Queen of the Struggle

by Nik Korpon

  Despite the artillery we carry, the civilians don’t seem very cowed. Kids play in tiny front yards, kicking a football back and forth or riding bikes on the cement parking pads. In another life they could easily be Donael and Cobb. Some people hunch over the hoods of their cars, while others paint their house or lean back against their front stoop with a drink in hand. I want to yell at them to get inside before someone catches a stray bullet. I can only hope that we are nearing the end of this.

  We pass by the shop without incident, which makes my pulse race even more. Not attacking on the approach to the prism-flower shop means they were double-feinting, and the real ambush will come at any moment. We slow down two blocks from the warehouse, parking behind a large truck to provide a bit of cover. This way, we can creep up to the site on foot and avoid the spectacle of a caravan.

  Brighid hops out and I follow. Seven of the soldiers fall in line behind us while the other three stand watch by the vehicles. We hurry down the sidewalk, staying low and inconspicuous, rifles strafing each of the surrounding buildings. Someone steps on a bottle and I jump at the crunch, nearly firing. Calm down, woman. You’re going to kill someone like that. I take a deep breath and continue following our line, consciously willing the blood to stop thrumming through my forearms.

  Anyone who is walking by would know we’re about to hit something, but they remain quiet, which is kind of sad. They know it’s better to keep their head down and ignore whatever’s about to happen rather than risk getting involved and getting killed. Let them work and they’ll let you live, is the thinking.

  Except it doesn’t always happen like that.

  We’re two buildings down when a couple kids run along the street, chasing each other. Then they suddenly pause. I see them and freeze, feeling my heartbeat in my throat. I can hear insurgents racking bullets into chambers, a hideous echo inside my head.

  No. No no no no. Do not let them get caught in any crossfire.

  Then one of the kids cups his hands around his mouth and screams, “They’re coming!” The other one punches him in the arm then takes off, the screamer sprinting behind them. My heart jackhammers against my ribs: they just alerted the insurgents.

  “Go,” I tell Brighid. “Go now. Move.”

  We sprint along the sidewalk, readying our weapons as we approach the warehouse. When we get to the place, two of the soldiers slam their metal battering ram into the front door, splintering the wood into large, pointed pieces. They kick the frame twice to clear out the rest of it then we all pour in, rifles barrels scouring the interior.

  The inside is dim, bars of light leaking in through cracks between the plywood nailed against the window. I can taste dust in the air. Scores of massive shapes rise in the darkness, the Tathadann fountains the woman spoke of. No insurgents come rushing at us, but that doesn’t mean they’re not here, lying in wait, because the ruse about the prism-flower shop was obviously a tactic to draw us here. We might not have them outgunned, but everyone aside from me was trained to do this.

  We strafe along the edge of the front room, moving as a semicircle with our backs facing one another, covering all angles as we clear the areas behind the fountains. With nothing to be found here, we move to the next room, pausing at the doorway to listen for any sounds of scurrying feet or hushed directives to attack. There’s nothing, so Brighid signals to advance.

  The second room looks almost the same as the first, though it’s five times as long. I had no idea there was this much water in Eitan, enough that they could ever see the need for thousands of fountains. But sitting a couple hundred feet in front of us, off to the right, is a large tarp covering a mound of something I’m guessing is the armory. I nudge Brighid’s elbow and wordlessly point to it. Brighid motions for us to split up into three groups, her leading one, me leading another, and the lead soldier with the third. We spread out, covering more of the warehouse area, moving carefully between fountains as we watch at every turn for the insurgents who should be guarding these weapons. I haven’t seen any evidence of massive movements of people, pallets of weapons or buckets of ammo, which is no surprise, but I also haven’t seen any footprints of the insurgents getting into place to ambush us. Most of the dust and dirt on the floor seems untouched, though it’s hard to tell much of anything in the low light. Maybe there’s an entrance on the back side of the warehouse we didn’t see, or they moved across the metal beams above us. I don’t see anyone but–

  Then there’s a shuffling sound about a hundred feet in front of us, near the tarp-covered pile. The soldier leads his group over while Brighid and I bring ours forward, checking for other insurgents on the sides who might be trying to outflank us. We move as quickly as we can while remaining silent. Fifty feet away.

  I swear that my heartbeat is echoing through the building.

  There’s a scraping noise coming from behind a row of fountains. It sounds like a piece of wood on the cement floor, probably speckled with nails. Someone gearing up to protect themselves. I would’ve thought they’d have a better choice of weapon, considering there’s a goddamned army’s-worth cache literally at their fingertips. I guess if they were smart, they wouldn’t be fighting against us.

  Brighid holds her hand up for the soldier to wait while her group clears the far side of the room. I bring my people up through the center, looking to head off the attackers. Neither of us find any. The distinct lack of people is unnerving. Where are the other insurgents who are supposed to be guarding the armory, who are supposed to ambush us? Is this a triple feint? I don’t even know how that would work. I tip my head up, scanning the open rafters, half-expecting to see an insurgent wave hello just before splitting me in half with gunfire. But on each side, there’s still nothing. Not even a nest for pigeons. What the hell?

  Something’s not right here. We need to get out, and carefully. Shit, I never even thought to look for tripwires that could be linked to bombs.

  I keep at a low crouch and head toward Brighid to voice my concerns and get her read on the situation when we hear footsteps approaching. I turn toward them just as an insurgent appears from behind a fountain, charging at us with a board raised above his head.

  Brighid yells for him to stop where he is right as the young soldier rattles off a few shots. The insurgent shakes and twitches as the bullets thump into his chest, like he’s being pulled by invisible ropes. He stumbles forward two steps then collapses on the floor, five feet in front of us. There’s more scrabbling back behind the row of fountains.

  “Got him, ma’am.”

  Brighid points at the area, says, “Find the others,” to the soldiers.

  The soldiers advance to capture the rest of the insurgents.

  “Search him,” Brighid says to me. “See if he has a comm link or anything.”

  I kneel down and run my hands over the insurgent’s back, searching for anything. His coat is rough against my fingers, but it’s not because it’s military-grade fabric. It’s from the stitching – the sinew that’s holding the animal pelts together. His jacket isn’t even made of goddamned fabric. This is what we’re fighting against now? This is their future for Eitan? I crouch down and heft him over, revealing a thick scraggly beard and dirt sunken into the furrows on his face. Shit. I don’t run my hands over his front because I don’t need to. There’s no comm device. There won’t even be any weapon. Because even in the low light I can tell that this man is sure as hell not an insurgent or a mercenary: he’s a squatter.

  But when I jump up to tell Brighid, I see the soldiers rounding the fountains with their rifles raised. Someone yells and I scream for them to stop but it’s all lost under the racket of rifle fire, the flashes from the muzzles casting the soldiers’ faces in a sickly pall. The echoing of bullets bounces off the metal walls and shatters, embedding itself in my skin and leeching into my blood. I can feel my body sinking away from me, receding from the warehouse. How did we end up like this?

  The shooting ends as quickly as it began, the only sounds in the wareho
use the cracking and crumbling of the ceramic fountains, the soft pulsing of blood rushing out onto the cement floor. I feel a sucking sensation inside my body, like it’s trying to collapse on itself. Someone weeps softly then a single pistol shot crackles through the air, and it’s enough to make my knees give out from beneath me.

  “God damn it,” I yell at the soldiers, crawling across the floor toward them.

  They rush forward to secure the armory, but when they yank back the tarp covering it, they find not stacks of guns and bombs and ammunition cases, but sacks. Sacks filled with discarded clothes, with blankets to soften the cement floor, with scraps of food held in airtight containers to keep the rats out. This is a makeshift apartment, not a massive armory.

  And in the middle of the apartment, five punctured bodies. I recognize one who fought with us during the uprising. But I’m barely able to say that to Brighid before my breath evaporates. Because lying among the bodies is one tiny girl. Her pigtails are braided, one held with a rubber band wrapped round a dozen times, the other with a chipped yellow flower hairclip. Her eyes are focused on a point a thousand miles beyond the ceiling. I cough out a wail, choke it back, then it comes barreling back. I bite my hand until I taste metal to keep myself from screaming. One of the soldiers slips his hands beneath my armpits and hefts me to my feet.

  “Miss,” he says, “you need to pull yourself together.”

  “Fuck you,” I scream at him.

  Brighid paces behind them, her breath rushing in and out of her nostrils, cursing to herself. I wipe my face dry then start toward her but stop. What am I supposed to say? This was my fault. I should have verified the location with intelligence before bringing it to Brighid, but I was overeager, trying to keep us from getting ambushed again, and now that little girl is dead because of me. That woman, the mole, the one who left a dead pigeon on my pillow, she knew I was listening. She fed me misinformation and I gobbled it down like a starving woman. She orchestrated this perfectly because now we’ve done something that will fit in with their portraying anyone who isn’t them as the new tyrants of Eitan. We gave them more fodder for their cause.

  I have to take responsibility for this, for the girl. Yes, the mole was the one who lied, but I’m the one who believed it. Wiggling away is what the Tathadann would do, believing in their own infallibility. Whatever it costs me, I have to fall on my sword.

  “Brighid,” I say, approaching her with my back straight and my voice as calm as I can keep it.

  But before I can get another word out, she spins on her heels and whips out her pistol. I feel the bullet pressing against my skull, the bone giving way and the grey matter liquefying before it splashes out the back, and I’m actually relieved by the whole sensation. Then I snap to and watch Brighid set her pistol behind the young soldier’s head before pulling the trigger. A splash of blood and hair bursts from his forehead, then he falls forward, landing on top of the squatters.

  “Brighid,” I say again, quieter this time, but she ignores me.

  “You see this man.” She points at the dead soldier at her feet, addressing the others. “He did not possess the temperament necessary to be part of us. He was too easily excited, let his nerves get the best of him and cloud his judgment.”

  “Befälhavare,” the lead soldier says. He stops short when Brighid trains her pistol on him.

  “Brighid,” I say again. “Let him talk.”

  Jaw set tight, breath rolling in and out of her nostrils, she looks the soldier in the eyes for some long seconds before finally lowering her pistol.

  “Say your piece.”

  “This wasn’t his fault. He didn’t plan this.”

  I can’t tell if that’s a defense of him or an accusation of me.

  “He could not control himself,” Brighid says. “If he had restrained the man, we could have defused the situation. He didn’t, and now five innocents are dead. And for what? For one rebel?”

  She looks down at the pile of bodies and says something that sounds like a curse in a language I don’t speak. The warehouse thrums with silence, the normal city noises from outside somehow unable to penetrate. Or maybe my ears are still ringing from the gunfire, keeping the real world out.

  She points at three soldiers. “Canvas the surrounding area. See what people heard. Let them know there were dangerous dissidents who attacked us, the same ones who are trying to undermine Eitan’s liberation with Perre Cantonae.” They nod in assent. She motions to the rest of the soldiers. “You lot,” she says, swallowing like she’s got a hitch in her throat, “make these bodies disappear, but save the rebel’s. No one can hear about this.” The soldiers nod, though their faces are grave.

  “They’re citizens of Eitan,” I say. “We have to give them a proper burial.”

  “And risk anyone seeing what just happened? We just murdered five innocents.”

  “All the Tathadann did was lie and manipulate reality to save face. We were supposed to be the antidote to that.”

  “Well, you’re doing a shitty job of it.” She gestures toward the soldiers. “Burn the bodies. Leave no trace.”

  I feel my body rush out through my feet as I realize we’re turning into everything we hated.

  “Follow me,” she says without pausing.

  When I start to talk, she shushes me and waits until we’re out of earshot before speaking.

  “I know she set us up,” Brighid says with enough force to make me lean back. I know she could be saying it to get me to relax, lower my guard. I don’t hold it against her, though. I’d do the same thing. “That cunt. I know she did it.”

  “How do you know it wasn’t my mistake?” It’s a question I don’t particularly like asking but the way she answers it will tell me whether I should expect a bullet in the head.

  Brighid, she glances up at me, still walking through the warehouse toward the trucks. “It was. But you’re good at what you do.”

  I hook my chin back behind us, indicating the bodies. “Those people are dead because of me.”

  “Everyone has their moments.” She steps through the front door into the outside, the sudden light making me squint and washing out all the color. We both blink a few times. “I understand you wanting to do right by those people, but this is war, and war is no time to stumble over feelings.”

  “They should still be alive.”

  “And you should’ve checked with intel first.” She spits on the ground. “But here we are.”

  I nod, biting the inside of my cheek. “Here we are.”

  “Next time you’ll check, and we won’t have to deal with this again.”

  I nod, more out of reflex than conscious thought.

  “Because if we do,” she says, “I’ll have to kill you.”

  I stop chewing on my cheek, keep my expression as blank as possible while staring at her. I nod that I understand, and she nods in return before jumping into a truck and heading back home.

  I watch her drive off, listening to the engine fade as the sounds of the neighborhood filter in. My new mission in life is to hunt down the goddamned woman who got these squatters and this poor little girl killed and is trying to kill us, to – once again – burn down all that we’ve fought for. That’s already happened once and I sure as hell will not let it happen again.

  Still, all I can think as Brighid’s truck disappears around a corner is, You can’t kill me if I kill you first.

  19.

  HENRAEK

  As soon as the clock reaches a socially acceptable time, I’m standing in front of Dyvik’s house, pounding on his door. The couple on the other side of the street stare at me like I’m insane, and I suppose what would pass for normal in Eitan doesn’t always here. Still, I need Dyvik and I need him now, so I bang on his door again. The script in Emeríann’s letter has been flowing through my head, unraveling throughout my sleepless night.

  Brighid is killing us.

  Please help.

  I love you all.

  I raise my hand to pound agai
n when the door flies open, revealing Lyxzä in trousers and an old long-sleeved shirt, a shotgun in her hand. The neck of her shirt hangs low, and I can see a semicircle of scarring in the middle of her chest, disappearing below her shirt.

  “What the hell?” she says, lowering the gun when she sees my face. “Are you trying to get killed?”

  “Where’s Dyvik? I need to talk to him. Immediately.”

  “At work, obviously. What happened?”

  “Brighid,” I say. “Brighid happened.”

  She steps past me to get a look outside, scans the area with shotgun in hand, then hooks her chin down the street. “He’s at the store, meeting with Magnus.” I start to turn away when she grabs my arm. “He’s all I have left.”

  “I know that.”

  “Nothing can happen to him. He can’t be captured.”

  “You understand that I will be sacrificed before a crowd if Ødven hears even a hint about what I’m doing out here, right? My boys will be orphaned.”

  “I do,” she says, “but betrayal is never anyone’s style until it’s necessary. Then it’s just another compromise you had to make along the way.”

  I hold her stare for a long minute before turning and breaking away. I head up the street.

  Magnus jumps upright when I burst through the front door of the general store, his fists cocked back and ready to obliterate me.

  “Henraek?” Dyvik says, standing behind the counter. “What’s wrong?”

  “We need to get back to Eitan.”

  Dyvik’s shoulders slump. Magnus’s jaw clenches.

  “You need to repeat that,” Magnus says.

  “It’s important. Incredibly important. I need to get back now. Me and the boys. I can’t leave them alone.”

  “We’re supposed to hit the labor farms next week.” Dyvik rests his hands on the counter, lets his head hang low. “We’ve put plans in motion. Our people are already moving to the towns we discussed. We can’t get ahold of them now.”