I drank my tea and drove my horse. The morning was still blue and the lizards were just about beginning their journey up closer, to taller stones. To raise their little brown-spotty heads, and to drive their tails high into the air and to observe us all with slit eyes as we galloped down the rocky enclosure. What looked to be a maw of stone. Wide, jagged pillars standing tall like sharp teeth. The sand had given to flat footing, dry brushes. Cliff sides of varying shades of orange all going up in separate levels, each getting darker and darker as they approached the skyline. The shadow was cast wide on us long before we even got to the mouth of the thing. All of us sat on our horses, or stood tall at the expanse before us. The long trail going up and around, expanding through the curves made between the two cliffs.

“A river used to run here.” Vincent said. He studied the entrance, particularly the flowers set near the foot of the trail. Trace minerals of a dried river shined white in the floor. A small stream spilled from the walls. A lizard drank from the source and scurried up.

I drank and drank until the last drop hit my tongue. I tipped my canteen-mug, a small spice stick flew out like a hot rod.

“They might have already been through here.” I said.

“They haven’t.” Vincent said. “They’re waiting for us.”

“How do you know?”

“I saw a scout the other night.” Vincent smiled.

“Why didn’t you tell me? We could have captured him.”

“It’s fine. He was destined to retreat, destined to tell Duvall and destined to meet us here.” Vincent said. “Fate has come for us all, demanded of the meeting. I will conquer him. Here and here alone.”

I did not question it. There was nothing to question, behind that white helmet I could see narrowed red eyes keen on a future beyond. Vincent galloped. He lead, we all followed into the narrow passage. Sometimes widening, sometimes shortening. There was never enough berth for more than four men in a line, and when there was, it was usually in conjunction with a cactus farm. We must have rode an hour before we came to the first blockade.

A cart. Four men at the front with pikes.

“They’ll need more than that.” I said.

“They’re trying to choke us.” Vincent said.

He jumped from his horse and ran. I swear he ran faster than any animal. A zooming white flash, his blade out and hot. It cut through the men immediately, two slashes each taking two men, each cutting them into two pieces. Vincent jumped up cart and slashed at the air. I couldn’t see at the moment, but it was an arrow. He threw it. Grabbed at the air again, catching another arrow. Both flaming and both tossed to the sides.

Archers along the walls.

“Fire.” I said.

The Silverfang raised his bow, two arrows pinched between different fingers. He shot twice. Hit them both. The men fell from their perched spot. Their quivers fell, the arrows slotted inside spun and crashed into the stone, sparking as they hit the stone. The cart lay before us, filled with gun powder and blunted tips of arrows. Small scraps of steel, little things scattered about the floors of the carts. It was going to be a suicide bombing. I walked up, undid the folds of the cart and tipped over one of the barrels. Barely half full.

“I gotta tell you something, Vincent.” I said.

“What?”

“I think we’re running into a trap.” I returned the curtains. “We’re going into this narrow passage and they’re trying to chip at us. Something’s waiting for us at the end of this road.”

“What do you suggest? Waiting? Biding time? Letting them escape? We’ll fight them here.”

“They’ve got the advantage.” I said.

“No, they don’t. Desperate, starved soldiers. Throwing themselves just to stall. We’ll pick at them and whatever defenses they have.”

“You can’t be sure. We don’t even know how many men they have. What they’re running with…what kind of cavalry they might have. We’re getting deep into the east here, there’s no telling if they’ll be getting support.”

“That goes both ways.” Vincent said.

“What?”

“You have to trust me when I say, we have the advantage. And we need to press it.”

“I mean…” I stepped on blood. “I’ll follow you anywhere. But-”

“Good. Then we press on.”

We arrived corner after corner, every so often receiving an arrow up the front of our charge. No one died. A few received cuts, someone get one in the ankle and we let him ride back heel. Overall, Duvall was killing his own men. Sacrificing them in singles or in pairs, making us more apprehensive for a chase moment to moment, but never stopping us. We arrived at the midpoint, at least that’s what Kal said it was. A little open area with a small pool of water to cool the men and the horses. We stopped and set up a small camp, rotating men out to the front of the trail to keep watch. They spotted a few scouts, never nothing more.

“Aren’t you afraid he’s going to get away?” I asked.

“They aren’t. They’re tired too.” Vincent stoked the fire.

A few pits had been set up, sticks and stones set around a ring from which Vincent dipped and prodded at a piece of lizard he had cooking a top the coals. I could not tell if the fire reflected from his eyes or if that was just his natural color. His natural temperament.

“Do you know what type of man Duvall is?” I asked.

“I know about the brothers. Yes.” Vincent lifted the skewer. “They’re both psychopath’s. Hannibal killed his father. Or maybe Duvall did. Sold out or blamed, Hannibal is rotting and Duvall has taken the kingdom for himself. Shows you the nature of the man. He’s ruthless. Has some of the Kavarian’s convinced he’s a kind of messiah, says he speaks to the Gods himself.”

“Is he a good warrior?”

“They say he is. The thing about a narcissist is that you really can’t trust what’s said about him.” Vincent said. “We’ll find out tomorrow though. We should rest, honestly…”

Vincent sank his teeth into the tail of the lizard. Chewing woodenly, spitting out bits of bone. Behind us, men in steel ran, breathing hard as they stopped in front of the fire. They had their hands on their knees.

“Messenger.” One heaved. “Messenger out front.”

Vincent stuck his head out, looked towards the pathway where guards waved their torches. He bit off the lizard head and munched it.

“You forgot your sword.” I said.

“I won’t need it.”

“Always too easy about these things…” I stood and chased after him, hands on my blade handles.

He went to the front of the trail, where it lead turpentine through a dark passage ways. Boulders to the side, the stray branch looking over leafscant and with nothing to it but the weight of empty bird nests scorched to black. The messenger stood slanted in his slacks, his armor in pieces and a bandage across his forehead where a large gash went down his face. Vincent stood there, I came up behind him. Archers readied their bows and pointed them down at the messenger. Beyond the black, a horse hugged air and dragged dirt with its hooves.

“Don’t you look fucked.” I said. “Brains about to come out of your skull, old man.”

The messenger peeled his eyes to me. He made no change on his face.

“I am here to talk about your conditions of surrender.” The man said.

“That’s tough-talk for someone who ain’t looking too tough.”

“We’re not surrendering.” Vincent said.

“Hannibal is waiting for you. We have the men, the numbers and we know it.” The Soldier said. “You are not going to win. He’d like to allow you to turn back, go back into the desert and back to your king.”

“Allow us?” Vincent asked.

“We would not harm your retreat.”

I froze for a bit. Staring at the poker faced Soldiers. Nothing to him but an intense look. Loose fitting armor, loose fitting skin draping down the bandages that covered his wound across his face and his armor and his legs. They’d sent an old man here, what at first I thought was a matter of not having the men of which to send. But - as the soldier spoke - what I soon felt was a matter of trying to disarm us. And so my paranoia grew. Had they the men? An army waiting for us at the end of this trail? An army in a little narrow way, blockading us and pinching us.

This was not going to go well. I could feel it. Knew it.

“You’ve set up camp at the end, haven’t you?” Vincent said, smiling. “You’re waiting. Aren’t you?”

The soldier stayed quiet.

“No need to say it. I already know.” Vincent took a few steps back he walked towards the fire pit. “We will be marching forward. Tell your commander that.”

I looked back to Vincent. He’d started and the old soldier was looking down at a leather helmet, putting it on and preparing his horse back. I chased after Vincent. He ate a small apple and chucked the core at the pit when he arrived.

“You didn’t even give yourself a chance to think it over?”

“What’s there to think about?” Vincent asked. “We’ll break through the blockade and kill Duvall. Trust me.”

I said I did. Though I didn’t mean it. Maybe that was the truth about Vincent, I didn’t believe him but I pretended I did. It was all a delusional faith, every second of it, but you hide the lie from yourself. We went back to the coals of the dying fire, watching them crumble into black dust. I heated my copper cup of tea and plucked it with a stick, telling great stories of the brothels to Vincent. After a while, he yawned and stretched and with calm went to his bed in the corner of the room. He wasn’t scared. Not one bit. And it bothered me. Courageous men always bothered me. I was one of the last to sleep, what little sleep I’d gotten.

I rested my back on a cushion of my satchel watching the stars rifle in the air. And off in the distance I heard a great yell.

I turned my eyes (I hadn’t even closed them) to the shouting. One great shout that made some men turn, that made them fawn with me. There was no secondary noise and yet upright I remained, listening. To my side Vincent slept, he slept soundly with a blanket over his body. His soft white hair across his face.

It was as if the shout was imaginary, some kind of puncture in my dream.

But I was very much awake and this was very much real.