Judas found the spear in the cold, wet grass of the embankment. It had landed point first, so he couldn’t tell if the weapon had made its mark. If it had wounded the Captain, and if what he suspected was true, then the Captain was on borrowed time. The train had come to a stop at the station platform, steam was belching from the stack, and there was a strange clanging from inside its iron lungs; it was as if the train were dying, the air was coming out in great gasps, but none was going back in. Judas looked away from the platform, and the locomotive and his eyes detected movement down the pathway that led to what Judas guessed would be the place where the dead lived.
Judas set off at a jog, the spear felt good in his hand, the battle had made it sing, and now it was hungry once again, an
