The battle drugs poured into his brain and lit his synapses up like the New York skyline. Roland let out a terrible whooping cry that was half laugh and half scream and he tore into the men as they tried, in vain, to do him real harm.

It took nineteen seconds to eliminate them all. As the last man dropped, Roland realized with some surprise that he could hear Jim’s voice, distant but getting closer. His old friend was charging, screaming out war whoops, and firing those big dumb pistols. Then he heard the familiar crack of a Dragunov sniper rifle—Topaz’s rifle! He remembered it now. The sound was as familiar to him as the voice of his own mother.

Holy shit! Roland realized that, for the first time in years, he could remember the sound of his mother’s voice. Her name and face were still lost in memory, but all this violence was clearly knocking things loose. He took a step back, behind one of the intact APCs, to avoid a spray of heavy machine-gun fire and take stock of the situation. Now that he focused, he could feel the hoof beats of Rolling Fuck’s cavalry. He could sense that many of the city’s infantry had charged out from their positions in Rock Creek to meet the Martyrs in hand-to-hand combat.

The Heavenly Kingdom was not in flight, not yet. But they would break soon. Roland knew it. He could smell it in the air. Time to stop now. Time to let Skullfucker Mike, Topaz, and the others finish the fight. He’d done enough, he knew he’d done enough. And yet…

The drugs. Even after just a few seconds out of direct combat, the high was starting to fade. And Roland wanted more. He thought about cracking another skull and his hand itched. He heard one of the Martyrs open up with an automatic grenade launcher, and thought about how good that gun would feel, bucking against the meat of his shoulder. The man with the grenade launcher was close. Roland could close the distance between them in two, maybe three seconds.

No. You don’t need to do this. Stop. Fewer people will die if you just–

Roland charged.

Manny.

Manny had seen nine people killed by bullets or bombs. He’d seen a good deal more fresh corpses, in the aftermath of firefights. He had a strong stomach and he was not easily distressed by gore. The opening stages of this battle, and the war ritual, had been unsettling, but not because of the violence.

That changed soon after Roland landed.

“He’s just tearing people apart…” Manny said, without really meaning to say anything at all. Donald Farris replied with a grim nod.

“It’s hard to watch,” Nana Yazzie admitted, as another dozen lives ended messily on the screens before them. “It’ll be over soon, though. They can’t take much more of this.”