My horse finished it’s trot along the city lines, thin posts of wood that were split by different sections of brick columns. It stretched all to my right and left, seemingly ending arbitrarily. They weren’t good defenses. They weren’t even walls. Planks to their sides with such wide gaps that any man could fit his whole body through them. The best way to describe it, I suppose, is that the city walls looked like a collection of broken, uneven teeth. Rotten, wooden teeth.

At front were two guards, both standing against the walls and leaned with their helmets tilted forwards. They fixed them and postured up as Vincent came up to the front. I looked around, finally. A city in the middle of its absolute dilapidation, a city becoming an artifact live in front of me.

Asmodas.

“Why do they call it this?” I turned. Kal sat with his hands crossed together and shoulders slumped. He puckered his lips and closed one eye in thought.

Adobe houses rounded, with little twigs and leaves still poking out from where they had put the stone slurry to bake. They looked fragile, the walls. Thin wooden signs flapped along the sides of these round houses, each displaying what they were supposed to be. Because otherwise you wouldn’t know, couldn’t know. It all seemed like a hub of little orange huts. Small round and hunched buildings with half-circle windows. Cactii out the front that blossomed. A child stepped up to one, grabbing a bright red fruit from one of the fins. He touched it and yelped, withdrawing his hand.

The fruit fell and he ran away when I caught him.

Why? He hadn’t done anything bad.

“The name comes from Asmodai, one of the nine.” Kal said. “I believe he’s the god of wealth and prosperity, of bounty.”

“Then he sure as hell left the city, didn’t he?”

“That he did.” Kal nodded.

I walked stepped down from the horse. A lackee scrambled to grab the reigns. I went to the fruit and picked it up. A sharp poke. I winced and waved my hand in the air, hot air burning the little wound more than helping. I turned the fruit, sandy on one side and took out my small knife, peeling the prickled skin until only the flesh remained. A seeded little ball, like a bleeding heart in my hands. I took bites, chunks.

Sweet. It was good.

The guards opened up, both going to far ends of the (broken) gate. Vincent waved. A hornman sounded his instrument, we all came in. A line of soldiers and horses and carts, and honestly us ourselves more of a lively city than the city proper.

There were no roads. Only dust and a few wooden porches and barricades dividing property lines. A dog so thin his ribs poked out of his blankety, long flesh looked to me with his head raised. He barked and scrambled behind a water well to the side.

The people didn’t look much better.

Though it did improve. As we went deeper. The roads were still shit and driving sand and stones up my leather boots. Cactus still grew wild in giant fields in between homes. But we were finally coming up to wooden buildings. To encampment dwellings, long flat fields and abandoned houses where we started to set up. Some of us in the taverns, others out in tents, others still in the lonely wooden houses. It was strange. Shouldn’t these belong to the people? They obviously needed it more.

Obrick, Kal and I stalled our horses and walked out, wiping our hands on your pants and visoring our faces from the sun. Obrick had a scarf wrapped around his face. I could only see his two blue eyes.

“The hells wrong with you?” I asked.

“The sun.” He sounded dire. “It’s too bright.”

“He burns easily.” Kal grinned.

I smiled and pinched his little balaclava.

“Off me.” He slapped my hand away.

“The merchants will meet us out the front tomorrow morning, so get ready for that.” I said.

“Tomorrow morning?” Obrick asked.

“I barely found out myself. I think Vincent’s keeping it close to the chest.” I said.

“Must be some important fucking merchants for us to travel this far out.” Obrick said.

“Maybe.” I said. “I hope it’s just merchants.”

“What do they sell even?”

“Don’t know. Pottery, clothes I think.” I said.

“What do those savages want with pottery? Clothes? Don’t they wear loin cloths on their dicks?” Obrick asked.

“Don’t underestimate your enemy.” Kal sighed. “Kavalians are fearsome and not half the savages you’ve heard from your bards and story tellers.”

“I ain’t underestimating anything.” Obrick said. “I’m just saying what I’ve heard.”

“You’ll come to regret that.” Kal said.

Obrick’s eyes went wide. Funny how much you can get across with just a slit of a face.

We wandered for a while, turning our heads to farmers tilling dead dirt and plucking giant phallic looking vegetables out the floor. Children chasing roosters to the edges of boarded farms. An elderly woman sat on a small chair, her hands through murky water. She rubbed little yellow granules, splitting the skin from the flesh. They looked like worms in her hands. She looked up to me, her face drooping and her ears long. Dead look. Dead eyes.

“Is there a bar?” I asked. “I want to ask some questions.”

“I want some food.” Kal said.

“I need some shade.” Obrick tightened his wraps around his face.

We walked to a little house with a hood out the front. Nothing special, half of it was built out of wood and weak scaffolding and the rest was layered on top. A frankenstein house of baked yellow stone and adobe plaster and wood. We went through the turning doors and walked towards a table. Maids came around with flat bread steaming out the front, little cuts of meat placed inside and the whole thing folded like a letter. They ate on round tables and spooned green sauce with caper-small objects in it. Every now and then their cups would be refilled. Some had bowls of red mush, salty cheese crumbled on top. It smelled good and my stomach grumbled and we took chairs around the far end of the table. A door lead to the kitchen. A bar lined the far side of the room where a mustached man wiped clean his glass. We sat and waited. And waited. And waited.

And waited.

No one came to serve us for what felt like an hour. And no one was here save for two groups of three and five. The rest of the tables were empty, six total of which I counted. Counting was how I spent my time. Counting and tapping my foot and giving curious stares at the barkeeper and the waitresses.

“What do you want?” A woman came over. She looked down at us and slid a plate. Only one of the flat breads was inside. Kal grabbed it and rolled it and ate it whole in one munch. Obrick had his hand out and didn’t even get to feel the steam off the thing.

“Whatever the red mash is. And some meat and more bread.” I said.

She stared. Black pockets around her eyes and nodded her head.

And we waited. And waited. And waited. The sun came up and came down, and it was contempt and spite that kept us here. A want to know what this was about. The next table over, one of the men spoke up. He was spooning food into his mouth, giving is seedy looks. His back was hunched, a giant garb over his rounded shoulders.

“Don’t you people get it?” He asked.

“You talking to me?” I said.

“Who else?” He chewed. “You should git out.”

“Git? Get out? Why?”

“Out of here. Out the city. You aren’t no good to us.” He rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Do you have a problem with us, sir?”

“Not you in particular, no, young man.” He said. “Not yet at least.”

“Why’s everyone giving us a dirty look?”

“Why else? You’re capital people. Xanthus people.” He said. “We don’t like ‘em.”

“He owns this city.”

“That he does. That he does.” The old man stood alone. “That’s the part people don’t like.”

I twitched and looked to the entrance of the kitchen. Not a single sizzling pan. Not any heat or any fumes of food. Nothing but dead air. The waitresses closed their eyes as they cleaned the tables, the other people looked away from us. I shook my head and stood. We made our way out to the front. A child came running along the boardwalk, playing some kind of game. He bumped into me and I grabbed his wrist.

At that I saw his face morph. Mutate, rather. First in some kind of fearful expression. Then to pure contempt. Absolute anger. He had my coin purse in his hand. Wrapped firm. I tightened my grip and he let go, wincing. He struggled, squirmed and I released.

I hadn’t seen anyone run that fast, as fast as that boy. Ever.

“We’re going to have problems in this town.” I said.

Kal picked at his teeth.

“Foods good at least.” He said.

We turned at him, shaking our heads.