“Leggy? No idea.” Jim shrugged. “He left a couple hours back, remember? He didn’t mention nothin’. I reckon he wouldn’t go scouting without ‘stablishin’ something with you. It ain’t like him.”

“He’s probably just outside then.” Mugs stretched his arms. “I’m gonna go check on him, got it?”

“Fuckin’ natives,” Thomas snorted. “They’re all fuckin’ weird. Hey, if the twit comes back while you’re out can ya send him for dry wood? C’mon, Mugs, I’m dyin’ here.”

“No chance, I’m afraid.” Mugs sighed. He tossed his binoculars at Jim, who looked up just in time to clumsily catch them. “Keep watch while I’m out.”

“Yessir.”

Shin was just outside like he had guessed. A dampened smell of tobacco suggested he had been smoking one of his coveted American cigarettes, likely cradling the thing for as long as he could. At the moment, he was sitting still as death on a short, upright log. He had black messy hair and a thin yet respectable mustache that lined his upper lip. A few drops of rain had slid down his flat straw kasa, but he had seemed to not notice it at all.

“Rain comes,” Shin said grimly as Mugs approached. So he had noticed.

Mugs nodded in affirmation and squatted next to him. “Was wondering if you’d gone off and left us.”

“You know I would not do that.” Shin did not move. “I scout yesterday. I track people migrating to a neutral zone. I follow for two hours. Three men, seven women, four children. I do not believe they make it.”

“Yes, you told me the details yesterday. Never mentioned why, though.”

Shin was silent for a moment before shaking his head slightly. “One woman… a Spark, I think, for violent tribe. Her words say innocent when she speak. Her eyes say killer. They will not survive her.”

“The hell…” Mugs felt a pang of worry. “You don’t think that’ll bring any attention to our job?”

“They talk of Petal Bridge. She convinced them to cross it.”

Oh. Mugs calmed down. The territory around Petal Bridge was land he wouldn’t dare cross himself. Leggy—Shin—was right: those people were corpses within a day. They weren’t a problem at all.

“So we’re solid then?”

Shin nodded.

“Christ.” Mugs rubbed his brow. He remembered savages like the woman Shin described. Kate was one of them. He deserved to run with them considering the muck that bled from his goddamn blackened soul. People like him were a menace, and not just to civilians. They were killers without a cause. Hell, on the other hand Mugs considered himself a menace. He had no qualms taking coin for a job, and it made no difference how much he tried to justify it all. That was something he used to do when he started. Maybe it was a piece of his own soul still left in him trying to make sense of things, or an ideal that had been beaten into him until it became his nature. Whatever it was it had left once the ground had become so red you couldn’t tell one man’s blood from the next.

“Where’s the boy?” Mugs grunted.

Shin dipped his head slightly. He didn’t know. “Walked over hill to the east. He say he watch sunset. To… write words.”

“Poems.” Mugs rolled his eyes. “Damn kid wants to write sodding poems. Y’think that bashin’ a man’s skull down his throat would scare the pansy from his pants. Tossed ’em through a tough as grit initiation for my crew and the boy still sticks to his soul. Guess I’ll give him some credit for that.” He looked up. “Not for his smarts, anyhow. No way he’ll catch sight of the sun in this weather.”