I put a bead on the man that stepped from the shadowed gloom of the jungle. He was tall, broad at the shoulder and narrow at the hip.

  A fighter-

  No. Scale hide jacket, necklace of sharp, curved teeth. A long gun, and a slender spear on his back.

  I eyed a pistol at his hip, and that fancy hat. Real fancy hat.

  A hunter. A successful one, some way or another.

  A threat, no two ways about it.

  "Howdy," I called, lowerin' my stolen shotgun just an inch, then gave the man my best 'just another day' smile, "fine mornin', ain't it."

  He looked with a sneer and took of his wide brimmed hat to run a dirty hand through his sandy blonde hair, then spat.

  "Is it?" He asked, slow, eyes between me and Temperance, "little odd to see a man so close to a Mother while she's taking her bath. Everything okay, miss?" he asked, his eyes never leaving me.

  "I'm fine. Thank you," she said and laid a hand on my shoulder, "I've just hired Mr. Roche to escort me to town. Our transport hit the rocks down along that dark coast," she nodded to the South, "dreadful thing. We were all nearly drowned. Or eaten." Temperance feigned a shiver so well I’d have bought it for a gold piece.

  Eaten?

  "Have an encounter with the savages, did you?" Mused the man, "them damn mutants from the floating cities, half mad, half hungry. You folk ought not be traveling alone. Why don't you come on with me and mine? We'll keep you safe, and see you into town," he grinned and looked to me, "for a price."

  Don’t trust that smile.

  Too many broken teeth. Too wide.

  There was something hard in his eyes. He'd killed more than just monsters in this jungle, I could see it.

  And savages? Floating cities? That didn't sound good.

  "Your price?" I asked.

  "Oh," he shrugged a little more Southern rasp in his voice than mine. Imperial boy, from the twang, "your guns and that sack of yours."

  Ah.

  Okay the, he was just stupid.

  And this, this wasn't an offer of help. I’d run a game much like it when I was still robin’ rich men on the road. Before I started to want for blood, in addition to good coin.

  Two more figures emerged from the tree line.

  Classic robbery. Probably worse, guessin’ from their marks.

  Fuck me.

  "Thank you kindly for your offer, sir," I said, matching his animal grin as a scar-faced woman and a catman, a Pardaz, joined the hunter, "but I have a counteroffer."

  “Oh,” said the woman, her voice harsh, like she smoked as well as she breathed, “and what’s that? No point in trying to buy us, cowboy. There’s only one way we’d take coin from a mixed blood dog, no matter what you say.” Her hand fell to the handle of an old Imperial Marine Six. Fine revolver, and customized a touch. Family heirloom?

  Maybe, but not her family.

  Either way it was fine enough to put a hole in my head if she was half as fast as she looked mean.

  Cowboy. I did not like that words. It was almost enough to push me before I was ready.

  I raised a palm to stall the twitch of their collective fingers. A tremor in my own tendrils as I swallowed the rage.

  Waited just long enough for my Saint to finish her mosey behind a tall rock for cover. No one watched her go, and tension just rose as they suffered my stall.

  I let it fall and gave another grin, "Well now, instead-”

  Boom.

  An ounce of lead propelled by arcane fire, good alchemy, and a dash of my own lifeforce slammed into the first hunter's chest. The pellets burst when they hit monster hide scale. Even the best guns struggled to punch through.

  Mr. Hat wasn't dead, but he was hurtin’.

  The scarred woman was fast, and her pistol was out before I could blink. Movin’ to the side in a flank. My strange arms twitched, before I could think.

  Pulled me aside, and down, let the round slam into the dirt at my feet.

  Pop.

  Boom!

  I shot low, angled up. Pellets tore through thighs, groin, and guts.

  So far from clean. Damn that Kraken. Damn these hands.

  A scream.

  Damn. Sorry, old gal. But don't worry, you won't feel it long.

  The Pardaz rushed me as I came up.

  Probably could've shot me if he thought, but something about sudden and brutal violence had a way of turning a man primal. Made you work on instinct. I'd seen a hundred bar fights, a thousand street brawls, and every time someone got real hurt-

  Shick.

  He just blinked before me, crossing twenty feet in half a breath. An Ability, noticed too late.

  Pig shit. And it's me that stinks.

  Before I could draw or even put my mind to it, I found a shortsword hilt-deep in my guts.

  Didn't even register the pain, just smelled the blood in the air and stared deep into a killer's eyes.

  Fuck. So, that's what they really hunt.

  My arms shook inside the gloves, each and every individual tendril trying to assert control, trying to grab, throttle, push, and otherwise strike back at the sure death before them.

  They had to fight me, and they had to fight each other.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Rip.

  He drew the blade up through my shirt and twisted it as it caught against my ribs. He was looking for my heart. Missed, but he'd still found enough.

  I doubled over. My left arm pawing at his broad shoulder as he hissed the words of my death. I tried to form a fist, tried to fight back the fear and master my alien limbs but...

  "Shh, little cub, just die, just go quiet and-"

  Crack.

  Temperance hit him in the back of the head with a rock.

  He was stunned, lost his grip on the hilt of his sword as he looked around. Like he couldn't see the scowling nun as she wound up and-

  Crack.

  He went down, and so did she.

  Another sharp, wet crunch, and he was done.

  I teetered on numb legs, drew in a gurgling, shallow breath.

  It hurt, it hurt bad. And it was all cold, so cold…

  He’d punctured a lung, probably more. Could feel the blood fillin’ up my chest, hear the suck that come with each breath.

  My vision swam. The world started to bleed too, color fleein’ into grayscale.

  Temperance didn't even spare me a look as I fell to my knees. Instead, she took up my gun and stuck a skinny hand in my pocket, feeling for the shells I'd pilfered.

  Pop.

  The Mother shot the first hunter as he sat up, his face bloody, his eyes wild. Hateful and fixed on me.

  She did not aim low. She did not miss.

  His hat flew up, caught on a sudden gust.

  Finally, without hesitation or hurry, she walked on over to the screaming, hollering girl. Her guts had fallen out, mixed with the dirt and mud beneath her feet.

  Bang.

  Didn't like killing women anyhow, though I might make an exception for them that call me a cowboy.

  Tendrils of mana erupted from the three dead. At first, they surged toward the Mother, but that halo of grey, memory, weight, sin...

  It turned it all aside, and they dove for me. She fed me a little of what they were.

  My wound tried to close around a blade that still stuck fast in my guts, and I could only scream.

  My vision narrowed to a colorless point, just the shapes of the sky above as I stared up.

  Then I saw the world beyond it.

  A cosmos of uncaring stares, a sea of watching eyes. Why are they looking? Why don't they care?

  Shick.

  Shock, horror, awe...

  The agony reached a crescendo as Temperance tore the weapon free, and my blood spilled rich and red to stain the white sands.

  "Hold still..." was all the mercy she offered me. She set a hand to the hole in my chest, and I screamed again.

  And the sea of eyes in the blue, it all faded black.

  Damn. Dying sure hurts.

  Especially when you live to wake up and feel it.

  Mother Temperance was not gentle with her care. Not a lick of painkiller in the little bag of tricks, not an herb, a pill, a poultice. Just needle, thread, and good burnin' mana.

  I watched flesh draw from her narrow face as she poured life into me. Watched something dim as she sacrificed for her chosen tool.

  "You're dying for me," I gasped as her power set my blood to a boil.

  "Hardly. I'm letting you live, Lorcan," she said. Her eyes were sunken and dark, her hair was dry and brittle, "that is different. We both shall go on, just you a little longer."

  Still a Saint, bloody as she was. She couldn't help but give. Even if it was her last drop.

  By the time there was enough blood in me to rise, she wavered and fell.

  Not out, just cold, lost in her own thoughts, her own distant stare.

  I held her. What else was a man to do? What else was there after a killin' and the death? You grasp on to whatever kindness exists, and you keep it close.

  So that's what I did.

  An hour later the Mother stirred.

  Gulls had come and tried to feast.

  On me, on her.

  On the two and a girl we together killed.

  Just drove them off with a whistle the same way mama called in the brontos and hogs. Then I did the work that had to be done.

  The first hunter, I took his coat and hat, and his rifle. Good stuff. Couldn't place the armor, looked a bit like wyvern scale only deep and green. The hat though, that was woven silk. The kind that come from Uruk cliff walkers. Fine beasts, onery and mean, but they made the softest cloth in all the world and ran as fast as a rune-forged train.

  The gun, well that was a rifle, plain. Nickel plate, deep walnut stock. Mana action, tube fed. A Vulcant Repeater, fresh from some Imperial factory, and, unfortunately for me, rune locked. A small symbol was laid into the stock, and no doubt I’d find another that matched it somewhere on the dead man.

  Anyway, good fuckin' thing Mr. Hat was slow, on the draw, and to think.

  Rest him, I guess.

  Temperance picked over the Pardaz and the scar-faced girl. Took a pair of pistols and a knife, snuck up under her robes.

  She was younger up close. The girl I mean. And closer still, I noticed what marred her once pretty face was burns.

  Top of the cheek down to the chin. Seared past fat. To muscle and bone.

  She tried to torch off a chattel mark, the slave mark just barely still visible beneath the bubbled skin.

  Damn.

  Probably indentured to some Lord, a concubine, guessin’ by her age. Maybe sent the same way as us. Boxed in a ship with no light, damned to live a quick life of servitude for someone else's gain.

  You get a prayer. That's all I got.

  The Pardaz also had a mark, right on his neck, a brand. Two, in fact.

  Imperial Army Deserter. And rapist.

  Good riddance.

  I had my own piece, on my cheek, or I did.

  When I looked down into the cool flowing water to wash off the blood and dirt, I couldn't see it no more. Just the scar of my eye and the tinge of green that had set in. Strange and ugly and wicked.

  Murder, came a thought, whispered even though it could’ve been shouted out.

  Didn't need no mark to know that. It was all around, and always would be.

  The spirits stirred as the day drew on. Me and Temperance walked from that estuary stream along the sandy beach. From the jungle to our right, shifted and blurred all manner of creatures and ghostly folk.

  Long-limbed things with fangs and claws, and beings like floating jellies that sparked with mana-light. In our wake trod three ghosts, for a mile or two. Until finally they faded into nothing, as swiftly came the night.

  We set down deep in a ridge. I lit a fire like a Northman scout. Low, no smoke. A pile of stones, and only dry wood, stacked close and tight. Roasted six fat butter-taters and an unlucky bird Temperance caught with a rock.

  It tasted...

  Bland.

  Not for the seasonin', nor for my company, but for the living itself.

  I felt a strange distance now. A coldness and a hollow that I never felt before. From my kin, from that world, from the people who made me.

  Was this being a man?

  Thought it was when I killed that tax stealin' son-of-a-bitch. Thought I was stepping up for what needed it.

  Maybe I was.

  Or maybe I'd just been findin’ my path down.

  "It's heavy," said my Saint, "always. Or it should be. I am more accustomed to its cost. Yet you know more than most. And so young…"

  Of death, she didn't say.

  Of murder said the ghosts.

  "Am I damned?" I asked. Not for the first time, and not for the last.

  "No," said the Mother fast, "no more than I, or any of us who will seek power. My Patron whispered of his Sins. Told me of what it cost to walk the Path of Gods. I do not think we can be quite good, Outlaw. But that does not make us damned."

  "Good to know," I said, and that was that.

  The fire grew low, and the moon rose.

  I slept far from the shielding light. Even the Blessing of a bloody god seemed too much for me. Let the damn speakers in the dark, let them come and haunt me.

  Temperance woke me with the light.

  "Come on, boy. There's a town up ahead. We have much to do. And much to prepare for," she said, her eyes distant and dark again, "we're far from done, Lorcan. And there is so much to see."

  A while later we walked through shallow jungle up a deep ridge. Shattered rock and loose, salty stone crumbled in my boots. The sun was rising hot, and my dead-man's armor was making me sweat. I'd gotten a shirt, trousers, and a coat, all for the price of three more sins restin’ heavy. More weight to carry on, and on.

  Least I got a hat out of it though. Had to have a hat. Couldn't walk in the sun without one. Weren’t no Roche, with it gone.

  We broke the top, nearly swimming in the jungle heat. I took a breath of the salt sea air and felt my guts burn, head spin.

  Not for the effort.

  But for the sublime, and the so much more than me.

  A world, alien and vast. And here I was, just an ‘ol hayseed adrift on its howlin’ winds.