The dawn above the east was solid light

From edge to edge. If all the sky were one

Piece of soft paper, dipped into a cup

Of melted luminescence, that light crept

Up it by capillary tug, spread out

Neon infection through the fiber sheet,

Just so that sky would look. Or like a pane

Of plastic, counterfeiting glass, but grown

Opaque with years of sunburn, now exposed

To searchlights blazing it to noonday bright.

The trees stood still in slumber, for the sun

Was unarrived. Between their net of limbs,

Their lattice of dark boughs and dying leaves

Whose colors, backlit, all had sunk into

Stark, same, dramatic black, fluorescent dawn

Poured through the holes that flexed in size and shape

As waking breeze rolled through them toward the plains.

While Shane arose, and stretched himself, and dashed

Cold water from the ewer by the door

Over his face and shoulders stiff, and shook

The water from his quilly crimson hair,

Varr stood, his tunic cast aside, and let

The morning wash across his limbs. His scars

Glinted like web of wires electrified

Where they reflected back the almost-dawn.

He stooped, and raised the basket, lidless now.

From it the fireflies, emerald and jet,

Their lamps exhausted from nocturnal watch,

Buzzed grumpily, to vanish in the grass

Swallowed like pebbles dropped into the sea.

Varr did not turn, but said, “I almost see

Why you go nearly naked into war.

Without familiar weight of armor borne

More for long custom than precaution's sake.

How light my muscles feel, how full my lungs!

The wind upon the skin invigorates

Like food and drink and sleep and prayer combined.

For you, who wear but those half-breeches soft,

What fierce elation must a battle be!"

“My shorts?" Shane blinked, confused, “That is not why

I dress this way. Only within the ring

Shed I all else to don my trunks and gloves.

Elsewhere would I wear garments more like yours."

So saying, Shane the tunic passed to Varr

Who took it, cautiously replying back

Like one unsure if ground on which he treads

Will bear his weight, “You fought within a ring?

Were you a gladiator, then? If so,

Why did you fight in less than otherwise?"

Shane blushed, ashamed he knew not why, for all

His age undaring, dull, and paranoid.

“To keep the combat fair, I think. To keep

Out subtle knives or bags of blinding sand.

No hidden weapons could there be, because

There was no place to hide them." Shane half-smiled

For his own explanation sounded weak.

Varr frowned. He pulled his armor on again

And said, “Are they untrusting, then, your folk,

That even those enacting holy rites

Of combat, man to man, done for the sake

Of making those who grapple part divine

At least as long as confrontation lasts,

Are in suspicion held so deep?" Shane saw

Too many hurdles in between the truth

Of how his life and combat were, and Varr's

Misunderstanding of it, so he said,

“The treacherous are ever slow to trust,

And there are none more treacherous than those

Who riches gleaned from managing our fights.

But brother, come! The morning ages fast!

My wounds are closed, and all my strength returns!

That life is past, and this yet lies before!

My heart reproaches me, so I must go

And answer the insult I gave myself

By shrinking from a battle yester-night!"

Varr grimly smiled, and buckled on his sword,

Saying, “Fret not. Our enemy has blazed

As clear a trail as any pathfinder."

Upon the threshold there lay flecks of char,

And from the door they trailed, toward the plains

Where withered grass joined clumps of ash still damp

All pointing to the object of Shane's wrath

Which blazed like embers smoldering but touched

By oxygen when he beheld the trace.

“You are courageous, Champion," said Varr

His voice constrained by deadly quiet thrill,

“Now show your brother warrior if your speed

And stamina are proportioned the same."

“Fear not for me," laughed Shane, and beat his gloves

Together, “Rather have a care that I

Will get so far ahead that naught remains

For you!" Then they were running side by side

Across the plains, so swiftly that the waves

Of wind among the grass kept pace with them.

All dreams evaporated from his mind,

All thoughts of Sulfur names that he knew not,

All care for cagey clues in riddles couched

By barely there Old Women and Old Men,

All worries after if he was alive,

For Shane had never felt half so alive

As he felt now. The grass around his feet

Like breakers splintering beneath the prow

Of a dreadnaught, majestic, triple decked

And triple masted, built of iron-tough wood

By surf and sunlight burnished to far more

Warm brilliance of hue than it could have

Alive and growing in some distant glade,

That grips as does a cavalier his horse—

Loose, lightly, lovingly, yet with all strength—

The raptured and relentless ocean air

With white seraphic wings, a dozen piled

Into the sky like cumulonimbus,

Was split, and flowed like fluid to each side

To surge together after he had passed.

The dew was scattered outward in their wake.

Each drop of it that from the whiplashed blades

Of grass flew sideways, shattered, and released

The smell of morn, of water, and of cold

Which rose around them, an incense in haste,

To cool their sweat and hold off weariness.

Before them stretched the leavings of the Soot:

Ash smeared, grass shriveled, caustic footprints set

With needless violence deep into the soil,

More obvious than is a comet tail

Drawn pale across the black and velvet night

That points unerringly to source and sun

Though one is small and one invisible.

They followed it like dolphins in the train

Of the undead illumination raised

By heavy ship's propellers. As the trail

Of light unholy in the water dark

Leads to the leaden behemoth, this trail

Of dark unholy in the morning light

Grew tantalizing, promising a fight.

Atop a bluff Varr paused. “Catch here your breath,"

He said. “No need of that," said Shane, “I have

Enough to carry on for miles still, and

Enough to blow our friend away, as well!"

Varr squinted at the distance, where the hunt

Would end. He saw their quarry shuffling off

More grime into the grass. He saw the trail

Connecting them to it unbroken; poised

To bring the two together with great noise

Like copper wire between two batteries.

But he saw other shapes. Some in dismay

With old women and children burdened down,

With poverty and sickness throttled up,

With bundles and with great extremity

Fled forward toward a tiny thread of stream

And then to the horizon. Others joined

The one that Shane and Varr had followed, in

Pursuit relentless, each one at the head

Of its own trail of charcoal sludge. “Our friend,"

Said Varr, “has found friends of his own.

And they are hunting also. If we wish

To spare these folk destruction, we must go-"

He finished not his sentence. Shane was up

And running, crying as he went “Cowards!

You stalk in darkness, only face the weak,

You will fall at a single blow! Face me!

If this be the first time that you confront

One able to strike back, I promise you

I will make it the last as well!" Shane tore

Across the plain, Varr half a step behind

And at his voice of thunder, the Soot turned,

Regarding him with unexpressing eyes.

If they were waiting for a further call

Or challenge from him, they were foolish. Shane

Straight at the nearest flung himself, and hit

With all his might of muscle and of rage

Full in its missing face. Backward it snapped

And toppled, while the filthy, skull shaped head

By boxing glove divorced from body, smashed

Upon the ground like fragile fallen glass.

As jackals, scavenging on southron plains

Out from their salt wastes venture to the kills

Of lions, stand and hesitate around

Reluctant to advance enough to steal

And too afraid to trust their numbers, while

The regal beast arises in his might.

So did the Soot hang back in hate and doubt

While Varr unsheathed his sword and took his place,

While Shane his shoulders rolled and popped his neck,

While the intended victims reached the bank,

While Shane said “See? I warned you, if you fell

Too far behind, I'd beat them all myself.

Already, brother, I'm ahead by one!"

An age they seemed prepared to stand: the Soot

In attitude of menace, the boxer

Defiant and cocksure, the warrior grave.

Yet, as even hard glass cannot remain

Forever perpendicular, but flows

After a century, until it breaks

Of its own weight, the Soot burned through their fear

To their hot core of rage and ageless hate

And hissing in their hearts, lifted their blades.

The first sword sought the boxer, clothed in rust

From bitter tip before to hilt behind,

Like bolt or javelin aimed, to spit him through

From chest to back as swift as arrowflight

In thought before the archer pulls the string.

The warrior's blade was swifter still. As does

The blackbird stooping on the massy hawk

To drive him from her nest as yet unseen

With lesser strength and duller claws made more

Formidable by recklessness than three

Hundred hawks, or the missile meant to halt

Another's flight with its own, held in check;

The decades-dormant bullet loosed aloft

At last to intercept some falling death

Of fire and brimstone cast across the seas

So massive it is weighed in megatons,

Varr caught the Soot right-angled, crossed his blade

Edgewise above the hilt, that its own charge

Drove it upon the sword, to split and sprawl

Beside the comrade foul it avenged not.

The third with halberd ancient came at Varr

Tip raised like standard high, to leverage weight

To double speed enough to split his shield.

But when he drew near, he was knocked aside

By Shane's hard shoulder, and shoved to the grass

There by both gloves atop eachother crushed

Like tiny fleck of gravel caught between

The hammer and the anvil. Ere there was

A moment large enough to breathe, a fourth

Hissingly hurled its self and swords—chipped down

To their iron vertebrae—between the two.

Like the philosopher's ass, who cannot

Choose which grass sweeter is, the Soot froze there

Between the two it hated, where it stayed

Just long enough to blink, had it but eyes,

Just long enough for Shane to twist and strike,

Just long enough for Varr to bounce it back

With his shield boss, for Shane to ricochet

The revenant again with all the force

Of shoulder, chest, and arm. Just long enough

For Varr to swing with hand supporting hand

And cleave the Soot in two across the waist.

Just long enough it tumbled through the air,

Half this way, half the other, for two more

Black ashy shades to stumble hissing close

Enough to strike. Their blades they raised on high,

And under them came Varr the Last-to-Flee

Behind him followed Shane the Champion.

The warrior's blade wrenched heavenward. The glove

Shot uppercutting rocketlike. One Soot

Was cloven from the rotten navel up,

The other's neck was snapped, as does a gust

Of sudden wind do to a rotten bough,

And neither fatal blow had landed first.

“Your pardon must I beg, oh Champion,"

Said Varr, “For of your prowess little use.

For poor opponents, little more than stocks

Made by the sunlight nigh unfit to slay."

“Not so, Last-to-Flee," Shane growled, “I scorn not

The entertainment you've arranged for me."

He beat his gloves together on his chest,

And said, “I only wish it not so soon

Completed!" For the final Soot remained

Held only by its helplessness to flee

Under the rising sun. Instead it turned

With thrashing sword and shuffled toward the folk

Upon the river's edge. Came Shane and Varr

All pride forgotten, as do those in flight

Out of a house aflame. They passed it by

On either side, and struck it glancing blows

Then skidded to a stop between the thing

And those it had pursued, as if to form

A gate between them, unseen but locked fast.

They stood triangulated: Varr,

To his right Shane, and to his right the foe.

With empty eyes it watched them, with its sword

Trailing among the tangled grass, twitching

In frustration, in anger, and in dread,

And staining it with rust. Perhaps it felt

The fear of earlier now magnified

Sixfold by its six comrades beaten down.

Perhaps it knew too well the odds, and held

Back from a skirmish it must lose, as those

Whose souls are not worth keeping grasp them tight

And will not risk the touch of any thing—

A sea, a sky, a song, a god, a love—

Upon them. Or perhaps it thought the sun

Whose light bewilders all such dwimmer-things

Had come down from the sky to torment it

In person of these two, with sword and fist.

Perhaps it thought and felt naught but dull hate.

The dark ash mannequin advanced one step,

Varr raised his blade to stab as on it came.

Shane shuffled sideways, struck once. It was knocked

Directly on Varr's sword up to the hilt

Like a dried hornet mounted on a pin.

The air was cleared of hissing, and was still.

The boxer and the warrior crossed long sword

With heavy glove. They struck backhanded fist

To flat of blade with sound like breaking light

Through lead-hued clouds split suddenly, and their

Huzzahs were taken up by those who stood

Just on the riverbank, as sunlight pools

On sun's right hand and left in prismed shades

And makes two other suns. Shane caught the scent

Of victory long left behind, on cheers

For him, on hot adrenaline draining

From veins that needed it no more, on taste

Of elation he almost had forgot.

And with remembered joy came other things

Not taken with him: eyes that watched him fight,

A voice that soothed his pain, and hands that held

More in defeat than triumph. Shane was seized

With more than curiosity this time

To know if he yet lived. His ears seemed blocked

And his throat burned as if he swallowed ice

Though all around him morning warmed the earth

And wiped the final dewdrops from the turf.