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  Orfeus glanced back at them to find Faol glaring a hole in her back. Same as usual then. She gave him a winsome shrug and innocent smile. Faol gritted his teeth and walked in front of her, so Orfeus was surrounded by hunters.

  The Hyena laughed. Looking at her would mean turning her back on Faolan, but the back of Orfeus’s neck prickled unpleasantly at the sound of that laugh. “We’re the ones who decide what’s wrong and what’s right. Let them burn!”

  Orfeus curled her hand into a fist, nails digging into her palm. She kept her silence.

  They came out into a broad and open room, uncarpeted, with some kind of steel alloy underfoot and a few hatches in the ground.

  At one end of the room stood a square, broad chair that looked like it had been torn from a cockpit, large enough for two people, but seating only one. It sat solidly atop a pile of what she would uncharitably describe as junk: old machine parts, taseguns missing their power cells, heavy links of chain.

  In the chair sat someone in their late middle age, sitting with one hand on the armrest and one on the hilt of a long, long sword. They had long fair hair tied back sharply from their face, which was smeared with black as if someone had wiped an ink-stained hand across it. Beneath the paint, they had a sharp chin and thin brows and eyes that cut into the room like knives.

  On one corner of the throne was hung what looked like some sort of crown made of twisted black antlers, and it caught Orfeus’s gaze. She looked back at the figure when they shifted slightly, legs crossing, hand going from their sword hilt to rest on one knee.

  The Wolf strode forward and dropped to one knee before the throne. He made the motion look natural, easy, like he didn’t grudge it in the least. “Luga, sir,” he said. He held a hand out behind him, indicating her. “Orfeus.” She was obscurely offended that he didn’t say the singer. “She…wants to join the Order.”

  Someone laughed, not the Hyena, a mellow, softer laugh. Liquor-softened. Another person sat lower down in the scrap pile, leaning back comfortably against what might have been a broken old radiator, a tankard in hand. They lifted the tankard briefly in a toast, drank, and said nothing.

  “We brought her in,” the Hyena added. Her tone was deferent, but it lacked something that had been in Faol’s. Something Orfeus wanted to call blind obedience, though she hadn’t observed all of them enough yet to really capture the intricacies.

  Luga looked at the Hyena and the Shark. “Well done,” he said. He looked at the Wolf, and his tone cooled noticeably. “Won’t you introduce us properly, Faolan?”

  Faol looked up, looking a little surprised, but nodded. Still kneeling, and certainly not looking at Orfeus, he said, “This is Luga, leader of the Order of the Vengeful Wild, best and wisest of us.” His tone was respectful, subservient and almost fond. “Sir, this is…”

  Luga leaned forward. His hand where it laid on his knee looked…odd, the fingertips blackened. “The prey that escaped you,” Luga said. “I’m aware.”

  The Wolf bowed his head again. Orfeus couldn’t guess at what was on his face.

  “To be fair,” Orfeus said, and Luga looked at her. It was just one look, and his eyes were pale green, not an especially intimidating shade, but something in her chest clenched tight in fear. She brazened on, her voice thin and insubstantial, falsely cheery. “It’s not entirely the poor dear’s fault. I’m very wriggly as a person. Evasive. Quite an excellent candidate for your little gaggle of vigilantes, really.”

  Luga looked at her, and said nothing. The person seated on the ground seemed to have stopped paying attention, taking another swig of whatever was in the tankard, wriggling to get more comfortable. Their mask looked canine, with similar ears to the Wolf’s.

  Luga’s eyes bored into her.

  Orfeus cleared her throat. “If you don’t believe me, then…” No Blood, no weapons. Playing guitar at him wouldn’t help. She wet her lips. “Then…I’ll challenge you to single combat.”

  The Wolf’s head snapped up and he stood. “I will fight in the Leader’s place if wished,” he said, in his harsh voice. It was a perfectly normal voice, mid-register. The harshness when he spoke was from how he forced it out, like the words were going to hurt him if he didn’t get rid of them all at once and carefully measured. Necessary things to dispense with, like kidney stones.

  Orfeus blurted, “Is there no end to how much you want me dead?”

  A muscle in his neck jumped and twitched. He stepped back slowly, joining the Hyena and Shark, but he didn’t look at her.

  The Leader still said nothing, and Orfeus jutted a look out at him. “What,” she said, “are you scared?”

  The drinking figure below him wiped their mouth with their sleeve. “Scared,” Luga said slowly. His voice was precise: it made her think of falling leaves, each with its slow and wintry descent. “No. I’m merely surprised, singer. I’m an old man.” He tapped his fingers against his sword tilt and cocked his head. “And you look like hell. You look like you’re about to fall over here and now.”

  “I can prove my worth,” Orfeus said, though her mind was a fog and the pitch and twist of the airship-or-whatever beneath her feet did not make her feel stable.

  Luga shook his head, leaning back in the throne. “Single combat is not necessary.” One corner of his mouth twitched, though his face otherwise was impassive, carved from marble or chalk. “Anyone is allowed in my Order. Anyone of any background, if you can prove you’ll leave it all behind.”

  Orfeus straightened, meeting his eyes. “Oh, I will.” What was there to leave? She fancied she could still smell smoke.

  “Hm,” was all Luga said. He drummed his fingertips against his sword hilt again. She wondered why they were blackened, whether it was a trick of the light or the same paint that decorated his face so warlike, or whether both were symptoms of some creeping necrosis. “Only if you pass the necessary trials. Now tell me why.”

  “Why?” Orfeus said blankly. He offered no elaboration, and she tried to parcel a version of the truth into something feasible, then shied away: she did not want to think about the truth. She grinned sharp over the panic and grief rushing through her. “Why, the sheer fire of justice that burns in my heart, sir.”

  There was a grating sound. Orfeus glanced over her shoulder. Faol had dug his claws against the wall, leaving a jagged inch of scrape against the stone.

  She looked back at Luga. He said nothing. “I’m bored?” she tried.

  “Hnenh,” he said. He leaned back, flicking his fingers: dismissal. “Next time we speak, I trust you’ll be sensible.” His eyes glinted green. “If you pass the Trial of Fangs.”

  “Of course, it’s called that,” Orfeus said.

  A choked laugh, spluttering. The stocky person below Luga’s throne lifted their arm up to their mouth to try and stifle their laughter, or possibly clean up whatever liquid they’d spat out.

  Luga flicked them a quick hooked glance, brows drawing together. He looked back at Orfeus. “This is Dormarch,” he said briefly. “Ve is my second in command.”

  A very drunken second in command. “Yes, sir,” Orfeus said demurely. She added, “See how much more sensible I’m being?”

  No laugh this time. Tough crowd.

  Orfeus rocked back on her heels and said, “At least your subordinates have a sense of humour.” She added, “Some of them,” and then a hand closed around her arm tight as a vise, as Faolan stood beside her.

  “I’ll prepare her for the Trial,” he said, in his grim voice. He tugged her away, and Orfeus let herself be towed.

  Before they quite cleared the room, Luga called, “Do better this time, I trust, whelp.” The quick grimace Faol gave at the name was the closest she’d seen him come to a smile.

  Outside the door, the Hyena stretched and yawned. It wasn’t especially late, but maybe huge laughter-prone bounty hunters slept to a different schedule. The Shark said, “Good luck with that one,” nodding at Orfeus. He didn’t sound especially mocking: if Faol was in disgrace, either t
he others didn’t know or it was temporary.

  “Nghh,” Faol said.

  As soon as they had peeled off, Orfeus pitched her voice quiet and pleasant and said, “Let the hell go of me.”

  He did.

  She rubbed her arm, trying to hide her surprise. Faol walked a few metres and Orfeus strode to keep up. His legs were shorter but he ate up the ground surprisingly fast. Wolf. Sure. “Your dear leader didn’t seem very pleased with you.”

  “It’ll pass,” Faolan said briefly. “He’s disappointed, but I can prove myself.”

  “Really?” Orfeus said and stretched her arms behind her back. “He didn’t seem ready to be pleased.”

  Faol stopped short at a dark corridor, and turned. He reached out a hand as if to grab her, then stopped, his hand hanging in the air between them. He snapped, “He leads fairly and well.”

  Orfeus let out a long sigh, pressing her hand to her forehead. “Well, I’m sorry to have thought badly of your father figure.”

  “He’s not—we’re not,” Faol said, “it’s not,” and he subsided.

  He didn’t start walking again. Orfeus ventured forth, picking a direction at random. Faolan strode behind her after a moment, and walked down a different branch, jerking his head sharply. Orfeus fell in line.

  She was finally able to see him properly from the strips of light set in the roof of the corridors, though some were flickering and some entirely absent. He was significantly shorter than her, but something in his posture, or maybe his absurd amount of muscles, made it feel like he loomed. He had a squared chin, with a short nose under the helm he still hadn’t taken off. His black hair hung in thin strands and could use a wash, but then she supposed he’d been caught in an explosion and hadn’t much chance to clean up.

  As if he sensed her thoughts, he said, eyes on the corridor, “Do you need to wash?”

  She was smeared in smoke, too. Like the debris of her colossal mistake clung to her, like she was seared by her sins, as painted and stained as Luga. “I’m fine.” She tugged fingers through her hair and shrugged. It wasn’t too knotted. “Hey, will I get some of that armour?”

  “No.” Quick and flat and final. It was hard for even her to keep talking when he cut off the end of conversations, severed them like he’d doubtless severed a great many lives. Faol’s eyes flicked to her and back. After a grudging moment he said, “You will if you pass the Trial.”

  Orfeus clapped her hands together. The motion would have sent out sparks, but there was just a tug of hollowness where her Blood-response should have been. “Excellent,” she said. “I’ll be a very well-armoured corpse.”

  “But I will arm you,” Faol said, and stopped in front of a door. This one didn’t hiss open, and he entered a code, tapping swiftly. There was a beep of affirmation, and he hauled the door open, muscles straining against it, then nodded shortly into the room.

  Orfeus walked into what looked like the weapons room of a whole small army, which she supposed, in a way, it was. She didn’t know the size of the Order, exactly. The complex seemed huge so far, but they’d passed no people walking through it.

  Hung on netting on the walls was weaponry that ranged from the archaic to the downright frightening, axes and swords and studded maces. Cabinets nearer the centre of the room perhaps held more modern methods of incapacitating and killing enemies, in tidy drawers. A few spare sets of the tough black armour the Wild wore hung stiffly on mannequins in one corner, with loose pieces of the same jumbled together in a bin nearby. There were none of the distinctive helmets.

  Faolan walked past the weapons wall, fingers trailing fondly against the hafts of spears and handles of axes. Orfeus’s back went rigid and she clenched her hands into fists, but bit back any fear or disgust she felt for this…creature. If Elders didn’t count as quite human, maybe Faolan didn’t either, or she hoped.

  “Weapons aren’t made equal,” Faolan said. He patted the scabbard of a sword like it was a puppy, turning to her with his eyes staring seriously out of the snarl of his mask. “An axe is not a sword is not a stunner. Everyone has specialties. But…” And she could almost see him dismissing her. “You don’t have the advantage of formal training. Take whatever you can use.”

  She wanted to ask how he was so sure, but he’d fought her twice. Or, mostly, he had hit her as she ran away. Orfeus had a scattering of knowledge about unarmed combat and a general idea of what parts she shouldn’t let get hit, but most of that had been about self-defence, not…

  The axes glinted. Strange to see an axe that was made to part skin and not tree bark.

  “Anything,” Faol said impatiently.

  “I wouldn’t have pegged you as the sort to rush when it comes to nasty murder implements,” Orfeus said. She clasped her hands behind her back, running her eyes over the weapons thoughtfully. “Give me…Luga’s sword.”

  Faol didn’t respond to that.

  “Give me a candle that grants wishes,” Orfeus said.

  He wrinkled his face, lips drawing back from his teeth, and let out a frustrated breath, hgnh. He strode past her, irritation clear from the tension in his arms, and despite herself, she flinched back. Her arm still ached from his grip, her back was still scarred from his claws.

  He didn’t come within half a metre of her, instead opening one of the drawers and sifting through it. He pulled something out and held it up to the light: a rectangle of black plastic capped on one end, the hilt of a knife with no blade.

  Faol tested the weight of the thing in his hand and then held it out to her. “Knives are better for the untrained,” he said. She reached out for it, and his fingers closed over the stubby plastic. She hadn’t wanted this good a look at the heavy gauntlet over his hand, how it looked like the armoured plating that extended back over his wrist actually sunk into his flesh. “Can you use a knife without cutting yourself?”

  It could sound insulting, and it did, but she’d heard plenty of stories in wayhouses about people chopping the tips of their fingers off with the onions. She knew to cut away from herself, knew how to handle a knife pretty well, actually, from whittling. But she didn’t want to make it easy for him. Orfeus scoffed. “I garden,” she said.

  The Wolf closed his eyes briefly, but he didn’t say anything to that either. He was starting to respond less to her baiting. So he wasn’t entirely stupid, then.

  “Everyone carries a cauterknife with their other gear,” Faol said. He thumbed a switch on the side, and a blade of solid blue light sprung out, unwavering. It was a little like a hole cut in the world.

  He thumbed it off, demonstrating, then held it out again. Orfeus took it a little blankly. “Cauterknives?” she said. “But…surely you want your opponents to bleed.” Him in particular, with that hungry gleam in his eyes when he was near blades. Maybe all of them. She thought well of none of them.

  And yet here she was.

  “You want them afraid,” Faol said. He waved over his shoulder at the wall. “But you can take a metal knife if you want to make people bleed.”

  Orfeus wrinkled her nose in slight distaste and tucked the knife hilt into her pocket.

  She went to the drawer and rifled through, pulling out a matching knife and pocketing that as well. Faol said nothing.

  She turned to him expectantly. He frowned. “Nothing else?”

  His eyes felt heavy and watchful. She shrugged and cast around, then picked up a weighted net. Without training, it seemed just as likely to tangle her as foes, but maybe it’d buy her a moment in the…whatever it was. Anything that a group of mask-wearing people with a room of axes called the Trial couldn’t be good.

  She did get tangled as she was trying to attach the too-long net to her belt, and eventually threw it over her shoulder. Faol was watching her with...pity? His mouth was drawn down, but his eyes were contemplative, not narrowed in anger, and those were the only cues she had. Surely he hated her. Maybe he just hoped she’d die honourably instead of too fast.

  She hoped so too. That seemed a
good sort of thing to hope for.

  The Wolf nodded, and strode out of the room. She followed. He pulled the door shut with one arm, paying less attention now, though it grated and shrieked against the floor with weight.

  “You people are augmented,” Orfeus said.

  Faol set off again. “Most of us.”

  His tone didn’t invite conversation. She said nothing else until he stopped in front of a smaller door than the last one, and waved at it. This one didn’t have a lock, or at least not a doorpad. “Get some rest, if you can,” he said. Orfeus nodded. Faol didn’t move.

  “Anything else, Wolfy?” she said. “Waiting to kiss me goodnight?”

  He bristled, shoulders bunching up and eyes going fierce and hot. Then he let out a long, deliberate sigh, releasing some of the tension with it. He grumbled a growl, scratching at the plating on his arm with his other hand. “What’s your game?” he said.

  Orfeus waited a moment, rocked back on her feet, pursed her lips` considering which answer to give. “Why does there have to be a game?” she said. His eyes narrowed. Orfeus shrugged. “This is just about surviving.”

  Faol folded his thick arms. “Is it?” he said. “Because this is the worst way to do that.”

  He had a point. Orfeus said nothing.

  He took a step forward, and Orfeus very deliberately held her ground, even though he was closer than she’d like. “Why are you here?” he demanded. “What trick is this?”

  Orfeus met his eyes as calmly as she could. “No trick,” she said. She stepped forward in turn, getting into his space instead, glaring him down. “Didn’t you promise Luga you’d help prepare me?” She waved at the door. “Interrogations before bed do not help.”

  Faol took two rapid steps back, almost a flinch. “Information,” he said suddenly, perhaps remembering the lengths she’d gone to try to get the client’s name out of him. Was that just today? Honoured Earth, so much had happened. At least the world still spun. “You want information?”

  Yes, desperately, always. Orfeus fanned out her arms in a shrug. “Would’ve been nice, but you said the only one who could help was Luga, and you saw him in there,” she said. “He’s not giving me anything.” Not yet. She’d find some way to pry past the Leader’s guard; she’d just have to be less damn terrified of him first.