“Jack. Jack! Get your butt up. We gotta move. Where’d the old man go?”

So many words all at once. His eyelids crack open to see Corva leaning over him, yelling. Zeke is standing on her shoulder and looking back toward the door.

Jack sits up and rubs the back of his head. It hurts something fierce, like it’d been rolled down a hill in a sack full of hammers. “What’re you talkin’ about? Old Man V’s been dead over a year.”

“What?” Corva scrunches her face in a look of confusion that’s about as ugly as his head is in pain. “Not him. Thegn. Where is he? And why aren’t you wearing a shirt?”

The memory of his graceless attempt at escape flashes to the front of his mind. He feels his cheeks and ears heat up from the embarrassment. Best to let the words fly. It won’t stop him from feeling like a dumbass, but at least they’ll be talking about something else.

“Ol’ Wrinkles? Fuck if I know. He was real nonchalant about you bolting—thanks for that, by the way. Helluva team attitude. Anyhow, he sat here just chillin’ out, telling me to pour him another shot. All of the sudden, he’s all tranced, starin’ off in space. Ya ask me, dude ain’t all there.”

Corva glances over at Zeke before her next question. “So you’re okay? He didn’t do anything to you? Why were you unconscious?”

“I’m fine. Just got knocked out.”

He’s not fine. He’s tired. His head hurts. The chembraid is sore and itches. He feels fucking useless and ignored. So what if Zeke and Corva came back? It’s a pity play. He really is just a screwup kid.

Jack grabs his shirt and vest from the ground next to him and sluggishly fiddles with separating them so he can put them back on. Meanwhile, he mentally tests some of the neurolink commands Gorm gave him to control the chembraid. He doesn’t need much. Just needs to will the thing into serving up some painkillers and a pinch of go-go to clear the fog over his brain.

Corva hasn’t said anything about his chembraid. Without his shirt on, the whole extent of the augmentation is fully visible, twisting around his arm, chest, and back, kind of like a giant cybernetic leech. Zeke’s not even looking at him. Jack would’ve expected at least some kind of screeching monkey reprimand.

Finally, he manages to extract the shirt from the vest. There’s a tear at the collar, so there’s no way the shirt is going to lay right, but at least he’ll have some kind of covering. It sucks to pull the shirt back on, though. Between the chembraid’s microneedles and the feeling of an invisible knife in the back of his head, Jack’s body protests every little movement. Those painkillers sure are takin’ their sweet-ass time to work.

“Alright. We’ve got to go.” Corva grabs the vest and puts her hand out, ready to help him stand.

Jack yanks the vest away from her. “I’ve got it. Don’t need help from you. Got no time for bitches who bail. You got no notion of who your friends are.” He tries to stand on his own. Fingers, toes: check. Arms, le— The pain in his head cuts in and punches him in the base of the skull. He drops to a knee and tries to stabilize.

Corva hoists Jack up to his toes, bringing them face-to-face. “Look here, you stubborn little jerk off. I’m here, aren’t I? I wouldn’t even be here to save your sorry tail if it weren’t for Zeke. I’d be long gone.”

Her face twists up, like she’s holding a frog in her mouth. Then the dam breaks loose. “And friends? What would you know about friends? You’re a kid serving drinks in a hole in the ground at a town that’s in a literal hole in the ground. You’ve got no friends. You run a watering hole for drunk mercs. You live with a monkey and you’re stalking a whore. Your mentor—who used to own you as property, by the way—is a long rotting corpse. I’m the closest thing you’ve got to a friend and I barely know you. Barely even like you. But I’m here. And we’ve got no time for arguing nonsense. It’s time to go.”

About halfway through Corva’s tirade, Jack turns his head away. His face is hot. Surely it’s entirely red now, all the way back to the kneak receptacles behind his ears. Not that she’ll notice. His shoulders slump forward, chest deflated. His hands hang in front of him, twisting the fabric of his vest. All the words he wants to say hammer against the back of his teeth. He can barely contain them.

He feels her hand on his shoulder. “Hey! Did you hear me? It’s time to—”

“I ain’t leaving.”

Jack raises his head. His eyes are watery, but he couldn’t care less. He pushes back his shoulders and crosses his arms, vest still clutched in his right hand.

Corva turns to her shoulder to check with Zeke. He’s no longer watching the front door. His gaze is fixed on Jack. He breaks his stare for a moment to exchange a glance with Corva. Rolling her eyes, she lowers to a knee so she’s looking slightly upward toward Jack’s face.

“Jack. Jack, look. I—I’m sorry. I crossed a line there. But you can be upset at me later. Zeke says it’s not safe here anymore. He—”

Corva might be saying something after that, but Jack isn’t paying attention. Zeke said? Surely he misheard something. How hard did he hit his head? He squints, trying to refocus on what she’s saying.

“Bule’s on the map now. He went to the lookout at the top of the ridge. Said he saw them coming. A thousand, at least.”

“Bullshit. Zeke can’t talk.”

Corva gives Jack the same kind of look a person has when they try to run somewhere but find that they’re tethered back to where they started. “What?”

“You’re a shit liar. Harris put you up to this? Want me to leave the bar in a wreck like it is so he can do another one of his ‘surprise’ inspections?” Jack shakes his head like he’s been told a bad joke. “‘Zeke says.’ Ha. You and Hairless need to have a better story if you wanna take over my bar.”

The look on Corva’s face fluctuates between anger and confusion. “What are you talking about? There might not even be a bar after this. A raid is coming. A big one. Zeke says it’s bigger than the one that took out Fewkestown a few years back.”

Jack feels his eyes widen as he looks over to Zeke. The monkey nods slowly. If Jack was masking his surprise before, that mask is totally gone now. Zeke can talk? How else would Corva know about Fewkestown? Jack uncrosses his arms, leaning in slightly. “What color did the last rung of the ladder to the lookout used to be?”

“What?” There she goes again with that ugly scowl of confusion. “Why in the world does that matter? We’re wasting time.”

“It matters. It’s how I can tell you’re lyin’ about talking to Zeke. I can’t trust you for shit. Anyone could know about what happened to Fewkestown just by askin’ around. So I’m not leavin’ until—”

“It was pink, alright?” Corva twists her head away from Jack to look at Zeke. “Pink?”

Jack opens his mouth to speak, but he’s got nothing. She got it right.

Still looking at Zeke, Corva keeps talking, “Yeah, pink. Apparently it broke a couple years back and Harris somehow convinced Vardin that you were the one that needed to fix it. So as your own personal fuck you to both of them, you cut up an old pink plastic broomstick and used that to replace the rung. It took Harris another seven months to paint it over” She pauses, smiling despite herself. “Huh. That is pretty funny.”

Jack doesn’t know how long he sits and gawks at Zeke and Corva, but however long it’s been, it’s long enough that Corva is looking at Jack with the same sympathetic impatience as someone with an old dog who constantly wants to lie down and sleep in the middle of a walk. Apparently, though, she can talk to Zeke. Somehow. She did it just now. Right in front of him. Got the color right and gave the history of it.

But, best to find out how she does it later. If she can talk to Zeke, then she’s also telling the truth about what he saw at the lookout.

Jack puts his attention on Zeke. “Sheeps or Goats?”

Corva tilts her head, obstructing Jack’s view of his furry compatriot. “What?”

“The swarm of baddies up on the ridge. I was asking Zeke if they’re Sheeps or Goats. So which is it?”

“It’s the Umbrati again. Goats. But a lot more than last time. Guess Thegn—”

“Wrinkles.”

“Yeah, Wrinkles, whatever. Guess he caught word somehow and skipped out. Even Death can’t fight off all of hell.”

“They here for him?”

“Gotta be. Could be retaliation for the raid, but Zeke doesn’t think that’s likely. Not with a horde this big. They’re either coming for him or they’re coming for me. But Wrinkles doesn’t personally stick out his own neck all that often. Seems most likely that they’re capitalizing on him being here. Since we killed all the grunts in the raid, Zeke doesn’t think the Umbrati know about me. Probably.”

Jack squints at Corva. “I don’t know about you.” He looks back at Zeke. “And apparently I don’t know shit about you, either. Why ain’t you ever talked to me?”

Corva shoves her face between him and Zeke again. “It doesn’t quite work like that. But we’re wasting time. We need to get out of here.”

“Why? You said the Goats’re after Wrinkles.”

“You think he’s gonna go with them easily? A fight between them is going to slide this whole burg to the bottom of the canyon. Even if he escapes them, his presence here pushes Bule front-and-center onto the map. They’ll interrogate everyone and conscript anyone who doesn’t take a deal.” She pauses, as if suddenly understanding her own words. “Puta merda. Death and misery really do follow that man.”

“Misery follows him. Technically speaking, Death is following you.” Jack pauses; this probably isn’t the right time to be nitpicking semantics. He’s got to think about the folks in town. It’s a shithole, but it’s his shithole. And Lyia, Slim, even Maddy Shard—they’re his shithole people.

He turns to the bar; his comm kneak is sitting by the wash station. “I gotta burst a broadcast. Let Harris know. Folks gotta prep.”

“Zeke said he already did from the lookout.”

“Oh? They didn’t ignore him this time?”

“Yeah. Seems your balding friend and his militia learned their lesson from the raid. Town’s on alert. Saw so on the way here. Some are skipping out. Most are locking down. Fools. The three of us, we’re taking the smart option. We’re skipping. You got a go-bag?”

We? The frown on Jack’s face deepens. “Why all three of us? Zeke an’ I can just hunker down in the siege caves until it blows over.”

“Aren’t you paying attention? One thousand grunts in this raid. At least. There’s no ‘blowing over’! Anyone who thinks that is a moron.”

Jack looks from Zeke to Corva and back to Zeke. He’s starting to get it, to notice—to really understand for the first time—the sense of urgency in their faces. This is serious. And here I am, thinkin’ in slow motion. “Yeah. Gitfo bags are behind the bar. Gotta beat the dust off ’em, but they should be stocked.”

He continues over to behind the bar, though not for his comm kneak now. The packs are there, still partially buried behind some boxes and empty bottles. He shoves the clutter out of the way to dig them out, but stops for a moment. Just looks at them, dirty black canvas packs. It’s hard to believe he actually has to use them.

Old Man V had made him check and repack these things every week for as long as he’d worked there. He’d make sure the travel gear was in working order and verify that there’s enough non-perishables and tradeables to last a good while on the road without resupply. When the old man died, though, the check and repack ritual was one of the first things Jack stopped doing. He hadn’t even taken the time to consolidate them into a single bag. It was a dumb practice, anyway.

Jack shakes the memory from his mind and immediately regrets it. Pain stabs the back of his head from where he landed on it. Holy shit, that hurts. Standing slowly, he grabs the two packs and heads back to Corva, tossing her the old man’s one. “That’s a dead man’s bag, but the kit should still be good. Been a while since I last checked. And, oh—almost forgot.”

He steps back to the bar and grabs the brick of rock salt that Thegn paid with, as well as a small bag of seed that someone traded the day before. He stuffs the rock in his gitfo bag on his way back to Corva. The bag of seed goes in her hand. “We’ll need these. Try not to let them get wet.”

She stands there, still, stupidly gawking at him.

“Hey! You get bonked on the head too? Stuff that seed and let’s go.” Jack pulls his gitfo bag onto his back and turns to head for the door. He knows the urgency of the moment, but he can’t help but take his time.

The bar—his bar—deserves one last look over. He knows every inch of the place. He grew up here. Played, worked, and schemed in every corner. He’s repaired or replaced just about every non-rock surface. There are still some stash holes and secret nooks that he never got around to finishing. Now he never will.

Ain’t no use dwellin’. What’s done is done. Blinking away his tears, he jams his chin to his chest and marches to the door. “Need to drop by Slim’s on the way out. He n’ I been working on something that might come in handy. Got a destination in mind? Probably best to go down-canyon. I know a buncha places to hole up that way.”

As he talks, Jack peeks back over his shoulder at Corva. She’s not moving. Looking harder, he notices that she’s set her pack on the ground, bag of seed resting on top of it. He stops and spins back to her. “Fuck’s sake, girl! I thought you said we gotta go.”

Zeke leaps from her shoulder up into the ceiling trusswork. Corva squares up, her weight shifting so she’s balanced on the balls of her feet. “Can’t now. He’s back.”

As if on cue, the entrance to the bar swings open with such violence that it tears off its hinges and spins uncontrollably into a nearby set of tables and chairs. The Reaper’s silhouette engulfs the gaping hole where the door once was, scythe drawn and cloak billowing. But he’s only there for a fraction of a second. Before Jack can even think to duck or move or do anything, really, Thegn is already past him and slicing his scythe at Corva.

Corva is ready this time. Poised. She hops in a sidestep, just barely dodging the swinging blade. The palm of her hand slaps down on the flat side of the scythe. That’s enough to redirect the blade and Thegn as his momentum carries him by her.

The old, bearded hunter looks back at her with a glint in his eyes and the faintest of grins. His rotted teeth peek from behind his thin lips for a fraction of a second. A moment later, the gnarled ball at the bottom of the scythe’s handle—sorry, the snath—extends, like a fist aimed for Corva’s head.

Whatever that part of the scythe is called, she’s faster than it. She ducks under the ball like a boxer slipping a jab. Instead of dodging away, she steps in closer to the scythe, closer to Thegn. The extended snath rides on her shoulder.

These are the moves of “fighter” Corva. Except the expression on her face is cold, mean. Not the typical manic smile that Jack’s used to seeing when she gets this way. She reflects none of Thegn’s earlier amusement, no matter how slight. She’s all business.

With a pivot of her back foot, she now has the snath across both shoulders and the back of her neck. Grabbing the scythe with her hands, it looks like she has just enough leverage to disrupt the wrinkly bastard’s balance.

But Thegn holds fast. A quick yank and he retracts the bottom of the scythe. Corva is jerked off-balance, even closer to him. However, instead of trying to stop, she steps with the pull and launches herself at the Reaper.

Nothing connects. Not a knee, a fist, or a foot. Thegn evades her rush and steps back, creating distance between them.

Back near the front of the bar, Jack hasn’t moved; hasn’t had time to. He stands there, mouth agape. Wide-eyed. This is a fight between Corva and Death.

She’s fighting Death!

But it doesn’t matter how incredibly cool it is to see someone stand up to a legend. To trade blows. There’s no way she can win. This is Death. No one wins against the Reaper. Even if he’s a scrawny old man with skin that looks like undercooked bacon. Jack had escaped when he was a kid. He certainly hadn’t won.

Shit. Gotta do something. She ain’t dead yet, but ol’ Wrinkles has that weed whacker. Need to make it even.

He looks over at the remains of Plan B, barrel buried into the floor, and hope deflates a bit as he remembers how easily he’d been disarmed.

Frantically, he scans the rest of the bar. The air feels hot and electric. There’s gotta be somethin’.

His eyes come to a rest on the gitfo pack he’d given Corva. Maybe there’s something in there.

Forgetting that he’s still wearing his own pack, he sprints over to hers. He curses himself on the way for not keeping up with the routine of checking the bag. He can barely remember what’s in it.

Before Jack can get to the bag, however, Zeke drops from the ceiling and lands in front of him. He raises his little monkey finger to his lips in the universal “shh” sign.

“Zeke! What’re you doin’? Shouldn’t you be helpin’ her?”

Jack’s words pierce the air and echo through the bar. Only now does Jack realize that despite the intensity of the fight between Corva and Thegn, they’ve been overwhelmingly, amazingly quiet. Zeke’s head and shoulders slump. So much for “shhh.”

Zeke turns and focuses his slit pupils on the fighters. Jack follows the monkey’s gaze and sees that his outburst has actually interrupted the fight. Both Thegn and Corva are looking toward him. But they’re not paying any attention to Jack. All eyes are on Zeke.

Recognition floods Thegn’s face as it compresses and knots, every wrinkle folding over itself in hatred and fury.

“It’s you!”