A glint. Someone had thrown down a slingshiv, buried hilt-deep in the bloody sand. Tattoo-Face was too close and too fast, scooping it up and slashing twice across my forearm, tearing open a flap of flesh the size of my thumb. A mist of blood sprayed three metres away to spatter on the wall. His arm blurring as he swiped at my forehead, nicking bone, the stormtech desperately trying to plug the pain. Blood sheeted into my eyes. The cut in my arm was slowly healing, stormtech welding flesh together again. Not fast enough.
We circled each other again through the wreckage. Our bodies heaving and bloodied. He routinely lunged forward with a vicious little strike, hacking and slicing me away piece by piece. I kept my arms up in an attacking stance. Sweat and blood dripped into my eyes, blinding me, but if I wiped it away that would be the opening he needed to bury the slingshiv in my throat. My opponent’s eyes dissected me. He spun the weapon, the bloody metal clicking and clacking. A shard of glass speared into the flesh of my foot and I tensed, my stride momentarily broken. Tattoo-Face lunged on rangy legs, performed a hacking slash across my elbow. Metal gouged into me, dangerously close to a vein, jarring off a bone. He slashed me across the cheek, then feinted and chopped downwards, trying to cut my hand off, grazing my fingers and hacking a table in half. Splinters sprayed in my face. I skidded backwards, putting distance between us as we resumed circling.
The stormtech spiralled through me, repairing damage, but it couldn’t hold back the pain that was throbbing harder and harder through my body. My savaged and sliced knuckles ached to the marrow. My heels scraped the sand. Sweat smeared my vision. Jeers poured down from above, trying to throw me. My heart pounded in my throat, limbs aching as I held them in striking positions. My body seemed to be on the verge of shutting down, jumpstarted at the last second by stormtech. The end was closing in. Tattoo-Face’s circles tightened. He was already timing the strike. The stormtech thrummed faster inside me in response, pooling into my right arm, prompting me to attack. He flipped the slingshiv around, the dripping blade pointing downwards. Our ragged breathing was heavy and echoing in the enclosed space. Our unblinking gazes held. He dared me to make a move first. A rusty nail bit into my heel. I stamped down on the rising pain, didn’t break my stride.
The stormtech could use my body. But it couldn’t choose my strategy. Let Tattoo-Face work with this. Unmoving, not tearing my gaze away, I let the stormtech flood through me again, building up as one, solid mass. My breath hooked in my throat. My body was shaking from my multitude of stinging wounds, sweat and blood dripping down my hamstrings. Tattoo-Face circled in, trying to gauge the stormtech’s reaction, where I’d strike. But I wasn’t readying my body in a singular fighting position. Wasn’t telling it how I wanted to enter combat. It gave away nothing.
This confused him. Between one blink and the next, he flickered his gaze away, skimming over my body.
It was long enough.
He lunged, fast. I was faster. The slingshiv grazed over my stomach, slashing into empty air. In one fluid motion I broke his wrist, tore the slingshiv away and used his own momentum to pin him against the panelling. Me and the stormtech were one unified being as I punched the slingshiv up through his eye and into his skull.
He was dead before he hit the ground, and I dropped kneeling to the sand with him. Screams and gasps were muted as they echoed above me. My whole universe, my entire sensory being, was my body. Sweat was beading on my arms, only now the sweat was bright blue, staining the grit covering me. There was a sucking, liquid roar in the centre of my chest like a black hole. Demanding more kills, asking to be fed.
And I’d feed it. Saliva dripped from my jaws as my muscles rippled and tightened. Heaving, sweating, I swayed to my feet. Dug my heels into the sand and waited for my next opponent.
A figure staggered forward into the arena, coming into the light.
The world deflated and I felt myself stepping backwards. No. No, no. It couldn’t be.
It was Grim.
25
On the Edge
Not Grim. Anyone but him. Anyone in the whole of Compass but my best friend
I tried to put distance between us. My mind knew I should have been looking at my friend. But my body, my primal instinct, said this was another enemy. A Harvester wearing camo-armour, hiding in the treetops, an armour-piercing sharpshooter rifle cradled in his hands. The House of Suns must have kidnapped him and brought him here. Their revenge was me tearing my own friend apart while people cheered me on.
The speakers crackled to life above us. ‘Bets in quickly, folks. How fast will our prize beast tear this little man limb from limb? He won’t be able to stop himself!’
He won’t be able to stop himself. Kasia had used those words about our father; we knew he would
