The Vagrant
Casually, the door yawns open, drawing her attention.
The Vagrant enters, sword first, humming softly.
Between them the winged insects buzz their distress, they throw themselves against furniture, against each other, unable to escape the blood that vibrates within them.
The sound builds, shaking the Overseer’s skull. She rises, stretching her body out to its full size, shadow sprawling behind, nightmarish.
In answer, the Vagrant raises his blade. At its hilt, silvered wings unfurl.
An eye opens.
Two storm-heads of sound build: infernal wings and dying insects vying with steel-bound song.
The Overseer sizes up her adversary, copied many times by her compound eyes. Each image is still and waiting. She falters under the glare of the sword; it hates her in ways she cannot fathom, stirring feelings of fear, of shame. Normally she would crush a man without thought but instinct tells her to be cautious.
Subtly the sound changes.
With no preamble or announcement, the Overseer moves first, reaching into a drawer.
In four steps the Vagrant has crossed the room, his blade stretching out for her across the desk. His mouth opens with the stroke, a mournful note blending with the sword’s voice, igniting the air lightning blue.
Squealing, the half-breed leaps back, avoiding humming metal, shrivelling wherever flames touch her monstrous body. In her human hand she now holds a gun, ugly and battered and ready to kill.
The Vagrant freezes. There is little cover in the cramped room and less time to think. He spins to the left, blade pointed downwards, silver wings reaching to protect his face.
Six times, the gun shouts angrily, spitting its hot metal phlegm. Four are lost to the air, one is foiled by the sword, ringing out in fury but the last finds its mark, slamming the Vagrant against a moist wall.
Frantically the gun clicks, its voice momentarily spent. The Overseer begins to reload, many of the bullets spill hastily on the floor, rolling among the dead flies.
By the time she has raised the smoking weapon again the Vagrant has stood and drawn breath. He rushes forward, she squeezes the trigger. The barrel flashes but this time does not shout, yielding to the Vagrant’s song. There is a wet smack as the Overseer’s hand strikes the floor, leaving a stump waving in the air, pink and crazy.
Pain lances all thought from the half-breed and she latches her many limbs to the desk, its metal legs screeching as they’re ripped from the ground. With a grunt she hurls it down on her enemy.
He answers with a long cry as he blocks, sadness counterpointing the wrathful resonance of the sword. The desk crashes to the floor, once, twice. Neither half touches the Vagrant.
There is a flurry of movement, a mix of arms and sword, of man and half-breed, of bestial grunts and sharp song. When it is over, the Overseer lies prostrate and limbless, a grotesque pear-shape.
He plunges the sword deep into her. Fire burns blue, devouring the corpse greedily, until only charred chunks remain.
An eye closes.
The Vagrant hurries along the path. It is dark and starless. From their shelters people hear him stumble. They do not yet understand what has happened but they sense that change is coming and they tremble.
Neon letters sputter into view. They hang above a doorway where stronger lights blaze, telling a story of violence within.
Outside a man lingers, uncertain. He turns towards the Vagrant, squinting.
‘Stranger, is that you? It’s me, Ventris. Looks like you got here just in time. A whole bunch of guys showed up just now and barged their way into Lil’s. I heard an explosion, suns knows what that was! Then gunfire and now, well, just the occasional groan. You better get in there, see what’s happened, though you’d best prepare for the worst.’
‘Liar!’ sings the sword without words as it cuts loose from its sheath, splitting the old man’s chin and nose. The Vagrant looks away as the body falls. He shakes his head, pressing onwards.
The door curls on the floor, battered into a cartoon smile. Flames dance on tables, smoking, and clouds of dust fill the air, blanketing the bodies of the dead and dying. Some have been burnt, others shot. He moves about them, his quiet sword giving mercy where needed.
The Vagrant proceeds into the tent, stepping over another corpse at the entrance.
The goat is over in the corner, Lil’s body by her side, a gun just beyond her motionless fingers. The gun no longer shines, but smokes from use. From beneath her arm a tiny foot kicks angrily. He turns the woman’s body over, revealing the blood-stained baby. His eyes widen in alarm.
The baby smiles.
It only wears the woman’s blood. It has not been hurt.
The Vagrant sways, his face pale. His legs begin to tremble.
With a groan, the woman spits something thick onto the floor. ‘Where the hell were you, you son of a bitch? I thought you’d run out on us.’
The Vagrant shakes his head, opens his mouth uselessly.
‘Listen,’ she says, pressing her hand against a spreading patch of red at her side, ‘I’ll be dead by the time you get your story out. So shut your mouth and save me. Everything you need is here. First thing you do is find my box of tricks. It’s metal and oval and it’ll be in the tent, you can’t miss it.’
But the Vagrant does not close his mouth, nor does he move.
Eight Years Ago
Gamma of The Seven lies broken on the edge of the Breach. By her cracked beauty floats the thing that will become the Usurper, hungry for its prize. Above, Gamma’s Palace lists drunkenly, plumes of fire racing each other skyward from rents in the walls and towers. Shapes flicker about the ailing fortress, relentless, swarming and diving and biting and clawing, delivering death through thousands of tiny indignities.
As it begins its casual fall, other shapes rise from the Breach. They too are formless, nameless, all seeking Gamma’s remains.
Beyond mortal perception, the infernals fight, vicious clouds of dream that swirl through one another, blending, breaking and diminishing.
One removes itself from the fighting, descending upon the fallen men and women furthest from the Breach. It chooses with care: those that died from shock or single wounds, whose bodies are more or less whole. Into each it gifts a portion of itself, protecting its precious essence within a dead shell. Reanimating what should not be, in stark defiance of the reality in which it finds itself. By fragmenting its essence it is weaker and safer, smaller but more numerous.
A man stands impossibly and the First is born. It gathers its brothers and sisters quickly and sets out to explore. Soon the First has vanished from the field, an uncomfortable addition to the new world.
Behind it, the fighting between the infernals continues until, with elemental force, one infernal drives back the others, winning the contest and stamping its majesty upon them, indelible. Above Gamma’s body the claimants separate, blown outward from their new master, a smoke ring of losers. They retreat with ethereal hisses, seeking bodies easier to inhabit.
For the lesser beings this is simple, the ground is rich in corpses, but for the greater ones, Gamma was their only chance for a whole birth. Lacking the invention of the First and cowed by the Usurper’s power, they panic. Many squeeze into bodies that cannot hope to hold them. Chests split and burst and essence spills, sliding into a soup of animal energy, bubbling with regret and rage. This pool of essence is raw and unfocused, an unnatural force. Lacking a will of its own, the tainted river surges forth, carried along by the multitude, following the other infernals blindly.
Seeing the fate of its peers, the last of the great shapes moves quickly, the world already clawing at its edges. Unable to find a suitable shell, it weaves a cloak of corpses about itself. Skulls, feet and ribs marry uneasily. Within the necrotic ball, the Uncivil is birthed.
New desires appear, flooding the Uncivil’s senses: the wish to see, to experience, to grow. For now they are held in check by a greater power, resulting in a frustration that is almost too much to bear. Despite this, the Uncivil holds on to the idea of independence, of difference. It feels important to choose an identity now, to have something to hold onto when orders come from their new master.
Inspiration is close at hand. The bodies that make up her cloak each housed a unique being and it is easy for the Uncivil to sniff at their fading essence to gather ideas. A gender is chosen. It is not much but it is a starting point, a secret victory to build on.
She turns, awaiting her new master’s pleasure.
Free to take its prize, the victor descends upon Gamma’s body. Wind screams backwards, drawing the infernal essence into the once great shell. It twitches, animates and Ammag, Green Sun, the Usurper, takes its first physical steps. Compared to the First it is inelegant and brutish, lurching as Gamma’s body buckles and warps, trying to accommodate the new host. But nothing of this world, even one of The Seven, can fully contain the Usurper. With irritation, it portions a fragment of itself into another body, a temporary home, the greenness slipping easily through the absence of eyes. This form does not animate, it is too weak, a box for safekeeping, nothing more.
Now stable, the Usurper turns its attention deep within. Buried in the heart of its essence, a wound festers, as alive as the weapon that caused it. The Usurper reaches down, looking for Gamma’s sword, to smash the blade and end the dream of its undoing.
But the sword is gone.
The Usurper searches among the corpses, scattering them, and finds nothing. With increasing anger it lifts its gaze higher, over the carnage, over bodies mutating as infernal hosts settle in, until at last its attention is drawn by a glinting metal speck.
Distantly, beyond the feasting and the slaughter, a snake of metal flees the field, heading northward.
At the sight of the thieves the Usurper’s anger surges but fear flickers beneath it. It is too soon for another conflict. Defeating Gamma and fighting off the other challengers for her body has been costly.
Unwilling to face the sword again, the Usurper dispatches its horde. The Uncivil is the first to respond, her eagerness to taste the new world dressed as loyalty. Others follow, the Fellrunners, the Earmaker’s Three, Hangnail, all bound to their new master by defeat. Drawing the lesser infernals around them, a misshapen horde with lopsided wings and uneven legs, they spread across the land, a living fire.
CHAPTER SIX
‘I swear if you don’t do something right now, I’ll put a bullet in your empty head!’
The woman raves, anger keeping back the urge to sleep. She has fought off many men, surviving against the odds, but now death comes for her again, stealthily. Not long now and she will bleed to death, each beat of her heart pumps precious blood from the hole in her side. Salvation is so close she could cry. She doesn’t, instead using the last of her strength to reach out to the Vagrant.
He looks at her and through her, unfocused on the now.
Gasping, she pulls off her monitor ring. The pulsing light fades as it leaves her finger. A moment later it sails through the air, narrowly missing the Vagrant’s ear, as do the curses that follow.
Small eyes glance between the two. Sensing a problem, the baby joins its strength to the ruckus, easily matching the woman’s despair.
The Vagrant blinks, wipes perspiration from his forehead and looks anew at the scene before him. At his attention, the baby wriggles, shameless and gory.
‘Welcome back!’ snaps Lil. ‘Now here’s what you have to do if you don’t want me to kill you …’
She winces at his slowness, wonders if speech is the only thing he lacks as he plods, donkey-like under the lash of her voice, gathering the tools to save her life. She directs him to what she would call ‘the good stuff’, medical supplies that have been transformed into relics since the Overseer’s arrival.
All business, she stabs herself with a needle, eyes popping open with artificial alertness.
‘Okay, stranger, the first thing we’ve got to do is clean out the wound. Those amateurs were using cheap-assed shrapnel guns, which is about the only reason I’m still talking. There’s a hand scanner and a pair of tweezers you can use. Don’t waste the battery, we don’t have any spares.’
His hands fumble about the job, hesitant, and Lil’s patience rapidly vanishes. ‘Just stop, please! Scav’s teeth, I’ve got more chance of saving myself! Just pick up that mirror and hold it like I tell you, okay?’
The Vagrant nods, lips pressed together.
‘All you have to do is keep it steady.’
Chemicals silence the pain in her side and she works quickly, no time left for squeamishness. Jagged bits of metal clink as they’re dropped into the dish, shy at first, they allow themselves to come free with growing eagerness. She takes a handful of Skyn, slathering grey jelly all over the wound. Instantly it adheres, staunching the blood and darkening in approximation of Lil’s muddy skin.
‘There, that wasn’t so bad,’ she says, as much to herself as anyone else. ‘Nothing I can’t do with enough drugs and medtech. These corpses used to work for the Overseer, so we’d better not hang around. I don’t know what’s going on but I’m damn sure it’s your fault.’
She jabs a finger at the Vagrant, who leans against the tent pole. He peers at her. Slowly his eyes close.
‘Hey, are you …?’
Before she can finish, the Vagrant slides down the pole and topples over.
‘… Oh, that’s just great!’
The wound is small and clean. She assumes he has passed out through shock rather than blood loss.
Lil has seen a lot of bodies in her life, each with a story to tell, most depressingly similar.
On this body a few things catch her eye. The man bears the blade of a Seraph Knight, which immediately marks him out as a fugitive, yet his hands are callused as much through labour as combat. She turns them over to find smooth skin, the little hairs recently burned away. She notes his tongue is still intact.
Carefully, she removes the bullet. It has gone deep and released its payload but there are no spider web signs of skin degeneration. Amazed, she probes further until she sees the Burrowmaw’s inert tail, tucked under his rib. Snagging it on a tiny hook, Lil works it out with slow, steady pressure, till finally the mouth sac comes loose. The little creature smokes in her hand; something has cooked it from the inside.
It joins the shrapnel in the dish.
The suns rise together, dividing the sky like a god’s standard. Lil and the Vagrant step cautiously into the daylight. Ventris remains where he fell, face down in the dust opposite Lil’s door. His boots have not.
Sounds of fighting are heard from the fields. News of the Overseer’s death has spread quickly and people are keen to take advantage of the spoils before a replacement arrives. The goat wishes to join them, spitting out fabric fingertips in anticipation of greater prizes. Again the Vagrant holds firm to her leash but the goat senses weakness and pulls, rewarded with feet sliding in the dust.
The Vagrant regains his balance, grits his teeth but Lil puts a hand on his arm.
‘She’s got a point, we all need to eat. If we’re going to have a chance out there we’ll need supplies and goods to trade. There’s a fortune to be had in the fields.’
He glances to her hand and back to her face.
‘What? You got a problem with me touching your arm? A few hours ago I had my hands inside your guts; it doesn’t get more personal than that.’
The Vagrant shakes his head, places his hand over hers. She pulls free quickly, drawing her gun as she runs towards the shouting.
‘Look sharp, stranger, we got about three hours before the stims wear off!’
They run towards the field’s perimeter, watched by those that have chosen to hide, the innumerable weak.
‘Looks like we’re not the first!’ shouts Lil, voice full of excitement and chemicals. She points to the fence where it bends low, forming half of a barbed smile. The gap is spanned by a living bridge; guards who could not stem the greed-tide are spitted together, forming a carpet. Many boot-prints mark their writhing backs.
The Vagrant turns away.
He cuts a new path through the fence with his sword, impassive. The wire springs apart, making loose spirals by their feet. They watch as two opposing armies form clumps of fighting in the chaos; on one side guards, on the other workers. Neither has a uniform, both are desperate. Only the dead appear united, their faction already the largest. The battle is scrappy, motivated by greed not bravery. The brave have already fallen, piles of them still protecting their more cautious peers.
There is space between the clumps of fighters. With uncharacteristic energy, the goat finds an unspoiled patch and begins to gorge. Lil and the Vagrant fill sacks with precious fruit, loading them onto the goat. Rough movements and battle sounds wake the baby who voices its distress.
The Vagrant works faster.
Pendulous between the pipes that arch above the fields swings the Unborn, lulled in its slumber by the song of the dying. About its shell the air quivers but does not tear.
Emerging from the grasses at speed three men approach the laden goat, armed with sharp metal and hate. The lead man only just stops in time. A pistol presses into the skin of his forehead.
‘I’ll give you people one chance to back off,’ Lil says, ‘then I start shooting.’
Quick looks are exchanged, between themselves, at the woman, at her gun. A decision is reached and the men are gone.
The Vagrant nods, the hint of a hint of a smile on his face.
‘There ain’t nothing to smile about here you idiot!’ Lil shouts. ‘We’d better be gone before they’re back in force.’
Carefully they pick their way across the fields. Bodies lie all around, racing for death. They cry for help, for mercy, for their mothers. The baby just cries.
Eyes locked on the horizon, the Vagrant walks onwards. The goat fights him along the way, sometimes winning a bite of the yellowing grasses, sometimes bowing to the leash. Progress is slow, the ground is boggy and full of debris but, grudgingly, the far edge of the field comes into view.
People have gathered in front of the gate, clustered like a flock around a man who moves with the swagger of power. His muscles are drug fed and firm, his rifle steady in his hands. Blue cables run from the gun to his backpack, fizzing with potential.
‘Hold there!’ he shouts in a voice rough with living.
Lil’s pistol stares back at the rifle, neither blinks. ‘Looks like you’re moving up in the world, Kell.’
‘Well damn, is that you, Lil? I’d heard you got blown up with your house!’
‘Nope, still here.’
Kell laughs, the sound echoed eerily by his companions. ‘For now maybe. Seems you been taking what’s mine.’
‘Listen, this doesn’t have to turn ugly, just let us go and we’ll be no more bother to you.’
‘Maybe,’ replies the man, rubbing his stubble with a nailless finger. ‘Or maybe you could entertain us a little first, then we let you go.’
‘How about I entertain a hole through your head?’
Tension ripples through the group and weapons twitch in hands.
The Vagrant steps forward, he holds a sack open, displaying its contents, offering.
‘Well now,’ says Kell. ‘Looks like your partner here is feeling a little less confrontational.’
Lil scowls at the Vagrant. ‘It’s the best deal you’re gonna get from us, Kell. We go free and you get goods to trade without risking any more of your men in the field. Deal?’
He makes a show of consideration. ‘Deal!’
Handing the sack over, the Vagrant walks down the narrow path between Kell’s followers, his shoulders brushing those on either side. The goat follows, for once obedient. Lil comes last, she and Kell turn slowly as they pass, neither willing to look away.
Under his coat, the baby kicks and whimpers.
Everything stops, focusing on the foreign sound.
The Vagrant closes his eyes.
Hands grab at his arms and shoulders, the baby’s cries get louder.
‘Well, well,’ Kell crows. ‘Looks like we’ve got a new deal on. You give us—’
The first bullet punches the rifle from his hands, the second goes through his knee. Kell screams reflexively as he falls forward.
Lil’s pistol nestles in behind his ear. ‘Here’s the new deal: Let us go, right now, or I put a new piercing in your brain.’
‘Argh! You’ll die for this you bitch!’
‘Not before you. Tell them to let us go.’
Kell spits on the floor, bites back another wave of pain. ‘Let the bastards go. You hear me, let them go!’
The colony of grimy fingers retreats, and the Vagrant moves forward, reaching the gate.
Lil watches, the time is coming when she’ll have to run for it. There are too many people and too few bullets for her to succeed. She grits her teeth, allowing no time for tears or second thoughts, preparing to take her chance.
She turns, pointing the pistol at those immediately in front of her. They flinch away and she jumps for the gap, focusing on the goat’s lank tail, still in sight. Her flight is brief, arrested by a chunk of stone that strikes her temple, stunning her. A fist catches her between the shoulders, and Lil falls into the pale grass.
Too late, the Vagrant sees. His hands itch for the sword but they are full already. His foot lifts, wanting to rush to her side, but he cannot put the baby down here, dares not take it back into danger. Head low, he carries on.
A crowd gathers around Lil, boots stamping down.
The tension in the air grows, drawing tighter with each kick. Kell’s people step back. Between them, Lil’s body lies face down in the dirt, a sliver of blood runs from her temple.
Alone, her death would be but a whisper. She is not alone. Many have fallen, each adding weight to a cry that passes beyond mortal ears and into another place, where it demands response.
With a shriek, the air splits above the fields, and something that should not be manifests within its shell. The pipe arches groan with the added weight, until the Unborn’s chain snaps, unleashing its cargo upon the wretches below.
Just once, the Vagrant turns back.
The Unborn’s burst shell rocks back and forth, spurting liquid from many cracks.
Long grasses undulate, a sea of pale yellow, allowing glimpses of the new horror birthing in the field. Where it finds people it consumes them, not the careful possession of its elders but a wild, destructive instinct.
Above it, the air ripples and folds, fighting to close once more.
Most in the fields have been taken by surprise but those further out pause in their petty struggles. Weapons are trained on the new threat, men and women briefly united in their desire to survive. Precious bullets are spent.
Voices fade away, the grass whispers.
Nobody emerges from the field.
In its sheath, the sword begins to hum softly. The Vagrant rests two fingers on the hilt but the noise does not quieten. He walks away, leaving Kendall’s Folly to its fate.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Gravel crunches rhythmically underfoot. The suns rush across the sky, manic compared to the broken mountains that inch past. Under their uneven shadows, the Vagrant walks. Their progress is steady.
The baby will not stop crying. It screams beneath his coat, inconsolable. Neither the warm dark under his arm nor the stimulus of the landscape bring consolation.
There is little sustenance in the Blasted Lands, and so sacks of fruit and food are magnets for the lean denizens slipping between the rocks. New breeds appear regularly, half-breeds, quarter-breeds and blends unrecognizable. People have given up naming them. Most are lumped together as food, threat or nuisance.