“I always wanted to hunt a Great Bear,” he told Einar conversationally.
37
Tooth and Claw
Using Tam as a messenger, Dred recalled the men from their post outside the recycling center. They looked grubby as hell when they returned, and they’d lost five men. The posting took a full day, but fortunately, it didn’t take long for dehydration to set in. Three days without water entirely would kill the Great Bear and all his men, but the ship couldn’t be programmed to kill. So dirty water would weaken them, then the lights would go out, step two in the plan to diminish and demoralize the enemy.
Her heart didn’t settle until she found Jael and Einar in the crowd, then she despised herself for feeling relieved. Attachments didn’t prosper in a place like this.
“How many did you kill?” she asked, as they reached her.
“Close to fifty,” the big man answered.
“Good work.”
“The last batch were ill,” Jael added. “It was mercy to put them down.”
“Then the plan’s working.” It also meant she needed to set a permanent guard down there, as somebody else might be capable of duplicating Tam’s success. “That’s all for now. Go find some real food and get some rest.”
Some would undoubtedly call it superstitious, but after she finished with Einar and Jael, she went in search of Wills, who was fiddling with R-17. He scowled at her interruption. “What do you want?”
“I’d like you to do a reading for me, regarding the outcome of the battle against Grigor.”
Wills sobered at once. “Of course. I’ve had troubling dreams, my queen.”
Under her watchful eye, he drew out his bones and rolled them in his palms to warm them, then he sliced his arms to lubricate them in his own blood. Not for the first time, Dred wondered how he had come to his precise ritual. She didn’t look away, even when he spat on the mixture, then slicked it over the surface of the bones until they looked like writhing maggots. Blinking hard, she looked again; and they were just bones rattling together.
He tossed them to the floor and squatted over them. Though she could discern no pattern in the mess, he paled, the salt-and-pepper bristles on his jaw standing out in contrast. “Victory requires a life for a life, my queen, and there remains one disloyal to you in his heart, watching and waiting.”
Her fingers curled into fists. “Does that mean for every one of theirs we kill, someone here will die? And can you tell me the name of this traitor?”
Hoping to glean more, Dred slipped into second sight, but as ever, Wills burned a sickly yellow all the way through, no shades or striations. It was always the same when he read for her, though his colors returned to normal once the foretelling died away. She opened her eyes to see him shaking his head.
“Names and faces are not given for me to know.”
“That would be too easy,” she muttered.
“Have a care,” he warned. “I saw long ago . . . this may cost more than you care to pay.”
Dred nodded. “Thanks, Wills. I’ll keep it in mind.”
She could tell by his expression that he realized she wouldn’t alter course. Even if the body count was insanely high, she couldn’t back off, not when she was one or two moves away from clearing the board and claiming the Great Bear’s assets. With Silence’s teeth on her neck, there was no other path open to her. Unsettled, she left the bone-reader to tidy up the mess and return to tinkering with the maintenance bot.
“Did you learn anything useful?” Tam asked, as she joined the meal queue.
“You know how his predictions go. He prognosticates doom, as usual.”
“I’d hoped he might sing a different tune. Things are proceeding exactly as we planned.”
She accepted a bowl of food, then followed the spymaster to a table. Tam ate as efficiently as he did everything else, but with better manners than most men. He didn’t do the prison yard hunch, either, with his arms framed around his tray and his body tensed to stab anyone who reached for his bowl.
“You’re an enigma,” she said. “I wonder how you ended up here.”
“Are you asking, my queen, or demanding?” His voice was wooden, like an old staircase that led down into darkness, and about as safe.
“Neither.” She ate a few bites in speculative silence.
Tam’s face was cold and hard in profile. “If it matters, I don’t regret a single thing I did that landed me here. And I’d do it all again.”
“You don’t have normal prison manners.”
“This was my first stop once I was taken into custody.”
That surprised her. Dred put down her spoon, eyeing him with pure curiosity. “No preliminary holding facility? No trial?”
“That’s correct.”
“Is that even legal?”
“Not entirely, but it was part of a larger agreement. I’m satisfied.” By his abortive gesture, she guessed he was done talking about the past.
“Will you tell me the story someday?”
“It’s not mine to share.” His dark eyes went distant.
“I understand.” And it wasn’t a Dread Queen inquiry, either.
The queen cared only for the state of her territory, nothing for the feelings of those who dwelled within it. In Perdition, the greatest monsters clawed their way to the top of the heap. She wasn’t sure what it said about her that she’d let Tam plant her on the scrap-metal throne. Dred slanted a look at the horrific thing, squatting at the far end of the hall. There had been an inmate who Artan kept chained at the bottom of it like a dog. He’d eaten, slept, and defecated, right there, until he ceased to be amusing, then he died slowly.
“How long has it been since you slept?” he asked.
She started, covering a guilty look. “How did you know?”
“You think I don’t know when someone’s pretending?”
Dred hated the thought of his listening to her toss and turn. They never talked once they went to bed; it was a peculiar and functional relationship. Tam was like obsidian, utterly impenetrable; and he kept his own counsel, except as pertained to the campaign. That was safest, but at the moment, she wanted more from him, if only to disprove the doubts Ike had planted. She wanted to believe Tam valued their association, superficial though it might be, but he wasn’t the sort of man to offer a centimeter more than he must.
“I can’t remember,” she admitted. “It’s been days, though, I think. It’s hard for me to unwind with everything—”