Page 95 of Cage of Starlight
Helner pulls on Sena’s arm. “You’re a mess, both of you. Come on. Let’s get you to your tent while you can still stand.”
Iri gives him a cursory smile so unlike the ones from earlier and nods as he departs.
Helner guides him through the flap as his vision shutters black, letting go as quickly as she can. She murmurs a cold apology before retreating.
Some things never change.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Acrisp breeze mutesthe sweet reek of gore and the tang of exploded shells on the battlefield.
Bent over and silent, Tory navigates a path through corpses, stepping over gummy swaths of crimson-black.
Carrion birds, startled into flight by his arrival, circle overhead and settle on the roots arching into and out of the ground. A few brave birds hop around in the distance, blinking glassy black eyes at Tory when he comes close. Some of the bodies, there’s nothing to scavenge—barely enough to tell they were human. He targets the intact ones, holds his breath and swallows hard, and tries not to look at faces.
He fails. His eyes find a scar that warps an ear and part of a swollen face. The eyes have gone milky gray and flat, unrecognizable. Tory chokes and tastes bile. He knows that face. One of Gavin’s buddies. Not too far behind him is Gavin. The massive hole punching through both of their chests makes them a matched set. Perhaps one tried to protect the other.
Tory takes weapons off the bodies, slings the straps around his neck one after another, then digs into pockets and packs for rations, canteens, and ammo—whatever he can find—and stuffs it into a sack strapped across his front. As careful as he is, there’s no avoiding the blood that gets under his fingernails. He leaves the bracelets on thebodies, though Riese said the metal could be melted into bullets. The tags might be all they have to put names to the fallen.
He doesn’t find Randall, no longer remembers where he fell. Wherever he is, maybe Niela is beside him.
Tory pulls that foolish thought out by the roots. They’re dead. It doesn’t matter, anymore, what these people wanted or who they loved. Those things are no use to dead men.Nothingis of any use to dead men.
One after another after another. It’s different, being here again. Silent. Frightening in a marrow-deep way he didn’t have time for in the heat of battle. Death has become something insidious and mundane, a thing that lingers. After a lifetime at the work of staying alive, the fact that Tory doesn’t lie among these bodies comes down to luck. Luck, and maybe Sena warning him about that shell.
Every shift and crunch and caw of birds sends a surge of anxiety through him. The movement in his peripheral vision is only the other Seeds Riese sent to comb the battlefield, but Tory’s brain rolls out images of Arlunian soldiers walking from the trees, ready to fight.
Shaded by the tree line, Sena stands sentry.
When Tory’s pack is as full as he can fill it and he has two rifles slung over each shoulder, he snags a communicator from a fallen officer’s belt, clipping it to a pocket underneath a heavy rifle like it belongs there, and turns to bring his loot back to the wagon.
He drops the communicator at the edge of the woods as he runs and hopes Sena finds it.
He heads back as soon as he dumps his loot. The communicator no longer lies where he dropped it. The stones and leaves where it fell are arranged in a crude smiley face, which shocks a snort out of Tory. It’s still so strange, the idea that Sena can be funny.
He fills the sack again, slinging rifles across his chest three at a time.
Two more runs, and on the third he returns to Riese, barely resisting the urge to veer off and check on Sena. Sena slept most of the way here, restless against the tarp-covered back of the rickety wagon they brought. He was slow to wake when they arrived. Confused.
“Where’s Sena?” Riese asks. “We’re out in five whether he’s here or not.”
Tory searches Riese’s face for suspicion but finds only impatience. “I—” His mouth is bone-dry. He won’t lick his lips. Mark of a liar. “I’ll get him.”
Riese stares, dark eyes unwavering. “Five minutes.”
Tory runs. Now that he has a sense for Sena’s energy, he’s like a beacon.
He finds Sena in the woods with his forehead against a tree.
“Hey!” Tory whisper-calls.
Sena doesn’t do anything.
“You look ridiculous!” Tory tries again.
Sena coughs out a low laugh. “Five days,” he says.
“Huh?”
