When he reached the boulder in front of the fox’s cave, he paused to admire his kill. The bullet had taken off the top of the creature’s skull. Its eyes stared ahead glossily, its tongue lolled. Meesh lifted the dead thing, surprised at how big it was: three feet long from nose to tail and weighing at least twenty pounds. Probably the daddy, he thought. Numerous tiny squeaks rang out from the darkness of the cave behind him. Make that mommy.
Meesh wrapped the dead animal in the bloodstained and tattered shirt he’d worn during the battle for Ramstable’s soul and draped the beast over his shoulder. He whistled as he strutted toward his brothers, surrounded by a landscape of uneven, multicolored stone. In that moment, he felt like he understood just what the fox had been thinking as it sunned itself. The Red Cliffs were beautiful, and life was more plentiful up here; foxes and rodents survived in the caves, subsisting on tufts of edible green weeds growing between cracks in the stony ground. There were few large predators and nightweed was nowhere to be found.
Despite that, humans hadn’t settled here. Meesh guessed that had something to do with the harshness of the terrain—the ground was a solid bed of rock, and the land rose and fell haphazardly, sometimes creating plateaus that dropped off a hundred feet. The insufferable stench of sulfur and the jets of gas that occasionally burst through gaps in the bedrock in flaming plumes likely had something to do with it too.
He reached his brothers. “Check it out,” he said. “Roast fox tonight!” Abe pursed his lips. Shade glowered. The smile melted from Meesh’s face. “Y’know, you two are…”
He let the next words fade into oblivion. Making fun of them wasn’t worth the effort.
Meesh handed the fox to Shade, took the reins of the two patiently waiting horses, and guided them to the edge of the ravine, where a narrow stream snaked. Pam and Greenie lowered their heads to drink. There was no need to hobble them tonight; the culvert walls were steep, and they wouldn’t risk climbing out unless prodded. Meesh dropped down and cupped a few mouthfuls of slightly sour liquid, then sat down on his haunches and gazed at his brothers. Shade used his knife to skin the dead fox, while Abe busied himself arranging stones in a circle for the fire. Neither man smiled.
“You two’re gonna be the death of me,” Meesh said, finishing his earlier statement.
Traveling with Abe and Shade had started to become as unpleasant as giving a sabrewolf an enema. Sure, Shade’s attitude had been on a steady decline for a long time now, but Meesh had always been able to rely on Abe’s prudish sense of humor. Unfortunately, that changed when they said goodbye to the people of Ramstable and continued on their journey. Abe and Shade had argued long and hard about where to go from there: Abe wanted to return to Sal Yaddo to consult with Reverend Garron, while Shade was adamant they continue on their course. Abe said the Crone’s riddle could wait; Shade insisted completing their duty was of the utmost importance. When Abe relented, they fought on how best to proceed. Abe thought it best to follow the Wayward Pass around the Red Cliffs. Shade asserted it would be quicker to cut through them. Once more Abe caved, and the two had been at each other’s throat ever since. It probably didn’t help matters that, with the loss of Shade’s horse, the two of them were forced to share Abe’s stallion, as Pam was too small to carry multiple riders—though Meesh would have gladly switched horses had they asked.
But they hadn’t asked, which wasn’t surprising. No one solicited Meesh for favors, no one asked his opinion. The only thing expected of him was to fight and set up the crystal wards each night. But that was okay by him. Meesh wanted no part of the responsibility that came with making decisions; it was bad enough he had to carry around the Crone’s stupid riddle. He was more than happy to just ride along, help when needed, and chide his brothers as often as possible.
Abe used dried-out nightweed to fuel the cookfire. The eldest knight emptied a bag of coals on top of the fire and waited. Shade jammed the fox onto a spit and slowly spun the skinned carcass over the hot coals.
It was still light and Meesh was bored, so to pass the time he flipped open his saddlebag, took out the small pad of parchment and charcoal pencil he always carried with him, and turned his back on his brothers. He sat down beside the horses and tapped pencil on paper. Usually words came to him with ease, but on this evening they were long in coming. Meesh closed his eyes and tried to think joyous thoughts. The memory of sealing Ramstable’s fissure didn’t do it. Neither did thinking about the time he had challenged Jonn Keamie, the previous legendary brigand before Ronan Cooper, to a duel. He squeezed his lids tighter and took a deep breath. Finally, a round face surrounded by a halo of golden hair entered his thoughts.
It was Keedra’s face he saw, a woman whose singing voice was just as alluring as her milky white skin. Meesh imagined her legs spread wide, as he’d had them just over a month ago, before he and his brothers left Sal Yaddo on this increasingly wearisome journey. He saw his head between those legs, and his mouth watered.
Finally the words came.
He sat and scribbled on his pad for ten minutes, humming the entire time. When he was finished, he read over the words. A few scratched out here, a few more added there, and he was finished. He whispered what he’d written, the warm, fuzzy satisfaction that came with creation blooming in his chest.
“This is perfect,” he said.
Scrabbling to his feet, Meesh gave Pam a slap on the rump, hefted his brothers’ guitar cases from their pile of supplies, and hurried to the campfire. Shade still rotated the fox over the coals, and Meesh’s stomach cramped when he smelled the roasting juices. He placed down the instruments and cleared his throat. Abe looked up at him, seeming miserable. Shade’s frowning mug was intent on the slowly spinning fox, as if he’d been hypnotized by it.
“Okay, you miserable bastards,” Meesh said. “Listen up. I just wrote this. I think it works just as a poem, but maybe, if one of you came up with a good riff, we could work it into our act next time some poor backwater lets us play for ’em. Which of course’ll probably be never, but hell, it don’t hurt to try, right? Anything to put a smile on those damn frowning faces. Who’s with me?”
Neither brother reached for their instruments. Abe rolled his eyes and Shade didn’t so much as acknowledge him. Meesh shook his head.
“Y’know what? You ain’t getting off that easy. I’m gonna recite it anyway.” He cleared his throat and began:
“Young ones of a coming time
devouring this resentful rhyme
know that in a prior din
sex, sweet sex, was thought a sin!”
Before moving onto the next line, he looked upon his audience and saw that they couldn’t care less. Only Abe, who bobbed his head slightly from side to side, seemed like he’d been listening even a little. Meesh brought his eyes back to the parchment. Screw it, he thought. They only seemed to listen to him when he was being crass. No one respects an artist.
“Guys, this is the epic conclusion, so listen carefully,” he said. “A brigand, history relates / was scuffling with some of his mates. / He slipped on a cutlass / which rendered him nut-less / and practically useless on dates. The end.”
Abe did a double-take, craning his neck to look up at Meesh, a baffled expression on his face. Shade peered his way with a tilted head. A cough-like chortle vibrated Abe’s throat, sending a wad of phlegm from his lips. That brought a smile to Shade’s dour mug. Abe started chuckling, slowly at first, until it became actual laughter. Shade’s eyes brightened and he joined in.
Meesh stood in front of them and beamed.
“Oh… man,” Abe said when his laughing fit died down. “You actually wrote that?”
“Not the last part. It just came to me.”
“That,” Shade said as he fanned himself with his wide-brimmed had, “was funny.”
Meesh bowed. “Why thank you.”
“You seriously just came up with that on the spot?” asked Abe.
“I did. What can I say? I got talent.”
T
he oldest brother shook his head wistfully. “That sounds like something the first Shadrach I knew might’ve said. He was actually a lot like you, Meesh. Clever, quick with a joke. Though he spoke a might bit stranger than you, used a lot of thous and arts and odd phrases.”
Meesh’s excitement grew. He knew there had been others bearing the knights’ names, but it wasn’t often Abe talked about them. “What talent did he have?” Meesh asked, longing to know more.
Abe picked up a stone, absently rolled it between his fingers. “He played clarinet. Made it sing. You wouldn’t expect it, but woodwinds complement string instruments quite well. When the three of us played in Pennonstaff, half the town showed up. Gave a standing ovation afterward.” He smiled softly. “It was a really, really good moment.”
Shade went back to turning the fox. “What happened to him?” he asked. “Did my namesake go out in a blaze of glory?”
Abe’s smile faded. “Not really. We’d been on task in Sal Railen, clearing out a small hive of possessors, and he accidentally killed a child. A normal child. I guess that was too much for him. The next day he up and disappeared.”
“Disappeared, huh?” Meesh said. “That’s weird. How’d you collect a new brother if you didn’t have a body?”
“I had his body. I killed him.”
Meesh started laughing, then noticed how somber Abe looked and clammed up. “Wait… what? You killed him?”
“I did. The order came down from the Crone, so my other brother and I rode off to find him. He was living in a cave in the Unknown Lands, all by himself. He knew what we were there for the moment we arrived. He knelt down before me. Begged me to do it quick.” His eyes watered.
Meesh was incredulous. “But… why? He was your brother!”
“Because we were created to serve our God, and to abandon that duty is blasphemy,” Shade said in a flat tone. “Punishable by death at the hands of those who loved you most. It’s happened nine times before over the two hundred fifty-five years of our order.” He raised an eyebrow at Abe. “Actually, I guess you can make that ten.”
“Or more,” Abe mumbled. He lifted his tired eyes. “Where did you learn this?”
“I read parts of the Chronicles of Eternity,” Shade said. “Why, was I not supposed to? I thought they were open to everyone.”
“They are, it’s just that not many of us ever do. Too depressing. Why did you?”
He shrugged. “I was curious.”
“Huh,” said Abe. He leaned back on his elbows and developed a far-away look in his eye.
“Nine brothers have killed other brothers for desertion?” said Meesh. “What happened in the other cases?”
Shade lowered his gaze and stopped turning the spit. The fox was blackened and crisp. He lifted the spit and set it down on a flat rock, slid the fox off it. “No more talk,” he said as he cut into the cooked meat.
“I agree,” Abe said.
Meesh grunted. “Fine. You two sure know how to ruin a party.”
The brothers rose with the sun and slogged the last few miles to the end of the Red Cliffs. The Wasteland in all its arid glory opened below them. They only needed to descend a steep cliff before they could reach the desert and rejoin the Wayward Pass.
While testing out what looked to be a trail solid enough for the horses to navigate, Meesh spotted something moving out in the beige expanse. “Hold it,” he said.
“What do you see?” asked Abe.
Meesh bladed his hand over his eyes, spotted a distant line of dark shapes moving along the packed sand. “There’s someone out there. A caravan, I think. A small one.”
“Who are they?”
“A family of porcupines.”
Abe drew back, his nose twitched. “A what?”
“Was that a joke?” Shade asked.
“Of course it’s a joke, you dumbass,” Meesh exclaimed, arms flung out in irritation. “Like I can see that far away!”
“But you said it’s a caravan.”
“No, I said I think it’s a caravan. There’s only one way to know for certain, though.”
Shade spat on the ground. “Which is?”
“Holy hell you guys, if you’d just… I can’t… bah!”
Meesh snatched Shade’s satchel from his hands, rifled through it, pulled out the spyglass, and held it out before him in a mocking gesture. Shade harrumphed while Abe snickered. “Seriously,” Meesh said. He extended the spyglass’s metal cylinder and pressed his right eye to the viewfinder.
It was indeed a small caravan—three wagons pulled by two horses apiece, heading west along the Pass. Each wagon was covered, and on their sides was an encircled five-pointed star. Meesh grinned. “They’re ours,” he said. “Missionaries.”
“They are?” asked Abe.
“Nope. I’m lying.” Meesh didn’t wait for another round of stupid questions. He handed Shade back the spyglass and led his horse along the narrow downward passage.
The path looked far more treacherous than it actually was. It widened after twenty feet, and he could walk without keeping his arm braced against the steep, ragged wall. Behind him, Pam ambled as easily as she would in the grasslands by the coast. For a moment Meesh wondered if Abe’s much larger stallion was faring just as well, but then he heard rocks skittering over the edge of the path, followed by his brothers cursing, and received his answer. Good, he thought. Serves you right for being stupid.
It took forty minutes to reach the rock-strewn base of the crag. Meesh swung back into the saddle and waited. They were a mile at most away from the Wayward Pass, and the caravan looked like actual wagons now instead of formless smudges. His brothers trotted up beside him, Abe squinting as he gazed toward the slowly moving convoy, Shade sitting behind him in the saddle, seemingly miserable. The bearded man leaned back as if the thought of making contact with Abe was an affront to his manhood.
“You two make a cute couple,” Meesh said with a grin.
Abe shook his head; Shade muttered something under his breath.
Meesh urged Pam into a trot. After four days on the uneven ground of the Red Cliffs, the horse took delight in the flatness of the land. Her head swayed from side to side, accompanied by her soft nickering. Meesh smiled when a warm breeze blew past his face.
“They’re definitely ours,” Abe said after a few minutes of riding. The encircled stars on the sides of the wagons shimmered redgold in the sunlight.
“Yeah, I already said that,” Meesh said. “I don’t know why you—”
His lips smacked shut. The three wagons had stopped, and someone stood atop the plank beside the driver of the lead wagon, staring in their direction. The observer ducked back into the canvas enclosure. Meesh swore he saw a twinkle, like light reflecting off steel, and furrowed his brow. Discretely he reached into his saddlebag, slid one of his revolvers from its sheath, placed it in the wedge of his crotch, and covered it with a sweat rag.
“What’s that for?” Shade asked.
“Just in case,” Meesh said.
“In case of what?” said Abe.
“In case I feel the need to shoot off my cock. Why else, brah?”
Both his brothers gave him a narrow-eyed, affronted look.
“Fine,” Meesh said. “Just be wary.”
When they drew closer to the wagons, Meesh knew his wariness was justified. The wagons were indeed those of missionaries, as the animals harnessed to them were the huge speckled gray-and-brown draft horses bred in and around Portsmouth, the coastal town that served as Sal Yaddo’s gate to the Wasteland. However, Meesh didn’t recognize the men who sat on the planks. He examined them with interest as he neared, noting how they hunkered down as if trying to shield their faces from view. They had the look of brigands, the same sort of desperation in their eyes he’d seen countless times before.
Meesh glanced at his brothers. They seemed just as alert to the situation as he was, but they kept their apprehension—and their weapons—hidden. Good.
They approached the lead wagon at
an angle, and the man holding the reins lifted a hand in greeting. The guy wore filthy coveralls and had a stringy beard and beady eyes. Meesh pulled up fifteen feet away. Pam let out a whinny, her hooves dancing nervously. She knew something was wrong.
Meesh didn’t wait for Abe to speak first. “Howdy,” he said, grinning with his teeth.
“Hey,” the driver said, himself smiling. “What can I do ya for?”
Meesh thought for a moment about who the last missionary to work this area was, and when nothing came to mind, he improvised. “Oh, not much,” he said. “Just need to speak with Menon Lambert.”
Abe and Shade tensed in their saddle.
They driver gave him a cockeyed look. “Who?”
“Y’know, Menon Lambert?” He pointed to the wagon. “The guy who owns these here carriages.”
“Er, I ain’t never heard o’ no Lambert.”
“Oh? Then what missionary’re you carrying?”
“Missionary?” The driver asked.
“Yeah, missionary. Brah, you’re driving a wagon from Sal Yaddo. What kinda man don’t know the name of the man he’s carting around?” Meesh brought his hands up in mock bewilderment.
The driver stroked his beard uneasily, looking like he wanted to be anywhere other than right there, right then. A barely-heard whisper then sounded, and the man straightened up on his perch. “Who’re you?” he suddenly demanded.
“I asked first,” Meesh replied.
“I asked second.”
Meesh took a deep breath. “This is so, so dumb.”
A woman’s voice shrieked, followed by a crack and a whimper. Meesh’s shoulders arched back, his hand inched toward the revolver hidden between his legs.
He didn’t have a chance to reach for it, for the driver lurched to his feet and swung a long weapon from beneath his seat. Excited murmurs, creaking boards, and shuffling fabric could be heard as even more men, eight of them, emerged from within the three wagons. Each braced himself on the carriage frames and held weapons Meesh recognized—rifles called bangers, the type a missionary’s protectors brought with them to defend against just these hard-boiled sorts. The guns were bolt-action, powerful and accurate, each round capable of pounding a grapefruit-sized hole in a man’s skull. Meesh peered to the side, saw Abe and Shade sitting there expressionless, and chuckled.
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