Free Of Bone and Thunder by Chris Evans

among the pile of luggage hastily tossed from the beast. Rickets followed along like a puppy eager to play.
    â€œYou don’t know it now, Jawn Rathim, but you just made one of the best decisions of your life.”
    Jawn didn’t bother to answer. He was just as certain that he hadn’t.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    â€œWEEL’S GOING TO GET us all killed is what he’s going to do,” Voof said, pacing around the small clearing the shield had settled into to wait out the night. He covered the distance from one end of their small encampment to the other in just twenty long strides. “Not that he’d care. There ain’t no need us being up here. Ain’t no rags flying at night. He’s just pissed ’cause a few officers got the shit scared out of ’em.”
    No one could be bothered to echo his gripe. The rest of the shield was bone-tired and flaked out among the vegetation on the mountaintop. They formed a rough circle facing outward, covering every opening in the jungle the slyts might use. Soldiers had finished stringing prick vine, the tough, thin, thorn-covered vine that grew throughout the jungle, around the camp. As an obstacle it wasn’t much, but in the dark it might catch an unsuspecting slyt trying to sneak up on them.
    The ocean breeze didn’t seem inclined to join them at the summit, so they sweltered in the humidity and batted at swarms of bugs. The climb back up had taken most of the daylight with it and the shadows were growing long.
    Lead Crossbowman Listowk lifted his head a fraction from where it rested on crossed arms draped over his knees. It was even silver on whether the complaining Vooford would wind himself up into a fury or wear himself down to a mumbling sulk. Normally, Listowk would have bet on the heat sapping the soldier’s strength, but Vooford had that rare quality of finding energy in misery and multiplying it until everyone around him suffered.
    â€œWhy don’t you park your ass, get some food in you, and enjoy the great outdoors?” Listowk asked, mustering just enough energy to point at the trees with his nose. “If you’re real nice, Carny might even have a treat for you in one of those haversacks,” he finished, turning his head to catchCarny’s surprised expression a few feet away. Did Carny think he didn’t know what the little cripple had brought him?
    â€œFuck you, and fuck Carny, too,” Voof said, raising his voice even louder. “In fact, fuck you all!” He paused in his pacing to look around. “Just ’cause you got strong-armed into the army don’t mean you stop thinking. We’re still citizens. We got rights. More than ever. Why should I fight for this king? He ain’t even a real king.”
    â€œIf a slyt doesn’t put an arrow in that festering wound you call a mouth, I will,” someone grumbled from the other side of their encampment.
    â€œWho said that?” Voof shouted, bringing his crossbow up into a firing position in front of his chest.
    Listowk sighed, letting his right hand slide down his leg. His hand came to rest on his own weapon lying on the ground beside him. It was cocked with a bolt resting in the groove. He hooked his thumb under the iron safety latch, gently caressing the smooth metal. A quick flick up and the latch would release, freeing the trigger.
    â€œNow, now, children,” Listowk said, looking around the encampment. Tired, dirty, and scared faces looked back him. They really were like children. “Let’s all just take a breath and relax. It’s hot, we’re tired, and we’re stuck up here with nothing but dirty thoughts about sweet things. But do keep in mind, this is slyt land. We don’t need to be making their job any easier by squabbling among ourselves.”
    â€œSince when is thinking for yourself a problem?” Voof said, still staring in the direction of the hurled insult. “Long past time we woke and