by Pierce Brown
“WHAT DO YOU THINK?” Volga asks me. Sleet rolls in from the sea to pour down on us. We crouch low behind a jagged scree of rocks, peering through scavenged oculars at a small fishing town. Several hundred homes lie scattered on the coastline like raisins in crumbling pastry. The weathered buildings are made from local rock and domed with metal roofs capped with winter sludge. Warm light glows from slits in their shutters. I scan the air for the Vox patrols that have been looking for us over the past weeks. The sea bucks and heaves, rocking the few small boats left in the harbor. Nothing rides the wind but sea hawks and gulls. I imagine them rushing home, just like the villagers, before the squall comes in full.
I wish we were in one of those little houses, maybe sitting by the fire with big blankets and socks. Not the thin polymer socks they gave out at the camp. The wool ones they gave us in the Telemanus household, so thick you can curl your toes in them.
“Look at that, the Red was right,” Victra says. She jabs her finger at three long metal poles rising up from a gray building hunched along the promontory north of the town. It looks like some old military installation. Several old fliers are parked in front of it, and from the snow piling up, they look like they haven’t been moved in days. “There is a radio tower here.”
I could feel its vibrations through the parasite. Growing in intensity as we crept nearer across the highlands. Aside from those vibrations, the parasite has been quiet since I saw Harmony. But by the fact that Victra even listened to me, I know she knows what’s in my skull.
“All this trepidation is giving me cankers,” she says. “Much as I’d like to give birth in a freezing glen like a sow, it would be a dreary inconvenience if wolves ate my little girl before she could even walk. We use the array to boost our signal, we’re in my fortresses at Hippolyte or Attica by tomorrow morning.”
As if to taunt her, the highland wolves howl in the distance. Or is it just the wind? She looks more annoyed than afraid. To be fair, I’d pity the wolves that tried to make a meal out of this woman. She’s tougher than nature itself. Nine months pregnant, she’s set a pace I can barely match.
“I was not asking you,” Volga says in exhaustion.
“Of course, why ask the Peerless Scarred who has led two Iron Rains when there’s a perfectly ignorant mine lass to consult for strategic advice?”
“Because you are reckless!” Volga says. “You act like you carry an army everywhere. You would not make it two days as a freelancer. Now be quiet! Lyria found this place, so Lyria’s opinion matters more than yours right now.”
Victra sulks back against the rocks, disturbing the snow in a blackberry shrub above her. Even after two weeks of plodding through rain and snow and sleeping under the shelter of trees, she manages to look glamorous. Her jade earrings, which she refuses to remove, blaze against the snow. Meanwhile, I think I’ve somehow got fleas.
By her count, Victra should have had the baby weeks ago, though how many she doesn’t say. I’d pull it out of her myself if I were sure her private bits wouldn’t bite my hand off at the elbow. “I nearly wish you’d let the Red Hand find me. Would have been preferable to watching you two bumble about like drunk mummers as I starve to death.”
“You ate all the rations,” I snap, scratching my head in irritation.
“I’m eating for two. You’re barely one.”
“And you’re the one the Red Hand wants,” I reply. “How many of their mines did you own again?”
“Not enough apparently.”
“We are all hungry and frustrated…” Volga tries. Fig’s black orb is nestled under one of her big arms. Though she lost the pack of money in a river crossing, she hasn’t let the orb out of her sight since she stole it from the wreckage.
“You should have let me try to kill that deer,” Victra sneers at Volga. “Even carrying around this gorydamn asteroid in my stomach, I could have stalked it better than you. Can’t hunt. Can’t start a fire. Can’t navigate by starlight. I swear, you are by far the worst Obsidian I have ever had the displeasure of laying eyes upon. Have you two never been outside before?”
“You told us we couldn’t have a fire,” I say. “Because of the trackers.”
“Immaterial. It’s your rank ignorance that matters.”
Volga considers making a comment, but somehow her patience prevails. “I will go down and talk to them,” she says. Victra and I laugh, then glare at each other. Volga looks offended. “I will call Ephraim. He will come for me.”
“You might not give the best first impression,” I say gently.
Victra snorts. “She means you look like an electrocuted rock monster.”
Volga touches her huge head of hair. “It is the humidity…”
“And there is no way I let you call Ephraim fucking Horn. I will go and call my legions in Attica and Hippolyte,” Victra says.
“They’ll recognize you! You’re one of the most famous people in the worlds.”
“Yes, I am, aren’t I? They’ll know I can pay.”
“What if there’s Red Hand there?” I ask.
“We’ve watched for three hours.”
“Well, they don’t exactly wave flags, do they?”
“We lost those trackers days ago. Lost the appetite after I visited their camp.” She did, killing four of the ones with nose mods before running back to us cackling. “For all they know, we’re forty klicks west of here. I don’t see any materiel or transports. If there’s any here, we kill them.” She fondles the hilt of her razor under her coat like it’s a bloodydamn baby itself. “It’s not like we need to hold a town council. We just need that transmitter. You’re being entirely overcautious.”
The fact that she’s even letting us have a voice shows how far her pregnancy has progressed. It’ll come any moment.
I look down at her belly. “You sure you’re up to that sort of thing…”
“I’m pregnant, not an invalid.”
“You just don’t like people being decent to you, do you?”
“Blister. That’s what you are. Red, puffy, and irritating. I’m going to go piss, then I’m going to go down there and use that transmitter to call my men. Can’t reach my main force in Hippolyte, by the look of that army. But I’ve a full legion at my fortress in Attica. Fifty thousand of my house troops. If they were doing their jobs, they’d be scouring this countryside by now. But I’ll roust those lazy piglets, and we’ll be having baths by tomorrow morning, ladies. Then supper till you’re both fat as hens. Then back to the kidnapper you go. And I get my loves. And gear up for war.”
I glare after her as she stumbles away across the rocks.
“A bath does sound nice,” I say.
“Ephraim would come for me,” Volga repeats. I remember Ephraim’s face when he heard the Sovereign had Volga. But would he try for her twice? I give up guessing and glare at Victra.
“You are doing a good thing,” Volga says. “Just think about having that bath and a real meal.”
“Oh, leave off. How do you not choke her to death?”
Sleet gathers on her eyebrows as she considers it. “Two nights ago, I thought about it after she called me a geriatric walrus. But I do not think it would work. She fought beside Sefi herself. And Darrow. No, she is too much for me, even now. Unless I was able to shoot her from afar.”
“That was a joke.”
“Oh.” Her eyes flick left. “As was mine.”
“Right.” I glance back at the village. There’s little movement. Likely all huddled inside eating dinner what with this weather. “I don’t like it.”
There’s the sounds of rocks moving behind us. We turn to see Victra stumbling back, fresh annoyance on her face. “Of all the gory inconveniences…” She looks up at the weather. With the sleet gathering on her cheeks, and her hair matted back, she makes me think of a statue I saw in Hyperion. Lady Victory, the wife of Silenius
the Lightbringer. “Sorry, ladies,” she says with a wry grin. She holds up glistening fingers. “Little monster’s coming. Looks like she’s a mover.”
“That settles it,” I say, knowing we can’t risk going into the old installation. But we need shelter. Me probably even more than Victra’s newborn will. Thing will probably come out with fangs and a silk cloak.
I rush down the scree. At the edge of the village, a stooped old Red chisels ice off the roof of his stone house. I don’t see anyone else out, and his house looks large enough and far off enough from the others to not draw too many eyes. “ ’Lo,” I call. He doesn’t hear me over the howl of the wind. “ ’Lo!” He turns to squint down at me through a snow mask. Then he sees the pistol in my hand. “I need your help, brother.”
“You askin’ or tellin’, lass?”
“Tellin’, I suppose.”
He awkwardly climbs off the roof. “You been out in that?”
“Who’s in the house?” I ask.
“None your.” He looks to the hills.
“Scorcher says it is my.”
“Me kids,” he says. He nods to the sky. “Saw the firefight. Who else you got out there?”
I wave Volga and Victra down the hill. They slump forward in the gloom, sticking behind shrubs to keep out of sight of the rest of the town. Volga is less than polite. She lifts the man by his collar and breaches the house holding her rifle like a pistol in one hand and the man dangling in her other. Victra and I follow.
A young girl, maybe twelve, and a boy of sixteen stare at us as we come in, wet and armed. The boy bolts upright from the table and grabs a heavy mug, nearly spilling his soup. The girl stares at us from the kitchen, trembling. Her hands knot the corners of her grease-stained apron.
“Alred, Brea, all’s well!” the man says. “All’s well. These are…new friends.”
The boy holds his mug tight, looking between his father and the huge women who’ve got his father at gunpoint. I kick the door shut and start drawing the curtains.
“Volga, set him down,” Victra says.
“We do not know him.”
“You’re in his home. Be polite. They’re just Reds, no offense.”
Volga warily sets the Red man down. He smiles nervously. “Strong lass there.”
“How quaint,” Victra says magnanimously of the small home. She has to bend to not hit her head on the timber crossbeams. “Apologies for the intrusion. I desire hot water, clean cloth, soap, pen, paper, and the hardest liquor you can provide. Fear not, this won’t be a hostile interaction unless your manners become as dreadful as the ones to which we’ve been reduced. By tomorrow morning, you will be one million credits richer, and we will be gone.” Volga’s already searching the house for weapons and coms. “Take off that absurd domino. Your mask, man. And your name.”
Volga finds two old rifles in the cupboard as well as a pistol. She disassembles them in three easy movements and takes small pieces from each for her pockets.
“Cormac O’Vadros.” The man pulls off his snow-crusted mask. Despite his shock of white hair, he’s not quite so old as I thought. But he is stooped, and his right leg seems janky. Maybe artificial. Deep lines groove his bearded face. He takes in Victra, her bulging waistline, and nods. “ ’Course. Alred, boil water. Brea, be a good lass and get the linens from your room.” Volga follows the girl into the other room as if she were going to get rocket launchers. Cormac gestures to my gun with a twinkle in his eye. “Big gun for a little lass. Think you need it?”
“Depends on you.”
“Not what I meant.” He nods to Volga and Victra. “You got them. Whatchu need that for?”
I keep the pistol anyway. “Bedroom?”
“Thought you’d never ask.” He leads me across the small common room to one of the home’s two bedrooms as Volga, finished with her search for now, tries to help Victra out of her wet clothing. Victra slaps her hands away. “Just mind our hosts.” She follows us into the bedroom and starts undressing. Cormac watches without expression. Volga comes in, picks him up with one hand and shoves him out the door, back into the common room.
“You expecting visitors?” she asks.
“In this squall?” he says, laughing, but his eyes dart to his children in worry. “Naw. No visitors.”
“Good, we will be cozy then.”
The sound of their voices muffle as I close the door to a crack. The bedroom is small and simple. A narrow bed with heavy quilts lies in the corner next to a coil heater. A pair of old miner boots like my pa’s hang on the wall along with a rusted slingBlade. There’s a small crochet on one of the bedside stools and a little glass filled with holly and red winter berries. Must be his wife left it there.
“Where’s your wife?” I ask Cormac, opening the door halfway.
“She’s out to sea till week’s end with the rest o’ my kin. Not much for boats meself. I tend the homestead.”
Volga takes over the questioning as I shut the door again.
Victra tosses her clothes into the corner. I am startled by the sight of her body. Her back is heavily muscled and broad. It’s a history of scars, including two bullet holes along her spine. More scars cover her arms, her buttocks, her powerful thighs. More old wounds than a whole drillteam. Respect.
“Have the contractions started?” I ask, handing her pen and paper I found on the counter.
“You japing?” She grins. “Lost my mucus plug days back. Been having contractions the last thirty klicks.”
“You didn’t say anything.”
“You two worry like hens. Thought I could hold it till we got to the transmitter, but you two are right. Big building. Anything could be in there.” She starts writing on the paper, whistling as she does. “You ever been pregnant?” she asks.
“I’m shy nineteen.”
“Well, you are Red, anyway….”
“It’s like getting punched by a Telemanus. Got a real world breaker in here.” She leans naked against the wall, not a lick given for modesty. I strip off the top quilt and make up the bed. She looks up from her writing in amused contempt. “What in Jove’s name are you doing?”
“Makin’ up the bed for you.”
She goes back to writing. “Why?”
“Thought you might want to lay down?”
“I am daughter of Julii,” she says without looking up from the paper. “Not some mine wench who gives birth on her back. I stand when I deliver. All I need from you is silence and absence and that water and alcohol to wash my hands. Be polite to our hosts, please.”
Chuffed, I slam the door behind me.
In the common room, the water is beginning to boil on the thermal stove. Alred, the boy, glares at me as I ask him to take it into the bedroom. He’s a gangly one with a temper. Reminds me of my own brother Dagan. His sister brings her linens out of her room. Small and elfin-faced, she wears the skirts of a woman and a thick shawl. She shuffles nervously as I smile at her.
“What’s your name?” I ask her. “Was it Brea?”
She nods.
“Sorry if we’re giving you a fright. Promise we’re good folk. Just a little lost is all. Where’s your ma?”
She looks at the ground.
“She’s mute,” her father says from the table, where he leans back sipping ale from his mug. “Brea, come here, love.” The girl goes and stands next to him. He kisses the back of her head and gives me a grimace. “Been that way for years. Ever since her ma…” He squeezes her. She looks anything but comfortable.
There’s shouting as Alred delivers the water and booze. He comes back from Julii’s tirade flushed red, with a note from Victra. It’s just fifty lines of numbers.
“What’s this?” I call.
“Cryptogram,” she shouts. “Best I could come up with on short notice. Give it to Volga. She can use the array’s main uplink
to send it. But not while I’m in labor. I need a bodyguard.”
“I could take it,” I say, peeking through the door.
“Do you know how to force link to the holoNet and send a private encoded message?” I say nothing. “No, so stop trying to prove yourself and let the freelancer earn her keep.”
I mutter curses as I cross the room to give Volga her instructions and the cryptogram. “Ah, a cryptogram,” she says, one eye on the Reds. I don’t like the look of Cormac much either. “Oh, fifty lines. She did this in her head?”
“Apparently.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah, she knows.”
Volga tucks it away and I schlep over to the table to twiddle my thumbs. “Said your name is Cormac?” Volga asks the man from the door. She leans against it like a sentry on duty.
“That’s right, love. You got some good Common on you.”
“Why shouldn’t I?” she asks.
“Didn’t mean nothin’ by it. Sorry. Always runnin’ me gob.” He winces and sips from his mug.
He’s far younger than I thought he was even on second inspection. Not an old man at all. Maybe thirty. Why’s his hair so white? His hands are heavy and scarred. Eyes blood-red and set in a passive, kind face with a natural frown. I tap my foot in agitation. I don’t like him one bit.
“I am Volga, this is Lyria,” Volga says neutrally. “We’re not going to hurt you. I promise. We only need a place for the night. She’s in labor.”
“Thought Golds hatched out of big metal eggs.”
“They do not.”
He smiles. “Joke. You could have asked nicely. Woulda put you up. Be criminal to turn out a full-on woman in this.” His eyes dart to the drapes over the windows.
“Well, you see…” Volga begins.
I interrupt her. “Where you from, Cormac?”
