Day 23: Evening.

  Elzada.

  “Right in here, Miss…”

  “The name’s Elzada.” She waved the officer away, sniffing the route.

  Ignacy was in trouble! Her heart almost jumped out of her chest at the news, and it surprised her. Elzada had always thought of Ignacy as more of a fleeting thing than a serious soul mate. Oh, the boy was handsome, no doubt. His fur was enting, his cheeks were simply perfect, and even their size wasn’t far off. His mother’s divinity ran through his veins. Their cubs would have been so beautiful!

  But there was something off about him. The mating rituals of the Wolf Tribe weren’t very plicated. In the old days, females simply chose a male at random as their soulmate, regardless of their desires. But after Terrific killed her seate for failing to make her some male cubs, Lacerated One, Zero, Alpha, Ashbringer, and Dragena, apanied by the Twins, visited the Blessed Mother and forced her to ge things. As always, Ravager refused to stay in charge for long, but some ws were implemented.

  Now the Wolfkins he approval of both sides to form a union. It was foolish to expeything reasonable from the males, so the females ied a whole ritual of fshing their cws and not dominating their future soulmates to get their attention. The only exception was the Season of Heat, but that was, well, heat. When a female came of age, there was an urge to mate, and any male was game.

  Almost none of them refused free copution. Except Ignaot only did he reject Elzada, he ignored her advances altogether, begging her not to ruin his blueprints. To this day, the fusion of that moment filled her mind. How could a male reject a female for the sake of muhings? Elzada respected his odd hobby and tried to avoid the strange buffoon, but something in his gaze always drew her back.

  She did not see him as someone who would prepare breakfast for her cubs in the m. He was more likely to set fire to the tent while tinkering with new gadgets. But when she saw the news, Elzada leaped to Janine and begged to for the right t Ignacy back.

  I am weird.

  “It was Benguigui’s freaks,” she overheard a white-haired officer speaking to the issioner. “I reized the head. That creep was seen with Raffy. If you give me a squad, I’ll…”

  “Agent Piam has already tacted me,” the issioner responded. “The Iigation Bureau is handling the situation.”

  “The iigators have been sleeping on this robbery! Sir, there is queerness in the air. The Benguiguis are doing God knows what, now that robbery.” The officer put his hands oable. “They couldn’t have hoped to escape from Houstad. And the Iigation Bureau’s agents are stalling things. Sir, we must act.”

  “Notice a log in your own eye before you accuse the iigators of inpetence, Zurkov,” the issioner said. “I have received pints about your treatment of non-humans…”

  Elzada found Ignaot in a waiting room or a cell, but down the hall in the basement, where he was busy fixing a leaking battery.

  “Why is he here?!” she demao know.

  “He asked himself.” The officer scratched his head. “We offered him a room to wait in, but Mr. Ignasisted on being useful and fixed a water dispenser, lights in the basement, and is now…”

  “Elzada!” Ignacy turned, and his happy muzzle made her smile against her anger. “Gd to see you!”

  “Same here. I came to pick you up. How are you doing?”

  “This pce is awesome! They have a library here, the food is simply magnifit, and the people are super nice.” Ignacy put aside the wretd wiped his paws on his jacket, leaving dirty smears. “Anyway, I wao ask you something... if it’s okay.”

  “What about?” I swear, if he asks to stay here, I will bite him.

  “I’ve read about a cool thing iy. Called a theater. It’s simir to the way artists perform in the main squares of the settlements, but on a much bigger stage. I thought... Would you like to e with me and check it out?”

  “Sure.” Elzada smiled, and Ignacy beamed. She took him uhe arm and marched him out. “First, we return to the base. You o up. Then we’ll go.”

  Yes! He finally makes the first move! Elzada dragged Ignacy to the car, too worried about him getting distracted again and grinning from ear to ear at the warmth in her chest. Maybe he felt something for her after all. If so, she was ready to find out what kind of man he was. And perhaps give birth to five or ten cubs. Yes, cubs would be nice.

  ****

  Anji.

  Anji was relieved that Janited her to leave the base. I weeks, the warlords had limited the packs’ training hours. Rumor had it that the order came from high up: the Third Army was here to rest and recuperate. Leaves were avaible on first request, but many Wolfkins preferred to spend their time in their dens, not showing a nose behind the walls. But not Kaisa.

  Her ued panion wasn’t a lost cause. Anji was sure of that. If the Tribe could tolerate people like Terrific, they could tolerate Kaisa. There was a future for her, and Anji was gd to see that the younger woman was trying her best to bee a better person.

  In the past few days, Kaisa had e out of her shell more and more, accepting the jokes and insults aimed at her without the usual cws and fangs. She even pulled a few harmless pranks. Seeing her now, bloodied and brooding, soured Anji’s mood a bit.

  I hope our progress won’t go to waste.

  “How’s Kirk?” Kaisa asked as Anji sat down on the opposite side of a table.

  “Your brother and sister came to pick him up with Ygrite’s permission. I volunteered t you back. I thought you two shouldn’t bump into each other today.”

  “ht. Good idea.” Kaisa put her legs on the chair and grabbed her knees. “I am broken, Anji.”

  “The therapist didn’t think so. She said that you have anger issues, abando issues, and…”

  “What does she know!?” Kaisa clicked her fangs. “Anji, let’s be real. Who wouldn’t abandon a trash like me? Especially after what I’ve doo my family.” She rubbed her nose.

  “Kaisa,” Anji stopped, trying to find the right words. “I am... If you are fishing for pity, I have o offer. I’m your friend, but you’re ly a victim when it es to your family. They are.”

  “I know it, Abyss take it! I just have no idea how to fix it!”

  “You could try apologizing,” Anji suggested.

  “And how do you think that would work? ‘Sorry for beating you up all these years? Kirk, remember that oime I used you as toilet paper? Or that time I nearly broke ys? Yeah, sorry about that. We cool?’ Arghr!” Kaisa ed her paws around her head and slowed her breathing. For a moment, Anji thought she was going to pass out. “No. Asking for fiveness puts a burden on them, an obligation tive or not. I ’t... Nothing atone for what I’ve dohe best I do is give them space. Get out of their lives as much as I .”

  “That may be right.” Anji nodded, pg a paw over Kaisa’s. “But it’s only a start. Don’t give up professional help. Keep reading the self-help books. Regute yer. Keep trying to improve yourself.”

  “Where further?” A grin came upon Kaisa’s muzzle. “I am already strohan you.”

  “In your dreams, perhaps,” Anji let out a ringing ugh. She stopped after Kaisa fell silent again.

  “Today is Kirk’s stupidass birthday. You know, he gave me a toy ond slept on my belly ter. How could I fet hoy I was then? Where does this hatred, this anger, e from? I wao give him my own gift, to show him I’d never hurt him again. Instead, I have caused him to freak out.” Kaisa bit her lower lip. “ you ask that fucker… Bogdan, to throarty or something? Anything to cheer Kirk up. Tell them I’m staying away.”

  “Too te for that,” Anji said. “Ygrite has already announced a big celebration, h Kirk’s and your involvement in disposing of the robbers.”

  “Ain’t that great,” Kaisa grumbled, closing her eyes. “I’ll just skulk in the shadows. My family’s had enough of my shit for a lifetime. To be ho, I don’t want to get better. I want them to be better and happier. Myself? Didn’t earn that, Anj.”

  Anji reached out across the table and spped Kaisa across the face. The amber eyes opened wide, fueled by the fury, and Kaisa growled, her cws splintering the wood.

  “The Abyss was that for?”

  “You are a wolf hag, Kali.” Anji tried to speak evenly and not spurn this idiot away. “Your self-loathing won’t help ahink for once. If you disappear, your pack will suffer for the ck of your strength. Unless you missed, you saved Kirk’s life today…”

  “And that fixes everything? Absolves me of guilt? Bullshit.” Kaisa bared her fangs. “One good deed means nothing.”

  “I did not imply it.” Anji ighe desire to break the table over Kaisa’s head. “The point is that your strength saved a life. Kirk still lives and potentially heal the damage you caused. Stay in the shadows instead of leading, and your pack will suffer for ck of training. Your family will suffer.”

  “Duties,” Kaisa groaned. “Always duties. You know, I never wao be a wolf hag. I just… snapped when I arrived in Ygrite’s pad challenged my superior. What I wanted was to loosen up, and in a few blows I won and ended up anding almost a hundred soldiers. Me! A person with no experience. I dreamed of shiny power armor; instead, ours are rusted aed. Our shardguns often misfire in real bat and even explode from time to time; that’s why Ygrite forces her pack to accept augmetics. Trag equipment is of simir quality, radars barely work, and PA’s HUDs fsh mid-mission. Guess I deserve it, corroded armor, corroded soul…”

  “Again with the self-pity!” Anji spped her paw oable. “Drop it! You said you didn’t earn to get better? It’s not what you’ve earhat matters, it’s what you he power armor in your pack are rusty? Off to Chak and demand it be repaired. Your pack’s equipment and ons are barely funal? To Chak you go, write a report; if he doesn’t fix it, write directly to Captain Cristobo; if he drops the ball too, write to the higher-ups. Keep pestering everyone; ask the warlords for help, but solve the problem! These are your soldiers; you are responsible for their lives! Fuck Ygrite, if she does nothing, that doesn’t mean you have to follow in her footsteps!

  “Yes. Your life is full of duties. And responsibilities. This is adult life; get used to it, because it is here to stay,” Anji added warmth into her voice. “But you don’t have to be unhappy, Kali. You both excel in your duties and be happy, and that way you help others as Janine has helped you. Maybe, no, most likely your family will never five you,” Anji told the harsh truth. “They have a right to that. But you are alive, save lives, and educate younger scouts not to end up like you. Don’t give up; hang in there, heal, a me help you, ‘kay?”

  Kaisa gave a single nod. Anji rexed a bit and pressed a fio her lips. By the looks of it, her rade had taken her advice to heart, but leaving her alone in her paws felt wrong. Dad did not leave anyone in trouble, daring to e to the rescue even in the most remote vilges. She won’t drop the situatioher.

  “Capital. Get up; we go to the base, you up, and ght to Alpha and e to her about everything.”

  “Anj, I don’t care what happens to me, but you ’t expect me to rat on my warlord. For all her fws, she is our leader and has always risked her life to save us when our PA failed…”

  “That is exactly what I expect from you! If I ever bee as irresponsible as Ygrite, I expect you to kick my ass a me. You know Onyxia acts like Ravager, right? She drops out of the shadows, gives orders to the wolf hags, and fucks off bato the darkness, raining us herself. But every time supplies e in, she meticulously checks every detail—every shardgun, every grenade. And if she doesn’t like something, Onyxia sits down, writes a report, and doesn’t leave until our equipment is up to her standards. Because our lives are at stake, and that is how a warlord should act.” Anji tapped oable to calm herself. She hadn’t expected to be so riled up about Onyxia’s eternal absence from the pack’s life. “Here’s the thing. If we go to Janine, she will talk to Ygrite and hardly anything will be resolved. Onyxia is still on the mission, and Ashbringer hates yuts…”

  “The feeling is mutual,” Kaisa muttered. “I am going to get that ferret one day.”

  “…Alpha is not safe, but she is a problem solver. Kali, this is your duty. Our duty at this point. For the sake of not only the soldiers under your and, but for the sake of Ygrite’s entire pack, we must put ao this inpetence. Ygrite may be a genius at ambushes and traps, and perhaps she is truly willing to give her life for her soldiers. All this may be true. But we ot allow her indiffereo the equipment in her pack to cost any more lives. So what is your answer, Kaisa? Are you with me?”

  “I am. But we will tell the full truth a Alpha judge me as she will.” Kaisa stood up, ready to move toward the exit, when a pierg howl filled the corridor.

  “What in the name of the lightless Abyss’ bowels is that?”

  ****

  A police officer.

  The police officer barely had time to open the door before a giant Wolfkin stormed past him and into the interrogation room. Impatient One, as the woman called herself, paced the room, t over the seated woman who had a crimson impnt for ahe reports said these two were sisters, but to him, all Wolfkins looked the same.

  Am I a racist? The man wondered, desperately trying to find any differences between the women, aside from their size. The same color of their natural eyes, heavy fur cs, and even their hair were pretty much the same.

  In the past few days, the situation iy became unstable. Not because of Wolfkins. Today’s four were the sed to be taken into custody, the first being Warlord Martyshkina’s wolf hags, who drank themselves into a stupor and had to be thrown into a drunk tank for everyone’s safety.

  But criminals of all kinds have bee extremely active, trying to smuggle huge amounts of ill-gotten gains out of the city. The higher-ups were informed of this and attributed the result to Tancred’s influehe sword saint had already brought more than a dozen smaller gangs to justice. Even though their cells were filled with criminals and the streets were getting safer by the day, the police officer felt uneasy. It was as if an uorm was gathering, and no one seemed to care.

  I must be getting paranoid. Decided the man.

  “You are a plete disappoi!” Impatient One barked at Anissa.

  “Listen, I expin.” The other woman raised her paws.

  “I don’t think you do.”

  “No, really! Armed thugs stormed into the bank; we snapped and…”

  “And you let the bloody male take the lead!” Impatient One shook her fist. “I end Kirk for his determination, but you should have taken the initiative and gotten the first kill! Didn’t Mother and I teach you better than that?” She leaped oable, ign the police officer’s worried look. Raising a finger, Impatient One tinued. “Why did you rip out that bastard’s chest if you weren’t going to eat him? People got scared! Kill effitly! And why did you pull a spi of another?”

  “I…” Anissa licked her lips, “may or may not have used it as a club.”

  “A… club. Instead of the noble bdes you were blessed with.” Impatient Oopped speaking, shaking with rage. She released her cws, and the police officer shuddered at the size of them. Impatient One grabbed Anissa’s throat. “I will choke the life out of you for this disgrace!”

  The police officer reached for a button on his belt and pressed it, summoning the riot squad. He had experieh New Breeds, of course; they itted crimes just like anyone else. New Breeds were stronger and faster, and they were usually apprehended by other New Breeds or shot with tranquilizer darts.

  But he had never seen people like this. Impatient One and Anissa turned into a blurry ball, kig, sshing and biting each other. Their weight crashed into the table, and as they rolled around the room, hitting the walls and shaking them with the impact of their titanic struggle.

  “I will peel the skin off your face!”

  “Time to see the color of yuts!” Surprisingly, their voices did not sound angry. They reminded him of times when he and his sister pyed silly pranks on each other and swore revenge, only to burst out ughing.

  A spsh of blood fell on his face, and the police officer wondered if he should try to stop it. But how do you stop a fight when you ’t evehe fighters? Where is this damn riot squad?

  He breathed a sigh of relief as the officers in green power armor, wielding rge shields and clubs, rushed past him. Immediately, they surrouhe fighters, pushing the ball of violeo the ter of the room, smming their shields into the floor to get a better foothold, and bringing down their maces. Electricity crag, the o to knock out suspects had nded on the bck-furred forms. Again. And again.

  “Is this a joke? A grandmother hit harder than this!” One of the Wolfkins shouted.

  “Put your soul into it! You are the soldiers of the state, not some wimps!” added the sed.

  her of the Wolfkins even stopped struggling; they were still hag, kig, and tearing ks of flesh from each other as they s the poli, more a their weakhan at their interference. One officer shouted an order t iranquilizer rifles.

  “Anissa! I came as soon as I heard! Are you fine…” A moraight from hell scuttled into the room, moving quickly on many legs; its chitin-covered body barely squeezed through the doorway, and the newer coiled ihe room, raising his head to the ceiling. “What the horror is going on here?”

  In the end, it took sixty darts before the perpetrators finally fell asleep, sn loudly and still holding each other by the.

  ****

  Brood Lord.

  “My friends!” The khan spread his arms wide to greet his troops.

  He stood with his back to a burning pyre, and hundreds of Purebloods, Dirtybloods, and bondsmeed him, banging their golden cups against wooden tables that stretched a dozeers each. Every food imaginable was here, alcohol and chai flowed like rivers, aiful women aood ready to serve their every whim. It annoyed him to waste his riches on sacrificial mbs, but Brood Lord hem in high spirits for what was to e.

  His keen eyes sed the room, taking note of the ambitious and the cowardly gathered under his and. Only these could pose a problem, for they could see the pattern and try to save their hides before doing their jobs. It was no bother. Brood Lord had been pying this game for decades, and he had already figured out who to keep and who to discard. Everything will happen much too fast for anything to go awry.

  “What is the best way to topple a nation?” he asked, walking through their ranks, goblet in hand. “Is it to attack, attack, and attack, as Iron Lord Khan cims?” The soldiers ughed. “Overwhelming force is simply not enough if we are to preserve our skiually a bullet finds its mark! No, my friends. In your eyes I see a true uanding of how the world works. Fear is aralyzes the hands that prepare to pull the trigger. It is the will that must be broken!”

  Brood Lord drew himself up to his full height and drank rice mead, tasting its honey and feeling his hearts race faster. Droplets of sweat from the long celebration glittered in the fmes. Drozna was sitting, surrounded by a host of men who fed him grapes. The fingers of his loyal follower caressed their backs. Phaser lingered in the shadows, covetously aiculously cheg his share of the day’s trophies. Farther back, the hired killers, the twins, stood watg, never joining in the festivities as usual.

  In their loyalty, Brood Lord wasn’t sure. But their skills were valuable, and he had decided to dah danger and tolerate their presehere were safe ways to dispose of them.

  “Tomorrow we shall erode the Recmation Army’s fidend remind them of the savagery. Their city will suffer and burn, their leaders will die, and fear will touch every er of their nation. Their wall, hopes, and dreams will crumble amid it all.” He saluted his troops. “You know your targets, but do not stop there. Murder ae, do not retreat until you have fired your st bullet. Let them wail in horror at the sight of piles of corpses ireets; let them know that their order is lost. And as our forces break through the wall, our steeds shall march upon the backs of broken and frightened popuce. Our raid will haunt their dreams to the end of days!”

  He paused, waiting for a sve servant girl to refill his goblet. She had a nice, muscur build, and the bess of her skin was simply irresistible. Brood Lord decided to taste her first on this night.

  “Some of you will die. I may die,” he lowered his voice to give it gravitas and briefly softened his face. “Doubtlessly, you have all experienced loss. Brother, mother, sister, father… By your strength, you have stood where they fell! quest is in our blood! If we die, we will go out as martyrs, saluting the Sky and watg as our horde crushes the unbelievers!” Brood Lord yelled. “And to the survivo the spoils. Glory! Wealth! Women! Lands! Sves! To each their own, and our prey has it all in abunda is a great nd, but one swollen with the fat of peace, while you are in your prime! So as you face your fate tomorrow, know that whatever it may be, it won’t be in vain! The Horde is merely beginning, and our deeds will go down in legends! Sughter for me! Victory for Mad Hatter Khan! Devour the world and prosper!”

  “Devour the world!” The roar of his soldiers surrounded him, and Brood Lord smiled, basking in their adoration and enjoying their stupidity.

  There will be prosperity, but it will be reserved for the survivors. Mad Hatter will quer the world. These willing pawns will pay the blood price for it. And he will rule it.