Chapter 11: Chapter 4: Janine’s Aim

Dragena waited just long enough for the first ranks of panicking foes to reach the city’s wide streets. It was both a last offer of mercy and a weapon. Leave a prey without a way out, and it will bare its fangs, however meager. The soldiers deeper in the city saw their allies flee, heard the blood-curdling howls of the attackers, and had enough time to realize how quickly the outer defenses fell.

Janine heard orders snapping from dynamics installed on the walls, demanding the eradication of those who gave in to fear. But it is always hard to fire at your neighbors, whoever you are. By not firing at the soldiers who abandoned their post, Techno-Queen’s minions unwittingly disobeyed her order for the first time in their lives. And one disobedience leads to another, as the idea of saving themselves by retreating dangles in their minds.

The capital looked as lifeless as the land beyond the wall. Battered concretes of the main roads bore the tracks of thousands of convoys bringing in supplies to sustain industry and people. Toxic rivers flowed underneath grated sidewalks. Citizens lived in square-shaped barracks with closed-shut windows, more like concrete slabs spat on the ground than places to call home. Crude, colorless, these buildings differentiate through various identification numbers. Janine hated them at first sight, but thanked the Spirits for the thickness of their walls. Future citizens of the Reclamation Army were safe from the accidental discharge of weapons.

Army depots and factories littered every corner, leaking chemical waste into the openings. Even now they worked, hampered by the absence of human personnel, but nevertheless producing ammunition and weapons on their assembly lines thanks to the automatic protocols.

“Should we destroy the structures?” Janine heard Eled’s voice over the communications and saw an image recorded by her lenses. The warlord shook the berserker haze and held her blade over a trembling man, one of the last guards assigned to a small factory where cruel pincers were assembling an unconscious woman into a cyborg.

“Negative. It may cause a chain reaction. Ignore it for now. The engineers and scientists will deal with it later,” Dragena replied.

“Acknowledged.” The flat of Eled’s scythe broke the man’s arms.

Janine proceeded according to her own orders, allowing the wolf hags to direct her pack. She sensed their uneasiness. In Terrific’s time, the pack rushed ahead in a single, unified wave, trying their best to keep up with the warlord. Those too weak or too slow were abandoned. Terrific’s vision ignored the concealed enemy positions, laser-focusing on claiming the greatest quarry to posture before other warlords.

They no longer fought in this way. Janine led from the front, claiming the lives of those fools aiming to stop her. A swing of her axe sent a turret and a ruined body into a wall. A shot of her energy rifle shaved the top of a soldier’s body. Bullets bounced off her superior armor, denting it in places. The warlord’s speed allowed her to sidestep a fired rocket and outpace the opposition, rendering their efforts to resist pointless.

Impatient One and Soulless One fought by her side, ending lives and using their instincts to weave around the incoming shots. The Wolfkins of the Wolf Tribe lacked their cousins’ incredible perception. They couldn’t see bullets suspended in the air, but the Blessed Mother had granted them a different gift. Their instincts flared, warning of danger, and by trusting them, the Wolfkins could replicate the amazing feats of their kin.

Three New Breeds. That was all it took to throw the opposition into disarray. Her Wolfkins surged in an avalanche of darkness, climbing on top of the building and downing the exposed enemies with the volleys of their shardguns. Armor-piercing shards left dents and gashes in the warlord’s armor as her bodyguard deftly dodged them. She found it acceptable and envied their nimble legs. The pack worked as one; their strongest drew attention to themselves, bleeding the foe, and hundreds of her soldiers pressed on the exposed flanks, securing the kill.

Soulless One’s claw missed its mark, and the enemy officer recoiled, raising his heavy plasma launcher. Anissa fired hastily, exploding the man’s shoulder, and he slipped through a broken piece of iron grating, falling into the chemical waste. The man shouted in agony, scratching his good hand against the wall as the current threatened to sweep him away.

“Permission to…”

“Granted,” Janine approved Ignacy’s request.

Her little boy jumped onto his belly, sliding to the open crack as the scout in charge of his pack formed a defensive perimeter. Bogdan grabbed his legs, and Ignacy caught the officer and lifted him away from the deadly waters. The man’s gray hazmat suit had melted away, and the leather of his clothing and the metal of his exoskeleton fused with his skin.

Impatient One appeared beside Ignacy and slapped him hard enough to send him back to his feet when her brother tried to reach for his medical kit. The Wolfkins continued their advance, leaving the twitching, screaming man to receive care from the surrendered foes. Whether he’ll live or perish will depend on the Ice Fangs’ medics following behind. For now, Janine was glad that her daughter restrained herself and did not use her claws on her brother. Ignacy sometimes failed to understand that their cruel adrenaline shots would sooner kill a Normie than aid him in any way.

The Wolfkins spread through the city like the tide of a great black sea, shutting down the resistance, breaking into the factories, and eliminating any resistance in their path. Their losses were minuscule, and yet a sting of cold fury touched Janine’s mind at news of a sister’s passing. Young fertile females and eager males, kin who should have inherited the future, died on these blasted streets, brought low by the massed fire of the defense towers and the occasional cyborg encounter.

Dragena had the same opinion. Predaig’s and Onyxia’s packs took to the walls, climbing up to silence the cannons; Ygrite’s cheerful voice warned her allies of potential traps ahead; the brutal Alpha and the indomitable Ashbringer waded through the center of the city, using their largest packs to quell the fiercest resistance. The packs’ movements produced whines of servomotors and the scratching of the steel edges of armor plates against each other. The state’s mass-produced power armor was anything but subtle. Accompanied by the wailing howls and barking sounds of their shardguns, the Wolf Tribe produced a truly nightmarish cacophony for ears that teared hard at the enemy spirit.

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Where is the Blessed Mother? Janine wondered, bringing the Taleteller to another barricade. An explosion overhead announced the silencing of turrets preparing to fire at her. Commander Ravager wasn’t the one to shy away from combat; in every battle, she raced for the throat of the enemy leader, quickly ending a war by devouring them.

So where is she now?

“Daddy!” Janine’s eyes narrowed at the sight of a young cub on the street.

The girl stepped out of a gray house, lifting her tearful face to look at the platform where the Wolfkins had cornered a group of guards. A shot ricocheted off the Impatient One’s armor, and Janine broke from the advance, blocking the piece of steel flying at the cub.

“Don’t hurt my daddy!” Janine ignored the feeble hands pounding at her chest plate as she wrapped her oversized limbs around the girl, preparing to throw her into the doorway. Already, the little one’s eyes had reddened and not entirely from tears. The outside air can kill her just as surely as a sudden shot.

“Sure thing!” Bogdan roared and lunged at the guards, cursing as a shot hit his elbow joint and grazed his skin. Her wayward son fell from the roof, holding five guards in his embrace. He threw them to the building, nodding to the girl as a shocked man tried to raise his rifle. His comrade pushed his gun down. “Wolf Tribe’s express, five Normies delivered; now get inside your den and don’t show up your faces until the battle’s over.”

“Why?” a man asked grimly, stepping to Janine. She let the girl go into his embrace, still towering over him to serve as a wall. “So you could take us as cattle?”

“Not a cannibal!” Bogdan shook his paws. “Just hate seeing girls cry. Ain’t no cub should…” His scout landed from above, and her punch sent the male face down, cracking the concrete with his helmet.

“Fighting’s over for you.” Janine tried her best to ignore the urge to protect Bogdan. Her boy deserved a punishment for breaking away from his pack and risking his life. The girl simply looked after him. She didn’t even use her claws. Something in the warlord’s voice convinced the guards, and they dropped their weapons.

“Then what awaits us?” the father asked, hugging his cub.

“A life and a future. Better than the one you had,” Janine promised, shoving him and his daughter inside and closing the door after the rest stepped in.

“If you have done sleeping on the job, get on with the conquest, bleeding heart,” Ashbringer sent a message.

Flames erupted from the two streets to their west, announcing Ashbringer’s advance. Through the cameras in her helmet, watched as Alpha closed in on a fortress within the city. Techno-Queen had ruled by fear, and sending soldiers motivated by it against a horror like Alpha was most unwise. Unseen terror whipped people in Alpha’s path, breaking the guards to a condition where they dropped their weapons and whimpered helplessly, clutching their legs. The strongest warlord simply crushed those few who had found courage to stand against her, deeming them unworthy of sullying her claws.

“Ashbringer, cut on your fire,” Dragena’s voice said over the comm, and Janine switched channels, seeing the warlord sitting in the crawler’s command center, monitoring the advance of the packs on several screens. “Janine had the right idea. There are civilians in the buildings, and if you set fire to the oil lines, there will be naught but dust.”

“I am not that incompetent,” Ashbringer snapped back. A searing burst from her flamethrowers left twelve scorched remains in her path.

Janine felt cold as she ripped the heads off the two soldiers with a backhand swing of her axe. Ravager. At a wall, the Blessed Mother rose high in an explosion of stone and fire and turned around, looking calmly at the Ashbringer. Not a snarl left her lips. The anger and madness simply washed away from the commander, and she held an officer in a purple cape in her paw. This calmness freaked out Janine more than any rage.

“I obey.” Ashbringer quickly dropped to one knee, baring her neck in submission and ignoring the enemy fire. Her flamethrowers went off, and the warlord released her claws.

Ravager turned her gaze to the screaming officer and paused, comprehending her surroundings. The Blessed Mother examined the man, who looked more like a toy compared to her. Her paw twitched, causing the man to choke on his own screams as at least one of his ribs gave way. Ravager’s pupils dilated and returned to normal; her breathing alternated between heavy and rapid intakes of air. Arresting her madness, Ravager raised the officer to her lips, leaving the scent-mark of a prisoner, and tossed him to the other soldiers, accepting their surrender.

Her calmness did not last for long. She leaped from this section of the wall, crossing the entire city in a graceful somersault. With the force of a comet, Ravager landed on the opposite wall, partially crushing it under her weight, and moved on, snuffing out any life in her path by slashing, stomping, or simply gulping down foes fast enough that none had any time to even offer a surrender. A defensive tower in her path toppled at a snap of her fingers, and the Blessed Mother stopped, bleeding from her nose and sniffing the air furiously, her head swaying to the sides.

“Martyshkina’s advance has halted, warlord!” Melina shouted happily, throwing a grenade that seared soldiers at a barricade ahead. “She spread them too thin, and her wolf hag is pinned down in the east! We can swoop in and secure her advance point ahead of her!”

Janine’s HUD projected the image, confirming Melina’s words. In her overzealousness, her friend had advanced in too wide a front, stealing kills from Ygrite, and the crafty warlord was only too happy to let someone else do her work. But now a pack deprived of its warlord became trapped in a square in front of a factory whose guards dragged heavy cannons onto balconies, their fire suppressing the Wolfkins, and two other groups moved in to flank the separated pack as its wolf hag clutched the side of her helmet. There were no wounds on her, and the warlord assumed she had a concussion.

“Melina, take your pack and strike at the factory from the rear. Bring back Marty’s cubbies, safe and sound,” Janine ordered.

“But… but the glory! We can… you can earn a title…”

Janine’s paw closed over the wolf hag’s helmet, jerking her off the ground. She bent the metal gently. True, her soul cried out for a chance to one-up Martyshkina, especially for the blunder her friend had caused. It would’ve lifted the morale of her pack, removing the inferiority they felt at having a fameless leader. But not at the cost of lives. Janine was determined to prevent any member of her pack from ever feeling the same fear of abandonment she had experienced as a cub. She wanted to build a home that her cubs could be proud of. And what she wanted, she made true.

“Safe and sound,” she repeated slowly, looking into Melina’s lenses. “Obey or challenge.”

“You lead! I obey!” Melina folded her paws to her chest, accepting any punishment, and the warlord let her go.

“Soulless One! Baby-sit the Melina Pack for me,” Janine called. As the shaman passed by, she grabbed her shoulder. “And keep your strikes true.” The shaman’s claw twitched, and Janine asked in a softer voice. “Are you injured? I can’t smell your blood.”

“It’s the oil. I must keep a cool head, lest I’ll turn into a torch,” the shaman joked. She bowed. “I function, my warlord.”

“Hunt well.” A pat on the back sent the shaman to the wolf hag, and the warlord led her soldiers further.