How did they pull this off so fast? A pestering thought throbbed in Janine’s brain even as she assigned vectors for advance, and their spheres crossed sixty kilometers in less than three minutes and descended upon the town. The energy required to manipulate magnetic forces to create such precision and speed has rendered the crawler’s main shield briefly inoperable, but it mattered little as tank divisions flanked it while its mighty weapons came online, ready to support the pack.
This town’s defenses weren’t weak. Four sentry towers and high, reinforced walls provided well-fortified positions for soldiers to fire 160mm mortars to fend off a storm. A minefield and tried-and-tested sensors should have alerted the defenders long before visual contact was established. So how? Complacency? Incompetence? Treachery?
It didn’t matter, Janine decided, surveying the approaching settlement. The oculars of her helmet projected vision from the external cameras onto her retina, and thanks to the links to the other spheres, the Wolfkins had a nearly omnidirectional sight. It could and did confuse many New Breeds using this technology for the first time, and they had to rely on calming stimulants in their first engagements. But after a fighter acclimates to this strange sight and grows accustomed to trusting their armor’s intricate operating system, they transcend the limits of normal situational awareness.
Icons flashed on the HUD, marking the hewed bodies of the protectors. Several patrols on lookout walked arrogantly over the ruined walls. Then, like shooting stars, the spheres of the strike pack broke through, announcing their arrival with a thunderous cascade of stone and the tremors of explosions as the metal joined the ground, killing several intruders as they passed. The landing ramps opened, and Janine stormed out before the first corpse reached the ground.
Most buildings here, from simple bars to living blocks and schools, were fusions of concrete and steel, designed to best serve as defensive structures against underground predators. Streaks of smoke rose from windows; heavy wheels rolled over children’s playgrounds, flattening them and the nearby greenery. Warehouses lay broken, and long lines of hunched figures moved goods from them, delivering them to the settlement’s center. More icons flashed, adding red, the allied symbols, and blue, the enemy color of the fat-looking bastards. Spheres’ cameras added their own recordings to the video feed, and their radar waves created a renewed map of the engagement area.
Tonight’s prey wore mismatched power armor, inlaid with jewelry, gold, cheap minerals, or simple yellow paint. It somehow covered them enough for full protection despite its ridiculous assembly. They carried butcher cleavers and occasionally curved blades on their waists, using their oversized guns to intimidate the populace into submission. The area bore traces of an intense artillery barrage as defenders fought for every house in a desperate attempt to slow down the invasion. Rubble-blocked streets and the jagged ends of the ruined buildings pointed skyward.
Janine absorbed it all in a split second, focusing on the primary task at paw. APCs stood ready to fill their cages with slaves and riches. Most of the population was herded from the ruins and whipped to the main square, where the bodies of the mayor and his family hung by the legs from a desecrated Dynast’s statue, molten metal dripping from their mouths. Infirm, elderly and those too young were of no interest to the slavers, and a giant dragged a maddened mother from a house, throwing her cub on the pavement. A leg raised, ready to trample the crying little one…
“Wolf Tribe.” Janine fired her energy rifle, and a touch of lightning engulfed the visor, drawing a short-lived shrill as the beam vaporized everything in its way as it reached the shit that served as this idiot’s brain. She calmly nodded for the woman to pick up her cub and hide. “Those in our care cry out for salvation and retribution. Do we falter?”
“Never!” was the response, and the strike pack burst from the spheres. Camelia, that proud sword saint who had tasted the blessed milk of the Twins, added her cry to theirs.
And the hunt began.
The Alpha Pack scout cursed; her finger frozen over the trigger. The IFF’s system identified a group of citizens in the path of her shot and restrained the armor. Sarkeesian laughed, leaping into the fray and headbutting away the flat of the blade, which was aimed at an elderly man. The wolf hag threw the raider down, released her grip, pressed the shardgun’s barrel to his stomach, and fired several point-blank shots, liquefying his insides.
“No second takes,” laughed the gigantic wolf hag, stomping on the head of the trying-to-raise raider.
“Soldiers!” Janine’s axe cleaved through a neck. “The gilded filth’s still alive after a hole in his stomach. No chances, a shot per head.”
“On it!” Ignacy’s shot tore a knee wide open, and Dragena’s scout jumped, kicking in the faceplate. As the body touched the ground, the male calmly fired two rounds into the twitching body.
“Stop! Freaks! Not a leg toward, mutants!” A panicked raider in the path of Eled’s pack shouted in garbled Common, mispronouncing the emphases. He pointed his weapon at the citizens carrying goods from the store. “Metal chests, take a leg, and they go! Back…”
The warlord emerged from the cloud of smoke, closing the distance between herself and the hostages, never saying a word. Eled’s scythe moved, collecting the bullets fired by the terrified invader on its blade. An almost lazy flick of the paws sent the scythe in the opposite direction, and its horizontal cut across the abdomen parted the raider in two, reducing his screams to a whisper.
“Took you long enough!” Laughed an old man, assisting a weeping girl and boy to their feet.
“Hunt,” Eled said blindly, picking up the still twitching remains. She lifted the body and popped it over her head, laughing as a red wave washed over her. “Hunt! Hunt! Murder! Slaughter! Butcher!”
“Yeah, I get the clue,” said the old man, and hobbled away, leading the youngsters to safety.
Eled advanced, not bothering to hide, her scythe flying in her paws, weaving blindingly fast arcs in the air and reaping the lives of those in her path. Shots, grenades, and even rockets were carefully sliced or pushed aside as the warlord entered explosions, safeguarded by her battleplate and incredible skills. Lost in a murderous haze, Eled’s field of vision narrowed to a tiny corridor where shadows screamed and fired, trying to survive in vain.
Janine let her be, trusting in her named sister’s ability to differentiate between allies and enemies. It was par for the course with her.
Eled first earned her rank on a distant battlefield, wading through fields covered by craters made by an intense artillery barrage and then surviving the suffocating closeness of sewers leading inside the city. She did that, a simple wolf hag at that time, believing that she was following her warlord. They heard her calling the warlord by name and asking the woman to slow down, even as Eled faced heavy vehicles in battle. It was only after Zero caught up to her and asked about the object in her paw that Eled realized she had been carrying the warlord’s scythe instead of a shardgun all along. The warlord died, and in her berserk fury, the wolf hag ascended, leading her pack to victory and breaking through the siege.
Camelia fluttered past a group of enemies, her spear a blinding light severing limbs. Those opposing her died, and the sword saint fired in tandem with Anji, downing those who tried to retreat to the center of the settlement. Neither wasted any time finishing the wounded, leaving them to two males and the scout of their small team, and the sword saint and wolf hag moved ahead.
Predaig advanced alongside her soldiers, not pushing forward like everyone else. Her economical swings severed bodies, her kicks sent large slabs of stone at more distant targets, opening them up for her pack. She breathed easily and moved without a trace of confusion, despite her age. Predaig treated this fight no differently than a mock battle, sticking to the basics..
The strike pack had already dispersed. Janine and Eled moved to the center, Predaig to the south, and Camelia to the north. It was inevitable, for the spheres landed far from each other in order to avoid causing a possible collision. But there was no reason to pursue this strategy. So far, an element of surprise and terror has carried them. It won’t last. A corner drone always strikes back.
Break the windpipe and a body will die. But where? Where could the leader of the raiders be hiding? Closer to the greatest riches, no doubt. End this target, and there will be no chance for organized resistance. Janine was ready to bet her life on it. She’d done it a hundred times before.
Distant yells of people and the cracking of wood distracted Janine. There was supposed to be a chapel of the Planet to the north. This belief was strange; its priests frequently led prayers in modest buildings made of dry wood, teaching the faithful to treat others as they would themselves and spreading the gospel about the inherent goodness of the world. A lie, but a sweet one, and the Wolf Tribe had nothing against it. Goodness stems from duty, and the priests performed acts of charity even in dangerous wastes, unknowingly fulfilling their obligations. They might be misguided, but they still earned the tribe’s respect.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
The intelligence of Janine’s armor obligingly switched her vision, giving her an image captured by the spheres during the landing. She saw a burning wooden frame, all that remained of the chapel, and prisoners trapped in the center of it. The murderous freaks had flayed the skin from the priests’ legs and arms, leaving them to die from bleeding and heat. They tied the priests in prone positions to wooden poles before their place of prayers and threw their flock inside to burn.
“Camelia, you lead Ignacy, Anji, and these three are to save our people from the fire. No mercy,” Janine quickly said, assigning two males from Dragena’s pack and the Alpha scout to the Sword Saint. “The rest converge at my location. Sisters, brothers! Hunt. Feast on those who dare to lay hands on the people under the protection of the Wolf Tribe! Crush anyone resisting the Dynast underfoot! Reduce them to memory!” Janine intoned the second part of the Savage Promise, an oath taken by Wolfkins upon joining a military pack.
This close to the Core Lands, the land was no longer lifeless or barren. This place had greenhouses—compact, special domes for growing vegetables—and the air was cooler and slightly humid. Unlike further to the north, the buildings here were not utilitarian fortresses to house the entire population, where narrow slits served as windows and where citizens slept, gun in hand. No, these were apartment buildings; people here had begun to forget their fears of being beaten, enslaved, and oppressed, and nice cubs’ drawings covered the gray stone surfaces; clothes dried on windowsills; billboards announcing a soon-to-be-opened theater or holding advertisements stood along the roads suitable for civilian transport…
And this peace was shattered. The greenhouses’ domes were shattered, and their plants withered in the air. Flames licked away paintings, and bodies of slaughtered cubs cooled off as their parents screamed and cursed their cruel fate. Bullet holes scarred the billboards, and there were no songs to be heard.
They didn’t howl. Not this time. The purpose of a howl is to demoralize and scare an opponent into surrendering. It was a tool to reduce casualties. As they charged across the bloody pavement, the Wolfkins shared a common desire.
To hear a different kind of song.
“Those who threaten the peace of our lands, we shall destroy!” The Wolfkins, excluding Camelia, echoed Janine’s voice as she repeated the last clause of the oath, and Camelia voiced the words a second later. They sniffed the air. Black, spotted, and white, united by the shared pain. Smells of released bowels, blood, and smoke filled their nostrils. And fear too; they breathed it in, mapping the hostages’ location in this unique way.
Civilians who provided the Wolfkins with medicine, armor, and supplies—people whose ancestors had saved the Wolf Tribe and who had every right to expect to be protected—now lay dead or were captured. Losing family members and friends in a war was understandable and, in many ways, forgivable. But this? This horrible failure demanded not revenge, no. But an efficient and merciless extermination, so that not even a trace of this violent filth would remain in this world.
The invaders incurred a blood debt. And it was time to collect.
Janine pushed ahead, using the Taleteller’s blade to block the incoming rounds and firing in return, burning the raiders’ legs. They tried to crawl away, and one even reached for a grenade, pulling the pin with a shaking hand. Shrapnel bounced and ricocheted off the armor plates, only scratching them as the warlord continued to advance, using wide swings to clear the path and draw attention to herself.
They streamed toward the main square, scouts, males, and warriors breaking into the apartments and hunting down marauding fools. The Warlords were too big to enter the buildings without collapsing them and thus endangering the hiding civilians, but her soldiers made an exemplary work of handling this task.
“Males, warriors, take to the roofs,” Janine said as they approached the crowded main square.
To her momentary surprise, the raiders closer to the square didn’t panic or make the mistake of letting the Wolfkins close in. The enemies closed ranks, filling the street with the bark of their guns, and retreated in an orderly fashion, concentrating their fire on the weakest members of her pack. As a male vaulted over a piece of debris on the roof and prepared to toss a grenade, shots ripped through his armor and tore into his chest. He toppled and rolled to the side as a warrior kicked the about-to-detonate grenade straight into the raider’s ranks, losing part of her helmet and face to the gunfire from the opposite roof. Meanwhile, the enemies calmly ignored the explosion and the hissing acid on their suits.
A group of raiders emerged from the roof’s rubble cover, aiming their rocket launchers downward, while those on the street grabbed their own weapons in an attempt to stifle the advance with superior firepower. Janine didn’t have to give the command. Impatient One lunged at the building, clambering up on her own claws. A raider panicked and fired a rocket at her, shaking the building with the blooming, fiery explosion. The rest of his gang cursed, stepping away from the edge of the collapsing roof.
It was a mistake. Rather than weather the explosion, the shaman broke into the building and raced through the rooms, carefully navigating her way through the lenses of her allies. Once in place, she leapt up, broke through the floors, and grabbed a raider by the ankles. Her sharp claws bisected steel, sinew, and bone, and the screaming man fell to the side, fountaining blood gushing from his stumps. A claw drew a line across the wounded man’s belly, opening it wide.
The two remaining raiders faced a hurricane of violence, as an elbow strike to the neck sent a chubby woman across the roof and a kick sent the kneecap of another skyward. The man screamed, trying to aim his launcher, and a paw stabbed, piercing the square identification system and the faceplate behind it.
Impatient One swung her entire body aside, and a rocket exploded the dying man as the shaman glanced back warily. Janine shared her daughter’s confusion. The shaman didn’t hold back her elbow strike, but the female raider stood on her knees, gasping for breath, and her throat was clearly very much intact. Before she could fire the second rocket, a knee had already struck her in the chest, sending her sprawling against the stone ledge. It gave way, but the cruel paws dragged the screaming foe back, right into the mauling swings that tore her to tatters.
Janine closed the distance to the enemy line and kicked. Her short leg reached the raider’s waist, but it was enough as her feet penetrated deeper, turning his pelvis to bone dust. The man collapsed, and Janine stomped, ending his life and bringing her axe to bear on another raider wielding a rocket launcher. The Taleteller slashed him from shoulder to midsection, destroying the heart, and then dragged the body across the ground, knocking several more raiders off balance.
Her ruse paid off; the closest raiders thought her axe was stuck and aimed their launchers at her, while their comrades illuminated the area with flashes from the bursts of gunfire. An alert flashed on the HUD, the system worriedly warning the warlord of potential damage as gouges opened on the vambraces and craters dotted the chest plate.
In a grand scheme of things, it mattered little. The kinetic absorption system continued to function, dispersing the impact across the surface, and the Taleteller came to life, slipping free of the corpse. Two more foes fell bisected by Janine’s blade, while the enemies’ hesitation placed them in position for the Wolfkins fire.
We must keep them from the hostages…. A familiar din interrupted her thought.
“Artillery! South!” Janine raised her energy weapon, trying to pin-point the projectile before it could land.
Eled moved toward her, hurling her weapon into the air, where it collided with the approaching shell and split it apart. The warlord caught her falling weapon by the shaft and slashed through a raider’s legs. The fallen raider let go of her weapons and raised her hands. Whether she was trying to surrender or simply in pain was irrelevant. A boot came down, crushing the helmet and breaking bones.
“Eled! Locate and eliminate the artillery piece before it fires again. Take four soldiers with you…” a squealing interrupted Janine’s command.
A male from her pack had lost himself to rage. Agitated by the ruins and dead bodies, he stumbled against a raider in a ruined house and tried to wrestle his head off. The man grasped the wolfkin by the paw and effortlessly shattered it, then headbutted the incoming bite, shattering the fangs. The thirty-year-old veteran, Din, blinked through the pain and attempted to claw his opponent, but a blade lodged in his chest, its tip pushing a shoulder blade out of alignment as it exited from his back. A single twist widened the wound, shattering the ribcage, and the shards damaged the surrounding organs enough to make the stab fatal. Din’s icon on the HUD went dark. Even with the aid of a combat suit, such a feat was out of the normal human league.
“New Breeds among the enemy ranks!” Janine issued a warning as the raider emerged from the ruins, seeking to join the retreating ranks of his fellows, only to stumble upon another Wolfkin, a male from Onyxia’s pack.
“Do you need assistance, Janine?” Ravager joined the communication, sounding deadly calm, and the warlord sprang into action, pondering the question.
Traditions dictated she let the male die and pursue the retreating enemies, trying to maximize the damage. But for herself, Janine had decided that not every tradition was worth adhering to. Impatient One and Soulless One perceived it as heresy, but she consistently refuted it with a straightforward truth. If their way of life was perfect, why did they change it from time to time?
So when the oversized sword neared the male’s neck, her elbow met it, denting the blade as Janine swung her axe at full force, carving a rift in the hunter’s body. He choked, not quite believing that it was it, and came apart in pieces.
“Such a soft girl,” Ravager’s melodious laugh filled the channel as she glanced through the cameras.
If Ravager arrives, all resistance will vanish instantly. Even through her laughter, Janine could feel the boiling fury behind the Blessed Mother’s words. Was she the locus of this anger? Was the Blessed Mother thinking her to be unworthy for saving a male’s life? If so, she could extract payment later; Janine will not resist, nor would not have acted differently given the same choice. Lives take priority.
And it was because of lives that the Blessed Mother could not be unleashed. If she walks, she will leave ruins in the wake of her movements, quickly losing herself to the bloodlust. And who’s to say that she won’t turn her ire upon the civilians?
“Grenades,” Janine ordered, facing a newly formed defensive line. The enemies spread out; five of them leaped forward, trying to buy time for their comrades behind them. It was in vain; Predaig and Janine had no desire to play around any longer. Their blades left dead meat in their paths, denying any respite to the foes. “My apologies, Blessed Mother. The field of battle has no prey worthy of your presence.”