Foxhunt Page 17

  “Speak of the wolf and you’ll see his tail,” Orfeus muttered. She threw a handful of raisins into her mouth and chewed.

  Faol looked at her plate and nodded, like he was marking off items on a list. “If you’ve eaten, we should train,” he said.

  Orfeus paused. She made herself swallow the pulped-up fruit, though it felt sticky and cloying. His claws, slashing away a man’s life.

  “Not in the mood,” she said breezily.

  Tai darted a look up at Faol. Faol rumbled, “You can’t be alone. After your first hunt.”

  “I’ll read a book in the mess hall,” Orfeus tried. His eyes cut into her. She pushed back her chair, frustrated. “Fine. Can I train with someone else? I don’t want to see you right now.” For preference, she didn’t want to see him at all, but she doubted that would happen.

  Tai chewed at his lip, glancing between them.

  She needed to soften it. “Not when we’ll spend every minute on missions together anyway,” she said, making her tone petulant, like the issue was like spending too long a train ride with someone.

  Faolan’s eyes showed he didn’t buy it, which was fine, as long as Tai did. The Wolf grunted. “Fine,” she said. She looked at Tai.

  “Yeah,” the Shark said modestly, “I can teach the newbie some things.”

  Orfeus laughed. “Who better to learn from than the worst at hand-to-hand!” she said. Tai performed a little bow.

  Faolan didn’t put her hand on Orfeus’s shoulder again, but she fancied she could still feel the phantom weight. The trace of claws close to her throat, though Faol didn’t have her claws out. “Good luck,” Faol growled. Orfeus shot her a glare sharp as Snakebite. The Wolf left.

  Tai scooped up the last handful of fruit and chewed on it. Orfeus finished her jerky. “Sorry to co-opt you into training,” she said, and he shook his head.

  “I don’t mind at all. But you’ll want to be careful.” He nodded over her shoulder to where the Wolf had left. “Faol’s the best of us.”

  Orfeus washed her mouth out. “The bigger they are…” she said with a shrug.

  Tai laughed a little, standing. “No, I mean he’s the best,” he said. “A good fighter sure, but he really believes in it, y’know? Faolan’s been here longer than most of us. Faolan’s survived.” He shook his head. “Ahhh, but you can argue with whoever you want. I shouldn’t stop you.”

  Orfeus stood up, pushing her chair neatly back in. “Good,” she said. “I choose to argue with everyone.”

  Tai snorted.

  He took her to the training room, whistling. She whistled back, deliberately offkey, and he lost track of his tune and laughed.

  The Ocelot was in there already, whirling kicks into the mannequins that shook them to the base. Tai called, “Hey, Juana! It’s cool if we train with you, yeah?”

  Juana called back without turning around, “Not like you could beat me, Shark!”

  Tai grinned. “Common knowledge,” he said. Orfeus snorted.

  She draped her cloak over a balancing pole that ran along one wall. Tai wore good clothes to fight in already, loose grey slacks and pants without the belts he’d worn on the mission, and began stretching to warm up. Orfeus copied him. She was rusty on stretches.

  Juana finished her flurry of blows and turned to them, panting a little. She smiled at Orfeus. Her smile was bright and impish, her face small, her features as precise as her punches. “Ah, good,” she said cheerfully. “You did promise that I could beat you up a little.”

  “Yes…” Orfeus stretched and skirted her eyes aside. “I’m still sorry about that.”

  Ocelot sighed and walked up to her, an easy sway of motion. She patted her shoulder companionably. “It’s not like it would be the first time someone’s died in a Trial,” she said, sounding amused by it.

  “Ah,” Orfeus said. “That’s…just excellent.”

  Juana dimpled at her, and turned to resume her onslaught. The fighting style wasn’t entirely unfamiliar to Orfeus, like kickboxing, though a higher level than she’d ever attained. It had been a while. Orfeus went to look for hand wraps.

  She’d barely opened the first drawer over by the sink when the Owl popped their head through the door of the training room. They glanced around, then fixed on her. “Fox!” they said. “The Falcon wants to see you.”

  Tai paused in his stretches and Juana in her blows, in order to stare at her.

  Orfeus glanced between them all. “I don’t know who that is?” she said.

  “Oh,” Tai said and shook his head. “One of our irregulars. You’d better hurry, she doesn’t show up in person much.”

  Irregulars? What counted as irregular for a group of mercenaries?

  Orfeus nodded in thanks and farewell and, collecting her cloak, left the room. The Owl waited by the door, then fell into pace beside her, leading her along the corridor to their med bay.

  Standing outside it was a tall, tall figure in a tight jumpsuit, wearing a helmet that was more domed than the others’ masks and more stylised. The falcon head emblazoned on the front of it was only a suggestion of a bird. Orfeus kept her stride even, as though she wasn’t intimidated.

  “Mordrai,” the Falcon said, “could I borrow your room?”

  “No one’s injured right now,” the Owl said proudly, as though this were rare. They nodded to the Falcon and to Orfeus and wandered off, back to the training room.

  The Falcon gestured. Foreboding prickling at her neck, Orfeus strode in. The Falcon followed her and closed the door behind them.

  Taking off their helmet, the Falcon shook free their long, chestnut-brown hair, falling nearly to their waist. They snapped a look at her. “Orfeus,” Em said, “what the merry hell are you playing at?”

  Orfeus’s jaw dropped as she stared at her old rival’s girlfriend. Here, in the base. “Em!” she said stupidly. “How did you get in?” Em said nothing, just stood there, coolly professional with her helmet tucked under one arm. Orfeus took her in and reassessed. “Does Bright know that you’re…that you’re in the…”

  Em shook her head, long hair rippling. Orfeus had always admired her hair. “I’m not in the Order,” Em said, answering the assertion Orfeus hadn’t dared to make. “I’m just a consultant. The bikes are mine,” Em added, which, really, in hindsight was obvious. She should have recognised the mark of Em’s style.

  There were more prominent things on her mind than what she hadn’t noticed. “This might have been useful information when I was fighting for my life,” Orfeus snapped.

  “My agreement with the Order means they normally inform me if they’re using my tech on missions intended to be deadly,” Em said, a little tersely, “and yours wasn’t, until you made it be. I didn’t hear about that mess in Tinctora until you were all long gone. Honestly, Orfeus! What were you thinking?”

  Orfeus couldn’t quite stop from staring at the reality of her, and she sank down on one of the beds, shaking her head. Relief and defensiveness made for a powerful force. “I thought I’d get information, and I did,” she said.

  “You burned down half your hometown,” Em said.

  Orfeus flinched bodily back from it.

  She looked to one side, the tidy organised cabinets. “I grew up in Hollyhock…” Useless, stupid. Em deserved better than deflections. “I fucked up. I know.”

  Silence a second, and then Em settled carefully down next to her. When Orfeus risked a glance, Em was frowning. She held a hand peaceably in the air between them. “I know that wasn’t on you,” she said, speaking more like her usual careful and considered self. Em flaring in rage wasn’t something Orfeus had experienced firsthand before: more often that was directed at Bright when Bright did something foolish, like experimenting directly on herself or neglecting to eat. “I spoke in the heat of the moment.” Her arched brows drew down. “The Wolf was your doing, but as best as I can get from them, the others were set on you anyway by a third party. You know that situation wasn’t really your fault, right? The fires?”
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br />   So Em didn’t know it was. “I…” Orfeus said. This was an excellent chance to unburden and come clean, to tell the truth, to be a better person.

  To make a friend hate her, maybe her last friend.

  “There were a lot of factors involved,” she said.

  Em huffed. She settled her helmet on her lap. “Tai’s damn combustion agents don’t always work like he plans,” she said. “We’ve talked about it.” Orfeus grinned despite herself, glad to think of Em’s formidable rage directed at someone other than herself.

  She leaned back against the wall. Em very lightly rested a hand on her shoulder, then gave her a quick one-armed hug. Orfeus leaned into the contact, closing her eyes, and Em hugged her properly, fierce and hard.

  Orfeus leaned back after too few moments, with a cough. She wasn’t used to letting her guard down here. “At least I’m famous,” she said, trying to grin, and Em’s eyebrows went right up.

  She looked sceptically at the mask. “What, as the Fox?”

  “No,” Orfeus said, vehement and loud. Em cocked her head, and Orfeus sighed out, rubbing at her neck. “I mean as me. Luga had heard of me. Ideally I’d like fans less murderous, but—” She stopped. “Em?”

  Her friend had gone pale, shaken. “He what?” Em said, rolling her helmet restlessly across her knees.

  “He said he liked my songs?” Orfeus said, puzzled, because this was a small piece of news; far more manageable than talking of blood spilling like wine and the slash of Faol’s claws. “Someone here showed him.”

  “The Leader said that?” Em echoed. She still looked shaken, and Orfeus frowned and put a hand on her shoulder. Em didn’t seem to notice. “Orfeus, I—” But she cut herself off, and visibly pulled herself together. “That doesn’t matter. What are you doing here?”

  Orfeus shrugged, dropping her hand to her side. “Someone put the hunters on me, like you said. And the Wolf, first and foremost. I wanted information…”

  Em nodded, looking more composed. “And have you got it?”

  Orfeus ran a hand through her hair. “Not…yet. But I might have found a few things worth knowing.” For all she’d thought of them as monsters, these halls as a dark and vicious place, she found herself defensive. “They’re really not too bad, you know.”

  “They’re certainly the Order of the Wild,” Em said, carefully.

  Orfeus stood up, gestured. “At least they don’t stab you in the back,” she said hotly. “They look you in the eye when they hurt you. Not like the Elders, didn’t Bright tell you, someone there stole my blood.”

  “Obviously I’m not going to stand in judgment of you,” Em said. She set her helmet down on the bed and patted it. “They use my tech, like I said.”

  “I’m not saying they’re good, of course they’re not good,” Orfeus said. She cocked her head, trying to find the right words; the right words were a powerful thing. “But they could be better. They could be something necessary, even something beautiful.” Everyone laughing at the feast, and Mordrai’s fumbling kindness, even Em, being here, those all proved they were just people. Orfeus nodded, certainty settling around her. “The First Precept of the Green: a healthy ecosystem is balanced between predator and prey. There just has to be a way to make sure the knife only cuts where it’s meant to. I think they could be better.”

  Em looked up at her. “So you’re not here for answers, really.”

  Orfeus paused at that. She sat back down. “No, not anymore. Not just that.” She looked her dead in the eye. “But I’ll take anything I can get.”

  She was prepared for Em to flinch back, or leave her there, because Orfeus had left everything behind already. But Em just sighed, exasperation with a hint of fondness, like when Orfeus dropped by too late at night or Bright blew something up.

  “Changing systems from the inside…” Em said and shook her head. “You’re the one fond of the old sagas. Tell me, how does that normally end?”

  Orfeus hadn’t said anything that ambitious. “Hasn’t ended yet,” she said, brightly.

  Em pinched her nose. Orfeus glanced at her with a pang, the weariness on her face. Whether Orfeus deserved it or not, Em certainly was worried on her behalf. She’d caused a friend anguish for no reason. On the other hand … even if Orfeus was making the best of it, finding her feet in a bad situation, Em armed and equipped these people. Only bothering to find out details when missions were intended to be deadly? Some comfort, when Orfeus would bear the scars on her back for all her life. She didn’t know how to feel about Em’s association with the Order, what to do with the sting of betrayal when everything she’d done was worse and they were all on the same side now anyway.

  “Really, how are you?” Em said.

  A little too simple, a little too bald. A little too hard to evade. “Been worse?” Orfeus tried.

  Em sighed again. “You’re here now,” she said, and shook her head. “Watch your back, Orfeus. I’ll do what I can for you.” She stood up, and frowned around the room. “You’re not a killer.”

  Orfeus managed to hide her flinch this time. One person missing, after the fires in Tinctora.

  “Knives aren’t really your style,” Em continued. Orfeus didn’t mention Snakebite. Em looked at her, tapping her chin thoughtfully. “If you’d like, I can try to rig you a stun baton.”

  “Ooh,” Orfeus said, brightening. “Batons.”

  A smile graced Em’s lips, at last. “Ha,” she said tiredly. “Maybe some other tricks. Just send me a message if you need anything special and I’ll get to it as soon as I can.”

  “Thank you,” Orfeus said, quietly, at last. Em nodded and went to the door.

  As she reached it, she muttered, “I am surrounded by very clever fools.”

  Orfeus nodded, accepting that. “You should tell your girlfriend,” she said before Em could leave. Em turned, frowning. Orfeus quickly clarified, “Not that I’m here! Just…that you are. That you do this. Loved ones shouldn’t be lied to.” Her guts twisted at the hypocrisy, and she smiled unconvincingly.

  Em sighed. She put her helmet back on. “Honey,” she said, a little muffled. “I love you, but I’m not going to take relationship advice from you.”

  Fair enough.

  After Em left, Orfeus waited half a minute to let her get a fair way ahead, as it seemed she didn’t want their existing connection to be known. Then Orfeus stood slowly, and wandered her way back to the training room and the others.

  Excitable raised voices, when she was still a few metres away from the door. Orfeus paused.

  Impulse beckoned and she gave in, pressing her ear to the wall.

  Juana’s voice, excited and out of breath from sparring. “But how on Earth does she know the Falcon?”

  Orfeus blinked, grinned, flipped her cloak hood up to make things just a little less awkward if anyone came by and saw her eavesdropping.

  “Hardly the only unusual thing about Orfeus,” Tai replied, sounding lofty. A mechanical clanking noise; maybe he was working on one of his devices. “But the Falcon’s never even talked to me unless it’s about weapons.”

  “She’s never talked to me at all!” said Juana. “I’m my own weapon.” A couple of solid-sounding thumps, as the training dummy took its beating.

  A pause, long enough Orfeus considered just joining them. She took a quiet step, then halted as Tai said thoughtfully, “Maybe she’s going to make her something real good to keep her alive out there. Because the Fox is better at magic than fighting.” Tai sounded troubled, but only slightly.

  “I wouldn’t count her out,” Juana said, chirpy. “You can still see the scar, look! I’ll always have that.”

  In the shadows outside, Orfeus curled up small and bit her lip.

  “She healed me with her magic!” Juana continued. “So quick with her magic, and not bad with her knives! I hope Faol takes it easy on our new Fox.”

  Orfeus blinked.

  “Alas,” Tai said, “our brother the Wolf isn’t known for choosing the easy path.�
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  “But we can keep an eye on her.”

  “Of course, if she survives.”

  A few other murmurs, then a solid thump, and Tai’s laughing protest. “Ow! I’m not sparring, I’m tinkering, look.”

  “In battle, you must be ready for anything!”

  Orfeus walked a few quiet steps back, smiling. Then she approached the training room again, with bootsteps loud, to join them.

  Here in the den of hunters and wildfolk, despite the bridges she’d thought burned for good, she wasn’t alone or unloved. Orfeus didn’t feel like who she used to be, but she wasn’t devoid of allies. Faolan was monstrous, Luga unreadable, but many of them had not forgotten kindness.

  She had changed so much, even if it was for the worse. Surely it couldn’t be that hard for this place to change for the better.

  From her bike, Orfeus rummaged out the plant she had brought up from Weingart’s manor, scraping as much of the soil into her cloak as she could to spirit back to her room.

  There was nothing pot-like around the base, not unless she yanked random pipes off the walls, and maybe they had more purpose than they seemed. Better not to risk it. Orfeus fetched out her herbs, all her dried plants and potencies. One was a small jar of lavender, and she emptied it carefully onto a clean cloth, then transferred her new plant into the jar, scraping the soil in carefully and patting it back down around the seedling. Only a small plant, barely into sprouting, twin leaves growing out from the stalk. Hard to determine the species yet.

  Orfeus sat back on her heels and inspected it. No hole at the bottom for proper soil drainage of course, but the plant looked fairly lively … She poured some water into the cup of her hands and trickled it carefully in. Yes, the plant would survive for now, and she could fetch more soil and a proper container on the next trip down.

  She flinched at the thought of another trip like the last one.

  She tucked the herbs into the pockets of her cloak, swirled her cloak around her and went out into the base. It was early morning and all was quiet, the morning meal and routine not yet begun. If anyone asked her purpose here, she could turn out her pockets and claim gardening.