Iorvet Dew turned and headed back toward his people. Not running. Just walking with that steady, finished pace that says the decision has already been made. The soldiers parted to let him reach the front line. No glance over a shoulder.

  Wilt Norcutt watched his back in silence. Lothar von Finsterherz stood close enough to catch the way her jaw set. No doubt in her eyes. Only cold.

  Terry tried again.

  She didn’t answer.

  The shot came out flat and dry. Not loud. A simple crack that, in the quiet, seemed to slice straight through bone.

  Iorvet jolted, like a foot had caught on something. Shoulders pitched forward. One more step carried him on momentum alone, then his face met concrete.

  For a heartbeat, nobody moved. As if the brain refused to process what it had just seen.

  Then someone screamed.

  Weapons rose. The answer was immediate. Muzzle flashes stuttered from the line ahead. Bullets clanged off a steel post, chewed at walls, sparked against the building’s armored skin.

  Goodman ducked hard.

  “Are you insane?” Goodman shouted.

  “Too late,” Wilt said, already firing again.

  Nightingale went first.

  Not a run, a launch. One huge leap, as if the suit didn’t care about gravity. Gray metal sailed over heads, slammed down among the soldiers, and kept moving, tearing the formation open.

  There was nothing pretty about it. The suit hacked and broke. A strike sent one man tumbling. A second dropped another who didn’t get back up. Someone tried to grab hold of the armor, but hands slid off the plating. Servos howled and the thing kept driving forward.

  The soldiers gave ground by half a step, then packed in tighter. Too many bodies, too many rifles. Fire shifted to joints and seams. Rounds sparked and ricocheted, leaving bright scars, but Nightingale kept coming.

  Until a voice snapped from the rear.

  “Rockets. On the suit.”

  A thin whistle cut the air. Too late.

  The first rocket hit Nightingale in the side. The second followed almost instantly. The flash washed the pad white. A shockwave rolled through the space. Metal screamed.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Nightingale staggered. For a second the suit stayed upright on sheer refusal, then it folded and dropped to its knees.

  Another blast, closer to the chest.

  Then silence in the shape of a body.

  Smoke poured from the torn hull. Something inside blinked and died. The massive figure went still.

  Terry swore. She didn’t scream and didn’t move toward the wreck. A brief freeze was enough to show the hit landing hard, then the mask went back on.

  A word tried to form and failed. The throat tightened and pain flared so bright the world tilted.

  The burn felt packed with fire, like hot sand poured down the windpipe. Breath turned into coughing. No words came.

  Blood speckled the concrete before it even registered.

  “Lothar!” Terry yelled. “Do something!”

  Controlled bursts kept coming, clipped and economical.

  “He can’t,” the female inquisitor snapped. “Move!”

  The soldiers were already advancing. The ring tightened. Shields up front, riflemen behind. On the left, a turret on a tripod scraped into position and began to swing.

  Lothar gave ground a step, then another. The burn in his throat sharpened; his head stayed empty, but the body remembered.

  Hands rose. Not ceremony. Necessity.

  Something answered.

  A dragon aura settled over him, dense as a second hide. Air thickened. Incoming rounds began to drift off line, as if space itself had turned stubborn.

  He pushed anyway.

  Eyes shut, and the push came.

  No word, no command. Reflex.

  The wave burst out, harder than expected. It hit the soldiers like a plow. Bodies lurched. Some went down. Shouts tangled. The turret toppled sideways before it could lock in. Men clapped hands to ears and dropped to their knees, blinking as if the world had flipped inside out.

  The opening lasted seconds. Seconds were enough.

  “Run!” The order snapped out.

  They broke right into a narrow gap between buildings. Gunfire followed, but not as a solid wall. The wave had bought time, and time was spent fast.

  Around the next corner, a second passage was blocked. Barricade to the left, an armored shield to the right. Shadows flickered on rooftops. Drones. Cameras. The tracking was already locked in.

  “No way to the shuttle,” Goodman rasped. “Everything’s sealed.”

  “I see it,” Norcutt said.

  The female inquisitor paused to scan, too calm for someone who had just watched Nightingale die.

  “Down there.” A nod toward the stairwell. “Service tunnels.”

  They went down. The air below stank of wet metal and sewage. Lights stuttered. Water dripped from pipes. Pumps thumped somewhere close.

  Twenty meters in, a group waited in the corridor.

  About ten of them, all armed. No military uniforms. Faces hidden behind masks or wrapped scarves. Blue bandannas knotted at their throats, the same shade on each of them. Two carried carbines, one had a shotgun, the rest held pistols.

  They stood like they’d been expecting company.

  One stepped forward. The voice was low, steady, practiced.

  “You don’t go any farther.”

  Wilt raised her weapon, but didn’t fire.

  “Who are you?”

  “Locals,” the man said. “And we’re not interested in outsiders bringing a war down here.”

  Goodman let out a breath that sounded expensive.

  “We didn’t choose this.”

  The man’s gaze slid past the weapons and landed on Lothar.

  “And him?”

  Lothar tried to answer. The throat seized; only a rough cough came out.

  A half-step placed her between him and the barrels.

  “With me,” Wilt said. “Out of the way.”

  The man didn’t move. No flinch.

  “No.” A nod went toward the distant thunder overhead, where gunfire still rolled. “That way is the army. You can’t go back. This way isn’t open either.”

  Wilt narrowed her eyes.

  “So you’re going to bury us down here?”

  “If you’re smart, you won’t die,” the man replied. “But you’ll go where we tell you.”

  Something cold stirred in Finsterherz. Not the aura. Not pain. Something else.

  He understood it then. This wasn’t a random gang with blue cloth and guns.

  They had been waiting.