“I should have saved you,” Cassidy wiped away tears.

“NO,” boomed the spirit, “I’ve come to save YOU!” The exertion caused the specter to shimmer and waver. With failing strength he said, “Run, you must find Mother’s Scar!” With this prophecy of doom, will gone, he faded back into the sea of black, “He comes for you, my brother, my friend.”

Faded Captain was silent, but others grew loud. Over Cassidy and Kathyleen the dark waters swept. To the ground they tumbled, as the horse fled in torment. Against them rushed the flood of shadow.

Morose depravity given form, inside faces of degenerates, Parson’s Raiders came with deadly seven of sin, boiled up with vile faces of corruption. Like a cloudy, ephemeral wind they rolled. They quested for Cassidy and Kathyleen. Blew across the land, in pursuit they clutched at flesh, which grew chill under wretched touch. Before the squall of the dissolute all was consigned to shadow, flurry of cursed whispers. Law Men fallen from grace were carried along with the bitter villain of heinous deed. No perverse or midnight rider, base or corrupt, could go beyond the bolt of death’s strike, thunderous silence left in its wake. Here they flowed, remains and lees. To final judgment, evil’s just reward, all these men and women poured out. Torrent of baleful black swelled.

Apocalyptic turmoil halted, recoiled. Hard earth fell away with a sudden drop, and to soured dirt they fell. Festered wood had moldered. Decomposed was old leather. The spoiled flesh of dishonorable dead still clung on to bitter bones, cursed to wither, bound to entropy. Slain where they stood, all were left to the elements, none given decency. So egregious were the transgressions, curdled and accursed. Their hearts, the village was an open grave. Though they crumbled, others had joined them. Black of heart and dark of deed, deviants of many tribes had been added to these diminished corpses. Nothing was disturbed. Every cadaver was anathema. Any discarded in Mother’s Scar was a cancer of the soul, here to sink.

Even in the air was a contamination, which irritated the skin and polluted the lungs. Deeper Cassidy led Kathyleen; yet, he wondered if the waves of the damned were better. Once, the village had stood at the ridge’s apex, but time and decay had sunk it into the land. Paths grew confused. Grave labyrinth seemed to shift; phantasmagorical sway of the damned earth was of a dark dream. Repose of the corpses changed. The countenances of dishonored warriors were mercurial. They sneered, snarled, and grinned.

To the center of Mother’s Scar beckoned them, until the altar of their dark god they found. A tree of thorns, composed of melted weapons, stood as unholy exemplar. Symbol of pain and conquest, it was adorned with the corpses of the impaled, sacrifice and atonement. Years of war had added each piece. Skulls dangled, and like dark fruit or insane sigils, bones hung.

“Abaddon,” spit Cassidy. Kathyleen frowned at him, but he avoided the question that cat-like eyes asked. Bad luck, he felt, to even think of the false preacher. Out of a liar’s smile Obadiah had told truths.

In front of the great symbol of Abaddon was an ornate table; chest upon its center. Cassidy looked at Kathyleen, who frowned but then reddened. She muttered it belonged to Sean, though had no idea the reason it was here. He looked inside, believed it contained ill-gotten treasure.

For a moment, the horrors receded as he withdrew papers. Every robbery, theft, and pillaged fortune was accounted. The bounty hunter’s lips moved, but had to reread one again.

“What is it?” she asked.

“It seems he thought his father, the Sheriff, would betray him,” eyes blue as dawn over the desert went to the Tree of Pain. “He made a deal,” Cassidy looked at her, but away she looked confused.

About the village grave a dull tang of burned rotted meat filled the air. Perfume from incense, which would surely burn in the blasted depths of Nether Realms. Lifeless air was flat; dull earthen mist and untold years of decay was of a crypt. Beads of flame, ephemeral as swamp fire, opened in the moonlight haunted village. Even the moon above, whose light bathed them, had all the countenance of a leering skull. Foul air soured in the guts, bitter on the tongue. Exhalation from ancient lifeless lips flowed though bloodless bodies stirred.

Bloody cracks opened in the earth, like crimson bolts. The world held a devilish haze inside Mother’s Scar, where the cusp of life was thin. This village of the lost had found the edge of known land, brink of fiery realms. So deep the dire wound, they made a borderland of earth and hell. Cruel, infernal influence twisted, defiled. Degenerate hearts became iniquitous minds, no line between ghastly thought and savage act. Worship was monstrous indecency. So debased, warriors became depraved slayers.

The chaotic, blasted realms of countless infernal pits took all, left nothing. Dishonorable dead opened their eyes, as this infected land shifted the border a step into hell. No release was death, but a step into the ill-fated tragedy, tenebrous endless war. Across fields of the flayed or crucified they raged with brothers-in-arms, until slain. They crossed into the corpses. Dissolute grins contorted ghoulish miens at the idea of sanguine destruction. Withered hands took crude implements designed to maim as much as murder. Willing victims had wondered into their despoiled frontier, and rending flesh propitiated their Master.

From the ground Cassidy plucked a cavalry saber, offering to Abaddon. He handed it to Kathyleen, “We must fight our way free!” Though azure eyes were calm, wolfish grin stony, there was a mind numbed terror in his haggard face.

They came, these bright eyed dead. Iron heart slaughterers bellowed exultant war cries dressed only in tattered rage. The revolver boomed, corpses fell, but prayers to Abaddon was butchery, so the bounty hunter raised his hands in appeasement. Warriors fell, and fighters arose. Quick as six fell by the revolver, more came, and he withdrew knife and hatchet. Kathyleen “Hellcat” Midhir was scared of guns, but fearless with a blade. Lioness grace had gone feral with terror. Both cut and slashed, tore and rend. Endless was the parade of the dishonorable damned.