A Warrior's Sacrifice (30 page)

Corwin sat onto the uneven ground, closed his eyes, and breathed.

Oblivion didn't come. He tried again, longer this time, relaxing, following his breath, his heartbeat. In place of comforting darkness, he shivered, felt the rutted moss under him.

Corwin bellowed in frustration, kicking the loam with his heels, slapping the moss with the flats of his hands like a child. He should have left right then, went elsewhere and had a drink or met up with one of the many celebrants willing to distract him from himself, but he stayed, and in staying, his despair festered and ate away at his core.

Corwin stood at a door as unremarkable as the others in the long line of apartment buildings that comprised this section of the city. He didn't know at what point during his failed attempt to meditate that he'd made a decision. At the time it had seemed like the right thing to do — to notify Phae's family of her death in person rather than through a curt message over com. That … that just somehow wouldn't do the woman justice, could never convey just how important she was to him.

Now that he stood at the threshold, he had doubts: in himself, in Phae's family. How would he answer the question as to
how
she died? Had he done everything he could to protect her?

No. He wasn't prepared for this. The wound was too raw, his own guilt too great to hide.

He turned to leave. The door opened. A half dozen people — Wei soldiers all — of various ages and stages of inebriation paused at the doorway. They looked anxious to leave, but to push past a Maharatha would cause the family to fall towards jendr.

The one in the front of the line, due to proximity more than anything else, bowed and addressed Corwin.

"Sir," he said. "You give us dreng with your presence."

"Uh, yes," Corwin said. His mind was mired, stuck halfway between flight and surprise.

"How may we help you, sir?"

"Uh, I'm here to speak to Phae's family."

Someone farther back in line snorted, and tension filled the small hallway.

Corwin frowned.

A voice from a side room made those at the door turn. "You leave a Maharatha at the doorstep?" An old woman hobbled from the nearest doorway, skin spotted and drooping, her body hunched and skeletal. "Move aside, you jendr brats! Move aside! Let him through!"

Admonished, the six in the hallway nodded and pressed themselves against one wall so Corwin could squeeze through. Corwin offered his arm to the woman. She looked surprised but took it, standing a bit taller than she had in years. Without looking behind her, the woman waved, and the six in the hallway scampered out through the door.

"What brings a Maharatha to a lowly Wei family, sir?"

"I need to speak to someone regarding one of your family members. About Phae."

Air rattled in the woman's chest. "Ah, Phae. Come with me." She led the way farther into the building.

Corwin had heard of these places, but it was the first time that he'd had an opportunity to visit one. When possible, the Oniwabanshu would house family members together. New families occupied a single room in an apartment building that contained 10,000 other, single families. Over time, as the family grew, they might take up entire floors, or in the case of Phae's family, occupy an entire building.

The denizens of such a place were in constant flux. In a soldiering family, there were always deaths, and campaigns might take entire sections of the house across the world for months at a time. The oldest of families might even have several such complexes — one on each of the continents or in each of the major cities across the planet.

Phae's family, Corwin knew from their quiet conversations in the dark, was limited to just this one building on the Normerican continent, though a few of her family members had been transplanted to Soumerica when that campaign began, and they had carved out a cluster of rooms for themselves in one of the newly fabricated apartment complexes.

As a single family spread out through a building, the rooms and spaces that were so rigid in a multifamily unit began to transform to fit the needs of the occupants. Instead of holding to the standard design — single- or two-bedded rooms arranged around a central common room, kitchen and restroom — Family Lieng had turned a few on this first floor into meeting rooms, the remainder set aside to house the elders of the family.

The woman showed Corwin to a chair and then hobbled to the elevator set into the wall at the end of the hallway.

Corwin could feel eyes on him. He glanced around, noting the flurry of turned heads as those of Phae's family who lounged nearby or arrived to gawk were caught in the act.

From the elevator, Phae's mother approached, a frown drawn across her face.

Seeing the woman again, remembering Phae's last interaction with her, Corwin realized the mistake he'd made in coming here.

Corwin rose to meet her. She saluted. Corwin saluted back.

"Void Commander Shura, how may I help you, sir?"

Corwin swallowed. "I have news regarding Phae."

She grunted. "What do I care of someone who forsook Family Lieng?"

Her words stabbed like a dagger at his heart. "She's dead."

"That's fine." The woman's voice didn't waver, nor did her gaze.

Corwin met her eyes, threw her cold stare back. "How can you say that?"

He hadn't raised his voice, but the power layered within the words forced the woman back a step. She recovered and straightened her uniform. "She used her standing as Maharatha to sever all her ties to Family Lieng. She isn't my concern."

"She never really was." The words sprung unbidden from Corwin's lips. "You threw her into a crèche, forgot about her. Now I tell you she's dead, and you don't care."

The woman's face darkened. "She left
us
, sir. Don't expect me to be grateful that you invade our home with the death tale of a stranger. If she had been a part of this family, we would have celebrated her death. Now, we don't care."

Corwin stood rigid, jaw and fists clenching in time.

"Is there anything else, sir?"

"No," Corwin said through gritted teeth.

"Then let me escort you to the door. You have given us dreng with your presence." She gestured back the way he had come.

Corwin put his back to her, neck muscles bunched and aching, and walked out the door without stopping.

He wandered the streets of New Detroit, aimless and embittered. He longed for the solitude of his cave, but that refuge had been destroyed, as had Phae. The city yet celebrated, but this time the denizens gave Corwin a wide berth as he stalked among them, clothed in anger.

He had been a fool to think that Phae's family would care about her death. She had left Family Lieng, become dreng-less to get away from them. Yet even so, Corwin couldn't comprehend a family being anything
but
caring, even for a wayward child.

Like so many times before, he had been wrong. He was always wrong when it came to the Republic; it did not care about its people, and it never would. It would never care about Corwin or those Quisling children he'd thrust into its gaping maw. He had done them a disservice by his compassion — his idiot compassion. He should have killed them.

As Corwin walked, he added layers to the wall that held his emotions at bay. His lips found their accustomed place, his eyebrows knotted in their usual way. His wall grew thicker. He found calm after a time, after he had boxed his emotions in and layered brick and steel and unbending iron in between. Corwin felt nothing, cared for nothing.

He was fine.

As to the Republic and the IGA, he would serve them, kill for them until his time came, and then he would welcome death.

Kai and Chahal noticed the change in Corwin as soon as he entered the room. He no longer exuded the miasma of warring emotions that so colored a person's Sahktriya and attitude after trauma. It was not a good thing.

Chahal and Kai exchanged a glance.

It was just the three of them now in their new quarters — an upgrade from their previous housing arrangements. Instead of each occupying a single bunk in a room of a hundred people, they now had four bunks, adjustable lights, and enough room for a table and chair at the far end. They were moving up in the world, their new housing denoting their increase in respective ranks — from rookies to veterans.

"You're both sober, I hope," Corwin said, flipping his com closed. "Briefing for another mission at 2200." Wickting Republic.
Sorry your squad mate died, here's a new one. Now get back out there.

They passed the time without words, Corwin resting his back on the dull plasteel wall, alone on his bunk, Kai and Chahal sitting beside one another, leaning forward with elbows on knees.

At 2058, Phae's replacement entered. She saluted, right fist clasped over her heart, and bowed. "Hadil Akpalio reporting for duty!" she said as she returned to a stiff standing position.

Kai nodded in return. Chahal waved her fingers.

Corwin gestured to the bunk across from him. "Sit." He didn't bother looking, waiting instead for her to pass into his field of view. Her svelte waist and long torso gave way to slim shoulders, so unlike Phae's severe triangular shape. Her neck was long and slender, her hair wiry, curly, and short. She was tall also a few centimeters taller than Corwin, and her skin was almost as dark as Corwin's own. She was, if anything, the exact opposite of Phae. She looked young, her face unmarred except by slight wrinkles at the corner of her eyes and mouth. Her eyes were wide, bright, and clear — untroubled by the trauma that haunted a veteran.

Corwin didn't like her. "Do you know who I am?" The bunk above shadowed his face and upper torso, obscuring her view. He didn't sit forward.

Hadil glanced at the other two. "You are Void Commander Shura, of Family Shura, Maharatha Caste."

"Do you know
what
I am?"

A smile touched the corners of Hadil's lips. "You
were
a Quisling; but now you serve the Republic — some say with skill beyond what the Republic teaches."

Corwin didn't speak for a moment, unsure of what to say next. He should welcome her to the Void, start the process that would integrate her into what the Void was supposed to be. He couldn't do that just yet.

"Does it bother you to be saddled with a Quisling, a Variant, and an Exilist?"

"Not much." That tentative smile again. "The way I see it, you must be good — better than good — to come as far as you have."

"If I was really that good, you wouldn't be here." Corwin's voice was colder than before.

Hadil's smile faded. She didn't respond.

"I expect you to follow my orders, always."

"Yes, sir."

Corwin slid forward and stood, straightening his shirt and pants. "Talk amongst yourselves. I'll be back in time to accompany you to the briefing." He walked from the room. As the door closed, it pushed a puff of air into his face, the air carrying with it a smell that brought Phae's face back into his mind. It sent him reeling.

For a moment he was frozen in place as all those little things about a person flooded back: the feel of her skin, the tickle of her long hair on his nose. With effort, Corwin pushed the memories away and stuffed them back into the hole where they had escaped, shook himself, and walked away.

Hadil sat across from the two remaining Maharatha, the giant Variant and the slim Exilist, and clasped her hands over her lap.

Chahal observed the new girl. Like Corwin, she noticed the differences but without the same sexual-emotional connection. As Phae's replacement, Hadil represented the Ka Aspect of the four differing-yet-overlapping personalities that interwove to create the Void, both as a spiritual whole and as an elite fighting unit. Yet despite Phae's and Hadil's shared Aspects, they couldn't be more dissimilar. Phae's anger created an explosiveness that she'd had a hard time containing; Hadil seemed calm and reserved in comparison, thoughtful even.

Though Chahal saw something of Phae behind the new girl's eyes. There was a hunger there, the need to prove herself worthy, and maybe a little bit of tempered anger.

"I'm not familiar with the Akpalio Family name. What castes do you occupy?" Chahal asked.

"We are an old family with most of our people in the upper tiers of the Maharatha and Tercio."

"Why aren't you angry about being saddled with the likes of us?" Kai asked, voice loud in the small space.

Hadil's face reddened despite her dark skin, and for a moment her eyes flashed. "It is justified punishment for my low scores in the Academy."

Kai chuckled. "Your punishment is to be put with us, and receiving a substandard replacement is our punishment for being who we are."

Hadil's eyes shown brilliant with anger for a moment, neck muscles tensing, but she said nothing and forced it back down.

Chahal smiled to herself. Not that different from Phae after all.

"How did the last Ka Aspect die? Was Commander Shura as much to blame as he thinks?" Hadil asked after a few moments.

"No," Chahal said, "a simple calamity of war. If anything, Phae's death can be laid at the IGA's feet."