I’ve met Fer a few times before the Great War began. She was easy-going and patable, funny. There was little offensive about her. She liked little things, small gestures of kindness rather than the grandiose statements that nobility demand. It was a breath of fresh air, the Goddess of Beasthood pulled me in with the eyes of a kitten.

  And then I saw what she and her warherds were capable of when I faced her in the Great War. I’ve never been one fame-hunting, but I realised why dangerous animals had to be put down.

  - Excerpt from the secrets texts in the White Pantheon’s closed library. Written by Goddess Alsaria, Of Light: ‘Pride’s Mad Lioness’.

  Fer bent at the ankles as the Peli arced downwards to maintain upright posture. The rear doors of the cargo bay had opened and pilot was bringing them close to the ground. She looked back at the pack she had brought to Arcadia.

  Traius stood there. Bare-chested, the minotaur reached up to her chest, and was twice as wide. He carried the heavy mae gun Mikhail had brought, the one had inally been desigo mount on vehicles, in his hands. A belt extended from the maation in his grip to his backpack. He stood there and smiled, the maw of his bull’s head twisting into a terrifying sneer as the beastman tried to express a humaion on it. Oop of his head, his horns burst out and twisted into a like deer wore.

  Logar was o him, holding onto a steel beam as the purhe wolf-man scowled as he looked out past the pne and into the purple sky above Olympiada. He carried a rifle in his hands, a sword on his belt, a bayoabbed onto the end the gun. Behind them were sixty more beastmen. Darkfurs, minotaurs, wolfmen, the rgest and fiercest that Fer had in her herd. Anassa was going to get a royal procession when she was freed.

  Fer gave them a nod. She got one iurn as she looked down at her armour. Heavy leather, still manoeuvrable though. That speed was more important against mages than whatever prote the clothes would give. Six of Kavaa’s blood vials were strapped to her belt. She had estimated three, but then she remembered when Kassie had told her off ohat she always uimated. That was the general rule Kassie gave her, estimate, then double.

  “We’re above target in thirty seds! Prepare to jump!” The pilot’s voice came over the microphone. Fer looked at her men as eyes started to glow red. They smelled blood now, she did too. They could all feel the bloodlust in their veins.

  “Today, we taste magi’s blood!” Fer shouted. “Hunt fast! Hunt quick!” She raised her arm and turned as the pne’s cargo hold roared. Raptor One made its pass in the distawenty beastmen, same position as here, wolfmen, darkfurs and minotaurs rushed out of the pne’s door. They fell, armed with gun and fmethrower, snarling and falling through the air, and then deployed their parachutes. Those had been painted dark blue as Fer had wished.

  Raptor Two made a simir drop further to the east. “Ten seds to jump!” The pilot’s voice cut through the roars and the beasts settled down. “Ni!” He readjusted the pne. “Five! Four! Three!”

  “Two!” Fer took a step. Her nails ged into cws. Her skin hardeo leather. Her fur grew thid matted. Her teeth expanded into the huge es of lions. Her eyesight sharpehe evening became as clear as day.

  “One!” Fer took aep, one foot off the air as she looked down. People were down there. Mages, students and teachers. All of them had stopped to look at the pne. Fer smelled their blood, their fear, their suspis and fusions. She bathed in those emotions.

  “JUMP!” The pne angled sharply up awisted as she jumped out. The others would have parachutes, but she was a Goddess. Not just any Goddess either, the Goddess of Beasthood. The Sce of the Steppe. Manhunter. Civilization’s antithesis.

  The Goddess of Beasthood tumbled through the air as time seemed to slow down for her. Here it ying about in the forest was fun, helping Little Kassie was lovely, giving Kavaa her gift had bee-warming but it did nothing for the monster she kept on a leash. Arascus had been the first one who had given that monster a master. A master, and a target to be pointed.

  Today, that target was Arcadia.

  Fer twisted in the air and nded in a cloud of dust as the little magis started to move away. She smelled them through the dust, their fusions and fears as to what was happening. She found the closest target. Two mages still on the grass. Fer leapt forwards as the beastmen roared from above. She heard cloth tear and wind catch, parachutes deployed. Now she only o give her pack a nding zone.

  The two on the grass fell. Fer’s hand tore through ohe other, some boy-mage in pale clothes, was unched forwards. He was dead before his body cascaded and snapped on a tree. Fer turned like lightning. Two down. Thirty-oill here.

  She unched again. An adult mage this time. He didn’t have a ce to even raise his hands. Fer’s arm pierced through his chest. Before his body hit the ground, Fer had moved onto the group. Six mages in a circle who had been enjoying some piic. Her jaw closed around one, her arms got two each, her tail she st one’s neck.

  And finally the mages realised what was going on. The screams began, Fer’s ears dulled them out. Screams meant panic, but mages had been made of steruff than that. Fer found it. “What is that?”

  “Draw wands.” From the other side of the field. Three older boys. Her eyes narrowed on them, she got down on all fours and unched herself like a onball at them. They didn’t mao utter even a single word. One of the boys had mao put hands on his wand before his lifeless corpse fell to the ground.

  More screams, more people running. There was an explosion from the east. The Floromancer’s dorms was lit up as a tongue of fme coated it in fire. Fer had ion as her eyes readjusted to the hreat, this was no time to marvel at Mikhail’s creations. Gunfire began. Quick explosions as her forces started to cause chaos.

  Fer found her arget. Three fleeing people, running away from the gardens. She unched again. An e tried to block her this time. An old man smmed his staff against the ground and a thin wall of rock rose up to meet Fer.

  Not good enough to stop sorcerers. Not good enough to stop Kassandora. Not good enough to be sidered a wizard by Great War standards. Nowhere near good enough to stop Fer.

  The Goddess of Beasthood smmed her first into that wall and it shattered as she roared aumbling towards the three running away. The spray of rock hit them, oo the ground. Fer’s sm across her back, the crag of bone and the final gasp of air ensured she would not be standing up. The two others fell aurned on the mage.

  Five rocks hovered in the air around him. “Curse-“ He tried to say something. Fer never uood that about humans. Why talk in battle? What was the point? You killed or you were killed. Those rocks fell harmlessly to the ground as Fer closed the distan a sed and pulled her cw out of the man’s chest.

  She turned back to s the area. Ten more souls were still fleeing. Logar and Traius were still a hundred metres above the ground, r and snarling as they fell slowly in their parachutes. Fer made a circle around the field. By the time her pack members touched the grass, Fer was the only moving person still moving. She licked the blood of her cws.

  Magi’s blood entered her veins. Meagre, mortal magi’s blood, but blood he less. Her senses sharpened, her fur grew even thicker, her eyesight got sharper, her hearing clearer. She heard the screams and sounds of battle ing from the south. More fires had started, more screams. Shouts though too, the mages were beginning taaff members of Arcadia were f respoeams to the unpreted situation.

  They didn’t have long before the millions of magis that made Arcadia their home started to e down upon them. “Ove-“ Fer’s voice was interrupted as an arm started to bre. Then another. “OVER THERE!” Fer shouted over the incessant arms as she poio the ste building that was the Divine Library. Like an ugly hedgehog of bck stohat had given up and y ft on its stomach.

  The warherd followed Packmaster’s and.

  They set off with all the speed of a pa hunt. Hoof and boot tore up the grass as they smashed through a fehere was a team of mages here, nanized, aware of the crisis but unaware of the details. Fer didn’t kill these, there was no raius took a heavy step forward as his hooves dug into the ground. A darkfur aimed its bckwood staff forwards. Logar brought the gun up to his eye. A dozen other beastmen aimed their rifles.

  One of the mages raised a wand and Fer’s pack opened fire. Fer fell to floor as she smelled more approag from the west. Other wolfmen smelled them too. She was fast, but bullets were faster. The trio that turhe er fell before she could even jump. Fer got back up and pushed the thoughts away. Those could be told to Kassie ter, Mikhail had done his job with his guns. A trigger was much faster to pull than it was to t a spell.

  They crossed through a forest ahree corpses. They crossed areet. This time the mages had their spells ready. A rock hit one of the minotaurs in the chest and the huge bull-man shrugged it off. These mages died to gunfire as well. A pyromaried to set them alight. Fer narrowed her eyes at the magic, fire had always been one of the greatest eo her pack. Fire devoured and fire left not even bones.

  But this wasn’t the fire of the Great War. This wasn’t the pilrs of fme that sprouted under feet, nor the sky bei alight. No walls of fme, no skiing alight nor any boiling blood. This was a simple ball of fire. A child’s spell for making little animals of fire. This wasn’t a bat spell.

  A darkfur waved his staff and muttered a bestial growl. The ball of fme was ed in a cloak of red and then disappeared. Fer smelled the goat-man’s rea. He was as fused as Fer was. These were mages? Logar lifted his rifle and put five shots into them. Other pack members joined in with the guhey fell before Fer could eve.

  The warherd covered the st patch of trees quickly. Their hooves tore through bush and they smashed through flimsy fend circled around trees. “Set up perimeter!” Fer shouted as they came to a stop. The Divine Library loomed over them, Anassa’s prison. It was fitting for her sister to have such a rge building all to herself. She stepped to the door and gave one final look to her beastmen.

  Traius had pnted himself o the wall. Mae gun aimed dowh. Two of the minotaurs armed with fme throwers had set fire to the forest to block it as an attack path. Logar took position behind a bush. The darkfurs started to pull vines out of the ground to create blockades, and then they rolled clouds of poison that turhe grass brown into the fields around them.

  Fer had thought they would be attag the mages of the Great War. She smiled to herself, not anymore, against mere apprentices, she may have some forces still standing by the time she came back out with dreaded Anassa.

  “Oh sister sister!” Fer shouted up at the building. “Knoock, ready or not, I’m ing in!” Fer lifted her leg and kicked the heavy wooden doors of the Divine Library down.