From the crowd, the cloud of smoke, a figure emerged. Cigdem tried to raise his rifle, but his hands were shaking and he couldn’t aim. He looked to his left. Zoe was running to the north, still. Of those who had formed the shield wall, only one still stood. He dropped his weapon and raised his hands in a gesture of surrender, begging for mercy. Cigdem’s rifle fell from nerveless hands and he tore the tactical visor from his face. The surrendering soldier turned toward Cigdem, his eyes wide with panic, hands held high in the air and shaking. “I’m sorry sir, I’m sorry, but there’s too many, there’s so –”

The writhing stone tendrils of the Valer’s structure, manipulated by the Sower’s power, ripped through the air with a horrible, unnatural sound that grated on Cigdem’s ears and filled him with terror. He dove away from his screaming subordinate, and then the soldier was reduced to a paste against the animate stone.

Cigdem fell to the ground and rolled, and looked up toward the Valers. Luca Buday knelt down next to Fatih, who appeared to be lying still. She stripped the explosive bandoliers from him and tossed them aside, then took him by the arm and began to drag him behind the core library. Cigdem grabbed his rifle from the ground and snapped it toward Luca’s back. “Should have taken my chance when I could,” he muttered, and his finger tightened on the trigger.

The rifle was torn from his hands and vanished in the tumult as Cigdem was lifted from the ground, from his feet, high into the air. Luca turned toward him, the blood in the air whirling around her and never touching the ground. She stared up at Cigdem as the ground grew more distant under him. Cigdem reached for a grenade, and it was torn from his hand and thrown far away. he went for a hypo, but the wind was becoming stronger, and he could hardly move his arms.

“Your little game’s over, Cigdem,” she said, and the ground rushed up to meet him.

When Cigdem awoke, he lay among the bodies and the blood of his fellow soldiers, under the outstretched arms of stone. Fatih lay next to him, conscious but still, one hand clutching a broken wrist. Luca Buday and Stepan Zelenko stood over them, flanked by many other Valers. The villagers were carrying weapons ranging from clubs to spears to rifles. He glanced toward the north – if Zoe was still alive, she was long gone. The same for Arshay. He groaned and looked up toward Luca, who approached him, bending down. “It’s just the two of you now, it seems. Your conquest failed.”

With sweat and blood in his eyes, Cigdem could not help but laugh. The flats of his hands behind him, he bent back, threw his head toward the sky, and laughed. “I always knew it would end like this,” he said between chuckles. Fatih stared at him in mute shock. “Killed by savages as revenge.”

“Come on, Captain,” Fatih said as Cigdem managed to get his laughing fit under control. “Don’t be like that, we’re in a compromising position. We need to negotiate.” He gave a nervous grin, only the thinnest layer of his old mischievous attitude over the panic.

“I think we’re far past that point, Fatih,” said Cigdem. He glanced up at the Valers. Luca and Stepan both nodded.

“It’s time we sent a message,” Stepan said, stepping toward Fatih, looming over him. Tears streamed down his face. “Listen to me, people of Gaurlante.” He lowered himself so that Fatih was eye level with him, face to face. “I am Stepan Zelenko, Mirshal Sower, Abrist Scholar, a man of no army or nation.” He smiled. “We have here the last of your people, two murderers whose deaths should please all decency.”

“Hold on…” Fatih sputtered, his fingers digging into the soggy earth beneath him. “We can work this out, can’t we?” His eyes were shining with the beginning of tears, as the true gravity of the situation dawned on him finally. “We can come to an agree-“

He did not finish his sentence. Stepan stood up, his eyes fixed on Fatih’s eyes as the power of Eirchais, Luca’s Devotee, stirred the wind and lifted Fatih up and held him in place. Those terrified and wrathful eyes stared into Stepan’s, a void whose gaze he returned. Not without fear, but without regrets. The Valers moved around him, raising their bludgeons.

Cigdem shrugged and sighed as the beating began. Heavy blows rained on Fatih’s body from all directions, while he hung in the air. Fatih begged at first, until the injuries grew so great he could no longer form coherent words. He sputtered and vomited and blood dribbled from his mouth, his ears, his eyes. Cigdem watched, feeling no passion at Fatih’s pain.

The noises Fatih made grew more pathetic and quiet, until finally the Valers grew tired, and stepped away, and Fatih’s body, bleeding and broken, missing eyes and teeth, collapsed to the ground. As Fatih came to rest next to Cigdem, he reached out with a hand and held it over Cigdem’s own hand. He said his final words, and died.

Luca stepped toward Cigdem, his own rifle in her hands. “You don’t seem scared,” she said, voice flat. “You know you’re about to die?”

Cigdem nodded slowly. “I know,” he said, his vision narrowing on Luca. She was the only thing he could see or hear now, as the world around him faded. “But I can hardly blame you, as you can hardly blame me. We all go where we’re led.”

Luca chuckled, and flipped the rifle in her hands. It transformed into its spear form, the barrel folding into its shaft as the bayonet became a weighted spearpoint. “What is it that Zoe called me, before? A soldier of the apocalypse? That was you the whole time. You realize that now, don’t you.”

“Yes,” Cigdem said. “Of course I realize that. Your apocalypse would have been my paradise. But…” he smiled softly. “it’s the life I was given. Some of us don’t have choices in life…” he looked up and met Luca’s eyes, and saw them widen in response to his words.

“That’s true,” Luca growled, staring back into Cigdem’s eyes. “Some of us don’t have choices.”

Luca raised Cigdem’s spear, the point aimed straight at Cigdem’s chest.

A voice in Cigdem’s mind spoke suddenly. Do not inhale, it said. Lie still if you want to survive. He had only an instant to wonder at the source of the voice before his spear ripped through his body, shearing apart armor and flesh. The blade nicked against his rib and Cigdem’s mind went blank.