They’d been on the run across former Arcadian territory now held by Mithris for three days; by day they hunkered down under what little cover they could find, and by night they moved. Kaz had to suck down “creamy spinach fettuccine” MREs donated from the Neomerican stockpiles, which was basically just green slime from a bag, instead of the stew she’d been craving (the cockpit, of course, still smelled like it). They fought off the occasional Mithris patrol and had only lost one additional Mackay and one infantryman.

  The infantryman, a guy named Aaronson, had caught a bullet to the skull while taking a piss. He was dead before his urine cooled off. They’d been irregular combatants, some Mithrian locals who’d seen them pass through in the night and had hunted for them during the day. They’d died like the pigs they were, ripped up by rounds thicker than their forearms. The Mithrians had taken another Arcadian soul from their squad during the exchange but the only decency they could offer the man was to shove him in Yevhen’s coffin. After a few days the vampire’s coffin was getting full with bodies so during the day they’d had to stack bodies in the HOGs in body bags. It was a grim bit of utility that they’d packed enough body bags for all but two members of the unit. Probably they thought that if there were just two of them left, they wouldn’t be lugging bodies back anyway. Whilst disturbing, it made a certain amount of sense. Kaz felt a stifled, budding rage in her chest that she struggled to contain around others and only let out in her mind.

  Still, the unit had made it though. They’d moved across blasted wastelands, muddy roads, and skeletal forests that were still somehow clinging to life despite the general lack of sun. It didn’t help that they had the worst rations on the way, though a few got lucky and found they’d been given “spicy chicken stew” MREs instead of disgusting ones like “creamy spinach fettuccine”, “tuna with noodles”, or the dreaded “veggie omelet” (which tasted like processed cheese, cardboard, and regrets). They eventually found what they were looking for, and it was truly a forlorn place - the remains of Bruzen Castle. Bruzen had been a fort built on the border to protect Volgopol against the Ottomans, but now it was being used by Mithris as a base of some sort. It was so deep in Mithris territory they didn’t even have defenses other than some perfunctory anti-air materials. It was a wonder and basically a miracle that the unit had managed to slip so deep into Mithrian territory.

  “So, where is it?” Kaz asked in a hissing whisper to Yevhen, even though she didn’t need to. At 10 kilometers, they were too far away from Bruzen Castle to be heard, but it felt like they were almost on top of them. The unit had mostly disembarked from their mechs and HOGs, though two Mackays stayed on sentry.

  “There is a graveyard just two kilometers from the west wall. I feel Dando there. I... can hear him,” Yevhen said, slowly and carefully. And then... she could too. She felt something like a “mental heartbeat”. It was slow and ponderous, too slow to be a human but also too familiar to be anything else. It felt “innocent”, like a sleeping child, and Kaz couldn’t help but share Yevhen’s pensive mood as her heartbeat synced with it. She felt like it needed to be protected and she wondered how much of that was emotional bleed from Yevhen and how much was the vampire trying to get into her head. They were giving him a Hellhound after all...

  She marked it on the unit’s waterproof map, showing the group. “Fang says it’s over here. We can circumvent the castle entirely if we take a route through this valley.” She indicated the route; it was longer than going straight through but we’d have enough time before daybreak to get in and out.

  “No.” Yevhen was speaking out loud, to everyone. They’d given him a comm but he used it so sparingly, mostly to antagonize Reynolds, that everyone looked up when he spoke out loud.

  “I don’t remember giving you a vote, fang,” Reynolds shot back hotly, glaring as the vamp. He knew what Yevhen was and had been waiting for the vampire to step out of line, the first sign of a betrayal or play for power.

  “I don’t remember pacting with you,” Yevhen replied coolly.

  “Put your dicks away - mine is bigger anyway. Your master is asking what you mean by ‘no’, Yevhen,” Kaz cut in, ending the pissing contest decisively.

  “Because it’s still going on. They’re still at it.”

  “Who is at what?” she asked Yevhen, not caring that the entire unit was listening to this little breakdown in command.

  There was a long pause but then Yevhen explained, a biting and sardonic tone in his voice. He clearly didn’t want to talk about it but because of their pact, Kaz’s command had forced him. He sighed heavily,

  “The year was 2352 and the local Ravenhold regime was playing god like politicians always do. They thought no one would miss the local ethnic Valeshian population so they began vat-growing their children into hounds.” She felt that nagging itch, that anger at the Mithrians, flare up in her gut. But it was like the anger was coming from somewhere else; somewhere external, but she couldn’t place it.

  Kaz puzzled over what he said; the Valeshians were a minority, displaced peoples who formed out of the refugee camps in the lead-up to WWIII. No one gave a damn about them or any of the twenty other groups that sprung up in the region after the sky went black. Maybe that was the point; people in power always exploited those they could cast as the villain. After all, outsiders always seem to fit that role - scapegoats for those in charge to blame everything on.

  “So they took Valeshians and, what? Turned them into giants or something?” she asked once she'd digested the information, everyone else waiting and listening. She caught Zora’s expression; the woman’s face had gone pale. Kaz could see Zora fingering the small star pendant she normally kept tucked into her uniform top.

  Yevhen was clearly fighting to state this cleanly and bluntly, unwilling to default to his normal wise-cracking. “Hounds are undead flesh-hulks, master. Pumped full of chemicals during their fetal development so they grow without regard for safety or stability. They replace their bones with steel, drive plates into their flesh, and graft on skin and muscle to give them extra strength before they kill them. They’re ghouls - zombies only a few years old, but taller than your mecha. They’re twisted, and they're innocent - a lamb given to a killer... and they’re the most efficient weapon for a vampire.” Kaz had never heard Yevhen hurting so much as he spoke. What he described was truly monstrous but he had reveled in the killing of people; was this truly an evil even he couldn’t stomach? She sensed a deep regret, a deeper frustration, and a pit of shame through their emotional connection. When he continued his voice was softer, “The only saving grace is that they never gain consciousness. They never think. They never feel. All they are are empty husks that accept our commands.” That external anger.. it flared in her gut and she struggled to resist.

  The vampire looked at the gathered soldiers, horrified to hear the true nature of Hellhounds. They all knew they were vat-grown giants, and maybe that was how it was done in some high tech labs in Neomerica, but this... this was some backwater horror show. She could feel Yevhen growing uneasy at people looking at him, judging him. She felt that pit of shame deepen and she reached out to him,

  “Yevhen... I’m sorry, I didn’t know-”

  His anger spiked through their connection, and so did his feelings of inadequacy. “Oh, don’t you DARE pity me, master! Know what? I’d use one in a heartbeat! It’s the world we live in, Kaz. It’s the best way to kill the most people!” There was a profound immaturity to the way he lashed out; he was fuming. No doubt it was a result of the topic.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Then... Zora slipped her hand into Yevhen’s. The vampire was so stunned by the act that he couldn’t move.

  “It’s okay...” the redheaded woman offered. “It’s a burden you bear for us. I appreciate it, Yevhen. I hope you don’t have to carry it for too long.”

  Kaz wasn’t sure in that moment if Yevhen was going to kill Zora or cry, but he didn’t do either. He just looked at her for a long moment, an unreadable expression on his face. Finally, the moment passed and he roughly took his hand back, casting it into his pocket.

  “Yes... well. I’ll use any hound - but not theirs. Not the way they make them. That cross is too heavy of a burden to carry, even for me.” He was clearly rattled by Zora’s actions and the soldiers were looking to one another, unsure what to make of it but too afraid of Yevhen to say anything. “They let them feel. They thought they could cut out the vampire pilot and make giant slaves they controlled themselves. No vampire, no undeath, just lobotomized flesh constructs they could let off their slave-chain and pacify later with drugs when and if they wanted to recover them. Ravenhold started it, but Mithris commands it now.” Yevhen continued, swallowing hard before continuing. Kaz could identify the toxic hatred through their bond, and she shivered.

  The creation of Hellhounds was never something discussed in polite company, but this was too far. They’d begun to target an ethnic group and... and let them retain their minds while shaping them into monsters? It was cruel enough already to make them like they did, but this was five steps beyond.

  “The mission remains the same. Recover the hound and evac.” Reynolds' voice was cold and Kaz instinctively snapped her head to look at him.

  “Reynolds, I - ”

  “Not now, Kaz. We’ll report it to command. We have a mission and we’ve already spent lives getting this far. It pisses me off too, but I won’t dishonor their memories by going off-script.” There was a cold logic to it and she couldn’t fault it, but oh, how Kaz longed to say “screw it” and bomb the castle until not even the memory of their sins remained. She could feel Yevhen simmering just below a boil in her mind. No one else chimed in, and soon enough they were back in their vehicles and mechs. They were using the path she’d sent over and for some reason she actually felt guilty about it, like the fact that they were using her projected path somehow made her complicit in what those pigs were doing.

  Not for the first time, Kaz thought about how much she had to follow Arcadia’s rules; how much did they apply to her with Yevhen under her control? They could send a squad after her and he’d wipe them out without breaking a sweat. What did the girl with the undead atom bomb have to fear from the military bureaucrats? What did the Red Gospel say? “When is a man like an atomic bomb? It is when he can change the world with a single action.” Chauvinist as that was, it meant she could go rogue and they’d suckle at her toes just to get her to come back and play ball with them, just so Yevhen would fight on their side. Hell, Bogdan would probably leave too, if Yevhen and Kaz did.

  She grit her teeth - down that path lay only madness and she tried to fight it.. If she kept thinking like that, she would become some kind of despot or terrorist with a pet strix on a chain, and she didn’t want that. She didn’t want to abandon her people … though she bucked against the orders she had been given. Still, the idea, the urge... it was so seductive.

  Kaz was only brought out of her hateful reflections when they passed through the valley and were able to see the low hills that served as the graveyard. It was overgrown by weeds and ill-maintained, but far more upsetting were the corpses of giants that were strung up by chains there. Wrapped in industrial chains, Hellhounds in various states of development hung suspended from trees, hastily erected I-beam pillars driven into the ground, and even between mausoleums. They were cast about in all stages of decomposition, in all sizes greater than human, with various levels of mechanization. Som were simply torsos with heads, or lower halves with steel leg bones sticking out. Kaz retched.

  “Fuuuck me...” came Lieutenant Shevchenko’s voice from the Briz next to Kaz’s.

  Gravestones had been kicked over, left upright under the corpses of giant men and women, and trampled by industrial equipment. Yevhen landed atop a particularly large headstone and crouched and clung to it, sniffing the wind like he was some kind of hound hunting the damned. Then he jumped down from the headstone, following some unseen path as we all watched. He walked with purpose through the desecrated graveyard, no holy protection warding him away from this once-sacred place, until he found what he was looking for.

  It was slumped against a tree, a giant corpse with pieces missing bound in a layer of chains so thick it looked almost like a mummy. With a single motion he slit them and they fell with a rattling crash, each link as large as Yevhen’s head. Kaz could see then that his beloved Dando was once a thing of beauty; a slender form with ornate filigree on sharp black armor, stumps where wings once were on its back, and a face full of sharp teeth now cracked and broken. Yevhen stood, looking up at his once-faithful hound, now missing a left arm and leg below the knee. He seemed to be communicating with it, eyes locked against the cold dead face of the giant.

  “Dando...” There was a gentleness in Yevhen’s voice, a sorrow she hadn’t known him to be capable of. There was anger, history, and grief all mixed into one in the way he spoke, and he held out a hand to touch it tentatively. The flesh was mottled and discolored, angry bruises left to sit in the wind and rain for years. “The Devil's Dandy Dog...” There was more confidence in his voice now and she saw him clench at the flesh, before jumping to Dando’s degraded knee.

  “The hunt’s not over yet! Arise! Arise, Dando! Take a drink for the devil, and if you can’t find it on Earth, I’ll send some pigs to hell to get it for you!” She'd never heard Yevhen yell like this; there was mirth and twisted anger, pain and hate, violence promised on every word, and the winds of chaos began to blow as the coda.

  Red eyes lit and a mouth gaped open. Dando was moving like a machine without oil, stuttering as it let out a silent yell and Yevhen began to laugh maniacally. He held his hands up as Dando mimicked his gesture.

  “Come now, Dando! Let us get revenge on those who tormented you! LET THE HUNT BEGIN!”

  This was not good.

  Kaz decided then and there that this had been a terrible plan, worse even than what she had thought before. Was this what Yevhen had been seeking all this time? A reunion with his Hellhound so that he could get revenge on some bastards from a century ago? What did he plan next? What role did she play? Could she stop him?

  “Yevhen! I order you to - ” she screamed but he shot her a look. He’d moved to Dando’s shoulder and was holding a bleeding wrist over the gaping mouth of the Hellhound. It was a decisive look, a look that brooked no argument. Through their bond, she sensed that he needed this and he was going to do it . She knew if she ordered him not to, he might still find a way, but if she didn’t, he’d be in her debt even more.

  “...Fuck them up.”

  Her lips curled into a smile and his did too. That flare of anger, with a push from somewhere else, filled her gut. Reynolds was yelling something at Kaz but she didn’t care - she was doing this for herself as much as for Yevhen and Dando. The decayed husk of Dando came to life as blood hit its desiccated old tongue. Its arm bubbled and swelled, like cancer metastasizing through a timelapse; an arm grew out of that chaos and a leg joined it seconds later. It roared a parched, dry, strangled cry and Yevhen was laughing with his face to the sky. Thunder rumbled somewhere in the distance and mist began to roll in, as if the world knew it was about to collapse. Kaz threw her headset to the ground and turned off her comms.

  It was time for blood!

  It was time for carnage!

  It was time for revenge!

  Maybe she was the despot.

  Maybe she was the terrorist.

  Maybe she was being manipulated by Yevhen.

  You know what?

  In that moment, she didn’t care about any of that.

  The Valeshians are an ethno-religious minority that formed some time before the start of WWIII. Their origins are in the refugee camps set up around the Aegean sea and they were composed of a mix of people largely from that region. They intermarried and became a tight-knit community developing a unique ethnic, religious, and cultural identity. After the war they were pushed from place to place for a century, their number diminishing as they moved away or settled. Many countries saw them as “needy refugees” and called them “lazy” and “societal leeches”. One common superstitious belief at the time was that they carried plagues they were immune to. After the war, many settled in or around the eastern shores of the Black Sea. They suffered greatly during the Red Purges of Ravenhold but eventually found some degree of recognition and protection in the semi-autonomous “Valesh Zone” within Mithris.

  Their name comes from the “Valerian” plant, a perennial flowering plant native to Europe and Asia. It’s used as a traditional medicine and its use supposedly saved their camps from a plague that swept over them. Their name effectively means “those who took the Valerian” because those who didn’t died and those who did survived. They are known to have lots of cats because Valerian is a cat attractant (similar to catnip).

  “Ravenhold” or “Corb?ria” was a government that controlled an area around where Romania formally was and the south-western edge of the Black Sea. It was a transitional government that never really established its power and became a failed state, eventually being absorbed into Mithris.