Lenny watched a great bird circle over the caravan. High in the air, the Gordo clan referred to it as the valorous mega vulture. Its pink head gleamed with dried blood, and it soared slowly, as if it weren’t a bird at all, but a kite. The raiders followed it now, convinced it would lead them to corpses waiting to be looted.

  The days had been too long to count. Even now, he watched the sun set behind the mountains that hid the immense glow of the twin suns, and it felt like a week had passed since this morning. His exposed skin was scorched from the chains that held him to Bantu’s backside, and the heated rays of the sun fared him no better. At one point, he could smell his flesh cooking, and it made the pit in his stomach rumble and his mouth water. He even considered taking a bite from himself one evening when the clan had forgotten to feed him for an entire day.

  They were coming upon something, Lenny knew it. Even in his heat blasted daze, he could hear the stirrings and rumors floating between the excited raiders. The bird too had noticed it, though it stayed in the air, waiting for a meal. There was a sudden burst to the north, and it left a blue cloud floating beneath the greening sky.

  A confused excitement erupted from the raiders and their warlord, Jackmaw Yapyap, pulled hard on the elephant’s reigns. Lenny could hear them hooting and jeering like a wild pack of dogs, and then he could hear the clank of tools. They were setting up camp again. Lenny wasn’t sure when the last time they stopped for camp was, but they weren’t as rambunctious then as they were now. Normally, they were dulled by apathy as they slowly erected their tents, now they were in some sort of hurry.

  “War!” cried Jackmaw. He hopped off of the elephant and pointed at the mega vulture in the sky. “The bird brought us another fight!”

  “And another seer, by the color of the smoke,” said Shi-Toh. The feathered man rounded Bantu and began to free Lenny from his prison. The boy winced whenever his raw skin was touched by the man, but Shi-Toh smiled and reveled in the minor pain he was able to cause. “Come, boy. We have much to discuss.”

  Lenny hit the sand like falling into a pit of fire. Every grain pricked him like a hot needle and embedded themselves in his palms and knees. He didn’t react. Instead, he bit his cheeks and rose with the help of Shi-Toh. The fiery sands were a small price to pay for freedom.

  The Gordo clan was not assembling a camp. They all worked in tandem to create a singular tent, much larger than that of even Jackmaw’s. Upon closer inspection, Lenny realized they were combining their tents. They unrolled stitched animal hides and planted long wooden tent poles from their own arrangements and pieced them together into a communal building of sorts. Jackmaw, Shi-Toh, and Lenny all stood and watched.

  “What are they doing?” Lenny asked. His mouth hurt just to move.

  Jackmaw didn’t answer him. He simply smiled at his clan like they were loyal little ants, each pulling their weight while he sat on his ass. Shi-Toh also smiled, but he said, “They’re assembling the spirit lodge.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A sage who doesn’t know what a spirit lodge is? Fuck me, that’s funny. Captain Kill Joy, what do you call that again?”

  “Irony,” Shi-Toh answered. He was still smiling, but his teeth were locked together tightly.

  “Not irony. Ironic! Are you sure you’re the smartest one in the clan?”

  “No, lord. I can never be so sure.”

  “What’s it for?” Lenny was watching them ascend it higher and higher, until he was sure it would block out the sun. It never did, of course, but when it was all said and done, he thought the mega vulture could have comfortably flown around the inside.

  Shi-Toh put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. The gesture was usually intended to be reassuring, but the way the feathered man’s grip tightened was like the twisting body of a hungry snake. “It’s a gathering place.”

  With the massive tent completed, the warlord and his advisor led Lenny inside. They entered to a roaring applause from the clan. Shi-Toh kept his chin high and regal. Jackmaw was bowing and blowing kisses to his sycophants. Lenny was trying to make himself smaller. The clan had formed in a circle and waited for their master like leashed hounds waiting for meat. Some were slathering greasepaint on themselves, decorating one another in tropical colors. Their war gear consisted of tough animal pelts turned into capes and vests. One had a skirt of dried animal tails, another wore a head dress comprised of dead plants and animal furs.

  The old woman in Jackmaw’s retinue waited for the three of them in the center of the tent. She wore a black leather poncho over her sagging skin and a feathered head dress looked like it was the only thing keeping her scalp from slipping off. Deep wrinkles pulled on her face and exaggerated the frown on her face. “You didn’t want to keep him on the elephant?”

  One gnarled finger pointed at the boy, then she flicked it upwards as if it would cast him out of the tent. That would have been alright with Lenny. He too would rather be anywhere but there.

  The hand on his shoulder rocked back and forth and Shi-Toh gave the old woman a charming gambler’s smile. “He is to be our war sage.”

  The corners of her mouth twisted her scowl even deeper. She didn’t even look at Lenny. He was insignificant to her. “He ain’t even clan.”

  “Just get the tank, Miss Minnie.” Jackmaw took her by the chin like a lover, but she recoiled and pushed him away. The other raiders laughed at his expense, and he looked like he was happy to be the center of attention. He turned to them. “My wayward children! The great bird has led us to another battle. Just over that hill is a bounty of blood and loot waiting for us, and with the guidance of our new war sage, we’ll also be led to victory.”

  There were cheers at his words, and the warlord pumped his fists in the air. Lenny wasn’t impressed; he was afraid. He wanted to ask just what a war sage was, but the fear of interrupting Jackmaw Yapyap while he was being worshipped kept him quiet. The warlord continued on with his speech, riling up the clan like a legendary showman demanding applause. Suddenly, something bumped into the boy, and he turned to find the bent Miss Minnie offering him a strange apparatus.

  The tank Jackmaw requested was a tall metal tube with a hose attached to the top. It looped out from it and led into a mask. Black lenses stared out at him like deep, unwelcoming pools. They glinted against the firelight within the tent.

  “Put it on,” Miss Minnie growled. Lenny did he was told, slipping a pair of rubber straps over his head.

  The mask was claustrophobic and smelled awful. Whoever had used it last left the acidic stink of sweat clinging to the inside. Lenny lifted it and sucked in a breath of air before the old woman pulled it back down.

  “You got to keep it on for it to work!”

  He held his breath and tried to stay out of her reach. A gauge at the top of the tank marked it as half full of something, but the needle was locked in place. The air being sucked from the hose felt fleeting and tight, as if each breath kinked the hose. He realized there was nothing coming out of the tank, and no air could get into the seals.

  Someone was securing the mask to his head, adjusting it until it was snug. He was able to sneak in a few breaths whenever it slipped, but now that it was stuck on him, he was back to slowly choking. Every attempt to relieve himself was met with a sharp whip from Miss Minne as she struck him with a chord of plant fibers and leather strips.

  “The scouting party has come upon a seer. With our shitty luck, they know we’re coming. But they don’t know about the ace up our sleeve!” Jackmaw pointed to Lenny and the raiders cheered.

  The boy was beginning to choke again, and the whip made his skin feel like every strike left behind a row of needles. The black lenses of the mask obscured everything in the spirit lodge except the outline of the warlord against the fire in the center. His ears were stuck in the mask, and he could only hear the muffled voices of the Gordo clan. The mask was like being trapped in a black hole, and he was beginning to panic. Another strike at his legs from the whip made him fall over.

  “Turn him on, Miss Minnie!”

  Lenny could feel the old woman, her arms stronger than her sagging skin implied. She was pulling on the tank and twisting it. The boy could hear the squeak of a valve turning, then he was able to breathe. He sucked in deep gasps of air, but there was something wrong. The air had a chemical stink-taste to it that tingled his throat and nostrils. As he inhaled greedily, it clung to the roof of his mouth and gummed up his lungs.

  The clan watched and cheered for Lenny. He was on the floor scorching his chest with the fumes of the tank. The clan was blurring together in his vision, and his mind was slipping away from them. Whip wounds began to heal themselves on their own, the pain leaving while the lacerations remained. Soon, he couldn’t feel anything at all. His body was like solid stone that was light as a feather.

  “Behold! You’re new war sage!”

  The crazed raiders all touched him and gave their approving whoops and hollers. They were rubbing his skin like he was a holy statue readily giving out blessings. Lenny was lucky he couldn’t feel them. He was a million miles away, trying not to vomit up the minimal contents of his stomach. The touch of dozens of hands would have seen him retching and heaving like a sick animal.

  The Gordo clan rubbed themselves all over their good luck charm until the second in command shooed them away with one hand. Shi-Toh bent and ran his fingers through patches of hair that shown through the rubber straps. He slid one between the mask and Lenny’s face, rewarding the boy with a breath of air before whispering in his ear. Lenny could barely hear the feathered man, but his voice was like a subliminal suggestion that forced a change in his perception. Suddenly he wasn’t in the tent. He could feel the hot sun beating on his skin not unpleasantly.

  "What do you see?” asked Shi-Toh. His voice seemed to be coming from everywhere. Lenny looked around, but he could see nothing. All he could manage to understand was the rhythmic, machine breathing that sounded within the mask.

  “I… can’t see,” he admitted.

  “Look to the north.”

  Lenny didn’t know which way north was from here, but he could feel his body turn. Something appeared to him in the goggles. “I can see a cluster of tents.”

  “How many?”

  Lenny shook his head and immediately regretted it. His vision blurred together and refused to unknot itself. Now he stared at a smear on the goggles, and the nausea was returning. “I don’t know,” he said and choked back his bile.

  “Count them.”

  Lenny laid on the floor. He wanted to stay there forever, to die there now and join his family. He wondered if they would allow the great bird to feast on his flesh. It wasn’t hard to imagine while under the influence of whatever was in the tank. A mega vulture glided down into vision, moving through the blurred tents like it was emerging from a mirage. The great beast towered over him as it landed and craned its neck. Its ghastly pink head stretched down and inspected him with Jackmaw Yapyap’s eyes. Blood red, they moved over him hungrily.

  The beak was thick and powerful. It pecked at the boy, tearing away large chunks of flesh in wet rags and sucking them down its gullet. Lenny couldn’t feel it, but watching himself be disassembled by the bird was traumatic enough to make him want to scream. It didn’t stop until another figure appeared,

  From behind Lenny, another boy stepped in between him and the bird. This boy allowed himself to be eaten in Lenny’s stead. The bird watched him still as it feasted on the stranger. Lenny protested from his pathetic position on the floor, but the boy wasn’t deterred. Skin ruptured, bones crunched to dust, and still the bird ate.

  Lenny forced himself up. He felt like he wore a thousand extra pounds on him as he did so. He pleaded with the stranger to leave, to forget about him and the bird. But the bloodied boy didn’t budge. Lenny grabbed at what was left of him and pulled him away from the mega vulture. When he saw the strange boy’s face, he screamed until he felt like the gas in his lungs would ignite.

  The Gordo clan’s new war sage held the mangled and eaten body of his brother Krav. The look on his face wasn’t one of pain or despair. Krav grinned in the face of certain death, the way he always seemed to. He had always been too stupid for his own good, but for the first time, Lenny felt the love that his brother had always tried to show him in his imbecility. It was security that his brother had always tried to provide for him and Rufus. Back then, it felt like Krav was always trying to get into a fight for the sake of a fight. To challenge and prove something to those around him. It always seemed so selfish, so arrogant. Now, he allowed himself to be eaten by the mega vulture, by the great beast that guided the Gordo clan, and Lenny felt the vestiges of that security finally leave him. Krav was dead. He would be lucky if his body was still intact in Agua Fria. Perhaps travelling merchants, unaware of the fate of the city, would discover the town of the dead and do the work of burying them all. Then again, it was more likely that he was picked clean days ago.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Lenny hugged his brother’s corpse tight and sobbed. His family was really gone, and he would have to live out the rest of his life as a slave to raiders. No, not a slave, the war sage. A spirit guide for a band of marauders and psychopaths. He squeezed Krav. The dead boy’s eyes stared at the bird lifelessly as it watched them have their final moments together. Lenny passed a hand over his eyes to shut them, but when they closed, they revealed they were covered in the blackened scabs that had caused Rufus’s blindness. For a long time, he stared at his brother, dumbfounded at how much he looked like their master.

  He turned to look back up at the frightening bird when it blended back into the reality of the tent. The entire clan had their eyes on him as if they were waiting for him to explode. Then he realized he was babbling something in the mask, something he couldn’t stop. He whispered into the hose in his mask like a mad prophet, but he could barely understand himself.

  “Donavon’s Point… thirty-four… twelve… eight… fourteen…”

  As he spoke, he could see images of them. Behind the crowd of raiders, out the tent and into the wilderness, he could see a town. It was the beginning of an outpost, with a circle of tents defended by a waist high fence. It didn’t stand a chance. The people here were unaccustomed to life on the frontier like this. They were from a previously established town somewhere to the east, and they settled here as an extension of their home. Donavon’s point was named after their caravan leader, and it would be the first spot to rest after a rough stretch of the canyon named Pickman’s Gap…

  But Lenny didn’t know that, at least he shouldn’t have. He didn’t know about a Pickman’s Gap, or anyone named Donavon. He couldn’t fathom why such a small group would dare set up an outpost this deep in raider territory. All he saw was that town outside the tent, but that wasn’t really there either, was it? It hadn’t been before he put the infernal mask on.

  Something walked amongst the townsfolk. They themselves meandered around it looking like skinless corpses exposed to the sun. They shopped and chatted, the kids, all eight of them, played a big game of bandits and lawmen. But there was something dark amongst them. A lanky shadow stalked the town, and they were completely unaware of it. As it passed through them, it touched one after another with a long finger. Darkness spread from it like inky cancer. It looked at Lenny and his breath picked up in the mask like a dying engine.

  “The thing you seek is dead,” he said against his will. “It is incapable of providing you any answers. You risk madness.”

  Jackmaw came into view, blocking out the rest of the vision until all Lenny could see was his burning eyes beneath a leather mask. The warlord smiled, and it looked like he had a mouthful of tusks and fangs. “Lord forbid I lose a little sanity.”

  Something was passed around to all the raiders. Shi-Toh withheld it from Lenny and took a large helping for himself. The substance was in a large tin, and each of the Gordo clan took their own pinch of it from within. It looked like green dust, and they all held their share patiently as they waited for Jackmaw’s words of war.

  They weren’t blessings or hymns often sung by warbands. They weren’t wise strategies being passed down. They were words of madness, of a circus devil seizing a spotlight and preparing for chaos. He promised them blood and loot, and the Gordo clan cheered for their chance to indulge. Jackmaw translated Lenny’s prophetic visions, though poorly. The great bird did not feast on his brother, it delivered the dead to the spiritual embodiment of the Gordo clan. It blessed their raid and waited patiently high above them for its tribute of flesh in return. The people of Donavon’s point had been flayed by the sands of the valley and exposed themselves in the elements. The shadow that corrupted them was their growing weakness that festered among them and justified their deaths.

  It wasn’t exactly how Lenny interpreted it, but without the expertise of Rufus to guide his visions, it was hard to say just how he read it. But Jackmaw’s understanding was a perversion. Lenny’s guidance was to help people, not bury them. He tried to protest, but his body no longer listened to him. He was trapped in his physical form, but was separated from it, like a pilot whose controls had gone dark.

  “To war!” Jackmaw cried. He snorted the green powder and growled as if he had inhaled a fistful of fire ants. He had to lift the mouth of his mask slightly to do so, and it revealed raw burn scars beneath. Lenny watched him and waited for an adverse rection to make him reconsider the raid, but Jackmaw simply laughed and wiped his nose clean of a nosebleed before replacing his mask.

  The Gordo clan cheered and followed suit. Lenny didn’t recognize the powder, but he recognized what the raiders became after they took it. In the days after Agua Fria, he had noticed the Gordo clan had seemed bored. They fought amongst themselves, dug holes in the sand to nowhere, and slept whenever they weren’t moving. Rufus had told him long ago that a seer relies on many different intoxicants, but there were some that you can grow dependent on. Some grab hold of your body like a sickness and demand you repeat their usage. Some men die chasing the high over and over again. His master had warned then never to take such a drug, and now he knew why. The raiders had been suffering withdraw from whatever potency this was.

  The mood in the tent changed. It didn’t deescalate or calm. Instead, the bloodlust doubled. Some of the clan began to drool and snap at one another like animals. Others looked to be possessed by spirits of war.

  Shi-Toh managed a large helping for himself and snorted it so deeply that he had to hold his head for a moment. He was laughing to himself like a madman.

  “Smell that, boy? That’s what freedom smells like,” he said to Lenny. He clapped a hand on his shoulder, and this time, Lenny could feel every ounce of contempt. The smile on Shi-Toh’s made him look monstrous and cold, not unlike the way he looked when they met.

  “New rule,” Jackmaw said. “No shooters. Our Ammo stock is low, and we can't afford to spend it all on these scab heads. Shredders for everyone!”

  “I’m going to tear their fucking heads off!” cried one of the raiders. He was clawing at his own face, his mouth foaming as he struggled to speak more. “I’m going to… going to!”

  “Split them in half!”

  “Gut them!”

  They chanted, they cheered, and when they were truly in a frenzy, the Gordo clan left the spirit lodge behind and attacked.

  Scouts cowered behind a pair of boulders. An impish boy with a scope was excitedly bouncing on a rock and only calmed when he was in the presence of his warlord. He ran to Jackmaw on all fours and quickly told of the situation. The outpost was small and underdefended for an attack of their size. Their men numbered a third of the Gordo clan’s fighting force. The ultimate news was the seer in the town, and old woman led around on a string.

  “She didn’t look right in the head. They might have her drugged,” said a more composed scout. He was squinting up at Jackmaw like he was a bright sun god.

  “I don’t care if they run trains on her every Tuesday. If you’re sure she’s a seer, she’s mine.” Jackmaw tossed a cannister full of powder to the lead scout. The raiders fought over it like a pack of wild dogs being tossed a steak.

  They staged up on a hill above Donavon’s Point, little ants that crawled along the crest of a log. It was amusing to them watching the small town notice them and mobilize their defenders. They were no more than farmers using their equipment as a weapon. A pitch fork in thick hands, a set of cleavers in another pair, and a smithing hammer held by another still. They formed a trembling line to hold off against the clan, but they didn’t stand a chance.

  The Gordo clan descended on Jackmaw’s call. A handful of them tumbled and rolled down the hill like children playing a game while others screamed their hearts out and charged at a full sprint. They were each armed with a steel gladius they deemed a shredder. When they crashed against Donavon’s Point’s defensive line, there were a few clangs of metal on metal, but the main noise on the small battlefield was the screams of the dying and the tearing of skin. Each combatant of the Gordo clan was a mere adept with the gladius, none ever taking the time to master close combat, but against the inexperienced settlers they were gods of war. The initial line of defenders fell almost instantly, failing to kill a single raider.

  With their line broken, the clan ransacked the town. Shi-Toh led Lenny by a collar through the carnage. The town of Donavon’s Point wanted to go out with a war cry, but Lenny could hear it begging for its life. The dead were creating a weight on the veil of souls that threatened to tear through the barrier. As Lenny sucked in more of the chemical air, he could see the shadows of the people here. They stood over their dead bodies, watching as they were torn apart and, in some cases, even cannibalized raw.

  The things Lenny saw that day made him never want to get high ever again. He was still trapped in the mask, still able to feel the suffering all around him like a heavy, humid cloud in the air. He watched as raiders slashed out the necks of pleading settlers. One tent collapsed near him, and then rose again as a raider tore his way out and dragged a girl out by the hair. She couldn’t have been older than Lenny, but the man who carried her off did so as if he had hit a jackpot of a trophy. One raider stalked the dead, twitching and jerking as he did so. Lenny watched him stoop low and cut the ears and tongues from each of them and stuff them into one filthy pocket.

  Jackmaw Yapyap stood at the flap of one tent and inhaled deeply in front of it like he was taking in a good meal. In either hand, he held large bowie knives the length of Lenny’s forearms. When he noticed Shi-Toh and his war sage, he pointed one knife at the flap and grinned. “She’s in there.”

  The warlord led the way, pulling aside the flap with a blade. Inside, there were wicker baskets and blankets scattered among the floor. A large brazier in the center was still lit, and it cast dancing shadows along the walls of the tent. At first, it appeared to be empty, but then Lenny noticed someone hiding behind some clay pots.

  Don’t do it. He thought. Without even seeing him fully, Lenny knew who it was based on the clairvoyance of the mask alone. He was a boy of fourteen, his name Astor. He had lost his parents to fever before joining the expedition. Now he crouched behind the clay pots, a butcher’s cleaver in one hand, poised to strike. He was breathing heavily, laying in wait for Jackmaw.

  But while the warlord may have been a fool, he was more than capable in a fight, and that came with a sort of sixth sense. It was as if he could read Lenny’s mind. The war sage and the warlord made brief eye contact, and Lenny could see it in the blood red gloom. He knew the boy was there, he wasn’t fooling anyone. To Jackmaw, this was as simple as setting off a trap with a stick and collecting the bait free of threat.

  The warlord drew close to the boy’s hiding spot, and he lunged out. Lenny tried to cry out to Astor, tried to save his life, but it was too late. He wasn’t even able to stand at his full height before Jackmaw cleaved him from collar bone to stomach. The boy fell to the floor and gushed life blood into the sand like a broken pump, and his ropy intestines rolled from his gut. His eyes moved for a moment, locking onto the strange mask Lenny wore before the life left them for good.

  Lenny watched him for what felt like an eternity. Was that what Krav looked like? Did he die that easily? What did it feel like to go down without a fight? He didn’t need to ponder that too long. His new senses had told him exactly what it felt like, and it was harrowing. Astor died full of despair and hatred, not only for the devilish stranger, but for himself. There was a spiteful acknowledgement of his weakness and shortcomings, and then there was nothing. Nothing but staring eyes and cooling remains.

  But while the boy had left this world in a bloody, violent end, there was still something stalking the tent. A single shadow moved differently to the slow waltz that the rest of the dark stains danced. Every so often, Lenny caught a glimpse of something appear from the shadows and then disappear back into them like a desert carpet breaching the surface of the sands, then returning to its hiding spot.

  Jackmaw sniffed the air, and Lenny could tell he could actually smell it. Whatever stalked them couldn’t hide from the terrible warlord. Slowly, he returned one of the bowie knives to its scabbard, then he snatched her from the shadows. He dragged her into the light, screaming and kicking.

  “Red devil!” she cried. “Bastard son of a thousand whores!”

  She was a haggard old woman, naked and sagging in all features. Her thin frame was draped in skin like a wet blanket. As she spat her curses, Lenny could see the holes in her gums where ancient teeth had fallen out. The eyes were what troubled him the most. Blackened and crusted shut, they were a grim reminder that he should be glad Rufus never got a chance to develop into such a creature.

  “Master of the lost flock! That which communes with evil!”

  “Don’t forget ‘king of the world’,” Jackmaw smiled. “You’re a seer?”

  “You are a seeker!” the woman said in a mocking tone. She was scratching his wrist with chipped nails. “And you shall not find what you seek!”

  “If you want to leave this tent alive, I will.”

  The woman struggled in his grip for a moment, then she turned her black gaze to Lenny. He knew she couldn’t see him; it was impossible. But then there was something shared between them that made him realize she didn’t have to see him. Just as he had seen and known every one of the victims of Donavon’s Point, so too could she see him. Even though they were scabbed shut, her eyes revealed the fractured sanity that hid beneath.

  “You… You can see the paths. You are a guide to souls?” the woman said, still staring at Lenny. He couldn’t answer her. He only sucked the chemical air in and out from the tank, filling the tent with his mechanical hissing. She seemed to understand anyways. “This man… has no soul to guide.”

  “You’ve got a lot to say for a flabby waster,” Jackmaw said. “You’d be better off spending that energy telling me about the Emerald Expanse.”

  The old woman cackled at him. “Devils always want to get into Eden. You’ll learn nothing from me.”

  Jackmaw was still smiling at her. He brought the old woman close and nuzzled her like a lover. Lenny wanted to leave, wanted to run for his life, but his body was stuck in one spot, and he was forced to watch. The warlord was whispering something to her, and the old woman giggled and cooed like a flattered girl. She wrapped herself around him and then they were holding each other like at any moment they might both be naked and making love on the floor. Then Lenny heard the crunch of flesh. She moaned at first, then her moans turned to whimpers, then screams. She was trying to push herself off of him. When she finally did so, a strip of her face came with him. From her ear to her chin, flesh ripped away and revealed her teeth and jaw beneath. Part of her face hung from Jackmaw’s mouth like a wet rag, and he chewed it until pulpy red ran from his lips.

  The woman lay on the ground holding the remains of her face. She was weeping and screaming, and it was hurting Lenny’s very soul. He could know her the way he had known the rest of the settlers, but seeing anyone like this was enough to elicit some sort of empathetic response. Maybe not from Jackmaw and Shi-Toh, who watched her writhe on the floor like a dying animal. But to Lenny, his very being curdled for her. He wanted to reach out and take all the pain away. Maybe it was because she was also a victim of the Gordo clan, maybe it was because she reminded him of his master, or maybe still, he just couldn’t bear to experience so much suffering in his current state. Whatever it may be, Lenny wanted to help her more than anything, but he could only watch.

  In Jackmaw’s infinite mercy, he lifted one boot high, the skulls on his chain belt rattling like even they were laughing at her, and he stomped on her head. Lenny was surprised how much it reminded him of a crushed melon, the way it cracked and exploded from the pressure. Thick gore and brain matter splattered out onto the floor, sticking to Jackmaw’s boot as he removed it. “Nineteen,” he growled.

  Back at their own camp, the Gordo clan reveled in their easily handled victory. Lenny sat nearly comatose in a chair, his arms resting lifelessly at his side. Beside him, a trio of raiders were sharing a beverage stolen from Donavon’s Point. They were naked, exchanging the drink between kisses and gropes. All around him, they debauched themselves on food, drink, and the slaves they captured at the successful raid. While Shi-Toh amused himself with smoke and lounged around Lenny’s feet, Jackmaw Yapyap danced in the middle of the party of raiders with the headless corpse of the seer. He swooped her down, lifted her back up, twirled her. The whole time, the warlord laughed at the top of his lungs. Even though he couldn’t react, Lenny felt at ease watching the other slaves stare at Jackmaw, appalled at the treatment of their spiritual leader. It was comforting to know that this was well and truly madness, and that he wasn’t losing his mind. Still, they were all trapped in hell now. Trapped in hell with the red devil himself.