Sam

"I'm gonna make a prediction."

Serene glanced over briefly, then looked ahead, shrugging the rifle strap higher on her shoulder. "No offense babe, but I'd rather you didn't."

"C'mon, hear me out."

"No."

"Why?"

"Because I know you're about to say something crazy."

"Am not."

"Okay, let's get a second opinion then." Serene turned to walk backward while scanning over the people making up their little troop. "Who here thinks that Sam Darling has a sane and reasonable prediction to make about today's activities? Show of hands."

Sam waited patiently for someone to back her up. No one did. She threw her arms up, offended. "Come on, you guys! Oats, what about you?"

"What about me?" Wesley asked, bristling.

"Tell 'em I'm not crazy!"

"You are, though."

"I—..." She harrumphed, turning her attention on the winding road. "Man, forget you guys. You're so mean."

"Okay crazy girl, don't go crying on us now," Griff said in his hoarse wolf snarl of a voice, spitting a gob of brown saliva into the ditch on their right. "Tell us your theory."

"Not a theory—a prediction," Sam corrected, a finger in the air. "Nay, a declaration even."

"Whatever. Let's hear it."

"No one dies today." She gave a proud smile and pointed to herself with her thumb. "I'll make sure of it."

"Right." Griff kept on walking. "Not fucking likely, but feel free to nurture whatever delusions you like I suppose."

Sam readied a retort, but Serene beat her to it. "Sorry, babe, but I have to agree with the man. After the fiasco downtown, I can smell blood already."

Although their detachment was still en route to the Wurmhole, they had just received word via Message that Buck's raid on the Cliffside finance district had been a complete bust. Apparently all the pro-slavery bigwig types had all gotten wind of the trouble and skipped town before the lord could show up to crash their party. Which was good, because they'd left all their shit behind to save their own skins, but also bad, because that meant the slavers had no bosses around telling them not to do anything criminally braindead.

"Say, how come this random road out in the middle of the woods is nicer than the actual city streets that people walk on every day?" Wesley asked, looking down at his own feet as he trudged along the neatly paved road.

"Because the mines make money," Griff replied, "and when money talks, motherfuckers listen."

Wesley nodded along. "Guess so. Says a lot about society though, don't you think?"

"Shut up."

"Yes, sir."

"Guys, I'm serious," Sam cut in. "I'm really going to make sure this ends up a 'zero workplace accidents' type day."

"This is the pit fighter girl, right?" Griff asked, using a pinky to pack the wad of tobacco under his top lip more tightly. "The one that won that tournament a while back?"

"That's the one," Serene confirmed.

"They scramble her egg good up in Darkside or something?"

"I think she came that way out of the box, actually."

"Damn."

"Honestly, this kind of thing is pretty standard for her. You get used to it."

"You guys are just gonna ignore me, huh?" Sam grumbled.

"She mean it, too?" Griff asked, craning his neck to look around her when she slowed to try and take up his field of vision.

"She does," Serene replied soberly. "Sam Darling takes her death wish very seriously."

"And… we're meant to keep her alive."

"That's right."

Griff cracked his neck one way, then the other. "Era's fucking tits. I should've just killed myself when I had the chance, saved myself some trouble."

It was a big long column of soldiers that marched along the western road out of Sheerhome, guards and outriders pulled off their shifts and out of their beds in their hundreds under the command of Garrison Captain Jawara. The men grumbled and groused and dragged their feet over the sudden hustle, sergeants shouting and threatening to keep them in line.

Sam had to admit that Wesley had a point about the western leg of the Iron Road. It was a proper stone-paved thing, and ran almost stick-straight through the old woods. It was clear that large sections of the landscape had been reshaped to accommodate it, and that it was regularly maintained. She was mostly just glad for the fact that they didn't need to march a small army's worth of soldiers down some dirt path. Logistically speaking, between dust and mud and potholes, she imagined that would have been a nightmare.

The road began to slope upward as they left the city further behind, and at a certain point it split in two, with the smaller fork curving off to the southwest. The militia force split in two, with a smaller detachment of about 150 men going under the command of some lieutenant to hit Wurmhole West, while the remaining three-hundred-something—Sam and the others included—stayed the course.

About two hours out from Sheerhome they came into a large deforested area of hilly terrain, and were greeted by a tall log palisade that curved off to the north and south, dark smoke and coarse voices rising from inside. Based on the lecture Will had given her, this was the so-called 'village' that served as the entrance to Wurmhole East, where the taskmasters rested their heads at night—unlike the workers themselves, many of whom were forced to sleep down in the darkness of the mines.

Though the gates were firmly shut at the road's terminus, there seemed to be a lot of activity going on inside. Jawara's people didn't have a lot of recon types, but the few that were there reported that the village was bustling like an anthill. Somehow, the taskmasters had caught wind of the trouble and were scrambling to pack up shop and make themselves scarce the same way as the rich jerkoffs in the city.

It wasn't gonna go like that, though. Not for these particular jerkoffs anyway. The militiamen spread out in smaller squads that covered a wide arc across the open terrain so the slavers didn't have any room to make a break over the palisade that surrounded the village on three sides, with the fourth being naturally blocked off by the mountains that rose above the mines in the west. Additionally, Jawara also had a squad of Spark-build specialists from her auxiliary troops set up maybe two hundred feet from the village, ready to start lobbing fire over the walls in case the slavers tried to turtle up in there.

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Sam had a strong urge to run up and start banging on those doors straight away, but considering that this wasn't really her operation, she resolved herself to hang back and observe for the time being, though she ventured closer to the palisade than most so that she could intervene quickly if anything dramatic went down.

Jawara approached the doors on foot with eight soldiers around the Level 10 range as backup in order to parlay.

"Pit Boss Gorebag!" the woman shouted, her strong voice echoing out over the hilly ground and causing the militiamen's conversations to die down to a quiet murmur as they listened in. "This is Garrison Captain Jawara of the Sheerhome militia! A word, if I may!"

There was a long pause, stretching on for maybe half a minute. Then, a shrill, nasally voice cried from inside in a seagull's squawk: "I already know why you're here, captain! Tell your people to make way for us, and there won't be no trouble! All we want is to quit this town in peace!"

Jawara shook her head silently. After some brief consideration, she said: "No can do, chief! Most of you can get on out of here as long as you renounce your slaving ways and don't make trouble. As for the ones in charge, Lord Buck wants butts in chairs to answer some hardball questions. The pit boss in particular. Is this him I'm talking to?"

"This is he!" Gorebag replied.

"Good! I think I can talk the lord down to just you—take the rap, and the rest of your kind can get on their merry slaving way! Minus the slaving, of course."

Silence. Then: "Let me talk this shit over with my boys!"

"Very well! But if those doors aren't open in five minutes, I'm breaking them down!"

"No need to get nasty now! I'm sure there's a reasonable solution to all this!"

Jawara and her bodyguards stayed near the gates to facilitate further dialogue while the rest of the arrayed troops settled in for a bored wait, only kept off their butts by virtue of their sergeants' continued berating.

Sam squatted low, elbows on thighs, and pulled at the coarse yellow grass while making random percussive sounds to herself to pass the time. The others whiled away as they saw fit. Hacksaw and Griff shared a cigarette and talked about the state of the world. Wesley tried—and failed rather miserably—to strike up a conversation with Serene, who seemed intent on blocking out the entire world around her as she stared off into the middle distance. Francine kept to the edges, not really speaking to anyone. Sam wasn't sure anymore if she hated her or pitied her. The lady must have fucked her life pretty hard if hanging out with them was the best thing she had to do with her time.

"I thought this Gorebag dude was supposed to be some huge crazy guy," Sam said idly, "but he sounded more like a… pubescent boy."

"Don't judge a psychopath by his voicebox," Griff mused, exhaling a lungful of smoke. "Judge him by the bodies in his icebox."

Hacksaw snorted, his compulsive grin twitching a hair. "No offense, friend, but I'm not sure you're the right person to be making sweeping statements on this topic."

A few of the militiamen within earshot laughed at their former captain's expense. Griff's scar-checkered face went tomato-red. He looked like he was about to let fly a retort, but instead just spat on the ground and grumbled something under his breath.

Sam glanced at the soldiers, all smiles and hard eyes. "Aren't these your boys? They don't seem to like you much."

Griff tried to ignore her, but eventually growled and said: "They were. Happy enough to work for me when the burning man was flying over the keep. These days, folk love to pretend they were secret admirers of the exemplary and kind and ever-so-handsome Lord Buck all along." He spat and worked a squeaky metal-jointed shoulder. "Fucking gutless cowards, the lot of 'em."

Sam forced a sympathetic smile and gave an awkward little laugh. "Yeah, well, have you ever considered that maybe—"

Everyone flinched and whipped toward the mining village as the palisade doors burst open. Rough-hewn logs splintered, and heavy black iron hinges popped apart easily as bird bones. The garrison captain was nearly struck by the great mass of flying wood, and she went into desperate retreat along with her detail while they reached for weapons.

One man stepped over the gate wreckage and pursued the captain's party along the road at a sedate pace. Sam almost mistook him for a stunted troll at first, but no, he was human, even though he towered well over seven feet tall and bulged with an obscene and frankly unsightly amount of muscle, so bulky he moved at a clumsy waddle due to the rubbing-together of his bulbous thighs. He wore only a pair of tattered, too-tight shorts that clung to him like a second skin, the rest of his body naked and hairless and strangely shiny as though he'd rubbed himself down with oil. His round, shaved head looked comically small and out of place on his mountain of a body, like a single baby tomato balanced on top of a Christmas ham.

Gorebag, she presumed, and the fifteen AP crystals studding his arm confirmed it. Jawara's detail moved in to support their superior and give her time to retreat. The captain fired the shotgun she carried once before ducking away, and Gorebag turned his left shoulder up to catch the slug, leaving a bloodless hole. His face gave no evidence that he even felt it. The others moved in with swords and axes. He took their attacks without slowing, each bright crescent of falling steel biting only an inch or two into his rubbery flesh before bouncing off.

They kept on whacking him, and he kept on letting them. When they started putting Strikes into their hits and even that wasn't getting them far, the militiamen quickly ran out of enthusiasm, and started looking at each other with growing urgency, as though each fella hoped somebody else might have a better idea of what was going on than they did.

One guy swung his axe, caught Gorebag's thigh, and was trying to yank it back when the huge man shot forward with a sudden burst of speed and caught the smaller Laborer by the wrist. He lifted him up, laughing that strange seagull laugh, and dashed him like a ragdoll against the ground before tossing him aside several yards, where he lay weakly flailing in a tangle of his own twisted limbs.

Three others met the receiving end of a similarly one-sided beatdown before the rest wised up and ran the same way as their captain back up the road. With another unnatural rush of speed for one so inordinately large, Gorebag shoved past the fleeing men, easily shouldering them aside, and moved with a sinuous, fluid, almost dancerlike grace as he chased Jawara down, cutting the distance between them in just a handful of moments.

Sensing that she was about to get overtaken, Jawara ground to a halt and spun with her gun leveled high. She fired another slug that cracked Gorebag right on the dome, but left only a small red streak from the piece of hot metal streaking over his skull before shooting away, having inflicted only superficial harm.

"Shit…!" Jawara hissed, clearly having expected a shotgun of all things to make more of an impact. There was no time for her to get another slug off before the pit boss was on top of her, cackling like a particularly unpleasant child.

I've seen about enough of this.

"Peace!" Sam cried out.

The ruse worked. Gorebag halted with his huge ham hand inches from Jawara's face, fingers splayed. He only hesitated for a moment, but it was enough for Sam to set into a light sprint toward him, and for him to notice her coming his way.

"Wait your turn, bitch!" Gorebag squealed, turning his attention back on the captain. "I'll get to you next."

"Nah! You and me, villain—let's have ourselves a duel!"

"Sam, what the fuck, no!" Serene cried, trying to chase after her but falling steadily further behind.

Sam ignored her, and the giant balloon animal of muscle turned to face her warily as she closed the distance between them. "Why would I do that?"

Slowing to a moderate jog, Sam pointed a finger at the man. "If I win, you and all your buddies will agree to surrender. If you win, we'll let you all go without issue. Big confident man like yourself, that must seem like a pretty sweet deal, no?"

A shocked silence fell over the land, militiamen and slavers alive—even Jawara seemed at a loss. Sam put on a big grin for the audience as she swaggered up to her opponent.

Finally catching hold of herself, the garrison captain flung up a steel-gloved hand and said: "Fall back, soldier! That's an order!"

Sam grinned wider, but she didn't slow down a bit. "Sorry ma'am, but I'm afraid this villain-punching machine doesn't have an off button. Besides, I don't work for you—I'm just here for the love of the game."

* * *

Will

"LOOK AT ME GO!" the toy monkey belted out, tottering and tumbling about on the table, getting tangled in his own limbs and tail half the time. "LOOK! AT! ME! GO!"

"Look at him go!" Sunny echoed while clapping her hands enthusiastically. "Look at him go, Uncle Will!"

But Will wasn't listening. He'd fallen still with his hand halfway raised to his mouth, smoke twisting from the lit cigarette pinched between two fingers.

Something was off. A… disturbance. A pit of cold knowing in his stomach. Through their link, he could tell that Sam was up to some bullshit.

The monkey kept on screaming and engaging in what could only very liberally be interpreted as dance, but Will paid the ugly thing no mind. Waves of Detect [Air] billowed around him, closing in, making him want to be sick.

"What's wrong, Uncle Will?" Sunny asked.

Will took a while answering. Giving the cigarette a long drag and letting it out in a sigh, he said: "I'm going to kill her. If she makes it out of there alive, I'm taking her out behind the shed my own damn self."

The little girl frowned deeply across the table. "What?"

Will clicked his tongue. "Nothing. Play with your monkey, Sunny."

"'Kayyy…"

I'm gonna fucking kill her. I brought her into this shithole, and I'll be the one to take her out of it, I swear to god.

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