Chapter 34 Three Idiots and a Wolf
I woke to heat and weight and the soft ghost of her breath across my chest. Sula. She'd sprawled half on top of me sometime in the night, one leg thrown over my hips, her cheek tucked against my sternum like she owned the spot. Blonde hair everywhere—tangled across the pillow, stuck to my shoulder with sweat. The longhouse held the kind of summer air that doesn't move. No fans, no breeze, just the slow bake of morning building in the timber and the blankets already kicked to our ankles.
For a second I froze, letting last night spool back. We hadn't gone there. Not yet. I wasn't ready. My head's years ahead of this body and I wasn't about to let that gap make the call on something that actually matters. I told her as much. She didn't argue—Sula never wastes words when she can make a point with gravity and skin. She just decided to stay close. In Sula-speak, that meant pressing every warm, half-naked inch of herself to me until I couldn't tell if she was comforting me or trying to erode my defenses by degrees. Brainwashing through cuddling. Typical.
Heat throbbed under the roof. The shutters were cracked, but outside was just as breathless: cicadas working overtime, distant clang from a forge already at it, the sour-sweet tang of sun-baked hides and resin drifting in. Sweat slicked the hollow of her back where my hand had come to rest sometime before dawn; her heartbeat tapped steady against my ribs. She smelled like woodsmoke and salt and the wildflower oil the shamans trade for—faint now, fought by the summer. My scars itched where her hair brushed them, the kind of itch that says the body's alive and repairing even if the mind wants to sprint ahead.
I could have nudged her off and gone hunting for air that didn't exist. Instead I let the heat and her weight pin me there another minute, counting breaths. I let her. Hell, part of me welcomed it.
We drifted into waking slowly, trading drowsy kisses that sharpened as her lips curved against mine. The kind where you miss once, then find each other, then linger because there's nowhere else to be and nothing else to do but breathe the same heavy summer air. She tasted like sleep and salt and a hint of the wildflower oil she steals from the shamans, and every time she smiled into the kiss it moved through me like a second heartbeat.
"How'd you sleep?" she murmured against my mouth, voice scratchy from dreams, words brushing warm over my lower lip.
I tilted my head toward the hand that had developed a mind of its own during the night—now palmed snugly over the curve of her ass, fingers set like they'd paid for the real estate. I gave the faintest squeeze and let a smirk do some of the talking. "Apparently… pretty well."
Her laugh was low and muffled between us, the sound vibrating against my teeth. She answered with another kiss, softer this time—less spark, more seal—then nuzzled the corner of my jaw. The heat made everything slow and lazy. Outside, cicadas drilled the air. Somewhere down the lane a hammer started up, the forge singing its first metallic vowels of the day. In here, wood creaked and bedsheets rasped, and our breathing fell into a rhythm that felt older than either of us.
Her leg shifted higher over my hips, drawing a line of pressure that my body absolutely noticed. I let the squeeze become a slow, claiming slide of my hand along the arc of her hip to the hollow of her back, thumb tracing the little scar there she always forgets she has. She made that pleased, throaty sound that ruins me and nipped my bottom lip, not quite a bite, just a reminder that if I gave an inch she'd take the whole mile and send me some kind of thank-you note later.
"Pretty well?" she teased, voice a little clearer now. "That's your expert opinion?"
"Peer-reviewed," I said, and kissed the smile off her. She answered in kind, all warmth and patience, letting the kiss stretch without tipping it into something we'd regret at noon when the longhouse turned to an oven. When we finally came up for air, our foreheads touched and we just breathed—her lashes stuck together, her cheeks flushed, my hand right where it had decided to live. If the world wanted us up and moving, it could wait one more minute.
"The hell does 'peer-reviewed' mean?" Sula asked when we finally came up for air.
"It's an Old One thing," I said, thumb tracing the scar at the small of her back. "You make a claim, then people who know the craft try to break it. If it survives their poking and prodding, it's worth trusting. Not because you said so—because your peers beat on it and it held."
"Example," she said, chin on my chest, eyes narrowed like a challenge.
"Ubba's Railway Rifle," I said. "First it was just her crazy idea with a boiler, a pressure chamber, and spikes for ammo. Then she shot a machine through the shoulder plate and we all stopped laughing. The Ironbone forges took her plans, rebuilt them clean, and started turning them out by the dozen—standard gauges, safer valves, better seals. They didn't do that because they like Ubba. They did it because they tested the weapon, saw it work, and then made it repeatable. That's peer review—Ironbones trying to prove her wrong and, failing that, making it stronger."
Sula's mouth quirked. "I always forget you're actually an Old One," she said. "Then you use words like that—things I don't understand but somehow it sounds right."
She shifted, the longhouse heat sticking our skin together, and her leg rode higher over my hips. "But then you fight like a maniac," she added, not unkindly. "I thought Old Ones were supposed to be… enlightened?"
I huffed. "There's no real difference between us and you. Not in the parts that matter. A thousand years isn't enough to rewrite people. We still want food, shelter, love. We still get scared. We still do stupid, brave things." I looked past her at the slow pulse of light through the shutters. "And I'm the last person anyone would call enlightened."
Her brow knit. I kept going, because if I didn't say it now I'd dodge it forever. "Being here… it lets a part of me out that my time wanted buried. You saw it when I killed Lanius—that raw, ugly rush. Where I'm from, you get taught to cork that down, wrap it in rules, pills, jokes—anything to pretend it isn't there. Here, the world's honest about what it takes to survive. I'm not saying it's good. I'm saying the cage is open, and sometimes I let it run."
She studied me like she was weighing the truth of it. Then she leaned up and kissed my forehead, slow and certain. "It was dangerous to keep that bottled," she said. "Pressure always finds a seam."
I closed my eyes knowing she was right, I can think of five different instances where my anger came to a boiling point and I couldn't relieve the pressure and it caused me problems when my top finally popped.
"To me," Sula said, softer, "that anger isn't ugly." Her thumb brushed the scar on my cheek from Lanius; she didn't flinch. "I love the parts of you other people would be afraid of."
"That's a bad idea," I muttered, because deflection is a habit.
"Probably," she agreed, smiling. She nipped my lip, just enough to make a point. "And if we're being honest?" She tilted her head, hair tickling my jaw. "That raw fury? I find it very, very sexy."
"Okay—out of bed before we enter dangerous territory," I said, forcing a breath that wasn't a groan. Sula came from a warrior culture; violence was attractive, and our mornings had a way of becoming sparring matches we'd both lose.
"Very well," she said, stretching slow over me like a cat claiming a windowsill, hair spilling gold in the early light. She propped her chin on my chest. "So what's on your agenda today, Witness?"
I thought about it, then shrugged. "Might wander down to Kardin's. Pick through his stock. Maybe buy something completely useless just to see the look on his face. Haven't wasted shards in a while."
That earned me an eye roll and the ghost of a smile. "Only you would call it a plan to go hunting for junk."
"Don't knock it till you try it," I shot back. "Could be junk with character. What will you be up to?"
She shook her head, still smiling, then eased back into me as if the heat didn't exist. "Training some of the young ones. Boone and I are working with a few whose parents haven't had time to teach them."
That made me blink. "Boone's still here? I didn't even see him at the dueling grounds."
"That's the point of being a Plainswalker." She smirked like she knew a magic trick. "You're not supposed to see him. He was up in a tower overlooking the grounds, new rifle in hand. If the Legion tried anything dishonorable, he was going to put a round through someone's skull."
I let out a low whistle. "Figures. Watchful ghost with a long gun. Should've guessed."
Her fingers traced the seam of my cast-sleeve, the touch careful. "That changes now," she said, voice steadying. "With the peace declared, Boone can't just haunt the horizon. He has to be seen, has to stand in front of the people. He'll be War Chief one day, when Jorta's injuries finally demand it. Then Jorta will step back—same as Tarn—advise instead of fight."
The image of Boone—silent, patient Boone—pinned to ceremony instead of ridgelines made me snort, then sober. "That's a hell of a shift. Harder than staring down Legion blades, if you ask me."
"He'll rise to it," Sula said, no doubt in it. "He always does."
We finally dragged ourselves out of bed and started pulling on clothes. I was reaching for my armored Deathclaw-leather trench when a pale hand snatched it away.
"Hey—"
Sula slipped it over her shoulders before I could protest. The thing hung off her like a cloak, plates of hardened hide knocking softly against her thighs as she moved. On her, the coat looked bigger, meaner—dark scales, sun-cracked seams, the iron smell of oil and old blood. She gave me that sharp little grin. "You're less likely to get into trouble if you don't have this on. Makes you look dangerous."
I folded my arms and scowled. "Must be a universal trait of women."
She tilted her head, blonde hair falling into her eyes. "Universal?"
"In the past," I said, tugging at my sleeve, "girlfriends had a habit of stealing their guy's clothes. Hoodies, shirts, jackets—didn't matter. If it belonged to him, it would end up in her closet sooner or later."
Her smirk went sly, satisfied. She tugged the coat tighter and lifted the collar to her face. "Then I'm more than happy to carry on the tradition of my foremothers." She inhaled with a little hum. "Smells like you."
Didn't surprise me. You don't really wash a coat like this—you scrape it clean, oil the leather, smoke it by the fire. After a month of wearing it, my scent was baked into every stitch.
"Guess I'll have to kill another Deathclaw if I want a coat again," I muttered.
Sula's eyes glinted. She leaned in close, voice warm. "Not until you're healed up. Then we'll hunt one together."
That dragged a laugh out of me despite myself. I hooked her by the waist and kissed her, shaking my head. "Only you would make a date out of hunting something that can rip a man in half."
Her grin widened against my mouth. The plates on the coat clicked as she drew back, pleased with herself, pleased with me, pleased with the theft.
We didn't know it yet, but her walking out with my coat would matter more than anything we did that morning.
.......
We headed downstairs and pushed open the doors of the Spiked Paw, and the sunlight hit us—warm and sharp after the dim tavern. Right there in the street was Boone, long rifle slung across his back, striding grim as ever—only with a gaggle of children trailing after him like ducklings so it kind of broke his tough image.
Sula arched a brow at him, the kind of look that asked a whole question without words. They were supposed to be at the training ground.
Boone caught the look and let out a sigh that seemed to come from somewhere deep in his bones. "None of these kids have any survival skills. Decades of skirmishes with the Legion kept their parents close to the villages. Didn't take them on hunts. The whole generation has been raised without the basics."
Ah, so not just learning to fight—he wanted them to learn to survive in general.
I couldn't help myself. "So what now, Boone? Gonna hand out merit badges for fire starting and knot making?"
That earned me a round of blank stares—Boone, Sula, and every kid in earshot looked at me like they do at Raul when he speaks Spanish. They know what he said has meaning but are utterly confused.
I rubbed the back of my neck. "Okay, context. In the time of the Old Ones, they had groups where men and women trained kids in survival skills—fire, tracking, tying knots, camping, that sort of thing. Every time a kid learned one, they got a token stitched onto a sash. A visible reminder of what they'd earned."
The children looked at one another, clearly unsure if I was serious or just making things up. Boone, though, just narrowed his eyes. "Might be onto something. Tokens they can carry… proof of what they've learned. I'll have to talk to the shamans about making some."
A little girl near the front—mud on her knees, hair hacked short for the heat—raised a hand halfway, then just blurted it. "Can we make our own? The tokens."
Boone's face softened, but his answer didn't. "You can have them if you earn them," he said, gentler than his eyes. "These first ones matter. They'll be the start of something we keep. I won't let you wear what you haven't bled or sweated for."
The little girl nodded firmly, showing determination on her face.
Sula smiled faintly. "Better than letting them grow up soft."
The kids straightened at that—shoulders back, chins up, a dozen little spines trying to look taller than they were.
Watching them, it clicked. Of course they wanted this. Boone, the ghost on the horizon who might be War Chief next, and Sula, niece to the one they had—these were the shapes the young ones measured themselves against. If Boone and Sula said tokens meant something, the kids would make sure they did.
I let my gaze run over them. It wasn't all Kansani blood in that little herd.
Up front was a kid in a hand-knitted cap tugged low over his ears—Ironbone stock by the belt of tools and the careful way he stood. Cleaner than most Ironbones I'd seen. I was pretty sure I'd watched Ubba boss him around near the forges. He jumped at every loud noise in the square, flinches stacked on flinches. If he lived in the Pile—and most Ironbone apprentices did—that kind of nerves made sense. The Pile was chaos on a good day, got to be ready to jump and dive out of the way if something exploded.
Beside him loitered an Oseram boy, nine or ten, eyes barely pretending to track Boone. His attention kept drifting to the trinkets dangling off Kardin's stall: a rusted wrench, a bent gear, a coil of wire. You could almost see the arithmetic running behind his eyes—flip that wrench into three shards, trade the wire for a nail set, turn the nail set into ten shards by sunset.
Flanking them was a Kansani kid built like an oak tree already—broad shoulders, thick wrists. Strength? Plenty. But when his vacant stare slid past me without a spark, I wondered how much was rattling around behind those eyes.
They felt familiar, and not just because I'd seen them around. Something about the arrangement—tall, wiry, ringleader—itched at the back of my brain.
Sula must've caught me staring because she chuckled under her breath. "Those three? We call them the Eds. All their names start with Ed."
She pointed with her chin. "Ironbone's Edwire. Ubba swears he's sharp as a tack but… cowardly. Always looking for a way out before the fight even starts."
Her hand shifted toward the big Kansani boy. "That's just Ed. Strong as a young bull, not much else going on. Jorta used to spar with his father—man was nearly as strong as Lanius. Didn't have the wit to match it. Died last year fighting the Sword of the East himself. The boy's the same. Strong, but…" She let the rest hang.
Finally her eyes flicked to the Oseram runt in the middle, already strutting like he owned the street. "That one's Eddi. Leader of the three. Always roping the others into scams, usually against the other kids. His parents run a stall here. Kardin's his uncle. The schemes… probably inherited."
Almost on cue, Kardin leaned over his counter and called, "Eddi! What's your latest hustle?" The boy grinned ear to ear and launched into a pitch about a dice game, and Kardin—saint of bad ideas—started giving him tips on how to rig it better.
I blinked. My brain finally connected the shapes and I almost choked. No freaking way. Tribal Ed, Edd, and Eddy.
I turned to Sula, dead serious, wanting to see how deep this rabbit hole went. "Tell me something. Are those three chased around by three sisters? Same mother, different fathers, obnoxiously persistent in… childish romantic ways?"
Her brow knit, then lifted as the pieces clicked. "Yes. Their mother's an Ashmarked—name's Canker. A wanderer. She's been everywhere, takes strong men to bed, and only came back recently because the Carja have been raiding for sacrifices. That, and the girls needed to be folded into the tribe." She rubbed at the bridge of her nose. "The girls introduced themselves to the Eds by kidnapping them. Aggressively. The oldest learned it from her mother, who once kidnapped her middle daughter's Banuk father."
Sula sighed. "Canker taught them trapping and fighting, but not proper Kansani courtship."
"They're right there," she added, pointing.
I followed her finger to three girls loitering at the edge of the market shade. The eldest—a redhead—wore her ash in bold streaks, traps hung from a leather harness, and a coil of rope rode one hip like a promise. The middle girl had straight black hair threaded with blue beads that flashed when she moved—Banuk blood in the cheekbones and the cool way she watched. The youngest was a blond with a gap-toothed grin and a sling wrapped twice around her wrist, already eyeing Ed and sighing as he scratched under his armpit and wiped the sweat on Edwire's shirt who gagged and started scrubbing the spot frantically.
I blinked at the Kansani version of the Canker sisters and swallowed a laugh. Of course this was happening.
I stared up at the sky for a long second. Okay. Either Terra's screwing with me again, tossing in Easter eggs for kicks… or this is the Fallout part of the world leaking in. Cartoon nonsense made flesh. Either way—great. This is my life now.
I patted Sula's shoulder. "Keep an eye on those three and the girls. Something stupid is bound to happen."
She rolled her eyes but nodded, already tracking the Eds like a wolfdog sizing up pups.
I peeled off toward Kardin's stall. Kardin saw me coming and gave me the merchant squint. "What are you after today Rion?"
Before I could answer, the little Oseram slid in front of the counter like a born huckster. "Mister, if you're looking to buy something, then I've got just the thing—"
Kardin snorted. "Boy, don't bother. This one's more likely to fleece you than you fleecing him."
I chuckled. The scene hit a nerve—right down to Eddi's cap, a scruffy knit with three thin machine antennae jutting up like cartoon hair. Subtle, Terra. Real subtle.
"Indulge him," I said. "Let's see the pitch."
Eddi's grin went feral. He snapped his fingers. "Lunkhead! Sockhead! Demonstration time."
The big Kansani—Ed—straightened. The Ironbone—Edwire—winced and shuffled forward, clutching a wrist-braced contraption: wires, a half-moon emitter plate, a battery lash-up that looked optimistic.
"It's a… shield," Edwire managed, voice thin. "Still… still tweaking. It's not ready—"
"It's ready," Eddi declared. "Turn it on."
Edwire sighed like a condemned man and thumbed a switch. The plate hummed. A pale lattice crackled to life over his forearm. Surprise lit his face; for a heartbeat he actually looked proud.
I bent, palmed a pebble, and flicked it at the glow.
Crack. The lattice shattered like glass. Edwire's confidence went with it.
"Turn it back on," I said. "And hold it up—above your head." a feeling in the back of my head was telling me this was not merely a shield.
They stared.
"It's not a wall, it's a wing," I added. "An Ashmarked I know saw something like it out west—Tenakth lands." The lie was delivered smoothly. "Different application. Try it."
Edwire blinked like I'd switched to Old One code, then rotated the plate so the curve faced the sky and thumbed it alive again. The field sprouted, broader this time, angling like a gull's half-spread pinion.
I pointed at the big kid. "Ed—throw your friend."
Ed grabbed Eddi by the collar and ankle. "You fly now, Eddi."
"Wait—what?" Eddi squeaked, windmilling.
"Not him!" I barked. "Edwire. Throw Edwire."
Edwire's eyes went saucer-wide. He spun to run—Eddi, panic-flailing, stuck a foot out on instinct and clipped his ankle. The emitter smacked dirt, sputtered, nearly died.
"Oh no," Edwire yelped.
.Ed didn't wait—snagged Edwire like a sack of grain and heaved.
For a breath the Ironbone shrieked profanity, impressive enough that Sula, standing beside me, muttered, "Definitely an Ironbone." Then the sound changed as the hum of the shieldwing activating sang in the air. Edwire's fall stretched into a glide, a slow drift that actually looked… graceful.
"Ha!" Eddi crowed, arms up. "See? I told you it worth your time now lets talk numbers—"
A crow cut across the square, curious. It pecked the humming field with a tap.
Pop.
The lattice collapsed. Edwire's glide turned into a drop and he vanished into a cart piled high with harvested grain, disappearing in a chaff explosion and a very eloquent scream. The farmer was so shocked by the scene he wasn't even mad.
Ed trudged over, hauled his friend out by the armpits. Edwire spat husks, then turned and shot a glare at me—pure murder, the kind you only get from a boy who promises to invent revenge first and commit to it second.
"Now that I know what it can do," I said, calm as I could manage, "what can you do to improve the design?"
Edwire looked down at the device, jaw working. Then he started listing the parts he'd need.
I grinned, slipped a tied pouch off my belt, and lobbed it to Eddi. The weight made his eyebrows climb. "Five hundred shards," I said. "Before you sprint off to waste it, buy parts. Build more of those. Refine them. You've got something."
Eddi caught the bag like it might explode. Ed whooped. Edwire hugged his wrist-rig to his chest, already babbling about bracing struts and emitter angles.
Across the way, Kardin shook his head—half exasperated, half proud. Sula shot me a look that said, You're encouraging them, and her mouth added the rest: "Good."
If Terra wants to drop an easter egg in my lap, I thought, watching the boys eyeing Kardin's bins, I'm going to exploit it.
"Build as many as you can," I told them, thumbing toward the scrap. "Clean up the design and I'll buy one for a thousand shards."
Three sets of eyes went wide. Even Ed understood that was real money.
"And if you actually listen to Boone and Sula today," I added, "you might not need to buy parts at all. Hunt them—bring down the salvage yourselves."
Eddi's gaze slid to Sula and he grinned like the little pervert he was. "I have no problem watching what Miss Sula does."
Kardin's palm snapped to the back of his nephew's head hard enough to pop his jaw. "Apologize." he growled
Eddi rubbed the spot, eyes watering. "S—sorry, Miss Sula."
Kardin huffed and turned back to Sula "Sorry about that Sula, he's been listening to his asshole of a big brother again."
Sula sighed, already annoyed. "Ranni's back? I thought you sent him to the Claim. He was supposed to be gone for a couple more months."
Kardin blew out a breath, the kind that said he'd already had this argument twice. "Carja are pushing deeper into the Claim. Ranni came back with his tail between his legs and begged to stay in the Grove."
Sula's smile sharpened to a blade. "Fine. Remind him to watch his mouth around me, or I'll beat his ass again. I'm not doing that dance twice."
She wasn't kidding. Ranni carried the worst kind of Oseram mentality about women—forge is for men, battlefield is for men, women do as they're told. Sula had educated him last time with a lesson he could feel every time he sat down.
Kardin smirked, unrepentant. "I might not warn him. The boy needs his ass beat now and then."
Ed chuckled, then froze when Sula's eyes slid his way. He'd seen that look at home—his mother wore it when a lesson that would leave his bottom sore was coming. His kid sister Sarda was growing into it too, a smaller, sharper copy. He shut his mouth and fixed his stare on the dust at his feet.
Edwire swallowed hard. Coward by temperament, sure, but he knew Sula by reputation—the Warchief's niece who moved like a knife and hit like a hammer. That and Sula was the friend of Ubba who was practically his Boss/big sister. So there was a healthy amount of fear and respect there.
Eddi, remembering he'd actually been there when Ranni got folded up like bad steel, went pale. The grin died on his face, leaving a boy who suddenly remembered the consequences. He dipped his head to Sula again, voice small. "Sorry, Miss Sula. For real."
Sula crouched down and flicked his forehead, "Don't let it happen again."
"Ow, yes ma'am" Eddi grumbled rubbing his forehead.
I lifted my voice so the whole gaggle heard me. "Be careful, boys. Sula is the most dangerous woman I've met. I'm counting the Deathclaw matriarch I fought and turned into the coat she stole and is currently wearing."
Sula pulled the collar up around her neck, unbothered, like she'd just been complimented on her hair and not the fact that I called her a thief wearing the evidence of the crime. Which she was!
"And for the record," I added, "the first time we met she said hello with a kick to the nuts. You don't want to find out how she says goodbye." I myself haven't found out but in my nightmares it's not pretty.
A few kids snorted, most audibly was a ginger kid who I figured was the Kansani version of Kevin; more went wide-eyed. Eddi's grin twitched wanting to laugh at me but then he thought better of it. Ed swallowed audibly. Edwire clutched his wrist-rig like it might shield him from consequences Sula-shaped.
"Back in line!" Sula barked.
The word hit like a thrown spear. Sandals scraped; little bodies scrambled. The Eds tripped over each other trying to figure out who went first and solved it by shoving all three of themselves to the back. Half the line still looked suspiciously like they'd wandered in from that old cartoon I couldn't stop thinking about—angles and attitudes that matched too neatly to be chance.
Boone gave us a small nod—approval without a smile—and rolled into motion. He moved like a shadow in daylight: long rifle high and tight, steps soft even on baked dirt, eyes already counting angles, exits, distance to water. The column fell in behind him.
Sula leaned in, pecked my cheek—quick and proud, a stamp more than a kiss—then turned on her heel. "Move it!" she snapped, snagging dull-eyed Ed by the ear as he drifted after a butterfly. "Eyes forward, back straight, hands off your neighbors unless they're bleeding."
"Ow, Miss Sula—let go of Ed," he whimpered.
"Feet. Now." She released his ear and tapped his heel with the toe of my stolen coat. "You drag your feet, you leave a trail. You leave a trail, something follows it." The whole line jolted into motion, sandals thudding, a few canteens knocking like wind chimes.
Boone set the pace toward the training grounds—steady, not punishing. Every fifty steps he'd glance back, silently adjusting spacing with a curl of two fingers. Sula brought up the rear like a storm wall, eyes flicking from rooflines to alleys to the open gate, counting threat arcs the way other people count freckles. When a boy's sling started tripping, she plucked it off his belt and handed it back tied correctly, never breaking stride. Another kid drifted away; Sula's voice snapped him back without rising above conversational. It wasn't a march so much as a lesson disguised as walking.
They passed the last houses and the sun opened its hand over the flats—cicadas drilling, heat wiggling over the grass. Boone raised a fist; the line halted in a cloud of dust and pride. He looked them over once and nodded to himself. Sula didn't say anything, but her mouth ticked the way it does when a blade sits right in its sheath.
I watched them go—ghost and storm shepherding ducklings—then blew out a breath I didn't know I'd been holding. If they listened today, they'd earn those first tokens sooner than they thought. And if they didn't… well, Sula had a very persuasive goodbye.
As Boone, Sula, and the gaggle of kids filed out of the Grove, Kardin cocked an eye at me and snorted. "That was some pure Oseram thinking, Witness. Get the little terrors hungry, point them at my scrap, make 'em gather their own materials and build for you—then wrap it in a reward big enough they think it was their idea. Greed as a teaching tool." He clicked his tongue. "I'm a little pissed, actually. As Eddi's uncle, that's supposed to be my job."
I shrugged. "By all means, play uncle. Just don't try to screw the kids over."
Kardin barked a laugh. "Last thing I'll do. My sister would tan my hide if I shaved a shard off her boy. I'm greedy, not stupid." He tipped his chin toward the gate where Sula's voice still carried like a whip crack. "And if she didn't, your war-dancer would. I'll give 'em apprentice rates, no gouging."
"Good," I said. "Set aside anything that looks like it wants to be an emitter or a brace. They'll be back before sundown."
Kardin rapped his knuckles on the counter, half exasperated, half proud. "Oh, they'll be back. That thousand you waved just rewired their little brains."
He leaned in, voice dropping to a conspiratorial rumble. "Now—buying or selling?"
I clapped my hands together—tried to. The cast sleeves thunked, plastic on plastic. Annoyance spiked; I shook it off and muttered at myself. "Alright. What possible stupid things do you have to sell me today, Kardin?"
Kardin scratched his beard, rummaging through memory and crates. "Ranni was at least wise enough not to come back empty-handed. Picked things folks like the Kansani actually buy. And managed to find some Old-Ones stuff from some regular delves."
I leaned over the counter. Most of it was junk with a pulse—pots, battery housings, cracked screens—but a few pieces made me stop. In a neat little row sat several hand radios, dusty but intact. Walkie-talkies.
I picked one up, thumbed the push-to-talk, and got a clean, dry click. No battery, no life… but the seals looked good, housings unwarped, antenna mounts unbent. Ranni had either stripped an electronics shop or lucked into a supply locker. Either way, these were perfect—short-range comms for patrols, scouts… and for the Brotherhood I kept sketching in my head.
Kardin shrugged. "Don't know what those are. Ranni said they were in the hands of skeletons, so they must be worth something."
"They are," I said. "I'll take all of them."
He didn't even haggle—smart merchant; bulk buyers are friends, not marks. He swept the radios into a sack while I kept browsing, eyes half on function, half on fate.
Then I spotted something half-buried in a crate: a scowling little face glaring up from a cracked base. Bulging head, cane molded into one hand, five-o'clock shadow etched in plastic. It was a Funko Pop of a grumpy pill popping doctor played by Hugh Laurie—Dr. Gregory House—beat to hell and somehow still judging me.
It hooked me because in the Fallout games, Vault-Boy bobbleheads gave you bonuses. No Vault-Tec here, sure, but Funko Pops were everywhere back in the 2020s. If any nic-nack from that era had soaked up weird luck, why not this one?
I glanced at my cast sleeves, then back at the grumpy doctor. "Stupid," I muttered, "but maybe useful." I set it on the counter. "This too."
Kardin squinted. "That ugly little statue? Alright."
He chalked the tally; we swapped shards. The instant ownership settled, my Focus pinged.
You acquired: Funko Pop — Dr. Gregory House
Effect: Once per week, cure "Crippled Limbs."
Cooldown: 7d (resets at first dawn after use)
House's voice—supplied by my treacherous brain—added dryly, "If stupidity were a condition, you'd be terminal. Hold still."
"Here goes nothing," I breathed, and triggered it.
Pain lanced up both forearms—white, mean, honest. Bones slid, popped, set; tendons twanged like tightened wire. I grunted through my teeth, rode the spike until it broke into a hot throb. Fingers flexed. Answered.
I turned to the post beside the stall, planted, and drove a straight right into the wood. The cast sleeve spider-webbed and sloughed off in two chunks. I backhanded the left into the same post; it snapped and fell like a shed shell.
Kardin stared. "What in the hells—?"
I rolled my wrists, knuckles popping, a grin I couldn't kill stretching my mouth. "That, my friend, was chaotic stupidity at its finest." My Focus threw a tiny timer in the corner of my vision—6d 23h 59m. Neat. Annoying. Useful.
Kardin barked a laugh despite himself. I tucked the Funko carefully into my satchel and hefted the sack of radios.
"Do me a favor," I said, backing away. "Tell Ranni to keep an eye out for more little statues like this. Ugly heads, pop-eyed. Doesn't matter if it looks evil. I'll pay."
Kardin gave a mock salute. "Consider him told."
I headed down the lane, flexing my fingers, feeling the bones hold. Curie was going to yell. She'd be right to. I'd live with it.
I ducked off the main run into a narrow alley that smelled like solder smoke and yesterday's stew. The heat hung there thicker than the street—summer air that didn't move. I popped the Nanoboy 3000 onto my wrist and started feeding it loot: walkie-talkies; the sack of shards; House's ugly little head that glared up at me. When you've got an inventory system, you use it—no reason to stroll around like a traveling pawnshop. The Nanoboy's screen flickered, slot icons blooming one by one until everything chimed into place.
I flexed again to test the "miracle." Both thumbs clicked now. I rolled my wrists; a couple metacarpals popped home with that dry gravel feeling I knew too well. Great. All my past injuries filing in to be recognized. Different order, same parade.
Hands went into pockets—partly habit, mostly strategy. If Curie was on a house call and drifted by, I didn't need the lecture before lunch. Likely something about bone knitting, inflammation as a warning system—yes, doctor, I heard you in my head already.
I cut across the Grove toward the Pile. Carts rattled past, wheels biting ruts into grit. On them: plates off the Thunderjaw the Kansani horde cracked on the way to the duel; serrated tail segments stacked like sawteeth; a heap of scorched cabling. Two Glinthawks and a Scrapper rode a sled with their beaks wired shut; a pair of Scroungers too, dead and leaking blue. The scavengers had heard the party and come to pick the bones—and the Kansani turned the table like always.
The Pile rose ahead like a metal beehive, the old Horus' ribcage turned into walkways and gantries. Up close you could hear it breathe: flywheels ticking down, a pressure kettle hissing somewhere, the faint whine of a belt drive finding its teeth. Oil and citrus solvent fought for the air. Ubba's corner never slept; even quiet, it was busy. I slipped into the shadow of the ribs, fingers still testing the line between pain and strength, and let the Pile swallow me.
...…
I rounded the last bend in the ribs of the Pile just in time to catch a scene: Ubba, hair tied up with a strip of copper wire, one shoulder braced in her doorway like a battering ram, and the Kansani guy she'd taken to bed last night trying to turn a one-night stand into something else.
He tried a weak flirt. "So… you want to have dinner tonight? I have some spices from the lands to the south—"
Ubba stopped him with a palm and a look. "We both know this was a one-time thing. Save your dignity. You were decent, you'll make some lucky girl happy. But you're not for me."
She then slammed the door shut. The poor bastard deflated and trudged off along the catwalk, head down, hands in pockets.
I waited until he cleared the span, then knocked.
The door flew open. "Okay, whatever your fucking name was! I said fucking—" Her eyes landed on me. Blink. Irritation downshifted. "Oh. Hey, Rion. What's up?"
I held up my hands and flexed. "I'm all fixed up," Pop, pop went my thumbs and Ubba eyed them, "More or less. Figured I'd see if you've got any new toys I can beat up for a day before I run off and make bad life choices."
She jerked her chin at a crate on the bench, then cocked an ear toward her kitchen. A kettle shrieked. Ubba vanished, came back with it steaming and poured the contents into a tough fabric bag, screwed a metal nozzle on, then gave the bag a quick mist from a dispenser etched with frost-runes.
"What's that?" I asked.
"Herbal wash," she said, like she was naming a screwdriver. "Boil it, cool it so it doesn't scald, then flush. I don't want that guy's kid. Ironbone practice—the Kansani picked it up too. Also why I kicked him out. Cleaning yourself in front of the man you just fucked is insulting. You only do that with a partner if you've both agreed you don't want kids yet." She smirked at me over the nozzle. "The fact you don't know what this is means you need to talk to Sula."
"Uh," I said.
"Uh," she echoed, flipping a hand to shoo me while she shouldered through a back door. "Look in the crate!"
I lifted the lid. Inside sat a pair of heavy boots—really shin-greaves with stomper soles—steel ribs running up the calves, a compact piston assembly along the Achilles, braided hoses tucked under overlapping plates. The toe caps were a different metal altogether—older, uglier, and horribly familiar....
I blinked. "Ubba… are these made with pieces of my cursed boots?"
From behind the door: a grunt. "Yep. Hateful little bastards. Almost killed me twice just handling them. I married them to the Hammerrunner guts you dragged out of Golden Plains and cribbed a couple tricks off that power-armor frame from the Cursed Depth you cleared. End result: you jump higher, and when you kick, a piston doubles the strike on impact. Think 'one kick, two hits.'"
"Still cursed?"
"You're going to have to take that risk," she called. "Every time they tried to kill me they flew off in the direction of the Spiked Paw. That's where you sleep right?, Sooooooo… probably!"
I groaned and hefted one. Weighty, balanced wrong until you imagined the piston firing and the mass shifting through the arc of a kick. My Focus pinged.
Acquired: Twin-Stroke Greaves ( Mk.I)
Passive: Piston-assist on impact ("one kick, two hits").
Perk detected: Vindictive Punt — 15% chance to trigger triple damage on a kick.
Warning: Residual malice bound to toe-caps. User acceptance recommended to reduce hostile behavior.
"Well, fuck," I muttered. "You better be worth the risk."
Another ping: Advisory — Unaccepted artifacts may seek user regardless.
"Yeah, yeah." I set my heel into the first greave, cinched the buckles, and slid my foot home, already bracing for whatever personality the boots decided to show me next.
......Sula's POV — miles outside the Grove.......
Boone set the pace; I kept rear guard. Every time the big Kansani kid, Ed, started drifting after a pretty bird or a shiny rock, I flicked the back of his ear. By the fourth one his ears were glowing.
Boone cut into the trees and lifted a hand. "Go gather what you think will start a fire and keep it burning. No hints."
They scattered.
The Canker sisters moved like they'd done it a hundred times—dry grass twisted into a bird's nest, shredded bark, thumb-thick sticks feathered to curls, a pinch of resin-smeared punk wood. Not surprising for Road kids. Their mother only left them with us so they'd learn how to live around people without kidnapping them first.
The rest came back with mixed results: green branches, damp leaves, some honest finger-sized twigs, and two proud handfuls of wet mud and hope.
The Eds did… fine. Eddi had a decent bundle of tinder and kindling, Edwire a careful armload of dry sticks sorted by thickness. Ed arrived dragging a deadfall big enough to roof a hut.
Boone looked at the log, then at Ed. "Set that to the side. We'll use it after the fire's going."
Ed lit up—not understanding he'd grabbed the wrong thing, he only understood it wasn't useless.
Boone never snapped when a kid got it wrong. They didn't know yet; that was the point. He praised the good picks, tapped a bad bundle with two fingers and told them why it wouldn't catch—too wet, too thick, no air. He used the Canker pile as the example build, laying it out in order: tinder, kindling, fuel. Then he sent them out again.
Round two came back better. Even the little ones chose right by feel, testing snaps, sniffing for rot. The Cankers needed no correction. The best second pile belonged to the Eds - made sense when I thought about it, little bastards were responsible for some fires over the last couple of years, I was sure they learned eventually after screwing up so many times.
Boone nodded once. "Good. Now—how do we light it?" His gaze slid past the sisters. "Cankers, hold it. Let the others speak." The sisters beamed feeling superior to the other kids.
Hands shot up. "Sparks." "Rubbing sticks." "Steel on rock." A hopeful: "Lightning?"
Eddi's eyes went distant, calculating. He lifted a shard of curved glass. "Raise this into the sun… and, uh, maybe accidentally set off a blaze canister?"
Every head turned. My jaw tightened.
Boone kept his voice level. "That's extreme and more likely to get you killed."
Eddi threw up both hands. "I didn't mean to set them off! I was five! The cart was almost empty by then—only the bisons got… deep fried." He winced. "That's kind of why we settled here. Had to sell what was left to buy a new cart and new bison. Business was good, so we stayed. Eventually invited Uncle Kardin too. Sula found him on his way in."
'Oh so it's your fault?!' I thought dryly.
Ed's stomach growled at "deep fried bison." Half the line laughed, tension breaking just enough.
"Then let's talk about dinner," Boone said, and pointed up. "When storing your food while on plains we bury our food and cover it in a large slab of Machine metal, in the woods we hoist it in the trees. Most animals can't reach it when it is hanging in between branches.
A thin rope vanished over a limb as thick as my waist. He gave it two short tugs and undid the slip. Two deer dropped from the shade in their canvas wraps and thumped the ground together. A neat cache: hoisted high at dawn, bellies opened so they'd cool fast, hides still on to keep the flies down. He'd planned this lesson before we left the Grove.
I'll have to talk to him about discussing plans with non-Plainswalkers, he's gotten too used to the other Plainswalkers having similar habits. Village Kansani need direction.
"Fire teams," he went on, already dividing them with his hands. "Eddi, Edwire—your cone. You're lighting first. Ed, you're fuel: forearms to wrist-thick, nothing green. Cankers, you're on tinder and windbreak. Everyone else, watch and listen."
He crouched by the cone, produced a striker and a shard of high-carbon, and showed them the angle—steel riding the stone, not chopping—so sparks kissed the tinder instead of bouncing wide. Eddi reached too fast; Boone caught his wrist without looking and reset his hand. "Deliberate," he said. "Fast is for when you already know how."
Two strikes later, the tinder smoked; a third made it take. Boone fed in curls, then sticks, and the cone found its breath. He didn't smile, but the corners of his eyes eased. "First token," he said. "Fire."
Every spine straightened at once.
"Now," he said, rising. "What comes before the cooking? Sula?"
"Clean hands, clean ground," I answered, stepping forward. "You get sick from meat by what you drag into it."
Boone nodded. "Watch closely. You'll all do this on your own when we start hunting lessons." He rolled a carcass, showed them seams, membranes, where to keep the knife shallow, where to pull with fingers so you don't punch the gut and stink the whole camp for a day. He had a boy hold the leg, a girl keep the hide taut, another lay out clean leaves for organs we kept. The Canker eldest already knew the motions; I shifted her to watch the smaller ones and correct grips.
While the first pot of water went on and the smoke settled into a steady column, I paced the edges, counting heads, watching hands, flicking Ed's ear one last time when his attention wandered to a dragonfly.
This was how people stayed alive: not speeches, not duels, but a hundred small right choices taught until they were a habit. Boone taught it like breathing.
"Um Miss Sula?" Ed said tugging at his belt, shifting from foot to foot. "Ed gotta pee."
"Don't go far," I said, pointing to a stand of fern and willow twenty paces off the trail. "Where I can still hear you. If I have to send your friends to fetch you, you'll be gathering firewood all night."
He nodded solemnly—then drifted three steps the wrong way like a moth. I sighed. I'll have to send the other two after him in a few minutes.
…
The Wolf Lord — a mile from the campsite
He found the trail where the grass lay bent and the dust remembered shapes. Many feet, small and clumsy. Two heavier pairs, steady. He lowered his nose and pulled the story out of it: woodsmoke, ironwood sap, old blood, oiled leather.
And then the one that mattered.
Friend.
It lived in the thick hide of the long coat and in the skin-salt of the woman wearing it. The woman's scent braided through his nose, but the coat carried the man. The animal part of him made no gap between them. Coat meant man. That was the truth his nose knew.
He huffed and tasted the air. The wind pressed the camp's breath toward him—easy work. He paced the prints, head low, shoulders rolling under old scars. The secondary heart beat slow and deep, a drum in his chest. Pain tugged tight across the mended claw-rakes; he ignored it.
The trail widened at a fork, then gathered again where the little ones had bunched. Here a furrow dragged through leaf litter—something heavy pulled by small hands. Here a heel dug where someone stumbled. A twig snapped clean left a single tear of resin; a girl with sap on her fingers. He read the facts and kept moving.
The coat-scent strengthened at the edge of a thin wood. He paused, tested the wind, and slid into shadow. Birds clicked and went quiet as he passed. He stepped around the thorn and deadfall without sound,a habit he carried with him when he used to be significantly smaller, the way that left no noise.
Children's voices lifted and fell ahead—high, excited, hungry. Fire breathed somewhere beyond the trees. The sound of children woke something that used to be simple and good. He let it rise—but followed the stronger thread: the coat.
A sharp tang cut across it. Piss. He parted fern fronds with his muzzle and saw a boy hitching up his pants.
The boy looked up, blinked once, then brightened. "Big puppy!"
He blinked back. For years now, children had run at the sight of him. Running away in fear when they saw him. But this one? This one stepped closer. A hand came down between his ears and worked clumsy circles. The beast inside told him to snap his jaws around their hand. Lately, though, the old dog inside had been clawing toward the light. He held still. Warmth. Familiar. His tail started, cautious, then wagged.
"Ed! You big lunkhead, where did you—HOLY SHIT!?" Eddi's voice cracked as he and Edwire pushed through the brush and froze at the sight of Ed petting the black wolf.
The Wolf Lord rose, unfolding to full height, and looked at the two smaller boys. He took one slow step, head tilted, hopeful. When he had been small, children's hands meant praise, food, play.
Edwire's breath hitched. "Eddi, I think that's the Wolf Lord…"
"You think?" Eddi snapped, eyes huge. "If it's not, how big do you think the fucker actually is?"
Ed—still petting—beamed like he'd found a lost calf. "He's nice," he announced, as if that settled everything.
Eddi's voice climbed tree branches. "ED, YOU IDIOT—WHERE IN THAT THICK BRICK YOU CALL A HEAD, DOES PETTING A WOLF THIS BIG SEEM LIKE A GOOD IDEA? HE LOOKS LIKE HE EATS DEATHCLAWS!"
"Um, Eddi…" Edwire's finger trembled as he pointed at the Wolf Lord's shoulders and flanks, where old fur parted around pale, ropey scars. "Those are wide enough to be Deathclaw hands. Judging by the spread."
Eddi gulped. "Ooooh. So he does." A beat. "Even better."
The Wolf Lord's ears pricked at the noise, then settled when Ed's palm resumed those clumsy circles. His tail swayed—small, unsure beats—while his nose worked the boys' smells: smoke, iron, grease, fear-sweat. He leaned the breadth of his skull into Ed's hand like he was testing the weight of trust.
"Let's make a run for it" Eddi hissed, shuffling an inch at a time and trying to look like he wasn't moving at all.
"That'll make him chase," Edwire whispered, eyes on the teeth. "Predators key on retreat."
"Then don't retreat," Eddi whispered back, panic edging into logic. "We… advance? No—stay. We… negotiate."
Ed beamed, oblivious. "He likes head scritches," he announced, as if he'd solved hunting forever, and went to two hands, rubbing behind both ears.
A low, pleased rumble worked through the wolf's chest—half memory, half animal bliss.
"Do not purr," Eddi begged the universe. "Please don't let the murder wolf purr."
"Wolves don't purr, Eddi," Edwire muttered automatically. His brain was shutting down from the fear but his habit of correcting remained.
The wolf's nose lifted, catching a thread on the wind—the coat. He stopped rumbling, head turning toward camp and then back to the steady hand. A soft, questioning whine leaked out, too small for lungs that size.
"See?" Ed said proudly. "He's talking."
"He's deciding," Edwire corrected, swallowing. "About what we are."
"What we are," Eddi muttered, "is appetizers."
Trying to help, Ed patted the Wolf Lord's cheek and said, bright as morning, "Sit."
The old word slid into older places. The Wolf Lord froze—something hidden under scar and rage dropping into a remembered track—and then, slowly, like a boulder remembering how to roll, folded his haunches under him. He never broke eye contact. He just… sat.
The other two stared.
"What the fuck?" Edwire blurted, Ironbone lineage leaking through. "Even hounds don't take to orders like that. That would mean—what, no—?"
"Spit it out, Sockhead!" Eddi hissed, grabbing his shoulder.
"Someone tried to train him," Edwire said, baffled. "Sometime. Long ago."
"Huh," Eddi said dumbly. Then louder, "HUH!?"
The Wolf Lord's ears twitched at their noise, but he stayed. Ed, delighted, tested the edge of a miracle. "Stay," he said, holding up a hand like he'd seen the Houndmaster do to puppies.
The great head tipped, confused by the shape of the palm… and stayed.
Eddi's eyes went wider. "Okay. Okay. New plan." He kept his hands visible, like he was talking to a jumpy customer. "We're going to introduce him to Boone and Miss Sula. Slowly. Without screaming. Edwire, you walk on his left. Ed, you keep petting—apparently that's the off switch. I'll go fifteen paces ahead and warn them that we are bringing a—" he swallowed, "—gaint wolf."
Edwire didn't move. "If he's trained, there might be more words," he whispered. "Down? Heel? Uh…Good Boy?"
At that last one, the wolf's ear flicked toward him, as if the sound brushed a buried nerve.
"Good Boy," Ed repeated, softer, palm on that scarred head. "Good Boy."
The Wolf Lord's tail thumped once.
Eddi pinched the bridge of his nose like Kardin. "I hate this. I hate that this is working. I hate that I'm in charge." He pointed at Edwire. "You say 'stay' if he stands up. You say 'easy' if he rumbles. Ed, you keep the scritches going until your arms fall off."
"Can do Eddi!" Ed said happily and he found a spot that made the Wolf Lord's hindleg kick. Oh that's the spot.
...…Sula's POV….
"Ed! Ed!" I called, annoyance leaching into worry. "If you wiped your ass with poison ivy, I swear to Jun I'll make you...…"
Brush rattled, but no answer. I stomped through the trees, parting fern and willow—
—and stopped dead.
Ed stood with both hands buried in the neck ruff of a wolf the size of a bear. Black as burned oak, shoulders like a bull elk, scars webbed pale over the hide. Eddi and Edwire were frozen and useless.
"We did not plan this!" Eddi squeaked.
He was bigger than the stories. He should've been on them already—and yet he wasn't. Head tipped, ears forward, a pup's posture trapped in a monster's body.
"Ed," I said, low and sharp. "Away from the wolf. Now."
"But he's a nice puppy," Ed begged, still rubbing.
I let a growl ride my breath.
Ed flinched like I'd tugged his ear and shuffled back toward me, head down, toe kicking a rock. "Mama won't let Ed have a puppy either," he muttered.
I moved up, slow and square, putting myself between the boys and the beast. The great head tracked me, curious. Then the wind shifted and Rion's coat bellowed in the breeze.
The Wolf froze, nostrils flaring. His eyes widened. A small, broken whine leaked out of the chest that shouldn't have been able to make that sound.
Every faint breeze kicked Rion's scent off the leather—oil, smoke, him. The wolf's eyes went wide and searching, swinging past me like he expected a man to step out of the trees.
I remembered Rion at the ruin of his house, thumb on a bent tag, voice rough: black fur, white paws, white chest. The way he'd gone quiet when I'd described the Wolf Lord. I remember detail because he would casually mention things from the past like he was talking about the weather and I wanted to hear every detail.
I swallowed, slid the coat off my shoulders, and tossed it into the leaf litter.
His head snapped. He padded forward, huge and careful, and nosed the coat once, then again, breath hitching into quick, high whines. He shoved his muzzle under the collar and dragged the weight to him like it was something alive that might run.
"Back to Boone," I said, not looking away. "Now."
The boys didn't argue. Edwire grabbed Eddi's sleeve; Eddi tugged Ed by the belt; they disappeared in a tangle of elbows and whispered swear words.
The clearing held its breath. The wolf circled, nose working, yips lifting into the trees as if calling for someone just out of sight. He howled once—low and long, a sound that made the hair rise along my arms—and when nothing answered, his ears sank. He curled around the coat like a pup left too long at the door and let out a sound I'd only heard from children who'd lost their mothers.
I eased a step closer, palms empty. "It's him, isn't it?" I whispered, useless words for a creature who didn't need them. The wolf pressed his face into the leather and whimpered again, drinking the scent like water.
I decided to say a word to confirm my suspicion, a name that would bring more questions if it was answered.
I remembered the name easily—how could I not, when it matched the tyrant of New Rome.
"Cesar?" I said, barely above a breath.
The reaction was a whipcrack. The great head snapped, eyes locking on me like I'd just stepped into existence. Then he moved—no, vanished—and a heartbeat later his chest hit mine and I was on my back in the leaf litter. It wasn't the speed that shocked me. It was the silence. He moved like a small animal that had learned the soft walk and then kept it when he outgrew every law of size. Something that big shouldn't know how to make no sound at all.
He loomed over me, weight braced through his forelegs so he didn't crush my ribs. Gold eyes searched my face. He lowered his muzzle and began to take me apart with his nose—cheek, throat, the hollow under my ear—each breath a low, uncertain growl. He dipped to my hair and inhaled. Rion's bed. Oil, smoke, salt. He pulled back, head tipped, puzzling out how I fit the picture he was making.
"Easy," I said, palms open by my shoulders. I slid one hand to his side and laid it flat against the hard meat of his ribs. Heat. Old scar under the coat of black.
An ear flicked toward the word like it brushed a buried nerve. The growl thinned to a sound that wasn't threat—just confusion.
Up close he was wrong in ten directions. Rion told me his Cesar was smaller. Much smaller. Black fur, white paws, white chest—yes—but not this. Not bear-wide shoulders and a second heart thudding like a drum. Not claw marks healed into rope under the hide. I kept my hand moving slow, steady, the way I do with yearlings and scared boys. He leaned into it a fraction, then glanced past me toward the coat lying where I'd tossed it. His nose twitched. A soft, clipped whine.
"It's me you're smelling," I murmured. "Him… on me."
I could have reached for my axe. I didn't. He'd chosen not to hurt me when it would've been easy. He'd pinned me to look, to ask, not to kill. I breathed with him—long, even—let him read the shape of me and the truth of the scents I carried, and tried to make peace with the thought that Rion's little dog might have come back wrong and enormous, and still remembered the name.
He leaned into me and sat, like a dog who'd forgotten his size. "—oof." His weight knocked the air out of my lungs. That was the strangest part: the manners of a smaller animal still wearing a body this big. He shouldn't have learned silence, and he shouldn't have learned to sit gently, and yet here he was, trying.
He looked up at me with those big gold eyes and then down again, easing the breadth of his skull into my lap. He sniffed once, twice, as if sorting me into the picture he was building—Rion's scent, my hair smelling like his bed, the coat nearby heavy with him. A mate? The thought flickered across his face in dog-simple shapes. What did that make me?
"Family," I said, soft as I could say anything.
Something answered under my hand. Two heartbeats. One deep and slow, one tucked in behind it like a second drum. Spirits of Land and Air. That's why he's so big.
I slid my palm along his spine—and jerked when my fingers met cold. I parted the fur. Metal. A bar running the length of him, sectioned and cunning, like a spine forged and laid over bone. I breathed out through my teeth and felt for more, cautious, mapping with fingertips. Plates under the shoulder. A seam high on the rib, another low along the flank. You couldn't see any of it through the midnight coat, but you could feel it.
Where metal met flesh, the lay of the hide went strange. Not like torn hide healed rough—like the straight, tidy wrongness healers leave when they stitch a wound. Whoever did this didn't just bolt it on. They wove it in.
The old stories said when the Wolf Lord first appeared in the lands he raged at anything that moved, so wild the shamans muttered about him being under the possession of evil spirits that the Derangement of the machines had spread to the beasts of the land. I'd believed them. Now, with my hand on metal that didn't belong and scar over scar laddered into the pelt, a different truth settled in my chest.
"Maybe you weren't cursed," I whispered into his ear. "Maybe you were hurting."
He huffed, a gust of animal breath making me wrinkle my nose, and he pressed his head harder into my lap, the way a much smaller creature asks to be told it's all right. I stroked between his ears, slow and steady, and felt both hearts answer: the great one under my palm, and the stubborn little one beside it, keeping time.
"It's okay," I murmured into his ruff, palm on the slow drum of those two hearts. "You're not going to be in pain anymore. We'll get Curie to look at you. And Rion—Rion will be with you again."
Puff.
A kiss of air on my neck. Then heat, sting, heaviness. My fingers slipped in his fur.
More pops, soft and professional—puff, puff, puff—and a dozen black-fletched darts sprouted in Cesar's hide. My eyes went wide, then heavy, the paralytic riding hot in my blood. I forced breath through my teeth and reached for my axe that I'd left—stupidly—leaning against a tree.
Cesar surged up, every scar waking at once. He launched at empty air.
A man appeared in his mouth mid-scream, camouflage like a Stalker stuttering into view as copper glass and matte black took the shape of a body. The wolf whipped his head once—twice—bone cracked loud as a branch, and the suit's cloaking died in a spray of blood. Hexes crawled and vanished along the man's arms as they came apart.
"Hit him again!" a voice barked from somewhere behind me.
More darts stitched Cesar's flank. He bit at nothing—teeth closing on invisibility—and a severed leg flashed into existence in his jaws, boot still on. He shook it like refuse and turned for the next target.
"Nets!" the voice snapped.
They slammed down out of nowhere—monofilament blooming from projectors, turning visible only when they struck fur and ground. A click, a whine—then the world went white and jagged. The nets spat lightning. Cesar roared, a sound like a landslide tearing its own throat. The noise was so loud that I wondered where Boone was as that should have sent him running my way, but I recalled the attack had come from the direction of our camp. These shadowmen had to have attacked him first.
Cesar bellowed again but the lightning became more intense and he went limp.
I heard footsteps behind me and out of nothing a man shimmered into full view: matte black plates over flexible weave, hex pattern ghosting along the seams, copper visor as reflective as a clean mirror in the ruins. "Never seen Beelzemutt act like that before," the man said, voice filtered thin by the mask. He crouched, gloved fingers hooking the back of my head, forcing my chin up until my reflection warped on his visor.
"Now," he said, almost cheerful, "you're going to tell me how a primitive cave girl tamed him on sight. And don't say 'Beauty and the Beast.' I'm short on patience for fairy tales."
I snorted and gathered what spit I had left. The gob slid down copper and left a bright, ugly snail trail.
"Ha," he said, like I'd confirmed a theory.
He didn't slap. He didn't haul. He just put his fist into my temple with the clean, boring efficiency of a man breaking a knot he didn't have time to untie.
Black came on like a curtain. Cesar's smell—smoke and rain and Rion's leather—was the last thing I kept hold of as the ground rose up and took me.
...…..Rion's POV — night, the Spiked Paw
"Holy—!"
The left greave fired off the floor like it had opinions, heel whipping past my ear. I caught it in the blanket and wrestled it like an angry badger, thumb mashing the kill-switch on the piston housing.
"Fine! You don't smell like ass. So stop trying to kill me!"
The hiss bled out. I set the boot beside its brother, both of them glaring at me in absolute silence.
"There's some chaos energy in you, that's for damn sure," I muttered—
—and a voice cut across my Focus like a knife through canvas.
"…Alpha-Three reporting: Cerberus prototype secured. One tribal female captured; anomalous pacification observed. Request immediate exfil—repeat, immediate—one KIA, one critical amputation, bleeding out—"
My eyebrows shot up. The reply came bored and flat, like a clerk on his third shift.
"Alpha-Three, confirm visual. Pipe a feed."
My vision ghosted to life with a live window. Grainy night optics, hex-noise at the edges—then clarity: Sula, bound and gagged, unconscious on packed earth. Beside her, a wolf so big my brain refused it for a second. Familiar… and wrong. The feed jolted as someone panned; nets hissed with residual charge; a copper-visored helmet leaned into frame and wiped spit off his faceplate with two fingers and flipped off the camera.
I didn't know why I was getting this. Then I did. The Enclave—because who else—piggybacking the Focus network like it was their private phone line, arrogant enough to skip encryption. Or lazy comms. Smart money was on the lazy comms by the sound of it. Either way, their leak was my open door.
"Asset secured," the clerk said at last not carrying that he was flipped off. "Vertibirds inbound. ETA… twelve minutes. Hey Martin, when can we get coffee out of storage" he said to someone in the room, not bothering to turn off his comms.
"Copy." the operative on the ground grumbled cutting the line.
"Copy this," I hissed.
I jammed my feet into the greaves. For once they didn't fight me. The Nanoboy 3000 crawled armor over my skin at a thought—plates knitting, seals kissing shut, the whole thing humming as it took my weight. I yanked World-Cleaver off the wall, locked Warcrime into the back holster, checked Terra's Gift—full mag, clean—then primed Zeus' Wrath for quick pull, capacitor arming with a sullen whine.
"Fuck the stairs."
I shouldered the window open and went out into the summer dark. The Grove yawned below—alleys black as wells, rooftops bright with moon. I hit the ground in a piston-cushioned crouch, the Twin-Stroke whispering a pleased tick in my heels, then sprinted.
As I ran I had the Focus key on to Boone and Sula's trail. Fairly easy with messy footing of the kids
I trigger the Kure release to pick up speed.
Somewhere out there, rotors would be knifing the air in less than ten minutes. Somewhere out there, a lazy comms officer was about to learn that unsecured channels have consequences.
"Time to fuck up someone's day," I said, and pushed harder.