The guards on the wall would undoubtedly have seen their approach by now, of this Kriegshaw had little doubt. His army marched openly across the dusty plains, their mighty steps shaking the ground with enough force to stir up sand and ash that lay on the surface, throwing it up and covering their approach with the ever-moving cloud, which followed the army along like a mobile veil.
The eyes of a normal human would suffer from all the dust, their throats would choke upon the grit filling the air. Any normal army would slow under this continuous assault by the environs. Kriegshaw and the Changed were not normal. Most of the soldiers in his army walked on two legs, with their skin a light brown color and their eyes a pure green color. Their legs, too short for the massive bodies that they carried, resembled two columns of flesh with no visible knees. The foot soldiers lacked a left hand. Instead, each and every one of his foot soldiers had a hole in the wrists of their left arms, an opening that served to store the bionic cannon from which the soldiers were able to fire the acid from within their stomachs. Their right hands were three-fingered claws, capable of shattering even a human skull with ease. Chitinous plates ran across their backs in segmented order, allowing his soldiers to curl themselves into balls and roll upon a smooth surface, covering vast distances with a surprising speed.
Behind them walked the living weapons, six gigantic soldiers moving around on all their five limbs. Massive cannons made of flesh and bone rose from their backs, taking aim on the fortress, and Kriegshaw’s maw spread in the parody of a satisfying smile.
“Fire,” he said, waving his swordarm.
****
The wall that separated the region known as the Desolation from the Ravaged Lands was a massive superstructure. Its walls were nearly twenty meters in height, and the wall itself spread for three hundred meters in length. Tank-sized cannons were spread across the wall, standing at a distance of ten meters from each other. Soldiers were stationed along the wall in rows. Their job was to check traders coming in and out of the Desolation and to stop any attacks.
This wall belonged to a small city state in the Ravaged Lands, a group of people who had broken away from such huge nations as the Soultakers and the Bento tribe, unwilling to put up with their traditions. On their own, they would never be able to build such a grand superstructure, let alone arm themselves. However, countless idols dedicated to the Sun god showed that the Bento tribe was involved in the construction of this place. The tribe provided almost everything—weapons, ammunition, armor, and even sometimes repair. It was no great burden for them, for the tribe was rich and powerful, producing countless war machines for the Resistance—a massive state that was formed to repel the invaders who came to the Ravaged Lands.
The Bentos did not sponsor the locals out of pure goodwill. The Desolation was the home of the Changed, a group of people who changed during the fall of the Old World. According to the traders coming from this place and a few escaped serfs, the normal people were little more than slaves in the Desolation, their masters could snuff away the fire of their lives for any reason, even simply out of boredom. Every year, hundreds of poor souls were burned away like candles in the Requiem Mansion, the seat of the dread Mother who ruled over the Desolation. Occasionally, the mutants of the Desolation also try to expand into the Ravaged Lands, most of the time by force. But the wall stood proud, guarding the sole safe passage between two towering mountain ranges, never allowing any foe to reach the inner lands. When they noticed the advancing cloud on the horizon, they hurried to prepare the cannons in case the cloud indicated the advance of the enemy rather than a large refugee party struggling to escape.
The moment the first acid shot hit one of the cannons and melted it away, detonating the ammunition and spreading deadly acid on the nearby soldiers, the defenders felt fear for the first time.
****
"Ha! It works!" Tombteeth shouted happily, slamming two axes against each other and seeing the chaos spreading among the defenders.
“Of course it works, I planned it,” Kriegshaw replied angrily, sensing that his servant doubted his skills. “Begin the advance!”
His army moved, the soldiers curled into balls, rolling toward the fortress. The defenders opened fire, missing the locations of Kriegshaw’s precious bio artillery because of the clouds. Some shells hit some of his soldiers, cracking the chitin, but this was the sacrifice he was willing to make. No battle was ever bloodless.
The bio artillery kept firing, silencing more and more cannons with each shot. These soldiers were bred and raised under the careful watch of Kriegshaw, he himself watched them hatch from the eggs in the spawning area, hurrying to stand guard over them to protect their somewhat vulnerable bodies from the hungry gaze of other newborns. He taught them how to read and speak, helped clean them, taught them how to use their enhanced sight, and how to utilize the echolocation that was gifted to them. What the living artillery could not see, it could locate with perfect accuracy by releasing a sound wave from their mouths—a sound wave that covered a distance of thirty kilometers in an open field. In many ways, Kriegshaw was their creator, he made their templates and offered them to Mother.
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His foot soldiers were also products of his planning, and he felt naught but pride seeing how they rolled across the ground, jumping in the air the moment they came into contact with land mines. But their chitin plates were tough enough to endure such trifles, and, upon landing, they kept on rolling ever further. Some of them even rode the explosions to reach the wall and grab the stone with their clawed hands and legs. The soldiers from above fired on the Changed, but small-caliber fire had little success on the tough skin of his foot soldiers. Meanwhile, the acid that came from their cannons took a toll on the enemy soldiers. The precision of their fire made Kriegshaw smile again, he was proud that both of his templates worked so well. His foot soldiers could hit a human in the eye from a distance of sixty steps with perfect accuracy, all without breaking a sweat.
“The Mother will be so happy!” Tombteeth jumped eagerly, oblivious to the hate that was seeping from the towering form of his commander.
You should have been loyal to me, fool. Kriegshaw thought. He lacked eyes and ears, but the countless hairs that covered his long, brown, worm-like torso served him just as perfectly as eyes could, catching the tiniest vibrations in the air and sending the information to process. Kriegshaw was a human once, before Mother placed him, screaming and kicking, in the vat with an acid-like substance that dissolved his flesh and forever changed him, reshaping his genes, enlarging him. He now walked on six great legs, his right arm a mighty self-sharpening bone blade, and his left arm was a bio cannon, not unlike those of his living artillery. His torso was fat and elongated, his tail writhing on the ground behind him, creating a road wherever he went. The upper part of his torso rose high over his legs, the gaping maw filled with sword-like fangs served as Kriegshaw’s face and mouth.
"Yes, yes." Kriegshaw gestured toward the wall. "Do join the fun, Tombteeth. Bring slaughter in my name, but spare the cattle that will surrender."
"Of course, the Mother is eager to set them alight!" Tombteeth, a three-meter-tall mountain of muscle and flesh, saluted the commander with his bone axes, made from the spines and fangs of his less lucky brothers and sisters.
The moment the officer charged toward the wall, Kriegshaw admitted to himself that he was glad that this idiot will die today. Kriegshaw had no desire to send any of his new subjects back to either Mother or Brother to die a senseless death. No, Kriegshaw studied the Ravaged Lands very thoughtfully and knew that the locals accepted refugees, even from the Changed. He will carve himself a kingdom here, offering the Resistance the opportunity to serve as a new guardian against the Desolation, and will eventually build a nation worthy of his glory.
****
The commander listened to the reports with dismay. He never allowed panic to appear on his face, giving orders to move the supplies to the safe bunkers within the wall and to position soldiers further from the cannons. He knew that he was signing the death warrants for the artillery teams by ordering them to keep firing, but the alternative was far more horrible. He was not one of the locals, his family brought him here from the Desolation, and he knew full well about the hell that was going on there. Even if all of his soldiers were to die here, the commander was ready to pay the price to spare the Ravaged Lands the same fate.
The bastions were melting under the precision fire of the strange acid cannons. The shots were coming rarer and rarer, indicating that whatever was firing them was running out of juice. But the respite was short-lived, for hundreds of armored balls converged upon the walls, revealing themselves to be deadly mutants capable of scaling the wall. Their claws buried deep within the reinforced stone, supporting their weight while they fired upward, killing his soldiers. For now, the defenses held, but even he saw how some of these creatures reached the upper wall, starting a slaughter by forcing his soldiers into melee, where the mutants had every advantage over normal humans.
Bento tribe provided the defenders with basic power armor—more exoskeletons than real power armor, really. It was a simplified form of power armor that barely enhanced physical strength but provided adequate protection from both the hellish heat of the Ravaged Lands, provided ventilation modules, which allowed soldiers to breathe even in the thickest smog, and offered complete protection from small arms.
But now these armors barely help them against the onslaught. The moment acid hit the soldiers, it burrowed its way through the power armor, all the way to the soft meat beneath. The lucky soldiers died instantly. The unfortunate ones collapsed on the ground, gasping for air while acid had dissolved their lungs. Some gave out burbling sounds in pain, as the acid melted away their faces and eyes, leaving the people barely alive. Their backs were nearly indestructible to all but rockets, while their tough hide seemingly absorbed both laser and machinegun fire. The concentrated fire cracked their organic armor plates and allowed the defenders to collect their toll, but upon reaching the top of the wall, the creatures were smart enough to band together into groups and crash into defenders, forcing the fighting into close quarters, where their unnatural speed and agility tilted the tide of battle in their favor. And the defenders were losing people far faster than the enemies.
“We have no choice,” the commander said to the communication officers. “Send a call for help to both the Soultakers and the Bento tribe. Tell the city’s leaders that we’re about to fall and then leave with non-essential personnel. Tell the people in the city to prepare for the defense. We will hold them here as long as possible.”
The commander grabbed a shotgun from one of the soldiers, giving the youngster the order to help evacuate others instead of fighting. When he walked toward the exit from the command bunker to join the defenders, one of the officers shouted:
“The Bento tribe sent a message, they are ready to aid us!”
“Good, tell them to help people in the city.”
“Sir, I’m sorry, but they said that they will arrive here in a few moments. They asked us to steel ourselves and have faith.”
“What? It is impossible! We are forty-two kilometers away from their nearest city!” The commander responded, shaking his head and charging out. The woman was most likely wrong, there was no way anyone would be here in time to help them. He put on his helmet and stormed outside, eager to buy his soldiers enough time to evacuate.