Lying in wait under a pile of rubble, Anissa recited a simple nursery rhyme to calm her nerves, worried sick about Mother. She didn't ask, but she could bet her soul that Impatient One shared the feeling. Shamans and wolf hags' place was beside their warlord in the war, but Mom was often unconventional in handling matters.
Her pack had taken up positions in the ruined government buildings bordering the sprawling terraforming complex. Immediately after the collapse of the shield, the Horde's missiles streaked into every corner of Houstad, and the magnificent parks across from the complex had caught fire, surrounding the place in a fiery cage and resulting in the destruction of the collective efforts of dozens of scientists and countless laboratory assistants of the old. Oaks, birches, cacti, firs, roses, and every experimental plant of the Old World, a prototype of their scattered copies, were either reduced to ashes or withered from the damage.
Commercial districts had been reduced to rubble, bridges had fallen, staining the waters, and corpses had sunk to the bottom of rivers. Houstad screamed in agony composed of gunfire, crackling fires, bombardment, and the thunder of falling buildings. But the main terraforming complex had its own defensive field, an ingenious invention loaned by Iterna and supplied by wireless energy transfer. Shells splashed harmlessly against the invisible field, sending shards over the Wolfkins' hideouts and not threatening the slightest overload. Smooth, solid walls built from the toughest alloys known to the Reclamation Army served as a secondary line of defense. Even now, a small host of technicians and scientists, organized by Till Ingo, worked in the bunkers, calmly adjusting the strained process of healing the continent. Short of deploying nukes in the vicinity, nothing could reach them without defeating the army.
In theory. If, say, a rat carrying access codes granting security clearance were to sneak in, it would be capable of wreaking potentially untold devastation. While the privileges of this potential troublemaker had been revoked, who knew if he had disappeared someone and obtained a way in? Thus, Anissa, Impatient One, Chak, and the rest waited for this treacherous, worthless rat, both itching to stop him and to settle certain scores…
She turned her head, looking at the distant airport through the narrow gap. Another volley of missiles took flight, and laser beams followed, closing in on a Horde's aircraft and opening holes the size of barns in its hull. Spinning in the air, it plunged into the apartment building, flattening it during the ensuing cataclysmic explosion.
At least Igni, Elzi, and Marco are safe. Anissa thought with relief. Come to think of it, so much had happened lately. How come she felt as if ages had passed since their war against Techno-Queen? Bogdan was alive, Marco was unharmed, and most of her friends weren't torn to pieces… Why didn't she treasure them more? The teaching of the Spirit of Loss came to mind, giving her the much-needed succor to cope with the idea that she would never hear Bogdan's voice again.
Death is a part of life. We enter the cycle, screaming and kicking, competing over food, and rage guides our bodies from the first days. But no matter how hard we rage, our loved ones are whisked away from us, one after another. Death is the immutable part of reality. Remember them. Grieve if you must. Everything ends. Warlords, nations, continents, even worlds die. Eventually, even the Blessed Mother will pass on to the Great Beyond and the Spirits will be forgotten. God, mortal, strong or weak, none is eternal. By accepting this fact, you understand. Death is not the end; it's the beginning of another journey, and any separation ends. What matters is how you lived and what you fought for. Such is the truth.
Impatient One shifted, cracking her knuckles and drawing Anissa's attention. She ordered the bulk of her pack to reinforce the defenses inside the complex, paw-picking six soldiers for their age and expendability to join the ambush: two males, a scout, and three warriors. Technically, Anissa and Impatient One weren't supposed to risk their hides, but what leader would let her soldiers be put at risk alone?
"You are worried about them," Anissa accused Yennifer. Impatient One, she corrected herself.
"I should have been at the warlord's side," Impatient One answered on the private channel, unhindered by the tons of debris on top of her. "Too many of our kin have left us, unblessed and unremembered. It is my duty to be at the forefront."
"You are worried about them," Anissa repeated in a softer voice. Once they won the war, she and Yennifer would undergo a ritual, torturing themselves to the point of unconsciousness to exorcise unworthy desires, but for now, she refused to lie to herself. Marco was over there. "Me too. I won't let him wake up to the desolation. Think he'll like candies?"
"Act your rank, Wolf Hag," the shaman growled the gentle rebuke, and Yennifer added, "Sure he will. But his stomach is feeble. No chocolate. Give him peanut butter and bread, unless you wish him to dirty himself. You think Elzada will be a suitable soulmate for Ignacy?"
"Why don't you ask her?"
"I am asking you. The girl is queer."
"Queer? No, I am pretty sure she is into males…"
"I saw her reading your prayer book."
"She did? Cheeky girl. Guess it was a payback for me stealing her diary."
"You should take better care of your belongings, unless you want Chak to carry your tent," Yennifer poked playfully.
"Yeah, yeah."
"How will you clothe your cubs…"
"I get it!"
"If Elzada wants to be a shaman, tell her to step forward and be judged."
Anissa smiled, watching the street. She missed her sister. Yennifer had an occasional streak of bitchiness born out of a necessity to be the best, but she often read to her sibling before naptime. More than once, she had brought home the tasty carcasses of the insectoid warriors when her brothers failed to get the milk in the pits. She had this stoic exterior, but deep in her soul, she still cared, which hindered her ascension into the shamans' ranks.
This was the funniest thing about duties. There were so many of them that a person was bound to break several. Not even the shamans were truly infallible; even Lacerated One had faults. The Spirits watched, judging the intent. Accepting imperfection, striving to be better, was another way of venerating the tribe's stern deities. It was for this reason that she had decided to postpone her training and become a soulmate to her beloved. Yennifer wouldn't understand, but Anissa wanted to have cubs to call her own before accepting the responsibility.
Her mechanical eye whirled, catching shadows down the street, near the ruined sentry post leading into the complex, and next to the tourist facility. Though it was a heretical spawn of technology that had sheared away part of her soul, it, like the implants, had its uses. Her biological eye failed to detect movement, and the smog in the air played tricks on her nose, but the crimson ocular did its task brilliantly, catching and recording an armored hand. The wolf hag's lips parted in a broad, predatory grin, and she signaled for the pack to prepare.
Vengeance was nigh.
"Pack Anissa reporting. We have spotted hostiles. Repeat, we have sighted hostiles. Searching parties head our way for support; maybe we'll leave you something to gnaw on," she whispered into the comms, informing Command.
The traitors clung to the shadows, as if they could protect them. Their overcoats had long since burned, but the state-mandated armor kept them alive as they darted from burning ruin to smoking ruin, closing in the distance to the complex, wary of meeting either Reclaimers or the hordemen. So caught in their treachery that they are prepared to backstab both sides… They carried incendiary grenade launchers and shardguns instead of the expected LMGs, and Anissa could bet that the perch above Chak had tensed at the understanding that his crew had failed to track every equipment crate.
It wasn't his fault. The Third had been undermanned for a tad too long, and the influx of new people had brought more chaos into the fold. Schalk hadn't been merely cozying up to favors and gaining trust by assisting with deliveries; the bastard had also stolen from them.
Chak clicked his mandibles over the comms, confusing Anissa. Impatient One nodded at the ground, and the wolf hag understood, noticing jumping pebbles. A heavy.
She flexed her muscles, enjoying the reawakening power armor. No more risks. The insurrection dies today. Anissa roared, bulldozing herself to freedom with a single leap. Impatient One joined a moment later, and together they were crossing the distance to their prey with vast bounds. Shards and grenades met them; the oculars picked up fifty marks, and her pack added thirteen to that number, but it hardly mattered. Schalk's ilk were Normies. The Wolfkins were not.
The sisters' paws caught the ground, flinging them off the firing line. Shards flew in both directions, and several traitors lost their limbs. Just a few, the pack had barely begun their attack, but it was enough for the shaman and the wolf hag to appear in their midst, unleashing the carnage. Anissa's first swipe tore away a woman's lower jaw, alongside her helmet. The traitor gurgled, giving a drowned scream of pain, but Anissa wasn't finished with the bitch. She caught her by the shoulders and used her to block an incoming incendiary grenade. The fiery blast washed over the woman, entering through the gaping wound and cooking her alive.
Impatient One rose from behind the traitors, her claws red. She had sunk them into the joints of their armor, maiming their knees, and then she tore the hands from two people like straws from a broom. She flung the tossed limbs into the retreating fool, abandoning the crippled people to be shot or bleed to death. Anissa's paws caught a soldier by the helmet. With a single, swift jerk, she broke his neck.
"No mercy for the betrayers!" Anissa yelled, foaming with rage. The flames licked her armor; the steel casing of her prayer book had remained sealed shut, but she began intoning curses from the memory, invoking the Spirit of Pride to guide her righteous paw.
A soldier aiming a shardgun at her disappeared in a bloody heap, killed by the pack. Her snarl sent a command, and the pack advanced, skulking around the edge of the battlefield to the shaman's displeased gaze and the irritation of her troops who wanted to partake in the slaughter. Anissa didn't give a shit; Houstad had stolen enough from her. Chak's coiled form began to slither down the ruined building, his needle legs tossing his magnifying glasses aside. She had promised to summon him sooner and lied. No one under her command will die today.
The sisters walked through the enemies, outpacing their aim, wrath fueling their movements. Claws gutted out the traitors, pierced through lenses, and jaws snapped through the helmets. A panicked traitor raised his arms, screaming that he was surrendering, not understanding what he had done.
"Such is the fate of all cub-slayers," Impatient One closed her paw around the pleading man, cracking his skull like an overripe fruit.
There could be no mercy or forgiveness for this specific act, not even if the state itself would have demanded it. Ignorance could be excused, but the blatant malice had to be eradicated, as the Blessed Mother taught them. There were hopeless fools who had betrayed the Reclamation Army for Iterna's lies or the Oathtakers' inversion, and some of them had even been recaptured later. Aside from verbal outrage, the Wolfkins gave these individuals no further thought, for their actions targeted military personnel.
But civilians and the land itself? That was personal.