Janine followed the st mark to a small observation ptform that overlooked dining partment number 4. The crawler was a living, moving city, and spacious corridors served as its veins and streets. Even after several days of being fined in this coffin, Jaill relied on the sts left by other Wolfkins, which mapped the enviro far better than any soulless terminal could ever do.

  And right now, she had ehe territory of the Ygrite pack. Her st was thin, reeking of uainty and avoidance of challenge. But it was mixed with a veiled, acrid stench of a mixture of digestive fluids and powder. The initial taste lulled a challenger into a false sense of security, promising an easier victory before the weaker warriors used every dirty tri the book. The warlord recalled a wolf hag cursing and choking on razors hidden ihick fur of Ygrite’s scout. And then the scout buried a knife uhe wolf hag’s ribs, drawing a long gash and damaging a lung.

  Ygrite’s girls imitated after their warlord, winning duels through smarts where their cws and muscles faltered.

  It left Janine w why Ashbringer had called her here. The packs cimed territory for their own warriors. Many males, warriors, and scouts napped happily in the airways, their fi reminding them of their cramped home vilges, while wolf hags and warlords rested in private rooms to set an example. An unirespass could lead to a sporadic brawl when a stressed guard threw a reflexive punch. The Blessed Mother made her will clear. Avoid violen these lifeless bowels.

  If this idea troubled Ashbringer, she didn’t show it. She stood at the edge of the observation ptform, ign the wolf hag of the friendly pack beside her. Her eyes sed the rows of chewing Wolfkins below.

  Ashbringer, like Janine, possessed a misshapen body. Her fur had a silky touch, even softer than the Blessed Mother’s, and it y smooth instead of stig like needles. Ashbringer rubbed the ashes of burned victims into her fur, trying then it, but while it created a pleasant shade and bck color, the fur refused to lose its softness. Her head was more elongated fiving her a wider mouth filled with sharper and smaller fangs, more befitting of a young warrior than of a warlord.

  Once, a rare challenger for her rank called Ashbringer a ferret to her face. The entire pack held their breath, worried about the kind of revehe woman would infli the hussy. However, as soon as the domination match was over, Ashbringer bellowed with ughter, flung the broken body over a shoulder, and carried the defeated to the medi a good mood. Later, she elevated the challeo the rank of a wolf hag.

  Below, the Ygrite paarled and tried to snatch the fattest pieeat from their trays, pleading fer portions from the Normie cooks. Several Wolfkins, who had been guilty of something, assisted the cooks by handing the trays to the ravenous swarm, for the unruly soldiers might have actally ihe cooks in the petition for the trays. Ygrite was the weakest warlord, but she also accepted every rejed her pack grew numerous.

  This pack was an oddity. They cked the standard family retionships befitting the Wolf Tribe. Suicides caused by rampant dominations, deaths during sparring, added to the already high toll of casualties that came from being the first unleashed on the front lines and serving as the rearguard during rare retreats. Sisterhood ook hold here, and even wolf hags often lost their ranks several times a month. However, the soldiers enjoyed Normies’ pany, eagerly learniricks and listening to ons’ instrus. Many soldiers had prosthetic arms s that sometimes sparked due to disrepair. Doctors and cyber crafters wrote wishes of well-being on these limbs, and not a single soldier in the pack chastised the wounded for it.

  Ygrite believed in survival. It was her w. No matter the indignity, no matter the wounds, if you live, you stand up and keep going, soul be damned. Despite Lacerated One’s repeated attempts to sure the warlord for disregarding her warriors’ wishes for a peaceful death, Ygrite tio adhere to this heresy. The Wolfkins, scarred and bleeding from fresh scratches, roared in cheer at the hat today’s meal would be mashed potatoes and real cusack steaks instead of synthesized nutrient fakery. Their voices were so sihat Janine almost had a mind to join in.

  “Saw you speaking with that Kaisa cub,” Ashbringer said. “Be wary of the bitch. She’s nht in the head.”

  “And who is?” Janine asked, fused as to why a warlord would be spying on a wolf hag from another pack. “Seems like no worse than you were. What was that boy’s name again?”

  “Irrelevant,” Ashbringer snapped. “The Blessed Mother herself absolved me of all sins. Remind me of that i again and I will rip your jaw out.”

  “You will try,” Janine said calmly.

  “Do not tempt fate, Sister Syer Janine.” Ashbriill hadn’t turned. “I make no threats or hypothetical. I deal in facts. Better listen to me. See these Wolfkins? Her brothers and sister.”

  Janine saw a shambling mess of a Wolfkin, covered in scars from head to toe. It wasn’t unon for a male to be badly injured, especially if a girl took a dislike to him and used him as a chew toy. There was a long scar around the male’s waist, dozens of ugly healed wounds on his arms, and the tips of his once sharp, long ears had been cut off. Ret bruises had swollen his legs, and he had lost some fur from stress. The male looked around like a ered animal, while a taller girl and a smaller male walked beside him, often holding him by the shoulder. When he saw Kaisa torpedoing her way through the crowd, the boy shivered and almost dropped his food.

  “She did it,” Ashbriated ftly. “I asked around. People told me the family was close until one day Kaisa snapped and began tormenting them for no reason. When anirl tried to kill the wounded male for fun, Kaisa fyed her fad would have eaten her alive if it weren’t frite’s intervention. Freak. Why maim if yoing for the kill?”

  “Everyone is not without sin, like you said.” Janine frowned when Kaisa shoved her siblings, tossing the two lesser wounded ones aside and crashing the trembling male against a table. The wolf hag sat and ughed mogly, her brother to eat from the floor. “Ygrite just o give her a good beating.”

  “You are as soft as our sister. Kaisa is a motherless cur and must be treated like one,” Ashbringer said. “Anji is keeping an eye on your you. For our sake, I hope she keep Kaisa from creating a body. Otherwise, I’ll add another one and will have to listen to Alpha’s screams again.”

  Pure fury arrested Janine’s limbs at the uanding of just who that bitch meant by ‘off the hook’. It was no ce that she had followed Marto the room. Daring to bare fangs at my family? Janine ted from oo teing the urge to poun Kaisa and wreng her head clear off for daring to even think about harming Marco. The shamans and her soldiers might chastise her for taking a life for the sake of a male, and Alpha might bel her as weak, but she could live with that criticism. What she could not live with was seeing her boy…

  “Ashbringer,” Janine said. “Thank you. But why do you help me? I thought you had despised me.”

  “I despise you,” Ashbringer replied. “You are a mongrel cur, so worthless that even your own mother rejected you. To call you a warlord is an insult I must bear. The ander should not have let you be anywhere close to her. But what happened happened. It was brought to my attention that the tribe had failed you. It falls to me to rectify this and support you, sihe rest of the rabble is too irresponsible.”

  And how different are these cubs? Jahought, ign the insults. Words were irrelevant, as she learned. Aattered. All of them, including Kaisa, were kin. The tribe’s carelessness had led Kaisa astray, and the misery spread. The warlord ched her fists as the trembling boy tried to crawl away from his older sister. Marco has her. Anji. Even Ashbringer. Who does this boy have to support him?

  “Who allowed you to eat at a table, eh?” Kaisa kicked her brother in the side. He mumbled something, and Kaisa’s smile widened. “I ’t hear your whining. Look at me.” The boy froze, and the wolf hag kicked him again, this time using her cws to slice a bit of skin. The boy rolled on the ground, whining and leaving a blood trail, before curling up into a ball. Kaisa’s siblings tried to stand up betweewo, but their elder sister grabbed them by the throats ahem flying with a casual flick of her wrist. “I said. Look. At. Me.”

  Janine did some pure evil things in the past, this much she admitted to herself. She dominated males in pits, often breaking their fingers or leaving them starve for days. This part of her life she could never alter. Janine could not ge the traditions; she could only mitigate them somewhat by providier ditions for the males in her pack, preventing their deaths at the females’ cws. Some grumbled, thinking her soft, but Melina and Anissa had carried out her wishes. No male ever took his life under her and, and the foolishness of Terrific was but a memory.

  Janine wasn’t a better person than Kaisa. She could not undo the damage she had done in the past.

  But she could do something now, too. As the younger brother wet himself from horror, Jani down, sending a ripple through the floor and sending a few tables jumping up as her massive bulk nded. No more. Kaisa warily watched as the warlord made her way through the pool of Wolfkins, greeting them with raised throats. She didn’t bite any. Her pack wasn’t rge in numbers, and it would be foolish to start a blood feud. But a lesson was in order.

  “Kaisa,” Ashbringer interrupted Janine, nding on twht legs and never bending her knees. “You and me.”

  The warlord stepped down the aisle betweeables, holding her paws behind her back, and rocketed her neck.

  “Want to earn scars so badly, granny?” Kaisa ughed and stood on all fours, releasing her cws and digging them deep into the metal. “Raise your paws.”

  “No need,” Ashbringer yawned.

  “Take a stance, fool! When I carve my o your skin, I don’t want you to have any excuses for your sorry… What are you doing?” Kaisa demanded when Ashbringer looked at the ceiling, ting lights. “Got scared?! me your neck for free?!”

  “Y disgusts me,” Ashbringer said. “Makes me want to puke just looking at it.”

  Kaisa propelled herself at the warlord, her paws tearing faping holes in the floor. Exceeding a bullet’s speed, Kaisa’s blurred frabbed knives as she passed tables and hurled them at the warlord’s head as she closed in on Ashbringer, her arms already trying to hook underh the warlord’s kneecaps to pull them out in a single, uhrust and bring the oppoo her knees, disoriented and crippled.

  Ashbringer bowed so fast that the knives failed to touch her skin. Or at least, this was what it looked like to Jahe two oppos’ heads collided with enough force to create an explosion of air and a small, expanding vacuum that had knocked several soldiers off their feet. Food trays, tables, and cups made from reinforced gss—everything was reverberating. Blood spshed against Janine’s smirking face. Kaisa’s blood. The blow spttered her face down into the ground; she bled profusely from her ears, and as she tried to rise, more red streaks flowed from her moaning mouth and nose. Kaisa’s arms shook, and she fell again, uo stand after a single, disrespectful headbutt from her oppo.

  A snap of fingers bashed the wolf hag’s blood and some ash from Ashbringer’s forehead. She waited a bit, giving time for the gsses and tinklial in the partment to stop, and no one dared speak.

  “Unworthy of my cws. Too weak for my fangs. Ugly. Predictable. Honorless, like the rest of Ygrite’s trash. But what else could I expect from a motherless cur who hasn’t learned life’s first lesson?” Ashbringer said in a melodious voice. Her feet touched Kaisa’s lower jaw, and she lifted her head. “Dominating males wastes time that could be spent honing your skills. I see no sister or rade in you, filth. Your reckless behavior put several soldiers at risk.”

  The wolf hag’s head swelled. Pieces of the exoskeleton pierced the skin, bulging out of alig from the titanic collision.

  “And the lives of those whom they could have saved,” Janine added. She put a paw on Ashbringer’s shoulder, preparing to pull her away from the downed oppo if needed. “Male, female, who cares? We are the soldiers of the Recmation Army, a shield that rises before the weak, ahat cuts off the heads of the threatening! We grow stroo serve, and you deny your pack that opportunity by ruining their lives, Kaisa.”

  Ashbriomped on the wolf hag, pushing the panting woman deeper into the floor. Kaisa screamed in pain, but the warlord kept on going, increasing the pressure and creating a small crater, until Kaisa’s left shoulder bde cracked uhe immerain, and the woman whined, going limp.

  “You spat on our duty, Kaisa, for the sake of your petty enjoyment,” Janine mercilessly tinued, pointing at the Ygrite pack, who stood aside silently. Any pack respected duels, but when they went so far, there should have been soldiers ready to jump in, even at the cost of their lives. These soldiers just stared, not g about the oute. “Look around! You cared for none, and none es to your aid iurn.”

  “So…What new? No one helped before either…” Kaisa gasped.

  “You are still young, cur.” Ashbringer’s paw closed around Kaisa’s head, and she lifted the wolf hag in the air, ign groans as pieces of the skull moved underh her fingers. “As ht now, you are a liability. Unworthy of your rank. ge it. The lesson is over. If you force me to repeat this lesson, it will be your st time, potential be damned.”

  Ashbringer let go of Kaisa and spun, moving toward the exit.

  “You don’t grow stronger from dominating males,” Ashbringer said, passing by warriors. “Remember it and act as a unit, damn you. If Ygrite would have any pints, rey to her she is wele to have her skull broken against my fist any day of the week.”

  “What…” Kaisa licked her lips, standing up on the wobbly legs. “What did I d? Strength is revered, and I lived by this rule! That was what I was taught!”

  “You are brutish, not strong, Kaisa,” Janine said. “There is more thaype of strength that is required to be a wolf hag. You are strong physically, but you fail to inspire loyalty, and your mind is fixated on self-pity, preventing you from shining. Rather than indulging in your impulses, trol them, own your bloodlust, and turn it inward, using its energy to make your pack better, stronger, faster, and more uhan ever before. A single soldier is but a puzzle pie the battlefield—a cog in a mae, if you will. Work with others to overe anything in your path, rather than putting them down.”

  “I… don’t get it,” Kaisa admitted, struggling to focus on Janine.

  Mercy is never wasted. It was hard. The bitch threatened her son. She was another warlord’s problem, and Janine’s paws were already full. She wao leave ahe fool die a fool’s death. But where Janine had the blessing of Martyshkina, Terrifid the shamans to guide her through the darkest period of her life, this one had no one.

  “Visit me every evening, and I shall teach you what I . For the time being, focus on healing, apologize for your as, and ensure your soldiers’ wounds receive proper treatment.” Janine approached the broken Wolfkin, bypassing the male and female’s feeble attempts, and the boy simply closed his eyes, baring his neck.

  Maybe she should’ve gotten Impatient Ohe boy was broken; it in as day. It may be cruel to let him live. Kaisa’s treatment would kill him one day. A quick death and a fresh start in a new body or a new life in the Great Beyond is a far better deal. But Janine refused this choid gave the youime to collect his thoughts.

  “Your name?” she asked.

  “Kirk, warlord,” he replied, and she patted him.

  “I see. Heal. Survive, soldier,” she told him, leaving him in the care of his siblings, gring at Kaisa o time to ehat the moron was obeying her and.

  Good. Small steps toward betterment. The tribe failed this family, and Janine gave Kaisa a paw, seeking to pull her to the light. But this is just one member of a broken family.

  What am I doing? She pondered, grabbed a terminal, and called Bogdan. Ignaswered and quickly passed the terminal to her son.

  “Warlord?” Her son hiccuped.

  “Have you been drinking?” she bristled.

  “In my spare time, as permitted by the rules, warlord!” He burped and tinued in a hushed tone. “Sorry, Mom. Had a call from my baby and got a little emotional after talking to the little ohey are already saying words…”

  “Aaught them profanities while his wife left them aloo talk. Five mihat’s all he o spoil them!” Ignapined, and Jaiced him speaking some words a bit lohan needed. Both of her sons were having a celebration of their own, it would seem. “Bogdan, she’s going to kill you once she hears them spewing vileness is, and I fully support this decision, you bastard.”

  “Eh, I hought I’d live to hear my little ones speak, so I’m taking every day as a bonus and living life to the fullest, and there’s nothing you do about it, nerd,” Bogdan replied. “Sorry for my undigni… innapro… unfitting behavior, warlord!”

  “Not another word,” Janied. Bogdan had gotten into trouble in the past for drinking too much cheap moonshine and alcohol. But he gave up drinking altogether after being a father. The silly boy cimed he wao be an example for his cubs. It was hard for him to be so alone, uo see his girls and boys growing up. “I have a request. Personal,” she added. As a warlord, it wasn’t right to offer a male a ce to refuse ht, but Bogdan was smart enough to make up something if he didn’t want to work.

  “I am all ears. Me and Ignacy have plenty of time on our paws.”

  “Why do you speak for me?” Ignacy argued.

  “Because you’re not doing anything!”

  “I po read about soers….”

  “See! Doing nothing.”

  “Bogdan, I have a new arm, and I am not afraid of heating someone!” Ignacy warned.

  “Ho-ho, then how about you use it to heat a girl for once?” Bogdan ughed.

  “The Abyss are you meaning?! Why would I set an i woman afme?”

  “I meant, get yourself a mate already, brother!”

  “You done?” Janine asked, and her boys fell silent. “Good. There’s someone I want you to help, in a way only you , Bogdan…”