Rongo groaned, helping to push the heavy cart filled to the brim with heavy tungsten slugs and shells. Ever sihe Gilded Horde fttened his homends, his existence was limited to a simple routine. Wake up in the m, gulp down water and rations, storm out of the barrack, let overseers check you for injuries, and rush to the w pside the gigantic moving factory serving as a private armory for the horde’s dread leader.
The pce was a noisy hell of tens of thousands of gears and parts w, turning railroad bridges so the sves could bring in material arieve their cargo, industrial presses pounding the superheated molteal flowing from the smelters into proper shape, and assembly lines ing out ammunition and ons by the hour. The process opped; this factory was but one of many, trag after the main force, swallowing up ruins, dismantling the wrecked vehicles of allies and enemies alike, and rebuilding them for the warriors to use. Tanks, power armors te for normal humans, ammunition, guns, missiles, and rockets were its gifts to the ever-growing army.
Goldeers stared down at the workers, visible from every er of the factory. Obedience leads to survival. Such was the promise the Merts gave to their purchased sves, and up to this point, they upheld it, treating wounded borers and repg faulty ans. Older sves warned newers o resist or disobey. They now beloo the Ination of the orue God. Even if they escape from these halls, Svetaker will hunt them down personally and add their skins to his hideous clothing.
Not a single Pureblood, the core warriors of the horde, was in sight. There was no need for their assistance. Every level of the factory had hidden partments housing automatic turrets, and, in case of an emergency, their masters could seal off entire levels and use sleeping gas to quell an uprising. The Merts, the craftsmen of the horde, rarely attehe process, and only to teach promising sves how to operate the plicated maery. They valued these borers and provided them with better ditions. In a show of unity, these people offered free lessons to the lower ranks, uplifting their panions in misfortune.
Sweat rolled do’s body, and the lenses of his protective mask fogged up, but he didn’t dare take it off to it. Overseers, chosen from the ranks of the sves for their loyalty and physique, walked past the workers, hands on stun batons. He had already earned himself several burn marks close to his spine and didn’t io experienother.
Massive gates smoothly opened on the side of the factory, and a rush of fresh air poured iallic appendages raked in rusted crete bastions dotted with the wreckage of high-speed bikes and ons. The gates closed and es came down from above, dropping vast sbs of crete onto the trains to be transported into the processing pnt for filtration.
It could be worse, Rongo supposed. His homend was an unruly one, and its arrogant noble ss hunted in the tryside, uerred by cries for mercy. Their own cries went unheard as the screaming hoverbikes raced oreets, culling rich harvests. Rongo was drafted into the military, but a heavy sp ended his career ohird day of the war. Initially, the popution cheered, thinking themselves liberated, but the Khan of Khans had no iion of expanding on their rocky pnes. She installed a moderate family of locals to colled send her people and resources in tribute. Rongo was one of these individuals, and it’s worth noting that he mao survive aain his natural body parts. That’s got to t for something.
The cart came to an abrupt stop, and Rongo cursed, banging his chest against its rough edge.
“What’s going on?” he whispered, using this moment to raise his mask and wipe the sweat off his eyes.
“The fresh blood.” A low-ranking overseer, Mairearad, spat on the railing and the spittle evaporated. She oversaw this se and preferred to work out, assisting her borers in their menial tasks rather thaing them up. She unzipped her overalls and leaned against the cart. “He did it again.”
Rongo cursed. Master of Mountains, he tried! He tried to reason with this idiot!
The borers moved aside from the cart, making spa the ter of the hall, and overseers on the levels above muttered orders, anding sves to e closer and see. Chief Shakir dragged a struggling man behind him. Shakir cimed to be a Pureblood, but no one believed him, not because of his dark skin. The man wasn’t normal; he once casually jerked Rongo into the air by the neck. But he didn’t have the same stature as the querors, he cked their fat, and his skin was dark pared to their pale one. A bastard who embodied the cruelty of his parents.
The overseer held a ret addition in his hand: a traveler from a distant natio and Mairearad caught him praying to his god at night, and they sat the fool down, expining to him that this was one of the few offenses here for which Shakir would maim or kill someohe fool was weak-willed, and they tried to shield the weak blood, giving him tasks away from Shakir’s prying eyes, for camaraderie was a way to survive here. But clearly, the idiot uttered a prayer in the wrong pce this time.
“How many times?” Shakir asked cheerfully, jabbing the tip of his stun baton uhe man’s ribs. Rongo heard a crag discharge that burned a hole in the man’s overalls. The sve howled in pain, suffering a surge of electricity that violently shook his ans. On his skin, a bck hole appeared. “There are no gods in the world, save for the Sky!”
Aab iomach, and the sve vomited in the overseer’s face. Shakir cursed and released the sve, wiping the filth off his mask. A heavy kick brought the crawling man back to his feet.
“There is no salvation, no escape, no mercy!” The overseer’s hand closed around the sve’s neck, and two more stabs left burn marks on his knees. “Get it into your dumb skulls! You belong to us now! The Gilded Horde owns you, and the Sky reigns over your souls! Your feeble rulers couldn’t protect you; your pathetic demons are crushed underfoot of the orue God, and this is your existence!” Shakir stabbed the weeping man on each arm, smiling at his agonizing thrashing. “Now and forever!”
“P, please, watch over my soul and deliver salvation to my friends…” The baton’s end choked the rest of the man’s words as it rammed into his mouth, breaking the jaw and shattering the teeth.
“You dare?” Shakir fumed in anger. “You dare disobey me? Just how much do you io piss me off, flea?” His smile widened as he g the sve’s limp arms. “If you ’t work, if you are uo learn, then you will serve as an example!”
He will kill him. Rongo uood and licked his lips, preparing to lunge. He wasn’t brave, and Master be his witness, Shakir could probably bad him into a smear. Be it as it may, Rongo always has trouble standing aside when people are dying. Maybe he wasn’t cut off for a sve’s or any other life after all.
“Why has the produ of today’s quota stopped?”
It wasn’t a voice that stopped Rongo. He saw a group of people approag them from the doors leading to the Merts quarters. The one who asked a question was a bald man, whose eyes were repced by crimson lenses. A khan in yellow segmented armor, his cloak of steel feathers scraping the floor, marched o him, a long bow of unknown alloys behind his back. The third person was a woman, clearly not a Mert. Dressed in a green trench coat, she held both hands behind her back, darting her eyes bad forth to ensure everyone was within her sight. Where the Mert used a rag to wipe the sweat, she breathed easily; her pale skin and long bck hair showing no signs of disfort. Her presence surprised him; she wasn’t a Mert, Pureblood or Dirtyblood. So why is she not ensved and stands equal?
The fourth member of this group wasn’t a Pureblood like the khan, but he was a high-ranking member of the Horde, heless. The man had aviaures; his nose protruded forward, creating a beak over the lips, and his fingers ended in talons. The Abnormal turned his head to the side slightly, the situation with a purple eye. A religious leader. Rongo had heard of them—a caste of shamans and priests who led ceremoo honor their deity, often involving human sacrifice.
But it wasn’t them who had Rongo ed in fear. There was another. A figure well-known to them all. The Khan of Khans towered over the wounded sve, holding him steady by the shoulders and examining Shakir like a curious i. The woman was burly, like all Purebloods, even if the golden khan’s armor hid his body. But the perception that she was slow or fat was a dangerous misception.
“I…” The overseer gulped, pulling his baton free. “I… I was making an example, khan! The sve mentioned his demonic lord!”
“Unfortuhe golden khan said.
“Burn the heretic,” screeched the priest. His voice sounded close to a crow’s imitation of human speech. “Let me open his belly and use his entrails for divination, Inate.”
“Why?” the deity asked. Her voice, s and anding, dropped Rongo to his knees. He remembered! Impossible, unquerable, unstoppable. It was hard to even look at her, so he trated on the hem of the fur coat and elegant wellies. “My father cares not for petition.” A drop of blood dripped from under her leather half-mask, nding on the sve’s scalp, and he shuddered. “Sky is all-powerful.”
“To tolerate the heresy…”
“Is a sign of strength,” The Khan of Khans finished for him. “Dantai, I do not care what others believe, as long as they obey. It pleases Sky to see an unbeliever toil in His honor, and it amuses me. To kill or maim a sve is a waste fit of Brood Lord.” Rongo heard the overseer’s gulp. “And you have e a servant.”
“Khan, I…” Rongo imagined Shakir must’ve gone pale.
“Take his pce if you fail to uand your responsibilities.” Rongo dared to lift his head. The Khan of Khans pushed Shakir to the ranks of the workers, her finger almost as rge as the man’s torso. Theurned her attention back to the wounded sve and purred. “As for you. You ’t work anymore? Are you uo serve?” Her all-enpassing eyes shrank and widened, burrowing hungrily into the smaller man.
“He be healed.” The small woman waved her hand, looking around. “It’s just nerve damage, nothing serious.”
“Good,” the Khan of Khans said. “Trace, you do it.”
“It’ll cost you,” Trace stated.
“It won’t, my dear,” the Khan ughed, and Rongo’s heart beat faster. This voice danced with the promise of a great night, a call to war and boundless happiness. Inhuman. She ’t be an Abnormal or a Normie. Such might, such gravitational pull of a character couldn’t e from the womb of a woman. “You alone have yet to prove your usefulo me.” She let the sve slump to the floor and moved quietly, without a sound, casting a shadow over the terrified sves. “Brood Lord may insist on your usefulness, but you want not o two prizes. Su arrogant toy. Don’t get too greedy…”
“Watch out! Behind you!” Trace shouted.
Her mouth opehe lower jaw simply sliding down, ly tearing the flesh but treating the skin as if it were a water surface for it to travel. A booming scream left Trace’s mouth, causing several sves to fall, shielding their bleeding ears. The golden-armored khan and the priest turoward the woman, one raising a fist and another his talons, while the Mert hid behind their backs. But the Khan of Khans showed no aggression, and the hem of her fur coat swirled around her legs as she faced the opposite dire, slowly and arrogantly.
Blurry shapes leapt from the ruins brought in from the battle. Each had a human shape, just translut enough for a person to see the wall behind them. Rongo was still marveling at this miracle when they raised their hands and k down, and he realized they were holding something in their hands. Mass reactive rounds fshed ience, slipping free from the camoufge fields, and roared, flying to the group.
Several shots hit the golden kharoying his geous facepte and ripping a wing off his helmet. Craters gouged his armor, but he calmly reached for his bow and sshed, using it to send a shot back at the attackers. One phantom’s head exploded, and the cartwheeling projectile struck the wall, ricocheting off of it and cleaving a his shoulders.
Dantai merely stood; the very air ged around him, shifting as if he were surrounded by a gas cloud. Stains of rust on the flan to disappear, and the surface gleamed ahe heavy, fist-sized rounds stopped dead upon reag this field. The exhaust ports sucked in the fmes spewing from their rear, while the projectile itself trembled, breaking down into ammunition pieces and transf into small bars of metal.
“Free of charge,” the priest threw to the Mert.
A shot hit Tra the chest, bulging the flesh on her back. The woman’s face regained a serene expression. She fixed her jaw without a crack. Instead of tearing, both cloth and bones swallowed the shot with a slurping sound. The hump on her back turned into a smooth surface again, and she straightened out her coat and morphed a hand into a bde.
She stopped at the rising fist. The Khan of Khans advanced, sending tremors through the floor and treating the fact that she was the target of this attack like an afterthought. She khe shots from the air and chuckled.
“Relying on toys. How childish.” The surviving assassins tried to retreat into the ruins, but they found themselves leaning against the legs of the Khan of Khans. They freaked out; Rongo paled at the dispy of speed and the shockwave of dispced air that smmed into everyone in the hall. The Khan of Khans leaned forward, using her fio redirect the bursts of ining fire. “Let me tell you a story,” she said, her voice clear even in this chaos. “In the past, humans believed they transded age itself. Their spaceships flew past the sky, seeking to escape the God who enveloped this world like a g father pulling a b over his sleeping daughter on a rainy night. But in the end, their fabled teology had failed to overe death. Because they didn’t pierce Sky. It swallowed them.”
The Khan of Khans bit the three killers, dev them to the waist. Her teeth crushed bodies covered by power suits. The hissing of their geors disappeared inside her throat. She feasted on the remains, the waists and legs covered by broace armor, no longer invisible.
“Trace. You have passed the test. Heal my wounded cattle, and I will adorn you in pearls and rubies.”
“I prefer rare samples,” Trace said.
“Suit yourself. By my name, you shall have any man, woman, or child you desire from the raid,” the Khan of Khans promised, pig up a stuck foot from her tooth. “Sky Lord Khan, the quest is soon to begin. Are you willing to hunt alone, heless? Is my pany such a bore?”
“I am a free bird, my khan.” The golden kha. “prefer solitary raids, unencumbered by politics.”
“But you do uand that both are using you to divert their attention to the north?” the Khan of Khans asked. “By refusing to joiher, you have painted a target on your back. They are looking for a moment of weake your nds, hoping that our future prey will bleed you enough so they finish you off.”
“Then I offer my nds to you, oh great khan,” answered Sky Lord. “Absorb my khaganate and treat them as you treat your own. Schemes were never my forte; I seek the thrill of battle, and there is little of that to be found in the sughter to e. As for bleeding me,” he chuckled, “uhey sprout wings, it won’t be I who’ll suffer.”
“I graciously accept,” the Inate grinned. “Brood Lord’s troops will be your arrows. If he wishes to test the defenses, he may as well pay for it. Water, airag a for all!” she ughed, raising her arms to the ceiling. “Sve, trader or warrior, celebrate the privilege of witnessing me kill! Bask in my divine power and drink to the Gilded Horde’s dominiohis world!”
“Thank you for the great mercy, great khan,” the Mert said nervously. “Who were these fatherless runts? We o find the one responsible…”
“Why bother? We’ll run into them eventually, and sihey are too cowardly to show in person, they clearly are too weak to face us at a moment.” The Inate approached a fiery smelter, unbuttoning her richly ored cloak of jewels and exquisite gold trimmings, creating lihat fshed like the m sun. “But a moment is all it takes for a situation to ge in bat. Ask Trace how she made them visible. I suspect a certain sound frequency overloaded her geors. If so, I want you to replicate the feat meically.” The Mert rubbed his hands eagerly.
“We still haven’t decided…”
“Must you pester me about every little thing?” The Khan of Khans interrupted her priest. “Make an impossible demand, and when he refuses, order his most iial general to kill her and end her bloodline. Afterward, no one will willingly follow the moron; even if they value their lives, they have a reputation to uphold. This should kick the stability down ahem servile. Don’t kill the hostage the ruler sent to us; we’ll use her iure to repeat the process ahem from getting fat.” She took off her coat, and the floor shook as the belt with golden scimitars nded. “Focus your efforts on finding the devil’s whereabouts and spare me the trivialities. It is why I created the cil; if you ot decide on governan my absence, I will behead you and repce you.”
The priest nodded, and the Khan of Khans stepped closer to the smelter’s edge, admiring the bubbles and streaks of fme rising on its surface. She took off her hat and the rest of her clothes, standing naked in front of everyone.
“What are you pnning to do?” Trace asked.
“Isn’t it obvious? A bath since I dirtied myself.” The Khan of Khans stepped into the molten substance, ign the heat that could heat the tungsten enough for the industrial presses to beat it into a new form. Rongo heard a hiss and gasped, drawing the Inate’s attention. “Like what you see, boy?” She beed to him, standing waist-deep in fming hell. Red streaks ran down her cheeks from her bloodshot eyes. “e, join me. You’ll be reduced to ashes, but what a death it’ll be! A divine kiss on your lips! Is this not a tale worth dying for?”
“No retreated. “Please, no, mistress.”
“Weak. Then live as a sve,” the woman lowered herself to the neck. “Oh, and Trace, about that skin for you.”
“You pn te on the deal?” Trace asked.
“Never. A khan’s word is set in sto’s just a matter of whether or not you cut me down in a day to get it. I have a world to devour.” The Khan of Khans’ face disappeared underh the molten waters, and only her loose hair remained on the surface.
