 
The Shepherd

## Book Zero of

# The Aionach Saga

J.C. Staudt
_The Shepherd_ is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2014 J.C. Staudt

All rights reserved.

Edition 1.0
Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Map

1. The Hounds

2. The Clayhollows

3. The Way to Tristol

4. No Person Better

5. The Railside

6. Calistari's Crate

7. These Don't Exist

8. A Man Short

9. The Cave

10. Rills

11. The Deal

12. Riverbed

13. The Starwinds

14. Gambit

15. Lottimer

16. Dolls

17. The Switch

Afterword

1

The smell of meat over the campfires brought the hounds prowling.

Toler Glaive sawed off another bit of gristle and tossed it over the sand, watching it land at the edge of the fire's glow.

"Don't feed them! You'll only make it worse."

Toler raised an eyebrow. "Have some charity, Blatcher. One of these nights they don't get fed, they'll come for you."

"Or you." Blatcher's face was a motley of orange and gray in the firelight, shadows dancing over ugly scars.

Toler shook his head. "Wild things can smell fear. That makes you easier to smell."

A black shape loomed above the scrap and was gone.

Blatcher grimaced, hugging himself as if the warmth had gone out of the night. "They'd never touch me. They know better. Mongrels, all of 'em."

"Say what you will of the hounds," Toler said, flinging them another scrap. "They're loyal as any house dog."

"These hounds are no dogs, boy. They're bred to hunt men." It was Jakob Calistari, the cloth merchant whose shipping crate was the shepherds' to guard for the next three months. His words came wet and muffled through a mouthful of food. He planted his considerable girth in an empty seat by the fire and began picking through the leavings on his plate. It was uncharacteristic of the merchant to grace the shepherds with his presence during dinner. "Loyalty's one thing. Hunger is another," Calistari said.

"Speaking as an expert on the subject," Blatcher muttered.

The others laughed, garnering stares from crews around nearby fires. Calistari gave Blatcher a stare of his own, only he wasn't laughing.

"They aren't dogs, that's true enough," said Toler. "But they're feral. They don't hunt men any more than you or I do, unless they're starving. Which is why a token of goodwill is in order every now and then." He glanced at the spot where his most recent token of goodwill had landed, and found it missing.

"I still don't like 'em," Blatcher said. "It's unsettling, them being on our heels all the time. Staring at us from the dark, licking their lips. Those table scraps won't keep 'em filled for long. Who's to say when it is they get good and hungry?"

"They're no bother as long as you show them a little kindness," Toler said. "It's the savages' trained pets you've got to watch out for. They're the dangerous ones."

"The nomads should keep them on leashes," said Calistari. "That would stop them running away and prevent these kinds of infestations."

"It's a little late for leashes, don't you think? Strays have been ranging the foothills since before the Heat. Besides, they breed them big, and big things don't take to leashes so easy."

"They do if you show them who's in charge," said Jakob. "I've got a kennel full of curs at home. They know when to beg and whom to follow."

"Your curs are scarce the size of bushcats," Blatcher said, sparking another bout of laughter. "Try leashing a brace of these monsters in each hand and see where it gets you."

"Halfway over the Clayhollows, I should think," said Toler.

Men sputtered and hacked, stoking the fire with their drink. Toler took a long draught from his flask and felt it scald his throat, smiling at the revelry. The nights were cooler than the days, but they were never cold. The light-star made sure of that. Toler was warm and drunk, and that was the way he liked it.

"What do you know of it, boy? How many times have _you_ been north of these mountains?"

Toler hated when the merchant called him _boy_. He was twenty-three. It didn't matter how often he reminded the other shepherds of that; he was the youngest, and that meant he would be _boy_ for as long as Jakob Calistari liked. "I've never been north of the Clayhollows. Vantanible doesn't trade outside the Inner East anymore."

"Tender boy," said Calistari, his eyes sharp in the firelight. "Thinks he's wise beyond his years. Thinks he's seen the wide Aionach, but he doesn't know the half of it. Young punk."

"Go easy, Jakob. He was just giving us a laugh," said Korley Frittock, a lithe middle-aged man whose blond hair was so pale it might've been half-gone to gray without the casual observer knowing the difference.

The fireside fell silent, giving way to the insects' shrills and the tinder's crackling. Toler looked away, trapped under Jakob's stare. Somewhere off in the darkness, the hounds were snarling over a morsel.

Jakob must have felt responsible for the silence, because he was the one to break it. "Blasted things swarm like roaches every time we travel in the shadow of the mountains." He frowned, tossing away a leftover bone like a peace offering. It bounced and skipped over the sand, landing too far past the light's edge.

"What'd you do that for?" said Blatcher.

"What?" The merchant shrugged, innocent.

"You don't give 'em the bones. You never give 'em the bones."

"What's the harm? The boy can feed the beasts, but I can't?"

"Not if you count on getting a wink tonight. I thought you said you had dogs of your own. They'll be warring over that bone halfway 'til dawn."

Toler resisted the urge to point out that beasts as big as the hounds could chew through bones that size without batting an eye.

"Excuse _me_ ," Jakob said with disdain. "I've never spent a night in the kennel with them."

"Maybe you should–you'd learn a blasted thing or two."

Jakob inhaled through his nose. "It isn't your place to lecture me, _shepherd_." The word was an insult. Like _boy_.

Blatcher was unscathed. "Right you are. I'm just your lookout. 'Cept maybe from now on I won't be lookin' so hard."

The merchant's eyes shone with something cruel when he smirked. "Maybe I'll make sure you never work another Vantanible train again."

That one found its mark. Blatcher opened his mouth to speak, but a pile of clumsy syllables spilled out.

Toler saw the streak of anger flash across the big man's eyes. He came to his feet just as Blatcher did and clapped him about the trunk, one hand each on chest and spine. "Whoa there, big dway. Give it a rest."

"Coffer thinks he can..." Blatcher's voice fell into a murmur of choice words about Jakob and various members of his family. The big man swayed in Toler's grip, unsteady on his feet.

Toler noted the green glass bottle next to Blatcher's seat, the cork resting at the bottom in half an inch of booze. "Bedtime. Go have yourself a piss and clear your head."

Toler sent him off with a pat, too tipsy himself to have been of any help when Blatcher tripped over a spare firelog and stumbled on his way into the darkness. It was getting late, but Toler had no desire to pay attention to the hour. He'd sleep in the saddle tomorrow if he felt like it. Instead he retook his seat by the fire, leaning against his saddle and feeling the heat on his boots. It was his favorite thing in the world, this saddle; it was the last gift his dad had ever given him, though he'd only done so in death.

"I swear, if the wasteland doesn't make some men go mad," Jakob said, chuckling. "There are worse things out there than hounds, anyway." He searched for an ally, but none of the shepherds seemed to share his sentiment, and another silence followed. He cleared his throat.

Stretched.

Yawned.

Toler could almost feel how badly the merchant longed for the safety of his tent. Jakob was only staying to make some small effort at poise. Rue the day when these shepherds no longer worked for him. None of them said it, but they were all thinking it. _You don't threaten a shepherd with his job–especially not one who's good at it_.

Toler dug a hand into one of his saddlebags and pulled out a thick leatherbound tome, a third of its pages missing. Pages filled with important words he would never read. He'd read plenty in his life, but he had better uses for this drivel.

Tearing off a new page, he ripped it into squares, produced a pouch and filled each square with a pinch from inside. He licked and rolled each one, felt the paper crinkle between his fingers, thin and perfect, and sniffed along its length. Tomorrow's supply–if he didn't smoke them all tonight. He yanked a half-burned branch from the fire and lit one with the ember, spitting away the loose leaves after the first drag.

Calistari stood and left at his first chance, letting the silence follow him to his tent. Toler could tell he still felt like a fool doing it.

"I swear, if the wasteland doesn't make some men _assholes_ ," Korley Frittock whispered.

The others sniggered.

They could call it _the wasteland_ if they wanted. Toler Glaive called it paradise.
2

Morning cut a prismatic slash through barren sky, and the heat rose. They were on the western route bound for Tristol, hugging the foothills south of the Clayhollows. After Tristol was Rills, and then every small town along the way to Lottimer City at the tip of the Amber Coast, where they could soak in as much of the Horned Gulf's caustic seawater as they pleased while riding the shoreline toward home again. Toler breathed. _Nothing like a day in the scrubs_.

The caravan started off, the coil of flatbeds unfurling into a neat line. Their loads were still heavy with goods from Unterberg, and they clambered for position like slow giants. No coachman wanted to be first, and none wanted to be last. The flatbed in front was most vulnerable to bandits and savages, while the unlucky crew in last place had the hounds and the dust from everyone ahead of them to deal with.

"Who's in the mood for a song?" Toler shouted over his shoulder. He took a long pull at his flask. He'd been awake for fifteen minutes and was finding sobriety uninspiring.

"Anyone fixing to sing should do it in his head, I say, lest he catch a standing ovation in the shape of my hand."

Toler smirked. "I'll sing one just for you, Blatcher."

Blatcher sidled up to him. "Not if you've got a mind to live this day through, you won't."

The burly man was much easier to look at with his face covered against the dust. His eyes were a bright pale blue, cold and razor-sharp. Not the sort of eyes you wanted looking at you, but still a better effect than the whole face at once. How his pug nose managed to hold up the neckcloth, Toler couldn't guess.

"Alright, alright." Toler held up his hands. "I'll make a brand-new song and dedicate it to you."

"You're testing me, _boy_." There it was again. Calistari had gotten the shepherds saying it now, a bad habit Toler would never break them of. Most shepherds hated most merchants, but that didn't stop them from kissing ass when they needed to.

Toler's eyes rested on Blatcher's thick jaw, veiled beneath his neckcloth. His hand twitched, flexing and unflexing. Blatcher may have been ugly, but he was strong, and good in a fight. Now wasn't the time to be playing grab-ass, no matter how much the dway was pissing him off.

Today they would cross between the mountains and the edge of the Skeletonwood, where they'd emerge onto open scrubland. Nomad territory. As the caravan departed, the hounds swept in like sleuths to investigate the campsite. The hounds had formed a whole new tier in the ecosystem; an intermediary between human and buzzard. Whenever the trade caravans didn't leave enough food behind, the hounds ate the buzzards. Toler didn't know what they'd do if they ran out of buzzards.

The hounds were dog-like in name more than in form; they had long forelegs, thick meaty shoulders, pinback ears, and broad snouts that gave way to jutting fangs. They had the tiniest stubs of tails or no tails at all, and mangy, mottled fur run through with half a dozen shades of gray and brown. Where dogs had paws, the hounds had slender, graceful feet, with talons like carnivorous birds.

The sight of slavering beasts the size of horses gave newer shepherds like Korley Frittock a start, but Toler liked them. Maybe that was because part of him felt like he and the hounds had something in common. He'd run off from his life too, in a manner of speaking.

Shepherding had been in him since he was young, and even as a boy he knew it was only a matter of opportunity. That opportunity came when his sister-in-law disappeared three years past. Toler had pledged to help his brother find her, for good or ill. Falling in with a passing caravan had appeared to be a means of keeping his promise, but he'd been planning to leave home that way all along. The route they were on now would take them through Bradsleigh, but the only way Toler would stay in his hometown for more than a couple days anymore was if they carried him there in a box.

"Think we'll get a visit from the nomads?" Korley asked him.

They were riding beside Calistari's flatbed, the blue painted steel shipping crate half-rusted and bearing the notorious VANTANIBLE, INC. logo on either side. Thick-treaded sand tires squealed on ancient axles, the line of identical flatbeds stretching out before and after them, one to a merchant. Goods from all over traveled with them–fabrics, liquor, tobacco, scrap metal, weapons, candles, oil, tea, coffee, spices, grains, canned goods. If it would last the trip and survive the heat, chances were Vantanible, Inc. traded it.

"Hope so. Been itching for a fight," Toler replied, searching the hills.

"You're a coffing lunatic."

"Nah, not me. You do this long enough, it gets so you look for something to break up the monotony. Shipping west is easier than east anyway–I'll take Clays over Salts any day. Salt Nomads are tricky. They know the open desert better than anyone. Their favorite thing to do is ride after you and let you think you're getting away. They do it so well you won't even realize they're funneling you into a catch, over a dune or into a ravine somewhere. Clay Nomads, on the other hand... they don't fool around with fancy tricks. They'll send their hounds after you and then run you down sidelong on foot. In country like this, all a train can do against an attack like that is brace itself. Can you imagine trying to run from that? Running a loaded flatbed on four horses... that'd be a laugh, huh?"

"Never seen one go faster than I can walk," Korley said.

"S'right. These monstrosities could never handle a two-ton load at a gallop."

"How you figure we'd do if there was an attack?"

"With this lot?" Toler glanced around, pantomiming an assessment he'd already made. "We'd be in the ground in fifteen minutes flat."

"You're frightening him," said Blatcher, seeing Korley's worried look. He leaned in. "Besides... the Clays don't bury their enemies. They relieve them of their arms and legs and let the hounds wrestle over what's left. They say the hounds don't get fed unless there's human flesh to be had."

Korley went white as noontime.

"You're awful gullible for an old dway, Korley," said Toler.

"You're pulling my leg?"

"Not as hard as the nomads will."

Dead trees wore away over the hillsides until they were specks in the distance behind. The caravan hit the open country with the Clayhollows jutting up into the blue on their right. Daylight flooded a clear sky, the light-star pulling on their shadows. Hounds zigzagged along behind them, sniffing at every distraction but always keeping pace.

"Anybody who doesn't like sweating should be in another line of work," Blatcher was saying.

Infernal was the reason for all their sweat; it was the reason Toler had grown up in a world without progress. Blatcher was right; as soon as the light-star got high enough to snatch away the mountain shade, they'd be sweating out every word.

While the others talked, Toler had been working on draining his flask. He'd lost the thrust of the conversation, but he didn't mind. He was busy trying to picture the way Reylenn had looked naked, soft blonde hair giving way to the curve of her breasts, slender hips swaying as she moved toward him on long shy legs.

"You do something to me that I've never felt before," she had told him, after.

"I get that a lot," he'd said. It was a lie, of course. He hadn't wanted to admit he was feeling the same things she was.

She'd hit him on the arm and rolled over, pouting, and he'd pulled her into him and tickled her until she was laughing so hard he had to cover her mouth with his so no one would hear.

Twelve weeks had never sounded like such a painfully long time.

"Can't think of a line of work in the Aionach that isn't earned with sweat," said Andover Mays, a dark-skinned veteran who made rare occasion of speaking.

Blatcher's neckcloth pulled at his cheeks when he smiled. "How 'bout merchantry?"

The other shepherds chuckled.

Jakob Calistari shot them a long look from his seat on the flatbed, a sheen of sweat glistening on his jowls over a layer of ointment. He had fair skin that would've burned in the daylight, so he was continually smearing himself with a white lotion made to block the heat. Whenever he worked up a good lather, it looked like he was oozing butter.

Calistari didn't have to come on the trade routes if he didn't want to–he was wealthy enough that he could've sent his underlings in his stead and stayed at home in Unterberg, the below-world settlement where Vantanible, Inc. was headquartered. Vantanible's presence in Unterberg made it one of the largest trade centers in the Inner East. When an established merchant like Calistari took his own trips, it was because he had reason to keep a close eye on his goods.

That was why Toler had chosen this particular trip to make his foray into smuggling. As much as he hated Calistari, he couldn't have been happier that the fat merchant had come. This was the perfect opportunity to pay him back for months of torment, but Toler would have to tread delicately if he wanted to pull it off just right.

There was always the risk of being caught, of course. If Reylenn's father ever found out Toler had been smuggling, he could kiss any hope of a future with her goodbye. He could kiss his own ass goodbye, for that matter. But the temptation to take this job had been too great to resist. It had been a last-minute thing–agreements made in shadows between contacts he barely knew. He hadn't even had the chance to inspect the goods before the caravan left Unterberg. _That's the first order of business_ , he decided. _Unveiling the stash at the bottom of Calistari's crate_... "Korley, what kind of work did you say you did before this?"

It was only Korley's second time out with them, though he'd impressed them with how well he could handle a javelin. He drew in his lips, reminiscing. "Made a decent wage as a warehouse man before I came on as a shepherd. Not decent enough for my wife and three kids. Fourth is on the way and there's more where that came from, if I have anything to say about it." He smiled, and Toler couldn't help but join him.

"Living above-world is a good way to make sure your fourth kid is your last," Blatcher said. He pointed at the sky. "Infernal don't like kids much."

"There are above-worlders who can make children," Toler said.

"Not many," Andover Mays mumbled past a cigarette. He took it between his fingers. "Except you, I hear. I hear you got a kid in every town from here to the Slickwash, Glaive."

Toler felt himself flush. "That's me," he said, feigning conceit. The smoke smelled good, so he fumbled in the pocket of his leathers for one of his handmade wraps.

"Ah well, putting a stop to the childbearing would be fine by the missus," Korley said. "Got her hands full as it is."

"Especially with you away on travel, I'd imagine," Toler said, searching for a light.

"You tell it true. Though the pay makes up for it, I s'pose."

"Danger _does_ pay well."

Korley nodded, his face softening. Toler imagined he was thinking of home, and he let himself do the same. He loved to travel, but it wasn't because of the women, like Andover Mays always said. Reylenn was the only girl he ever thought of anymore.

"Look sharp, dways. They're not wasting any time." Blatcher's shout woke Toler from his thoughts. Shapes were moving in the hills, bodies of animals and men hurtling toward them like an avalanche in black-and-brown. Nomads. Savages. The _calgoarethi_ , they called themselves, among other things, their bloodlines more pure and ancient than any in the Aionach. They'd arrived on cue, as if the caravan were an expected house guest.

When the nomads raised their battle cry, the sound chilled Toler's blood. He knew the nomads would grant them no quarter. As always, he would treat them in kind. His heart leapt as he watched them come, a song swelling inside his chest. The rush of battle ran through him, fear wrapped in mettle. It was the sting of daylight and the comfort of new leathers; a thrill no woman's touch had ever given him.

He swung his horse around to face them, pulling a javelin from his quiver. All along the line, he saw the other shepherds slipping between the merchant vehicles and coming to bear on the mountain side of the caravan. Horses stamped with the impatience bequeathed them by their riders. Toler smiled. _We're shepherds, and this is what shepherds do_.

The scavenging hounds had fled, perhaps reluctant to risk recapture at the hands of their former masters.

Korley and Blatcher came alongside him, Andover Mays sucking down his perpetual cigarette and gazing toward the approaching surge as casually as if he were looking at an empty horizon. Calistari's coachman was armed and ready to defend the flatbed, but the merchant himself was missing. _He'll be cowering somewhere right about now, praying the other merchants have given their shepherds generous gratuities. Praying he remembered to pay us ours_.

The wasteland covers a multitude of sins, and murder is chief among them. Toler had no qualms about killing. Neither did any shepherd worth his dust. Few enough were blessed with the good fortune to be alive and healthy after more than a few seasons working the trains. So when the savages came, with their hounds slavering ahead of them, hair shaven into wild patterns, cryptic emblems branded into their bare brown chests, and the slaughterlust in their eyes–every shepherd in the caravan knew that murder had never been more necessary than it was now.

The meeting of two opposing forces is sometimes like the crashing of a wave against rocks; other times, there is the mere suggestion of one side's strength over the other, the way two playing cards lean together to form a steeple fragile enough to be blown over by a draft. The nature of the meeting depends on the momentum behind it. Toler imagined the nomads' wave crashing against the caravan's rocks. He didn't want to be a rock. He wanted to be a wave. So he let his horse feel his spurs.

He didn't look back to see whether any of the others had followed, but it was clear that neither the savages nor their beasts were expecting his counterattack. He sent two hounds away licking their wounds with his javelins before he came close enough to draw steel. The machete was old, and he'd sharpened it and scrubbed off the rust more times than he could count. Feather-fletched arrows took the wind past him as he rode. He paid the arrows no mind as his horse stumbled up the rocky slope and into the oncoming tide.

The next few hounds went down quick enough; they got busy snapping at the horse and forgot about him until his blade made sure forgetting wasn't so easy anymore. Before he knew it, he'd amassed a following. He was spinning around, giving them all the trouble he could, when Blatcher rode through and trampled over a handful, providing Toler a way out.

On he went toward the line of nomads. It was the first time he'd seen them up close in months, and he noted the hunger in them. There was a path to renown for the warriors in these tribes, but they often fought just as much for survival as for glory. His horse stumbled, tripping over a low rise and plunging a hoof down some hidden crater, dumping him forward like a limp sack. He was lucky the ground was soft where he landed–a bit of rock to the spine might have been hard to recover from.

When Toler regained his footing, he found himself pressed in by two savages, while a third shot arrows at him from behind a nearby bluff. Though their longspears were well-fashioned, they were still wooden; he had the spears trimmed down by a head each before the men broke and ran. Toler left his horse where it stood and trudged up the hill, sidestepping one ill-aimed shot along his way to rout the archer from his roost. This savage didn't flee as the others had; instead he drew a dagger and lunged. Toler's swing was truer, and he sent the archer tumbling downhill with a wet neck.

Short of breath already, Toler leaned hard against the bluff and wished for a smoke, letting the line of nomads sweep past him before he darted into their midst. He elbowed the first man between the shoulder blades and sent him tumbling down the scree, then turned and laid his machete into the next. His blade sunk through soft belly flesh, and when it came free the body opened with a shallow _splunk_ and the bowels spilled like a nest of serpents.

His strokes were hard and decisive. A second fire was in him now that he had the high ground. Another savage came at him, missing with his spear point but striking Toler's face a sturdy blow with the butt end. His vision blurred and refocused. He steadied himself and set his machete out in front of him to block the backswing. The force of the swing against the blade's edge was enough to shatter the savage's spear in his hands. He flung the spear aside and drew a stone dirk, but Toler plunged a heel into the man's knee and heard a crack. When the savage was on the ground, Toler set his blade to work and didn't stop until the man was silent. He could only guess whether it was for mercy or vengeance that the nomad had cried in his strange tongue before he succumbed.

Sensing no others around him, Toler caught a breath and looked out over the valley. The caravan was in good sorts, but the tide was turning. As well-guarded as the caravan was, the savage host still outnumbered the shepherds, merchants, and coachmen put together. That wasn't counting their hounds. Toler even heard a gunshot or two crack the mid-morning sky. As most road men knew, there were only two times you ever spent a good bullet. The first was when you needed to be sure something was dead; the second was when you were going to die if you didn't. _Good bullets are worth too much to waste on Clays_ , Toler thought. He smiled. _The best bullets are worth too much to use on anyone_.

Toler ran down a savage whose flowing hair trailed behind him, taking it in a fist and yanking him hard aground. The man twitched when Toler brought glistening steel through his throat. Red pulsed from the wound, soaking Toler's leathers. He raced to his horse and took the saddle, bounding over the rocks and cursing himself for leaving a hole in the line. Heroics aside, he knew better. Calistari would tear him apart for it. By the time he made it back to the line of flatbeds, other shepherds were returning to tidy up the mess.

Cleaning up savages was a matter of chasing them off or hacking through what was left of them. The attack wasn't over, but as it always went with the savages, there were the fearless fools among them who refused to flee. _What good do they think it does them to stand and fight now, unless for some archaic idea that dying bravely is somehow better than living in healthy fear?_ Toler did his job, but that was the extent of his dedication to battle. There was no circumstance he could imagine where he'd forfeit his life for the promise of glory in death. Living suited him just fine.

He rode around to the far side of Calistari's flatbed to check on the merchant. There was Korley Frittock, slumped against the wheel, his chest spoked with javelins. His horse stood beside him, chewing a mouthful of scrub grass. Korley's hand was still caught in the reins. When the animal moved, it looked like Korley was waving, part of some grisly puppet show.

Calistari bellied out from his hiding place under the flatbed, a gopher too fat to fit in his hole. He stood, his pink skin profuse with butter-sweat, and brushed the dirt from his sweat-yellowed tunic and its embroidered buttons. Jakob cringed at the sight of Korley's body. "Get him off the wheel. We're going."

Blatcher and Andover Mays exchanged looks, and Toler dismounted to help them carry Korley's body into the foothills. They gathered what items of value they could find on Korley's corpse and in his bags, setting aside anything that might be of particular importance to his family and splitting the rest amongst themselves.

"Strange to see one of the primitive tribes so far east, ain't it?" said Blatcher, appearing not to struggle with Korley's weight.

"Yeah," said Andover Mays. "No steel, crossbows or guns. Those dways were archaic, not like the usual tribes. That attack was uncoordinated. Sloppy, sloppy."

"And this poor fella," Blatcher said, laying Korley's body in a ditch between two stones. "No reason for anybody to die to a soft attack like that. He stayed behind to defend Calistari, that fat coffer. All he got for it was a ticket to an early grave. Won't even get a grave, now I think about it. No time to bury him out here in this rocky soil."

"Calistari should've been the one skewered like a hog, not Korley," said Andover Mays. "Nomads would've made a fine feast of him. Calistari would've fed their tribe for months."

Toler would've laughed, but the silence seemed more fitting.
3

The rest of the way to Tristol was uneventful, apart from some of the worst weather the caravan could've encountered. There were several days above a hundred and twenty degrees apiece, a caustic rainstorm that came off the mountains and ate at them the second night and all through the following day, a glimpse of a cyclone in the valley, and a brief dust storm. They were all things the trade caravans were prepared to handle; routines in an unpredictable land.

Tristol was one of the legendary desert cities, built in a time when endless renewable energy was real. A time before the starwinds–intermittent geomagnetic storms that shed plasma and radiation into the lower atmosphere and kept electrical components and power stations in a constant state of disrepair. It was a Glaive city; one of the cities Toler's ancestors had architected. Glaive Enterprises was no more, though its prime competitor in those days had been none other than Vantanible, Inc. They say ' _if you can't beat 'em, join 'em_.' Toler had never liked old adages, and he didn't care enough about the past to give up a lucrative job with Vantanible.

There was little in the way of order in Tristol; there was no militaristic organization like the Scarred Comrades who ruled the northern half of Belmond, or the Corsair's Guild of Southcape, or self-proclaimed Emporer Delmarr Orinchild of New Kettering and its surrounds. Tristol was a city run by gangs who called themselves businesses; a metropolis of thieves and scavengers, full of syndicates and vigilantes. Like all desert cities, so many had died in the years ensuing the Great Heat that only a fraction of Tristol's former population remained. Now it was a decaying mass of buildings huddled together over sands that fretted away at it year after year. Its shape on the horizon was worn and melted, like a wax sculpture left too long in the daylight. There it sprawled, a low-lying rust heap hedged in by suburbia, with wide boundaries that offered its dwindling populace plenty of space.

"The markets in Tristol are the best around," said Andover Mays, when he saw the first signs of the city on the horizon. "You can get a hooker for a four-inch of copper, and drunk as you please on another two."

"That's if you don't mind liquor that tastes as bad as the hookers," said Blatcher.

Jakob Calistari's intrusion stifled their laughter. "Not so fast. You're not off duty until I say you are," he said from his seat on the flatbed. "The haul needs protecting until we make it to the Square. You expect Mr. Shapperton here to ward off the throngs of people eager for my wares? I'll not have it."

Calistari's coachman, a gray rail of a man named Hyll Shapperton, winced.

"Yeah, yeah," Blatcher muttered, waving him off.

"I mean it," said Calistari, poison in his look. "I hired you to perform a job, and I expect it done to my satisfaction. You'll not be permitted to take leave without my consent."

Blatcher tugged at his neckcloth and turned his unsightly visage toward the merchant. "You didn't hire _me_. I work for Nichel Vantanible. All you are is one of the boneheads who rents his stuff. I'm here to guard this–" he smacked the side of the shipping crate with his open palm, "–and make sure these wheels make it back to Unterberg just like they left it. You people and your _wares_ are an inconvenience I have to work around. Saving your life comes at no extra charge. So don't you for one second think I give the slightest squeeze of a _shit_ about you or what's inside this thing." He hit the crate again with the side of his fist. "Now I'll thank you to shut your coffing mouth. I can _perform my job_ just fine without listening to another word of your bellyaching."

"Very well," said Jakob, a quiver in his lip. "Nichel will hear of your insolence upon our arrival in Lottimer." He was fuming, but he kept his voice smug and level. "You too, _boy_. I intend to give Mr. Vantanible an earful about your antics last week, you can count on that. Leaving Mr. Shapperton and I alone under the vehicle to fend for ourselves. Shameful."

Shapperton winced again. Toler knew the old man wanted no part to play in Calistari's tirade. The coachman hadn't been the one hiding under the flatbed. Toler thought about defending Shapperton, but he figured he shouldn't. Blatcher's outburst had already flared the merchant's temper, and he dared not push him further. If Calistari kept his promise, they were all in deep enough trouble already.
4

The city of Tristol had been old and grimy for so long, it was impossible to tell how it might've looked when it was new. The buildings were crooked as thieves, built in haste on a foundation of shifting sand that left them sagging and settling at odd angles. As the caravan crossed into the first of the suburban neighborhoods, Infernal was dropping into the mountains to the west, casting the city in shadow.

"What I wouldn't give to have a go at that fat bastard." Blatcher was seething and bent on revenge. The look on his face was so much more sour than usual that Toler was beginning to think Blatcher might quit his job just so he could give the merchant a beating. The three of them plodded along, several horse lengths behind the flatbed, where neither the merchant nor the coachman could hear them over the noise of the approaching city.

"Your big mouth gets you into a lot more trouble than you give it credit for," Toler said.

"You want to sit around obsessing about him the whole time, that's fine by me," said Andover Mays. "We're here for two days at best, and I got a mind to do two days' worth of drinking and hustling."

"'Fraid I'm in the same boat as Mays," Toler said. "Don't get me wrong, I feel the same way about lardass over there. Watching that son-bitch suffer would give me the warm fuzzies. But it sounds like you're fixing to do something you'll regret. Why don't you come out for some drinks with us tonight and cool off? I'll pay the bill."

Blatcher's mouth tightened. "You think a little moonshine is gonna make this go away? That coffer is a bad egg. He's threatening our livelihoods, Glaive. He ain't gonna forget about it. Why should we?"

_All of a sudden I'm 'Glaive,' huh? I'll be 'boy' again when you don't need me on your side._ "Because we of all people should know merchants piss on anything that gets in the way of them getting richer. Calistari is an asshole. Vantanible knows that. He's not going to listen to him. Not a chance we'll lose our jobs over this."

"Lose our jobs? I've seen Vantanible _kill_ shepherds for less."

It was a fair point. Toler had seen it happen too. Nichel Vantanible was not a man to let formality come between him and the success of his business.

"Fine. You're worried. Let's do it your way then. What's the one thing merchants love more than anything else?"

"Getting rich. We covered that."

"No. Not getting rich. Everyone loves getting rich. What merchants love is _the deal_."

"The..."

Toler could almost hear Blatcher's gears spinning. "The deal," he repeated. "The bargain. Merchants are professional shysters, Blatcher. If all they wanted was to get rich, they'd be roadside bandits, or cult leaders, or slavers. What merchants love is haggling. Intellectual superiority. Getting the best of people. Finding ways to give you the shaft and make you think it's mutual."

"Get to the point, Glaive."

"The point is, doesn't matter if we're bargaining for our jobs or our lives. There's no person better to do it with than a merchant."
5

The Railside was a train station turned saloon, all moldy clapboard and iron girders, standing with difficulty beside a recessed length of track that was part of Tristol's derelict railcar system. Lined with a series of booths upholstered in torn red vinyl, the interior had a temporary look to it, as if the decor had been tacked on as an afterthought.

The room was thick with smoke and lantern light when Toler sauntered through the boarded-over glass door with Sylas Blatcher and Andover Mays in tow. A bell tinkled as the door slammed shut behind them, and they were enveloped in the familiar bouquet of stale cigarettes, cheap liquor, and cheaper cologne.

"My fourth-favorite shithole in this town," said Andover Mays, with an air of satisfaction unbefitting the statement.

"You like it better than the locals do, apparently," Toler said, noting its relative emptiness.

"Can I get you fellas something to drink?" asked the bartender, a petite redhead wearing a pair of aviator goggles as a necklace that called attention to her low-cut tunic.

"Three whiskeys," said Toler.

"Best stuff you got," Andover Mays added.

Toler wrinkled his mouth.

"Hey, you said it was your treat. Might as well taste good until I'm too hammered to know better."

The three of them sat around a high-top table in the middle of the room. Toler stowed his saddle on the floor.

"Why you always bring that thing inside with you?" Mays asked.

"Got it from his daddy," Blatcher said, saccharine-sweet.

"Yeah, eat shit, Blatcher. I was three when they carried my parents home in body bags. This saddle was my dad's."

Mays made a face. "Sorry I asked. Let's get tanked and forget I said anything."

The bartender dropped by with their drinks. "Here you go, boys. Can I get you all anything else?"

"You can tell me when you get off work," Blatcher said. He gave her his best smile, which made him look like he was inspecting his tooth-rot in a mirror.

"An hour after you leave town," said the bartender, without sparing him a look on her way back to the bar.

"There's the reason why nobody comes in here," Blatcher said. "No bitches in here but the bartender."

"You're subtle as a spear in the eye," said Andover Mays. "Should'a let Glaive have the first go at her. He'd've softened her up. He's prettier than she is, for Infernal's sake."

"Oh no, not Glaive. He's spoken for," said Blatcher, giving Toler his elbow.

Mays shook his head, skeptical. "Can't be. This dway doesn't do _spoken for_."

Blatcher laughed, one of his belly laughs that started with a rude burst of air and ended with a snort. "You didn't know? Glaive went and got himself a little girlie-friend. Sleeping with the boss's daughter, this one." He clapped Toler on the shoulder, nearly sending him off his chair.

Mays almost fell off his chair on his own. "Naw. You're banging Vantanible's sweet innocent flower?"

"Shut up, Blatcher. I'm not spoken for."

Blatcher pointed. "Look at him. Blushing like a whipped horse!"

Blatcher had made a fast believer of Andover Mays. A smile spread across his face, wider than any Toler had ever seen him attempt. Mays looked so proud, he was almost radiant. "You scoundrel! What are you worried about Calistari for? Bad report or no, Vantanible's gonna ring your neck on _principle_ the next time you get within reach."

That got Blatcher howling.

Toler sighed, slouching. "Coff on you. Both of you. I'm not worried about Calistari–you are. Do you want help with him or not?"

"We're busting your balls, Glaive."

Blatcher's laughter wheezed to a halt. "Let's hear what you have in mind."

"I'm not tied down to any Reylenn Vantanible, either," said Toler, knowing it was only true in a technical sense. "Getting caught up with her would be the biggest mistake I ever made. Like you said, Mays. He'd strangle me, sure as daylight."

"If you haven't banged her, I hope you don't, for the sake of that pretty throat of yours," said Andover Mays. "But if you have..." He finished the thought by giving Toler a sly smile.

Blatcher was more wheeze than laugh now, his guffaws rough and wet-sounding. He cleared his throat, spat something colorful on the floor, and lit up a cigarette. "Alright, on to the important stuff. How do we deal with Calistari?"

"We save his life," said Toler.

"Already did that, nigh on two weeks ago. He gave you more of a reaming for it than me, if you recall. Man's got no concept of gratitude. Not a shred of decency in him."

"That's not what I'm talking about. This is about _the deal_ , remember? We want him to keep his mouth shut. So how do you keep someone from talking?"

"A hammer and nails."

"A way that doesn't involve torture."

Blatcher gave him a dumb stare. His face lit up. "Threaten him."

Toler sighed. Rational exercise was too much to ask of a man like Blatcher. "You find out what they're hiding, that's how. Calistari's hiding something."

"How do you know that?"

"I don't. It's my gut talking. We've worked Calistari shipments before, right? Have you ever seen Jakob Calistari himself on a train? The man melts in the daylight. He hates it out here. Hates the hounds, hates the heat, hates the city. He visits a place like Tristol and he's scared of his own shadow the whole time. It struck me the other day that he's in the habit of sending his minions everywhere on his behalf. Why would he come himself unless there's some reason he felt like he needed to?"

Andover Mays shrugged. "Calistari is in fabrics. What's he got, a box of undies he doesn't want anybody knowing about? I think we'd be better off threatening him."

If Blatcher hadn't cared about the contents of Calistari's crate before, he was starting to now. "Nah, the business he's in don't mean shit. He could be hiding anything in that crate. We need to see what's in there. Routine inspection, any0ne?"

Toler nodded. "That's exactly what I'm saying. If he's hauling something besides fabric, Tristol's the place he'd unload it. Once we know what it is, we can hold that information over his head. We promise not to squeal to Vantanible as long as he doesn't. If he wants to keep that fat head on his shoulders, he'll shut up about those bad reports he's been threatening us with. That's called saving lives, fellas. Or blackmail, if you prefer."

"The deal," said Blatcher, with a look that bore a close resemblance to comprehension.

"The deal," Toler repeated. "Now like I said, we can be pretty sure it isn't cloth he's hiding. What cloth is important enough that he'd suffer a fifteen-week tour through the Amber Coast? I'm not buying it."

Andover Mays gestured toward the bar. "You _are_ buying the drinks tonight though, and I'm ready for another."
6

Walled in by tall buildings and guarded around the clock by well-paid henchmen, Tristol Village Square was run by a group of unscrupulous entrepreneurs who called themselves The Tristol Crest. While the Crest's dominion was limited to the confines of the Square, they were quick to promise traveling merchants that it was the only place in Tristol where they could hang their hats and stow their wares with the relative certainty of safety. Toler and the others were about to test the validity of that promise.

The three shepherds gave their credentials and entered through one of the six gates, keeping a casual pace despite their assorted states of inebriation. Distant stars shed pale blue light against the brickwork, but the yard was otherwise dim under the night sky. The Square was as grand a courtyard as any in the Inner East, with stables and garages for storing animals and crates, market stalls for the selling of goods during open hours, and even a small boarding house for the merchants and their guardians, aptly named the Tristol Village Square Hotel.

It wasn't hard to locate Calistari's booth, with its colorful array of bolts and spools displaying fabric of every kind–linens, cottons, wools, leathers, and silks. Many of his threads were rare–the kind of finery only the wealthy could afford. The booth was closed and locked down for the night; Calistari was either counting his riches or already asleep. Toler hoped it was the latter.

They strolled through the market and into an open side door that was set along a wall of loading bays. On the other side, the enormous warehouse they called the dealer shed opened up before them. Toler glanced over his shoulder and across the courtyard before they went in. There was an old man having a smoke at the far end, but no one else was around. Toler nodded, pleased at the lack of intrusion. They were clear to get to work.

Inside, Andover Mays tried to light a candle with his striker, then resorted to using his cigarette when he was unsuccessful. They passed by row after row of stored boxes and shipping crates until they arrived at Calistari's flatbed, its latch secured with a heavy padlock as expected. Snuffed torches hung in sconces along the wall, leaving the candle their sole source of light in the cavernous warehouse.

"What now?" asked Blatcher, looking around warily as their shadows danced along the floor.

Toler undid his belt, unbuttoned his pants, and pulled out the crowbar he'd strapped to his thigh. Someday he would opt for the more comfortable approach of keeping things up his sleeve. Whenever he got into the habit of wearing sleeves. He handed the tool to Blatcher, who grimaced before taking it. "Now, we bust the lock. What'd you think we were going to do?"

Blatcher wedged the crowbar into the padlock's shackle and wrenched downward. The lock came undone with a pop. When they slid the door's latch open, it squealed in its track and sent echoes over the walls. Opening the big metal door on its rusty hinges was even worse. They waited for several moments, letting the noise die off the room and listening for any signs of alarm before they stepped inside, leaving the door cracked behind them.

Everything appeared to have been unloaded from the crate except for the merchant's own portable booth and a layer of dusty woolen blankets, laid out across the floor to keep the dirt off his finer fabrics. The blankets looked too thick somehow. Blatcher narrowed his eyes and gave Toler a look. A look that told him they were both thinking the same thing. Together they yanked the blankets away.

"Dolls?" said Andover Mays.

"Coffing... cloth dolls," said Blatcher.

Long, shallow wooden crates lined the floor, each one filled with an assortment of stuffed figurines, dressed in clothing of every color, with burlap skin and big round button eyes and rough-spun woolen hair.

Blatcher frowned. "He isn't hiding anything valuable. He's just saving himself some embarrassment. Shit."

"I don't get it," said Andover Mays. "When was the last time we visited a city that had more than a handful of kids?"

"Never." Toler grabbed one of the dolls for a closer look. It was heavier than it should've been. Its head flopped against its back as soon as he lifted it off the pile. _Thank goodness. There's more than stuffing in here._ He flicked his knife open and turned the doll over. There was a rough seam along the back of its head. He made a vertical cut through the seam, and in the candlelight something glimmered from within. "Embarrassment might not be enough to shut him up," Toler said, "but a shit-ton of nine-millimeter ammunition is."

Blatcher was confused. "Lemme see." He dug around inside the doll's head and plucked out a bullet. "Ammo? Dolls with coffing bullets in their heads? Why didn't he just register this with Vantanible and bring it in a box? It's not like there's a law against shipping ammo."

"Have you been to an arms dealer lately?" Andover Mays said. "Everything's handloads and custom work these days. Some of that shit I wouldn't touch if you paid me, let alone put it in my gun. This is factory-grade, from before the Heat. Rare as grass anymore. This haul makes most inventories I've seen look like piles of slag."

Toler looked out across the floor to take in the vast collection. The dolls stared up at him with blank eyes and joyless smiles. "You'd have to be insane to register a crate worth this much. You'd have every bandit in the Inner East after you if people knew you were carrying something like this. Why would you broadcast it if you didn't have to?"

"Because Vantanible hates smugglers," Blatcher said. "Calistari knows that as well as anyone. Once we tell him we found his stash, he'll keep his mouth shut. He'll have nothing but praise to give Vantanible about us. Now, I say we take a little of this for ourselves." He tossed Toler the bullet he'd taken, then crouched beside the nearest box of dolls.

"Hold on a second," Toler said, shaking his head. "You're overlooking an enormous detail, big dway. We have no idea where any of this came from."

Blatcher put his hands on his knees and stood. "Who cares?"

"You don't know what kind of operation Vantanible runs, do you?" Toler said.

"I've been working for him twice as long as you have, Glaive. And Mays longer than me," said Blatcher.

"That's great, but you're not understanding me. What if Calistari got this stuff _from Vantanible_?"

Blatcher opened his mouth in dissent, but he stopped when the realization hit him. "Well shit, Glaive. Son of a bitch. If that's true, we're coffed. Calistari won't care that we know. And we can't steal from the boss."

Andover Mays muttered a curse under his breath as a drip of hot wax caught him on the knuckle. "Why did I let you two jackasses wrap me up in this? He wasn't gonna give _me_ a bad report. You coffers are here trying to save your own skins, and now I'm gonna get shafted too. Some _deal_ this turned out to be, Glaive."

"We're _not_ coffed, and I'll tell you why. Maybe this shipment _isn't_ from Vantanible. If not, we have Calistari by the balls. If it is, we'll have to get creative."

Blatcher wrung his hands. "Doesn't matter either way... does it? The only way to find out is to ask Calistari. If Jakob and Vantanible are working together, we're not just coffed. We're dead. How are we gonna get outta this one, Glaive?"

"You need to start thinking with your gut, Blatcher. You have guts in there somewhere, don't you? Come with me."
7

Toler made the knock sound urgent. Calistari opened the hollow panel door after a few moments, his hair in pillow-borne disarray, his belly draped over a pair of underpants of alarming size and color. It was a sight Toler had never imagined could be so disquieting. It was one he'd never imagined in the first place. He got hold of himself and pretended not to mind.

Jakob rubbed his eyes and blinked against the candlelight, standing on the threshold with a look of dim recognition. "What's this? Come to lynch me, have you? The young punk and the bullying brute have come to show me what-for, along with their silent partner. Very well. Have at you!" He put up a set of fists, his breasts undulating at the prospect of moving the ham hocks he called arms.

"Sorry to wake you, Jakob," Toler said, ignoring his rancor. "We need to talk to you. Someone just tried to rob your crate."

A look of horror passed over the merchant's face, his chins tremulous. He slammed the door, reappearing moments later in a nightcloak of soft blue toweling, his own candle in hand. It was in keeping that a man who sold cloth would wear the finest himself, even down to his pajamas. He made a move to shove past them.

"I don't think so," Toler said, holding up a hand. "You've got some explaining to do first. Would you mind telling us about this?" Toler held up the doll he'd taken, its stuffing spilled from the split in its head, brass glittering within.

Jakob didn't reach for it. Instead he let his head laze to one side, examining the doll as if it were something foreign to him. His eyes were glossy, his expression morose and disbelieving. "Tell me what happened," he said. "Did you see who broke in? Did they see you?"

"We were coming back from the bar. We thought we'd inspect the flatbed and make sure it was stowed properly. The door was hanging open and there was no one around. We took a look inside and found a whole bunch of these." Toler had to hand it to himself; he was a good liar when there was truth involved.

"Have you notified the guards?"

"We thought we'd better tell you first."

"I've seen a lot of weird shit in peoples' crates, Calistari, but dolls with ammo in their heads..." Blatcher shoveled a hand toward the doll in want of explanation.

Jakob was flustered. "I had nothing to do with those."

"You didn't put these in here?" Toler asked. "You're telling us you've been hauling these dolls around for two weeks without knowing it, and you had no idea your crate was full of pre-Heat, factory-loaded ammo?"

Jakob paused. "I knew about the dolls, but I don't know how _those_ got inside them." His expression was almost convincing.

"You registered these dolls, then," Toler said. "And you expect us to believe this ammunition just... appeared."

Jakob scoffed. "Of course I registered them. The dolls are on the ledger. I'm bringing them to Lottimer, to sell to my cousin Maynard. The whole reason I came on this Infernal-forsaken route was to visit him and his family. Lottimer City trades over the sea, you know. No one makes children's play-things anymore. There are enough children in the Amber Coast and around the Horned Gulf to create demand for them. Fine dolls like these will fetch a high price."

"Especially with bullets in their heads, right?"

"You think I'm lying, _boy_? I don't know anything about bullets. My employees check and re-check my stock, and I triple-check their work before anything is added to the shipping ledger. I hold myself to an exacting standard."

"Be that as it may, there's no way to know what the ledger says until we get to Lottimer and check in with Mr. Vantanible. That won't happen for another month and a half. How do you figure something like this got past your exacting standards?" It was a fair question. Calistari gave no answer, his discomfort showing in the pallor of his skin.

"The time it must'a taken somebody to sew a few rounds at a time into dozens of stuffed dolls..." said Andover Mays. "Hate to break it to you, Mr. Calistari, but someone had hold of these for hours. If you really didn't know about the ammo, it sounds like you got a crooked employee or two."

"You think someone planted these without him knowing?" Toler turned to the merchant. "That's a little hard to believe. Regardless of your claim, the likelihood of you not knowing about this is incredibly small."

"I've told you. Until a moment ago, I had no knowledge of there being anything of value inside this crate besides the dolls."

"Did you make them all yourself? Did you see what went into each one?"

"I am a trader, Mr. Glaive, not a seamstress." It was the first time Calistari had ever called him anything more respectful than _boy_ , but Toler supposed nerves were to blame for his sudden cordiality. Jakob's face had gone from beyond the pale to bright red. "I will remind you that the person or persons to whom this shipment is being delivered may be on their way back at this very minute to make off with the goods."

Toler had almost forgotten that Calistari still didn't know they were the ones who'd broken in. "Listen, Jakob. I was kidding about finding your crate already open. We broke into it ourselves." Toler noticed Blatcher begin to fidget when he divulged the secret. _Calm down, big dway. Don't blow it now. Keep yourself together. I can pull this off if you keep it together_.

Jakob stared in disbelief. "You shepherds are not the only people who must think me the perfect unsuspecting fool. Do you have so little respect that you would _lie_ about this?"

"Less than a little," Toler said. "I don't respect you at all. I don't even like you. But since you do business with Vantanible, I do business with you. Now I'm sorry, but evidence is evidence. This is contraband, and it needs to be reported. It looks to me like you're trying to start some kind of war. Whatever your plan might have been, forget it. You're not selling any of this. This ammo and these dolls stay right here in this crate until we get to Lottimer."

"Selling it is exactly what we _should_ do," said Jakob. "We should sell it all. And you should help me do it. Split the profits. You know the kinds of people who buy this rubbish. Do you have any idea how much we can make?"

Toler did have an idea; a pretty good one. But Blatcher and Andover Mays didn't look happy with the suggestion.

"You want to make street salesmen out of us?" said Mays.

"No coffing way," shouted Blatcher. He glanced down the hallway with a sheepish cringe, then lowered his voice to a sharp whisper. "Of course he wants to sell it. He knows his smuggling is gonna get him skinned. I say the ammo stays with us. Let the boss deal with him when we get to Lottimer."

"You're right," Toler said. "Jakob, we can't do anything with those dolls, including selling them to your cousin. You'll have to tell Vantanible the truth and let him decide what to do."

A pained look twitched across Calistari's face as he considered the implications. His expression dimmed. "Very well. Maynard will be disappointed, but since I had nothing to do with _any_ unregistered goods in my crate, I'm certain that when I explain the situation to Mr. Vantanible and root out whichever of my employees is responsible for this, I will be absolved of any wrongdoing. Now let's go downstairs and get this covered up."

They let Jakob go first down the stairs, the nightcloak fluttering about his calves. He scurried along with surprising deftness for one of his circumference. When they entered the warehouse and came to the blue shipping crate, Calistari faltered on his feet and nearly collapsed.

"You hoodlums did this?" he said, his voice quavering. He propped himself against the door, candle jittering in its tin holder. When he peered inside and saw the dolls still in their crates, a look of relief came over him. "So you thought I was hiding something, did you? That's why you raided my personal belongings?"

"You _were_ hiding something," Blatcher said. "You agreed to the same terms as every other merchant, Calistari. Don't act like you didn't. As supervising shepherd, I have the right to inspect any of Mr. Vantanible's equipment at any time if I think it's been damaged or used improperly. That includes suspected smuggling."

"You didn't have to break in," Calistari said. "All you had to do was ask and I would've opened it for you. Since you didn't, I'll be adding this little deception of yours to my list of complaints."

"It was my idea," Toler admitted. The break-in had been his idea, and he would take the blame for it.

"Take it up with Vantanible," said Blatcher. "I'm sure he'll give a shit about your complaints when he sees what you've been carting around behind his back."

Calistari paled again, but he kept up his usual stubborn indifference. "We'll see, _shepherd_."

"We have to keep this a secret until we get to Lottimer," Toler said. "If word gets out, the rest of the trip is gonna make the first half look like a picnic."

"I got my eye on you now, Calistari," said Blatcher. "You make sure at least one of us is around every time you open this crate."

"Absolutely not," Jakob said with a noted measure of belligerence. "I don't need your approval. I'll access my belongings whenever I please."

"Your belongings, huh? So the ammo _is_ yours." Blatcher look anxious to get a confession out of the merchant–or at least a rise.

"As I have already explained to you, it is not. This is absurd. Do not overstep your bounds, Mr. Blatcher. Vantanible will hear of this."

"Have it your way. But if there's any sign of you tampering with these dolls before we get back, we're gonna have a problem."

Calistari raised his shoulders, more shudder than shrug. "Perfect."

Toler shook his doll until it puked the contents of its burlap skull into his palm. He'd never seen a brand-new bullet before. It was genuine, alright. Polished brass, no sign of scorch marks, no creasing around the edges of the shell casings. He counted six rounds, threw the doll back onto the pile, and let the rounds slide into his pocket. "Collateral," he said. "Just in case." The two other shepherds nodded.

Calistari narrowed his eyes.

"We all agree, then," Blatcher said. "Until we get to Lottimer and talk to Mr. V, these dolls don't exist."

The four men concealed their secret with the thick blankets. The merchant closed the doors, replacing the broken lock with a stronger-looking one he'd brought from his room. They left the warehouse together in silence.
8

The following day, Calistari opened at market. He'd sold through the portion of his stock intended for Tristol by late afternoon, and he was counting his take when Toler came to check on him. The shepherds had spent much of the day coming and going from the Square between napping and binge drinking. Toler never let himself drink this much on the road. Today, he told himself he missed Reylenn, and he needed it.

"You're the one thing in my life that makes sense, and now you're leaving," she'd told him the night before the caravan left Unterberg.

Toler hadn't known what to say. He was falling in love with her, but he still wanted to go. He loved his work too. He wanted to find the adventure he knew was waiting for him on the sands, and he wanted her to be with him. _My mother always went with my father when he left home. Why can't you come with me?_ He hadn't said it because he already knew the answer. Instead he'd blurted out, "I wish you'd gone to Lottimer with your dad. Then we'd be seeing each other in another month and a half."

"And we'd be apart for just as long again after that," she'd said. "I hate that you have to go."

"I just wish you could come with me," he'd said, though he knew it was impossible.

"You know my dad," Reylenn had said. "I'm forbidden from riding with the caravans unless he's there. He thinks it's too dangerous."

_I can protect you just as well or better than he can_ , Toler had wanted to say. But he hadn't said that either.

Calistari looked up when Toler entered his booth. Lengths of copper wire ranging from an inch to several feet in length lay on the table before him, the most common currency used in the city. There were bits of silver jewelry and some gold as well, along with fabrics and various sundry items market-goers had traded to him.

"Blatcher sent you to put eyes on me, eh?" said the merchant, far too elated with his profits to be annoyed.

Toler nodded. His head was spinning, and the room was starting to follow. "Looks like you had a good day."

"A great one. I'll be ready to move on tomorrow morning. I'll consult with the other merchants tonight to determine whether we'll stay another day."

"Good for you." Toler grasped the door frame, mesmerized by the glinting trails of daylight that were spiraling off the merchant's money.

"While you're here, I need you to do something for me," Calistari said.

"Can't. Well, nevermind. Make it quick. I'm sorta off the clock." Toler laughed, cheerful and nauseous all at once.

"You and your ilk are far better at this than I am," Jakob said. "As you know, we left Unterberg a man short. Then Korley Frittock was killed on the way here."

"I do know that, yeah," said Toler. He belched open-mouthed, swaying in the doorway.

Calistari blanched. "Thank you... for that. As I was saying. It would be advisable to hire another man for our crew, to take Korley's place. Here is the remainder of Mr. Frittock's pay. If you'll kindly take this across the way there to the office and inquire about a replacement, I would be much obliged. I'll check in with you later to make sure you've done as I asked."

When Toler took his hand off the door frame, the floor tried to somersault away from him. "The rest of Korley's pay should go to his family. You know he's got a wife and four kids?"

Jakob flicked a tongue over his parched lips and gave Toler a remorseful look. "I know. But there are no regulations stating that the deceased are owed compensation for work left unperformed at the time of their deaths."

Toler stared back at all three of Jakob. "No, there aren't. I just thought you were a reasonable man."

"Reasonable... Am I not generous? You've been paid well above the normal fee provided you by the company, haven't you?"

"You're generous when it comes to saving your neck. What I'm doubting... is your integrity." Toler was proud of himself for stringing two sentences together with his head whirring like it was.

"I'm very much aware that my integrity is at stake, Mr. Glaive. That much is thanks to the contents of my crate. If I were required to pay every dead shepherd after the fact, I'd have an army of corpses on my payroll. Now, if you please..."

Toler was starting to hate being called _Mr. Glaive_ just as much as he'd hated _boy_. It wasn't the term itself–it was Jakob's smug condescension. "You're a bastard." Everywhere Toler looked, things blurred like a wet painting caught in the rain.

"Think what you will, Mr. Glaive. Mr. Frittock's family will receive the pay due him until the date of his death. No more, no less. Now please, take this to the office–"

Toler held up a hand to refuse the merchant's task. It was the hand he'd been bracing himself with. The merchant twisted away, and there was only the daylight shining on the stark brick walls of the Square.
9

The caravan's time in Tristol came to an end the following day. They left the safe haven of Tristol Village Square and toiled into the wastes again, this time rounding the southern tip of the Clayhollows toward the old river town of Rills. The shepherds had taken part in their intended share of drunken debauchery, but Toler didn't remember much after Blatcher and Mays dragged him back to his room. Calistari had gone to the personnel office himself, and there were two new shepherds in their crew as a result: Ort Raukel, a strapping man in his late thirties who wore his leathers tight and his coal-black hair in a slick ponytail; and Drackard "Drack" Ingan, a man of about the same age but less in height, weight, apparent skill, and remaining hair.

Toler noted the feeling of tension between Calistari and his shepherds as they set out on this leg of the journey. Blatcher took to lagging behind the flatbed, whispering his derision to Andover Mays. As always, the quiet veteran sat smoking, nodding his solemn agreement, while the merchant grew ever more agitated at the mutterings of his shepherds. Toler knew Blatcher and Mays didn't trust Jakob to keep the secret, and they still didn't know whether the bullets were his. On top of that, the two new shepherds were complete strangers; they didn't even know each other, and that made them immediate outcasts from the group. As for himself, Toler couldn't wait until they reached Lottimer. He wanted to watch Calistari squirm like a fat nightcrawler on the end of Vantanible's hook.

They were two days outside Tristol, well into the afternoon, when the caravan came to a halt. Another pissing contest between Blatcher and Calistari had gotten them off to a late start that morning, and they were dead last in the caravan today.

"Glaive. Go see what's wrong," Blatcher yelled.

_Figures. No initiation rites for the new dways–I'm still the youngest._ Toler goaded his horse into motion and galloped along the line, counting the flatbeds like cars on a passing train. _Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen_ , he finished, as he reached the front. _This is a big one_. He had known it was one of the larger caravans he'd shepherded, but he hadn't realized it was this big. The western route was popular with the merchants. Trading goods through big port cities like Lottimer tended to be lucrative. That was why Nichel Vantanible had gone there ahead of time. That was why he was there now, waiting for them.

Lodd Wallingford raised his chin when he saw Toler, and rode over to meet him. A few others were riding up from further back to see what was going on.

"What's happening up here?" Toler asked.

Lodd pointed. "They found something. A cave. Up there in the rocks." He was a few years older than Toler, with wavy hair that hung in pale yellow wisps about his ears and neck, and a layer of beard that was as dark as wet sand.

"So they're stopping the whole train to go spelunking?"

"Getting some shade, they said."

Toler rolled his eyes. "It's coffing hot. They should learn to deal with it like the rest of us."

A scream came from within the cave, then stopped abruptly.

A few men laughed, thinking someone was playing a joke, but a long time passed and there was no further sign from within. Tension hung in the air, thicker than the heat itself.

Toler swabbed his forehead with his hood-scarf, temerity taking hold of him. He felt like a rock again, and wasted time was the wave that was rushing in against him. "Come on," he told Lodd. "We're gonna go see what's in that cave."

The shepherds were supposed to ride in twos whenever they left the train for any reason, but Toler snapped his reins without waiting for a response. Lodd rode after him, and they tethered their horses with the others near the mouth of the cave. Toler took a javelin in one hand and a torch in the other, and they drew up beneath the opening and listened to the thrumming from within. It was a hollow sound, and deep, like a thousand whispering insects speaking wordless in the dark. It was that sound, and the gush of cold air whipping their manes back and bristling the hair on their faces, that gave Toler pause. Something was alive in there, he was certain; the sense was undeniable. There was life within the men who'd gone before them, but there was something else, too.

His torch guttered as they strode into the black. A damp, moldy smell clung to him and made his breath catch in his throat. Lodd had gotten a whiff too; Toler heard him cough up phlegm and spit. The wind remained steady as they went, chilling the sweat off their skin and blowing tears back along their eye sockets like raindrops on a moving window. The path was flat, curling slowly downward and widening into an open cavern that rose again before it dead-ended on the other side.

The floor along the bottom of the cavern was brown and glistening in the torchlight, a gigantic mud puddle made of all the runoff that had collected here. Toler halted, but Lodd kept coming until he passed him, not looking back as he plodded the rest of the way down the slope. He leaned over to examine the sludge, then took a tender step, letting his toe fall gently into the mud.

Only it wasn't mud.

Toler may have been young, but one advantage he had over most other shepherds was some semblance of an education. Part of coming from an affluent family meant there were always books to keep him company, and as a result he'd managed to become somewhat literate. What he'd learned from reading, while paltry, was far greater than the average Aionach-worlder could boast. One of his favorite books was an old volume his brother told him came from some school before the Heat. It was called _Biology_. In it, he'd read about the vast array of creatures who lived in the Aionach, both sentient and otherwise. Everything from cotterphages to brengens, gargants to sanddragons, murrhods to amarpids; he had at least a basic understanding of them all. That knowledge only came in handy on occasion, but whenever he ventured off the beaten path, those occasions seemed to come about more often. This was one of them.

"Lodd. Lodd, LODD!" he shouted, too late.

There was a wet _splorch_ as the muck burst where Lodd touched the surface, as if his toe were a heavy stone landing in a deep pool. Viscous and brown, the substance splashed high above Lodd's head. Flat tendrils formed, wrapped around his limbs and yanked him off his feet. They enveloped his whole body and stifled his screams as they dragged him under. Indeed, this was no mud at all. It was a creature; a living thing. Toler had read about the husking loams that inhabited the damp caves and shadowed gullies of the mountains, but before now, he had never seen one. He almost didn't consider the possibility that this could be a husking loam until the memory of those old pages in _Biology_ came racing back to him.

He cursed and bolted to the edge of the bank, scanning the surface for signs of Lodd. The loam would hold him under until it suffocated him. Then it would begin the slow process of digestion.

As Toler scanned the living lake, the vague shapes of other men became visible further from the shore, encased like liquefied ghosts in their tombs. The traces of one particular passage came rushing back to him, and he touched the end of his torch to the surface. The flames spread, fueled by the decaying biomass and organic matter of the loam. He thanked his stars for books, waiting for the sludge to burn away before he yanked Lodd from its grasp, hauling him to shore as the man gasped for air. The other men from the caravan were no longer in a state where breathing would've done them any good.

The fire wouldn't eradicate the loam forever; if he wanted to destroy it completely, a more thorough extermination would've been necessary. A husking loam could regrow itself from the tiniest drip or puddle, pulling moisture, insects, and plant matter into itself as it expanded over the course of months or years, using almost none of its stored energy to subsist until live prey came near. When it got bigger, it would begin consuming rodents, and eventually it would be able to devour larger beasts. Someday it would be large enough to pull down humans again. But that day would not come for a long time, and for now, Toler was satisfied to exit the cave with his friend and leave a warning for others who might stumble upon it.

It felt terrible to leave the cave's cool wind behind them and resume baking in the daylight. They brought the riderless horses back to the caravan and spread word of the danger. The husking loam had choked two shepherds and a merchant's apprentice. Dead shepherds were all too common. Dead merchants were a rare gift, as Toler saw it.

"I don't know how I can ever thank you," Lodd told him when the commotion had died down. He'd sustained only minor burns from the ordeal and was otherwise no worse for the wear.

"I have an idea. Switch over to my crew. Blatcher will take you on. Calistari hired a couple of half-inchers from Tristol. We don't like them, and you're better than both."

Lodd pursed his lips. "That's right. You're working Calistari's crate."

"He's not so bad," Toler said. They both knew that was a lie.

"Thanks for the offer, but I don't think so," Lodd said, shaking his head.

"It isn't an offer. You said you didn't know how you could ever thank me. I'm telling you... this is how."

Lodd's brow furrowed and he gave Toler a sideways look. "If you insist. The best I can probably do is work out a trade."

"That's fine. I'll get Blatcher to talk to your crew lead. DiBellock, right? We'll give him our scrawny bald dway in exchange for you."

"Yeah, it's DiBellock. He won't be happy about it."

Toler shrugged, frowning his indifference. "Ask me about the last time I cared whether DiBellock was happy."
10

As the last day of the trip between Tristol and Rills dawned and the signs of civilization came into view on the horizon, Calistari and three of his five shepherds approached with the thought of their precious cargo and its secret full in their minds. The other two shepherds remained blissfully unaware, though Lodd hadn't appeared blissful about anything since he'd switched to Calistari's crew.

"Walling–Wallingford, is that how you say it?" Calistari was seated next to the coachman, struggling to write between bumps in the scrubland.

Lodd frowned, an expression that fit his long, slender face. "Lodd. Just call me Lodd–everyone calls me Lodd."

"Very well, Mr. Lodd," the merchant said, trying to project his voice over the noise of the caravan. "As I'm certain Mr. Blatcher has informed you, I don't tolerate insolence. My reports to Mr. Vantanible are thorough. I reward those who do their best work and follow orders. My recommendation for you will hinge upon your behavior."

Toler glanced over at Lodd, crinkling his mouth by way of apology. Lodd glowered back at him.

Calistari cleared his throat. "Now, first thing's first. You will remain with the flatbed until I dismiss you. Rills does not offer as safe a haven as Tristol, so the crate must be guarded at all times. This means you will work in shifts, pairing off in twos, with Mr. Shapperton here being the sixth man. Mr. Lodd?"

"Yeah." Lodd sighed. He'd been actively ignoring Calistari, and he looked perturbed that Calistari had caught him.

"Right. You'll be paired with Mr. Shapperton. Mr. Blatcher and Mr. Mays will make up the second pair, while Mr. Glaive and Mr.... Rauk–Raukel, will be the third."

Toler took a long look at Ort Raukel, the raven-haired stranger who'd joined them last week. The man had a tribal look about him, and Toler guessed he had savage blood from somewhere not too far down the line. Either he wasn't much for conversation, or the bleak stares he threw the other shepherds were his way of being friendly.

As Rills grew in the distance, the caravan crossed ground ranging from bone-dry to swampy. The terrain around Rills was the dampest in the Amber Coast, except near the ocean. Dust billowed in some places, while mud stuck to the flatbeds' thick-treaded tires in others.

Rills was a dried shell of a village, like so many other settlements in the Aionach. The unruly whims of the light-star had deprived it of its former greatness. Originally built between the branches of three rivers and their tributaries, the town was a sprawling mass of stilts and trestles. Its houses were primitive, stone and thatching and corrugated steel, with stick fences lashed together with reeds and hempen rope. Time and wind had applied their influence to topple many of the town's buildings, but the residents had scavenged leftovers and remnants from those to keep the other structures in good repair.

Bridges of riverstone and clay mud crossed great expanses of dry delta where mighty rivers had once rushed by. The Heat's cruel effects had made a mockery of them. Trout had once swam thick in those streams. Without them, the people of Rills now had to travel far up the mountainside to reach deep water. In recent years, they'd learned to survive on less appetizing varieties of aquatic life, like freshwater eel, mollusks, and bottom feeders.

The people of Rills welcomed the caravan, lining the streets in sparse crowds, altogether a more docile people than the cityfolk. Smaller settlements felt more like communities; instead of being at each other's throats, the people were inclined to work together. Peaceful towns like Rills often turned away the violent and immoral, leaving the cities to become magnets for those less savory characters.

"Shapperton, you good-for-nothing," Calistari said when the flatbed hit a deep gouge and knocked the pen from his hand. "Mr. Lodd," he yelled back, waving at the sodden implement below. "Do kindly pick that up and bring it here."

Toler almost felt bad for Lodd, but this was too entertaining to spoil with pity.

"Hurry, now." Calistari was shaking his arm with urgency, as if the pen would vanish when he got too far away. Lodd dismounted, used to feeling sand and hardpan beneath his feet. When he sunk into soft mud instead, he wobbled and fell over backwards, his boots suctioned into place.

They say the best friends are the ones who will suffer with you. Toler was glad for friends who were willing to suffer _for_ him. He halted his horse and extended a hand to help Lodd to his feet. "This is the second time in as many days that I've had to help you out of the mud," he said, grinning.

"Quit smiling or I'll make sure you can't do it again for a week." Lodd twisted around to check how much mud was on the back of his pants.

"I'm sorry," Toler said, forcing his grin into a barely containable smirk.

"This was a bad _coffing_ idea."

"Letting me rescue you a second time?"

"Letting you talk me into swapping crews."

"I didn't talk you into anything. You owed me, remember?"

Lodd picked up the pen, managed to get his boots free, and mounted. "Then warn me the next time I'm about to owe you something, so I can never do it again. Owing you anything is a _bad coffing idea_."

"Mr. Lodd," Calistari called from far ahead, still flapping an impatient hand. "If you please?"

Lodd gave Toler a look that would've lit a wet cigarette before he rode off to give Jakob his pen.
11

Toler found Calistari's room and gave the heavy wooden door a firm knock. They were staying at a dingy old motel called the Brooks Laryn, an L-shaped building with a flat roof and rust-flecked paint. The worn billboard out front had a hanging banner strapped to it that read FREE COFFEE WITH STAY in barely legible lettering. Below that, a filigree of dead black tubes spelled out NO VACANCY.

The merchant cracked the door as far as the chain would allow and eyed Toler through the opening. "What is it now?"

"I've been thinking things over, and I've changed my mind about our little secret."

"Have you?" Jakob sounded uninterested. He closed the door, and Toler heard the latch _snick_ from its slide. The merchant opened it wide and beckoned him in, closing it behind him.

"I've been mulling it over ever since that night, and I figure there's no reason to get Vantanible involved in this at all," Toler said, pacing the floor. The room smelled like smoke and mildew, and there were yellow stains on the ceiling.

Calistari took a seat on one of the two sagging beds, listening.

"It doesn't even matter to me anymore whether that ammo is yours or not. What matters is that you and I can both profit from it. If we sell it and get it off our hands, you'll be free of the contraband and Vantanible won't be able to pin a thing on you."

"I've told you already. The ammunition is not mine. I don't know how it got there. But I like your tack. The way I see it, whoever put it in with my things donated it to me. I won't pass up the opportunity to turn a fortunate coincidence like this into a fortune."

"I couldn't agree more. Now, in exchange for letting you off the hook, I'd rather not have any part in the actual sale of the merchandise–I'll leave that up to you, and I'll take my cut of the profits in advance. Also, I want Vantanible to receive nothing but good reports about me and the rest of the crew."

Jakob smiled, a thin-lipped expression that inflated his jowls. "How touching. Even while you're betraying your friends with one hand, you're looking out for them with the other. You think clean reports will help when they find out you've deceived them?"

Toler smiled back at the merchant. "Since when do you care what my friends think of me?"

"Very well. I suppose your affairs are none of my concern."

"Glad to hear it. How many dolls are there?"

"I had fifty of them made."

"That's a nice whole number–three hundred rounds, if each doll has the same amount sewn in. Now, we can't have you selling the ammo right in front of everybody. Wait until we get to Lottimer, move the whole shipment at once, and do it off-market. With the ammo removed, you'll be free to sell the dolls like you were planning. You'll profit twice."

"And what happens when we get to Lottimer and Blatcher demands justice?"

"The good report will make him happy enough that he'll forget about it. The extra earnings will smooth over any hard feelings."

"You're sure about this..." Jakob said, skeptical.

Toler kept his gaze steady on the merchant. "I'm sure."

"Then I trust your word."

Toler stopped pacing and glanced at the strongbox on the merchant's bedside table.

"Oh, your advance. I'd almost forgotten." Jakob pulled a tray from inside, its compartments bearing an assortment of fine metals. There were gold and silver coins from before the Heat, serviceable as currency in most places; rings, watches, bracelets, chains, lockets, earrings, and necklaces; and a variety of smooth gemstones, which were popular among the riverfolk due to their abundance in the stream beds. Calistari also removed the cloth bag that contained several lengths and coils of copper electrical wire. From among his riches he separated out a pile that included several ounces of gold, silver, and copper. "Agreeable?" he asked.

"A little more," Toler said.

Calistari chewed his lip, but in the end he added a few more pieces to the handful of fine metals and held it out to Toler. "Here you are. A bargain well-struck."

Toler cupped his hands beneath, but the merchant hesitated.

"You're sure you want to do it this way?"

"Doing it this way gives everyone what they want. You want to make money. Blatcher wants you off his case so he can stop worrying about his job and his neck. Mays wants to spend his days philosophizing and his nights screwing hookers."

"And what do you want, Mr. Glaive?"

A breezy grin spread over Toler's face. "I just want to make everyone happy."
12

"This is driving me insane," said Blatcher, rubbing his forehead. "Calistari isn't even fazed that we know about his stash. It's like he really didn't know the bullets were there. He's gonna make nice with Vantanible, and then he's gonna squeal on us. I know it. But then you've gotta think–if someone planted that ammo like he claims, then he doesn't know whether somebody's coming for it. Why isn't he worried?"

Andover Mays took a swig of beer through one side of his mouth without removing his cigarette from the other. "You're over-thinking this. Get a hold of yourself. You sound like a scared little bitch right now. He's lying. Nobody does anything to Calistari's stuff without Calistari knowing. That dway is meticulous as they come. Don't think he doesn't know the wheres and whens of every fart that wafts in and out of his crate. He's playing us like fiddles–and you're cracking under the pressure."

Blatcher scowled at him, his cheek bunching around the knuckles it was resting on.

"You really think he's lying?" Toler said. "He's the one who insisted we guard the crate at all times. When would he unload it without us knowing? I think he's really going to come clean with Vantanible."

Lodd and Shapperton were on shift guarding Calistari's crate–and who knew where Ort Raukel was–so the three of them sat drinking in the Riverbed Tavern, the only watering hole in Rills suitable for shepherds. It wasn't that there weren't others; it was that they didn't cater to ' _thugs and ruffians_ ,' as many of Rills' proprietors referred to them. Nevermind that Toler and his co-workers were half the reason the town had any good booze to begin with. Riverfolk were like that–something about the calming nature of their streams made them averse to having a good time. That much could be said for the town's distinct lack of prostitutes, which Andover Mays had been decrying since they arrived.

"It's that cousin of his, the one in Lottimer," said Blatcher. "He'll offload it there–dolls, ammo and all. They'll sell it across the Gulf or over the Tideguine. It'll be long gone before we know any better."

"He'll still have to answer to Vantanible," said Mays.

Blatcher frowned. "Unless he manages to sell it under our noses and then sweet-talk the boss when we get to Lottimer."

"If he tries to pull something like that, then it's our word against his," said Toler. "I'd rather it be our word plus a crate-load of ammo, though. I like your theory about the cousin. We need to keep Jakob from palming them off. Vantanible is very clear on the rules. The ledger exists for a reason – he wants to know everything that's coming and going. He's never tolerated smugglers, and he won't make an exception for Jakob."

Toler looked out over the sleepy town, its torches diminishing one by one along the shoreline as the night deepened. The tavern was built in the middle of what had been the river Awliph in the old days, mounted on tall pylons like a dockhouse. Now, instead of water rushing by underneath, the deck loomed over a dry channel of silt and gravel twenty-five feet below. The roped-in walkway leading to its entrance jutted from the shore, giving you the sensation that you were rising even though it stayed level as the riverbed fell away below you. The tavern was crowded with shepherds tonight, and Toler could feel the platform shift every so often under the weight.

"I hope you're both right," said Blatcher. "All this worrying has been giving me the shits."

Andover Mays ran his hands through grease-sculpted hair and gave Blatcher a disgusted smile. "I thought you smelled worse than usual. You worry too much, my friend."

"He still thinks Calistari is gonna complain about us," Toler said to Andover Mays. "That's why he's worried."

"Yeah, and I still haven't figured out why you _aren't_ ," Blatcher said.

"I never worry. I only do things that are fun or necessary, and worrying is neither."

"Wise words from the dway who got us into this mess to start with."

Toler shrugged. "Worry if you like. Let it paralyze you. That'll be the thing that keeps you from conquering what you're so worried about."

"You can't _conquer_ a merchant, like he's a castle or something," Blatcher said.

"You're wrong. You can conquer anything that has a weakness."

"You said _the deal_ was his weakness. You said the deal would work. It didn't."

"We don't know that yet. You're jumping to conclusions. You're trying to predict what he's going to do."

"Calistari is a shyster. He does it for a living, for coff's sake. He'll find a way to screw us and come out on top."

Toler sighed. _Blatcher does look like crap_ , he thought. _I shouldn't say anything, but I guess it couldn't hurt to tell them now._ "I've got something I need to tell you. But before I say anything, I want you to know that I did this for you, and I'm only telling you now because you're stressed."

"Spit it out, Glaive. I know something's brewing in that scruffy dome of yours."

"Okay. What do you know about Jakob Calistari?"

"He's a greedy cocksucker."

Andover Mays chuckled mid-drag, coughing smoke like a faulty steam engine.

"A fair appraisal," said Toler. "I got to thinking maybe we made him the wrong deal. So I thought it was time we struck him a new one. I had the same feeling you did–like he was going to wait until the last possible minute and then screw us over. So I talked to him."

"What's going on?" Blatcher said, distracted. He was looking out toward the village.

Only a few torches were burning now, but the darkness had given way to a strange glow. Where the black of night should have been, there was instead a feeble green cast that colored every structure and patch of land Toler could see. Other shepherds were gathering around the edges of the platform, where a railing bordered windowless openings to the outside. Toler strode to the closest railing, leaning out for a glimpse of the night sky.

The auroras were exquisite–blazing curtains of irradiation dancing across the atmosphere. Toler had always thought it strange that something so beautiful could foreshadow an event so terrible. Their appearance meant Infernal was having another temper tantrum. The starwinds varied in magnitude, but aurorae as bright as these meant the oncoming storm was going to be a bad one.

"Starwinds," he said when he had returned to the table. "The next few days are going to be rough."

Neither Blatcher nor Mays responded, but the looks on their faces were enough to show their apprehension.

"So like I said, I talked to him. Sorry I didn't let you both know first, but I wasn't sure how it would go. Turns out I did get us a better deal after all. The new deal is this: instead of making him go to Vantanible, I told him he could sell the ammo."

Blatcher bristled. "You coffing dickhead. What in Infernal's name were you thinking? If you think for one second I'm gonna let that weasel get off clean..."

Toler held up two hands. "Just... listen."

"Idiot. Moron." Blatcher leaned back in his chair and wiped the sweat from his face with two hands.

Andover Mays was in a similar state. "I don't know who you think you are, boy. Throwing your weight around like some grifter, like you're some mastermind who's got it all figured out."

Toler raised his voice. "Will you just hold on and let me explain?"

"You wanna explain how we're not all gonna wake up dead when we get to Lottimer? Fine, go right ahead."

"Vantanible will never find out," Toler said.

"That's an easier risk for you to take than for us," said Blatcher. "Your family's rich. You can run back home to Bradsleigh and live the rest of your life without a care in the world. You do this shit 'cause you like it. Me and Mays, we gotta make a living. Pretty sure we both wanna stay alive while we do it."

"We'll never get out of this if you're too much of a coward to take some risks."

Blatcher's anger was stoked. "Me, a coward? Out that door, Glaive. Now, you son of a bitch. Outside with me, and I'll show you how much of a coffing coward I am." The outburst didn't get much of a reaction from the other shepherds, who were busy making a commotion about the starwinds.

"Good," said Toler. "Finally, you're pissed. Pissed is better than worried."

Blatcher's brow knitted together.

"I got all three of us clean slates as part of the deal. I told Calistari he could sell his ammo and his dolls–right under Vantanible's nose, if he wants–as long as he leaves us out of it and gives us good reports."

Blatcher's mouth was open, his face blank. For a long time Toler didn't know whether he was about to take a hit or get a hug. It was a relief when Blatcher gave him neither.

"Here's the best part," Toler said. "He paid us our share in advance."
13

It didn't take long for Rills to lose what little appeal it had. Toler thought it must have been an incredible place to be in the days when mighty rivers had still rushed through it. These days, there wasn't much to do, and there weren't many residents who could offer goods worth trading. If you liked peasant seafood you might enjoy the local delicacies, but otherwise the river town was nothing more than a convenient stopping point between Tristol and Lottimer.

The aurorae had become so bright by the time the shepherds staggered back to the motel that it looked like dawn was already touching the sky. Unable to sleep and distressed about the coming storm, they woke early and the caravan started off in the small hours of the morning.

The starwinds weren't storms in the typical sense; they weren't visible when they hit the surface, and they didn't bring dust or wind or precipitation–though their arrival often triggered other weather events. They were more something you felt, like an unseen gloom settling in the air; a crackling presence that electrified everything it touched. The starwinds messed with you, screwed up your natural rhythms, made your brain go foggy. It got hard to sleep, hard to think, and hard to stay rational.

Some people had heart problems when the starwinds came. Others got physically sick. Andover Mays was one of them. Hard as he was, he never let himself hold up the train. Every so often Toler would see him lean over in the saddle and spew up his guts, just as matter-of-fact as if he were having himself a spit. Afterward, he'd sit up, rinse his mouth, and light a new cigarette as if nothing had happened.

Over those next few days, Toler descended into a maze of confusion. He found himself depressed and overcome with malaise; tired, but unable to make his brain stop working long enough to let him sleep. Synapses pulsed, sending lazy signals like marbles down a sidewalk, losing steam, losing traction, bouncing away and rolling off course before they went missing. Flashes of Reylenn came and went over the monotonous hours; her eyes sparkling when she smiled, a secluded lane and kissing in the dark, lifting her skirt, the urgency behind it, the feel of her hips in his hands. His mind felt like a leaky bucket, dripping thoughts as he tried to grasp at them and pull them back in.

"I feel like I've been shot in the head with a jigsaw puzzle," said Blatcher.

"You look like it," said Toler. "Perpetually."

Blatcher gave him one of his ugly glances. "Boy, if I wasn't so out of it, I'd beat you senseless. And if I knew what _perpetually_ meant, I'd prob'ly do it again."

"You're always the first to make a threat around here, Mr. Blatcher," Calistari said from his seat above. He looked happy for a man whose skin resembled pink cauliflower. The starwinds didn't seem to be having much of an effect on him.

Blatcher was in no mood to be chastised, Toler knew–especially now that they had clean reports to maintain.

Blatcher nodded, restraint written all over his face. "You know me too well, Mr. Calistari," he said, forcing the words out through one of his stiff smiles.

"You're a simple man, Mr. Blatcher. It doesn't take much."

Blatcher gulped. Toler could swear he saw the shape of a sentence or two sliding back down his throat.

Further off the trail, a ramshackle hut came into view, outlined against the horizon. The route from Rills to Lottimer took them through several tiny hamlets, so it wasn't uncommon to see the dwelling of a hermit or dust farmer who'd found a freshwater well and claimed it as his own. Most of these hamlets were no larger than a handful of crude shacks, or what was left of a fuel station and a pre-Heat farmhouse or two.

Lodd Wallingford and Ort Raukel had ridden ahead in tandem so Lodd could relieve himself behind a hillock somewhere. Toler saw their horses grazing at weeds on the hilltop. The caravan passed, but neither shepherd reappeared. Toler watched the horses go by until they had faded into the distance behind. "Jakob."

The merchant scrunched up his forehead.

"Lodd and Ort have been gone a long time. Their horses are all the way back there now." He pointed.

Calistari waved a hand. "Go get them."

Toler wheeled and made for the hillock. By the time he was halfway there, he realized he should've let Blatcher and Andover Mays know he was splitting off. They were on the opposite side of the flatbed, and they might not notice he was gone. _Oh well–this'll only take a second. Unless it turns out like the cave. Shit, I should really go back_. His indecision was taking him further and further away from the caravan, making the idea of going back less appealing. _If something's wrong and they need help, it's better if I get there quickly_ , he decided.

Toler reached the top of the rise and stopped when his horse came alongside the other two. "How many times am I going to have to–" he began.

On the far side of the hillock, Lodd lay on his back, knees bent, pants around his ankles. His head was cocked back at a crooked angle. There was a red hole in his chest as big around as a pint glass. The sand beneath him was stained like dark wine. _High Infernal_. Through the haze of his addled consciousness, it took Toler longer to catch sight of Ort Raukel, who was sprawled on his stomach several yards away. The dark-haired man looked back at Toler and motioned in the direction of the hut. A field of brown weeds, scrub and cacti lay between the hillock and the tiny shack. It was an unremarkable thing, not much more than three walls and a roof of rusty corrugated steel sheets nailed to a wooden frame.

"Are you hurt?" Toler asked, reining his horse into a sidestep, for whatever small benefit it might give him to present a moving target.

Ort shook his head.

"What happened?"

Ort shrugged, then pointed toward the hut again.

_Helpful. This dway doesn't even talk when his life is at stake_. Toler scanned the field, trying to force himself to concentrate, to shrug off the weight of the starwinds bearing down on his mind. He was in plain sight of whoever was across the field, but part of him felt safer there since he was still within view of the caravan. The last of the flatbeds was well past them, though, so he doubted anyone was paying attention.

There was a _zip_ from down the field, and a _thump_.

Ort clutched the space between his shoulder and his neck. Blood spurted between his fingers. His eyes met Toler's, wild and anguished. He still didn't make a sound.

Toler considered bolting back toward the caravan, not out of fear but in want of help. The train was so far off now that by the time he returned, Ort would be dead. The dark stranger had never spoken a word to him, but he was still a shepherd. Toler had to stay.

He yanked his long-barreled revolver from its saddle holster and leapt to the dirt as a shot buzzed past him. The ammunition he'd taken from Calistari's doll was still in his pocket. He rolled onto his back behind the rise and began to load, cursing himself for not doing so sooner. His fingers were clumsy from the storm-sickness, shaky in his haste. He dropped a bullet on the ground and had to wipe the sand from it before chambering the round. Damage to the weapon was the least of his concerns at the moment, though. Twice as he loaded he heard the hillside _thud_. Each time, pale sand exploded in a spray and rained down on him. The horses spooked a little and trotted off to find another clump of scrub grass.

The loaded gun was unsteady in Toler's hand, heavy and strange. He was out of practice using it, and his deadened mind made the prospect feel daunting. Everything blurred. He rolled over twice and popped his head above the rise, scanning the field for whoever it was that had made an enemy of himself. He ducked again and rolled over three more times in the same direction, pulling up clouds of dust. His throat was parched, his lungs aching against the debris he was sucking down with every breath. His eyes came to rest on his saddlebag, where he knew lay warm liquid refreshment. It was so far off now, and yet there was a part of him that thought it would be worth it to get there, to take one last swallow before he died.

He popped his head over the rise again. This time he saw his foe–not by some stroke of luck or because his vision had cleared, but because the cloaked figure was running toward him. The figure was crouching as it ran, wearing some kind of camouflage suit, a thick layer of khaki-colored cloth strips. There was a rifle in his hands, large and black and glinting in the daylight. Toler shoved himself to his feet, his boots clumsy against the sinking sand on the hillside. He snapped off three shots as quickly as he could manage without letting the revolver fly wildly off-aim. After the third, he held the gun aside and squinted at the figure, now prone in the sand. He stood there and steadied his aim, dumb and groggy, like a cactus waving in a strong breeze. The figure lay there for a long time, unmoving, the rifle underneath the body. _Did I hit him, or is he just playing dead?_ There was only one way to find out.

_You are an idiot_ , Toler thought, leaning forward into a run.

As he drew nearer, he began to circle around the figure, angling his path to the left. With startling speed, the figure snapped into position and fired a shot from the half-propped rifle. Toler heard the bullet buzz past him. The figure flicked open the bolt to eject the shell. By the time he had chambered a new one, Toler was on him. He slid to a halt and emptied his last three rounds, gripping the revolver with white knuckles.

The head slumped over, and the rifle fell flat.

Toler closed the remaining distance and snatched up the rifle. There were two red stains in the cloak, one near the center of the spine and another just above the left buttock. He nudged the figure with a boot, rolling the body over onto its back. There was a gurgling sound from beneath the metal grille in the nyleen mask. When Toler bent and took hold of the mask, the figure grabbed him by the forearm with both hands. Toler ripped the mask away and wrenched free. A shiver ran through him when he saw the face.

It was a mutant. Or at least, it would be soon.

No one knew what caused mutantism for sure, but the going theory was that too much exposure to the starwinds unlocked a latent genetic deficiency in certain people. This man wasn't crouching by choice. That was the way he was now, his body twisted and shriveled with the onset of his condition. A mass of reddened boils sprang from one side of his face. His left eye was blanched, white and milky, the other a more normal shade of brown.

He coughed a few times. The sound was laborious and wet, and blood washed up on his lips. "Help me."

_Pitiful thing. He's dead already._ "You killed a good friend of mine," Toler said. "Another man's back there dying." Even as he said it, he knew Ort Raukel was beyond hope or help.

The mutant spoke through convulsions, gagging out the words. "I was... only... hoping for... food. Or a little... copper to b-buy it... with. Help me. Please."

Toler pressed the tip of the rifle's muzzle against the mutant's mouth, but the mutant kept his lips clamped tight. He stepped on the mutant's chest. The lips parted to reveal blood-rimmed teeth and a red throat within. Toler slid the barrel inside. The mutant began to choke.

"If you wanted help, you could've asked for it. Now it's too late. The only help you'll get from me is help dying. Stop struggling. It won't take long."

Panicking, the mutant clawed at Toler's ankle, trying to free his chest from the pressure. He tried grabbing the gun barrel, but Toler held it in place and set his jaw like a stone slab.

"No? You'd rather suffer through it, then. Alright." Toler flipped the bolt and expelled the unfired round. It fell into the sand beside the mutant's head. The mutant was twitching and writhing, his bloodshot eyes pleading for mercy. Toler stood there in the heat of midday, the sweat pouring off him, staring into the mutant's eyes and watching as the light faded from them.

Minutes passed, and the struggling waned. The mutant grew listless, and finally he stopped moving. When it was over, Toler rode up to fetch Blatcher and Mays, and the caravan went on while they buried Lodd Wallingford and Ort Raukel in shallow ditches.

They left the mutant for the hounds.
14

The starwinds blew over, lifting the shadow of gloom that lay over the beleaguered caravan. Toler could feel everything again, like cool air on his scalp after a haircut. He'd noticed Calistari becoming more anxious the closer they came to their destination, even with the starwinds gone. He wondered how the merchant was feeling about their deal now that Vantanible was only a few horizons away.

The night before their arrival in Lottimer, Calistari approached Toler. The merchant looked ill at ease, as if he were about to vomit or succumb to some other explosive event. "Change of plans, Mr. Glaive."

"What are you talking about?"

Calistari took hold of Toler's upper arm and yanked him behind a crate. Up close, Toler could see the sweat residue and the white ointment slime leaching off the merchant's face. His skin had pinkened to a shade beyond dark coral, the beginnings of a severe burn that his ointment had only delayed. His breathing was heavy, his panic evident. "It's that good-for-nothing Shapperton. He's found us out. Said he's going to tell Vantanible everything."

"How did he find out?"

Calistari glared. "You told him."

"I didn't tell him a thing. I don't even talk to that old bastard."

"You talk to Blatcher. Shapperton says Blatcher spilled everything the night after we left Rills, while he was drunk. What's going on here, _boy_? I thought you said this was staying between us."

"I know that's what I said. You're right, I couldn't keep the secret. Blatcher just gets stressed sometimes. I hate seeing him like that, thinking he's going off the deep end. I told him about the good reports to calm him down–let him know there was no reason to worry. Naturally, he wanted to know the rest."

"Well, thanks to you, it looks like we _all_ have a reason to worry again. Vantanible will have our hides for this." Jakob's rage came through in his loud whisper. The merchant was so angry, he was shaking. Toler couldn't help but enjoy it.

"Why don't we have a talk with Shapperton?" Toler suggested. "Let's see if he can be persuaded to keep his mouth shut."

"I tried that already. He refused."

Toler clicked his tongue. "Surely you of all people should know that everyone can be bought. Your price just wasn't high enough."

"I won't be subjected to intimidation by way of bribery," Jakob said, crossing his arms.

"I don't see what other option we have. I'll front some of the hardware myself if I have to. It's worth it."

Calistari sighed as though he'd been punctured. "Very well," he finally said.

"I'll be right back." Toler strolled into the flatbed enclosure, an enormous protective circle whose center was spotted with freshly-lit campfires. He found Hyll Shapperton sitting alone, about to begin cooking the dinner in his skillet, a cut of salted eel over a bed of wild rice with sweet _sague_ cactus sauce.

"Mr. Shapperton?"

The old man gave Toler a wary sidelong glance, but he tipped his hat when he saw who it was.

"I'd like to speak with you, if you have a moment."

"If this hasta do with Mr. Calistari, I already done spoke with him."

"I'm prepared to make it worth your while."

Shapperton's lip curled upward. Toler wasn't sure if he was smiling or scowling, but the man stood and followed him all the same. Outside the circle, Shapperton put his back to the wall of the crate and kept his arms at his sides.

"Mr. Shapperton, we've enjoyed a cordial business relationship for many years," Calistari said. "One of mutual respect."

The coachman looked at Toler as if he'd just heard a bad joke.

"We've spent a lot of time together up in that seat," said the merchant, gesturing, "and I know you're a good, dependable man. I'd hate for anything to happen that would tarnish the rapport we've built. I would like the second half of this trip to be smooth and painless, and Mr. Glaive and I would like to offer some... encouragement, to ensure that happens."

"I done tol' you I ain't innerested," Shapperton said. "Smugglin' is serious business, and I ain't gonna pertend I dunno what you been doin'."

"Listen, Shapperton," Toler said. "Whatever Mr. Calistari here offered you, I'm willing to double it."

"No thanks." Shapperton waved a hand and started to walk away.

Toler caught him by the wrist. "Wait," he said, but he let go when the old man gave him a questioning look. "Wait, Mr. Shapperton. We'll quadruple the offer."

Calistari was wide-eyed. "Y–yes," he stammered. "All in gold. I have plenty of it."

Shapperton drew in a breath. It was so long before he exhaled that Toler thought the old man's heart might've given out. Jakob looked as if his own heart was on the verge of doing the same.

The coachman scratched his head. "Lemme see it."

Calistari was gone so fast Toler had to suppress the urge to theorize about the type of musculature the merchant was hiding under those rolls. He came back with his strongbox in one hand and a small merchant's scale in the other, knelt, and began to weigh out a sizeable mound of gold coins and jewelry. Toler fished in his pocket for a few lengths of copper wire and whatever gold he had left, adding the items to the pot. Shapperton gave a furtive glance over his shoulder before he began scooping up his treasures and tucking them away into various pockets.

"Secret's safe with me, fellers," he said, flashing them a snaggletoothed grin. He bowed out and strutted back to the fire, whistling.

"Now we just have to hope he keeps his word," Toler said.

"Keeps his–I should hope so! That good-for-nothing just walked off with a third of my profits!"

"Still, you can never be too careful. Know what I mean? If I were you, I'd tell Vantanible about the ammo anyway. He's more likely to be lenient if you tell him the truth. Infernal forbid he finds out some other way. There's no telling what he'll do." Toler didn't know how it was possible to determine what was going on under those jowls, but he could've sworn he saw the merchant's jaw tighten.

"I won't give that good-for-nothing Shapperton the satisfaction. I've always known he was crooked. I'll go to Mr. Vantanible myself as soon as we get there, and I'll do it before the old man can say a word; he'll have no leg to stand on."

"That would be the smart thing to do," Toler agreed.
15

When they crested the final rise, Toler could see the vast city of Lottimer spread out across the lowlands before him. Gulls flew in lazy circles over everything from humble domiciles to soaring towers, their territory stretching from the port bordering the Horned Gulf in the east to the sands of the open Tideguine to the south. The offshore breezes carried the scent of death and low tide, but the ocean air was cool and refreshing, which made up for the smell.

Nichel Vantanible himself was there to greet them, his smile broad as he waved the caravan through. He pulled his horse alongside Toler's and shook his hand.

"Enjoying your stay so far?" Toler asked.

"Trading has been good," Vantanible said. "We'll have lots to bring home with us. I trust the first half of the route has gone well?"

"Not as well as I hoped," Toler said, giving him a somber smile. "We lost some good men along the way."

"I'm glad you weren't one of them," Vantanible said. "Lenn has been making quite a fuss over you."

Toler gulped. "Has she?"

"She's very fond of you, Toler. She's convinced me that you're a good man."

"I try," Toler said, unsure whether that was true.

"Prove her right."

It was all Vantanible needed to say. Toler knew he was being given a chance–but only one. He decided then and there that he'd give up smuggling and go straight. Just as soon as this this job was done.

Calistari gave a frantic wave from the coachman's seat, calling out as his flatbed passed. "Mr. Vantanible, I must speak with you at once."

Hyll Shapperton sat beside Jakob, calm and silent. When Toler's eyes met his, he gave the shepherd a warm nod. There was no smile on the old coachman's face, but his eyes said enough.
16

"Jakob, you didn't register any ammunition," said Nichel Vantanible, flipping through the ledger. "Bullets embedded in the heads of your toys, you say?"

"The dolls, sir, yes. The dolls. Come and see for yourself." Calistari tore open the crate door and snatched up one of the dolls. Its head wobbled in place, light and fluffy. He turned it over in his hands. The stitch in the back of its head was split open, the stuffing peeking through the brown burlap like a cloud trapped between two mountains. Jakob dug his fingers inside and ripped out the stuffing. Confused, he picked up another doll and spun it around. He pressed the head flat, feeling for hard objects inside. When he found none, his face took on a horrified look. He tossed the doll aside, snatching up a third, then a fourth, turning each around and yanking out its insides. He whirled to face Nichel Vantanible, his face white.

"I... I don't understand... There's stuffing in all of them. Nothing but stuffing."

"You've just admitted to transporting smuggled goods, yet now those goods are nowhere to be found? Explain yourself, Jakob."

"I... the shepherds. They found it. They know." Calistari waved a chubby finger at Toler.

Toler shrugged. "I don't know why he thinks _we_ had anything to do with it."

Calistari was past furious. "Liar. We made a deal."

"Whoever you made a deal with, it's pretty clear you've already done away with the evidence," Toler said.

"You're lying. They were here. You saw them as well as I did."

"Is this true?" Vantanible asked.

"We found the bullets in his crate, yeah," said Blatcher. "It was a routine search. I told him to turn himself in when we got here. He promised he wouldn't sell them, so it looks like he just found a way to get rid of them while we weren't looking. That lock is his, and he didn't give me a key, so no besides him has been in that crate since we found the ammo."

Toler found Vantanible studying him. The man's face took on a questioning glimmer. Toler responded with a shrug.

"Jakob," Vantanible said, nodding to his bodyguards. "I'm going to have to ask you to come with me."

"He–he... he said..." Calistari's enormous frame rose and fell with each labored breath. The color drained from the fat merchant's light-burned face as Vantanible's men hauled him away.

"Enjoy your time in Lottimer," Nichel Vantanible told the shepherds. "You'll be escorting Calistari's crate back to Unterberg, only it'll be empty this time. And you, Toler. Make sure you get yourself home safe. My daughter misses you."

With that, Nichel Vantanible followed his men out of the warehouse.

Blatcher gave Toler a bewildered look.

The look Andover Mays gave him was quite different. "His daughter misses you, Glaive. We better get you home safe."

Toler felt the blood rush to his cheeks. Everything had turned out so well, he almost didn't mind the embarrassment.
17

The night was pleasant and warm, the streets of Tristol alive with apathy, crowded with the bodies of the poor and hopeless. Smoke billowed from barrel fires where alleys stretched into the dark. Shadows leaned against weather-stained brick frontages, figures hunched in languor, embers glowing at the end of their acrid narcotic wraps. Wind whipped through the streets, kicking up miniature tornadoes of dust and garbage.

Hyll Shapperton strolled along, as casual as someone without a destination might be. He reached the corner, where a boarded-up fuel station sat decaying, and turned west. A set of shops ran along the next street, spray painted murals with broken doors and shattered windows, their insides glutted with debris. At the far end of the intersection, Shapperton watched the three shepherds enter one of the six gates that led into Tristol Village Square.

He followed them inside, lit a cigarette, and tucked himself against the wall of the courtyard to watch them stagger toward the warehouse. The last shepherd looked back and nodded at him before they went inside. Shapperton began to count out five minutes.

The hinges creaked like tortured things as he slipped into the dealer shed a few minutes later. He made his way along the rows within the cavernous expanse until he reached Calistari's crate. The door was wide open, the lock pried off and broken on the floor. No one was around, just as Toler had promised. Shapperton glanced up at the coachman's seat, where he'd spent so many sore hours on the hard bench, driving the horses through heat-riddled lands.

His was the most thankless job in the caravan, made even more so by the fact that he worked for a cruel man like Jakob Calistari. He'd slaved away his entire life to earn enough to get by on, and to do it he'd spent months at a time away from his family. He was getting too old to work, and the expenses hadn't stopped coming. Since no one else was going to thank him for all his years of service, the shepherd had arranged to thank him at Calistari's expense. Toler had gotten one of the merchant's seamstresses involved using nothing more than a bit of his charm and a two-foot of copper. After that, it was only a matter of setting the merchant up to take the fall for them.

Shapperton drew his knife and retrieved the leather bag from within his coat, then set to work, knowing his time was limited. The stitches came undone easily, and he took care to replace each doll face-up in the same place he'd found it.

Standing in the doorway, his bag full and jingling with product excised and ready for delivery, the coachman glanced down at the dolls. An ocean of unseeing faces smiled up at him. They would never speak a word of his passing, their brains removed for his benefit.

The ammunition would bring in a tidy sum. With it, he and the shepherd would ruin Jakob Calistari. Shapperton almost flicked his cigarette butt on the ground out of habit, but he refrained, remembering that the shepherds would be back with the merchant any minute now.

That was the problem with merchants. Always so concerned with getting the best of people that they never saw the bigger picture. What Calistari had amassed in wealth, he lacked in vision. What he was inspired to keep out of greed, he would lose because of that same greed.

As for Toler Glaive, Shapperton thought him to be a man of the best kind–the kind who watched over the people who needed it. Toler Glaive knew what it meant to be a shepherd.

The old coachman left the same way he'd come in–smiling.

### THE END
Afterword

I hope you've enjoyed _The Shepherd_. For a limited time, I'm offering a free copy of the next book in the Aionach Saga, _The Infernal Lands_ , to readers who post a review of this book at their favorite online retailer. Just send me an email at Jayboy75@gmail.com with a link to your review and let me know the ebook format you prefer. It is with my deepest, sincerest appreciation that I offer you my thanks for giving a brand-new author a try.

