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As if to taunt her, the highland wolves howl in the distance. Or is it just the wind? She looks more annoyed than afraid. To be fair, I’d pity the wolves that tried to make a meal out of this woman. She’s tougher than nature itself. Nine months pregnant, she’s set a pace I can barely match.

“I was not asking you,” Volga says in exhaustion.

“Of course, why ask the Peerless Scarred who has led two Iron Rains when there’s a perfectly ignorant mine lass to consult for strategic advice?”

“Because you are reckless!” Volga says. “You act like you carry an army everywhere. You would not make it two days as a freelancer. Now be quiet! Lyria found this place, so Lyria’s opinion matters more than yours right now.”

Victra sulks back against the rocks, disturbing the snow in a blackberry shrub above her. Even after two weeks of plodding through rain and snow and sleeping under the shelter of trees, she manages to look glamorous. Her jade earrings, which she refuses to remove, blaze against the snow. Meanwhile, I think I’ve somehow got fleas.

By her count, Victra should have had the baby weeks ago, though how many she doesn’t say. I’d pull it out of her myself if I were sure her private bits wouldn’t bite my hand off at the elbow. “I nearly wish you’d let the Red Hand find me. Would have been preferable to watching you two bumble about like drunk mummers as I starve to death.”

“You ate all the rations,” I snap, scratching my head in irritation.

“I’m eating for two. You’re barely one.”

“And you’re the one the Red Hand wants,” I reply. “How many of their mines did you own again?”

“Not enough apparently.”

“We are all hungry and frustrated…” Volga tries. Fig’s black orb is nestled under one of her big arms. Though she lost the pack of money in a river crossing, she hasn’t let the orb out of her sight since she stole it from the wreckage.

“You should have let me try to kill that deer,” Victra sneers at Volga. “Even carrying around this gorydamn asteroid in my stomach, I could have stalked it better than you. Can’t hunt. Can’t start a fire. Can’t navigate by starlight. I swear, you are by far the worst Obsidian I have ever had the displeasure of laying eyes upon. Have you two never been outside before?”

“You told us we couldn’t have a fire,” I say. “Because of the trackers.”

“Immaterial. It’s your rank ignorance that matters.”

Volga considers making a comment, but somehow her patience prevails. “I will go down and talk to them,” she says. Victra and I laugh, then glare at each other. Volga looks offended. “I will call Ephraim. He will come for me.”

“You might not give the best first impression,” I say gently.

Victra snorts. “She means you look like an electrocuted rock monster.”

Volga touches her huge head of hair. “It is the humidity…”

“And there is no way I let you call Ephraim fucking Horn. I will go and call my legions in Attica and Hippolyte,” Victra says.

“They’ll recognize you! You’re one of the most famous people in the worlds.”

“Yes, I am, aren’t I? They’ll know I can pay.”

“What if there’s Red Hand there?” I ask.

“We’ve watched for three hours.”

“Well, they don’t exactly wave flags, do they?”

“We lost those trackers days ago. Lost the appetite after I visited their camp.” She did, killing four of the ones with nose mods before running back to us cackling. “For all they know, we’re forty klicks west of here. I don’t see any materiel or transports. If there’s any here, we kill them.” She fondles the hilt of her razor under her coat like it’s a bloodydamn baby itself. “It’s not like we need to hold a town council. We just need that transmitter. You’re being entirely overcautious.”

The fact that she’s even letting us have a voice shows how far her pregnancy has progressed. It’ll come any moment.

I look down at her belly. “You sure you’re up to that sort of thing…”

“I’m pregnant, not an invalid.”

“You just don’t like people being decent to you, do you?”

“Blister. That’s what you are. Red, puffy, and irritating. I’m going to go piss, then I’m going to go down there and use that transmitter to call my men. Can’t reach my main force in Hippolyte, by the look of that army. But I’ve a full legion at my fortress in Attica. Fifty thousand of my house troops. If they were doing their jobs, they’d be scouring this countryside by now. But I’ll roust those lazy piglets, and we’ll be having baths by tomorrow morning, ladies. Then supper till you’re both fat as hens. Then back to the kidnapper you go. And I get my loves. And gear up for war.”