With everyone secured, Anissa jumped into the sed, pig up the two wounded instructors she and Kaisa had found on their way down. Holding them under one armpit aly carrying Mar another, Anissa kept retreating to the roof, ign the cubs’ frightened yelps.

  My son is alive. Bless you, Anissa. Thank you, Spirits. Eted, Janine blocked the blow with the shaft of her axe and ended up buried in the road up to her knees. Adrenaline coursed through her veins, her heart rag, the blood pumping faster and faster. She broke free of the trap, dodging the spike aimed at her mouth, and the Taleteller kissed it, shearing it . The kiss tiaking the broken finger and nding on his breastpte.

  “Sword Saint, be careful not to break your cws!” Albert cried the warning as she stabbed with her paw, hooking Iron Lord’s arm to keep the field of destru from toug her head.

  “Rex!” She ughed in the oppo's face, closing in on him aing behind the khan, brutally tearing her cws free. “Even if they break, they’ll grow back!”

  “You are ag too brazen all of a sudden,” Albert remarked. “Don’t risk it, please.”

  Iron Lord’s upper body spun, but she ducked uhe elbow and sshed at his damaged chest, then at his legs, before the downward swing of his give drove her back. Shards of broken ir out on the ground.

  “Risk it?” Her joy filled the battlefield, seeping into the packs. “The mission was a success!” My son lives. He’ll run again, I promise! She would rather die than admit it to her soldiers, but the sight of her, weaving and cutting back with renewed energy, advang akin to a sandstorm at its peak, formless and deadly, unencumbered and radiant, motivated them to push through the exhaustion and beyond.

  “Recim! Retaliate! Requer!” They howled the motto of the First, the oldest of the state’s war cries. No one forced them, no oaught them; the Ice Fangs and the Wolfkins just felt like it, abandoning their own traditions in favor of something shared and cherished from the days when they had toppled the vilest of scum.

  One hordeman dismounted his dying steed and raised an axe while the rotating on on his shoulder was busy ripping wide gashes in the Wolfkins before him. The intense fire was blocked by a brave defender, and the soldiers used the respite tre their enemy, f him to curse as his vision was impaired by acid melting his leogether, the group focused fire on his leg joints, bringing him to his knees, and a knight-captain thrust himself forward, ramming a sword into the bastard’s neck.

  Even that wasn’t enough to kill the hordeman, as his swing ruihe knight-captain’s hastily raised shield in a single blow. But his fate was sealed; the scout destroyed the on, and the mass of troops pushed him to the ground, w their way through the suit.

  Impatient One broke Zulfiya’s arm and ripped the helmet from the woman’s head, cerating her round and wide face with a single ssh, avoiding the clumsy terattacks. Martyshkina fired, nding six bullets in a single point on another hordeman’s chest. The hypersonic bullets pierced their way to the heart, and the body slumped from the surprised bull, who paused, unsure of what to do. Marty reloaded her revolver, lig her lips hungrily, and the animal turail to her mockery.

  Six legs burst from the wall of the Knight Academy, widening the gap and sending debris everywhere. The fortress, which had withstood both energy and projectile bombardment, gave way, and the four-armed body emerged from the cra a wave of devastation. Brood Lord spun in the air and smiled at the surprised troops.

  “Mine, mihat incubator is mine!” He nded on the road, slig through the Ice Fang at his waist and ramming his pincer into the open mouth of a Wolfkin, opening it inside and popping the male’s head. “Out of my way, corpses! It’s your queen I’m after!”

  Janine saw him out of the er of her eye through the visor of her armor, still locked in battle with Iron Lord, and uood that she wouldn’t be able to block both. Brood Lord didn’t care about a her; his legs khe soldiers out of the way, and she turo face his bde. His sword screeched, drawing sparks across Taleteller’s haft, and the mog face closed in.

  “o meet you again, Ja seems my hospitality wasn’t up to your liking. You took something from me.” His smile ged to a grin full of needle teeth. “But that’s okay. I sehe traitors.”

  “Good,” Janine growled. “Then you seethe knowing that you will never y a finger on them again, shit pot.”

  “Never say never! Life is full of little ued surprises. Like the one I met in that ditch of yours here.” Acid bubbled behind his teeth.

  “That’s true if you are alive to experiehese surprises.” Janine pushed against his ch, trying to shove him away. “You are done. Dead man walking.”

  “His name is Mary bad. His name was Marco.” Brood Lord smiled, slightly opening his mouth. “Know that as we work through each other’s families, I enjoyed watg you squirm in anguish. The question is, do you experiehe same, woman? Do it now, Iron Lord!”

  Janine worriedly gnced back, expeg to be cut between the shoulder bdes when the fist the size of her head flew past her, smashing into Brood Lord’s face, and paws rose behind her, blog the pincers aimed at her sides. The punch was hard enough to send the reeling khan off the warlord, and she found Impatient One beside herself.

  “Not the pce for switg sides, Rust Lord.” Brood Lord wiped his mouth. “Then again, you never were a bright spark. Your own sons and daughters are lying dead. Don’t you care? Don’t you even care?!”

  “Betrayer!” Iron Lord roared. “This was my operation! Those puppies in the academy should have been smuggled out of the town long ago to be used as hostages or raised as my future soldiers. This pce is mine; you agreed to it! How dare you deny me my spoils! How dare yee filth harm the future servants of my... Khatun’s army! Worse, you failed to achieve even that! We quer and rule; what do you think you are doing, massag children?!”

  “And rule we will! Over those who are left. o be so stingy over useless dregs. Plenty of those around.” He swung his head to Impatient One, nodding at her wound. “Why push your luck?” He asked with genuine curiosity. “I am after someone else today, and this hunk here is a much more affordable target.”

  “You touched the warlord’s son.” Impatient One unleashed her cws to the fullest, stretg the skin on her fio the point of tearing. “No mercy.”

  “He is mine,” Janine said.

  “Almost fot about you, my dear. Here, this is yours, I believe.” Brood Lord tossed something in her face.

  A strip of Marco’s torn skin.

  She roared and lunged, earning a kick to the . A spin saved her from the swing of Iron Lord, who had no iion of allying with any of his enemies. Brood Lord found himself on the ropes as the shaman crashed into him, sparks flying. A shaman’s cws were different. Where the Tribe cherished their natural ons while accepting more advanced methods of sughter, the shamans stuck to the old ways, gnawing at suits and hollowing out entire caves with their cws on a regur basis, ign disfort and pain and strengthening them every day.

  And Impatient One had earhe right to be one of the fi fighters among the shamans, prevented from ruling over vilges only by the vice of her temper. But in Janine’s opinion, the daughter had long since surpassed the mother in pure martial prowess and was held back by her smaller stature. Unhindered by any physical disfigurement, Impatient One created a web of cuts approag Brood Lord’s face, slig away his mustache. Her toes pressed hard into the road, and she leaned ba them, dodging a ssh that would have decapitated her, and immediately leapt into the fray, catg the snapping pincers, then kig at the khan’s chest, boung off him to gain distance.

  Brood Lord chased after her, swinging his sword down, and the shaman caught the bde between her paws, groaning from the intense pressure of struggling against his single arm. Brood Lord spat his acid, missing his target as Impatient One jerked her head away. Her leg kicked, damaging his chitin pte, and in that sed Janine pushed past Iron Lord, shoulder tag the other khan away.

  “It is getting ridiculous,” Brood Lord sighed pretentiously, toug his ruined mustache, and another set of irises appeared from behind the first. His hind legs arched back, resembling scorpion tails as they hung over him. “All I wanted was to see Janine writhing in agony as I plucked members of her family like grapes, but no. You had to e and incur a blood debt. Pay up; I haven’t got all day.”

  His legs came down on Impatient One’s shoulders, stabbing into them with enough force to reach the bone and pin the woman to the ground. Brood Lord took his time t the shaman onto a knee, smugly grinning at Janine, who fought against Iron Lord. Ign the cws that scratched the lines on his chitin, Brood Lord raised his sword.

  We are monsters. Let the world hear us and tremble at what it has birthed.

  The advice came suddenly to Janine, but she obeyed, giving up battle pns, tactics, domiraditions, her p the pack, even her family in exge for the urge to kill. The most basic thing a monster could do for humanity. Destroy those who threaten the weak.

  Iron Lord’s give rose, propelled by her blow, and the warlord lu Brood Lord, dragging the axe across the ground like a tool. The swing of the axe damaged the tip of his hind leg, and the blow drew a long gash across his belly, pierg his gilded armor and sending s of the quered natiohe Malformed freak stumbled away from Impatient Ooug his wound.

  “You… you weren’t that quick before.” His finger rahe bleeding edges, and then he licked them , watg the warlord. “Overdosed s? Angry? e on, Janine, what’s a few dead kids between friends?”

  Enough! Shut him up! She obliged, fag the rapidly moving khan, blog his bde thrust, bading his pincers, and tag through the kig legs. Iron Lord appeared to her left, swinging at her neck, and the warlord dodged the blow. Brood Lord immediately tried to use that sed to split her legs, and Iron Lord struck him with the end of his give.

  The three-way fight. They stabbed and sshed, each defending against two oppos at ohere was little reasic to the csh; the blows hungered for exposed limbs and were stopped at the st sed. Brood Lord’s looming legs struck again and again at Janine’s head, swaying it and esg from her jaws. The give cut a wide swath from her chest, exposing a side of her body down to her waist. The warlord responded by slig through Brood Lord’s armor above his ribs and crippling Iron Lord’s leg, leaving him limping.

  Sensing the shift itle of the beasts, the khans dropped their quarrel and faced Jaogether, pnning to finish off the stro in this fight. She parried the give, and a bullet flew between the fighters, sg the Malformed away as it chipped a piece from his helmet.

  “Hey, whoreson!” Martyshkina nded nearby, holding a smoking revolver. “We have unfinished business.”

  “Piss off. It’s Janine I want,” Brood Lord barely g her.

  “Too bad; I don’t share.” Marty leapt forward, evading a sudden ssh aimed at her ssh. “I hate unfinished business and unpaid debts.” She blocked the bde with the barrel of her revolver and fired the sed, halving Brood Lord’s severed leg. “That’s one.” Martyshkina smiled at Brood Lord’s groan of pain. The agony made him sloppy, and Martyshkina pressed the advantage, kig and breaking another of his six legs. The limb twitched aached from the joint, first holding on to greenish strings covered ihen falling off pletely. “That’s two.” She pressed her revainst her enemy’s visor. “And that’s dead.”

  The bde smashed the revolver away, and instead of blowing his head clear, the bullet tore through Brood Lord’s cheek, hitting the building behind him and causing it to colpse. That was enough for the khan, and he hurried to Iron Lord’s side, hiding in the bubble of the shield field formed around the leader.

  “I must say.” Brood Lord used his sword to deflect two of Martyshkina’s bullets, slowed by the field. “Your operation is shit, my friend. Had I p…”

  Fear.

  Everyo it. Jaopped, her axe locked against the give. The packs moved hesitantly away from their oppos, dragging their wounded and Ice Fangs to safety. Bertruda yanked her spear from a corpse and took an uaioward the APCs, shaking her head to clear the fusion. The cubs and citizens cried, their worst horrors maing in their minds. Impatient One drew a crest with her finger, impl the Spirits’ favor. Anissa nearly fell and jumped from the roof.

  Rodents and is emerged from uhe building and from the sewers, scurrying away, vast living carpets trying to escape, obeying the unspoken demand to clear the field or the fangs would desd. Thunder bulls roared a challenge, and Iron Lord’s steed approached its master, sn nervously. Eyes—om eyes—watched every batant, trag every moment. And in the midst of it all, she came.

  Warlord Alpha nded ireet, her weight bug the stones, disrupting the foundations, and even sinking the point of the Academy o her into a pile of rubble. The Bane of Disbelievers, the Punishing Paw of the Shamans, the Stro Warlord, the Thousand Syers, the Eater of Monsters, the Loyal, the Ued… Hundreds of honorable names and titles she’d been given and earned didn’t even begin to do justice to the threat she posed.

  Her impossibly long cws reached down to her ankles, and gore covered tons of her power armor. Iiangled around her shoulders like a disgusting cape, and freshly skinned faces screamed wordlessly from her pauldrons, f a silent orchestra. Her topknot, the pride and special joy of this warlord, was now braided with the retly torn spinal ns, and streaks of blood added to the burning crimson of Alpha’s hair.

  A cw touched the ground, snatg Brood Lord’s leg and tossing it into the open maw for Alpha to chew on with both sets of fangs.

  “Retreat,” she anded, burrowing her gaze into Brood Lord.

  “Sword Saint Alpha!” Albert mimicked a gasp perfectly, uned in the slightest about the terrible damage doo the suit he inhabited. “The future dy of the House of Sunbde! Ah, her beauty is even more vivid than I had dared to imagine…”

  “Shut up,” Janine begged, seg the axe to her back, morbidly curious to see what crazy implications filled the Ice Fangs’ databases. And they called the Wolfkins crazy! She scooped the awed Impatient Oo her paws as if the shaman were a cub. The Recimers ran for the APot even to collect their dead. What was the point? A splinter of the divine was here, and the souls of the fallen had already beeo a kinder reality.

  Alpha addressed Brood Lord in a growl that sounded like hammers pulverizing bones: “You dared to harm a cub of the Wolf Tribe? The punishment is extermination. No trace of your lineage will remain in this world or another.”

  “It is done,” said Iron Lord.

  “Warlord Alpha! A moment!” Janine hurled her daughter to the transports and approached the Pilr of Terrainst her instincts. Alpha’s eyes looked at her, searg for a challenge, but the lesser warlord k, and an ear was offered.

  She told everything as briefly as she could.

  “Iron Lord.” Janine heard the bastard who had crippled her son. “I believe it is our cue to bow out.”

  “Huh… I see. Piss off my battlefield.” A gentle kick jerked Janine off the ground a her spinning dozens of meters in the air until she smmed her back against a transport and nded o Impatient One.

  “You’ve been blessed, Warlord,” the shaman assured her. “You interrupted Alpha’s hunt and you are still breathing. What an honor for our pack! Marco is now surely guaranteed a long life and much fertility ah!”

  “Get… get into the transport,” Janine groaned.

  “Corre. I will eat you alive, and that’s it,” Alpha said.

  “Not a fan of living up to your boasts, are you, beast?” The Malformed mocked.

  “It is a privilege of the strong to be free to ge their course in light of new information.” Alpha took a step.