(Now I don't usually do this, but I reommend listening to this song as you read: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Em3WZwBhg2Y )
Inside his mind, he exhaled in relief as Lustra told him her answer; she’d stay, that was good.
It meant that they wouldn’t harm her.
It meant that she could display a beacon to the reinforcements.
It meant that maybe, just maybe; they would all get to go home.
His line of reasoning was thus; the robot and master pair wanted Jett; that much had been clear from the strange offer of allowing Trago to carry Jett; the man had displayed no such kindness prior to, and the sudden change in character instantly alerted him that something was up.
They wouldn’t last in a drawn out fight. Trago was near fully undamaged, and as far as he knew, its master still had a sizeable amount of aura in reserves. Versus a ramshackle crew of two that were near incapable of fighting, they would lose in seconds, dead or gravely injured.
But if he could split up the forces, they would stand a far better chance of survival. Leaving Lustra alone was the logical choice; she was able bodied and held the authority necessary to tell her superiors of the situation and organise reinforcements. If he left with Jett, Trago and Diaboli would have no reason to attack Lustra, and all the reason to protect them, at least until they arrived at the trap.
Then?
Then it was a matter of time.
There was so little of it, he thought. It seemed like every second was disappearing so fast. Sand through his fingers; little grains of memories that flowed through so quickly it was a wonder he’d lived to see them.
He leaned in forwards towards Lustra, framing it as a hug, but instead whispering into her ear.
“If we stay together, we all die. Their target is Jett, not you, so make sure you get those reinforcements, and get them quick. I’ll…I’ll buy time, yours and Jett’s with my own.”
He leaned backwards, turned, and never looked back as they walked in towards the treeline, discreetly pressing the distress beacon that Hazel had given him; praying that she wasn’t too far already.
With every minute that they walked through the forest, his suspicions were only more confirmed. Diaboli’s step was too familiar, he was too sure of direction, Trago was too far behind, and Diaboli too far ahead.
When they reached the purported village, Dust closed his eyes, resting them as he plodded forward. There was no sentry, no lights, no sign of life. It was a trap, and there would be no point running now.
He could only hope that the time was enough.
And as the screech sounded out behind him, he stopped moving, whispering to Jett on his back.
“Don’t worry, I have a plan. I-It’s okay.”
And for the first time in his life, he stuttered.
When the man began to speak, Dust could barely listen; it felt like a ghost was imparting those words; some phantom or other in a world so far, but so close. It was intangible, immaterial, but pulled and heaved at the tightness in his chest regardless. The only thing that felt real was what he could feel; the grip of Jett’s fear loosening, and the shiver of her body as she experienced the terror of Diaboli’s words in their full.
She hadn’t heard his speech before, but through Dust’s eyes, he could see the silhouettes of hundreds of other people; all saying the same thing. The speech was the repetition of lines he’d heard before, and was sure, would continue to hear so long as there existed a man with bone to pick.
So when he finished, Dust didn’t speak, didn’t even look at him, but instead grunted, and slowly set Jett on the ground in front of him, taking care not to hurt her as he cradled her shattered legs and brushed a strand of her hair aside.
“Don’t you worry kiddo…I’m not gonna leave ya.”
And when he was sure that she knew he was there; and would remain there, he did open his mouth to address the shadow opposite himself.
“Do you…do you people ever listen to yourselves talk? At all? Do you listen? To the crap that comes outta your mouth?”
He paused to look at Diaboli, and for the first time in the night, his face expressed true disdain. Gone was the smile and gone was the manner. Replacing it was the grimace and squint of a man who had seen too much; felt too much and lost too much to lose anything more.
“Do you ever…do you ever consider the poison, and hatred that comes out of your mouths? Ever realise how you’re not enlightened by your- by your fanaticism and hate but rather blinded by it? Look around you man!”
He swept his good hand across the barren landscape; aware of the echo as his rough voice shook the corpse of a town; as if his words were looking for another pair of ears to hear them, but could find none in the husk of what once held life.
“Who are you? To blame the people who give their lives every day to protect not just their own families, but the families of those who cannot fight? All too easy for you to stand there, casting down the huntsmen who live and die every day to protect all families, not just their own! If you think they’re doing such a shit job, why don’t you help!? Why don’t you come down here and help save people instead of standing up on your high horse, blabbing on about their ego while you murder, maim and steal, just so you can be some conqueror!
His voice raised; his anger peaked, it was no longer about buying time; it was about the sheer ungratefulness that the man had presented; since he had met him.
“I was born in the streets, mate. Born into squalor, running and hiding from the coppers every bloody second of my life! And in that time? I sure saw a lot of goddamned shit, plenty enough to see you for who you really are. A man who uses his own pain as an excuse to do whatever the hell he likes, all under the guise of how the ‘ends would justify the means’.”
“And. Every. Single. One. Of them only managed to cause even more death, more destruction! Cos what you people never seem to get is that your hate only makes more; it doesn’t destroy it! It doesn’t conquer it! You won’t be saving people! Just changing the name that oppresses them!”
His good hand moved at the flash of Diaboli’s chrome, gripping the hilt of his revolver and feeling its familiar grip. The leather, though old; was still as easy to hold as the day he had gotten them. The engravings, though worn, still glowed yellow like fading hope. The weight, was ever the same; unchanged.
“So don’t give me your bullshit; that you’re going to be some great conqueror, that you’ll ensure tragedy won’t ever happen again. If you destroy these people, this evil? You’re not gonna be doing it because what they’re doing is wrong, but because you’ve been wronged. There’s a world of difference there. Yours makes you selfish. And the other makes you a hero.”
He swept his foot back, gritting his teeth at the pain of his injured body swinging into a position that should have felt as natural as breathing. It was a duelist’s stance, and his fingers tightened and relaxed into fists constantly; flexing and unflexing as he considered the amount of time that had passed.
“So you? Conquer evil? Conquering requires authority, mate. It requires leadership, the ability to inspire! When I look at you, I don’t see any of that. I see a petty, small minded man who thinks some grandiose speech about the ‘reality’ of the world we live in excuses the wrong he has done and will continue to do. I see a man who’s been hurt, and so thinks that it gives him some right to hurt others. I see a man who’s been betrayed, not because of his ideals, but because people looked into you and saw you for what you really are.”
He focused his eye on Diaboli’s form, saw that the time to draw had come near, and aimed with his eye but never drawing, hoping that the time had been enough.
“You’re small-minded, vicious, self righteous, and above all else? Too blinded by your own narrative. Too blinded to see that while you may be the hero of your own story? You’re the villain of everybody else’s”
He paused, chest now heaving as he finished; watching the man opposing him, and mentally preparing himself for the next move.
“Blinded, huh?” Diaboli eventually replied in a low, ruminative voice, his grin having faded slightly during the course of Dust’s diatribe. Without thinking, the criminal’s hand had risen to his face, and was currently tracing his empty eye socket with cold, blood-stained fingers.”
“I used to be blind. I let pride and greed obscure what was really important. I let it weaken me...” He let his hand fall to his side again. And by the time it had finished passing over his face, the confident smirk had returned. “But I remember who I am now. My vision sees beyond your hypocrisy, McAllister.”
His eye flicked to Jett’s prone form for a moment, before turning back to his staunch adversary. “How many people do you think were at the auction, hmm? You must realise, you’re both WAY better at getting people killed then I am. You think ‘good intentions’ protects you from that?” He took a single, provocative step forward – his confidence glowing like an aura around him as he did so. “You realise that most of the people there could have escaped, had you not pushed us out into the ocean, right? They are all rat food now, because of you.”
Diaboli’s hands splayed to his sides as he spoke. “In the world of the blind, the one-eyed man is king,” he said wistfully, closing his eye briefly as he pictured it in his mind. “So, friend, you had best get used to seeing me in a crown.” When he opened his eye again, he fixed Dust with a knowing smile, and his hand hovered over the chrome pistol at his hip.
“Of course, you won’t get to see me for very long. But don’t worry – I intend to leave you alive long enough to make peace with your failures. As numerous as they may be.”
Dust closed his eyes, and took a deep breath of the forest air. It was strange, the taste; he’d never noticed it before. The crisp, pollen scented air that cast a soft breeze over his face; cleansing it of his messy and unruly hair. His eyes closed, and all he felt was that breeze; the rhythmic breaths in and out that hitherto had gone unnoticed.
Strange.
So strange.
“I know what I've, and I will pay for it; pay for it dearly. I accept that, I own it. But there comes a time when men cannot take what they have become, and so they point the fingers at others; trying to prove to themselves above all else, that they were right, because the alternative is too much to bear.”
He fixed his eye on him.
“You sure you haven’t reached there already?”
And then they waited; waited in the town where there would be no sound of laughter, no sound of weeping, only the sound of two different men fighting the same war in the only ways they knew how.
“I’m not leaving her. You’re not leaving without her. Nothin’ to say now but…."
"Draw.”
He drew.
So did he.
And in that town, there were two shots; one a roar, loud and demanding in its pride and power, a final crescendo of a life lived well. The other was crisp and sounded with a crack. It menaced in its sound that started so softly but ended with such finality. The end of a composition, the wave of a curtain, the final words of the final chapter of a book long overdue.
