Mad Hatter swung hard enough to create an air wave that struck the incoming meteor. A thin line appeared in the middle of it, vast fissures opened on the rocky surface, and the mountain-sized object burst, spilling a pool of debris and smaller crimson pebbles over the field and into laughing khatun as the woman basked in the results of her own destruction. Eugenia moved the second as a large boulder briefly obscured Mad Hatter’s field of vision, introducing Janine to how Normies must’ve felt when confronted with a Wolfkin.

  She disappeared, not raced, not turned blurry, but might as well have teleported to the warlord’s eyes, and only the shower of dirt against the shield served as proof that it was actually a physical action.

  The tonfa speared forward, its cracking end breaking the stone, and swiped through the empty air. Not fooled by such a maneuver, Mad Hatter circled around her opponent, casting a long shadow on Redeemer and raising her scimitar for a decapitating strike. A portal opened, revealing Mad Hatter’s back, and Eugenia leapt into it. The khatun turned around immediately, stabbing in the blue rectangle, and the length of her scimitar almost kissing her back, forcing the woman to dodge as Eugenia thrust a tonfa from the opened portal above, aiming its hissing tip at Mad Hatter’s temple.

  Blue rifts opened around the battlefield, swallowing the shattered meteors without allowing them to fall on the Horde or the Reclaimers’ position. True to her name, Redeemer refused to kill anyone.

  Didn’t mean she was incapable or unwilling of breaking her opponents to the point of them barely being alive.

  The left scimitar rang from the impact, and dirt flew left and right from the fighters as the wind, driven by Eugenia’s movements, finally caught up with them. Yellow electricity snaked down the blade, shaking Mad Hatter and drawing a hiss of irritation from her lips. She recoiled, stepped back awkwardly, and slashed, sending a wave of air at the peeking Eugenia. Redeemer disappeared into the portal; another one opened before the khatun, and the woman had to block her own wave, redirected at her, sending her back a hundred paces.

  Overlapped portals. Janine understood in amazement. Eugenia wasn’t just using a single attack; she had baited Mad Hatter into the previous thrust, deliberately showing the woman her exposed back, and when the khatun thought she had her opponent figured out, Eugenia immediately ‘draped’ another portal over the first, jumping from one exit to the other without ever exposing herself and sending her enemy’s thrust right back at her. The same thing happened with the air slash.

  “Physical type? Is that all? So much for your claims of divinity.” Eugenia teased, flicking back into reality near Mad Hatter, her tonfas almost touching the chin of the dodging woman. “You are not even that fast.”

  A smile graced Mad Hatter’s lips. Her scimitars struck and were blocked by the tonfas. But the strength behind the blows cartwheeled Eugenia backward, and she disappeared into another portal. Simultaneously, more holes in reality opened around the khatun, and the meteor’s chunks that had been swallowed up were unleashed right back at the woman.

  Then she did something unexpected. Mad Hatter sheathed her weapons. She clicked her fingers and closed her eyes to the incoming stones.

  ****

  650 kilometers to the north of Houstad

  Florent Bocuse smiled to the surprise of his parents. They probably thought them crazy. Iron shackles held their wrists; the family and the captured citizens had been forced into uncomfortable harnesses inside a large armored truck that had driven into their small village, bulldozing its way through several buildings after the raiders had swarmed the area.

  The slavers had said nothing, had placed them like puzzle pieces, much like the one his parents had given the boy on his first birthday, celebrated together after his adoption and arrival from the Wastes. Or, and he was afraid to think about it, like cusacks’ carcasses.

  They were in the cargo hold, which was at least five meters high. Florent had little doubt that two or three copies of Dad could stand freely on their shoulders here and still have space above. It seemed insane to think about it during their enslavement, when the dream of the safety of the Core Lands was crumbling around him, but he was often called weird.

  Not by Mom and Dad, though. They accepted him, a wildling from the Wastes, into their family, and even now Mom kept whispering words of encouragement to him and the nearest kids, despite the unique harness that so cruelly folded her green, scaled tendrils. The hold was divided into three levels, with catwalks leading to the upper levels. On each level was a series of harnesses, more lodged than welded into the smooth gray walls, restricting any movement and preventing attempts to so much as shift posture. Over the past few hours of their confinement, the boy was drenched in the urine and other waste coming down from above. It was a humiliating technique designed to help break a slave’s spirit. His grandma, Planet rest her soul, told him a little about it to scare the boy from carelessly wandering away from the village.

  The people moaned, pained by the stiffened limbs, cried out in terror; the constant grinding of the caterpillar tracks rang in everyone’s ears, while the oversized, fat giants walked by, grabbing their chins and uttering their guttural judgments to the eager wrenches trailing behind. Water was given to the prisoners who could no longer endure, and their wounds were treated, reassuring the boy that at least they wouldn’t be killed immediately. But until a few seconds ago, he had dreaded parting from his family, as young and old slaves were used for various purposes in his homes. His friends, children of the former slavers, told him about it, hammering it into him just how dangerous leaving a settlement could be.

  But he wasn’t scared anymore. He heard it. A howl, faint and distant. There wasn’t a soul in the Wastes who didn’t know its meaning. Scoundrels dropped their vile deeds, villains quaked in their boots, and monsters tried to hide under rocks when a wrathful goddess walked the craggy sand seas, protecting the Reclaimers. Sure, folks back at his old home often hushed about corpses found on the outskirts, but obviously these belonged to the baddies, since the goddess had rescued his grandma!

  “Florent,” whispered Guillaume Bocuse, turning his horned head toward his son. “I need you to be brave. You are the man of the house now. When the ramp opens, I need you to grab Mom and rush toward it.” His slender arms turned, unexpectedly bulging bracelets around his wrists, and the boy noticed a glint of metal on Dad’s blue skin. A knife concealed under the skin. Dad looked at the nearest fat giant, listening to his laughter as the man examined a woman.

  This was the bastard who had pressed a remote control to open the ramp. Florent opened and closed his mouth, understanding the plan, and then smiled again.

  “No,” he hushed back. “Don’t do anything, Da.”

  “Florent,” Guillaume said sadly. “These people aren’t nice. Where they take us…”

  “But they won’t take us anywhere!” The kid laughed, and the fat bastard turned around, irritated by his voice. “I hear her, Da! Trust me, nothing will happen!”

  “Are you talking about your grandma, Flori?” Mom asked kindly.

  “No, about the goddess!”

  “Cretin.” The slaver approached them, and his hand closed around Dad’s wrists, pressing the two together and drawing a groan from him. The second hand grasped Florent by his neck. “Ruin the game. Think us foolish, yes? Idiot,” he said with a thick accent, pausing as if he were remembering words. His helpers giggled. “No god, expected for the Sky. Hmmm… Healthy, adorable, lanky… Parent strong, cunning… And the woman…”

  “You better worry about yourself, cusachy,” Florent mocked to distract him from Mom. The hand let him go, closing into a fist for the punishment.

  A screech of tearing metal silenced every sound in the hold, and darkness swept past the boy, disappearing the slaver and his company. Florent thought he saw a glimpse of yellow, but he wasn’t sure; the goddess came as a specter, a ghost of claws and destruction, striking the machine with the force of a comet. A tornado of wind caught the boy; the bonds vanished; he was free, carried by the otherworldly creature that ravaged all around, damning the guilty and saving the innocent. So quickly. He’d never imagined anything could move so fast. The floor, the walls, the guards and the captive slaves—nothing remained in less than a second, and as he blinked, trying to prevent his brain from rationalizing the irrational, his ass touched the grass.

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  The family found themselves sitting at the wayside, about a dozen meters from the wreckage of the convoy. The former prisoners sat beside them, equally confused. Booms ripped through the air, sending pieces of metal flying past the heads of the liberated people, and not a single sharpened edge injured anyone, not even when several panicked people jumped to their feet, only to be dragged to the ground.

  “On your bellies, everyone!” Guillaume roared, throwing Mom, Florent and two kids down and shielding them with his body while his adopted son grinned.

  There was no need to worry. She rescued them. A flash of orange, caused by the explosion of the engine, briefly stained the ground, and soon the rest of the vehicles joined it in a series of eruptions.

  “What is going on here?!” Florent heard a man shout. “Who does that? Is that an artillery barrage?”

  “No.” Mom gulped, wrapping arms and tendrils protectively around the children. “That’s… that’s the aftermath.”

  “Aftermath?” The same man panicked, throwing himself to protect two women. The ground rose, carrying the remains of the convoy to the left of the group, utterly destroying the created road. “Of what?!”

  “You know how you can hear thunder seconds after lightning strikes?” Mom gulped again, shaking. “The ensuing chaos around us obeys the same principle. Whoever rescued us is doing it.”

  “Did it.” Florent dared to correct her, hugging his parents. “The goddess isn’t here anymore.”

  “You mean Ravager?” Dad asked tensely, and Florent pressed his hands to his mouth, silencing the scream as a head dropped from the sky, splashing blood and brain matter at him. More body parts rained down, scaring the terrified group further. Several rifles landed on the ground, discharging their shots away. “Is she the one who brought us here, away from harm?”

  “It isn’t possible…” someone mumbled. “This is witchery. No one is this fast. Ain’t no way it is possible to predict everything in such clarity.”

  “The commander can!” Florent insisted and tried to raise his hands for a quick prayer, but Dad restrained him. “The Spirits protect the entire Reclamation Army, not just the Wastes!”

  “And the monsters who captured us are about to learn a lesson,” Guillaume remarked. “Okay, Florent, you were right; I was wrong about doubting you.”

  “See! I am not dumb!”

  “I never said you were dumb, son. Just that you were uneducated. But don’t go drunk on praise,” he joked, tapping his happy son on the forehead, “pull yourself together. We still need to find a safe place, but the scary part is over. The same goes for everyone! No panic, we are getting out! Keep the kids’ eyes closed; no need for them to see that! Sound off if you know how to use weapons! Anyone see moss or know where we are?!”

  ****

  Fingers clicked, first on the right hand, then on the left. Even despite the distance, the distant bombardment, and the stones scraping against each other in the air, Janine heard it. Mad Hatter was playing a tune, some kind of tribal melody, gracefully dodging the rocks, not letting a single one stain her clothes. Her limbs swayed a little, almost as if they had gone limp; her quick movements were interwoven with strange, unusual motions that were in perfect sync with the tune her fingers were playing. Nothing was out of place; no element of the chaotic battlefield disrupted the calm serenity on the khatun’s face, and the Gilded Horde roared their thunderous cheers.

  Eugenia opened a portal right into Mad Hatter’s face. Without opening her eyes, the khatun leaned back, and the tonfas missed her chin. A leg moved upward, kicking against the block and sending the Elite into the opening portal above. Mad Hatter, deliberately slow, stomped the leg into the ground, avoiding being hit by the rocks that seemed to choke everything with their presence. Janine’s eyes widened as the khatun spun to the side, the hem of her clothing forming a circle.

  She was performing. Mad Hatter played the role of a dancer, and the entire battlefield was her scene.

  The blue and the white clashed in the midst of flying reddish, overheated stones. Again and again Eugenia pressed her attack, using the portals to appear right on top of the khatun, and Mad Hatter kept playing her tune, not letting the electric tonfas touch her. For every kick blocked by her weapons, Eugenia responded with a hail of blows. The blue raged against the white; the two colors almost blended, briefly becoming one in Janine’s eyes, but no matter how hard she tried, the Elite simply couldn’t land a blow or even break her opponent’s rhythm. Then, suddenly, her swing almost caught Mad Hatter’s left arm, and the khatun’s face appeared before Eugenia’s.

  She made a low sweep, missing the Elite’s boots by a hair. A sweep. Nothing to be taken seriously. But that single move cleared the air of the crimson streaks, sending rocks and a large swath of the ground directly at Houstad’s shield, ramming it with the force of several missiles. Eugenia landed and stepped back, dodging a bump of Mad Hatter’s waist as the woman resumed her dance, inviting more portals to pop open.

  “Nice dance,” Eugenia grumbled, dropping low.

  “Thank you,” Mad Hatter said, pausing briefly and letting the shards fly dramatically past her, almost grazing her clothes. “I have half a mind to let you live. It’s rare to have a partner with whom I can let loose in a theater. Ah, what plays we could stage…”

  “Kill her!” Janine heard Dalantai and the avian man pushed from the hordemen’s ranks, almost pressing his forehead against the shield. “End it now, Mad Hatter, and ascend! Before a terrible happens…”

  “There is nothing more terrible than incurring my wrath for the crime of disrupting my pleasure, Dalantai,” the khatun sighed. “Iron Lord, if the priests address me without proper reverence again, chop off his head and throw the remains into the incinerator for a couple of months. Perhaps through agony he’ll remember proper veneration. What say you, little toy?”

  “Thanks but no thanks, kitty.” Eugenia pointed a tonfa at the khatun. “I came to smite evil, not dance. But we can have a go after you’ll serve your sentence.”

  “If you can’t even handle my dancing, how are you supposed to handle my fighting?” Mad Hatter inquired, producing clicks first with her right hand and then with her left.

  “Drop the pretense,” Eugenia said. “Your left arm is still shaking. That’s why you chose that tune, and that’s why you panicked and attacked. You are not invincible, no matter what delusions you have drunk in your past. There is enough weakness for me to chip away at it.”

  “A dog barks, but the caravan moves.” Mad Hatter smiled sweetly. “If an ant wants to bring down a thunder bull, it better start biting rather than snapping its mandibles.”

  Eugenia said nothing, but the khatun arched back, and Janine’s lenses zoomed in, showing her the crack in reality as lines of portals formed in the air where Mad Hatter’s shoulders were a second ago. But this time they didn’t open in full, and a passing piece of the meteor was parted in two upon touching the blue hovering lines.

  “Phaser once tried to pull the same thing to assassinate me,” Mad Hatter said. She somersaulted, escaping a portal trying to swallow her legs. Another opened to catch her mid-flight, and the khatun found a foothold on a passing stone, stepping aside the gaping hole. “So many tricks and all pointless, fake godling.” Two new portals released blinding white beams that missed the woman, and then the third spat bullets. “Physical strength is…”

  Sizzling cut her off to Eugenia’s chuckle. The casings of the bullets flying next to Mad Hatter’s nose disappeared, and large spheres of energy formed a twenty-meter-wide dome, trapping the woman inside. Electrical surges shook her body, steam came out of her ears and nose, the traces of blood and her feather vaporized, and even the trapped pebbles were reduced to ash as the licking energy continued to lacerate the khatun. A wall of vapor rose around the dome, hiding it in the mist.

  “Sorry, you thought that was one-on-one…”

  “Гичий.”

  The dome was cut in two. Janine never saw it happen; it was just as fast, if not faster, than Eugenia’s initial movement. The mist was cleaved, and Mad Hatter shoved herself to freedom, breathing heavily. Her furs disappeared, a part of her dress burned away, and horrible burns covered her from a cheek all the way to the breast. In her hand, she held a scimitar, but after a second step, she sheathed it.

  Eugenia cried, drawing Janine’s attention, and a cold sweat of fear ran down her back. The wave of air that sliced through the dome crashed into the tonfas, failing to break them, and the suit saved the Elite, not letting the weapons break the sternum. But the slash was an arc. Just because it stopped in one place didn’t mean the whole thing was blocked, and two wide gashes, about thirty centimeters high, were on Eugenia’s body, just below her ribs. Her cloak had also been cut and was only held in place by the middle section. Light from the city’s projectors shone through the gaps, and red soon tainted the blue suit.

  So fast. The outcome defied everything Janine could think of, and she briefly mistook Mad Hatter for Blood Graf. Only the woman was worse; she did not need to draw power from the spilled blood, her own or anyone else’s. The khatun clapped, clearing the battlefield of the projectiles. She inhaled, her chest swelling and ribs pressing against her skin. Dark clouds of smoke descended, some sucked inside the khatun’s lungs. Sounds disappeared from the created vacuum, and then Mad Hatter exhaled into an open portal, straight through the beam that grazed her shoulder, adding another burn.

  Tongues of flame and sparks shot from the portal before it closed, and Mad Hatter turned to the wounded Elite. No more portals impeded her way as Eugenia focused on healing and gathering her strength. Shaking the ground with each step, Mad Hatter walked toward her, restoring her smug confidence and testing her fingers as new pink skin grew over the horrible burn. She bared her feral teeth, licking them in anticipation.

  And the Horde cheered, mocking the silenced Reclaimers and inviting its leader to partake in the bountiful feast.