Gunlaw

Gunlaw 43

Jenna only nodded. Her stomach clenched further into the tight and painful knot that hunger made of it. If the vultures left so much as a bone she would fight them for it.

"Ten miles yet. More maybe." Mikeos lowered his hand and walked on. He favoured his left side now. Beneath the broad brim of his hat his eyes glittered. He too had said little on their journey along the tracks, and hadn't once complained of hunger, perhaps sustained by his need to reach Bright – an appetite for revenge that outweighed the needs of his body.

"Were you close to your father?" Jenna had asked him the previous evening beneath water tower 11080. The question felt awkward in her mouth. She never pursued people's stories. Everyone had them, legions of dull, painful tales about their lives. Her interest lay in the grand story of mankind, not in the minutae of each example, but even so she had asked Mikeos about his father. She told herself it was prudent to know the foundations of those you would have to depend upon. It sounded reasonable. But she knew it for misdirection. Lying to yourself was the first habit the witches at Ansos broke their recruits from.

"The weaver birds that infest the ledges of this pillar make themselves a nest from interlaced reeds and grasses," Sister Almah said in a windowless room lit by a small and singular lamp. "Each of you." And she ran the gleam of her eyes across Jenna and the three girls who sat cross legged beside her. "Each of you lives in such a nest, though you have woven yours from the lies you tell yourself. You live in comfort within these fabrications, blind to the world of truth."

Jenna had asked Mikeos about his father because she wanted to know about him, about Mikeos, for no reason other than that he pleased her... In some curious way he pleased her. He woke fires in her, opened doors, and drew memories from forgotten days.

"Were you close to your father?" Jenna had asked, and Mikeos, normally so quick to speak, so easy in his skin, had hesitated then lied.

"Of course."

Jenna had said nothing then. She said nothing now, only drew her cowl against the beating sun and walked on along the only possible path, following the tracks toward the vultures.

The gyre of vultures grew until it resembled one of the dark and gritty tornadoes that come in off the Dry from time to time, almost lazy in their upper reaches and roaring fury where they touch the ground.

Approaching the corpse Jenna could see nothing but black wings and red necks, the occasional gore-dripping head raised above the mass.

"Horse," Hemar said.

When they came close enough to scatter the birds Jenna could see he was right. Little of the outside remained, but the hooves and the long angle of the red skull confirmed it. A saddle remained among the welter of ribs and guts, scarred by the vultures' sickle beaks but too tough to be considered food whilst more tender parts remained.

"Guess Bright's walking now," Mikeos said. He rubbed at the stubble on his chin and stared along the unforgiving straightness of the track.

"Might be there by now." Hemar leaned over the remains, reached in, tore out a chunk of liver, dark and glistening and quivering. He took half of it in one huge bite before offering it out. Jenna almost hesitated but her hands reached without consultation and took the warm slippery mass.

"I've got charcoal. We'll roast it up," Mikeos said. "Like to make you vomit raw."

The slinger crouched by his pack, grimacing as he lowered himself. He dug in amongst his gear and pulled out a wire grill, two handfuls of charcoal, and a magnifying lens to light it with. The sat on the down-slope west of the track, still in the blaze of the sun, and waited while the meat sizzled on the grill and Hemar chewed the flesh from bones.