When I was young and bold and strong,
Oh, right was right, and wrong was wrong!
My plume on high, my flag unfurled,
I rode away to right the world. 
‘Come out, you dogs, and fight!’ said I,
And wept there was but once to die.

Dorothy Parker

Dark blue brushes against the black night sky. On the other side of the mountain, the sun will rise in an hour. It’s time for us to make camp. A few hours ago I was still wondering how long my body would need to adapt to the new rhythm — walking at night, sleeping during daytime. But right now, I don’t need adapting. My muscles scream for a break, my chest feels like sighing constantly, my knees want to buckle. Runner waves a tired arm at a tree that looks like all the others we’ve walked past tonight. I take off my night vision goggles, drop my ruck on the ground, and instantly feel as if I’m floating. I’ve been carrying thirty kilograms uphill for seven hours with little interruption. Runner’s ruck weighs forty kilograms. We’ll bury about half of that weight before we leave this campsite. 

With Ben’s and Yi-Ting’s help, we’ve dug down two large boxes of ammo, explosives, spare rifles, and MedKits near the airstrip. A few hours later and several kilometres into the woods, Runner and I dug down another box of sealed ammo and explosives.

Now, sitting on my haunches, I open Yi-Ting’s presents — steamed rice, fish, and veggies wrapped in large leaves — two packages for me and two for Runner. We eat with our fingers and chew in silence, both of us too exhausted to make conversation.

Our first priority is to remain undetected until we open fire. We’ll spend our days sleeping either on the ground with our bodies concealed by our ghillies, or high up in a tree, concealed by foliage and by our ghillies strapped to the underside of our green hammocks. When we walk, hats made of leaves help to cloak us, our thermal signature, and our rucks from satellites. We are invisible and that feels and sounds almost as good as invincible.

As soon as I settle in my hammock and stare up at the thick greenery and the few silvery stars peeking through, my thoughts drift back to the goodbyes we said. My throat tightens. It feels like it’s half an eternity ago; how we stood in a small circle, clasping each other’s hands and making oaths to respect each one’s last will. I held Kat’s hand. It was warm and softer than I expected. We women all asked for the same thing — that no one should attempt to save us, should we be captured by the BSA. We’ll take care of ourselves. I wondered then, if they, too, had received a toxic implant. Whatever Kat and Yi-Ting have at their disposal, they seem set to use it. Ben just said that he doesn’t want anyone to cry when the BSA shoots him in the head. I almost did cry, then. Runner surprised me when he said that he, too, doesn’t want anyone to save him. When he saw my puzzled expression, he explained, ‘Snipers are the most feared and most hated of warriors. When we are captured, we are tortured and raped, no matter the gender.’

When we bade our farewells, neither he nor I offered anyone a hug. Not even Yi-Ting. It would have felt like a forever goodbye and I couldn’t… I just couldn’t. 

I shut my eyes and recall their faces, the flavours of their names. Ben tastes of brass coated with a thin layer of mountain cranberry. As soon as I think of him as Benjamin, these flavours melt into jelly, and sweeten the space between my palate and nostrils. Kat causes a furry feeling in my mouth, that of the short and soft hair growing on a mouse’s tummy combined with the taste of raw lamb liver. It’s not an unpleasant taste. Lamb liver, when eaten while it’s still warm, is actually quite delicious. Not that I find Kat in any way delicious. And Yi-Ting — how lovely this double name and double flavour! 

Runner’s cough interrupts my thoughts. I listen to his breathing. It’s not the relaxed and regular rhythm of someone sleeping. It’s that of someone plotting. 

I think of the time when I was on probation; this one horrible evening when I believed he fucked a thirteen-year-old girl. She sat on his lap, chatting, pecking his cheeks and his mouth. Late that night, when he stomped through the snow toward the yurts of the gypsies where the girl’s home was, I freaked out. I was ready to kill him, chop his balls off at the very least. My rage and disgust quickly changed to shocked embarrassment when I realised I’d bustled into a sex-fest between him and the girl’s mother, and that the girl was, in fact, their daughter.

‘Runner?’ I ask.

‘Mmh?’ he hums from the hollow of his hammock.

‘You know…the night I came storming through the snow, ready to stick a knife between your ribs? I’m ashamed I even thought you were… I don’t even know how you could forgive such a thing so quickly.’ My voice fades. Pale blue and orange shimmer through the trees where the sun will soon crawl over the mountains.

‘There was nothing to forgive. You showed great courage, even though you were terrified, shaken to the bone. You wanted to save my daughter. And you still do.’ He falls silent and I think of that night, and the following morning when he washed my feet to apologise. I still don’t understand what it was he apologised for.

You know,’ he says softly, ‘that was one of the two main reasons I took you as an apprentice.’

‘I can guess the other,’ I answer. That could only have been the days I dragged the Runner-tent-noodle through the snow and we almost didn’t make it.

‘Yeah…,’ he whispers. ‘Sleep now, Micka. The sun is rising.’

‘Good night,’ I mumble, roll into a ball, and pull the blanket over my eyes. I think of Cacho and wonder what insults Kat will slap at him when he calls.  But I don’t get far theorising. The gentle wind rocks the trees and my exhausted body to sleep.