The summer heat was clearly out to kill them all.

Some of the trucks didn’t have any air conditioning and it was hell to convince his soldiers to drive them. That was probably why Ukko found himself behind the wheel and pouring sweat into an already sweat-soaked seat.

It was disgusting.

But apparently leaders have to lead.

Though Ukko was pretty sure he was just being taken advantage of at this point.

Even with the windows rolled down, that damn sun beat down on them mercilessly. It was ridiculous. This whole chunk of the continent was supposedly a land of ice and snow at some point, but Ukko wasn’t lucky enough to get sent out here during the right season. He thought ‘early fall’ meant the cold weather would be coming along without leading to his motely crew having to navigate through snowbanks up to his chest.

But no, this wretched land was somehow still trapped in the midst of Summer.

Snow-capped mountaintops rose tauntingly in front of them, and they had been perfectly in view for the last few days of travel. If Ukko didn’t know any better, he would have thought it was some cruel prank performed by the locals, but his guide said everything was normal so far.

As much as he was dreading the idea of getting his convoy through, and fighting in, dense woodland with trees reportedly wider than a human is tall he was starting to look forward to it. At least then there would be some shade. This land had few trees and all of them hugged the rivers. Most of his convoy could offroad it over there, it would probably be safer now that they were out of The Alley’s territory. However, the MACs had to be transported on massive truck beds-turned makeshift warehouses, each pulled by at least two heavy trucks with their drive systems connected to operate as one. Luckily, the highways were still in usable condition, though a bit treacherous. Highways, however, have little in the way of shade. If anything, the asphalt seemed to be intensifying the heat.

If Ukko could have convinced The Alley to give him mobile citadels again, this would have been easy. Those things were built to go nearly anywhere, some could apparently even fly. But, considering the last two mobile citadel’s he had assigned to him ended up with a nearly one hundred percent casualty rate for The Alley’s assigned MAC pilots… well, they weren’t exactly looking to give Ukko any extra help.

At least Ukko got his raise.

That was what he kept telling himself.

Ukko was complaining to an empty cab. And he was mostly doing it out of a lasting spite for the past few days of travel.

In front of him, his convoy was about to enter a pleasant enough looking valley. It was carved straight into the middle of these massive and unending mountains, except for where the nuke craters were, Ukko supposed. It was hard to imagine what made this canyon. Or why. But Ukko decided not to question it. The mountain slopes on either side rose up at a frightening pace to those snow caps trapped in the clouds. The meltwater poured down from those peaks and created rivers on either side of the valley. The water that poured down apparently made for a hospitable environment for trees as the sides of the mountains were coated in them. It was interesting to Ukko that one mountain had far older trees than the other. The mountain to his right was covered in a sea of green saplings and other plants, all fighting for the same pool of nutrients. The fallen trees and the clear burn marks made it easy enough to tell what had happened, but it was still quite the sight to see. Ukko imagined how incredible the mountain must have looked when the wildfire swept across it. As much as the image astounded him, the idea of a fire made him curse the temperature gauge with even more gusto. Ukko really hated the heat.

It was probably a lack of discipline on his part, but his soldiers were quickly abandoning their vehicles and running to the two flanking rivers filled with ice cold water. Ukko was sure every driver in the convoy had a face painted in murder as they were forced to stay in their occasionally sweat soaked seats.

But soon enough the drivers were abandoning their vehicles as well. Every one of them sprinting towards that cool blue water.

Ukko couldn’t always be the nice leader. He got out of his own vehicle and grabbed one of the drivers by their shirt, abruptly yanking them off their feet and letting them fall onto their ass. He stared daggers at the girl who stared daggers right back. She obviously wasn’t happy about missing out on time away from this devil sun.

“Sir? Shouldn’t you be up front?” she said, a bit too venomously.

“You’re asking me what I’m doing? What the hell are you doing? We’re on a mission and we can’t just all stop to play. This ‘paradise’ is part of our operation zone. We could get ambushed at any damn moment and you all want to splash around in the water?! How about you get back in your truck so we don’t all get blasted to pieces by some redneck with a rocket launcher?”

She stood up quickly and started to dust herself off. Her voice came across far less angry than it had before, “Oh, sorry sir. I thought we were all tuned to the same frequency in the column. The lead truck ran into an issue and they’re asking for you. Column can’t move in this valley if the lead truck isn’t moving.” She smirked at him, clearly self-satisfied.

“Shoot. I was-” he quickly stopped himself from saying ‘I was listening to a radio drama I scavenged’. He doesn’t have to be completely honest with his troops, “Alright, well then, carry on soldier. I guess I’ll go,” he stared at the convoy and dreaded the walk he was about to have to go on to reach the lead truck, “on a little hike then. Oh god dammit.”

“If it makes you feel any better sir, I’ll try to save some fish for you. Looks like the river’s full of them.”

He looked at her with a drooling mouth and thankful eyes. All this ration food was getting him to consider fasting just to escape that nasty slop.

“I said ‘try’ sir. No promises.”

And off she went.

Ukko started walking. He was complaining, once again, to no one.

He tried his best to appreciate the beautiful landscape around him, but the smell that wafted off him and the way his boots made a squishing sound whenever he took a step made it rather difficult to appreciate anything. The more he thought about it, the more he was just growing disgusted.

As he moved up the line, truck by truck, he was hoping for his own soldiers’ sake that this was an issue he was actually needed for. If not… Ukko didn’t take any particular joy in the torturous ideas that ran across his mind. He would certainly punish them though, but he would probably wait until he was somewhere cool and a bit calmed down before deciding on the particulars. Stringing them up and hacking off limbs sounded good at the moment, but he tried to resist the heat-fueled temptation.

Ukko was too old for this. His back felt like hell. His legs felt like hell. He was pretty sure his knees were about to crumble to dust right on the spot. Old age is a damn curse. Should’ve died years ago, Ukko thought.

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The walk probably felt far longer than it was, but Ukko was finally closing in on the lead truck. He saw a few of his soldiers talking to a lone man with a shovel. Ukko approached, already suspecting this was the type of issue he didn’t need to be around for. He tried thinking back to his childhood when he was pushing snow in the middle of nowhere far north of here. The cool thoughts kept him from pulling out his gun and starting up the summary executions.

The man with the shovel was coated in dirt, but his age still shone through. He looked absolutely ancient with wrinkles that seemed to reach straight through to the bone. Or maybe the bone was coming up to meet the wrinkles. He was nothing more than a layer of muscle with a skeleton underneath. Not a bit of fat on the man. His back was stooped to the degree that you wouldn’t expect a man like him to be working. Hell, Ukko wouldn’t expect a man like this to even be out walking at all. He looked about two steps away from his grave. Ukko started to rethink his comments on his own age. He probably shouldn’t be complaining too much if a guy like this is still kicking around.

As Ukko finally got around the first truck of the convoy and saw the other side of the road, he started to wonder if he was in his right mind. Behind the old man was, in fact, a grave. A perfectly shaped hole fit for a body. Ukko felt a strange tinge of unease as he continued to scan the road ahead and he saw hole after hole on both sides of the road. And, where the holes stopped, the mounds of dirt began. Each marked with a simple wooden stake.

Something was obviously wrong here.

The old man was still digging. Shoveling out dirt from his perfect little rectangle. Ukko’s soldiers weren’t making much progress talking to the man. He barely seemed to register their existence and he definitely wasn’t listening to their pleas to get him off the road.

Ukko patted one of his soldiers on the back, catching his attention and pulling him out of earshot of the old man.

“Sir, glad to see you. This man here says he won’t move until he talks to you. We tried to uh… persuade him to leave, but he wasn’t taking our threats seriously.”

“Well that makes things a bit bothersome. I guess it’s an honor that someone wants to chat me up, so I’ll just have to handle this all personally then.” Ukko tried to hide his still-smoldering hatred for being forced to hike up here, “Because of course some random hole-digging psycho in enemy territory is more than enough of a reason to stop the whole damn convoy and postpone our entire mission.”

His soldier, obviously peeved at being berated for something that wasn’t his fault, simply pointed up the road to the old man, “Next time we’ll just shoot first sir.”

“Yes, that sounds like what should have happened. Get in your truck, I’ll go handle this the right way and we can get moving again.”

Ukko waited until his solider got back in his truck and then he started walking. The gravedigger may be an oddity, but as of right now finishing up this job was the most important thing for The Stragglers. He’ll talk to the man and if things look like they’re going to take a while, Ukko will speed the process along with a bullet or two.

Ukko marched straight toward the man who still hadn’t stopped moving his shovel. It didn’t take long for the hairs on the back of Ukko’s neck to start standing up. After you get a hang of soldiering you get a sense for when something really strange is about to happen, and that was exactly what Ukko was feeling as he came face to face with the ancient man. Even though ‘strange’ doesn’t always mean bad, Ukko had never seen a strange occurrence that didn’t lead to disaster. He wasn’t excited.

The man was staring at him. Stopped in the middle of his work and just stared right at Ukko. His left hand, which was no longer on the shovel, hovered by his side with his fingers at odd angles. A normal person might have taken that to just be arthritis or some other ailment. But Ukko was pretty sure he recognized some of the signs the old man was making. They seemed similar to the sort of hand signs used in the military.

He took a few more steps toward the gravedigger, “Afternoon old man. I’m the leader of this convoy. I heard you were asking to meet with me specifically.”

“Old man?” he spit to the side. ‘Spit’ might be generous though, he was old enough to not produce much saliva, but the gesture was received all the same, “Ya ever take a look in tha mirror? The way I figure, ya probably got more wrinkles than me by half.”

The accent was heavy on this one, as was the ‘I’m too old to care’ attitude. Ukko decided he liked the man. This might just be the first case of a ‘strange’ occurrence being pleasant. Maybe Ukko was just too on guard these days. “Looking after twerps like that,” Ukko nodded to his soldiers, “will turn any man’s skin to the texture of a crumpled bag. If only the fools could do their job half decent.”

“Young’uns huh?” he wiped the sweat from his forehead and pounded his fist on his back a few times, “Bunch’a good for nothings.”

Ukko reached out and grasped the man’s hand. It was more calluses than anything else. Hard as a rock. Ukko liked to think of himself as a manly man, but this guy takes the cake. It was like gripping sandpaper. Forty grit probably.

“So, like I said, my guys were saying you wanted to talk about something?”

“Well, something like that I s’pose.”

“Alright. See, the issue is that we have a mission. Just trying to make a day’s living. I’m sure you understand. No work no food and all that. So we need to get through this canyon.” Ukko kept his smile as warm as possible, “The issue, obviously, is that you’re working right on the path.”

The old man, the ancient man, looked to the sun hanging above them and wiped the sweat from his brow, “Yawp, canyon does that ta folks.”

Ukko tried to keep his patience, but decades of mercenary work don’t make for the most patient of people, “Well, I don’t know if it’s the canyon’s fault that you’re digging graves on the path, but I’ll leave the interpretation to your experience. I’m just wondering how I get my convoy through here so I can start working.”

“That’ll be the tricky bit. Sure as the rain’ll come, that’s the tricky bit.” He pointed to the hole he was digging, “See, this here’s what I like doing. Diggin’. Simple. I ain’t gotta spend my time thinkin’ silly thoughts or nothing. I just dig. And when I’m done with diggin’ then I put the body in.” He smiled a gap-toothed smile that was full of either confidence or rabies, “Can’t just dig a hole for no reason, see? Ya need bodies. But, well, I ain’t one for makin’ corpses. Some folks can do it and some folks can’t. By the looks of ya, I’m sure you’ve made a few corpses in your day.”

Ukko was starting to feel on edge again. A man talking enough crazy nonsense will do that to you. Especially if the man is talking that kind of nonsense in front of a few kilometer long military convoy, “A few… yeah.” Ukko was hoping that the conversation was going to turn back to getting through the canyon soon. He really wanted to keep liking the old man.

He laughed. It was a strange sort of sound. It was like something was getting scraped out of a too-dry throat and hacked up in chunks. It was unpleasant. “Well that’s just fine. Just fine. I’m sure my boy’ll take ta ya. See, my boy wants ta fight. Don’t ask me why, it’s a damn crackpot notion far as I’m concerned, but it’s what he wants and I’m inclined to let ‘em chase his dreams. And his dream helps with mine. See, when he fights, he makes these.” The gravedigger gestured to the mounds of dirt that stretched as far as the eye could see, “And then I get ta dig. It’s a good system we got. An’ ever since we got some’a them fancy machines, I’ve been able to dig nonstop. Every day. It’s a good livin’.” The man had a face of pure euphoria. The kind of face Ukko had only seen on drug addicts one hit away from death.

“That’s uh… that’s very nice. So, me and my convoy need to get through…” Ukko was now aware that this was going to be a pain. Damn, he liked the guy too. Sounds like they got their hands on some MACs. This is exactly the sort of group Ukko was being paid to exterminate. He put his hand on his radio and tapped out some morse code signals. Hopefully the Little Admiral could get into her MAC. At this rate Ukko would be happy if anyone got into their MAC. Even his worst pilots should be able to handle these backwoods mountain-men. Ukko felt a bit bad about having to murder the old man’s people, but business comes first.

But unfortunately, things never go terribly well for Ukko. Bad luck, some might call it. The old man was far smarter than he let on. Or at least more observant. He noticed Ukko’s tapping and made a hand sign of his own. A large caliber bullet made a small crater in front of Ukko.

The old man was still smiling, “Ya gotta listen friend. Impatience’ll get ya killed out this way. I know you city folk live fast lives and all that, but slow down a bit, huh?” He laughed, and he kept laughing until it turned into a fit of coughing. He recovered quick enough and continued, “My boy, like I said, he’s making bodies for me. So all you,” he gestured to the convoy, “are on his to-do list. I wouldn’t try nothing funny. As you can see by that little hole there, we got ya all kinds of boxed in. And I wouldn’t even try ta use those big ol’ robots of yours. We’ll break ‘em before ya can even get ‘em outta their boxes. We’ll also have ta kill ya. My boy’d be downright boilin’ over if we killed ya instead of lettin’ him. Now, I’ll lead ya. Go ahead and follow me and we’ll get things goin’. Faster ya all die, the faster I can get back ta diggin’. God willin’, course.”

Ukko raised his radio under the old man’s watchful gaze and signaled his soldiers to stand down. The ancient man whistled a melody-less tune as he started walking further into the canyon. Ukko had no choice but to follow the gravedigger that seemingly held all of the cards.