As far as Lanyard Everett knew, he was the last one.
— 2 —
There was nothing to the world but the howling of the sandstorm around them. To Lanyard’s left, he saw a vague outline in the gloom, a loping shape, probably a bird. Over the wind he could just hear one of the bikes, whining and troubled as the sand invaded its innards.
Clutching at the dust veil across his face, he blinked again, cursing the dryness of his eyes. The sands of the Drift varied as much as the types of rain down south, and the powder got into every crease of his skin and scratched his lungs like the miner’s death.
The camel lurched across a sand drift, and Lanyard snatched at the harness, heart racing. He’d junked the buggy half a day back; the motor dust-bound and finally silent. Snagging this riderless camel when it passed within arm’s length was the only thing that had saved his life.
He despised camels and this one did little to melt his heart. It hissed, huffing out its feathers, and worried at Lanyard’s hands with its sharp fangs. He swiftly jabbed it in the tender spot just north of the saddle horn, showing the animal that he’d ridden a camel before. With a mournful honk, the beast regarded its challenge as lost and plodded forward at his command.
On the Drift, anyone who got separated from his fellows was as good as dead. There were other things in there with them, dogging their caravan, feeding in the gloom. He’d heard the screams and did not need to urge the camel onward.
Lanyard knew that predators slept beneath these sands and were active only when the storms came. Yet still, he chanced on a crossing. He knew that people would die.
“The winds don’t always blow,” he’d told them.
Lanyard thought he was going to be as rich as the proverbial Neville. He’d scoffed at the towns that feared them enough to now employ them. They were a proper mob now, coin-riders that went where the pay was. There simply hadn’t been enough time to go around the Drift, not if they wanted this job.
Now here he was, forced to admit the truth. It had been fear not profit that drove him east. He’d been slowly leading his mob away from his failure, and now they were choking in the dark.
I’m a damn fool and now we’re all dead, Lanyard thought, sipping from the dead cameleer’s water bladder. We should have stuck to pouncing on caravans.
Then he saw it, a light just visible through the whipping veils of grit. He drove the camel onwards, and to his relief he saw several shapes ahead of him, birds and bikes and man-shapes on foot.
Here at the Drift’s edge, the windstorm began to falter, the bank of dust finally rolling back into the interior of the wasteland, as if it had lost interest in them.
Winds don’t move like that, he thought with a shudder.
Lanyard pulled back his bandana, wiping dust from his face and hands. The camel’s mane of feathers had turned aside most of the grit, and now that the danger had passed, it regarded its new master through slitted eyes, baring a row of fangs.
“Enough,” Lanyard said, once more jabbing his fingers into the tender spot and again when the beast was too slow in dropping that snarl. Defeated, the camel walked on, bearing a man more stubborn than itself.
The glass spire that led them out of the sands was the work of the Taursi. Long before the time of the settlers, the natives crafted these by arts unknown, rough-edged beacons that littered all the lands, from Riverland to Inland and perhaps beyond. By day they drew in the sunlight, and when night fell they lit the old ways.
This structure was ancient, and as the sun sank into the sandstorm over their shoulders, the light intensified into an off-peach glow, flickering like an ember brought to heat.
“It’s the bossman,” someone muttered. He saw the remainder of his mob regrouping by the beacon and noticed the handful of riderless birds, as well as one of the bikes gone. A quick headcount showed that perhaps ten people were missing, gobbled up by the Drift.
His chosen lieutenants were among the living. Slopkettle rode behind Mutch, and Dogwyfe was on the ground watering Magog with the last of her waterskins.
Lanyard did not miss the glances between Mutch and the young flenser, the way her arms lingered across the old birdman’s waist for a moment longer than necessary.
Trouble there, he thought, watching Dogwyfe coo over her animal, oblivious. He half expected to find the evidence of her second divorce in the morning and wondered which woman he would miss the most.
“That’s Sully’s camel,” a gap-toothed biker said when he passed by. He slowly reached for the spear-gun on his hip.
“Sully is dead, and this is mine now,” Lanyard said, staring the crooked man down until the biker found it more prudent to check on his machine. Standing up on the camel’s harness, Lanyard whistled between his teeth. The mob gathered together, brooding and exhausted.
“We go,” he said, pointing to a notch-toothed hill. “Waterhole about an hour that way. No point waiting here, there’s no one else coming.”
They spotted Carmel the following morning. The town squatted on top of a plateau with a commanding view of the plain in all directions. A telegraph wire stretched away on worm-rotted poles, the one thread connecting this town to the rest of civilisation.
The land surrounding the walled town was a bleedthrough field, picked over and sold off. Only the scars remained to show where a sprawl of buildings had sprouted from the ground.
“They’ve pried out every last brick,” Slopkettle scoffed, cross-legged and relaxed on the harness behind Lanyard. “How do they mean to pay us, bossman?”
“From the treasures hid behind that nice thick wall,” Lanyard said. “They’ll pay.”
As they crossed the plain, Lanyard could just make out the hundreds of statues set on the walls and roofs beyond. The Leicester: a watchful warrior that guided this strange people, the symbol of their prosperity.
“Listen,” he told the flenser behind him. “I know you mark rote for the Papa Lucy, but keep your mouth shut. There’s a different god in this place.”
“No gods here, just bloody statues,” Slopkettle muttered. “Heretics, and we’re worse fools for treating with ’em. Whole place should be burnt to the ground.”
“Watch your tongue or I’ll take it out.”
Her body tensed behind him, and she shifted around on the camel’s harness. He wondered which knife she was reaching for and rested his hand on his leg, fingers almost touching the pistol hanging low on his belt.
She sat back, and he smiled.
“You’re smart. Might just keep you alive.”
“About to say the same thing, bossman.”
Lanyard’s mob drew up before the gates of Carmel. At his signal, the bikers revved their engines, kicking up dust and stones. Those on birds waved their clacker sticks and set them to screeching, and the camels acted up, too, cranky from all the racket. The crooked folk on foot began to wrestle and play knife games, blades flashing and arcing through the air.
Fifty mad cannibals camped on your doorstep, Lanyard thought, watching the bobbing of heads above, movement on top of the walls. Give these townsfolk a bit of theatre. Keep them on their toes.
Slopkettle slid down from the camel’s back, joining in the knife rite, and Lanyard rode on alone as a bossman should. It was proper for him to treat on behalf of his mob. If this was a trap, a means to strike him down on the sly, he knew the crooked mobs would wage war on this place, regardless of their feelings for him.
He saw a fence of nervous guns bobbing in the air as bailiffs rushed behind the statues to line the walls. Lanyard knew he was as safe as a babe in arms. He ordered the camel to kneel and walked forward, waiting calmly before the gates. He took a moment to admire the slab of roof beams and steel girders.
“I’ve lost my tradestone, you’ll have to bring one,” he hollered through cupped hands. “Hurry up.”
A minute later the gate cracked open, turning effortlessly on an unseen hinge, giving a gap few could squeeze through. The sliver of an opening revealed a phalanx of me
n with guns, kneeling behind a low barricade. Lanyard saw streets and buildings, cobbled together in the same piecemeal fashion as the outer wall.
One man emerged from the innards of Carmel, an older man in a Before suit. He moved slowly, arthritic, looking around for hidden cannibals. He wore a sash, blue ribbon swaying with a bob of melted tin, and a hat of rabbit skin, one brim upturned. The slouch hat was peculiar to the local religion.
“I had a hat like that once,” Lanyard told the man, who clutched at the slouch when a strong gust of wind drove along the base of the wall, threatening to tear it off his head.
“No doubt it fell from the hands of someone godly and lost, to make its way into the possession of a man-eater,” the Leicesterite said, tense and wary.
“I don’t eat from the greypot like they do,” Lanyard said, jerking his thumb to indicate the mad scene behind him. “And I got the hat from my old master. Not sure where he got it.”
He supposed it had been camouflage for old Bauer and smart in its own way. The Leicesterites were disliked and seldom approached by those in good faith with Papa Lucy, the Boneman, and whatever was left of his rotten little Family.
A clever way for a Jesusman to move openly.
They stood for an awkward moment, the townsman and the warlord. Then the Leicesterite signalled to the gate behind him and a pair of boys came out at a trot bearing a large slate between them.
The tradestone of Carmel was more elaborate than the scratched rock Jollylot carted around, making deals with crude folk who could barely read. This stone was marked and embossed with the image of the Leicester, the white warrior overseeing a slab of neat text, laws and bylaws and all of the words that civilised folk tried to hide behind.
“The water barons have been at war, out there,” the townsman said. He waved to the vast and unforgiving landscape, indicating everything beyond the safety of a town wall, the limit of his world.
“Used to be half a dozen carters to buy from, but only Vern the Half-Dann comes here now. His prices, he…the man has to be stopped.”
Lanyard had heard of the man. Half-Dann was ruthless even for a water baron, the usurers who brought water to the parched Inland cities. He’d considered sending his mob for a raid on the water trains, but they were always ringed by coin-riders, a hard target.
Going after the Half-Dann’s caravan he looked to lose at least half his mob. But there were always more crooked folk, living rough on the fringes of town law, and word got around. If he pulled off this job, others would travel for weeks to swell his ranks.
“This will cost you,” Lanyard said and named a price. The townsman paled, frowning he shook his head.
“Feel free to kill Vern the Half-Dann yourself,” Lanyard said. “Maybe we’ll buy this load of water ourselves and drain the whole bloody lot right in front of your gates.”
“You’re just as bad as them,” the townsman said, trembling with outrage and fear. Lanyard nodded and ushered the man towards the tradestone.
The deal was struck, and both men kissed the tradestone, giving their true names and the terms of the trade. Lanyard barked at the old townsman’s title: Fos Carpidian, Lord Protector of Carmel. Shooting Lanyard a wounded glare, the man rose painfully from his knees, not once looking back as he returned to the safety of his stone curtain.
“Break a trade, eat a blade!” Lanyard called out, but Fos did not respond. This version of the trade banter was something that only happened in the low places.
Lanyard returned to his camp, wondering who would still be alive by sunset tomorrow. Overhead, the army of stone men watched, and he felt the full weight of their hollow eyes.
He dreamt that night, once more breaking open Bauer’s head with a rock. Bauer did not resist and spoke throughout the murder, his eye fixed on Lanyard as the boy huffed from the weight of the bloody rock.
“Takes a long time,” Bauer said. “Death.”
“Shut up,” Lanyard cried, bringing the stone down again. A heavy crack sounded as the thick forehead bone finally split, but Bauer’s eye remained fixed on Lanyard, his lips moving.
“I don’t mean to haunt you,” Bauer said. “Feels like you’re the ghost haunting me.”
Crack! This time the crashing blow set Bauer’s head into a sickening shape, fluid and gore oozing out and pooling underneath. Exhausted from swinging the rock, young Lanyard cradled his master’s head in his hands, weeping over one more job he couldn’t finish.
“Just walk away from this mob,” Bauer said. “It’s all going to run through your fingers.” Bauer had just enough energy left to dig into the dust, sending out a drift with a jerky hand. The poetry of this moment drove Lanyard into a fury.
“Liar!” Lanyard said and this time the stone fell true ending the old Jesusman, leaving a bug-eyed smear on the clay. Lanyard pushed the bloody rock to one side and sat hunched next to the corpse.
“I will not go west,” Lanyard said, reaching for the Jesus-gun, knowing that the monsters were coming. With a shrug, he put the shotgun under his chin, only to discover it would not fire.
“Stop putting me through this,” he begged the corpse. “I’ve had enough.”
The gun worked plenty well against the creatures that poured out of the dark. It was good for that, at least. Lanyard died badly in the dream, but even as the monstrosities overwhelmed him, he found one small measure of peace.
Compared to the monsters in his own skull, the water barons were nothing to fear.
It had all gone wrong.
Vern the Half-Dann begged for his life, sobbing, his face slick with snot. He offered Lanyard a share in the water business. As he scrambled away, feet skidding in the loose scree, he increased these terms to include the pick of his houses and finally all of his wealth.
Lanyard shook his head, not unkindly.
The Half-Dann was pitiful, a dwarf with a twist in his spine, one muscled arm grown out to the proportions of a full-grown man. Despite the promise of enough wealth to rival Neville, Lanyard killed the water baron all the same, giving him the kindness of a bullet through the temple.
He felt wetness on his neck and noticed that his shirt was slick with blood. Investigating the wound, he realised that Vern had scored his face and neck with his knife, a ragged cut that bled freely. The dwarf had missed his artery by a hair.
Lanyard walked through the dead and dying. One of his mob had been gutted by a coin-rider’s bird, and he screamed as he gathered in the sprawl of his bowels. Lanyard eased the crooked man over with a moment of knife work and gave him a friendly wink as he bled out, his screams replaced by a final weak gurgle.
The water wagon was an enormous Before tanker, a steel cylinder on rubber wheels. Where a truck had once hauled the tanker, a pair of big stumpies lay in harness. One lizard lay dead, riddled with spears and bullets, now a meal for the survivor. The reins hung limp in the hands of the driver, a spear in his throat and the front of the tanker painted with his lifeblood.
Dead birds lay sprawled around the tanker, one pair tangled in a deathly embrace, claws and beaks still buried in feathered flesh. Pressing against the sting of his wound, Lanyard wondered if Gog or Magog were numbered among the dead but realised he couldn’t tell one bird from another.
The plan had been for Lanyard’s mob to round the walls while the Half-Dann waited at the gate, taking the water train by surprise and preventing its escape, while the Leicesterites gunned down the coin-riders from above.
There’d been no help from Carmel; the townsfolk didn’t fire a single shot. Offering no help to either side, they sat behind their high wall and closed gate, watching their natural enemies kill each other.
Lanyard saw a couple of figures still moving. A waterman hooked a toe through his rifle and shot himself dead before anyone could seize him. Dogwyfe was straddling a wounded man’s chest, driving a big rock into his face until he lay still, all the while shrieking her fury at the sky.
Magog was nowhere to be seen.
Lanyard felt dizzy. He
wondered where he could find a needle and thread and poked at the long pucker of his wound so that the pain would keep him alert.
A noise, and Lanyard turned as if in a dream, gun up and tracking. It was a cockatoo, prying the eyes and now the tongue from a crooked woman, perched on the hand that still clutched to her chest as if that would keep her life in.
Not that. Rounding the tanker, behind the telegraph line, the pounding of feet, a bird coming for him. Holstering the pistol, he lifted the shotgun from his shoulder. He needed to make sure it would die from that first round before it drove a claw through him.
Turning, he nearly put a load of shot into Gog, who stopped short at the sight of Lanyard’s shooter. With a groan, Mutch tumbled out of the saddle and fell at Lanyard’s feet. His face was a bloody mess.
Lanyard wondered if King Jollylot was laughing at him, from wherever dead fat men ended up. A mob of fifty, all gone, and him with the life rapidly leaking from him.
“Bossman,” someone shouted, and he realised it was Slopkettle. The flenser was kneeling behind a dead camel, her arms red up to the elbows and most of her knives gone. She held a rifle almost as big as herself, resting it across the feathered hump of her barricade.
The gates of Carmel were half open. A mass of men emerged from the town armed with guns and spears, their big half-native mutts straining against leashes.
“You’re breaking the trade, Fos,” Lanyard muttered and made for the water tanker, spatters of his life trailing behind him in the dust. The townsmen were close now, and any moment they’d let loose the dogs to wipe out anyone still standing.
“Slopkettle,” he yelled, and she made sense of his intent, the pair running hard for the tanker. The townsmen found them standing by the valves under the tanker’s belly, gun-butts raised, and they drew short to keep their distance. If Lanyard’s men snapped the valves, all of the water would flood out, even by the time the townsmen dragged the tanker inside their walls.
Papa Lucy & the Boneman Page 3