—-

Boy had been waiting in the treeline for the right moment. The lasergat he held hummed to life with the tightening of his grip. The sun had long been down and the charge that was left would give him three shots. 

Three.

He hoped he would not need any. A fool’s hope, he knew. Somewhere deep inside he knew there would be killing done here tonight. Soon the fight kicked off like he knew it would and he did something he never did.

He missed.

Quick, the stolen son of the little Fallen River village, shot Billgii and he was dead before Boy stumbled down the brambled hillside into the small camp. He had been muttering to himself in disbelief. But now he was looking at what was left of his friend. One who had been poked full of holes by a crudely crafted bustergat. Nothing more than a single shot of scrapped lead and piss powder thrown into a scavenged pipe. Still it tore through him, doing its job efficiently. The body was pale. Brown blood covered his chest and was soaking into the dirt. His arm had bone sticking out from the shot wound. Boy sighed.

I never miss. He thought to himself

He kicked his friend's leg. He didn’t respond. His limp leg plopped to the other side.

You fucking idiot, you had to get caught. You had to fucking die. Quin is going to… His stomach twisted, legs giving out, he pounded his fist into the hard packed earth.

“You fucking idiot.” He said aloud through a clenched jaw.

Biq was stomping out flames across the camp.“Enough, Boy.” He said.

Boy whirled around. Another friend dead, because of you! He thought in a rage filled moment, ready to point a weapon at the Old Man. The pain boiling over vanished in an instant when he saw Quick’s corpse move. The kid was alive, for now. You dare live after what you’ve done. Boy pulled free his knife as he crossed the tattered camp. He stepped over some more corpses until he was over the bloodied young man. Quick was clutching his throat, Biq had cut it to the bone. The dark red blood looked black in the little light as it poured through his fingers. He was rolling back and forth slightly. Face up to the sky. He was trying to speak. To who? Boy did not know. He looked over the young man. Not more than 14 winters on him. A skinny thing pale as a white rat without his wrappings on. The sun hadn’t ruined him yet. But Biq had.

He’s dead and he doesn’t know it yet.

He pressed on the dying kid’s chest with his foot. Some blood got on his brown leather wrapped shoes. Boy didn’t mind, he relished the grunt of agony that came from the dying son. 

“Hey, look at me. Look at me.” He said. 

The young man’s eyes finally found Boy’s face.

“You killed my friend.” Boy said softly.

“Please. Please. Pl..” He spurted out, it was faint and barely intelligible. Boy’s fist clenched and his nails dug into his skin.

“You want me to help you?” He crouched over him looking at the terrified face. Boy slowly took off his face wrappings.

Quick's eyes went even wider.

“Look at me!” Boy said, grabbing Quick’s face. Boy’s eyes were large, his jaw clenched.

A human and a clinii looked similar in figure. But, Boy’s face was darker, tanned well past any Clinii’s could be. He had a flat face instead of a snout. Making the sight of a pointed nose odd compared to a Clinii’s muzzle.

Quick tried to squirm away, thrashing his legs about.

Biq yelled across the camp. “Boy! Do not scare him. Leave him be or finish him!”

Boy shot up. “He killed Bill!”

Biq took three strides towards him, passing over the shrinking fire until he was inches from Boy’s face. He saw the hard line that ran vertically pinched between his eyes. Like a canal had been cut into his skin from years of scowling. The other wrinkle lines weren't as deep but they were plentiful around his eyes, cheeks, along his snout. Worse was the sun scarring, and the damage it had done to his milky eye, or was that a wound that blinded him? Boy couldn’t recall. The worst thing about him was the hot breath that poured over Boy when he spoke.

“He will be judged for it. In the next life. Look at him.” He gripped Boy’s neck and pushed him forward to the muttering man below them. Boy felt the claws dig into his nape. On the ground Quick was even more still now. The life was draining out of him with every passing second. “He is a dead man.” Biq spoke more, releasing Boy. “Dead man only deserve pity; they are not to be judged by us.” Biq left him with a shove and went to the woman’s body. Shaking his head, he knelt next to her, reciting a prayer Boy had forgotten a long time ago.

He took a deep breath. Letting his clenched jaw go loose. The fire had crackled down once again to embers and the insects had started singing once more. Boy looked around the gruesome scene expecting something to be amiss, but the woods hadn’t acknowledged the horror that occurred here. Why would they? How could they? This wasn't some cartoon story Boy saw long ago as a child. All the animals of the forest weren't going to come forth and pay their respects. A moment of silence was made following gunfire, that was the only silence one could get in these Shaken Lands. Then the world went back to leaching onto whatever life it had left. 

The insects would sing, a breeze would roll through on occasion, the fire would die, and the things done today would join the others in this haunted place. As it had always been. Corpses littered the ground with the fallen leaves no different from one another. Right at home in a dead place like this. A place where the trees could be skeletons themselves. That passing thought made Boy’s skin crawl. His chest twinged with pain. They all belonged here, Bill, the bandits, this Quick who was no different from Boy. Not really. 

Boy let his fists go, staring up into the night sky. He watched the moon and her fragments hang in the air. A falling star streaked across the sky. He sighed.

I shouldn’t have missed.

He knelt next to Quick and looked over his knife. It was his father’s knife once. A human blade that kept an edge like no other.

If only you knew what I use it for now.

His eyes moved to Quick who was still gurgling and gasping for air. It was probably the first time out of his village and this is what happened to him. A child who was scared. Boy was going to end it fast but the knife felt wrong in his hands. 

Stupid pup. Boy thought. Should have stayed put. 

“Please. Pl..” the kid’s eyes were still wide. Both hands covered his throat and they looked like bones, white as the moon. The blood was still trickling out in pulses. Slipping between his fingers, his life slipping away with it.

Boy knelt down. Taking the young man’s clenched hand from his neck and pulling it back with a yank. He held it against the ground, pinning it. Quick tried to resist but he was weak now. Ready to go. They sat there in silence, Boy could not stand to look at him anymore, so he stared at the sky alongside him. Another falling star reached and flared out.

“You see?” Boy said. “Even stars fall, you don’t need to be… scared.” the last word was unassuring.

Just tell him the truth. Tell him he's dead and to let go.

“Please.” The kid spat. He choked out that word again. And again. Begging. It was so faint now he was barely mouthing anything at all, just pleading. 

“I know. It’s ok. We’ll get you home.” Boy lied.

Quick’s breath became shorter and more ragged and then it stopped. Stillness took him. Then everything went slack. Everything but his eyes. Those sunset eyes. The color of a purple sky when the sun is low in the desert. His face looked twisted and unnatural. All tension fell away. It was like his skin was just dropped over his skull and not molded to it, to make a creature with a name, a sister, a Clan. But his purple eyes (one filled with broken blood vessels) were still open. They did the one job eyes are supposed to never do. Seeing nothing. And that made it the worse part.

He stayed in thought for a while. Holding hands with a dead boy, staring at the embers. He replayed the fight a hundred times. Any of those times Billgii lived, he got to see his friends and sister again, she belittled him and punched him in the chest for getting caught. The two pups from the village came peacefully back home. The Marked were killed or talked into returning for judgment. He thought of all the outcomes that could happen. But only one came true.

Another one is gone and I can’t even cry.

He steadied himself and dropped the dead mans’ hand into the dirt. “Biq what the fuck do we do now?” Boy asked, contempt ringing out in the night air.

“We bury the two Marked. Here is a good place. They will be judged by Belshuun. We’ll bring the two youngins back.”

“They won’t pay us for this job!” Boy sneered.

“They will. We did half of it. We killed Barde, and Fourfingers. We’ll take his hand back as proof.” He was setting Bill’s body up to be more presentable. Praying over him and crossing his arms. 

“You don’t think they will be upset for getting their son and daughter murdered!? And it was us who did the killing!” Boy was standing now. “We go back there, they… they could kill us. Name us Marked!”

“I accept any judgment they see fit on me.” Biq said.

“What about my judgment? I told you not to come down. I told you to just let me pick them off from the woods. I told you not to let Bill go out scouting for their trail. His death.” Boy pointed at their dead friend. He was shouting now. “His death is on your hands!”

Biq glared at him. “Wind wasn’t good. All hands are bloody.” He said simply. “I did. What I saw fit. Not knowing the outcome. I will not explain myself to you Boy. I saw the laser flash. I saw you miss before his shot rang out. We will pray to Belshuun. The next time we follow them, it will be different.”

Boy waved his hand at that. “I don’t care about next time. I care about this time. I care that Bill is dead and you… You..”

Biq’s tongue flicked out like a snake and he turned his head over Boy’s shoulder. Squinting out into the woods behind him. Boy’s blood was in his ears but he heard the snap of branches behind him.

No. Not yet.

He swung around and there stood Boon, emerging from the woods. He was tall and strong, built like an oak. He happened to be mistaken for one on more than one occasion when the moon was gone. He was wearing his light blue wool poncho, with white wrappings covering his arms. A confused face was clear of any coverings and his pale eyes were under a hairless furrowed brow. His top lip was quivering, showing his front teeth peeking down from his snout, his one snaggle tooth protruding on the left. He walked over to the dead brother and sister. He shook them. He gasped when he saw Bill’s crumpled form.

“What. What happened? I don’t understand.” He muttered.

Worse, from the same path came Quin. She was panting, carrying the rope that dragged the horse named Seba behind her. Her clothes disheveled, two gats hanging from her hips, wrappings only off her right arm. She pulled them off her face and the gray linen hung loosely around her neck. She was taller than most men as Clinii women were, she nearly matched Boy in height. But she was slender with muscle that was wiry under her red canvas vest. Her head was bald and her grey skin matched the trees she leaned against as she caught her breath. The large white and brown speckled mustang followed her. He tossed his head when he emerged from trees, the scent of death always made him uneasy. It was Quin that Boy worried the most about. He took a step towards her.

“Quin, it’s Billgii…” She stopped him.

Her eyes were fixated on his body. “Shut up.” She stood there in silence. They all did.

The tree limbs rustled as the wind blew through them once more. 

Quin finally looked at Boy with her off kilter muzzle. It was a face calm and collected with few scars and only a little sun damage up her neck. But she looked old as the trees around her now. Lines on her forehead were creating heavy grooves as she stared at him, the question obvious on her face. 

Why? How?

Her features were exaggerated by the moonlight above. It was a face that would haunt most men in their dreams forever. But Boy was a boy himself, not a man. And he was used to a face like that. On the rare day he caught his reflection he saw the same look, eyes muddled with pain. And there was no reason why. No explaining how. What was the point? It just was. So he wasn't surprised when she stayed silent and turned away leaving the horse’s reins dangling to the ground.

“Don’t burn him.” She said. “He always was scared of fire.” Then she vanished into the dead growth.

Biq turned to Boon and Boy. “Make a cairn for him Boon. Good strong branches, we will let the Grey Mother look at him for the weeks to come. I’ll take care of the Marked. Boy, make the kids ready for a journey home.”

Boon nodded and got to work, he sniffled as he did so. Mourning with each laborious stride. Boy followed his orders begrudgingly, tears dried up long ago.