Janine ran across the rooftops, shattering the stones with every step. Martyshkina stopped briefly to rescue another family from a burning apartment. Janine’s heart ached at the thought of losing her sons, but she refused to bme her friend for this decision. Normies had a right to expect their prote. They ’t just let them die.

  As she approached the pilr of smoke ahead, the barking of maeguns and the roars of her kin reached her ears. Janine reached the edge of the building and looked down, assessing the situation.

  The Recimers were pinned down. The car carrying the captain was now smashed against a wall, its side bearing a huge dent, the passenger door was torn wide open, and there ing hole in the ter. Not a result of a grenade uncher’s shot. Not the result of a grenade uncher bst. Several Ice Fangs y dead on the road; judging by the red stains on their ons, at least three of them had perished, taking the lives of the invaders. But these were knights, and there was no sign of the captains and sages who had apaancred. Only a single young knight-captain, bearing the colors of Summerspring, anized an effective evacuation and tried to reach his allies, leading a small unit. Red smears on the surface told the whole story of how Bogdan dragged a group of wounded into the retive cover of the police car.

  There were two wrecked Provincial Army vans. They were ing from the west, unloading their troops, when a sudden hail of armor-pierg bullets reduced both drivers to bloody shreds. , something or someo open the rear doors of the vehicles, and grenades did the rest. With their backs exposed, the troops didn’t st long, and their survivors now hid among the cars on the road, firing at the armored figures.

  Bogdan was firing shots from a pistol into the enemies oreet, and Marco desperately tried to bahe wound of the white-furred girl. Soot turhe girl spotted, but Janine reized Cordelia Suhe rest of her group had their snouts on the ground and their heads covered with paws, but one boy bravely held a terminal to Marco’s ear.

  “No, the heart is not damaged!” her boy shouted. “The cw hit her in the right side. Yes, there are blood blisters on her lips. Very small ones. What should I do, Maxence…”

  Janine’s muscles tightened, bulged, and she disappeared from the rooftop, ing down with all her speed. Her howl joined Kaisa’s and Anji’s, and she had promised herself to apologize to the stupid girl for suspeg her. Kaisa was already injured, but fought undaunted alongside her rival against a duo of s. The wolf hags were in no immediate danger, and the full weight of the warlord’s mass crashed down on a Horde soldier trying to push through the guoward Bogdan.

  A single punch—that’s all it took to pop his head like an apple, but Janine wasn’t do. Her sed blow shattered the sternum despite the armor prote; her paw closed around an ammunitio, and the lifeless body crashed into two more raiders, knog them off their feet. A kick threw the dead man’s mae gun and ammo into Bogdan’s eager paws.

  “Finally, not a pee shooter!” Bogdan sprayed at the fallen soldiers, finishing them off.

  Suddenly, the Ice Fang boy and Cordelia grabbed Marco by the shoulders and pulled him down just in time to save his life from a flying bullet that shaved off a little of his hair. Janine spun, her amber eyes shining bright as mps, and the sniper let out a single scream in an unknown nguage, a plea or a boast; the warlord didn’t care as she was on top of her, tearing the woman limb from limb and biting through the visor.

  “Heh. Even now,” Cordelia whispered hoarsely.

  “Thanks! No talking!” Marco spped her on the head. “Don’t you dare die, Cordi! Maxence, orders?”

  “Would rather not…” Another sp shut her up.

  Jaie was beside the cubs, hyperventiting and tightening the tour on Cristobo’s missing leg. Jaed briefly that whoever had sliced up the captain had taken ly everything below the khe captain himself appeared to be unscious, his lips peeled back, showih and saliva dripping from the ers of his mouth.

  The once peaceful street had bee a battlefield. Burning cars, dead soldiers, rolling civilians uo stand from their horrible wounds, and cautious helpers trying t them to cover. Bullets flew in the midst of the chaos; the raiders shoved the cars aside to get to Bogdan; their heavy steps were about to end the lives of the trapped civilians when a single roar reached the sky. A flick of the wrist sent a car door flying at a raider, and the heavy metal smmed into the man at a speed of five hundred kilometers per hour. It staggered the armored foe, areated, trying to get the warlord in his sights.

  His head left his shoulders in the sed as Janine was already behind him, spinning, sshing, and biting. Her cws opened armor ptes, her elbows smashed faceptes straight into skulls, her bites left mangled bodies in her wake, and the Horde soldiers recoiled in the face of unhinged aggression, frightened by the oppoheir eyes could barely see. More and more tried t a few familiar words together, but for Jahe time for merd reason was long gone.

  They brought war to civilization? She will give them a taste of their beloved barbarism.

  Kaisa, dressed in an e robe, and Anji, in stylish bck leather pants and a jacket with way too many silver zippers, did their best not to die against their oppos, who were aided by three strikingly simir New Breeds who tried to end the wolf hags from afar.

  Each had four ioid legs in pce of humanoid ones; chitin covered these limbs pletely, making it impossible to see any veins. Humanoid arms of these New Breeds were covered by armored sleeves, but the green ptes were inplete in pces, as scarred and welded carapace shapes grew on their bodies, resembling cerous growths, and the metal was tailored to fit around this sturdy prote. One was dark-skinned, and his sibling had milky-white, pale skin visible through the gashes.

  Iing, but irrelevant for now. It had only taken Janine a breath to observe the field.

  The warlord jumped, deg to eliminate ranged support and keeping track of the wolf hags fight. Kaisa and Anji had already eclipsed Anissa and Impatient One in physical abilities by far. Even without their PAs, they could depopute small settlements through sheer speed alone. Yet now their foes weaved around them like threads of silk, almost sliding off cruel thrusts meant to disembowel. The s’ skin-tight suits were uniquely colored; one even had white and bck squares running the length of the cloth, and another had lines of emerald and blue that shifted in the light. Their faces were hidden behind eborately crafted white masks; one mask had a smile, while another had a frown.

  Janine brought her weight on a New Breed who aimed her gun at Anji’s back. Cws pierced the shoulders, splintering bones and shredding muscle. The raider shrieked in a high-pitched voice, trying desperately to roll aside, but the momentum carried the warlord to the ground, and the woman’s amputated arms fell to the floor. She tried to retreat, but the paw grabbed the back of her head as ioid legs drummed in fear. Janine faced the g, pleading face, guessing the wordless request without needing to uand nguage. With just her legs left, the woman was no longer a threat.

  Jaws opened wide, sileng the scream. My sons. The people here. You threatened and hurt them. The lessons of the Twins seemed to scream in the warlord’s head, but she ighem, closing the mighty maw and sileng the st muffled shriek of agony when the skull ulverized between her fangs. The flesh of the dead prey tasted divine, and Janine dropped the faceless body.

  “Death. Death!” Janine roared, trampling on the vulsing body and terrifying a civilian into hiding.

  She charged ahead, dodging a pulse rifle bst that opened yawning holes in the corpse behind her. Iermath of the battle for the settlement, the engineers and Till Ingo made progress in uanding the Horde’s ons. Most of them used standard armor-pierg rifles, but their riders used energy ons.

  The principle behind their use was simple. A single energy particle was accelerated to Mach 10 and uhrough the barrel. The on itself was shaped like a normal rifle, but it actually had a small energy geor above the trigger that fed its extra cooling meism. The on teo overheat with prolonged use and required expensive energy cells to reload. Iurn, the pulse rifle provided excellent accuracy due to the ck of recoil and enough striking power to pee power armor with retive ease. Design shortings and general unsuitability for prolonged bat led the engio abandon the idea of introdug the pulse rifle into the army.

  For all her speed, Janine wasn’t even close to being able to dodge these fast-moving energy projectiles, but her eyes were fixed on the on iacker’s hands. To hit her, he would first have to get her in his sights. And Janine refused to grant him that courtesy, cirg around the man as he fired blindly.

  He cursed, pressing the trigger in vain as the anti-overheating system activated, and faced the snarling Janine. Her paw came down, hitting harder than an artillery shell and smashing through the pulse rifle the New Breed was trying to use as a shield. His chest armor cracked, the blow spttered the man against the street, and his legs, ending in sharp hooks, tried to close in on the warlord’s neck. Janine grabbed all fs at the joints, two in each paw, and squeezed.

  What came out of the man’s lips wasly a squeal of pain, but rather a strained rasp. His knees snapped like straws, and in a st desperate attempt, the New Breed grabbed a sword from his belt and tried to crawl away from his oppo. He propped himself up on his elbow and sshed at the warlord, trying to cut through her ankle. Janine kicked. The cws of her foot broke through the gold-pted metal and found the neck. Blue eyes widened in shock, then calmed as the paihem along with the life as the head rolled down.

  “Shit steel.” Janine spat at the dead.

  She paused to survey the age, freed from the st New Breed thanks to the Summersprings’ bullets. The two ridiculous-looking fools had actually pushed Kaisa and Anji. Where the Wolfkins acted ruthlessly, each eager to cim a kill for themselves, only blog the grazing blows intended for their ally out of habit, their oppos danced in battle. Every step betrayed an inhuman fluidity; instead of blog the ining attack, the weird fighters took the cws on their daggers, allowing their arms to be drawn back almost to the point of snapping before whipping them bato position with a sudden burst of movement, the vivid colors of their suits shining in the light, free of any dirt.

  The s stood oips, spinning gracefully to dodge Ice Fangs’ shots, and their mog ughter ehe noviight-captain. He holstered his emptied pistol, his mind affected by the rage-indug power, and hurried to aid the wolf hags, beating aside the dagger aimed for Anji’s neck with the ft of his bde. Immediately, the ughing spun around, uurbed by the interference, and the tip of her leg barely touched the knight captain’s forearm, spreading the wide, deep dent upon it. The bone cracked, and the Summerspri go of his round shield. Giggling, the turo face Kaisa’s attack, exposing her back to the captain.

  And the Ice Fang fell for it. His stab drove the into Kaisa’s close quarters, but in a single, elegant motion, the leaned back, dodged the wolf hag’s horizontal ssh, and plunged her own curved daggers into the Summerspring’s rubberized neck guard, timitack perfectly to cide with a single moment when his get and jaw guard would be momentarily out of the way. The Summerspring still stood, disbelieving his own demise and supported by the armor, as the somersaulted over him, saddling the dying man to twist her daggers, then kicked him into Kaisa.

  The who had the frowned mask jumped away from Anji and reproachfully wagged his finger. With blinding speed, the twin daggers rose to block a swift thrust at his neck. Anji shrugged and jerked her fingers, sending the lithe figure from the middle of the street onto the sidewalks. Right in the middle of the Ice Fangs.

  Janine cried out a warning, but it was too te. The rolled like a rag, faking breaking bohen burst into motion as the knights, angry at the loss of their leader, tried to hack him to pieces. With surgical precision, his daggers sliced at the ankles, right where the prote was weakest, and the knights howled in pain. The attack came to an abrupt halt when the dagger stu the meical leg of a young Ice Fang.

  “Spirits, give me the strength to save lives,” Malerata Summerspring said, delivering a kick to the enemy’s forearm that sent him flying. She fired immediately, but the killer deflected the bullet aimed at his forehead, and the knight kneeled, reag for a first aid kit.

  My cousins. A vein burst in Janine’s eye as she assessed the number of wounded and dying ireet and noticed an impaled scout pio the wall. Nightmares pgued the woman, at nights she dreamed she was under heavy shelling. Maxence diag as a case of PTSD, and on Janine’s reendation, the scout took a leave to visit a psychologist. And now she was dead. My family.

  “I’ll wear your entrails for decoration and serve your brain on a silver ptter as a dessert!” Anji shouted, leaping at her foe.

  Janine charged on all fours to her, knowing full well that the serene girl had made a mistake. She took the bait. Cruel as it was, this particur massacre was meant te the fighters. Realizing that it would take too long to defeat their oppos in a fair mahe s deliberately included the Ice Fangs. While Kaisa tossed away the dead Summerspring a after her enemy with precise determination, Anji, unaced to fighting in anger, was overwhelmed by her emotions.

  It blinded her to the danger. Still in the air, she had no opportunity to evade or blo attack when the frowning sprang off the crete and unched himself into the air. The slender and agile body easily veered away from the ining cws, and deep incisions opened on Anji’s arms and torso. The wolf hag nded badly; her legs gave in, and bloody drool clogged her windpipe, while the oppo positioned himself for the final strike.

  Sensing the threat, he whirled around and caught Janine’s cws onto the daggers’ edges. The warlord calmly closed her cws around the ons, remembering the oppo’s style, and whipped out a low kick that khe off his feet. Still holding the daggers, she smmed the bastard into the crete, sending an explosion of dust and stone upward. Before she could capitalize on the advantage, a bright streak pierced the veil, f her to let go to block it.

  A dagger struck her cws and flew ba an arc. The frowning swung his head, spping the rebounded on bato his partner’s hand, and gained distaudying the warlord from a distance. A snap of Janine’s fingers sent Kaisa to Anji’s side, freeing the warlord to focus owo individuals who had just toyed with the stro wolf hags of the tribe.

  “Anji!” Kaisa tore off the robe off her body to fashion bandages.

  “Damn poison, Kali.” Anji raised a trembling paw, waving it before her eyes. “Kali? Are you here? ’t see. barely hear. Fainting. Tell the warlord…”

  “I am aware,” Janine said, gring at the two unmoving foes. There was an unknown substan their ons, potent enough to threaten even a Wolfkin’s life. “Rest, soldier.”

  “Have we ever hunted a warlord, precious Adonis?” The ughing sang softly, her feminine voice sounding like the murmur of a running river.

  “No, dear Heika. This one is the first,” purred the frowning , spinning his daggers. His voice reminded Janine of the rustle of a silk dress she had seen on a sword saint once.

  “An worthy of the Khatun’s attention.” Heika bent her knees, spreading her arms wide. “Let’s make it beautiful.”

  “You know on,” Jaated. “Are you from the Recmation Army?”

  “It speaks so clearly!” Adonis marveled. “We should reward it.”

  “We should indeed.” Heika nodded. “No, beast. Our homend died, squashed and pressed by the moving nd. We have been traveling ever since, h it through the use of the skills it taught us, and bringing glory to the ghosts of our people.”

  “Glory, tch.” Janine spat. “It’s only worth a damn if you have what it takes to acquire it. Honor is more important, but you are too dumb to realize the dishonor you have brought to your lineage.”

  “And how would you knoasses for honor in our homend?” sweetly inquired Adonis.

  “Simple. Big, fat, tall, short, bck, white, red, furred, or naked—all people share the same desire to live and raise their young in peace. It’s the strong who miss the point. e.” She beed. “Let us end the story of your poor nation.”