Reach the bridge. These were the sole thoughts pulsating in the heads of the Horde’s warriors. Reach the bridge. Then you can survive. Then you can fight. You just have to reach this bloody bridge.
Ganbaatar felt his hands and legs shaking. When a shell landed in front of him, turning the four experienced riders into a bloody mix of meat and metal, he screamed like a bondsman. The assault had begun an hour ago. Four times the Horde had stormed the main gates. They were repulsed each time. The field in front of the bridge leading into the city was littered with the remains of shattered tanks and hoverbikes. Ships began to fall from the sky, creating lakes of fire in front of the enemy defenses. The moans and screams of thousands of wounded filled the air.
And through it all, they marched. Marched to be beaten back, to regroup, and to push again. The enemy had suffered; the once-perfect walls slowly crumbled, creating wide breaches and burying the defenders beneath the rubble. Where there had been a single entrance to Houstad, there were now eight. Fires blazed on the walls, and bodies occasionally fell from the parapets.
The very air screamed as both sides engaged in a full-scale artillery exchange. The shield carriers had been overwhelmed; their energy shields burst one after another, leaving the soldiers hiding behind them impaled by the screaming shells. rained down, making the young man tremble with fear as the molten metal touched his legs.
Terrifying. So scary. The thought tried to break through the command, but he ignored it and pushed ahead. You could not retreat; otherwise, the advancing forces behind you would stomp you into the ground. Ganbaatar teared up, falling to the ground when a tank before him exploded, bathing the warrior in flames. Join the raid, they said! Bring food and glory to your family! He never wanted to be here; he never asked to be born a pureblood. He wanted to be a craftsman, someone who made musical instruments for the musical troupes that traveled the great steppes.
Explosions, screams of the dying, deafening shots from the tank's main guns, the terrible sound of falling shells, and the roar of flying rockets were now the only music on the battlefield. Commands were drowned in this cacophony. Only the bridge loomed before everyone’s eyes. The bridge was surrounded by destroyed bunkers and burned vehicles. Get there. Get to safety. Win this battle and go back home. A pox on the mother’s curses, he was never cut for the life of a conqueror! He never even beat slaves at home.
Survive. Ganbaatar thought madly, lifting the fallen soldiers before him. Only the woman’s upper part got lifted; her legs remained on the ground. Insides were spilled on the ground, and Ganbaatar vomited into his helmet, pushing ahead. Scared. The front line, initially filled with bondsmen, now became thin as paper, and the actual warriors of the Gilded Horde found themselves at the frontline. Please. A soldier jumped out of the trench in front of the advancing warrior.
A bullet struck the soldier's helmet, splitting it open to reveal two eyes filled with horror that mirrored Ganbaatar's own expression. The massive power armor even made them similar in size, confusing the man. The soldier aimed his machine gun at the advancing troopers, and the young man cut him down, plunging the blade of his glaive at the neck joint. It only cracked the armor, stopping within the chords and ligaments, but the force behind the blow was enough to break the soldier’s neck. My third kill. Ganbaatar laughed grimly, only now realizing that his unnamed enemy probably had a family to feed as well.
Purebloods, bondsmen, Malformed, the distinction between them all disappeared on this battlefield. They helped each other to their legs, rushing toward the sole point of safety. Break through the bridge. Enter the city. Be safe. And Ganbaatar ran along with everyone, scared shitless at the opportunity of becoming maimed. How would he provide for his mother if he died? Why did he sign in? War is hell, and he stepped into this hell on his own free will. Might as well walk to the end.
He pushed through the explosion, feeling the shock wave reverberating in his bones despite the armor. A Malformed before him toppled and fell; a dagger sliced clean through his neck. At the very base of the bridge, the enemies met them, normal humans and abnormals alike. Forced out of the trenches, their bunker and dots destroyed, the defenders formed makeshift barricades, firing from their cover. The abnormals leapt over the barricades, meeting the Horde head-on.
Ganbaatar coughed out blood after a bullet broke through his chest plate tore off a nipple. He raised his left hand and fired the mounted armor-piercing autogun at the defenders. Two of them were knocked back, the holes replacing their visors. I can’t die! I can’t become disabled! He advanced, wreathed in flames and sparks from bullets bouncing off his armor. With a single horizontal slice, he nearly took the soldier’s head of the soldier in front of him, sparing the woman only after she let go of her weapon.
Her eyes saved her. The same fear he had felt all along was in her blue eyes. One and the same. He laughed madly, kicked the fool aside and walked on. People are the same everywhere! Everyone wants to live! But he must prevail.
The bridge had become a pile of rubble, and Ganbaatar climbed onto it, cutting his way through the defenders, his heart pounding. The nimble foe downed another pureblood, landing before the young man with a dagger and a handgun in his hands. Ganbaatar barely had time to dodge when the handgun spewed plasma, melting his gilded pauldron along with the emblem presented to him personally by Iron Lord Khan.
He would’ve liked to say that he was brave. In actuality, the young man wet himself and largely unintentionally blocked the dagger pointed at his neck. He rammed his shoulder into the lean man, toppling the bastard onto the stones. Ganbaatar’s hand closed around the hand holding the handgun, twisting the weapon aside. The metal of the enemy’s armor whined beneath his hold, and the warrior chuckled with relief, hearing the bones snap and the hand go limp. The chuckle turned into a scream; the assassin had rammed his dagger right under his ribs.
I can’t die! Mom is waiting for me! The panic turned into adrenaline. He let go of the enemy’s hand, jabbed his fingers through the assassin's eyes, and felt the man's body shake as the eyes popped open. I still haven’t gifted Toragana that necklace I earned! It was a beautiful thing, a silver chain set with jade and gold. Hefting his halberd by the reinforced part below the blade, he rammed his long weapon into the assassin’s chest, twisting it to rupture the lungs and the heart.
A tank rumbled past him, smashing the damaged concrete beneath its tracks, and all around Ganbaatar, the soldiers were overwhelming the defenders. He sighed, observing how the first tank was closing on the gap leading deeper into the city. We’ve won.
A terrible hit had lifted the tank. Ganbaatar witnessed in disbelief how one of the doggies, clad in an unusual battle plate, had lifted the mighty vehicle with one arm. Her axe cut deep within the tank’s armor plating, and the woman used it to expose the less armored underbelly. She aimed a human-sized energy rifle and fired several times; several crimson beams shot out almost simultaneously, melting their way toward the engine. Ganbaatar rolled across the stones as the tank exploded, hiding the doggie behind the flame wall.
"Step forth, she who dares!" A roar came from the hellfire. Twin crimson lenses pierced the veil of flame. The armored monster stepped out, proudly raising her weapon. Unharmed. Undamaged. "I shall see your entrails spilled." A brave or desperate raider attacked the massive dogie, only to be cleaved in half. "I will grind your bones into dust beneath my boots! And your meat…" She grabbed a Malformed by the neck, lifting the screaming woman up. The jaws closed on the horribly disfigured face, chewing halfway through the head. With a soft crack, the remains of gray matter fell to the stone. "…I shall devour!"
The entrance! Ganbaatar panicked, noticing how the defensive weapons on the wall had started turning, aiming at the gathered mass of people. The other soldiers thought the same and charged the lone figure. They came straight into a whirlwind of steel. Hands were severed, legs were bisected. Their enemy, with her somewhat short legs, had become violence incarnate, traversing from one part of the bridge to another, never retreating a step. The laser rifle appeared on her back, and in its place appeared huge, cruel claws. Hundreds attacked this woman, and she held them all back.
A Malformed the size of a battle vehicle charged forward, aiming to grab the woman with his hooked claws. With a kick to the knee, the doggie brought him down on one knee, his kneecap completely destroyed by the claws. The axe bit under the lower jaw, going all the way to the brain and taking the light from the fighter's eyes. All in the span of a heartbeat. She dragged the still-sticking weapon, clubbing several soldiers into a bloody smear with the Malformed's corpse. Two priests flew above the fighters, pointing their crooked, taloned hands at the doggie.
She grunted, withstanding the telekinetic pressure that created a perfectly round circle of bulging concrete around her. And stood up, her armor refusing to bend or crack. A burst of machine-gun fire from the defenders' ranks had vaporized the top of one priest. Before the other could react, the doggie reached for the torn tank’s cannon and used it like a spear to pierce the remaining woman. In a blur, she turned around, bisecting the tank’ shell.
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"Will anyone provide me with a decent challenge?!" The monster asked. Her laser rifle reappeared in her hand. She fired, the crimson beam landing perfectly in the cannon and detonating the tank's ammunition as it was being reloaded, killing the crew.
I have to live! Sky, watch over me! Ganbaatar joined the desperate charge. They have to remove her from the entrance. They must get inside the walls before the batteries fire, eradicating all approaching the bridge. There is simply no other way; it was too late to retreat!
Men, women, mutants, machines—all were cut down by this war incarnate. The doggie did not tire; she wielded her gigantic weapon with economic swings, taking several lives with each swing. He had seen some of her kind before, and there was no sign of the innate ferocity so prevalent in the others. This one had been calculated in her slaughter, stepping aside to evade energy blasts and missiles, counterattacking with brutal might. The axe’s blade parted combat plates like water, leaving only hissing energy chords and fountains of blood. The claws almost moved on their own, creating a web of blurring cuts around the doggie. She ripped off, necks were sliced, and more and more soldiers fell.
Bodies started piling up, but true to her words, the woman shattered the remains of the dead with her sheer weight. Ganbaatar came at the massive warlord from behind, catching the moment she turned away to take out a dozen soldiers. He started bringing his glaive down…
Pain. His eyes opened far beyond their limits, tearing at the edges of his eyelids. So much pain. He found himself flying in an arc through the air. Everything hurt. He landed on the broken stones with the force of an explosion, looking up just to see the gigantic slice coming all the way from his groin nearly to his chest. Inside the opening, he saw his intestines and pulsating organs.
The Sky’s Avatar battle had sent tremors throughout the entire battlefield, and Ganbaatar cried out, struggling against the pain in his exposed organs every time his body buckled slightly during one of those tremors. And on the crest of the ruined bridge, the massacre had just begun in earnest. More and more doggies let out howls, climbing from beneath the ruins and striking the Gilded Horde in the back, widening the carnage area. A trap. And they had walked right into it.
The click of a weapon drew his attention. The soldier whom he had spared before pointed a rifle at his face.
"Surrender, yes?" He forced the words out with a thick accent, trembling with every fiber of his being. The fingers on his one arm disappeared, cut off by the doggie. A grievous wound robbed him of movement. He became a cripple, an obstacle to his family. Toragana would never marry him now. Still, he wanted to live.
The soldier nodded and lowered her weapon, much to his surprise. He was about to ask why, when a series of artillery strikes slammed into the wall, tearing out building-sized chunks of it. These chunks of stone cascaded down through the clouds of smoke, heading straight for the fighters, causing the ground to shake on contact. Ganbaatar ended up buried alive beneath the rubble, along with the Reclaimer.
****
"Come on, whores’ spawns! Come and die!" Marzena laughed, wiping out the blood from her lips.
The wolf hag’s power armor was a mess. Riddled with bullets, a fist-sized hole in the belly had allowed several intestines to fall out, now dangling with her legs. Ideally, she should have retreated to have her wounds treated, but today she couldn't care less about surviving. Her pack died. All sixty of them. Precious girls and boys, she had done her best to preserve their lives during this war, and now they were dead. She saw the last of them, the scout Justyna, being torn apart by the Malformed half an hour ago. A wolf hag should not outlive her pack, so this was her go-time.
Besides, she was fighting in the shadow of the Blessed Mother. When the wall had suffered a breach, when the honeycomb of defensive installations and compartments came tumbling down, Alpha stepped off the wall and took a place in that widest breach. They fought for hours, pushing back a sea of living beings. The Strongest Warlord’s claws claimed the lives of hundreds, painting the crest of this mountain of rubble red. And the Alpha Pack fought alongside her.
To them, Alpha was more than a warlord. She was their mother in all but name. Cruel and often merciless, the warlord pushed her troops to their very limits, breaking and mending their souls. But the results were well worth the suffering. Where other packs might falter, they prevailed. With steely discipline, emboldened by the rage of their tribe, the Alpha Pack held the breaches. They lured in the forward troops, only to thin them out with well-placed ambushes. Rather than engaging in the prolonged melee, grenades were thrown, forcing the raiders to retreat with mad howls as the acid ate its way through their bodies. Amidst brief moments of relief, mines were laid.
Outnumbered ten to one, they denied the Horde access to the city and the wall. Even scattered all around the numerous breaches, the wolf hags never panicked. Alpha often faked her own death or left the pack to make each wolf hag an individual commander making her own decisions.
A pity I won’t get those tasty sandwiches again. Marzena giggled, catching an enemy’s hand between her side and the armpit and breaking the whore’s arm. She followed up with a quick thrust, burying her claws in the woman’s lower jaw and silencing her cries.
A sandwich. This is what she truly missed in her last moments. Not her friends, not her family, but this stupid and so pleasant-to-the-palate mix of bread, meat, and veggies. She was getting delirious from the blood loss, no doubt, but when Marzena picked up the shardgun and fired it at the approaching enemies, she understood that she was okay with going out like this.
Ain’t no better place for a final brawl. Defending something was the best. Even if it was just a shop selling sandwiches.
Alpha fought beside her; her mighty arms turned into whirlwinds of death and disembodiment. The Strongest Warlord never protected herself; bullets and energy beams alike struck harmlessly against her armor. Occasionally, fear would strike away from the warlord, spreading like a wave and stilling the hearts of those approaching Alpha.
But most of the time, it was the claws that collected the piper’s toll. Alpha was the pinnacle of the Wolf Tribe, an unreachable warrior never once toppled by the enemy. Where she walked, only the dead reigned. Those who challenged her were soon gone from this world. A single kick of the mighty leg sent up a small blast of air that carried away enemies by the score. Here she stood. Invulnerable. Undefeatable. Unstoppable.
And Marzena was chosen to fight beside her! She honored her deceased boys and girls, pushing the ravaged body beyond all possible limits, firing and clawing, kicking and biting. Her heart threatened to stop at any moment, but as long as she was alive, the wolf hag kept on killing. She kicked a raider off his footing and smashed the bastard’s head against the stones, pushing him down with such force that even the pureblood’s skull failed to disperse the impact. The next one lost his eyes in a blink, and she shot him in the stomach. With a flick of her arm, Marzena had slit the throat of the third.
She got drunk on the smell of death and blood all around her. Surprisingly, some Normies and even a few former convicts fought by their sides. Yes. Former. The state might disagree, but to her, these men and women had paid for whatever crimes they had committed. After all, they were all going to die here; they might as well go out free! At her command, the explosive necklace fell from their necks, and yet she had to see even one of them run.
A streak of flame flowed above the advancing forces, crashing straight into Alpha with the force of a meteorite. Everyone was sent cartwheeling through the air when two titans of might, one of muscle and another of flame, locked claws. Alpha’s enemy looked like a demon coming straight from religious books. As tall as she was, his body was pitch black under the cloak of flame, occasionally splintering into pieces like burnt ash falling from a burned log. Two gigantic wings of flame spread from behind his back, caressing the stones; the flame itself formed his claws and fingers.
"We have unfinished business, Alpha!" The newcomer laughed.
"It is time to disconnect you from life, Horkhudagh." Alpha agreed, matching his strength. Her claws slowly began to pierce the flaming blade.
"Let’s find a private spot, somewhere no one will be able to interrupt us this time!"
Arms formed themselves at Horkhudagh’s sides, three from each side, and grabbed Alpha. The flame roared, rising in a pillar around both fighters, and Horkhudagh shot up, carrying Alpha to the top of the wall. There, she kicked him away and broke free, and the two came at each other with full force, creating sonic booms with their movements.
"Don’t you dare lose, Mom!" Marzena shouted after the edges of the wall started melting under the heat coming from the fiery demon.
That’s it. The last wolf hag who drunkenly called Alpha a mother had her skin peeled off. But in the light of her imminent demise…
She looked around. The remaining artillery and turrets were still working, the wolf hag saw splashes of explosions among the Gilded Horde’s forces, throwing limbless bodies up in the air. Without Alpha, this breach was all but lost; however, if she should shift the battle within the tight corridors of the wall…
"Split up and retreat inside the wall!" Marzena coughed out the command, baring her fangs at the soldiers hesitation. "This is an order! You’ll die in vain out in the open!"
"And what about you?" A former convict asked.
"Ain’t going anywhere, kiddo," Marzena chuckled, and the rest of her guts fell out. "Go. Have a few drinks in my memory when we stomp ‘em!"
She turned to the breach, feeling another surge of tremors. A cavalry charge of sorts was heading her way. Dozens of thunder bulls broke through the barrage, trampling their own soldiers. Their riders were a hulking mass of metal, each as large as a wolf hag. And the leading beast dwarfed every other thunder beast, looking more like an armored train than a living creature.
"Eradicate the pests! Tear down the wall!" Its rider roared, raising his glaive.
Marzena fired her shardgun. The energy shield materialized around the rider, absorbing the shards. She made no attempt to dodge or retreat. It was too late for that. The cold chained her legs and her arms could barely hold the weapon.
The thunder bull crashed into Marzena, shattering her armor and breaking bones. The sharp bones pierced her organs, but the agony didn't last long. A single leg stomped on her head, ending the wolf hag's life as Iron Lord led his soldiers into the city.
The wall had been breached.