To the Victor

by R Coots

  Another push along her veins. He’d worked himself under her somehow. Seated himself cross legged and arranged her across his lap so she was half facing him. She looked down on reflex. The front of his pants still bulged, but she couldn’t feel anything like desire from him.

  “Now who’s got the sick mind?”

  Humor, bitter and sharp. It was gone as fast as it came, lost in the cool waters. His breath was warm on her neck as he hooked his chin over her shoulder. “Hold still dammit.”

  “What?” What was this feeling? How could it be?

  He stopped moving for a second. She almost thought something moved under the incredible calm. Something familiar. Had she felt this from him before? Another wave of peace and certainty swamped her, and the feeling of other was gone.

  “Gotta get these off you.” One huge hand wrapped around her wrist. She gasped in pain. “Your own fault,” he told her. “Going batshit like that.”

  “Batshit,” she whispered. She wasn’t sure if she was asking a question or not.

  He stilled for a moment. “Yeah. Don’t ask me where it came from. I’ve got too many languages up in here.” He knocked his forehead against her temple, gently, and went back to whatever he was doing with the cuff. “Be glad I’m managing words at all. I could be beating the shit out of you.” Anger bubbled up and dissolved before she fully registered its existence.

  She reached for the bond. For Del. Got pain and labored breathing. Agony in every fiber of her being. A sob stuck in her throat and she bit down on the shoulder in front of her to keep from screaming.

  “Fucking hell, woman.” The warlord went rigid under her. “Stay the fuck out of her head, will you? Barely holding you together as it is.”

  Something about that was all wrong. She couldn’t think of what. All she could feel was the newest wave of sanity coming to wash away the pain. No. Not wash it away. It wasn’t gone. It was . . . manageable. It was—

  Syrus let go of her arm and she lost the thought. New pain, physical pain, tore up her shoulder and into her neck. She whimpered and leaned in the direction of the still-tethered wrist, resisting the urge to curl into a ball. There was a muscled wall of torso in the way of the maneuver. A muscled wall of torso that belonged to a man who had bullied and threatened and stomped all over her existence. Who’d saved her from a slow death and delivered her into torture instead.

  A man who was picking the locks on her shackles and keeping her from losing her mind all over again. Almost like Delfi could. Almost like the bond.

  Her head shot up so fast she nearly fell over. She would have if he hadn’t caught her around the shoulders and hauled her back upright. “What the hell,” he growled, irritation threatening to burn up all the good he’d done. “Stop moving. We don’t have much ti—”

  “Sai.” She leaned back so she could look him in the eyes. “You’re sai.”

  The dam he’d made for her vanished. Pain, despair, and every other emotion permeating the air around them came flooding in. He stared at her, muscles working in his jaw, pupils blown and skin an ashen brown. He was about to lose his grip on her shoulders. She clutched at him with her free hand as she overbalanced.

  Hitching herself upright, she took his jaw in her palm. Oddly, he wasn’t giving off any emotions at all. Like a stunned ox. Which was a fairly apt description, all things considered. “Deny it,” she told him, putting as much command into the words as she could manage. Her voice cracked. Her throat hurt. She ignored the pain. She had to do this before she lost herself again. Delfi was hurting too badly and everyone else was still too angry for him to be able to drag her back to sanity a second time. “Or help me.”

  Another moment passed. He breathed under her, a sharp staccato of panic. His fingers on her shoulder clenched and loosened in short little spasms. She still didn’t Feel anything from him. Not anger, not fear. Nothing. On the floor nearby, Delfi hitched another breath and whimpered quietly. Agony lanced through Jossa’s chest. She convulsed, dropping her hand from Syrus’s face to clutch at her heart.

  Not long now. Oh, Del. This wasn’t how it was supposed to end. How long would she last once her sousi was gone? Would Syrus be able to put her down before she went completely crazy? Could he even try to help her? To hold her sanity to her body? Probably not. It wasn’t instinctual for him. That he had managed it to begin with was a miracle. Or torture.

  Her mind was wandering. Again. Ancestors, they should have never put her in storage to begin with, all those years ago. Should have dealt with her then. She just kept breaking things. How many had she tainted? How much of this damage was irreparable? How many of the people in this room would keep their psyches intact, assuming the warlord didn’t kill them all once she snapped. What about Delfi? Would this be the time Jossa ruined her for good?

  “Dunno what you’re talking about.” Syrus fisted one hand in her hair and pulled her head back. It was such a contrast to the waterfall of sanity hitting her in the face that she gasped and let him twist her around. One rough thumb, tacky with blood, wiped at her cheek. “We get you loose, get her to a medunit quick enough, she might have a chance. Hold on to this feeling.” Another rush of calm. “Do what you can to project it.”

  Jossa stared at him.

  He shook his head and went back to working on the hand that was still tethered to the wall. “Never mind. Just sit still.”

  Leaning her forehead against his collarbone, she sat. Blocked her ears to the sounds that the second was still making and concentrated on her breathing instead. For now, she had her sanity. It would have to be enough.

  >><<

  Jossa rubbed her wrists as she leaned against the wall and watched Syrus check Delfi over. Under the outpouring of calm the warlord kept shoving her way, she could feel her sister’s pain. It was a distant thing, not the sharp agony it had been. Jossa tried to ignore it.

  “Brace yourself,” he said. Jossa frowned. Why was he telling Del to—

  He laid his hand on Delfi’s neck, and the sudden slack in the false bond he had created was staggering. Jossa clawed for the remnants, pulled them back together, and pushed them out again. Along the other wall, Iira’s and Oona’s quiet gasps eased.

  The second continued with whatever he was doing to the corpse at his feet. Jossa looked hard at Syrus rather than focus on the lunatic and his toy.

  The warlord knelt over Del, one ear to her chest. Jossa opened her mouth to ask him what he was doing. He took the hilt of a spacer’s blade from the corpse next to her sister and started twisting the dial. A long, thin section of the metal grew from the working end. When Syrus set the knife blade over Del’s ribs and got ready to push it in, Jossa nearly fell on her face trying to get the thing out of his hands. He caught her one handed. “Calm the fuck down,” he said once she was steady again.

  Jossa opened her mouth to yell and got blasted with another wave of sanity. Syrus ignored her and went back to Del.

  “Not there,” someone said. Jossa paused in the middle of bringing her fist down on the warlord’s head and turned to stare. Iira. Half sitting, half slumped against the wall, one eye swelling shut and the other watching them from behind her tangled hair. “’Tween second and third. Close to third. Clav—” The woman coughed. “Clavicle.”

  Syrus looked at her, shifted his fingers on Delfi’s ribs, moved the knife, and pushed it in before Jossa could do more than yelp a protest.

  Del tried to shriek, but it came out as a gasp. Jossa yelped and lurched forward, nearly losing her grip on the bubble of sanity. “Calm down,” Syrus said. “You want her lung reinflated or not?” He leaned over and did something with the hilt. Delfi gasped, a full breath this time.

  The warlord sat back on his heels. “Get Iira and Oona loose. We’re going to find the infirmary.”

  Jossa stared at him, then at the gray tube sticking out of her sister’s chest. The peace still covered her, and by extension, the others. That incredible calm he’d managed to dredge out of somewhere. But what if it vanished? Wh
at if she took one step too many away from him and lost the feeling?

  “Just do it.” His voice was tight. But he didn’t let go of the calm. “Sooner before later.”

  She obeyed. One step. Two. The relief weakened, but remained. Enough to keep her balanced. So long as she didn’t touch either of the women directly. She could feel them through the barrier Syrus held between her and the world. Fleet. Angry. Right down to the core of their being. And she’d only managed to make them worse. Beautiful.

  “And stop thinking about it.”

  Apparently he’d decided that since she knew what he was, he had the right to get even more dictatorial. Bastard.

  Del shifted in the back of her mind at that, but she was too occupied with breathing to make any comment. Jossa could have wept. Just for the feeling of her sousi along the bond. Syrus growled again, his eyes narrow and the muscles on his jaw working. She sent Del a swift caress to the cheek along the bond and then moved around Iira to get to the moorings. Time enough to break down later. Right now she had to try to stay calm. “Who had the key?” she asked the woman as she examined the locking mechanism. At least it wasn’t a combination dial.

  The medic nodded in the direction of her husband and the dead soldier at his feet. “He did.”

  Jossa swallowed as she met the maddened gaze of the captive second as he pulled and thrashed against the tethers. Somehow he’d gotten his other leg loose. He was trying to stand, but his feet kept slipping in the red mess that was the soldier’s skull. “Please tell me you don’t mean the second.”

  The other woman, Oona, snorted. The second lurched and snarled, just in case she didn’t understand that he was a threat. Iira shook her head. “Bad humor. No. The soldier.” She jerked her chin at the body. “Him.”

  “Syrus,” Jossa called over her shoulder, keeping her voice low. “Can you leave Delfi a moment?”

  Pain trickled through the bond as the warlord did . . . something to her sousi. Then he was standing next to her. “Names now. That’s new.”

  “You’re in a horribly good mood,” she replied. “That soldier had the key for the moorings. And probably the cuffs.” She looked at her wrists, surprised. “How did you?”

  “You think Delfi’s the only one who knows how to break those things open?”

  She looked at his wrists as he eased around Iira and her companion and crouched near the body of the soldier. The cuff and moorings were still attached.

  “I didn’t have time to go hunting for keys. Savage, remember? We’re freaks of nature.” He didn’t look at her, but white teeth flashed in a grin. Something like acid dripped past the calm. It was gone before she could identify it. Jossa frowned.

  The second yanked at his arms and kicked out, snarling and snapping. Syrus hooked the dead soldier’s belt and pulled the impromptu footstool closer, away from his underling. Jossa eyed the second’s remaining moorings and prayed the Fleet didn’t have any more men who were the equal of a nehkeh.

  >><<

  The second didn’t get any more limbs free before Syrus untethered Delfi and the two Fleet women. Although it wasn’t for lack of trying.

  Jossa eyed the gun holstered on the belt of the dead soldier at her feet. Could she move fast enough to grab it if things spun out of control again?

  While the second snarled and snapped and tugged on his restraints, the rest of them waited in various stages of pain as Syrus worked on getting them out of the room. He tapped at the control panel for the door, pried out the housing around the lock with another stolen knife, ripped out a handful of wires, and growled.

  His frustration made the serenity of the false bond waver. Jossa clutched at it with both hands. As if he’d heard her mentally telling him to control himself, he sighed, put his shoulder to the door, and pushed. It slid open a couple inches.

  Another minute or so and he had it all the way open. “Either you got everyone to kill each other,” he said to Jossa, poking his head through the opening. “Or he emptied the base. We’re clear.” He ducked around the edge of the door and leaned down. “Guess he wasn’t kidding about testing the medunits.”

  “What?” Jossa was still clinging to the peace of the bond he was generating. It was stronger now. Steadier. The more she projected, the easier it was for him to strengthen it. But her control wavered every time he let one of his other emotions surface for a moment. She was walking a piece of razor wire over a ravine, praying she’d make it to the other side before it sliced her feet to ribbons.

  “You say that a lot, you know.” He came back in the room and tamped down on the irritation without being asked. He had a folded piece of metal tucked under one arm. “Oona, how banged up are you?”

  Oona glared at him, then lurched out of the way when her husband lashed out at her with a heel. “Not so bad,” she said through gritted teeth. Jossa bit her lip. The woman was covered in blood and minced as she walked.

  A look at Iira told her that whatever the captain’s condition, the med-tech was even worse off.

  “Good.” He said to Oona. “You’re helping.” Syrus took the piece of metal, unfolded it, and set a stretcher down on the floor next to Delfi. “Take her feet. Jossa, stay put.” How he’d seen her getting ready to help, she didn’t know, but she could feel his attention. “You touch her and we’re all fucked.”

  She opened her mouth to snap. At least Delfi knew when it was her sousi and not someone else about to lay hands on her. He’d stabbed her in the chest with a needle made of living metal. What did he think would happen when he touched Del?

  The warlord swiveled on the balls of his feet and glared at her. Jossa gulped, and her grip on the peace faltered. He looked like a mad thing, all bloody and feral, his pupils blown and the whites of his eyes so bright against his skin. Right. No mentioning the fact that he was sai.

  He turned back to Del. “I’m not interested in losing any teeth,” he told her. “You fight me and I’ll leave you here to die. Got that?”

  Delfi turned over in Jossa’s mind, but she didn’t try to speak. She was in too much pain. Too full of anger and fear. Syrus was right. Jossa would do more harm than good if she touched her sister. Nothing left for now but to cling to that all-encompassing grace. It was the only thing that would keep them all sane until they could get away from this room.

  Something niggled at her. Something about hows and whys. Delfi gasped again and Jossa felt the thought slip away. She could worry about all that later. Right now she had to concentrate on her task. Transmuting what Syrus gave her into the true peace of a sai bond.

  She didn’t know how well she was doing though. She hadn’t been on the giving end of this very often.

  It must have been good enough, because even though Del whimpered when the warlord and Oona crouched down to ease the stretcher under her shivering body, she didn’t struggle. Jossa stepped aside to let them pass through the door and into the corridor, and she found her eyes catching on the dead soldier’s gun again.

  The second snarled and lunged against his bonds as Iira limped out after the others. The grav tethers on his shackles hummed as they gave slightly, then pulled him back. Monstrous rage boiled out of him to batter at the bubble of peace Jossa clung to with everything she could manage. The second lurched forward again, and again the tethers yanked him back.

  But now he had his feet under him. He’d managed to tuck himself into a sort of ball as he landed. He worked first one foot under his hips, then the other. Now he had leverage.

  The fear welling within her was Jossa’s alone. She crouched and grabbed blindly as the man made another desperate attempt to free himself. The hummmm-thunk of the grav bonds snapping him back to the wall was accompanied by a slight metal crunch. Voices shouted somewhere nearby, but she ignored them. She had the gun now. Oh please, oh please, don’t let it have some sort of safety.

  She didn’t get to find out. One second she was rising from her crouch near the dead soldier, clinging to the last shreds of the false bond as she brought the muz
zle to bear on the lunatic in front of her, the next she found herself yanked backwards and around as something hard struck her across the face.

  Jossa cried out as the fresh surge of heat drove its way through her jawbone. She lost the gun and heard it clatter across the floor. Someone shouted at her in a different language; her translator couldn’t work fast enough to keep up with it.

  “The hell you doing?” Syrus snarled as he caught her and pulled her around to face him. “We don’t have time for this shit.”

  Oona was right behind him. She was the source of the shouting. Something about fucking outFleet bitches and what was going to happen to Jossa if she tried that again.

  Jossa opened her mouth to yell back. How stupid was this bitch anyway? Didn’t she realize what would happen if her husband got loose?

  The peace of the bond clamped over her mind and smothered the words before they became actuality. Jossa gasped for breath and felt her head wobble on her neck. What? What had just—

  “I can’t hold this against them.” The warlord leaned down to whisper the warning in her ear. “Not against what they’ll do if you kill him.” The rumble of his voice was almost comforting. Jossa let it sink into her bones as she basked in the restoration of the false bond. “Think, woman. We’re all free. What do you think will happen if either one of us loses our shit?”

  She could feel his frustration straining at the leash as he straightened and tipped her face up to his. There was something in his eyes. Something she couldn’t identify, but knew anyway. He wasn’t scowling. Or snarling. Or wearing any of his usual expressions. His face was calm. Flat. The same way Rui used to get when a deal went bad and he didn’t want to show it.

  The warlord rubbed a thumb lightly along her sore jaw. “I don’t rape when I lose my mind,” he said after a moment. “Ain’t the way I’m wired.” Jossa flinched as he took her chin in his fingers and shook her slightly. “I kill people and play in the blood. You got that?” He stepped aside, pulling her face around so she could see Delfi lying on the stretcher and panting in pain.