“You play?” Abe asked.
Asaph shrugged. “I’ve been known to.”
“You’re full of surprises,” Meesh said.
Asaph took his seat, fiddled with his strings, and smiled. “You don’t even know the half of it.”
Shade pivoted toward the man. “What songs do you know?”
“Some,” Asaph said. “Just play. I’ll follow along.”
“Very well,” Abe said. His gaze lingered on Meesh. “You have enough left for ‘Love Along the Wayward Pass’?” he asked.
Meesh’s dismissed the question. “Brah, I can sing all night.”
“Alrighty then. Asaph, we’re starting in A-minor.”
“Got it.”
“Love Along the Wayward Pass” was an original Meesh had written just a few months back, after he had spent a night with a sultry young beauty in the quaint village of Summit. The lyrics were suggestive, the tone seductive, and when he closed his eyes, he found himself thinking of Kamini’s face. He imagined the angry woman in a state of bliss, back arched, hips thrusting.
He was so wrapped up in that fantasy that he had forgotten Asaph was playing with them, which spoke to the man’s talent. When Meesh opened his eyes toward the end of the song and sat back to wait for Abe and Shade to play their way to the raucous crescendo, the sound of a guitar strumming faster than he’d ever heard before rose above all else. Abe was wildly plucking his strings, his eyes intent on Asaph, who was a whirling dervish, his head thrown back, mouth opened wide as if in ecstasy. His hands were a blur.
Asaph played so aggressively and without restraint that Meesh eventually stopped trying to keep up the beat, placing his bongos on the steel platform below and simply watching. Soon Abe surrendered as well, and Shade joined them just seconds later. All three knights took in the unreal spectacle along with the rapt audience.
Asaph’s rapid notes were haunting in their sincerity, brutal in execution. It was a lonely sound, yet powerful, not so much a concise melody as a stream of emotion that leapt from his strings. It rung in Meesh’s ears, tugged at his heart.
Finally, Asaph struck one final chord, and thick twang echoed across the valley at the edge of the world. The crowd remained silent, too overwhelmed to know how they should react. Asaph dropped the guitar to his lap and beamed. He didn’t appear winded, wasn’t even sweating, after such a startling display. Meesh and his brothers slowly brought their hands together.
The crowd exploded in applause.
The knights stood up and backed toward the edge of the platform, urged Asaph to do the same. He did so reluctantly. The four of them then clasped hands and faced the multitudes, the adulation washing over Meesh in waves. He bowed. The cheering continued.
“How the hell did you learn to play like that?” Abe asked the older man.
“I guess it’s just in my blood,” Asaph replied.
“Well… it was spectacular.”
Asaph looked a bit sad when he said, “Thank you, Abe. Trust me, it means a lot. Especially coming from you.”
Cooper climbed back onto the platform and thanked the knights for their service while the mob continued to roar. He clasped Shade’s hand overlong, and the two men stared at one another in the manner of long-lost friends. First Shade wanted to kill the man, now this. Make up your damn mind, brah. Meesh shrugged and hopped down off the platform. “I don’t know ’bout you,” he shouted at his brothers, “but I could use a drink.”
“There is liquor for everyone!” Ronan Cooper bellowed. Meesh laughed aloud and headed for the nearest cask.
He was stopped along the way by a calloused hand grabbing him around the wrist. He spun around, and there was Kamini, head bowed, dark eyes boring into him.
“Hey,” he said.
“That was wonderful,” she said.
“Thanks. I think.”
“You sing beautifully.”
“It’s a gift.”
Her head cocked to the side. “You said you were a friend?” she asked, sounding vulnerable and exposed, yet radiating strength.
“I am.”
Kamini tugged him through the crowd. Meesh allowed himself to be led, casting a glance over his shoulder at his brothers. Abe shook his head; Shade actually laughed. Meesh swung back around and moved his feet so he wouldn’t fall. Damn, this girl was quick.
She brought him back to her tent. There was no one around, what with everyone enjoying the party down by Cooper’s pavilion. Kamini ushered him through the tent flap. An oil lantern hung from the pole, a bedroll was unfurled on the ground.
Kamini sat down on the bedroll and beckoned him to do the same across from her. The lantern’s flickering light made her brown skin gleam, twinkled in her eyes. Meesh crossed his legs. Mmm, where’s this going…?
“His name was Marcus Botswan. He was my father.”
And there it is. Meesh offered her no words; he leaned forward and tilted his head.
“It happened nine years ago. A group of us left New Salem after Fatisha Dorl took over the city. My father promised we’d find a better life near the shore. Maybe Sal Railen, he said, where there weren’t men with clubs walking the streets. Maybe then we’d have food in our bellies every day, he said. Maybe then we’d have a chance to be happy.”
Meesh nodded.
“We were ten miles outside Pinchu when our convoy was stopped by brigands. They were the most frightening men I’d ever seen, even scarier than Fatisha’s bodyguards. They demanded everyone hand over everything they had. My father refused. He tried to rile up his friends, to get them to fight for what was theirs, but they wouldn’t. These men had bows, and axes, and daggers, and we had pots and pans. Those people—people my father called friends—they turned their backs on him. They turned their backs on him.”
Her fingers clenched. “I was forced to watch as the brigands stabbed my father, over and over. I was thirteen years old, and I couldn’t do a thing. They left his body there in the dust and dirt, took what they wanted, and left. I sat there and cried over his body, even as my mother told me to get in the wagon. She didn’t shed a single tear. She just… accepted it.”
“And you couldn’t,” said Meesh.
Kamini shook her head no, and Meesh was impressed that her eyes didn’t so much as glisten.
“I went with them to Sal Railen, with my mother and brothers, but I wasn’t happy. We did build a better life for ourselves, just as my father promised, but no one mentioned his name again. It was like he never existed. I couldn’t take it anymore. One morning, I just walked out of my mother’s cabin and left Sal Railen behind me. Forever.”
“Where’d you go?”
“Everywhere. Nowhere. I wandered. I joined bands of brigands when I ran across them. I did the same things to others that’d been done to me. Then one day I came across the same men who had killed my father. I was twenty by then, and they had no idea who I was. I became one of them, and three months later, in the dead of night, I went to their leader, seduced him. I walked into the bedroom, laid him down… and then, just when he thought he would take me, I cut out his throat.”
“Sounds like he deserved it,” Meesh said, fascinated.
She shrugged. “Did he? By then I’d killed my share of innocent people. In fact, one group I rode with fled from you three knights after robbing a wagon train. So did he deserve to die any more than I did?”
“Don’t know. Did he?”
She spread her arms out and shrugged, and Meesh tried not to ogle at her breasts as they jiggled beneath her thin shirt. “I’ve spent my life hating people. Ever since my father died, every person I’ve come across has been an enemy. The world’s a harsh place, so harsh that even a holy man like Ronan Cooper can’t stay pure. People use you and throw you away once they have what they want. Friends are in short supply, if friendship exists at all.”
“I don’t think you give folks credit,” Meesh said. “There are good people out there.”
“Where?”
He looked down at himself.
“Sitting right in front of you.”
“You? You’re a killer, just like me. You just kill under the banner of a different god.”
“When you put it that way…”
She looked at him fiercely, her thick lips parted ever so slightly. “Why are you here?”
“Er, you invited me.”
Kamini frowned.
“Okay, fine. You intrigue me. And scare me a little. Yeah, I’m strange that way.”
“So you truly came here just to talk?”
Meesh considered lying, thought better of it. “Well, I was hoping things might get a bit more… interesting than just talk. If you know what I mean.”
She leaned back on her elbows and raised her hands in surrender. “You see? Everyone wants something.”
“That’s right, they do. But you know what’s really the measure of a person?”
“Enlighten me.”
“The way they act when they don’t get it.”
Meesh held out his hand, palm up, and tilted his head. He waited while Kamini stared at him. Tentatively, she placed her hand on top of his. He grinned, brought the hand to his lips, and kissed her knuckles. She looked at him like he was crazy.
“I’m your friend, Kamini,” he told her. “I want to learn more about you. And if you don’t die tomorrow, you can look forward to me coming to you more and more… even if we just talk.”
With that, he crawled out of the tent. His nose had barely been kissed by the warm night air when he felt a tug on the rear of his breeches. He was hauled back into the tent. His eyes widened in surprise, and he knew that at any moment there’d be a knife at his throat. Universe, here I come…
But there was no knife. Kamini dropped on top of him, pressed her body against his. Their lips met, and they kissed deeply, almost violently. Her shirt was off a second later, and Meesh’s mouth worked her over, from neck to breast to belly. She leaned back, sweat beading on her bare flesh, but she didn’t cry out. Meesh untied his breeches and she feverishly tore them from his legs.
Their passion was zealous, a chorus of grunts, snarls, thrusts, and nibbles. When it was done, they reclined on their backs, panting as they stared at the top of the tent. The sky brightened, the day of the crossing almost upon them. Meesh closed his eyes and breathed deeply, beaten, exhausted, content. He was sure he was covered with bruises.
He leaned over and kissed Kamini, who bit down on his lip and slid her hand along his body. She grabbed him down there.
Meesh’s laughed aloud. “Again?”
“Why not?”
“If you say so.”
Yeah, this was a good choice, Meesh thought, and he devoured her once more.
15
“I HOLD NO FEAR OF BLOODWORMS. THEY ARE BIGGER THAN NORMAL WORMS, YES, BUT JUST AS EASILY SQUASHED.”
—SHADRACH THE 12TH
28 MINUTES BEFORE DEMISE
Shade stood on the bank of the River Butte and stared at the desolation on the other side. He wondered how they would cross, considering the river itself held dangers more frightening than anything else in the Wasteland. It better be worth the trouble.
Behind him, Cooper’s Outriders were busy preparing for the brigand prophet’s insane plan. The clank of steel and thud of wood filled the morning air. Shade felt a chill when he saw a large, dark shape glide through the water. Bloodworms. Ugh.
No one knew where bloodworms came from, or how they evolved. According to Abe, in the distant past they had infested both the Gulf of Torrin and the Western Sea. Eating machines that could sense the vibrations of living flesh from miles away, their presence left the oceans dead and barren. Abe said the Elders’ histories spoke of these ravenous monsters devouring nearly all oceanic life in a span of only a year before they turned on one another. The numbers populating the ocean had thinned out greatly since, which made sailing between Portsmouth and Sal Yaddo possible, though ships were still heavily protected just in case.
The river was another story. They still thrived here, feasting on whatever parched animal was desperate enough to approach the water’s edge to quench its thirst.
Vera, maybe I’ll see you sooner than I thought.
The memory of his lover’s ruined face flashed across his vision. Shade closed his eyes, tried to remember her whole, not a ghost or some undead monster, but found it difficult. He could clearly recall the sent of lilac that wafted off her skin, the subtle way she laughed, the way her fingers danced through the hairs on his chest, but those wonderful moments were tainted by the horribleness of what came later.
Shade perceived movement to the left and swiveled his head. Abe and Meesh approached, the elder hunched over, the younger with a bounce in his step. When they reached his side, Shade could plainly see love bites, at least ten of them, blotching Meesh’s neck.
“You had fun last night,” Shade said.
“You betcha,” Meesh chirped.
“How’re you holding up?” asked Abe.
Shade rolled his shoulders. “Well enough.”
Abe offered him a cockeyed glance that seemed to say, I know you’re worried, to which Shade nodded glumly. The eldest knight gave his shoulder a squeeze.
“Whoa,” Meesh said, “that’s a big’n.”
Another long, serpentine shape glided through the water. Shade backed up a step. He had witnessed what bloodworms could do—the Hallowed Stones, the birthplace of each his brothers, was fifty miles to the north, on steep cliffs bordering this very river—and had no desire to be caught in the middle of one of their feeding frenzies.
“We can’t do this,” he said softly.
“I take it you’re not trusting Cooper?” Abe asked.
“No, I trust him.” And that was the truth. The knowledge that Ronan Cooper had loved Vera as a daughter had come as a revelation to him, made him see the man in a whole new light. They had talked much over the last few days, and he found Cooper to be very much the same man he’d been when he was simply a quartermaster in Lemsberg—forthright, gregarious, quick to laugh. That he was now a man of power who spouted fanatical religious beliefs didn’t seem to matter. Shade couldn’t relate to the man he had been just a week ago, when he’d wanted nothing more than to rip out Ronan Cooper’s throat.
“Then what’s the problem?” asked Meesh.
“His heart’s in the right place, but it’s a bad plan.”
Meesh snorted.
“Have you told him so?” said Abe.
Shade frowned. “I did. He’s stubborn.”
The sound of hammering and clanking intensified as Cooper’s men continued to slave away. They had been at it for hours, dismantling thirteen of the flatbeds that had hauled their supplies, tying planks of lumber to the bottoms of the platforms, banging down the steel edges to form brackets, and tying them off with thick rope. The rafts they created were huge and unwieldy, much too heavy to steer safely across a watery torrent. Shade wished they could trust the Warhorses to lead the rafts, but he wasn’t even sure the machines could fly themselves over the water.
Off to the right, horses were led out of their giant crates and toward the rafts. There were more than forty of them, most healthy, some with mutant legs growing where legs shouldn’t be, heads too big for their bodies, or sores covering their hides. Strong yet imperfect animals. Shade thought of Gypsy, felt another pang of sorrow.
Seemed his life was full of sadness.
“Where’s that one going?” Meesh asked.
Shade squinted, saw a single large horse being guided in the opposite direction. He chuckled and elbowed Abe. “Guess I’m not the only one who didn’t like it.”
The eldest knight grimaced. “What can I say? Greenie’s been with me a long while.”
“Too bad,” Meesh chuckled. “He would’ve had fun with his sisters.”
“Shut up.”
Those leading the horses stopped a good twenty feet from the banks, and the beasts dropped their heads to feed on the course grass beneath their hooves. Poor things, Shade thought. They ha
ve no idea what’s going to happen to them.
The brothers left the river’s edge and strolled among the people. There was nervous energy in the air, but Shade didn’t think they were nervous enough. He doubted many had seen bloodworms in action; for them, the dangerous creatures were things of fairy tales and nightmares. They’ll learn.
As they neared one of the nearly-completed rafts, Shade spotted a girl among the workers whose skin was as dark as his. The girl glanced up at their approach and waved, a smile on her face a mile wide, and he recognized her as the bitter woman who’d threatened Abe. Why’s she smiling all of a sudden? It didn’t take him long to figure it out, for Meesh blushed beside him. The long-haired knight waved at the girl. She made a lewd gesture with her fist and went back to work.
“Heartbreaker,” he said to his brother.
“Uh-uh, no way,” Meesh replied. “Not with that one. I break her heart, I’d probably end up with a broken pecker.”
“That’s not pleasant,” Abe said.
“No, it’s not.”
Shade prodded him. “So what’re you gonna do? You can’t rightly run off with her.” He grimaced even as the words left his mouth.
Meesh laughed. “Oh, I know that. I ain’t no dumbass. Let’s just say we have an, er, agreement.”
“Let’s see,” said Abe. “When you’re within ten miles of her, you’re hers. When you’re not, you’re a free man.”
“Something like that,” he answered, winking.
Cooper paced just outside the work zone. Though he looked strong as ever in his leather and chain armor, his jaw was clenched tight and there was an anxious hitch in his stride. The knights approached him, and he paused, tugging on his long red braid.
“It’s time,” he said.
“Are you certain?” Abe asked.
“As certain as I’ll ever be. I want you three by my side as we proceed.”
“That an order?” Meesh asked.
Cooper looked Shade’s way, gave an uneasy smirk. “More like a desperate request.”
Orders were shouted, and it took twenty men apiece to heave eleven of the heavy steel rafts to the water’s edge. The rafts were shoved half into the water; the back halves sank into the muddy bank. The Spear of God was loaded onto the one. Men and women then piled aboard, shoulder-to-shoulder.
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