The wind blew across the rooftop, lifting Dellander's mustard yellow cloak and making it dance in the breeze.
The building, like all of Earth's once shining cities, was on the verge of falling apart. The countless holes in the roof gaped like maws in the night, places where the centuries old wood and steel had already rotted and fallen away. The section he stood on was still stable. Hopefully. If not…well, Ghosts were good for something.
"Are you sure we have the right place?" Dellander called to Namiko. The Warlock stood a short distance away, staring at the thin tablet in her hands. The screen illuminated her mask, casting it with a pale blue glow. Her robe, blue, red and yellow, flapped softly in the stiff ocean breeze.
"Still checking…" she replied distractedly, her voice light and accented.
Dellander grunted and turned back to the city, illuminated by the recently risen moon. The crumbling buildings were a patchwork of shadows and indistinct lumps. Beyond the broken cityscape, barely visible between the buildings, the black glass of the coast glittered in the moonlight. Past that was the sea, a dark mass only distinguishable by the lack of stars across its inky blackness.
Despite the chill of the sea breeze, the African night was unseasonably warm. Back in the Last City, it was autumn. The days were turning cold and crisp. Here though, along the coast of Old Kenya, the climate remained stubbornly balmy all year long.
He turned away from the darkened cityscape and crossed to where Namiko stood. Her thin, transparent sheet of techno-whatever displayed a Golden-Age map of the surrounding city. There were several markers on the map, and the logo of the Future War Cult was stamped across the top.
"So what does this university have to do with this Duane-McNiadh guy?" he asked.
"Duane-McNiadh interned here over the summer, for his post-graduate work," Namiko said, not really paying attention to him.
"And the Cult is interested why?"
"That's classified," Namiko replied. "You don't have clearance yet."
Dellander deflated. He got it. He was the muscle, the guy with the guns, the sharpshooter in case something went south. Still though, he hadn't expected this much secrecy when he agreed to work with the Cult.
He turned back to the city, letting his eyes wander across it, searching for any signs of movement. In the past few weeks, the Fallen had abandoned almost all of their territory across the System. The Cosmodrome, the Ishtar Sink, hell, even the Anchor of light were all now strangely free of the pirates.
That made their newfound interest in the crumbling African city all the more unusual.
"Alright," Namiko said curtly, "I've located the room. Stay here."
The Warlock walked over to one of the holes in the roof and dropped down. The darkness swallowed her completely. Just like that, he was alone on the rooftop.
Dellander sighed. Namiko didn't need him to stand guard. She was a Warlock, and more than capable of taking care of herself. Lakshmi though, thought that a simple in and out collection bounty like this would be good training for him. The recent increase in Fallen activity in the area had only cemented her decision.
He crossed the roof, staying on the more stable sections, and climbed onto the rusting metal shed that covered the top of the stairwell. He slid his long-rifle off his back and settled down, scanning the city with the gun's scope. All quiet so far. The Fallen mostly stayed around the northern outskirts, leaving the city center abandoned. That was just fine with him.
A crashing noise drifted up from the bowels of the building. Namiko had disturbed some rubble in the crumbling interior, from the sound of it. Dellander waited for her to radio the all-clear. If it was one of his teammates down there, they would have called up immediately.
With Namiko, the assurance never came.
What was her angle? She probably felt she was on babysitting duty, watching over the fresh recruit. Well, it wasn't his fault that Lakshmi had ordered him to tag along. Yet she was as icy to him as a mountain frost. Oh well.
Minutes passed, which quickly stretched in to hours. A quiet night was never something to complain about, especially in enemy territory. It had been pretty easy to slip in to the city. Too easy, almost. That in itself set him on edge.
He scanned the city occasionally, slowly doing a full turn on his perch. It had been beautiful once. That much was obvious. Each ruined city he visited usually was, in its own unique way. Plastered over it all was the same veneer of decay, loss and death. The impression blanketed the remnants of Earth's once great civilizations like a life-sucking shroud. Now there were barely enough people left to fill a single valley, huddled beneath the broken orb that-
Movement in the distance.
Something rippled across the sky, far over the ocean. The stars began to twist and fold in on themselves, like someone had grabbed a curtain from behind, and started wringing it out.
The knot of reality burst with a brilliant flash. For a moment, the city was illuminated with the light of a thousand suns as the rift spat out a lumbering, angular shape.
The ketch approached low and fast, its single engine burning like an angry eye in the night. The ground, the air, the whole world quivered and blurred with its arrival, like a child trembling in terror. Smaller shapes broke off as it growled over the ruins. Skiffs. At least a dozen of them.
"Uh, Namiko?" Dellander said, raising his hand to his ear.
"What?" the warlock asked, distracted.
"Fallen. Lots of Fallen. A ketch just dropped at least a dozen skiffs. They're spreading out all around us."
"Shit!" Namiko snapped. A torrent of staccato syllables followed as she reverted to her native language. Silla said Dellander was a quarter Japanese. For once, he was kinda grateful he didn't know the language.
"We need to go," Dellander warned, watching as the skiffs descended to deploy their crews. "There's hundreds of them."
"Have they seen us?" Namiko asked.
"None of them are coming this way yet. Looks like they're setting up a perimeter, maybe they're trying to-"
"Keep watch. I'm almost done."
"But-"
"Just do it, the faster I finish, the faster we can get the hell out of here."
Dellander exhaled and bit his lip. Damn Warlocks. He could count all the sane ones he knew on one hand. When they found something to latch on to, not even a rampaging Gate-Lord could pry them off.
Reluctantly, he settled back down on his perch. The skiffs were deploying in a loose circle. It wasn't a perimeter, like he'd thought at first. Something else was going on here.
As he watched, one skiff approached a building a few hundred yards away, which still had an intact roof. A shimmer of light flashed under the skiff. A large pile of equipment appeared on the roof as a dozen Fallen crawled out of the hatches on the back. They dropped lithely to the ground and fanned out with practiced efficiency.
The dregs scrambled over the pile of equipment, industriously unpacking caches and assembling their contents. There were three vandals, one of which wore a dark hood and carried a pair of swords. That vandal waved to another group of dregs with pole-arms. They spread out and took watch at the corners of the roof.
To the side, overseeing it all was a captain. He stood a good two feet above his underlings, his ragged cloak flapping in the breeze. He watched as the vandals directed the dregs to build…something. It looked like an antenna of some sorts, with numerous screens attached to the base. Overhead, the skiff pulled away and vanished as its cloaking engaged.
The captain turned away from the contraption and walked to the edge of the roof, finally giving Dellander a good look at his other side. His upper left hand was missing. Instead, a long, vicious blade extended from the stump. Interesting.
The captain was standing clear in the open. Dellander had the perfect shot. All he had to do was pull the trigger…
But no, that was no good. The Fallen, might not even know Dellander and Namiko were in the city. If he took the shot, every single Fallen in the whole damn city would know where they were.
"Silla," Dellander said, nudging his scope back to the array, "What is that thing?"
"I don't know," his Ghost said. "It's some kind of antenna, obviously, but I don't know if its transmitting, receiving, or something else entirely. We'll have to wait for them to turn it on."
The back of his neck prickled. These Fallen, they were about to pull something big. He definitely didn't want to stick around to see the show.
He raised his hand to radio Namiko just as the antenna crackled to life.
The crew of Fallen stepped back as the blade-armed captain shoved forward. The two vandals bent over the screens, their hands furiously working the controls.
"Interesting," Silla said at his side, "The other crews set up satellite transponders across the city. They're scanning for something in the forty kilohertz range."
"What does that mean?" Dellander asked.
"Not sure. There's not a lot these days that transmit on those frequencies. Some old analogue radios scavenged from the Cosmodrome use that range. The War Cult also uses them for their encrypted transmissions…" The Ghost trailed off a moment. "Uh-oh."
On the roof, one of the vandals looked up sharply and waved the captain over. The captain took one glance at the screen and looked directly towards Dellander.
Crap.
Dellander reacted before he could think. He centered his crosshairs on the top of the captain's head, aiming for the unarmored neck, and fired.
A loud crack rang out across the dead city. The captain stumbled, bullet striking him in the shoulder. His energy shield broke with a flash, but the armor stopped the projectile. Not good enough.
He re-centered his scope, aiming to the side to compensate for the wind. With the shield down, he only needed one hit to-
The captain vanished in a flash of blue light as Dellander pulled the trigger. His bullet tore through empty space. He cursed and scanned the rooftop. Wherever the captain had teleported, he was out of sight. The rest of the crew scrambled to mobilize. One of the vandals raised a long, spindly rifle. The barrel began to glow.
Dellander cursed and rolled off the shed. A crackling bolt of wire sliced through the air and vanished into the night behind. He hit the roof with a thump, but that put him out of the sniper's sight-line.
"Time's up Namiko," Dellander called, "They're coming for us."
He didn't wait to hear the Warlock's response. Instead, he crouch-dashed to the nearest hole and jumped.
He landed in a puff of dust. The floor underneath groaned, but held. Silla appeared by his side and started glowing with stark white light.
"Which way did she go?" he asked as he slung his long-rifle back over his shoulder and drew his hand-cannon. In response, Silla put a marker on his visor, pointing down two floors and somewhere to the left.
He stomped on the floor as hard as he could. The wood groaned. Another stomp, and it fell away completely. He crashed through the next floor in a shower of spinters, and finally tumbled to a stop on the floor beneath that.
Dellander groaned and stood up. His back and legs were sore, bur miraculously, nothing seemed broken, and he wasn't impaled by any lengths of wood. How about that. He dusted himself off and charged into the hallway, following Silla's marker.
The corridor turned right. Half-way down, bright white light from another Ghost seeped from one of the rooms. Namiko was inside, huddled over a holographic reconstruction of the office interior.
"What are you still doing?" he asked.
"Almost finished," she said over her shoulder. Her ghost finished scanning one hologram and moved to the next.
A muffled noise came from down below, deep in the bowels of the building.
"I'm picking up movement all across the ground floor," Silla said.
"Okay Namiko," Dellander said. "I'm going to go clean up downstairs. You better be right behind me."
He left without waiting for a response, hurrying down the hall to the stairs at the end.
The stair well was narrow but deep, with a gap between the sides, leaving a small open space that ran from the bottom to the top. A scraping sound came from below, followed by a few clipped words of Fallen. Silla extinguished her light as he peaked over the edge. A pair of dregs stood at the bottom, glow-sticks in hand.
Dellander smiled and drew his knife with his other hand. Then he jumped.
His cloak billowed around him as he plummeted through fifty feet of near darkness. The dregs looked up at the sound. For a moment, he saw their faces staring up at him, illuminated from below with pale orange light.
He landed on the first one, the force of his fall driving his knife straight through the thick armor on its neck. Its bones cracked beneath him as it died. He spun, twisted his knife free of the corpse and raised his pistol in his other hand. Bang. The second dreg dropped, helmet and skull cracked open.
For a moment, the stairwell was still, the last echoes of the gunshot fading.
A howling scream came from the doorway, followed by several more. Dellander wiped the blood off his knife and sheathed it, then gripped his hand-cannon with both hands. One bullet in the dreg, seven left in the gun.
He burst through the doorway in a flash of blue armor and yellow cloth. Another pair of dregs stood just outside, pistols raised, glow-sticks dropped in haste. Bang, bang. Five bullets.
The bottom floor of the building was broad, low atrium, with rooms on three sides and cracked glass doors on the fourth. He stood in the back corner. A dozen Fallen crowded the atrium, their orange glow sticks filling the space with thin light.
A vandal raised its rifle. Bang. Four bullets. Another vandal got several shots off. He waited until the last moment, then dodged to the side. The bolts bent towards him, but he moved too fast for them to hit. Bang. The vandal dropped. Three bullets.
Movement to his left. Dregs, two of them. Bang, bang. One of the dregs died, the other stumbled back, clutching its shoulder. Bang. It went down. Zero bullets.
Noise from behind. Dellander spun, whipping his knife from its sheath. He threw without looking, and was rewarded with a meaty thuck as the knife stuck a dreg in the chest.
Half the Fallen in the room were now dead. Dellander ducked behind a pillar and reloaded. When he stepped back out, they were waiting for him.
Two Fallen with crackling spears rushed him. They were thicker, studier than the average dreg, and their helmets were different. Didn't matter. They fell to a bullet just the same.
Three vandals and two dregs left. He moved quickly, his gun tapping out a deadly rhythm, like an instrument of doom. Five cracks later, the room was still.
Dellander released his breath and reloaded. His heart hammered in his chest. Even after all these years, the adrenaline -
A sound, like water sucking down a drain, came from behind him. He turned just in time to see a hooded vandal materialize out of thin air and ram its dagger through his calf.
He cried out as pain shot up his leg. He raised his hand-cannon, but the vandal lashed out with its other blade. His arm went numb, and the pistol dropped out of his now useless fingers. The vandal raised the blade, ready to ram it through -
There was a flash of purple, and the vandal lurched to the side. Its body fuzzed around the edges, then began to unravel, disintegrating in a cloud of violet mist. By the time it hit the ground, there were only a few luminous vapors left.
Namiko lowered her hand and regarded Dellander from behind her helmet. She proffered her hand to him.
Dellander accepted and climbed to his feet, inhaling sharply as the movement sent a fresh spike of pain up his leg. A dull throbbing also came from a burn on his arm, where the shock blade connected. The pain from both quickly faded as Silla repaired the damage.
He stooped to retrieve his hand-cannon and knife, pointedly ignoring the place where the dead vandal should have been. Arc and Solar burned, but Void didn't leave anything behind. Not even ash.
Namiko watched the doors. The glass was dirty and cracked, but several shapes moved outside, illuminated by the pale light of the moon.
"That's a lot of Fallen," Dellander noted.
"Yep," Namiko replied. She turned away from the entrance and crossed to the back of the atrium. She kicked down a rotting door and stepped in to a cramped hallway beyond. "There's a storage yard around back," she explained, "We can sneak out through there, summon our sparrows, and ride back to the ships."
Dellander nodded. It was as good of a plan as any, though it wouldn't be easy with the Fallen. They would have to be fast.
Namiko paused at the end of the hallway and glanced back at him. He raised his pistol and nodded. She hefted her pulse-rifle and charged through.
The desiccated wood dissolved into a shower of splinters. A shout came from the Fallen squad waiting on the other side. Namiko opened fire, her muzzle flashing in quick bursts. Dellander stepped up beside her, picking Fallen off with steady precision. It took them only a few moments to clear the entire squad.
The yard was filled with rusted cars. They ran between the vehicles, using them as cover as other squads around the yard noticed the disturbance. Namiko and Dellander knelt behind a vehicle as one squad reached the bodies. Their leader, a burly captain with a scorch cannon, screamed at his underlings. They fanned out and entered the maze of vehicles.
Dellander held up his hand and motioned to the side. Namiko nodded and moved as he indicated. At least she respected his instincts as a Hunter. He glanced over his shoulder as he followed, trying to estimate how close they were to being detected.
They continued weaving between the cars, keeping low and out of sight. There weren't enough Fallen searching the yard to cover each line of sight, so finding a path was simple enough.
As they approached the far side of the yard, he spotted a pair of vandals standing watch. They would only have to kill those two, then summon their sparrows and get out of the city.
He balanced on the balls of his feet and drew his hand-cannon, ready to dash forward. He held up three fingers and started counting down. Three, two -
Something snapped inside Dellander. A sickening nausea washed over him. He tumbled against a rusting vehicle as the world spun. Something clicked on the ground. He turned, slow as molasses, to see his hand-cannon drop to the ground, his fingers too weakly to grasp it.
"Guardian," Silla said weakly. She appeared in front of him, her shell drooping. "Something's wrong…" Her eye went dark, and she dropped to the ground.
"What…how?" Namiko stuttered, "The Light…it's…gone."
Dellander barely heard her. Calm. Focus on calm. Deep, even breaths. Focus on those.
"I can't feel the Light," Namiko repeated. She was shaking. He was shaking too. "Something happened to us…"
Dellander reached for the glowing flame in his chest, the source of his power.
With a jolt, he realized it wasn't there. The color drained from his face. Something was terribly wrong. It wasn't just his Light. His whole body felt week, like he had just ran an incredible distance with a great weight on his back.
"How is this even possible?" Namiko was rambling, "How can the Light be gone? We are the Light, we were chosen to be its vessels!"
"Namiko!" he hissed, finally remembering their surroundings. "Keep your voice down."
Don't just stand around, think! Something was happening to them. He didn't know how or what, but that didn't matter. Why? Why was thinking so hard. Come on!
Fallen. Lots of Fallen. They were surrounded. The nearest ones were barely forty feet away. Without the Light…
He glanced down at Silla. Dark, inert, Silla. No time to think about that. Escape first, questions later.
He set his jaw and pushed himself upright. Namiko took a deep breath and nodded. He turned towards the edge of the yard. They just -
A snarling form leapt from the shadows. Dellander turned in time to see it tackle Namiko and raise a short sword in its hands. He dove for his hand-cannon as the blade plunged into Namiko's shoulder.
"No!" he shouted. His fingers closed around the handle of his gun. He rolled over and pulled the trigger. The sound of the gunshot cracked off distant buildings. The hooded vandal stumbled back.
Dellander fired again, then again and again, his hands shaking as he put three more bullets in it. It went down.
Dellander waited. The vandal didn't get back up. He released his breath and lowered his gun.
Namiko.
He lurched over to her and knelt by her side. The dagger was still lodged in her shoulder. Dellander's mind churned, trying to remember basic field medicine. The cloth and skin around the blade was blistered and burnt, but the cut itself wasn't bleeding. The electricity of the blade had cauterized it.
He reached under her jaw to undo seal to her helmet. He fumbled a couple times, then finally got it off. Her skin was pale and clammy, eyes wild and unfocused. Breath coming in shallow gasps. Shock. She was in shock.
Sounds came from nearby. Right. The Fallen. He looked back down at Namiko. Was it safe to move her? If he jostled the wound and opened it up, she could bleed out. But if they stayed here, they were both dead.
He snatched up Silla and Namiko's Ghost and tucked them into his belt. His hands had stopped shaking. Mostly. Now he just felt tired. Very tired. He slid Namiko's helmet back on and dragged her to her feet, supporting her by her good shoulder. She grunted, but didn't say a word.
A single vandal remained at the edge of the yard. Dellander raised his pistol as they emerged from the cars and fired his last four bullets in its direction. The vandal dropped to the ground, arms twitching.
The street beyond was broken and crumbling, clumps of coarse grass waving in the breeze. A shrill whistle rose from the far end as a squad of shanks spotted them. The drones charged forward in a lose attack formation. A metallic growl came from the other direction as a servitor rounded the corner.
"Come on!" Dellander growled. Fallen behind, death-bots on both sides, and a broken row of buildings in front. Trapped and running out of time. The shanks were closing in fast. Too fast.
Dellander grunted and started towards the line of buildings, hand-cannon in one hand, the other supporting Namiko. He had three ammo tubes left in his belt, and no Silla to make more. Those twenty-four bullets would have to count. They might have a chance if they got their backs -
There was something wrong with the building in front of them. Rather, there wasn't a building, just a dark gap between the two other structures. An alley.
A way out.
He cried out and charged for the alley. Little arc bolts zipped past as the shanks opened fire. He grabbed Namiko by the arm and threw her into the shadows, even as the servitor fired a purple void blast. Dellander hit the ground, and the slug struck the side of the building, making the whole thing to shake.
Dellander groaned and crawled forward to where Namiko was slumped on the dirt. Reaching the alley bought them a few seconds. They needed to keep moving.
The moon had not yet risen enough to illuminate the alley, leaving it cloaked in shadow. He blindly pushed forward, practically dragging Namiko along. She still hadn't said a word. What was wrong with her? Noises of scraping and shuffling came from behind them. The Fallen had reached the alley entrance.
They turned a corner. Something angular and metal blocked the alley in front of them. A jumpship. Why was there a jumpship in the alley? Was another Guardian in the area? Someone who could help?
No. Even in the darkness, he could see the ship was listed to one side, and the rear portion was twisted and broken. Tufts of grass had grown around the edges of the hull. The ship was abandoned, it had been for years.
Behind the ship, the buildings had caved in, blocking the alley with a twelve-foot pile of bricks. Dellander ran to the rubble. It wouldn't be too hard to scramble over. He climbed down and pushed Namiko towards the pile. The Warlock didn't budge.
Fine then. He would carry her. He bent to wrap his arm around her waist and brushed against her injured arm.
She yelped in pain and jumped away from Dellander. He cursed and extended his hand, but she just shied back, swaying on her feet.
"Come on Namiko!" he snapped. The Warlock flinched at his sharp words. He took a deep breath and tried again, forcing his voice to carry a calm tone he definitely did not feel right now. "Come on Namiko, we need to get over this wall, or we're screwed."
He slid off the pile of rubble and slowly raised his hand. She didn't react as he slid her helmet off.
The moonlight gave her skin a sickly pale cast, and a sheen of sweat covered her features. Her eyes stared straight ahead, wide and dilated, and completely unseeing.
A cold and icy feeling settled in Dellander's stomach. This wasn't just shock, this was something else entirely.
A shrill cry came from the far end of the alley. Several dregs scrambled around the corner. More Fallen followed. Dellander cursed and dragged Namiko behind the wedge-like prow of the ship. It was only cover in the narrow alley.
He poked his head over the top of the prow and immediately ducked back down. A hail of arc bolts pounded off the metal. Okay then. He reloaded, clicked the chamber shut, and waited.
The dregs came first, snarling and hissing as they rounded the end of the ship. They practically crawled over each other for the chance to claim the glory of the kill.
Dellander shot every one of them.
He slipped another magazine into the tube, letting the empty one clatter to the ground. Sixteen bullets left.
A pair of shanks came next. He blasted them out of the air.
A metallic growl reverberated down the alley. Dellander peaked over the prow and was rewarded with the sight of nearly two-dozen Fallen assembled at the end of the alley, including the servitor.
Dellander slid back down and rested his head on the hard metal. Sixteen bullets left for his hand-cannon. Four rounds for his long-rifle. No grenades or golden-gun. He glanced a Namiko, who was still just staring off in the distance, blood slowly staining the shoulder of her robe. He realized he had left her rifle behind, in the yard. She didn't carry any other weapons on her. She said the Light was her most powerful weapon…
The dregs. They carried shock pistols. Making a move for one would expose him to the Fallen in the back. Too risky. Dellander took a deep breath. He would wait for them to send more dregs, let them get closer, then drop them. It wasn't much of a plan, but -
A crackling bar of electricity tumbled over the prow of the ship and landed in front Dellander and Namiko. Dellander stared at it as it started humming.
A grenade.
He shouted and yanked Namiko away. He tossed her forward and threw himself after her as the grenade exploded.
Everything went white.
For a moment, he just floated. Vision all cloudy, hearing blown out. No feeling in his arms, not even the dusty smells of a rotting city in his nose. Just drifting across a sea of nothing.
Something loud sounded nearby. It wasn't a sound really, more of a deep vibration he felt in his chest. More rumbles followed, muffled and distant. Slowly, his hearing came back into focus. Sharp cracks. Popping electricity. A meaty thud.
The Fallen. Dellander and Namiko were exposed.
Why weren't they dead?
Spots danced across his vision. He blinked several times, but the spots didn't go away. He tried to roll on to his side, but only managed to slightly twist his head. There was movement at the end of the alley, but it was too blurry to make out much.
Something white and shiny broke away from the commotion and sprinted towards them. It came to a stop in front of them, giant gun clutched in its hands.
The figure spun around, dropped the gun, and pushed outwards with its arms. A deep hum filled the air. Purple luminescence blossomed all around.
The figure, the Titan, knelt and gently rolled Dellander on to his side. The Titan spoke, but the words were distant, like they were under water. Dellander tried to lift his arms, and on the third attempt, he managed to reach up and pull his helmet off. His vision and hearing both unclouded immediately, without the thick covering of plasteel.
"Can you hear me?" the Titan was saying. She - that sharp accent could only be a woman's - wore sleek white armor, etched with intricate silver inlays. It almost looked too thin and delicate to be worn in battle. The texture was polished and silvery. It must be made of carbon-bronze, like the Iron Lords of old…
The Titan snapped her fingers in front of his face, jolting him out of the daze. "Can you hear me?" she repeated.
"Yes," Dellander wheezed. Pins and needles ran down his arms and legs as the effects of the shock grenade finally started wearing off. He inhaled as he felt a sharp pain in his thigh.
"Relax," the Titan said, "You were lucky. The shrapnel only grazed your leg. I'm more worried about her." She motioned towards Namiko, who lay on the ground next to Dellander, face as pale as death. He had shielded her from the blast, but in the process, he had twisted the knife in her shoulder. The cloth around the wound was soaked with blood.
The Titan stood up and returned a moment later with a small bundle of purple cloth. A poncho from one of the dregs Dellander had killed. When did the House of Devils start wearing purple?
The Titan tore the poncho in to strips. She folded one square several times and pressed it against Namiko's wound, then began inspecting the dagger.
As the nameless Titan bandaged Namiko, Dellander worked his way to his feet and picked up his hand-cannon. All around them, a spherical Ward of Dawn glowed with soft purple light. He could still see the Fallen clustered at the end of the Alley, eyes glowing with seething anger. They knew better than to enter a Ward, but they had no qualms with waiting it out.
Namiko cried out as the Titan yanked the knife out of her shoulder. She pressed it against the wound again, using the electricity to cauterize the torn flesh, then tossed it away and covered her shoulder with the bandage. With her other hand, she tied a longer strip of cloth over it, binding the bandage in place.
"She'll be fine as long as we keep an eye on the wound," the Titan explained. She glanced at the Warlock's face, which was still pale and ashen. "Well, physically at least."
"I don't know what's wrong with her," Dellander coughed, "I've seen shock before, but never this bad."
"It's the pain," the Titan said, "Her body isn't used to dealing with it for sustained periods of time." She glanced at him. "You at least are cut from a tougher cloth. Perhaps your past life was not so gentle."
Her words dredged up an image in Dellander's mind. The sun beating down on a dusty lane. A lone figure standing opposite. Anxious faces on either side.
He shook his head, banishing the unbidden memory. It'd been a while since he thought about that. The exhaustion was making him delirious.
"Our Ghosts," Dellander found himself asking, "What did the Fallen do to them? How did they block our Light?"
"I don't know," the Titan said, standing up and collecting her shotgun. "My Ghost says he can't feel the Traveler, but he is still receiving signals from beyond the ruins. If it's a jamming field, it's unlike anything I've seen before."
"So how do you still have your powers?" he asked, glancing at the Ward of Dawn around them.
The Titan knelt in front of Dellander, in the center of the spherical shield. "I'm not entirely sure. Help the Warlock and be ready to follow."
"Follow you? What are you doing?"
She slid her shotgun into the holster across her back, next to a sleek auto-rifle, and pressed her hand against the Ward's anchor of Void Light. "I'm going to get us out of here."
The Titan inhaled, and the Ward of Dawn dissolved. It burst into a hundred purple tendrils. They hung in the air for a moment, then collapsed on the Titan, sucked into the Void anchor beneath her hand.
She stood up, the Void hardening into a broad, circular disc. The shield glowed with an intense violet deepness, like a hole burned in the night.
The Fallen screamed in delight as they saw the Guardians' defense drop. All of them opened fire
The Titan calmly walked forward and raised her shield. The edges fuzzed and swelled outward, forming a protective half-circle before her.
The arc bolts, molten shrapnel, and void slugs slammed into the diaphanous barrier and vanished with faint puffs. The shield shrank back down to its original size. With a snarl, the Titan spun on her foot and threw the shield.
The shield streaked down the alley and sliced clean through a dreg, and the dreg behind it, and the one behind that. They exploded in puffs of gray vapor.
The Titan dashed after the shield. She closed the distance to the Fallen in moments, another shield already forming in her hand.
She leapt as she reached the clump of Fallen, using her weight to chop down on the nearest vandal, cleaving straight through its neck. A dreg lunged at her with a spear, but she spun and caught the blade with the shield. She ducked within the dreg's reach and slammed it backwards, disintegrating it in a blast of violet mist. A vandal raised a shock rifle. She descended upon it in a flash, slicing off the barrel, along with the vandal's arms.
She continued to cut down the Fallen, slowly working her way from one end to the other, leaving only fading outlines in her wake. Her movements were fast and precise, flowing from one attack to the next, like water down a hill. Yet there was something else below the surface, something savage and primal. It was captivating and terrifying, and unlike anything Dellander had ever seen before.
"What are you?" Dellander whispered.
Reluctantly, he tore himself away from the Titan's slaughter. She was dangerous. Great. All Guardians were. Though it was growing increasingly difficult to think in his exhausted state, he realized his first priority was getting Namiko and himself to safety.
He knelt by the Warlock and lifted her by her good arm, supporting her weight on his shoulder. She continued staring off in the distance, but at least she walked when he pulled her forward.
At the far end of the alley, the Titan slapped the captain's scorch cannon out of his hands, then brought her shield around in a wide slash, slicing his torso in half. She turned as the servitor fired a salvo of void slugs. Her shield deflected the blasts. Then she leapt in the air, shield raised in both hands, and smashed it down on the servitor. The servitor's armored shell shattered, and the smoldering remains dropped to the ground.
A taught stillness descended over the alley. Dellander and Namiko at one end, the Titan at the other, illuminated by her violet shield.
The silence was finally broken by the distant howl of Fallen.
The Titan straightened and let the Void shield evaporate. "Come," she called quietly, "we need to get her to shelter."
"Who are you?" Dellander whispered as they reached where the Titan stood.
"I'm a defender of humanity, a 'Guardian,'" she said as she they rounded the corner and started towards the alley entrance.
"I got that," Dellander hissed, "but who are you?" He lurched as Namiko tripped on a rock. He righted Namiko, and then continued after the Titan. "That thing you did with the shield, I've never seen or heard of anything like it."
The Titan snickered and shook her head. "Ah, you must be young," she muttered to her self. "My name is Yahmi Almasi," she said to Dellander, "I fight for humanity, but I do not answer to your Vanguard. It's…been quite some since I visited the Last City."
Dellander waited for her to say more, but she apparently thought that was the end of the discussion. He hesitated a moment as they reached the end of the alley, letting Yahmi step out on to the street, then following a short distance behind.
The situation felt wrong. No other way to cut it. Something was off about this night, and he felt blind not knowing what. Who the hell was this Titan with strange powers, talking about not following the Vanguard? Why did she show up immediately after Dellander and Namiko lost their Light, with her own at full strength?
She had just saved his and Namiko's lives, so she obviously wasn't their enemy, but who was she?
Half-formed questions swirled through his foggy thoughts, but he didn't have the chance to ask them. Keeping Namiko from falling on her face took all his concentration. She stood on her own fine, and walked forward when he prompted her to, but that was it. She didn't pay attention to the uneven ground beneath her feet, and would have tripped over her own feet if he wasn't guiding her.
Yahmi led them quietly through the darkened city. She kept them to the narrower streets and twisting, shadowed alleys. Dellander thought they were moving north, but he wasn't sure. With the adrenaline quickly fading, all that remained was exhaustion. How long had it been since he last slept? It felt like weeks.
The only thing that kept him from just collapsing then and there was the sharp pain in his leg. He had almost forgotten about the cut from the shrapnel, but now it returned with a vengeance. It cut through the pallor of his exhaustion, a searing anchor to reality.
The rest of the world slowly dropped away, until it was just him and the pain. Follow Yahmi, a stab of pain with each step. Steady Namiko, let the pain flare as she leaned her weight against his shoulder. Stop when Yahmi raised her hand, drink the throbbing as they waited for the squad of Fallen to pass their hiding place.
Just embrace it. Don't bother fighting. Why should he, when his entire existence is pain? Brought back to a world that had already ended, dying and living and dying again. Just embrace it, let it carry you away…
Dellander ran in to something.
With a start, he realized he had bumped into Yahmi, who was crouching over something. The surrounding ruins were unfamiliar. Indistinct tangles of rusting and metal, and a broad warehouse with no roof. Some sort of old industrial complex? How long had they been walking? The moon had begun its descent towards the western horizon. Slowly sinking towards its inevitable death…
Dellander shook himself and stood up straight. Could not afford…to be dozing off…
Metal groaned as Yahmi lifted something from the ground. They were standing in the remains of a brick building. The Titan moved aside a thick metal plate, revealing a narrow set of stairs leading down into the darkness. A cellar.
Yahmi set the cover on the ground and took Namiko from Dellander. "Go," she whispered, motioning down the stairs.
Dellander started down the concrete steps, boots crunching on a thin layer of grit. The cellar was too dark to see, but the stairs were short. He waited at the bottom as Yahmi followed, Namiko cradled in her arms. She set the Warlock down, then returned to the top of the stairs and pulled the cover back over the entrance.
Without the faint moonlight, the darkness was absolute. He couldn't even see his own fingers in front of his face.
Something clicked, and a blinding light flared in the darkness. Dellander blinked as his eyes adjusted, and he saw Yahmi standing in front of him, a battered electric lantern in her hand. She gave the lantern to Dellander, then picked up Namiko and started down a narrow passage leading away from the dingy room.
Dellander followed, the thin warm light of the lantern making their shadows dance along the cracked concrete walls. The tunnel was low and gray, the ceiling stained with rust. After a short distance, the passage ended at a dented metal door.
Yahmi pushed the door open with her shoulder. Behind it was a low room with a row of dark wooden pillars down the middle. The lantern revealed a rusted metal table, a handful of crates, and a corner in the back that was sectioned off with hanging cloths. Yahmi pulled the tarp aside and set Namiko down on the bedroll behind it.
"You're safe here," Yahmi said over her shoulder. "You should rest, get off that leg."
Dellander set the lamp down on the table and leaned against the wall, head swimming. The leg of his trousers was darkened with blood. Damn. He hadn't realized how bad the cur was. He let himself slide down the wall as he pulled his helmet off. This wasn't just exhaustion, it's like his whole body had been wrung out, and all that was left was a limp rag.
Yahmi appeared in front of him, a white bandage in one hand and a canteen in the other. She inspected the wound on his leg, grimaced and washed it with water.
"Namiko…" Dellander mumbled.
"The Warlock is fine," Yahmi assured him as she wrapped the bandage around his leg. "She's lost a lot of blood, but she'll live, as long as we keep the injury from getting infected."
She tied the bandage off, and stood up and crossed to one of the crates. It had a foundry logo on it.
"There's some clean bandages and antiseptic next to the Warlock," she said as she retrieved several magazines from the crate. "Change the one on your leg in a few hours. Clean the cut with the antiseptic first."
Yahmi shut the crate and crossed to the door.
"Wait," Dellander called. "Where are you going?"
The Titan paused. "What's your name, Hunter?"
"Dellander. What does that got to do with anything?"
"Well Dellander, my business in this city is not yet finished. The Fallen still prowl the streets. I would know why. Rest now. I will be back."
And just like that, she was gone, leaving Dellander alone with a comatose Warlock and a dim lantern.
He was asleep in seconds.