The Vagrant Read Online Free PDF Page B

well, just the occasional groan. You better get in there, see what’s happened, though you’d best prepare for the worst.’
    ‘Liar!’ sings the sword without words as it cuts loose from its sheath, splitting the old man’s chin and nose. The Vagrant looks away as the body falls. He shakes his head, pressing onwards.
    The door curls on the floor, battered into a cartoon smile. Flames dance on tables, smoking, and clouds of dust fill the air, blanketing the bodies of the dead and dying. Some have been burnt, others shot. He moves about them, his quiet sword giving mercy where needed.
    The Vagrant proceeds into the tent, stepping over another corpse at the entrance.
    The goat is over in the corner, Lil’s body by her side, a gun just beyond her motionless fingers. The gun no longer shines, but smokes from use. From beneath her arm a tiny foot kicks angrily. He turns the woman’s body over, revealing the blood-stained baby. His eyes widen in alarm.
    The baby smiles.
    It only wears the woman’s blood. It has not been hurt.
    The Vagrant sways, his face pale. His legs begin to tremble.
    With a groan, the woman spits something thick onto the floor. ‘Where the hell were you, you son of a bitch? I thought you’d run out on us.’
    The Vagrant shakes his head, opens his mouth uselessly.
    ‘Listen,’ she says, pressing her hand against a spreading patch of red at her side, ‘I’ll be dead by the time you get your story out. So shut your mouth and save me. Everything you need is here. First thing you do is find my box of tricks. It’s metal and oval and it’ll be in the tent, you can’t miss it.’
    But the Vagrant does not close his mouth, nor does he move.

Eight Years Ago
    Gamma of The Seven lies broken on the edge of the Breach. By her cracked beauty floats the thing that will become the Usurper, hungry for its prize. Above, Gamma’s Palace lists drunkenly, plumes of fire racing each other skyward from rents in the walls and towers. Shapes flicker about the ailing fortress, relentless, swarming and diving and biting and clawing, delivering death through thousands of tiny indignities.
    As it begins its casual fall, other shapes rise from the Breach. They too are formless, nameless, all seeking Gamma’s remains.
    Beyond mortal perception, the infernals fight, vicious clouds of dream that swirl through one another, blending, breaking and diminishing.
    One removes itself from the fighting, descending upon the fallen men and women furthest from the Breach. It chooses with care: those that died from shock or single wounds, whose bodies are more or less whole. Into each it gifts a portion of itself, protecting its precious essence within a dead shell. Reanimating what should not be, in stark defiance of the reality in which it finds itself. By fragmenting its essence it is weaker and safer, smaller but more numerous.
    A man stands impossibly and the First is born. It gathers its brothers and sisters quickly and sets out to explore. Soon the First has vanished from the field, an uncomfortable addition to the new world.
    Behind it, the fighting between the infernals continues until, with elemental force, one infernal drives back the others, winning the contest and stamping its majesty upon them, indelible. Above Gamma’s body the claimants separate, blown outward from their new master, a smoke ring of losers. They retreat with ethereal hisses, seeking bodies easier to inhabit.
    For the lesser beings this is simple, the ground is rich in corpses, but for the greater ones, Gamma was their only chance for a whole birth. Lacking the invention of the First and cowed by the Usurper’s power, they panic. Many squeeze into bodies that cannot hope to hold them. Chests split and burst and essence spills, sliding into a soup of animal energy, bubbling with regret and rage. This pool of essence is raw and unfocused, an unnatural force. Lacking a will of its own, the tainted river surges forth, carried along by the multitude,