“I don’t care about your situation, Lieutenant; I demand an immediate escort!” Lugal-marada screamed in a high-pitched voice, leaning back in his seat as he played his role. “The Dynast will hear of this! You have no right to abandon an Oakster in favor of a common rabble! My vehicle carries taxes and collected tithes in addition to the precious relics. Do you have any idea how much that is worth? Drop the commoners and get us soldiers in here, now!”
Darkness covered most of the interior of the control compartment of a twenty-meter-long land train, and the dim light from several working displays barely illuminated his swollen and stitched skin. Lugal-marada boasted of his superiority over Warlord Janine, but in reality the strain was causing him to sweat, and he kept his head clear thanks to the medical drugs he had swallowed in doses large enough to kill a normal man. His spleen, stomach, one lung, and kidneys had grown back hours ago after the Horde shells had speared through him, and they still pulsed with indignation at the stress he was putting them under.
A paper with the written script lay on the armrest; he had no need for it. His power would have easily earned him a high rank in the First or Second, if not for the troubled past from his days as a border guard. He and his squad had escorted an Investigation Bureau agent to investigate the situation with two twelve-year-olds giving birth. An extremely radical wing of the Church of the Planet had founded the place after the Holy Fathers had exiled them, and the most devout elder proudly told the agent that the proper age for women to bear children was between ten and sixteen.
Lugal-marada had introduced the man to his own orthodox views about the topic against the agent’s complaints. Dishonored and with a criminal record, Lugal-marada had soon enlisted in the Provincial Army’s penal unit and risen to the rank of regional commander, striving to maintain strict discipline in his section of the Wall. He slapped his chin, stopped daydreaming, and focused on the situation at hand. His fallen comrades and the civilians entrusted to his protection deserved to be avenged.
The Oakster family eagerly parted with their opulent land train. Golden laurel leaves crowned the entire length of the four-compartment machine, accentuating its regal purple color, a sign of the dynast’s direct favor for providing food to the starving nation. The Oaksters boasted incredible wealth and the wisdom to expand it, donating tokens to genetic laboratories to reintroduce less dangerous species of bees to their meadows and eliminate genetic defects from their cusack stock. They owned a jewelry factory and smelter nearby and willingly filled two of the compartments with silver, gold, and platinum ingots as a token of gratitude for rescuing their estranged workers and family members. The officer skeptically suspected that the insurance also played a significant role in their immediate acceptance.
To their west grew an impressive man-made plateau full of temporary bunkers. The khan in charge of its construction took no chances, protecting even the lowliest of his workers with force fields; his artillery rained hell on the surrounding area, and snipers masterfully cleared the air of drones. The sheer magnitude of the industrial construction surpassed imagination, and Lugal-marada doubted that even the First Army could replicate it. A new path created by the Horde sealed off a section of the canyon like a plug; the pristine, clear surface reflected sunlight and was wide enough for even their accursed behemoth to pass without stopping. Columns of heavy vehicles had already sped ahead, and soldiers abandoned the bunkers as they sank into the bridge.
Ashbringer and he had hoped that the Horde would send some of their mobile assembly centers, but surprisingly, they no longer accompanied the front lines, and as his train shook under the first landed projectile, the operators activated the engine and began broadcasting pleas for help on the secured channels. The deserters who had escaped with Janine eagerly confirmed which frequencies were already known to the enemy, and to be on the safe side, Ashbringer had ordered several secured frequencies also to be used. A prey must not suspect a thing she said.
Unless they were deterred, the full might of the Horde would be on its way to Houstad in less than a few hours to face the unprepared Provincial Army. And it fell to Lugal-marada to give the invaders a more enticing appetizer to slow them down, and he intended to succeed by playing the role of a stubborn corporate paper-pusher who had arrogantly ignored the evacuation and stayed behind to collect a priceless cargo.
The state also had talented engineers.
“Leave.” Lugal-marada faced the small crew of operators. “It has been an honor to serve with you.” He didn’t salute; his cap was absent.
“Sir!” A young kid of about nineteen jumped to his feet, filling the officer’s heart with disgust. Not at the fear in the large eyes, no, the kiddo saw action, and a scab covered the side of his neck. He hated allowing the young to volunteer for suicide missions. “We’re willing to sacrifice our lives for the cause!!”
“Why let our enemies further our losses?” Lugal-marada asked. “Survive. Your escape will add credibility.”
“Clear the channel, Oakster!” an operator snapped from the communicator. “We have repeatedly warned you to drop whatever you are doing and evacuate. There’s nothing we can do for you.”
“What do you mean you can’t?!” Lugal-marada yelled, jumping up and pounding his fists on the table for all to hear. He added a curse, feigning pain. “Do you have any idea who you are talking to, eh, dolt? I will not…” The rear compartment of the land train opened, and his crew raced away, pushing their recon bikes to the limit. “No! Don’t leave me, you bastards! Stand and fight! I am paying you! Me! Save me!!!”
He chuckled, stepping away from the coms as the operator in the HQ cut him off. He still had it. The nose of the land train crashed into the tree line, carving a path deeper as the big wheels turned the trunks into splinters. It was unlikely that his troops could escape the BOOM in time, but he intended to give them at least a chance.
Hoverbikes already approached his vehicle, firing their pulse rifles at the hull, and a puff of smoke touched his nostrils. Heavier vehicles followed in their wake, and the whole column changed direction, hurrying after a rich bounty possessed by a vain idiot. The land train shook, a wheel broke, and a purple flash sliced the rear compartment in half. The wreckage almost slammed into two hordemen and crashed into an APC, spilling precious ingots around. Greed and hunger flashed in the hordemen’s eyes, and more vehicles flanked the escapee. Pounding on the ceiling announced the arrival of the first boarders, and the officer smiled as he entered the second compartment.
Shots pounded the hull and ricocheted away; cleavers and swords struck, denting the edges but creating cracks; a champion’s fist smashed through the ceiling, and Lugal-marada wrapped his hand around it, reshaping his limb into a cluster of gray tentacles. Sensitive antennae grew above his forehead, catching every vibration in the air and funneling the chaos into his mind. His bones dissolved, and hardened bone growths covered the vulnerable parts of the officer’s body, and he yanked at the arm, dragging the hapless hordeman through the opening too small for him.
The neck broke, the man’s head flattened so that it spattered against the armor, bones crunched, the snap of tearing tendons filled the air, and the idiot died so quickly that his mind had barely registered a ghost of pain. The wall to Lugal-marada’s left exploded inward, and he whirled, his eyes merging into a single cyclopean sphere. It caught and reflected the outside light, magnifying and intensifying the beam so that it melted the metal on the hordeman’s chest. But in its weakened state, it did little else, and the pulse rifle in the bastard’s arm fired.
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Lugal-marada jumped to the left, feeling a searing pain in his chin. His gums and teeth vaporized, giving the officer an ugly leer. The hordeman had no time to cheer his shot; the knot of tentacles was already closing in on him, twisting off limbs and tossing the body outside. More. Organic scythes rose from Lugal-marada’s shoulders, their ends scraping the ceiling, and in one fell swoop he decapitated two boarders. A little further to lure more in.
His body shook; bloody crimson grew over his torso as the hordemen opened fire, keeping their distance. A bullet pierced the foundation of the fleshy scythe, and it dropped to the ground. Lugal-marada kicked, his foot flattening and hooking the floor to throw wreckage at the boarders; his belly ballooned, the flesh protruded, and from its smooth surface showed white fangs and an eyeless head. On a long, elastic hose-neck, the new head traversed through the compartment, biting off chunks of flesh from the fallen enemies.
Lugal-marada’s power lay in body manipulation. Uniquely unbounded by notions of weight or available material, its limits depended on the well-being of his original human body. As he changed, his body thinned, spreading evenly in a layer over the grown parts. Even his brain no longer retained its original shape, and his conscience hid in the cells of his body. After an intense study of his powers, scientists concluded that his tentacles, fangs, and rudimentary body parts drew mass from other planes of existence, opening small portals in the officer’s body. But damage to his body limited such possibilities until natural recovery, and he was far from his prime.
Hands caught the moving head by the jaw and pulled them, eliciting a groan of pain from the officer. A hordeman laughed and shoved a grenade into the opened maw and jumped at the officer. The blast cut the fleshy tube in half, sending vibrating agony through the officer’s body. Caught by the impact, the hordeman closed the distance in a split second, slashing at Lugal-marada’s shoulder and cleanly shearing the knot of tentacles.
The remaining arm morphed into a thick tentacle and wrapped around the man’s neck, the throbbing flesh pressing hard enough to shatter the visor of the man’s helmet. The hordeman still planted his knee into Lugal-marada’s stomach, hard enough to sting him with pain, and the officer threw the man away. To keep from falling, the border grabbed the edge of the torn wall. Then, he pulled a plasma pistol from his belt and fired once. It was enough. Lugal-marada’s eyes widened even more as he reacted to the incinerating orb burning its way through his insides; his body reacted against his will, turning into a hardened material resembling bark, capable of stopping the orb from burning him in two. The plasma died in his sternum, and the officer fell to his knees, connected to his lower body by a paper-thin layer of black bark.
With a laugh, the hordeman leveled his pistol at the solidified eye as he approached. Behind him, the engines roared, ramming the train and bringing it to a screeching halt.
“Glad you are happy about your extermination, pest,” Lugal-marada whispered, using the last oxygen in his body, and the slanted eyes narrowed. The hordeman turned to shout a warning, and in that second, the BOOM went off, and Lugal-marada’s body suddenly was weightless.
****
Warlord Ashbringer’s pack had toiled without rest, burying warheads and potent explosives in the area marked by Janine. Had they done so on the plains or near the roads, the Horde would have noticed the evidence of their recent digging, but deep in the forest and caught up in the chase, confident in the safety of their numbers, they entered the culling zone blindly.
Like a great claw of a Spirit, the flame pillar rose from the ground in a titanic eruption, throwing hundreds of engines into the air and vaporizing them along with their crews. The flame rose, and the clouds escaped, driven away by the shockwaves that rolled across the ground, destroying much of the forest and setting the rest ablaze. In the distant Houstad, the crew of the Inevitable noted the seismic reading reaching the city, and far away, Mad Hatter clapped his hands, enjoying such amusement and regretting missing the chance to bathe in the blazing pyre.
Clouds of smog enveloped the ground as if night had descended early; the fissures opened by the shockwave reached the bridge, and the hurled vehicles smashed against the indomitable shield of Sky’s Wrath as it brazenly advanced, protecting the lesser forces that clung to it like frightened cubs to their mother during an insectoid visit at night. Flakes of earth fell to the ground in a ground fall, and ash obscured everything from view as the Horde’s artillery roared, flattening any potential ambush far too late to achieve anything.
Ashbringer stood undaunted, ignoring the wall of fire barreling toward her. Her legs held her steady, her armor closed, and she withstood the whip of the shockwave, opening her helmet in time to admire the passing heat genocide she had created. Not every soldier of the Provincial Guard had managed to escape the expanding danger zone, and her flickering HUD registered a screaming person falling from the bike and turning to ash. Sneaky rabbits, mighty bears, gorgeous deer, and magnificent birds tried to escape the impending doom and died in the hellfire. The Dynast was on a direct line with her, ready to give the order to mutilate the land he had created. She disconnected him and pressed the remote herself, wiping out life from a small corner of the Core Lands with a single press of a button.
“To save what we love, we destroy what we ought to protect,” Ashbringer mused. “What does it make us?”
“Destroyers. Killers. Monsters.” A dark form stopped beside her, emanating streaks of almost liquid darkness. Onyxia spat on the ground. “Ours is to protect and fight. But if we try to protect everything, we will lose everything.” She zipped to a fallen, burning deer and sliced through the head of the suffering animal. “A puzzle of our existence. Instead of stagnating in indecision, we act and let the future generation curse or understand us.”
“It is our duty to arrange for them to have that luxury,” agreed Ashbringer. “We are done here. Let us gather the survivors and reunite with the Ice Fangs. That should scare the Horde long enough for us to retreat safely.”
“It was good, yeah…” Onyxia looked around and smiled a perfect white line in the darkness. The lenses of her helmet darkened. “But it could be better. See you in Houstad, sis. If you see Anji before I do, praise her for her hard work and recovery.”
Ashbringer glanced in her direction, but her sister wasn’t there anymore. A single step, barely marking a footprint in the ground, had carried the heavily armored warlord into the shroud of smog. She could sense no trace, no smell of Onyxia, and turned away, leaving the Visitor to hunt as she wished.
“Explain yourself, Warlord,” the Dynast’s distorted voice came through the static. Many considered their liege a dreadful and merciless ruler, and he was capable of unspeakable cruelty for the sake of humanity. He spoke in a stern, demanding tone, but occasionally a hint of genuine warmth and care broke through the facade he had put on for the sake of his image, the voice of a man worn out of waging war and destruction and wishing to turn his attention to creation. “What right did you have to ignore me?”
“It was ours. My sin to bear, sir,” Ashbringer said.
“And if I say that I have changed my mind about the BOOM in the last second?” the Dynast inquired.
“Then you have the opportunity to do so now or later, sir.”
“Stupid, Ashbringer. It is not your duty to preserve my reputation.”
“It is if the fate of our people depends on it, sir!” Ashbringer insisted.
“I am aware of a certain pigheaded stubbornness that Ravager has instilled in the Wolf Tribe.”
“What is a pig, sir?” she asked curiously.
“Read the history books.” The Dynast sighed wearily. “Educate yourself in more than military matters, Ashbringer. After we win the war, if there is time, I or my servant will send you a quiz. Solve it and there will be a reward. Fail, and I’ll send you to a university. Regardless, you are all younger than me. To me, you are the future.” She had a retort to this, and the Dynast continued. “I’ve seen enough prejudice and racism. My hand activated the remote and enforced Alpha’s plan. Anyone who disagrees will be hanged. I don’t see Onyxia’s signature on the radar. Is it malfunctioning? Where did she run off to?”
“My sister plans to teach the Horde that some ghosts arrive during the day, sir.”