Ashken remained in the carriage for many hours. He was not thinking of anything. He sat numbly on the seat that only a little while ago his father had occupied. His father who was now dead. His mind was empty. He thought he would be angry or sad. He was, just not as much as he thought he should be. Mostly, though, he was silent. He picked out details in the carriage, detailed he would never have seen if he had not spent hours staring at the walls, looking for anything that was not his thoughts. A wind picked up outside the carriage.

Moses opened the door to the carriage. His hands and arms with covered with dirt. He held out his arms with Tenos’s coat hanging over his arm.

“Your father wanted you to have this,” Moses said. He was all business now. There was no sadness or weariness in his voice. “Wear it.”

Ashken nodded and slipped the coat over his arms. The coat fit him well. Ashken was taller and broader than his father, and he had expected the coat to be too small. Like his father had told him, it was a special coat; another of the Moderns’ gifts to the Liebowitz. Too bad the gift could not save his father. He wondered whether it would do any better for him. He felt the weight of the coat on his shoulders. It was not heavy but it was there. It was heavier than his father’s arms had been the last time his father had touched him, only moments before he was stabbed.

“Come out of the carriage,” Moses said, holding the door open for Ashken. The top part of the door had fallen off its hinges and Moses held the door and lifted it up to give Ashken room to step out. We should get moving. We have a long walk ahead of us and it is already rather late. The Friar’s expected us there before nightfall. We should go and let them know what happened. The enclave’s counsel will have to be informed as well. Jeremiah will be able to do that.”

Ashken nodded again. He stepped out of the carriage. Moses had gathered their stuff from the back of the carriage and carried it on his back. Ashken looked over to where his father had been a few hours before, but there was no trace of him or the other man’s body. Near the carriage, Ashken saw the blood of the three men that Moses had cut down with his sword. He was not sure if the two men died or had ran away during the fight. Only three surprisingly equal-sized puddles of blood remained on the ground. Dawn was almost upon them, as the bottom of the sky began to brighten with the new day.

“Ashken, it’s all taken care of as I said it would be. We have to go. We’ll leave the carriage here. We will try to get it when we return.” Moses did not sound very convincing. Their horse was nowhere to be seen. Ashken did not ask where he went. From the nasty crash of the carriage, it was likely that the horse shared the face of most of the men on the field this day. Horses were difficult to come by in the enclave. Tenos had always been very proud that his family had a horse and carriage. He would, of course, have preferred one of the horseless carriage he always spoke about fondly from his childhood, but he might as well have wished that the Moderns still walked the earth.

Ashken followed Moses to the road. On the road, Joseph waited carrying a similar bundle on his back as Moses.

“What is he doing here,” Ashken asked when he saw him on the road. He stopped and held his father’s cane in front of him, readying himself to attack the giant.

“He wants to walk with us for a bit,” Moses replied as if it was normal that giants who stabbed people in the back would make good walking companions.

“He attacked you, Moses. He fought you and stopped you from protecting my father. And now he wants to walk with us? You don’t see the problem here? We should kill him. It is what father would have wanted. You did say that I would have to be making the decisions. Well, this one is easy for me. We kill the giant.”

Moses stared blankly at Ashken. “I didn’t realize your father taught you how to kill. I don’t think you even know what it means to kill someone.” The giant watched the discussion. He did not make a move toward either of them. He seemed disinterested in what they discussed, staring at his feet and facing away from Moses and Ashken.

“Joseph,” Moses called out to the giant. Joseph turned and walked toward them. Ashken had not really seen the giant up close. He had been near him when his father lay dying, but he had not realized how huge he really was. Even at some distance, the giant looked huge, as if he should be further away than he really was. He held the pole with the wicked blade easily over his shoulder. He stopped before Moses.

“Here is he, Ashken. Kill him.” The giant did not move. He stood in front of Moses with complete disinterest.

“If it makes the kid happy, I don’t mind,” the giant said.

Ashken looked from Moses to the giant and back. “I don’t understand,” Ashken said, clear that he would not be able to attack let alone kill the giant in front of him. “What is he doing here? He stabbed you. I felt your blood. Why is he standing here?”

“As I said, he had nothing better to do. The man I killed yesterday was his, well, his employer. He’s out of work and he wants to see how you do. Joseph is like me, he’s a guardian. It’s a long story, Ashken, but I trust him, and if I trust him, you should trust him. That’s how trust works, you know.”

Ashken looked wearily at the giant. His stomach still stuck out from under his shirt and for all of his tattered clothing he did not look dirty. Ashken did not know why he thought that, but since he thought it he looked closer and saw that he was clean. Cleaner than he had a right to be.

“What was his name?” Ashken asked the giant.

“His name?”

“The man who killed me father,” Ashken said.

“Hiro Donaldson,” the giant said. “The Donaldson’s were once a great family. Ever since his father died, we have been wandering the lands and picking up jobs. Hiro figured himself a gang leader. He was always short on cash, and that’s why we took these jobs, that’s why we took this job.”

“He killed my father because he was paid? Who paid him? Why did you follow him if you knew what he was doing was wrong?”

The giant laughed at Ashken. Ashken felt the anger build in him again. He had tasted hatred earlier, and he enjoyed its bitter taste on his tongue. He pulled the cane back behind his ear readying it to strike. His vision cleared and he realized how ridiculous he must look. Even if he swung at the giant, he knew he could not hurt him. He had seen the giant move, he had seen the giant best Moses. For all his size and for all his demeanor, he would crush Ashken before he finished his swing.

“I followed him for the same reason Moses followed your father, and Moses follows you now. It’s what we do.”

Moses began walking down the road. “We need to go.” Joseph shrugged at Ashken and followed Moses down the path. Ashken watched them walk away before starting after them. He kept his distance along the dirt path. He was tired, more tired than he ever remembered being. But he kept walking, kept moving, focusing on the giant’s huge back.

They arrived at the Friar’s house late in the morning. The day had started clear but a light drizzle had begun when they were still halfway from the house. Moses and Joseph had kept a fast paced and Ashken had fell further back. Even as he slowed more and more as he walked, he never lost sight of Moses and Joseph. Ashken figured it was not his will to keep them in view, but, instead, their desire to keep him in view. The enclave had changed over the years, but the roads were not dangerous. At least, they had not been dangerous until his confrontation with Hiro and Joseph.

The Friar’s were waiting outside for Ashken. Moses and Joseph had arrived fifteen minutes ahead of Ashken. As he got closer, he slowed down, less anxious to see the Friar’s. Jeremiah and his daughter Jessica were outside. He did not see Samantha, Jessica’s mother. They waited by the door to their wooden house. The house was nicer than Ashken had expected. He had not visited since they had moved out of their Moderns’ house into a much smaller and quainter house. He had expected a poorly constructed log cabin, like many of the houses that had popped up to replace the Moderns’ houses in his neighborhood. The Friar’s house, however, was well constructed and seemed sturdy and well designed.

Jeremiah grabbed Ashken when he arrived in a large hug. Ashken let Jeremiah hold him, but kept his arms at his side, afraid that if he returned the hug he would break down. He was tired but he did not want to sleep. He was afraid of what he would see when he closed his eyes. Jessica stood a bit away from Ashken and her father. She wore a white dress belted around her wasted with a sagging red sash. She wore white sandals and stood near the doorway. The ground around the house was made of a white sand-like material. It looked dusty. Ashken looked behind Jessica and did not see the Friar’s original house. It must have broken down already. The Moderns’ houses did not last long once they started to fall apart. And once they were abandoned, they usually vanished only a month later.

Samantha appeared at the door. “Come inside, Ashken. I have some tea up for you. I also made up the guest room. You need rest, food, and sleep. We’ll get you those.” Samantha did not wait for a response. She made a motion at her husband and he led Ashken into the house. Ashken stopped to take off his shoes, but realized that the Friar’s were still wearing their shoes. The wooden house’s floor was not finished like their old house. Unfinished wood beams made a rudimentary and uneven floor. However well the house looked on the outside, the inside was archaic. Ashken left his shoes on and allowed Jeremiah to lead him into the kitchen.

Ashken found Moses and Joseph sitting at a large metal table. Ashken recognized the table, which had been taken from the house. Looking around he noticed that the Friar’s had taken much of the furniture from their old house as well. For some reason, it made Ashken feel better to know that the Friar’s had not completely abandoned the Moderns’ machines.

Ashken took an empty seat at the table on the opposite end from Joseph. Jessica brought him a steaming mug of tea and he leaned his face over it. The warming steam made him realize how cold it had been outside during his long walk. He did not drink the tea, only hovered over it. The Friar’s put out food on the table, and Moses and Joseph helped themselves. They drank the tea and ate the biscuits and cheese. Everyone was quiet. The Friar’s hovered around the table anxiously, but did not sit or talk.

Ashken broke the silence.

Word count: 2,003

Words remaining: 32,631 (words so far: 17,369)

Thoughts: This is going to be a long night of writing. After yesterday’s deathfest, I’m fresh out of ideas and places to go. That’s not completely true. I do know where the characters will go, I just don’t want to take them there. Surprise, surprise. I need to think of something clever to get this moving again. I thought a game of Freecell would help. It didn’t. Don’t believe those little voices in your head. They’re usually trying to lead you astray. At least I can write filling. Today was about filling. I was hoping for the creamy filling. I settled for stale and stifling. Terrible, terrible, terrible! The misery, the pain and horror and all sorts of dark and nasty thoughts. I take deep breaths and try to push over one thousand. Just a hundreds words at a time, just another hundred and you’ll be done soon. Really. Can this story move any slower? Can nothing happen for this many words before my computer explodes? Stay tuned until tomorrow to find out. I need an outline of scenes. I need to know where this is going, what I’m going to spend my time on. If I have to spend my writing days like this much more, this will be an impossible month. Much consternation today. Much wasted consternation, I should say. Much resist sticking my finger down my throat. Must. Resist.