Kahn didn't wait for the Greek soldiers to recover.
He tossed his greatblade into the air. It spun upward, flashing in the sunlight, higher than the towers on the wall. Then he clapped his hands together.
The sound cracked across the plain like thunder, and the world changed. The air turned from freezing to scorching in the space of a heartbeat. The towering spike of ice behind him shuddered, cracked, and dissolved into steam. The frost across the ground boiled away. Every patch of ice the battlefield had held vanished in a single violent rush, and a wall of white vapor rolled outward in every direction, thick enough to swallow the sun.
Soldiers coughed and stumbled, shielding their faces from the heat. Visibility dropped to a few arm's lengths. Somewhere in the haze, Kahn's greatblade came down and thudded point-first into the ground beside him. He pulled it free and rested it on his shoulder.
Asam touched the black ring on her right hand.
A pulse of dark energy ran up her arm and through her body, and her muscles tightened. Her breathing slowed. The world seemed to grow sharper around her, every sound clearer and every movement slower, as if the soldiers around her had been wading through water. She rolled her shoulders once and dropped into a crouch.
Then she ran.
She didn't run like a person. She ran low and fast, her body stretched nearly flat against the air, one hand brushing the dirt as her long legs drove her forward in huge, silent strides. Her braids streamed behind her with their golden rings flashing. Her emerald eyes were fixed on a single point and never wavered. The steam around her thinned into a pale, empty haze, and the battlefield seemed to stretch away into a vast, barren desert where nothing existed except the hunter and the herd. She was a lion at full sprint across bare rock, perfectly focused, unhurried even at her fastest, and the Greek soldiers scattered before her like startled antelope.
The first soldier never saw her. She hit him at the knees, wrapping both arms around his legs and driving him to the ground. He landed hard, and she was on top of him before he could breathe. Her elbow struck his jaw, then again, and he went limp.
She rolled off and came up in a low stance as two more soldiers charged out of the steam. She slipped under the first one's sword, caught his wrist, and twisted, and the man cried out and dropped to his knees. She drove her palm into the second man's chest, a short, sharp strike that hammered the air out of him, and he stumbled backward into his own comrades. A spear came at her side. She stepped inside it, trapped the shaft against her ribs, and slammed her forehead into the soldier's face.
She fought with everything at once. Her takedowns came from a wrestler's balance, her strikes from a fighter who knew exactly where to land them, and her footwork flowed with the quiet, circular patterns of an old martial art. She didn't waste a motion. When a soldier tried to grab her from behind, she dropped her weight, threw him over her shoulder, and finished him on the ground with three quick strikes. When another swung a sword at her head, she caught his arm, locked his elbow, and snapped his weapon out of his hand before he understood what had happened.
She was strong, but she wasn't brutal. Every blow was exact. Every motion ended one soldier's fight and started the next.
Through the haze, Kahn stood perfectly still.
He hadn't moved since the steam rose. His greatblade rested against his shoulder, and his dark brown eyes were fixed on the place where his wife was fighting. He couldn't see her clearly, only flashes of black and bronze in the white mist, but he could hear every sound. He heard the soldiers fall, one after another, and heard her footsteps never falter. His expression didn't change. He wasn't worried. He had never needed to be.
Not far away, on the ridge, Alexzander raised his hand.
The axe came tearing out of the sky. It had spun across the plain and over the walls of Babylon, glowing with a faint crimson light, and it dropped neatly into his grip. He closed his fingers around the handle and lowered it. His eyes were fixed on the enormous man standing in the haze.
"Cyclone," he said.
Cyclone was beside him in an instant, grinning. "About time."
"Take the woman."
"With pleasure."
Alexzander began walking slowly toward Kahn, the axe hanging loosely at his side, and Cyclone vanished.
He reappeared on the plain a moment later, in front of Asam, who was just finishing off a soldier with a knee to the ribs. He didn't strike. He ran. He tore around the edge of the steam in a tight circle, faster than a man should have been able to move, and a roaring wind rose behind him. The haze began to spiral, pulled into a great, whirling funnel that dragged the steam off the battlefield and scattered it into the sky. Within seconds the air was clear again, and the plain stood open under the sun.
Cyclone stopped, a few steps from Asam. The wind died around him. He smiled.
"Hello, beautiful."
Asam straightened and wiped blood from her knuckles. She said nothing.
•••
In the throne room, Kibo stumbled through the doors, gasping.
He was covered in dust and his hair was a mess. The guards near the doors started toward him, and he held up both hands. "It's me! Don't, it's me!"
Saijew was already crossing the floor. "Kibo."
"General!" Kibo caught his breath. "I got in. I got into the Greek lines, and I saw them. There's three leaders. The axe man, a fast guy with daggers, and a new one with a bow. They're all running their own part of the army, and the archer's the one I'd worry about." He swallowed. "He almost killed me. I would be dead if two people hadn't come and protected me."
Saijew's expression sharpened. "Two people?"
"A man and a woman. They came out of nowhere. She had wings, black and white, and she threw feathers like knives. He was huge, he jumped in the air and knocked the axe away and made a spike out of ice." Kibo shook his head. "He told me to find you and say they've arrived."
Saijew went completely still.
He knew. He knew before Kibo finished the sentence. A giant of a man who made ice out of nothing, a woman with wings of black and white, a message sent to him by name. His jaw tightened, but he didn't say a word.
Across the room, Naram-Sin's face went hard. Samira's smile vanished. They looked at each other, and neither spoke.
On the left side of the throne, Tallia opened her eyes. She had been standing with her beads in her hands, and her fingers stopped moving.
"Asam," she said quietly. "And Kahn."
Kibo turned. "Who are they?"
Nobody answered. Kibo looked at Saijew and asked again, louder. "Who are they?"
Saijew exhaled slowly. "Asam is the Queen of Bubastis," he said. "Kahn is its King." He looked at Kibo, and for the first time in a long while, something like relief crossed his face. "He's called Egypt's strongest warrior. She's the woman who found the divine rings, alone. The Pharaoh must have sent for them."
Belshazzar shifted on his throne. "It is true," the King said. "They have stood in this room before. I trust them both."
Tallia stepped forward and bowed. "My King, I ask permission to leave my post."
Belshazzar raised an eyebrow. "For what reason?"
"To fight beside the woman on the field." Tallia's hazel eyes were calm. "I have a score to settle with an old rival."
"She's an ally," Samira said.
"She's both." Tallia didn't look away from the King.
Naram-Sin spoke before Belshazzar could answer. "My King. I ask the same, for the man."
Belshazzar looked at the two of them for a long moment, and a small smile crossed his face. "Go."
Tallia and Naram-Sin bowed and left the room at a run. The remaining Babylonian guards stayed at their posts, and Saijew and Samira stayed beside the King.
Kibo stared after them. "That's… everybody knows them. Except me."
"You're young," Samira said, patting his shoulder.
•••
On the north side of the palace, Magnolia's squad moved in silence.
They had been walking along the inside of the great outer wall for several minutes without a word. Magnolia had given the order himself, quietly, as they left the throne room: no talking, no noise. Move slowly. Watch everything. They were a silent mission now, the five of them, creeping through the shadowed stone corridors that ran between the palace and the city wall.
Valentina led, her spear in one hand and her shield on her arm. Every few steps she glanced back at Magnolia, who walked behind her with his hands loose at his sides. He nodded each time. She turned forward again and kept going.
Up ahead, two Greek soldiers stood at the end of the passage, their backs to the squad, scanning the wall. They hadn't noticed anything yet.
Valentina raised two fingers. The air in front of her shimmered, and the moisture in the stone and the air above the cobbles gathered into two clear spheres that floated silently toward the soldiers. They didn't hear them coming. One moment they were standing there, the next two bubbles had closed over their heads, wrapping their faces in water. They clawed at their throats and thrashed, then fell to their knees, and then they slumped onto the stones without a sound.
Valentina let the water fall away. She looked over her shoulder.
Magnolia looked at the two bodies, then at Emma. He nodded.
Emma raised both hands. A gentle gust of wind lifted the two men off the ground and carried them up and over the wall as softly as feathers. They disappeared over the other side. A moment later, a faint thump echoed from beyond the stones.
"A diversion," Matthew whispered.
Amelia stepped forward. She closed her eyes, and her body shimmered, shrinking into a small white bird that flapped silently up onto the top of the wall. She hopped to the edge and looked down.
On the other side, a dozen Greek soldiers stood in a loose cluster around the fallen bodies. They had come running at the sound, and now they stood looking down in confusion. One of them stood a little apart from the others, at the front, with a large crest stitched across the upper left side of his chest. He was reaching up toward his ear.
Earpiece, Amelia thought. He's the leader. He's calling for help.
She had noticed it right away. The crest was bigger than the others, and only he had a hand moving toward his head. None of the other soldiers touched their ears. If anyone else had one, they would have reached too.
She focused. A familiar ache pulsed behind her eyes, and the earpiece in the man's ear twitched. Then it pushed inward, hard.
The soldier screamed.
He clutched the side of his head and dropped to his knees, and blood dripped between his fingers. The others whirled around, looking for the source, and one of them spotted the bird.
"There!"
Amelia dropped from the wall, changing as she fell, and landed in her own body with a stumble. Three of the soldiers were already charging toward her, swords drawn. She raised her hands.
Matthew's barrier slammed into place in front of her, a bright blue pane of light that stopped the first sword cold. The soldiers hammered at it, but it didn't crack. Matthew pushed his hand forward, and the barrier moved with it, driving the three men backward and slamming them onto the ground.
Magnolia ran.
He slid under the barrier at the last second and came up in the middle of the fallen soldiers. They were scrambling to stand, but he was already in front of them. He raised one hand and gently touched the necklace at his throat.
Restraint, he thought. Not rage. Control.
He stretched out his hand. A burst of heat rolled across the ground, orange and bright, and the soldiers screamed. It was over in a moment. When the light faded, the Greeks lay on the stones, burned and still. None of them moved. They stopped moving altogether.
Magnolia lowered his hand. His fingers trembled for a second. Then he steadied them.
"Captain," Valentina said quietly.
"I'm okay," he said. "Let's keep going."
Squad One stepped over the bodies and pressed outward along the wall. Behind them, perched on the highest tower of the palace, Ren had watched the whole thing.
•••
Ren lowered the lens of light and rubbed his eyes.
"They're good," Luna said softly. She was sitting beside him with her knees drawn up, watching the same distant patch of wall. "Magnolia, Valentina, all of them."
"They're better than I expected," Ren admitted.
"Better than us," Sofia said. She didn't say it bitterly. She just said it.
Ren looked at the two of them. Then he looked out at the plain, at the two figures standing alone against a sea of Greek soldiers. "We can't just sit here scouting forever."
Luna and Sofia glanced at each other. After a moment, Sofia nodded. "No. We can't."
"Then let's go," Luna said.
She raised her hand and sent a long green vine curving over the edge of the tower. It stretched down the wall, across the rooftops, and out over the city in a long, looping arc toward the southern plain. Ren grabbed the end of it. Sofia took his arm.
"Hold on," Luna said.
The vine pulled them off the tower.
•••
They landed on the plain in a rush of dust.
Luna and Sofia dropped beside Kahn, and Ren landed a few steps from Asam. None of them said a word. The giant man standing next to them didn't even glance their way. He had his greatblade resting on his shoulder and his eyes on the ridge.
Alexzander was walking toward them. He didn't hurry. His axe hung at his side, and his boots left prints in the dust.
On the other side, Cyclone rolled his neck and grinned at Ren. "Hello again."
Asam took a half step back. "You know him?"
"He's the one who nearly killed me on the bridge," Ren said.
"Ah." She glanced at Cyclone. "Then we'll make this quick."
Cyclone's grin vanished.
He didn't stop smiling gradually. He simply stopped, between one breath and the next, and the playfulness drained out of his face. The game was over. He lunged at Ren, faster than before, a blur of motion with a dagger flashing in each hand, and slammed him toward the ground. Ren's feet left the earth. For a second, he was falling backward with Cyclone's weight on his chest.
Then Cyclone's knife went through him and found nothing.
The Ren he was pinning shimmered and broke apart like smoke. The real Ren was three steps to the left, already moving, his sword in both hands. He brought it down in a sharp, vicious arc, and the blade bit into Cyclone's leg just above the knee.
CRACK.
The sword snapped in half.
Ren stared at the stump in his hand. The blade lay in the dust a few feet away. Cyclone's leg hadn't even bled, only a thin line across the skin.
Cyclone turned his head slowly and looked at him.
It wasn't a glare. A glare had anger in it. This was something else, a stare so flat and dark that it seemed to pull the light out of the air. His eyes were wide and unblinking, with pinpoint pupils, and his face was perfectly still. All of the humor and the wild energy had vanished, and there was nothing behind his eyes at all except a patient, bottomless hunger. His body began to vibrate, a fine, rapid shiver that blurred the edges of his face until Ren couldn't read it. He couldn't tell what Cyclone was thinking, or whether he was thinking anything. He could only feel the weight of that stare pressing down on him like a mountain.
Ren couldn't move.
Cyclone bent, picked up the broken half of the sword, and drove it straight toward Ren's stomach.
A dagger flashed between them.
Asam had slid in at the last second, her blade catching the broken steel inches from Ren's skin. The impact rattled her arm, and her feet skidded in the dust. She held her ground, barely. Her emerald eyes met Cyclone's, and she pushed him back.
"Back up," she told Ren calmly. "Now."
Ren stumbled away, his legs shaking.
•••
On the other side of the battlefield, Alexzander finally reached Kahn.
He didn't speak. He swung his axe, and Kahn brought his greatblade up to meet it. The two weapons collided with a sound like a bell, and a shockwave rolled across the ground.
Luna threw out a vine. It wrapped around Alexzander's wrist, and then another around his ankle, trying to pull him off balance. He turned his head, and his axe came around in a single clean arc. The vines parted like thread.
"No," Luna whispered.
Sofia raised both hands. She narrowed her eyes, focusing on the space around Alexzander, and the air itself began to slow. His movements grew heavier. His steps dragged. He grunted, and his muscles bunched, and he pushed against the force with every ounce of strength he had. Sofia planted her feet and leaned into it.
Then the ground started to give way under her.
She was being driven backward and down, her heels carving two deep furrows in the dirt. She gritted her teeth and pushed harder, but Alexzander kept moving forward, one step at a time, and with each step the pressure came back on her twice as heavy. Her knees buckled. Her feet sank into the ground, and she clenched her jaw so hard it hurt.
"Sofia!" Luna cried.
Luna threw more vines around her friend, trying to hold her up, but they snapped before they were halfway tight. She dove forward and wrapped her own arms around Sofia, bracing her with her whole body. It made no difference. The force kept coming, and the two of them slid backward together, down into the dirt.
Alexzander rushed through it.
He tore through the slowed air like it was nothing, and the force broke over him in a wave. Sofia and Luna were thrown to the ground, tumbling together into the shallow crater that had formed under their feet. They lay there dazed, staring up at him.
"What… is he?" Sofia whispered.
Kahn watched from a few steps away, and one of his eyebrows rose. "Strong," he muttered.
Alexzander turned back to him and swung again.
Kahn blocked. He blocked again. The two of them stood in the center of the plain, trading blows, their weapons clashing over and over with a sound like falling iron. Alexzander was faster and more agile, ducking and spinning around Kahn's heavy strokes, but Kahn didn't give an inch. Every time the axe came down, the greatblade met it. Every time Alexzander tried to push him back, Kahn pushed harder.
Alexzander leaped backward, putting twenty feet between them. He raised his axe and hurled it with a roar.
Kahn dropped his sword into the ground and raised both palms. A thick, solid wall of ice rose in front of him, a full yard thick, frozen blue and glittering. The axe hit it and stopped, its blade buried a few inches into the surface.
Alexzander's eyebrows rose.
Red light poured off his body. The axe flared with it, crimson light blazing along the blade, and the ice shrieked. Cracks raced across its surface. A moment later, the whole wall exploded.
Kahn didn't have time to dodge. The axe came through the shards, spinning, and he dropped his weapon and caught it.
He caught it with his bare hands.
The blade hissed against his palms. He roared and heaved, pushing the weapon back with all his strength until it stopped, shuddering, an inch from his chest. Then he flung it aside. Blood ran down his wrists. His hands were cut open across the palms, and the wounds were bleeding softly.
Alexzander lifted one hand. The axe tore free and flew back to him.
Then the red glow spread.
It rippled out from Alexzander like a wave. Across the plain, the Greek soldiers who had fallen to Asam and the ice spike began to glow with the same crimson light, and one by one, they stood up. They took their weapons and stepped into formation, breathing hard and bleeding, but alive and upright, their eyes burning red.
•••
Asam felt it before she saw it.
She was holding Cyclone off with her dagger when a faint crimson glow flickered at the edge of her vision. She looked over her shoulder. The soldiers she had taken down were rising, one after another, wrapped in red light.
"Ren!" she called.
"I see it!" Ren was already pale. He had seen that glow before, on the eastern road, when Cyclone had been hurt and the red light had poured over him. Afterward, he had been faster and stronger, and the wounds he'd taken hadn't mattered. "It's the same! It makes them stronger! It's healing them too!"
"Then don't let it spread," Asam said.
Across the city, the same glow was happening everywhere. At the north wall, the burned soldiers lying in front of Magnolia's squad began to move, twitching and rising, their skin knitting itself together under a red haze. Valentina swore and raised her spear. At the front gate, the six Greek soldiers Poison had gassed stood up out of the cobblestones, shaking off the poison like water.
"You're kidding," Poison muttered, staring.
And on the outcrop above the plain, the young hunter felt the glow wash over him. He had been resting against a rock with his arms crossed, and his strength came flooding back. His eyes opened. His fingers tightened around his bow. He didn't need to look to know where his target was. The faint, silent gap in the world that marked Kibo's path had been drawing a line through his mind for the last few minutes, and now it was a clear, bright trail leading toward the palace.
He drew a silver arrow, let it settle against the string, and loosed it.
It left the bow with a thin, whistling hum. It crossed the plain and soared over the wall, and it flew over the rooftops of Babylon as though the distance between them were nothing. It punched through the wall of the palace and flew across the throne room.
Kibo saw it coming at the last moment. His eyes went wide.
A hand closed around the shaft an inch from his face.
Saijew held the arrow in his fist, its point trembling at Kibo's forehead. The wind from its passage fluttered the General's hair. He looked at the silver shaft for a moment, then at the hole in the wall, then at the kid standing frozen in front of him.
"Stay behind me," he said quietly.
Kibo nodded, speechless.
•••
On the plain, two figures came sprinting across the cracked earth.
Naram-Sin ran with Mashkan in both hands, his strides long and even, and Tallia ran at his side, her wrapped hands loose at her sides. They crossed the last stretch of ground just as the glowing Greek soldiers formed ranks. Naram-Sin skidded to a halt beside Kahn, and Tallia slid to Asam's side.
Naram-Sin looked at Kahn. Then he looked at the blood dripping from the man's hands. A slow, sarcastic smile crossed his face.
"Hurt again, you husky bastard?"
Kahn glanced down at his palms and shrugged. "Not now." He was almost laughing.
"Of course not."
On the other side, Cyclone lunged at Asam, a blur of steel, and Tallia stepped in front of her. She caught his wrist in one hand, twisted, and flipped him off his feet. He rolled and came up a few paces away, and Tallia and Asam both stepped back to gain some space.
Tallia glanced sideways. "You're still slow as ever."
Asam raised an eyebrow. "As if you're any faster."
"I am."
"Prove it."
Cyclone had stopped smiling entirely. His eyes drifted past both women and settled on the pale, trembling boy standing a few feet away, the one with the broken sword. A thin shiver ran through his body. He dropped into a crouch, and the air around him began to spin.
Ren saw him coming.
Cyclone rushed him again, faster than before, with a fist pulled back for a strike that would knock the boy unconscious for good.