Marshal Law

by Adam D Jones

  Marshal used a little bronze key to unlock the narrow closet at the end of the hallway. Inside he saw his work vest, which held his long knife, and next to it hung a leather belt with a holster. Even though he spent most of his workdays walking around town and smiling at folks, or keeping an eye on the rare visitor, wearing something akin to a uniform made him look the part of the town lawman.

  He strapped on the gun belt, then reached further in and found the cool wooden handle of his wheel-lock pistol. He could have left it in his closet every day, buried it, or tossed down his well, and it would have all been the same to him. But Erianthe felt better when he wore it to do his duty, and so did everyone else.

  Marshal lifted his old weapon and took a moment to watch the light dance on the silver inlays that wove their way around the rosewood stock. It was as ornamental as anything else, a gift to the officers who served the Republic so their military leaders would look more impressive. Marshal had found it to be a reliable weapon, but it was less accurate than a crossbow and made enough noise to deafen an entire regiment.

  With a grimace, he shoved the piece into its leather holster and went back into the bedroom to kiss his sleeping wife one more time.

  ◆◆◆

  When Marshal stepped outside he saw Keld bringing the other men over. Two men and a young boy, maybe fifteen. Pushing his way through them came a stout man with a medal pinned to his vest: Mayor Sloane.

  “Have you got your gun, Marshal?” Sloane barked.

  Marshal put a finger to his lips. “My wife is still asleep.”

  Sloane replied with a scowl.

  Dumb question, anyway. Marshal pointed at the wheel-lock pistol jutting out of his gun belt. It's in plain sight.

  “I don't plan to use it, Mayor.”

  “You may have to,” Sloane insisted. “Something's not right about this. How does someone walk that far?”

  “Maybe there's a sandship hidin' nearby?” offered the youth.

  “Sandship!” Keld spouted. “Could be a hundred men on a sandship!”

  They all began talking, louder and louder and at the same time, until Marshal raised his hands and cleared his throat.

  “I told you.” He gave each of them a hard stare, one by one. “My wife is asleep.”

  Keld spoke in a whisper nearly as loud as his regular voice. “Do you think it's a sandship?”

  “No. I think it's a man. Even though I haven’t seen him yet. And, for the record, a standard Republic sandship holds eight cots below deck, and they don’t put more than twenty-four people on board for long trips. That way there’s three shifts, gettin’ eight hours of sleep each. Now, where's Rion?”

  “On his way,” said Keld. “Got halfway here and realized he'd left the telescope behind.”

  “Here he comes,” said Sloane.

  Tall and lanky, Rion, the town alchemist, ran toward them with his telescope in hand, nearly slipping on the sand. He waved his free hand and pointed behind him.

  “Why isn't he saying anything?”

  “I think,” said Marshal, “Rion believes he is being sneaky.”

  Rion made it to the others and fell forward, breathing heavy and leaning on Marshal. “...moved...he moved...”

  Keld grabbed the telescope and pointed it westward. “You showed him to me yesterday.” Keld squinted and peered into the eye hole. “He was...over...”

  “Not anymore,” gasped Rion, still leaning on Marshal. “I think he saw us lookin' at him. After you ran to get Marshal, he started walking a wide circle around the town, like he's getting' a good look at us from different sides.”

  Marshal leaned Rion up on his own two feet. “Rion, where is he now?”

  “That way.” Rion pointed back from the way he had come, across town. “And gettin' closer.”

  “Fine. We'll head over there. Calmly.”

  Marshal led them across Whitesand, past everyone's wooden houses and through the circular courtyard where the town’s biggest well sat in the middle of the settlement. The stones lining the top bore the names of the settling families, each name etched in deep letters. Behind Keld's house, Marshal saw his girls playing games with Keld’s daughter and a few other children.

  When they had walked past the last house, Rion pointed over Marshal’s shoulder. “There.”

  The men took turns with the telescope while Marshal stared at the lone figure striding toward them, walking evenly over the top of a sand dune. Rion handed over his telescope and Marshal pointed it at the interloper.

  He wasn't dressed like a soldier, but like any man walking around town on his day off. He strode easily, his face a neutral as any Marshal had seen. The sand had a way of hiding footprints, but if he had been walking all night, like Rion said, he wasn't showing any sign of fatigue. His clothes, on the other hand, certainly did. The cuffs of his brown pants were fraying, and his dirt-stained sleeves ended in ragged tears.

  Marshal fixed his eyes on the man's face. A shadow of fear had grown in him since Keld first described this visitor, and now, after seeing this stranger’s face, that fear grew into something that converted Marshal into a praying man.

  Please. Please—I don't want to be right about this

  “Lucky he hasn’t stepped on one of my traps,” said Rion.

  “That wouldn’t be a pleasant greeting,” agreed Marshal.

  In his workshop, Rion crafted small boxes that set off little explosions when crushed. Useful for catching a few animals, like the growlers that roamed at night. They were buried in a few spots around town, marked with nearby stones, well beyond where the children were allowed to play.

  Marshal turned to the others. “Fellas, looks like we're the welcoming committee. Let's meet him halfway. But...stay behind me. Spread out a little and let me talk to him.”

  He expected resistance from Sloane, who preferred to take on any public role himself, but the mayor took his place with the others who fanned out behind Marshal and strode along in a silent march.

  Marshal pulled out his pistol, turned it around, and returned it to the holster backward so the butt pointed away from him. It wasn't how he normally wore his sidearm, and he could hear the others mumbling about it behind him.

  Only the first sun had risen. From the horizon, it threw long shadows away from the men while the dry wind flapped their clothes and scattered grains of sand across the tops of their boots. Marshal slowed his steps as they neared the stranger and finally stopped when they stood only a pace apart. There, he saw what he had feared.

  A hairline scar ran along the man's bald head.

  It was only as long as a thumbnail, and easy to miss at a casual glance. Had this man been able to grow hair, the scar would have been covered and Marshal would have had to look for other clues to confirm his suspicions. Marshal's companions waited in silence, and he assumed they either didn't notice the stranger’s scar or didn't know what it meant.

  “Welcome to Whitesand.” Marshal put his hands on his hips. “I'm Marshal.”

  He didn't expect a response, but he got one.

  “How many are you?” It was a demand.

  “A thousand.” Marshal rubbed his chin like he was thinking. “Or two.”

  “I see only dozens.”

  “Then why did you ask?”

  The man clamped his mouth shut. He demeanor didn’t change, probably never did, but it was clear they had moved past the polite part of the conversation.

  “I'm sure you have your orders.” Marshal crossed his arms. “Time you got on with—”

  The man's hand blurred to Marshal's gun and the men behind him gasped. He took it from the holster, jabbed it into Marshal's chest, and squeezed the trigger. Marshal saw the wheel spin and then strike the flint to make a spark.

  There was no gunshot.

  Marshal watched his opponent's calm face. “I haven't loaded that thing in eight years.”

  The man raised the pistol over his head to use it as a club, but Marshal's arm flung out and buried his long knife into the str
anger’s belly. Using both hands, Marshal dragged the blade across his gut and then stepped away.

  The men all took a step back with him. The interloper staggered as his bowels spilled from the jagged wound. He fell to one knee, reached out, and then lurched forward and bled out on the sand.

  Almighty, help me. I was right.

  2

  When the stranger stopped moving, Marshal knelt to examine him. No weapons. His traveling pouch held few bites of dried meat, and over his shoulders lay four water skins. Nothing of interest other than the tiny surgical scar on his head.

  Behind him, the boy retched.

  “Should we bury him?” asked Keld.

  Marshal rose and shook his head. “It’s early. Growlers will get to him before we can get back here with our shovels.” He pointed toward town and began leading them back. “Best leave it.”

  “Don't you mean 'him?'” said Keld. “Not 'it?'”

  “'Course.”

  Marshal heard nothing but their sifting footsteps as they returned, but their silence weighed heavily with a dark question none of them wanted to ask. Marshal could tell they were working out what they had just seen, and what it meant for their way of life.

  “Would you look at that?” Marshal pointed to a thin line of smoke coming from his chimney. “Erianthe must have seen us coming. I'd bet you boys she's put on enough eggs for everyone.”

  “We need to have a meeting,” said Sloan. “But you go on ahead.”

  Marshal knew he wasn’t going to be invited the Lodi meeting. “No eggs? I can't eat 'em all. The girls like their eggs runny, getting it all over their bacon and everything. Makes a mess, but they—”

  Behind him, Marshal heard the boy drop to his knees and groan.

  I shouldn't have talked about the eggs.

  “It’s alright.” Marshal ran over and put a hand on the boy's shoulder. “Don't be embarrassed. You’ve never seen that sort of thing, and I'm sorry you had to.”

  The boy wiped his chin and steadied himself on his knees. “How long...Marshal?”

  “I'm sorry?”

  He narrowed his eyes. “How long you been runnin' around with an empty gun?”

  Marshal stepped back. He looked around and saw the same question on the faces of the others.

  “It's a good question,” said Sloane. “You're supposed to be protectin' us out here, and an empty gun's not gonna protect anyone.”

  “Protect you from what?” Marshal spread his hands. “I know all twenty-six families in this town, and so do you, and you know I've never had to do more than reprimand the town rascals.”

  Sloane shook his head. “Traders and travelers ride through here about once a month. Any one of them can be a problem.”

  “Eight years,” said Marshal, trying to calm his voice. “Eight years, and not a single violent incident.”

  Until today.

  “And what if there had been?” asked Sloane. “What would you have done with an empty gun?”

  The boy got to his feet. “He would’ve had to throw it at someone.”

  Sloane waved for the others to follow him, this time toward his own large house, away from Marshal's. “Like I said, we need to have a meeting. Right away.”

  The men silently filed past.

  ◆◆◆

  Marshal sat at the table and his wife put ten eggs in front of him. He quietly ate most of them. Erianthe patted his hand a few times, her way of getting conversation out of him when he was quiet, but the husk brought with it implications that kept Marshal from wanting to talk.

  The girls joined them, complaining that all the Lodi were in the Bookhouse at their meeting—including the children.

  “Then we'll go down to the spring,” announced Erianthe.

  Marshal plodded along with them, and, when they arrived, he sat on the sand at the edge of the blue water. The girls found rocks and threw them into the wide pool, trying to outdo one another. Now and then Marshal would find his own rock and throw it over their heads and beyond their attempts, making them furious.

  “It wasn't a man,” Marshal finally said.

  Erianthe didn’t say anything, but Marshal saw her eyes work out what he meant. They both turned to their children.

  “What's it doing out here?” she asked.

  “I wish I knew. It didn't have weapons, and it just wanted to know how many of us live here. Like an ant.”

  “An ant?”

  “You know how the queen sends out every little ant to find food, and one will find it and bring the others back? I think someone's sending husks out to look for Lodi.”

  “But that's crazy, Marshal. We're wheels and wheels from the Republic, and the frontier doesn't threaten the Sovereign. That's why we moved here.”

  “I know. I know. But...they used to say the Sovereign had an obsession with these people, that he'd chase them to the end of the world if he could.”

  Marshal realized he had lowered his voice, an old habit from the days when talking the wrong way about the Sovereign could land a man in jail. The Republic couldn’t hear him talking this way, but that didn’t matter. Some part of Marshal's mind still feared that strange man who ruled the Republic from Gamon, the capital city that overlooked the banks of the Elari river where the Dae stones were plentiful.

  “Does the Sovereign ever come out here?” Cora came running with Agna just behind.

  “I didn't realize you girls were listening,” said Marshal, as his daughters suddenly stood before him with eyes full of questions. Talk of the outside world did that to them, no matter how much he wanted them to love the frontier.

  Erianthe took Marshal's hand. “Not out here, dears. The Sovereign runs most of the continent, but on the frontier, we take care of ourselves.”

  “But we don't have Dae water,” said Agna. “If we did, Keld's son wouldn’t have a bad foot. It would’ve healed like Daddy's hand.”

  Marshal looked down. Everyone in town had whispered about the alchemy and Dae water when that boy fell from Keld’s roof. They’d talked about sending a rider to a Republic town for a healing salve potent enough to fix his foot before it was too late, but they knew, and had known since they moved to the frontier, that only the Republic got to benefit from Dae stones. Trying to buy or steal one would be the best way to bring an end to their hidden town.

  Marshal put his hands on his daughters' shoulders. “Girls, I'm sorry about Keld's boy, but—”

  “Look!” Cora pointed and both girls ran off.

  Marshal and his wife turned to see a Lodi family leaving the Bookhouse.

  “I'd better go,” said Marshal, getting to his feet. “I imagine the Keeper will want to hear from me.”

  ◆◆◆

  Marshal took off his hat and stepped inside.

  No books.

  It shocked him every time. He remembered building the Bookhouse with the others, how everyone had cheered when the building’s first frame was raised upright, so it pointed skyward. Marshal had expected to see shipments of books brought in to fill the place, books full of Lodi history, but none ever came. Slowly, Marshal began to learn why: The Republic had long cleansed the Lodi of their history. Their books no longer existed.

  It was whispered that the Keeper knew the stories anyway, that they had been passed down to the smartest children for generations so the loss of their books would not keep the Lodi from knowing their past.

  Marshal noticed a few faces staring at him. He thought the meeting would be finished, but Lodi families filled seats on every row, and a ceremony was still in progress.

  I should have stayed outside. Marshal politely held his hat in his hands and waited by the door, wishing he could disappear.

  “The blood of the Gifted runs in our veins,” came a woman's voice. It was Lorai, the Keeper, standing before them in her long, yellow robe. “That blood will never leave us, no matter how much is spilled.”

  The blood of the Gifted?

  The others stood from their seats and responded in unison, their voices
filling the room. “We are the Gifted.”

  “We are the Gifted,” Lorai responded. “And hope will return like a beacon.”

  Each Lodi raised a small glass of water and drank from it.

  Hope will return. Marshal had heard snippets of their ceremonies, but never that part. Like a beacon.

  At that, the families dispersed, some glancing at Marshal like he had caught them writing in a personal diary. He backed himself into a corner near the door while they filed out. Marshal had never seen any of their rites, no Republic families had ever been allowed to, and it was a mistake he wished he could take back.

  When the last family shuffled past, Marshal approached Lorai, who was carefully dousing candles with a long-handled snuffer.

  “I'm sorry. I never would have walked in here if I'd known you were still meeting. I saw a family leave and I got in a hurry.” He looked at the ground. “I know it's wrong for me to—”

  “Calm down, Marshal. It was an accident.”

  Yeah, but tell that to the families that just walked out of here, glaring at me like I’m the Sovereign himself.

  “Still,” he walked behind her as she moved to another row of candles, “I'm sorry.”

  “You were right to come here,” she said. “If you don't mind, I'd love to hear what happened, from your point of view. It's a story I expect to retell many times.” She motioned to a pair of seats, and they sat across from one another.

  Marshal wasn't one to talk about himself or tell stories, but Lorai always put him at ease. He told her every detail while she nodded along, somehow etching every word into her memory.

  How about that. I'm going to be in a story.

  When he finished, she closed her eyes and mentally went over his tale. “So, you let it see your gun handle, so it would go for it?”

  “Yes. I had a feeling it would do the obvious thing.”

  “You've worked with husks before?”

  “A few. But in this case, I just assumed he wasn't too smart.”

  She blinked at him. “How is that possible? Doesn't the Republic...train them?”

  “A little.” He noticed her leaning forward, showing more interest than when he had told his own story. “The surgery also has a way of...messing up their brains. It’s hard to understand, but you won’t meet a husk who’s good at figuring things out.”