Dark Age (Red Rising Saga 5)

Is Atlas really going to be a willing participant after what he’s done to Darrow’s men?

“You know Darrow will kill you.”

“Pulvis et umbra sumus. One servant for twenty million citizens is easy math. You have five days until the chemical attack. Though that may change with my capture.” His conviction makes me doubt myself. “Don’t balk now.” He punches me in the nose, breaking it. Blood spurts out. “Do it.” He hits me again, and I charge him. He ducks under me and tries to strip my left leg to take me to the floor in a kravat central pivot. Cassius loved that one. I counter by leaving my feet and rolling over his back, looping one arm under his right armpit as I go, and wrapping my other arm around his neck as I use my central rotation to roll onto my back with his spine against my stomach. He has a small window to reach his bootknife, but he lets it pass.

I loop my arms over his left shoulder and under his right armpit, pinning his right arm up in a salute. I pin his left arm to his side by wrapping both my legs around it and his rib cage and interlocking my ankles. He grunts there, pinned in a brachial choke. His legs kick as I constrict the blood flow to his head, but not even an Obsidian could muscle his way out of this.

I stare at the doorway as his feet scrabble against the floor. No Gorgons come to check on their leader. There is never any need.

When he is unconscious, I release my hold and stand over him, perplexed.

I haven’t time to understand it. Every moment wasted will make discovery surer.

I take the tacNet from his weapons nook and shoot it at his body. It ensnares him. I take his hasta from the wall. My Bellona blade lies in the dirt. I almost convince myself that I can bring it with me, but where I’m going I might as well wear my mother’s ring. I jump and hide the razor in a cleft in the rock, and use his bootknife to give myself a shallow wound just above my heart. I smear the blood all over my face and neck.

The tunnel is dark and empty. Fear’s men are still busy with their meal. I move as fast as I can back to the prisoners’ room, my bare feet silent on the stone. Two of the Gorgons sit on the floor playing dice when I round the corner. From his place on the wall, Alexandar sees me fill the tunnel.

/> “I want to see the Fear Knight….” he cries to the Gorgons. The guards turn to look at him. I sprint toward them. Aja’s lessons guide me. Against a single individual, you can make a nonlethal takedown with relative consistency. But two individuals, even of a lower genus, reduce your chances by seventy percent.

I could kill the two Gorgons with two neat thrusts, but I make it sloppy. As if I’ve never held a razor. As they turn back at the sound of my feet, I slash half the head off the first man like I’m felling a tree. The blade passes through him as if he weren’t even there and carries on into the second man’s throat—one of Cassius’s favorite moves against the shoddy armor common in the Belt. Then clumsily the razor goes into the cave wall.

Flopping to the ground, the second man stares up with wide eyes, trying to talk, but I made sure my clumsiness severed his windpipe. I hack at him a second time. A third. Then I give a quiet sob and fall to my knees, covered in blood.

“Gorydamn,” Alexandar breathes. He kicks the other knights awake. “Cato. Cato. Look at me.” I look up at him, wide-eyed. “Did anyone see you come in here?”

I shake my head.

“There’s keys on their bodies. Unlatch us and we can help you. Front chest pocket. That’s it.” With shaking hands, I free them. “Cato, have you ever used a razor before?” Alexandar watches the bloody blade in my shaking hands. I pretend not to be able to think. Finally I shake my head and give him the blade. Practiced hands strip the bodies of their night optics, their sidearms, two grenades, and the single long rifle.

“Tell me what happened. Where is the Fear Knight?”

I show them. The professional soldiers miss nothing. In thirty seconds, we have the map, the go-bag, a glowlamp, and the Fear Knight’s datapad. For a moment, I think they’ll discover Cassius’s razor too, but Drusilla only takes a wolfpelt from the wall. She hands it to Alexandar.

“You’ve a promise to keep,” she tells him. He holds the pelt for a quiet moment and looks as if he is going to weep. Then he throws it over his shoulders and binds it to his tattered shirt.

Ignacius grins as he finds stims in the Fear Knight’s go-bag a moment later. They each shoot a vial into their necks. The zeal of the drug gives their tortured bodies new life, but it won’t last long. Correctly deducing that our breakout will be soon noticed, Alexandar dispatches Drusilla and Crastus to delay the pursuit.

“How did you get back here?” Ignacius asks. “Why were you in his room?”

“He was being kind to me,” I say. “He wanted me to trick you into…into…”

“Doesn’t matter, Ignacius,” Alexandar says. “We have to move.”

“We’re trapped,” I fret. “They’re going to impale us.”

“No.” He holds up the map. “This is a back door. We knew he had to have one. We can escape. We are trained for this, Cato. I know you’re not, but if you keep up with us, we will keep you alive.”

“Alexandar, we can’t afford to be slowed down,” Ignacius says. “He’s a loyalist anyway. He can’t—”

“If we get Atlas to the Sovereign, what he has in his head will save millions,” Alexandar snaps. “This loyalist could have just won the war, and you want to leave him?”

“He won’t talk.”

“He doesn’t need to.”

What does he mean by that?

Ignacius isn’t convinced. “I don’t trust him.”