by R Coots
In her mind, Del laughed. The sound was as cynical as a noise could be while still being called a laugh.
From the way Syrus’s face twisted, he wasn’t much impressed. Color rose under his skin. The muscles of his neck bulged. Jossa waited, holding her shaky mental barriers and praying he wouldn’t explode. He’d better not. She didn’t know how much of this she could take.
“Because,” he said finally. Quietly. “I’m not about to rape anyone. Or be raped. I’m here to watch you all get beaten to death. Then they’ll probably turn him loose.” He jerked his chin at his snarling second. “So he can blow off some steam. Once Quinn’s done skullfucking us, Kizen will cut the life support to this room and kill him too. Claim he went berserk and couldn’t be brought off the edge. Killed his own wives. Can’t aim him at the enemy anymore. Can’t trust him to do what he’s told once you’ve taken away the only people he cares about. Needed to be put down and a replacement found who can be manipulated.” He looked at Iira and raised an eyebrow as she scowled. “Isn’t that right?”
“A Trueborn Son of Kuch without his wives is a loose cannon.” Oona sighed and shifted where she sat. Quinn jerked in her direction, and the tethers yanked him back to the wall again. His head bounced. He snarled. Jossa wondered if any of the captive Fleet realized they were leaning in each other’s direction. Probably.
Jossa sat there, feeling the lava-like crawl of the man’s rage as it seeped through the last of her defenses. On an intellectual level, she’d known what was planned. Even on an instinctual one, when their clothes were cut off and they’d been forced into position. But the reality of it was only now sinking in. This was actually going to happen. There would be no escape. No talking or bribing their way out of this. She and Del were—
Del’s mind screamed fight. Same as it always did. She didn’t have the frame of reference, of experience, to know what would happen. What it would be like. She’d been too young for service to the fuerrus when they’d escaped the Palace.
Jossa knew. She’d been the one to keep them in food until they’d learned how to pick pockets and steal. She’d been the one to do the protecting. The distracting. She knew what was coming.
Her mind gibbered. Froze. The only thing left was to cling to the bond. So she did. Her mental fingers dug into the place where Delfi had pinned their minds together. She held on with everything she had left. Peace, Jossa told herself, trying to slow her breathing enough to think. The bond brings peace. So long as we have that, we’ll get through this.
::Will you pay attention? No point in planning to survive if you don’t know what happened in the middle.:: Del took a metaphysical elbow and rammed it into her sister’s ribcage, slamming her out of her fugue and back into reality.
Jossa gasped for breath.
“We found out after you left. When Quinn went to the Ataorl Banso.” Iira looked up at Syrus and sighed. “One of Kizen’s predecessors started the degradation of Fleet tradition within their Branch.” She ducked her head so she could tuck a piece of hair behind one ear. “He got the second to kill his wives. When he became unmanageable, the warlord put him down. Instead of sending to Kuch for a true second as he should have, he filled the position with an icotusorl child instead. A Falseborn.”
Jossa decided she’d need a nav computer and a week to figure out what all that was supposed to mean. Time and brainpower weren’t on her side. The door slid open and a Fleet soldier swaggered in, armored from head to toe. He brought with him an oily wave of smug anticipation.
It couldn’t overtake the miasma that already filled the room; but if each of the double handful of men standing behind him brought the same sort of feeling, soon she’d be more concerned with not vomiting than anything else.
A long-ago lesson, mutilated almost beyond recognition, flittered through her brain. Something about ancient plays and a chorus to back up the main players. Except this chorus wasn’t singing; they were about to perform unspeakable acts to underscore what had gone before and what was to come.
Delfi snarled, her brain full of images detailing what she would do to these men given the chance. Jossa tucked her knees up closer to her chest, wishing she had enough slack in the tether to wrap her arms around them.
Why hadn’t they just stayed with Rui and Denz and the crew? Why oh why oh why? Syrus’s warning hadn’t been worth the breath he’d used to give it. It didn’t take a Feel or a Hear to figure out what was about to happen.
Over on the far side of the room, the second started yanking at his restraints. He didn’t seem to notice the electricity from the cage or the fact that his burns were getting worse by the second. The smell of cooked meat got stronger.
She tried wedge her nose between her knees without success. If the man had been angry before, there weren’t words for what emanated from him now. Every shield she put up crumbled in the making. The stake holding her mind to Del’s started to char. There was no peace in the bond. No comfort.
Couldn’t her sousi see what was happening? Didn’t she realize the danger wasn’t just these men? Or was she too focused on the soldiers and what she planned to do to them when they got in kicking range? Self-absorbed, shallow illaf asjokoj bittehek. How was the unstable half of the equation supposed to function without her anchor?
The men started sorting out the pile of shackles and moorings they’d carried in. “Hello milord.” One of the men stopped in front of the warlord pinned to the wall. “Does the entertainment satisfy?”
The comment snagged on the edge of her consciousness, startling Jossa out of her building irritation. The lack of answer on Syrus’s part, coupled with the glazed look in his eyes, was puzzling enough to hold her attention for a few more moments. Was it just her, or had the heat in the room risen a few more degrees?
The soldier didn’t seem to care if he got an answer or not. He hammered a fist into Syrus’s stomach, and while his victim gasped for breath, drove the other one into the side of his head. Jossa stared. She’d seen any number of fights in her life. She’d trained for the manner of possible assassin. Men, women, small and quick to big and strong. The blow should have shattered the warlord’s jaw. Or at least popped it out of joint. No normal man should have been able to withstand that. Her brain rebelled against the alternative, that Syrus was simply impervious. Physics said one of them should have taken major damage.
Del didn’t pay any attention to the little display. She was still glaring at the cluster of soldiers and thinking of ways to hurt them.
The stake holding their minds together wiggled a bit and slid. Anger crept in around the tattered remains of Jossa’s shields. She growled and tried to hammer the stake back into the ground. Stupid Del! When was she going to focus on the real problem?
A strangled yelp pulled her out of the bond and back into reality. The soldier in front of Syrus had taken another swing. The warlord—was he Warlord now that he was caught like a fly in a spider’s web? The warlord dodged, and the other man’s fist hit the wall instead.
From the way he cradled his hand, he’d broken at least two or three bones. From the way the undercurrent of arrogant satisfaction transformed to the whine of an engine overheating, the Fleet man was about to quit playing and lose his temper for true.
Syrus laughed. It was wheezing and strangled, but it was still a laugh. “Come on. Try again.”
The soldier’s individual tone vanished into the heat-shimmering haze that dominated the room.
“Hey!” One of the others grabbed the man by the back of the shirt and hauled him away. “He’ll get his when the time comes. Fucker. Got four bitches here, don’t gotta mess with the Impie spy.”
At the other end of the bond, Del’s mind twisted. She was searching for something. Something these unshielded, unarmored men were keeping hidden. Jossa tried to pull on her end of the bond. Tried to tell Delfi that she was slipping, and would she please come keep her sister from losing her mind? Nothing. No siphon. No awareness.
Ancestor’s Seed. For once, couldn�
��t the girl just explain what she was doing? Leaving her sister out here to follow along like some sort of, of . . . Jossa had no idea what. Something tame and following. Some creature that stood and waited for the slaughter to come and did nothing to save herself.
How could Jossa do anything if she didn’t know what her tukovaf sousi was doing?
::Del,:: she shrieked in her head. She was done waiting for an answer. The men were still joking with each other, the bastards. Why should they hurry? Nobody was going anywhere. They had their prey all wrapped up in a bow, just waiting for them. Motherless, fatherless bastards!
The stake tugged at her mind as it slipped a little further. Its blackened edges cracked and split as heat worked its way further into the wood, weakening its structure. For half a moment her head was clear, and then the anger came swarming back through her pores. ::Damn you,:: she screamed at Del. ::Tell me—::
The man who’d pulled his fellow soldier away from Syrus came out of the cluster, a set of shackles in one hand and mooring clamps in the other. Why was he the only soldier moving? Why was he the only one getting ready to restrain the prisoners? Did they think they only needed one set of shackles? How stupid could they be? Bastards. Did they think she wouldn’t fight them when they tried to take her? Did they think they’d be safe if they left her legs free?
Dread trickled through the bond, flavored with something she almost never felt from Del. Fear. This didn’t add up. Something else—math and men and something about four ochuogek. Why couldn’t she do the tukovafek math?! Stupid fucking anger in the air, clouding her head!
He took a step towards Del.
Jossa understood. “No. No, no, no, no, no . . .”
Delfi snarled and spat, cursing him and his ancestors and the sheep they must have bred with. When he grabbed for her ankle, she kicked him in the teeth.
“No, no, no, no, no . . .” They wouldn’t. They couldn’t.
Jossa pulled at the stake holding their minds together. Of course, now that she was trying, it wouldn’t come free. Of course! Because what else could go wrong today?
Did these men realize what was going to happen to them when she got loose? Forget getting loose, forget killing them the old-fashioned way—she’d fry them from here! Fatherless trash! Motherless dregs of the universe! They’d pay for this.
Some last shred of sanity clawed its way out of her mind just as the man spat out a tooth and grabbed at Del.
Use me. Me. Please! She’s never had to. She was too young. I’ve always been the one. She’s never had to give herself up. She’s never done anything but love Denz. Please!
Her mouth refused the words. All she heard was “No, no, no, no, no . . .” All she could see was red.
The stake left blackened splinters in her psyche as she dug and pulled, trying desperately to free herself. Delfi’s fear and horror and rage burrowed into Jossa’s brain. She fought them; and the more she fought, the more Del fought, the deeper they went. Her exterior shields were long gone. Now she was losing the interior ones. The ones that kept her rooted. The ones that drew their strength from the bond. From the outside came volcanic fury, hot and implacable as gravity itself. A veritable bonfire burned her from the inside out as Delfi lost her fight with the Fleet man.
Jossa couldn’t tell who kept screaming now. Delfi? Herself?
The soldier locked the last restraint around Del’s leg and tethered it to the mooring. She lay, struggling, spread eagled and shrieking in fear and helpless anger as the man dropped to his knees between her legs and reached for the front of his pants. In the center of the room, the other soldiers laughed, but their voices were dim. Someone roared into the distance. Someone else wailed.
The sounds faded. Too late, the stake holding Jossa to Del incinerated, charred by the wave of emotion Delfi brought with her as she reached along the bond.
Just before the lava closed over her head, Jossa managed to get what she really wanted to say around the denials filling her head. “Me! Please. Me instead!”
Then there was only heat and pain
.
>Chapter Thirty-Three
Syrus
If it’s done right, you can turn any enemy sai into your weapon. Especially if they’re untrained. Get in close and overwhelm their mind. Even the lowest-level Projective will start infecting the people around her if you hit her hard enough.
-advice to a young recruit
From somewhere out of the roaring, screaming insanity, a memory worked its way into his brain. It floated down through the caustic ooze, breaking to pieces and sliding around the monster, evading the wild swipes of its talons.
Somewhere under all that chaos, in a place he rarely visited, Syrus held his breath and helped the ghost of his conscience put the pieces back together. His lungs burned, begging for air, but the last shreds of his sanity told him that as soon as he gave in—as soon as he opened up to the murk around him—he’d be gone for good. Nothing left but killing, killing, and more killing.
He wondered what was so wrong with killing. It was the only thing he’d ever been good at.
Not true, a voice told him. A ragged mental image flashed in front of him, shedding the dust of the street and the heat of the sun as he dug tubers out of a garden. He growled at the voice and snatched the image, hearing the old man’s voice echo through his ears. The muffled words became clear as Syrus laid the image in the center of the rebuilt memory.
Once, many years ago, he’d been asked how he kept from going insane. How he’d survived for so long on the streets without getting himself chopped into little bits and shoved in with some butcher’s daily grindings. The question had been asked in anger, after he’d pissed someone off for the umpteenth time. He’d answered by saying that he was Savage and hard to kill, and nobody in his little territory thought he was worth coming after once he’d done some of his own chopping.
The answer had been the truth.
But it hadn’t been the whole truth.
There was a system down there in the subcity of pariahs and outcasts that real citizens pretended didn’t exist. Everyone was Savage. But some were true nehkeh. And the one rule held above all else was that when a nehkeh found a child who’d bred true, someone was supposed to catch the kid and teach them how to stay alive.
Pick a target, a goal, the old man had told him as he’d supervised the harvest that blistering hot day. Hold it in your head before you go under. Focus on it, even when you’re about to tear someone limb from limb and cave their skull in on the cobbles. The man told him that over and over. On quiet days. On busy days. On days he beat the child-Syrus to the edge of sanity. Over and over. When you feel yourself slipping, find yourself a goal.
Syrus had learned how to aim himself before he’d learned to read. The same man who’d taught him to decipher letters on signs had picked him up out of the dirt, brought him to the basement he shared with four others, and made Syrus learn the hard way. Six months later, the man had kicked him back out on the street.
Now Syrus held on to the memory as he tried to learn the lesson over again. The screaming howl still battered at his defenses. His lungs still burned. But he could hear the rasp of the man’s voice in his ears, reminding him of his goal. Get free. Kill the soldiers. Get free. Kill the soldiers.
It was all he could do to keep the mantra up. The thing inside him was free again. It wanted to kill everyone in sight. Paint the walls with the blood of everyone in the room.
But slowly, bit by bit, the churning Frenzy started to fade. Something smelled like cooking meat. It got worse every time he heard the smack-thud of flesh hitting metal. A man roared at the top of his lungs, wordless and enraged. Quinn. Maybe.
Two female voices shrieked in Kuchen. His brain wasn’t working well enough to make sense of it. His translator couldn’t keep up either. He didn’t need to know the words. They were pissed. Terrified, and all the angrier for it because they didn’t know how to live with being scared.
They’d be dead soon. Bitches sh
ouldn’t waste their breath.
He managed to focus through the red haze long enough to get a picture of the room. Four of the soldiers were beating each other to a pulp, their armor scattered in pieces on the floor.
Another had hold of Iira. Her feet flailed and scrabbled for leverage as she twisted and screamed under him. Syrus couldn’t tell if the puddle of blood she was lying in came from her or the soldier.
The blood under Oona was her own. A soldier, half naked and snarling like an animal, kept hitting her with a helmet, bashing at any part of her she couldn’t protect. Which was pretty much everywhere but her stomach. Quinn looked like a pig left to burn over a fire. The second had run out of slack in the tethers, but he kept thrashing, trying to get at anyone and anything. Spittle flew from his mouth. He’d burst a blood vessel in one eye.
Nobody’d gone near Jossa. Why?
He didn’t so much hear the snap as he felt it in his bones. Delfi was already making enough noise to wake the dead, trying to fight the soldier on top of her. Her scream when the bone went was three octaves higher than anything she’d managed so far. One of the soldiers was doing to her what could be expected of an enraged Fleet man with more testosterone in his veins than blood.
For a moment, all Syrus could feel was the agony of a shattered femur and a dislocated hip being forced further out of place as indescribable weight bore down on top of him.
He nearly lost his grip on the memory and its lesson. No. Focus. Hold to the target. Don’t forget the target. Remember who you’re going to kill and how. The monster has you by the balls and by the brain. It’s using every hormone and nerve in your body to drive you mad. But so long as you know what your goal is, you can aim the rage. Once you’ve killed the thing you plan to kill, you can come out of it.
A new pain stabbed him in the groin as Delfi screamed again. Penetration. Fucking hell.
Fear blistered through his nerves, small points of agony that combined in his brain and stopped all function. Something came thundering on its heels, a feeling without label. Words like “star” and “corona” flashed through his mind and vanished just as fast. They didn’t come close to describing it.
