“How many spirals did you condense?” he asked.
“One.”
His eyes narrowed like he didn’t believe me. “All that Spirit, and you only condensed once?”
“Is that bad?”
“Someone who started cultivating as late in life as you, I woulda expected ten, twelve sloppy spirals, and those barely hanging together.”
When I realized that was Warcry’s version of a compliment, I smirked.
“You’re impressed,” I said.
“Bollix I am.”
“I’m going to tell everybody that Warcry Thompson thinks I’m cool.”
“Do and I’ll kick your head in.”
“Who were you trying to keep up with?” I asked him. “You said you overcultivated when you were trying to keep up with somebody better than you. Who was it?”
Red flames burned down his shoulders and arms.
The answer hit me like a right hook I should’ve seen coming.
“That Nameless fighter girl?”
Warcry scowled across the creek. “Nameless make good workers, don’t they? They’re all over Qaspar-7, you can pay ’em near nothing, and they’ll work themselves to death for a credit. Most of ’em do. Me ma’s factories and mines create a lot of orphans who eventually grow up to work in her factories and mines and create new batches a’ orphans. For public appearances, she started building schools and orphanages around the planet. Just for the looks, mind. Show the galaxies what a benevolent saint Ma Thompson is, treating the Ylefs under her so kind after they tried to stamp her and the Meat Roaches out, no matter that they’re Nameless, look at her take care of all these little trash infants.”
He spat off toward the tree line. “What they don’t tell you is the places are landfills, and as many orphans don’t survive as do. She grew up in one of ’em, Hyla did.”
I looked at him.
“That Nameless bird you’re so interested in,” he explained. “Get back to working, grav. If you can sit there, you can cultivate.”
“Right.” I closed my eyes and started Swallowing the Universe and Reclaiming the Dead.
The trick with Warcry must’ve been not looking at him, because after a few seconds, he spoke up again.
“I never woulda met her, but I took a trainer from one of the gyms on her side of town. Had to. The masters me ma was bringing in weren’t teaching me jack, just keeping her spoiled little scag busy.” The shift in his voice was so subtle, I doubt I could’ve caught it without the newly heightened Ki-senses. “Hyla was his top student. She could grind you up like you’d got caught in a drill press. Had to or she never woulda lived long enough to fight her way outta that company orphanage, would she? But you saw her—she’s got the kinda face every promoter dreams of putting on a fight bill.”
I kept my mouth shut. There’s no polite way to say, “Your ex-girlfriend is hot as balls.”
“Every day she kicked me head in. I never worked so hard as I did to beat her. I cultivated every second I was awake. Even stopped sleeping once four days in a row ’coz she convinced me Ylefs didn’t need sleep and I was wasting valuable cultivation time ’coz meat roaches were weak.”
“She was messing with you,” I guessed, cracking one eyelid.
Warcry snorted. “She was a proper spider queen, even back then. I burnt down half me room when I finally passed out.”
“So what you’re saying is you could’ve warmed up the MealBagz.”
He stabbed a finger at my face. “That’s the problem with you, grav, you can’t keep your bleedin’ gob shut.”
“Just making an observation.” I shut my eyes and pretended to focus on my breathing. “No more interruptions, I swear. You were overcultivated. Go on.”
I was starting to think he wasn’t going to loosen up and finish his story this time. Then I heard him scratch at his stubble.
“Never did figure out whether she’d done it on purpose so she’d have a stronger sparring partner or she was just winding me up. The more I hated her, the stronger I got, yeah? But I couldn’t ask her outright. She would turn any assumption you made to her advantage, make it seem like she’d planned it all along, even when she hadn’t.”
Maybe I was still a little reckless from the gemstone life point. I didn’t think before I blurted out, “Do you think that’s what she was doing when we ran into her on Ryu? Pretending she’d planned to screw you over all along when really she didn’t?”
I slammed flat on my back in the dirt with Warcry’s fist crushing my throat and his metal knee in my gut.
“Don’t even suggest that, grav,” he snarled, red flames licking across his shoulders and down his arms. “It’s all a head game with her. Always has been.” He hauled my head and shoulders up off the rocks, then slammed them back down. “From day one, she was planning to take me for a ride, and it worked. I walked right into her punch, just like always.”
He let go and shoved off me, knocking a little more of the wind out of my lungs. He was halfway across camp before I pushed myself back up.
Just before he slapped the door flap aside and ducked into the darkness of his tent, I heard him growl, “Has to be.”
Work Week
THE NEXT FEW DAYS FELL into a routine of clearing the temple of skelebuddies, cultivating, and condensing. Either because I stopped sleeping in until the hottest part of the day or because Sushi agreed not to cultivate Lost Spirit from me anymore, the suffocating wakeups stopped.
I kept looking for new ways to damage the script on the skeletons’ forehead gems so I could get at the life point inside, but didn’t find any easy answers. I wasn’t skilled enough with the scythe yet to hit a tiny bead in the middle of a fight, so I had to rely on my elbows and the occasional high kick. Unlike the Van Diemann ferals, the soul contamination from the skelebuddies was low, so I just had to remember to burn
