The Vagrant
Eventually steps slow, the group’s previous exertions demand their due: the resting of tired limbs and heavy hearts. The Vagrant squeezes pasha juice into the baby’s down-turned mouth. Even the sweet liquid fails to draw a smile, though the smacking of lips and swallowing is more palatable than the wailing.
As the hours tick by the Vagrant and the baby cling to each other, sometimes stealing snatches of oblivion. While the baby dozes, the Vagrant’s amber eyes twitch.
Something ventures forward from the twilight, hunting. It scampers lightly, alert for danger. Scurry, pause, scurry, pause. Eyes dangle from its head, bouncing with each advance on sinewy threads. Its flickering tongue tastes the air before it storms the last few feet, scaled legs whirling with effort. Blisteringly fast, it seeks a way into the sack, racing up the coarse fabric, an opportunistic thief.
Overhead a shadow moves. Preceded by a spike of white hair, it descends, opening until it blocks the creature’s path; a moving, living cave.
Feet frantically spin in the opposite direction but the creature cannot stop, momentum delivering it straight into the cavernous mouth.
As the suns rise, the goat chews.
A rising wind flicks at their eyes, throwing grit and flecks of moist matter. The Vagrant moves on, arm raised against the clouds of dust that blow past.
Distantly, shapes are visible, seeming to grow out of the ground.
At first the shapes are simply shelter. The Vagrant crouches behind a structure, leaning into boned fabric that gives but takes his weight. Breathing becomes less laboured and he looks around, running his fingers along the edge of the thing he sits by. Coarse plastic is stretched around a frame that juts out of the ground at a forty-degree angle. The external bars are two inches thick, made for burdens. His hand pauses as it reaches the frame’s end; the metal there is flat, edged.
Something has cut through it.
The Vagrant frowns, investigates further. Objects lie just beneath the surface, so badly broken they seem foreign. He tightens his grip on the baby, digging one handed.
Half buried in dirt and tipped on their sides, the waggons from the caravan are not immediately recognizable.
Neither are the bodies.
A face emerges, brushed into view. Sores stand proud on desiccated skin. Something has stolen the moisture, the eyes and more from the corpse. Further excavation allows it to be worked free. Tattered clothes hang loose on shrivelled bones, ridiculous, clown-like. The Vagrant slides his hand between the layers and new smells rise up. Muscles work in his jaw but he does not stop, exploring nooks and secrets.
When his hand seeks air again, it brings out a prize. Small, silver, shining: a coin. The Vagrant stares at it, emotions threatening at the edges of his face. Amber eyes look back from the coin’s flawless surface, accusing. Under that stare his compsure breaks, swept away by grief and guilt.
Disturbed, the baby stirs in his arms, wriggling until a more comfortable position is found. Sleepy hands find the Vagrant’s thumb and establish a firm grip.
The Vagrant looks from coin to baby and back again.
Nodding grimly he puts it away.
When the winds falter after hours of pounding, and racing clouds slow and settle, the caravan’s inglorious end is revealed. The scene appears ancient, aged by the elements.
The waggon’s roof moves, rising at the centre, a plastic pyramid. Dirt rolls off as it sweeps upward, folding, falling aside to reveal its treasures. From the hole, the Vagrant pulls himself into the afternoon, squinting against the light. He walks around the wreckage, baby tucked under his arm. It sucks on his sleeve, watching his fingers as they tick off the bodies, one by one.
There should be more bodies than fingers but there are not.
Beneath the Vagrant’s boot, things crunch. He steps to the side, finding more uneven ground; it flattens under his weight with a long wheeze.
The baby giggles.
Crouching, the Vagrant finds a blob of black rubber as big as his fist, trailing tubes, a backup lung now redundant. Standing, he drops it back in the dirt and it wheezes again.
The baby laughs louder, reaching for the sound.
He goes to move on but urgent tugging at his collar demands attention. He looks down at the baby, raising his eyebrows; in miniature, his gesture is mirrored. The Vagrant’s eyebrows stretch a little higher, again he is matched. For a time both hold their position. There is no obvious winner in this contest, no clear rules.
Both parties break with dignity intact.
However the baby is dissatisfied. Straining against his arm, it points at the discarded respirator. Victorious or otherwise, it wants a prize.
Dutifully, the Vagrant delivers the lung to its new owner.
The Vagrant searches for abandoned treasure. From the wreckage he finds a crate full of decorated fabric. Some he cuts for the baby; a new wrap of shimmering girls and imaginary lakes. Some he cuts into a long strip, which he folds thick and lays across the goat’s back. For himself, the Vagrant makes a scarf, covering his face with softness.
Further hunting procures food containers, a cracked scope and a navpack. He holds the projector high to help ailing solar cells. Sunslight seeps through and in return they stutter out an image, low-res and incomplete, mapping the land that was. A ribbon of blue light marks the caravan’s route. Verdigris, the next place never visited, is close by. Further north are mountains and beyond them swirl meaningless logos; broken cities reshaped and remade by the Uncivil.
Lifting the scope to his eye, the Vagrant searches the horizon, turning slowly. In the distance he sees a figure watching, stone still, shaped like a person.
Soon they leave the caravan, striking out towards the mountains. A fast pace is kept and the nameless figure is left behind.
The Vagrant does not relax.
Sometimes they march to false wheezing and laughter, sometimes to muffled snoring but they do not stop until it is dark.
Their arrival has been noticed. From a crack in the ground rises a head, curious, leathery. The local peers at their camp but does not like what it sees, returning to the earth.
At first light the Vagrant looks through the scope again. Two figures stand distantly behind, unmoving. To the south east is a third figure, apart from the first pair, yet like them.
Frowning, he lowers the scope. Small hands tug at his collar and he looks down. The baby raises its eyebrows but this time the Vagrant’s brow does not lift. He grabs the goat’s leash and pulls it sharply, taking them away from their pursuers.
In his arms the baby freezes, shocked. Possibilities cross the tiny face. With renewed force, it tries again; eyes grow wide, stretching towards its forehead.
Glancing down, the Vagrant’s mouth twitches but his attention soon flickers north, then south, scowling both ways. Dust rises at their feet, stirred by the returning wind.
Again his collar is tugged. His sharp look down is met by surprise; little features collapse inward, forming thunder. With all its might, the baby glowers.
Stolen from tension, two smiles bloom.
They press on. Dirty clouds belch over them, shrinking the world. The Vagrant stares into the obscuring mass, eyes watering. Often he glances over his shoulder, the view frustrating in every direction.
Ahead, a fence-like arrangement of bones stands tall, as if propped up like a proudly cleaned plate. The ribcage is several metres high, made massive by its infernal patron, now abandoned. The Vagrant attaches fabric to them, forming a colourful shelter. With each gust threaded women dance manically.
They wait for the winds to ease, eating, resting, and milking.
When calm comes again, the Vagrant jumps up, swinging the scope from left to right. He finds the three, still separate, closer now. A fourth and fifth emerge from the dust to the south west.
He rips the shelter down, splitting lakes, and prepares to run.
The dust retreats with them, offering a first glimpse of Verdigris. Four of its towers have fallen but three remain defiant, high discs glinting on their tops; golden ears warmed by the second sunset.
Between the travellers and the towers stands a sixth figure, too low now for the light to reach it.
The Vagrant slows, a muscle flexes in his jaw. Trapped.
Slow and inevitable, the hunters draw in.
The Vagrant looks back often and each time they are closer. He has yet to see them move. Five pursue, driving them towards one ahead, waiting, blocking the way to Verdigris and safety. In the sky, faster than either group, the suns have almost set.
Despite the failing light, details emerge on the figure ahead. A knight of sorts, risen from the ranks of the Seraph, an infernal mirror of what was. Behind its armour unseen growths reach for freedom, distorting metal, disturbing its cloak. Smoke wafts from its helm, marking cracks and joins.
With irrefutable firmness the goat stops, refusing to go further. The Vagrant does not argue, crouching slowly, laying the baby amidst the dirt. A wheeze is heard, followed by laughter. He does not react, his face unreadable as he stands again, facing the knight.
Only thirty metres separate them, the Vagrant crosses them quickly. At his side, the sword trembles with anticipation. He draws. The motion catches a final ray, lining its edge in gold.
In answer, the knight raises a bloated weapon, twisted steel and living jade, discordant, suffering.
Behind him, not close but not so distant, echoes come. Five moans join the first, then, from the north east, a tortured cry, longer than the others, closing.
Amidst the cacophony, the baby’s whimpering goes unheard.
Sword high, the Vagrant attacks. As he nears the enemy his downward arc slows, struggling through air thick with wailing, welcoming the heavy parry.
The return attack is powerful, deathly.
The Vagrant does not wait for it, stepping, spinning and striking again. A hump of armour falls away. The Vagrant sees skin exposed, clinging like wet rag to shrivelled bone.
The knight stops swinging for its nimble opponent, groaning defensively, holding him at bay. It knows it cannot defeat him. It does not need to.
Inexorably its troop draws in.
The Vagrant feints left, goes right, makes an opening, doesn’t take it, keeps moving, turning faster than his enemy, behind it now, cuts low, a triumphant note blasting bone and backs of knees.
It sways, moaning, descending as the Vagrant sprints back, scooping baby and leash in one hand.
He looks up; misshapen swords loom over them, too close.
They run. This time the goat is happy to oblige.
Ahead, Verdigris rises hopeful. Against its silhouette hulks another shape, charging, trying to cut off their escape. A seventh knight, like the others but greater, more purposeful. The threat spurs them to greater speeds.
Blade first, the lumbering figure reaches for them.
They feel the breath of its dirge but pass by safely, momentum unbroken.
The knight ploughs on past them, unable to stop. It tries to turn as it decelerates, unable to match its more nimble prey and is forced to watch as they near the city’s sanctuary, well beyond sword-reach now. Frustrated, it returns the keening thing to its sheath and pulls forth a stubby lance.
Something flies past the Vagrant’s shoulder, sizzling into the gates, munching stone. He turns, sword held protectively before him, backing the remaining distance. Seconds after the first, more shots arrive. He cuts them from the air, burning fragments showering around him. One ignites the corner of his coat, another catches the goat’s tail.
Flame sprouts, the goat protests but they keep running, trailing smoke as they vanish into Verdigris’ embrace …
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Knights of Jade and Ash form up around their fallen comrade. At their commander’s nod four of them collect the torso, a fifth gathers the feet. Though rare, it is not the first time their shells have shattered. A remaking is called for.
But something is wrong. The body is too light, too brittle. Innards are dried out, failing in their role as infernal glue. The armoured torso collapses flat in mailed hands, powder spills on the floor.
They investigate the abandoned sword. It too has changed; jade has faded, gone still. With a boot, the commander prods and cracks yawn along its edge, falling away from each other a thousand times.
Instinctively, the knights step away.
From the city’s archway comes a new sound, bones ratchet against each other, three jaws not quite in time, an approximation of laughter.
The knights approach the gates, alert to the newcomer lurking within.
Not quite neutral, Verdigris is a city with two masters, torn a little more with every spin of the world. By day it belongs to the Uncivil, by night to the Usurper. In the grey between, things are often broken.
Normally the commander would wait for night to complete its fall; its instincts cry out to wait but there is no denying the Usurper’s order. It steps through into the long archway. In formation the unit drops back, following. The commander’s hands lower, weaponless palms forward. It waits.
From the shadows scuttles Patchwork, sometimes Duke, Southern Face of the Uncivil. Amorphous within its robes, it appears to glide, a moving puddle, tiny legs busy under the surface, until it is less than a foot away. With one long indrawn breath, it rises, thin body extending from multi-coloured fabric, matching the commander’s height. A squat face slides beneath the robes, climbing the body till it finds the hood, pushing out rudely, tongue first.
The commander’s helm swings forward harder than necessary. Contact is violent, essences touch, each pressing the other, testing, setting the tone for what follows.
Eight Years Ago
Two young men wait anxiously for the return of their heroes. Their youth makes them stand out – the other young and fit members of their village had been snapped up by the army when it passed through the first time.
To their utter dismay, they missed it. Missed Gamma’s palace floating by, missed the armies of the Winged Eye and their Seraph Knights.
More than this, they missed their chance to be heroes.
All because their parents were too afraid and tucked them away, out of sight, tricking them into a cellar and locking it firmly until the army had passed. A deliberate act to keep them from joining up.
Selfish. Understandable. Wise.
But parents cannot protect their children forever and the young men are determined. They resolve not to leave their post until the Empire’s forces return. Then, they will invoke the rite of mercy and the knights will be forced to take them in.
To stave off boredom, the men discuss what life will be like, sharing well worn stories about the knights and rumours about how squires are trained.
And then, finally, they see movement from the south and stories give way to reality.
A metal snake winds its way through the countryside from the direction of the Breach. It is borne along on fat caterpillar tracks, wrapped around diamond capped sprockets. Twin stacks protrude from each segment of the machine, a dozen smoking plumes.
The villagers rush out to greet it waving homespun flags; a hundred homages to the Winged Eye. They are proud to salute their returning champions. The cheers die in their throats as the metal snake draws nearer. Cracks mar its silver skin and one of the stacks has split, belching hot black fumes at any that get too close.
A young knight stationed at the snake’s head orders the crowd to part. He wears no helm, uniform brown stubble visible from crown to chin.
Stunned, the people comply, flags hanging limply at their sides. Nobody needs to ask, they know the battle has been lost. They do not know, however, that these knights are fleeing the enemy, that soon the infernal flood will wash over these fields in pursuit of their prize, wiping away the village and its culture. In years to come their descendants will forget the teachings of the Winged Eye, The Seven and their Seraph Knights, only remembering that it failed them when they needed it most.
The road ahead is clear, save for two young men, who stand boldly, too naïve to yet know fear.
From his seat in the snake’s open mouth, the knight roars: ‘Get out of the bloody way!’
The young men do not move. They glance at each other then up at the knight, chanting as one:
‘We invoke the rite of mercy. Save us, protect us, deliver us.’
After a quick curse to the sky, the knight invites them in.
A few miles past the village, the metal snake belches black smoke and dies. The flanks hiss as they cool; a last impression of living.
The Knight Commander calls his last follower and the fresh recruits. The day’s travel has taken its toll, he knows he has reached the limits of his strength, inside he is crumbling, broken.
‘There is only one order,’ he tells the three of them, ‘return the cargo to the Shining City whatever the cost. Failure is unacceptable, everything else permissible. That is all.’ The three digest the news. Even together they barely add up to one man. ‘From now on, Sir Attica is in charge, you take your instructions from him.’
With effort the younger knight marshals his face to calm. ‘What about you, Commander?’
‘I’m not in the mood for running today, Attica, but I am in the mood to shoot something. Carry me up to the turret and you can be on your way.’
The youths have grown up with hard labour and make short work of moving the older man, armour and all, into the raised diamond on the snake’s back.
Attica straps his superior into place. Plastic loops take the strain where muscles cannot. Words fumble out. ‘Commander, I’m not sure I can do this.’
The Knight Commander injects courage into his man, mixing personal gravitas, legendary status and lies. Attica leaves straighter than he came, determined. Alone once more, the Knight Commander loads a comms-rocket for launch, and records a full account of the tragedy. His voice stays even when describing the scale and nature of the invaders, and the fate of the brave knights and soldiers that went to fight them. It only cracks when he speaks of Gamma’s fall. He plays back the report three times, then waits for the rocket’s pre-launch checks to cycle through.
The freshly made squires carry supplies, Attica a long lacquered box. Far behind them, fingers of smoke start to rise, a giant’s hand raised hazily skyward. It grows from the village, the smell of smoke reaching the group, turning them.
Packs fall, forgotten, and two youths run back towards the village. Attica calls to them.
‘But it’s our home, we have to help them!’ protests one.
The other keeps running. He ascends the hill they have just skirted, sparse strands of grass lolling over its top, a comb-over of yellow-green. The bitter view stops him dead. The other two catch up and stand by his side.
As they watch, a dark stain spreads from the edges of the village. A living seep, a pseudopod, it probes forward, tasting the land, searching. A ragged multitude of teeth and claws mark its growing boundary.
‘We have to move on.’ Shocked ears fail to hear. ‘Come,’ Attica repeats.
A beat later the three run.
No more words are exchanged.
CHAPTER NINE
The Vagrant runs along Verdigris’ main street. Boots and hooves click on hard stone, the sounds distinct, punctuated by the goat’s shrieks and a strong smell of smoke. The Vagrant darts down an alley and stills, eyes darting from the flames eating his coat to those that dance on the goat’s tail, careless of the other less pressing dangers that surround them. The sword comes down once, twice, and strands of tail float to the ground, burning bright.
Without his usual care the Vagrant puts down the baby and the sword, rolling on the floor until the fire is out.
He gets up, picking up the baby in one hand and clamping the goat’s mouth shut with the other. Both give him reproachful looks.
He waits for himself and them to calm before continuing, putting away the sword and pulling out the scope to check behind them, lenses piercing the night.
No one follows.
Engines hum softly in the gloom, waiting. Like the rest of the city, they hold their breath, poised for Darktime, when the Usurper’s forces will command the city. When it comes, lights stutter to life, haphazard in their arrangement, illuminating unfairly. The signal brings people from their homes. Shops reopen, curtains of chain slide back out of sight, doors grind sideways, groaning. Signs lift, are turned by grimy hands and dropped with a bang. A hundred banners to the Uncivil wink, vanish and convert to the Usurper.
Soon, voices call out; exaggerations and lies masquerade as hope. Others join them with offers and bargains. Unbeatable prices for the belongings of the beaten.
People spill like vomit onto the streets, congealing into crowds.
The Vagrant weaves through, oblivious, till the leash pulls tight, yanking his arm backwards. The goat strains to look back at the charred thing on its rear, still smoking.
The Vagrant stops, and in Verdigris’ marketplace stopping invites attention.
‘Trouble with your beast I see? Yes, getting old now isn’t she? Old and tired, I know how she feels!’ The patter is only punctuated by laughs that come thick and fast and fake. ‘Funny things these, only get more stubborn with age, not less, like my children!’ More laughter. ‘But forgive me, where are my manners, I am Ezze. And you are?’
The Vagrant blinks. Ezze’s hand snakes around his shoulder, guiding him through sweaty bodies towards a set of wide open doors.
‘And a truly noble name it is! I am pleased to make your acquaintance, from this moment on you should consider Ezze your friend. Verdigris is a grand city, full of wonders but many of them are shy, not like the women! Ah, come now, don’t be like that, it is just Ezze’s joke. A gift to you. Enjoy, it’s the only thing you get for free tonight, that I promise! Now step this way my serious friend, I know a place where we can solve all of your problems.’
The shop is cramped, broken tech and old skinsuits compete with encroaching filth in the limited space. Jammed between twin cog stacks is a half-breed, shoulders bare, purple tinted. In his hands is a needle, potent and smoking. On his face a paid-for smile.
‘Welcome to my shop,’ says Ezze. ‘Be at home here. You’ll like Bruise—’ a scrawny arm indicates the smoker. ‘He’s like you, not one for the words. Ugly too, eh? Well you cannot all be beautiful like Ezze!’ He laughs into the silence. ‘Not one for jokes, I see that. Now tell me, what do you think of this?’ From the chaos a cylinder appears, scarred metal, topped with tubing, like wild hair. ‘It may not look it but this beauty is fresh from Wonderland, the very finest Deadtech. She’ll produce milk just as well as your beast but without the complaints.’
The Vagrant shakes his head.
‘You are thinking Ezze is mad but he is not! Let me explain how it works. We simply extract the required organs of your beast and place them in the tube. The miraculous device will sustain them and stimulate them to produce milk whenever you need it. You look like one who travels; imagine how it would be to have drinks on tap, even in the middle of the Blasted Lands? Truly we live in an age of wonders!’
The Vagrant says nothing.
‘You are worried about the cost. Let Ezze massage away your fear. The price will be fair and you can even part-exchange the rest of your beast to make the deal still sweeter. You see what Ezze did there? Ah yes, not one for the jokes. Are you ready to deal?’