It was time to find that bitch Shi-Toh.

  Krav was petting Rufus. He didn’t exactly know why, but the dry bone of his master’s head felt good on his palms.

  “Will you knock it off?” Rufus said. “That feels gross”

  “I didn’t know you could feel,” Krav said. He was digging through the pockets of the corpses, taking their weapons, Ammo, and whatever drugs he could get his hands on. “Do you think I could smoke any of this? I want to smoke.”

  “You’re on a high dose of dumb-dumb. You won’t be able to stand pretty soon.”

  Krav laughed at that name, dumb-dumb. He sure felt like it was aptly named. It didn’t answer his question though. His lips were itching, and he didn’t realize he was biting them until they bled. If he didn’t have something to smoke or chew soon, he might eat his own lips and cheeks.

  Nala watched him with her heart in her throat. The boy was talking to himself, laughing at himself. The way he picked through the corpses for spare parts and his own hedonistic gain was alien to her, and it didn’t help that he was high as a kite.

  “What about this one?” he seemed to ask the skull. He was holding up a rolled cigarette to its dead eyes. There was a quiet between the two, and nothing happened for quite a long time. Then he grunted and chucked the cigarette to the side.

  “Excuse me…” she said. The way she snuck up on him was the way she would sneak up on a mega sloth so as not to scare it. “Are we… are we still hunting the Gordo clan, or did you come here to loot their bodies?”

  Krav looked at her like he had just remembered she was there. His bloody hands were wrist deep in the pockets of one of the clansmen as he stood to face her. “You’re right,” he said with a hint of sobriety in his voice. Just a hint. “There’s someone here that I need. You remember that four-eyed fuck at the camp?”

  She nodded. “He was the one who killed my flock.”

  “Good, then we’re in the same boat. You lead on. Just not too fast… I think I’m going to throw up.”

  The world was beginning to spin. Maybe Rufus was right about the dumb-dumb. He had to hold himself together until he found Shi-Toh, though.

  They continued to creep through the jungle. Every so often, they caught a glimpse of the slaves from Kiva Noon as they ran through the area freeing each other and slipping into the foliage to hide. Nala worried that even if they escaped, they would still have to survive the jungle. Maybe if they were lucky, they would find Rootwalla village and with it, find some peace at last.

  Then reality hit her like a truck. Nala led Krav to a clearing where a single slave was left behind. She had an augmented leg from her waist down, and it looked like it had locked up and prevented her from running away. A raider stood over her. By his triple mohawk full of feathers, she guessed he was important.

  Dansk stooped down and lifted the slave by her collar. He was shaking her as she sobbed and clung to his wrists. “What the hell happened here? What was all that shooting?” He brought her close to him and growled in her ear so loud Nala and Krav could hear it from where they were hiding. “Answer me or Karma help me I’ll scoop out your eyes and leave you wandering blind in the desert!”

  “I don’t know!” the slave cried. “Please! Someone let me out and then ran off! I would never dare try to escape!”

  “And yet here you are, out of your chains!”

  Nala prepared another dart, but Krav was already rising through the foliage. He didn’t look like he cared about the girl. His eyes were fixed dead onto the lieutenant. Nala recognized it and tried to stop him, but he appeared in the clearing with confidence, and she slunk back into the shadows.

  The clearing was quiet as Krav strode into it. His vision was beginning to blur, but he aimed two blinkers at Dansk and pulled their triggers. The bullets rattled off and the magazines emptied, but the raider lived. At the last moment, he turned and held the slave girl up and shielded himself.

  “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Dansk yelled. He threw the girl aside and her body leaked blood into the jungle. Nala tried not to look. If this was how wastelanders fought wars, she didn’t know if she could stomach what was coming for her tribe.

  Krav didn’t bother reloading. He was on a strong approach, and he switched to his axe. Dansk’s eyes widened, and he realized that at this distance, the kid could decapitate him before he could pull his pistol. Instead, the raider revealed his own melee weapon. One hand reached for the knife at his belt. The other fished a set of rusty knuckle dusters out of his pocket and he blocked the axe blow with them just in time.

  A flare of pain went through Dansk’s wrist, but he kept fighting, slashing his knife at what he thought was another Gordo clansmen. He mixed his attacks, swinging his knuckles and stabbing with his knife, but the boy was moving with so much combat perception, the lieutenant couldn’t land a single attack.

  “You’re attacking a commanding officer, dipshit! I’m going to have you put on a damn cross!”

  For Krav, dodging Dansk’s attacks was easy. The dumb-dumb made him perceive the strikes as if he was simply dodging a child’s angry swings with a stick. He wasn’t sure what he was talking about with the whole commanding officer thing, but he didn’t like being threatened. As soon as he saw an opening, he made his attack.

  Dansk jabbed with his knuckledusters and Krav sidestepped it. Before Dansk could pull his fist back, the boy chopped his arm off at the elbow. The lieutenant watched it fall to the floor. Instead of reacting the way his underlings had, the drugs in his system made him rage. Blood spurted from his stump as he swung the knife back and forth in wild arcs. Krav remained just out of reach, the edge barely making contact with him.

  Another opening, and Krav swung his axe. The blade wrenched between Dansk’s middle and ring finger, busting through his hand bones and settling in his wrist between his radius and ulna. Finally, the shock forced him out of his intoxicated state, and he yelled out in pain.

  “Fuck! Karma above and below!”

  Dansk reached with his ragged stump, then remembered his arm was gone. His sunburnt face was tuning a shade of ashen grey. Ragged breaths heaved in his chest like a hive of panicked bees, and he looked up at Krav with a sincere surprise.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you! Why would you do this?” He was losing consciousness as fast as he was losing blood.

  Krav grabbed his arm and pulled the axe out of it. A shriek of agony filled the jungle, then Krav knelt to meet him face to face. “Do you remember Agua Fria?”

  There was a look of horror overcoming Dansk. He didn’t recognize the boy, but he recognized the name of the town. The one they took the war sage from. The one where Jackmaw Yapyap let a boy full of rage live. Here he was now, not seeking to be an apprentice, but seeking revenge.

  “You scab heads killed my master and took my little brother. Your warlord told me to chase him across the wasteland, so I did.” Krav’s face split with a wicked smile. “I hope I’m living up to his expectations.”

  “The war sage is your brother?” Dansk croaked and slowly put the pieces together. There was a tear forming in his eye. He never thought for once that this could happen to the Gordo clan. They had conquered everything in their path, yet here was one boy alone to stop them.

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  “His name’s Lenny. Say it.”

  “L-Lenny?”

  “Bingo.” Krav stood and swung the axe into Dansk’s back, severing his spine. The lieutenant jolted with the pain, every muscle in his body seizing. When Krav pulled out his axe, Dansk shuddered and coughed up a spurt of blood. He collapsed forward and held himself upright long enough to watch a long drip of saliva and blood hanging from his mouth. Krav hit him again, then again.

  The Disciple girl couldn’t feel her legs. Nala watched him swing his axe until Dansk’s torso was a pile of mushy gore connected to a pair of legs. In paradise, even some of the most savage animals left their victims’ corpses in better condition.

  Then Krav did something she really didn’t like. He started talking to the head again.

  “Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! That’s one less raider fuck to deal with! By my count, that’s all of them!”

  “You can’t count!” Rufus reminded him. In Krav’s sleepy state, he saw the skull as a blur. He needed another hit of something, anything to keep going.

  “I don’t think I can stay on my feet much longer. What can I take to stay up?”

  Rufus directed him to unroll some of the cigarettes he had looted off of the corpses. Each was a drug that would only quicken Krav’s failing state. In a rage, he tossed them to the floor. Then he turned to the girl. “You’ve got to know something! What about that Chakra crap? You got anything in any of those darts to keep me awake?”

  Nala shook her head, then reconsidered. There was one dart that she had. “Just the rage Chakra.”

  “Give it to me. Do you have to shoot it in me, or can I just lick it or something?”

  The girl took one of the darts and pricked him with it. The cold invasion into his skin instantly woke him up. It spread from needle in his finger to his arm, then his chest, then a freezing sensation behind his eyes. Krav took a deep breath. “Oh, fuck yeah… that’s the stuff.”

  “You’re mixing. Be very careful with that. That’s how you turn into a junkie like those monsters in the Gordo clan,” Rufus warned. Krav decided not to answer. The skull was talking too much, and they had ground to cover. The rage dart, zerker to those in the wasteland, would keep him awake long enough to get his revenge on one of the heads of the Gordo clan.

  Nala reluctantly followed him through the jungle. As they walked, she watched the boy itch his skin, gnaw his nails, and scratch his head with his axe until it drew little lines of blood. He was well on his way to losing his mind, and she had only seen this kind of behavior in the high priestess they had to put down before Dahlia.

  If she had to, she would kill him as well.

  But Krav was a one-track mind. He didn’t even realize how bad he looked. The mindless itching and grinding of his teeth went unnoticed. All he could think about was a singular name, and the direction that name was in.

  “Shit-o…” he mumbled to himself.

  It wasn’t long before they found him. The feathered man was at the camp loading up as much of the woven baskets into the makeshift cart. When he heard the crunch of twigs behind him, he expected Dansk to be returning with news of the chaos. Shi-Toh had sent him out over ten minutes ago, and he was starting to worry.

  Unfortunately for him, Krav had found Dansk. And now, he found Shi-Toh.

  When he turned and saw the boy he had left for dead in the desert only days ago, there was a strenuous mix of emotions. Here was his ticket to regain Jackmaw’s favor. A quick capture of him would make the warlord forget about their fight entirely. He might even be named consul again.

  But on the other hand, how the hell was the boy alive? Ever since Agua Fria, Shi-Toh had doubted very much that he had the endurance capable of traversing the valley. Apparently, he had misjudged him. At least the boy had presented himself on a silver platter.

  “I thought I misjudged our count. Come to join the clan? You look appropriate in warpaint.”

  Shi-Toh was smiling to himself, but his smile dropped when he realized Krav wasn’t in war paint. Not exactly. There was some greasepaint showing on his skin, but all that red was thick and chunky. No… he was covered in the blood and gore of his men.

  A shaky hand fumbled the pistol in its holster, and Shi-Toh dropped his gun on the floor. His heart jumped in his throat, and before he could reach for it, Krav’s voice boomed and froze him solid.

  “You already tried that, remember?” Krav scooped a mix of blood and greasepaint from his stomach, revealing the stitches in his gut. He popped the mixture in his mouth and sucked it off his fingers with a smile. “It didn’t work.”

  “Apparently.” Shi-Toh rose and tried to look as imperious as possible. He had to knit his hands behind his back to keep himself from revealing his fear. It was strange, in all of his life, he had only ever felt this kind of fear from one man. A lifetime of pillaging and looting had left him unable to fear death. But Jackmaw Yapyap and Krav had a presence about them, a way of becoming an overwhelming shadow. Maybe he was destined to be his apprentice after all.

  “If you come with me now, Jackmaw can still reinstate you as his apprentice. I think he would be more than willing to look past your transgressions against the great mega vulture.”

  “I didn’t come here to apologize about your fucking bird.” Krav was still on his deadly approach. Each step was like a rolling wave of artillery getting closer and closer. “I came here to kill you. Then I’m going to kill Jackmaw.”

  Shi-Toh swallowed hard. The closer Krav got, the more it felt like his heart was going to burst in his chest. “If you kill me, how will you find Jackmaw? You don’t know where he is.”

  “I got this far.”

  “I mean it! It’s foolish! I-I can lead you to him! I can help you!”

  “Shit-o…” Krav growled. He was face to face with him now. Krav’s scalp stood at Shi-Toh’s nose, but his spiritual aura completely eclipsed the feathered man’s. “They took Lenny because you didn’t let him take me…”

  Even looking down at him, Shi-Toh felt small. “You can’t blame me! Imagine if the scenario was changed for your brother. Do you think he could manage to survive this world for as long as you have?”

  It was a ploy that almost worked. Krav stopped and considered his words. Lenny wouldn’t have been able to do the things he had done, but his brother had all the brains. He would have found a way. It might not have involved as much drugs and death, but he would have done it. He would have gotten to Krav. It was just what brothers do.

  “You can see the truth in my words. Lenny…”

  At the sound of his brother’s name leaving Shi-Toh’s mouth, Krav slammed him hard in the face with his fist.

  “You keep his name out of your fucking mouth!” he raged. The zerker in his blood was surging through his heart and mind. Krav mounted Shi-Toh and began to pound him in the face, knocking off his sunglasses. He didn’t stop when he saw Shi-Toh’s eyes and what they really were. The fists rained until you couldn’t recognize the feathered man as a man at all.

  “Krav stop! You need him to find Lenny!” Rufus pleaded from his hip. All he could do was watch as his former bodyguard mauled the man. If he had a heart still, it would ache for the boy he raised.

  There was a sharp pang of pain in Krav’s chest as the cocktail of drugs fought each other like a tug of war. The dumb-dumb was coaxing him towards sleep while the zerker forced his eyes wide open. His heart couldn’t take it if he went on.

  The boy clutched his chest, then grabbed Shi-Toh’s feather coat so roughly it tore. “Where the hell is my brother!” he demanded. There was a ragged desperation in his voice and his breathing was labored.

  “The war sage is…”

  Another heavy blow. Krav was barely in control of himself anymore. He tried to stand and drag Shi-Toh to his feet, but he was beginning to sweat and his arms felt weightless. “The air… it feels so heavy…”

  “You’re pushing yourself too far! Just tie him up and lay down before you collapse dead!” Rufus warned again.

  “I won’t die. I still have to kill Jackmaw and save Lenny,” Krav huffed. His hands fumbled with Shi-Toh again, trying to lift him from the floor. It was unclear if the feathered man was dead or unconscious.

  From behind him, Krav felt a dart sink into his back. The chakra it was loaded with wasn’t anything he was familiar with, but it hit him instantly. He fought to stay upright, but it worked at the same rate the dumb-dumb was. Vision blurred, hands went numb, and his eyes failed to stay awake. His pulse could be felt in every corner of his head, and his heart crashed in his chest like it was going to break open his sternum.

  But he finally collapsed. Nala left the bush as soon as she was sure that she was safe to come near him. Never in her short life had she witnessed anything like this, not even when she and her sisters attacked the Gordo clan the first time. This boy used brutality as a weapon, and her stomach just couldn’t handle anymore.

  She looked at Shi-Toh and nudged his face with her blow gun. Out cold as well. Now she just had to figure out how to get them both back to Rootwalla village. A quick rummage through the jungle’s foliage would provide her with the ingredients necessary to bring the boy up to speed after he had slept off the rage chakra.

  To the far south, Jackmaw Yapyap led his clan to the meeting point: the end of the world. The Gordo clan shielded themselves from the caustic winds as they approached their target. Lenny could barely believe where they were.

  Straight ahead of him were the twin suns, more massive than he had ever conceived. They peeked out at them over the mountain peaks and from this distance, you could hear their rumbling hum like the deep churning of an overworked reactor.

  Like little ants in a row, the clan’s caravan went single file with Bantu leading the way. They wove through a strange land dotted with buildings. It was the most of the old-world civilization that Lenny had ever seen. Domed buildings reflected the green glow from their spiderwebbing windows and groaned as if to warn them to turn back.

  Everything here was dead. The buildings, the plants… the people. There were irradiated corpses here that glowed green beneath their black, petrified skin. They must have been the ones the stories talked about, the kidnapped souls left to burn on the unholy pyre. Lenny didn’t think so however. This close to the suns, it was impossible to deny the truth: they were not the thing of fairy tale.

  Jackmaw pulled on the reigns of Bantu and turned to Lenny with a sickening smile. “We’re here.”