As I grew closer to the square the sounds of battle grew louder. I raced forward, throwing caution aside. Men were dying in the square, loyal and traitorous alike. Every moment longer that it took me to arrive there was another chance for a good man to die. I needed to put a stop to this madness.

  The wall beside me exploded. It had been a butcher shop. I knew the place, Sempronius had favored its produce and our servants had frequently shopped there. The building was old, near the heart of Boston. It might have dated all the way back to the founding of the city. In a heartbeat it was nothing, disintegrated in a shower of broken stone and blooming dust.

  I danced aside as the Golem’s huge fist crashed down.

  “Another one of you bastards?” I snapped at it, my sword blazing, visor on fire with POWER.

  I was consumed with the need to intervene in the square, to know what was happening, to end the violence. Harold had died in my arms only an hour before. My focus had slipped from a question that should have been obvious. What were the odds that F’ael would send a Golem to attempt my assassination on the same day that the differences within the nobility would coalesce into violence in the streets?

  I didn’t have much time to ponder the question, but at least it arrived in my mind.

  Urgency drove me to end this battle more swiftly. I took more chances. I suffered a little for some of them, taking glancing blows from the Golem’s huge swinging arms. But I pressed closer and braver, letting the little wounds accumulate in order to do my damage faster than I had before.

  Each time the pulsing fist slammed towards me and I was forced back was another moment that a loyal man might breathe his last. Each moment that I dodged away from a hulking charge was another moment for the traitors to strengthen their position. I needed to be in the square. So I darted forward instead of back, rolled under the blows instead of away from them. And I CUT, and CUT and CUT some more.

  By the time the giant crumpled to the ground I could feel the ache of the impacts I’d absorbed. None of them were debilitating but I could feel that the armor was thin and damaged at my right shoulder and at the lower torso on the same side. When I turned to advance towards the square again I could feel my movement was off, a lancing pain in my left knee forcing me to hobble slightly. It didn’t matter. What mattered was getting to the square before it was too late.

  I had no spirit to celebrate the Level 48 that flashed across my HUD. Another level should have left me excited. I was nearing Level 50. Level 50 would mean truly elite status, nearing that of Morningstar. Level 50 would also mean yet another skill.

  I couldn’t care. My mind was consumed by the sudden silence. The ringing of steel on steel and the barking of guns had quieted. Dread settled heavily on me, the battle in the square was ended. I could only hope that the victors were the deserving.

  The silence compelled me to adopt a different tact. I didn’t know what had happened and I didn’t know what awaited. It was clear that F’ael was playing with the politics of my city. Golems had been employed here. I’d killed two, but couldn’t guess as to how many might be in the city. One was still a decent challenge despite my powers. Two or three would be enough to overwhelm me.

  I slowed my pace and glanced around. I was only a hundred yards, less even, from the square. In another few moments I would round the curve of the street and be visible to whoever occupied the square. The victors of the battle that had just passed. I glanced up. The street ran all the way, tall buildings lining it.

  I coiled the powerful muscles in the suit’s legs and leapt. AGILITY guided me. So accustomed had I become to the inhuman athletic abilities of the suit that it felt like I was gliding. I landed easily and lightly, dipping slightly as my left knee shuddered. I could reach the square by the rooftops and be afforded a chance to spy before deciding my next action.

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  Thoughts of Harold constantly threatened to erupt like a volcano. There was an unreality to the very notion that he could be dead. There was an even greater disconnect in me, that I was here, in this unimaginable situation, so soon. Would his body be ashes in the pyre of the house by now? I thought so.

  I crept forward. The city was deathly still. There was little sound of the citizenry moving around. Activity had screeched to a halt. I reached out with HEARING and could find little. Somewhere a man was thumping objects onto the bed of a cart, his breathing rapid from exertion and panic. Somewhere else a child wailed and a mother tried to soothe it.

  Ahead of me, in the square I steadily crept towards, were voices and movement. The clink of armored forms moving around. The gruff commands of officers directing soldiers. The accents were Boston but that did me no good. That had been a battle between Bostonians.

  I reached the last building of the street. It was the roof of one of the hotels that lined the square. Not the Regal, she sat closer to the Tower. The hotel at the corner of Main Street and the square was the Swordsond Hotel, named for Barrick, the city’s founder. It was a tall building with a steeply pitched roof. The pitch of the roof served me well, providing cover as I climbed it carefully. I reached the top and took a breath before I looked over.

  I didn’t fear my opponents in the square, if ’twas the enemy that had taken the square. I was a Level 48 Griidlord. There was little in this world I could fear now. What gave me pause was the reality. Would I look down there and see Lady Ironveil and Lance’s father? I disliked them, but they were my countrymen. The thought of being compelled to fight and kill them filled me with disgust. Other thoughts intruded. Would I see Balthazar dead? Had the Bloodwolfs, my precious private army, fought and died here? The thought seemed preposterous, they were a truly devastating force now that they were equipped. And where were my fellow Griidlords? If only one or two of them had been here there would have been no battle. Tara’s betrayal still cut deeply. But I knew Magneblade was devoted to Balthazar, Olaf would never betray me or the city, and Alya, though she disliked the Lord Supreme, was not a traitor. As for Racquel, she was beyond doubt.

  I raised my head above the roof.

  It was worse and more bizarre than I could have imagined.

  Two hulking Golems stood in the square. Not ideal, but surmountable. I had enough left in me to take them. I mightn’t be pretty at the end of the fight, but I knew I could do it. Worse, several dozen knights were arrayed. I could see the house colors they bore. They were from the houses I’d expected to see. The Ironveils, the Farseers, the Darkwaters. Combined with the Golems they were more than I could manage.

  These were far from the most troubling sights.

  Several dozen soldiers, in the uniforms of the city, knelt in a cluster. I didn’t judge them for surrendering. Had they fought the knights and Golems further they would have been destroyed. They served us in no way by dying for nothing.

  Beyond the captured soldiers stood a cluster of figures. I saw Balthazar and his assistant Jean, their hands bound. This was disastrous, but not beyond the realm of my imagining. What struck my heart cold were the other four figures that stood with them. Alya, Magneblade, Racquel and Olaf. These four stood bereft of their armor, their hands bound by strange glowing cuffs. It was startling to see them without their armor. Though they wore linens, it felt like seeing them nude. Even Racquel, who I had enjoyed in various states of dress, seemed exposed and wrong without her suit. I was struck by how small Magneblade seemed. The man was a tower in the suit, a character larger than life and brimming with unquenchable violence. Stripped of the armor I saw he was a smaller and wirier man than I could have imagined.

  In the midst of all of this stood a strange being. It looked not entirely unlike a Golem. It bore the same smooth skin and alien details. But it was smaller. It was distinctly man-sized. It didn’t move with the same robotic character as the Golems. It gestured and waved as a man would. It shouted, and though the voice was distorted, it was the voice of a man. I furrowed my brow. What was I seeing? A man in a Golem suit? The very idea struck me as wrong and impossible.

  My thoughts and eyes returned to the glowing cuffs on the wrists of fellow Griidlords. I could feel a memory of a story tugging at me. The details were lost, but there was some tale from history of a relic that could strip a Griidlord of their powers. It was the only explanation I could gather. Those cuffs had taken their suits from them. How they had been subjected to the cuffs was another question. But I imagined if my CUT struck those relics they would be removed. I imagined that if that happened the clouds of mystorium would race to them and make them whole again.

  If I moved fast enough I could face the traitors and the Golems with all four of my fellow Griidlords at my side.

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  as well.