The Caddite commander deployed twelve dismounted troopers to defend a low ridge line between Vargos and the Mascogos. Armed with rifles, the Caddites ranged and sighted the Mascogo force, while a section of mounted troopers galloped forward to engage.

In rapid array, the Caddite cavalry of forty sabres, moved up in two lines, confident, as they drew near, and the fire of their riflemen became more violent. With irresistible urgency the line charged forward at full speed, and soon the crest of the ridge was passed. From the south west, Black Seminole horsemen, Mascogos, fired their carbines to little effect, and immediately wheeled about as the Caddite horse surged across the open space.

The force of the Caddite charge smashed through the rear of the Mascogo force, but their arrogant lack of control meant the Caddite heavy cavalry rode too far.

The Mascogo force revealed their feint and counter-attacked with an enraged frenzy, cutting down the Caddites with an insatiable thirst for vengeance and destruction against the likes of those who would enslave them. Flash answered flash as the opposing guns opened one on the other.

Seconds past before the head of the section leader spewed blood, sniped by Day Long, as the Seminole scout and Nathan thundered around the skirmish. Their officer dead, the leaderless Caddite detachment fell back.

*

Intense pain coursed through Van from DaFaca's Ouroboros blade. The obsidian-like gauntlets of stone around his arms surely diminished some of the pain, as a means of handling the weapon, or so Van believed. The sheer effectiveness of the weapon even with his considerable lack of skill with, and understanding of, it proved out as he cleaved through the attacking diableros. Nico, Vargos' second in command, remained at a distance, whether from caution or fear, with a large, ornate gun.

At Van's side, with the unconscious Juan Semos between them, Teven defended himself with DaFaca's silvered ash blade, slicing its nine-inch length through the few diableros able to survive Van.

Unused to the ease by which their quarry cut down their fellow shifters, the diableros slowed their attack to employ tactics and commands from Nico.

Teven's chest heaved as he drew his forearm across his forehead. Now covered in the ichor of the skinwalkers, Teven spat several times to clear his mouth.

"This as bad as Azov?" Van said.

Teven huffed. "You can joke? How are you managing that weapon? And what's happened to your arms?"

Van breathed heavy. "It might get us out of here. Look, look there." He pointed west, at Day Long and Nathan barreling toward them.

*

Vargos, aghast at the sudden turn of fortune, shrieked at Nico, her tendrils tightened around DaFaca's body. Turning on DaFaca, she drew him close and hissed at the battered Watcher. She pointed at Van with one of her human arms. "How is he doing that? How can he use an Ouroboros blade?"

DaFaca wheezed as he drew a meager breath. "How can you?"

The shapeshifter scoffed, backhanding DaFaca with her human arm. "Let go of the Ouroboros blade!"

DaFaca clung to it with his fleeting strength.

Yellowed tendrils, like succulent worms, encircled DaFaca's wrists, crushing the multitude of tiny bones. The Watcher clenched his jaw in exquisite torment as Vargos' tendrils worked their way around and broke each of his fingers. DaFaca endured, bound as his life force was by failing magic to his fallen, fellow Watcher's weapon. The bond, tenuous as that which bound him to his weapon, might last long enough for the ancient soul, Van, to fight through and reach them with his Ouroboros blade.

*

Seeing that his section officer was dead and the first line in disarray, the Caddite commander galloped forward and ordered his second line to engage the Mascogo riders. But as the Caddites charged, the commander's horse was shot out from under him and he disappeared among the dust clouds and chaos of horse flesh.

The Mascogos pressed forward, the battle devolving into a standoff in a matter of minutes.

Charges and countercharges trampled fallen troopers and desert brush alike, as the forces clashed in mounted, hand-to-hand combat. Before long, a heavy dismounted engagement raged with heavy casualties on both sides. Tomahawk versus saber and carbine against rifle. As each side found it impossible to reload their weapons, a final mounted charge by the rallying Mascogos stopped the Caddite assault dead in its tracks. Nothing could stop the Mascogo forces. Gathering the fallen rifles of the Caddites, instead of halting, they charged toward the diableros. The Caddites fell back, overwhelmed and overpowered.

*

The shimmer of afternoon heat off the red rocks and dust of the plain caused the distant mountains to hover over all but the eastern horizon. To the east, a few hours' ride, Albuquerque awaited, and a week's ride further, Santa Fe's gateway to the Great Plains. Christian watched the two water-seeking vaqueros trudge back toward him. The prospect of lurking skinwalkers seemed less likely as the day wore on.

Christian turned to the mestizo siblings. "So I understand better, your family, well, people round these parts, they call Black Seminoles the Mascogos?"

Sende and Hernan nodded.

"Hmm. Maybe Señor Loco ain't so loco." Christian shook his finger. "It was Day Long who recommended your family. Drake…Nathan…may have been the one to talk on it, but Day Long spoke up for you, and Teven never did make that clear to me."

Sende rested her hand on Hernan's shoulder. "It was also Señor Long and Señor Drake who spoke up for my brother and I at the livery."

Christian sighed. "Yeah. Yeah they did. An' it was Day Long who pretty much put an end to it before Teven went over to you all."

Sende smiled. "I know you understand what ‘loco' means. She waved her arm in an arc, and rested her hand on the barrel of a howitzer. "Maybe all this is a little crazy?"

Christian guffawed. "Maybe."

*

Focused on Van and Teven, Day Long and Nathan galloped around the melee into the small cluster of flayed and remaining diableros challenging Teven and Van. The scouts reined in beside Teven and the comatose Juan Semos.

Van faced off against a dozen seething diableros. He glanced over his shoulder. "Get Juan Semos out of danger."

Teven looked up at the scouts. "One of you must take Juan Semos!"

The scouts eyed each other before Day Long slid off his horse, yelling at Nathan. "Hold my reins, yo too girly to lift the ol' man up."

Tying Day Long's reins to his saddle horn, Nathan shook his head as Teven and Day Long lifted the unconscious Juan Semos. Day Long's reins secured, Nathan helped pull Juan Semos face down across the back of his horse. "Shut up and help me tie him firm."

Van twisted to his right sweeping the Ouroboros blade to his left, around Teven and the scouts. Dropping two diableros, he pivoted and skewered two more at his right. The vortice of twisted space at the end of the crystal cone burrowed straight through the creatures with sickening ease, spewing putrid, pus-colored, yellow gore.

With a lunge to his left, beside Nathan, Van slew another diablero, its own meager ebonite macuahuitl weapon arcing through the crisp afternoon sky. Spinning to his right, he backed DaFaca's arcane weapon through yet another diablero, before delivering a slashing strike to his front, cutting another diablero and its macuahuitl in halves.

Three more of Vargos' soldiers, dead. Years of training and hours more playing Musketeers and King Arthur served Van well.

With Juan Semos tied to the back of Nathan's mount, Teven leapt over the gore and ravaged bodies of diableros toward Day Long's terrified horse.

Remounted, his horse unsteady, Day Long pulled hard on his reins. "The hell is Van doin'? An' what the hell is that he's throwin' around like he owns it?"

Teven turned. "Van! Let's go, rides' here!"

Van spun and glanced at the two horses. He stared hard at his childhood friend. "Go."

Day Long cursed. "Come on brethren, he's set to it. He done caught a weasel sleepin' an' found a way to kill these bastards."

Teven stood with his hand out to Van, slowly curling his fingers into a fist.

Day Long thrust his hand out to Teven. "Oy! Get a wiggle on while we got the bulge."

The advantage was theirs for the moment, but fleeting.

Grasping Day Long's hand, Teven swung up behind the Black Seminole scout and adjusted himself behind the saddle roll.

Beside them, Nathan jerked his head in Van's direction. "Look at him, he hates magic and war, but he always runs headlong towards it."

Teven smiled. "And we his merry men."