Aranea was on the walls before the first cannon fired. She saw them—an entire sea of creatures just outside the defensive perimeters—climbing from the ground, shaking off dust and stones from their bodies. Their hisses echoed off the walls like thunder, the disgusting sound emanating from countless throats.
How did they create so many?
"Activate the mines!" Aranea shouted over the communication, and in that moment, the bastions spoke.
Fort Uglo was a seat of the Wyrm Lord’s power in the Ravaged Lands. Prior to the war, the most elite forces of the Third Army were stationed here, waiting to be unleashed. These forces were in the open now, far to the north, but the mighty bastions, filled with countless artillery pieces and turret towers, along with laser installations, were here.
All of them opened fire at the same time, causing Aranea’s eardrums to start ringing despite her helmet. The wall shook as the projectile flew above the defensive bunkers and trenches in front of the fortress. Laser beams melt away whole swats of foes, followed by the artillery shells that split hundreds apart, throwing limbs and pieces of flesh up in the air.
The entire horizon has darkened, covered by the thick black clouds that merged with fiery explosions when the missiles and rockets flew into it, setting the very ground aflame and turning sand to glass. The ground shook again, and the living sea moved, charging with a mad, pointless rage at the defenders.
They barely made a dozen steps before the first mines exploded beneath their legs, hiding the attackers from Aranea’s sight anew. Their bodies cartwheeled into the air, spilling blood all over the black smoke and their fellows. Each step of their advance was accompanied by hundreds of dead or maimed bodies, leaving the wounded to try and climb after the attackers only to have their own heads crushed by the other still healthy greenies.
"Infantry battalions are to leave the forward trenches and retreat," Aranea observed calmly, relieved that no one had yet pulled a rank on her. There was no need for wanton glory here. "Regroup near the entry points at the main wall, the turrets will keep you safe. Entrenched units are to cover the infantry’s retreat and follow suit."
The foes must have lost thousands to the initial barrage and mines. And the scary thing is, they could afford to pay this horrible butcher bill. Thousands more poured from the canyons near the fortress, hundreds upon hundreds were rising from the horizon, burrowing from underneath the ground, just at the edge of the territory where the reinforced concrete was ending. Here, at Fort Uglo, the resistance had unleashed an army so numerous that it dwarfed every other resistance force seen so far.
And whoever was in control of this horde, he or she drove them into slaughter, to be burned alive before they could even reach the edge of the defensive shield. Aranea was sure of this.
"Operators! Send forth UAVs and cover the retreat of our troops." Aranea gave the command, still looking at the battlefield.
"At once, warlord!" Aranea narrowed her eyes, hearing Sly’s voice in her helmet. She had asked him to stay and guard the UAVs’ control center with Yuki, Lucendra, and a few of the newest recruits. There was no particular need for this, Fort Uglo had guards aplenty, but she still had memories of when Chort got a drop on them during a battle for Chokepoint A. What she didn’t ask him was to work in the damn center!
Soon enough, the shadow fell upon her as hundreds of small machines appeared, looking like an angry buzzing host of flies. They moved above the defensive lines, firing their anti-infantry machineguns or dropping the explosions into the advancing horde. The low-powered explosions halted the advancing legions for a brief moment, doing little to thin the seemingly never-ending horde. But it saved lives. Here and there, the soldiers were leaving the bunkers, out-speeding the creatures thanks to that momentary distraction.
"They are about to reach the eastern bunker," Olesya spoke with barely contained rage. Aranea looked in that direction and saw that not all soldiers had managed to retreat from the trenches to the safety of the deeper positions. The fifty soldiers inside the bunker had decided to stay back and cover their allies with the searing fire of their flamethrowers. "I am going out…"
"Stay where you are." Aranea told her.
She felt Olesya’s eyes on her. Each warlord took command over their own section of the wall, spreading their forces equally to support the regular troops if the foe, by some miracle, managed to come close enough. Olesya was about 200 meters away from Aranea, and one of her legs had already stepped to the edge of the wall, ready to jump down and rush to the allies.
"Aranea, they killed my troops," Olesya’s fists trembled with hatred, "Butchered them like cattle. I…"
"And how many more are you willing to lose here?" Aranea snapped back on the private channel, feeling herself like utter scum. Olesya froze in place, looking at the warlord in sheer disbelief. "If you advance, your soldiers will charge after you. The dead are in a better place now. Keep the living safe, Oles."
"I will not let our allies be torn apart…"
"Now, who said anything about that?" Aranea smiled and turned on the open channel. "Inspector Javenika, we need your aid."
The air trembled. The figure in lean power armor of a white color flew up, moved forward by the gravity that bent around her. Javenika has slowed down, bypassing the force shield. She stopped for the briefest moment, looking at the front lines dispassionately, surveying the situation.
Aranea felt a tingle of worry, seeing how the first greenies almost closed on the seemingly doomed bunker. All other forces had managed to retreat orderly to more secure positions, making everything safe for these soldiers, who were ready to give their lives for their comrades. The warlord aimed her rail gun, preparing to fire, and in that moment Javenika had made her move.
She cratered down like a comet at such speed that her entire body became a blurry line in Aranea's eyes. The greenies next to her were liquidating, and a whole new round sphere fifteen meters in diameter had appeared in the ground around her legs. The bastions’ weapons spoke once more, culling even more foes, while the flamethrowers’ fire that threatened to fall upon the inspector moved up in the air, following the changed laws of gravity. Javenika threw her arm up, and the entire bunker ended up being uprooted and lifted in the air along with her. A few greenies had tried to leap after the inspector or spit acid at her, only to be cut down by Olesya’s energy beam.
"Not half bad!" Olesya let out a laugh through pain, turning on the main channel, "Burn! Burn you fuckers!" Her energy cannon spat beam after beam, leaving only scorched remains in its wake. "You see that? Energy weapons rules!"
"Hah! Precision weapons are where the future lies!" Aranea laughed, immediately picking up on the game and firing her rail gun. A single shot had left no less than fifty greenies dead in its wake, the foes had advanced in such a tight position that it was nearly impossible to miss.
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Olesya kept on laughing, burning the foes away in the distance with the energy cannon. Aranea could hear the pain of loss in her voice, despite all her attempts to fake it. And fakery was needed for two reasons. First, this casual show of slaughter lifted the spirits of the defenders. And the second reason was less obvious.
The age of shardguns was slowly coming to an end. The times when the wolf tribe could strike hard and fast had ended, and modern times needed modern weapons, ones that could safely end a foe at a distance of several kilometers, preferably. Despite the obvious benefits of energy weapons, the warlords had to force volunteers to work with them.
Now they were giving an example to their troops, a show of force like no other. Leila, her pack, Aranea, and Olesya were the only ones out of all the wolfkins who could add their fury to the defensive fire. And if there was one thing the wolfkins despised, it was being left out of battle. Hundreds of eyes were looking at them and remembering these moments.
The greenies came to a shield, pushing through the trembling air to charge after the retreating soldiers. More and more explosions darkened the air behind them, turning the entire defensive line into a killing field. A few soldiers fell behind, finding themselves unable to keep up the pace with their retreating comrades. Aranea heard them, some spoke in resigned voices, others were scared to death, and a few were madly cheerful. But as one, all of them turned to the advancing sea of green that was about to consume them, firing at the foes rather than begging for mercy.
Javenika held the soldiers in the air and dropped the now empty bunker down on the greenies with enough force to make a whole slab of stone come upward, saving several soldiers. Aranea and Olesya joined as well, buying time for their allies. But the incoming wave was too great, too many creatures were advancing at once. The UAVs aided to the best of their abilities in the initial clash and now had to return to resupply. One group of soldiers found themselves without aid.
Annie looked up and stepped aside, dodging what looked like a bastard twin of the mechanical suit X-015 as it landed on the wall. The suit looked weird, it had an oval body, both legs were inverted and ended up with steel claws. One of its arms was missing, along with several metal plates, revealing countless moving mechanisms and moving servomuscle tracks below. With jerking motions and the sound of grinding gears, the suit stood up.
"I’m sorry, warlord!" Lucendra’s worried voice broke through the dynamics, and the suit stood on one knee. "Sly, you bastard, the damn machine is moving too fast! It’s hard to aim! I told you to calibrate the neural…" The warrior shouted in mild panic as two large metal cylinders moved up from the suit's back and over its shoulders. "Yes! I am pressing the…"
The rest of her words were deafened by the discharge of energy. Twin crimson beams spewed from the mounted weapons, burning their way through the air, dissolving the acid spits that threatened the allied soldiers and killing some of the advanced greenies, leaving only charred legs on the ground, swiped in the moments by the pursued creatures. The doomed soldiers let out a cheer, using this momentary respite to leg to safety.
"Yes!" Sly laughed over the communication, "It works! It lives! Behold the warform! The future mechanical suits of the Wolf Tribe! This unparallel and fully functional beauty is capable of outputting no less than…"
The suit stopped working with the sound of the engine shutting down.
"Fully functional, my ass! You jinxed it!" Lucendra cursed, "I am sorry for my language, warlord! Sly, the engine just died!"
"Dumbass, kick the generator!"
"How is that going to help, you buffoon?! I must…"
"Just do as I said, moron!"
Despite the ongoing attack, Annie has started laughing, soon joined by her pack. The laughter caused by the bickering of two wolfkins had spread across the walls, joined by normies and new breeds alike. Aranea could have sworn that even the inspector had chuckled in the skies above while carrying the bunker to the walls.
The horde advanced further, and Aranea saw an empty space to the north, way behind their lines. The greenies were finally ending before reaching the last lines of defense.
"My kin!" She roared to the skies, "The prey is in range! Fire at will!"
"Which one is Will?" Annie joked over the secure channel, aiming with two shardguns.
Classy. "Each of them! Kill them all, leave none standing!" Aranea roared, taking aim and firing.
And the shardguns spoke. Fired at the edge of their effective range, they collected their grievous tolls, slicing legs, tearing through muscle and sinews, and ending what passed for existence to these mass-produced monsters. Missiles and rockets flew above the battlefield, indicating that Sonya and Tiny joined their rage to the righteous fury. The largest missiles split above the battlefield, raining down in a deadly torrent of smaller missiles.
Aranea bit down on her cheers, noticing a flashing icon on her HUD. One of the soldiers just suffered a mortal wound.
"Command!" Aranea roared, looking back at the massive spire that was casting its shadow on the battlefield. "A patrol soldier just…" The updates were coming, showing that the entire patrol team within the shield generator was wiped out. "Enemies! Within the fortress! Sonya, you in charge! Packs L and K, after me!"
She leaped off the wall and used the twenty-meter-tall bastion as a springboard to rocket herself over the troops below. Her flight barely took a fraction of a minute, and after landing down in a shower of pieces of concrete all around her, Aranea charged upward, feverishly thinking.
The wall will hold. Even if the worst thing happens and the shield somehow falls, it will hold. There were far too many weapons and soldiers on it; even in the absence of a warlord, the defenders will turn greenies into paste rather than risk their lives in melee. That left her with a question for the enemy. What could they want? Saboteurs? Almost certainly, but why hit the shield station? With the shield offline, Fort Uglo still had all its communications and defenses, so nothing would prevent them from calling for help.
Speaking of. Aranea bit her tongue, calling captain Ivar. The bastard moved to the Wastes a week ago, but it should not take him that long to arrive for help. It irked her to beg this monster for help, but she will take no chances. Not anymore.
He didn’t answer her calls. Ivar’s chief of staff has reported that the blue wyrm was not his office in the capital.
"Command!" Aranea called and was answered by one of the officers inside the spire. "Captain Ivar is not answering my calls. Locate his whereabouts at once!"
The cameras within the shield station went offline, soon followed by the shouts of soldiers and the sound of gunfire. According to the reports, a several opponents, all in power armors, have engaged them in close combat. Through the video feed, Aranea saw a blindingly fast hit of blades that killed the soldiers. Whoever the foes were, they were moving too fast for the eyes of the defenders.
"Sly! The shield station cameras went off-line. Take Yuki and fix this at once."
"All cameras inside the fortress went off-line, warlord!" Sly breathed heavily, his voice accompanied by the sound of running, "We are currently trying to…"
"Duck!" Yuki shouted, and Aranea heard the sound of ringing metal.
The warlord switched the video feed and saw how the top of Sly’s helmet, along with some hair, was cut cleanly by a blade of an enemy that stepped from a turn in the corridor. The foe had a lean build, the power armor covered her like a second skin rather than a suit of metal. The blade got buried deep in the wall, and in this moment, Yuki was on her, kicking the strange woman all the way down the corridor and into the wall.
The woman splashed against the steel, leaving a footprint with her body. She slumped forward, almost as if she had lost her conscience. Instead of laying down, two more identical copies rose from the lying body that followed after them, leaving Yuki against three opponents.
"Great. More weaklings to knock around," Yuki’s helmet closed around her head, "Stand back and guard Sly, everyone, this fun is mine."
Aranea had to stop watching the video feed as she raced past the inner gates and saw her. Looking exactly the same as the ones who were facing Yuki right now. The woman, clad in green power armor with no rough curves, stood over the bodies of four guards, crossing the blades with the main spire behind her. The shadow cast by it left both Aranea and her opponent in the dark.
"Green." Aranea asked her, briefly looking at the bodies. Their icons flashed dark, and judging by the blood pouring from them… Dead. She looked aside, noticing a trail of dead bodies before and inside the shield station. Eighteen.
"A familiar squeak," The woman's arm moved in a blur, blocking a shot fired by one of the soldiers. "You are that…"
"Die." Aranea shot her in the face.