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The city breathed.

Everything was swallowed by plague. There were mounds of tissue, carriage-sized organs, hundreds of teeth where once had been bricks. Tumors grew from the walls, distended and rotten, while webs of arteries strangled a molten river of flesh, flowing down the alleys with all the property of liquid. As Sadik rode through the street, carried on the back of a galloping destrier, he saw a wall of human faces, each of them crying for help. Fingers squirmed like a hundred, writhing maggots.

This district had long ago been quarantined. Cursed and lost. In that time, the architecture had become life, and that life had been birthed by a mad god.

Beneath the growths, the people swarmed.

They spilled from the alleys, tumbled from the roofs. Many were birthed from the sacs of growth lining the street—splitting their wombs, cracking their eggs, slithering to life from a shell of amniotic fluid. They all moved with a frightening speed.

Flying like bats, slithering like slugs. Scuttling, dashing, melting together.

The entire district was coming for him. Hundreds upon hundreds. A claxon of voices split the night, shrieking and howling.

Sadik prayed for the stolen souls.

He leaned off his mount and fired Dusksong ahead, hoping to clear a path for Kavaia. The jagged lance of energy seared through the masses. With a jerk of her reins, Kavaia angled the destrier into the gap, kicking the beast into a faster gallop. They sprinted through the crowd. Immediately, the infected tried to swarm from both sides, leaping and rushing, but the countermeasure kept them at bay, repelling the metal directly from their flesh. Sadik and Kavaia raced on.

Behind them, Xaeyr was struggling to follow—he clearly did not have much riding experience, and his destrier was becoming spooked from the infected, firing its quills whenever a runner grew too close. Amira jostled in his lap, eye closed and legs severed. There were two more destriers behind, carrying the five Sons who still survived. All of them were terrified.

This was a fool's dash. A wild leap for freedom.

Their fate could be sealed at any moment—a breath full of spores, a single touch from the infected.

Sadik grit his teeth.

Holding Kavaia's waist with one arm, he turned and fired backward, aiming at a wadded mass of flesh that rushed for Xaeyr. The sunbeam entered the creature, boiled the blood within, and exploded into a geyser of steam, spraying several corpses worth of body parts. Xaeyr managed to dodge his mount away. As the amalgamation died, its dozens of arms growing limp, the baboon found himself with a moment of safety.

Sadik was not going to die. Neither were his men.

His allies.

His friends.

His tattoos burned. His armor shined. There was a sword in his hand, and a bronze heart in his soul.

If the entire world stepped in his path, he would cut it in twain.

In the distance, above the jagged buildings, the Kesunae invasion raged through the night. Fires burned across the streets and hovels, the smoke belching into the air, the orange flames licking at the cerulean walls still rising above the city's border. Mezlat swarmed through the sky, visible only by the yellow glow of their guns. Some were taking water from the Syran river and dropping it upon the infernos, while others were firing into the streets below. Even with a brief glance, Sadik saw several of the drones explode into fragments.

The Kesunae were doing better than expected. Instead of leading a costly diversion, they were spreading into the city. Rushan had mentioned some of the gods turning against him. Perhaps the rebel deities thought the barbarians were preferable to the rule of a tyrant.

Perhaps the Lord of Bones was making a play of his own.

Either way, the god of war had joined the battle. Rushan was invincible—faster than any arrow, stronger than any god. The Kesunae would not last much longer.

Sadik returned his attention to the plague.

Ahead, the entire street rumbled to life. The growths of plague—brown sacs, metal blisters, heaping mounds of flesh—all began to skitter and twist, trying to flop into their path. The flagstones quaked apart, revealing giant mouths that were as wide as trenches, full of teeth and tongues. Several homes split open their walls—when they did, gigantic limbs squirmed from the openings, striking the earth and trying to raise the buildings from the ground, like a hermit crab made of stone and death.

“Left!" Sadik shouted. “Left!"

Kavaia pulled the destrier into a hard left turn, leaping over a mouth and taking them into an alley. The stone walls were mossy with flesh, breathing and glistening, while a horde of infected raced on the roofs above, trying to vomit a black liquid upon them. Only the countermeasure kept them dry.

On the other side of the alley, a human eye rolled into their path. It was the size of a boulder, attached to nothing, gazing with malevolence. When Sadik fired a sunbeam into its pupil, the eye recoiled, spraying a cloud of vitreous fluid. They dashed through the gap, Xaeyr and the Sons following close behind.

“Right!"

Kavaia turned right. Ahead, the street was so overgrown that it had become a series of hills and mounds—brown chitin, blackened flesh, the red ooze of blood and the pustules that glowed with cerulean light. Wombs popped like blisters, arms grew like trees.

“Leap!" Sadik shouted. “The roof!"

“I see it!"

“Goddess!"

“I see it!"

Infected swarmed. Xaeyr slashed the air with ribbons of steam, while Sadik blasted a building that scuttled toward them on a dozen legs. Dusksong glowed with building heat, the mouth belching fire. Steel began to melt.

Kavaia kicked the destrier, yanking its reins. The beast leaped into the air. With its modified limbs, it cleared the distance from street to rooftop, barely losing any speed. Now, they were running across the top of the buildings, leaping over alleys, dodging the veins and tendons that slithered from the homes below. Sadik looked back, making sure that Xaeyr and the Sons managed to follow their jump. They did, barely. He glanced ahead.

A golem of flesh was charging them. It was composed of a dozen bodies, its legs made of torsos, its arms a bundle of legs, its entire body covered in a porcupine nest of ribs. It ran at them like a nightmare made material.

Sadik aimed his sword. The blade was too hot to fire, another rune fading to darkness. It was running out of energy.

“Gamó!"

The beast roared, the buildings quaked. Sadik braced his sword, preparing to impale the golem like a jousting match.

Sunbeams fell from the sky.

Twin lances caught the golem at the shoulders. Its arms fell to the side, scattering into a pile of legs. Another salvo of energy came from above, and, this time, they carved the beast straight down the middle, separating it into chunks and fillets. Kavaia dodged around the still-squirming segments, avoiding the limbs that leaped like grasshoppers. As they passed, Sadik caught a scent of cooked meat. Human meat. He had seen enough burning corpses to recognize the smell.

“You must be kidding!" Kavaia yelled.

Sadik looked.

Gidros flew through the sky. The rhino was not the god he had been before. His left wing was black with plague, his right leg a swirl of tentacles, and much of his torso had been buried beneath a hardened black casing, like an insect's exoskeleton. Even still, his body was glowing brighter than ever—the exposed portions of his skin were so radiant that the streets below him were smothered in a piercing white. If anything, becoming infected seemed to have increased his power.

Gidros made eye contact with Sadik. He raised his arms, a sunbeam boiling in each palm.

“You must be kidding!" Sadik yelled.

The rhino jerked. Instead of firing at the rooftops, he unleashed his beams at the sides of the buildings, where hordes of plague were piling on top of each other in a mad frenzy. Black clouds of spores erupted into the air, punctuated with screams. The rhino jerked again, his entire body spasming with effort, and now the sunbeams came for the roof—one of the lances nearly struck Xaeyr, getting close enough to singe his fur, while the second struck a destrier carrying two Sons. Three bodies tumbled to the floor, severed and smoking.

Gidros roared. Because he had cut out his own tongue, the noise he made was blunt and wild, incapable of forming into words. The entire district echoed with a desperate cry of pain.

The rhino was struggling against the plague. He wanted to destroy the infected—the plague wanted him to kill Sadik. The result was a wild flailing in the air, his limbs moving erratically, his wings attempting to fly in two directions at once. As Sadik watched, he could see the rhino's skin continue to grow brighter, as if the infection was infusing him with energy. Soon, he would rival the glow of the moon.

This was not good.

“Hold on!" Kavaia yelled.

She turned her mount sharply to the side, avoiding a horde of infected climbing from an alley. With a single kick, the destrier leaped back into the air, sailing through a black mist of spores. They crashed into the street. Sadik was nearly thrown with the force of the landing.

“Keep it steady!" he yelled.

“Aim better!" she replied.

The infected became a flood. Some bounced off the countermeasure, while others managed to push through, the metal in their bodies twisting through the flesh. All of them were vectors of infection—vomiting sludge, erupting with spores, swinging every limb they possessed.

Screams and motion, teeth and eyes.

A sunbeam from Gidros carved up the right. Sadik fired into the left, blasting a path for Kavaia to follow. Behind, Xaeyr's destrier landed in the street, narrowly avoiding a mouth opening in the earth. When he regained his balance, he began to pull the water from the infected, ripping brown ichor straight from their bodies and firing it in jets. The world seemed to splatter.

Ahead, the fires of the Kesunae invasion were drawing near. The Mezlat had nearly disappeared from the sky. Sadik could not be sure, but he thought he saw several minor gods fighting in the air, spiraling like eagles locked in a duel. They were not attacking the invaders. They were fighting each other.

Lanir was still alive, somewhere up in the pantheon. Was she directing this betrayal?

On the street, a lightpole squirmed like a tendon, lashing for the intruders. Kavaia dodged to the left. A mass of tongues erupted from a home, serrated and drooling. Kavaia dodged to the right. A horde of infected waited ahead, their bodies melted into a crude attempt at a net, muscle and sinew knotted into strands. Kavaia kicked the destrier and leaped above it all. Sadik was barely able to hold her waist, let alone return fire.

“Keep it steady!" he yelled again.

“Fuck off!" she screamed.

Gidros dipped low in the air, his wings spreading wide, his arms shaking as they were forced into position. His hands glowed like spears of sunlight.

Sadik fired first. His beam struck the rhino on the left wing, where the plague had strangled the feathers—there was a scream of pain, curls of blackness. It should have knocked him from the sky. It did not. Gidros snarled, tilting wildly in the air, the hole in his flesh immediately knotted with metal. In response, the plague aimed his hands at Sadik.

Just as he fired, a wall of water appeared around Sadik, nearly as thick as his torso. The sunbeams struck. Water boiled, steam erupted. For a moment, there was a duel between energy and liquid, the sunbeam trying to burrow through the shell, a hurricane of heat and vapor forming mere feet above his head. The elements raged.

After a few seconds, Gidros stopped firing, his body thrashing against the plague. The water shell vanished, and Sadik fired Dusksong in reply. This time, he aimed for central mass, striking Gidros in the hip. His right leg—now a mass of tentacles—fell to the ground. The rhinoceros screamed, thrashed, beginning to pirouette wildly, the flap of his wings so strong that the infected were blown off their feet.

“Sadik!"

Xaeyr had protected him with the shell of water. With his attention divided, the infected had closed the gap. They lashed and drooled around him, nearly pulling Amira from his lap. His destrier whinnied in fear, completely outside the baboon's control, and rushed into an intersecting street, firing a cloud of quills from its hind legs. The last thing Sadik saw was Xaeyr's creamy fur, Amira's leopard ears, and a belch of steam hastily thrown in defense. Then, they were gone.

Above, Gidros floundered through the sky. By now, his body had grown as radiant as the sun, and was still growing brighter. He tried to fire a sunbeam from his palm, and the arm exploded at the forearm, spraying a jet of raw energy clear across the street. When a spike of metal erupted from his skull, replacing the horn that Kavaia had broken, the rhino screamed and flew straight into the ground, smashing through the walls of a home. Brick and stone flew through the night.

“Sadik!"

He looked. There was a barricade ahead, nearly fifty feet tall and crawling with blisters. The end of the quarantine zone. Beyond, the Kesunae invasion. Fire and smoke. In front of them, a wall designed to prevent any exit.

Kavaia's tail wrapped around his waist.

“Hold me!"

He wrapped his arms around her. Dusksong's blade tapped her thigh, the hot steel burning through armor. She snarled.

“Sorry!"

Kavaia lashed the reins. With grace, the destrier leaped onto the rooftops once more. There were line of homes leading right for the high barricade wall, with the last few buildings having been completely subsumed by growths of plague. They formed into hills and mounds, sickly brown and hard as chitin. They piled almost to the top.

Sadik saw what she intended.

“Goddess!"

She did not answer. Around them, the infected scrambled up the walls, piled through the alleys. Limbs and eyes, vomit and spores.

“Goddess!"

Kavaia bellowed a war cry, so powerful that it rattled his bones.

They reached the mounds of plague. The destrier rushed up the hills, sprinting the slopes, leaping the ledges, its hooves sinking through the brittle layers of chitin. Eyes opened in the blisters. Tentacles slithered through the shells. The destrier panted, Kavaia continued to roar, and the entire world became a mad dash of motion, rising higher and higher.

They reached the top of the barricade. With one last push, they leaped into the air.

For a moment, there was peace. Beauty. The fires of battle, the glow of cerulean walls, the jagged spires of the red-rock cliffs beyond. Acheron spread before them, sprawling and ancient. Sadik admired the city. He always had, for nearly a century of his life.

Gravity took hold.

They fell. There were no growths of plague on the other side, nothing to cushion their fall. When they landed, it was on the flat expanse of a roof. The destrier crumbled on impact, screaming, while Kavaia was thrown, head over heels. Sadik felt a white hot pain explode through his arm as he crashed into stone, rolling further, tumbling through the air, landing on the street below in a wild storm of limbs.

He rolled. His arm screamed again.

Stop.

Breath. Pain. Blood.

The world swam before him.

Sadik gasped for air. When his vision solidified, he was staring up at pluming clouds of smoke, a spreading haze of blackness that swallowed the stars. The world tasted like fire.

In the distance, he heard the sound of horses, the clashing of steel. Orders shouted in a foreign language.

The Kesunae.

He tried to sit up. His bronze armor was dented, and his left arm had broken just below the elbow, with two jagged bones sticking out of the flesh. Just looking at the wound made it throb. He fell back to the flagstones, writhing in agony.

Two gods laid dead beside him. Arton, the wolf god of the mountains, and Veteus, the sheep god of animal husbandry. From the way their bodies intertwined, they had been fighting each other. Claw marks, broken bones, blood mingling on the stone. Now, their eyes were glassy and still, reflecting many fires.

Had Lanir organized a civil war? Had the Lord of Bones taken advantage?

“Goddess!" Sadik yelled.

There was no reply. The street he fallen into was barren, hastily abandoned by its inhabitants. Nearby, his destrier laid on a roof, mewling in pain. Both its front legs had snapped.

“Kavaia!" Sadik shouted.

Silence. The fires were bright, forcing him to squint as he looked in every direction. He saw nothing but smoke. Empty homes, embers drifting on the breeze.

When he looked behind him, the barricade was still standing tall. Hundreds of infected lined the top, their forms as twisted as poorly blown glass. Instead of leaping from the heights, they remained where they were, watching him from a distance. A string of glowing eyes. A single, shared intelligence.

They had stopped the chase as soon he left the quarantine zone. Somehow, he found that far from reassuring. It spoke of cunning. Confidence in their plan, whatever it was.

Was Xaeyr still on the other side, carrying Amira on his mount? Had he found another means of escape, or had the plague finally overwhelmed him? With a sudden chill, Sadik realized that his men were gone, as well. He had walked into the palace with a hundred souls—first, Gidros had slaughtered them by the dozens, and then the plague had devoured the last survivors. It had all happened so quickly that he hadn't truly felt the loss.

So many were dead. And, now, he was alone.

Sadik struggled to stand, his broken arm screaming in protest. Most of his left leg was bruised into a sickly purple, and the pain in his chest told him that he had likely cracked a rib. By the time he had climbed to his feet, his entire body was swallowed in pain.

“Kavaia!" he shouted again, trying to limp forward. The crocodile couldn't have fallen far. He could find her. Perhaps she was lying inside one of the alleys, or—

Movement ahead.

Out of the smoke, the Kesunae rode. They were nearly a dozen archers riding through the street— their horse manes braided, their bows notched with arrows, their lamellar armor composed of little more than rawhide and studs. Sadik could tell, from a single glance, that they were sweeping the street for survivors, as if the main Acheron resistance had already fallen. The gods were dead, the mortals fleeing. The district was lost to foreign hands.

He was defenseless. Too injured to fight, too winded to flee. Completely exposed.

Would they recognize the alliance? Had the Lord of Bones betrayed them?

Dusksong laid a short distance away. When he dove for the weapon, he saw that the steel had begun to melt—there were oozes of metal at the broken edge, long bubbles dripping along the blade. The sword had already been shattered by Faustine. Now, after firing it too many times, it was becoming little more than a rugged hunk of iron.

“Zogs!"

The Kesunae saw him through the smoke. Their mounts began to gallop. Sadik gripped Dusksong with one hand, limpinh to his feet. By the time he had adopted a combat stance, the horse archers had spread through the street, a dozen arrows nocked and ready.

“Zevsgee khaya!" one of the Kesunae shouted, pointing at him. “Ogoo!"

Sadik prepared himself. Rush for the closest man, strike him from his horse. He would be shot with half a dozen arrows by that time, but, hopefully, he could take someone with him.

“Üüniig khii!" another shouted.

He stared them down, tattoos ablaze, his long black hair loose upon his face. Their horses drew close, their arrows steady.

“Zogs! Zogs!"

A new voice. Familiar. The dozen Kesunae riders unnotched their arrows, pulling their mounts to the side. Ahead, through the smoke and flames, two riders were galloping across the flagstones, their bodies outlined by the cerulean glow of the city's eastern wall.

“Sadik!"

“Isaac?" Sadik asked, blinking.

The human scholar yanked his horse to a stop, expertly leaping from the saddle. His blond hair was dirty, and his armor was ashen with smoke. “By Ivtarr, are you alright?"

“Oi!" Zaria shouted, pointing up. “Nüdee deeshlüül! Ükhsen novshnuud!"

The Kesunae readied their bows again, looking up toward the barricade. The infected were still watching from the top. Still motionless. Something about that was bothering Sadik.

“Keep it quick, love," Zaria said, holding a bloodied poleaxe.

“We saw your invasion of the palace," Isaac said, carefully probing Sadik's arm. “The fire, the wall disappearing. What was that light? In the sky?"

Sadik winced. “The god of the sun."

“Where is he?"

Sadik gestured toward the barricade.

Isaac glanced at the two dead gods beside him. After a moment, he glanced back at Zaria. She nodded, using a hand gesture to rush him on. Gingerly, the human began to guide Sadik toward his horse. “Come with me. It's not safe here. Some of the gods are still fighting. There's one—a blur of black and gold. He—"

Sadik stepped back, nearly losing his balance. “Not without my men."

Isaac blinked.

“My men! I. . . ."

He glanced back at the barricade. Only the infected were visible, watching from the peak. Otherwise, there was no sign of life. No sounds, no movement on the wall.

There had been a hundred men. Now. . . .

Nothing.

He had wanted to die, and, instead, everyone around him had perished. What a cruel irony.

What a stupid, selfish coward he was.

“Sadik," Isaac said, softening his voice. “I don't think—"

“Kavaia. She—" He gestured to the side, toward a tangle of alleys. “She must be close. Please."

With blue eyes, and a face smeared with ash, Isaac looked at him, then his horse, then the gods on the ground. “She is rather . . . prodigious. In size."

“So?"

“So you may enjoy her riding you, but my horse will not."

“Find her," Sadik said. His bruised leg was throbbing. “Please."

Zaria whistled, gesturing to the alleys. “Ta khoyor, khairst üldegdliig olooroi!" Two of the Kesunae went off to search. The hyena regripped her reins, gesturing at Sadik with her bloodied axe. “So, glowboy, you kill who you need? We done gettin' chewed out here?"

“One enemy died," Sadik said. “Another rose in his place."

Zaria snorted. “Ain't that the way of things."

“Sadik," Isaac said, digging into a pouch on his rawhide armor. “You need medicine. If I can set your bones, there are several poultices—"

An explosion.

Down the length of the street, a house ruptured outward, spraying a storm of furniture across the flagstones. As the embers blew, and the smoke erupted, two gods became visible. The first was Phitona, the hedgehog goddess of armors. Her left leg was shattered, and her intestines spilled from her belly in long, draping lines.

The second was Rushan, god of war. He was covered in blood, hands streaked with gore.

Phitona crawled along the ground. As Rushan stood back to his feet, the hedgehog tried to form armor on her belly, the skin burning as metal seeped from her pores. Rushan stomped on her broken leg. She screamed. Without mercy, the jackal grabbed one of her hanging intestines, yanked it from her abdomen, and wrapped it around her throat.

She flailed on the ground, gasping for air. Rushan pulled tighter. The spines on her back began to grow, rising like teeth in a closing jaw. None of them pierced the jackal's skin. She grasped at her own intestines, fingers digging at her neck, but Rushan strangled her harder, yanking the length of her organ like a slimy rope. Phitona's movements turned from thrashing to desperate, slowly falling down to weakened. Finally, she collapsed into a few jerking twitches. Soon, she did not move at all.

Rushan gave a final tug. When there was no response, he dropped her intestine, his golden-tipped fingers dripping with blood.

He looked across the street.

A silence settled upon all. There was a battle raging around them, many fires burning up into the night, but, in that moment, Sadik felt as if the entire world had grinded to a halt.

Rushan was looking right at him. Through a veil of smoke and ember, across the length of a dozen abandoned homes, their eyes met once again.

“Sadik," Isaac said. “Get behind me."

The jackal began to walk forward. His back was straight, his pace leisurely. He knew he did not have to rush.

“Sul! Sul!" Zaria shouted.

The Kesunae spread into a firing line. Atop their horses, they began to loose arrow after arrow, firing with the speed of warriors born upon the steppe. Rushan continued forward. He made no attempt to block the dozens of missiles raining upon him. Arrows shattered, wood splintered, fletching flew in a storm.

Nothing pierced his skin. Nothing slowed his stride.

“Sadik," Rushan said, his voice like a knife. “Good to see you again."

Isaac loosened his arms. “The pleasure is mine."

The jackal kept walking. His black fur was matted with blood, his golden streaks glinting with the firelight. Some of the Kesunae still loosed upon him. Others had pulled their mounts back, watching in terror.

“The rest of you would be wise to flee," Rushan said. He pointed at Sadik. “I'm going to take my time with this man. If you run now, you might escape with your lives."

“Squire," Zaria said. “Let 'em have it."

Isaac began to wave his arms. After a few seconds, he pointed a finger at Rushan. There was an explosion of sound, piercingly loud. Flagstones shattered at the jackal's feet, the raw noise slamming all the doors and shutters of nearby homes.

Rushan flinched, taking a step back. He managed only a single word.

“What?"

Isaac fired again, pointing at the jackal's leg. This time, the explosion of sound sent a geyser of stone and dirt erupting from the roadway. Rushan's flinch became a stumble, suddenly seeking balance. Isaac fired thrice more in rapid succession—thigh, belly, and face. Each one struck Rushan like a fist, knocking him further back.

The district trembled beneath Isaac's magic. Stone flew, buildings shuddered. Even the fires seemed to shy in fear.

With the final blow, Rushan lost his balance. He fell upon the broken roadway, the onslaught of sound leaving him stunned. At the same time, Isaac collapsed to his hands and knees, breathing heavily. Casting his spells had rapidly drained him of energy.

Zaria leaped off her horse, rushing over to Isaac. While she helped him stand, Rushan climbed back to his feet. He was visibly dazed, and his golden streaks had begun to splinter and warp, appearing like fractured bone as they crawled along his form. His hand clutched his ear—when he pulled it away, the palm was slick with blood. His own blood.

Rushan stared at his palm, then at Isaac. His expression was one of bewilderment. Complete surprise.

Then, slowly, he began to laugh.

“More!" he shouted. “Give me more!"

Isaac threw himself forward, escaping Zaria's grasp. He waved his arms in a different pattern. This time, he flung both hands at the jackal, loosing a hurricane of wind that split the smoke and hurled the broken stones. Rushan braced himself. The wind lashed his body, the flying debris shattered against his limbs. It took him a great deal of strength to remain on his feet.

After several seconds, Isaac stopped, his breaths turning into desperate gasps. Rushan took a step forward, brushing dust off his fur.

“Come now, mortal!" he shouted. “Let's enjoy ourselves!"

Isaac growled. With a surge of strength, he casted a third spell. This time, a blizzard of ice erupted from his palms, rapidly splintering into shards and hail. Instead of bracing, Rushan opened his arms. Ice slashed his fur, dashed his skin, ruined the linen skirt on his hip. By the time Isaac was forced to relent, the street behind Rushan was coated in a blanket of snow.

The jackal laughed. Isaac collapsed.

“Blood! Do you see this?" Rushan swiped a hand across his chest, revealing numerous bleeding cuts through the fur. “I haven't bled in centuries!"

Zaria hauled Isaac to his feet. The human mage leaned heavily against her, barely able to breathe.

Rushan pounded his chest with a fist, savoring the pain. “It gets rather boring, you know. Slaughtering the common. There's no challenge to it." For a moment, he blurred, rapidly moving from side to side, like a pugilist dodging blows. “It's like they're standing still! Waiting to die! Where's the glory in cutting grass?"

The Kesunae began to flee, rapidly galloping through the alleys. At the same time, Sadik heard heavy footfalls approaching. Another god?

Rushan pointed at Isaac. “You, I'll remember. From where do you hail, mortal?"

Isaac tried to answer. Nothing emerged but breath.

“Perhaps I'll let you live. Would you like to be my servant? Throw some magic whenever I'm bored?"

“Oi," Zaria said. “Fuck off, ya preenin' sack of cocks. You kill us together, or not at all."

Rushan grinned. “As you wish."

He clenched his fists, stepping forward. The heavy footsteps grew louder. When Sadik looked, Kavaia stumbled out of the nearest alley. Her spine had shattered in the fall, and she was only halfway through the growth of a second, the splinters of bone falling from her back like the molting of a snake.

“Oh!" Rushan said, opening his arms. “Kivie! My fortune grows!"

Kavaia fell in front of Sadik, shielding him with her body. “Rooshy. Has Thimera not compared to death?"

“I am the god of war," the jackal replied. “Death is my pleasure. Besides, she was never meant to last for long."

“Well, you never lasted long, either. Did you think I was satisfied with a couple thrusts?"

Rushan snarled. The street erupted in dust. A moment later, he was standing in front of Isaac and Zaria, towering above. The hyena swung her weapon, only managing to dent her axe against his hip. When she thrusted her spear, it met a similar result.

“Oh," Rushan said, black fur bristling, “you'll regret that. Perhaps I'll beat you with the corpse of your mortal. Perhaps—"

He stopped, looking upward. A light shined in his eyes.

When Sadik looked, he saw a destrier leaping from atop the barricade. Jets of water shot out from either side of the beast, slowing her fall. Halfway down, Xaeyr's creamy fur became visible. By the time they landed in the street, surrounded by pools of water, he could see Amira sitting up in the baboon's lap—she had pulled her legless body into a sitting position, clinging to his fur.

Both of them were panicking.

“Run!" Amira shouted. “Run!"

A light grew from behind the barricade. Bright yellow, surging fast, like a dawn sprinting over a mountain.

“Gamó," Sadik said.

Gidros flew above the barricade. The god of the sun had finally earned his name. He was brighter than the moon, brighter than the fires below, brighter than any object in the sky, man or divine. His skin had become so grossly incandescent that it was nearly impossible to see his body at all. There were only vague shapes, twisting movements.

Without warning, he screamed, blasting a geyser from his chest. The yellow beams—normally focused into a lance—spread into a chaotic storm, arcing across the sky like the discharge of a volcano. Gidros cried again, and another geyser erupted from the point of his knee, tearing the entire limb in half. His body was convulsing, splitting open at the sinews, as if all the energy inside was boiling into a frenzy. All the while, the god of the sun continued to grow brighter.

Whatever the plague was doing to his form, it was reacting with the sunbeams inside his body. A feedback loop, Yasmin would call it. Runaway enhancements.

His wings began to melt, his limbs little more than spouts for the energy to follow.

Sadik had seen what occurred when a sunspear was broken. The molten core grew frenzied, chaotic. Without a proper containment shield, the weapon would explode. He had seen entire regiments caught in the blast, watched a street of brick and stone become reduced to slag. If a single weapon could cause so much destruction, the god of the sun might level a district. Half the city.

The rhinoceros hovered in the sky, like the sun pausing in its motion. His body thrashed, his skin pulsed with light. All at once, he began to dive toward the ground.

Right toward Sadik.

The infected on the wall began to sing. Glowing, howling, linking their rotten arms.

This was their plan. This was why they had waited.

They were using Gidros as a bomb.

“Run!" Xaeyr shouted, riding his destrier through the group. “Run!"

Isaac and Zaria ran for their horses. Sadik stumbled back, wincing at the pain in his leg. Kavaia tried to pull him close.

Rushan stepped forward, head tilted to the sky. His body glistened with blood and gold as the sun descended from the heavens. When Gidros had reached a sharp descent, nearly crashing headfirst into Sadik, the jackal leaped into the air.

There was a moment of blinding light, followed by shattering stone. When Sadik recovered his vision, he saw Gidros searing a low path above the street, knocking his wings through buildings, melting the bricks with the burning stump that had once been his leg. All the while, Rushan clung to his body, trying to rein him down like a wild animal.

“Yield!" Rushan shouted.

Gidros screamed in pain.

They thrashed and roared, fought and grappled. When Gidros tried to redirect toward Sadik, Rushan yanked his wings, forcing him down. When Gidros sprayed a sunbeam directly from his chest, the beam so unfocused that it was almost liquid metal, Rushan had little room to dodge. There was burning fur, smoking skin. The jackal snarled.

“Monkey!" Rushan shouted. “Use your jets!"

Xaeyr pulled his destrier into a trot, keeping a tight grip on Amira. “What?"

“The sky! Shoot him into the sky!"

Xaeyr looked at the bright sun on the ground, then the smoky sky above. His blinking was rapid. “I—"

“Do it! Now! He will—"

Rushan roared. Gidros had begun to grapple him in kind, hugging the jackal with molten skin. Even through the bright yellow light, Sadik could see hundreds of tentacles squirming from the rhino's flesh. They were reaching for the jackal.

Some of them had pierced his skin. The wounds Isaac had rended.

“Now!" Rushan screamed. “He will destroy the city!"

Xaeyr raised his arm. Water rushed from every direction—mist from the air, blood from the bodies. Soon, a geyser was formed beneath the feet of the two grappling gods, quickly building in volume and power.

Rushan held his ground. Gidros began to convulse, smothering every shadow with the brightness of his body. The light pulsed and swirled.

Xaeyr slammed his hand down. The geyser erupted, hundreds of gallons leaping into the sky. Gidros was lifted upward, his form growing twisted, his molten skin burning the water into steam. As the rhinoceros was carried above the buildings, Rushan continued to cling to his body, preventing him from escape.

The two gods rose into the air. They cleared the height of the barricade, soared above the temples and shrines. When the jet of water ended in a fine mist, nearly a hundred feet above the ground, Gidros began to stretch his wings in flight. Immediately, Rushan grabbed them by the base, twisting and pulling, as if he was riding a stubborn horse.

The radiant wings began to thrash. By now, the two gods had entered the black clouds of smoke hanging above the city, and Sadik could only see their progress by the light shining through the vapor. It rose and fell, jerking to the side, tilting down, always growing brighter, like a firefly desperately flying for life.

They continued to rise. Slowly, haltingly, they were reduced from a surging crackle of energy down to a distant pinprick, barely shining through the smoke. To the citizens of Acheron, they would see a small light flying above the cerulean walls, soaring above the clouds. It almost seemed like a new star had been born in the heavens.

Then, without warning, Gidros became the sun.

The night disappeared. Suddenly, there was no blackness in the sky, no shadows in the streets. A new day had risen, and this day was a searing yellow, spreading like fire, piercing the eyes of any who dared look upon it. The sun struck the city—fiery lances, streaming jets, slashes of light and meteors of fire. Sadik felt a scorching heat upon his skin.

Light. Fire. Wrath.

Around them, the sounds of battle were snuffed. A rumbling shook the air, surging through the dirt and stone. For a brief moment in time, a new star was born upon the earth, and the faithful could do nothing but cower before its might.

And, just as quickly as it appeared, the star began to die. The shadows reformed, the streets lost their glow, the fires returned to a roaring orange. Slowly, the sky dimmed from a searing yellow back down to a dull sheet of smoke. In seconds, night had taken hold once more.

The dawn faded away.

Through the smoke and gloom, Sadik saw something fall.

Rushan.

The god of war was not moving. He fell with his back to the ground, limbs hanging in the air, head tilting with the wind. There was no attempt to brace. In a blink, he was gone, disappearing beneath the rooftops. Sadik guessed that he had fallen a good distance away. Somewhere close to the Syran river, if not the streams themselves.

A silence settled upon the street, broken only by the crackling of fire.

“You lot are fuckin' mad," Zaria said.

Kavaia tore the broken spine from her back, knitting the bones and forming the flesh. Amira moaned upon the destrier's back, clutching her legs. Xaeyr eased her back into his lap.

Sadik still watched the sky. He couldn't believe what he had seen.

Rushan had just saved the city.

If Gidros had exploded upon the street, it would've seared multiple districts into slag and ash. Thousands of lives erased. With all the strife and peril afflicting Acheron, it might well have been the final blow for the populace.

Instead, the god of war had intervened. He had risked his life when a man of his speed could've easily outrun the blast.

Was he still alive? Had the blast only knocked him unconscious? Rushan had survived centuries of war. Thousands of foes, millions of strikes. He had been blasted with Isaac's spells, a man famed for his magical prowess, and he had come out laughing when they were done.

He was thought to be invincible.

But the plague had pierced his skin. The jackal had cried in pain.

“Sir?"

Xaeyr had brought his destrier close. Amira remained in his lap, her seared legs resting above the quills of the beast, her leopard face held in concern.

“You alright?"

Sadik looked down at himself. His arm was broken, his leg was bruised, and his every breath brought a new pain to his attention. In his hand, Dusksong was partially melted, half of the runes grown dark.

He looked at the barricade. The infected had retreated from the top. They had sent Gidros as a weapon, and, when he failed, they had disappeared back behind the wall, preferring to break off the attack. It was not mercy. Clearly, they had more sinister plans in mind.

Kavaia was healing. Isaac and Zaria had mounted their horses. Xaeyr was exhausted, but still keeping a watchful eye.

“Hoi," Amira said. “You got words, don't ya? Come on."

Sadik dropped his sword, stepped forward, and hugged her. Because she was riding a destrier, he could only reach her waist, and he had to twist his body in order to avoid the quills. Still, he managed to wrap his unbroken arm around her, and he squeezed her as best he could.

“I'm sorry," he said.

He buried his face in her thigh. And, for the first time since the revolution, for the first time since the night he had lost everything, Sadik began to cry.

A hundred men dead. A palace in flames. A city at war.

There were so many ruins. So many things that could never be put right again.

He wept for Hisana. He wept for Faustine, the protégé he had lost. Sadik wept because he had lost his men, and he had almost lost his friends, and the thought of their deaths pained him more than the thought of being alive.

“I'm sorry," he said, voice cracking.

He hugged her tight, more than he ever had before. When she gave a hiss, he stepped back, trying to breathe. His long black hair clung to the tears on his cheeks.

When he saw her face again, she was looking at him with tears of her own. Worry blossomed into relief.

Kavaia kneeled beside him, resting a hand on his shoulder. He hugged her in kind, abandoning any sense of decorum, resting his head in the crook of her soft-scaled neck and letting the tears flow as they wished. She hugged him in return, every touch bringing new healing, both in his flesh and in his soul.

Sadik wept, and began to feel free.

“Zogs! Zogs!"

Pounding hooves. Movement in the smoke. All at once, dozens of Kesunae emerged through the alleys, their bows notched with arrows, their horses decorated with braids and donned with armor. They surrounded the group of mortals and gods in a circular line, shouting orders in their native tongue.

“Zevsgee khaya!"

“Bos! Odoo!"

“Bi chamaig alna, novsh!"

“Zogs!" Isaac shouted, holding out a hand and trotting his horse. “Bitgii buud!"

The Kesunae did not listen. They kept their bows pointed, continuing to shout. By the sound of things, the men who had fled from Rushan had reported to their superiors, and a larger force had been rallied in response. These men were prepared for violence.

“Oi!" Zaria yelled. “Bi chinii takhianuudyg taslakhaas ömnö zail!"

Kavaia wrapped herself around Sadik, preparing to lift him and dash. Xaeyr struggled to keep his destrier from panicking.

“Sir?" Amira asked.

“Steady," Sadik replied. “Keep your ground."

One of the Kesunae launched an arrow over their shoulder, repeating the same order he had shouted. In response, Isaac waved his arms, bringing a lance of wind screaming across the pavement. It sliced across the snouts of the Kesunae's horses, sending them bucking into the air.

“Amar amgalan!" Isaac waved his arm around the circle of men, a spout of wind boiling in his palm. Many reared back in fear. “Amar amgalan bai!" He waved a hand at the mortals and gods behind him. “Bi khamgaaldag!"

One of the Kesunae—a scarred man with golden bangles in his beard—began to bark orders at the rest. The riders lowered their bows. In the sudden stillness, the same Kesunae leader trotted forward on his horse.

“Ter udirdagchtai yariltsakh bolno," the man said, pointing directly at Sadik.

Isaac glanced at the human, then back at the rider. “Odoo? Ünekheer üü?"

The man answered with a nod, his face dirtied and grim.

“What?" Sadik asked, rising from Kavaia's arms. “What are they saying?"

Isaac held a grim expression. After a moment, he sighed.

“The Lord of Bones wishes to speak with you."