I’m Barrons, and I’m on my knees in the sand.
The wind is kicking up; the storm comes.
I was stupid, so stupid.
Death for hire. I laughed. I drank. I fucked. Nothing mattered. I swaggered through life, a god. Grown men screamed when they saw me coming.
I was born today. I opened my eyes for the first time.
It all looks so different now that it’s too late. What a grand fucking joke on me. I should never have come here. This is one battle-for-hire I should never have taken.
I hold my son and I weep.
The sky opens, letting the storm free. Sand comes, so thick it turns day into night.
One by one, my men fall around me.
I curse the heavens as I die. They curse me back.
There is black. Only black. I wait for the light. The Old Ones say there is light when you die. They say to run for it. If it goes away, you drift the earth forever.
No light comes to me.
I wait all night in the dark.
I’m dead yet I can feel the desert beneath my corpse, the abrasion of sand on my skin, up my nostrils. Scorpions sting my hands, my feet. Open, dead eyes crusted with sand watch the night sky as the stars pop and vanish, one by one. The darkness is absolute. I wait and wonder. The light will come. I wait, I wait.
The only light that comes for me is dawn.
I stand up, and my men stand up and we stare uneasily at one another.
Then my son stands up and I don’t care. I spare no thought for the strange night that shouldn’t have been. The universe is a mystery. The gods are fickle. I am and he is and that is enough. I toss him on my horse and leave my men behind.
“My son was killed two days later.”
I open my eyes, blinking. I can still taste sand, feel the grit in my eyes. Scorpions crawl at my feet.
“It was an accident. His body disappeared before we could bury it.”
“I don’t understand. Did you die in the desert or not? Did he?”
“We died. It was only later that I pieced it together. Things rarely make sense while they’re unfolding. After my son died the second time, he died many more times, simply trying to get back to me and come home. He was deep in the desert without conveyance or water.”
I stare. “What are you saying? That every time he died, he came back in the same place he’d died that first time with you?”
“At dawn the next day.”
“Over and over? He would try to make it out, die of heatstroke or something, then have to start all over again?”
“Far from home. We didn’t know. None of us died for a long time. We knew we were different, but we didn’t know about the dying. That came later.”
I watch him and wait for him to speak again. This is the crux of Barrons. I want to know. I won’t push.
“That wasn’t the end of his hell. I had rivals who rode the desert, too. Death for hire. Many were the times we’d thinned each other’s pack. One day, they found him walking the sands. They played with him.” He looks away. “They tortured and killed him.”
“How do you know this?”
“Because when I finally put things together, I tortured and killed a few of them and they talked while they died.” His lips smile; his eyes are cold, merciless. “They set up camp not too far from where he was reborn every dawn and found him the next day. Once they realized what was happening, they believed he was demon spawn. They tortured and killed him over and over. The more he came back, the more determined they were to destroy him. I don’t know how many times they killed him. Too many. They never let him live long enough to change. They didn’t know what he was, nor did he. Just that he kept coming back. One day another band attacked, and they didn’t have time to kill him. He was left alone, tied up in a tent for days. He got hungry enough that he turned. He never turned back. It was a year before we were hired to hunt the beast that was scouring the country, ripping out the throats and hearts of men.”
I was horrified. “They killed him every day for a year? And you were hired to kill him?”
“We knew it was one of us. We’d all changed. We knew what we’d become. It had to be him. I hoped.” His mouth twisted in a bitter smile. “I actually hoped it was my son.” There was naked hunger in his eyes. “How long was he a child tonight? How long did you see him before he attacked you?”
“A few minutes.”
“I haven’t seen him like that in centuries.” I could see him remembering the last time. “They broke him. He can’t control his change. I’ve seen him as my son only five times, as if for a few moments he knew peace.”