The Drowned Cities (Ship Breaker #2)(37)

15

OCHO LEANED AGAINST a sooty wall below the doctor’s squat, gingerly probing the wounds that he’d resewn himself. The half-man had ripped his ribs up good, but he was coming back together. The new stitches were messy and brutal, but they’d hold. No way these ones would rip out. They hurt, but they were nothing in comparison to the burn of his back.

Twenty lashes from the cane, for screwing up. Sayle stalking up and down in front of the silent soldier boys, saying, “No one fails, ever! No excuses! I don’t care if you’re stoned or drunk or you got your legs blown off or you think you’re the Colonel himself; you keep on soldiering!” And then he’d laid into Ocho.

Van came over and squatted down. “How’s your stitches, Sergeant?”

“Better than my back.”

Van smiled slightly at that. He was a skinny little war maggot, missing his ears and his two front teeth. From what Ocho could remember of the firefight with the coywolv, Van had been steady. Steady enough that maybe he deserved his full bars. Ocho decided he was going to make the boy a private. Give him a chance to really prove himself.

“You took it good,” Van said.

“I been hit worse.”

“Everyone knows it wasn’t your fault. When we found you, you couldn’t even talk.”

Ocho snorted. “Don’t sweat it, war maggot. LT was right. We got to keep discipline. We don’t got discipline, we got nothing. Don’t matter who you are. No one gets a free pass.”

“Yeah, well, you were so stoned you were drooling.” Van hesitated, then said, “LT wants you up top.”

“He say why?”

Van avoided his gaze. “No.”

Ocho gazed up at the torched building. On its top floor, Sayle had ordered an observation platform built. The concrete and iron was all sooty and scorched and the old doctor’s squat was completely burned away, but Sayle still wanted to stand on top of it.

Ocho’s instinct had been to pull out of the whole damn building after what the coywolv had done to them, but Sayle had given him a cold look and said if they showed they were afraid, then all these civvies in town would start playing them like that castoff girl had done.

Just because Ocho had coddled himself up with a castoff didn’t mean they were going to start sending that kind of message.

So they’d rounded up a bunch of townspeople and put them to work. The maggots had worked damn fast with a gun on their kids.

Now Sayle spent all his time sitting cross-legged on top of the tower, looking out at the jungle, and taking reports from their recon teams as they quartered the jungle, bit by bit, trying to turn up evidence of the dog-face, the doctor, and the castoff who’d done them.

“You need help getting up?” Van asked.

“No.” It was a test. LT liked to test. Make sure troops were loyal. Make sure they had semper fi. No way was Ocho going to cry about climbing a ladder, no matter how much it hurt. He pulled himself to his feet with a grunt. “I’ll do it myself.”

He slowly climbed up the series of ladders to the building’s pinnacle, feeling his stitches tugging, feeling the burn of his back. He hoped he wasn’t doing some kind of new damage, but it didn’t really matter. The only way to survive was to show the LT that he was still loyal, and that he’d do anything for the man. Especially after the caning.

Ocho finally reached the top, gasping and sweating.

Sayle looked up from his maps. Ocho forced himself to stand at attention. Sayle evaluated him across the short distance. “How are your wounds, Sergeant?”

Ocho stared straight ahead. “Fine, sir.”

“And your back?”

“Hurts, sir.”

“I went easy on you.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

“Do you remember how we met, Sergeant?”

Ocho swallowed, forcing down memories. “You saved me.”

“That’s right. I saw something special in you, and I saved you. I could have chosen anyone, but I saved you. I gave you the gift of life.” Sayle’s cold eyes narrowed. “And now you give me this…” He trailed off, looking disgusted. “Colonel Stern would never tolerate a failure like that. He’d have your head on a stick. If I were Stern, you would already be a lesson in loyalty.”

“Yes, sir.”

Far off in the distance, the 999s of the Army of God boomed.

Lieutenant Sayle said, “I made you my second because you have never failed me. You’re a good soldier. We all know you were wounded, and drugged by that castoff. It’s the only reason you’re still standing here. But don’t disappoint me again, Sergeant. There won’t be any second chances. Not even for you.”

“No, sir.”

“Good.” The LT waved him over. “Now come here. It’s time we made plans. We have decisions to make.”

Ocho hesitated, trying to tell if he was really off the hook, but Sayle looked up at him, impatient. “I don’t have all day, soldier. It’s time to work.”

Ocho came over and squatted down. “I heard Colonel Stern wants us back at the front.”

“That’s right. The Colonel is finding himself hard-pressed by our enemy’s new artillery.”

“When do we march?”

Sayle’s cold eyes were like pinpricks. He smiled slightly. “We’re not going back.”