Massive bastions separated the Core Lands from the Outer Lands. Manned by Provincial Army soldiers and led by retired veterans, these vast, sprawling rivers of reinforced crete and steel housed every on imaginable. Surface-to-air missiles, cealed artillery instaltions, sniper positions, and even chemical unchers slumbered withianic wall.

  Not a single scorched mark marred the proud surface. Troops in bunkers scattered across the rocky terrain before the wall repelled any occasional assault. Re teams regurly ventured into the wildo alert the defenders should arrays of radars and sensors be fooled. Seismic stations worked tirelessly ihe wall, trag sand reapers’ migrations.

  The dividing liweewions jarred Janine as the crawler approached the a gates, which opened, inviting the troops into the heartnd. Bleached sand and rock stretched northward, and a weary traveler would have to find shelter in the shadow of great mountains or have an advanced anti-heat suit to survive more than a day. The rare settlements were built he mio reduce the area that the local defense force had to protect.

  Ruins of the Old World could be found throughout the Wastes: skyscrapers leaned against mountains, debris from spaceships and space stations was buried underground, and abandoned cities, stripped of everything of value, created an eerie atmosphere for araveling through their wrecked streets and colpsed buildings.

  Merts led long caravans through shortcuts, findie in occasional oases where, in the shadows, trees touched by radiation or the glow stubbornly fought to survive. Priests and shamans of many faiths often built their sanctuaries there, safeguarding the new life with words and shotguns.

  Vilgers often earokens by w on farms, pces that no lrew vegetables but produced far more valuable resources. Meat, milk, and hides. Each farm had hundreds of smelly and docile cusacks kept safely within its walls. Cusacks, animals created in the boratory of the Old World, were omnivorous beasts; their immune systems easily fought off diseases carried by parasites; their tough hides made excelle-resistant clothing, and these hides were one of the primary materials used to make survival suits. They bred fast, gave milk in abundance, and survived even severe wounds. When an occasional natural disaster temporarily cut off a part of the Wastes, its inhabitants relied on the farms to survive.

  Years of peace softehe popution, and the wourader or lost traveler no longer faced the shut doors of a settlement. But perils still lurked in these nds. A careless press of a palm against a heated stone or metal resulted in a burn. At night, skinwalkers, the Wolfkins cimed by the Spirit e, prowled the nds, bringing woe to anyone who attracted the attention of these superhuman psychopaths. They often spoke in eloquent nguages, only to break into gibberish to surprise their pythings. Driven by pure desires, they could save and damn in equal measure.

  Janine once visited a vilge that worshipped such a fallen sister. The skinwalker fixed a water supply system, uhed an a boratory, and developed a cure for diseases that pgued the locals. Despite Janine’s warnings, the foolish Normies and mutants refused to believe her and worshipped their savior, allowio py with her young. A week ter, the skinwalker grew tired of pying the benevolent role and nearly massacred the entire vilge ihan a minute, only to be stopped by the warlord’s te intervention. The two fought for hours, but Janine never won this battle; the transformed scout had her fill of brawling a, regrowing the missing parts of her head.

  Madmen, ioids, predators, monsters, and sve traders’ crews hunted in the sands, often attag settlements aging in fierbat against the state’s troops. Quid, radiation fields, anomalies, and the Old World’s automated defenses waited to cim their share of lives. Sandstorms hurled boulders the size of a full-grown Normie that could spear a house from kilometers away, and occasionally toppled tall buildings that had survived the Extin. Every little one in vilges learned how to treat wounds, stay safe from the sun, and wield a firearm before learning how to write or speak properly. Ilements, the cubs received their first handgun at fourteen.

  Every day, long lines of trucks streamed out of the gates, bringing water, prosthetics, fresh soldiers, and medie to the Outer Lands. And from the Outer Lands, simir caravans moved in, delivering ore and relics found by highly protected excavation facilities, looming citadels that provided the highest paying jobs in the region. The army also escorted doctors from the Core Lands when the need arose.

  Such was the Wastes, the most civilized region ier Lands. Further north was the Ravaged Lands, a cesspool of stant infighting and war amongst myriad tries and tribes. The Blood Court warred against the Malformed; hundreds were burned alive monthly to satisfy cruel deities in the nds of the sve nation known as the Soultakers, and rumors abounded of Iron Men, aberrations who willingly shed their bodies to search for the wonders of old uhe cover of the fiercest sandstorms. The Dynast’s heel had yet to grind these maniaderh, and the Recmation Army focused on subduing the rest of the Wastes and seg the a stronghold in the Ravaged Lands.

  To the east of the Ravaged Lands y the borders of Pearl, a fast-growing city-state that thrived uhe eid ing leadership of its cil, which sold armaments into the Ravaged Lands. Iterna’s nds were far to the northwest of the war-tion, and these mysterious people expa a snail’s pace. The region known as the Desotion was in the distant north, and somewhere there was the facility from which the Dynast had rescued the tribe.

  The Land of the Oath was to the west of the Wastes and the Ravaged Lands, behind an enormously long mountain range. Several heavily fortified mountain passes ected the regions. The Oathtakers and the Recimers relutly accepted the reality that they could not triumph by the force of arms. Lyudochka, the adopted daughter of Martyshkina and Janine, had foolishly chosen to live there. The two warlords wrote old-fashioned letters to this unique woman, inquiring about her well-being and advice.

  And beyond the gates, there was another world. Fields of green grass, heavily modified to survive the harsh climate, rolled over the hills to the horizon to the south. Well-maintained paved roads were like blood vessels, teeming with civilian vehicles, unafraid of the monsters lurking behind the wall. Police officers formed a cordon to keep gapers away, but Janine and Marco spotted rare Iones, mutants, Normies and even Orais in the field, none of them carrying a on. These people lived iown closest to the border, aheir skins cked the usual tan.

  Night drew close and heavy clouds swirled overhead, and as Janine and Marped from the crawler into the soft grass, they experiehe greatest ge. Air. Its breeze didn’t carry sand and rock; it was cool, evele, so uhe overheated, lung-choking air of the north. Mother and son crossed the field on all fours, shocked at the ck of parasites amidst the green.

  “Mom!” Marco hushed, and Jaopped. He poio drops of water oems. “Did someone spill a bucket…”

  “No, Marco. Here, water is plentiful.” She ruffled his hair and she air. “Look! There, on a tree!”

  “What is it?” Marco asked eagerly, releasing his cws. A small body waved its fluffy tail, attempting to blend in with the tall branches. “A rat?”

  “A squirrel, I think,” Janine replied, trying to remember what she had learned from the educational materials.

  “It has such tiny cws and is so loud, Mom!” Marco ughed incredulously as the squirrel climbed up. “I hear its breathing from here! How did it survive for so long?”

  “The Terraformation Institute had recreated many creatures and released them into the wild,” Janine expined. She and Marco walked over to the tree, and with her permission, he pced a paw on its bark, opening his eyes wide as he examined unknown things. “Visual simirities and behavior aside, these animals have little in on with their extinct retives.” Janine raised her arm and caught the leaping animal, ign its furious chirping and scratg of feeble paws against her fur. She showed the animal to Mard threw it bato the tree. “Their muscles are tougher, and their immune system is better, so they won’t keel over when a passing wind brings radiation from beyond the wall. The grass and trees have undergone simir ges. Iterna wants to return the world to its inal state, but that is no longer possible.”

  “Why is that, Mom?” Marco asked, toug a flower with a d putting the tip in his mouth to taste the dew and sts.

  “Marco, you have seen the sand reapers,” she ughed and patted him. “There is urn to normalcy after it. The Recmation Army has embraced the iable ge, and brave women and men with ingenious minds have improved upodated designs t the animals of the Old World to the New. Should the folly of mankind... Our folly cause another extin; they may yet survive instead of dying out again.”

  “Why are we here?” Marco asked. “The sery is awesome, ho! But it is cold here…”

  “Endure,” Janine ordered him, sniffing the air, taking in tless fs, discarding the unimportant in seds and trating on the serious matter at paw. “Dangers exist even in these parts. And it is your duty to put ao what threatens tonight.”

  On the ridge of a rge hill, a trio of Normies prepared their equipment to film the passing crawler. Two more approached the Normies from the south. And in the crevices behind the hill, something stirred—something that had burrowed its way from the Outer Lands.

  Five bodies appeared in the open, shaking off the rocks and sand from their carapaces and leaving drops of slime to navigate their way back. These were ioid drones—creatures that stood on six stork legs. Their limbs were deceptively thin, but their sharp points splintered rock; a bullet could ricochet off the chitin c their bodies, and protruding mandibles could bite off the arm of even a female Wolfkin. The drones reached a meter ih.

  Ba the pits, the drones served as practice targets for the cubs. Uhe supervision of warriors and shamans, the little bck-furred rascals hunted down the drones, sg their first kill and earning a blessed reward from the power. The exercise served more than a simple show of strength; the weak and the feeble learo work together, and the strong learo be shields.

  Janine pyed the role of a protector tonight. She wore simple cargo pants and was shivering from the cold of the Core Lands. Marco crept to the edge of a yon, donned in the pantlegs of a basic suit that pletely encased his legs aended up to his waist. Bundles of artificial muscles tightly overpped the fur on his legs, like a sed skin. Janine had no luck finding gear so small in the armory, so she visited Sword Saint Camelia for help, who gdly obliged by calling the girl Marco often pyed with, who had a simir physique. Parts of Cordelia’s initiate suit adorned Marco’s legs.

  Janine rarely had to treat wounds herself. She khe basics, of course: how to stop bleeding and a stomach from poison, what medie to use against venom, and how to set a dislocated bone. She no lorusted herself to operate on a wounded or sick person uhe situation dema. It wasn’t just a ck of practice. When her fingers grew so big enough that she risked actally tearing her daughters’ mouths apart during the removal of a bad fang… She uood she should shut up, swallow her pride, and ask for help.

  But Jaill browsed medical tutorials and learned about how meical exoskeletons provided relief in cases involving broken or brittle bones. Unfortunately, the stant over-relian the maes will cause Marco’s dition to deteriorate gradually, but she hadn’t pnned on f him to wear the metal for months. Wheo power save mode, the pantlegs did not give Mar unfair advantage, but kept his knees and joints from b him too much.

  “Five,” Marco gulped nervously, grasping the knives’ handles, and Janine nodded in approval. Male Wolfkins had weaker cws and fangs, so they were permitted to use ons during the Rite of Passage. Many fot or were too ashamed to use this privilege, earning themselves pain and humiliation. Marco was wiser. “Isn’t it a bit too much?”

  “If you fail, the people on the ridge will die,” Janine said cruelly, holding both paws behind her back. “You do it. Marco,” she reassured him calmly as he nervously stepped to the edge. “Take a deep breath. You have plenty of time; this is not a race. Your oppos are is; they have a rudimentary intelligence, but in the end they are ruled by instinct. They are prey, g creativity, and you are a hurained since birth. Start with a distra. Pn for what yoing to do afterwards. There are many tools around us, ready to be wielded by our bodies. Aim your blows at their vulnerable parts.” Janine smiled when she saw a fsh of uanding in Marco’s eyes. She avoided giving him any direct hints about the uping hunt to preserve his pride. Spirits were her witnesses; her and Marty’s process had been a messy one, but they had learo be better over the years. “Good. Believe in yourself and stay cautious. Now feast to save the vulnerable, male of the Wolf Tribe.”