Carry the Flame

by James Jaros

  He stepped closer and grabbed the neck of her shirt. She knew what he’d do before he did it, and that he wouldn’t stop there.

  Gunmen from the City of Shade lit a torch and started stripping cloaks and weapons from the bodies. Hunt stared at the dead for a full minute, appearing to savor the kill. Or is he praying? Esau asked himself.

  His master reloaded calmly while the gunmen rushed to gather a sorry plunder: ragged clothes, two small, chipped pistols, a spear, a slingshot. A few flint knives. Esau wondered how the dead ever figured they’d survive, much less prevail.

  The slave trailed Hunt down the dune. His master stood on the periphery before using his fingers to rake through sand around a bullet-riddled man. Then he rolled him over and checked underneath. He repeated his careful search with each of the fallen before unearthing a revolver near the fifth and last body. He turned to Esau.

  “They were all dying. This one knew it, so he buried his weapon.” The slave noticed the gunmen listening in from the shadows. “For a lot of them, saving something like this,” Hunt held up the pistol, “is the most important thing they’ll do in their whole lives. If their people had got here first, that’s what they would have been looking for.”

  Hunt stood and wiped down the revolver with the tail of his shirt, eyeing the blue steel appreciatively. Even in the flickering torchlight the gun looked like a prize to Esau. His master squinted to check the cylinder, then cranked the hammer. It sounded well-oiled, ready to fire. He eased back the hammer and slid the gun into his belt.

  None of the gunmen challenged his claim. None dared, in Esau’s estimation, because his master had somehow assumed command without a threatening word to any of them. The slave knew it was more than Hunt’s considerable size at play. It was his master’s fearlessness, as if it would never occur to the fair-haired man that others would ever object to his taking the lead, or find themselves as capable as he.

  Until tonight, Esau had not seen Hunt shoot or kill. Slaughter, really. His master had systematically gunned down three of the men from behind. Each had mortal wounds in his back and his face in the sand. Their assailant was no mystery.

  The slave wasn’t shocked by his master’s pitilessness. He had long sensed a final unforgiveness in Hunt’s eyes, an unblinking willingness to claim lives for the riven Christ of the cross, God the Father’s most holy creation crucified by bent men of bent means. By filth, craven and cursed. To know Hunt was to know a man driven by the scourge of divinely endorsed fury.

  Driven by more earthly needs, too, as Esau saw night after night, though only God Himself knew what Hunt had claimed of the living all those times he rode from the base alone. Boys? The slave shook his head, but no mere gesture could cool the jealous burn in his belly. You’re with him now, he tried instead. But memories of their sex, vigorous and wild, immediately stirred Esau’s body, and he said a quick prayer, not in penance but to drive away thoughts of pleasure that could point to his foul desire. Hunt wouldn’t be the only unforgiving man in their midst.

  What about you? he asked himself. Do you forgive? He raised his eyes to the night sky. Do you?

  His master picked through the bounty grabbed by the gunmen. They made no attempt to stop him. “I want these.” He held up two of the dark cloaks.

  The slave hurried to take the clothing, seeing the men closely for the first time. They had burn tattoos, even on their faces. Esau thought the scarring cruel. He rued his own black S and could not understand why men would mutilate themselves so readily.

  “Did anybody get away before we showed up?” Hunt asked.

  “One guy,” said a gunman with a peculiar shock of dark hair sprouting from the side of his otherwise bald head. The length was about an inch thick and hung past his ear. “We saw him take off for over there.” He pointed to a distant dune barely visible in the starlight. “But we didn’t see him for long, and these assholes had us pinned down.”

  Till we came along.

  “Just one?” his master asked.

  The gunmen nodded, though less assuredly, Esau thought.

  “Because I saw two,” Hunt said.

  The gunman shook his head. His odd hair brushed his shoulder. “One, that’s all.”

  “I saw one of these.” Hunt gestured toward the cloaks. “But I saw something that was blond, too.”

  “No, I’m telling you, it was one guy.” The gunman crossed his arms. His pistol pointed casually to the side.

  Hunt studied him openly. “Was he from the caravan?”

  “No way,” the gunman said with equal insistence. His cohorts still held their guns by their sides, but Esau had already seen how easily five men could die. And his master had reloaded while these men rushed to pillage. “We took the caravan before it got dark. None of them got away.”

  “None?” Hunt still sounded skeptical.

  “We got them all, I’m telling you. And they’re not going anywhere. We even got a two-headed freak show. One of your ‘demons.’ ” The gunman looked like he might laugh at Hunt’s expense, but glanced a second time at the man looming over him and didn’t.

  Esau was shocked by the blasphemy. The gunmen had taken the demon from hell—the beast His Piety wanted more than any other—and could joke of such spawn?

  “The only one we left behind was a big guy,” the gunman went on. “He tried to run off and I killed him.” He stuck out his hand, adding, “I’m Jester,” as if his news and name should have dispelled all of Hunt’s reservations.

  Hunt ignored the offer. “Where?” he asked sharply, as if rebuking more than a handshake.

  “Back over the dune,” the gunman said sullenly.

  They trudged to where the truck and van had stopped. Hunt took the torch and studied the ground.

  “Lots of running around,” he said, his tone calmer.

  “Oh, it was fucking crazy,” Jester said. “Bunch of bitches. We couldn’t shoot, except for the asshole who ran off and gave me a nice clean shot. We figured you didn’t want a bunch of holes in those girls. Not that kind anyway.” He laughed.

  Hunt did not. Esau suspected his master found the gunmen wanting in the most critical regards—faith in God, and a belief in the sacred role of females. The Alliance never made light of them.

  “I want to see the man you killed.”

  “Sure.” Jester shrugged and smiled, showing black and missing teeth.

  They walked another fifty feet or so to the body of a large bald man. Hunt waved the torch over the length of it, lighting what appeared to be evidence of digging near the abdomen. He turned to Jester. “Did one of your men do this?”

  The gunman shook his head.

  “Roll him over,” Hunt ordered.

  “You roll him over,” Jester snapped.

  Hunt stared him down. When the gunman bent to move the body, Esau stepped forward. Hunt put out his hand. “You’re not his slave.”

  After a struggle, Jester pushed the body over. They found a hand axe, but no gun.

  “He didn’t have one,” the gunman said.

  “He did,” Hunt replied. “A good one. Someone fired three shots at us. High caliber, nothing like the popguns you found.”

  “It’s that one.” Jester pointed to Hunt’s belt.

  Hunt shook his head, and a smile crept across his face. It didn’t look pleasant. “There were two of them that I saw, and only one was shooting. The others were already gone by then. And those were the two who got away.”

  He brushed past Jester, stepping around the dead man. Hunt held the torch out, then followed a short trail over a wind-sculpted ripple. He turned back to the gunman.

  “Who searched here?”

  “Me. That’s why I know there was no goddamn gun.”

  “Don’t ever take the Lord’s name in vain around me.”

  Jester shrugged again.

  In the space of a breath, Hunt drew a pistol and raised the barrel to the gunman’s face. “Do you hear me?” Jester nodded. “Now put your gun away. Do not tempt me.”


  The man slipped his gun into his belt. Hunt did the same. Esau stared at Jester’s weapon while his master turned boldly away and raised the torch over a short, shallow trench.

  “So where’s the kid?” Hunt asked.

  “What fucking kid?”

  Hunt grabbed the gunman by the back of his neck and forced him forward. “The kid who was hiding right here, probably while you were wasting your time over there.” He spun Jester around to the man’s body. “It all makes sense now. The kid with blond hair. The kid who got the gun you missed. The gun that almost got us killed.”

  “No kid got a gun.”

  “No man leaves a good axe,” Hunt said. “That’s something a kid does. Or you.”

  He pushed the gunman away. When the man tried to draw his weapon, Hunt smashed it from his hand with the torch, then jammed the flame into his face. Jester staggered sideways, moaning and covering his eyes. Hunt glared at the other gunmen, shaking his head in warning. None moved.

  “Kneel,” Hunt ordered Jester. “Tie his hands behind his back,” he said to his slave.

  “Fuck you,” Jester yelled.

  Hunt clubbed him again, driving him to the sand before plowing the flame into his neck. The gunman screamed and rolled onto his side. Hunt pressed his gun into Jester’s strange patch of hair. “Hands behind your back.”

  After pulling a leather strap from the man’s belt, Hunt handed it to Esau, saying, “Tie them tight.”

  His master placed his boot on the small of Jester’s back. “You’re a fool. You missed a girl and a gun. I’ll let your Mayor deal with you.”

  Esau straightened, satisfied with his knots. Hunt ordered Jester to stand. With his hands tied—and his face and neck burned, bleeding, and crusted with sand—he struggled to his feet. None of his compatriots moved to help him.

  Hunt grabbed Jester’s arm. “Now search him carefully,” he ordered Esau.

  The slave found a sheathed knife inside the man’s waistband, but nothing else. He gave the blade to his master.

  “You’re good at that,” Hunt said. “Now check this one.” He pointed to the dead body. “Let’s see what else this fool missed.”

  Esau pulled a six-inch steel knife from a pocket inside the right boot. He tugged them both off, along with the dead man’s belt, but left the clothes. The shirt was stiff with blood, the pants fouled.

  Hunt told the four other gunmen to drop their weapons. “You’ll get them back when we get to the City of Shade. That’s a promise. I don’t want any of you trying to save his worthless life.” He waved the torch at Jester, who cowered and fell. “I’d just have to kill all of you.” Hunt sounded weary to Esau.

  The men stared at his master until a short black man flipped his sawed-off single barrel shotgun on the sand. The others followed suit. Hunt had him gather the weapons, including the ones taken from the battle, then waved the men forward with his pistol.

  “I want you about ten feet ahead of me. No farther. And you,” he pressed his gun to the back of Jester’s head, “stay right where I can see you.” Hunt shoved him. “Move!”

  The beaten gunman staggered along, his right eye closed. He made helpless attempts to rub it against his shoulder before squeezing it shut even harder, as if to relieve the pain. Esau watched him closely. The slave knew humiliation well—and the murderous impulses it provoked.

  When they made their way back to the motorcycle, not far from where the caravan had stopped, his master told him to load the cloaks, boots, and weapons into the sidecar. But Hunt stopped him when he tried to add the steel knife to the pile. “You may keep that,” Hunt said, stunning Esau, who had never been permitted a weapon of any type. To carry one on the base was tantamount to suicide. He slipped the knife into his belt, feeling a surge of power that almost unnerved him.

  Hunt waved his revolver at the four gunmen. “Keep doing what you’ve been doing, and stay on firm ground. Don’t go on the dune. We’ll be following on the bike.” He handed the torch to the short black man. “Keep it where I can see it. And you,” he turned to Jester, “don’t stop moving. If you slow down, I’ll drag you from the back of this thing.” Jester stumbled forward, still favoring his shut eye, which leaked a steady stream of pink tears.

  Hunt straddled the bike and patted the seat behind him, as he had at the start of the journey. Esau settled on the torn leather, relaxing for the first time since somebody in a cloak fired on them and came close to killing his master.

  The slave reached around Hunt and felt two pistols now protruding from his pants. He rested his hands on both of them, letting his fingertips linger on his master’s warmth.

  Hunt started the old Harley, and squeezed Esau’s hand to him. The slave smiled and grasped his master’s thick length, the bike vibrating powerfully beneath them. Then he gently kissed the back of Hunt’s shirt, careful with his scabs, and tried to stop worrying about boys.

  You’re with him now, he told himself again.

  The cool moist air thrilled Cassie, and she found the sound of flowing water so inviting that Sam had to urge her to slow down.

  “You’ve got to be careful. It’s a huge drop, Cassie.”

  But it was as difficult for the girl to ease up now as it had been to move only moments ago. Just as she managed to settle into a safe, steady pace, Sam warned that they’d come to the missing rung. She reached up and placed her hand on Cassie’s ankle, offering a reassuring “There you go” after guiding her foot past the open space.

  They climbed down for about five more minutes before the girl heard Sam step off the ladder. Cassie released her grip gratefully when the woman helped her down.

  “Can I drink it?” the girl asked. A foreboding as dark as the air overcame her because she worried the water was poisoned with chemicals like plutonium, or the many other invisible killers that wiped out millions who had been spared Wicca and the most crazed human hands.

  “Yes, it’s totally safe,” Sam said. “It’s been thousands of years since this water’s been anywhere near the surface. But wait for Yurgen.” He was climbing off the ladder. “He’ll get the torch going so we don’t trip.”

  Cassie stepped rapidly in place, barely containing her excitement, but even her escalating anticipation couldn’t compete with what she saw when Yurgen sparked the torch and raised it high.

  Despite her thieving thirst, Cassie’s eyes were drawn immediately to a nearby wall that rose in sedimentary layers a foot high, an inch high, sometimes ten feet high—widely varying bands of radiant yellows, purple, rose, and buff.

  Yurgen grinned at her amazement and stood on his toes to lift the light higher. As far as the glow extended, the girl saw a wall painted with the pristine colors of creation itself.

  “Over here, Cassie. Yurgen, show her.”

  Sam turned her around as Yurgen cast the light on a turquoise-colored stalactite spilling from an arched ceiling so high the girl could glimpse but a fraction of its vastness. The inverted cone dripped water, as alive as stone can be.

  Cassie almost slipped when she ran toward it, but righted herself in an instant, hugging the formation to feel the breadth of coolness, the wash of freshwater on her parched chest and belly and legs.

  She saw Sam’s eyes alive in the firelight, and asked for the water. She could no longer deny her deprivation, not even for beauty as immense as this.

  They followed Yurgen through a forest of stalagmites and stalactites. Cassie thought of hide-and-seek, and the wonders that could come from playing with the girls down there.

  They quickly crossed rock so smooth and seamless it felt soft, before weaving past clunky-looking boulders to a stony bank. Is it really a river? She had only heard of them, and could scarcely believe one flowed only feet away in the absolute darkness of inner earth. “A river?” she now asked aloud.

  Sam nodded, tears spilling down her cheeks.

  “Why are you crying?” asked Cassie.

  “I’m just happy for you. Go on,” she waved toward the water. “You must
be very thirsty.”

  Cassie knelt, and Yurgen held the torch over the water. The girl scooped it up, startling the brilliant reflection of flame. She sipped carefully, and that made her cry, too, because the water tasted fresh and pure, as untouched as the sun or moon or girls unborn.

  Plunging both hands back into the flow, she splashed her face, drinking lustily for the first time in her young life. Water snaked all the way down to her belly, and she felt the rich firmness of its chilly presence in her stomach, empty for many hours. Only after she drank her fill did she notice Sam’s hand on her back. The woman was kneeling next to her, wiping drips from her own face.

  “What is this place?” Cassie asked, marveling at the water and all she had seen in the past few minutes.

  “We call it the Caverns,” Sam said.

  Yurgen gently squeezed Sam’s shoulder. She rose, taking Cassie’s hand. The three of them walked back across the smooth stone, but instead of weaving through the majestic turquoise formations, they bore right, following the floor of the cavern as it widened like a delta, as perhaps it had been millions of years ago. They moved by torchlight for another ten minutes, unencumbered by climbs or unwieldy descents.

  When they stopped, Cassie looked up, spying at least a dozen people in the near distance huddling and talking around a smattering of candles. They stared at her for several seconds, but turned back to their discussion.

  “Who are they?” she asked.

  “Good people,” Sam said. “Are you hungry? You must be.”

  Cassie took a deep breath as she tried to figure out what she needed most, food or sleep. “I’m too tired,” she said. “Can I eat in the morning?”

  “Of course.” Sam took the torch from Yurgen and showed her a gray blanket lying on a bed of white sand. “Do you think you could sleep here?” she asked. “We’ll be right over there, if you need anything.”

  Sam held out the light, and the girl glimpsed more bedding about fifteen feet away. She nodded.

  “You won’t wander, will you?” Sam asked softly. “There are places you could fall and hurt yourself in the dark.”

  “No, I won’t.” Cassie wanted nothing more of wandering, much less in the dark. She wanted only sleep, and what she couldn’t have: Mom, Dad, Jenny, Maul.