Book One Chapter Four

Chapter IV

The night air of the desert bit into his eyes and cheeks, the only parts of him left uncovered to the ravages of the wastes, but he barely felt it. His mind was still back in Sandy Point, thinking about the young Beta Human girl who had been waiting for him in that darkened room. He had at first been trepidatious about bedding a whore he couldn't see, but it didn't take him long to figure out why she lived her life in darkness. To the naked eye, he was sure she was an unsightly, disfigured, grotesque specimen of the ravages of radiation on human genetics, but between the sheets she had been an orgasmic goddess. He trembled at the memory.

He had managed to escape the town without having a run-in with Sheriff Katrina Vale, and although he was relieved that he had evaded another confrontation with the law, a certain amount of curiosity as to the person of Katrina Vale bounced around in his head. If he ever made it back to Sandy Point, he would have to make a point to meet this paradox. He had covered roughly thirteen miles to the southwest, and faint hints of the possibility of a cooking fire lighted on his nostrils like cigarette ashes on wool slacks. He used a fraction of the plasma he had taken from the Outlander three days ago to fuel his sense of smell and made a minute correction in Strider's heading. Strider had been sleeping when Rygel had entered the stables, finding his saddle well oiled and his mount curried and well fed. He had slipped a plastic DekaCred between the cupped hands Cory had been using as a pillow, guiltily stirred his mount, and left town just as the faintest hint of sun began to threaten to lessen the darkness to the east. Strider had been anything but happy to see his master, but had been yanked from dreams of clover-covered fields too often since he had been traveling with this man-who-wasn't-a-man to put up more than a token fuss. At least there weren't bullets flying through the air this time.

The smell of the fire got steadily stronger and soon began to mix with the rank sweat stench of overworked mules and a sharper, eerie odor of something feral that Rygel didn't recognize. Strider picked up on the scent and chuffed in agitation; apparently, this was a smell he did recognize, and it was one he would prefer to forget. Not for the first or last time did Rygel wish he could talk to his companion and pick his brain about the unsettling aroma. The pair crested a rise and were able to glance down into a small, protected valley in which a collection of at least twenty mules, a large wagon, and a small penlight of fire rested before all hell broke loose. The desert sands seemed to exlode upward, as if they had stepped onto a pressure-sensitive trigger that fired off a circle of land mines around them. Strider screamed in terror, reeling and bucking the surprised Rygel into a clumsy roll off his rear end. Rygel's honed reflexes acted of their own accord and he found himself standing alone in a circle of hulking quadrapedal beasts with his carbine in hand. He quickly levered a shell into the chamber, snapped the rifle to his shoulder, and sighted down the barrel at the creature standing directly in front of him, his finger heavy on the trigger.

Whether out of dumb luck, careful planning, or a mixture of both, Rygel had the largest of the pack in his sights. It appeared to be some kind of bastardized mix of canine and primate, with oversized shoulders and arms and seemingly stunted legs like a gorilla, but an elongated snout and a twitching, bony tail like a hyena. The pigeon-toed front paws ended in long, hooked claws that looked to be able to rend flesh from bone with a simple flick of the wrist. Massive muscles rippled just underneath the sand-colored fur that covered its shoulders and back. A gaping maw of saber sized teeth occupied the lower half of the thing's head. Its eyes were beady and red and a gutteral cough issued from deep in its fur-heavy throat. Rygel locked eyes with the thing, his peripheral vision picking up the shifting shapes of at least four other creatures circling him. The dog-thing glared back, the intensity in its eyes mixing with the expression of its battle-scarred carapace to give it an elementary kind of intelligence. It sniffed the wind blowing around Rygel, growled again, and lolled its thick, viscous tongue across the ragged edges of one tusk-like tooth. Then, without warning, it clacked its powerful jaws shut, turned, and trudged down the hill toward the mules.

Immediately, Rygel whirled around to where he had seen the highest concentration of the rest of the pack, but they had disappeared into the desert night with the same alacrity with which they had appeared. He let out his breath with something that approximated relief and lowered his firearm, but a slight raising of the short hairs on the back of his neck told him he was being watched. He spun around, raising the carbine with one swift motion.

The first impression Rygel had when he laid eyes upon the man was one of extreme age. The figure standing before him couldn't have been more than five feet tall when standing straight up, but his hunched form measured little over four. His bony skull looked like a crumpled ball of paper dipped in resin and left to crack in a potter's kiln. He was draped in long, flowing robes that flapped about his body like twenty-year old flags that all but obscured the rest of his body. His full head of silvery hair was surprisingly clean. Long strands had been braided and feathers, beads, bells, and animal teeth were attatched at random intervlas along the weave. The rest of his hair was loose and blew about his antique face. An almost nonexistent whisp of moustache and beard joined with the undulations of his hair, their presence only noticeable because they were of a much lighter shade than the rest of his face. His light hazel eyes crinkled in wary amusement as they flickered over Rygel.

"And He Who Has No Name will come with the rising of the sun, and the Rippers will cower before the daggers in his eyes. Are you He Who Has No Name?" The old man's voice was hard, lean, and abrasive as the sands that stretched away under his feet. He leaned toward Rygel as the barrel of his gun lowered and took a deep whiff of the air.

Rygel nodded. "Did Grunt tell you I was coming?"

"Stinky Ranch-man tells me nothing about He Who Has No Name."

"Who did?"

"The stars tell us many things of that which Was, that which Is, and that which Will Be. Come, He Who Has No Name, and share our meager meal to break the hunger of the night. The Rippers say a great storm is approaching, and my bones agree with them."

"The Rippers? Are they the dog-things that spooked my horse?"

"The Rippers are the Children of One Hundred Moons, and their presence scares many things, but not He Who Has No Name."

"Why didn't they attack me?"

The old man raised his eyebrows and spat a wad of violet phlegm into the dust. "The Children of One Hundred Moons know well what they can break, and what can break them. They are the Children of One Hundred Moons." He grunted and walked past the blinking Rygel toward the caravan. His step was sure and quick and Rygel had trouble keeping time. Strider, who had decided that if the Rippers weren't going to kill his master than they would probably not kill him, fell into step behind Rygel and nudged him with a moist nose. Rygel turned, nodded, and returned his rifle to its sheath, removing the unfired round.

The trio entered a camp which was a study in the order of chaos. A young, lithe Scavvy with a severe case of acne sat amongst an array of random pieces of refuse before the fire, looking up only as the elder Scavvy lifted the lid of a cast iron pot atop the fire, stirred a vile-smelling gruel, and replaced the lid. The younger Scavvy ignored Rygel and Strider and returned his attention to whatever gadget he was assembling or tearing apart; Rygel couldn't tell which, so he turned his attention back to the elder, starting as he noticed the old Scavvy's eyes seemingly peering into his skull. The weathered lines outlining his eyes crinkled and the crevasses in his forehead deepened. Muttering incomprehensible Scavvy-speak under his breath, the old man returned his attention to the cauldron, stirring it with a crusted spoon and adding a pinch of something he pulled from one of many small pouches that hung around his neck.

Frowining, Rygel turned his attention back to the younger Scavvy. Somehow, in space of the few seconds Rygel had spent swapping glances with the old man, his partner had assembled some kind of gadget from the majority of the random bits of nothing he had been sitting in the center of. In one swift motion, the youth pulled a long firearm with a pistol grip from a sheath on his back. Rygel's hand went immediately to the Blackhawk that hung at his side, but a strong hand clamped onto his wrist. Surprised, Rygel went to pull away from the old man's grip, but the bony fingers merely dug deeper into the flesh of his arm.

"Nanahuatzin has not yet finished his Man Killer, He Who Has No Name. It's power is still weak, like his manhood! Ha!" The old man cackled and returned to his concoction.

Rygel glanced over at the boy, who scowled at the old man, spat a dark wad into the fire, and began fiddling with the firearm and the gadget, inserting his newest creation into the already confusing collection of tubes, pipes, machinery, switches, and levers. "At least my manhood still stands, Chichinotzin. Cihtli tells me that yours has been like the tongue of a thirsty mule for countless moons. She cries about it all the time." Nanahuatzin smirked, finished twiddling with his creation, and stood.

"What does my wife know about the life below my belt? I've not shared a blanket with her since before your first naming ceremony. The sight of her drooping breasts and her dusty hole make me cry to the suns for guidance. And guide me they do, to the blankets of Cihuaton! Come, eat, we must be off. The sun gets high in the sky and the Rippers and my bones never lie about the coming of storms." Chichinotzin spooned a glop of the colorless gruel into a shallow bown and handed it to Rygel, then filled another for Nanahuatzin and one for himself. Despite the vile smell and worse appearance of the fare, it went down with surprising ease and left a pleasant taste in Rygel's mouth. He was far from hungry, but he managed to finish the bowl and gruel and turned down Chichinotzin's offer of a refill.

Breakfast was over with surprising swiftness and the semblance of the camp was stricken with even greated speed. Before even the tip of the sun peeked over the horizon, the mules were in motion. Nanahuatzin appeared to be the skinner, shouting in short, quick syllables of Scavvy that kept remarkable control over the mules. Chichinotzin sat in the wagon next to his grandson, listening to the sound of the wind. Rygel made lazy circles around the mule train, keeping the perimeter clear of anything suspicious. He saw no sign of the Rippers he had encountered the previous evening, but their smell permeated the air and made Strider jumpy, regardless of the unbearable heat that manifested early in the morning and grew exponentially throughout the day.

At one point, Rygel rode close enough to speak to Nanahuatzin, keeping Strider at a steady walk. "Why do you travel in the day? Don't the mules drink more water when they're hot?"

"Yes. But they drink even more water if they walk all night, for mules cannot sleep during the day. Then they drink water in the day, drink water in the night, and then die the next day. This way, they drink water in the day and sleep at night. They cannot sleep and drink at the same time." He turned to Chichinotzin. "Are you sure the stars told you this one's name is HeWho Has No Name? It should be He Who Asks Stupid Questions! Hah!"

Rygel didn't try to talk to the Scavvies during the rest of the day.

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