The Zombie Knight

Chapter Two Hundred Forty-Seven: 'The hand that needs grasping...'

A string of explosions rocked the night sky, but Lord Abbas Saqqaf couldn't let that deter him. The suit could take it, and so could he. He soared through the onslaught head on and clobbered one of the Abolish bastards in midair.

Unable stand up to the force of the impact, the enemy's body simply exploded into a cloud of blood.

That was one down, but there were plenty more left. Dozens of them--and all flying, too. Only some of them seemed to be flying under their own power. His visor was picking up several identical high-energy readings among the group of hostiles. The speed of combat made it difficult to be certain, but he thought he caught sight of machinery on their arms and backs.

More toys of the Mad Demon, Abbas figured.

But that was fine. He was mainly just glad there weren't any more of those hulking monstrosities here. He'd been forced to fend off two of those damn things back in Sair, and while he'd emerged victorious, the suit hadn't quite been the same since.

It was still mostly functional, thankfully, but it wasn't regenerating like it was supposed to. He would've liked to run full system diagnostics to figure out what the problem was, but he would need at least eight uninterrupted hours to do so. That obviously wasn't possible when, for the past three days, he'd had to be combat ready at all times.

Even without diagnostics, though, he had an unsettling suspicion about what the problem might be. There weren't many things that could hamper regeneration for a sustained period of time, after all.

He had more pressing matters on his mind at the moment, however.

Abolish flies buzzed all around him, a veritable swarm. No doubt, they all hoped to be the one to deliver his head to their bosses, but none of them were going to succeed.

Apart, perhaps, from that one with the birds. The Man of Crows.

Gathering intel on him had become a priority since the beginning of the war, yet details had remained sparse all throughout. His apparent ability to manipulate flocks of black birds made little sense to Abbas' mind--and to the many reapers among his brethren, as well.

Because there was more to it than simply controlling them. If that were all it was, his ability might be easily explained by some sort of psychic connection developed via mutation. But no, those birds could do so much more. They were supernaturally resilient, able to withstand conventional firearms, extreme temperatures, and more force than even most servants. Plus, they could spit acid, fire, ice, electricity, toxic fumes, and even explosions.

And their agility. They were speedy little bastards, quick to dodge. Strong, too. The Man of Crows often sat or even stood atop a cluster of them as if they were a solid platform. They sometimes went to the aid of his subordinate Abolishers, too, which was quite obnoxious.

The damned things were more akin to dragons than birds.

For a while, Abbas had thought they might also be machines, just disguised. But after blasting whole swathes of them to pieces personally, he saw that they were indeed biological.

That encounter had not earned Abbas much favor with the Man of Crows, it seemed. This was going to be their seventh clash in as many days. Even before the disaster at Uego, Albert Crowe had been gunning for him.

If the suit's systems were at optimal performance, and if he didn't have so many civilians to look after at the moment, Abbas might have welcomed the opportunity to end Crowe's obsession with him permanently. It certainly would've been one less major headache to worry about.

Crowe didn't care about having an honorable duel, however. He had the tactical advantage, and he didn't hesitate to keep pressing it.

Not that Abbas expected any better from Abolish, of course.

If he hadn't recalibrated his visor and ocular replacements prior to escaping the Golden Fort, it would've been almost impossible for him to track the movement of Crowe's birds well enough to keep the civilians safe.

They were like giant tendrils, snaking and expanding through the air, scattering on a moment's notice and reconvening elsewhere just before striking again. And the collective power that their formations gave them was simply absurd. Abbas was probably the only one present who could hope to block or divert their assaults.

Which was saying quite a lot.

Much of Hahl Saqqaf was here with him, servant and non-servant alike. They had over two dozen fighters present, including his son Raheem, his grandson Amir, and even his great grandson Badat. As a result, their entourage was a hastily assembled mixture of ground-based vehicles, deployable helicopters, and people simply being carried by servants--either physically or with abilities.

In the better moments, the servants had been able to carry everyone, even the vehicles, but they couldn't keep doing that when faced with an attack; so now the pace was slowed again while clusters of Saqqaf warriors broke off to engage the enemy.

Abbas was under no illusions, though. It was all resting on his shoulders, right now. His sons and cousins were strong, but if he fell in battle here, Abolish would probably kill or capture everyone.

For that reason, it may have seemed unwise to have Worwal with him during this fight. But the unfortunate truth of the matter was that they simply didn't know where else to go.

The prevalence of invisible aberrations had changed the nature of this war. Too many times, the Golden Council had received reports of reapers who had separated from their servants for their own safety, only to get ambushed and captured or killed.

But most of all, it was those damn machines of the Mad Demon. Even when reapers tried to escape by themselves into the ground, far and deep into the earth, those machines were still a threat.

They could show up anywhere at any moment, it seemed.

Abbas had a rather strong feeling that at least one or two of them was still chasing him, though perhaps that was just paranoia getting the better of him.

In an ideal world, Abbas would have loved the chance to capture one of the machines in order to study it. Haqq Najir had certainly harped on about that, requiring quite an irritating degree of convincing before finally realizing that such a feat was impossible. Abbas had seen it firsthand. When defeated, the machines annihilated themselves, leaving seemingly no trace behind.

Because of course they did. This was Morgunov they were talking about. If anything, Abbas would have been even more mistrustful of the machines if they didn't self-destruct in some way. That would have just made him wonder why Morgunov was allowing them to study his technology so easily.

Haqq was still quite young and naive in that way. A budding genius he might have been, but when would his arrogance stop causing him to underestimate others? Emperors, especially.

The boy had been helpful, though. After the fight with Ivan at Dunehall, Abbas had wanted to make upgrades to the suit right away. The world at large might have been praising him for his incredible victory, but he knew the truth. That fight had nearly been a disaster. It absolutely could have gone Ivan's way if conditions were even slightly different.

So Abbas had been doing his best to ignore all of the attention--even from the Vanguard, when he could.

To his mind, there had been no greater priority than elevating the suit to new heights as quickly as possible. He'd kicked the hornet's nest by capturing Ivan. This attack would have arrived eventually, and he needed to be prepared.

If only he could have done more.

Even in its sub-optimal condition, the suit was probably still more powerful now than it was when he'd faced the Salesman. The incredible, tide-shifting potency of the suit's fusion-propulsion system in that fight had greatly motivated him to find a way to weaponize that technology.

He hadn't had enough time to truly refine it, but with Haqq's help, a working prototype--the Ro'Hada 0-A--was now attached to his right arm.

And thank the benevolent gods for that.

Without it, he probably would have been killed by those two machines that ambushed him outside Kuros. The Ro'Hada--or the Dark God's Death in Mohssian--had made the difference in a critical moment when one of them had him pinned and the other was approaching, mere seconds away from barreling into him and destroying his already-battered armor.

But it was unstable. The Ro'Hada may have saved him once, but he knew from his number crunching during development and testing that it was a weapon of last resort. Technically, there was still about a 1.328 percent chance that, whenever he pulled the trigger, it would create a chain reaction that would likely result in his death before the suppression system could kick in.

He had to be prepared for that whenever he chose use it.

...And also that there was, theoretically, a 0.0000000014 percent chance that the chain reaction would defeat the suppression system and create an explosion powerful enough to wipe out everything within two kilometers.

He hadn't mentioned that bit of math to anyone, not even Haqq. He was hoping to iron out that particular kink the next time he had access to a decent workshop.

Right now, though, he had to deal with Crowe and his lackeys, preferably without resorting to the Ro'Hada 0-A.

It wouldn't be easy. The cruise missile in his chest piece was no longer functional, as was one of the two drones in his shoulder.

He did, however, still have a few other tricks up his armored sleeve. Quite literally, in this case. His forearms concealed a dozen micro-RPG launchers of his own design.

Five more hostiles were closing in, his visor warned him. Crowe's men. All using pan-rozum with various metallic elements. Abbas had identified each of them in previous encounters, but their names didn't matter to him, for the most part. He'd only wanted to know if there were other infamous names to be wary of. Thankfully, there weren't, but there was one who kept distinguishing himself as a more threatening opponent than the others.

Otto Konig. Abbas had never heard of him before this war, and according to the suit's database, he was a fixture of Crowe's otherwise frequently-rotating cast of subordinates. That, at least, implied that he had the Man of Crows' trust. And after butting heads with him several times, Abbas could see why.

The way the man fought was not entirely unlike that of Melchor Blackburn. Not as refined or overwhelming, perhaps, but his aerial mobility might have been superior. Possibly. It had been many years since Abbas had sparred with Darktide, so perhaps that was an unfair assessment.

Either way, Konig was threatening enough that Abbas didn't want to let any of his kin fight him alone. He used the suit's visor to keep a near-constant track of both him and Crowe. If either of them got too far away, he would move to intercept.

Which was a problem, currently, because while Konig and the other four lackeys were coming in for another attack, Abbas just barely noticed that Crowe was instead moving toward the civilians.

This could not be allowed.

Abbas picked an opponent that wasn't Konig and blasted straight through him like a cannonball through a wet paper towel. Pan-rozum or not, their body couldn't hold up against a simultaneous full burn from the suit's six jets.

Konig gave chase, of course, as did the three slower enemies, but none of them would be able to catch him before he caught Crowe.

Another flock of birds, however: that was different story.

A bombardment of ice and lightning arrived as the flock whipped toward him. He had to jet out of the way, unfortunately. If the suit was still able to regenerate properly, he would have simply ignored the attack--or even leaned into it, perhaps, and countered. He couldn't be so reckless here. The longer this fight went on, the more his resources dwindled.

He had the mini-missiles, though. They were one of the few systems that was still fully operational, regeneration and all.

For now, at least.

He deployed another quarter portion from each arm, and this time, both sets connected immediately. He would've been thrown off course completely if not for the suit's automated impact mitigation system. It excelled in helping him maintain optimal flight speed while in close proximity to his own targeted explosions.

The flock shriveled back, but it wasn't defeated. It would soon return, Abbas knew--probably sooner than his missiles finished regenerating, but he still had two more quarter portions on each arm if that happened.

He soared out of the smoke cloud, still intent on catching Crowe before he could attack the civilians.

But Crowe had turned around to face him--with four more flocks swirling around him, no less.

Crowe still wasn't fully regenerated from the earlier hit Abbas had landed. Another solid blow, perhaps to the head this time, might just finish him--at least for this fight.

It was like Crowe was daring him to go for it.

The four flocks were a challenge. If they were the ones to land a solid hit on him, they could probably penetrate his armor and weaken him enough to give Crowe a decisive advantage.

Or just outright kill him. That was unlikely, though.

Regardless, Abbas didn't intend to take such a risk. He had Crowe's attention again. That was all he needed in order to keep the civilians safe a little longer.

Maybe Crowe had a hard time comprehending that. Abbas didn't give a damn about proving which of them was stronger. Bravado was not a factor in his thinking.

Only the objective. The civilians. His kin.

Abbas made a hard right turn, swooping up and away from Crowe and the civilian entourage on the ground. He could all but sense Crowe's frustration with that avoidant maneuver as the four flocks of birds bristled and spun toward him, giving chase.

Good.

If Crowe was getting emotional, Abbas could only see that as a positive thing for their battle. The Man of Crows would be more likely to make mistakes, to act recklessly. This back-and-forth between them had gone on for days, after all. Abolishers were not known for their patience or mental discipline.

He led the flocks away from the refugees. If he kept moving, they would keep following--so long as he didn't create too much distance too quickly. That would just motivate them to go after the civilians again.

It became a mad aerial dance. Bolting across the sky, weaving in and out of oncoming Abolishers who thought they could cut him off as he circled back around.

The flocks stuck on him, too--all of them, this time.

That was ideal. Many times previously, Crowe had tried to divide his attention between Abbas and the civilians, no doubt hoping to kill or capture them while the Lord Saqqaf was distracted.

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An annoying strategy, but one that Abbas had made sure to consistently thwart. Crowe must have finally realized how unfeasible it was and--

'I sense Bloodeye approaching from the north!' came Worwal's private warning. The reaper was clinging to him inside the suit, not merged with a hyper-state.

That news was just about the worst thing Abbas could imagine, right now, short of more robots or Morgunov himself showing up.

Bloodeye was the other primary instigator in this war on his homeland. From the very beginning, it had been Crowe and Bloodeye together that led the invasion.

True, they hadn't been able to stand up to Iceheart, even while working together, but neither had Iceheart been able to pin them down and eliminate them. Their hit-and-run tactics in his presence had caused no end of headaches.

And now, Iceheart wasn't even here, anymore.

Gods.

He couldn't think about any of that, right now. Everything was riding on him. He had to focus.

If all else failed, he still had the Ro'Hada as a last resort. Until that hope was gone, he had no cause for despair.

Abbas turned and fought. He wouldn't have Crowe alone for much longer, so he decided to take advantage of the time while he could. It would likely prove a futile effort, as Crowe no doubt knew of Bloodeye's imminent arrival and would therefore try to play it safe.

But he had to try.

Crowe's men, including Konig got in the way again--or tried to, at least.

The Lord Saqqaf was not having it. They bombarded him with a smattering of explosions and materialization, hoping to block his vision or pin him down or perhaps something else entirely; but he blasted straight through it all at full burn. He skewered one man and didn't stop, even when the body refused to be bisected and instead stuck to him like bloody ornament.

The body struggled a moment, trying to get a grip on the suit no doubt, so Abbas zagged suddenly right and barreled into Otto Konig's liquid metal body.

Konig tried to stick to him, too, but that was fine. Abbas still had plenty of control. At this speed, with this much momentum, the jets could handle the weight difference just fine. Turning was obviously more difficult, but he could compensate. The suit was already assisting him with calculations and flight path guidance on his visor.

He could still aim for Crowe. And now the impact would be three times as heavy. Roughly speaking. Konig's metal body probably made up for the weight disparity that the suit itself added to Abbas.

Crowe saw him coming. Of course he did. And he wisely tried to move out of the way. Those black wings offered great mobility of their own.

Not enough, though.

Abbas pierced two flocks of birds before clobbering the Man of Crows with his small mountain of metal and flesh.

Crowe's body stuck onto him, too, added to the pile. Now the weight was beginning to become an issue. Abbas could hear the jets straining.

It was the perfect time to cool them down, then.

He opened both hands wide and vented several supercoolant packs on his back. Liquid hydrogen spewed out, splashing everywhere.

Normally, the venting would be a much more controlled process, but while he was covered in mangled bodies and twisting metal, control was a luxury. And of course, he wanted the coolant to get all over his opponents.

After having been both reminded of and further impressed by Iceheart's effectiveness on the battlefield, Abbas had been trying to increase the suit's freezing capabilities to new heights. While he didn't yet have the "cryo-weapon" of his dreams at his disposal, the addition of several spare supercoolant packs was a start.

And they seemed to be doing well. System heating metrics were way down, and he could feel the three bodies around him squirming less than before.

But he wanted more. Crowe was still in one piece and struggling. That needed to be rectified.

Abbas couldn't even see out of his visor anymore, but the compass on the HUD was still working, at least. Bloodeye was approaching from the north, and Lorent was to the west.

He banked hard left, hearing the cooling hiss of the hydrogen almost overpowering the howling wind.

For a moment, he seriously contemplated just crashing straight into the ground. All these bodies would take even more damage than he would, especially if they were partially frozen already.

But no. Too reckless. With the suit's regeneration still in question, he couldn't risk it.

So he tapped all five fingertips together on his right hand, instead.

The suit's anti-personnel shock shield activated, covering his entire body in electricity.

Everyone's grip on him loosened instantly. Even the guy he'd nearly cut in half exploded apart. And suddenly, he was free again--covered in frosted blood and guts, but free.

Able to see now, the visor tracked Crowe and Konig both falling toward the ground in statue-like heaps, barely twitching. The remaining flocks of crows were visibly disoriented, too, without orders from their master.

Excellent. Crowe's subordinates were rushing to his aid, but more mini-missiles would provide cover while he moved to finish the job.

'Bloodeye just disappeared,' warned Worwal.

Ah.

Invisibility again.

It had been a while since one of the Abolishers had tried that tactic, doubtless because most of them had realized that it was no longer effective.

Abbas had installed a Sound Navigation and Ranging device precisely for this purpose. True, it wasn't as effective in air as it was in water, and there was some added latency to account for, but it was certainly better than fighting blind.

The first pulse was ear-splitting and grinding--enough so that he would've certainly gone deaf at this range without passive soul defense or a very powerful sound dampener. It had to be so loud, of course, or else the pulse wouldn't travel with enough strength to bounce back and be useful.

Bloodeye was already quite close, the HUD revealed. And with the latency of sonar in air, Abbas knew that he would be even nearer than what the suit was telling him.

It shouldn't be too much of a problem, though. Bloodeye was dangerous, but he was a known quantity. His power was that of bromine transfiguration, and he relied heavily on fumes and acids to smother his opponents.

A relatively common fighting style, primarily elevated by the strength of the servant's soul and pan-rozum. It was still deadly, of course, especially when part of a team, but alone?

Abbas could handle him so long as Crowe stayed down for a bit longer. This situation was bad but still salvageable. As long as he stayed focused. He had to keep reminding himself of that.

He needed an attack that would cover a wide area. The sonar couldn't give him pinpoint accuracy, so he had to account for that. The mini-missiles might work again, but he had something better in mind.

Abbas, Haqq, and all their researchers had spent considerable time breaking down the many problems that the Invisibility-inducing aberrations presented so that they could develop countermeasures. Discerning how they functioned was key to that effort, and the major issue there was figuring out how the cloaking "shadow" actually interacted with light.

Whether it should be regarded as "magical" or "a matter that was beyond science" was irrelevant. Obviously, it was not reflecting or refracting light as any normal material would, which meant there were really only two other options for how the interaction might work.

Either the light was passing perfectly through the cloaked entities as if they were not even there; or the light was being absorbed entirely and a perfect replica of what was "behind" the entities was being projected back out to the eye of the viewer.

The first possibility seemed less likely, because logically speaking, if light was truly passing through the cloaked entities, then anyone inside should have been rendered blind, as the light would also be passing through their eyes without touching their photoreceptors. And by now, they knew very well that the invisible aberrations were not blind at all.

The only reason they had theorized this as a potential explanation at all was because, well, these were aberrations they were dealing with. Much like servants, they did not always follow the conventional wisdom of science, to the chagrin of many lifelong academics like himself.

In this case, however, their extra caution was unwarranted. Through further field testing, they had indeed been able to confirm that it was the second method. The light was being absorbed and a perfect image was being projected back.

It was an incredible feat, far beyond what any "normal" technology was currently capable of. If it could be reproduced with said normal technology, that would be a tremendous breakthrough.

But right now, that didn't matter. What mattered was that first bit: the light was being absorbed.

A high-powered laser, therefore, would be especially effective against it.

He had just the thing. A sweeping laser "net," capable of covering seventy cubic meters of space in front of him with a single flash. It could also be concentrated into one giant beam--and empowered with his soul, of course--if he wanted to do some real damage, but the situation didn't call for that. Yet.

The suit opened up at six different points: the shoulders, waist, chest, and palms of his hands. Focusing lenses appeared from each compartment, varying in size relative to their location. Then red lights blasted out all at once, crisscrossing and weaving together to form a crimson web of glowing beams.

It filled his vision, illuminating the sky far more than the still rising sun. He didn't register any damage being done, though. The lasers should've been able to shred the Invisibility of any cloaked units--or simply shred the units themselves.

He swung the net wide across Bloodeye's last known location, searching to and fro.

There it was. A sudden splattering of blood and tumbling chunks of flesh arrived. The cloaking shuddered, and Abbas saw seven men there, less than twenty meters away.

Well. Three men, now.

The others were in bad shape, too, apart from Bloodeye himself, who was only scorched across his face and chest but otherwise fine.

Time for concentration, then. Abbas locked onto the man with his visor and made every single laser converge on him at once.

In an instant, it burned a hole straight through Bloodeye's chest and set his black trench coat ablaze.

The man reacted by converting his entire body into red fumes. The flames were immediately extinguished, even while the fumes scattered out wide.

Abbas didn't intend to let himself be surrounded and smothered. He might've liked to use the laser net again to further scatter Bloodeye's fumes, but this was where the downside kicked in. The power draw. More than perhaps any other weapon in his arsenal, the lasers demanded power. The suit could regenerate its own fuel cells, but only very slowly--and only when it was functioning properly, which it most certainly was not.

That was okay, though. The mini-missiles would serve just fine here. And the smoke would--

Bloodeye's movement changed suddenly. Instead of the red smoke enveloping Abbas, it shrank back down and compressed, reforming Bloodeye's human body.

The unexpected maneuver made Abbas wary as he waited for the attack to come. If Bloodeye wasn't going to try to smother him with smoke and acid, then what did he intend to do? Stall for time while Crowe recovered? There might've been wisdom in that, but Abbas wasn't going to let it happen so easily.

He pushed the jets for another full burn and torpedoed himself straight toward Bloodeye.

What happened next, however, was outside all possible predictions or expectations.

Abbas slammed into him, just like he'd previously done to Crowe and Konig, but Bloodeye held firm, holding onto Abbas' torso with both arms and legs as if trying to crush the armor with his bare hands.

That was most certainly impossible. The suit, even in its currently battered state, was more than durable enough to withstand the enhanced strength of any servant.

But then Bloodeye began to change. His face distorted, flashing between sickly grays and purples. His eyes and nose began bleeding, and he coughed up a nasty red glob right onto Abbas' visor, blocking most of his vision but not all.

The man's jaw stretched and grew, realigning itself, popping out teeth as big as a crocodile's. His eyes bulged grotesquely, looking as if they might burst until his skull reshaped itself as well--and not for the better. It became lumpy and stretched, with entirely new bones sticking out, looking like broken horns. His nose shifted, too, twisting diagonally. It flared out and grew, while also melting partway into the rest of his plumpening face.

And then other, smaller faces began to appear in the man's flesh. All horrified and screaming, like something out of a nightmare. A literal monster.

Abbas Saqqaf didn't even know what he was seeing. He didn't get much time to mull it over, either, because Bloodeye's now massive jaw lurched toward him. He pulled back at the last second, but the teeth still found his left shoulder and crunched through the suit's armor.

The bite was solid. It didn't take his arm off, but that was arguably worse, because now he couldn't even get away. He felt the teeth dig into his flesh and even pierce bone before Worwal numbed the pain entirely.

He called on the shock shield again. Electricity blasted out of the suit in fractured bursts, sparking badly around the broken shoulder.

But it worked.

Bloodeye spasmed and loosened his grip on him, allowing Abbas to grab him by his neck and twist with all the might that the suit and undead strength combined could provide.

A sickening crack arrived, but that was all. Abbas had wanted to tear his head clean off, but that didn't happen. The man's neck merely kept twisting and cracking, and Abbas could see in his crimson eyes that he was regaining his faculties, despite the shock shield still remaining active.

Abbas growled with frustration and flung him straight down to the ground, just wanting to give himself a moment to breathe. To think. To reassess what the hell had just happened.

Bloodeye sailed into solid rock with meteoric force, leaving a crater the size of a house behind and a cloud of dust to accompany it.

What sense did that transformation make? An illusion? No, Abbas had been able to feel the change. The weight differential. The thrashing, twitching movement.

A hallucination, then? Had some aerosolized drug made it past the suit's filters and even the system alerts?

Everything else seemed perfectly normal. He still felt clear-headed.

He had never seen such a thing before. Monsters, yes. But never one like that--and more importantly, never one that at first appeared perfectly human.

He didn't get the opportunity to consult Worwal on it. Just as he finished wiping most of the blood off his visor, a warning of incoming attacks arrived. Bloodeye's two remaining men were both blasting him with materialization, and he needed to evade.

Simple enough. But a third attack came with even less warning attached to it.

A flock of crows on his right side. Acid, flames, and lightning all obscured the assault, making it difficult to tell which direction to evade in. Even with the visor's aid, which was now flickering, he couldn't be sure. He had only a split second to guess.

He chose to dive down.

That was incorrect. The birds appeared like a hundred tiny spears with the speed of a freight train, shredding his entire right side and sending him into a tailspin as system alerts flashed across the HUD.

Armor integrity critical. Multiple power failures. Impact mitigation errors. Flight assistance errors. Weapons systems failing. Hostile targets closing in.

He was nearly in freefall. He had to stabilize. Flight assistance be damned. The jets were still working, the beauties. He could do it all in his head.

He twisted his body and angled himself down as he activated a hard burn. With the computer drilled into his thalamus and cerebral cortex, he could tell the suit exactly what to do with only his mind. It was more difficult and dangerous without the benefit of guidance vector calculations being pumped straight into his brain, but he'd practiced this scenario hundreds of times.

The suit swooped down low, clipping a line of tall trees and taking their tops off before finally achieving stable flight again.

He remained at a low altitude for a while longer, knowing that most of the Abolishers were after him and that flying up higher would just make him an easier target.

He needed time to reevaluate the suit's condition, as well as the situation at large. So many failing systems. Was anything regenerating?

Here and there, it seemed, yes--and at a massively slowed rate. Both arms and shoulders torn to hell, as was his right leg. But the helmet was still working. And the mini-missiles. Jets, of course. Radar and sonar. The coolant system. Shock shield. Flares.

Ah.

And the Ro'Hada.

Even after the beating his right arm had taken, the ace up his sleeve was still fully operational. That was good news, at least. He had designed it to be even more durable than the rest of the suit. That was a necessity when it came to a last resort weapon. It needed to endure even when everything else gave out.

But was the situation truly that dire?

Debatable. The more this battle dragged out, though, the more the scales seemed to be tipping in its favor.

Either way, he would need to get up fairly close if he intended to use it.

That part, at least, looked as though it would not be an issue. Bloodeye and the Man of Crows were both on his tail now. No doubt, their murderous instincts were telling them that he was on the verge of death here. He could practically taste their bloodlust, their eagerness to claim the prize that was his head.

Of the two, Bloodeye now seemed the most problematic. Not knowing what he was capable of put a big asterisk next to any plan that Abbas could concoct. And if he reacted incorrectly like last time, with his armor in its current condition, Crowe's next strike might very well be a fatal one.

They'd been chasing him for a while already, having left all their subordinates in the dust. He was alone, too, though. Covering fire from his family would've certainly been welcome right about now, but they were too far away to do anything.

The suit could still outrun these two, however. If they doubled back to attack his family, he would have to turn and fight, but for now, at least, it seemed as though they were intent on chasing him down. Perhaps they didn't realize that he was purposely allowing them to keep up.

So much the better. It gave him time to think. Without Bloodeye and Crowe to worry about, he had confidence that his Hahl could handle the others. His sons were strong.

But this stalemate couldn't last forever. Something would have to give sooner or later.

'Abbas,' came Worwal's private words, 'our allies--'

A system alert cut him off. A bad one. "Incoming AIM," read the visor with an accompanying tracking dot.

Unfortunately, AIM stood for Air Intercept Missile.

Where the hell that thing had launched from, Abbas had no earthly idea, and there wasn't time to worry about it. The suit, even in its battered state, could probably withstand most air-to-air ordnance relatively well when accounting for his own passive soul defenses.

But he had to assume that it was soul-strengthened by someone very powerful. That was the protocol here. If it was normal, he'd be fine either way. But if it wasn't, and he didn't take it seriously, it could kill him instantaneously.

He could go supersonic, but that would only buy him a few extra seconds, because that thing was almost certainly capable of doing the same. And at this point, the suit might not hold together very well during supersonic flight.

He deployed flares and banked hard right, watching the HUD as sweat dripped down his face.

No dice. It didn't lose target lock. Contact in under ten seconds.

Max burn. More flares. More evasive maneuvers. Both of the drones on his shoulders were broken, but he deployed them anyway. They just fell out of the sky, but that was fine. Anything to pull the damn thing off of him.

Still didn't work, though.

The mini-missiles were his best hope now, but he'd only get one good chance. They didn't have an AIM's range, speed, or tracking accuracy. If he deployed them too soon, that was it. If he deployed them too late, that was it. If the soul-strengthening somehow allowed the AIM to withstand their barrage, that was it.

Mind racing, he waited. Six seconds left. Five. Four. Three.

He loosed the mini-missiles.

They hit.

The AIM exploded.

The blast was close--and just as powerful as he'd feared. It rocked the sky, catching him with the edge of its radius and spiking him toward the ground.

So many system alerts. More than ever.

He was barely conscious of anything other than the fact that he was falling. Where had that missile come from? Where was he going?

Worwal was talking. Telling him he had to do something.

He hit the ground and left a running crater, an elongated trench, before finally grinding to a halt.

The suit was smoldering. Smoke and heat. Beeping, sizzling, crackling.

He tried to move and found it difficult. Still disoriented. Suit resisting him, too.

Another alert appeared on the visor, flickering harder now.

"Incoming AIM," it read again.

He just blinked at it, scarcely able to comprehend what he was seeing. A second one?

Worwal was talking again, telling him to move, among other murky things.

He was probably right.

Abbas struggled. Head was clearing but not fast enough. Needed to get up. Disorientation was probably affecting the suit's responsiveness. Missile contact imminent. Eleven seconds. Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Fi--

It was gone. The tracking dot disappeared. Visor malfunction?

No.

He sensed someone there. Nearby. Then he saw them.

An armored figure. Not like his. Old. Medieval.

Was that... a knight?

Why was there a knight standing over him? Did that missile hit him so hard that he went back in time?

"Get up, Lord Abbas." The knight reached a hand toward him. "Fight's not done yet. And we're gonna need you."

By the gods, those words cut into his mind like a friendly knife. Clarity returned almost immediately. Almost involuntarily, even.

And he took the knight's hand.

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