Looking carefully across the verdant treetops of the dense jungles of Rossak, Zufa Cenva could still envision scars from the horrific cymek attack more than two decades earlier.

Armed in their most brutal warrior forms, the vengeful cymeks had descended upon Rossak after Zufa’s first Sorceress weapon destroyed the Titan Barbarossa. While a full-fledged robotic fleet attacked the transfer stations in orbit, cymeks had swept down, burning the jungle and launching explosives into the cliff cities. In order to win the battle, many of Zufa’s best Sorceress trainees had died that day, sacrificing themselves by unleashing a mental holocaust that vaporized all machines with human minds….

The voraciously fecund silvery-purple jungle had grown back, sealing the scars much faster than Zufa could heal the scars in her own mind.

Since that time, she’d continued to train the Rossak women who demonstrated the greatest telepathic potential, candidates who could be taught how to build their psychic powers to critical levels and then release them in shockwaves capable of vaporizing cymeks, even Titans. Over the years the chief Sorceress had seen a great many of her surrogate daughters march off to their deaths, martyring themselves in order to score important victories against the horrific cymeks.

Zufa considered cymeks the worst monsters. Although they had once been human, their ambition and desire for immortality had brought them over to the side of Omnius, making them traitors, not unlike the human infiltrators captured by Iblis Ginjo and his ever-vigilant Jipol officers.

Many in the League of Nobles had begun to wonder if this terrible bloody Jihad would ever end. Zufa did not think that way. She knew that as long as the fight continued, she could never give up. Year after year until the war ended she had to create and deliver an endless supply of fighters.

Even though she understood this, as she looked at the young girls arrayed with her atop the cliffs of Rossak, the oldest of them barely fourteen, Zufa wanted to weep. So many Sorceresses had already done their suicidal duty that the eager trainees had become younger and younger with each passing year. While these candidates might be talented, they were still just children.

Working hard to show no dismay, she scrutinized the young class. Their eyes were bright, and their long pale hair was ruffled by the breezes that swept across the uninhabitable plains between the fertile, deep canyons. The girls’ expressions were eager, their determination unwavering.

Zufa wished she could save all of these volunteers… but knew that nothing would really save them short of peace brought about by complete victory.

“I invest my greatest hopes in all of you,” she said. “I cannot deny that danger lies ahead. Even if you succeed, you die. And if you fail, you also die— but worse, it will have been to no purpose. I am here to make certain your lives and your deaths are not in vain, that you are instrumental in destroying Omnius and his thinking machine minions.”

The girls nodded, listening attentively. Despite their youth, they all knew this was not a game.

Off in the distance, scarlet-tipped volcanoes oozed lava onto the harsh plains while spewing thick, sulfurous smoke into the tainted atmosphere. Great gorges in the landscape sheltered thriving ecosystems in the volcanic soil and the rich water that percolated through aquifers.

The Rossak environment was permeated with contaminants that were not completely removed from the food chain— mutagens and teratogens, as well as beneficial chemicals. Pregnancies were difficult and often terminated in miscarriages. Many babies were born terribly deformed; others, like these young women, received a mental boost, an advantage in telepathic powers that no one else in the League possessed.

Oh, how Zufa had wanted a daughter of her own to be as powerful as these young women, someone to whom she could pass the candle. But though she had chosen her mates with great care, even running genetic tests to prove that the DNA matches were likely to result in talented offspring, she had failed in every instance. After severing her ties with Aurelius Venport, she had taken no further lovers. Once, he had seemed to be the perfect candidate for her, but his seed had resulted in only twisted miscarriages.

Zufa was old now, near the end of her childbearing years even with the improved stamina and reproductive systems of the Sorceresses of Rossak. Venport’s pharmaceutical discoveries, distillations of drugs from the fungi and underground bulbs that filled the mysterious jungles, allowed new treatments that dramatically reduced the risk of miscarriages and birth deformities while increasing fertility. Zufa found it ironic that Venport himself had discovered a pharmaceutical solution to this situation, after he had caused her so much disappointment.

But she put such thoughts aside. Closing her eyes, she concentrated on the vital task before her.

Zufa gave the students instructions, telling them what to practice, and how. They stood before her like children in a school, hands extended, eyes wide open. Their pale hair rose up crackling with static electricity as they built up the volatile power within their youthful brains.

Because of Zufa’s work here, the Army of the Jihad delivered regular reports of their scouting missions. Mercenaries flew fast ships to keep tabs on the movements of Omnius’s forces— in particular, cymek depredations. When cymeks were tracked, her Sorceresses would know, and it was up to Zufa to choose the appropriate female warrior, the appropriate weapon, to go forth and expend her life in a telepathic attack that would annihilate the machines with human minds.

But it had been months since any report had given her good news. The cymeks knew the Sorceress’s tactics by now, and rarely allowed one of their vulnerable number to travel alone. Instead, combat robots provided heavy escorts and extraordinary firepower for each cymek, especially the remaining Titans. It was difficult for a lone Sorceress to get close enough for her mental blast to have any effect.

So Zufa would wait and train until she found the perfect opportunity. She refused to waste these talented and dedicated young women. They were Rossak’s most vital resource.

When the girls had completed their exercises, Zufa beamed with genuine pride. “That is excellent. I believe you understand the concept. Now, watch me.”

She raised her pale hands and closed her eyes, spreading her fingers apart so that a faint silvery web of electricity crackled between them. “Accessing the power itself is not the difficult part,” she said, her voice flat, her lips bloodless. “Your most difficult job is to control it. You must become a precision weapon, a sharp blade guided by a skilled assassin. Not just a destructive accident.”

The girls extended their hands, and sparks jumped and popped. Some of them giggled, but quickly controlled themselves and concentrated on the gravity of the task. Zufa saw that they felt the power and sensed the danger.

More than anything, she wished that her own daughter might have been a brave patriot such as these. But her lone offspring, Norma, had no such skill. Her abilities as a Sorceress were nonexistent, a completely blank telepathic slate. Wasting her life, Norma occupied herself with equations and designs, dabbling in mathematics instead of developing any latent abilities that she might possess. Tio Holtzman on Poritrin had taken her under his wing, and Zufa was grateful for the pity the great scientist had shown her malformed child.

But after all this time, apparently even Holtzman wanted little more to do with Norma, and had sent her off to dabble with her ideas where she would bother no one else.

Zufa had not completely severed ties with Norma but was still reluctant to face such an immense personal disappointment by visiting her. She had placed so much hope in her.

Perhaps one day Zufa would have another child, if she could find a man worthy of contributing his DNA to the Cenva bloodline. Then all would be right again.

For now, though, these girls were the closest to genuine daughters that she had, and Zufa vowed not to let them down. As she opened her eyes, she became conscious of her own hair whipping around her, as if in a silent hurricane.

The trainees seemed intimidated and awed, as they stood back and watched her. Zufa smiled at them. “That is good. Now let us go through it again.”