Page 90 of Condemned

Chapter Thirty-Four

J’kai watched the departureof the cavalry as they passed below on a road circling this knoll, while the bots went elsewhere. She stayed where she was, hidden in the empty animal burrow behind a veil of branches and green leaves. It was cool here. Besides, the priests were standing in her way.

Mission accomplished, however. She smiled. Smiling was now her favorite expression, ever since she met Raiden. Ex-lawman, now an artist. He intended to travel in a small florse-drawn caravan, discovering new places of inspiration for his paintings and sculptures.

The girl’s uncle was dead, a suicide everyone supposed, from the evidence she’d left. His legacy of deep, dark secrets that he’d kept locked in a vault, she’d disposed of carefully, efficiently, like a barrage of poison darts.

The world was a little safer minus a man like him, though she knew others would rise to take his place, same as the foam on a fresh brew of rotbone toxin.

She’d been honest with Raiden, which had startled the mauleon—finding an assassin in his bed—but surprise had become curiosity then admiration, in that she’d decided to do something worthwhile and cease to practice her profession.

Honesty had felt wonderful, and she’d been mirroring Avalon’s honesty. She’d learned a lot from her.

The priests lined up on this same hillside, a breath away, a whisper away. They were oblivious to J’kai’s presence and their conversation was informative.

“There they go. The prophecy embodied, just as High Priest Nostrodamm predicted,” a bald-headed male intoned.

“Yes.”

“Yes.”

They all nodded, five priests in a row in dirty blue robes. They’d been watching the farm for a week.

She supposed it had taken them this long to track the bots.

“Let us return and report that warbot and the mouse-bot are away on their fated travels.”

Wait. What?

This was too much. She could’ve followed them back to Omage, toyed with surveillance, recorded conversations, but she had a life to live.

J’kai climbed to her feet and emerged from the burrow, leaving her roll of weapons behind. It was going to be difficult to break her old habit of traveling fully armed. Silently she reached the last priest in the file, the bald one. She tapped his shoulder.

“Oh!” He recoiled and turned at the same instant, almost falling down the hill. The others, caught equally by surprise, arranged themselves as if ready to flee.

“Tell me one thing before you leave. What is this prophecy I hear you speak of?”

His fearful gaze made her realize she held a naked dagger in her left hand.

“Oops.” Quickly she slipped it into a chest sheath. “Sorry. Habit.”

“I... I suppose it no longer can hurt to say?”

“Of course it won’t. Just curious.” Fucking curious. “Warbot?” she prompted.

“The prophecy. Yes, WARBOT as is inscribed on its chest.” He cleared his throat. “Lo, a pale rider from the heavens on an iron steed shall herald the end of the world, and the rise of a new one.”

That was it?

The priest picked up her confusion. “The... the pale rider is the white mouse-bot and the iron steed is—”

“I get it.” She waved them off. “You may go.”

Their hurried exit meant it was only seconds before she was alone on the hillside, contemplating the future.

“Would’ve been a better prophecy if that was a warbot.” She’d studied the specs and blueprints of exactly that bot at Huge Library. The original inscription actually would have read: GARBOT. It was a standard bot produced once upon a time by the Garbologist Company. Good at picking up litter but not at war. She supposed its litter-spearing arm had been misconstrued as a weapon.

Oh, well.J’kai shrugged.