Unfortunately, the sword saint refused to remain silent, but Janine ignored her, eyeing the crowded hall partment that ected to the medical bay. This was a waiting area of sorts, and lightly wounded soldiers, settlers, and those waiting their turn for scheduled procedures sat in chairs, pying cards, or chatting. Kaisa sat o her siblings, deliberately ign them. Clearly, she dismissed Janine’s advice about apologizing, but at the very least there were no fresh cuts on Kirk’s hide or new bruises on her sister and brothers. Cub steps, Janine, cub steps. Terrific also worked very hard to make a w unit out of you.

  “Grab a token, any token,” Bogdan said.

  Her sons dragged several tables close together and ihe children from Just Peachy to watch their py. Some cubs had minor injuries, but the majority were unharmed, anxiously awaiting news from the doctors about their parents. Several transports of the Sed will take them and their treated parents off the Iable in the ing days and escort them to the Core Lands uhe prote of the elite regiments. ander Devourer has hose who have lost both their parents, sons and daughters of the Sed, and the best teachers and civilian workers stood ready to help these youths.

  As of now, soda and proper meals, brought from the ruined settlement, littered two tables. However, the excited cubs fixed their gazes ohird table, where Ignacy held out five tokens of varying values, while Bogdan covered his eyes with a paw, pretending not to look. A mutant girl took a Dynast token, a minted ring worth five tokens.

  “Is that your token?”

  “Yes,” the girl said shyly. In pce of one ear, she had a gray tentacle that reached to her shoulder.

  “Then don’t tell me what it is; drop it in the bag and prepare for a miracle!” Bogdan said cheerfully, and the girl obliged, pg the Dynast token into a paper bag held by the Wolfkin. “Now pay attention, everyone. Many people cim the Wolf Tribe knows magic…” Bogdan fiddled with the bag before the curious eyes, and the slipped from a prepared cut into his paw. He blew into the bag, and it exploded, spreading pieces over the gathering. “And wouldn’t you know it, It is true!”

  “The token is in your mouth!” The children accused him, and the soldier leaned forward, opening his mouth so they could i his fangs. “Not there! Where?! Cheater! He swallowed it!”

  “It’s right here.” Bogdan pulled the token from uhe girl’s tentacle. “Here, little one. A gift from the Spirits! You want to be impressed?” He asked the small crowd, and more than one cub cpped their hands in anticipation. “I am somewhat of a stylish juggler.” Bogna pulled ay shardgun’s tainer g from under a table and tossed it into the air. “Now it is not a difficult trick…” He added another g and juggled them with one paw. “…I tell by your rea. A really skilled juggler do this and even look away,” Bogdan said, never breaking eye tact from the empty gs.

  Janine gri hearing the giggles, uanding what her son was doing. The cubs were scared, worried, taken to an unfamiliar pce, and surrounded by the soldiers and the Wolfkins. Her boys had their own ways of calming down such a crowd. Bertruda asked something, but to her, the sword saint’s words were just an annoying buzz, and the warlord decided to enjoy the show.

  “But two seems a little too easy, am I right, cubbies?” Bogdan grinned and took a third metal g from his pocket. “Watd be amazed as I pce a third oo the pattern!” The crowd erupted in ughter, and some even spilled their drinks as Bogdan used his free paw to hold the third g behind the ones he was juggling. “Cool, yeah? Ain’t no one match it…” The gs dropped from his paws as he spotted Ignacy easily juggli gs while winking at the cubs. “What a tasteless show-off.” Bogdan shook his head at the children’s thunderous ughter. Even some soldiers alers joined in on the fun.

  Bogdan spun and fronted a child who remained silent. “Now why are you silent, little ohe cub, a boy who had a regur eye and a pincer instead of one hand, kept silence, and the Wolfkin slipped uhe table and y on his stoma front of him. “Don’t make me make puppy eyes,” he said, his amber eyes peering up at the child’s face from below.

  “Mom…” the boy’s lips trembled. “I miss her. A screamer ripped her arm off. Will she be okay?”

  “Of course she will!” Kirk grabbed the boy and sat him on his back. “She’ll get an awesome, shiny new prosthetic!” He grimaced and patted his rider. “Don’t touch my e-ears, please; they h-hurt a bit. Hold on to the n-neck; it’s sturdy!”

  “What is a prosthetic?” asked a tiny girl, putting a finger in her mouth.

  “It’s a plex pieaery that is surgically impnted into the body. Its sensors and wires are ected directly to the nerves and…” Ignacy began expining.

  “It is a metallic limb, like the one my brother has!” Bogdan interrupted and cpped his paws. “An unrivaled might, capable of pung holes in walls! Imagine how awesome it is to have such a toy! A gleamial form, housing tons of fantastic tools! Ignacy, show the fming sword!”

  “Is it wise…”

  “Fming sword! Fming sword!” the crowd ted, and Ignacy smiled, taking a step back. He swung his metal arm dramatically around as his paw transformed into the fmethrooi the ceiling. But only a small fire appeared, ner than a finger.

  “You may be w why we have a fming fart instead of a fming sword,” Bogdan addressed the audience. “So am I. What the Abyss, Ignacy?”

  “Built-in safety systems,” Ignacy said. “Back to the juggling!”

  Jani better as Kirk’s brother and sister joined Elzada iertaining the Normies’ cubs. Bogdan was a miracle worker. Despite his reluce to even g the sitting Kaisa, Kirk’s shaking had subsided. He even asked Bogdan to teach him how to spit two gs into the air, and the two males amused the crowd by firing up their projectiles and catg them in their mouths, until Kirk actally swallowed oo the cubs’ appuse. He boermitted the little oo ride him. The supportive work of friends gave the male another ce at living a fulfilling life, and Janine wished him well and a mate t him dozens of cubs to raise.

  The Dragena and Alpha packs sent their representatives to end those who alongside their rades. A wolf hag from the Alpha Pack grabbed a quiet Anji by the shoulder and sat her down, calmly telling her something. Kaisa raised an eyebrow at such a sign of weakness but, surprisingly, didn’t mock or provoke her rival. Physical healing could only go so far. Even the Wolfkins occasionally required care to tiheir jourhrough life.

  We are kin. All of us.

  An Iigation Bureau agent came over and thahe group for babysitting the children. He joihe group, asking questions and typing in the children’s o eheir safety during transportation.

  “Degees! Morons!” Chak arrived, his needle-sharp legs tapping as he led a host of Wolfkins from various packs, including three Ice Boys. Bertruda finally shut up, widening her crimso the military police esc the group. None of the newers had any injuries, but their prosthetics sparked from disrepair. “You have been graeological marvels, and you dare treat them like an afterthought? Do you even know how much it cost, you flea-ridden, ingrate idiots?” Chak rose to the ceiling and turned his upper body to face the two Wolfkins. One was an Ice Boy, the other a member of Ygrite’s pack. Both growled, frustrated at the insults. “And don’t you dare raise voices, pathetic mists! I don’t need ao teach you a lesson you won’t fet!”

  Janine chuckled, earning a stern look from Bertruda, who quickly turo gre at the Order’s Wolfkins, uanding that one of them was from her household. After seeing the state of the artificial limbs in Ygrite’s pack, Jani straight to the captain and voiced her s about the risk to the soldiers’ health and the potential hindran a bat situation. Cristobo promised to rectify the situation and ordered Chak to duct a full iion. Upon finding any damage or malfuning in a limb, the soldier was dragged to the medical bay to be checked for a potential iion.

  Even seeing so many of her own kind here, it was f to know that the Ice Boys weren’t so fwless either. And it was somewhat adorable to see a white-furred boy lose his temper like his cousin.

  “Shouldn’t you be resting, Chief Quartermaster? Surely, someone else could take on this task,” Janine asked ily.

  “In this mess?” Chak grumbled, watg over the group like a worried mother hen in fear of losing her chicks. “If warlords and sword saints ’t trol their ranks, then fine, I’ll be a good boy and solve this problem properly, not permitting any coddling for these insipid meatheads and ensuring that my men have a sembnce of rest at my expense.”

  Huh-huh, you only want to sleep beside one woman only, bastard. Jahought sourly. There was another reason why Chak had e here.

  A syic voice called their names, and they ehe medical bay, greeted by a thick smell of ahetics. The stench was s that Janine frowned and asked a group of medics to assist Bertruda. Activity was in full swing ihe partment. Doctors used automatic drills and saws to cut pieolten stone aal from the patients; oiled hard, fighting to stop bleeding and rescue the less severely wounded; medical equipment beeped loudly as the horribly burned and maimed bodies stubbed by tless sensors floated in life-preserving capsules—everything told that the poor personnel hadn’t had an easy night so far.

  Wolf Hag Sarkeesian was being atteo by two doctors who were busy installing peared to be a set of industrial drills into her fangless maw. The wall beside her was transparent, showing Dragena, dressed in a green robe and wearing medical goggles, who led an autopsy on a raider’s corpse. Ashbringer and Onyxia observed the procedure. Curious, Janine approached the gss, for the first time seeing her enemies naked as they hung in the cold ste.

  Males and females shared simirities: a vast excess of fat on a well-built body. She could tell, despite their missing limbs and gaping wounds, that the excess fat on their well-built bodies was not the result of a det lifestyle. Their limbs were estic, their upper bodies bent easily, and their shoulders were on an even level. There was no sign of the scoliosis so on iary, farming, or mining lifestyles. These were warriors born for quest—New Breeds who evolved from the Normies, but some were bigger than the rest.

  Dragena cut open the arms, examining the hardy muscles that allowed the raiders to prove such a threat to the Wolfkins males. Ihe chest were an enrged heart and two lungs—nothing out of the ordinary for a New Breed. Till Ingo’s student poi the boructure, drawing the warlord’s attention to the simirities to bulls and cusacks, a body shape that distributed kiic damage evenly around the skin, shielding the head and the rest of the body from the most vicious collisions. Dragena thahe man and tihe post-mortem examination, i every secret from the corpses.

  Onyxia picked up a discarded stomach, s, and tasted the tents.

  “This hydrochloric acid easily break dowals. No trace of human flesh, familiar meat, unknown drinks… Not ibals,” Onyxia decred, tossing the an back. “There is nothing for me to work with. We need a prisoner. Had I’d been in the field, supetence wouldn’t have happened…”

  “But you weren’t,” Ashbringer said. “You talk a lot about inpetence for someone who was too te to ahe call. Is that an example you want to set for future geions, or are you going senile from old age?”

  Onyxia bnkly stared at her named sister, filling Jah unease. Even for a warlord, Ashbringer’s words reeked of frivolity when spoken to a first-geion sister. But then the shadow warlhed: “True! Rude, but true!”

  “I speak how it is,” Ashbringer said. “Don’t deal in whats; deal in the here and now.”

  “Leave someone alive ime, Janine,” Onyxia said, grinning. “Pretty please.”

  “Enough, sisters.” Dragena quickly gave a nod to Janine aruda and resumed her gruesome business. “The situation did not allow enough room for maneuvering. Janine performed the mission exemprily. You heard names, and we know that the prey was trying to capture civilians to sell them. We saw the vehicles and the beasts they used. Thanks to Onyxia, we know they aren’t ibals. Judging by the use of ons and power armor, they have an industrial base of sorts. Plenty of information from one enter. Set packs loose, get svers, make them sing. Someone, somewhere, knows about this Gilded Horde. Take note,” she said to a nearby nurse, “of the simirity of their ans. My theory is that rather than evolving from an actal exposure to the glow, they are a group of New Breeds.”

  “Please follow me,” asked a medid Bertruda and Janine obliged.

  On their way, they came across the mauled male from Camelia’s pack. The beast’s brutal smming had rendered part of his body paper thin, and the poor soul still lived thanks to the maes in the emergen. His amber eyes pleaded for a swift release of death, but his healer was of another opinion.

  “I don’t recall giving you permission to die under my and, soldier,” Camelia said. “Perhaps you will refresh my memory ter over a cup of tea.”

  The Sword Saint dohe green medical hazmat suit and operated on the Wolfkin, moving far faster than most automatic maes, surgically joining torn arteries. Camelia’s paws blurred over the patient, and Jahe Gear, as patients had called the sword saint before, in a. All sword saints had performed one of many spiritual tasks prior to accepting their title. First had cimed two hundred lives in a span of twenty heartbeats, fulfilling the Quest of the Death Bringer. Bertruda had supposedly fihe Quest of passion, whivolved surrendering her earthy possessions and serving half a year as a simple borer in the poorest soup kits. Camelia had pleted the Oath of Healing, dedig her life to mastering the arts of medie, and she tio practice even after achieving her rank.

  What should have been done by a team of experts, Camelia did on her own. She ed the wounds from the bone dust, stopped the bleeding, and worked on the ruined ans, preparing them for artificial rept.

  Jani a sense of relief when she spotted Anissa resting in a bed, her slightly swollen right eye socket now adorned with a crimson eye. During the operation, the surgeon had removed the fur around her right eye, giving the wolf hag a rather ridiculous appearance, as if someone had given her an impressive bck eye. Her eyelid had a bit of trouble closing around the metal, and a dently pushed the camera deeper in its shell.

  The doctors had pleted the most difficult part of the operation, reviving and eg the long damaged optierve to the artificial eye. Now only the lone doctor and Marco were with Anissa. Marco was retelling Bogdan’s jokes in a crag void kept asking if his sister felt as if she had lost a part of her soul yet, to which she ughed and answered that all was fihe boy also assisted the doctor by showing his sister images from a medical terminal. Anissa used her meical eye to tell if she could see the image clearly or not, and the doctor adjusted if blurriness hindered her vision.

  This was just the first part of the recovery process. Ohe artificial eye was calibrated enough for static pictures, Anissa will have to undergo grueling training to test her vision on fast-moving targets.

  “I wait until you check up on your daughter,” Bertruda offered.

  “Drop the small talk!” Janine growled, walking toward her destination. “Wolf Hag Anissa is perfectly fine and in good pany. To suggest that any Wolfkin needs fort is an insult to the tribe! We weather any peril without a world of pint!”

  “What about it, then?” Bertruda coughed and elegantly pointed a finger.

  Warlord Eled had airely different situation. Maxend his crew teo her, removing her remaining eye as the warlord’s granddaughter held her by the paw. A ed rept, two yellow orbs, waited in a bubbling vat. Such was their value that imperfe was not allowed for the sword saints and warlords.

  Arms, legs, internal ans—ed parts of their bodies rested ie. Uerna, ing limbs in the Recmation Army were obsely expensive, but the state spared no expense, paying astronomical costs so a maimed A-ew Breed could be returo the field in a matter of months instead of years.

  “Shit. I liked my previous set of eyes,” Eled pined as a metal appendage slid underh the space between her eye and the socket.

  “Then you shouldn’t have acted like a careless bum and actually paid attention to the battlefield,” her granddaughter yawned.

  “Hey! Weren’t you supposed to provide fort and care?”

  “Care, yeah. fort, Abyss, no. I ain’t no pussy. Wanna water?”

  “Ungrateful pup! I lie on my deathbed and you dare speak so harshly? Bring me booze so I drown my sorrows for helping to raise such a fiend!”

  “No booze,” Maxence said, operating the maniputor and pulling out the damaged eye.

  “Merciless tyrant! I may be dying here! What if I never be able to py a harp again!”

  “Stop being so dramatic,” Eled’s granddaughter asked.

  “Never!”

  “You are doing it to embarrass me. Doc, is there any ce you prescribe her suppository vitamins?”

  “What?! My own flesh and blood! Doctor, I am a warlord; I order you to prescribe her suppository pills.”

  “Will you two shut up?” Maxence pressed a button and cutters moved closer to the nerves and arteries eg the extracted eye to the body.

  Blushing from shame, Janine dragged the chug sword saint after herself to the west side, where the situation was calmer, and they paused before the doors leading to the rejuvenation chamber. With a soft hiss, the door opened, revealing First and Alpa suspended iwo great spheres. Both leaders curled into a fetus position and were submerged in the restorative fluids, receiving a more advanced form of rejuvenation than the ohat was avaible for shamans and sages. The tter received a rejuvenation iion, but the former had every cell in their body turn younger under a more sophisticated process.

  Whereas First was elegant even noha had trouble fitting inside her own sphere because of the oversized cws. Her crimson hair covered her like a cloak.

  The spheres opehe sensor needles left the patients’ bodies, and the two nded, one as nimble as a dahe other shaking the floor like an artillery shell. A torrent of fluid spread on the flathering in recesses. First spread his arms, letting the nurses wipe him , while Alpha k so a nurse could tie up her hair in a topknot.

  “Marvelous, simply marvelous job.” First smiled. “Ah, the procedure is always so stimuting! My friends, you have outdone yourselves. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Sweetest Alpha, I have procured a bottle of wine from the fabled Sol’s Vineyard, no less! How about you and I share it in privacy?”

  “Don’t care,” Alpha responded. “Go and drink yourself to death alone.”

  “Such a taste is not meant to be enjoyed with a the dearest friends!” First’s fur had dried up, and he bowed to Janine aruda, inviting two squares to dress him in his voluminous white, purple and golden robes. “Midy Alpha, just imagine orbital ptforms cirg around the very sun itself, built for the sole purpose of produg the fi beverages iire system. Its numerous ptforms, doomed during the Extin, rained down upon the p, and its noble gifts, created by some of the fi winemakers, remain highly sought even today. A mere sip of it reminds me of meeting a sunny m in my mother’s arms… It brings tears to my eyes and joy to my soul! In sions, you buy aire isnd for a sitle of this beautiful drink!”

  “I am trying to quit smoking, First. Repg orimental habit with another is hardly a beneficial trade-off. Shut your trap and join me in the aer if you are ready to be useful. We o find out who these bastards were aheir skin off, piece by piece.”

  “You have but to ask, my fearsome dy!” The grandmaster of the Order took Alpha’s clothes from the nurses and hurried to help her dress.

  Good lud all, but couldn’t you find anyone… less bitchy? Janine wondered, entering the first sphere, and the sensor needles pierced the skin close to her spihe Spirits knew she was temperamental, but at this point, it was hard not to be sad about First’s courtship of Alpha. And no one could quite uand why. Alpha wasn’t beautiful: she cked fur, her cws were the terrifying uractable rending talons, and she had a foul temper. And then there was First, someone who made breath stay still even in the females of the Wolf Tribe, alleasant and ready to help, with impeccable swordsmanship.

  Alpha loved might. Be it physical strength, cleverness of mind, stubbornness of self-improvement, or the ability to stand up after the most humiliati. Her sense of duty was unparalleled; her pack held ae rank by right, but Janine doubted that someone as First could ever win her heart. The two simply had nothing in on aside from being trusted rades in arms.

  Jaook a deep breath and curled into a ball as the sphere closed and the rejuvenation solution began filling in. She experienced a brief moment of panic while breathing ihick liquid, but her lungs adapted, and the process of rejuvenation began.

  Age was not for someone like her.

  Rejuvenation. A teology developed shortly before the Extin. It reversed the aging of cells within an anism, granting agelessness. At set intervals mandated by the medics, all warlords, shamans, sages, and sword saints, along with a few exceptionally valuable New Breeds, like Anji, were to undergo this procedure aurn to the prime of their lives. In this New World, the New Breeds, like Bertruda and Janine, were valued more than automatic ons as they were mobile, thinking ons of quest capable of single-handedly carrying out the Dynast’s will. To eheir loyalty, they received numerous bes and exemptions, but as with all positive things, there were also drawbacks. Their soulmates grew older, breaking their partners’ hearts as nature took its course. To see your own cubs grow older than you, to see them dead before you, to see your dear rades wither and die, leaving you all alone on the road to a better future… It wouheir hearts like no spear ever could. This, too, art of their sacrifice to the state.

  Broken? She remembered Ravager’s words. I am whole, Blessed Mother. A hunk of steel fed into a sword for the state. I am plete and my destiny is set. But you? You are a sea of gems, scattered from a secure case, precious beyond all worth, and once assembled and dispyed, priceless.

  Closing her eyes, Janine has allowed the maes to work, let her sce wander into the past, remembering her soulmates once more, and they greeted her, smiling, ed, or happy. I am sorry, blood of my soul. I ’t open my heart to another yet or join you. Five me, for there is a journey ahead of me.