Dark Age

by Pierce Brown

  A playroom? Now Fig’s display makes sense. I feel about one millimeter tall.

  “You saw what it did to us…” Volga says.

  “Yes, well, a little friction never hurt anyone’s character. Seemed to do you wonders. If you were this bloodthirsty last year, your family might still be—”

  A surge of anger goes through me and I fire the pulseFist at the ground near Victra’s head. I’m thrown backward by the recoil and almost drop the weapon. Victra didn’t even flinch. She yawns as steam from the melted snow clouds around her. “Gods, you Reds are dramatic.”

  Volga takes the weapon from me.

  “She is pregnant! I will not be evil.”

  “Evil?” I snap. “You just plucked out Fig’s eyeballs.”

  “She was already dead. She did not need them.”

  “Figment’s dead?” Victra says. “Shit. Well, there’s thirty million credits wasted. I’ll miss her sparkling personality.” A thought comes to her. “Who was with her when she died?” Volga nods to me. Victra’s eyes fixate.

  Does she know about the parasite?

  “Thanks,” I say to Volga.

  “You were, though.”

  “Why would you tell her anything?”

  “Not to be rude, but would you two mind bickering some other time and help me get this colossal tree off of my legs? My men will be homing on our signal, but it’s hardly dignified to be found lying on my back like a beached whale. I’ll never hear the end of it.”

  “We’re not helping you,” I say.

  Volga looks like she wants to. “Where are your other daughters?” she asks.

  “Safe.”

  “You’re not helping her,” I say.

  Volga turns on me, a low growl in her voice. “You do not control me. I will do what I think is right.”

  “And you’re going to help this bitch? What happened to it not being our battle?”

  Volga says nothing.

  “Darling, don’t be such a mule. I understand you are so oppressed,” Victra says. “But let’s not be sanctimonious. You stole my daughter. Both of you. And I was decent enough to arrange a transfer to that Gray friend of yours when he didn’t even stipulate you needed to be in one piece. By any measure, I’m positively benevolent. You were both on your way to being Obsidian pets until those…things took my ship.”

  “Ascomanni,” Volga corrects.

  “Maybe,” Victra says.

  “It was them,” Volga insists. Victra’s eyes suggest she agrees. “They knew my name.” Victra frowns, not completely surprised. What does she know?

  “My point is, the least you could do is help me preserve some vestige of reputation by getting this gorydamn tree off my gorydamn legs,” she says. “If you want money for it, that’s no problem. What’s your price?”

  “Money can’t solve everything,” I tell her.

  “Wrong, but whatever.”

  I bend down close as I dare to her. “It won’t help you here. Try some dignity. In the end it’s all you have.”

  Her smile for me is cold. “I do love circularity. But when my men get here maybe we just leave you.”

  “I don’t need your help, and I don’t need Ephraim to trade for me,” I tell her, and stalk back to the ship. Volga catches up with me.

  “Where are you going, Lyria?” she asks.

  “Not your problem.”

  “Her men are coming. If we wait here, we will be safe.”

  How can she say that when Victra’s men couldn’t even protect us from the Ascomanni in the heart of her flagship? If they come here…I shake my head.

  “We owe her a debt,” Volga presses.

  “I paid mine in that cell. So did you. You think she’s helpless because she’s packing a baby? She’s a Peerless Scarred, you idiot.”

  “I am not an idiot,” Volga says, offended.

  “You really want to get tangled with them? Is that what Ephraim would want you to do?”

  “Ephraim is broken. I could run from that up there. But if I run from this…” She shakes her head, then raises it high. “My debt will be paid when I return her child to her.” She sets a hand on my shoulder. “Do it with me.”

  I look at Volga’s knife tucked into her waistband. The blood from Fig’s eyes seeps through their hiding place in her shirt. She thinks she’ll get rich off this. Fool. “Hope she gives you all the money you ever wanted. Unlike you, I’m not for sale.”

  I leave her.

  Soon I’ve packed half the supplies I found in the wreckage and donned a set of gray thermal pants from a supply locker. With my feet slipping around in the too-large boots of some dead Gray, I start walking south, away from the crash site. Part of me waits for Volga to catch up with me.

  She doesn’t.

  All that lies before me is stone and icy sludge. A vast landscape that would swallow me without anyone noticing. This isn’t home. This is the first time I’ve felt truly alone since replying to Volga’s note. How does that already seem a lifetime ago?

  I look back at the ship. It’s little more than a dot now. I don’t have a plan, but I don’t want to be saved by Victra’s men. I don’t want to be traded back to Ephraim and owe him for the favor. I’d rather freeze to death trying to go it on my own.

  Walking along the fjord, I see several ships skimming just over the dark water down below as they head for the crash site. They’re little more than dots at this distance. That’ll be Victra’s men. Takes me almost a minute to figure how to turn on the oculars I foraged. When I’ve got them working, I focus on the lead ship. I roll the magnifier. Ship looks like a pelican, one of those old transports with those round bodies and slightly curved wings. A bit less stately than I’d expect for a Gold’s rescue party. No Julii or Barca insignia either. I switch to the next one. Another pelican, older. On its side is painted the face of a Pink model drinking a bottle of Ambrosia. I pause. Its lights blaze just as they did that day when my family was butchered.

  I turn and run back across the plateau. I’m dizzy from exhaustion by the time I find Volga near the crash site, helping Victra out of her battered armor. Volga smiles at me.

  “I knew you would come back.”

  “Red Hand.” I gasp for air. “Red Hand is coming.”

  Volga slings forward a scavenged rifle. “Red Hand? Are you certain?”

  “It’s a day for vultures,” Victra mutters. She scans the sky, and I think she finally understands that, for some reason, her men aren’t coming. “They’ll kill me and the coldie.” She glances at me. “Might be worse for you, Gamma.”

  I look at her belly. It’s about ready to burst. “Can you…”

  She bolts, already ten meters away and moving fast. Volga’s on her tail. Shit.

  I struggle after them in the deep snow. They’re incredibly fast. Victra’s legs drive her like pistons through the forest and straight up a huge hill as she cradles her stomach. Volga ambles along behind her, struggling to keep up. Soon they’re out of sight, and I follow only by their tracks. But soon those disappear as well. I search the ground, and something glows on a branch. A fading yellow handprint. There’s more on the tree limbs heading right. Thermal ghosts.

  My hand drifts to my head.

  What is inside me?

  I climb up the tree and shimmy along its branches, hurling myself along them to follow until they drop down and the tracks continue through the snow. A stitch has made its way into my side by the time I catch up to them atop the hill. Volga’s lying on her belly wheezing for air. Victra’s squatting behind a rock, peering down at the crash site.

  “Bloodydamn,” I mutter as I fall into the snow beside them.

  “Told you she’d spot the tracks,” Victra says to Volga.

  Volga looks at me in confusion, then points at Victra’s belly. “How fast are you without that?”
/>
  “It would be rude to brag.”

  Still heaving for air, I pull myself up on a rock to look over. The shuttles are just setting down. No thermal readouts come this time. Several dozen shouting Reds pour out the back. I hand Victra my oculars. She pushes them away as if I insulted her. I pull them up to look through them, but Volga takes them away to use for herself. Muttering, I watch with my naked eyes as the Reds search the interior of the crash site. A lone figure stands apart from the rest of them.

  “Well, damn my eyes,” Victra says with narrowing eyes. “The chief bitch herself. What in Jove’s name is she doing here?”

  “Who?” I ask.

  Victra considers, then refuses to answer. Volga’s gone stiff. I reach to take my oculars back. Volga surrenders them reluctantly. Victra snatches them away. “Doesn’t matter,” she says.

  “Let her see,” Volga says. “She has a right.”

  “See what?”

  “Time to go,” Victra says.

  “Give me the oculars.” I snatch at them, but she pushes me off like a child. Simmering, I glare back over the rock at the lone figure. There’s an ache at the base of my skull. Slowly the blurry figure begins to sharpen. Not magnify exactly, but become substantial, recognizable to my brain even though she is little more than a pinprick.

  When she turns, I go very still. Her face is as I remember it. Half beauty. Half horrible scar. It was stained green by the gunfire that killed my brother when she pulled the trigger.

  “I know that woman,” I whisper.

  Volga frowns. “How can you—”

  “Her name is Harmony,” Victra says, watching me with curiosity. “The bad seed of Ares. And the leader of the Red Hand. I see you remember her.”

  “She attacked 121,” I murmur. Heat radiates down my spine, deepening until a pinching sensation grips the back of my skull. Pixels flash across my vision. My heart begins to race as my limbs prick with sensation. It’s like I can hear everything around me. The gurgling of gastric fluids in Volga’s empty stomach. The sound of each flake of snow falling. The purr of the distant ship. Even the movement of Victra’s baby in her womb. Then the orb whispers again from Volga’s side.

  Victra frowns at me, noting a change. “So your file reads. Kavax let her slither away.”

  “She killed your brother,” Volga asks. “Scars, yes?” I told her that in the notes.

  My hearing reverts to normal. I nod my head, torn between confusion and rage. “And my father, and my sister, and her children. Why is she here?”

  “Her husband and children died in a mine my family owned,” Victra says. “That woman is why Sevro’s father ended up with his head in a box. Couldn’t stand that Ares was a Gold. As for how she knew I was here…” She chews her lip in thought.

  “Do you want me to kill her?” Volga asks, shifting her rifle.

  “No,” Victra says.

  “I was not asking you.”

  I stare at Harmony. She’s clearer even than before. She’s lighting a burner as two men with long metal sniffer modjobs instead of noses begin sniffing the snow. “Could you hit her from here?”

  “Probably.”

  “Don’t mock the poor girl,” Victra says. “It’s one point two kilometers. You’d need a drift scope in this wind. With that pulseRifle’s muzzle-flash, you’ll bring those shuttles down on our heads.”

  “This does not concern you,” Volga tells the Gold.

  “That woman has declared a blood war on my family,” she says. “It concerns me. And when they pick us off from those shuttles because you couldn’t delay revenge, it’ll concern all of us. Including my baby.”

  Volga ignores her. “Lyria, do you want me to kill her?”

  I see Harmony’s head crack like an egg. I see blood smear on the snow. I see her gurgling through a hole in her throat. Maybe one in her belly. But one look at Victra’s belly and her knuckles going white as she grips her razor convinces me otherwise. Would Victra kill us even before Volga fired?

  “No,” I say. “She’s not worth it.”

  Is it for the sake of the baby or Volga’s life that I say that?

  Either way, it’s not the response Victra expected. Her hand leaves the hilt of her razor. Volga breathes in relief and sets her rifle on her knees. I feel a strange comfort knowing what she was ready to do for me despite the risk.

  “They’ll find our tracks soon,” Victra says. There are booms high overhead. The night sky spasms with light. “Those…Ascomanni, for lack of better classification, hacked the computer. I didn’t think they could. They took control of the guns. They shredded the escape pods when you two were passed out.” She grimaces. “Had to turn off our beacon, so the Pandora couldn’t home in an orbital strike. With all that debris…My men aren’t coming. Not soon enough at least. We’re on our own.”

  She squints south toward the dark forest. It stretches as far as the eye can see. Her hand drifts to her belly, her only concession to fear. I find myself admiring her coolness even as I hate her. But in the presence of Harmony, that hate suddenly feels so very small. “We need to find a com array or get a boat that can take us south across the sound,” she says. “And we need to go now.”

  SNOW NO LONGER FALLS over Olympia. The morning is bright as I walk the fluffy white streets. I needed to be away from Eagle Rest. It’s been four hours since I descended the stairs and I still can’t walk off the meaty scent of blood and manure from Valdir’s murder of Godeater.

  It does not take long for passing machines to ruin the snow. Sounds of industry clatter through the city. Reds who once languished in assimilation camps work on floating construction skiffs, repairing the city in Sefi’s bid to restore Olympia’s grandeur. They’re doing a hell of a job. While Quicksilver pocketed the money from his helium, Sefi pours it into Cimmeria. Their rule is absolute. Their executions of Red Hand terrorists public and brutal. But they’re spreading the wealth around.

  Lines of Reds and lowColors fresh from the countryside snake out from labor registration facilities. Each is given lodging, a fair salary, and a sense of purpose they’ve not had in years. Many midColors now work for Sefi as administrators. Others are left alone to make money however they see fit, so long as the Obsidians get a piece. The city is coming back to life. I don’t feel that same optimism. Sefi may be good for Mars, for Lyria’s people, but not for Volga.

  Or is it not my choice to make?

  Markets which were home to vagrants and bonfires when I arrived now bustle with new shops full of produce from southern Cimmeria, fish from the Thermic, textiles from Agea, exotic wares from the Core. Obsidians walk alongside Silvers and Browns and Coppers and Reds. It isn’t utopia, but it isn’t war either. Sefi’s dream is coming alive. It’s been weeks since the last Red Hand bombing. Before his breakdown, Valdir had steadily been chasing them from their strongholds up to the highlands. Some say even across the sound.

  It will all break apart when Sefi dies.

  I can’t let her bring Volga into this, but so long as the Julii still has her, I have to play along with Sefi’s game. She knows she has me on a leash.

  A Red boy tries to pickpocket me near a gambling den. I clout him on the ears and then show him proper technique by stealing the chronometer of a passing Silver. I flip it to the boy, and tell him to make his hands move smooth as the chronometer if he wants to keep them.

  He stares at me after I tousle his hair. “You’re Ephraim ti Horn,” he says.

  “Am I?” I look instinctively for Syndicate thorns and laugh when he spits on my jacket. “Hail Reaper!” he cries, and tries to punch me. I yelp and backpedal when I see more Reds coming to investigate.

  I lose them by ducking into a brothel. My nose curls at the familiar smells, and I fend off the madam until the Reds pass. I think it was a bloody lynch mob. Reaper’s people are damn mad. Having lost my taste for a walk, I make for
the long climb up the Bellona Stairs back to Eagle Rest.

  I’m almost trampled by two Reds running past. No manners at all. Am I back in Hyperion? Then I notice a change in the foot traffic. Those with datapads or optic implants stand fixated on their internal and external screens. Others rush for bars or the Alltribe’s new multimedia stations. Even a uniformed Obsidian Watchman and his Red partner let a shoplifter loose to drift toward a window. I fall in behind them.

  Light from a hologram of a space battle splashes through the window. It’s the Pandora. She’s under attack. I sprint back to the stairs.

  * * *

  —

  The Pandora fell to ships bearing Alltribe colors at 0930 Olympia Time.

  The sky rained bodies not long after.

  I caught the battle in flashes through windows as I raced home. I watched the bodies on my datapad after I passed Eagle Rest security.

  The bodies were stripped naked and dumped over Agea at high altitude. In the sunlight, the pale rain of corpses looked almost elegant, like human-shaped feathers twirling through the air. Their fall could almost be mistaken for flight until they collided with Agea’s skyhooks and skyscrapers and parks and paved boulevards and white stone plazas and the roof of Lighthold like a hundred thousand bugs on a windshield.

  The corpses were dropped by four Alltribe troop carriers. Two are shot down by the time I make it to the skuggi training armory. By the time I’m kitted up in scarabSkin and skipBoots, belted with gear, and laden down with a huge insulated carry box for the neodymium magnet, new drones have caught footage of an Obsidian brave in an Alltribe uniform being dragged out of the third ship by aerial commandos. They’ll think Sefi ordered the attack.

  But why in Jove’s name would Sefi attack Victra?