by Scott Sigler
I think I have her timing. I thrust at her face. She ducks and spins. I’ve fought her before, know she’ll sweep my legs as she completes that spin, so I jump before she does—her spear’s wooden blade whizzes harmlessly beneath my feet. I land and lunge in the same motion before she can bring her spear up to defend, put my blade behind her feet and throw my shoulder into her chest.
Bawden falls hard on her back, air whuffing out of her lungs.
My wooden spear tip is at her throat. She freezes.
“Point, Savage,” Farrar says. “Way to be predictable, Bawden.”
She glares up at him. “I won two out of three!”
“Which will look nice on your gravestone.”
Bawden slaps the sand in frustration. I guess it’s not as fun when she loses. I offer my hand. She takes it and I pull her to her feet.
“Rotate partners,” Bishop calls out.
There are six sand-filled circles at the plaza’s edge. This is where we train. We practice with spears, blunt knives, rifles with dull bayonets, and whatever random things Farrar brings—sticks, broken bits of masonry…even rocks. Once he made us fight with belts. Belts hurt.
The main thing we do, though, is spar. One-on-one, two-on-one, on our feet, from our backs, one arm tied down as if we were wounded, you name it. These are the skills that will keep us alive in combat.
“Lucky,” Bawden says. “I’ll kick your ass next time, Savage.”
“Looking forward to it.”
With that, we both move to the circles on our respective rights.
I find myself facing Victor Muller.
Inside, I cringe. I’ve never beaten him.
He’s shaved his head. The medical coffins healed his scalp burns, but he was left with a big missing patch of hair so he cut it all off. His locks were beautiful, yet somehow he looks even better with nothing but stubble.
Victor smiles at me, wide and genuine and a little awkward, and I’m suddenly reminded that Bishop thinks this boy has a crush on me.
“Bow and begin,” Bishop calls to everyone.
Victor and I bow. I grip my spear, hunting for a weakness in the boy’s stance. There isn’t one.
He lunges and thrusts. I parry. His spear whirls so fast I don’t even see his second strike—the wooden blade presses into the side of my neck.
“Point,” he says. “Your hair looks nice today, Em.”
My hair’s in a tightly braided ponytail, just like always.
“You tell Zubiri her hair looks nice?”
He shrugs. “Haven’t seen her. She’s very busy.”
We return to our starting spots. Victor is so fast. Beating him seems impossible. But there has to be a way. There is always a way.
We bow. This time I don’t wait—I lunge, feinting at Victor’s head before sweeping at his thighs.
He doesn’t buy the feint at all, doesn’t even move. He blocks my clumsy strike. I start to back away, but he thrusts at my eyes. I blink before I realize I’m doing it, feel his foot behind my heel. I’m falling, but his move tells me where his leg is. I surprise myself with my speed, jam the butt of my spear into his kneecap.
I feel the thonk of impact, hear him yelp in pain.
I hit the ground and roll to my feet.
As soon as I’m up, his spear shaft smacks into my chest, drives me backward. I stumble, then his fist drives into my stomach so hard it lifts me off my feet. I drop my spear, land awkwardly on my hands and knees.
Victor’s wooden blade touches the side of my neck.
“Point,” he says. He smiles wide, extends his hand. “Nice shot to my knee! You’re getting so much better, you—”
Bishop levels him with a flying tackle.
The two boys spill into the next circle over, knocking those combatants aside.
Bishop lands on top. He drives an elbow into Victor’s mouth—a tooth arcs away.
“You don’t TOUCH her,” Bishop screams, the roar of a mindless animal.
He rears back for another strike. Before it lands, Bawden rushes in, drives the butt of her spear into Bishop’s forehead. The thonk echoes across the plaza.
Inside of me, rage explodes.
I stand, step and throw in a perfect motion—my spear closes the short distance in an instant. The wooden point bounces hard off Bawden’s sternum. She cries out, crumples to the ground.
Victor staggers to his feet, blood pouring from his snarling mouth. Just as Bishop rises, Victor tackles him, driving them both to the sand again.
In an instant, our disciplined training session erupts into a melee. Kids grab each other, cursing, punching and kicking. Blood and spit flies.
Farrar wades into the carnage, tossing people aside like so much trash. It takes him only seconds to break up the fights.
All but one.
Bishop is straddling Victor, hands locked around the smaller boy’s throat. Farrar grabs Bishop, throws him face-first onto the sand before locking a thick arm around Bishop’s neck.
“Stop fighting,” Farrar growls.
My brain doesn’t seem to work. What just happened to me? To all of us?
Despite the weight of Farrar on his back, Ramses Bishop struggles to rise.
“I’ll kill that little bastard!”
I rush to them, grab a handful of Bishop’s blond hair and force him to look at me.
“Bishop, stop! Victor and I had a fair fight!”
He seems confused for a moment. He stops struggling. I see realization wash over his face.
Farrar looks at me, questioning, as if this might be a trick.
“Let him up,” I say.
Farrar does.
Bishop stands, wipes sand from his face.
None of us know what to do.
Victor is on his hands and knees, coughing, spitting blood. Bawden rolls from side to side, hands still covering her chest.
I threw a practice spear, but I didn’t think about that. If I’d held the real thing, I’d have done exactly the same—the blade would have punched through her sternum and pierced her heart.
Bawden attacked my man: I instantly wanted her dead.
I see someone hurrying toward us from the Observatory. It’s Joandra Rigby, little Kevin clutched in her arms. Even from a distance, I see she’s nearly in a panic.
“Everyone,” I say, “get back to the Observatory, now. Get Bawden and Victor to Doctor Smith.”
Joandra reaches us, chest heaving.
“Em, Gaston wants you, right now! He said the Dragon is attacking the Goblin!”
Bishop and I rush into the Control Room. We ran here as fast as we could, neither of us discussing what just happened. He had no right to attack Victor like that. I was hit, yes, but getting hit is part of training. The way Bishop reacted, the way I reacted when Bawden tried to stop him…I’m disturbed to my core.
The Control Room is abuzz. Gaston is up on the main platform. The smaller pedestals are all filled—he’s put people to work analyzing the information we’re getting from the telescope. Bariso and Schuster are there, as is Henry Bemba, three halves delegating tasks to the collection of circles and even a few Springers.
Schuster is wearing black coveralls, like the rest of us. No dress. We’re well past the time for wearing anything but clothes suitable for war.
Above the Well, I see two Xolotl-shaped ships. One is the yellow-tinged Goblin, with its yellow curved-thorn symbol on the circular front. The other is the green-tinged Dragon. Tiny green dots are heading away from the Dragon and moving toward the Goblin.
Bishop and I join Gaston on the platform.
He glances at us, then back at the display above his pedestal.
“Damn, Bishop,” he says. “What happened to your head?”
The spot where Bawden hit him is already swelling, a big red bump with a circle in the middle the exact diameter of a spear shaft.
“Never mind that,” I say. “What’s going on? Where’s Spin?”
“She’s sick,” Gaston says. “She could ba
rely stand. Must be from the baby. She can’t do anything about what’s happening between these ships, so I told her to go lie down.”
Spingate is always in the Control Room. It feels odd here without her. But considering the way she talked to me on top of the Observatory, maybe it’s for the best that I don’t see her now.
“The Goblin was moving away from Omeyocan,” Gaston says. “It wasn’t leaving, just making sure it was out of Goff Spear range. That brought it closer to the Dragon. Dragon recently changed course and headed straight for the Goblin—now the Dragon appears to be attacking it with smaller ships.”
The swarm of green dots reminds me of blurds buzzing over the river’s surface.
I pull my braid around over my right shoulder, stroke it nervously.
“I don’t see the Xolotl,” I say. “Where is it?”
“Matilda apparently doesn’t want any part of this,” Gaston says. “The Xolotl is beyond the horizon; we can’t even see it right now.”
Joandra Rigby enters the Control Room. She’s not as fast as Bishop and I, especially when lugging around a baby. She sits on the platform’s edge, tries to regain her breath.
On the display, I see something moving on the Goblin. It’s the landing bay doors—which must be huge but look tiny in relation to the massive ship—opening like the jaws of a monster.
“Defensive action,” Gaston says. “Goblin launching fighters of her own.”
A swarm of yellow dots slides out of the landing bay and heads to meet the oncoming green cloud. The yellow dots seem slower than the wave they fly out to meet. Slower, and fewer.
Midway between the two great starships, the green and yellow swarms collide. Two half-solid masses become a single yellow-green cloud that sparks and flashes and flickers. It takes me a moment to realize the combined cloud is thinning—lights of both colors are blinking out.
A strand of green, maybe five dots in all, rips from the roiling cloud and heads straight at the yellow-tinged Goblin.
“Dragon’s fighters already control the combat zone,” Gaston says. “They’re sending a few units to strafe the Goblin.”
I glance at Bishop. He notices my look, meets my eyes, shrugs, goes back to watching the display. He knows war, yes, but not this kind—space is Gaston’s domain.
The five green dots spread out and attack the Goblin from five different angles, a predator’s claw clutching down on its prey. Lights flicker across the Goblin’s surface.
“That’s counterfire,” Gaston says. “Goblin gunners trying to shoot down the incoming Dragon fighters.”
One of the Dragon’s green specks disappears. Then another. Flashes of orange blossom on the Goblin, and this time it’s not from counterfire—the Dragon’s fighters are landing big, explosive hits. Another green dot vanishes. I think that the Goblin might survive this assault, then I glance back to the roiling cloud—it is now almost completely green.
“Dragon’s fighters are clearly better than the Goblin’s,” Gaston says. He sounds worried.
In seconds, the last few yellow dots blink out, leaving only green. The remaining Dragon fighters close on the yellow-tinged Goblin. Counterfire isn’t even half of what it was to begin with—the Dragon’s fighters are taking out the Goblin’s guns.
“Numerous breaches on the Goblin’s hull,” Ometeotl calls out. “The Dragon is launching a second wave.”
Six new green dots leave the Dragon and head straight for the Goblin. These new dots are fatter, thicker.
“I think those are boarding craft,” Gaston says. “The Dragon’s crew doesn’t want to destroy the Goblin, they want to capture it. Ometeotl, give me more detail.”
“Detail is at maximum, Captain Xander.”
He mumbles something under his breath, a curse word that would have gotten him severely beaten when we were in school.
The fat dots reach the Goblin, land on the long, tapering part that sticks out the back.
“The boarders will try to breach that hull,” Gaston says. “If they do, it will be hand-to-hand fighting against the Goblin’s crew.”
We watch for a long time. The Goblin’s counterfire flickers diminish further, then cease completely.
I imagine a desperate battle of knives and guns and energy blasts, a battle fought between two unknown species.
More killing—and we still don’t know the reason for it.
“The Goblin is changing course,” Ometeotl calls out.
The besieged ship starts moving toward the Dragon. I don’t know why I pick sides, but I hope the Goblin attacks. Maybe both ships will be destroyed.
When it gets closer to the Dragon, the Goblin slows, then stops.
It doesn’t attack.
The two mother ships sit side by side, round front ends facing toward my planet.
“Captured,” Bishop says.
Gaston nods. “Looks that way.”
Was the Goblin going to attack us, like the Basilisk did? If so, is it possible that the Dragon took out that threat as a gesture of good faith, because those aliens want to be our allies?
I wish that were true, but it seems unlikely. We don’t know what this brief battle means for us. I have a feeling we won’t have to wait long to find out.
Little Kevin wakes up, lets out a happy squeal. The sound is like a trigger that releases our pent-up stress. Not all of it, but enough that I relax a little. If a baby can…
Wait…something is wrong.
Kevin. When Spingate isn’t working, Kevin is always with her.
Spingate isn’t here.
But I am. She would have known I’d be here for this.
Bello…
Without another word, I sprint for the elevator.
The moment I step through the door into the cell block, I hear Aramovsky shouting for help.
I see him at the end of the hall, his face pressed between the bars, one arm waving madly.
“Em, stop Spingate! The God of Blood has her!”
I slide to a halt in front of Bello’s cell, the soles of my boots skidding across the stone floor.
A naked Korrynn Bello hangs from the ceiling support beam by a rope tied tight around her wrists. Her toes dangle just above the stone floor.
Theresa Spingate stands in front of her. Flecks of blood dot Spingate’s face. In her hand is a thin cane—the rod from the Grand Hall throne. It’s smeared with thick blood, a red identical to that of the cane itself.
Bello’s head hangs down, thin blond hair half-hiding a left eye that is already swollen shut. She spins slightly from left to right, the rope creaking in time. Her lower lip is split and ragged. Blood trails from the lip, from a gash on her forehead, from her horribly broken nose, down her cheeks, under her chin and down her too-white body, a path of crimson that drips from her toes into a puddle on the stone floor.
…plop…plop…plop…
I press my hand to the palm-plate—the cell door won’t open.
Spingate reprogrammed it.
“Theresa, open this door!”
She looks at me, but I’m not sure it’s me that she sees. Her eyes are wide, her teeth are bared. Her hand is a white-knuckled talon gripping the red rod. I remember Matilda using that device on me, the searing agony it caused every time she touched it to my body.
Spingate is my best friend, the person I know better than anyone—with her face twisted up like that, she is almost unrecognizable.
The God of Blood has her….
“Bello must talk,” she says. “She hasn’t yet, but she will.”
There’s cold-blooded anger in Spingate’s words, but also a trembling of doubt. Maybe she thought torture would be easy.
“Spin, open this godsdamned cell, right now!”
Her voice holds doubt; mine does not. My words are roaring muskets firing at close range.
She glances at Bello.
“Bello will break. She’ll tell us what she knows. She has to. Why don’t you understand?”
My best friend is talking, but it’s n
ot really her. Theresa is a puppet, controlled by an invisible entity, by pure evil.
“Something is affecting us all,” I say. “Something is changing us. Listen to me—we don’t torture people. We’re not like the Grownups!”
Spingate didn’t just use the rod to shock, she beat Bello with it. Severely. And still Bello wouldn’t talk. How can a woman who is so weak she cries from loneliness resist this kind of physical punishment?
I realize Bello isn’t spinning anymore.
She isn’t moving at all.
The drip-drip of blood falling from her toes is slowing.
…plop…
…plop…
I have to get in there.
“Spin, if she hasn’t talked yet, she’s not going to. Her will is too strong. Please open the door. Please!”
Spingate’s face furrows in confusion.
“My children, Em.” Her voice is thin, distant. “I need to protect them. Bello knows why the aliens are here. While she stays silent, our people die. Don’t you see? My son could be next.”
I point to Bello. “Spin, look at her.”
Spingate does.
“You’re doing this for your children,” I say. “What if it works? What if torture becomes accepted in our culture, part of who we are. Imagine our world ten years from now—then imagine that it’s Kevin hanging by his wrists, that someone is hitting him with the rod, over and over and over again.”
Spingate stares. She blinks. That blankness washes over her, the same one I saw on Bishop’s face after he attacked Victor.
“Imagine it’s your son,” I say. “Bleeding. Screaming.”
Spingate looks at the red rod in her hand like she doesn’t know how it got there. A drop of blood falls from the end, splats against the cell floor.
She looks at me. Horror twists her face—horror brought on by realization.
“Em…what did I just do?”
She drops the rod. It clatters against the stone. She shuffles to the cell bars, reaches through and presses her hand to the palm-plate. When she takes her hand away, it leaves smeared fingerprints of blood.
The door lock clicks.
I yank it open and rush inside. I draw my knife from the sheath on my thigh and slash the rope. Bello drops like a bag of meat, like she has no bones.
