by Logan Jacobs
At some unspoken command, the leashes all snapped from the collars and all the dogs bolted toward me. It was a terrifying moment as I watched the snarling and snapping dogs close in on me. Part of me wanted to turn and run away, but I held my ground and watched the frenzied mob close in.
At sixty yards, I fired at the lead dog, which was the long-legged dog I’d previously guessed was the fastest. It was hard to aim at an animal that moved so quickly, and I wasn’t sure if I could even hit it. But the dog let out a short bark, and then its four legs splayed out wide a half second after my gun snapped. The dog tumbled to the ground and rolled a couple of times.
There wasn’t time to register anything else. The rest of the pack kept coming, and I had to pick my next target. There were two dogs near the front now, running neck and neck. Both were big enough to knock me down if they reached me, and both looked like they were ready to tear me apart. The blacker one managed to inch ahead, so I fired the Colt at its head as it bore down on me.
The Colt barked as I pulled the trigger, and I could feel the bullet whiz through the barrel. And then the head of the new lead dog seemed to vanish in a red spray. The rest of the body took a half-step and then collapsed to the roadway.
I started to aim at the next dog, but it suddenly veered away along with a second dog. I realized they were heading toward Sorcha, and I managed to fire a shot at the lead dog. It yelped and stumbled on a few more feet, but blood poured from a wound along its chest. It finally collapsed but the second dog kept going.
“Sorcha!” I yelled. “Dog!”
I wanted to run after the second dog, but the rest of the pack was nearly on top of me by then. I swung the revolver back toward the last two dogs and realized just how close they were.
At least I could shoot them easily now, even if they were still moving. I fired at a long-haired mutt with a wide jaw next and saw blood spurt from its chest. It crashed head first into the road as blood spilled across the concrete.
And then the last dog was on me and leaping toward my throat. Its teeth were bared and I had just enough time to register how long and pointy they were. I could fit my whole fist inside its mouth, and that’s what I did.
I plunged the Colt into its mouth and pulled the trigger just as the dog bit down.
The boom of the gun was muffled as the teeth clamped around my wrist. Everything was frozen in place for a heartbeat, and then the world sprang to life again. Pain shot up my arm as the back of the dog’s head exploded in a shower of blood and gray brain matter. The dog’s eyes went dull and the body went limp, but somehow, the teeth were still firmly clamped around my wrist.
I tried to shake the dog loose, but that only sent another wave of pain up my arm. I still had the machete, though, so I jabbed the blade between the rows of teeth and slowly pried the jaw open. The body fell to the ground with a wet thud, and I saw that the whole back of its head was gone. Blood coated my hand and the Colt, but I wasn’t sure how much was mine and how much was the dog’s.
Even worse, the alarm bells that signalled the last bullet had started to sound in my head, and I knew I had to make it count. I’d taken out five of the dogs already, but the mages were still nearby.
I finally looked up and saw that three of the mages had already started to run back toward Brook Island. That left the salesman-lead asshole, a freckle-faced woman with wide eyes, and a middle-aged man with a paunch and a bad haircut.
And I had one bullet left in my Colt, and two in my snub nose. I couldn’t afford to miss.
I pointed the Colt in the general direction of the mages, even though they were still too far away. The woman and the man with the paunch turned and ran after their fellow mages. Now it was just the leader, which was fine by me.
Three bullets for one target.
“You’re an obscenity,” the salesman yelled from his chosen spot.
As I stepped toward him, he stepped back, careful to keep at least a hundred yards between us, so I figured that he must have guessed that the revolver was only good at certain distances and his best option was to stay as far away as he could.
“At least I don’t enslave other creatures with my magic,” I snapped as I felt the revolver slip in my hand from all the blood.
“You just kill them,” the salesman spat.
We were at an impasse until I heard the sound of something running along the bridge behind me. Something with four feet and a throaty bark. The mage had spotted the dog as well, and I saw his face light up for a moment as he caught sight of the animal.
I glanced over my shoulder and saw the dog that had gone after Sorcha. I felt a surge of panic, but there was no blood on its jaws or dripping from its teeth. In fact, it looked like it would continue on toward Brook Island, and so I turned my attention back to the mage. I saw the mage hold out his hand, as if to tell the animal to stop. I heard the dog whine and the footsteps falter, and then I heard them turned toward me.
I swiveled toward the dog as it started to run again. The grip of the Colt slithered in my grasp, and my wrist surged with pain as I lifted the gun, but I managed to point the weapon at the dog and pull the trigger while it was still several yards away.
The shot was lower than I had intended, but I managed to catch the canine in the chest. A black hole appeared, and then blood spurted outward in a spiral pattern.
Even as the dog collapsed, the Colt revolver vanished from my hand. I glanced down, though I knew it was gone. That just left me with the snub nose which was still tucked into my waistband. As I slowly turned back toward the red robed mage, I tried to pull the weapon from its hiding spot, but it was hard to grab with the blood on my palm.
I looked up when I heard footsteps running across the road. The mage had probably hoped that the dog would give him enough time to sneak up on me, but the dog was dead and it was just the two of us. He looked terrified as he stumbled to a stop, but he must have seen that the Colt was gone when I turned around. A feral smile crossed his face, and it wasn’t hard to guess that he thought I was now unarmed.
With a bark that sounded very much like a dog’s, he launched himself at me once again. He had a knife hidden in the folds of his robe, which he drew as he charged toward me. He sprinted across the road, his knife at the ready, as he closed the last few yards between us.
I stood my ground as I fumbled with the grip of the snub nose and the blood that seemed to coat everything. I finally managed to wrap my fingers around my weapon, but as I pulled the small revolver from my waist, the mage crashed into me.
I landed on my back, with the mage on top of me. The red robe grabbed my wrist before I could swing the gun around and actually bit down, and I let out a yelp of my own as the snub nose clattered to the ground.
The mage was smart enough to kick the snub nose away, but he’d left himself open when he did. One hard kick to the stomach sent the mage into a backward stumble. I sat up and tried to find the snub nose, but the mage gathered himself and ran back toward me.
I crouched down until he started to take his knife hand back, and then I sprang to my feet and landed a jab to his gut and a haymaker to his head. The mage went cross-eyed for a moment, and I thought he would drop. But he managed to gather himself, and he stabbed the knife at me again. He wasn’t very steady though, and I grabbed his knife hand with my one good hand before he could stab my stomach.
He grunted and tried to twist away, but I held on until his grip loosened. Then I snatched the knife before he realized what I had done and drove it through his heart.
“Whhhaaa?” He looked shocked for a heartbeat, and then he wilted slowly toward the ground.
I started to look for the snub nose again, but then I realized I couldn’t see Sorcha’s blonde mane anymore. There wasn’t a portal either, nor any sign of where the Irishwoman had gone. There hadn’t been any blood on the dog, but maybe the mages had found a different way to attack her.
“Sorcha!” I yelled as I ran toward the spot where I had last seen her.
“Out here!” she c
alled back.
I found her near the end of the bridge. She had climbed over the railing for the roadway and onto one of the jutting posts that held the other end of the vertical cables. But to get there, she’d had to slip around four additional cables, encased in steel so thick that there was barely enough room left for a human foot on the rusting metal of the beam. We were a good two hundred feet or more above the water, and while I’d certainly seen my share of long drops while riding across the countryside, this one was unnerving. Sorcha’s knuckles were bone white and her face was paler than I had ever seen it.
“What hap-happened?” she stuttered.
“I killed one of the mages and a bunch of dogs,” I said as I started to ease my way over the rail. “The one that came after you just ran by me and kept going.”
“Because its master left it,” she chattered. “I tried... to hold it off. I managed to keep it away... at first... but then... it attacked.”
“I tried to shoot it,” I said as I inched along the beam. “But it made it by me while the rest of the dogs came after me.”
“It couldn’t... climb out here,” she added. “Seemed like... a good idea.”
I’d made it to her side by then, and I carefully pried her hands from the cables. She latched onto my shirt, and I let her bury her face in my chest as I slowly backed toward the bridge. It was the most unnerving thing I had ever done, backing slowly along the beam, trying to feel my way back to the columns, with nothing to hold on to and only a very long drop below. The only thing that kept me from freaking out was the woman that clung to me.
When I hit the four steel columns, I tried to decide what to do. There was no way I could find my way around them going backward, and I wasn’t sure Sorcha could make it around them on her own. Her pulse was already beating so hard that I could see the vein in her neck throbbing.
“I need you to grab the column,” I told her calmly. “I’m going to step around to the other side, then help you go around them.”
“I’m not sure I can do it,” she mumbled.
“You did it before,” I replied in a soothing voice. “And I’ll be there with you this time. It’ll be easy.”
She nodded, and I slowly turned us so that we both could touch the steel. I slowly eased one of her hands from my chest and placed it on the nearest column. She took a deep breath, then nodded. Without looking at my face, she turned toward the cold metal, and wrapped both arms around the thick steel in a tight hug.
With Sorcha safe, I carefully edged my way back to the rail, and dropped onto the road. I took a deep breath, then moved to the side of the beam where I’d left Sorcha. I told myself not to look down as I stepped over the rail once more and inched toward the columns.
“I’m here,” I called out to Sorcha as I arrived at the barrier.
“So am I,” she replied with a trace of humor, and I felt myself smile in return.
I eased myself along the slippery edge until I could see her and carefully took her hand in mine.
“Are you ready?” I asked.
Her face was still pressed against the column, but after a moment, she nodded, then slowly looked toward me. I gave her a reassuring smile, then turned my attention to the narrow ledge as I started to move slowly back toward the rail. Sorcha followed, one hand locked around mine with a death grip, the other still wrapped around the column. I made it past the last of the cables and waited for Sorcha to ease her way around them slowly before I pulled her to me and jumped over the railing with the mage in my arms.
“If I ever suggest doing anything like that ever again, feel free to remind me how stupid it is,” she said as she wrapped her arms around me in a bear hug.
“How did you make it out there?” I asked as I moved toward the middle of the road.
She sighed in relief and let me lead her away from the edge. When we were safely away from the drop, she finally let go of me and pondered my question.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “When I lost control of the dog, it was the nearest place I could get to. I stepped out onto that first little bit, but it tried to come over the railing. I just thought it couldn’t possibly try to go around those...whatever they were, and if it did, it would fall into the water. So I went around them, but once I was out there, I realized how high up we were and I had almost nothing to hold on to.”
“Well, you made it back to the bridge,” I said.
“Thanks to you,” she said with a trace of a smile. “I don’t think I could have if you hadn’t come along.”
“Glad to be of service,” I teased. “What say we go open a portal and get of this town?”
“Yes!” she cried happily.
We moved just past the second tower, and I could see where the road started to slope downwards again. There should have been dry land as it tapered away, but there was nothing but the dark river and the ghostly limbs of a few dead trees that jutted out of the water.
“Looks like Arthur was right,” I said. “There probably was another island here.”
I felt Sorcha shiver, then she turned her attention to the distant shore. There was a town near the bluffs, and I could just make out a few two and three-story buildings, the trails of smoke from fireplaces, and a wide street that cut roughly east to west. I could see the tiny figures of people moving along the streets, and a few people on horseback. It looked achingly familiar, like so many of the small towns I had ridden through over the years.
“Can we make it?” I asked.
“We have to,” Sorcha replied as she pulled the amulet from beneath her shirt.
She studied the town again, then rubbed the piece of glass with her thumb. She started to speak in a strange tongue, and the amulet glowed in response. We were so close, I could almost taste the smoke-tinged air of that other town. I had to remind myself that things could still go wrong, like we could miss the town and end up in the fast currents of the river.
Or the rest of the mages could arrive.
Sorcha stopped in mid-chant and gave me a frantic look. She looked over her shoulder as a crackling sound filled the air and I turned around as well. A portal opened directly behind us, its imagery locked on the spot where we had taken out slouch hat, and the other three men who had tried to arrest us. Only instead of the local gang, there was a group of mages standing there.
“I’ll deal with them,” I told Sorcha. “You finish the portal.”
I stepped toward the portal as the mages filed through and tried to summon the rifle again. It felt so close, yet it remained stubbornly elusive. Nothing appeared, which meant the only weapon I had was the knife I’d pulled from their comrade and the snub nose that rested mere inches from their portal.
I really needed to find a way to speed up my magic recovery time.
Chapter 17
“Gun mage,” a woman with white hair declared as I stood in front of the mages. “By order of the Magesterium, you are to come with us.”
“Why?” I demanded as I tried to picture the rifle again. Still nothing appeared, and I couldn’t help but wish that I’d fired the last bullets just a little sooner. I glanced behind the mages toward the snub nose and decided I would have to find a way to get closer to the gun.
“For murder and crimes against the Magesterium,” the woman intoned.
The rest of the mages had made it through, so that six mages now stood on the bridge. Sorcha had moved further down the roadway, but she was still visible to the red robes.
“Sorcha Callan!” the woman yelled.
I didn’t turn around, but I could picture Sorcha jump as the woman summoned her.
“You will return with us as well!” the woman warned.
Sorcha didn’t reply, which I took as a sign that she was still working on the spell.
“Stop her,” the white-haired woman ordered.
A man with tawny skin and narrow eyes started toward Sorcha. I jumped toward him, only to be met with a blast of wind that sent me into the rail. The mage walked me around without even a do
wnward glance, so intent was he on his target.
“You’re not much without a gun,” the woman noted as she gave me an imperious look.
“I’m more than you can handle,” I retorted.
I kicked out at the mage who had been sicced on Sorcha and nailed him in the calf. The mage finally looked at me as he stumbled, and I threw myself at his legs and wrapped my arms around his thighs.
The wind was back, and the mage I had latched onto bent over backward. I managed to drag him down to the road, while the woman demanded that I release him at once. The mage in my arms glared at me as he held one hand aloft, then a ball of lightning like the one Azra had used formed in his palm. I knew I was in for a world of hurt if he unleashed it on me, so I drove a knee into his gut. The ball flickered, and the mage huffed, but he managed to create a new orb of pulsing light before I could do anything else.
Luckily, I still had the knife in my hand, and as the orb started to expand, I drove it between his ribs and into his heart. The mage bucked beneath for a moment, and then the orb vanished and the mage went still. I rolled off the body and looked toward the other mages.
“Murderer!” the white haired woman proclaimed.
“Who’s next?” I asked as I slowly made it to my feet. My wrist throbbed, I could feel blood pouring out from all the other bites and tears, and the rest of my body felt like one giant bruise, but I was damned if I was going to let these bastards capture either of us.
I was surprised to see that the portal was still open, and then I realized that they had probably assumed it would be easy enough to lay hands on me, especially since the dogs had already had a taste of me. It wasn’t hard to pick out the portal mage, either. The only other woman in the group, she had a strained look on her face, and she wasn’t paying any attention to me. She was also standing just a few inches from the snub nose.
I decided it was time to make their lives even more miserable, and before the white haired woman could order her next attack, I ran toward the portal mage. She heard my footsteps and finally looked toward me. The portal started to flicker as she tried to decide what to do.