The Drowned Cities (Ship Breaker #2)(27)

She got a new bucket of water and cleaned herself up as best she could before setting to work on the dead boys, swabbing off their bodies and arranging bloody torn garments. She arranged one of the boys so his broken neck wasn’t so twisted. He couldn’t have been more than ten years old. One of those cannon-fodder licebiters who got swept up in recruiting drives, and who they shoved out in front to draw fire. Bullet bait. Not even really a recruit yet. Only the first three horizontal bars of Glenn Stern’s mark branded on his cheek.

“Half-bar,” Ocho said. “They die faster.”

Mahlia glanced over at the soldier where he lay. “Not like you.”

Gold-flecked eyes studied her, unblinking. “Got to learn quick if you want to stay alive. Drowned Cities eats stupid for breakfast.” He straightened, pushing himself up in bed, wincing. “ ’Spect you know that, though. I ain’t seen a castoff in more than a year. Last time I saw a girl like you, LT had her head on a stick.”

“That what you’re going to do to me, after I heal you up? Put my head on a stick?”

Ocho shrugged. “Ask the LT.”

“You always do what the LT says?”

“That’s how it works. I do what LT orders. My boys do what I order.” He nodded at the dead boy that Mahlia was cleaning. “Right down the line to half-bars.”

“Looks like that worked out real good for him.”

“Hell, we’re all bullet bait sooner or later. Doubt it makes much difference. You make it to sixteen, you’re a goddamn legend.” Ocho paused, then said, “If the LT decides to put you down, I’ll make sure it’s quick.” He jerked his head toward the fire where Soa was carving meat off the goat’s roasting form. “I won’t let Soa near you.”

“Is that how you make friends? By promising not to torture them before you kill them?”

Ocho’s scarred face suddenly broke into a grin. “Damn. You’re pushy for a castoff.”

“I ain’t castoff. I’m Drowned Cities.”

He laughed. “That don’t mean you ain’t pushy.”

It was almost like he was human. Like he didn’t have a dozen kill scars hacked into his bicep. He could have been anyone.

A crash resounded from the fire pit. Mahlia jumped at the noise. She spun to see a cooking pot lying on its side, rice spilled across concrete. One of the soldiers, a skinny boy with ears that had been cut off, was sucking on his hand. Soa was shouting at him.

“Grind it, Van! The pot’s hot, right?” He slapped the smaller boy upside the head.

Van dodged back and his hand went to his knife. “You touch me again, I gut you.”

“Let’s see you try, war maggot.”

“Shut it, you two!”

It was Ocho, sitting up straighter than Mahlia would have thought he could, his voice full of command. “Van! You pick up that rice. You serve us all off the top, and you eat what touched the ground. Soa, get out and get some fresh water. I won’t have you fighting in this unit. We ain’t Army of God.” He made a dismissing motion with his hand. “Go on. Get to it.”

“Trouble, Sergeant?”

Lieutenant Sayle’s voice floated down from the squat above, where he had ensconced himself. A voice full of threat. Everyone seemed to freeze. “Anything I need to know about?”

“No, sir,” Ocho responded. “Just a little kitchen mess, right, boys?”

They all said, “Yes, sir,” and then Van was scooping up rice and putting it onto palm leaves and handing it out to the other soldier boys as they shuffled up and took rice and goat, and then went back to their various posts. Only when everyone else was served did Van squat down and scoop up the last rice for himself.

Mahlia watched as everything got cleaned, trying to figure out what felt odd about it all. It felt wrong. She kept trying to put her finger on it, and then it dawned on her… They were afraid.

They were all staring out at the black rustling jungle and casting nervous glances toward their dead, and every one of them was afraid. They’d had four of theirs torn to pieces in seconds. Despite all their bravado and threats of violence, these soldier boys were little puppies in comparison to the creature they were hunting in the jungle, and they knew it.

Mahlia wished fervently that there was some way to sic the half-man on them. She went back to her cleaning, imagining the half-man mowing through them. Wishing that the jungle’s teeth would just swallow them up.

Teeth. Mahlia paused. She studied the nervous warboys again. The jungle had teeth, and it made them afraid. Mahlia started to smile.

I’ll give you teeth.

She straightened and wrung out her rag.

“Where you going?” Ocho asked. “You ain’t done here.”

“You need better meds. I got something for you.”

“Thought you already gave everything.”

“Maybe if you act decent toward me instead of treating me like an animal, you get treated better, too.”

“That’s peacekeeper talk.” But the almost-smile flickered again as Ocho said it, and the soldier boy waved her off.

In the squat above, Mahlia found the lieutenant seated at Doctor Mahfouz’s rough-cut table, studying an old book of the doctor’s, while the doctor sat quietly and answered the man’s questions about the jungles in his steady voice.