“I’ll need a weapon.”
“Where’s yours?”
“I gave it to the Scholar.”
The soldier gave him a sharp look, then took out his sidearm and handed it over. “Shoot me and I’ll end you,” he said. “I’m Centurion Thabani Botha, in case I die.”
“Brightwell, sir.”
“Good. Now we’re mates. Move.”
Jess was still winded and hurting, but he didn’t protest; he just turned and led Botha back through the gates and watched the rooftops. It was eerily quiet now, no more shots coming their way, though the Greek fire still blazed away in a snapping fury. Looking at it now, Jess was shocked he’d managed to get around it, since it occupied all but a small strip of safety against the farthest wall. He and Botha squeezed past as quickly as possible. Once they were out, Botha said, with quiet grimness, “I wasn’t told there’d be a Burner simulation along with your confiscation assignment.”
“What if it wasn’t a simulation? Could Burners get in here?”
Botha didn’t answer. Maybe he didn’t know, or maybe he just didn’t want to say. But Jess doubted that the enemy who’d attacked them was really part of the Burner movement. This came from inside the High Garda itself, he thought. Tariq had turned on them, after all. There would be questions to be asked in the wake of this, hard ones.
Botha put up a fist and Jess came to an instant halt. They were just at the corner, and Botha looked around, then back at Jess. His eyes had gone narrow and cold. “How many out there?”
“I don’t know. Just saw shadows on rooftops. Maybe ten?”
“Armed with Greek fire?”
“And guns,” Jess added, though he knew Botha hadn’t forgotten. He just felt a little defensive. He swallowed and said, “If you see any of my squad, watch them, too. I think some of them may be . . .” He trailed off, because he didn’t want to come right out and say traitors, but the implication hung heavy in the air between them.
Botha shrugged. “I always keep an eye on recruits. They might shoot me in a panic.”
Jess decided then that he liked the man. “Better follow me, then. I trust your aim, at least.” He stepped out into the street. For a second, he felt dizzy, waiting for the inevitable bullet to hit, but nothing did. Silence, except for the hiss of sand stirring in the wind, and the roar of the fire behind. The blaze that had kicked off the whole mess was dying down in the middle of the street ahead, and Jess used that as a guide to look for Tariq. There he was, still lying where he’d fallen. Jess wanted to stop, but Glain, Wolfe, and Helva had to be his first priority. He’d find out the rest later.
Glain stepped out of the shadows of the broken window and pointed her weapon past Jess, at Botha. “Halt,” she snapped, and Jess felt Botha coming to alert. “Drop it!”
“He’s here to help,” Jess said. “He’s got antivenin for Helva, and Santi’s on the way.”
“You bring it in, Jess,” Glain said. “I don’t know that one.”
Botha laughed. It sounded genuinely amused. “Smart,” he said. His pack thumped the ground by Jess’s feet. “Take it in, recruit.”
Glain’s posture stiffened just a little more. “Check the pack,” she told Jess. He crouched down, opened the flaps, and looked in. Standard field equipment, with a full Medica kit inside. He looked back over his shoulder at the centurion.
“You’re Medica?”
“Cross-trained,” Botha said. “I do field medicine. You don’t need me for this, though. Just give her the injection.”
“Do it,” Glain said. “Hurry.”
Jess found the antivenin and eased by Glain, who kept a sharp watch on the centurion. He found Scholar Wolfe beside Helva, taking her pulse. Wolfe held up his hand without even looking up, and Jess handed the shot over and watched as Wolfe slid the needle in. The injector hissed a little as the gas capsule triggered, and the clear liquid contents pushed into Helva’s vein. She was still and quiet, and Jess would have thought his fellow soldier dead if not for the flutter of her pale eyelids. Her color was bad—as bad as it could get, Jess thought, without Anubis appearing to personally drag her to the underworld. “Is it too late?” Jess asked. He didn’t want to care. He’d tried hard not to care about any of them.
“I don’t think so,” Wolfe said. He put his hand on the young woman’s forehead and held it there for a moment—Not medically useful; just comfort, Jess thought. The action of a kind man, though Wolfe wouldn’t like being thought of in that way. He went out of his way to be seen as a hard, uncaring bastard. “I’ve seen this stuff revive those worse off.”
How often? Jess wanted to ask, but didn’t. He didn’t want to know. Instead he turned back to Glain, who was still aiming her weapon squarely at Botha. Botha was watching her with a smile, but had dead-serious eyes above the upturned lips. “I’m going to check the others,” Jess said, and stepped through the broken window with a crush of glass under his boot. “Centurion, come with me. She probably won’t shoot you in the back.”
“Probably,” Glain agreed, deadpan. She didn’t relax her vigilance until he’d led the centurion away to Tariq.
Botha rolled the younger man over and checked his pulse. He sat back and shook his head. “He’s gone,” he said. It staggered Jess, but he steadied himself quickly. Tariq was aiming at the Scholar. I had to do it. I had to.
“They said we had half-strength rounds,” Jess said, and that got a look from the other man. A pitying one.
“This wasn’t you, recruit.” Botha rolled Tariq’s limp body over to the side, and Jess saw the red-rimmed hole in his ribs. “The shot punched straight through and came out the other side—armor-piercing. From the angle, this came from above while he was already slumped down. Definitely wasn’t you.” Botha, while he talked, kept his gaze up on the area above them. Jess looked up, too. Nothing but sky and blazing morning sun. “Decent shot from that angle. Your squad mate would have been gone in an instant, never knew what hit him. Come on. Let’s find your other lost lambs.”
Jess hoped they weren’t, like Tariq, lambs to the slaughter.
They found one inside another storefront, well concealed and unhurt; the others were grouped together in a defensive position down the street. Unlike Tariq’s, the worst wounds were bruises and cracked ribs from half-strength rounds. Tariq had been deliberately executed, Jess thought, for failing in his mission to kill Wolfe.
“What in Allah’s name happened?” That was from Zelalem, one of their squad who was taller than Botha, and cadaverously thin. “What kind of test was that?”