Because there, hazy in the golden light, you can see something standing above the flattened forest: a cluster of what must be stripped saplings or long branches set into the ground in an attempt at straightness, although many of them list to one side or the other. At the tip of each is a flapping bit of dark red cloth to draw the eye. You can’t tell whether the red is dye or something else, because mounted on each of these stakes is a body. The stakes jut from the bodies’ mouths or other parts; they are impaled upon them.
“Not our people,” says Hjarka. She’s looking through a distance glass, adjusting it while one of the Hunters hovers nearby, hands half-upraised to catch the precious instrument should Hjarka fumble it or, knowing Hjarka, toss the thing away. “I mean, it’s hard to tell from this distance, but I don’t recognize them, and I don’t think we’ve ever sent anyone out that far. And they look filthy. Commless band, maybe.”
“One that bit off more than it could chew,” mutters one of the Hunters.
“All our patrols are accounted for,” says Esni, folding her arms. “I don’t keep track of anybody but the Strongbacks, I mean, the Hunters do their own thing—but we do note goings and comings.” She’s already studied the bodies through the distance glass, and it was her call that members of the comm leadership be brought topside to see for themselves. “I figure the culprits are travelers. A late group trying to make it back to a home comm, better armed than the commless who attacked them. And luckier.”
“Travelers wouldn’t do this,” says Cutter quietly. He’s usually quiet. Hjarka’s the one you always expect to be difficult, but she’s actually predictable and far more easygoing than her fierce appearance would suggest. Cutter, though, opposes nearly everything you or Ykka or the others suggest. He’s a stubborn little ruster under that quiet demeanor. “The impaling, I mean. No reason to stop for that long. Someone spent time cutting down those poles, sharpening them, digging holes to post them, positioning them so they could be seen for miles around. Travelers… travel.”
Cutter’s much harder to read than Hjarka, too, you notice now. Hjarka is a woman who has never been able to hide the breadth and vigor of what she is, so she doesn’t bother to try. Cutter is a man who’s spent his life concealing the strength of mountains behind a veneer of meekness. Now you know what that looks like from the outside. But he’s got a point.
“What do you think it is, then?” You guess wildly. “Another commless band?”
“They wouldn’t do this, either. At this point they’re not wasting bodies anymore.”
You wince, and see several other people in the group sigh or shift. But it’s true. There are still animals to hunt, but the ones that aren’t hibernating are fierce enough or armored enough or toxic enough to be costly prey for anything but very well-prepared hunters. Commless rarely have good working crossbows, and desperation makes for poor stealth. And as the boilbugs have shown, there’s new competition for any carcasses.
Of course, if Castrima doesn’t find a new source of meat soon, you and the others won’t be wasting bodies anymore, either. That wince served many purposes.
Hjarka lowers the distance glass at last. “Yeah,” she sighs, responding to Cutter. “Fuck.”
“What?” You feel stupid, suddenly, as if everyone has started speaking another language.
“Somebody’s marking territory.” Hjarka gestures with the distance glass, shrugging; the Hunter deftly plucks it from her hand. “Doing this is a warn-off, but not to other commless—who don’t give a shit and will probably just pull the bodies down for snacks. To us. Letting us know what they’ll do if we cross their boundaries.”
“Only comm in that direction is Tettehee,” says one of the Hunters. “They’re friendly, have been for years. And we’re no threat to them. Not much water in that direction to support other comms; the river wends away to the north.”
North. That bothers you. You don’t know why. There’s no reason to mention this to the others, but still… “When’s the last time you heard from this Tettehee?” Silence greets you, and you look around. Everyone’s staring. Well, that answers that. “We need to send somebody to Tettehee, then.”
“‘Somebody’ who might end up on a pole?” Hjarka glares at you. “Nobody’s expendable in this comm, newcomer.”
It’s the first time you’ve ever sparked her ire, and it’s a lot of ire. She’s older, bigger, and in addition to her sharpened teeth, there’s her glare, which is black-eyed and fierce. But she reminds you, somehow, of Innon, so you feel anything but anger in response.
“We’re going to need to send out a trading party anyway.” You say it as gently as you can, which makes her blink. That’s the inevitable conclusion of all the talks you’ve had lately about the comm’s deepening meat deficit. “We might as well use this warn-off to make sure that party is armed, and a large enough group that no one can tackle them without paying for it.”
“And if whoever did this has a larger, better-armed group?”
It’s never just about strength, during a Season. You know that. Hjarka knows that. But you say, “Send an orogene with them.”
She blinks in genuine surprise, then lifts an eyebrow. “Who’ll kill half our people trying to defend them?”
You turn away from her and hold out a hand. None of them move away from you, but then none of them are from comms large enough to have been visited often by Imperial Orogenes; they don’t know what your gesture means. They gasp, though, and move back and murmur when you spin a five-foot-wide torus in the brush a few paces away. Ash and dead leaves swirl into a dust devil, glittering with ice in the sulfurous afternoon light. You didn’t have to spin it that fast. You’re just being dramatic.
Then you use what you dragged from that torus and turn, pointing at the stand of impaled bodies down in the basin. At this distance it’s impossible to tell what’s happening at first—but then the trees in the area shiver and the poles begin to sway wildly. A moment later a fissure opens, and you drop the poles and their grisly ornaments into the ground. You pull your hands together, slowly so as not to alarm anyone, and the trees stop shivering. But a moment later, everyone feels the faint judder of the ridge you’re standing on, because you’ve let a little of the aftershake come this way. Again, you didn’t have to. You just had a point to make.
It’s commendable that Hjarka just looks impressed and not alarmed when you open your eyes and turn to her. “Nice,” she says. “So you can ice someone without killing everyone around you. But if every rogga could do that, people wouldn’t have a problem with roggas.”
You really hate that rusting word, no matter what Ykka thinks.
And you’re not sure you agree with Hjarka’s assessment. People have problems with roggas for a lot of reasons that have nothing to do with orogeny. You open your mouth to reply—and then stop. Because now you can see the trap Hjarka’s set, the only way this conversation’s going to end, and you don’t want to go there… but there’s no avoiding it. Rusting fuck.
So that’s how you end up in charge of a brand-new Fulcrum, sort of.
“Stupid,” Alabaster says.
You sigh. “I know.”
It’s the next day, and another conversation about the principles of the unreal—how an obelisk works, how their crystalline structure emulates the strange linkages of power between the cells of a living being, and how there are theories about things even smaller than cells, somehow, even though no one has seen them or can prove that they exist.
You have these conversations with Alabaster every day, in between your morning work shift and evening politicking, because he is filled with a sense of urgency spurred by his own impending mortality. The sessions don’t last long, because Alabaster has limited strength. And the conversations so far haven’t been very useful, mostly because Alabaster is a terrible teacher. He barks orders and gives lectures, never answering your questions when you ask them. He’s impatient and snappish. And while some of this can be chalked up to the pain that he’s in, the rest is just Alabaster being himself. He really hasn’t changed.