Dragena waited just long enough for the first ranks of panig foes to reach the city’s wide streets. It was both a st offer of merd a on. Leave a prey without a way out, and it will bare its fangs, however meager. The soldiers deeper iy saw their allies flee, heard the blood-curdling howls of the attackers, and had enough time to realize how quickly the outer defenses fell.

  Janine heard orders snapping from dynamistalled on the walls, demanding the eradication of those who gave in to fear. But it is always hard to fire at your neighbors, whoever you are. By not firing at the soldiers who abaheir post, Teo-Queen’s minions unwittingly disobeyed her order for the first time in their lives. And one disobedience leads to another, as the idea of saving themselves by retreating dangles in their minds.

  The capital looked as lifeless as the nd beyond the wall. Battered cretes of the main roads bore the tracks of thousands of voys bringing in supplies to sustain industry and people. Toxic rivers flowed underh grated sidewalks. Citizens lived in square-shaped barracks with closed-shut windows, more like crete sbs spat on the ground thao call home. Crude, colorless, these buildings differentiate through various identification numbers. Jaed them at first sight, but thahe Spirits for the thiess of their walls. Future citizens of the Recmation Army were safe from the actal discharge of ons.

  Army depots and factories littered every er, leaking chemical waste into the openings. Even now they worked, hampered by the absence of human personnel, but heless produg ammunition and ons on their assembly lihanks to the automatic protocols.

  “Should we destroy the structures?” Janine heard Eled’s voice over the unications and saw an image recorded by her lehe warlord shook the berserker haze and held her bde over a trembling man, one of the st guards assigo a small factory where cruel pincers were assembling an unscious woman into a cyb.

  “ive. It may cause a rea. Ig for now. The engineers and stists will deal with it ter,” Dragena replied.

  “Aowledged.” The ft of Eled’s scythe broke the man’s arms.

  Janine proceeded acc to her own orders, allowing the wolf hags to direct her pack. She seheir uneasiness. In Terrific’s time, the pack rushed ahead in a single, unified wave, trying their best to keep up with the warlord. Those too weak or too slow were abaerrific’s vision ighe cealed enemy positions, ser-fog on g the greatest quarry to posture before other warlords.

  They no longer fought in this way. Janine led from the front, g the lives of those fools aiming to stop her. A swing of her axe sent a turret and a ruined body into a wall. A shot of her energy rifle shaved the top of a soldier’s body. Bullets bounced off her superior armor, denting it ihe warlord’s speed allowed her to sidestep a fired rocket and outpace the opposition, rendering their efforts to resist pointless.

  Impatient One and Soulless One fought by her side, ending lives and using their instincts to weave around the ining shots. The Wolfkins of the Wolf Tribe cked their cousins’ incredible perception. They couldn’t see bullets suspended in the air, but the Blessed Mother had grahem a different gift. Their instincts fred, warning of danger, and by trusting them, the Wolfkins could replicate the amazis of their kin.

  Three New Breeds. That was all it took to throw the opposition into disarray. Her Wolfkins surged in an avanche of darkness, climbing on top of the building and downing the exposed enemies with the volleys of their shardguns. Armor-pierg shards left dents and gashes in the warlord’s armor as her bodyguard deftly dodged them. She found it acceptable and eheir nimble legs. The pack worked as oheir stro drew attention to themselves, bleeding the foe, and hundreds of her soldiers pressed on the exposed fnks, seg the kill.

  Soulless One’s cw missed its mark, and the enemy officer recoiled, raising his heavy psma uncher. Anissa fired hastily, exploding the man’s shoulder, and he slipped through a broken piece rating, falling into the chemical waste. The man shouted in agony, scratg his good hand against the wall as the current threateo sweep him away.

  “Permission to…”

  “Granted,” Janine approved Ignacy’s request.

  Her little boy jumped onto his belly, sliding to the open crack as the scout in charge of his paed a defensive perimeter. Bogdan grabbed his legs, and Ignacy caught the officer and lifted him away from the deadly waters. The man’s gray hazmat suit had melted away, and the leather of his clothing and the metal of his exoskeleton fused with his skin.

  Impatient One appeared beside Ignad spped him hard enough to send him back to his feet when her brother tried to reach for his medical kit. The Wolfkins tiheir advance, leaving the twitg, screaming man to receive care from the surrendered foes. Whether he’ll live or perish will depend on the Ice Fangs’ medics following behind. For now, Janine was gd that her daughter restrained herself and did not use her cws on her brnaetimes failed to uand that their cruel adrenaline shots would sooner kill a Normie than aid him in any way.

  The Wolfkins spread through the city like the tide of a great bck sea, shutting down the resistance, breaking into the factories, and eliminating aan their path. Their losses were minuscule, a a sting of cold fury touched Janine’s mind at news of a sister’s passing. Youile females and eager males, kin who should have ied the future, died on these bsted streets, brought low by the massed fire of the defeowers and the occasional cyb enter.

  Dragena had the same opinion. Predaig’s and Onyxia’s packs took to the walls, climbing up to silehe ons; Ygrite’s cheerful voice warned her allies of potential traps ahead; the brutal Alpha and the indomitable Ashbringer waded through the ter of the city, using their rgest packs to quell the fiercest resistahe packs’ movements produced whines of servomotors and the scratg of the steel edges of armor ptes against each other. The state’s mass-produced power armor was anything but subtle. Apanied by the wailing howls and barking sounds of their shardguns, the Wolf Tribe produced a truly nightmarish cacophony for ears that teared hard at the enemy spirit.

  Where is the Blessed Mother? Janine wondered, bringing the Taleteller to another barricade. An explosion overhead annouhe sileng of turrets preparing to fire at her. ander Ravager wasn’t the oo shy away from bat; in every battle, she raced for the throat of the enemy leader, quickly ending a war by dev them.

  So where is she now?

  “Daddy!” Janine’s eyes narrowed at the sight of a young cub oreet.

  The girl stepped out of a gray house, liftiearful face to look at the ptform where the Wolfkins had ered a group of guards. A shot ricocheted off the Impatient One’s armor, and Janine broke from the advance, blog the piece of steel flying at the cub.

  “Don’t hurt my daddy!” Janine ighe feeble hands pounding at her chest pte as she ed her oversized limbs around the girl, preparing to throw her into the doorway. Already, the little one’s eyes had reddened and irely from tears. The outside air kill her just as surely as a sudden shot.

  “Sure thing!” Bogdan roared and lu the guards, cursing as a shot hit his elbow joint and grazed his skin. Her wayward son fell from the roof, holding five guards in his embrace. He threw them to the building, nodding to the girl as a shocked man tried to raise his rifle. His rade pushed his gun down. “Wolf Tribe’s express, five Normies delivered; now get inside your den and don’t show up your faces until the battle’s over.”

  “Why?” a man asked grimly, stepping to Janine. She let the girl go into his embrace, still t over him to serve as a wall. “So you could take us as cattle?”

  “Not a ibal!” Bogdan shook his paws. “Just hate seeing girls cry. Ain’t no cub should…” His scout nded from above, and her punch sent the male face down, crag the crete with his helmet.

  “Fighting’s over for you.” Jaried her best to ighe urge to protect Bogdan. Her boy deserved a punishment for breaking away from his pad risking his life. The girl simply looked after him. She didn’t even use her cws. Something in the warlord’s voice vihe guards, and they dropped their ons.

  “Then what awaits us?” the father asked, hugging his cub.

  “A life and a future. Better than the one you had,” Janine promised, shoving him and his daughter inside and closing the door after the rest stepped in.

  “If you have done sleeping on the job, get on with the quest, bleedi,” Ashbringer sent a message.

  Fmes erupted from the two streets to their west, announg Ashbringer’s advahrough the cameras in her helmet, watched as Alpha closed in on a fortress withiy. Teo-Queen had ruled by fear, and sending soldiers motivated by it against a horror like Alpha was most unwise. Uerror whipped people in Alpha’s path, breaking the guards to a ditiohey dropped their ons and whimpered helplessly, clutg their legs. The stro warlord simply crushed those few who had found ce to stand against her, deeming them unworthy of sullying her cws.

  “Ashbringer, cut on your fire,” Dragena’s voice said over the , and Janine switched els, seeing the warlord sitting in the crawler’s aer, monit the advance of the packs on several ss. “Janine had the right idea. There are civilians in the buildings, and if you set fire to the oil lihere will be naught but dust.”

  “I am not that inpetent,” Ashbringer snapped back. A searing burst from her fmethrowers left twelve scorched remains in her path.

  Jani cold as she ripped the heads off the two soldiers with a bad swing of her axe. Ravager. At a wall, the Blessed Mother rose high in an explosion of stone and fire and turned around, looking calmly at the Ashbringer. Not a snarl left her lips. The anger and madness simply washed away from the ander, and she held an officer in a purple cape in her paw. This ess freaked out Janine more than any rage.

  “I obey.” Ashbringer quickly dropped to one knee, baring her ne submission and ign the enemy fire. Her fmethrowers went off, and the warlord released her cws.

  Ravager turned her gaze to the screaming officer and paused, prehending her surroundings. The Blessed Mother examihe man, who looked more like a toy pared to her. Her paw twitched, causing the man to choke on his own screams as at least one of his ribs gave way. Ravager’s pupils dited auro normal; her breathing alternated between heavy and rapid intakes of air. Arresting her madness, Ravager raised the officer to her lips, leaving the st-mark of a prisoner, and tossed him to the other soldiers, accepting their surrender.

  Her ess did not st for long. She leaped from this se of the wall, crossing the ey in a graceful somersault. With the force of a et, Ravager nded on the opposite wall, partially crushing it under her weight, and moved on, snuffing out any life in her path by sshing, stomping, or simply gulping down foes fast enough that none had any time to even offer a surrender. A defeower in her path toppled at a snap of her fingers, and the Blessed Mother stopped, bleeding from her nose and sniffing the air furiously, her head swaying to the sides.

  “Martyshkina’s advance has halted, warlord!” Melina shouted happily, throwing a grehat seared soldiers at a barricade ahead. “She spread them too thin, and her wolf hag is pinned down in the east! We swoop in and secure her advance point ahead of her!”

  Janine’s HUD projected the image, firming Melina’s words. In her overzealousness, her friend had advanced in too wide a front, stealing kills from Ygrite, and the crafty warlord was only too happy to let someone else do her work. But noack deprived of its warlord became trapped in a square in front of a factory whose guards dragged heavy ons onto balies, their fire suppressing the Wolfkins, and two roups moved in to fnk the separated pack as its wolf hag clutched the side of her helmet. There were no wounds on her, and the warlord assumed she had a cussion.

  “Melina, take your pad strike at the factory from the rear. Bring back Marty’s cubbies, safe and sound,” Janine ordered.

  “But… but the glory! We … you earn a title…”

  Janine’s paw closed over the wolf hag’s helmet, jerking her off the ground. She bent the metal gently. True, her soul cried out for a ce to one-up Martyshkina, especially for the blunder her friend had caused. It would’ve lifted the morale of her pack, removing the inferiority they felt at having a fameless leader. But not at the cost of lives. Janine was determio prevent any member of her pack from ever feeling the same fear of abando she had experienced as a cub. She wao build a home that her cubs could be proud of. And what she wanted, she made true.

  “Safe and sound,” she repeated slowly, looking into Melina’s lenses. “Obey or challenge.”

  “You lead! I obey!” Melina folded her paws to her chest, accepting any punishment, and the warlord let her go.

  “Soulless One! Baby-sit the Melina Pae,” Janine called. As the shaman passed by, she grabbed her shoulder. “And keep your strikes true.” The shaman’s cw twitched, and Janine asked in a softer voice. “Are you injured? I ’t smell your blood.”

  “It’s the oil. I must keep a cool head, lest I’ll turn into a torch,” the shaman joked. She bowed. “I funy warlord.”

  “Hunt well.” A pat on the back sent the shaman to the wolf hag, and the warlord led her soldiers further.