Ignacy found Elzada in front of the wall. The wolf hag stood on a pile of crates, barking orders and coordinating several maintenance teams. Her pack also hurried up, carrying supplies inside the bastions. The wall surrounding Houstad was a technological marvel, far from the single monolithic structure it appeared to be from the outside. Its interior was honeycombed, creating a labyrinth of compartments containing barracks, generator rooms, defensive installations, medical and prison facilities. Secret passageways opened easily in the heat of battle, releasing soldiers for a clever counterattack or unleashing a deadly New Breed to claim the head of an enemy commander. Whole sections moved around freely, sparing the most valuable compartments from destruction.
Tanks and APCs already filled the narrow tunnels, and walkers created from the samples of Techno-Queen’s machines loomed over them, making it impossible for the supply trucks to bring in additional ammunition, energy cells, or repair parts; so troops rushed back and forth, adding to the surplus of supplies by emptying the storages.
The rumble of a mountain range of machinery reached his ears. Gears grinded, pistons thundered, elevators carried defenders to their positions, and generators activated with a hiss. On any other day, Ignacy would’ve made every effort to sneak in and at least admire this feat of engineering, or at best, try to learn a little or be of any help. Or maybe he would have spent his time admiring the lone Iternian VTOL at the airport and talking to its crew. But not today. He had a more important goal.
A Wolfkin nearly dropped the crate, the size of a modest cusack, on his leg, and Ignacy helped the man regain his balance, holding the grenades alongside him until a scout arrived. He slapped his paw on the knee and turned, sensing Elzada’s eyes at his nape. She somersaulted off the crate, landing gracefully with her arms outstretched, then scowled at the pain in her stomach, her magnificent amber eyes shining with a mixture of concern and anger.
“I love you,“ Ignacy said, and the bonfire of anger vanished. The two of them embraced, forgetting for a selfish moment the world, their pain, the friends they had lost, and every worry. Nothing existed but them, and the Wolfkins and Normies nearby redoubled their efforts, grinning at the scene. “Are you going to fight today?” Ignacy whispered.
“No,” Elzada answered. She bit him lightly on the neck, and he responded in kind, drawing blood and tearing meat. By tasting flesh and vitae, they sealed the soulmate pact in front of everyone, and until death separated them, the two became part of a greater whole. “Half of my pack is either dead, and the rest are wounded or too young. They may hate me, but I have accepted the warlord’s order. We will escort the refugees to Stormfiend and then to the Wastes to…” A cheeky smile flashed across her lips. “… breed a new generation. Up to the task?”
“Always wanted to see the place.” He took her under the arm, teasing Elzada. “And in good company. I heard Stormfiend’s spires are incredible. Pity I am more interested in other things than exploring them.” He returned the smile. “Are you okay?”
“Nervous,” Elzada sighed. “But I enjoy being a mother. Time to gift siblings to our boy.”
Horns blared warnings, and the two tensed, looking up to see the crimson light appearing on the plates of the radar arrays. Laser beams struck, bringing in the cacophony of a titanic blow from the outside that didn’t overload but tore through the force fields capable of withstanding nuclear strikes. The hiss of burning logs, the explosion of ammunition silos, the opening of fissures during an earthquake, and the billowing of the fiercest sandstorm were in this wailing. Purple lightnings flashed in the sky above as the shield reformed itself and the batteries answered, shaking the very ground.
“DEVOUR THE WORLD!” The words, accompanied by the boastful laughter, crept in, echoing off the buildings in Houstad and reverberating in the eardrums.
Fears for Marco’s safety and worry over Elzada almost paralyzed Ignacy; he pulled his beloved after himself, and they walked away on the shaking legs. Panic spread around them; the haughty battle cry brought the promise of utter devastation and pointless death to all who opposed a literal god stalking the ground. This paper barricade won’t hold us! Thundered in the laughter. Nothing can save you! Clouds of smoke coated the outer side of the shield, shrouding Houstad in darkness.
Then his fears were washed away by a distant, faint, yet so familiar howl that shook everyone present. Its sound ripped through the Wolfkins, energizing the wounded and the healthy alike, absorbing their despair. Even the Normies blinked, shaking at the nightmare. The howl did not call for slaughter or shame for cowardice. Nor did it summon armies to battle.
A promise that everything had not been in vain sounded in that call, bringing Ignacy memories of Dad and Mom purchasing an entire cake to celebrate the New Year, and how no squabbles occurred that night, and how Mom insisted they eat the chocolate off the cake before it melted away. He imagined a paw on his shoulder and even said the name.
Along the way, they encountered an Ice Fang; the knight-captain held a paw to his head, his eyes wide open and the mouth agape as he drooled unsightly. Instinctively, Ignacy reached for the man, and he felt a presence pass from him and Elzada, who held him by the shoulder, to the white-furred, and he imagined seeing two titanic bodies reflected in the crimson eyes. It couldn’t be them; the two had the fur of the purest snow, and their eyes shone brighter than plasma.
“The Holy Trinity.” The Ice Fang gasped and straightened up. “It is restored,” he said, awestruck.
“We are not holy,” Elzada giggled, full of unexpected joy. “We’re, like, the opposite of anything holy.” She tapped her metal leg. “And don’t flatter yourself, ice boy; you are not divine either. Survive, traitor.”
“Same to you, kin.”
Bogdan’s laughter resonated in the howl, competing with Dad’s encouragement and Mom’s love. Death approached Houstad, and life answered it, stubbornly refusing to kowtow or disappear. And the Wolf Tribe howled, mocking and teasing the hordemen, inviting them to set foot near the gates, their fears forgotten. Ignacy, Elzada, and the knight-captain added their voices to it and darted in different directions, as if slapped by a mother irritated by their procrastination.
The Butcher Maiden answered with her own promise. The sun will shine.
****
Janine raised her snout to the smoke-filled sky and howled, answering the call. An urge kept shaking her body. She could almost taste the Spirits permeating the very foundation of Houstad and driving the Tribe into action. Janine wanted to kill. No, wanting wasn’t sufficient. She needed to kill someone, and she needed to do it now.
Mother and daughter charged across the streets, parting ways, and Chak’s clanking legs trailed after Anissa, carrying him along the buildings’ walls. The Inevitable activated its engines, firing the first volley above the walls, and the trucks carrying the wounded hurried to leave the battlefield. Rivers of amber-eyed figures filled the streets, heading in perfect unison to their assigned positions, the deafening cacophony of their battle cries answering the booming laughter.
Alpha overtook Janine, saying nothing, and leapt thirty meters into the air, continuing running on the rooftops to not step on her kin. Onyxia, wreathed in the shadows, appeared briefly in a window alongside Anji, and nodded once. Janine’s HUD activated, and she instructed her unit to reinforce the defensive posts. Jacomie obeyed, and Reaper entered the sewers, creeping toward the ambush point.
Even through the preparations to repel the assault, the packs found time to say their farewells. Impatient One met Elzada and Ignacy on her way and gave them both a quick blessing. Wolf hags selected to participate in the defense good-naturedly roasted several wolf hags responsible for protecting the citizens, promising to solve any grievances in the future dominations. Kalaisa’s own cameras showed Janine the wolf hag standing in the crawler’s shadow, addressing her pack as they prepared to leave Houstad.
“I won’t be asking forgiveness for my misdeeds. Don’t deserve one,” Kalaisa said plainly. “I was a shitty leader, a terrible sister, and a worthless human being. But I can fight to buy you time. To give my family a ghost of a chance at happiness, and to spend my life securing my pack’s retreat. This much I can do. Lead the pack well and try to forget me,” she asked her sister.
“Should we wish you a good death?” the scout asked sarcastically.
“Pretend like you never existed?” the brother added.
“Is that how it should end?” Kirk’s shaking voice joined theirs as he struggled to look at his older sister. Unable to bear the fear, the male concentrated on his legs and clenched his fists. “What, you die and we’ll be sorry and forgive you, K… sister? Screw that! Live! You don’t get to get off the hook so easily! Never forget what you’ve done! Want to atone?! Keep on being a better person! The dead can’t make amends. A dead sister is worth nothing but grief!”
“Grief…” Kalaisa repeated, Kalaisa repeated, and Janine switched the HUD’s view and saw the woman smile. “Thank you. I know I didn’t earn it, but thank you so much. The future exists.”
“Concentrate on today, dumbass!” her sister advised. “Let your claws breathe, shoot, explode, and kill. Hurt them!”
“Don’t worry about that bit, sister. I itch to fill the graves,” Kalaisa growled, and her brother hugged her, her sister patted her, and Kirk stood aside, breathing heavily. Then they parted, the siblings escorting the armored trucks, and their wolf hag raced to join the ambushers. Ygrite assigned Kalaisa to one of the safer places, desiring to preserve the future warlord. Short of anything impossible, she will survive.
Safe challenges, kin. Janine wished to her.
And throughout the city, the scene repeated itself in countless variations. Old grudges were forgotten, forgiven, or cast to the wayside; the Wolfkins exchanged heartfelt apologies and hugs, wishing each other survival. Rivalries erupted over who would claim the biggest tally, and the Tribe marched merrily to war. Thoughts of death vanished from their eyes. Even Janine didn’t think about it. A colossal weight had been kicked off her heart, and the faint, barely audible call brought her hope.
It isn’t over. Let the Horde come.
And come they did.
A wall of flame rose to the west, its tongue licking the very clouds. Scanners and cameras bypassed the heat, and drones swooped down, showing an orderly host of infantry and vehicles advancing, shaking the ground with the thunder of tens of thousands of armored boots and the wailing of numerous engines. Hoverbikes flanked the host, their riders ready to charge the second the wall was breached. Mechanical, arrow-shaped flying transports danced above, waiting for an opportunity. For now, they focused on taking out the drones, cutting them in half with bursts of small-caliber weaponry.
Iron Lord led from the front, riding calmly between two mobile shield carriers, Slavetaker and Widowmaker, at his side. New plates were welded to his body, metallic tendrils writhed at his back, and the cannons on his shoulders shifted constantly, searching for targets. He replaced the destroyed glaive with a similar one and pointed it at the defenders in a silent promise.
The carriers activated their generators, blanketing the space around the advancing forces. Lightnings flashed in the places where the defenders’ laser beams harmlessly fizzled out, and smoke mushrooms emerged, the results of the destroyed artillery shells failing to penetrate these screens. Spheres of hissing energy rolled across the ground, punching holes in the minefields, and the fabled siege tanks of the khatun fired their first shots.
Brood Lord postured atop a battle tank in the rear. Ivory-colored and gem-incrusted armor covered his body; the long-range cameras caught the confident grin in his visor. Prosthetic limbs, gleaming with gold and platinum and thicker than his natural limbs, replaced his missing hind legs. Casually carrying a sword on his shoulder, the khan motioned, and hulking shapes lumbered ahead of the front.
Taller than their leader, these Malformed used knuckles to support their oversized and misshapen bodies ripped with muscles, mouths on their warped shoulders eagerly opened and closed, bubbling with violet liquid on their half-rotten fangs. The soldiers in the first line of defense opened fire, hiding the Horde from view in the horizons of eruptions, and several shells and shots even breached the shield, tearing chunks of flesh from the Malformed.
Out of their mouths, the Malformed vomited streams of filth, and the flame wall parted, letting the acidic torrent soak the soil and detonate the remaining mines.
“Fourth brigade, to the second line,” Janine ordered.
“They are still capable of inflicting damage,” Dragena noted calmly.
“They will inflict far more if they fall back and stay alive,” Janine stated.
The defenders hastily abandoned the front line and retreated to the rear trenches as the hissing mass melted through the force shields and enveloped several towed artillery pieces, instantly reducing them to corroded wrecks.
Behind the Horde, it moved. The superweapon that spelled Opul’s doom was visible in the distance, despite the enormous distance. Compared to it, even a crawler seemed small; it was a pure mountain of metal, baring its fangs, its turrets, and keeping the main cannon ready.
Drozna. Heika. Phaser. Janine spotted neither of them as she joined her unit, greeting the confused Jacomie clad in full armor and wielding a four-barreled machine gun.
“Warlord, what is going on?” Jacomie asked on the private channel, handing a plasma cannon to Janine as they entered the tunnel leading to the bridge. “We were supposed to be reinforcing the north!”
“Change of plans,” Janine assured her, waiting for Dragena’s trap to sprout.
How to deal with a teleporter? Dragena had used the New Breeds, blessed with predictive abilities and not shying away from enlisting the criminals guilty of trying to bankrupt casinos, and had laid out her plans and available information to them, demanding approximate percentages of success for her ambushes. Not satisfied with that, she had also used the analytical officers of the Investigation Bureau, consulted Till Ingo’s experimental computer processors, and talked to the Brood. Gleaning clues from every possible source, Dragena now knew exactly how Phaser wielded his power and deduced potential locations based on Brood Lord’s personality.
The first invading party emerged from an open portal in the sewers, fifty men strong. Their leader’s neck was sliced in two by Reaper, who then threw a grenade in the direction of the portal, causing Phaser to close it before the explosives designed to breach the wall could be sent. Jumping backwards and disappearing into a nearby tunnel to hide from the hail of bullets, the assassin began his grim business. The next incursion took place at a power plant in the south. Three assault teams appeared in its corridors.
Here the plan ran into its first difficulty. A unit of sixty soldiers positioned themselves behind the barricades in the main hall, ready to kill the invaders as they came. To their woe, Drozna stepped out of the blue portal’s surface, utterly ignoring the bullets and laser beams heating his hide. A single sweep of his arm tore the defenders from the barricade, collapsing it and sending the men and women splattering against the wall. Heavy blows liquidated them and the hordeman roared an empty warning about the ‘betrayal’. The Reclaimers’ jammers came online, preventing the enemy’s coordination, and the trap was sprung.
While the first group had failed to hinder Drozna, Slaughterer gleefully pushed over the soldiers of his unit, his tendrils wrapped around the shocked hordemen, squeezing them dead and throwing the carcasses in his mouth. Lacerated One, arms folded, stared down the last raiding party in the control center, where a skeleton crew of technicians oversaw the silenced plant.
“A meager offering,” said the Supreme Shaman. Her claws slashed, deflecting the projectiles away from the allies and screams of agony filled the room as she bit the first hordeman.
Inside the crawler, Ygrite smiled, spreading her arms wide in greeting to those infiltrating the Inevitable’s armory. Volunteer Jaquan Kruger and his bodyguards gave her no time to gloat, and immediately opened fire on the enemy, using the crates for cover. The warlord rolled her eyes and joined in, slicing off limbs.
In the north, another portal opened near the fuel silos. The raider in charge of this group tapped on the nearest fuel tank and yelled, “The bastards had us! Into the city now, take cover in…”
“What’s the rush, little lambs?” murmured Kalaisa, climbing down the tank; the electric lamps caused her long shadow to stretch over the invaders.
She bounced off it the second the first of the saboteurs fired, and her paw closed on the leader’s head, twisting it away and using the dead body to slam the nearest hordeman dead. The wolf hag dropped a couple of grenades and shoved a hordewoman off her path with a shoulder tackle, running to ward off the soldiers’ positions and clutching her old wound with one paw. Acid flowers bloomed in her wake, speared by the suppressive fire of her allies.
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Not every group handled the sudden invasions as planned. Janine watched as several companies of mercenaries and even former assassins met their match, dying to the superior firepower of the invaders. Several scouts had their brains splattered on the pavement by heavy boots, their troops slashed to the last. Then the enemy spread throughout the city, carrying out their sabotage.
Cruel as it was, the situation was still within acceptable parameters. They had no way of protecting everything, and with the citizens safe and the vital facilities secured, the freed units could hunt down the intruders like insectoids…
“Incoming!” Janine roared, spotting a single shell fired by a siege tank from the Horde’s position. It broke through a weakened segment of the shield and was about to fall atop the wall.
Then it disappeared. Janine narrowed her eyes, looking at the trembling air, and the HUD of her helmet confirmed a spatial distortion that obscured the projectile’s trajectory and warped it away.
“Dragena,” Janine contacted the bridge. “Are you aware of any teleporters or spatial manipulators on our side?”
“Yes, sister,” came the cold reply. “Everything as expected.”
A tear on the bridge stopped Janine’s further inquiry. The blue line ran from the ceiling to the path leading to Ravager’s throne, and Phaser rolled from it, laughing at the bullets fired far above him. His hands slashed, cutting through reality, and blobs of plasma flew from the opened passages, vaporizing two soldiers all the way to their ankles.
The hordeman immediately drew himself high and launched himself off the path down to the operators. His touch split a human-sized terminal, and in its place opened a window into a storage bay. Servants began rolling a cart full of explosives. A single shot from an energy weapon startled the servants, and Phaser darted away from the window, closing it in a hurry as another shot followed into the portal. If there was an explosion, Janine’s cameras didn’t catch it.
“I need to kill you without touching your claws?” Dragena asked no one in particular, jumping down and sending tremors through the floor. She leveled her rifle, scaring Phaser away from killing an operator. “Simple enough.”
“Weren’t you supposed to be…” Phaser started talking.
His eyes widened in fear, and a swipe of his claws opened a portal that swallowed the searing heat aimed at his head. The warlord took a single step, sliding under the portal before its edges could touch her armor, and neared Phaser, pausing briefly at his smile and reaching for a knife on her leg.
Space shattered above her head.
“That’ll cost extra to Brood Lord,” laughed Phaser, dousing Dragena in the familiar violet sludge. “Didn’t see that coming, doggie?! I can handle anything you throw at me myself!”
His claws stabbed, destroying the reality around them and forming a tunnel that kept Phaser’s arms safe from the acid. Ten claws aimed for Dragena’s neck, and she rammed the butt of her hissing rifle into his stomach, throwing the man straight into the wall with enough force to leave a footprint in it with his body. He screamed in pain and agony, noticing two fingers missing from his hand, and Dragena broke from the downpour.
“Open emergency ports, oxygen masks, now,” Dragena commanded, dropping the useless rifle and unsheathing the second knife. “Captain, take over. It’ll take a while.”
Schalk’s unit went dark; their IDs disappeared from the HUD, marking their last location as they deserted the crawler via the emergency exits amid the confusion and raced toward the city, firing at every camera in their path. But this time we know what you are planning, traitor. You’ll pay for Keon’s death. Janine clenched her fist, wishing she could be there to deliver retribution to that lying piece of human garbage.
She trusted him! Janine really thought that the man really welcomed her to Houstad and wanted to help out of duty or the goodness of his heart. She pitied and grieved for his people… Then again; they didn’t deserve what happened to them. Janine reproached herself. Schalk’s betrayal did not lessen the old tragedy.
But he’ll die. Anissa and Yennifer will make sure of that.
“Soldiers of the Reclamation Army!” Jacomie visibly shuddered, hearing Captain Cristobo’s voice. The man lowered himself from the compartment above the bridge and sat on the throne. “We have identified the traitors. Schalk is hereby stripped of his rank. Every loyal soldier of the state is to shoot him and the 4336th platoon on sight.”
“What is going on?” Jacomie demanded. “Warlord, first we blatantly ignored the orders and took a different post, and now…”
“Forgive the deception, Captain. I myself have only recently learned of Captain Cristobo’s survival. Though I admit I was a fool. The Blessed Mother gave him the gift of immunity to poisons; I should have realized it sooner.” Janine placed a paw on the captain’s shoulder. “I am not privy to every detail, but Dragena and he were busy flushing out the traitors and countering their actions.”
“But Schalk… He is… That’s just not possible.” Panic flashed in the captain’s eyes. “The complex! Warlord, that traitor wanted my troops to take over the complex! If he…”
“Nothing will happen to it. It is impossible to teleport in there, and we took precautions about the rest,” Janine assured the woman. “The lies were laid bare at last. The scorching flame of the Dynast’s judgment awaits the traitors, and they will be found wanting.”
“DEVOUR THE WORLD!” The hordemen boomed their battle cry, shouting on top of their lungs.
“Choke on your own blood!” Janine roared back, exiting the gates leading to the bridge.
The artillerymen of the Reclamation Army answered with their actions. Cannons fired and missiles streaked from the wall, raining upon the advancing army. The very ground trembled, and were it not for the shield protecting the state’s positions, Janine had little doubt that many of the defenders would be crushed by the shockwaves alone. Explosions rolled upon the ground, slipping off the Gilded Horde’s shields and reaching the defenders’ field.
Specialized missiles failed to burst the enemy’s protection. The enemy leader gathered enough shield generators to form several individual domes of protection, so when one failed, more rose to stop the incoming barrage. But the Reclaimers kept at it, unleashing enough firepower to level hollow cities and collapse entire mountain ranges. Something had to give. The soldiers stepped nervously from leg to leg, watching as the flaming wall advancing on Houstad was riddled with canvas created by the long-range weapons of both sides.
Dozens of hordemen, far too few, died when the protective shield failed to quaff and not choke the incoming barrage. A similar scene played out in the Reclaimer ranks, and dust fell on Janine’s temple from above as a laser cannon hit one of the platforms on the wall, destroying the parapet and killing the soldiers there. Janine caught a falling body, briefly checked the man’s pulse to confirm his demise, and respectfully handed him to be carried away.
Where one enemy soldier fell, two more took his place. The Horde lived up to its name; their numbers seemed endless, advancing in waves of gold, green, crimson, and black toward the defenders. A young man near the warlord cried out as the artillery flattened a section of the trenches, and broken bodies were tossed callously into the air as the rest of the Third’s vanguard retreated. Janine didn’t reprimand the young man, softening her impression when she realized the boy was about twenty years old.
Dragena placed Janine’s unit on the bridge leading into Houstad, and the structure was wedged between two bastions. Soldiers already manned bunkers and pillboxes, preparing to repel the invaders when they entered inside the shield. Officers had ordered trenches dug into the concrete in preparation to fight for this place with fang and claws. The shallowness of the river at this point prevented the command from blowing up the bridge right away.
It served better as an obstacle and a desirable target.
Ignoring the shells, Janine walked to the young mercenary, not even batting an eye at the approaching devastation. She checked the soldier’s weapon, made him adjust his helmet, and nodded at him. The panic was understandable. The mercenaries of the Core Lands handled gangs, corporate competition, and hunted an occasional monster from the Outer Lands. They never expected to fight in a real war.
“This is your home!” Janine shouted, raising the axe above her head. “A place to raise your cubs, a den that you have worked so hard to build! A rare safe haven in the world resisting the grip of insanity and violence, a testament to human dignity and honor. The world demanded of your ancestors to surrender to their primitive instincts and be reduced to a crazed rabble, squabbling over the dregs. Instead, they spat in the face of that demand and built a place for all of you! The question is, will you fail to live up to their example?” She raised her voice, changing it into a roaring tornado. “I say no! I am a product of savagery and cruelty, and I refuse to let Houstad burn! There are things worth fighting for! What about you? Will you run and hide? Will you let your cubs be raised in slave pens, devoid of a future?”
“NO!” the volunteers screamed back, joined by the provincial and the Third’s soldiers.
“If any of you were drafted by trickery or against your will, now is your chance to leave.” The blazing flame behind left her a vast shape against the red. “As a soldier, it is my duty to stand and fight. A civilian’s duty is to live and prosper. The state has failed; I have failed to ensure that you’ll have this priceless opportunity. No one will condemn you if you leave. Nevertheless, I, Janine of the Wolf Tribe, ask you. Join me in the defense of Houstad.”
“Janine.” Jacome stepped forward, checking her rifle. “No need to ask. Houstad has become the home of my people. No one person can carry the weight of the world, but together we can shove it down the Horde’s ravenous throat hard enough to end them. We are staying.”
“I am from the west…” said an elderly man in a fitting uniform and a body armor of an outdated design. “I had hunting dogs… I had hounds.” His finger moved closer to the trigger of his rifle.
“You can rebuild,” said a nearby volunteer gently, armed with a spiked mace in addition to the standard machine gun.
“For most of my life, I’ve been murdering people for money,” said another man, dressed in a mesh of loose-fitting power armor and body protection. His eye shone with a yellow light of the targeting matrix, and he spun a knife in his hand. “Might as well kill for something that matters for once. I’ve skinned several fatties. They die just as easily as anyone else. Don’t bury us yet.”
“Meh.” A half-woman, half-machine clanked forward, traversing on pistons that served her for legs. An unblinking green ocular had replaced one of her eyes, and most of her hair went gray. The mercenary captain smirked, rotating the cannon protruding from her left forearm. “My crew busted our asses to get citizenship. And now the Dynast has handed it to the rest of our families and relatives on a silver platter. You can bet your pretty head that we will kill for it. Waste no more words, ma’am. Not a bad company has gathered here. Sure, some may wet themselves, but they’ll shoot and, more importantly, kill.” A group of Malformed and convicts laughed. “Yours to command, Warlord.”
“Thank you.” Janine smiled back and faced the fire. “Anyone willing to die, try to get past us!”
“Janine. Your challenge is accepted,” they heard the voice. Boastful, full of arrogance and knowledge of one’s might. These simple words resonated in souls, filling even Janine with icy dread.
Mad Hatter stepped out from the wall of flame. She was wearing a pristine white dress with gold trim and brown pants adorned with bracelets and necklaces. On her shoulders were the furs of great beasts, her hair touched the back of her waist, and a leather cap with a blue feather covered the woman’s face up to her nose. Her lips smiled while bloodshot eyes focused on the warlord.
For all Janine’s bravado, she knew better than to hope to stand against this creature. The woman, dressed more for a party than a battlefield, might as well be death itself. It wasn’t a matter of possibility; she had not even a percentage of a percentage of a chance to deal a fatal blow to that.
Cristobo directed the assault on the khatun immediately. Energy cannons, artillery and turrets, missiles, and even grenade launchers loaded with every deadly gas and substance conceivable—they fired it all, and a sphere of devastation rose around the Khatun.
She breathed in the white phosphorus and nerve agents as if it were air. The khatun’s scimitars drew arcs around her, sending the regular ammunition aside so that nothing would damage her clothing. Her legs carried her away from the energy beams. Swaths of land around her were torn and vaporized; the sand turned to glass. And still she advanced, unharmed, undamaged, her arms blurry from the creation of wind slashes that repeatedly swatted away everything fired at her.
A single such slash touched a line of the defense, barely grazing it, but no soldier in its path survived. They weren’t crushed by the pressure, or cut; they didn’t even turn into a crimson mist. Two hundred and sixty-seven soldiers of the Third simply vanished, as if they had never existed.
“Abandon equipment and retreat to the wall,” Janine ordered, interrupting Cristobo’s coordination of the retreat. He can reprimand her later. They had tools in abundance.
The Sky’s Avatar moved further ahead from her host, concentrating on Janine, and the soldiers retreated, abandoning the second and third lines of defense.
“You should have accepted my offer,” said Mad Hatter. It should’ve been impossible for her words to reach the Reclaimers, but Janine heard them loud and clear. “It isn’t wise to resist a demigod. Fall to your knees, worship the Sky, praise me, admit that your faith is inferior, and I’ll spare you and your spirits.”
“Demigods don’t make mistakes. But you did,” Janine answered. “You should’ve killed me when you had the chance.”
“What for?” Mad Hatter laughed. “You are powerless. Your gods are powerless! Even that progenitor of yours is not here to save you! And without might, you cannot forge a legacy, nor can you change anything!” She pointed the tip of her scimitar skyward.
The battlefield ceased going. Sounds faded, shells froze in mid-air, tongues of flame grew still, and even laser beams burned their way to their target slower than Janine could run, and, as the warlord surveyed the situation, a terrible realization struck her. Mad Hatter wasn’t faster than light. She was dodging the shots before they were even fired.
It was insanity. No mind, no awareness that she knew of, was capable of such a feat. The Khatun’s eyes never left Janine’s; she had no HUD to share the omnidirectional vision. It could not be happening.
“My offer stands,” a voice whispered to her left, and a familiar white shape took place near Janine. The warlord tried to sniff it, to touch that weird man, but her muscles refused to obey her. “My touch is reserved for the faithful. My child, you stand at a precipice. Accept me and be plunged into greatness and face your enemy as an equal. Reject me and know that Abyss of yours.”
Janine didn’t answer; she didn’t even see fit to pay any further attention to this figment of her imagination. The Spirit of Rage often teased his victims, and she didn’t know a woman who would’ve been glad of trading her self to become a skinwalker. The figure glowed; the infernal crimson of its eyes resembled two mouths of active volcanoes. At last it disappeared, saying nothing, and the time resumed.
Mad Hatter blinked and smiled; the corners of her lips touched the ears.
“Unfortunate. I hoped for an appetizer before the main event.”
“There are worse things than being weak,” Janine said bluntly. “When you die, Mad Hatter, you’ll be little more than a footnote, another maniac in the long history of the Reclamation Army broken under the Dynast’s heel, an accessory to the Blessed Mother’s legacy. Unloved, uncared for, and even your own slaves will forget you.” She sighed. “No friends, no family, no comrades or allies. By your own choice. If I am weak, then you are a pathetic squanderer of gifts.”
“Bold words. But here’s the thing, Janine. If I want a family, I’ll have one. Friends too. And I’ll be strong enough never to lose them. The question is, are you?” Veins showed on Mad Hatter’s hand, and she slowed directly opposite of Janine, and a cold sweat ran down the warlord’s back. “What is the matter? What is there to be afraid of? It’s just a single slash, and I am so far away, and you have that bubble created by those comrades of yours. Surely, if they are so precious, you have naught to worry about...”
“Permission granted!” said a new, familiar voice on the communication and unknown images joined the shared vision. The perfect and smooth interior of a highly advanced room. A gloved hand held a slightly crumpled terminal. The hand tossed it aside; the machine drummed against a carpet and its surface straightened.
Nanomachines. And that blue glove that covered the hand…
“Elite Eugenia, joining the battle!”
A pillar of blue rose from the airport, streaking into the smoke-filled sky. The top of the beam hit the force field and bounced off, quickly changing direction, and Mad Hatter looked up. The blue line, the Elite, passed above the walls by jumping all the way from Houstad’s airport. Still spinning, the round ball nearly touched the ground and then spread herself into a feminine form.
Blue boots touched the desolated ground, soon followed by the hem of a blue cape. A growing, sprawling oak, painted white, flashed briefly on the cape before a living cloak formed by blonde hair, so long it almost touched the ground, covered it. Similar national emblems were on her gloves, boots, and chest. She was a head shorter than Ravager; her helmet covered the face similar to Mad Hatter’s mask, and from the deep blue of her visor, two eyes flashed fiercely, meeting the khatun’s gaze.
Her attire seemed to be paper-thin, yet it could withstand more damage than even Alpha’s suit. None of that body was made of leather or spandex; every part of that foreign thing was formed by the nanomachines. Janine had seen it before, clouds forming technological ‘cinderblocks” over soldiers’ bodies, assembling themselves into armor like pieces of a puzzle.
These smart machines unnerved Janine. They weren’t mindless; they thought and acted. Several soldiers who had no right to remain whole after swings of her own axe had survived that way, and then their own suits turned into complicated medical instruments that helped the unconscious injured survive even mortal wounds. As per the accepted rules, the Reclaimers didn’t try to retrieve them from the wounded as the nanomachines terminated themselves to avoid revealing their secrets.
A section of the shield parted briefly, and the figure walked bravely toward the khatun.
“Hey!” Eugenia Mylli, the pinnacle of the achievements of the Iternian bioengineering, pointed a finger at Mad Hatter. “Why don’t you pick on someone equal for a change?”
“Murderer! Butcher! Traitors’ spawn!” Janine roared, spitting saliva. Her son dying, his desperate squeals, the females and males lost during the Culling… “How dare you set foot on our land? Has Iterna lost all shame? I will slaughter you here and now!”
“Janine,” Eugenia softened her voice. “I am sorry.”
“His Excellency himself has authorized the involvement of Elite Redeemer, Warlord,” Cristobo warned.
“Hey, Janine.” Jacomie took her by the arm. “I don’t know what cat came between you and her, but let’s not. Not right now, anyway.”
“That would be a first, because no one is my equal,” Mad Hatter responded, straightening up. No weapon was fired at her anymore, and the khatun tilted her head. “An Iternian. Hm. Hm. Why are you here? I haven’t had any beef with your country. What is there to gain in helping your prime rival? Let us fight, witness the destruction of the Reclamation Army, or…” She smiled. “Could it be that you wish to join me? I have heard of you, manufactured sparrow. The rabble has elevated you above itself, but isn’t it tiresome to forever be chained by responsibilities and rules? Take flight; become yourself for once! Stand at my side and let us feast upon the world together!”
Mad Hatter’s words resonated with Janine’s soul. She recalled her anger aimed at Terrific, the disappointment after meeting her mother, Bertruda’s betrayal, and more. Alpha had always underestimated her, called her a coward. The shamans were stubborn idiots. She knew better; she was born better, so why was she fighting for the side that… Her fangs bit her tongue to the blood, and the feeling disappeared. Janine slapped the glassy-eyed Jacomie, snapping the woman out of her trance, and together they went to wake their soldiers.
“Megalomaniacal speeches put me to sleep,” Eugenia laughed, her voice clear as a river. “The Intelligence was right, not just emotional manipulation, but a passive invasive mind control to boot.” She tapped the side of her helmet. “Don’t waste the efforts, punk. Been there, toughed it out, became immune. Wanted to know, why am I here? To stop you. Why? Because lives are at stake, and I am here. Because you have destroyed cities, engaged in slavery, killed minors, and endangered our citizens.” A white mist gathered around the Elite’s hands. She clenched her fist, gripping the handles of silver tonfas formed by the nanomachines. “Because I owe debts. Iterna will no longer tolerate your wanton terrorism. Your war ends today. And your crimes will be punished.”
“By whom, little imitation?” the khatun asked.
A soft, blue glow covered most of the battlefield. A portal that made Phaser’s tears look positively tiny had opened in the south, widening and expanding to reveal another portal within, one that led into the depths of the cosmos. The pleasant hue soon turned orange and then bright red as a chunk of stone, large enough to serve as a wall’s bastion, pushed through the portal. Jacomie quailed, grabbing Janine to stand, and the warlord gulped.
Eugenia was dropping a meteor. The wind roared, blowing in every direction, displaced by the sheer mass of the meteor, superheated by the friction. The helmet closed around the Elite’s head.
She is going to murder us all. Janine thought.
“And they call me mad,” Mad Hatter remarked.