Montana Territory, 1867

  Almost Fall

  “Anda-lama-shukar-la?a. Te shoy dikken-” WHAP!

  “Ow!” Harriet hisses, with a flurry of guitar strings.

  “Dragging.” Menowin lifts a finger, it's shadow flickering in the firelight. “You’re waiting for words. But waiting makes you slow. Your beat. Not mine.”

  “I’m tryin’.” Harriet scowls, tapping her skull. “But it’s a bit hard ta keep the bee-bee-beat in my forehead when yer yammerin’ ‘bout-” Another blow to her arm. “OW, hey!”

  “You’re here to learn, not to whine.” He waves his hand in the air, setting tempo. “From chorus… " A smooth tenor echoes through the camp. "Anda-lama-shukar-la?a, jovta-mange-pevu- wait.” He lifts his head, studying the air. “Do you hear that?”

  Harriet clamps the guitar, leaning in. She does. It’s barely audible, whispers caught haphazardly by the wind. “Agan Tas ni, eus y’n nev… dha vodh re bo gwrys y’n nor…”

  “Rowe.” Harriet points to the distance, and Menowin follows. They can see a small figure in the blackness, leaning against a tree, his body stooped and hands clasped in front of him.

  “Ro dhyn ni hedhyw agan…” The words get faster with each breath. “Bara pub dydh oll…”

  “What’s he sayin’?” Harriet looks up at Menowin. “Ya understand it?”

  "It’s vakeripe. Ghost-tongue.” Menowin gives a shrug. “Nobody can speak it. Except for himself, and maybe his God.”

  Harriet wilts, watching the Black Prince rock himself. The words sound so hollow. “Forgiveness.”

  It’s Menowin’s turn to look confused. “Mmm?”

  “He's askin' fer forgiveness?"

  "Why?"

  "'Cause we're here." She sets her guitar down, and looks at her gun. “We’re killin’ the governor.”

  +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

  The enemies of Montana know that against the Black Banners, you either prepare, or perish. Governor Thompson, their leader, their Satan, has clearly learned best. What was once an ornate white mansion - a plantation ripped from its roots, oaks and all, and forced here - has become a compound. Police, veterans, mercenaries. Their feet trample the grass. Their spit stains the mud. Their horses shit on the polished white boardwalk.

  Spikes have been erected all across the fencing. Plants that drank greedily in the rainy month have withered in this drought. There’s no sound but the crickets, and the wind on the plains.

  From here, she can’t see the tufts of straw. The lanterns in the sheds, the kindling in the tufts of grass. Anything flammable, in any place dry. But that was a good thing, wasn't it?

  Harriet had spent all day hiding them.

  She rushes to Rowe, throwing off the skirt and bonnet that served as her disguise. She’s exhausted, aching, but doesn’t stop until she can touch him, tugging his arm. Feeling his safety, feeling his...

  He doesn’t respond, his eyes on the compound. If his four men tried to storm it, they’d be shot down in seconds.

  But they’re not trying to storm it.

  “Rowe,” she whispers. “Lemme do it. Lemme kill him.”

  It’s the first time he turns.

  “I’m the quicker between us," she says. "Better chance that he-”

  “Make him pray."

  "What?"

  She squints into his face. There’s something deathly serious in his eyes. "Make him beg for forgiveness. Make him speak with the Lord. Only after can he die."

  She takes her rifle, Pa’s Springfield, and pulls the hammer back. Her voice shakes when she nods. "S-sure."

  He blinks, looks at the others. “It is a shame. Governor Thomspon could have saved so many with the money he spent on these men. It is a folly we will not allow them to repeat - him, and all those who brought him here."

  They don’t march alone. This attack is a beacon, a tidal wave, and with it the dozens of rescued towns will burst out, saving their state, slaughtering the Cavalry. They will slaughter them. She knows they will. It's the only option left. They have to.

  “Fight for the freedom greater men have died for. Menowin?” The Black Prince closes his eyes. “On my sign.”

  Skin alights. Menowin watches, his eyes a bright amber glow.

  “Three… two…” A gesture. A sound.

  He opens his eyes, and they're in a different place.

  Kitchen. Wide and spacious. Built for servants. Harriet scans around. A pantry, a butter churn, a… GUARD GUARD GUARD!

  The man rushes for his revolver. The other Banners have already aimed. "Please," The Black Prince's sombre voice breaks through. “Don’t do this.”

  The man lifts his gun anyway. And three shots later, he dies.

  Everything’s chaos. Rowe makes gestures, Menowin runs, Red and Harriet kick down the door. Upstairs and all around, boots thumping, voices screeching. The next guard can’t even turn, his brain instantly ground to bits. The one beside him lasts only two seconds longer.

  A servant wails. Outside, neighing horses, belfry chirring. She sprints up the stairs, looks out the windows. Men in blue jackets. Soldiers. Charging. Charging. Charging.

  Smashed glass. Sounds of sparks. And the image is lost to a massive, rolling cloud of smoke. Fire. The plan worked. Each bit of straw, each lantern, every rag and newspaper carefully placed, exploding and spreading the orange inferno. In the haze, she makes out panic. Running and screaming and coats caught ablaze.

  Each room is a pattern. Stomped door, rifle up, quick scan, sprint back. Gunfire echoes down the hall, her friends storming, her enemies surrendering. Kick. Up. Scan. Kick. Up. Scan. Kick-

  "ARRGHH!" Someone’s charging with a fire poker. A burst. It clatters when he dies.

  Breathe. She calms, lifts the rifle, walks inside. The walls are blue. The windows are boarded. Blood stains the carpet wherever she steps. A scurry. A whimper. A sound. She swivels and-

  “STOP!” A Negro maid lifts her hands, tears in her eyes. “Ch-children!”

  She breathes again. In the dark, two figures huddled together. Small. Scared. Wide, blue eyes. They can’t make out her face. The fire’s light, bursting through the windows, keeps her silhouetted. Flames rising high, matching her hair.

  Harriet lowers her gun. Flows into the halls, up to the next door, and kicks.

  Kick. Up. Scan. Kick. Up. Scan. Kick. Up. Scan-

  She knows he was in the office the moment she sees the window open. Swinging.

  “No.” She runs to it, mind stuck in mud. “NO NO NO-”

  A shot, shattered glass, and she’s leaping back. A marksmann is barging in, and beyond him, uniforms, Cavalry. Horseless, leaping through the flames. He lifts his gun, and she scurries back.

  "Please..." Her back hits a shelf. Throat trembling, books falling. Blood drips down her face, a shard in her cheek. Her gun lays limp by her leg. "We're... we're followin' God."

  He lifts his weapon, but she moves faster. Her bullet ricochets, off a vase, off a wall, then bounces around in his skull. He twitches, like an insect, his wayward shot demolishing the desk, the photographs.

  She sprints for his gun. Thirty inch barrel. Calibre five-point-two. Manufacturer on grip. Spencer Repeater.

  She takes the powder in his pocket, bullets from a pouch. Rushes out. On the ground, scattered coins, untied rope. The soldiers beyond are firing en masse, getting into formations. She wobbles on the tiles, aims, fires, then sprints and leaps and ducks from the hail of bullets that follow. Surging up dust and bits of mortar.

  “ELIJAH THOMPSON!” She hears Rowe’s voice. “WE CAN STILL END THIS WAR.

  He’s on the porch he’s on the fucking porch WHY IS ROWE ON THE PORCH!? Red pulls him back just before a volley would tear him to pieces. But he's not quick enough. Shots pierce. "ARGH!"

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

  "RED!"

  He flies into cover, blood pooling by his sides. She’s peeking out. The shed, the bushes, Governor Thompson, nowhere to be seen.

  The Black Prince watches Red for a moment, then raises his voice. "LOWER YOUR ARMS! LEAVE THIS STATE!"

  A horse storms past, its screeches echoing. She watches it from the balcony bars. The rider, bouncing behind, still strapped to the stirrup. He has a beard. A white shirt, coated red.

  Suddenly clouds. Suddenly windchimes.

  Rowe storms back out. “GIVE THE PEOPLE WHAT THEY ASK, AND SAVE YOUR MEN."

  He leaps back. Bullets whizzing. Her eyes are filled with dust. Her breaths are like flames. She can’t find him she can’t find him SHE CAN’T FUCKING FIND HIM. WHERE is Thompson!? WHERE-

  It happens in slow motion. A horse, a small horse, leaping over the fire. Harriet stands up, repeater raised, aiming for the target. But it’s not a soldier grasping those reins. Not a mercenary waving a sabre that's clearly too heavy for his arms.

  “PA! PA!”

  It’s a boy.

  Short hair. Blue eyes. His face is red, his cheeks puffy. The horse wanders about in a daze, his voice screeching over the field. He wants to be a hero. The rescuer. Even if he's done this in his life. He was raised on the same stories of war as her. Gears spin in her head.

  He can barely keep his horse from bucking him, and Harriet can barely thinking when she leans down. Holds her breath, and squeezes the trigger.

  The bullet bursts in his belly. He cries out, the sabre drops, and he's launched from the horse. For a moment, the shock takes him. He’s feeling the blood, pressing on the wound with twelve-year-old hands. Then comes the begging. The pleading. The tears.

  “HELP ME HELP ME HELP ME!”

  It doesn't take long to hear the Governor's wail.

  He isn’t dressed. Undershirt, suspenders, not even shoes. He must have been sleeping before, who wouldn't be? He rushes through the grass, his eyes wild, the soldiers reaching desperately after him.

  “GET BACK!” “SIR!” “YA NEED TA-”

  Their words are broken by bullets. Harriet pumps and aims and shoots. The repeater fires and fires and fires. Bodies fall, shouts rise, and by the time they remake their formation, half already gone. Governor Thompson doesn't care. He's rushing towards his boy.

  “Pa, Pa!”

  He slides to his knees. “I’m here, I’m here, it’s okay, it’s okay!"

  They don’t see the gunshots, the smoke, the bodies falling like products from a machine. The man simply scoops up his child, sobbing, pressing deeper and deeper into a stomach that’s already lost too much blood. The boy tries to reach out. Misses, misses. His arm’s growing weak. His words, only gurgles.

  The father is rocking him. Squeezing him. “It’s okay it’s okay it’s okay.”

  The battle is quiet. The soldiers are gone. The boy coughs, and blood splatters his father’s shirt. His face is filled with panic and dread and, eventually, clarity. Then his jaw falls slack. His eyes dim.

  The Black Prince, stunned, is still on the porch, watching it all.

  The man sobs quietly, like a whisper. Struggling to keep all the dignity God and country granted him. Harriet slides off the roof, marching through the grass, shoving a new cartridge in the dead guard's gun. The yard is filled with corpses. Some trampled. Some burned. The house is near a ruin, peppered by soot and holes.

  Governor Thompson lifts his head when she nears. Lost. Weak. Empty. It must be his prayer, she thinks. His eyes ask a thousand questions that only God could answer.

  She stops for a moment, then puts the barrel to his forehead. “Freedom.”

  A roar. A ring. A brain split, a body slumped, and God returns to Montana.

  She's smiling. Smiling when the body falls over the boy's. Smiling when the Black Prince walks over, pale and silent. His jaw is twitching, scrambling for words, when she charges into him. Embracing.

  "It worked." She squeezes his arms, rubs her forehead in his chest. "It's over. We won. We fuckin' won."

  Red hobbles off of the porch, a limp in his gait. Rowe lowers his head the same time she lifts hers. Waiting, like with every mission, for those encouraging words, that swell of pride.

  Except that the Black Prince looks confused. Disbelieving. His eyes, constantly flicking back to the corpse. "I... Fire..." Her chest tightens. That fear of failure. That ever-present nerve. "... the... th-the boy..."

  "I tricked 'em." His face collapses. She's still holding him. "A lil' trick. The kid, it... it dragged them out. Like smoke. In a varmint nest."

  He isn't moving. "You... you meant to...?"

  "He woulda killed us. If he could." Harriet tilts her head. Why isn't he happy? M-maybe she should have asked the boy for forgiveness, too? What... "I-It's like yer always sayin'." Her lip trembles. "S-Sometimes we can't choose. Not when their... their part a' the monst-"

  The world rings.

  She springs up from the grass. Clutches her cheek. It’s welting, hot and dry. She looks at him, blubbering. His fists are still clenched white.

  And the moment she sees them, her stomach twists. Memories form. White clouds. Windchimes.

  "ROWE!" Red's bolting, fast as he can.

  She can't let go of her cheek. It's already sore. Her whole body trembles, and the windchimes are piercing. He's mad, he's mad, HE'S MAD. "Wha..." She blinks, and feels tears. Can barely form the words. "Wh-wh-wh-what did I do!?"

  Until then, he had looked scared. Like a frightened animal. But those words change him. His brows bend. His eyes glow. He repeats her words back furiously. "What did you DO!?"

  She practically yelps. "I'M SORRY!"

  "Rowe!" Red reaches him, pulls him away. "Fer chrissakes, drop it!"

  "Look at them!"

  Her mind scurries. Her breathing goes ragged. Her stomach twists a thousand times over. He's angry he's angry he's angry.

  "Later!" Red puts a hand on his cheek. "Our people are marchin'! The Cav's comin' out! They need ya there."

  "But I-"

  "THEY NEED YOU!"

  The Black Prince stammers, leans into it, nods. His entire body rattles, and he struggles to find words. "W-Weapons. Get weapons. And horses, and bullets, a-a-and everything we can grab-"

  She's already on it. Her lungs filled with smoke, crawling through the mud. Piling up gun after gun, prying them from corpses' fingers. She has to be good. She has to make up for it. She's repeating the marks as she sees them. Henry's. Smith and Wesson. Remington. Winchester-

  She stops. A boot. Rowe's standing in front of her. "Stop."

  "No!" She moves away from him, scrabbling bullets from the grass. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I-I-I'm not bad! I-I-I-"

  "Harriet." The Black Prince moves after her, grabs her shirt collar. "It's over."

  She freezes. Something buried in those words halts all thought. Her bullets tumble back into the grass. "Wh-what?"

  "Go back to the camp." His voice is heavy. "You're not riding with us."

  It takes seconds to register. The panic's overwhelming. A nightmare made real. "NO!"

  He's already turned around. She leaps, crawling after, grasping his legs. Her words are half sobs. "Y-Y-YA CAN'T DO THIS!"

  Red starts to step forward. "Rowe-"

  "Red."

  She's panicking. Deafened by windchimes. Hugging his feet. "Ya can't ya can't ya can't YA CAN'T!"

  "YOU MURDERED A CHILD!"

  She can't see through her tears. She's back. Back in the woods, back in the hunger, back in the dresses, back hiding in hay. She fights him when he tries to kick her off, blubbers and holds.

  "Do you have any idea what you have done?"

  "I-I didn't do-"

  "YOU'VE CURSED US!" The words stab her like icicles. "YOU'VE TAINTED US! YOU'VE TAINTED THE WHOLE MOVEMENT!"

  She lets out a scream.

  "He was a boy!" He puts a hand on his face. Disgust and shock and sorrow. "A Christian boy! A boy with no chance, a boy with no future! And you snuffed it, like a candle!"

  "DON'T LEAVE ME!" She shouts into his shoes, holding for dear life. "Don't leave me don't leave don't... I'll be good. I'll be better I just can't please please please-"

  She can't go on. She can see him already. Turning on her. Leaving her. Forgetting her. Until she's gone. Alone. And empty.

  And silent.

  "You don't even know what you did wrong."

  "How could she?" She opens her eyes. The voice is quiet, but steadfast. Bells whirring with chomping boots. "You taught her."

  The Black Prince turns. The Poisoned One is scowling at him, and he scowls back. "Menowin..." His fangs eke out. "Now is not the fucking time."

  "If she can't ride, I can't either."

  "This is the hill you die on!?"

  "No." Menowin storms up, points at the ground. "It's hers."

  Rowe looks down. Harriet's sniffling, curling up to his shoes.

  "Every person she's killed, every wallet she's robbed. She's only ever done so because that's what you ask."

  "Th-that doesn't-"

  "Don't act surprised, horrified, when-"

  "I didn't want this! I didn't ask for this!" The Black Prince finally kicks Harriet off. Storming to a tuft his grass, his back to the flames. "Whose side are you on!?"

  "Yours." Menowin lifts his arms. "Always yours. Don't you get it?"

  The Black Prince says nothing. His eyes wild.

  "This is your dream." He points at Harriet, then the ruined house. "That is your dream, and that..."

  His hand lingers over the bodies, the bullet holes, the dying flames, the father and boy. Their blood is drying in the grass.

  "... is your dream too. They're all just bones to build up the spine. Doesn't matter what you want, or ask. Dreams need walking." His scowl deepens. "Enjoy it."

  He walks back towards the governor, knife in hand. Slicing his finger to get the gold ring wedged upon.

  Leaving Harriet a sobbing wreck on her knees. And Rowe silent, tearful, as he watches them.

  ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

  ‘CAVALRY ROUTED. MONTANA LOST’

  That newspaper that displays these words flutters in the wind, held in place only by a pewter cup. When Erika Mittenwalde swipes the coffee within, gulps it down, the paper soars. Whistling into the inferno that's enveloped the forest around them.

  The lodge bustles with noise and life. Horses and shouts and in the distance, barking. Wailing. Cracks of gunfire.

  She's not surprised. Deserting soldiers, rival towns, gleeful natives. All know that they have to be the winners. All know only a handful can win.

  The bandits will come soon. Then disease, then overhunting, then famine. She doesn't think much of it, privately. Yes, her men need to leave, and yes, it's a horrible tragedy. But all great things come from hardship, and revolutions are made for the voiceless. That only sometimes includes the weak.

  It doesn't matter to them. They just need to reach London before winder.

  She's loading her shotgun, two cartridges, and sliding it into the saddle of her horse when MacCowan, the Scotsman, swaggers up to her. His flask shaking in his hands.

  “Thirty-eight in all.” His smile shows missing teeth. “Ken he’ll be impressed?”

  Her voice is toneless. “Aubrey Keaton is never impressed.”

  “Shame 'boot Rowe.” He leans against the hitching post. “A hale colony uprooted, wit' three Nocts and a mortal, aye? That takes skill.”

  “He lost.”

  “What?”

  “Look at the smoke.” She shifts her head to the sky. Indeed, there's dozens of columns now, blotting out the clouds. “That's not the mark of a leader.”

  MacGowan lifts back his red goggles, studies it, while Erika brushes her horse.

  “Es passiert. Place is big, and wild, and not trained to listen. I wager Lakota. Or maybe the Cav regrouped, or the towns thought to replace him, or-”

  “Maybe,” a third, quiet voice interrupts her. “He never earned the right to take it."

  MacCowan lifts his gun. Half the lodge has already joined him, but Erika only turns. All four are mounted, black flags tied to their saddles, bristling in the wind. The immortals ride in front; the girl, in the back. She's clutching the reins. Red, puffy eyes.

  Gawen Rowe ignores the many weapons pointed his way as he dismounts, approaches Erika.

  “Stay back,” MacCowan hisses, lifting the barrel to his head. “Stay the fook awa' from her or I-”

  A motion. Stuttered, yet fluid. Weak, yet strong. The Black Prince lifts his arms, hands pressed together, elbows adjacent, fists facing her. The Unbound sign.

  “Rowe,” she starts. “Why-"

  His face sharpens, and she stops. Every question she could ask, answered by storm-grey eyes.

  Erika joins in the gesture, hands together, fists facing him. Seconds pass, and then her start to follow. One dozen, two dozen. Rowe's men join. MacCowan does it with revolver. Everyone but the red-haired girl.

  All watching all.

  The Black Prince closes his eyes. “Airson saoirse gach dhaoine.”

  A language all speak. A language none know. And yet the Unbound repeat. “Airson saoirse gach dhaoine.”

  “Airson na dhaoine tái sinn fhathast.”

  “Airson na dhaoine tái sinn fhathast.”

  For the freedom of all men.

  For the men we still are.

  Gawen Rowe parts his hands, and forty men follow. Stopping at the shoulders. Breaking their chains.

  He looks at Erika. "To London.”

  very popular in this time period compared to other anarchists/communists, but... well...

  er... weird around Rowe. That couldn't possibly be relevant later ^^'

  Stick around for Chapter 16: A Different Perspective, where we return, at long last, to Soteris and Harriet's surely fun journey. 'Til then!