As Avery regained his balance, the second dropship swooped overhead and came to rest on the other side of the nearest pool. Tracking the ship's downward progress, Avery spotted another of the large aliens—this one in red armor and with black fur—as it emerged from the magnolia trees on the gardens' lowest tier. It too carried a bladed pistol and was using the weapon to guard the retreat of a pack of shorter, gray-skinned creatures with conical orange backpacks. Avery saw MA5 muzzle flashes in the trees. But the red-armored alien quickly loosed a salvo of burning spikes to quiet whatever recruits had been brave enough to fight back.

Avery raised his pistol and emptied his clip. He knew his rounds wouldn't punch through the alien's shields, but all he wanted was to draw the thing's attention and keep it from hitting any of the recruits.

As Avery's shots flashed harmlessly against its back, the alien turned. But by then Avery was already running south for the safety of a boulder. He reloaded and slid around the stone, hoping to pick off one of the smaller aliens. But most of them were already aboard the dropship. A lone straggler was just now stumbling from the trees. One of its arms was slacked by its side, and it seemed injured. Avery was about to finish it off when the armored alien grabbed its wounded comrade by the nape of its neck, ripped off its mask, and flung it into the whirlpool. The creature sunk beneath the surface then bobbed up, clutching at a pair of hissing tubes connected to its tank, before it pitched into the next pool and tumbled toward the falls.

While this unexpected fratricide ran its course, the second dropship's ball turret finally swung into action, and Avery soon found himself diving back behind the boulder to avoid searing bolts of plasma. The splash of ionized gasses against the rock set Avery's teeth on edge.

But after a few seconds, the turret ceased fire. Avery heard the groan of anti-grav generators as the drop-ship twisted up into the sky. When he came out from behind the boulder, all the aliens were gone.

"Hold your fire!" Avery barked as he approached the magnolias on the far side of the pool.

"I'm coming in!" Behind him, he could hear the reports of the bravo squads' rifles, firing on the first dropship as it rose from the gardens. "What happened?" Avery growled at Stisen as he neared a huddle of 2/A recruits. The men were packed close together in a jumble of mossy granite. The rocks were dotted with holes that contained glowing remnants of the red-armored alien's igneous spikes. Little smoky fires burned in the surrounding ferns where some of the rounds had ricocheted.

"What happened?" Avery asked again.

But neither Stisen nor any of his squad said a word. Most of them didn't even bother to meet Avery's gaze.

Combat had filled Avery with adrenaline, and he was about to lose his temper when he realized what the recruits were looking at. It took him a moment more to recognize that the thing splayed against granite was the savaged body of a human being. And it wasn't until Avery knelt down beside the corpse that he recognized Osmo's plump, boyish face streaked with his own blood. The recruit was split open across his belly.

"I told him: Stay away from the lawn." Stisen swallowed hard. "I didn't want him to get hurt."

Avery clenched his jaw. But he knew there was no way the squad leader could have anticipated that the second dropship would swing in behind them, low above the river, and secretly release a backup team. "Did you see him get hit?" Avery asked.

Stisen shook his head. "No."

"It was one of the little ones," Burdick whispered. His eyes remained locked on the spill of organs from Osmo's gut. "It knocked him to the ground. Tore him apart."

"I heard his weapon fire," Stisen said. "But it was too late."

Avery rose to his feet. "Any other casualties?"

Again Stisen shook his head.

"Byrne. Talk to me," Avery barked.

"Captain's hurt pretty bad. Bravo squads have three wounded, one serious. Dass says his boys are fine."

"Thune?"

"Not happy. Pedersen's dead."

"Looked like it."

"We better clear out, Johnson. Bastards might circle back."

"Agreed." Avery lowered his voice. "I'm gonna need a bag."

"Who?"

"Osmo."

"Shite," Byrne spat. "Alright. I'll tell Healy."

Avery removed his duty cap and wiped his hand across his brow. Staring down at Osmo, he noticed the recruit still held his MA5 tight in his right hand. The Staff Sergeant was glad Osmo had seen his attacker and had a chance to go down shooting. Osmo's rifle fire had alerted his comrades to danger, saving their lives even as he lost his own. Avery tried not to blame himself for what had happened. Like Stisen, he had done what he thought was best. Osmo was just the first recruit to fall. As much as Avery hoped he would also be the last, he steeled himself against the knowledge that the aliens had just begun a war—and that there would be a lot more casualties to come.

Maccabeus released his hammer and let it clang onto the troop-bay floor. This was the Fist of Rukt, an ancient weapon passed down from one Chieftain to the next for generations of Maccabeus' clan. It deserved greater care. But Maccabeus was too worried about Licinus to stand on ceremony. His ancestors would have to understand.

"Vorenus! Hurry!" he bellowed, muscling Licinus upright. The Spirit shook violently as it hurtled back into the hazy sky, and even the mighty Chieftain had a difficult time propping his wounded pack member's unconscious bulk against the bay's inner wall.

Vorenus stumbled down the bay, hefting a portable aid station. He set the octagonal box by Licinus' feet then held him steady while Maccabeus fastened restraining bands around his legs and arms. Sangheili Spirits had sophisticated stasis fields to keep their warriors upright. But Maccabeus had been denied this technology as well, and he'd had to make do with a more basic solution.

"Give me a compress!" Maccabeus peeled off Licinus' breastplate. The armor had a crack down the middle that oozed dark red blood. Once the plate was free, Maccabeus smoothed his wounded pack member's brown fur, probing for two whistling holes in his chest. The aliens' weapons had penetrated one of Licinus' lungs, forcing its collapse.

Vorenus handed Maccabeus a thin sheet of bronze-colored mesh. Properly affixed, the material would form a partial seal over the wounds, allowing air to escape as Licinus exhaled but keeping it out as he inhaled; as long as the lung wasn't too badly damaged, it would reinflate. The mesh also contained a coagulant that would help keep the young Jiralhanae's remaining blood inside his body. When they made it back to Rapid Conversion, Maccabeus would let the ship's automated surgery suite do the rest.

If we make it back, the Chieftain growled to himself as the Spirit jerked to starboard, executing another evasive maneuver. So far the aliens hadn't activated any anti-air defenses, but Maccabeus felt certain they would. The aliens' infantry weapons were fairly crude—not much more sophisticated than the Jiralhanae's at the time of the San'Shyuum's missionary contact.

But they had to have missiles or some other kinetic weapons system, or their planet would be defenseless. And Maccabeus doubted the aliens were as dumb as that.

"Uncle? Are you harmed?" Tartarus' voice boomed from Maccabeus' signal unit.

"I am not." The Chieftain gripped the back of Vorenus' neck.

"Watch after him," he said, glancing toward Licinus. Vorenus nodded his assent. "Did you claim a relic?" Maccabeus asked Tartarus as he knelt and retrieved the Fist of Rukt.

"No, Chieftain."

Maccabeus couldn't help an angry huff. "But the Luminary showed dozens of holy objects —all very close at hand!"

"I found nothing but their warriors."

Maccabeus stalked toward the Spirit's cabin, his free hand pressed against the wall of the bay to keep himself steady as the dropship continued its wrenching climb. "Did you conduct a thorough search?"

"The Unggoy were overeager and broke ranks," Tartarus rumbled. "We lost the element of surprise."

"Deacon," Maccabeus barked as he ducked into the cabin. "Tell me you have better news."

Another Jiralhanae named Ritul, who was too young to have earned his masculine "us"

suffix, manned the flight controls. Maccabeus would have preferred a more experienced pilot, but with a total of five Jiralhanae on the two Spirits, he had to keep some of his older, more experienced pack members on board Rapid Conversion in case of an emergency.

"Sensors registered high amounts of signal traffic during the parley." Dadab's muffled voice squeaked from the cabin's signal unit; he had remained on the cruiser's bridge. "The Luminary considered the data and passed judgment." Then, after a pause: "An Oracle, just as we suspected!"

"Prophets be praised! Where?"

"The signals originated from the gardens' white metal structure."

So close! The Chieftain groaned. Were it not for the Unggoy, I might have laid eyes upon it! But he quickly stifled his disappointment. He knew the Prophets alone had access to the sacred Oracle on High Charity, and thus it was the height of hubris for him, a low and recent convert, to covet such communion. But it was no sin to feel pride at the message he now felt compelled to deliver.

"Send word to the Vice Minister," Maccabeus said, his chest swelling inside his golden armor. "The reliquary is even richer than expected. A second Oracle—one who speaks for the Gods themselves—has at last been found!"

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

HIGH CHARITY, WANING HOURS, 23RD AGE OF

DOUBT

Nights in High Charity's main dome were normally quite subdued. The guttural clamor of the Unggoy's mass evening prayers sometimes filtered up from the lower districts, but otherwise the upper towers were quiet. The San'Shyuum who called the floating towers home preferred to spend the hours between sundown and sunup resting or in quiet contemplation.

But not tonight, Fortitude thought. The Minister's chair hung motionless between two empty anti-grav barges, idling near one of the Forerunner Dreadnought's three massive support struts. The dome's illumination disc shone with a feeble glow, simulating moonlight, which did nothing to warm the air. Fortitude gathered his crimson robes tight around his hunched shoulders, and stared at the rare commotion in the towers.

Lights blazed in the buildings' hanging gardens. Rings of gaily dressed San'Shyuum glided from one open-air party to the next. There was music on the breeze; overlapping strains of triumphal strings and chimes. Here and there, fireworks crackled, blooming sparks in the prevailing darkness.

All this marked a momentous occasion, one that only came once or twice an Age. Tonight, all female San'Shyuum lucky enough to bear children were proudly showing off their broods.

And as far as Fortitude could tell, the numbers were particularly good. Even though he himself had never sired a successor—and despite all that weighed upon him—he managed a satisfied smile.

There were a little more than twenty million San'Shyuum in the Covenant. Not a very large number compared to the faith's billions of adherents. But it was significantly more than the thousand or so individuals who had fled the San'Shyuum's distant homeworld long ago.

Fortitude's ancestors had broken with the rest of their kind over the same issue that would eventually pit them against the Sangheili: whether or not to desecrate Forerunner objects to realize their full potential. In the internal, San'Shyuum version of this debate, the Dreadnought had become a key symbol for both sides—an object the majority Stoics would not enter and the minority Reformers were desperate to explore. At the climax of the fratricidal conflict, the most zealous Reformers breached the Dreadnought and barricaded themselves inside. While the Stoics debated what to do (they couldn't very well destroy the object they so revered), the Reformers activated the vessel and took flight—taking a chunk of the San'Shyuum homeworld with it.

At first the Reformers were ecstatic. They had survived, and also escaped with the conflict's greatest prize. They sped out of their home system, laughing at the Stoics' bitter signals— claims that the Gods would surely damn them for their theft. But then the Reformers counted up their numbers and realized to their horror that they might indeed be doomed.

The problem was a limited pool of genes. With only a thousand individuals in their population, inbreeding would soon become a serious problem. The crisis was compounded by the fact that San'Shyuum pregnancies were, even under ideal conditions, rare. Females were generally fertile, but only in short cycles that came few and far between. For these first Prophets aboard the Dreadnought, reproduction quickly became a carefully managed affair.

"I had begun to think you might not come," Fortitude said as the Vice Minister of Tranquility's chair slunk in between the barges.

The younger San'Shyuum's purple robes were rumpled, and as he bowed forward in his chair, the gold rings in his wattle became tangled in one of the many flowered garlands around his neck. "I apologize. It was hard to get away."

"Male or female?"

"One of each."

"Congratulations."

"If I hear that one more time, I shall scream. It's not as if I made the bastards." Tranquility's words were a little slurred, and his fingers fumbled as he pulled his wattle free, yanked the garlands from his neck, and tossed them aside.

"You're drunk," Fortitude said, watching the garlands flutter down into the darkness.

"So I am."

"I need you sober."

Fortitude reached inside his robes and removed a small, pharmaceutical sphere. "How was our dear Hierarch, the Prophet of Restraint?"

"You mean the Father?" The Vice Minister sucked the sphere between his sour lips. "Glared at me the whole time."

Fortitude raised a dismissive hand. "As long as we act quickly, there's little he can do."

The Vice Minister shrugged and lazily chewed his sphere.

"Come." Fortitude tapped the holo-switches in his chair's arm. "We're late enough as it is."