His whole body trembled with helpless desire, shuddered like a thoroughbred, and strained like a hound ready to be loosed from the leash. Had he not already been lying on his back, he surely would have collapsed.

Despite the chill night air on his half-naked body, the soldier felt uncomfortably warm. Part of his mind, looking for any escape from his predicament, noted how very black was the gulf between the stars.

Sharp lacquered fingernails traced delicate arcane designs in the hair beneath his navel. “This is what you’ve been waiting for these last few years, isn’t it?” she said in a knowing voice. “You deserve a more… personal acknowledgment of your loyalty.”

The sergeant pulled his eyes away from the sky to hazard a look down the length of his torso. The face that met his gaze was Victoria’s—Captain Haley’s—but the voice, the voice was something utterly different, sultry and indulgent like black satin and leather. His mind buzzed with sensation, reeled with conflicting emotions, and no words would come. His head flopped helplessly back to the ground. The smell of dewy earth warred in his nostrils with her scent.

“You like this, don’t you?” A pause. “Hmmm?” she added in a throaty purr.

He gasped and arched his back. “Yes,” he panted.

“Just tell me, and I’ll finish.” she said.

“Westwatch,” he gasped helplessly. “We’re going to Westwatch.”

He closed his eyes in pleasure and regret as she started to move with his reward.

* * * * *

The first sign of trouble came when a haystack convulsed and spewed out a thick wad of pungent mucus. The odious spray arced through the air and struck a Cygnaran soldier squarely on the cheek, and within the span of a few panicked breaths he lay dying on the field. His face and one eye dissolved away to expose his melting brain to the setting sun.

The haystack erupted as a horde of mechanithralls boiled out of it like ants from a damaged hill.

At the center of a skirmish line comprised of two full squads of Long Gunners, Captain Victoria Haley gasped. “Ambush!” she yelled, passing one hand slowly in front of her in an incantation of warding.

The line of Long Gunners erupted with blasting-powder explosions that sent heavy lead bullets to strike the shambling creatures approaching. Elsewhere around the Cygnarans other haystacks likewise yielded the undead abominations lurking within them.

“Bloody boots!” yelled one of the sergeants. “The farm’s a bumper of Crynks!”

The thralls surged forward, mindlessly intent on killing their prey. At least the Cygnarans preferred to think of them as mindless. To have a normal brain twisted and warped so grotesquely that a friend’s mind would gleefully turn on his comrades for all eternity was a fate too horrible to consider.

Haley’s instincts turned her around, and she saw even more thralls surging from the rear. They were surrounded. Drawing upon her arcane training, she unleashed several waves of massive electric blasts, ripped huge holes in the approaching forces, and opened a means of escape.

She glanced over her left shoulder. Forgelock bullets tore livid, gushing holes in the bile thralls that had launched the first shots, and several other Long Gunners put inch-wide chunks of lead through key anatomical locations of several of the charging mechanithralls. Then the Cryxian monstrosities reached the gunners.

A bane thrall, easily a foot and a half taller than anything else she had seen, charged directly toward Captain Haley. It was clad in ancient plate and bore aloft a huge axe that reminded her of her father’s. Its venomous glowing eyes were the only part of the thrall that could be seen clearly through the darkness it wore like a shroud. With every heavy clanking step, darkness sifted its way out of every armored seam like black dust shucking off a moving warjack. The cloud of darkness roiled around the beast like a sentient thunderhead.

She was unready. Her back was toward the bane thrall, and her spear was out of position gripped only in her off hand.

The bane thrall raised its massive axe for a brutal strike. She had no time to raise her spear for a parry.

Instead she took a lesson from her former instructor, now a comrade, Allister Caine. Her stance concealed her right arm behind her. In one fluid motion she drew her hand cannon, cocked the striker with her thumb, whipped the pistol up, and fired.

The massive projectile struck the undead creature square in the forehead, sending its old-fashioned helmet spinning into the evening sky and shattering its skull. It fell backwards with its legs still pumping.

Then it got back up.

Ichor and rotting gray matter dripped from the wreckage that had once been its brainpan. The impact of the augmented bullet had blown a hole clean through the skull as well as removed the top of the cranium, leaving enough of the sides to make its head look like the food trough of a corrupted pigsty. Its eyes still glowed with a malevolent blaze.

With its right hand, the bane thrall pulled a stringy gobbet from in front of one eye.

Haley curled her lip. “Well, that’s disgusting,” she muttered.

The bane thrall stepped forward, and its huge stride closed the gap as it swung its axe. Haley parried with the iron haft of her Vortex Spear, and her arms trembled with the power of its blow. She feinted with the haft and head of her spear to gauge the creature’s experience and reflexes. Although it was far faster than she would have expected from something long dead, it apparently had little in the way of experience. Instead it relied heavily on its size and weight to protect it.

As they sparred, the ill-tasting darkness that wafted from the abomination’s every crevice began to swirl around Haley, drying her throat and tickling it with maddening itches. Fearful that the distraction could spell her doom, Haley put a quick plan into action. She feinted to her right, leaving herself open. The bane thrall swung for her and exposed its own right side. Haley quickly spun, knocked the creature’s elbow aside with the butt of her spear, and spoiled its aim. As she came around, she thrust her spear’s blade into her foe. She felt the alchemically treated blade puncture the thrall’s armor as it drove its way in, then she poured her spirit into the electromechanikal generator concealed within the weapon’s head. Pressed by her soul, the generator surged with pure energy, and released it into the cursed and contaminated body of the bane thrall. There was a violent hum as the power intensified, then the bane thrall’s torso exploded in a noisome blast of burgundy blood and pallid flesh.

Haley staggered back retching and wiping away the wet goo that spattered her face. As the parts of the animate corpse tumbled to their final repose, Haley realized the sound of sporadic gunfire had abated. Worried, she glanced quickly right and left and saw many of her devoted Long Gunners engaged in close combat with twice their number of thralls.

She knew they were no match. Long Gunners bore only the lightest armor so they could move quickly about the battlefield, slide rapidly to a key position, and just as rapidly abandon it when the enemy drew too close. Their handcrafted wheel loaders were balanced for long-range shooting, not melee, and the short swords they traditionally carried as a side weapon would avail them little against a foe that did not bleed.

Desperate to save her command, she closed her eyes and reached out with her soul for every Cygnaran she could reach. The fervor with which she stretched her soul was excruciating; it felt like she was dislocating herself and rending the ligaments that bound her brain together. She briefly touched the hearts of her command and imbued just a little bit of herself into them: a touch of her skill, a patina of her magic, a thought propelled by the warcaster’s urgency. She prayed that it might be enough.

“Strike!” she screamed. Her voice was empowered by the agony within her.

As one, her remaining troops leapt to the attack. Their movements slipped through time just a little faster than was normal, and they handled their long guns like veteran pikemen. Across the field, their movements were coordinated into a whole; they tore gaps in the lines of the attacking thralls and gathered themselves into cohesive and organized groups.

Haley staggered with the exertion. Then with a primal roar, she suppressed her pain and exhaustion and launched herself at the nearest thralls. The furnace on the back of her warcaster armor hissed at full power, wreathing her in an arcane protective shield as her vortex spear, ablaze with actinic light, thrust and sliced through armor, bone, and rotting flesh alike.

No longer beset on all sides, the Long Gunners in the center of each small group unleashed deadly shots from their wheel loaders to spatter the vitals of other thralls across the landscape. With every fallen thrall, another gunner was free to employ his wheel loader as a gunner should, and within a few moments the ambush had been destroyed.

Haley looked about the farm field. Twisted corpses ruined by necrotechnology lay scattered about finally receiving the rest their distant deaths should have earned. Amid the wreckage of their bodies lay over half of her command. Some were mortally wounded, some twitched as their nerves fought futilely against their death, and some were torn asunder by the terrible claws of the thralls.

“Sergeants!” bellowed Haley. “Front and center!”

One sergeant immediately hustled over to her and saluted, ignoring the nasty gash across his arm.

“Where’s the other sergeant?” asked Haley.

As if in answer, a cry of mourning carried across the field. “Captain Haley… I must—” The cry was cut of by a fit of coughing.

“That sounded like ’im,” said the sergeant. He dropped the salute to point across the field. “Them there soldiers is tendin’ to ’im, I’d wager.”

Haley turned and looked. Two soldiers flanked a third who lay badly wounded on the ground. His head was propped up on his haversack. The wounded soldier raised an imploring arm toward Haley, and she saw a sergeant’s gullwings on his sleeve. “Lady…” he gasped, and his arm dropped.

Haley trotted over, the arcane effects of the warcaster armor making her gait smooth and even despite the fact she bore well over a hundred pounds of mechanikal iron plating. She knelt by the man. Gaping wounds in his chest and abdomen oozed blood; his life had run out minutes ago, and it was only through sheer will that he yet breathed. She caressed his cheek with one armored gauntlet. “I’m here, Sergeant,” she said.

“The warwitch,” he gasped. “Forgive me, Captain… I couldn’t resist.”

“What do you mean?” asked Haley. “Resist what?

He coughed, and blood spattered those gathered around. “She… made me… made—” he winced and moaned. “The warwitch… I told her… our movements. It… was… a trap.”

Anger at the betrayal surged into Haley’s mind, yet was the dying sergeant even to blame? Haley knew full well the power a warcaster could have, especially a vile amoral villain like Deneghra. Slipping through the darkness, she could ensnare just about anyone she pleased.

She looked anew at the veteran soldier. The wounds that scourged his body were not the badges of a coward. Despite his betrayal, he had remained with his people. More so, he had fought hard, sacrificing himself to atone for his weakness and to save his troops from his failing. Here in his final moments, despite whatever geases with which Deneghra had shackled him, he had done his duty and given his commander the name of her foe.

“You fought well, soldier,” said Haley gently yet with a commanding overtone that allowed no dissent to her words. “Rest ye in honor and peace.”

“Wait!” he gasped. More bloody coughs wracked his body. He sagged as his body lay bereft of energy save for his eyes, which burned with urgency. One hand flailed up to grip her iron-clad forearm. “She… she claims… she is… your sister…” The last word faded from a mere whisper to the last rattle of a dead man as his hand softened its grip and slid from her bracer, leaving four smears of blood in its wake.

Haley rose, staring in shock at the trooper’s eyes. His dilated eyes stared into infinity, but the insistent look locked on his face brooked no doubt his words were Morrow’s own truth.

Staggering back, Haley looked around, but her eyes saw nothing. Her mind was turned inward, replaying the nightmare shadows of the past and tying those visions to the tribulations of this day.

Her sister? After all these years, Gloria is yet alive but turned to the will of Toruk? Could that happy little girl have been molded and shaped by Cryx into the reviled warwitch Deneghra?

“No,” murmured Haley shaking her head in disbelief. “It can’t be. She wouldn’t, not ever. She wouldn’t betray Poppa that way. She said that just to toy with him, to torment me… it has to be a trick…”

Unwilling to explore those dark possibilities further, Haley snapped herself from her reverie and scanned the field.

“Form up!” she bellowed. Her troops, already having gathered close, ordered themselves rapidly. “Deneghra is out there somewhere,” she said. “This trap was hers. That means we have more trouble headed our way. Burn the dead quickly, for we make for Kesselgate before the trap’s other jaw springs. Now move!”

Steeling themselves to the grisly task, the Cygnarans looted the ammo and forgelocks from the dead, quickly stacked the corpses into piles intermixed with hay, and set the lot afire. Within minutes they had formed up and were force-marching to Kesselgate five long leagues away.

As their lead scout crested a rise, he saw a veritable legion of thralls awaiting them in the next vale. They turned and began making for Westwatch as fast as they could, for anything was better than trying to hide from the forces of Cryx at night.

A shadow lurched at the top of the rise silhouetted against the nighttime sky. A Cygnaran Long Gunner raised his forgelock and took careful aim, sighting on the area between the undead creature’s glowing eyes.

A hand gently gripped his shoulder. “Stand down, soldier,” said Captain Haley. “They haven’t sniffed us out yet. Don’t give our position away.”

With a long tense sigh, the soldier slowly lowered his weapon.

Haley patted his shoulder gently. “Easy, now. If they don’t find us by sunup, we’ll be fat and happy. If not, I don’t think plugging one thrall will avail us much.”

The surviving Cygnarans had been run to ground a mere league from Westwatch. Two stragglers had been overtaken, and as they discharged their weapons, Haley knew heir small column had been located. Rolling hills made up this portion of Cygnar, and scattered farms and groves of trees broke apart the tall grassy landscape. They had been able to use the terrain to find some shelter, and they hunkered now in an abandoned farmhouse. No lights or fires gave away their position. The soldiers concealed themselves carefully, wary that Cryxian eyes might better pierce the unwelcome darkness than did the eyes of the living.

“Captain,” whispered the soldier. “Do ye reckon they’re still huntin’, or have they sniffed us out and are gathering up?”

A general shifting of troopers indicted everyone’s thoughts had been running along the same vein.

“Truly I tell you I don’t know, soldier,” said Haley. “On the other hand, I don’t see that it makes a nit of difference.”

The soldier smiled grimly. “Fair enough.”

The remaining hours of the night passed as slowly as a smothering nightmare. The troops dared not pace, dared not speak, and dared hardly even to breathe lest the noise attract the attention from the groaning, howling things stalking the darkness.

As the sky began to lighten with the promise of the coming day, it illuminated an unwanted sight: hordes of misshapen silhouettes rising all around the farmhouse.

“Well, boys,” muttered the sergeant, “I guess that answers our question, don’t it?”

“Prepare for volley fire, lads,” said Captain Haley. “If we can make enough of a ruckus, it’ll attract the attention of the regiment in Westwatch. You can bet your arses that Coleman will come at the double if there’s promise of a scrum.”

A round of dark chuckles ran through the derelict farmhouse.

“Looks like bile thralls over here, Captain,” said a soldier.

“Right. Everyone to the east wall then.”

Jackbooted feet quickly scuffed across the wooden floor.

Haley drew her hand cannon and held it at the ready, casting enchantments to aid her soldiers’ aim. “Volley fire. Ready…” She aimed her handgun. “Fire!”

Seven Cygnaran firearms loosed their deadly bullets and dropped several of the vile creatures.

“Fire!”

Several more fell.

“Fire! Now quick, lads, to the north wall!”

The exhausted troops ran to the north wall and saw a large pack of thralls in the open moving as quickly as they could to the dilapidated house.

“Ready, fire!” ordered Haley. She watched in satisfaction as a large knot of thralls collapsed as heavy Cygnaran missiles ripped through their ranks. “South wall! Move!”

They played cat-and-mouse with the advancing Cryxian thralls, but for a change the cat lay in the center smiting the approaching mice with volley after volley of large-bore lead shot with magically enhanced aim. After several squads of thralls had been decimated by these maneuvers, Haley realized there was no way her fatigued troops could maintain that level of exertion. They’d marched all day in search of the Cryxians, been ambushed and lost half their number, then forced-marched all night trying to evade Deneghra’s dragnet of walking dead. Each time she ordered her troops to volley fire from a different wall, their reactions were slower, the loading sloppier, and the steps more stumbling.

Fortunately, the Cryxians paused in their assault to spread themselves out, making themselves ineffective targets for volley fire. During this brief respite, Haley ordered her tired soldiers to key firing positions around the house and gave the order to fire at will.

Feeling no weariness, the Cryxian hordes advanced again. Slowly their lead thralls drew closer and closer to the farmhouse; when one thrall fell, the next was able to take several more steps toward the Cygnaran farmhouse before the next gunshot hit. Bile thralls began bombarding the defenders with their caustic sludge. A few soldiers were slain outright while the misses spattered the immediate area to cause painful and distracting burns. Haley ran from wall to wall launching a wave of magical lightning whenever the thralls drew close, but ultimately she too began to flag from exhaustion.

Then after what seemed like days of desperate fighting, the first thralls reached the walls of the dilapidated house.

Their arrival was heralded by the scream of a soldier abruptly cut off as a heavy axe clove his skull in twain. The bane thrall forced its way through the window, and the soldiers nearest turned to engage even as Haley ordered them to stand fast and fire. One fell to the bane thrall’s brutal assault before she slew the wicked beast, but the loss of three rifles along that side of the farmhouse, even for the scant minute they fought the thrall, meant the forces of Cryx could no longer be stopped in their approach.

It’s like being part of a crumbling dam, Haley thought as she fought against the growing hordes. One by one her companions fell around her, giving their lives to save their captain. Despite the brightness of the growing day, Haley’s world dimmed with each death.

This is it, she thought. I can’t kill them all. She shook her head in self-reproach. I was a fool to make this march without warjacks.

Then a new volley sounded across the farm fields—the air-rending crack of a dozen storm glaives unleashing a wave of raw electrical power into the Cryxian throngs. The massive thunderclap was immediately followed by the basso thump of heavy cannons. The Cryxian thralls faltered, torn between the immediate task of killing Haley and the greater threat of the Cygnaran reinforcements.

With those noises, Haley felt a glimmer of true hope. She could sense the humming of warjack cortices at the periphery of her second sight. She heard more thumps, and then heavy shells started dropping all about the farmhouse thundering the air, shaking the earth, and causing dust and splinters to fall from the walls and roof.

“Damnit, Coleman!” she yelled over the din. She cast a combat incantation and poured her soul into the warcaster armor to bolster its protective effects. “We’re still in here!”

The farmhouse erupted in fire and shrapnel. Despite her protection, the concussion knocked her into a wall, which shattered with the impact of her armored body. Splinters of wood, twisted shards of metal, and parts of bodies both fresh and decrepit flew through the air. She felt the mechanikal field about her sputter and flicker as it stood against the explosion.

She tried to pick herself up but only managed to push herself to her hands and knees. Her armor seemed heavy, and steam whistled angrily from a small hole in the boiler on the back of her custom-built armor. She glanced about for her Vortex Spear hoping to use it as a crutch, but before she located it the building collapsed utterly.

* * * * *

Commander Coleman Stryker bounded across the blackened field of twitching, hissing, oozing, and stinking wreckage surrounding the lone farmhouse. Firing so close to the farmhouse had been a calculated risk but a necessary one to wipe out the hordes of thralls that had teemed like beetles all about. His heart dared not beat until he could discover whether Haley was living or dead.

The main body of thralls had turned from the farm to engage the Cygnaran reinforcements from Westwatch. Seeing that his troops were doing just fine without him, he felt no qualms about abandoning his position to search for Haley.

He would have done it no matter the situation; Haley was a precious jewel regardless of how she perceived the innate worthiness of her own inner soul.

The few thralls lingering near the farmhouse withdrew before him, wisely conserving their existence for another day. Thralls knew better than to waste themselves without adequate numbers, and a fresh Cygnaran warcaster was well beyond their capability.

Coleman clambered onto the slanting wreckage of the house and began digging down. His high-powered warcaster armor enabled him to throw even sizeable walls aside with relative ease. Toward the thralls, of course—there was no sense in wasting projectiles.

He saw a hand clad in the gauntlet of warcaster armor. Haley’s. With a growl he lifted the spine of the house’s roof and pushed it aside to reveal more of her. He knelt beside her, pulled back her hood, and gently drew her tousled hair out of her face.

“Haley?” he asked none too quietly. “Victoria!”

“Are you standing on me or somethin’, Coleman?” she grumbled, her voice sluggish. “Get your manky feet off me!”

“T’ain’t me,” he answered, “though it’s about the whole house. Hang on, I’ll get you loose.”

Another minute’s effort freed her entirely from the wreckage.

“Your boiler’s knackered, mucker,” he said. “Hang tight.” He deftly worked the bolts that held her armor together, lifting the heavy plating from her torso.

“Ta,” she said. “I can breathe again.”

“Think I give a toss?” said Coleman with a wry grin. “I just don’t want to misplace any of this priceless mechstuff.” He leaned the ruined back plate and boiler against the jagged edges of a wall.

“Sod off.” She started to push herself up, leaving the front half of her armor on the ground.

Coleman looked back at his troops handily pushing the Cryxians back. “Looks like the dregs are throwing coat. Listen, I’m going with the troops to help wipe them Crynks all out, right? Don’t want any getting away. You’re okay?”

Haley sat up and nodded slowly. “Sure. No bleeders, no broken bones.” She sighed and winced. “Right, maybe a cracked rib or two, but I’m solid.”

“Good.” Coleman clapped a mailed hand on her shoulder. “You rest easy. We’ll be back for you.”

* * * * *

Deneghra glided along the landscape like a panther. Her hips moved sinuously, and her barbed spear lashed back and forth like a stiffened tail.

She squinted against the morning sun, her lip curling into a snarl. She hated the sunlight. It sent heat, revealed secrets, burned skin, and banished fear. Warm, dry air was so much harder to breathe that she sometimes wished she were undead, but she had to see what had happened. She had to find out for herself.

The wreckage of scores and scores of thralls lay on the field as an ugly harvest of the Cygnaran rifles. Even though they were her thralls, she was still pleased with the sight; she reveled in all destruction. Her remaining thralls fled toward the coast, following her final command and enticing Coleman’s soldiers to pursue.

As she approached the center of the carnage, she saw a solitary figure in the wreckage of an old farmhouse. The features were invisible in the daytime glare. Still, Deneghra had a sense…

As she drew closer, she saw it was indeed the warcaster called Haley. The figure sat resembling as a picture of dejection and exhaustion. Her head hung low, and her lank hair dangled like a weeping willow. She wore no armor and held the haft of her spear in one limp hand. Deneghra did not understand why the death of those weaker than her would drain the morale of a warcaster; was that not the purpose of a warcaster: to kill the weak? Deneghra looked around. The bloody and bluish skin of the dead made her more excited and energized.

“Well now, Haley,” said Deneghra moving into striking distance. “It seems I finally have you where I want you.”

Haley nodded slowly.

Deneghra reached for one of the soul cages at her waist. Specially prepared for this moment, it was carefully crafted to capture the soul of a specific warcaster. She brought it around and hooked it to the front of her belt. “You can make this easy on yourself,” she said as she adjusted the malevolent device, “but I must admit I hope you don’t.”

In a flash Victoria surged from her seat, snatched up her heavy spear, and lunged straight for Deneghra’s neck.

With her head turned, Deneghra reacted too late. The heavy spear point struck her at the bridge of the nose, carving a deep slash into her forehead and flipping her horned helmet from her head. Her head snapped back and she caught a glimpse of Haley spinning, then the heavy haft struck her full on the temple. There was a flash of white, and she stumbled to her hands and knees.

“My sister, huh?” Haley snorted. “What a bloody barrowful!”

“But Vickie,” began Deneghra.

“No stroppy dreg of Cryx can even speak of my sister. Die, wench!”

For the first time in her life—that portion of her life not forever locked away from her memory—Deneghra felt fear.

“Please don’t kill me,” she pleaded. Born of desperation, a lone small bubble of memory trickled to the surface of her shrouded brain.

Haley raised her spear for the killing blow.

“Please don’t, Sissy…”

Haley faltered.

Deneghra burst into action. Taking advantage of the way her vile armor enhanced her strength and agility, she tumbled away from Haley and bounced back to her feet well out of striking distance.

Haley closed, but her heavy spear slowly sagged in her grasp. She shook her head uncertainly. “Gloria…?” she whispered. Her eyes crinkled in conflicting emotion.

Deneghra chuckled and quickly wove one of the many dark incantations she had learned from the iron lich Asphyxious. She opened her mouth and licked her lips, and a shadow of black erupted from her tongue. It weaved toward Haley like a water snake, then lunged forward and latched onto her umbilicus.

Haley screamed and doubled over, dropping the spear.

Deneghra stood tall, breathing in and swallowing as her shadowy black tongue grew darker and darker. Haley gasped clutching her belly, and the blood drained from her face. She began to sweat and collapsed to her knees.

Deneghra stepped forward using her spear Sliver to flip Haley’s spear well out of reach. She snapped a roundhouse kick at Haley’s face, breaking her jaw with the mechanikal power of the blow. She raised Sliver and brutally smashed Haley’s chest with the butt end of the weapon, breaking ribs and puncturing a lung. Even as Deneghra pulled Sliver away, Haley’s very shadow reached up to bind her to the earth.

“That’s better,” she said as she waved the pulsating sorcerous tongue into nonexistence. She raised the special soul cage and poured her arcane energy out to activate it, whispering profane words of power in some inhuman tongue.

“I’ve worked long and hard on this, sister,” she said as the soul cage began to pulsate with greenish black shadows. “It’s designed expressly for your soul. It takes so much work; I hope you appreciate the effort I’ve gone to.”

Haley tried to spit at the warwitch, but the spittle failed to clear her chin.

“Don’t be so petty. Soul cages to snare anyone who happens to die close at hand, those are easy to make. But one keyed to a specific soul, those are difficult.” She knelt down beside Haley. “But they do offer one significant advantage: I can harvest you while you’re still alive, just to ensure I don’t miss a scrap.”

She loosened the intake valve. The mechanikal device began to gasp horribly. “You see, my dear twin sister, you should never have been. Somehow you came to be in the womb with me, and in so doing you stole half of my power. Now I want it back. All of it.”

She loosened the intake valve another half turn.

“Bye-bye.”

Deneghra loosened the valve another full turn, and Haley cried out in anguish.

The warwitch laughed with glee and anticipation as Haley writhed in torment, struggling futilely against the cold, shadowy bonds holding her in place. Then Deneghra’s enjoyment faded, and concern clouded her brow. She felt a tugging at her insides, and her heightened witch’s senses warned her she was in dire peril, fast approaching the black chasm of death.

She looked down at the soul cage. The interior had begun to glow with a mixture of gold and purple light. She clutched at the iron surface heating up with its wicked activity. “No…” she murmured.

The pain grew. She saw the approaching void opening wider to swallow her whole. “No!” With one hand she raised Sliver to strike Haley dead, but in her heart she knew she would not have enough time. Her strength was ebbing too rapidly.

“NOOOOOOOO!” she wailed and drove the spear as hard as she could into the soul-sucking mechanikal cage. Sliver pierced the exterior, but the baleful thing resisted. Deneghra leaned everything she had into the blow, twisting the cage with her other hand to work her spear into it.

At last the mechanikal circles gave way, and the enchantment failed. With a strange gasping sound, the soul cage gave up the two halves of the soul it had been so hungrily devouring.

With a snap that trembled her insides from her toes to her brain, Deneghra’s soul returned to her body. She collapsed backwards, and her eyes squinted against the glaring bright sky. Slowly, agonizingly, yet with a great sense of relief, she rolled back to her hands and knees.

Her ears rang, throbbing like the piston legs of a warjack.

Deneghra raised her head and saw that the thrumming came from more than her ears. Coleman was rapidly closing with a trio of Defenders running at his heels. He was coming to save Haley.

Too shaken even to consider fighting another warcaster, Deneghra flew her hands into ritual arcane shapes and became as a spirit, incorporeal, a shadow of her normal self. No longer encumbered by her body or armor, she fled the area leaving her foe sobbing openly in the empty field of death.

The warwitch paused at the top of the rise and looked back. I have underestimated you for the last time, sister, she thought. Next time we meet, I bring death. This I swear upon the scales of Toruk.

Look for the exciting conclusion to the story of Captain Victoria Haley in the pages of the first issue of No Quarter Magazine on sale in July!