"Target is coming, boss." Ireneusz gave a quick nod, hearing the report from the sniper.
"Good, give them a warning shot." The former regulator moved to the edge of the cliff.
His ragtag gang started taking positions. Ever since Yasen’s death, they’ve been hiding in one of the canyons that led to Iterna’s territory, "foraging" by stopping passing buses and taking a "toll" for the right of safe passage. They sold everything aside from food and water to contrabandists, in the hopes of earning enough tokens to escape. Even robbery was preferred to surrendering to the invaders and their hosts of mutants. The worst they could get here was a bullet. The mutants would undoubtedly eat them alive.
The black and gold uniforms of his company were now in tatters and badly sewn together, their power armors worked by sheer miracle, rather than thanks to any maintenance that they performed on it and their ammunition was getting dangerously low after they spent weeks forcing insectoids back.
The bus was hovering along the road, its engines allowed it to rise a solid fifty centimeters above the ground. The bus was colored in blue, the national color of Iterna, dried up remains of a few insectoids and some other predators marked its sides, but aside from that, it was in pristine condition.
Ireneusz jumped from the cliff the moment the sniper fired a warning shot, making the giant vehicle stop in place with almost impossible smoothness. The deserter couldn’t see the driver’s face through the black window, but all iternians were the same, their government told them to pay up to any raiders or bandits, rather than try and run.
"You know the drill, open up, hand over everything and no one will get hurt!" Ireneusz shouted, while the members of his gang landed on the road near him and behind the vehicle. No one was stupid enough to actually aim their weapon at the bus. Do this and the reclaimers will be bound to find and deal with you. And Ireneusz wanted to save enough money to buy his people a way out of the Ravaged Lands, rather than end up hanging in the gallows. Meanwhile, Iterna simply compensated lost goods to people, without sending anyone for Ireneusz’s head.
Ireneusz nodded to one of his soldiers, and the man calmly walked toward the passenger’s door, expecting it to slide aside so the man could search the bus. The passenger door trembled. The gang leader looked at it in confusion, while the door slightly moved to the side, allowing a claw to show from the opening. With a whining sound, the claw pushed the entire door aside and a figure jumped out, nimbly landing on two feet.
It was one of these blasted mutants that fought for the Reclamation Army. The fur of the beast’s black coat was marked with brown stripes and traces of gray and white. The ugly elongated maw of the creature was covered with a patchwork of white scars. Its oversized arms and legs looked like they could pop a human head like a balloon. In one arm, the creature carried a book, which the beast threw into the open door of the bus before slamming it shut. The right arm moved up, reaching for the special-made glasses on its snout, and took them, looking with bored amber eyes at the bandits.
"Doggie!" Ireneusz shouted, gesturing to the sniper to fire at the mutant.
The beast was faster. It threw glasses to Ireneusz, causing the man to catch them in surprise, while the doggie kicked a stone from the road. The stone projectile flew like a bullet, spearing through the sniper rifle’s scope and exploding against the shoulder and jaw of the man behind it, with enough force to shatter both.
The creature fell on the ground, spreading its arms and legs wide, allowing a single shot from the man behind to fly over her. From this very position, the beast lunged backwards, leaving four cracks made by its paws and legs on the stone ground. The poor soul who fired at her found both her arms shattered by a cruel kick, the steel rifle fell on the ground, bent in several places.
Feeling his blood turn cold, Ireneusz understood that he couldn’t even see the damned mutant anymore. The doggie disappeared from the falling woman, reappearing next to another bandit and plunging an elbow into the arm, breaking it like a twig. Its leg kicked, sending another man high into the air. The bandit was still screaming, when the mutant lunged at the three remaining people.
The mutant’s form became a blur, the movements were too fast to be followed, while the bandits all around fell with broken arms and legs, filling the communications with screams. Not even the steel of their armors protected them a single hit. In under a minute, the beast knocked out cold six members of his gang. Seven, if counting the sniper.
"Back off, gain distance and…" Ireneusz shouted the moment he noticed that the chaos behind the bus had stopped, but the beast itself was nowhere to be seen. With the corner of his eye, he noticed something above the bus, "Above, fire!"
His men followed his lead, firing into the black form above the bus, riddling it with bullets and tearing it to shreds.
The remains of a backpack fell on the ground, wrapped in the black regulators’ cape. A few strands of cloth slowly danced in the air before gently lowering to the ground. This mutant tricked them!
Where is this crea… Ireneusz thought, madly looking around. He looked at the ground, and a stroke nearly took him. The mutant’s massive shadow devoured his own meagre shadow. The men and women around Ireneusz stopped as well, and the gang leader gulped, feeling how a claw slid beneath his jaw, piercing through metal and running around his lower jaw.
"My glasses, please." All too human, a slightly rough but undeniable female voice said behind him, making Ireneusz notice that he still held them in his hand. With a trembling hand, he handed them over, allowing his weapon to fall on the ground.
****
Phew. Freedom at last. Now don’t you chicken out, you old fool. Sonya thought, walking away from the bus. She gulped nervously, looking at the scene before her.
Sonya immediately filed a report requesting leave after the treaty of ceasefire between the Reclaimers and Resistance was officially signed. In addition, with mandatory leave during the period of pregnancy, each wolfkin in the army, warrior or not, also had a right to one free month, once every two years. The only exception was during wartime, when no leave was naturally allowed during this time. While this was a new privilege, it had only been twenty years since warlord Alpha imposed it on the tribe, and a few wolfkins chose to take a leave during peacetime. There was simply too much to do. Warriors had to scout around the Tribe's villages, wiping out insectoids and raiders. Jobs had to be taken to procure access to better medicine for cubs. Tents must be repaired, cusacks have to be watched over and protected from predators…
And yet, almost all of this was no longer a problem. On Wyrm Lord's orders, food was provided to the tribe, so wolfkins no longer had to go hungry during bad seasons. The state’s soldiers were sent to patrol around the lands of the Tribe instead of wolfkins, much to the shamans' displeasure. The shamans stubbornly refused to allow free medicine to the Tribe at large, claiming that allowing the weak to thrive will surely doom the Wolf Tribe. Old traditions were clashing with modern times, and eventually one side will have to give in.
Sonya, herself, could care less about any of this. She had no direct descendants, aside from her brother and his family. With no family to care about, she had no reason to sulk in one of the Tribe’s villages, spending all her time in the field. The last time she even was in one of the villages was during the Gathering. For years, she kept herself away from the family.
No more. It was time to make amends and try to beg for forgiveness. Roggo told her to just show up out of the blue, but Sonya could not bear looking at either of them. Not without bringing at least something. But what? Aranea was busy, and the scout was unwilling to pile even more problems on her anyway. Instead, she went to the pack for advice, explaining the situation as it was. Surprisingly, Gin and Kaleb were the ones who came up with the idea.
Iterna. The mysterious country, a relic of the old world. An oasis of pure safety. Hidden behind the ever-expanding force shield, they still had the same culture and nature as pre-Extinction. Iterna… there was so much curious about them! Many cubs of the Wolf Tribe used to sneak into their lands, burrowing under the edge of the shield. Once inside, the little rascals looked for anything to steal in order to boast later. Not Sonya, however, oh no. Her mother took her to Iterna once, as a reward for scoring the first among the cubs in the pits. They visited the beautiful coastal city of Azgat and spent the whole week learning together how to swim in the calm, blue sea. Before they headed back, Sonya, barely a squeak back then, was given the most wondrous gift of all that she had ever tasted in her life. Ever since then, she wanted to taste it again. Years passed, Sonya grew up, her mother and father died peacefully, Sonya grew older and older... The memories of this taste remained. He will surely like it too.
Years ago, Sonya had already prepared the application form for visiting Iterna as a tourist, but never went further. Now, she sent this form to both Alpha and Iterna’s ambassador via the Net. Both were surprised by how archaic the form was, but they approved it nonetheless, although the embassy of Iterna took it upon themselves to update the form.
Tourists, with an approved permit, could ride one of official Iterna’s buses toward the territory of the country. Alpha warned Sonya that Iterna sometimes tries to recruit tourists from the ranks of new breeds. Sonya knew about this, of course, and was glad to see the confidence of the warlord in her. Usually, the higher ups of the Reclamation Army hated it when new breeds visited Iterna due to how wild most of the new breeds were. The superiors of new breeds, in terms of Sonya, it was Alpha, were supposed to give long lectures about how new breeds were supposed to behave themselves in foreign country. Alpha did not treat the scout as a greenhorn. Instead of spending hours lecturing Sonya on how to behave, the warlord merely warned Sonya to avoid causing problems for anyone in Iterna and gave an order to have fun.
While on the bus, Sonya used one of the terminals in the vehicle to find herself a place to stay in Azgat, nothing too expensive, of course. A single Iterna’s credit was equal to three tokens of Reclaimers. Sonya rarely spent any of the money that she received for her service, keeping it all in the bank. Sonya decided that she had to be careful not to run out of money anyway. A stay in a room cost one thousand nine hundred and eight credits per season. As far as Sonya could understand, "season" must have meant "week" or "month". There were also prices for "quarter of a season", "half of a season" and "one tenth of a season". Sonya decided not to risk, it was a lot of money, but on the other paw, what else was she going to spend it on? Iterna’s first international bank approved transaction, and the owner of the place sent her agreement as well. Funds were paid, preparations were done, and now there was no turning back.
The bus came to a halt a short distance before a two-story tall building that stood alone in the wastelands. Despite the harsh climate of the Ravaged Lands, lush greenery surrounded the stone-paved road that led to the building, greenery enhanced by scientists from Iterna. Actual trees stood tall, and, as the bus lowered itself onto the ground and Sonya stepped outside, she felt the smell of flowers. A scorching sun was heating the surface from above, cruel winds were running across the rock surface of the Ravaged Lands, and still the greenery of Iterna withstood it all, unbowed and undamaged. Buzzing drones lazily flew across trees, sprinkling tiny bits of water here and there. A long railway could be seen even from the bus, a lone train was standing, awaiting to take the passengers to Iterna.
Four elderly people, all traders, came from the bus, behind them came the family of a politician from Soultakers. Sonya half expected the kids to be stoic, impassionate people like all the adult Soultakers that she met on the battlefields, but the scout changed this opinion after being bombarded with questions and being scared to death when the raiders demanded goods. The elderly nanny, the caretaker of the kids, was throwing worrying glances at Sonya during the trip and tried her best to keep the young away from the wolfkin. After the scout dealt with the bandits, leaving them to be picked up by the state’s patrol, the woman thanked her, no longer afraid, while the kids kept asking Sonya about battle. The scout decided to pull Olesya on them, taking them for a ride on her shoulders, rather than speak about battles today.
Sonya herself came last from the bus, checking her belongings and putting on warm clothes that she bought at a high price before her trip. Sonya wore a green jacket made from a lizard's hide and thick pants woven from cusack’s wool. Underneath the jacket, she was wearing a sweater. Her legs were covered in long black boots. The zipper of her jacket was fastened. Her ID card and approval permit hung on a chain from her neck; her credit card was safely hidden in a pocket of her jacket. A yellow cap, large enough to hide her ears, was on the wolfkin’s head. She had a few bottles of water and some food in cans in her backpack, along with spare clothes. Sonya took out the pocket mirror and critically checked herself. Her fur was slowly receding, as age was catching up to her, gray bits could be seen here and there more often than she would like. Once gorgeous brown stripes across her snout were slowly fading before the onslaught of age and sun. The image in the mirror suddenly became blurry, as if water had gotten into the scout’s eyes, and Sonya reached out for her glasses, putting them on. No shame in admitting the inevitable. She was too old and had too many scars. One of her ears was almost torn away. Her prime was long since left behind her.
For almost all people, it was sheer madness to dress as warmly as Sonya did in the Ravaged Lands. Even wolfkins would eventually cook themselves under the sun within hours. Even now, Sonya felt tiny drops of sweat that were appearing on her back. This was true, but there was a thing about Iterna that Sonya learned as a cub.
Forgiveness is not earned, it is given. But whatever else, this time I will try to be a proper aunt. Sonya decided, walking toward the building.
