Janine was the first to reach the edge of the minefield, kig up whole swaths of ground in the air. She stepped undauo test if the ID codes transmitted by her power armor were enough to allow them to cross. The mines were already primed, but uhe simple and crude acid traps used by the Wolf Tribe, the Provincial Army’s equipment was unnecessarily more sophisticated. Sunovation, the mayor and lieutenant expio her, was used because local cubs had a nasty tendency to stick their necks into danger.

  No explosion harmed Janine’s armor, and the warlord spearheaded the advance of her pack. They ran on all fours, c the distao the field hospital fast enough to evade artillery shelling. Several shells nded o them, knog soldiers to the ground, but their armor held, and the paws of their rades helped the fallen back to their feet.

  The raiders had been shocked to face a terattaing from what they thought was a quered town. Most had been too te to raise their arms, and their bodies had been ripped apart by the sharpest cws. A wave of darkness had swooped down on their ranks and swept them away, littering the ground with corpses as a reminder of the Recmation Army’s wrath.

  The field hospital was a sturdy plex of reinforced crete. Resilient against natural disasters and bombardment, it barely suffered a few cracks when explosions ripped through its walls, lighting up the surrounding area. Janine didn’t waste any time letting the eleic device at the entrance s her ID, and with a single mighty kick, she crumpled the metal door a it tumbling down the corridors. She entered, fag white corridors devoid of personnel, and sniffed.

  Recycled air, now mixed with stone dust falling from the ceiling, filled the corridors. There were potent smells of blood, pus, and medie, indig that the pce was in use. Bodies in pstic bags or covered by sheets y in the corridors. Janine opened a bag with a flick of her cw, and the metal on her gau shifted, exposing the paw so that her fingers could touch the deceased. Two were cold. One, a woman, still had a faint warmth around her neck. The injuries were severe—a punctured lung, a shattered knee, gunshot wounds to vital ans—but that wasn’t the cause of her death. There was a dagger wound iemple that ended her life quickly and mostly painlessly.

  “Proper,” Eled growled, struggling tn in her berserker urges. “They euthanized patients.”

  “Bastards,” Ignacy mumbled, and the warlord paw closed around his neck.

  “Better that way than whatever fate meat would’ve doo them,” Eled said to the soldier, letting him go at Janine’s gnce.

  “Marty? Have our forces left the town?” A buzz of statiswered Janine’s question wheried to tact her friend. She tapped on the helmet and called Ignacy over, who fished a terminal from his belt.

  “unications are being jammed,” her boy announced. “We’re still getting the distress signal, mostly because they broadcast it on every frequency. And eve es in weak, despite our proximity.”

  “Where are the doctors?” Predaig demao know, st inside.

  Her lenses examihe deceased bodies, quickly ing to the same clusion as Janine.

  “Fug Ice Fangs,” Janine said. There was no st of fresh sweat or paniside. There were no hushed voices or footsteps deeper in the hospital. The pce had already been evacuated long before they even got here. “Everyone, inside!” Janine yelled, hearing rockets and artillery shells flying.

  A fiery hell surrouhe hospital. Hundreds of artillery shells rained upon it, rocketing its walls and exploding the minefield. Fmes surrou from every side, turning it into a dle. The building’s very foundation shook, lights flickered, the out, and the Wolfkins were plunged into darkness. Widening cracks began to cover the walls, while outside, whole mounds of earth were tossed skyward by the force of the bst.

  The Gilded Horde unleashed their fury on the warlords, firing everything they had at the hospital, colpsiion by se to clear the way for their forces. There could be no glorious st stand at the entrance, for there was rao guard. Ceilings colpsed, driving the pato the ter of the plex. Debris threateo bury them, and the warlord aided his soldiers by throwing rge pieces out of the way. Janine feverishly tried to deny the whispering voi the back of her mind, hoping, against any reason, to meet any doctor in here. Her pulse quied at the thought of leadiroops into a death trap.

  But as they stepped into a spacious hall fhtly wounded patients, it was impossible to deny the truth. She didn’t roar and calmly ordered her troops to spread around to secure the pce. Everything clicked for her. The reason the Horde hadn’t overrun the pce already and…

  The Ice Fangs. Always the Ice Fangs. Favored by the Blessed Mother, kept in the rear, pampered, protected, gifted the best gear… Bastards who cimed to be their kirayers. There was er term to expin what had happened here. Janine had fiven their initial charge. Abyss, she would’ve done so herself if cubs of her Tribe were on the line! Or just to save the citizens.

  But this? No. Icy rage, fit enough for her so-called cousins, filled her veins. Never again would she be fooled by the so-called nobility the Blessed Mother and citizens saw in the white-furred bastards. Here, in this room, was the full scope of the Ice Boys’ treachery.

  Explosives. They were gathered in the ter of the hall, locked in steel crates. The tig of their detonations sounded more like a clock tig down the seds they had left to breathe. The walls tio shake from the shelling, and Janine called up her HUD, frowning as it at st registered the presence of the state’s detonators and firmed that the ing bst would level the entire plex. She tried to turn off the tdown or at least extend the time limit to e up with a solution.

  Access denied. and codes are not accepted. Came the answer.

  We saved your leader. We bled for you in every battle, and this is how you repay us?! Janine wao roar, te, to tear. Bertruda kept silehe bitch. Macarius’ whelps said nothing, the traitors. Irrelevant; focus oask. The detonators showed eight minutes and thirty-eight seds remaining. She turo Ignacy.

  “ you defuse the detonators?” Janine asked, stepping aside so that Ignacy, Bogdan, and several other males could rush to the explosives. “Spread around the hall! We will make our st stand here!”

  Either the explosives will kill us, or the enemy will. She wao ugh but showed no hint of nervousness, standing guard near o while Eled and Predaig covered the other two. She would not disgrace her soldiers by throwing a tantrum. Instead, she weighed her options.

  Their inal pn was to ehe hospital, meet with the doctors, and then call in their own artillery barrage from the allied Ice Fangs forces oher side of the yon. Scout... Wolf Hag Zolushka had reported that they had met aablished tact with the Wintersong troops and that the bridge was going down. That option was no longer oable, as the Gilded Horde did not charge through the minefield. They were waiting, encirg the pce, and she had missed that. That, and she would never rely on the Order for anything.

  The Ice Fangs had purposely left the facility essentially wide open, hoping to bait the hordemen into first spending their lives across the minefield and theing their demise io that end, they had turned on a signal calling for emergency relief a it on the open frequency for the io hear.

  It was a war crime; Janine knew much. Even though the Gilded Horde had never signed any agreements with the Recmation Army, the mere act disgusted her as it went against every rule of war agreed upon by the Recmation Army, the Oathtakers, and Iterna.

  Theoretically, this tactic could succeed. Yet the refusal to cooperate betweewo groups had ehat the state’s forces fell into the allied trap. Practically speaking, the Order were idiots f it in the first pce. There was not enough information about the io pn eborate traps.

  Janine had two choices left. She could lead her pack outside and face their end in the open field, where artillery and ranged gunfire will thin out their numbers even before they engage in the melee. Additionally, they would also ily save the enemies from the explosives ihe plex. Or they could participate in this war crime, staining their honor by knowingly helping to turn a pce of healing into a mortal trap.

  The insidiousness of this o insult dawned on her. It wasn’t enough for Bertruda to humiliate her and steal the hard-won title. It wasn’t enough for the tribe to be mocked and treated like an afterthought by the scum who preteo be their kin. The Order had to force the Wolfkins into breaking a vow to the state.

  “Ignacy, Bogdan,” Janine said on the private el. “I am sorry it ends that way. I love you both. Always did. You were always light in my life.”

  “It’s not over until it’s over!” Ignacy replied quickly, ripping off the detonator panel. “Dammit, dammit, dammit! Just a little more time! I won’t let it end like this!”

  “Brother. It’s okay.” Bogdan said calmly, putting his paw on Ignacy’s shoulder, but the smaller Wolfkin shook it off.

  “Fuck you! I won’t let my nephews and nieces grow without a father!” A piece of rubble fell from the ceiling, and Ignacy baded it away from Bogdan’s head. His voice dropped, growing weak and broken. “I know I wasn’t a good son or much of a son at…”

  “Lie,” Ja him off. “You are a joy in my life. All of you.”

  “Finally!” Predaig, bareheaded, smiled to her soldiers. She dropped her usual professionalism, squared her shoulders, and stood as eid eager as a young, brash female in anticipation of her first battle. “Sisters! Brothers! Ready yourself, for we will meet our loved ones soon enough.”

  “Anni, Elzada, Yennifer, Marco, Dad, Mom…” Ignacy was reg names, cheg his fmethrower.

  “It’s o time, bro,” Bogdan said.

  “Yeah. Guess so. Think Dad is keeping the pce warm for us?” Ignacy hugged his brother.

  “Warm? By now, he is probably setting up a whole boo wele us!”

  “Sorry, dears, mommy won’t be bringing souvenirs.” Eled smmed the helmet ba Predaig’s head and brandished her scythe. “Listen up, you lot! Every life taken here is another moth drawn. Die angry, die afraid, die remorseful, but die killing! Rage against the iable and g to life! Take their heads and their flesh to honor our aors and our tribe!”

  Standing tall, Janine faced the fifty soldiers under her and. “My kin. My foolishness and trust have led us into a mortal trap. Thousands are ing, eager to cim our lives, the fools. Even now I hear their legs stomping through the barrage, and it pleases me.” She smiled boldly. “The Order has betrayed us, but the day is far from over. The Blessed Mother will uhis treachery and make the guilty pay. But that will happen ter, and right now it is our duty, the duty of ead every one of you, to kill as many as possible so that our sisters, our cubs, and our brothers would fa easier tomorrow, a tomorrow in which the Gilded Horde is forever shaken by the savagery of our st stand! Spirits look down upon us. Wrath walks by our side, and age awaits! Murder for a better world! Reunification!”

  “Murder! Murder for a better world!”

  Explosions shook the building, and she heard war cries. The shells stopped falling, and in their pce, the raiders stormed in, breaking through the freshly colpsed tunnels, searg for the pack. It was just a matter of time. The detonators’ dispys showed five minutes and forty seds.

  The pack howled, drowning their worries, hopes, fears, and dreams in rage, inviting the foes to battle.

  Janine raised her voice, shouting over the howls. “Soldiers of the state! Proud warriors of the Recmation Army! Soon we will meet again in the Great Beyond, and there we will know peace. But here and now, I and you this. Fight to the st! Duty is our life!”

  “Duty to the end!” Everyone roared; Eled and Predaig’s voices joihose of the soldiers.

  “Let the sughter begin!” Janine roared, spotting shadows rag through the corridor. A searing ser beam hit them, illuminating fged bodies and burning through ohe screamed and became a pilr of fire as Ignacy bsted from the ter of the room, no longer ed with serving ammunition.

  Shardguns barked, downing the raiders and the fged Malformed, halting their entrao the hall. The Wolfkins didn’t expect to survive, so no one cared about holding back. Acid grenades and clouds of shards tore the already dead bodies to shreds. A raider, almost as tall as a warlord, barged through the ceiling and died before his legs touched the ground. In a single, almost elegant and fluid motion, Eled drew an arc through the air, slig the bastard from groin to head. She swung her scythe back, howling mindlessly, and jumped, taking the life of the breacher as the fool peeked down. The helmet nded in Eled’s paw, and she tossed it into her mouth, dev brain aal.

  “e if you don’t value your life,” Predaig said calmly.

  She raised her left fist and filled another corridor with a burst of automatic fire from an autoounted on her wrist. The on was more fit to be pced atop a battle tank than on a human body. Lio the warlord’s back, its eight barrels spun nonstop, spewing 30mm rounds at a rate of seven thousand rounds per minute. Predaig still had enough ammunition for twenty minutes of sustained bat, and now she unleashed Abyss upon the enemy ranks, leveling both human lives and stone walls.

  A bullet struck Bogdan on the brow as a Malformed with swords for arms broke through a wall. The helmet endured, but the Malformed and two more hordemen were on Janine’s boy in an instant. Bogdan dodged the sword arms and caught both in the space between his armpits and torso, biting the Malformed’s face away. A bzing fme a bursts of shardgun fire from Ignad three males ehe hordemen, and Bogdan kicked the Malformed away, finishing him with a shot.

  Their ranks dwihe Wolf Tribe had always looked down on the Ice Fangs, sidering them slow and weird in bat. But there was one area in which the Order was undeniably superior. Defense. Many people fused the Wolf Tribe’s view on patrol routes and defense. A defeactic implied pnting your feet and mowing enemies as they came. A kind of positional warfare, a favorite of Jaacti the official duels. However, the tribe’s patrols around the Outer Lands and the vilges were anything but that.

  They pced mines around vilges and pces uhe Tribe’s prote, true. Mines were useful for sowing discord among the intruders, alerting everyone around. Packs would then desd upon the prey from every side, often jumping from above, opping in one pce, ever maneuvering, biting, firing, and sshing. Such was the way of the Wolf Tribe—mobility above all. Even on a defensive mission, they found a way to turn a defeo an effit offense.

  Here they faced the opposite. They were the ones who had to face attacks from all dires, while their soldiers were few. It was almost suffog to be fined in this dark hall. Burdened by the o protect their rades, the packs could not fight to their true potential and stood their ground, being easy targets funfire. ons on both sides had equal potential to pierce armor.

  Four males died from pulse rifles. Two warriors became donuts when automatic fire hit them dead in the ter. Another warrior was sin by a steel figure’s two-handed axe that smashed through the wall. Bashing another warrior’s head with the hooked knob of his axe, the hordeman’s ughter boomed through the dynamics of his rou. Two massive pulse ounted on his shoulders spat out deadly discharges, wounding a female, while the defenders’ fire merely dehe giant’s thick steel ptes.

  Janine was on the hordeman instantly, meeting his axe with the Taleteller. Her power suit groaned, surprised at the sudden strength of the oppo’s blow, but his bde was found wanting. The Taleteller cleaved through the hordeman’s axe, shearing away one on. The warlrabbed the bastard by his shoulder.

  She crushed his helmet with a headbutt, hearing bones crack. Janine ed her neck, dodging a burst of energy aimed at her face, and stomped on his foot, trapping it long enough to ssh at his shoulder. In a torrent of hissing sparks from the cut wires and blood gushing from the gaping wound, the shoulder and arm came off. A web of cables ed around an unnaturally blue bone surprised the warlord. Is he a man or a mae? The man roared in pain and anger, pung Jah enough force to shove her off his foot.

  The hordeman clutched at his wound, turo flee, and Bogdan threw gre him. His roar turo a scream of agony as the acid ate through the exposed flesh, peing deeper into the body. The acid hissed on the surface of the armor, failing to damage it, but the huge legs buckled and the body colpsed to the ground, vulsing weakly as more of the man’s insides melted away.

  Janine swung a wide arc around herself, killing a raider aiming fnacy’s back. Her baded swing drove a wave of wind fast enough to knock down two more hordemen. They never got up; her legs crushed the heads of both into bloody smears, and she ventured on, pig up her energy rifle and using the axe like a butcher. Kill and be killed; this was all left for them.

  Our pure dition. Jaten away a woman’s face along with her facepte and swallowed it, finding that she no longer cared about breaking the ws of the state that only ed their potential. Our killing ground.

  “From blood we e with screams and rage,” she roared to the enemies. “And it is with rage that we leave this world. e now, weaklings, and see how the warriors of the Wolf Tribe meet their doom! Relish this sight and bee the s of our passing! We will her hide nor cover! More, send more! There are not enough of you yet to buy our lives!” A beam from her rifle speared a hordeman’s head, and Jauro her surviving soldiers, drawing the enemy after her. Right into the line of fire. Rich will be the harvest to honor the Spirits today.

  “Warlord Janine!” An unknown voice broke her tration. She reized it. It beloo a breathtakingly beautiful Sword Saint Leonidas. The supposed protector and arrogant upstart whose hubris had led to the deaths of Ashbringer’s soldiers.

  “Traitor,” Janine hissed, furious that a white-furred scum dared to distract her in her final hour. She ordered her HUD to block him.