A faint, rumbling chuckle, like the thunder of feet marching, before the being responded again, peering over its steepled fingers at the wary pumpkinhead.

“THE POWER OVER DEATH, AND WITH A HINT OF WARRIOR’S BLOOD, COULD YOU BE A GOD OF WAR AS WELL?”

He had no rejoinder for this. How could he, when this bizarre, bloodthirsty being was essentially likening him to itself? A god of death? A god of war? No, no surely not…

But if he wasn’t, then what had happened back there, when the calf had been killed?

“ANSWER!” The god’s voice boomed, the sharp bite of sound almost making the world vibrate under the rider’s feet. Even though he was still floundering to keep up, he tried to form at least some response. Something that hopefully wouldn’t get his throat cut next.

“I-I don’t know wh-who I am, or why I w-would have, I-I’m not— I am a Horseman,” the rider answered, somehow feeling some rightness, some centering to himself with the utterance of the word. He was a Horseman. But the god was not mollified in the least, and continued to study him.

“A HORSEMAN, A MERE CARETAKER OF ANIMALS? AND YET YOU HAVE WEAPONS.” At the rather smug observation, the Horseman’s hands went to his saber, his fingers also brushing over his pistol. He’d never really known where they’d come from. They’d always been with him, his being shuddering at the notion of removing them even for a moment.

But they were weapons. Weapons of war. He lifted his hands, looking at the grayed leather that was cloyed heavily with dust and ash. It had been one of the first thing that someone had said to him when he’d arrived, at least one of the first things that he’d understood, that he smelled like a spent bonfire.

Ash and dust…

“SO, HORSEMAN…” The god rumbled, the rider tearing his pumpkinhead away from his contemplation to look back up at the molten, enigmatic figure. He couldn’t help a quick jolt when he saw the god stepping down from the dais, though he ended up going completely still as the reddish hands laid themselves down on his shoulder and the crown of his gourd. A light emanated from them into the Horseman’s frame as the god continued to speak.

“…FOR WHEN YOU ACKNOWLEDGE YOUR HERITAGE, I HAVE A BOON FOR YOU. MAY YOUR WEAPONS ALWAYS FIND THEIR MARK, MAY YOU ALWAYS BE WHERE YOU ARE NEEDED, AND, MOST IMPORTANT…”

The being leaned down to look the Horseman in the eye, a grin wreathed in red light playing across the molten face as it finished the apparent blessing.

“…MAY YOU ALWAYS THRIVE IN BATTLE, YOUNG GOD OF DEATH AND WAR. YOUNG HORSEMAN.”

And, with that, the burning figure started to crackle at the edges. As the being faded into a smoldering red light, the Horseman’s body finally unstuck from its freeze to look around at the people gathered.

Not a one of them was smiling, but he didn’t like the look of awe in their faces, and when the well-dressed few in the front started to kneel he immediately went with the first instinct knocking about in his pumpkin head:

Run, run as far away as I can.

There was an outcry as he practically flung himself off the stage, his momentum carrying him all the way to just shy of the exit before the now feverishly reverent worshippers surrounded him. They all spoke and gestured, their faces moon-like and beaming, a thousand different lights all trapping him with their gaze. The Horseman found his path to the exit blocked, the people feverish in their attempts to reach for him, to touch some part of this stranger that had apparently received some blessing from their god.

Or was a god himself…

Before he could really think, his saber was out of its sheath and in his hand, slashing at the nearest smattering of people and sending them stumbling back. He knew straight away that he had struck no one, given the lack of resistance against his swing. But still, a faintly blue, unearthly glow came off the blade, coupled with a rumbling in his malformed throat as he fought to speak.

“FOR GOD’S SAKE, LEAVE ME BE!” His voice echoed off the walls, the sheer grating snap to it enough to draw them back but he hadn’t managed to stop his trembling. Not until he was crossing the threshold, running out of the temple, and back on his horse.

***

It was evening when he returned to the inn, but the Horseman still departed nary a half an hour later as the sky darkened with purple hues. The farther he went, the more the rustic and unfamiliar city fell to small houses and farms, before surrendering entirely to forest.

He kept riding, the god’s words following him like pounding drumbeats, like the rhythm of the horse’s hooves as they cut into the dirt.

May you always be where you are needed.

The trees and undergrowth slid by in a slow haze the farther the odd pair traveled, his eyes absently scanning the forest around them as they went. The vegetation deadened the sound of hooves as the horse and rider made their way through the undergrowth. Retrospectively, the Horseman knew they would stand out against the vibrant greens and browns of the vegetation around them making hiding pointless, but something in the back of his mind niggled at him, saying that he had to at least try to keep a careful tally of what was around them.

Or who might be trying to sneak up on them…

Almost as though the thought was a shared one, the jet-black horse underneath the rider kept even the softer steps careful and deliberate, the clopping of the equine’s hooves almost lost in the ambiance of the forest. Staring through the eyeholes of his dusty gray pumpkin, the lone Horseman tried to both keep an eye on the not-so-well-traveled path ahead and banish the somewhat intrusive idea that he and his mount were not alone in these woods. Gloved hands clenched involuntarily at the reins, leather creaking as though he could somehow wrangle his nerves through sheer force of will.

He was not as successful as he liked, the atmosphere not quite helping to contribute. The wind whistled a somewhat mournful tune through the trees, the feel of it almost frustrated by the cloying closeness of the forest. The sky overhead was an ominous gray, the threat of rain heavy in the air, the animals mostly hidden away by either the threat of the weather, or something else…

Gloved hands clenched again, whatever remained of his body tensing under the breeches, shirt, and coat grayed with dust and ash. This…this was supposed to help, wasn’t it? He had nowhere to go, so what better to do than wander? But, if this uncertainty and wrongness was all that greeted his mind at every turn, then he might as well have stayed in Patiti.

He was still nameless, apart from a title that seemed more like a joke oftentimes, and nothing but his sword, axe, pistol, and some odds and ends. Which, frustratingly enough, he didn’t want to get rid of despite the fact that he had no ammunition for the pistol and the axe and sword probably needed some maintenance at this point, they were just as cloyed with ash as he was. Taking the locket out of his breast pocket, he considered it for an instant before trying to open it again.

Still stuck, like it had been fused together. But these were supposed to open, right?

Even as the Horseman thought, the dark horse’s somewhat meandering path had brought them to the edge of the forest. Unfettered by the trees, the wind seemed to pick up, the branches overhead creaking in its energy. While the pumpkin-headed rider had been certain of the fact that there were no vestiges of civilization for miles, the sight of the trees beginning to thin made him quietly raise the reigns to usher both himself and his steed back to the relative shelter of the trees.

At least, he almost did. Until a sound that shattered the tense quiet broke through from beyond the woods, echoing like some wild animal’s cry. Sitting bolt upright in the saddle, his hands clenched tightly on the rein, eyes caught somewhere between trying to peer out between the trees and green fields, trees ringing the edges—

Another round, the booming sound both amplified and reverberating off the greenery, making the explosive cacophony louder than it probably actually was. It didn’t necessarily seem any closer, but the sheer suddenness of the noise coupled with the feeling of I know this I know this I know this drove him to the edge of the clearing, and straight into a scene that felt as though it were ripped from some shadowy corner of his memory.

Rows of mismatched figures clashed with each other in the taller grass of the field, various shouts and cries sounding off from where they met. There was the horrible crash of metal against metal.

—cutting into skin and bone, red splattering onto green and brown—

 The crack of gunpowder…

—shooting pain from metal shards and shrapnel—

His stupor at the sudden roar of noise was shattered by the thunder of something, something large, firing from one end of the battlefield. Underneath it all, the wind roared its own deadly song, the air heavy with the promise of violent change both manmade and natural.

He balked, feeling the tensed muscles of the jet-black horse under him as the mount decided that this was a bit too much, stepping back towards the safety of the trees. The Horseman might have agreed, if he hadn’t heard the sound of a scream coming from the opposite end of the battlefield, where the booming weapon’s projectile had landed.

May you always be where you are needed.

The turn his pumpkin-topped head made back towards the fray seemed to happen at half speed, the thunder of the weapons growing slow and distant as he felt more than saw the cause of the shriek. A shadowy figure had fallen behind the main line, body writhing in its death throes from whatever injury the blast had inflicted.

How he had known that the particular struggle for life was to be a fruitless one, the Horseman later found that he didn’t have an answer. It wasn’t considered otherwise at the moment. Instead, he and his mount wheeled towards the chaos as one mind, thundering hooves easily clearing the various debris from weapon and body alike, making their way with sudden assuredness to the downed warrior whose flopping had stilled to mere twitches.

The closer he came, the Horseman could see from his vantage point that whatever the weapon, it had taken the warrior’s leg clean off. He did not remember getting down off his horse, but suddenly he was kneeling in the dirt next to the unfortunate warrior, the other’s eyes fluttering and sightless as they tried to stay open. The warrior appeared to be a man, at least, but despite the human appearance of tanned skin dappled with dark, tattoo marks littering the bloody and battered body, the Horseman could not help but remain where he was.

It almost reminded him of another time, of another place, the Horseman’s awareness dropping from the battlefield into another plane, where the fighting, and even the rest of the world itself fell away to this one little point of grass and dirt. His memory almost worked in sync with the present, timing the exact blinks as they grew further and further apart, as it took longer and longer for the warrior’s eyes to open, until they finally drifted closed for the last time.

Not that the experience was over, for even though all life in the body in front of him had ebbed away the Horseman could see faint flickers of misty color beginning to waver into existence just above the warrior’s body. Somehow, despite the fact that he had not really seen anything like it before, he was not afraid, or even confused. Moving on autopilot, he reached out with greyed leather gloves to cup the seeming center of the mass, feeling something warm soak through his hands as a gentle hum filled the air.

Whatever lay under his gloves seemed invigorated by the mere presence of the…thing, the feeling of energy racing up his arms as though he held lightning itself in his hands. And almost as though in answer to the thought, the sky overhead let loose with a rumble of thunder, the faint flashes of lightning visible from the underside of the clouds as the wind itself stirred the sky to a frenzy. For a moment, the Horseman felt as though he was the one that held the lightning, called the thunder to them, like something in his very soul sang out to the noise and cacophony of both nature and the battle itself, moving like a live thing up the field to the other end.

Then there was another sound, a boom that knocked him from his seeming perch on the infinite, sent him hurtling back down to the battlefield like a hawk with his wings clipped. He was shaking, nerveless, because with the sound came the memory of something else, something that terrified him worse than anything else could.

Not to mention, he saw what was making it. The thing was long, bulky, metallic, and despite some differences in design was so much like the one he was familiar with that he couldn’t help the memory becoming imposed over it as he tried to process what he was seeing.

A cannon.

—it’s going to fire—

It would fire, and he couldn’t move, the mass was still coming from the warrior, he couldn’t leave it behind—

—can’t get out of the way in time—

 Another boom, he could see the projectile this time, and he knew—

—black ball rapidly filling his vision right before—

 He didn’t want to see it this time, he flinched away and closed his eyes, back pressed to the wall of black fur and muscle. He tried to send the steed away but the mount wouldn’t go as much as the Horseman would not abandon his post—

CRACK-BOOM

He didn’t scream, but if he had a working heart anywhere in his body he was sure that the sound coming from right in front of him would have made it stop beating. His head was still firmly attached to his shoulders, maybe the shot had gone wide?