Brood Lord kicked up the wrecked car and k aside, ruining a store to his left. Grinning madly, the khan lunged, bringing three of his legs down on a van. The impact fttes front, and the driver inside screamed as his legs and arms were reduced ts riddled with bone shards. A single shot silehe man, and the slug reached the gas tank, exploding the vehicle into Brood Lord’s face. Fire and debris cealed him from the aiming Ice Fangs, and the Khan jumped onto the sidewalk, keeping his eyes on his target, who was helping a woman out of the wreckage. The khan’s legs squeezed the life from a bck-furred and a white-furred mutants.

  “Weak!” he sneered, firing the handgun again, and a smallish white-furred freak disappeared in a crimson mist. His sword struck, cleaving through people trying to stop him. The bodies hadn’t even touched the ground before bullets thudded against the khan’s armor, and his pincer snatched a freak girl from the ground, strung on his pincer, skyward. “Whoa! None of that, fools, or the girl dies.”

  The Ice Faated long enough for Brood Lord to fire blindly at the issioner’s car. He sought to end a man known as Cristobo, the captain of this miserable rabble calling themselves an army. But the heavy slug merely kissed the cloak on the man’s back, tearing a line of flesh as it cratered itself against the ground, and Brood Lord narrowed his eyes. Cristobo began his dodge prior to the shot. Surprising. Irrelevant. He pushed the girl before himself and positioned himself ahead of a store full of people, taking advantage of the lesser humans’ o protect their offspring.

  No pn sted long in battle. That was why Brood Lord had backup pns in abundance, and the r ughter left his lips, heard over the screams and honks as lights flickered everywhere and ss went white. Mae gun fire filled the air, grenade explosions followed, and the sweetest music of falling buildings reached Brood Lord’s ears as his helmet closed, feeding information to his retinas.

  Jagun engaged. Spread out evenly across the city, the butcher teams began to wreak havoc. Factories were spared, Brood Lord squeezed enough out of the captured diplomats to know that the Recimers would evacuate the popution, and in the near future those assembly lines would be ae gift to the Merts. No, the brave sacrifices wahrough the rgest gatherings, pnting explosives in the living quarters, and a group of bastards who looked too closely at his sves were priming bombs in a skyscraper. Brood Lord activated those immediately, freeing himself of the obstacle. It was their fault for really trusting him; how could a man five a viotion of his property?

  Blood ah spilled to the street, but the Khan’s keen eyes noticed the pockets of resistance. Meraries, doggies, rge freaks resembling mystical ogres, and even worthless humans stemmed the tide of age ihat, too, was expected. Today’s goal was to send a reminder of the iable weakness and... Brood Lord stared at the approag sword saint. Glory. All his, not a shred for Iron Lord.

  “Slowpokes! Don’t you care for your white hide expires?” He was jeering, luring the prey closer, when his pincer arm twitched in pain and the puppy slipped down. There was a kween its chitin ptes!

  “I’ll eat yuts for hurting Cordi,” growled a small doggie, slipping another ko his paw, and Brood Lord smiled, opening his helmet but still wary of the surrounding movements.

  “Try it, pest,” he offered to the arrogant lump of fur that barely reached his khe boy had slipped his knife, faked a throw at the khan’s neck, and redirected it to his eye at the st sed. But the bde swatted the knife aside. “Pathetic,” Brood Lord said, enjoying the horror in the boy’s eyes as his sword drew back, catg bullets fired by a rger bck fur from the cover. “Sorry, was that supposed to be a clever ambush to blind me? No toss, kiddo. But such is the nature of an open catch; there are winners and there are losers. You liked my eyes, right?” Brood Lord blocked another shot, and the kid pressed a button on a strange device, but nothing happened. “Pay up with yours.”

  He raised his leg to finish off the gasping bit the ground and swung his sword to blind the arrogant boy, pnning to inflict just enough pain to forever immortalize himself in his memory until their iable enter. Killing the kid instantly would be a waste; the khan never missed an opportunity to create an example of those who dared to tickle him.

  “Fuck off from my squirts!” There was a roar from his left, and for the first time in the day, Brood Lord had missed his oppo.

  The Ice Fangs were still paces away, and there were no police or provincial guards nearby. The only danger should have been the adults apanying these small children, but out of the blue, a rge bck-furred female in an e janitor’s robe sprang at him and kicked into his sword arm. She drove him back! Brood Lord weighed twenty tons in his power armor, and this doggie pushed him away!

  “How did you know I love when women throw themselves at me?!” he redirected his blow, cutting through her robe and a breast. The messy-haired Wolfkin cursed and grabbed the children, evading to the right just in time to escape a fired slug. In her pce, a white-haired doggie appeared; her braids crag like the tips of the whips. Three legs met her; one blocked two knives, another spped her ribs, and the third pihe woman to the ground as she groarying to keep the sharp tip from pierg her throat. “So uncivilized.” Brood Lord shook his head, raising the bde. “I had hoped you city dwellers could appreciate the sanctity of a duel, but well. You’re not my type, but don’t worry, you still serve as post…”

  “Who else do you pn to kill?” A bardiche edge stopped the tip of the desding bde, and crimson eyes met the enraged eyes of the Khan.

  At st. Tancred. Brood Lord calmed himself, disregarding an urge to lower the on down. There will be deaths aplenty iure. Job first, then the pleasure. Acid bubbled in his gnds as their ons collided, and for a moment there was a work of blinding fshes. That doggie was good, the khan realized. His physical might, already superior to that of the deformed rug, sent the bardiche’s head over the sword saint’s shoulder, and immediately the man embraced it, turning his wide-open stao a thrust with the butt of his on. A sharp hook at the end of it welted Brood Lord’s cheek, and the doggie crashed into him, carrying the khan away from his intended quarry.

  Their struggle led them into the store’s wall, and Brood Lord dropped onto his back, taking the ining ssh on his curved sword. He kicked upward, nding the tip of his chitin n against Tancred’s wrist. The block did little to stop the blow, and the sword saint jumped back, spitting blood as his own arm struck his jaw.

  “You,” Brood Lord said, standing up. He go the left and right, as if notig the approag Ice Fangs and showing up soldiers of the Provincial Army for the first time. Exactly when needed.

  He ran, charging past the two surprised Ice Fangs. There was no longer any need of hiding anything back; his sword sliced through their necks before those pathetic excuses for warriors could fire their sed bullet. The helmet closed around Brood Lord’s head, his pincer arm puhrough the torso of an Orais who was dumb enough to stand in his path. A single shot ripped through a dozen civilians, and then he grabbed another bck-furred female as she stepped out of aery. The cws closed, destroying lungs and the spinal n, and the road was free as Brood Lord tossed the still-twitg corpse at his pursuers, ign gashes in his armor.

  Tancred was on his tail, gaining ground with each step, and his knights followed. Such silliness brought joy to the khan’s dark hearts. Did they really believe their troubles were over?

  “Phaser,” the khan said into his helmet, unheard by anyone on the chaotic street. “The lesser quarry lives still. End it, but take care not to kill our ‘pieces’ yet.”

  “With pleasure, master,” chuckled Phaser, eager to see some a at st. Another portal opened, releasing two full arbans.

  Things didn’t look so good around the city. Either Trace had failed or something had happened, for there was of Till Ingo’s demise. Sad. There was a debt that the creature owed to him. He had hoped to see the look on her face when the priests dismembered her. Mad Hatter Mad Hatter po honor her promise to this creature, but what the Khatun does not know does not pose a threat to Brood Lord. After all, weren’t the Bio-Tinkers future enemies? Why empower them? Well, at least the virus was still w, exceeding his expectations by far.

  Mroups were dead already, and the mayor had escaped their grasp. Unfortunate, but nothing overly serious.

  “Drozna,” he tacted his bodyguard. “Strike the nerve.”

  Brood Lord’s smile widened as he heard the knights breaking into howls as he hurried to an opening underground. Time and pce. There was time to escape and a pce fit for killing. At rge, everything roceeding as he had envisioned.

  *****

  An insistent beeping arm interrupted Janine’s monologue. Evee the alcohol threatening her mind, Janine immediately reached for her terminal, biting her own lower lip to blood. Crity. She . Her private terminal had several tones. A melodie for informal business. A siren for military calls. And finally, this sound…

  Marco. She grabbed the terminal, notig her location at the same time as a siren gave way, announg a call from the base. St outside, Janine jumped up, not g if Marty followed her. Marco. Today he veo a ic store, apanied by his friends, Bogdan, and bodyguards from the Ice Fangs. Janine had only the vaguest idea what a ic shop was, but apparently they sold myths. She gave her sookens she could spare and asked him t back a good story.

  If Kaisa dared to touch my sons, I will murder her. Janine promised herself, burying her cws in a brickwork and climbing up, her terminal pressed to the ear with the shoulder.

  “Captain Cristobo?” Janine asked. “What’s the situation?”

  “Warlord!” said a worried operator. “An urgent situation! The police chief has just been killed, and Captain Cristobo was attacked on his way back to base, along with the lieutenant …”

  An explosion silehe rest of the words. An invasion? Janine grabbed the terminal with both paws, using just her legs to propel herself up, and joihe unication.

  “Kaisa here. Cristobo is badly injured, Bogdan, and the others are trying to keep them safe from the enemy. Anji and I have joihe hunt.”

  “The people oreet have gone pletely mad! They are attag each other!” Eled reported in.

  “Sword Saint Tancred, rep for duty. We have the killer in sight; he is a Malformed of some sort. Pursuing him into the sewers..."

  “No,” came Dragena’s calm voice. “Tancred, wait until Alpha joins you. All of you, the enemy used some sort of power to whip our people into a frenzy. Protect the cubs, break the limbs of the adults, no casualties allowed…”

  Janine reached the roof and stood up to see ns of bck smoke rising from the streets. To her north was a rge main street, separated from her by a few dozen buildings. A crag fire rose from the middle of the street, and the air itself shook as more crimson flowers spread across the sidewalks. Broken bodies covered in fmes flew above buildings. The impact of the explosio parked cars bato the main street, detonating them and spreading the destru further.

  To her west, a rge skyscraper spewed fire as a hellish boom shattered windows on several floors, sending a torrent of deadly gss into the street and trapping people on the upper floors. In the distance, another skyscraper fell, fttening a row of residential buildings. The gigantic building splintered, its huge pieces rolling down alleys and streets or crashing into apartments. Cries of the dying, the frightened, and the panicked were heard everywhere. It was as if Houstad itself was screaming in a multitude of voices.

  Ss showing advertisements or news blinked and turned dark, only to show age oreet, where wide-eyed people leaped at each other with fists rabbed pieces of gss in their hands. With nard for their own safety, citizens suddenly turned on each other, kig and pung, leaving blood and bodies in their wake. Some ss have ged the view, showing the decapitated body of Maxim Puchkov and the corpses of Ice Fangs and Wolfkins, including several dead cubs.

  More images fshed, and Janine spotted the woman who had struck Ravager on them, stopping a waiter from plunging a ko a man’s back. The one-eyed woman bravely hit the man with the e again and again, shouting in his face that it wasn’t him. She yelled for him to resist, and the fused waiter lowered his knife, shocked at what he was about to do. On another s, Kirk tried to coordinate an evacuation, and the mayor enced citizens to flock to the ‘bck-furred savior’ for prote. Soulless One and Melina held a crowd from rushing the orphanage, obeying the orders not to harm the civilians.

  But sustances were few and far between. Most ss showed age at the hands of Houstadians. A woman suddenly tried to stab her newborn baby, and the husbareated under a shower of blows. Fingers plunged into eyes, teeth sunk deep into flesh, hands tried tle life as crowds faced off, fighting in churches, oreets, in homes and shops. The ss showed it in full, and Janihe urge to turn around and open Marty’s belly for daring to take her from her precious baby. She would not stop; she will…

  Janine shook her head, overing the mental pulsion te. Childish. There was an itch at the back of her head as her brain adapted, ging slightly to bee immuo this bsphemy as her power decided it was a victory over an oppo.

  “The Gilded Horde is here!” a gleeful voice thundered, amplified by the thousands of speakers. “Your walls have fallen. Your city offers no prote. We are everywhere; we e as we please and take what we want. Your armies ot stop us, and your minds are our toys. Your rulers are in hiding, o be found, and you are all alone. Weep for your weakness. Submit and live, or resist arampled. These are the only choices left for you, weaklings.”

  Janine blio protect her eyes from debris when a fsh of light happeht. Another explosion opehe roof of a building and heavy rocks fell on the alley below. Hearing cries for help, the warlord jumped into the opening. Inside was a half-naked man, his arm missing at the elbow, but steadily approag the c children with a meat cleaver in his hand. The madman was missing an eye; extensive burns covered his body, telling the story of how he had somehow exploded his oartment.

  With Dragena’s caution in mind, Janine grabbed the man by his torso, only to have him hack at her, screaming mindless obsities. She didn’t mind; the man’s hatchet barely pushed her skin; wounded as he was, this poor person could never hope to injure her. Janine’s lips curled in a the blows from behind. The little ohree Normie cubs no more than seven years old, had attacked her, biting and pung.

  “Enough,” Alpha said a single word on the unication, and Janine embraced terror.

  The Stro Warlord unleashed her wave of fear, wielding it like an omnidireal on. Ihe walls, people fell into each other’s arms, trembling not at the cruel words or screams from outside, but at another fear—an irrational fear of dark and unknowhis fear wasn’t strong enough to cause strokes among the popuce, but it was strong enough to disrupt any frenzy that came upoizens.

  The man in Janine’s hold rexed and screamed in agony as his mind was freed from manipution. His rage had held back the pain until then, but it returned immediately, apanied by rasping coughs and frantic thrashing. Janine picked him and the cubs and jumped away from the fires to another rooftop where a small group of people, including the bartender, had gathered. They took in the wounded and rushed to tend to the man’s wounds.

  “Will Daddy be okay?” asked a g girl. “I didn’t want to get angry at him; I promise, I didn’t mean to tell him to die!”

  “It’s fine” Martyshkina put her paws on the girl’s shoulders. “None of this is your fault.”

  “Citizens of Houstad!” Janine’s eyes became two round ptes when she heard Jaquan’s voiing from a round orb of an Iternian drone flying over streets. More and more drones appeared, and the people oreets stopped fighting, horrified at what they had wrought with their hands. “You have suffered from the emotional manipution! Do not give in to despair; listen to our hero!”

  “The Abyss, am I a hero?!” Kirk’s voice joined him, but then he coughed and proceeded in a cracked voice. “Everyone. I know you’ve been hurt, but there are those who need help. Help whoever you , baheir wounds, remove debris, make touro stop the bleeding. If the debris is too heavy, call New Breeds or the Army. You are not alone. Help is on the way. Those who walk, please escort the wouo the shelters…” the passing drones projected holograms showing maps of Houstad.

  “Our enemy has attacked the power pnt’s trol personnel and unleashed an a virus of unknown in to overload the prid and make the annou,” Till Ingo’s voice joihe and el.

  “ you flush it out?” Dragena demao know.

  “Did it already. There won’t be any more sudden explosions, and ss should return to normal at any moment. I myself came utack; Banshee has captured a, and we are now en route to my boratory to duct a thh s of our systems.”

  “Zero, protect him,” Dragena ordered.

  “Chief Emmanuel of the Iternian Embassy here, hope you don’t mind us intruding on your el,” a cheerful female voice joined in.

  “How did you…”

  “Oh, please, as if we couldn’t pick such a crude lock,” Emmanuel interrupted Till Ingo. “Anyway, it seems like our drones malfuned and the mayor andeered them by act. Oops, sorry about that; keep them. Also, our crates of high-grade medical supplies simultaneously got spoiled, so we put them outside the embassy gates, and our medical staff mysteriously vanished without expnation…”

  “Thank you for your help, friend Emmanuel,” Dragena thanked.

  “No idea what you are speaking about, Warlord.”

  “Abel and Eva of the Oathtakers Embassy here. Thank you for permitting us to use the el. A member of our embassy was injured in the meical malfun. On behalf of our nation, we are temporarily joining forces to avenge su unprovoked attack. We have forty soldiers. Whom do you o kill?”

  “Zurkov here! I guess I am temporarily in charge of the police forces. We are fighting…”

  “Predaig, Eled, ge of pns, assist the people in the burning skyscraper. Janine…”

  “I have my target, Dragena.”

  Janine was already jumping forward, apanied by Martyshkina, headi. Half a kilometer away, almost nothing. A howl touched the sky, and Janine added her voice to Alpha’s, soon followed by Martyshkina and other warlords from across the city. Their chorus e soon drowned out the sounds of age. She did not need a HUD to know that at that very moment, the doors of the base opened and the packs sallied forth in full strength.

  This horde dared to attack their city? There could only be one answer.

  Death.