High-caliber rounds ripped into one of the Knife's bloods, flinging him forward like a discarded water bottle, the wardplate I’d given him shattering.

  We dove for the sand, diving into the cover of the dunes. Then the deep brrram of a rapid-fire cannon caught up with us, washing over us.

  From behind.

  I'd been so focused on City that I'd forgotten about the Syndicate army rolling into the Remba desert. So had the rest of us. We were lying exposed, on the wrong side of the scant cover the sand offered.

  Another cold stab in my mind as more of my wards shattered, bullets kicking up sand around the Knife.

  I rolled onto my back, saw the distant sparks of a rapid-fire cannon in the sky. A Syndicate quadcopter, hastening to City.

  It wouldn't make it. My rifle was already up, a thread of force writhing in my mind, conjured from the world around me. I showed it into the rifle's wards, riding it toward the quadcopter, releasing at the last possible moment.

  The quadcopter disintegrated in the air, cut to glowing pieces by the rifle's razor ward.

  Cold pain stabbed behind my eyes, digging into my brain. Stupid.

  I'd reacted with fear, pulling more force than I should have, riding the thread instead of releasing it. That was the way to burn out your mind.

  But the Knife was down, and one of his bloods. I conjured another thread, settled my leather stockman firmly on my head, and up-tuned the vision wards sewn into the brim.

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  The desert became clear, bright, close. More motion, black dots swarming in the sky, ten, twenty, fifty of them, clustered in groups.

  Quadcopters, each clan flying in a cover pattern of its own, hedging their position, protecting themselves against the other clans. Seven groups in all.

  That was bad. It meant that the Void Orbs weren't yet out of the fight. I had to change that, make another stupid shot at too far a range.

  There was something not quite right in that thought. I felt the wrongness of it slipping through my awareness like a fish through a hydroponics tank. Elusive.

  No time. The Syndicates were coming.

  Conjure slowly, letting the threads through my rifle as carefully as possible. It still hurt, felt like I was trying to suck my eyeballs dry with an iron straw. Crudmucking void. I hated combat magic. It was a perversion, pushing yourself into your wards instead of weaving your threads into them. Crudmucking war.

  But I wasn't in the war. I was on Remba, hundreds of light-years and a score of time-years away. My mind was spilling bad memories.

  Focus. Follow the guide thread. Pick out a quadcopter. Find the fuel tank. Let your second thread rupture it.

  The quadcopter, a four-man machine, spewed forth a cloud of burning methanol, the blue flames clearly visible to my ward-enhanced eyes.

  I didn't stay to look. Instead, I took up a third thread, sunk another quadcopter from the same clan group.

  The rest of them flew apart, like an exploding balloon turning into a flock of blackbirds, their cannons firing wildly.

  Into the other clans. The sky lit with dozens of fires, burning quadcopters dropping like spent casings.

  I blinked, and found myself sitting on the sand, a strong hand shaking me, a voice I vaguely recognized yammering in my ear.

  "Get up, void take you," the Knife kept saying.

  I forced my head to swivel toward him. He looked scared, angry, his lips trembling, a thin stream of bloody saliva running down the corner of his mouth.

  "You're alive," I said. A brilliant deduction.

  "Not for long," he said. "They're coming."

  "They Syndics are fighting," I said. "There's a war on."

  "Not them," the Knife said, pointing at the sky.

  Above us were four glowing dots. Four rapidly moving, glowing dots.

  The cruisers were descending.