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From shadows all around them, the misshapen figures clawed their way out, grunting and slobbering, reaching for them with long black nails. Yarnall picked up his twisted rifle. “Mothers are strong!”

Max and Yarnall helped each other stumble back a few feet before they were cut off. Three of the creatures lumbered toward them, the eyes in the misplaced faces alight with blood fever.

Yarnall and Max stood back to back. Max jabbed at the nearest. It tested their defensive perimeter with a looping paw stroke Max swung, felt no contact, but saw a paw flash red. The creature sniffed at the wounded arm, and slowed; but the others charged.

A claw got past his guard. Although he felt only a buzzing sensation in his shoulder, a bright red splotch appeared. He cursed, and began to swing his usik left-handed.

But the creatures, for all their size and strength, were clumsier than he, and at a disadvantage: none of them used weapons. Time and again Yarnall and Max bloodied them, and Max’s usik struck one of them a thundering blow, crushing it to the ground. The Amartoqs’ torn, lipless mouths snarled at him, and Max snarled back.

There came a swirl of motion, and now the creatures were caught between two groups of screaming, blood-maddened Gamers.

Johnny Welsh had abandoned his rifle for the moment. His whale-rib sword rose and fell in a glittering arc. An Amartoq howled as its hologram chest was cloven to the teeth.

Max’s peripheral vision found Charlene Dula as a seven-foot elvish beauty, with long thin anus and long slender legs and pale skin, and a lantern jaw making her look like nothing so much as Elric of Melnibone. Her ivory sword flashed and struck. She moved in and out on those improbably long legs, sore knees forgotten in the heat of the moment. She was glorious, swirling in her skins, a primal woman from some lost tribe of albino NBA superstars.

And then the rest of his comrades arrived. Max howled, flashing his war club, noting the red slashes that appeared on the bodies of the enemy as he struck.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Yarnall take another hit from a monster’s claw, and A shocking buzz surrounded him, made his whole body tingle. He hadn’t been paying attention, and a stroke from a five-clawed hand had almost disemboweled him.

He staggered back, and looked at his midsection in disbelief. The spreading red stain wasn’t exactly realistic, but it was damned disturbing. He lifted his club And got a warning shock.

He backed up. This wasn’t fair! It wasn’t supposed to be like this. He was about to die! The monster was coming closer and closer, its lidless eyes staring, its mouth drooling blood as broken teeth chewed at its own lips.

Max backed into a wall, and he lifted his one good arm in defense or in supplication And suddenly Orson was there.

Two-Ton Orson Sands ran thudding to the rescue on the point of the “B” team as they rushed from the shadows, tumbling pellmell into the jaws of battle. Orson interposed himself ‘twixt brother Max and the monster, and thrust his whale-rib spear with a speed that Max would never have suspected. The monster looked down at its guts in amazement, and crumpled.

Max started to jump back into the fray. An electrical buzz in his underwear told him that Dream Park had other ideas. So Max lay where he was, covered his face with his arm, and moaned helplessly. Paralyzed, he watched Orson the Barbarian carry the day.

Orson carried it fine. The fighting snarl on his lips would have done credit to a blood-maddened jungle cat. Orson parried the deadly paws, slashed and mashed, sliced and diced, and generally made a red ruin out of the Amartoqs as they shambled in to attack the helpless Maxwell.

What a man.

Through and occasionally around Orson’s trunklike legs, Max glimpsed snatches of the rest of the battle.

There was Trianna capering with her spear, moving with the grace and poise of a dancer.

Hippogryph used a harpoon more adroitly than brother Orson, and was giving the monsters the old what-fer at a frightening rate. Max admired his erstwhile antagonist’s form and style.

(Uh-uh… brother Orson missed the slash of one claw, and got a glowing red band across the ankle. The monster paid for it dearly, sagging to the ground, pierced to the core.)

Oh, what a lovely fight it was. The claret flowed, war cries arced to the heavens, and in general, a mighty fine time was had by all.

Max searched the battlefield for Eviane, and finally spied her hiding behind a piece of bizarre, convoluted statuary. She was sighting her rifle and carefully placing shot after shot down into the battleground, to devastating effect. One Amartoq fell to the ground, shot in the gut and forehead by a single bullet.

Quite possibly, Max mused, an all-time first.

He only glimpsed Eviane for a few instants at a time. Her face was a small, pale oval screwed up in concentration. She punctured another beast. It staggered to the ground, long black paws scratching its back; moaned and thrashed, then was still.