“Pointing out the obvious, eh? You know, I really do not like you. You foul little Goblin.” Fitchner stares at Sevro for a purposeful moment and then shrugs. “Anyway, I’ll be on Olympus.”
“What does that mean, Proctor?” Cassius asks sourly. He doesn’t like the look of things either. Though his eyes are red from weeping through the night for his dead brother, it hasn’t dulled his impressiveness.
“I mean it’s your problem, little prince. Not mine. No one’s going to fix anything for you. I am your Proctor. Not your mommy. You’re in school, remember? So if your legs are open, well, make a chastity belt to protect the softspot.”
There’s general grumbling.
“Could be worse,” I say. I point past Antonia’s head toward the southern plains where an enemy fortress spans a great river. “We could be exposed like those poor bastards.”
“Those poor bastards have crops and orchards,” Fitchner muses. “You have…” He looks over the ledge to find the deer he killed. “Well, Goblin here left the deer behind, so you have nothing. The wolves will eat what you do not.”
“Unless we eat the wolves,” Sevro mutters, drawing strange looks from the rest of our House.
So we have to get our own food.
Antonia points to the lowlands.
“What are they doing?”
A black dropship slides down from the clouds. It settles in the center of the grassy plain between us and the distant enemy river fortress of Ceres. Three Obsidians and a dozen Tinpots stand guardas Browns hustle out to set hams, steaks, biscuits, wine, milk, honey, and cheeses onto a disposable table eight kilometers from Phobos Tower.
“A trap, obviously,” Sevro snorts.
“Thank you, Goblin.” Cassius sighs. “But I haven’t had breakfast.” Circles ring his reckless eyes. He glances over at me through the crowd of our fellows and offers a smile. “Up for a race, Darrow?”
I start with surprise. Then I smile. “On your mark.”
And he’s off.
I’ve done dumber things to feed my family. I did dumber things when someone I loved died. Cassius is owed the company as he races down the steep hillside.
Forty-eight kids watch us scamper to fill our bellies; none follow.
“Bring me a slice of honeyed ham!” Fitchner shouts. Antonia calls us idiots. The dropship floats away as we leave the highlands behind for gentler terrain. Eight kilometers in .376grav (Earth standard) is a cinch. We scramble down rocky hillsides, then hit the lowland plains at full tilt through ankle-high grass. Cassius beats me to the tables by a body length. He’s fast. We each take a pint of the ice water on the table. I drink mine faster. He laughs.
“Looks like the House Ceres’s mark on their flagpole. The Harvest Goddess.” Cassius points over across the green plains to the fortress. A few trees dot the several kilometers between us and the castle. Pennants flap from their ramparts. He pops a grape into his mouth. “We should take a closer look before chowin’ down. A little scouting.”
“Agreed…but something isn’t right here,” I say quietly.
Cassius laughs at the open plain. “Nonsense. We’d see trouble if it was coming. And I don’t think any one of them is going to be faster than us two. We can strut up to their gates and take a shit if we so like.”
“I do have something brewing.” I touch my stomach.
Yet still, something is wrong. And not just in my belly.
It’s six kilometers of open ground between the river fortress andus. The river gurgles in the distance to the right. Forest to the far left. Plains in front. Mountains beyond the river. Wind rustles the long grass and a sparrow coasts in with the breeze. It swoops low to the ground before flinching up and away. I laugh loudly and lean against the table.
“They are in the grass,”I whisper.“A trap.”
“We can steal sacks from them and carry more of this back,” he says loudly.“Run?”
“Pixie.”
He grins, though neither of us is sure if we’re allowed to start the fighting during orientation day. Whatever.
On three, we kick apart the disposable table’s legs till we each have a meter of duroplastic as a weapon. I scream like a madman and sprint toward the spot where the sparrow fled, Cassius at my side. Five House Ceres Golds rise from the grass. They’re startled by our mad rush. Cassius catches the first in the face with a proper fencer’s lunge. I’m less graceful. My shoulder is stiff and sore. I scream and break my weapon across one of their knees. He goes down howling. Duck someone’s swing. Cassius deflects it. We dance as two. There’s three of them left. One squares up with me. He doesn’t have a knife or a bat. No, he has something I’m far more interested in. A question mark of a sword. A slingBlade for reaping grain. He faces me with his back hand on his hip and the crooked blade out like a razor. If it were a razor, I’d be dead. But it’s not. I make him miss, block one of Cassius’s attackers’ blows. Lurch forward at my attacker. I’m much quicker than he and my grip is like durosteel to his. So I take his slingBlade and his knife before I punch him down.
When he sees how I twirl the slingBlade in my hand, the last uninjured boy knows it’s time to surrender. Cassius jumps high in the .376grav and executes an unnecessary twirling sideways kick to the boy’s face. Reminds me of the dancers and leapers of Lykos.
