I couldn’t imagine anything more deadly than what they’ve already thrown at us, but as it turns out, we were a force of destruction all on our own. The avalanche had destroyed what remained of the other chalets and the row of shops near the main building. The huge resort building had three massive holes in it from where the capcaun had belted it with cars off the street. The resort was probably only a light breeze from falling over.

Khopesh grinned madly at his brand new flamethrower. It wasn’t one of those flamethrowers that required a massive backpack full of fuel – this one had a canister of fuel hanging from the underside of the barrel, just behind the forward grip. Khopesh melted a path through the snow.

“I’m sending down Hatchet’s prestige supply drop soon,” Rho said through comms. “It’s taking a little longer to prepare. EDGE Command didn’t think any of you would be able to take the capcaun down.”

Stiletto gave an exaggerated whistle. “Hatchet’s our own little superstar.”

“I would never have been able to finish the capcaun off if you and the rest of the team hadn’t softened it up first,” I said, and it was the truth.

“Look at mister modest over here,” Khopesh said. “You were a badass. I will begrudgingly accept your badassitude. I was wrong about you.”

“We’re all in this together,” I said.

Naginata nodded. “Yes. Not just us in this EDGE Force team either, but everyone afflicted by this infection, and those uninfected that our actions protect.”

“If this spreads-” Stiletto began, but Xiphos cut him off.

“This won’t spread beyond this region. We’re going to put a stop to it,” Xiphos said, just as we rounded the corner of the resort and headed towards the cable car.

It was pure good fortune that the cable car’s pylons were positioned behind the resort, which had taken the brunt of the avalanche. The area around the cable car almost looked untouched. One wrong move and this whole thing could have been lying at the bottom of the valley.

I approached the guard rail which separated the waiting area from the sheer plummet off the side of the mountain and felt a sudden rush of vertigo. It was a very long way down. Xiphos headed straight into the cable car. I followed with the rest of the team, but I couldn’t see anything that looked like a control panel.

“This could be a problem,” Xiphos said.

“What the hell? There’s no controls up in here?” Stiletto asked.

Xiphos’s gaze was fixed on a windowed booth right behind the cable car.

“Someone’s going to have to stay behind to control this thing,” I said.

Xiphos shook her head. “No. I’m not leaving anyone else behind. Leave the door at the back of the cable car open, and as soon as I turn it on, I’ll run for it and jump. You all just need to make sure you catch me.”

I shared a nervous look with Naginata.

“Are you sure about that, Captain?” Khopesh asked.

“I wouldn’t ask any of you to do something I wasn’t willing to do myself,” Xiphos said. “In my experience these things move pretty slowly, so I should be able to sprint a few feet and jump a few more. Just be ready to catch me.”

Someone would have to do it. There were a couple of skills I’d be able to unlock once I was a higher level that would let me open portals between two locations within line of sight and keep them open for thirty seconds, but it would be another eleven levels before I could do that.

We all loaded into the cable car and left the rear door open. Khopesh and Stiletto stayed by the door while Naginata and I walked to the front of the carriage. That vertigo came again as I looked down over the side of the mountain and into the valley.

It was clear why the ski runs were up the other side of the mountain. The range below us was a mess of craggy outcroppings, sheer cliffs and meandering patches of heavily forested areas that would be very difficult to navigate.

There was another building across the valley. It was miniscule in comparison to the enormous lodge behind us and looked more like a place you’d base yourself out of for a day of skiing or hiking. Maybe hunting? I had no idea whether recreational hunting was a thing in Romania.

The village of Incolti was west of our current position, and the valley continued on to the east in an inhospitable tangle of heavily wooded forests.

My overactive imagination filled those woods with images of deformed townsfolk from the nearby villages and horribly mutated bears and wolves vying for predatory superiority. I had a feeling that we hadn’t seen half of the horrors that awaited us in this part of the world.

Suddenly the carriage started to move. I whipped my head back in time to see Xiphos hurdle the guard rail next to the control booth, then take a running leap towards the open carriage door. We weren’t moving fast, but any movement was too quick when the gap between you and falling fifty metres to your doom widened beneath you.

Khopesh and Stiletto caught Xiphos as she started to fall, then lifted her into the carriage with a grunt. Khopesh leaned out and grabbed the open door then slammed it closed. The cable car rocked with the inertia, and I felt the sudden need to sit down. Kaiser stayed close by my leg.

“Don’t like heights?” I asked as I reached down to soothe him.

He gave two little grunts, which barely registered as barks.

Kaiser was scared out of his mind being this high off the ground.

Naginata knelt next to Kaiser and ruffled his ears.

“It’s okay,” she said in the same kind of tone you’d use to comfort a small child. “You see those cables up there? They’re very strong. Engineers build these to withstand snowstorms, and will you look outside? Only clouds. There’s even blue sky on the horizon, see?”

Kaiser looked in the direction Naginata pointed, but his face reminded me of the wide-eyed betrayed look Seth gave me when I made him eat his broccoli before he was allowed any dessert.

Xiphos looked a little pale, but she had a manic grin plastered on her face. “Don’t worry, Kaiser. I’m right there with you buddy.”

Kaiser’s tail thumped half-heartedly against my leg.

“We’re going to be okay, pal. I promise,” I said.

Just at that moment I saw something on the horizon that hadn’t been there only moments before. A black dot floating in the air off to the north-east.

“Guys, please tell me you see that.” I pointed at the dot which was rapidly getting bigger.

I almost expected to see a seven headed dragon on wings burning with red anima, but somehow what formed from that little dark blob was even more terrifying. Rotor blades churned the air as the sleek grey helicopter made a beeline right for us.

“Rho, is that EDGE Command sending backup?” Xiphos asked.

“Negative. Unknown party,” Rho said. “We’re trying to raise them, but they’re jamming our comms somehow.”

The cultists on Mori Island had jammed EDGE Force’s comms too. A cold, sick feeling crept into my guts, and I almost regretted promising Kaiser that everything was going to be okay.

After a few minutes it was clear that the chopper was heading right for us. Using my new sunglasses I could make out some details on the side of it. The helicopter was all sleek lines and angles. It reminded me of a fighter jet rather than a helicopter, and the rear rotor was encased in the sleek black tail. It approached us in a perpendicular manner, facing the same direction we travelled. The windows were blackened too, so I couldn’t see inside.

The side was emblazoned with a spray painted emblem of a strange looking sword. One edge was sharp and deadly, but the other side was notched. The notches were uniform, tipped with what looked like a flattened arrowhead, with a gap between each.

Xiphos gritted her teeth. She knew something.

“Who’s in that chopper?” I asked.

All eyes swung towards Xiphos. She sighed.

“That’s a Edgebreaker helicopter, and it’s very likely that we’re all going to die very soon,” she said in a matter-of-fact way that made my skin crawl.

“Edgebreaker?” Naginata asked.

“They’re made up of ex-EDGE Force operatives, and they want nothing more than to destroy us and everything we stand for,” Xiphos said.

Khopesh looked down at his flamethrower sadly, as though realising that it wasn’t going to help against an armed helicopter that could blow us out of the sky at any moment.

I’d met another supposed EDGE Force member back on Mori Island who called himself Sabre. That ended up being a ruse by an EDGE Force defector named Bastard who tried to kill me, Kaiser, and Miranda, and claim Altrighus’s anima for himself.

Could he be a part of Edgebreaker?

“They’re not opening fire on us,” Naginata said.

“Yet,” Stiletto replied as he placed Tasha’s barrel on the seat in the centre of the carriage and squared up a shot.

“Do you really think that rifle is going to do a thing against that helicopter?” Khopesh asked.

“I don’t know, but it does have a weak spot. You see that rotor mount? Not much armour around there,” Stiletto said. His voice was cold, as though more death for a foregone conclusion.

A burst of feedback screeched in my ear. I grabbed at the comm unit to pull it out, but the frequency burst only lasted a second.

“There, I think that’s working now,” an unfamiliar voice said through comms. “Hello, EDGE Force lackeys. This is Scythe, and your mission is now over. You chose the wrong side, and now you’re going to pay for that mistake with your lives.”

“Do you think we chose to be a part of this?” I asked, unable to keep the venom out of my voice. “None of us chose to be a part of this.”

Scythe laughed. “Maybe not initially, but first time EDGEs aren’t chosen for team missions. We all know that, because we’ve all been there. We’ve all survived a solo mission and have been deemed worthy of serving EDGE Force. But you all chose to come back. Some of you have made a career out of it, isn’t that right, Xiphos?”

“You don’t need to do this, Scythe,” Xiphos said.

There was history here between Xiphos and Scythe that we really didn’t have time to get into.

“I really do,” Scythe replied. “We can’t have you messing around with something beyond your comprehension.”

At that moment the side door of the Edgebreaker chopper slid open and a masked man appeared with a rocket-propelled grenade launcher on his shoulder. The mask covered his face from the nose down. A familiar shock of blonde hair blew in the wind.

Bastard was here, and he was a member of Edgebreaker.

Before we had a chance to react, Bastard fire the RPG right at the cable car.

We could run and leap out of the carriage, sure, but certain death awaited us below. At least it would be quick.

No, I couldn’t let it end like this. Seth and Lorelei needed their father. I couldn’t just disappear without a trace. They had no idea about Mori Island or EDGE Force, and if I ended up as a corpsicle at the bottom of a valley in Romania, they’d never even know what happened.

They’d just think that I’d finally abandoned them, just like my ex-wife Emily always said I would.

Well fuck that noise.

“Naginata, I need you to look after Kaiser for me,” I said. “You all need to brace yourselves!”

“What – hey, what are you talking about?” Naginata asked, but I’d already started sprinting for the door at the back of the carriage.

I kicked it open, leaving nothing between me and the two hundred metre drop through open air. I swung out onto the handrails and footholds on the outside of the carriage and climbed to the top.

The plume of flame and smoke that trailed the RPG was almost here, so there was no time to be delicate about this. I grabbed the cable with one hand and my tactical hatchet with the other. I hoped to any God that was listening that I would survive this as I sliced my hatchet down, through the cables that held the car in the air.

The cables split with an almighty twang that echoed through the valley. The carriage’s crawler mechanism held tight to one side of the cables as it fell in an arc away from me.

The RPG shoomed overhead and exploded harmlessly in the distance.

I mounted my hatchet on my back with my one free hand and pulled Gravedigger from its holster.

A shotgun wouldn’t do much against a helicopter in normal circumstances, but there were not normal circumstances.

Not with the last two explosive shells still waiting in the receiver.

I aimed towards the chopper as best as I could as I fell away towards the valley’s floor and fire Gravedigger.

The shell split apart, peppering the air with exploding shrapnel. Only one or two made impact with the side of the Edgebreaker chopper, but it was enough to make it peal away just in case.

I fell and held tight to the cable that I had wedged under one of my arms. The air was cold and started to smell of pine. That’s when I knew I was close to the ground. The thick needled boughs of pine trees broke my fall, and broke plenty of other things as I slammed into the canopy.

I landed in a horrid, broken mess, with one elbow bent the wrong way, and a shard of bone sticking through the thick insulated pants I’d upgraded only a few hours ago. I gasped for breath and my chest felt like it was full of rocks.

That was probably my shattered ribs I thought to myself idly as my eyes closed and I slipped from this mortal coil.