An ashen dome covered a wide swath of land near Quatindor. The occupying forces, the enslaved population, and the foreign laborers dared to show their faces from the cover, relieved that the raging firestorm had passed. Their world became a mix of gray and dark as heavy drops of dirt rained down from above and silence filled the streets. It didn’t last long, and the methodical thud of artillery drove a new stake of anxiety into the hearts of the people.
Is it the Reclaimers? The garrison and the captives thought the same, though no one dared speak their minds. One side hoped for their arrival; the other rushed to prepare defenses, just in case. The shockwave had ripped through the town, collapsing several wrecks, and the khan in charge of the defense was busy ordering the rubble cleared, trying to shake his troops out of their indecision. Brood Lord had gifted him the place, and he had humbly petitioned the Merchants for rebreathers for the general population. Though he abhorred the idea of saving weaklings, they were now the source of his wealth, and the khan wanted prosperity for his modest clan.
No one knew the reason why the Merchants had sent not only the supplies but also the medical teams free of charge.
On the bridge, the Gilded Horde resumed their advance. Their losses weren’t that great, and the survivors climbed out of the overturned engines, laughing at the incredible accident, and some soldiers began to compose songs. Life was cheap on the steppes, while wealth and legacies meant everything to the champions. Though some regiments mourned the loss of their loved ones, and bondsmen trembled at the prospect of walking into another bomb field, the raiders eagerly awaited their chance for payback.
Steel boots stomped across the ravaged ground into the veil of darkness, checking for possible minefields, and behind them, advanced mobile artillery, firing suppressive blasts to flush any ambushers out of hiding. No one really expected to meet any resistance, and the first hordeman gasped in surprise as a shadow passed her, opening her belly all the way to the spinal column.
Onyxia burst into the search parties, moving faster than a bullet; her claws mutilated bodies beyond recovery. An explosion of ash announced her presence to the panicked soldiers, who fired in vain as she was already behind them, slicing through their backs. Six gravity grenades dropped, exploded, and dark orbs flashed into reality, sucking dozens into their center and collapsing the bastards into wet dots.
She hunted those who tried to organize order for the officers and the clever individuals shouting commands to form a circle and stop firing blindly. These she murdered on the spot, slitting throats or splitting skulls. She spared the lesser soldiers, leaving them to bleed out on the scorched ground, their screams of despair and gurgling blood adding to the beautiful canopy of horror the warlord was weaving.
Two thrusts raised the gasping hordemen in the air, and their bullets riddled their bodies into tatters, flying past Onyxia’s disappearing afterimage. The lenses of her armor were dead. The suit itself had long since gone into infiltration mode, sealing any sound from leaving its confines. She was moving too fast to be tracked by their cameras, and the dissipated heat lingering in the air made it impossible to detect her with thermal sensors. Streaks of liquid darkness covered the surface of her battleplate and fangs, blending the Wolfkin into the shadows.
“Keon,” she said to a hordeman frozen in fear, claws raking against the woman’s skull, eliciting terrible screams from her companions. Terrific boasted of being the master of psychological warfare, and Onyxia allowed the girl to keep her delusions, knowing full well who the master was.
“P-please…” yelped an enemy, throwing his rifle, and a larger man near him turned, ready to shoot the coward.
“Zlata.” Blood poured from a gaping wound in the chest, and the shooter looked at his still-beating heart, held in a paw in front of him. She continued to kill, whispering the names of her fallen comrades, sparing those who disarmed. She was a wind, stealing breaths, a specter rising from the ashes, inhuman, unseen, unfeeling, and impossible to overcome.
There will be no deaths worthy of song or glory left for those who stand in her way. Just despair and helplessness.
Warmth. Onyxia enjoyed it, joyful despite all the deaths of her kin and citizens. It was a selfish feeling, but one she cherished. Her body had generated no heat since she challenged Alpha at the dawn of their tribe, under the unblinking gaze of Ravager. Everyone instinctively bowed to Alpha, recognizing her superiority, but Onyxia had always considered herself a bit of an oddity. Why should she kowtow to someone she wasn’t afraid of? She studied the pale woman, recognizing the patterns of her muscles contorting and releasing under her skin, even stealing her medical records, hungrily consuming information about the near-perfect body.
Then it happened. The two entered an ancient ruin in the Ravaged Lands, and their duel lasted sixteen hours. Alpha’s physical strength far exceeded Onyxia’s, and the smaller woman abused the place, hiding from sight, striking, retreating, and dodging eviscerating stabs. She had read the warlord’s body language, dodged and weaved in the cutting storm of attacks, and raged herself, trying to sever Alpha’s tendons.
Her opponent had truly etched herself into the memory; no matter the damage, she kept going, often healing the torn wounds during the openings when Onyxia had withdrawn to catch her breath. A single blow could be enough to murder the smaller woman, but that only excited the younger warlord; she was thrilled to have to use every ounce of her skill to win.
The entire Tribe had held their breath, watching the impossible duel at first, then getting bored and yelling at Onyxia to fight fairly, but she paid no attention, and even the Blessed Mother had jokingly asked if the two would like to stop and have a snack and a drink. They had growled in indignation and redoubled their efforts. That split second of frustration, an insignificant irritation, had shattered Onyxia’s concentration, and she slipped.
Alpha had seized her by the throat during an ambush, the jaws had closed, and Onyxia had heard a crunch and the sharp pain of a torn windpipe. Then her body had convulsed, the light had left her eyes, and she had fainted. She had woken up two days later, blinking surprisingly at Alpha’s attempts to burn her, and the two sisters had embraced. The older sister had apologized for her carelessness, and the younger sister had accepted her place in the pack, satisfied that she had tried her best and lost.
Almost dying sucked! Since her resurrection, tendrils of darkness had enveloped Onyxia, as if Death itself had tried to lure the stubborn woman back into its realm. Her body no longer radiated warmth, and she had seen the disgust in her soulmate’s eyes when he touched her fishlike skin. He had never said a word, had given her the same unconditional care and love as before, but she wasn’t stupid.
At the Blessed Mother’s permission, they had left the tribe for months, mating in secret, and her worst fears had had been proven true with the birth of a litter. Her cubs had cried in Onyxia’s embrace, refusing her milk, frozen by her sin, and she had to ask Lacerated One to be a wet nurse. Spirits be blessed, the only legacy of hers they shared was the thick, lush, almost silken fur so clearly visible in each of her distant descendants, manifesting most in Martyshkina, Anji, and Ashbringer. To preserve their honor, Onyxia never revealed the kinship. Except for the shamans, no one even knew of her soulmate. She had already brought indelible shame upon her precious adopted baby, and to tarnish the legacy of her biological cubs was unthinkable. Onyxia had failed as a mother.
Lacerated One thought her cursed, but Onyxia and her soulmate doubted it. Six times she gave birth, and not one of her cubs was born breathless. Forty boys and thirty-five healthy girls she had gifted to the Tribe. What else could it be but a blessing, a sign of the Spirits’ mercy to soothe her soul after the folly she had committed? But after her soulmate grew old and consented to be culled, no male would ever look at her, repelled by the icy coldness of her touch, even in the Ravaged Lands. She was a walking ghoul, and soon she had stopped caring about finding a partner.
I wish I could be warm all the time. Onyxia exhaled, saddened by the chill that crept up her spine. Nothing lasted. Ashbringer had built a private furnace for her, and she snorted happily amid the crackling flames, but the moment she stepped outside the square structure, the icy tingling returned.
She ducked, letting the bullets fly above her, and sprang into action, flying nimbly between a hordeman’s legs without even touching the man. A plea for mercy and cries to his gods left his lips as she rose behind him, and he soon died as the air ceased to flow from the severed parts of his body. The soldier fell apart in pieces, and she picked up his grenade belt, fastening it around her waist. The decapitated head crashed into a rocket fired by the soldier, and they both disappeared in the ensuing explosion.
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The black arm swung through the rising wall of flame, blinding the crawling soldier, and the whistle of approaching shells alerted Onyxia that the artillery had finally taken note of her carnage. A single lunge carried her away from the wounded, and a shell flattened the man. The warlord zigzagged across the battlefield, her legs beating up large swaths of ground and ashes, furthering the chaos as dying troops hallucinated ghosts and relayed false coordinates to their allies. The artillery crew, believing a whole squad of Reclaimers had attacked them, began firing blindly, picking off their own troops.
Satisfied, Onyxia crept past the enemy lines, keeping her snout almost kissing the ground, her nimble fingers easily carrying the wide warlord to her desired target. Ten self-propelling siege artillery tanks, adorned with the golden, world-devouring teeth. Loaned by the Khatun to her two subordinates, Brood Lord and Iron Lord, the soldiers sworn to Mad Hatter’s khaganate operated them. Veterans of numerous conquests, they alone refused to fire blindly, and any destruction wrought upon them would cast a doubt on the Khatun’s leadership.
Which meant that Janine’s bold plan would be all the easier to carry out.
“There!” A hordeman rose from the open hatch, pointing at Onyxia, deducing her location without error. He removed his visor, his eyes shining green. “Bury the interloper!”
“For Mad Hatter and to the world’s end!”
Onyxia smirked, anticipating the barrels leveling at her, and dove to the left as the front plates of the nearest artillery tank exploded, sending shards of steel flying at her. Some kind of reactive plating? An anti-infantry weapon? Ignoring the slicing sound of the shards hitting the ruined ground, she darted forward, slipping to the soldiers guarding the vehicles. Her paws grabbed two by the ankles and dragged them under the belly of a beast. Claws dug under their armpits, drawing desperate screams, and she disappeared, cutting a path through a continuous track.
Gunfire roared behind her as the guards assumed she was still under the vehicle, but she focused on the lad with the green eyes. Onyxia threw up a grenade.
“As expected,” he said as the plates of his vehicle exploded outward, blowing the grenade away. Then he blinked, felt the heavy paws on his shoulders, and tumbled inside, the warlord landing on top of him. She had already circled the vehicle, using the flash as a distraction.
The hordeman lunged with his knife, missing the swaying and mocking head. To their credit, the rest of the crew, six soldiers in all, had already reached for their rifles, not panicking in the slightest and ready to fight. Onyxia took the stolen grenade belt, pulled out every safety pin, scattered them around, and stabbed the man in the neck, then bounced off him and into the main cannon. A single blow sent the shell flying from the barrel, and the warlord laughed as he heard the eruption behind her. Grenades detonated shells and ruptured the engine, adding its deadly potency to the ongoing explosion.
The impact caught her and pushed her up the barrel, her armor scraping against the narrow confines and tongues of flame licking at her exposed cheeks. The walls of the vehicle welded and burst, unable to contain the destruction as the warlord was ejected from the cannon, calculating her next move. One down, but she noticed the officer’s robustness after she had intended to break his arms. No risk, slow and steady…
Pain struck her back, widening her dim eyes. Not a shot. She was thrown out of the trajectory and landed face down in the ashes, rolling away from the machine gun fire and searching for shadows. But there was not a single one nearby, and her own stretched out, reaching farther as the light engulfed her.
In the storm of the artificial night, a living sun descended to the ground, banishing fear and uncertainty. The newcomer had the appearance of a burnt victim; his darkened skin clung to his bones, cracked in places, spewing gleeful fire that formed a reddish mantle around the man. He had no lips; his ember eyes sunk deep into the smiling skull; there was no ear to be seen, not even holes in the torn flesh that covered the head. A soft crack accompanied the newcomer’s quick jerk of the neck, and he walked toward the warlord, leaving burning footsteps in his wake.
“I’ve had friends and comrades who got caught in that explosion of yours,” the man spoke calmly, his voice still resembling the rumble of a swollen mountain cone of magma ready to erupt. “Pay up.”
I can’t get a read on him. Onyxia watched the man cautiously, unable to detect the slightest movement beneath his leathery, dry skin. It stretched and broke occasionally during wide strides, causing the man no discomfort. Freaky.
She jumped back, planning to find cover in the darkness, and the man broke from the spot, red wings spreading behind his back. He soared into the air and landed like a comet, sending waves across the ground and knocking Onyxia off her feet. His hand struck, aiming to strike and grab her throat, and she twisted her body, weaving away the blow and hearing a hiss of flames against her plates as the arm grazed her. The oozing darkness of her body retreated, hiding in the joints, and she countered, stabbing at the grinning skull.
The claws stopped just short of his missing nose as the warlord’s eyes caught sight of lines forming on the head. He reshaped the skull, each bone and piece of skin turning into perfect pieces of a bear trap that tried to snap at her wrist. Taking a step back, Onyxia found her footing and raised a paw, hearing the crack of the reshaping arm. The hordeman’s arms broke apart to become long, curved swords.
Wind blew into the approaching soldiers as the two champions faced off, flaming blades against armored paws. Claws raked the darkened surface, tearing away chunks of flesh; blades scratched armor, melting it in places. What is he? A constructor type? A regenerator? Onyxia pondered, blocking a stab and immediately dodging the returning blade. She had sliced the man’s wrist to the bone, and he didn’t even flinch, regaining his skull. His mouth opened, showering her with flame too weak to melt the armor. It was a trick to make her dodge into a stab. That much she could read, and his attacks slipped off her vambraces or were deflected by the claws.
His flesh moved, closing the damage and confusing her even further. Sure, most regenerators eventually developed a high tolerance for pain so as not to be distracted in battle, but they still felt something. They frowned, jerked, spasmed, or twitched depending on the strike. Here, she stabbed him right in the sternum, and it caused no reaction. Best not to linger. She decided, glancing at the approaching troops and retreating artillery.
The flaming hordeman stepped into her range, ignoring the slice that ripped his head clean off and another that burrowed into his chest, tearing off scorched ribs. His left arm morphed back into a fist and slammed into Onyxia with enough force to dent part of her armor into her stomach, forcing her to cough up blood. Strong. Nah, not worth the risk. His fist opened and slashed upward, almost nicking her exposed snout with the smoking claws. Leaning back, she kicked at his torso and sprang away.
A wall of flame rose in her path at the man’s snap, and Onyxia rolled through it, changing direction to avoid the shots to her back. An explosion threw her to all fours as the flaming man crashed into the fiery veil carried by his wings. His eyes flashed, betraying surprise as Onyxia hurled her emergency gravity grenade at the bastard, and she noticed a tiny sphere, no larger than a palm, streak away from the burning body as it began to disintegrate under the pull of the gravity vortex. Blackened bones and fire spread from the sphere, answering the warlord’s question as to the nature of her enemy.
Constructs. She headed east, summoning her HUD and sharing the information with her sisters. No wonder she had failed to predict the man’s movements; every part of him, except for the orb, was created by his power. An impressive combination of fire manipulation, transformation, and matter creation grafted onto a single individual. Let the egghead examine the material, but she was willing to bet that destroying the tiny orb would put an end to the bastard.
Onyxia slowed her escape when she heard the crackle of flames heading south, stopping, then heading north. He lost her. She slammed to the ground, her heartbeat silenced long enough for the scent of dark cover to show from under her armor. She disliked relying on that incomplete power of hers, preferring to trust her own abilities, for it often accentuated form and made her stand out on a horizon, but in the current situation, covered in flakes of ash, it served as adequate camouflage.
Something stirred in the sand, piquing her curiosity. She approached the source of the noise and noticed badly burned and torn pieces of the Oaksters’ land train. Most of the golden foliage and purple paint had disappeared from the hull, but her nose caught the familiar scent mark, and she halted, listening to the crawling of a small body struggling under the fallen metal, climbing stubbornly to the surface. The warlord assumed it was a surviving insect when a pale, soft tip of a wormlike appendage pushed up from the ashen surface, its skin parting at the top to form a hungry mouth that swallowed and spat ash. The thing thrashed about, searching blindly for something to eat, and Onyxia smiled, reaching for her belt.
“Would you look at that?” she whispered, pulling out a small ration and shoving it into the mouth. A series of needle teeth grew from the palate, and gastric juices frothed, dissolving the ground paste into nutrients. “Regional commanders are impressive!”
She paused, deciding on her next course of action. There was no guarantee that Lugal-marada would have his memories, or if he would even be able to regain his body. The officer had some regeneration, but nothing too impressive. Her original plan was to haunt the advancing forces of the Gilded Horde, picking at them from their weakest point and maybe killing that flame guy now that she thought she knew his weakness. This would require leaving the officer here, and his chances of survival…
Are none existing. No point in lying. Admit it, Onyxia, you want to rescue the man and are searching for excuses. She folded her arms and nodded, then picked up the tentacle. Her little girl had traveled to Iterna to study medicine because she wanted to help patients get better. Well, the warlord was more on the side of improving society through social engineering, which involved slaughtering the state’s enemies, than physical treatment, but she could honor her daughter’s memory by at least trying to save her ally. Besides, she risked attracting Mad Hatter’s attention and losing her life.
So off to Houstad she went. She’ll murder her share of scum when they get there.