She hauled it up, and he hoisted it to the top of the fortification with a grunt.
Rin couldn’t help liking the scrawny urchin, who reminded her of a younger Kitay, if Kitay ad been a one-eyed pyromaniac with an unfortunate adoration for explosions. She wondered how long he’d had been with the Cike. He looked impossibly young. How did a child end up on the front lines of a war?
“You’ve got a Sinegardian accent,” she noticed.
Ramsa nodded. “Lived there for a while. My family were alchemists for the Militia base in the capital. Oversaw fire powder production.”
“So what are you doing here?”
“You mean with the Cike?” Ramsa shrugged. “Long story. Father got wrapped up in some political stuff, ended up turning on the Empress. Extremists, you know. Could have been the Opera, but I’ll never be sure. Anyways, he tried to detonate a rocket over the palace and ended up blowing up our factory instead.” He pointed to his eyepatch. “Burned my eyeball right out. Daji’s guards lopped the heads off everyone remotely involved. Public execution and everything.”
Rin blinked, mostly stunned by Ramsa’s breezy delivery. “Then what about you?”
“I got off easy. Father never told me much about his plans, so after they realized I didn’t know anything, they just tossed me into Baghra. I think they thought killing a kid might make them look bad.”
Ramsa nodded cheerfully. “Worst two years of my life. Near the tail end, the Empress paid me a visit and said she’d let me out if I worked on munitions for the Cike.”
“And you just said yes?”
“Do you know what Baghra is like? By then, I was just about ready to do anything,” said Ramsa. “Baji was in Baghra, too. Just ask him.”
“What was he there for?”
Ramsa shrugged. “Who knows? He won’t say. He was only there for a few months, though. But let’s face it—even Khurdalain is
so much better than a cell in Baghra. And the work here is
Rin gave him a sideways look. Ramsa sounded disturbingly chipper about his situation.
She decided to change the subject. “What was that about in the mess hall?”
“What do you mean?”
“The—uh . . .” She flailed her arms around. “The monkey man.”
“Huh? Oh, that’s just Suni. Does that maybe every other day. I think he just likes the attention. Altan’s pretty good with him; Tyr used to just lock him up for hours until he’d calmed down.” Ramsa handed her another bag. “Don’t let Suni scare you. He’s really pretty nice when he’s not being a terror. It’s just that god fucking with his head.”
“So you’re not a shaman?” she asked.
Ramsa shook his head quickly. “I don’t mess with that shit. It screws you up. You saw Suni in there. My only god is science. Combine six parts sulfur, six parts saltpeter, and one part birthwort herb, and you’ve got fire powder. Formulaic. Dependable. Doesn’t change. I understand the appeal, I really do, but I like having my mind to myself.”
Three days passed before Rin spoke with Altan again. He spent a good deal of his time tied up in meetings with the Warlords, trying to patch up relations with the military leadership before they deteriorated any further. She would see him darting back to his office in between meetings, looking haggard and pissed. Finally, he sent Qara to summon her.
“Hey. I’m about to call a meeting. Wanted to check in on you first.” Altan didn’t look at her as he spoke; he was busy scrawling something on a map covering his desk. “I’m sorry it couldn’t be earlier, I’ve been dealing with bureaucratic bullshit.”
“That’s all right.” She fidgeted with her hands. He looked exhausted. “What are the Warlords like?”
“They’re nearly useless.” Altan made a disgusted noise. “The Ox Warlord’s a slimy politician, and the Ram Warlord is an insecure fool who’ll bend whichever way the wind blows. Jun’s got them both by the ear, and the only thing they all agree on is that they hate the Cike. Means we don’t get supplies, reinforcements, or intelligence, and they wouldn’t let us into the mess hall if they had their way. It’s a stupid way to fight a war.”
“I’m sorry you have to put up with that.”
“It’s not your problem.” He looked up from his map. “So what do you think of your division?”
“They’re weird,” she said.
“Oh?”
“None of them seem to realize we’re in a war zone,” she rephrased. Every regular division soldier she’d encountered was grim-faced, exhausted, but the way the Cike spoke and behaved made them seem like fidgety children—bored rather than scared, off-kilter and out of touch.
“They’re killers by profession,” Altan said. “They’re desensitized to danger—everyone but Unegen, anyway; he’s skittish about everything. But the rest can act like they don’t understand what everyone’s so freaked out about.”
“Is that why the Militia hates them?”
