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Seems excessive.

But these maniacs are just getting started.

As the dead beast twitches on the floor, Ozgard cavorts around it in some mad, spasmodic dance that would be funny if anyone but an Obsidian did it. The great folds of his skin ripple and flap as he waves his arms and shakes his bare torso. An atavistic song rumbles from the back of his throat. His circuit increases in speed, until the aurochs’s hooves no longer scrape the ground. When it is still, Ozgard walks one more circuit. His footprints in the blood have made an intricate, spiraling shield glyph for protection.

Utter nonsense.

Then the vynKjr—Valdir’s four wind lords—come forward to each take a leg and together roll the aurochs on its back, where Ozgard slices open its belly and butterflies its torso. He takes a black jar full of Jove knows what and fills his mouth before spitting it down on the aurochs’s organs. Two hatchets appear in his hands and he smashes them together until their sparks catch on his spittle. A fire mushrooms in the belly of the beast. Its organs crackle. The fat under its hide catches fire and curls the white hair. Soon it is a conflagration. Flames dance over the faces of the Obsidian war leaders as they chant together.

Not even the incense can keep the claws of the burning intestines and liver from scouring the backs of my eyes. Tears stream down my face. At least the Syndicate were a familiar fright.

They chant until the fire subsides and leaves nothing but charred tissue and marrow leaking out of cracked bones. The rib cage of the aurochs curves outward and reaches upward like a pair of fossilized hands.

Ozgard crouches amongst the steaming debris and lifts his arms, shouting some nonsense in Nagal about a prophecy of fortune in the firebones. He then asks for the Kjrdakan. The Lord Wager. It starts with the vagKjr—the lowest-ranking wing lords. Two women, dressed in more modern garb, drop strands of hair into the rib cage. Wagering their honor against the battle’s success. Their hair will be shorn in failure and they will lose their ranks and become braves who must earn command all over again. A bold wager, and the one Pax recommended I take. Then the third, a man in tribal garb, looks at me, looks at Valdir, then Sefi, and drops a single golden torc. There’s silence. Sefi looks like she’s about to murder the man. Only Pax’s rushed lecture on the way here saves me from turning around in bewilderment. It’s the lowest form of wager. A single torc. A fraction of battle honor.

An insult is what it is. Some of them don’t believe in this gambit.

As all the male vagKjr, then some of the higher-ranking vynKjr, give their meager wagers, I realize why. I could give a shit if they don’t like Sefi’s plan for modernization or her betrayal of the Republic. But the men are protesting me. Calling my plan bullshit. With each clattering torc and arrogant giant, I find my insides heating up at the professional insult. Barely off the ice, and already superior to me. These savage idiots.

When Valdir throws in a single torc as well, I nearly leave. He spits on the floor in my direction. Ozgard translates his Nagal for me.

“You are noman,” he echoes. “No aefespakr for the Volk. You are parasite. You have nothing to teach us but weakness.” He looks at Sefi and lifts his chin to expose his throat. “You are my Queen. I stood against Gold with Nakamura, Arkadius, Vesuvian. Noble Grays. But this…dog belongs in gutter. His scheme will fail. And skuggi will die for nothing.” He slaps his arms. “We must show strength, not tricks, if we are to betray our oaths.”

His supporters, mostly men, rattle their torcs in agreement.

Sefi does not reply. It is a sort of betrayal I’m not sure I understand completely.

Ozgard gives me a little nudge forward to make my wager. Valdir’s protesters laugh in derision as I pull a piece of hair, and they mutter there is no honor for a thief to risk. The anger boils up in me mighty fast. These uppity barbarians. Laughing at me. They don’t even know what a rhetorical question is.

“You all know what I did,” I say, turning and looking at the giants in their obstinate black eyes. “I stole those Gold spawn twice. You just scraped us up like vultures. And you call me a parasite? I was a Son of Ares when you were still in the dark age, shitheads. I hunted Peerless while you were still serving them or pulling your people off the Poles. But you call me a dog? Fair enough. Spit on my honor. I don’t give a damn. But don’t you ever! Ever! Insult my work.”

I jab my hand against a fragment of rib cage bone. Bright blood leaks out the meat of my palm. I hold it over the rib cage and let it dribble down. The Obsidians are stricken with confusion. Even Valdir looks like he swallowed a turd.

Having seized the greatest claim to valor if today is a victory, I stalk back to my place as the Obsidians murmur, and some put their hands to their foreheads in signs of respect. Ozgard whispers in my ear.

“Your faith inspires me.” He’s mocking me.

The hangover of regret comes hard and fast. The anger floods out. It wasn’t just memories Z protected me from. It was always myself. Always the overcompensating pride of a street dog who can’t bear to be laughed at, so he buys nice suits, drains his account on fashionable flats, yaps at monsters, gambles with people who can afford to lose. Well, Volga would be laughing her ass off now.

The Obsidians quiet as Sefi walks to the rib cage. She plays with her long hair, then gives me a sinister smile and very casually draws a dagger to slice a chunk of flesh from her left forearm to toss into the ribs and match my wager. When she speaks, she does so to Valdir in Common. “My way in victory. My head in defeat.”

After the Obsidians depart, Sefi stands watching the remains of the bones smolder. “You will not be with your skuggi. They must move faster than you can follow.” I nod, happy with that. “You know you will be killed if we fail?”

“Seems we both will.”

“Pride blinds,” she says. “But sometimes it leads.” She sets a heavy hand on my shoulder. “I know our ways are strange to you, but hard ways are necessary to govern wild spirits. If we win, you will be my guest at the Hunt of the Last Light. You will have much treasure. You will be honored. They do not see your worth. But I do, Horn. I see fear in you. Most run from that fear. But you, you spit in its face.” She lowers her face to mine. “As do I. As do I.”

WARSHIPS ROVE OVER THE birthplace of the Rising.

“So ends the tale of Ephraim ti Horn. Ritually murdered or atomized by a particle beam.” I stick my hands in my pockets. “Lovely.”

The greatest heist of the war rumbles slowly into gear and I’m pinned inside a fatass Julii ore hauler heading toward Mars with no escape plan, no intel except what the Obsidians give me, and no weapon, not even a wrench.

To put the olive on top, I’m stone-cold sober.

Far from kicking my Z habit, I must have begged half the shadier-looking braves on the Heart of Venus for just the dust of a cut gram. Seems Sefi put the word out. Not even the former berserkers in their ranks will trade me some of their Republic stimpacks

.