The sun hung low in the sky, bathing the malpais in golden light. It silhouetted the cacti and mesquite trees that clung to life in the desert, throwing their shadows far and wide. Rattlesnakes and cicadas announced their presence to the word, always further away than they seemed, as coyotes were heard far off in the distance. On an isolated ridge, Craig Boone lay flat against the incline on the opposing side from Fort Defiance, with only his head visible against the skyline. So small, it would be indistinguishable from a rock when viewed from the Fort. Through the scope of his rifle, bipod deployed and steadied with various rocks, he silently tallied the Legion forces that he could see.
Raul lazed next to him, the old ghouls joints resting from the effort of setting up their snipers nest. He kept his Paciencia, a well-maintained pre-war .308 Remington hunting rifle close at hand, Mexican flag tied neatly at the stock. Next it, the Medicine Stick, a .44 Magnum lever action rifle. Two hefty revolvers, chambered in .44 Magnum occupied the holsters on either hip, and across his chest and waist the bandoliers of the Courier's bespoke grenades and handloaded hellcat Magnum rounds meant a gunfight with the old ghoul could very well drag out for hours if he wasn't killed immediately. He had his vaquero hat pulled low down over his eyes and was snoozing casually in the evening heat.
Further down the slope, hidden behind defilade from the Legion Camp at Fort Defiance, were the rest of the merry band. The Lone Wanderer, sitting upon a conveniently sized rock, back perfectly straight. A messy pile of rucksacks and bedrolls belonging to each of them sat next to the Wanderer, each of which crammed with food, gear, and various conveniences. Chauncy Littlewood had only been modestly tall in life, standing no more than five foot ten inches, and this meant the Wanderer could sit comfortably and still remain concealed behind the slope. The Courier on the other hand, could stand up straight and have a better view of Fort Defiance than Boone did all the way up the slope. This was not as big a boast as it seemed. The ridge was only a small one. No more than six feet tall and maybe twice as wide on average.
But for this reason he was curled up with his long legs touching his chin at the knee, whittling a discarded piece of wood, baked dry by the sun. His helmet was off, despite the beating sun. His long grey hair and headwrap provided ample protection against the rays, protection that might not be required for his already suntanned hide. Lantaya, however, was suffering from the heat. On Thessia, a largely tropical world upon which the humidity was always relatively high with the exceptions of the very tips of the polar regions, it was something of an oddity to feel such a dry, sapping heat as this. She felt as if the moisture was being sucked out into the surrounding air and had already finished her canteen of water in an attempt to stem the thirst this dry heat provoked.
She looked at her companions, attempting to gauge their level of discomfort. The Ghoul, Raul Tejada, seemed as comfortable in the heat as she would feel splayed out upon a comfortable bed on an oceanside boarding house on Thessia.
Craig Boone seemed utterly implacable once he got behind his rifle scope and gave no indication the heat was even noticeable to him.
Follows-Chalk, the tribal human was no longer with them, having vanished into the distance at the Couriers behest as soon as they arrived, bright flash of light obscured by the sun. But he hadn't seemed bothered in the least. Then again, his skin was bronzed to a fine sheen of gleaming perfection, making it seem as if the sun and heat of Arizona was his one true, natural habitat.
She could no longer make out ED-E, the small spherical eyebot being high up in the sky, eclipsed by the sun to such a degree that the tiny robot could look down upon the landscape for miles around without hope of being seen from below.
The two strange, hairy creatures with cybernetic components the Courier had brought with him also seemed profoundly unbothered. Rex and Roxie, the 'cyberdogs' seemed friendly enough. Obliging and a lot smarter than she would have assumed from first glance. But there was the small matter of their brains being fully exposed to the naked eye, floating within a soup of some unidentified fluid. She was starting to wonder what morbid fixation the humans had with cybernetic augmentation, to the point that not even their pets were safe.
The two cyberdogs were slumped around their small gathering, panting happily. Occasionally they would drift about, finding patches of shade that afforded them a good view of their surroundings, gazing watchfully out into the Badlands and brush. Guarding their pack, she realised.
She attempted to ensconce her smaller frame behind one of the bigger rocks they had access to, but it was no used. Even the largest was only the size of a moderate chair, and the Wanderer was sitting on it. Absently, she reached for her canteen once more, the only thing that she could do to grant some measure of relief. Twisting the cap off, and putting it to her lips, belatedly remembered once more that she had already drained it to the dregs some time ago. She twisted the cap back on, feeling the moisture of her sweat run down her back underneath the combat armour that seemed to plaster the fabric it sat upon down onto her skin. She could practically feel the perspiration turning to water vapour, as if she were locked inside the world's largest baking oven.
Rex whined in the back of his throat, staring at her through his astonishingly intelligent eyes, drawing the Courier's eyes away from his whittling. The large tribal met the dogs eyes, head cocked slightly to the side as he listened to the whine, then to the side to take in Lantaya's miserable state. He looked back at the dog, who whined again, covering his snout with his paws, and huffing prodigiously. The Courier shot the dog an appreciative look and returned his attention to the blue alien. "Oi, Lani."
She turned her head and watched as he motioned her over, standing up himself to a stooping walk that took him over to a moderately sized rock, that he sat down against, back now to the sun rather than to Boone's slope. He motioned for her again, and seeing what he intended, she accepted the invitation gratefully.
Walking over, she sat down between his legs, using his large frame as shade from the baking heat of the sun's rays. It was immediate and palpable relief. Her skin stopped feeling as if it was being turned to leather with every second. Now it just felt as though it had been partially cooked. It stung horribly.
"My thanks. It seems I have spent far too long in temperature-controlled environments for the last few centuries. Before I was…. taken, of course," she acknowledged his kindness as he tapped his leg idly with the knife and the half-whittled sharp of wood.
"Not a bother, Lani," the Courier spoke softly from behind her. She kept a respectful distance from him, not allowing herself to relax so much that her body would lean backwards into his. She could accomplish this quite easily, even while still benefiting from his shade. The difference in his size compared to hers was markedly highlighted to her. His arms were so long that, even with the space she maintained between them, he could comfortably reach around her and continue whittling, looking over the top of her head at his work.
Being as close as she way, she consciously compared the circumference of his arms to her own, then to her own legs. She was in very good shape, never having shirked her dedication to the regime of hard physical training that she had picked up from her time as a huntress. Compared to some Asari, she might even be said to be in the upper tiers of muscle mass.
However, even her legs were thinner than the Couriers arms. Compared to most of these humans, she was significantly slimmer. It amplified the sense of being surrounded by the unfamiliar. To temper down her feelings of unease, she focused herself on something familiar. The pursuit of academic enquiry.
"Courier?"
"Aye, lass?" The human responded, his closeness causing the words to be undercut with an indefinable rumble and vibration. His scarred and thick hands moved with a remarkable dexterity for their size, she noted.
"These 'spirits' you speak of? I have heard you refer to them on many occasions now, but I am not sure I understand exactly what they are. Or, what you believe them to be, at least. Would you consent to speak with me about them, while we wait?"
The Courier chuckled as his lips peeled back over white teeth, "After all the time I spent wafflin' on about them so far, ya think ye need to ask?"
Lantaya smiled at the quip and nodded slowly, "Yes. It is considered polite to ask before broaching such a topic. Among my people we have…. Or perhaps had, a system of belief known as the Athame Doctrine. It is a monotheistic religion based around the worship of a singular figure from a pantheon of lesser goddesses. It's practise was waning in the years leading up to my departure, and its adherents were becoming somewhat reticent to reply when questioned about their beliefs. It was being replaced by siari, and many siarists were known for being disparaging of those few holdouts."
"What, ye think that you'll hurt my feelin's?"
She shook her head ruefully, aware of how ridiculous a notion that seemed.
"I am slightly hesitant," she paused to consider her next words carefully, "Among my people, the discourse surrounding belief is known to become rather heated. Very harsh words have been spoken over such things, and with your race I would feel even more reticent to enquire than with my own people. Humans seem to be, and I mean no offense by this, somewhat more willing to solve arguments and disagreements with… force."
"Sure, ye seemed forceful 'nough in the Cryobay when we first unthawed ya. An' when ye tossed the Wanderer across the alley in Novac."
Lantaya coughed and shrugged, glancing over her shoulder into the Courier's eyes. "I am somewhat of an oddity among my people, as I'm sure you recall me making note of in my conversation aboard the Zeta. As I told the Wanderer, it was something of an issue between myself and the other Matriarchs. Or rather, between me and society in general."
She admitted the last in a noticeably softer voice, as if she hoped he wouldn't hear.
"Well," the Courier snorted, "I ain't gonna slit yer throat for askin' questions, my oath on it."
Lantaya, taking this as the best benediction of her questioning that she was likely to receive, launched into her enquiry. "What exactly are these spirits of yours?"
He paused, considering the question as his hands worked deftly in their carving of the wood. He hummed and grunted, clearly locked in deep contemplation. "Ye ever seen anyone die?"
Lantaya nodded again, gravely. "Many people. I was a huntress for a considerable number of years, after all."
"Up close," the Courier clarified, "Ye ever watched the life leave someones face? On their deathbed, lookin' up at ye without the distractions of combat."
Lantaya hesitated, considering this question before answering. The word 'deathbed' echoed strangely in her ears, and she felt herself being pulled down into another of the Courier's memories. The world around them vanished and she was the Courier once more, looking down at a dying man in his arm, propped up on his lap, coated in blood and gore.
It was an old human. A tall, broad man just like the Courier, scarred and battered from a lifetime of warfare. Of struggle against impossible odds. As she looked down at the Courier's hands that stroked the old, dying man's face, she realised that they were not as old nor as scarred as she had seen in previous visions. They were the hands of a much younger man. Perhaps no older than twenty in human terms, full of youth, vigour, and vitality.
The young fingers caressed the older man's skin, leaving track marks in the blood. More of the sticky red fluid oozed from the corner of his mouth, merging with the rest in a crimson swirl. "Ye know what you've done?" The old human sputtered out between shaky breathes, fluid seeping into his lungs with each exhalation. It was in a language that Lantaya should not understand, had she not found the answers readily enough in the Courier's memories.
"What I had to," the Courier said, his voice youthful and smooth, almost unrecognisable from the present day.
"They won't accept you," the statement was spoken with an unshakable surety despite the wheezing breaths that carried it, "Not even if you use your gifts. They will hate you, shun you. We are not of the same spirits. There is no Future with them."
"She knows. She accepts me," the Courier's youthful voice proclaimed, displaying more tenderness and heartfelt sentiment than Lantaya had yet heard from his older self. It was almost as if they were two entirely different people. But these were his memories, as sure as sure could be. They had the same feel to them as all the previous visions, albeit slightly less marred by the passage of time.
"No. In time, she too will leave. We were your clan, your people. Blood of our blood. You'll find no-one else who accepts you for what you are. For what WE are!"
The old human broke off in a racking wheeze and a paroxysm of wet coughing that sent drops of spittle and blood flying. He paused to catch his breath, staring into the sky past the Couriers face.
"The weak will always despise the strong. They will learn to resent your gifts."
"Her people are not weak," the Courier argued hotly, "They have strength in harmony. She told me of great Nations, many men who came together to fight for one Spirit. They will accept me. I will fight for them, and they will accept me. They would have accepted all of us if you had listened! We could have been one Nation and learned each other's ways. Talked with each other's Spirits."
"No," the older human sighed in disappointment, "They will not. They will use you. To fight their wars, to kill the monsters they cannot face themselves. Once the fighting is done, they will turn from you."
"No, she would not!"
"Yes," the old human croaked, hand reaching up to stroke the Courier's face, leaving trails of red blood in turn, that tracked down his face like tears. "Even her. Our Spirits are born to us. They cannot be what we are. And the day will come when you regret this day. What you have lost. The Sea-People will not be what we were. They are not your clan."
The old human coughed up a thick gobbet of spit and gore, breathes becoming even more shallow and laboured. What little strength he had left, he used to intertwine his hand in the Courier's. The old man squeezed tightly and met the younger human's eyes. Lantaya gazed down into the depths of the steel grey orbs that seemed to grip her by the soul, the light quickly fading. A bright light, contained within eyes that were intensely familiar to her. A fire that burned brightly in the darkness, where those that eked out a bleak existence in the ruins of what once was, toiled to keep it ablaze.
"Do it, eat while the blood is still hot. You are the last of us, son."
She watched as the light faded, and died, as the last breath left his lips. The memory of his last word echoed in her ears like the sounding of a gong. Son?
And she was back in the oven-like heat of Arizona, the Courier still whittling his little piece of wood as the memory faded from her mind, and as he awaited her answer.
"Yes," she whispered softly in answer to his question, resolving to bring up this particular vision with the Courier at a later time. When they were alone, and she could address the private matter in terms more befitting it. What could provoke a person into murdering their own parent? What sort of disagreement, what manner of differences could not be reconciled with a man he had clearly loved deeply enough to hold close in his final moments?
"Ye know when the last breath leaves their lips," the Courier continued, "An' the light dies in their eyes, aye?"
The discussion took on a distinctly more sinister bent, now that she knew exactly what memory the Courier most strongly associated his chain of enquiry with. She nodded assent anyway, staring fixedly forward at the slope in front of them, gaze becoming inescapably focused on the ground in the hopes that it would overcome the feeling of unease she now felt.
"That's their spirit leavin' them," the Courier stated.
"So, Spirits are the souls of the dead?" She asked, keeping her voice level through an effort of will.
The Courier hummed again, shedding wood chips onto the ground. "Sometimes. Ain't always the case. Sometimes they're the spirits of what weren't really alive in the first place."
"Like rage?" She questioned, thinking back upon the many times she had heard him reference a 'Spirit of Rage'. "So, emotions have their own Spirit?"
"Nay," the Courier chuckled, flipping the knife over and holding it by the blade so he could scratch his nose, "Ain't nothin' more alive than emotion, lass. Why would it not be alive? But 'tis true that there is a spirit of rage. Though, more like spirits have emotions rather than emotions have spirits, see?"
She tried to follow the logic, if you could call such a thing by so rational a name. "Spirits have emotions," she muttered, trying to understand this in a performative context. She had a head start, as his memories were still strong in her mind. She could feel something of his point of view seeping in from their previous melding. "So you do not believe that humans, that you, would have emotions if it were not for your spirits? Is that closer to the truth?"
"Sure, the spirits make ye feel them, make ya see the world as they do. They exist in everyone, don't they? For all time, at all times. Ye can speak to a man, make a spirit rise inside him. At that point, it's like he ain't really in control of himself no more, see? Rage has taken hold, or love, or lust. They move us, not the other way 'round."
The Courier adjusted himself as his blade went back to work on the wood, and Lantaya considered his words in silence. She thought of the times she herself had been caught in the flow of strong emotion, and it seemed to her as if she were a spectator of her own life, watching someone who looked exactly like her do things that she might never consider doing otherwise. It was certainly comprehensible to her how a primitive mind could take this for the work of Spirits. Spirits that controlled them by burrowing inside their minds, forcing them to feel particular ways.
From a phenomenological perspective, it was a surprisingly astute interpretation. It held a measure of performative truth to it, that was somewhat easier to grasp for the unenlightened than scientific observations on the chemical processes of the mind, which was comparatively esoteric. With his fathers death so fresh in her mind, she wondered if perhaps this philosophy of spirits and emotion was some type of cooping mechanism he had invented to excuse his murdering of his father, blaming it all on figments of his imagination rather than his own folly.
But somehow she did not imagine that the Courier was the type to excuse himself from any of his deeds, least of all something as visceral as this. So far he had approached every questionable act of his own with a statement of claimed responsibility, followed quickly by casual indifference or heartfelt certainty. And his fathers words during the vision seemed to suggest that the mythology surrounding their spirit worship had been an inheritance, passed down through generations. A deeply held belief-system belonging to a bloodline stretching back decades.
"I think I might understand," she replied, "But what of the unalive spirits? What are they made of? Where do they come from?"
"Things, mostly," the Courier clarified, his continuing lack of specificity forcing her to meet him halfway.
"Things? What sort of things?" She looked down at a rock, approximately the size of her own closed fist. She picked it up and weighed it in her hands, tossing it from palm to palm. "Things like this, perhaps?"
The Courier snorted derisively. "Sure, it's a feckin' rock Lani. What would a spirit be wantin' with a rock? For that matter, what would a rock be wantin' from a spirit, if it wanted anythin' at all?"
He took the lump of sandstone from her hand and sniffed it curiously. Turning it over and over in his free hand, the other still holding his half-carved piece of wood and his whittling knife, he ran the rough pads of his finger over the course surface. Suddenly sticking out his tongue, and under her questioning gaze, he licked the stone and sat looking at it thoughtfully.
"Nah, just a rock," he finally pronounced, tossing it away and into a bush not far away with a clack of stone on stone. Raul propped himself up on the slope and tipped his hat back far enough to see what produced the noise but went quickly back to his nap as soon as he received an apologetic look from his boss. The dogs huffed and the Wanderer, still under Omega Protocol, stayed stock still as if nothing at all had occurred.
"But a rock could be havin' a spirit, I suppose," he began contemplatively, stroking his beard and rolling his knife and whittled wood together in his grasp.
"Really?" She questioned, "Under certain conditions, I assume?"
"Aye," the Courier agreed, "If ye took a rock, right?"
"Right," she agreed.
"An' ye held it like this, right?" The Courier demonstrated with his free hand held high in the air.
"Right," she agreed.
"An' ye beat a man to death with it, right?"
"…."
"An' then ye beat twenty other men to death with it, right? Then I suppose, it might be havin' a spirit by the end of it."
He followed this explanation with a cheeky grin that flashed his white teeth through the undergrowth of his beard. As always, Lantaya had difficulty telling apart his jests, jokes, and ill-timed jocularity from the deep and soulful undercurrent of seriousness that he managed to maintain underneath.
Lantaya sighed deeply and rubbed the bridge of her nose as he went back to whittling once more. "I have to ask," she enquired once she was finished dealing with her growing dehydration headache, "Does everything for your species eventually circle back around to violence?"
The Courier chuckled again, testing the edge of his knife against his thumb, drawing a spot of blood that mixed with the wood shavings until his natural regeneration closed the scratch. "All things eventually wind back 'round to everythin' else, Lani. 'Tis the way o' things. Maybe where ye wind up depends on where ye started."
Lantaya puzzled over this for a while, at the same time as she wondered why a Matriarch with almost a thousand years of experience was being flummoxed by the spiritualistic ramblings of a seventy-year-old alien. In her experience, Matriarchs were usually the ones who did the flummoxing. She felt slightly cheated of her opportunity to be the wise foreigner in a land of a comparatively simple people. As it turned out, those that grew up in less advanced societies than her own just grew to be complex in different ways. Such as murdering and eating their fathers, she thought wryly.
Out of the corner of her eyes she watched the Omega turn his head unexpectedly, cybernetic eyes searching the brush and rock-strewn landscape around them. The Wanderer's robotic hands found the safety on his Perforator and flicked it off with a pronounced click.
The Omega suddenly decided to vanish in a swirl of sand and the tell-tale heat haze of his cloaking system, and she had just enough time to blink in confusion before Raul rolled down the slope and to his feet in one motion, drawing his two pistols and cocking back both hammers with the next. The two Cyberdogs growled and raised their hackles, before the Courier growled back, silencing them.
"'Tis just Chalk, lads. Safety those guns, Raul."
The ghoul un-cocked the hammers carefully, holstering with a dramatic twirl and flick of his wrist. "No problem, boss. I prefer napping anyhow," the Mexican gunslinger quipped in a relaxed tone now that the possibility of a threat was assuaged. Rex and Roxie prowled about their perimeter with tails wagging as a number of figures rounded the slope, having followed a circuitous path through the malpais that brought them to their destination without ever having exposed them to the Fort.
Follows-Chalk led the procession, the .45 Auto Storm Drum that he had pilfered from the corpse of a dead White Leg during the campaigns in Zion held loosely in his hands. On his back, a long and sturdy wooden bow was strung and waiting for him to unsling it, knocking gently on his back with every step, unfelt through the duster he wore over his scavenged and sleeveless stab vest.
Behind him came three other men, who carried a panoply of armaments and dressed in wildly differing fashions. A tribal dressed in nothing more than intricate tattoos and a loin-wrap. This man carried a sheath of throwing spears on his back, a 45. Auto pistol strapped to his upper thigh, and a gauntlet fashioned from the paw of some manner of giant animal. He waved at the Courier jauntily, making no sound for fear that a cry would carry all the way back to Fort Defiance.
Behind him, a tall wastelander in combat armour, another ubiquitous duster, and a wide-brimmed 10-gallon hat. The most remarkable feature of this man, his long-barrelled Remington Rolling Block Rifle non-withstanding, was his impressively expansive beard, that rolled down his chest only to be tucked into the gentleman's belt to keep the wild expanse under some measure of control. Lantaya goggled at the veritable jungle growing out of the humans face, wondering that the facial hair of the humans could grow to such prodigious lengths.
The Courier got up, handing his partly whittled wood to Lantaya to hold, as he advanced upon the newcomers at a shuffling crouch to keep his large form hidden behind the defilade. She looked at the wooden icon he was carving, noticing that it was taking on the vague shape of a person. It was early days as of yet, but she was sure that the Courier could turn this into something quite beautiful given enough time without distraction. She tucked it into one of her pockets for safe-keeping and followed after the Courier.
Arriving behind him, she was just in time to catch the tribals opening words to the Courier.
"Take drugs, kill a bear."
She blinked and wondered if she was missing something in translation. She must have been, because the Courier just smiled a wide and obliging smile and embraced the smaller, mostly naked man. "White Bird, how are ye lad? Keepin' well?"
The tribal clapped the Courier's broad back firmly, chuckling as they parted. Next, in contradiction to all civilised forms of communication Lantaya was yet currently aware of, the tribal shoved his hand down into the only article of clothing he wore and started rummaging about. The tribal fished in the depths of his loin-wrap and brought out a leather pouch, similar to the one the Courier used for storing his tobacco. Without another word, though garnering a few odd looks from the man in the 10-gallon hat, they companionably rolled up their respective joints from the contents of the crotch-cache and sparked up.
Smoke swirled in the baking hot air, all of those present save for the happy smokers themselves taking a few steps back to avoid inhalation. The tribal nodded after a while, satisfied, "Smoke datura every day."
He held up a finger and shook it to emphasise the point, "Every day."
"Light that shite up, White Bird. Wise words," the Courier grinned at the Sorrow's shaman, bumping his rollup against the tribals as if they were clinking glasses for a toast at a banquet table.
The last member of the procession made himself known; the bandages that covered him bleached white in the sun. His own flak vest, bearing the abbreviation of the Salt Lake City Police Department, stood in stark contrast to the predominantly white fabric, with the occasional tribal stitching that marked the man out as a War Chief. Stitched into the fabric, as for obvious reasons his skin could not be marked with the traditional tattoos of the tribes of Zion. "It is good to see you, Courier. You have the God-given talent of arriving at the most opportune of moments. Or perhaps you have chosen this time to arrive by your own volition, seeking to assist in the Lord's work?"
Lantaya gazed at the bandaged figure, knowing that this was the Malpais Legate from the Courier's tale, and marvelling at the resonant qualities of the human's voice. She had the indescribable sense of meeting a figure that was distinctly larger than life, despite her conscious acknowledgement that this was likely just an imagining brought on by the Courier's storytelling. Some sort of illusion brought on by her own wayward imagination.
She focused upon the conversation, ignoring this feeling and the curious glances of those that had joined them, peering at her blue skin in the Arizona sun.
"Always keepin' my eyes out for a good fight, Graham. Ye know me, after all. But I'm really comin' here to ask for yer help. Storms a brewin', An' I'll be needin' the strength o' yer god 'fore long. Concerns the Wastelands, an' everyone in them."
Joshua Graham tapped the stock of his slung Storm Drum, eyes narrowing at the Courier's words and doubtless ripe with conjecture as to the nature of his request. His eyes, outlined in the expanse of white bandage and the mottled surface of long-since-healed skin, passed over Lantaya and held her in his piercing gaze. She, for her own part, stood straighter and in more dignified a posture, reflecting her own status as a person of influence and note among her people. Offering a nod of acknowledgement, she introduced herself with a proffered hand, as was the human custom. "I am Matriarch Lantaya T'Rali," she spoke as Graham's bandaged hand grasped her own comparatively smaller hand in its surprisingly firm, yet somehow gentle grasp, "It is partly upon my account that we are here to approach you, Mister Graham."
"If it is alms you seek, then all are welcome in the house of the Lord," Joshua replied in what for him was a neutral statement, causing the man in the 10-gallon hat to nod emphatically in agreement. The man in the hat was clearly unsettled by the Asari's appearance, and while Joshua might also have been, he was entirely inscrutable behind his bandages. "But sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. We have much to do, and the Lord's work, once started, must be concluded. Will you assist us, Courier?"
The Courier waved his hand as if the request was a trifling thing to him, smiling through his accompanying cloud of datura and tobacco smoke. "Course Joshua, ye just have to ask. What's yer trouble?"
"Legion," the prophet clarified, "As is so often the case in these lands. They have been using Fort Defiance as a staging ground to launch raiding parties into New Mexico. An attempt to gather slaves and forage to rebuild what was lost at the Second Battle of Hoover Dam. They seek to amass anew at Flagstaff and begin a campaign into the lands far East of here. If they cannot have the Mojave, then they have resolved to take New Mexico and Texas in its place."
"Ain't no way, no how," the man in the 10-gallon hat pronounced in a thick Texan drawl, spitting a gobbet of spittle that sputtered and sizzled on a nearby rocks surface. He lifted the hat off his head in a gesture of respect, revealing the bald pate underneath, "I'm Zachariah Moore, pardner. Of Saint Mathews congregation at the Church of Our Lord in Lubbock, Texas. Heard tell of your dust-up with those Legion motherfuckers at Hoover. Mighty fine work, sir, I do declare."
They shook hands in the manner of tough frontiersman everywhere, with a firm grip and a duel pump of the arms that told them all they cared to know about one-another. The Courier, still hunched over to keep his head below the level of the slope, could and did look deep into his interlocutors eyes. He found a strength of character there that he approved of, and returned the compliment with an affable grin, "Sure, 'twas far from my best work, but thankin' ye for the kind words. What's the story here? Want us to march on down into the Fort an' help ye skewer the feckers?"
Joshua Graham shook his bandaged head gravely, "No, Courier. If it were simply a matter of putting heathens and barbarians to the pyre, I would have done so long ago. The Legion keep slaves brought back from conquests in the East to Fort Defiance, to be kept before marching them down through Arizona, to their capital at Flagstaff. The tribes of Zion along with many others are descending upon them to exact their own vengeance, as am I to carry out my Lord's punishment for their crimes."
The Burned Man clasped his hands behind his back, pacing to and frow as he explained their predicament to those assembled. Raul was listening with half-an-ear from underneath his sombrero, while Lantaya was certain that Boone could quite readily hear everything spoken from his perch but remained behind the scope out of habit and long practise.
"They have hundreds of souls locked within the old hospital in Fort Defiance and have constructed earthworks and watchtowers to maintain control of their outpost. In previous encounters, the Legion caravans between here and Flagstaff have put their slaves to the sword rather than allow them their freedom. Both to dissuade us from attacking them, and to deny profligates any hope of freedom outside of their rule. If we were to pressure these Legionaries, make them believe that the Fort was about to fall, I have no doubt that they would slaughter the prisoners."
The Burned Man held his hands out to the sides in a gesture of deliberation, to highlight his statement, "I will not allow the Legion to regain any measure of its former influence. The tribes of Zion have worked diligently to stifle the Legion, to keep them from gathering enough slaves, supplies and men to begin their march East. We have been cutting their roots, undermining their foundations, to ensure they wither upon the vine. These new tactics of deterrence they employ are troubling. It speaks to an ability for adaptation that the Legion never possessed under Caesar or Lanius."
"Has a new Legate taken command? Might be a tricky business searching out a ringleader, especially if he's in Flagstaff," Raul queried from the slope, sitting in a contemplative pose, hand cupping his chin and stroking his moustache.
"Only takes one bullet," Boone's comment drifted down from his perch behind the rifle scope, utterly devoid of emotion.
"Not as far as we've heard out East," the Texan drawled, "Ain't on orders that they started killing folks they couldn't drag back to the Arizona. Them bastards know god-fearing folk won't attack them if it means the death of innocents. We figure one Legion Caravan got the bright idea to do it, then the rest started following suit."
"In other words," Joshua added, "It is precisely because they have no true leader, that they have begun to fracture and act of their own accord. The Legion of old would never have killed their slaves in order to stave off assault. Not least because there were none that they needed fear in open combat enough to warrant the destruction of valuable property."
The Courier pondered the situation, puffing on the datura roll-up in the Arizona sun while Lantaya shifted uncomfortably in the heat, wondering how he could endure smoking in a climate such as this. She reached for her canteen once more but stopped her hand halfway there as her conscious mind reminded her that it would do no good. Exhaling a stream of datura smoke, the Courier motioned to Joshua and the rest, dropping into a lower crouch before making his way up the slope. He lay down next to Boone with a crunch of sandstone pebbles, Joshua and Zachariah following at his side.
Follows-Chalk, seeing Lantaya's discomfiture and the frequent moving of her hands towards her empty canteen pulled a large waterskin from underneath his duster and motioned for her to bring forth the canteen to be refilled. She accepted the gift with a grateful nod of acknowledgement, which the tribal explorer and musician returned with an obliging smile.
Joshua Graham found himself lying right next to Boone, who deigned to look away from his scope to treat the former Legate to the type of glacial, detached stare he reserved only for members of the Legion. The Burned Man, for his own part, considered the red beret and the Battalion patch sewn into its surface with an acute interest. "NCR First Recon," he read the patch aloud, "I believe I was almost slain many times by men and women wearing that patch."
"If I had been behind the scope," Boone answered coldly, "You would have been."
Joshua Graham nodded solemnly and uttered a wry chuckle, drier than the burning air around them, as Zachariah and the Courier observed the exchange in silence. "If that is the case, then it would doubtless please you to know that there are days were I wish you had been," he responded, an apology implicit in his tone.
Boone regarded him for a moment, then turned his head away with a grunt, planting his eyeball firmly back behind the scope of the Gobi Campaign Rifle. "Good," he declared.
The Courier smirked jovially behind his cigarette, before taking it out of his mouth and stubbing it out upon the surface of a flat stone. "Cheer up, lads. Sure you'll get along famously. Ye love killin' Legionaries, right? Call it a bondin' activity."
Boone gave no reply, whilst Joshua provided another dry chuckle to show he was attending. "So," Raul mumbled through a sleepy yawn, shifting his weight onto his side so he could peer up the slope to regard the group through a drowsy haze, "What's the plan, boss? If we can't go in guns blazing for glory, we have to do something that doesn't end with those slaves sucking wind through a new chest wound."
"'Twas just about to be askin' the same, myself," the Courier agreed, "I know ye, Joshua. Ye'd never have marched out here without a plan to take the Fort. What we're ye an' yer God thinkin'?"
"Everyone that is proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord. Though hand join in hand, he shall not be unpunished," the Burned Man recited from memory, staring over the top of the slope at Fort Defiance. "The Legion encamped here are of the Red Okie Centuria. They are prideful, arrogant. I believe that they can be made to come out from behind their fortifications if the correct bait is provided. For this reason, I came personally."
Joshua slid down the slope far enough that he could sit back up without sky-lining himself against the evening sun. "I came with a few loyal souls. My belief is that the Red Okie will march from Fort Defiance once they catch wind of my presence. The strength of my legend is such that they will field all they can muster in the attempt to bring me down. In the process, they will empty the Fort of all but a skeleton garrison to maintain order amongst the slaves."
The Courier scratched his beard and looked from Graham to the Fort. The encampment was extensive, and the Red Okie Centuria was known to march as a whole, never splitting up unless it had been on the express orders of Caesar. There would be hundreds of men at Fort Defiance to man its battlements and provide manpower to fulfil the Fort's purpose in the region. "How many men did ye bring?"
"Not above two dozen," Joshua admitted. Zachariah grinned through his beard, as if this was great fun and not stark raving madness. The Courier grinned to himself and nodded in approval of the suicidal gambit. It sounded almost exactly like something he would do. "Ye would be waitin' forever for them to come out if they thought ye had any more," he concluded thoughtfully.
"We brought a relic with us to improve upon our odds. An artifact that once belonged to one of our tribe in New Canaan. God willing, it will mean the difference between victory and defeat," Joshua clarified.
"Still risky," Boone commented in his habitually laconic fashion, "Even if the rest are killed, the Legion left behind might still kill the slaves with whose left. Never get into the Fort in time to stop it."
The sniper turned his head and shot Joshua another look, "Now that they know you're out here, they'll be on alert."
"We have brought tribals with us. Men of the Dead Horse, and converts from the Hangdogs, Twisted Hairs and Kaibabs. They are adept at scaling cliff faces and attacking unseen. Once the main force was deal with we had planned to conduct an immediate escalade upon the walls," Joshua expanded upon his explanation under the unimpressed eyes of Craig Boone.
The Courier and Craig exchanged glances, eyebrows performing an intricate dance.
The Burned Man was a legendary figure in the Mojave, and the territories around Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico. His story had spread even across the border to Mexico proper, where men spoke in hushed voices about a charred figure who walked through fiery infernos, wrapped in linins consecrated in holy waters, to stand against a horde of devil worshipers that dressed all in red and black. He had inspired the tribes of Zion to take up arms against impossible odds, and to march to victory against a vastly superior force.
But Joshua, whilst being an inspiring leader of men, was not much when it came to planning. He thrived in the thick of battle, where men lived and died on the strength of their will and the steadiness of their nerves. In single combat or at the head of a disciplined cadre of seasoned veterans who knew their business, he was a tolerable commander. His idea of grand strategy and cunning tactics, however, boiled down to getting a posse of less than thirty men together, riding out into the thick of enemy held territory, holding aloft a billboard proudly declaring, "It's not a trap, honest. Come closer and kill us all."
In reality, this was about as subtle as a drunken Mariachi band on stilts.
If he somehow contrived a way to make it any more obvious that he was up to something, he would be the conceptual equivalent of a dime-a-dozen comic book villain who sat stroking a white cat behind a priceless mahogany desk, that probably had a ridiculously contrived puzzle-box concealed in the engravings, cackling things in a nasal voice like, "The inner machinations of my mind are inscrutable!"
Only to be inevitably outsmarted by the teenage hero who was too occupied trying to woe the damsel to pay all that much attention to the weekly baddie. Close curtain and end scene.
It said something about the Legion and how off-kilter the legend of the Burned Man put them, that for all its faults, of which there were a considerable number, it actually stood a respectable chance of succeeding. After all, the Burned Man could never do such a poor job of concealing his plans.
The Courier disguised his grin by coughing into his hand and tried not to meet Joshua's eyes as he, diplomatically, took control of the proceedings. "Sure, it's a fair plan," he began in a definitive voice, "But now that the lads an' I are here, we might stand to be changin' some details around."
"It would be remiss of me to refuse advice freely given," Joshua Graham allowed without animosity. He tilted his head back and forth, making up for his indiscernible facial expression with overt body language, "I am not unaware of the crudeness of my own plans, Courier. There is a reason why I keep trying to make the tribes of Zion bestow the title of War Chief upon another man's brow. A man most famed for his most crushing defeat should not be a leader in times of war."
"'Twas you who said it, Joshua, not me," the Courier chuckled. He motioned Joshua to join him back at the apex of the slope, and the four men regarded Fort Defiance with a calculating intelligence and weighty experience of the factors involved. Raul, further down the slope, still lazed comfortably, while Lantaya was bombarding Follows-Chalk with questions related to tribal custom. Their voices formed a comfortable background as the business of the evening was being set out above them.
Fort Defiance itself was a messy tangle of Legion earthworks, constructed at the hands of numerous slaves over the course of several years. An outer ditch had been excavated and filled with sharpened wooden stakes, whilst the resulting earth was piled to head height on the trenches inside edge to make the outer wall. Anyone foolishly attempting an assault on the Fort's walls would have to navigate the deadly array of stakes waiting to impale them as they jumped down into the pit, only to find the outer wall towering far above them on the other side, far taller viewed from inside the pit than it appeared to a casual observer from ground level. The walls natural height was substantially increased by the side of the trench itself.
The only option for an assailing force would be a risky escalade up the side of the wall, all the while being shot by Legionaries with repeating rifles or skewered by throwing spears. Anyone who fell from the wall during an escalade would plummet straight down onto the spikes once more. Or they would have to advance upon the main gates on either side of the compound, where a bridge of earth cut through the ditch.
This option would inevitable be hindered by the guard towers that flanked the iron-bound gate like vigilant sentinels, the constant rotation of guards upon the walls or stationed within the towers themselves on the multiple levels within.
The outer wall itself was surrounded by a wooden, wattle lattice in order to keep the earth in place. Over time the earth had been baked dry by the sun and compressed by Legionaries that used the top of wall as a patrol route. At this point, it was the equivalent of solid mud brick, and more than capable of stopping bullets. Sufficient enough to act as a stronghold in a region inhabited predominantly be primitive tribal societies.
Contained within this outer ring of simple but thoroughly effective defences was the old Indian Hospital, a relic from when this had been a census location for the American Indian inhabitants of the Res. An impressively tall construction of concrete and brick that had been old at the time of the Great War but had still outlasted most of the wooden or prefabricated structures in the region. The Legion had largely bricked up the windows or outfitted them with wooden shutters that could be securely closed in the event of an attack.
In front of the massive pre-war structure, were lines upon lines of squat Legion tents, embroidered on all sides with the banners of the Legion, its horned Bull keeping a watchful eye on all that passed through the camp.
After a few moments of this observation, the Courier ventured a suggestion. And a comment.
"Maybe I ain't that much better," he hazarded in a gruff voice, "All I'm thinkin' is a night assault. Sneak in under cover o' night to secure the slave pens, while sappers plant breachin' charges on the southern palisade. Ye see how they have a courtyard where they've billeted all their soldiers, in the middle there?"
The Courier pointed towards the relevant location, causing Zachariah's and Joshua's heads to turn to follow like spectators at a tennis match, and Boone aim to adjust as he evaluated the proposed breaching point through the scope.
"Ran into earthworks like those all the feckin' time in Africa. Not 'nough wood to go 'round in the deserts, or all the trees are tiny little buggers, so they have to make do with diggin' trenches and stackin' earth or stone. If ye plant charges straight up an' down the wall," his finger traced his suggested section of wall from top to bottom, "Ye can cut open the wattle holdin' the earthworks in and drain the whole lot right down into the ditch. Forms a ramp, see? An' ye can roll on in an' attack the centre. If we breach the southern palisade they'll all rush out there like bloody ants to form line an' defend the breach. That'll be where we catch 'em."
"Two-hundred-strong in a confined space," Joshua noted, rather detached from his surroundings as he visualised how such an assault would play out in his mind. His prodigious wealth of practical experience with Legion manoeuvres and battle plans making him the subject matter expert in this instance.
"The Legion fights best under just such conditions, Courier. Against thirty men, it would inevitably lead to our bitter defeat. How unfortunate it is that this is not Jericho, and we cannot petition the Lord to bring the walls crashing to the earth from whence they came," he referenced as he switched his attention back to the weather concrete of the hospital building.
"However, I believe I see your intention. Their strength is their weakness in this case. They are hemmed in on all sides by their own walls. With your explosives and the relic brought up by hand to be mounted upon the breach, we could wreak such shocking devastation upon a massed formation of infantry."
"An' once they've 'ad enough, they'll try an' retreat into the hospital. We'll have 'em then, like a fox trapped in a hole," the Courier stated with absolute certainty. All men would be compelled to seek refuge in the nearest available structure when confronted by a coordinated and overwhelming attack. It was simply human nature.
"Therein lies the one issue I find with this plan," Joshua voiced his concern, "They are keeping the slaves in the hospital basement. Unless we slaughter them down to the last man in the courtyard, any men we have sent to safeguard the prisoners will inevitably be overwhelmed, and the slaves slaughtered. I alone could defend the basement if given the opportunity, but I would never be capable of sneaking past the sentries. You could defend it, but you will be needed to plant the charges to create the required breach."
Joshua cocked his head to the side in a sardonic fashion, in answer to the Couriers knowing smirk. "I take it that you have an answer to these concerns?"
"Aye, I might have a man willin' to undertake such a venture," the Courier declared. He looked over his shoulder at an empty space behind Zachariah. "How 'bout it Wanderer? Ye think you can sneak in an' guard those prisoners for us?"
Joshua and Zachariah followed his gaze and seeing nothing more than a faint heat haze in the Arizona sun, they briefly questioned the Couriers sanity. This was premature. Under Zachariah's astonished gaze and Joshua's surprised but gratified eyes, the Wanderer dematerialised as his stealth suits field disengaged with a barely perceptible fizzle. His coal black eyes studying the hospital through the scope of his Perforator, cycling through thermal imaging and EM scanning in order to get a better sense of the opposing force. Finally, his internal processors churned out the answer they all eagerly awaited.
"Affirmative."