The Everlasting

I WALKED THROUGH the gates first, this time. You hadn’t liked it much, but I simply wasn’t going to watch you take another arrow. In the end I’d threatened to run in naked with a target painted on my back, and you’d thrown up your hands and said, “As you will, then!”

I strolled through the arch fully clothed, cigarette pinched in my left hand, revolver in my right. I didn’t bother to hide the gun; the Hinterlanders wouldn’t know what it was, even as the bullets entered their brains.

I called up to them: “The Red Knight approaches!” I spoke the words in Shvalic and sent silent, guilty thanks to the Hinterlander boys who had taught me the words. “Archers, take aim!”

I pressed my back to the curtain wall, as if I were hiding from you.