Cloudy Hengsha's nerves were on a serrated edge. Nothing felt right. Her machete was too light in her hand, and her chains jingled too much. Her Saber sisters glanced at her over their shoulders, silently doubting her.
Besides Cloudy Hengsha, fourteen other warriors were assembled for this raid. All of them were bigger, stronger and meaner than her, which was no surprise, but they were all older as well. Cloudy was getting sick of that. Four years after being anointed a warrior, which was eleven years after Sabertooth oversaw her birth, she had expected to start out-aging some of the warriors from other squads. She had asked her war-mother, Red Sasha, if she could go with anyone younger. But as always, Red Sasha had done nothing.
The fifteen warriors stood in a cluster at the downhill end of the camp, covered in spikes, silver jewelry and black leather. Even Cloudy had a little of it, with a chain from her right shoulder down to her left hip and a sword-shaped brooch over her heart. Without any bones, tattoos or face paint, it was a conservative outfit, but it suited her. Her older sisters would have said that she didn't deserve to wear anything more extreme anyway. And they were right. In all the five battles she had been in, Cloudy Hengsha had never gotten close enough to kill anything, nor had she earned any scars-- not even a singed eyebrow.
And her sisters never let her forget it. A coward, they called her, for not running fast enough. Soft, they said, because she didn't take as much loot as they did. With no friends and no luck, Cloudy Hengsha had given up on winning glory and being awarded a gun. Her machete would have to last her for life.
Most of the clan had come to see off the war party, covering the lower hillside in humanity. The wood trusses and dead trees stuck up from the camp like sharp rocks from a riverbed. Old men mumbled to each other, barely watching, while the boys fiddled with tools or flirted among the crowd. A few of the women played games and fought, but the rest watched the gathering war party, rumbling with enthusiasm. Even the visiting Mauves looked excited.
Indira Shifter, Sabertooth's second-in-command, stood up on a boulder. "Go!" she howled. "Hit fast, hit hard, and come back fat with goods!"
The other warriors cheered and rattled their blades and stamped their feet. Cloudy Hengsha nearly allowed herself to be swept up in the excitement, but she knew that Shifter wasn't talking to her. Nobody ever did. Five times, Cloudy had let herself believe that she was born to be a warrior like the others, and five times the opposite had proven to be true. This time, things would be different. She wouldn't play their game.
The raid leader began southeast into the jungle, out of the firelight, and the rest of the troop followed with hunched backs, sneaking strides and grinning faces. Soon, their sneak turned into a run, and Cloudy struggled noisily along the scratchy, moist brush, which she could only see by the pale red light of the lamp hung on the back of the leader's vest. She panted, not caring how many mosquitoes she swallowed, and snarled as she slipped down a muddy slope. But she did not lose her balance, and she did not slow down.
"It's coming up," said the leader. "Remember, this is just a raid. So take the most valuable stuff first, and don't carry more than you can run with. If you see any boys, ignore them. There's no time."
It meant nothing to Cloudy. Boys were not for her anyway.
"Okay," said the raid leader, peeking over the top of a boulder. "We're here. When I say 'go,' we go for that tall barn."
Cloudy couldn't see the barn, but she knew who she'd be following. That was good enough.
"Three," said the leader, "Two. One. Go!"
Boot soles pounded on wet grass. Leaves and grit flew. Battle-shrieks filled the air. In an instant, all fifteen warriors were out of the jungle, into the barren ring of ash that surrounded Bonde Wakulima, running with the residual after-sunset glow at their backs. Cloudy's feet sank in the loose soil, but she kept pace with the others. More importantly, the town's dreaded guns were silent.
