Janine faced her reflection in the mirror and ran a finger over the burns covering her muzzle, the newly grown skin twisting and spasming at the touch. Several strands of pitch-black fur already appeared, and the whole thing itched like crazy. She swallowed, ignoring the network of red veins around the eye.
“I am still here,” she said, washing her face.
This den used to belong to Bertruda, and the sheer opulence of it confused and irritated the warlord. Statues of the former Sword Saints lined the walls; above them hung paintings and photographs dedicated to the most important moments in the history of the Mountaintops. Rich carpets covered the floor, making it impossible for her not to spill blood on them. A soft, round bed, large enough to accommodate half a dozen Wolfkins, covered with a multitude of flowing silken blankets and fluffy pillows, stood opposite the entrance, hidden by a redwood partition. The entrance to the bathroom led to another room, bigger than most tents, with a floor of white tiles surrounding a private pool.
It all seemed so wasteful, but Janine had bitten her tongue rather than chastise Marco when he gasped at the sight of the place. Even the memorial stone, a tradition the Order had borrowed from the Tribe, had letters encrusted in gold that wound along its length, all together forming soothing patterns. It wasn’t an artifact of remembrance and solemn mourning, but rather a ponderous trophy rack boasting the legacies of the fallen. It was unusual and commendable, even if it rubbed her the wrong way. The Tribe preferred to honor the fallen through songs and festivities.
Janine had spared no detail, pouring out her soul onto her cubs as a mother, telling the story of Bodan’s sacrifice truthfully, trying to do justice to his noble sacrifice, and highlighting her own failures, which led to the deaths of her named sisters and so many soldiers. They should have retreated after rendezvousing with the Ice Fangs, but her arrogance led to her misreading the battlefield. She had expected lashing, accusations, and renunciations. Anissa and Marco had simply embraced her, and they had spent a few minutes praising Bogdan and talking like a family before Impatient One sent them away.
The shaman had kept her cool and forced the warlord to join her in a farewell prayer. Truth be told, it brought no comfort to the raging inferno in Janine’s soul. She will rend Brood Lord asunder and eat his bone marrow. She will break the Horde’s spine and deny them Houstad, come what may.
She had woken up on the floor and found herself covered by a blanket, which cheered her up rather than souring her mood because she had slipped so badly that an intruder had sneaked up on her. Even a warlord had limits, and after the rest, her body moved easily; not a single limb was strained, and with newfound energy, she reviewed reports and video feeds from the field.
Soulless One. Another loss, and one that stung painfully. Her friend, her guiding star, whom she wronged and wasn’t sure she had brought proper amends for that decision. Melina, Bogdan, Soulless One, Marcenia, Adam… So many losses. Her pack continued to dwindle, soul by soul.
Both of her ideas worked, to a degree, buying them precious time needed to limit the losses. Their evacuation was forced to take a detour to the south as the Gilded Horde’s self-propelled artillery engaged in several long-range duels. The third plan was in motion, and Caikhatu sent a message with the words “Jackpot, my Khatun,” and information. The two infiltrators played their roles exemplarily, with Caikhatu denouncing Iron Lord for sacrificing him and the hordewoman publicly spitting on Brood Lord’s favor for setting her up to die in the arena and joining his rival. As Janine had predicted, the khan didn’t act on the given information, not even sending a warning to the northern forces. A poisoned chalice to Brood Lord and a dagger to Iron Lord.
That is, if the infiltrators remain loyal to the Reclaimers and alive. Too many ifs to plan anything based on their success.
The Gilded Horde had resumed its inevitable advance, but its rapid march no longer surprised the state’s military. To give time to the refugees and the Wolfkins to evacuate, the remnants of the Border Provincial Guard had rejoined the Provincial Army and prepared their stand. The massive explosion had given them time to prepare minefields, and artillery crews flattened every curve on the horizon, training hourly and preparing for the showdown as the officer in charge calculated the impossibility of retreating to Houstad. They knew about the near impossibility of victory and decided to deny the Gilded Horde the quickest route to Houstad.
Tanks and armored vehicles evacuated from the border were refueled; logistics officers busily planned and executed miracles of organizing civilian transports to deliver the wounded to the city; communications officers updated local villages and settlements, alerting them to the Horde’s movements. The news of the northern defeat sparked cheers that soon grew to thunderous roars as Warlord Ashbringer arrived to support the army in its doomed quest. Though she came alone, her mere presence inspired hope and awe. With redoubled efforts, the soldiers dug lines of trenches and even constructed several bunkers, with surprise finding the warlord toiling beside them in the dirt while shells flew overhead.
The Provincial Army had stubbornly refused any further aid from the Wolf Tribe and the order, determined to ensure that their allies and fellow civilians would reach Houstad safely. Twenty thousand hearts formed the defensive line to deny the Horde. Not because they believed they could win, but out of duty and for the people who relied upon them.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
And when the enemy came, they stood their ground. The artillery collected a grievous toll from the nimbly darting riders, exploding them by the dozens. The hoverbikes that managed to circle around the flanks were greeted by the fire of well-placed automatic turrets. What normal human eyes could not track, the systems easily pinpointed, predicting the line of movement and economic bursts of gunfire downed the hordemen before they could approach enough to fire their pulse rifles.
Brood Lord didn’t bat an eye about his mistake and brought his own artillery to bear, soon overloading shield generators. The siege artillery tanks, so coveted and treasured by Iron Lord and which Onyxia had failed to destroy, wreaked devastation in the trenches, filling them with molten napalm and white phosphorus. Not even shield bunkers protected the soldiers, for the shells fired by these ancient machines had drill heads that bored through the reinforced stone. Smoke filled the horizon, and from its height, chemical rockets streaked upon the defenders’ position, spewing fumes of green mist upon exploding.
Though the army suffered some casualties, the gas masks and emergency air circulation systems of the power armors prevented the worst catastrophe from coming to pass, and their own artillery chewed away at the Horde’s position, damaging the over-exposed siege-tanks and forcing them to retreat.
Sweating with fear and adrenaline, gripping their rifles, flames licking their sides, and looking ahead with bloodshot eyes, the Reclaimers saw the enemy ranks advance right into the firing zone of their tanks. The 5th Guards Tank Division was ever an undermanned beast. Composed of a now-lost command vehicle that acted as brigade headquarters and three tank regiments, each numbering a hundred battle units, it had a single anti-aircraft regiment of SAMs. Formed shortly prior to the invasion, these soldiers lacked drones and reconnaissance vehicles. The unit served as a ‘punching fist’ on the border, sallying beyond the Wall to level a found slavers’ base without a need to care about the collateral.
But they were the sole division unmaimed of the Provincial Army, and on this day, these people gave it their all. New Breeds, capable of minor precognition, manned the heaviest tanks, protected by shield generators, and on their collective advice, the tanks fired from beyond the optimal distance, landing every shot perfectly on the approaching ranks, throwing corpses into the air.
The 5th Guards Tank Division had fired only four times before the Horde artillery responded, exploding tank after tank, using its sheer numbers to overcome any advantage the precogs offered. But they achieved their primary objective, buying a brief respite for the state’s own tow and self-propelled artillery to leave the front lines and retreat to the rear. Their range surpassed that of their Horde counterparts, and now safe from the chemical warfare, they resumed their duel, their targets pinpointed by several precogs.
In response, a fury erupted from the smoke, reaching the advancing bondsmen in a stampede of unleashed sonic booms. Drozna, disgraced by his failure, was the first Pureblood to join the carnage, eager to win back the favor of his horrible khan. A single swing tore a chunk of a tank, hollowing its insides and liquidating the crew; his kick pancaked two war machines, gluing them together. An uppercut sent a tank flying, and the monster advanced, ready to eliminate the 5th Guards Tank Division.
A bright star raced to meet him from the trenches, a line of fire so intense that it partially vitrified the sand and detonated ammunition aimed at her. Ashbringer stepped into the fray and crashed into Drozna like a cannonball. Despite his brutal appearance and a nature driven by baser instincts, Drozna was a strong enough opponent that even Janine doubted her ability to bring him down. In the Tribe, only Alpha, Predaig, and maybe Lacerated One could reliably kill the bastard in a fair fight.
Ashbringer didn’t care about a fair fight and had studied the footage of Predaig’s duel well enough to know that she was outmatched. The veil of fire enveloped both fighters, failing to scorch their resilient hides. It also obscured vision, and where the state’s lenses and her own heightened senses gave the warlord a full picture, her opponent flailed blindly, paying for his refusal to use technology. Ashbringer dodged his clumsy blows and rained down her own well-timed strikes, and the two champions carved a small circle between the armies.
Several squads of bondsmen attempted to support their leader, while the state’s army did nothing of the sort, focusing their fire coldly on the approaching troops. It wasn’t for lack of trust or hidden enmity; the soldiers followed the prescribed protocols to the letter. When faced with an adversary whose movements they could not follow, they sought to eliminate the lesser threats first, weakening the foe even if he prevailed.
But the stalemate could not last, and Drozna had tricks up his sleeve. A touch of rage entered Ashbringer’s mind, shattering her concentration, and her skyward thrust resulted in her own claws breaking against the impregnable jaws of the grinning beast. Drozna clapped his hands together, scattering the flames with an ensuing sonic boom, and nearly flattened the warlord’s head in the process. Leaning back, she dodged the palms and grabbed his wrists, delivering a headbutt to his forehead.
Janine had to replay the event several times just to believe it. Ashbringer’s headbutt had a nasty reputation in the Tribe. Strong enough to outright kill a challenger, it was rarely used after the warlord turned a wolf hag from a rival pack into a vegetable, all but killing the woman. The state’s medics had taken away the wolf hag, and the Tribe mourned her passing, not believing that anyone could recover from such a blow. Never again did Ashbringer use the full force of her skull against anyone below the rank of warlord; she always held back.
Today she went all out. And Drozna brushed it off. The headbutt landed with enough strength to create a sonic explosion of such intensity that it reached even the trenches, knocking several men off their feet; the lenses of the warlord’s helmet cracked, and the metal of her helmet crumpled into a thin layer. Drozna himself was buried in the ground up to his waist, but he smiled ugly and launched a sweeping kick that sliced through the top of his earthen prison. Ashbringer lost her footing, and two hands clenched together slammed into her chest with the force of a comet, launching the warlord flying toward the Reclaimers’ positions.