” Deacon said, diving behind a vegetable cart just as the Mendraga began to fire.

In truth, Deacon could have stood directly out in the open, for it was clear that the Mendraga only had one target: the Eursan known as Letho Ferron. Bullet after bullet struck him, but he was undeterred. The hot lead shredded his flesh, tiny pinprick entry wounds that blossomed into exit wounds the size of saucers. The pain was unbelievable, but he forced it down as he charged the attacking Mendraga. As he ran directly at them, he could see their eyes widening in terror, their uncertainty growing. These were men and women who had once been Fulcrum citizens just like him. But they had made a choice. They were standing on the wrong side of the line in the sand. He might have felt some empathy for them before, when this whole journey had begun, but his compassion was running a little thin these days, especially for people who fired automatic weapons at him and his friends.

More bullets perforated his chest and arms, and then he was on top of them. He grabbed two of his attackers and slammed their skulls together so hard that their heads ceased to exist.

Too easy.

But as he turned to dispatch the others, he felt a bullet pierce the back of his skull, and for a moment, everything went black—a taste of oblivion. It was sweet.

But then the lights came back on and he was once again awash in the pain of living, of fighting to survive. He turned and grabbed the nearest Mendraga’s rifle and pulled. As the Mendraga stumbled forward, Letho placed his rifle in the Mendraga’s face and obliterated its head. Another Mendraga took the place of her fallen brother, and he ended her service in Abraxas’s army with a single swipe of his clawed hand.

“Letho!”

The voice was familiar. There was no other sound, just the reverberation of that singular utterance, a deep, rich voice that lingered in the air.

Letho turned to see Alastor disembarking from some sort of floating skiff.

And Thresha was with him.

Part of Letho wanted to run to her and wrap his arms around her. The other part of him wanted to wrap his hands around her neck and squeeze.

“Well, well, well!” Alastor said, clapping his hands, “This is quite a mess you’ve made. I’m impressed, really. You’re that foolish boy that got between my sword and Fintran on the Centennial Fulcrum, right? The same one that tried and failed to rescue the citizens I kidnapped?”

“Yeah, that’s me, asshole,” Letho said.

“You’re quite a marvel, Letho. I can’t quite figure it out. I was certain I’d killed you in the town square years ago, yet here you are, obviously alive. Perhaps you really are the supreme being the Tarsi are always babbling about. Lord Abraxas says it’s a cosmic impossibility, but I’m starting to come around. Letho Ferron himself, come to rid the world of the evil Mendraga race!” Alastor laughed.

Letho spat in the dust. “That’s the plan. Why don’t you come down here and see what I can do?”

“You have no idea how much I would love to do that. But I think I will let my associate here handle it instead,” Alastor said, smiling. He turned to Thresha and issued a simple command: “Kill him.”

Letho was unprepared for Thresha’s incredible speed. His mind was still reeling from the realization that she was actually attacking him when she drew two small daggers from her belt and spun them out in an arc toward his throat. He dodged almost absentmindedly, as if he were far away from what was happening. But even while locked in his own stunned mind, he was fast enough to avoid her attacks. Either that, or Thresha wasn’t trying her hardest.