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The boy walks tentatively in front of the main gate. I meet him there with Sevro, Milia, Nyla, and Pax. We are a fearsome lot even without Tactus and Mustang, though Mustang could never really be called fearsome in appearance—maybe spirited, at best. Milia looks like something out of a nightmare—she’s taken to wearing trophies like Tactus and Thistle. And Pax has cut notches along his huge axe for each slave he has taken.
In front of my lieutenants, the boy s
hows his nervousness. His smiles are quick, almost as if he’s worried we might disapprove of them. The ring on his finger is that of Jupiter. He looks hungry, because it barely fits on him any longer.
“Name is Lucian,” the boy says, trying to sound manly. He seems to think Pax is in charge. Pax booms a laugh and points to me and my slingBlade. Lucian flinches when he looks at me. I think he well knew I was the leader.
“So we here to swap smiles?” I ask. “What’s your word?”
“The word is hunger,” he laughs piteously. “We’ve not eaten anything but rats and raw grain in water for three weeks.”
I almost pity the boy. His hair is dirty, eyes teary. He knows he’s giving up a chance at an apprenticeship. They’ll shame him for surrendering for the rest of his life. But he is hungry. So are the seven other defenders. Oddly, all are of Jupiter, not slaves. Their Primus left their weak instead of the slaves behind.
The only condition they have in surrendering the castle is that they must not be enslaved. Only Pax grumbles something honorable about them needing to earn their freedom like all the rest of us, but I agree to the boy’s request. I tell Milia to watch them. If they act seditious, she’ll make trophies of their scalps. We tether our horses in the courtyard. The stone is cobbled and dirty. A tall, angular keep stretches up and into the cliff’s wall.
Darkness seeps through the clouds. A storm is coming to the mountain pass, so I bring my force into the castle and bar the gates. Mustang and her troop stay beyond the walls and will return later in the evening from scouting with Tactus. We speak over the commUnits and Tactus curses us for having a dry roof over our heads. The night’s rain is heavy.
I make sure our veterans get the first beds in Jupiter’s dormitories before we eat. My army may be disciplined, but they’ll shiv their own mothers for a warm bed. It’s the one thing most of them never got used to—sleeping on the ground. They miss their mattresses and silk sheets. I miss the small cot I used to share with Eo. She’s been dead now longer than we were married. I’m surprised how much it hurts to realize that.
I think I’m eighteen now, Earth metric. Not rightly sure.
Our bread and meats are like heaven to the starved defenders of Jupiter. Lucian and his lot, all skinny, tired-looking souls, eat so fast that Nyla is fussing about them ripping their guts. She runs around telling them each that the smoked horsemeat isn’t galloping off anywhere. Pax and his BloodBacks occasionally throw bones at the meek lot. Pax’s laugh is infectious. It booms out of him and then turns into something feminine as it continues past two seconds. No one can keep a straight face when he gets rolling. He’s talking about Helga again. I look for Mustang so we can laugh about it, but she’ll be away for hours more. I miss her even then, and I swell a little inside my chest because I know she will curl into my bed this night and together we’ll snore like Uncle Narol after Yuletide.
I call Milia to the head of the table. My army lounges around Jupiter’s warroom; they are easy in conquest. Jupiter’s map is destroyed. I cannot make out what they know.
“What do you think of our hosts?” I ask Milia.
“I say put them under the sigil.”
I cluck my tongue. “You really don’t like to keep promises, do you?”
She looks very much like a hawk, face all angles and cruelty. Her voice is of a similar breed. “Promises are just chains,” she rasps. “Both meant for breaking.”
I tell her to leave the Jupitareans alone, but then loudly command her to fetch the wine we scavenged on our trek to Jupiter. She takes some boys and brings up the barrels from Bacchus’s store.
I stand foolishly on the table. “And I order you to get drunk!” I roar to my army. They look at me like I am mad.
“Get drunk?” one says.
“Yes!” I cut him off before he can say more. “Can you manage that? Act like fools, for once?”
“We’ll try,” Milia cries. “Won’t we?” She’s answered in cheers. Some time later, as we drink Bacchus’s stores, I loudly offer some to the Jupitareans. Pax stumbles up in protest at the idea of sharing good wine. He’s a good actor.
“Are you contradicting me?” I demand.
Pax hesitates but manages to nod his giant head.
I draw my slingBlade from its back scabbard. It rasps in the humid warroom air. A hundred eyes go to us. Thunder rolls outside. Pax wobbles forward with a giant inebriated step. His own hand is on his axe’s hilt, but he does not draw it. After a moment, he shakes his head and goes to a knee—he’s still almost my own height. I sheathe my sword and pull him up. I tell him he’s to run patrols.
“Patrols? But … in the storm and rain?”
“You heard me, Pax.”
With a grumble, the BloodBacks wobble after him to go about their punishment. They’re all smart enough to have figured out their parts even if they don’t know the play. “Discipline!” I brag to Lucian. “Discipline is the best of mankind’s traits. Even in big brutes like that. But he is right. No wine for you tonight. That, you must earn.”
In Pax’s absence, I make a show of giving ceremonial wolfcloaks to the slaves of Venus and Bacchus who earned their freedom in taking this fortress—ceremonial because we don’t have any time to find wolves. There is laughter and lightness. Merriment for once, though no one discards their weapons. Nyla is coaxed into singing a song. Her voice is like an angel’s. She sings at the Mars Opera House and was scheduled to perform in Vienna until a better opportunity came along in the form of the Institute. The opportunity of a lifetime. What a lark.
Lucian sits in the corner of the warroom with the other seven defenders watching our soldiers make a show of falling asleep atop tables, in front of the fire, along the walls. Some slink away to steal beds. The sound of snores tickles my ears.
