The train cart shook, rattling the black cross against the plated armor. It belonged to a woman clad in metal and dark leather. Curly red hair fell wildly from her scalp to her wide shoulders as she polished a cleaver the size of a man.
She towered over the other three in the cart. Men and women dressed in hunters' coats with grips tight around their weapons.
One woman, her head bare, was praying in a continuous low whisper.
“Captain, are we really safe out here?” said a man clutching two twin swords to his chest. “I’ve never been outside the wall.”
Elenya scoffed. “Safer than we’ll ever be, Mitya. Don't you feel her presence? This train is loaded with every hunter worth their salt.”
The bald woman nodded, pausing her prayer. “It’s what’s waiting for us in Voska that should really scare you.”
“Damn it all,” Mitya said. “I thought that after we wiped out those beasts the Gulschaks let loose, we'd be done. Now we’re heading straight for them.”
Elenya chuckled and gazed out the frosted glass of the cabin. “We’re Blessed in the service of Nov Yanosk first, hunters second. The city’s war is our war. And besides, I have some friends up there I’d like to meet.”
Outside, the train rumbled forward through the frozen wilderness. The metal beast was armored in spikes, and the windows glowed through the night. The steam cannons along the carriages were coated in frost and unmanned. A lone train in time of war was a vulnerable affair, but this one did not seem to mind.
From the landscape, horrors watched the carriages with hungry eyes. That was until a presence flared, and the monsters threw themselves back into hiding. It came from a lonely figure upon the locomotive. A woman with a spear resting on her shoulder and a scar across her cheek. The hunters of Nov Yanosk were moving.
Further to the east, Wretch walked out of Voska’s defenses, clad in a veil that reached to his elbows and a pair of loose-fitting army trousers. A harrowed officer guided him, casting glances at the veil that moved as if something crept beneath it. Judging by the squeaks, something truly did.
Only a few days had passed, but winter had fully strengthened its grip on the land. Waves of fresh snow cradled the battlements, and fur-clad soldiers shoveled to keep the streets empty in the light of dawn.
Glances were cast his way, but he paid them no heed, enjoying the prickly sensations of the cold against his skin. Since his ascension to Blaze, the cold did not bite as it once had. It was distant and weak, along with his hunger and need for sleep.
They trudged towards the outer wall in silence, a continuous rumble coming from beyond. Wretch cast his eyes to a horse hanging upside down in the process of being slaughtered. The thick blood being collected in a bucket beneath it.
Supplies have run out completely, so now we turn to the cattle.
The wall still stood firm, outside the reach of the Gulschak bombardment, at least for now. The pair scaled the walls, a network of pipes and cannons manned at every hour. His rats had told him as much.
Beyond, the sun shone on the miles of desecrated earth. Twisted metal and barbed wire sunk into soil that now served as the grave for tens of thousands. Come spring, Wretch figured the stench of rot would leave this place uninhabitable. Now, it instead oozed burnt oil and charred soil.
“What are my orders?” Wretch asked the unblessed officer impatiently.
At his words, the man nearly jumped into the air. “You... Your orders are as follows: head to the eastern front again. Hold it as best you can. Prioritize your own survival. In a week, another Blessed will come to take your place.”
“Oh,” Wretch said humorously, turning his long neck to gaze down at the unblessed through his veil. “No more suicide missions? Have I grown important or have Nov Yanosk’s forces grown so weak as to not be wasteful?”
The officer grew pale. “I assure you. All along I’ve had nothing to do with your fate, nor the others.”
Wretch took a step closer. Claws flexing in the cold as creatures moved beneath his veil. The officer stared up at him with wide eyes.
Wretch chuckled and playfully slapped him on the shoulder. “I jest. Keep my room unoccupied while I’m gone.”
With that, Wretch vaulted over the lip of the wall. He fell twenty feet and hit the earth with a thud. He expected to at least feel some ache in his knees. But it seemed the flame had strengthened his flesh as well, if only marginally.
He stepped down into a trench and walked through the busy network of defences. All along, shivering soldiers shot to attention at his arrival. He watched them struggle in a cold that was only an inconvenience to him. They huddled around the furnaces meant for the cannons, rubbing their hands together or gnawing at frozen foodstuffs.
As he approached the rumble of the front, he reached out to black dots all around him, sending a command to vermin large and small within his range.
Move forward.
Through the frozen mud, furry bodies crawled from hidden burrows. A tide of rats that scurried from trench to trench. Drawing yelps from the unfortunate souls caught in their path.
He found the bunker at the very edge of Nov Yanosk's eastern territory. The ground trembled with the unceasing artillery.
A trio of Blessed called it home. Embers, maybe even Firelings. New ones judging by the soldier uniforms and stiff expressions. Not even worth committing to memory.
“Your watch is over, retreat to Voska and take the soldiers in this section with you. I have it from here.”
They showed him no fear, the relief too great. “They are hammering us like a nail. New waves every day. We lost two Embers last week. A Fireling the week before that. Saint be with you,” they called over their shoulders, leaving in such a hurry that they did not even stow away their belongings, opting instead to carry them in their open arms.
The soldiers left with them, fleeing the tide of vermin that burrowed into the earth once more.
He was alone. Or as lonely as he could be. Thousands of rats now rested within the two hundred yards of his command. Those were the ones unbowed. They only listened to his command, but he could not see through their eyes, nor could he change their flesh. For that role, he had carefully chosen a rare few.
From under his veil crawled a dozen particularly fat vermin. That was as many as he could bind to himself without the whispers of madness growing too loud. He sent them scurrying into no-man's-land while he kept the rest of their kin close, digging tunnels in the earth heated by artillery.
The cost of flame to command such a swarm was large, but only in comparison with what his flame had been. He was a Blaze now, and within him the fire roared, its reservoir deep and recharging with ferocity.
He was eager to use these new weapons at his disposal, to sharpen them further on the misfortune of his enemies.
He did not have to wait long. Barely an hour later, the dozen of his chosen rats had thoroughly penetrated the Gulschak line. It was curious how different it looked compared to the Nov Yanosk defenses. First, a few occupied trenches, enforced by steel. Then further in the back, metal bunkers that could move in a crawl over the frozen mud. And further away still, massive engines of artillery.
Wretch watched it all through the beady eyes of his twelve chosen rats. At midday, in one of the crawling bunkers, a meeting took place. Individuals gathered around a map, one or two undoubtedly Blessed, judging by their stature and how others responded to their presence.
A plan quickly formed. A volley of artillery, then three sets of trench-clearers that spewed fire, and finally, two dozen men led by a Blessed. The rat, nestled between pipes in the corner, drew no attention.
When the war machines further east roared to life, sending artillery arching across the sky, another rat peeked out of the thin snow to watch them. The earth rumbled and shook as fire tore through the Nov Yanosk defense. But they were abandoned, save for one horrid figure hidden deep in a bunker.
When three pairs of soldiers wearing rubber coats and gas masks readied their weapons and prepared to charge, two beady eyes watched them from a crevice, unnoticed.
But when they finally charged, Wretch drew a jagged smile. With fiery eyes glowing in his dark burrow, he gave a quiet command to the things hidden deep in the earth, safe from the falling shells. This welcome, they would notice.
The trench-clearers threw themselves over the freshly assaulted grounds. They struggled under the weight of their equipment, breaths wheezing through the filters of their masks.
The moment they approached the trenches of Nov Yanosk, fingers tightened around triggers, and fire spewed.
They moved through the defenses, coating all before them in burning liquid. The first pair finally lowered their weapons. “It’s abandoned! Praise the Father and...”
Something crawled up their leg, forcing its way under the tight rubber suit. A yelp echoed from under the mask as the figure struggled, throwing their weapon into the mud. They moved as if possessed, a bump moving beneath their gear.
The infantryman's partner punched the bump with a crack and a squeak.
“What the hell!” the figure wheezed.
They turned, finally looking upon the burning trench. From beyond a turn, something flowed. Furred bodies so numerous they moved like liquid.
“THE FLAMETHROWER!” a soldier screamed.
From above the lip of the trench, several dozen rats jumped upon the pair. Tiny teeth and claws scratched at the rubber. That bought enough time, and the true pack arrived.
The swarm washed over them. The screams echoed across the battlements as the pairs were ripped apart by a thousand gnawing bites. Only one pair managed to incinerate a meaningful amount.
In the deepest bunker, Wretch still sat.
Tricky, many commands to different groups are taxing, but give advantages. The flame-throwers are a weakness, a hundred flickered out just then.
He had no time to think further, because next was the Blessed and the infantry. A rat watched them move through the blasted lands. Two dozen men around a figure wearing a massive suit of ticking gears and pistons. Like the exoskeleton of an insect, increasing his height to that of two full-grown men.
Wretch slowly rose, cracking his neck. It was time to wet the claws.
The Gulschaks threw themselves into the trenches, his trench. Wretch, let them be, sending his swarm into the many dark corners. The Blessed in his war machine trudged forward, yelling commands.
The Gulschaks pushed deeper. When they found the corpses of their comrades, they grew silent.
Then he struck.
Kill them all.
From the dark, the bodies crawled up the screaming soldiers' clothes. Into gas masks and the open mouths within. It was almost too easy. Until the Blessed amongst them raised his metal suit. A tank clicked, and a steam engine gurgled. Flame spewed forth, incinerating the ground around him. The rats and infantry burned together. Filling the trench with a thick haze.
“Show yourself!” roared the Blessed. “I’ll turn this place into a grave for you and your...”
A name washed over the burning battlement.
The Blessed turned.
Down the trench, through the haze, a roiling mass of vermin moved like waves against the shore. A living mass of claws and chattering teeth, but Wretch was nowhere to be seen.
With a scream, the Gulschak raised the arm of his suit, spewing a stream of fire towards the mass of vermin. The fire roared with him for several breaths until a tank sputtered empty.
When the flames died down, nothing remained where the vermin had been, the rats having retreated into the thawing soil or deeper into the trenches. Only a few burning vermin, squealing as they ran around in panic.
A sniff came from beside the Blessed.
Wretch’s burning eyes glared from behind the Gulschak's neck. A claw caressed the metal, screeching against the surface. The man in his suit pivoted with a shout of both panic and anger.
A moment later, his cry turned to a wail of pain, echoing over the smoking trench.
As the suns ducked under the horizon, Wretch raised the corpses nailed to crosses of wood. A nod to the symbols of the Death Flame. The pack needed to be replenished. For that, more vermin had to be lured within his area of command.
The corpses would draw in more hungering claws and signal that anyone who approached his trench, his domain, was begging for one final moment of misfortune.