Mazelton reached out and grabbed Mendiluze’s belt and collar, then fell backwards. He planted a boot in the big man’s back, so that when Mazelton reached the ground, he could launch the soldier into the scrub and away from his comrades. Then he dove on him before he could get up.

Mendiluze punched him in the face. His worn fist swung in a short, tight arc, catching Mazelton right on the button and made him see stars for a second. Then it was Mendiluze’s turn to grab his collar, and tried to put Mazelton on his back. They were scrambling in the dirt and coarse scrub, all the scrubby little trees trying to grow up and crowd out all the light below. It was a game of leverage, of positioning. Of who could hit the other person harder, or slip a knife in where it might do some good. And Mendiluze had fifteen kilos on Mazelton. And this was his full time job.

Mendiluze moved to mount Mazelton, which instantly brought him back to the Jasmine, and the garret where his journey began. He drove his knee into the big man’s balls and tried to slice his eyes with a rock grabbed from the ground. Mendiluze reared back, dodging the rock and, yelling, came back in with a swinging hammerblow of his own. Mazelon got one arm up in time to deflect and tried to buck free. Mendiluze wasn’t having it, and pulled a knife. Mazelton thought it was a good idea too, and with a hard yank pulled his own knife out. It was sticky and dulled with blood. Didn’t bother Mazelton any, so he stabbed for Mendiluze’s guts while the veteran went for his face.

They both grabbed the other’s knife arm, trying to muscle it away and bring their own into line. Mendiluze had position and weight. Mazelton was fighting like a mad thing, though, and was making him work for it. But Mendiluze was making it work. Those extra fifteen kilos leaning down on his thin arm, the arm fatiguing fast, and the veteran knew it. There was nothing to say. No boasts. No curses. Every breath was put into muscling the blades around. Every scrap of his attention was on killing Mazelton. With horrible patience forged in hundreds of deadly fights, he got his knife into line with Mazelton’s throat. And started leaning in.

Mazelton kept trying to work his knife free, to cut something, anything, to distract the big man. Mendiluze had his wrist locked down, his hand so tight Mazelton was feeling his fingers go numb. And still Mendiluze’s blade creeped closer to his throat. He tried to spit in Mendiluze’s eyes. The vet slightly tilted his head, and kept on pressing. Too many people were counting on him. He wasn’t going to be sloppy at the end. Not when the necromancer was struggling like a fish on the line.

Mazelton stopped resisting. Mendiluze shot down, those extra fifteen kilos and hard earned back muscles driving him towards the earth. And Mazelton pulled the knife hand down and to the side, bucking his hips, back, legs in an almighty spasm to set them on their sides. Mendiluze stabbed dirt, and Mazelton scrambled over him to take his back. He dropped down, slamming his elbow into the back of Mendiluze’s head, stunning him for a half second. Mazleton got his knife around and punched it into the side of the big man’s neck. He started sawing out, leaning into the cut and trying to drown Mendiluze’s windpipe with the blood from his carotid artery.

Mendiluze pushed off the ground, spinning around and planted a backhand on Mazelton’s face that smashed him into a bush. The two staggered to their feet, lit by burning wagons. They were muddy, ash covered, bloody and feral. Mazelton brought his knife back to his waist, arm chambered to stab, his left gently extended in front of him, ready to grab or deflect. Mendiluze kicked a rock at his face and charged in. Mazelton got out of the way of some of it, tangled up in the bush. The two of them fell back down, but Mendiluze was fading fast. He swung his knife madly. He wanted to hurt the necromancer, even if he couldn’t kill him. Hurt him. It wasn’t his fault, but it had to be somebody’s fault, so he wanted to hurt him.

Mazelton watched the life fade from the big man’s eyes. The hatred never did.

Mazelton lay in the bush, hyperventilating. He couldn’t hold his knife any more. Standing seemed comically impossible. Everything hurt. He knew, vaguely, that he was covered in cuts, that his ribs were even more broken, that he may well be concussed. To heavy blows to the head, that’s not good. He fucking won. No tricks. No hidden weapons or poison. He fought for his life and fucking won, and he was going to have forty kids and his line would live forever!

He wanted to close his eyes and sleep for a year. But a battlefield was a bad place for that, and the gunfire, and screams, and the smell of burning flesh were not soothing. Besides, he still had one more thing to do. Mazelton grabbed Mendiluze’s hair and dragged him into a little dip in the landscape. Barely two feet down, but that was enough for him to lie down out of the line of fire. And start carving.

His first thought was to crack the rib cage and butterfly it open. Easy access, no fuss, no muss, get the heart out straight away. Except that meant cracking the sternum, somehow, and spreading the ribs, somehow, and he didn’t have the tools. OK, plan B it was. Mazelton carefully wiped off his blade this time, even giving it a probably pointless honing on the thick felt of his boots. Then he swiftly cut open Mendiluze’ shirt, slicing the buttons off like a butcher trimming away silverskin.

Mendiluze was covered in scars, some small, one wider than Mazelton’s spread hand. He had bought his farm on the installment plan- one near death experience at a time. Mazleton sliced open his belly, making a Y shaped incision and peeled back the flaps. He then reached into the guts and just started hauling things out and tossing them to the side. It was gross, but Mazelton had never been squeamish. The lungs took a bit of reaching around and cutting free, but he got them out eventually. The way clear, he reached in and pulled out the heart and core of the man once called Mendiluze, hero of the Collective, husband and father.

The core was a titchy little thing. Bigger than some he had seen, just because of all the hot lands Mendiluze had traveled through. But still, not what you would see in a polisher. Mazelton directly swallowed it, letting the heat run into him and trusting that his body would shit out the heavy metals before he absorbed too much. They were hardly digestible, after all. Not like the heart.

It stank of metal and blood. It was tough, rubbery, and slippery with its own juices, the same blood it had used to keep the light in Mendiluze’s eyes. Mazelton brought it up to his mouth and tried to eat it like an apple. His teeth slid off, then when they got a little set, he found that he couldn’t bite through the tough muscle. He bit as hard as he could- it felt like he was going to lose a tooth. He laughed, a little deranged, and sliced off a hunk. Even his knife struggled to cut through. He took the thick slice, and popped it in his mouth. It wasn’t any easier to chew. Easier to get his teeth around, but it was still like trying to chew squishy floor tile.

You have to cook tough cuts to tenderize them. Mazelton remembered hearing that. The heat breaks down the meat. Cooking was one of those core technologies- you got so many more calories from the food that way. And so many fewer diseases. Mazelton stared out over the lip of his little hidden defile. Could he roast the heart on a skewer, perhaps over the coals of burning Collective wagons?

No. Not practical. Besides. He was a polisher, main line of the Ma clan, and a whirling Hurricane Lily growing along the banks of the rivers in Hell. He didn’t have to pretend to be normal. Not here and now. Not for this.

He closed his eyes, and felt for the core in his belly. He drew the heat up, pouring it into the core under his heart as he pulled the heat from that core into his mouth. This was madness. This wasn’t something sane people did. But he was Mazelton. Every scrap of heat he could reach was under his command. It left and returned at his whim. He concentrated the heat, the ionizing radioactive particles in his mouth, shredding the muscle and connective tissue of the heart. Then he chewed and swallowed, the spitting, furious particles absorbed back into the invisible glass veins crowding his body, and ultimately, into the core under his heart. It was madness. It should have killed him. It shouldn’t have been possible in the first place.

Mazelton smiled, and brought the whole heart back up to his mouth, and bit in again. This time he could shear away a chunk, the invisible flames roasting it nicely for him. He could see it happening. His core was darkening, smoothing to an impossible degree, spitting out heat as it drew it in. He chewed and chewed, letting the black sun be born within him. He looked down at his empty hands and felt his full belly. He had eaten Mendiluze’s heart and core, and now the black sun burned within him. No heat could touch him now. He was, at long last, a true Ma. The shame of the Zel generation, humiliated as just… Ton. Not worthy to stand with his clan and peers. He. The Man Mazelton. Had ignited the black sun, and survived.

A bullet nearly splashed his brains out across the bushes. Nobody gave a shit that he was having a moment, there was a battle on. Mazelton ducked and crawled away. He was done with this fight.

The dawn came up, the sky lightning indecently fast. The pitched pace of battle had slowed to a siege. Nobody was going to be rushing the dug in machine guns, but likewise, the Collective wasn’t going to be able to shoot their way out. Sooner or later they would run out of bullets. The Dusties had largely switched to launching stones and burning branches into the wagons. This was a chancy move, as it meant standing where a gun could reach you. Still, they did it. And the death toll crept up.

Mazelton had tried to patch his wounds as best he could, which frankly, wasn’t very good. Well, no matter. He would survive. He would. But it was time to bring the battle to a close. Neither side could win at the moment, so… time to give them some options. He grinned mirthlessly. One key rule you learned in the sewers- never stand between the rat and the exit. If it thinks it’s got no way out, it will fight you to the death. Show it a gap, and it’s harmless.

He looked around, trying to find out who was organizing things on the Dusty side. He found a wagon with a tarp sticking out from it, a dim little rushlight marking the location for the messengers to run to. He trooped up to it. The man behind the table was a stranger to him. He knew the face, he knew all the Dusties faces. But the name had never stuck. Mazelton had never cared. It occurred to him that he still didn’t care.

“Brother Mazelton. Didn’t think you were still alive. Looking at you, I’m not sure you did survive. What’s the Ma 's position on ghosts?”

“They don’t exist, by order of the Clan. Are you organizing this shit show?”

“Organizing is a strong word. What do you need?”

“I want to call a truce, and give them a way out. They can take their food and wagons, but they have to leave their guns and machine tools. And we get to inspect.”

“Do you honestly think they will disarm?”

“No, they will insist on keeping some of the guns, but I bet we can get the machine guns and most of the machine tools off of them, along with a ton of ammo. It won’t completely end their weapons development in the Territory, but it will damage it badly. Those tools will be almost impossible to replace locally.”

“You sound pretty certain they exist.”

“Machine guns are a weapon of the industrialized type- they need infrastructure. They fire thousands of rounds a minute- you think they are hand loading all that?”

“Point. And it would keep more of us alive, of course.”

“Right.”

“Why don’t you think they will shoot you on sight?”

“I will try to organize a parley, not die heroically. Or put another way, I’m going to line a wagon with a shitton of dirt and lie down on the far side of the pile while waving the white flag. I do hope you will stop attacking as I do so.”

“Hah.” The worn man, stick thin and papery after months on the trail, looked up at the rising sun. “Good omen, you think?”

The disparate groups met in between the Dusty wagons and the Collective. Apparently, the Collective had tried to break out through the independents, but the independents had apparently gotten real tired of them too. What they lacked in machine guns and death warriors, they made up for in sheer nastiness. A remarkable number of the independents were excellent shots, for example, or had upsettingly large numbers of caltrops. Caltrops smeared with shit. For self defense, apparently.

Nimu, under the firm leadership of Polyclitus, had scrammed away from the whole battle and got well under the lip of a ridge three hundred yards away. They had some wounded, but no dead. Mazelton was not ashamed to weep as he embraced Duane. Duane looked uncomfortable as hell, but he could deal with it. The Dusties sent the worn man. Polyclitus stood for Nimu, a visibly irritated Lettie was shoved forward by the independents, and the Collective… sent someone Mazelton had no recollection of.

“Where is Mendiluze?” Polyclitus asked with a sort of mild curiosity.

“Ask them.” The old woman from the Collective jerked her thumb at the worn man, who shrugged.

“I didn’t see him, and don’t know of anyone who did.”

Mazelton coughed politely, earning him a death glare from all present.

“Let’s stay focused on the matter at hand. Putting it very mildly, this caravan cannot continue as it is. The Collective must separate from us.”

“Gladly. As if we wanted to stay even one second longer. Open your lines and we are gone.”

“Forget it.” The worn man didn’t snap. He didn’t have to.

“I don’t give half a damn about you shooting up the Dusties, but you shot us up too. And we’ve never done anything to you at all. So no, you don’t just get to walk away.” Lettie looked furious.

“It was you who-!”

“It was the Collective that shot first.” Mazelton spoke over the old woman. “They did. I don’t know why you thought tonight was the night, but the fact is that the collective opened their hidden gun ports, and cut down hundreds with their hidden machine guns. And you didn’t give a damn who you hit, you wanted everyone dead.”

The old woman glared at him. She was smart enough to know that there was no point in arguing. She was not quite smart enough to understand what Mazelton was doing. If the Collective still had living political officers, they would have figured it out. Regrettably, they had all died.

Polyclitus nodded along. “I went through no small trouble to keep you two separated and peaceable. What you got up to once you left the caravan wasn’t my problem. Turns out I’m the asshole, I guess.”

She glared at him. “A parasite has no right to judge us!”

“Sure, sure. Also not one ounce of grain, not a speck of gunpowder, not a single person or good or letter will reach the Collective in the disputed territories on any wagon belonging to any member of the Mercantile Trust. Which includes Nimu, the Sky Runners, and every caravan company in the West, and most of the warehouses in the ports, to say nothing of the stevedores, longshoremen and teamsters. Guess you can try your luck with the Voyageurs. Though they ain’t what I’d call reliable.” Polyclitus smiled in a friendly sort of way. “You might even call them parasites, the way they suck the blood out of ya.”

“Typical of your kind, pulling down the free with the chains that hold you down.”

“We are going off topic. I don’t know why the Collective decided to kill tonight. I’m sure we will all hear about how it was actually one of us who attacked first. But for right here and now, that’s not important. What matters is that you are able to leave safely, with all your people who still live, and enough food and supplies to get you through the winter. For the rest of us, what matters is that you aren’t able to turn around and shoot us in the back. So let's walk through it.”

Mazelton spoke reasonably and calmly. The hurricane lily spun, and its pollen turned into an inescapable illusion. The “facts” were these. The Collective had never intended to live peacefully. They came equipped to murder the innocent, peaceful, unarmed, settlers. Settlers who had paid twice over for the land they wanted to farm. The Collective could never be trusted to keep their word. The only way they could be trusted is at the point of a weapon, and only if they had been thoroughly disarmed first. And whatever people had believed before, this is what they would believe now. They would tell everyone they met the inescapable, incontrovertible truth they had seen with their own eyes. The Collective murdered without reason, then lied about it. But the polisher was an honorable person, fair and even handed, even to those who had tried to kill him. You might not like him, but you could trust him.

Mazelton could feel Lettie glaring at him, even when she was looking away. She might not get the nuance, but she caught the drift.

They broke as the sun finally cleared the mountains, orange as an egg yolk thankfully received from the venerated chickens living in the chicken shrine a family worshiped for generations. Mazelton had collapsed on the ground, leaning bonelessly on a wagon wheel.

“Mind if I asked you a question?”

“I thought you would have a lot more than one.” The worn man replied.

“I do, but this one bugs me. How did you have so many death warriors to throw at the Collective? I know some ways to make them, of course, but generally they require quite specialized handling.”

The worn man looked even more tired. And perhaps a bit sad.

“You are a convert, right? Of course you are, you are a Ma. But you haven’t been a Dusty for very long?”

“A few years.”

“Well, the rest of us grew up Dusty. Either in cantons or in our own neighborhoods in villages. And here’s the thing, and it’s a thing you know but don’t feel. Not in your gut. You are still focused on living. On this, right here, right now, life. But a Dusty is more than that. This walking around bit of life is the smallest, least important part of who we are. Who you are. When you die, you go right on living- as a part of the world. As the microbes eating your body, the insects and worms and animals and plants and trees and the whole damn water cycle you are, in a small way, part of.”

The worn man waived his hand with tired grandeur at the forested hills and mountains. “All this is us. Literally us. All those elders burning their souls in the Grand Renaissance. It was us. Our lives, Mazelton, yours, mine, everyone’s, are a lot less important than our deaths. Because it’s our deaths that are going to let the next generation of everything live on. So we live our lives and cherish our lives and try to make the world the best place we can while we are up and moving around, and when we die, we die in a way that makes things better for everyone else.”

Mazelton didn’t have anything to say to that. He couldn’t quite bring himself to believe it. But he wanted to. It was a good goal to work towards. The black sun burned under his heart, now. He would have plenty of energy to work with. At home. With Danae.