A kick crumpled the iron doors, sending them flying and opening the full view of this ‘hangar’. The place had served as a maintenance depot for the various trucks coming in from the Outer Lands. Now it fulfilled a more insidious function, and workers toiled away, repairing damaged mobile walkers and artillery pieces. Industrial lines moved, carrying details and entire vehicles from one side of the hangar to the other; mechanical suits in various stages of assembly hung from the ceiling, and cranes moved vats of molten metal, unnerving the personnel.
Their prize stood proudly on the opposite side of the hangar, nestled in an intricate web of makeshift catwalks and scaffolding. To bring in the Sky Carrier, the invaders had removed part of an entire section of the factory complex, and a familiar twilight sky greeted the group, as if the old friend rejoicing at a sudden reunion.
The Sky Carrier had a long, inelegant, and bulky fuselage, standing on three landing ramps. Exquisite jade ornamentation covered the tubular aircraft; a proud eagle’s head formed the cockpit, allowing the pilots to see through its eyes. Operators calmly guided rows of empty energy canisters away from the ship. Four engines on the ship’s belly almost touched the ground, patterns cascaded down their surfaces, and a cluster of six more on the back of the Sky Carrier was ready to propel it ahead. As the boy had said, there were no turrets or cannons of any kind on the ship, but hopefully the refueling process had already been completed and, more importantly, the hull was intact.
Janine fired the plasma discharger before the doors could touch the ground.
A superheated blast of plasma swept above the workers’ heads, kissing ammunition crates of a mobile artillery unit, detonating it and scattering tatters of its crew everywhere. The vehicle’s engine exploded next, setting off a chain reaction that shook the entire room as four more mobile artillery units disappeared in erupting blasts, knocking people off catwalks and setting scaffolding ablaze. Many of the Horde personnel and guards chose not to wear their full protective gear and celebrated their victory even here. They paid for such carelessness in full as shards of torn metal sliced through their bodies and debris fell on them from above.
“So much for infiltration,” said a guardsman, leveling his rifle.
“We just need the Sky Carrier intact. Advance! Slaughter anyone in our path!” Janine roared, leading her people in.
“Сэрүүлэг!” a hordeman screamed, pulling a machine gun from his back. He ducked to the left, hiding from a burst of energy that melted his chest plate.
They charged into the shuddering hangar, keeping the pilot in the middle of their formation. Cracks ran above them, and Janine added to the commotion by firing at the ammunition crates, detonating them. Small lakes of flame washed away fleeing personnel and licked at the Sky Carries’ hull, terrifying the workers standing on it. Armored guards emerged through the smoke, some of them bareheaded, and the coughing and cursing humans paid with their lives for such arrogance as the Wolfkins filled their heads full of holes. The Taleteller sliced, outpacing the whipping slash of the Ice Fang, and split halves toppled to the ground.
“Murder! Maim! More!” Janine shouted the war cry, grunting at bullets blooming crimson holes in her hide. Rather than dodging and exposing Macarius on her back or her allies, she trusted her body to hold on and hurled her axe.
It spun in the air, shattering a surprised raider so hard that only his bloodied legs remained and then toppled three more, filling the warlord’s ears with the sweet music of their desperate screams. Their agony was short-lived as her legs reduced them to smears.
The panic that erupted in the hangar cleared a path for them, though Janine occasionally kicked pieces of equipment aside. A worker appeared on the Sky Carrier ramp, dropping an industrial drill as the Wolfkins approached. His cooperation saved his life, and the guardsmen moved into the ship, accompanied by their New Breed and Malformed allies. A brief burst of gunfire announced the end of the enemies hiding inside.
“Hurry!” Janine ordered, melting the crane holding a vat and drenching several hordemen in molten metal. Her nose picked out the major source of trouble from the multitude of scents in the air. Drozna. The bastard was coming, ramming entire buildings, a distant wall of destruction closing in on them, and she wasn’t sure she could take him on.
With a shrug, Janine slipped the chains from her shoulders and dropped Macarius into the Ice Fang’s paws. She motioned for her soldiers to take cover and headed down the ramp, weapon in each paw, grinning wildly as rows of hordemen tried to charge her down, seeking to retake the precious toy of their leader. And the angel of vengeance stepped to them.
The Taleteller’s swing sliced through two bodies faster than an eye could follow, and the axe’s pommel was already returning, denting a helmet as a blast of superheated plasma decapitated another fool. Janine burst through the ranks of her enemies, surprised and shocked by her recklessness. She spun, parrying bullets and hacking, her rapid kicks eviscerating anyone in her path. Incompetent rabble. They should have taken her claws when they had the chance. They should have taken her limbs if they had hoped to hold a warlord hostage. She was a wrathful storm, a splinter of death incarnate in this world, and this rabble was her rightful prey!
Parts of the stone roof collapsed, and the warlord, not bothering to dodge, weathered this impact, biting at the desperate faces trying to escape beneath the rubble. She parted the obstacles as if they were water, never ceasing to kill. Normies and New Breeds stumbled through the smoke, ending up closer than expected; her plasma discharger fired small spheres as bright as the rising sun, and they died. Clad in simple exoskeletons, bondsmen posed no threat. Some of them fainted or dropped their rifles, and Janine accepted these feeble surrenders, ignoring them. New Breeds, Purebloods as they called themselves. These were her primary targets, and she opened their bellies, biting mercilessly through their necks and advancing in a hurricane of blindingly fast cuts.
It would be easy to descend into savagery now. To refuse accepting surrender and chop off limbs, kick away the resulting ‘barrels’ to horrify their comrades, and let the cripples bleed out. And Janine wanted it. Spirits forgive her; she wanted more than to kill her enemies; she wanted them to suffer in excruciating agony, to repay every pain and every burn they had inflicted on her precious boy. To raise their cries loud enough for Eled and Predaig to hear in the Great Beyond.
She stayed her paw, acting like a proud soldier of the Wolf Tribe and not letting herself be Terrific anymore. For Bogdan, Eled, Predaig, and all those who had died would not approve of her shedding her morality for the sake of vindictiveness. She had promised to be herself. Her integrity was worth a thousand times more than the existence of that filth. No more lies, no more pretending to be what she wasn’t. Janine, the dishonored and betrayed warlord, set about keeping her promise to the Spirit of Fury, sacrificing lives in its name.
Explosions rocking the hangar, failing rubble, and smoke made it impossible for the hordemen to concentrate on her. Thick, dark clouds swirled around her, obscuring her, and thermal scopes went wild, unable to locate a single target in the released heat. But Janine sensed them, and her amber eye was the last the guards saw as the Storyteller’s swings tore them to pieces. And so she murdered them mercilessly and efficiently, wielding her plasma discharger as a club once its power cell was depleted.
The hordemen weren’t cowards, but neither were they fools. Four times they tried their best to form ranks to bring her low, and four times she scattered them, unleashing a bone-chilling howl that could be heard through the local apocalypse unfolding in the hangar. When one of their officers raised his hand, she held her blade, understanding the order to retreat, even though it was in the unknown language. There was a brief moment of understanding between them, and her laughter accompanied their panicked retreat.
Most of Terrific’s methods of psychological warfare disgusted Janine. But there was wisdom in them. A cornered rat will bite and scratch to the end. Let them flee and spread exaggerated rumors of former prisoners escaping and stealing from their khan. It was a blow to his authority, and she had no doubt Brood Lord would punish the cowards. But the stories would remain.
The upper section of the wall exploded into dust and stone, and a steel-clad figure broke through. The newcomer almost landed on his own escaping allies as thrusters flashed on the back of the brown and purple armor and he flew over them, landing with a thud and raising a hand-mounted autocannon.
Whoever it was, Janine was quicker. She lunged, disguised by the heat, and slashed at the cannon, shattering it and several metal fingers.
“You!” a female voice, thick with accent, boomed, and gray lenses focused on the warlord. “You’ll pay for what you did to Mehmed!”
The thrusters roared again, carrying the woman away from the Taleteller’s swing, and she thrust her own spear, aiming at the sole eye. The blade met the rising axe and faltered, going aside. Janine chased after her opponent, throwing her empty rifle at the helmet with enough force to dent it and gouge out a single lens. Suddenly the thrusters changed direction, and the woman rammed a knee into the warlord’s chest, knocking the air out of her and slamming her spear into the Taleteller. The open jaw grazed the helmet, tearing off a chunk of metal, and claws scraped at the shoulder, twitching in pain as the woman landed a heavy blow on the recently closed wound in her side.
“I’ll incinerate you for what you did to my little brother!” The woman roared, her broken fist pounding against the warlord’s ribs like a jackhammer, extending, landing a blow, and returning to the wrist as she tried to use the thrusters to knock Janine over.
“Warlord! Step back!” Janine obeyed without question, headbutting her opponent and retreating just in time to avoid a shower of molten steel raining down on her.
Ignacy had used one of the work consoles in the room to operate the machinery and brought a vat above the hordewoman. She walked out of the overheated stream, her helmet crumpled. Her thrusters whined and exploded, but she still tried to raise the spear.
“I’ll do you in…” came hissing, ferocious words from her dynamics. “Even if we both die. Nobody messes with my family and lives!”
“Admirable.” Janine raised her axe, preparing to end it in one blow. “Sleep well, unknown fighter.”
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“Wait!” A man threw himself between her and the prey, stopping them both. He screamed, approaching Janine closer than she’d liked after the hot lake touched his boot. Triangular gears and necklaces of mechanical devices covered his rich brown robe, giving the impression of religious symbols rather than utilitarian tools. “Noncombat! I mean, noncombatant! We! Not fighters. Not a threat. Surrender, yes?”
“What about her?” Janine pointed at the woman trying to walk around the man, and more people in brown robes joined in, forming a line between the opponents. The man took a terminal from his belt, pressed several buttons, and the woman’s suit hissed; her generator died, and she stopped, entombed inside her armor.
“How dare you?!” the woman yelled, and Janine’s ears picked up the noise of a fist slamming against something. “She ruined Mehmed! Let me go, you bastard; I’ll kill her! Set me free! You have no right!”
“Niece,” the man said and pointed at himself. “Lost a family member. Don't want again. Won’t bother you. Swear. We sell things. Traders,” he said, looking at the axe. “Never harmed your people. Just selling!”
“Humans?” Janine asked.
“No! Worth too little. Not our trade. Gear, sell gear. Unimportant.” The man gulped, facing his reflection in her amber eye. “Please. Have family. Won’t act against your clan. Have mercy. Please.”
I had a son, too. Janine hesitated. The man wasn’t telling her the whole truth. He could have been one of the leaders of the Gilded Horde, and even if not, these bastards had killed Bogdan. Tortured her soldiers. Wrought ruination and doom to the civilians, showing no mercy.
What would Bogdan say, looking at you now? Asked a voice in her mind. The voice of the Blessed Mother, stern and calm, sounding so unlike her usual tone. What example will you set for Ignacy, Anissa, or Marco? Are you a monster or a human?
Human. She would not stoop to the level of these barbarians.
“The place is about to fall.” Janine glanced at the ceiling. “I suggest you escape.”
“We will! We will, oh mighty and honorable khatun.” The man bowed. “Never will we forget your mercy or unrivaled beauty.”
“Curses! Iron Lord promised to keep us out of harm’s way!” complained a woman with cameras for eyes. She and her comrades fled to the nearest exit, abandoning their trapped niece and confident that her armor would survive the collapse of the hangar.
Beauty? The sheer inanity of this suggestion stopped Janine in her tracks. Here she was, bleeding from dozens of wounds, bruised, her hide ravaged, the splattered golden blob stuck to the head, hiding one eye, her arms far too long compared to her legs… What was beautiful about any of it?
“Ready!” a warrior shouted from the ship’s entrance.
A crowd clung to the central ramp, stopped by Ignacy’s raised paw. Her son crouched, listening to the noise of different languages. The warlord lowered her axe, noting no aggression but fear, desperation, and agitation. These people wore workman’s overalls; a dozen or so wore black bodysuits, simple stun batons, and shotguns pressed to their chests. She tightened the grip on the shaft, recognizing the Horde’s jaws on the bodysuits. Muscles to keep the prisoners in line.
“Alles klar, gib mir eine Minute,” Ignacy barked and turned to Janine. “Warlord! Unexpected development. The Merchants’ slaves are asking for help.”
Not our trade. She bared her fangs, frightening the nearest workers. They didn’t sell slaves, but they certainly used them. She half wanted to turn around and go after the bastards, slaughter the slavers down to the last.
“You understand them?” Janine asked instead. Her boy wasn’t stupid. He deliberately generalized the group.
“Badly. Picked up a few basic words from Soulless One when she helped me translate a manual we had found in the ruins.” Ignacy scratched the back of his head, oblivious to the potential danger of the overseers carrying shotguns. “The gist of it, if I understood these two here, is that Rongo and Mairearad are begging us to let everyone escape with us.”
“Overseers too?” Janine asked, and Ignacy shrugged. “Haagh…” She wanted to tell the overseers to get out of her sight, remembering her prayers to the Spirits and how helpless she was. “You know how the saying goes. The more, the merrier.” She glanced at a warrior, silently ordering the woman to keep an eye on this colorful group.
The ramp moved, folding back into the ship’s belly as the engines roared, spilling fire onto the floor and widening the surrounding inferno. Janine stayed on it until the end, watching as the entire wall collapsed, broken by the monstrous swings of bone-covered arms. The body followed, racing towards the ship.
“Don’t you dare run, mutant!” Drozna yelled, saliva on his fangs evaporating in the surrounding heat, his every step creating rippling waves of destruction across the floor. His simple shirt and trousers caught fire, but he pushed and jumped, sending a sonic boom through the ruined hangar.
His face changed from rage to surprise as the shield bubbled into existence, shoving the man away, and Janine laughed, flipping him off.
“Thanks for the ride, sucker,” she said loud enough for him to hear.
The Sky Carrier rose higher into the air, its powerful engines defying the rules of gravity. Drozna let out a pointless roar of frustration and hatred, completely lost in the flames pouring down on him. A single turn of the ship rammed it through the wall. Against Janine’s worries, their transport continued to gain speed and altitude.
Before the ramp fully closed, she saw numerous people running around the complex and a massive land-train standing beside it. Its caterpillar tracks dragged the machine over the ruined town wall and across the destroyed buildings. Unlike normal trains, the control center of the land train was located atop its middle section, and Janine prepared herself as she watched sixteen huge turrets and a multitude of missile launchers rotate and lock on to the Sky Carrier. Familiar brown-robed figures stepped away from the closing observation windows in the control center as armor plates slid down. A slaver pressed a terminal to his ear, and Janine could’ve sworn the man gave her a polite nod.
The ramp closed, accompanied by the noise of rubble falling off their ship, and Janine shrugged off her fear, walking down the narrow corridor to check on everyone. Strapped into their harnesses, the rescued slaves sat beside the guardsmen. The muscular man, Janine assumed him to be Rongo, and the female overseer assisted a guardsman in treating the civilian’s wounds. Further down the corridor, Malformed, New Breeds and Wolfkins secured themselves in half-empty cargo compartments.
Their pilot lay back in his seat, operating the ship based on the information on the displays rather than using the view ports to navigate. Ignacy joined him, dutifully pulling levers at the New Breed’s command and bombarding him with questions about how to fly the Sky Carrier, and the hordeman chuckled, promising to teach the young man if they got out of here alive.
Janine shook her head and headed for the cargo bay, accompanied by the aggressive hum of working engines. Apart from insects and birds, no living creature was meant to fly, no matter what the teachings of the state said. It was heresy to try. And falling hurt. She could testify to that firsthand.
The Wolfkins pulled several containers together to form a sort of bed for the unconscious Macarius to rest on. Jaliqai and the knight tended to his wounds, using medicine from a found medical kit, and had already injected him with antibiotics. The sword saint growled, barely audible; every breath he took was a struggle.
“Will he live?” Janine asked Jaliqai.
“No idea.” Shrugged the girl. “I can treat broken bones, cuts, and internal bleeding, but this is beyond my skills.” She nodded at the pus oozing from the wounds. “Father’s handiwork. He poisoned him to keep the wounds inflamed and to hinder the immune system, causing the suppuration. Not sure what the point was. Usually he does it to prisoners to keep their minds from escaping in exchange for medicine. I’m surprised he didn’t do it to you.”
“Our bodies are resistant to poisons. Maybe that’s why,” Janine said simply. “Thanks, Jaliqai.”
“Haven’t done anything yet!”
“The Sword Saint can’t die,” snarled the knight. “If you let Lord Macarius perish, I…”
“Pipe down, traitor, or I’ll toss you off the ship,” Janine said.
“I am no traitor! I have fought and bled by your side, damn it. Must you be so stubborn? My name is Thyia Voidrunner.” Thyia pressed a paw over her heart and bowed. “I apologize for my outburst, Jaliqai. Stress and worry have undermined my confidence. Warlord. On behalf of House Voidrunner, I thank you…”
“As if anyone cares.” Janine walked past her, hitting the knight with the blunt side of her axe.
Fought beside them, as if! Thyia joined them out of necessity; at the first opportunity, she’d sell them out for fame. The Ice Fangs were nothing more than a bunch of glory hounds. The Wolf Tribe should never have considered them kin, and she was an idiot for not trusting the shamans’ warnings and wisdom. Their Normies allies had ten times more nobility than any Ice Fang could ever hope for and were loyal friends and true kin to the Tribe. Bogdan, Melina, Eled, Predaig... How many more will die because of the Ice Fangs’ arrogance? Did their pack still live?
The ship shook gently, and Janine pushed past Dokholkhu, who sat with his arms wrapped around his strange container. His brothers and sisters scaled the walls on their insectoid legs and rested on the ceiling, silent.
In the pilot’s cabin, Janine studied unfamiliar letters on the terminal. Try as she might, neither the letters nor the pilot’s input told her anything, but the schematics on the display told her enough. The force shield surrounded their steed that blinked rapidly. Four generators powered it, and two similar symbols were black. The field itself blinked on and off, occasionally letting a shot through.
“Do we have problems?” Janine inquired, looking out of the observation window.
The soldiers of the Gilded Horde went mad, whipped into action by Drozna’s anger. They climbed on top of buildings, firing rocket launchers and pulse rifles. Bullets ricocheted off the field, and explosions shrouded the Sky Carrier in darkness. The train stopped, its turrets no longer tracking the ship, and Janine thanked the Spirits for this mercy. The exploding factory complex behind them prevented the Horde from bringing in their land vehicles, but occasionally the shield shook from a fired shell.
“The morons forgot to reconnect the generators to the control panel! Bunch of cretins!” Ignacy howled, tore away the panel, and disappeared there, almost up to his waist in wires. “Here!” Janine helped him out as the Sky Carrier shook and a new symbol joined the rows of active generators. “What in the Abyss? One? Both are refueled and operational!”
“it’s okay, fine, friend Ignacy,” said the pilot, and the cluster of engines on the display blinked. “Our hull is durable enough, and we no longer need landing engines…”
“Don’t you calm me, bastard!” Ignacy slammed his paw on the panel. “Two! It should be two! Not one, not one and a half, two!”
“Sure, sure, horrible indeed,” the pilot agreed, and Janine snickered to herself. “We are gaining speed and should escape before they can pull out the anti-air guns…”
The man stopped and looked at the radar, where the green screen showed several missiles approaching from the ground. But one dot was much larger than the others, moving slower, veering around the surrounding ordinance, steadily gaining on the ship. Janine looked up and heard heavy thumps as the dot reached them.
“Someone just landed on top of us when the shield was overloaded again,” Ignacy said.
“Janine!” the familiar synthesized voice cried. “C-Come out! Or I will destroy the engines!”
“Mehmed.” Spat Janine. Her amber eye spotted a hatch between the compartments. “Lock the doors. I will remove our freeloader.”
“You’re not going anywhere with those injuries!” Ignacy grabbed her by the arm.
It disgusted her, but she experienced a desire to bite him. A certain amount of cordiality was allowed and even encouraged between males and females, especially if the situation involved a family. But in life and death situations, a male had to obey a female, asking nothing. The shamans taught this to the younger generations in the pits, giving many examples of how deviations from these rules led to greater disasters and practical proof that females were naturally smarter and had greater fighting instincts.
Janine had learned to doubt this theory. Perhaps it was true when food and water were scarce, but behavior had changed over the years. She and Colt often bickered for fun, only showing their severity in public and trying to treat their cubs as gently as possible, rarely clawing. As for the difference in strength, the change was happening, and perhaps if Ignacy got his paw on one of those big metal suits, he would do better than an ordinary female.
How would Colt handle the situation?
Rather than punish her son, Janine hugged him, accepting his concern and soothing his worries.
“I will come back,” she promised. “As a warlord, it is my duty to lead my pack to victory. I can’t do that if I’m dead, can I? Trust me, Ignacy, and go fix the generator on our birdy, champ.”
“Will do!” Ignacy stood at attention, slightly embarrassed by his words.
“Don’t worry about a thing,” she grumbled as she climbed the ladder and opened the hatch. Her body quivered with the ancient fear of heights. “Should be over in a moment.”