“Han, we’re under attack.”
Kai startled off the floor when a facehunter crashed into Timar’s bedroom. The Crimson Han sprang from the tangled limbs of her apprentice, who moved several moments after, grabbing at weapons and clothes tossed on the floor. No-faces rushed in with Timar’s armor.
“How many?” Timar asked, calm and collected as the no-faces dressed her.
“Both the Cobalts and the Serpentines are advancing into our territory. It’s unclear if they are working together or have the same idea, but word about the gold-eyes got out.”
“Hold our defenses, and once this is over, find the traitorous rat. I’ll behead them myself.”
Still chained to Timar’s belt, Kai had no choice but to follow as Timar stormed outside.
Timar’s scavengers attacked from defensive positions along the camp’s tail. Kai didn’t know how many scavengers advanced through the dark tangle of vines and bones, but he heard them dying. For the most part, the attack seemed like suicide from the opposing side; hundreds out there desperate to capture him on the off chance he’d reveal his jih’s location.
But the hundreds must have been thousands, for they broke through the tail’s defensive wall with sheer numbers alone. The screams erupted closer.
Kai tripped over his own feet to avoid an arrow, only to be jerked in the same motion by Timar when one of Timar’s own apprentices flashed a hidden dagger. Timar twisted the dagger out of the traitor’s hand and swiped white dragonsteel cleanly across the traitor’s shoulder. Their head rolled.
Kai dove for the fallen dagger and snatched it up. Timar turned to meet another blade at her back, and Kai flew backward. Kai was pulled into the motions of the fight, ducking under blades and narrowly missing having his head chopped off. Kai tried breaking the chain link with the dagger, but it refused to bend. Kai choked when a scavenger slammed into the line.
“Stop fucking moving,” Timar snapped at him.
Kai brandished the dagger at her.
“Really?” Timar snapped. “Look around you. One of these rival clans gets a hold of you, and they’ll torture you dead.”
Timar whipped the chain forward, but Kai was already moving the same direction. The momentum gave him speed.
Timar stared for a surprised moment at the bloody slash across her waist.
Kai had managed to wound her when all others hadn’t been able to. It gave Kai hope he might fight his way out of this, and maybe escape in the confusion. Rasia was still a few days out, and this could be his best chance.
Timar charged him in anger, and Kai’s bravado was immediately proved overblown. The force of her sword stroke snapped back his arm. She tripped him with the chain. Kai lost his grip on the dagger.
Chink.
A large battle axe cut into the ground, severing the chain that connected Kai to Timar. Timar leaned back to avoid an attack from the largest person Kai had ever seen. If not naturally big-boned, it was rare to see someone with so much body weight in the Grankull, and the scavenger hefted his battle axe with trained ease.
Timar’s crimson bone mask faced off against a cobalt black one.
“Timar.” The opposing Han grinned. “I hear you’ve been a greedy thing, keeping the gold-eyes all to yourself.”
Kai got to his feet and ran.
Timar gave chase but couldn’t follow while avoiding the destructive power of the Han’s battle axe. Kai wove and ducked through the battle, chain rattling behind him.
He had a clear path to the trees. If Kai could save himself, Nico or Rasia wouldn’t have to risk their faces.
But Kai caught sight of the oasis kids, stuck in the cages. He recognized some of their terrified faces: Neema from the belly market, the female who tried to drown him in the oasis waters, and two of the kids from his initial Forging team who had pushed him off the windship.
Kai couldn’t leave them to the fate the scavengers had planned for them. No matter how they’d treated Kai, they all deserved better than what he witnessed last night.
Kai curved toward the cages. He slipped on loose dirt and caught himself against the cage bars. They shouted at him as he pulled at the lock. It wouldn’t budge, and he had no idea where the key might be.
In the corner of his eye, Kai saw a bloody spear lying in the hand of a nearby corpse. Kai grabbed the spear, jammed it into the hollow of the lock, and slammed down with all his weight.
“Come on, you fucking runt.”
“We’re so dead.”
“Try harder!”
Kai’s muscles strained. His shoulder ached. His legs shook and sweat dripped down his face. The lock refused to budge. Kai gave up that plan and grabbed the hook attached to the bottom platform, which was used to connect the wheeled cages to a windship. Kai pulled, and the wheels creaked and groaned.
Kai choked.
Timar stood behind him with a fresh head wound, and the collar chain wrapped around her forearm. Kai fought to stand his ground, but she jerked him back so hard, the hook snatched from his hands, and he flew off his feet.
She dragged him by the throat. Kai tried to reach some sort of weapon—a shortsword lying on the ground, but it brushed out of reach past his fingertips. He clawed against the ground, ripping a fingernail, cutting himself over dead corpses, while the chain rattled in his ear.
When they reached the trees, Timar curved her fingers into the collar link and hauled Kai to his feet. She pushed him toward a secret tunnel hidden beneath a door of vines. The ground cut his feet raw, and branches slapped at his bare flesh.
The ground led down and then up. Soft lush turned to hard stone, sharp twists, then cavernous, smooth bone. On the walls of the cavern, clinging along the damp and mossy bone neck, grew hundreds of clustered mushrooms.
After drums of hiking, they reached the cave opening, framed by teeth. A mountain had grown around the maw of this dragon, a part of the same skeleton where vibrations away scavengers slaughtered each other at the center of its tail.
Timar tied Kai’s chain from around her forearm to an incisor. She dug up a secret stash of supplies, and Kai watched her, judging.
“You abandoned all those who follow you.”
“I’m a scavenger,” Timar said as she hunched down, then ate dinner all the while her kull burned in the forest below. “This isn’t my first time I’ve had to start over.”
“You cared about some of them.”
Timar shrugged in response.
There was enough slack in the chain to allow Kai to reach the bushes at the cave’s lip. He passed water, took a glance over his shoulder at Timar, and shuffled slowly to the edge. With the exception of the fire, it was a beautiful view with several ponds and lakes glittering through verdant green.
Looking down, the mountain wasn’t so much a sharp incline but a rough roll to the bottom. The chain at his neck went taut.
“Don’t even think about it. You’re more than likely to break your neck than escape me.”
Kai wasn’t going anywhere with this collar around his neck. He backed away and was startled when his stomach growled. There had been a time when he had been so used to going without that his stomach hadn’t known it could complain.
Timar tossed him a leather bag of nuts and dried fruit.
Kai looked at her quizzically. Timar answered his unspoken question. “You’re the last play I’ve got, and your jih can’t find you if you’re dead.”
Kai munched on the bag’s contents, watching Timar. Now that the adrenaline was fading, all the aches and pains pummeled Kai. The dirt ground bit cold against his bare skin. Bugs he’d never seen had bitten red welts on his arms and legs.
Timar hunkered down, on guard as she watched the quietening of the forest. Kai watched her. Timar watched him. They watched each other.
Timar said, without prompt, “Most people believe in the Grankull’s lie—that it’ll take care of you, that as long as you work hard, you eat. But what happens when the Grankull doesn’t have the resources to take care of everyone? People fall through the cracks. They grow up believing the Grankull’s promises and become bitter and broken when it fails them. I’ve seen it all too often. But you’re different. You were born knowing it was broken. You were born knowing the world isn’t fair.” She pursed her lips, jaw clenched, angry. “No matter how hard you try, how fierce you believe, or how true your dreams, the world is still cruel. You have to be cruel back.”
Kai narrowed his eyes. “Cruelty is a choice. It is never an excuse.”
“You only believe that because you’ve yet to have the power to wield over others. You’ve had no choice but to be small and weak and broken. That’s what the Grankull wants you to believe. You and Rasia, outside of the Grankull’s shadow, you could be hans of your own. I don’t have to be your enemy.”
“How the fuck do you think I’m going to ignore the fact that you want to kill my jih?”
“How the fuck do you retain loyalty for the place that bought the hit?”
Kai’s jaw snapped shut. He didn’t have a rebuttal to that.
“I’m just another player in this game. You’d do well to remember that.”