Break the Chains

Chapter Thirty-Five

A spark of pain pinged off her arm. Her cheek. She did not look in the direction of the stones. She kept her eyes forward, her back straight, shuffling along in the line that had slowed to a crawl. Those before her wanted their meals, but sensed the shifting tide of their fellow inmates’ ire. She felt for them, despite her own pains. They didn’t have anything to do with this. No matter what they’d done to end up in the Remnant, they were now tired from a long day of labor and seeking their suppers.

The line moved forward. Another ping. Another. She struggled not to flinch, to remain calm and serene while tension mounted all around her. Keeping her head forward, her gaze darted around the yard, marking knots of potential trouble, the direction of the shallow rain of stones. They were coming from her right, provided primarily from one woman. She didn’t have to look directly to know the woman’s face. It’d be the Glasseater songbird, hungry for revenge. Wanting to make something hurt as much as she did.

“Traitor!” The songbird’s familiar voice screeched, and a murmur fluttered around her. Ripka was one away from the front of the line. Could see beads of sweat on the back of the neck of the man in front of her.

“Snitch!”

Ripka pressed her lips together, continued her covert survey of the rec yard. Where was Kisser? Honey, Forge, and Clink? Enard’s presence at her back was a comfort, but a small one. She knew well their chances of breaking through this crowd if the whole population went feral.

Knew well that Radu would be just a touch too slow in issuing orders to subdue them. Would frown and sniff over her corpse, muttering about the unfortunate way in which the Remnant was understaffed.

If she died here, torn limb from limb or beaten pulpy, that sniveling rat of a warden would walk away from this with an excuse to hire more guards, more lackeys in his pocket. More grains to fall through his fingers as he pissed away the welfare of his charges for his own pleasure.

The man minding the food line handed her a tray, his hands trembling as he sensed the change in the crowd, their intense focus. They began to advance. She gripped the tray until her knuckles ached.

“She’s no inmate!”

Radu didn’t care if his people were harmed in the riot he’d kicked up.

“Sandrat!”

He only cared that the experiment being done on his charges didn’t benefit him.

“Boot-licker!”

She’d be damned if she let Radu-fucking-Baset continue running this sordid little nest.

“Blue coat!”

“I look good in blue,” she said to the confused man spooning her out a ladle of porridge.

Her shoulders jarred as she spun, slamming her food tray into the advancing songbird’s face so hard her fingers went numb. Bone crunched, the songbird squawked, clutching her bloodied face with both hands. Porridge flew from the bowl, forming a gleaming, slimy arc in the sky. She watched it for a breath, feeling slowed, stuck in time, as the songbird crumpled under the force of her blow.

There – over the songbird’s shoulder – the door to a dormitory half-opened, a faint shimmer in the air like heat off sand, the half-silhouetted face of Misol, her plush lips pulled back in a smirk.

Escape, or something else. Better than facing the foaming mob.

“Run!” In the moment before the group’s shock at her abrupt attack fled, she flung her tray aside and grabbed Enard’s wrist, yanked him in the direction of that half-opened door. He flew along beside her, no questions, no hesitation, just the patient patter of his feet over the filthy floor.

Her grip on Enard’s wrist jerked and she pivoted around the tug, turning to see a man she didn’t know reel back his fist, aiming another blow for Enard’s already purple face. Dropping Enard’s wrist she darted in toward the man’s side, quick as a rockviper and just as unexpected, muscles singing as she swept the man’s forward leg from under him. He went down, grunting. Enard vaulted over him, following the path she’d begun carving toward Misol.

The crowd’s hesitation broke. They flowed around them, cutting off their route, circling, tightening, herding them toward the edge of the yard where directional options were fewer. Ripka slowed, hesitated, dug her heels in and refused to take a step back even as they pressed in closer. Enard flanked her right, his posture all assured calm, his hands held ready and low at his sides.

She examined the crowd; counting, estimating, watching the wariness in their faces, the tension in their arms. Who would swing first? Mobs like this didn’t kick off all at once. They needed an instigator. She had to take that person down before they could get the crowd good and frothed.

Couldn’t see her songbird, couldn’t see the man who’d hit Enard though she wasn’t sure she’d recognize him. Glasseaters? Yes – of course – but with their tattoos covered, she couldn’t pick them, and had no way of knowing which amongst them would be the leader.

Who who who, she thought, trying to undercut the tide before it broke and swamped her.

Through a break in the crowd, she saw Misol in the doorway, her smirk faded to a tight scowl. The woman’s fingers drummed on the haft of her spear, anxious to put it to use, but her legs stayed rooted. No rescue there, then. They were on their own.

Which meant they were dead.

“This is all wrong,” a soft, raspy voice said.

Ripka turned to a bulge in the crowd, watched the tightening ring of inmates shift aside as a petite woman with a mop of golden curls strode through. Honey. Ripka’s gut clenched. No, she wanted to yell. Didn’t Honey see the tide was against them? Couldn’t she see this crowd was on the brink of boiling and tearing everyone in its center to bits?

Honey strode through the crowd, their ranks parting as if for a ship’s sharp prow, and came to stand beside Ripka, a little frown turning down the bow of her lips, almost a pout.

“Captain’s my friend,” she rasped, and turned a darkened eye upon the crowd, sweeping them all up in it. Ripka was shocked to see a few recoil from that glare. “Don’t matter what color she used to wear. She wears beige now.” Honey flicked the sleeve of Ripka’s jumpsuit. “And I think it becomes her.”

Ripka stared at Honey in disbelief. It was the most she’d ever heard the woman say all at once. The crowd shifted, some of their ire fading in a strange mix of confusion and fear – none of them understood what was happening here anymore than Ripka did. She risked a glance toward Misol’s door and saw a shadow cast above the crowd – a cloud? No, it was too regular. Trying to keep her glance subtle, she flicked her gaze up to the dormitory balcony above and saw Forge and Clink maneuvering one of the trestle tables, preparing to drop it on the group below.

Ripka swallowed a lump. Willed herself not to look their way.

“She’s a plant!” The songbird got back on her feet and shoved her way through the group. “A pitsdamned watch-captain here to rat us all out to the warden! You all saw them talking! Heads together like old pals!”

Honey cocked her head to the side, considering. “No,” she said at last.

“No? No? We all saw!”

“Did you not hear me?” Honey’s jaw went rigid. The songbird drew her head back, stunned by this dismissal. With deliberate care, Honey slipped her hand within her pocket and withdrew a meat cleaver, the metal polished bright, the wooden handle dark from use. Ripka stared at the gleaming stretch of steel, dumbfounded.

She turned it over, admiring the gleam with a loving eye, and pressed the flat of the blade to her lips. Resting the dull edge against her shoulder, she stared down the shuffling ring of would-be rioters.

“Captain’s my friend.”

To Ripka’s shock, a few of the men and women crowding them broke ranks and ran. She swallowed. Who was this woman?

“Honey, you don’t have to–”

“Shhh,” she murmured, reaching without looking to press a finger against Ripka’s lips. “Shhh.”

“Fuck this,” a woman said, and charged forward. Ripka slipped into a ready stance as the instigator broke the tension holding back the wave. The sounds of the crowd devolved into a meaningless roar as they charged, closing the circle. Enard’s back pressed against hers, and still Honey stood apart at her side, holding the knife against her shoulder with a moue on her lips.

“I tried,” Honey whispered.

The table launched from the balcony above, slamming into the crowd. Confusion erupted, knots of men and women turned on each other, a few unlucky souls buckled beneath the crush of the heavy wood. Shouts of rage and pain sounded all around. Ripka braced herself for the coming fight, lamenting that she would not have a chance to break through the path the table had carved her.

Honey began to sing.

It was a high, keening song, the language alien to Ripka’s ears, the sound eerie and shrill enough to startle the advancing tide. Even Ripka took a step back, accidentally shoving Enard, unable to look away from Honey despite the advance of the crowd. Of her death.

Honey danced.

She twisted and pirouetted, nimble as a willow switch, snaking in between groups, bodies, the gleam of her blade catching the sun and sparkling while she sang and swayed. Sprays of blood arced into the air, painted crimson doorways in the sky.

Honey hewed a path with her song, and all around her joined a chorus of screams.

No time to waste. Ripka bolted for the path the table had carved, Enard tight on her heels. She ducked a fist, twisted away from someone reaching for her, vaulted over the twisted tangle of wood and limbs, scrambled across the shattered rubble. All the while that high song keened in her ears, sending gooseprickles down her spine. She knew that Honey danced at her side, saw the fans of blood unfurl themselves to the sky as her expert swipes of that too-sharp knife opened throats and hearts and lungs to the bright of day.

Inmates ran, screaming fear and wards against evil alike. Anyone of them could have tackled her. Anyone of them could have put a stop to the slaughter, if only they’d work together, if only they’d mob her. Ripka feared at any moment they’d be swamped, driven under a frantic press of bodies, but the moment never came. The terror of Honey’s grace, the nightmare of her song, pushed them back. Paralyzed them.

Ripka tamped down her own fear, and fled. She was a practical woman. Survive now, vomit out your fear later. Impossibly, she stumbled through Misol’s half-open door, shoulder slamming into the wall opposite, the cold stones a balm to her nerves, to her burning muscles. Enard stumbled in after her, then Honey leapt within. Misol slammed the door shut, plunging them into the faint light of a single oil lamp.

“Well,” Misol said, regarding their panting, sweating, blood-spattered party. “It seems I can’t leave you alone a moment.”

“Honey…” Ripka gasped, trying to reclaim her breath, and forced herself to stand tall, to reach for the woman to see if she were injured.

“I’m all right,” she said, her voice a fainter strain of rasp than usual.

“Your voice…”

She looked at the knife in her hand dripping crimson. “It’s not good anymore, I know. I sang too much.”

Ripka stared, knowing without asking that Honey never sang unless she had a knife in her hand.

“Charming,” Misol drawled.

Ripka gathered herself. “Forge and Clink are on the level above, we’ve got to get them out before the other inmates find a way up to them.”

Misol shook her head. “No time. This place is boiling, we gotta take our exit while we still can.”

“But they–”

Honey pat her arm, making gentle shushing noises. “Don’t worry, Captain. They’ve been here a long time. They’ll be all right.”

Ripka pressed her lips together. “Fine. But I will not let that favor go unreturned for long.”

“Come on, let’s get moving. Boss wants to see you,” Misol said.

Ripka spat foamy blood. “I won’t see that shit-sucking rat Radu–”

“He was never the boss here.” She took the lantern in hand. “Try not to drop too much blood on the rugs.”

“All right,” Honey whispered, humming a soft, fairytale tune as they trailed after Misol’s lantern in the dark.