They came down like comets, crossing forty kilometers in under three minutes. The magnetic catapults were expensive and rare pieces of equipment, mostly because of how few soldiers they could deliver at once and because they left the crawler’s main shields depowered for a good two solid minutes afterwards. But with Ravager back there and with three Warlords and one Sword Saint involved in the mission, the risk was almost nonexistent.
Five spheres of steel crashed at the edge of the settlement’s walls, collapsing them beneath their weight. Not a single raider was on the wall, not a scout party, nothing. Before the rain of rubble and dust could settle, the spheres started collecting the video feed, recording, and mapping the region, taking track of any and all present.
Most of the buildings inside were made of stone, with a single bunker meant to house the population in times of crisis, located in the middle of the settlement. Each sentry tower keeping watch over the place was equipped with 160mm mortars, and the regulars keeping peace in the place had a standard-issued automatic exoskeleton type of armor, one that enhanced its wielders’ physical strength by five times, provided that the wielder is a non-new breed, along with providing moderate protection from explosives and gunfire.
And they lay dead now, their bodies hewn as their murderers stripped them off the remains of their armor; fist-sized holes marked their remains. The towers collapsed; two bore marks of the artillery fire, with fire still raging in their ruins, and two seemingly simply toppled to the side. Buildings within the settlement had been rummaged, with everything of value being dragged to the center.
While they were falling, the spheres had located the attackers, tall and muscular raiders clad in mish-mash-looking power armor. Not a single suit of their armor was the same; some sleeves of their arms had paper-thin steel protection with energy wires running over them, while others were oversized gauntlets of steel. Some of the attackers’ helmets had visors, and the others used ocular lenses, not unlike the Wolf Tribe. All of them wore strange, rectangular-shaped two-handers and carried massive assault weaponry in their arms. Pieces of yellow jewelry hanged from their necks and arms like bone talismans, and plates of their armor were decorated with cheap minerals and yellow paint. Tonight’s prey.
The cameras kept on locating and mapping the routes across the ruined settlement, relying on newly made maps on the HUDs along with pictures of fuming smoke coming from the ruins. The foes were not planning to stay in this place, this much Janine was certain.
But most importantly, the cameras located the civilians. The living ones were gathered like cattle in the main square, herding them into large cages. Massive armored trucks stood nearby, ready to carry their horrible cargo to faraway lands. A few civilians were hanged from the building; their eyes and mouths were filled with molten metal, and skin was torn off their legs and arms. Infants and cubs younger than three years old were culled down and thrown carelessly on the street, along with the elderly, infirm, meek, and those who tried to resist. Even now, the attackers have carried on their horrid deed, dragging a maddened mother from one of the houses and throwing her child on the ground. The mother tried to jump in front of her cub, but the raider had already lifted his weapon…
“Those who can’t protect themselves, we shall preserve,” Janine spoke, sending a command that tore the sphere aside. She stood up from the wreckage, took aim, and fired the energy weapon.
The raider received a glancing hit with a laser beam that melted the side of his helmet and evaporated the brain within. Two more turned just in time to receive shots from the shardguns. Camelia and Anji fired almost in unison; the shards threw the enemies back but failed to pierce their unusual power armor. It mattered little as the rest of the pack joined in, unleashing a hail of armor-piercing shards at their foes, cracking their armor and leaving just bloody flesh rags to fall on the ground.
Janine’s eyes flashed, receiving new information that the spheres’ cameras had collected during the fall. A group of people grouped together, tied up, and threw a burning wooden construction at the north of the city.
“Camelia, you lead Ignacy, Anji, and these three are to rescue our people from fire. No mercy,” Janine quickly said, quickly assigning two males from Dragena’s pack and one scout from Alpha’s pack to the Sword Saint. “The rest is after me. And when the horn sounds, we shall charge forth to protect the lands of our nation,” Janine intoned the second part of the Savage Promise, an oath that Wolfkins has taken upon joining a military pack.
This close to the Core Lands, the land was no longer lifeless or barren. Here and there, a tree or patch of grass was visible, and the air itself felt cooler and humid. Unlike further to the north, the buildings here were not fortresses meant to house several families at once, with some villagers constantly on the alert, gun in hand. No, these were apartment buildings; people here had long since forgotten the dangers of being oppressed, beaten, and enslaved. Fear and scars of the past were healed; cubs’ drawings marked the walls; pots with plants stood on windowsills; stands with announcements and advertisements stood on the street, along with a few civilian cars….
And all of this was now turned around, on fire, and ravaged, with everything of value being taken apart. Peace destroyed. Cubs slaughtered.
They didn’t howl. Not this time. A howl is meant to demoralize and scare the enemies into surrender. As they charged across the bloodied pavement, the Wolfkins had only one desire burning in their hearts.
“Those who threaten the peace of our lands, we shall destroy!” The other Wolfkins, excluding Camelia, echoed Janine’s voice as she repeated the last clause of the oath. They sniffed the air, black, spotted, and white, united in this moment of pain. Smells of released bowels, blood, and smoke filled their nostrils. Along with a smell of fear, indicating the location of the survivors and allowing Janine to get a better picture.
Civilians, people who provided the Wolfkins with medicine, armor, and supplies, people whose ancestors had saved the Wolf Tribe and who had every right to expect to be protected, now lay dead or were captured. The loss of family members and friends in a war was understandable and, in many ways, forgivable. But this? This horrible failure demanded not revenge, no. But an efficient and merciless retribution, leaving not even a trace of life from the scum who did it on this earth!
The pack charged forth toward the main square, slaughtering any marauders in the houses and rescuing the civilians. Janine and the Warlords were too big to enter houses without ruining them, but the males and warriors took care of cleaning the small fry. To Janine’s surprise, the raiders neither tried to run nor made the mistake of engaging them in the open. All of them started to retreat back to the square, firing at the incoming Wolfkins and denying them an opportunity for close quarters. Janine saw how bullets left cracks in a male’s armor. The warlord leaped forward, closing the ten steps between herself and the retreating fools, and brought her axe horizontally.
She sliced through the man’s arm and torso; the blade came under his armpit and sent another raider flying into a nearby home, spearing the wall with his body. Two more raiders turned their guns on her, and her axe became a blur, bisecting them into four pieces and splashing blood across the concrete. Janine’s eyes narrowed, seeing how the raider whom she threw aside had tried to stand up, apparently unharmed by the impact behind her blow, but a screaming sound had quickly distracted her.
“An artillery shell! South!” Janine lifted her energy weapon, trying to pin-point the projectile before it could land.
Eled moved before her, casting her scythe in the air, where it met the incoming shell head-on and sliced it in two. The Warlord jumped after her weapon, grabbing the shaft, and came down, slicing through the raider’s legs as the woman tried to retreat. The raider fell to the side, letting go of her weapon. If she tried to surrender or was simply in pain, it was irrelevant. A boot came down, crushing both the helmet and the head within.
“Eled! Converge upon the artillery piece and eliminate it before they can fire again. Take four soldiers with you…” Janine started to talk when she heard squealing behind herself.
A male from her pack had lost himself in rage. Seeing the ruins and dead bodies, he came upon the raider in the ruined house with the intent of wrestling his head off. The man grasped the Wolfkin by the paw, shattering it, and buried his sword in the male’s shoulder. Seemingly without struggle, the raider has twisted the blade, prying the edges of the ruined armor aside and widening the wound enough to tear the lung aside and push broken bones far enough to pierce the heart. An icon went dark on Janine’s HUD. Even with the aid of power armor, it should be impossible for a normal human to do this.
“The enemies have new breeds among their ranks!” Janine said, seeing how the raider charged at the next Wolfkin.
“Do you need assistance, Janine?” Ravager’s voice asked over the communication, and the Warlord thought for a second before rushing to help her soldier.
The foe was bringing down the oversized sword at the male near Janine, exposing himself for the axe strike. All traditions have demanded that she have let the soldier die and cleaved through the retreated raiders, not giving them a chance to fire at her. Instead, she blocked with her elbow, taking the brunt of the hit with casual ease and allowing the male to leave the bastard before him with a hole in his chest.
“Such a soft girl,” Ravager laughed, looking through the cameras.
Should Ravager come here, all resistance will be done in a flash. Even through her laughter, Janine could feel the boiling fury behind the Blessed Mother’s words. If she walks, she will leave ruins in her wake, quickly losing herself to the bloodlust. And who’s to say that she won’t turn her ire upon the civilians?
“Grenades,” Janine commanded, seeing the raiders before her trying to form a defensive line. The enemies spread out; five of them leaped forward, trying to buy time for their comrades behind them. It was in vain; Predaig and Janine hadn’t had any inclination to play around. Their blades sliced through bodies, leaving only ruined meat in their wake. “I am sorry, Blessed Mother. The field of battle does not have a prey worthy of your presence.”
The raiders behind had managed to form a crude firing line, falling on one knee and allowing their comrades on the square to fire above their heads. The Wolfkins cast their grenades, darting to the sides the moment the front line became engulfed in acid. The Wolfkins climbed on the buildings, coming at the foes from the north-west and south-west, while Janine and Predaig pushed from the west, advancing imperviously in their power armor. Janine once again used her laser rifle, melting a hole in one of the raiders.
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Through the cameras in her armor, Janine saw how Camelia came upon the foes in the north. Locked in the unusual suit, Camelia advanced with her calm grace, calmly striking aside the hail of bullets coming at her. Shaman’s armor, while sturdy, was in no way a match for either warlord-class armor or the exquisitely made armor mandated for the Sword Saints. Yet not a single scratch had appeared on Camelia’s plate. A mere thrust of her spear sent ahead a shockwave that threw several raiders off their feet, opening them for Ignacy and the others to finish up. Faced with impending doom, one of the attackers threw an incendiary grenade below the wooden cage where the prisoners were kept.
“Anji.” Camelia said calmly, crossing the distance between herself and the raiders in three zig-zag steps.
“One!” Anji laughed, racing past a raider. With one paw, she put her shardgun behind her back, and the other paw tore the man’s throat out. “Two.” Leaping forward, she spun in the air, landing her leg on the second goon. Her hindfoot bulged its way through the fool’s head, stopping only in his belly area. “And three.” With her claws, she has reached out to the one who threw the grenade. The first strike opened the woman’s belly. The follow-up strikes sliced away her arms at the shoulder. With the next, Anji tore open the visor, plucking a grenade from the woman’s own belt and showering it between the woman’s screaming lips, making her narrowed eyes try to widen in shock.
The first grenade exploded, setting the structure, soaked in flammable substances, on fire. The civilians within screamed, pushing a few cubs among them into the center, desperately trying to figure out a way to get out of this flame hell. Anji crashed through the flame; her claws made a perfect circle, slicing a round hole around the hostages and preventing the flames from reaching them. A few flaming pieces of rubble fell from the ceiling, only to be sent away by effortless kicks when Anji jumped over the crowd of people. She landed, spreading her arms, just as the gurgling raider behind her exploded.
“And done.” Janine could’ve sworn that the Wolf Hag was smiling within her helmet and took note of this. Onyxia chose well. In a few years, Anji would make a fine Warlord.
“Attend to your duty more seriously!” Impatient One snapped over communications, landing before a warrior and beating a grenade back at the attackers.
“Ah, Shaman, should I hold back the theatrics, I would have to let out my tears,” Anji whispered, leading people out of the flaming hell. “Pardon me this weakness. I will accept any punishment after the mission.”
“Is this your first time protecting a settlement?” Impatient One asked and opened a burning raider like a tin can, feasting on the insides of the screaming man. Janine made no move to chastise her.
“Being too late to save the civilians? Yes,” Anji quietly replied.
“Pardoned. Concentrate on keeping everyone safe,” Janine said, bringing her axe down and taking another life.
Eled and her group had reached the wall and located the artillery unit, a strange-looking, lightly armored hovering vehicle positioned outside of the settlement. Guarded by the five raiders, the vehicle tried its best to move away from the settlement, pointing its main weapon at the Warlord. Eled never gave it a chance to fire, casting her own weapon at the enemy. The scythe’s blade has sliced through the long-barreled weapon, going all the way to the vehicle’s rear and claiming the driver’s life. Eled jumped off the settlement’s wall and jogged to retrieve her weapon, whistling a tune and allowing her soldiers to deal with the remaining foes.
Janine has left her troops on the square, smashing through the resistance and sowing death in her wake. It mattered not to her if some of the raiders had survived the initial slash of her blade. They died either way beneath her armored greaves or were shot down like rabid animals by the rest of the pack. One raider extended a hand toward the advancing Wolfkins, gurgling something about ‘surrender’. A single shot against the head threw the man back at the pavement when he kept on screaming about surrender. The male who shot him came closer, unloading two more shots from point-blank range before the helmet finally gave in.
Surrender. Ain’t no one had time for that. Janine grimly decided, noticing how three raiders darted toward the civilians. They shouted in low guttural voices something. Janine’s ears picked up only the words “stop” and “shoot”, the rest sounded like gibberish. The implied threat was enough to spur Janine into action.
Her legs were always too short. She never denied this fact. Oh, sure, she could kick just fine, but back when she was a cub, a simple act of running caused immense pain in her back and knees. Almost as if something was obstructing her movement. Terrific saw something in her, first dragging her to the medics, then, without explaining anything, forcing young Janine to run and run for long miles while carrying heavy chunks of metal, always keeping pace behind. Each time Janine tried to slow down, Terrific’s fingers would leave a bulge in her back, and the pain would send her flying like an arrow. After this, Terrific would lead Janine back to the medics, forbidding her to talk about the training and forcing the young cub to endure injections of something that had sent her whole back and knees on fire.
These trainings lasted for months, with the pain never subsiding. In her moment of weakness, Janine stood up to Terrific, demanding to be culled or thrown away—anything to stop this misery, to stop having training while the other members of her pack were having a rest.
“No,” Terrific whispered to her, leaning forward and leaving scars along Janine’s back with her claws. “You won’t get away this easily, little one. Are they giving you tro… No.” The realization hit the amber eyes. “You think you are the one holding them back? Fail me, and I will pick one of them at random and skin him or her alive. Their safety is now in your paws, Janine,” the cruel jaws whispered to Janine’s ears. “They live for as long as you persevere.”
For two years, Janine endured it, fighting wordlessly against any insectoid foe, doing any and all training assigned to her, never once sharing her fears with the pack or shamans, too afraid about what Terrific might do to others. And then it happened. Something snapped in her swollen back and knees. She could walk and jump freely; no longer could pain restrain her movements or hinder her in any way. And Janine has learned how to fly, hearing Terrific’s genuinely happy laugh for the first time in her race when she managed to outrace the walking Warlord. Janine was taken to the medics one last time, who shouted at the Warlord for something about risking crippling Janine.
The ground beneath the Warlord exploded; stone shattered as she sent herself above the remaining raiders, covering up fifteen steps in one blindingly fast jump. Her eyes locked on the raider’s hand, noticing a finger that was about to pull the trigger. She landed just in time when the first bullet was about to leave the barrel. The Taleteller’s blade blocked the shot before tearing away the weapon. Predaig charged soon after, leaving just two headless torsos standing with a single swing of her blade.
Janine ignored this, grabbing the last raider by the head and tearing off the visor. Beneath was a female face with narrowed eyes, lightly tanned. The woman nervously looked at the massive Wolfkin, trying in vain to pry open Janine’s big finger and even kicking the Warlord in the chest.
“A chance to live,” Janine told her. “Where is your leader?”
“Fool,” the woman spat out, mangling each word crudely. “Hate rises. Fool. No survivors. Riders. You fall.”
She barely knows any Common. Janine tilted her head, more curious than angry. Of course, she knew of various languages and dialects all around the world. Common, the name given to the language in this part of the world, was used in these regions, but many people coming from half a continent away had their own, often melodic and nice-sounding speeches. Janine tried to learn a few other languages, but ended up being too dumb for them. Doesn’t matter, the Investigation Burea…
“You are here!” A woman rushed from the ruins, dressed only in an oversized military coat that was too big for her. A large bruise decorated her chin, along with an ugly cut that split her left eye in two, leaving blood flowing down her face. The store’s owner’s daughter.
“Please take care not to overextend yourself. Your wound is not a mortal one, yet there is no reason for risk.” Janine shifted her bulk, blocking an incoming shot aimed at the girl. “The area will be secured in under ten minutes.”
“It doesn’t matter! I overheard them! Their boss is coming! The screamers are coming!”
An ear-piercing sound screamed across the square. A male, too concentrated on finishing up the lying foes, lost his arm when something fast speeded past him. He looked at the stump, biting his lips and sealing the helmet, before turning around and receiving two slices across his body. One hit at the gorget of his armor, breaking through the steel and the rubber protection of his neck. The second took away his other paw at the wrist, leaving a headless body to topple face down on the stone.
The attackers raced forward, people dressed in yellow and red power armor sitting on the steel beasts of metal that hovered above the ground. Across the hoverbikes’ edges ran sharp-looking blades; the machines themselves left a screaming sound in their wake, causing the civilians to scream in panic and close their ears.
So, these must be the screamers. Janine thought, commanding her soldiers to take to the roof. A bike moved to mow her down, and the warlord stepped aside, putting the struggling woman in her place. The raider came apart in a shower of blood and gore, leaving the rider entangled in guts. At the last possible moment, the rider pointed a yellow rifle at Janine, and a purple flash made the warlord stumble back. A fist-sized hole appeared in her pauldron.
“High-powered pulse weapons! Take care!” Janine roared. The bike turned around, once again aiming to ram her.
With the civilians behind her, Janine let go of all worries. Her life? Not important. But she’ll be damned if she lets even a single civilian lose their life this night. She charged forward, taking a shot on the blade of her axe and feeling how the bike’s sharp blades broke against the side of her armor. The impact behind the blow was strong enough to send the bike wheeling away, leaving Janine herself unmoved. Without turning, Janine aimed her laser rifle and speared the driver in the back, leaving him toppling from the saddle and the bike itself falling near the square edge.
We will secure the vehicle after the battle. Janine turned to face the three remaining bikes when the life sign of a scout from Dragena’s pack went dark. A heartbeat vanished in the air, and her body toppled from the edge of the building, falling on the street below. Still-working cameras showed Janine a shadow of something four-legged skittering away into the ruined building. The Wolfkin’s back was opened by something sharp that cut through the armor like a knife through butter, severing both the spine column and popping out the heart.
“Unknown foe, melee attacker! Abandon the hunt; watch over each other’s backs! Warlords will mop up the rest! Eled, get your pack back here quickly; we need help to protect the civilians.” Through Ignacy’s lenses, she saw the ground shake and roared the warning. “Camelia’s pack! South!”
Something huge crashed through the building next to Camelia, forcing the Sword Saint to dance aside, leaving the foes before her alive. A four-legged beast came forward, covered in armored scales, with heavy metal plates mixed with gold embroidery crudely encasing the beast like a second skin. Shards fired by a nearby male pierced the outer steel but ricocheted away from the hardened skin within. With a roar of hate, the beast locked its sunken, beady eyes on the attacker and galloped forward, bringing its enormous weight upon the soldiers.
Ignacy released a stream of fire from his palm, causing the creature to roar in pain when the flames cooked one of its eyes. The beast stood up on its hind legs in agony, evading the fire and leaving the splashed Wolfkin on the ground, blood pouring from numerous cracks in his armor. Spine, leg, right lung, both arms—everything was turned into a mix of bone dust and ruptured organs, but the soldier was still alive.
Not waiting for a moment, Ignacy rushed in, grabbing the ruined soldier’s form, and in this moment the beast brought down its legs, filling Janine’s heart with dread and making her miss a shot that left a crack against her knee. My boy. Spirits, please, take my life; let him live!
The spear’s blade stopped the beast mid-fall by taking on one of its legs. Camelia Wintersong stepped forward, saying nothing to Ignacy and holding the beast that dwarfed her several times with just one paw. In another paw, she held the shardgun. A figure appeared on top of the beast’s head—another raider in power armor of a gray color. The man aimed his rifle at Camelia, only to receive two shards through his lenses and fall. With a flick of her paw, Camelia sent the beast falling onto the buildings behind it. The cataclysmic fall left two houses reduced to nothing more than rubble and sent a net of cracks across the ground.
With a grunt, the beast lifted itself, releasing a low growl as it looked hungrily at the Sword Saint. Stubbornly, it turned around, smashing another house with a short and thick tail and pressing its head almost to the ground in preparation to charge. And with Anji and the people behind her, Camelia had no choice but to meet the charge head.
And another hoverbike showed up at the turn down the street, preparing to strike at Ignacy and the others.