Jaruggled to breathe, hearing ughter and cheering above. Shortly after Mad Hatter had spoken to her, Brood Lord shouted orders, and his minions dragged i of her pa. Twelve of them were still alive. She had been relieved to see Ignad Bogdan among the survivors; both had beeen, and someone had ripped off Ignacy’s artificial arm; they were very much alive and had a spark of anger in their eyes.

  She and the soldiers were on the solid bck floor, covered by thick yers of wooden pnks. Several dozen soldiers from the Provincial Army had also been thrown into this meat grinder, and surprisingly, two Ice Fangs were present too: a hunter and a knight who had been captured during the battle or fotten during the retreat.

  The Horde bastards sat on the pnks above, slowly spttering the bodies of their captives against the floor. Hundreds, if not thousands, of hordemen poured into the hall, celebrating their fleeting victory. And their drunken rejoig had brought the first deaths. A Normie soldier gave a faint cry; his arm was crushed into a pancake and his ribs were broken, pierg a lung. His faint pleas fell on deaf ears; their captors showed no iion of mercy, while his rades tried to fort him with words. In a few minutes, his body was broken and blood poured from his mouth, nostrils, and ears before the sweet release of death took him.

  His name was Jacob. Jaeo remember it.

  More and more soldiers were dying. Spines had broken against the stone, ans ruptured, eyes stabbed by splinters of wood—lying here ure Abyss. Occasional light fshed from between the pnks into harried and panicked eyes. Drops of food and drink fell on the bodies—the genuine joy above that created maddening trast to the suffering of those below. It pyed tricks on the mind, trig the poor soldiers into thinking they were in a nightmare. Jarained her muscles, ign the pain in her own body and the hooks between her ribs, and tried to hold on to the whole new floor with all her might.

  My responsibility. She heard more screams and bones snapping. I am sorry. She could not speak, the air barely ing to her lips. So sorry. She bit her lips to the bone and flexed her muscles as hard as she could to withstand the damn hooks. Sorry was no excuse. The citizens of the state had a right to her prote, and she would give it her all! Her cubs were here, and for their sake, she would give her all!

  Treacherous thoughts crept into her thoughts. Maybe a thousand lives were not such a high price to pay; perhaps her value to the state exceeded that number by far; maybe she could have cheated somehow and escaped without harming a single civilian... It ointless self-recrimination, unworthy of a warlord. She could not, would not, live with herself after such a heinous act, and Mad Hatter would ake his eyes off her until her paws were soaked red.

  The Ice Fang groaned, fighting to survive the immense weight. She looked at him without anger or pity. It felt... strange. Before, she had thought of the Ice Fangs as part of her extended family. Now she wasn’t sure who they were. The paws of their masters had severed the bonds betweeribe and the Order, and Janine cluded that ordinary Ice Fangs ted as ordinary citizens to her. Ohing was certain. She must try to save them.

  “Warlord,” a nearby male from Predaig’s pack croaked, “stop. You are killing yourself.”

  Janine ignored him, her muscles bulging and experieng her lungs expanding and cowardly retreating from tact with the hooks. The wooden ceiling rose. A millimeter, but it did. Then there was a kick, and she groahrown back. The Ice Fang, his bones more brittle than a Wolfkin’s, let out his st gasp. A pnk above him cracked, and a part of it pierced his exposed throat. As he died and his muscles rexed, his body simply colpsed uhe immense weight; cws were pushed out of the fingers, and his legs spasmed several times as if trying to run away.

  May you find pea the life, soldier. Jahought.

  Strong. Terrific had made her strong. Doctors had worked on her body, healing her. Brave people had given up their lives so she could live. Some of the best teis had designed her battle armor. And how, oh how, did she repay them? Uo save even a single life. Janine drank deep of self-hatred, inviting the desire to harm herself. And through that desire, she pushed herself to new limits, lifting the pnks higher and higher.

  She imitated ughter, too exhausted to exhale when Bogdan bit a careless hordeman. The drunkard must’ve fotten how dangerous Wolfkins were and had slipped a hand down to poke a Normie in the eye for fun. Immediately, Bogdan had turned his head and sunk his fangs deep into the shrieking man’s wrist, grinding against the bone. Her boy arched his neck, twisting the arm as the pnks shifted again, wounding the murderer and taking the entire hand below the wrist, trapping the arm itself as a splinter pierced an elbow joint.

  e on, you weakling! Her fangs tore through the lower lip as Ignacy wheezed. He was the furthest away from her, and with a missing arm… Don’t you dare. Weakling. Pathetic. Is this the extent of your love? You cimed to love him, but all you ever wanted was a normal sht, Janine? Wrong. Janine wasn’t sure where the sudden surge of power was ing from. It felt as if a dam had burst inside her. Fog on the pain and whipping herself through the self-hatred, Janine gave another shove, lifting the pnks again at the cost of almost tearing her muscles.

  Hold, Janine. Many people have had worse endings. She persisted, keeping the entire floor of the pnks away from the soldiers, matg the weight of the drunken rabble above. Cubs born dead, o taste life. Is sughtered for sport. pared to them, you lived a good, proud life. And now this is it. This is the wall you must hold. A pang rang in her shoulder, heating her body. A torn muscle, big deal. And you will hold it. Hold the line, Janine. Damn it! For the sake of your cubs, for the sake of your soldiers and Normies, and even for the sake of that womahere, hold it at bay!

  The pnks moved aside at one point, and a hand dropped to grab the necks of two soldiers.

  “What are you doing, Dokholkhu?” Brood Lord’s drunken voice sliced through the cheering.

  A small replica of Brood Lord, an ugly t beast on four ioid legs, shuddered a little and stubbornly pulled the soldiers out.

  “He is merely getting a few sves for himself,” a female voice hiccuped drunkenly. “Father, e on, surely he’s earhat much?”

  “Eh, fihey are yours, bull!” Brood Lhed, and Janine gasped as she heard the wooden pnk above crader the khan’s leg. The tip of the ioid leg stomped on her belly, driving shards of wood into her hide. A trickle of blood ran down her nose from the pressure. “The party’s growing stale! I long for the mai; what say you, my warriors?”

  “Mai!” Drunken voices roared, their feet shaking the pnks. “Mai! Mai!”

  “Let’s light up this party!” Brood Lord stomped with an, and a warrior o Janine died; the broken sternum lodged in her heart.

  The hordeman removed pnks, pulling the captives above into the spacious hall of the emergency shelter. Tables were shoved further from the hall’s ter and carried above the pced spiked steel walls. Hordemen scurried like rodents into the opening slits and took their pces along the wall, loudly demanding more food and drinks from the sves. Brood Lord and several of his guards stayed to trol the prisoners.

  “Women are all alike,” the khan said quietly, waiting for the crowd to assemble. “Incubators, unfit for war. Incapable of making tough choices, unfit for leadership. We, men, think not with our feelings but with our brains, calg what will happen and the sequences of our careless as.”

  “Strange words ing from a sycophant in the serviad Hatter,” Janine said.

  He turo her, motioning for the two guards to hold her upright. Brood Lord’s faeared hers, h just outside the reach of her bite, examining her eyes.

  “Mad Hatter is her woman nor man. She is no longer of this world,” he told her, snapping a pincer close to her nose.

  “Then you and her are alike,” she told him. “You too are her man nor woman, but a walking corpse spouting nonsense.”

  “I don’t give much thought to individual sves, but with you, I have developed a kind of attat. Twice I have tried to kill you and failed, a rare occurrence. Fate bound us together.”

  “Perhaps you are right,” she admitted, and his smile widened. “You are bound to die by my hand, Malformed.”

  The guards nearby stiffened, and the sed set of irises emerged from behind the first. Brood Lord’s lips curled, exposing his needle teeth and veins on his neck bulged. Jaried to bite his hands as he grabbed her by the neck, almost choking her, and closed his pio her head.

  “How did you call me?” he whispered, poison bubbling in his throat.

  “Malformed.” She thought he was going to do it. His pincers closed, cutting her skin, but then Brood Lord rexed, a smile returning to his face as his eyes overpped each other.

  “Naughty. It wohat easy. Observe!” He spread his arms.

  There were fresh faces among the hordemen. New Breeds and Malformed, many of them freed from the local prison. Drozna sat in the midst of such a crowd, his wounds already closed. The hulki of a man drank heavily and fondly stroked the natural armor pting of an unfortable-looking soldier beside him. A crowd of Normies celebrated among the invaders, and with disgust Janine reized the insignia of the Provincial Army on the new uniforms of these traitors.

  Fodder. That’s what they were. She hazarded a guess that the Horde absorbed everyoo its ranks and Brood Lord showered them with gifts, giving them a taste of the false promise of endless dece. It was a on tactiany tyrants. Once his ranks are replehey are marched straight into the sughter.

  The murderous duo from Houstad stood apart from the main crowd. Bandages covered the twins. They leaned against a wall with stony expressions and refused drinks. Should’ve let us kill you. Heika’s lips said wordlessly. do nothing now, stupid beast.

  “Our lives are shaped by our choices!” Brood Lord addressed the crowd, spping Jao the ground. She frowned as the hooks scratched her lungs. “Don’t believe me? Ha-ha, let me enlighten you. You, my fels, are free, liberated, fed, and cared for because you’ve made the right decision to join the winning side. This one here was offered a khan’s position by our leader herself, and... Well, she didn’t choose wisely.” He poi the corpses dragged from uhe pnks. “Fifteen… no, seventeen had died. Because Janine refused not even to sacrifice but to be free!” He lowered his face to Janine. “Who is the guilty here? You are! You knew you were signing their death sentences and spat at the khatun’s offer, anyway!”

  Pnks exploded as he scurried to a warrior and easily lifted the snarling and fighting woman in the air. His human hand drew a curved dagger from his belt and buried it in the woman’s chest, avoiding rupturing a lung or heart. The Wolfkin ched her fangs, denying the killer the sound of her voice asp.

  “This,” Brood Lord tio the hordemen’s cheer. The knife moved, drawing a bloody circle on the body, “is the result of your as. Watch her die as the waters of life escape from her wounds. She could have been sitting and rejoig with the others. Are you happy with it? Is this what you wanted?”

  “You will die,” Janine promised him, catg the light dying in the eyes of her soldier and saying her silent farewells.

  “Wrong. She will die. Already dead, in fact,” Brood Lord chuckled. “And so too will others. Why did you choose so? You ’t plead ignorance, for I trust you are old enough to uand how things work.” He looked at the forcibly kneeled prisoners. “ any of you shed light on such a decision? Anyone?” He let go of the corpse and stepped on the Wolfkin’s head, crushing the skull. “Choices! Everything always boils down to it! Submit to the illustrious Mad Hatter and prosper! Resist and suffer! Be weak and suffer! Be strong, join strong and rule! These are the only true choices left in this world!”

  “The strong rule!” The crowd roared, stomping, their voices intoxicated with alcohol and drugs. “The weak obey!”

  Initiation. Janine calmly observed the se. This wiess had a purpose.

  Brood Lord raised his hands high and snapped his fingers. The sves hurried, untying knots of ropes, and something huge came down, apanied by the thunder of crag wood, and when the dust settled, a glimmer of yellow revealed a golden bull standing on a dais. The statue’s legs were spread wide, and there was a small hat its belly, and uhis hatch stood a bowl. On the wall, the twins’ faces ged to disgust; the female spat on the floor, and her brother took her by the shoulder, and together they stormed away.

  “Bad food?” Janine heard Drozna asking.

  “Shit show,” the twins said in unison.

  Janine immediately realized the purpose of this torture device. Iron maidens, oubliettes, blinding and cutting, slow burning, death by exsanguination, starvation, sve colrs... Janine had seen a lot of wiess in her service, learning the positive aive aspects of torture from Terrific. This, while being far from the worst, was a device to instill a sense of utter helplessness along with desperation in a victim before slowly murdering them. Doubly so if a victim was a New Breed or had artificial lungs that prevented a quick release by asphyxiation.

  Hordemen rushed to the statue, throwing broken pnks of wood into the bo alcohol over it. Brood Lord poi a Wolfkin, a Normie and the Ice Fang knight, his soldiers t them to his knees.

  “You were given a choice, Janine,” Brood Lord said sweetly, patting the Wolfkin head and lifting the of the terrified Normie soldier, his pincer closed he Ice Fang’s ear. “You chose poorly. It happens. But there is always a price to pay for making the wrong choice. Fortunately for you, I’m a magnanimous human being and don’t hold the insults and wounds against you. To prove it, I will let you choose again.”

  He left the prisoners, passing Janine, whose heart froze in fear. Brood Lord picked Bogdan like a toy, chug at the desperate attempt to bite him, and carried him to the prisoners. His grin widened in realization of her weakness, but she didn’t care.

  “No,” Janine whispered. “Please. No. Take me.” Jaried to crawl, but the cursed harness stopped her.

  My son. My blood. Not again. Please, Blessed Mother, Spirits, Dynast, someone, anyone…

  “Now, where is the fun in that? If you are anything like me, the fire will barely warm you,” Brood Lord scolded her. “Heh. I hardly had to torture those bitches to find out who Bogdan was. Ain’t that cool, boy?” He shook Bogdan. “Your own kin told me everything in exge for quick death!”

  “Don’t bme them,” Bogdan coughed, rest his breath. “I would have dohe same, just to escape the o look at yly fay longer. And that stench emanating from you. It makes me want to puke. Oh, what the Abyss…” A stream of murky water poured from Bogdan’s mouth into Brood Lord’s face. A punch to the stomach was his reward, but the soldier ughed, spitting blood. “What’s that, a tickle?”

  “Something like that, yeah,” Brood Lord joined in the ughter. “Choose, Janine. Who will it be? Your son? Or three randoms?”

  Jahrashed in her harness, ign ughter, the screams of her soldiers, and the pain in her ribs. Her son! Bogdan! Memories of happier days flooded her mind. His first prank, when he had served highly spiced food to Impatient One and Anissa, resulting in both girls fighting over the precious water while he rolled on the ground, ughing. Janine had to treat his bckeyes after the sisters had given him a piece of their minds.

  It didn’t disce him. Bogdan had learned from it, being sneaky in his pranks. An actal discharge of a paint explosive that suddenly messed up Impatient One’s prayer materials, a jumping ioid droo surprise Ignacy, or Anissa waking up to find her fingers in water, Bogdan tried everything and mastered the art of avoiding being found for as long as it took for his siblings to stop wanting to kick him.

  Such behavior bothered Janine, and she hadn’t been sure what to do. Hit, sp her son? It seemed wrong; no one ermaly hurt, and in a way, Bogdan had been polishing the important lessons of being a proper soldier, helping Ignacy to socialize and the girls to learn how to and unruly males. But Bogdan had tested his limits, wounding girls who had tried to hurt his brother, and that could not end well. He would have been killed one day. Janine deeply despised the way Terrific had raised her and thus had invited Colt for a talk. Together, they had sat Bogdan down and sidered what to do as a family in a very non-Wolf Tribe manner.

  It was Colt who came up with a punishment and a lesson. Bogdan’s test prank had injured a girl who was dominating Ignad cost them tokens to nurse her back to health? He suggested the boy earn back the tokens they had spent. Her husband had taken their young son to a Normie vilge where they worked together uhe scorg sun on a cusack farm, raising calves, ing stables, doing butcher work, and filling milk bottles.

  The insufferable brat had tio work on the farm even after he had earned back the tokens he had spent, casually greeting his Normie friends and bringing all sorts of journals back to their tribe to share with the other cubs. The shamans even had to fiscate some of them for the sake of decy.

  Colt did not stop there, dragging Bogdan by the paw to a field hospital. With no medical training, both father and son had been given dirty and tedious manual bor. They had ed toilets, removed waste, and washed paralyzed patients. Colt admitted to Janine a month ter that his pn to shod discipliheir little boy had failed miserably. Bogdan had ehe hospital, learning skills, chatting with the young cubs, and learning more about the Wastes.

  Bogdan was never afraid to talk to anyone, never shying away from starting a versation with the females first or even asking wolf hags in private to train him. His future would have been so great if he had been born a female. And his cubs! So young and foolish. How will his wife raise them without him? Will any of them even remember Bogdan’s face? Jaore at her bonds again, widening her wounds. How could she... how would she ever look at her granddaughters and grandsons after this?

  “Pick already,” Brood Lord said. “Or I will take them all.”

  There could only be one correct choice. Her blood. Her son. His future. She earhat much. He deserved nothing less.

  “Mom,” Bogdan said. Ignacy ched his fists to the blood, looking down. His breathing intensified, and a female near him howled, fighting against her captors to divert attention. “Don’t you dare. Three is bigger than one. You know what is right. And don’t you dare cry! Silence is a virtue…” He gasped as Brood Lord closed his human arm around Bogdan’s neck.

  Don’t… don’t I deserve even a single miracle? Janine looked around in despair, seeing only mog faces. How many times had she saved others from simir situations, st into the svers’ camps, guns bzing and ending the bastards, reuniting families? She had dedicated herself to the state and to saving lives; ’t the Spirits grant her a little miracle here? Please. Someone. Anyone. Help me.

  There was no ahen again, there never had been. And Janine khe right thing to do. She thanked Ignacy for his silence. Bogdan’s st words... His order wasn’t meant for her alone.

  Each of the three had a family or someone waiting for them, or at least their lives. Even that white-furred bitch. And Janine had nht to take that away.

  “Bogdan,” she said.

  “Yes?” Brood Lord pressed a hand to his ear. “Bogdan what?”

  “Take him.” Janine locked eyes with him. “Take his life. If you dare.”

  The pride of seeing her son’s first kill. Her clumsy attempt to fort him after the death of one of his brothers. His shod fear at the ioids screeg heir tent on long nights. Bogdan’s beaming smile after he earned enough tokens to throw Impatient One a birthday party and the punishment she administered to him f to ‘corrupt’ her. They ughed so hard when Bogdan was forced to eat the eable of food himself and passed out, satisfied that he had elicited a chuckle from his cold sister. Jaried to remember and relive it all, to cherish those silly and preoments until the end of days.

  “You heard it, boys and girls, we have a winner!” Brood Lord roared to the cheers of the crowd. Two of his soldiers forced Bogdan to go to the golden bull. “For those of you who have just arrived from the steppes or who have joined us retly, here is the expnation. Ihe whelp.” Brood Lord poi the hatch. “And then we lock him inside. Don’t worry, he won’t suffocate for ck of air.” The crowd ughed. Brood Lord’s cubs stood in silence, more terrified than joyous. “A simple tube goes through the bull’s mouth into its stomach, allowing our brave voluo breathe. Once he is fortably inside, we light a fire uhe belly to heat the stru... Those of you seeing this for the first time are in for a treat, friends! Some deaths are unfettable. Ah…” He wiped a tear from the er of his eye, bowing to the crowd. “I wish I were young, foolish, and passionate again to experie fresh.”

  The guards stopped Boggan, and the creature called Phaser stepped forward, looking as if someone had retly tried to cook him. Fresh burns covered his ugly skin, but the bastard mercilessly cut off Bogdan’s cws, bleeding the boy. He gestured to the guards, and they produced tongs, holding the soldier’s mouth wide open as Phaser ripped out fang after fang, dropping them callously to the ground.

  Scum. Jaopped fighting and started memorizing faces. She knew why they did it. These bastards were making sure that her little boy would have no way to end his suffering prematurely. She took a breath and anded herself to live.

  It was one order she wished to disobey.

  Finally, they threw her ruined son into the bull and smmed the hatch shut.

  A fme crackled, and Janine smmed her head against the wood, hating herself for her weakness. Brood Lripped her neck, forcibly ing it so she would keep looking at the fme lig the sides of the bull.

  “You know what’s funny, Janine? If you’d never said his name, I’d never have known he was your son, and his death would have been a lot easier. You set him up, you made it personal, and now you’ve chosen him to die. Like I said, women are dumb. You should have tried your best to help everyone die the easier deaths as our butt-seats. The Sky knows I am proo spending the lives of my kids myself, but you are something else, my dear,” Brood Lord whispered into her ear. “You make others pay for your mistakes. You have lost your freedom, leadership, your men, and now your son. What else should I take? What else are you ready to lose?”

  When she heard the first screams ing from the bull, her heart broke again. That, too, was something Janine was all too used to. She kept looking, steeling her eyes to deprive Brood Lord of the pleasure of seeing her cry, and engraving every sed, every sound, every scream into her memory.

  “For the Dynast!” Bogdan’s mangled words sounded muffled ing from the bull’s mouth; his speech was broken into a howl of fangless pain. “We mar, bringing a brighter… AHAHA… It’s not hurt! Future to the oppressed, the fotten, and…. AAAA… the weak! Never regret! Never surrender! Spirits... To our dream, we’ll uphold the state! Live to the fullest! ... Hahaaaraghueh… And that Malformed crab go fuck himself! I go painfully, but I’ll be remembered! Nobody will give a shit about your sorry ass!”

  Pincers clicked over the warlord’s ear, and she heard a hiss.

  Janine shrugged off Brood Lord’s lies. These might have worked on a cub or aional person. Janine, for all her pretending otherwise, was too emotionally bur this point. First mission. Secure a route for the safe evacuation of her soldiers. , the retribution. Then… the duty will guide and sustain her.

  And so, with Bogdan dying in front of her, with Brood Lord whispering his poison into her ear, Janine blinked and allowed her old, no, her true self, to reappear. She looked around with calm, dead eyes. Pnning and waiting, hungry for a dish she desired above all others. Revenge.