That changes when Ajac’s opponent decides to go on the attack. Feinting in one direction, he juggles his blade from one hand to the other, and jabs. We all hear Ajac’s gasp of pain as blood starts running from his hip.
‘Sir . . .’ Shil stands beside me.
‘Not now, Shil.’
‘It’s about Ajac, sir.’
‘What about him?’ I ask quietly.
When the trooper swings his blade at Ajac’s throat, Ajac blocks, using his jacket-wrapped arm. From his whimper, he didn’t wrap it well enough.
‘Ajac hasn’t killed, sir.’
‘What?’
She nods towards the fight. ‘Iona doubts he’s done more than slaughter a goat. She says he’ll keep circling until he dies of blood loss or that man kills him.’
‘Get me Iona.’
‘Sir . . .’ Iona looks terrified.
Given how I feel about her that’s a sensible reaction. Ajac might make a good soldier five years down the line, if he lasts that long, which looks unlikely. Iona, I can count on one finger of one hand what she’s good for.
‘Do you and Ajac share a dialect?’
She looks at me blankly.
‘Do you share . . .’ A dozen Wolf Brigade stare as I raise my voice and Iona nods quickly. Telling me that yes, her tribe has its own dialect.
‘Good,’ I say. ‘Tell him if he loses I’m giving you to the trooper.’
Iona looks appalled.
Almost as appalled as Shil, who stands beside her.
‘Tell him it’s tradition. He wins, you go free. He loses, you belong to the Wolf Brigade. They don’t have female soldiers or medics. So I guess they’ll just have to find some other use for you.’
‘Sir . . .’
Shil shuts up when I glare at her.
Their trooper is looking more confident, his friends are looking happier and Ajac is obviously exhausted. His collection of wounds now includes a slash that reveals a glistening rack of ribs.
‘Tell him,’ I say.
Pushing her way to the front, Iona almost gets Ajac killed by reaching out to touch his shoulder. As he turns, the Wolf Brigade trooper slashes, and only Iona’s scream shocks her cousin into ducking.
The Wolf Brigade jeer.
But it’s at their own man for screwing up his attack. There are some sizeable bets being carried here, and the few who went heavy on Ajac at the beginning are starting to look worried.
In reply, Ajac asks only one question.
I know it’s a question from the way Iona nods when she answers.
Looking at her, Ajac looks at me, then looks at his opponent and something changes in the boy’s face. The question is, has that change come too late to save him? Now’s when I discover whether I get a soldier or a corpse out of this fight.
Their man is stronger, uninjured and experienced.
But he’s also a braggart. A small step up from a coward. I guess every regiment has at least one.
‘Finish it,’ a friend of his shouts.
Unless it’s someone who simply has money riding on the fight.
‘Yeah,’ says Neen. ‘Finish it.’
As the trooper steps in, Ajac jabs hard for the man’s gut and almost lands his blow. Twisting aside, the trooper slashes at Ajac’s face, and stumbles as his anxiety and the fury of Ajac’s attack tip him off balance.
‘Do it,’ I order.
Ajac nods, draws back his arm.
He’s on the point of striking when one of the friends objects. Sidekicking the back of Ajac’s knee, he waits for our man to drop and then drives his boot into Ajac’s face.
‘Fuck this,’ Neen says.
‘Sergeant.’
Neen’s hand freezes at my tone. And I watch him make himself release his own knife. The Wolf watches also, from across the circle.
‘Sir . . .?’
‘Ajac’s fight.’
Spitting teeth, Ajac gets to his knees.
His face is pulped, and he’s having trouble breathing through the blood that must run down the back of his throat. His original opponent decides the result is a foregone conclusion. Wrapping his fingers into Ajac’s hair, he drags back his head and slashes.
Iona screams and the crowd gasp.
When the trooper steps back to take a bow, he thinks it’s over. It’s not, because Ajac caught the blow across his palm. As we watch, he jacks his knife sideways into the man’s leg.
‘Twist,’ Neen yells.
Ajac does, viciously.
And with the man frozen in agony, he rips free his blade and rams it into the trooper’s groin, twisting hard. The man screams like a castrated pig, falling as Ajac rips his knife free one final time and crawls up the man’s shuddering body to drive it into his throat.
A knife’s point beats edge every time.
The trooper dies within seconds and is buried by his oppos, who dig through rocky dirt to their own depth, then stand to attention in the blazing sun to say the soldier’s prayer for a man who lost them money and standing.
I make the Aux join in, Ajac included.
No one in the burial detail blames him for what happened. There isn’t a Wolf Brigade trooper who wouldn’t have done the same.
The real surprise is that Ajac can stand, function and say the prayer. He can do this because Sergeant Toro turned up with five gold coins from General Luc, and a wizened major who turned out to be the Wolf’s own doctor.
A very good one too.
Having sewn Ajac’s ribs, hand and hip, and bent the boy’s nose into shape, he staples it at the bridge, before washing the teeth we collect in milk, coating them with protein coagulant and pushing them back into Ajac’s gums.
Then he gives the boy three jabs of battlefield morphine and tells him not to pick any more fights for a few days.
As we ride out, the Wolf tells the innkeeper not to cut down the trooper who tripped Ajac until he is dead. General Luc is very clear about what will happen if this order is disobeyed.
He leaves the trooper crucified to the tavern door.
Chapter 44
We make camp that night in the place where Leona, Anton and I first met Senator Cos, and I smoked a cigarillo with the Wolf’s sergeant.
Sergeant Toro is still around.
Who do you think just gave me another bottle of cane spirit?
Mary, the girl from the inn, takes one look at the convoy that rides into her village and decides she doesn’t know me.
‘Wise decision,’ the SIG says.
‘How do you-?’
‘Fight, flight or fuck.’ The gun sighs. ‘You’re pretty basic. I could run you through the body chemistry, biological triggers and neural responses. But I’d only end up explaining every other word.’
‘Biological what?’
‘Your brain went, pretty. Your dick went, again . . .’ The SIG stops, thinks. ‘Actually, it was the other way round.’ My gun hasn’t forgiven me using its holster to store alcohol, but can’t resist being snotty.
If Mary has any sense, and she has, she’ll keep her head down and her opinions to herself and wait for us to roll out of here tomorrow. Then she can come up with a better plan for escaping. One that doesn’t involve me.
‘You’ll be all right, Sven?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Good.’ Colonel Vijay tries to smile. ‘Earlier, when you asked . . . I appreciate your concern, Sven. And I know we’ll all be happier when this is over.’
That’s his own death he’s talking about.
‘Sir . . .’
He turns back, finds his smile. ‘Have a good evening, Sven. I’ll see you in the morning.’
As is the way in the wastes, the temperature plummets the moment the sun sinks behind the horizon. Iona asks why it’s so cold here when night in Farlight is hot and humid.
Taking this as an excuse to wrap his arm round her, my sergeant invents a theory to do with the city’s volcano trapping clouds. He does this between taking his turn at the cane spirit and cupping the underside of Iona’s breast when he thinks we won’t notice.