Two landed on the ox’s back and cut its throat. Two landed near Hannah and slashed at her, sending blood and fabric flying. She leaped back, trying to raise her crossbow and ratchet back the bolt, but the voynix knocked her down and leaned closer to finish the job.

Odysseus screamed, activated his sword—a gift from Circe, he’d told them long ago—to a vibrating blur, and leaped forward swinging. Bits of voynix shells and arms flew into the air and Harman was spattered by white blood and blue oil.

A voynix landed on Harman, knocking the wind out of him, but he rolled away from its fingerblades. A second voynix landed on all fours and snapped upright, moving like something in a speeded-up nightmare. Getting to his feet, fumbling his spear up, Harman stabbed at the second creature at the same instant the first one slashed at his back.

There was a ratcheting explosion as Petyr brought the rifle into play. Crystal flechettes whizzed by Harman’s ear as the voynix behind him spun and fell away under the impact of a thousand shining slivers. Harman turned just as the second voynix jumped. He rammed the spear through its chest and watched as the whirling thing went down, but cursed as it pulled the spear out of his hands in its falling. Harman reached for the shaft, but then jumped back and pulled his bow from his shoulder as three more voynix turned his way and attacked.

The four humans set their backs to the droshky as the eight remaining voynix made a circle and closed in on them, fingerblades gleaming in the dying light.

Hannah fired two crossbow quarrels deep into the chest of the one closest to her. It went down, but continued its attack on all fours, dragging itself forward with its blades. Odysseus-Noman stepped forward and sliced the thing in two with his Circe sword.

Three voynix rushed Harman. He had nowhere to run. He fired his single arrow, saw it glance off the lead voynix’s metal chest, and then they were on him. Harman ducked, felt something slash his leg, and now he was rolling under the droshky—he could smell the ox’s blood, a copperish taste in his mouth and nose—and then he was up and on his feet on the other side. The three voynix leaped up and over the droshky.

Petyr whirled, crouched, and fired an entire magazine of several thousand flechettes at the leaping figures. The three voynix flew apart and landed in a gout of organic blood and machine oil.

“Cover me while I reload!” shouted Petyr, reaching into his cape’s pocket to pull out another flechette magazine and slap it into place.

Harman dropped his bow—the things were too close—pulled out a short sword forged in Hannah’s furnace only two months ago, and began hacking away at the two closest metallic shapes. They were too fast. One dodged. The other batted Harman’s sword out of his hands.

Hannah jumped up into the droshky and fired a crossbow bolt into the back of the voynix that was slashing at Harman. The monster whirled but then spun back to the attack, metallic arms raised, blades swinging. It had no mouth or eyes.

Harman ducked beneath the killing blow, landed on his hands, and kicked at the thing’s knees. It was like kicking at thick metal pipes embedded in concrete.

All five of the remaining voynix were on Harman’s side of the cart now, rushing at Petyr and him before the younger man could raise the flechette rifle.

At that second, Odysseus came around the cart with a berserker scream and waded into them, his short sword a blur within a blur. All five voynix turned on him, their arms and rotating blades also spinning into motion.

Hannah raised the heavy crossbow but had no clear shot. Odysseus was in the middle of that whirling mass of violence and everything was moving too fast. Harman leaned into the droshky and pulled out one of the extra hunting spears.

“Odysseus, drop!” screamed Petyr.

The old Greek went down, although due to heeding the shout or just from the voynix attack, they couldn’t tell. He’d sliced two of the things apart, but the final three were still functional and lethal.

BRRPPPPPPPPPPPPPPRRRRRRRRRBRRRRRPPPPPBRPPPPPP.

The flechette rifle on full automatic sounded like someone sticking a wooden paddle into the blades of a swiftly turning fan. The final three voynix were thrown six feet backward, their shells riddled with over ten thousand crystal flechettes all glittering like a mosaic of broken glass in the dying ringlight.

“Jesus Christ,” gasped Harman.

The voynix that Hannah had wounded rose up behind her on the other side of the droshky.

Harman threw his spear with every ounce and erg of energy left in his body. The voynix staggered back, pulled the spear free, and snapped its shaft.

Harman jumped into the droshky and grabbed up another spear from the bed of the vehicle. Hannah fired two quarrels into the voynix. One of the bolts deflected off into the darkness under the trees, but the other sank deep. Harman leaped from the droshky and drove the remaining spear into the last voynix’s chest. The creature twitched and staggered back another step.

Harman wrenched the lance out, drove it home again with the pure violence of madness, twisted the barbed tip, pulled it free, and drove it home again.

The voynix fell backward, clattering onto the roots of an ancient elm.

Harman straddled the voynix, unmindful of its still-twitching arms and blades, lifted the blue-milked spear straight up, drove it down, twisted it, ripped it out, lifted it, drove it down lower on the thing’s shell, ripped it free, drove it in where a human’s groin would be, twisted the barbs to do maximum damage to the soft parts inside, lifted it out—part of the shell ripping away—and drove it home again so fiercely that he could feel the speartip hit soil and root. He pulled the spear free, lifted it, drove it deep, lifted it…

“Harman,” said Petyr, setting a hand on the older man’s shoulder. “It’s dead. It’s dead.”

Harman looked around. He didn’t recognize Petyr and couldn’t get enough air into his lungs. He heard a violent noise and realized that it was his own labored breathing.

It was too fucking damned dark. The clouds had covered the rings and it was too fucking damned dark here under the trees. There could be fifty more voynix there in the shadows, waiting to leap.

Hannah lighted the lantern.

There were no more voynix visible in the sudden circle of light. The fallen ones had ceased twitching. Odysseus was still down, one of the voynix fallen across him. Neither voynix nor man moved.

“Odysseus!” Hannah leaped from the droshky with the lantern, kicking the voynix corpse aside.

Petyr rushed around and went to one knee next to the fallen man. Harman limped over as quickly as he could, leaning on his spear. The deep scratches on his back and legs were just beginning to hurt.

“Oh,” said Hannah. She was on her knees, holding the lantern over Odysseus. Her hand was shaking. “Oh,” she said again.

Odysseus-Noman’s armor had been knocked off his body, the leather straps slashed apart. His broad chest was a latticework of deep wounds. A single slash had taken off part of his left ear and a section of scalp.

But it was the damage to the old man’s right arm that made Harman gasp.

The voynix—in their wild attempt to make Odysseus drop the Circe sword, which he had never done, it was still humming in his hand—had ripped the man’s arm to shreds and then all but torn the arm from his body. Blood and mangled tissue shone in the harsh lantern light. Harman could see white bone glistening. “Dear God,” he whispered. In the eight months since the Fall, no one at Ardis Hall or at any of the survivors’ communes Harman knew of had suffered such wounds and survived.

Hannah was pounding the earth with one fist while her other hand pressed palm downward on Odysseus’ bloody chest. “I can’t feel a heartbeat,” she said almost calmly. Only her wild white eyes in the lantern’s gleam belied that calm. “I can’t feel a heartbeat.”