Farrin dove forward, cutting a furrow in the dirt with her face, feeling her back sear with the heat of the explosion that had claimed the life of another of their ragged squad. At another time, she would have sincerely admired the soft, slightly tender earth, filled with wisps of vegetation, perhaps even considered defecting to the Itil gang, who controlled such a marvel.

  But now was far from the time for that.

  The journey through the Mesh had proven far more difficult than anything she had ever done in her life. A surprise bombardment had cost them their transports, and if not for the ancient tunnel system, insulated from the raging electrical fury outside and partially concealed by thick vines, they would have been dead.

  The shockwaves reached them even there, rushing through the entire length of the tunnel. They stood ankle-deep in molten metal, their fingers crushing the lining of the walls and suffering from the monstrous heat. It was there that her acquaintance and a soldier of the Order perished, their lungs and hearts failing after their faceplates cracked from the monstrous concussion of their shelter’s explosion. Chernogor saved the third. The old geezer forced his own advanced helmet onto the young man, stubbornly enduring the surrounding hell.

  Those fifteen minutes seemed like an eternity to Farrin. She wet herself, whimpering in fear, watching the tunnel roof shake, certain they were about to be buried alive. But as soon as the wild roar ceased, she immediately remembered her old man’s saying, “It’s never too late to win,” and hurried the shocked soldiers out, leading them through familiar passages.

  The journey on foot was not without its dangers. A sharp spike tore off part of Farrin’s helmet, and she froze for half a minute, hearing the squelching sound next to her as a steel beam the size of a house fell on the infantryman. This death seemed particularly absurd and stupid. He had survived only to perish in the necessary rush of their advance.

  Personally, Farrin decided to find out this guy’s name upon her return. She hadn’t even considered her own death then.

  Until they encountered him. Chernogor had driven their group as fast as possible, rushing to the ambush site, and they were still too late. Farrin considered herself an experienced raider. Over a twenty-year career, she had learned everything she could about the eastern part of her home, and together with Bahran, they had turned a dozen traps set for them by their rivals against them, gradually increasing their band to thirty men. A suspicious crack, like a rotting carcass of a cusack accidentally rolled down the mountainside, the smoking ruins of a plundered caravan—she’d seen plenty of hiding places for attackers.

  But damn, she hadn’t seen the bastard here until he opened fire! The gray walls of the pass’s mountains framed the bumpy, muddy road leading out of the Mesh, descending evenly toward the exit. The occasional brownish boulders, thrown down from the peaks by the ending storm, resembled sleeping predators awaiting prey. Farrin’s eyes saw nothing. The sonic and thermal scans from the infantry’s sensors also revealed nothing, making the former raider doubt the commander’s judgment, who had insisted on the way here that the unknown man had covered his tracks perfectly.

  A bright energy spear dispelled all Farrin’s doubts. A wide cylinder with a bluish base formed on the northern slope—coming from a hole between three boulders—and rushed south. Less than a second later, it narrowed to a thread, blazing so brightly that it left a dark spot on Farrin’s retina. She didn’t have to guess who the bastard was shooting at. Raising their weapons, the Oathtakers charged into battle, firing continuously at the snipers’ cover.

  They were lucky. Farrin realized this despite the sharp pain spreading from the hole in her left waist. The unknown sniper couldn’t use his energy rifle often. Focused on their allies’ assault on the bridge, he missed the approach of the survivors. Otherwise, they all would have perished long ago. Chernogor’s gambit had paid off.

  But their quarry turned out to be a hunter. Shots fanned out across their ranks, knocking a thrown grenade back into a grenadier’s face. Farrin rushed forward, wincing from her wound. Not bothering to roll on the ground to beat back the flames dancing somewhere on her shoulder blades, she touched the wound, thanking the Sky that her kidney was intact, and heard the sergeant’s order to take cover.

  Chernogor rushed toward the northern side of the pass, hugging the slope and firing continuously from his cannon. His shots fell in a concentrated line above the sniper, triggering a small avalanche that fell upon the advancing commander and momentarily obscured him in gray dust and rock fragments.

  The sniper didn’t panic, returning fire, forcing the rest of the infantry to seek cover behind the hummocks. To Farrin’s left, her bar buddy’s body limply slid down. A small hole gaped in the woman’s face, replacing her eye exactly where the lens had been cracked. A sticky trail of leaking brain matter trailed behind the corpse.

  Inhuman precision.

  Farrin peeked, holding her rifle out in front of her like a shield, and opened fire, showering the enemy with bullets. Flashes of yellow finally revealed him. Dressed in a shimmering gray and sand-colored camouflage cape draped over the shoulders of his light armor, the sniper crouched, calmly spraying bullets from the short-barreled automatic cannon mounted on his left wrist. He held an energy rifle in his other hand, partially obscuring it with his body. The bullet’s ricochet created sparks, illuminating his mask with its blanked lenses under his hood, a knife and grenades on his belt.

  The bastard was huge. Three meters, perhaps more. Even in full armor, their leader was half a head shorter.

  The sergeant’s leadership paid off, and their heavy fire tore holes in the sniper’s belly. Bleeding craters appeared on his shoulders. He pressed his back harder against the slope, taking cover behind a boulder. The spread of his bullets forced the soldiers to take cover.

  “Maintain suppressive fire! Grenades!” the sergeant barked, reaching for his belt.

  Who’s suppressing whom? Flashed through Farrin’s head. Her stomach clenched; she wanted to curl into a ball with fear and wait out the danger. The stitches on her hand had split from the sudden movements, but she continued to squeeze the trigger with numb fingers, not entirely sure why she was doing it.

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  This kind of end—in a confrontation with an Abnormal who was worth hundreds of Normies like her—scared the woman more than anything. Death was something expected, inevitable. Far more terrifying was helplessness. The helplessness of old age and the inability to influence the situation here.

  Her machine gun clicked, demanding bullets, and Farrin cursed, breaking free from the sticky grip of terror. She grabbed the magazine, freezing as seven grenades flew toward them from the sniper. Shouting a warning, Farrin clung to the hill, only to be blown off by the powerful explosion overhead.

  Shrapnel rained down on the infantrymen like rain, shattering joints and breaking bones. Bullets flew through the gaps in the surface, always unerringly finding their victims. Fifteen people remained alive, and Farrin no longer saw Chernogor.

  She heard a screech and turned her head toward the soldier standing in the open, pierced by three shots: one in the knee, one in the chest, and, most dangerously, a jagged wound in his neck. But not fatal. In the past, Farrin would have let the boy die without a second thought.

  Now she crashed into him, squeezing her eyes shut from the pain of her severed heel. Stupidity. Idiocy. Bahran was waiting for her, so why not shout her allegiance to the sniper, defecting like befits the weak? She didn’t know.

  Something had changed. Maybe she liked the sincere camaraderie of these strange Oathtakers. Or perhaps she’d softened, wanting to bring the children home, saving them from being sold at market, as had happened to her many years ago. Farrin hoped the real reason was the promised reward.

  Be that as it may, she shoved her rescued ally behind the nearest hummock, meeting the wild gaze of the surviving mercenary, who had done the same to another infantryman. Both forced out a chuckle, loaded their machine guns, and leaned out, ready to accept their fate.

  Kill or be killed. They still understood that motivation.

  But when she raised her eyes above the sand, an armored figure burst from under the rubble. The commander, moving jerkily and waving his arms wildly, took the first step toward the sniper, then the second, slowly raising his gun. Perhaps the avalanche he’d caused had stunned him.

  Small-caliber bullets struck him, leaving holes in his tabard but failing to penetrate the thick plates. The sniper moved, poking his waist out of cover and raising his energy weapon. A column of light linked them both in a single, thinning line, and with a sinking heart, Farrin witnessed a wide, smooth, transparent circle appear in the commander’s chest. The useless heap of iron rolled down the slope with a crash.

  They had lost.

  A plume of dust rose near the sniper, and suddenly Chernogor was beside him. Unarmored, clad in a tight jumpsuit, the smaller Abnormal instantly covered the distance between them.

  It took Farrin a full second to comprehend the crusader’s trick. In the heat of battle, he had disengaged himself from his armor, switching it to remote control, and crawled under the rocks, using his equipment as bait.

  Chernogor ducked, dodging the rifle’s bayonet, and calmly accepted the knife’s swing done with the left hand on his defenseless shoulder, anticipating the opponent’s intention to force him back so he could take aim and shoot. Simultaneously, Chernogor’s fist, wrapped in a crackling electro-whip, struck the sniper in the stomach.

  Right into the section of armor damaged by the squad. The impact of the whip’s rings pierced Chernogor’s hand. Severed fingers fell, but the old man didn’t give up, pressing his limb up to the elbow into the widening crack on the sniper’s abdomen. The giant’s hands trembled, and he dropped the weapon, dragging the knife from Chernogor’s shoulder. He raised the blade over the crusader’s head as the latter twisted his arm, tearing the raider’s entrails and driving the slashing, electrocuting whip into the enemy’s stomach.

  Without uttering a word, the sniper dropped backward, dragging Chernogor, who was twitching from the electric shock, with him. Together, they fell out of the mountain pass, ending this brief, deadly ambush.

  The surviving infantrymen were just emerging from their covers when Farrin crawled toward the wounded man she’d rescued, staunching his bleeding with her sole working arm and the supplies from the first aid kit. Her other arm refused to bend, but anyone who’d lived in lawless lands knew that if you survived, you had to keep moving, solving immediate problems before the next one arose. The soldier nodded gratefully, offering to treat the wet injury on her waist, and Farrin agreed.

  “Think he’s finished?” asked the mercenary sprawled nearby, weeping tears of blood, while another infantryman used tweezers to remove a grenade fragment that had pierced his helmet lenses.

  “You mean the sniper?” asked the stunned soldier.

  “He’s dead, you idiot! You can’t survive a wound like that. You,” Farrin croaked, licking her chapped lips. “Find the sergeant. If he’s gone, loot all valuables from the corpses and post lookouts.”

  “Robbing fallen comrades is dishonorable.” The soldier slapped his helmet, suffering from a concussion.

  “They don’t care anymore, and the medicine will help the injured. Do as I say, or they’ll kick your ass in the afterlife, and I’ll help hold you down. Cover the bodies with rocks,” she said finally, softening. “Don’t waste your efforts on a proper burial ground; our men will probably come back for them.” Exhausted, she fell to the ground, her hand groping for a bush torn out by the explosion. Sad. “No, he’s alive,” she replied to the mercenary. “Men like him don’t just die; I’d bet a month’s salary on that.”

  “You said our men,” the mercenary remarked.

  “Yes. Guess so,” Farrin confirmed. “Are you planning on enlisting later?”

  “No, I’m just lying here, enjoying the wonderful sun and scenery,” the former raider replied sarcastically, gasping at the infantryman’s sudden movement. The shard, covered in the remains of an eye, had popped out of the lens. “I’ll join the service. It’s nice not to have to worry about getting shot in the back. Stop! I’m the one who’s blind in one eye, not you. His vein got hit.” The man slid to his knees and, using his hands to stand up, hobbled over to the infantryman tending to the injured.

  No need to worry about getting shot in the back. Blood trickled from Farrin’s nostril, dripping into her mouth. She enjoyed being one with the crowd that had rushed after the kidnappers in Rabor. There was a certain sincerity there, usually absent from large raids, where powerful leaders constantly squeezed out the juiciest pieces for themselves, silencing any complaints with barely veiled threats.

  But here... The Crusaders, the Oathtakers, had deceived none of them yet. Butylin had honestly given them their options, ranging from a bullet to the head in case of an attempted betrayal to an honest confession and a reduced prison sentence, or freedom if their sins were deemed less serious or they proved useful. Farrin chose to continue collaborating, knowing about some of Bahran’s exploits. Nothing serious, just escorting smugglers delivering drugs to countries in the west, but she felt it was better to spare her beloved the slightest prison sentence.

  Their gang hadn’t been involved in slave trading or raiding other countries. They were too weak.

  The fact that their current allies hadn’t killed Farrin as a weak link gave her confidence in her decision. She wasn’t dumb; integrating into civilization shouldn’t be that difficult.

  “Regarding civilization,” she said, looking in surprise at the soldier tending to her numb arm. When had he managed to remove her sleeve?

  “Water?” The infantryman thrust the neck of the canteen between her lips. “You’re delusional.”

  “I’m perfectly fine!” She bristled. My, how wonderfully beautiful plain water was...

  “Then what’s with your arm?”

  “A cut,” Farrin said, finishing drinking. “How are we going to get back?”

  “On foot,” the infantryman smiled knowingly.

  “Fuck,” Farrin cursed. She was beginning to miss the soft bed in the hospital bay. “Find Chernogor. And that bastard’s gun. It’s probably worth something. We’ll split the sum between us all.”

  “Looting is punishable by law,” the soldier replied automatically and paused, thinking. “Scientists would probably appreciate such a find.”

  “Clever lad. You’re learning. Search for profit in everything,” Farrin coughed.

  I wonder if it’s possible to turn appreciation into cash?