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Rhone and the Praetorians swirl around Kalindora and me. Our force is irresistible. Kalindora an animating spirit atop her mount. The ranks of the enemy are shattered, but their will is not. It was Kalindora who introduced me to the term Blood Red for the battle frenzy of the Red clansmen. I believe I see it now.

They refuse to yield the boulevard. They heave their bodies against it, forming bulwarks of the dead and living. They slash at our horses’ bellies. Or fire down from rooftops, but when our attention bears down on them for a single moment, they become mincemeat.

My rooftop elements will be pressing forward. My infantry advances

at a run through the plaza to support our charge. Soon the enemy will be routed, and we will sweep south to run down their support legions and force those at the spaceport and Mound to surrender.

As I try to free my horse from a tangle of bodies, I spot a Red sniper taking aim from a window above. Rhone fires over my shoulder, nailing three rounds into the sniper’s center mass. More snipers provide cover for us from the rubble of the Water Gardens.

“Where is he?” I shout to Rhone. My Praetorians cluster around me, hacking and shooting anyone who comes near. “He knew I’d expect him on Triumphia.” Without Darrow in captivity, my victory will be incomplete.

Rhone’s flinty eyes search the milling mob. From the horses, we can see nothing but the churn of battle. Then I spot the signs of his advance from the far side of the Triumphia. It is like the coming of a tiger through tall grass. First a rippling in the distance that seems like the wind. Then a tunneling force. An outward swaying of riders. The starting of horses. Men disappear from saddles. Sunbloods collapse sideways with horrible wounds. And then, like the tiger’s tail, the curved slingBlade rises above the stalks as he threshes all in his path.

He kills with impossible aggression.

I will not repeat past mistakes and rush to meet him.

“Rhone! Bring him down!” I shout. The Praetorians follow my blade and shoulder their rifles as they stand in the stirrups. Tracer rounds scream into the mob as Darrow disappears behind a horse. Then a raw-throated cry roars up from Darrow’s men.

“Red Rain! Red Rain!”

I look up just as the stars are obscured by shadows. Reds rain from the sky. They fling themselves off the rooftops that line the Via Triumphia and fall three stories to land amongst us. Our fireteam becomes chaos. I slash upward at a shadow, dividing it in two. Not an arm’s length away, a Praetorian gurgles and jerks his arms as a Red man lands on the saddle behind him and saws through his throat. He throws the knife at me. I backhand it away and I stab my razor through the Praetorian into the Red.

A man crashes into me, holding on to my side by the lip of my breastplate. His knife flashes at my face. I duck my head. The knife stabs several times into the crown of my skull but fails to break the bone. I bring my razor into his gut and open his right side. He spills off just as gore squirts into my face as a woman comes down with a block of masonry atop the head of a Praetorian.

Kalindora cuts her clean in half and then looks over my head with wide eyes. “Tele—”

An immense force lands on me.

Whatever it is, it is heavy enough to make Blood of Empire reel sideways. I’m flung from my saddle. As I stand, a blur comes at my head from the side. I twist away and a tremendous impact lifts me clean off my knees and throws me through a window into an apartment atrium.

I slide across the floor until the marble stairway jars me to a halt.

The wind is knocked from me. I gasp for air, and when I sit up, I am shocked to find that my spine is not broken. A dent the circumference of a grapefruit has been made in the side of my breastplate. By the time I stumble to my feet, the doorknob is turning. A hulking shadow steps into the atrium carrying a huge warhammer.

I don’t even have to look at her face. “Telemanus.”

I bring my razor up with both hands over my head in Aja’s favorite form for Obsidians. Bough Splitter. It is an easy transition into the Branch Which Cannot Snap, the maneuver that killed Ragnar Volarus.

“You killed a pup,” she growls. “Let’s see you handle me.” She rushes forward, bellowing her family’s name.

Without the weight of armor, I’d be faster than that hammer, and might be induced to accept her invitation. But she is stronger, more experienced, and better designed for close-quarters brutality. I could pick her apart, but one loose stone, one slip of the foot, and she’d maul me to death.

I make it a running engagement and bolt up the stairs. “Little bitch,” she screams as she pursues.

At the top of the stairwell, I kick through an apartment door and wait for her thundering steps to come up the stairs. When she reaches the landing, I plunge the razor through the wall. It meets the resistance of armor, and pushes through. She roars in surprise. The razor comes back bloody. Her warhammer chases it through the wall.

But I’m already in flight. I run through the apartment, past a shrieking Silver as Thraxa trundles after me. I push a bookshelf down to block her. She shatters through it as I dive through a window back down to the melee on the street. I land on my feet.

“TELEMANUS!”

The window frame shatters as her broad shoulders knock it free of the plaster. And from the debris jumps a demigod and her hammer.

Rhone leans backward from his saddle and fires a burst at Thraxa as she passes overhead. Three bullets impact in a triangle shape under her armpit, punching through the armor into her rib cage. She lands just as I dive between the legs of a horse. Her huge hammer crumples the rider and breaks the horse almost clean in half. She teeters over the screaming animal like a weary blacksmith. I thrust my razor over the dying horse at Thraxa’s heart.

She catches the blade flat between her huge gauntlets and manages to divert it into her belly. She reels me in by pulling the blade deeper. Her mouth opens in a mad laugh and she lunges to bite off my nose.

Then a horse hits us and we go sprawling over corpses. I manage to keep ahold of my razor. By the time I find Thraxa limping to her feet, two Reds drop from a fourth-story ledge to drag her toward a horse.