I tried to stay awake, but felt Ethis jostling me when morning came. There were circles under everyone’s eyes and we didn’t say much as we saddled up once more and turned toward the east, into the sunrise.
Within a couple of hours, the dust and bloody rock of the desert gave way to shrubland and dried river bed. It was so sudden, I wasn’t sure if there was ever a transition. Looking behind us only revealed more coarse, gray-green plantlife, clinging to the cracked earth.
I felt a sort of tension take over me as we rode. Everything that we saw looked desolate and inconsolable. It was a wonder that anything could survive in these places, but things still did. In the middle of the morning, I saw shapes wobbling in the distance. They looked like long-necked animals bobbing for water. I yelled at Ethis, asking what they were. He shouted back to me, “Never seen an oil rig before?”
With the term to jog my memory, I recalled the facts as I had lived them. I hadn’t seen one since the twenty-second century. We had perfected grav energy by then. “There’s still oil, after all this time?”
“I don’t think so,” Ethis said, emphasising his first syllable.
But someone does. Those words went unspoken between us.
At noon, we stopped in a small village populated by gaunt-looking humans. We had left our gravbikes over a rise, outside of town. They would garner too much attention. It was enough that the brothers looked like mercenaries, but if they made it worth the villager’s trouble, they could have a mob on their hands if they weren’t cautious. Ethis had draped his duster over my shoulders and it covered up my oversuit. My shoes were muddy enough that they wouldn’t peak anyone’s interest. I had put my hair up and donned a pair of old goggles that Djince had offered me wordlessly.
Outfitted as anonymously as possible, we went into the village. We were directed to a seamstress across the way and after a heated discussion, Ethis managed to procure an outfit and jacket for me. He gave up one of the rifles from Hearthwir and a bag containing eleven rounds of ammunition.
“Fucking steep,” Ethis growled as soon as we were on the outskirts once more. “They should be glad we didn’t just shoot her and take it.”
“You wouldn’t have,” I said. “You’re better than that.”
“Might have threatened her at least,” Ethis said, partially mollified by my assertion. He threw the bag of clothes at me and I caught them. He grinned. “Can’t wait to see you in your new digs! Although, you do look great in my duster…”
I snorted at him, then turned my attention toward the rise where our bikes were stashed.
I froze.
I could see three prone forms on the hump of the hill. I saw three exhales of smoke appear in front of them. My eye and my leg ached.
I'd seen something like that before.
I plan to travel with the gypsies for as long as I can. Haggard, unharried, but cheery despite the morning chill, they offer me a pipe. I take it. There's pain where there should be a hand at the end of my forearm. I can't ignore it anymore. After finishing off the bowl, I ask for another and give up my scarf for it. I think, in any other circumstance they might have laughed at me and asked for more than my moth-eaten cloth. Instead, they extract their price with silent remorse.
Before long, we make it to a ravine. Their leader, an elderly man called Brimre, says something to his second who pulls out a tiny brass telescope and squints through it with both eyes open. Then he yells.
A small cloud, not unlike our own misty exhales in the cool morning air, materializes in the distance.
A second later, we hear the bang.
A second later, Brimre falls to the ground like a sack of beans, his legs bent under him oddly.
A second later, we see another smoke signal.
A second later, I hear a bang.
A second later, the gypsies scatter and I can no longer feel the pain of my missing hand.
The sky looks a bit like gun metal gray, doesn't it?
I dropped my bag and grabbed Ethis’ elbow, pulling him to the side just as we heard three delayed gunshots. Rifles, I cataloged. Dust exploded at my feet, and behind us, just passed where Ethis had been a second before.
Before I could telegraph what I saw, Djince threw Ethis’ rifle to him. The younger Kallos dropped down for cover as he said, “Poppy!” He threw me my revolver. “I’ll cover you. Get in close!”
I hesitated for only a second. I shucked his duster off and he used it as a prop for his rifle. He pulled the action back and loaded a round. “Go!” As he pressed his helmet close to his gun, he shouted, “Djince, laying fire!”
As he started shooting, Djince and I ran up the rise towards the three rifles. I heard the crack of a shot and a rock exploded near me, but neither the bullet nor the shards hit me. My left leg was burning, but the adrenaline was a prime painkiller. Djince had drawn his sword, leaving its sheath behind in the shrubbery to be recovered later.
We heard several more cracks. Ethis was giving them trouble, but they were quick to return fire. I saw Djince stumble at one point, his helmet masking any pained expression he might have had, but he got back up and continued his cover-to-cover shrub navigation.
Evidently they weren’t too intimidated by a girl in a white romper. But a juggernaut in old tactical gear weilding a sword? I imagined Djince coming up that rise was probably terrifying to the men all hunkered down in the dirt, thinking they had possessed the high ground. They focused all their fire on Djince, but the elder Kallos was no novice. He roved toward them single mindedly, cautious, but plodding on, evading their shots even as he ventured closer.
I beat him to them since they were so distracted. I believed he’d aggravated them on purpose so I could get in close to catch them unaware.
Three bullets in my gun. Three men on the rise.
In simple, mathematical terms, I had every opportunity to kill those men.
But I couldn’t.
As soon as I found myself behind the three men in cotton head scarves, I shouted with authority, “Hands!”
One of them managed to look over their shoulder and put his hands up near his head and that’s when I realized it was no man.
It was Holla!
The other two individuals were not so quick on the take. One of them was still focussed on Djince, and the other was reaching into his pouch. The one focussed on Djince collapsed face first into the dirt and his rifle misfired into a shrub about ten feet away. A bullet had torn through his skull. The one reaching in his pouch withdrew a bullet, but as his shaking hands tried to load it into his cylinder, Djince was there, cutting his hand off at the elbow.
“Wait!” I barked.
Djince hacked again and the man went down, his face split in two. Holla, babbling at me to spare her--to understand, to do something, to have mercy--turned her attention to Djince as the swordsman approached her. Her begging took to a more frantic decibel. Djince stabbed her once in the neck, pushing the steel down into her torso like he was hashing a kabob. He put his boot on the healer’s shoulder then and pulled the sword out of her. There were no more sounds then as Djince stood over Holla’s body. The older Kallos slowly bent down and unwrapped the woman’s face. Her cheekbones were scabbed over with sunburn, and her eyes were rolled up into her head. There was a look of utter bewilderment on her face as if in the last moments of fear, her mind had given way to confusion.
Djince took her head scarf and wiped his blade clean.
My stomach heaved as the smell of expelled insides reached my nose. I turned away from them and took three quivering steps before I fell to my knees to be sick.
In a few moments, Ethis came up the rise, shaking out his duster. “Nice one,” he said to his brother. “They get the bikes?” Djince didn’t say anything, but Ethis whooped. “What’d I tell ya, Jerkoff? She’s fucking lucky!”
“Lucky?” I spit and wiped my mouth. I was slow to get to my feet. “You call that lucky?” I turned around to look at them. “We could have just as easily been killed… I knew her. Her name was Holla. She tended to me. She gave me water… and now she’s dead.”
Both Kallos brothers were staring at me through their rose colored optics. Djince looked at Ethis then and the younger one produced his sheath. The elder sheathed his sword and stuck the blade to the magnet on his back. Djince said simply, “Get her some wine.”
“Fuck you!” I barked. “She was surrendering and you killed her!”
Ethis looked at Djince and I thought he would rebuke him, but he just laughed. “What was she saying? Did she beg? Mention kids, maybe? Oh! Life debt! Did she try to invoke a life debt?”
“Ethis,” Djince said seriously, his red optic still shining on me.
“What? What’s the big deal?” He looked between the two of us and then said to me, “Why would we let her live? She attacked us.”
“We could have shown her mercy at least. I owed her that much.”
“Like she and her twin boyos would have shown us?” Ethis inquired mildly. He shook his head then and chuckled. “Come on. Let’s just get out of here. I think the sun’s starting to get to you.”
As Ethis past me, walking toward the gravbikes, he tried to rub at my head, but I shrugged him off me. He just laughed.
I turned back to Djince who was still staring at me. “What?” I demanded hotly. “Nothing to say in your defense? No fucking excuses?”
He shook his head once. “Be careful,” he said quietly. Then he put his boot under each of the Hearthwir cannibals and kicked them all down the hill where their bodies spun like rag dolls and came to rest, caked in red. Holla, ingloriously, had landed facedown in the crotch of one of her brethren.
“Careful?” I asked through my gritted teeth.
“That temper will get you killed,” he said emotionlessly.
All the fight went out of me, though the sting of regret remained. I had never been an inherently angry god. I had always been accused of being too distant. It was the first time I’d ever felt cheated before. It burned. What was I meant to do with such a feeling?
I shook my head and waved a hand like I was knocking down spiderwebs. I said evenly, “Anyone would be appalled by your behavior. You killed her in cold blood.”
Djince walked up to me and cocked his head to the side. I could see my warped reflections standing amid shimmering red flecks as his rosy optics just caught the light. He said, “Felt warm to me.”
ns3.22.42.249da2
