“Take whatever you want and leave our people out of it!” Jeaood up to the hulking brute.

  It had all happened so fast. Just fifteen minutes ago, she and the vilge elder were discussing the celtion of the festival in the P’s honor. Yes, this year’s harvest had been quite bountiful, but it felt awful to celebrate and rejoice when Just Peachy had been so badly affected. She still remembered watg the news and seeing suffocated children being pulled from uhe rubble. It g her soul and Jeahe abbess of St Helen’s Church, had decided to act.

  Truth be told, she wasn’t much of an abbess. She and another nun teo the spiritual needs of eight hundred people, half the popution of her vilge of Dores. A modest church, built by the inal settlers, watched over their home like a loving mother from a hill above. She had never left this pot on her life. Ever sihe former abbot had found a g infant on his doorstep and raised her as his own daughter, Jeanne had devoted her entire life to the faith, debating the diviure of the dynast with the locals and dissuading them from the heresy that was sweeping the rural areas. Often she and the nun helped gather harvests, preferring to earn their keep and share the hardships of their flock than live off donations.

  Dores wasn’t a poor pce, and its vilgers were a hardw and passionate bunch. They proudly agreed to skip the festival in favor of sending charity funds to the less fortunate souls ier Lands.

  But today everything ged. A host of violent-looking thugs had arrived, thankfully not harming anyone. A few members of her flock, including non-believers, had rushed into the church, bringing their children, and she had weled them all ahem into the vast catabs left over from the time of the Extin. Repaired and ed, they served as a tourist attra. Even now, the nun was guiding them through the secret passages to a forty kilometers from the vilge, where they would hopefully reach Houstad unharmed. Jeahe vilge elder, and the stable greeted the lost souls trespassing in their homes. There were still vilgers here, and it was their duty to keep them safe.

  “Pretty house,” a bald man softly hummed, examining the is and the yellow-painted symbol of a p above the prayer altar. The man pushed past them and touched the i, showing the world turning from a barren wastend back to green. “Ah. Not actual gold. Keep this shit.” His eyes found her. “I am Caikhatu. My people have noticed a rge crowd running in here. Fear not; as your new khan, I will sell no oo svery nor touch a single girl. Any of my men and women who dare do so will burn.” He gnced lovingly at the rich fields outside. “Iron Lord spoke true. Siding with Mad Hatter was well worth it. Such succe! Richer than home, safer thaeppes! A worthy pce to establish a khaganate!”

  “If it is a peaceful life you desire, then disarm yourself, and I shall vouch for the Dynast before you. The state weles all,” Jeanne said calmly, trying to ignore a mutant woman dressed in a cloak of fyed animal skins. Upon notig a small, stretched, and undeniably mutant fa this horrid tapestry, she csped her hands together. “May the Pake you to a happier life, little one,” she said, weeping for the lost.

  “I am not little, heretic.” The woman in the cloak stepped closer, the dangliishes at her neck apanying her every move. “This you pray for?” She lifted the hem of her cloth. “My child it is. The Sky had stolen his breath and elevated him to his abode. Dare not sullying his soul through your ting!” A hand ending in curved talons reached for the abbess. When the stable stepped forward, the woman sshed, cerating the brave man’s face.

  The mutant’s long nose seamlessly flowed into an ever-closed beak that had very human, stantly sniffing nostrils. Her legs were back-jointed; one foot had only two fingers and was covered in thick, robust skin, giving it the appearance of an oversized chi foot, and occasional feathers covered the woman’s body.

  “These are my people you have harmed, Jiguur.” Caikhatu frowned, putting his hand on a sword’s hilt. “Do it again, and I’ll reunite your wretched hide with your boy.”

  “Threatening me, are you!?” The woman turned so fast that the hem of her cloak spped Jeanne hard enough to bruise her. Rage-filled eyes met Caikhatu’s calm gaze. “Wretch of Iron Lord. Fotten you about the gifts Brood Lord Khan has id before you! Like shreds on the wind your ilk are, flying from one master to another! It’s not tolerahe Khatun preach! You lot are failiest by not murdering or selling the infidels! Rusted your Khan has bee!”

  “It is for Khatun and Iron Lord to decide. You will address my master with the respect given to him by…” Caikhatu choked, g at his own throat as Jiguur raised her hand, her talons twitg. The flesh on Caikhatu’s neck bulged, the muscles of his throat torted, denying him air as if an unseen ring colred him. The man’s body rose and his legs helplessly dangled, not toug the wooden pnks.

  “Fool and dumb you are! I give respect when it is deserved. You!” The crazed eyes found Jeanne. “Know of God?”

  “We believe in the P in this humble church,” Jeanne said, bending down and tearing a piece of cloth from her robe to stop the stable’s bleeding. “There are many different faiths in the Recmation Army…”

  “Heresy all!” Jiguur roared, pointing a fi Jeanne.

  The abbess had never fought in her entire life. The closest she had ever experieo a brahen a drunk smmed his fist into her face, knog her unscious. But what smmed into her in the chest was far worse. A series of cracks apahe immense agony of her very breasts dented into her body, and her left arm went limp. A faint cry of pain escaped Jeanne’s lips when invisible fingers cruelly grasped her sides, breaking her ribs one by one. An unknown force jerked her from the floor, shoving her belly against her iines. A silver neckce ed itself around her neck, f a gibbet’s noose and robbing her of any attempt to breathe.

  Jiguur approached, still pointialoned fi the abbess.

  “Oblivious you are, Shaman.” The at. “Many faiths? How e you have no gifts, then? False shepherd! Too feeble to resist, too weak to protect! Look how the Sky has treated me! Gift after gift I was given, because my deity wooed my aors and earhe loyalty of their children forevermore. Where is the power of your demon, weakling?”

  “I have no need for strength, for I wish no subjugation,” Jeanne whispered after the neckce’s lock loosened enough for her to breathe. “To treat others as we wish to be treated, to build a world of uanding and peace—these are the teags of the P. It leads us to a world where everywhere …”

  “Words of the meek, infirm, and impotent! A world for everyone is a world ready to stumble and fall!” Jiguur ughed. “Small wohe Sky has unleashed a tornado upon your nds. The strong rule, the weak obey, and your sheepish faith won’t save you. Worry not. Your children we’ll strengthen. Proud they’ll be, believers and querors. Tell me about the preteell me about God! Where is the one who tortures the Avatar of Heaven hiding?”

  “I have no idea…” The neckce coiled around her neck, every biting deep, and a single movement of Jiguur’s eyes spttered the mayor and the stable against the walls.

  “Burn you will, but utter a word of falsehood, and I shall see your people exterminated with cruelty, deserving a legend! Your false idols…”

  The roof exploded, sending down wooden beams and stone ks. In a fsh, Jiguur cast Jeanne aside like a doll, raising her cwed hands to stop the rubble from squashing her. Jeanne flew across the room, preparing to endure a spine shattering nding against a wall and the agony that would follow as the edges of her broken bones kissed her lungs.

  Something—no, someoopped her flight. Two metal hands grasped the woman’s body, and a gigantic shadow dark red armor spun to carefully diffuse the impact carrying the abbess as they desded. The flroaned uhe newer’s immense weight when steel greaves thudded, and a giant Wolfkin lowered Jeanne on a bench, exposing her back to the enemy.

  Jeanne had seen them on the news. Uheir more cultured retives, the Wolf Tribe were supposedly rude and arrogant people, and several television broadcasts had bmed them for turning a ret robbery into a bloody massacre. Not a single member of their tribe had seen fit to ahe journalists’ questions, telling them icily: ‘No ent.’ But when the helmet slipped from the person’s head, exposing an elongated head covered in very silky fur— the strands adorned with a yer of ash—and glowing amber eyes, Jeahought she was saved.

  “False gods?” the warrior inquired in a dignified and bored voice. “If they are false, then who sent me on a path to avenge crimes itted, Shaman?”

  “You dare!?” Jiguur shrieked. The wooden beams around her splintered, and a spiky storm desded upon the Wolfkin. “I am a priest of the Sky! The sole true deity in this wazes through my eyes! Shaman?! For insulting me, you have earned a divine punishment!”

  The sharp wood splinters of wood and stone pieces struck the warrior, and she paid them no more attention than a normal person would to a sprinkle of water, raising a gau hand to shield her eyes. Tongues of fme hissed from the barrels of the massive ons strapped to the Wolfkin’s wrists, and searing streams poured down on the shaman.

  Jiguur ughed madly, half chuckle, half shriek, weling the challehe heat stopped short of her body and circled her head like a halo. The shaman cmped her hands together, and the fire flew backwards, spshing against the Wolfkin’s head and momentarily obsg it from view.

  “You threateo burn a citizen?” the voice asked, unburdened by the heat. Jiguur’s eyes widened in and she twisted her hands, squeezing out an invisible rag. The warrieous power suit shuddered, but withstood the assault. “Experie yourself.”

  Almost zily, the Wolfkied her ons, and Jiguur raised her arms, seeking to shield herself again as a blue inferno at in her face, overwhelming her every attempt. Jeanne had no idea if Jiguur’s strength had failed or if there was some provide work, but the wall of hellish fme engulfed the woman, drawing a long, desperate cry of pain as she was carried several paces away. She fell, rolling, screaming and mindlessly g at the benches in a futile attempt to save herself.

  It horrified the abbess. The scream, fading with the ck of oxygen, the skin crag and bing, the clothes burnt to ashes. What happeo the woman’s eyes, she didn’t even dare to imagine, and Jearied to stand ao her knees from the broken ribs.

  “Deliverance,” she ushered in a weak voice, fag the amber eyes. “Mercy. Show mercy.”

  The Wolfkin closed in on Jiguur and lifted a leg, stomping down so hard that it broke both the burning body and the floor. Caikhatu and the others slipped off the walls as the force that had held them suspended vanished after the shaman’s death. Screams and yells came from outside, and dozens of legs annouhe raiders’ approach. Caikhatu’s warriors charged inside, aiming guns at the Wolfkin, and were stopped by their leader’s gesture.

  “I…” He coughed, struggling to stand up. “Have no desire to die. None of my warriors touched even a hair on the locals. Jiguur, she is not ours; Dantai had rotted her brains…”

  “Yet yht her.” The Wolfkin’s cws scraped the raider’s get, drawing lines close to his face. “My pack has this pce surrounded. Do you yield?”

  “I…” Caikhatu licked his lips. “Do not know the word’s meaning. on is difficult.”

  “Do you surrender?” The Wolfkin rolled her eyes.

  “Yes. Spare us, and our loyalty is yours, Khan.” The man bowed.

  “What is the worth of such a fleeting thing?” The Wolfki go of him. She picked up the stable and the mayor and carried them to the abbess’ side. “Do you have healers among your ranks, servant?”

  “We do, they are o keep uhy,” he faltered for a sed, calling for a hen, and the Wolfkin grunted. “Not everyone among us is so bold as to follow to the end of the world. We care nothing for sves or bondsmen; our desire was to find rids. Twe of my jagun I lost crossing your stronghold. If you promise us nds for our khaganate, our lives are yours, merciful Khan.”

  “Address me as Warlord Ashbringer,” the Wolfkin said and g the wounded. “Honored shaman, honored citizens. Rest and rex. We will take care of everything. You are safe. And you.” She faced Caikhatu. “Tell me everything about this horde of yours.”