A young Microcorp agent coughs up a spray of crimson fluid.

“Formation Alpha Nine Seven, now!”

The agents snap into a circular formation at their commander’s call, surrounding their injured brother and the medic team.

“What in God’s name happened to him?”

“Commander, it’s like he’s been crushed. He’s got massive internal hemorrhaging and organ damage… He won’t make it.”

“He passed his pre-mission medical exam. How does a healthy soldier just fall over with internal…” The commander’s words are cut short.

“Commander, we’ve got something here!”

The commander looks up to see a distortion in the air about 70 meters away. Out of the distortion steps a Marro wearing a metallic mask and enormous shoulder gear.

“Open fire!” the commander shouts, but before a single agent can take aim, another distortion bubble pops, throwing an agent backwards with a concussive blast. Then another agent drops, and another.

One of the men manages to squeeze off a burst of gunfire. A bullet grazes the strange Marro, who growls an enraged cry in its chittering alien tongue.

More distortions, and out of these come a flood of Marro. The Microcorp agents are soon overwhelmed.

Moments later, an incoming message crackles over a receiver deep in a hidden Vydar complex: “Agh… This is Commander Riley… ugh… identification code seven-seven-three-nine… A new Marro… threat level blue nine… advanced tech… and possible psy abilities… likely summoned from a future Planet Marr…”

Winter has grown old and tired, and she is losing her rule over the land to the young beauty that is spring.

Atlaga stands atop the highest peak of his newly finished fortress, his broad wings outspread and quaking against the cool northern breeze.

The damp air soaks into his bones and sends his heart dancing high in his chest.

The wind brings a hundred memories, a thousand words spoken in her soft rasping voice.  

She always smelled of springtime.

He closes his eyes and he can feel her. He wants to stretch out his hand and touch her pale skin. He wants to breathe in the golden locks poured about her lovely face and delicate shoulders. He wants to taste her lips.

He stares into the sparkling eyes of his memory’s ghost. Looking into those shimmering pools used to make him weep, overtaken by the joy she brought him, and she would weep with him, and he would take her into his arms and together they would press in close and let their tears mingle.

He opens his eyes and his heart drops into his stomach. He draws his wings in, wrapping them around his body. He lets his knees buckle and his body go limp.

He falls.

The tower’s stonework hurtles by in a blur. The wind beats at his ears. Mere moments before the ground would end it all he spreads his wings. They catch the air, and he soars skyward.

The moonlight casts Kumiko’s young face in a warring contrast of light and shadow. Her eyes well with the sparkle of uninvited tears, her determined jaw clenches tight. A furious frothing of spittle leaps from her lips as she spits out an angry cry: “I swore I would kill you! Swore! And… and… you deserve to die!” Her cry becomes a screech, “You deserve to die a thousand agonizing deaths for what you have done!”

The thought of vengeance has consumed her very being since the day she lost her childhood, since the day she watched the blood of her parents stain her world red.

Her hand trembles with hatred as she holds the curved blade of her kama to the feudal lord’s throat. She’s always told herself that she was going to enjoy this. Why does she waver? He deserves death. It was he who ordered her parents killed… He… He deserves…

Kumiko’s eyes catch a silhouette in the doorway. Big dark shimmering eyes stare out at her; the eyes of a child.

“Daddy?” a small, choked voice cries.

Kumiko’s glossy eyes let go, her tears staining the wooden floor around her feet in dark, salty spots. She sees herself mirrored in the child and her long-held hatred washes away. Forgiveness and light replace the vengeful darkness in her heart.

She turns away, leaving it all behind her.

But the feudal lord does not revel in her mercy. He reaches for a nearby knife and hurls it at the girl’s back. The knife sinks deep into the wall at the far end of the room, wavering there. The girl it was aimed at has vanished.

I can still hear the screams, still see the horrified faces. The smell of smoke rising from our burning homes, the taste of blood in my mouth. All of this lies like an open wound upon my memory. I have never felt such overwhelming terror. The fear that grabbed at my heart lay not in the preservation of my own life, for the Mohicans are brave. My fear was for the safety of my wife and my young son. I lost them in the chaos of the Mohawk tribe’s savage assault.

It has been three days… Nearly every member of my tribe is dead. My heart cries bitter tears for them, but my eyes remain set like stones. I must find my wife and my son.

My people call me Brave Arrow, the name of my father. He too is dead, his blood stained upon the hands of the Mohawk. How long will it be before my own spirit becomes one with the wind?  

We track the Mohawk now. We move faster than other tribes, the special make of our shoes favors the open land. My people are great hunters and trackers. We can become like one with the land, and even the ever-watchful deer does not notice our passing.

“Brave Arrow, which way?” my brother’s voice calls from behind me; four of my closest tribesmen follow my lead.

“They moved east from here. We will come upon them in the night and kill them in their sleep… We must get back the women and children… We must hope that they kept some of them alive…”  

Great Spirit, please protect them.

The blazing heart of the city throbs and glows, throwing its fiery light outward where it crashes against a thousand pillars and crawls its way into a thousand passageways. This is Burning Forge, the great underground citadel of the dwarves.

A stone stair, a thousand steps high, leads to a magnificent door carved into the foot of the Worldsend Mountain Range. All who seek to enter Burning Forge must enter by that door. None may enter against the will of the Axegrinders.

The Axegrinders are fearless, unforgiving, jealous, and wrathful. They are the largest trained fighting force in all of Feylund. The greatest of allies, the most feared of enemies.

A worn out old stool squeals rebelliously across the cluttered floor on a set of rusted caster wheels. The unkempt Mariedian man atop the stool mumbles to himself in incoherent strings of thought as he works feverishly at his delicate task. Bright blue sparks jump up in bursts from the elaborate junk pile the man calls a workstation.

“Gently, gently… Okay now check the core balance… Good.”

They call him Fragger. He is the most talented of the Mariedian ‘borg hackers. In an alliance with the Soulborg faction Omnicron, he develops new and powerful weapons.

“Okay, now we connect the isolation beam transmitter…”

His eyes are comically large behind his leather-strapped magnification goggles. Those oversized globes dart back and forth under tufts of jutting black hair as they feast upon his newly finished creation.

“It’s perfect! Now to notify Capitan Scrag of its completion!”

The Omnicron will implant Fragger’s new Robota design with ancient souls, transferred from old and damaged Omnicron Soulborg models. Thus the Omnicron Repulsors will be born, the perfect anti-Soulborg response unit.

Rome enslaved them. Rome trained them to fight. Rome taught them to revel in bloodshed, to trust in their most feral of instincts, to kill or be killed.

The sword that Rome sharpened has now been turned against them. The gladiators have risen up in rebellion, overthrowing their slave masters and laying siege to the city whose people looked greedily on while they murdered each other in the name of entertainment.

As the Capuan Gladiators forfeit their lives in the name of freedom, they are surprised to find their fight is not yet finished. Now in a new land they fight on, for fighting is all they know. But now they fight as equals.

The village burns around us. The war drum beats out an ominous chant.

BOOM… BOOM… BOOM…

Our firesticks roar to life, throwing lead against the charging Mohawks. Too few drop; the charge does not break. They scream out furious battle cries. The fire’s shadowy glow dancing across their painted faces seems to cast them in their true form: that of bloodlusty demons.

BOOM… BOOM… BOOM…

The women scream. The children cry.  

The Mohawks close in. The fury of battle spills over us all. The blood of both Mohawk and Mohican falls freely to the ground and mingles there in the dusty earth.

BOOM…

The war drum thunders one last rebellious cry, then falls forever silent.

A wooden bolt cuts stealthily through the air, finding its target with pinpoint accuracy. The automatic reloading mechanism in the Protector’s arbalest whirls to life and then clicks to a stop as the next bolt in the chamber snaps into place. Another pull of the trigger sends that bolt racing after the first.

The Protector arches his wings back, sending himself into an acrobatic spin to narrowly avoid one of his other two squad members, who in turn rains down a storm of bolts from his own arbalest.

The third and final member of the trio soars downward from the cliff side to join his squad mates. He sends an expertly aimed bolt soaring down ahead of him. The bolt dives deep into a cluster of wires at the base of a thick Soulborg neck. Two more bolts quickly wedge themselves in next to it, and the Soulborg explodes outward in a cloud of fire and oily smoke.

The Protectors are sworn into duty by Ullar himself, with their solemn oath to guard the Great Wood of Ekstrom against any who would seek to do it, or its inhabitants, harm. Today, they have held that oath up high.

There the creature lay, cloven into two parts by my blade. Though I clearly struck a killing blow, the tangled sinew that served the thing as a chest still rose and fell. A steady rasping breath whistled through the slots of its iron mask.

I watched, frozen in horror. Right before my eyes, the creature’s mangled bones began to stir. Twisting and cracking, they grew outward from both the upper and lower halves of its broken body.

It was healing, and not just healing, but duplicating. A new chest, right arm, and head grew out from the lower torso. The upper half of its torn body sprouted a new spine. Its oozing guts grew and descended out of what remained of its chest, quickly followed by a new set of ribs growing out to cover them. The newly grown spine spit out a pair of hips and then a pair of legs. I looked away, my stomach churning.

It was two Marro that rose back to their feet that day.

They lunged and stabbed with their elongated claws, working in perfect unison. I narrowly dodged one jutting claw, only to find its twin tearing across my side.

The searing pain of the creature's strike awakens me from the dazed and shocked state I had fallen into. Snapping back, I brought my sword around and in one smooth stroke both Marro heads were sent tumbling from their shoulders.

They did not rise again, but the prospect of this new threat makes my blood run cold.

- Baldar, commander of Jandar’s Western Guard.