Sudden shapes loomed: spectral corpses rising from the ground, reaching out toward him with large skeletal claws to rend and tear. Startled, he had both ’Mech’s arms up and blazing away before the small copse of trees fully registered in his forebrain. As he unclenched his fist, cursing himself for a fool, he watch as several trees collapsed, sections cleanly, surgically removed, while others remained afire.

The abrupt tone of incoming fire pierced his skull and years of training sent the ’Mech swiveling one hundred eighty degrees and dropping to a low crouch, the giant left hand digging deep furrows into the loam for balance as a quartet of missiles spiraled down, finding him unerringly regardless of his preternatural move. Armor detonated into shrapnel and debris as the streak missiles found ample targets across the Tiburon’s chest and its left arm.

This time, however, through the shifting sheets of cottony white, Petr glimpsed a shadowy shape backing away and to the left of his current position. Without conscious thought, frustrated by his inability to find his tormentor, Petr launched forward from the crouched position—a sprinter flying off the stops, almost gaining air before the heavy treads tore into the ground, gaining purchase and sending the ’Mech careening toward its target.

A quick left-right flick of the targeting reticule sent a brace of missiles to either side of where Petr saw the ghostly ’Mech-shaped opponent; he hoped to corral the enemy and keep it off guard. A sudden dip in the terrain dropped his stomach, causing his gorge to rise (the phlegm slick did not help) as he actually rose slightly out of his seat, only kept in place by his five-point harness. The Tiburon slammed down into the depression with bone-shattering force, then continued on.

Petr cursed at the pain of having bitten his tongue, cursed again as he just managed to miss a large boulder that he swore sprouted from the ground like a giant toadstool. Readying another curse, he instead clamped down hard on a threatening cough and felt satisfaction as his elusive prey finally presented itself: a Panther tried to imitate the boulder recently left behind, springing up from a low-lying position, weapons blazing.

Through luck or good maneuvering, the Panther’s most devastating weapon swung wide, its arcing energies reaving an arc of death past his head. The missiles, however, proved more accurate, with an avalanche peppering his ’Mech. Weathering the storm of metal, Petr brought his own weapons to bear, firing off quad short-range missiles and an equal number of heavy medium lasers. With the accuracy that had landed him a command slot right out of his Trial of Position, three of the four lasers found their mark, carving a scar of runnels over the right torso; they burst past the outer armor and savaged the interior as the missiles followed up with their own explosions.

A bright light blossomed within the gaping wound, seeking to escape. The top of the Panther’s head blew away, the command couch rocketing to safety as the streak missile ammo detonated, carving the ’Mech cleanly in half. Bringing his dangerous mad dash to a more manageable level, Petr closed his jaw, which hung open in stunned shock.

Already well damaged. The fighting must have been truly intense.

He passed the burning wreckage, trying not to think about the parafoil even now deploying and bringing a Sea Fox Clansman down to the ground. His Clan. His Khanate. No Rituals of Combat, but battle to the death.

Neg. He must avoid such thoughts at all cost.

Unclenching his right hand, almost rigid with stress and pain, from around the targeting joystick, he pumped several fists and rotated the wrist; popping tendons told of still too little strength in his right arm. As with his thoughts, he ignored the dull pain throbbing through his right shoulder. It would live, as would he.

“Jesup, where are you?” he called once more, trying to locate his XO, bringing the Tiburon to a full stop as he concentrated on his secondary display.

They had set their DropShip down scant kilometers from the DropPort. With air cover nonexistent and the fighting winding down, Petr felt the risk worth the prize: a quick victory. But in the chaos of a three-sided (and sometimes four-, whenever some of the on-planet militia decided they wanted to change allegiance) conflict and the savashri fog, they’d been splintered, lost.

From some of the others he could accept such ineptitude, but not from Jesup. Regardless of his faults and impatience, the man held real tactical sense. Should not have become so lost.

“Jesup, do you copy?” he said again, opening the commline to the general frequency once more, regardless of how insecure it might make the rest of his troops feel. He must locate his aide and then begin to pull his forces back together. Back together, to move against Sha.

“ovKhan Kalasa, so nice of you to drop in uninvited.” The voice blossomed in his ears with its usual coldness, a clamminess that fit the austere, fog-wrapped landscape like a Kuritan fit his blade. “Then again, I did drop in uninvited on you last time, so I guess it is only fair you return the favor, quiaff?”

Though his left fist clenched immediately on the throttle, eyes scanning the radar screen and magscan as he toggled back and forth, Petr realized he simply could not untangle the mess of smeared images across the screen; Sha could be any of them.

Unclenching an aching jaw, he finally responded, “But, Sha, you did invite me.”

“Oh, how so?”

The hint of levity sent Petr’s vision red. “By your actions. By your desire to sunder Clan Sea Fox, you invited me.”

“And what actions would those be, ovKhan Kalasa?”

“Your collusion with the Jade Falcons to murder our Khan.” The words rushed out of him, as though too large for his body to hold any longer. They took on a life of their own, growing until Petr felt they rose over the battlefield, almost over the entire world of Stewart, screaming to the universe of Sha’s horrible perfidy.

Silence stretched long, leaving Petr alone, enclosed within his own tomb of white. After some time, a chuckle sounded across the line; he stiffened. The affront simply proved everything. Sha did not try to deny the words. Did not try to rationalize or convince Petr of his actions. He simply laughed. For a moment the rage welled up and he shook, felt as though he would tear the joysticks from their mounts.

“Petr,” Sha said. The familiar form of address only strengthened his anger. “I am surprised at you. Such a spheroid term. If I shot him in the back, then you could accuse me of such an act. But my actions? I simply arranged for a test. A Trial of Grievance, if you will, against our beloved Khan. If he passes, so be it. I am proved wrong. But if he does not—and I for one, believe he will fail—then I am proved right.

“Is that not, ovKhan, the essence of the Clans? Might makes right.”

Petr felt his nose itch, wriggled his face and sniffed hard, grimaced again at the slickness sliding down his throat, coughed.

“Are we getting a cold, ovKhan? Not very warriorlike, eh, Petr?”

“You twist the ways of the Clan,” he began, ignoring the snide remark. “Such trials are for within a Clan. You do not, in secret, contact someone outside of the Clan to enact a trial you yourself do not dare declare. You cannot—”

“And what if I had, Petr?” Sha broke in, raising his voice slightly, catching Petr off guard. “I told you the day you lay in bed after your defeat at my hands, the Khan would have ignored my requested trial. saKhan Sennet would not have moved, no matter how much convincing I might be able to do. I have heard of your constant spouting of ‘choices,’ ovKhan. Well, I have made mine.”

“Then you have made them to your own defeat.”