“Yes…There is something rising u—”
There’s a sudden thrashing sound in the water below them, and something huge goes whirring up into the night sky, bursting from the waters like a startled dove. The crowd of Dreylings gasps and watches its ascent, a spinning, whirring arc of glimmering steel that dances through the air toward one of the SDC cranes—
It’s a sword, thinks Mulaghesh, but who threw it?
—and slices through the crane’s supports like they were made of butter.
There’s a pause as physics decides what to do with the several tons of metal suddenly suspended in the sky. Then the crane tips, yaws, and with the groaning sounds of an old man climbing out of bed, begins to slowly tumble to the ground.
“Run!” screams Signe. “Run! Out of the way, out of the way!”
It seems to happen in slow motion, like a battleship falling from the sky. The very impact is so great it knocks people off their feet. Dust and sea spray washes over them, even though it fell several hundred feet away. Mulaghesh watches in mute terror as some of the closer, unluckier Dreylings fall in a shower of deadly shrapnel.
Mulaghesh continues tracking the sword spinning through the sky as the plume of dust pours over them. She watches as it slashes up, up, up, and finally begins to turn, hurtling back down to them, perhaps threatening to cut the very world in half.
But it doesn’t. Instead its grip smacks into the open palm of someone’s hand, raised up high above the seawater.
She stares at the hand, then at its owner, who is now walking up the dock, water still pouring off their back.
At first the thing seems to be no more than some tangled wreckage washed ashore, a repulsive amalgam of coral and metal and bone. But as the water pours off of it her eyes discern shoulders, arms, and a crude, skeletal face. She sees the back adorned in horns and tusks and blades, the wrists lined with serrated teeth, every inch built to harm, to hurt, to destroy, as if this thing’s mere passage through the world could wreak unspeakable destruction.
The sword hums in the figure’s hand. It looks at the sword, head cocked, as if beholding a beauty it has not experienced in ages.
It is a Voortyashtani sentinel. But it is far larger than the sentinels she saw in her visions, and its armor is far more ornate, far more terrifying.
The sword vibrates, humming and buzzing, and somewhere in that awful sound is a voice—one that does not speak to their minds as much as directly speak to their souls, crying, Battle and war! The last war, the last war!
Suddenly she recognizes the thing standing on the dock, and understands what—or, rather, who—is now striding into Voortyashtan.
“Holy hells,” says Mulaghesh. “I don’t know how but—it’s fucking Saint Zhurgut!”
***
“Who?” says Sigrud.
“It can’t be!” says Signe. “How is that possi—”
She never finishes the sentence: Saint Zhurgut studies his surroundings, raises his sword, and flings it forward once again. Everyone dives to the ground as the massive arc of steel hurtles through the air. It smashes into the SDC trucks, punching through one of them like it’s made of paper and clipping another, which then slowly tips over from the blow.
They watch as the sword rips through the air with a low om hum that sounds, Mulaghesh realizes, a lot like what Bj?rck described. The sword goes speeding back into the saint’s hand, who then turns at the top of the dock and begins to calmly walk toward them.
Mulaghesh takes a deep breath and bellows, “Open fire!”
She’s not their commander, but the Dreyling guards quickly oblige, lining up along the seawall and opening up on Zhurgut. The sound that fills the air is a dreadfully familiar one to Mulaghesh: it is the sound of countless bullets uselessly bouncing off of Divine armor. She still hears it in her dreams, echoes of the Battle of Bulikov, and even though the bolt-action riflings are far more advanced they don’t seem to do much damage: Saint Zhurgut pauses as if taking a moment to regard this new phenomenon, his masked face swiveling to take in the sparks flying off of his chest and arms. Then he crouches and leaps.
Mulaghesh hears the om sound again, and thinks, The sword’s dragging him. It’s pulling him through the air.
The saint comes plummeting down, his sword moaning and shrieking. Again, Mulaghesh hears words in that strange sound, murmuring, I am battle incarnate. I am a weapon wielded by Her hand.
When he lands one of the SDC guards dissolves in a spray of blood, vivisected from collarbone to crotch. She watches in horror as the man has a moment to take in his situation—his dangling head craning down, wide-eyed—until the two halves of his body fall away and he topples over. The saint rolls forward—dragged, it seems, by some propulsion emanating from his sword—and the giant blade slashes up, around, and through the crowd of SDC guards. Mulaghesh watches as six stout men seem to dissolve, like cloth puppets having their threads pulled apart.
“Fucking hells!” shouts Mulaghesh. “Take cover!”
Sigrud and Signe sprint in one direction toward a rickety fish shop up the hill, while Mulaghesh, Lem, and the other SDC guards take cover down the street. They find an old slate wall along a vacant lot and immediately take up positions. The guards wheel around and aim at the metal figure slowly stalking up the oystershell street.
“Don’t shoot yet!” says Mulaghesh quickly. “Don’t attract his atten—”
Too late: there’s a series of pops as the riflings go off. Saint Zhurgut swivels his crude face to look at them. Then he raises the sword, there’s the droning om sound, and then…
The slate wall seems to explode. A rain of stones shoves her to the ground. Dust clouds her eyes. Then everything goes dark.
***
Children screaming. Fires dancing beneath the night sky. The bright cold face of the moon and the cold clinging mist.
I always knew I’d come back here, she thinks dreamily. Back to this place, where we wrought death so gladly…
She watches through puffy eyes as a ragged child totters through the firelit streets, screaming for its mother.
It’s good that I’m dying here, she thinks. I deserved it. I deserve it.
“General? General?”
Mulaghesh tries to speak. Her mouth is thick and bloody. “Wh-Where am I?”
“Are you all right, General?”
She opens her eyes to see an unfamiliar face standing over her: a young Saypuri officer, apparently a captain, wearing a closely wrapped headcloth and sporting a trim, neat beard. He has the look of a poet about him—something dreamy to his large, dark eyes—and she wonders who he is. Perhaps he’s one of her long-forgotten comrades who died in some faded conflict or another.
“Am I dead?” she croaks.
He smiles weakly. “No, General. You’re not. I’m Captain Sakthi. I’m here from the fortress.”
There’s a crash and then a rumbling from somewhere behind them.
“What’s going on?” asks Mulaghesh.