“Where are we now?” Rufus said. “This guy’s hands stink.”

  To be honest, Krav had forgotten where they were as well. They were underground, probably, and everywhere he looked, tormented souls hugged themselves and wandered in silent fits. They looked like toddlers left to cry out their frustrations on mute. There wasn’t enough fire to be hell, but Krav had never been to hell, so he guessed that at any moment now they could find themselves up to their eyebrows in boiling shit and blood.

  Rufus looked like he did the day he died. Sunken cheeks bristled with his grainy beard, and the top off his head was a flaking sunburn. His milky white eyes were rimmed with the black streaks of wasting. His smile looked like a set of bowling pins set up for a spare.

  “Rufus…” Krav said again. To him and his master, his words formed perfectly. “I lost Lenny.”

  “We’ve been over that, remember?” Rufus said. “It was in some guy’s tent about a week ago. You could hear me because you were high. Are you… are you high now?”

  “No!” Krav said. His head jerked and looked at the rest of the people in the chamber one by one. To Krav, he felt like a convict thrown on a surprise trial. To everyone else, the drooling madman talking to a skull looked like a raptor picking out which mouse to snatch from the floor.

  “Don’t lie to me, boy! What could you have possibly gotten your hands on down here?”

  “DM something. Dead Man’s…” He itched his head with the axe, slicing away strands of hair and leaving white scratches along his temple.

  “Dead Man’s Delight! You got your hands on DMD? Well give me one, I’ve always wanted to try it.”

  “You’re dead, Rufus.”

  “Dead men can’t delight in Dead Man’s Delight?” He chuckled. It made Krav laugh too, but to the others, he jittered and grinned.

  Krav crossed the room, shuffling between Ulrich and Garth, both giants staring up at him from the floor. His boots met the smoldering coals of the fire and crushed them like pockets of heat popping with mini infernos. Cathartes Voll watched with his blind eyes and smiled. He welcomed the crazed boy to peruse his treasures.

  “Do you like what you see, boy?” Voll asked, but Krav ignored him. The boy reached for the skull of his friend. “My conduit? It has very special powers, you know. You can tell because of its eyes. Yes, special eyes indeed.” Voll also reached for the skull. He had intended to grab it first and offer it up to the boy, but Krav’s neck snapped to face him. The boy’s eyes were unable to focus on him, but they communicated his displeasure with a glower. The warlord of the Bone Eaters tightened his grip on his staff and frowned. It was a terrible thing to have to put down a dog with so much potential, and there was potential. Voll saw in Krav that same manic look that he had to draw out of every one of his raiders. It was a look that could only be achieved through weeks of torment and drug abuse. A man earns that look, but this boy had it naturally.

  Krav held Rufus like the skull was his firstborn. There was more rambling from his mottled mouth that no one could understand, then he tied the skull to his belt and moved to leave. He had gotten back to the smoldering fire when one of the elders skulked out from the shadows and snatched his heels.

  “Behind you!” The skull warned. Krav’s eyes had barely landed on the approaching wretch when he unclipped the axe and swung it low like a scythe harvesting wheat. The toothy blade caught the elder by the forearm, tearing it off and leaving a mangled stump. The elderly creature screeched and fell backwards and squeezed the translucent skin around the wound. It kicked and sprawled as discolored blood sprayed in thick spurts.

  The soul within the elder was thrashing. The glowing green spirit was leaking out like electrical static, draping the dying thing in a flashing aura. The creature was hanging onto its life, clamping the wound and begging for help in its own inhuman way. It was a shame, Krav thought. That soul wanted to be free so badly. He raised the axe over his head like a troll and brought it down. Then again, and again, until the soul was rising like a phoenix from the gashes. It clawed its way from a steaming chest wound like a baby bird kicking off its eggshells, then floated off to explore the cavern.

  “Are you going to wait for him to kill another one?” Voll screamed at Garth. The giant’s eyes flicked between the mutilated corpse and Krav. The Bone Eater struggled to his feet and moved towards him. Krav watched him with the axe ready, and Garth prepared for it. The weapon was crude enough that Garth assumed it was a hunk of metal sharpened to be a poor man’s blade. Something like that wouldn’t be enough to kill him. He could tank a hit, then proceed to tear the scrawny kid in half. He didn’t plan on Ulrich.

  The Pit Lord hit Garth with the force of a truck, tackling him into one wall of the chamber and causing the dusty roof to crumble a bit. Chunks of dirt cluttered either combatants’ hair, and they immediately were right back to their brawl. Fists crashed into cheekbones with a boxer’s accuracy. They rolled in and out of grappling positions, sent thumbs into each other’s eyes, and scooped off strips of skin in their fingernails. With Garth occupied, his master was unprotected.

  Krav continued his walk to the entrance of the chamber, following ghosts unseen by the naked eye. He talked to Rufus as he did so, and it was the first time Cathartes Voll had ever felt uncomfortable in the presence of a prisoner. A meager little boy had strolled into his territory, killed one of his elder kin, and stolen his newest prized possession. It couldn’t be allowed to stand, even with his champion currently indisposed. He dragged himself along, leaning on his rattling bone staff. He couldn’t remember the last time he left the chamber, and his weakness was visible. Even his hurried steps failed to catch up to the boy’s unobstructed stride. He nearly tripped as he went, and the shroud of human skin slipped from him. Now naked and pathetic, he called out to Krav. “Wait just a damned minute! That’s my conduit!”

  The boy stopped dead in his tracks and turned to Voll. He still had that look in his eyes. That look that made the citizens of settlements sweat and clutch their children close. He crossed the room and towered over the slouching warlord. Under the effects of DMD, Cathartes Voll was revealed to be a small man. Krav had no idea how such a weak man had survived so long in the valley. Lenny would have skinned him alive, and Lenny was the biggest baby Krav knew.

  Two more elders attacked from the shadows. Again, Rufus warned him, and he chopped them down. One was cleaved nearly in two, the wound entering at the shoulder and cutting down to the liver. The other lost its head from the ears up. When the dead man landed, he was watching Voll with expectant eyes, and so was Krav.

  “You… you can’t leave here alive. This is my home! These are my things! You’re-!”

  Krav stopped him with the flat of his axe. It smacked across the warlord’s face and sent him stumbling backwards. Another swing sent him back again, then a kick sat him back down in his place in the chamber. Voll cowered behind his staff, bruises forming and split skin oozing. Krav tried to tell him to stay down, but it came out as a drawl, idiotic series of grunts.

  Ulrich and Garth rolled so that the Bone Eater was on top and in control of the fight. One of Ulrich’s hands reached up and grabbed Garth by the face. He squeezed so tight that the champions eyelids pulled down like window shutters and his lips curled into a puffy duck bill. The other hand was balled into a fist and striking ribs. For Garth’s part, he was holding Ulrich's wrist with one hand and pounding his purpling face with the other.

  Ulrich’s thumb fish hooked Garth’s lips and the Bone Eater's face began to tear and bleed. With pain flaring in his face and his master being towered over by a murderous madman, Garth switched his tactics. It was no longer enough to brawl an Executioner of the Pit Lords, he had had his fun. It was time to end it. Thick fingers found their way to Ulrich’s neck and either hand squeezed so that his eyes nearly popped from his head. There were a series of desperate gasps, then the grip fell away from Garth’s face and to his wrists. Ulrich drove an elbow down and manage to break one of Garth’s arms with a thunderous snap, but Garth merely howled in pain, forced his weight forward, and choked Ulrich until he was limp.

  No time to kill him. His opponent wouldn’t remain down for long, but that boy was threatening his very livelihood. Without Voll to broker deals and plan attacks, the Bone Eaters would go mad, or starve to death, or wander aimlessly through the wasteland until exhaustion consumed them. Voll was the man with the plan, the dream maker, the idea haver. Everyone else was just a follower. As champion of the clan, he couldn’t allow them all to die the same pitiless deaths that most cannibal cults fell prey to. Garth rolled from Ulrich and began clawing his way across the floor towards Krav. The break in his arm swelled between his wrist and elbow, and he held it close to his chest.

  An axe swing came down on Voll, and he cowered just in time to hear the meaty thud of his champion preventing his execution. His voice boomed above, rumbling off of the walls and thundering so that even the dying flames retreated from him. That boy, though. That boy didn’t budge.

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  “Move it!” he commanded Voll, and the sniveling warlord crawled out from under him. He was carried away by the other elders who cooed and petted him as they fled. Then it was up to Garth. “What’s your name, kid?”

  There was a gurgling, then a giggle.

  “What?”

  “Garth of the Bone Eaters.”

  “That isn’t your name.” Annoyed, he wrenched the axe from the boy, but it failed to disarm him. Instead, he found his palm squealing down the haft as the edge of the blade bit into his arm. “What is your name?”

  “Garth of the Bone Eaters!” Krav laughed again. His words were forming more fluently now, as if the mushrooms had begun to heal the wounds the cage had left. Only just begun, however. There was still a hiss and a slurring in between words. “Garth of the Bone Eaters! Garth of the Bone Eaters!”

  They watched each other over the coals. Garth wanted to smack him, and if he didn’t have the bend in his arm, he would have broken the boy’s jaw. Krav mocked him, continuing to spout his stolen name over and over until Garth’s eyes nearly burst beneath his helm. Then he stopped. It was like he was commanded by a voice Garth couldn’t hear.

  “Rufus said not to kill you.”

  “Who the hell is Rufus?”

  Krav patted the skull on his hip. His grip tightened on the axe and to Garth’s surprise, he actually inched it away from him. “It’s because you’re confused.”

  Confused? How could he be the confused one? He was Garth, champion of the Bone Eaters, dealing with a runt who had entered his home and unashamedly attacked his people. It was what he was supposed to do, what he was made for! No one in the valley could take that away from him. No denizen burning beneath the gaze of the twin suns could muddle his purpose. No one could call him confused.

  “I’m Garth of the Bone Eaters! Not some mongrel dog who fights on instinct! I follow orders, I complete objectives, I raise hell! Who are you to call me confused, boy?”

  Krav stared, his eyes wandering like a drunkard. His cheery nature had gone with the changes of the wind. No longer was he laughing in the champion’s face. Now he narrowed his eyes, knitted his brow, and stared at him. Garth felt small beneath that gaze. It was the same look Cathartes Voll had given him years before, when he really was just a mongrel dog who fought on instinct. There was no name for it in the Bone Eater vocabulary, but that look was pity, and it burned him from the inside out.

  Then there was a shift, a sudden change of wind in the sails. Krav’s darkened gaze brightened, and he went back to mockery. “I’m Garth of the Bone Eaters!”

  Rage. Undammed, untamed, pure rage. Garth’s face was reddening quicker than Ulrich’s had beneath his blows, and he swung his free hand at the boy’s head. If this boy was the warrior Garth believed him to be, he would have to avoid this strike to win the fight. A punch to the head at this distance, with his weapon occupied by struggle, would mean he had to choose: get rocked by the bellowing fist of a champion or give up his weapon. An easy choice, he knew, but Krav made the wrong one.

  Krav wasn’t a warrior at all, at least not in the way Garth knew warriors. The noble fighter who entered combat with intent and will was an apt description of Ulrich, but not this boy. Krav didn’t move an inch. Garth’s fist smacked him in the side of the head and sent him tumbling to the side, but the Bone Eater had forgotten about the bend in his arm. Pain flooded the left half of his torso immediately, and it the unnatural angle in his arm curved ever more acutely. He was the one forced to release the weapon as he retreated and clutched his numbing hand like a baby.

  “You pants pissing, shit eating, son of a-!” his roars were interrupted as the axe swung back around and he was forced to dodge. It was a small mercy that the rest of the cannibal cult wasn’t here to see this. How could he ever hold the title of champion like this? He was retreating from a teenager half his size. As a warrior, he knew what he was supposed to do, but he felt like a student who had studied hard for an exam only to forget it all after putting his name on the paper. The red-hot pain in his arm clouded his mind, and it took everything just to dodge the unpredictable attacks. A quick strike to ribs once the arc passed. A kick to the groin as he wound up a swing. Even just tackling him outright could end this right now. But Garth of the Bone Eaters could do none of that now.

  As far as Krav’s strategy went, he had none. He laughed over Rufus’s pleas as he swung the axe. It was exhilarating having someone as strong as a champion cursing you as he retreated like a child. His eyes were manic and finally focused. He drooled between laughter, salivating over the excitement he was feeling well up in his chest.

  Krav chased Garth around the room like they were cartoon characters. Every so often, his blade met rough skin and tore it away, leaving gushing wounds that slowed his prey ever more. The Bone Eater was boiling over with fury and unable to accept being routed by a boy. It wasn’t just embarrassing, it was dishonorable. He could live with the dressing down he’d get from Voll, and he could stand a few jabs from the menials he oversaw, but he couldn’t accept being laughed at and chased down by a mere boy. When Krav next raised his axe high above his head, Garth mustered all of his hatred and rage and threw his bare broken arm up to block it. He was like a phalanx without a shield, and the axe ripped it off with all the grace of a scavenging hyena tearing away a mouthful of flesh. The pain was dulled by shock, and Garth quickly forgot about his arm. Krav watched it fall through the air in hysterics, but his laughing was cut short when Garth snatched him by the neck and lifted him from the floor.

  The axe twisted in Krav’s hand, and he went to stab it into Garth’s ribs, but the champion slammed him into the wall. Then he wound him up and did it again, and again. Each collision with the wall crushed his lungs and throat. He couldn’t suck in a breath between blows, and the pounding was beginning to hurt his head. The crumbling dirt covered his face and hair, and he had to spit out clumps of it to try and breathe. Each pound was sobering, and he briefly glimpsed a reality where he didn’t make it out alive. A reality that was becoming more likely with each strike.

  Then there was a speck of light, a ray of hope. Garth knocked Krav into the wall again, and while Krav felt a wet pop sound somewhere in his chest, the wall was actually beginning to give. Garth pulled him back and hammered him back into the wall, and a ray of sunlight broke through the wall like a glimmer of mercy. He could see outside, and before Garth pulled him back again, he saw Greenblatt and Mac. The warlord had his injured automaton in his arms and looked like Frankenstein carrying his limp bride. Then he was lifted backwards and pounded into the wall again.

  Neither combatant noticed, but Cathartes Voll had returned to the entrance of the chamber. He had brought along a squadron of Bone Eaters, all ready to skin the intruders alive and prepare them for what was turning into a very late breakfast.

  “You boy’s see that? He didn’t even need your help! Your champion was able to best these two easily. What do you have to say to him?”

  There was a howling of whistles and cheers. One Bone Eater scraped two blades together like he was sharpening cutlery. Another licked his lips and stared at the disembodied arm on the floor. They were piling into the room, but none moved to aid Garth, and none passed Cathartes Voll. They were a pack of loyal hounds ready for the dinner scraps. A stinking, ravenous pack of loyal hounds.

  “That’s right Garth. You’ve done well.”

  The slams slowed, and then he was leaning against the wall, Krav like sandwich meat between his huge hand and the dirt. Garth huffed and tried to catch his breath.

  “Leave them. They won’t be any trouble after this. There are prisoners we need to catch still.”

  “I’m missing an arm,” Garth said through clenched teeth. He let Krav go and the boy stayed upright and half conscious. The champion limped over to his liberated hand and stared at it for a moment before bending to retrieve it. What a waste it was to lose something so valuable to the wasteland rabble. He had considered Ulrich a worthy opponent, but he hadn’t lost the arm to Ulrich; he had lost it to a teenage boy with no clan to his name, whatever that name was. A kid like that wasn’t worth the title of fodder in most armies, and yet he had claimed a champions arm. Had he lost it to the Executioner, he would have found an alternative and moved on, but now it was more than his body that was injured, it was his pride, and in front of his subordinates no less. “I’m no use to you.”

  “My boy,” Voll said. He went and took the arm from Garth, who relinquished it reluctantly. Voll held it high like a trophy, and the clan of cannibals howled with praise. “You are an exemplar to your people! A master among your clansmen! You are Garth of the Bone Eaters, and you are our champion!”

  They cheered, and no longer could they control themselves. The Bone Eater clan rushed Garth and celebrated him like he was a prize fighter carrying his title belt. Cheers and hollers roared his name so that the entire chamber vibrated with their echoes. None had noticed the Pit Lord drag himself off of the floor.

  Ulrich had noticed the light as soon as consciousness returned to him. It was a blurry dream as he slowly returned to the waking world, but when he realized it wasn’t a trick of his eyes, newfound energy coursed through him like gasoline. His arms pumped hot blood, and in one quick motion, he threw himself off of the floor, charged Krav, and tackled him through the crumbling wall.

  Garth had just enough time to watch as they fell through. Light burst into the dim chamber like the flash of a nuke before disaster, and the Bone Eaters had just as much time to glimpse their fate. There was time to realize death was at their doorstep but not enough to react. The entire wall fell, and then the ceiling of the wall came crashing down, burying the cannibal cult.

  Mac and Greenblatt were almost out of the quarry when they heard the wall break. The noise had made them jump and turn.

  They had planned on getting 001 a quick repair and planning a new course of action, this time to recue Krav and Ulrich. In truth, Greenblatt had no idea how he was supposed to accomplish that. He thought about rallying the prisoners that had managed to escape, but as he watched them disappear over the horizon, he knew they wouldn’t be eager to return. It was an unexpected gift of Karma to see Ulrich running from the spire with Krav in his arms. But just like all gifts of Karma, they came with quite a twist.

  Ulrich and Krav had escaped, but now they were chased by the spire as it fell. Plumes of dirt were raking at the Pit lord’s heels, a cloud of it at his back. The spire was toppling and crumbling at the same time, causing a wave of stone to thunder behind them. But as quickly as it began, it ended. The spire fell, the Bone Eaters were defeated, and the Pit Lord ran like there was no tomorrow, unable to stop even after the quiet had conquered the quarry.

  It took the rest of the day to find the two of them, then another evening to catch up to 002 and the pack beast. Only then was the group allowed to relax, and as they all sat around the fire giving their own perspectives on the battle and laughing at the absurdity of it all, Greenblatt smoked his Downer. He had lost the entirety of his clan to degeneracy, but he had found worthy allies.

  Far behind them, in the remains of the spire, a ragged stump burst from the earth.