The evening had been uneventful as far as stakeouts go. They took shifts watching the hive from their rocky hiding spot high up on the cliff. Each came back to the tent that night with nothing to report from the den of cannibals, and that was when they made their moves. In the interludes of watch-shifts, skittering figures climbed the rocks like desert spiders, then froze in place when the glint of the spyglass revealed a new guard had taken watch.

  Krav was up next. Greenblatt was teaching the boy a game he had made up when Ulrich pulled aside the tent flap and curled up in a corner. The game was simple enough. Greenblatt had a deck of cards he had made by drawing on thick paper with charcoal. At the start of the game, three cards were taken from the top of the deck and placed face up between them. Then, they took turns drawing five cards each from the top of the deck. The goal was to make ascending matches, placing a seven onto a six, an eight onto a seven, and so on. If you couldn’t, you would draw cards from the top of the deck until you had five cards again, and the game would go on until no one had any cards in hand.

  The board consisted of a five, a ten, and a one, but Greenblatt called that card an ace. Krav flipped his four cards back and forth in his hands, then placed a two and a seven.

  “Six comes after five,” Greenblatt said.

  “Are you sure?” Krav asked. He brought the card close to his face and squinted at it as if the laws of mathematics might be a trick of the light. “What does a six look like again?”

  Greenblatt split one of the piles of cards and found a six Krav had played earlier.

  “Oh! Yeah, I got one of those.” He redid his turn, playing out the six first, then placing the seven on top of it. He was down to one card in hand, and if Greenblatt played a three on top of his previously placed two, he could win this time.

  Greenblatt itched his chin and stared at his hand. Then he grabbed a card from the deck and relinquished his turn.

  “Really? Nothing?”

  “It happens. Part of working out the kinks of the game is figuring out how to prevent games like this. You’re go”

  Krav groaned and drew four cards, back up to five. He placed a three and a four.

  Greenblatt laughed, then played his hand. An ace through a five on top of the ten.

  “What! How’d you do that?”

  “Sometimes you offer blunders until you’re prepared. A strategy I’ve worked out is to wait until you have a hand that’s already consecutive and then babysit it by only playing cards out of sequence and drawing until you find an opening. I call it a flush, on account of if we played for any wager, you’d have been flushed out of your earnings.”

  “This game is stupid. Want to play again?”

  “Maybe I’ll play a few hands with Ulrich. I think it’s your turn to stare out at the sands for a bit.”

  Krav groaned and went to the flap of the tent. He left Greenblatt alone to shuffle the deck as Ulrich lay ignoring his invitations to play. Outside, the world was at peace. It had been the calm hours near dawn, and the quiet was only interrupted by a gentle breeze that stirred the atmosphere. Krav sat on the cliff’s edge and kicked his legs out as he stared out of the spyglass. He wasn’t sure why they had to take shifts. The hive wasn’t going anywhere, and the bodyguards were standing at attention near the tent for a reason. He supposed the lobotomites were incapable of using spyglasses.

  A yawn threatened the back of his throat, and he allowed it to escape. The excitement of another fight with the Bone Eaters had kept all three of them awake, although Greenblatt called his excitement anxiety. They could sleep after they kicked over the hive and got Rufus’s skull back. But in the cool dim before dawn, Krav still wondered if he could close his eyes for just a moment. The bodyguards could handle the watch for the last hour or so that they’d be on the cliffs edge.

  Greenblatt’s spyglass had the biting smell of corroded metal to it, and Krav disliked putting it to his face. He panned it around the hive. It wasn’t all too apparent what he was watching for. The sight of a Bone Eater wasn’t concerning; you don’t go to cathouse surprised every room has a bed in it. Even their movements could be normal. The jerky, inhuman creatures he had dealt with at the gate of Kiva Noon were probably prone to wandering outside their home and performing some strange morning rituals. Nothing save a full-blown war party seemed like it was enough to raise alarm over. Another yawn rose from his chest and again he let it out. He listened to Greenblatt as he tried to talk Ulrich into learning his card game, then leaned back and rested against the cold, coarse sand.

  “What’s your plan?” Ulrich finally said. He ignored the prepared deck of cards on the floor Greenblatt was offering him.

  “I’m still working on that. A game or two helps me think, if you’re up for it.”

  With a sigh, Ulrich drew five cards from the top of the deck. They looked as small as ticket stubs in his large hands. Greenblatt drew his hand, then placed the three cards from the top of the deck in a row between them. The warlord started, placing two cards down and conceding his turn. “You place cards in ascending order, and if you can’t-”

  “I heard you and the boy. What have you worked out so far?” Ulrich looked over his hand and placed one card.

  Greenblatt started his turn by drawing back up to five cards. “Their nest can’t possibly hold more than thirty people. My fear is that the tunnels that infest the spire go deeper than we imagine. It’s hard to imagine they’re able to fit forty prisoners in, let alone an entire clan of raiders.” He placed three cards.

  “That wouldn’t be hard to believe. If that’s the case, there’s no telling how many there could be. The Pit Lords have waged war with them before, but every battle fought was done so in small skirmishes around contested territory. I’ve never seen them at full strength.”

  Greenblatt nodded. He was staring at the three piles of cards, waiting for Ulrich to take his turn. “What’s their economy like? Do they trade with other groups, or have they been known to be more secluded? Your move.”

  “I’m thinking,” Ulrich said. He saw Greenblatt’s forehead curl above his goggles and frowned. The card game was simple enough, but the strategy behind it was perplexing him. On the surface, it looked like it took about as much skill as tic-tac-toe, and any victory was formed out of pure luck. But Greenblatt had revealed his game plan to Krav, meaning there was some tactical decision making. The piles were still small, and they had barely gone through the deck, but if it was built the same way a standard casino deck was, then he knew exactly what was remaining. He decided to place a nine on top of an eight, holding back a ten in hand. “Bone Eaters are pillagers. Trade takes some intelligence and compassion. They lack both. Your turn.”

  “I suppose a group of cannibals could want for nothing more than a fresh corpse. Still, what can we use to gain the upper hand? Information is a deadly weapon, and ours isn’t sharpened.” Greenblatt drew back up to five cards, smiled, and placed two, ignoring the nine Ulrich had placed.

  Before Greenblatt could announce the end of his move, Ulrich placed his ten on the nine. The warlord hadn’t noticed his deception. “Information is one part of war. It isn’t a small part, but it’s only a part. You’re blinding yourself to the obvious by over complicating something as simple as a brawl.”

  “A brawl is what I’m trying to avoid.” Greenblatt placed two cards, a one and a two, on top of the ten Ulrich had placed. “There’s always a way to circumvent violence, even if it isn’t obvious.”

  The three piles were topped with a two, a five, and a seven. Ulrich placed his final two cards, a three and an eight, and crossed his arms, pleased by the shocked expression his companion wore above his goggles. “Intellectuals conduct wars, but the true combatants are always those willing to follow rules and brute force their way through the wasteland. I will follow whatever plan you come up with, but if the time comes, I will trust my own skill as an Executioner of the Pit Lords over whatever you scheme up.”

  “As a warlord, all I ask for is compliance. It would appear you’re quite good at this game. Beginner’s luck?”

  “Only fools and sages concern themselves with luck.”

  “Then it would be fortuitous that you’re in the company of both.”

  Their morning began with the rise of the true sun, casting a smear of rainbow across the dawning sky. It collided with the terrestrial twin suns, pushing their hellish glow far behind the mountains. As the sun peeked above the East, Greenblatt and Ulrich scooped up their cards and began to prepare themselves mentally for the battle.

  As Kiva Noon’s protocols of war dictated, the warlord Albert Ibram Ao Dominus-Greenblatt hummed an old workshop tune as he tinkered with the complexities of his war machines. They were deactivated, yet he could still hear the sucking sound of their artificial organs pumping blood to the flesh that remained. Even in death, they required the life-giving properties of human blood to keep them functional.

  He twisted at cables that connected pin joints together. He spun one too tight, and it caused the arm he was working with to jerk upwards and slap its contemporary in the face. If the situation hadn’t been so dire, he might have laughed his guts up and proceeded to play puppets with his lobotomized servants. Still, he gleamed a smile from beneath his mask and forced it back down. It was a joke better appreciated by Mac and Krav anyways.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Outside, Ulrich sat up against one side of the tent, letting the warmth of the rising sun caress him. As an executioner, he spent most of his time away from the battlefield in a state of meditation. Recent events had stolen that peace from him until now. He listened to the whirs and clicks from inside the tent as he let his breaths calm and slow. The glory of the Pit was so far away now. The quest for vengeance had been all encompassing, and now it was a memory of failure. He was beaten to the punch by the woman’s own lover. Ironic that one of hers would take her life, considering their treacherous nature. Still, something didn’t feel complete about it.

  What would have changed? He asked himself that over and over again. Sinestra Mode was a corpse, just as he had set out to do. But to be denied the satisfaction of dispatching her himself felt like he had reached the top of a mountain without ever having to climb it. It was miserable, and even as he stood atop the mountain he vowed to conquer, his warlord remained dead. His friend was still a corpse scrambled into obscurity, thrown into a war suit, and screwed into a thrown for all to see. But what would have changed if it was his hands slaked with her blood? What would it have helped for his own warlord? Truly, there was only one outcome for his mission, and it was this. Emptiness and more questions.

  “You’re ruminating,” Ulrich told himself out loud.

  “I believe it’s called tinkering.”

  “Not you, warlord.” He had a habit of doing that. There were many sages that wandered the valley, most of which understood the value of meditation. They had taught him a thing or two about it before, but their lessons fell on misunderstanding ears. Wise men spoke about it as if it were an empty room you could go to and find quiet, but for Ulrich, it was just opening the doors to regret and shame. In that quiet room, where others found peace, he found his inadequacies. Pushing all of his emotions out of the room only resulted in them scratching at the door. He steadied himself again and continued to think.

  There was a sound beyond the metallic clanking Greenblatt was producing. It sounded like an engine buried in the sands was trying to slowly rumble to life, then it died back down. Rumbled to life, died back down. It caught the Pit Lord’s ears, and he looked around for the source.

  “Do you hear that?”

  Greenblatt tugged at a bolt in 001’s spine with a wrench. He didn’t look up when he answered. “Hear what?” When he was certain the bolt wasn’t going to fall out, he set the wrench on his lap and listened intently. He could hear it.

  “Snoring,” Ulrich growled. “That boy of yours could have gotten us killed!” He was up now, meditation be damned. Around the tent, Krav was splayed out in the sand, legs dangling off the side of the cliff like two banners for the entire Bone Eater clan to gawk at. As Ulrich approached, Krav snorted, smacked his lips, and mumbled something about someone named Lenny. Ulrich launched a plume of sand at him from his boot.

  Coarse flecks filled the boy’s hair and mouth. In an instant, he was tearing his way back into consciousness, thrashing and coughing as he sat up. He looked around like he had been ambushed and his fingers clawed the sand for his axe. Then he saw Ulrich. “What the heck was that for?”

  “It’s called watch because you watch for danger! You can’t watch for anything when your eyes are closed.”

  Krav was gesturing at something toward the tent. “The guys got it. The lobotomites. The only thing to watch out for is the blood splatter when they’re around. It’s fine.”

  The boy heard a growl, then Ulrich was standing above him. He reached down and snatched Krav by the collar of his robes and lifted him up. But something was wrong. Ulrich had Krav hallway up to his feet when it suddenly felt like he was stuck on something. The two looked at each other, then down to Krav’s legs that hung over the edge.

  “What’s wrong?” Ulrich said.

  “My foot’s stuck on something. Can you see?” Krav fell back to the sand with a thud and a grunt. He waited as Ulrich peered over the edge of the cliff.

  Down in the quarry, the Pit Lord could see nothing but cold grey rock in the morning light. The cliff faced the west, and it cast a shadow down towards the hive. Admittedly, it was hard to see anything this early. He knelt and ran his hand around the rock. It was probably a root or a long-forgotten length of rope that had tangled his foot. His thick hands gripped at Krav’s ankles, then he found it. It didn’t feel like anything he had assumed, and it took a moment for realization to hit him like a train. By the time it did, he already had a knife stuck in his hand.

  “God damn it!” Ulrich cried. He pulled his hand back like a child touching a hot stove. Blood ran off of him in droplets, and in his palm, a dull blade made of bone ran right through. As he tried to remove it, Krav looked over the edge and saw the same thing Ulrich did. Nothing but rocks and shadows.

  “What is it? What got you?”

  “Get away from the edge, boy! Black Thumb, get your ass out here!”

  Krav kicked at nothing, but his foot was still caught and held in place by the invisible force. He tugged like his leg was the cable of a pull start machine, but it was useless. When he looked over the edge again, however, he caught them. It was only for a moment, and their camouflage was a work of art. As soon as they came to a halt, they blended right back into the stone. It was impossible to see them, and what was worse was it was impossible to count them. Before they stopped moving, Krav might have sworn that the entire quarry had come to life.

  “They’re hiding in the shadows!” Krav called back to his allies. He found his axe just out of reach and snatched at it.

  “Who’s hiding in the shadows?” Greenblatt asked as he emerged from his work within the tent. Immediately, he noticed the knife in Ulrich’s hand. “Goodness, man! What the hell happened?”

  “Go to the boy!”

  Greenblatt looked between them, wondering why the boy was the priority when the Pit Lord had a damned bone knife in his hand. The warlord went to him to inspect his wound, but he thrashed away like an animal with a thorn in its paw and commanded him once again to help Krav. This time he didn’t relent. Krav looked like he was simply enjoying the morning view from his spot on the cliff’s edge, but the way he desperately tore the axe from the sand and readied it increased Greenblatt’s heart rate. Then something ripped him from the edge.

  “Krav!” he cried and ran to the spot where he had disappeared. Looking over the edge, he watched as Krav was passed down the cliff by… well by the cliff itself. Arms materialized from the rock, carrying him down like he was crowd surfing. The whole way down, the boy struck out at the hands, swinging the axe and kicking his legs. Then he grabbed something and tore it out of the wall. At first, Greenblatt was surprised at how strong he had been to tear out an entire chunk of stone from the cliff’s face, then he saw the shape of it. Twisting in the air and falling to their death was the shape of a person. It thrashed like a brained animal, then hit the rocky floor with a thunderous bang and a smear of gore.

  Leaning over the edge, Greenblatt searched the cliff for an easy way down. They had chosen the position because of its difficulty to reach, and now he was beginning to consider that an oversight. He could have never guess they would be ambushed from a vertical incline. Just as he came to the realization that the only safe way down was to go the quarry’s declining entrance on the other side of the ravine, something grabbed at his wrist.

  The hand that held him now had a nimble strength to it like a wiry gymnast. Thin fingers tightened his wrist and held him there like a steal cable. Greenblatt searched his person for a weapon. The knife he commonly carried was left back in Kiva Noon, but he was able to find a screwdriver he had used to tune the bodyguards. It was crude, but it would work. He raised the weapon high, swung down, and was snatched by another stony hand.

  The cliff’s edge rolled and tumbled up towards him now. Two figures, vaguely human shaped, were pulling at Greenblatt’s arms and tugging themselves upwards. The warlord dug his knees into the sands to prevent all three of them from falling to their deaths. He slid, his knees coming to the edge of the massive drop. In a panic, he called out for 001 and 002, but they were still powered off in the tent. Just as all hope seemed lost, a gleam of bone cut through the air and stabbed into one of their faces.

  The surviving ambusher watched his clansman go lifeless and tumble backwards off the cliff. Then, to the surprise of Greenblatt and the Bone Eater, Ulrich snatched it from the air and threw the corpse behind him, saving it from the fall. The Pit Lord’s massive hand clamped onto the surviving ambusher and he let go of Greenblatt, leaving him to combat the massive man instead.

  Ulrich made quick work of him. Greenblatt was the warlord of the Black Thumb clan, and as such, was guilty of some of the most soulless deeds the wasteland could offer. He had performed involuntary surgeries that would make a battlefield veteran squeamish. The two lobotomites in his tent were proof enough that he was capable of unimaginable depravity. But what he witnessed from the Pit Lord made even him avert his eyes. One hand on the ambusher’s face, the other on his shoulder, Ulrich brutalized him to the floor, then slowly pressed his hands in opposite directions, twisting his neck until there was a pop, then a crack. The man went limp beneath the Pit Lord, but he continued. Ulrich had a placid look on his face as the man’s neck ripped and the base. Blood pooled quickly, and more muscle and meat tore away. The tubular trachea was visible, and it gulped up the blood that flowed freely. The Man’s head finally detached, pulling apart like stringy cheese as tendons, blood vessels, and muscle snapped away.

  With the ambusher dead, Ulrich calmed the shaking breaths that rolled from his chest like stuttering thunder. “Go turn on your guards,” he managed. He wasn’t looking at Greenblatt. He was looking at a new face that poked itself above the ridge, watching them with a gleam of intelligence uncommon among the Bone Eaters.

  Greenblatt did as he was told, rushing back into the tent and flipped both of his bodyguards to life. They stammered back to consciousness, reaching for their weaponry and looking to their lord for orders. A simple nod was enough to get them out the tent and into the fray of battle. Back outside, Ulrich was in combat with two more of the camouflaged Bone Eaters. 001 rushed one of the attackers, running him through with the poleaxe while 002 stood sentry at the cliff’s edge, stabbing and slashing down at unseen enemies.

  It had only taken another ten minutes to finish off the attackers. But ten minutes in the pitch of combat might as well have been an hour. When it was over, Greenblatt counted the tattered bodies. There were five of them, each dressed in a slather of multilayered brown rags and a smattering of sand that turned them into desert chameleons. With their mortal wounds exposing their insides, they looked like blooming roses that grew from cracks in the desert.

  Their attacks had come disconnected and unpracticed. An ambusher would ascend the cliff, charge one of them, and then immediately be put down by Ulrich or one of the bodyguards. Had it been any other party of travelers, that might have worked. Greenblatt recognized the tactic almost immediately. They were meant to single out and abduct enemy combatants, slowly weakening their opposition until they overwhelmed them with sheer numbers. Perhaps, he thought, their spot on the cliff was fortunate after all. He stared over the edge and found no sign of Krav.

  “They took him?” he asked and shook his head in disappointment. Now the rescue mission had two objectives.

  Ulrich spat a gush of blood into the sand. Including the injuries he received in Kiva Noon, he wore a new gash above one eye, the hole in his hand, and multiple deep cuts along his chest and arms. Blood and sweat mixed and rolled down his body, dying him a streaking pink. He stank like an animal, and while his face showed no hint of pain, his breathing was ragged and weak. “Of course they took him. We just served them breakfast.”

  Greenblatt offered to help Get Ulrich inside, but the Pit Lord refused. They had to patch him up if they were going to stand a chance in the den of the Bone Eaters. The warlord summoned his pack beast with a whistle and dug through the satchel that held his medical supplies. He was woefully underprepared for the kind of damage Ulrich could take and only carried a needle and thread to treat him. An idea budded in his head, and he snatched Mac’s bag from the beast. It was his best bet at finding a pain killer strong enough to keep the Pit Lord fighting. He dug through the vials and samples of plant matter before something caught his eye. A beaker completely tied up in dirty rags rattled around with the other glassware. Mac had written in charcoal, “XPLOSIV” in shaky handwriting. The idea in his head bloomed, and he knew just how they were going to defeat the Bone Eaters.