We Rule the Night

by Claire Eliza Bartlett

  “No what?”

  “No, sir.”

  Hesovec glared at them all, chest heaving. The men did their best to look as if they’d ended up at the range by mistake.

  Tannov made a small, polite noise.

  Hesovec jumped. With some effort, he schooled his expression. “Perhaps Officer Tannov would like to do the honors,” he said.

  Linné’s stomach twisted. She couldn’t possibly get arrested for shooting a cabbage.

  Tannov seemed to feel the same. “Continue,” he said with a smile and a wave of his gloved hand. “We’re merely here to observe.”

  The Skarov didn’t observe. They hunted. They hunted information and they hunted people, and used the same ruthlessness with both.

  Hesovec licked his lips. When he spoke, Linné could see the sweat that beaded at the edges of his mustache. “Zolonova. Roshena. You will go out to that field and you will pick every last cabbage leaf off the ground. You’ll pay the farmer any damages from your own wages, and I’ll report this behavior to your commanding officer.” His mouth twisted as he said commanding officer.

  “Yes, sir,” Linné said quickly, staring at her boots.

  Revna picked up on her lead. “Yes, sir.”

  The colonel turned to the other regiment. “When recruits have reserved the firing range, it’s theirs to use. If you make them wait, they make the next batch wait, and nothing gets finished on time. You can think about that as you take three laps around the field.”

  “Yes, sir,” they chorused, like a proper unit.

  “A moment,” Tannov said. Everyone froze. Linné heard Revna’s breath hitch.

  Tannov’s boots squished into her line of sight. Had he recognized her? And what was he doing here? Why had he left the Thirty-First, and why to become a Skarov, of all things?

  “We’re sure it will be a pleasure to work with you all,” he said. His voice was deeper than she remembered. “We’re here for the same reason as you—to win the war. Remember that lies and secrecy are the enemy of the Union, and if you have questions or concerns, our door is always open.”

  After a second half-hearted “Yes, sir,” the boys marched smartly off the field.

  Tannov’s boots disappeared at last, and Linné dared to raise her head. Tannov and Dostorov stood with their backs to her, facing Hesovec. “Shall we continue the grand tour?” Hesovec said to the Skarov, in a voice that clearly indicated he’d rather be anywhere else.

  “Let’s go,” said Tannov. Dostorov shrugged, and they set off without looking back.

  The sight of their retreat was eclipsed by the approach of the dark-haired soldier, who’d broken off from his unit and circled back around. “Need my rifle back,” he said, his voice full of apology. She handed it over without a word. She didn’t blame him for abandoning her to the attention of the Information Unit. But when he said, “Thanks, sweetheart,” she gave him her best withering look. He winked in return. Then he trotted off to catch up with his comrades.

  The others let out their breath as one. Revna was pale as a corpse. Katya had made little crescent marks in the skin of her wrist with her fingernails. Olya sighed. Her hand went to her hair, smoothing her short dark curls. “Wow,” she said. “They’re not bad looking.”

  “The Skarov?” said Asya. “They’ll send you up to the mining colony for sneezing wrong.”

  “They can’t do that. Rules are rules, even for them,” Nadya said, letting her cold spark fountain up. It returned to the Weave in little flashes of silver-blue, redistributing along its grid and flickering from sight.

  “If all their agents look like that, it’s no wonder they get so many people to snitch.” Olya smirked and raised her eyebrows. “Now Miss Zolonova will have someone who listens to her when she complains.”

  Linné ground her teeth, but for once she didn’t have to stand up for herself.

  “Leave her be. Linné’s the hero of the hour.” Katya turned to Linné and folded her arms. “Never mind what that boar said. We’ll tell Tamara—”

  “Don’t,” grated Linné. It came out harsher than she intended, but what difference did it make? The girls would go back to hating her tomorrow. And they’d only hate her more if they found out she knew the two new faces of the Information Unit.

  “The boys were the ones breaking the rules,” Nadya said. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “We did do something wrong. I destroyed army property. And Revna talked back to a superior officer, in front of the Information Unit.” Linné motioned to the still-pale Revna as she addressed the rest of them. “Don’t start shooting till we’re back. The only way this could get worse is if someone gets hit by a stray bullet. Practice cleaning your rifles, check your powder, that sort of thing.”

  “Nah, we’ll come cabbage picking. It’ll go faster if we all do it,” Katya said.

  Linné nearly groaned. “If you come, you’ll get into trouble. The point is to punish us for what we did wrong.”

  “We want to help,” Olya said.

  “Well, don’t.” She didn’t have the patience to try to make them understand. “Let’s go,” she told Revna.

  Magdalena squeezed Revna’s arm. “Are you sure you’ll be okay? In the mud and everything?”

  “I’ve gotten these legs muddy before,” Revna said.

  “All right,” Magdalena replied, though she didn’t sound convinced.

  The others turned away grudgingly and sat against the sandbags to clean their rifles. Linné and Revna started off over the field.

  Tannov and Dostorov. Why had they left the regiment, and why to become Skarov? Trading in a life of camaraderie for a life of bullying, monitoring, ruining lives for the slim chance of protection. Destroying a country to ensure it never fell. This was the Skarov initiative.

  She needed a cigarette. By all that was good in this world.

  She realized she was walking alone. Revna lagged behind, picking her way through the field with care. Linné stopped to wait. Over the sound of the rain, she called, “Can’t you go any faster?”

  “Have you ever tried walking through mud on stilts?” Revna replied.

  The rain had intensified, and fat drops pounded the earth. Something unpleasant squelched in her sock. “No.”

  “It’s nothing like that anyway.” Revna took another careful step on the uneven ground. “But I’m not really interested in embarrassing myself and getting my uniform covered in mud. So I’ll go at my own pace, thank you.”

  “Well, maybe you should think about that before you butt in on someone else’s argument,” Linné said, adjusting her jacket. Rain slid down her back.

  Revna snorted. “Sounds like you could learn a thing or two about flirting with soldiers when on duty.”

  “I wasn’t flirting.” Linné felt herself turning hot. “He challenged me.” And he’d walked away with her cigarettes. The Skarov could penalize them for gambling with army resources, so she found it hard to blame him.

  “You may be good with a gun, but you’re not good with people. Trust me—he was flirting.”

  Had he been? Linné tried to remember. But when she thought about the dark-haired soldier, she pictured the silver coats and the men underneath them instead. “I didn’t ask him to.” It didn’t matter. He’d probably flirted to distract her.

  Revna shrugged.

  “Why did you stick up for me?” Linné said.

  Revna looked back at the rest of the girls, who fiddled with their rifles and laughed as Katya waved her arms about. No doubt Katya was talking about Linné. “No one else is looking out for us here. So we have to look after each other. We’re a team, aren’t we?”

  “Even in front of the Skarov?”

  Revna looked at Linné for a moment, judging her in some way. “Especially in front of the Skarov.”

  They finished their walk to the cart in a silence Linné couldn’t bring herself to break.

  When they neared the farmer, Linné went forward to apologize. His face became rigid as she explain
ed. “Not a very funny joke.”

  “No, sir. We—” She glanced back. Revna had disappeared behind the cart. Linné’s goodwill evaporated. Revna wouldn’t get out of paying that easily. “I apologize.”

  His face softened at her sir. Though laws of the Union stated that all men were equal, a lot of gentlemen forgot this inconvenient fact where the people of the land were concerned. But Linné’s father had always advised her to treat the common people with respect. They will form the bulk of the revolution, he’d said. And the best way to survive a revolution is to be on the winning side. “I hope you won’t make a habit of it?” he grumbled.

  “Definitely not,” she said. Her salary wasn’t near enough to buy Intelgard’s entire supply of cabbages.

  “So long as it doesn’t happen again. You can pick up the cabbages and we’ll settle for the two you shot. I can’t sell them now.”

  Linné paid him and gathered the pieces of the demolished cabbages off the field, then went around the back. “You owe me twenty coruna,” she began, then stopped. Revna sat on the lip of the cart, sagging against the grayed wood. She was even paler than when she had been facing off against Hesovec. As Linné watched, Revna reached out and pulled on thin air. A cabbage rolled rather nonchalantly under her feet. “What are you doing?”

  Revna eyed the delinquent crop. “Picking up cabbages.”

  Linné bent down and began to scoop them up. “I can think of easier ways.”

  “I wanted to practice.” Revna flicked her wrist again, and this time a cabbage sailed over her head, landing with a thump that dislodged two more. She caught them before they hit the ground and shoved them on top of the pile. “If we don’t improve, we don’t fly. If we don’t fly, what are we doing here?” She wouldn’t look at Linné. “I’m not going home.”

  Finally, something Linné could relate to. She didn’t want to be here all day, though, so she picked up more cabbages by hand, and Revna gave up on her Weave-working and bent down to join her.

  Linné wanted to think of something nice to say. Couldn’t she manage one compliment? “Um.” Her mind came up blank. All words fled. But Revna was looking at her, raising a questioning eyebrow. “I’m intrigued to see you fly.”

  Revna’s mouth twitched. “I’m intrigued to see you fire.”

  Linné left the range soon after. She was finished with Olya’s snide comments about the Information Unit and Katya’s huffed indignation that she hadn’t been allowed to help pick up cabbages. Magdalena confirmed that Revna was all right, then ignored Linné and proceeded to sketch out plans for her gas bullet. The way the others spoke—laughing, teasing, supporting one another—ignited a resentment in Linné that threatened to blaze out into the cold air. When she walked off, no one even bothered to ask her where she was going.

  She focused on her hands, trying to form her spark energy into a blade the way she’d seen Tcerlin do it. The spark whipped out in slim threads, grounding itself on the Weave and disappearing before she could solidify it. Come on. Maybe she should have taken Koslen’s suggestion and gone to be a secretary at Mistelgard.

  She couldn’t harbor that thought for long. She was born to fight. She had to believe that they would succeed and that Tamara Zima would get them to the front. Or she had to believe that Zima would fail and that she could make it back to the front on her own. She pushed on her spark, willing it to obey.

  “Excuse me, miss!” A figure in a silver coat strode toward her. Another stood a few meters behind him, attempting to light a rascidine cigarette.

  She cast about desperately for an excuse to bolt. She could say that she had to use the toilet—feminine problems, she was learning, could get you out of a lot. She could say she’d been called to Hesovec’s office, and she couldn’t dawdle. But her training pushed against her. They were Skarov. You kept your mouth shut.

  Tannov’s hawkish nose was a little larger than she’d remembered it, though his face was still smooth, almost babyish. His straw-colored hair had grown out from its regulation cut. Maybe the Skarov didn’t care if you forgot to trim it.

  Too late to run now. She tucked her chin. Was it stupid to hope he hadn’t caught a good look at her?

  “You’re one of Zima’s girls. Kindly direct me to her office.” His voice wasn’t only deeper. It held the clipped, clear tones of someone used to giving commands and having those commands obeyed without question. Not three months ago he’d paraded around the field with her, stuffed Koslen’s pipe with dried cow dung, and snuck out after curfew to practice night shooting.

  Now he wore the blue star of the Extraordinary Wartime Information Unit dangling from his coat. And that meant that he didn’t obey regimental orders anymore. His orders came from a separate source, and no one with intelligence questioned that source. It was Tannov’s job to notice who was likely to defect, who needed to be transferred, and who needed to be quietly taken care of. And now he’d noticed her.

  Without raising her head, she pointed to the cluster of offices and tried to pitch her voice low. “That way, sir,” she said. “Light blue shutters.”

  “Don’t mumble, miss,” he said. “In the army we put our heads on top of our shoulders, like we’re proud to be here. No one’s going to—” He stopped, leaning in. She tucked her chin farther, but it was too late. “Alexei?”

  She might as well try to salvage some dignity. She straightened. “It’s Linné now.”

  Tannov clapped her on the shoulder so hard she staggered. He pulled her arm out from behind her and pumped it up and down. “Screw me sideways,” he said. “I never thought I’d see you again. And certainly not on military ground.” He laughed the good-natured laugh she’d heard the first time she met him. It was an open sort of laugh, the type that invited everyone to join in. It didn’t fit at all with the uniform. As he turned around, she found herself peering at his ears and neck, looking for any evidence of the fabled shape-shifting everyone whispered about. But there was nothing to indicate his change except for his golden eyes. He called back to Dostorov. “Look who I found!” he shouted. “Alexei!”

  Dostorov shrugged.

  “Alexei Nabiev,” Tannov clarified. “Girl Alexei.”

  That got Dostorov moving. He stomped forward, splashing through the mud. Wind tossed his hair into his eyes, but he was too busy holding on to his battered cigarette to push it away. “Miss,” he muttered, and turned back to the task of trying to light his cigarette.

  Linné tamped down on the hot spark that rose at the word miss. Skarov, she reminded herself.

  “How did you end up here?” Tannov said. He hadn’t let go of her hand. “Does that pompous windbag in charge know who you are? Are we getting you in trouble? Again?” He elbowed Dostorov. Dostorov kicked him back.

  “Everyone here knows who I am,” she said.

  “And you’re calling yourself Linné,” he said, working the name around in his mouth. Finally he shrugged and smiled that broad, open smile. “It’ll take getting used to. But I guess it’s smart for you to have joined Tamara’s force.” He waggled his eyebrows. Dostorov shook his head at Tannov’s expression.

  “Well, Koslen wouldn’t keep me,” Linné said. She didn’t know whether to grin or try to extricate herself. Tannov was as blunt as ever, it seemed. How had he ended up a Skarov?

  “And Tamara trusts you to fly experimental planes?” he said, one corner of his mouth pulling up.

  “She trusts me to spark things and drop bombs,” Linné replied. And rain fire down on the Elda. “Someone else gets to fly.”

  Tannov finally let go of her hand. He elbowed Dostorov again, causing him to fumble his cigarette. “You know, Dostorov almost got demoted for recruiting you. Koslen screamed at him for an hour. Said he damaged the reputation of the army.”

  And that’s how you got to be a Skarov? she thought, but she didn’t say it. Everyone at her old regiment had stories of friends who joined the Information Unit. Who changed. Now she could gather some stories of her own—not that anyone cared to hear h
er tell them.

  But she still couldn’t believe it of these two. Tannov’s straightforward manner was the exact opposite of the typical shadowy Skarov figure. And bumbling Dostorov was even worse. How was he supposed to crack codes and break spies?

  Tannov reached out a hand and tugged on a lock by her ear. “You’re growing out your hair.” He frowned at it, head cocked to one side. “It suits you.”

  She knocked his hand away. “Screw you.”

  Tannov and Dostorov gawked. Clearly becoming Skarov had changed the way people talked to them. It was supposed to change the way she talked to them.

  Then Dostorov snorted. The snort turned into a laugh as he fished his cigarette case out of his pocket. “Same old Alexei,” he said as he put his much-abused cigarette away.

  “Same old Alexei,” Tannov agreed. He was smiling, too.

  She opened her mouth to correct them. But maybe it was better for her to be Alexei. She’d rather be Alexei than this stranger, Linné.

  They stood for a few moments without speaking. Then Dostorov nudged Tannov. “It’s colder than a witch’s tit,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  She led them to Zima’s office. The yellow light inside promised warmth and comfort, making her ache.

  Tannov clapped her on the shoulder. “Got to get to work,” he said. “But why don’t you get a drink with us sometime?”

  No one ever “got a drink” with a member of the Information Unit. No one ever said no to them, either. “How long will you be here?” she said, trying to evade the question.

  Tannov spread his hands. “Who knows? I’m sure we’ll see you. It’s a small base.”

  It was a base so small that everyone would know she’d been talking to the Skarov. Apparently it wasn’t enough that everyone thought she was an arrogant sycophant. Now she’d be branded the regimental snitch.

  Their talk was the first nice conversation she’d had since she’d arrived.

  8

  STRIVE FOR YOUR UNION

  The next day was their first in the air. Revna pulled her sore limbs out of bed to the sound of the sirens, put on her kit, and trotted outside, rubbing her eyes. She lined up at the edge of the field with the rest of the girls.