Queen Enri rode at the center of her staff. Jugem held up her banner at her back, Ninya at her right hand, Nfirea at her left, and the Goblin Strategist on the outside to Ninya’s right. The Goblin Strategist stroked his thin beard and kept his eyes on the horizon. “What can you tell me about our unfortunate enemies?”

“The one we’re facing right now is an idiot.” Queen Enri said with vitriol, her hands clenched the reins of her horse, behind her column there lay wagons loaded with captured armor for the recruits she intended to raise.

“Also, he has to die, painfully.” Ninya said through clenched teeth.

“A wise opponent strikes where his enemy must defend.” The Strategist said.

“A fool only seeks a battle to win.” Ninya finished, and the wizened old goblin looked to his left out of the corner of his eye.

“I had some lessons.” Ninya answered.

“I see.” The old goblin kept stroking his beard, “If what the wolfriders say is accurate, he has another force coming this way, if he leads it, then he’ll come straight for us.”

“And if he doesn’t? Or if he keeps running?” Enri asked.

“Then we move to intercept him if he tries to get around us, or we start taking villages and towns if he runs. After we’ve killed the first few noblemen, they will have to fight.” The Goblin Strategist explained to his summoner.

“This is going to get very bloody, very quickly.” Nfirea said with no small amount of regret.

“Good.” Ninya spat. “The nobility treated us like animals, like whipped dogs. It’s time for them to remember something they’ve forgotten.”

“What’s that?” Enri asked with a raised blonde eyebrow.

“That a dog is just a wolf that hasn’t chosen to turn on you.” Ninya said with hate thick in her throat.

“Wolves… yes… I think you’ve just picked the standard for the Army of Carne.” Nfirea said with a pleasant smile on his face.

His voice carried, and went from his lips to an ear, and it became a whisper that went back, and back, and back. Through the ranks of the goblins, to the natives of Carne and the vengeful ones who settled there. “Wolf King! Wolf Queen! Wolf King! Wolf Queen!” The chant came up with every step, and carried aloft in the air until throats were too weak to bear it.

For days it went that way, the chant became a marching cadence, and at every village they passed, they warned of the rebellion, and at each one they had only to say the same thing.

“We’ve rebelled. Do you think they will spare you? You’re dead anyway, go down fighting for your families and your homes…” And dozens more suits of captured armor would be filled in turn.

Village after village, with no hope to survive the wrath of the nobility, had its young people join the ranks of the army of Carne.

And so the cadence, “Wolf King! Wolf Queen!” was carried on, to the sound of thousands of marching feet and slavering, hungry wolf riders got ever louder.

Until they encountered their target.

“Yup.” Ninya said, “My Queen, you were right, total idiot.” She pointed her staff at the idiot commander at the center of a new army. “We’re outnumbered again, though.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Nfirea said and held up his hands so that it was outstretched before him, “We’re better prepared than before. Now, my beloved, would you care to address the troops?”

Enri looked over her shoulder, “If he wins, your wives, sisters, and daughters lives will be like Tuare, and your own will be like dust. If you win, you’ll have your own kingdom. Remember that, and go only forward!” Enri raised the sword she could barely use, but clad in her dark armor with a red cape caught in the breeze and standing up in her stirrups with her long blonde hair waving like her battle standard in the wind, she made an inspiring figure.

It wasn’t much of a speech, she knew, but it appealed to everything they valued and everything they feared.

“Wolf King! Wolf Queen! Wolf King! Wolf Queen!” The chant went up and halberds began to pound on the ground, creating a steady rumble that shook the very ground.

“How long before he orders a charge?” Enri asked.

Ninya and the Goblin Strategist looked at the opposing side, unlike the goblins they led, whose long spears stood still and ramrod straight, the ones in the Kingdom Army were waving and swaying, nervousness was obvious, they had little will to speak of.

“Not long.” Ninya answered with her eyes narrowing and sweeping the ranks. The Prince made his lines long to give them confidence, to make them appear to be larger in number than they were. But Kingdom soldiers were conscripts for the most part, they had little real taste for battle, they could receive a charge, but nothing more with any order.

“He is an idiot.” The Goblin Strategist reemphasized.

“Right, so we wait, perhaps they’ll run, if they do, we give chase.” Enri’s eyes swept the terrain, the long dusty road over which they marched had dried out since the storm, the grassy field on either side was open, with only a small patch of woods, barely enough to fit a dozen men in, and in it, a handful of wolf riders were stationed, waiting for their opportunity.

Minutes passed as the two armies faced off against one another. From where they sat, Enri could see that the one in charge was discussing something with a man at his side.

What it was, became evident when a white flag went up, and the idiot commander began trotting his horse forward.

“I’ll go forward. You should wait here.” Nfirea said, and Enri looked over at him with a furrowed brow.

“I told you before, I want to protect the woman that I love.” Nfirea gave a braver smile to her than he managed last time, and Enri felt her heart melt, but she hardened it with her duty.

“No, we’ll go together. Ninya, Jugem, come with us.” Enri said, and without waiting, she began to canter forward as well. Nfirea and the others were with her a moment later.

They met almost precisely between the two armies. Prince Barbro looked down at them with contempt, his face twisted with anger, “So, peasant trash, it’s been ‘suggested’ to me that I let you go home without punishing you. That releasing you to your homes would end all this before it gets worse. I won’t do that. But if you give up your arms and armor, and go home, I will hang only one in every five of you.”

“We both know you won’t do even that, scum.” Ninya said, and hocking a vicious loogie, she spat across the space between them, and though she missed the prince, it struck his horse. That was enough to turn the handsome face dark with rising anger.

“That was my sister in your tent… I wanted you to know that.” Ninya hissed. Her gentle eyes were hard and raw, but it only made the Prince laugh when he looked down at her.

“You expect me to care who she was? Girl, that isn’t why a man buys a toy.” Prince Barbro chuckled.

“No, worm,” she hissed again, “I wanted you to know, because when this is all over, coward, that it was her sister that finally killed you. That it was her sister whom you begged for death, and you will beg.”

Prince Barbro’s face was a stormcloud of anger and contempt, “You’ll do the begging, just like her… peasant.”

“She’s not a peasant anymore.” Nfirea pointed out as if he were making a logical argument in a school debate, “She’s a General, and when we have our own Kingdom, she’ll be appointed a noble title.”

The Prince’s mouth fell open at the nearly blasphemous statement, “By what right, by what…”

“Because I am King Nfirea the first, and this,” he placed a loving hand on Enri, “is Queen Enri the first. We’ll ennoble her to the Kingdom of Carne… and you… we’ll feed you to the dogs.”

Enri had felt proud of Nfirea many times in their time knowing one another, up until that moment, her greatest pride had been at the moment of greatest danger… but the present moment left all those behind. Her heart redoubled in size, so much so that she felt her breast could not contain it, and as if it needed somewhere to go, she began to laugh. Crystalline and beautiful, the Wolf Queen of the Kingdom of Carne pointed behind the Prince. “You’ve got our answer, we’re not surrendering anything. Go, scurry along back, we’ve got a Kingdom to tear apart, a Kingdom to build, and we won’t wait on you.”

Barbro cursed and spat, and then wheeled his horse around and galloped back to his lines.

As they returned to their own, Enri asked her companions, “Is he mad enough now?”

“I think so. If he weren’t a coward too, I’d even expect him to lead the charge.” Ninya said just as they reached their positions.

She was right, the Kingdom’s drums began to pound, and the infantry began to move forward.

Ninya looked behind her, “Signal the goblin mages.”

The flag began to wave, and Ninya raised her hand up.

[Fireball]

[Acid Javelin]

[Bombard]

The spells came from Nfirea, Ninya, and the host of casters at their backs, fire and acid flew in a long, deadly, inexorable arc into the densely packed lines of the Kingdom infantry.

Men fell screaming and writhing in pain as fire and acid consumed their bodies.

The bombardments came again, and the walk became a jog.

“Archers!” Enri called out, and arrows were nocked, then flew into the air to land again among the densely packed ranks.

Men fell screaming to shafts in their necks, or silenced immediately when their lives were ended by an arrow through the eye. The path of advance was measured in death as the Kingdom army’s numbers dwindled.

A horn blew from behind the Kingdom lines, and cavalry began their charge. Heavy horses thudded over the ground, adding to the rumble of marching feet.

“Wolf Riders!” Enri shouted, her husband continued firing off acid into oncoming faces, unable to miss hitting ‘someone’ with every blast.

The howling of wolves drowned out all else for a moment, and then the pounding of large paws from massive wolves began to compete with horses.

The goblins atop the wolves were armed, armored and skilled in ways that the kingdom cavalry could only dream of being. Though they were fewer in number, the wolf riders began to extract a heavy toll on the flanks where cavalry began their once proud charge.

“Alright, now.” Ninya said, “Infantry, and sound the drums.”

The boom of the goblin army war drums sent waves of terror into the advancing, thinning ranks of the kingdom soldiers, their steel armor could not protect them from their own cowardice. They began to waver with the first steps of the goblin heavy infantry.

Enri drew out her sword, her infantry were close. Her heart was running wild in her chest, fear was palpable, but worse was the fear of going back, worse was the fear of losing without doing anything. ‘Last time, last time they came, all I could do was run away and die. I couldn’t protect Nemu! I couldn’t save my parents! I couldn’t do anything but die! I can do something this time, I ‘will’ do something this time!’ Her sword went into the air, her armor was one of the finest sets in the carts delivered to her village by Master Gown, and at a full set, the only places on her body that were vulnerable were her face, head, and throat.

“Charge!” She shouted, and lowered her sword forward, Nfirea, Ninya, and Enri spurred their horses as one, and into the fray they headed.

The bouncing of their horses made aiming difficult, but Nfirea’s acid javelins and Ninya’s fireballs were nonetheless hitting at least some targets.

The clashing and clamoring of swords, the screams and dying of men were indistinguishable from those of wild beasts, the heavy goblin infantry treated war like a chore, like farming, and the Kingdom soldiers, regardless of their superior numbers, began to fall like wheat before the scythes. Men fell screaming into the churned up earth, once dry, it became muddy with sweat, fear, piss, and blood all churned up into a morass into which men sank. The numerical advantage shifted, and the Goblin Strategist gave the final signal.

From the little clump of woods, the small number of hidden wolfriders emerged, behind enemy lines, they rushed straight for the commander of the army of the Kingdom.

His small honor guard saw the surprise attack too late, and spun their horses to charge and meet a threat for which they were no match.

Barbro saw the horror unfolding in front of him, his army of almost eleven thousand men, the ten thousand his brother ‘delivered’ and the nearly thousand he had remaining, was being whittled down by the second. His mouth dropped open in disbelief. He felt his fear begin to rise in his mighty chest. ‘No… it can’t be. I’m a Prince, damn it! Why aren’t they winning! This should have been easy! They’re just goblins and peasants… ok some nagas and ogres…’ He acknowledged when he saw the ogres kick dozens of his men out of their formation and a naga’s tail smash into a group and send them flying to the ground.

‘But they’re so few! How can this be happening to me?!’ Prince Barbro wanted to pull at his hair, only the princely dignity he still had when surrounded by his honor guard prevented him from doing so.

Then one of his men let out a cry of alarm.

“Ambush!”

Barbro whipped his head to where the warrior pointed, a dozen wolf riders had been hidden in a little patch of woods, and were charging toward him full tilt.

“Get them! Get them, you idiots! Protect your Prince!” Barbro’s voice became a high pitched squeal of fear as his warriors turned to do just as he said. They roared out brave battle cries and raised their swords for the clash that would decide the fate of their Prince…

Horses screamed and died so close that he could smell their fear, a few loyal guards yelled for him to run while the goblin wolfriders tore his guards to shreds. Flashing teeth of white became teeth of red, claw-like nails on the wolves raked over faces and horse throats, tearing out streaks of flesh to cast into the red stained grass, and the bodyguards died off.

Before the call for him to run had even reached his ears, Prince Barbro began to do exactly that. He turned his horse around and began to spur it to a gallop. Behind him his army, losing their leader, broke entirely and soldiers ran for their lives, trading their pride and dignity for a precious few seconds of ephemeral life.

The battle became a massacre, and the Prince alone survived. His lungs were burning from his hard breathing, the horse’s flanks were bloody from the force of his legs digging into them to spur it on further.

And yet, at his back, the wolf riders were gaining on him.

“No!” He cried out and flung off his helmet to save his horse a tiny bit of the burden of carrying it while he was trying to escape.

At his left and right, the wolf riders fell in, almost like they were his honor guard, taunting him, laughing, waving, their wolves keeping pace with the horse of the Prince, but not turning on him.

They went on, and on, and on, the horse’s fear of the wolves greater than its desire to carry its human passenger to safety, carried on for what seemed like an hour, until at last, it reared back on its hind hooves, forelegs kicking wildly, flinging Barbro from its back, and giving out a single final whinny of pain and fear… then it fell. It landed, dead on its side, its powerful heart overloaded from fear and stress.

Prince Barbro felt the wind knocked out of him when he landed on his back, he lay there coughing and wheezing without any air to spare, staring at the wolves and their riders that now circled him.

“Bring him back to the Summoner.” One of them finally said, and a wolf’s jaws snapped out over Barbro’s leg, piercing the leather boot and the flesh beneath, and breaking the bone.

“Noooo!” He screamed and clawed at the dirt, as the wolf began to run, dragging him over dirt and rocks and grass, all the way back to the site of the massacre.

The victors were still working, and the commanders waiting, when Barbro was dragged over the grass by the wolf who still held his broken leg.

It jerked its jaw forward and released its hold, and he landed with a grunt and rolled over to their feet, he found himself staring up at the brown haired girl who called herself the sister of his pet Lakyus.

“Do it…” Enri said, “But don’t waste time, we have a Kingdom to build.”

“Yes, My Queen.” Ninya replied, she put her foot on his throat and began to press down. The Prince’s eyes bulged in his head. “My name is Ninya Veyron, you raped my sister, prepare to die.”

She then looked up at the wolf riders, “Start to chew on his limbs, make it hurt, but don’t kill him. He’s not allowed to die till he begs.”

Barbro’s head shook under the boot on his throat, and then he gurgled out howls of pain as a wolf latched onto each limb and began to tear away at his flesh like his armor wasn’t even there. Bits and pieces of metal began to fall away, and with it went flesh and blood.

Ninya lifted up her foot from his throat to allow his screams to fill the world, and with his screams, her heart sang a happy song.

‘Lupu was absolutely right. I’ll have to do something for her when I see her again.’ Ninya made a mental note about that as the tearing began to peel strips of flesh down to his bones, exposing them to the air, he kicked and struggled against the massive jaws, but all it did was injure himself more, and the breaks added up.

Until at last, he begged. “Please! No more! I’m sorry! No more! I beg you! Kill me! Kill me! Kill meeeeeee…”

Ninya raised a hand, and the wolves stopped their chewing.

The Prince dropped like a sack of bloody potatoes into the grass and stared up at her. “Mercy. Death… K-Kill me… Beg you… no more pain…”

Ninya recalled what her sister had said, her begging, crawling scraping, the way he made her humble herself as if she’d done something wrong. How she was made a substitute for his hatred of someone else.

“Eventually.” Ninya said, “Continue.”

Barbro screamed again as the wolves went back to tearing off bits of his flesh.

It was only when Barbro could no longer scream or beg, when his throat had lost the power to even plead, that Ninya said with cold satisfaction, “Now you can die, be grateful. It’s a greater kindness than you ever gave.”

Barbro’s eyes still worked, and he saw the open mouth of razor teeth belonging to one of the massive wolves, coming toward his throat. His fear of death however, was long, long gone. Now Barbro feared only one thing as the maw began to drip hot wolf drool over his cheek, he feared not being allowed to die.

The teeth closed in, they slowly pierced his skin, he felt blood begin to spurt out of his veins and the hot fluid run over his skin, and his head began to crunch as the jaws closed tighter.

Then there was nothing to be afraid of anymore, for Prince Barbro, last son of King Ramposa III, firstborn and rightful heir to the Throne of Re-Estize… was dead.

And with his death, a cheer shook the world.

“Wolf King, Wolf Queen, Wolf King, Wolf Queen!” And the green and gold banner of Carne waved proudly over the field.