Day 5

Siddy stumbled through the overgrown street of Soto. The once large town now was reduced to ruin. It’d fallen when Siddy was a toddler. As exhausted as Siddy was, he still had the strength to smile when familiar faces emerged from the half-destroyed houses.

“That’s only Siddy,” Bulman said with an unusual tightness. His bulbous red nose had always prompted Siddy to make sport of the older bandit. Sucker, Viza, and Tucket lowered their machetes with a mix of hope and disappointment. “Where’s Red Bill?”

Siddy spat on the soaked ground.

“I’ve wandered the damned jungle for three days. Bring me some to drink and eat.”

Four bandits showed their dirty, broken teeth and ugly grins.

“You fled them,” Tucker noted spitting at Siddy’s feet. “Butcher will skin and we’ll have some with you after.”

Butcher’s bandits weren’t the best friends, often fighting with one another, but this smelled off to Siddy. He knew when things were about to go south. A good instinct that was. But if there was one thing the damned conman has taught Siddy, it was that words were not to underestimated. A crude plan formed in his head, a plan that was going to see Siddy triumphant.

“I have important news for Butcher.”

Obnoxious Bulman pulled a knife from a sheath and gestured to Siddy to follow him. “Stay here, boys. I will deliver that little shit to the boss,” he said then looked into Siddy’s eyes with a promise of cruelty and added, “You try some funny business and will not get to tell the news, understood?”

Siddy gritted his teeth, but he had no strength to argue with the idiot. There was going to be time to exact revenge. A poisoned sting into an ear would make a clean work. It had to wait for now.

Bulma led Siddy like a prisoner. At least he didn’t tie him up. Familiar faces showed here and there. Butcher’s lair was in the mayor’s house, the only building built out of stone in Soto. Siddy was not oblivious to know the price of the stone in the jungle. Although, the stony front was barely visible under thick overgrow that left only the door uncovered.

Over three dozen bandits milled about watching and listening to the spectacle. Siddy liked the attention, reveling when other bandits have called his name. But not like this. Bulman was making a mockery of him. Siddy swallowed the venomous words and waited for the Butcher’s lair door to open.

“Where’s the rest?”

“What about Red Bill?”

“Healer?”

Questions from the bandits distracted Siddy and he failed to notice Black Jon coming from the other side of the town.

“Black Jon!” Bulman called. “We caught a deserter!”

“I’m not a deserter and you didn’t catch me,” Siddy snapped. “I returned because I carry important news for the boss.”

Unlike the lesser bandits, Butcher’s officer didn’t knock on the door. He opened them beckoning Siddy to follow him. Siddy swallowed. He’d hoped to speak to Butcher first. The thin, black-haired man was a different breed of killers. Butcher killed people, but it was Black Jon who enjoyed it immensely. Siddy was never comfortable with the officer around. A single word or a glance could set Black Jon off. How many fellow bandits had died because Black Jon had a bad day? Many…

The gathered men scattered muttering about their non-existent duties.

“Leave,” Black Jon said to Bulman who hastily fled.

On the fingers of one hand, Siddy could count how many times he’d been inside Butcher’s lair and never past the main room. It was a large chamber with closed-off windows and a few candles providing enough light to see.

“Wait here.”

Black Jon strode off, opened another door and disappeared for a few minutes that gave Siddy precious time to modify his story. With Black Jon present he needed to be careful. Black Jon returned with a single chair that he placed in the middle of the room, and gestured Siddy to sit down.

Siddy did so without a word of complaint. Anticipation of Butcher’s entrance became unbearable, even when Butcher’s right hand remained silent. Why doesn’t he ask questions about his brother? This lack of interest in the fate of Red Bill unsettled Siddy. The reaction of other bandits made it clear that he was the first to return, and likely the only one. By now, Emm deep inside a Silent Hollow, Perkins killed by the amakor, Red Bill and the conman executed by the mob in the village. His story was the only one ever to be. Siddy smoothed his fear, understanding it for what it really was. They wanted him afraid…

The door cracked open and the eight feet-tall figure of a man entered the chamber. Butcher had to bow down to not hit the doorframe. Like always, he was clean-shaved with short hair and the face of a forty-year-old that hasn’t aged since Siddy had joined the band. The blood-dripping cleaver and an apron didn’t sit well with Siddy though. Butcher’s nickname didn’t appear out of nowhere, but still, the sight was unnerving.

“What’s this?”

“That’s Siddy. One of the guys sent with Red Bill and the conman.”

Butcher’s eyes sparked with curiosity.

“Let the man speak up, Jon.”

Butcher placed the cleaver on a table next to the door and folded his arms on his oversized chest. All the courage Siddy had brought with him from the jungle vanished in front of the man who could snap a man’s neck with a flick of his wrist. Butcher’s massive bulk was deceptive as Siddy had seen move faster than Siddy’s eyes could follow.

Siddy swallowed and started weaving the perfect lie.

“Perkins betrayed us!” Siddy said, glancing at a stone-faced Black Jon. The officer’s ridiculous mustaches didn’t even twitch. Siddy expected a barrage of questions… Did he miscalculate it? “After burning Yucca down, we were chased to Cape Town. Red Bill was wounded.”

Another glance at Black Jon. The man stood unconcerned in the face of revelation. What’s wrong?

“Perkins exploited the chance, kidnapped the village chief’s whelp and fled into the night with the scout.”

“What about the conman?” Butcher asked as if nothing dire had occurred.

“He-he,” Siddy hesitated. The lie in his head breaking apart. “He pissed off.”

“And you?”

“I…” Thoughts fled him. It was different when he spun stories with an ale in a hand next to drunken bandits. Sitting in front of Butcher filled Siddy with true fear he didn’t know he possessed. “I was chased away after the village was roused.”

“You left him,” Black Jon’s words were a whisper that turned Siddy’s stomach upside down. He had a very bad feeling about this. It was a mistake.

“Yes-no! I had no choice. The mob was everywhere…”

Black Jon raised his hand silencing Siddy.

“You left my brother to his demise and now coming here and lie in our boss’ face?”

“NO!”

Siddy was shaking.

“There’s more! A Royablood...”

“Yeah,” Butcher agreed with a plain, bored expression. “We know. You can have him, Jon. Squeeze all the truth from him and let the boys have some fun with this one.”

Butcher took the cleaver from the table, leaving blood stains on the surface. He paid Siddy no more attention, returning to wherever he’d been.

“NO! Boss! Don’t leave me with him.”

Siddy saw no reason to stay in the room. Black Jon was going to unleash hell. Siddy had seen what left of people Black Jon had questioned. The bloody mess was a gentle description. The younger bandit darted toward the exit but a bang and sharp pain in his leg brought him down to a writhing heap. Black Jon’s revolver was what made him so dangerous. He wasn’t very strong physically. It didn’t matter with the only gun wielder in the band. Pain consumed Siddy and he didn’t see the hit to his head that closed his eyes.

*

Siddy woke up to a scream. After a second, pain slammed into him like a hammer to a head. It was him who screamed, but that revelation held no importance as agony was consuming his sanity.

So many times he’d stood outside this very room, listening to such screams? He couldn’t even count…

He drifted in and out of the haze of sleep until a splash of cold water woke him up completely.

“Wake up, rat.”

Siddy’s eyelids were heavy, his body didn’t feel right, it felt numb. His heart sped up as he expected another explosion of pain, but none came. He was hanging with his hands tied above him. His feet not touching the ground, although he barely felt them.

“Please…” he mumbled. “P-please … l-let m-me g-go.”

“Because of you, the healer and the scout, my brother is dead.”

“No…” The lie formed on Siddy’s tongue, but his mouth failed, time and time again.

“No?” Black Jon asked flatly. “Then look what beyond my back.”

Siddy forced his wider and shock twisted his insides. At least twenty men were hanging from branches of a large tree, heads down. None was moving. He didn’t recognize them but it felt as he should. Black Jon helped him understand.

“Hunters from Cape Town came here, thinking they can kill Butcher. I had a little chat with them…”

Siddy couldn’t grasp it … why other bandits behaved like they didn’t know…

“Fear not, you will join them when I am finished with you.”

Before Siddy could do as much as a cry, he felt a jab in his neck, a moment later his awareness left him.