He was burying the fox as the rider pulled up. Varying sized mounds were strewn more or less in a path leading opposite him. The mounds stretched as far as could be seen in that dry land. Plains with few trees here and there; a place surrounded by oceans of dying grass. The strange graves ranged in size from tiny mounds of mice and vol to uprooted and buried Locust trees. The line of death went unbroken and undiminished in the thirsting storm raging through the night.

His face was covered under the dark of a dirty balaclava. Not the lightning, nor any light shone in the darkness beneath those folds. From an unnatural distance he saw the rider, had felt the creature’s hooves on the cracked earth long before that. The rider came perpendicular the line of graves before finding the mounds. After a moments indecision the rider turned in the man’s direction following the grave-line. He watched for a long time as the rider approached, the darkness availing to him alone. The heat lightninging flashed in the distance making dancing things of the mounds as the rider made his way towards him. When he finally approached, he paused his horse sharply, a cloud of dust momentarily engulfing them both before dissipating in the whipped up wind. The rider looked at the scene, an ingenue, an audience; stage set, cues received.

“What are you doin’ in this storm son?” The rider asked. The figure cloaked in black kept his head bowed the picture of inscrutability. The rider did not look at him as he dismounted, stepping warily off the horse. His intrepid riding boot barely found soil as another strong, dry wind pushed his horse from under him. It unsteadied the beast and forced the rider to tiptoe around as he dismounted, catching his other foot in the stirrup.

“What are you diggin’ for?” The man yelled as he hopped about, unsure what to be annoyed at first. The cloaked man remained motionless, silent. There was a deafening flash not thirty feet away and the horse neighed loudly then suddenly bolted. It ran headlong into the night, the whites of its eyes bared at the storm in stroboscopic terror. The man, who’d barely gotten his foot out the stirrups in time, spun in place and cursed and watched the beast tear into the flashing blackness. Lightning suddenly began in near constant streaks all over the sky, making a cacophony of the night. The suddenness of it as unnatural as the charged air around the figures. Yet it did not rain, had not rained in a very, very long time. The rider watched into the night for a long moment, hands on hips. He yelled once more before kicking the dirt, uttering a curse loudly under his breath before turning. He seemed to take in the cloaked man for the first time then. The storm abetted momentarily as he looked into his face obscuring what was already an unfathomable absence of light. It returned in full force as he looked away. Lightning veined all over the sky in loud and violent tendrils that popped in overlapping crescendos.

Slowly, the rider turned halfway to where his horse had fled, “dumb ass animal, I tell you. I think there may be some ass in ‘er ‘s a matter of fact.” He paused to let the other man speak and when the silence took too long, he continued.

“Shoudda been home by now. Musta missed it, though I am not entirely sure how.” He approached the cloaked man from behind, again trying to speak through the uncanny din of constant thunder, without even the smell of rain.

“What is your name sir?” He shouted at the man’s back through cupped hands. The wind howled and tore at his words, though the annoyance in his voice was still audible. The cloaked man had clearly just finished digging and seemed to rest on the shovel. Clearly a weary old man he thought, but what was he doing out here, alone in the dark digging holes. The rider could only guess and he didn’t even do that. As he walked towards the mans back, he slowed his approach expecting the man to turn around, remove his hood, something. There was no rain after all and the wind should have blown it back by now anyway.

When he refused to turn, the rider stopped, just out of arms reach. He was becoming quite irritated now and certain he was close enough to be heard through the noise of white night around them. He noticed the dark cloak around the man. It was hard to be sure but he thought he saw supple leather and fine threadwork. Though dirty, it was of a quality not seen in this dry and desolate land and shone wet with a strange glossiness. He couldn’t place the hide pattern or even if there was a pattern, it looked a mismatch of a number of different hues of black. The young rider smiled, he knew what this man was about now. Some outlanders came through these parts from time to time. Some of then even had a bit of coin to spare. Or perhaps he was from one of the colleges up north, or along the coasts. There were always archeologists and ecologists and historians getting lost on their way to this or that ruin. He could even be one of those Silurian’s come looking for the True Date. Now the shovel made sense and encouraged by his musings and his own finery, he saw what might be profit in the situation. Perhaps there’d be a reward for bringing this man back safe, he thought. The Silurian’s were known for their vast resources, and the Universities up north always provided stipends to their researchers. His own clothing, a three-piece suit of brass buttons and an overcoat with shawl collars, were a fine dark blue, all just acquired from Newton City. He felt good in these new clothes and was sure once the man saw him he’d make the proper impression upon him whether he was from the university or that strange order. He worked up the courage to inch closer, intending to touch the man’s shoulder.

As he moved in, he said “come on you cain’t stay out here, gunna start rai-” but he never finished.

The cloaked man took up his shovel and calmly walked over the grave he’d just finished, moving away from the rider. The other man’s arm was still halfway outstretched in filial benediction when the cloaked figure evenly pivoted and swung the flat of the shovel. With a fluid twist of torqued momentum, he struck the man’s head, crushing his skull with impossible force. The hit was a perfect strike to the temple shattering the temporal vein and causing massive hemorrhaging almost instantly. He crumpled, going limp before he hit the ground and seizing.

The man’s head was already beginning to bulge and turn cyanoses as the cloaked figure walked up and stood over him. His body flailed weakly in the flashes of rainless storm. He looked at the lump of twitching meat like a child destroying a sandcastle. There was twinkling behind his eyes and crow’s feet showed at the corners. The other man’s face was turning a hue matching his clothing now and lightning flashed the night white. A dry wind picked up again and blew dust in from the north and the cloaked man raised his head and sniffed, one side of his mouth curling under the mask.

“My name is Madrid.” he said with a raspy, though oddly eloquent accent. He lowered his head and started to whistle as he took his shovel and began to dig again.