Krav didn’t know where he was. He didn’t remember waking up, even. He wandered near the river for what felt like an eternity drenched in moonlight. No, not moonlight. There was no moon in the sky, no stars, no glow of the twin suns. The creeping fog that filled the canyon had a ghostly light to it that seemed to emanate from the blinding sea of clouds themselves.

  “Lenny!” he screamed into the emptiness. “Rufus!”

  There were no weapons stashed in his robes. No robes, in fact. He was naked, the fog prickling his body. He didn’t mind. The scorching sun in the sky was nowhere to be seen. For the first time in his life, he felt true cold.

  The waters lapped at the shore as if something large moved within it. Shadows were cast against the fog that confirmed the illusion. Something definitely moved in the water, so large it stood above it, even. The creature sloshed the shallow waves as it shuffled and trudged across the riverbed. Krav squinted into the mist at the beast. It rolled and tripped on a thousand legs, the humps on its back swinging like flower bulbs in the breeze. Then he realized it wasn’t a beast at all. Marching through the water was a procession of souls.

  “Lenny! Rufus!” Krav called. He stepped into the river, ready to pull his companions out and get the hell out of wherever this was. The water reacted violently to his presence, boiling and crackling around his ankles. It felt like stepping into a deep fryer, his legs cooking from the shins down. He didn’t care; he’d completely submerge himself if that’s what it took. One burning foot in front of the other, he pressed on into the river.

  The people in the river paid no attention to him. They stared at the back of the head of the person in front of them like there was a TV screen growing out of their scalp. Their naked bodies shambled in the water, each of them a depressed shell of a person. Krav got close, but the closer he did, the further the procession seemed to get. It was as if they took two steps to the side whenever Krav took one of his own. He called out to his companions again, then he caught the wispy hairs of Rufus floating behind his scabby head.

  “Rufus!” Krav screamed. It was so loud and panicked that the words burned in his throat. He thrashed through the scorching water like a charging beast, chasing his master. The boiling water splashed and burned his skin as it rained back down on him, but he didn’t care. He had to get Rufus, then they could find Lenny together. “Rufus!”

  Rufus stopped, the marching around him not waiting for him. He turned and found Krav. The black scabs on his eyes were gone, his pupils returned. He blinked. There was a confused look on his face, and they both realized that it had been so long since Rufus had laid eyes on either of the boys. Rufus smiled, but it faded quickly as another thought came to mind. The old man knew where he was at, even if Krav didn’t. He looked at the water, which was reacting to the boy as if he was made out of pure sodium, popping and protesting his presence.

  “I don’t think you belong here, Krav. You should go.”

  “Not without you and Lenny.”

  “Lenny ain’t here. You need to find him.”

  Krav stopped in the water. He couldn’t get any closer to Rufus. Something below the waves was pulling him away with each step he took. “Then get your ass out of the water and help me find him!”

  “I can’t,” Rufus smiled. There was a tear in the old man’s eye. Krav realized he had never seen the master look so sincere. Not even during his readings, when he claimed to touch the souls of strangers and change their lives for the better. For the first time, he met Rufus’s eyes and felt a concoction of emotions swirling in his gut. First came the anger, but that was only the confusion talking. It faded into sadness as he realized just what he meant. “Get out of the water, Rufus.”

  The master smiled and let the tear fall.

  “Get out of the water!” Krav thrashed through the waves, the nerves in his legs burning away and becoming numb. He could smell himself cooking now. It didn’t stop the boy, he simply gritted his teeth and reached out for his master. “Rufus!”

  The master turned away and joined the procession once more. He didn’t look back before disappearing into the fog.

  “Rufus!"

  Something snatched him now. A hand on his shoulder, then another on his hip. Krav swatted them away only to have more hands and arms wrap around him. He fought them, pulling and tearing like they were sticky spider webs. It was like fighting a hydra made of appendages. Each one he ripped himself free of was replaced by two more until he was encased in their grasp. He reached out for the silhouette of his master’s soul. The arms had snatched his throat and covered his mouth. He was unable to call out to his master one last time.

  There was a strange voice in his head, but he thought it sounded familiar. Krav tried his best to fight against that too, but it bore into his head like a drill. He couldn’t understand it. It had the same cadence as a platform announcer heralding an incoming train through an old, tinny intercom. He knew there was a voice there, he just couldn’t understand it. The arms yanked, then he was pulled under the water.

  Krav opened his eyes, nearly blinded now by the daylight that scorched high above him. He felt the heat on his skin again, warm and welcoming in the land of the living. The sand beneath him was soft, and he sank into it like a heated blanket. He closed his eyes again. Maybe if he was quick enough to fall asleep, he could get back to wherever that was and-

  Before he could begin dreaming, he was slapped by the heavy kick of a bare foot. The heel cracked him in the face like it was a stone wrapped in thick canvas. Krav rolled to his knees and looked for the unannounced enemy. It was the girl he had knocked out with his axe the night before. There was a raised bruise on the side of her shaved head that sported a gash through her scalp. She didn’t look particularly angry about the wound he had dealt, but she sported an irritated look on her face. She relaxed, then said, “Finally. I thought you’d never wake up.”

  “What’s with kicking me in the head?”

  “I had to see if you were dead before I could loot you, stupid. I’m a murderer, not a thief. Come on. We should grab what we can before meeting up with the clan again.” She turned from him and began digging through a dead woman’s robes. The girl peeled away the woman’s clothes and found a stash of coins hidden in a pouch strapped to her starved stomach. “Look at that, I’m already ahead of you.”

  Krav struggled to his feet. The burning sensation in his legs was gone now, left in the river with Rufus. He looked at the raider girl, then remembered his confrontation with Jackmaw Yapyap and searched the sand for his axe. She had no armor to speak of. Even in her sober state, the only thing protecting her from the harsh sun was her body paint, but even that was smearing away. The feather skirt she wore was coming apart and shedding with each movement. Any successful blow would leave her a bloody mess in the sand.

  The axe appeared as a jutting rod from the sand. The unique blade was buried beneath the surface. Krav watched the girl, determined she was distracted by the call of fortune deep within the pockets of a dead man, and snatched the axe. He had it raised and was able to fling it at her before she could look up. The crude metal sailed through the air towards her, but she ducked at the last moment. The axe landed in the ashes of someone’s tent.

  “What the hell was that!” the girl screamed. She ripped her hands from the pockets of the dead man and stomped towards Krav. She didn’t have any weapon on her, but she had a sense of superiority about her that made Krav second guess attacking her. All of a sudden, he was wondering if she was a better fighter than she looked. “Speak up!”

  “You work for Jackmaw Yapyap! This is all your fault!”

  She paused and raised one scarred eyebrow. The look on her face wasn’t just confusion. It was the puzzled look of someone working a knot out in their head. She traced him with her eyes, putting the pieces together. “Do you not?”

  “Do I look like some raider psycho?”

  She stared at the gush of blood that dried around his mouth and down his chest. “I mean, definitely a psycho.”

  Krav scanned the area for another weapon, something to get between him and this girl. One of the smashed stalls provided him with a board long enough to use as a club, and he grabbed it. He held it like a sword in front of him, and it instigated their fight again. The girl continued her approach, an angry look in her eyes. Krav met her and swung, the board heavy and slow. The girl sidestepped it. She spun like a dancer, then sent a graceful kick into his chest. Krav dropped his weapon and stumbled backwards, tripping over the sands beneath his feet. He was on his ass before he knew it, and she now had control of the board.

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  The girl swung the hunk of wood over her head like an executioner dealing the death blow. It crashed down on Krav’s head, splitting his forehead and sending his world spiraling. He went limp, his eyes rolling in his head. The girl must have decided that was enough. Krav heard the merciful sound of the board falling to the floor. She sat next to him.

  “Truce?”

  Krav only groaned in response. He could feel the dizzying head injury begin to subside, but the cold sting on his head and the hot trickle of something wet down his scalp made him want to go back to sleep. No longer to chase his master, but to sleep off the pain. He held a palm to his new gash and lifted it to see it covered in bright red blood.

  “You aren’t the best fighter, but you don’t just run away like all the others. What gives?”

  “You guys sacked the town, and now I can’t find the people I’m supposed to be protecting. Of course I’d fight you. You and Jackass Yapyap.”

  The girl was looking around as if more people would arise from the ashes of Agua Fria to attack her. “We’re the Gordo Clan. What else would we do?”

  “Get a job like everyone else.”

  She shook her head. “That’s for losers like you. Jackmaw’s the king of the world. We can do whatever we want. You should come with me. You’d fit right in, after you learn to fight.”

  Krav tried to force himself up, but the girl caught him by the forehead and pushed him back down. The force sent searing pain through his head, and he was briefly blinded by it. He submitted, collapsing to the sand and sinking back into it.

  “You should lay down and wait for it to stop bleeding. You’re going to have a bitching scar.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “I know how to get you to like me. I saw a stall that sells herbs around here.” She stood, haphazardly kicking sand all over Krav. “I’ll make you an ointment or something.”

  For a long while, the girl disappeared amongst the crumpled tents and smashed stalls. Krav was left alone to watch the clouds drag across the sky. The pungent smell of corpses rotting in the sun was beginning to stretch across the once beautiful town, and he pinched his nose to keep from going mad. The morning was turning into early afternoon and with it, the heat would set in, cooking the dead and speeding up the decomposition process. He didn’t exactly want to be around when that happened.

  To tell the truth, he didn’t want to be there now. He had to find Rufus and Lenny. The dream he had was certainly an omen. He had had dreams before concerning hunts gone wrong or getting lost in the wasteland. Rufus and Lenny had always been able to rationalize those nightmares. Sometimes they were manifestations of Krav’s own insecurities. Sometimes they were warnings created by his subconscious due to some pattern recognition he had failed to notice while he was awake.

  Trapped on the floor, he tried to focus on the meaning of his most recent dream. What would those scab heads say about it now? Lenny would call him an idiot, obviously. Rufus might be more receptive, only if he thought it was about him. A naked trudge through boiling water. A face in a crowd of faces that refused to look at Krav. The absence of his ailment. What would Rufus think of that?

  Rufus would smoke some mock root and ask the mumbo jumbo beyond the veil what it meant, just like he did every time. Krav sat up, his arms working like failing hydraulics. The girl was nowhere to be seen, and the silence that stretched over the town was overbearing. He listened to the idle flap of a tent in the wind, the howl as the breeze flew down the canyon. The wooden club from the nearby stall was close enough, so Krav reached for it and used it to pull himself to his feet. He leaned on it, feeling as old as Rufus must have on their long treks through the valley.

  Last he remembered, Jackmaw had dealt his victorious blow somewhere near their tent. Looking around, it was hard to tell if he was still in the same spot. The destruction made the town blend into a depressing corpse of itself. He felt like he was at the bottom of a great salvage pit with free reign of the pickings. Only Krav was unable to find what he was looking for. He recognized a few things, a dead man that had set up shop near their tent, a stall that was selling lizard meat, and he could see the lift tunnel from where he was. It was almost exactly in the same spot he could see it the night before. He had to be close.

  The fire had died out. That was why he couldn’t find it. His memory flashed images of the fireball, him knocking it aside, it exploding. A sea of flames had consumed their tent. Krav dragged himself to the pile of ash and stood over it for a long time. This had been his only home for as far back as he could remember, and he destroyed it in a single brawl with some scab head. It was reckless, he could already hear Lenny say. Rufus might forgive him, but his brother would never let him hear the end of it. With the assistance of his new crutch, he bent down and scooped a handful of ash. It smeared his hand, turning it into a grey glove. He let out a remorseful sigh and struggled back to his feet. Then he saw the bones.

  There was a skeleton laying down in the heap of ash. Someone was inside the tent when it went up in flames. Krav limped over to the body, discarding the stick as he went. He fell to his knees and began to scoop up the bones. He wasn’t sure whose they were, but he couldn’t calm down until he confirmed they didn’t belong to his people. He held a femur in one and a pelvis in the other. He tried matching them to himself, holding them up to his own body like he was holding up a pair of pants in the mirror. There was no point. Lenny was his size, Rufus a bit taller. The bones could have belonged to any of them, he figured. He dug through the ash and bones, searching for any other identifying factors. Anything to dissuade his sinking heart and lift his spirits.

  Krav tried to push the dream out of his mind, but each time he touched the bones, he imagined that last look at Rufus as he turned and disappeared into the fog. The skeleton was turning into a pile as he continued to thrash about the ash. Just as he was about to give up, Krav found the skull.

  It was far away from the rest of the skeleton, as if the person was decapitated before being tossed aside. Krav pulled it from the ruins of his tent and began to polish it. It was covered in black and grey soot, but it wiped away easily. He had almost scrubbed it back to a respectable polished white, but there was something wrong with the eyes. Then he realized what it was. The sockets stared back at him, crystalline growths orbiting them. The stones embedded in the skull were black and gleaming like onyx. He had never seen anything like it, but his gut told him what it was. Wasting disease.

  Krav rubbed his thumb over the growth. He imagined Rufus’s milky white eyes stuck in there, how much pain he must have endured for the trio. Judging by the state of the corpse, he didn’t die peacefully. The only solace Krav felt was that he hadn’t burned his master alive, but it wasn’t enough to rouse him from the overwhelming loss. Krav loved two people in this world, and now one was gone forever. It was hard to imagine that he’d never share a meal, a conversation, or a mock root inspired laughing-fit with his master ever again. His grip tightened on the skull, so tight he might have burst it if he didn’t stop himself. With shaking hands, he brought it to his lips and kissed it.

  A memory of the night before burned its way into his mind. There was someone who had emerged from the tent when he reached the tent. The warlord Jackmaw Yapyap had been the last one to see Rufus, and the violent death he was dealt could only come from someone like him. Krav felt his lip begin to quiver, his chest rumble. He banged the skull against his own head to keep himself straight, to keep himself from crying out in anguish and rage. Each time emotion threatened to overtake him, he pounded himself with it like a flagellant in repentance. Soon, his own blood-soaked Rufus’s skull.

  Krav sat with Rufus for a long while. He had felt the sun come up above the canyon, then disappear over the side of it again. The girl still wasn’t back yet, and if he was honest with himself, she probably wouldn’t come back at all. It wasn’t like people in the valley to help each other out for free, even if she had decided to bring him back to the garbage clan, or whatever she called it. He didn’t know when, but at some point he would have to find the board and pull himself to his feet. If it was possible for Rufus to die here, it was possible that Lenny was somewhere too, lying face down in the sand and riddled with holes from the advanced weaponry. The only thing he had to push him forward now was that there was a man out there who he could focus all of his hatred on, and he would do far worse to him than just decapitation.

  As the valley cooled and the glow of the twin suns cast their vibrant green into the baby blue evening, there was a rustling among the town. It was the first noise he had heard beyond a whistle of wind or a skittering animal. Krav opened his eyes, realized he had been in the same spot grieving all day, and suddenly felt like he had been woken up with a bucket of water. He snapped back into reality and clutched the board in one hand, tucking Rufus into his robes.

  A familiar figure emerged from an overturned table of cloths. It wasn’t the girl, though. A slender man wearing bloodsoaked linens and wielding a poleaxe stood a few yards away and watched him. It was like he froze under Krav’s gaze, like an animal before deciding to run or attack. Krav was forcing himself to his feet, the dizzying blow from earlier now a mere memory. He gritted his teeth and pointed the board at the figure.

  Another approached from behind. Krav heard the rush of footsteps approach like a stampede. He barely had time to turn his head before another poleaxe swung down and chopped his makeshift weapon to splinters. He rolled away, then sprang onto the new attacker. He was a twin of the other man who had served as a distraction, and Krav snatched at the wrapping linens at the man’s thigh. He pulled, and they both fell to the ash. The poleaxe was a terrible weapon when in grapple range, and both defaulted to clawing fingers and smashing fists. Krav didn’t know how many hits he was taking, but he landed plenty of his own blows, pounding the man’s covered face over and over while digging his fingers into the soft tissue of his throat.

  He had forgotten all about the second figure. His approach couldn’t be heard over the grunts and tearing clothing. One moment, Krav was beating down his prey, next, he was holding his neck. There was a flaring pain that spread from beneath his ear all the way to his shoulder. He felt himself growing cold, the pain suddenly the only source of heat in Agua Fria. The boy blinked, and he looked to see the edge of a poleaxe just in his peripheral. He couldn’t turn his head, couldn’t look down. A trickled of blood skated down the poleaxe, quickly turning to a stream. Krav tried call out, tried to curse his attacker, but found his breath caught in his throat. The only noise he could make was a desperate gurgling. The dizziness returned, and as much as he fought it, he could feel himself slipping away.