Rustam dreamed of fire. Red tongues crept up to the walls of his house, filling everything with thick smoke. He screamed, warning his family. Scorching heat poured in from every doorway and window, gradually driving the boy back into the depths of the house. Wherever he turned, there was no one and no escape route.

  Desperate, he prepared to throw himself through the crumbling window when a gigantic figure smashed its way through the clay wall of the house, filling the room with the sound of rattling chains. Furious blue eyes found the stunned boy, a predatory mouth twisted into a smile, a blinding orange light shone between its lips, and a white-hot glove reached for his face.

  “Blades... Morons... Decide already...” A din of voices burst into his dreams, shattering every object in sight.

  He remained in the cool, reassuring darkness that didn’t frighten him one bit. No air came when he tried to breathe through his nose, and Rustam finally woke up, seeing the familiar ceiling of the medical bay above him. He raised his hand, surprised to find himself wearing a green hospital gown instead of his torn clothes. A tight bandage covered his face, covering his nose. Rubber splints were visible on his knuckles, reaching up to the phalanges.

  “Don’t remove the antiseptic!” The owner of the familiar voice grabbed Rustam’s wrist. “I just applied it. You know, we need to stop meeting like this.”

  “Sylvie!” Rustam laughed, finding himself in an embrace. Dressed in clean overalls, her hair tucked under a red beret decorated with the ash-colored emblem of the von Bülow lion, the girl gently hugged him to her chest, then firmly laid him back on the pillows as Rustam groaned in pain from his stretched fingers. Sylvie’s cheeks had plumped up during their brief separation. She’d gained weight, though he’d decided not to mention it, wisely deciding he’d had enough beatings for the next few days. The last traces of fatigue had faded from her face, all the scratches had healed, and the scars had become thin, whitish stripes, barely noticeable from a distance.

  “Pure piercing is ineffective! Sooner or later, you’ll encounter a solid obstacle. My method lets you either puncture or drill a path directly through the material.”

  “If you had your way, you’d give everyone sausage fingers like yours! No, bulkiness is unsightly and attracts attention. The blades can be discreetly inserted into armor joints during conversation.”

  “Perhaps you should choose already?”

  “Girls are the worst.”

  “I’ll try not to pass out again,” Rustam laughed, accepting a tube of nutritional paste. Clumsily handling it with his stiff fingers, he poured the food into his mouth, satisfying the hunger threatening to twist his throbbing stomach into a knot.

  “Oh, now I’ll never know how to insert an intravenous feeding catheter,” Sylvie sighed.

  “Don’t experiment on me!” Rustam exclaimed, grimacing from the pain in his throat. “How long was I unconscious?”

  “Less than an hour.” Sylvie slapped him on the cheek. “Congratulations. You have the flu, hypothermia in your knee muscles, a burn on your face, and general exhaustion. Terry... Theodora, the nurse who taught me how to apply bandages, has sent a formal complaint to the highest levels. Now you will no longer be separated from our group.” She leaned closer, whispering. “I think Theodora and Butylin are having an affair.”

  “Happiness to them,” said Rustam, confused. “How is everyone? How is Yeshua? And that owner who saved me?”

  “I’m not an owner of you,” came from the next bed. “I’m resting and enjoying the spectacle.”

  “Yeshua is in the operating room now.” Sylvie put her hand to her mouth. “Cenfus is trying to stabilize him. You mustn’t worry! Better watch the idiots.”

  Sylvie adjusted the handle of his hospital bed, raising it at an angle so Rustam could survey the compartment without rising from the pillows. To their left was Insectone, his hands clasped behind his head. A thick layer of frozen foam concealed the spot where the heat had taken his leg, but he showed no sign of distress and chatted pleasantly with a green-tattooed savage, exchanging methods for preserving crops during the storm.

  About a hundred wounded were inside the compartment. Order infantrymen, moved through the passages, monitoring their unexpected allies among the raiders. Bahran and Farrin’s beds were in a corner, near the entrance. The two of them were playing cards with Butylin, answering his questions.

  The soldiers divided the wounded into two groups, forming a cordon around the defectors from the ranks of the locals. Aside from a few slaps dealt to a bandit who tried to pinch a nurse’s butt, the atmosphere was animated. People asked about acquaintances rescued from Latif’s fortress, asked for praise for the crusaders, told the uninitiated about the Oathtakers, and kept those who had lost friends or family from locking inside themselves.

  The former, Rustam hoped, bandits were more interested in opportunities to join the new gang, inquiring about wages and customs.

  The ‘idiots’ turned out to be Decimus, Gosha, Tsereg, and Unni, gathered around the girl who had lost her fingers. The Malformed held the girl’s hand tightly between two fingers, measuring her stumps first with a scanner, then with an old-fashioned ruler. He wore a mechanic’s assistant suit that refused to tear, open at the neck. A backpack filled with tools hung at his waist.

  Gosha grinned in greeting when the girl giggled and called him a balloon. The spikes growing from the Malformed’s body pressed against the material of his clothing, doubling its bulk. Decimus recorded the data Gosha was giving him on a tablet and explained the procedure for grafting artificial limbs to the young patient. Overall, both were presentable.

  Unni and Tsereg yelled at each other, gesticulating furiously before the girl’s face.

  “Drills are the best replacement for fingers,” Tsereg declared, kneeling next to the bed. At her nod, Decimus brought up an image of five whirring drills on the terminal screen. When they stopped, the artificial fingers turned out to be assembled from individual segments shaped like roses. The front segments were smaller, while the subsequent segments gradually increased in radius. The outline of a human hand with connectors instead of fingers and a hefty generator appeared on the screen. “Look, little one. When turned off, you can use them to pick up pieces of meat, baskets, shake hands, and hold a pen. You can even just…” She clenched her hand into a fist. “…punch someone without risking cutting yourself or accidentally killing someone. The epitome of versatility.”

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  “Which will require some room in your palm.” Unni pressed herself against the girl’s other side. Decimus altered the images, summoning compact, clicking blades that slotted into sockets on the screen. They were five to ten centimeters longer than the previous prosthesis. “The drills will require a power-hungry generator to operate. Why waste money charging it? The blade-fingers require no energy to operate; they are completely controlled by the main prosthesis, seamlessly merging with your nerves and muscles. They weigh less, which is preferable for maintaining dexterity. A fork can be used with the other hand, and the sharp cutting edge is equally adept at cutting through sausage and human bone.”

  “Must be fun sleeping with it,” Tsereg said.

  “They have sheaths,” Unni retorted. “The drills are activated by a command from the brain. No matter what sheath you put on them, you won’t be able to sleep without worry.”

  “Don’t listen to her; this model is quite popular for flesh- rending...”

  “That’s the problem!”

  “If the model is popular, then the fingers don’t maim users!”

  “Survivorship bias!”

  “Can I not maim or hit anyone?” the girl asked.

  “Why’s that?” Tsereg and Unni stopped arguing, staring at the patient. “What do you mean, not maim? Are you stupid or something?” they asked in unison.

  “You’re both cretins,” Decimus said. “Normal people aren’t obsessed with the thirst for battle.”

  “Girls are the worst,” Gosha groaned. He nudged Decimus in the side.

  The Troll removed the image of the blades from the screen. Now, segments flew into the slots, forming individual metal fingers that, from a distance, could pass for human. Gosha waved his hand over the tablet’s buttons, finally hitting one, and the artificial limbs turned red. Hearing laughter, he panicked, trying every button in turn, giving up when the fingers took on a shimmering rainbow glow, looking like they could melt the hand.

  Gosha gave the older girls the middle finger while Decimus fiddled with the terminal, changing the shade of the mechanisms to a color similar to the girl’s skin. Silver droplets adorned the tips of the artificial fingers, and rubber served as fingertips.

  “That’s what Decimus and I are proposing,” Gosha said. “The basic motors are silent; I checked. We’ll prepare the silvery surface for adhesion. I don’t know why this is important, but Decimus assured me that the girls like to paint themselves...”

  “Paint their nails,” Decimus corrected. “Our guest is from the settlement, and they usually follow the trends of civilization.”

  “Did you hear that? You’re barbarous strays,” Gosha chuckled into the faces of Tsereg and Unni. With a crash that made Butylin turn around, their fists slammed into the Malformed’s face, failing to move him back more than a centimeter. Rustam noticed the boy’s toe claws dug into the floor. “Ney spanks harder than you hit.”

  “I didn’t know you and Ney had such an intimate relationship,” Tsereg cooed, shaking her knuckles.

  “I...go screw yourself! So that’s it. You can glue fake nails, or you can paint the surface itself.” “When you grow up, buy additional segments to maintain the same length of the fingers on both hands. The grip strength of the basic model is enough to grind rocks into sand, but adjusting to the difference won’t be difficult,” Gosha said sheepishly.

  “Thank you! Yours is the best,” the girl laughed, reaching out and hugging the Malformed, while all four teenagers became alarmed, urging her to be careful and not hurt herself on the bone spikes.

  “Are you mechanics now?” Rustam grinned.

  “Assistant," Gosha grumbled, turning the red vessels of his pupil-less eye toward Rustam. “I asked Decimus how I could be useful, and he enlisted us in the maintenance department.”

  “We’re mostly given tasks like ‘fetch-get-away-watch-don’t-disturb,’” Decimus explained.

  “Bullshit! We’re assembling the mechanisms, and Decimus is trusted to input the data while I learn to read,” Gosha said. “I’m not stupid, Smoothskin. I might not understand the squiggles yet, but I can always handle tightening nuts, wiring, disassembling rifles, and I know numbers better than you ever will.”

  “That’s wonderful. I’m happy for you,” Rustam said sincerely.

  The bone snout reviewed him, trying to find the slightest sign of mockery, then the Malformed relaxed.

  “It’s great to have you back, Rustam. The mechanics here are always open to apprentices. Ignore my bitching; mastering the profession isn’t at all difficult...”

  “Young man, you said you can’t read,” a pale man spoke up from the bed behind the group. Bandages covered half of his scalded torso.

  “Yeah,” Gosha turned around defiantly. “Plan to laugh, stickman?”

  “I work as a village teacher. Since chance brought us together, why don’t we correct this gap in your education?” the man suggested, not at all offended.

  “With pleasure, sir...” The Malformed was embarrassed.

  What had bitten him? Rustam shook his head, hearing Sylvie’s chuckle. Apparently, the others hadn’t been idle while he was gone either. Sylvie soon brought him some soup, dismissing his assurances that he could feed himself, and fed him with a spoon.

  “Sylvie, I need to speak with Tsereg in secret,” he whispered. “It’s very important. Could you call her to the restroom?”

  “You’ve been prescribed bed rest...” Sylvie paused when Rustam reached out and took her wrist. “Okay. Just for a little while. I’ll go tell her, then we’ll find you some crutches.”

  “I can walk.”

  “No, you can’t,” she declared.

  Rustam exhaled, clasping his hands behind his head. Not that Sylvie’s concern for him wasn’t pleasant, but there were far more around who deserved or needed it. He lay back on the pillows, gathering his strength to prove his independence. Someone tugged at his sleeve, and he turned to face Grisha, clinging to the bed and holding onto an empty chair for balance.

  “Hello! I thought they didn’t let you go anywhere without an escort.”

  “They’re not. I guessed when everyone was sufficiently distracted and slipped away.” Grisha looked down. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t get it?”

  “They asked me how Draz would react to the cruiser’s sudden approach.” He bit his lower lip. “My mind conjured up a picture of you running outside, giving me the precise chain of events necessary to create a situation in which Draz would be frightened enough to leave you alone... But something went wrong. I didn’t foresee Yeshua getting hurt. No one’s telling me exactly what happened, but I gave the wrong forecast, I messed up the time, I...”

  “You’ll calm down and stop blaming yourself.” Rustam sat up, surprised by the complexity of this simple movement, and with difficulty he grabbed Grisha under the arms, sitting him down on the bed. “I’ve realized one thing. There’s no such thing as perfection. People get lost, those we consider bastards prove otherwise, and even the strangest acquaintances display miracles of heroism. See that huge porcupine freak near the entrance? He could have let me die, but he saved me. And I thought all the inhabitants of Volnitsa were villains. I considered myself a coward, but it seems I wasn’t. You see, sometimes awful things just happen.”

  “I’ve failed you. If I had used my power correctly, looked at the situation from a different angle, or been less overconfident...”

  “You’re not listening to me,” Rustam said, placing his hand on Grisha’s shoulder. “Your ability, as I understand it, makes a verdict on a possible future based on available information. You couldn’t have known what was happening inside Rabor. No one could. Don’t think about what you could have done differently; the main thing is, the advice you gave saved people. Draz is doing evil. His minions are crippling people. You’re always ready to help, regardless of the harm to yourself. That’s what a hero does. Strive to be better than you were yesterday and don’t take on the consequences of bastards’ actions. Life is too good to be poisoned by regrets.” Sylvie waved at him, and Rustam nodded, whispering in Grisha’s ear. “How about slipping away again? But without resorting to your power.”