A submission for Iron Age Media’s Prompt: The Posse
The millstones were abandoned, farms salted, and the Mayor’s blood was scattered across thin ribbons of discarded bone, and viscera.
“I told that man! I told him that trade would become a fool’s errand if he didn’t pay those rotten bastards past the hillside!” ranted Willis, the young sharpshooter.
“Cattle’s been taken, no more wheat or rice and we’re some weeks away from frost, you got any idea of the doom these people are going to face out here?!” asked Willis.
A far older, but nevertheless sharp man puffed on a cigar whilst he keep his ears open to Willis’ rambling, his eyes pried open, probing the road leading out of town.
“The bandit’s toll was getting worse and the Mayor knew that, you’re right.” Johnston said in agreement, his gaze still nosy, affixed to a road that bore many ill tidings.
“My badge isn’t for show. I told him not to play Sheriff. I knew these men woulda done this. If you dealt with them and played the political game, the locals’d be finishing harvest right about now.”
Willis regarded Johnston’s words with equal contempt as much as awe. Without the both of them, this small town sitting outside the limits of an old quarry would’ve been finished. Still, he did not trust one thing about Johnston’s shared ambition with him.
“Why help me? I know you have history with these criminals. They kicked you to the curb all those years ago?” asked Willis, likely prying too deep into the history of the haggard ex-con.
“It started with that Empire from the sun back south.” Johnston replied.
14 YEARS AGO…
With the plunge of a detonator, an entire pristine meadow was shoved underground, doomed to rot under nothing but coal, stone, and embers from the massive explosion.
Captives were marched from large prison colonies surrounding the new quarry into what they believed their potential new home, a bleak grey prison of stone that extended at least a few miles down beneath the surface, it was a menagerie of caverns that were exposed to the surface air by the Empire’s sophisticated blast charges, with its own history of secrets and urban legends at last laid bare. The “prison” was really an execution site, created by the mandate of an unholy union between the Empire that sat behind the sun, and the ferocious creatures that most believed to only be myth.
Every hundred men or so that were transported to the bleak confines of this deep hell hole via elevator would elicit an ambush from the Wizards beneath, and like cockroaches under the scrutiny of light, the prisoners all scattered throughout the network of caverns hoping desperately to escape the gnashing maw of wardens who knew not an apple apart from a skull. With the domineering fraternity up above, a return to the safe surface was impossible.
Pops, shivers, and the cracking of bones occurred over the next hour, but it was not through any sort of magic. The Wizards were an unapologetic bunch of blind cannibals, who were called “Wizards” because of their uncanny ability to wield sound and scent to pull off the impossible.
One man would hide cleverly in a dark and damp corner, believing that he had escaped death at the hands of a hungry beast, only to find and feel that his bone marrow was being suckled clean.
His friends were none the wiser.
Johnston was also a soon to be victim of this spine devouring torment, his fate tied to an inscrutable queue like all the other convicts until eventually, the Empire stopped managing the prisons.
Over the course of weeks or months, Prison guards showed up less often, before stopping altogether.
The resulting riots were unfiltered chaos. After the first few armories had their contents leaked to the general population, the “Wizards” were slaughtered by the dozens by angry men with leftover angst toward their frothing hunters, their already low population getting obliterated in a matter of days.
This unstoppable vengeance was led by none other than Johnston, who eventually brought this band of the vengeful to the nearest civilized location, which just so happened to be a town that was given the opposite mercy by the Empire, now forgotten, left to return behind the sun.
Whereas these men were prisoners, condemned to be eaten by inhuman mutants, this town was filled to the brim with men and women and their children with a future ahead of them.
“Find the biggest building and take it over.” Johnston advised.
And so for the next decade, the town was ruled by Johnston and his men, but something changed.
Eventually, Johnston had run afoul of the same men who he had fought with to take freedom by the lumpsum.
By their very words, he became “too civilized.” He did not break bread with the men the same way he used to.
PRESENT DAY
“And so the bandits left, hosting themselves beyond that hillside out of town like you said, but it was from there that their new gangster’s paradise taxed the town more and more. And over the next five years, we’re left with the present situation.” Johnston explained.
“You’re omitting one thing, Johnston.” Willis said, eyes locked on a loaded revolver filled with silver bullets.
“Why did I catch you talking with the bandits’ gruff leader out by the old quarry?”
Johnston froze, anger or disappointment with himself no doubt boiling underneath the surface. All it took was the predictable clicking of the revolver’s hammer being pulled back by an angry Willis, and whatever story he tried to tell evaporated.
“You think the town courier was just going to stick to his gimmick, ‘Don’t shoot the messenger’ type of guy, and not tell me about the communications between you and your old buddies?” Willis taunted.
“You’re in over your head, boy.” Johnston spat in defiance.
“The moment you used that little head of yours to think too deeply about the details, you killed yourself.”
As the air chilled with contempt between the two, Willis stripped the lying Johnston of his badge, his status of ‘sheriff’ no doubt being a farce.
“When I asked you ‘Why help me’? That was your test as to whether or not you Wizards did your research or not.”
Johnston’s cold grimace immediately turned into shock, his eyes practically shooting out of his head.
“How?!”
“That’s not the first time I asked Johnston ‘Why help me’. It’s a code that’s best answered ‘To help myself.’ Because he knew the truth about you Wizards, and had been trying to work with the townsfolk to prepare for you demons. When you told your story, you conveniently left out the other reason why the cannibals were called “Wizards”, it’s because they can shapeshift into the last thing they’ve eaten.”
The creature wearing a Johnston shaped skinsuit immediately turned pale, baring its fangs it lurched around, hoping to-
*BANG!*
The monster’s head smoldered for a brief period, before it turned to ash right on the spot.
“It was an entertaining story all the same, but the bandits had merged with the wizards and left this humble town to hide their mutating carcasses from the frightened people. Mark my words, your whole host of savages are going to burn. That’s how it’ll pan out if the Empire’s got anything to say about it.”
In the same motion as pocketing the deceased Johnston’s sheriff badge, Willis pulled out a pocket watch, emblazoned with a striking stylized image of a Sun.
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