“I claim his blade when we decide spoils. I’d also like his scalp, if no one else has intentions on it.” Tactus sounds like a very unpleasant boy.

“Shut up. All of you,” a girl snaps. “Tactus, put that knife away.”

They take the fur from my head. I stand with Sevro in a small grove of trees. I see no castle but I can hear the woodpeckers. I look around and receive a sharp strike to the head from a lean, wiry youth with bored eyes and bronze hair spiked up with sap and red berry juice. His skin is dark like oak honey and his high cheekbones and deepset eyes give him a look of permanent derision.

“So, you’re who they call the Reaper,” Tactus drawls. He swings my blade experimentally. “Well, you just look too pretty to be much damage at all.”

“Is he flirting with me?” I ask the Tamara girl.

“Tactus, go away! Thank you, but now go away,” says the thin, hawkish girl. Her hair is shorter than mine. Three large boys flank her. The way they glare at Tactus confirms my judgment of his character.

“Reaper, why are you with a pygmy?” Tactus asks, gesturing to Sevro. “Does he shine your shoes? Pick things out of your hair?” He chuckles to the other boys. “Maybe a butler?”

“Go away, Tactus!” Tamara snarls.

“Of course,” Tactus bows. “I shall go play with the other children, Mother.” He tosses the blade on the ground and winks at me like we alone know the joke that’s about to be played.

“Sorry about that,” Tamara says. “He’s not quite polite.”

“It’s fine,” I say.

“I am Tamara of … I almost said my real family,” she laughs. “Of Diana.”

“And they are?” I ask about the boys.

“My bodyguard. And you are …” She holds up a finger. “Let me guess. Let me guess. Reaper. Oh, we’ve heard of you. House Minerva doesn’t like you at all.”

Sevro snorts at my infamy.

“And he is?” she asks with raised eyebrows.

“My bodyguard.”

“Bodyguard? But he is so very short!”

“And you look like—” Sevro growls.

“So are wolves,” I reply, interrupting Sevro mid-curse.

“We’re more afraid of Jackals here than wolves.”

Maybe Cassius should have come along, just to know I’m not making the bastard up. I ask her about the Jackal, but she ignores my question.

“Help me out here,” Tamara says cordially. “If someone were to say that Reaper of the butcher House would come to my glade and ask for diplomacy, I would think it a Proctor’s joke. So, what do you really want?”

“House Minerva off my back.”

“So you can come here and fight us instead?” one of her bodyguards growls.

I turn to Tamara with a reasonable smile and tell her the truth. “I want Minerva off my back so I can come here and beat you, sure.” And then win the stupid game and destroy your civilization, please.

They laugh.

“Well, you’re honest. But not too bright, so it seems. Fitting. Let me tell you something, Reaper. Our Proctor says your House has not won in years. Why? Because you butchers are like a wildfire. In the early stages of the game, you burn everything you touch. You destroy. You consume. You ruin Houses because you can’t sustain yourselves. But then you starve because there is nothing more to burn. The sieges. The winter. The advance in technology. It kills your bloodlust, your famous rage. So tell me, why would I shake hands with a wildfire when I can just sit back and watch it run out of things to consume?”

I nod and dangle the bait.

“Fire can be useful.”

“Explain.”

“We may starve while you watch, but will you watch as a slave of some other House? Or will you watch from your strong fortress, your armies twice as large and ready to sweep up the ashes?”

“Not enough.”

“I will personally promise that House Mars will brook no aggression toward House Diana so long as our agreement is not violated. If you help me take Minerva, I will help you take Ceres.”

“House Ceres …,” she says, looking over to her bodyguards.

“Don’t be greedy,” I say. “If you go after Ceres on your own, both Mars and Minerva will set upon you.”

“Yes. Yes.” She waves an annoyed hand. “Ceres is near?”

“Very. And they have bread.” I look at the pelts her men wear. “Which I imagine would be a nice change from all that meat.”

Her weight shifts on her toes and I know I have her. Always negotiate with food. I make a note.

Tamara clears her throat. “So you were saying I could make my army twice as large?”

31

The Fall of Mustang

I ride dressed for war. All in black. Hair wild and bound by goatgut. Forearms covered with durosteel vambraces looted in battle. My durosteel cuirass is black and light; it will deflect any edge less than an ion blade or a razor. My boots are muddy. Streaks of black and red go across my face. SlingBlade on my back. Knives everywhere. Nine red crossbones and ten wolves cover Quietus’s flank. Lea painted them. Each bone is an incapacitated opponent, who are often healed by medBots and then thrown back into the fray. Each wolf a slave. Cassius rides at my side. He shimmers. The durosteel he received as a bounty is polished as bright as his glimmering sword and his hair, which bounces like coiled golden springs about his regal head. It’s as though he’s never been stood around and pissed on.

“Well, I do believe I am the lightning,” Cassius declares. “And you, my brooding friend, are the thunder.”

“Then what am I?” Roque asks, kicking his horse up beside us. Mud flies. “The wind?”

“You’re full enough of it,” I snort. “The hot sort.”

The House rides behind us. All of it except Quinn and June, who stay behind as our castle’s garrison. It is a gamble. We ride slowly so that Minerva knows we are coming. What they do not know is that I was there in the night just hours before and that Sevro is there now. Mud still sticks underneath my fingernails.

Minerva’s scouts dart across their rocky hilltops. They make a show of mocking us, but really they count our number to better know our strategy. Yet they seem confused when we ride into their country of high grass and olive trees. So confused that they withdraw their scouts behind their walls. We’ve never come in full force like this. The Howlers, our scouts, ride in full view on their black horses, black cloaks fluttering like crow wings. Our highDraft killers move as the vanguard of the main body—cruel Vixus, craggy Pollux, spiteful Cassandra, many of Titus’s band. The slaves jog about their owners, those who captured them.