Janine was the first to reach the edge of the minefield, kicking up whole swaths of ground in the air. She stepped undaunted to test if the ID codes transmitted by her power armor were enough to allow them to cross. The mines were already primed, but unlike the simple and crude acid traps used by the Wolf Tribe, the Provincial Army’s equipment was unnecessarily more sophisticated. Such innovation, the mayor and lieutenant explained to her, was used because local cubs had a nasty tendency to stick their necks into danger.
No explosion harmed Janine’s armor, and the warlord spearheaded the advance of her pack. They ran on all fours, covering the distance to the field hospital fast enough to evade artillery shelling. Several shells landed next to them, knocking soldiers to the ground, but their armor held, and the paws of their comrades helped the fallen back to their feet.
The raiders had been shocked to face a counterattack coming from what they thought was a conquered town. Most had been too late to raise their arms, and their bodies had been ripped apart by the sharpest claws. A wave of darkness had swooped down on their ranks and swept them away, littering the ground with corpses as a reminder of the Reclamation Army’s wrath.
The field hospital was a sturdy complex of reinforced concrete. Resilient against natural disasters and bombardment, it barely suffered a few cracks when explosions ripped through its walls, lighting up the surrounding area. Janine didn’t waste any time letting the electronic device at the entrance scan her ID, and with a single mighty kick, she crumpled the metal door and sent it tumbling down the corridors. She entered, facing white corridors devoid of personnel, and sniffed.
Recycled air, now mixed with stone dust falling from the ceiling, filled the corridors. There were potent smells of blood, pus, and medicine, indicating that the place was in use. Bodies in plastic bags or covered by sheets lay in the corridors. Janine opened a bag with a flick of her claw, and the metal on her gauntlet shifted, exposing the paw so that her fingers could touch the deceased. Two were cold. One, a woman, still had a faint warmth around her neck. The injuries were severe—a punctured lung, a shattered knee, gunshot wounds to vital organs—but that wasn’t the cause of her death. There was a dagger wound in her temple that ended her life quickly and mostly painlessly.
“Proper,” Eled growled, struggling to reign in her berserker urges. “They euthanized patients.”
“Bastards,” Ignacy mumbled, and the warlord paw closed around his neck.
“Better that way than whatever fate meat would’ve done to them,” Eled said to the soldier, letting him go at Janine’s glance.
“Marty? Have our forces left the town?” A buzz of static answered Janine’s question when she tried to contact her friend. She tapped on the helmet and called Ignacy over, who fished a terminal from his belt.
“Communications are being jammed,” her boy announced. “We’re still getting the distress signal, mostly because they broadcast it on every frequency. And even then it comes in weak, despite our proximity.”
“Where are the doctors?” Predaig demanded to know, storming inside.
Her lenses examined the deceased bodies, quickly coming to the same conclusion as Janine.
“Fucking Ice Fangs,” Janine said. There was no scent of fresh sweat or panic inside. There were no hushed voices or footsteps deeper in the hospital. The place had already been evacuated long before they even got here. “Everyone, inside!” Janine yelled, hearing rockets and artillery shells flying.
A fiery hell surrounded the hospital. Hundreds of artillery shells rained upon it, rocketing its walls and exploding the minefield. Flames surrounded it from every side, turning it into a candle. The building’s very foundation shook, lights flickered, then went out, and the Wolfkins were plunged into darkness. Widening cracks began to cover the walls, while outside, whole mounds of earth were tossed skyward by the force of the blast.
The Gilded Horde unleashed their fury on the warlords, firing everything they had at the hospital, collapsing section by section to clear the way for their forces. There could be no glorious last stand at the entrance, for there was no entrance to guard. Ceilings collapsed, driving the pack into the center of the complex. Debris threatened to bury them, and the warlord aided his soldiers by throwing large pieces out of the way. Janine feverishly tried to deny the whispering voice in the back of her mind, hoping, against any reason, to meet any doctor in here. Her pulse quickened at the thought of leading her troops into a death trap.
But as they stepped into a spacious hall for lightly wounded patients, it was impossible to deny the truth. She didn’t roar and calmly ordered her troops to spread around to secure the place. Everything clicked for her. The reason the Horde hadn’t overrun the place already and…
The Ice Fangs. Always the Ice Fangs. Favored by the Blessed Mother, kept in the rear, pampered, protected, gifted the best gear… Bastards who claimed to be their kin. Betrayers. There was no better term to explain what had happened here. Janine had forgiven their initial charge. Abyss, she would’ve done so herself if cubs of her Tribe were on the line! Or just to save the citizens.
But this? No. Icy rage, fit enough for her so-called cousins, filled her veins. Never again would she be fooled by the so-called nobility the Blessed Mother and citizens saw in the white-furred bastards. Here, in this room, was the full scope of the Ice Boys’ treachery.
Explosives. They were gathered in the center of the hall, locked in steel crates. The ticking of their detonations sounded more like a clock ticking down the seconds they had left to breathe. The walls continued to shake from the shelling, and Janine called up her HUD, frowning as it at last registered the presence of the state’s detonators and confirmed that the coming blast would level the entire complex. She tried to turn off the countdown or at least extend the time limit to come up with a solution.
Access denied. Command codes are not accepted. Came the answer.
We saved your leader. We bled for you in every battle, and this is how you repay us?! Janine wanted to roar, to rage, to tear. Bertruda kept silence, the bitch. Macarius’ whelps said nothing, the traitors. Irrelevant; focus on the task. The detonators showed eight minutes and thirty-eight seconds remaining. She turned to Ignacy.
“Can you defuse the detonators?” Janine asked, stepping aside so that Ignacy, Bogdan, and several other males could rush to the explosives. “Spread around the hall! We will make our last stand here!”
Either the explosives will kill us, or the enemy will. She wanted to laugh but showed no hint of nervousness, standing guard near one exit while Eled and Predaig covered the other two. She would not disgrace her soldiers by throwing a tantrum. Instead, she weighed her options.
Their original plan was to enter the hospital, meet with the doctors, and then call in their own artillery barrage from the allied Ice Fangs forces on the other side of the canyon. Scout... Wolf Hag Zolushka had reported that they had met and established contact with the Wintersong troops and that the bridge was going down. That option was no longer on the table, as the Gilded Horde did not charge through the minefield. They were waiting, encircling the place, and she had missed that. That, and she would never rely on the Order for anything.
The Ice Fangs had purposely left the facility essentially wide open, hoping to bait the hordemen into first spending their lives across the minefield and then meeting their demise inside. To that end, they had turned on a signal calling for emergency relief and left it on the open frequency for the invaders to hear.
It was a war crime; Janine knew much. Even though the Gilded Horde had never signed any agreements with the Reclamation Army, the mere act disgusted her as it went against every rule of war agreed upon by the Reclamation Army, the Oathtakers, and Iterna.
Theoretically, this tactic could succeed. Yet the refusal to cooperate between the two groups had ensured that the state’s forces fell into the allied trap. Practically speaking, the Order were idiots for trying it in the first place. There was not enough information about the invaders to plan elaborate traps.
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Janine had two choices left. She could lead her pack outside and face their end in the open field, where artillery and ranged gunfire will thin out their numbers even before they engage in the melee. Additionally, they would also indirectly save the enemies from the explosives inside the complex. Or they could participate in this war crime, staining their honor by knowingly helping to turn a place of healing into a mortal trap.
The insidiousness of this one last insult dawned on her. It wasn’t enough for Bertruda to humiliate her and steal the hard-won title. It wasn’t enough for the tribe to be mocked and treated like an afterthought by the scum who pretended to be their kin. The Order had to force the Wolfkins into breaking a vow to the state.
“Ignacy, Bogdan,” Janine said on the private channel. “I am sorry it ends that way. I love you both. Always did. You were always light in my life.”
“It’s not over until it’s over!” Ignacy replied quickly, ripping off the detonator panel. “Dammit, dammit, dammit! Just a little more time! I won’t let it end like this!”
“Brother. It’s okay.” Bogdan said calmly, putting his paw on Ignacy’s shoulder, but the smaller Wolfkin shook it off.
“Fuck you! I won’t let my nephews and nieces grow without a father!” A piece of rubble fell from the ceiling, and Ignacy backhanded it away from Bogdan’s head. His voice dropped, growing weak and broken. “I know I wasn’t a good son or much of a son at…”
“Lie,” Janine cut him off. “You are a joy in my life. All of you.”
“Finally!” Predaig, bareheaded, smiled to her soldiers. She dropped her usual professionalism, squared her shoulders, and stood as energetic and eager as a young, brash female in anticipation of her first battle. “Sisters! Brothers! Ready yourself, for we will meet our loved ones soon enough.”
“Anni, Elzada, Yennifer, Marco, Dad, Mom…” Ignacy was reciting names, checking his flamethrower.
“It’s our go time, bro,” Bogdan said.
“Yeah. Guess so. Think Dad is keeping the place warm for us?” Ignacy hugged his brother.
“Warm? By now, he is probably setting up a whole bonfire to welcome us!”
“Sorry, dears, mommy won’t be bringing souvenirs.” Eled slammed the helmet back on Predaig’s head and brandished her scythe. “Listen up, you lot! Every life taken here is another moth drawn. Die angry, die afraid, die remorseful, but die killing! Rage against the inevitable and cling to life! Take their heads and their flesh to honor our ancestors and our tribe!”
Standing tall, Janine faced the fifty soldiers under her command. “My kin. My foolishness and trust have led us into a mortal trap. Thousands are coming, eager to claim our lives, the fools. Even now I hear their legs stomping through the barrage, and it pleases me.” She smiled boldly. “The Order has betrayed us, but the day is far from over. The Blessed Mother will uncover this treachery and make the guilty pay. But that will happen later, and right now it is our duty, the duty of each and every one of you, to kill as many as possible so that our sisters, our cubs, and our brothers would face an easier tomorrow, a tomorrow in which the Gilded Horde is forever shaken by the savagery of our last stand! Spirits look down upon us. Wrath walks by our side, and carnage awaits! Murder for a better world! Reunification!”
“Murder! Murder for a better world!”
Explosions shook the building, and she heard war cries. The shells stopped falling, and in their place, the raiders stormed in, breaking through the freshly collapsed tunnels, searching for the pack. It was just a matter of time. The detonators’ displays showed five minutes and forty seconds.
The pack howled, drowning their worries, hopes, fears, and dreams in rage, inviting the foes to battle.
Janine raised her voice, shouting over the howls. “Soldiers of the state! Proud warriors of the Reclamation Army! Soon we will meet again in the Great Beyond, and there we will know peace. But here and now, I command you this. Fight to the last! Duty is our life!”
“Duty to the end!” Everyone roared; Eled and Predaig’s voices joined those of the soldiers.
“Let the slaughter begin!” Janine roared, spotting shadows racing through the corridor. A searing laser beam hit them, illuminating four-legged bodies and burning through one. The next screamed and became a pillar of fire as Ignacy blasted from the center of the room, no longer concerned with conserving ammunition.
Shardguns barked, downing the raiders and the four-legged Malformed, halting their entrance into the hall. The Wolfkins didn’t expect to survive, so no one cared about holding back. Acid grenades and clouds of shards tore the already dead bodies to shreds. A raider, almost as tall as a warlord, barged through the ceiling and died before his legs touched the ground. In a single, almost elegant and fluid motion, Eled drew an arc through the air, slicing the bastard from groin to head. She swung her scythe back, howling mindlessly, and jumped, taking the life of the next breacher as the fool peeked down. The helmet landed in Eled’s paw, and she tossed it into her mouth, devouring brain and metal.
“Come if you don’t value your life,” Predaig said calmly.
She raised her left fist and filled another corridor with a burst of automatic fire from an autocannon mounted on her wrist. The weapon was more fit to be placed atop a battle tank than on a human body. Linked to the warlord’s back, its eight barrels spun nonstop, spewing 30mm rounds at a rate of seven thousand rounds per minute. Predaig still had enough ammunition for twenty minutes of sustained combat, and now she unleashed Abyss upon the enemy ranks, leveling both human lives and stone walls.
A bullet struck Bogdan on the brow as a Malformed with swords for arms broke through a wall. The helmet endured, but the Malformed and two more hordemen were on Janine’s boy in an instant. Bogdan dodged the sword arms and caught both in the space between his armpits and torso, biting the Malformed’s face away. A blazing flame and eight bursts of shardgun fire from Ignacy and three males ended the hordemen, and Bogdan kicked the Malformed away, finishing him with a shot.
Their ranks dwindled. The Wolf Tribe had always looked down on the Ice Fangs, considering them slow and weird in combat. But there was one area in which the Order was undeniably superior. Defense. Many people confused the Wolf Tribe’s view on patrol routes and defense. A defensive tactic implied planting your feet and mowing enemies as they came. A kind of positional warfare, a favorite of Janine’s tactics in the official duels. However, the tribe’s patrols around the Outer Lands and the villages were anything but that.
They placed mines around villages and places under the Tribe’s protection, true. Mines were useful for sowing discord among the intruders, alerting everyone around. Packs would then descend upon the prey from every side, often jumping from above, never stopping in one place, ever maneuvering, biting, firing, and slashing. Such was the way of the Wolf Tribe—mobility above all. Even on a defensive mission, they found a way to turn a defense into an efficient offense.
Here they faced the opposite. They were the ones who had to face attacks from all directions, while their soldiers were few. It was almost suffocating to be confined in this dark hall. Burdened by the need to protect their comrades, the packs could not fight to their true potential and stood their ground, becoming easy targets for gunfire. Weapons on both sides had equal potential to pierce armor.
Four males died from pulse rifles. Two warriors became donuts when automatic fire hit them dead in the center. Another warrior was slain by a steel figure’s two-handed axe that smashed through the wall. Bashing another warrior’s head with the hooked knob of his axe, the hordeman’s laughter boomed through the dynamics of his round helmet. Two massive pulse cannons mounted on his shoulders spat out deadly discharges, wounding a female, while the defenders’ fire merely dented the giant’s thick steel plates.
Janine was on the hordeman instantly, meeting his axe with the Taleteller. Her power suit groaned, surprised at the sudden strength of the opponent’s blow, but his blade was found wanting. The Taleteller cleaved through the hordeman’s axe, shearing away one cannon. The warlord grabbed the bastard by his shoulder.
She crushed his helmet with a headbutt, hearing bones crack. Janine craned her neck, dodging a burst of energy aimed at her face, and stomped on his foot, trapping it long enough to slash at his shoulder. In a torrent of hissing sparks from the cut wires and blood gushing from the gaping wound, the shoulder and arm came off. A web of cables wrapped around an unnaturally blue bone surprised the warlord. Is he a man or a machine? The man roared in pain and anger, punching Janine with enough force to shove her off his foot.
The hordeman clutched at his wound, turned to flee, and Bogdan threw grenades at him. His roar turned to a scream of agony as the acid ate through the exposed flesh, penetrating deeper into the body. The acid hissed on the surface of the armor, failing to damage it, but the huge legs buckled and the body collapsed to the ground, convulsing weakly as more of the man’s insides melted away.
Janine swung a wide arc around herself, killing a raider aiming for Ignacy’s back. Her backhanded swing drove a wave of wind fast enough to knock down two more hordemen. They never got up; her legs crushed the heads of both into bloody smears, and she ventured on, picking up her energy rifle and using the axe like a butcher. Kill and be killed; this was all left for them.
Our pure condition. Janine bitten away a woman’s face along with her faceplate and swallowed it, finding that she no longer cared about breaking the laws of the state that only chained their potential. Our killing ground.
“From blood we come with screams and rage,” she roared to the enemies. “And it is with rage that we leave this world. Come now, weaklings, and see how the warriors of the Wolf Tribe meet their doom! Relish this sight and become the offerings of our passing! We will neither hide nor cover! More, send more! There are not enough of you yet to buy our lives!” A beam from her rifle speared a hordeman’s head, and Janine returned to her surviving soldiers, drawing the enemy after her. Right into the line of fire. Rich will be the harvest to honor the Spirits today.
“Warlord Janine!” An unknown voice broke her concentration. She recognized it. It belonged to a breathtakingly beautiful Sword Saint Leonidas. The supposed protector and arrogant upstart whose hubris had led to the deaths of Ashbringer’s soldiers.
“Traitor,” Janine hissed, furious that a white-furred scum dared to distract her in her final hour. She ordered her HUD to block him.