Iron Lord let go of his on and punched, digging part of the helmet deep into the side of Janine’s head. Reddish drool appeared on her lips; she blihrough the dizziness, and the khan pushed her off himself. She jumped, dodging a kick, and Iron Lord’s arms arched back at an impossible angle, finding a foothold to lift himself off the ground. He thrust his entire body forward, his feet smming into Janine’s face with the force of an exploding missile.
She stumbled back, unwillingly giving him enough time to recover, and the two leaders found themselves unarmed and readied their fists. Janine jabbed at his helmet with her left, provoking a heavy straight punch, and responded with an elbow and a crushing blow with her other hand, causing arical hiss to e from somewhere under his helmet.
This armor won’t let her fight as a warlord, and that’s fine. She’ll face Iron Lord as a naked brawler, relying on speed and skill to win.
Blow after blounch to the turned into an elbow slice. Then a dive under a shoulder on shot and an uppercut. Blocked. The forces of their exge carried aebbles and toppled several damaged wooden walls. Crevices opened in the pavement uhe pressure. Both oppos tried to grab each other and headbutted to break the hold, turning their csh into a slugfest.
Ihe Knight Academy, Marco witnessed a se of age after age, and Janine saw it, too, through his camera. Entire s were painted red; the bodies of the students y broken, their arms awisted and their chests fttened by the iron boots. Here and there were occasional corpses of the intruders, killed by the frantic resistance of the older cubs, but what could they really do against full-grown New Breeds?
Unfivable.
The boy moved quietly as a spie, softly pg his palms and moving without undue haste. Marco surveyed the situation, checked the pulse of several bodies, ted the dead cubs and the number of seats present, then turned his eye to the broken wall. Someone had ehis , broken the wall to lead the students away, and thechers had entered and chased them. Marco crawled into the hole, went through the destroyed bathroom, and followed the pursuit.
Janine didn’t dare tell him to stop. He wouldn’t listen, and any noise might have alerted the hunters.
Screams perked his ears, and Marco hurried to make a turn in the hallway, arriving in time to see a barred door being smashed and about thirty cubs huddled together, mounting a final defiance over the bloodied and unscious body of their instructor. Each Ice Fang was dressed in a uniform; the girls wore impractical bck skirts and white shirts, while the boys wore bck pants and simir shirts, with no st of their parents to distinguish them, and with gold, silver, or bronze symbols of their Houses pio their colrs.
Three tall, wide-eyed cubs, a girl and two boys, armed themselves with chairs and sharp pieces of stone and prepared to do their best against the two ughing hordemeering the room. One of them pointed a pistol, and the magazine clicked empty, so the bastard reached for his dagger and kicked the girl in the snout.
Marade Janine proud. He disobeyed her, and no doubt had Ignaawing at his arm in worry by now, but he was a Wolfki a bad paw or not, irrelevant. He was a born killer, and his instincts took over, demanding immediate a and banishing any doubts. Bigger, stronger, better armed? So what? Then kill smarter.
Marco tossed a broken prize statue to the raider’s left, and they briefly g the noise. He was already in the air, knives fshing. The first knife he threw was blocked by the cautious oppo, but the sed sliced through an armor joint that buckled the bastard’s Achilles tendon. He bounced off the man and buried the knives ihieck of the sed; the edges slipping across the gap between the get and the helmet and scraping against the bones, destroying the windpipe pletely. Marco let go of his ons to save himself from the swing of the dying man.
The injured hordeman grabbed Marco by the nape, pushing him face down, and one of the boys was on him, wielding the blocked knife from earlier and saving Janine’s son’s life. His reward was a blow to the face with the hilt of a sword, tearing his nostril aing his eye so badly that he recoiled in pain. Horror filled Janine as she looked at her wriggling son and uood that this was it. With the element of surprise gone…
Pure joy fshed in her eyes as the st boy leapt. With an aggression worthy of the Wolf Tribe, he rammed the shard of stoo the hordeman’s broken lens, where it stuck, but the paws of his friends joined in, driving it all the way into the filing body. Together, the three cubs sshed and bit at the armored bastard, and Marco broke free, joining the fray and w his knife on the exposed joints. The hordeman tried to stand; his leg gave way, and he fell, begging for mercy. Two of the white-furred relented, but not Mard the wounded cub.
“Rip and tear, Marco! Bless you too, white-furred soul!” Impatient One howled.
“Bleed him!” Kaisa said viciously. “Take your time!”
“Arteries, boy, aim for the arteries…” Kirk added and shuddered, expeg punishment.
“Groin! Go for the groin!” Anissa advised. “Let the bastard really feel it before he croaks!”
“Pull out his eye, boy!” Martyshkina cheered. “They bring lud taste awesome!”
“No mercy for the wicked,” Bertruda said icily and added warmly. “Praised be, Marco! Your deeds will forever be immortalized in the annals of the Order! Warlord Martyshkina, please refrain from provoking a child to break a w. ibalism is…”
“Eh, shut it! If he wants a steak, he damn well deserves it! Heart, Marco! It builds up manhood…”
“For the Blessed Mother’s sake, Warlord!”
Janine simply smiled, dug under a swing; the tearing of the flesh reyed by Albert was music to her ears. Do you see it, Colt? Are you proud of our babies? She matched her oppo in raw strength, yet Iron Lord’s rger frame should have given him the advantage. But his ck of brawling experienegated this advantage. His swings were wider than necessary, giving Janine enough time to close the distand hit his sides.
Aside from dents, she wasn’t sure that she did any damage. The man was like a solid block of iron. Dodging a whipping elbow hit, Janine gasped, struck by a ko her chest. The blow lifted her off the ground, and Iron Lord ched his hands together and delivered a blow equivalent to the rough nding of a tank skidding off the road on an unsuspeg passerby.
The backpack cracked, but fortuhe geor was intact, and Janine grabbed his ankles, pulled him off his feet, and smmed him into the crete hard enough to create a crater. She avoided his blow and caught his arm in a lock, turhe bastard face down with the help of her leg, and began breaking the arm.
This time he groaned and smashed his free arm into the road, making a half-circle path underh him, and finally came from the other side, hitting Janine in the head. She was knocked off him, and Iron Lord, seated atop her, had his helmet jerked from nded punches, and one ocur fell out, hanging on wires. Hands closed around her neck, and Jaried to reach the Taleteller, but her fingers didn’t even touch it. Hearing the etal, Janine whispered a quiand to the APC drivers.
“See how I reverse the roles… Ha!” Iron Lord chuckled, and a shield bubbled around them, pushing the axe away and blog the bullet fired by the transports. “Clever and useless, an expected result from those who skip preparations! you feel it? The weight of humanity crushing your unearned advantage? How does it feel to lose to a human? Don’t worry. In the spirit of quid pro quo for sparing my daughter, I won’t torture you. Die easily, knowing that I’ll let the little puppies go if they live still!”
Ihe academy, Marco stood up, breathing heavily, ahe wounded cub’s gaze, and Janine saw the refle of angry aed amber eyes. The cub pawed at his wound and stopped in horror at the blood and gore on his muzzle, realizing what he had done.
“Gregor, what in the Abyss were you doing?” He turo the taller boy who had used the piece of stone. “Why did you two stop?”
“But he surreilden…” whispered Gregor.
“There is no surrender! It’s us or them! Do you and Philona want to end up like... end up like...” Tilden burst into tears and walked away as his friends tried to embrace him. “Kill or be killed! We had to… I did the right thing! Stop looking at me like I’m a monster!”
“No one is sidering you a moilly,” the girl, Philona, said sternly, sniffing through the broken nose. “Get that out of your cauldron.”
“What we o do is escape,” Marterrupted her and gathered his knives. He hesitated a bit and handed oor. “After me, crybabies. You four will carry the wounded…”
“Who do you think you are, insulting your betters, rootless dust-dwelling serf?” Tilden approached him, his paws g and ung, his eyes full of fear and panic. Shocked. Fighting for her life, Janine prayed Marco would not retaliate. “I’ll have you know that I am a nephew of Knight Captain Osiris, the loyal retainer of the Summerspring House! I demand proper respect!”
“You mean Sword Saint Osiris.” Marco shoved the invader’s sword into Tilden’s paw.
“Ha! Shows what you know, barbarian!” The er of Tilden’s mouth twitched. “My great-great-grandfather, Sword Saint Leonidas, is leading our household! And this here is Gregor of the magnifit…”
“Tilden. Please,” Philona interrupted him and poi the cubs. “We are all scared.”
“And must save the others.” Gregor shook Marco’s paw and reached over to a smaller boy on the floor, spping him gently on the cheek t him back to reality. “Gregor Wintersong. Nice meeting you, friend.”
“Tilden Summerspring, the best of the Summersprings!” not to be outdohe wounded cub repeated the gesture. “And don’t you dare fet the name! Also, sider yourself excused for the rudeness, since you had the honor of saving our ba.”
“Philona. Of no house yet. Thank you for resg us, sir.” The girl smiled, without showing fangs, and Marco fist-bumped her.
“Marco, whelp of Warlord Janine!” Marco said proudly, ign the gurgling of the dying hordeman. “Mom and the others are busy mopping up the floor with the trash outside, but the roofs should be safe. Help me get everyoo the ventition shaft.”
“So you failed to squash the rats.” Janine almost slipped a Iron Lord break her neck as she heard Brood Lord’s voiing from the raider’s devi the academy.
“Know how to shoot?” Marco asked Tilden, and the boy nodded, receiving a pistol and quickly reloading it.
“I save you,” promised Brood Lord. “Just look to the side. Not at the ceiling. We need a floor.”
Iron Lord’s fingers kept jamming into her throat, strong enough to colpse a house. Every time she tried to free herself, he smmed her against the ground. She no longer could breathe and had no air left to cry a warning to her son, but Maro longer hesitated and was busy sending everyoo safety. The shoulder on took aim, and Terrific, that harbinger of disaster, drew herself high behind the khan’s back.
Not my son, bitch! Fear, hatred, and rage—the coalesg of these emotions snapped something in Janine, and she grasped Iron Lord’s big thumbs. And broke them, ung about araint and unbound by worries. What will happen will happen. Something a, a part of herself she had locked away, had crept out, looked through her eyes, and jois voice to her low growl, pleasing Terrifiough for the apparition to smile, horribly twistihery lips.
“Restraint…”
“To the Abyss with it!” Janine howled.
Iron Lord showed no sign of pain, but she wasn’t disced. Janine could breathe, and so she closed her paws around his wrists, bending the metal, leaning back, pushing off the ground, bringing her ko her chest. And kicked upward with all her might, shattering the helmet on his jaw and sending Iron Lord reeling back, grunting.
The warlord rolled to the side and picked up her axe. A single, wide ssh cut a gash in Iron Lord’s belly a upward, cutting ly through his shoulder on. Iron Lord tio retreat, his thumbs dangling uselessly, but the maended his right arm to the side, and his give flew in, summoned by a magic devi the gau.
“Your cuts are shallow. They ’t even reach my flesh,” Iron Lord said and chuckled. “Yet you bleed, tire, and soon will be lying at my legs, bones pulverized!”
They came at each other, bdes fshing and the wind r around them. Driven by a desperate urge to end the fight now, Janine pushed into his close quarters, earning herself a heavy tackle that threw her back. Immediately his give stabbed, seeking to spear through her shoulder, and missed its mark.
Janine jumped, a silver et flying into a mountain of steel. She had deliberately exposed herself, already knowing how her oppo would react. What would have been impossible in her regur armor, the Ice Fangs suit made possible, giving her short and ungraceful legs elegand fluidity. The Taleteller sshed at his shoulder with all her might, and the blow was apanied by the hiss of wires and the noise of broken maery. Iron Lord stepped back, swinging his on wildly to drive her back, and touched his shoulder, where a spurt of red—his blood—emerged from the gash.
“So much for Iron Lord.” Spat Janine and inhaled, gatherirength. “There is only one prey here, boy.”
“And that is the evildoer!” Albert cheered.
“How long has it been?” Iron Lord asked in the dry voice of an elderly human, carrying ages of experience. His synthesized bombastic speech was either broken or turned off. “How many years have passed since I bled? Warlord Janine, was it?” He saluted her. “Thank you for the reminder of mortality. I will show clemency to your kind after they have finally fallen to the Gilded Horde. Let us end this. I have a nation to build.”
The retort died in her mouth; her focus ba the Academy again, where the head of the dying hordeman slumped to the side as Mard the older cubs helped everyoo the shaft. And Brood Lhed.
“Phaser.” A single word frightened Janine like a few things in her life, renderianding helplessly, uo ge anything and forced to watch.
A vertical line, so terrifyingly familiar, appeared he wall of the . It wideo the left and right, filling the room with a blue void, and from its depths stepped a pointed ioid leg, encased in advanced prote. Then another, shaking the floor as it pierced the head of the dying hordeman. Pincers followed, then the huge bulk of the body and Brood Lord carried himself into the Academy, fnked by Adonis and Heika, smiling through his greenish visor while carrying his curved bde casually over his shoulder.
“Now why do I know you?” He addressed Marco, ign the boy’s efforts to squeeze the wounded instructor into the tunnel. Fiapped the helmet. “No, no, don’t help me… Ah, Houstad! I’m gd I didn’t dispose of you then; you deserve a proper send-off. Well?” He addressed his panions.
“Not ied in children,” Heika answered.
“Not going to sully our bdes,” Adonis echoed.
“Why not let them go?” They asked in unison.
“I will, I will, into a better reality, or so I have heard, my dearest hypocritical prudes. Thious lunatics always scream about it when I treat myself to their flock before their eyes.” Brood Lord spped himself on the belly. His eyes narrowed as Marco helped Tilden and Gregor, the st two cubs, into the hole. “Children. Since you refuse to bow to the teacher, today we’ll study evisceration! No need for volunteers; all are participating.”