She snatches her head away, but not before I feel that, in the already warm morning, she is far hotter than any human should be.

‘Don’t concern yourself,’ she says, licking her cracked lips.

‘General—’

‘I am fine. Only sick of being in this damn box on wheels.’ She lets her head fall back, her eyes close. ‘I used to have my own scout ship you know. A Hawk. It was a beautiful thing. Intelligent steering, stabilisation coils, self-adjusting atmospheric pressure. Never thought I’d be stuck on the ground like this, crawling along like a beetle.’

I don’t answer. It began two years ago, with the A-series. The Commander’s words come back to me. As they aged, they simply broke down. It’s a painful, wretched end.

‘What series are you?’ I ask.

The General doesn’t open her eyes. ‘C. There were thirteen of us. Raised at the base on Voivira, whittled down from hundreds.’ Her lips twitch. ‘The best class the Accord ever produced, according to reports. Late enough for the accelerated cognition process to have been ironed out, early enough that the programme had not yet been diluted to suit the bleeding hearts.’ She opens one eye. ‘D-series onwards are little better than figureheads. Not fit for battle. Not like us.’

I turn away.

It’s genius, I think, staring at the passing desert, brilliant with morning light. Calculated, twisted genius. Not only because the children it produced are near super-human, but because they are devoted to their cause as only the young can be. Because only a sociopath would fail to feel some pity for them. Whatever the General had done, however many atrocities she had committed, I can never forget that, beneath the scars and fierce intelligence, she should have been an ordinary child. And she knows that. Uses it.

But still, I can’t shake the feeling that they are using her too.

‘The way you fired at that craft,’ I say. ‘Did you… feel anything?’

‘What do you mean?’ she snaps, but behind the insolence I hear fear and know I am right.

‘You’re not going mad,’ I say, over the clatter of the wagon. ‘It’s them, it was the same for me in the beginning—’

But my words are cut off as the wagon bumps over something hard and metallic buried in the sand.

‘That’s a warning platform,’ Falco calls. ‘Be on your guard. We’re coming up to the Pit.’

Ahead, metal glints in the sun. Strange shapes are set at regular intervals along the road, on either side of the trail. As we draw closer, my stomach contracts.

They are cages, ugly boxes half-dug into the ground. When we pass the first an arm shoots out, clawing at the air with bloodied nails. We pass another, and another. Some look empty, others seethe with flies, dried gore soaking the dust before them.