The loading dock should have been their exit.

  Instead, something massive filled the space between them and the heavy doors marked 'EXTERNAL ACCESS'.

  Sigrun's first thought was elephant. Her second was wrong. The creature had been an elephant once, maybe—African, from the shape of its ears. But whatever the Fenris Horde had done to it had transformed it into something else entirely. It stood nearly as tall as the ceiling, its bulk filling the loading dock like a bus wedged into a closet. Tusks that had been ivory were now reinforced with dark metal, sharpened to points that gleamed wetly in the flickering light. Its dark brown hide was armored plating, ridged and scarred, the color of old rust.

  A J?tunn. She'd seen pictures in bounty postings. Never fought one. The $2,200 never justified the danger when she was a woman who could earn $3,000 from having sex with someone.

  The creature's eyes—small, red, intelligent—fixed on them as they emerged from the corridor.

  It trumpeted.

  The sound shook dust from the ceiling and rattled Sigrun's teeth in her skull. Behind her, one of the Constables swore. "Kàn lín-nia eh!"

  She couldn't tell what the Imperial man was saying. She didn't need to. Anyone would be terrified.

  "Zori's blood!" Marcus raised his shield, planting his feet. "But thanfully, this J?tunn's not fully grown."

  "That's…not?!" Jabari's voice pitched higher than usual. "How big's a fully grown one? Carrier-sized?"

  "Fenris siege units mature over months. This one's young." Marcus didn't sound reassured. "Still enough to crush us all."

  The J?tunn charged.

  In the confined space, it couldn't build momentum—but it didn't need to. Its massive head swung toward Marcus, tusks sweeping in an arc that would have bisected a normal man. The Stalwart caught the blow on his silver Titanium Shield.

  The impact drove him back a few meters, his heavy boots scraping furrows in the concrete. His shield arm buckled. He held.

  "Flank it!" Sigrun was already moving, Járn igniting with that familiar whump. She came in low, aiming for the creature's rear leg, and swung with everything she had.

  The thermal edge bit into flesh—and stopped.

  The hide was too thick. Too dense. She'd opened a wound, searing meat visible beneath the armored skin, but even as she watched, the flesh began knitting itself back together. Regeneration. The same unnatural healing she'd seen in Draugs.

  "Bloody hell." She pulled back as the J?tunn's tail—thick as a tree trunk—swept toward her head.

  "Baw-lah-eh See-kah!" Jabari's Lunar bolt struck the creature's shoulder joint, where the armor plating was thinner. The J?tunn stumbled, one leg buckling. For a moment, Sigrun thought—

  The creature recovered. Three seconds, maybe less. Its leg straightened, the wound already closing on its sickly hide, and it swung toward Jabari with murderous intent.

  "PAPPA LEFT-LEFT!" A sharp voice came.

  Xin dove sideways as a secondary tusk—Sigrun hadn't even seen the creature had two sets—scythed through the space where he'd been standing.

  H?kon clung to the slender Engineer's shoulder, scales flashing warning-amber, his small voice cutting through the chaos. "SILVER MAN HURT-BAD!"

  Marcus was on one knee, shield arm hanging at a wrong angle. The J?tunn's second charge had caught him off-guard, driving the edge of his own shield into his shoulder. Blood seeped through the gap in his armor.

  But he was still between the creature and Sigrun. Still holding the line.

  Then the floor erupted.

  Bone Fiends. Dozens of them, unburrowing from the concrete around the loading dock's edges, pale bodies scrambling toward the living.

  "They must have been seeded here as guards…dormant until the J?tunn's trumpeting woke them!" Xin said out loud, stepping back, his emerald 10mm Magnum raised.

  "Contact rear!" Haylen's rifle barked, dropping the first Fiend before it could reach the Constables. "Form up! Hold the bloody line!"

  Jabari pivoted, his Moonstone Cutlass Sankofa coming from his belt in one smooth motion. His crossbow was sheathed on his back. He and Haylen stood back to back, cutlass and bolt-action Rifle working together as Fiends surged toward them.

  The three surviving Constables formed a defensive triangle, Shock Katanas crackling.

  All humans here. They were good.

  But they were also exhausted, and there were so many Fiends.

  "We need to end this fast! Had to be a bloody way!" Haylen shouted over her own gunshot.

  "You tell me!" Sigrun sheathed Járn and reached for Skuld, her white Breacher Shotgun at the small of her back. The shotgun unfolded with satisfying mechanical clicks, white composite gleaming.

  "The elephant—we can't outlast it! Smart tricks, lucky charms, anyone?" Jabari's voice came again.

  "Wait! The pillars!" Xin's voice cut through the chaos. He'd retreated to the loading dock's edge, Jade raised, firing precisely into Fiends that got too close. His eyes were on the ceiling. "The support pillars—if we bring down the one behind it—"

  "Pappa right!" H?kon's scales had shifted to determined azure, his small claws digging into Xin's jacket. "Big-rock things holding ceiling up! Haw-koon can see cracks-cracks!"

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Sigrun followed the Diabolisk's gaze. Four concrete pillars supported the loading dock's ceiling—old construction, probably pre-dating the motel above. The one directly behind the J?tunn was cracked at its base, stress fractures spider-webbing through decades-old concrete.

  If they could bring it down...

  "Marcus!" She raised Skuld. "Keep it looking at you!"

  "Aye!" The Stalwart forced himself upright, shield high despite his injured arm. "Lux Caecans!"

  Golden light blazed from his palm—not the full blinding flash, just enough to draw the J?tunn's attention. The creature bellowed, swinging toward the source of that holy radiance.

  Xin raised Jade, his 10mm. His fingers flew across his Nucleus Watch, interfacing with the gun's neural-link targeting system. The display in his cracked glasses flickered with data—trajectory calculations, optimal penetration points, probability assessments.

  "Bheda Atisīmā!"

  Xin's Devavā?ī incantation was barely a whisper. But Sigrun felt it—a subtle change in the air, like reality had hiccupped. The gun's barrel aligned with the J?tunn's left eye.

  Xin fired.

  The three shots fired should have been impossible. A civilian with a 10mm Magnum, hitting a moving target's eye from twenty meters across a chaotic dungeon. But the AI-assisted targeting sent gun's three bullets exactly where they were needed.

  The J?tunn's eye exploded.

  The creature screamed. A sound like tearing metal, like dying worlds. It thrashed blindly, trunk swinging, tusks carving gouges in the concrete walls. Its remaining eye rolled, trying to find the source of its pain.

  "The other one!" Sigrun shouted.

  Another shot. Another impossible hit. The second eye burst in a spray of vitreous black fluid.

  The J?tunn was blind.

  But not for long. Even as Sigrun watched, the ruined eye sockets began to close. Tissue regenerating. Those terrible red eyes growing back, cell by cell, second by second.

  She had maybe fifteen seconds.

  Sigrun ran. "The pillar—fucking get it!"

  The J?tunn's bulk blocked most of the loading dock, but there was a gap—barely wide enough for a person—between its armored flank and the wall. She squeezed through, the creature's regenerating flesh scraping against her coat, hot and wrong and alive.

  The cracked pillar loomed ahead.

  She raised Skuld. Aimed at the base, where the stress fractures were deepest. Breathed.

  The Breacher Shotgun roared as she pulled trigger again and again.

  Concrete exploded. Dust and debris filled the air. The pillar groaned—a deep, structural sound that vibrated through Sigrun's bones—and began to tilt.

  "EVERYONE DOWN!"

  The ceiling came down on the J?tunn's hindquarters.

  Tons of concrete and rebar crashed onto the creature's rear legs, pinning them to the floor. The J?tunn screamed again, thrashing, trying to pull itself free. Its front legs scrabbled at the ground, tusks gouging furrows in the concrete.

  But it couldn't move. Couldn't regenerate fast enough to escape the crushing weight.

  Sigrun walked toward it.

  The creature's eyes had grown back. They fixed on her with something that might have been hatred, might have been fear. Its trunk reached for her, but she was just outside its range.

  She sheathed Skuld. Drew Járn. The thermal core ignited.

  "Sorry," she said. "Nothing personal."

  She drove the axe through its skull.

  The loading dock doors burst open onto pre-dawn darkness.

  Sigrun stumbled through first, Járn still dripping with the J?tunn's blood. Cold air hit her face—Martian winter, thin and biting. After hours in that corrupted motel, it tasted like freedom.

  Then she saw the Genbu.

  The armored transport sat fifty meters away, surrounded. Bone Fiends swarmed its hull, claws scrabbling against the black armor plating. The roof-mounted turret was firing—short, controlled bursts—but for every Fiend it dropped, two more unburrowed from the Martian soil.

  Three Constables fought desperately around the vehicle's base. Wang—the one Haylen had left in command—was down, clutching his leg. The other two were back to back, Shock Katanas carving through pale bodies, fighting a losing battle against sheer numbers.

  "Pappa." H?kon's voice was small. His scales cycled rapidly—fear-brown to determination-azure to protective-silver. "Big turtle in trouble-bad!"

  They ran.

  Sigrun led the charge, Járn blazing. She carved through the first wave of Fiends without slowing, thermal edge turning monsters to ash. Behind her, Marcus bellowed something in Ordovox and crashed into the swarm shield-first. Jabari's cutlass sang, each swing precise despite exhaustion.

  The Constables—what remained of them—followed. Haylen's rifle barked, covering their advance.

  They reached the Genbu.

  "Inside!" Sigrun grabbed Wang's arm, hauling him toward the rear hatch. "Everyone inside, now!"

  "The Sergeant—" one of the Constables started.

  "IS RIGHT BEHIND US, MOVE!"

  They piled into the transport. Wang was shoved onto a bench. The other Constables followed, bloody and gasping. Marcus ducked through the hatch, his injured arm pressed against his chest.

  Sigrun turned to cover the retreat—and saw Haylen.

  The Sergeant had stopped twenty meters from the Genbu. Her rifle was up, pointed at something emerging from the motel's shadows.

  Batu Arnesen walked toward her with a predator's patience.

  "Sergeant Shih." His voice carried across the battlefield, clinical and calm. "Still fighting. I admire that."

  Haylen's rifle trembled. "Lord Batu."

  "You could have been magnificent. Could still be." He drew that curved, organic blade. "Last chance."

  She fired.

  Batu moved. The shot passed through empty air where he'd been standing. He closed the distance in three strides—faster than anything that size should move—and their weapons met with a shriek of metal.

  Haylen was good. Three years of his training showed in her footwork, her guard, her angles of attack. She parried his first strike, countered his second, nearly landed a blow on his third.

  But she was exhausted. And he wasn't.

  The fourth exchange ended with his blade opening a deep gash across her sword arm. Her rifle clattered to the ground. She fell to her knees, clutching the wound, blood streaming between her fingers.

  Batu looked down at her. Something like regret flickered in those red eyes.

  "Impressive, slaying the J?tunn." He turned away from her crumpled form. "But that has nothing to do with your escape."

  His gaze found Sigrun.

  "Now, Princess." He began walking toward the Genbu. "It's time to return home."

  Something landed on the transport's roof.

  Sigrun looked up. Ysolde H?ggsson crouched there, pale limbs folded beneath her, amber eyes burning with hungry amusement. Her platinum hair stirred in the pre-dawn wind. Those alabaster thorn-tipped breasts—even larger than Sigrun's own—caught the distant firelight.

  "Nowhere left to run, little breeder." The Elder Draug's voice was honey and broken glass. "Nowhere left to hide."

  Fenris forces closed in from all sides. Bone Fiends formed a living perimeter, pale bodies pressing closer with each passing second. The Genbu's turret had stopped firing—ammunition exhausted, or the gunner dead.

  Sigrun stepped out of the transport.

  Marcus followed, shield raised despite his ruined arm. Jabari emerged with Sankofa in one hand and Oya in the other—his last bolts loaded. Xin came last, H?kon clutched against his chest, Jade held steady in his free hand.

  They stood together. Backs to the Genbu. Facing the horde.

  "Haw-koon not scared." The Diabolisk's voice was small but steady. His scales had settled to a determined, combat-ready navy blue. "Sky Lady, Pappa, Silver Man, Music Man all together." A tiny tail-wag. "Together okay-good!"

  Dawn painted the eastern horizon in shades of red and gold. So close. Minutes away, maybe.

  Not close enough.

  Batu stopped ten meters from their position. Ysolde remained on the roof, waiting to pounce. The Bone Fiends pressed closer, claws scraping against each other, hungry sounds filling the air.

  "Princess Sigrun Fjeld. Are you prepared to return to Primarch Skarn and High Queen Maren's loving embrace?" Batu's blade gleamed in the pre-dawn light. "Or shall we do this the hard way?"

  No reinforcements coming. No escape route left. No clever plan to turn the tide.

  Just five people—and one very small Diabolisk—standing together against the dark.

  Sigrun raised Járn. The thermal core ignited one final time, casting her face in quantum-blue. "Think I'll just cut your dick and mail them back to Europa."

  Batu smiled. Mandibles clicking.

  "The hard way, then!"

  The blade-wielding Draug charged.