The Drowned Cities (Ship Breaker #2)(32)

BAD dog!

Tool remembered quivering and begging to do as he was told. Begging to fight and kill. To attack when told.

To obey.

And then, their general came. The kind and honorable man who rescued them from GenSec. The general who led their pack out of Hell. They climbed out of Hell together, and stood under the war chariot of the sun and they were born anew. In desperate thanks, they gave their loyalty to General Caroa, forever after.

Rescued from Hell, Tool was meant to serve a lifetime, or however long he lasted. He would fight, but he would also know the pleasure and safety of belonging to something greater than himself. He belonged to army and pack.

Good dog.

The sun was sinking.

Tool noticed a boy squatting beside him like a vulture, observing him with carrion interest.

Tool had seen many of his packmates picked over by vultures. Torn at by lean dogs, ripped at by ravens. They had sailed for far shores, and they had died. When they fought the Tiger Guard in India, the vultures had been circling in the hazy blue skies before the army even waded ashore, anticipating the killing. Knowing that the open swamp waters at the Hooghly River mouth always provided feed. But that hadn’t stopped General Caroa.

Tool and his packmates had charged forth at the general’s bidding, and they had slaughtered and died.

And now, here, a vulture crouched, waiting.

No, not a vulture… A boy.

The mouse boy.

Tool stared at the skinny redheaded creature, wondering why it didn’t scamper away. He had this mouse boy by the tail because… Tool searched his memory. It was hazy. The mouse was a prisoner, and prisoners had uses. Sometimes the general had wanted enemy troops taken alive. Wanted them whole instead of gutted…

Tool couldn’t remember why he was keeping the boy. Decided he didn’t care. He was dying. Having a companion to watch over one’s death was not a bad thing. He himself had watched many of his brothers and sisters as they went from pain into peace. Listened to their recountings. It was good to go into death with someone to remember your passage.

The boy tried to get away, but Tool still had enough strength to stop that, at least.

“No,” he growled. “You stay with me.”

“Why don’t you just let me go?”

“Let you go? You’re begging?” Tool couldn’t help but growl in disgust. “Do you think the First Claw of Lagos offered me mercy when we met in single combat? You think I begged when he placed his blade upon my neck? You think he let me go?” Tool snorted. “You think my general offered to let me walk free of his own accord? You think Caroa ever let anyone go?” Tool stared at the boy. It was difficult not to despise weakness like this. “Never beg for mercy. Accept that you have failed. Begging is for dogs and humans.”

“Is that what you’re doing? Accepting that you’ve failed?”

“You think I’ve failed?” Tool let his teeth show. “In my years of war, I have never been defeated. I have burned cities and destroyed armies, and the sky has wept flame because of me and mine. If you think I die defeated, you know nothing.”

He lay back, exhausted from the exchange. He had never been so weak.

Death is not defeat, Tool told himself. We all die. Every one of us. Rip and Blade and Fear and all the rest. We all die. So what if you are the last? You were designed to be destroyed.

And yet still, some part of him rebelled at the thought. He alone had won free. He alone had survived. The bad dog who had turned upon his master. Tool almost smiled, wondering what Caroa would think of him now, lying in the mud, bleeding out. He stifled a snort. Caroa wouldn’t have cared at all. Generals never cared. They sent their packs to slaughter, and covered themselves in glory.

Tool stared up at the sun, thinking of cities burned and hearts of enemies he had eaten. Remembering how he and his pack had run streets under fire, blades and machine guns held high. Remembering refugees running before him like a river in flood, tumbling and crashing over one another in their desperation to escape. He and his pack had laughed at their frothing terror, and when Kolkata fell, they roared triumph from the rooftops.

They had done impossible things. They had dropped from great balloon airships, arrowing down from thirty thousand feet to land behind enemy lines and secure the coast of Niger. He had slaughtered the hyena men of Lagos in all their numbers, and had personally eaten the heart of the First Claw.

When the hydrofoil clipper ships of General Caroa arrived to belch forth armies on the beach sands, Tool had been there to greet them, standing knee-deep and laughing in the bloody froth. Wherever he went, he conquered, and the general had rewarded him and his pack.

He had done impossible things, surviving impossible odds. And yet here he lay, just like all his brothers and sisters before him, dying in the mud with flies buzzing around his wounds and not enough interest or energy to swat them away. Apparently it didn’t matter what path an augment chose, it always led to this.

“Please.”

Tool turned his gaze on the boy. He could barely open his eyes through the blur of fever.

“You’re hurting me.”

Tool’s eye followed the length of his arm, to his fist. Puzzled at what he saw.

The little mouse was pinned by the tail.

“Let me go,” the boy whispered. “I can still get you the medicine.”

Medicine. Ah yes. That was it. The mouse was nothing. Medicine. That was the thing. But it was too late for medicine. The girl had taken too long. There was only a final bit of payment left. A final promise to keep.