At the gated entrance to Agua Fria, there was a commotion. The lift wasn’t scheduled to run for the rest of the night, yet it ascended the canyon walls up to its shack at the top of the cliffs. The town guards who normally patrolled the area had retired for the night, all save for the handsome officer with the scar below his eye. He waited patiently for the lift to come back down, bringing his guest.
Dust fell from the tunnel that carried the lift down. For a moment, the officer regretted what he had done. Sweat pooled in the collar of his unform, and he suddenly had the urge to cut and run. But he straightened his back and tried his best to look imperial amongst the desert dwellers of Agua Fria. Still, when he saw the metal of the lift peek out of the tunnel, he felt his courage waver.
Just get through this. He told himself. By this time tomorrow, this place will be yours.
The lift came to a halt at the base of the canyon. Inside, there were no merchants or travelers. There were no refugees. It was a warband of raiders, armed to the teeth with weaponry that far surpassed anything the town guards had. One of the raiders stepped forward, an intelligent looking man with a feathered, multicolored robe that opened to reveal his bare chest. He wore glasses made of obsidian, and his hair was a slicked back sandy coif styled with what smelled like animal fat. As he approached the officer, he extended a hand.
“I am Shi-Toh of the Gordo Clan. You are Officer Paisley, I presume.”
The officer nodded and took his hand, shaking it nervously. “Yes sir. Are you… him?”
“No. I am an envoy, his voice so to speak. He is the warlord.”
Shi-Toh turned and pointed to the gang of raiders. Out from among them, a beast of a man stepped forward. Every trudging step out of the lift increased the heavy, animalistic breaths coming from the man. A chain of skulls rattled and bounced around his waist like a crude belt. The other raiders were quick to get out of his way as he approached. He towered over Officer Paisley.
The warlord was thick with muscles. His sunburned torso was unprotected from the elements, and he displayed his reddened abdominal muscles like a shirtless demon. He wore a mask over his face. In the times before the wasteland, it would’ve been a gimp mask used for sexually activities, but this man wore it as if it was binding a monster within. A zipper ran along his lips, closed tight so that he couldn’t speak. He stared down, his eyes blood red and wild behind the gimp mask. They flicked between Officer Paisley and Shi-Toh, then, without warning, he snatched the officer’s head in his massive hand and squeezed until blood poured from every orifice.
Officer Paisley’s screams were muffled in the warlord’s meaty palm. His hands were wrenching at the thick wrists, his legs kicking wildly. He could hear the animal’s breathing pick up, faster, and faster. Then there was a wet crack. Officer Paisley felt his head shrink for a moment. He felt like it was made out of rubber as it lost its composure beneath the strength of the warlord. His temples caved in, and then he was gone.
The warlord threw his body to one side and looked to Shi-Toh. The multicolored man shook his head. “Did you have to do that?”
The gang of raiders were hooting behind them, waiting their turn for blood and plunder. They all stayed in the lift, careful not to overstep. Their warlord gets the first kill, always, but they still waited like leashed dogs for their master to set them free upon the settlement. Shi-Toh looked out over them. They were all mongrels, he thought. He waved a hand, and they descended upon the town of Agua Fria.
Krav felt the teeth lift from the back of his perforated neck. He tried rising to his feet when the other merchant, Trevor, kicked him down and snatched up his arms.
“Aim for the neck!” he said. “I don’t want any blood on my good robes.”
“Of course I’m aiming for the neck!”
Krav struggled against the weight of Trevor. He wasn’t a large man, but the metal augmentations made to his body made him stronger than he should have been. It angered the boy. He forced up and up, feeling the muscles in his shoulders and back strain. He felt like he would lose his arms before he was going to lose his head. Still, that was a preferable outcome. Better to chew their faces off than die like an animal.
That was it then. That was his ticket out of here. He would commit to ripping his own arms off. He yanked, and Trevor’s mechanical arms wavered for a moment, then they pulled him back into place.
“Hold him still!”
“You want to switch?”
The two were bickering. He could hear it above the blood pumping wildly in his ears. Krav drew his eyes up towards his assailants. Trevor was looking up at the red eyed merchant, not paying attention to their prey. He yanked again, throwing the augmented merchant off balance.
“Shit!”
Trevor fell towards Krav, then caught himself and tried to wrangle him back into position. Krav obliged, and as Trevor pulled, he lunged for his neck. Teeth met linens, but as he bit, he could feel the soft meat beneath. It was like chewing a fleshy steak through a napkin, and for a moment, he thought he wasn’t doing much at all. He grinded his teeth together, the skin and cloth tearing beneath. The taste of blood burst out like a ripe fruit, and soon it covered Krav.
Warm liquid spilled over the boy from his chin to his chest. Metal arms were frantically beating his head, but they bounced off his skull as they became weaker. More hands were grabbing him, far more than what the red eyed merchant was capable of producing. They were tearing at him, trying to get him to let go. Fingers found his face, slipped on the blood, and then caught. As they pulled him away from Trever, a sinewy chunk of muscle came with him.
Trevor’s mechanical fingers were like dying spiders, curling up into inanimate fists as they clawed at his open wound. His bright red blood spurt out onto the desert floor like a pump going dry. The red eyed merchant was on top of his partner, trying to stop the bleeding. His metal fingers could do nothing to hold back the stream of blood as it passed through the wiry hand with ease. The merchant cursed and gripped Trevor so tightly that if the man was still alive, he’d be suffocating him. Still the blood came.
Krav watched, subdued by the crowd of people. A woman was calling for someone to get a guard. A man ran to the merchants, bent, and tried to help, only to be knocked away. Above the commotion, there was chaos at the gates of Agua Fria as if a bomb went off. He stared at the merchants, unaware of it all. As far as he was concerned, there was still one left.
“You understand, boy?” Rufus was still talking. It had been hours now. No, not hours. It just felt like hours. They were still burning their first mock root, no customers had even come in yet. None that Lenny could remember, anyway. He looked up at his master and nodded.
“Then what did I say?”
“Destiny… brought us here?”
“And?”
He didn’t know. All he knew was that fate wasn’t destiny, but destiny was an instrument of fate… or was fate an instrument of destiny? Maybe destiny brought them there so that he could achieve something. Because… he had no idea. “It’s our destiny to be here?”
Miraculously, Rufus nodded. Something was going on outside, but outside felt like it was a hundred miles away, and it would take a hundred years to get back there. The smokey veil in the room was deafening, blinding, and Lenny just wanted to eat his iguana and go to bed. He looked at the charred lizard by the fire and licked his lips.
The commotion outside was growing. The walls of their tent flapped as people crashed into it, sending the dancing shadows into a whirling madness. Lenny didn’t look at them, if he did he might throw up. But he could hear something. Voices? Screaming? He didn’t know. All he knew was that the peaceful town had fallen under some chaotic spell.
“Does destiny have anything to say about what’s going on out there?”
Rufus blinked, and the black scabs caking his eyes crumbled a bit. He was staring at the wall the way he did when he was listening for something. The milky eyes watched nothing, saw nothing, but his focus was as thick as the cloud of mock root smoke that clung to the air. He sighed, “We’ve been forced onto a terrible path, Lenny. You should go find Krav.”
Lenny wrinkled his nose. What was he talking about? In all his teachings he had never heard of anyone being forced down a path. Could it be so bad if destiny had apparently hand-picked it for them? No. The fickle mistress had a sense of humor, but she wasn’t malicious. Maybe Rufus had smoked too much of the root. That was it, Rufus was simply having a bad trip. If that was the case, maybe he would have to find Krav. Rufus’s training as a spirit guide would have forced Lenny's perspective, causing him to read paths that weren’t there, interpreting everything by the veil of the soul. Krav was an idiot. Rufus wouldn't waste his time mincing words on him.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
“Ok,” Lenny said, shaking his head. He had to hurry before he forgot what they were talking about. “I’ll go find him.”
Lenny went to the flap of the tent and pulled it back. When he stepped out into the fair, evening weather of the desert, he stepped in something wet. Agua Fria, he thought. A place where water just seeps out of the ground. When he looked down, however, he began to sober up. His heart raced, panic forced the clouds from his head. He was standing in a patch of blood-soaked sand. The body was only feet away from the tent, a man riddle with holes in his chest.
The world was spinning. People were fleeing in every direction, some running for the river, some the lift, some just following the crowds. There was an eruption like rolling thunder, and Lenny ducked instinctively. He looked up and saw a man standing above the crowd. The man was dressed in frayed denim pants, one leg green the other a bright pink. He was decorated in weapons, but the one he held in his hands was small, and it didn’t look like it was good for any sort of close quarters combat. Lenny had never seen anything like it. The man hooted like a bird in heat, then pointed the weapon at a fleeing woman. It happened so quickly, Lenny didn’t even register the attack. The little weapon produced the rolling thunder again, the tip of it alight with spurts of fire. The woman exploded in spots all over her back, then she fell over dead.
Lenny fell backwards into the blood. He was still high, and the chaos around him was making him sick to his stomach. The iron smell of hot blood was fresh in the air and it overwhelmed him. He crawled his way out of the wet sand as more raiders joined the fray. They leapt through the air like drunken acrobats, running across stalls, crashing through tents, and stepping on the dead. As they went, the produced more spits of fire and caused more tiny explosions in the sand. They hooted and jabbered like wild animals.
One of them stood out among the flamboyant colors. He wore a multicolored robe like a fantastic bird. Black glasses made of volcanic glass tracked the dead, then landed on Lenny. He smiled with grey teeth, then pulled something from his hip. Lenny winced, expecting another rupture of fire and explosions, but instead, he was met with a booming voice.
The multicolored man was speaking into some sort of device that made his voice sound like it was cast from the heavens themselves. He sounded like an imperial herald as he said, “People of Agua Fria! Your peaceful existence has come to an end. You are harboring a spirit guide among your filthy populace. In the name of all that is fair and fine, give him up. Your lives are not worth it.”
He was staring at Lenny when he spoke. The man walked closer, his gait like a drunk’s. One foot went over the other in an awkward, shuffling pace, and Lenny thought he might trip over himself at any moment. He was high, Lenny thought, and that meant it was at least a fair fight. He didn’t have any weapons on him, but he would protect his master if he had to, even if this man had the same weaponry as the others. He swallowed hard, stood, and prepared himself.
Then the fight went out of him as a giant man appeared. Red skin like the devil pushed through a flaming tent as if it were a set of batwing doors. He was huffing, breathing through his strange mask like an animal. The man loaded something into his weapon, then shot it at a group of people fleeing. Lenny watched a fireball fly through the sky, then explode above the crowd, dousing them all in a glowing fire. They screamed and pleaded as they dropped to the sand to try and put out the fire. Lenny fell back to his knees. It was hopeless. Now, all he had left to pray for was the Krav was alive and safe.
The muscle-bound raider that stood at almost double the height of his comrades approached the multicolored man and snatched the device from his hands. He peeled away the zipper covering his mouth, and the rusted teeth sounded like tearing flesh as they spread against the grill of the speaker device. “I’M JACKMAW YAPYAP. I’M KING OF THE WORLD.”
Krav couldn’t hear the commotion around him. He only felt the hands let go as the crowd began to run away. As soon as he realized he was free, he charged the red eyed merchant. The cyborg was still crouched near his peer, watching the blood spurt and trickle helplessly. The man looked up just in time for an axe to crash into his face. Teeth, blood, and his remaining eye tore away from his face and went to the desert floor. There were no thrashing protests like his partner, instead, the red eyed merchant died a quick, painful death. Krav stood over him for a moment. The boy felt adrenaline surge through his arms, his back. His neck bulged with heavy breaths and increased blood pressure.
Trickling blood dripped in fat globules from the axe and splattered to the desert floor. People all around Krav were fleeing something. At first, he thought it was him. Soon, he’d be swarmed by officers and he’d have to make the choice to let them kill him to protect Lenny and Rufus, or go down fighting and potentially take them with him. Luckily, he didn’t have to make that decision. Someone crashed into him. A tackle by the guards, surely. But as they tumbled to the floor, Krav realized he wasn’t snatching at his robes or putting him in a choke hold. It was as if this person had fallen on top of him from the sky. They both rolled to their knees and took a look at each other.
She was just a girl, dressed in splattered body paint and a skirt of feathers. She was snarling at him with wild eyes and snaggled teeth. A rainbow of warpaint glistened on her sweaty face, and her blonde hair was shaved and chopped to make her look manic. Krav appreciated the look, but she wasn’t like the other desert dwellers in Agua Fria. This woman looked like a showgirl, or something you might buy from a flashy slave trade. There was a fleeting confusion between them, as if she sensed something about him as well. They were both out of place in the town of Agua Fria, yet they flourished in the current chaos.
Krav raised an eyebrow at her. Before he could say anything, she was leaping on top of him and digging through his robes for something. They wrestled with each other as Krav defended the jingle of coins she was making her way towards. As her fingers drew nearer to the currency, he sent a wild punch upwards. His fist cracked her jaw, and she retreated momentarily.
“Ammo!” She demanded, holding her jaw and working it back into place. There was a sickening click, then a crack, and her snarl returned to her face.
“My name’s not ammo, it’s Krav!”
She got close and held her weapon up to his face. Krav had no idea what he was looking at. It looked like the worst set of knuckle dusters he had ever seen. The metal only covered one finger, and it wasn’t even brass, more like a rusty steel. He looked at it, touched its hot plating. She smacked him with it. At least it hurt.
“I need ammo! Where’s yours?” now she was pointing it at him, and he could see it was hollow inside. Why the hell would you make it hollow? You’re going to break it if you keep hitting people with it, Krav thought.
He pushed the weapon out of his face only for her to snatch him by the collar and push it into his neck. She screamed in frustration and pulled the trigger. There was a series of dull clicks, and they looked at each other confused. She shoved the weapon deeper, and not taking any chances, Krav clubbed her with the flat end of the axe. She went down with a split in her temple and crashed to the desert floor limp.
“Crazy bitch,” Krav said. He rubbed his neck and looked around. The chaos was spreading like wildfire. All around him, people were fleeing, screaming, dying. Flames engulfed a set of tents as they moved to consume the entire settlement. There was a crowd of people swimming across the river for safety, only to have a group of raiders dressing in bright red and green emerge from the flames and point their weapons at the water. And then they… well Krav didn’t know what exactly happened next.
There was an eruption of thunder from each weapon. Their hollow tubes flashed with bright fire. The citizens of Agua Fria who were swimming jerked like fish pulled onto dry land, then went limp and floated down the water. The boy was so caught up in the bewilderment of these new weapons that he almost forgot about Rufus and Lenny. There was a booming voice on the horizon, and it pulled his attention away from the raiders. It was coming from the direction of their tent.
“Behold!” Jackmaw Yapyap screamed into his device. The man in the feather robe had ducked away from him like a theater narrator giving room to the lead act. The titanic man before them all tossed aside his device and began flexing his muscles. Somehow, his devil red skin grew two shades darker as he struggled to make his already massive physique burst out for a crowd of captured hostages.
Lenny watched him as if he was hallucinating. He had had them before, terrifying hallucinations of things that weren’t actually there. But this was different. He could feel the heat of the burning corpses, could hear the cries and sobs. He shook his head and hoped it would go away. Of course, the chaos continued.
“There!” Jackmaw yelled as if satisfied by his own display. “Now if you don’t want to get hurt, tell me where your spirit guide is!”
No one spoke. The only thing that could be heard was the hooting and cheering from raiders and their explosive weapons. Jackmaw scanned everyone in the crowd and stopped on Lenny. He must have a telling look on his face. The brute stomped towards him.
Lenny slipped in the mushy, blood-soaked sand beneath him. He clawed towards the entrance of the tent, then realized he would have been leading him straight to Rufus. With tears in his eyes, he turned back to the beastly man. He had already cleared the space between them, and he was leaning down to grab him. Jackmaw snatched his robes and lifted him high. He displayed Lenny like a lost dog caught by the scruff of his neck. “Does anyone know this boy?”
The remaining people near Lenny’s tent were avoiding the monstrous gaze. They clung to each other like frightened children. When the warlord wasn’t satisfied with their answer, he sent another fireball flying from is weapon. It exploded as it crashed against them, engulfing them in heat and sending them scattering and screaming. “Answer me! I said, does anyone know this boy!”
There were only a few of the hostages left now. The explosion consumed most of them. A single man shook his head, tears streaming down his face.
“And who are you!” Jackmaw screamed. He pointed Lenny at him like he was a laser pointer.
“I-I am Peter. I own the stall over there.” He was pointing at a crumbled mess of wooden splinters with a shaky finger, the remains of the iguana stand.
Jackmaw nodded. “Shi-Toh! Kill that guy!”
Peter protested, but he couldn’t finish a single word before the feathered man pulled his weapon and blasted him in the chest. Shi-Toh sniffed and wiped his weapon as if it were a knife that had just slit a throat. “Are we happy, Lord Jackmaw?”
“Yes!” he turned his attention to the boy. Lenny could see in his eyes that he was high. Both of his irises were a dark red, and they made him look like he had the cold black eyes of a shark. He was grinning through the zipper teeth over his lips. He brought Lenny close and sniffed his hair. “You look too young to be a seer, but you smell like mock root. Do you guide souls, kid?”
Lenny didn’t know what to say. The man before him was a raging bull, ready to kill him at a moment’s notice. He tried to cower away from him, but heavy hands snatched his face. He struggled against the massive fingers.
“One scream for yes, two for no. Got it?” Jackmaw said. He squeezed. Lenny could feel his head begin to pulse and ache.
“Let him go!”
Jackmaw didn’t. he turned and looked down at the old man who had struck him with a flimsy fist. It probably did more damage to his brittle little bones than it did to Jackmaw’s glorious body. Still, he didn’t like it when they stood up to him. “Who the hell are you?”
“I’m the spirit guide. You’re killing my apprentice.”
Jackmaw laughed and cast Lenny aside. Before he could get to his feet, Shi-Toh snatched him up and put his weapon to Lenny’s head.
“I’m here for a reading.”
“I would have gladly performed one without you having to destroy this place.”
The massive creature shoved Rufus into the tent and stepped in after him. Lenny reached for him, but Shi-Toh pulled him by the hair. The onyx lenses closed in on Lenny, and he whispered into the boy’s ear, “The warlord can be rough with his toys. Why don’t we have a chat, apprentice? I think you’ll make a lovely addition to the retinue.”
Lenny screamed as he was dragged off. He never saw Rufus alive again.
