Foxhunt Page 14

  “How does it fly?” Orfeus said, and Faol gestured to a dial of controls on the left handle.

  “Hovering mostly, not true flight,” he said. “Up here it’s flight, but that expends energy.”

  “I am worth the debt,” Orfeus said, mostly to convince herself. In that moment, she would bloody her knives with a hundred foes if it meant Faolan stopped looking at her like she wasn’t worth the energy spent to keep her outfitted and alive.

  Pillars of smoke rose from the Tinctora in her mind’s eye, poison in the sky.

  She wanted to be in the sky, weightless and too fast for her memories to catch her.

  “A short flight,” Faolan warned and then he cruised forward, bike stopping short a bare inch from a bank of panels. He tapped at them, and the vast rectangular windows along one wall began to open out, one up and one down along the seam in the middle.

  She hadn’t quite thought he’d comply. “Alright,” Orfeus agreed, and leaned forward and went fast.

  The bike purred into life beneath her, and this time, she was ready for it. The room blurred past as the gap between the windows grew larger and closer. She leaned forward, and then the floor was gone from beneath her, the whole of the sky opening up vast and blue as ocean, the wind whipping away her breath.

  The bike sped forward on its own momentum for a second or two, then began to tilt down, at first slow and then sharply. The standard hoverjets were to keep it aloft above solid ground, not empty air. In a moment, she’d be plummeting.

  Orfeus tried to breathe evenly. A dark streak of movement passed, then circled back around, keeping pace beside her as Orfeus started to fall. Faol moved his bike easily and competently. She stared, sure her eyes were wide and white, though the air didn’t sting through the mask. Small jets came from the hoverbike’s output pipes as he flew and moved it. Yes.

  Orfeus spun the dial hard, too hard, the bike fired all jets and she went screaming up into the air. She laughed breathlessly as she ascended. What a horrible, energy-intensive way for someone to travel; it was also just very fast.

  This time, she adjusted the dial more carefully. Her flight pattern evened out some, but the bike dipped in the air, bucking as the wind caught it. Hm. These things didn’t seem to be made to hover in one place out in the open air. She could only keep control if she stayed in motion.

  Orfeus put on a little speed and then turned around carefully, curving back. The sky shifted from empty blue with wisps of cloud to the whole field of her vision being taken up by the Wild’s flying base. It squatted in the sky like a whale or some of the uglier buildings she’d seen in old cities. She could make out Faol, wispy cloud following in his wake. She tipped her bike around and came cruising back up and over the base, trying to get a look at it.

  Mostly it was rectangular, tapering to a point at the front and flaring out at the base. Nondescript metal, grey and black. She thought she could make out the shape of where the arena was, a slightly indented circle in the surface of it, but otherwise it was fairly uniform. Hard to see what parts of the vast complex corresponded to the places she’d been.

  From the sides extended thin and shimmering sheets of what looked like foil, nearly transparent, like banners of mist. She kicked her bike down and skimmed over them, peering. The hexagonal grid shape was familiar. These were vast and drifting solar generators. Sheets that thin would be vulnerable, and perhaps were reeled in in bad weather.

  Over the whistling of the wind, she couldn’t hear him, but with a glance she could see Faolan’s flight plan echoing hers, the same curve but a little behind, keeping a watchful eye on her. The feeling of him being on her tail made her grit her teeth even if he wasn’t an active threat now.

  If she were to just fly off and keep flying, she wondered how far she would get before he brought her down. These things didn’t seem to have any artillery, but he was certainly the better flier. Maybe he hated her enough he’d let her leave, the humiliation a worthwhile price for having her be gone, out of his sight and life. If she could master the bike well enough not to just fall and fall…

  The vast empty heights beckoned before her. Orfeus steered the bike back around and flew in through the windows.

  Back in the hangar, she brought the bike to a careful and slow landing. A little too slow: the motion petered out still a good twenty metres from where the other bikes were stored, and she didn’t want to spur it into speed instead. Orfeus twisted around in her seat to watch as Faolan coasted in, landing his bike at a screeching awful angle and skidding it a metre or two, leaping lightly off to land directly in front of the panel. He tapped at it lightly. The glass doors began to close again, pinching the thread of sky between them.

  Faolan lifted his bike and walked it across the space. In secret relief, Orfeus dismounted hers as well and pushed it along into storage.

  It felt deafeningly quiet in here but still loud, something in the air strange and confined now she’d been outside. Orfeus’s ears popped. She pulled her cloak back on and stepped back from the bike to inspect it, feeling they were now relatively well acquainted. “Solar powered?” she said.

  “Of course,” Faolan said. “As the base is.” He touched the docking node, and she craned her head to see where it connected with the battery cell. “But they have their own wings, if you’re away from base.”

  “Wings.”

  Faolan bent down and rummaged in the guts of his bike for a moment, and sure enough out folded the wings, stretching out more like sails, glimmering silver solarfoil. Orfeus could not help but laugh in delight. Whether this was some lofty, godly overworld or the depths of Hell or something in between, she couldn’t deny it was full of wonders.

  Faolan twisted a lever. The wings folded comfortably back in, crinkling, tucking back up close to the bike shiny as cicada shell.

  He turned and strode off. Orfeus fell in behind. He glanced at her.

  “What next?” she said.

  He looked at her more slowly, eyes flicking up and down. She straightened, chin up, frowning, feeling weighed and measured. “You were stabbed yesterday,” he said, as though she had forgotten. “And you are weak. Unused to such things.”

  “Thank you greatly, brave Wolf,” Orfeus said, but she said most of it to empty air, as he strode off fast enough she had to jog to keep up. He walked faster, and she lengthened her stride. “Where are you going?”

  A quick glance out of visor eyes. “For the rest of today, you rest.”

  “No,” she protested. He stopped, planting his feet, and she overshot past him. She wound back a few steps to face him. “You said today we would begin our work!”

  “To be able to work, you must rest.”

  Orfeus bared her teeth. “I think I prefer it when you aren’t talking.”

  Faolan fell silent. Orfeus endeavoured to feel sorry and didn’t quite manage to.

  He began walking, slower. She stayed where she was. “So what am I supposed to do?” she called after him. She’d been haunted, all but plagued by his shadow, and here she was howling at his absence.

  “Rest,” Faol called back without turning around. Orfeus could hear the irritation in her voice. “Just do nothing.”

  Orfeus stood, feeling desolate, and pressed her lips together. Right now, she could think of nothing in the world worse than inaction.

  Orfeus prowled the base.

  A fair amount of the corridors seemed lined with rooms like hers, unknown numbers of them occupied. The place felt like it had a skeleton crew, but there had been racks of empty docking stations out where the bikes were. Maybe there was a constant rotation of staff as they went out on their little bounty hunting missions.

  She stood outside the training room a moment, then very deliberately stretched. The various aches were enough incentive to make her prowl restlessly on. She couldn’t afford more injuries right now.

  Her thoughts wheeled and paced violently in the cage of her skull. Orfeus snuggled on the bed in her room, tucking her cloak over her, and pulled out
her porter. Yes, there was web access up here. Every amenity, though that didn’t extend to carpet.

  Curled up like that, she checked on Tinctora. Then immediately knew she shouldn’t have.

  No one had died in the fire. One citizen was missing. There were twenty people with injuries ranging from minor to moderate, and four with more severe injuries. Orfeus thought of her burns and shuddered. Four people from her chosen hometown of dyes and tinctures, suffering pain like that with no clever magic in their veins to help them heal. She curled up small under her cloak.

  She didn’t sleep, but didn’t move either. She simply laid in a kind of haze, letting the time pass torturously by.

  After a time, her stomach roused her, gnawing and empty. This was far from the longest time she’d gone without food, not even close, but she was still recovering. Orfeus lay dully for another while, then shook her head. She sat up slowly, stretching. Sore as an old man and with as little to look forward to.

  She wrapped her cloak around her shoulders and stood. She splashed water on her face before she went out so no one would know.

  She found the mess by following corridors in order of dark-lit to brighter-lit, finally to one that looked more like a thoroughfare. At the end of that was an open door to what turned out to be a fairly respectable mess. Long rows of tables filled the area, with a kitchen half-enclosed in an alcove. Debris was scattered over the tables, a few plates with crumbs and smears of grease on them attesting to whatever meal she had thankfully missed.

  The Shark and Owl were washing dishes, talking quietly to each other. Boarhound sat at the long bar, coat draped over ver shoulders, sipping from something.

  Orfeus glanced from the kitchen, where she might be roped into chores, back to Dormarch, and then swung easily into a seat beside vem. As though invited, as though welcome. “What’s a girl got to do to get a trade around here?” she said.

  Boarhound lifted ver brows at her. Ve had a homely sort of face, nose crooked and squashed in, as though ve had seen many fights. “If you’ve got aught worth trading,” ve said. “What you after?”

  Orfeus scratched the back of her neck and shifted back in her seat, stretching her legs out. “Do you have anything…illicit?”

  Dormarch chuckled deep in ver chest. “Me personally, course,” ve said. “Mostly we frown on it.” Ve shrugged, looking into ver tankard thoughtfully. “But whatever helps you get through the day. Sometimes life is hard. Luga knows that.”

  Orfeus didn’t have a ready answer to that. She tongued her lip, folding her legs back up under the chair. “I’m merely a wild, reckless hedonist,” she said. She would rather people believe that than think she needed to claw through the day spit and fire and teeth just to go to all the effort of waking up again tomorrow.

  The Boarhound shook ver head, huffing out a breath through ver nose. Ve stood, stretching out slowly with a wince and a grunt: maybe playing up the old soldier angle, maybe not. Ve loped into the kitchen area, exchanged words with Owl. Made them laugh. The Shark brightened as Boarhound entered. Ve stretched to reach a cabinet, not quite getting there. Owl did so more easily, opened the cabinet, passed a bottle down to Dormarch. Boarhound performed a salute which ended in vem swaying as if drunken, and the other two both laughed again. Whether Dormarch was just a drifting fighter past ver prime or had a much more significant role in the organisation than ve seemed, ve was certainly well-liked.

  Boarhound settled back in the seat beside her with a grunt and a curse. “Here,” ve said, thunking the bottle down on the bench. It was ominously unmarked, a plain and dusty bottle. Orfeus cocked her head at it. She patted at her cloak, fetching some of her herbs to make at least a decent trade, but Dormarch grabbed ver hand. Kindly, but with a grip like steel. “I’ll drink to your joining, Fox. Not every day we get someone new.”

  “Well,” Orfeus said, studying vem. She shrugged, pulling her hand back, secretly relieved when Dormarch released it. “There’s no day in the week when I’ll turn down a free drink.”

  Boarhound shuffled out an array of small cups, pouring a slug of liquor into ver big tankard. Ve took a sip and hiccuped, pushed the bottle towards Orfeus.

  Orfeus poured out a cupful and set it aside. For the Green and the burned and any god that would want it.

  She felt Dormarch’s eyes on her, and poured another shot and drank it down.

  The night blurred by tolerably fast. A while later, she was sitting at one of the mess tables, food in front of her, a tidy line of the little cups stretching off to the side. “Help me eat this bread,” the Boarhound had said, “I’ve a bad tolerance for wheat.” Orfeus had eaten maybe half of it, and then used the rest of it to illustrate a point, and now it had gone to the side somewhere.

  “What do you believe in, then, Orfeus?” Boarhound said.

  The Green, but she didn’t deserve to, not anymore. Orfeus said, “Me.” Her head was on the table, and had been for some unknown length of time. Many things about life were mysterious, and she accepted this with equanimity. “So right now…nothing.”

  Dormarch’s hand thumped reassuringly against her back. She wondered if ve knew how hard ve hit. “You can believe in us, if you’ve the need.”

  “Haha,” Orfeus said and heaved her head up with a titanic effort, resting her forehead in her hands. “I’m not a fool. Not a Faol. I don’t think I could convince myself of that.”

  “Huh,” Boarhound said, and took a swig of liquor. Ve was drinking right from the bottle now. “You seem halfway clever. You left an offering to any spirits hereabout and you wear stories like a cloak.” Ve patted her back again, this time much more gently. “You’re going to be fine.”

  “Right now, it feels like there’s a pit in me,” Orfeus said. She frowned a moment after, not able to recall why it had seemed important not to tell people that.

  Boarhound took a hasty second swig then put the bottle down. “Yeah,” ve said. “But one day, you’re going to be fine.” Ve offered her the bottle. She took that and drank, a burn down her mouth and throat.

  Dormarch added contently, “Tomorrow you’re going to be sick as hell.”

  The second thing most certainly proved true. It was only scant encouragement, clinging to the basin the next morning, that perhaps in time the first would too. The thinnest glimmer of hope, but Orfeus gripped it tight in her hands like a knife-hilt, and would not let go. She was better than this. She would do better than this. One day, one day.

  Chapter Nine

  We averted the end of the world. How grand and how terrifying: that we had such a capability, and that it was ever so close to coming to pass.

  We learned the things we must never do again. We learned that we must be brave and clever and kind, structurally and inescapably kind, or the world will once more be in danger of falling. Communities and countries and people must stand together, and try. Never again can a few elites ride at the top of the world and grind others into the dirt, leaving them little choice but to dig in the ground for poison to burn.

  The world will be fairer, and if everyone is just a little kinder, there will be no need for people to take justice into their own hands. I think it is important to remember that by committing an act of violence, the one committing the act is also harmed. It is a lesser injury, but still an injury.

  Violence is a part of human nature. Nature itself has been irreparably changed by our effect on this planet. If the very seasons of our Honoured Earth have changed, then so can we. So can I. So can we all.

  - Basma of Hollyhock

  * * *

  The Owl’s small med bay was drearily familiar, but at least Orfeus got here on her own two feet this time.

  “Even those welts are healing nicely,” Mordrai said cheerfully, stepping back and waving a hand. Orfeus pulled her shirt back down. “The Blood certainly does seem to heal you up faster! At this rate, you should be ready for your first hunt in another few days.” The curly-haired doctor frowned at her and emptied sanitiser over their hands, rubbing them
clean. “Try to go easy until then.”

  Orfeus swung her feet over, settling them on the ground next to her boots. “What, you’re not going to ask me for samples so you can study Blood?”

  They put the bottle down to look at her. “No,” they said, looking sincerely insulted. “You’re my patient.”

  She found herself smiling, cautiously. At least this lot were better than the Elders in this regard.

  “Those scars might be with you for a while, though,” Mordrai remarked, rolling their sleeves back down.

  “Good,” Orfeus said.

  They looked at her with a tilt of the head.

  Orfeus forced her smile broader and shrugged. “I need to remember, to make sure nothing else ever gets that close to killing me,” she said. “Faolan’s taught me that already. Faol’s taught me many things.”

  “Hm,” Mordrai said. “Well, she is the best of us.” They frowned, testy. “Though she doesn’t visit the med bay as much as she should with the injuries she gets. Augments can’t do everything.”

  The unwanted pang of compassion stung worse than her welts, and Orfeus ignored it. “How much can augments do?” she said. “Strength, endurance, fast healing, I know that, but I don’t know what else.”

  Mordrai cocked their head. “I was informed you didn’t wish to be augmented?” they said, voice trailing up in question.

  Orfeus shook her head firmly. “Just curious.” Know your enemies and know your allies, especially when they were one and the same.

  “Well.” Mordrai leaned against the cabinet thoughtfully. “Ideally, augments just improve on what’s already there. I’m afraid I don’t know much about the process, though, I didn’t invent it. That was the old medic.” They shuddered. “Quite the piece of work from my understanding.”

  “Oh?” Someone from here saying that meant a lot.

  “After a time, it seemed they viewed the other hunters less as comrades and more as subjects,” Mordrai said, looking pinched and severe. “Victims, perhaps. But it’s from before my time and I don’t want to talk about it. You might ask Luga.”