The Vharn Combine did not finish retreating.
They got halfway across the black plain, and then the sky over their broken lines tore open, and something far worse than a Warlord came through.
Four pillars of dark light fell from the clouds and struck the volcanic ground, and the whole battlefield felt them land. The molten rivers shuddered. The ash stopped drifting and hung still in the air.
Warlord Khael, crawling, stopped crawling. He looked back at the four pillars, and for the first time all day, something like hope crossed his battered face.
"The Spears," he rasped. "They sent the Spears."
The light faded, and four figures stood on the plain where it had fallen.
They were the Vharn Combine's pinnacle. Four X-rankers, each one a Tier-50 lifeform, each one carrying five complete decks of their own. They had not come to take a vein. They had come because a vein had cost the Combine a Warlord, and that was an insult that demanded an answer.
