Continent of Rodenius. Border of the Principality of Qua-Toyne and the Lourian Federate.

  Russian Forward Operating Base No. 11/04 ("Vostochny" Field Airfield).

  Time: 04:30. Predawn twilight.

  The radio feed in the headset of the flight helmet crackled with static electricity—the low cloud cover and mountainous terrain were taking their toll.

  "Baikal-1, this is Tower. Attention all posts and aircraft in the air," the female voice of the combat control dispatcher didn't sound like a mechanical recording, but like a taut string. One could hear the fatigue of the third shift, overridden by the adrenaline of a "Code Red." "Initiating CTO (Counter-Terrorism Operation) mode. Threat level: Critical. Protocol 'Intercept-Alpha.' I confirm authorization for the use of all weapons systems. In case of visual contact or resistance—eliminate without warning."

  A pause, filled with the hiss of static.

  "Orientation: Grid 'Vedi-6' — zero-fifty-six — one-twenty-five. Rough terrain, old Lourian catacombs. According to intel, the enemy is extremely dangerous; use of magi-technical means and heavy infantry weapons is possible. Maintain extreme caution. Do you copy, Baikal?"

  "Tower, this is Baikal-1, information received. Working according to protocol. Out," replied the crew commander of the heavy Mi-8AMTSh "Terminator."

  His voice sounded muffled due to the throat microphone. The pilot clicked a toggle switch on the panel, switching to the secure inter-team channel. A thick, soothing hum of turbines filled the cockpit, along with the smell of aviation kerosene mixed with the scent of gun oil and sweat drifting in from the troop compartment.

  The helicopter was loaded to the gills. In the "belly" of the machine, clutching weapons to their chests and staring gloomily into the middle distance, sat twelve GRU Spetsnaz operators. Angry. Sleep-deprived. Rousted by an alert three hours ago. They knew where they were flying. For those guys in Beales. For the blown-up square.

  "What's your status, Alligator?" the Mi-8 commander asked, glancing at the secondary display showing the tactical map.

  To the left and slightly below, a predatory dark silhouette gliding against the backdrop of the gray forest was the Ka-52 attack helicopter.

  "It's quiet so far, Baikal," responded the lead pilot of the Alligator. His voice was tense. "Scanning the sector with the 'Arbalet' radar in mapping mode. No heat signatures. The airwaves are clean, even the birds aren't showing. Like everything's extinct down there. It's strange..."

  "Copy that. We're staying nap-of-the-earth. Keep your eyes peeled. Out."

  Just twenty-four hours ago, the moment the encrypted file from Colonel Kupriyanov with the coordinates of the "rally point" dropped into the group headquarters, this peaceful region had turned into a zone of a total manhunt. All Russian bases in the territory of Qua-Toyne screamed with sirens. An hour later, "whirlybirds" rose into the sky, while columns of Tigr and Typhoon armored vehicles cut off the roads, tightly blocking the grid. The FSB and SSO (Special Operations Forces) began sweeping the area.

  The order was harsh: "Don't let a single fly slip through. Go in hard. Anyone resisting—liquidate on the spot."

  And now, in this damp, bone-chilling fog, dozens of such groups, consisting of angry, wet professionals thirsting for retribution, were tightening the noose around those who dared to bring terror to the land the Russians now considered their zone of responsibility. The hunt had begun, and the hunters were hungry.

  "Green Hollow" Forest Massif (northeast of the border with Quila).

  Sabotage-Reconnaissance Group (DRG) temporary camp. Time: 04:55.

  Under the canopy of thick, centuries-old spruces, where gloom reigned even during the day, and now predawn haze hung, hid a group in dirty, partially torn azure armor. They looked like aliens in this forest.

  The radioman, huddled near the tree roots, worked feverishly with a portable terminal. The device resembled a hybrid of a military radio and an altar: the matte black "dish" of the directional antenna was pitted with glowing (now dimly flickering) runes, and wires went straight into a crystalline storage unit.

  "Call failed. Carrier wave lost. Repeat, 'Orion,' I cannot hear you!" the militant growled in a guttural language that would sound like grinding stones to the ears of residents of Parpaldia or Louria.

  "Pr... six... Shhh... evacuation... coordi... Shhh... impossible... seven... six... three... hund... Shhh..." the handler's voice from "Center" broke through the wall of interference as if through cotton wool. It drowned in an alien, aggressive howl and crackle.

  "Bitch..." the radioman spat, ripping the headset off his head and slamming his fist forcefully onto the moss. "They've jammed the airwaves. Full spectrum. Both magical and analog."

  "What's going on?" hoarsely asked a second militant squatting nearby. His black mask concealing his face was wet with condensation. He nervously checked the bolt of his assault rifle (a copy of the HK33 chambered in an unknown caliber).

  "The otherworlders turned on their 'jammers'. Power is off the charts. Our 'whisper' channel is blocked. Could only make out fragments... something about revising the evacuation protocol..."

  "Fucked," the second one stamped his verdict. He flicked a lighter, shielding the flame with his palms so tightly not a single ray escaped, and took a greedy drag. Acrid smoke instantly dissolved in the damp fog. "If they're jamming—it means we're already surrounded."

  The radio suddenly came back to life, emitting a piercing shriek that made the radioman's teeth ache.

  "Manti... Shhh... proto... Shhh-col... two... thirty... Shhh... four. Communi... out..." The voice in the headphones cut off completely, replaced by the even, dead hiss of "white noise." Russian electronic warfare system Krasukha, operating from a helicopter somewhere above, had slammed the trap shut.

  The radioman, who had managed to pull the headphones back on, froze. The pen he used to scratch frequencies into a notepad slipped from his fingers and fell into the pine needles. His eyes, visible through the slits of the tactical mask, instantly turned to ice; frozen in them was the expression of a man who had just been read his death sentence.

  "What?" the smoking man worried again, sensing something wrong in the silence. "What did they say?"

  "Shut up!" the first one hissed at him, trying to regain his composure. His hands trembled as he picked up the pen. He pretended to write something down to buy a second. Then he slowly took off the headphones, wiped cold sweat from his forehead with his sleeve, and staring into the emptiness of the forest, spoke in a dead voice:

  "Protocol two-thirty-four."

  The second militant froze. The cigarette, still smoking, fell from his fingers. He jerked his shoulders as if from a chill.

  "Two-thirty-four... 'Liquidation of assets and retreat to Valhalla.' Fucking great. We've been written off."

  He flicked the cigarette butt into a puddle.

  "Means we'll dance one last time."

  From the darkness of the undergrowth, the group commander stepped silently. The unfamiliar lieutenant's bars glinted dully on his shoulders.

  "Moving out in five minutes. Need to change position. Radioman, report! What's the intel from Center?"

  The radioman slowly raised his eyes to him.

  "Two-thirty-four, Lieutenant. Full confirmation."

  It took a titanic effort for the lieutenant to save face and not erupt into a filthy, profane tirade in the ancient dialect.

  The general emotion overwhelming him was reflected only in the nervous, uncontrollable twitching of his left cheek.

  They were simply abandoned. Dumped like spent material.

  The entire operation went off-script from the very beginning. The analysts at HQ swore that the "Russian barbarians" were a clumsy bear.

  That they were lazy, bureaucratic, and would spend weeks coordinating the operation. That their soldiers didn't know how to fight in the forest against magic.

  How wrong they were. The Russians turned out not to be a bear. They turned out to be a pack of wolves—smart, vicious, and technologically equipped in a way that made even Imperial tech look obsolete. They weren't searching for them. They saw them—through walls, through the forest, from the air.

  Center transmitted the sentence: "Evacuation impossible. You are surrounded by superior forces. Breaking through to the border is inexpedient. Objective: inflict maximum damage on enemy manpower, destroy all encryption equipment and magi-tech. Do not surrender. Die with honor."

  All these directives, cold and ruthless, mixed in the lieutenant's head with the hot rage of a devoted soldier. He nervously drummed his fingers on the receiver of his rifle, feverishly going through options. There were none.

  The rest of the subordinates, hearing the code, fell into sullen silence, checking grenades and adjusting gear. There was no fear in this silence—only the anger of cornered rats.

  The silence was torn by a strangled whisper full of tension on the tactical radio:

  "'Second', this is 'Eye'. Attention! Visual contact! Sector one. Observing enemy. Treeline, lowland. Distance—one hundred forty meters. Moving toward our positions."

  "Prepare for battle!" commanded the lieutenant. His voice no longer trembled. The decision had been made for them. "To sectors! Fire only on command! Take them with you!"

  The group of militants quickly and quietly, like shadows, dissolved into the pre-prepared foxholes of the defense line.

  The otherworlders—Russian GRU Spetsnaz operators in "Multicam" forest camouflage and helmets with "ears" of active hearing protection—moved toward the militants' hideout slowly, carefully, flowing from tree to tree. Their movements were fluid, barrels of AK-12s with thermal sights pointed toward the threat. They weren't walking to the slaughter. They were walking to clean house.

  "How many?" the lieutenant whispered into the radio, barely moving his lips, carefully throwing a piece of camouflage netting over himself and merging with a bush.

  "I see a dense group..." answered the machine gunner lying on the flank. His eye was pressed to the rubber eyecup of the diopter sight of the light machine gun. "Thirty coming from the left side, in pairs. Twenty—from the right, flanking. Snipers are working, I see optics glinting. Another minute, and they'll come out from behind the hillock right into the kill zone."

  "Open fire as soon as they step into the open. Hit the legs and head, we might not penetrate body armor."

  "Copy," the machine gunner exhaled shortly, closed one eye, stabilized his breathing, and pressed the stock more comfortably into his shoulder. His finger took up the slack on the trigger. Hell was seconds away.

  Continent of Rodenius. "Green Hollow" Forest Massif.

  FSB Tactical Group "Topaz".

  Time: 05:05.

  The damp morning air was still. It seemed the forest was holding its breath. In the headphones of the group commander, a Spetsnaz Major with the callsign "Topaz," rang the digitally distorted but calm voice of the UAV operator hovering somewhere a kilometer above them, invisible and inaudible.

  "'Seven-Three,' this is 'Eye'. Observing heat signatures seventy meters from your disposition. Reference point—fallen beech tree. Five... no, seven objects in 'cold' camouflage. They are waiting for you. Do you copy, over?"

  "Copy," Topaz answered with just his lips. He raised a fist, halting the group that stretched like a snake along the path.

  But they were a split-second too late.

  The forest silence, previously ringing in their ears, was brutally gutted. The dry, sharp crackle of bursts, like a sewing machine working on tin, struck from the right flank. These weren't "Kalashnikovs." The sound was higher, angrier.

  An enemy machine gun nest, camouflaged in the roots of an upturned tree across the ravine, opened withering fire.

  Tracer bullets—not ordinary ones, but greenish, enchanted for penetration or poisoning—streaked through the twilight. They struck stones, striking showers of sparks, sheared off branches, and bit into flesh. Fountains of mud and splinters erupted in a wall.

  "BITCH! Contact! Where's the fire from?!"

  "At three o'clock! From behind that ravine, the machine gun is fucking pounding us! Density is insane!" screamed the rearguard. "I have a 'Heavy'—done for, headshot! Number five—leg shattered! Medic!"

  The airwaves exploded with reports.

  "Five 'three-hundreds' (wounded)! Three 'two-hundreds' (KIA)! Through and through chest! Armor's not holding! They have armor-piercing!" a fighter's voice broke into a rasp. Three dead in a second. This was a catastrophe.

  Major Topaz fell behind a mossy boulder, feeling bullets whistling over his helmet, crumbling granite into dust. Adrenaline hit his head in an icy wave. Anger mixed with cold calculation.

  "Scatter! To cover! Suppress with fire! RPG up here, fuck! Flea! Flea, do you copy?! Blast the fuckers once! Shut that bitch up!"

  He pressed the call button for the operator of the tactical kamikaze drone attached to the group:

  "'Fly' to 'Topaz,' come in! Give me a laser paint!"

  The fighter with the callsign "Flea," a young grenadier, had already rolled out from behind a hummock. He brought the disposable RPG-26 "Aglen" into combat position with one movement, pulling the pin. No time to aim. Reference point—muzzle flashes.

  "Fire!" he barked.

  The tube jerked, spitting a tongue of flame backward. The HEAT grenade went toward the ravine with a jet scream.

  Three seconds later

  BOOM!

  A dull thud and a flash. Dust and sod flew up. Shooting ceased for a second, but immediately resumed. The magic shield over the machine gunner's position merely flickered, taking the hit of shrapnel. Tough bastards.

  "'Fly' receiving!" answered the drone operator sitting somewhere behind in cover.

  "Knock out that fucking machine gun nest! He's alive!" Topaz yelled, changing magazines. Bullets were knocking bark off the tree above his head, showering his face with dust. "Reference point—fifty meters from us at three o'clock! Behind the gully, the faggots are dug in! Magic covers them! Come in from above! Do you copy?!"

  "'Topaz' to 'Fly,' copy. Observing enemy. Going vertical. Drop," the operator's voice was tense, like a surgeon's.

  High above the ravine, buzzing barely audibly with four propellers, the attack quadcopter hovered. The operator pressed a sensor on the tablet. Modified F-1 grenades and KZ-6 shaped charges flew down one by one from special clamps.

  A series of explosions in the narrow space of the ravine merged into one roar. The ground shook. Smoke filled the lowland. Two minutes after this pinpoint bombing, the enemy machine gun finally choked and fell silent. Screams in a foreign tongue were replaced by groans.

  "Confirming destruction of primary target. I see movement of wounded. Shield down," the drone operator reported coldly.

  At that moment, the ground beneath the fighters' feet began to vibrate. At first barely noticeably, then—like an earthquake. The sound, low and rolling, grew with every second, drowning out the moans of the wounded.

  "'Seven-Three,' this is 'Berkut-1-2'. Approaching your location," the pilot's calm, confident bass sounded in the headphones. "In combat configuration. Observing your IFF markers. Mark the enemy edge so I don't clip you."

  Over the treetops, breaking dry branches with the airflow from coaxial rotors, a shadow surfaced predatorily. Ka-52M "Alligator" attack helicopter. In the twilight, it seemed like a black dragon, only instead of wings, it had hardpoints with unguided rocket pods.

  One of the surviving Spetsnaz fighters raised himself up, turned on the IR target designator on his rifle (a laser visible only in night vision devices), and, leaning out from behind the corner, drew an invisible line pointing to the ravine and the "green zone" behind it, from where surviving militants continued to snap back with single shots.

  "Visual on target!" the pilot responded. The roar of blades became deafening, clogging lungs with pressure drops.

  "'Berkut-1-2', target designation received! Engaging with NARs (unguided aerial rockets)! Heads down!"

  The helicopter lowered its nose slightly. The sky above the forest opened up.

  WHOO-OO-OOSH!

  With a howl reminiscent of tearing canvas, a fiery squall broke from the B-8V20 pods. Dozens of 80-millimeter S-8KOM rockets blanketed the grid, turning the forest into a branch of hell. Explosions raised pillars of earth, fire, and dust ten meters high. Ancient trees snapped like matchsticks, brushwood vanished. The shockwave hammered eardrums even at a distance of a hundred meters. Where there were enemies, now there was only flame and twisted metal.

  "'Berkut-1-2' has engaged. Zone control. Ammo remaining. Retreating to orbit," the pilot reported. The helicopter banked sharply to the right, shooting off a fan of flares that scattered like bright stars in the gray sky, protecting the machine from possible MANPADS launches.

  The silence after the strike seemed ringing. It smelled of burning, kerosene, and fresh earth.

  Topaz rose, shaking clods of mud off himself.

  "Team! Status check! Wounded to the medic! The rest—into skirmish line!" his voice was hoarse from smoke. "Go-go! Move it, before they come to their senses! Watch your step, who knows what 'surprises' these fuckers left! Mines, tripwires!"

  Black figures of Spetsnaz, covering each other, moved carefully and quickly toward the smoking ravine. There, among fallen trees and craters, concussed enemies moaned and stirred.

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  "Attention, priority," Topaz changed magazines. There was no pity in his eyes, only a cold professional task. "Our goal is to find the 'Object' (commander). Take him alive at any cost. The rest... who are armed or cannot walk on their own... Expendable. Don't drag prisoners. Time is precious."

  He racked the slide. The hunt entered the final phase.

  Grid "Vedi-6". Engagement Site.

  Time: 05:15.

  The dust raised by the Alligator's rocket salvo began to settle, covering everything with a gray film. The forest did not smell of morning freshness, but of the sharp chemistry of burnt explosives, scorched synthetics, and the sickly-sweet scent of exposed flesh.

  "Team, work in 'twos'. Perimeter control. Medics—to the 'tongues' [prisoners]," Topaz's voice was even; the adrenaline tremors were gone.

  FSB and SSO operators moved along the smoking craters without lowering their weapons. The work proceeded quickly and mechanically, without unnecessary emotion. One fighter would aim his barrel at a lying militant, keeping his head in the collimator sight, while the second would sharply flip the body face-down into the dirt.

  "Clear!" a fighter croaked, having inspected another body riddled with shrapnel.

  In the bushes to the right, a shadow moved. A wounded militant in azure armor tried to raise a hand—either to surrender or to activate a spell.

  TSK-TSK-TSK!

  A triple dry click from a suppressed assault rifle put an end to it. The body twitched and went still.

  "Movement. Controlled," the shooter dropped indifferently into the radio. No one intended to risk their people for a straggler. The order was clear: take only those who can walk and talk. The rest—write them off as "enemy combat losses."

  Five minutes later, the survivors were herded together near that very ravine which had recently been their fortress and had now become a grave. They were forced to kneel, facing the slope, hands behind their heads.

  There were only fifteen of them left. Fifteen out of thirty. Stunned by concussions, traumatized by the sight of their torn comrades, shivering not from the cold but from nervous exhaustion. Twenty of their accomplices remained lying where the rocket strike had overtaken them, turned into shapeless piles of meat and burnt gear.

  Figures in Multicam camouflage froze along the perimeter of the ravine. The Spetsnaz stood silently, barrels pointed at the prisoners' backs. The slightest sudden movement, an attempt to recite a spell, or simply a sideways glance—and it would be construed as an escape attempt. The militants understood this. Their will was paralyzed by the demonstration of overwhelming force. They sat still, like mice under the gaze of a cobra.

  Among the bodies neatly laid aside, the fighters discovered a strange device with a melted dish antenna—that very radio station.

  "Comms. Pack it in a shielded container. With a sapper! There might be 'surprises' for self-destruction," Topaz commanded.

  Then, the identification began.

  The group commander walked up to the prisoners. In one hand, he held a tablet with that very composite sketch compiled from the description.

  A fighter jerked the tactical mask off the first prisoner, simultaneously clamping his jaw shut with a Kevlar-gloved hand so he couldn't bite down on a cyanide ampule. The face was revealed—bloodied, with darting eyes, ordinary human fear.

  "This one?" the fighter asked.

  Topaz glanced briefly at the screen, then at the face.

  "Negative. Infantry. To the vehicle."

  Next. Mask off. A gut punch for prevention. Face check.

  "Not him," Topaz grunted in Russian; to the prisoner's ears, it sounded like a sentence in an alien, demonic tongue.

  A buttstock strike to the back of the head. The prisoner, without making a sound, toppled into the mud like a sack. Alive, but deeply knocked out.

  The commander reached the end of the line. There, hunching over, sat a man in armor with barely noticeable distinctions—commander's chevrons. He was looking at the ground, his lips moving, silently whispering a prayer in an unknown language.

  The fighter ripped the balaclava off him.

  The face of the lieutenant. Hard, with a fanatical shine in his eyes, twisted with hatred.

  Topaz compared the image. The resemblance was obvious. This was the one who coordinated this sector. The "Officer."

  "Here he is! Gotcha, you fucker!" predatory satisfaction sounded in the Russian officer's voice, like a hunter who had cornered a wolf. "Well hello, we've been looking for you for a long time."

  The militant lieutenant looked up and met the gaze of the "otherworlder." He saw in them not the rage of a barbarian, but the cold glint of surgical steel. He was being looked at as a valuable trophy, as a piece of meat that was yet to be butchered.

  Topaz pressed the push-to-talk button.

  "'Topaz' to 'Base.' Object found. Identification confirmed. Group leader taken. Affirmative... Out."

  He put away the radio and nodded to his fighter standing behind the prisoner.

  "Pack the scum up and let's go. Gently. I need him talkative."

  At that same moment, the world went dark for the lieutenant. A professionally delivered blow with something heavy to the base of the skull turned off the lights before he had time to think about poison or a final spell.

  ...By the time the sun had fully risen over the mountains, the operation had moved into its final phase.

  A column of armored Typhoon-Ks and Ural-based paddy wagons, clanking metal and raising dust, was already leaving toward the Russian base. Inside, shackled in chains and "bracelets," lay the "guests" on the floor. Their war was over. Their personal hell had begun.

  And in the forests of Qua-Toyne, where scattered caches of stragglers still remained, the clean-up continued. Helicopters loitered over the "green zone," Spetsnaz groups and local People's Militia swept through square after square. Those militants who were smarter or more fanatical had already bitten the ampules sewn into their collars, preferring a quick death from cyanide and magic to the fate that awaited them in the basements of the investigation department. Those who survived would soon begin to envy the dead.

  Continent of Rodenius. Russian Military Base No. 11/04 ("Vostochny" Airfield).

  Military Counterintelligence and Interrogation Block (temporary holding facility).

  Two days after capture. Time unknown.

  The world had shrunk to the size of a black sack made of thick, stifling fabric.

  The lieutenant of the "Clear Sky" sabotage group (to the investigation, he was still known by the operational pseudonym "Ronald") sat shackled in handcuffs and chains to a metal chair embedded in the concrete. His muscles had stiffened to wooden numbness; his back burned with fire.

  How much time had passed?

  Hours? Days? Eternity?

  Sensory deprivation worked flawlessly. He was kept in silence, denied sleep, his feeding rhythm changed to disrupt his biological clock.

  His head hummed like a transformer box—the aftermath of the close explosion of that cursed rocket from the "Iron Dragon." This sound, a high-pitched squeal drilling into the brain on the edge of ultrasound, did not stop for a second.

  Creeeeak.

  The heavy metal bolt clanked. The door opened, letting a stream of cool air into the cell, smelling of something sharp, chemical—either medicine or the strange tobacco of the otherworlders.

  Heavy army boots clattered dully on the floor. Not one person. Three? Four?

  "Take the bag off him," a calm, authoritative, slightly raspy voice sounded. The language was alien. Harsh, barking, devoid of the melody of the common tongue.

  A jerk. The fabric slid off his head.

  The bright, merciless light of a halogen lamp aimed directly at his face struck his eyes like a fist. The lieutenant squeezed his eyes shut; tears spurted from them. A sharp pain of concussion pierced his head; a lump of nausea rose to his throat.

  At that moment, emotions he had suppressed for hours in the dark pounced on him like a pack of hungry dogs.

  Despair. Malice. Black, sticky hatred.

  They had been betrayed. Command had abandoned them here like waste slag. Order "2-34" meant he was supposed to die, taking secrets to the grave. But he survived, and now his honor, his seventeen years of impeccable service to the Empire, which secretly guarded the peace of the world of Tresmondus from the shadows of Ravernal—all of this was trampled into the mud by these barbarians.

  He forced his inflamed eyelids open with difficulty.

  Before him, at a simple table, sat enemies. Henchmen of Chaos.

  In the center—an elderly man in a strange, gray-green tunic with gold stars on his shoulders (Kupriyanov). His face was gray with fatigue, but his eyes looked clear and cold, like the muzzles of pistols.

  Next to him stood two thugs in masks—executioners. Their hands were empty, but their knuckles were calloused.

  And to the side...

  The lieutenant ground his teeth.

  To the side stood a half-breed. A half-elf. A vile product of blood mixing, a shame to the higher races. He was dressed in the same strange uniform as the others, but a red cross armband hung on his sleeve.

  "Do you understand me?" the half-elf asked in pure common tongue. His voice was even, but the same icy hatred splashed in his eyes as in the prisoner's.

  The lieutenant spat viscous, pinkish saliva on the floor.

  "Yes," he answered hoarsely, drilling the traitor with his gaze.

  "Excellent. My name is Ito. You will be asked several questions. I recommend answering honestly."

  "Never!" the lieutenant barked. "You dogs will get nothing from me but curses!"

  The half-elf translated. The old officer at the table didn't even change his expression. He only waved his hand slightly, wearily.

  "Give him a couple of doses of 'sedative'," he said mundanely.

  The two in masks stepped forward. Synchronously, without winding up, professionally.

  A blow to the solar plexus. Air flew out of the lieutenant's lungs with a whistle.

  A second blow—with the edge of a palm (in a Kevlar glove with a weight) to the cheekbone.

  A flash of pain. His head snapped back. His cheek seemed to explode.

  They hit silently, knowingly. Kidney. Liver. Not breaking bones, but turning insides into a chop. This wasn't a fight. This was work.

  The lieutenant went "floaty." The pain was intense, but... familiar. He was taught to endure worse.

  "Enough!" the old man raised a finger.

  The executioners retreated into the shadows as silently as they had attacked.

  Ito leaned closer. His face was pale with tension.

  "We know that you are the field commander of the group that staged the massacre in the square in Beales. We know about the base in the catacombs. We know about the refinery. How many people are in the structure of 'Sunrise'? Who is your handler on the mainland?"

  "Go fuck yourself, you degenerate!" 'Ronald' hissed viciously, licking blood from a split lip. A fanatical fire burned in his eyes. "I won't say a word to you or these invaders! Do you think pain scares me? I serve a Great Purpose! And you... you, traitor to your blood... You will know Hell and its depths for serving demons from another world! We will return! And then..."

  Kupriyanov sighed heavily. He rubbed the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes as if he had an unbearable headache from this pathos. Then, slowly, not looking at the prisoner, he took a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his pocket.

  The lighter clicked. The aroma of expensive tobacco wafted through the stale air of the cell, strangely out of place amidst the smell of blood and unwashed body.

  The Colonel took a deep drag, exhaling a stream of smoke to the side. He was in no mood for ideological disputes.

  He beckoned Ito with a finger.

  The latter leaned toward the commander.

  (Whispering): "I understand you, Ito. I see how you're shaking. Your family lives in Beales, I remember. Hatred is seething inside you right now; you want to tear him apart with your bare hands. But listen to me carefully. Don't overdo it with this scum. Don't kill him. Don't kill him yet. We need him alive and, preferably, in his right mind. Understand? Work delicately."

  The half-elf froze for a second, fighting himself. Then he straightened up; his face became a mask again.

  "Yes, Comrade Colonel. Absolutely."

  Kupriyanov nodded, crushed the unfinished cigarette into the bottom of an aluminum ashtray, stood up, and, without looking back, left the interrogation room. The metal door slammed shut with a clang, leaving the lieutenant alone with Ito, in whose eyes there was no longer professional interest, but only the promise of a very long and very painful night.

  Senior Lieutenant Ito Asha, one of the first graduates of the accelerated course of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Academy in St. Petersburg, stood over the chained prisoner. Once, a lifetime ago, he was a promising investigator in the Gym Department under the patronage of the then-Major Kupriyanov. He believed in the law. Believed in order.

  But that life burned a week ago in the square in Beales, along with his wife and three children. Now inside this half-elf, there was only a scorched desert and a cold, crystal-clear purpose.

  He slowly, demonstratively rolled up the sleeves of his uniform shirt.

  "So," Ito walked up close, leaning toward the face of the militant lieutenant. His lips twitched in a creepy grimace he tried to pass off as a smile, but his eyes remained dead. "Where shall we start our conversation? Straight to business, or do I need to introduce myself? I am the one whose family you burned at the festival."

  "Go to hell... you won't get anything out of me, filthy half-breed," 'Ronald' hissed. His face was battered, one eye swollen shut, but the fanaticism in his voice hadn't faded. "Your demon masters won't help."

  Ito didn't even blink. He nodded slowly, as if agreeing with a reasonable argument, and turned to the two Russian specialists in masks standing by the instrument table.

  "Manicure scheme," he threw out.

  Ronald tensed. He understood the common tongue, but this sharp, barking speech of the "otherworlders" was just a set of threatening sounds to him.

  The Russians nodded silently. With a metallic clink, medical scalpels, locksmith pliers with rubberized handles, a device resembling a soldering iron with a thin tip, and a set of thick gypsy needles were laid on the table.

  "Let's start with the fingers, and we'll see from there. Most nerve endings there," Ito stamped caustically, with clinical precision, taking the needles and a small hammer from the table.

  Two Russians professionally grabbed the militant's left hand, securing it in a steel clamp on the chair's armrest. The fingers were spread.

  Ito was in no hurry. He took a needle and carefully placed the point exactly under the nail plate of the index finger.

  "Do you know how this works? First it hurts. Then... it becomes unbearable."

  The hammer blow was short and sharp.

  The needle went deep.

  Ronald clenched his jaw so hard his teeth creaked. A guttural roar, more like the sound of a wounded beast, burst into his face. Ito, expression unchanging, moved to the middle finger.

  Tap.

  Another needle. Deeper. Into the living tissue, tearing the nail matrix.

  The prisoner's forehead was instantly covered with large, cold sweat. His lips turned white, compressed into a thin, tense line. His body arched in the bonds, trying to pull away from the source of pain, but the steel held firm.

  Ito put down the hammer and looked into the enemy's eyes. Pain splashed in them, but the will was not yet broken.

  "Don't worry," the half-elf smiled bloodthirstily, and this smile was scarier than torture. "We have excellent medics. Life Mages from Qua-Toyne. I will personally see to it that you are healed. I will restore every finger. And start over. We will do this forever, until you break. Or until I get tired."

  "Oh!" the executioner turned to the otherworlders and snapped his fingers. "Music."

  One of the Russians pressed a button on a player. Speakers filled the basement with heavy, rhythmic bass of some aggressive industrial rock. The dissonance between the music and what was happening hit the psyche no worse than pain.

  "Bas... tard..." the militant wheezed, spitting blood.

  "Wrong answer."

  Ito took the pliers. Cold metal squeezed the head of the protruding needle along with the nail. A sharp yank, accompanied by the wet sound of tearing tissue.

  The scream that tore from the prisoner's throat was no longer human. It was pure, distilled agony.

  Ito, giving him no respite, yanked the militant by the collar, pulling his face to his own, and roared right into his ear, drowning out the music:

  "SPEAK! WHERE IS THE BASE?! Safe houses, passwords, frequencies! Who gave the order on the square?! Where are your remnants hiding?!"

  Ronald gasped for air, his pupils dilated from pain shock. But fanaticism is a strong drug.

  "Fuck... you... heh..." he whispered, and his bloodied lips stretched into a mad, suicidal grin.

  The half-elf slowly pulled back. Anger in him gave way to icy calculation.

  "The bag."

  He sat at the table, opening the interrogation log. One of the Russian executioners took a thick, transparent cellophane bag from his pocket. The second put lead knuckles on his hands.

  This was an old, proven method. "The Elephant."

  The bag tightly covered the militant's head, cutting off oxygen. At the same moment, the second executioner began methodically, with deliberation, to deliver short, crushing blows with brass knuckles to the liver, solar plexus, and kidneys.

  No air. With wild pain inside.

  Ronald's brain began to panic. It wasn't rational fear; it was the biological panic of an organism that was dying.

  Instincts screamed. The body began to convulse, trying to inhale, but only sucked in polyethylene. The mouth opened soundlessly, like a fish thrown on ice. Colored circles swam before his eyes.

  A minute. One and a half.

  The militant began to lose consciousness; his face acquired a cyanotic hue.

  With a sharp movement, the bag was ripped off.

  Ronald convulsively, with a sob, sucked in air, coughed, spitting out foam. His lungs burned.

  But he wasn't given even a second. Ito nodded. The Russians picked up the pliers again, grabbing the next finger.

  "A-A-A-A!" a shriek, high-pitched, on the edge of ultrasound, struck the eardrums. The sound was stifled by two dull punches to the cheekbone. The jaw crunched.

  "Well?" Ito inquired, making a note on the paper with a businesslike air, as if filling out a receipt. "Still going to be silent, hero?"

  "U... U..." the militant tried to say something, but his words choked in a cough after a gut punch.

  "Come on now, only to the point," Ito waved a bloodied index finger didactically in front of the victim's nose. "Save your breath. You'll need it for screaming. Nod your head if you want to talk. But for now... we continue the concert."

  At the same time, the scream moved to new, transcendental tonalities of general agony, dissolving into the echoing concrete walls of the base...

  Continent of Rodenius. Russian Military Base No. 11/04.

  Special Interrogation Room No. 10.

  Day 5 of detention. Time unknown.

  Time in Cell No. 10 had ceased to exist. It dissolved into a viscous, sticky nightmare of screams, the smell of ozone, and the coppery taste of blood.

  For five days, the main handler of the "Dawn" group had been methodically taken apart. Russian specialists and Lieutenant Ito worked in shifts, with the cold efficiency of an assembly line.

  First, they broke the small bones—phalanges, metatarsals, clavicles. When his pain threshold increased, scalpels came into play—they sliced off his earshells millimeter by millimeter. Then followed the asphyxia phase: they drowned him in a bucket of ice water, holding him on the edge of life and death until his lungs began to burn with fire, and then pulled him out again.

  They beat his insides with brass knuckles wrapped in wet rags, so as not to leave marks on the skin but to turn his organs into mince. They used a rack for twisting joints. They burned him with electricity—until he smoked, until the convulsions threatened to snap his spine.

  And then the life mages came. Elves in sterile coats with squeamish faces. They poured the energy of Life into the mangled body, knitting bones, closing cuts, restoring the sensitivity of nerve endings. This was the most terrible part. It took away the hope for death. "Ronald" realized that hell was not fire. Hell was when you are treated just so you can be tortured again.

  At the end of the fifth day, his mind cracked. Through the murky veil of madness, a single, crystal-clear thought broke through: "The end at any cost."

  When the bag was yanked off his head once again, the militant no longer tried to look defiant. He was crying. Filthily, uncontrollably, smearing snot and blood over his swollen face.

  "Kill me..." he howled, and this howl was like the whining of a beaten dog. "Enough... I'll say everything... Please..."

  Senior Lieutenant Ito Asha, haggard, his face gray from lack of sleep and his eyes red, sat opposite him. There was no longer any sadism or triumph in his gaze. Only the infinite fatigue of a man digging through filth. He clicked the voice recorder on.

  "We have plenty of time to kill you later. First, the truth. I am listening to you extremely carefully."

  The prisoner greedily gulped air, struggling to focus his gaze on the interrogator's nose bridge.

  "We... arrived on direct assignment from 'Center'," he wheezed in a extinguished, grating voice. His throat was scorched from screaming.

  "Our operational objective was the total undermining of stability in this region. Chaos... Fear... Mistrust of the newcomers."

  He coughed, spitting a clot onto the floor. Ito waited patiently.

  "We had to make it so that these invaders... your Russians... would drown in blood. So that they would be hated. So that they would get bogged down here in a guerrilla war and leave."

  "Why?" the half-elf asked shortly.

  The militant raised his eyes. Through the pain in them, a fanatical, almost religious horror emerged.

  "Because we cannot allow them to win. Not in the war... but in their very existence here. You idiots do not understand... If nothing is done, the Ancient Magical Pact of the Gods will be violated."

  He dropped his head onto his chest, having finally lost faith in the justice of Tresmondus, which had allowed such a thing.

  "The Transfer... Two otherworld powers at once... Russia, Gra-Valkas... Your technological heresy and distortion of the ether field... You are weakening the Veil. The barrier is thinning. If it is not strengthened with blood and sacrifices, then Magic... True, wild Magic... will return to our Three Worlds in full force. And with it will return those whom the Gods got rid of in the distant past."

  Ito felt a chill run down his spine. It sounded like ravings, but at the same time, it fit too neatly into the picture of the world the old folks whispered about.

  But then he remembered the small body of his son covered with a sheet.

  "We are drifting from the topic into philosophy!" trying to hide the trembling in his hands and the rising emotions, the half-elf stamped his words coldly, like the crack of a whip. Rage boiled in him again.

  BAM!

  He slammed his palm forcefully onto the metal table.

  "To hell with your gods and barriers! Answer me, you scum: why did you kill the innocent?! Why did you shoot women and children in the square?! What did civilians do to you?! Did they weaken your fucking barrier too?!"

  Ronald raised a cloudy gaze to him.

  "Numbers... They are just numbers, Lieutenant," he whispered, and in this whisper was the terrible logic of a fanatic for whom the life of an individual is nothing before eternity. "As I said, the massacre in the square was supposed to be a detonator. The first stage of panic. Sacrificial fuel. Understand this... better the death of hundreds of thousands of these 'civilians,' better scorched cities and the weeping of mothers now, than the complete, final destruction of our world later. We are the immunity. We kill the infected cells."

  He leaned forward as far as the chains allowed, his shackles clinking.

  "We must preserve the Balance at any cost. The magical barrier between worlds is thin right now. By existing, you are tearing the fabric of reality..."

  Russian Federation. Moscow. Lubyanka Square.

  Department of Military Counterintelligence (DVKR) of the FSB of Russia.

  November 23, 2029. 21:50 Moscow Time.

  In a spacious office on the fourth floor of an old building, with windows facing the inner courtyard well, only a single desk lamp with a green lampshade burned—a tribute to Chekist tradition. Behind a massive desk, piled high with classified folders and ashtrays, sat a man.

  He looked to be about fifty. A short graying crew cut, a heavy, strong-willed jaw, and eyes accustomed to reading between the lines. Hanging on the back of his chair was a black service tunic with light blue piping and the shoulder boards of a Major General. He himself was dressed in a white shirt with rolled-up sleeves and a loosened tie. He was waiting.

  The silence, broken only by the hum of the cooling fans in a hardened computer tower, was sliced by the sharp, demanding ring of the Kavkaz secure communications unit. The red indicator on the massive, dial-less black phone blinked anxiously.

  The General slowly set down his Parker pen, removed his glasses, rubbed the bridge of his nose, and reached for the receiver. No rushing. People didn't rush here. Here, they decided fates.

  "…Yes?" he asked shortly and hollowly into the mouthpiece, stating neither rank nor name. The line was direct, and only one person could call on it, and for only one reason.

  Through thousands of kilometers, through atmospheric static and layers of encryption, a voice broke through. It was so drained and hollow that for a second, the General imagined the speaker's face: gray, with dark circles under the eyes and the smell of someone else's blood on his hands.

  "Comrade Major General, this is Kupriyanov. The 'Object' has cracked. Code 17-05-22."

  The General froze. His fingers, which had been resting calmly on the polished tabletop, clenched into a fist.

  Code 17-05-22. In the operational table of signal codes approved personally by the Director, this meant: Reliable coordinates of the enemy's decision-making center or main base obtained. Threat level confirmed as critical/existential. Immediate military solution recommended.

  "Confirmation?" he asked just as quietly, though he already knew the answer.

  "Absolute. Cross-interrogation, matches with intelligence data. It is the South, Comrade General. An isolated sector. Coordinates have been sent via the Monolith channel."

  The Major General cast a quick glance at the wall clock. The hand was inexorably approaching ten in the evening. They weren't sleeping in the Kremlin yet. The flywheel of war, which they had been spinning up so carefully, had now received the lubricant of precise data.

  He pulled a combat directive form toward him, feeling a cold, angry satisfaction. The shadows had taken on flesh. And anything that has flesh can be destroyed.

  "Copy that, Colonel," his voice became hard, metallic. "Send the package. And get Cobalt ready for deployment."

  He paused, gripping his pen, ready to write down the most important part.

  "Where and at what time?.."