Blood For Wages

16: Grief and Hatred

Fia hurried after Gunn, cursing as she tripped on some tussock. She caught up with the long-haired outlaw as he leaned against a tree on the edge of the small copse to light a roll-up, just beyond the fringe of the light of the campfire.

"Why the fuck do you think I'm still ridin' with you and this crew of rag-tags?" Gunn shot at her, before she could demand what had got his tail in a knot. "Why d'you think I haven't just turned around and headed back down the trail to wait for Boni and the rest of my crew?"

Fia opened and closed her mouth a couple of times, but all that came out was a muffled belch.

"Because I fuckin' heard what Gray said about the Vansgrimans, and the deal that Redmond Marr's made with this Imperator arsehole, the same as you did. I've been ridin' up and down these roads for years, Fia. I told you; I listen to folk––make a habit of it because the rumours, gossip and half-arsed stories they tell have saved my life more than once."

"I believe it," said Fia. "As I believe that you haven't a nature as dark as the shit you've done would lead people to believe."

Gunn snorted. "You can't do the shit I've done without it tinting your soul, Fia Marr, you better believe that and mark it."

"Maybe that's the case now. But, I reckon it came on slow. With time. After your loss."

"Doesn't really matter how it happened, just that it did. Doesn't matter, because now any good part of me that might have been is tarnished all to hell and dark as a demon's riding boots."

Fia found herself searching the man's face, what little she could see of it in the glow of the end of his roll-up and the faint light reaching them from the campfire.

"I get why you've been runnin' however long it's been since... since your brother died."

"I haven't been running from anything," said Fia.

"What'd you call the life you've been livin' if not being on the run?"

"On the run? From who?"

"Not who. What. Grief."

"Grief isn't something you can escape, Gunn. Not like a fire. Or a gang."

"And yet still you run. Run, run, run. Ever since the day you let fly that arrow you've been runnin' from it."

"I've been helping folk too," Fia said, her voice tight, barely under control.

"But grief doesn't diminish with the passin' of a handful of years or the doin' of some deeds," continued Gunn. "Rather it grows. It's very much like hatred in that respect."

"Ain't stopped you running though, has it?" Fia retorted, her voice a mite more defensive than she would've liked it. "Moving from place to place. Ain't made you feel any better about your daughter has it? Not even with killing Gray."

For a moment she thought Gunn might hit her.

"I see Mae in everything; in the fallin' leaves, in the quiet before the dawn, in the dying fire. Everythin'. That don't ever change," he said.

"So, what the bloody hell are you telling me, then, Gunn?" Fia asked impatiently.

"There's something comin' down the race the likes of which none of us have ever seen before," Gunn said, his voice low and fervent.

"Who gives a fuck?" Fia said. "Why do you? You don't owe this land anything."

"I owe this land everything, girl, as do you. I owe the people who call themselves the Counts and Countesses––your people, whether you acknowledge it or not––fuck all, but the everyday folk the nobles refer to as 'lesser', they've come to look to me to act as their champion."