“I don’t care about your situation, Lieutenant; I demand an immediate escort!” Lugal-marada screamed in a high-pitched voice, leaning ba his seat as he pyed his role. “The Dynast will hear of this! You have nht to abandon an Oakster in favor of a on rabble! My vehicle carries taxes and collected tithes in addition to the precious relics. Do you have any idea how much that is worth? Drop the oners a us soldiers in here, now!”
Darkness covered most of the interior of the trol partment of a twenty-meter-long nd train, and the dim light from several w dispys barely illuminated his swollen and stitched skin. Lugal-marada boasted of his superiority over Warlord Janine, but iy the strain was causing him to sweat, and he kept his head clear thanks to the medical drugs he had swallowed in doses rge enough to kill a normal man. His spleen, stomach, one lung, and kidneys had grown back ho after the Horde shells had speared through him, and they still pulsed with indignation at the stress he utting them under.
A paper with the written script y on the armrest; he had no need for it. His power would have easily earned him a high rank in the First or Sed, if not for the troubled past from his days as a buard. He and his squad had escorted an Iigation Bureau agent to iigate the situation with two twelve-year-olds giving birth. Aremely radical wing of the Church of the P had fouhe pce after the Holy Fathers had exiled them, and the most devout elder proudly told the agent that the pre for women to bear children was between ten and sixteen.
Lugal-marada had introduced the man to his own orthodox views about the topic against the agent’s pints. Dishonored and with a criminal record, Lugal-marada had soon enlisted in the Provincial Army’s penal unit and risen to the rank ional ander, striving to maintain strict discipline in his se of the Wall. He spped his , stopped daydreaming, and focused ouation at hand. His fallen rades and the civiliarusted to his prote deserved to be avenged.
The Oakster family eagerly parted with their opulent nd train. Golden urel leaves ed the entire length of the four-partment mae, atuating its regal purple color, a sign of the dynast’s direct favor for providing food to the starving nation. The Oaksters boasted incredible wealth and the wisdom to expand it, donating tokens to geic boratories to reintroduce less dangerous species of bees to their meadows and eliminate geic defects from their cusack stock. They owned a jewelry factory and smelter nearby and willingly filled two of the partments with silver, gold, and ptinum ingots as a token of gratitude for resg their estranged workers and family members. The officer skeptically suspected that the insurance also pyed a signifit role in their immediate acceptance.
To their west grew an impressive man-made pteau full of temporary bunkers. The khan in charge of its stru took no ces, proteg even the lowliest of his workers with force fields; his artillery rained hell on the surrounding area, and snipers masterfully cleared the air of drohe sheer magnitude of the industrial stru surpassed imagination, and Lugal-marada doubted that even the First Army could replicate it. A new path created by the Horde sealed off a se of the yon like a plug; the pristine, clear surface reflected sunlight and was wide enough for even their accursed behemoth to pass without stopping. ns of heavy vehicles had already sped ahead, and soldiers abahe bunkers as they sank into the bridge.
Ashbringer and he had hoped that the Horde would send some of their mobile assembly ters, but surprisingly, they no longer apahe front lines, and as his train shook uhe first nded projectile, the operators activated the engine and began broadcasting pleas for help on the secured els. The deserters who had escaped with Janine eagerly firmed which frequencies were already known to the enemy, and to be on the safe side, Ashbringer had ordered several secured frequencies also to be used. A prey must not suspect a thing she said.
Uhey were deterred, the full might of the Horde would be on its way to Houstad ihan a few hours to face the unprepared Provincial Army. And it fell to Lugal-marada to give the invaders a more entig appetizer to slow them down, aeo succeed by pying the role of a stubborn corporate paper-pusher who had arrogantly ighe evacuation and stayed behind to collect a priceless cargo.
The state also had talented engineers.
“Leave.” Lugal-marada faced the small crew of operators. “It has been an honor to serve with you.” He didn’t salute; his cap was absent.
“Sir!” A young kid of about een jumped to his feet, filling the officer’s heart with disgust. Not at the fear in the rge eyes, no, the kiddo saw a, and a scab covered the side of his neck. He hated allowing the young to volunteer for suicide missions. “We’re willing to sacrifice our lives for the cause!!”
“Why let our enemies further our losses?” Lugal-marada asked. “Survive. Your escape will add credibility.”
“Clear the el, Oakster!” aor snapped from the unicator. “We have repeatedly warned you to drop whatever you are doing and evacuate. There’s nothing we do for you.”
“What do you mean you ’t?!” Lugal-marada yelled, jumping up and pounding his fists oable for all to hear. He added a curse, feigning pain. “Do you have any idea who you are talking to, eh, dolt? I will not…” The rear partment of the nd train opened, and his crew raced aushing their re bikes to the limit. “No! Don’t leave me, you bastards! Stand and fight! I am paying you! Me! Save me!!!”
He chuckled, stepping away from the s as the operator in the HQ cut him off. He still had it. The nose of the nd train crashed into the tree line, carving a path deeper as the big wheels turhe trunks into splinters. It was uhat his troops could escape the BOOM in time, but he inteo give them at least a ce.
Hoverbikes already approached his vehicle, firing their pulse rifles at the hull, and a puff of smoke touched his nostrils. Heavier vehicles followed in their wake, and the whole n ged dire, hurrying after a rich bounty possessed by a vain idiot. The nd train shook, a wheel broke, and a purple fsh sliced the rear partment in half. The wreckage almost smmed into two hordemen and crashed into an APC, spilling precious ingots around. Greed and hunger fshed in the hordemen’s eyes, and more vehicles fhe escapee. Pounding on the ceiling annouhe arrival of the first boarders, and the officer smiled as he ehe sed partment.
Shots pouhe hull and ricocheted away; cleavers and swords struck, denting the edges but creating cracks; a champion’s fist smashed through the ceiling, and Lugal-marada ed his hand around it, reshaping his limb into a cluster of gray tentacles. Sensitive antennae grew above his forehead, catg every vibration in the air and funneling the chaos into his mind. His bones dissolved, and hardened bone growths covered the vulnerable parts of the officer’s body, and he ya the arm, dragging the hapless hordeman through the opening too small for him.
The neck broke, the man’s head fttened so that it spattered against the armor, bones ched, the snap of tearing tendons filled the air, and the idiot died so quickly that his mind had barely registered a ghost of pain. The wall to Lugal-marada’s left exploded inward, and he whirled, his eyes merging into a single cyclopean sphere. It caught and reflected the outside light, magnifying and intensifying the beam so that it melted the metal on the hordeman’s chest. But in its weakeate, it did little else, and the pulse rifle in the bastard’s arm fired.
Lugal-marada jumped to the left, feeling a searing pain in his . His gums ah vaporized, giving the officer an ugly leer. The hordeman had no time to cheer his shot; the knot of tentacles was already closing in on him, twisting off limbs and tossing the body outside. More. anic scythes rose from Lugal-marada’s shoulders, their ends scraping the ceiling, and in one fell swoop he decapitated two boarders. A little further to lure more in.
His body shook; bloody crimson grew over his torso as the hordemen opened fire, keeping their distance. A bullet pierced the foundation of the fleshy scythe, and it dropped to the ground. Lugal-marada kicked, his foot fttening and hooking the floor to throw wreckage at the boarders; his belly balloohe flesh protruded, and from its smooth surface showed white fangs and an eyeless head. On a loic hose-neck, the new head traversed through the partment, biting off ks of flesh from the fallen enemies.
Lugal-marada’s power y in body manipution. Uniquely unbounded by notions of weight or avaible material, its limits depended on the well-being of his inal human body. As he ged, his body thinned, spreading evenly in a yer over the grown parts. Even his brain no longer retais inal shape, and his sce hid in the cells of his body. After an inteudy of his powers, stists cluded that his tentacles, fangs, and rudimentary body parts drew mass from other pnes of existence, opening small portals in the officer’s body. But damage to his body limited such possibilities until natural recovery, and he was far from his prime.
Hands caught the moving head by the jaulled them, elig a groan of pain from the officer. A hordeman ughed and shoved a greo the opened maw and jumped at the officer. The bst cut the fleshy tube in half, sending vibrating agony through the officer’s body. Caught by the impact, the hordeman closed the distan a split sed, sshing at Lugal-marada’s shoulder and ly shearing the knot of tentacles.
The remaining arm morphed into a thick tentacle and ed around the man’s neck, the throbbing flesh pressing hard enough to shatter the visor of the man’s helmet. The hordeman still pnted his ko Lugal-marada’s stomach, hard enough to sting him with pain, and the officer threw the man away. To keep from falling, the brabbed the edge of the torn wall. Then, he pulled a psma pistol from his belt and fired o was enough. Lugal-marada’s eyes widened even more as he reacted to the iing orb burning its way through his insides; his body reacted against his will, turning into a hardened material resembling bark, capable of stopping the orb from burning him in two. The psma died in his sternum, and the officer fell to his knees, ected to his lower body by a paper-thin yer of bck bark.
With a ugh, the hordeman leveled his pistol at the solidified eye as he approached. Behind him, the engines roared, ramming the train and bringing it to a screeg halt.
“Gd you are happy about your exterminatio,” Lugal-marada whispered, using the st oxygen in his body, and the snted eyes narrowed. The hordeman turo shout a warning, and in that sed, the BOOM went off, and Lugal-marada’s body suddenly was weightless.
****
Warlord Ashbringer’s pack had toiled without rest, burying warheads and potent explosives in the area marked by Janine. Had they done so on the pins or he roads, the Horde would have noticed the evidence of their ret digging, but deep in the forest and caught up in the chase, fident in the safety of their numbers, they ehe culling zone blindly.
Like a great cw of a Spirit, the fme pilr rose from the ground in a titaion, throwing hundreds of engines into the air and vaporizing them along with their crews. The fme rose, and the clouds escaped, driven away by the shockwaves that rolled across the ground, destroying much of the forest aing the rest abze. In the distant Houstad, the crew of the Iable he seismic reading reag the city, and far away, Mad Hatter cpped his hands, enjoying such amusement ating missing the ce to bathe in the bzing pyre.
Clouds of smog enveloped the ground as if night had desded early; the fissures opened by the shockwave reached the bridge, and the hurled vehicles smashed against the indomitable shield of Sky’s Wrath as it brazenly advanced, proteg the lesser forces that g to it like frightened cubs to their mother during an ioid visit at night. Fkes of earth fell to the ground in a ground fall, and ash obscured everything from view as the Horde’s artillery roared, fttening any potential ambush far too te to achieve anything.
Ashbriood undaunted, ign the wall of fire barreling toward her. Her legs held her steady, her armor closed, and she withstood the whip of the shockwave, opening her helmet in time to admire the passi genocide she had created. Not every soldier of the Provincial Guard had mao escape the expanding danger zone, and her flickering HUD registered a screaming person falling from the bike and turning to ash. Sneaky rabbits, mighty bears, geous deer, and magnifit birds tried to escape the impending doom and died in the hellfire. The Dynast was on a direct lih her, ready to give the order to mutite the nd he had created. She disected him and pressed the remote herself, wiping out life from a small er of the Core Lands with a single press of a button.
“To save what we love, we destroy what we ought to protect,” Ashbringer mused. “What does it make us?”
“Destroyers. Killers. Monsters.” A dark form stopped beside her, emanating streaks of almost liquid darkness. Onyxia spat on the ground. “Ours is to proted fight. But if we try to protect everything, we will lose everything.” She zipped to a fallen, burning deer and sliced through the head of the suffering animal. “A puzzle of our existence. Instead of stagnating in indecisio ahe future geion curse or uand us.”
“It is our duty te for them to have that luxury,” agreed Ashbringer. “We are done here. Let us gather the survivors ae with the Ice Fangs. That should scare the Horde long enough for us to retreat safely.”
“It was good, yeah…” Onyxia looked around and smiled a perfect white line in the darkness. The lenses of her helmet darkened. “But it could be better. See you in Houstad, sis. If you see Anji before I do, praise her for her hard work and recovery.”
Ashbringer gnced in her dire, but her sister wasn’t there anymore. A siep, barely marking a footprint in the ground, had carried the heavily armored warlord into the shroud of smog. She could sense no trao smell of Onyxia, and turned away, leaving the Visitor to hunt as she wished.
“Expin yourself, Warlord,” the Dynast’s distorted voice came through the static. Many sidered their liege a dreadful and merciless ruler, and he was capable of unspeakable cruelty for the sake of humanity. He spoke in a stern, demanding tone, but occasionally a hint of genuine warmth and care broke through the facade he had put on for the sake of his image, the voice of a man worn out of waging war aru and wishing to turn his attention to creation. “What right did you have to ignore me?”
“It was ours. My sin to bear, sir,” Ashbringer said.
“And if I say that I have ged my mind about the BOOM i sed?” the Dynast inquired.
“Then you have the opportunity to do so now or ter, sir.”
“Stupid, Ashbringer. It is not your duty to preserve my reputation.”
“It is if the fate of our people depends on it, sir!” Ashbringer insisted.
“I am aware of a certain pigheaded stubborhat Ravager has instilled in the Wolf Tribe.”
“What is a pig, sir?” she asked curiously.
“Read the history books.” The Dynast sighed wearily. “Educate yourself in more than military matters, Ashbringer. After we win the war, if there is time, I or my servant will send you a quiz. Solve it and there will be a reward. Fail, and I’ll send you to a uy. Regardless, you are all youhao me, you are the future.” She had a retort to this, and the Dynast tinued. “I’ve seen enough prejudid racism. My hand activated the remote and enforced Alpha’s pn. Anyone who disagrees will be hanged. I don’t see Onyxia’s signature on the radar. Is it malfuning? Where did she run off to?”
“My sister pns to teach the Horde that some ghosts arrive during the day, sir.”
