by Ann Aguirre
“I’ll get this hauled away,” the big man said.
Jael turned to the others. “Head down to the recycling center, see if you can find a mop and bucket. We don’t want to leave any evidence for the next group.”
“How many more patrols will he send?” someone asked.
He shrugged. “Hard to say. I suspect one or two smaller groups, tops, before Grigor deploys a larger squad to wipe out whoever’s picking off his men. Hope you lot like paste because we’ll be here awhile.”
There was a collective groan, but most of the Queenslanders didn’t look too displeased with the mission. They got to lie in wait, and there was the chance of constant, queen-sanctioned violence. To men who had been locked up for being unable to control their base natures, that was a good day. As for him, if you swapped out this rusty, grim-lit corridor for a rocky hillside or a muddy field, he’d done this job countless times before.
While the men cleaned up the signs from the battle as best they could, he helped Einar lug away the corpses. Jael bent and slung a body over his shoulder, marveling at the deadweight. Corpses always felt heavier than any other burden, he thought, of the same relative size and weight. Then he grabbed another, before realizing he’d surprised the other Queenslanders. A few men whispered, as he didn’t look this strong. Ignoring them, Jael followed Einar, who always seemed to know where all the chutes were located.
“Keep this up, and I’ll start calling you the undertaker,” he joked.
“I could do worse.”
They dumped the bodies in front of the chute, then the big man stuffed them down. A pneumatic whir carried them away, one by one, leaving only a red smear on the floor. Einar rubbed at it with his boots until it was more grungy than distinct. Jael lifted his chin to indicate he thought it was enough.
“They’re not likely to be skilled investigators,” he observed on the return.
“They’re brain-dead shit birds.”
“You’ve a poetic nature, you know that? I rather like you, undertaker. Didn’t think I would . . . but here we are.”
“You’re not a complete wart on a toad’s arse, either,” the big man muttered.
“I feel a hug coming on. Should we?”
“I’d rather let you cut my face off with this axe.” Einar hefted the weapon hanging over his shoulder.
“Could do that, too, I suppose. That couldn’t make it worse.” He gestured to indicate the whole extreme ugliness Einar had going on.
Jael could’ve dodged the punch, but he reckoned he deserved it. So the hit landed on his ribs and rearranged some bones. They snapped back into place; sometimes there was a deep internal itch when the healing started. He stopped to let the work complete, then realized the other men were gaping at him.
“What?” he demanded.
“Nobody roughhouses with Einar, unless they’re looking for a broken neck.”
“I’m tougher than I look,” he said coldly. “There’s a reason the Dread Queen made me her champion.”
“No doubt,” another Queenslander said hastily.
He dragged the other man off to call him names in private, but Jael heard every word. “There’s something off about that one. Try not to be stupider than you can help, all right? I don’t want to find somebody else to watch my back while I’m asleep. Keep mouthing off to the queen’s man, though, and I’ll have to, won’t I?”
“Sorry, wasn’t thinking.”
That small exchange put a damper on everyone’s mood, so the team sat in silence while they waited for Grigor to realize there was a problem. Hours turned into watches, as the men wearied. Jael took the first shift; frankly, he would prefer not to sleep with so many inmates all around him. Somebody might take a mind to stick a knife between his ribs, and then, well. Best not to tempt fate.
By his calculations, it was ten hours before they sent a second party to figure out where the first group had gone. They must be thirsty up in Grigor’s territory, too. This time, there were eight soldiers, all big bruisers, like the first four. He counted their footfalls to calculate how far away they were, then he whispered the ETA to Einar.
“Ready for some action?” the big man asked the team.
“More than. I sit here any longer, my ass will be rooted to the floor.”
“Pair up,” Jael said. “I need you fighting together, no mob rules this time. Pick a target, take him down together.”
“But we outnumber them,” a Queenslander protested.
“They’re bigger. Don’t ever underestimate your opponent. That gives him the advantage from the jump, and it doesn’t always matter how many people you’ve got.”
Einar said, “Agreed. Look sharp. We have incoming in thirty seconds or so.”
Jael eyed the other man with surprised approval. When he’d given him the estimate, he didn’t realize he was still counting down. Soon, the rest of the men could hear the approaching combatants. They were moving fast, too, all but running, so their treads came in heavy thumps. He swung out fast enough to surprise the leader, landing a kick in the enemy’s chest.
This one had some combat experience, as he checked two of Jael’s blows, but he glimpsed the flash of pain that came on impact. He was strong enough that even a block delivered enough damage to fracture a forearm. Jael speeded up his strikes, hands becoming a blur as he went at the leader. The other man couldn’t keep up; and Jael snared his wrist. Pop and twist—the bone snapped clean in two as he wrenched it behind the brute’s back. He combined the move with another kick; this one rocked the other man’s legs out from under him. Jael ended the fight with a boot to the throat, crushing his enemy’s larynx. He was trying to avoid a bloody mess, but around him, other men didn’t share the same concern.
A Queenslander dropped, taking a knife in the kidneys; he wasn’t dead yet, but he might as well be. No recovering from that. Despite his orders, the men weren’t fighting in an organized or unified fashion. Not their fault, really; they’d never drilled. These are prisoners, not soldiers. They’re used to mixing it up in riots, not orchestrating strategy. Still, that lack was costing them.
Another Queenslander fell, and Einar pushed forward to fill the gap. Jael shoved forward beside him, scowling as blood spattered on him from someone else’s knife. He curled his fingers around his blade and punched forward, shoving the knife through his foe’s sternum. In an efficient motion, he pulled it back, kicked the man out of his way, and went for the next victim. He raked the blade across the man’s eyes, then stabbed him up through the chin.
“Wish I had room to move my axe,” Einar bitched, as he hauled back to deliver a killing blow. The weight of his fist crushed the man’s lip, more blood spewed out, along with a mess of teeth. Fortunately, he wouldn’t live to suffer the loss.
When the last body fell, they were down three men, better than Grigor’s men should’ve done, frankly. “This is a hell of a mess. Clean it up.”
“Why should we?”
His jaw clenched. “Because I’ll kill you if you say another word. Try me.”
“Sorry. I was just asking,” the man muttered.
Einar’s quick nod said he understood the point of sending them to dispose of their fellows; if shoving corpses down the chute didn’t make the idiots more cautious in the next engagement, then they were dumb enough to deserve to die.
“How long will we be here?” one of the men asked.
He glanced at Einar, wondering if he knew. “Until the Dread Queen calls us back.”
“What if she never does?” the man persisted.
Jael snapped, “Then we fight here until we die.”
“Until we’re overrun,” the big man agreed. “It’s not for us to question.”
He suspected it wouldn’t be much longer. If Dred was right, Grigor’s men would soon be too drunk or too dehydrated to find their way down to the recycling center. Rebellion would begin within his territory, and then—only then—would the Dread Queen strike. All told, it was a cunning plan, well crafted and layered. He lo
oked forward to executing it, step by step, and seeing Dred’s enemies brought low. At some point, this damned microwar had become more important to him than scouting possible escape routes.
In time, he told himself.
“I always wanted to hunt a Great Bear,” he told Einar conversationally.
37
Tooth and Claw
Using Tam as a messenger, Dred recalled the men from their post outside the recycling center. They looked grubby as hell when they returned, and they’d lost five men. The posting took a full day, but fortunately, it didn’t take long for dehydration to set in. Three days without water entirely would kill the Great Bear and all his men, but the ship couldn’t be programmed to kill. So dirty water would weaken them, then the lights would go out, step two in the plan to diminish and demoralize the enemy.
Her heart didn’t settle until she found Jael and Einar in the crowd, then she despised herself for feeling relieved. Attachments didn’t prosper in a place like this.
“How many did you kill?” she asked, as they reached her.
“Close to fifty,” the big man answered.
“Good work.”
“The last batch were ill,” Jael added. “It was mercy to put them down.”
“Then the plan’s working.” It also meant she needed to set a permanent guard down there, as somebody else might be capable of duplicating Tam’s success. “That’s all for now. Go find some real food and get some rest.”
Some would undoubtedly call it superstitious, but after she finished with Einar and Jael, she went in search of Wills, who was fiddling with R-17. He scowled at her interruption. “What do you want?”
“I’d like you to do a reading for me, regarding the outcome of the battle against Grigor.”
Wills sobered at once. “Of course. I’ve had troubling dreams, my queen.”
Under her watchful eye, he drew out his bones and rolled them in his palms to warm them, then he sliced his arms to lubricate them in his own blood. Not for the first time, Dred wondered how he had come to his precise ritual. She didn’t look away, even when he spat on the mixture, then slicked it over the surface of the bones until they looked like writhing maggots. Blinking hard, she looked again; and they were just bones rattling together.
He tossed them to the floor and squatted over them. Though she could discern no pattern in the mess, he paled, the salt-and-pepper bristles on his jaw standing out in contrast. “Victory requires a life for a life, my queen, and there remains one disloyal to you in his heart, watching and waiting.”
Her fingers curled into fists. “Does that mean for every one of theirs we kill, someone here will die? And can you tell me the name of this traitor?”
Hoping to glean more, Dred slipped into second sight, but as ever, Wills burned a sickly yellow all the way through, no shades or striations. It was always the same when he read for her, though his colors returned to normal once the foretelling died away. She opened her eyes to see him shaking his head.
“Names and faces are not given for me to know.”
“That would be too easy,” she muttered.
“Have a care,” he warned. “I saw long ago . . . this may cost more than you care to pay.”
Dred nodded. “Thanks, Wills. I’ll keep it in mind.”
She could tell by his expression that he realized she wouldn’t alter course. Even if the body count was insanely high, she couldn’t back off, not when she was one or two moves away from clearing the board and claiming the Great Bear’s assets. With Silence’s teeth on her neck, there was no other path open to her. Unsettled, she left the bone-reader to tidy up the mess and return to tinkering with the maintenance bot.
“Did you learn anything useful?” Tam asked, as she joined the meal queue.
“You know how his predictions go. He prognosticates doom, as usual.”
“I’d hoped he might sing a different tune. Things are proceeding exactly as we planned.”
She accepted a bowl of food, then followed the spymaster to a table. Tam ate as efficiently as he did everything else, but with better manners than most men. He didn’t do the prison yard hunch, either, with his arms framed around his tray and his body tensed to stab anyone who reached for his bowl.
“You’re an enigma,” she said. “I wonder how you ended up here.”
“Are you asking, my queen, or demanding?” His voice was wooden, like an old staircase that led down into darkness, and about as safe.
“Neither.” She ate a few bites in speculative silence.
Tam’s face was cold and hard in profile. “If it matters, I don’t regret a single thing I did that landed me here. And I’d do it all again.”
“You don’t have normal prison manners.”
“This was my first stop once I was taken into custody.”
That surprised her. Dred put down her spoon, eyeing him with pure curiosity. “No preliminary holding facility? No trial?”
“That’s correct.”
“Is that even legal?”
“Not entirely, but it was part of a larger agreement. I’m satisfied.” By his abortive gesture, she guessed he was done talking about the past.
“Will you tell me the story someday?”
“It’s not mine to share.” His dark eyes went distant.
“I understand.” And it wasn’t a Dread Queen inquiry, either.
The queen cared only for the state of her territory, nothing for the feelings of those who dwelled within it. In Perdition, the greatest monsters clawed their way to the top of the heap. She wasn’t sure what it said about her that she’d let Tam plant her on the scrap-metal throne. Dred slanted a look at the horrific thing, squatting at the far end of the hall. There had been an inmate who Artan kept chained at the bottom of it like a dog. He’d eaten, slept, and defecated, right there, until he ceased to be amusing, then he died slowly.
“How long has it been since you slept?” he asked.
She started, covering a guilty look. “How did you know?”
“You think I don’t know when someone’s pretending?”
Dred hated the thought of his listening to her toss and turn. They never talked once they went to bed; it was a peculiar and functional relationship. Tam was like obsidian, utterly impenetrable; and he kept his own counsel, except as pertained to the campaign. That was safest, but at the moment, she wanted more from him, if only to disprove the doubts Ike had planted. She wanted to believe Tam valued their association, superficial though it might be, but he wasn’t the sort of man to offer a centimeter more than he must.
“I can’t remember,” she admitted. “It’s been days, though, I think. It’s hard for me to unwind with everything—”
“Go. Get some rest, or you’ll be useless later.” It was a practical suggestion, not an order, so she didn’t bristle.
Sighing, she pushed away from the table. “Very well. Einar will probably be crashed out, too, so at least I’ll have company.”
“There is that.” Tam nodded in farewell.
She turned and strode toward the corridor leading to the dormitories. Queensland would become difficult to hold, too much territory and not enough bodies to guard it, unless something shifted between now and the end of the conflict with Grigor. Maybe the supply ship will return soon. I could bolster our numbers that way. But unlike Artan, she didn’t recruit en masse, taking everyone capable of stumbling after her. If a man didn’t hold up to close scrutiny, she let him be; it made Queensland easier to govern. Slowly, she had been weeding out Artan’s original recruits, subtly encouraging them to challenge one another during the blood-sport matches.
Between Priest and Grigor, we haven’t needed them lately to keep the men in check.
She was deep in thought as she rounded the corner toward her quarters. Consequently, her reflexes were slow—and the bastard nearly sank his knife into her spine. She wheeled on the traitor, livid, as his blade skimmed sideways over her ribs. Blood welled, but she could tell it was a shallow cut, just another scar for
the collection. There was no time to unlash her chains, but even with a knife in his hands, she thought she was a match for him.
Evidently, he agreed because he turned to run. Dred came at his back, snapping a kick that rocked him forward onto his knees. Then she slammed a spiked boot into the back of his thigh, effectively crippling him. She backhanded him across the face, and while he was still dazed, she dragged him back to the hall, leaving a blood trail behind. It was impossible that she didn’t even know this man’s name, but he was a relative newcomer to her territory, fresh off the ship just before Jael’s arrival.
“Who knows this scum?” she called in furious tones.
Tentatively, a young man came forward. It took her a few seconds, but she placed him. Zediah, who worked as much as possible in the gardens. “His name’s Niles, my queen.”
“Well, Niles just tried to assassinate me.”
“Dumb shit,” someone muttered.
Another shook his head. “Imagine, trying to take the Dread Queen on your own.”
“On your knees,” she bit out.
The scrape across her back was burning like mad. If the cowardly piece of shit poisoned me—She cut the thought. Regardless, he had to die in spectacular fashion, and this time, she didn’t look for Tam. She’d killed enough men to know how to make a show of it.
“Shall we see what a traitor’s blood looks like?” she asked the Queenslanders.
“Aye!” they roared back.
Taking the man’s knife, she bent, held him by the hair like an animal to be slaughtered, and gutted him, so a red pool spread beneath. The men howled their approval as the body fell. By the time Tam made his way over to her, she had dropped the weapon.
“Einar didn’t wake?”
“I wasn’t close enough to the dormitories for him to hear. Though Niles was a cowardly dog, he chose a good, isolated spot to strike.”
