Daybreak came, as it always did. As unique in a host of small ways as it always was. Night’s shrouds were lifted one after another and, in measured stages, the shapes and shades of everyday things were restored to them, the world remade in its usual arrangement that was so marvellously unremarkable.

Although she’d said she would, Fia paid it no heed.

The two women looked down at Torsten Gunn’s body. Despite the red holes that were stitched across his leather breastplate and the drying blood running across his cheek to his ear, he looked serene. Far younger than he had appeared in life, somehow.

“It wasn’t right for him to be taken like that,” Fia said, her voice very tight in her chest. She was surprised at how the man’s death had affected her. Surprised at how quickly she had surrendered her feelings to an outlaw who had been touted by many as the single biggest scourge of Fallaros’ roads.

“That’s fuckin’ life for you,” said Boni Woe. Her eyes were hard and bloodshot. She passed Fia a flask and Fia took it. “That’s fuckin’ death for you.”

“Life ain’t fair.”

“You don’t think? I’ve always thought it’s as fair as it can be. We all get that nine month shuffle in our mama’s bellies, and then we get the deal. All of us take a flop, endure the turn, and then cross the river. Shit, a lot of us go bust, that’s for certain, but there are some that might get a full house.” She gave Fia a dry look. “Hell, even a couple that manage a royal flush. Lot of folk are ready to blame life come the end of the game, when really it’s just the way they’ve played their fuckin’ hand. Pass me back that fuckin’ lotion, will you? Might be there’s a time for sobriety, but this ain’t it.”

“What would he have wanted you to do with him?” Fia asked, gritting her teeth against the harsh bite of the red-eye and passing it back.

Boni’s face twisted up. She drew in a sharp breath and opened her mouth. Then she paused. Slowly, she let the breath out again. For the space of a couple of heartbeats, Boniface Woe shrank and withdrew and looked like the girl she might’ve been had the world been less cruel.

“He’s wanderin’ someplace else now,” she said, her pale green eyes fixed on Gunn. “So let his body wander one last time down here. Give him to the river.”

* * *

There was no stately, slow ride down the river out of Redstone for Torsten Gunn. No hands folded over his chest, clutching his sword while the current bore him away to the sea. No final, tearful farewell as one of the most infamous outlaws of modern times was whisked away in a boat laden with all those things he most prized.

“There’s not even a fucking boat,” Fia said, as Breck, Boni, Rule and Winnie carried Gunn on an old door, down to a part of the river bank that allowed them to get closest to the frothing, raging torrent.

“What good’s a fuckin’ boat gonna do him?” Hunter asked. She had a bandage around her head, another around her right arm and, all in all, looked like a woman who’d just tightrope walked over the mouth of the pit and still couldn’t believe she’d managed not to fall.

“I don’t know,” Fia said. “I just thought… For ceremony’s sake or––”

Hunter shook her head and spat. “Be a waste of a fuckin’ boat,” she said. “Look at that river. It’d chew up a rowboat like you or I’d chumble a biscuit.”

Fia glanced over at Gil. The remaining Allaway twin was staring, surly-faced, into the churning, grinding foam. Fia didn’t have to think too hard about what was on his mind. Fergus stood next to him, his big florid face all twisted about with grief, his eyes red-rimmed as he tugged distractedly at his bushy beard.

“Ceremonies,” Hunter went on. “‘Bout the only people they benefit are the local innkeepers.”

There was a fair crowd gathered to watch Torsten Gunn take his final journey, though there weren’t any tears that Fia could see. He’d been famous for his cold-blooded mercilessness and unhesitating violence as much as anything. Renown for his viciousness in dealing with the soldiers of any tribeland that strayed across his path. For stealing the riches or goods of those that considered themselves the rulers of their respective lands.

Fia gazed about. Doubtless, there were more than a few folk collected there who had lost fathers or sons, nephews or brothers to Gunn and his gang. She wondered how many of the congregated rubberneckers had really seen him as some sort of folk hero, as an agent of salvation.

Must’ve been more than a few, she told herself. Enough of them fought and died for him last night. There’s no denying that.

Fia watched as Boni, Brek, Winnie and Rule staggered carefully down to the river’s edge. The sisters, Winnie and Rule, were the foremost pall bearers and they dropped to their knees, while Breck and Boni raised their end of the door Gunn was laid out on. Took a bit of jiggling to get the dead man to slide off, but he went eventually. Went off the greased door and flopped into the churning white water and was gone.

Gone for good. Just like that.

The crowd dispersed pretty sharply after that. Weren’t any words spoken. Weren’t any that Fia could think were necessary. Torsten Gunn was like many men on Fallaros; he’d been on the little end of the horn for most of his life until he’d been pushed that bit too far. Only difference was that he’d decided to push back in a big way, and had never quit.

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Fia gave the churning Raun one last look. Gave Gunn one last thought. She felt the prickle of tears in the corners of her eyes. Blinked them away. There was nothing to be gained. Then, she turned away and followed the two surviving Allaway brothers along the street of butchers, which lay parallel to the river and was already being cleared of the plethora of bodies that festooned it by stoic locals.

“You mark those fuckin’ guns those two Vansgrimans were holding?” Boni asked Fia, as they watched a couple of burly blokes sling a dead Frekirie soldier into the back of a laden cart.

“I did. You figure out what they fired?”

Boni shook her head. She reached into her coat and extracted one of the strange pistols from where she’d wedged it into the back of her belt. Fia had taken the other one and had it stuck in her belt as a reminder of what they were up against.

“There’re six chambers with a little empty brass case in each of ‘em,” Boni said. “I’m blowed if I can figure out how they worked exactly, but I’ll tell you one thing; if all the Imperator’s Vansgrimans are carryin’ things that can fire off six shots in less time than it takes to say it…”

“And if they’ve skeletons of metal and magic…” Fia added.

Boni snorted and took a pull on the skin she was holding.

“Yeah, you’re fucked,” she said.

Fia looked at the profile of the skinny redhead, staring into the ever-moving river. Thought how she’d be pretty if you could smooth away the hate and the frustration and the bitterness. Thought how’d she be weak if you could do that.

“Stay with me, Boni,” she said. “I’ve a feeling that I’ll have need of a woman with your skill-set, and your stomach, to help with what I’m fixing to do next.”

“And what is it you’re fixin’ to do?”

Fia thought of her mother lying somewhere alone in Castle Dreymark, and of the deformed truth that Redmond had kept to himself for so long, and which had kept Fia sundered from her mother for so long.

“I’m going to make things right,” she said. “I’m going to make things right, and I’m going to take back my place. And, when I’ve done that, I’m going to take the fight to the Imperator.”

Boni chuckled mirthlessly. “You really think you can do that? You really think you can stop him landin’ on Fallaros? I don’t know shit about the civilised business of warfare, but even I know that you’re goin’ to need more warriors than Frekifold holds. You’ll have to convince the other tribelands to side with you if you want any chance of stoppin’ this thaumaturgy-enhanced army of his.”

Fia set her jaw. “Then that’s what I’ll do. I’ll raise an army, meet him off shore, and defeat him there if I can. If not, and he lands on Fallaros, I’ll make him pay for every stride of ground.”

Boniface Woe appraised Fia through her bright green, bloodshot eyes. Appraised her for a long while.

“You pay and I’ll stay,” she said eventually. “I ain’t got a dream or a goal or fuckin’ morals like - like the chief did. I ain’t in this game to avenge nobody. I live this life because killin’ and robbin’ is just about all I’m good at.”

Fia reached into her money pouch, palmed the money that had been set aside for Lorna Forbes and handed it to Boni.

“A down-payment,” she said. “For future work.”

Boni took the money, nodded, tucked the strange Vansgriman pistol back down the back of her trousers, and shoved her hands in her coat pockets.

“Future work,” she said. “And it promises to be bloody. I’ll talk to the rest of our lot. See if I can’t persuade ‘em to stay on a while. What d’you mean to do with Cleric Vass? That son of a bitch is still alive, ain’t he?”

Fia nodded. “I’ve no aversion to thaumaturgy,” she said. “And after seeing what he did to that other witch…”

Fergus had dragged the unconscious cleric from the building he’d brought down. He’d also retrieved the other thaumaturgist’s head. “You want the rest of her you’re going to need a bucket to her in,” he’d reported.

“We’ll need his likes if we want to beat the Imperator,” Fia said. “Can’t live by the old prejudices any more.”

Boni grunted. “Sound’s like you’ve got a lot of shit to organise. Get a hold o’ me when you’re good and ready to kill some folk.”

When Boni had left, Fia moved over to the Allaway brothers.

“So, what’re you boys planning on doing now?” Fia asked Fergus and Gil, as the small group halted on the bridge on which Lenix Allaway had been killed.

“Gonna follow the river downstream a ways,” Gil said, without looking at her. “Gonna see if we can find Lenix. Gonna try.”

Fia nodded. “Regardless of how that search goes, you hurry back here when you can,” she said.

“Why?” Fergus asked.

“Because I’ll have work for you,” Fia said. “You strike me as good men. Solid men. For what I’ve got in mind, I’ll need your like.”

They leaned against the bridge railing and watched the Raun River roll by. Each of them was caught up in their own thoughts; wondering what was coming down the race and how long it was going to be before it reached them, and whether or not they were going to have the grit to face it when it did. No one spoke. The water foamed by under their feet, running out to the dry plains and the sea they eventually surrendered themselves to. The sound of the river sounded a lot like the arid grasslands did when the wind moved through them. Similar music.

Fia Marr gazed out in the direction of Castle Dreymark and of her mother. She could see the castle in her mind’s eye, squatting dark and forbidding and strong out near the coast. She saw her future out there, looking back at her in shades of grey.

Fergus’ deep voice rumbled out and broke into Fia’s thoughts.

“Winter ain’t far off,” he said. “Going to be a dry one if the grasslands are anythin’ to go by. Might be that we’re heading for a drought.”

Fia grunted. Fallaros was a hard, tough, unforgiving land, and it bred hard, unforgiving people. Just how hard and unforgiving she meant to show the Imperator before too long.

“You what the thing about droughts is though, Fergus?” she said.

“What’s that?” the big man asked, flicking a pebble off the bridge railing and into the ceaseless, restless Raun.

Fia touched at the butt of the six-chambered pistol that she had tucked into her belt.

“Thing about droughts is,” she said, “that they usually end with a flood.”