"Any cunt moves and there gettin' a shot in the dick", said a man with a red bandonna, skin as pale as snow, and eyes as cold as silver.

The man beside him in ratty jeans and a hoody glanced at him with raised eyebrow, "If they're cunts, then how can they have dicks to shoot off?"

"For fuck…Right, lads, anybody moves and they're getting whichever part they have, blown off."

"He's fond of blowing bits of men off", a voice murmured beside Thomas, and stifled laughter came with a hysteric edge from the back.

The crowd of people were on their knees facing the two men with guns. Each eye seemed to be stuck on those black barrels aimed towards them, and the crowd stayed a still pond until it shook and shivered in a storm. A mercury mood flowed through them and alternated between bone-deep, bowel shitting, terror and the nervous laughter of a bad man's joke. They watched as the men walked up to their carriages and kicked opened the chests, to rifle through pants, underwear, portraits, and found money to pocket. Behind Barry, an old woman sobbed as they knocked over a vase full of ash. Barry turned, but stopped before he could offer condolences, and the shakes and shivers of his nine-year old shoulders rocked his body.

To think, this caravan of people had left their town to travel to the city to trade. Instead of being welcomed by the City's strong wards, powerful spells, and cold eyed guards made out of steel and sinew, they were accosted by these men of red bandannas and tattered clothes. Barry had chatted to his friends about the games, the spells and, though he knew little of them and less of why he would be interested in them, the novelty of girls that they had not grown up with. Now, they all huddled before two small men with big guns and did not know where their fate would end.

"Gaz", came the second man's sharp voice, and that cowboy hat poked above the chest two steps.

"Fuckin' hell, I told you not to say my name."

"It won't make a difference. Just get your ass over here and take a look at this".

Barry did not understand what relevance those first words had, but the people behind him flinched back as if struck with a slap. Infected by their fear, his shoulders practically vibrated off his body. A dozen eyes trained on the man in the red bandanna as he hitched up his baggy pants atop his skinny waist. "This better be important"

"It is", was all the second man said as he handed a box. An emotion rippled across the blankness of Barry's face as the little sun seemed atop that box of silver and wood. It glittered along the robber's skin, and showed the burned rose in its surface as if he was but a step away, but they did not even blink.

The man in the red bandanna pawed it with his fingers and grunted, "It's pretty. So what?"

"Pretty…Do you not realise that's worth more than this entire group of shit."

"You reckon. Sure, it's a bit of silver-"

"It is more than a bit of silver you fool-"

"Don't you interrupt me!", the man in the red bandanna interrupted.

Barry reflexively shied away from the air of violence around both those men. They locked eyes and stood ramrod straight. For a moment, the dozen stilled as they thought they saw the second man's fingers inching towards his holster. The man in the red bandanna did not see, but the second man paused and stopped. He took a step back and spread his hands wide in supplication, "Lad, I'm sorry for callin' you a fool. But this…"

"IT's grand", the man in the red bandanna said in a voice that said it was not right at all, "But that better be something pretty big to call me a fool over."

"It's big. Gaz, it's the biggest we're gonna get. This box holds…a shard."

A shard! Barry's eyes widened and the whispers of the crowd rolled behind him. His ears rang as the second man shot a bullet in the air and shouted at them to shut-up. Though, they settled down, Barry could still hear their exclamations.

"A shard in our camp-"

"Oh God's be good, we're curse-"

"What bastard brought that with him-"

"I'm dyin' for a drink-"

The second man turned and shot an old man dead, "I said to Shut up. So you better Shut. The. Fuck. Up."

Het turned back to face Gaz's pale face and blinking eyes and continuing talking in a low murmur. The thick blood flowed from the old man's weathered face. So many wrinkles, so many memories, so much time, all stopped by a little sliver of metal that penetrated where his beautiful blue eyes had been. Those eyes used to glitter as they taught a magic trick, told a tale with a serious face but a joke lurking beneath the surface, or look at the young couples and shook his head with a smile. Those gnarled hands had shaped wood, stirred pots, and put manners into unruly child by breaking bone and spurting blood, and now they themselves were covered in blood.

Still, the two men looked at the box with a gleam in their eye, a flush in their face, and their hands pawing at its surface. Gaz eye's kept glancing at the old man dead, but his eyes returned more often to that beautiful box. The more dangerous of the two raised his head towards the crowd, "Who here owns this box?"

Nobody answered, and eyes shifted away from the culprit. The second man passed the box to Gaz and strode forward to stand in front of them, "Tell me now, or I will shoot you one by one."

The gun sucked in every gaze and every molecule of light as he held it up from them to see, "One…Two…"

"Him", a man thick with muscle shouted and pointed at a man with a bowed head.

"Good man. Now, you, get the fuck out of here."

"Dave…"

"Shut up Gaz".

Red rose high on Gaz's check and his mouth curled, but stayed shut. The man who owned the wagon eased up on arthritic knees and passed through the crowd. They made way for him and avoided their eyes, but Barry couldn't tear his own from his. As he passed Barry, his callused hand brushed Barry's curls, and drew one long tear from his eyes.

"Now, you know how to open this?"

"Yeah", the man took a deep breath, "But I won't be tellin' you."

Gaz waved the gun in his face, "Tell us how to fuckin open it, or I'll fuckin' kill you?"

"Tell us how to open", the second man said, "Or I will kill that boy over there…he has your eyes."

The gun pointed straight at Barry, but he did not move, and a space opened up around him as his people edged away. His eyes were too tear filled for fear, and they locked onto his father's suddenly pale face, in front of the second man's satisfied smile.

"Look, Dave…we can't kill a child."

"Then leave."

"No seriously, Dave. Let's just take the box and go."

"Get out if you want, but if you're here to stay, then shut up and stay."

"Don't you fuckin' tell me to shut up!"

"One more word, just one more word off you-"

"And you'll what", Gaz aimed his gun at Dave's stiffening face. Dave took a step to the side to keep both his father and Gaz in his barrels sights.

"Gaz…don't be a fool."

"We're not killing a fuckin' child. We can take the father and beat it out of him, but we. Are. Not. Killing. That. Child."

All the crowd could see the tremble on Gaz's trigger finger. They whispered warnings to each other, and their fear fed the rage between the two men as their back stiffened and their face grew tighter. And Barry's father was stuck right in the middle, with his eyes on his son's.

"Dad…", Barry's voice whispered.

"Gaz…I'll give you one more chance."

"Stick your chance up your hole."

"Dad…"

"It's the last warning, Gaz. Put that Gun down. Now!"

Gaz shook his head and his eyes remained steady, though his arm trembled, "I can't do that Dave…but it was good knowing you."

The pause before either of them shot would haunt Barry for years to come. If the times had changed, and one of them had shot first, would his father be alive? Would he be aliveWould he give a damn if his father was alive, or they at least died together? But he'd never know, as before either could shoot, a gush of blood erupted from Gaz's throat.

It soaked his shirt and but darkened the bandanna. That ruby red coated his hand as he held it before his eyes and said, "What in the…"

Another slash almost ripped Gaz in two, and their crowd was flung into chaos. Friends and folk he had known forever shoved him aside as they sought to escape the blood and bullets. He tried to stand, but a man who told him tales when he was a child flung him to the concrete and did not to stop to see Barry bloody his nose. The sounds of boots, and screams, and bullets, were all around, and Barry did the only thing he could think of doing. At the end of the day, he did what his father told him and kept his head down.

After who knows how long, with the only companion his pain and heartache, Dave's voice murmured in his covered ears. The joints in his arms creaked as he unclasped his fingers and raised his head.

Pieces of Gaz littered the bloody space around his gun. The last light seemed to glimmer along all that ruby red, but Barry blinked and the image disappeared. His eyes refused to leave that bloody corpse, and a high pitched screaming resounded in his head, until he heard Dave's voice.

"Who the, what the. No, just keep back or I'll kill this bastard".

Barry dragged his too-bright eyes to the tableau at the centre. Dave's cold gun pressed against his father's temple, and his father's big frame covered all but a slip of Dave's face. More than anything else that happened today, the sight of his father's tear filled eyes, broke something inside of him. His mouth opened, but before his shout could escape, he noticed the new arrival.

The first thing he noticed was the bandoller across her chest. It wavered in the air, and steam seemed to eddy and swirl around the instruments. Knives, cubes, sticks, small figurines of ivory and gold, or little chips of stone with odd lettering, none no bigger than a charm link, hung on that bandoleer. A leather duster covered her almost head to heel, and ended above black boots, and a black hat. The slim shine of a blonde ponytail disappeared into her coat, and it pulled her face tight across her cheekbones, to give her face a wolf's cast.

Soft dust exploded from beneath her booth as she took another step forward.

"Didn't you hear? I'll blow this bastard's head off."

"I believe you", her voice had a mix of sharp and smooth, and it swirled under the great grey sky.

"So, what the-"

She ripped out her gun and its bang blinded the world of sound. Barry's eyes followed the contour of the bullet's curl as it tore through the air. It travelled through the air as if Dave and the woman were two points connected by a string. Dave's brown eyes and screaming mouth opened wide as the bullet made its way.

But it cut the air like nothing, and stabbed through flesh as if it wasn't there. It passed through his father's neck, and travelled right between Dave's eyes. Behind his bulk, Dave was but a shadow falling to the floor, forgotten once the sun had left.

Like a triangle with three points connected by one bullet, the woman stood at the apex, his father stood at the end and Barry kneeled watching the light leave his father's eyes. His father's knees cracked as they hit the floor, and the smoke had not yet dissipated from the barrel of the woman's gun, when the lower half of his father's body began to topple to the floor.

Keep your fuckin' head down, a voice whispered in his ear, but he disobeyed it as he scrambled to his feet. Voices from the fractured caravan called from all around, but he ignored them. He ignored the bloody bits of Gaz, the shrunken form of Dave, the paused figure of the woman with the gun, and the ruins and desolation around. Only a bit of blue was in the slip of his Father's almost closed eyes, but the stink of blood and smoke more than made up for it. The grey tufts of hair spotted his chin, the blood had caught in some of his pores, and the light caught the fillings in the back of his teeth. Barry fell to his knees before his father, and raised his hands to cradle the bloody face. "Dad…", but no matter how many tears fell, it did not give nourishment to the dead flesh, or the absent eyes, or even wash away a bit of blood.

"Get away from him. I don't know if he's dead yet".

Barry could but stare with eyes as dead as the corpse at his Father's killer, "You killed him."

"Of course. Who is he to you?"

"You killed my father."

"Your father? But how did he get that…."

Her coat tails flurried dust into his face as she turned. It clotted his eyes, flowed in his nose, and filled his mouth with the taste of ash. "You killed my Father!"

His small frame flung himself at the woman, but he was but a kitten chasing after a sliver of string. All he could catch was air, and the boot that kicked him in the belly and smacked him to the floor. "Jesus. Kid, you try it again and I'll have to hit you?"

The words were but a throb in his ears. His eyes saw red, his muscles trembled, and tears ran freely down his face. "YOU KILLED HIM!"

He came at her again, and the crack of the pistol across his temple rang across the square. His legs wavered, his heart trembled, and his eyes caught the flash of the pistol butt heading towards him, before stars exploded in his head and tore his consciousness asunder.