“Until then, I say we hold out. If Cassius or Darrow earns it, then so be it. I’ll do whatever they command, obedient as a Pink, simple as a Red.” She gestures to the others. “Until then, I think one of you should also have a chance to earn it.… After all, it may decide your career!”
She’s clever. And she’s sunk us. Every brat in the room was no doubt wishing they’d been more assertive from the get-go, wishing they could have another chance to make people notice them. Now Antonia gives it to them. This will be chaos. And she may end up as Primus. Definitely a spider.
“Look!” Lea says from Roque’s side.
A horn bellows beyond the castle.
The standard chooses that moment to shimmer. Snake and wolf shed iron for gleaming gold. Not only that, but the stone map on the wall comes alive. Our wolf banner ripples over a miniature of our castle. Ceres’s banner does the same. No other castles mark the map, but the banners of the undiscovered Houses flap off in the map’s key. No doubt they’ll find a home as soon as we scout the surrounding territory.
The game has begun. And now everyone wants to be the Primus.
I see why Demokracy is illegal. First comes yelling. Frustration. Indecision. Disagreements. Ideas. Scout. Fortify. Gather food. Lay traps. Blitz. Raid. Defense. Offense. Pollux spits. Titus knocks him out cold. Antonia leaves. Sevro says something snide to Titus and drags his wolf off to God knows where, never having lit a fire. It’s like my Lambda drillteam whenever a headTalk would take an hour sick. That’s how I learned I could drill. Barlow snuck off to take a smoke and I hopped on the rig and did as I thought was best. I do the same now as the children bicker.
Cassius, Roque, and Lea—who follows Roque everywhere—come with me, though Cassius likely thinks we follow him. We agree that the others will not know what to do and so will inevitably do nothing today. They will guard the castle or seek out wood for a fire or cluster around the standard for fear of it walking off.
I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if our enemies are slinking through the hills toward us. I don’t know if they are making alliance against Mars. I don’t know how the damn game is even played. But for some reason, I assume that not all of the other Houses will fall to discord like this. We of Mars seem more prone to disagreement.
I ask Cassius what he thinks we should do.
“Once, I challenged this prancing oaf to a duel for disrespecting my family—an Augustus fop. He was very methodical—tightened his gloves, tied back his pretty hair, swished his razor as he did before every gory practice bout he’s ever had at the Agea Martial Club.”
“And?”
“And I hooked him and stabbed him through the kneecap while he was still swishing his razor in preparation.” He catches Lea’s disapproval. “What? The duel had begun. I’m foxy, but I’m not a beast. I just win.”
“I feel like you all think that,” I say. “We all, I mean.”
They don’t notice my slipup.
His point stands. Our House can’t attack an enemy in our state, but an enemy could attack us as we run about preparing, and ruin all my hopes of rising within the Society. So, information. We need to know if our enemies are in a glen half a kilometer to the north or if they are fifteen kilometers south. Are we at a corner of the playing field or in the center? Are there enemies in the highlands? North of the highlands?
Cassius and I agree. We must scout.
We split up. Cassius and I head to Phobos and then move counterclockwise. Lea and Roque strike to Deimos and scout clockwise. We’re to meet at dusk.
We don’t see a soul from the top of Phobos. The lowlands are empty of horses and Ceres’s fighters, and the highland range to the south is full of lochs and goats. Southeast, atop a high dwarf mountain, we glimpse part of the Greatwoods to the south and southeast. An army of giants could be hiding there for all we know, and we can’t investigate; it would take half a day to cover the distance to even make it close to the tree line.
Some ten kilometers from our castle, we find a weatherworn stone fort upon a low hill guarding a pass. Inside is a rustic survival box of iodine, food, a compass, rope, six durobags, a toothbrush, sulfur matches, and simple bandages. We store the items in a clear durobag.
So supplies have been hidden about the valley. Something tells me there are more important items hidden in the countryside than little survivor kits. Weapons? Transportation? Armor? Technology? They can’t mean for us to make war with sticks and stones and metal tools. And if they don’t want us to kill each other, stun weapons must soon replace our metal ones.
We earn nasty sunburns that first day. The mist chills them as we return. Titus and his pack, six now, have just returned from a fruitless incursion to the plains. They’ve killed two goats but don’t have a fire to cook with, since Sevro slipped off somewhere. I don’t tell them about my matches. Cassius and I agree that Titus, if he wants to be the big man, should at least be able to conquer fire. Sevro, wherever he is, must agree as well. Titus’s boys hit metal on stone trying to create sparks, but the stones of the castle don’t spark. Clever Proctors.
Titus’s pack makes the dregs, the lowDrafts, fetch wood despite the fact that they have no fires. They all go hungry that night. Only Roque and Lea don’t. They get some of our survival bars. I like the pair even if they are Golds, and I excuse befriending them by telling myself that I do it only to build my own tribe. Cassius seems to think that fast midDraft girl, Quinn, will be useful. But he can make himself think that about most pretty girls.
The tribes grow, and the first lesson is already under way.
Antonia finds friends with a squat, sour, curlyheaded fellow named Cipio, and she manages to send groups armed with shovels and axes found in the castle to garrison Deimos and Phobos. The girl may be a spoiled witch, but at least she isn’t stupid. Then Titus’s pack steals their axes as they sleep and I revise my opinion.
Cassius and I scout together. On the third day, we see smoke rising in the distance, maybe some twenty kilometers to the east. It is like a beacon in the dusk. Enemy scouting parties would be out like us. If it were closer or we had horses, we would investigate. Or if we had more men, we might set out overnight and plan a raid for slaves. The distance and our lack of coherence make all the difference. Between us and the smoke are ravines and gulches that could hide warbands. Then there’s many kilometers of plains to walk exposed. We won’t make the trek. Not when some Houses have horses. I don’t tell Cassius this, but I am afraid. The highlands feel safe, but just out there in the landscape beyond are roving bands of psychotic godlings. Godlings I do not want to run across quite yet.
The thought of meeting other Houses is made all the more terrifying by the idea that even home is not safe. It’s like Octavia au Lune always says: no man can pursue any endeavor in the face of tribal warfare. We can’t afford to leave Titus alone for too long. He’s already stolen berries Lea and Quinn collected. And this morning he tried to use the standard on Quinn to see if it could make slaves for his raiding parties out of the House’s own members. It couldn’t.
“We have to bind the House together somehow,” Cassius tells me as we scout the northern highlands. “The Institute is with us for the rest of our lives. If we lose, we may never gain position, ever.”
“And if we’re enslaved during the course of the game?” I ask.
He looks worriedly over at me. “What worse loss could there be?”
As if I needed more motivation.
“Your father won his year, I wager. He was Primus?” I ask. To be an Imperator, he’d have to have won his year.
“Right. Always knew he won his year, though I had no slagging idea what that meant till we got here.”