I took Edwin with me early in the morning for what I could only call as bomb-diffusion-run. But what was really the seizure or murder of those willing to blow themselves up with barrels of Black Fyre. That was the mission and it began at camp among the (mostly) cleared path of stones where tents were pitched, to our sides the tired crows with calloused bodies sitting and nursing wounds. Or crows sleeping on their sides on sand, some underneath the shade of Joshua trees seized to the sides of the mountains. Edwin and I rode through, quiet and slow. The morning coming off of us with yawns, we wiped our grimed eyes. I drank my tea and stirred it a half-dozen times used cinnamon stick. An old batch of spice, it tasted of thin water mostly. But whatever, the caffeine it had was enough to start the machinations of my body.

“There’s a legend about this place.” Edwin said.

I stirred my metal cup and looked down at its base. A small sip left.

“The Kavalian’s believe that Asmodai, fourth prince of Heaven struck down on this mountain scape.”

“And why did a god strike down on the planes?” I tipped over the cup.

“He was trying to kill a traitor. Sa-Adir, one who kept running from his thunder bolts. The traitor ran into the deep caverns of this place and thought them good enough to hide him. They weren’t. Asmodai drew his arm back, black lightning in his hand and cut the place in half. Thus the narrow passage way. And thus the caves.”

“What made him a traitor?” I asked.

“Sa-Adir seduced Asmodai’s lover. In the form of a dove, took her and bore child.” Edwin said. “That’s what I gathered from the Kavalian’s.”

It sounded dumb. The whole bit. Mythologies usually did, for me at least. The canyon and its many channels and caves were probably a product of a dried river. So many channels, so many caves. Little holes off to the side enough to stir anyones trypophobia. Walls with dark holes in them like myriad eyes. I could not help but feel the anxiety myself, not so much the porous sickly looking feeling, but the feeling of being watched within one of those many caverns. Dark holes with darker secrets. I saw a small rabbit off the corner of my eye take one glance at me and retreat into the dark. It was a dark morning, the creature disappeared fast into the mountain.

I sighed and stopped my horse. Edwin did so afterward and looked to me.

“Starting off early, huh.” I said.

Edwin narrowed his eyes and looked around, then we spotted him. The first bomber perched high and far away.

“Think you can shoot that one?” I asked.

It was a man along the edge of a little platform. Sleeping on his side, with a tree underneath him to give leverage to two barrels. Edwin narrowed his eyes and nodded. He grabbed an arrow and bent his bow and shot. He clipped a barrel right off the branches. It tipped the other one over. Bothspun in the air and from the distance resembled small toys. That was, until the collapse.

The road up ahead exploded. A crater woke everyone up. The horses stirred.

“Nice job.” I said.

“Come on, they knew we were coming.” Edwin said.

I shook my head and looked up. The man (a boy, really) looked down shaking his head, with his quivering hand and sword up in the air above him.

“You think you’re gonna reach us with that?” I asked.

He looked at the sword, then to me. Edwin laughed and raised his bow, the glimmer of the arrow facing the man.

“You either come down or we’ll bring you down. Which is it going to be?” I asked.

The boy gulped and even from this distance, I could hear it loud in the narrow valley.

He was the first we tied up. Wrapped in rope and set aside on the road stark naked, with his body held against the bark of a tree. He sat on his ass and had his head anchored down.

“I really think we should have just killed him.” I looked about to the many caverns. “Why take the chance.”

“You’re starting to sound like Sylas.” Edwin said. “Always drastic, always thinking of the worst thing.”

“Hope for the best, expect the worst.”

“That’s not a good way to live.” He said.

“But live long you will.”

Edwin sighed and put his hands on his side. Our horses trodded along the road, the sun was starting its first shine of light. We came across the second man a half hour away sitting up at the edge of a ledge, with the base of the barrel tipped over. He shot it. We caught it last minute, driving back. Our horses screeching for dear life as the barrel landed on the floor and exploded. A blast that left me deaf for moments, I raised my head and looked up to the rising smoke. Hands braced, I waved the fumes to the side. Metal and wood charred and disfigured rolled past me. Edwin coughed to my side.

“You alright?” I asked.

“Yeah.” Edwin coughed.

“I’ve got this one, stand back.”

The valley was narrow here, a small fraction of light shown up from the ceiling, the two giant cliff sides were close enough that I jumped up on one stone. And from that one stone jumped to another, such that I scaled the wall from ledge to ledge. And beneath my feet felt the wind shift, something strange like a draft rising up through my boots. Not necessarily a bad feeling.

I came close to the ledge, the man stared at me, his eyes wide as he let go of a second barrel. It shattered below me with no target (unless the walls were his enemies). I jumped up to his ledge. As he looked for his weapons by his side, I grabbed him by the neck and punched him square in the jaw. His head swiveled.

I punched him again for good measure.

That was the second man. There were four more after him, most of which were a blur of quick fights and heart stopping explosions. Each time, my heart beating slower and slower.

I shook my head and pushed my hair behind my ears. Taking a deep breath I finally felt the sweat of the morning on my skin. It rolled down like a long bead and stopped at my chin.

“You still wanna go around saving them?” I laid the sixth man down and tied him up to to a tree realizing quick how little rope I had left. And how much we’d already gone through. At least half a dozen into the morning and who knew how many more.

“I just don’t get why they don’t surrender.” Edwin finished the knot on the man. He wrapped a gag around his mouth and raised his hand against the sun, the shade barely covering his eyes. We both looked on ahead to the crooked path with parcels of light and dark and moments of ceiling and not. With a swerving curve that came up and where the entrances of caves spawned from little roads off this singular main vein. Holes large and small with creatures looking with cocked heads out from the darkness at us.

“Would you surrender?” I asked.

“Hmm?”

“If you were being dragged, if the city you took was conquered and you had no where to run. Would you surrender?” I asked.

“I guess not.”

“Truth is, I don’t blame most of them. They’re going to retreat east. Where? To Duvall’s family fort? How long will it be until Xanthus takes it?” I asked. “And they’ll be executed all the same. So why not fight?”

“Because there might be a silver lining in surrendering. They might get spared.”

“That’s why Vincent told ‘em too.” I said.

“You don’t believe him?”

“I believe Vincent alright. I just don’t believe that’s how it’ll play out.” I said.

I felt something crawl up my neck. Something that prickled me. I drove the horse steady as we went forward into the road. It expanded a bit. The narrow way finally giving in to stranger territories. Little trails that would require small feet or a slow descent. Little roads leading to patches of cactus. Small streams of water came out deom the lighter shaded mineral layers, falling down and hitting the top of my head. Overhead the encroaching stone wrapped into ceilings above us and provided shade as we made our way. Past there there seemed to be no one above for there were no platforms in which to occupy anymore. No trees. No stone-lips. Only the smooth tri-colored pillars and mountain rocks.

I felt the feeling in my neck again. And snapped my head to the road. To little patches of cactus and dry grass coming out the corners. We passed them and I paused, yielding the horse with a rough grip.

“What?” Edwin asked.

I looked back to the patch of cactus. Spiny green paddles larger than men sprawled out wayward to the sun. I drew out my knives. Something shuffled in the patch. I got off my horse and ran. A man’s face in the patch. I approached, he had his sword drawn already.

And out from my periphery, hidden behind one of the many pillars. Another man, with small throwing knives. He drew his arm back. Edwin snapped an arrow at his shoulder. The dagger thrower staggered. The man in the cactus patch ran.

The dagger thrower steadied and flicked something towards Edwin, Edwin took it to the leg and screamed.

Shit.

Change of directions, I ran towards the knife thrower (he wasn’t far) and tackled him against the wall. With him pinned, I stabbed him in the belly and kept at it until his stomach felt like mush. He coughed blood on my face, I felt it warm and dripping down my lips. Metallic taste. Copper and ash, flavor of war. I looked to the cactus man who had scrambled with scratches on his whole, the barrels of blackfyre left behind in the patch itself.

“Are you fine?” I knelt towards Edwin.

“Yeah. Go. Go.” Edwin dug the knife out and tossed it. I grabbed my horse reigns and tightened the rope and sped. The man wasn’t far, he hadn’t made it anywhere at all but in the panic, seemed further than he was. I looped the last of my rope and spun it in the air and threw. It wrung around his neck. I yanked and yoked his neck and he dropped his sword. I dragged him, choking him, his back against the floor as he skidded along the surface. The flesh coming off him.

When I had my fill - while he was still alive - I stopped the horse and stepped on his face. I stomped on his ribs, they snapped at my heel. He coughed and cried.

I tied the rest of him up and grabbed him by the hair and brought him up to the horse. We came back to his friend, the eviscerated one. I left him there, hog tied on the horse with him facing the corpse of his ally. A man who had crawled a few inches off to drag himself against the wall. He had died there, holding his belly, with his mouth blistered and face sunburnt.

“You look at him.” I pulled the mans hair. “You look at him and you second guess trying to escape. You hear me?”

He wasn’t listening. Only gawking.

Edwin shouted. He groaned.

Fuck. I couldn’t stop cursing. Fuck. Fuck.

Edwin hopped up to me. His leg bleeding.

“See. I’m fine.” He smiled. So much sweat had formed on his forehead, his glands were popped open and spotty looking on his skin. He grinned with his buck teeth and strained a smile. I knelt and lifted his trousers up to his knees. Everything on his shin bones was purple. The veins bulged and his flesh looked sickly.

“This isn’t normal.” My heart raced. “An infection wouldn’t be this quick. This isn’t right.”

Edwin slapped my hand. His eye brows raised.

“Look, alright? I’m okay.” He said.

His leg gave out. He fell on his ass.

“No. No. No.” I grabbed him. I ripped his shirt and wrapped it tight against his knee. He screamed as I did so.

I raised Edwin to the back of my horse. Then I saw it, in the corner of my eyes, shining and gleaming. The dagger.

I ran and picked it up and looked at it, spinning it in my hand. The grip so hard that I felt the leather handle bite the skin on my fingers through my gloves. I ran to the boy.

“Is this poisoned?” I grabbed his hair. He looked to me. He hadn’t blinked at all.

“No.” He said. “No. No.”

I brought it up to his face, the edge close to his cheek.

“You and me are going to come to a truth. Is this poisoned?”

I brought it closer. It reflected off his eye as he stared at the edge.

“Maybe. Maybe.” He wriggled. “Yes. Yes!”

“You fucking assholes.” I scrunched my face and slit the boys face. “Fuck. You.”

The boy shouted. His mouth went wide. He turned, hog tied, scrambling on the floor.

“Get me a doctor.” He turned his face left and right. “Help. Help.”

I drove off, yanking at Edwin’s horse as we made our way back to camp. The sun against our backs. A nightmare waiting for us far up ahead.