Tread Lightly – Among Monsters And Men

The ax head of the pickaxe goes cleanly through my left arm, cutting it off a little before my wrist and freeing me from the restricting sand. Then, the sand devours my lost hand as it sinks into the ground. For a moment, my mind goes blank, the loss of my arm weighing heavily on my mind. Once you lose a limb, it’s gone for good. I don’t think even the Bloody Palm can bring back a hand.

While my mind is focused on my lost hand, I go tumbling through the sand unable to stop myself until a piece of bone jutting out from the ground ends my roll. I lay on the ground mutilated until Wiley comes stomping over to me, pent on finishing the job.

“You ain’t as fast as you thought eh lad? Well, I’m sure your bones will fit right in with these long-dead Goliaths. So long, richboy.”

He raises his pickaxe and hefts it high into the air before bringing it crashing down toward me. This threat on my life sobers me up and makes me focus as the point of his weapons comes barreling towards my sternum.

I try to use my arms to roll out of the way instinctively, but one comes up short and just shoots pain through my mind. So, instead, I am forced to breathe out defiance as there is no way to dodge what is about to hit me. I don’t use it wildly, however. With the clarity that comes only just before certain death, I wait until just before the point reaches me. Until I see myself reflected in the steel of the tool that seeks to harvest my life like the ore it was made to retrieve.

Then, I tilt my head ever so slightly to my left and blow out Strugglers Gasp. And out comes a roaring zephyr of Ether from my body that slams into the pickaxe sideways before it pierces into me. I watch in slow motion as the Ether from my breath makes my body shrink and the pickaxe slightly move away from me.

And this continues for as long as my breath exits me. I continue to shrink and weaken as the point of the tool slides ever so much more away from goring straight through me. The pickaxe nears the side of my chest as I continue to exhale. Now, my lungs no longer feel as though they are about to burst, but instead as if I’m pushing out air that I do not have.

To supplement the Ether leaving me, I use my own, no matter how much it hurts. I pull whatever I can together and force it out with whatever Strugglers Gasp can manage at this point. Further my body shrinks, and so many detrimental effects have been placed on it, I’m surprised I’m not just skin and bones at this point.

But my efforts do come to fruition. At the very last of my breath and as I feel as though my lung is about to implode, the pickaxe slides along the edge of my torso, leaving a huge gash along my side. It’s not an impalement though, so it’s a success. And the success only grows as the pickaxe pierces into the small bone slab behind me that stopped my tumble.

My exhalation causes the dust in the air to pick up and form a miniature sandstorm. For a moment neither I nor the man can even see each other through the debris in the air. But quickly, the chilling wind of the dunes about to experience sunset blows the sand away allowing me to see Wiley, the man in front of me.

I watch the man astonished and frantic try to pull the pickaxe from the rock-sized bone but do not succeed. He then looks at me with wide eyes and back to the tool before dropping it and pouncing on top of me. I assume he figures he can beat me in a brawl at this point, and he’s probably right. If not for one thing.

I’m not alone. I see Earl walk behind the man with a revolver in one hand and a bat in another. The man punches me straight in the face with his freakishly large arms and fists, but I just smile through bloody teeth at him. He’s too preoccupied and angry at me to notice anything else. And so, he misses the footsteps coming up behind him as he beats me, weak and almost useless due to injuries, exhaustion, and Strugglers Gasp, senseless.

Abruptly the punches stop as a wooden bat slams into the back of the man's head. He’s stunned for a single moment before turning around to see what hit him. Earl’s not the strongest guy, so he didn’t do much damage. My heart aches as I see the man whirl around and give Earl a haymaker of a lifetime. Instantly Earl drops to the floor, and while he doesn’t go unconscious, Earl is definitely in no shape to stand back up again.

The man looks around at the now quiet battlefield and is the only one standing. He laughs and shakes off the dust on him.

“Wiley Emerson is a tough bastard, no? Finally, you and all your friends are down for the count. I ain’t ever seen no one as injured as you are, kid. That artifact your family gave you, truly is something else. Can’t wait to have it for myself. But before I take it, I gotta send you down the river. I’m sure you understand.”

Wiley walks over to one of the first people I killed at the beginning of the fight, a man with a machete and a revolver. Wiley picks up the revolver and strolls back over to me. Then, as he stands above me, he raises the revolver and points it toward my forehead. The whole time I lie in defeat, just waiting for either the Ether saturation to kick in and finish me off or for him too.

Wiley pulls back the hammer on the revolver with a click and goes to squeeze the trigger. Before he does so, he nods and pays his respects to me.

“Nice fighting, kid. Especially for a monied. Gotta get paid somehow y’know? Your bounty is worth a fortune. Not to mention the haul I just got from my own crew.”

There’s nothing more I can do. I gave it my all. I close my eyes, ready to give up, but at the last second, I change my mind. I’ll die trying to live.

I lean forward as much as I can and place my head against the barrel of the gun. Then, with as much energy as I possibly have left, I try to raise my arms. Only the lighter one, the one without a hand answers my call for aid as the forearm bone sticking out taps against the steel of the revolver pointlessly.

I see Wiley smile. A look of understanding passes between us. He would do the exact same. He’d fight until he had nothing left. Not a tooth or bone still in existence would put Wiley down unless he decided it was time to stop. Just like me.

He lowers his gun and puts back the hammer. Then, he offers me a proposition.

“Say, kid, you ever thought of being an Outlaw? I think we’d make a great team.”

I look at him in surprise. But before I can answer, shit hits the fan and the worst moment of my life so far begins.

 

************

Earl Garner

 

My mind lays shaking and my eyes are both wobbly and blurry ever since my glasses got knocked off my face by this damned bat that’s now in my hand. I try to stand and help Wyatt, but every time I do a wave of nausea and dizziness hits me that makes me fall. No matter how much I try, I cannot help with my unathletic body. That much I’ve always been sure of.

But I planned for this. Well, not this exactly, but I expected a fight would occur. I don’t know how Wyatt didn’t. It’s like he’s fearless. No matter how scary a group of individuals appears, ostensibly he doesn't care. His paranoia only sounds an alarm when it’s dark or when we try to sleep. I wonder why that is. Did he grow up with problems sleeping? Doesn’t matter. I’m just sure this will only heighten his paranoia further.

For this expected fight, I gave Elizabeth a molotov and several rocks. I told her just to throw them to distract or use the molotov in case of emergency to deal some damage.

I told Leonard to just wait for a moment to go in and help Wyatt. He’s pretty fast and fit, but apparently not enough to shoot that monster of a shotgun.

Then lastly, and I feel a bit guilty about this one, I gave Esther a bottle full of venom from the giant arachnid and told her to wait until the moment she thought that Wyatt would die to throw it. It took me all morning, three pep talks to myself, and two vomits to work up the courage to collect it. I just knew it’d be useful.

And it is. The acidity and poison come in clutch. It was really hard to find something that wouldn’t be eaten by the venom. Eventually, I settled on an old tempered glass medicine bottle that I kept with me, but even that was slowly being eaten through. Too bad for Wiley that it’s been less than a day since I collected the venom.

Despite me giving Esther the venom, I didn’t want her to use it. I didn’t want her to risk herself unless it was a last-stand type of moment, but I would have expected her to throw it earlier just based on how many times I myself thought Wyatt died. I guess she is still angry at Wyatt and blames him for Lonnie’s death.

But, she does eventually throw it. She throws it while the man is offering Wyatt a chance to join him. Which says to me, she thinks he’d agree. I don’t think he would, but my opinion doesn’t matter as I don’t have the venom.

When she does throw it, I watch it sail straight through the air from behind a nearby rock and land on the thick of Wiley’s back. The venom’s acidity makes it tear straight through Wiley’s leather coat and eat into the flesh on his back. Then the venom infiltrates his system like dysentery going for the kill.

Wiley screams and thrashes while he tries to claw at his back for any sense of release. I can’t even imagine the pain that is going through him right now. I’m sure it’s even worse because of the fact he’s likely an evolved form of Freak, the arms being a telltale sign of his beginning. He’s probably now a 2nd Sigil Mutant or Outcast due to his strength and regeneration.

He drops to the ground and begins to writhe in pain as the venom eats away at him faster than he can regenerate. That’s going to be one hell of a painful death. Fitting for someone who would like to rob and kill travelers for their belongings.

My breathing finally steadies as the fight appears to be over. This type of action really gives me anxiety and worry despite any preparation I try to make. Like the recent tussle with the spider? That amount gave me a heart attack. They just invoke a primal fear in me. But, it doesn’t matter how much the fight scares me. We won.

I laugh a bit and smile at the fact that, even though none of us are standing, none of us are dead. Elizabeth is hurt, sure, but she’s not dead. And Leonard, the loveable dumbass who hit his head is just unconscious. I think Wyatt’s fine. I mean there is a worry that he’ll bleed out with the missing arm, but if there’s anyone who can pull through injuries like those, it’s him. Not to mention, I can still hear his raspy breathing. Don’t know how and, frankly, I don’t care how he's so tough, but it gives me faith and security in any plan I make.

While I celebrate quietly to myself and try to recover enough to go help Wyatt out, I hear soft footsteps amongst the cries of pain from Wiley. My heart instantly drops into my stomach and begins beating at over a hundred beats per minute again. Sweat suffuses my face as I see what walks atop the sand toward Wyatt.

It’s a short, red, and thin little goblin-looking demon walking with a cane in one hand and Wyatt’s old rapier in the other. There are no Bakwas around it as it’s still daytime, but I’m sure they’re not far away. A short demonic and gibberish-filled chuckle reaches my ears.

The Nain Rouge has caught up to us.

And I’m all out of plans. No more clever fixes or metaphorical aces up my sleeve. No more bombs, venom, or people to rely on. The only one with a weapon is me. The only one who can do anything is me.

I force myself to wait, though, not take action. A great chess player lets the enemy make the first mistake. That’s the only lesson I ever learned from my damn family. Assholes, the lot of them. All too focused on drinking, playing games, and gambling than ever using their minds for good. I left them because of that and drifted towards the old Hunter Ernest to help me mature. I hated how despite my family's great minds, none of them ever tried to advance humanity in any way.

I once saw my father count how many possible combinations there were for a single hand in a game of Euchre, the game my father was best at, where you could hold five cards at a time in less than three seconds. It took me over an hour at the time to figure it out.

Three-hundred-eleven million, eight-hundred-seventy-five, and two-hundred different combinations. I was nine at the time of doing that.

And it was at that moment I was disappointed with a man whom I thought was the smartest person alive. I realized that all he did was use his mind to gamble and cheat off of others. Steal from the people who are not as intelligent as him. Make other people’s lives worse.

I swore I wouldn’t be like him, and while I know I’m not perfect, I hope I am better than him.

This situation with the Nain Rouge should have been to be expected. Most things in life work like a game of Euchre. To win, one has to outsmart, outplay, or outperform another at least three times. Just once or twice won’t always net a victory, but thrice? The third time is always the charm.

And so, I wait. I wait for the final trick of the game. For the third act that will finally give us victory.

I watch as the Nain Rouge slowly approaches Wyatt. For some reason, it seems to always be focused on him. The legends say they thrive and grow on the death of evil, ruthless, and soulless men. Wyatt’s anything but that though. He’s quite moody and dark, but I’ve never in all my life seen someone so willing to fight for another. Maybe the legends are backward?

That they focus on only the kind and caring? I know that whole thing about Elizabeth killing her assaulter came out, but still, she’s incredibly caring as well. It only makes sense.

Once the Nain Rouge reaches the fallen and unmoving Wyatt, it returns his rapier to him in the most brutal and spine-chilling way possible. It stabs the rapier right into his crotch and smiles when Wyatt writhes in torment.

Immediately upon seeing this torture ensue, I try to stand and go over to help, but I cannot. My dizziness and lightheadedness prevent me from standing without falling back over. So, while on the ground, I frantically search my pockets for anything that can help. Anything that can stop this duet of suffering between Wyatt and Wiley.

I find nothing even as my hand shakes in fear of what’s happening to my friend. The screams of torment make me tremble even from over here. Then, gathering my resolve, I look to my side. The revolver that I dropped when I was hit. Quickly, I scramble over and grab it despite my dizziness.

The revolver that was meant to kill me. Or at least probably. The one that I had to play Round Roulette with. I glance back at Wyatt as I hear his screaming abruptly stop. I look up from the revolver, intending to load the only lead plumb into the primed cylinder, but I am forced to abort that as I see the Nain Rouge lift Wyatt’s rapier and aim it at his heart instead of his limbs.

My eyes flit back to the chamber of the revolver. A gamble must be made. I don’t have time to reload the round within. So, instead, I raise the iron and aim it at the back of the short red demon's head.

I hate myself even for considering taking a risk, but I feel my heart quicken even further and adrenaline flower even deeper within me. I squeeze the trigger just before the Nain Rouge puts the thin blade of the rapier between Wyatt’s ribs and into his heart.

A single, infinitesimally small moment passes where nothing happens after I pull the trigger. In this short moment, my brain fires at all cylinders just to curse myself for the stupid gamble I took. I should have loaded the bullet in before I came to help, even if it was unlikely to kill Wiley. But the doubt clears and exhilaration enters me like none I’d ever felt before as a red flash enters my eyes.

The shot successfully fires out as smoke enters my vision. The one in six. The bullet that would have most certainly killed me had Wyatt not stepped in to prevent the game of Round Roulette punctures through the air faster than the eye can see and blows the head of the Nain Rouge apart.

Then the little red demonic goblin of misfortune falls to the side of Wyatt dead. The short goblin makes a bit of sand move with him as he hits the ground. But my heart skips a beat as a realization enters my mind after the sound of the bullet stops echoing throughout the dunes.

I don’t hear Wyatt’s raspy breathing anymore.