Tension ripples through the group and weapons twitch in hands.
The Vagrant steps forward, he holds a sack open, displaying its contents, offering.
‘Well now,’ says Kell. ‘Looks like your partner here is feeling a little less confrontational.’
Lil scowls at the Vagrant. ‘It’s the best deal you’re gonna get from us, Kell. We go free and you get goods to trade without risking any more of your men in the field. Deal?’
He makes a show of consideration. ‘Deal!’
Handing the sack over, the Vagrant walks down the narrow path between Kell’s followers, his shoulders brushing those on either side. The goat follows, for once obedient. Lil comes last, she and Kell turn slowly as they pass, neither willing to look away.
Under his coat, the baby kicks and whimpers.
Everything stops, focusing on the foreign sound.
The Vagrant closes his eyes.
Hands grab at his arms and shoulders, the baby’s cries get louder.
‘Well, well,’ Kell crows. ‘Looks like we’ve got a new deal on. You give us—’
The first bullet punches the rifle from his hands, the second goes through his knee. Kell screams reflexively as he falls forward.
Lil’s pistol nestles in behind his ear. ‘Here’s the new deal: Let us go, right now, or I put a new piercing in your brain.’
‘Argh! You’ll die for this you bitch!’
‘Not before you. Tell them to let us go.’
Kell spits on the floor, bites back another wave of pain. ‘Let the bastards go. You hear me, let them go!’
The colony of grimy fingers retreats, and the Vagrant moves forward, reaching the gate.
Lil watches, the time is coming when she’ll have to run for it. There are too many people and too few bullets for her to succeed. She grits her teeth, allowing no time for tears or second thoughts, preparing to take her chance.
She turns, pointing the pistol at those immediately in front of her. They flinch away and she jumps for the gap, focusing on the goat’s lank tail, still in sight. Her flight is brief, arrested by a chunk of stone that strikes her temple, stunning her. A fist catches her between the shoulders, and Lil falls into the pale grass.
Too late, the Vagrant sees. His hands itch for the sword but they are full already. His foot lifts, wanting to rush to her side, but he cannot put the baby down here, dares not take it back into danger. Head low, he carries on.
A crowd gathers around Lil, boots stamping down.
The tension in the air grows, drawing tighter with each kick. Kell’s people step back. Between them, Lil’s body lies face down in the dirt, a sliver of blood runs from her temple.
Alone, her death would be but a whisper. She is not alone. Many have fallen, each adding weight to a cry that passes beyond mortal ears and into another place, where it demands response.
With a shriek, the air splits above the fields, and something that should not be manifests within its shell. The pipe arches groan with the added weight, until the Unborn’s chain snaps, unleashing its cargo upon the wretches below.
Just once, the Vagrant turns back.
The Unborn’s burst shell rocks back and forth, spurting liquid from many cracks.
Long grasses undulate, a sea of pale yellow, allowing glimpses of the new horror birthing in the field. Where it finds people it consumes them, not the careful possession of its elders but a wild, destructive instinct.
Above it, the air ripples and folds, fighting to close once more.
Most in the fields have been taken by surprise but those further out pause in their petty struggles. Weapons are trained on the new threat, men and women briefly united in their desire to survive. Precious bullets are spent.
Voices fade away, the grass whispers.
Nobody emerges from the field.
In its sheath, the sword begins to hum softly. The Vagrant rests two fingers on the hilt but the noise does not quieten. He walks away, leaving Kendall’s Folly to its fate.
Gravel crunches rhythmically underfoot. The suns rush across the sky, manic compared to the broken mountains that inch past. Under their uneven shadows, the Vagrant walks. Their progress is steady.
The baby will not stop crying. It screams beneath his coat, inconsolable. Neither the warm dark under his arm nor the stimulus of the landscape bring consolation.
There is little sustenance in the Blasted Lands, and so sacks of fruit and food are magnets for the lean denizens slipping between the rocks. New breeds appear regularly, half-breeds, quarter-breeds and blends unrecognizable. People have given up naming them. Most are lumped together as food, threat or nuisance.
Eventually steps slow, the group’s previous exertions demand their due: the resting of tired limbs and heavy hearts. The Vagrant squeezes pasha juice into the baby’s down-turned mouth. Even the sweet liquid fails to draw a smile, though the smacking of lips and swallowing is more palatable than the wailing.
As the hours tick by the Vagrant and the baby cling to each other, sometimes stealing snatches of oblivion. While the baby dozes, the Vagrant’s amber eyes twitch.
Something ventures forward from the twilight, hunting. It scampers lightly, alert for danger. Scurry, pause, scurry, pause. Eyes dangle from its head, bouncing with each advance on sinewy threads. Its flickering tongue tastes the air before it storms the last few feet, scaled legs whirling with effort. Blisteringly fast, it seeks a way into the sack, racing up the coarse fabric, an opportunistic thief.
Overhead a shadow moves. Preceded by a spike of white hair, it descends, opening until it blocks the creature’s path; a moving, living cave.
Feet frantically spin in the opposite direction but the creature cannot stop, momentum delivering it straight into the cavernous mouth.
As the suns rise, the goat chews.
A rising wind flicks at their eyes, throwing grit and flecks of moist matter. The Vagrant moves on, arm raised against the clouds of dust that blow past.
Distantly, shapes are visible, seeming to grow out of the ground.
At first the shapes are simply shelter. The Vagrant crouches behind a structure, leaning into boned fabric that gives but takes his weight. Breathing becomes less laboured and he looks around, running his fingers along the edge of the thing he sits by. Coarse plastic is stretched around a frame that juts out of the ground at a forty-degree angle. The external bars are two inches thick, made for burdens. His hand pauses as it reaches the frame’s end; the metal there is flat, edged.
Something has cut through it.
The Vagrant frowns, investigates further. Objects lie just beneath the surface, so badly broken they seem foreign. He tightens his grip on the baby, digging one handed.
Half buried in dirt and tipped on their sides, the waggons from the caravan are not immediately recognizable.
Neither are the bodies.
A face emerges, brushed into view. Sores stand proud on desiccated skin. Something has stolen the moisture, the eyes and more from the corpse. Further excavation allows it to be worked free. Tattered clothes hang loose on shrivelled bones, ridiculous, clown-like. The Vagrant slides his hand between the layers and new smells rise up. Muscles work in his jaw but he does not stop, exploring nooks and secrets.
When his hand seeks air again, it brings out a prize. Small, silver, shining: a coin. The Vagrant stares at it, emotions