Golden Son (Red Rising Trilogy, #2)(118)

Ragnar drops it and looks to me in a strange panic. I motion him to wait.

After we go through the suits of those who fell on the riverbank, we know the count, and it so devastating that Sevro walks away. Weed is dead. Rotback is dead. Harpy died before we hit the ground. And many of the new recruits are dead. Only Thistle, Clown, Screwface, and Pebble are left. Eleven of the original fifty Obsidians remain.

Pebble and Clown touch Weed’s face, their matching mohawks flat against their heads as the rain soaks us all. Pebble claws at his chest, her small hands hitting his heart as though that will bring him back. Thistle goes to pull her away as Clown uses mud to straighten Weed’s matching mohawk in death. Sevro cannot watch. I go stand beside him.

“I was wrong about war,” he says.

“I can’t do this without you.” After a desperate moment, “Are you with me? Sevro?”

He pulls back and wipes snot from his nose, muddying his face. Tears make lines in the mud as he looks up at me, voice cracking like a child’s. “Always, Darrow.”





41

Achilles

There’s no time to mourn. My force decimated, we must divide still further. My army outside the city hurls itself at impregnable walls, expecting help from the inside. They’ve received none. My Legates will be hailing my signal, wondering if I have died. Such a rumor could lose the battle.

I send Ragnar with the remnants of the Obsidians to open one of the wall’s gates for my Legates who wait for us with thousands of Grays and Obsidians in reserve.

“I give you no Golds,” I tell Ragnar. “Do you understand what that means?”

“I do.”

“This can be a beginning,” I say quietly. I bend, picking a discarded razor from the sucking mud. “It is a man’s duty to choose his own destiny. Choose yours.” I extend the razor to him.

Ragnar looks back to the Obsidians. Their armor is battered from extricating them from the suits. And they’re caked in mud. Smaller than he. Some lithe and quiet. Others huge and shifting foot to foot with eagerness. All with those black eyes and white hair. They arm themselves with weapons taken from the Grays and Obsidian I killed. Hardly enough to go around, and they’ll be little use if they run into Golds.

Ragnar chooses. He extends a hand. Howlers prepare themselves behind me, Thistle still eyeing him evilly. “I choose to follow you,” he says. “And I choose to lead them.”

I place the razor in his hand.

“Darrow!” Thistle gasps. “What are you doing?”

“Shut up,” Sevro snaps.

“He can’t do that!” Thistle stomps forward and tries to rip the razor out of Ragnar’s hand. He doesn’t let go. “Give it up. Slave. Give me the blade.” She pulls her own razor out. “Give me the blade or I’ll cut away the hand that holds it.”

“Then I will cut you down, Thistle,” Sevro sneers.

“Sevro?” Thistle turns back to him, eyes wide. She looks at me, at the other Howlers who stand quiet, unsure of what just happened. “Have you gone mad? It’s not his right. It’s ours. He doesn’t …”

“Deserve it?” Sevro asks. “Who are you to decide that?”

“I’m a Gold!” she shrieks. “Clown, Pebble …”

Pebble remains silent. Clown tilts his head. “Darrow, what is this?”

“It’s my army,” I say. “You remember the Institute. You remember how I bleed for those who follow me. How I do not take the allegiance of slaves. Why now are you surprised by this? Because it is real?”

“It’s a slippery slope, is all.” Clown looks at the war around us. “Even here.”

“You’re right. It is.” I bend and find another razor cast in the mud. I toss this one to another of the Obsidians, a nasty-looking woman half my size. She holds it like it’s a snake, glancing up at me in fear. They are raised believing we are gods. To be given Thor’s hammer … how would I hold it? Sevro walks through the corpses and finds several more. He tosses these to the Obsidians.

“Don’t cut yourselves,” he says.

“I’m counting on you. Go,” I tell them. They disappear, sprinting into the swelling darkness toward back side of the colossal wall. I turn back to the Howlers. “Is there a problem?” They all shake their heads quickly, except Thistle.

“Thistle?” Sevro asks.

Clown nudges her. And grudgingly she shakes her head. “No problem.”

There is. She will not follow me after this. Already I feel my friends turning from me. And they know not even a fraction of the truth. That is a problem for another day.

We must move fast. But we only have one pair of functional gravBoots between us. I give those to Sevro. We try to see if he can lift us like I lifted the Howlers on Olympus, but as we load onto the boots in chains, they sputter and spark. Only able to carry his weight. Damaged somehow in the fighting and the rescue. Bloodydamn.

So it will be on foot. And we cannot be slowed.

I point to the recoilPlate of those lucky enough to have it after the starShell amputations. “Armor off.”

“What?” Thistle sputters.

“Armor. Off. Except scarabSkin.”

“Unarmored against Praetorians?” Thistle howls. “Do you want us all to die?”