Jacos: No more.
Whistle: Rise, Red as the dawn.
STEEL SCARS
THE FOLLOWING MESSAGE HAS BEEN DECODED
CONFIDENTIAL, COMMAND CLEARANCE REQUIRED
Day 61 of Operation LAKER, Stage 3.
Operative: Colonel REDACTED.
Designation: RAM.
Origin: Solmary, LL.
Destination: COMMAND at REDACTED.
-Operation LAKER completed ahead of schedule, deemed successful. Canals and lock points of LAKES PERIUS, MISKIN, and NERON under control of the Scarlet Guard.
-Operatives WHIPPER and OPTIC will control LAKER moving forward, maintain close contact, open channels to MOBILE BASE and COMMAND. Stand-and-report protocol, awaiting action orders.
-Returning to TRIAL with LAMB at present.
-LAKER overview: Killed in action: D. FERRON, T. MILLS, M. PERCHER (3).
Wounded: SWIFTY, WISHBONE (2).
Silver casualty count (3): Greenwarden (1), Strongarm (1), Skin healer? (1).
Civilian casualty count: Unknown.
RISE, RED AS THE DAWN.
“Storms ahead.”
The Colonel speaks to fill the silence. His one good eye presses to a crack in the compartment wall, fixing on the horizon. The other eye stares, though it can hardly see through a film of scarlet blood. Nothing new. His left eye has been like that for years.
I follow his gaze, peering through slats in the rattling wood. Dark clouds gather a few miles off, trying to hide behind the forested hills. In the distance, thunder rolls. I pay it no mind. I only hope the storms don’t slow the train down, forcing us to spend one second longer hidden here, beneath the false floor of a cargo car.
We don’t have time for thunderstorms or pointless conversation. I haven’t slept in two days and I have the face to prove it. I want nothing more than quiet and a few hours of rest before we make it back to the base in Trial. Luckily there’s not much to do here but lie down. I’m too tall to stand in such a space, as is the Colonel. We both have to sprawl, leaning as best we can in the dim partition. It’ll be night soon, with only darkness to keep us company.
I can’t complain about the mode of transportation. On the trip out to Solmary, we spent half the journey on a barge shipping fruit. It stalled out on Lake Neron, and most of the cargo rotted. Spent the first week of operations washing the stink from my clothes. And I’ll never forget the mess before we started Laker, in Detraon. Three days in a cattle car, only to find the Lakelander capital utterly beyond reach. Too close to the Choke and the warfront to have shoddy defenses, a truth I willingly overlooked. But I wasn’t an officer then, and it wasn’t my decision to try to infiltrate a Silver capital without adequate intelligence or support. That was the Colonel. Back then he was only a captain with the code name Ram and too much to prove, too much to fight for. I only tagged along, barely more than an oathed soldier. I had things to prove too.
He continues to squint at the landscape. Not to look outside, but to avoid looking at me. Fine. I don’t like looking at him either.
Bad blood or not, we make a good team. Command knows it, we know it, and that’s why we keep getting sent out together. Detraon was our only misstep in an endless march for the cause. And for them, for the Scarlet Guard, we put aside our differences each and every time.
“Any idea where we go next?” Like the Colonel, I won’t abide the heavy silence.
He pulls back from the wall, frowning, still not looking my way. “You know that’s not how it works.”
I’ve spent two years as an officer, two more as an oathed soldier of the Guard, and a lifetime living in its shadow. Of course I know how it works, I want to spit.
No one knows more than they must. No one is told anything beyond their operation, their squadron, their immediate superiors. Information is more dangerous than any weapon we possess. We learned that early, after decades of failed uprisings, all laid low by one captured Red in the hands of a Silver whisper. Even the best-trained soldier cannot resist an assault of the mind. They are always unraveled, their secrets always discovered. So my operatives and my soldiers answer to me, their captain. I answer to the Colonel, and he answers to Command, whoever they might be. We know only what we must to move forward. It’s the only reason the Guard has lasted this long, surviving where no other underground organization has before.
But no system is perfect.
“Just because you haven’t received new orders doesn’t mean you don’t have an idea as to what they might be,” I say.
A muscle in his cheek twitches. To pull a frown or a smile, I don’t know. But I doubt it’s the latter. The Colonel doesn’t smile, not truly. Not for many years.
“I have my suspicions,” he replies after a long moment.
“And they are . . . ?”
“My own.”
I hiss through my teeth. Typical. And probably for the best, if I’m being honest with myself. I’ve had enough close shaves of my own with Silver hunting dogs to know exactly how vital the Guard’s secrecy is. My mind alone contains names, dates, operations, enough information to cripple the last two years of work in the Lakelands.
“Captain Farley.”
We don’t use our titles or names in official correspondence. I’m Lamb, according to anything that could be intercepted. Another defense. If any of our messages fall into the wrong hands, if the Silvers crack our cyphers, they’ll have a hard time tracking us down and unraveling our vast, dedicated network.
“Colonel,” I respond, and he finally looks at me.
Regret flashes in his one good eye, still a familiar shade of blue. The rest of him has changed over the years. He’s noticeably harder, a wiry mass of old muscle, coiled like a snake beneath threadbare clothes. His blond hair, lighter than mine, has begun to thin. There’s white at the temples. I can’t believe I never noticed it before. He’s getting old. But not slow. Not stupid. The Colonel is just as sharp and dangerous as ever.
I keep still under his quiet, quick observation. Everything is a test with him. When he opens his mouth, I know I’ve passed.
“What do you know about Norta?”
I grin harshly. “So they’ve finally decided to expand out.”
“I asked you a question, Little Lamb.”
The nickname is laughable. I’m almost six feet tall.
“Another monarchy like the Lakelands,” I spit out. “Reds must work or conscript. They center on the coast, their capital is Archeon. At war with the Lakelands for nearly a century. They have an alliance with Piedmont. Their king is Tiberias—Tiberias the—”
“The Sixth,” he offers. Chiding as a schoolteacher, not that I spent much time in school. His fault. “Of the House Calore.”
Stupid. They don’t even have brains enough to give their children different names.
“Burners,” I add. “They lay claim to the so-called Burning Crown. Fitting opposite to the nymph kings of the Lakelands.” A monarchy I know all too well, from a lifetime living beneath their rule. They are as unending and unyielding as the waters of their kingdom.
“Indeed. Opposite but also horribly alike.”
“Then they should be just as easy to infiltrate.”
He raises an eyebrow, gesturing to the cramped space around us. He almost looks amused. “You call this easy?”
“I haven’t been shot at today, so, yes, I’d say so,” I reply. “Besides, Norta is what, half the size of the Lakelands?”
“With comparable populations. Dense cities, a more advanced basis of infrastructure—”
“All the better for us. Crowds are easy to hide in.”
He grits his teeth, annoyed. “Do you have an answer to everything?”
“I’m good at what I do.”
Outside, the thunder rumbles again, closer than before.
“So we go to Norta next. Do what we’ve done here,” I press on. Already, my body buzzes with anticipation. This is what I’ve been waiting for. The Lakelands are only one spoke of the wheel, one na
tion in a continent of many. A rebellion contained to its borders would eventually fail, stamped out by the other nations of the continent. But something bigger, a wave across two kingdoms, another foundation to explode beneath the Silvers’ cursed feet—that has a chance. And a chance is all I require to do what I must.
The illegal gun at my hip has never felt so comforting.
“You must not forget, Captain.” Now he’s staring. I wish he wouldn’t. He looks so much like her. “Where our skills truly lie. What we started as, what we came from.”
Without warning, I slam my heel against the boards below us. He doesn’t flinch. My anger is not a surprise.
“How could I forget?” I sneer. I resist the urge to tug at the long blond braid over my shoulder. “My mirror reminds me every day.”
I never win arguments with the Colonel. But this feels like a draw at least.
He looks away, back to the wall. The last bit of sunlight glints through, illuminating the blood of his wounded eye. It glows red in the dying light.
His sigh is heavy with memory. “So does mine.”
THE FOLLOWING MESSAGE HAS BEEN DECODED
CONFIDENTIAL, COMMAND CLEARANCE REQUIRED
Operative: Colonel REDACTED.
Designation: RAM.
Origin: Trial, LL.
Destination: COMMAND at REDACTED.
-Returned to TRIAL with LAMB.
-Reports of LL Silver pushback in ADELA verified.
-Request permission to dispatch HOLIDAY and her team to observe/respond.
-Request permission to begin assessment of contact viability in NRT.
RISE, RED AS THE DAWN.
THE FOLLOWING MESSAGE HAS BEEN DECODED
CONFIDENTIAL, SENIOR CLEARANCE REQUIRED
Operative: General REDACTED.
Designation: DRUMMER.
Origin: REDACTED.
Destination: RAM at Trial, LL.
-Permission to dispatch HOLIDAY granted. Observe only, EYES ON Operation.
-Permission to assess contact viability in NRT granted.
-LAMB will take point on Operation RED WEB, making contact with smuggling and underground networks in NRT, emphasis on the WHISTLE black market ring. Orders enclosed, her eyes only. Must dispatch to NRT within week.
-RAM will take point on Operation SHIELDWALL. Orders enclosed, your eyes only. Must dispatch to Ronto within week.
RISE, RED AS THE DAWN.
Trial is the single largest city on the Lakelander border, its intricately carved walls and towers looking across Lake Redbone and deep into the heart of the Nortan backcountry. The lake hides a flooded city, all raided and stripped by nymph divers. Meanwhile, the slave workers of the Lakelands built Trial on the shores, in mockery of the drowned ruins and the Nortan wilderness.
I used to wonder what kinds of idiots are fighting this Silver war, if they insist on containing the battlegrounds to the forsaken Choke. The northern border is long and winding, cutting along the river, mostly forested on both sides, always defended but never attacked. Of course, in the winter, it’s a brutal land of cold and snow, but what about the late spring and summer? Now? If Norta and the Lakelands hadn’t been fighting for a century, I would expect an assault on the city at any moment. But there’s nothing at all, and never will be.
Because the war is not a war at all.
It is an extermination.
Red soldiers conscript, fight, and die in the thousands, year after year. They’re told to fight for their kings, to defend their country, their families, who would surely be overrun and overthrown if not for their forced bravery. And the Silvers sit back, moving their toy legions to and fro, trading blows that never seem to do much of anything. Reds are too small, too restricted, too uneducated to notice. It’s sickening.
Only one of a thousand reasons I believe in the cause and in the Scarlet Guard. But belief doesn’t make it easy to take a bullet. Not like the last time I returned to Irabelle, bleeding from the abdomen, unable to walk without the damned Colonel’s aid. At least then I got a week to rest and heal. Now I doubt I’ll be here much longer than a few days before they send us back out again.
Irabelle is the only proper Guard base in the region, to my limited knowledge at least. Safe houses scatter along the river and deeper into the woods, but Irabelle is certainly the beating heart of our organization. Partly underground and entirely overlooked, most of us would call Irabelle home if we had to. But most of us have no true home to speak of, none but the Guard and the Reds alongside us.
The structure is much larger than we need, easy for an outsider—or an invader—to get lost in. Perfect for seeking quiet. Not to mention most of the entrances and halls are rigged with floodgates. One order from the Colonel and the whole place goes under, drowned like the old world before it. It makes the place damp and cool in summer, frigid in winter, with walls like sheets of ice. No matter the season, I like to walk the tunnels, taking a lonely patrol through dim concrete passages forgotten by anyone but me. After my time on the train, avoiding the Colonel’s accusing, crimson gaze, the cool air and open tunnel before me feels like the closet brush of freedom I’ll ever know.
My gun spins idly on my finger, a careful balance I’m good at keeping. It’s not loaded. I’m not stupid. But the lethal weight of it is still pleasing. Norta. The pistol keeps spinning. Their arms laws are stricter than the Lakelands. Only registered hunters are allowed to carry. And those are few. Just another obstacle I’m eager to overcome. I’ve never been to Norta, but I assume it’s the same as the Lakelands. Just as Silver, just as dangerous, just as ignorant. A thousand executioners, a million to the noose.
I’ve long stopped questioning why this is allowed to continue. I was not raised to accept a master’s cage, not like so, so many are. What I see as a maddening surrender is the only survival to so many others. I suppose I have the Colonel to thank for my stubborn belief in freedom. He never let me think otherwise. He never let me accept what we came from. Not that I’ll ever tell him that. He’s done too much to ever earn my thanks.
But so have I. That’s fair, I suppose. And don’t I believe in fairness?
Footsteps turn my head, and I slip the gun to my side, careful to keep it hidden. A fellow Guardsman would not mind the weapon, but a Silver officer certainly would. Not that I expect one to find us down here. They never do.
Indy doesn’t bother with a greeting. She halts a few feet away, her tattoos evident against her tan skin even in the meager light. Thorns up one side, from her wrist to the crown of her shaved head, with roses winding down the other arm. Her code name is Holiday, but Garden would’ve been more fitting. She’s a fellow captain, another one of us who answers to the Colonel. There’s ten in all under his command, each with a larger detachment of oathed soldiers sworn to their captains.
“The Colonel wants you in his office. New orders,” she says. Then her voice lowers, even though no one can hear us this deep into Irabelle. “He isn’t happy.”
I grin and push past her. She’s shorter than me, like most people, and has to work to keep up. “Is he ever?”
“You know what I mean. This is different.”
Her dark eyes flash, betraying a rare fear. I saw it last in the infirmary, as she stood over the body of another captain. Saraline, code named Mercy, who ended up losing a kidney during a routine arms raid. She’s still recovering. The surgeon was shaky at best. Not your fault. Not your job, I remind myself. But I did what I could. I’m no stranger to blood and I was the best medic we had at the moment. Still, it was the first time I held a human organ in my hand. At least she’s alive.
“She’s walking,” Indy offers, reading the guilt on my face. “Slow, but she’s doing it.”
“That’s good,” I say, neglecting to add that she should’ve been walking weeks ago. Not your fault echoes again.
When we make it back to the central hub, Indy breaks off, heading to the infirmary. She hasn’t left Saraline’s side for anything but assignments and, apparently, the C
olonel’s errands. They came to the Guard at the same time, close as sisters. And then, quite obviously, not sisters anymore. No one minds. There’s no rules against fraternizing within the organization, so long as the job gets done and everyone comes back alive. So far, no one at Irabelle has been foolish or sentimental enough to let something so petty as a feeling jeopardize our cause.
I leave Indy to her worries and head in the opposite direction, to where I know the Colonel waits.
His office would make a marvelous tomb. No windows, concrete walls, and a lamp that always seems to burn out at precisely the wrong moment. There are far better places in Irabelle for him to conduct business, but he likes the quiet and the closed space. He’s tall enough, and the low ceiling makes him seem like a giant. Probably why he likes the room so much.
His head scrapes the ceiling when he stands to greet my entrance.
“New orders?” I ask, already knowing the answer. We’ve been here two days. I know better than to expect any kind of vacation, even after the grand success of Operation Laker. The central passages of three lakes, each one key to the inner Lakelands, now belong to us, and no one is the wiser. For what higher purpose, I don’t know. That’s for Command to worry about, not me.
The Colonel slides a folded paper across the table to me. Sealed edges. I have to snap it open with a finger. Strange. I’ve never received sealed orders before.
My eyes scan the page, widening with every passing word. Command orders. Straight from the top, past the Colonel, directly to me.
“These are—”
He holds up a hand, stopping me short. “Command says your eyes only.” His voice is controlled, but I hear the anger anyway. “It’s your operation.”
I have to clench a fist to keep calm. My own operation. Blood pounds in my ears, pressed on by a rising heartbeat. My jaw clenches, grinding my teeth together so I don’t smile. I look back at the orders again to make sure they’re real. Operation Red Web.
After a moment, I realize something is missing.
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