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“I don’t think I could have been clearer, Vaten. I am leaving to go home. Now.” Maynard strapped the pack on his back.

“What is going on here? How many people do we need to lose before someone comes out and says this place is cursed?” The woman sounded nervous. “It’s not just the flares. People have been acting strangely since we got here.”

“Can you hear yourself, Finley?” Maynard’s tone was one of disgust. “I’m going to join the others who saw the light and left yesterday. This is bullshit.”

“Enough. We’re all just following orders.” Vaten put a hand on Maynard’s shoulder.

Maynard shrugged him off. “You got anything to say, Hamer?”

The fourth person stirred from where they’d been lying on the grass. “No.”

“Good.” Maynard put his hand in his pocket, and Ava knew that’s where he’d slid the handkerchief he’d picked up when he went to relieve himself. His hand bunched into a fist, and she guessed he was holding it tight.

He sounded relieved. Like he’d been unburdened.

“Hopefully, I won’t see any of you again.” He started walking, and Vaten got in his way.

“Don’t do this. We can’t operate the cannon without you.”

“You don’t say?” Maynard gave a low laugh. “Sorry about that.” He stepped around Vaten and kept walking.

The low fire they were sitting around illuminated Vaten just enough for Ava to see his mouth twist in rage.

He bent down, picked up a stick that was stacked beside the fire and swung it at Maynard’s head.

The soldier went down without a sound.

Finley and Hamer scrambled to their feet and stared.

“He was deserting.” Vaten threw the stick down. “Like Carter and Fal and Gador. Fuck.” He looked around. “What is going on?”

“What’s going on now is we’re really stuck if we need to use this fucking cannon, because it needs four people to operate it.” Finley kicked out at the stick Vaten had dropped. “What were you thinking?”

“I was thinking he was going to leave, whatever we said or did, just like the others.” Vaten’s voice rose, and then he rubbed his face. “I’ll go down to the base camp, get one of the scouts to take his place. Watch him.” Vaten picked up a belt and scabbard and buckled it low on his hips before he walked away.

The small items Ava had left in the hills before they’d gone on to Bartolo had certainly wreaked havoc here, by the sounds of things.

They were stretched thin and jumpy.

She waited, still crouched low.

This is where she let Luc, Oscar and Deni do their thing.

She was just as capable as they were of attacking the remaining soldiers, but unlike Oscar and Deni, she hadn’t slept for more than an hour this morning.

She had spent the day embroidering, and she was exhausted, so now she waited, crouched low in the darkness, her scarf around her neck.

She was a killer, though, just as much as them.

Maybe warrior was a better word.

She hoped she wasn’t just finding nicer, more palatable versions of the truth.

It was probably the exhaustion talking.

None of them had gone looking to be death bringers.

Kassia had forced this uprising, and they had upped the stakes with these flares.