CHAPTER 4
Torbidda sprinted to reach the dormitory door before the bell sounded, but he was too late. It opened in front of him.
RATATATATATA TATTARATA TATA RAAT AT AT T T T T T
‘Still too slow, Sixty,’ said the monitor walking by.
She marched down the row, glancing at the neat beds in the cubicles to her left, and stopped at a closed curtain. ‘You had better be dead, Fifty-Nine.’
She pulled back the curtain and the boy in the bed shifted with a tired groan and pulled the sheet tighter. Furious, she stepped in and pulled back the bedclothes.
‘Morning!’ said Fifty-Nine with a happy yawn.
A hand shot out from beneath the bed and grabbed her ankle; and two silent boys appeared behind her. One slipped an arm around her neck and pulled her head back as the second closed the curtain and stood watch outside.
At the far end of the dormitory, Torbidda stood in the doorway looking back. He paused for a second before continuing out and closing the door firmly behind him. Whatever was about to happen was none of his concern.
A third boy emerged from the wardrobe with a whoop.
‘Please—’ she whimpered, and stopped struggling. When he came closer, she kicked his crotch with her free leg. As he keeled over, Fifty-Nine hopped out of bed and punched her exposed belly. The same moment another hand grabbed her other ankle and she lost her footing. Fifty-Nine and the other boy unceremoniously picked her up and threw her against the wall above the bed. She fell onto the mattress with a grunt.
‘You’re so smart, how’d you get in this mess, huh?’ Fifty-Nine bared his teeth in a grin. ‘Well? Answer me!’ He hammered his fist into her nose.
‘Cover her face!’ he ordered the freckled boy emerging from beneath the bed. The city boy was shrill and somewhat panicked by the sight of blood, and at how abruptly the girl had stopped flailing. But as well as revenge for his earlier humiliation at the monitor’s hands, he intended to show his peers that he could organise fun and games as well as Four. Tackling a second-year was dangerous – she had a year’s combat training on them – but they’d come in strength. They piled pillows and sheets on top, and two large hands held her wrists while other hands pulled at her robes.
Torbidda knew he shouldn’t be here – he’d seen the boy standing watch and guessed what was going to happen. Now he was trying to walk crouched and quietly along the narrow walkway formed by the top of the wardrobes. The old wood creaked, but the boys were too excited to notice. He could hear them whooping with excitement. He should let them go about their business before they noticed him. She – she herself – said it: every Cadet was on their own, and the same rules applied to her.
Yet here he was.
Fifty-Nine was squirming on top, trying to get her legs open and his robe up at the same time. The boy holding her under the bedclothes was concentrating on his job, while the other was staring with something like reverence. The boy behind the curtain glanced in for a moment, then reluctantly returned to sentry duty.
Four would have enforced better discipline, Torbidda thought. Still telling himself this was none of his business, he dropped onto the nearest boy. He landed feet-first, clumsily, but his weight was enough to knock the boy into the one standing watch, and he pulled the curtain down with him. The boy holding the pillow didn’t wait for orders but abandoned his post to rush Torbidda, and as the girl felt the pressure ease, without even trying to remove the blankets, her fingers shot up, searching and finding Fifty-Nine’s eyes. The pillow boy had pulled Torbidda down and the three of them were kicking and punching him until he curled into a ball. Fifty-Nine’s scream made them turn just in time to see the girl pull her thumbs out of their leader’s face with an audible pop. She stood onto the bed and pulled herself up onto the wardrobe.
The boys forgot about Torbidda – he was stupid with the beating anyway – and leapt up on the bed to follow her. She’d get them individually if they let her escape. The three leapt for the walkway together, figuring to rush her. She kicked one in the face and knocked him back onto the floor, and as the other two got to their feet, she backed away carefully. She took the set of keys from around her neck and threw them at Torbidda’s foetal body. ‘Hey, Sixty!’
The jangle as it landed made him open his eyes.
‘Lock the north door behind you,’ she ordered.
Torbidda grabbed the keys and as he started crawling to the door she turned and limped towards the other, then stopped abruptly and turned to face her pursuers.
‘You’re trapped,’ one of the boys shouted, and laughed. ‘We blocked that door.’
‘I guessed you would,’ she said calmly, and raced towards them. She knocked the first boy aside with an elbow as she threw herself bodily at the other. They tumbled off together, but she twisted as she fell so that he took the impact. She smashed his head on the floor, just to be sure, then went to examine the other three. The one she’d kicked in the face, the first to fall, had broken his neck.
As he limped back from the door, Torbidda saw her kneel beside the one she’d elbowed off the walkway. He was clutching his ribs and moaning. She tenderly lifted his head into her lap, then twisted it sharply left. The moaning stopped.
Fifty-Nine was writhing on the bed, streaming blood from the holes in his face. As she carefully rechained the curtain, she looked at Torbidda and said flatly, ‘You’re late for class, Cadet. Leave my keys in the door.’
She didn’t need to say she owed him. It was obvious. Torbidda limped to the door, unlocked it and shut out Fifty-Nine’s smothered screams behind him.