Hulking maes stepped forward, crushing crete and the APCs wreckage beh their n legs with every step. Six-legged, they were open harnesses carrying heavy ser ons at their top. Arrays aal ptes formed cages around the operator uhe walkers’ underbellies. Pincers swung into view, colpsing a building and burying several knights in rubble. A hunter above faltered, caught iremors of his part of the roof. The man did not scream as he slipped into the eager pincers but shot his grappling hook and arced away from the danger, firing o aor.

  The man ihe hissed in anger; his voice reached the sword saint’s ears through the chaos of battle. His mae thudded far ahead, fttening a knight trying to get away. A brilliant ray of energy left his on, catg the hunter in mid-flight. The shadowy silhouette of her soldier glimpsed briefly in the yellow beam, then disappeared, and two bur fell to the ground.

  “Shine, Elegance!” Bertruda roared, closing the helmet, and raised her on.

  Her spear was a sacred on passed down onto her house by the Twins. Fed from an alloy harder than the hulls of spacecrafts, intricate designs of a long-fotten and not-yet-rediscovered archeotech filled its shaft, ready to imbue the bde with energy superior to that of the surface of a sun. At a press of her fihe edge banished every darkness in sight, vaporizing bullets aimed at her.

  The spider struct tried to clumsily catch her in the pincers, and a single slice of fully powered Elegance parted an arm in two, not cutting, not melting, but ging into steam whatever it touched. This was the true reason why her helmet had to be close and why she didn’t unseal Elegance earlier. To fight or stay close to its star-hot edge meant to inhale fumes capable of burning even a Wolfkin’s respiratory system.

  It was mado risk using it near civilians. But alone, in the killing field, Bertruda Mountaintop was uned. Elegance spun, drinking deep from a lesser beam of energy streaming from a on, using it to power itself up. A stab followed during the brief pause as the ser on’s cooling shut it down. The deadly streak of light forced the raised pio disappear along with a se of a hastily put forward leg and the cage, killing the bastard far too quickly. The struct erupted, ungracefully throwing the sword saint backward. She nded on her back, drawing a long line across the crete, while Elegance hungrily devoured it before she tur off and stood in the clouds of steam.

  “Is this how you pn to stop us?” She ughed, throwing her head up. Hordemen closed in from every side, but the Mountain Guard opened fire, freeing her paws from dealing with the small fry. “Suicide bombihat’s novel, morsels, I won’t lie.”

  A group of knights charged from the nearby alley, aptly taking advantage of the overextended enemy line, and the chaos ensued by the destru of the walker. Civilians were at their backs, several children guided by a Troll of all people. The Oathtaker used his own body to shield the little ones, shuddering as two fist-sized holes appeared in the gray skin, tearing through his overalls.

  True to his he Troll survived. Bertruda had fought against this tribe once, but she remembered vividly how these dispassionate people calmly picked up severed limbs and pressed the mangled edges bato their stumps. Their regeion did the rest, mending flesh first, then veins, muscles, and bones. In mere mirolls were able to walk after losing a limb. This person here wore a half-ruiourist badge on his shoulder, and his movements betrayed his plete ck of bat experience. What he cked in knowledge, the noble soul made up for iion, throwing himself like a shield before the children.

  A tall figure steel and gold pushed his way out of the enemy ranks, a two-handed sword in his arm, the bde scraping against the street. Bareheaded, the handsome young man barely paid attention to a bullet that nded against his temple. The raider gnced up, showing his too the hunters on the roof. Double shots came in response, and the man stumbled, ughing. The armor-pierg bullets bounced harmlessly off his brown eyes, crumbling into useless pieetal.

  Still ughing, the raider ran at the knights, taking swords to his chest and arms. With disgusting ease, he swung his own on, cleaving through a knight’s shoulder, sshing through the pauldron, and stopping his bde in the chest. Theackled another off his feet, casually motioning for the structs to aim at him as the knights verged on him, hag at his neck, ribs, and arms. Swords bounced, uo even scratch the man, and three energy beams washed over the hordeman’s back, burning holes iag knights and g the life of their captain. The invulnerable youth grabbed the falling captain by his head, severed it, and hoisted it high to the guttural cheers of his troops.

  In a blink of ahe seeds of uainty Bertruda had sown were undone, and she was agai by the enemies, and the Mountain Guard hurried to her aid. Missiles flew down from the sky, hidden by the veil of smoke, and exploded around her. A Mountain Guard was caught between a series of explosions; her body was thrown like a rag doll, and her armor finally gave way. The geor blew up, and the shockwaves alone killed the trusted servant.

  “Devil?!” The voice of the young hordeman rang through the chaos. His speech was thid ated. “Excellent! On this day, I shall be known as the devil-syer! For the Khatun, onto glory and curse death!”

  The hordeman roared, eg their leader in their native nguage.

  “Lead the civilians to the encampment! Mountain Guard with me! Our stand!” Bertruda roared, disemboweling a hordeman's belly. She hesitated but added a kick, ending the woman’s suffering. And removed a potential threat.

  So be it. If this was where fate cimed her, Bertruda could live with it. The world stopped around her, brought to a crawl by her heightened senses, and the sword saint weaved away from the struct’s line of fire. Her movements were light and precise, guided not just by y but by cold calcution. The beams speared through the side of a building and their own allies, missing her own troops.

  Elegance’s poiached from the shaft, stretg out on the long . Bertruda swung, sending the bde on the through the enemy ranks and straight into aner walker. Even without heat, the bde pierced the cage and hooked the operator in the chest. No mercy had been shown, and no mercy would be showruda pushed bad dragged the weakly gasping woman through the narrow opening of the . A siing g sound apahe folding of limbs. An indignant twist of her paw sent the gruesome remains flying.

  Fixated oarget, Bertruda began making her way through the sea of screaming faces, sidestepping shots. Elegance was a blur in her paws, its ed around necks, snapping them; the bde flickered in the air, cutting through helmets; and the heavy end of her spear was breaking sternums. Wary of her murderous reach, the walkers retreated, exposing their allies to being butchered by the Mountain Guard.

  This close, everything worked in their favor. Her elite troops evaded shots, navigating themselves through the shared vision; they battered away bodies with the massive tower shields, fired, and hacked. Missed beams, shots, and explosions furthered the death toll, harming the Horde more than they hindered Bertruda and her desperate charge. Her armor trembled and screamed, her servomotors whined, but the top-of-the-line maery kept her safe in its unyielding embrace.

  The sword saint uood Janine now. It was the time of cruel and routichering, aruda embraced gifts of her rage at long st. There were things that could not be tolerated, and for that, they had to be strong and merciless, readily sacrifig their lives. Teasing, petition, brawls served to build bonds, test the character, and improve the body. They weren’t insults; Janine had genuinely seen her as a cousin before the betrayal.

  I am sorry, my sister by another mother. It was my arrogahat broke that trust.

  The ughing whoreson raised his bde, striking in an overhead arc at the troll. The strike would’ve cut through the cvicle and then severed the spinal n, ing out of the back with enough force to end an Ice Fang student holding a Normie girl in his paws.

  Bertruda’s eyes fshed crimson from ahe exhaustion drained from her body as emotions and adrenaline helped her cross the threshold of the possible. She growled, half-shocked, half-eted at the ued aggression worthy of a Wolfkin, and Elegance was thrust forward like a ray of light, reassembling into a single form. Twins guide my arm. Blessed Mother, bestow upon me your wrath. Two raiders were skewered at the tip of her spear, and she rammed them through the enemy ranks, reag the hordeman just in time to block his bde. The youth spun to her, eagerly sshing at the haft of her spear, clearing it of the remains.

  “Came at st, devil?” He giggled, drunk on mirth. “Name’s Amal, son of Mungke Khan. Hundreds have died by my hand. And I am one soul you won’t be colleg…”

  Elegance kissed him. Its bde stabbed into his chest, below kneepads, and then right into the area around the heart, pierg that pathetic excuse for a chest pte.

  Her strikes knocked him back, smming the man’s back against the building and c him in the rubble of a broken wall. The man’s body felt like an impregnable sb of iron, but Bertruda khat Elegance’s molecur bde could cut through evehickest steel. Only special alloys, like those of Janine’s axe or the ons of her fellow Sword Saints, were capable of withstanding the a bde at the end of Elega had failed to harm an enemy for the first time in its existeer the Twins discovered it in a ruins and fed a shaft and energy geors worthy of its potency.

  Amal burst free, sending rocks everywhere, ughing and coughing dust in equal measure. A knight blocked a hail of bullets aimed at her, surprisiruda. If this bastard was an enemy leader, his minions sure cared very little about not hitting him. The sword saint spun her bde, eically colleg projectiles from the air and sending them at the hordemen.

  The answer came to her a moment ter. Bullets from his own allies ricocheted off Amal’s body. His bde nded heavily on the Elegance’s shaft, aruda calmly headbutted the grinning face. Her HUD fshed, and a lens cracked as she took a dent, while Amal was merely pushed back again. Angrily, Bertruda sshed at his chest, sending Amal sprawling to the ground.

  “Is that the best you do?” he taunted, reag for the bde. “Pathetic devil, you…”

  Bertruda fired the psma discharges, engulfing him in crag fmes. This seemed to break his posure a bit, and with a strained roar, he charged out of the fiery hell, swinging his half-molten sword. Elegance rose to meet him, gracefully and casually brushing the bde aside before delivering a crushing blow to his neck. The impact sent the youth cartwheeling to the side, his head drawing a line in the road.

  “You were saying?” Bertruda asked coldly, trying to e up with an idea of how to kill that thing. The kid was a New Breed. She had faced those who were strohan her, like Janine, and even those who could regee a limb, like a skinwalker. But never had she faced an oppo who simply never got wounded, no matter what.

  A beam of light otted by a Mountain Guard and the sword saireated, her back pressed against the Troll’s and fag a burning hole in the pavement ahead. Amal rose to his feet, his body free of bruises; not even a tiny scratch marred his impeccable bck skin; not a single hair was torn. He rocked his neck mogly and ripped an axe from a nearby hordeman.

  “I said that I am immortal, bitch.” He grabbed a pistol from his belt. “And you are not.”

  He shot. Bertruda blocked the bullet intended for one of the kids behihe spear spinning in her arms fast enough to bee a shield. Sensing her unspoken and, the Mountain Guard broke through the enemy's fnks to shield the civilians so their mistress could face her oppo head-on.

  Sparks flew in the air as the spear collided with the axe, biting away ks of it. The sword saint fought methodically, first breaking Amal’s pistol and driving him back. In four moves, she threw the fool pletely off bance. A strike in the leg, followed by a sweeping blow with the butt of her spear against his jaw, an effortless swing to beat aside the ugly axe, and, finally, a masterstroke to end it all. A stab with Elegance broke the ft of the axe and found its way into the ughing mouth. Notig something akin to panic, Bertruda jammed the bde’s tip into the upper pate.

  The portable fsh of destru shone for the sed time itle, releasing the temperature of 30 000 Celsius on the foe. What Elegance could not break, it melted.

  If Amal screamed, Bertruda did not hear him. Light poured from his nostrils, mouth, and ears. His eyes turned into light bulbs. An explosion followed, shaking his body violently, and dark smoke billowed from every orifice of the maruda pushed her on deeper, lifting the body for his rabble to see.

  A sword saint had died. ancred had beerusted with the safekeeping of Houstad, and foul foes had found a way to harm it, regardless. Worse still, his fair warriors had failed to exact justid had to be rescued by the Wolf Tribe. An utter failure of all oaths.

  Keep them safe. These were the st words the Twins spoke to the sword saint before they disappeared. They were the first to see nobility in the Wolf Tribe, the first to bow ter to avert the ing sughter for domihe Twins worked tirelessly, introdug sword saints to warlords, talking to Wolfkins, seling them, trying to civilize them, praising them for correct moral decisions.

  Bertruda, to her eternal shame, had at first seen nothing in her cousins worthy of respect, thinking them little more than stinking butchers, but that had ged. The Wolf Tribe and Ravager kept the Ice Fangs safe, willingly dying in droves to preserve the Order and people’s lives. Misguided, maybe. Yet the Wolf Tribe had always had true nobility. A trait in them she had arrogantly rejected at first.

  The realization came when Tancred and Camelia forced Bertruda to front what she was being. Even an idiot could have seen that Janine was injured after the battle, but her proud eyes blindly ighe facts. Because she had to win to be proven right. Bertruda wao believe that Janine was inferior; she o be sure that the Wolf Tribe were inferior creatures, unworthy of the Twins’ love, when in fact the living gods embraced both groups.

  A fortress was under stru in the Core Lands. A home fit for them. The Order worked i, knowing full well how their cousins would react to such a gift. They hated to be perceived as being i, their silly cousins who still hadn’t learo accept being taken care of. What debts could there be betweeives? But onpleted, the Wolf Tribe would have no further need for the vilges; their cubs would be safe and sound, growing up side by side with the children of the Order. It was for this reason that the Ice Fangs initially pursued profit and formed corporations. To gaierial wealth necessary to finally drag their cousins into the light.

  Her heart ached at the o refuse the calls of her allies. But what choice did they have? The Wolf Tribe had always kept them in the rear; now, with the Knight Academies in danger, could they really trust their rough kin to prosecute this war? Warlords, even Janine, cared too much about vengeance, but now was the time to save lives. When the lives of their own children were at stake, the Ice Fang Order had to act. If necessary, Bertruda was willing to pay a pri blood ter.

  A light from above distracted Bertruda’s thoughts. A bird of steel swooped down from the smoke, its six engines r. Steel wings spread behind a long, slender frame shaped like an arrowhead. Turrets were mounted above the wings, and raiders opened fire, tearing apart knights and members of the provincial army caught outside of the defenders’ protective circle. Four furious bursts closed in on a Mountain Guard; the man’s armor held for four long seds before finally yielding with a deafening crack. The knight’s shoulders exploded uhe onsught of armor-pierg projectiles. His helmet was smashed deep into his chest, and the lenses exploded, releasing brain matter.

  They have airships? Bertruda thought numbly, shaking off the despair. Janine wouldn’t be giving up here, aher will she. “Mountain Guard! Anti-air missiles, at once!”