Turns pass. I don't know how many. The others avoid me. They see the ruin in my eyes. I know the faces of all twelve of my cellmates, and the names of everyone but the boy. We work with several dozen others at the forge, but at the end of each shift we're returned to our own cells. I notice who talks to whom, tracing their allegiances. The prisoners I've seen are almost entirely Eskaran males. I've seen no other women. It doesn't surprise me. I know how Gurta deal with foreign women.
We've a Khaadu in our cell along with the SunChild, and I've seen a Banchu and an Umbra and heard talk of Ya'yeen elsewhere in the prison. The Khaadu's name is Nereith. He has a wary friendship with Charn, the bulky man who tried to forcefully make my acquaintance while I was drugged to the back teeth. Charn's throat is almost back to its normal colour now. I can't even muster the passion to hate him.
Once, I'm woken briefly by the sound of tears. It's the boy. Everyone else is asleep, but the boy is crying quietly. It seems like a dream, and I'm coddled back to oblivion again; but the next shift, in the red light of the forge, I see the bruises on his face and arms. They're blue against the black of his skin, almost invisible. But I see them.
The same turn, someone is taken. We're in the quad when they come for him. I'm sitting on my own, as I always do, staring at the ground between my feet, my mind empty. I hear the scream, and look up to see a man I don't recognise being bundled away by guards, while others threaten nearby prisoners with pikes. There's no need. Nobody is going to his rescue.
'They'll come for you next, you sons of whores!' he's shrieking. 'You're all meat to them! They'll come for you next!'
The prisoners look away. So do I. It's getting harder and harder to shut out the clarity. The haze that cushions me is tattering away. I fight to keep hold of it, but it isn't working. More and more I'm aware of things around me, of conversations. Old instincts are kicking in, subconsciously gathering information. I'm Cadre: I'm a spy, a warrior, an assassin, trained since childhood in the arts of subterfuge and combat and murder. I've suffered and suffered again, in ways that would crack the mind of someone weaker. But I'm recovering. And I can't stop it.
I have my own spot in the cell, where I curl up on the hard stone floor and find the blankness that is my only respite. But soon I'm robbed of even that sliver of peace.
For the first time since Rynn died, I dream. And when I dream, I dream of my family.
30
His knee breaks sideways beneath my foot, but I've clutched his head and cracked his neck before he really registers the pain. I let him fall and I'm gone as he folds to the ground, an emptied sack. Sometimes they give me a problem – an unexpected twist here, a swift parry there – but mostly it's just like disassembling dolls.
In the fighting-trance, I am separated. Oil on water. One part of me cold, clinical, governed by mantras and techniques familiar as breath. The other part is my terror, my anger, my bitterness, all mixed together into one nameless emotion that burns like the brightest fuel. The Cadre don't deny our passions; we harness them, and unleash them on those who would oppose our masters' will.
Around me is the noise: the roar of battle. We crash down the slope like a wave, two dozen of us. We wash around glittering crystal formations; we pass beneath arches of petrified sap. Blades of mineral grass crush like spun sugar beneath the soles of my shoes. I dodge past translucent protrusions sharp enough to open me like a bloody purse. Momentum pushes our charge to a reckless speed.
The air fills with the clatter of a shard-cannon. A man to my right is stitched across the chest and lifted from his feet, torn backwards as though pulled by elastic vines. The crystal forest erupts into puffs of glittering dust as it's punched by gunfire. I hold my breath. Inhaling that stuff would tear up my lungs pretty bad.
We'd hoped they wouldn't have time to traverse their gun. We'd gained the high ground and flanked them, and we thought the element of surprise would be enough. I feel sick as the forest is shredded around me and Eskaran soldiers are cut to meat by needles of stone.
Three heartbeats and we're on them. More Gurta are running up the hill to meet us, teeth bared, knives gleaming. The shard-cannon crew are firing through their own soldiers. The enemy are being cut down from behind, but they're still coming.
One of them singles me out, seeing I'm Cadre, seeing I'm small and slender and mistakenly thinking that makes me less deadly than someone like Rynn. I feint left and then launch off that foot, using the slope to get the height I need. He gets halfway through a swing before my foot connects with his jaw. I hear bone splinter. I touch down on his far side and keep running. I don't think I killed him but I don't care; someone else can do it. I'm after that gun. I hate guns.
Two heartbeats.
I glimpse the lake through the trees now. The water's bright, illuminated by phosphorescent plankton. Its light melds with the glow of the crystal forest. Patches of lichen glitter in the darkness far overhead, streaking the cavern roof.
One.
And suddenly the forest is smashing around me, the air crazy with the insectile whine of projectiles and the sound of breaking glass. The gun has been turned on me, and I'm coming out of the forest, right into its muzzle.
I break right and keep low, every new instant a miracle. Needles slice past, too fast to see. For a small eternity, I'm cupped in the hands of chance, life and death determined by the bucking of the shard-cannon, by obstructions and ricochets. Then there are no more crystal formations. The petrified white world of the forest peels back, and I've made it.
There's only six of them. Two manning the gun, four waiting, knives ready for the onslaught. They're yelling at each other in that foul dialect, everyone shouting orders, discipline crumbling. Just the sound of their fluting, trilling consonants makes something knot in my stomach. The old fear, the shame, the pain. I gather it and use it.
I'm first out of the forest, emerging a little way right of the gun. The pitiful wall of rocks they've built to hide behind doesn't slow me at all. I use it as a springboard, leaping over and among them. The gunners are my targets. I slash one across the throat, slicing through muscle and gristle with my shortblade. It's chthonomantically-treated obsidian: cuts through flesh like it was warm butter.
The rest of my assault force reach the emplacement moments later, by which time I've blinded the second gunner and broken his pelvis with my knee. The other Gurta can't touch me. Their strikes are slow, bodies declaring their intentions well in advance. I'm three moves ahead of everyone here.
The gun has fallen silent, its rotating barrel spinning to a stop. I get out of the way of the Eskaran soldiers as they come charging in. The Gurta put up a fight, but it's futile. They're taken down in moments.
When it's done, we count our losses. Three dead, one wounded, the rest covered in small wounds from flying splinters. I got off lightly with a few dozen scratches, nothing too serious. Could have been worse.
I hunker down on the wall at the far edge of the emplacement and look out across the lake while the men reorganise. There are Ehru out there, far from the shore, tentacles rising and waving and touching. They iridesce with colour, oblivious to the men dying nearby. I can't help but waste a few moments watching before I turn my attention to the troops below.
The main Eskaran force is forging along the lakeside. The enemy contests every step. Four hundred of us down there, all told. It's all to reclaim a tiny port called Korok which the Gurta took from us sixty turns ago. The Warmasters seem to think it's of critical importance, a staging point for bigger things, but I don't know about that. I just go where I'm sent. My fight is on the high ground, where the land rises to meet the cavern wall. We're meant to secure the terrain and take out the hidden guns that are butchering our forces on the shore. We're doing a pretty good job of it, so far.