The God Eaters

  "There are probably exceptions."

  "This isn't one of them." Ash stripped off his coat and folded it into a pillow. He put his gun close to his right hand when he lay down. "I can't promise I won't black out when the fight starts," he said with his eyes closed. "I'll try not to, though."

  "Well, if you do, I know how to wake you up."

  Ash opened one eye. "You do? How?"

  "I'll just roll you off the cliff. That should get your attention."

  "Bastard." Ash smiled. A few moments later, the smile faded into the slack face of sleep.

  Kieran sat watching him for a time. He looked like he had in the dream. When he was dead in the dream. Something about the shape of his wrist and hand where it rested across his flat stomach, the length and paleness of his neck, the bit of collarbone and freckled shoulder visible where his shirt was pulled askew. Fragile. Yet Kieran remembered the surprising strength of those slender arms; hanging on for dear life as Kieran banged him into oblivion. Not at all what Kieran had expected, that request. Nor the unflinching eagerness with which Ash had taken it, or the abandon with which he'd enjoyed it.

  A new experience for both of them; Kieran had only been on the giving side once before, when he'd pestered Shan to let him try it, and Shan hadn't liked it much. Had wanted him to get done and get out, had not come that way, and certainly hadn't begged for it with writhings and groanings and snapping teeth. Ash's reaction made him feel like a god. Addictive. He was hooked.

  It was an effort to pull his eyes away to watch the road. Mind on your business, Trevarde. You're gonna look like an idiot if you let the Watch sneak up on you while you're supposed to be ambushing them.

  So he scanned the distance, the way he'd learned to do when he and Shan were highwaymen: don't stare, don't strain your eyes, just let 'em wander around in that direction and catch on anything interesting. It felt strange to be using those habits again. How everything was changing, but some of it was familiar. He was different now from how he'd been the last time he'd used this ambush spot, but somehow more like that person than like the one he'd been a couple weeks ago, in prison. Had it only been days? It felt like months. And years since he'd last been the way he was today.

  He couldn't go back to who he'd been before. Time had marked him. But apparently some of him was still salvageable. He could still feel things beginning, still be glad about it, even if he didn't trust beginnings at all.

  So what was it that was starting? Not just the fact that he was now properly edeimos with Ash, nothing so simple or immediate. Something was lurking just under the horizon of the future, sending out rays, hints, pretending to be all bright and perfect, but the future always lied. It was something bigger than running and fighting, something that had his dreams in it, and something maybe about his Talent, a partial answer to the big question that had been hovering over him all his life, the question that was too big to put into words.

  Which was ridiculous. Everyone had that same question, he was sure, and he'd long ago decided there was no answer to it. But the thought put an idea in his head, of where to go next.

  He had hiding places all over the western part of the province. Some he'd found with Shan, but Shan had never wanted to go too far from the roads that brought them their money or the towns they spent it in. Shan hadn't seen the point of wandering, hadn't liked solitude. The best spots were the ones Kieran had found alone. As a child, when he'd felt himself dug too deep into the hustler's life, crowded by pains and needs, sometimes he'd launched out into the desert to wander. Mostly he'd gone just far enough to get some solitude, a day or two, but in his early teens he'd started taking weeks and months of silence and sun to earn his sanity back. After he'd learned well enough how to find water and what he could eat, he'd gone out several times with the intention of living out there and never going back, or dying out there if that was his fate. He'd always thought he could defeat loneliness. In the end, loneliness had always won.

  But if he had Ash with him...

  He shook his head ruefully. No way was Ash going to want to live off the land, fifty miles from the nearest plumbing. And even if he were crazy about the idea, it wouldn't change the fact that they were cornered, in purely reactive mode. But the idea of having Ash around pretty much indefinitely was looking better every day. And more plausible as well, so that he felt like a self-defeating idiot for assuming there was no chance Ash would survive. Ash had guts, he'd make it.

  How come I'm getting optimistic all of a sudden? Did I just need to get laid?

  Before he could examine it too deeply, a drifting twist of dust to the northeast caught his attention.

  Relieved to have something simple to deal with, even if it might kill him, he studied it to see if it could just be a dust devil. After a few seconds he was sure it was not. He gathered up his loaded clips and stretched out a leg to kick Ash's foot. "Wake up. They're coming."

  Ash tensed and snorted in confusion as he woke. His hand went immediately to the revolver beside him. Without sitting up, he scooted back from the edge, wriggling into his jacket as he went. He whispered, "What do you want me to do?"

  "First, come here."

  Too slowly, as if his reluctance could postpone the fight, Ash obeyed. His response to Kieran's kiss was lukewarm at first, so that Kieran began to worry that he'd misjudged everything, but after a moment's hesitation Ash grabbed him tightly and kissed back hard. Then released him with decisive suddenness. "And now what do I do?"

  "Hide." Kieran stretched out on the rock, forcing his attention back to the dust plume. He aimed his thumb over his shoulder. "There's some brush and stuff back there, right? Get behind it and stay down. And if something goes wrong, you run. Get to the horses and go."

  Ash gave an incredulous snort. "Go where, Kieran?"

  "Anywhere." He waited, but got no answer, heard no movement. "You hear me? If I buy it you better run like hell."

  "Somehow I don't see that doing any good. Just concentrate on your shooting." Ash slapped the side of Kieran's boot as he went past.

  "Ash -- Ash -- Ashleigh Trine, I'm talking to you!" He twisted around to see that Ash had stopped in a half-kneeling crouch, looking back at him with a sad little smile.

  "Be serious," Ash said. "If they beat you, I don't have a chance. But don't worry, I'm not going back to Churchrock." He pressed the revolver's muzzle under his chin briefly, then put it away.

  "So if you, um, buy it, hold up a minute on the other side and wait for me." He turned and dashed off toward the clump of brush, and Kieran couldn't yell after him for fear of the enemy hearing it.

  Fuming, Kieran scowled out at the gray-brown plume growing nearer. Thanks a lot, Ash, like I needed more pressure. But something warm and sweetly painful snaked through his guts and made him feel more awake than he'd ever been before. He was irrationally certain, all of a sudden, that he couldn't possibly lose, because Ash was counting on him.

  These few minutes of waiting were always the worst. Knowing that if he'd overlooked anything it was too late now. And these were White Watch, they could have any Talents and god-knows-what else prepped by ritual beforehand. It was a relief when he actually saw them come around the bend, small pale figures on dark horses, so that he could begin judging range and taking aim.

  He wished he could've gotten a rifle somehow. The Hart was a nice gun, but a short barrel just couldn't do what he needed right now.

  A breath of wind stirred the dust that cloaked the Watchmen, and Kieran caught his breath in dismay. There was a third rider coming around the curve. He had his rifle over his arm, not slung across his back like the other two, and he was far enough behind them that they'd be past Kieran's position before he came into good range. As if they were anticipating an ambush.

  "Shit," Kieran whispered. All right, if they wanted to play clever bastards, let them. He'd take the last man first. He shifted slightly, covering a piece of ground behind the two lead men. Here we go, he thought. It was as close to a prayer as he was willing to g
et.

  The first two were almost under the rock.

  The third rode into Kieran's sights.

  Three shots smashed the silence, echoing, clattering like a rockfall. The third man began to raise his rifle, but he was falling from his horse at the same time. Kieran, ears still ringing, thrust himself half over the edge to empty the rest of the clip at the startled faces below. Everything was in motion down there, and the angle was bad; he heard ricochets and a horse's scream, saw one man starting to raise his hand in a looping gesture, flung himself back and rolled away.

  Not fast enough. Something invisible punched him in the left arm, jarring his elbow so that he threw his full clip up in the air instead of getting it into the gun. Chunks of rock and earth sprayed up, then pattered down around him where he lay sprawled on his back, knocked breathless.

  There were a few words from below, but he was too deafened and suffocated to make sense of them. He forced his left hand to get another clip into the gun, despite the buzzing numbness spreading up from his elbow. His fingers wouldn't grip hard enough to pull the slide back. He switched hands, managed to get a bullet into the chamber just as a tingle rushed across his skin.

  The air's temperature dropped sharply, his stomach lurched; instinctively, he lashed out at nothing with his heart's hand, and felt it turn away some kind of groping energy.

  A figure in dusty white suddenly rose above the lip of the cliff, as if jerked by strings. He had a rifle aimed in Kieran's general vicinity.

  Kieran was faster, but the Watchman was more ready. They fired at the same time. Kieran felt his right shoulder slammed against the ground, felt his fingers open and loose his gun, while the Watchman's head snapped back and then rocked forward in a cloud of scarlet. The rifle dropped from his flopping hands, but the corpse continued to hang in air. It was a second or two before he fell out of sight.

  So the last man was the Kinetic. He could pop up anywhere. Kieran tried to lift his pistol, but his hand wouldn't close. He sent the orders, but his body ignored them. Goosebumps ran over his skin. Under the hot morning sun, he started to shiver. The only warmth on him came in the form of trickles that ran into his armpit and pooled in the hollows of his collarbone.

  "Oh, fuck, I'm shot," he said quietly. His words were mushy, drunken-mouthed. His back felt wet now too.

  It's only shock. You aren't hit anywhere vital. Just broke your shoulder, is all. Pick up that gun.

  His silent railing at himself didn't do any good. He still hadn't managed to get his finger on the trigger when a pale shape appeared beside him.

  The man had come up somewhere other than the front of the rock. Kieran hadn't seen him, hadn't heard his footsteps. Still couldn't hear properly; the man's mouth moved, but it was just noise. He understood the smile that came next, though. They'd won. Kieran had lost.

  Kieran's eyes jammed shut for a moment, against a sudden sting. Ash is going to watch me get caught, and then he's going to blow his head off. The fatalism in his thoughts sickened him. He forced his eyes open to the too-bright sky again. Not fucking acceptable. I will do something, somehow.

  The Watchman spoke again, and this time his words made a sort of sense. "Where's the other one? I was told there were two of you."

  Kieran tried to answer, but had to spit out something metallic before he could talk. Great. It hit my lung. How many sucking chest wounds is a man entitled to in one lifetime? "He's dead,"

  Kieran gurgled. "I killed him and ate him." As he spoke, he began to feel his gun's grip resting on his fingers, and sent all his strength into that hand. But as he finally got a proper hold on it, the Watchman casually stepped on his wrist.

  Pain ripped up his arm and across his chest; bile rose in his throat, and the world went all red and white. A helpless, broken animal noise came out of him. He hated the whimpering even as he couldn't stop. The man was doing it some more, grinding with his heel, trying to break Kieran's wrist. He felt the pain loosening the weld between mind and body, knew he was about to leap free -- and for the first time in his life, he fought it. He would not leave Ash behind.

  Clenching his teeth, Kieran raised his head, sweeping with his left hand for a rock or a chunk of wood or anything, finding nothing, his only clear thought sent in Ash's direction: Don't do yourself in yet, I'm not done.

  Then came the bellow of the revolver. He recognized it, cried out in dismay, his determination burst like a bubble -- until he saw the red rose that had opened in the Watchman's thigh.

  "Get off him! Fucker, get the fuck off him!"

  Another boom of thunder called a fine, dark spray from the man's gut, a slop of almost black blood drooling down the front of his white uniform. Only then did the man recall himself enough to raise his rifle. Too late. The third shot removed his face and sent him tumbling off the cliff's edge.

  Kieran whispered, "Ash. Oh god. Thank you."

  Scrambling footsteps, and Ash flung himself into Kieran's field of view, dropping to his knees.

  He was white as chalk, eyes too wide, but he held his gun as if ready to destroy anything that came near. "Is that all of them? Kieran, was that all of them? I can't feel anything, I think I blinded myself."

  "That's all." Kieran's voice was thick, and he had to spit again. "I was so scared you'd -- thank you."

  Ash forced a smile. The light tone of his words sounded a little strained: "Since I can't live without you, call it self-defense. Let's have a look at this." With infinite gentleness, he began unbuttoning Kieran's shirt, peeling it back from the wound. He was taking deep breaths to calm himself. It looked like it was only half working.

  "How's it look?"

  "Ugly. I can see bone. You'll have that arm in a sling for a while. There's a lot of blood, too, but I'm pretty sure you won't bleed to death. It's not spurting or anything, just trickling. The bullet went in just above the top of your ribs."

  "Come out the back?"

  "I can't tell yet. I'm going to cut your shirt off, I don't think we can get it off the normal way."

  "With what? You have a knife?"

  "Oh. Damn. Okay, look, I'll be back in two seconds, all right? God, I hate to leave you here."

  "I'll live." Kieran mustered a grin. "Glad I left my coat off. Can't patch leather."

  Ash stayed a moment longer, biting his lip. Blinking fast, he bent to drop a kiss on Kieran's forehead. Then he dashed away.

  "Wait," Kieran croaked, but not loud enough and too late. He was glad Ash hadn't heard; it had been a reflex. He closed his eyes again; the sky was too bright. Waves of needing to cough ran through his chest, but the least tension of his diaphragm pulled so painfully on his shoulder that he couldn't complete the motion. He could feel the blood trickling in, tickling him inside, imagined it filling him up until he drowned. Suffocation was a hell of a way to go.

  He rescued me. There's one for the books. That was some damn fine shooting, too, for a beginner. A nearsighted beginner. I wonder what the range was? See if I can stay alive long enough to ask.

  Something cold touched his hand, and he flinched, eyes popping open to the blinding sky.

  "Damn it! Hold still, Kieran, I'm using the razor."

  Kieran chuckled. "Trying to save me and you slit my wrists. How dumb would that be." Talking broke his resolution not to cough; he managed to croak out "Wait," before he convulsed. He couldn't quite spit right this time. It drooled down his chin. "Aw, yuck."

  "Oh dear," Ash said in a small voice. His eyes were anguished as he tenderly mopped the blood from Kieran's lips with his sleeve. Then he went back to work with the razor.

  Time broke down, after that. Events occurred with no connection to each other. Kieran felt horrible and fine by turns; sometimes there was no pain, sometimes it was overwhelming.

  Sometimes he babbled, and sometimes Ash checked to make sure he was still alive. It was forever before he had to sit up so Ash could look at his back and inform him that there was an exit wound just above his shoulderblade, but then the world flickered and he
was under a blanket while Ash made him drink water, and his arm was bound tightly to his side, and Ash was shirtless and starting to sunburn.

  "Where'd your shirt go?" Kieran mumbled.

  "I used it for bandages," Ash answered patiently, as if he'd said it a number of times before.

  "You have a lot of freckles."

  "I think you're right that we can't stay up here, but I'm still not letting you climb down, considering the state you're in."

  "Did I say that?"

  Ash put his hands in his face. "Oh god. I don't know what to do."

  Alarmed, Kieran walked his good hand out from under the blanket to touch Ash's knee. "Hey.

  Ashes. Don't cry."

  "I'm not." Ash lifted his head to show a fake smile. "At least you stopped spitting blood. It stopped bubbling even before I got the bandage on. Maybe that part of your lung collapsed.

  Which would normally not be good, but in this case... hell, what am I talking about, I don't know anything about this. I didn't even study anatomy in school, I just read a couple books my aunt had. Kieran, we really need to get you down to the horses. Just hang on a bit and I'll think of something."