She roared and lunged, earning a kick to the chin. A spin saved her from the swing of Iron Lord, who had no intention of allying with any of his enemies. Brood Lord found himself on the ropes as the shaman crashed into him, sparks flying. A shaman's claws were different. Where the Tribe cherished their natural weapons while accepting more advanced methods of slaughter, the shamans stuck to the old ways, gnawing at suits and hollowing out entire caves with their claws on a regular basis, ignoring discomfort and pain and strengthening them every day.
And Impatient One had earned the right to be one of the finest fighters among the shamans, prevented from ruling over villages only by the vice of her temper. But in Janine's opinion, the daughter had long since surpassed the mother in pure martial prowess and was held back by her smaller stature. Unhindered by any physical disfigurement, Impatient One created a web of cuts approaching Brood Lord's face, slicing away his mustache. Her toes pressed hard into the road, and she leaned back on them, dodging a slash that would have decapitated her, and immediately leapt into the fray, catching the snapping pincers, then kicking at the khan's chest, bouncing off him to gain distance.
Brood Lord chased after her, swinging his sword down, and the shaman caught the blade between her paws, groaning from the intense pressure of struggling against his single arm. Brood Lord spat his acid, missing his target as Impatient One jerked her head away. Her leg kicked, damaging his chitin plate, and in that second Janine pushed past Iron Lord, shoulder tackling the other khan away.
"It is getting ridiculous," Brood Lord sighed pretentiously, touching his ruined mustache, and another set of irises appeared from behind the first. His hind legs arched back, resembling scorpion tails as they hung over him. "All I wanted was to see Janine writhing in agony as I plucked members of her family like grapes, but no. You had to come and incur a blood debt. Pay up; I haven't got all day."
His legs came down on Impatient One's shoulders, stabbing into them with enough force to reach the bone and pin the woman to the ground. Brood Lord took his time to bring the shaman onto a knee, smugly grinning at Janine, who fought against Iron Lord. Ignoring the claws that scratched the lines on his chitin, Brood Lord raised his sword.
We are monsters. Let the world hear us and tremble at what it has birthed.
The advice came suddenly to Janine, but she obeyed, giving up battle plans, tactics, dominance, traditions, her place in the pack, even her family in exchange for the urge to kill. The most basic thing a monster could do for humanity. Destroy those who threaten the weak.
Iron Lord's glaive rose, propelled by her blow, and the warlord lunged at Brood Lord, dragging the axe across the ground like a tool. The swing of the axe damaged the tip of his hind leg, and the next blow drew a long gash across his belly, piercing his gilded armor and sending coins of the conquered nation free. The Malformed freak stumbled away from Impatient One, touching his wound.
"You… you weren't that quick before." His finger ran over the bleeding edges, and then he licked them clean, watching the warlord. "Overdosed on drugs? Angry? Come on, Janine, what's a few dead kids between friends?"
Enough! Shut him up! She obliged, facing the rapidly moving khan, blocking his blade thrust, backhanding his pincers, and tackling through the kicking legs. Iron Lord appeared to her left, swinging at her neck, and the warlord dodged the blow. Brood Lord immediately tried to use that second to split her legs, and Iron Lord struck him with the end of his glaive.
The three-way fight. They stabbed and slashed, each defending against two opponents at once. There was little reason or logic to the clash; the blows hungered for exposed limbs and were stopped at the last second. Brood Lord's looming legs struck again and again at Janine's head, swaying it and escaping from her jaws. The glaive cut a wide swath from her chest, exposing a side of her body down to her waist. The warlord responded by slicing through Brood Lord's armor above his ribs and crippling Iron Lord's leg, leaving him limping.
Sensing the shift in the battle of the beasts, the khans dropped their quarrel and faced Janine together, planning to finish off the strongest in this fight. She parried the glaive, and a bullet flew between the fighters, scaring the Malformed away as it chipped a piece from his helmet.
"Hey, whoreson!" Martyshkina landed nearby, holding a smoking revolver. "We have unfinished business."
"Piss off. It's Janine I want," Brood Lord barely glanced at her.
"Too bad; I don't share." Marty leapt forward, evading a sudden slash aimed at her slash. "I hate unfinished business and unpaid debts." She blocked the blade with the barrel of her revolver and fired the second, halving Brood Lord's severed leg. "That's one." Martyshkina smiled at Brood Lord's groan of pain. The agony made him sloppy, and Martyshkina pressed the advantage, kicking and breaking another of his six legs. The limb twitched and detached from the joint, first holding on to greenish strings covered in red, then falling off completely. "That's two." She pressed her revolver against her enemy's visor. "And that's dead."
The blade smashed the revolver away, and instead of blowing his head clear, the bullet tore through Brood Lord's cheek, hitting the building behind him and causing it to collapse. That was enough for the khan, and he hurried to Iron Lord's side, hiding in the bubble of the shield field formed around the leader.
"I must say." Brood Lord used his sword to deflect two of Martyshkina's bullets, slowed by the field. "Your operation is shit, my friend. Had I planned it…"
Fear.
Everyone felt it. Janine stopped, her axe locked against the glaive. The packs moved hesitantly away from their opponents, dragging their wounded and Ice Fangs to safety. Bertruda yanked her spear from a corpse and took an uncertain step toward the APCs, shaking her head to clear the confusion. The cubs and citizens cried, their worst horrors manifesting in their minds. Impatient One drew a crescent with her finger, imploring the Spirits' favor. Anissa nearly fell and jumped from the roof.
Rodents and insects emerged from under the building and from the sewers, scurrying away, vast living carpets trying to escape, obeying the unspoken demand to clear the field or the fangs would descend. Thunder bulls roared a challenge, and Iron Lord's steed approached its master, snorting nervously. Eyes—omnipresent eyes—watched every combatant, tracking every moment. And in the midst of it all, she came.
Warlord Alpha landed in the street, her weight buckling the stones, disrupting the nearest foundations, and even sinking the nearest point of the Academy next to her into a pile of rubble. The Bane of Disbelievers, the Punishing Paw of the Shamans, the Strongest Warlord, the Thousand Slayers, the Eater of Monsters, the Loyal, the Undefeated… Hundreds of honorable names and titles she'd been given and earned didn't even begin to do justice to the threat she posed.
Her impossibly long claws reached down to her ankles, and gore covered tons of her power armor. Intestines tangled around her shoulders like a disgusting cape, and freshly skinned faces screamed wordlessly from her pauldrons, forming a silent orchestra. Her topknot, the pride and special joy of this warlord, was now braided with the recently torn spinal columns, and streaks of blood added to the burning crimson of Alpha's hair.
A claw touched the ground, snatching Brood Lord's leg and tossing it into the open maw for Alpha to chew on with both sets of fangs.
"Retreat," she commanded, burrowing her gaze into Brood Lord.
"Sword Saint Alpha!" Albert mimicked a gasp perfectly, unconcerned in the slightest about the terrible damage done to the suit he inhabited. "The future lady of the House of Sunblade! Ah, her beauty is even more vivid than I had dared to imagine…"
"Shut up," Janine begged, securing the axe to her back, morbidly curious to see what crazy implications filled the Ice Fangs' databases. And they called the Wolfkins crazy! She scooped the awed Impatient One into her paws as if the shaman were a cub. The Reclaimers ran for the APCs, not even to collect their dead. What was the point? A splinter of the divine was here, and the souls of the fallen had already been sent to a kinder reality.
Alpha addressed Brood Lord in a growl that sounded like hammers pulverizing bones: "You dared to harm a cub of the Wolf Tribe? The punishment is extermination. No trace of your lineage will remain in this world or another."
"It is done," said Iron Lord.
"Warlord Alpha! A moment!" Janine hurled her daughter to the transports and approached the Pillar of Terror against her instincts. Alpha's eyes looked at her, searching for a challenge, but the lesser warlord knelt, and an ear was offered.
She told everything as briefly as she could.
"Iron Lord." Janine heard the bastard who had crippled her son. "I believe it is our cue to bow out."
"Huh… I see. Piss off my battlefield." A gentle kick jerked Janine off the ground and sent her spinning dozens of meters in the air until she slammed her back against a transport and landed next to Impatient One.
"You've been blessed, Warlord," the shaman assured her. "You interrupted Alpha's hunt and you are still breathing. What an honor for our pack! Marco is now surely guaranteed a long life and much fertility and health!"
"Get… get into the transport," Janine groaned.
"Correction. I will eat you alive, and that's it," Alpha said.
"Not a fan of living up to your boasts, are you, beast?" The Malformed mocked.
"It is a privilege of the strong to be free to change their course in light of new information." Alpha took a step.