Reach the bridge. Ganbaatar pushed himself back onto his shaking legs, his head aching from the explosion that had toppled him. See the world, they said. Join the glorious conquest; serve the deity. Rubbish. He had seen how a shell reduced four experienced riders to a bloody mix of smelly meat and metal, and he was no longer sure why he had joined the Horde. The bridge. The survival is there. There we can fight.
He limped toward the destination, across the field full of devastation. Death rained down from the walls, death was coming from the ranks of the defenders, and death waited for him behind if he chickened out and ran. He, a Pureblood, shrieked like a common bondsman after two of his friends lost their heads to sniper fire. Blisters covered his legs and armpits, turning every march into a never-ending torture, and still Mad Hatter had refused to give them any respite, and Iron Lord and Brood Lord obeyed her every whim.
Smoke, pale and red, covered the vast field, making it difficult to navigate despite the aid of his HUD. At least a dozen hordemen lost themselves in it, their minds shell-shocked, and fell to their deaths in the cleft cut by the demigods. The storm continued for an hour, and four times the Gilded Horde swept to the gates and was repulsed, retreating and returning in a tide.
Iron Lord wasn't a coward. Ganbaatar gave the man that much. He accompanied them on every charge, his glaive reaping dozens, his cannons massacring more, but when his protective field burst under concentrated fire, the man had to rejoin the main force and order another assault.
Remnants of shattered war machines littered the ruined field outside the city, providing a modicum of cover as well as a deadly trap and moat of sorts. Ganbaatar's cousin, who had roped him into this endeavor, had disappeared after a generator exploded, engulfing the woman while they crept through the metal maze. Occasionally, he noticed the wounded and eagerly reported back, hardly believing his eyes as the priests evacuated them.
A shield carrier pushed its bulk through the steel forest, and hundreds clung to its underside. Ganbaatar joined them, only to be thrown aside as the humming field popped under intense bombardment, shells riddling the vehicle full of holes. He got up, found his weapon, and helped another hordeman.
Scary. So scary. I want to go home. The insistent thought pulsed in his head; he longed to see his family, even that arrogant bastard of a brother, but he stubbornly headed for Houstad. There was no retreating; treads and legs of his allies would trample him underfoot. Ganbaatar teared up as the leading tank ahead exploded, dousing four soldiers, including the one he helped, ablaze. Join the raid! Become a warrior! Bring food and concubines to the clan! Fuck it, fuck it, fuck it! He cursed himself for listening to his cousin. What if he had been born with a spark of the divine? He had always had a knack for craftsmanship, and artisans were never short of orders in the steppes. Sky almighty, even his hobby of making musical instruments brought him a steady income.
Survive. Don't want to die. There was a certain music here: deafening tank blasts, the wail of falling shells, the roar of rockets and human screams. The cacophony drowned many commands. But the bridge loomed ahead, enticing the hordemen with its relative safety from the batteries' thinning scything. Get there. Win the battle and return home. A pox on his mother's curses, a spit on his cousin's dream, he'll never let any delusions make him a conqueror again. He never even beat slaves at home; why did he give up his trade?
He tried to help another fallen Pureblood. Only the woman's upper body was lifted; her legs and waist remained on the ground, and the insides spilled out. Ganbaatar vomited inside his helmet and ventured on, shaking once as a bullet ricocheted off his pauldron. The initial front line had been filled by the bondsmen and low-ranked Purebloods like him, but as the battle raged on, Malformed, Dirtybloods, and the core of the Purebloods joined in. Tremors from the north rocked the ground, and pillars of lava spurted around the distant mountain range as if the planet itself bled, convulsing from the demons clashing at its core. Scared. Dad, Mom, brothers, sisters, I am so scared. Save me, take me away. An enemy soldier emerged from the trench, taking aim at the advancing hordeman. Please.
A bullet struck the soldier's helmet, splitting it open. The ruined faceplate exposed two wide eyes that mirrored Ganbaatar's own expression. It took him a second to understand that he had fired first. The insanity of it confused the young man; he had wanted to ask that boy if he too was interested in crafting when the soldier raised his rifle and the training took over. Ganbaatar's cleaver crushed into the soldier's neck, failing to penetrate cords and fibers, but the force of his blow broke the boy's neck. My sixteenth kill today. His mouth twisted, and the young man stifled a psychotic giggle at the understanding that his unnamed enemy probably had a family to feed as well.
All distinctions between Purebloods, Dirtybloods, bondsmen, and Malformed disappeared on this battlefield. They were comrades, helping each other and trying to kill their counterparts on the opposite side. Madness. What sense does that make? Don't think. War is hell. Break through the gate. Win. Enter the city. Be safe. Then wage no war ever again. He joined the flow of hordemen, scared shitless over the possibility of getting maimed and paralyzed. Who would feed him then? What would be the point of living?
Explosions covered the ruined road leading to the bridge's ridge, and he pushed through it, feeling every shockwave reverberating in his poor bones. A Malformed ahead of him toppled; a spiked mace broke his neck. The Reclaimers met them at the base of the bridge, Normies and Abnormals. Forced out of their trenches, their bunkers, dots, and pillboxes leveled, the defenders formed makeshift barricades, piling on dead bodies, and fired from that disgusting cover. The Abnormals leapt over the wall of corpses, stifling the thunderous charge head-on.
Ganbaatar coughed blood after a bullet pierced his chest plate and tore off a nipple. He raised his left hand and fired the wrist-mounted autocannon, hearing the whine of the weapon's three barrels. His rounds knocked two defenders back, their visors replaced by gaping holes. I won't die or become disabled! He advanced, wreathed in flames of incendiary grenades and sparks from bullets notching his armor. A blend of human body and machinery tried to bar his path, but a Malformed tackled her, and he cleaved through her pistons of the legs, firing into the head until the soldier dropped dead. He nearly took another soldier's head with a horizontal slash, stopping after she dropped her weapon.
Her blue, tired eyes, sharing the same deep fear as his, saved her. One and the same. Ganbaatar laughed madly, kicked the fool aside to relative safety, and walked on. People were similar everywhere. Everyone wanted to live! But he must prevail.
The bridge had been reduced to little more than a pile of rubble in the previous onslaughts, and Ganbaatar clambered over the rocks, cutting his way through the defenders, heart pounding. A burst of machine gun fire flew overhead, liquidating the faces of two Purebloods, and the next burst rumbled over Ganbaatar's shoulder, destroying the emblem of honor given to him by Iron Lord Khan himself. A group of Abnormals and Normies, led by a man wielding a mace and a rifle. The hordemen crashed into them, and the young man faced the mace flying at his face. He had seen that bastard bashing heads before.
He would've liked to say that he was brave and skilled, but in actuality he wet himself and largely unintentionally blocked the spiked mace with his cleaver, saving his visor. He rammed his shoulder into the man, slamming his back into a rail and bending it. A battle raged around them; men and women shot and stabbed; claws, pincers, and talons slashed and stabbed; hands, tendrils, and other appendages crumbled and choked; and Ganbaatar barely recognized any of them. Walkers activated thrusters and took flight, joining the Abnormals blessed with gifts in attacking the upper levels.
Alone. Everyone I knew died.
He caught the rifle, breaking it, and the Reclaimer twisted out of his hold, stepping on the side of Ganbaatar's knee, buckling the entire leg. The mace landed briefly on a gash in his armor, and the hordeman stumbled in pain as the spikes scraped against his ribs. He raised his cleaver quickly enough to block the following hammering and save his head.
I can't die! My family is waiting for me! Panic turned to adrenaline, and he let go of the ruined rifle, standing through the hail of blows, matching each blow. He headbutted, shattering his own visor and the enemy's helmet. The sound of the bastard's nose breaking was music to his ears. The young man shuddered, hearing the tear of his own armor. A golden clawed gauntlet had covered the Reclaimer's hand. I still haven't gifted Toragana that necklace I made! It was a simple, yet beautiful chain, a silver chain holding a locket inlaid with jade to accentuate her sweet eyes. He didn't wait for another swing of the gauntlet, rammed his fingers into the gray eyes and stabbed the man in the chest, twisting to rupture the lung.
A tank rumbled past him, smashing the damaged barricades, and around Ganbaatar, the soldiers were overwhelming defenders. He sighed, twitching from his wounds and observing how the first tank was closing on the gap leading inside the city. Survived.
From the above, a great gray figure landed, throwing up bodies and debris with its sheer weight. In one hand it held a ruined wreckage of a walker, corpses of flying abnormals fell in its wake; from its opened jaws dripped blood of the slain; and to her back was fastened a huge axe, more resembling a fang on a stick. The monster kicked, lifting the tank to Ganbaatar's disbelief. The war machine weighing 200 hundred tons briefly stood upright, and the same leg lacerated its underbelly. Then the monster fired its plasma rifle thrice into the interior, and a splash of flames and a downpour of molten metal mingled with steam briefly hid her.
The ammunition exploded, tossing soldiers of both sides off their feet. Through the burning carcass, it stepped out, crimson lenses burning, searching for victims and the axe now in hand.
"Step forth, she who dares! Face your doom!" The devil roared, basking in the hellfire, and proudly raised the axe, pointing it at the hordemen. Unharmed, aside from several notches on the armor. "I shall spill your entrails and dine upon them." A brave raider closed in on it and was cleaved in two. "Your bones will be dusted by my paws. And your meat…" It bit another soldier with unimaginable speed and closed its jaws on the still struggling body. With a soft crack, a pair of gauntlets fell to the ground as the legs were sucked into the insatiable maw. "…Shall sustain me!"
The entrance! Ganbaatar panicked. That damned creature had cleared the upper levels, and the intact defense turrets and rows of soldiers began taking aim at the gathered crowd. His comrades shared his concerns and charged the lone figure. The whirlwind of steel and plasma met them; the axe parried bullets, swatted aside grenades and rockets, and opened bodies as if they were protected by mere paper. Jaws snapped, snatching limbs, giant legs stomped, breaking bones. Violence incarnate passed through the disorganized ranks, and no one could stand against it. It traversed like a force of nature, hungrily gulping soldiers and spitting out mangled corpses. It clubbed them with its own plasma rifle, not bothering to reload, and never stopped laughing.
A Malformed the size of a truck knuckle-walked to the creature and caught the axe on its boned wrist. The Malformed mewled and gurgled, trying to say something. Acid sludge spewed from the mouths on its shoulders, hissing across the gray surface and melting bodies. The large fist raised, and the Malformed screamed in its mewling voice, his kneecap destroyed by a clawed foot. The creature freed its axe and lodged it under the square jaw; the edge went into the brain, stealing the light from the fighter's eyes.
All in the span of a heartbeat. Two priests swooped from above, pointing their crooked, taloned fingers at the doggie.
It grunted, withstanding the telekinetic pressure that formed a perfectly round circle of dented reinforced concrete around it, and a tank hurried to fire at the immobilized target. Bursts of gunfire from the defenders' ranks vaporized both priests, and the doggie sliced through the shell. A single shot from her plasma rifle traveled through the tank's barrel, exploding ammunition and murdering the crew.
"Will anyone provide me with a decent challenge?" The monster asked. "Or is facing unarmed innocents all you are good for?!"
I must survive! Sky, watch over me! Ganbaatar joined the desperate charge. They had to remove that thing out of the entrance and inside before they would get mowed down. There was no other way; it was way too late to retreat!
Mowed down they ended up being. Men, women, mutants, machines—none could pass this war incarnate. The doggie no longer fired, wielding its axe with economic swings, harvesting lives with every move. He had faced her white- and black-furred kin before, but this shared no hints of the innate ferocity. It calculated, stepping aside, dodging blasts and missiles, countering with brutal force. The legs woven their own web of death, clawing through the solid plates with sickening ease. Ganbaatar, daring to believe in the impossible, brought his cleaver to the thing's back….
Agony. His eyelids opened beyond limits, tearing the skin. So much pain. He found himself flying in an arc. Everything hurt. He got splattered against the wall, slipping back and leaving a trail of blood. When he hit the ground, he dared to raise his head, freaking out at the wide gash that opened from his groin to his upper chest. Organs pulsed in the wound, and a gush of air added to his pain.
More tremors, both from the khatun's duel and from the artillery bombardment, shook the battlefield, and Ganbaatar cried out; his exposed organs jumping up and down with each passing wave. On the crest of the ruined battle, the massacre began in earnest. More howls joined the monster's, and doggies climbed out from underneath the ruins, from their hiding spots, and swarmed the exposed soldiers. It was a trap. And they walked into it. At least his blisters and exhaustion no longer bothered him. Maybe he could even take a little nap…
A click of the weapon drew his attention. The soldier he had spared pointed a machine gun at his face.
"Surrender, yes?" he spoke with a thick accent, barely remembering the words and trembling with every fiber of his being. Only now did he realize he was missing a hand. A cripple. He would become a cripple, a burden to his family, unless he wanted Merchants turn him into a soulless abomination. Toragana would never marry him now.
The soldier nodded, lowering her weapon to his surprise. He planned to ask why, when part of the wall, broken by the artillery, came crashing down in an avalanche. The heavy chunks buried them both alive, entombing them in the darkness.