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“Darrow, your hand.”
I look down at my naked left hand. My gauntlet broke, it seems. My skin is bubbling against the sun-heated metal. I pull it away and watch the blisters contract. Ah, there’s the pain.
Harnassus babbles something about the enemy rallying at the Hippodrome, and a force of enemy tanks lost in the storm now approaching. I try to reply, but my raw vocal chords finally surrender to the abuse of the day.
Harnassus blinks. Something frightens him. As if he saw a spider on my face. I look down at my arms and legs. A second skin of clay made from blood and dust and irradiated ash coats me. My armor is holed and melted into the cauterized wounds. Joints failing to respond to my depleted battery. The tightness will not let go of my chest.
“By Jove, man, are you having a heart attack?” Harnassus calls for a medicus. The Howlers rush to support me as I nearly tip over. I fail to push them off. Rhonna comes to my aid, understanding my distress.
“Not in front of the legions,” she says. “What do you need, Uncle?”
“Stims,” I mumble.
“How many pops has he had?”
“Thigh pack’s empty. At least six.”
“Got four marks on his neck.”
“Ten? That would kill a bloodydamn horse.”
“Stims,” I mutter again, feeling dizzy.
“You’ll die, you dumb bastard.” Harnassus looks about to fall over himself.
“Men trapped in…desert…” I look out over the battlements. I still have work to do. I look down to see Harnassus trying to push me back.
“Darrow. Stop.” Harnassus reaches high to grab my face between his hands. “You’ve done enough. Let us carry the rest.”
I stare through the wisps of his hair to the bodies melted into the steel of the wide parapet. They look like gargoyles with the faces of teenagers. The wind licks the dust from them. They are teenagers.
The full weight of exhaustion settles on me.
“Who has a boot battery?” Rhonna calls. “Come on. You, hey, shithead. Gimme.” She takes the batteries from one of Harnassus’s bodyguards and switches mine out. “Uncle, you need to fly now. Do you understand me? For your men.”
“He can’t even stand,” Harnassus says. “He needs a medicus and an airlift.”
“Back off,” Screwface says.
“Who are you?”
“Screwface.”
“Bullshit.”
“He is,” Rhonna says. “Mickey.”
“Oh. Well, I am in command now, Gold,” Harnassus says. “Darrow needs—”
“Unless you got a cloak, he ain’t your pack. He’s been mine since I was sixteen. You’ve got a battle to finish, sir.”
Harnassus walks up to him and sticks a finger in his face. “Get him inside somewhere and keep that man alive.”
“Man?” Screwface laughs. “Hic est Lupus, motherfucker.”
Harnassus departs.
“Use my arm, Uncle.” I feel Rhonna take my weight. She can’t handle all of it. Screwface comes to my other side.
