Iota picked the piece of bone out of his forehead and stared around, unbelieving. Shards of bone were everywhere. They looked like broken crockery. All that remained of the night soldiers were their uniforms, which were shredded, as if they had sustained close-range blasts from shotguns loaded with birdshot.
A hand curled around my neck and Ammit, unwounded, pulled me into a rough hug. “If you hadn’t told us to get down, we would have been cut to pieces.” And he put a kiss on my cheek. “How did you know?”
“I didn’t.” The only thing I’d been thinking was that I wanted us crouched and ready to charge, like the front line of a football team. “Everybody out. Bring your buckets. Eye and Ammit, you lead. We’re going to the Officials’ Room two doors up. If more night soldiers come, you two douse them and then drop to the floor. Everyone drops to the floor, but try not to spill your buckets. Now we know what happens.”
As we went out with our buckets （Eris kicked aside one of the shredded uniforms, then spit on it）， I took one look behind me. The team room where we were supposed to wait until it came our turn to fight was now a boneyard.
Good.
9
Ammit and Iota led the way. Eris had grabbed the late Gully’s bucket to replace hers. Jaya, her bucket now empty, brought up the rear. Just as we reached the door of the Officials’ Room, two more night soldiers came humping down the corridor from the brightly lit field.
“Oi!” one of them cried. （I’m pretty sure it was oi.） “What are you lot doing out? It’s just supposed to be the first set!”
Ammit and Iota stopped. We all stopped. Ammit, sounding beautifully confused: “En’t it supposed to be all of us this time? To salute His Majesty?”
They came closer. “First set only, you dummocks!” the other said. “The rest of you back in—”
Ammit and Iota looked at each other. Eye nodded. They took a step forward in perfect tandem, as if it had been planned, threw their buckets of water, and dropped. The rest of us were already down, this time not merely crouching, but on our bellies. We had been immensely lucky the first time; we might not be again.
These two also exploded. In addition to the flashes and the thudding sounds, I heard a kind of electrical crackling, like a small transformer just before an excessive power-load fries it, and I caught a whiff of ozone. Clouds of bone flew over us, rattling off the walls and bouncing along the floor.
Ammit got up and turned to me, all his teeth showing in a grin that was beyond fierce—it was fiendish. “Let’s all of us run out there, Charlie! We got almost a dozen more buckets! Let’s blow up as many of those fucks as we can!”
“Not at all. We’d get some and then they’d massacre us. We’re escaping, not fighting.”
Ammit’s blood was up, and all the way. I didn’t think he was going to listen to me, but Eye grabbed his neck and gave him a shake. “Who’s the prince, asshole? You or him?”
“Him.”
“That’s right, and we do what he says.”
“Come on,” I said. “Bendo? Bult? Buckets full?”
“Half,” Bult said. “I regret to say I spilled some, my prin—”
“Get ahead of us, facing the mouth of the runway. Double, you and Cammit, too. If more come—”
“We’ll give em a bath, right so,” Cammit said.
I led the rest of them, swinging my own bucket. I’d also lost some water—my pantslegs were wet—but the bucket was still three-quarters full. The door to the Officials’ Room was locked. “Ammit. Eye. See what you can do.”
They hit the door together. It burst open. It was dim inside, and the afterimage of the explosions hanging in front of my eyes didn’t help. “Who can see?” I shouted. “There’s a tall cabinet, who can s—”
One of our rearguard shouted then. A moment later there was a brilliant flash. By its light I saw the cabinet standing against the far wall, flanked by half a dozen wooden chairs. There was a howl of pain, then a second brilliant flash.
Bendo, Double, and Cammit came in, Cammit bleeding heavily from his face and arm. There were bone fragments sticking out of both wounds like yellowish-white quills. “Got two more,” Bendo panted, “but the second one did for Bult before I got ’im. Pulled him into a hug… he started shaking…”
So we’d lost one, but if Bendo was right, the night soldiers had lost six. Not a bad score, but there were still plenty of others.