Chapter 4 #2
“That’s the regiment commander’s justice,” another said, moving behind me, “Not ours.”
They circled, closing in. Sizing me.
One I could fight, two I could evade. But four? Four was goodnight.
The leader squatted in front of me, crossed arms coming to rest on his knees. “It’s an honor to sit on the wall, you know.”
That was a threat and a promise. Fear flowed like well water down my back.
“You’ll be standing tonight,” another said, “whether you like it or not.”
A bitten-off laugh. Then hands grabbed my arms and hauled me up. Soon more hands were on my body; they carried me toward my bed.
No—if they got me onto the bed, onto my stomach, it would be over. I had been warned about this. My mother had warned me, Aldric, even Theo. They had all warned me in their own way.
The guard was dangerous for a woman. Dangerous to a woman.
Rational thought receded, replaced by instinct. I knew this feeling; it was adrenaline, wild in my veins, willing me to fight. All I had now was to fight and fight.
This was how I had always been. Cornered, I fought.
I thrashed like a hooked fish and screamed.
If I screamed loud enough, someone would hear; the barracks weren’t soundproof, and they weren’t large.
Between screams I spat, turning my head left and right.
The four guard grunted and strained to keep hold of my limbs.
Their momentum toward the bed slowed. I thrashed harder, one of my legs briefly breaking free.
I kicked with everything I had. My boot crashed against something hard but malleable—cartilage. A yell sounded, and I knew I’d made contact with someone’s face.
“Fuck,” the one said, both hands going to his nose. Which meant they were no longer holding my ankle.
I brought my free foot around, twisting my body to kick at the guard who had hold of my other ankle. The heel of my boot thudded into his sternum, but he didn’t let go.
“Get her on the bed,” the one holding his broken nose said, his voice a snarl.
Footsteps sounded on the front porch. Someone had heard. The door opened, slamming into the wall. “What in Vallorn’s—”
I didn’t recognize that voice. It didn’t matter; it was a man’s voice, someone who was shocked by what they were seeing. That was enough.
The four guard assaulting me stopped. Their holds loosened.
I screamed again, wrenching my left arm free. I didn’t hesitate; both hands went to the other guard still clamping my wrist. His eyes widened, and my mouth opened as I grabbed hold of his tunic, pulling myself closer. My other hand clawed into his short hair, threading in and clenching.
His cheek was shaven and pristine. No pockmarks, no signs of age. He couldn’t be more than eighteen, and he looked like he’d never seen a single hour of acid rain in his life.
Through my ferality, one thought surfaced: I would enjoy this.
I sank my teeth into his cheek, biting down as hard as I could. A scream rang out, voices saturating the air around me. I didn’t know who was screaming, whose voices I heard, if it was him, or them, or me—all I knew was I had to bite and not let go.
And I didn’t. I didn’t let go until I was pried away.
Only then did I realize the guard had been thrashing, trying to shake me loose, and I had clung on to my assailant with my legs wrapped around his torso. Hands pulled me away, and the last part of me to divorce myself from his body were my teeth.
I had learned from Theo that the jaw could exert two or three hundred pounds of force. And my teeth were just as hard as any man’s. So when they dragged me back, I jerked my head and ripped.
Blood sprayed. It hit the floor just as I did, landing hard with my eyes still on the guard I’d attached myself to. He clutched at his face, his eyes wide as though he suddenly understood the once-perfection of it.
“Gods,” one of the other four said. “She bit his cheek off.”
I spat out blood, shrugging off the hands now only half-heartedly sitting on my shoulders. My gaze darted up, and I recognized one of the other night guard. He was older and shocked, the back of his hand held to his mouth as he stared at what I’d done.
At least he’d come to help. He’d had the decency to do that.
I pushed to my feet, my heart pulsing in my ears and head and hands. “Any of you touch me again,” I said, my voice like gravel rolled over cobblestone, “and I’ll bite your throats out.”
Did I mean it? No, but yes. We never knew what we were capable of until pushed, and tonight had opened a new crevice in my heart.
I would do whatever it took.
The doorway filled again—the regiment commander, his wispy hair floating in my periphery. “Stars and shadows. What are you five doing here? What’s this blood?”
“She bit me,” the one guard said, practically weeping as blood oozed past his hands and streaked down his neck.
The regiment commander’s gaze shifted to me.
My fists clenched; I didn’t want him to see the cold tremors of my hands. I met his stare with eyes as hard as gemstones.
“Out, all of you.” The regiment commander seized the shoulders of one, shoving him out the door. The others followed. When I moved too, his finger stabbed at the air. “You, stay.”
I stopped, fists still clenched, as the bunk emptied of everyone but me. My eyes followed the trail of blood to the doorway, and I listened, jaw tight, as the guard I’d mauled fell into a kind of pitchy bawling.
The regiment commander closed the door behind him. He was geared for the night shift, his plate armor gleaming silver in the window’s light. “You’re bleeding.”
“It’s his—”
“No.” He swiped my towel from the hook by the door and extended it to me. “Your nose.”
My hand came up, touching my face. A steady, thick stream of blood trailed down from my nostrils and into my mouth. Only then did I register the throb in my nose, the taste of copper.
I accepted the towel, setting it to my nose. “Thank you.”
“Might be broken,” the regiment commander said, eyes following the trail of blood to the messy scene near my bed. “You should go to the infirmary.”
“I’d rather be on the wall, Commander.”
His green-eyed gaze flicked to mine, a moment’s surprise there. “That was an order.”
I stared at him overtop the towel at my nose. I didn’t speak.
He drew in a breath, let it go, folded his arms over his chest. “Women shouldn’t be in the guard. Now you’ve seen why.”
“Are you discharging me?”
He stared down at me. “Do you want to be discharged?”
“I want to be on the wall tonight.”
His eyes narrowed like he couldn’t fathom what kind of bloody creature he looked upon. “Did you really bite his cheek?”
I nodded once.
He let out a burst of air through his nose—disdain, amusement, both? He half-turned, then said, “Plug your nose, clean yourself up. You’ll go to the infirmary.”
“But—”
He started toward the door. “Be quick. I expect you on the wall before dusk.”
I marched across the barracks toward the infirmary. My nose was plugged with cotton, and I shivered with the dusk wind and absence of the adrenaline that had heated my veins. Ahead of me, the night guard filed out of the barracks on their walk to the wall.
The guard whose cheek I’d bitten was absent from the line. The other three I recognized at once. They wouldn’t even meet my eyes, though I tried to catch their gazes. I wanted them to know I saw them, that I would always see them for as long as we slept in these barracks.
That was the way I’d sometimes survived in the southern district—with a wild, unbroken stare. Boys like that shriveled when you stared long enough.
Theo’s voice sounded behind me, and he broke from the line, walked alongside me. “What in Vaelen’s name, Eury?” he said, low. “You bit someone’s face?”
“I learned from the best.”
He huffed a breath. “I did that when I was eight.”
“You’ll be happy to know it was just as effective twelve years later.”
“You’re insane.”
“And alive.” I sniffed through the cotton. “You’ll be in trouble if you don’t get back in line.”
“Your nose, it’s—”
“I know.”
He stopped, and I kept walking. “Are you in trouble?” he asked.
I’m always in some kind of trouble. “I’ll see you on the wall later,” I said over my shoulder.
“Eury,” he called out.
I stopped and glanced back.
The corner of his mouth lifted. “Your whistle’s going to sound even shittier with a broken nose.”
I couldn’t help the half-smile that curled my lip. Or the middle finger I raised.
He turned and jogged in his leathers to catch up to the line. I watched him disappear into shadow, his red hair gleaming and curly, and for a moment I saw the eight-year-old he’d been. That boy was still inside him, even if he was my senior now.
I came to the infirmary and paused at the door. My hand rose and my knuckles rapped on the wood. A woman’s grunt sounded from the other side, halfway between annoyance and encouragement. I pushed the door open, and my face was illuminated by lantern light. I squinted against it.
“Well if it isn’t Waters,” Isa the nurse said from her wide-legged seat in her armchair. “Leaking on my scrubbed floor, I see.”
I set a finger against my nostrils. “I think it’s broken.”
“I can see it’s broken.” Isa rose and hobbled over to me, her body swaying with the strange curvature of her legs. For an old woman who could barely walk, she was a marvelous medic. “What’ve you done now?”
I lifted my face as she inspected my nose. One of her hands went under my chin, then to each cheek to turn my head side to side. “Just girl stuff.”
She snorted. “Girl stuff, eh? That seems unwise for one your size.”
“Wasn’t my choice.”
“Never is.” Her bulbous fingers went to my nose, fingertips touching so gently I barely felt them brush the bridge. But I still winced. “Yep, broken.”
“Can you get me fixed? I’m under orders to be on the wall tonight.”
Isa sighed. “Never can sleep with that old threat out yonder, can we? All right, do you want the quick way or the slow way? It—”
“Quick.”