by Andy Monk
A frown crossed her face followed by a look of concern as she straightened up.
“Gunfire.”
“Where?”
She nodded in the direction of the approaching riders.
“We’d better see what those women are running from,” he said, nudging his horse forward, “whatever it is, I think it’s heading this way…”
The Fortune-Teller
The little monkeys were gathering in the square. In their own tiny minds they were looking for news, but it was clear that, like most dumb animals being stalked by a predator, they were just herding together for protection.
News of the Scourge attacks had been dribbling in all day. Survivors with tales of murder, rape, burning and looting. She couldn’t have been more pleased.
She’d wandered around the square earlier, but had quickly retreated to the Residence, partly because she didn’t like to be so close to so many of the filthy animals at once if she didn’t have to be, but mostly because she had trouble keeping the beaming smile from her face.
Hope had delivered. And quickly too. She’d worried she might have to endure months waiting for them to arrive, if they ever did. They had crossed a lot of miles to get here and they didn’t have the benefit of being able to use the paths of the world or any other civilised form of transport. Clearly, greed had given them wings.
She watched proceedings from the window. The dark-suited figure of the Mayor was moving from one knot of townsfolk to the next. Reassuring and glad-handing. Listening and nodding, looking concerned, looking serious, a handshake here, a pat on the back there. Pressing all that disgusting unwashed flesh.
It was all so dreadfully unseemly.
Still, not for much longer.
“Watching the show?”
Her head snapped around. She’d been so lost in her thoughts she hadn’t heard Symmons slither into the room.
“The town does seem to be getting rather excitable. All over a few raids…”
“Such things are unusual out here. He doesn’t allow them.”
“Perhaps someone should mention that to these raiders.”
“They will be dealt with.”
“Of course they will…”
She turned fully around. Symmons remained by the door, hands clamped before him, back ruler-straight as he looked down his nose at her. It was something he’d always managed to do whatever body he wore.
“Is there something you want? Shouldn’t you be making tea or something?”
“Just checking on you…”
“There is no need. I am quite comfortable thank you. I don’t require anything.”
“I wasn’t offering anything. I was checking on you.”
“You’ll find all the silverware is where it should be.”
Symmons didn’t smile, which wasn’t unusual.
“Why are you here, Giselle?”
“I prefer the view from up here… the smell is better too, away from all those unwashed monkeys.”
“You don’t fool me.”
She raised both an eyebrow and the corner of her mouth.
“You are up to mischief. I can smell it on you, you wear deceit like a perfume to mask the rottenness seeping out of you.”
“You’ve grown bold…” she turned her back and looked down at the milling crowd below least he caught sight of the fury behind her eyes. She was tempted to kill him, but resisted the urge. The Mayor would miss his dog and, frankly, there wasn’t anybody else in this town capable of doing the deed so he would know it was her work.
“I remember.”
“Remember what?”
“Everything you did.”
“I did nothing.”
“You betrayed him.”
“If I had betrayed him, I would not be here. Exile would have been a poor reward.”
Symmons moved across the room to stand at her shoulder, “We all know the Adversary’s sense of humour can be perverse. Spending eternity trapped with the man you betrayed… that sounds like the kind of thing that would amuse him enormously.”
She continued to stare out of the window. She didn’t like being challenged. It gnawed at her. Bad enough when it was the Mayor. When it was his dog it was even worse.
“I didn’t betray him… we lost. It is as simple as that.”
“They found the Fastness of Shards within days of Amiggeon. That should not have been possible. We were betrayed before we could regroup, we-”
“What do you know? You are not a warrior, you clean his fucking shoes!”
“I know someone betrayed us!” he hissed.
“Perhaps,” she said carefully, “but it was not me.”
Symmons took a deep breath. She had never seen him angry before, sneering and disdainful yes, but never angry. It was like being snapped at by a child’s pet, the kind that usually spent its time on its back or padding around at your heels staring at you with big hungry eyes. She should give it an indulgent smile and a scratch behind the ears.
Or kick the fucker across the room.
“You’ve been following the fat little man around town.”
Now she did look at Symmons. She was surprised. Not by the fact that he’d noticed her tormenting the little monkey in the dirty garish suit, but that she hadn’t been aware he’d been watching her.
She didn’t like surprises.
“What is it to you?”
“You’re tormenting him. Stop it.”
“What is it to you?” She repeated, her eyes narrowing at his disgraceful insolence.
“He is not yours to torment. He belongs to the Mayor, like everything else in this town. Including us.”
“The creature is aware of us…”
Symmons long bony face remained impassive, though fire flickered in his eyes.
“The Mayor knows everything that happens in this town Giselle. Everything. You should keep that in mind when it comes to your little schemes and distractions.”
A quiver ran through her and she hated herself for it. Fear. What a wretched and perverse thing for her to have to endure. She strangled it and kept her gaze fixed on Symmons. They knew nothing and by the time the Mayor and his flunky did it would be too late. She would be too strong for them to stand in her way.
The thought of their deaths calmed her. Sadly, the Mayor would have to die quickly, he was far too dangerous to leave alive a moment longer than necessary even in his current much-reduced circumstances, but his poodle was another matter. She would tease open his flesh and pull what hid inside out into the sunlight and watch it shrivel and blacken, let its screams serenade and amuse her. It would provide a delightful fanfare for her ascent to dominion.
“Haven’t you got something to clean?” she smiled.
Symmons’ face twisted for an instant. Annoyance. He’d wanted to goad her into saying or doing something rash. The poodle was trying to provoke her with its yapping. How tiresome.
“I’m watching you…” he hissed, his flesh trembling as if he were about to come bursting out of it, before he sucked in air to calm himself. Even in his hatred he was not that stupid. Surely.
“All you need is love… love… love…”
Her attention flicked to the doorway where the Mayor’s plaything Felicity stood half naked, an empty wine glass hanging by the stem from her long fingers, watching them through hazy, addled eyes.
When she looked back Symmons’ face carried no more than its usual sneer.
“I guess the Mayor’s busy at the moment,” she jerked her head towards Felicity who was shuffling towards one of the room’s daybeds, “why don’t you help her with that?”
She didn’t wait for a reply, spinning away from the Mayor’s creatures and leaving the room with her chin raised and her eyes sparkling. She had more important things to do than being distracted by such petty beings.
She had another betrayal to plan, after all.
The Rancher
Her hands were shaking.
She sucked in air and licked lips which had su
ddenly become as dry as summer scrub. She thought of Gramps and how he was dead because of men like those approaching them. Part of her had hoped they’d swing wide and go after the girls, part of her hoped they’d come in a straight line towards them so she could send a few more of the bastards to join Henderson, Cave and the rest building their New Nation in hell.
They hadn’t. The Scourge riders had reined in their mounts just out of rifle range and sat watching them, strung out in a line across the grass.
“What they doing?” she whispered, as if she didn’t make too much noise they might not notice them.
“Deciding what they’re gonna do now,” Amos replied.
“What’s to decide?”
“Charge us, dismount and come at us on foot with their heads down and using the grass to sneak up on us or…” he hesitated as one of the men started walking his horse towards them “…come over and talk to us.”
“They tried doing that with us,” she spat, recalling the way Henderson had come and tried to sweet talk her and Gramps out of the ranch “didn’t have much to say that didn’t stink of bull.”
“Keep watching the others, one or two might try sneaking up while we’re distracted. Keep em honest.”
“Does keeping em honest involve shooting at them?”
“That’s the idea.”
She focussed on the main group of riders, but they remained strung out in a line, their black slashes flapping in the breeze. Nine of them plus the approaching rider. They only had to take three each and Amos could deal with the extra one. Didn’t seem too bad a set of odds, even if they only had a dead horse for cover. It was more than any of the Scourge had.
“That’s far enough!” Amos’ yell breaking the silence suddenly enough to startle her.
The Scourge man did as he was told.
She glanced at Sye, his mouth was pressed into a bloodless line and one bruised eye remained closed as he kept his aim. His rifle wasn’t shaking at all.
She returned her attention to the waiting Scourge riders. There were still nine of them. They still weren’t doing anything much.
How many women you raped in the last few days, huh?
They weren’t doing much for now…
“We’re looking for the people who killed some of our men,” the rider called out. He was young, with a scratchy beard and a plump rounded face, though he didn’t seem particularly fat otherwise.
“You’d better turn around or some more of your men are gonna get killed,” Amos called back.
The Scourge rider pushed back his hat and grinned, “You ain’t a real sociable fella, are you?”
“We know who you are and what you do. Turn around and go back to the rest of the Scourge while you can.”
The smile faded from the young man’s face, “Was it you that cut our friend to pieces?”
“No,” Amos shot back, “that would be some of the women he’d raped.”
“Who-” anything else he had to say was cut short by Sye shooting him out of his saddle.
“They killed my Ma,” he explained in a hollow empty voice without looking at them.
“Guess we’re not talking our way out of this then.”
Amos shook his head, “We never were…”
“Here they come.” Sye’s words were flat and emotionless, but they were enough to make her heart skip a beat or two all the same.
She’d expected the raiders to charge straight at them, but instead they were dismounting. Eight of them fanned out while one stayed back with their horses.
She squeezed off a couple, but they were a long way off and she knew she’d have to get more than lucky to hit anything.
Picking a target, she waited, finger half pulling back on the trigger. Waiting, waiting, waiting… and then he was gone. Ducking down into the grass. The others had all done the same. With the wind pushing the grass heads around it was impossible to pick out any of the Scourge or what direction they were heading in. She guessed they were down crawling on their bellies like the snakes they were, which meant it would take them a while to get close, but the attackers could be anywhere and they wouldn’t see them until they were on top of them.
And by then it would be too late.
Kneeling behind Laura’s dead horse they were at head height to the long grass. It had been flattened here and there where their horses had come through and they’d been tramping about around where Laura had fallen, but beyond that the grass was a swaying wall of fading green shot through with gold where the summer sun was drying the land.
And somewhere in that thick, restless undergrowth killers were crawling towards them.
The memory of Henderson and his men came fast and unbidden; coarse hands abrading her skin, stinking breath in her face, mouths, teeth, laughter, spittle, fingers. Tearing at her clothes, tearing at her flesh. Their lust as fetid as their unwashed hides.
What they would have done to her if Amos hadn’t shown up?
The same thing these men would do if they took her now.
She swallowed and blinked away a bead of sweat.
Wasn’t going to happen. If it came down to it, she’d take the same route out of this world Gramps had before they could get their stinking hands on her. If it was good enough for that old fool then it was damn well good enough for her.
Laura let out a low moan. The girl’s face was deathly white and sweat moistened her skin. Flies were already buzzing around her.
She doubted the Scourge would have wasted any time trying to save her. The Scourge had no time for the weak.
“It’s gonna be ok…” she said in a low voice, wanting to lower her rifle so she could comfort the girl, but knowing she couldn’t drop her guard for a second.
“Laura’s in a bad way…” she muttered, as if there was something either of the men could do. Sye never said much at the best of times, not that she’d known him in anything within a long, dusty mile of the best of times, so she looked at Amos when no response came.
He was staring intently into the grass, his rifle moving in tiny increments as if he were tracking something, but when she looked there was nothing to see but a butterfly fluttering above the grass heads.
“Start shooting,” Amos said, without looking their way.
“What at?”
“Anything you like, it’ll keep their heads down and slow em a bit more.”
Sounded like wasting bullets, but Sye had already fired off a round. He didn’t need much encouragement to shoot at the Scourge, even when he couldn’t see any of the bastards.
She squeezed one off into the undergrowth too, no one shot back at least. If she stood up she’d have a better angle to see where the grass was being moved by the Scourge men crawling through it rather than the wind. It’d also make her a nice obvious target too. She decided to stay where she was.
They both fired off a few more rounds. There was no response beyond the cawing of startled crows. Amos remained stock still, a frown creasing his brow and his rifle slightly lowered as he stared along it. As she watched him out of the corner of her eye his rifle came up, he took aim at something.
She couldn’t see anyone, but she heard the scream after Amos fired well enough.
He lowered his rifle and licked his lips, “Two down…”
“Jesus… how’d you see anything?”
The scream hadn’t sounded particularly close and through the thick swaying grass Amos couldn’t have made out anything beyond a dozen yards at most. And yet he had.
“If we live through this, I’ll tell you.”
A rifle retort made all three of them flinch, but the shot was wild. On their bellies, the Scourge men had no better view than they did.
“Deal.”
Sye fired back in the direction the shot had come from, but he was doing no more than bothering the wildlife.
“You think they have a plan?” she pulled the brim of her hat down to protect her eyes from the lowering sun.
“Yeah, they have a plan,” Amos replied.
&nb
sp; “Kill us,” Sye offered. He hadn’t said much since they’d freed him from the Scourge, but she was starting to suspect the young man wasn’t exactly a spirit-lifting kind of guy.
“When they attacked our ranch, they circled around and came at us from different directions.”
“That’s what they’re doing here,” Amos nodded, his gaze sweeping around them, “they’ll try and keep us occupied while a couple of em can come at us from behind.”
She looked over her shoulder. The dead horse didn’t offer a lot of protection, but her back started feeling horribly exposed.
“So we just sit here and wait?”
“Nope,” Amos shook his head, “you’re going to sit here and wait.”
“And what are you going to do?”
He twisted out something far too dark to be a smile.
“I’m going to kill them all first…”
The Gunslinger
In the silence that followed his rifle’s retort he watched the colours of the man’s soul fade to grey. And then to nothing at all.
He was alone in the grass, or so it seemed. Surrounded by it, encased and enclosed by it. The smell of rich dark earth and the grass erupting from it filled his nostrils. There was no other world than the grass and no life but the small creatures that buzzed and fluttered and crawled through it.
And the faint distant hues of souls. Killers’ souls.
Shots were being fired. Sye and Dorry.
He’d told them it was to keep the Scourge occupied. He’d lied. It was so the Scourge knew where they were as they crept through the undergrowth towards them, calling them like a siren to where Death waited for them.
Lounging in the grass, chuckling drily in his soiled coat and shit-brown hat.
Death had dark work for Amos the Gunslinger. Always. And Death gave him the gifts to let him do it.
Often, he could see nothing, sometimes he saw a faint nebulous glow that shifted colours to match a person’s moods and emotions, sometimes they were so vivid the colours burned his eyes. But this afternoon, in the bright, biting sunlight, there were bonfires in the grass, blazing around the killers who were stalking them.