The pack gathered outside the city, finding a spot in the shadow of a natural hill. There was no military gear or civilian garb here; every Wolfki only had their natural fur coat to protect them. Janine didn’t growl, demanding obedience. She stepped into a cirber eyes, burning from shame and fuming in anger.
“When I brought Terrific low, I swore to bee a worthy warlord. When I saw your performan battle under my leadership, my heart sang, propellio greater heights. When Alpha herself bestowed upon me an honorary title, I believed I had finally transformed into the woman I had always aspired to be. Bull-Syer, she dubbed me!” Janine said loudly, smming the ft of her on against her barrel-shaped chest, apanied by encing howls. She waited for them to cease, n to weasel out of the responsibility. “I led you through the Abyss and back, and you never betrayed my expectations. However, I have betrayed you. Bertruda, a member of the Ice Fang Order, challenged me. This battle I lost, the Blessed Mother herself stripped me of the title, ravaged my body, and pointed out my inferiority.” She dropped the on in anticipation of judgment. “My shame is our shame! My weakness is our weakness! My and has cost you the great Terrifid honor. Won’t someone rid the pack of this disgrace?! Rage, rage, rage upon the shame I have brought unto you, and strike me down if you deem me unworthy! Sisters and brothers of different mothers, end me if you so choose!”
Their fusion was clear. The rumors had already circuted, misguided, no doubt. The pack directed its wrath not at her, but at the Ice Fangs. Cws crushed rocks, fists tore crevices ione floor, and the wolf hag began cirg around the warlord, moving on four limbs, agitating the lesser ranks so they could abandon their natural fear and decide. Uogether, the pack could easily bring down even a warlord.
Impatient Oed first, charging at Janine from the rear and aiming her paw at the wound in the ribs. The warlord elbowed back, sending the shaman into the warrior’s ring. Impatient One down two scouts and nded on several males. She rose, shook the dust from her fur, and bowed to Janine, accepting her superiority.
The dance tinued. Janine was surprised that Melina hadn’t led an attack yet. But the woman circled, bristling and sniffing the air like an animal, leading six scouts after her.
“Weak.” Janine whirled around and smacked Anissa, onihrough the ranks. “Tear me asunder and recim the lost honor! Bathe me in blood as penance for shaming Terrific’s legacy! Pop my eyes and rip out my lying tohat promised a victory! Paint the ground red with the liar’s blood! Take my limbs one by one so that my agony may bring succor to the fallen!”
The bck-furred wave engulfed her. The warlord weathered this storm, taking blows on her forearms, never once releasing her cws. Heavy sps tossed the scouts upward. A pun the plexus stole a wolf hag’s breath, and she baded the , barely drawing blood. She brought shame, and she should suffer, no matter what tradition said. Blows pounded against her hide, fangs tore at the skin of her legs, but the pack’s restraint puzzled the warlord. A scout jumped, and Impatient One and Anissa grabbed her by the wrists. Janine dodged the kid caught the scout’s leg between her ned shoulder. She grabbed her daughters by their waists, easily overp them, and smmed them into the scout above.
Melina seized the moment, springing at her from the dark stream that rushed around the warlord. Her cws fshed, directed at Janine’s eyes, and the warlord met them calmly, pushing aside the males trying to gnaw at her feet. A headbutt knocked Melina back, and she sprang to her feet, hissing and rubbioes.
Janine uood then. There was no wound—not even a bruise on her forehead. Melina missed on purpose. Even Impatient One held back. The pack took after the warlord, sensing her frustration, and swarmed her, pung and kig to let their leader loosen up while avoiding going for a kill. They treated her as if she were a male on the verge of breaking. It was a game to lift her spirit, and Janine ughed, accepting their care and support.
The assault ended as suddenly as it had begun, and the paelt, howling at the sky in shame and longing, m the defeat of their warlord and the loss of the honor that Terrific had built in the pack. But this howling had another note, and it was not one of reproach. Support. A warlord is responsible for the pack, but the reverse is also true. Their disharmonious soed about failing to proted guide the inexperienced warlord, and this share of the burden touched Janine.
“This is how it is today!” Janine roared, transf the grief into words. “We are weak. Honorless. The white-furred threw us into dust and walked all over us, and this is! Only! My! Fault! Not theirs! Not yours! A lost honor simply waits to be restored! If deeds do not support an honorable bees meaningless! I swear on my life to earn another honorable name and give it to the pa Terrific’s memory! And how could it be otherwise when I have such a magnifit pack as you? We won it once, and we shall do it again, felling humanity’s foes and shielding the tribe! Rise, my kin. What happened, happened. It is time to tend to the future.”
The pack members eagerly assembled their ranks, fired by her words. Misery turo ambition. The Wolfkins adored a good eback.
“There will be no honorable duels or retaliation against our cousins,” Janine warhem, pig up and raising her axe in silent threat. “Oh no, kin of mine, we won’t walk an easy road. We will not steal what was rightfully taken from us. Thievery is not the Wolf Tribe’s way! We will prove by our as that we deserve new glory! A new honor! Save those who ot protect themselves! Devour those who prey oimid! Guard the state and usher in a new, better age for all mankind! For the Blessed Mother and Dynast!”
“For the state and our tribe!” The pack roared back.
“Dismissed. Anyone caught attag an ice boy will be skinned alive.” Disappoi appeared in the ambitious eyes. Doubtless, some pnned a few ritual matches today. Janine smiled, warmly addressing them as a rade. “Duty is eternal, and thus we have innumerable ces tain what was lost. Rest, my kin. The night was hard, yet the weight of our responsibilities only strengthens us. Melina!”
“Warlord!” The wolf hag pressed a paw to her chest.
“If Chak has no further use for us, stage war games. Ygrite’s fireworks have proved quite effective. See that our warriors and males learn to use grenade unchers. And teach them how to y minefields again, just for fun.” These words elicited a mournful ‘boo’ from the males and warriors. “Repetition is the mother of learning,” Jaold them, turning to Anissa. “I our repaired power armors. I don’t care about scuffs, but if there are any hydraulics or joints that don’t work, report them to me immediately so I kick the mainteeam’s collective butt. Request ser rifles for the scouts. o let Ashbringer and Alpha hog everything.”
“By your will!” the wolf hags answered.
“Impatient Ohe health of the pack is on you in Soulless One’s absence.” Janine owards the shaman. “A scout has caught an iion.” To save her honor, she omitted the woman’s name. “If one get ill, so the other. No foolish bravery; send anyone sick to the medic, by force, if necessary.”
Janine spotted Bertruda Mountaintop and Camelia Winterson as she was leaving the trial’s grounds. Bertruda’s limping leg and swollen nose brought the warlord a touch of satisfa. The women wore simple white cloaks over pin cloth in pce of their sumptuous official uniforms. Another form of insult, no doubt. A line of soldiers formed in their path, preventing them from approag Janine.
“Warlord!” Bertruda called. The treated nostrils ed her elegant and youthful speech, and her voice sounded raspy and nasal. “A moment of your time… please,” she added through force.
“Rest, Sword Saint Bull-Syer,” Janine said, ign the false humility. “You have a duty to your house to be in top shape.”
The Ice Fang Order had cost her enough. She wished she had nothing more to do with them, except to fight by their side in future battles. The shamans spoke true: when bd white meddle in the lives of one another, misery follows.
****
Till Ingo stepped into the den of death, undaunted, more a how perilous it was to arrive here.
He parked his private flying ptform on top of the crawler, using its nding pads for the first time in a tury. His ship was an oval-shaped, elegant flyer, a reli the bygone era used by rich tourists in the Old World. He had found it, restored its engines, and moder to ehe rigors of this transitory era. The students weren’t happy wheeered his ship straight into a sandstorm, but if he had to leave the cozy atmosphere of his boratories, he might as well perform a series of empyreal tests.
Ravager demanded his urgent attendance, but Till Ingo never permitted others to dictate his daily routine. He visited the Iable’s anti-matter pnt and alled by the inefficy of the engineering crew. After giving a few pointers, Till strode to the cyberic bay, someleased to see that the two Wolfkins had accepted the augmentation. The inappropriate sterile enviro had deeply offended him, prompting him to personally perform aion to graft an unventional limb onto a male Wolfkin, with the iion of speaking to the boy iure. There were some fws in the design, naturally, and he had corrected the fuel iion system for the fmethrower, but the transf fingers earned an A grade from him.
Then he ied the rest of the ship. His pany had poured impressive resources into upgrading this behemoth, and his heart wept for the disasters and hardships it had so bravely endured. Ingo Development may not be responsible for any failed gears and outdated cyberipartments, but this did not absolve him from leaving his pretty girl alone. Even the crew was rude, insisting on addressing the Iable as a man. These buffoons wouldn’t know what a css is, even if it smashed them into a pulp. Ingo calmed down and assigned several students to perform immediate repairs. The rest will have to wait, but he will ensure a full-scale restoration of this venerable mae, by bckmail, if needed. If the anti-matter pnt explodes, the Core Lands themselves will feel the tremors of this cataclysmic eruption.
Only then did he see fit to go to the rendezvous point, apanied by a single bodyguard. He frow the amateurish energy cables running up the tower. His guide expihat these supported the life support systems above. Shaking his head, Till summoned his students and ordered them to assemble a more elegant solutiohat would not risk frying a careless living human at a touch. Sure, Teo-Queen was a barbarian, but there was no reason for them to stoop to her level.
Climbing up the elevator shaft, he heard a rumble. The ander was getting impatient. That fact didn’t bother him as much as his panting while his bodyguard moved nimbly up the dder, testing the way for him. He should’ve moderated his visits to restaurants.
At the top, he took the bodyguard’s hand and climbed up through the destru Ravager’s arrival had left behind. After catg his breath, Till Iered the royal hall of Teo Queen. There were ric lights, every ounce of energy had been diverted to keep the victims alive, and the engineers had built a makeshift patch by welding crude metal to the walls to prevent the poisonous toxic air from seeping in and darkness reigned over the pce. The impnts in his eyes activated, allowing him to see the pce clearly.
There was a time when Till believed it would be difficult for ao match the depravity of Blood Graf. It saddened him to be proven wrong. He could somehow uand the reasoning behind the btant depopution. But the sight of the mutited bodies hanging in the harnesses awakeions in him he thought he had long since discarded.
Till Ingo issed. He sped up, walking by the room’s edge, surveying the tortured people. Only his footsteps, the heavy breathing ohrone and occasional groans broke the silence. Missing lungs, removed kidneys, deliberately reshaped bones, veins and muscles that bore the burns and infmmation, ay eye sockets. The doctors here did what they could, but these people were near death. It would take a miracle to remove them from the harnesses.
Or diligend petehis he had in abundance.
The microprocessors activated and sparked warning signals. ‘DANGER! DANGER! IMMEDIATE EVACUATION IS REQUIRED! SEG ESCAPE ROUTES!’ Till Ingo bahe letters and maps from his eyes, sending a calming impulse to his four young helpers. These weren’t AIs, nor even the famous VIs of Iterna, but more rudimentary intelligehat led in his lobes. He installed them himself and gave them the ability to learn in an attempt to recreate the beautiful helpers of the Old World.
“Till Ingo. Late as always,” the one who had called him said, half snarling, half saying. Ravager shifted on the remains of the throne, illuminating him with the light of her eyes.
‘Psychiiputioed!’ warned a little one. Ravager’s voice was captivating and melodic; it drew you in, perfectly mimig a situation from the distant past when the boy Ingo slipped into the realm of dreams at his sisters’ side, ed in soft bs. Even as she stood, covered in dirt and her pupils diting and shrinking, the ander’s voice had an unnatural charisma, a promise that everything would be all right if you just listeo her, and his little helpers activated a termeasure program to protect the stist from mind trol. No wohe Wolf Tribe held her in such divine reverence.
Not that Till had any need for assistao resist Wyrms’ influence, he installed chemical and meical anti-mind trol systems in his body. Suffit willpower was enough fer’s pathetic attempts.
Banshee dropped to her knees between Ingo and Ravager. His bodyguard had the palest of white skin; her green irises stretched so far that the white of her eyes couldn’t be seen. Banshee preferred white, but knowing the ander’s problems, she wore a green bodysuit today, twin pistols at her hips and knives ihs on her fs. Golden neckces adorned her slender neck, while bronze earrings covered the outer parts of her sharp ears.
Her features had an unfinished, even ugly shape. Lips stretched to the ears; eyebrorotruding solidified muscle ridges that blended into the surrounding skin; the nose was almost ft; and there was barely any space between the ears and the head. Strands of her bck hair fused into several thick locks that could not be separated even by instruments. An ugly dug, but her evolution was not yet plete. She might yet bee a beautiful princess.
“Greeting, ander,” Banshee sang, and the strained expression vanished frer’s muzzle. She grinned and patted the young woman.
“No formalities, Banshee,” Ravager said. She rubbed her eyes, regaining her senses. “How are your studies?”
“Excellent so far,” Banshee replied. “Thank you for naming me your daughter and ving my father to put his name on my birth certificate.”
“Your creator,” Till Ingo corrected.
“Think nothing of it,” Ravager assured Banshee, ign him. “Everybody should have someohey call a parent, real or not. If you wish, the Wolf Tribe’s doors are always open. We are a rowdy bunch, but we stand by our own, Banshee.”
“I’d rather find my path.” The woman smiled. “Domination and rank flicts are not to my taste.”
“Correct choice.” Ravager returhe smile. “Be a good girl and stay away from violence.”
“If you have finished exging pleasantries, may we proceed to business?” Till Ingo asked. He wore a white coat, buttoned vest, and linen pants, not b to soothe Ravager’s sensibilities. He had to promise and repce his shoes with crude boots. Regur rejuvenatiohe gray from toug his hair and the wrinkles from his skin.
“e on, Banshee, let the grown-ups py,” joked Zero from beside the throne. “Met any handsome boys?”
“Still six, big sister,” Banshee replied, and the two ughed.
Even today, it surprised Ingo how alike and different the two sisters were. Physically, Zero was identical ter ihing, aside from the massive size. Where Ravager stood six meters tall, Zero barely reached four meters, and her limbs were thiheir eyes had the same glow, but where Ravager stalked around on four limbs, never letting her guard down, Zero exuded friendliness and walked on two legs.
She wore a yellow t-shirt and shorts; her helmet hung from her waist. Dozens of leather belts ed around her limbs. After the battle, Zero ed herself, meticulously bed her lush fur, and sprayed peach perfume on herself. A silver neckce with a locket was around her neck, and Zero had gathered her long hair into a mohawk, dying it from its natural dark to soft blue and yellow. She embraced Banshee and took her by the hands with such siy that Till almost believed there was no on on her. Almost.
“They.” Ravager poi the people on the wall. “ you fix them?”
“Elementary,” Till Ingo agreed. “Frankly, I don’t uand why you bothered t me all the way out here. Cyberics could have do ihan a month. Prostheses for limbs, ocurs for eyes, blood pumps…”
“Enough games!” Ravager fangs appeared close to his face, and Ingo raised a hand to push the gigantiout aside.
“Your nose is dry,” he told her.
“Yeah, we are w on it!” Zero distracted from discussing the test gossip. “Big sis told me to shove the apple juice…”
“Up the ass,” Ravager grumbled. “Give me water or blood. I don’t like sugary or sour drinks.”
“The juice isn’t sour!” Zerued. “There are many vitamins in it. If you had just tried it…”
“My old me otherwise.” Ravager lowered her head, maintaining eye tact with Till Ingo. “You’ve got something funny in your head.”
“They say hello too,” Till replied. The maes in his head panicked and begged him to keep their presence a secret. “The little boys and girls are useful for calcutions.”
“Biological parts,” Ravager said after a pause. “ you do it? you restore them?”
“Perhaps.” Till put his fio his lips. His assistants calmed down arieved the financial data. “Yes. It’ll take time, but we have the resources. Why though? Most of them are Normies. Prosthetics would allow them to trahe limitations of the flesh. They would gain fingers capable of breaking stones, eyes to see through the thick storm, stomachs to digest and drink the most dangerous and exquisite dishes…”
“And lose the warmth of an embrace, the joy of having their own children, and the simple happiness of touch. These meical aberrations of yours would serve them as aernal reminder of the horrors they have lived through, of the things they have lost and suffered…” Ravager stopped.
“Don’t you care a bit too much?” Ingo probed. “We wake up one of them and ask if they’d want to walk free as soon as possible or…”
“Ner tensed. “Let them dream. Let them sleep.” She turned and stomped toward the throne. “You ask why I care? Ingo, itle against Blood Graf, I heard a cub. He was what, about two or three years old, at most, with a cut on his chest and his parents dead. He was screaming under a pile of corpses, his blood spurting, emp Blood Graf. As the hook and axe sliced through my body, he called for help, hoping that someone would save him. And there I was, s!” Ravager rose to two legs and flexed her muscles. “Mighty! Invulnerable! Useless! By the time I fihe bastard, the cub had expired, smothered by his very dead parents. Have you any idea how often I hear simir cries? g... All I do is care; it’s the only thing that keeps me sane when I hear people dying in pces I ’t even reach. I ’t save everyone; I am a monster fit for butchery, but I give these ones a good future rather than miserable existences devoid of human senses.”
“Very dramatic,” Till said.
He had long cluded that something had happeer in the past—something that had ed her view of medical personnel and meical progress. But what? The Dynast found the Wolf Tribe in the Desotion, a region in the far north, shortly before severe seismic tremors forced him to relocate south. Ingo wao see the Wolf Tribe’s birthpd learn what he could do to correct this aversion to natural extensions of human life.
For teology had not suppnted flesh. Not in the least. The two worked in tandem, living in symbiosis. Sure, he met some oddballs on his journey and listeo rumors of a near-mystical group that repced all their ans except their brains, but those were extreme cases that undoubtedly led tedies and were most likely blown out of proportion. Today’s surgeons and cyberics left enough flesh for the mind to be at ease, and orphanages offered a steady supply of sons and daughters to raise. There was nothing to fear.
“I potentially grow the limbs, but the cost will be astronomical,” Till admitted. “We are not Iterna. After the i, I shifted our focus away from geic research. To vihe board to fund such a charity, I need something more effective than bat drones and ons of mass destru, which we will never use.”
Seven years ago, Ingo Developme out to create an analog of the Iternian biological monstrosities. Mindless beasts, ready to serve and die at the Dynast’s word. Only theirs were to be better, endowed with powers thanks to the added Glow. Banshee and her siblings were the result. As soon as Till uood what was cooking in his vats, he immediately halted further experimentation and called Ravager, admitting what he had done and asking if he should flush the results before they could be ‘born’.
They had had their differences in the past, arguing and often bckmailing one another into pliance. But this time, she almost killed him. Ingo did not know what had set her off, but Ravager demahat he take responsibility fing new lives into the world. Eighteen ‘mutants’ were born with the same level of intelligence as a normal infant and grew up at a steady pace, maturing no differently than a normal human. Banshee was a unique case. She left the vat on her own, surprising the researchers with her knowledge of nguage, and has since served as Ingo’s bodyguard, apanying him orieval missions.
“How about a robot capable of matg a warlord?” Ravager’s words piqued Ingo’s i. The ander walked over to the pile of metal in the middle of the room and lifted a destroyed form. “The mae is destroyed, yes, but its processors and software made adequate decisions itle against Warlord Janine. Should you improve it, you may evee that automatic surgeon you have dreamed of for so long, Ingo.” The broken mae crashed to the ground, and Ravager was already beside him, whispering softly, almost lovingly, into his ear. “And that’s not the only thing I have to give. I had an engineer extract data from the databanks, and he successfully retrieved the most intriguing research Teo-Queen had left behind. The level of automation in her devices was most impressive. But to perfect her degee servants, she had tinkered and cocted another device, ohat had allowed her tools to operate on her body, preserving her youth and giving her resistao mind trol. An idea for a prediae.” Till froze and shook his hands. If this is true... “Imperfect, yes, but the basis should be of io you, shouldn’t it?”
“Curious.” Till calmed himself. He often fot that behind the bestial visage was a ing general and potential politi. Ravager’s ingenious brain worked at a different speed than his own. In the short time it had takeo arrive in this hall and withe depravity, she had already calcuted a way to entrap him and the Dynast into aiding her. “And…” he tried to push his luck.
“And nothing.” She pressed her muzzle to his face, renewing the st-mark of friendship. The helpers in his head warned him of the chemical imbance spreading through his body, and Ingo calmed them by turning off the termeasures. “Take what is offered before I demand more from your pany, my old friend.”
“We have an accord,” Till said at once.
Predi engine. A mae capable of analyzing the present situation and predig the future based on these factors. He had created several prototypes, but they all fell short of his expectations, ending up unusable in both bat and civilian life. If he failed to develop a w prototype again, Teo-Queen’s device for blog mental waves would still make a killing when sold to the military.
Sadly, the emotion-transmitting device will be harder to moize, but not impossible. Soldiers and heavily augmented individuals will undoubtedly enjoy experieng the emotions of someone who has had a vish visit to a brothel or a rejuvenating massage. Yes, there are ways to take advantage of Teo-Queen’s evil and earn tokens. At the very least, he’ll do it to spite the vengeful idiot.
Ravager exhaled, her shoulders slumping as if she had lifted a great weight from her back. Her pupils dited and shrank again, and she let Zero massage her temples to calm herself. Till pitied her. A brilliant mind tainted by a in her past. It took great effort for her to maintain a civilized facade.
The worst part was that she wao be a civilized person. Ingo was sure of it. He heard her clumsily teag words to Banshee’s brothers and sisters, trying to sing to their elder sister over the unication, and turning it off when she risked telling them a cruel lesson because of her innate bloodlust. There was genuine joy in Ravager’s amber eyes when she persuaded one of the lesser bioons to apologize to his sister for actally shoving her.
A most curious drum. Till did not buy Ravager’s self-loathing insisten being a mohe woman must be brought to heel; she must lose, and lose badly, but be spared, showing the futility of her belief that defeat will lead to death or something worse. Till believed that this could serve as a point of inner healing for the affli that pgued her mind. But the Dynast had refused his idea, believing it to be a betrayal of the oath he had made, and Outsider reended Ingo not to pester Ravager any further. Seal fools.
Fine, if he had to, he’d do it himself. First, he would prove to the Wolf Tribe the safety and potential of his devices. And the pletion of the predi engine was one of the many steps in that dire.
“Pity,” Till heard Banshee’s voice. The woman stood over a headless corpse, examining the once-powerful local ruler. “She was born different, so much smarter and useful than I could ever be. A here she is.”
“Tch. Different. She had nothing but hate and vanity on her side,” Till said. He approached and kicked the dead, sending her rolling. “You have everything in life, but without life, you have nothing. You surpass her by the virtue of being a moderately det person alone. Know how she died, Banshee? She had tried to strike a deal, pleading for her life, reduced to nothing when fag the same fate she had pnned for others. In the end, she died akin to a junkie; only her overdose was authority, and her death was fshier.”
“Don’t lump junkies in with the likes of her,” Ravager grumbled. “True, there are vicious pups among them, but on average, they are tent wasting their lives in some ditch. This whore would rather waste the lives of the i.” She poi Banshee’s face. “Let this be a lesson to you, cub. No one is infallible. Make no idols. Make your choices acc to your sce.”
“Speaking of choices.” Baried to take Ravager by the finger, but the ander jerked her arm away. “I pn to enlist in the First Army.”
“Ner and Till said in unison.
“If you would just listen…”
“You will not waste your life in pointless battles!” Ravager’s fur rose on her nape.
“Don’t listen to her…” Till Ingo started talking.
“What do you mean, don’t listen to me? I know what I am saying!” Ravager growled at him.
“Yumentation is emotional and weak. And you are too young, Baill said to his creation.
“Well, aren’t you two nagging just like husband and wife?” Zero chuckled and raised her paws in surrender when they faced her. “Give little sis a ce to expin! Surely, if her arguments are wrong, it won’t be hard for you to refute them. But from where I stand, if she is old enough to work as a bodyguard…”
“I’m paying her!” Till interjected. “And she’s never in danger!”
“Irrelevant,” Zero shot him down. “If she is old enough to work, she is old enough to make her own decisions.”
“It’s really nothing bad.” Banshee nodded. “The First Army is recruiting Normies to form a unit in the east.”
“In the Heatnds?” Ravager grabbed her . “The temperature there reaches fifty degrees Celsius. What oh are Normies supposed to do in that hellish heat?”
“Guard duty,” Ingo told her. “Outsider had toppled a nation there and evacuated the people. Uhis region, the Heatnds have several prosperous mines, and the Dynast would like to see them tio work. Is this correct, Banshee?”
“Yes!” the woman replied. “The soldiers will live in the new mining plexes, and such sturdy targets are of no io raiders. And if the Normies hahe job, then it’s perfee to take my first steps in life.”
“We buy you an apartment…”
“A gilded cage is heless a cage.” Zered at Ravager’s look. “What? You saw the inside of the b; it’s b in there. The kids will go to school soon, and what is Banshee supposed to do? She seems to have calcuted well. There is little ce of aag her in there; the First does not know of her in, so there are no kid gloves waiting to treat the little sister. If she gets kicked out, too bad, but hey, at least she tried.” Zero raised a fio ster fruing. “Ravy, you have more pressing s to solve.”
“Is this about a warlord?” Banshee asked. “I heard murmurs oreet. The tribe’s riled up about some injustice.”
“My mistake, not theirs.” Ravager g the entrance. “Another proof of my fallibility. I shed out, not learning about the situation, and drove a wedge between those under my and. It doesn’t you, Till, Banshee. I will fix it soon enough.” She turo Till. “Shall I break opeower for you…”
“No!” Till Ingo shouted in her face. “Do nothing! Leave the extra to the professionals. As for you, young dy,” he addressed Banshee. “You and I are going to talk about your little pn. If it is indeed safe, as you say, sider me in favor of it.”
