Chapter 43: Chapter 36: Dishonest and Honest

“Forgive me,” Janine said to a heartbroken family as she handed them the remains of their cub. The mother shuddered, taking the mangled body, and Janine put a paw on her shoulder. “Stay strong. For the sake of living.” She nodded to the two little ones.

The deceased cub was no older than two years old, if Janine understood anything about the Normies’ children. Like most Wolfkins, she sometimes helped in the Normies’ villages. Medicine was scarce in the far reaches of the Wastes, and the roads were still perilous enough for the Wolf Tribe to accompany traders or do deliveries personally.

As the Dynast’s iron order spread over the lands, the villages adopted a new set of traditions. The taste of civilization and the government’s support convinced them to help their fellows, persevering through the hardest times together and growing stronger through it. Wolfkins followed their example, helping where they could, clearing collapsed roads, nursing the wounded, and sharing rations. When the smallest settlements at the very edge of the nation’s borders freely called for help, and often citizen militias, groups of retired mercenaries and former raiders, would come to their aid ahead of the Wolfkins or the army.

Normies were strange people. Decades ago, they feared sharing a room with a Wolfkin, slamming doors shut when packs passed by on patrol and telling their cubs stories of how the cruel blood mothers were stealing the unruly youth. But after rescues performed by the packs, and shamans delivering care packages and spare parts, Normies began hauling food to the Wolf Tribe’s villages as gifts of friendship. Their elders and mayors invited shamans to bless marriages, and there were billboards in larger settlements where villagers placed bets on which warlord would rise in rank and which would fall.

Small cities even had special dens—homes dedicated to various packs. There were Alpha Pack sports centers, Predaig Pack police stations, and even Warlord Eled boxing arenas. The Janine Pack was patrons of the Starfall Nursery Clinic, a clinic funded by both the government and various anarchist groups that aimed to treat all the sick, regardless of their origin. Janine was always ashamed of it. She hadn’t spent a token on this clinic and had never helped to build it; her soldiers had merely saved the nurses from the bandits. Why did they honor them there?

The absurdity of the situation went so far that sculptors had requested the warlords and the Blessed Mother to pose so that they could immortalize their visages in marble and stone. Not all refused this vanity offer. Zero and Onyxia accepted this gesture of gratitude, relishing every second of the attention given to them, while the Onyxia Pack cringed at this scene. Statues of the helmeted and bareheaded warlords dotted the largest settlements in the Wastes.

The rest of the tribe felt uneasy, seeing full carts of fresh cusack meat and rare treats driven to their tents and having to refuse tokens, gold, and silver that the grateful Normies and mutants tried to shove into their paws. The Normies had so little, and yet they tried to give the unearthed share to the Wolfkins. Why? Did the Normies assume that the state would not provide for its servants? Did the fact that their safety was entrusted to the Wolf Tribe elude their understanding? The Wolfkins turned away most gifts; the locals needed every token more than the tribe. The sight of a prosperous, growing, and healing land—a land where young Wolfkins would live in peace in the future—was a reward enough.

Janine expected a curse, a slap or something from a sobbing woman clutching a still warm body to her chest. If they had lashed out at her, the family might feel better about finding an object for their hatred. The girl’s head was smashed like a clay pot, and her brains and teeth lay on the pavement. Janine fired a beam to vaporize the grizzly’s remains so as not to stress the family any further. The night heat kept the body warm, but the heart stopped beating.

The father, mother, and their sons simply bowed, whispering thanks and cursing attackers.

“If only Jack were here,” the eldest boy sobbed. He reached for his sister, cradling the dead body, tears streaming down his cheeks. “I am sorry. Had I been stronger…”

“It’s not your fault.” Janine interrupted him. “Hate the raiders who did this. Hate us for failing to come on time. But do not hate yourself. She wished for you all to live. I am sure of it.” Janine looked at the family, unashamed about lying to them. “Find a reason to do so and honor her memory.”

In reality, the little girl had felt little else than terror and pain in her last moments, no doubt calling her Mommy and Daddy if she had been able to speak and think yet. But… Cruel things sometimes happen in the world, and if honesty causes further harm, then honesty must be abandoned for the sake of the living.

Janine left the family to mourn and went to the settlement center. Eled was forcibly returned to the crawler to have her eye restored. Ignacy commandeered a raider truck to do so. Predaig formed the initial perimeter, but the army’s soldiers had arrived in force, and occasional shots and explosions disturbed the night. Insectoids, subterranean monsters, and scavengers, drawn by the smell of blood, descended on Just Peachy, trying to slip past the defenses. The Third took no chances, bringing in a heavy ordinance in case a young sand reaper paid a visit.

She joined the search and rescue effort, helping the work crews locate buried civilians. Most of her pack wanted to join in, but after some hesitation, she sent most of them back, leaving a skeleton team under the command of Sarkeesian. Anji wasn’t fine; the events of tonight’s massacre had deeply affected the girl. It wasn’t the killing of the raiders that shocked her, but the deaths of young and elderly citizens. To give her rest and to spare her honor, Janine made warriors and scouts tag along under the pretext of repairing their suits.

Agents of the Investigation Bureau, dressed in black coats, worked the streets, searching for surviving raiders and collecting their terminals and any letters or maps for future investigation. They packed up the bodies of the New Breed for later examination.

“Hey, look who made it out alive!” Zlata laughed, slapping Sarkeesian across the chest. Whatever the doctors were doing to her was effective; she stopped losing fur and even gnawed at her limbs less frequently. “You had us worried!”

“Respect…” Softly flapped the fangless lips of the wolf hag.

“What?” Zlata pressed a paw to an ear, pretending not to hear.

“I think she demands our submission,” Melina said thoughtfully, helping a civilian out of the rubble. She checked the man for injuries, fixed his dislocated wrist, and ordered the shocked man to the medics. The wolf hag glanced mischievously at Sarkeesian and grinned. “She can’t really dominate us in this state, though, right?”

“Yeah, can’t bite shit without fangs. Poor, little girl…” Zlata looked over the bigger female. “But it might be our chance to win against an alpha…”

Sarkeesian released her claws, one by one, and admired their length. Then she turned to the wolf hags.

“We surrender!” They raised their paws, and together, all three returned to rescue duty, snarling and joking.

Janine let it slide. The two idiots didn’t mean any harm, and judging by the way they inadvertently stood in Sarkeesian’s way and lifted the heaviest chunks to her displeasure, they cared about her. But admitting it would get them a beating, because the Alpha Pack wolf hag wasn’t about to let anyone think she was weak or in need of help.

“Is it true?” asked a wolf hag of the Onyxia Pack.

“Not sure,” replied the wolf hag of the Dragena Pack. “She saved the warlord’s son, from what I heard…”

“But she left the warlords to fight against the enemy leader alone!” insisted the first woman. “And Warlord Eled was mutilated. Think about it. First, they stole a title from an injured warlord; now the Ice Fang conveniently stayed in the rear again, while we lost several of our kin.”

“It is highly suspicious,” the second wolf hag admitted. “She took a place in the pack, snatched a warlord’s armor rather than using her own, and it isn’t like alphas to get hurt so easily.”

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“We grow weaker, and they...” the wolf hag gulped as Janine broke away from the search and loomed over them.

This was not something she could ignore. Discontent at the Ice Fangs’ treatment fomented in the ranks, and more and more soldiers thought that the ice boys were influencing the Blessed Mother to spare their soldiers while earning the same laurels as the Wolf Tribe.

“If you are weak, it is because you talk too much instead of dominating. Tonight, Sword Saint Camelia saved the lives of our sisters and brothers. And the lives of the people entrusted to our defense. She loyally obeyed every order. Slander her again and I’ll rip out your tongues.” They bared their throats, and Janine bit them, asserting her authority. No unfounded accusation will stain the memory of the fallen. “Where is Ashbringer?”

“Took over the crawler’s defense after she stepped from the capsule, warlord. Since it is the divine time,” said the wolf hag of the Ashbringer pack with a hint of reverence in her voice.

Janine nodded, letting them return to the task at paw. Rejuvenation shot. She had almost forgotten about that. This explained why so few of her sisters and sword saints had taken to the field. She appreciated Ashbringer’s gesture of sending everyone available to aid the settlement.

The thought of brewing dissatisfaction further soured her mood. She could not entirely blame the lower ranks. The Ice Fangs were mighty soldiers, and their absence on any battlefield was sorely missed. Worse, the distancing of two groups naturally bred misunderstandings and alienation. The Ice Fangs weren’t traitors; Bertruda’s schemes were purely the product of her own character, not her tribe as a whole. Despite her disgust toward the sword saint, Janine was saddened by the loss of a potential sister. She asked Marco about his ventures into the Ice Fangs’ territory, and he told her they had treated him well and that he had made friends. No, her cousins were not traitors, backstabbers, or bringers of misfortune, no matter what the lower ranks and shamans thought. The two groups were just different.

The unknown bred fear, and understanding stemmed from cooperation toward common goals. She was sure of it, and she even had proof. The Normies. Those who lived near their villagers no longer feared for the safety of their cubs as Wolfkins passed by. Could the Blessed Mother be wrong to keep the Ice Fangs at arm’s length and not allow the two groups to interact more? It was heretical to consider such a possibility. Ravager was a million times better than Janine. There must be a hidden agenda behind this, one that Janine was unable to perceive. Maybe the Twins asked Ravager to ensure that the wilderness of the Wolf Tribe didn’t infect their noble offspring, or something. Janine has to believe. It is pure hubris to think that she knows better.

“Secure this.” Janine overheard Till Ingo, who pointed at a slightly damaged hoverbike. His finger moved to a man missing an arm. Someone had torn off his entire limb, and a field medic was working to save him. “Drop the stupidity before he bleeds out!” He grabbed a pistol from his belt and fired, cauterizing the wound and shocking the medic.

“What is your major brain malfunction?” The field medic shouted. The injured man did not even react to the shot; the painkillers had driven him into a state of near unconsciousness. “You furthered the damage to the clavicle…”

“Quit worrying over small things. It would be removed to make room for a socket to house a prosthesis,” Till Ingo said dispassionately. “Get the patient to an APC and on to save lives. Pronto, pronto. Stop night dreaming, Banshee, and add another for an augmentation.”

“How can you be so cruel, father?” the mutant asked, biting her lower lip. She held a terminal in her shaking hand. She fixed her eyes on a spot in the molten house where burned limbs protruded from the solidified stone and steel. “People died here! Children!”

“Can you resurrect them?” Till Ingo asked. At a snap of his fingers, a drone buzzed to the building, scanning for survivors.

“Of course not!”

“Then stop anguishing over the people you never knew and focus on saving the living.” Till Ingo turned to Banshee. “No one in the world can count those who deserve to live and yet have died. We can’t change that fact. What we can do is help the living through invention and repair of the damage done.” He paused. “And don’t call me father, Banshee. Assist in the rescue efforts, students. I’ll handle the retrieval and the paperwork.”

The warlord motioned for the medic to obey, ignoring Ingo’s action. She would let the captain chew him out. Using an energy weapon on an already traumatized civilian, even to save his life, seemed excessive. But it worked, so she wasn’t sure if Ingo had broken any laws. It helped that his students fanned out throughout the settlement, saving lives, disarming unexploded rockets, and collecting equipment. The Banshee girl somehow heard civilians trapped under meters of rubble and dug them out with Janine’s help. Maybe Banshee was too soft and incompetent to be a bodyguard, but she certainly had amazing hearing.

“Warlord,” Devourer’s voice asked in her helmet, pleasant and calm. “How severe is the damage?”

“Sir!” Janine replied, digging through the rubble and finding a dead body. The little one had suffocated, hugging his pet cat to keep it safe from harm. The animal was barely alive, and Janine called for a paramedic to perform basic CPR on it. Later, the beast would be given to another family. Humans, animals—the rescue crews cared not. All who can survive must survive. “Apologies for the wait. It’s not my area of expertise to answer. The last time there was an attack of this magnitude was when I was a wolf hag.”

“I got the memo, Warlord,” Devourer hissed, maintaining the calm tone. “Off the record, Janine. Speak your mind.”

“Sir, I wasn’t intending to insult or imply a lack of competence on your part,” Janine said quickly, carefully lifting the destroyed entrance of an apartment building and extracting a man who had his legs broken. She handed him over to Banshee. “Hundreds died, and many more were injured. A group of less than a hundred strong carried out the attack. They had time to maim both the guards and the civilians, destroyed our defenses as if they were nothing, and had at least one strong New Breed on their side. This should not have happened.”

“On that, we are in agreement. I will whip the Investigation Bureau for sleeping on something of this magnitude,” Devourer promised. “All survivors will be granted passage to the Core Lands. Those who choose to stay will have their homes restored. Just Peachy will be rebuilt, greater than before, and I will find whoever did this and eliminate…”

“The Blessed Mother has probably already beaten you to it, sire,” Janine sighed, unearthing two cubs hugging each other from underneath a broken metal beam. No injury marred their flesh, but both cubs were undeniably dead. Choked. Their parents lay nearby, pulverized beyond recognition by the debris. “Sir, your rivalry with Commander Ravager has to stop. Personal glory is irrelevant when it comes to our duty.”

“There is no rivalry, Janine. A rivalry implies a struggle between two equals, with each trying to come out on top. I am far superior to her in every way imaginable. Mere notions of jealousy, anger, or incompetence are alien concepts to the likes of me. It is Ravager who is jealous of me, and that is why she is always trying to one-up me.”

“Is that why you struck the Blessed Mother? Because you can control your anger? She handled the meeting with more dignity than you, sir!” Janine said into the deadly silence. Devourer did not hiss; he did not explode in anger; he simply listened to her, and that scared her to her very soul. What if he did something to her pack? Her life was expendable, but her soldiers and cubs… Janine kept going, giving the dead cubs to a Normie soldier. “Sir, we are all servants of the state. Yes, the Blessed Mother is unstable, and yes, she has led our army into the meat grinder of war. I admit, the commander should have waited for you before attacking the city!”

She was done being cautious; she was too angry about everything. At herself for not arriving sooner. She hated the invaders for killing the peaceful citizens. The deaths of her soldiers and the tragic fate of the men trapped underground, killed by cruel coincidence before the rescuers could free them, depressed the warlord and she spoke her mind. Janine was tired, injured, and no longer cared if Devourer swallowed her whole.

“But you cannot deny our experience!!” she insisted. “This region was under the protection of Warlord Fatima and her pack until they were relocated on your orders. The captain told us you have laid plans for a future defense network that will shorten the response time two times. Great, perfect! But while you’re implementing it, the confusion has left gaps in our defenses for the scum to exploit. Sir, we have several warlords stuck protecting our villagers. Use us! Let us help you! There are many things the Second does better than we do, but our troops live here and know every nook and cranny in these parts. They can share their expertise and help your patrols maintain peace. We don’t care about being remembered or stealing your glory; you can have all the credit to yourself. But the bickering between you and the Blessed Mother has cost us dearly. Please, sir, I beseech you; our forces have to work together. If you mistrust us, take several squads of Normies; take Ice Fangs; but permit the soldiers of the Third Army to lighten the burden of your troops. This will save lives.”

Janine continued to dig through the wreckage. “I am ready to commit a ritual self-sacrifice for my words, sir. I am only asking you to postpone my punishment until we finish here.”

“There will be no punishment, Warlord,” Devourer replied dryly. “There is a seed of wisdom in your words. I may have been a bit… rash in my assessment of the Third Army’s value. The warlords will resume their patrols, and I will demand… request joint training exercises to improve the cohesion of our forces. The warlords who stay will have the same authority as my own officers. Janine, I once again invite you to consider a transfer to the Second Army. Your skills are wasted on someone like Ravager.”

“With all due respect, sir, I must decline the offer. My life is for the nation and my tribe. This is how I have lived; this is how I will die.”

“If that is your wish. But my offer stands, and I’d rather see you thrive,” Devourer said, ending the communication.