Funny thing, though: must be nobody sat down and really thought about it. Not one of them sat down and asked himself, “So if he’s not that guy anymore … what guy is he?”
An unasked question is a fucking dangerous thing. Since they didn’t ask that question, nobody made it to the next one. The real one.
Nobody thought to ask, “What if the guy he is now is worse?”
When somebody starts talking about good and evil, keep one hand on your wallet.
— DUNCAN MICHAELSON
The witch-herd moved north with the spring; when spring edged into summer, the feral horses ranged the middle reaches of the eastern slopes of God’s Teeth, keeping to the high scrub above the tree line and below the snow. As the days stretched toward a month, the witch-herd had become increasingly restive. Irritable. Tense. Dominance challenges between stallions got bloody, sometimes lethal. Fights had broken out between rival mares. Three geldings and a stallion had been pushed over the lip of a cliff by a scuffle that had become a general brawl during a sudden thunderstorm. All but one gelding had been killed outright by their crash into the rocks below; the one that hadn’t had screamed in agony through too much of the storm. Violent winds and jagged ground-strikes of lightning delayed the horse-witch’s arrival; not even the horse-witch can sprint down a rocky mountainside in a black blind downpour. Hundreds of horses were screaming by the time the horse-witch could reach the injured gelding, and calm it, and send it beyond the memory of pain.
The witch-herd began to lose its cohesion, carving itself into smaller and smaller clusters that skittishly avoided contact with others. The horse-witch herself grew snappish; her fraying temper shortened with every passing day. One night when Orbek came into her camp for some of the jerky, beans, and cornmeal the local villagers had left out for her, he saw her suddenly backhand one of the old pots off the fire, spraying boiling water into the night, and he heard her snarl an obscene profanity that would have made even his human brother blush.
“Hey.”
She crouched with her back to him, a black silhouette ringed with fire. “I’m sorry you saw that.”
“No problem.”
“I’m unhappy.”
“No surprise,” he said. “I’m here this whole time, hey?”
“I’m mad at him.”
“Happens to everybody,” Orbek said. “It’s how he is.”
“How he is sucks.”
“Want more water?”
“I worry for him.”
“Me too.”
“But I shouldn’t worry. I never worry.”
“Should’s nothing like is.” Orbek shrugged. “Don’t mind me saying, because he saves my life couple-three times a month and I love my brother and everything, but you carry a damn big load over some guy you meet one afternoon a month ago.”
“I didn’t worry before. I didn’t even remember how it felt. I don’t like it,” she said. “It’s not what I do.”
“It’s what friends do for friends.”
“Human friends suck.”
“You just now figure that out?”
She didn’t answer. Cold whispered down from the snowcap. Evergreen branches in the fire popped and spat sparks.
“I’m coming back with water, hey? I’m hungry.”
Her silhouette finally moved: she lowered her head. After a moment, she said, “Thank you.”
“Friends for friends, hey?”
“Friends for friends.”
In early summer in the God’s Teeth, night can fall with startling speed. The sky goes from blue to indigo sprayed with stardust, and the shadow of the mountains feels even darker than the coming night. At just this moment, Jonathan Fist came out from among the trees, squinted up at the scattered witch-herd, then shifted the bulging saddlebags draped over his shoulder and began to climb.
He moved slowly, and frequently paused to catch his breath. When he could walk, he did so with a slight limp that would steady out after a few minutes, but stiffen up again after each brief rest. His clothing was new, rugged leather and heavy brocade. His boots still had a gleam of polish across their uppers, though it was gone from the toes and heels. His hair was barely a whisper over his sunburned scalp, and one patch of that scalp above his left ear still showed the dark smear of a partially healed burn.
He climbed silently, but still he heard the occasional nicker and hoof-drum as horses saw or smelled him and retreated. Eventually, the clatter of retreating horses diminished, leaving only the unsteady clop of a horse that instead approached, picking its way over the jumble of boulders.
He stopped, waiting. The moon was still in first quarter, casting just barely enough light that he could identify the hulking silhouette of the rider. “Fuck me upside down,” he said. “How’d she get you on horseback?”
“He’s better’n me on the rocks. And I’m exhausted waiting for you.”
“Ogrilloi eat horses.”
“Humans too.”
He looked around. She wasn’t here. His chest tightened, and his mouth tasted of vinegar and ash.
“She’s not coming,” Orbek said. “She’s mad at you.”
He frowned to himself. The tightness in his chest began to ease. “I guess that’s good news,” he said. “Been thinking about me, huh?”
“You got no idea.”
He guessed that wasn’t good news. “Things quiet?”
“Some days.”
He nodded. “Listen, there’s a guy behind me. See him?”
Orbek moved only his eyes. A first-quarter moon was to him no darker than a cloudy day. A thousand yards below, a slim human moved from shadow to shadow, climbing slowly but steadily, parallel to the course Jonathan Fist had taken. “Yah.”
“How’s he armed?”
“Crossbow. Big one.”
“How about the rifle?”
“He sees us. Good enough to know I can maybe see him.” Orbek sighed. “And he knows about the rifle.”
“How do you figure?”
“Shadow to shadow. Cover to cover. Looks before he moves.”
“You’re a smart bastard, you know that?”
“Yah, maybe.” Orbek’s upper lip peeled back in a grin that even Jonathan Fist’s merely human eyes could see in the moonlight. “There’s also that he don’t use his right arm so much.”
“Oh, for shit’s sake.” A month of deception, murder, and hard travel piled itself on his shoulders. “I am such a fucking idiot. All right. I guess probably a pitch-out. You game?”
“You need to ask?” Orbek’s grin expanded in all directions. “Got a little time to kill, huh?”
“That too. Just don’t lose him. I’ve been shot with crossbows enough for one lifetime.”
Orbek shifted his weight on the horse’s back, an absolutely natural settling-in that also left him facing toward the man below. “How does the Count and the war and all play out?”
“Let’s skip the details.” He tried to massage some knots out of the back of his neck, but there were more knots than there was neck. Shit, he really was tired. Really was too old for this. He slid the saddlebag off his shoulder and held it up for Orbek. “Mostly provisions, but there’s a thousand royals in there too.”
The ogrillo hefted the bag judiciously. “Nice.”
“Five men-at-arms—heavy horse—escorted me up here, and when we parted they expressed the new Count’s eternal gratitude for my assistance in this difficult time, as well as the undying affection of every subject of his realm, and reminded me that if I ever go back they’ll drop me down a well headfirst.” He released a tired sigh. “They weren’t specific about the rest of my body.”
“Business as usual, hey?”
“And then when they left, they took my horse.”
“Fuckers. So, a new Count? Your work?”
“Turns out that the late Count’s younger son is a decent-enough guy. Inclined to mind his own business and leave his neighbors alone. An orderly succession was arranged.”
“Orderly is go
od.”
“At least I didn’t have to get orderly with his mom.”
“What about Dane and Blackwood?”
“Retired.”
“Retire as in they retire, or retire as in you retire them?”
He shook his head. “How we doing with Crossbow Guy?”
“Couple-three minutes. So: Dane and Blackwood?”
“Forget them.”
“You can’t make this one of your, whaddayasay, teachable moments, hey?”
“Drop it.”
“You worry about my virgin ears?”
“No.” He took a deep breath. It didn’t make him feel any better. “It wasn’t thrilling. It wasn’t funny. It wasn’t brave or heroic or even particularly clever. It wasn’t anything worth telling. Shit needed to be done. Let it be.”
“Don’t get like this, little brother. I’m making conversation, that’s all.”
Jonathan Fist stood there in silence, trying to think about something other than the faces of his dead and the skin-crawl of his back anticipating the impact of a crossbow quarrel. A wisp of cloud drifted toward the moon. Thicker clouds crept behind. “It’s about to get a whole lot darker.”
Orbek nodded. “If he sees with magick, that’s his window.”
Fist stretched a knot or two out of his shoulders and moved a pace or two to the side, so if the fucker missed, Orbek wouldn’t eat the bolt. “It’s not gonna be too dark for you?”
“One way to find out.”
“Don’t wait for him. With that arm still bad, he’ll brace the crossbow on a boulder.”
He didn’t need to say that this would put everything below the fucker’s nose behind a big slab of rock; Orbek had learned a lot these past three years. Fist put one hand to the side of his head and cracked his neck, then he put his hands on his hips and arched as though he was stretching his back, which he was, but that wasn’t why his hands were there. “Call it.”
Clouds rolled in, and the night went black. “This’ll do.”
In a single fluid motion, so smooth it didn’t look fast, his right hand slipped from his waist to under his tunic to the grip of the Automag, gently tossed it underhand up toward exactly the spot he’d last seen Orbek’s right hand, then he closed his eyes and stuck his fingers in his ears.
Thunder ripped past. When it stopped, he heard only a high thin whine. He took his fingers out of his ears, opened his eyes, and looked down the mountainside.
“Do I get him?” Orbek was on the ground, the Automag in his hand weaving threat in the general direction of down. His horse was clattering away somewhere above. “Is he down? I’m blinder than fuck.”
His voice sounded distant.
“Haven’t been shot yet.” Fist turned to feel his way down toward the pursuer. “That’s encouraging.”
“What? My fucking ears too—I hate shooting in the rocks.”
“Bitch, bitch, bitch.”
“I got your bitch right here, little brother. You know you only have three fuck-me rounds in this fucking clip?” Orbek said, still waving the empty pistol as though he might be able to summon ammunition by force of will. “Three fuck-me rounds!”
“I explained about the orderly succession, right?”
“Three fuck-me rounds and you want a pitch-out? How come you don’t tell me you got only three rounds?”
“I didn’t want you to worry.”
Orbek made a noise like he was strangling a cat.
“See? That’s exactly why.”
Clouds slid away from the moon. A boot stuck out from behind a fold of rock, toe down. He couldn’t see well enough to be sure it had a foot in it. “Tanner?”
A low, gurgling moan.
“If you want to shove that crossbow out here, I can help you go easy.”
More gurgling, including an attempt at speech that Jonathan Fist interpreted as “cock-whore.”
“Yeah, okay. It’s not like I need to watch you die. See you in Hell, Hack.”
“Garrh … uh. Fuck it. I’m done.”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”
“You can make it easy?”
He didn’t answer.
“Jonnie?” A wet cough that was half vomit. “Jonnie, you’ll help, right?”
“Changed my mind.” He settled into a resting crouch and leaned on the rock. “It’d be just like you to have some little fucking hold-out and take me with you.”
A gurgling laugh. “Guess you got to know me pretty well, this past month or so.”
“I knew you on sight.”
From up the mountainside, Orbek called softly, “You square? Need a hand? Maybe a firearm?”
“Stay where you are. I’m pretty sure he’s alone, but it’d suck to be wrong.”
On the other side of the rock, Tanner chuckled. It turned into a wet cough. “Told you before I ain’t sociable.”
“And I told you to stay out of my way.”
“How long … guh. How long since you nosed me?”
“Two days.”
“Gahhh, the fucking notch pass. Goddamn shit. I knew that was a bad idea. I knew it. Fucking skyline.”
“Guess you’re not as good as you thought.”
“Next closest pass … two days south. I knew … that sonofabitching notch pass … bad risk. Bad.”
“And you did it anyway.”
“Had to. Had to.”
“I’m sure it felt that way at the time.”
“The Count, his eldest, the other guys, whatever. Life on the frontier. Even Bannon, he was a son of a bitch and nobody’s gonna shed a tear. But Charlie … how you did him … how you left him. I never seen a guy die that hard. Most of it was screaming. The rest sobbing and moaning in some language I don’t know, but I’m guessing momma means the same as in Westerling.”
“I’d say I was sorry if I, y’know, was.”
“Charlie was a friend of mine. Friend of yours too, Jonnie, goddammit. I couldn’t let it go. Let you go. Couldn’t.”
“Yeah.”
“Somebody who’d do … that … to a man he knows … a man he’s eaten and drunk with. Fought beside. Laughed at each other’s jokes. And you just …” Another round of wet coughing. “You are one cold damn evil cock-whore. You need to die.”
“People keep telling me that.”
“Someday it’ll catch up with you.”
“Not today.”
“Charlie wasn’t a bad man. Not like Bannon. Shit, not even bad as me. What’d he ever do to you that you’d leave him like that?”
“I mostly kill people for what they’re going to do.”
“But Charlie …?”
“He would’ve come after me. For how I did Bannon. Just like you have for how I did Charlie. And no offense, he was an assload more dangerous than you.”
“Huh. Hadn’t been for … that fucking notch … you’d know something about me being dangerous.” More wet coughing, and another weak splash of vomit. “But … but Charlie …”
“I left him like that so he could tell all you bastards not to come after me. And show you why.”
“Oh, sure. You were … doing us a favor …”
“Some. Mostly it was because I didn’t like him.”
“Everybody liked Charlie. How could you not like Charlie?”
“Hard to say. You’d probably have to ask everybody who died at Hooker’s Leap. Or who used to live in Tabletop, back when there was still such a place. If you can find any who survived.”
“Tabletop …? Wait, come on. That … gahh. Tabletop was Dane and Blackwood. Everybody knows that.”
“Yeah.”
“Charlie in that outfit? I don’t see it. Everybody knows what kind of fuckers those fuckers are.”
“Were.”
“Come on. Charlie with those guys? You can’t expect me to believe—”
“Nobody cares what you believe.”
“Why would you even tell me such a thing?”
“You asked. I’m just passing time until you bleed to death
.”
More coughing. Voice half-strangled. “Like that, is it?”
“Unless you drown in your own blood first.”
“You won’t … not even …” He choked, coughed, and choked some more.
“You were warned.”
“I’d do it … for you. Do it for … an animal …”
“I’m not you. A few minutes from now, you’ll be dead. I won’t. And I know where your momma lives.”
“Gahhh …? My momma … you promised …”
“First I’ll cut off your head. Then I’ll take it to your momma’s house and show it to her, and I’ll tell her you died the same way you lived: crying and begging like the whiny back-shooting pustule of festering weasel cunt you are. Then I’ll cut off your face and make her eat it. And when I’m done, I will take your dead faceless skull and I will, my hand to God, jam it up her ass.”
“Nahgg … come on, Jonnie …!”
“It’s not a figure of speech. You understand me? She won’t survive.”
“Huh. Huh huh. Huh huh huh huh.”
Tanner was laughing. The bastard was actually laughing. “ ’Scuze me for saying … but Jonnie, come on. I know you. You ain’t the type.”
“Charlie and Bannon knew me. When you get to Hell, ask your pal Good-Time Charlie who did him like that. Ask Bannon who I am. Want to know the name they’ll give?”
“Yeah, all right, come on, Jonnie, don’t try and—”
“They’ll tell you it was Caine.”
Silence.
“Still funny, fucker?”
A hoarse rasp of breath. Rock clattered somewhere upslope. A veil of cloud made the night absolute.
Finally, faintly, barely more than a fading cough: “… Caine …”
“Think about it. Think about me. Then think about your momma. Take that with you into the dark.”
Wheezing. The rasping struggle to exhale. Then a whisper: “Jonnie … Jonnie please …”
“No Jonnies here, fucker.”
“… why would … why would you do something so …”
“Because you made me feel like an idiot. And I don’t like you much better than I did Charlie.”
After that, there was more huh huh huh, but it didn’t sound like laughter.