Big Daddy Davis's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Big Daddy Davis stood on the highest peak of Deathly Windfall and stared at a crowd that hated itself. Three warring peoples packed the frozen slope below the stage. They came for the legendary concert, the one Davis had promised would end their war with music. But Davis had no band. No lone singer could hold a mob this angry together. Someone shoved someone. A bottle broke on stone. Davis gripped the microphone and felt the peace shirt cling cold to their chest. Their long black and gray dreadlocks whipped in the wind. One song alone would not stop this. Davis needed players, and needed them now. A short man with green dreadlocks climbed the stage without asking. His beard reached his belt. Davis knew him. This was the holy man the mountain had exiled years ago, driven out for songs the priests called sinful. He picked up the guitar leaning by the amp and struck one loud chord. The crowd flinched. "They threw me off this rock," he said. "Let me play them off their feet." Davis grinned. "Sir Headly Welch. I wondered where you crawled to." Another voice cut through. "You'll need someone to hit hard." A kid with spiked pink hair and a unicorn shirt vaulted onto the stage. Rayvenous Luzier had knuckles scarred from tavern floors. They sat behind the drums and cracked the sticks together. "I brawl for money. I'll drum for free." Davis laughed for the first time all day. But two players and a singer still left a hole. The crowd surged toward the stage. Fists went up. Davis had seconds. Then a broad shape pushed through the pack and swung onto the platform. Purple dreadlocks, pink shirt, long arms. The escaped zoo chimp, the one everyone whispered about. James Chimp Shaffer grabbed a second guitar and ran his thick fingers over the strings faster than Davis could follow. "Nobody caged this," he said. Davis stared. Four of them now. A band. "Then we play," Davis shouted. They counted it off. Welch's guitar screamed. Shaffer answered him note for note. Rayvenous drove the beat like a hammer. Davis opened their mouth and sang. The first row stopped fighting. The second row turned to look. A woman from one clan lowered her fist. A man from another lowered his. The song spread across the slope and pulled the three peoples still. For one verse, nobody swung. When the last chord rang out, the crowd roared as one voice. Davis had a band. The concert could happen. But near the back, a group in gray robes did not cheer. They watched Welch play and their faces hardened. The priests who exiled him had come to the peak. One raised a hand toward the guards at the trailhead. If Welch played this concert, they would stop it before the first true song began.