by Chuck Wendig
Lane stands up. Not quite angry, by the look of it, but Rigo can see he’s getting there. Right now, he stammers: “But—but you said you were proud of me. Of what I did here. This place is all me. I’m . . . I’m the guiding hand!”
“And it’s time to step back. Let someone else take over for a while. You’ll still have control, not like you’re a cow pushed out to pasture.”
“Let someone else take control.”
“That’s right.”
“Like you.”
“Like me.” Pop sighs. “Lane, son, I know this is difficult—”
“I’m not your godsdamned son. You had one and he’s dead. He was a selfish kid, Arthur. You didn’t teach him to care about the Heartland, you taught him to care about himself. But you, on the other hand, you used to be somebody. You think I don’t know that you used to be one of the Sleeping Dogs? That—that—that hell, you helped found the Dogs? And now you wanna waltz on in here and take the captain’s wheel outta my hand as if you’d never left?”
“Lane,” Rigo says. “C’mon, just . . . just calm down for a second.”
But Lane’s hand falls to his hip, to the sonic pistol dangling there.
“I oughta back out of this cage,” Lane says, “and lock it behind me. Traitors. Treating me like I’m still just some dumb kid. I’m not! I’m old as you were when you started this damn thing!”
Pop says softly, “And that’s the problem. I didn’t do it right. I was . . . blind to a lot of things. Because I was young. I wasn’t ready.”
“Get out.”
Again, Rigo tries. “Lane, c’mon—”
“I said get out. Get in your skiff and go back to your . . . gardens.”
Pop grunts as he stands, leaning into his hip. “I’ll go. But I need to ask you first: What do you plan to do with all this? The city. The raiders.”
“We’re not raiders anymore. We’re liberators.”
“Supposing that’s true, what’s next?”
Lane grins: a smile empty of humor and heavy with malice. “We’re going to fly this thing. Have a flotilla of our own. Conquer the skies.”
A moment goes by, and Pop seems to consider this. Then he nods a sad nod and gives Rigo a look.
Rigo knows what’s coming.
Pop leaves. Lane trails after, roving and zigzagging behind them like he’s already a bit drunk. The long trip back to the skiff is silent and about as uncomfortable as trying to sleep with sand in your ass-crack. By now the crowd that watched Pop and the two sloop boats come in has dispersed, but folks still mill about, many of them working on repairing the shattered city: a heavy woman spreads some sort of white goop across a long crack in pale brick while a man below her tinkers with a plasto-sheen machine.
Comes the time, then, to get on the skiff.
And Rigo’s heart hurts. Because of what happened up there in that tower, sure. Because Lane and Pop are fighting, and that’s like watching your own family fall apart in front of you. But his heart hurts, too, because of what comes next. Rigo prayed to all the gods and angels and devils that this wouldn’t come to pass, but the mission is the mission.
“I’m not going with you,” he tells Pop.
Lane seems taken aback. Pop turns, looking confused. A rehearsed look. “What? Rigo, you already left once. And I need you. We have work to do.”
But between them, an unspoken transmission: This is the work.
Rigo says, “I think Lane’s on the right side of history. Thanks for taking care of me. And for bringing me back here. But I’m staying.”
The look on Pop’s face isn’t real, Rigo knows that. He’s acting. A mask to serve a purpose. And what he says next isn’t real, either, but it still cuts to the quick: “I thought we were family, Rodrigo. But I guess we’re not.”
A TIGHTENING NOOSE
“WHY?” SCOOTER ASKS. “Why do we gotta leave, Gwennie?”
“Because,” she says, kicking open the boxes next to her bed and bundling up what few clothes she has here. “Because they know who we are. And they’re going to come for us. Is Mom packing?”
“I . . . I dunno.”
“Well go!” she says, clapping her hands. “Go check, now. Go on.”
Scooter darts out the door, ducking past someone as they approach.
It’s Balastair.
Gwennie sees him, his dust-lined face, dirt under his nails. A far cry from the prim, crisp man she met on the Saranyu. He scratches at the patch of facial hair along the bottom of his chin.
“Gwennie,” he says. “Maybe this is all . . . blown out of proportion. We’re just starting to really make something of ourselves here.”
“You and Cleo, you mean.”
“What? No. All of us. All of us! Maybe you misinterpreted—”
She wheels on him. “No. Don’t do that to me. Don’t try to make me feel like some foolish schoolgirl who doesn’t know the tip of her finger from the back of her ass. They were gonna kill me, Bal.” She hesitates, feels a tremor run through her. “So I killed them first.” She bites back tears then looks away, goes back to packing with her teeth gritted.
Balastair is silent for a moment. Like he’s chewing on what to say. “H-how? How did this happen?”
A shadow darkens the door to the room.
Gwennie turns. “Because of him.”
She flings a wad of his clothes right at Boyland, who catches them not with his hands but with his face. “What’s going on? What happened?”
Gwennie tells him. About going into the bar. About how Solow was planning—probably still is planning—to send men here.
“This is your fault,” she rails. “So desperate to be a big man like your father that you’ve gone and nearly got us all killed. Now we have to leave. What little we have we have to throw away, start over somewhere else.”
Boyland pushes past Balastair.
“Gwennie, I’m sorry. I didn’t know. But maybe they won’t find us—”
“They’ll find us,” Balastair says. “Maybe not tonight, but soon enough. Only a few outlying homes here in the shadow of the mountains. It won’t take them long. Especially if the Empyrean join the hunt.”
Boyland catches her wrist. He looks deep in her eyes. “We can fight them. We can hold our own, hold ’em off—”
She wrenches her hand away. “Pack your own stuff. I’m done helping you. I’m done with you in every way. Won’t be any wedding. This is over. You’re a big, dumb, horrible boy.”
“Please. Don’t say those things.” His jaw works like a millstone, and she knows that he’s angry. But behind the anger is sadness, too, hanging there like a ghost hovering. “Let’s sit down. Godsdamnit, Gwennie. We can figure out a plan.”
“Oh, I have a plan.”
Both of the men look at her.
“We’re going to Pegasus City. To the Sleeping Dogs. And once we’re there, I’m gonna go back out and find Cael McAvoy. Because guess what?” She pushes past Boyland. “He’s alive.”
SWIFT FOX
THE TALE REACHES Arthur’s ears over a drink. He’s in a small farmhouse just outside the town of Dooley, maybe five miles past Fort Calhoun—it’s a town where everybody’s scared. They’re scared of the raiders. Scared, too, that the Empyrean will come for them like they did so many other towns: first Tuttle’s Church, then others like Brickbriar, Dry Springs, Blanchard’s Hill. Here, folks have remained dutiful, working hard for the Empyrean to show that they don’t need to be taken over, no, sir, no thank you.
That’s on the outside.
On the inside, the fear that’s gathering is turning to something meaner. Like a hound slowly going feral because his owner has abandoned him.
He meets up with an old ex-raider there—big fella named Pressman. Arms like a couple of old-timey iron-shot cannons, like you’d find on pirate ships in old picture books. Pressman’s been out of the Sleeping Dogs for a long time, long as Arthur’s been. His wife, too—a woman earthy and round and dark like a clay pot. Pressman says, “Got too strange
there. Didn’t like it when they turned from rebels to raiders. Became selfish and mean.” He chews on a root.
From the other room, his wife, Kallen, agrees: “I don’t cater much to violent people. I wanted to change things, not burn it all down.” Her words come alongside the sounds of dishes clanking as she scrapes food off them.
“I appreciate dinner,” Arthur says. He holds up the glass. “And the fixy.”
“Fixy’s mostly just piss, but that dinner.” Pressman whistles. “That’s on you. You brought us the vegetables. Empyrean figure out what you’re doing, they’re gonna bring the hammer down, Arthur.”
“They have bigger rats to catch,” Arthur says.
“Hear they got a boy in charge of that city.”
“I just met with him.” Arthur hesitates, but then says: “I know him. He grew up with my son. He’s a good kid, but . . . out of his depth.” Leaving Rigo behind pains him far worse than the bone spurs at his hip ever could. And it was clear that Rigo didn’t want to stay, either. But that was the arrangement they made: If things went south with Lane, as Arthur feared they would, Rigo had to stay behind. Arthur would be in touch with him soon.
“We were young once.”
“We were, at that.”
They clink jars and both polish off the fixy. Tastes like corn, cuts like razors. Appropriate, perhaps, given Hiram’s Golden Prolific with its thirst for blood and its slashing corn-leaves.
“The rest of the seven,” Pressman says. “They’re all dead, aren’t they?”
“I think so.”
“Black Horse.”
Arthur winces at the name. “Eben Henry.”
Pressman spits into his glass, scowls. “Long may Old Scratch fill his every space with burning ash and biting ants.”
“That’s if he’s dead. Heard stories he’s still out there.”
“He was. He was looking for you, I’m told.”
Arthur straightens up. “For me.”
“Mm-hmm. Can’t tell me that’s a surprise. He cut Charlie up in a washtub. Shot Neddy in the dang back.” He puts the root back in his mouth, chews on it. “But now they’re ghost stories, because Eben Henry is gone from this Heartland, moved on to whatever waits for him in King Hell.”
Pressman must see Arthur’s face, because he adds: “They found his body, Arthur. Some say the Maize Witch done it. Trussed him up out there at the edge of the dead corn, body swollen with roots pushing in and out of him. But some passersby said he had another wound, like someone stuck him with a knife.” He shrugs. “Who knows, maybe it’s all a legend. Maybe he’s been dead for years. Maybe he’s still out there. Can’t be bothered by spooky stories.”
“I suppose that’s true.”
Still. Eben Henry. Been a long time. Once they’d been so close. But Eben had other ideas about how things had to be.
It stays with Arthur, even now.
“I guess you came here for something,” Pressman says.
“I did. You still have it?”
“Of course. Ned told me to hold on to it and so I did.”
“You could keep it.”
“Eh. Pshh. Wouldn’t know what to do with it. My scrapping days are done. Me and Kallen, we ain’t young. Worst we’re gonna do to someone is hit ’em across the back of the head with a shovel, and then I’m outta tricks. You hold on, I’ll go get it.”
He disappears into the other room, comes out a couple minutes later. He returns with a rosewood case, big as Arthur’s lap. He sets it down and hands over a little golden key.
“There you go, Swift Fox,” Pressman says. “A gift from my cousin, Iron-Red Ned Pressman.”
Inside is a gun.
Not a sonic shooter, but a long iron revolver. The back of the barrel pregnant with a cylinder thick as Arthur’s wrists. It’s not just a gun; it’s a damned hand-cannon. Ned was a gentle heart for the most part, but he said that when he carried a gun, he expected it to get the job done and then some.
Below it is emblazoned a name, inked on a slip of parchment and pinned to the felt. Heavenkiller.
Arthur doesn’t know that he’ll need this. Certainly it’s not the way he wants things to go: The Heartland plunging into violence will do nobody any good. People start lighting fires, the whole place will burn, and before long they’ll be stacking up bodies of good people like cords of pulpwood.
Just the same, if he needs it, he wants to be ready.
“Thanks,” he says, closing the box and snapping it shut.
“Ammunition is just underneath it. Lift out the tray, and there’s just shy of a hundred rounds of .50–70 rounds. Ned’s special bison-killers.”
Not that any of them have ever seen a bison. By the time Arthur was born into this world, the bison had already been dead for forty years.
“You could come with me,” Arthur says, standing up.
“What? Come on down to—shoot, where you at now?” But before Arthur can speak, Pressman shakes his head. “You know what, don’t tell me. We ain’t coming, and I don’t wanna know in case the Empyrean think I do. We have a home here. We’re tired.”
“Speak for yourself,” Kallen calls from the kitchen, then comes out, flinging a rag over her shoulder. She’s a stocky woman, built like a broad maple tree. Pretty eyes, though. Gray as a storm cloud, but bright, too, like the sun’s poking out behind the troubled skies. “You leaving, Arthur?”
“I suppose I am. Sadly. Thank you for dinner.”
“It’s not a thing. We’re happy to have company these days.” She sniffs. “World’s coming apart at the seams.”
Arthur shrugs. “Maybe that’s a good thing.”
“Hey, lemme ask you. You really got Blighters working for you?”
“I do. Good people.”
“They’re not all going crazy or anything?”
“Nope. Long as they’re working the soil and tending to plants, that seems to keep the . . . noise at bay.” He hesitates to mention that they don’t even need seeds anymore. The Blightborn have learned to produce the seedlings themselves.
From their own flesh.
“You see what that one Blighter did earlier today?”
Arthur hmms. “We talking Esther? The witch?”
“No, nuh-uh, a boy. And a girl, too, actually. Here, I’ll show you.”
Pressman rolls his eyes. “Oh, by the old gods and the new, woman, don’t bring that thing out again.” But it’s too late, because here she comes with a visidex she dug out of a small trunk in the corner of the room. Pressman looks at Arthur and he says, “I think the Empyrean spy on us with those things. They aren’t just letting us have these toys—oh, sure, sure, they say they come from that fallen city of theirs, but I don’t buy it, I think they’re—”
Kallen grunts and just thrusts the visidex between them. “The show is queued up, just hit the funny little triangle button there.”
And then Arthur sees.
A young man and a young woman.
Both Blighted.
Taking apart a quadron of Empyrean—two mechanicals, two evocati augusti—like it’s nothing.
“Cael,” Arthur says, the word spoken in a quiet hush, somehow both pained and happy at once.
“Cael’s your son, right?” Pressman asks.
“What about him?” Kallen says.
Arthur squeezes his eyes shut. “On the visidex. That boy is my son. That boy is Cael, and that girl is his Obligated, Wanda Mecklin.”
Back at the skiff out back of Pressman’s house, Arthur stops, leans forward on his elbows, and presses his head against the cool metal of the ship. He breathes in and out, then finds a laugh crawling up out of him like a frog from its hibernation hole. A laugh that quickly morphs into a sob as the full weight of what he saw hits him.
Cael is alive.
Cael has the Blight.
Cael killed two Empyrean soldiers.
These last two pieces cannot diminish the first, but still they overwhelm. Guilt chews at Arthur like weevils stripping a corncob of its kerne
ls. He never wanted Cael to have to grow up into this. Merelda, either. Both his children now plunged into a world like the one he grew up in—thrown into it too early, forced to grow up fast, made to do things that no adult should have to do much less any child. He thinks again of Lane running a city all on his own. Rigo having lost a foot. Wanda with the Blight, too. And what of Gwennie? Hell, even Boyland, or any of the other children in Boxelder. What happened to them? Were they turned into metal men, doing the bidding of the Empyrean?
Controllable workers. Docile to their handlers, violent to their foes.
Arthur draws a deep breath. He quiets his tears.
He has a shot still. Of helping his kids get to a normal life, or some semblance of it. It isn’t over for them. It’s over for him, maybe, mostly, but for them—life goes on. Many years ahead.
It’s up to him to make sure those years are good ones.
The father’s creed.
That means he has to get to Cael. Now. Cael is nearby. Or nearby enough. The visidex showed a stamp not too far from here. He’ll fly over, canvass the area. Though that probably means the Empyrean will be doing the same, but he has to take that chance. Cael needs him.
Their family can be reunited.
He opens the skiff door, gets in, starts to sit down—
A blow to the head knocks him sideways into the next seat.
His ear rings. He senses someone hovering over him; Arthur takes the case with the gun, Heavenkiller, and whips it upward even as his vision distorts and drifts into double, triple—
But the person deftly ducks out of the way, then catches the box and yanks it away. A voice reaches him. Female.
“The Empyrean requests your presence.”
He knows that voice. He swears he does.
Slowly, his vision drifts back together, like two leaves in a puddle drifting closer and closer—and it’s then he sees Simone Agrasanto standing there, hunched over inside the skiff, scowling. One eye hidden behind an eye patch, the rest of her face wearing the deep lines of a perpetually pissed-off person.
