Rufus tossed another mock root onto the coals and inhaled deeply. To Jackmaw, it might have looked like he was preparing his sagely wisdom by centering his breathing. Rufus, however, was trying to stop shaking. He had seen this moment in his dreams, the only place he could still see. Without laying eyes on Jackmaw, he knew exactly what he looked like, all the way down to his burning red eyes. Rufus could feel them now, scanning him, judging him. He knew there was no way out of this, but he had to stall him. The boys had to escape.
“Can you tell me about your soul, Jackmaw Yapyap?”
“No.”
It wasn’t much to work off of, but it would keep him talking. Rufus grumbled like a professor coming to a conclusion about one of his students. “Is it perhaps because you close yourself off? We need to dig a bit deeper to find what you’re looking for.”
“And what am I looking for, sage?” The voice came from above Rufus, but from what he had seen in his dreams, he didn’t know if that meant he was sitting or not. From memory, the man shouldn’t even be able to fit into their tent.
“Answers. That’s why people seek me out. Why don’t you ask your question? Do you seek fortune among the wasteland?”
The crackle of burning coals was deafening between them. Rufus could feel Jackmaw watching him, but he had no clue what his intentions were. Finally, he spoke. “Where’s the Emerald Expanse?”
Rufus sighed. “The Emerald Expanse is a myth.”
“I’ve seen it.”
Rufus felt the muscles in his face betray him. There was no way this man had seen the Emerald Expanse. “Sounds like you’ve stumbled upon a legend, then. Why don’t you retrace your steps with me? I can help you find it.”
“You’re a bad liar,” Jackmaw growled. The old man swallowed hard.
“I’m sorry. I can’t tell you where the Emerald Expanse is. I-”
A large fist crashed into Rufus’s core. He felt his organs burst and bones crack. The old man spiraled to the floor and landed on his stomach. He was sucking in air with a ruptured diaphragm, his lungs feeling like engines failing to start. He gasped and coughed as Jackmaw stepped on his back.
“Where is it!” he screamed and slammed a fist into Rufus’s back. He felt his spine disconnect like a broken link of chains between his shoulder blades. He didn’t have enough air in his lungs to let out a pained scream. He counted himself lucky that the injury made the rest of his body limp. Now all he had to feel was the burning in his lungs. The brute kept his foot on Rufus’s back and grabbed his head between two meaty palms. They wrenched his head backwards and up.
“I’ve seen it, scab head! I’ve seen the Emerald Expanse! I know you’ve been there, every spirit guide in the wasteland has! Why won’t you tell me?”
Rufus didn’t tell him before because the Emerald Expanse was a secret. A warlord like Jackmaw Yapyap would destroy it just for fun. It was an integral part of the wasteland, just like the town of Agua Fria, and here he was turning this place upside down. And for what? Just to get information about the expanse? He was a reckless fool, and if he found it, the Valley of the Twin Suns would be lost like the rest of the world.
He didn’t tell him before because it was a secret. He didn’t tell him now because his body was twisted and choking him. The air in his lungs burned, and his throat tightened with the angle he was being held in. His milky eyes stared up at the roof of the tent, at the gathering clouds of mock root smoke. In his blindness, he could only see the roads of fate that his soul walked, and they all ended here.
When the only noise that left the sage’s throat was an orchestra of pained gurgles, Jackmaw grew more impatient. A laps in judgement made him drop Rufus’s head. He lay limp in the sand, coughing and sputtering. His crushed diaphragm still wouldn’t allow him to pull in a full lung's worth of air. Miraculously, the warlord took his massive foot off of Rufus’s back. He could feel some relief pouring through his numb body, then it returned. Jackmaw had replaced his foot with his backside, and now he sat on the old man.
“I’ve killed seventeen of your kind, Sage. I’m not afraid to make that number eighteen. I don’t care if I have to wipe out every one of you. I will find the Emerald Expanse again, and this time I’ll lead an army to their doorstep. Are you listening to me?”
Rufus hadn’t been listening. He was too busy holding onto life. The lack of oxygen was beginning to have its effects take place. He was losing consciousness, staving off an infinite sleep. But he was losing that fight. Jackmaw’s weight was punishing. The warlord adjusted his position on top of him, grinding his ass deeper into Rufus as if the old man was a couch that refused to remain comfortable.
“I’m talking to you!” Jackmaw screamed. He snatched Rufus’s head again and tried to force the old man to look at him. The warlord must have forgotten about human anatomy. He wrenched the old man’s head back and to the side. There was a sickening pop, then Rufus’s throat filled with the sound of bubbling blood. He was looking at him now, there was no debating that. Rufus’s head was turned all the way around so that his chin could fit nicely between his shoulders. His spine jutted to one side of his neck. The milky white eyes gained a new lifelessness. As he died, Rufus thought for sure he could see Jackmaw Yapyap, and he looked much more like a demon than his dreams ever could have conjured up.
“Well? Answer me!” he shook the old man’s head until the muscles in his neck tore. His paper-thin skin shredded away. Blood spurt in weak flows at the tears, covering the sand below in dark crimson. There was a snap, a pop, and then Rufus’s head detached from his body. Jackmaw held it for a moment as if he understood his mistake. He studied the scabbed eyes and their blind pupils as if they might speak for the old man. He rolled the head back and forth like he was burping a baby. Then, out of nowhere, he flung the head into the tent wall. “That makes eighteen, scab head.”
Krav got back to the tent as the chaos was dying down. The raiders were making their way down river, pillaging and killing as they went. Surprisingly, they ignored the boy. For some reason, the raiders wouldn’t use their weapons or threaten him. Instead, they grabbed him as they passed, hooting and cheering as if Krav would join them. Instead, he pushed them aside, and the raiders would laugh and continue their rampage. He didn’t know it, but covered in the blood of the merchants, he looked like he belonged to their clan.
When he reached their tent, the first thing he saw was the pool of blood in front of it. He ran for the flap, then skidded to a halt. The whole thing was moving. It looked like an animal had been snatched up in a sack, the walls punching outwards, caving inwards, and the frame of it all falling apart. A massive man emerged, knocking the canvas off of him like a superhero rising from the ashes. Only this superhero looked just like the devil.
“What a pain in the ass. You’d think they’d make these things bigger.”
“Who the hell are you?” Krav demanded. His grip on the axe tightened.
“Who the hell am I? I’m Jackmaw Yapyap! I’m the king of the world!”
“Where’s Lenny? Where’s Rufus?”
“You ask too many questions!” Jackmaw pointed his weapon at Krav and fired. The fireball soared toward him. Krav knocked it away with the axe, smacking it like a baseball. It veered away and exploded above the collapsed tent, bathing it in fire.
Jackmaw nodded. He reached for something, perhaps more of that ammo stuff the woman was asking for. But he too had run out of it. His fingers toyed with his hips fruitlessly, then he shoved the weapon into a pocket. “You ain’t one of mine. You’d be shitting your dress if you were. Where’d you grow those balls, scab head?”
Krav gripped the axe with both hands and huffed. He was a bull preparing to charge, but something kept him bolted to the floor. For the first time in his life, Krav really measured his odds against an opponent, and they didn’t look good. This guy had launched an actual fireball at him, and there was no telling what other tricks he had. For all he knew, he could spit acid and shoot lasers from his eyes. He did the math in his head, weighed the pros and cons, then charged.
The boy crossed the sand with a swiftness comparable to the pillaging raiders. He had the axe raised high, and he was screaming like a madman. Adrenaline pumped through him like gasoline in a racecar. His muscles were rigid and tight as he prepared the overhead swing, intending fully to split this beast in half from scalp to crotch. But while Jackmaw may have been an unpredictable fool, he was no stranger to combat.
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As Krav approached, the warlord kicked him in the chest. He felt the axe tear away from his fingers, but before he could register the damage done to his torso, he was hit with two lightning-quick punches to the head, one right after the other. That was all it took to drop him to the floor.
The world spun as it slowly descended into night. From the ground, Krav watched smoke rise to the heavens as if the town had been Jackmaw Yapyap’s sacrificial lamb. The light blue of the calming skies was tinged with the green of the suns that burned on the horizon. A cool breeze touched his skin, but when it disappeared with the wind, it was replaced with the heat of fire. There was no escape, Krav thought. He still hadn’t found Lenny and Rufus. If he was lucky, they both got away. Maybe they got to the lift, and now they had become refugees on their way to another settlement. That was it, Krav told himself. They’d be just fine.
His cheekbones ached. His breathing was labored. His body felt like a sack of the very sand he was laying in: coarse, heavy, and burning. The warlord squatted over his chest and stuck a finger in his face. “You idiot! Don’t you see how strong I am?” He flexed his sunburned muscles and posed for Krav as he lost consciousness. He howled with laughter in the boy’s face. “You never had a chance!”
Krav coughed, then slapped Jackmaw in the face with a weak hand. The warlord allowed it, if only to prove how futile it was.
“Join my crew, kid! I get to pick one civilian from each place we pillage, and I pick you!”
“Fuck you.”
“No, fuck you! You’re going to die here with everyone else unless you come home with me!” He leaned close to Krav, so close the boy could feel his hot breath like a kiln. “You can see the whole world. I’ll give you all the sex, drugs, and rock and roll a kid like you could ever want. You can leave behind life as a desert rat and become a king! What do you think?”
Krav didn’t think. He spit a glob of blood up at Jackmaw, but it came out weak, arced, and landed on his own neck. He shook his head and smiled defiantly at the warlord, his grin thick with blood. Lenny and Rufus were all but forgotten as he slowly slipped out of reality.
Jackmaw Yapyap was also smiling. He liked the boy, liked him a lot. This kid was like a wild horse, and he needed more than treats to command him. If he wanted him, he’d need to break the boy. But he didn’t have time to do that. That buzzkill Shi-Toh was coming back, Jackmaw could see him sauntering around one of the broken stalls. Shi-Toh plugged one nostril and shot a glob of snot onto the sand. He shook his head, looking like he had just taken a shot of hard liquor. When the two met each other’s gaze, their faces swapped. Jackmaw’s smile turned to an annoyed frown, and Shi-Toh’s disinterested face brightened.
“Lord Jackmaw, did you get the information you needed?”
“There’s one less spirit guide. That’s all that matters.”
Shi-Toh gave him a sympathetic frown and said, “My apologies. I assume it didn’t go well. Might I suggest an alternative?”
“No! You can get lost. I’m busy.”
Krav’s fingers searched the sand for his axe. He hadn’t fully pieced together the comment about one less spirit guide. The only thing on his mind right now was making this guy’s face explode like he had done to the red eyed merchant. Jackmaw hadn’t noticed the boy still trying to fight back, but an eyebrow rose above the onyx glasses.
“Your friend still has some fight in him.”
“Good!” Jackmaw said. He looked back down at Krav with his burning eyes full of blood. He was grinning like a madman again. “I’ve decided this kid’s going to be my apprentice.”
That perked up the feathered man. Something about the word apprentice didn’t sit right with him. He drew closer, his gait still strange and ghostly. He pursed his lips, clicked his tongue, and pointed at the boy beneath his master. “This kid? I don’t know, sir. I think we have an army of pure-blooded maniacs as it is. What’s one more mindless raider in your retinue?"
Jackmaw didn’t answer him. He was still admiring the boy. Krav was still looking for his axe, but his prodding fingers were losing strength. When the warlord looked to his consul, he shook his head. “I’ve got a good feeling about this one. You got something to say about that?”
“Not at all, lord!” Shi-Toh waved his hands in front of himself defensively. “I just think it’s too soon to jump to conclusions. But I would never doubt your intuitions. Perhaps a test?”
Jackmaw liked that idea. It seemed that Shi-Toh wasn’t in such a tight-ass mood today after all. “Go on.”
“Allow him to seek you out. If he’s as good as you say, he no longer has a home here. Perhaps a journey through the wastes would break his will. He’ll come crawling back to you in no time.”
Jackmaw scratched his head, a rare sight. It meant he was thinking further than what he was going to eat, kill, or have sex with in the next five minutes. Shi-Toh could almost see the cogwheels in his head begin to turn and shed their cobwebs and dust. The warlord brought himself nose to nose with Krav, lifting the boy out of reach of the axe.
“Chase me, boy. I’ll be miles across the valley in all directions. If you can do that, there’s nothing that can stop us from ruling this wasteland together!” Jackmaw lifted his head back, then slammed it into Krav’s, putting the boy out for good. He crashed limply onto the sand, unconscious and barely breathing.
Shi-Toh approached Krav and nudged him with his boot. He didn’t move, but the boy groaned like an irritated, sleeping predator. It was uncanny. The boy wasn’t much now, but he resembled Jackmaw so well that it would be believable if anyone was told that he was a miniature clone of the warlord. The feathered man sniffed again, welled up a throatful of mucus, and spat it into the dust. He hoped the kid had the guts to chase them. There was no doubt he’d die out in the wastes, then it’d be one less vendetta to worry about. Shi-Toh looked up at Jackmaw. “No word on the Emerald Expanse, then?”
The warlord was crouched over Krav. He poked him in the face a few times with his weapon, just to be sure he was really out. Soon, he was admiring him like a judge at a dog show. Jackmaw dug his fingers into the boy’s lips to check his teeth, pulled his hair, and prodded his muscles through the blood-soaked robes. “He looks just like one of us, don’t you think?”
“Covered in blood and reeking of intoxicants? He’d fit right in.”
“Why can’t we take him now? We’ve got room.”
“On the contrary, my lord, we do not.”
Lenny knelt in the lift, his knees digging uncomfortably into the metal. He was flanked by two raiders who pointed their weapons at him. It terrified the boy. He felt that at any moment they might go off and blow him up. More of the multicolored savages began to return to the lift carrying spoils of war. All of them gave him a look like he was the unfortunate one for having survived. The feathered man had left a while ago, and he seemed like the only one capable of human speech. The rest of them just grunted and whooped like animals.
The sun was setting on the valley, and the twin suns usurped its spot in the sky as the main light source. They cast their ghostly green glow over the remains of Agua Fria, colliding with the black smoke and orange flames. It brought a tear to Lenny’s eye. The boy had never seen a settlement so prosperous, a population so carefree. They hadn’t even been there a full day, but if it were up to him, they’d never leave. It wasn’t up to him, though. It was up to Jackmaw Yapyap, Shi-Toh, and the Gordo Clan, and they had different plans for all of them. All he could hope for now was that his brother and master were still alive. Rufus could handle the warlord, perhaps by disarming him with his intellect. Krav… well, Krav knew how to hit things pretty hard. He was probably killing his way through raiders at this very moment. It was a pipedream, but he preferred to hope than to wallow in his newfound despair. Still, with every returning raider his heart sank deeper and deeper into his stomach. Then he saw the blood-soaked warlord round his way towards the lift, and he began to weep.
“This is you’re surprise? Kill this one and go get the other kid, I like him better!” Jackmaw screeched. He was towering over Lenny and frowning at him. The boy felt an array of weapons point at him as the rest of the Gordo Clan jumped at the chance to kill one more time before they left Agua Fria for good.
“This one is the apprentice, lord. He is a seer in training.”
Jackmaw didn’t skip a beat. “Stop crying, it’s pathetic! Where’s the Emerald Expanse, scab head?”
Lenny couldn’t control himself. He pulled tight on his robes, hoping to disappear into them long enough for the warlord and his gang of lunatics to leave. He doubled over, sobbing and curling into the fetal position. His master was gone; there was no question about it. The warlord went into their tent clean and came out like a carnivore after a particularly messy meal. His brother was probably dead too; he would no longer kid himself. Lenny found it impossible to stand up to the warlord. Jackmaw was one hundred stories tall at that moment, and he was more than willing to step on the boy like the pitiful roach he was.
The boy struggled to speak. He wanted to at least stand on his two feet and look Jackmaw in the eye to tell him that the Emerald Expanse is just a legend. Rufus had once explained that it was a story told by spirit guides to manufacture trust. A fabled paradise where the grass grew tall and green, where food and water were plentiful. It was supposedly where some of the highest quality intoxicants grew naturally, and where every shaman, witch, and spirit guide learned to perfect the art of wild magics. It was just a story they told the world to make themselves more money. What would a warlord even want with something like that?
“Yeah, I’m over him already. Light him up boys!”
“Hold your fire!" Shi-Toh cried. He clearly had less command over the savages than the warlord, but his voice held enough authority to make them yield. "If you won’t have him, then I will. Please trust me, my lord. I will take the time to perform the readings with him. By this time next week, we could be in the Emerald Expanse.”
Jackmaw was looking down at Lenny, shaking his head. While he shook it, he scratched it again. Twice in one day, Shi-Toh thought. How fortunate. The warlord stooped low and scooped the crying boy up by his garments. For a moment, the Gordo clan hooted and screamed as they waited for Jackmaw to rip this coward in half. He didn’t, however. Instead, he smacked him hard in the face, the noise echoing up the lift shaft. “Lesson one, scab head! Nobody cries on my crew!” he looked to his advisor and grimaced. “Make sure he doesn’t piss his pants or something equally pathetic, will you?"
Jackmaw tossed the boy to Shi-Toh, who helped him to his feet. Lenny had stopped crying, but the memories of his family still threatened to break the dam of emotions. The only thing keeping him together now was the fear of being ripped apart by the pack of animals. Shi-Toh placed his hands on the boy’s shoulders and knelt it his level. It was oddly comforting.
“Looks like you’re all mine now,” he said. Even with his eyes covered by the volcanic glass, Lenny could tell the smile on his face wasn’t genuine. There was a hungering ulterior motive within this man, and somehow Lenny was the key to that. There was no Emerald Expanse, he reaffirmed to himself silently. Still, with the tenacity of these raiders in their absolute belief of the fabled land, he was beginning to doubt his teachings. He was beginning to doubt his master.
