Tara stared up at Jythorne. It was happening fast, but to her eyes, it was slower than creeping. Jythorne had turned the sword in his hands, pointing the deadly tip downward, beneath him, to where she lay. She felt her muscles—suit and flesh—shuddering to act, to prevent this exclamation point on her life. But the weight of his foot was enough to trap her, beaten as she was, for the heartbeat it would take for the sword to make its descent, the last descent, the last anything she would ever see or feel.

  The sword was inevitable to her eyes. There was fear, panic, regret—a tsunami of terrible feelings she had never wanted to feel. But somewhere in there was relief as well. It wasn’t a large component of the collage of roiling emotions she felt, but she couldn’t fail to notice it. This would bring peace, bring an end to the good and the bad.

  ***

  Okay, so I’ve employed a certain amount of dramatic freedom. I wasn’t there, I wasn’t in their minds. But what I’ve said to this point can stand, I think. It surely represents a good enough portrait of the events that had led to the moment.

  How could I know about her feelings? Is that taking my assumptions a bit too far? Maybe. We’ll see. I’ve got more to tell on that part of the story.

  To the action. To the part I can speak about with firsthand knowledge.

  ***

  Jythorne’s sword was descending, Tara’s last instance on this earth dwindling to a nothingness. Then there was an explosion. A gargantuan boom of kinetic energy. The wave of energy rushed over her like a violent wind. Jythorne and his sword of finality had been above her one instant, in the next he had been snapped away from her on a surge of power.

  Her eyes snapped to the source of the energy. Beneath her visor, they must have gone wide in confusion, in wonder.

  “Chowwick?…”

  Above her stood the Shield of Boston. His armor shone in the bright light that bounced from sky to snow to his hulking form. He stood as a Shield would—strong, imposing, and most importantly, protecting. It would take death to remove him from his defensive stance above her. As she watched, still not understanding, he stepped over her, placing himself between her and the recovering Jythorne.

  At the same instant, I arrived from the opposite side of the open space. Jythorne’s sudden rendezvous with the hard frozen earth had taken Bonefrost’s attention. He still stood above Magneblade, his shield still poised to end the life of what might already have been a dying man.

  The distraction was the only moment I needed. BEAM rushed before me as I charged the men. My BEAM found its mark, slamming into the turned head of Bonefrost. His head snapped away, the force of the blow pulling his body with it. His feet danced drunkenly as he spun from the unexpected blow, no SHIELD activating to deflect it.

  Snowfang, to his credit, wasted not a moment in responding. He came right at me, an Axe pursuing his favorite prey. I think he was more elated than shocked by my appearance. A lone Sword was easy meat for an Axe.

  But the excitement robbed him of the opportunity to think. This Sword was one known to carry the power of Axe-break. The suddenness of my appearance, the shock of the action—it propelled him forward without thinking. I activated the skill, the fire of my sword making the snow glow in reflected brilliance. He saw his folly a moment too late. His headlong charge couldn’t be arrested. His feet skidded in the snow, his arms flailed. The full furious energy of Axe-break took him center mass.

  The release of energy was staggering. I felt my own feet flounder for purchase as the recoil surged through me. A singularity of light expanded in a blink, light and terrible forces punching out. Shards of armor flew as Snowfang’s form was lifted, cast into the air. He arced into the sky, rising twenty feet, smoke and sparks trailing him like a comet as his shattered suit tumbled away. He hit hard, the snow exploding in a cloud of obscuring whiteness, sliding over the edge of the slope beyond him, out of sight.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Bonefrost had found his feet. He was dazed from the BEAM to the head, but he came at me. I braced myself, momentarily exhausted from the expenditure of energy. Bonefrost was a wall, a mountain of anger and violence as he charged me. I could see Jythorne springing to his feet beyond Bonefrost, leaping toward his attacker.

  I needed to be there, to help. But Bonefrost couldn’t be ignored.

  The charging Shield suddenly staggered, tumbling forward, his feet tangled. I saw the haft of Magneblade’s axe between his feet. The wounded Axe wouldn’t be denied the chance to influence the final moments of the fight. Even as I brought my sword up to strike the stumbling Bonefrost, I felt my breath hitch. The snow around Magneblade was an eternity of scarlet. There was so much blood soaking through and melting the pristine snow around him that it was unfathomable to believe Magneblade was still alive, let alone capable of moving.

  With greater urgency, I delivered my CUT, again to Bonefrost’s head. He’d stumbled forward, leading his fall with his skull, and the blow connected. His helm cracked, gas and light hissing and leaking forth. The blow cast him aside. He collapsed in the snow. He immediately tried to rise, and I felt he would before long, but the blow removed him long enough.

  Jythorne struck the Shield suit that stood between him and his prey. Ready this time, Jythorne was composed. His CUT nearly ripped the shield from his opponent’s grip. I watched with panic as he CUT again, staggering his enemy. I took a step, but with the knowledge I was exposing my back to Bonefrost. Tara was gaining her feet. I did the math. I thought of Magneblade.

  I fired BEAM at Jythorne. The blow struck him glancingly as he lunged once more. He leapt back, turning, taking in the scene. He could see Bonefrost shakily rising. He could not see Snowfang at all. He was a veteran and a leader. The equation here was not difficult to solve.

  I shouted, urgency touching my voice, “Enough, Jythorne, enough. I’d like to finish you, but with my friend bleeding, I’d like it even more if you were gone. Take yourself and your battered comrades away from here. I call reprieve. It’s you and a concussed Shield against three of us.”

  Jythorne’s gaze traveled to Magneblade. He could see the source of my urgency. “Your Shield is hardly better. I don’t know if I’d call you three. He’s like a day-old calf trying to find his feet.”

  My visor blazed, my emotion igniting the light, and I heard a steel in my voice that surprised even me. “It won’t take three of us to take your head, Jythorne. You can wait for Magneblade to bleed out if you want, but if that happens, I’ll have no reason not to drive the tip of my sword into your black little heart.”

  The venom and anger that colored my words seemed to reach him. His posture changed. His shoulders sank. The air went out of him like a punctured lung.

  “We’ll have you yet, commoner. You and that bitch.”

  He pointed his sword at Tara. She stood now, one shoulder low and sagging.

  I growled at him. “I wouldn’t want you to feel any other way. It will be so much easier to kill you if you come to me.”

  Jythorne wrestled for words.

  I said, “The clock’s ticking, Jythorne. Maybe it would be faster to take your head than to parlay.”

  Maybe my words moved him, maybe he could see that the reprieve’s expiration date was bound to Magneblade’s dwindling lifespan. Whatever the case, the Sword of Buffalo moved suddenly, gesturing for Bonefrost to follow him. They moved swiftly to where Snowfang lay, and Bonefrost lifted him in his huge arms. Jythorne spared me one further vicious glance, and then the Footfield glow consumed them, and they were gone, bolting away.

  There wasn’t time for a moment. It came nonetheless, an instant of freeze. The three of us stood watching our enemies disappear into the distance. Tara’s head went to Magneblade, but it was drawn back to the Shield who had saved her life. She wanted to ask, wanted to understand. But there wasn’t time.

  She sped to Magneblade’s bleeding form, converging with me as I knelt by him.

  The blood was everywhere, and still coming. His hand clutched the wound, but the deep dark red gushed in pulses between his fingers.

  Tara’s voice was stricken, aghast. “He’s bleeding out. There’s no suit there. It could stop the bleeding if it wasn’t so damaged, but it’s been ripped away.”

  I heard my own voice choking, “There must be something we can do! Can we give him our own suits? Or part of them? Oracle’s sake, there must be something. We’re gods, Tara, how can we be standing here so powerless?”

  Her hands were shaking as she added her own hands to Magneblade’s, pressing on the wound. The blood made it all so slick, her fingers slipped as she pushed down. And still, the blood came, slower as his heart began to fail.

  It pulsed, scarlet roots growing out around her hand, between her fingers. Each pulse weaker than the last.

  “No,” I heard myself whisper. “Not another, so soon. Not like this.”