Jaomped mercilessly, crushing the Wolfkin’s vulsing and spasming body against the pavement. She increased the pressure, straining her own muscles as the smaller body under her paw twitched and the woman’s features distorted. A series of snaps apahe rapid elongating and tra of fingers; the rib cage fused and separated, unnerving even the warlord with the gruesome sight of bones freely traversing through the body.

  But the worst thing was that Janine applied enough force to kill or incapacitate a normal wolf hag. The pirl didn’t even spill blood.

  “Marty,” Janine said, struggling to hold the wolf hag down. “We don’t have much time.”

  The exertion had soaked her bandages in red. Soulless One almost shoved a nutritious ration prepared by Bogdan into the warlord’s mouth and made her drink sugared water befiving Janine a simple leather jacket and baggy pants, an appropriate outfit not to irritate her infted impnts any further. Gravity had really taken a toll on her, and whether or not Janine liked it, a visit to the cyberic doctor was now mandatory, as a chord eg her to the power armor exploded upon diseg.

  “I know,” said Martyshkina, the only warlord of the four still full bat gear. She k and took the wolf hag’s head, pressed it to her chest, and sang a bedtime song. The first rays of sunlight shone from above, dang on the dented armor and refleg iears.

  The smaller Wolfkin gulped, regaining some sanity. Janine could see their simirity despite the wolf hag’s profuse sweating and t features. Where Martyshkina’s amber eyes burned like shrouded mps, the Wolfkin’s eyes had sm lights in them, burning brighter with every passing sed and threatening to surpass her mother’s.

  If only it would be so. The wolf hag’s mouth wideo her temples. The crack didn’t tear its path through flesh and bone, but rather the material shifted aside to form a greater maw. She grabbed her the snout and held it shut, pg a trembling paw on the warlord’s shoulder and jerking it away as cws te to fit in her fingers pushed out.

  Martyshkina ighe danger, smiled at the younger woman, and tinued singing. For someone as huge as her, her voice sounded soft ale, a tone she used to soothe her sons after a particurly bad defeat is. The usually cheerful song, meant to inspire a cub for the days to e, now sounded solemn, more like a st sad melody to ence a mortally wounded rade.

  Janine decided it wasn’t that off-the-mark. The Wolfkin was getting bigger and bigger; a moan of pain escaped her lips as her spine splintered and protruded to aodate a new, gigantic body. Her magnifit fur started falling off her body, and the woma again, grieving the ruination of her body. Her chest bulged, straining Janine’s muscles.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Lacerated One asked in a guttural tone, approag the group and apanied by Impatient One and Marco.

  “Liberation,” Janine answered.

  Lacerated One vanished, moving too fast for normal eyes to follow. Jaasted the sudden shift from ess te; her eyes saw the glint of the supreme shaman’s cws as the woman tried to throw her off the future divi. Lacerated One crashed into the crossed in the silent threat ons of Warlords Eled and Predaig.

  Eled, a sed-geion wolfkin, was missing half of her snout, exposing part of her nasal cavity to the air and giving her an ever-ugly grin. A great scythe fed from the remains of a destroyed crawler served as her on. Many Wolfkins iribe thought Eled to be weird, but none dared say it to her face.

  In a war, she was a hurrie of violent fury, harvesting the lives of everyone before her, often losing herself in the same maddened haze as Ravager, ending up drenched in blood and guts and ughing bombastically for all to hear. In peace, she led a quiet life, taking great care to remove parasites from her fur and introdug her girls to the wonders of civilization, actual dresses for the family and cakes for her boys. She also bought a harp and tried her paw at being a musi. The Tribe viewed this behavior as a weakness, but the st shaman who dared to chastise the warlord ended up having her legs broken before Eled plucked the woman’s fangs, oer another, and wore them as a neckce for a year before Zero vinced her to make peace with the shamans. Eled dragged the mutited shaman to a doctor, paid to repce what she had taken, and subsequently ihe shaman to be her bodyguard, settling the blood feud. Her eyes had the dimmest light, sed even to Onyxia’s lighters.

  Predaig, a sister of the first geion, had a geous bck mane around her neck, a sign of mutation. It had long siurned gray, and wrinkles covered the woman’s skih. She willingly defied ber’s will and the state’s order by refusing to ehe rejuvenation chambers. The first-geion Wolfkins often acted differently than their offspring; for ohing, they had a single soulmate and took his death so seriously that they often refused to mate ever again.

  Legends told of Predaig going berserk after a marauder killed her soulmate, her pack to stand bad ending a thousand lives in a single night as a final to her beloved. Janine had no idea if there was any truth to these stories. Packs liked to exaggerate the exploits of their own warlords, but while Predaig’s movements lost their frace, her precision remained unmatched. Her on of choice was a long, double-bded, curved sword. Predaig once cleaved a sve trader who had a on pressed against the head of a normie cub. Those who withe feat swore they saw the blur ssh through both the cub and the sver, but only the man ended up in two pieces, and Predaig pced the cub on her shoulder and marched him back to his parents.

  Predaig’s loyalty to the cause had earned her the right to die of old age. Her eyes shone like suns, matg Ravager’s eyes in iy despite her age. Like Ygrite, Zero, Alpha, Lacerated One, Onyxia, and Dragena, Predaig rivy to being er’s personal cil.

  These two always had a good retionship with Janine and Martyshkina, accepting them as sisters, right after Alpha. Their packs followed their lead, supp each other in good times and bad, and exging and delivering supplies between the vilges entrusted to their prote.

  “I am sorry,’ the wolf hag whined, struggling to keep her sanity. “I failed…”

  “Shhhh…” Martyshkina licked away the tears, baring her o her daughter in a gesture of ultimate trust. “You have made no mistake. You were as splendid as ever. I am proud of you, Linny.”

  “I don’t want to lose myself,” Linny growled, her tongue growing fat and its sharp edge pushed iween lips, trying to strike at the exposed neck. “Please, m… warlord. In the old way. Dignity.”

  “Of course. We will go to the other side together.” Martyshkina reached for the revolver. “The madness won’t take you.”

  “Idiocy!” Lacerated O the ons, but kept her distance, wary of challenging four warlords at once. “She is to asd, not to lose herself! Stop it! Don’t deprive our tribe of a sacred champion…”

  “It’s not for you to decide, sister,” Jaold her, putting a paw on Marty’s shoulder and wishing she could be able to shoulder her friend’s sorroain.

  No mother should outlive her offspring. Male, female, who cares? A mother and father always want to see their cubs thrive and be happy wheart a family of their own.

  The wolf hag made o twitch; the reknotting and ref of her muscles into something stronger and faster sounded like a burst of gunfire. Rage and aggression filled the amber eyes. She threw her head high, no longer holding the jaws, and everyone saw two rows of fangs inside. Martyshkina’s revolver stifled the incipient howl, and a shot disappeared from the back of her head, creating a new crater.

  This wasn’t the end. Not even close. Linny wasn’t in the realm of normality anymore; she transded even the limits of the Trolls as the new gray matter began f—a writhing, worm-like mass. New wet orbs appeared in pce of the amber eyes destroyed by the shot’s shockwave, paws closed and operying to find a grip on Martyshkina, and the warlord used the barrel of her on, not allowing the brain to fully rebuild itself.

  If they made even a single mistake, this… thing could well end their lives. Janine faced off against them; who didn’t, among those who lived in the wild nds of the New World? Blood Graf and Teo-Queen gave her a taste of helplessness, but these creatures taught her horror.

  “Two out of twenty-one.” Martyshkina closed her eyes for a moment, taking a breath to calm herself at the sight of a reanimated body. “Janny, what’cha think? Am I cursed?”

  “This is no curse, moron!” Lacerated One folded her paws in divine reverence. “You are blessed. Step aside everyone; I shall push her away from the civilians. Let us wele…”

  “No Marty. It’s… it just happens.” Janine ignored Lacerated One and pced both paws on her friend’s shoulders. “If you want to, I …”

  “No. I must do it myself.” The warlord’s jaws snapped, biting into the newly formed brain. She tore and bit, dev the body faster than it could regee itself, lig the blood off the pavement, aing on the remains of her cub.

  Ja her be. Soon enough, even the skinwalker’s regeion will give up. She gave the shocked Lacerated One an encing pat. It must have been difficult for her. In the past, hundreds of females had embraced this accused divinity, forever losing themselves. In the darkest times for both the state and the tribe, these aberrations had e, stemming a wave of destru. But never without a price. Skinwalkers do not care who they kill or hurt, as long as they have fun.

  Nowadays, even the most devout refuse to bee beasts. The Recimers were querors. But they also wao build a world worth living in, not another crazy Thunderdome. Marco stopped, horrified by the se. A snap of Janine’s fingers brought him standing at attention, and the cub reached for a small terminal on his waist. Janine led him and Impatient One away, trusting Predaig and Eled to help Marty.

  “Ma’am! I mean, warlord.” Her gnce calmed him. Marco shouldn’t be here, true. However, the Wolfkins were in a state of agitation after the battle. Any female could’ve dominated him out of a force of habit. Best to keep him near his sisters. “Our… I mean yours! The pack lost twenty-four soldiers, eighteen brothers, and six sisters. And thirty-five wounded, but all of them will survive!” Marco saluted her.

  “Don’t salute!” Impatient O him across the head—a mix between a pat and a light sp. “If you don’t have a headgear, you must straighten up! If you have ohen you salute.”

  “I… I fot! Sorry, si..” Impatient One’s growl silenced Marco. The shaman sighed and took a bck beret out of her pocket.

  “Here.” She put it on his head. “Now you salute. And I am not your sister. I am a shaman! We have no family except the tribe; remember that ond for all!”

  “So you are like family for everyone!” Marco grinned. “That means it is okay if I call you sister!”

  “You little smartass punk!” Impatient One grabbed Marco by the nape, raising him up in the air and snapping her jaws o his ear.

  “Punk? Think a mohawk would suit me?” Marquired, examining his hair and ign the fangs o his nose.

  “I meant it as an insult, dolt! Stop pig up strange meanings for words from Normies!”

  Too many losses. Janine pondered about what this meant for her pack. The fresh recruits will go to the stronger warlords first. She’ll be lucky if she gets at least one or two high-quality females in the batch. Even if she gets them, they still require proper training and raising to avoid being a hindrance.

  The situation was deteriorating by the day. Each warlord was supposed to have about eight shamans to safeguard her, to solve spiritual problems in the pack, and to learn and bring new knowledge to the tribe. Now, after years of wars? Janine only had Soulless One and Impatient One by her side, and her daughter was still in training.

  Young shamans were supposed to begin their duties in the vilges, overseeing civilian affairs, learning from their elders, and maturing through distang themselves from their families and steeling their hearts; aiding in life giving and never fetting that their existence was to serve the tribe. Impatient One helped Janine give life to the st litter, so at least she passed some tests. But she was far from being a true shaman.

  Martyshkina no longer had any shamans; her bodyguards perished in battles. Other warlords had at best one or two. And not only did they have trouble with spiritual leaders, but the tribe also experienced an urgent need for junior personnel! Janine herself had few true wolf hags left; instead of cold-eyed women like Melina and Anissa, she had to rely on the greenhorn scouts, promoted by merit after the death of their superiors, rather than by right of domihis led to a ck of experien the pack.

  Even in the best of days, the Wolfkins distrusted doctors and teology because er’s bias. Wolf hags had to bully the lesser ranks to keep up with the times, freeing the load off the warlords’ shoulders. With so maerans gone, new wolf hags shared stupid superstitions about losing their souls to power armor. The few remaining shamans were busy alying these fears, often struggling to find time for a private versation.

  No matter how dire the situation, Janine embraced it and weled the opportunity to learn. To live is to improvise, to ge in body and mind. She will face this crisis and emerge a more knowledgeable and worthy leader for her pack.

  Melina’s scout and Elzada. That’s minus two experienced scouts for a while. Sucks to suck. Or…

  “Marco?” The two stopped arguing at Janine’s question. “How’s Melina’s girl? Able to join the front anytime soon?”

  “ive, warlord!” Her helpful boy replied. “She caught some kind of iion that caused a serious infmmation.”

  “Because, of course, she is,” Jatered.

  “The medics put her on a strict diet aioned you again to stop the cruelty in your pack.”

  “Because, of course, they are,” Janine sighed. She didn’t hold it against the Normies. These men and women were doing their jobs. It wasn’t easy to keep a Wolfkin from dying, but they excelled at it. “Life givers?”

  “Four litters!” Marco checked his terminal. “It’s said seventeen cubs are alive ahy. Three more warriors should give life soon. Medipin that a crawler is no nursery.”

  “They won’t have to tolerate them for long,” Janine grinned, w who she could spare to escort the future geion to the safety of the vilges. “Good job, Marco. Thank you. At ease.”

  The evacuation of the city was in full swing. Onyxia’s scouts assisted bck-clothed members of the Iigation Bureau in unc hidden hangars where engineers worked, unaware of their ruler’s defeat. First picked several officers from Teo-Queen’s former army and put them in charge of coordinating the forces willing to obey the Recimers. Those soldiers who refused to serve had turned in their ons aed with their families.

  Trucks moved in and out of the city, filling the bellies of army transports with families taken from civilian homes. Captain Cristobo didn’t linger; once filled, the transports raced across the Wastes to unload at the border town, where the local army forces would disperse the people into many refugee camps. In time, these people will settle in proper vilges, where they breathe fresh air with no fear and walk unburden by hazmat suits. As the vultures of the New World, svers and raiders, appeared on the horizon, the Voidrunner and Summerspring households took it upon themselves to escort the refugees.

  Not all citizens still believed iruth revealed by the royal guards and the colred engineers about Teo-Queen’s cruelty and madness. Drage a few raise their voices and silehem by broadcasting the tyrant’s own words throughout the city and adding pictures of her victims, thus settling that part of the dispute. But Janine sensed rese even through the suits of the evacuees. How could it not be? They had invaded and murdered the locals. For years to e, the Wolfkins would be a symbol of horror to the former inhabitants.

  That, too, was the way of the New World, a way the Dynast po ge. Kill a few to save many. What a joke. Janine looked at the tall unication tower, w if the medics could truly save those cubs.

  Please, Spirits. Help my cubs find happiness, be by Marty’s side in her darkest moment, ahese poor souls have a ce—a simple ce at life. Is it so much? I have given you so muy blood and will keep giving, but have mer the others.

  “Shaman, why did the warlords kill the sister?” Marco asked.

  Impatient O him down, giving him a light kick for speed that nearly sent him rolling. The shaman slowed down as she followed the warlord to the main square. A member of the Iigation Bureau briefly stopped them, iigating Janine’s and Marco’s fangs for the presence of human flesh. The man tiredly waved his hand at Impatient One’s admission of guilt and hurried off to help evacuate a local hospital.

  “You remember the skinwalker’s visit a year ago?” the shaman asked.

  “Yep! Onyxia and Mo… Warlord sliced her arms after she ate three cubs and the beast ran away, Ye…” Jaopped, knowily what would happen.

  Marever finished speaking; a cwed paw struck him across the left , slig through it. The punishment did here; Impatient One’s paw closed around Marco’s head, pushing him face down on the pavement and breaking his he shaman dragged her brainst the ground and lifted him by the neck, growling into the frightened snout.

  Janine had to force herself from g her daughter’s head in. Marco’s sufferings were not Impatient One’s fault. The shaman had shown immense leniency, finding alternative ways to punish her brother for mischief by making him work. She never even bit him. Janine was the one who let him down. She had taken him out of the pits to save his life, but had she taught him the ways of the tribe? No, she coddled him over and ain, and his brothers and sisters did the same. The boy grew too bold. The day will e when he’ll be on his own, and who will protect him then?

  It was because of this that she took some measures to secure his future. If only her boy would let her.

  “Never. Never dare address me by this name, Marco.” The cub shuddered, throwing a worried g Jahe warlord calmly waited, ign the fear. Any other male ag so frivolously in a shaman’s presence risked having his neck broken. For his sake, Mareeds to uand his p the tribe. “Questions are fine. Fear is fine. Even doubt is fine. But never, never use a hat a shaman has discarded to address her. It’s true that some names are repeated in our tribe. So it is okay to use that name when addressing someone else. But when we bee shamans, we abandon our names, for oal is to serve the tribe and not our blood. I am Impatient One, and I am not your sister anymore.” Impatient One grabbed her own muzzle to keep her jaws from biting. She calmed herself and released her brother. “The lesson is over; you are fiven. As for your question, sometimes a sister asd.”

  “Asd?” Marco asked, toug his cut . Blood had already darkened his fangs. The bleeding would not st; even though he was a male, Marco was a full Wolfkin. Impatient One ed his and pressed a medical patch over the wound, showing her brother what he should do in such situations.

  “Yes, asd.” Impatient One pressed a cw to her jaw. “You would be better off asking a shaman in charge of raising the cubs than me… But in short, the Spirit e covets us all. When we fight too hard and win too much, it draws its gaze upon us. It is no disgrao one knows what exactly might attract this spirit. But after receiving this wicked attention, a sister has a feeling ness, almost like a…”

  “Like a period?” Marco suggested, and his sister chuckled.

  “No, nothing like that, you silly boy. A premonition of the ing horror, as she turns into a shell for a new life.” Impatient One picked up a stone and pced it in Marco’s paws. Before she broke the stone, she used her paws to tighten his grip so that he could hear the cracks. “See? The stone is still a stone, but it has taken on a nee. Eventually a sister’s shell breaks after she wins a battle, and something new, beautiful, and terrible es out. Some foolishly choose to die rather than ge.”

  “A skinwalker,” Janine said, breaking her silence. “A skinwalker is a being born from a fallen sister. It bee a copy of you in both body and mind just by eating a scrap of your flesh. It is insidious, capable of guessing your darkest secrets at a whim or driving you mad with words. Skinwalkers are utterly insane and uable, and worst of all, they kill civilians. Nobody in their right mind aspires to bee it, Marco. And don’t look so scared; a male ever bee a skinwalker. Anything else to report?”

  “Chak is really furious about the state of your power armor, warlord.” Marco ched his beret in his paws. “Um… Warlord? Shaman? You won’t turn into skinwalkers, right?”

  “Fret not!” Ja her paw on his shoulder. “We’ve reached our prime. Such fate is not for us. As for the chief-quartermaster…” Janine heard legs currying over rooftops. “I’ll have a talk with him. Shaman, could you…”

  “Yes, warlord. e, Marco, let’s visit a doctor and have your nose fixed before it heals improperly. And don’t bleed oerminal! Such toys are expensive.” Impatient Oed the boy on her shoulder and jumped, climbing over a building.