Pawns in the game are not victims of chance

- from "Children's Crusade" by Sting

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There are footprints in the castle courtyard.

Not the tracks from the wrecked and half-stripped Stormwalker (and much good that desperate attempt did the Darwinists) which they've been following back to their source. These footprints are newer than the tracks. Overlaying them.

Holtz spots them first, although Stipp is sure he would've, regardless; he's a good tracker, and the day is bright and clear.

They disembark from their scout walker and check their helmets, their weapons.

"What do you think?" he asks Holtz in a whisper.

Holtz shakes his head. "Blood," he says, equally low. He's right. There's a series of stains on the patchy snow in the courtyard. That means whoever made the footprints is injured, possibly seriously.

Stipp crouches beside the shuffled, shambled line of footprints. "How many?"

"Maybe two," Holtz says after a moment. "No more than three."

Stipp agrees. Suddenly he's very glad he did not, after all, tell his commanding officer that this was a damn stupid assignment – that contrary to the rumor filtering through the ranks, no one had leapt from the Darwinist monstrosity as it went down. He had thought scornfully, back at the Herkules, that no one would do such a crazy thing, even in a war, even with imprisonment and death waiting on the ground.

But there are footprints in the courtyard, and one of the castle doors is standing open by inches.

Rifles won't be much good inside the castle, so they draw their pistols. The grip feels clumsy in his hand, but he's not taking off his heavy gloves. The temperature's too low for that.

The Herkules is already having trouble with its mechaniks. The faster, more agile single-rider scout walkers are all in various states of disrepair – frozen fuel lines, cracked pistons, impurities revealing themselves with brittle-metal fractures. Hence their slow and jolting trek in the two-seater, which is a tough old thing. Tougher than the glacier.

Altogether, the cold is merely an annoyance right now, but if they sit on this ice for another day, hunting runaway Darwinists, it's going to become a serious problem.

Holtz takes the lead and Stipp follows close behind. His heart is pounding, his eyes and ears straining, excitement and terror having a small war of their own within his chest. He's been a soldier for years, but it never gets easier.

Inside the castle everything is icy and silent. There's evidence of a recent fire, but when they check, the ashes are cold. That doesn't mean much. In this weather, at this altitude, a hearth can die as fast as a man.

A noise somewhere in the castle.

A scrape, a rustle, quickly hushed, exactly the sound a fugitive might make by accident.

The soldiers go absolutely still.

Stipp looks at Holtz, and he knows what the other man is thinking.

The castle is too big for only two men to search, and they don't know, after all, how many Darwinists survived the drop. Two, maybe three – maybe twenty more lying in wait for an ambush. They need to go outside again and fire off a signal flare.

Then a girl screams.

It's piercing and terrified: "Hilfe! Bitte! Bitte!"

Holtz, who has a little daughter waiting at home, doesn't hesitate. He plunges ahead into the hallways of the castle as the shrieks become sobs and the pleading becomes a wail. Stipp curses and goes after him.

They track the mysterious sound down a flight of stairs. Stipp is wondering what a girl's doing here, and what's happened to her. Is she a prisoner of the Darwinists? Does she live here? Is she from a nearby town, stranded here by unknown circumstances? It doesn't make any sense, and his unease grows as they carefully close the distance to the room where the cries are coming from.

The door is open wide. Stipp puts a hand on Holtz's shoulder, silently urging caution, and Holtz nods once, impatiently, in acknowledgement. They enter the room in a burst, weapons ready.

The girl is huddled on the floor, wrapped in an old blanket stained with oil and grease. Light spills from one small window that's half-buried in snow, making the room dim but brighter than the hallway outside. Stipp can't see her beyond a glint of blonde hair and a pale face beneath the dirty cloth.

"Miss?" Holtz asks. "Are you all right?"

The girl looks up and the blanket slips backward a few inches. Stipp wonders: Why is her hair cut so -

Something hits him in the back. No pain; only impact. He staggers and turns, trying to bring his weapon up, but his hands aren't responding, and to his surprise, his legs are no longer holding him up either. He falls to the stone floor of the castle, still trying to understand what's happening. Or rather, trying to tell himself that what's happening, isn't.

No one wants to admit that they're about to die.

Holtz shouts. Almost simultaneously, there's a deafening bang. Stipp watches Holtz fall backwards, slowly, slowly, and slump to the floor. The front of his uniform blooms red.

The girl is standing now, a black pistol in her hand. She looks horrified, but then swallows and steps forward and aims the pistol at Holtz's head.

Stipp wants to say, He has a daughter, the only reason you're able to do this is because he loves his daughter, but the thought slips away before he can get it onto his tongue.

He does close his eyes, though, so he doesn't have to see it.

He hears the second bang. Forces his eyes open again. The room is filling with smoke and he should smell the gunpowder. All he can taste is blood.

Pain has entered his chest at last, great and terrible, like being crushed beneath one of the Herkules' legs.

The girl says something in a language Stipp doesn't understand.

A boy with red-brown hair steps into view. He trades the girl a knife for the pistol and crouches in front of Stipp.

"I'm sorry," the boy says as Stipp's vision dims and tunnels. His German is very good, very cultured, and he sounds genuinely regretful. "But we need your walker."