Savage Bounty

by Matt Wallace

  In either case, it all becomes a blur.

  Then there is only nothingness, and the brief feeling of intensely accelerated motion ceases.

  Dyeawan experiences the sensation of floating for what may be five minutes or five hours. Time becomes rather meaningless. She can no longer feel any part of her body, nor command any of her senses. She is a thought in an endless void, and somehow it is oddly soothing to exist in that state. Dyeawan would’ve thought it torturous were it explained to her secondhand.

  Then it is as if someone sparks a torch. That void becomes illuminated, and she is reconstituted in a physical world once more.

  It is not the world she left, however. Dyeawan finds herself back upon the platform of her tender, tongue firmly ensconced inside her skull. The planners’ meeting room, Tinker and Nia, and the keep are all gone. There appears to be no ground beneath her feet, and nothing surrounding her for miles except the shifting colors of a far-off horizon.

  Dyeawan contemplates those colors, as well as the absence of any other physical environment, for some time.

  “So this is what the inside of your head looks like,” a sinister, troublingly familiar voice says, interrupting. “I wondered.”

  Dyeawan maneuvers her tender around to face the speaker, dread creeping through what she is aware is her imagined body.

  She finds Oisin staring at her across the formless ground, giving the most self-satisfied smile she has ever seen stain the severe Protectorate Ministry agent’s icy lips.

  “Not what you expected to find in here, I am certain,” he says to her.

  And indeed, it was not.

  NEW HOUSES

  DURING THEIR CLANDESTINE CONVERSATION, AGENT Strinnix colorfully employed an analogy involving hammers to eschew Lexi’s insistence that she was merely a tool to Burr and the Ignobles. Strinnix told Lexi hammers can drive nails or they can crush skulls. Circumstance determined their importance as well as their impact. That was the Protectorate Ministry agent’s less than subtle point, anyway.

  Lexi remembers thinking she wanted nothing to do with driving nails or crushing skulls.

  Though it was a metaphor at the time, after a full day of actually swinging a hammer, she’s finding her distaste for the tool is also a literal truth.

  On the sky carriage ride home from the Bottoms alone, she picked three half-finger-size splinters out of her palms, which were already dully aching and throbbing.

  As she walks through the Gen Circus beside Kamen Lim, Lexi is forced to use her teeth to pull a much shorter wooden sliver from her fingertip.

  With the help of Shaheen and several willing and able recruits like her ward was when they first met, Lexi has begun construction on an eating-house in the Bottoms. Obtaining the land wasn’t an issue; there are so many disused, vacant, and barren lots in the Bottoms forsaken by all but those who occasionally sleep on the ground there. The timber is once again being supplied by a Gen loyal to Burr, all of it funneled through seemingly proper channels within the Spectrum. They also provided her with a builder knowledgeable in matters of such construction.

  The house will be open to all and its fare will be provided at no cost. It seemed the next logical step, and part of Lexi will be glad not to have to cart food and water down to the Bottoms by wagon at dawn every morning and distribute it in stinking alleys.

  She’d never cut a board or driven a nail before in her life, and though the labor is less than pleasurable, Lexi is finding it feels good to build something from the ground up.

  “Try soaking your hands in lily oil,” Kamen Lim suggests in his torturously congenial way. “My wife absolutely swears by it, for everything. She tried to soak my entire head once to cure an ache in my temples!” He laughs heartily at that.

  “Perhaps she was attempting to drown you,” Lexi mutters irritably.

  “Perhaps,” Lim agrees, nodding soulfully. “There have been many suppers when I saw a certain menace in the way she held her sticks as she looked at me.” He laughs again, remaining maddeningly impenetrable, even by the most vicious of her barbed words.

  Yet a thick skin is necessary, she supposes, moving through the evening patrons of the bazaar and the noodle stands. All of the Gen members in their finery either ignore her or cast open disdain upon her with their looks. None offer her warmth, let alone a formal greeting.

  It is not simply the way Lexi looks at that moment, her work clothes covered in dust and wood shavings and various other muck. Her hair is disheveled and her face dirty. Yet she wears her Gen pendant, the same as the rest of them.

  The others in the Circus have always looked down on Gen Stalbraid. Those Gens have their lofty operations, agriculture, and various other concessions, performing important and bountiful functions needed and lauded by the Spectrum. They count large numbers among their ranks and employ huge staffs, enjoying their opulent clothing and larder allotments from the state. They could never understand why any Gen would choose to remain so small, clinging to familial traditions, let alone accept a concession pleading for the lowliest ranks of the city.

  In truth, Lexi cares nothing for their collective or individual disdain now. They are barely even real people to her anymore. Most of them know nothing of the world as it truly is, only seeing what exists in this polished and pristine circle where they are protected and provided for in exchange for their service. They could not fathom the depths of Crache, or what really dwells there.

  They reach the short bridge to Gen Stalbraid’s shabby little towers.

  “Thank you for escorting me,” Lexi says to Kamen Lim, as she always does.

  “Of course. I will bid you good evening, Te-Gen,” he says, as he always does at her door. “Until the morrow. We’ll see about getting those ceiling joists sorted, hai?”

  “Actually, if you could come in for a few moments, there is a private conversation we should have.”

  Lim peers down at her in very real surprise. “An invitation inside?” he asks, a pleased smile spreading across his lips. “How could I refuse?”

  Lexi nods, leading him over the bridge and to the main entrance of Xia Tower.

  “I’m afraid I have nothing to offer you,” she says as they walk through the foyer. “Shaheen is gathering supplies in the bazaar.”

  “So busy feeding others, you forget to stock your own larder?”

  “Something like that.”

  “No worries, Te-Gen,” he reassures her pleasantly. “I’ll reserve my appetite for supper at home with the family.”

  Lexi nods. “Very well. Please join me in the parlor.”

  She feels herself slipping back into her old role of the formal hostess, receiving and greeting and attending to guests Brio was petitioning for some meager show of support or contribution for the Bottoms.

  Lexi leads the duplicitous Aegin into the same room in which she recently conspired with the Protectorate Ministry to spy on Kamen Lim’s benefactors. She offers him a seat, and Lim gratefully obliges, holding the handle of his sheathed dagger instinctively as he lowers himself into one of the plush, high-backed chairs furnishing the parlor.

  Lexi occupies her usual spot on the chaise.

  “Would you like the opportunity to freshen yourself before we speak, Te-Gen?” Lim offers, ever the gentleman.

  The state of her had slipped Lexi’s mind. Her hands reflexively go to her dirt-streaked face, and then smooth back her already matted hair.

  “No, thank you,” she says.

  “Proceed then,” he urges her with a smile.

  Lexi inhales deeply. The beginning is crucial. She knows she has to seem reluctant. She has no hope of convincing any of them if she appears to be readily offering to advance their cause or give them aid in accomplishing their goals.

  Burr and Lim have both come to know her too well.

  “I’m concerned… for the people,” she begins. “The state that we’ve… that I’ve whipped them into. I worry it is coming to a dangerous boil.” She quickly adds, “For them.”

&nb
sp; Lexi hopes if she makes this entreaty about the people in the Bottoms, Lim may believe it, and thus convince Burr. They know she truly cares for the folks she has been feeding and helping for so many weeks.

  “It is a primer for things to come,” Lim says in a pacifying tone.

  Lexi rubs her face with her aching, bloodied hands. “Yes, I know, and that’s just it. They may be too primed too quickly.”

  “How’s that?”

  “They’re growing… restless with my stories and with my rhetoric. Of course, they rally to the notion of the Crachian bureaucracy being replaced by people who truly care for them and will improve their lives, but they see no path to it. The problem is I’m telling them grand tales with no real heroes or heroines. Without that, they’re beginning to see my words as fantasy. Unattainable. I can see it beginning to have the opposite effect Lady Burr desires.”

  “You fear they’ll turn on the notion of nobility?” Lim asks her.

  “No,” Lexi says quickly.

  “You fear… they’ll turn on you? Have you grown so attached to their affections? It’s understandable, certainly—”

  “It is not me I’m worried about,” she insists. “And it is certainly not your cause I fret over. Your mistress is coercing me into furthering it.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “My fear… is that they will turn their frustrations inward, upon themselves. I fear they’ll lash out and riot against the Aegins before the Ignobles are prepared to support them. If that happens, the people of the Bottoms will suffer greater than they will even if your plans do come to fruition.”

  She studies Kamen Lim’s face, his reaction. Her words seem as though they are sinking hooks within him, and he is genuinely mulling over the worries she has just voiced.

  “What do you suggest then?” he asks. “Do you actually have a suggestion, or do you wish me to simply convey your general concern?”

  “I do,” Lexi ventures, carefully.

  “I am all ears!” Lim proclaims, reclining in his chair and crossing an ankle over his opposite knee.

  “They need to see a noble, in the flesh,” Lexi proposes. “If you truly wish this to work, they need to meet one. I understand Lady Burr cannot expose herself. She is too important to your cause. But there must be other Ignobles who could begin revealing their ancestry and intentions to the people of the Bottoms… in secret, of course.”

  Lim’s expression takes on an unusually serious pallor. He appears to be weighing the notion.

  Lexi feels she needs to press the issue to tip him over the edge in her favor. “If you truly wish to rally in the name of nobility, to the point at which they will openly revolt against the Capitol, then you must give them nobles to rally around. I am only a messenger. I have made that clear to them.”

  “Of course,” he says. “Of course that… limitation is inevitable, I suppose. We do not want them popping their cork prematurely, if you will.”

  “I certainly don’t want that,” Lexi affirms, again adding, “For them.”

  Lim appears thoughtful. “I will take up your concerns with Lady Burr and pass along your suggestion.”

  Lexi feels her heart lighten just a hair. It is all she can do to hide her immense relief. “Thank you, Sir Kamen.”

  That brings the smile back to his face. “That is the first time you’ve called me that. Thank you, my lady.”

  He rises from the chair, spryly and jovially. Lexi quickly stands, as well.

  “And thank you for your honesty,” he says. “I know you carry many doubts about a return to nobility… but you will see, it is what is best for the future of Crache.”

  “I think only of the people,” Lexi reiterates.

  “As well you should,” he says with a respectful bow.

  Lexi returns the gesture curtly.

  As Lim turns to exit the room, he comes face to face with Shaheen, standing in the parlor archway, cradling her basket of groceries.

  “Shaheen!” he says warmly, displaying not an ounce of surprise or accusation. “How long have you been standing there, my dear?”

  She watches Shaheen caught off-guard for the briefest of moments, Lexi’s breath catching as she hopes Lim took no notice of it. Fortunately, a radiant smile quickly forms on her lips. “I just walked in, Aegin Lim. I’m sorry if I’m interrupting.”

  “No, no, I was just making my way home for the evening.”

  Lexi hears nothing save the usual fatherly kindness in his tone.

  Shaheen nods, playing her role of the eager, unsure interloper into the world of the Gen Circus.

  Lim bows again, to Shaheen this time, and begins to stroll past her.

  At the last moment he pauses, staring down into her basket.

  Reaching inside, Lim retrieves a piece of dragon fruit, inspecting it closely and giving it a good squeeze.

  “Oh, that’s a good one,” he remarks, dropping the fruit back in the basket and gently mussing the hair atop Shaheen’s head. He departs then, whistling cheerfully as he crosses the foyer and exits the tower.

  Shaheen maintains her youthfully ignorant and friendly visage until she is certain he is long gone.

  “How did it go?” she asks Lexi, her tone shifting to that of the undercover Ministry operative.

  “He believed me, I think,” Lexi says. “Whether or not Burr will believe him is out of my hands.”

  The look in Shaheen’s eyes makes Lexi think she is unconvinced.

  I’ve only been a spy for a day—what do you expect? Lexi thinks, but she does not say it aloud.

  In a way, Shaheen frightens her more than Daian did.

  PARTERS AT THE GATES OF DAWN

  FEW THINGS BRING PEOPLE BACK together like facing their shared and collective death. Perhaps that is why Evie and Sirach spent two hours fucking each other like animals immediately following the rebellion’s final war council before their attack on the Skrain.

  They were meant to be behind closed doors discussing the Sicclunan role in the sudden assault. And they did, in-between ragged breaths and devouring each other’s lips, tongues, and various other fleshy areas. The only preamble had been Evie dismissing the rest of the council while requesting Sirach remain behind for a moment, ignoring Brio’s knowing gaze all the while.

  Sirach, for her part, had instructed Chimot to return to their soldiers without her and begin dispensing marching orders.

  Chimot’s gaze was beyond knowing. Her eyes were absolute founts of silent wisdom on the subject of what was about to happen when the rest of them left the room.

  Neither one of them spoke about their rejoining, or what came before that divided them. They merely fell upon each other the minute they were alone and began tearing away pieces of their lover’s armor while trading thoughts on troop deployments, tactics, and speedy, stealthy mobilization methods.

  By the end of it, they were sweat-soaked and glazed in each other, lying naked upon the marble table side by side. The taste of Sirach lingered deliciously on Evie’s tongue, and she never wanted to stop feeling the cool stone beneath her bare back.

  They were silent for as many more moments as either of them seemed to feel they could steal from preparing their forces.

  “Tell me you aren’t staying because of me,” Evie bid her, though it was clearly more of a question.

  “I’m staying because of you,” Sirach answered without hesitation.

  “You are such an asshole,” Evie chided, despite the grin that came to her face.

  “Apologies, General. You should reprimand me for disobeying a direct order.”

  Evie reluctantly peeled her damp body from the tabletop and turned to her side to face Sirach, leaning against a slick elbow. “Tell me you aren’t staying only for me,” she said.

  Sirach closed her eyes. Her expression remained glowingly serene. “I am not staying only for you. I am staying because, for the first time in my life, I am home. I never imagined I would be able to say that. And I am only here because of you and your born-again Savag
es. I want the rest of my people whose ancestors were purged from your other cities to feel that as well.”

  “And if we all die tomorrow?”

  “Then that is what we died for—to go home,” Sirach insisted, her tone and expression unchanged. “It can’t just be about survival. There is no future in that. And without a future what are we surviving for?”

  Sirach opened her eyes, looking up at Evie with more unvarnished love and openness than she’d yet seen from the woman.

  “You’re doing the only thing you can do,” Sirach said. “We are doing the only thing we can do. It is as you said. Don’t damn yourself for holding two piles of shit and dropping the heavier one. That is what being the leader of an army at war is more often than not. This campaign was very likely doomed from the start. Yet here we are.”

  Evie nodded, somehow breathing just a bit easier in that moment. “Here we are,” she echoed.

  That was the last they spoke of it. Evie and Sirach forced their sapped bodies from that table and quickly re-dressed and collected their armor pieces to go ready themselves separately to depart the Tenth City.

  Evie missed having Mother Manai to assist her in preparing to take the field, and it was all she could do as she once again donned her Sparrow General armor and tied back her own hair to keep thoughts of the woman from breaking down the high walls she’d built since returning from the Skrain encampment to dam that pain, at least for the time being.

  It was decided at the end of their war council that a vanguard composed of their thousands of former Savage Legionnaires would push on ahead of the rest of the rebellion force at speed to do what Savages do best. They would hit whatever resistance the Skrain muster to defend their camp while readying the remainder of the Crachian host to join in defending against the unexpected assault.

  Evie had not arrived at that decision easily, no more so than settling on the assault itself. There is little chance many of them will still be fighting when the rest of the rebellion arrives. However, even Lariat and the others agreed it was their best hope of having any success on the field. They would hit the hopefully incomplete Skrain line as hard and fast as they could, and with a not inconsiderable amount of luck they would push enough of their ex-Savage ranks into the camp itself to begin creating chaos and sowing fear and discord among the Crachian troops.