“Yes. That is the point,” I say.
“They will also take our standard—”
“That’s a r-risk we have to take.”
“—so I stole the standard from the keep and buried it in the woods.”
I should have thought of that.
“You just stole it. Just like that.” Cassius starts laughing. “Crazy little sod. You’re prime mad. One hundredth pick. Prime mad.”
Sevro looks annoyed. Pleased. But annoyed. “Even then, we cannot guarantee they leave our territory.”
“Your sug-g-g-gestion?” I ask, still shivering but impatient. He could have helped us before.
“Get leverage to get them out after they do their job of taking Titus down, obviously.”
“Yes. Y-yes. I get it.” I shake off the last of my shivers. “But how?”
Sevro shrugs. “We’ll take Minerva’s standard.”
“W-wait,” Cassius says. “You know how to do that?”
Sevro snorts. “What do you think I’ve been doing this whole time, you silky turd? Wanking off in the bushes?”
Cassius and I look at each other.
“Kind of,” I say.
“Yeah, actually,” Cassius agrees.
We ride the Minervan horses east of the highlands. I’m not a sound equestrian. Of course Cassius is, so I learn to clutch his bruised ribs very well. Our faces are painted with mud. It will look like shadow in the night, so they will see our horses, our pikes, our sigils, and will think us their own.
The Minervan castle lies in rolling country quilted with wildflowers and olive trees. The moons glimmer bright over the pitching landscape. Owls hoot in the gnarled branches above. As we reach their sprawling sandstone fortress, a voice challenges us from the rampart above the gate. Sevro is not very presentable in his wolfcloak, so he guards the escape.
“We found Mars,” I call up. “Oy! Open the damn gate.”
“Password,” the sentry demands lazily from the battlements.
“Bosombutthead!” I shout up. Sevro heard it last time he was here.
“Prime. Where’s Virginia and the raiders?” the sentry calls down.
Mustang?
“Took their standard, man! The pissers didn’t even have horses. We might still manage to take the castle!”
The sentry bites.
“Prime news! Virginia is a devil. June’s made supper. Fetch some in the kitchen and then join me, if you like. I’m bored and need to be entertained”
The gate creaks open very, very slowly. I laugh when it finally parts enough for us to ride in abreast. Cassius and I aren’t even met by guards. Their castle is different— drier, cleaner, and less oppressive. They have gardens and olive trees that wend between the sandstone columns of the bottom level.
We hide in the shadows as two girls pass with cups of milk. They have no torches or fires an enemy can spot from the distance, only small candles. It makes it easy to slink about. Apparently the girls are pretty, because Cassius makes a face and pretends to follow them up the stairs.
After flashing me a smile, he sneaks toward the sounds of the kitchen as I look for their command room. I find it on the third level. Windows overlook the dark plain. In front of the windows lies Minerva’s atlas. A burning flag floats above my House’s castle. I don’t know what it means, but it can’t be good. Another fortress, House Diana’s, lies south of Minerva’s in the Greatwoods. Those are all that have been discovered.
They have their own score sheets to keep track of accomplishments. Someone named Pax seems a bloody nightmare. He’s taken eight slaves personally, and caused medBots to come down to fetch nine students, so I assume he’s the one that stood as tall as an Obsidian.
I don’t find their standard anywhere in the command room. Like us, they weren’t stupid enough to leave it just lying about. No problem, we’ll find it our own way. On cue, I smell Cassius’s smokefires seeping through the windows. What a pretty warroom they have. Much prettier than Mars’s.
I break everything.
And when I have ruined their map and am finished defacing a statue of Minerva, I use the axe I found to chop the name of Mars into their long, beautiful war table. I’m tempted to etch another House’s name into the debris to confuse them, but I want them to know who did this. This House is too put together, too ordered and level-headed. They have a leader, raiders, sentries (na?ve ones), cooks, olive trees, warm milk, stunpikes, horses, honey, strategy. Minervans. Proud piggers. Let them feel a bit more like House Mars. Let them feel rage. Chaos.
Shouts come. Cassius’s fire spreads. A girl runs into the warroom. I nearly make her faint as I lift my axe. There’s no point in hurting her. We can’t take prisoners, not easily. So I pull out both the slingBlade and the stunpike. Mud on my face. My golden hair wild. I look a terror.
“Are you June?” I growl.
“N-no … why?”
“Can you cook?”
She laughs despite her fear. Three boys turn the corner. Two are thicker but shorter than me. I scream like a rage god. Oh, how they run.
“Enemies!” they scream. “Enemies!”
“They’re in the towers!” I roar to confuse them again and again as I descend the stairs. “The top levels! Everywhere! Too many! Dozens! Dozens! Mars is here! Mars has come!” Smoke spreads. So do their cries.
“Mars!” they shout. “Mars has come!”
A young man flashes past me. I grab his collar and throw him out a window into the courtyard below, scattering the Minervans massed there. I go to the kitchen. Cassius’s fire is not bad. Mostly grease and brush. A howling girl beats at it.
“June!” I call out. She turns into my stunpike and shudders as the electricity dumbs down her muscles. That’s how I steal their cook.
Cassius finds me running with June over my shoulder through their gardens.
“What the hell?”
“She’s a cook!” I explain.
He laughs so hard he can barely breathe.
Minervans fall into chaos, running from their barracks. They think the enemy is in their towers. They think their citadel is burning down. They think Mars has come in full force. Cassius pulls me along into their stables. Seven horses have been left behind. We steal six after tossing a candle into their hay stores and ride out the main gate as smoke and panic consumes the fortress. I don’t have the standard. Just as we planned. Sevro said there was a hidden back gate to the fortress. We wagered that someone very desperate to flee a fallen fortress would use it to escape, someone trying to protect the standard. We were right.
Sevro joins us two minutes later. He howls out from under his wolfcloak as he comes. Far behind, the enemy chases him on foot with stunpikes. Now they’re the ones without horses. And they’ve no chance to get back the owl standard that glitters in his muddy hands. The cook unconscious across my saddle, we ride under the starry night back to our battle-torn highlands, the three of us laughing, cheering, howling.