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  For my brother, Ben, and his keen editorial pen.

  The longer the countdown went, the more the bunker smelled like fear.

  The Prelate scowled at the two Jiralhanae looming beside him. One was covered with rust-red hair, and the other with dirty white. Both warriors were so tall that they had to duck their helmeted heads to keep from banging them on the bunker’s low, flat ceiling. The thickly muscled, sharp-toothed Brutes stood still and silent, like monuments to violence. But all male Jiralhanae were prone to pungent pheromones that mirrored their emotions, and now, so close to the activation of the device, these usually fearless creatures’ panicked stench permeated the cramped, dark room.

  The Prelate, Tem’Bhetek, wanted to shout a reprimand. He had handpicked the two Jiralhanae for their strength and mental fortitude. And besides: they were adults, certainly mature enough to regulate their pheromones. But Tem held his tongue, partly because he didn’t want to startle the insectile Yanme’e nervously monitoring the device’s final activation sequence, but mostly because the Prelate knew the Jiralhanae weren’t the real cause of his slowly building rage.

  As much as the Prelate’s nostrils recoiled at his warriors’ sharp, sour scent, it was the noise filling his lobeless ears that made him truly angry. A noise that rose over the rapid clicking of the Yanme’e’s claws on the luminous glyphs shining through the surface of the bunker’s obsidian walls. A noise that muted the rumble of the device in the test chamber many levels above. A noise so infuriating that the Prelate finally broke his silence with a strangled hiss: “Why would they sing at a time like this?”

  The Minister of Preparation shrugged inside his dark orange robes. His high, thin voice was full of concentration. “We never understood each other. Not really.”

  Both the Minister and the Prelate were San’Shyuum, hairless, slick-skinned creatures with elongated necks that thrust forward from between their shoulders. They shared their species’ large, amphibian eyes. But the Prelate’s eyes were two different colors: one dark green and the other deep blue. Considered auspicious in earlier ages, this trait now marked the Prelate as a member of a genetic line that was overbred and out of fashion.

  The Minister, Boru’a’Neem, was two decades older than the Prelate, violet-eyed with a pronounced waddle of fleshy sacks that dangled from his chin. The two had the same pale gray skin, but the Minister’s was deeply wrinkled and bunched down his skull and along his neck like the meat of a freshly shelled nut. In the tradition of most San’Shyuum of his age and exalted rank, the Minister sat hunched in a bowl-shaped titanium throne that floated above the floor with the help of embedded anti-gravity units. The Prelate stood on his own two feet, his broad shoulders and wiry arms held tight against his black tunic as he glared past the Minister at a holographic projector integrated into the bunker’s primary control surface.

  There, in a flickering pillar of lavender light, were the small-scale images of three Sangheili warriors, stripped of their armor and kneeling with their arms bound behind their backs. The Prelate knew the display was one-way; the Sangheili in the test chamber couldn’t see or hear anything inside the bunker. But their leader, a muscular, middle-aged warrior with light brown skin and bright amber eyes, stared directly at the recording unit, proud and unafraid, as he led his companions in song.

  “Do you know the words?” the Minister asked.

  “I do not,” replied the Prelate.

  “Sangheili, to be sure, but they have so many dialects. Perhaps it’s a battle anthem. . . .” The Minister’s voice trailed off as a line of glyphs scrolled rapidly across the control surface. His fingers fluttered against the intricate symbols, rotating them back and forth to fine-tune the device’s charging sequence. “No matter. This will be their final verse.”

  The Sangheili hadn’t sung at first. Indeed, the two younger warriors had bellowed in pain when the Jiralhanae slashed the tendons above their large cloven feet to bring them to their knees, a practical cruelty to keep them from moving too far from the device. The Sangheili leader had said nothing, barely moving his four interlocking jawbones when the Jiralhanae made their cuts. When this stoic Elite refused to fall, the Prelate ordered his Jiralhanae to smash his knees with their armored fists—but, even then, the amber-eyed warrior hadn’t said a word.

  It wasn’t until power began to surge to the device, and the younger Sangheili had begun to groan with fear, that their elder finally cleared his throat and started singing. Soon all three were joined in defiant harmony.

  The Prelate clenched his fists. I should have ordered my Jiralhanae to cut their throats as well. But the Minister had been clear: the test would be worthless if the Sangheili were already dead when he activated the device.

  Near the Minister, the last of the glyphs pulsed and stabilized. The walls of the bunker began to vibrate as the device held its charge. The Jiralhanae growled and the Yanme’e chittered in anticipation as the Minister lifted a single, long finger . . . and gently pressed the static surface of the final glyph.

  The Prelate had expected a sound, something spectacularly loud when the device fired. But instead there was a deafening silence; an aural vacuum that seemed to pull every other sound into it. The growling, clicking, singing—even the Prelate’s surprised intake of breath—were sucked out of existence as the holographic view of the test chamber filled with blinding light.

  And yet, as the light faded, a ghostly chorus remained. An echo of the Sangheili song rang in the Prelate’s ears for the long minutes it took the Yanme’e to deactivate all the bunker’s warning and containment systems. Then the Minister led them all through a series of thick, saw-toothed shield doors to a gravity lift that whisked them up to the test chamber, where they inspected what remained of the Sangheili.

  “Nothing, in fact,” the Minister of Preparation said, carefully inspecting an analysis of the chamber’s air, scrolling up the arm of his throne. “I would say vaporized. But that would mean trace particles remain.” One corner of the Minister’s wide mouth curled into a smile. “They are, simply, gone.”

  The Prelate watched as the Yanme’e fluttered on iridescent wings around the device: a ring of marbled onyx, ten meters high and honeycombed with glinting circuits.

  The ring stood in the middle of the test chamber, a long room with white, pearlescent walls that angled together high above. This place and everything in it was the creation of the Forerunners: an ancient, vanished race that both the San’Shyuum and Sangheili worshipped as gods—or, rather, used to. For while their shared faith had been the foundation of the Covenant, this millennia-old alliance between the San’Shyuum and Sangheili was recently and irreversibly broken. The device, a miniature version of one of the Forerunners’ seven sacred Halo rings, no longer held any religious significance for the Prelate. Now it was an object to be feared, not revered. And he truly hoped the three Sangheili warriors had felt terror before the end.

  “My lord,” the rust-haired Jiralhanae asked the Minister, his gruff voice halting and unsure, “is it possible, perhaps, that the prisoners could have—”

  “Their journey was short and led to nowhere,” the Prelate snapped. “Signal the ship and tell them it’s safe to approach. Once we’re aboard, we depart immediately.”

  The Jiralhanae shared a dissatisf
ied glance with his white-haired companion, but they both bowed their heads and retreated from the test chamber across the stretch of floor where the Sangheili used to be. The Prelate noted that even the pools of indigo blood from the Sangheili’s wounds were gone, and the Jiralhanae’s shaggy feet left no prints as they walked the length of the chamber and disappeared into a passage beyond.

  “They refuse to understand, no matter how many times I tell them,” the Prelate said.

  “Can you blame them?” the Minister replied. “The Jiralhanae’s belief in the Forerunners was stronger than that of anyone in the Covenant. In less than three ages, we lifted them from savagery to starships. They believed—as we all once did—that the Halo rings would open the path to godhood.” He waved a hand over the arm of his throne, blanking the test results. “Do you remember what the Prophet of Truth used to say?”

  With as much calm as he could muster, Tem’Bhetek recited one of the deceased Covenant leader’s better-known aphorisms: “There is nothing stronger than the conviction of the newly converted.”

  Boru’a’Neem settled deeper into his throne. His reedy voice was tired, but his words still had all the precision of a practiced politician. “Truth said and did many unfortunate things, but he was right about the Jiralhanae. They will do anything you command, so long as they believe. And while this test may have shaken what remains of their faith in the Great Journey, it has proven, without a doubt, the validity of our plan and the clarity of our purpose.”

  The Prelate stared hard at the miniature Halo.

  Revenge.

  In a flutter of waxy wings, the Yanme’e pulled away from the ring. The Prelate could see a large crack in one of its marbled veins where some of the embedded circuits had burned away. Yanme’e were clever, and in swarms even more so, but this damage far exceeded their technical ability. The Drones hovered nervously until the Minister released them with a swift hand signal, and then they buzzed down a wide shaft behind the ring to examine how the Forerunner power systems buried deeper in the installation had weathered the test-firing.

  When they had arrived here, many weeks ago, the Minister of Preparation had painstakingly trained the Yanme’e in their tasks. But the truth was not even Boru’a’Neem, a San’Shyuum renowned for his ability to pick apart and repurpose Forerunner relics, truly understood how this particular device worked. Until recently, the Halo rings had been legend—articles of faith, not something anyone in the Covenant had ever seen. It was only after a Halo had been found and activated, briefly, that this installation and others like it had revealed themselves on the Luminaries and other scanning equipment of Covenant deep-space survey ships.

  “If only Truth had told me about this installation sooner. . . .” The Minister tugged at one of the many loose threads in his robe. The heavy garment was embellished with platinum brocade that used to dazzle but was now grimy and tattered. They had been on the run ever since the fall of the holy city, High Charity, several months ago. The Minister hadn’t slept for days as he prepared to test-fire the device, and now some of the Prelate’s anger crept into Boru’a’Neem’s voice as he considered the ring with his weary eyes. “I could have transported this prototype to High Charity—brought all the resources of my Sacred Promissory to bear! But that’s all gone now. Wasted.”

  The Prelate flinched, seized with a sudden sadness. He heard the faint echo of a different song. . . .

  The Minister softened his tone. “Forgive me, Tem’Bhetek. My losses were nothing compared to yours.”

  “Many died that day, my lord.”

  “But I did not. And for that, I am forever in your debt.”

  The Minister dipped his long neck and head, tipping slightly forward in his throne. The Prelate bowed in response, although muscle memory encouraged him to kneel. According to the old Covenant hierarchy, the Minister Boru’a’Neem was many times his better. Tem’Bhetek was a soldier, the Minister’s sworn protector. But after Tem had accomplished their escape from High Charity, Boru’a’Neem had made things clear: they were now partners, with different but equally important parts to play in the execution of their plan.

  “Bring the Half-Jaw and his ship to me,” the Minister said. He nudged his throne close to the Prelate, reached up, and placed his hands on the younger San’Shyuum’s shoulders. “And I promise: we will make the Sangheili pay for everything they have done.”

  From orbit, Rahnelo looked pristine. While the planet had a thin equatorial band of deep greens and golden browns, it cooled rapidly as it arced toward its poles, and its caps were icy blue. Bathed in the light of its star, the frozen Sangheili colony world sparkled as it spun about its axis. The effect was breathtakingly beautiful, and staring down at Rahnelo from a distance of a few hundred kilometers, it was easy to get distracted. But distraction was exactly what the Half-Jaw wanted.

  Since his Phantom dropship had begun its descent, the Half-Jaw, Rtas ‘Vadum, had done everything he could to keep his mind occupied. He double-checked his pilot’s glide path toward a line of craggy peaks on the wintry edge of the northern hemisphere. He ordered scans of the storm that was brewing there, even though he knew the Phantom was rated to withstand far worse hazards. Having exhausted these by-the-book operations and not wanting to become a nuisance to his crew, the Half-Jaw busied himself by watching the storm grow larger in the Phantom’s viewscreens.

  For a handful of heartbeats, as the craft nosed into the bright tops of the stratus clouds, the Half-Jaw felt a surge of confidence. You are Sangheili! Born and bred for war. This is what you live for! But then the Phantom broke into the dull gray light beneath the clouds, and his false bravado shattered.

  The first evidence of the assault was Rahnelo’s ruined spaceport. Through the snow whipping past the Phantom’s swept-back nose, the Half-Jaw saw launchpads raked by plasma cannons and a hulking orbital transport burst open from the inside, its fuel tanks boiled by sustained laser fire. The port’s smaller craft were slagged inside their hangars, likely before their pilots even had their engines spinning. It was a precise, thorough attack, clearly the work of an experienced foe. But the Half-Jaw knew this was just the beginning.

  The broad road from the spaceport to Rahnelo’s largest settlement was cratered by heavy plasma bombardment. Deep pits walked up the frozen flagstones, and near misses had vaporized the ice fields on either side, creating holes of blackened tundra. The craters continued into the settlement, where direct hits had destroyed many of the high-walled family compounds, littering the ground with slate roof tiles, iron structural spars, and foundation stones that had stood for generations.

  For the Half-Jaw, it felt as though he was trapped with his eye against some sort of macabre microscope. As the Phantom descended, layers of magnification clicked into place, each one revealing horrific new details. The final lens belonged to the corpses; stark, dark lumps scattered in the snowy streets leading up to the settlement’s keep.

  Having been a warrior most of his life, Rtas ‘Vadum thought he had seen the aftermath of war in all its grim variations. During the Covenant’s long campaign against the humans, he had witnessed the destruction of many of their cities. On rare occasions, he had seen Covenant fleets unleash their might on entire human worlds, bathing their planets in plasma fire until they shone like glass. And most recently, Rtas had witnessed High Charity itself fall to the devastating parasite known as the Flood.

  But until this moment, the Half-Jaw had never seen the annihilation of a Sangheili world. He had always feared the humans might someday deal a blow like this. But he never imagined he would see one of his species’ settlements savaged by creatures who used to call themselves Covenant.

  As his Phantom flared for landing, the Half-Jaw felt unusually heavy inside the silver armor that covered him from head to toe. Rahnelo’s gravity was slightly less than that of the Sangheili homeworld, Sanghelios. But the Half-Jaw’s legs were leaden as he marched down the Phantom’s ramp and
into the icy intersection of two wide cobblestone streets. He forced himself to strike a confident pose, his flanged, white-striped helmet held high and his shoulders set against the frigid wind. He hoped the dozen Sangheili warriors forming a perimeter around him wouldn’t see any difference in his demeanor—wouldn’t guess the truth that the Half-Jaw had known for some time but didn’t dare admit to anyone, least of all himself:

  I am tired. And I don’t want to fight anymore.

  “Cowardice!” The word momentarily stunned the Half-Jaw. But then he realized the Blademaster wasn’t speaking to him. The gold-armored Sangheili stood in the middle of the intersection near an overturned sledge, his fists balled on his hips beside his two inactive energy blades. Years of shouting orders had accustomed Vul ‘Soran to speaking at maximum volume regardless of the situation. And now, even though the elderly warrior’s voice was hoarse and cracked, his words easily carried over the Phantom’s idling hum: “Only the accursed Jiralhanae would attack a world with no defenses!”

  The Half-Jaw strode to the Blademaster, snow squealing beneath his armored feet, and appraised the scene around the sledge. A du’nak lay dead, tangled in its lines. The woolly, two-trunked draft animal had pulled the slat-wood sledge into a sharp turn that bent its bronze runners and left it balanced precariously on one side. Spilled baskets of mustard-colored grain lay in a jumbled pile beside the sledge. Nearby were two Jiralhanae corpses: one facedown, the other on its back. The latter figure was headless, and the missing part lay a few meters away, upright in the snow, staring back at its body with a tight-lipped grimace of profound disappointment.

  “Not entirely defenseless . . .” the Half-Jaw said, staring at the bodies. He knelt beside the facedown corpse. “Help me move this mess.”

  The Jiralhanae were both clad in dark blue, heavy-plate armor. Their shaggy limbs were blood-stiff, frozen at awkward angles. When, after considerable effort, the Half-Jaw and Blademaster finally rolled the corpse onto its back, they discovered the body of a male Sangheili who had been crushed beneath it in the snow.