The war had been won. After they lost Krav, it took an hour for the effects of Mac’s concoction to fade. It left the entire battlefield feeling like all of the moisture had been extracted from their heads. Allies and enemies alike put down their weapons and either vomited or lost consciousness.

  The unaffected lobotomites were critical in rounding up the Gordo clan. They captured the remaining clansmen that survived the onslaught, and now just over thirty of the raiders were crammed into the shipping container.

  Plenty of ideas were floated on what to do with them. Many of the enslaved Black Thumbs wanted to bring them back to Kiva Noon to be lobotomized and forced into service. The surviving Pit Lords considered them worthy opponents and wanted them to be executed in the Pit once it was reconstructed. The Disciples didn’t care what they did, so long as they couldn’t hurt anyone else ever again.

  They had to put that off for now, though. There were far too many injured to consider any more death for the day.

  The unfortunate souls who had survived with injuries were piled into the decaying clinic building. Each of the Disciples was trained in first aid, and they stabilized anyone they could before someone more well versed in medicine could attend to them.

  Mac was the one doing most of the work. She had raided the Gordo Clan’s stockpile of medicine and took it all. The battle had ended while the true sun was at its zenith, and now it was beginning to set. It was only hours, but to the girl it felt like she hadn’t slept in days.

  By the time she finally did get to close her eyes, she did so in a chair next to Krav. The boy had a very weak pulse when they pulled him off of the battlefield, and with every passing minute it looked like he wasn’t going to make it. Mac had packed his wound and stitched him closed, but there was so much blood lost that he already looked like a corpse.

  Maybe this was for the best, she thought. Better he die high as a kite rather than become a witch. As soon as the thought formed in her head, she pushed it out, and a pit of guilt yawned in her gut. How could she wish for something like that?

  Lenny sat on the other side of Krav. He held the skull in his hands and cradled it with love. At one point in the day, someone had told him the harsh truth that he might not wake up, and he cried so hard that he eventually fell asleep. Even now, he shuddered with a sob in between snores.

  Looking at those two made Greenblatt’s heart ache. He had rushed through the clinic stitching wounds with careful hands and removed bullets that lodged themselves deep in their victims. Now that Mac had finally fallen asleep, he snuck up to Krav and checked her handy work.

  Her quality was to be expected. Greenblatt thought Mac was a fine field medic, and she had proven herself on that afternoon. Her stitches were impeccable, and just as he feared, there was no detail overlooked. She hadn’t forgotten a step when patching him up, or administered any faulty aid. There was nothing for Greenblatt to correct that would bring Krav back.

  The warlord inched closer to Krav and stroked his hair. It was hard to believe that they had come this far just for the boy to die. But then again, he had survived the wasteland long enough to have seen this sort of thing a thousand times. It didn’t hurt any less.

  Someone had told him once that the hottest flames die out the fastest. When he first heard that, it had been in a medical tent not unlike the clinic. Back then, all he could do was nod and agree with the phrase. Now, when he looked at the boy, he could still only nod and agree. Krav was a very hot-headed boy.

  “You managed to save your brother. Sleep well, Krav.”

  A Disciple approached tentatively and put a hand on Greenblatt’s shoulder. Gaya didn’t care much for the outsiders when they first arrived, but now that they had redeemed them with the death of Jackmaw Yapyap, she couldn’t help but regard them as heroes.

  She spent most of her afternoon tending to her sisters and counting the dead, but things were finally calming down. The ones who weren’t going to make it had passed, and those who could heal would do so in time. For now, she wanted to comfort her heroes.

  “Still nothing?” she asked. Her voice was sympathetic; the exact opposite of the commanding tone Greenblatt had come to know.

  He shook his head. “I can’t even find his pulse anymore. Once his brother wakes up, I’ll ask where he’d like him to be buried. Then that will be my mission.”

  “The High Priestess said he had a very heavy soul. I’ve heard that makes a person harder to kill, but also harder to revive. Once death has its hands in someone like that, it doesn’t often want to let go.”

  Greenblatt nodded. There was a time when he’d call it all bullshit, but he knew better than that. The natural world had a way of being strange and mysterious. If he had any way to tame a force of nature like death, he would have wrenched the boy back to life with his bare hands.

  “Is there anything you haven’t tried?” he asked.

  “We treated everyone the same. I’ve done everything I can for everyone.”

  But there was one thing she didn’t try. It was a shot in the dark, but it might work. The crystals in his head told him it would work, at least.

  “Will you find me some zerker? The needle kind, not the snuff.”

  Gaya frowned at him but obliged. It wouldn’t be a waste to use the dirty drugs on a corpse.

  Greenblatt took the needle and pointed it at Krav’s chest. His fingers probed the boy’s ribs and felt for a good opening to the heart. Without a heartbeat to pinpoint its location, Greenblatt blindly stabbed into his chest and hoped he could hit the barely beating organ. The needle went all the way in, and then he pressed the plunger.

  Nothing happened. If Krav had a heartbeat, it was too weak to circulate the drug through him. It was a shot in the dark to begin with, but Greenblatt had to try. Then he tried something else. The warlord positioned himself over Krav and began giving him chest compressions.

  Another trick he learned in his travels. He had seen it resuscitate a man before, but only once. The technique apparently kept the blood flowing. With his full weight over the boy, Greenblatt pressed and pressed in a rhythm.

  “Come on Krav!” he said through clenched teeth. The other two didn’t stir, but Gaya watched him with interest. “Come on, kid, just let this work!”

  Each compression jolted the boy’s corpse. For a few long minutes, nothing happened. Gaya was ready to pull him away, then she saw his eyes. Something was happening.

  “There we go, buddy! There we go!” In Greenblatt’s palms, he could feel that weak pulse gaining some strength. The zerker had found its mark. “Gaya, I need your help. Pinch his nose and breathe down his mouth.”

  “Oh…” the woman said. She wasn’t fond of kissing a corpse. “Are you sure about this?”

  “He isn’t breathing as much as he needs to. I need you to breathe into his mouth while I keep his blood flowing.”

  It seemed like a foolish attempt at reviving the dead, but again she obliged. Better to let him think he’s exhausted all of his options than to let him live with the regret that he could have done more. She pinched Krav’s nose and put her lips to his, releasing her air into him.

  “That’s it!” Greenblatt said. He was the kindling that would start the fire, but Gaya was the one blowing on it to feed it life. “One more time!”

  The woman groaned, but this time when she lowered herself to him, she felt the faintest breath escape his lips. Was he really going to bring this boy back to life? If he did, he would have to teach her. She kissed the boy and depleted her lungs.

  The tiny pulse Greenblatt had held onto suddenly burst with strength. All at once, Krav came back to life. His veins inflated with renewed vigor. His arms flew up to push away Greenblatt and Gaya. He sprang up in the bed and screamed so loudly he woke up Mac and Lenny.

  They all looked at him stunned. Barely ten seconds ago he was a corpse, and now he looked like he was ready to drag them all back to the karmic hells with him. His eyes went to Lenny, but they didn’t see his brother. They saw a scab head holding Rufus’s skull.

  “Give me that!” he yelled and snatched the skull away. “Touch him again and I’ll cut your tongue out and nail it to your forehead!”

  “Krav…”

  It was Lenny’s voice that brough him back to sanity. Krav cradled the skull in his lap and looked at his brother. The two of them looked very different to how they did in Agua Fria.

  Lenny had grown up a lot. He wasn’t the sickly boy hiding under layers of fabrics. He sat wearing a gaudy robe that made him look like a Gordo clan raider. The scared look in his eye was gone, and it was replaced with a calm resolve. Even now, he didn’t cry, and that was evidence of evolution enough.

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  Krav had looked like himself, or rather, what Lenny had always thought of him as. The headstrong, fiery temper had personified itself in the scars on his skin. They were uncountable now, the little brother thought. A gash on his neck had healed over with a thick, discolored tissue. The gunshot wound in his stomach was misshapen and scabbing. There was something behind his eyes too, something familiar and alien at the same time.

  “Are you… are you wasting?”

  “Of course I’m wasting! I crossed the entire wasteland to kill Jackass Yapyap and save you! You don’t do something as badass as that without becoming a stupid waster!”

  “I’m sorry,” Lenny said. His voice cracked as a sob formed. “You shouldn’t have come. I didn’t want this for you.”

  “Too bad. If I wasn’t going to save you, I was going to kill that asshole anyways.” Krav held up the head. “Rufus would have said it was fate or something.”

  “But you’ll die… or worse.”

  The only thing on Lenny’s mind was that braindead waster Jackmaw killed over a month ago. Back when they performed the first raid Lenny had been a part of, he beheaded the mad woman. She barely had enough of herself left to form coherent sentences, and she spoke in a strange prose. Lenny hadn’t seen the half of what they were capable of, but he didn’t want to see his brother turn into a witch.

  “I’ve died a lot on this trip. I’ll be alright. Help me up, I think I need to go take something for this pain, if you know what I mean.”

  They made a fire on top of one of the nearby buildings. Greenblatt built it from the broken furniture, Mac lit it with a chemical accelerant, and the two brothers sat and relaxed. Ulrich joined them later, once he and the other Pit Lords were done wrapping Mateo’s corpse. He waved them off as they disappeared back east towards home, then he was with his friends.

  Ulrich, not one to pass up a feast, brought up a stash of the Gordo clan’s potted lizard meat and began to roast it over the fire. Lenny and Krav were trading stories of their journeys and taking turns holding their master’s head.

  “Tell him about the Pit!” Mac said. She was sucking her fingers after burning them on the cooking meat.

  “You wouldn’t have liked it,” Krav said. “Too many lights and loud noises. I was the only survivor though.”

  “How?” Lenny asked. It was his turn with Rufus, and he stroked the dead man’s head like he was a cat sitting in the boy’s lap.

  “Long story,” was Krav’s answer, but he still went into detail on the rounds of death in the forms of wild animals and witches, then finally the Executioner Douglas Grave. The worst part, however, was the foam spray that could sober you up in an instant. Krav would fight a thousand more witches before he would let himself be sprayed by that again.

  “What about your teeth?” Lenny had noticed them back when they were operating on him.

  “These? Greenblatt made them after Mac and I chewed our way out of a wooden cage and broke out of the Bone Eater’s mud hut.”

  “Twins!” Mac said. She pulled her lips apart to reveal her metal teeth.

  “I never would have thought I was worth all that. Thank you… all of you.”

  He still couldn’t believe it. There was a piece of him that feared he would fall asleep tonight only to wake up tomorrow chained to Bantu. He looked around at the strange friends Krav made and awed at them.

  Greenblatt, the green auraed leader that had been the crackpot brains of the operation. He lounged on a mat on the floor and ate a strip of lizard meat off a stick. Without the merchant, no, the warlord, Krav wouldn’t have made it out of Agua Fria. Lenny knew his brother would never have been able to figure out how to get out of the canyon.

  Mac was a manic Gordo clan raider. She had a color surrounding her that Lenny hadn’t seen on anyone else. It was a bright yellow that Rufus once told him either meant she was a source of happiness or peace. Lenny guessed happiness, peace wasn’t in the standard arsenal of a raider. But she wasn’t like the rest of the clan, he could tell by the authenticity of the love she was feeling now. Her smile was infectious.

  Then there was the Pit Lord, Ulrich. He was quiet, but his blue aura was one that communicated loneliness. The man wore a smile and ate with glee, but deep down, he had a longing for friendship. Lenny imagined that before the intervention of Krav, his aura was perhaps a darker shade. It was brightening the longer he remained by the campfire.

  Krav couldn’t have done it without them, and Lenny would never have been saved. There was no way he could repay them.

  “Thank you.” He wiped his tears and Greenblatt put a strong hand on his shoulder. Mac offered her condolences with a hug. Krav and Ulrich ignored him and ate.

  “It was a good journey. Trust me, I’ve had a lot. But this might be my last. I was thinking I’ll lead my people back to Kiva Noon and rebuild what I can. Perhaps I’ll bring some of the Gordo clan’s weapons with me and see if I can recreate them with the fabricators.”

  “I’ll come too!” Mac said. “I can teach you how to make the black powder the right way! I can even show you how to use them!”

  “I’ll have to catch up with my clan. Shiela and Boris left already, but I’ll want to be there to bury Mateo. I’ll come visit you in Kiva Noon as soon as a mission takes me out of the Pit.”

  “Oh, oh! Take some of the Gordo guys with you. I’ll pick out some of the good ones and let you have the rest. What do you think, Greenblatt? Some of those guys can teach you a lot about guns, and the Tallyman’s just a kid.”

  “We’ll see… what about you, Krav? Where will you and your brother go?”

  Lenny looked at him and waited for an answer. He would follow him now wherever he went. There was nowhere else for him to go now that he was no longer the war sage. Krav chewed on a fatty piece of lizard meat for a long moment before speaking up.

  “I’ve been thinking a lot about what’s outside the valley. Ever since Shit-o talked about it, I could only get it out of my head when I was thinking about Jackmaw and Lenny. I think I want to go explore that.”

  “You can’t be serious,” Lenny said, but by the look on his brother’s face, he was dead serious. The crusting skin around his eyes had narrowed his sight, and he stared into the fire to avoid all of them. “Then I’ll come with you.”

  “Me too!” Mac said. “Greenblatt will have plenty of guns and holy Ammo to play with while he waits. I can even write down the formula for the black powder, so you won’t be empty handed if I die!”

  Krav looked straight at Greenblatt, and they both understood what the other was thinking. The crystals in their heads resonated with each other, and Greenblatt nodded. It wasn’t Krav’s will to leave the valley, it was the shale’s.

  “Watch them while I’m gone. I’ll find a cure for us, and then I’ll be back.”

  “On my honor as a warlord, you have my word.”

  “You can’t do that!” Lenny protested. “I should go with you! I’m damn near precognizant now. I can see things Rufus never taught me. I can help you!”

  Krav flicked his eyes to the skull. He still had brought the mushrooms with him, and now it was time to use them. “Let’s ask Rufus what he thinks then.”

  Krav said goodbye to all of his friends. Greenblatt and Ulrich were easy. The warlord gave him a stoic nod and handshake, the kind of goodbye that expects a triumphant hello in the distant future. Ulrich Shook his hand and hugged him. It was more intimate than Krav was expecting, but he appreciated the Pit Lord.

  It was Mac that was the hardest goodbye. She didn’t want to leave him, not after they had just been reunited. There were many tears and protests, pleas for him to let her come on the journey. She could never understand what that terrible disease was doing to his mind, but eventually she capitulated. She made Krav swear not to die, and to return to the Valley of the Twin Suns as a hero.

  “I mean it,” she said. Greenblatt and Ulrich each held one of her arms as they tried to drag her away. “I mean it, Krav! If you die, I’ll kill myself just to find you in the next life and kick your ass!”

  She broke free from their hold and embraced him. With her arms wrapped around his neck, she squeezed him until he couldn’t breathe. Krav returned the hug but tapped out when she didn’t let go after almost a minute. “You’re going to kill me now if you don’t let go!”

  They promised each other that neither would fall victim to anything. That seemed to be a good enough goodbye. Ulrich and Greenblatt led her out, and she gave Krav one last smile before disappearing down the stairs.

  Krav ate a mushroom and offered another to Lenny. “It’s called Dead Man’s Delight. Tastes kind of like old fruit. It make’s you see crazy shit, but you can talk to Rufus.”

  Now Lenny was convinced Krav had lost his mind. He had heard rumors about a drug like this, but Mac never did explain its effects to him. If it made people see the dead, he wondered what Footfall must have looked like to the Gordo clan while they were inhaling Mac’s concoction.

  “I think the wasting disease has already rotted your brain,” he said, but he took one of the mushrooms. It tasted just like old fruit that had sat in the dirt for far too long. “You really think you can talk to Rufus?”

  “I’ve been talking to him the whole time! Get this, he says we’re like spiritual opposites. You’re like a short anchor or something but I’m a long chain. I think that’s what he said.”

  “What?” Lenny asked, but he thought he understood. Lenny could hold people down and take their spiritual journey with them. Krav could reach depths that not even their master could. Maybe after this adventure, Lenny could go deeper and Krav could sit still long enough to guide a soul. He doubted his letter assumption though.

  The DMD took effect after a couple of minutes. One second, they were talking, the next, Lenny was looking out over a sea of souls. He nearly fell over from the overwhelming number of them. Little green souls, barely shaped like humans shambling through the streets. It was a sorrowful sight. He could have gone all night marveling at their sadness, but he heard a voice he recognized, and he forgot all about them.

  “Lenny boy?”

  He almost didn’t want to turn around. There was no way it was actually Rufus. Their master was long dead, his bones probably picked clean by the wasteland scavengers. His voice was a figment of the boy’s imagination, nothing else. Lenny knew if he turned and saw Rufus’s face, he would either faint or bawl his eyes out. He didn’t want to do either when he was this high.

  “Lenny let me get a good look at you, boy!”

  Lenny winced, then he slowly turned. There he was, just as he remembered. Wispy white hairs cascaded around his ears. A sunburn was baked into his scalp. His eyes were pools of milk surrounded by coagulated tar. His smile was missing a few teeth, but it beamed with pride.

  “You’ve grown up a bit, haven’t you?”

  “Y-yessir.” A tear fell from his eye. His legs felt weak and a cold spell came over his guts, but Lenny held fast in the face of his master. “But… how are you…”

  “Krav didn’t bury me!”

  “Hey! I was attacked by Greenblatt and kidnapped! I didn’t have time!”

  Through the bickering, memories bloomed with so much nostalgia, Lenny allowed himself to weep. It was just like old times. Rufus was chastising them, Krav was fighting back with his own venom, and Lenny watched bemused.

  They spent the rest of the night together. It was one of the best night’s the three of them had ever shared. They reviled adventures they shared while their master was still alive and reminded each other of long forgotten stories.

  It was an earned peace. After what would have been a lifetime of turmoil, they finally earned a moment of rest. It made every scar and broken bone worth it. The distance had made them grow fonder of one another. They overlooked the necropolis that was Footfall and howled with laughter.

  But it would be short lived. As much as they wanted to stay together, they only had one night together before Krav would depart. Rufus gave his blessing and encouraged Lenny to stay behind.

  “Take Rufus,” Krav said. “He’s helped me a lot on my journey. I think it’s time you had a turn.”

  “I can only talk to him when I’m on this stuff. He won’t have as much fun with me as he would with you.”

  “Fun aside,” Rufus interjected. “I think we should stick together Krav. I want to see where this new journey will take you.”

  “I need both of you safe. If I’m not worrying about either of you, you won’t hold me back.”

  “Lenny, tell your brother he’s going to get himself killed without me.”

  He nodded. “He’s right, Krav. Take him with you. I’ll go back to Agua Fria and find Rufus’s bones. Once you come back, we can bury him together.”

  “Like hell you are. Tell you what, I’ll bring the old scab head with me if you ask Greenblatt to help you find his skeleton. Neither of us should be going alone.”

  “Deal,” Lenny said.

  They remained at the top of the building overlooking Footfall until the sun came up. It would be the last sunrise Krav would experience in the Valley of the Twin Suns.