Chess -Illya had said to consider this challenge a large game of chess. How appropriate an analogy, to compare the meeting of two opposing forces to a game that had been crafted as a civilized representation of war....

...and, for once, how wrong.

Chess had codes of conduct, of starting with evenly balanced sides, of initially equal chances of triumph -chess had rules.

All of a sudden, there were no rules.

Netherworldly twilight deepened into the darkness of a void and the army of the Light was thrown to the dank ground at their feet as the land around them convulsed in agony, and the unnatural night was lit by the sanguine glow of a hundred luminous eyes. The army serving the Light were not the hunters any longer, they had been- "Herded!" Napoleon Solo hissed into the ear of the small blonde Russian at his side. "We've been herded!"

Illya Kuryakin nodded in grim agreement, silently wishing that he had more in his arsenal than the ceremonial silver dagger he held in his hand. "Da...herded. Since when has true evil abided by the rules of tradition?"

There was no time to answer  -the battle was joined.

A nightmare -that was the only way to describe it as an army several times their number descended upon the smaller group of warriors like an angry swarm of locusts. Ancient traditions of conduct and thoughts of a trial of faith to be completed flew out the proverbial window as the rule of the day became: kill or be killed. Survive.

A foul wetness splattered against the fabric of Napoleon's clothes as he again moved his knife in a sweeping arc -he had fought and killed  before as a soldier *and* an agent in service to UNCLE, but this...*this* boggled the seasoned warrior's mind. It was as though he and his new-found comrades had suddenly been plunged into a horror movie with the army of the Light fighting hordes of the undead...or whatever these cadaverous opponents were -and as he saw a man to whom he had spoken only minutes before fall, he realized that test of faith or no, the end result was permanent. Death here was very real.

Ice Prince -that was the nickname that Illya Kuryakin had earned at UNCLE for his seeming coldness, but now, *fire* not ice-water surged through his veins as another of the unnatural enemy fell, feeling the same berserker fury of warrior ancestors long past boil his blood, his dagger an extension of himself as he cut a swath through the fray. "Pierun!" Illya barely heard Sergei's bellow over the thunder in his ears. The older man pointed to a murky glow in the distance. "It is time! You must go! This battle is no longer yours!"

"Are you mad! I'll not just leave-" Just then, Illya felt a strong hand grip him by the arm. "Napoleon, what-"

"C'mon, `Pierun'!" the elder UNCLE agent snapped, insistently dragging his younger partner toward the glow which was becoming a painful glare. "I don't understand it either, but we have to go!"

The glare became blinding.

******************************

White light became tolerable, sterile...and somehow familiar.

As the confounding sparks before their eyes dimmed, Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin came to a shared conclusion -they were no longer where they had been. The murky netherworldly battlefield had been replaced by an antiseptically white room of pale tiles, fluorescent ceiling lights, stainless steel, circuitry, and softly humming computer terminals. Despite his disbelief, Solo recognized the Cyrillic script of his partner's native tongue on random panels and multiple keyboards. "Illya, are we..."

Kuryakin nodded slowly in intellectual wonder, for now the Ice Prince once again. "Da... I do not understand the *how* of it myself,but it must be so -we *are* at the rocket base!"

Solo glanced at his gore-stained watch. "Then the doomsday missiles must be here too. We don't have much time!"

"Actually, *Tovarisch*, you have NO time." The smoothly spoken words, said in precise, accented English, brought the two still-dazed UNCLE agents to the realization that here, as in the dark netherwoods, they were not alone...but this time, the enemy was entirely human. There were no less than a dozen men surrounding them now, armed with semi- automatic rifles, wearing familiar grey jumpsuits emblazoned with the equally familiar bird-logo of THRUSH.

From amongst the THRUSH contingent, one man, dressed entirely in black, wearing the crest of the armies serving the Darkness on a chain around his neck, stepped forward. His smile was carved out of ice. "Welcome, Napoleon Solo...and welcome, Illya Nickovetch Kuryakin...my dear cousin. I have been waiting for you."