"Come on, whores' spawns! Don't line up; death waits for you all!" Marzena of the Alpha Pack cheered, blood bubbling on her lips.
The wolf hag's power armor was a mess. Riddled with bullets, two unexploded shells lodged in it, and a fist-sized hole in her belly. Her intestines dangled, touching her greaves. So irritating. Ideally, she should have retreated and let Maxence's nannies tend to her wounds, but today she couldn't care less about surviving. Her pack died. All sixty of them, precious girls and boys whose lives she had fought so hard to spare over the course of this war. The last of them, Scout Justyna, had been torn asunder by a Malformed fifteen minutes ago. What use was a wolf hag without a pack to lead? So this was her go-time.
Besides, she was fighting in the shadow of the Blessed Mother! When the wall had suffered a breach and the honeycomb of the defensive installations crushed down, Alpha took the place at the widest gap. They fought for hours, turning back the sea of soldiers. The strongest warlord's claws had torn through hundreds, staining their mound of concrete red. And the Alpha Pack fought alongside her.
To them, Alpha was more than a warlord. She was a mother, cruel, often merciless; she pushed her troops far and beyond their limits, breaking and mending their souls and bodies. But the results were worth the suffering. Steeled by discipline, carrying the flames of rage in their hearts, the best pack held, luring in large swaths of enemies into well-placed ambushes and letting some escape to sow panic as they reformed their vigil, not surrendering a meter. Rather than engage in prolonged melee, they had spiced things up with acid grenades and laid mines during brief pauses, howling with glee when the fools stepped into them.
Outnumbered at least fifteen to one, they denied Houstad the Gilded Horde, never panicking even when communications occasionally went down. Alpha had often faked her own death, teaching every single wolf hag and scout the value of independent thinking and fluid command structure.
Pity I won't get those tasty sandwiches again. Marzen giggled, half-crazy from pain, and caught a fatty by the hand. She sank her claws into the woman's throat, saving a shocked Reclaimer on the ground.
A sandwich. Stupid as it was, her pack had almost dragged her to one of the so-called bars selling piss called alcohol in these parts. There she tried one, enjoying the pleasant-to-the-palate mix of bread, meat, cheese, and veggies. She must have been delirious from the blood loss if she had longed for it over her friends and family, but when she picked up a shardgun and fired it, she understood that she was okay with it.
There was no better reason for a last brawl. It was best defending something, even if it was a small bar serving sandwiches. Her shot tossed down a hordeman, and she added another into his broken visor, just for good measure.
Alpha fought beside her, splashing red with every swing. The strongest warlord didn't shield herself; bullets and beams of energy failed to even graze her armor. Her fear wave expanded, stilling the hearts of fifteen troopers, and she lunged into the fray. Where she walked, the dead remained and a crowd of former convicts flocked to her side, firing their rotary cannons, and Marzena reluctantly accepted a hand helping her cross a tall boulder.
Former. Yes, that's the word. The state might disagree, but to her, these males and females had atoned for whatever crimes they committed. At her command, the collars dropped from their necks, but none tried to flee, and Alpha said nothing.
A streak of flame flowed above the advancing forces, crashing into Alpha with the force of a meteorite. The strongest warlord's feet claws scratched the stones as she tried to stop the fireball while those around her were thrown to the ground. Mighty arms grabbed at the ball, trying to squeeze it as the stones and debris melted and the bodies caught fire. A blackened hand reached out from the orb and grabbed Alpha's head, shaking it violently from side to side, and then a leg of similar color tried to kick her in the neck.
The sharpest claws sliced through the limbs, and the flame gathered into a figure resembling a demon from the ancient religious books. Its skin was a dark, cracking bark that held an inferno within; two dim, eyeless holes tracked Alpha's movements, and its lipless mouth was frozen in an eternal grin. Red, blue, and white tongues of flames covered the body like regal capes. It reeked of smoke and nothing more.
"We have a duel to finish, Alpha," the newcomer said in a crack of wood. Black talons grew on the tips of his fingers. "If you would be so kind…"
Alpha simply speared his chest, not bothering to answer. The ruined torso's legs locked around Alpha, and the flaming corpse took flight, slamming the resisting warlord into the walls and dousing the exposed corridors with liquid heat. They soon disappeared at the top of the wall, still fighting, despite the constant bombardment.
"Don't you dare lose, Mother!" Marzena shouted as the ledges above began dripping molten stone.
Well, she had gone and done it. The last wolf hag to call Alpha her mother in a drunken stupor had had the skin peeled off her back and then reattached to the bare flesh with clamps, both to hurt and to preserve the fur. But in the face of impending doom, and just to give the warlord an extra incentive to win….
Eh. Worth it.
"Split up and retreat to the bastions!" Marzena coughed out the command, baring her fangs at the soldiers and convicts' hesitation. "That's an order! You'll die in vain out in the open!"
"Don't bare your fangs on me; you aren't that scary, lass," said a former convict, summoning his exact copy from the stones. And then he created another. "We started together; I say we end it together."
"It's not up for debate, dolt! The ground is shaking; their cavalry is coming! Hide, resist, and bite!"
"What about you, Wolf Hag?" asked a soldier.
"Done my share of walking, son," Marzena chuckled, and the rest of her guts fell out. "Go! Have a few drinks in my memory after we kick their asses!"
The soldiers scattered, helping the wounded, and the stone clones carried away the most grievously injured and helped allies to crawl from under the wreckage. Thumb. Thumb. Items jumped up and down as Marzena walked to the breach, witnessing that what she had said was true in the most literal sense of the word.
Fuck, I never thought I'd be dying to a blasting cavalry in the age of tanks! She fired once into the oncoming stampede, and Iron Lord's glaive slapped away the shards, slicing through her head before the first thunder bull even reached her.
The Horde entered Houstad.
****
"Boss!" Slavetaker yanked his blade from a mutant's twitching head, ignoring the spasming pincers touching his armor. A light push of his foot squeezed the body of a half-dead doggie. A shame. Their kind brought much profit, but that one had a mortal wound. He turned to face a Pureblood climbing to him over the rocks. "Iron Lord Khan ordered us to join Widowmaker and clear the walls of enemies so our main host could enter unopposed. One or two warlords are still prowling around."
"And where is he?" He looked at the city, the tingling sensation of the present prey almost tugging at his nostrils. Here. They didn't escape.
"On his way to finish what Phaser couldn't! Besides, he said that our inside agent is acting weird, so he wants to 'settle the matter before anything happens,' as he put it." The Pureblood saluted. "Want me to gather the band?"
"Yes, but we won't be doing hunting." He shot, downing a Reclaimer running to the streets, and pointed at Houstad. "Iron Lord promised me hides, but I had much fighting and too few cheating skins. No longer! Today, we flay those brats."
He walked down, both certain that his troops would follow him and not caring about possible betrayal in the slightest. None cheats Slavetaker. He broke into a run, closing in on the soldiers trying to man a trench outside the fortifications. A single swing killed all three, and then he fired again, eagerly moving toward his marks.
****
"Let's make us some widows!" Widowmaker cheered, her sword catching bullets from the air. Soldiers died as she headed up the stairs, cleaving through their bodies. "What, are you planning to live forever?"
"No!" her soldiers roared, following.
This battle was amazing! Tens of thousands on each side and no sign of weakness! Doggies, mutants, Abnormals, powers, machines! Her heart pumped with excitement at the prospect of repaying the debt owed to Mad Hatter. Truth be told, she'd never skipped that battle no matter the debt, even joining the enemy if that would mean being part of something historical.
Widowmaker didn't care much about surviving, but she didn't want to die either, or see her troops wasted. This was her way of life, and she intended to see it through to the end. Her group had approached the breach under the cover of one of the remaining intact shield carriers and broken in, decorating the fortification with the corpses of the Reclaimers. A boy of about eighteen dropped his rifle, and her blade stopped a millimeter from his ribs.
"You just had to ruin it! Scurry away." Widowmaker scowled and proceeded up the stairs. "Such a perfect day to fight and die and…"
The bulkhead in front of her exploded, opening a view that instantly brightened her mood. Dozens of Reclaimers took positions in the operator center, firing at them from almost point-blank range. Her Chainbreakers slammed their shields into the floor, taking the brunt of the gunfire, while the Unbroken fired in the spaces between their shields.
Unable to wait any longer, she leapt, bouncing off the ceiling, her sword blocking the bullets. Widowmaker landed in the enemy ranks, unafraid of the raging gunfire. A soldier before her glanced down at the cut on his chest, and then his upper part slipped down alongside the armored casing of a terminal behind which he was hiding. Her return blow sliced through a woman's neck. The khatun continued, enjoying the tingle of bullets passing near her cheeks and the occasional explosions as the Reclaimers tried to take her with them. Her perception of time slowed, allowing her to pick out the tiniest details.
To her left, a man turned into water, surviving both her slash and a hail of bullets. The water splashed across the floor, past her feet, and she felt the figure transform from a moving stream into a solid form. At the sound of the moving trigger, she whirled around and stabbed the man in the heart, enjoying the utter horror on his face as he failed to change form fast enough.
A wave of heat touched her cheek, and she smelled intense chemical fire, quite different from the prevailing stench of sweat, blood, smoke, released bowels, and sparks permeating the place. Widowmaker jumped back, saving herself just in time as a wall of flames rolled down the floor, somehow avoiding incinerating the Reclaimers. It came from a crack in the ceiling, and a violent kick sent the entire roof crashing down.
"Up," a voice growled, and the soldiers scrambled across the ruins. The Unbroken opened fire, but a hiss announced a burst of heat that detonated much of the ammunition in the air. Armored legs emerged from the opening above, calmly descending, and Widowmaker raised her arm in anticipation. "You killed my wolf hag."
"I've killed many," Widowmaker admitted.
"Her name was Arruda. Loyal, smart, kind." The doggie showed in full, her forehead scraping the debris above her as she stepped down into the room. Mounted flamethrowers on her wrists stained the unleashed white claws red with their fires. "You took her in her prime."
"Clearly her prime wasn't much to brag about, if she died so unremarkably that I don't even recall her." Widowmaker cracked her neck. "But I claimed her, and now you'll belong to me, too. I hope you'll be more of a sport…"
"Wrong," the doggie interrupted her. Arms pierced the wall behind her, rapidly widening the cracks, and more crimson lenses, armored figures, emerged from the dust. Widowmaker beamed. "You are ours. The Tribe pays its debts."