Research wins wars. Decided Iron Lord, raising the skewered Dirtyblood and ign the blood running down his give. His rival relied oion, improvisation, and other silly, unreliable schemes, which helped entice gullible masses. Folly, as Houstad’s failure had proven. Only hard data mattered, and its proper applicatioo the establishment of a stable society. Research was hardly limited to teological advances, and sociology and psychology were the respected and valuable sces.

  Barely audible gasps escaped the Dirtyblood’s mouth; her body vulsed and spasmed, arms desperately trying to lift the body from the bde, oblivious to the fact that her lung was no more. Vermin always tried to save themselves, rather than reag fun on their belt and firing at the assaint. This moron aying with her life for disobeying a simple order and demanding immediate assistance from Iron Lord. Irritated by his ht, the khan turned off the disruption field, f the fool to suffer the sequences.

  Both should have knower. But there was a lesson in every failure, and Iron Lord inteo learn it, accepting his partially impaired mental state.

  Theoretical. How do you defeat a nation? In ages past, vast armies marched on. To avoid the terrible casualties of urban warfare, eic blockades were set up to starve the opposition into submission. New fates were fed during clever iations in high ets, while propagandists sowed seeds of distent among the general popuet, news, pocket politis, strategy, discipline, will, numbers, teology, flexibility—through these currencies, a nation purchased its future and maed its destiny.

  Nowadays, the validity of suotions was questio best. Starve the Horde, murder every st one of their minions, and what have you aplished? Mad Hatter will still exist, and through her might alone, she’ll rebuild and quer, f anilded Horde. Demigods roamed the nds, smashing hundreds, casting doubt on the former ways of war by disregarding numbers and overing strategy through brute force. They were the tries in themselves, and any nations that formed today were unions of sudividuals, with the less fortunate rallying around them.

  Humans didn’t matter. To survive and preserve those they care about, they had to ehe victory of their demigod, even if that person wasn’t a paragon of virtue. It was a bitter irony. Iron Lord cared about the Merts and his wives, and for their sake, he po ehat his people would learn how to create soulless gods obedient to their ands.

  Practical. How to quer a nation? Take down sudividuals, cull them, shatter the false illusion of security, and essentially disarm your foe before l the curtain by sending the elite to swoop in. A simple pn, but how to create an opportunity to massacre a demigod? That was where research chimed in. Once a demigod’s thought process and habits were knowing a trap was trivial. And the Recimers… they cared for their young.

  His idea clear, Iron Lord had tacted the traitor, wrested the tool from the clutches of his rival, and obtaihe study sites of the white-furred Purebloods. After carefully calg their future advance, Iron Lord had chosen one, a perfect spot to deprive the Recmation Army of one of its best assets. And the Horde had gained a target.

  Not everythi as he had expected, but such was the price of w alongside the inpetent. He cast the dying woman on the floor a his thunder bull feast. Iron Lord and his elite guards hid themselves in an industrial warehouse of this settlement. Built around the Knight Academy, Opul thrived on the enerous donations. Located deep within the Recmation Army’s territory, it cked even a simple palisade.

  That m, hoverbikes had streaked through the streets, disrupting the m sileh the hiss of pulse rifles. The infantry charged in after them, lobbing explosive munition into the tall plex glistening in the sunlight. Its reinforced stone blocks ehe seari, darkening aing as the hordemen surrouhe pce, ensuring that no victim would be able to escape. Against his stristrus, the khan in charge of the rabble led her soldiers in a headlong assault and was bloodied by the defenders. Iron Lord didn’t care about the casualties; the majority of the degees beloo Brood Lord, and any of his own troops had richly earhemselves death.

  He wasn’t waging war on children, not when Mad Hatter wasn’t around to order him to stage another massacre. The white-furred were supposed to undergo brainwashing and join his khaganate.

  Phaser had opened a portal and endured an agonizing experieo let a rge group into Opul in exge for fiveness for his involvement in the would-be assassination. Iron Lord had refused to expin anything to the khan and simply admired the pce. Most of the buildings were built in a ‘block’ style to house rge families, but closer to the academy were proper houses and mansions, owned by both the locals and the white-furred. Unfortunately, they had been ransacked.

  About a hundred citizens stayed in Opul out of for the children, while the rest fled into the forest, for all the good it might have dohem. The mayor, a heavily augmented and tanned individual, hurried to Iron Lord, impl him to spare the kids. Iron Lord let the mayor run his mouth, in case he had something important to say, and observed the events through the visors of his troops. Unmoving, uhing, sustained by the life-support systems. Like a true mae.

  Enraged by her losses, the khan had bombarded the plex of white stone and e, destroying its magnifit statues and royal imagery, redug many facilities to smoking heaps of colpsed rubble. Ravenous beams burned away barred balies, and fshes from rocket explosio an avanche of rocks and marble tumbling down. Doors bore traces of dents and notches. A dome housing an observatory had been breached, and a small inferno was now p out of it. Vaulted passages between the plex’s facilities stood no longer.

  Ihe plex, the hordemen battled against the instructors outdated power armors. Iron Lord admired the iy of his oppos, who had mao separate the invaders by log the doors, as well as their dedication and efficy. Silver and white figures almost danced on the walls, elegantly bypassing their oppos’ crude shield walls, sshing at joints and cutting sinews, even hag through bones. In the end, their sacrifice meant little. Oer ahey died under a hail of bullets, and their wards were meeting the same fate from the enraged soldiers breaking into s.

  The barbarity unleashed touched Opul, introdug its inhabitants to the harsh truth of their shared world. And there was something else, a veneer of another horror toug souls, ever intensifying…

  Iron Lord opened his tired biological eyes, stirred by the howls of aggression filling the streets. An axe, bigger than a man’s body, flew out of the forest, spinning, slig through three bondsmen and burying itself in a hoverbike, exploding it aing nearby soldiers afme. Their armor saved them from burns and injuries, but they ood up as two orbs of psma—the orbs that speared through a dozen trees—fihem off by burning their way through their bodies.

  Two massive, super-heavy vehicles stormed into Opul, oversized parodies of the Provincial Army’s APCs. Parts of buildings in their path shattered, and an unlucky rider got spttered into a mix of broken steel and innards by their wheels.

  Huge figures ehe fray, seemingly blinking ieh their superior speed. One carried a long spear, and a flick of her wrist sent its bde through several necks as the sword saint, in shining armor, stepped ahead, making sure not a drop of blood stained her cloak. Another Wolfkin walked across the rooftops, firing her revolvers. A single shot sent a web of cracks snaking behind a hordewoman, who looked at the gapiiness in her chest in disbelief before colpsing. The bullet itself ricocheted off the ground, killing another soldier before ricocheting off the bde of the spear and sying the third. Even the sword saint seemed to be startled for a tenth of a sed, and then she became a whirlwind of strikes. Smaller copies of their leaders shrough the rubble, firing their ugly versions of shotguns or sshing those hem.

  The street shook as the third gia. His weight left a crater in the pavement and tossed several hordemen and the rge axe into the air. A hand closed around the axe, and the Pureblood spun, biseg the bodies. Another hand grasped a retreating raider by his helmet and drew him nearer, as if the sword saint wao bite him, but at the st sed he ripped the man’s face off and then struck, crag the ium. Legs, looking too short, stomped, bursting bellies of the soldiers.

  Not him. She. The escapee. The one who hurt my son… and spared my daughter. His lips parted ilee. Janine wore a false insignia, but her battle style of carving a bloody path formed of mutited bodies betrayed her undeniably as a bck-furred. Not a hint of merd all the aggression a mind could hold.

  What luck! Two warlords, a sword saint, and the main course had not yet arrived. He had time to partake iorm of madness.

  “Prepare to fire Sky’s Wrath at Opul!” Iron Lord said to the behemoth’s crew and opened a direct lio anreat khan. “Brood Lord! Keep Phaser ready. His ass…” Why am I cursing? What is going on here? “… is to open a space rift on my and. Use the video feed of our troops to deduce the coordinates of our location.”

  “Some of us have a war to wage.” Brood Lord yawned. “What are you up to, Rust Lord?”

  “Correg your mistakes, imbecile,” Iron Lord answered, energized and frightened in equal measure. His impnts kicked in, filling the bloodstream with chemicals, and it wasn’t enough. His emotions joined in a maddening ival, filling him with desires. “Gilded Horde!” He raised Patieo quest ah! Devour the world!”

  “Devour the world!” the bodyguard roared back.

  The thunder bull trotted on, past the open-mouthed mayor, accelerated, and shattered the entrance, sending a rain of pebbles and iron beams harmlessly crashing into the Iron Lord’s bulk. A field of disruption formed around the give’s edge, ready t age.

  They advanced like a flood, leveling everything in their path. Calming himself, Iron Lord paid attention to a coded message Brood Lord sent to one of the panicked lesser khans on the field. There was always the risk of betrayal, but he had takeions to ensure a positive oute.

  “Horkhudagh.” Iron Lord tacted the Fme Whip. “Stay close for support.”

  ****

  Divide! The Taleteller came down, splitting a man into two unequal halves. Pierce. Her armored fingers struck, shattering a get and crumbling a trachea. Her jaws tried to open to catch the coughed blood and drink the vitae like water. Disgusted, Albert caught her desire and unsealed the helmet. Tear. Her head swung, closing her fangs on a fleeing raider, breaking his spine. She stepped on the paralyzed fool and heard the bones crack. Divide. Split. Divide!

  “Isn’t that why you came, morsels?!” she thundered. “Then e and face me, instead of scurrying away! I haven’t eve all of you into the Abyss!”

  Janine broke the w. The uanding of the simple fact that she was feasting on the living and the dead did not even bother her, as the cold fury unleashed by the sight of yet another plundered sanctuary drove her to abandon any pretense of civility. She was a beast, a monster in the service of the state! Every move killed or maimed, and the warlord reveled ierrified screams, embrag the savage nature of the Wolf Tribe.

  Roars and howls reigned oreets, choking the whispers and pleas of the dying and fear-struck. Impatient Oore a khan’s limbs one by one, as if she were a cub toying with an ioid. Then her cws plunged into the wide-open eyes. Anissa and her pack emerged from the smoke, denying a retreat to the enemy.

  The Ice Fangs’ shock was almost palpable; the warlord sehat much. Bertruda joihe sughter, but her occasional hesitation after hearing a scream of surrender betrayed that everything in her revolted against this way of waging war. The Twins and the Blessed Mother had established rules, adjusting them as the state grew. But now, at the zenith of the grievous strike aimed at civilization, its soldiers abandoned normality and snarled, participating in a brutality that surpassed even that of their enemies.

  Janine didn’t howl, too busy killing.

  “You came to our nds as monsters!” Janine snarled, swatting away bullets with the Taleteller. A beam of her ser rifle toppled an enemy soldier. “Bringing woe to our families! Ruins to our dens!” A raider tried to ram her, only to find the butt of the axe tearing off a sizeable k of his throat and head. The bde sshed, severing the legs of three raiders at their knees. She kicked a Pureblood in the chest, denting his armor, but the fat underh softehe blow and absorbed some of the impact. Still, his visor was suddenly covered in red from the inside.

  “Please!” he pleaded as Jaurned her kito a stomp, spttering the man against the ground. His armor held, but she saw the bastard’s body balloon, the flesh pressing hard against the breastpte. “Mercy!” He yelled in desperation, trying to lift her leg. “I beg…”

  “He is no longer a threat,” Albert said.

  “And monsters you have met.” The body exploded under increased pressure. “Rip apart, Recimers!” Janine roared, sending an order for Kaisa to elimihe hordemehe entrance doors. “There are no humans here! Retaliate ahem taste hteous fury!” Anissa obeyed another and and halted their ambush, f tw lihat mowed down riders trying to get to the APCs.

  The defenders smmed their shields into the ground, blog the ining grenades and shielding the precious transports. With a grunt of approval and no iion of staying put, the Wolfkins rode the bst and scattered. The knights raised their bdes and unleashed ranged hell on the grenadiers.

  Psma from Bertruda’s wrists immoted several brave hordemen trying to mount a defensive line. Martyshkina jumped down from the building, her cloak fpping in the gust of wind propelled by explosions. Two shots elimihe st riders, and the st to arrive at the Academy’s entrance was Janine, covered in blood and gore, her blue visor shining like a newborn star, and her leg kicked a head into the hordemen’s ranks. That sight, and something about her, broke whatever morale the raiders had left, and they tried to scurry away and disappear into the streets of the town.

  e was given to them. Shardguns pronouheir verdict, joined by the banshee screams of the APCs’ rotating ons, which sheared off entire body parts. Several civilians unsteadily poked their heads out of the ruins, shrieking in terror as bck-cd paws unceremoniously grabbed them and shoved them into the transports.

  “That was… intense,” Albert mused.

  “Wolf Tribe’s way,” Janine admitted. “See? Told you, o tarnish the Order with my shit.”

  “Let us nue about it now, Sword Saint and Warlord. You talked about the minefield, but there is none. If…”

  “No ifs! It is a trap,” she interrupted him and poi the Academy. “Inside!”

  The packs and knights charged toward the entrand found it sealed shut by the tons of rubble merged. Albert helpfully informed the rescuers of a ventition shaft, but unfortunately it was too narrow for any of them to enter, and sending a civilian inside might have been suicide. Janine waved the troops aside and brought the Taleteller high. She’ll shatter the damn stones if…

  “Prey!” Martyshkina cried out, and a momehe ground shook.