The mace slammed into the raised weapon, barely moving it. Without slowing down, Ruda immediately launched another dozen strikes, pretending to attempt to break through Ney’s impenetrable defense with a relentless onslaught. Glistening beads of sweat covered her friend’s face; his lips were set in a thin line; and eyes shot, watching the wide swings of the mace, parrying each blow with economical blocks and making no attempt to counterattack.

  Ney was good at projecting deceptive weakness. Now he was all cowered, holding the mace with both hands, trying to look smaller against the backdrop of his heated girlfriend. She took up his game, using one hand to attack. No, Ney was not so simple. Behind his restraint hid a true danger, which had cost her several losses. He was waiting, letting her run out of breath.

  But in battle, the one who acts wins! The blunted training spikes, crackling with a faint electrical charge, intertwined for a second, resembling a couple locked in a loving embrace surrounded by stars. Ney’s gaze did not change; nothing betrayed his changed mood, but his grip loosened, letting the maces come closer to him.

  His hand grabbed Ruda’s wrist, yanking her closer. He intended to turn to the side and stab her in the chest with a sudden blow, using her own movement to throw her off balance. The corners of her lips turned up, and she stamped, almost crushing his big toe with her hoof.

  There was no room for not giving it their best in their training. Ruda’s barbaric drive and Ney’s measured, cautious style complemented the crusaders and merged, forcing the fighters to think and learn. Ruda learned patience, turning Ney’s trap on him when he allowed her to close the distance.

  The hoof slammed into the floor, missing. Ney retreated and rained down a hail of lunges at her, wielding his mace like a rapier. The situation has changed. The scion of a prominent noble family drove Ruda back, the muscles bulging in his arm, his fluid thrusting style a sharp contrast to his brute force, causing her hooves to scrape the floor. She gripped her mace with a two-handed grip, parrying twenty to twenty-five blows per second.

  “Oh, the youth.” Chernogor took a drag on his cigarette, squatting similar to a gargoyle on the railing that ran around the training section’s recess. There were sixty such recesses in the hall, and in normal circumstances instructors walked up and down the passages above, giving instructions and stopping the most dangerous duels. “Wasting their energy on all sorts of nonsense.”

  Chernogor, an old man of sixty-nine, resembled a garden gnome due to the protruding frontal bone, a legacy of the wound he had received at the siege of Stonehelm. In the rush of the approaching battle, surgeons had packed his brain back up and sealed the hole with a too-thick titanium plate. Or so he claimed. A striped white and cornflower-blue shirt and shorts of the same color stretched over his sinewy body, and his gray beard did nothing to dispel the image.

  “Want one?” He offered a cigarette to a sariant standing next to him.

  “No, and I don’t advise you to either,” Yeshua O’Brien replied. Dressed in a snow-white sweatsuit, he watched the training, scratching his brown hair. “The locals have no concept of safety regarding carcinogens. You shouldn’t have bought that crap from them. It’ll burn out your lungs.”

  “Another silly Billy. Fair exchange means respect.”

  “If you get cancer, it will cancel out any benefit you get. And fair exchange, seriously? You haggled worse than a street fortune teller.”

  “When will you learn to be smart, Yeshua?” Chernogor looked at him with pity. “Never pay the first price named in the wastelands. Always try to knock it down, so you won’t be known as a simpleton. And don’t worry about illnesses; I’m going to retire. I’ll get healthy food on the farm and recover while I babysit my grandchildren.”

  “Then what the… I mean, why are you offering me this stuff, sir?”

  “Checking.”

  “Sir, clarify... what... did... you... mean!” Ruda exhaled, parrying a lunge and bringing the mace down on Ney with all her might.

  “You’re practicing traditional one-on-one combat, even though the crusaders are fighting as a unit,” Yeshua snorted. “You’d know that if you hadn’t left our ranks so often.”

  “And you would do well to tend your fields, O’Brien, rather than trying to get ennobled if you are incapable of maintaining the minimum forms of politeness,” Ney chuckled, parrying the swing aimed at his forehead. “But no one is perfect, and we are fond of your quirks.”

  “Hide behind your forms of behavior as much as you like, Ney. The O’Briens earned their fortunes through hard work, not inheritance. Titles mean nothing to us; we only seek to be in a position where we can be useful.”

  “Ah, so that is why you forget to address Commander Eloise with the proper respect. I considered it a developmental delay. My deepest apologies.” Ney bowed ceremoniously, dodging the horizontal swing in such an unusual manner, and Ruda grinned in spite of herself.

  “You’re petty, arrogant…”

  “Children, children!” Chernogor put out his cigarette with a clap of his hands. “You are all valuable, calm down! Sariant Ruda, you did not lose in a classic fight. No matter how much you train your weapon handling, it will not be of much use. Your hand-to-hand combat is lame.”

  “Do you mind confirming your words, sir?” Ruda jumped away from Ney and saluted with her mace to signal a break. He agreed, and they returned their weapons to the rack.

  “With pleasure.” Chernogor jumped into the arena, beckoning Yeshua to follow him. He did a couple of squats and cracked his gnarled, calloused, and tanned fingers. Many years of service had left marks on his body. His nose was decorated with a hump from unsuccessful healing, scars abundantly covered his arms, and several depressions on the smooth skin of his legs marked the places where shrapnel or bullets had hit him. “Come on, guys. Don’t be shy. I won’t show you anything bad. All together. One. Two!”

  “Give me a second,” Ney whispered, sliding to the commander’s left side.

  “Three against one old man—that’s dishonorable.” Yeshua spread his arms, stopping to the right. “Let’s at least...”

  His arm straightened, delivering a simple jab to Chernogor’s jaw. The aged commander caught Yeshua by his knuckles and wrist and twisted his arm, forcing a groan out of the well-built youth. Then he threw the sariant over himself and lifted one leg, dodging Ney’s low kick. Using the sariant instead of a hammer, he slammed it into the knight, sending him sprawling across the floor. Instantly bending his knees, Chernogor slammed his fist into Ney’s face and added an elbow into Yeshua’s solar plexus, sending both of them into the corner.

  Planet whip me, the old geezer is an acrobat! Ruda admired, getting into a stance and raising her fists to face level. Chernogor lunged at her, closing the distance quickly. Left, right? The commander dove forward, ducking. From below! She slammed her knee down, either intending to break his nose or force him to retreat so she could get her sharp hooves into his ribs.

  Chernogor leaned back, not with his legs, but with his axis, creating a few millimeters between his nose and his rising knee. His fist slammed into Ruda’s side, doing little damage but making her tense, expecting more from that side. Instead, his fingers closed around her throat like a trash compactor. The commander tore her off her feet, sending the gasping sariant crashing down with monstrous strength.

  She hit the back of her head, and her vision went blurry, but she still tried to grab Chernogor as he slithered off her without resisting. Turning onto her stomach, Ruda tried to breathe and got hit in the forehead with a heel, and Chernogor fell on her back, grabbing her neck in a hold.

  Dream on. She pushed off the floor, lifting both herself and her opponent, and fell backwards. Chernogor immediately let go of her, landed on his feet, and grabbed her by the neck, brutally bringing her down again. Darn it! Ruda coughed up blood, struggling for every breath. He was after my neck from the start. Chernogor tried to retreat, and she rushed after him, trusting that the guys would understand her intentions.

  What do we have? Yeshua has a dislocation and difficulty breathing, as do I, and Ney may have a concussion. I need a break, but not at the cost of victory. He couldn’t be allowed to reset the situation and come out unscathed! She wasn’t the only one with these thoughts. Chernogor dodged Ruda’s clumsy swing and retreated even further, sucking in air. His shirt was damp, and his tongue licked his lips. Age was taking its toll on the venerable knight.

  Concentrated on the sariant’s face, he didn’t notice how Ruda’s palm, the same hand she had used to swing, opened and closed, sending a simple signal to her allies.

  Yeshua and Ney grabbed the commander under the arms, ignoring their pain, and Ruda caught her target in a single leap, delivering a hoof kick straight into the vulnerable chest. At the last second, she decided not to kick the solar plexus but to hit the collarbone. The contact echoed similarly to a bat hitting an iron post. Her leg shook from the sharp vibration that ran through the muscles to her knee, and a strip of the commander’s shirt hung, cut off by a hoof that sank deep into the commander’s flesh. Chernogor refused to fall and remained standing, curiously examining the trickle of blood and the swelling scar around the indented skin.

  “Not bad,” he croaked. “I give up, guys. You coordinated quickly. I thought I would have to throw you around longer. It doesn’t matter if the enemy is stronger than you. Together, we can tear anyone to pieces. But sometimes you have to make your body suffer for that.”

  “Phew.” Yeshua exhaled. Ney approached, and the guy nodded, allowing the knight to set his swollen wrist. “Okay, I admit it, Ruda. In battle, sometimes you must push through, regardless of your wounds or the situation. The alternative is worse.”

  “Quick thinking is also important. If you hadn’t saved me, I would’ve lost,” Ruda croaked. Ney’s fingers massaged her throat, and she tried not to look at herself, not to see the stains created by the sweat that had gotten on her skin. Not stains. You know what this is. She decided to wear a jumpsuit next time and reached for Ney’s nose, straightening it. “There. No more sniffling, beautiful.”

  “It was a fine idea, Yeshua,” Ney praised.

  “You figured it out fast, too. Too bad it failed.”

  “Youth!” Chernogor laughed. “Regret nothing, but think about why you failed and learn from your own and others’ mistakes. You shouldn’t let a mischievous glint into their eyes,” he told Yeshua. “It shows your intentions. Your tone was wonderful; I almost believed it.”

  “Thanks.” Yeshua took several bottles of medical gel from the stand and tossed them to the others while he treated his hand. “My sister plays in the theater. A couple of... many times she dragged me to help when I was little, and they didn’t have actors my age.”

  “And you shouldn’t hold back,” Chernogor said to Ruda.

  His statement left her stunned. Hadn’t I put all I could into that kick? The touch of the cold gel substance felt divine, bringing instant relief, and she didn’t care at all about blasphemy. If the Planet really gave birth to all things, then there was a piece of her or him in everything. The swelling went down, and the bruises covering her throat diminished, permitting her to breathe deeply.

  Well, I guess I could’ve gone for the gut. Or did he want to be kicked in the groin? No, that would have been completely impolite. Maybe he was one of those freaks who got arousal from that? Just look at him, standing there, not even itching after such an exercise… Oi, Ruda. Stop imagining filthy things. Rubbing the ointment, her fingers touched a hard, smooth, slightly sticky spot on her neck. Don’t look. Don’t even think about it. It doesn’t exist. This is not part of you. Everything will return to normal soon. Begone.

  “No feuds or arguments until the end of the mission,” Chernogor said sternly. “Many of us hail from different units, but we have a very delicate and important cargo right now, and we have no right to let them down. We’ll do the task, and then we’ll argue and fight. It won’t hurt us.”

  “Speaking of our guests,” Ruda asked. “Where are they? I hope they were separated from the vile henchmen of the slave traders.”

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “They’re all on deck six. The magister settled them in the mess bay for technical personnel. They grumbled, of course, but you can drink and have fun in the locker rooms, and for their unbearable sacrifice they were awarded a bonus.” Chernogor sighed. “It would be better if we drew lots for this honor. I’m not at all against a raise...”

  “What?!”

  “Sariant, the desire to earn crests is absolutely natural. Don’t go preaching at me.”

  “That’s not what I mean, sir!” Ruda’s heart pounded in her chest; a shiver ran down her spine. What a naughty cutie. She heard a whistling voice, accompanied by black fingers tapping on her belt. Is she free today? “You placed the children with this... this filth...” Ney looked at her intently, and she corrected herself, shutting up her suspicions. “Abandoning minors without proper supervision and oversight is unwise. They’re just waiting for an opportunity to cause all manners of indecency. There is probably a complete mess there already. With your permission, I will take patronage over them until they return home! If, of course, the magister does not mind.”

  “He has a meeting about our future course.” She thought she noticed a shadow of irritation on the commander’s face. “While he is unavailable, Eloise and I are responsible for everything. Go ahead, Ruda. Just put on a more modest outfit. I have nothing against women’s thighs, but let’s not seduce kids.”

  “Permit me to join this honorable undertaking, Commander,” Ney requested.

  Plan to watch over me? The thought did not prick her. Any tool warranted a steady hand to operate it. In time, her former prudence will return to her, but for now she was grateful for the support.

  “Granted. Yeshua, are you with them?”

  “No, sir!” Yeshua twisted his dislocated hand, grimacing from the unpleasant sensation. “You flung me easier than a feather. I want to learn this technique.”

  “Learning is the key to future success.” Chernogor nodded, holding his arms relaxed at the sides of his body while Ruda and Ney dried themselves with towels. He glanced at Yeshua’s stance. “Don’t tense up. You must be ready at any moment to turn your opponent’s technique against him. Break the knuckles aimed at the head with your forehead, deflect the blow aimed at the jaw with your shoulder, and counterattack. You act as if you’ve never been in a bar brawl. It’s impossible to predict when someone will pull a shiv out of their pants, so you always need to be ready to dodge. And that’s hard to do when you’re charging ahead as if you are a rabid cusack, putting all your weight into the movement. And nose up, you surprised me after all. I didn’t think such a pious guy could lie.”

  “Misleading unbelievers is not a sin, since they themselves do not know the best path for themselves,” Yeshua said, relaxing his posture and not taking his eyes off the commander. “This commandment is a crime only if a believer brings death, dishonor, or irreparable harm to a lost soul.”

  “So I’m a heretic?” Chernogor snorted cheerfully.

  “When was the last time you fasted?” Yeshua asked. “Or attended the ship’s chapel of your own free will? I would never dare to belittle your rank and merits, but your faith is questionable.”

  Sometimes it is worth keeping your opinions to yourself. Ruda decided, seeing out of the corner of her eye how the cheerful commander caught the kick on his palm and tore the sariant off his feet with a trip, then abruptly returned Yeshua back to a standing position, causing him to stagger from the vibration wave that passed through his body. After letting him catch his breath, the commander began to explain and show how he used the guy’s weight against him to perform this trick.

  ****

  “We shouldn’t do this,” Sylvie squeaked again, casting a fearful glance at the dark knight standing next to Grisha. “We’ll be punished.”

  “Shut up. Shut up already,” Gosha croaked, looking around the group. His trembling fingers smoothed out the pieces of cardboard he was clenching. “Show or fold?”

  Rustam just nodded, sweating, and threw the cards on the bed. He had been dealt an awful hand.

  “Damn it! You said you don’t know how to play poker!” Gosha’s roar echoed off the walls and ceiling, nearly drowning out the crowd.

  “Bullshit. I said I’d never played,” Sylvie said smugly, gathering the cards and shuffling them. She handed them to Decimus, as the grey-skinned mutant called himself, and he split the deck in two, handing them back. “My dad enjoys drinking and smoking with his friends. They always played this. I guess I picked up a thing or two from watching them. So, stand on one leg and jump fifteen times, pressing your index finger to your nose!”

  Chuckling, Rustam climbed off the bed and joined the other players, trying to obey the order. He remembered how his heart had been pounding when Gosha had pulled out a pack of cards and slit it open with his spike, inviting them to play poker. When Jake, as he introduced himself to Insectone, forbade them from betting money, Tsereg had immediately refused, stating her reluctance to degrade a worthy pastime with childish treatment.

  Rustam, Decimus, Gosha, and seven other participants were not deterred. They removed the mattresses from a stretcher to create a flat table, lowered ten more beds to create comfortable seating, and began to play. At first, Gosha and Decimus were neck and neck, winning six and five rounds and forcing the other participants to either coo or do push-ups or other humiliating stunts while the assembled teenagers and children roared with laughter. Rustam hadn’t had much luck, winning only twice, mostly by chance while he was learning the unknown game. He was confident in his ability to take over soon.

  Until Sylvie entered the game. She had replaced a dropped-out player and won eight times in a row, losing once to Rustam and immediately snatching the victory back after he made her do squats.

  Standing next to the Malformed, who was desperately trying to maintain a balance with his limbs of various sizes, Rustam placed his finger to his nose, nodding to Decimus, catching the mood. They might not have won today, but, fired up by their losses, the boys intended to find a way to make Sylvie lose in the next round as payback for her pretending not to know the game.

  “I summon the Flame Sultan, and as soon as his tail warms the stone floor, I call two members of his retinue…” Tsereg said animatedly, laying out strange figures on a multi-colored paper field.

  Even sitting on the floor, the top of her head reached Grisha’s, who was sitting with his legs crossed on a folding bed. In his hand were cards reminiscent of the ones the kids were playing with and plastic figures. Rustam didn’t pay much attention to him, to his shame, but he overheard the strange mutant explaining the rules of the children’s game to Grisha and Tsereg. The girl carefully placed three figures on the red cards, joining them with the other four on her side of the field. There was not a single figure on her opponent’s field, and his lips were moving, repeating the words Jake had read for him.

  She should go easy on the poor guy. Guilt pricked Rustam. He shouldn’t have left Grisha alone.

  “It means the field, right?” Grisha looked at the knight, who nodded. “I use Astral Da… Ri…”

  “Dispersion,” Jake prompted, resting his back against the wall. He spoke in a deep, pleasant, honeyed baritone, accompanying each phrase with the clicking of his mandibles.

  “Yeah. Since I don’t have a single creature on the field, and you have more than four summoned by effects, all creatures summoned by card effects return to you, and I can summon one with 500 defense or less.” Grisha exhaled, watching contentedly as Tsereg raked her figures.

  “Shove a spear up my ass,” she muttered. “Stupid.”

  “Your deck is very strong,” Jake said. “It specializes in quickly summoning armies and winning in the early stages of the game. You were just too greedy.”

  “I didn’t call it weak! I haven’t lost anything yet; all my resources are back. I just haven’t mastered its strengths yet. That’s why I’m stupid.”

  “Self-critical. What do you play in your homeland?”

  “Brawl... I mean, we build castles out of stones and throw sticks at them. The one whose castle stands the longest wins. Defense is best,” Tsereg said quickly, intensively reading the cards.

  “Right, and that’s why you didn’t choose a deck that specializes in defense,” Jake said it as if he wanted to say: who are you feeding this load of crap to?

  As the knight approached them, Tsereg no longer mentioned strange names like khaganates or some horde. Rustam suspected she was trying to hide some important information and did not intend to give it away. Maybe she also did not want to remember terrible memories or lied to herself to calm down.

  “Well?” she asked Grisha. “Summon your beast.”

  “It says here that I can summon him.” He showed the card. “Nowhere does it say that I... Um...”

  “Have to,” said Jake.

  “Yes, that’s right! I’ll place a soldier in the usual way, so the effect of your cards won’t work.”

  Decimus balanced on one leg with ease, despite his long arms. He squatted without difficulty, showing neither a smile nor irritation on his face. Gosha soon lost his footing and dropped on his butt, shaking the floor with his carcass so hard that the leg buckled under Rustam and he fell after him, grabbing Decimus by the shoulder. Continuing with tradition, the third guy grabbed another loser, and soon, one after another, they fell to the floor, some laughing and others, like Gosha, snorting furiously.

  “I’ll win back. You’ll fly for me yet, birdie...” He promised Sylvie, and she changed in the face, swallowing loudly.

  “What kind of chaos is going on here?”

  Rustam froze, recognizing that voice despite the lack of a helmet and even before he heard the clatter of hooves. She walked through the door, her feet clanking loudly on the metal. The bitch, who had been ready to murder him. Dressed in brown pants and a white shirt, with a T-shirt visible underneath, Ruda stomped to the middle of the room. Without armor, she looked ridiculous: a large and dense body below the waist created the impression that all the fat was directed to the legs, leaving the upper part of the body elegant and even beautiful. The black color of her skin resembled coal, blue gleamed in her brown eyes, and the long tips of her ears peeked out from under her carelessly disheveled brown hair.

  She really had hooves. As she walked, he noticed the real brown fur that covered her waist in the gap between her shirt and pants. There were several bruises on her neck and a couple of whitish sores or dots that were filling with blackness before his eyes.

  A smiling black-haired guy in a tracksuit decorated with an embroidered bull’s head entered behind her. He waved at the kids, smiling broadly and licking dried blood from the corner of his mouth. His nose was red, and a little swollen. He was the one who saved me, I think. Is she beating him or something?

  “Recreation,” Jake said, nodding to the newcomers. “Greetings, kin.”

  “Commander.” Ruda’s voice rang with steel. “It hasn’t even been a day since the little ones were saved from the nightmare. I have been informed of Carde’s decision to involve several volunteers in the manual tasks.”

  “Many,” corrected Jake. “There is nothing wrong with earning an honest buck. Right, children?”

  “But not immediately after imprisonment!” Ruda rubbed the bridge of her nose. “I apologize for raising my voice, Commander. Card games, scattered things... Did you at least feed them?”

  “I was told they ate.”

  “How long ago was that?” Ruda asked directly, and Jake shrugged. “So, then... What is this slave-owning scum doing here without handcuffs?”

  She stared straight at Rustam. Hatred burned in her eyes, pure and unclouded, her fingers curled, and for a second he imagined her jumping on him, breaking his feet with her knees, and her hands squeezing on his neck, squeezing harder and harder until the bone cracked. His hand moved towards the gift on its own.

  “I’m not a slaver,” he said, no longer wanting to be afraid. Come what may.

  “Is that so?” she asked, her voice full of venom. “So you just LARPed like one of them? You didn’t help herd the others, you didn’t torture your own kind, you didn’t serve for reward and power, huh? And what’s this?” She covered the distance between them in the blink of an eye, snatching the screwdriver from under his robe. “A shiv? Already stolen it? Did you plan to stab someone?”

  You, perhaps. Rustam kept his mouth shut.

  “I gave it to him, mistress,” Sylvie said, her voice shaking. “I’m so sorry. If... if you need to beat someone, then beat me...”

  “It’s all right,” Ruda said soothingly, putting the screwdriver in her pocket. She patted Sylvie on the shoulder. “He won’t touch you again. Are there any others like him here?”

  “Maybe I, Crusader. Disapproval,” said Decimus.

  “No need to lie,” the black-haired guy reproached. “You wouldn’t have had time to join their ranks...”

  “Yes,” interrupted Gosha, and took a step forward. “So what? Gonna kill me?”

  Sylvie carefully approached Rustam, taking his hand and hiccupping once.

  “I should. Don’t tempt me,” hissed Ruda. “Commander, these scum need to be separated and placed in cells...”

  “No.”

  “Ney?”

  “I said no, Ruda,” the guy repeated. “There are no criminals here. Not a single one.”

  They stared at each other for a while, and if looks could set fire, Ney would have turned into a torch long ago. But he stood there, relaxed and with his arms crossed. Beats him for sure, the barbaric whore. Rustam thought.

  “Not relevant.” Ruda turned to the group and clapped her hands. “Listen up, boys and girls. Here are a few simple rules. If something is bothering you or you need anything, even just to go to the toilet, speak up right away. Silence is not welcome here, and no one will be punished for any question or request, I promise. The most important thing! If you are asked to swear to something, don’t even think about it! Promise if you want, but don’t swear. This is very important. I’ll explain the rest later. Now we are heading to the dining room for a late dinner.”

  “And me too?” Rustam couldn’t help but sneer. Sylvie’s nails dug into his wrist.

  “Yes,” Ruda drawled, and a vein in her temple throbbed. “If you refrain from stealing.”

  “You go then,” said Grisha. “And I’ll sit here. My legs can’t hold me.”

  “Why?” Ruda instantly turned her back to Rustam; all the hatred and rage disappeared from her voice, replaced by concern. Jake whispered something in her ear, and she picked up Grisha, sitting him on her shoulders. “No, well, that won’t do. Either everyone eats, or no one; we don’t single anyone out here. Cenfus told you to work out your muscles. Come on, boy, clench and unclench your hands once-twice, once-twice. And I’ll play the role of a steed for you. Look, I even have hooves; what more do you need?” Grisha smiled at her joke. “Can you handle liquid chocolate? How about digesting meat?”

  “He ate chicken broth,” Rustam said when the skinny boy was confused.

  “Then you’ll digest a cutlet too; the main thing is to cut it small. Thanks, scumbag.” Ruda cast a blazing glance at Rustam.

  “What’s your name, helper?” Ney asked.

  “Rustam,” he answered cautiously.

  “Nice meeting you, I’m Ney.” The knight shook his hand without any embarrassment. “Sariant. Not a scumbag.”

  “Thank you, Rustam.” Ruda gritted her teeth.

  “And give back the screwdriver. It’s a gift after all.”

  “Weapons are not toys for children,” Ruda refused and went to the exit, carrying Grisha on her shoulders. “Group! Follow me! After dinner, you’ll have a nap, and tomorrow we’ll start with a run.”

  “Why, Crusader? Surprise.” Decimus raised a finger.

  “A healthy mind in a healthy body!” The woman’s hooves beat out an unfamiliar melody on the floor. “And after that, a small surprise awaits you. But that’s later. Follow me to the meal!”

  “What’s her problem with you?” whispered Gosha, approaching Rustam. He nodded at Sylvie. “Did you want to have fun with her...”

  “No, of course not, dolt!” Sylvie gasped, answering ahead of him.

  “I just didn’t let her kill me,” Rustam said honestly, and they joined the noisy crowd streaming into the corridor.

  Outside, several soldiers were waiting to escort the children around, keeping them from wandering off, while Jake brought up the rear, responding to the low bows of the people he met with lazy waves of his gauntlet. They walked along the brightly lit corridor to the stairwells near the elevators, and only then did Rustam hear the hum of an engine and the light clatter of parts behind the walls. Having gone down three floors, his nostrils caught a delicious smell from the opening doors, and his stomach growled, demanding to satisfy his hunger.

  Sure hope she won’t poison me.