The voy proceeded to Houstad without further troubles. Screams of hoverbikes often tended with the crag of trees uhe weight of the mobile fortress and the roar of ehe riders skirted at the outmost edge, occasionally firing their pulse rifles to keep the soldiers on edge. A joint unit of hunters and scouts, led by a Dewglitter, deterred any attempts to close in. Anissa itched to lead a punitive expedition, but Dragena forbade it.

  Heavy, square-shaped APed seemingly mindlessly in the distance, carrying potent shield geors to block the Recimers’ shelling. The drivers oftereated uhe hissing cover of the shimmering domes, streaking back through reg explosions. Janine uood that they were trying to lure the soldiers away from the voy.

  The bait wasn’t taken, aher side suffered casualties, and soon the riders dropped the pursuit as dawn broke and the voy passed through the empty farmnds. Harvests of potatoes, cabbages, tomatoes, cucumbers, and more vegetables, abundant enough to feed the Outer Lands for han a year, y unattended and fotten in the fields.

  Several Wolfki, m the loss of such a bounty as the vehicles reduced it to mush. Janine assigned five mixed packs, groups of Normies uhe prote of shamans, to gather what they could without slowing down. They brought aboard several tons of food and over a hundred head of abandoned cattle, a pittanpared to what was left, but the aplishment brightehe mood.

  Four sprawling defensive lines encircled Houstad, with the first almost ging to the city’s walls. Normies of the Third weren’t zing around, and they already finished setting minefields and preparing aeunnel system to safely evacuate the outer circles. Seams, armed with hunters’ le ons aic rifles donated by the bck market, waited for their hour in skyscrapers and at the battlements; anti-aircraft instaltions and heavy artillery soon opened fire, c the horizon in dark clouds.

  “They are impatient,” Bertruda noted as the shells fle their heads and smmed into the showing APCs. Their shield spewed sparks, and the enemy hastily retreated.

  They stood atop the Mountaintops’ behemoth. Martyshkina aruda stood bareheaded and full bat gear. Elegance rose, saluting the defenders on the ground. Janine, unfortable in an officer coat, ushed between them, and Alpha, the reason for su unusual gathering, loomed at their backs, critically examining the defenses.

  The stro warlord decided to parade Janine around like a trophy, celebrating her escape from the Gilded Horde’s clutches. She waved to the familiar and unfamiliar faces of the troops, not quite uanding why this was worth celebrating. The Brood and the deserters had been instrumental in their escape. They were the oo be praised.

  “Martyshkina,” Alpha screeched.

  “They began driving back as soon as the first shells nded, Alpha,” Martyshkina replied, perg on the railing like a gargoyle. Her eyes narrowed, pierg the veil of floating soil. “Fifty. Seventy. Over a huransports are lining up, unloading infantry. The riders have shown up, too.”

  “Are they pnning an assault already?” Bertruda ched Elegaighter.

  “No,” Alpha replied, and a projectile flew in from the west, crashing into the energy shield around the front line. A sickly green mist covered the field, but the impact of the missile fizzled out. “It is tenderizing.”

  “They are testing our capabilities,” Martyshkina expio Bertruda, jumping off the rail. “Though I’m surprised they didn’t hurl their troops into the meat grinder like before.”

  “I hazard a guess that whoever is in charge is pnning to deny us the opportunity to inflict casualties on them,” Bertruda said. “A siege it is, then?”

  “No,” Janine said. She felt it in her bones, a kind of animal dread at the prospect of fag an oppo who dwarfed her ihing. Fmes flickered at the Horde’s position, coalesg in the fiery figure, and Drozna appeared, but they weren’t the source of her worry. A demigod was ing. “Whatever it’ll be, there will be no siege.”

  High bastions, built in the distant years, surrouhe inner parts of Houstad, while defenders leveled the outskirts in preparation for battle. Gates to match those on the border stood proudly at strategic points, positioned so that an invader would have to walk up to reach them, or he river, utilizing the natural moat for an added yer of prote. Soldiers waited in bunkers and pillboxes, while tanks moved aside, inviting the voy into the heart of safety.

  And what a sight the defenders were! Howls erupted from outside and inside as the packs greeted their returning kin. Merary panies poured in from the occupied regions, hastily signing tracts and flying the state colors. The personal symbol of the Dynast, a fist grasping the p, could be seen in several pces, awarded to the most decorated and respected units. Criminals, former members of the Assassin’s Guild, war chiefs, tyrants, and quered foes turned citizens joihe defense, some arrogantly scowling at the fearful volunteers reenhorns, others busy boosting morale with boastful and exaggerated tales of heroism, and a few drooling at the prospect of age.

  Thousands upon thousands of the defenders pressed ons to their chests in unison. The Provincial Guard and the Third joined in, merging into a single gestalt army, their equipment painted green or sand. The volunteers answered the call, manning the undermanned positions, led by the Third and the merary instructors.

  She noticed Reaper, the best er of the former Assassin’s Guild. The heavily augmented man’s silver skin shone. He briefly o the warlords and walked over the battlements, searg for any potentially overlooked entrances.

  “Heeeeey!” Martyshkina yelled, and Janine aruda almost jumped. The warl and poi the wall. “Lookie there! My sweeties!”

  “Sweeties?” Janine asked, ed.

  Le artillery, hauled all the way from the Wall, ced on the bastions. They had a shape of upright regles ur feet, and their main ons poi the enemy position, while radomes on their stern transmitted field maps to the crews’ dispys. On their hulls were emblems of women iive poses, white birds with bck heads, tallies of taken lives, and other symbols. Bertruda and Janine ged at the sight of a painted Ice Fang and a Wolfkin females with their touck out, raising a on together.

  “If this brigade chose its emblem because of you, I’m g you, Martyshkina,” Alpha rumbled, maintaining the stony expression.

  “What? Eh, no idea if that was me.” The warlord shrugged. “Ah, my beauties. The effective range of one hundred and twenty kilometers be pced on any surface, even on the slope; their feet are capable of gluing and evenly distributing the turret’s mass to prevent a fall…” Janine coughed, and Martyshkina stopped babbling. “You know, when I was a short-nosed brat uerrifid I first saw them in a, I dreamed of growing up and wielding them like my revolvers, one in each paw! Probably sounds stupid, but, eh.”

  “We all shared our own unrealistic dreams in our youth,” Bertruda said.

  “But there is no Wolfkin alive capable of wielding those things,” Janine remarked. “Not even Alpha would be able to do it.”

  “Want to bet?” Alpha asked, and Martyshkina ughed at her blushing friend.

  “Shut your mouth a inside already!” A roar interrupted her, and Martyshkina gnced down.

  “Wowzie!” she cheered, waving her arm like a young girl at the Malformed he gates. “If it isn’t Sughterer! Gd to see yer bloated mess ing around at st! How’s life?”

  “Was way better until I heard your noisy squealing again!” Sughterer reeled on seven elephantine legs. “Shut up before I tear out your tongue!”

  Janine raised her brow. Sughterer had been Martyshkina’s first mark as a warlord. A cruel, merciless, and rather direct tyrant, he ruled his tribe with an iron talon. The man cked a torso; his oversized, almost ballooning pink head was mounted on seven legs, two of which were ed by hooked cws. Fourteen eyes, grown without sense or reason on his veined head, stared at the grinning warlord.

  His and Martyshkina’s duel sted food portion of the day, and by the end of it, both had their own share of serious wounds and could barely stand. But it was Marty who sat on the Malformed’s forehead, holding a cw to his eye, and the man obliged the promise by surrendering his tribe without further war.

  “You will address the superior officer with respect!” an officer from the Third s the Malformed.

  “My apologies, sir!” Sughterer pressed a tentacle to his head in a mog greeting. “Please seal thy speaking orifice, Ma’am! Otherwise, I will be pelled to dine upon thy fleshly an, Ma’am!”

  “Feisty, aren’t we? Ah, I am so proud to see you iing into society and pig up new vocabury so well. The st time we met, you could barely growl,” teased Martyshkina and wiped a fake tear from the er of her eye. “Don’t press a hand to ay head, soldier!”

  “Ma’am, yes, ma’am!” The Malformed tried his best to stop swaying his ever-moving head and stand at attention. “I dare say if you test me again, the result won’t be the same!”

  “Save this energy for the Horde, and I promise to give you an hour of my time for a rematch after the victory!” The warlord ched her paws above her head to the cheers of the soldiers.

  “It’s a deal, Ma’am! Hundreds shall perish in my belly in your name!” Sughterer smirked bloodthirstily, lig his lips with a broad purple tohe offiear him kept looking at him, and the former tyrant sighed. “Enemies! I’ll ohe state’s enemies, sir!”

  “ibalism is forbidden, volunteer. Eviscerate them instead,” said the officer.

  Houstad itself, this never-sleeping megapolis teeming with life, had bee a tome city, eerily remi of the closed-for-servation capital of Teo-Queen. Cars were gone from its streets, either taken away or thrown on the sidewalks by the defenders. Jaquan and Dragena’s headquarters had performed a feat of logistics rarely seen before, evacuating most of the popution. Several elderly citizens marched out to wele the soldiers bad were immediately escorted to the trucks by the civilian workers.

  The Third arrived at the joyous and thriving poputioer. Now the wind blew through the streets, occasionally stirring up trash and the bodies of the blinded and hanged marauders. Most hospitals either relocated underground to treat the soldiers or were evacuated. The power pnts were shut down, but acc to reports from the far east of the city, a skeleton medical crew remained in an vacated Iterna private hospital, keeping patients in critical dition and underdeveloped infants alive. These people khe risks, yet they refused to abandoy.

  No children were running on the sidewalks, no couples chattered in cafes, no rowdy crowds argued over a winning match, the poli no longer watched for peace, and soldiers repced them, hunting for thieves or marauders. The smells of bread and freshly cooked meat aic drinks disappeared alongside the stench of cars’ exhaust fumes, and Janine caught herself even missing the loud advertisements on the ss.

  Houstad, the way she had briefly experie, was truly dead, and the battle didn’t even reach it yet.

  Half-manned defensive positions were set up in Houstad, mostly barricades and pillboxes, with the iion of letting the soldiers take oand after anainst the invaders, making Janine wonder if the Horde wouldn’t use them against them ohey broke through. She trusted in Dragena’s wisdom, but the host of their foes was far te.

  Ygrite, wearing a bright red cloak over her armor, stepped out of an alley, greeted the patrols, a on the mobile fortress, nimbly climbing to the top. She shook hands with Martyshkina, bowed to Alpha, and ignored Bertruda. Then she grabbed Janine in a bear hug, tig the warlord’s chest lightly with the fangs growing orained neck.

  “I am so sorry for your loss, sister.” They headbutted in cordiality. “Don’t you dare to worry. Little Marco will pull it through, got it?”

  “Of course he will! And thank you, sister,” Jaarted, but Ygrite had already released her and moved to a figure stepping through the opening doors.

  A slit appeared in her lower jaw, and the warlord’s mouth opened in three, exposing tless fangs filling every spot in her mouth and throat. The maw closed in oanding-still Kaisa and stopped just short of the woman as Janine’s paw firmly Ygrite’s belly.

  “I submit, Warlord! The pack is yain,” Kaisa said quickly, and the maw closed with a snap. Ygrite smiled and patted the wolf hag, sniffing her from head to toe.

  “You still reek of poison. I expected better of you, girl.”

  “It was an injury for a life, Warlord!” Kaisa said defensively.

  “You traded one for one in bat!” Ygrite took her by the shoulders. “No matter. Foibles happen, and you learned. o dwell on it. Able to lead?”

  “I…” Kaisa licked her lips and hung her head, moving the side of her jacket to show the bandaged wound. “No. My body is strong, but my mind wavers. I ’t properly lead a pato battle. But I fight as a soldier, and my sister is a fine wolf hag’s rept!”

  “Well, hasn‘t someoured, eh?” Ygrite said. “Maybe I should send you away more often!”

  “Maybe you should teach your pack better so the others don’t have to pick up your sck,” Alpha said.

  “Were there any problems while we were away?” Janine asked.

  “Not much.” Ygrite stretched. “People wao fight, but Jaquan and Jaie were adamant about permitting only those with bat training into the force. Farmer, builder, and b… b…”

  “Labor,” Bertruda prompted.

  “Yeah, those guys. So many queer anizations here, sisters.” Ygrite shook her head. “The unions threw a hissy fit, wanting to stage a strike over their desire to stay and fight for their city. Freaks. That’s why they are feeding us.”

  “Respect, Ygrite,” Jaerrupted her.

  “Sure, sure. Schalk buttered them up, solved the mess peacefully, and a bunch of them joined up to help the medid workers, and the rest buzzed off as they should.” Ygrite nodded eastward. “Should be in Stormfiend or close to it by now. We opehe prisons, scared the minors into obeying and not causing a stir as they got shipped out to other cities, and enlisted those with lesser offenses into helping.”

  “Without Alpha around?” Martyshkina smiled at the predataze. “’t imagihe New Breeds or powered freaks doing so voluntarily.”

  “They didn’t,” Ygrite firmed. “I employed my personal charm.” She cracked her fingers. “Broke the limbs of the ruffians and crazies, and the rest quickly fell in line. Don’t worry, Janine, I didn’t kill anyone and even persuaded a dozen or so into joining. Like that chick.”

  They faced the dire of her finger and saw a yellowish, barely visible bolt of lightning around a skyscraper, moving faster than a bullet. The energy moved higher and higher, its trail fading, and soon its forked top slipped into the open window of the thirtieth floor, transf into a panting girl with a weird, half-shaven haircut. She dropped the rge bags full of warm rations to the snipers and dropped at her ass, breathing heavily and deing water. Around her neck was a brown explosive colr with a trag device, a model often used by the svers.

  “Saw me ralizing another female and quickly ged her tune, pleading to join in,” Ygrite expined and pressed paws to her snout before r at the top of her lungs. “Oy! The Abyss are you still doing here?! I told you to get your ass irucks!”

  “I help, geriatric!” The girl jumped back to her feet, yellow streaks rag up and down the zipper of her jacket. “And you, like, promised me a job, Ygrite!”

  “It’s warlord, you asshole! You’ll get your job when you’re sixteen; until then, be productive. Do school or something! Off to the trucks and away from Houstad! And stop grinning, you animals!” she yelled at the snipers. The warlord took a remote trol, pressed a button, and the colr fell from the girl’s neck. “Nice ss. Needed a person to give a shit about her, and she seemed to be improving. Anyway, we also got a punitive battalion from the victs who asked to join the defense. Dragena equipped them with simple exoskeletons and mae guns. With any luck, they’ll soak up bullets for us.”

  “Or they’ll shoot our own troops,” Kaisa said.

  “Girl, we weren’t borerday, okay?” Ygrite patted her on the head. “Dragena gave them the same ces of survival as the rest of our troops. No foul, although if it were up to me, I wouldn’t be so kind.”

  “Or farsighted,” Alpha said. “No wonder your pack is a mess.”

  “Hey, I got a superpowered vict that wants to join me! ’t say the same about your pack, sister.”

  “Yes, you ’t, sister. Trash gravitates to trash.”

  “Alpha.” Janine swallowed. “Kaisa saved my son.”

  The heavy look turo her, and Alpha ed her o examiwo warlords and a sword saint ready to front her. Her arms didn’t move, and Alpha g Kaisa briefly before shrugging.

  “There could be rough gems anywhere. Right, Ygrite?”

  “Your truth, Alpha,” Ygrite quickly answered, obeying the flogging intonation of the sentence.

  “Question.” Bertruda exhaled, and Alpha nodded. “What about the research facilities?”

  “Oh, we raided those,” Ygrite said eagerly. “You should’ve heard Till Ingo’s wailings about ‘barbarian appropriation’ of his precious projects. We stripped the pces except for several of his immediate projects a everything we could into Stormfiend uhe supervision of your kin.”

  “Immediate?” Janine’s ears perked. “Are you tellihat bastard is still here?! Why didn’t you break his everything and package him? Ingo is far too valuable to die here!”

  “Yeah, let’s put sve colrs oupid minors and terrify them, but ighe people who actually matter for everyone’s survival,” Martyshkina agreed.

  “I wao.” Ygrite lifted her paws, stepping back from the advang sisters. “But his bodyguard is hitting really hard…”

  “How do you still exist, sister?” Alpha asked. “he matter. Until ter.”

  The mobile fortress drove up to the emptied airport and disged its passengers. The civilians weren’t given time to stretch their legs, and officers rushed to form them up and escort them through the eastern gates, where several protected voys prepared to move them. Under Dragena’s supervision and with assistance from the local forces, the massive uaki smoothly and swiftly.

  Aside from the Iable, whiinated much of the airport, several other aircraft nded here. Elegant and sleek VTOLs from Iterna waited for their ees brought in by the voy, and a group of problemseically enhanced soldiers, formed a line, all dressed in simir blue, deceptively thin-looking body armor. Their serene faces peered through the visors of their helmets, free of any imperfe, let alone a scar.

  “I’d thought you’d already be in Iterna,” Ygrite ughed, extending a paw to Jacob. Immediately, a problemsolver dashed to them, not toug the warlord’s paw, but his helmet sed it for dangers. “Don’t worry, kiddo, these are for enemies only.”

  “And miss a repe of a lifetime? No.” Jacob bravely shook her paw; two orb drones buzzing in the air quickly filmed it. “Say, if you have…”

  “No,” Jaerrupted him. “Jacob, I know this is ued and perhaps rude, and I want to emphasize that I address you as a fellow human, not as a warlord or an official.” She pursed her lips, unsure how to proceed. “We have families with infants with us. If that is not too much to ask, could your birds take at least several to safety?”

  “The decision is not up to me.” Jacob’s face darkened. “But I’ll ask the captain. It should not viote the Noninterfere.”

  “Thank you.”

  “What…” Alpha interrupted, her lips curling to bare fangs, her eyes fixed on a siOL standing to the west of the crawler. “Are you mad t that into our try, Iternian?”

  “I am not sure I uand…”

  “Don’t py coy with me, Iternian!” Alpha glowed, taking a step and positioning herself before the warlords. She paid no attention to the Problemsolver’s hand moving to his rifle. “We have treaties. That should’ve never set foot in our nds. Is…” A unicator buzzed in her ear, and Alpha tilted her head, pressing her ear to her shoulder, denying Jahe ce to hear. The stro warlrowled but eased her tension. “Fair enough, sir. Sorry, Jacob, the higher-ups are aware.”

  “Aware of what?” The reporter turo the VTOL. “You said foot. It is a person, then? Who is there?”

  “Nothing,” Alpha said, monit the transport. “Nothing that isn’t permitted.”

  Martyshkina wao inquire more, but Janine grabbed her friend’s head and forced her to look at a bed bird of the night. The Oathtakers’ pne needed a full runway to nd or take off, but it was still a feat of their engineering iy and the first perfectly funing manned aircraft produced by the Recmation Army’s rivals sihe Extin.

  A figure easily matg Ravager’s size stood beside it, covered in power armor of an utterly dark color. Lenses resembling twin pools of molteal watched the surroundings, and maglocks cmped a cleaver the length of a truck to its back. For a sed, the ooth curves caused Jao mistake the newer for Dominator, the stro New Breed of the far nation, but then she calmed herself, reizing the helmet stylizing after a dragon head and the edals or honor symbols. Ur-Champion. Servant to the Big Three, a warrior of rare physical prowess that eclipsed even Alpha in a pure slugfest. A warlord’s syer, a butcher of twenty-five shamans, and a merciless bane of the Order.

  Bertruda’s paw instinctively began pointing Elega the man, and Martyshkina prepared to take her revolver. Janine elbowed both women at the backs of their heads and twirled a finger arouemple.

  Sagas would’ve been sung about the one who would’ve felled that Malformed and the blood price called for his head, but he wasn’t an enemy. Even prior to the peace, Ur-Champion walked into the Recimers’ nds, returning lost cubs taken captive by mistake as thanks for the Wolfkins’ rescue of his own citizens. On that day, the blood debt had disappeared, and the Tribe gained a grudging respect for his tenacity in the face of Alpha’s cws.

  Wolfkins, shamans, wolf hags, and Ice Fangs gred at the man longingly, and Kaisa even drooled, imagining the glory earhrough defeating him. Alpha gave the man a quiod and shook her head when he poio the cleaver, deing the offer to a bout to the disappointed gasps of every Wolfkin and the Normies’ surprised gnces. Jacob clicked his tongue, watg the VTOL alongside Alpha, while Janine’s eyes were on the small figure beside the giant’s leg, a figure that looked like a starving cub protected by a fierce mother.

  Her heart pounded like a drum in her chest, Janine’s eyes widened, and she forcefully ed Marty’s head, briefly overp her friee the support Marty’s suit gave her. She heard the gasp, and the woman’s paws twitched, and her nose srying to catch the st of a person not carrying any…

  “Lyudochka!” Janine and Martyshkina cried out, grinning wildly as the metal legs ran towards them.