His joints ached as he started to get up. His back ought to have been locked up because it was killing him. Sleeping on concrete floors was unkind to a man his age, not that it would be much more pleasant for anyone younger. Once again, this vague shadow of a memory came to him, telling him he had once been accustomed to bearing hardships, but that was a long time ago, even more so if what that girl was telling him was true.

Three hundred years... It was ridiculous. He should have laughed. However, he had no idea about who he was, where he was or much anything else. The girl was supposed to be like the rest of them, only she had regained her memories, or at least part of them. When she would try talking about what she remembered, there was something of a familiar ring to it. He also felt some measure of contempt for her as a mere Colo bumpkin, although he was not quite sure what that even meant.

There was no indoor plumbing, so the latrine was just a little room with several slop buckets lined against the wall. The slop buckets were supposed to be emptied out once a day, but the stench was still terrible, though only slightly worse than anywhere else in this damnable hole in the ground.

While he was doing what he had come there to do, he heard some commotion in the distance. Usually, the den was quiet as a tomb at night and not much noisier during the day, so it was definitely odd. Even if he did not understand the words, he could distinguish the curt, barking voices of the Dogmen amid the less distinct noises from the others. They had never done their little tests at this hour and when they did, it was almost always under the supervision of that woman, only she was still comatose as far as the old man knew.

Things took a turn for the worse when some of the people started screaming and the Dogmen's voices became angrier. Something was going down and it was nothing pleasant. The old man could feel his nerves drawn taut as the sense of danger stirred something deep within him. Harsh training and bitter experiences etched into the very marrow of his bones were driving him to act.

The door swung open and one of the Dogmen rushed in, but the old man was ready for him. With one of the slop buckets in hand, the old man flung the contents at the Dogman and then hit the Dogman upside of the head with the bucket. While the Dogman was staggered by this surprise attack, the old man moved in close. He may not have remembered much of anything, but his body knew what to do, performing a hip toss to throw the Dogman to the ground.

The Dogman landed in just the right spot. The old man slammed the door on the Dogman's head and kept doing so until he stopped moving. This proved to be more exertion than he was used to. That and the adrenaline high left him breathing raggedly and as he stared at pool of blood spreading around the Dogman's cracked skull, he felt a sudden shock of pain in his head. His vision flickered as a flood of sounds, images and feelings overwhelmed him.

The pain subsided, his vision went back to normal and his breathing steadied. And there was one more important thing. He remembered.

He was Marko Dubcic. General Marko Dubcic, of His Imperial Majesty's Army. Chief of Staff for Military Affairs. The last thing he remembered was trying to shut down the planet's Core Unit before it went critical. Obviously he failed.

He did not have time to get all of his thoughts together. He had to act quickly. His first instinct was to find a way to escape on his own, but without any support or supplies, he would not last long. Even if he could somehow escape to the surface, the Dogmen would track him down in no time at all. It was a long shot to be sure, but his best bet was to leverage the numbers of the so-called Ancients against the Dogmen. They were at a sore disadvantage, but a cornered animal was dangerous. He would have to rely on that.

Without even thinking about it, General Dubcic took the cloak and mask from the Dogman he killed. The stink of the cloak would mask his scent and give him the chance to get in close. The Dogman also had a decent knife on him. Some sort of firearm would have been nicer, but any weapon was better than nothing at all.

He made his way back toward the common area. Maybe because there was still a gap between who he was in his previous life and who he was since he was awakened, it was actually something of a surprise at how little he was moved by the scene of slaughter before him.

The Dogmen were efficient at what they did. There was about thirty of them to over three hundred Ancients. The Ancients were being driven back like sheep with no real sign of resistance. General Dubcic seemed to recall hearing that the Dogmen were supposed to be battlemages—combat Arcanists, apparently—, but it did not look like any of them were using Arcana, only their knives. If he knew more about Arcana, he might have had some idea as to why. No time to worry about it now.

He moved in to approach the nearest Dogman, who was busy slitting the throat of a woman he had caught by the hair. The Dogman recoiled a bit, probably from the cloak that reeked of stale piss, and grumbled something the General could not understand but otherwise ignored him. After all, they were comrades and he had his task to attend to.

General Dubcic stabbed the Dogman in the kidney. It was not something you did for a quick kill. Supposedly it was especially painful, to the point of nearly paralyzing the victim. The Dogman threw his head back and howled from the pain, which made it easy for the General to hold him by the chin and deliver some karma by slitting his throat just as he done to the woman who was probably still in the process of bleeding out on the floor in front of them.

Doing this drew attention from both sides, which was what the General was counting on because the sneak attack would only work once and he would never last in a drawn-out fight. Now it was time for him to do a general's job and get others to do the fighting for him.

He threw off the cloak and mask and held up the bloody knife, shouting to the terrified Ancients, "Do you all want to die here!?" He pointed to the Dogmen. "Look at them! They're flesh and blood! They bleed! They die! If you want to live, then fight! Fight with whatever you can find, your bare hands if you have to! Fight! Kill!"

One of the Dogmen snarled something and rushed at the General. General Dubcic readied himself to meet the charge, but he had little hope of prevailing against one of the Dogmen in a head-on attack. Perhaps the best he could manage was to minimize the damage he took. However, before the Dogman closed the distance, something hit him in the head to stop him in his tracks, a rock or a broken chunk of concrete. Before the Dogman could recover, a big man stuck him with a rusty piece of rebar. The man kept hitting the Dogman over and over until he was driven to the floor and then kept going to finish the job.

Of course the other Dogmen did not let this stand. The big man presented a more formidable opponent than General Dubcic, so three of the Dogmen ganged up to attack him at once.

The big man responded with agility that belied his bulky frame. He was well-trained, but so were the Dogmen and they were quite different when working in concert without the element of surprise being used against them. The big man dodged to the side to prevent them from surrounding him. He struck the one on the right with the rebar and avoided a lunge from the one on the left, but this left him open to the one in the center, who stabbed him in the gut. The big man wrenched the neck of the Dogman who stabbed him, only to get stabbed again in the side by the one on his right and then by the one on his left.

None of these were clean deathstrokes and it would cost the Dogmen. The big man plucked out the knife from his belly, stabbed the Dogman to his left in the neck, then quickly snapped his arm back to strike the one on his right with his elbow. Before the Dogman could recover from the hit, the big man reversed the grip on his knife and stabbed the Dogman where the neck met the shoulder.

For all this, the human body has its limits and the big man dropped to his knee, yet still he held his bloodied knife at the ready.

It was then that General Dubcic remembered him. Unteroffizier Tulengi, one of his bodyguards. Over three hundred years and he had not forgotten his duty.

Amid this moment of recognition, between General Dubcic and Unteroffizier Tulengi's actions, more of the Ancients found the courage to fight back, charging at the Dogmen in a human wave. Before they could be overwhelmed, the Dogmen struck back with their Arcana, digging into their forearms to draw blood, then hastily tracing symbols on the palms of their hands. When they stretched out their hands marked by the bloody symbols, several of the attacking Ancients burst into flames. Some continued to charge forward heedlessly while others were thrown into a panic, the clash turning the human wave into a massive tangle of people fighting to go in opposite directions.

With all this going on, at least one Dogman took the opportunity to attack Unteroffizier Tulengi. Already grievously wounded, being set aflame was just an added cruelty. He was not the only target, though. General Dubcic could feel the air grow hot around him as bright orange markings appeared on the ground beneath his feet. He looked at his arm an saw the bits of skin flaking off and rising into the air. Were they just taking their time with him or was it simply a case of time seeming slow when your life is on the line?

He did not get to ponder this long when something like a gust of wind snuffed out the Arcana being used on the General, along with all the flaming bodies. The chaos around them was subdued into still and silence. General Dubcic saw that nearly all eyes were on him. No, not on him. Something else. They were looking past him. He turned to see for himself and there she was, that woman with the glasses and the long black hair, with those two others following behind her.