The Butcher and the Butterfly (4 page)

‘Troubled?’

Samson waved his
hand over the fire revealing the image of Stephen lying dead upon
the desert floor. ‘You see, Stephen, to follow those maggots sat
over there you will die. To follow me and serve the Wretch King
will mean a future with endless possibilities.’

4

Stephens mind was
a whirl of questions. Why should he follow this new King when all
he wants is to rule over all? Why should he believe a known liar?
What will happen if he chooses to follow the Wretch King? For if
Stephens’s history is correct then the last time the Wretch King
tried to rule the lands he was destroyed by the soldiers of Doscro
over six hundred years ago. So why should he follow a defeated King
and a traitor?

But a life was in
question. His own life and like any other, Stephen preferred to be
alive than dead. He looked at the images still flickering in the
fire light. A bullet had torn through his side; another had entered
his right eye and exploded out through the back of his skull.
Looking back out over the ridge and into the blackness he couldn’t
see his own killing ground but knew it was there.

The Black Sorcerer
hadn’t lied so far and had nothing to gain in lying now. Stephen
looked back on his own life and more important into his future and
could see nothing there for him. If he defeated the Marksman then
he would return home and to whatever whim the King required of him.
If the Marksman laid him to waste then he would be walking the
Green Path by lunch tomorrow.

An hour ago
Stephen had been a man loyal, honest and true, but seeing his
death, seeing his future lay out in two simple paths had changed
all that. This King, this Barnabas; could he be a man to trust?
Could he be the one true King the prophets speak of? He could have
the answers.

‘What am I to do?’
Stephen asked.

‘Ha!’ The Sorcerer
wheezed, ‘Ha! Shall I take it that you are with us?’

‘What am I to do?’
Stephen repeated his voice low.

The Black
Sorcerers eyes narrowed; the fire light glinting from his sharp
teeth as he grinned.

‘Just follow
orders, Stephen. Follow his words, and my own, and you will go
far.’

Stephen nodded.
‘What do you wish of me?’

The Black Sorcerer
stood and beckoned his new soldier to do likewise. The man garbed
in shadow pointed to the north.

‘Rockfall,
Stephen, to Rockfall you will walk and once there treasures await
you.’

‘Speak plainly,
Sorcerer, I care little for riddles.’

Samson laughed and
the wind blew fierce. ‘To go further, Stephen, to get what the king
wants, you have to go to Rockfall. On the way you shall be told
more but until then you must trust in his word.’

Stephen looked
back to the horizon following the finger of the Sorcerer. It would
be a hard journey as Rockfall was situated on the far side of this
hellish desert. Stephen knew though that, somehow he would get
there. But what would arrive at Rockfall? Would it be the Watchman
that he was now or would he turn into something like the
Sorcerer?

The Watchman
turned to face Samson but there was no one there and in the
distance the sun was beginning to rise.

5

The Watchman
walked alone in a desert filled with death.

The sun was high
and hot, the air putrid. He had been walking for days and not heard
a word from either the Sorcerer and it was troubling him.

At high noon
Stephen stopped and hid behind a large rock, the shade cooler if
only by a few degrees. He threw his bag of wares to the floor and
slumped down. He cared little for food but drank deeply; the water
doing little, but helping none the less.

To Stephens
surprise a black figure approached from far off on the horizon. At
first he thought it a mirage but as the thin stick figure walked
closer it began to take form. What at first Stephen thought were
long arms; wings now took shape. Its legs were long, bandy even and
its feet looked hooved. Wrapped around this creature’s waist were
two arms ending in sharply pointed talons. Its skin was black,
burned as if it had been in a fire. The figure wore no clothes and
its face was as long as a horses. It had no mouth, no eyes, no nose
and it walked upon the hardpan leaving no trail.

Stephen stood when
the figure was twenty paces away.

‘Who are you,
traveller? Are you a demon come to take me?’

The creature
stopped its featureless face merely pointing in his direction.

‘Again I ask,
traveller, who are you and what do you want?’

The black thing,
who stood well over eight foot tall, with burnt skin stretched over
brittle bones answered; its voice low, gruff; like the Wastelands
found a voice and used this being as a tool with which to
communicate.

‘You have dealt me
out so many times, Stephen, follower of the new King; I find it
hard to think that you cannot recognise me.’ The things wings
flapped and folded behind its back.

‘As I have said
time and time again, I care little for riddles. Now, traveller,
tell me who you are and let me be.’

‘You would have
met me in another place, Stephen, but that tricksom Sorcerer pushed
you onto a different path. I thought I would pay you a visit just
to remind you I am still here. I am still a shadow behind your
own.’

Stephen looked to
the sky and exhaled in frustration. The figure in front of him
laughed a high pitched laughed that whipped the air from Stephens’s
lungs.

‘I am Death,
Watchman, and I have come to warn you.’

Now it was
Stephens turn to laugh and he did it without care. ‘Tell me of your
warning, Death, and be-gone with you. Go trouble another traveller
as I care little for your company.’

The Watchman sat
back down and looked up at the Angel of Death.

Such a man as you
Stephen is a rarity in these times. I have seen men like you, hard
men, tough men but not for a long time now. Not in many a lifetime
of men. You are a rarity on this Earth. So I shall be blunt. You
would have died Stephen. You would have died back there, the
Marksman’s gun felling you like a great tree. So you can walk on
knowing you made the right choice.’

‘Well I am happy.
Is that all?’

Death knelt beside
the Watchman, its head the same level as Stephens. It smelt of
nothing. He had no weight of presence, like a ghost.

‘Your soul,
Watchman, was one I was particularly looking forward to taking, so
now I need a replacement. You see, I have quotas to fill and your
soul is worth a thousand to me and to my masters.’

‘Well you have a
lot to choose from. There are a few more Watchman back there you
can help yourself to.’

‘Aye, Stephen,
you’re right there. But they are nothing compared to you! For your
replacement I need something pure, a soul without hate or anger and
I want it to be something personal, Watchman. Something personal to
you.’

Stephen picked up
a rock and threw it out into the nothing of the Wastelands. ‘I care
little for my parents.’

‘Then a lover.’
Death looked to the sky. ‘Ahh, not a lover then, a lucky whore.
Yes, a whore whom carries your child. She has a fine soul. Two
soul’s in fact. Unless of course; you decide upon another
path.’

Stephen had
promised to return, to marry the whore and look after the child. It
would mean keeping it secret from the Watchman General, but Stephen
was good at keeping secrets. But now, with the offer from Samson
his feelings for the whore, Claire, were fading. Soon they would be
nothing.

Death saw an
opening. ‘You humans are so fickle. You look at love like it is so
hard to give but you give it out so freely. I cannot expect you to
understand for you haven’t seen what I have seen.’

‘What is this
other path you speak of, Death?’

Death stood; his
shadow massive on the desert floor. The wind picked up and the sky
darkened. ‘Home, Watchman. To go home and care for the child that
is carried in your lover’s belly. Not do the damage you are about
to do. People will die that are not ready to take the Green Path.
You are against the Fates and they are not ones to fuck with.’

‘I care not for
home, Death, nor the fucking Fates for that matter. My home died
when I was a boy. All that I knew and loved is gone. All that I
care for now is getting to Rockfall and from there the Gods only
know.’

‘So be it,
Stephen. I only offer it once.’ With that the black figure unfurled
its wings and flew into the air.

Alone again,
Stephen headed off toward Rockfall; another part of the man he was
left behind to the uncaring winds of the desert.

Rockfall

1

Let me now show
you a town going to the dogs. Rockfall aint too big and it aint too
small. Rough around the edges and rotten to the core; it is like
any desert town on the rim of nowhere. To be born here is to be
damned and to die here is a blessing. It has a population between
one and five hundred; no one really knows or cares for that matter.
As for livestock, they have some horses and some cows but nothing
of any merit. Anything that seems of pure stock is sold for the
coin; anything born that has the mutant strain is killed and
burned.

The desert wind
wraps itself around Rockfall and it brings with it sand and heat,
life and death. The buildings have been sandblasted by years of
torment and even the dark tar that has been painted on the woodwork
is pale, dead, all used up. The mixture of heat, sweat and the
creosote gave Rockfall a strange odour; one that the Watchman would
never forget. It was a harsh alternative to the smells that he had
grown up with; thyme, rosemary, heather. Sadly even they had gone
sour like the rest of the world.

Stephen, now
merely posing as a Watchman travels had been hard; tales to be told
another day, and this hole would be the start of his new life.

Walking the raised
boards which outlined the main street he headed toward what looked
like the only bar in town. The streets were empty; sand whipped
through them and the sun shone through gaps in the stores and
houses. The urge to scream out ‘hello’ was overwhelming. There was
a pressure pushing him down in this place, squeezing him tight and
constricting his breathing.

As he neared the
bar he heard two voices coming from inside a store to his direct
right. The voices were muted and muffled through the glass and wood
and he couldn’t make out what was being said. The store sold, from
the objects in the dusty window, some sort of metal goods and
ironmongery. The voices grew clear as the door to the store opened
and a man stepped out.

‘No worries,
Clive. I shall find the little pricks that branded yer mule and
beat the piss outta them.’

‘Brand em too.
Little fucktards!’ a voice from inside the store demanded.

‘Now, now, Clive…’
the man looked to Stephen and paused and closed the door. ‘Who are
you?’

Stephen
outstretched his left hand. ‘Stephen La’ Point, Watchman of the
West.’

The man who had
left the store took a step back and laughed. ‘Holy hell. You must
be fucking lost to be this far into hell.’

Stephen smirked
but kept his hand outstretched awaiting the shake.

The man, seemingly
pulling himself together quickly placed his hand into the
Watchman’s and both men shook hands in the dusty streets of
Rockfall.

As they shook
hands Stephen said, ‘and your name, if it does please ya?’

‘Oh yeah, John.
John Drive.’ The two men stopped shaking hands. ‘Deputy John
Drive.’

Stephen eyes
widened. ‘A fellow lawman. My luck must be in.’

John rubbed his
fingers together and placed them by his sides. Stephen knew he
wasn’t welcome here and had put this so called Deputy into a
situation he had not expected. But he cared little for that.

‘Well, Deputy, I’m
guessing that up ahead is the only bar in town?’

John looked behind
him and shielded his eyes from the glaring sun. ‘Yep. Travellers
Last is probably the only bar in about two hundred miles in all
directions.’ John looked back and Stephen could see fear in those
baby blue eyes. John continued ‘I take it then that you aint lost
and am here on business?’

‘Perhaps,’ Stephen
shrugged, ‘but that conversation is for another time. Right now I
need a crap, a bath and a beer.’

The Deputy smiled,
but it was an uncomfortable one. ‘Well, follow me, Watchman of the
West, the owner of the Travellers is a personal friend of mine and
I shall see that she takes of ya.’

2

The two men walked
through the batwing doors and into the Travellers Last. It was big
inside, larger than Stephen had expected. It wasn’t well adorned
and was typical for this area. Dusty with the familiar scent of
stale beer and sick. Sawdust crunched under his boots as he headed
to the main bar.

‘Carry on with the
glasses now Susie, it looks like we have a couple of early patrons
to deal with.’ The woman’s voice was insanely common, but
underneath that common tongue Stephen noted a touch of his own
country. An undertone that didn’t shout Hey! I was brought up with
a silver spoon up my arse but instead mumbled of tones of a
childhood spent bossing slaves about.

Stephen looked at
Cathy, the owner of the bar and noted her lack of attention on him.
When her gaze did eventually reach him he was surprised to see that
she even managed a smile for him.

‘Well, what would
it be for ya then, young sires? A drop of the old hot stuff before
lunch?’ Cathy pointed to a large bottle placed in front of other
large bottles behind her; each with its own branding and oddly
coloured liquid inside. Some seemed fresh whilst others were
covered by the dusts of time.

The Deputy
scratched at his ever growing bald spot and ushered with his eyes
at Stephen toward the bar owner. ‘This is Cathy. She runs the local
which is also the best place to dine and to sleep. Cathy this is
Stephen.’ The two nodded at one another. That was the extent of
their greeting.