Ashbringer landed in the middle of the camp, allowing fire to come freely from the flamethrowers mounted on her wrists. The flames licked two bentos, cooking the screaming cyborgs within their armor. The warlord advanced, stepping on the soldier in front of her, slamming her into the ground, and she felt the body pop beneath her feet. The woman’s power armor cracked, and blood and liquidated organs poured out.
The warlord moved away from the scene, leaping over the soldiers who attempted to stop her. She landed atop one of the two barracks in this camp, pushing her arms down and crashing into the roof. Ashbringer hesitated just for a moment, seeing the fearful eyes of one of the medics.
"Annoying." She said, crushing through the roof.
Instead of pouring flame into this place, she let her claws speak, pushing away the medic and crashing into the backs of the people who rushed to the armory to get their weapons. The warlord painted the stone corridor red, coming at them like a blender, slashing through both muscles and bones. She spared those who either shouted surrender or fell to the floor, ignoring them as she cleaved her way through a group of fifty people, littering the floor with open bodies.
The wall to her left exploded, and one of Bento’s heavy assault team members, a gigantic mechanical body operated by a human brain floating within, crashed into her, pushing the warlord into the wall, smashing through it, and finally coming outside with her.
Ashbringer almost applauded the bravery of her foe, wrestling her arms free and allowing her claws to tear off the arm that tried to reach her eyes, piercing through the lenses of her helmet. A single twisting motion was all it took to tear the huge steel arm away from the socket of its body.
The cyborg raised his second hand, and Ashbringer smiled, seeing the light in the square-shaped wrist of her foe. A plasma discharger that is built around the mechanical fist and is protected by the vambrace around it. A simple mistake—a wrong twist of the fist—and the bento will simply explode his own fist instead of getting her. Bentos truly were as reckless as wolfkins. A good foe.
Ashbringer leaned to the right, allowing plasma to melt the ground behind her, and put both of her paws into the steel midsection of the enemy. Raging fury left her wrists, collapsing against the steel frame of the foe and melting its way into his insides. The cyborg stumbled back, confused at the fact that his mighty armor was being infected.
The warlord never let him retreat. She grabbed her opponent's shoulders and speared him with a single kick, turning the brain inside the chest to mush. Her clawed leg ripped through the metal spine of his back.
All around her, the Reclaimers advanced on their foes. Robet Hilingson led the front force, smashing through the main gates. His squad fired high-powered precision lasers, downing the most dangerous cyborgs and allowing the main force to move forward. Ashbringer’s pack acted in accordance with the teachings of the blessed mother, leaping over the wall that surrounded the base, attacking the foes from behind, retreating from the merest sign of the resistance, and storming through the building, killing the still sleeping or confused foes, before coming out and attacking the soldiers who tried to form lines and stop the advance of the main bulk.
The warlord saw that her wolf hags were unhappy. Oh, they still howled eagerly while tearing out enemies’ heads and throwing grenades into the cracked tanks. The howls were just as much an expression of joy as they were a means of coordination and instruments of instilling fear into the enemy.
The wolf hags, on the other hand, were enraged by the need to restrain their might in order to spare their foes. Ashbringer did not blame them, her instincts called for causing as much mayhem and destruction as possible. It was natural; Ravager had drilled these instincts into her, nearly flaying wolf hag Ashbringer alive for suggesting sparing some cannibals.
But the blessed mother wasn’t perfect. It may be blasphemy for the shamans, yet it is the truth. The exchange of prisoners saved lives. If the enemy knows that they will be treated well, they have incentives to surrender and to treat prisoners from the Reclamation Army well too. Ashbringer herself was once captured by the Oathtakers, although back then it was a rowdier time. Her jailers inserted a rusted hook into her lower abdomen, leaving a massive scar from her life-giving hole to her ribs. Still, the soldiers involved in the torture died, and the exchange was made.
Ashbringer moved toward the center of the enemy base, barely bothering to kill anyone before her. Her amber eyes were locked on four gigantic artillery pieces. These mighty vehicles were able to fire with pinpoint accuracy from a distance of over three hundred kilometers. They've already proven their lethal utility by decimating a convoy en route to aid warlord Janine.
But now they were prey, and an easy one at that. She leaped forward, landing on two cyborgs before her, cracking their corpuses and the flesh within. The soldiers of her pack gunned down the other soldiers who tried to form one last defensive line around the artillery the moment enemies turned to fire on Ashbringer.
The warlord approached a single bunker stationed in front of artillery, thrusting her right arm through the reinforced concrete. She gave the enemies five seconds to decide their fate, only one chose to run, while the others tried to fire at her paw. The flamethrower spat its hellish fire, exploding the ammunition within the bunker and killing foes before the cruel heat even started licking flesh off their bones. The stone started to melt, and the warlord tore her arm free, coming forward and ignoring the surrendered foe, leaving him for her troops.
The artillery pieces were left all alone, and Ashbringer took her time firing at each one at a time. Something in her felt pain as she watched the flame lick the armored steel of the artillery, turning it into running liquid and reaching down to the engine, causing the large machine to shake like a scared beast before tumbling down. Just two centuries ago, Ravager would have killed Ashbringer for ruining such precious tech. Nowadays, these things are no longer precious, but it physically hurt her when the ammunition from the four artillery pieces exploded around her, destroying the vehicles for good.
We are the destroyers. Ashbringer reminded herself.
She was left standing amidst the sea of flame, allowing her helmet to slide and feeling flame licking her fur. Her head was slightly different from the heads of other wolfkins, it was elongated forward and had the same size as her neck, giving her an uncanny resemblance to a ferret. Upon first hearing this, Ashbringer even bought one such creature from Iterna and still kept it as her favorite pet. The resemblance was undeniable, her fangs were thinner and more elegant when compared to the rest of her kin, almost male-like. Of course, anyone who dared to compare her to a male to her face would soon find herself brutally beaten down and chewed upon. Now ferrets were something else; Ashbringer enjoyed being compared to them. They had nice and soft fur, far cooler than her own. Her first husband frequently referred to her by this nickname during their mating.
The flame licked both her skin and her fur at the same time, cleaning her from parasites and dirt instead of hurting her. The flame was like another mother for her, she spent her entire life mastering and enduring it. It was a cruel mistress, biting at her amber eyes even now, but this mistress proved her superiority to the world once, during the Extinction, when almost the entire surface of the planet was in flames. It was the greatest honor in the world to master it, wield it, and be loved by it.
"Warlord Ashbringer?" The warlord’s eye snapped, and she allowed her helmet to close around her head. So close. She was so close to hearing… "We are…"
"I told you to call me by my name." She growled back at the lieutenant. Robet Hilingson outranked her, technically. It was a mockery that Ivar put him under her command.
"My apologies," Robet replied without hint of guilt, "Ashbringer, the base is taken. Should we advance…"
"No. Send the prisoners back. We will soon follow, after we finish looting up the place," She looked up, into the night sky, enjoying flying ambers in the air, "Back and forth is the nature of war. No need to get greedy… Prepare to combat!" The warlord roared, seeing black dots in the air.
They came raining down, sending tremors across the surface and collapsing the few remaining buildings. These were triangle-shaped assault capsules of the Bento Tribe, and their roofs opened, spitting out cyborg after cyborg. A mix of heavy assault team members along with the weird skeleton-shaped cyborgs with inverted legs.
The troops were spread across the base, finishing sending the prisoners to the rear and searching for hidden enemies. The reclaimers did not expect the enemy to attack so soon. And they paid for this mistake.
The smaller cyborgs were a match even for scouts in one-on-one combat, bisecting normal soldiers with the blades in their wrists, moving in a blurry burst of speed, before unloading their energy weapons into the faces of Ashbringer’s troops. The heavy assault team members ignored the warlord, pushing into the center of the enemy’s formation, not allowing the reclaimers even a chance to regroup. Their oversized gatling guns spoke curses, collecting a deadly toll.
Ashbringer broke from her stationary pose, closing in on the closest foes. Her kick shattered the heads of two smaller cyborgs, and the flamethrowers melted the weapons of the larger cyborg before two shamans leaped at it, tearing the machine apart. The warlord turned to face new prey, killing and hacking and calling up her wolf hags.
She found her second in command killed; the woman was lifted in the air by a strange cyborg, who looked like an overgrown human and whose form was made of a patchwork of steel. Steel tendrils slid from his back, hitting the wolf hag across the legs and arms, shattering them in one blow, before the bento pushed one more tendril through her chest, killing the wolf hag.
We are losing. The warlord understood and barked the order: "Form up, people! Begin the retreat!"
At her command, the chaos ceased. The shamans cast a glance at her before breaking into a bone-chilling howl and vanishing among the chaos battlefield, slaughtering the foes who tried to stymie the regular troops and allowing them to retreat. The wolf hags and scouts left first, followed by soldiers, whose backs were covered by the shamans and warriors. Only the expendables remained, forming a small front in the face of the steel rage.
Sixty males, led by the warlord. The most expendable in the tribe, led by the one who led the group into the trap. Sacrifice and responsibility.
Ashbringer met the enemy head-on, trying to give the males the widest berth possible. Her strikes ripped metal arms, her kicks pushed the larger cyborg back, and her flamethrowers bathed the smaller ones in fire. Nonetheless, whenever she was about to deliver a killing blow, one of the cyborgs jerked the ally back or the larger cyborgs activated the shield, protecting their comrades and allowing them to retreat while the remaining cyborgs closed ranks around the fighters with almost perfect coordination. Even with the newer model of the power armors, the males weren’t strong enough to fight in close range against these foes, so they sacrificed themselves, howling one last song as the blades and shots pierced them.
It enraged the warlord, pushing her beyond her natural limits. Her armor strained, but her strikes were lethal. She found the enemy's pace and broke their perfect teamwork, forcing the heavy assault team members to finally focus on her.
Something jumped from above, crushing two males below its column-like legs. A cyborg, far bigger than the rest, with steel claws that would make even Alpha jealous. He gave out a thunderous laugh, reinforced several times by his speakers. The soundwave hit six males, shattering them and their armor into pieces, leaving just crimson mist in the air.
"Tlaltzin Bento will send you to your afterlife!" The cyborg boomed at Ashbringer, and his sound pushed her back, creating cracks in her armor. The cyborgs jumped away, allowing her and him to have a bout.
Tlaltzin. A high-value target. She smiled and charged at him, evading the hit of his right arm. She slid beneath his armpit, allowing her claws to run against his frame.
In vain. The energy shield came into being, protecting him from any harm. The warlord stopped her slide and punched. This time she felt the energy field collapsing beneath her closed paw, allowing her to thrust the flamethrower at the steel that shielded the elder and engulf him in fire.
The fire helplessly splattered against the steel, barely melting it in several places. Tlaltzin's upper body turned around, slamming Ashbringer into the side of the head with such force that half of her helmet flew off. The warlord fell face down, biting the concrete with her fangs and feeling blood on her lips.
She rolled to the side, evading the stomp of the enemy’s leg, and jumped on her feet, making a simple thrust at the enemy, shattering through the shield and burying her claws into the still. The shell is tough, but what about the insides? Ashbringer smiled before the claws of her foe closed around her arm.
The warlord shouted from pain when wave after wave hit her body and the claws closed, tearing away her right arm. Tlaltzin let out a laugh, lifting the torn arm up and allowing fire from his palm to engulf it.
Ashbringer looked at this scene in disbelief, forgetting her pain, forgetting the loss of her limb, and forgetting the shock of the enemy’s strength. Her arm burned. The fire that had denied her for so long finally engulfed and devoured her severed limb. As if in response, something spoke within her, begging to be released.
Tlaltzin made a step toward her when several laser beams hit him across the body, melting some of the sensors around his body. With blurring speed, the torso turned around, facing Robet Hilingson and his men standing atop a ruined building.
"Warlord! Retreat!"
Ashbringer grabbed the five closest males to her with her remaining arm and jumped away, leaving twenty more behind.
The steel hand closed. Ashbringer wasn’t sure what she just saw. Some sort of mist formed around the officer and his men, covering them in a transparent bubble of murky white. And then this bubble turned to utter darkness, and the men were no more, whisked away from the world along with the upper tip of the ruined building.
Instantaneously, their life signs went to zero. Killed. with something that she could not yet understand.
****
The enemy never sent the pursuit after her, satisfied with butchering the advance party and capturing some of her soldiers. Ashbringer carried the five remaining males to the crawler in her arm, not listening to their offers to treat her wounds. She only let them go upon coming to the giant machine.
The warlord walked toward the med block, leaving a small trail of blood behind her. Some of her veins still hung from the horrible wound, bleeding slightly, but her body had already started coagulating blood, creating scar tissue in the damage area and leaving twin white bones and pieces of the inner exoskeleton sticking out from this mess.
"Robet had some kids, right?" She asked the officer in charge of this crawler. The warlord heard booming sounds, and the artillery started working, reducing the enemy base and whoever was left there to rubble. She doubted that the Bento elder was still there.
"Yes, and a wife too."
"Tell them that they are now my kin in blood. Any help that they ever need, I will provide. Any foe of theirs I will smash aside. Get me on the line with Ivar, I have a report, and get Till too. Tell Janine that she is left without my support, I recommend a retreat for now. I need full information about losses," She said, looking down on the remains of her arm, "And order me a new arm from the Core Lands. I don’t care who provides it, I need a replacement soon."
The flickers of flame came before her eyes, mixing with the amber color of her eyes, and the warlord breathed in with a sudden burst of energy. Something had changed in her. There was no flame in this room.
"I have a score to settle."
