Everyone remembers their first time.

I do.

Like it was yesterday.

It’s twisted to compare it to something like getting your cherry popped, but I’m not sure how else to describe what is clearly an obsession…

[1]

“There’s an old saying,” Savic says.

Jesus Christ, not another saying.

“I’m a little preoccupied at the moment,” I say, gesturing to the post I’m balancing on with one foot, the sole of my other foot tucked against my thigh. I close my eyes and refocus, doing my best to ignore him. After a few moments of silence, I crack one eye open, and, as if that’s some sort of permission, he starts talking.

“Live by the sword, die by the sword.”

“Sounds like common sense to me. Where’d you hear that tidbit of wisdom?”

“Comes from an old book.”

“You read it?”

“A long time ago… in a past life.”

He grows quiet, melancholic, something more common for him these days.

I drop my leg, flip off the post, and land beside my friend and current mentor as light as a feather. “I don’t know why you make me do that yoga shit.”

“You lack balance. In swordplay—as in life—balance is everything.”

Savic is prone to sharing this kind of sage advice despite being the same age as me. At the ripe age of fifty-eight, he’s already outlived the average Wastelander. While I don’t look a day over twenty-one, he’s starting to look his age. Wrinkles and hair more salt than pepper. Still, the man is a lethal weapon and a prodigy with a blade, which he swears is his weakest discipline.

I know he’s full of shit.

I glance over at the exquisite katana leaning against the dilapidated wall next to my pack.

“When am I going to take a break from drills with wooden swords and get some practical experience?”

Savic is content to torture me with drills that remind me of my mother’s brutal teachings. She drew a fine line between abuse and a rigorous martial arts regimen. She had a knack for inflicting wounds that went beyond the flesh. It’s fair to say she fucked me up in more ways than one, but she toughened me up, prepared me for the Wastelands where the dominant cultural trait is brutality. 

At least Savic isn’t a sadist.

“You think you’re ready?” His expression is serious and sober.

I shrug. “It’s not like I haven’t killed a man before.”    

“Shooting a man. Killing with your bare hands. These are acts of survival. Crude and brutish. Killing a man with a sword is different. It requires—”

“Yeah, yeah! Finesse. Grace. Art. I get it,” I say, raising a hand to calm him down before he delivers another diatribe on the finer points of swordsmanship.

“Your reliance on guns is a weakness, and your hand-to-hand skills were slightly above average—at best—when I found you. I did not forsake my oath to never take a pupil again to see you turn into a savage with a sharp tool in his hands.”

Savic is right—to a point. I’m a fan of the more practical aspects of martial arts rather than some higher ideal or transcendent state. Still, there’s something to his philosophy. Maybe in this world of shit, it wouldn’t hurt to pursue something beyond mere survival.

“Admit it though,” I press. “At some point, you’re going to have to let me off the chain. I mean, I don’t exactly need your permission.”

“Then find yourself another—”

I raise both hands this time, knowing I’ve pressed the one button that really sets him off. “I don’t want to find another teacher. Sorry I even brought it up…but you get my point.”

We both hear it at the same time.

The rumble and whine of engines in the distance.

A trail of dust is visible above the low roofs of the ruins of the long-abandoned town where we set up camp. It’s no surprise we have company. It’s the only bit of shelter from the scorching sun for several miles in any direction.

I glance at the katana, then back at Savic, a pleading expression on my face.

Savic purses his lips, and for a second, I think he’s going to deny me, but then his expression relaxes, and he says, “Just don’t swing it around like some barbarian with a broadsword.”

I’m practically gleeful as I dash over and snatch up the katana. “This is going to be fun.”

[2]

Savic is sentimental.

He thinks my first time killing a man with a katana should be special.

Again, I blame my mother for my dislike of observing rites of passage. She was a no-nonsense kind of lady when it came to fighting and killing. It wasn’t like she didn’t have style. She did.

The truth is I don’t give a shit about ceremony or tradition or whatever Savic has in mind.

I am going to kill a man today.

With. This. Sword.

That’s when I glance down at my thumb, which is currently tapping the handle of my katana.

My gaze darts to my gun, and there’s an urge to strap on the holster and hold the Desert Eagle.

No.

This is what I’ve been training for the last year. It’s time to put it to the test.

Just keep your head.

“This is not a test, Silent,” Savic says. “Are you ready?”

I slide the smoothly lacquered scabbard into my belt and nod.

“Yes, teacher. I’m ready.” I can’t contain a grin, the kind that usually earns me a cuff.

Savic’s expression is mirthless. He turns and briskly jogs away.

My grin fades, and I swallow the lump in my throat before following Savic.

I lower the binoculars. “Six vehicles. Thirteen men.”

“Weapons?”

“Can’t see through the windows so good, but I thought I saw rifles. How do you want to play this?”

It’s Savic’s turn to grin. It catches me off guard. Since I met the guy, he hasn’t smiled, let alone grinned. He usually has what I call a sour puss expression on his face.

“Why are you grinning?”

“I’m thinking with your cocky arrogance and a katana, thirteen to one seems like good odds.”

“You’re serious.”

“A samurai facing an inferior enemy could easily have cut down ten men.”

“What if they’re mutants? Thought about that?”

“You’re a mutant. Clearly, you inherited some impressive genes. Time for evolution to prove itself one way or another.”

It’s true.

My genetic inheritance has given me some impressive attributes. I’m stronger, faster, more agile than the average man, and heal a hell of a lot faster. Then there’s the matter of the longevity gene that makes me virtually immortal. However, I’ve taken a bullet before and even my pedigree can’t stand up to a shotgun blast.

I take one last look through the binoculars.

The vehicles have stopped. Three men are hovering over something on the road and glancing toward the line of buildings skirting the edge of town.

“Shit. Looks like they saw the tracks from the Impala,” I say, turning to speak to Savic.

Savic is gone like a fart in the wind, leaving nothing but a stinky feeling like I may have bitten off more than I can chew.

“Fuck,” I mutter.

Figures pile out of the vehicles. They fan out in two columns flanking what must be their leader, a squat, heavy set man with a flat face wearing big round reflective goggles.

I shimmy down from the peak of the roof and drop to the ground.

I peer around the corner of the house, watching the figures approach and frown. There’s something odd about their movement. It’s almost… mechanical. I notice a symbol emblazoned on their outfits—a black sickle cutting through a white moon—another grim coat of arms to terrify the masses.

They break ranks and spread out. One of them is coming my direction, each step bringing him closer to me.

I crouch down, my right hand gripping the handle of my katana, the other holding the scabbard.

“Come to poppa.”

[3]

The man’s shadow stretches out past the corner of the dilapidated building I’m hiding behind.

I loosen my blade in its scabbard.

I’m tense as a feral sand lion ready to pounce on some prey, listening to the step-drag rhythm of the man’s footsteps shuffling through the dirt. There’s another sound that makes me frown, like the slightly under-greased gears of a servomotor.

He steps past me in a slow awkward gait. He doesn’t see me crouched down low, his shoulder check to the right lazy. While I’m not above stabbing a man in the back, I want to look the first man I cut down in the eyes.

“Hey pal,” I whisper.

The man whirls around to face me.

Instead of finding a surprise gasp on his face, an expressionless powder-white mug greets me. The sunglasses he’s wearing are attached to his face with large aluminum rivets. He’s bigger than me by at least twenty pounds, taller by several inches. Now that he’s up close and personal, I notice his armor isn’t the typical homemade job, but high-grade tactical armor over top of some sort of power-assisted harness. When he shifts his footing, the servo motors at his waist and both knee joints whir.

“Target acquired,” he says in a voice that doesn’t sound quite human as he raises the barrel of his rifle.  

My blade whistles in a deadly arc. It feels like I’m chopping a wet log when my blade hacks into the man’s forearm and gets stuck.

I can’t see his eyes through his reflective goggles, but his mouth is quivering intensely, as if trying to hold back a scream.

“Looks like it’s not your day, pal,” I say as I reef my sword free.

The blade comes loose in a spray of sparks and blood. His arm is twitching, moving in short jerky motions, like it’s shorting out.

“That’s not normal,” I say, one eyebrow raised.

The brick next to me shatters in a hail of bullets.

I duck and roll into a narrow alley between two crumbling houses. I glance up in time to see a figure step out from around the corner of the house on my left.

“Visual contact. Target acquired,” one of them says.

Target?

Another goon steps in behind me, cutting off my escape.

They move like the last guy, with a strange, stiff gait, every step accompanied by a whir of servos. The guy in front of me has a mechanical eye with a glaring red circle for an iris that shrinks to a dot as he focuses on me. He’s bald and has the same pallid complexion of a corpse as the last guy.

I get the drop on him, but this guy’s power harness must be greased up, because he’s fast. He parries my slash, sending sparks off a metal forearm. He raises a rifle, but I knock it aside with the flat of my blade and go low, bringing my blade across his lower torso, opening a deep gash in his side. Again, my blade bites deep but gets mired in dense flesh.

There’s a pause when this guy struggles and quivers just like the last chump, then he jolts upright with a sharp gasp, like he’s just been injected with crank.

“Target acquired,” the man says with a crazy grin.

The backhand he delivers to me while I’m struggling to free my sword sends me reeling into the wall. I’m seeing stars and sucking wind.

I look down. My katana is in my hand. “Huh. Ain’t that lucky.”

I spit blood and shake my head, gathering my wits before I spring up the wall of the building, finding enough purchase to pull myself onto the roof just as he fires his rifle.

I scamper up and over the peak, then slide down and leap across to the next building. I quickly get my bearing. My pack—my Desert Eagle—is a couple of blocks away.

Another voice repeats a phrase that’s starting to annoy me. “Target acquired.”

One of the pale men has joined me on the rooftop.

Shots blare, but I’m on the move already and cutting a path toward my pack.

On the streets below, I can hear the men closing in on my position. They’re slow, and by the time I drop from the obstacle course of rooftops, I know I have a good twenty seconds to spare.

I sprint to the building where my pack is stashed and hop through the empty window.

I find Savic sitting cross-legged beside my pack. He holds up my Desert Eagle and says, “Looking for this?”

I duck down as holes start appearing in the wall.

I sneer. “Why would I need that?”

I don’t wait for a reply before I stab a hand into my pack and pull out the keys to the Impala, then dart out of the hovel and into the next building where she’s parked.

It’s a beast. A pig on fuel, but it’s solid as a tank and easy to repair. I toss my katana on the passenger seat, before sliding through the open window and sticking the key into the ignition.

The engine roars to life. I rip the katana from its scabbard, slam the shifter into drive. She may be old, but the modified seven-point-four-liter turbo vee eight with over five hundred horsepower means she’s built to ride.

The tires kick up dust as I crank the wheel hard and fishtail out of the building, stomping on the brakes when I hit the middle of the broad main street.      

A goon steps into the street a half block ahead of me and spins to face me.

Sticking the sword out of the window, I press both the brake and accelerator, the revs climbing into the red as the ass of the vehicle shakes and sways but stays put.

“Looks like someone wants to play chicken,” I say, glaring at the pale figure. “Let’s get it on.”

I release the brakes and let the tires kick up the sandy asphalt street in a cloud of dust. When traction takes hold, the Impala bolts forward, the engine roars, gears shifting as she races toward the man, who charges ahead while firing a handgun.

 Bullets ping off the hood and leave holes and spidering cracks in the windshield. A searing pain ignites in my forearm as a bullet grazes it.

I tighten my grip on the katana and the steering wheel and swerve to the right just before impact. The blade jerks in my hand but goes clean through the man’s chest.

Hammering the brakes, I glance in my rearview and see the man drop into the dirt.

A shotgun blast impacts the driver’s door, penetrating the worn and battered metal. The door takes the brunt of the damage, but my left leg is peppered with lead shot. It stings like hell, but I’ll live.

The ass of the Impala swerves when I hit the gas.

Another shot clips the back window, shattering it. I swerve around the corner and find one of the goons in my path.  I stomp on the accelerator and slam into him. His body doubles over, and he scrambles to pull himself up and onto the hood. He slips, his eyes growing wide, then he disappears under the front of the Impala, leaving a set of claw marks from his blackened nails in the rust-eaten hood. My seat squeaks gleefully as the vehicle bounces and bucks over him then spits him out the back end.

“Two down, eleven to go.”

I skirt the edge of town and cut east before swerving down an alley and bringing the vehicle to stop. A quick glance around and behind me, and I can already see a handful of figures racing down the street toward me.

“These fuckers never learn, do they?”

I charge them with my blade stuck out the window again.

They break their line and spread out. I crank the wheel.

“Number three!” I whoop when my blade rips through the man and drops him.

Bullets shred the right side of the Impala from hood to trunk. A geyser of steam shoots out from under the hood as they take out the radiator.

I crank the wheel and bring it back around, aiming for one of the meatheads. He’s too slow, and when I nail him, he goes spinning off and lands in a heap.

“That’s four!” I yell.

I figure I have a few more seconds before the Impala dies on me, so I slam on the brakes and whip her around again in a tight one-eighty. I tromp on the gas pedal and take aim at another one of these assholes.

At the last second, the man leaps to the left, but I crank the wheel hard to the right and slam into him with the back end like a giant bat smacking a human baseball.

The Impala stalls a couple dozen meters away. I snatch my katana and slither through the open window.

Rifle shots pepper the front quarter panel as I bolt into an alley.

Another pale-faced attacker saunters around the corner of the building. With a quick lunge and a sharp thrust, I slide my sword into his navel and put all my weight into it, shoving the tip through him until it sticks out his back.

“Looks like the pointy end works just fine,” I say, grinning wickedly at the man as his face twists into an expression of pain and shock.

With all my strength, I yank it out through his side. The shock on my face matches his own.

The gash in the man’s side exposes not just the usual stomach organs, but a mix of wires and tubes. The tubes are leaking a liquid that reminds me of hydraulic fluid.   

The man is spitting up blood but still has the fucking nerve to say, “Target acquired.”

“Acquire this, shithead,” I say with a snarl.

My blade flashed out and slices through the man’s goggles, through the eyes underneath.

His scream is like a wailing synthesizer as he claps is hands to his eyes.

“Seven left,” I say.

Footsteps are coming my way. I scale a crumbling wall to the roof and get on my belly. Down below, one of them is marching toward the wailing blind man.

I drop on number eight, driving the blade into his shoulder through a gap in his blocky shoulder pad armor. Half the blade sinks into the man’s torso before stopping dead.

I plant a foot on the small of the man’s back and yank out my katana. The chump falls to his knees. Red fluid that’s either blood or hydraulic fluid is pouring out his severely chopped shoulder. He’s not dead, because he’s muttering something into the dirt.

“Target acquired,” he slurs through a mouthful of blood.

Who the fuck are these guys? They don’t look even vaguely familiar. I think I’d remember some half-breed robotic gangsters had I crossed paths with them in my travels. The fact this guy is still breathing and trying to get up on his one good arm makes me wonder just how jacked up these guys are.

A shadow comes into my peripheral vision, so I spin and nearly take off Savic’s head before stopping my blade an inch from his neck. He’s grinning.

[4]

“You enjoying this?” I snap. “I could use your help.”

Savic stops grinning and shrugs. “They’re not after me.”

The heavy footsteps of one of my attackers grabs my attention. His gaze is stuck on me like glue while he marches forward in a quick double-time step.

I dash to the corner of the building and glance back to see the man pass right by Savic without so much as a glance.

“Fuck me!”  

I spin and race into the street and stop dead. 

The squat leader, who looks like a four-hundred-pound, seven-foot brute compressed into a five-and-half-foot frame, is facing me. He’s flanked on either side by a pale-faced cyborg.

One more steps around a building to my left, another behind me. They’ve got me cornered, and I don’t think I’d make it to the roof before the leader filled me full of lead from the AR-15 assault rifle the man to his right is holding.

“Target acquired,” says the leader in an oddly synthetic and flat voice. I notice he’s got a thick collar. Thin black wires embedded in his neck and cheeks and up around his ears connect the collar to his goggles.

Is this asshole smirking at me?

Sword raised, I grind my heels into the ground and find my center, maintaining my outer calm. Inside, I’m a jumble of kinetic nervousness to the point I feel like I’m vibrating from my core out.

“Detain him,” says the leader.

“Do not move,” says one of the cyborg lackeys with a jagged pink scar running across his left cheek.

All but the leader shoulder their firearms and draw electrified batons from hip holsters. The batons spark and zap as the men creep forward, every step cinching up the space they have me penned into. They’re waving their batons menacingly, their free hands ready to grab me.

I draw in a deep breath, exhale slowly, feeling my fear drain out of me, leaving only the excited anticipation of facing the enemy and knowing it’s win or die. Maybe it’s fear, but I know one thing is for sure: I’m going to take as many of these fuckers with me as I can.

This is a tight bind I’ve got myself into, maybe the worst yet, but now’s not the time to worry about that.

Now is the time to fight.

The skin on these fuckers isn’t normal, but it isn’t impenetrable. I just need a little extra force.

“Sorry, Savic,” I mutter before spinning and charging at the loping grunt behind me, the one whose hand I nearly lopped off earlier.

I heft the sword over my head and bring it down in a mighty chopping motion on the already partially severed arm and lop it off clean. Without pausing, I heft it again and scream as I bring it down on the crown of his skull. He shifts at the last second, and my blade cuts his ear off and hacks into the shoulder. I wrench it free and hop past the teetering frame, spin to face my remaining adversaries.

“Whoa!”

My sword flashes out and barely parries a barrage of electric batons. I guess these guys can move fast when they want to, because they’ve closed the gap on me.

Sparks and whirring servomotors fill the air as I bat away their batons and give myself some space and begin maneuvering to the left. My move draws the dummies into a straight line, so now I only have one foe in front of me instead of being surrounded.

A clumsy baton strike leaves his arm exposed and, with another chopping attack, it’s severed above the elbow close to the shoulder. His glance turns to the fluid spurting out of his stump and pauses as a strangled cry like a continuous high-pitched keyboard note escapes his lips.   

My spinning back kick knocks him into the men behind him.

A thrust from my katana punctures the thick hide-skin of another man’s torso. I twist and turn the blade, making a mixed salad out of his insides, but in the process, leave myself open.

An electrified baton contacts my shoulder and sends a jolt of paralyzing electricity coursing down my arm and into my neck. The grip on my katana grows weak, and I’m smelling my own charred flesh.

I grit my teeth and back away, shaking my arm until the feeling returns.

“Looks like you’re the last piece of fodder left,” I say.

The man’s eyes are milky white, like he has cataracts, but they’re fixed on me like he’s got a target lock on me. I sidestep around him, switching from right to left, probing for a weakness in his stance.

Medium height but grossly overweight, the lower body power harness is doing most of the work for this guy. Wires snake up his neck and wrap around his skull and into his monocle eyes.  

I fake a move to the right, and he falls for it.

My intention is to blind him like I did one of his pals, but his baton blocks my strike. His counter whacks my wrist and zaps my arm. I weave back and barely dodge another hit. He presses in, spinning and twirling his baton, forcing me onto my heels like some kali master with an electric stick.

“You’re pretty good at that,” I say, stepping back out of his range and sheathing my sword. “Guns and steel have always been hard to find, but one thing there was always plenty of were sticks.”

Kali is one of the first martial arts forms my mother taught me. The welts and bruises from those brutal training sessions have faded, but the memory stuck along with the lessons.

“I’ve been swinging sticks since I was a toddler,” I state. “But I’ve never had to disarm someone wielding one of those. Still…”

His footwork is still a little jerky, but his strikes come in blurring patterns of sinawali and sambrado and abanico meant to batter me into submission.

When the moment is right, I close the gap and use the lout’s momentum to my advantage. I parry and redirect his strikes in a precise disarming counterattack that ends up with his wrist at an inhuman angle. I strip the baton from his grasp and send it flipping a few meters to my left.

When he yanks his arm back, I keep manipulating his movement and slide his arm into an armbar position against my side and twist. There’s a sharp popping sound as the elbow joint ruptures. A well-placed stomp kick to the side of the man’s knee through a gap in the metal power harness has the man on the ground groaning and twitching.

“As I was saying. Still…there’s a first time for everythi—”

There’s a loud whooshing boom and something hits me. Everything turns black for a second and when my vision clears, I’m flat on my back and feel like I’m going to puke.

A shadow looms over me. I glance up through watering eyes.

The leader is leering down at me. “My employer, Var Khan, sends his regards.”

[5]

A shake of my head clears the stars filling my vision. I can’t help chuckling. “I should have known it was that asshole who sent you.”

“He prefers you alive but said he will understand if I bring you back dead,” he says, grinning. His voice is more metallic and robotic than the other pale-faced lackeys in his gang. “Comply and live.” He pulls out a set of thick wrist restraints that I know even my enhanced strength couldn’t break.

I put two and two together. “Did he provide you with your cybernetic upgrades for capturing me?”

The man grins and nods.

I sweep my gaze over the fallen attackers littering the alley. “Looks like those upgrades weren’t worth it.”

“Upgrades will fix that deficiency when I deliver you to Var Khan,” he replies as he points his fist at me. That’s when I notice he’s wearing a metal gauntlet that is powering up with a blue-white energy. He plants his feet, and I get the sense I’m about to be hammered by another blow from whatever weapon he’s sporting in that fist.

With a quick shoulder roll, I dodge the pulverizing blast that blows a crater in the ground where I was lying just a moment before.

“Did my uncle give you that gadget, too?”

His grin fades. He stomps one foot and brings his gauntleted-fist to bear and lets it rip in a rapid-fire solution that has me bounding, rolling, and flipping out of harm’s way. The narrow alley fills with dust and smoke, the perfect cover for a slippery fellow like me.

Under cover of the dusty haze, I creep within striking distance and lunge forward. My blade sings and slashes a deep gash across the man’s gut. The thick hide-skin tugs on my blade, but I put some elbow grease into it and tear it free, then disappear into the haze before he locks his sights on me.

“Do not resist. Come out and save yourself a most assured and painful death,” threatens the man.

“Pal, you don’t know how many times I’ve heard that.”

The next blast hits a meter from me, the force of the pulse attack enough to knock me off my feet. I keep rolling as four quick pulse blasts create mini craters following my footsteps.

Stupid! He goaded me into giving up my position. Fuck this. It’s time to stop playing defense.

I sprint forward and leap out of the smoke and rain down heavy, two-handed strikes on the man. My furious strikes don’t give him time to get into his firing stance and take aim. Sparks fly off the gauntlet as he’s forced to use it as a shield.  

Chunks of metal and sparks are flying.

Slipping a meaty fist meant to smash my face in, I angle past him and take aim under the man’s armpit. I put all my weight into it and slide my blade between his ribs and out the other side like he’s a chunk of meat on a skewer.

Blood gurgles out of his mouth, his face a caricature of agonizing pain. He’s twitching and trying to fight through the damage even as he’s dropping to his knees and reaching futilely for the handle, every movement a torment. Whatever chemical cocktail keeps these guys going despite fatal injuries isn’t enough to counter the seriousness of the damage my katana has done to the man’s vital organs.

Grasping the handle with both hands, I yank it free. The man lurches and moans, coughing up a fountain of blood.

Sword in my hand, I step in front of the man.

He’s finding it hard to lift his head to meet my gaze. His arms are hanging limply by his side, feebly attempting to lift the pulse blaster gauntlet.

I place the flat of my blade under his chin and lift his chin so he can see me clearly. If I could see through his reflective goggles, I’m sure he’d be glaring at me. His bloody scowl says it all.

It’s my turn to grin.

“Thirteen opponents and you didn’t kill a single one,” I hear Savic say from behind me. He sidles up beside me and squats down on his haunches to inspect the dying leader.

After a moment he stands, dusts his hands off and says, “I never thought I’d live long enough to see a real-life cyborg. Your uncle did this?”

 I nod.

“He sounds like a real treat.”

“Anything but,” I scoff.

“You killed the Impala.”

I sigh. “Shit. I love that car. Good thing these bozos brought their rides.”

“True enough,” Savic admits. He glances down at the man again. “Well. What are you waiting for?”

I frown. “I really didn’t kill a single one?”

“You didn’t hear a word I said, did you?”

I turn to him. “What are you talking about?”

“I said a man with a katana could easily kill a dozen lightly armored opponents. These guys don’t fit that bill. I hope you learned a valuable lesson today.”

“Yeah, I sure did.” I step back from the man and bring my katana to my side, gripping it with both hands. It takes three heavy hacking strikes to behead the man.

I’m a bloody mess.

When I turn to Savic, he’s shaking his head. The expression on his face is one of disgust.

“Barbaric,” he says.

I shrug.

“What was it?” Savic asks.

“What was what?”

“The lesson you learned?”

“Oh. Yeah,” I turn to him and say in all seriousness. “I need a sharper blade.”

Savic raises an eyebrow, then another rare smile cracks his normally stoic expression. The man actually chuckles before turning and walking away, leaving me alone in front of the headless corpse.

“Yeah. A really sharp blade,” I say to myself, nodding slowly. “One that cuts through anything.”

I mull that fantasy around my head for a moment, then shake my head and chuckle.

“A sword that cuts through anything. Impossible,” I say before turning and jogging after Savic.