Premium Short Fiction: "The Past Is Ashes"

In this Weird Western fantasy, a young man commits a terrorist attack against some occupying soldiers and is surprised by the response

The two moons looked down like accusing eyes as skinny, dark-haired Will Loach emerged from the brick-lined alley. The passage gave him a right safe way past the damn checkpoints severing his old neighborhood of Luckie Hill from the rest of Stilesboro. His thin lips curled at what the bastard Delarians had done.

The snug little clapboard houses lining the street he’d lived most of his life were gone. Even the foundations were cut from the earth like teeth from living gums. In their place, a fenced-off cement plain smothered the ground like a hard, heavy snow. Rising from the white expanse were the wood and metal skeletons of what would become Fort Basurto.

Two months after the Stilesboro militia had surrendered, a rat-like official summoned everybody to the angular temple in the center of town. There, before icons of gods worshipped when Delaria was a collection of marshland hovels, the little tyrant told them the empire needed their land for a new fortress, to defend them against the desert raiders. They would be compensated, but they had a month to leave the homes many had lived in their whole lives.

Where he’d grown up with Sarah…

He snorted. There was so little “compensation” it was right insulting. And it was all in the heavy gold coins bearing the Delarian emperor’s ugly face rather than good Stilesboro silver.

Most took the coin and moved without complaint. Soldiers dragged out a couple older women. The bastards had shot old Mr. Ross. Mr. Ross had taught that bully Merle a sharp lesson for stealing from Will years ago. And he’d lent a sympathetic ear when Sarah took up with that braying jackass Michael...

Now Will was going to avenge him. And much more. If the Delarians decided Stilesboro was too much trouble and pulled out, he could tell Sarah. That’d be more impressive than Michael’s jokes...

Loops of barbed wire topped the chain-link fence ahead, but he wore his heaviest coat and gloves. If they’d built the wooden slats at the base of the fence a few feet higher he’d be out of luck, but he could work his feet into the newfangled metallic fencing just fine.

The entrance lay well to his left. A Delarian soldier in a green jacket with brass buttons and round green cap stood guard in the gloom. Will shifted the pack of stolen gunpowder back and forth. If one of them shot and missed, they could still kill him.

He closed his eyes. If he didn’t get moving, the more likely his gumption would run out. He’d nearly gotten caught stealing the militia’s gunpowder from the Delarian wagon the day after Pa’s funeral. He closed his eyes, blinking back unmanly tears. That shouldn’t be for nothing.

He looked at the enemy one last time. The greenjacket still looked away. He drew a breath. It was now or never.

He crossed the space between the alley and the fence in seconds. As soon as he touched the cold metal, his gaze snapped back to the checkpoint. The damned greenjacket still ignored him. He worked his feet into the metal loops and pulled himself up. Every step up his ears perked for rattling, but none came.

Getting over the top proved harder. Despite his duds, the barbs bit deep. They tore through his coat, the flannel beneath, and flesh. He bit off a curse. He'd considered bringing a blanket to cover the wire, but pulling it off after would have made noise and the Delarians would have seen it if he'd left it. As the blood soaked into his pants, he wondered if that might have been a bad idea. He looked back at the entrance. The soldier gave no sign he'd spotted Will.

The fence wobbled as he pulled himself up. His stomach lurched. He looked around. Nothing else moved beneath the moons’ gaze. When he resumed his climb, pain flared in his left leg. A loop of wire had dug into his pants.

He gripped the wire between the barbs and gave it a yank. The metal points came away bloody. The fence wobbled again. Gods be praised, that greejacket must be deaf. He started climbing down. What lay below made him powerful glad he hadn’t jumped. At the bottom of the fence, hidden earlier by the wooden slats, rose a line of sharp steel spikes.

He climbed down and got his bearings. Half-built buildings and stacks of steel beams and wooden planks dotted the white plain. The skeletons of what would become guard towers rose from each corner. Once the Delarians installed rotating guns, it would be damn near impossible for desert raiders – or the townsmen if they ever found their balls — to take the fort.

He smiled. The tower. Perfect target. He crept along the fence toward the nearest one. He was close when footsteps sounded on the cement. He ducked behind a heap of steel beams about half his height. He pushed himself against them, ignoring the edges biting his back and arms. If they found him, the pistol in his belt would be too loud. Fortunately, he had a knife.

Two sets of feet thudded against the cement. He thought back to the Delarian he’d learned in Stilesboro’s one-room schoolhouse and listened.

“It’s bloody odd, sergeant,” a man said. “We’ve been in Stilesboro a year and the only trouble we’ve had is some codger who wouldn’t leave his house.”

Someone else snorted. “It’s too gods-damned quiet,” growled an older man. “I’ve been places like this before. Everything’s quiet. You start getting lazy. You start finding other things to do, like send half the regiment off into the desert. Then the knives come out. The old commander knew it, but this new pup’s never been in the marches before.”

“Sergeant, are you sure you should — ”

Another snort. “The new boy’s green like you, but his sire was an old salt like me. He knows we bitch.” Another pause. “You watch here. Someone’ll relieve you in a couple hours.”

“Yes, sergeant.” The older man walked away. Silence fell. “Let’s hope the knives don’t come out tonight.” The younger man sounded worried. Good.

The night wind blew cold out of the desert to the east. Will shivered and clutched his knife. He’d hoped to avoid the soldiers entirely. Get in, light the gunpowder, and get the hell out.

He gritted his teeth. Taking away his neighborhood wasn't their worst sin. The Delarians’ “compensation” didn’t stretch far enough for the family to live in any decent neighborhood. The landlords expected Delarian soldiers and officials with more coin than the Loaches. They had to move to the stinking Rookery.

His teeth clenched tighter. They’d only been there two weeks when Pa had been robbed and killed. The greenjackets had hanged a couple lowlifes who loitered about rather than do honest work, but Will doubted they got the right ones.

A soldier meant the chance to make them pay in blood.

Thunk. The greenjacket leaned up against the pile of beams. Will grinned. Come up, cut his throat before he could squeal, and drag him around. He’d helped slaughter pigs and cattle. They had throats just like any man.

Will rose. The soldier — a short young man with cropped blond hair — spun. His gray eyes widened.

“Shit!” Will hissed. Rather than put his hand over the soldier’s mouth and cut across his throat and big arteries as planned, he jammed the knife into the greenjacket’s neck and hoped for the best.

Want to read the rest of the story and get some commentary on how it came to be? Purchase it individually through my Patreon at $3 or sign up for a premium Substack subscription. $7 per month or $80 per year gets you unlimited access to this and other goodies.