The comet trailed flames across the black, star-pocked heavens. Nobody saw it. Nobody made a wish. It headed toward a blue, green and brown ball that hung in the black expanse and shattered into five pieces when it hit the atmosphere.

If one had been close by, if one's skin was tough enough to withstand the heat or had ears sharp enough to hear over the thunder of the comet's sundering, one might have heard five voices coming from each of the five pieces as they scattered and trailed flames toward the planet.

One growled a prayer to a dead god.

The other four screamed: "Fuuuuuuuuuuck!"

THE FIRST PIECE:

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a monk (he's a dick).

It was just before dawn in the village, and the fisher folk were sleepily untangling their nets when the ocean between their boats exploded. Three of their vessels were swamped by waves, and they all clutched hard to the rigging to avoid being thrown over. Everybody got wet. The water was warm as tears and salty steam made brief fog as the ocean sizzled and a glowing mass sank to the bottom, cooling as it went. A minute later, one of the fisherwomen shouted for help as her anchor chain tugged and the boat dipped.

Something had them.

Her son put his mother behind him and grabbed a gutting knife. He'd always feared its keen edge, but as the chain rattled and the boat bucked, he knew it wasn't enough knife for whatever had them hooked. A hand burst out of the water and grabbed the gunwale. They stared as a hooded figure flopped over the side to lay gasping and choking in the gut-strewn scuppers. He struggled weakly in his ocean-soaked cloak. Beneath he wore battered leathers. He was not very tall, but massively built and he hacked water and phlegm through a tangled gray beard. He reached out a hand toward the mother and son.

"Wat— plea—" the man croaked.

The fisherman's son cautiously handed him a jug and the stranger drank greedily. A small boy who had been watching from the docks ran to get the sheriff.

"Thank you," the stranger whispered. "May the—" He coughed, gagged and spat over the side, then continued. "May the Vigil guide your steps," he said, his head sinking back. "May he watch your path through the world."

"Who?" The young man said.

"Did you find anybody else?" The stranger asked.

"Did you fall out of the sky?"

The robed man closed his eyes. He seemed to be listening. Or feeling. Then he nodded solemnly. "No. They are not here." He kicked his legs free of his wet cloak and knelt. He adjusted his soaked hood and clasped his hands under his chin, muttering under his breath. His hands were large and gnarled, the knuckles thick and scarred, misshapen into nearly one bony mass. The fisherwoman and her son looked at each other. Then the robed man stood.

"Your kindness will not be forgotten," he said, dove over the side and swam toward the shore.

"If that's a mermaid you can keep 'em," the young man muttered.

The fallen stranger dragged himself up the gravely beach and walked into the village, trailing ocean as he went. Dawn was breaking over the slumped buildings, and from the far end of the street hurried a man in a dented steel cuirass. He was still buckling it as he fumbled with an old pistol and a chipped, rusty sword.

"You there! Stranger!" the man called, "I'm the sheriff."

The stranger stopped in the center of the road and said nothing as the sheriff approached.

"They told me... are you the one who fell out of the sky?" The sheriff asked.

"Do you protect this place?"

"I'm the sheriff," the man repeated. He was past middle age, but still held his sword and pistol in unsure hands.

"I need your steel," the stranger said.

"My what?"

"Your sword, your armor and your pistol."

"Maybe you should sit down for a second, stranger."

The stranger tilted his head. "You seem like a kind man. I will make this easy as I am able. By way of apology."

"For what?"

The man in the robe walked closer.

"Stay back," the sheriff said and lifted his pistol. But he'd waited too long and had forgotten to load it.

To his credit, he at least managed to pull the trigger.

The gun clicked dry, and cloaked man punched him in the chin. The sheriff fell sputtering to the ground, and the stranger considered him a moment, then knelt and hit the sheriff a second time, knocking him out. He stripped the sheriff's steel cuirass and chainmail collar, ripping the leather straps like they were paper. The stranger took his sword and broke his pistol, discarding the useless wood and putting the steel pieces in the pocket of his robe. He stood up and looked at the shocked villagers.

"He will recover," the stranger called to them. "Is there a metalworker here?"

The villagers didn't answer. Only then did the stranger notice the spired stone building. The other homes seemed to grow away from it like it was the centerpiece of an arch or a crescent. At its spire was a crude wooden carving of a harpoon crossed with an oar.

"Is this your place of worship?" The robed man called. Then he looked down at the still-unconscious constable at his feet. "Is it?"

"That's the Giving Place," a small voice said with brave and nasal defiance. The robed man looked up to see the boy who had run for the sheriff. In his little hand was a wooden sword.

"And what do you give there?" The stranger asked the boy.

"We give to the sea, the sea gives to us," the little boy said.

"What if I am a gift of the sea?"

"Sometimes the sea brings death," the little boy said, and tightened his grip on his toy sword. "It took my brother."

The robed stranger almost smiled. "You are brave, little one, but you cannot fight this war. Not yet. My faith, and my fists, are bigger." The little boy backed up a single step, but his eyes were still afire. The man crouched down so that he was on eye level with him.

"But it will not always be so," he rumbled. "Find me then, and if you choose, I will answer for what happens next."

"What's going to happen?" The little boy asked. His voice shook.

The robed man walked past the little boy to the doors of the Giving Place. Fearful villagers peeked from alleys and doorways. Some even held tools turned weapons in half-hearted fingers. The robed man shouted to them.

"What I do, I do in the Vigil's name," he bellowed, "That you may know it lives! That you believe! That you never forget!"

"You're doing this for a virgin?" One of the villagers called back.

The robed man growled an inaudible prayer and kicked through the doors of their temple. There was a shriek from inside and an elderly man dressed in vestments made from fishing net flew out of the broken doorway and landed in the mud with a grunt. The villagers helped their sea priest to his feet and listened in fear as the robed stranger had what sounded like a temper tantrum in their holy place. Amid the sounds of breaking glass and splintering wood, the villagers began to close in with their marlinspikes, gutting knives and mooring pins held like clubs. There was a crash from inside the temple and then a triumphant groan before the robed stranger emerged with two blazing torches in his bleeding hands.

"Mark me," he called to them, "you have raised your uncaring sea into a false god. You have mistaken luck for favor and silence for wisdom."

The villagers stepped forward with their weapons. The tallest of their number, a rangy woman with a face harder than the crags of the surrounding cliffs, was whirling a length of rusty boat chain with a towing hook at the end.

"If I return and find this monument to apostasy rebuilt," the stranger called, "I will pull it down again."

Then he tossed the two torches behind him into the building. The woman with the chain lunged forward and swung overhand. The boat chain whistled through the air toward the stranger's head, but just before it struck him, he stepped to one side and caught the chain by its hook and ripped it from her grasp.

"Good," the stranger said and coiled the chain and hook around his waist, "more steel."

The other villagers scattered to fetch buckets and water. Leaving the hardened woman to face the stranger alone. She shifted her feet uncertainly, but her face was still a stone. "If I see you again," she said, her fists balled at her sides. "I'll kill you. I don't care if you were sent by the sea."

"The sea did not send me. It is not listening to you," the robed stranger said. "I must leave, but mark what I said."

"Get out," the woman said and moved to join in as the villagers formed a bucket line.

The man in the robe walked past her and out of town — the sheriff's armor and sword dangling from his left hand and the boat chain around his waist. He walked through sunrise and sunset without stopping, eventually he reached another town, one that had a blacksmith. He dumped the sheriff's armor, sword and gun metal on the table and piled the rusty chain beside them. He told the blacksmith what he wanted. The steel was melted and reshaped into dozens of overlapping, studded steel plates the size of knuckles, and slightly curved bands affixed to leather straps.

When the blacksmith finished, the stranger from the sky pushed him protesting from his own smithy and barred the door. While the man kicked at the heavy wood and yelled to be let back in and paid, the man in the robe took a small chisel and hammer and knelt, praying as he inscribed symbol after symbol into the newly forged steel. Then he slid his hands into the contraptions and tightened the straps. He inspected his gleaming hands and forearms that were both his armor and his weapons. He grunted with satisfaction.

"I am whole," he said.

His work concluded, the stranger opened the door and pushed past the protesting smith and walked out of the town, ignoring the shouts and threats behind him. The blacksmith dashed into his smithy, grabbed his heaviest hammer and chased after the stranger. When he caught up, the smith swung his hammer at the back of the stranger's head, but the man was already moving to one side. He wrapped one arm around the hammer and knocked the smith's hands off the handle with the other. He stepped back from the gasping smith and considered the tool.

"No," the stranger said quietly and tossed it into the gutter, "I have enough steel."

The stranger walked away from the smith and followed the road until it forked.

He held his face up as if sniffing the air.

He could feel them. They were not close.

He took the right-hand fork.

His name was Vice.

THE SECOND PIECE:

Wanna buy some magic meth?

The Festival of the Five ran for fifteen days, five times three praises for the pillars that held the heavens high, the ground low, and prevented both from crashing into one another and ending the world. For three hundred years the festival had run. All work in the capital stopped, the gutters ran with wine and the revels rang among the rooftops like flocks of bright, circling birds. It was the third night, and fireworks painted the sky in a staccato drowning of light and sound.

Nobody saw the comet fragment rush out of the sky as if one of the Five had failed to hold up their end, if for only a moment.

The burning chunk of skyrock struck a six-story apartment building. Only those who lived nearby, and few enough of those, rushed to search for survivors.

There was only one, but he was not found.

The sole survivor dragged himself, coughing and covered in dust, away from the rubble and cleaned his face at a communal pump. He walked the narrow streets between the celebrating citizens, jostled this way and that by their joy, until he found an apothecary's shop. He entered through a back window that he broke with a paving stone he'd pried out of the street, and roamed the shelves and cupboards, ticking his fingers across the labeled jars by the light of a small lamp. He filled the pouches and pockets in his leather coat and apron. He mixed other components and poured the blends into glass vials, some of which he sealed with wax, others with corks. These he slid the vials into a bandolier around his waist. He made painkillers and sedatives, corrosives, flammables and medicines from the book in his memory, far beyond anything this apothecary had ever heard of or seen, and he grumbled under his breath at the paucity of the shop's stock.

"They might as well pray for the all the good this shit will do them."

He left the looted apothecary and visited tavern after tavern, sipping warm beer he didn't want and wine so foul he wondered if the vintner had drowned his family in the vat.

And he watched.

In the seventh tavern he saw four people follow a fifth out the back door. The four returned, animated and jerky, their movements snapping like flickering candlelight. He went through the back door and into the alley behind the tavern. A tall, thin man was counting coins under a street lantern.

"I'll have what they did," the alchemist said to him.

The man stopped counting and gave him a hard look. "No idea what you're talking about."

"What was it? Lizard Crystal? Dark Sip?"

The thin man shook his head. "Never heard of that. Go back inside before you piss me off."

"Kyne's Pitch? An amalgam of dern root sap and dried barkleaf?" He held up a stack of silver coins. "I'm a customer, not the law."

The dealer cocked his head to one side. "You sound like a scholar. You from the university?"

"Just visiting. I want to try whatever you sold those four. They looked like they were trying to dance a jig on hot, broken glass."

"This ain't brandy, mate."

"I certainly hope not."

The dealer shrugged and held out a folded packet of paper and took the silver coins. The alchemist took the packet, knowing he'd likely paid four times what it was worth, and stuck his finger inside. He rubbed the powder between his fingertips, studying the grit, and then touched his tongue.

"Hey, idiot, you're supposed to snort it," the dealer said.

The alchemist ignored him. He smacked his lips and rolled his tongue around his mouth. Then he did take a pinch of the powder and snort it. He cocked his head as a faint rush danced across his skull from his septum to the middle of his spine. The feeling was over in moments. It was a sludgy sort of thing that jangled his nerves like cans on a string.

He took a vial from his pocket and sipped. The sedative washed away the cheap narcotics. Amateurs, he thought.

"Good, right?" The dealer asked with a grin.

"Not really. It's insipid. You're using too much dern root sap. And you didn't let it age. It needs a full week at least, not," he paused and tasted from the packet again, "two days. "

"Mate, that right there's the best Dance in three towns."

"Dance, you call it? Interesting. But I doubt it. Take me to your boss."

"Far as you're concerned, I am the boss. Now, fuck off. I'm busy."

"Too busy to make this Dance of yours twice as addictive and potent with half the ingredients?"

"Is that right, schoolboy?"

The alchemist tossed the dealer a vial. "Sell that to your next customer. I'll be inside."

"What is it?"

"Not Dance."

"How do I know it's safe?"

The alchemist shook his head and went back inside. He was sipping a brandy when the dealer sat down across from him.

"What was that shit?" the dealer asked. "They already want more."

The alchemist smiled. "Take me to your boss. I'll make all he can sell and teach him the recipe. For the right price."

"She. You better hope you can deliver like you say. If you bought that around here, she's gonna want to know everything. And believe me, you'll tell her. But if you waste her time..."

The alchemist looked bored. "Consider me sufficiently threatened."

"C'mon," the dealer said. "Let's go see the Spider."

The alchemist rolled his eyes. Just once he wanted to meet a crime boss named Sally, or maybe William.

*

The spider was a stout woman with short arms and a knife scar that bisected her face and a ruined left eye that she left uncovered.

While the festival raged, the alchemist mixed Dance as pure and fast as a never-ending fall into a bottomless pit, and just as implacable. His blend did not need to age. Within a day it flooded the festival. As the Spider counted the earnings, the glint from the coins matched the one in her good eye. That sparkle that told the alchemist she'd wasn't ever going to let this golden goose fly free.

But he'd suspected as much.

The next day, when most of the Spider's crew came to resupply, the alchemist added a few of the compounds he made in the apothecary's shop to his cauldron. He immediately dosed himself with a powerful tincture that smothered emotion and added more coals to the fire. As the heat rose, the chemicals bubbled and blended, and a thick smoke boiled out of the cauldron and filled the room.

The gangsters sniffed the air and wrinkled their noses.

One sneezed.

And then, the first one screamed.

Through a clinical detachment, the alchemist saw the same visions they did: Monsters dredged from a hundred nights of forgotten nightmares. While the gangsters went mad, gibbering and striking at the invisible threats that surrounded them, the alchemist waved away the imaginary horrors and helped himself to their stores of coin and chemicals. He stole vial after vial and filled them with what he needed, using their facilities to do his blending while the hardened men and women of Spider's underworld fief softened and went insane.

"I hope they have an asylum," he mused as he walked between the flailing dealers, strong-arms and sneak thieves while they begged for mercy from gods only they could see.

Across the room lay the Spider, contorted on the floor amid the gold she'd just finished counting. She stared with unseeing eye, trapped in her body as the evils of her mind capered before her. Drool ran from the corner of her mouth, and she was making a faint grinding noise in the back of her throat. The alchemist knelt by her side and checked her pulse. It was faint.

"Interesting," he muttered. "Spider, I'm afraid you've had a stroke. It seems you have weak veins." The alchemist pried open her clenched fingers and put the gold coin she'd been clutching in his pocket.

He spent the night in an expensive hotel until the tincture wore off and he could once again feel the pull that told him where to go. He bought passage with a caravan and rode out of the city.

His name was Pitch.

THE THIRD PIECE:

I can shoot the hair off a gnat's ass at fifty paces.

She lay at the bottom of the crater with her hands behind her head and stared up at the sky. Compared to the return, the crater was very peaceful. It was so quiet. Almost as quiet as that place inside her mind that was hers all alone, a space so hushed it was almost violent. The moon was so bright and big that if she stared long enough, she almost felt like she was rushing toward it.

She sighed as the sun rose, stood up and went to find a war. She needed to resupply.

But as she walked over hill and dale, all she found were farms and fields. So much was green and lush, the vistas so bucolic, that she wondered if her comet hadn't taken a wrong turn and dumped her straight into some other god's heaven. Farmers paused in their work to wave as she passed. One shepherd offered to share his lunch, and the invitation didn't come with a suggestive, lecherous glint.

"This place is absurd," she muttered as she walked. She wasn't going to find a battle here unless she started it, and even then it might not evolve past a strongly worded argument. She walked until she came to a good-sized town, and sitting in a tavern with a cup of ale that tasted like sunshine, she heard some men by the counter talking. She left her cup on her table.

"Sorry, couldn't help but overhear," she said. "What’s this about a shooting competition?"

The men turned, startled. "Lord Dunne always wins. He's the best shot in the canton."

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"Who's Lord Dunne?"

"Where are you from that you don't know Lord Dunne?"

"Not here."

"Where's your gun?"

"Also not here. Lost over the side," she said, already bored with the conversation.

"Of what? You sailed here?"

"Sort of."

"But the ocean's miles away!"

"It was a river boat."

"River?" The man chuckled good naturedly, as if she'd made a joke. "The Wynde's too shallow."

"It was a chariot of fire in the sky. Never mind," she said with an aggravated noise. Both men flinched as if she'd slapped them. "Where do I find this Lord Dunne?"

"His factor's office is near the town hall," one of the men said in a small voice. "But he always wins."

"Great. Thanks. Ah, sorry for snapping at you."

The men instantly brightened and one chirped: "Oh, that's okay!"

I have got to get out of here before I lose my mind, she thought.

The factor was a pretty, young man with long fingers and a pair of glasses that glinted in the lamplight that spilled across his ledger. His pen made precise trips back and forth across the page, leaving elegant black scrawls in their wake. There was an antique wheel-lock rifle hanging on the wall above him.

"Yes?" he asked without looking up.

"I hear there's a shooting competition," she said.

His eyes stayed on the ledger, his pen poised above the page. "His grace is holding it in four days, as you well know."

"Actually, I don't."

The young man looked up. "Ah, I apologize. You are visiting then?"

"Just arrived."

"Well, his grace typically offers a modest prize for first place, but since you are new here, I feel I should warn you: His grace always wins. He's the best shot in the five cantons."

"So I hear. Good for him. I don't have time to enter anyway."

"Then what can I do for you? I don't mean to be rude, but I am very busy."

"How much will his grace pay me not to enter."

The young man looked startled. "I beg your pardon?"

"You manage the man's business, yes? Does that mean you have access to discretionary funds?"

"His grace trusts me to run the day to day, yes."

The woman nodded to the rifle. "Does that work?"

The young man glanced at the antique. "I would assume so, though it's very old. His grace is quite fastidious about his firearms."

"Perfect. What would you say to a wager?"

The factor smiled. "With me? Madam, I am not a gifted shot."

"Anybody knows good shooting when they see it. Come with me and I'll show you shooting nobody in this little paradise has even dreamed of."

"Please, madam," the young man said and gestured plaintively at his ledger, "this has been quite diverting, but I am far too busy."

"C'mon," she said with a rakish wink, "aren't you just the least bit curious?"

The young man hesitated, and she smiled at him. "It's a lovely day. And I'm not going to leave you alone until you say yes."

"I... very well."

They left the building and walked through the main street of the town. She stopped by a group of children playing marbles in the dirt.

"Just a moment," she said to the factor, and then approached the children. She spoke to them for several moments, gesturing to the marbles and then took a silver chain from around her neck. It was hung with an old silver coin, the center of which had been punched with a ragged hole. She traded it, chain and all, for one of the brighter glass orbs.

She and the factor climbed the top of a hill just outside town with a crabapple tree on top. She took what looked like a thick string from her pocket and made one end a kind of knotted basket around the marble. The other end she tied to a low branch, so the marble hung glinting in the air.

"It's a small target," the factor said, "but I have seen his grace perform similar tricks."

She looked back at him and, with a wink, tapped the marble to send it swinging back and forth. She walked a few dozen feet from and checked the old rifle's pan, pulled back the dog and inspected the flint. The factor had been right. It was fresh. She loaded and charged the weapon, and then poured powder into the pan.

"It's a very old gun," the factor called, almost like an apology.

"That doesn't matter," she called back with a smile. "You were right, his grace is careful with his weapons."

She lifted the weapon to her shoulder, sighted down the barrel at the swinging marble, and pulled the trigger. It shattered in a shower of sunlight.

The factor's mouth fell open. Finally, he clapped his hands. "That was very impressive," he said.

She reloaded and fired four more times, picking four crabapples from the branches by shooting through their stems. She collected two of them and offered one to the factor, who was cleaning his glasses as if a smudge on the lens might explain what he just saw.

"So, what's the grand prize for this contest?" She asked.

"Five hundred silver," he said.

"How many years has he held it?"

"Fifteen."

"And he's never lost?"

The factor mutely shook his head.

She smiled sweetly and handed back the rifle. "His grace doesn't want me entering this contest."

"I am sure I cannot speak to his grace's mind," the factor demurred.

"Three hundred silver and I leave town without firing another shot."

"You don't have a gun."

The woman waved away the point. "I'm sure one of the neighboring lords would lend me one. They might even pay me for my trouble on top of the prize. I bet at least one of them would love to see the 'best shot in the five cantons' get embarrassed by a stranger."

The factor thought for several moments.

"Two hundred and fifty silver."

"Deal," she said and bit into the apple. She spat the piece into the dirt. It was bitter.

She collected her silver and returned to the children, who were still shooting marbles in the dirt. She traded five silver coins for the return of her pendant, then hitched a ride with a merchant who was heading in the direction of the pull in her chest. In a coastal city that she didn't bother to learn the name of, she boarded a ship. At the next port of call, she found a gunsmith and bought two long rifles, a pair of sawed down shotguns, two pistols and three derringers. She bought lead, a slug mold, cartridges and several pouches of black powder. She bought pig-iron bombshells and fuses, both slow and fast.

Her name was Powder.

THE FOURTH PIECE:

I can show you that thing your wife likes.

The highwaymen were having a very good month after the snowmelt.

The crocuses had sprouted, and winter's meager sun had given way to joyous, chill dawns that promised warm afternoons. Best of all the carriage wheels were turning again. Wagoneers, shipping caravans and wealthy visitors — with nothing better to do than call upon each other — were all on the road once more, and the highwaymen were there to shear their flock.

They were celebrating around the fire in their forest hideout, a collection of canopy dwellings connected by rope-bridges, rough plank walkways and pulley systems. Darn's wife had just given birth and Gow, their chief, raised his glass in a toast, vowing they would all make sure this new, young life wanted for nothing. Darn and his wife named her Gowa after their leader, and if there was a sentimental tear in the old bandit leader's eye over the gesture, nobody mentioned it.

Then there was a sound like thunder a hundred times over and half their hideout was on fire.

A dozen of the highwaymen were killed in the impact. Their celebratory circle was now a smoking crater crosshatched by fallen, scorched trees. Men and women ran around coughing and screaming. Some were burning. Most were dead.

A stranger with broad shoulders that tapered to a dancer's waist crawled out of the rubble and bodies. He hacked, spat in the ashes and looked around at the blazing chaos.

"Well. That's fucked up," he muttered.

"You! Who are you?!"

It was Darn. Tears streamed down his face, and he looked around at the ruins of the only place he'd ever called home.

"That's really your first question?" the stranger asked.

"Was this your doing!?" Darn screamed, drawing his sword.

"I really don't think you're focusing on the right things," the stranger said and gestured as a woman ran past, screaming and very much on fire. "That for example."

"I'm going to kill you."

"This shit isn't my fault! I wasn't steering it!"

"Who then? The king? His majesty would burn women and children?"

"He's a king," the stranger said and shrugged. "Definitely. But this isn't his doing either. Look, I'm really sorry, but... Wait, which king are you talking about?"

Darn lunged at the stranger with his blade. But the stranger vanished. Darn glanced around and realized he'd lost his sword. A familiar point and edge were sticking out of his chest. He coughed. His sternum felt cold.

"Sorcerer," he gasped.

"Hardly," the stranger said from behind him, "but since you're dying, I'm not gonna argue."

Darn fell. The stranger sighed and looked around.

"Really sorry about this. But I do have to go. Uh... good luck to..." He looked around, but there was nobody left. Those able had fled for their lives from the wildfire devouring the trees. "Well, to somebody. I guess."

The stranger looted Darn's pockets, found a few gold coins, and then considered the sword he'd shoved through the bandit's breadbasket. It was dull and the edge was chipped. "You know what? Why don't you just hang onto that?"

The stranger walked out of the camp and picked his way through the forest until he found a road. He followed that until the walls of a city loomed on the horizon. He passed through the gates without an issue, as he had neither cargo nor weapon. He ate in a market and drank a cup of wine. At a notice board he saw a leaflet warning about bandits on the road.

"Don't think you'll have to worry about that anymore," he muttered.

Then he noticed another leaflet, this one decorated with a pair of stylized, crossed swords.

"Oh, hello," he whispered and ripped it from the board.

The stranger asked for directions until he stood before a building on a quiet, clean street. From inside came the clashing of swords, a kind of music he could always dance to. The hall was vast and open, the floor was decorated with footwork diagrams, and pillars padded with old straw mattresses held up the ceiling. Several pairs of men and women were fencing with a variety of weapons of either dull metal or wood.

At the far end a handsome, middle-aged man looked on and called corrections. The stranger licked his lips as he looked at the wall behind the instructor. On it hung blades of every sort imaginable. There were slender rapiers and stout cleavers, a falchion with its big-bellied blade, a claymore. There were axes and knives for dueling and for throwing. The instructor noticed the visitor and crossed the floor, stepping elegantly between the clusters of sparring students, their blades sometimes passing no more than a half-inch from his skin. The stranger shivered. There was a tingle in his belly.

"Good morning, sir," the fencing master said. "Are you interested in the art of self-defense?"

The stranger smiled. "No, thanks. I'm quite set there."

"Oh? Has a master walked into my academy?"

The stranger laughed with delight. "I've had many teachers who would disagree."

The fencing master's arrogance was as graceful as his movements and rugged as his jaw line. "Then why are you here?"

"I crave a contest."

"I will summon one of my students. I believe that Delan would be happy to oblige you. He's one of my best."

"Care to lay a wager on it?" The stranger said, holding out a stack of gold coins he'd stolen from Darn's pocket.

The fencing master's lip curled. "I know your sort. Killing drunk fools behind taverns for copper. Here we don't profit from blood."

"Everybody profits from blood. I'm just a working man."

"I'll not have my students injured by some street fighter's back-alley tricks."

"What you call tricks, I call a living. But no dirty fighting. I promise. Skill against skill alone."

"You don't even have a weapon."

"Pawned it for a pretty smile," the stranger said with an abashed grin that had brought him luck so many times in the past. "You'll lend me one, won't you?"

The fencing master chuckled. "A charming rogue, aren't you?"

"Do you really think so?" The stranger winked.

"I admire your dash, sir. You level a challenge in another man's house and ask to borrow a sword in the same breath. I admit, I stand intrigued."

"And to put money in your pocket. Let's make it friendly. First blood?"

"Very well. But you won't be fencing with one of my students."

"I was hoping not."

The fencing master cocked his head to one side and pursed his lips. The stranger couldn't take his eyes off the salt and pepper in the master's beard, or a muscle in his neck that stood out like taut rigging. At a gesture, his students cleared a space at the center of the hall and the fencing master beckoned the stranger forward. "Do you have a preference in sword?"

The stranger shrugged. "Whatever's handy."

The fencing master snorted. "Rego," he called and one of his students stepped forward. "Fetch a pair of sabers."

"How fitting," the stranger said with a smile.

"Why do you say that?"

"I'll tell you later."

Rego brought over two sabers. They were metal, but their edges were dull.

"No," the fencing master said, "fetch the sharp ones."

Rego looked startled, but took a pair of plain but well-formed blades down from the wall. Each had a simple knuckle bow guard.

"On your guard, sir," the fencing master said once Rego had handed over the weapon to the stranger, who spun the sword around his wrist and then dropped it.

"Sorry. Bit out of practice, I guess."

The fencing master scowled as he waited for the stranger to pick up the blade.

"I seem to have nicked the edge a bit," the stranger said with a sheepish grin.

"I am waiting, sir."

"Well, we can't have that," the stranger said and lunged forward with a sweeping overhead cut that the fencing master caught on the roof of his own sword and stepped around.

They circled each other, flickering and testing, the weapons made blurring shapes in the air. The stranger parried a hard downward cut and then spun away to create some distance. The watching students clicked their tongues in disapproval. Spins were needless, dangerous flash. They were for festival exhibitions and the theater, not battle.

The fencing master's style was blunt and formal. He was a cliff to the stranger's wind. He moved as little as possible, his style that of a fighter who hadn't stepped outside his own academy in many years. His students had affected him as much as he taught them, but the stranger was a repository of tricks, most of which had outlived their trades and the fighters who practiced them. He turned aside an oncoming thrust with the knuckle bow of his sword — a nearly impossible gambit that no sensible swordsman would even consider — and then snapped down the flat of his blade on the master's sword, and then flicked out his saber again, nicking the outside of the older swordsman's arm. It was barely more than a paper cut.

The stranger darted back out of range and pointed with the tip of his weapon.

"Red there," he said. He was barely breathing hard. The fencing master, his lungs moving like bellows, squinted at his sleeve.

"Right you are, sir. Well fought."

"To you as well."

"I'll fetch your gold."

"I'd rather you fetch some wine."

The fencing master grinned and several of the students laughed. The master's students departed shortly after, leaving just he and the stranger sitting at a table near the back of the academy sharing the last of a bottle of red.

"I must say, your style is unlike any I've encountered," the fencing master said, pouring out the last of the full-bodied vintage. "Who taught you?"

The stranger shrugged modestly. "Be faster to mention who didn't. But no names you would recognize, many of them are dead, sad to say. On one battlefield or another."

"Are you a soldier? In whose army?"

"Whoever's paying."

"You're a mercenary?"

"I'm a lover of life, sir. A poet. An adventurer and admirer of the world's delights," he said with wink. "But a man has to eat. I hope I haven't cost you any esteem among your students."

The fencing master shook his head with a wry grin. "I would have preferred to be the victor of our little contest, but it provides a good lesson to them. To be cautious. That there is always somebody better. And that," he said with a sigh, "age catches up with us all."

"You're not so old," the stranger said and leaned forward placing his hand on the fencing master's knee.

The man looked down. "What are you doing?"

"Isn't it obvious?" the stranger said, sliding his chair closer until their knees were nearly touching. His grin was playful. "I'm sure there's still much I could stand to learn. I could use an experienced teacher."

The fencing master stood up faster than any movement he'd made during their match. "What you're suggesting is disgusting."

"Oh, come now. I've no problem being the lock to your key if that's the issue."

"Moreover, it is illegal. I could have you hanged!"

"Hanged? What kind of backwards shithole is this?"

"I'll have satisfaction from you, sir."

"Now we're talking! You had me there for a minute."

"At dawn," the fencing master said, looking down his nose at the stranger.

"Oh, you're fucking kidding!" the stranger said. "Calm down. A simple 'no' is just fine. It happens... though I admit, not often."

"At dawn, sir. The field outside town. You would have passed it on your way to the north gate."

"Look, can we not just forget about this?"

"We will not. Now get out."

The stranger rolled his eyes and stood up. "I'm keeping the sword, since you're going to act like a virgin whose ass I just pinched."

"You won't be so flip when we're crossing blades for true."

"I can promise you I will be. Drove my instructors crazy."

"On a real field, your back alley-tricks won't save you."

The stranger thought about all the back alleys he'd fought in, all the years and battlefields with their reddened mud, all the gutters and shadowed rooftops. He looked at the handsome fencing master, who was little more than a schoolboy by comparison if he believed dirty tricks would be less help in a real duel.

"At dawn then," the stranger said, ice in his voice.

*

The fencing master slept poorly that night. He'd stayed in his study on the ground floor of his home to avoid disturbing or worrying his wife. It had been many years since his last duel. The house was quiet and he filled a metal basin with water from the pump out back. He had just carried it back into the kitchen when he heard feet coming down the stairs.

"Is that you, my love?" he called. "I am sorry if I woke you."

The stranger walked through the doorway of the kitchen, still buckling his trousers with his borrowed sword under one arm.

"Good morning," the stranger said.

"What are you doing in my house?" the fencing master said, fear frosting his ribcage.

"You really should fuck your wife before a duel. I mean, what if it's the last time?"

"My wife?"

"But don't worry. I took care of that for you. Is there coffee?"

The fencing master dropped the basin with a clang. Water spread across the floor until it was nearly touching the stranger's boots.

"Shhh! You're going to wake her. She's sleeping so peacefully. You should see her. She has the most adorable little smi-"

"You..." the master's face was pale as he spoke very quietly. "You violated my wife?"

"Violated?" the stranger scoffed. "What do you take me for? I'll have you know I never have to force anybody. Ever. She's a lovely woman. We met while she was tending the roses outside your door."

"The field. Now," the fencing master grated and grabbed his sword and belt from the kitchen table.

The stranger ignored him. "Going forward I might suggest spending just a little less time with your students polishing their swordplay and a little more at home, polishing yours, if you know what I mean. All I had to do was compliment those roses and-"

"The. Fucking. Field!" The master said from between clenched teeth.

"Do you want to walk together?"

The fencing master stared for several seconds. "What?"

"Might be a little awkward, but on the way, I can tell you about this thing your wife likes. I would have taught it to you, if you weren't such a prude."

"I am going to kill you."

"So, that's a 'no' to coffee?"

The fencing master drew his blade and lunged across the room with a howl, swinging for the stranger's neck. But the stranger vanished. The fencing master felt a hand on the back of his head and then saw the heavy kitchen table rushing at his face. His world went black.

The stranger looked down at the unconscious man and sighed. "Really would be too much to kill you on top of everything else. Plus, I think it would make your wife sad. Despite her recent indiscretion, and who can blame her after all, she really does seem to love you."

He trussed the fencing master's arms and legs, and dragged him into his study, where he laid him out along the couch on which he'd spent the night.

"You never know," the stranger said. "Your wife might like finding you this way, since you're so tightly wrapped already. Maybe I've just expanded your marriage."

The stranger went through the fencing master's pockets and took out the key to his academy. He left the house, stopped to pluck a single rose to tuck into the collar of his coat, and then he traced his steps back to the academy to properly arm himself.

His name was Saber.

THE FIFTH PIECE:

Overqualified for the job.

The steer chewed a mouthful of grass and stared off into space, thinking long thoughts. He was sort of a loner, and the ranchers always had a hard time getting him back into the paddock. Every time he was let out to graze, he wandered further. His returns were more like quests for the ranchers, and the trip home was often punctuated with many variations of "c'mon, stupid, let’s go." But he wasn't stupid. He was probably the smartest of all the cattle. It was why he ranged so far, and also why he was the sole casualty when a comet fell out of the sky and turned the deepest thought of his life into a crater.

The woman who stood up out of the smoking dent in the earth — wondering why the air smelled so strongly of roast beef — was nearly seven feet tall and thickly built. She squinted in the bright sunlight. Then she looked down and saw a leg with a hoof.

"Oh," she said. "Cow."

There was an uneasy tugging in her chest. She climbed out of the crater and walked until four men on horseback rode into her path.

"You see it?" The lead horseman asked.

"See what?" she asked. She was nearly on eye level with the man on horseback, and the four looked at her nervously, though she carried no weapon.

"The comet!" the rancher said. "Did you see that comet fall out of the sky?"

"I heard something," she lied, "but I didn't see a comet."

"Wim," the lead horseman said, "go check it out."

The large woman started walking away.

"Wait," he said.

"Nope."

"Where's your horse?"

"Lost."

"You can't just leave."

"And yet," she said as she passed.

"No, I mean, there's nothing for miles. It'll take you an age to walk to the nearest town."

"Oh. That sort of can't."

"Ride with us. We'll take you back to the ranch. The boss'll know what to do."

Wim, the one who'd gone to look for the comet, returned. "Bad news."

"What? You find it?" The lead horseman said.

"Yeah," Wim said. "There's a big crater out near the edge of the graze lands. George is dead."

"The comet hit George?"

"Looks like it. Only a leg left. It's got our brand."

"Aw, hell."

There was a moment of silence for George.

"Well," the lead horseman said, "guess we won't be having the chase him back into the pen at the end of the day anymore. Wim, let this lady get up behind you. We're gonna take her to see the boss."

Wim's horse eyed the large woman with what might have been apprehension. It sighed heavily as she climbed up and settled herself behind the saddle. She towered over Wim.

"Is the ranch far?" she asked.

"Just a few minutes ride," Wim said. When he nudged the horse into a walk, it whinnied plaintively as if to say it would feel like days.

The rolling hills passed in gentle green curves, and a breeze gave some relief from the heat. The house they reached was a sprawling, single story building of wood and stone. It was surrounded by miles of fencing, and several dogs frisked and barked around the horses' hooves as they rode through the main gate and dismounted by front steps that led to a wraparound porch.

"Vert!" One of the ranchers called as they walked up the steps and into the shade of the eaves.

A short, slender man wearing a pair of thin eyeglasses walked out onto the porch and gave the tall woman standing over his men a startled look.

"You find where it fell?" he asked.

"Found a big crater," Wim said. "George is at the bottom of it. What's left of him, anyway."

Vert sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. "Well, we're taking them in tomorrow anyway. Saves him wandering during the run."

"Lost money though."

"Wolf was gonna get him one day anyway, way he ranged. Ma'am, what can I do for you?"

"We found her out near the crater," Wim said. "Just walking."

"Lady can probably speak for herself," Vert said. Wim shut his mouth with a click. "Ma'am?"

"How close is the nearest town?" she asked.

"Three days if you're riding. You planning to walk? Long and hot, and you don't seem to have any supplies."

"Wolves," she lied, "I was thrown clear of my horse, but they chased her off. My gear’s with her."

"You're lucky to be alive," Vert said.

The woman shrugged.

"Well," Vert said, "we're driving the herd into town tomorrow. Guess we can see clear to giving you a ride."

"I don't have any money."

Vert waved his hand away. "Won't hear of it. You'll eat with us and bunk with the men tonight. Ordinarily I'd have you stay in the house, you being a lady and the men being the rowdy sort and all, but somehow I don't think you'll have a problem."

The woman looked around at the ranchers who'd found her. "No. And thank you."

Dinner was a chorus of wet chewing until the men had finished eating and then the gentle rumble of sated conversation. The woman was silent throughout, as if she were the only one in the room. Later, she drifted off to sleep on her own bunk surrounded by ranch hands, largely ignored save for the occasional nervous glance. She ignored the tugging feeling. She'd follow it when she could.

In the morning as they prepared to leave, she assumed she'd have to ride double again but Vert told her he needed every spare hand to keep the cattle together. Instead, he told her to ride next to him on the bench of a wagon. After she'd sat down, he handed across a shotgun.

"I'll drive, but hand that to me quick if we run into rustlers."

She broke open the barrel to check the load, closed it again, and laid it across her lap.

"You drive, I'll shoot," she said.

"Should have guessed. Soldier?

"Once."

"Not much of a talker, are you?"

"When I have to."

"We're gonna get along just fine."

They rode in silence over the rolling terrain until they reached a dirt road. They followed it for three days and slept under the wagons at night. The road grew busier closer to the town, but the herd was given primacy in the traffic, other people shuffling to the sides to let it pass. The ranchers knew their business and not one steer strayed from formation as they drove them into an enclosure just outside the cluster of low buildings that made up the town. She stepped down with Vert when he stopped the carriage.

"We'll go into town in a bit," Vert said, "but for now I have to see to my herd."

"I understand."

"It's time for slaughter. We'll finish that up in a few days. Don't know your plans, but maybe you can grab a ride with one of the wagons that'll take the meat and the skins on from here."

She nodded.

Vert walked into the main building of the holding area. His ranchers milled around outside, filling their pipes to smoke and talking in low voices about not much of anything. Vert came out of the house a moment later and walked up to her.

"So, I think I might have gotten you a lift," he said.

"My thanks."

"But the slaughter crew is down a couple of men, so I'm gonna send mine to help. Wagoneers're gonna chip in too. They hate the work, bless 'em, it's a dirty job. They tell me it'll be a few days before they can set out."

"Two days?"

"More like three. At least. Sorry, but there's no avoiding it. Unless you want to walk."

She frowned and stared at the road.

"Or..." Vert said.

"Or what?" she asked.

"Don't suppose you know how to swing a bolt?"

"A bolt?"

"Like a big hammer."

She raised an eyebrow. "You don't say?"

Vert led the woman into the enclosure. On the far side was another gate. She could smell old blood and fresh shit. Past the gate their boots sank into a muddy slurry. There was a steer chained up, its eyes rolling nervously at the humans. To one side was a large hammer with a steel head. She walked over to the massive tool and lifted it easily. The steer watched her approach with one large, rolling eye as she, without breaking stride, swung the hammer overhand and brained the animal. After it dropped a ranch hand ran over and checked it.

"It's dead," he said with awe, "killed it in one blow."

Vert walked over to her. "Usually, that's just the stun before we bleed them out."

She shrugged. "That bad?"

"Not remotely," Vert said, "can you do that consistently?"

"Not a problem."

"They're gonna love you," Vert said with a nod and went to speak with the manager.

She worked in the slaughter yard that day and the next, standing alongside the other workers and braining steer from dawn to dusk. The smell of blood drove the animals into nervous frenzy. She retired exhausted at the end of the first day. At the end of the second, the abattoir manager came out and shook her hand. It vanished inside hers.

"Be happy to get you a ride into the next town," he said, "you can get on with your journey from there."

"How far to the coast?" she asked.

The manager squinted as he thought. "About fifty miles to the next town. It's near the river. You can get a ride on a barge from there to the coast."

"Thanks."

"I should be thanking you. This job normally takes another full day, even two." He handed her a clinking pouch. "Normally, the wagoneers sell their passenger spots, but you ride for free."

"Thank you."

He nodded. "They leave at dawn."

She walked into town. At the general store she bought one of the bolts she'd been swinging for the last two days and asked the proprietor if there was a blacksmith.

"We've got one. Mostly he works with tack and horseshoes. What do you need fixed?"

She hefted the maul she'd just purchased.

"But that's brand new!"

"Where's the smith?"

She walked until she heard the telltale din of steel on steel. The smith nodded as she spoke, only a little startled at what she was asking for.

"Not gonna work for cattle," he muttered, "too messy."

"It's not for cows."

He looked her up and down. "No. I guess not."

When she walked out to the wagon the next day, the striking surfaces of her new hammer had jagged surfaces. The haft had been covered in leather and the handle capped with a nasty spike. The wagon driver gave the brutal weapon only a single glance as she climbed up onto the seat.

"Hope that's not for cows."

"It's not."

"Make an awful mess."

She turned to look at him. "Yup."

The man nodded and snapped the reins. The woman leaned back and sighed, her hands gently resting on the haft of the hammer. Within a few moments the rocking of the wagon had put her to sleep.

Her name was Dagger.

TOGETHER:

Took you long enough.

Each of the five followed that pulling feeling, getting ever closer to each other.

At a crossroads of four shipping routes, near the coast of a kingdom none of them bothered to learn the name of, the five came together at the tavern in the center of town and stood for several moments, basking in their proximity.

"Good to see you," Dagger said, and held up a scrap she'd torn from a clumsily printed newspaper in a nearby town. It was an advertisement.

"Found us a job," she said. "Should keep the Vigil's coffers full. And ours."

"Our retirement fund?" Saber asked with a smirk.

"Can't do this forever, Saber," Dagger said.

"All evidence to the contrary," Pitch said.

Vice clasped his hands. "The road is as long as it must be. Let the quality of each step decide its value. Distance and time are unworthy measurements."

Saber took the piece of paper from Dagger. "Yeah, thanks for that, Vice." He read with a raised eyebrow. "We're going to some place called Doll's Fart?"

They were the Armory.