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“And you just said yes?”
“Do you know what Baghra is like? By then, I was just about ready to do anything,” said Ramsa. “Baji was in Baghra, too. Just ask him.”
“What was he there for?”
Ramsa shrugged. “Who knows? He won’t say. He was only there for a few months, though. But let’s face it—even Khurdalain is so much better than a cell in Baghra. And the work here is awesome.”
Rin gave him a sideways look. Ramsa sounded disturbingly chipper about his situation.
She decided to change the subject. “What was that about in the mess hall?”
“What do you mean?”
“The—uh . . .” She flailed her arms around. “The monkey man.”
“Huh? Oh, that’s just Suni. Does that maybe every other day. I think he just likes the attention. Altan’s pretty good with him; Tyr used to just lock him up for hours until he’d calmed down.” Ramsa handed her another bag. “Don’t let Suni scare you. He’s really pretty nice when he’s not being a terror. It’s just that god fucking with his head.”
“So you’re not a shaman?” she asked.
Ramsa shook his head quickly. “I don’t mess with that shit. It screws you up. You saw Suni in there. My only god is science. Combine six parts sulfur, six parts saltpeter, and one part birthwort herb, and you’ve got fire powder. Formulaic. Dependable. Doesn’t change. I understand the appeal, I really do, but I like having my mind to myself.”
Three days passed before Rin spoke with Altan again. He spent a good deal of his time tied up in meetings with the Warlords, trying to patch up relations with the military leadership before they deteriorated any further. She would see him darting back to his office in between meetings, looking haggard and pissed. Finally, he sent Qara to summon her.
“Hey. I’m about to call a meeting. Wanted to check in on you first.” Altan didn’t look at her as he spoke; he was busy scrawling something on a map covering his desk. “I’m sorry it couldn’t be earlier, I’ve been dealing with bureaucratic bullshit.”
“That’s all right.” She fidgeted with her hands. He looked exhausted. “What are the Warlords like?”
“They’re nearly useless.” Altan made a disgusted noise. “The Ox Warlord’s a slimy politician, and the Ram Warlord is an insecure fool who’ll bend whichever way the wind blows. Jun’s got them both by the ear, and the only thing they all agree on is that they hate the Cike. Means we don’t get supplies, reinforcements, or intelligence, and they wouldn’t let us into the mess hall if they had their way. It’s a stupid way to fight a war.”
“I’m sorry you have to put up with that.”
“It’s not your problem.” He looked up from his map. “So what do you think of your division?”
“They’re weird,” she said.
“Oh?”
“None of them seem to realize we’re in a war zone,” she rephrased. Every regular division soldier she’d encountered was grim-faced, exhausted, but the way the Cike spoke and behaved made them seem like fidgety children—bored rather than scared, off-kilter and out of touch.
“They’re killers by profession,” Altan said. “They’re desensitized to danger—everyone but Unegen, anyway; he’s skittish about everything. But the rest can act like they don’t understand what everyone’s so freaked out about.”
“Is that why the Militia hates them?”
“The Militia hates us because we have unlimited access to psychedelics, we can do what they can’t, and they don’t understand why. It is very difficult to justify how the Cike behave to people who don’t believe in shamans,” Altan said.
Rin could sympathize with the Militia. Suni’s fits of rage were frequent and public. Qara mumbled to her birds in full view of the other soldiers. And once word had gotten out about Enki’s veritable apothecary of hallucinogens, it spread like wildfire; the division soldiers couldn’t understand why only the Cike should have access to morphine.
“So why don’t you just try to tell them?” she asked. “How shamanism works, I mean.”
“Because that’s such an easy conversation to have? But trust me. They’ll see soon enough.” Altan tapped his map. “They’re treating you all right, though? Made any friends?”
“I like Ramsa,” she offered.
“He’s a charmer. Like a new puppy. You think he’s adorable until he pisses on the furniture.”
“Did he?”
“No. But he did take a shit in Baji’s pillow once. Don’t get on his bad side.” Altan grimaced.
“How old is he?” Rin had to ask.
“At least twelve. Probably no older than fifteen.” Altan shrugged. “Baji’s got this theory that he’s actually a forty-year-old who doesn’t age, because we’ve never seen him get any taller, but he’s not nearly mature enough.”
“And you put him into war zones?”
“Ramsa puts himself into war zones,” Altan said. “You just try to stop him. Have you met the rest? No problems?”
“No problems,” she said hastily. “Everything’s fine, it’s just . . .”
“They’re not Sinegard graduates,” he finished for her. “There’s no routine. No discipline. Nothing you’re used to. Am I right?”
She nodded.
“You can’t think of them as just the Thirteenth Division. You can’t command them like ground troops. They’re like chess pieces, right? Only they’re mismatched and overpowered. Baji’s the most competent, and probably should be the commander, but he gets distracted by anything with legs. Unegen’s good for intelligence gathering, but he’s scared of his own shadow. Bad in open combat. Aratsha’s useless unless you’re right beside a body of water. You always want Suni in a firefight, but he’s got no subtlety, so you can’t assign him to anything else. Qara’s the best archer I’ve seen and probably the most useful of the lot, but she’s mediocre in hand-to-hand. And Chaghan’s a walking psychospiritual bomb, but only when he’s here.” Altan threw his hands up. “Put that all together and try to formulate a strategy.”
Rin glanced down at the markings on his map. “But you’ve thought of something?”
“I think so.” A grin quirked over his face. “Why don’t we go call the rest of them?”
Ramsa arrived first. He smelled suspiciously of fire powder, though Rin couldn’t imagine where he’d gotten more. Baji and Unegen showed up minutes later, hoisting Aratsha’s barrel between them. Qara appeared with Enki, heatedly discussing something in Qara’s language. When they saw the others, they quickly fell silent. Suni came in last, and Rin was privately relieved when he took a seat at the opposite end of the room.
Altan’s office had only the one chair, so they sat on the floor in a circle like a ring of schoolchildren. Aratsha bobbed conspicuously in the corner, towering over them like some grotesque watery plant.
“Gang’s together again,” Ramsa said happily.
