A kick crumpled the iron doors, sending them flying and opening the full view of this ‘hangar’. The pce had served as a maintenance depot for the various trucks ing in from the Outer Lands. Now it fulfilled a more insidious fun, and workers toiled away, repairing damaged mobile walkers and artillery pieces. Industrial lines moved, carryiails aire vehicles from one side of the hangar to the other; meical suits in various stages of assembly hung from the ceiling, and es moved vats of molteal, unnerving the personnel.
Their prize stood proudly on the opposite side of the hangar, led in an intricate web of makeshift catwalks and scaffolding. T in the Sky Carrier, the invaders had removed part of aire se of the factory plex, and a familiar twilight sky greeted the group, as if the old friend rejoig at a sudden reunion.
The Sky Carrier had a long, i, and bulky fusege, standing on three nding ramps. Exquisite jade orion covered the tubur aircraft; a proud eagle’s head formed the cockpit, allowing the pilots to see through its eyes. Operators calmly guided rows of empty energy isters away from the ship. Fines on the ship’s belly almost touched the ground, patterns cascaded down their surfaces, and a cluster of six more on the back of the Sky Carrier was ready to propel it ahead. As the boy had said, there were no turrets or ons of any kind on the ship, but hopefully the refueling process had already been pleted and, more importantly, the hull was intact.
Janine fired the psma discharger before the doors could touch the ground.
A superheated bst of psma swept above the workers’ heads, kissing ammunition crates of a mobile artillery unit, detonating it and scattering tatters of its crew everywhere. The vehicle’s engine exploded , setting off a rea that shook the entire room as four more mobile artillery units disappeared iing bsts, knog people off catwalks aing scaffolding abze. Many of the Horde personnel and guards chose not to wear their full protective gear and celebrated their victory even here. They paid for such carelessness in full as shards of toral sliced through their bodies and debris fell on them from above.
“So much for infiltration,” said a guardsman, leveling his rifle.
“We just he Sky Carrier intact. Advance! Sughter anyone in our path!” Janine roared, leading her people in.
“Сэр??лэг!” a hordeman screamed, pulling a mae gun from his back. He ducked to the left, hiding from a burst of energy that melted his chest pte.
They charged into the shuddering hangar, keeping the pilot in the middle of their formation. Cracks ran above them, and Janine added to the otion by firing at the ammunition crates, detonating them. Small kes of fme washed away fleeing personnel and licked at the Sky Carries’ hull, terrifying the workers standing on it. Armuards emerged through the smoke, some of them bareheaded, and the coughing and cursing humans paid with their lives for such arrogance as the Wolfkins filled their heads full of holes. The Taleteller sliced, outpag the whipping ssh of the Ice Fang, and split halves toppled to the ground.
“Murder! Maim! More!” Janine shouted the war cry, grunting at bullets blooming crimson holes in her hide. Rather than dodging and exposing Macarius on her back or her allies, she trusted her body to hold on and hurled her axe.
It spun in the air, shattering a surprised raider so hard that only his bloodied legs remained and then toppled three more, filling the warlord’s ears with the sweet music of their desperate screams. Their agony was short-lived as her legs reduced them to smears.
The panic that erupted in the hangar cleared a path for them, though Janine occasionally kicked pieces of equipment aside. A worker appeared on the Sky Carrier ramp, dropping an industrial drill as the Wolfkins approached. His cooperation saved his life, and the guardsmen moved into the ship, apanied by their New Breed and Malformed allies. A brief burst of gunfire annouhe end of the enemies hiding inside.
“Hurry!” Janine ordered, melting the e holding a vat and dreng several hordemen in molteal. Her nose picked out the major source of trouble from the multitude of sts in the air. Drozna. The bastard was ing, rammiire buildings, a distant wall of destru closing in on them, and she wasn’t sure she could take him on.
With a shrug, Janine slipped the s from her shoulders and dropped Macarius into the Ice Fang’s paws. She motioned for her soldiers to take cover and headed down the ramp, on in each paw, grinning wildly as rows of hordemen tried to charge her down, seeking to retake the precious toy of their leader. And the angel of vengeaepped to them.
The Taleteller’s swing sliced through two bodies faster than an eye could follow, and the axe’s pommel was already returning, denting a helmet as a bst of superheated psma decapitated another fool. Janine burst through the ranks of her enemies, surprised and shocked by her recklessness. She spun, parrying bullets and hag, her rapid kicks eviscerating anyone in her path. Inpetent rabble. They should have taken her cws when they had the ce. They should have taken her limbs if they had hoped to hold a warlord hostage. She was a wrathful storm, a splinter of death inate in this world, and this rabble was her rightful prey!
Parts of the stone roof colpsed, and the warlord, not b to dodge, weathered this impact, biting at the desperate faces trying to escape beh the rubble. She parted the obstacles as if they were water, never ceasing to kill. Normies and New Breeds stumbled through the smoke, ending up closer than expected; her psma discharger fired small spheres as bright as the rising sun, and they died. simple exoskeletons, bondsmen posed no threat. Some of them fainted or dropped their rifles, and Janine accepted these feeble surrenders, ign them. New Breeds, Purebloods as they called themselves. These were her primary targets, and she opeheir bellies, biting mercilessly through their necks and advang in a hurrie of blindingly fast cuts.
It would be easy to desd into savagery now. To refuse accepting surrender and chop off limbs, kick away the resulting ‘barrels’ to horrify their rades, ahe cripples bleed out. And Janine wa. Spirits five her; she wanted more than to kill her enemies; she wahem to suffer in excruciating agony, to repay every pain and every burn they had inflicted on her precious boy. To raise their cries loud enough for Eled and Predaig to hear in the Great Beyond.
She stayed her paw, ag like a proud soldier of the Wolf Tribe and not letting herself be Terrifiymore. Fdan, Eled, Predaig, and all those who had died would not approve of her shedding her morality for the sake of vindictiveness. She had promised to be herself. Her iy was worth a thousand times more than the existence of that filth. No more lies, no more pretending to be what she wasn’t. Jahe dishonored arayed warlord, set about keeping her promise to the Spirit of Fury, sacrifig lives in its name.
Explosions rog the hangar, failing rubble, and smoke made it impossible for the hordemen to trate ohick, dark clouds swirled around her, obsg her, and thermal scopes went wild, uo locate a siarget in the released heat. But Janine sehem, and her amber eye was the st the guards saw as the Storyteller’s swings tore them to pieces. And so she murdered them mercilessly and effitly, wielding her psma discharger as a club os power cell was depleted.
The hordemen weren’t cowards, but her were they fools. Four times they tried their best to form ranks t her low, and four times she scattered them, unleashing a bone-chilling howl that could be heard through the local apocalypse unfolding in the hangar. When one of their officers raised his hand, she held her bde, uanding the order to retreat, even though it was in the unknown nguage. There was a brief moment of uandiween them, and her ughter apaheir panicked retreat.
Most of Terrific’s methods of psychological warfare disgusted Janine. But there was wisdom in them. A ered rat will bite and scratch to the end. Let them flee and spread exaggerated rumors of former prisoners esg and stealing from their khan. It was a blow to his authority, and she had no doubt Brood Lord would punish the cowards. But the stories would remain.
The upper se of the wall exploded into dust and stone, and a steel-cd figure broke through. The newer almost nded on his own esg allies as thrusters fshed on the back of the brourple armor and he flew over them, nding with a thud and raising a hand-mounted autoon.
Whoever it was, Janine was quicker. She lunged, disguised by the heat, and sshed at the on, shattering it and several metal fingers.
“You!” a female voice, thick with at, boomed, and gray lenses focused on the warlord. “You’ll pay for what you did to Mehmed!”
The thrusters roared again, carrying the woman away from the Taleteller’s swing, and she thrust her own spear, aiming at the sole eye. The bde met the rising axe and faltered, going aside. Janine chased after her oppo, throwing her empty rifle at the helmet with enough force to dent it and gouge out a single lens. Suddenly the thrusters ged dire, and the woman rammed a ko the warlord’s chest, knog the air out of her and smming her spear into the Taleteller. The open jaw grazed the helmet, tearing off a k of metal, and cws scraped at the shoulder, twitg in pain as the woman nded a heavy blow on the retly closed wound in her side.
“I’ll ie you for what you did to my little brother!” The woman roared, her broken fist pounding against the warlord’s ribs like a jackhammer, extending, nding a blow, aurning to the wrist as she tried to use the thrusters to knock Janine over.
“Warlord! Step back!” Janine obeyed without question, headbutting her oppo areating just in time to avoid a shower of molten steel raining down on her.
Ignacy had used one of the work soles in the room to operate the maery and brought a vat above the hordewoman. She walked out of the overheated stream, her helmet crumpled. Her thrusters whined and exploded, but she still tried to raise the spear.
“I’ll do you in…” came hissing, ferocious words from her dynamics. “Even if we both die. Nobody messes with my family and lives!”
“Admirable.” Janine raised her axe, preparing to end it in one blow. “Sleep well, unknown fighter.”
“Wait!” A man threw himself between her and the prey, stopping them both. He screamed, approag Janine closer than she’d liked after the hot ke touched his boot. Triangur gears and neckeical devices covered his rich brown robe, giving the impression ious symbols rather than utilitarian tools. “Nonbat! I mean, nonbatant! We! Not fighters. Not a threat. Surrender, yes?”
“What about her?” Janine poi the woman trying to walk around the man, and more people in brown robes joined in, f a liween the oppos. The man took a terminal from his belt, pressed several buttons, and the woman’s suit hissed; her geor died, and she stopped, entombed inside her armor.
“How dare you?!” the woman yelled, and Janine’s ears picked up the noise of a fist smming against something. “She ruined Mehmed! Let me go, you bastard; I’ll kill her! Set me free! You have nht!”
“he man said and poi himself. “Lost a family member. Don't want again. Won’t bother you. Swear. We sell things. Traders,” he said, looking at the axe. “Never harmed your people. Just selling!”
“Humans?” Janine asked.
“No! Worth too little. Not our trade. Gear, sell gear. Unimportant.” The man gulped, fag his refle in her amber eye. “Please. Have family. Won’t act against your . Have mercy. Please.”
I had a son, too. Janiated. The man wasn’t tellihe whole truth. He could have been one of the leaders of the Gilded Horde, and even if not, these bastards had killed Bogdan. Tortured her soldiers. Wrought ruination and doom to the civilians, showing no mercy.
What would Bogdan say, looking at you now? Asked a voi her mind. The voice of the Blessed Mother, stern and calm, sounding so unlike her usual tone. What example will you set fnacy, Anissa, or Marco? Are you a monster or a human?
Human. She would not stoop to the level of these barbarians.
“The pce is about to fall.” Janine g the ceiling. “I suggest you escape.”
“We will! We will, oh mighty and honorable khatun.” The man bowed. “Never will we fet your mercy or unrivaled beauty.”
“Curses! Iron Lord promised to keep us out of harm’s way!” pined a woman with cameras for eyes. She and her rades fled to the exit, abandoning their trapped nied fident that her armor would survive the colpse of the hangar.
Beauty? The sheer inanity of this suggestion stopped Janine iracks. Here she was, bleeding from dozens of wounds, bruised, her hide ravaged, the spttered golden blob stuck to the head, hiding one eye, her arms far too long pared ts… What was beautiful about any of it?
“Ready!” a warrior shouted from the ship’s entrance.
A crowd g to the tral ramp, stopped by Ignacy’s raised paw. Her son crouched, listening to the noise of different nguages. The warlord lowered her axe, noting no aggression but fear, desperation, and agitation. These people wore workman’s overalls; a dozen or so wore bck bodysuits, simple stun batons, and shotguns pressed to their chests. She tightehe grip on the shaft, reizing the Horde’s jaws on the bodysuits. Muscles to keep the prisoners in line.
“Alles kr, gib mir eine Minute,” Ignacy barked and turo Janine. “Warlord! Ued development. The Merts’ sves are asking for help.”
Not our trade. She bared her fangs, frightening the workers. They didn’t sell sves, but they certainly used them. She half wao turn around and go after the bastards, sughter the svers down to the st.
“You uand them?” Janine asked instead. Her boy wasn’t stupid. He deliberately generalized the group.
“Badly. Picked up a few basic words from Soulless One when she helped me transte a manual we had found in the ruins.” Ignacy scratched the back of his head, oblivious to the potential danger of the overseers carrying shotguns. “The gist of it, if I uood these two here, is that Rongo and Mairearad are begging us to let everyone escape with us.”
“Overseers too?” Janine asked, and Ignacy shrugged. “Haagh…” She wao tell the overseers to get out of her sight, remembering her prayers to the Spirits and how helpless she was. “You know how the saying goes. The more, the merrier.” She g a warrior, silently the woman to keep an eye on this colorful group.
The ramp moved, folding bato the ship’s belly as the engines roared, spilling fire onto the floor and widening the surrounding inferno. Jaayed on it until the end, watg as the entire wall colpsed, broken by the monstrous swings of bone-covered arms. The body followed, rag towards the ship.
“Don’t you dare run, mutant!” Drozna yelled, saliva on his fangs evaporating in the surroundi, his every step creating rippling waves of destru across the floor. His simple shirt and trousers caught fire, but he pushed and jumped, sending a soni through the ruined hangar.
His face ged fre to surprise as the shield bubbled ience, shoving the man away, and Janine ughed, flipping him off.
“Thanks for the ride, sucker,” she said loud enough for him to hear.
The Sky Carrier rose higher into the air, its powerful engines defying the rules of gravity. Droz out a pointless roar of frustration and hatred, pletely lost in the fmes p down on him. A siurn of the ship rammed it through the wall. Against Janine’s worries, their transport tio gain speed and altitude.
Before the ramp fully closed, she saw numerous people running around the plex and a massive nd-train standing beside it. Its caterpilr tracks dragged the mae over the ruiown wall and across the destroyed buildings. Unlike normal trains, the trol ter of the nd train was located atop its middle se, and Janine prepared herself as she watched sixteen huge turrets and a multitude of missile unchers rotate and lo to the Sky Carrier. Familiar brown-robed figures stepped away from the closing observation windows in the trol ter as armor ptes slid down. A sver pressed a terminal to his ear, and Janine could’ve sworn the man gave her a polite nod.
The ramp closed, apanied by the noise of rubble falling off their ship, and Janine shrugged off her fear, walking down the narrow corridor to che everyorapped into their harhe rescued sves sat beside the guardsmen. The muscur man, Janine assumed him to be Rongo, and the female overseer assisted a guardsman iing the civilian’s wounds. Further down the corridor, Malformed, New Breeds and Wolfkins secured themselves in half-empty partments.
Their pilot y ba his seat, operating the ship based on the information on the dispys rather than using the view ports to navigate. Ignacy joined him, dutifully pulling levers at the New Breed’s and and b him with questions about how to fly the Sky Carrier, and the hordeman chuckled, promising to teach the young man if they got out of here alive.
Janine shook her head and headed for the cargo bay, apanied by the aggressive hum of w engines. Apart from is and birds, no living creature was meant to fly, no matter what the teags of the state said. It was heresy to try. And falling hurt. She could testify to that firsthand.
The Wolfkins pulled several taiogether to form a sort of bed for the unsacarius to rest on. Jaliqai and the knight teo his wounds, using medie from a found medical kit, and had already ied him with antibiotics. The sword saint growled, barely audible; every breath he took was a struggle.
“Will he live?” Janine asked Jaliqai.
“No idea.” Shrugged the girl. “I treat broken bones, cuts, and internal bleeding, but this is beyond my skills.” She the pus oozing from the wounds. “Father’s handiwork. He poisoned him to keep the wounds infmed and to hihe immune system, causing the suppuration. Not sure what the point was. Usually he does it to prisoo keep their minds from esg in exge for medie. I’m surprised he didn’t do it to you.”
“Our bodies are resistant to poisons. Maybe that’s why,” Janine said simply. “Thanks, Jaliqai.”
“Haven’t done anythi!”
“The Sword Saint ’t die,” she knight. “If you let Lord Macarius perish, I…”
“Pipe down, traitor, or I’ll toss you off the ship,” Janine said.
“I am no traitor! I have fought and bled by your side, damn it. Must you be so stubborn? My name is Thyia Voidrunner.” Thyia pressed a paw over her heart and bowed. “I apologize for my outburst, Jaliqai. Stress and worry have undermined my fidence. Warlord. On behalf of House Voidrunner, I thank you…”
“As if anyone cares.” Janine walked past her, hitting the knight with the blunt side of her axe.
Fought beside them, as if! Thyia joihem out of y; at the first opportunity, she’d sell them out for fame. The Ice Fangs were nothing more than a bunch of glory hounds. The Wolf Tribe should never have sidered them kin, and she was an idiot for not trusting the shamans’ warnings and wisdom. Their Normies allies had ten times more nobility than any Ice Fang could ever hope for and were loyal friends and true kin to the Tribe. Bogdan, Melina, Eled, Predaig... How many more will die because of the Ice Fangs’ arrogance? Did their pack still live?
The ship shook gently, and Janine pushed past Dokholkhu, who sat with his arms ed around his strange tainer. His brothers and sisters scaled the walls on their ioid legs aed on the ceiling, silent.
In the pilot’s , Jaudied unfamiliar letters oerminal. Try as she might, her the letters nor the pilot’s input told her anything, but the schemati the dispy told her enough. The force shield surrouheir steed that blinked rapidly. Feors powered it, and two simir symbols were bck. The field itself blinked on and off, occasionally letting a shot through.
“Do roblems?” Janine inquired, looking out of the observation window.
The soldiers of the Gilded Horde went mad, whipped into a by Drozna’s ahey climbed on top of buildings, firing rocket unchers and pulse rifles. Bullets ricocheted off the field, and explosions shrouded the Sky Carrier in darkness. The train stopped, its turrets no lorag the ship, and Jahahe Spirits for this mercy. The exploding factory plex behind them prevehe Horde fring in their nd vehicles, but occasionally the shield shook from a fired shell.
“The morons fot to reect the geors to the trol panel! Bunch of cretins!” Ignacy howled, tore away the panel, and disappeared there, almost up to his waist in wires. “Here!” Janine helped him out as the Sky Carrier shook and a new symbol joihe rows of active geors. “What in the Abyss? One? Both are refueled and operational!”
“it’s okay, fine, friend Ignacy,” said the pilot, and the cluster of engines on the dispy blinked. “Our hull is durable enough, and we no longer need nding engines…”
“Don’t you calm me, bastard!” Ignacy smmed his paw on the panel. “Two! It should be two! Not one, not one and a half, two!”
“Sure, sure, horrible indeed,” the pilot agreed, and Janine snickered to herself. “We are gaining speed and should escape before they pull out the anti-air guns…”
The man stopped and looked at the radar, where the green s showed several missiles approag from the ground. But o was much rger thahers, moving slower, veering around the surrounding ordieadily gaining on the ship. Janine looked up and heard heavy thumps as the dot reached them.
“Someone just nded on top of us when the shield was overloaded again,” Ignacy said.
“Jahe familiar synthesized voice cried. “e out! Or I will destroy the engines!”
“Mehmed.” Spat Janine. Her amber eye spotted a hatch between the partments. “Lock the doors. I will remove our freeloader.”
“You’re not going anywhere with those injuries!” Ignacy grabbed her by the arm.
It disgusted her, but she experienced a desire to bite him. A certain amount of cordiality was allowed and even enced between males and females, especially if the situation involved a family. But in life ah situations, a male had to obey a female, asking nothing. The shamans taught this to the younger geions is, giving many examples of how deviations from these rules led to greater disasters and practical proof that females were naturally smarter and had greater fighting instincts.
Janine had learo doubt this theory. Perhaps it was true when food and water were scarce, but behavior had ged over the years. She and Colt often bickered for fun, only showing their severity in publid trying to treat their cubs as gently as possible, rarely g. As for the differen strength, the ge was happening, and perhaps if Ignacy got his paw on one of those big metal suits, he would do better than an ordinary female.
How would Colt hahe situation?
Rather than punish her son, Janine hugged him, accepting his and soothing his worries.
“I will e back,” she promised. “As a warlord, it is my duty to lead my pack to victory. I ’t do that if I’m dead, I? Trust me, Ignacy, and go fix the geor on our birdy, champ.”
“Will do!” Ignacy stood at attention, slightly embarrassed by his words.
“Don’t worry about a thing,” she grumbled as she climbed the dder and opehe hatch. Her body quivered with the a fear of heights. “Should be over in a moment.”
