Janine charged after Ravager, adding her howl e to the howls of her sisters. Her short legs stomped across the stone ground, leaving footprints against it as her pack followed. The warlord reached for her ser rifle, aiming at a target on the wall. For close-to-midrange enters, the Wolfkins preferred to use shardguns, simple ons capable of unleashing armor-pierg shards. At le, however, shardguns’ accuracy suffered, leading to scouts and some wolf hags opting for energy-based ons.

  Janine’s eyes found a trembliry armed with a rocket uncher. She pressed the trigger, and a stream of superheated particles caught the projectile, exploding it into the faces of the unfortunate soldier and his rades, turning those farther away into living fres.

  Martyshkina fired oearing a guard in two. The warlhed, spun her revolvers, and fired once more, no longer killing individual guards but tearing through ks of parapet, adjusting her aim so that each bullet would cim several lives. She o a soldier who raised his hands. A bullet took the head of an officer who tried to shoot the man to make an example of him.

  Fme balls erupted on the wall, exploding in a deadly bath of searing psma, evaporating those who failed to escape the cruel destru aonating their ammunition along the way. Alpha’s figure rose from the hellish fmes. The warlord scaled the wall in a single leap, calg the area where the energy shield colpsed uhe barrage. The psma discharges in her gaus spat death again, lessening the defenders’ terfire and f them to focus on her.

  Teo-Queen’s minions did their best to try and stop them. Battlements opened in the wall, revealing dozens of teams bringing heavy onry to bear. Where their allies above were struggling, these unleashed ser rays unimpeded. The energy struck the Wolfkins, melting pieces of their armor, scorg exposed muzzles to the bone, and disabling lenses. But the state’s power armor endured, safeguarding the advang army as they waded through the barrage. Pack members helped downed members back to their feet. If an artillery shell took an arm or a leg from a warrior, a wolf hag would grab the wounded and carelessly toss them back, and the Wolfkins behind them would follow suit, sending the tribesmen to safety without ever halting their advance.

  Shardguns barked. A cloud of projectiles traveling at 400 m/s ricocheted off the reinforced stone of the wall, but the sheer volume made up for the ck of accuracy, throwing the soldiers ba the battlements, cerating their bodies, and disabling the heavy energy turrets. Some wolf hags used their pieces of archeotech to create small portable shields, f a wall to shield the front troops. Many more fired explosives or used high-peion ons against the defenders, preferring to solve the problem at its core and earn adoration for their earlier kills.

  Jaormed through the main gates, smashing their remnants aside with the Taleteller. The very air screamed at the passage of her axe as it bisected two guards who tried to stop her advance. Bullets and energy beams from the defenders’ ons hit the warlord’s armor, failing to pee the meter-thick armor. Laughing like an evil spirit, Janine came upon the enemy batants, cleaving a bloody path through them.

  Of the Blessed Mother, there was no sight. A bloody road in the middle of the enemy ranks hihe dire of her savage journey, but the ander had lost herself in the bloody haze gripping her mind aured out on her own personal hunt. The Wolf Tribe, expeg it, broke in ena’s orders.

  They murdered effitly but bloody, sending torn limbs everywhere. A wave of unnatural fear swept from Alpha, unnerving the state’s soldiers and utterly horrifying their opposition. The tribe howled in a chaotic cacophony; the scouts fired their ons at the lights on the fortifications and threw smoke grenades. Bck-cd figures burst through the smoke, steam rising from their hungry snouts, their red lenses fshing crimson.

  There was a reason for this ferocity. The Wolf Tribe excelled at breaking wills to fight. Prior to accepting the ws of war, their wolf hags would often steal away raiders, staking them and f a wall of screaming bodies around vilges or settlements belonging to the foe. Such barbaric times faded into the past, and Janine didn’t miss them. There was something siing about slowly strangling a life, even the worst scum. As if it tainted her somehow.

  But the same principle applied here. Enemy forces prepared sedary aiary positional defenses behind the gates on the slope leading up to the city. Pillboxes and trenches housed soldiers, and enemies on ptforms ihe wall stood ready to fire on the invaders. They harvested their share of casualties, killing two dozen Wolfkins through the sheer iy of their fire. Then, as the casualties piled up, the resistance died out. Teo-Queen’s soldiers, dressed in hazmat coats and advanced exoskeletons reinforced by the additional armor pting, started gng back, sharing simir pahoughts. The invaders are not stopping! I’m going to die in here! My family needs me! It’s no use; they just won’t die!

  Such was morale. Hard to build, harder to maintain. Fear could save lives, sparing a city’s popution from the fate of being starved or bombed into submission. To achieve such a result, they intensified their assault, and Janine’s bulk threw an officer off her path, breaking his arms in a mere collision. Her elbow struck, hollowing out a soldier wielding a rocket uncher. Her bodyguards, Soulless One and Impatient One, lunged over the warlord, tearing people apart with their cws, as all shamans did. Their snouts saking limbs, and the shamans’ howls joihose of the pack.

  “Surrender and live! What’s here to die for?!” Janine lifted the officer with the blunt side of her axe.

  “Above, warlord!” Anissa’s warning made Janine jump aside.

  Twin beams of energy impaled the pce where she had stood a moment ago, burning holes in an overzealous warrior and dev two wounded ehe warrior stumbled, gasping for air and disoriented, and Melina crashed into her, knog the Wolfkin aside as more of the energy hit into pce.

  The attacker stood atop a bunker, a creature taller than an unarmored wolf hag. Once he was a man, but whatever wicked sacrifice he had made for Teo-Queen had ged him. Brown ptes covered most of his body, held together by cords that pierced the exposed, blistered skin. Instead of arms, the cyb had two energy ons, fed by an oversized geor on his back. The cyb’s exposed lower jaw protruded from its head, looking ically small against the camera-covered hunk of metal that funed as a helmet.

  “Fidelity ensures survival!” a voied from the cyb’s chest. “Doubts invite immediate punishment! Stand and fight, turn back the tide, or you shall forfeit yours futu…”

  Janine shook the officer off her axe, throwing him out of her mind. Her soldier was badly wounded, but the woman will live, although Melina will make the foolish girl rue her carelessness. But this foe demanded an immediate solution. The warlord threw her axe in a cold, trolled rage, and it bit at the left shoulder of this man-mae, sending the thing spinning. A oo the ground, and shots from her energy rifle melted another. Jani over the battle lines, grabbed the edge of the bunker and hoisted herself onto it, pig up the lying Taleteller and cleaving at the foe.

  “Give up!” she snarled, slig through a knee. A kick sent the cyb five steps back, drawing a lih his remaining leg. “It’s all over, tin man. Lie down like a little cub, and you’ll be fixed ter.”

  Janine didn’t lie. The state hungrily hunted after the New Breeds, whether natural or manufactured, iing both into the Army and civilian life, unless it could be proven that they taihemselves with war crimes. The Spirits know she’d rather die thahe soulless metal further taint her soul, but this fool might believe otherwise.

  “P-ple…” Janine lowered her axe at the stuttering voiing from the trembling human mouth. The man spoke in aioone, but statiterrupted his speech, dist the words. “E-end e-ens-avement… Fidelity ensures survival! Till the st!” the same voice roared from the dynamics, sileng the human mouth. The cyb’s mouth twitched, shutting silent at a cli his head.

  The cyb almost caught her off-guard. He sprang at her with his remaining leg, lifting his heavy body effortlessly. Parts of his breastpte and back armor moved over the head, f a bear trap. Its ends were about to close on Janine’s head when she brought her axe’s edge to meet them, hewing through the bdes and burying the on into the man’s chest, destroying his head. Hissing chemicals and sparks poured from the wound. The warlord kicked the corpse off the roof.

  More cybs rose from the trenches, revealing themselves from their hiding spots. A streak of darkness raced toward the one on the opposite side of the battlefield. Warlord Onyxia worked her cws, wounding enemy soldiers and pig apart any officer trying to restore order. Despite wearing the same heavyweight power suit as other warlords, she elegantly passed through the enemy ranks, never bumping into a foe, polishing her skills even in the heat of battle.

  The tin ever stood a ce. Darkness oozing from Onyxia’s joints licked at him as a b passed the mae, and it fell apart, bisected at the limbs, its head carried away by the warlord. She jumped, prying the helmet open, uned about the enemy forces taking aim to end her. Several shards hit the projector, illuminating the warlord, and a momehe ser beams pierced the pce where she should have been. Explosives lit up the area, but Onyxia herself was already moving away, somehoeario Janine.

  It didn’t even freak her out anymore. Trying to keep track of Onyxia was a fool’s errand. She goes where she pleases, attag from whatever angle she likes and to the Abyss any pns of her oppo. The shadow woma it into her, slig the warlord’s limbs in their brief duel. Janine moved ahead of the frontline, notig a wolf hag leading the charge in the absence of the elusive warlord.

  The wolf hag’s upper part of the helmet ainted white; she stood as tall as her warlord, easily subjugating the wolf hags in the pack to her will. Under her coordination, the Onyxia Paot only pursued their objective but also aided their allies, sending the wouo the rear and suppressing the cybs with coordinated fire.

  “More wires than brains,” Onyxia annouossing aside the remains of her trophy.

  “Aowledged,” Dragena replied, supervising the operation from outside. “Offer the cybs no merless they ask for it. Be wary. They’ll burn you along with their allies just as readily as if you were alone. Janine’s record proves it,” she finished, filling the warlord’s heart with pride at the reition of her work, and her pack doubled the efforts, eager to help their warlord earn her first honorable title.

  “Anissa, Melina, are we gging behind?” Janine asked the instigators, crumpling a man’s head with her rifle. His panion threw down a ser rifle, trying to utter words of surrender.

  “No, warlord!” They snapped.

  “Then cease this foolishness! The males and warriors are falling behind.” Janine picked up the soldier using her rifle and threw the prisoner over her shoulder, where the rest of her pack carried the captive to the Ice Fangs.

  She clicked her tongue, cheg the reports. They weren’t the first. The officer whose arms she had smashed had surreo Ashbringer’s forces, robbing Janine of the ce to earn the modest title of Captive Bringer, a humble rank given to a warlord who was the first to subjugate a high-ranking oppo during an invasion. She could go and smash the wolf hag’s head down the ium, stealing the prize, but where was the honor or justi that? Better to focus on helping her soldiers survive. The day will e when she’ll earn herself just as many titles as Martyshkina. Even more! Never, she will never lose to Marty!

  “Janine, let the girls py!” joked Warlrite. The woman closed on a cyb firing at her troops; her paw slipped a mio its geor, and she rolled to the side. The geor erupted, burning the insides of the meical human. The mutated warlord spread her arms, basking in the glory. “Life’s too brief to waste it in gloom. Cheer up!”

  Janine ignored her, surveying the battlefield. They had broken through the defenses, and Dragena should annouhe assault any sed now. A wolf hag from the Ygrite Pack caught her eye. The woman tried to push ahead of her fellows after the warlord, but turned back when the males in her pack failed to keep up. She raised a cwed paw to disciplihe slowest, a small and frightened male who tried not to look at her. A scout tried to stop her, earning a growl from the wolf hag.

  “Are you cubs or adults?!” Janine’s roar cut through the chaos, and the unication el carried her words. Ygrite’s wolf hag g Jag for a fight. “No dominations, no punishments until the Blessed Mother ends her hunt! Wolf Hag! If you ’t watch over your pack, bare your throat to another and be absorbed.”

  “You are not my warlord,” the i wretch replied, and Janine’s paw gripped the shaft of her axe. The Taleteller would be too good for the wolf hag. Janine will open this unruly creature with her own paws, not her cws. She will drink deep from her throat and haunt her nightmares forever!

  “What was that, Wolf Hag Kaisa?” Alpha’s voice asked over the s.

  “Nothing, warlord!” There was no strike. Alpha’s physical punishments never ended with a single blow; they always left a broken body with missing bones and twisted limbs, often decwed. The Stro Warlord used her power, the Fear Wave, to whip the arrogant wolf hag, and the girl answered on the verge of tears. “I obey!”

  Janine didn’t gloat. Physical punishment would be a merpared to Alpha’s fear touch. Alpha turned Janine’s and Marty’s hides gray after the two curious cubs tried to sneak into the Stro Warlord’s den to see if it really had an actual TV. It was a stupid challenge, and Terrific added her own punishment to them ter. Their fur had regais color a month ter. Yeah, she’ll let the girl off the hook this time.

  “Ining!” Janine shouted, raising her snout to the sky after hearing the roar of unknown engines and tasting the st of the same chemicals that coursed through the veins of a dead tin .

  Fures flew toward them from the city. Identical to the cybs they’d sin, these hovered on the fiery trails ing from their backs. Janine fired her rifle, bringing down a tin by melting its ehe instant, she was on top of the mae, hag away at its frame. Impatient One successfully grabbed ain . Her daughter jumped from the bunker as the cybs began their dest, closing her cws ourdy legs and nding the thi down. Soulless One sunk her cws into the mae’s neck, dragging the head away.

  “Circle!” Anissa snapped, unceremoniously elbowing a hesitating male away before the cyb could ftten him. The cyb nded and a white light fshed in its shoulder ons. “Grenades!”

  The Wolf Tribe preferred to live in nds where the scorg sun could leave burns on Normies’ skins. They weled the heat, celebrating the sun’s arrival with mad mating and cheers. The wildlife of their homend adapted, growing heavy shells and bone armor strong enough to withstand shrapnel and fme-resistant skins. Ravager blessed her offspring with sharp cws, but she also gave them the brains to use new murder tools.

  At Anissa’s and, the packs used one such tool. Their grenades created a short-lived cloud of acid that burhe lungs of fools who happeo breathe it and ate through armor, dissolving it. The cyb stumbled, falling on a knee, one on exploding, and the sed shot going skyward.

  “Sorry, my bad, the legs gave in!” Bogdan tackled a warrior with his shoulder, throwing himself and the woman to the ground to escape a beam aimed at their heads.

  The st cyb avoided the fate of the third by closing in to the Wolfkins’ ranks and kicked, snapping a male’s knee as the soldier tried to use a greo disable the mae’s geor. Its upper torso turned, firing at her son. Ignacy gave Bogdan a paw, dragging him and the warrior away.

  Before Janine could stop tearing her prey apart and rush to aid them, a paed the cyb. Warlord Ashbringer fired her fmethrower at low power, straight into the exposed jaw. Where the steel ehe flesh it was grafted onto gave way, and the cyb shuddered, burning to ay husk. Ashbringer’s lenses found Janine, and the woman nodded.

  She is going to cim all the titles! Jahought in despair, nodding back. Great, Ashbringer repaid back the debt for letting her wolf hag steal the prisoner from a fellow warlord. No title and no favor from another pack. At least my soldiers are alive. Janine chastised herself for the envy. That’s what’s important. Four warlords had died with no titles ends to their names. If she should be the fifth, so be it.

  An explosion threw her from the tin . A defeower, positioned on a wall to the west, unleashed its missiles at the gates, opening wide gaps in their ranks aing in the deaths of several Wolfkins. Before the warlord could fire her rifle, Ravager was already oask, uprooting the eower along with a small se of the wall. The ander lifted the ruins over her head, ign the pleas for mercy from the tower’s operators. Janine’s lenses zoomed in, showing Ravager’s maddened eyes. The progenitor had gooain. The Blessed Mother went berserk. Any soul incurring her wrath would meet only a mindless and effit demise.

  Ravager hurled the tower at the soldiers below, shaking the ground, and moved over the wall, her cws striking and colleg the lives of those before her. Crimson soaked her fur, failing to ge its color, and body parts tangled in her fur. J Leaving the ao fight her own battles, Janine sliced anuard in half, then kicked a woman off her feet, putting a boot on the guard’s body.

  “Surrender,” Janine offered the woman, holding an axe on her shoulder and firing at an officer trying to restore cohesion. Her shot took the man’s hand, aried to aim his pistol at her, only to be shot by Anissa.

  “Advance,” Dragena anded.

  In her panic, the pinned guard fired her on. The energy beam hissed against the dented alloy, failing to melt it. That was answer enough for the warlord. Jaomped on the enemy, and the warlord moved on, sshing and shooting, her pack charging behind her.