Soultaker

by Duperre, Robert J. ;

  A man barely into his twenties, tall and clean-shaven with a head of long black hair, emerged from behind the driver of the lead wagon. This new stranger was the only one without a ranged weapon; instead, a polished saber hung from his belt, its pommel encrusted with red gemstones. Another upstart, though Meesh. More interested in appearance than practicality. Probably never even swung a sword.

  The young man hopped off the wagon and stood with hands on hips before the knights. His duster was similar to Shade’s, only newer and embroidered with bitterroot blooms. He chortled and swung his head from side to side. “My man Bryce asked you a question,” he said.

  Meesh shrugged. “He did? I can’t remember.”

  “Who are you?”

  The knights remained silent.

  “I suggest you answer, unless you wanna bleed out in the sand.”

  Meesh looked at his brothers, but it seemed they were allowing him to take the lead on this one. Will wonders never cease. “You got a point,” he said as he again faced the brigand. “I’m Meshach, and the cute couple on the other horse are Abednego and Shadrach.”

  The young brigand’s eyes widened. “No shit?”

  “No shit.”

  “Ha!” The kid started pacing in front of Meesh, mindless of his nine cohorts, who seemed to grow more concerned by the moment. Of them, only Bryce the driver seemed to have himself completely under control. His glare said this was a man who’d lived violence. That’s the one to watch out for, Meesh thought. The other bandits would be easy enough to control after things ran their course, for they were visibly nervous; one of them removed a hand from his rifle to wipe sweat from his brow. Meesh snickered.

  “What’re the odds, eh?” the kid said, slapping Bryce the driver on the leg as he paced by him. “This is awesome! I mean, shit… three wagons, twenty-four bangers, fifteen bitties, and now this!” He put his back to the knights and held his arms out wide. “The Bandoliers are gonna be huge, fellas! And the name Rolin Shayne’s gonna be legendary! Ain’t that right, Bryce?”

  Bryce pressed his cheek against his rifle. “If you say so, boss,” he grumbled.

  “Rolin Shayne,” Meesh said. “That you?”

  The kid turned and cocked his head. “Uh, yeah.”

  “Thought so. Just checking.”

  “And now you know the name of the man who brought down the Knights Eternal. You don’t even know how many folks down in Gatlin talk about you all. It’s like you’re bogeymen or something. Never knew how three dudes could make so many people so scared. And now that I’ve met you, I still don’t.” He cocked his head to the other side. “Though you look younger than I thought. At least two’a you do. And I also don’t remember anyone saying there were two darkies in the bunch.”

  Meesh jabbed his thumb at Shade. “That one don’t count. He’s just really tan.”

  Shade rolled his eyes.

  “Whatever,” Rolin said, looking bemused. He shook out of it and grinned wide. “Don’t matter. You are who you say you are, you gots weapons and such we could use. Let’s see ’em.”

  “What’s to stop us from killing you all where you stand?” Meesh said with a smirk.

  “I’d say the nine guys with bangers aimed at your chests.”

  “Touché.”

  “So hand ’em over. Everything. I want one o’ them glowing swords.”

  Meesh nodded to the kid, reached into his saddlebag, braced one hand atop his hidden gun, leaned over, and tossed his second revolver, still sheathed, to the ground in front of him. Pam nickered. He sensed his brothers’ eyes on him and glanced up. They both were frowning. Trust me, Meesh mouthed, and Abe and Shade lifted their weapons. The shotgun and railgun fell to the earth seconds later.

  Rolin’s smile stretched wider.

  As Meesh sat back upright and made for the Eldersword clipped to his belt, he heard more sobbing come from one of the wagons. He froze in place and watched one of the rifle-wielders bend his head beneath the canvas and shout for whoever it was to shut up. More cries followed.

  “Hey, what’s the holdup?” Rolin said, scowling. “Swords. Now.”

  “Okay.”

  Meesh unclipped the Eldersword and, instead of dropping it next to his pistol like Abe and Shade had, he threw the weapon underhanded toward the young brigand leader. The collapsed sword twirled tip over hilt and landed only a yard away from Rolin’s feet.

  “There,” Meesh said. “It’s yours.”

  The kid had the dumbest grin Meesh had ever seen plastered on his face. Rolin swiftly bent over and scooped up the sword, holding it out before him in amazement. “Who’s a knight now, dumbass?” he said excitedly.

  Meesh winked. “You are.”

  Rolin whipped the Eldersword to the side, but nothing happened. He did it twice more, and still the blade didn’t respond. The kid looked pathetic. Bryce hopped off the wagon, kept his rifle shouldered, and stepped around his fumbling young leader.

  “Make it work,” the gruff man demanded.

  Meesh shrugged. “I can’t. You need to make a connection. Sometimes it takes a while.”

  “What kinda connection?” Rolin whined.

  “I don’t know. A freaking connection. I use the thing, I don’t understand it.”

  “This is dumb. I can’t… wait, I feel something.” Rolin stared at the blade. “It’s… vibrating. Humming.”

  “The connection’s made,” Meesh said. He sat back in his saddle and waited.

  Gradually, the Eldersword began to faintly glow. The tip then extended outward, section by section, until it reached its full length. Bryce stepped to the side, rifle still aimed at Meesh’s head. Rolin’s overconfidence dissolved; the brigand held onto the sword like it was a poisonous snake that would bite him if he made the wrong move.

  That wasn’t far off from the truth.

  The blade’s glow brightened, a soft yellow at first, then orange. Finally, it flared the brightest purple Meesh had ever seen. Rolin’s jaw dropped open as if to speak, but no words left his mouth.

  “What’s happening?” shouted Bryce. The man waved his rifle between the brothers and his now-shaking leader.

  “Bad connection,” Meesh heard Abe say.

  Rolin turned to him, eyes wide and pleading. His body shook as if he was being electrocuted. Blood dribbled from his nostrils, ears, the corners of his lips. His eyes exploded in a geyser of red, and the young man pitched backward as even more blood erupted from his mouth. He hit the packed sand hard and bounced. His body quaked out of control; his life’s fluid leaked from seemingly every pore.

  Bryce’s gaze flitted toward Rolin’s falling body for half a second; that miniscule moment in time was all Meesh needed. In a single motion he grabbed the revolver hidden beneath the sweat rag, lifted it, aimed, and fired. The bullet pounded into Bryce’s temple, snapped his head back and to the side. The man toppled over atop his expelled brain matter. Meesh rapidly swiveled in his saddle and loosed a second round at the man hanging off the third wagon—the one who’d tried to silence those hidden inside. When he spun off the wagon and fell dead in the dirt, Meesh waved his pistol at the remaining seven men. The horses harnessed to the wagons stomped their hooves in panic.

  “Who’s next?” Meesh asked. “I got ten shots left. Think you can kill me before I get at least two of you?”

  The men stared at him, disbelieving, and then threw down their rifles. Abe and Shade leapt from Greenie’s back, scooped up the discarded weapons, and shouted for the seven brigands to step away from the wagons. The brigands did so, shaking.

  Meesh slowly climbed off his mare and sauntered over to Rolin’s stilled corpse. He bent down and pried the retracted, now-dark Eldersword from the young man’s stiff fingers. “Wh-what happened to him?” one of the captured brigands asked.

  Meesh raised his eyebrows and remained silent. He wanted to tell the man that a bonded Eldersword had only one owner, that it was connected to the very soul of that owner and would destroy anyone who wished to steal it ot
her than a fellow Knight, but instead just shrugged and sheathed the blade.

  Shade kept his shotgun trained on the kneeling brigands while Meesh and Abe checked the backs of the wagons. Meesh wasn’t shocked to find that each of them held a small group of young women—the fifteen “bitties” of which Rolin spoke. The girls ranged from twelve to twenty, and all were bruised and battered. Some moved in a hunched-over way, and Meesh knew what that meant. He glared at the sniveling brigands.

  A hand fell on his shoulder. “I’ll take care of the women,” Abe told him. “You see if you can figure out who those belonged to.” He jabbed his thumb at the wagons.

  Meesh bit down his anger and did as he was told. In all he found twelve more rifles, forty-three sachets of bullets, a sack of black powder, a sleeve of carving knives, and a crate of dried and salted foodstuffs, but there were no clues as to what happened to the missionary who’d owned these wagons before.

  When he was finished, he crept out and joined his brother. Abe was speaking to what appeared to be the oldest of the fifteen girls, all of whom had the olive skin and wavy hair native to the town of Pinchu. The young lady had the hard eyes of someone who’d seen far too much adversity over her short life.

  Abe looked up quizzically as Meesh approached, and the long-haired brother shook his head no. Abe brought his lower lip above his upper and offered an oh well gesture with his hands. He then turned his attention back to the girls.

  “That’s fine, Maria,” Abe said, then addressed all of them at once. “You may have these wagons, the horses, the bangers, and anything else inside. Consider it a gift after what you’ve endured.”

  “That is very kind.”

  “It’s the least I can do. I only wish we could take you with us.”

  Maria nodded before casting a hateful look beyond Meesh, to where the brigands still kneeled. “And what of them?”

  Abe glanced at the men, took a deep breath. “They’re yours, too,” he said.

  “Ours?”

  “To do with as you wish.”

  “Oh.”

  Abe placed his hands on the young lady’s shoulders and bowed his head in respect. He and Meesh walked back toward their horses as the girls collected their new bounty.

  “What was that all about?” Meesh asked.

  Abe grunted. “Most were kidnapped outside Pinchu. The others were scooped up along the way. The girl, Maria, said they’ve been on the road for weeks now.”

  “And the wagons?”

  “Don’t know,” Abe said with a shrug. “According to the girls, the brigands had them when they were kidnapped.”

  “Huh.”

  “But that’s not all.”

  Meesh chuckled. “Uh-oh. Care to tell me?”

  “In a minute.”

  Abe stopped at his stallion and patted its hide. Meesh likewise stroked Pam’s mane, thankful to have a horse that didn’t act skittish around gunfire like the draft horses had. Abe waited until Shade joined them before speaking once more. In the distance, the brigands continued to kneel, now berated by their former victims.

  “We might have a problem,” Abe said.

  Meesh rolled his eyes. “Of course. What now?”

  “Breighton’s a four-hour ride that way.” Abe pointed eastward along the Pass. “However, the girls were adamant that we can’t go there.”

  “And why might that be?” asked an emotionless Shade.

  “Because they said it’s empty. Deserted. Possibly haunted. Even the brigands didn’t stick around to pilfer when they rode through.”

  “You believe it?” asked Meesh.

  “I don’t know.”

  Shade shook his head. “I don’t. Breighton’s home to sixteen thousand people. That many folks don’t just up and leave without a trace. They were probably cooped up in the back and lied to, that’d be my guess.”

  “It’s possible.”

  Meesh laughed aloud and swung himself up onto Pam’s back. “Well, there’s only one way to find out, isn’t there?”

  “Indeed there is,” Abe said as he helped Shade into the saddle behind him. “And by the way, Meesh, you handled yourself well today. Better than I would have.”

  “Yeah,” Shade said, almost reluctantly. “It was impressive.”

  Meesh smirked. “Gee, thanks, dads.”

  “Don’t mention it,” replied Abe.

  The brothers left the fifteen young women behind and rejoined the Wayward Pass. When they were two miles away and the wagons were mere blips, seven gunshots cracked across the desert air, one after another.

  A few hours after that, as morning passed into mid-afternoon, the towering spires of Breighton came into view.

  8

  “YOU MUST SEE IT, ABE! THE BEAUTY! THE WONDERMENT! EVEN THE GREAT PINE IS DULL BY COMPARISON!”

  —SHADRACH THE 18TH

  10 SECONDS BEFORE DEMISE

  Though Shade had been to Breighton many times before, he still found himself awed by the mirage of concrete and metal that sprouted from the Wasteland like some lost alien city. The towers rocketed high into the sky, their spires steel fingers reaching desperately toward the heavens.

  He placed his hands on Abe’s shoulders as the massive steed beneath them crossed from desert sand to the flat black surface of the city street. Countless yawning windows stared down from the gargantuan monoliths. The towers were ancient, a few nothing more than skeletons of interlocking steel that blotted out the sun and left the central road bathed in dappled light, yet the temperature in the city was at least twenty degrees warmer than the open desert. It was so hot that Abe’s steed struggled with every step, and Shade knew that if he dismounted, his boots would sink into the strange black stone of the main road.

  Smaller buildings lined both sides of the street. These weren’t made of steel like the colossal towers, but crumbling brown bricks hemmed by iron gates. Similar structures checkered the secondary roads that intersected with the main throughway. It was in these three-story structures that many of the city’s populace resided. Shade squinted and looked to the left and right, but every window was dark. He tilted his head, but heard no sound save the sloshing hoof beats and the whine of wind passing through the narrow gaps between buildings.

  It seemed the women they’d rescued weren’t lying. Breighton really was abandoned.

  Meesh trotted ahead, his smaller mare having an easier time on the spongy road, and Shade felt a pang of sorrow for Gypsy. The poor horse might’ve given him a backache with her uneven gait, but she was nimble and reliable. I should have taken one of the draft horses, he thought, though he knew none of them would be Gypsy’s equal.

  Meesh stopped in the center of the road and let out a whistle. “Wow,” he said. “I’ll be honest, I’m a little freaked out. This can’t be good.”

  “Don’t jump to conclusions,” said Abe.

  “Hard not to.”

  “We’re at the west end of the city,” Abe said. “The smallest population center. It’s possible everyone moved on somewhere else.”

  “Like the towers?” Meesh asked.

  Abe frowned. “Not likely.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because they’re falling apart,” he replied. “Mitchell Hogan, the magistrate here, deemed them uninhabitable.”

  Shade drummed his fingers on Abe’s back. Of course he remembered Mitchell Hogan, a good man who’d dedicated himself fully to the Pentus. He was Sal Yaddo’s biggest ally in the Wasteland, much more cooperative than Fatisha Dorl, the woman who ruled New Salem, the other of the Elders’ surviving cities to the southeast. However, Mitchell wasn’t the brightest of men. He’d risen to power simply because he was well liked, not because he made good decisions, as the putrid yellow waistcoats he’d brought into fashion would attest. It was just three years ago that that Knights Eternal had been called here to quash a rebellion.

  “Maybe Mitchell was overthrown,” he said.

  “Perhaps,” Abe replied. “But by who?”

  “Who do you think
?” Shade swung out of the saddle, his knee striking Abe in the back in the process, and the older man let out a surprised yelp. When Shade landed on the road, his boots did sink into the sticky surface a bit, but it was manageable. He counted himself lucky that the day was cool by Wasteland standards—a hundred degrees at most. He brushed back his wide-brimmed hat, snatched up Rosetta, and walked ahead.

  “Going it on foot?” asked Abe.

  “No. I’m gonna fly,” Shade shot back.

  Meesh cackled. “Shade made a funny! Brah, I didn’t know you had it in ya!”

  Shade glared at him. “Not in the mood.”

  Meesh just sighed.

  “I’m telling you, Cooper had something to do with this. He—”

  A sound came to him, soft and constant like running water, and his mouth snapped shut. He cocked Rosetta, walked forward another few steps, and gazed down the shadowy main street. Something moved in the distance: an undulating black cloud. The din of many voices shouting at once reached his ears.

  The black cloud approached, fast.

  “Demons!” Shade hollered. He dropped to one knee and hastily emptied Rosetta of her usual ammo. He then dug his hand into his bag, but when he pulled it out, he could only stare at the two silver slugs nestled in his palm. “Shit.” He had been so distracted by his inner turmoil that he’d completely forgotten he was virtually exhausted of demon-killing slugs.

  “Only a half-clip left myself,” said Abe from behind him.

  “Eight silvers here,” Meesh added.

  “Shit,” Shade repeated. He let out an angry howl and shoved the two shells into the chamber. Please don’t be something we can’t handle. His free hand touched his Eldersword.

  The black cloud grew closer, and it wasn’t demons approaching, but dogs, lots and lots of dogs. They barreled toward the knights at full speed, yipping and barking. Shade slung Rosetta back over his shoulder, removed his blade, and held it before him with two hands, preparing for the pack of canines to attack.