Iron Lord let go of his weapon and punched, digging part of the helmet deep into the side of Janine's head. Reddish drool appeared on her lips; she blinked through the dizziness, and the khan pushed her off himself. She jumped, dodging a kick, and Iron Lord's arms arched back at an impossible angle, finding a foothold to lift himself off the ground. He thrust his entire body forward, his feet slamming into Janine's face with the force of an exploding missile.
She stumbled back, unwillingly giving him enough time to recover, and the two leaders found themselves unarmed and readied their fists. Janine jabbed at his helmet with her left, provoking a heavy straight punch, and responded with an elbow and a crushing blow with her other hand, causing an electrical hiss to come from somewhere under his helmet.
This armor won't let her fight as a warlord, and that's fine. She'll face Iron Lord as a naked brawler, relying on speed and skill to win.
Blow after blow. A punch to the chin turned into an elbow slice. Then a dive under a shoulder cannon shot and an uppercut. Blocked. The forces of their exchange carried away pebbles and toppled several damaged wooden walls. Crevices opened in the pavement under the pressure. Both opponents tried to grab each other and headbutted to break the hold, turning their clash into a slugfest.
Inside the Knight Academy, Marco witnessed a scene of carnage after carnage, and Janine saw it, too, through his camera. Entire classrooms were painted red; the bodies of the students lay broken, their arms and legs twisted and their chests flattened by the iron boots. Here and there were occasional corpses of the intruders, killed by the frantic resistance of the older cubs, but what could they really do against full-grown New Breeds?
Unforgivable.
The boy moved quietly as a spine mite, softly placing his palms and moving without undue haste. Marco surveyed the situation, checked the pulse of several bodies, counted the dead cubs and the number of seats present, then turned his eye to the broken wall. Someone had entered this classroom, broken the wall to lead the students away, and then the butchers had entered and chased them. Marco crawled into the hole, went through the destroyed bathroom, and followed the pursuit.
Janine didn't dare tell him to stop. He wouldn't listen, and any noise might have alerted the hunters.
Screams perked his ears, and Marco hurried to make a turn in the hallway, arriving in time to see a barred door being smashed and about thirty cubs huddled together, mounting a final defiance over the bloodied and unconscious body of their instructor. Each Ice Fang was dressed in a uniform; the girls wore impractical black skirts and white shirts, while the boys wore black pants and similar shirts, with no scent of their parents to distinguish them, and with gold, silver, or bronze symbols of their Houses pinned to their collars.
Three tall, wide-eyed cubs, a girl and two boys, armed themselves with chairs and sharp pieces of stone and prepared to do their best against the two laughing hordemen entering the room. One of them pointed a pistol, and the magazine clicked empty, so the bastard reached for his dagger and kicked the girl in the snout.
Marco made Janine proud. He disobeyed her, and no doubt had Ignacy gnawing at his arm in worry by now, but he was a Wolfkin. Dealt a bad paw or not, irrelevant. He was a born killer, and his instincts took over, demanding immediate action and banishing any doubts. Bigger, stronger, better armed? So what? Then kill smarter.
Marco tossed a broken prize statue to the raider's left, and they briefly glanced at the noise. He was already in the air, knives flashing. The first knife he threw was blocked by the cautious opponent, but the second sliced through an armor joint that buckled the bastard's Achilles tendon. He bounced off the man and buried the knives in the thick neck of the second; the edges slipping across the gap between the gorget and the helmet and scraping against the bones, destroying the windpipe completely. Marco let go of his weapons to save himself from the swing of the dying man.
The injured hordeman grabbed Marco by the nape, pushing him face down, and one of the boys was on him, wielding the blocked knife from earlier and saving Janine's son's life. His reward was a blow to the face with the hilt of a sword, tearing his nostril and lacerating his eye so badly that he recoiled in pain. Horror filled Janine as she looked at her wriggling son and understood that this was it. With the element of surprise gone…
Pure joy flashed in her eyes as the last boy leapt. With an aggression worthy of the Wolf Tribe, he rammed the shard of stone into the hordeman's broken lens, where it stuck, but the paws of his friends joined in, driving it all the way into the flailing body. Together, the three cubs slashed and bit at the armored bastard, and Marco broke free, joining the fray and working his knife on the exposed joints. The hordeman tried to stand; his leg gave way, and he fell, begging for mercy. Two of the white-furred relented, but not Marco and the wounded cub.
"Rip and tear, Marco! Bless you too, white-furred soul!" Impatient One howled.
"Bleed him!" Kalaisa said viciously. "Take your time!"
"Arteries, boy, aim for the arteries…" Kirk added and shuddered, expecting punishment.
"Groin! Go for the groin!" Anissa advised. "Let the bastard really feel it before he croaks!"
"Pull out his eye, boy!" Martyshkina cheered. "They bring luck and taste awesome!"
"No mercy for the wicked," Bertruda said icily and added warmly. "Praised be, Marco! Your deeds will forever be immortalized in the annals of the Order! Warlord Martyshkina, please refrain from provoking a child to break a law. Cannibalism is…"
"Eh, shut it! If he wants a steak, he damn well deserves it! Heart, Marco! It builds up manhood…"
"For the Blessed Mother's sake, Warlord!"
Janine simply smiled, ducking under a swing; the tearing of the flesh relayed by Albert was music to her ears. Do you see it, Colt? Are you proud of our babies? She matched her opponent in raw strength, yet Iron Lord's larger frame should have given him the advantage. But his lack of brawling experience negated this advantage. His swings were wider than necessary, giving Janine enough time to close the distance and hit his sides.
Aside from dents, she wasn't sure that she did any damage. The man was like a solid block of iron. Dodging a whipping elbow hit, Janine gasped, struck by a knee into her chest. The blow lifted her off the ground, and Iron Lord clenched his hands together and delivered a blow equivalent to the rough landing of a tank skidding off the road on an unsuspecting passerby.
The backpack cracked, but fortunately the generator was intact, and Janine grabbed his ankles, pulled him off his feet, and slammed him into the concrete hard enough to create a crater. She avoided his blow and caught his arm in a lock, turned the bastard face down with the help of her leg, and began breaking the arm.
This time he groaned and smashed his free arm into the road, making a half-circle path underneath him, and finally came from the other side, hitting Janine in the head. She was knocked off him, and Iron Lord, seated atop her, had his helmet jerked from landed punches, and one ocular fell out, hanging on wires. Hands closed around her neck, and Janine tried to reach the Taleteller, but her fingers didn't even touch it. Hearing the crunch of metal, Janine whispered a quick command to the APC drivers.
"See how I reverse the roles… Ha!" Iron Lord chuckled, and a shield bubbled around them, pushing the axe away and blocking the bullet fired by the transports. "Clever and useless, an expected result from those who skip preparations! Can you feel it? The weight of humanity crushing your unearned advantage? How does it feel to lose to a human? Don't worry. In the spirit of quid pro quo for sparing my daughter, I won't torture you. Die easily, knowing that I'll let the little puppies go if they live still!"
Inside the academy, Marco stood up, breathing heavily, and met the wounded cub's gaze, and Janine saw the reflection of angry and excited amber eyes. The cub pawed at his wound and stopped in horror at the blood and gore on his muzzle, realizing what he had done.
"Gregor, what in the Abyss were you doing?" He turned to the taller boy who had used the piece of stone. "Why did you two stop?"
"But he surrendered, Tilden…" whispered Gregor.
"There is no surrender! It's us or them! Do you and Philona want to end up like... end up like..." Tilden burst into tears and walked away as his friends tried to embrace him. "Kill or be killed! We had to… I did the right thing! Stop looking at me like I'm a monster!"
"No one is considering you a monster, Tilly," the girl, Philona, said sternly, sniffing through the broken nose. "Get that out of your cauldron."
"What we need to do is escape," Marco interrupted her and gathered his knives. He hesitated a bit and handed one to Gregor. "After me, crybabies. You four will carry the wounded…"
"Who do you think you are, insulting your betters, rootless dust-dwelling serf?" Tilden approached him, his paws clenching and unclenching, his eyes full of fear and panic. Shocked. Fighting for her life, Janine prayed Marco would not retaliate. "I'll have you know that I am a nephew of Knight Captain Osiris, the loyal retainer of the Summerspring House! I demand proper respect!"
"You mean Sword Saint Osiris." Marco shoved the invader's sword into Tilden's paw.
"Ha! Shows what you know, barbarian!" The corner of Tilden's mouth twitched. "My great-great-grandfather, Sword Saint Leonidas, is leading our household! And this here is Gregor of the magnificent…"
"Tilden. Please," Philona interrupted him and pointed at the cubs. "We are all scared."
"And must save the others." Gregor shook Marco's paw and reached over to a smaller boy on the floor, slapping him gently on the cheek to bring him back to reality. "Gregor Wintersong. Nice meeting you, friend."
"Tilden Summerspring, the best of the Summersprings!" not to be outdone, the wounded cub repeated the gesture. "And don't you dare forget the name! Also, consider yourself excused for the rudeness, since you had the honor of saving our bacon."
"Philona. Of no house yet. Thank you for rescuing us, sir." The girl smiled, without showing fangs, and Marco fist-bumped her.
"Marco, whelp of Warlord Janine!" Marco said proudly, ignoring the gurgling of the dying hordeman. "Mom and the others are busy mopping up the floor with the trash outside, but the roofs should be safe. Help me get everyone into the ventilation shaft."
"So you failed to squash the rats." Janine almost slipped and let Iron Lord break her neck as she heard Brood Lord's voice coming from the raider's com device in the academy.
"Know how to shoot?" Marco asked Tilden, and the boy nodded, receiving a pistol and quickly reloading it.
"I can save you," promised Brood Lord. "Just look to the side. Not at the ceiling. We need a floor."
Iron Lord's fingers kept jamming into her throat, strong enough to collapse a house. Every time she tried to free herself, he slammed her against the ground. She no longer could breathe and had no air left to cry a warning to her son, but Marco no longer hesitated and was busy sending everyone to safety. The shoulder cannon took aim, and Terrific, that harbinger of disaster, drew herself high behind the khan's back.
Not my son, bitch! Fear, hatred, and rage—the coalescing of these emotions snapped something in Janine, and she grasped Iron Lord's big thumbs. And broke them, uncaring about any restraint and unbound by worries. What will happen will happen. Something ancient, a part of herself she had locked away, had crept out, looked through her eyes, and joined its voice to her low growl, pleasing Terrific enough for the apparition to smile, horribly twisting leathery lips.
"Restraint…"
"To the Abyss with it!" Janine howled.
Iron Lord showed no sign of pain, but she wasn't discouraged. Janine could breathe, and so she closed her paws around his wrists, bending the metal, leaning back, pushing off the ground, bringing her knees to her chest. And kicked upward with all her might, shattering the helmet on his jaw and sending Iron Lord reeling back, grunting.
The warlord rolled to the side and picked up her axe. A single, wide slash cut a gash in Iron Lord's belly and went upward, cutting cleanly through his shoulder cannon. Iron Lord continued to retreat, his thumbs dangling uselessly, but the man extended his right arm to the side, and his glaive flew in, summoned by a magnetic device in the gauntlet.
"Your cuts are shallow. They can't even reach my flesh," Iron Lord said and chuckled. "Yet you bleed, tire, and soon will be lying at my legs, bones pulverized!"
They came at each other, blades flashing and the wind roaring around them. Driven by a desperate urge to end the fight now, Janine pushed into his close quarters, earning herself a heavy tackle that threw her back. Immediately his glaive stabbed, seeking to spear through her shoulder, and missed its mark.
Janine jumped, a silver comet flying into a mountain of steel. She had deliberately exposed herself, already knowing how her opponent would react. What would have been impossible in her regular armor, the Ice Fangs suit made possible, giving her short and ungraceful legs elegance and fluidity. The Taleteller slashed at his shoulder with all her might, and the blow was accompanied by the hiss of wires and the noise of broken machinery. Iron Lord stepped back, swinging his weapon wildly to drive her back, and touched his shoulder, where a spurt of red—his blood—emerged from the gash.
"So much for Iron Lord." Spat Janine and inhaled, gathering her strength. "There is only one prey here, boy."
"And that is the evildoer!" Albert cheered.
"How long has it been?" Iron Lord asked in the dry voice of an elderly human, carrying ages of experience. His synthesized bombastic speech was either broken or turned off. "How many years have passed since I bled? Warlord Janine, was it?" He saluted her. "Thank you for the reminder of mortality. I will show clemency to your kind after they have finally fallen to the Gilded Horde. Let us end this. I have a nation to build."
The retort died in her mouth; her focus back on the Academy again, where the head of the dying hordeman slumped to the side as Marco and the older cubs helped everyone into the shaft. And Brood Lord laughed.
"Phaser." A single word frightened Janine like a few things in her life, rendering her standing helplessly, unable to change anything and forced to watch.
A vertical line, so terrifyingly familiar, appeared near the wall of the classroom. It widened to the left and right, filling the room with a blue void, and from its depths stepped a pointed insectoid leg, encased in advanced protection. Then another, shaking the floor as it pierced the head of the dying hordeman. Pincers followed, then the huge bulk of the body and Brood Lord carried himself into the Academy, flanked by Adonis and Heika, smiling through his greenish visor while carrying his curved blade casually over his shoulder.
"Now why do I know you?" He addressed Marco, ignoring the boy's efforts to squeeze the wounded instructor into the tunnel. Fingers tapped the helmet. "No, no, don't help me… Ah, Houstad! I'm glad I didn't dispose of you then; you deserve a proper send-off. Well?" He addressed his companions.
"Not interested in children," Heika answered.
"Not going to sully our blades," Adonis echoed.
"Why not let them go?" They asked in unison.
"I will, I will, into a better reality, or so I have heard, my dearest hypocritical prudes. Those religious lunatics always scream about it when I treat myself to their flock before their eyes." Brood Lord slapped himself on the belly. His eyes narrowed as Marco helped Tilden and Gregor, the last two cubs, into the hole. "Children. Since you refuse to bow to the teacher, today we'll study evisceration! No need for volunteers; all are participating."