The four-limbed abomination charged Wretch, each of its jutting and uneven limbs ending in a metal-encased club. A helmet bolted to its neck akin to a bucket. Wretch however, was unimpressed.
All right, let's get serious.
He pulled power from his flame. In times past, he had been reckless, spending his reservoir without remorse. Now, his body was weapon enough for almost every fight. But only almost.
For those battles he had flame and forms aplenty, capable of growing whatever was needed. And even then, if that wasn’t enough, a hidden weapon holstered by his hip.
His eyes lit with fire and the skin of his left claw bubbled and churned.
With a roar the creature launched another string of bludgeoning strikes. Wretch dodged, stepping back into a half-fallen trench. The wood marked with names shattered, but he was quick. Slithering between the strikes despite their ferocity, even as plates of chitin burst from his skin.
A steel club passed inches from his shoulder, sending a tremor through the ground. His arm had been fully turned into a massive claw, like that of a crab. The armor of shells continued up his elbow, stopping with a plate at his shoulder.
Another slam. He brushed it aside with the newly born armor and struck. One pawed foot planted on the side of the trench and upwards, straight for the creature's chest.
The claw shot open and his mass pummeled into the form. It didn't fall, but took a struggling step back. Then the claw clamped around its helmet.
“How is this then, Professor?” Wretch hissed.
A scream echoed from beneath the metal headwear and a club shot towards him. He pivoted, deflecting it with the armored shoulder, and strained. His muscles contracted and the claw screamed against the buckling metal.
The creature's roar grew louder, then metal bent. The helmet collapsed with a wet crunch.
Johan, whatever he was, collapsed in a heap onto the earth and the waiting rats, a glow forming in its chest.
Wretch spat and his arm roiled. The plates and crab claw retreated back into his skin in yet another grisly transformation.
He peeked over the lip of the trench. Fingers was zipping around his many-armed opponent, utilizing his blessing that burned collected digits for physical strength. Waddles, on the other hand, had never let his opponent off the ground after Wretch's strike against the knee. The joints and vitals of the opponent were protected, but that only lengthened its suffering. Waddles twisted an arm with a crack and a roar of pain echoed over no-man's-land.
Only when Wretch had seen that victory had been won did he rip the glowing coal from the corpse of his former enemy. He pulled the flame greedily.
Twenty-eight.
Twenty-eight times had he kindled from battle and the remnants of the worthy. When the war had begun that number had been just above a dozen.
He made his way over, keeping an eye on the Gulschak line.
Oddly quiet, aren't we, Gulschaks? Is that truly all for today?
In short order Fingers and Waddles killed their opposition. Wretch ripped the coals from the enemies without even asking. Nor did the others offer any opposition.
Thirty.
Fingers had a cut across his shoulder as he crawled from the ditch the final strike had landed the tiny Blessed in.
“I kindled,” he groaned. “Nine times. Impressive, ain't I?”
Waddles seemed disinterested, hauling his victim towards the nearest hole to no doubt inspect the anatomy more closely.
“Well done,” Wretch said, wiping mud from his fur and trailing his eyes up towards the zeppelins.
“Waddles, I'm not sure that's all for today.”
Something was happening in the sky above. Mist enveloped the flying contraptions, but in a sudden streak of light, a line cut through it.
In the blink of an eye, one zeppelin exploded. The air rippled and the scream of twisting metal echoed over the battlefield. For a moment, the entire war was lit in bright red light, every soldier casting a shadow as the zeppelin fell over the Nov Yanosk line.
Fingers shot to his feet.
“By the Saint, the Lion, and whatever's in between!”
“Waddles!” Wretch roared. “Get ready!”
He knew his enemy. The Gulschaks were coming.
And he was right.
From the other side of no-man's-land, a vehicle leaking steam laboriously pushed a cage forward. Bars of steel ground open. Something stepped out into the killing field.
Something hungry and freshly made.
A mass of moving limbs as large as a train. A masterwork of butchery. Stray limbs of every sort conjoined into the shape of a caterpillar. Every joint and vital hidden behind metal plates.
On its front, a tattoo revealed the project's number.
"50"
“What the hell is that!” Fingers called.
“It's strong. The lunatic who's making them is getting better,” Wretch hissed, but something in the air caught his attention.
The thing crawled towards them, but the orange light was growing stronger. Wretch grabbed Fingers and turned.
“Are we retreating?” Fingers squealed.
“Look up, dimwit. We're dodging!”
A zeppelin was swerving towards them, the entire thing blazing like a falling sun. The caterpillar turned to flee but was hopelessly out of position.
Wretch dove on top of Waddles, pressing himself, Fingers, and the oaf into the nearest pit of mud. Fire and metal screamed as it passed overhead.
Then the air turned to fire and the ground sundered.
It was warm, that tug to let it all go. But he denied it without a second thought.
He drew a breath filled with smoke so thick it burned. A rattling cough sent him awake, scrambling to make sense of what had happened.
The flying machine fell from the sky.
His eyes shot open.
All around him the world burned. Curved metal beams from the machine littered the grounds like the ribcage of some divine giant. The suns were blocked, and burning embers fell like snow.
His back was against a metal pole, a spike poking through his gut.
“Tssk,” he growled and lumbered onto unsteady feet, the pole slipping from his stomach with a wet noise. He let some flame run through his system, knitting together the burns and wounds in his gut.
Reflexively, he touched the side of his belt, breathing a sigh of relief that his weapon, the one stolen from the Gulschak, was still in its holster.
“Fingers!” Wretch roared into the hellscape.
A blast shook the air from above. Wretch turned to see another zeppelin, burning like a torch, shine through the haze before plummeting in the distance.
“Waddles!” he screamed, even as the thick smoke scratched against his throat.
Nothing. Only the perpetual distant orchestra of battle.
He stilled his breath and listened.
He wasn't leaving them here.
A groan brushed against his senses and he shot forward across the burning earth. He stopped over a metal plate. His claws wrapped around it, the heated metal sizzling against his skin. With a flex of his muscles he pushed it aside.
Beneath it, embers fell onto a large form.
Waddles crouched in a hole from the earlier bombardment. A cut marked his temple, his left ear missing, but his uneven eyes of different colors turned to Wretch with a frown. A growl escaped the larger man as he held out a hand to shield himself from the light above.
“Waddles, it's me!”
The giant blinked, wiping blood from his eyes.
“Boss?”
Wretch sniffed the air.
“Where's Fingers?”
Only then did the giant reveal what he had been holding pressed to his chest, shielding it from harm.
An unscathed Fingers, pale but breathing.
“You didn't eat him!” Wretch said. “Well done!”
Waddles tilted his head with a questioning look.
A cough escaped Wretch's throat as he spoke.
“Can you move? We have to get back to Nov Yanosk's lines. I've lost my direction.”
Waddles struggled to his feet. Another few cuts bled lines of red down his form, but nothing serious.
“This way,” Wretch said after checking that the unconscious Fingers had no hidden wounds.
Hand over mouth, they moved through what looked to be a different world entirely, ash clouding the sky like smoke. Another wail of breaking metal echoed out and another zeppelin met a fiery death in the distance.
“One of the flying things crashed again,” Wretch wheezed through a cloth over his mouth. “Follow me!”
The vows allowed him, perhaps because of disorientation, perhaps because they were lost. He made a mental note to examine it further later.
The blast must have roused Fingers, because a groan came from the tiny Blessed hanging limp over Waddles' shoulder.
“I'm alive?” Fingers said, looking around. “By the Lion. How are we alive?”
“Waddles hold the little one tight,” Waddles said, shielding his eyes from the falling ash.
The tiny Blessed was put down to walk on his own feet as the trio pushed through the inferno. Their footsteps left prints in the ash. They must have entered the previous defenses, for well-maintained trenches and burning corpses grew more common.
Through the haze a figure stumbled.
Swaying as they walked through the ashen wasteland, leaning on the metal remains of once-proud war machines.
“I see someone,” Wretch said, squinting in the bright light.
“Must be a survivor. They're walking from the defenses,” Fingers said.
A scent caressed his snout, one he would never forget.
Burnt fur.
But not from any old beast.
He froze, the other two almost bumping into him.
“Boss?” Waddles said, licking soot and blood from his upper lip. “You's don't—”
A twitch ran through Wretch, a squirm that traveled from his claws, up his arms, and to his mane-adorned neck. His killing intent burst out in all directions.
The death of his captain played before his eyes.
A middle-aged man taking wounds to save those he held dear.
He had come to realize that many had held a part in that man's death.
But only one could truly be blamed.
The figure stopped, two blue eyes turning upward to look upon the trio standing in his path.
A white-haired youth, covered in cuts, bruises, and burns.
He could have been called beautiful, but there was a shadow of something dangerous across his features.
In his hand something round was clutched.
A head.
One all three dogs recognized.
Sasha, the Blade-Tide, the South's Edge, the Behemoth's Bane.
The strongest Pyre in Nov Yanosk, reduced to a severed head with a slack jaw.
The figure squinted back at them, blue eyes flaming to life with an intent of his own.
Wretch, Collector of Wounds, and Grendel the White Death stared at each other in the flames of war.
“That new skin,” Grendel said between heavy breaths. “It suits you... brother.”