“It’s a slippery slope, is all.” Clown looks at the war around us. “Even here.”
“You’re right. It is.” I bend and find another razor cast in the mud. I toss this one to another of the Obsidians, a nasty-looking woman half my size. She holds it like it’s a snake, glancing up at me in fear. They are raised believing we are gods. To be given Thor’s hammer … how would I hold it? Sevro walks through the corpses and finds several more. He tosses these to the Obsidians.
“Don’t cut yourselves,” he says.
“I’m counting on you. Go,” I tell them. They disappear, sprinting into the swelling darkness toward back side of the colossal wall. I turn back to the Howlers. “Is there a problem?” They all shake their heads quickly, except Thistle.
“Thistle?” Sevro asks.
Clown nudges her. And grudgingly she shakes her head. “No problem.”
There is. She will not follow me after this. Already I feel my friends turning from me. And they know not even a fraction of the truth. That is a problem for another day.
We must move fast. But we only have one pair of functional gravBoots between us. I give those to Sevro. We try to see if he can lift us like I lifted the Howlers on Olympus, but as we load onto the boots in chains, they sputter and spark. Only able to carry his weight. Damaged somehow in the fighting and the rescue. Bloodydamn.
So it will be on foot. And we cannot be slowed.
I point to the recoilPlate of those lucky enough to have it after the starShell amputations. “Armor off.”
“What?” Thistle sputters.
“Armor. Off. Except scarabSkin.”
“Unarmored against Praetorians?” Thistle howls. “Do you want us all to die?”
“We need to move fast. If the shield goes down before we get to the Citadel, the Sovereign will slip away. If we do not capture her, she will have a chance to regroup. She will join her Ash Lord. She will summon all of the Society, and they will come here with ten times our number to crush us. We’ll win the battle, lose the war.”
“But if we take her …,” Sevro growls, coming to my side.
“We’re talking about the Sovereign,” Clown says. “She’ll have Olympic Knights. Praetorians …”
“And?” Sevro asks. “We have us.”
“Six of us.” Clown shrugs sheepishly when we stare at him. “I just thought someone should point it out.”
“We have fifteen kilometers to cover on foot,” I say. They nod. “My pace.” Then they exchange worried looks and start taking off their armor. “If you fall behind, find a place to hide.” One-third Earth grav. Bodies in prime shape. This will still be hard. Especially with my arm savaged by my own razor.
Sevro saddles up to me as the Howlers strip away their armor. I can hear their terror in the clinking of weapons and armor moved by shaking hands, see it in the frenzied way they then rub mud on their faces to blacken their aspects.
“They’ve been with you from the beginning, Darrow.” Sevro looks around the stormy park, at the distant Citadel and blaze of passing ships. “We’re already half the number that took you from Luna. You might have replaced Pax with Ragnar, but you can’t replace them. Or me.”
“I thought you were with me.”
“I’m your conscience. I follow your ass everywhere. So don’t be a shithead.”
“Registers. On me,” I shout.
Armor shed, we set off silently. Only our razors and scarabSkin with us. Wearing rubber-soled undershoes instead of gravBoots. We go along the river, leaving the wall behind. Sprinting through acres of grassy parks and woods that separate the wall from the city as mechanized war rages in the distance. Ships roar past, making the tree branches shudder and leaves fall. Ground trams flicker far to our right, shuttling soldiers to the front. Explosions plume in the distance. Clouds consume the sky beyond the great shield that overlaps the city. Explosions flash inside the clouds.
Mustang will be nearing the shield generators now, if she’s alive. We can only pray they did not find her small squad. If Cassius or his hunters find her …
It is a ragged pace, covering fifteen kilometers at a sprint. My side stabs with pain. Muscles hunger for oxygen. And my right arm aches from the bloody bullet wound in my bicep and the lacerations that bleed along the bicep and wrist. I took half a pack of stims, so I can use the arm. The pain doesn’t blind. It focuses. Keeps me from thinking of the dead.
When we reach the edge of the woods, we do not stop to rest, but sprint onto the commercial district’s paved streets, cutting through buildings that tower over a kilometer up into the sky. We run through deserted lowDistricts, the bazaar where winding corridors lead us through rough streets and graffiti-stained walls. The occasional Brown or Pink or Red will scuttle out of our way or peer at us through windows, from alleys. Even here, in the center of their reign, I see the graffiti of Eo’s death. Her hair is ablaze like the wounded fighters that streak across the sky beyond Agea’s transparent shields. Someone pukes behind me. They don’t stop. The reek of bile travels with us.
Sevro flies back to us and lands beside me. “Platoon of Grays ahead. Go south one block, then cut back to avoid.” Then he’s gone again. We follow his instructions.
Suddenly there’s movement in the sky and we slow to a jog to watch. Pebble takes the opportunity to collapse onto the pavement, chest heaving. High above, but still beneath the shield, a horde of shuttles ferry soldiers from the smaller engagement on the southern wall, where Lorn fights, toward the northern wall where Ragnar and his Obsidians have gone. Dozens of shuttles full of reserves depart their dock in the hangars and ports that lace the seven-kilometer-high rock walls of the Valles Marineris to the east and west. Most of the barracks are there, as are the factories where highReds slave away making armaments and commercial consumer goods. We hide from the craft. Something has happened at the north wall. We take off again. Pebble moans. Thistle gets her up, keeps her in gear.
Sevro rejoins us minutes later, left arm hanging limp at his side. I eye it. He ignores my concern. “Ragnar opened the gorydamn gates.” His face splits into a smile. “Twelve of them in the wall’s face. Our boys are pouring in. And …” He stands there grinning.
“And what?”
“And Ragnar killed the Wind Knight and almost cut down Cassius.”