Once Upon a Time in Corone

[Letho]

((Closed to Godhand))

“Easy now,” the gray haired man spoke hesitantly as the heavy plynt hammer clanked gently against the steel anvil once, striking the spot beside the steaming hot piece of metal that was supposed to be a horseshoe. He held his thick leather apron nearly in a knot as he bit his lower lip, hoping that this was the time his new apprentice wouldn’t mess up a good piece of iron. The dark hammer that the bulky apprentice held tightly in his meaty fist rose once again, this time aiming at the curved metallic crescent that slowly started to lose the orange color, fading to the usual dark gray of the cold iron.

CLANK!

The hammer fell and the blacksmith rolled his eyes, shaking his head desperately. The strike downright flattened the edge of the horseshoe, turning it into apparel for some demonic beast that had a hoof twice that of a regular horse. Or rather, it would’ve if it wasn’t nearly as thin as a sheet of paper. The sparks blasted around the anvil as if the hammer just broke a jar filled with fireflies.

“Ah, it’s no good!” Letho grumbled, throwing the tongs and the unfortunate horseshoe into a large barrel filled with murky water, the heated metal letting out a mocking hiss and a puff of steam. He’s been working as the local blacksmith for nearly a week now and he still had trouble even with the basics like plating a shield or forging a simple blade. But it was a job, and a job that Letho was more then willing to take once he and Myrhia decided to take a break from adventuring for a little while. It wasn’t really much of a choice, though, since after the encounter with the evil witch a couple of weeks ago, Myrhia was so weak all they could do was to settle down. The wretched thing drained the young teenager nearly to death both physically and mentally, and a pause was the only option. Willowtown was merely the first settlement they ran into and Edonas was the first one to offer a job to the dark stranger and his pale, sickish companion. Although there were times when the blacksmith regretted the day he did.

“Listen, laddy, you’re just hitting it too strong,” Edonas explained, his voice still patient and calm. He picked up another straight thin piece of metal from the fire with the tongs, the iron steaming red as he brought it to the anvil. “Blacksmithing is like... like art,” he spoke, the first hit falling beside the horseshoe, the second gently curving the metal and not producing a single spark. “You must go easy with it, control your hammer, aim it properly...” he continued, repeating the double hitting motion over and over again as he deftly turned the tongs and the metal they clasped. “...but above all you just have to feel it. Feel the right time to strike, right power and when you have that, it’s like pissing down the wind.” He concluded with a wide smile underneath his bushy white moustaches as he picked up an “U” shaped metal. Letho sighed audibly. He never even imagined his strength would work against him.

“Bah, don’t get yer shorts in a knot, lad. I’ve had worse folk working for me.” “Not too many, though,” his mind added as an afterthought but the strong elderly looking smithy decided to keep that excerpt of his sarcastic mind for himself. “Take a quarter and we’ll try again,” he finally said, picking out the tongs and the ruined metal from the barrel. Letho nodded his head with half a smile and half a grin before he took off his apron and left the fiery bedlam of the forge.

Outside, the mild breeze greeted the sweaty man with open arms, lulling him into a cool embrace of a lover eager to please. It was around midday and the small town pulsated with the noon fever, folk pacing over the dirt road as if the golden orb above cracked its whips at them. Willowtown was a fair place, a simple haven filled with simple folk that had their minds on the next harvest and the next pint of ale at the local inn. This kind of life wasn’t unknown to Letho; after all, Willowtown wasn’t that much different from Ciamar where he lived with Kristiniel. And it was almost as if all of these small places were the same, with the generic bar fights, occasional bickering over the borders of the farmland, a handful of young maidens with their innocent smiles and sparkly eyes that looked at him as if he was some sort of a deity that came down from the heavens, a handful of strict fathers that would send them to do some extra chores afterwards, and of course, a handful of old geezers that sat in front of the taverns and complained how, in their time, life was better and the children respected their elderly. Letho knew it all and loved every bit of it, down to the smallest quirk of the most unfamiliar man. And in his mind he only wondered why he had waited for so long to settle down with the most beautiful woman he ever laid his eyes on.

“Sir?” a timid soft voice came from his right and even though he knew his lover was bedridden (and wouldn’t call him sir), the voice was sounded so familiar that he half-expected to turn and see the emerald eyes looking at him as the perfect pale lips curve into a shy smile. But instead of that a blonde lass stood in front of him, holding a large bucket with both of her hands and looking curiously at the swordsman. She was a tiny little thing, probably not a day over sixteen summers, an untainted innocence wrapped up in a dirty white dress and decorated with a pale face that nearly glittered with elven fairness mixed with a much more mundane look in her eyes. It gave her all the benefits of the beauty of the elves, and yet not trapping her in the usual know-it-all, holier-then-thou look that those of elven blood tend to have. It was Sienna, daughter of Edonas, and if the eyes were sore, she was certainly a sight for them.

“Uhm... I figured you could use some water,” she finally added, a mild smile appearing on her face as she pulled up the bucket a little higher, showing the crystal clear water that dripped over the edge. Letho took the spatula that hanged at the side and accepted her offer.

“Letho,” he told her in between the sips. “I think I’ve been here long enough for you to call me Letho, Sienna,”

“Yeah,” the teen mused, her smile widening at his words. “I just can’t get used to that so easily... Letho.” She let out a small giggle at this, the bucket nearly dropping out of her hands. “Well, Letho, is the old man giving you a hard time?” Sienna asked, looking up at the strict man that just finished drinking. He was an embodiment of a perfect man as her eyes bestowed him with hidden intimidation and respect.

“Always,” Letho replied with a hint of a smile as he returned the spatula to the bucket. “I don’t blame him though. I’m just no good.”

“Ah, come on. Don’t say that,” she said, a little more relieved now when he allowed her to call him by his name. “My mother used to say that all the beginnings are hard, but some are really a pain in the...”

“Sienna!” a gruff voice from the inside could be heard, the tone touched with a dash of warning.

“What? Neck. I was going to say neck!” she screamed back at her father. Letho allowed a full smile, something not often to be seen on his bearded face even in these gentle times. Sienna noticed this smile and it pleased her, because it made the man look so gorgeous to her, so irresistible that she wanted to just throw her arms around his neck. But she knew as well as every woman in the Willowtown that Myrhia got first dibs to this man. The sickly, scarred slave Myrhia. “Keep you chin up, Letho,” she said, butting him gently with her shoulder as she squeezed beside him and entered the weapons shop.

“I oughta smack you, silly girl. Why you bother Letho like that?” the rough male voice behind his back spoke again.

“I didn’t bother him, I gave him water. Is it a crime to speak while doing so?” a defiant, righteous, even a little cocky voice of the teenager.

“Don’t you get smart with me! Why I oughta...”

He never did what he oughta do, though. He never smacked her or knocked some sense to her. Edonas just liked to speak that way, but truth be told, he could never raise his hand on Sienna. Because Sienna was all that he had left from the wife that he lost many years ago and she was nearly the exact replica, downright to the feisty attitude. Little did Edonas know that even if he did what he oughta do, Letho would probably break his spine. Because the dark man liked the girl. Sienna was a good lassie with a fair smile and a pure heart and he would be damned to see something as beautiful as that going to waste just because of something that oughta be done.

“Children,” Edonas finally said, his voice now coming right behind Letho as the middle-aged blacksmith joined his apprentice in a glance at the busy streets. “Now come on, we’ll start over from scratch. I’ll teach you how to...” but even as he said that a loud sound of a horn ripped straight through the idyllic image of a town at noon. And the bustle that seemed so alive seconds ago died in a blink of an eye. The shopkeeper that busily went through the burlap sacks filled with wheat seeds on the other side of the street was paused with one hand in the bag. The barber at the corner that was giving a shave to one of the richer folk stopped his razor at the base of the neck. Edonas let out a sigh and shook his head. All eyes were pointed towards the east road.

“What was that?” Letho asked, but for a while there was no sound in the entire town. Only a handful of crickets joined the hollow brush of the breeze that swept through the dirt roads like a ghost. And then came the unmistakable rolling thunder of the horse hooves. He turned and looked at Edonas in the eyes, his own asking the same question over and over again like a broken record.

“Lawmen,” Edonas replied.

[Letho]

The Lawmen rode into town in a perfectly fixed square formation, their number a touch shy of three dozen. Their stances were solemn, dignified, their heads held high and their backs as flat as a piece of wood. Judging by their firm stances and cold faces Letho reckoned they were soldiers of some sort, though their attires were unlike any soldier he ever saw. For one, the Lawmen wore no armor and no weapons, and their entire figures were wrapped in giant black cloaks that covered them from neck down. There was only one distinguishable detail on their uniform that Letho managed to catch as the first line of them rode by the “Cloven Shield” and it was glistening proudly on the left side of their chest. It was a small silver shield. Their frowning eyes looked straight ahead, their pace perfectly synchronized as they slowly rode through the still frame of the picture that was once Willowtown. They were like wraiths that everybody saw, but nobody dared to be seen by.

“Lawmen?” Letho asked, slightly impressed by the professional manner in which these men of law rode and acted. Soldiers were something the dark man respected, especially if they were as well trained as this bunch. “What do they want?” The silence made him think he was the only one out of the entire town that dared to move and speak in front of there offset ghosts and their dark ominous figures.

“Money,” Edonas said under his breath, his eyes falling down to the dirt below with somewhat of a shameful look.

“Money? You mean taxes?” Letho’s hands now crossed in front of him as the square formation finally started to break and each line (one line made out of five men riding abreast) heading to a different establishment in the town. Only one group was made out of ten riders and they were heading towards the town hall.

“Something like that...” the blacksmith said, moving back into his shop and behind the counter and taking out a small canvas gold bag.. “...if you would call protection money a tax.”

“Protection from what? Are there foul folk around Willowtown or some wild beasts that attack the town that I don’t know of?” Letho asked, but Edonas just shrugged his shoulders, not giving any answer to the dark man and counting the gold pieces instead.

“Oh, that kind of protection. Protection from them,” Letho thought as he saw the look in the eyes of the blacksmith. The look that said it was a matter he didn’t want to speak about. In fact, a look that said it was a matter not to be spoken about. A matter that should not be touched no matter what.

“And you just stand by and do nothing?” Letho added, and at this Edonas nearly shot him with his keen glance.

“Don’t you preach to me, boy! You don’t know what they are. I’ve seen one of them take down six men with his shooters before they could even pull their swords out. And Helena, she the worst of the whole lot. Some of the Lawmen actually say she cannot be killed, that bullets pass by her as if she isn’t there, and arrows flee away from her. You don’t want to deal with them and you will not deal with them or we will all suffer their wrath.” And now Edonas’s voice was bitter to the point when Letho could see in his blue eyes that this was not something he should push his nose into. And perhaps that was the smartest thing to do after all. He didn’t have his gear with him right now, and on top of that these shooters are probably pistols of sorts and not even Letho could stand against thirty of them. Seeing that his words got through Letho’s skull, the blacksmith finished counting the correct sum.

“Edonas Partridge!” a cold voice rang from the door and three men walked in. “A hundred gold pieces is the sum you are obliged to pay. What say you?” the first of the three spoke, a young looking cull of barely some twenty years old and a filthy brown mop of hair. Yet there was a strange steel in the youngling, strange steel in all of these Lawmen. Letho knew where this steel came from, because when he was a prince he had the exact same thing. That steel came from power and domination.

“I say you speak true and a hundred gold pieces is what I offer ye,” Edonas responded, throwing the small canvas bag toward the dark attired figure.

“Father, what’s all the racket about?” Sienna spoke, her tone annoyed by the noise that prevented her from reading a book she lent from the local library. The blonde lass came striding down the stairs barefooted, ready to give her father a lesson about how her education is as important as his blacksmithing, and the stairs led her straight between the three Lawmen and the counter.

“Sienna, go to your room!” Edonas yelled, but by the time she realized into what she strolled into and wanted to return back upstairs, a firm clutch caught her by the elbow and prevented her from leaving.

“Wait!” the brown haired man spoke, his eyes now losing a bit of coolness as they passed over the slender body of the teenager who tried to release herself from the tight grasp. “Well, Edonas, your little girl grew up to be quite a little woman. I wouldn’t mind taking a piece of...” and his hand moved towards the face of the blonde girl. Edonas tried to speak but nothing came out of his vocal cords but a faint whimper. He knew if he did anything he and Sienna would probably die and the entire town would be in trouble. So he did nothing.

Letho moved like a hawk. Before the lustful hand ever got a chance to reach the small breast of the fair girl, the bulky hand grabbed it by the wrist, pulling it behind the man as the other grabbed him by the lower jaw, pulling the head sideways to the very edge of snapping. The iron tight grasp on the girl’s elbow became flabby almost immediately and Sienna darted upstairs in a blink of an eye. The other two Lawmen drew out their guns just as fast, their hands slipping beneath the dark capes with uncanny speed and providing a pair of six-shooters each. Four barrels looked at Letho and the Lawman he held hostage. Death could almost be smelled in the stuffy hot air of the “Cloven Shield”.

“Call off your dog, Edonas. Call him off or I’ll put him down,” a female voice spoke up as another figure strolled into the weapons shop. The remaining two soldiers moved away immediately, allowing the black haired woman to approach Letho and the scared looking caped man of law. Unlike all the others that were completely wrapped in black, the woman had no trouble displaying what stood beneath the dark cape. Her hands were on her hips, pushing the cape away to reveal the perfect curves of her body that came packed in as little clothes as possible. Her abundant perky breasts were covered with a dark scarlet leather tank top that pressed tight to them, shaping the figure of her bosom seductively. The top was only enough to cover her chest, leaving the flat, silky belly whose pureness was tainted with a tattoo of a snake that swirled down her stomach and disappeared down in her tight leather shorts, cut sinfully low. Her legs were completely bare all the way down to the pair of soft soled black boots that were shined to perfection. Her left foot was tapping softly on the wooden floor.

“Let him go, Letho! Damn you, let him go!” Edonas screamed at his apprentice who didn’t realize just how close to death he was... and how lucky he was. Because it seemed he caught Helena on a good day. On her bad day she would put a bullet straight through her comrade and proceed to drill Letho’s chest until there was nothing to drill. Letho looked at the short haired woman, her cocky stance and the impatient tap of her foot, looked at her half-seductive, half-mesmerizing grin and the calculated look in her eyes.

“Fine,” Letho finally resigned, letting go of the man and pushing him towards the woman. Helena sidestepped with remarkable ease, allowing the man to fall face down onto the ground.

“Now, there’s a good boy,” she purred, her voice that of a mistress that just forgave her slave some wrong he did, a patronizing and yet strangely attractive and appealing voice. “Do that again and we’ll visit your little woman, Letho Ravenheart,” she said to the man, her eyes surveying him with little interest, as if he was just some mutt that scraped against her on the street. Her words struck Letho with fear and at that moment he realized why Edonas was afraid of Helena and the Lawmen. It wasn’t that they put a gun to your head. They put a gun to the head of your loved ones and that made even the strongest men waver like wheat.

[Godhand]

The bitter desert wind whipped around him, but his blast-suit remained still. A small smile appeared on his lips and was quickly followed by a thin line of blood. They were withered and chapped. Too much alcohol, too much gunpowder, too much lonely prose. No; no need to make it poetic. It was just a cut. He'd forget about it later when he was getting shot full of brass. A gloved hand reached up and pulled down the front of his hat.

His large boots left heavy marks on the ground below him. The footprints were steady and tired; the footprints of a man heading to his job two hours too early. They oozed tedium and routine. Tucked in his coat pocket next to his cigarette case was the folded letter that sent the gears in motion and made him walk alone through the desert, a ridiculous toy soldier jerking along a sea of dull white sand.

Someone was extorting a small town near the borders of Corone. The money to be found there wasn't worth a puff of smoke from Giacomazzi's lips, but Godhand had been ordered to go through with the order to forcefully make them cease their operations. Wether it was the middle of nowhere or not, it was still technically his former boss's territory. In the end it turned out that endless posturing and shows of one's power were vital to maintaining dignity within the inner circle and family dinners. Nobody was allowed to collect on Giacomazzi's domain unless he permitted it.

Finally a small windmill appeared in the distance, followed quickly by the roofs of several houses. A short walk later and Godhand was at the entrance to a town. A gloved hand dipped into his coat and he removed one of his cigars. He placed it on his lips and lit it, the end placidly unfolding as the hungry ember grew. Removing the cigar, he exhaled a stream of smoke. It had a fine musk; it smelled a little like whiskey, a little like gunpowder. It smelled a little like the sweat of the laughing boxer who lost the fight, the money and the girl.

The gunman began walking once more. The town was quiet and there wasn't a soul to be found. Godhand kept his calm pace until at last he found a small, two-story building with 'Saloon' hanging above the steps. The sound of his footsteps on the worn wooden entrance were the first definite thing he'd heard in some time. It was almost deafening compared to the sand.

The double-doors parted and the gunman walked in. Everybody was lounging around like they owned the place. The bartender looked unhappy, his customers putting their feet on tables and snuffing out cigars on the counter. Godhand noticed a group of three excitedly jabbering away at a table.

"These sad-sacked sons of bitches got no problem giving us their money week after week. Christ, what pussies. I say we bleed this place dry; take whatever stock the bartender has back to headquarters."

Godhand walked up to this fellow slowly, calmly. The same way he'd walked into the bar in the first place. One finally noticed his presence and motioned at the others. The one who'd been talking the most gave him a disdainful look before speaking.

"Haven't seen you before. This ain't a town for drifters. Get lost."

He reared his head back and prepared to spit on Godhand's boots, but a gloved hand shot forward and grabbed him by the neck. The man's loogie was now trickling thickly down his own throat as the gunman raised him easily off his chair. The others jerked for their pistols, but it was too late. The blast-suit was pulled back to reveal a sawed-off shotgun strapped to Godhand's leg. He reached down and unholstered it before firing on one. The buckshot had been delivered at ultra-close range. The shrapnel almost blew the man apart with droplets of blood firing out through the holes made from his chest and back. His eyes widened before he fell back along with his chair.

The second one's breath was caught in his throat. Seeing the effects of the weapon, he raised his shaking hands above his head as the one barrel that wasn't producing smoke stared at him in the face. There was a two-second pause before Godhand fired again and the man's skull was reduced to fragments sprinkled over his leaking spine. The patrons at the bar, getting over the initial shock that someone had dared to raise a hand against them, went for their pistols.

For his part, the gunman holstered the shotgun and produced one of his Magnums. Just as the fourteen men leveled their barrels at Godhand, he calmly pushed the mouth of his gun inbetween his victim's bulging eyes.

"No one move or your friend dies." It was spoken evenly, almost lazily, as if he was declaring something as boring as 'the plural of Jeroboam is Jeroboams'. Afterwards the gunman leaned in close to the squirming Lawman. "Alright candyman, you get one chance before I murder you. Who's your boss?"

[Letho]

“They do this every month?” Letho asked once the Lawmen were just a fading sound of distant footsteps plowing through the thick layer of dust. Edonas sighed audibly, pretending to be busy with cleaning up the counter, obviously not willing to answer the question. Because Letho had that look in his eyes, the look of a lone gunman with two day beard and a handful of lead who strolled into the town, shot a handful of people with a cigar still smoldering in his jaws, drained a bottle of liquor and rode out into the sunset, leaving the town in disarray. It was a look of trouble and he didn’t want it, and he was pretty certain that nine out of ten townsfolk would say the same.

“Every week,” he simply said after a while, seeing that the brown eyes of his apprentice would keep staring at him questionably until they get an answer, keep accusing him over and over again for not having a spine to stand up for himself and his daughter. And in a way Letho was right as well, because during these couple of years a seed was planted in every person in the town and by this point the bastard’s roots went deep into each and every soul in the town. It was a seed of fear that blossomed with a flower of cowardice.

“And nobody ever stood up to them? There are at least five hundred able men and women...” Letho started, but the ancient looking blacksmith stuck his fist against the counter as an exclamation point to the warning he was about to say to the dark man.

“Stop it! Why do you wish to stir up the hornets nest, Letho? This is our home and our businesses and we survive, so this is none of your concern. There were some lads about a year ago that thought like you. You know what happened to them?” And now the smithy was the one staring with an accusing angry look, the eyes of a righteous concerned father nearly splitting Letho’s head in half. “They didn’t shoot them. Oh no,” the man was getting hysterical now, his eyes wide open as if he just took a blade into his gut and wanted to speak his last words. “They took their women and children, tied them to a bunch of wild horses and let them run into the wilderness. And THEN they shot them dead. Do you want that to happen to you and that sick little wife of yours?”

It was a question that sought no answer, a shot to the gut that passed like a steamroller and left a sour taste in ones mouth. A sense of helplessness rifled in series of truthful words. But the rebel in Letho had another explanation and the righteous knight that would never cease to be his father’s son refused to give in to the tide of forfeiting. A good excuse is worth its weight in gold.

“Are they gone?” a timid voice spoke, the words followed by a golden haired head popping from the side of the stairs. None of the men answered, the silence serving as an answer of its own, making the girl make her way down the stairs once again. This time her bare feet tapped on the wooden steps reluctantly at first, as gentle as a touch of a feather on a glass table, but as soon as her sparking wet eyes were certain there was nobody in the small blacksmith shop she stormed down the stairs with a renewed vigor. Like a fairy she hovered over the rough wooden floor until she reached her savior and threw her hands around him.

“Thank you, Letho. I-I don’t know what would have happened if you weren’t here. That man... He...” and she remembered the lustful eyes passing over her body and the eager touch of his hand and the foul scent of his breath that smelled like bad liquor and rotten boiled eggs and tears started to flow down her cheeks.

“I do,” Letho thought as the girl squeezed him tight with her slender arms, holding him in a way a child holds his mother on her deathbed; desperately and gratefully. His muscled arm embraced the girl reluctantly, uncertain where to touch this frail creature that stood in his arms. She smelled like an enchanting mixture of chocolate candy and freshly cut pine mixed with the sweet scent of her milky skin. It was a scent of the heavens shivering fearfully in his arms as if the draft would take it away.

“It’s alright. They are gone now,” Letho spoke the blank meaningless words. Of course it was not alright and the Lawmen would be back next week and then maybe Letho won’t be around. And maybe the brown haired cull would go a step further, taking the lithe girl back upstairs with a couple of his buddies. And maybe, just maybe, her father would be disturbed by the horrific screams of his little girl and he would pick up that spiked club he holds beneath the counter and go upstairs to save her. And maybe they would shoot him in the face and abuse the girl until she either faints from exhaustion or succumbs under the numerous hits she would take during the process of their monstrous satisfying. No, it could never be alright. Not until the last of these Lawmen was strangled by their own belts and choked in his own blood. But that was not bound to happen any time soon.

And then, as if some celestial power followed his thoughts and decided to fulfill his unspoken prayer, a gunshot sliced through the silence of the aftermath. It was a sound of a thunder in the eye of the storm, clear and deafening, and thrice as powerful as any gun that Letho heard in his life. The girl uttered a muffled scream at this sound, but even as she did another tore through the placid curtain of the peaceful afternoon and this one was followed by a couple of feminine screams coming from the tavern across the street. And then silence again, the heavy kind that stood above the entire town like a noose above the prisoner’s head, swaying mockingly and waiting for the drums to start.

“Go upstairs, Sienna.” Letho said silently to the girl, releasing her from his gentle embrace and locking his eyes to the yellow torchlight that spewed outside of the saloon as if the batwings were the mouth of a dragon. The slender female’s feet immediately went tapping upstairs once again, the girl obeying the dark man as if her was her master. Edonas seemed lost in all of this, ashamed that his daughter ran to the man she knew only a single week instead of into his arms that saved her from harm so many times before, but still certain enough into his decision not to change his mind any time soon. He was caught in between the defiance he once had and the obligation that pulled him down like an iron ball tied around his ankle. Letho looked at the uncertain man with a thick frown, his hand wrapping around some random longsword that stood on the shelve, standing in a perfect row of swords like a soldier ready to perform his duty. “I’ll go check it out.”

“Letho, wait.” The smithy stopped him just as he was to exit the shop. He bent below the counter and produced a finely crafted crossbow. “It’s not a gun, but it can pin a man to a wall from a hundred paces. You’ll need it against their shooters. But if anybody asks...”

“You didn’t give this to me, I know,” Letho said, catching the crossbow deftly with his left once the old men threw it to him. With a final nod the man entered the desolate streets, the sharp desert wind slapping his bearded face like an angry woman.

***

The tension inside the saloon was thick enough for a nail to be knocked into it. The air was still, almost hazardously heavy as the dark haired woman pushed the batwings inwards, her plated boots clicking on the dusty floor below and cracking the silence with every step like a spoon on a hard boiled egg. Her azure, nearly white irises were locked on the silver haired gunslinger that held his pistol pointed at one of her men that seemed ready to drop both his guns and his shorts, and bend over to the assailant. Typical for these dogs that followed her as if they were in heat and she was the only bitch in town.

“I’m your huckleberry,” she finally said to the vagrant gunslinger, her hands once again swinging her cape aside and touching her curvy hips. Unlike all of her men, there were no gunbelts around her waist, no weapon of any kind on the woman that displayed her alluring body as if it was a piece in a showcase. Her head was slightly cocked, her lips offering a patronizing grin that everybody present knew all too well. It was a grin not to be trifled with, a grin of a siren that would take you on a journey of your life, put a bullet into your skull in the morning and bury you beneath a chicken house.

“I see you’ve been a busy little bee, stranger,” she spoke with a feigned thoughtful look on her face as she sensually moved forwards, stepping over the downed men with little interest. “But you strolled into a wrong hive. Do you really think I care about the man you hold at gunpoint?” And in what seemed less then a blink of an eye her hand outstretched forwards and a gun just appeared in her hand out of thin air. Even as the silvery automatic flashed in her fist, the thing thundered and the lawman was propelled onto the counter behind his back, landing on a perfect line of some fifteen shot glasses. By the time the man finished his flight, the gun muzzle was lined up with the stranger’s forehead, the azure eyes behind it staring at the crimson ones of the intruder with a seemingly bored irksome look. “Now you tell me why I shouldn’t do the same to you?”

“Because you just might end up pinned up to that wall, together with all the other trophies!” a strong gruff voice spoke from behind the batwings. Every eye present turned to the source of the voice, but at first glance all they saw was a crossbow lined over the creaky rotten doors. Only Helena remained still, allowing a mild smile on her face as she listened to the man step forwards. She should have known that this Letho character would cause trouble. He certainly looked like it with his righteous cocky stance and his piercing squinted eyes.

“Now don’t you move, lady,” he added as he passed through the doors. The squeak of the hinges served as a trigger. The black haired woman moved like a demon, ducking and spinning deftly just as the man released his bolt, making the missile pass inches away from her face. By the time she stood up she had two guns in her hands, one pointed towards the silver haired gunslinger and the other at the blacksmith apprentice. Letho never saw somebody move so swiftly as this woman.

“You were saying?”

[Godhand]

Godhand maintained a steady grip on the man as he heard the footsteps outside the saloon. They were as calm and steady as his, but they clipped a bit at the end. She wasn't walking, Christ; she was skipping into a hostage situation. The patrons that were barring the exit to the tavern took a step to the side, and in walked the most dangerous pair of legs Godhand had seen in a while. His revolvers were all self-cocking, but the gunman thumbed the hammer nonetheless. Once in a while God or the devil or whoever took care of these sort of things spit out a real dynamite-type to fuck up the natural order of organized crime. The girl had style, he'd give her that much. Cocky; nice smile. His first thought?

He'd go down on her. She looked like a screamer; he enjoyed that.

Before he had a chance to respond a spray of automatic gunfire beared down on him. Letting go of the Lawman, he dipped his shoulder to one side and gave a quick spin on his heel before standing upright again with his barrel leveled at her chest. The fellow had seen better days. Blood pouring out of the holes in his throat, he was trying to hold his guts into place and keep them from spilling out on the counter. The fellow had seen better days. The gunslinger blew a steady stream of smoke from the corners of his lips, his cigar about halfway through it's life.

"That's quite an aim you got there. Sure you shouldn't have been shooting at me, though?"

"You would have just used him as a human shield, right? I'm just saving time."

Godhand placed a gloved finger under his collar, smirking at the girl.

"Sweetheart, if you weren't aiming that Tec-9 at me I'd find you real attractive right about now."

"Sorry pops; you're too old for me."

"You break my heart. It's the gray hairs, isn't it? I'm younger than I look."

Slowly, his expression became a bit more sober.

"Down to business. You're sucking the marrow out of this town; probably ought to stop."

"Oh? And why's that, geezer?"

"This isn't like when you were in second grade and charged curious boys their lunch money for a three-second peek at your cotton blue panties. You just stepped into the big time, honey. Whether you know it or not."

She giggled at his words, covering her mouth with the top of her hand. "You're really not making this easy on yourself, stranger." She paused. "Let me think about it..." She brought her index finger to her chin and puckered her lips cutely before shaking her head. "No, I think I'll do as I like. Now, tell me why I shouldn't do the same to you?"

In the barrel of her sub-automatic, just like in Godhand's head, there were no mysteries. Both him and the Tec-9 were just doing their job; answering to their superiors. Contemplating the afterlife was a business better left to people who weren't already dead.

"I see. Then, sweetheart," A storm of smoke blew ominously out of the gunslinger's nostrils. It was a classy way to die; cinematic. A real theater piece. "...We have come to terms."

Just then a well-aimed bolt buzzed forward, nearly impaling the girl. The leader of the Lawmen, the girl, she dodged out of the way of the incoming arrow. It was a pretty little dip. Just then he was tempted to fire and trigger a beautifully choreographed ballet of bloodshed and gunpowder, but something held him back. Something in his head told him the good guys always won.

Right then, more than anything, he wished he was a good guy.

Instead of firing, Godhand let his left hand dip to his second revolver. Cocking the weapon and aiming it through it's leather holster at a bottle of vodka adjacent to the Lawwoman, he considered it insurance. If it was Vodka then there was no way she'd be able to dodge all the fiery shrapnel that'd explode when a Magnum round hit it. If it wasn't, well, that'd make for a dissapointing ending indeed.

Everybody in the tavern was sizing them up. The man holding the crossbow looked familiar; looked like a remorseful killer. Before he had time to think it over too much, another dame walked through the door. Same legs. Different hair, though. Clipped sharply a little above the chin. Another dynamite-type. God was on a roll, though looking at her devil-don't-die smile made him think that maybe she'd come from a darker heart. Her candy apple red lips curved upwards as she swayed her hips, walking towards the knight. Her short but tended-to fingernails dipped into the front of his waistband as she pressed her crotch against his and moaned.

Godhand felt the heat right then and there. Maybe he wasn't the protagonist; maybe that other guy was. That meant he'd die later in a touching scene while sacrificing his life for the other guy. The gunslinger grit his teeth and made sure the pistol aimed at the Vodka was cocked.

She whispered something in his ears; 'Talk to you later, big-boy.' 'That's quite a weapon you have down there; what make is it?' 'Come talk to me after the geezer is dead.' Who the Hell knew what she said? All Godhand knew was that he was liking the situation less and less.

[Letho]

Victoria Raines strolled into the saloon, adding an insult to the injury of the status quo, and if time wasn’t already standing as still as a three day old corpse, it would’ve frozen instantly for the blonde. Letho recognized the woman, recognized the assertive stance and the teasing glance below the eyebrows, and just like a couple of days ago when the female walked into the “Cloven Shield”, he didn’t like it. There was something beyond those dark eyes, a hidden scheme that stalked from the shadows like a beast getting ready to make a kill. But unlike the couple of days ago when all she did was look over this filthy apprentice sweat in the sweltering furnace, this time the beast took the chance. Her eyes flashed, the flames of lust and desire burning the oil of her feminine appeal, and her full lips made a seductive curl as her hands slipped down Letho’s torso.

“You might want to point that thing...” she said, pressing against his crotch and letting out an affectionate moan in an exhale that struck his face like a heat wave on a hot summer day. It was a sound of a wildcat scraping against the leg of her master in search for an abundant meal. “...somewhere else, honey,” she finished, the index finger of her free hand passing over the smooth wood of the crossbow sensually.

“Sorry, lady. I’m already taken.” Letho never missed a beat, his own hands grabbing the woman by the wrist and pushing her away with complete lack of interest. He learned his lessons a couple of weeks ago, when an enchantment managed to cloud his mind and make him cheat on Myrhia. There was only one woman in his life now and Victoria would be better off trying to animate a piece of rock then to get a raise out of Letho.

“Your words hurt me, Letho. What should we do with him, sis?” she asked the black haired woman with a falsely inquisitive look. “Great,” Letho thought as Victoria slithered away, sensually rocking her hips and approaching the black haired woman that held two guns with the stoic calmness of a statue. “They are sisters. Talk about a bad day.”

“I say we shoot him and his friend over here and have a drink,” Helena responded, her azure eyes firm on the ones of the gunslinger. A faint smile graced her solid face. It was a smile of a grim reaper that got ready to sow. “But that’s just me.”

“Oh, you’re no fun, Helena,” the blonde reprimanded her counterpart, standing in front of her sister that had her hands outstretched at both side, the two automatics ready and eager to follow her every desire. The blonde leant forwards, nearing her lips to the ear of her sister. “There is no profit in their death, sis. But if we let them live, we can ask for twice as much the next week because of their stupidity.” She ended with backing away a little bit ant staring into Helena’s tense face with a childish cock of her visage as her lips puckered playfully. The dull silence took over the saloon once again. It was the quietness of the courtroom before the death sentence is being spoken for an accused.

“No,” Helena finally replied flatly, her finger moving a small switch on the side of her weapon, switching the automatic to burst. But even as she did so, the blonde moved forwards again, and this time there was no joviality on her face as she gritted her teeth and whispered through them.

“We will let them live, sis! I want that knight for myself. Wait a week, then have your damned bloodbath!” she insisted, moving away once again, but this time her hand slipped into the short black hair, clenching it tightly, making the woman look at her determined face for a fraction of a second.

“Fine,” Helena nearly spat into the face of her cocky sister and then returned her eyes on the gunslinger. “It’s your lucky day, sweetie.” And then she raised her voice so everybody present could hear her. “Next week we come for twice the usual sum. You can thank your hired gun for that!”

“Thanks,” Victoria said, her hand motioning her sister’s head sideways fiercely before she locked her lips over her own, joining them passionately, her hand slipping to Helena’s behind and squeezing it tightly. The black haired woman let out a muffled pleasurable hmm, but kept her eyes on the silver haired man during the entire process. There was something strange in him, a queer steel unlike anything she ever seen in a man. Not even this Letho character that dared to defy her twice now had this coolness in his eyes. Perhaps this gunslinger really had the skill to backup his nonchalant entrance in the saloon. Perhaps he, unlike Letho, had nothing to lose. And perhaps Victoria was right, perhaps she should have more fun with this.

Her left hand deftly put the automatic away, pulling the blonde closer into her with a sly smile that was still locked on the lips of her sister. It was a disgusting sight, Letho thought, but just like probably any male in the room, he couldn’t pass by this sight unfazed. Because there was something appealing in, something that made his groin tingle as the two women cocked their heads even further in order to accept each other more readily. It was a defiled kiss, an unclean proof of forbidden affection... and that was what made it hard to look away. Finally the women broke away from one another with a soft wet sound that was a sole visitor in the place where time stood still and everybody waited for these two to put it back into motion.

“As for you...” Helena’s voice preceded the handful of steps that placed the woman straight in front of the gunman, his massive revolver finding a place of sweet bliss between her breasts. He wouldn’t fire, not if he didn’t want to get out of this room with enough body parts for his legs to carry him out on their own. But just in case the hot barrel of her automatic touched his crotch area firmly, making sure that her point gets across to the mind of this stranger. Her tongue gently licked the remains of her sister’s saliva that lingered on her smirking lips. Oh yes, she wanted to have fun with this now. Draining this town week after week was becoming dull anyways. Her left hand reached up for his face, her index finger passing over his cheek with agonizing slowness.

“If you’re still here next week I just may claim you as a prize. You seem like somebody who looks good on his knees.” And now her hand moved with nearly unseen swiftness, grabbing the stranger’s hat and spinning away from him. Even as she finished her move, the black hat was covering her own head, the two azure eyes rifling a dangerous look between the brim and the tec-9 muzzle. “I’m taking this as a deposit.”

“Boys, we are leaving,” she said to her men, firing a minute wink towards the gunslinger before her hand moved again, making the automatic disappear. She was fast, faster then anybody Letho ever saw, but still not fast enough for him to miss the weapon slipping into her oversized sleeve. The river of lawmen started to pour around Letho, returning to the unwelcoming heat of the afternoon, passing by the swordsman as if he wasn’t there. Only Victoria stopped in front of him with a face of a lover that woke up from slumber and wanted to go one more time. Letho couldn’t deny she wasn’t a beautiful little thing, with her slender legs filling up the tight leather pants to perfection, her loose oversized canvas shirt that allowed a sinful peek at her cleavage, and her face that might have been fair if it didn’t carry the affection of a flying bullet. It was a deadly beauty, the kind that made men crawl and grovel and do things they never would in their sane mind. The kind that most often resulted with a knife between your shoulder blades and the look of disbelief that would shatter against her fair face. Letho met it with a frowning grin. Her hand slipped to her belt, picking up the whip that seemed as ready to move as a rattlesnake.

“I don’t need a deposit, honey,” she said to the dark swordsman, letting the whip unroll at her side. “I’m marking you as mine.” And with that said the whip snapped at the left side of Letho’s face, making a minute tear and sending his head sideways. Victoria giggled, the frisky expression taking over her face as she puckered her lips towards him and sent him a kiss, a mischievous pardon for the stinging wound on his cheek. “Later, big boy.”

With the blonde gone, the time returned to the natural flow and a series of relieved sighs circled around the saloon as if they were an easy spreading disease. Letho joined the plague, lowering his crossbow. He knew all of this wasn’t a smart thing to do; a right thing maybe, but not smart. Smart and right didn’t go hand in hand these days. But perhaps this gunman would make the right thing easier. He certainly had the guts for it. And while two weren’t always better then one, they were seldom worse.

With such thoughts he proceeded further into the room, passing by the remaining customers with a solemn look. They looked scared, like a flock of rabbits who just heard the bark of a hunting dog, and what was worse, they had the Edonas’s look in their eyes. The look of accusation and dislike. Somewhere halfway through the saloon, the gunslinger seemed familiar to the swordsman. A couple of steps later the familiarity changed into recognition. “Godhand Striker.” Of course. He should’ve remembered the flashy shiny guns and the lack of remorse in the man. Few carried that kind of gunpower with that cold look nowadays.

“Fancy meeting you here, Godhand,” the man spoke, placing the crossbow on his shoulder. “So, what brings you to Willowtown? Despite your rather... tacky disposition, something tells me you’re not here to do charity work.”

[Godhand]

Godhand simply stood there as if he was waiting for the clock to strike twelve. He'd been ready to fire with his last words. The odds were stacked like a fixed roulette, but that didn't matter to him. All of the mobster's synapses were filtered through gunpowder and Vodka; when your dreams were haunted by the ghosts of ambulances and machine gun fire you lost touch with your own mortality. Or worse, you ignored it. You thought you were the protagonist and that's what let you walk into a saloon and open fire on a strike force of armed militia alone. He had nothing to lose and had long given up on having anything to gain; Godhand fired because that's all he knew how to do.

But there was nothing more dangerous than a woman. Two women? Twice as dangerous. These girls raised the temperature by twenty degrees; even the gunmen holding their pistols steady were starting to sweat. She kept watching him even after they started to thrust their tongues down the other's throat. Trying to shake him? His eyes were dead as ever. She was trying to make him flinch; watching him like a snake watched a mouse. Finally she walked forward, tracing his cheek. Godhand could see the remnants of their passion on her lips. He tried to avoid staring at her cleavage; just because you were murderer didn't mean you shouldn't have proper manners. Hemingway said that. Something like that.

His gun was nestled in her chest, the bullet aching to fire out of the chamber and bury itself in her heart; bury itself in her passion. Godhand could empathize. Suddenly he felt the muzzle of her gun against his crotch, still warm from the earlier execution. The gunman let a smile reach his rough lips.

"Mmm. I love it when you hurt me, sweetheart."

She smirked before robbing the poor bastard of his hat. It was a nice hat, he thought. Solid brim. Good stitching. He'd get that hat back and pay the girl back for all that teasing.

The Lawmen filed out of the saloon, the girl shouting something about how they'd have to pay more next week. Godhand was indifferent; one of them wasn't going to live long enough to either collect or pay. The two cadavers had been dragged out by the Lawmen, but the man their leader had shot was left on the counter. He was still breathing but just barely. Letho walked up to the swordsman, but he somberly held out his hand to stop him.

Godhand walked over to the man on the counter. It didn't take a war surgeon to know the man was too far gone to save. He'd taken maybe seven rounds at close range. The swordsman calmly patted the man on the chest, a bit of gunpowder puffing into the air. The man gave a weak smile; blood was pouring out of the corners of his lips.

"Guess I should have been quicker on the draw there, eh?"

"The dead don't talk."

The lawman chuckled. Godhand returned the gesture. No one's an enemy when they're bleeding their life away. The swordsman reached into his blast-suit, taking out a polished steel flask and beginning to unscrew the top. The bartender's whimpering subservience vanished when the Lawmen left. Now he was just a coward that wanted to pass on the abuse. Everything was about balance.

"Hey, what are you doing!? Don't touch him; we'll let him suffer! He's a coward!"

Instantly a bullet spun out of Godhand's gun and nicked the barkeep's ear. Just a scratch; something to make a point. The bartender immediately assumed the routine. Stop talking and start shaking.

"He's more of a man than you."

Godhand holstered the pistol and began working on the flask once more. He finally brought it to the Lawman's lips. The agonizing man drank eagerly from the flask, savoring the delicious single-malt scotch. He finally pulled his head back, smiled dazedly at the fading image of the gunman and died. Godhand paused for a moment before shaking his head and finishing the other half of the scotch. Putting the flask away and replacing it with his revolver, he removed the single spent bullet and loaded one from one of the belts strapped across his chest.

"Letho, dearest of all my friends!" Godhand turned and stretched out his arms, smiling as if he was about to embrace him. As if what had just happened hadn't just happened. "How is Myrhia? Well, I hope. I've been sent here to eliminate these evil-doers!" The swordsman laughed and shook the knight's hand. Suddenly the bartender yelped.

"Are you crazy!? They'll kill you! They'll kill you and then they'll kill us!"

Godhand ignored the bartender and waved Letho over to a nearby table. The gunman sat down, tossed his cigar into a nearby trashcan.

"These are small-time crooks, Letho. Not like me. I'm a big-time crook. Tell me, how long has this been going on?"

[Letho]

((Godhand’s dialogue was written by him.))

Friend. Now there was a word that the swordsman kept hearing over and over again, like a worn out record caught in the endless cycle that had no other purpose then to repeat the word until it made no sense anymore. Only in life, people were the record player and they repeated the word so recklessly that something Letho held as sacred became utterly meaningless. It took more then an afternoon and a single battle to form a friendship in Letho’s book. True, Godhand did save Myrhia’s life on that afternoon, but that fact alone didn’t forge a friendship, not by a long shot. It was more like a certificate that said that Letho owed something to the gunslinger, as if the silver haired was a banker and Letho was late on his rate. Still, an acquaintance was a sight for sore eyes in the surroundings that didn’t seem to supportive for his defiant actions. Letho turned the upturned chair, taking a seat across his friend.

“Well, crook or not, an enemy of my enemy is my...” The dark haired swordsman paused, casting a strict smirk towards the man on the other side of the table. “...ally, shall we say,” he finished, evading the word that’s been misused far too often.

“That is twice my heart has been broken in one day,” Godhand replied with a touch of joviality in his voice. Letho didn’t think it was funny. Friend was the second most overused word in the world, trailing only slightly behind love. It was amazing how many things wore these tags undeservedly nowadays. “So I guess you’re the hero in this story?” he added with another puff of thick smoke that dragged through the air with agonizing slowness.

“This isn't a story, Godhand. This is a fairytale gone bad and it’s not mine. Myrhia and I moved in less then a week ago to the mansion in the south and I started to work at the local blacksmith. I didn't know about these Lawmen until today,” Letho said, but the words didn’t seem to faze the gunslinger particularly since he shifted his attention to ordering a pair of vodka’s. The bartender replied with a look that didn’t seem overly friendly.

“I’m not serving you drinks, stranger. Not after the troubles you caused us,” the man stumbled over his own words, still trying to stop the bleeding caused by the well aimed shot from minutes ago.

“You seem to be torn between growing a backbone and not. Let me make that decision easier for you,” Godhand said, smiling amicably as he cocked his gun, pointing it towards the tender. To Letho, the man seemed like a rabbit that just jumped out of the forest and onto the dirt road just in time to meet fifty heavy cavaliers in full gallop.

“It was enough blood for one day,” Letho spoke solemnly to the barkeep, reaching into his pocket and producing a pair of golden coins. “I think our money is good as everybody else’s. Do you think it matters to them to whom you serve the drinks?” the swordsman asked, tossing the pair of coins onto the oaken bar. The metallic spinning sound cut through the stalemate like a white flag that announced a truce. The barkeep accepted it reluctantly, filling the two shot glasses with the clear liquid and bringing it to the two, keeping his eyes on the man with the gun. It seemed that every eye in the room was on the pair that sat in their own little stage, playing their generic roles. The hero and the mercenary.

“So you are here to purge the town of this filth?” Letho asked, nodding towards the corpse on the bar that still twitched occasionally, like a fish that fell out of a net and onto a hot stone of the docks.

“Letho, if I was here to purge the town of filth I would have to murder every single human here before turning the gun on myself. No, this is not blind heroism. It's just business,” Godhand replied, and his answer struck Letho in a way most of the usual misplaced righteous rants would strike, bringing a grim frown on his face. The man gave the gunslinger a warning glance.

“It is easy to judge what you don't know, Godhand. These people have lives, families to take care of. Not everybody can waltz into a room and shoot at will. Some of these people actually have something to live for.” But his words passed by the silver haired man as if they were nothing but a meaningless babble, the man shaking them off effortlessly.

“If they have something to live for, then they should fight to protect it. No. These people are cowards and easy targets. Better to die on your feet than live on your knees, Letho.”

Letho was growing tired of this argument. Godhand had the face of a stoic, phlegmatic man that was ready to sit there all day and say that something was black if Letho said it was white. Perhaps he was right. Perhaps these people should stage an uprising and try to defeat the Lawmen. Perhaps they would succeed. And perhaps a herd of charging sheep could defeat a handful of hungry wolves. Needless to say, it was a big “perhaps”.

“Our difference in opinions doesn't matter right now, though. We want the same thing; to clean this town of these Lawmen,” Letho ended the arguing, his hand not even considering moving towards the liquor in front of him. In dire times a sober head was often the detail that decided between death and life, he remembered that much from the lessons of his old teachers.

“Are you insane?!” again the voice of the barkeep and by this point even Letho found it annoying. However, what the swordsman didn’t notice was that by this point the bartender was supported by a hefty crowd that poured into the saloon after the departure of the Lawmen. There were all kinds of people in the smoky main room, ranging from lads that seemed too young to even smell the cork of a wine bottle to a pair of old geezers that decided to leave their usual sitting place outside to join the mob. A lot of different faces, one similar trait. They all seemed utterly displeased with the course of action the swordsman and the gunslinger proposed. Letho didn’t even need to look at Godhand to know what his answer would be. A handful of cold threats followed by a last meal made out of lead. Not a good start of a revolution.

“Alright, calm down people,” Letho quieted them down, getting up to his feet, his bulky figure clearly intimidating enough for the closest people to move away from him a couple of paces. “Are you not tired from this meaningless extortion? They live out of your hard earned money,” he asked, but his words weren’t welcomed in a good manner, resulting in a series of “no’s” and “we were fine before’s” combined with murmurs and an occasional frantic “we’re all going to get killed!”.

“I see,” Letho said with a defeated tone. There was no steel in these people, but quite frankly, he couldn’t blame them. He had seen people like this rise up against the oppressor, seen farmers downing more enemies then well trained knights. But this wasn’t a direct battle. It was a game of shadows and threats that didn’t skin them, but rather sheered them little by little. And that little was something they were willing to sacrifice for peace and for the sake of their families.

“And I understand. You all have families, you all have something that Lawmen can take if you stand against them. I won’t ask you to take part in this, but rather that one week from now you give the two of us a chance to fight them.” Again a series of murmurs, disagreeable murmurs and keen glances aimed at both men. “Look, you have nothing to lose. If we die you can return to your ordinary life, paying them obediently each week until they either grow tired or amass enough money and kill you all anyways. But if we don’t...” and he paused, looking at the mass around him. He threw a bug in their ear and it started burrowing into their heads, breaking their angry faces with each exchanged whisper. He smiled faintly, thinking that Godhand must find all this either trite or downright funny.

“You’re either insanely brave or completely insane, laddie,” a voice rose from the crowd and Letho recognized it immediately. Edonas was preparing to give him another lesson. But as the blacksmith stepped through the crowd and in front of the man, there was no fear on his face, no anger that he could read back in the “Cloven Shield”. Instead, the gray haired man carried a smirk of a weathered veteran, the grin that said “once more into the breach, my friend” and said it with a gruff determination. Letho wondered what made him change his mind.

“Quite frankly, you seem like a little of both, and that’s the kind that either dies a fool’s death or achieves great things. I hope you’ll do the second... for both of our sakes,” the smithy said, striking Letho’s shoulder. But the swordsman’s eyes were on the saloon window by then, looking at the reason that changed the mind of the smithy. There stood Sienna, waving her hand at him and pointing her thumbs up with a wide smile. Of course. Who else could turn the old stump around then his own daughter? She probably gave him such a long winded speech once Letho left that the old man agreed just because she got so annoying with her nagging. He allowed a wide smile as a reply to the young lass. If only she knew what she put her father up to.

[Godhand]

The gunman's hand slipped into his coat while Letho's spoke. He'd taken personal offense at his comments; that meant they had a gun to something he loved too. That was the problem with breaking character and falling in love with someone. Letho should have known that the moment he took his first life there was no going back. Godhand? Godhand was a boogeyman. In exchange for everything that had ever been important to him he had been granted the gift of-

There it was. He pulled out his cigar case and his lighter. Placing the tin on the table, he removed a fine Salvarian piece. He ran it under his nose and inhaled deeply. Great cigars; they were made by exiled ice-people using tended fire and hard tobacco. Whatever crops survived the winter were the pick of the litter. Letting a soft murmur of appreciation rumble from his throat, he lit it and placed it between his lips.

Godhand gave a few meandering justifications to Letho, but his heart was in another place. His heart was in his cigar. His heart was in his glass of Vodka. These days it was hard to get excited about most things, let alone sophistry between two murderers. Still, for things that held no weight alone, words certainly seemed to move people. Already a scene had developed; it could either be a lynching mob or an enthusiastic following. It didn't matter. The gunslinger always made it a point never to count on variables.

One man walked in; one man walked out. That was the discipline.

But for some reason he couldn't stop himself from looking at the crowd when he noticed Letho smirking. He thought maybe he'd spot Myrhia cheering for the swordsman, but soon he noticed his eyes were resting on a cute little number standing behind the huddled townspeople. She was sixteen; maybe seventeen. Short blonde hair, turquoise blouse and a black choker on her neck. Godhand chuckled.

"Cradle-robber."

But even after he said the words he still noticed the looks the girls of the town were giving Letho. He was like a man-god to them. Exotic, strong and regal. Probably not something you saw much in that town. They adored him and, quite frankly, the smell of their lust in the air was pretty clear to anyone with the nose for it. Meanwhile Godhand was something of his antithesis; some might say a 'what-if' he hadn't met Myrhia. Scarred, uncaring and almost constantly surrounded by pistol or cigar smoke. It was moments like these he wanted to trade places with people like the Prince of Savion. He would have given a hundred of his best days for one of Letho's lousy ones. Well, maybe not his best days. He thought of the nights he spent on the village green, getting drunk on red wine with the girls from his town. He thought of the boxing matches with his bartender and best friend Jerry, of the Vodka and blood they spilled on the make-shift ring made of tables and chairs to ward off the tedium of the days. Those days; they were his best days.

The gunman swiftly rose from his chair, his cigar still sifting blue fumes into the air of the bar. He walked toward the entrance where the people were gathered. He calmly unholstered his sawed-off shotgun and instantly everyone present but Letho tensed. With one calculated movement, however, he swung the barrels downwards and they unclasped firing the spent shells into the air. From the second bandolier on his chest he removed two shells and loaded them one at a time. Snapping the gun back into firing position he put it away as quickly as he had drawn it. He turned and gave his back to the people before leaning next to the swordsman and whispering.

"Letho, that crossbow is a fine piece of work, but if you try to fight brass with wood again they will murder you. I can get you a Lapua Super-Magnum Rifle but I'm going to need the proper tools and someone who knows how to cook steel."

He turned to the crowd again and spoke to the one man who had come forward.

"I can outfit you with the proper weapons and teach you how to use them, but it'd be better if you knew a good blacksmith. I've got some schematics he might like to see." The Lapua Super-Magnum was a masterpiece of modern weaponry; effective from two thousand yards and easily capable of breaking the sound barrier it was the weapon of choice for high-end war criminals. It was the very same gun he'd refused to use on the Gohma King and his daughter. Again, he turned to address the crowd.

"I'm going to need lodging if you plan to wait the week. I notice there's no inn, so that might be a problem. However, I will pay five hundred gold pieces for one week. I just need a roof and a room to myself so I can work all this out. No food." Five-hundred gold was certainly a sizable sum; as a matter of fact, it was what was left of the money he'd been given to perform this task after he purchased the sawed-off and it's ammo. It'd buy him maybe six months at the Silver Pub, anyway, but he needed these people to stop being so Goddamn suspicious if he was going to get anything done.

[Letho]

Godhand’s distasteful comment aside, Letho was glad that the gunslinger finally decided to contribute to the situation with something other then a puff of smoke and an icy glance. True, his words failed to have even half of the effect Letho’s had on the crowd, but with the disgust that the silver haired man had towards the cowardly folk, even that was more then welcome. Words meant he wasn’t just a heartless man behind the barrel of a gun, and even that slight change made it easier for people to accept him.

The female part of the crowd seemed to be most appreciative at the more active role Godhand decided to partake. Their eyes, filled with profound desire and suppressed lust, followed the silver haired man as he reloaded his gun, followed him so closely as if he was doing this simple action with little or no clothes on. These looks were all too familiar to Letho. These sparkly measuring looks that traced every movement with the vigor and awareness of a hawk and the tenderness of a longing lover followed his every step ever since he stepped into Willowtown about a week ago. And there were some pretty lasses behind those looks as well, all barely reaching their age of ripeness with their bodily desires at their peak, turning on their natural urges until the point they were ready to burst. Each of their glances was a call of temptation and each of their move a seductive waltz. Some played with their curly locks thoughtfully, some stretched their long necks, trying to fight the inexistent ache in their muscles just to display their smooth skin that blissfully dove towards their perky breasts, and some even dared to slip a wink here and there, mostly when their fathers were not around. Letho didn’t mind much. It was a game and the fact that he was currently the most wanted player didn’t faze him nor did it surprise him. With most of the lads his age joining the Lawmen, the poor girls were left with a handful of runts with soft beards whose mind stuttered even at a thought of speaking to a woman.

But now something new into Willowtown came, something unlike anything they ever seen before. A berg of ice that they wanted to melt with their own passion. And suddenly Letho was old news. Because Myrhia had a signed ownership over the dark haired swordsman while the gunslinger was still up for grabs. Because in an unsatisfied teenage (or very early twenties in some cases) mind, death, gun smoke and possible demise fell second in front of that warm feeling in their lower stomach. The feeling that made their head so hot that every second seemed like a day in the noon summer sun, the feeling that made their mouths both dry and wet... depending on the perspective.

Truth be told, Letho was relieved to see this. Despite his endless stubbornness to keep his fidelity towards Myrhia, these everyday offers became quite a nuisance... and a threat. Seeing the attention shift to Godhand came as a well-timed tension release for the swordsman. He wasn’t jealous, though, especially not when Sienna’s eyes kept looking at him through the window of the saloon, and especially not when she pressed her lips against the glass, leaving a smudged shape of a kiss. He shook his head with a wide smile towards the young teenager, but then Edonas traced the exchange of the looks between the two and lifted his fist towards her with the “I-oughta” look. The pleasing shy smile on the blonde’s face changed into a wince of fear before she scampered away to the Cloven Shield. Whoever eventually married her would be a truly happy man, Letho thought. Godhand’s words snatched him out of the teasing seduction game and back into the cruel reality where the looks were cumbersome and the air carried the stench gunpowder and cigar smoke.

“I don’t like guns. Guns are for those who don’t have what it takes to settle things up close.” He turned to Godhand with a sly smirk. “No offense,” the swordsman added, even though he knew if there was somebody who wielded a gun who actually had what it takes to settle things up close, it was probably Godhand. But just like guns, Letho didn’t like Godhand all that much. Respected the man and his skills, yes. Approved his way of life, not overly so. But like him... Myrhia probably liked him. But then again, she liked everybody who was not trying to kill her. Not Letho, though. There was something in those eyes, in those crimson eyes, that reminded him too much of a man he used to know. A man who didn’t care about anything or anybody and just trudged through the days, encasing himself in a coffin of ice. A man that died so Letho could live again.

“But I understand the need for it in the upcoming battle,” the swordsman finally added with a defeated tone. He wasn’t particularly fond of a ranged battle, especially with guns, but him not liking guns wouldn’t change the fact that there would be fifty of them pointed at them seven days from now. “Edonas is a great blacksmith. He will help you make your Super Magnum Whatever rifle. As for the lodging, you can stay...” but even as the swordsman wanted to recommend his own house, a strict female voice cut him short.

“He can stay at my place,” she spoke, not moving from her place in the mass, but rather just remaining static with her hands crossed below her abundant voluptuous breasts. The crowd around her shifted a little, as if they were afraid to catch this disease from her that Godhand, Edonas and Letho already had. She stood as tall as the majority of commoners, her long brown hair tied behind her in a tight braid that reached nearly down to her waist as her rich brown eyes fired a strict look towards the gunslinger.

“I need the money,” she added uninterestedly, her words resulting in a series of unheard sighs from the younger girls that looked at the middle aged woman with profound jealousy. She was quite a dame, Letho thought, despite her rather reserved cold stature. There were some good thirty summers beneath her belt already, but they seemed to forget to take their toll on her figure that easily shamed the barely developed curves of the younger girls. Her skin was slightly tanned, her arms just muscled enough not to disrupt her extremely feminine shape, and even in her rather voluminous faded scarlet dress, a sharp eye could see that the husband that left her after the Lawmen came into town was either an utter coward or a person with questionable sexual preference. Her full luscious slightly colored lips curled into a courteous smirk directed towards Godhand.

“Well, that’s settled then,” Edonas announced loudly, slapping Godhand’s shoulder in a friendly manner. “You come to me tomorrow, laddie, and we’ll start making some of those fancy guns of yours. If you can draw them, I can forge them,” he said to the gunslinger with a loud laughter. It was a feigned laughter, Letho could say that much, a laughter of a soldier who was about to ride into an impossible battle and wanted to at least somewhat ease his mind. A laughter that was supposed to make the matters a little less dire. Letho thought it failed miserably. The crowd thought otherwise. They all seemed pleased with the fact that somebody would fight their battle for them and all was well in their little world, well enough for them to order a round of ales and discuss this matter closely. In the end only the four remained, and the little stage where the two protagonists discussed their plan of action got another two roles. And the plot seemed to thicken.

“I must be off. We will meet tomorrow at dawn,” Letho finally spoke, handing the crossbow to Edonas and leading the way through the batwing doors and into the afternoon that edged towards the evening. In the east, the night already announced its intention to set its daily reign over the sky with a dark blue hue that was getting darker the closer it came to the horizon. The first chilly breeze swept through the town, wrapping itself around Letho like the arms of a betrayer. Letho turned towards Silvia and her unfortunate guest.

“I’ll give my regards to Myrhia,” he said to Godhand before bowing his head gently towards the woman. Above his head, on the window of the first floor of the Cloven Shield, two blue eyes looked towards the swordsman with flames of desire imbued in them.

[Godhand]

Letho offered a nip of garlic regarding firearms, but Godhand merely shrugged. We will murder you on land, we will murder you in the sky, we will murder you in the hills and on the streets. Churchill said that. Something like that. Anything that made it easier to do was more than welcome. Beyond that, any pretentious disdain you had towards using firearms quickly dissappeared once you were taking shotgun blasts from behind a knocked-over desk. That's when you were willing to do anything and everything to keep on living; that's when you learned to like using a revolver.

According to Letho the town possessed an able blacksmith. Hopefully there was some Titanium in the area; not many metals could survive a Lapua round getting fired out of them. The last thing the gunman needed was someone's rifle blowing up in their faces. The people were wary enough of him as it was. In the worst case scenario he'd be forced to craft low-grade boomsticks. That was a disconcerting prospect considering the numbers and equipment of their aggressors.

Someone had answered his request for a roof. She was an impressive woman, gifted with a figure that'd make the most voluptuous Venus sculpture envious. This town certainly harbored many treasures, but unless the Lawmen were willing to expand their business model they wouldn't have much use for them. And the town's girls, dear lord, auburn haired beauties that any skid-row shooter like Godhand would strangle for. But Godhand was an odd caricature; a maniac tough-guy with red eyes that people liked to use for collection jobs. Best to leave them to Letho. The knight knew how to treat a woman; no doubt they'd enjoy the handkerchief-on-shoulder routine. They were practically offering themselves to the Savion Prince as it was if the heat the gunman detected was any indication.

Slowly the people gathered there did what people who gathered usually do. They drank. The crowd filed into the saloon, the bartender made faces and buried the Lawman's body before getting back to business. Meanwhile Godhand took his seat on a table that was windowside and ordered a double Vodka. He started drinking, the high-proof alcohol filing away at the rough edges of his mind. On his third double Vodka Godhand noticed the crowd of girls on the porch, next to his window. They'd brought chairs out and were excitedly chatting away, some of them taking the opportunity to cast a glance at him and giggle before hurriedly whispering to their friends. The gunman found it more disconcerting than a gun aimed at his head; he feared them. They had ruined his Vodka.

He got to his feet and quickly walked over to the entrance of the bar, but a hand placed on his shoulder stopped him. He turned; it was the woman who'd offered him shelter. "Are you planning on leaving?" She asked. "Yes." "I'll show you where you'll be sleeping." Godhand followed the woman past the row of sighing girls. The gunman knew this behavior; it meant there was an incubus in the vicinity. He wondered briefly who in the town possibly looked the part before quickening his pace to catch up with his escort.

"So, does the savior of our town have a name?" The woman asked sardonically.

"Indeed; Letho Ravenheart." She smirked.

"You're a witty bastard, aren't you? I hate witty bastards. So what are you if not our savior? A merc? Even mercs have names..." She pried further.

"Mercenary is dirty word. There's a stigma attached to it, you know. I prefer to call myself a murderer-for-hire. But if that's too impersonal, call me Jack. Jack Cross." This time she allowed herself a full smile.

"My, aren't we as good with our tongue as we are with our guns?" She quipped, her face loosing some of it's strictness as she measured him up out of the corner of her eye.

"You'd know for certain if you gave me the chance."

They finally reached one of the fancier homes in the town. It wasn't the grandest thing he'd ever seen, but it certainly possessed a touch of class the other buildings in town lacked.

"Very well, murderer-for-hire Jack. I am Silvia and this is my home. Don't break anything, now." She opened the dark wooden doors and they entered.

[Letho]

What started of as an energizing stroll under the darkening sky turned into a frantic dash as soon as Letho cleared his mind of the smoky saloon, heartless Godhand, seductive touch against his crotch and the sweet smudged kiss on the window (that last somehow being the most difficult to purge). Because even as the knight started to make an assessment of this whole mess in which he got himself into, a sentence slipped into his mind, bringing with it a bitter treacherous taste of the lips imbued with malice.

“Do that again and we’ll visit your little woman, Letho Ravenheart.” Helena had said in the Cloven Shield. And the black haired wench certainly didn’t seem like the kind that wasted her breath on making false threats. No, not her. Victoria maybe. Victoria was a teaser, a manipulator, the hand in the shadow that pulled on the strings and made the puppets move to her bidding. She would have said those words with teasing joviality accompanied by a wink and a lick on her full lips. Helena said it with the voice of a judicator that gave out death sentences like candy.

Letho ran. He scudded between two wooden shacks that looked one month away from the collapsing, smashing through the rotten fence of the old man Fatherty’s backyard (“You damned rascal!” the old man yelled after him, lifting his walking stick, but the words got lost in the swoosh of air that darted past Letho’s ears.). He swished by the voluminous Petunia Brasco, barely evading her three cloth lines laden with pearly white sheets. (“Where’s the fire, laddy?” she asked. Letho hoped nowhere.). He nearly stepped into a damn brownish mutt that Marla Stevens and her mother Dina held on a rather short leash in their garden filled with carrots and tomatoes. And when he finally got out of the domestic area, the never-ending sea of shoulder high corn stalks unfolded in front of him like a massive green parchment covered with a hypnotic pattern of straight lines. It stood as the last line of defense between him and the small weeping willow grove that led towards his manor. Letho ran into it without even noticing. His heart seemed to be in his head now, playing a deafening crescendo in his ears. His fists were clenched at his sides. His mind was focused only on the thing that meant more to him then all the damned population of four town area.

“How could I be so stupid? So reckless? If anything happened to her...” But he didn’t even dare to finish that thought. The sharp, stringy corn leafs slashed mercilessly over the skin on his bare forearms, creating a myriad of tiny abrasions as he stomped through the cornfield. Letho didn’t even feel the sting. His eyes were locked on the small one storey manor that stood at the end of the lane enveloped in weeping trees. No lights. No activity whatsoever in or around the house. The twofold notification presented a couple of scenarios to the knight, but he shrugged them of, deciding not to play the what-if game until he had some coherent info. After all, Myrhia could have just been sleeping. Or she could be lying in a pool of her own blood in their living room. Or they might have taken her, dragged her to a horse and made the beast drag her little body across the countryside. Far too many scenarios. Far too many grim ones that his pessimistic mind preferred.

He stumbled out of the cornfield and into the willow lane, heaving heavily for air that seemed too thick to inhale and too inert as it made its way into his lungs. His breath was shallow, courtesy of the remnant of the sweltering day that just died in the west, making him feel as if he was breathing through a piece of canvas cloth. But despite it, he carried on. The manor was less then a hundred paces now, the lifeless building looking almost haunting with the fiery red western sky behind it. He trudged into the elongated shadow of his home, and even as he did so a dull click could be heard from one of the windows.

“KA – BLAM!” echoed in the deathly placid evening, a thundering sound making Letho wince and stiffen with the reflex of a cat. A willow tree behind him burst with multitude of minute splinters just as he could hear a painful cry from the insides of the house. A feminine cry. The world around the dark man slowly restarted, releasing itself from the surprised pause caused by the shot. Another sound could be heard from the inside; a muffled tender moan. Letho knew that moan. Disfigured as it might be, it was the same one Myrhia would let out during the night when she would whimper in his arms, haunted by some nightmare that led her into the days of her troubled past. Without even a single thought, the swordsman dashed into the building, nearly knocking the massive oaken door out of its hinges.

“Myri? Myri, it’s me, don’t shoot!” he shouted to the darkness as he entered, his eyes trying to trace her down. What little light came through the window from which he’s been shot at revealed a ransacked living room. But Letho passed by the upturned furniture as if it wasn’t there, not even noticing the cracking glass beneath his feet. They could have their way with the trivial things for all he cared. There was only one thing in the house that money couldn’t buy.

“L-Letho?” came from the darkness, the gentle female voice, uncertain, petrified, weak to the point of a raspy whisper. Letho traced it down instantly. It came from the other side of the room, a voice of a wounded angel rising from the darkness like a phoenix, rekindling the swordsman’s hopes. He made his way through the dark room carelessly, catching a chair with his foot on his way and nearly falling down on his face. Out of the darkest corner of the room an unhealthily pale face emerged, gazing up at the bearded man with a mesmerized look. She tried to smile, her wan lips curling uncertainly at the sight of him.

“Myri! Are you alright?” he asked, falling down on his knees and taking her in his arms tightly. His embrace resulted in a painful yelp, the timid black haired girl holding to her right shoulder.

“My shoulder...” she said and the swordsman loosened his embrace. “They came, Letho, at least twenty of them. They barged through the door and started firing their guns. I hid in the attic.” she muttered as his hand passed over her shoulder as gently as humanly possible. It was a nasty bruise, but it wasn’t dislocated. She really was a tough little thing, Letho thought. “I’m sorry... I thought you were one of them. I could have...” She dared not finish, tears streaming down her eyes, partially because of the pain in her shoulder and partially because of the thought that she might have killed the man she loved more then life itself. His hand embraced her cheek like an open rose, brushing off a couple of dyed black hair threads that slowly started to fade back to her usual mahogany color.

“Shhhhh,” he stilled her with a reassuring glance and a minute smile. “All is well. Don’t worry about what could have happened. We are both alive and that is all that matters.” He again wrapped his arm around her, pulling her close as softly as if she was made out of feathers and flower petals linked with mist. His other hand slipped below her knees, lifting the girl into his arms effortlessly. “We could have done much worse, you know?” he said to her, brushing her nose against hers before placing a soft kiss on her pale lips. “That thing could have torn off your shoulder.” He pointed towards the gunblade that lay in the rubble. She pulled herself more tightly into his arms with her healthy arm, offering a caress at the side of his neck as a response and an apology. He carried her slowly up the stairs to their bedroom.

“Why did they come, Letho?” she asked him in a whisper, her voice as hushed as if the Lawmen were still in the house. “Are we in trouble again?”

Letho didn’t respond. He laid her gently on the large sturdy bed before picking up a petroleum lamp and lighting it on the nightstand. The gentle flame painted the room withering yellow, revealing the upturned wardrobe and rumpled sheets. The swordsman again failed to notice it. He looked down at Myrhia, her ghostly white face and cold sickly pale lips that once again tried to curl into a gentle thankful smile. She was still so weak from the spell the sorceress Martyna cast at her, so fragile that all he wanted to do was hold her in his arms all day long. He wondered how she ever managed to lift the massive gunblade.

“Rest now. We’ll palaver in the morning,” he whispered to her, his fingers playing with a couple of locks of her short hair. She managed a heartily smile, the kind that stunned the swordsman and made his chest burn with desire and affection.

“Alright,” she obeyed. “Will you please hold me?”

“Well, I was actually planning to go back to town and have some fun with the local girls...” Letho teased, trying to break the gloomy shroud that encased them both ever since he stepped back into the house. Her hand struck his side weakly.

“Oh shut up, you big oak, and just lay with me.” He did. He lowered himself at her side, pulling her tiny scrawny body against his own, allowing her enticing scent of fresh jasmine to enchant him once again. She fidgeted satisfyingly a little, cuddling in as close as possible before she let out a pleasurable relaxing sigh. He kissed the side of her neck softly, planting a warm caress at her black tattoo at the base of her neck, drawing out a wide smile on her fair face. “And I just cleaned up the place.” she whispered, wrapping her both hands against his own that rested at her stomach. In a couple of brief moments she was soundly asleep, her hands giving his own an occasional unintentional squeeze as she let out her muffled, dulcet moans that rang in Letho’s ears.

His mind, however, was far from angelic things. His mind was on Helena and Victoria, on gun and cigar smoke, on anger that swiveled through his insides like a serpent, rising up his spine to his head with agonizing slowness and the racket of the rattlesnake. His mind was on the reckoning that loomed over him like Judgment Day waiting to happen. Up until now this whole issue with the Lawmen was just another deed that he was bound to do by the code of his knighthood, another task in a long series of tasks he took in these lands. But now, when they hit his home and, more importantly, his beloved... Now it personal. And for it he would judge them all.

[Godhand]

Godhand followed Sylvia into her home. It was furnished far better than seemed possible for a house stuck in the middle of nowhere. Finely crafted pieces of mahogany adorned the house with the occasional splash of Red Wood to add just the right amount of asymmetry to it. A woman's touch defined. He could detect the smell of fine whiskey and conyac drifting out from a shut dresser. A small smile appeared on his lips; if one of the virginal girls among the crowd had offered him shelter it'd probably be a dry house, with the parents hoarding every last drop of scotch in the hopes that the 'awful gunslinger won't get my daughter drunk and take advantage of her'. They needed to relax. Getting a woman involved in what was soon to be a shoot-out was something akin to throwing a skinned hog into a pool full of angry piranhas.

Godhand being the skinned hog, of course.

The gunman noticed a fine grand piano sitting in the center of the living room. The top was propped open and the wires look like they had been lovingly cared for. Sylvia had noticed his look settle on the piano and she grinned cockily. She walked over and let her hands run gently upon the gleaming ivory keys. She turned to look back at him, biting the corner of her lip and with her brow raised suggestively.

"You play?"

"No."

She seemed to become uninterested and gave a small shrug before leading him to his room. It looked like a servant's room; the walls were bare save for a small bookcase lined with several tomes collecting dust. Hemingway, Celine, Miller and Goethe. Whoever the servant was, he had good taste. Godhand took off his blast-suit, exposing the dizzying array of weapons hidden in it's depths and upon the swordsman. Throwing knives on belts, a tomahawk, a combat knife, four revolvers, a sawed-off shotgun and enough ammo to sand-blast a militia.

Godhand stretched, his powerful trapezoid muscles instantly becoming marked through his black shirt. He felt a minute, yet sharp, intake of breath from behind it. There was that aroma again. He quirked an eyebrow and turned to face the elder woman, producing a bag of gold from the blast-suit he'd lain upon a desk near the door.

"Keep your money, Jack. The truth is, I let you stay here because I have...Other needs..."

Sylvia in her tight little inn-keeper's dress, with her cleavage peeking just over the top of her corset...It was something a man could appreciate. But Godhand had been asked not to break anything. Better not to break her. Better to break open a bottle of that scotch. No need to drag a fine woman like that into a head like his. Besides, he needed his solitude like most men needed oxygen. He shook his head.

The swordsman held his arms out to his sides apologetically. He was wearing a featureless black T-Shirt underneath the blast-suit; it was good for mobility and cooler than his typical button-up. A side-effect was that his more of his arms were visible. Here and there a scar was carved in a vicious angle. Mostly knife-fight cuts along with a couple of bullet marks and, of course, the delightfully charming cigar burn ground into the back of his left shoulder during that old interrogation session way back when. The shirt easily covered that one, however. Then came his gloved hands. The man had large hands. Strangler's hands.

"Sweetheart...You might want to rethink all that."

The way he presented himself, without a gun in his hand or cigar in his mouth, but with an honest smile on his face seemed strange to her. It could almost be mistaken for a meek smile, but really it was simply tired. Tired and it reached his eyes. By extending his arms Godhand had meant to draw attention to his features. The swordsman made it a point never to pity himself; he'd leave that to the awful poets who sprang up in Corone these days. But him, next to her? It'd be like an ogre defiling a nymph. A strange and terrible match.

"I know what I want, Jack."

She licked her lips now and took a step towards him hurriedly. She was a caged animal. At this Godhand frowned and let out an irritated grunt. Enough. He was only sub-human, after all. He couldn't hold out in front of her advances forever. He'd have to make it clear what he was, before she did something she would regret. The warrior took a step forward and suddenly her hungry stalk paused, and she felt small. The stern frown marking his face, eyes hinting anger, gave him a truly terrible visage. Suddenly with each imposing step forward he took she was stepping backwards until her uncertain hand touched the wall behind her and she pressed herself against it as he advanced. His eyes never moved from hers. Hers were small, darting here and there, frightened. She was beautiful.

Godhand's powerful arm moved forward slowly, settling on the wall and next to her head. He was blocking her escape. And finally, when his chest was only inches from hers, he lowered his head to meet her eyes. Perfectly level with her, he bored into her. She was squirming, looking for an escape, but suddenly stood perfectly still when Godhand released an aggravated breath.

"Look at me."

He almost growled. She tried to swallow the lump in her throat and met his gaze. The hand on the wall supporting him suddenly tightened and his eyes widened quickly and almost viciously. His head dipped forward and closed even more of the space. His nose was almost touching hers. She shook with the force he exuded but didn't look away. Godhand pressed his forehead against hers gently, but all the while he drilled her with his gaze. He was burning this image into her irises. Into her mind; the image of his own eyes. He was letting her look into them and see what he really was inside. He was empty, totally and definitively. Her eyes suddenly widened and filled with that terrible realization.

He was cold and dead as a spent bullet.

"You don't know what you want."

And then he pulled back, pulling his arm away from it's place herding her in. He turned away and paused next to the table with his back to her, pulling a book from his blast-suit. He opened it to a marked page and pushed it unto the table uninterestedly.

"Close the door on your way out."

Her knees were weak. The silent tears threatening to spill when he had aquired his stern demeanor finally streamed down her face and she ran out of the room, shutting the door roughly. He heard her pained whimpers as she darted to her own room on the second floor and shut the door. Godhand finally released the pained breath he'd been holding the entire time and looked down at the book. Bukowski's 'Factotum'.

If I was any kind of man I'd rape her, burn her panties, and let her chase me around the world writing me crazed and passionate love letters. Instead, I went back to sleep.

A small smile appeared on his lips. It could almost be mistaken for meek.

[Letho]

The morning was Judas; wan, icteric and spilling cold kisses of the night’s betrayer. It restarted the day with agonizing slowness, creeping over the horizon as if something held it at gunpoint, reluctantly offering the pallid light to the land below. It was the kind of a morning that made a person roll over and postpone the awakening for those five minutes that never lasted five minutes. Seldom less, often more, but never five minutes. Letho opted for the former despite the profound Myrhia-induced desire to procrastinate the inevitable and remain with her warm little body in his embrace. Because today was by no means a day to sleep in, not after the turmoil he and Godhand stirred yesterday. The storm was coming, rumbling beyond the mountains like the bowels of a beast seeking satiation, and they beckoned it. They were the rainmakers, and the rain was bound to be burgundy red.

“Myri?” He nuzzled her angelic face gently, his lips pressing against her forehead almost in a mere notion of a caress. She fidgeted in his arms, but eventually only wrapped her lank hands tighter around his neck and murmured into his chest.

“No. Five... five more minutes.” Her voice pleading, begging, sweet enough to give the knight cavity. But Letho was once again relentless. She hated Letho the Relentless, wanted to beat that Letho out of her man so she could be left with the tender lover that hid beyond those walls. But they both knew that that inexorable Letho kept them alive.

“Come on, we can’t linger here for long. I’ll take you to Edonas’s place. You’ll be safe there,” he persisted, trying to squeeze out of her arms. She clung to him like a child, her face pouting as she opened her eyes half-way, gazing into his face that stood inches away from her own.

“Oh, alright,” she gave up, rolling her eyes and releasing him from the embrace and turning to the other side with a groan muffled by the pillow she shoved her head into. “What did you do anyways?” Her words were barely coherent enough through the feather dampener in which her face was lodged in, refusing to give up on sweet slumber and the warm coziness of the sheets.

“The right thing... I hope.”

“The right thing.” She sighed, finally turning on her back and opening her eyes wide, fighting a bit of crust at the corners. She managed a smile, the modest subtle kind that didn’t strike head on, but crept through the back door and mellowed you from the inside out. “The right thing always gets us in trouble.” Her voice was tired, almost more tired then it was yesterday night. The illness was draining her, jaundicing her fair face and weakening her already diminutive body. A struggle was not what she needed right now.

“I know. But I had...”

“You had to do it, I know,” she cut him short, slowly swinging her long pallid legs over the edge of the bed before pushing herself up. She was breathtaking in the translucent nightgown that was just light enough for him to trace the contours of her body, and just thick enough to keep the teasing sweetness of the hidden just on the edge of his mind. He imagined he could stand like this for days and never get bored of the scenery. She approached him in a pair of wobbly steps, pushing her countenance below his and lifting herself just high enough to plant a deep kiss on his lips. “I bet I would do the same thing.”

“No, you wouldn’t. You probably would’ve talked them out of fighting,” he spoke with a mild smile as his hand caressed the sullen threads of her dyed hair. It was a lie, though. Victoria and Helena weren’t of the kind that could be talked out of anything. They spoke in threats and responded with gunfire, walked with a chip on their shoulders large enough to feed a small city. Their minds were well-greased machines set on destruction, whether it was by subtle abrasion or unhinged violence. Letho reckoned negotiation was as alien to the twins as magic was to him; they knew that it existed, but they had no use of it, no need for it, not when for each sentence spoken they had a pair of guns as a period.

“Can you ride?” he asked and she nodded obediently, although both knew that was something that they would know for sure only when she mounted a horse. “Then get your cute butt out of that gown and into something... more appropriate.” She giggled with the sound of a thousand pea-sized crystal chimes, squinting her eyes as the perfect curve of her rosy lips stretched into a half-coy, half-teasing smile. He loved when her eyes squinted. It made her entire face smile with her lips.

***

By the time they were ready to head towards the town that unfolded below the Willow Hill, the sun dragged its hazy face over the horizon and straight into the morning mist. Only the shape of it could be seen through the fog, a disc of white in the lackluster shroud. It made Willowtown look profoundly like a ghost town, like an entity whose vigor was always somewhere behind the corner, waiting to be found.

It was somewhat of a surprise that when the pair rode into the dead town – Myrhia on the back of a marvelous pitch-black pegasus and Letho on a regular mount – they saw a female figure scudding over the street with a large basket in her hand. She was a mere azure phantasm at first sight, but in the matter of seconds the pair rode in on the vestige, giving it a more coherent existence.

“Sienna,” the swordsman greeted the blonde teen with a nod and a minute tip of his cowboy hat. The rigidity of this greeting sent shivers down her spine; on his mount he looked glorious, like a knight that fell out of a fairytale and landed in their little town. Unfortunately for her (and the rest of the lasses), he brought his bride in tow. “You’re certainly up early.” He respected that trait, especially at such a young age.

“Just habit, I guess. That and the fact that dad started to hit that big anvil of his hours before dawn. Kinda hard to sleep with the constant clink-click-clank echoing in your ears.” Her fair spotless face crumpled into a mocking mask and it made Letho smile again. She felt honored by that smile.

“Well, regardless of your lack of sleep, I hope you won’t mind a bit of company,” the knight spoke as he descended from his steed, calling Myrhia to do the same and step forward. “I don’t believe that you two met, but this is...”

“Myrhia, I know. Everybody knows about the mysterious Myrhia.” Sienna spoke with mirth in her voice as she stepped forwards and offered her hand. The redhead accepted it weakly, her smile pale and sincere, inspired by the title given by the young girl. “I’m Sienna.”

Even at her young age of sixteen, Sienna was more of a woman in constitution then Myrhia would ever be. Where the former slave lacked, the blonde had just enough, the bony lines of the tomboy seeming so crummy compared to the healthy villager and her perky apple-sized breasts eminent even despite the voluminous light blue dress. Myrhia replied with a minute “nice to meet you”, honest and modest as always.

“I was hoping that she could stay with you until this... blows over, shall we say. But I figure I need to ask your father first.” Letho tried to explain, but Sienna just waved off with her free hand, then picked up one of Myrhia’s and pulled her inside.

“Dad!! Letho brought Myrhia and she is staying with us a couple of days!!” the blonde yelled towards the forge where the annoying clinking paused for a second, but by that time two pair of feet were already thumping up the wooden stairs. Edonas, confused and never in the know as always, came out of his shop with a perplexed look on his face. His hands were tormenting a rag that seemed unable to rid anything of anymore filth.

“What was that all about?” he inquired in his rugged voice.

“I apologize for barging in uninvited. Helena and her lawmen ransacked our manor yesterday. I hoped that Myrhia could stay here until this ends.” The swordsman took off his hat in respect for the older man, speaking in a much humbler voice then usual. Beggars couldn’t be choosy after all.

“Of course, laddie. That’s terrible news, though. Your lady alright?” his simple, but effective voice continued.

“Aye. Just a bit scared. She’ll be a whole lot better when we put an end to this. Speaking of that, did Godhand happen to come by already?”

“No. And by my reckoning, he probably won’t be at least until noon. If you don’t mind me saying, but your friend seems like a liquor-head.” The burly blacksmith mimed a drinking motion with his hand.

“I don’t and he is... A liquor-head, that is. Not a friend. I don’t think his kind has somebody listed under that category.”

[Godhand]

Click-kchht-kchht-kchht-kchht-kchht--whirr-clack.

The greased rod entered the mouth of the barrel. Turn it clockwise while slowly working it down to the base of the revolver. Turn it counter-clockwise while slowly drawing it out of the base of the revolver. Repeat as needed. Remove five bullets from the bandolier and place them one at a time into each of the firing chambers. Spin the cylinders, swing them into place. Swing the cylinders to the side. Remove five bullets from each of the firing chambers. Repeat as needed. His hands moved with a certain rhythm. He committed every movement to memory, committed every movement to habit. The shape of his guns was ingrained into his hands. He breathed hard; moved his hands quicker. Loaded and reloaded the pistols faster than ever. It was precise and mechanical and terrible and beautiful. It was art. It was the only art he knew. He wondered what Freud would have said. Freud would have said it was a replacement for masturbation.

Well, fuck him.

Godhand swung the cylinders into place one last time, hard, and froze. His shoulders slumped forward and an exhausted plume of spoke crept out of his nostrils. He rubbed his eyelids with his thumb and forefinger, his cigar dangling out of his lips like a flower that had given up the fight. Enough training. Enough living. Almost enough living. He dropped the pistols one at a time into each one of his holsters. He'd polished them; their gleaming metal made them burn in the sunlight. They glowed like the sword of no justice at all.

The gunman reached forward and rolled up the blueprints he was supposed to take to the blacksmith. A couple of more cigars for the road and of course his steel flask. He placed it in his left coat pocket, near and dear to his heart. Godhand got up slowly and ambled out of his room, towards the front hallway. Sylvia was having breakfast in the kitchen. She tried her best to look stoic and regal, undiminished by him. But the mobster noticed her hand was shaking. Small droplets of tea spilled over the rim of the cup and she hurriedly brought her full lips to them while doing her best not to acknowledge his presence. It was heartbreaking, but for the best. Somehow it was for the best.

Godhand paused as he reached the piano. Hesitating for only a moment, he sat on the bench. She pretended not to notice. He took a deep breath and began playing, his fingers flying over the keys. Mozart's Magic Flute. It was a decent number; not his best work but even his worst made most other composers look like pretenders by comparison. During his performance Sylvia listened attentively. So attentively in fact that her hands stopped shaking. He allowed a minute smile to grace his lips before finishing. Afterwards he pushed the bench backwards and left without a word.

The gunslinger walked without hurry to the center of town where he knew the blacksmith and Letho would be waiting for him. He didn't doubt they'd be less than accommodating, harboring secret beliefs that they could talk down to him from some sort of ridiculous moral high ground. Well, that was okay. Everybody needed hope. Everybody needed a villain. That was okay. He'd play the part of the smiling murderer. The show had to go on, for their sake. He saw them huddled in as he approached. Godhand ironed a fake joviality into his voice, grinned and stretched out his arms as if he intended to hug them.

"Edonas! Dearest of all my friends!"

[Letho]

It was a joke that was getting stale at an exponential rate; the more Godhand used it, the lamer it got. Combined with the assertive guileful smile of a deviant, it was only a matter of time before that curve ascended into the intolerable section that stood above Letho’s patience. It came as no wonder that the only response given to the gunslinger was an annoyed patronizing shake of his frowned face. He didn’t like murderers, liked them even less if they had a high opinion of themselves, and even less if they managed to do their mischief with impertinence.

Unfortunately, he needed Godhand. Godhand was like a cheap elixir against hangover that you got from a local peddler for five gold pieces; it was cold and acerb and looked like something you didn’t want in your vicinity, but if you didn’t use it, you got stuck with an even bigger headache. He was the good, the bad and the ugly, shifting between rolls at the flip of the coin. Well, maybe sans the ugly part according to the screech of the windows that followed his saunter down the main street, providing the flushed visages of the not-so-vestal maidens of Willowtown peeking from the darkness of their rooms. Letho hated this irony, how females always went for the boogeyman in the neighborhood just to come running away after he "accidentally" threw them down the stairs two months later. But for the time being Letho set the personal differences aside, waited for the white-haired hitman to realize how utterly anserine his greeting was and for Edonas to raise an eyebrow, before replying in a rather inimical tone.

“I wonder to whom you shall speak that line tomorrow, Godhand.”

Perhaps it was a cheap shot, a disguised jab aimed at the man’s allegiance, but at the end of the day Godhand was nothing but a soldier of fortune. Or misfortune. His loyalty wasn’t to Letho or Edonas or morals or the miserable yahoos of Willowtown. Sure, today he was their hero, an eldritch knight that brought promise of blood by the gallons, but it took nothing more then a whim from the puppeteer behind the curtain and his personal rain of destruction would descend upon them all. He was a blind man with a six-shooter and an invisible hand that led him down the path that just happened to coincide with the one Letho trekked. But Letho needed him.

“Now, if you’re done with the theatrics, I suggest we get down to business. I reckon it will not be easy to make this almighty rifle of yours.”

And it wasn’t. For six days straight they slaved in the forge and produced nothing but buckets of sweat and at least a thousand new ways to curse the hammer, the heat, the metal, the gods and whatever else came across their minds at the moments of frustration. The hiss of the liquid metal became the melody they no longer heard, the clank of the hammer the rhythm that they followed even in their dreams. Though the blueprints weren’t exactly meticulous, there were enough tiny dents, nooks and crevices for Letho to mark this endeavor inconceivable. In the end he spent more time cooling his enflamed temper in the dusty breeze outside then he did polishing the countless miniscule parts that were supposed to form a deadly weapon. That’s why he liked swords. They were simple, effective and didn’t have a thousand and one piece of tempered metal that needed to fit just right so they could work properly. It was like trying to put together a jigsaw and all the pieces had a dent too many to fit, like trying to fit a glove on a six-fingered hand.

Around them, life in Willowtown unwound as per usual and that was the thorn in Letho’s neck that kept bothering him more and more with the approach of the day of the reckoning with the Raines sisters. A general state of apathy seemed to be issued amongst the folk who made peace with the fact that two strangers were putting their lives on the line for them. Perhaps Godhand was right. Perhaps they should have forged a hundred swords and crossbows and shoved it into their hands, forcing them to grow a pair and fight for their freedom. You help a man once, he can make it through a day or two. But if you learn him to fight... Damn the bastard for being right. Unfortunately, they were into the play of heroism for too long now. The stage was set. The roles were known. The conclusion was an empty page at the end of the script.

The female part of population took care of the intermezzo though. They swarmed around Godhand every time he would step outside, drawn to the imposing murderer like flies to a piece of sh... Well, like bees to a honey pot. Flirtatious glances became their hallmark, their porcelain cleavages prominent regardless of the weather, their sighs filled with profound lust and unhinged desire. It was an uncanny sight that Letho struggled to explain. Like a pack of cats in heat they purred around the gunslinger, chaffing him, giggling and blushing at every cold gaze and ready to die for that devious smile. But their jabber, their endless talk about inane matters filled with sexual innuendos, it was making even Letho brainsick despite the fact that, in this ludicrous game, he was just a bystander. He figured that Godhand bedded quite a few of these enthralled girls that circled around him like harpies, maybe even deflowering one or two. It must’ve been a cold morning for them to find out they were for him more or less as worthy to him as his hand. Well, probably less. He could do a lot more things with his hand.

But despite attempts to suppress it, it was undeniable that the swordsman envied Godhand to an extent. It was the common male pride speaking, craving back for his spot under the spotlight as the alpha male. Sienna cured that ailment rather good, though. Unlike the rest of the herd, she wasn’t charging blindly into a chasm, unaffected by whatever hoodoo the gunslinger used on the rest. With Myrhia so sick he only saw her at meals and before bedtime, Sienna became the thing that made his day bearable. She waltzed around him like a nymph, thrice as subtle as the rest of the girls and thrice as beautiful as well. And unlike the rest, she could actually put together an intelligent sentence and place it in its proper place within a conversation. On top of that, she and Myrhia became real close, spending hours and hours on the windowsill of Sienna’s room, following the dancing whirlwinds of dust down below and just talking about... Well, about whatever the girls talked when they were alone. Letho must’ve been a topic a whole lot, though. He could hear a giggle or two every time he stepped onto the front porch. It made the swordsman smile cordially.

[Godhand]

They reacted as expected. Everyone always seemed to be aching to shear the soul off his Goddamned bones. Well, live and let die. The gunslinger reached into his coat and produced the blueprints for the Lapua Magnum. Letho took the scroll with more than a little disdain and passed it to Edonas, who proceeded to pluck it from the swordsman's hands and unfurl it. Even if he couldn't make heads or tails of the schematics yet, he certainly seemed eager enough. Not a bad attitude to take considering that the quality of the weapon displayed in the paper would either make or break their defense.

Godhand dipped into his coat once more and produced the flask he had placed inside, earning him another sneer from Letho. That made him smile. It was when people got too friendly with him, started buying drinks or professing his virtues that the shooter got nervous. That usually meant the double-cross was coming. The Savion Prince despised him but he was kind enough to telegraph it from right across a room. That was more than Godhand could say for most. In response to this he raised the flask and smiled at his partner.

"Cheers."

Afterwards he tipped his head and backwards and drank a bit of the scotch contained inside. He'd need to make it last; if he stopped working at the forge for a visit to Sylvia to refill his supplies they'd never let him hear the end of it. With this in mind he screwed the cork into place rather tightly and placed the flask back inside his coat pocket. All through this he eyed the stranger Letho had brought with him out of the corner of his eye. She seemed somehow familiar. It was at this moment that his expression changed from vexxed puzzlement into pleased recognition. She was missing a couple of the curves, was paler and the joyful curiosity she once oozed had been replaced by some form of tired contentment, but it was certainly her.

"Myrhia, my dear! How are you doing? You've...Lost weight!"

***

Godhand had had to decipher most of the schematics for Edonas. The abbreviations were mostly unknown to him and some of the metals had different names this far from Corone, but eventually they managed to make sense of it and set to work. Most of the frame and the mechanics were left to Letho and Edonas while Godhand was left constructing the more vital and accordingly smaller nuts and bolts, with which he was most familiar with. This of course was unbelievably tedious work. While his two associates floundered impotently trying to discern their asses from their elbows the gunman was left trying to carve out a zero-point-three kilogram corkscrew from a lump of recently processed Titanium. Needless to say he had to make more than one run to Sylvia's home to replenish his supplies, much to Letho's chagrin.

And when he finally managed to complete most of his workload and left the forge for a smokebreak, he was horrified to find that nearly the entire village's female population had been watching him toil and waiting for him to finish. They were pure sex; hungry and violent like some sort of widowed jungle cat. Of course he wouldn't lay with any of them; he had refused Sylvia and she had more or less known what she was doing. Nevertheless their repeated advances stretched his already waning self-control to it's limit.

"Begone from here, she-devils! I will not let you have my soul!"

This of course was met with a chorus of giggles and one or two girls pushing him backwards in mock-punishment. Meanwhile Myrhia and Sienna laughed upstairs while talking about Letho and produced nearly as much pheromones as their counterparts downstairs and Letho flexed his muscles while working the hammer and the girls ooh'ed and ahh'ed and Godhand's sensibilities begged for mercy.

"Alright, that's it. I'm taking an early day."

Letho smirked.

"Off to get liquored up, eh Godhand?"

And as was inevitable under such conditions, the gunslinger's cool exterior finally cracked.

"One more word out of you and you're gonna have a fight on your hands."

[Letho]

Ignorant people he could handle. Ignorant people were like bridled horses with a pair of leather blinds that focused their eyes to the road ahead. Their narrowed radius of sight allowed them to see only what was absolutely necessary for them to perceive on their one-track journey down the path of life. It simplified the usual everyday complexity, insulated them from the unwanted influences and ultimately made their lives fine and dandy. It was easy to see paradise when you failed to see the big picture. People of Willowtown were the perfect example of this. The strife ahead was their path back to the prosaic seventh heaven and Godhand and Letho were supposed to be the hand on the reins that directed their eyesight. And the swordsman could handle that. Simple people liked simple solutions even if it meant sweeping some things under the carpet and leaving them to oblivion.

But Godhand wasn’t ignorant. He was more then aware of the big picture, the dire task at hand and the chances that worked against them. And it was all just a game to him. Not an intriguing game where the palms were sweaty and you prayed to both gods and devils for that last card in the deck that could save you from going bust. No, it was a game of craps, Godhand was going for double or nothing with a careless smile, and if he rolled snake eyes he would merely shrug his shoulders and amble away. In Willowtown he carelessly gambled with human lives, searching as much time in finding the bottom of the bottle as he did in constructing some miniscule detail of the rifle. And Letho hated people that were careless with something as precious as a life.

When the gunslinger made a threat and a move toward the tavern across the street, Letho moved rapidly across the dirt road, catching him by the right elbow with a steely grip of his right hand. It was an unfriendly clutch, deathly cold, resolutely stopping the man from walking away. They stood in the middle of a dusty street, two sullen apparitions whipped by frivolous wind as the sun sunk below the western horizont like a heated ducat, enflaming the sky above the jagged mountains. Letho could feel countless eyes impaling them like spears. Girls looked with uncanny interest, boys looked with hidden scorn, and the rest just had nothing better to do as another day started to die. This was far from unusual – for the last week the two of them were the prime attraction.

“This is no time to get loaded, Godhand. In two days this street will be paved with blood and I don't want it to be the blood of the innocent folk,” Letho said, his voice rigid and unwavering. Unlike most people who feared to even look into the eyes of the white-haired murderer, the swordsman had encountered enough of the kind not to get rattled by the icy glare. The answer was somewhat more amiable though.

“I can hold my liquor, your highness. And I doubt me having a couple is gonna affect the outcome much; not in two days, anyway.”

Again the sauciness was a slap to the face, Godhand craning his neck just enough to meet the piercing brown eyes of the swordsman. He made a move to step away, but the firm clutch around his elbow - strong enough to crush a lesser man’s bones for certain - would not go away.

“And if you just happen to have more then a few? And end up dozing at the table? And ultimately not finish this ridiculous weapon of yours? What then? These people don't have a second chance. Finish the damned rifle, then drink until you burn your insides for all I care.” This time Letho’s voice was squeezed through clenched teeth, coming out in an articulate growl as he inched closer to the careless gunslinger. His fingers amplified the pressure, making it certain that his message was getting across, making it clear to Godhand that he didn’t approve the nonchalant mannerisms of the man.

The gunslinger reacted like a usurped snake. He rotated his body swiftly, twisting his arm deftly beneath Letho’s and swatting it away effortlessly. Letho barely managed to catch the move, let alone prevent it. The jovial glare from before changed into the archetype chilly glare as the crimson eyes peered into his own. It shattered against the chocolate brown irises like an icicle.

“Listen you peen-ass; if I throw a dog a bone, I don't wanna know if it tastes good or not! Stop me again whilst I'm walking and I'll cut your fucking jaggers off!”

It wasn’t an empty threat, Letho could tell that much. There was always a line with people like Godhand, a border up until which they were your best friends. Take one step over it and you’re venturing into a metamorphosis territory where trivial things were forgotten. Where men were separated from the boys. Letho wanted to step into that territory. He needed it right now. Not for Willowtown, not for rifle or the forthcoming battle, but for himself.

Godhand turned away once again with an irritated expression, but once again the iron grasp caught him by elbow. Only this time the swordsman seized the gunslinger with his left and tugged him backwards. The momentum caused Godhand to turn inadvertently, and even as the split-second pirouette was done, Letho’s right crashed against the side of his face. The grimy street and all currently dwelling on it seemed to inhale in sync - like one giant entity whose survival depended on the outcome of the instigated bout - and kept their breath as the meaty sound of the landed punch echoed through the dusk. Letho’s unnaturally elongated shadow was standing calmly, his hand still outstretched, forming a figure of a prizefighter who just won by a knockout. Godhand’s crashed into a barrel of rain water that stood beneath one of the tavern drainpipes.

“Maybe that will cool your head enough to get back to work,” Letho stated, reclaiming the pose of total equanimity. He knew retribution would come fast and hard, but this was a teapot that was boiling for a while now. It would either explode or vent out.

[Godhand]

((Powergaming and bunnying encouraged and approved by Letho))

Once upon a time Godhand had been given the great honor of dining with Don Giacomazzi. It had been offered as a reward for a particularly intrepid assassination Godhand had carried out against an underworld rival that had accumulated an impressive amount of power in a relatively short time. He’d nearly died at least half a dozen times during the course of the mission but had finally been able to fend off his numerous guards long enough to stab him in the neck with a letter-opener. Not his classiest moment but it sent his employer’s message far and wide: nobody does business in Southwest Corone without Giacomazzi’s approval.

During the meal the Don explained how impressed he was with the young mercenary, telling him he reminded him of a young Johnny Stones. For his part, Godhand couldn’t help but be enthralled by the old man’s kindly warmth and fatherly demeanor. He seemed more like a friendly wood-carver than the head of one of the most feared crime syndicates East of Radasanth. The young gun who had been deprived of a true father figure all his life quickly adopted the Don’s mannerisms and way of speaking, and he in turn took him under his wing. Several years later, jovial and red-nosed from a bottle of fine wine, he posed the boy a question.

“Kid, do you know why God gave human beings fists?”

“No, sir.”

He grasped Godhand’s forearm with his bony fingers and pulled him close with surprising strength. He looked the young man square in the eye and uttered a phrase that would shape the mercenary for the rest of his life.

“Because some people just won’t listen to words.”

--------------------------------------------------------------

The swordsman slowly and calmly rose to his feet. He abandoned all his usual quirks and mannerisms; no straightening of his coat or buttoning of his cufflinks. No quip on how he’d already showered. Nothing. The man simply stood there with his fists purposefully clenched and his jaw tense. The gray and stagnant water rolled off his powerful frame in dark strands as he stood under the shadow of the tavern. The black-hearted murderer in the impeccably tailored coat. At that moment he looked less like a person and more like humanity’s worst aspects made flesh. Darker than dark. If only he’d been wearing his hat, the illusion would have been complete. He would have seemed utterly insurmountable.

The townsfolk knew what was coming. Edonas knew what was coming. Sienna knew what was coming; Hell, even the birds and the rocks and the ground knew what was coming. There was no mistaking it.

Godhand intended to commit homicide.

It took him less than a second from standing stock still to go into a dead run towards Letho. He leaped at the last moment and his great black visage struck the prince with more force and impact than a cannonball. The power of that blow alone was enough to pulverize a normal man’s ribcage, but the paladin was no ordinary man. The sheer fury of the hit was enough to knock him to the ground, but he quickly absorbed the tackle and used the momentum to roll backwards unto his feet. Godhand was having none of it though. As soon as Letho’s eyes refocused, the first thing they saw was an enormous fist hooking towards them. The haymaker nailed the Savion prince in the temple with enough force to nauseate him, but he was determined not to lose to Godhand.

“If there is any sort of justice in the world,” he thought, ”Then this man will not defeat me.”

He thought about the mercenary’s undoubtedly wicked history; the atrocious murders he’d committed, the families he’d destroyed, the hearts he’d broken…And he let it enfold him. His aura shone white and he responded to the punch with a barrage of his own. The ferocity of the hooks, haymakers and straights Letho was throwing was enough for him to surrender several feet to the berserker’s onslaught. The gunman attempted to react against the attacks and stand his ground, doing anything he could think of to turn the tide. At one point he even dug his feet into the ground and entered a horse stance, a stance known for it’s rigidity and reputedly unshakable. But even that was not enough; Letho’s anger rained down upon him with blows too powerful to block and too quick to dodge. The prince finally had him on the ropes. He raised his mighty fist and hammered the mercenary to his knees. He raised it again and struck with enough power to make Godhand feel like an impudent child. He raised it one last time and Godhand exhaled.

“He’s stronger than you. There’s no shame in admitting it. Just give up; beg for mercy. Let them have their hero. Let him be the protagonist.”

He was about to surrender when he was struck by a thought more powerful than all of Letho’s blows combined. His eyes widened and the screams and cheers of the townsfolk became muted for one brief instant.

“This son of a bitch is no better than you are.”

For all his posturing and all his idealizing and all his condemning and all his infuriating superiority, Letho was a murderer just like Godhand. There was no great justice on his side no matter what he said; there were just his interests and the interests of others and he just so happened to claim the side of good while his enemies were too aware of the uselessness of the label to argue. There was no justice in the world, and if there was, it definitely wasn't Letho.

The lawman’s last hammerstrike came down as Godhand was rising to his feet once again, but he swatted it away like a stray leaf. A fearsome scowl adorned his face; he looked like the canary that ate the cat. The mercenary’s hand shot forward, grabbed Letho by the neck and began to squeeze. The prince punched at Godhand with all his might, the feeling of having the life literally squeezed out of him filling him with a strength born of desperation. But the mercenary simply stood there and took it; blood began to flow out of his nose and mouth but his expression never wavered for an instant. And slowly but surely the lawman’s legs began to waver and shake and he was brought to his knees. The white aura steadily dissipated until it vanished entirely, leaving a red-faced Letho clawing at Godhand’s forearm attempting to break the death-grip. He waited until he was sure the prince was about to black out, and then lifted him into the air by the throat. Right as his arm extended to it’s full length he tightened his grip and slammed Letho to the ground with enough viciousness and finality to kick up a large cloud of dust.

When it cleared only Godhand was left standing. His trapezius muscle strained against his trench coat; it had at least doubled in size. He knew that nearly every muscle in his body at the moment was severely hyper tensioned and that unless he got his hands on a syringe full of horse-grade muscle tranquilizer that the pain tomorrow was going to be unbearable. And all the while the blood poured down his face like wine, his left eye already swelling. Nevertheless, only he was left standing. The bad guy. The villain. He couldn’t be more satisfied. But he still had to fulfill his word.

With what strength he had left he grabbed Letho by the cuff and dragged him over to Edona’s workshop, to the open-air shed where all the town could see what was happening. Picking up a pair of large pliers, he turned to the Savion Prince and pointed them at his groin. Letho was too shell-shocked from Godhand’s last blow to say or do anything.

“And now, because I keep my promises…”

“Stop!”

He turned, an action which already caused him tremendous pain, to see the source of the yell. There was Sienna, tailed by a weeping Myrhia. Both seemed to be nearly in hysterics, though Myrhia with disappointment and fear while Sienna with anger and apprehension. And clutched in Sienna’s hands, far too heavy for her, was Godhand’s masterpiece. The .338 Lapua Magnum rifle; carrying a ten-round clip of armor piercing bullets that could be fired at a speed of 3000 feet per second. Easily capable of a headshot at north of 2000 yards. It was beautiful.

“Godhand, what are you doing!?”

“Don’t move a muscle!”

They were like two halves of the same mind. He could have kissed them at that moment. He could have fallen in love with them at that moment.

“Go ahead,” He said. “Pull the trigger.”

It wasn’t a bluff. He was too exhausted, mentally and physically, to do any fancy kung-fu at that point. No throwing a knife into the barrel. No leaping through the roof of the shed. No using Letho as a human shield. Tired, baby. Tired. A little girl no older than seventeen was going to do what a million hitmen had tried and died to do. What he himself had occasionally tried to do. She was going to kill Godhand.

She hesitated for a moment, shut her eyes, grit her teeth, and squeezed out a single desperate tear before pulling the trigger. Perfect. It was absolutely perfect.

Click.

The gun had jammed; Letho was right after all. But in his mind, it was finally over. Godhand’s body shook as he was pierced by the invisible bullet. He let out a gasp filled with gratitude and then, finally, collapsed.

He died.

[Letho]

Resuscitating after nearly getting choked to death felt a little bit like breaking the surface after taking too deep of a plunge into water. Letho needed air, his entire body begging for but a whiff of it like an addict would crave his drug of choice while going cold turkey. And when his trachea was finally clear and his lungs took in a revitalizing breath, the defeated knight felt like breathing for the first time. He coughed, of course, trying to take in too much too fast while his head rang with promises of the pain yet to come. There were voices and faces all around him, but both were as vague as if he was still underwater. They didn’t matter right now. He was alive and that was good.

“Letho? Letho, are you alright?” Myrhia desperately demanded an answer, kneeling next to his prostrate form with her pale hands cupping his face. He knew her face; it was one that spoke of concern that marred her innocence far too often these days. Sienna was there as well, trying her best to look coolheaded and holding a rifle that was about as big as she was, but she was little more then a child. The outcome got her quite shaken, as if the weapon hadn’t misfired. Edonas towered over the pair of worried lassies, looking down with those hard but amiable eyes of his.

“I’m fine,” Letho rasped, rubbing his neck and sitting up. A bolt of pain reminded him that he did it too fast, crumpling his face into a grimace. They weren’t exactly true, though, these words of his. His consciousness was back and the only gifts the damn thing brought were the chopped up images of the battle he lost. He lost. It was a realization that struck home stronger then Godhand’s chokeslam. Letho Ravenheart didn’t lose. It was the voice of his bleeding pride talking, the hubris that accumulated with every notch on his sword. He didn’t lose and he definitely didn’t lose to a smarmy contract killer that walked the world with his morals forgotten in his other coat. And yet, if memory served him – and the rotten feeling in his gut told him that it served him quite well, thank you for asking – Godhand was the one who emerged victorious from this little wrangle.

Letho’s first notion was to give the bastard a piece of his own murderous medicine. Though a man grown and seasoned, Letho Ravenheart was never up for games mostly because he was as sore of a loser as they come. Almost like a child that got his favorite toy soldier broken, his hands itched with need for retribution. And it would be so easy to enact that vengeance. Godhand was within arms reach, battered and bleeding, trapped between being alive and turning into a very ugly stiff. All it took was a shove in the right direction and the world would have one less criminal to worry about. Yes, it was easier to think of him as a criminal and not a man that defeated him in a fistfight. That way at least his revenge would’ve been justified and not just wishful thinking brought forth by courtesy of his foolish pride.

“What were you two thinking?! You could’ve killed each other!” Myrhia again, the usual reprimand of a concerned woman. Even at green age of nineteen the redhead sometimes sounded like a single mother of three. She was right, though. With the amount of power Godhand and Letho were packing, every strike was a potential deathblow, every word a potential trigger for more blood and pain and smoke and death. There was too much testosterone there, too much pissing contest and too little thinking. It was like placing a pair of dogs in the same kennel; it was only a matter of time before they’d be at each other’s throats.

There was a retort in Letho’s mind, but he kept it to himself. Explaining how everything started and who started it would’ve only perfected the already infantile image of their skirmish. Silence was a good alternative. The townsfolk that witnessed the clash, however, were as nosey as ever. There was nothing quite like a good brawl to break the dullness of their days, especially if it the main actors were the same ones that captured more looks then a prostitute in a barroom filled with sailors. So they gradually gathered around, whispering like conspirators, trying to acknowledge who won in the end and who lost and who got more scars as a token of the fight.

“Away with you! Nothing to see here!” Edonas was quick to intervene, shooing them all away with those massive hands of his. They lazed around for several more seconds, half expecting for Godhand to get up and restart the fistfight, but after the smithy repeated his words in a strict voice, they scurried away. Most merely slipped past the batwing doors of the saloon and recommenced the chitchat.

“What do you want to do with him?” Sienna asked once the coast was clear, poking the silver-haired gunslinger with the butt of the faulty rifle. Throwing him into a pigsty was Letho’s first thought. Or the stables. Or the water trough. But that would’ve been petty. The fact of the matter – and a fact that was harder to swallow then maggoty bread – was that Godhand won. He was wrong and Letho was right and he was unconscious and Letho wasn’t, but he still won. If they fought with swords and not fists, the outcome would’ve probably been different, but as it was Godhand the morally depraved murderer won. By demeaning him now Letho would’ve only demeaned himself.

“We’ll wake him up,” the bearded knight said, leaning over to Godhand and procuring the shiny flask from the pocket of his coat. He unscrewed the cork, sipped some of the liquor in his mouth and soaked the floorboards of the shed with the rest. “He still has work to do.”

[Godhand]

((Sienna's dialogue written by Letho.))

The feeling hit him like reverse whiplash. Godhand began to shake and toss like a dying trout, and he felt like one too. Finally the convulsions stopped and he cracked open his eyes. The light felt like broken glass on his retinas but at least the hit Letho landed between his eyes hadn't left him blind; that made him happy. Godhand had found long ago that if you didn't learn to appreciate the small victories found within great defeats then you'd have a very hard life.

He sat up and instantly wished he didn't. His hyper tensioned muscles had left him feeling like a rubberband that had been stretched out to just before it would snap and then been held in that position with pins. If Godhand had ever needed a stiff drink in his life then it was right this second. He quickly fumbled around in his coat before finding his suspiciously light flask, tearing the cap off with anticipation and holding it over his mouth like a man dying of thirst would a canteen full of water.

Nothing.

He shook the flask, but it was useless. The thing had been drained dry. He heard a chuckling coming from behind him and spun around immediately, ignoring his aching muscles. The prince was smiling like the son of a bitch he was. He noticed the smell of scotch pouring up into his nostrils and turned his eyes to the puddle next to Letho. He looked at the puddle, then at Letho, then at the puddle again. He finally stood up and glared at the Savion swordsman. Before anybody could react he lurched forward, grabbed him by the cuff of the shirt and started to shake. Immediately everyone in the vicinity lunged at Godhand and tried to pull him off.

"Why would you do that?" He asked, nearly hysterical. He then accentuated the question by shaking Letho like a ragdoll and inquring again, "Why would you do that!? You're a horrible person and I pray for your death!"

After venting Godhand finally released Letho, much to the relief of everyone in the room. The town couldn't handle another brawl between them and neither could they. That, and even though his muscles ached and his head throbbed he still had the presence of mind to realize that if either of them took any more bad shots then they certainly wouldn't be in any condition to face the Raines sisters just two days from then.

The gunman stepped back and ran a hand through his hair. Shortly afterwards he realized that blood had been pouring out of his nose. Reaching into his coat pocket he pulled out a white handkerchief and walked into the the Edonas' family bathroom. He flinched when he caught sight of himself in the mirror. Terrible. Just terrible. He had simply intended to wipe away what he assumed was a bit of blood from his face but instead it looked like he had gone fifteen rounds with some sort of hellbeast from the center of the earth. He sighed and dragged the entire handkerchief down his face like a towel, getting off most of it. He finally walked out of the bathroom and faced the expectant crowd.

"Alright. Let's fix the gun."

------------------------

Godhand toiled at disassembling the weapon piece by miniscule piece, Sienna glaring at him all the while. The gunman didn't know quite to make of that. He knew she had never shot anyone before, and though the bullet never actually left the chamber he was still suprised she had the coolness to sit there and hate him. Usually virgin murderers, or in this case a virgin attempted murderer, were so rattled by the experience that they didn't speak or see anyone for days. But she was a tough girl; she refused to give him any peace. Finally, Godhand found the problem with the weapon.

"Here it is! See this screw? If it had been half a spin tighter it would have been goodbye Godhand."

He silently measured her. Her response would be key to how he'd treat her from now on.

"And it would have been good riddance, too. But you got lucky, just like you got lucky in your fight with Letho." She paused, hesitating on wether or not she should continue. She finally steeled her resolve and finished. "He's more of a man than you'll ever be."

That did it. He scowled and walked over to her, his steps heavy with some dark promise. Sienna visibly shrunk, opening her mouth as if to call Letho but finding that her voice had left her. Godhand leaned in and just as she was about to scream bloody murder, he placed his hand on her head and ruffled her hair.

"I like you, kid. You're the first one in this town to show me any moxie!"

[Letho]

***

The morning was unkind to Letho Ravenheart in every possible way it knew how be. It came too soon, the rejuvenation it offered was strictly minimal and it woke in the swordsman the desire to murder the sun and the world it shone down on before returning to the nightmare realm he just came from. It also reminded Letho of the yesterday’s events: the ferocity of the punches, the bitterness of the swallowed dirt, the chagrin of coming to... the stain on the shiny armor of his pride. That recollection of Godhand and his shit-eating grin brought more pain than the drummer in his head that made him feel like his brains were being pushed beyond the capacity of his braincase. Today was simply not good to be alive. He felt like a drunk with the world’s greatest hangover.

Adding to the utter discomfort of the awakening was the bedding of his choosing, which was neither a bed nor his choice for that matter. Last night, while Godhand was fine-tuning the murderous fiddle that had failed to play its tune, Letho was entrusted with molding some bullets for the weapons, a task that required less finesse and pussyfooting. It was also an utterly monotonous job, repetition at its worst, and as such quite a nice overture for the encroaching sleep that overcame the battered man somewhere in the act of finishing the last batch of projectiles. They stood waiting for him when he woke up, two lines of silvery bullets staring back at him from the table surface like a company of soldiers ready for the morning inspection. The slender ones were for the ultimate weapon that Godhand had crafted. The big, fat, thick ones were a backup, just in case the gun misfired again and Letho had to use the Lawmaker and its thunderous roar.

Both the stocky and the lean ones came tumbling down when Letho tried to get up, though. The combination of the post-battle languor and the morning lack of coordination made his knee catch the leg of the table, creating a clamorous quake that made the bullets drop and roll all over the flat piece of round wood. He would’ve tried to shield his ears from the annoying noise, but he was too busy trying to catch the renegade metal soldiers and failing to do so.

“Letho, you’re up!” The voice caught him in an unceremonious pose, squatting low, collecting the bullets and cursing the bastard in his head that kept pounding on the walls of his cranium. It was Sienna, looking down at him with those big, compassionate eyes of hers, holding a covered wicker basket that spread the scent of fresh yeast throughout the room. Myrhia would’ve made the morning more bearable for certain, with the modest smiles and the childish gestures and the utter naivety, but those traits were currently void from the redhead, leaving a sickly shell. In such circumstances, the blacksmith’s daughter was more than a worthy substitution.

She dropped her load on the table, lowered herself on her knees and joined the prospecting. “Here, let me do it,” she said, plucking the bullets from below. Silence ensued as they retrieved them in joint effort, mostly because Letho was never much of a morning person and that went double on this particular morn. Sienna had no such issues, however. “So, do you think these will really do the trick?” she asked, holding up one of the smaller casings before her inspecting eyes and not hiding the dubiety in her words.

“I honestly don’t know,” Letho responded, the fatigue and the ache in his muscles making him sound more stand-offish then he intended. He instantly attempted to remedy such tone; the considerate blonde didn’t deserve it. “I mean, if the rifle is fixed and it works properly and they don’t swarm us and we have some luck, then maybe. And if Godhand doesn’t wind up drunk, of course.”

“Now, there’s a big maybe,” Sienna added with a sly grin. The words broke through the gloom of the morning, making them both snigger.

***

A couple of hours and cups of some bitter herbal tea later (which was bound to make him better, Sienna promised), Letho was standing on an improvised shooting range, knee-deep in the waves of dry grass and tightening the string of his composite bow. It was really just a big field with something that looked less like a straw man and more like a tiny disfigured troll placed at a distance of some four hundred yards. The range was impossible to achieve by normal means, but the combination of a highly-strung longbow and inhuman strength allowed Letho to cover it albeit with some difficulty. The precision was a different story. At such a range, the unpredictable nature of the wind made a shot depend more on luck than perception. But a substantial challenge was necessary to either prove the effectiveness of the mythical weapon or confute it.

Picking up one of the three arrows imbedded in the soil before him, Letho leant it against the wire of his bow and gave it a test pull. The wood moaned quietly for a second, then got silenced by the calmness of the wielder’s mighty arms. A pair of brown eyes could see the target quite clearly despite the distance; the conditions were perfect with the noon sun above and beating onto the top of his head instead of assaulting his eyes. His mind calculated, measured, outlined the invisible parabola which the arrow was supposed to follow, then eased the pressure and lowered the bow. He could make the shot. All he waited for now was Godhand, his rifle and his daily cup of snide, unfunny jests.

[Godhand]

Godhand woke up feeling better than he had in a long time. The birds were chirping, the sun was shining and everything was right with the world. I mean obviously he hurt all over but it was still good, you know what I mean? He looked at himself in the mirror and gave a sheepish smile. He was a handsome motherfucker, wasn't he? He pointed both thumbs at himself and smirked at his reflection. Truly, a handsome motherfucker.

"Oh, get over yourself, would you?"

The mercenary turned to look at Sylvia. She was lazing on the bed, naked and smoking a cigarette. A minute smile still clung to her lips despite her admonishment. Yesterday, Godhand had fought Letho Ravenheart and won. I mean the townsfolk might say that he took more damage or that the Ranger looked better, but they knew what was what. He'd won. Not the good guy, not the hero, but him. He had single-handedly defeated a thousand years of fantasy. And as might be expected after performing such a feat, the swordsman wanted to celebrate, moral hesitations be damned. He'd gotten through the workday fine, ignoring Sienna's incessant barbs (the man could have sworn she was now more interested in him than Letho), the townspeople's gawking and the townsgirl's incessant whispers and giggles. By the end he was tired, he ached, his head felt like he'd been clubbed by a viking but he still skipped the bar, went to his temporary residence and kissed Sylvia.

That's right. He'd just walked right up to her as she was serving herself some tea in the kitchen, grabbed her by the waist and kissed her. Wasn't tender, either. Wasn't loving. Neither of them wanted it like that. It was harsh and bruising. She got used to it fast, grabbed him by the crotch and led him to her bedroom. The clothes came off pretty fast; Godhand practically tore them off Sylvia. She returned the favor. Some more kissing. Their hands roamed over each other, desperately trying to find something to grab and caress that'd keep 'em steady. No such luck. They tumbled down to the bed and got to work.

It was good. It was damn good. Godhand realized as they were in the middle of The Act that she was a pretty intense person herself. He remembered one particular moment, while he was rocking against her. She shook with each thrust, but she never closed her eyes. Neither did he. They just held each other, jaws tightened and teeth grit, and just stared into the other's eyes. So good. Then she lunged forward and bit him on the chin. He came. She locked her legs around him, then a quick shuddering groan, and went right along with him.

They'd gone a few more times after that, but that was the one that stuck in his head the most. Sylvia took a long drag off the cigarette before blowing a plume of smoke into the air, languidly tracing her finger along it and shaping it into something only she could see. Godhand walked over to her and just as she was about to release another stream of the stuff, he bent down and kissed her, sucking it out of her lungs. He pulled back and exhaled a puff of smoke, smirking at her. She purred.

He showered a little later. A good, hot shower. Sylvia considered joining him, but they were both too tired. The swordsman dried himself off, took another look in the mirror and decided to shave. He got a cup from the kitchen, poured some lather in and then put the cup in a bowl of hot water, stirring the cream all the while. It was a bit of a chore but if you were serious about getting a good shave, it was the only way. He dabbed the lather on his face with a brush, then began to shave. Took about fifteen minutes, but he looked ten years younger when he was done.

Breakfast was good. Brown toast and scrambled eggs, with some coffee on the side. The toast was crunchy, the eggs were creamy and the coffee was hot and delicious. Sylvia sang as she was making it. "La Mer". Sometimes the world treats you alright. Pretty soon he was out the door. Gave Sylvia a kiss before leaving though. This one was slower, more considerate. Tender. Godhand felt that, given enough time, he might even fall in love with her.

When the mercenary got to the field, Letho was already there testing his bowstring. All work and no play. No wonder he was such a pain in the ass. But Godhand felt too good to be bothered with him. He knew he had to have had a headache, but he didn't shout in his ear. Didn't mock him. Just the fact that he was miserable over losing a fight was pretty telling of the kind of person he was. From now on it was just business between them.

Letho glanced at Godhand, aimed at the target, pulled back the bowstring and nailed the strawman right in the head. The impact of it nearly sent the helter-skelter training dummy tumbling to the ground, but it held up. The Savion Prince was pretty proud of it, and Godhand admitted it was a good shot. For a bow, anyway. The gunman looked back at the Edonas Farm. They had to be at least a mile away. Godhand removed the scope from the rifle and gave it to Letho.

"You see that little rooster on top of the house?"

"You mean the weathervane?"

"Yeah. Toss me the scope."

The gunman reattached the scope to the rifle, then took aim. Letho could see what Godhand meant to do and sneered. There was no way, right? The mercenary squeezed off a single round, then tossed the scope back to Letho and walked back to the farm. Letho hurriedly brought it to his eye and looked at the weathervane, only to find that it was now headless.

They were ready.

[Letho]

***

“So this is really happening, isn’t it?” Myrhia asked, her modest query interrupting Letho in the process of sharpening the impressive dehlar of the Lawmaker. His eyes went up to meet her, a pale apparition in human clothing, leaning wearily against the door frame, but it took several second for his mind to return to the interior of the smithy. For several moments it lingered out in the shooting range, stayed with the impossible shot that Godhand pulled off with the firearm he had constructed. It took Letho five tries to replicate the merc’s result, his aim not attuned to distances at which people looked like roaming ants. But once he had succeeded, once his shot sent the weathercock spinning, his thick head started to realize why Godhand put so much stock in this weapon. It was a marvel of technology, a manufactured finger of death that did your bidding at the simple squeeze of the trigger.

“You two are going to fight these Lawmen all on your own.” It wasn’t a question. Even though he spoke nothing in return so far, the redhead knew. Letho had his taking-care-of-business face on, the one that lined his face with harsh strictness. Myrhia didn’t like the severity of that particular visage; it made him look far too much like a soldier riding out into an already lost battle.

Gliding almost soundlessly – and thus further supporting the already disturbing ghost comparison – she crossed the length of the room and sat at his side. Wrapping her hands around his arm, she leant towards him, her desperate grasp sapless, her body as light as if there was naught but bones underneath her clothes. Though she did her best to cover it up with lavender perfume, the sickly smell permeated from the pores of her skin, brought on by the cold sweat that worked its way through it like poison. She was getting worse, Letho realized just then, the sickness claiming more and more of the petite redhead during the days spent in preparation. For all he knew, she could be dead in a matter of days. But then again, they could all be pushing daisies in a matter of hours if the Lawmen weren’t stopped, so the inevitable clash with them took priority.

“We are ready for them,” Letho finally spoke, discarding the massive gunblade and the whetstone on the nearby table. She clung to him even tighter, a small shivering thing desperate for words more assuring than those. “These Lawmen, they are like vultures. They prey on people until somebody stands against them. And with Godhand’s help, we can make a firm stand indeed. If we make them pay high enough of a price for coming here, chances are they’ll never return.”

“But there’s just two of you. Surely the townsfolk...”

“The townsfolk would just get caught in the crossfire,” he cut her off, albeit gently. He felt inclined to do everything in a genteel manner around Myrhia nowadays, lest she breaks like a melting sculpture made of ice. She sighed, clearly unsatisfied with the explanation offered. “Do you not trust me? This is not the first time we went against the odds.”

“I know,” she responded, her voice thin as she closed her eyes and did her best to hold back her tears. “But you can’t play against the odds forever, Letho. You’re bound to lose sooner or later. And then I... I don’t know what I’d do.” The diminutive girl couldn’t hold it anymore, tears breaking past the floodgates made of eyelids and sliding down her wan cheeks.

“Look at me, Myri,” Letho said, lifting her chin as if it was made of porcelain. Her skin was clammy and cold, her hair tousled and unkempt, her moist eyes red from lack of sleep. But still, despite being wrecked by illness, she was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever laid his eyes on. “Nothing is going to happen to me. I promise.”

He kissed her and tasted the fever on her breath, and finally she was able to feel some solace. After all, Letho Ravenheart never backed out on a promise.

******

Half an hour later, Letho Ravenheart was lying on his stomach and sweating under the thatched roof of the church’s bell tower, still dwelling on the last words spoken to Myrhia. Promises. They were such frail things, easily spoken, easily blown into the wind. Despite this flimsy nature of theirs, they were something people put so much faith in, something that people went to great lengths to fulfill, something they held in such high regard. Well, at least the honest people did. And while Letho was anything if not an honorable man, there was a sliver of doubt in his mind, a dark seed of fear that made him think that this was the one promise he wouldn’t be able to keep.

Casting another inspective look through the telescope of Godhand’s rifle and finding naught but wavy fields of wheat and rows upon rows of corn, Letho rolled to his side and fetched a faded red bandana from his pocket. He tied the thing around his head swiftly, returning to the magnified world beyond the scope as fast as possible. Though the sun was past its zenith and was now on a descending path, it was still a long way from the western horizon, determined to heat up an already sweltering atmosphere.

Minutes dragged on like hours, the utter stillness of the view making even the rolling tumbleweed an intriguing sight. Down at the dirt-paved square bellow, Godhand was smoking his cigar as if he hadn’t a worry in a world. Cocky bastard. The rest of the folk, Myrhia included, were safely tucked away in the basement of the town hall, behind a number of barred doors. It was no surprise then that, when a sound of footsteps on the winding wooden staircase that led to the top of the bell tower could be heard, Letho’s attention shifted towards the interior of the church in an instant. Rising to his feet, the lurking swordsman picked up the Lawmaker and lined it up with the open hatch that opened to the lower sections of the tower. When Sienna popped her head through it, his finger was about a third of an inch away from painting the bell red with her blood and brain parts.

“Sienna? What the hell are you doing here?” he demanded to know. He uncocked the hammer on the bladed firearm.

“I’m going to help you fight the Lawmen,” the blonde responded. There was a smile on her face, the kind that a child would get while stealing a slice of cake before lunch even though she knew she shouldn’t.

“Oh, no, you’re not. Get down to the town hall with the rest, NOW, or else...”

“Or else, what?” she was standing before him now, looking up with a daring look on her face. “You’ll leave your spot and take me there yourself?” He should’ve told her to scram, should’ve pasted her one and sent her crying like a misbehaving child she was. But he didn’t. One of the reasons was that he didn’t hit girls, not the pretty ones anyways. The second, far more important reason at this particular time, was the cloud of dust rising in the west.

The Lawmen approached.

[Godhand]

He'd told Letho not to fire until he made his move. Godhand felt a pang of regret regarding those orders as he watched the dust cloud formed by the Lawmen approach, but in the back of his mind he knew he was right. It was appealing to open fire on them while they were too far away to see who was shooting or where he was shooting from, but he knew Letho would have only managed to take down about five of them, tops. And the rest would swarm into town, filled with fear and rage and the element of surprise would be gone. They'd burn it all. Light a fire and burn it all.

But he was prepared. He knew their leader enough to know how they'd operate; they'd wait until they were in the middle of town, expecting Letho and Godhand to appear stoically and shout 'draw!' like it was fucking high noon. Well, maybe Letho would have done something like that. Wait for them like it was a fair fight and then give them a long and impassioned speech about how men were essentially good and noble and it was their duty to stand up against this sort of oppression, and so on etc. until Helena got sick of it and blew him away.

Godhand wasn't that dumb. The Lawmen probably felt they had the upper hand given their numbers and willingness to play dirty, but what they didn't know, what they couldn't know was that the mercenary was by far the dirtiest, most underhanded swine and monster they'd ever meet. Here was a character who would strangle a man in front of his entire family if he felt there was some sort of benefit to it. A dyed in the wool psychopath. He'd asked Edonas to craft something for him in his free time, a pair of big knives. Machetes. They hung at his side. They were crude, obviously made in a hurry, but that's how a machete was supposed to feel. Raw and unclean; a basic murder sap.

Before the Lawmen could make his figure out in the center of town, Godhand snuffed out his cigar and disappeared behind one of the houses. And just like that, the game was on. The mercenary stalked through the town, head low and both machetes in hand, listening carefully for the sound of approaching horses. Positioning himself. Already he could hear them talking, the ignorant apes going on about how the town knew who was in charge, 'just look at them hiding in their houses' and so on. Trying to ingratiate themselves to the sisters. But they didn't want to hear it. They knew something was up; they just didn't know what yet.

And so, their horses finally slowed to a trot before Helena hopped to her feet and helped her sister off her own steed. They were cocky; they thought that even though something was off, that they were ready. That they could handle it. But Godhand knew that there was nobody in the world that could prepare you for the sort of action he brought to the table. And so, he waited. He waited until all of the Lawmen dismounted and reined their horses to posts; waited until they walked right through the center of town. And right when they were wondering just where the Hell everybody was, he darted out from behind one of the houses to the back of the throng and brutally cut one of the bastards down, then kept on running straight through into another alleyway. They heard the footsoldier's cry, but by the time they turned around Godhand was already gone. And then, as they were distracted by their fallen ally, the mercenary darted out of an alley at the opposite end of the crowd and cut down another of them without slowing down.

And then the real action started.

[Letho]

Godhand started the surprise party with some murderous runs, making use of the side alleys and the thick shadows created by the flaming sun overhead. Basics of guerilla warfare, Letho thought. Get your foe in a controlled environment, then chip away at the corners of their formation as if you’re slicing off the rotten parts off an apple. The only problem was that the congregation bellow was all rotten, bad to the very black core of their bones, left in the sun until it was all green and squishy. But since there wasn’t a machete big enough to take them all out in one swoop, they had to play these shadow games. Above the growing commotion caused by first blood being drawn, less than half of a bearded face observed with a calculating eye.

The screams were his cue. When a couple of the Lawmen have fallen in gushing bloody throes and the sound of their agony broke the silence of the afternoon; and when their horses started to neigh and rear and tug at their tied leashes; and when they started to look this way and that in search of the wraith that raided their ranks; and when the cross atop of the bell tower started to pierce the beaming globe above; that was when Letho Ravenheart finally unleashed Godhand’s weapon.

He sought one of the sisters with the first shot, aimed to cut the head off a snake and then systematically shoot the life out of the body, but the girls were either very lucky or very smart. Probably a bit of both. Of Helena Raines, the cold-hearted bitch that had been a bullet away from instigating this showdown days ago, all he could see were a pair of her deadly firearms, peeking from behind the well that provided her cover. She was the smart one obviously, as opposed to her much more scintillating sibling. Victoria stood up and straight, the whip in her hand snapping commands at the Lawmen just as her mouth did. Letho got her pretty little blonde head in the crosshairs, thought for a second what a shame her death was going to be, and then pulled the trigger without further hesitation. There was no room for reluctance. It was taking-care-of-business time.

The shot, though probably not heard around the world, echoed across the town, effectively silencing it. Unfortunately, partially due to lack of his training with the weapon and partially due to the fact that Victoria was a constantly moving target (and partially due to a stroke of luck which wasn’t a lady today), the bullet with the blonde’s name found the face of one of her men instead. Skull and brain fragments, saturated with blood so dark red it might’ve been black, splattered across his comrades as if someone tossed a bucket of dye. That’ll get your attention, Letho thought. By the time he reloaded, Victoria was out of sight, probably taking cover under one of the porches. He fired again, this time hitting the neck some confounded sod that tried to get the chunks of his pal out of his hair. By then everybody was running and shooting in his general direction, so Letho took cover, pulling Sienna with him.

“What are you doing?” the girl asked, trying to get up to fire her crossbow. “We should keep...”

“Just wait,” he instructed her, his hand firm on her elbow. She obeyed and the gunfire continued, spraying over the stone of the church and twinkling against the bell above like a lunatic musician. Stone debris fell upon their heads, and there was even a ricochet buzzing past Letho’s ear like a bumblebee, but above the sound of thundering guns and shouted orders and spat curses, another scream could be heard. Then another. Godhand’s bloody handiwork. The bastard probably enjoyed every second of it. Letho could almost see the bastard, arms blood-red to the elbow, slicing and dicing with a twisted grin and mirth in his eyes. A butcher of men. Strange times brought upon strange alliances indeed.

By the third shriek, the Lawmen’s attention was averted from the death from above to the death in their midst, so Letho grinned at Sienna before both of them popped up, ready to fire. The swordsman-turned-gunfighter aimed for less than a second, his scope halting on a lad cowering behind a bunch of crates, the gunshot shattering both his wooden cover and his head. He worked the rifle mechanism, fired again, worked, ignored several stray shots that ding-donged against the bell behind him, fired, worked again... It was so easy it was almost beautiful. Godhand would probably find it quite exhilarating, probably come up with a snazzy metaphor for it as well. Letho wasn’t as poetic. There was no honor to be had in such a battle, no glory to attain, no significance to an ending of something as important as a human life. The rifle turned it all into a carnival game, only you didn’t get any prizes for racking up a good head count. Instead you got a bagful of guilt and bad feeling in your gut.

But hell, it had to be done. Means to an end. For the greater good, as the saying went. So he kept firing.

[Godhand]

Godhand hissed through his teeth as a fountain of warm blood squirted unto his face. Things were getting real messy now; Letho had picked up on the sort of fight the mercenary wanted it to be and was doing a decent job of laying down some suppressing fire and keeping their attention diverted. But Godhand knew it couldn't last forever. Once their numbers got low enough, he'd stop being able to trim the fat off the edges of their forces. They'd find someplace with cover and huddle together like some twisted and heavily armed phalanx, with enough firepower to cut down anybody that made a move. But for now they were still unsure what was happening, and Godhand took as much advantage of that as he could. It would have been easier to blast them all away with his revolvers; easier to turn it into a Magnum opera. But he wanted his guns to stay cocked and loaded as long as he could. He still wasn't sure what to make of the sisters; didn't know anything about what they could do. He just knew they were quick, and that was dangerous enough on it's own. He wasn't going to expend all bullets now and then get caught reloading.

The gunman clutched his machetes tight. They were slick with blood, and Godhand could feel it seeping into the wound rope handle and between his fingers. He hated that.

A bullet whizzed past Godhand's ear. It'd come from one of the lawmen; he'd gotten his bearings quicker than the rest. But before he could pull the hammer back and go for a second shot, the machete in Godhand's hand flew into his head and split his skull in two. The spray of blood, marrow and brain matter covered the surroundings in a fine red mist. It was the accumulation of all the blood the mercenary had already spilled. It alerted his comrades to what was going on and Godhand was forced to retreat amidst a hail of gunfire. He covered his midsection with both his knives and managed to deflect most of the bullets, but more than a couple had gotten into his arms. He could feel them squirming in there; like live hornets under his flesh.

He didn't give them any time to celebrate or lick their wounds, though. Almost instantly he emerged from another alley, blades swinging at his sides like some sort of mad reaper. He twisted his body just right; cut into the bastards and dodged most of their shots. He moved right. He'd been there before. Suddenly, a spray of gunfire caught him and ascended slowly. One, two, three, four, five bullets in the abdomen and mid section and one into his shoulder. That one hurt the most.

It was at the hands of one of the sisters. Helena, he believed. She was the only one with that kind of firepower. Godhand responded the only way an animal like him could; he hurled his machete at her. The bloodstained monstrosity spun through the air and Helena responded by pulling one of the straggling lawmen next to her in front of her. She ducked behind her sacrificial lamb, but the thing was hurled with such force that it cut into the man's shoulder so deeply that it still managed to cut her in the back before being halted by the man's flesh. She screamed, and though Godhand wasn't a sadist he still felt that the scream was beautiful. It was a beautiful sound.

But before he could reflect on that, he felt something tough and leathery tighten around his neck like some sort of snake. It was her sister. While the mercenary was busy with Helena, Victoria had coiled her whip around the blood-crazed killer and waited for just the right moment to tighten it. It was like a Goddamn noose; she'd gotten it in good and deep. The gunman's free hand clawed at his neck, trying to dig out the whip, but it was no use. Already his vision was getting blurry. How strong was that woman? Then, instead of fighting it, he simply turned and threw his remaining machete at her. It sailed right at her, but she dodged it beautifully. Still, it loosened her grip enough that he was able to tear the leather snake off himself.

But then, as he turned around to see what had happened to the other sister, he was greeted by a shotgun flush against his stomach. He looked down at that raven-haired bombshell, a sadistic grin on her face, and before he could do anything she pulled the trigger.

Godhand was hurled backwards as the shell blasted into his stomach. It knocked the wind out of him, but it didn't quite manage to kill him. He scrambled away into the alleys clutching his abdomen. The girls followed him, patiently. They were stalking him. Godhand collapsed against a nearby wall and drew two of his revolvers.

The end was near.

[Letho]

All good things must come to an end, even the utterly ugly ones like the one they pulled on the Lawmen today. Letho knew it was only a matter of time before the Raines sisters caught up on their little gambit and adjusted accordingly, but somehow he still expected that it would last a while longer. Like gambler riding a hot streak and repeatedly putting all chips in the middle of the table, he hoped that the luck would last just a while longer. Just one more hand, one more shot, one more skull busted like an overripe melon with an oversized hammer. But their luck has run out.

Double-teaming the predator that decimated their numbers, Helena and Victoria finally managed to turn the tide by cornering Godhand in one of the side alleys, leaving Letho with no clear line of fire and a very likely loss of an ally. Sure, there were still some Lawmen up and about – chickenshit nothings that fired blindly from behind cover, suddenly aware of the fact that they bit more than they can chew, let alone swallow; cowering bastards that suddenly came to realize they were scarcely more than cannon fodder, there to fill up the ranks – but they were nothing without the sisters. Letho could probably shoot down every last of them and it wouldn’t change the fact that the two hellions could still wreak quite a havoc upon the town. No, staying put would simply not do anymore. He had to get down and dirty, get into the trenches as the saying went, put some elbow grease into it.

He tapped Sienna on the shoulder, gesturing her to join him down below their rapidly degenerating cower of the bell tower. “I am going down there. Those wenches have Godhand cornered,” the Marshal said to the blonde, ejecting the magazine from the rifle and loading another one. He chambered the first cartridge, then handed the weapon over to the girl.

“What? No, we have them pinned,” she said, trying to keep a straight face, a serious grown-up face. But Letho could see it was breaking at the seams; she was scared, scared to be left alone in the midst of this bloody mayhem. “Who cares what happens to that bastard?”

“I do,” the Marshal said, unfolding the canvas that covered his Lawmaker gunblade. He pulled on the loading mechanism, one adjusted from a Winchester hunting rifle, then locked it back with a flick of a wrist once he was satisfied. “He maybe is a scoundrel, but on this day he stands with us and I will not let him fall. Not if I have a say in it.”

Getting up in a hunched covering posture, Letho moved to the far side of the tower and behind the large bell that was rocking lethargically from all the hits it took. But the bouncing pieces of hot lead were but a minute damage compared to what the swordsman had in mind. “You stay here, keep shooting,” he commanded the lass, his eyes on the top of the brass bell where it hanged from the wooden support. His mighty hands gave it a good thug, making the wood crack and moan ever so slightly. It was sturdy, but it would budge with enough force. “Just try not to hit me,” he concluded, then turned his full attention to the bell and the battle below.

“Reverend is going to hate me for this,” he muttered, his eyes closing and his fists balling as he called upon the power of his righteous might. And as soon as the sonic boom blasted around his crouched form and his physique expanded to its muscular extremes, he backhanded the bell with one swift blow. Such was the power behind his strike that it not only launched the bell towards the town square below, but it tore off the entire tip of the church tower, sending tumbling with that deafening DOOOONG! that obliterated every other sound in the proximity. The downside (that probably would’ve been obvious to Letho had he been a thinker and not a bludgeoning doer) was that the same sound nearly rendered him and Sienna deaf, so much so that when the bell came crashing against the ground and continued bounce away with a series of diminishing dings and dongs, the two of them heard the subsequent sounds not at all. Only when Letho peered over the ledge to see the cloud of dust and debris below he realized that it was time to move.

After witnessing a massive metal bell coming down upon them followed by most of the tower’s roof, the Lawmen barely even noticed the leaping hulk of a man that followed. By the time most of them got the uplifted dust out of their lungs and gathered enough bearings to realize what had happened, Letho had started picking off where Godhand left off. The gargantuan Lawmaker in his hands moves as easily as if it was made of plaster, the giant inertia of the blade offset by Letho’s equally gigantic strength. The raider closest to him, a fellow with a scarred face that spoke of experience, was the first one to feel the murderous bite of the gunblade, Letho cutting upwards and slicing his left leg and about a third of his torso clean off. The spray of blood and the dying throes were just as horrible as the brain and soft tissue splatter he delivered from above.

A muzzle flash (and not the actual sound of a shot fired) alerted Letho to an outline of a figure amidst the rapidly settling dust. The shot whistled past his ear – far too close for comfort, close enough to feel the wind of the passing bullet on his skin – and he returned the favor. The Lawmaker thundered twice like a storm descending from the mountains, the first fourteen millimeter round tearing off a shoulder, the second blowing a hole in the man’s gut. By then, even the less perceptive eyes were on him, most notable the three gunmen that settled on the porch of a grocery store. Letho broke into a run to the side, seemingly aiming for one of the side alleys as Sienna’s covering fire kept him from being perforated like a human sieve, but instead of disappearing behind the corner he made a forward roll, came to a full stop and brought the butt of the gunblade to his shoulder. The supporting columns of the porch lined up all too perfectly, a single booming shot tearing through all four of them, bringing down the thatched roof on top of the riflemen.

The remaining four or so broke into a run. With so many of their comrades resting pieces at their feet and without the Raines sisters to yank on their leash, there was nothing to stop the dogs from tucking their tail and flee. Letho, still on one knee from the last shot, moved his crosshairs towards the quartet, but a leathery snap and the far end of the whip wrapping around the thick blade of his weapon disrupted his shot, making him blow out one of the windows on the town hall. Victoria Raines was a bit caught aback by the fact that she failed to tear the gunblade from Letho’s grip, but managed to put a devilish smile on her face all the same, the same sinful one she gave him back in that barroom. The kind that made it unclear whether she wanted to rip your beating heart out of your chest or hump your leg like a bitch in heat. Probably a bit of both. Letho made it his mission to erase that smirk, regardless of how intriguing it might’ve been.

Swiping the Lawmaker sideways with the whip still attached, he managed to pull blonde towards him, his free hand aiming to grasp the vixen by the neck. Instead, Victoria leapt straight at him, kick the man in the face with both her boots. He stumbled backwards, his sight currently as impaired as his hearing, looking a bit like a drunk after a couple of shots too many. This was enough pause in the battle tempo for the woman to free her whip, then coil it around one Letho’s boots and pulling at it with all her might. Before he even crashed down, Victoria was on the move again, the parabola of her leap ending on the swordsman’s chest. She wound up sitting on top of him, straddling him with her knees, and by the time he even realized what just occurred there was a cold piece of metal pressed against his throat.

“I told you I’d make you mine, big boy,” Victoria said in a husky voice, her face so near to his own that despite the tremendous heat of the day, he could feel her breath on his face, could smell the touch of wine on her breath and the sweetish scent of her luscious body, could almost taste that droplet of sweat that swiveled down her long neck and past the ridge of her clavicle. She was temptation embodied, even in the midst of all this destruction and death and spilled blood and burnt gunpowder. Shame they wanted each other dead so bad.

[Godhand]

Godhand tried to pull himself together in one of the side alleys, blood pouring down his arms and chest and neck...Just a real rough scene. He'd survived the shotgun blast because he'd had the foresight to strap a big metal plate to his chest under his shirt. It's not that he was planning to get shot but he figured it was better to be safe than sorry. Plate or no plate though, getting shot point-blank with high grade buckshot wasn't something you could walk away from unscathed. He wasn't completely crippled but he still felt the shards of shrapnel cutting up his abdominal muscles every time he moved. It was like trying to walk around with a broken bottle shoved into his stomach.

The miserable swine didn't give him much time to recuperate though. New courage had been breathed into the lawmen; when he was carving himself a path through their ranks with nothing but a pair of badly constructed knives, they must have thought he was a monster, some sort of invincible engine of terror. But now that they could follow his trail and see that he was bleeding, that he bled, they understood he was just a man. And men could be killed.

But even wounded, he was still formidable. The first bastard that tried to corner him was blown away nearly instantly by one of the mercenary's high caliber handguns. He was a little dizzy from bloodloss but given that each one of his bullets was the size of a grown man's thumb, it was hard to miss. This gave the rest of his attackers pause, but he knew if he gave them time to steel their courage they'd all rush in at once and gun him down. So, he did the only thing he could.

He ran out and started shooting.

Godhand worried sometimes that the business was turning him into something he didn't want to be. Some sort of goddamn sociopath. Never before had this been brought to such stark attention to him as when he started blowing the lawmen away. The blowback of the gun made him feel good. Seeing some jackal get hurled backwards from the force of one of the magnum rounds made him smile. It made him feel strong. He remembered that interview with a sniper, where some peace activist had asked him what he felt when he shot people. The man shrugged and said,

"Recoil."

Jesus, was that what he was becoming? He narrowly dodged a bullet fired wildly by the nearest lawman. He reared back and kicked him in the stomach; the man lurched forward, clutching his gut, before Godhand grabbed him by the shoulders and hurled him through a nearby wooden wall. He could feel the bullets whizzing past his ears, and if so much dust hadn't been kicked up by the lawman flying through the wall he probably would have taken a couple. He played it by ear and fired in the direction where the bullets were originating. He heard the comforting death-gurgle of one of his assailants, and through some strange instinct developed during dozens of firefights in his life could feel the clicking and whirring of a nearby revolver being reloaded. Using the last bit of strength he had accumulated, he burst out of the war fog and tackled the nearby lawman with enough force to shatter every bone and rupture every organ in the front of his body. He was hurled into the air like a ragdoll, and Godhand knew he was dead before he hit the ground.

That was it. By the mercenary's count, that was the last of the lawmen. Just as he turned to see what had happened to Letho, however, he took a blast of buckshot to the back and collapsed on the ground.

It was a strange feeling, getting shot with a high caliber spread gun. At first he didn't even feel pain. Just a push where the shell had hit, and then a feeling like raindrops on his bare back. Then there was pain.

Godhand squirmed on the ground miserably, like a toad baking in the sun. The silhoutte of the Raines sisters came into his sight, the sun at their backs turning them both into perverse shadows. He guessed that Sienna had scared away Victoria from Letho with a couple of random shots from the big bore rifle. Well, now the gang was all here. Godhand reached a trembling hand into his coat only to take a shot in the stomach from Helena's submachine gun. He groaned, the pulled his coat to the side to show that he wasn't reaching for a gun. He reached into his coat pocket and produced a big, long fat cigar. He placed it in his mouth and looked for a match, but it was agony. It was an almost comical sight to see him struggle; it looked like his arms were too short for his body. Helena smirked and leaned down, lighting the almost comically oversized cigar. Godhand gave her a grateful smile.

"Do you have any last words?"

He tried to come up with something perfect; some epic truth and beauty bomb that would ignite volcanoes and churn the seas. But he couldn’t think of anything like that, so he just said,

“No.”

Helena smiled and aimed the gun squarely at Godhand's forehead. Just as she was about to fire, however, Victoria suddenly noticed something strange about how the cigar was burning. The fire seemed to coil into the tobacco. She almost didn't give it a second thought but then a thought crossed her mind. She quickly yelled and uncoiled her whip, swinging it and wrapping it around the cigar in one motion before pulling back and throwing it into the air as hard as she could. Helena looked at her sister, bewildered, when the fire finally reached finished shortened fuse of the stick of dynamite he'd disguised as a cigar.