“You shouldn’t have brought the boy here Riot, though he died well,” Price said.

  The old rage didn’t come like Riot thought it would. There was a cold certainty there though, under the pain in his cracked knee, a stone cold truth that Price needed to die. Perhaps that was better for some jobs.

  Price drew his sword, a yard of pitted gray steel. “Do you remember this blade? A crude thing, but then you’re a crude man. Myam-tal gave me this blade, and some petty revenge. I thought that they might take everything from me, but now you see that I am made whole and you are broken. Natalia didn’t take much convincing to betray you either, she brought you right to me.”

  "No, Price, she brought me to you,” Riot hissed.

  Their swords met, and Riot felt his own blade's weakness immediately. The Faelen sword felt more like an iron club but Price wielded it like a rapier and it was all he could do to stop the blade slicing him apart as he stumbled backward.

  Price should have been panting with the effort but he’d barely broken a sweat and Riot remembered the dead bodies in the farmhouse basement, one with a wound that clove almost half way through the body.

  With a cry of triumph, Price flicked the blade up and scored a deep slash down Riot’s face, the sword-tip scraping the cheekbone.

  “I wanted to mutilate you, Riot, as you mutilated me. I thought to burn out your eyes all along the long road through the hills.” Price advanced as calmly as though he were taking a stroll through the gardens. “Quinn told me all about you. The last man. I think she genuinely likes you, you know. But you can never be sure, the wikkan traits rub off easily. Perhaps she bonded you to her on purpose so that she could manipulate you? You do have something of a faithful hound about you.”

  The cheap sword had a fine crack in the steel and wouldn’t last long. Riot backed out into the hallway and as his heel bumped up against the body of Norton, he bent and felt around for the boy's dropped blade. “I’m really getting sick of hearing you talk, Price.”

  Riot closed the distance quickly and set to work with the two swords, twisting, blocking, and jabbing with them. He unleashed an overhand blow that shattered one of the swords on Price's blade. But he was ready for it and raked the half a foot of jagged metal that remained along Price's thigh. Blood welled out through the ripped fabric and Price bellowed a curse and turned a lunge into a deft flick that twisted Riot’s sword clean out of his hand.

  Price stepped back, limping slightly on his wounded leg. “I see how you survived when others could not. Is it true you killed Alric Rook?”

  Price’s expression was like the pinched stone carvings of the Stoics, his suffering fueling his own personal crusade. Much like Quinn when Riot had pressed her about her past. Something that bordered on obsession.

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  Riot continued to move back slowly, scanning the walls. “Who’s Alric Rook to you?”

  Price let the leypower flood his forearms, the dirty light dripping from his fingers, leaving black streaks. “Alric Rook did this to me.”

  Price brought his hands together and crushed the leypower, and Riot ran down the corridor, hurtling through the doorway as splintered wood exploded behind him. He limped down one of the long corridors and found what just he needed, sending a quick prayer up to whatever wicked god played with the fates of soldiers.

  Another set of doors took him out onto a vast terrace with sweeping views of the city dominated by the dark shadow of the Sun Tower.

  Riot tried to steady his breath and hefted the half-pike. It was no display weapon, the twelve inch spearhead was notched and his hands found the slight grooves on the six-foot wooden haft worn smooth by time. They called it the sergeant's pike, but he’d stopped carrying one a year after his promotion. It was bloody pain to march with for a start, and it made you a target in any fight.

  Against a horse or a sword you’d not find a better weapon, but as Price emerged, hands glowing with arcane power, Riot swore. Price didn’t need a sword.

  Riot bellowed and charged forward, desperate to close the distance as a flash of arcane light flared and he felt like he’d been kicked by a horse in the stomach. The pain would come, but he tried to block it out and lunged with the pike

  Price drew his sword and tried to block the blow, but Riot was ready and twisted the spear-tip, catching the heavy Faelen blade on the crosspiece and knocking it aside. He lunged again and buried the spear tip into Price’s thigh, twisting the blade free and hammering down on Price's sword arm, slicing his flesh to the bone so that his sword fell from his grasp

  Riot grounded the pike, leaning on it as his strength failed him and he fell to one knee. Hot blood dripped from the wound in his gut, hitting the floor in a pitter-patter of droplets. Blood pooled in his mouth, and his face felt like it was on fire

  Price recovered his sword and limped forward, spitting a gob of blood to the flagstones, each breath strained. “You killed Alric Rook for me, and you fought well, Riot, so I’m not going to kill you. We are alike, you and I, and I want you to see the world as I see it. Now stay still, if you move, I cannot promise I will only take one eye.”

  Riot could feel his vision swimming as the blood trickled down his face and through the fingers of the hand that he held clamped to his stomach. He mumbled, the words bleeding together.

  “What did you say?” Price asked, leaning in.

  “I’m nothing like you,” Riot rasped, grabbing hold of the front of Price’s uniform.

  The greasy barrier that Sumner Nixton had placed over the hedron scar on Riots hand burned away as the leypower surged out of the scarred imprint and blasted Price backwards to fall with a sickening crunch ten feet away.

  But for Riot, the pain continued as the leypower that had built up in his body poured out and his hand blackened and burned.

  Pounding footsteps echoed in his consciousness. Another pair of hands wrapped around his own, and a new thin barrier slid into place.

  “I won’t let you die just yet, Sergeant Riot,” Moran said.

  His vision swam and the promise of sleep that whispered to him wasn’t the kind you wake up from. “Moran, Quinn has the hedron. She’s going to destroy the tower.” Riot knew he said the words, but they sounded like they came from far away.

  “I know, Sergeant. Any moment now, I should imagine.”