The Tale of August Hayling Read online

  “What drives you, August?”

  “Dunno what you mean.”

  “What makes your heart beat? It is not fighting, fortune, or family. You do not appear to seek glory, and I do not believe you have trothed your loyalty to anyone. Why go on?”

  August stroked his beard as he thought. It was an odd question, but George was a very odd stick. Finally August twitched his wide shoulders. “I get out of bed in the morning ’cause I gotta piss, and once I’m up, I reckon I oughtta do something with the day. Besides, I seen dead folks, and it seems to me that being alive’s a right smart more interesting.”

  George chuckled. “You are quite correct about that.” He stood and brushed the dirt from his trouser legs. “Let us resume.”

  They kept on walking, the ground rising higher and the trail becoming less well traveled, until night stole the sunlight from them. George sat on a fallen log like a prince on his throne while August made a fire and cooked up some dinner. They ate in silence, but George got talkative over coffee. He spun tales that August didn’t understand about places he’d never heard of. A lot of them were about battles, and the stories were exciting to listen to. But some of George’s yarns centered on a grudge he carried against a former boss who’d done him wrong.

  Eventually August spread out their bedrolls and buried the coals. He climbed beneath his blankets, listening to the clink and jangle as George unfastened his sword, then the mighty sigh when George took to his own bed.

  “How about you, George?” August asked. Quietly, because the hush of the night called for low voices. “What sends you here? You look flush enough already, so I doubt it’s just for the gold.”

  A long time passed before George answered. “I came to settle an old dispute. I believed I had resolved it long ago, but sometimes a man’s destiny is to repeat things.”

  “This have something to do with that Diocletian fellow you used to work for?”

  “No, not him. I am pleased to say that particular unpleasantness was corrected long ago, and very much in my favor. A different matter brings me here. You would not understand.”

  August was a simple man—he knew that—but he didn’t much cotton to folks who liked to remind him they were more highfalutin than him. Just because he came from so much nothing that he was named after the month and place the farmer found him didn’t mean he was worth nothing. And just because he was big didn’t mean he was beef-headed or worthless between the ears. But he reckoned he couldn’t out-argue George with his high-class accent and fancy words, so August didn’t even try. He just pulled the blankets tight and listened to the distant call of an owl.

  They stepped along briskly the next day, neither of them speaking beyond the minimum. August admired the vistas that appeared occasionally, and he petted the rough bark of trees and the soft tufts of moss as he passed them. He watched puffy clouds scud overhead. He laughed when a squirrel chattered angrily at them. If George enjoyed any of their journey, he didn’t show it. He simply walked on with his pretty mouth set in a thin line and his hand sometimes wandering toward the hilt of his sword.

  Almost an hour before the sun set, as they passed through a small meadow, George halted August with an upraised hand. “We shall sleep here.”

  “But we’re almost there, according to your map. I reckon we can make it before dark.”

  “Perhaps. But I wish to reach our destination when we are fresh and rested.”

  That made no sense to August, but he was already used to that with George. Anyway, the grassy spot looked like a good enough place to bed down. He’d be able to gaze at the stars while he lay on his back. He enjoyed that. On warm summer evenings, he’d often set up his bed outside his hut just so he could look up and fall into the sky.

  George seemed tense as they ate. No stories tonight. Then he sat close to the fire, sharpening his blade. “Is your weapon loaded?” he asked at one point.

  “Yeah.” It always was—an empty canister didn’t do a man much good.

  In their bedrolls, George got talkative again. He spoke of his parents. His father had been an army officer, and his mother came from money. They died before he was full-grown. He talked about his travels and how he’d been searching an incredibly long time for what awaited them in the morning. “I should have brought a lance instead,” he muttered.

  “A what?”

  “A spear.”

  August considered. “Well, I reckon a spear might be handier than a sword, leastways if you’ve got good aim. If you ain’t, well, once you throw it, you’re a goner.”

  “I have excellent aim. And I do not throw my lance, I strike with it.”

  “A sword’s easier to carry on the trail, especially if you ain’t got a horse. Course, a six-shooter’s easier yet. Mine sits real nice at my hip.”

  A short silence ensued, and August assumed George had gone to sleep. But then George cleared his throat. “Do you have religion?”

  “Naw. Preacher tried when I was a boy, but it didn’t take. You?”

  “I was once devout enough to die for it.”

  “Not no more?”

  “As time passes, one alters one’s views. Priorities… shift. Now I do not know whether I have forsaken my god or he has forsaken me.”

  “Hmm.” August shifted slightly, trying to avoid a lump in the ground beneath him. “I ain’t no preacher. But I always reckoned I’d try for a tolerable world now, and whatever comes after I go belly-up, well, I’ll worry about it then. Maybe nothing happens except for fertilizing the bone orchard, or maybe someone’ll hand me a robe and a harp. Maybe I’ll get to tussle with old Scratch himself.”

  “What if none of those things come to pass?” George asked, all his confidence missing. “What if you find yourself captured in an endless quest?”

  August scratched his ear. “You mean… like a ghost?”

  “Something akin to that.”

  “Dunno. Never been questing in my lifetime. Don’t reckon I’m the type. But anytime my life’s been up the spout, I try an’ do things different. I’d do it as a ghost too. If my questing wasn’t working, I’d try it a new way.”

  “I cannot find a new way,” George whispered. And after that he said nothing at all.

  The morning sun was, in August’s esteem, crisp as a ripe apple and showing the autumn foliage in all its gaudy glory. He stretched the kinks from his body before rolling up his bedding. “Want me to brew some coffee?” he asked George, who was back to checking the honed edge of his sword blade.

  “No. No breakfast either. I want to proceed.”

  August didn’t much take to beginning the day on an empty belly. He dunked hardtack in a tin cup of water and chewed unhappily. “If there’s gold, it ain’t going anywhere.”

  George snapped his gaze up to scowl at him. “I have been waiting for today for years,” he barked.

  Unlikely. Gold had been discovered in these parts only two years earlier. Maybe it had just felt like years. August rarely had trouble passing the time. Even when he was idle, he’d simply watch the many wonders of the world around him. But he knew folks who could make a minute stretch for a mile with their impatient ways.

  He soon had their little camp packed up, and then he followed George down what looked like a deer path between boulders and bushes. Looking up, August noticed that many of the nearby trees had scorched branches. Lightning strikes, perhaps, but there were a dreadful lot of them. Then the terrain grew rockier, and they had to scramble over gravel and stones. Keeping their footing became difficult due to the slope.

  “Quiet!” George hissed when August’s boots sent a shower of grit and pebbles skittering down the hillside.

  “Are you afraid of scaring the gold away?” asked August, who was certain by now that no gold existed.

  “I would prefer not to forewarn him of our arrival.”

  “Him?” August demanded. But George didn’t answer.

  A moment later they descended a steep incline, then rounded a towering granite outcrop. A flat
expanse stretched in front of them, perhaps fifteen paces long backed by a sheer crag with a small opening at its base. But far more shocking than the cave was what—or rather, who—stood in front of it. The man wore nothing but a pair of ankle-length drawers, the top button still unfastened as if he’d dressed in a hurry. He was quite obviously unarmed. His body was long, lean, and hairless, with skin deeply tanned by birth or by the sun, and a large, ugly scar over his heart. He had a triangular face, more interesting than handsome, and a thick shock of black hair. He held his hands at his sides, palms open, and looked at George with despair.

  “No, Georgios,” he pleaded. “Not again.” His accent was similar to George’s, although August couldn’t tell if they hailed from the same place.

  George shrugged his coat and pack onto the ground, drew his sword, and stepped closer to the half-naked fellow. “Shoot him if he tries to get away,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at August. Then he raised the sword slightly and addressed the other man. “I knew I would find you near the gold, Sarkany.”

  Sarkany clenched his jaw. “It was your men who stole my gold, then.”

  “I employed men to search for you. They were to bring back a small sample of your treasure as proof of finding you. If they took more than that, it was their own decision.”

  “You can have all my gold if you want it. Please, we need not do this again. Just leave me. I am harming no one here.”

  “I ain’t gonna help you be a thief,” August called out. George didn’t turn to look at him, but Sarkany shifted his gaze. That was when August recognized him. He’d seen him once in the Broken Wheel, sitting alone near the edge of the room, the brim of his hat pulled low to obscure most of his face. The other patrons had paid him little mind, but August noticed him because he was alone and sat so still. Just once the man had lifted his head to meet August’s gaze—only for a second—and August had seen his eyes. They were as gold as any pure ingot, with vertical slits for pupils, like a cat’s. He must have seen August’s astonishment that day, because the man had lurched from his chair and sped out of the saloon.

  “I ain’t gonna steal from this man,” August said to George in his best booming voice.

  But still George didn’t turn around. “This is not a man. It is a monster that cloaks itself in the guise of humanity.”

  “I was a man long ago,” Sarkany said quietly. “As were you.”

  “Change your form so that we may do this properly.”

  “No.”

  Although he had no intention of shooting anyone unless it was necessary, August dropped his pack and unholstered his gun, keeping it uncocked at his side. And he listened, because although the quarrel between these two was confusing and didn’t seem to have much to do with him, it was nonetheless fascinating.

  George moved closer to Sarkany but didn’t lower his voice, as if he were speaking to a large audience instead of one bare-chested man. “Change yourself so we may engage!”

  “No. We have done this so many times already, and—”

  “And last time I chased you all over Portugal before I slew you. This time Mr. Hayling will ensure that you remain here to fight.”

  Sarkany dropped his head for a moment before looking back up at George. “Then kill me now,” he said. He fell to his knees and spread his arms. His strange eyes glittered with tears.

  “Fight me properly!”

  “I am weary of our game. Slay me and have it over with. But you know that soon enough we shall be forced to play yet again.”

  August couldn’t see George’s face, but he noticed that his sword arm shook a bit. And when George spoke again, he sounded much less certain of himself. “This is not how it is meant to be done.”

  Sarkany said nothing. His disfigured chest heaved, however, and tears tracked down his cheeks.

  “Perhaps,” George said thoughtfully, “slaying you like this will be the different thing? The thing that breaks the cycle?” He walked within reach of Sarkany and drew back his sword.

  August raised his gun and fired.

  Not into George’s torso, because August didn’t want to do in the fellow, not if he could help it. He aimed for the sword hilt, and if he ended up hitting George’s hand while he was at it, well, he was a crack shot, but he wasn’t perfect.

  The sword went flying, and George shrieked and clutched his hand, which was spouting blood. Sarkany knelt, gaping and splattered with George’s gore. August holstered his pistol and ran closer, hoping he hadn’t made a huge mistake.

  When August reached them, Sarkany scrambled away as George wheeled on August. “What have you done?” he yelled.

  “Ain’t just gonna let you slaughter an unarmed man. Now, let me see how bad I winged you.”

  At first August thought George was going to refuse, but after a moment George slumped slightly and allowed August to gently take his wrist. “God damn it,” August swore when he saw the damage. He’d gotten rid of the sword all right—and two and a half of George’s fingers with it. A gaping hole passed right through the center of George’s palm. “Shit.”

  George was starting to look a mite light-headed, so August helped him sit, then took off his own shirt and wadded it around the injured hand to stanch the bleeding. He looked over at Sarkany, who watched with wide eyes. “I’m guessing you ain’t no pill sharp,” August said.

  “Wh-what?”

  “A doctor.”

  Sarkany shook his head. “Not at all.”

  August sighed. He’d dealt with his own hurts now and then and seen medicos do their work. That was going to have to be enough training. “You got needle and thread? Water? Something to use as bandages? And whiskey or some kinda gut warmer?”

  He wasn’t sure that Sarkany would respond, seeing as how August was tending to the man who’d been just about to skewer him. But Sarkany gave a brief nod and disappeared into the cave.

  “I am supposed to slay him,” George said. He looked powerful lost.

  “Why? He don’t look like such a hard case to me.”

  “It is our destiny and has been for… a very long time. I find him and we battle and I slay him.”

  “Well,” August said, “I doubt you’ll be doing much slaying for a while. Lost your trigger finger.”

  George looked down at his fabric-wrapped hand and groaned. Sarkany came out of the cave carrying a pile of things, and George leaned away as he neared.

  “I will not harm you, Georgios,” Sarkany said.

  “That is a lie.”

  “After all these centuries, I have no falsehoods remaining to me.”

  “Ha!” George scoffed, then grunted as August began to peel away the bloody shirt. “Then why not show this man your true self? Show him what he has saved.”

  Sarkany’s eyes glowed as if they had fires within them, and he opened his mouth to say something. But August shook his head. “Whatever you’re planning, let it wait. I put George in a bad box here, and I need to see to him first.”

  Sarkany watched while August doctored George. August’s work was clumsy, but the bleeding finally stopped, and George drank enough of what looked to be very good whiskey that his eyes drooped closed and his body slumped bonelessly against the ground. August examined his clumsy stitches when he was finished. “I reckon he’ll live,” he said.

  “He would have anyway had you not acted. But I would have died.”

  “Yeah. You know, old George here, he’s right full of himself. But he don’t strike me as a cold-blooded murderer. What did you do to make him so wrathy?”

  Sarkany looked at him for a minute, unblinking. A funny tickle started in August’s belly—not simply the result of Sarkany’s strange pupils—and although he felt a little like a mouse set in front of a cat, he wasn’t tempted to move away. Especially not when Sarkany’s eyes widened a bit and his mouth opened slightly. Then Sarkany swallowed loudly. “Do you wish to see what I am?”

  “Monster,” George slurred, then muttered something in a language August didn’t recognize. />
  “I wouldn’t mind,” August said, ignoring George for a change.

  With a nod, Sarkany stood and took several steps back. He undid the two remaining buttons on his drawers and skinned them off. That was interesting, because his ass was beautifully firm and round and he had no hair anywhere but his head. But then he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, and his body shimmered like a dry road on a hot summer afternoon. His skin flushed as green as spring grass but shiny like silk and textured with large overlapping scales. He fell but caught himself on arms that had changed to forelegs as his back legs shifted shape and angle. A long tail sprouted from his hind end—tipped with a wicked-looking point—and black leathery wings sprouted from his back. They unfurled, beating slightly at the air. Sarkany’s head altered too. His hair disappeared, he grew a long muzzle, and when he opened his mouth, August saw rows of frighteningly sharp teeth. Sarkany’s long, forked tongue flicked out, in, out, in. His eyes remained the same as always, though—golden and, August thought, sad.

  August had seen a heap of surprising things before, but nothing had ever rooted him in place like this. He wasn’t frightened, though, not even when Sarkany turned his sinuous neck away and exhaled a ball of flame.

  “Keep your weapon at hand,” George warned muzzily.

  It seemed clear that Sarkany could kill August easily. He could roast him like salt pork in a bonfire, puncture him with those razor teeth, or rip him to shreds with his enormous claws. August wasn’t certain where to aim on such a snaky body if he intended to kill, and he suspected that one bullet wouldn’t do the job. But still he wasn’t afraid.

  “That’s the most goddamn beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” August whispered.

  Sarkany shimmered again, and just like that, he returned to human form. “You think me beautiful?” he asked, voice raspy.

  “Like jewels. Like someone mixed a hummingbird with a grizzly.” August felt the same about the beauty of Sarkany as a dragon and the beauty of the sun crowning the peaks of the Sierras.