Eighth Circle

The night vision scope wasn't necessary. She switched it off and used her binoculars in day mode. The scene below defied description. The pod was burning with an intense violet light. Dead trolls were scattered around.

At first she thought they were the old guard. Then she realised that couldn't be right. The bodies belonged to the trolls who had vaporised the pod with their ray guns. They had reacted automatically when the colour changed from blue to pink and had suffered the inevitable consequences of being too close to their target.

No one spoke. The northern fairy's head was still covered. The display of weapon power was sobering. Most people saw it on television but few experienced it in real life and lived to tell the tale.

The smoke cleared and the roar died down. Hands reached out to congratulate Allain. Liala was pleased that he was the centre of attention. In the excitement, people had forgotten about her and Bryn. She crawled towards him and their hands met.

***

It was warm in the vehicle maintenance building. Liala smelt grease and other old-world substances needed to keep old-world vehicles running. There was nothing like it in the palace. Pods didn't need grease and they were maintained by palace trolls, not by people.

Bryn knew a lot about vehicle maintenance and that meant he knew where they might find a nice quiet place where they could spend the night out of sight of Allain and anyone else who might try to stop them getting to know one another better.

A quick search took them to a small storage room for things that stopped trucks making too much noise. Bryn called them silencers. From the giggles and heavy breathing coming from other rooms it seemed that silencers weren't employed in lovemaking.

Bryn seemed embarrassed by the noise. Liala noticed that the women made more than the men and wondered if they enjoyed sex more. Or, were the men the strong silent types? She guessed she would learn more about that later.

They laid out their bedrolls in a narrow gap between some boxes. There wasn't room for both so one went on top of the other. Liala undid the fasteners on her coat and pulled it off. It had been caked with snow. Now it was dripping wet. So was Bryn's. She threw them to one side and peeled off her woollen sweater.

'We could be dead tomorrow, Bryn.'

'You must stay safe,' he took her in his arms.

'No. I'm going to take part.'

'Allain says you must stay out of the fighting.'

'He didn't say that about you.'