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.

The crowd's roar still hung in the cold air when Big Daddy Davis saw the priests move. The gray robes near the back had stopped watching. One of them dropped his raised hand. Down at the trailhead, the guards started to climb. They came for the stage. They came to end the concert before the next song. Davis had no plan and no time. Sir Headly Welch saw them too. The exiled holy man gripped his guitar tighter. Years ago these same priests had thrown him off this mountain for his songs. Now they wanted to throw him off again. His green beard shook. "They'll drag me down first," he said. "Then the rest of you." Davis grabbed his arm. "Not while I'm breathing." Davis turned to the band. Rayvenous Luzier sat behind the drums, sticks ready, knuckles scarred. James Chimp Shaffer stood with his long arms loose, waiting. Davis had one card left. The song had stopped the war for one verse. Maybe it could stop the guards too. "Play," Davis shouted. "Play loud. Don't stop." Rayvenous cracked the sticks and drove the beat hard. Shaffer's thick fingers tore into the strings. Welch answered, and Davis sang straight at the climbing guards. The music rolled down the frozen slope. The three peoples heard it and turned as one. They packed together in front of the stage, shoulder to shoulder, and blocked the trail. The guards pushed. The crowd would not move. A wall of enemies now stood joined, all of them shielding the band. The priests shoved to the front. One held up a strange thing to prove Welch's sin. It was a decorated arrangement, a purple cactus paired with dark purple corn, the kind of charm Welch's old songs were said to bless. "He worships filth," the priest yelled. "Cast him out again." But nobody listened. The crowd sang the chorus back at the priests. Their voices drowned the robes out. Then something small streaked across the stage. A sleek otter with ember-bright feathers landed on the amp beside Welch. Its plumage glowed like coals. The three peoples gasped as one. They knew the creature. It was a sign of favor on their mountain, and it had come to Welch. The priest with the charm went pale. His authority cracked in front of every clan. The guards stopped climbing. They looked to the priests, and the priests had lost the crowd. One by one the gray robes backed down the trail. The song ended. The crowd screamed. Welch dropped to his knees and laughed. Davis pulled him up. The concert would go on. But Davis saw the priests gather at the trailhead below, heads bent close. They had failed to stop the show. Now they would not fight it with guards. Davis watched them point up at the peak itself, at the stage, and knew they meant to take the mountain out from under the band.