"Sir, greetings, sir!" Aranea saluted the static-filled screen.
"At ease, dearest cousin," The person on the other end spoke with a calm and assured manner, "To finally meet with our lost lamb, even under such circumstances… "I wish I'd been faster back then."
"I am sorry, sir, but do I know you?" Aranea frowned, refusing to drop her official posture, putting both paws behind her back and holding her head high in a gesture of respect.
Alpha summoned her today, ordering Aranea to visit the communication center and receive a call from the Core Lands. The Ice Fang order called the Wolf Tribe, wishing to speak with Janine’s successor in person. Trembling and twitching at the thought that it may be Camelia, Aranea stubbornly forced herself to go and receive the call. Thankfully, because of some communication glitches, she could not see the speaker, but the ice fang could see her.
"You may call me… Soros," The wolfkin on the other side spoke in a melodic voice. "I was among the entourage that arrived upon receiving the call from sword saint Osiris, back when the traitorous Tilden nearly killed you and your mother."
"With all due respect, sir, it wasn't just Tilden," Aranea spat out, unconcerned about what her interlocutor thought of her, "The elders of the Ice Fang order also sentenced me and my mother to the… to the…"
Why can't I just say it?
"A fair notion," The other wolfkin agreed instantly, "Although you would be wise to never interrupt me again, dearest niece. Partially, you are the ice fang, and perfection in everything is our ideal. Actions. Minds. Body. And words, of course. I understand that the savage nature of our cousins tainted you somewhat…"
"Insult my tribe again, and I will cut communications," Aranea said, trying to maintain a level tone.
"What a problem child," Soros sighed, "We will work on your behavior once you come back. To the point, then. The body of warlord Janine has been delivered to us. How should we bury her? What sort of rituals should we perform to honor her spirit?"
"No rituals are required, sir," Aranea bowed to the speaker, thanking him for the care. "Janine wanted to leave the tribe."
In truth, Aranea was initially against allowing Janine’s body to be left in the care of their cousins. She even wrote the official complaint to the shamans, Ivar, Scorpio, and the Wyrm Lord himself, complaining that Alpha overruled everyone, not allowing even Janine’s pack to say their goodbyes.
Shortly after Aranea’s official promotion, Alpha gave her Janine’s personal letters and the written last wish, spitting in Aranea’s face for bothering her with paperwork. Janine wanted to leave the ravaged lands and wastelands and explore the world, to see the changes brought about by the Reclamation Army. Janine requested that she be buried in Houstad, on the island of peace and prosperity that she had helped to protect.
"The warlord was inspired by Houtstad’s volunteers during the war against the Gilded Horde. They were ordinary women and men who fought alongside Janine on the defensive line against Brood Lord. Never once did they show fear, never once did they allow the foes to push them back, in spite of overwhelming odds, they kept their positions. The whole Wolf Tribe knows and remembers their sacrifice. Warlord… Janine requested to be buried alongside them, without honors, as a fellow soldier.” Aranea told the speaker.
The man’s response was deafened by the sound of a roaring siren. Aranea quickly saluted Soros and turned around, storming away from the building onto the streets. Ignoring the chaos on the streets, the warlord heard sounds of roaring guns at the walls, joined by the defensive turrets that were busy shooting down something in the clouds above the walls. Soldiers of the military police were doing their best, trying to guide everyone to safety bunkers.
A moment later, she saw the answer. Missiles came raining down from the clouds, exploding upon contact with shells and beams released by anti-air defensive installations. A lone missile slipped through the defensive net, flying above the streets, only to be cut down by a white beam of energy.
The crowd of people beneath screamed in panic when the shockwave exploded several recently restored windows above them. Several overheated metal pieces of rubble fell through the cloud of smoke above the street. Without thinking, Aranea jumped up, kicking at the largest piece of metal that threatened to fall on the family beneath. Feeling how her booth and the flesh beneath it were scorched by the heat, Aranea gritted her fangs, stubbornly refusing to give in and deflecting the metal aside.
She landed on one leg, nodding to a member of the military police that she was ok, and briefly checked her left leg to see how bad the burn was. I’ll live. She made the decision after noticing red meat on her foot.
"Aranea!" Olesya charged across the street to her fellow warlord, clad in her heavy Shell. "Gear up; we are under attack,"
****
By the time Aranea and her pack reached the inner wall, the assault had already begun. The soultakers came, and they were throwing everything they had into this one last mad charge of theirs. Moving under the protection of their shield carriers, the enemy soldiers reached the still damaged outer walls, forcing a close fight with the defenders.
The hover tanks charged right behind them, joining their weapons to the thunderous assault, firing shell after shell at the defenders from close range, paying little care about preserving the lives of their comrades. The Soultakers' army charged on, whipped into an unusual frenzy, charging at the foes with determination to take them down here and now. Their soldiers showed no fear upon facing wolfkins, gunning them down everywhere they met them, ignoring their own losses, and moving on.
And behind them, new reinforcements were coming, and the enemy’s artillery was filling the skies with shells and missiles, creating flowers made of fire across walls, unleashing such an amount of ordinance that it easily punched through the recently restored shield.
Jekaterina was among them, leading from the front. Dressed in civilian clothes rather than in her power armor, Soultaker was madly laughing, clutching one arm to her body, and swinging madly with her scythe. Her elegance and composure, along with the proud desire to never get hit that she displayed in her battle with Janine, were gone, leaving just mad bloodthirst in their place. A trail of dead defenders, new breeds, wolfkins, and normies was left in her wake, the enemy leader simply butchered her way through the defensive lines.
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The wounds on her body regrew in an instant. Aranea saw how one of the shots took away the upper part of the woman’s head, only for it to restore itself in an instant. Five tanks locked onto the woman, firing at once and exploding her upper torso. Before the dust settled, a new arm grabbed the Reaper of Lies, and Jekaterina leaped forward, regrowing her skin around the same time as her blade sliced through the tank.
Someone else followed in her wake. A hundred bulky forms. The new and strange creatures had rather short and sturdy legs that trembled with each step, as if beings had trouble carrying their own weight. Their arms reached all the way to their knees, their shoulders were twice as wide as their waists. The beings were covered by the black armor plates that grew directly from their skin, their beady eyes were set deep, no doubt giving them trouble looking around.
The newcomers used no weapons. Aranea observed one of them charging at a wolfkin from the Ashbringer pack, raising his hands to protect himself from shards that became lodged in his armored plates. The warrior cursed, diving to the side to evade a punch that collapsed a wall behind her. The soldier pressed the shardgun’s barrel against the enemy’s stomach, firing once. The strange mutant gurgled once, spewing out blood, and kept his footing, swinging his right arm and forcing the warrior to dodge again. The wolfkin struck with her claws, aiming at his neck. Her claws only went half-way, stopping dead in the thick biological plate that protected the being’s neck. Grabbing her foe by the head with both arms, the mutant crumbled the wolfkin’s head, allowing the dead body to fall. Ignoring the wounds in his belly, it moved on to the next opponent.
Another mutant splattered a male wolfkin against the wall with a single backhand, pushing the soldier’s armor deep within his chest. Aranea's rage rose as she saw the foe turn his back on the desperately gasping soldier; the initial attack had been fatal enough to burst both lungs, and now this scum was simply leaving him to die slowly. She took aim with the shardgun, aiming to at least end the male’s suffering.
A giant wolf hag jumped from the top of the wall, landing behind the mutant. She grabbed the foe by the back of his head, spearing him with a blow that shattered one of the plates on his back. The mutant jerked, trying to break free, but the woman wasn’t done with him yet. She grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled the creature back, snapping his back, before grabbing the neck and twitching it aside.
Holy shit, Ashbringer has a monster of her own among her ranks. Aranea thought with respect, seeing how the woman turned around. The wolf hag grabbed the male and tore away his helmet before biting at his head.
All respect in Aranea changed to disgust in an instant. Cannibal. The wolf hag’s jaws closed on the soldier’s upper head. His death was horrible, disgusting, but at the very least it was instant. Wiping away a red, pinkish, and grayish substance off her lips, the wolf hag roared her rage to the skies, summoning her pack to exact revenge for their dead, leading the wolfkins against fifty mutants who turned to face them. The wolf hags and scouts of the Ashbringer pack joined her charge, leaving males and warriors to support them from behind.
The giant wolf hag fought another mutant with her fists rather than claws or weapons. She kicked the foe in the belly, grabbed the mutant by his left arm, and shattered it, forcing the mutant into a leaning forward position. Immediately after, her jaws closed on the creature’s neck, almost tearing away his head.
Two more mutants came at her. Instead of attacking right away, one of the mutants stepped into another. Aranea could not think of a better word. Their flesh flowed into one another, and one being grafted itself onto another. The mutant’s muscles enlarged, his biological plates grew even thicker, creating the two-headed horror that stood far bigger than the wolf hag.
The wolf hag sidestepped the massive arm that propelled the air behind her with such force that it threw one of the male wolfkins off his feet. Undaunted, the wolf hag encircled the exposed hand and attempted to break it. Aranea could’ve sworn that she saw the confusion on the woman’s lips at the futility of her attempts. The mutant snatched the wolf hag between her legs, launching her into the air and slamming the wolfkin into the ground with enough force to leave a crater in the concrete.
The wolf hag wasn’t done. She thrust her right paw forward, burying the claws into the mutant’s eyes, blinding one of the creature’s heads. The mutant growled slightly, wrapping his hands around her neck.
No. Aranea took aim with the railgun and fired, timing her shot for the moment when no ally was near the combatants. A hole appeared in the place where the creature’s necks and heads were just a moment ago, allowing the wolf hag to push aside the deceased body. The woman jumped on her feet, taking a plasma launcher thrown to her by one of the males. The next mutant that tried to approach her gained a hole in his chest.
"Aranea!" Leila’s tail wrapped around the warlord’s torso, jerking her off her feet.
Something past the space where Aranea’s head was. Two more shots came, downing the wolfkins by Aranea’s side. She saw how one of them died, a strange acid appeared on the woman’s power armor, melting its way through her gorget and allowing the woman’s head to fall on the ground.
Leila took aim and fired her laser rifle. The crimson beam hit a strange creature standing on the outer wall. It looked like a normal human, only with chitin instead of skin. A gigantic biological rifle replaced the being’s right arm, the scope was merged with the right eye. Leila's shot melted through the scope and the brains behind it, allowing the creature to land face down on dead bodies.
"Bitch," Leila cursed, seeing the deaths of her allies, "This is their own city! Why in the abyss are they shelling it!?
"Doesn’t matter. Slaughter them!" Aranea stood up and fired her rail gun at one of the enemy's tanks.
"What is the meaning of this Ivar?" Aranea heard Scorpio’s question over the secure channel, "Why are the enemies attacking us?"
"Because they want to get this place back and our recon teams failed to announce their advance, fool," Ivar snapped back, sounding more annoyed than usual. "No matter. It plays into our hand."
"Plays into our hand?" Scorpio roared, appearing above Aranea, wreathed in lightning. At his gesture, arcs of energy struck at the distant enemy tank, exploding it. "The state’s soldiers die, the enemy’s capital is lit aflame, and you dare to…"
"War casualties," Ivar said coldly, "Notice the attack pattern, captain. The enemy pushes from only one side, outnumbered and outmatched. Already our forces are moving to reinforce the assaulted section of the wall, and soon enough the foes will be cut off. Once our crawlers retreat to the safe position, they will rain fury on the enemy’s artillery, ending all threats and Soultakers along with them. Victory is in our grasp, captain."
A new group of mutants emerged from the wall's breach, carrying a metallic cylinder on their shoulders. Without stopping once, they charged to follow after the half-naked Jekaterina, who was busy taking away the third tank. Behind them came two more gigantic beings.
Standing on four legs, covered by bone scales that looked more like armored plates. Each creature had a long tail with a sharp bone blade running across its entire length. Bone axes served as hands for these giants. Seeing the two remaining tanks in their paths, the mutants gave out a roar of anger, charging at the armored vehicles.
"It looks exactly like the one we fought in the Arena." Annie said calmly, leading her pack from the underground passage to retake the outer wall.
"Yep! Time for payback!" Virginia howled happily, rushing forward and igniting her axe.
The warlord and wolf hag gave orders for their packs to assist their allies instead of charging at the two massive mutants. Alpha landed between two towering mutants, digging her claws into their sides before either of them could even attack their target. The bone plates exploded with a shower of shards that rang against Alpha’s armor, giving her no apparent discomfort.
Two energy guns that were installed over Alpha’s armored wrists spat out beams. The mutants shuddered, trying to swing their blades at Alpha, before falling face down onto the ground with a sound of falling buildings. The warlord moved on, meeting the new mutants coming from the breech with the deadly swings of her claws.
"This was the creature that gave you trouble?" Alpha asked mockingly, "Annie, Virginia, you are pathetic. Redeem yourself by spilling the blood of your foes!"
"Yes!" Both wolfkins roared in response.