The convoy arrived at Houstad at dawn, passing through the empty field. An abundant harvest, big enough to feed the Outer Lands for a whole year, ended up being reduced to dirt under mighty tracks. Some Wolfkins wept, witnessing perfectly good vegetables and cattle left behind. Their pleas to save something fell on deaf ears. Janine made her decision. Only human lives mattered. There will be no more slowing down.
Four massive defensive lines encircled the city, the very first located at the very city’s edge, protected by the defensive field. Normies of the Third weren’t lazing around; minefields were placed, sniper teams took positions in skyscrapers, anti-air installations, and artillery pieces littered both the walls and roofs in equal measure, ready to greet the Horde with a deadly rain.
Built in years past, great bastions now appeared from beneath the ground, forming a great wall around the city, leaving just a few entrances and several great bridges leading into the city itself. And each such entrance got filled with defensive bunkers, mixed battle units of the Provincial Army, and battle-hardened veterans of the Third. Tanks moved aside, allowing the mobile fortress to pass, before quickly returning to their positions.
And what a sight the defenders themselves were! The packs came back, kept in the rear for now. Mercenaries flooded from the regions, hastily signing contracts and eagerly awaiting a chance to settle their own scores with the Horde. Criminals, former members of the Assassin Guild, warlords, tyrants, and other defeated foes all came here, some scowling arrogantly, noticing a warlord who had defeated them before, and some gleefully smirking, barely able to contain a desire to be thrown into a slaughter.
Thousands upon thousands of the defenders. Janine felt genuine awe at witnessing such might. And aside from the Third and the Provincial Army, these were merely volunteers—valuable but insignificant number of what the state could call beneath its banners.
Bertruda and Martyshkina, who were both wearing full battle attire, flanked Janine, who was standing atop the mobile fortress wearing a leather jacket and long pants and carrying the Taleteller on her shoulder. Behind them stood the remaining shamans and several wolf hags. The only scout allowed on the platform was Kalaisa’s sister, who still oversaw Kalaisa’s pack despite the wolf hag already forcing her way to the warlords. Seeing the returning soldiers, the defenders let out a cheer, welcoming their people back.
She spotted Reaper, the former number one cleaner of the Assassin Guild. The man’s heavily augmented mechanical body has undergone great changes since Eled broke him down. Rather than looking like a rumbling engine with hulking pieces of metal grafted straight onto the bones, a silver skin covered him from head to toe, creating a stylized image of a muscular and skinned man with only a helmet to cover his head. A short blade rested in his sheath; on its belt, the man carried twin pistols, and his crimson visor looked at Janine’s face with an unblinking gaze. She had heard the man became a caravan guard after serving thirty years in a solitary cell in the Torment.
“Heeeey!” Martyshkina laughed boomingly, waving her paw like a girl at a massive Malformed on the side of the road. “Slaughterer! How’s life been treating ya, sweetie?!”
“Shut your mouth before I tear out your tongue!” The large Malformed roared, dancing nervously on seven elephantine legs.
Slaughterer was Martyshkina’s first mark as a warlord, a cruel and merciless tyrant who ruled his tribe with an iron fist. His crimson hide could withstand both bullets and explosives alike, twin appendages ending up with hooked blades served him for arms. The Malformed’s body looked weird: a giant head connected to seven legs and a single stump, and a short tail nervously swiped the ground. Fourteen eyes decorated the head, each pupil caught in a net of bloodied veins.
The battle between him and Martyshkina lasted for a good fourteen hours, leaving both fighters bloodied and nearly dead. But at the end of it, Marty was the one sitting on Slaughterer’s head and chewing on a torn leg, listening to his pleas for mercy.
“You will address the higher-ranking officer with respect!” An officer from the Third snapped at the Malformed.
“My apologies, ma’am!” Slaughterer pressed his arm to his head in a mocking salute. “Please shut your orifice; otherwise, I will be compelled to dine with your fleshy muscular organ, ma’am!”
“Oh, feeling feisty, aren’t we?!” Martyshkina teased him. “Don’t press a hand to an empty head, soldier!”
“Unconditionally so, Ma’am! Please test me again, and the result won’t be the same!” The Malformed tried his best to stand at attention.
“Save this energy for the Horde, and I just might give you a rematch after the battle!” The warlord raised her paw, earning a cheer from the defenders.
“It’s a deal, ma’am! Hundreds will perish beneath my blades in your name!” Slaughterer smirked bloodthirsty, licking his lips with a purple tongue. The officer near him kept on looking at the Malformed and the former tyrant sighed. “Enemies! I’ll kill only enemies of the state, sir!”
Reaper said nothing, but Janine could feel his utter disappointment at failing to spot Eled. He stepped back, bowing to the officer next to him and taking his place in the unit.
Houstad itself, this supermassive sprawling megapolis, teeming with life until recently, has become a tomb city. Gone were the cars off its streets; Dragena’s efficient command had seen most of the population evacuate, leaving just skeleton teams in the hospitals, keeping people in critical conditions alive. According to the information the warlord sent to them, the rest of the medics were moved to the safety of the underground emergency bunkers, filled to the brim with medical supplies and standing ready to accept the wounded.
Ygrite, wearing a large red coat over her armor, broke through the crowd and climbed onto the mobile fortress, quickly shaking hands with Marty and ignoring Bertruda. The warlord grasped Janine into a bear hug, and the woman felt fangs sticking out of Ygrite’s neck, scratching at her chest.
“I am so sorry for your loss, sister.” Ygrite lightly headbutted Janine, looking her in the eyes. “Don’t you dare to worry; your lesser cub will pull it through, ‘kay?”
“Of course he will! And thank you, sister,” Janine started to say, but Ygrite had already moved past her, coming down on Kalaisa like an avalanche. Jaws opened, showing hundreds of fangs all merged, almost filling the entire mouth. Surprisingly gentle, Ygrite closed this meat slicer on Kalaisa’s neck, drawing just a tiny bit of blood.
“I submit, warlord! The pack is yours,” Kalaisa quickly said, and Ygrite let her go, patting the woman on the shoulder. Her nose sniffed, painfully inhaling the air and sensing and tasting the scent of Kalaisa’s wound.
“Seems like you were busy,” the warlord said. “Are you capable of leading?”
“I…” Kalaisa licked her lips and hung her head. “No, warlord. My body is strong, but the mind occasionally plays tricks. I can’t lead a pack into a fight. But I can still fight!”
“Well, hasn’t someone grown a little, eh?” Ygrite laughed. “Maybe I should send you away more often!”
The mobile fortress drove all the way to the almost empty airport, disgorging the soldiers there. The civilians kept on moving, safely exiting the city through the east gate. Under Dragena’s orders, the massive evacuation was nearly complete, with hundreds of thousands of people relocated away from the battlefield.
Prisons were opened, and minor offenders were given a chance to earn their freedom through work. Even now, groups of them, with an explosive collar around their necks, were busy helping and moving statues and items from museums onto the trucks. On Dragena’s orders, these items were to be evacuated last, and the prisoners would receive their freedom at the very last moment, leaving with the last trucks.
Those convicts who tried to get rowdy or refused to cooperate either had their limbs broken or were sedated into unconsciousness for safe transportation. But none were killed. Dragena’s perfectionism left no place for such missteps. A few pleaded for a chance to protect their city, and Dragena obliged with the mayor’s permission, forming a penal regiment out of six hundred convicts, geared with light exosuits and armed machineguns. Either out of pity or unwilling to feed the Horde any troops for the sake of morale, Dragena positioned them in the relative safety of a bunker near the wall, giving these men and women the same chances to survive in the incoming battle as everyone else. A wolf hag was assigned to the unit, eager to pop the head of any potential rebel.
Janine wasn’t present here, but she had witnessed through the videos whole caravans filled with crying cubs and angry people. Many civilians wanted to fight, but Jacomie and Jaquan were adamant. Only those with combat experience or those with the essential skills were allowed to stay. Farmer and builder unions nearly staged a strike, demanding the right to stay and fight. Schalk was the one who resolved the situation peacefully, convincing Dragena to allow these men to aid engineers and doctors.
Till Ingo watched with a stone face as his facilities were, according to him, ‘guttered’, precious metal limbs and projects in development were moving away in seemingly never-ending convoys of trains. All his objections to such barbaric transportation were ignored. Remembering the Blessed Mother’s will, Dragena moved victims of the Tecno-Queen into the crawler, putting them under her personal protection. Many of them were still too weak to be transported, but the highly advanced medical complex sustained the spark of life within them just fine. After some consideration, Dragena allowed Till Ingo into the crawler but refused entry to the therapists, sending the soothsayers away along with the others.
Walking toward the crawler, Janine observed that Iterna had been finishing the evacuation of its own citizens, sending in a small team of Problemsolvers to keep an eye over their embassy. A last plane of theirs, a mighty armored bull of the skies, awaited at the airport for the Iternian tourists, who came along with the convoy. Near it stood a blackened bird of night, and the man standing next to this aircraft had filled Janine with an anxious desire to let the claws talk.
A figure easily as tall as Ravager stood fully clad in black power armor with very few rough curvatures. His lenses looked like twin pools of molten steel, and a cleaver the length of a vehicle was locked with mag locks to his back. His helm was fashioned after a dragon’s snout, and a tiny glint of flame shone through the darkness of its jaws when the man took a breath. No medals or honor symbols adorned the mighty plate, yet there would be no person foolish enough not to recognize who he was. Ur-Champion. Servant to the Big Three of the Oathtakers, a warrior whose physical might eclipse even that of Alpha or First. A slayer of a warlord, a butcher of countless shamans, and a merciless bane of the Order.
Normally, the Tribe and the Order would demand a blood price for all the woes this Malformed had brought upon them and for all the lives he had taken. And for some time, they did just that, sending killers to collect his head, until a day came when Ur-Champion saved several cubs, stepping way out of his mission parameters to preserve the young ones’ lives. On that day, and after several treaties signed by the nations, the Tribe named him an honorable foe. When faced on a battlefield, all Wolfkins were eager to claim his head. Outside of the battlefield, the man was no longer prey.
Ur-Champion has earned the Wolfkin’s respect not only through his butchery but through his tenacity as well. Covered in wounds and having his skin peeled off by Alpha’s claws, the man only ceded the ground when his own side had started their retreat.
Wolfkins, shamans, wolf hags, warlords, and even some Ice Fangs, including Bertruda, all glared at him longingly. What glory could a fight with him bring to a fighter! What fame! So caught were they in a foolish urge that it took them seconds to notice a figure next to the giant’s leg, a figure looking like a cub standing near a mother…
“Lyudochka!” Janine and Martyshkina cried out, grinning like idiots, when the metal legs ran toward them.
She could have looked strange to some. Horrifying even. A metal skeleton; her ribcage had no empty space between ribs; the mouth is forever locked into a grinning smile; the eyes are forever burning sickly white, instilling fear into anyone who hadn’t spoken with the petulant child yet. Janine gave her axe to Impatient One and, along with Marty, caught the woman, taking her into a spin and joining their laughter to Lyudochka’s synthesized cry of happiness.
There was no clever trick in her body; no brain was hidden inside like with Mehmed, nor was she an AI or a Virtual Person. No, Lyudochka’s mind was fully and truly moved into the steel. She had ‘grown’, if such a word can even be used to describe an ageless machine. Limbs became longer since the last time the two had seen each other. The thoracic cavity expanded, and a cape of metal flowed from the woman’s shoulders, while in her hands she held an ambassador’s staff.
“It’s been years since we last talked, Mommies!” The girl, nay, the woman now, cried. The three of them met years ago, back when Terrific was still alive and the wars raged in full. “How have you been doing?”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“Existing,” Janine answered evasively, wanting to rustle the non-existing hair at the steel skull, but stopped, noticing insignias on the girl’s body. “You are an ambassador in Houstad?”
“In a sort.” Lyudochka proudly showed her staff. “Well, I worked as a clerk in the embassy, but then the war broke in and the ambassador was on his visit to the wall and no one else was available, so LS promoted me and told me to help with evacuation. It was scary, but!” The ambassador pointed at Ur-Champion, who simply glared at the group, never moving. “Ur-Champion has arrived! And now everything is fine.” She gestured, and the warlords leaned their heads down, allowing the metal woman to whisper into their ears. “Although I really want the real ambassador to come back. I don’t have the faintest idea if I am doing a good job or not. I am a person capable of managing… the situation!”
“We brought some of your people!” Martyshkina grinned, patting Lyudochka on the back. “Go sniff them; maybe he is among them.”
The Oathtakers ambassador jumped, clapping her hands happily with a metal sound, and rushed toward the mobile fortresses.
“Brings back the memories,” Marty chuckled. “Mommies.”
“I feel like I am missing some context here.” Anissa scratched her neck. “Am I seriously having a sister among the Oathtakers? Care to elaborate, Warlord?”
“No.” Janine cut her off, pushing ahead.
“Why is this machine calling you two mothers?” Impatient One demanded to know, grinding her fangs.
“Shamans have their own secrets; we have our own,” Martyshkina declared, marching toward the command center.
Their relationships with Lyudochka were… complicated. The two women accepted the girl as a daughter and would stand by this decision, but in truth, after that mission they only ever spoke via communications, and the state’s intelligence agents disliked allowing the warlords anywhere close to the girl after Lyudochka took the Oath. No matter, it was best to leave Anissa and the others out of this mess.
Lyudochka crossed the landing ramp, almost ignoring the guards who had attempted to stop her. Ur-Champion thundered next to the ambassador, moving far faster than anyone could assume given his size, and calmly loomed over the Ice Fangs, saying nothing but silently supporting the woman’s desire to step inside the fortress. Thankfully, a sage brought a group of Trolls and people from the inside, and Lyudochka quickly started chatting with them, leading them toward the plane. The doctor in charge of Marco’s recovery remained at the entrance, saying something that made the ambassador press a hand to the mouth.
“To the command center at once!” Janine raised her voice a bit, unwilling to have this talk with Lyudochka right now. Maybe after the war.
The crawler dominated the center of the airport, a palace of steel, tracks, turrets, and countless sensor arrays. Its artillery batteries were at the ready, and missile launchers were fully restocked. A few bunkers were spread around the behemoth, but its main protection was the packs.
All the surviving warlords arrived, as did the majority of their packs. Usually rowdy, they stood unmoved, fully clad in armor. There were no battle lines or correct formations; the Wolf Tribe had little need for such things. But the packs stood, and Janine’s own troops, along with everyone else, hurried to find a place.
Despite apparent serenity, even Bertruda has spotted aggression in the air. Opposite the packs, Ice Fangs assembled their forces, standing in full grandeur and might, outnumbering Wolfkins three to one. The banners rose high among their forces, and the Ice Fangs greeted the approaching forces by raising their weapons high.
And there was no banter. No scout or warrior sneaked from the ranks to tease an Ice Fang; no friendly spars sparked before the crawler. There were no clumsy Wolfkins offering to share a place at a bonfire and food with the knights, there were no sages reading stories to warriors and males. Utter silence reigned among the Tribe, along with restrained aggression hidden behind the oculars.
Janine walked through the corridors leading to the command center in silence. When they were leaving this place, seemingly an eternity ago, kinship reigned on the landship. The Wolf Tribe had cousins; Eled and Predaig were alive; Bogdan… she glanced at the corridor leading to the Ice Fangs’ quarters, remembering a ghost of his prank. So many lives were lost. And the final battle is yet ahead.
No. Not the final battle. Not for them. Just another scuffle in an eternity of war.
“Anissa!” A voice boomed through the corridor, and a long, segmented body crashed into the wolf hag, wrapping the laughing woman in his chitin coils. “You’re alive!” Chak boomed. “Oh honey, I was so worried when I heard about Janine’s capture! Let me just check if everything is in place...”
“We are tougher than this…” Anissa giggled when toxicognaths tapped a melody across her helmet. The two lovebirds stopped at the raised brows of the others. Janine herself simply shrugged.
“And you!” Chak’s massive body shifted, surveying Janine. “Where is my armor, barbarian!”
“My armor,” Janine corrected him with a growl. “It was destroyed by…”
“I am the one who maintained that marvel, you ignorant pest! I fixed it, replaced damaged servomotors, and kept it clean of rust!” The chitin head headbutted Janine’s, locking her gaze with compound eyes. “Your armor? A brute like you couldn’t even recharge its batteries! Whatever’s done is done. It’s good to see you alive. Come to the maintenance bay, council.” Chak slithered off Anissa, retreating into another corridor. “We’ll see what we can do to keep you alive.”
Lacerated One raised from the ground before the bridge, silently making a simple nod in greetings, and opened the doors within, inviting the group with a bow. She herself stayed at the door along with Impatient One, ready to give their lives to protect the war council.
Janine expected to see chaos or frightened people, but instead she came across calm discipline. Dragena, both arms behind her back, listened to the officers’ reports, never once drawing her eyes away from the large holographic map of the city. Jacomie, seemingly fully healed after her wounds, sat in the late Cristobo’s seat, organizing the regiments of the Provincial Army and coordinating them with the Third’s troops. Operators were busy confirming the readiness of the various units and accepting the scouts’ reports.
Warlords and Sword Saints divided themselves just like their forces outside, with only Dragena standing in the middle between them.
Anji jumped from her seat, putting a hand on Kalaisa’s shoulder. The two women quietly bumped fists, not daring to bother the warlords, as Janine walked to join Alpha and the others, allowing Bertruda to step closer to First.
“Janine.” Alpha nodded, not a single bruise or scar on her skin. “How is your cub?”
“Alive.” Janine returned the nod. “And I intend to do anything I can to ensure his full recovery.”
“You were a fool for taking him off the pits,” Alpha stated plainly.
“Yes. Yes, I was,” Janine agreed wholeheartedly.
“Janine,” Dragena said, breaking away from the map. “Are you capable of fighting?”
“I can murder, Dragena,” the warlord said with a growl. “You are not keeping me off the battlefield.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” the commander replied coldly. She pointed at the map behind her. “With or without the Blessed Mother, we are making our stand in Houstad.”
“Foolish,” Onyxia snorted. “We are not made for defensive warfare. The Third was made for quick mobile warfare. This place is just rock and steel. Let the Horde have it; what do we care? Let them overextend themselves and step deeper into our lands. With the civilians safe, only the glint of our claws will welcome them at night. Before the First and the Second even arrive, we shall fertilize the plains with the corpses of our enemies and hang whoever is left from the trees.”
“You just love forests,” Martyshkina laughed.
“I am, and I am tired of pretending otherwise!” Onyxia grinned back, a ray of white against the darkness of her body. “When I die, I’d love to be buried in the darkest possible spot in any forest around here. Somewhere where the blasted sunlight never shines.”
“Noted. We care because this place contains the future.” Dragena raised her paw, stopping Jacomie from speaking. The map shifted, changing into the picture of the terraforming complex. “Should it be destroyed, the ecosystem in the region will suffer. The damage will be severe enough to send the terraformation process back decades, if not centuries.” The image behind her changed again.
This time it showed the map of the region, pointing out forests and parks and highlighting farms and lakes. Slowly the plants started withering, and grains of yellow sand showed up amidst dead-looking brown fields. Leaves fell from the trees, and the trees themselves cracked under the wind, drying up without the sustenance of rain. Lakes disappeared, leaving hollow craters in the ground. Patch by patch, the sand became more prevalent, engulfing Houstad and finally leaving nothing but deserts and abandoned settlements.
“This is the simulation produced by Till Ingo, projecting an approximate result should the complex sustain heavy damage and end up being shut down. This we will deny,” Dragena looked at Janine. “Sister, the northern gates are yours to defend. I will join you shortly after the battle begins.”
“I am fighting alongside you,” Jacomie declared, standing up. The captain stubbornly met Dragena’s emotionless eyes. “I will not abandon my city or my people, Warlord.”
“The crawler will soon be left with only a skeleton crew,” the Wolfkin said. “I had plans of leaving you in charge of its protection. It plays the most crucial role in the defense, Captain.”
“To hell with it!” Jacomie cried out. “My people were killed, wounded, and enslaved! And you expected me to cower at such a moment? Jaquan joined the volunteers. Make his unit protect this place and let the professionals fight!”
“As you wish, Captain,” Dragena said evenly. “Janine’s pack will be reinforced by a mix of volunteers and soldiers. You have my permission to leave and prepare to join them while you still have time.”
The warlord waited until the woman left and addressed the other warlords, assigning their packs positions in the city to defend. Hearing her speak, Janine felt something akin to despair. The city was fast; its endless streets spread on and on, intervening between each other to create a titanic labyrinth. Subways, skyscrapers, factories—not counting living buildings—the place was a nightmare to protect. If the enemy can break through the defensive lines, and they surely had numbers for that, they will spread all around the city, easily striking in the defenders’ backs, casually making easy pickings out of the artillery, and retreating when needed.
Surely Dragena could see this, too. Positional defense was impossible; what good were their bunkers if they had no one to populate them with? In battle against new breeds, the regular troops will have no chance to safely retreat. No, everything will be decided head-on in one grand battle.
“What about the Horde’s superweapon?” she asked with worry. “The one that wiped out the settlement.”
“I believe that Mad Hatter intends on capturing this place relatively intact.” Dragena looked at the map, lighting up three potential locations where the Horde could position their superweapon. “And by the time we change her perception about that, it will be all too late.” She looked at the gathered people. “Make no mistake in underestimating the enemy or taking our victory for granted. The force that Mad Hatter had assembled against us numbers over two hundred thousand people, approximately. The land itself groans from the sheer number of combat vehicles moving toward our position, and to make matters worse, some civilians slipped off during the evacuation, and we have no time to look for those fools. It is do or die.”
“Butcher them, and watch how they fall.” Alpha grinned violently, showing her fangs. “If the worst comes to pass, it has been an honor, sisters, brothers, and the traitors.” She glared at the Ice Fangs.
To their honor, none took the bait. Janine knew what Alpha was doing. Doubtless, the Ice Fangs assumed that the warlord’s claws were itching for a fresh kill, and normally they would be right. But not on this council. Not in Dragena’s presence. Those two, Zero and Dragena, always had a positive influence on the Strongest Warlord, cooling down her most violent urges.
This is a test. She understood. The warlord was testing how much they could rely on the white-furred.
“Warlord Dragena,” First said, breaking his silence for the first time in the council. “You have assigned nothing to us. May I know why?”
“What good are the soldiers incapable of following orders?” Ashbringer asked in a rough voice.
“Ashbringer, please,” First started in a soothing voice. “Despite all our differences, you can’t think…”
“Can’t we, First?” Alpha asked in a deceptively calm tone. “Are you going to tell us what to think now? My sisters perished. And the only Sword Saints your kind have lost were the males.” Alpha spat at the floor. “Since the start of this war, your kind has done nothing but ignore us and our orders. Packs are riled up; they are angry, and rightfully so. The Ice Fang Order’s refusal to communicate with us led to the near decimation of our Tribe. Step outside and count how many of us are left against your numbers, and then tell me, what sort of cohesion can we achieve with a mood like that?”
First tried to argue when Dragena came between two groups, raising her leg and slamming it into the floor with enough force to make even the operators shake in their seats. The doors opened, and Lacerated One charged in, taking place by the warlord’s side and looking over the other Wolfkins inquisitory.
“Enough. We are soldiers. And as soldiers, we have duties. Therefore I am giving you another task.” Dragena raised her paw, and arrows appeared on the map, pointing to the north and south of the city. “I have questioned the prisoner, learning all I could about Mad Hatter and her style. Seeing the city weak, she will send the Gilded Horde at us in full strength from the west, leaving other directions wide open. And we will endure the brunt of their assault, spending our lives like coins…” Her cold eyes looked at First. “So that you may secure the kill and all the glory of this victory, Sword Saint.”
“We are not acting out of a desire for glory,” Bertruda said.
“Mayhap,” Dragena admitted, looking at an operator’s display showing the corridors on the crawler. “Consider it as a bonus incentive, Sword Saint. And now silence.”
The doors to the command bridge opened once again, and Schalk stepped inside, quickly bowing to the warlord.
“Your will has been done, Warlord Dragena.” Schalk smiled nervously. “It took way more effort than it should, but we have managed to load every beast of the zoos on the trucks.”
“Impeccably done.” Dragena inclined her head. “Warlord Janine and I shall join the defense of the west gates. Due to the fact that the crawler’s guard will be understaffed, your unit will be added to their ranks. I understand that this is an irregular request, but the bridge plays a crucial role in the defense.”
“We get to sit out the fight?” Schalk beamed, forcing a cough at the disapproving looks. “I mean, yeah, of course you can rely on us, Warlord! Smash the baddies; me and the boys will keep the place safe; don’t you worry, ma’am!”
Under the heavy looks, the man backed down, almost rushing through the doors. When the metal closed the bridge, Dragena returned to the map, assigning orders and outlining the strategy. The operators glanced at each other, all too afraid to bother the warlord for clarification. Finally, the youngest of them, a young boy of twenty-six years old and a veteran of several campaigns, stepped out of his seat, approaching Dragena with a bared throat. She turned to him with such unusual grace for the Wolf Tribe, waving away Lacerated One.
“Warlord,” the operator never bowed, keeping exposing his throat. “I believe you made a mistake. You said that the Warlord Janine and you will be taken over in the north.”
“Never in my life have I made a mistake, brother,” Dragena told the man. “The death of the police chief and the attack on Captain Cristobo. And the precision with which the Gilded Horde knew which object to strike in our city. None of it was an accident.”
“Which one of them?” Janine demanded to know.
She sniffed the air and sensed no scent coming from the operator and catching the familiar, very familiar scent coming from the air hole above them. The warlord stepped forward, overjoyed, and without waiting for permission, marked the young man as kin, granting him the same privileges as the other sixteen operators on the bridge and the person above them, by rubbing a scent mark on his neck.
“We will know in a few hours,” Dragena replied. “The Gilded Horde thinks us foolish and brutish. The time has come to educate them that we are also cunning.” With a press of a button, she summoned back the image of the terraforming complex. “Janine. I have a task for your soldiers.”