“Warlord!” Ignacy yelled, pointing at the explosives. She followed his paw and saw the numbers on the dispy dying, oer ahe detonators went offline.

  She felt her heart stop. Their pn, this whole massacre, to lure the enemy closer, their dedication to ying down their lives—all of this ended up being for naught. Was there a limit to the Ice Fangs’ treachery? Why did they hate them so much? Had the Sword Saint tried to tact her just to gloat?

  “Janine, I know you are pissed.” Martyshkina joihe unication; shots of revolvers apanied her words. “And trust me, so am I. But you must listen to me. I ’t e to your aid; there are too many enemies itlement, and I have civilians…”

  “Marty,” Janine said softly, splitting a hordeman in two in two. She spoke quickly, too afraid that the Ice Fangs would cut off unication. “It’s ok. You are not to bme. Pull back from Quatindor. Save the civilians. Don’t ever trust the Ice Boys. They betrayed us. Please watch over my pad my family for me, and five me for drinking all the vodka on your birthday…”

  “So it was you who did it, bitch! I mean, shut up, you big buffoon!” Martyshkina roared. “Yes, our cousins screwed us over! But they are trying to help us now! Leonidas and Macarius have joined forces to reach you! Reinforts are on the way; wait…”

  She noticed it thanks to the video feed ing from a male’s lenses. A cra reality opened above her head. First it was a thin blue line, fast as a ser beam, ripping through the empty air. Like a fsh of lightning, the line expanded into an oval shape to let a long, curved sword pass through it. Its point was aimed at the back of her neck.

  “Sleeping on the job, mutant?” hissed a mog voice from above, and Janine spun around.

  She parried the thrust with her rifle, slowing it long enough t up her ow the expense of her rifle. Her oppo fell from the opening, kig with two of his six heavy legs across her shoulders. Brood Lord springboarded away from Janine, his legs sinking deep into the ceiling. His armor was repaired; there was a handgun in his hand, poi her soldiers.

  In a span of a sed, the two of them exged eight blows, bludgeoning each other with very little grad putting their full might into every swing. Brood Lord frowned as his finger squeezed the trigger, but half of his handgun was already missing, cleaved away by the Taleteller’s return arc after he had blocked an attack. A shard of still broke away from his bde, and the khan noticed Eled approag him from the left. Wordlessly, he darted away across the ceiling.

  Another portal opened in front of Eled, spitting out the s involved in Houstad’s butchery. Apanied by the musical ughter, the bastards leapt at the warlord, aiming their daggers at the joints. Eled joined her maniacal ughter with theirs, ruining their symphony aing the feat by blog four stabs with the scythe’s shaft. Her bde sliced through the afterimages.

  “Fun!” Eled chuckled, using her on like a stick to knock her oppos aside. “Go!”

  Bursts of shardguns highlighted her armor and the jumping s. The sharpest spikes dented and scraped against the warlord’s ptes, boung away and spinning in the air. But where Eled herself remained unharmed, the Horde’s killers cursed, hiding their pain behind obsities. Caught in mid-air, they bled like cusacks and stumbled visibly as they touched the ground and rolled away from the scythe’s reach. Their suits were torn, dozens of shards eheir bodies to near half-length, and the brother and sister said nothing, scurrying away. Eled chose not to pursue and trated upon the closest hordemen, colleg her grim harvest.

  “Don’t run away this time,” Janine asked Brood Lord, taking the axe in both paws. “We do have a score to settle.”

  His brows rose behind the visor, and a pleasant smile spread across his face. Jumping from the ceiling, he blocked an ining shot with a careless swing of his bde.

  “Janine! Is that you hiding in that ugly pile of junk? A surprise, but a wele one.” One of his eyes g the explosives, and Janine saw a flicker of HUD refleg off his retina. “Is this your tingency? Going out as a suicide bomber… Ah, no imagination. You disappoint me.” He snapped his pincer, and a portal swallowed the explosives. “Well, we robbed you even of that. Don’t be sad. Your misery is just beginning.”

  Brood Lord lu Janine, bringing the full weight of his body down on her as their ons collided. The ground cracked beh her leg, but with a titanic effort she pushed him away, and he circled around her, shearing aper part of a male’s head with a snap of his pincers. Chug, Brood Lord charged around the hall, oblivious to the gunfire drumming against his bulk. His skitterirampled the Wolfkins in his path, bulging steel and rupturing ans. Janine ran after him, maneuvering around her own allies to avoid knog them off their feet and exposing them to the enemies.

  “Once again, you rely on others, too weak to face me yourself!” Brood Lord sneered. “Have you no shame? How many must die for your cowardice?”

  Her oppo had no such limitations. He jumped up, bounced off the ceiling, and nded five paces away from Jahe cruel bde impaled a warrior, lifting the dying woman to use as a shield against Janine. She did not hesitate, h her soldier’s devotion. The Taleteller’s edge cleaved through the brave soul, ending her suffering, and scraped against the curved sword as the remains dropped onto the floor. Brood Lord tried to close his pi her waist and Janine sshed with her cws, f him to yank back his hand, shaking it in surprise at the bleeding over a cracked chitin.

  They pressed against each other, taking their ons in a two-handed grasp again, and the familiar e irises appeared from behind the khan’s eyes.

  Smoke poured from the back of Brood Lord’s armor when a meism around his shoulders broke uhe strain. A flicker of electricity ran down his ornate sleeves, but the man’s grin never wavered as he pushed against Jahe stone floor cracked underh them, and a small fissure separated the fighters. Unencumbered by his poison and supported by her own pte, Janine found herself equal to him. Not just equal, superior. The state’s teology surpassed that of the Horde, and given enough time, his junk will break.

  “Impressive. It’s been a while since I had to work so hard to score a kill.” The khan looked past her. “Your worst-case sario is here.”

  Janine did not turn. Through the shared vision with another soldier, she saw Bogdan, two warriors, and a male caught by Drozna’s hands. The bastard had stepped out of the portal, seized them, and brought them closer to his chest, teasing Predaig int at him. His feet slowly crushed a fallen warriainst the floor as he waved a fi the warlord, standing alone in the hall without any ons or prote, shielded by his enormous muscles and bone growths. The fme of Ignacy’s fmethrower spttered harmlessly against his back.

  “Let Bogdan… Order your beast to let my soldiers go,” Janine pushed the sword away, drooling as she pursued the khan. “Or your death won’t be a pleasant one.”

  “Bogdan… Bogdan…” Brood Lord clicked his toilting his head as he examihe captured Wolfkins. “Four… two females, and Bogdan sounds like a man’s name. Whie is he? Who is he to you? A husband? A lover? A son, perhaps, or a brother? Specify, Janine. We don’t wao be mistaken, right?” He ughed at her silence. “Oh well, it doesn’t really matter. You have already told me everything I need. I’m sure I will find out who exactly this Bogdan is and how you two are reted when I skin them alive! Drozna! Whatever happens, don’t kill the whelps and don’t let them die.”

  “That’ll cost extra, Khan,” Drozna grumbled, and the khan sighed. Suddenly his visor slipped into the helmet.

  His lips formed an 'O', and Janine ducked uhe spit aimed at her exposed mouth. She uppercut the bastard into the jaw, but the khan escaped the skewering by jumping. His body whirled in the air, his legs stuck to the ceiling, aouched his , frowning at the pierced part of his helmet and a slight cut on his jaw.

  “Let’s py a game, Janine,” he said nontly. “For every cut I receive, this Bogdan of yours will lose a pound of flesh. Speaking of. Drozna!” He roared, banishing the false pleasantries from his tone.

  Janine dared not break their fight, blog the ining ssh. That was what he wao force her to try to save Bogdan, exposing herself. This way, both will lose. But it was hard. So damned hard. She swore she would never be like her mother, and in the end, she abandoned her cub like that woman.

  Fshes of memories, so sweet and i, filled her mind. Bogdan and Ignacy had been cubs of a medium-sized litter, so furry, hungry, and demanding. Janine had hugged them, trying to be gentle as she y on the overheated stones, praying to the Spirits in thanks for their survival. That lifegiving wasn’t effortless. Their local shaman, Starstrue, had to work her cws and fangs to help the little ones out, and Colt had force-fed his wife cusack meat and milk to help her recover, while the young girls had examiheir siblings, suggesting names. Janine had soon stopped hugging her cubs as they whimpered and cried for milk. Her instincts had been running wild, as usual, and both Colt and the girls had acquired some impressive scars from the bites of their worried mother.

  But their family was happy. That was all that mattered—the weeks of celebration and how they had checked the family lio make sure the little ones would have proper names. Bitter and merciless wars were fotten, and the whole family celebrated life and pyed with the little ones.

  The mere thought of losing her cubs hurt. She kept her focus only because the loss had tempered her many times before. Part of her soul was dead. Her cubs had died in the past, and it was iable that it would happen agaih was auality in the Wolf Tribe.

  “Predaig,” Janine said, matg her oppo’s flurry of cuts.

  “Janine,” her named sister interrupted her. “You trust me?”

  “Always.”

  “Then don’t worry about a thing.”

  Predaig shot at Drozna’s leg, stopping as the bullets ricocheted off the boes. Several tiny cracks were left in the unnaturally durable bone, and Drozna smirked, unleashing a wave e. The Wolfkins in his hold howled and thrashed, g at his arm and trying to bite each other. The giant cws shifted, ready to obey the khan’s and and gouge lines into the soldiers’ bodies.

  The autooreated behind the Predaig’s wrist, and the warlord shrugged, taking her double-bded sword. Janine couldn’t tell whether Drozna’s power had affected her or if her named sister’s will was too great. It hardly mattered. Predaig was of the first geion; in the course of her life, she had defeated far greater foes than this foolish beast could ever imagine. She swung, filling Janine’s heart with dread as the captured Wolfkins’ necks ended up in the dire of this seemingly simple attack.

  Drozna noticed it too and grinned in anticipation. The grin turo a fsh of pain and then fear as he stumbled back, letting go of his captives and pressing both hands tash on his neck. The edge of the sword had phased through the Wolfkins and the foe.

  It was impossible. Predaig had no power; her on was crafted from a simple wreckage of a spacecraft she had found in a desert, and it took Janine a moment to realize what had happehe sword was blurred from sheer speed, but it wasn’t the warlord’s top speed. In the very st split sed, she had showrue abilities, redireg the attack so that it went over the allies’ heads and then back down again, nearly doubling its inal speed.

  So this is the secret behind her mysterious splitting of the hostage-takers. Janine grunted.

  “Bitch!” Drozna roared, both to let out fear and to check if he could speak. Two more blurred arcs sliced aarts of bone and muscles from his arms.

  “Step closer,” Predaig sang, her voice relieved of any burden. “Step closer, child, and py a little. The day was long, and I thirst.”

  “You should have thirsted for living longer rather than angering me!” Drozna roared. The rage stopped tugging at Janine’s nerves. “Enough of it. I don’t o hear this shit! I don’t need any fancy armor or on to tear you down!”

  “All I hear are words, silly boy.” Predaig smiled.

  “Soon all you will hear is my fingers crushing your skull.”

  Drozna charged at Predaig, and a shimmering sphere of overpping sword strikes enveloped her. Not a single move was wasted; when the cws scraped against steel, the warlord used it to turn a parry into a ter cut. Thrusts flowed elegantly into sshes. Missed sshes were reverted into parries or blocks and the dance begahis redaig, a woman from the dawn of the tribe’s birth, radiant in her prime, just as she had been when she had faced a skinwalker and lived to tell the tale after a day’s battle. The weight of years had been shed, and she fought like the legend she had been in her youth. Several Wolfkins of her pack turned on the cameras, expending precious energy reserves to immortalize the st hunt of their glorious leader.

  Eled ure rage urained, and Janine relied on honed skills, while their sister erfect blend of both styles, driven by instinct. The animalistic behavior of her oppo was met with an explosion of aggression that was more remi of an animal seeking to bleed the rger prey rather than brawl with it and risk losing.

  And Drozna pushed through it, barely batting an eye about his wounds and r when his attacks missed. Usually, New Breeds gifted with strength relied too heavily on it, but in the case of the hordeman, it served to plement his lethality. With a tenacity worthy of a Wolfkin, he closed the distaween the fighters, biting into Predaig’s own bite with his owh. There was a loud boom as two maws closed simultaneously and Drozna’s arm swiped at Predaig’s breastpte, shattering it and ing around her arm. Before the hold could tighten, Predaig leapt back, esg the forced close bat, and sliced deeply into Drozna’s arm as the fighters separated.

  Predaig’s helmet had a gaping hole; she had lost the skin on her left cheek to Drozna’s bite; several of her own fangs had fallen out. Blood gushed from four cerations across her chest. Her oppo fared er; his bleeding ribs were visible, and dozens of crimson rivers flowed across his body, turning white boes red. Drozna chewed Predaig’s flesh in her mouth, preparing to lunge.

  “Weren’t you askio step closer?” Drozna asked. “Strao see you running away.”

  “It was just a fluke. Don’t let it bother you.” The warlathered her blood in a paw and drank it, throwing her head high and bursting into loud ughter.

  Janine smiled too, joyful despite the situation. Ignacy helped Bogdan to his feet, and they retreated with the others to the ter of the hall. Eled was a whirlwind of death, sug in the unfortunate victims and sweeping across the hall like a natural disaster. Predaig reverted to her older self, no doubt guided by the ghosts of her family. What a perfect day to die!

  “Why are you ughing?” Brood Lord asked, their ons g against each other. Sparks from his sword lit up his mog face. “Is the stress finally getting to you? Or is it sheer desperation? Help me here; your forces are dwindling while ours are endless. Is dying in this ditch…” He groaned.

  It was a well-known fact that a person could often put more strength into something if their mouth was closed and their mind was focused oask at hand. Janine had let her oppo run his mouth, ign shots nded on her armored bulk. And when she judged that Brood Lord was distracted enough, she had put everything into one blow, drawing a long line across his chest.

  “You talk too much, coward.” Janine tio smile like an idiot, driving him back. Part of his mustache was cut off, and a scratder his eye was bleeding. “You have the privilege of seeing how Wolfkins die. Rejoice! For your yellowbellied, wretched, rotten carcass and soul will be my s to those who have lost their lives in this war.”

  “I will see you die; that much is true. But before that, I will take everything from you and drink deeply of your despair.” Brood Lord nded on the ground, and his front legs kicked Janine in the left kh enough force to deal into flesh.

  Brood Lord rose on fs, using his sword to keep Janine’s axe in a ch. Then he delivered a kick with his left leg against the side of her helmet, lifting the Warlord off the ground. She did not resist the impact, letting go of her on with her right paw and grabbing Brood Lord’s leg, dragging the bastard along to the floor.

  Before she could lift her snout from the stone, Janine kicked the bastard iomach, pierg his armor and scraping her cws across his flesh. The force behind their bitack sent them flying, knog fighters from both sides down with their bodies. Janine rose, grabbed a hapless hordeman, and crushed the man’s head in her paw. Brood Lord was on his six legs as well, wiping his face with a pincer.

  “Amusing,” Brood Lord chuckled. His voice ged agaiurning to a royal and almost friendly tone. “I ought to be angry, but at the same time, this is the best fun I’ve had in the past week! No, iire month! Thank you, Mutant Jaruly. I am looking forward to breaking you.”

  “The feeling isn’t mutual, Malformed,” Janine responded. “I don’t o see you broken; all I want is to see you dead.”

  “What…” He stopped, baring his needle teeth. “What did you just blurt out? How did you call me?”

  Jaopped iracks, her mog respoolen from her. The sounds of battle, Brood Lord’s words—everything faded. She was a little cub again, desperately searg for her mother and never finding her anywhere. The joy of battle, the determination, even the willio fall—nothing mattered anymore.

  She had felt this way before. The first time it happened was when she had spoken with Ravager on that misty mountain and demahat she kill that wretched Eugenia for what that bitch had doo her son. Then she had seen the person behind the Blessed Mother, or rather the progenitor herself, but not as a broken and crazed animal, but as a collected and thoughtful individual who had gathered the splinters of herself to assess the situation and learn what had happehe effect that had touched her spread. Brood Lord licked his lips, Drozna was nervous, Eled blihe hordemen lessehe iy of their fire, and the Wolfkins looked around in worry. It wasn’t a result of a power. This feeling stemmed from being in proximity to something truly divine.

  Blessed Mother?

  The shattering of the ceiling jolted her out of shock, and she looked through the lenses of her surviving troops. The bck sword cleaved through a body, and Macarius Voidrunner—wearing a knight-captain’s helmet too small for him—blitzed several hordemen, taking up a position in front of the wolfkins and parrying ining shots. Five headless bodies fell in his wake.

  “Away, filth!” Leonidas thundered, breaking through the ceiling and swatting Drozna away from Predaig with his shield. His gau, its electric cws twitg, sliced through the sternum of another shocked hordeman. “Not one of your soldiers dies today, Warlord Janine. I swear it on my honor!”

  The ued appearance of two sword saints turhe tide of battle, and the hordemen found themselves slowly pushed back out of the corridor. They still fired but no longer charged forward, more afraid of losing their lives than of their leaders.

  “You don’t have it, traitor.” Janine allowed them to join the linked vision, but she herself was done showing the Ice Fangs courtesy. Brood Lord retreated behind the ranks of his soldiers, gesturing for them to e at her. It didn’t work. “Many of my soldiers have already died. You have ruined our trust.”

  “I will restore it!” Leonidas roared desperately. “House Summerspring will repay for every life; we will mend every broken bond and…” His lenses whirled, fog on the invaders preparing to tear a lone Wolfkin to pieces. The sword saint’s footprints left a mark oone as he propelled himself forward, batting the enemies away with his shield and splitting the bodies into several pieces with a single swipe of his gau. “Not a single one of my kin will die today anymore! Not one! If necessary, I will pay with my life to reunite roups aore the trust! Macarius, open the…”

  A gray orb crashed through a wall o Eled, sileng Leonidas. The sphere struck the warlord in the side, and the armor ptes that could withstand artillery fire turo dust in its path. Janine reized this energy; she had seen it used several times by the Dynast’s bodyguards. The idea behind it was well known; it wasn’t an energy field, but vibrating sonic frequehat shattered molecur bonds, rendering most alloys useless. Because of its energy ption, disruption teology wasn’t widely used in the Recmation Army.

  Twin bursts of energy engulfed Eled from the darkness of the broken wall. They darkened her fangs and silenced her roar by severely burning her windpipe. The blow to her side had finally peed the ptes, and the end of the give was buried in her ribs. She had to retreat, but the berserker’s fury had takehe warlord, and Eled stubbornly brought her scythe down on the approag foe. Another burst of energy had pletely melted her helmet, burning much of the fur, and a hand thrust through the opening, grasping her head. Fingers pierced the damaged eyes, reag for the brain, and the give had found the heart; the disruption field ripped it apart before the bde could touch it. With a single spasm, Eled exhaled her st breath and was no more.

  “,” came a synthesized speech as the steel boot trampled the body of the dead warlord.

  Their grievances abandoned; Janine, Predaig, Macarius, and Leonidas charged at the steel titaering the ruined hall. He easily rivaled Drozna in size; as he moved, there was no creaking rinding of his power armor; he stepped nimbly and fluidly, ued for such a rge suit; the ons over his shoulders tracked the approag oppos but hadn’t fired yet. A force field bubbled up around him, blog the shots of Eled’s grief-stri soldiers.

  “Feast.” They heard a void thought it was him.

  They took a siep ahrown down as the entire roof of the hospital building disappeared. It rooted, the hordemen above were tossed aside, away from the rubble, and the reinforced crete was gone faster than they could blink, opening a view of the sky hidden by the swirling smoke above.

  There was anure among them. She stood, dressed in regal purple furs, held up by goldes studded with diamonds and rubies. A simple leather belt around her waist held two sheathed golden scimitars; threads of jade, silver, and gold were woven into the mane of bck hair that flowed from beh the thick leather cap that covered the woman’s face up to her here was no armor on the woman. Her pupils shrank and dited, trapped in the web of red vessels, and blood trickled down the eyelids.

  She smiled, and Janine found herself exhirated against her will. The woman was taller than anyone else here. She was burly, but her skin was bulging with barely cealed muscles. A single punch to the sky ripped a hole in the darkness, letting the sun shine down as she spread her arms and Janine gulped. The Gilded Horde had a Ravager of their own. A demigod capable of defying the ws of nature, a divine ination of their own god. And she was here. Looking at them.

  Predaig was the first to read the first to die. It was the HUD that registered her ck of a heartbeat; the warlord was still running toward the woman, trying to stab the tip of her sword into her bloodshot eye, when the HUD marked her as deceased. The curved scimitars appeared in the woman’s hands, but there was no movement—at least nothing that Janine could register. A tornado of air swept past them, dragging the warlord and the sword saints across the floor as Predaig fell into two ideal halves.

  Leonidas died ; his wordless cry of indignation at the deaths of his allies never left his lips. He was decapitated faster than anyone could breathe. His head blinked several times as it hit the ground, looking pleadingly at Janine. She didn’t know what he was trying to say. Then his shield crushed the head as the headless body lost all its strength.

  A cloud of smoke hidden their killer and was banished by a single snap of her fingers. Her hands were once agaiy, and Janine heard a scream beside her. Macarius was no loanding; his arms and legs had been ly cut off, redug him to a stump. The sword saint was biting his lower lip, trying to cope with the agony as the newer took the first step.

  An air of fear emanated from her, almost visible and incredibly oppressive, mimig a simir feeling when standing in the presence of the Blessed Mother. Her pupils narrowed to the size of a grain, and the sclera was now crimson. Her eyes met Jahrough the lenses, and she smiled.

  Around them, the people were knocked down, uo stand iermath of an apocalyptiding. The hospital shook o time and colpsed, opening them to a full view of the Gilded Horde’s armies surrounding the pce. The invaders and the Wolfkins climbed away from the rubble, and Janine found herself aloanding unharmed in the circle of safety this woman had created.

  “Mad Hatter!” Cheers rang out. The steel giant added his voice to theirs, busy ripping Eled’s head from his body. “Khan of Khans! Khatun! Avatar of the Sky!”

  Mad Hatter raised her hand, and the cheers died. She extended her hand to Janine and beed with two fingers.

  Janine needed no further invitation. She ched her fangs and brought the Taleteller in a diagonal arc toward the t woman. Mad Hatter must have been at least six or seveers tall; even without her power armor, she easily towered over Janine, smiling with bright red lips at the advance. She could have killed the warlord at any moment. Size was one of the things indig danger, and Janine had killed bigger oppos.

  No, what jarred her seo the point where she wao scream and escape was the sheer pressure ing from the woman. She felt... unnatural, alien, like some kind of abnormality or singurity that had appeared iy. She was like a bright, poisonous i; everything about her was a warning to stay away or die. Mad Hatter was the predator. Strength clothed in a human body.

  A fiopped the Taleteller, and the khatun flicked Janine aside, sending her rolling. Mad Hatter examined her finger, nodding at the slight cut as the warlord charged at her again. The swing passed through the empty air and a bst of wind smmed into Janine’s muzzle. Mad Hatter was behind her, leaning against Janine’s body and holding a warrior in her hand. The khatun examihe Wolfkin and tossed her aside.

  “Soft,” Mad Hatter spoke, her voice rough and bored. “I expected more from your chaff.”

  “You…” Janine spun around. Once more, Taleteller parted the sound boom.

  “Tell me,” Mad Hatter asked from behind, looming over Janine, “have you ever seen the Sky?”

  Hands grabbed Janine under her armpits, and the world ged. She found herself looking down at the hospital, which was getting smaller by the sed. Then she saw the ranks of the approag army, the town, and evereating Recimers. She shook her head, w about the feeling of floating, and then realization hit her.

  She was in the air! Her body was slowing as she passed through the cloud. Impossible! She thought, hastily remembering what Ignacy had told her a few years ago. High clouds usually travel about five or fourteen kilometers above the surface, and cheg the time on her HUD, Janine firmed she was fag Mad Hatter on the ground no lohan three seds ago. It was inceivable; it defied her imagination; she could not have been thrown this high in such a meager span of time!

  Pain came , pulsing from where Mad Hatter had grabbed her. The grip had shattered the armor, sending several shards into her skin and creating wide cracks around the entire suit. Her body slowed at st, and with the a horror woven into her very existence, Janine uood she was falling.

  Normies enjoyed flying; their eyes often burned with excitement at the ce to board one of the phat now circled between the Recmation Army, Iterna, and the Oathtakers. Fools. What goes up always es down. It didn’t matter if people liked it or not. And when you fall, you only hit the rocky ground.

  Every Wolfkin was afraid of falling. Not of heights, no. As long as the tip of their cws touched a mountain, there was little to be afraid of. Even if a Wolfkin slipped from a mountain, she could still hold on to a slope. But to be utterly helpless, a prisoner in the fines of a pne in the air, subject to the terror of falling... That was something to be afraid of.

  Janine had thought that Terrific had beaten this fear out of her by throwing her and other cubs from a hill over and over. Terrific didn’t care if she broke her bones. After a fall, she would check their snouts and force them to look into her eyes. At the slightest sign of fear, the cruel training resumed. As it turned out, the training didn’t help, and Janine’s heart threateo stop as she plummeted to the ground at terminal velocity.

  When she finally crashed, merciful darkness swallowed her whole world, dev her fears for her pad her sons.