The days blurred by during the Falling. There were stretches without action lasting days at a time. Tara and I used the Footfields for reconnaissance, augmenting the fleets of horsemen that raced across the landscape. A week might pass without an Orb descending from the heavens, only for three to fall in a single day. We fought and contested when we could, but I learned to be more calculating about the engagements we took—and, more importantly, the ones we sustained.

  I carried guilt for the men who had died on both sides during the battle with Miami. Soldiers had entered that fight at my back, willing to lay down their lives to gather Flows that sustained their city. Instead, they had died for nothing, understanding that their Sword had failed them. I was gaining enough experience with the realities of the Falling to understand that I couldn’t prevent the deaths of the soldiers who marched with me, but I could do my utmost to minimize the lives spent in vain.

  John the Dispeller’s journal, the book I had received from Claw Jaxwulf, traveled with me. I had expected more opportunities to read it. There were enough lulls in the action to afford plenty of time to inspect the little tome, but privacy was another matter. I did not want the others to see me reading something so divisive, so possibly heretical. Chowwick, an ardent observer of the dictum that it was always five o’clock somewhere, would seek me out each evening to share ale with him once it grew too dark to quest for Orbs. I did think it odd that Orbs never fell at night. I pondered the reasoning for that.

  Tara was a lonesome sort. She was the youngest of the party besides myself, and I think she sought me for the company of a kindred spirit. She was very close to Alya, but Vaelstrom was so much older that their relationship had the character of a mother and daughter. Magneblade, thankfully, sought and found solitude even more easily than I did and didn’t add his attentions. Besides my peers, the officers and nobles were a constant presence—consulting and advising, preparing contingencies, discussing signals and strategies.

  The little time I found to peruse the book was as confusing as it was informative. Most of the pages were filled with numbers, equations, and odd symbols I didn’t recognize. I was acquainted with algebra; I’d had a phase of fascination with math and numbers during my long years confined to my room. But despite long hours staring at the pages, I could make little sense of them. I gathered that some of the symbols were constants pertaining to Order and Entropy fields, but beyond that, the balance of the equations eluded me. I had never heard of mathematics being applied to the fields. It opened doors of wonder to me.

  ***

  Decimus Falco had been Sword for more than a century.

  His blade flashed with speed and trickery. The man had been fighting and winning for lifetimes. The experience he wielded, the skills he possessed, were breathtaking and terrifying. Yet each time our swords smashed together, I was continually amazed—I could match his strength.

  The San Diego Griidlord spun and attacked from the side, cutting low after feinting high. I pulsed SHIELD to slow the movement of his weapon, buying the instant needed to let AGILITY carry me clear. I fired BEAM and caught him in the chest. Smoke bloomed, and I was punched by the smell of burning metallic compounds.

  Falco staggered back, clutching his chest. Heaving for breath, he gasped, “This… this isn’t possible. You’re a babe. You can’t fight like this… you can’t be so powerful…”

  It conjured strange thoughts to be able to match a warrior of his years. It made me wonder about level caps. Falco was leveled in the 20s. He was below average and would realistically never level into the 30s if he hadn’t done so in his long years. But he was a savvy warrior, a survivor. He brought his Tower stability—they had not endured a year without a Sword for generations. Still, it had been a long time since they’d had the opportunity to see a truly gifted warrior lead their forces.

  I came at him again, CUT blazing, and the man shied away. I was ecstatic at my success. Scorch marks sizzled at several points on his suit. Smoke and sparks haloed him. None of the wounds was substantial, but the accumulated wear was slowing him.

  All around us came the cries and shouts of battle. The tightly formed shield wall of the San Diego soldiers was a bastion as it drove across the field, slow but inevitable. Chowwick was again attempting to seize the ground around the Orb, riflemen in tow. The San Diego Axe had hesitated to come straight at me, knowing now about Axe-break. The opening had given Chowwick the chance to surprise him and put him down.

  Falco shied away from me, beaten, broken, resisting the urge to yield but fearing another onslaught. The retreat was a beacon to the killer instinct that hibernated within me, urging me forward to finish the fight. I charged with a bestial roar.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Falco dropped the act in an instant, surging back in response. A smile flickered at my lips. Lance had taught me too well how not to overcommit. Falco staggered as I stepped aside, my CUT obliterating the momentum of his own swing. POWER surged in me, strength pulsing through my body as I booted him in the chest.

  A moment later, Falco lay on his back, I standing above him. The tip of my Sword pressed against the armor just beneath his chin.

  Falco coughed, turned his head to the side to avoid looking at me. He said, “I yield.”

  Level 26 flashed before my eyes.

  ***

  Morningstar committed himself to the battle this time. He had no choice; they had no Axe.

  The Orb we contested was a moderate prize. It was worth fighting for, but not worth dying for.

  I boosted Tara as she moved to intercept a line of charging horses. The mounted riflemen were racing to possess the High Order region around the Orb. I felt the strange energies flowing through the ether to her, watched as her already rapid motions became an impossible blur. Her clawed hands devoured the flesh of horse and man; the field became a butcher’s shop. I didn’t think it would ever become easy to shred lives like that, but the necessity of it became more solid in my mind as time marched on.

  Morningstar was coming for me. From the corner of my eye, I let Assess take in his details.

  Subject: Pyracon Morningstar

  Status: Chosen Sword

  Level: 56

  My breath caught in my lungs as I tried to fathom the power he wielded. Morningstar was maybe 30 years or so in the suit, and I had every reason to believe he hadn’t reached his level cap. The voice spoke to him as well. Enki only seemed to seek those it believed had a very high ceiling, maybe no ceiling at all. Comparing Morningstar to the other Griidlords I had met was impossible. He was one of the most powerful beings I had seen during these long weeks of the Falling. And he was still growing.

  Footfield enveloped him as he crossed the open ground, skirting the battle to avoid entanglement with his soldiers or ours. His path was obvious. He was coming to put me down. I kept pulsing BOOST into Tara’s suit, her razor-bladed hands shredding human forms, ending lives, edging us toward victory.

  I could feel him coming. There was no skill I possessed that could match him. I wondered if he planned to be generous in the opportunities he would give me to yield. I wondered if he bore rage and revenge in his heart for the Axe I had killed. His teammate, maybe his friend. Or perhaps a veteran like Morningstar saw it all as the sad cost of doing business.

  I would never know.

  As Morningstar relinquished the Footfield and came tumbling back to normal time, his helm pointed squarely at me, he vanished. A column of SIGHT, feet in diameter, winked across the field. The BEAM was huge, more powerful and impressive than anything I had ever seen. It was like the sun itself had been forged into a spear and all the might of that spear had been thrust into his suddenly fragile form.

  The explosion of energy smashed his armor. His SHIELD pulsed, a brighter, denser aura than I had ever seen. But it was overwhelmed by Alya’s BEAM.

  The whole battlefield seemed to shift in response. Indy’s forces were startled. A hundred men on horses simply turned and galloped away from the fighting at the realization that not only did we have a Scepter in the field, we had a mighty Scepter at our backs.

  Morningstar staggered through the clouds of smoke, flames licking from his joints. He kept coming at me. I felt panic flutter at my chest. I broke off from boosting Tara and turned to face him. Even he couldn’t possibly still fight… I couldn’t be about to be forced to yield after spending the surprise of Alya’s presence.

  Her BEAM winked across the field and smashed him again. He staggered, fell to a knee. But then he was up again, twenty yards from me, too close for her to fire again without immolating me.

  His sword swung high, the light of CUT blazing like a thousand stars condensed to a singularity of brilliance. I raised my sword, panic fully igniting within me.

  But the light of POWER flickered in his visor. The fire of CUT sputtered on his sword, winking in and out of reality. He stumbled as he neared me and I could see how his armor was devastated. He might even have been fainting as he took those last staggering steps toward me.

  I could have killed him. It was an incredible thought to think that I wielded that power, the chance to completely vanquish a being of such amazing power.

  I lowered my sword and pulsed SHIELD, shoulder charging his staggering form. He tried to pulse SHIELD in response but his consciousness was barely hanging on through the damage he had received. I felt the crash of his chest against my shoulder, could still feel the incredible might, the breathtaking potential, that rested in his form.

  My SHIELD pulsed and in one violent impact he was on his back, a smoldering heap. I felt a dread that he was dead. But in another moment he was twisting, clutching his ribs.

  His helm peeled back and the face of this man I knew and respected was looking up at me. There was no anger, no hatred. There might have been bitterness there. But he smiled, even if it wasn’t totally without begrudgment.

  “You… brought your Scepter…” he coughed painfully.

  “Well done, kid… I wasn’t ready for that… this time…”

  Level 27 flashed on my HUD.