“We’re wasting the best of us,” Cassius murmurs measuredly.
“Hello, you little shiteaters.” Fitchner yawns and kicks his feet up onto the table. “Now, it might have dawned on you that the Passage may as well be called the Culling.” Fitchner scratches his groin with his razor’s hilt.
His manners are worse than mine.
“And you may think it a waste of good Golds, but you’re an idiot if you think fifty children make a dent in our numbers. There are more than one million Golds on Mars. More than one hundred million in the Solar System. Not all get to be Peerless Scarred, though, eh?
“Now if you still think this was vile, consider that the Spartans would kill more than ten percent of all children born to them; nature would kill another thirty. We are gory humanitarians in comparison. Of the six hundred students that are left, most were in the top one percent of applicants. Of the six hundred that are dead, most were in the bottom one percent of applicants. There was no waste.” He chuckles and looks around the table with a suprising amount of pride. “Except for that idiot, Priam. Yeah. There’s a lesson for you lot. He was a brilliant boy—beautiful, strong, fast, a genius who studied day and night with a dozen tutors. But he was pampered. And someone, I won’t say who, because that’d undermine the fun of this whole curriculum, but someone knocked him down onto the stone and then stomped on his trachea till he died.”
He puts his hands behind his head.
“Now! This is your new family. House Mars—one of twelve Houses. No, you are not special because you live on Mars and are in House Mars. Those in House Venus on Venus are not special. They merely fit the House. You get the flow. After the Institute, you’re looking for apprenticeships—hopefully with the families Bellona, Augustus, or Arcos, if you want to do me proud. Prior graduates from House Mars may help you find these apprenticeships, may offer you apprenticeships of their own, or maybe you’ll be so successful that you don’t need anyone’s help.
“But let us make it crystal. Right now you are babies. Stupid little babies. Your parents handed you everything. Others wiped your little asses. Cooked your food. Fought your wars. Tucked your little shiny noses in at night. Rusters dig before they get a chance to screw; they build your cities and find your fuel and pick up your shit. Pinks learn the art of getting someone’s jollies off before they even need to shave. Obsidians have the worst gory life you could imagine—nothing but frost and steel and pain. They were bred for their work, trained early for it. All you little princelings and princesses have had to do was look like little versions of Mommy and Daddy and learn your manners and play piano and equestrian and sport. But now you belong to the Institute, to House Mars, to the Prefecture of Mars, to your Color, to the Society. Blah. Blah.”
Fitchner’s smirk is lazy. His veiny hand rests on his paunch.
“Tonight you finally did something yourselves. You beat a baby just like you. But that’s worth about as much as a Pinkwhore’s fart. Our little Society balances on the tip of a needle. The other Colors would rip your gorydamn hearts out given the chance. And then there’s the Silvers. The Coppers. The Blues. You think they’d be loyal to a bunch of babies? You think the Obsidians will follow little turds like you? Those babystranglers would make you their little cuddleslaves if they saw weakness. So you must show none.”
“So, what, the Institute is supposed to make us tough?” huge Titus grunts.
“No, you colossal oaf. It’s supposed to make you smart, cruel, wise, hard. It’s supposed to age you fifty years in ten months and show you what your ancestors did to give you this empire. May I continue?”
He blows a gumbubble.
“Now, House Mars.” His thin hand scratches his belly. “Yeah. We’ve got a proud House that could maybe even match some of the Elder Families. We’ve got Politicos, Praetors, and Justiciar. The current ArchGovernors of Mercury and Europa, a Tribune, dozens of Praetors, two Justices, an Imperator of a fleet. Even Lorn au Arcos of the Family Arcos, third most powerful family on Mars, for those not keeping track, maintains his bonds with us.
“All of those highUps are looking for new talent. They picked you from the other candidates to fill the roster. Impress these important men and women and you’ll have an apprenticeship after this. Win and you’ll have your pick of apprenticeships within the House or an Elder Family; maybe even Arcos himself will want you. If that happens, you’ll be on the fast track to position, fame, and power.”
I lean forward.
“But win?” I ask. “What is there to win?”
He smiles.
“At this moment, you are in a remote terraformed valley in the southernmost part of Valles Marineris. In this valley, there are twelve Houses in twelve castles. After orientation tomorrow, you will go to war with your fellow students to dominate the valley by any means at your disposal. Consider it a case study in gaining and ruling an empire.”
There are murmurs of excitement. It is a game. And here I thought I would have to study something in a classroom.
“And what if you are Primus of the winning House?” Antonia asks. She twirls a finger through her golden curls.
“Then welcome to glory, darling. Welcome to fame and power.”
So, I must be Primus.
We eat a plain dinner. When Fitchner leaves, Cassius stirs, his voice coming cold and filled with dark humor.
“Let us all play a game, my friends. We will each say whom we killed. I will start. Nexus au Celintus. I knew him when we were children, as I know some of you. I broke his trachea with my fingers.” No one speaks. “Come now. Families should not keep secrets.”
Still, no one answers.
Sevro is the first to leave, making his derision for Cassius’s game clear. First to eat. First to sleep. I want to follow. Instead, I make small talk with peaceful Roque and massive Titus after Cassius gives up on his game and retires as well. Titus is impossible to like. He’s not funny, but everything is a joke to him. It’s like he’s sneering at me, at everyone, even though he is smiling. I want to hit him, but he doesn’t give me a reason. Everything he says is perfectly innocuous. Yet I hate him. It’s like he doesn’t think me a human; instead I’m just a chess piece and he’s waiting to move me around. No. Shove me around. He somehow forgot to be seventeen or eighteen like the rest. He is a man. Taller than two meters, easy. Maybe nearing two and a half meters. Lithe Roque, on the other hand, reminds me so much of my brother Kieran, if Kieran could kill. His smiles are kind. His words patient and wistful and wise, just as they had been earlier. Lea, the girl who looks like a limping baby deer, follows him everywhere. He’s patient with her in a way I couldn’t be.
Late in the night, I look for the places where the students died. I cannot find them. The stairs no longer exist. The castle has swallowed them. I find rest in a long dormitory filled with thin matresses. Wolves howl from the shifting mists that cloak the highlands beyond our castle. I find sleep quickly.
21
OUR DOMINION
Fitchner wakes us from the long dormitories in the dark of morning. Grumbling, we roll out of double bunk beds and set out from the keep to the castle’s square, where we stretch, then set off at a run. We lope easily in the .37grav.
Clouds drop soft showers. The canyon walls fifty kilometers west and forty kilometers east of our little valley tower six kilometers high. Between them is an ecosystem of mountains, forests, rivers, and plains. Our battlefield.
Ours is a highland territory. There rise mossy hills and craggy peaks that dip into U-shaped, grassy glens. Mist blankets all, even the thick forests that lie like homespun quilts over the foothills. Our castle stands on a hill just north of a river in the middle of a bowl-like glen—half grass, half woods. Greater hills cup the glen in a semicircle to the north and south. I should like it here. Eo would have. But without her, I feel as lonely as our castle looks on its high, removed hill. I reach for the locket, for our haemanthus. Neither is with me. I feel empty in this paradise.
Three walls of our hill
castle stand atop eighty-meter stone cliffs. The castle itself is huge. Its walls rise thirty meters. The gatehouse swells out from the walls as a fortress with turrets. Inside the walls, our square keep is part of the northwestern wall and rises fifty meters. A gentle slope leads up from the glen’s floor to the castle’s western gate, opposite the keep. We run down this slope along a lonely dirt road. Mist embraces us. I relish the cold air. It purifies me after hours of fitful sleep.
The mist burns away as the summer day dawns. Deerling, thinner and faster than the creatures of Earth, graze in the fir woods. Birds circle above. A single raven promises eerie things. Sheep litter the field and goats wander the high rocky hills we run up in a line of fifty and one. Others of my House may see animals of Earth, or curious creatures the Carvers decided to make for fun. But I see only food and clothing.
The sacred animals of Mars make their home in our territory. Woodpeckers hammer oak and fir. At night, wolves howl across the highlands and stalk during the day through the woodlands. There are snakes near the river. Vultures in the quiet gulches. Killers running beside me. What friends I have. If only Loran or Kieran or Matteo were here to watch my back. Someone I could trust. I’m a sheep wearing wolves’ clothing in a pack of wolves.
As Fitchner runs us up the rocky heights, Lea, the girl with the limp, falls. He lazily nudges at her with his foot till we carry her on our shoulders. Roque and I bear the load. Titus smirks, and only Cassius helps when Roque tires. Then Pollux, a lean, craggy-voiced boy with buzzed hair, takes over for me. He sounds like he’s been smoking burners since he was two.
We trudge through a summer valley of forests and fields. Bugs nip at us there. The Goldbrows drip with sweat, but I do not. This is an icy bath compared to the rigors of my old frysuit. All about me are trim and fit, but Cassius, Sevro, Antonia, Quinn (the bloodydamn fastest girl or thing I’ve ever seen on two feet), Titus, three of his new friends, and I could leave the rest behind. Only Fitchner with his gravBoots would outpace us. He bounds along like a deerling, then he chases one down and his razor whips out. It encircles the deerling’s throat, and he contracts the blade to kill the animal.
“Supper,” he says, grinning. “Drag it.”
“You could have killed it closer to the castle,” Sevro mutters.
Fitchner scratches his head and looks around. “Did anyone else hear a squat ugly little Goblin go … well, whatever sound Goblins make? Drag it.”
Sevro grabs the deer’s leg. “Dickwit.”
We reach the summit of a rocky height five kilometers southwest of our castle. A stone tower dominates the peak. From the top, we survey the battlefield. Somewhere out there, our enemies do the same. The theater of war stretches to the south farther than we can see. A snowy mountain range fills the western horizon. To the southeast, a primordial wood knots the landscape. Dividing the two is a lush plain split by a massive southbound river, the Argos, and its tributaries. Farther south, past the plains and rivers, the ground dips away into marshes. I cannot see beyond. A great floating mountain hovers two kilometers up in the bluish sky. It is Olympus, Fitchner explains, an artificial mountain where the Proctors watch each year’s class. Its peak shimmers with a fairy-tale castle. Lea shuffles closer to stand beside me.
“How does it float?” she asks sweetly.
I haven’t the faintest clue.
I look north.
Two rivers in a forested valley split our northern territory, which is at the edge of a vast wilderness. They form a V pointing southwest to the lowlands, where they eventually form one tributary to the Argos. Surrounding the valley are the highlands—dramatic hills and dwarf mountains scarred with gulches where mist still clings.
“This is Phobos Tower,” Fitchner says. The tower lies in the far southwest of our territory. He drinks from a canteen while we go thirsty, and points northwest where the two rivers meet in the valley to form their V. A massive tower crowns a distant dwarf mountain range just beyond the junction. “And that is Deimos.” He traces an imaginary line to show us the bounds of House Mars’s territory.
The eastern river is called the Furor. The western, which runs just south of our castle, is the Metas. A single bridge spans the Metas. An enemy would have to cross it to enter between the V into the valley and strike northeast across easy, wooded ground to reach our castle.
“This is a slaggin’ joke, isn’t it?” Sevro asks Fitchner.
“Whatever do you mean, Goblin?” Fitchner pops a gumbubble.
“Our legs are as wide as a Pinkwhore’s. All these mountains and hills and anyone can just walk right in the front door. It’s a perfect flat passage from the lowlands right to our gate. Just one stinking river to cross.”
“Pointing out the obvious, eh? You know, I really do not like you. You foul little Goblin.” Fitchner stares at Sevro for a purposeful moment and then shrugs. “Anyway, I’ll be on Olympus.”
“What does that mean, Proctor?” Cassius asks sourly. He doesn’t like the look of things either. Though his eyes are red from weeping through the night for his dead brother, it hasn’t dulled his impressiveness.
“I mean it’s your problem, little prince. Not mine. No one’s going to fix anything for you. I am your Proctor. Not your mommy. You’re in school, remember? So if your legs are open, well, make a chastity belt to protect the softspot.”
There’s general grumbling.
“Could be worse,” I say. I point past Antonia’s head toward the southern plains where an enemy fortress spans a great river. “We could be exposed like those poor bastards.”
“Those poor bastards have crops and orchards,” Fitchner muses. “You have …” He looks over the ledge to find the deer he killed. “Well, Goblin here left the deer behind, so you have nothing. The wolves will eat what you do not.”
“Unless we eat the wolves,” Sevro mutters, drawing strange looks from the rest of our House.
So we have to get our own food.
Antonia points to the lowlands.
“What are they doing?”
A black dropship slides down from the clouds. It settles in the center of the grassy plain between us and the distant enemy river fortress of Ceres. Three Obsidians and a dozen Tinpots stand guard as Browns hustle out to set hams, steaks, biscuits, wine, milk, honey, and cheeses onto a disposable table eight kilometers from Phobos Tower.
“A trap, obviously,” Sevro snorts.
“Thank you, Goblin.” Cassius sighs. “But I haven’t had breakfast.” Circles ring his reckless eyes. He glances over at me through the crowd of our fellows and offers a smile. “Up for a race, Darrow?”
I start with surprise. Then I smile. “On your mark.”
And he’s off.
I’ve done dumber things to feed my family. I did dumber things when someone I loved died. Cassius is owed the company as he races down the steep hillside.
Forty-eight kids watch us scamper to fill our bellies; none follow.
“Bring me a slice of honeyed ham!” Fitchner shouts. Antonia calls us idiots. The dropship floats away as we leave the highlands behind for gentler terrain. Eight kilometers in .376grav (Earth standard) is a cinch. We scramble down rocky hillsides, then hit the lowland plains at full tilt through ankle-high grass. Cassius beats me to the tables by a body length. He’s fast. We each take a pint of the ice water on the table. I drink mine faster. He laughs.
“Looks like the House Ceres’s mark on their flagpole. The Harvest Goddess.” Cassius points over across the green plains to the fortress. A few trees dot the several kilometers between us and the castle. Pennants flap from their ramparts. He pops a grape into his mouth. “We should take a closer look before chowin’ down. A little scouting.”
“Agreed … but something isn’t right here,” I say quietly.
Cassius laughs at the open plain. “Nonsense. We’d see trouble if it was coming. And I don’t think any one of them is going to be faster than us two. We can strut up to their gates and take a shit if we so like.”
“I
do have something brewing.” I touch my stomach.
Yet still, something is wrong. And not just in my belly.
It’s six kilometers of open ground between the river fortress and us. The river gurgles in the distance to the right. Forest to the far left. Plains in front. Mountains beyond the river. Wind rustles the long grass and a sparrow coasts in with the breeze. It swoops low to the ground before flinching up and away. I laugh loudly and lean against the table.
“They are in the grass,” I whisper. “A trap.”
“We can steal sacks from them and carry more of this back,” he says loudly. “Run?”
“Pixie.”
He grins, though neither of us is sure if we’re allowed to start the fighting during orientation day. Whatever.
On three, we kick apart the disposable table’s legs till we each have a meter of duroplastic as a weapon. I scream like a madman and sprint toward the spot where the sparrow fled, Cassius at my side. Five House Ceres Golds rise from the grass. They’re startled by our mad rush. Cassius catches the first in the face with a proper fencer’s lunge. I’m less graceful. My shoulder is stiff and sore. I scream and break my weapon across one of their knees. He goes down howling. Duck someone’s swing. Cassius deflects it. We dance as two. There’s three of them left. One squares up with me. He doesn’t have a knife or a bat. No, he has something I’m far more interested in. A question mark of a sword. A slingBlade for reaping grain. He faces me with his back hand on his hip and the crooked blade out like a razor. If it were a razor, I’d be dead. But it’s not. I make him miss, block one of Cassius’s attackers’ blows. Lurch forward at my attacker. I’m much quicker than he and my grip is like durosteel to his. So I take his slingBlade and his knife before I punch him down.