Ashe was already stumbling backward, hands flailing, when a second spike of that strange pain shot through him, this time from his back.

  He tried to turn, but his foot snagged on the shifting ground. The floor itself was moving; it felt almost, alive. A heartbeat later his palms slammed into it, and he hit face-first. He stayed there, frozen, mind racing. Half of him expected everything to end right then, expected steel or stone or claws. Instead, nothing touched him. Only the heat of something flying past his face. Whoever had attacked seemed to treat him as nothing more than a distraction.

  Steel crashed against steel. Heavy breathing, the rumble of something huge and unfamiliar, all blended into a cacophony of horror around him. Voices shouted over the noise, sharp and strange. He was sure the words meant something, but they washed over him in sounds he couldn’t quite grasp.

  Then something clicked in his head, like someone had just installed translation software directly into his brain. The next shout carried meaning, clear and solid. Each word landed with as much sense as any English.

  He pressed his palms into the rocky ground and rolled onto his back, then onto his side, rising as slowly and quietly as he could. If he stayed small and silent, he might survive. Better they thought he was already dead, a non-factor.

  There were two distinct cadences in the shouting. One was quick and fluid, almost musical, like Norwegian or Irish, all the sounds blurring into one long sentence. The other was heavier, rough and slurred, more grunt than speech, like a drunk redneck trying to argue.

  A word cut through it all, short and bright, almost like a shouted note.

  “Rockshot!”

  As it rang out, something exploded, followed by a heavy crash.

  “Don’t break the line!” another voice yelled, desperation threading the words.

  That was all Ashe needed to hear. One side was winning, and he was not about to stick around to see which.

  As he backed away, still facing the battle, his mind flickered to the reasons he used to want to live. His family. His friends. The stupid little plans he had for after all this was over.

  Then the truth hit him like a punch. They were gone. The house, the laughs, the nagging, the ordinary future he had pictured for himself. All of it had been ripped out of his hands.

  What was left was the thing that had dragged him here in the first place. The only thing that still made any kind of sense.

  He had come to fight. To kill monsters, to hurt the things that hurt him, to make all this death mean something.

  Nothing else.

  He stopped. His breathing slowed, growing steady as the last reasons to fear death slipped away.

  He tightened his grip on the sword and walked forward. With each step, the sounds of fighting grew clearer. The clashes were slower now, spaced out, like everyone left was running on fumes.

  Then a sharp chime cut through the air, bright and artificial. Some kind of system notification.

  “Draken defeated. Points granted to the Gifted.”

  Silence followed. Not complete, but heavy. Ashe could feel the focus shift, the tension in the air twisting as they realised he was there. For a heartbeat, the only thing he could hear was the thunder of his own pulse in his ears.

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  Then his pain-sense flared, a dull line running down the front of his face.

  “Fireshot!” someone shouted.

  The word came after he had already started to move. Heat roared past his cheek, close enough to dry the sweat on his skin. He didn’t feel any burning, but he was pretty sure his eyebrows were gone.

  He dropped low, knees bent. He darted forward, weapon held out to his side. For a brief moment he wondered when this had started to feel familiar. He didn’t know how to fight, not really, yet something deep inside drove his movements, like a memory too faint to touch.

  Pain lanced across both shoulders, his stomach, and his head all at once.

  “Rockshot!”

  “Fireshot!”

  “Rockshot!”

  The calls came a split second after he’d already started to move. For a moment it felt like he’d found a way to stay ahead of the pain, but it had only been luck. His sword swept the air in front of him in tight, frantic arcs until it connected with something hard. A sharp ping rang out, stone on stone.

  The impact sent a tremor up his arm and stalled him for a heartbeat as dust burst into the air and coated his tongue. His hands ached, fingers numb, and for a second he nearly dropped his sword in panic.

  He forced himself forward again. Pain flared once more, this time spiderwebbing out from his stomach, branching in all directions.

  “Rockshot!”

  This time the shout came in unison, like an incantation from a TV show. The air seemed to thicken around him.

  Ashe was already moving.

  He knew it was coming. The hit slammed into him a moment later. His shoulder twisted, his head went light, and for a second pain swallowed every other thought. But he had managed to tilt most of his body just in time; the blow caught him, but not cleanly enough to send him flying.

  The next time his ability spiked, it was different. Less of a rush, more of a dull warning. He kept moving, his left arm hanging useless at his side. His steps had turned into a shuffle now, his movements slow and measured, even while his mind kept fighting.

  “Fireshot.”

  Even the word sounded heavy, dragged out. They were exhausted. He had been lucky their earlier fighting had drained whatever reserves they had; if he’d arrived any sooner, he wouldn’t have stood a chance.

  The pain signal swelled and he reacted on instinct, leaning back in an awkward half-arch, almost cartoonish in his own mind. Only a fraction of the heat from earlier, lazily roared past his chest where his body had been a heartbeat before.

  He was close enough now that he could hear their breathing, ragged and uneven. Exhaustion clung to every inhale.

  As Ashe shuffled forward, his foot snagged on something. A body at his feet. His stomach dropped as he realised what kind of scene he must be standing in.

  He lifted his one good hand. “Stop! It’s over. There’s no point.”

  His hunger for blood was gone. The urge to destroy felt distant, like it belonged to someone else. Reality had caught up to him.

  Someone at his side started to answer. “Ok…”

  The word had barely left their mouth when his pain-sense spiked from behind. He twisted on his heel, awkwardly dragging his sword with him.

  A sinking feeling filled his chest. Warm blood poured down the blade, coating his fingers. He stood there, frozen, empty.

  A bright chime sounded.

  “Cross-species kill. Points granted to the Human.”

  The air tightened, heavy and humid. He felt new spikes of pain from both sides as other fighters focused on him. He tried to turn, but the body still skewered on his sword threw off his balance. His tired legs buckled and he stumbled. Above him, steel slid into flesh. Twice. Two bodies hit the ground with loud thuds, crashing down on top of him.

  “Cross-species kill. Points granted to the Human. Total points gained: one hundred and two thousand, four hundred and fifty-four.”

  Warmth washed over him, the familiar pulse of a heal, a reward for a kill he wished he hadn’t made. The pain in his arm faded, replaced by guilt and disgust. Then came the usual wash of cold exhaustion, leaving behind only what he could describe as a dull, heavy depression.

  For a moment he didn’t move. Air seemed slow to reach his lungs, each breath harder than the last. The world felt distant and pointless, like he was watching it from very far away.

  Then everything lurched. The hard, rocky ground shifted into tarmac under his back, and the sounds of the city returned. The smell of rubber and exhaust filled his nose, pushing out the stench of blood.