Time stopped. For me, it stopped.

  Magneblade crumpled, falling to a knee. Tara hit him again, her hands pulsing with kinetic fire and the blow smashed him lower. She kept going, pressing every advantage she had against the more powerful Griidlord. She hammered his head, over and over, and like a nail, it descended further and further.

  I heard myself scream, “TARA, NO!!!”

  It all came together. There hadn’t been enough for me to see before, but suddenly I saw. She’d always been so careful to stay away from politics, avoiding discussions like the plague. The few times her words had slipped they’d seemed sympathetic to the common man. But as soon as she uttered the thoughts she tied the knot back up. During the Falling, the Buffalo Griidlords had come for her. It had seemed personal. It had been an execution, not a contest within the bounds of the rules of the Falling. Had she resisted a previous alliance? Were they reminding her of her allegiance? So many cities had a Griidlord that had fallen under Danefer’s spell. Why had we not realized one lay in our own midst.

  Olaf half shouted and half sobbed. She was his lover. Now his betrayer. “Tara… why…”

  In his moment of distraction, he took a savage blow from Dame and stumbled backward.

  I couldn’t spare the time to process what was happening. I only had time to coldly change the calculus. We had been five, but now Magneblade was down and Tara against us. They had been seven, but now Snowfang was out of the equation, Perdinger was a flopping torso, and Dame was moving slowly. Their Scepter hung back, barely a factor, but still there, that terrifying BEAM ready to be unlocked. It had been seven against five, now, it seemed, it was five and a half (counting Dame as compromised) against three. Our odds had shifted suddenly and horribly.

  Tara gasped, “I’m sorry.” Then she was bolting towards me. Jythorne, Tara and Sorrowfell trying to bring me down. With me defeated the show would really be over. Racquel continued hacking away at Bonefrost, holding the advantage. Dame stood over the downed Olaf, her shield a sledge as she battered at him. I couldn’t help him, only desperately fend off my three attackers.

  A field of light began to glow around Danefer’s relic. It formed a dome maybe six feet in radius around the relic.

  I CUT at Jythorne, before spinning away from Tara’s claws. Jythorne staggered back towards Danefer. Danefer hissed, “Back, you fool! You know the danger!”

  Jythorne shuddered away. He didn’t step so much as recoil from the field. I noticed it, even as Tara’s claws raked my side. I noticed it and considered.

  Sorrowfell scored a hit. His axe rang against my upper back, the pain was shocking, the impact an explosion. I staggered forwards, barely keeping my feet. Jythorne stepped into the breach, his CUT soaring up. I deflected it, weakening it, but it ripped into the armor of my chest, sending me staggering back. Sorrowfell hit me again. I was tossed on the sea of their violence, like a tennis ball, suddenly stumbling back to Jythorne, Tara circling like a snake. My vision blurred.

  I just managed to put my sword between Jythorne and myself, but the force of his CUT against my blade still sent me reeling. Panic surged in me and I fought it down. I couldn’t escape what had happened. Tara’s betrayal had ruined us. I pushed away images, but they clawed at me nonetheless. In my mind I saw tanks arrayed before the walls of Boston, their guns firing, their rams smashing the gates. I saw the Green Men sweeping the land, looting and killing and raping. I saw Katya, a sword in her hand, cutting down the rabble by the dozen before they overpowered and took her. I wanted to scream. But I only had the energy to feebly stay on my feet.

  Olaf had found his feet, but Dame seemed to have the advantage. His suit was misshapen from the beating she had given him. He was failing.

  Tara swept my legs and I crashed to my back. I had the sensation more than the thought that it was all over. It had been a gamble. A desperate gamble. For a moment, when Snowfang had been broken and Perdinger cut to pieces it had looked like we had it. It had seemed we had written our own legend. But instead of songs of our victory, the taverns would sing of tragedy for generations.

  All three stepped up as I writhed on the ground, each of them seizing the chance to remove the most powerful Griidlord still functioning in the chamber. I saw bladed hands rise, a sword, an axe, all aimed for me.

  What I didn’t see was Olaf. His eyes caught my fall and he roared. “TI!” Pressed and beaten and outleveled he found a reserve that defied human limits. Where was the boy I had eliminated on the first day of the Choosing? Gone. In his place was a man of indomitable will. His shield pulsed with light and he hit the Indy shield. Her head ripped free of her shoulders and before she hit the ground, he was standing above me.

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  The pulse of the kinetic power of his shield slammed into Tara. The axe and sword meant for me rent his suit. Tara flew back, striking the field around Danefer’s relic.

  Her suit melted when it hit the field. It was so sudden. One moment a Griidlord staggered, barely keeping her feet. The next instant her suit was dust, falling away, leaving only a slight girl in linens.

  Everything happened so fast.

  A column of light struck Olaf, driving him from his feet and slamming him against the opposite wall. Their Scepter had taken his shot.

  In almost the same moment, Racquel was there, on Tara. Racquel was a woman of decisive action. Tara’s suit was gone, deleted somehow by the field around Danefer’s relic. But could she reclaim it? It was a question that would go unanswered, Racquel choosing to take certainty. Her bladed hands flashed and a single thin red line was suddenly on Tara’s throat. The next moment that red line was a fountain of blood and our traitor collapsed to the ground, pale and ruined.

  I had a momentary awareness that Bonefrost, Racquel’s prey, lay smoking and motionless on the ground.

  The Scepter’s BEAM erupted again and it was Racquel who flew, screaming, to strike the wall of the chamber, borne on a spear of fire.

  So much had happened. Bonefrost and Tara were eliminated. Dame was a headless corpse. Racquel was crumpled, Olaf sitting, shaking his head. Now they were three. And I was one alone.

  But Racquel and Olaf had unleashed me.

  I heard the bestial howl rip from my lips. I surged to my feet. Axe-break was a blinding star, roaring up to catch Sorrowfell in the groin. It tore through him like a blunt instrument through soft fruit. He was shredded, torn in half, two dead halves of one corpse toppling to the floor. This all as I rose.

  On my feet I swiped, backhanded, my fist cracking Jythorne’s helm. He tumbled back, reeling.

  I ducked as the Scepter’s BEAM burned over my head. Even missing me, the heat and radiation that flowed around it made my skin pucker.

  I returned fire and the Scepter was not so quick to evade. My BEAM hit the fragile suit directly in the head, snapping it back to slam against the wall. The Griidlord went limp and flopped to the floor.

  Jythorne turned to me. His calculus was possibly as pure as mine. It was me and him. I was badly wounded and he was largely unscathed. Yes, my power exceeded his vastly but Olaf had already proven that a lower-leveled Griidlord could defeat a higher one if the moment allowed. If he could put me down they would own the room. It was just me and him.

  Then a wall of light smashed him in the back of the helm, Olaf’s shield blazing, and he toppled to the floor.

  I stood, gathering my breath. I glanced at Olaf. He was sagging, panting, and half dead. But it was he and I who stood triumphant. The Tower was ours. Against all the odds, against Tara’s betrayal, we were the victors. Only a wildknight stood between us and the relic and total victory.

  Danefer stood watching us. The sphere of energy around the relic was pulsing and growing slightly. He seemed calm. He swept the room with a thoughtful gaze, assessing. He nodded, his lips pursed in an expression of being impressed.

  He said, “I didn’t think you could do it.”

  I squared myself, pointing my sword at him. “It’s done, Danefer.”

  The room was still, a mess of groans and shifting bodies. I wanted to look to Racquel, to see how badly hurt she was, but I knew I couldn’t take my eyes from Danefer. I considered killing him instantly, but I didn’t know how to disarm the relic and sought to take the slim chance that he could be convinced to do so to spare his own life. He was armed with a vast arsenal of relics. Against me alone, let alone with Olaf at my side, he was no threat, but he still had teeth.

  He said, “I suppose it hardly matters now. Enki can see everything that’s happened. It’s probably gathering a storm as we speak. But I’ve done the math. It’s too late. Enki knew what was happening in Cleveland before Joel and I could set it off. It can send the storm now if it so chooses, destroy this city and every soul here, but it can’t stop the relic.”

  I snarled, “I can. I can cut you down and do it. Or I can spare you and you can switch it off.”

  Danefer stepped back, taking a step towards the tarped box behind him. “I suppose you could. Enki could guide you and you could probably figure it out. But I didn’t come this far only to have my work undone.”

  A sudden dreadful surge of desperation seized me. That box. The tarp. The unknown beneath. The way he moved towards it. I fired BEAM. He simply dipped his head, centuries of experience guiding him so casually.

  He flipped the tarp from the object and my heart missed a beat.

  It was a crate. An ornate wooden crate, the size and shape of a coffin. The interior was cushioned. It contained no body. It contained a suit. A Sword suit. It all flashed before me, the sudden unimaginable danger.

  I lunged, screaming, sword blazing. The power bracer on his wrist only barely deflected what would have been a killing blow. He shifted, I stumbled past him, whirling to strike again. But suddenly mistorium was whirling about him, the suit forming in a moment.

  Just like that Olaf and I stood before not Danefer Ma’at Ra the wild knight. No. We faced Danefer Ma’at Ra, the Sword, the Griidlord, the legend.