Each mile takes colonel vijay closer to his death. Although he knows this, he’s far too polite to make a fuss about the fact. Instead, he shrivels inside himself, becoming paler and more upright with every rut and pothole that vanishes under our wheels.
Makes me want to slap him.
We’ve been climbing all day, in serious heat, towards distant mountains. These aren’t the high plains that spread around us in a grey mess of gravel, broken walls and half-fossilized tree stumps, these are the wastes.
The high plains are beyond the pass.
Bocage, not wastes. These were orchards once.
When did I start thinking shit like that? Meeting Leona fucked with my head. Fucked with it far worse than killing her did. Even the SIG-37 knows it. My gun’s keeping quiet around me.
‘Why?’
‘To give you time.’
‘To do what?’
‘If you knew that,’ it says, ‘you wouldn’t need more time, would you?’
Even threatening to toss it under the wheels of my combat trike and keep going doesn’t produce a better answer.
This looks like a retreat. Only General Luc didn’t lose a battle, so it has to be a power play. But surely his position would be stronger if he remained in Farlight, or brought his troops from their barracks into the city centre, rather than moving them out altogether?
We’re back to the long game.
Tapping the brakes on my fat-wheel, I wait for Shil to slide alongside. She’s surprised I’m out of formation. Not least because I told her anyone fucking up formation would be shot.
‘Sir?’ she says.
I open my visor.
Takes her a moment to do the same.
‘Do you play chess?’
She looks at me. Wondering if it’s a trick question.
‘Well, Corporal?’
‘Yes, sir,’ she admits.
‘Good,’ I tell her. ‘I need you to teach me.’ She’s about to flip down her lid when I shake my head. Haven’t finished yet.
‘Sir?’
‘I should warn you. My old lieutenant tried and failed.’
The Aux, and for all I know, the entire Wolf Brigade, hear her swear over the comms channel. Luckily none of them knows what about.
That night Ajac carves me a chess set. He does it swiftly, from chunks of cork hacked from a dead tree on the edge of a village where we stop. When he’s done I don’t recognize any of the pieces.
That doesn’t surprise me.
But Shil doesn’t either. So she gets Ajac to cut her a new set, and tells him how she wants each piece to look. Ajac does it without complaint. His cousin and my sergeant use the diversion to disappear into the darkness. Iona and Neen think Shil won’t notice. They’re wrong. She does.
‘Let it go,’ I tell her.
‘That’s easy for you to say.’ Seeing my scowl, she adds, ‘Sir . . .’
‘No. It’s not. He’s my sergeant. Until she proves herself, she’s just a camp follower who almost got one of my men killed. I don’t carry dead wood on campaign.’
‘Is that what this is, sir?’
Good question.
‘Can’t see what else it is,’ I say finally.
When Neen and Iona return, Shil goes to talk to them. I’m not sure what she says but Iona scurries off. When she comes back it’s with a basin so I can shave. And she offers to mend the rips in my uniform.
God knows where she stole the water.
Shil watches impassively as Iona wastes half our thread tacking a piece of cloth under a hole in my shirt the size of my fist.
‘That’s better,’ Shil says.
Later, Iona brings me food. It’s chilli stew (meat undefined). Biscuits, dry (two). Cheese, processed (not yet mouldy) and chocolate pudding in a tin that heats itself when I rip the lid. For all I know the stew heats the same way, but she prepared that for me.
The pudding tastes like glue.
That’s fine. I like army rations. And I know Colonel Vijay gave us a little talk about eating with the Wolf Brigade. But one thing at a time. We’re still finding his bit about not killing them hard enough.
‘Sir,’ Rachel says.
I look up. So do the others. Rachel’s not given to starting conversations on her own.
‘What does General Luc gain from cutting out the colonel’s heart?’
She has a part-stripped Z93z long-range rifle in front of her. She’s already cleaned its scope and laser sights. And the 8.59-calibre floating barrel lies on an oiled sheet, momentarily forgotten.
As said, snipers are high maintenance.
If a target’s out there Rachel can kill it, moving or not, distance no object. In everything else she’s a mare. A sullen, slightly podgy one who hides behind a curtain of red hair. Lash marks for abandoning her position scar her shoulders. And an Obsidian Cross second class hangs on her dog-tag chain for saving our lives.
Being her, both incidents took place at the same time.
‘Rachel?’
‘You say he plans to marry Aptitude. So why would he kill Colonel Vijay?’
Why would he . . .?
What kind of question is that? This is the man who . . .
It’s a long and bloody list. Dead babies, crucified women, impaled officers, and spies hung with their own guts or returned to their own side with their noses slit, ears cropped and balls stuffed into their mouths and their lips sewn tight.
The general, our general, used cruelty as an art.
The Wolf is cruel by nature. The difference between Generals Jaxx and Luc couldn’t be greater. If the Wolf says he’ll serve Colonel Vijay’s heart on a plate to Aptitude why should I doubt it?
I wouldn’t put it past him to cook it first.
‘Sir,’ Rachel says. ‘Don’t think you’re right.’
The Aux go silent. Neen glances at Shil, then looks away. I could have Rachel whipped for insubordination and that would make twice in a year. As it is, I’m seriously considering having Neen flog Iona for what happened earlier today.
‘Want to tell me why?’
Rachel bites her lip. She’s not good at judging what she’s allowed to say. All she knows is she’s said too much already, and she only knows that because the others have gone silent.
‘Aptitude would hate him if he did.’
I open my mouth to call her a fool and shut it again.
Maybe she’s right? Perhaps General Luc doesn’t want Aptitude the way men usually want women? If he did, he’d simply marry her, rape her and burn Wildeside down around her head if she dared whine.
Have to say, that’s what I thought he had in mind.
‘Shil. What do you think?’
She hesitates. Makes me wonder if Rachel’s mentioned this before.
‘Well?’
‘It’s a good threat, sir. But I’m not sure he’ll go through with it. Not unless the colonel refuses to give Aptitude up. The Wolf might want to. But he’ll need things to be right with Aptitude and her parents.’
Shil’s showing a touching faith in the Wolf’s nature.
‘Vijay gives up Aptitude in return for his life?’
She nods.
‘What if Colonel Vijay would rather die?’
From the look on her face, Shil wants to say he won’t be that stupid. Only he will. Vijay Jaxx is dumb enough to die for love.
‘Sir,’ Iona says.
‘What?’
Maybe I say it too roughly, because she bites her lip.
‘It’s just, General Luc reminds me of Milo. You remember . . .’
Yeah, I remember. Although it’s a stretch to compare the head man of a village on a ring world with the commander of one of the most feared regiments ever to exist.
‘They called him the Fox.’
And we call Luc the Wolf. OK, she’s got an animal thing going. All the same . . . I glance round, seeing faces edged by firelight. It should soften our features but all it does is harden them. We’re good, I remind myself. Anybody who survives what we’ve survived has to be good.
‘Where’s this going?’ I ask Iona.
Looking up, she meets my gaze. Her eyes are huge and seem different in the dark. As if an owl watches me through her eye sockets. Static travels my spine and I shiver, despite myself.
‘He won’t offer Colonel Vijay his life, sir. Not for giving up Aptitude. He’s too cunning. He’ll offer her his life for rejecting him.’
I want to check I understood that.
‘He’ll spare Colonel Vijay? But only if Aptitude renounces him? And agrees to marry General Luc instead?’
All three women nod.