Her axe came down, aimed at the nose of the vehicle. It moved backwards, spewing fire hot enough to melt the stones of the buildings hit by the fiery wave. Undaunted, Ja her blow crack the ground and redirected it, sending ks of pavement at Hawkhead as she reached for the cmped to the baergy rifle. Eled’s scythe had already moved for his head, the warlord herself jittered in eagerness for a fresh kill, and Predaig was advang in their rear.

  Hawkhead quickly grabbed his cloak and ed it around him. Its hem sliced against Eled’s head, cutting through the lenses and rupturing an eye beh. The beam’s surge and the scythe’s bde harmlessly struck the cloak, failing to pee it, and then Hawkhead flung open his cloak, drawing sparks and cutting a line in the warlord’s armor with its sharp edge. His ha a long dagger at Janine’s head.

  Predaig’s bde blocked the ining dagger, and it stubbed itself up to the handle, surprising Janine. Her named sister did not wield a on of the Old World like Janine, but even crafted in the New World, it never lost its dullness or was damaged before. Predaig’s pack soldiers reverently referred to this twiool of murder, believing the Spirits themselves had blessed it.

  Dangerous. The bastard was dangerous and ing, and as he maneuvered backwards on his monstrous hoverbike, he forced his oppos to pursue him, relentlessly pushing them to their limits. When his steed rammed through an apartment building, Hawkhead ighe waves of molten stone and steel p at his back. He stood, covered in a superheated halo, and aimed his longbow at Janine.

  She made no move to shield herself, and her named sisters’ ons struck, fag the ining arrow. The collision of ons produced a soni powerful enough to push the molten pool aside, and Wolf Hag Sarkeesia at the hoverbike from behind, jaws wide open and a shardgun firing into the raider’s back.

  The man spun, taking several shards to the chest. His cloak blocked another energy beam, overheating parts of his quiver. The wolf hag closed her fangs on the gilded gau. A single, casual twist of the arm elicited a groan of pain as the bloodied and broken daggers—Sarkeesian fangs—sprinkled on the hoverbike.

  “You scratched my gold, wench,” Hawkhead said calmly, catg an arm thrust at his neck by the wrist. It moved a few more timeters; the wolf hag clearly surprised the raider with her resistance, but then the fingers started crumbling the vambrace, and the wolf hag pressed the shardgun’s barrel to his side, firing from point bnk.

  Shardguns unleashed a stream of armor-pierg projectiles, called shards, that reached maximum velocity in an instant after leaving the taihat held them. Each magazine tained forty such tainers, and the Wolf Tribe prized this on for its near-perfe in close-quarters bat. O to automatic, it unleashed all of its ammunition in one burst, and not even heavy tank armor could withstand it. The students of Till Ingo meticulously crafted these ons acc to the designs of the Blessed Mother, transf them into precise instruments capable of defeating even warlords. Rumors circuted that Zero and Alpha had volunteered to test the pierg potential of the shardguns against their hides.

  No tyrant, no matter how benevolent, could be tolerated, and the daughters of the Spirits had given their young the means to recim their freedom should the darkest hour e.

  The drawback of shardguns was their limited accuracy at le, and to serve ammunition, the Wolfkins preferred not to use full-auto, as there were not many creatures capable of withstanding a shot from an anti-power armor on. But Sarkeesian didn’t need precisiht now. She sought to interrupt Hawkhead’s hunt, and he grunted, surprised by a sting of pain in his side as the remaini tainers exploded his armor and injured him.

  “Who do you think you are, doggie?” He let go of her wrist and smashed her in the neck with the hand holding the longbow, smming her against the hoverbike seat. If not for the get of her bat pte, the blow would’ve murdered the wolf hag in pce, but even though it saved her, the metal deeply squeezed into her neck. The shardgun fell.

  “Ae,” rasped Sarkeesian. Her paws closed on the grenades, and she grihrough the blood, setting them off.

  Hawkhead was faster. His longbow moved, swatting them away to explode on the ground, and an armored boot lifted to trample the wolf hag when the hoverbike tilted under a sudden increase i.

  “Magnifitly done, wolf hag,” Janine said, rising to full height, her back to the trols. Her named sisters hurled her onto the esg mae. “Dismissed.”

  “Yes, Warlord,” Sarkeesian said, slipping from under her oppo and off the hoverbike.

  Die. Janine brought the Taleteller down in an overheated arot g if Hawkhead would try to dodge or block. Either way, she will ruin this flying horse of his and bring his limbless body back to hang from a crawler’ on.

  Hawkhead grabbed an arrow from his quiver and used it to attempt to block the ining attack. The bde sliced through the wooden shaft, tearing at his pauldron and f him to retreat a step. Before it could nd on the seat, Hawkhead closed the distand smmed a ko her stomach, crag the armor and kig the air out of her. Hawkhead’s bow sshed at her rifle, knog the on from her paw. Jaurhe favor by elbowing him in the helmet, breaking the steel lips, and disabling a single lens, leaving it dangling on wires ing out of the socket.

  The eye looking at her from ihe helmet wasn’t agitated or reying fury after getting injured. Hawkhead had the look of a killer—the calm and reserved demeanor of a man doing his job, no matter how horrible it was.

  The raider immediately went on the offensive, using his own broken arrow like a short spear, hag, sshing, and stabbing at the warlord. The metal of their ons sang a song as they fought. With an almost unnatural agility, the rider kept his bance, advang areating, using his longbow as a shield. Jaook her axe in both paws, shattered his spear, and he grabbed the edge of his cloak, sshing at her. She leaned aside, and Hawkhead leaped past her, pressing a button on the trols. Spinning in a blur, he took an ining ssh on the arrowheads, his longbow held by a string on his shoulder. He stabbed, driving Janine back to the r engine as the bike carried them higher and higher to the sky, tilting at irregur intervals.

  Janine grunted, adjusting to the rapid shifts in the bance. Her oppo had skills and strength to match hers! A rare case indeed. In her long life, she had killed her share of teleporters, choked regeors unscious, and easily dispatched those who emitted energy or fmes from their bare hands. Powers and unique abilities reigned in the New World, but they also threateo bee a kind of narcotic, luring their wielders into over-reliance. And therein y the danger. When foes are uo see your movements, victory was all but guaranteed, no matter a power.

  This one could react to her. Hawkhead’s arrows aimed at her knees and shoulders, leaving gashes on steel ptes and attempting to stab her eyes. Janine blocked the hits with the ft of her axe and terattacked using the knob. The gng blow tore a wing off his helmet, failing to distract the man even for a sed. She didn’t like to admit it, but here and now she was fag someone who fought at the level of a warlord with ease.

  At this realization, adrenaline kicked in. How long had it been since she had faced an oppo of equal skill without the need for mercy or restraint? What gifts will the Spirit bestow upon her after victory? An elongated finger, curled by rigor mortis, emerged from the darkness. It caressed the remaining wing, and the dim eyes floating behind Hawkhead demanded something from Janine.

  Restraint? Or perhaps a life for the life taken?

  “To Abyss with it,” she said to the apparitioing the rage and hatred engulf her, feeling that pilr hteous fury spread withihe wouhe dead, and the dying below fueling it. Restraint? No. “You die tonight,” she promised the golden bastard.

  “Ambitious,” he responded, driving her closer to the eh precise stabs. “Let’s see you do it.”

  Janine opened her jaws and bit down on both arrowheads, stopping the ons iracks. Their tips scratched her pate, but she didn’t care. It was time to get close and dirty. She swung the Taleteller upward, cutting through the shafts and hag off the man’s finger. Hawkhead tried to reach for his cloak, and she spat the arrowheads into his face, giving him no time to recover. A single ssh drew a bloody path from his right shoulder to the left hip. Goldeal and crimson droplets rained and dripped onto the seat. Janine dropped a paw of her axe and cwed at the mask, receiving a terattack to her lower jaw that shook her head.

  “Your kind fight,” Hawkhead begrudgingly said, extending his mangled hand to her. “How about it? Join me, and I will protect you from Brood Lord’s vengeand elevate you to bee a khan of your people. The weak must follow the strong, and there are few people strohan us. It is your obligation to realize your potential and take the rightful pce among the…”

  Janine ighe heresy, using the pause to gather her strength. Unsteadily, she reached for his hand, as if to accept his offer, and lu him. They were both ready for anything. Hawkhead buried a dagger in her side, using her own momentum to impale her. She blihrough the red dots in her vision, ign the scraping of the dagger’s edge against her ribs. The warlord bit into his shoulder, right in the cra the pauldron made by her axe, and sunk her cws into his suit, ripping cords and tearing skin. She sted him, chewed through the metal, reached for the flesh, tried to bite through the arteries and bones.

  Suddenly, the bike turned in midair, and Janine’s head faced the settlement below. Haulled her off himself, leaving a sizeable k of flesh from his shoulder in her jaws. The warlord uood she was falling and filed her arms in a desperate attempt to hold on to something. His cloak sliced through her fingers, cutting to the boe the armor. The familiar double-bded sword and scythe flew past her, fag a fired arrow. The air pushed by the collision blew into Janine’s face, catg her despite her fall.

  She tore the dagger from her rips, curled into a fetal position, and fell a kilometer. Her armor protected her from the worst of this nding; the deep wound barely showed a hint of irritation, and the warlord stepped from the crater her body had created, nodding to her named sisters in gratitude for the rescue. She had a multitude of tasks to aplish: help the civilians, make sure her soldiers got medical attention before the precious cretins worked themselves to death, che Eled’s eye, and locate the missing ons, including her rifle, or else Chak will kill her for losing it.

  But there was one deed left to be done. Above, a fming et streaked across the sky, followed by a bombastic, mog ugh as it flew away from the settlement.

  Janine calmly waited until Hawkhead left the walls and called the Iable.

  “Blessed Mother.” She smiled. “A prey worthy of your presence seeks to escape the battlefield. Marked. Rapidly escapes to the southwest….

  A howl tore through the night, and the ground shook before Janine could finish. Ravager came.

  Wolfkins’ markings were wonderful things. The st they left lingered for weeks or months, and she left some of her spittle on his skin and exposed wounds. Even should he escape to the end of the world, the Blessed Mother’s nose will never lose his st.

  And when the ander reaches him... Well, Janine promised he would die.

  ****

  Sky Lord tio ugh, toug the wound on his shoulder. What a night! His heart hadn’t beaten this fast in a year, not since he was hunting the Malformed. But back then, he had to handicap himself by going naked on a hunt. He picked up bones from the dead mutants and fashioned knives out of their ribs. As amusing as it was to hear the yelping cries of their kits as he stomped them into mush, it was hardly a true test of his limits.

  But these mutants! They sure knew how to put up a fight. A loss of a finger was a small price to pay for the information gathered tonight. The Merts had tinkered with both his dragon and armor, equipping them with various sensors and rec devices. Everything, from the rate of fire of their rifles to the explosive range of their greo the speed of the missiles, the durability of their battle ptes, and the approximate calcution for the size of the mae that fired them, was carefully stored in databanks for future review by the Merts and Iron Lord. Their fondness for oys ensured a suitable rept for his finger, and most importantly, it was Brood Lord’s minions who met their demise tonight. This should put him in good graces with Iron Lord and earn his prote for the time being.

  Sky Lord had distanced himself from the political life of the Gilded Horde, ign the offers of the two khans to joihe Horde’s nature required staing by rivals, and if you faltered, a stronger khan would absorb your khagahanks to this, they aghe innovatiht by their leaders and wars between their offsprihe people of the steppes strong.

  But he didn’t care for any of that, resigning himself to the role of a simple soldier. Rulership bored him, and so he secured his khaganate’s future by giving it to the leader.

  The Hrew te and too powerful, overthrowing nds in a matter of weeks through sheer numbers. What joy could there be for a man like him? It was mado rebel against Mad Hatter, and serving her led to simple, mundane soldier duties.

  Until tonight. He itched for an opportunity to take on these doggies before they’d be made to join the Horde. ime, he would take no ces, hunt them down properly, ahe stro win and live. Sky Lord betted on himself, of course, but the possibility of uaied him.

  The Recmation Army seemed to be just a beast capable of produg ae supply of worthwhile fighters. If there ce for the demon pguing the Khan of Khans’ dreams to lurk, this nation just might be it. What a quest it’ll be! As the wails of widows and the cries of youngsters beaten into shackles of servitude fill the fallen towns, he will stand, holding the heads of their champions overhead, shattering the pathetic lie of strength in peace! Burning cities, riches to be plundered, serfs to be sold at the market! petitioement, opposition, rivalry, new vassals, war, where a single mistake cost life, and the Sky’s worship spreading far and wide…

  A rumble reached his ears, something akin to an avanche, and a dot appeared on the radar of his HUD, rapidly approag. Sky Lord initially mistook the dot for another missile, but it sped up rapidly, hurtling toward him on the ground. He gnced back, and at that moment, as if sensing his movement, the dot overtook the dragon. Nervous about the empty nd and the huge footprints io by the moonlight, he began to climb to gain altitude when it happened.

  It rose, blog the dragon’s path like a great storm cloud and as suddenly as a well-pced sniper’s shot. It was the stuff of nightmares—twin yellow orbs burning in the skull, white fangs gleaming in the night, and an utterly dark fur coat. Panic overcame him, and Sky Lord directed his dragon to the right, flying past the horrid thing. Whatever it was, it couldn’t fly, and gravity halted the monster’s movement, returning it to the ground.

  The thing had its ce. He was not going to give it another.

  “Freak,” Sky Lord spat, reag for an arrow. Tried to.

  There was no hao grab an arrow. His left arm was gone, missing at one shoulder, and blood poured from the open wound. When did it… His eyes widened, and an ieedle touched his heart as he heard another rumble. It wasn’t an ava was a howl, fierce, and hungry—the howl of an unleashed predator.

  Frighteo the bone, Sky Lord trated on driving and accelerated the dragon to the maximum, flying toward the sky, rising above the clouds. Mach 9. There should’ve been nothing capable of keeping up with him, save for the Khan of Khans.

  But the thing below could. A line of destru ss way, as the air dispced by the supernatural movement fttened mounds and hills more surely than any explosion. Sky Lord’s surviving lens reyed the information captured by his dragon’s high-speed cameras. He moved up, feeling the predataze on himself, certain that the monster had never lost track of him.

  Ripples spread across the sand, like circles oer after a stone has been thrown into a pool. The mighty legs speared the ground, creating vast, gaping yons that stretched far and wide as the horror leapt, effortlessly c kilometers in the air. Sky Lord chuckled, prehending that this thing had timed its jump to cide with his own trajectory, and that it was too te to dodge.

  He thought the Inate would have murdered all the impostors by now! Yet here was another one walking on the p! He regretted so much that he won’t be able to see the assion of the Khan of Khans after she cuts down this Inate and grows ever strohe Sky itself emp her for her ho dedication.

  But there was a time to live and a time to die. Sky Lrabbed an arrow and faced his fate, arg his remaining arm back to strike.

  It never he cw tore through first his jaw and then his spine, paralyzing him for the enormous maw to devour.