"I see you are a man, like Ajax. Why do you lower yourself with these... creatures?" The war dog taxiarch looked at the elf, giant, polder, dwarf, and dragon knight. "Little more than slimy things crawled out of the sea? Join us. Join me. Join Ajax. It'll be nice for you..."-his voice lowered almost to a whisper-"... to be on the winning side for a change."

Sir John took a deep breath, his body language changed and that was enough. Several things then happened at once, so quickly no one would later be able to say who acted first.

Ember's eyes flashed into a starfield. The time raider's chains dissolved into starspace and reappeared around Flight Captain Lyria pinning her arms to her side. She was giving the hawklord an excuse to sit this one out. Gods, John was glad she was with them.

The time raider's right upper hand shot out, as though she'd been waiting for the void mage to do exactly what she just did, and her meson blaster leapt out of the hands of the war dog who'd chained her. The pistol made of glass and bronze slammed into her hand and its tip flared with prismatic light.

John felt his skin tighten as Dazar warded him, and from the sun's shadow cast by Taxiarch Lycaon the polder Jackson Bootblack emerged, a rapier in each hand, and no one saw him move from where he'd been a moment before.

The hakaan burst into action and sped past him like a blur.

At the same instant, a call—a horn. From directly behind John a blast of sound like a chord played by a dozen trumpets, and hope sang in his heart—the clarion call of the last Storm Knight!

At the sound, the orc dashed forward into a knot of war dog commandos, her axe already hewing about her.

John hadn't hesitated, he'd already drawn his sword and falchion. "All right, you patchwork son of a bitch." He charged Lycaon who fumbled with the shortsword on his belt.

Draw Steel!