“Stall her!” Iron Lord roared, pointing his on at Alpha. “A khanate worth ten thousand souls to the one whs me her head! Phaser, open the portal! Prepare…”

  Alpha advawo thunder bulls fnked her; their riders raised their gives. Psma doused them both, verting their armors into steel waterfalls that ed their steeds, drawing long cries from the tormented animals. Another raider charged the warlord with a spear. The cws caught him.

  Till Ingo once cimed that Alpha’s murder tools could shave eles from an atom. So prized they were that numerous gover researchers attempted to replicate them, going so far as to e parts of Alpha’s body, but each attempt was in vain. If not immediately transpnted into her body, the grown part would shrivel and break down. Like Ravager, Alpha’s body refused to share its secrets.

  And the raider experiehe touch of those cws. He wasn’t so much sliced as shredded; the vicious talons passed through him unhindered by his suit or his flesh. A leg stepped oeed’s head that tried to ram the warlord. The limb pushed, spshing the skull against the ruireet.

  Clouds of mist hid her, and Alpha inhaled deadly fumes, never slowing her pace. Bullets bounced off her ptes, not even notg them. The swing of her arm sughtered another ironcd. She g Zulfiya, and the woman yelped and ran to her father. Brood Lord picked an oversized gun from his belt and fired it at Alpha, gulping nervously as each of the projectiles arried.

  That was a demonstration enough. No soldier dared stand up to the warlord.

  Janine pushed the rest of her pato the APd jumped in, cheg to make sure the wounded and civilians were secured in their harnesses before almost tearing Marco from Anissa’s embrace. Dropping to her knees, she cursed her own edical knowledge and licked the venom from the poor boy’s fur, avoiding his eyes.

  At the approach of an Ice Fang, a fur rose at the back of her netil she reized her as the irritating medic she had met before. The medic bared her throat, and Janied, watg the traitor remove the blood-soaked bandages and treat the injuries as the APCs roared their eheir drives whipped into a by the fear wave.

  Iron Lord thrust his halberd into the cws that approached his force field. Like Janine’s axe, they withstood the field of destru. Uhe Taleteller, they closed iroying bde and hilt and opening Iron Lord’s side. Oil, mixed with blood and streaked with electrical hisses, poured from the meical guts onto the ground.

  “Horkhudagh! I need you!” Iron Lord shouted, and in respohe sky answered.

  A beam of the brightest crimson burs way through a cloud and streaked down, simir to the arrival of the cursed Lightbrihe Elite of Iterna, and a New Breed superior to many. But Lightbriraveled in a stream of photons, and what touched the ground now was the ultra-heated magma. Its heat burned aha’s ugly flesh and bone orion, and as the ropes holdiopknot turo dust, her hair spread, loosening to cover her like a cloak as she stood in the bd red light.

  Theream stopped, produg a molten crater that separated the fighters. An orb of blue fme rose from it, sprouting bed arms and legs and f into a humanoid. Two dots formed on the bck skull, and a thin line opened a mouth, letting fiery red streaks lick at the f teeth. Wings stretched out behind the floating man, each a different color: red, white, and blue. The video that appeared on Janine’s HUD became blurry as her fellow warlord’s cameras began to malfun from the presence of the unbelievable heat.

  Iron Lord cursed in his human voice, limping away, his armor melting, his very blood boiling. The raiders surrounded him, and even Brood Lord shut up, fearfully holding a hand over his face. Fmes raged among the ruins, blog Alpha from reag her prey, and piles of ruins spilled over, folding in on themselves as they melted. The figure grew, matg Alpha’s size.

  “Done!” Iron Lave a cag ugh, fag a tear in space.

  Brood Lasped, clutg his heart. Alpha intensified her fear wave, stopping the hearts of those trying to escape. Iron Lord had to grab the khan, dragging him after himself, while the hordemen around helped themselves, abandoning their dying steeds. Only Iron Lord’s bull survived.

  But Iron Lord kept ughing. “A high-value target! More precious than all the others. Baited into my trap. Horkhudagh! Keep her occupied. It won’t be long now, and if you annihite the other warlords, I promise you the richest nds in Houstad!”

  “Keeping her occupied?” Horkhudagh’s voice resembled the crag of burning wood, mixed with the noise of hissing water turning to steam. The bck holes in his skull stared at Alpha. “No. I have waited long enough. It is a rare sight to see Iron Lord Khan lose his posure enough to reveal his pns. Did your power do it?” The living pilr waited for the answer, but none came. “Ever since I heard of you, I have been filled with anticipation. The sed stro in the Gilded Horde! Against the fifth of the Recimers! Aren’t you just burning with anticipation to learn which legend will prevail?”

  “Meh,” Alpha replied.

  The two charged at each other with full force.

  ****

  Iron Lord stumbled out of the portal, panting and fighting for every breath. The internal systems seed warnings. Risk of stroke. A vein in his brain burst. Eyes heming. an failure from excessive damage. The khan shut them off, weling the familiar ess returning to his mind.

  Still not there. Decades of extensive surgery on his body te him closer to a mae and aion maniputor had nearly done him in. But nearly doesn’t t, girl!

  “To the healers. And take that with you,” he told his bodyguards, dropping Brood Lord to the ground like a sack of shit. White foam frothed on the man’s lips, his limbs vulsed, and he cwed at his throat, brought to the brink of death by a simple mental push. Pathetic.

  “Father,” Zulfiya came closer, shocked to the core by the death of her heart. He smiled, proud of her ability to keep the panic at bay. “What they said about Mehmed. Was it…”

  “Not important.” He pced a hand on her shoulder. “Girl, he’s gone. Dead because he was one of the weak. Don’t waste any more time. We are alive. We matter, and I need you. I t on you and the rest of my children?”

  “Yes, Father.” She bowed her head. “But if Mehmed is alive…”

  “If he is alive, I will arrange a prisoner exge,” Iron Lord promised. “But the boy is gone. His mind broke. Your brother is no more. Uand it, accept it. I am proud of you.”

  “Really?” Zulfiya blinked. He never said that to any of his children. “But I ran.”

  “So did I. So did everyone. We’ll grow stronger. But you acted where I faltered. I was about to waste precious time killing a useless child, and you stopped me, Zulfiya. You did what I could not. Your mother will be so happy.”

  “Mom… So many of my brothers and sisters have died.”

  “Yes, the unfortunate iability of war. What’s important is that their sacrifices will be in vain if we join them. We owe them a victory.” He patted her shoulder. “Enough distras. See yourself treated and then head into the camp, colleg every captive doggie. Take them by force from Brood Lord; that bastard deserves an insult. Buy from Svetaker and respectfully petition the Khatun’s share.”

  “But… why?”

  “I promised clemency, and I never go bay word. Ask Svetaker for healers and keep uests alive, well, and fortable. Give them chai a in abundance. We’ll let them go when the subjugation is over.” Iron Lord told her.

  His voice wavered, his old body struggling to survive, and Iron Lord spread his arms, showing that the audience was over. Teis surrounded him, repairing the damage doo his steel as it, in turn, worked to save him. And above them towered the Sky’s Wrath.

  “Helmets, idiots!” Iron Lord told his crew. Lesser men they may have been, but their enthusiasm was endable.

  The war ehout equal, its supermassive ounted on tracks rger than hills, shrouded the assembly in its shadow and hid the sun behind its barrel. Fired less than a dozen times in past quests, the mere sight and rumor of its destructive potential sent the hosts into panic. Sves were herded into wagons, stable masters sedated animals, and the hordemen hastily put on their helmets, for when the Wrath thundered, everything trembled.

  A clearing stretched out behind the superon, created by its immense mass fttening everything in its path, and hundreds of vehicles fortably followed. The Sky’s Wrath weighed heavily, tormenting the ground even now, and its tracks sank deep. Rows of deadly turrets, smaller artillery, missile unchers, and energy ons bristled along its hull, ready to unleash hell upon any fool that dared challehe beast of the apocalypse.

  Almost anyone would be felled by them, but not Alpha. There was a good ce she would have escaped. Her elimination required a more radical method.

  Ihe mae stood shield geors, far superior to the crude toys used by Iron Lord and even the Horde’s vehicles. These were the artifacts of the Old World; their output could stop even the on’s own fire. Up until now, its auxiliary gualking; it was the moment to let the main on decre its sente long st.

  “ect me,” Iron Lord said.

  “Sir, your health is not in optimal dition to operate it remotely,” a tei dared to voice his obje.

  “I am aware of that,” Iron Lord said, hating every sed of hearing his old, frail, cttering voice. Why must humans grow old? He did not strike the man, respeg his petence. “It won’t be long, and then I am all yours.”

  The cables entered his back, and his sce left his body aered the terminals of the god mae. His brain was still w; it was still him, but the unique e allowed him to see through each camera and experiehe envirohrough the crity of its sensors without the slightest effort. In the distahe targeting systems located the city, and the on adjusted itself to his wishes.

  “And now for the final swath. Yant mutant. Know the futility of defying your betters. Fire.”

  A single word. There was o speak it, for their crude devices transted his thoughts into binary nguage and carried out the and. Nor did anyone nearby hear him, for the on spoke. But the ing awe demanded a proper ritual.

  Imagine a hurrie born in a sed. Think of ahquake scarring a nd with vast yons faster than an eye blink. None of these descriptions sufficed to paint the picture of what was happening around Iron Lord. Forests disappeared for kilometers around. The traversing shockwave didn’t bend the trees; it uprooted them, then shattered the trunks into a dust.

  The cover of greenery disappeared, exposing gray rod jagged stohe heavy vehicles shook, and the teis struggled to hold their ground, despite the advanced exoskeletons that were supposed to protect them, and if it weren’t for his personal force shield, they would have bee over the horizon. Far in the rear, the priests fell to their knees, ting praises and ign cuts appearing on their bodies. There were even several deaths from the ranks of those who chose to ighe precise precautions.

  It scarcely mattered. The Sky’s Wrath had sent its load.