"Shit happens." It was supposed to come out hard, uncaring.

It failed.

"Yes, it does," Wencit said. "May I at least show you what I'm talking about here?"

Houghton knew better. He knew better, and yet someone else seemed to have control of his voice.

"Sure," he said. "Go ahead. Trot it out, but you're gonna have to go some to beat the kind of shit I've already seen."

"Am I?"

Wencit smiled oddly, and then his hands moved. They sketched an immaterial square in the air, about chest height, four feet or so across, and two or three tall. Houghton frowned and started to open his mouth to ask him what he thought he was doing, but then the air in the square Wencit's hands had defined seemed to ripple abruptly.

The Marine's mouth snapped shut again as the ripple effect cleared as suddenly as it had appeared. In its place were images-sharp, as crystal-clear as any video screen or television Houghton had ever seen. And, as he saw them, Houghton felt a sudden, total confidence that what he was seeing was an actual, faithful record of what had truly happened.

It was one of the most horrific things he had ever seen.

Kenneth Houghton had seen men, women, and children mangled and mutilated by "improvised explosive devices," by mortar and rocket fire, by artillery shells, bombs, machine-gun fire, and small arms. He'd seen the horror napalm left behind, the indescribable burns of white phosphorus. Yet this . . .

He stared at Wencit's images and saw brutal combat with swords, axes, pikes and halberds-the sheer, personal butchery of edged steel cleaving flesh, close enough for an enemy's blood to spray into a man's face and eyes. He saw arrow storms, and thundering cavalry. He saw fountains of flame he somehow knew were born of the same sort of "sorcery" which had brought him to this world, this place.