They rode on, Bedeckt staying in the saddle through sheer force of will.
When the sun fell toward the horizon, Bedeckt raised his head, looking about in confusion. He only closed his eyes for a moment and the day died. Zukunft rode ahead, his own horse following hers without guidance. Thankfully her clothes were dry and hung loose.
“Camp,” said Bedeckt, voice a dusty croak. “Ale.”
“We only have water,” said Zukunft, reining her horse to a stop.
“Shite,” said Bedeckt as Arsehole stopped of his own accord.
He sat watching as Zukunft slid from the saddle with unconscious grace. She stood, rubbing her arse.
“I think I’d rather walk. My backside will never be the same.” She turned as if displaying it. “Has it changed shape? Is it flat now?”
What happened to ‘men are swine?’ “A few more days in the saddle and it’ll get easier.”
“A few more days and I’ll be permanently bow-legged.” She giggled. “Though that might be useful, eh?”
Bedeckt ignored the question, looked at everything but her.
“Are you going to stay on the horse all night?” she asked.
When he slid from the saddle his knees buckled, dropping him to the hard earth. Arsehole stepped away daintily, as if disgusted by the show of weakness. Bedeckt couldn’t blame him.
“Stay there,” said Zukunft. “I’ll make the camp around you.”
One moment cold and angry, the next mothering and caring. Was this a manifestation of her insanity, or a woman thing? So many times he’d wondered whether there was a sane woman on all the earth. He remembered mentioning it to a favourite whore. She laughed, said women wondered the same about men.
Zukunft set up the camp around Bedeckt, helping him onto a blanket and joking about him copping a feel while she did. Bedeckt remained quiet, grinding his teeth against the pain in his side. He felt hot, his face flushed and sweating even though the sun was setting and the air cool.
Zukunft gathered kindling and felled branches for a fire and Bedeckt showed her how to light it with a flint and tinder. She learned quickly, taking pride in her accomplishment. For once, Bedeckt stilled the sarcastic chiding that bubbled up demanding release. It was a good skill, a useful skill. She earned her pride and shitting on it was the action of a small man.
With the fire lit, she dug a meal of dried meat and hard bread from her saddle bags and shared it out, asking if he needed her to chew it for him first seeing as he had so few teeth. He feigned anger and she laughed, seemingly comfortable and at ease. She sat next to him, close, but not so close as to touch him. After removing her boots, she stretched her legs out and wriggled her toes at the fire, sighing at the warmth.
“Gods,” said Bedeckt. “The stench of your feet could kill a bull moose from a thousand paces.”
Zukunft swatted his shoulder. “Arse. Anyway, I’m surprised you can smell anything over your own stink. When was the last time you bathed?”
“It was before I was killed,” said Bedeckt.
“Well you smell like you’ve been dead for weeks.”
They fell quiet then, Bedeckt aware of the heat pulsing through the wound in his gut, Zukunft staring into the fire with haunted eyes.
“Your plan,” she said.
“What about it?”
“Back in the Afterdeath I told you I could show you how to…to get what you want.”
“You were lying?”
“No.” she showed her teeth to the fire in a grimace. “You’ll get it. But—”
“That’s all I ask.”
“You said the plan was for me to use my mirror to see the future so we can be one step ahead of everyone until…until she shows you.”
Close enough. There had been no mention of the sister until after they escaped the Afterdeath. “Right.”
“You haven’t asked me to look in the mirror.”
I don’t need your damned mirror. I know what’s going to happen: I’m going to die. “I no longer trust your mirror.”
“Well I do.” Zukunft dragged her saddle bag closer and retrieved her mirror. After unwrapping it, she stared into its surface, eyes darting as they followed whatever they saw. When she finally blinked tears fell, cutting tracks through the road dust caking her face.
“She used to show me so many futures,” Zukunft said. “She showed me a thousand possibilities and how to arrive at each.”
“And now?”
“I see no possibilities. I see one future, one end.”
“Throw it away,” said Bedeckt. “I’ll shatter it for you.”
“There’s a farmhouse,” she said, still staring into the mirror. “I see nothing beyond the farmhouse. It ends there.”
“It doesn’t have to. The mirror ever—”
“It does.” She wiped at her tears, smearing her cheeks. “I think I die.”
“You think?”