Hell, neither was he.
This place will have to be cleared, he thought. The bodies must be hauled away and burned. He shook his head. Not our responsibility. They had done their job and rid Ramstable of the menace. My head’s cut, and the rest of me is like a huge bruise. What more could be asked of him?
A line from the Holy Book of the Pentus entered his mind: It is the responsibility of the strong to give freely of their might to the weak. Abe curled his fingers into fists and leaned against the wall of a squat domicile. Dust smeared across his shirtsleeve. You can always do more, he told himself. We are the Most Blessed. We were created to serve.
But haven’t we done enough already?
The contradiction of his thoughts threatened to drive him mad.
He kicked himself off the wall and ordered the survivors to begin the two-mile march back to the Red Cliffs. The sun had begun its descent, and Abe didn’t want to be stranded in the open desert when the predators woke from their daily slumbers. He also didn’t savor the idea of spending the night locked inside an abandoned home surrounded by over a thousand desiccated corpses.
There was little talking as the group trudged through the shifting sands. Meesh rode beside Abe—the long-haired man looking strangely thoughtful, his blue eyes focused on the slowly emerging stars above. Shade walked quietly to the rear. The eleven fresh corpses were dragged on wood planks behind the two horses. Abe glanced over his shoulder at Shade, who seemed even more despondent than usual. Abe found it quite surprising that the loss of a horse would have such a deadening effect on him.
I really don’t know you at all, do I?
Along the way, Abe checked his shoulder bag. He’d emptied out an entire clip of silver rounds, and the second had only thirty-two remaining. Taking out the possessors had been a daunting undertaking, nearly exhausting each of the knights. Abe hoped beyond hope that they wouldn’t come across another demon before they returned to Sal Yaddo. We should go back now, he thought.
A large gathering had formed at the Red Cliffs to greet the heroes. Mara Choon waited at the head of the assembly, hands clutched before her, chin held high. Abe dismounted and rubbed Greenie’s flank before stepping toward the woman and bowing.
“How many?” Mara asked.
“Eleven,” Abe replied. “Many are injured, and require attention.”
Mara stared with narrowed eyes at Abe and the two other knights, then at the twenty-five surviving volunteers, and finally the two planks carrying the dead. The leader of Ramstable nodded to a bloodied Moha Rann, who ordered three of his brethren to assist him in hauling the bodies to the crags.
“Will they be burned or buried?” Abe asked.
“Neither,” Mara said without looking at him. “They will be thrown into the deep cave beneath the tallest of the Red Cliffs. Their bodies will become one with the crystals buried beneath the earth and allow future generations to enjoy greater prosperity. From whence we came, so we will return.”
“Will you do that with them all?” Abe asked, thinking of the countless dead strewn about the streets of Ramstable.
“Yes, we will.”
“Whoa, that’s a shitload of prosperity,” Meesh blurted out, and Mara glowered. Abe moved to the side to block her view of the youngest knight. Meesh, why can’t you just shut up?
Mara’s eyes found Abe’s again. “Will you be leaving us?” she asked.
“I was hoping we’d be allowed to stay the night,” he said. “We have wounds of our own to nurse.”
The woman frowned, and for the first time, Abe could see the lines of age around her mouth. “You may stay,” she told him, “but not among our people. You can set up camp there, beyond the jutting crag. Out of sight, out of mind.”
Shade took a threatening step forward, teeth gritted. His duster and breeches were covered with dried blood. “How dare you,” he said. “We did as you asked… again! Where’s the gratitude? Where’s our thanks? Bah!”
The people assembled behind their leader gasped. Frau Choon snarled, but Abe spoke before she could reply. “These people are in pain, Shade. They have lost mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, children. The last thing they need is a reminder of what they no longer have, and that is what we represent. They are thankful, in their own way. It isn’t much to ask that we camp out of their sight.”
Mara nodded to him appreciatively, and a barely perceptible smile lifted one corner of her mouth. “We will send someone with food in two hours,” she said. “And three buckets of water, for you and your horses. I hope sand spider meat is acceptable.”
“It is,” Abe said.
“Very well. Two hours. Oh, and these are yours.”
One of the men behind her stepped out to hand the knights their instruments, which the townspeople had stored. Then Mara walked away from them without another word, toward the low cliff inlet where the main portion of her people had set up their temporary shelters. The others followed her, a procession of saddened faces and hunched gaits. Of them, only Moha, who had returned from hauling away corpses, offered even a wave of gratitude. Abe sighed when he noticed Shade clenching and unclenching his fists.
“Let’s go. I’m tired,” Abe said.
“Wait. You think I could maybe see if there’s a willing lady over there?” Meesh said.
Abe stared at the youngest knight, dumbfounded.
“What?” said Meesh. “What’d I say? C’mon, some of those girls are damn cute. Short, but cute.”
Abe shook his head in disappointment; Shade sighed.
“Shit, you guys suck,” Meesh grumbled.
Night was fully upon them by the time they lit a fire and removed their torn, bloody garments. Each brother nursed their many cuts. Abe pulled on a new pair of breeches from his bag—they were stiff and uncomfortable—and leaned against a rocky outcropping. His inner thighs still stung from chafing, but that should fix itself by morning. At least it isn’t so cold here, he thought. In fact, he felt downright comfortable. The nightly winds had shifted, now blowing from the east and blocked by the cliffs. Abe closed his eyes and savored the cool air. His wounds didn’t hurt so much now, but his mind was still taxed by the horror of the day.
I wish I could join Johnny S. for a drink, he thought, and a comforting feeling washed over him.
Abe’s eyes fluttered open, and he rubbed at them, confused. Who the hell is… is… damn. The name drifted away like a buoy on the tide. Shade and Meesh were busy cleaning their weapons, so he closed his eyes again and concentrated, trying to bring the vision back into focus, but all he saw was his past with his many brothers. His jaw clenched when he remembered something the previous Meshach had said just days before his life was ended by a brigand’s sword. “I’m thinking strange things. Words. Phrases. I don’t know what they mean.”
And then the man was dead, replaced by the newer, more sarcastic Meesh. Abe ran his fingers over his face. Is the same happening to me? It was a frightening proposition, for whatever strange mental affliction had impinged on that Meshach made him skittish and unsure; had he been in his right state of mind, he never would have allowed the bandit close enough to kill him in the first place. Abe shook his head, not wanting to dwell on it.
Someone whistled from just beyond the stone slab that hid the knights from view.
“Looks like soup’s on,” Meesh said with a laugh. He wrapped back up the bit of dried and salted pork he’d been munching on and packed it away. “Good thing too. I can’t eat another bite of this crap.”
Five children circled around the slab, two boys and three girls no more than ten and dressed in dirty homespun nightshirts. The two boys each carried a bucket of water to the waiting horses while the three girls brought the brothers a second bucket, along with three wooden bowls and a steaming iron pot. The children placed down the bucket, bowls, and pot in front of the fire and stepped back. For a few moments, the knights and visitors did nothing but stare at each other, until Meesh finally shrugged and leaned over the steaming vessel.
/> “Smells good,” he said with a grin as he snatched the ladle from the pot and spooned some kind of stew into a bowl. Abe watched the youngest knight tip the bowl back and slurp. “Huh, it is good,” he said. “Who knew bug meat could taste like this?”
He offered a thumbs-up to the children, and each of them grinned.
The brothers took turns serving themselves a stew filled with sand spider meat, corn mush, and what tasted like potatoes, which seemed odd. Potatoes were plentiful in Sal Yaddo, but Abe had yet to see any in the Wasteland. He looked up at the children quizzically. “Where’d you get potatoes?”
One of the girls scrunched up her face. “Potatoes?”
“Yes. These.” Abe lifted a soft chunk between his fingers and showed it to her.
The girl smiled and pointed up the crags. “That’s blewtit. They grow in the caves. Frau Lind picks them once a week. I think they’re mushrooms.”
“Mushrooms, eh?” Abe said. “And what spice is used?”
“Um, some crystals, I think.”
“That’s specific.” Abe brought the bowl to his lips, and broth dribbled down his chin. “Doesn’t matter. It’s very good.”
When the knights finished eating, they drank from the bucket. The water had a slight tang of sulfur, but it wasn’t so horrible. At least there was no grit in it.
The whole while, the children just stood there and stared. Abe tried his best to ignore them, as did Shade, but Meesh kept insisting they go back to their camp and bring him wine. “Actually, I don’t care if it’s wine,” he said. “Any liquor’ll do. Hell, bring me wormwood if you got any. I’ll suck that shit from the bark.”
He cackled at his own joke while the children gawked.
Finally, Abe wiped the water from his chin and faced the five youngsters. “Why are you still here?” he asked. He didn’t mean to sound harsh, but the kids recoiled from the question anyway.
“We just wanted… you know…” said the girl who had told him about the mushrooms.
“Sp-sp-spit it out!” Meesh blurted.
Abe gave them a sympathetic look. “Ignore him, children. And don’t worry, you have nothing to fear from us. You can speak freely.”
One of the boys stepped forward. “We heard that you play.”
“Play what?”
The boy held his hands as if he were strumming an invisible guitar. “Y’know, instruments.”
“We do,” Abe said with a nod.
“Can you play something for us?”
Meesh chuckled. “What, you never heard music before?”
“Well, sorta,” said another of the boys. “But Herr Shinn is pretty bad. He, um, twangs a lot.”
It was Abe’s turn to chuckle. “I see. A little hard on the ears, huh?”
The children all nodded at once.
“I think we can oblige,” Abe said, then turned to his brothers. “What do you say? A song before sleep?”
Shade glared, pulled his wide-brimmed hat down over his head, and reclined. Abe grunted his displeasure. You best snap out of it, brother, he thought.
“I’m game,” Meesh said.
“Good.”
The children clasped their hands in eager anticipation as Abe and Meesh gathered their instruments. Abe took a few moments to tune his guitar strings; Meesh lazily slapped at the skins of his bongos. When Abe finished, he turned to his brother and asked, “What song?”
“Your choice,” Meesh said with a shrug. “Just play.”
“Very well.”
Abe smiled at the children and began to plunk. He had meant to play “Under the Watering Shed,” a staple hymn in the Temple of the Crone, but the notes that sprang forth didn’t sound right. No, that wasn’t true; they sounded as right as could be, they just didn’t sound familiar.
If felt like creation, and it was intoxicating.
He closed his eyes and went with it, his fingers strumming out chords while his upper body swayed. Meesh easily found the beat and fell into rhythm. Then, when he reached the bridge, words sprang from Abe’s mouth.
“Well I’m rollin’ and tumblin’, cried the whole night long, I’m rollin’ and tumblin’, cried the whole night long, well I’m rollin’ and tumbling, couldn’t tell right from wrong.”
I don’t know these words. And yet he sang them naturally, like he had belted it out a thousand times before. The lyrics began to change, growing darker, more unsettling. Dread crept into the back of Abe’s mind, but still he played, his fingers moving as if on instinct, his voice filled with tormented emotion as it echoed off the crags. He was like a man outside himself, and it was terrifying.
Strange images flickered behind his eyelids, visions of a humid land filled with mud and crumbling wooden huts. Abe marched through fields of waist-high grass, letting the tips brush against his palms. There was innocence here, and life, and yet still that feeling of dread persisted. The mirage then shifted, and he stared down at a young woman whose face was as black as his own. The girl shrieked; sweat and tears poured down her cheeks. She was familiar to him, yet a complete stranger. And then she stopped breathing. Abe’s heart broke. It happened before…
He felt helpless, crying out toward the ceiling of a cramped cabin. He held the dead girl in his arms while unseen phantoms whispered their condolences into his ears. A child started to cry, a sound so loud it was like the heavens falling.
Abe’s eyes shot open; a flash of pain marked the back of his hand. He was still sitting, legs crossed, in front of the fire. The children were gawking at him, as was Meesh. Even Shade was staring, his hat propped up. Abe glanced down at his right hand, where a leaking gash had opened along his knuckles. A broken string bounced from the neck of his guitar.
“What the hell song was that?” Meesh asked.
“I… I don’t know,” Abe replied.
“It was good,” said Shade as he slumped back down and lowered his hat.
“Wow,” said one of the girls.
“Can you play another?” asked the oldest of the boys.
Abe shook his head. “No. Sorry, children. I’m tired. Please, leave us be for the night. It was my pleasure to play for you.”
Reluctantly, the children walked away. They seemed to linger at the edge of the tall slab, eyes wide with wonder. When they finally departed, Abe felt a sensation of lessening, as if now that they were out of sight they no longer existed. Just like all his previous brothers.
I never even asked their names…
“Abe,” Meesh said softly. “Brah, where’d you learn that? Did you just make it up?”
“Yes, something like that,” Abe replied.
“Can you play it again?”
Abe moved the broken string out of the way and put his hands in position, but he couldn’t remember the chords he had just played or the words he’d sung. He couldn’t even recall what had frightened him so badly. There seemed to be an empty space where the last five minutes should have been. I think I’m going insane, he thought.
“Well?” Meesh said.
Abe set his guitar back in its case and latched it, then wrapped a piece of cloth around his bleeding hand. “Not now,” he said. “I’m tired.”
Meesh inched toward him. The firelight gave his bulging blue eyes a reddish hue. Abe shivered.
“C’mon,” the youngest knight said. “Just a bit? That was freaking awesome.”
“I said no,” Abe shot back, and Meesh withdrew.
“Whoa, brah, no need to get all pissy. We already got a curmudgeon, don’t need another.”
“I heard that,” Shade murmured from beneath his hat.
“It’s not that,” Abe said, shaking his head. “I’m simply worried about how we’ll proceed tomorrow. We have some choices to make, like whether we head for home or continue on Cooper’s trail.”
“We don’t go home,” Shade’s muffled voice stated. “We keep going. To Breighton.”
“We’ll decide tomorrow,” Abe said. “Until then, I’m getting some sleep. After the day we just had, we a
ll need it.”
He bunched up his new tunic and rested his head atop it. The cool air caused his arm hair to stand on end.
“Said it before, say it again,” Meesh said before lying down himself. “You guys’re party poopers.”
I know, thought Abe. Inwardly, he debated whether or not he should sit up right then and there and tell his brothers what was going on with him, but decided against it. He lolled his head to the side and looked at Shade. The bearded man’s chest rose and fell at uneven intervals, as if in the pull of a nightmare. You look how I feel. He couldn’t chide Shade any longer for not speaking his troubles, for he was doing the same thing.
Maybe we’re not so different, he thought. Maybe we’re the same damn person.
Abe rolled over and tried to sleep.
7
“I CAN’T TAKE IT ANY LONGER. THE HORROR, THE FEAR, THE SUFFERING…IT’S TOO MUCH. DEATH IS PREFERABLE. I DON’T WANT YOU TO HAVE TO CHASE ME. SO PLEASE, YOU PIOUS BASTARD, MAKE IT QUICK.”
—MESHACH THE 19TH
2 MINUTES BEFORE EXECUTION
Meesh knelt on his perch behind a short stone ledge, steadied his hand, and sighted a desert fox, lazing on a boulder some fifty yards away, in his crosshairs. The wind blew with an unexpected fierceness, which made aiming difficult. Though his revolvers had been expertly calibrated, a stiff breeze could still carry a bullet far off its mark.
Not that Meesh necessarily thought that to be a bad thing. He was always up for a challenge.
The taupe-colored fox lifted its snout to the sky. Meesh gave the animal a voice, high-pitched and squeaky. “Lookit me, I’m a fox,” he said. “I just sit here all day sunning myself. My life’s sooo easy. Let’s do it again tomorrow!”
He squeezed the trigger. The fox barely had time to react to the crash of gunfire before it was hurled off the boulder with a spray of pink mist.
“Oops, no tomorrow for you,” Meesh said.
He sheathed his revolver and hopped off the perch. Abe and Shade were waiting some distance away, in a culvert cut into the Red Cliff’s rocky surface, and he waved to them before taking off after their dinner.
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