by Sean Platt
A few hours later, they arrived at a narrow pass. Edward stopped and sighed deeply.
“Okay,” he said, gesturing with his hoof. “This is good. See that clump of sand?”
“Yes.”
“The blue line crosses it. Now watch.” Edward lowered his head until it was a foot from the clump. He exhaled slowly through his nostrils. The clump crumbled.
“Now the line is obscured. Sorrow sits on top of the sand, like a line of paint. The fact that the line remained intact across a clump that fragile means that the dooner party rode through very recently, and that Cari was at its caboose. If she were near the front or if more than an hour or two had passed since, there’s no way that clump wouldn’t have fallen apart.”
“So we’re close.”
“Yar. But that’s not even the good part. The good part is that my chest doesn’t hurt.”
That was good news. Still, Clint felt conflicted. If Edward’s chest was hurting less, it meant that Kold and Mai were pulling further ahead. If they got too far away, the trail would grow frozen again. The gunslinger wanted revenge against the dooners and to help Cari if he could, but he’d wanted to help Mai for years and had wanted to reach The Realm ever since his exile.
“So they’re not together.”
“No.”
“And they visited the same magic sty, then went in the same direction due to coincidence?”
Edward didn’t reply. Clint could read him, though, and knew the unicorn didn’t think it was a coincidence at all. What’s more, he seemed to suspect the reason for both trekking across the same swath of sand, and that reason bothered him like he’d seen a dung beetle in his brew.
“One problem at a time,” Edward said.
They rode harder.
Within two hours, after the sun had eaten three-fourths of the sky, a large, moving lump in the sand grew visible in the distance.
“There it is,” said Edward.
As they rode closer, the lump expanded. Edward cast his umbrella of invisibility. Though it wouldn’t protect them from the sand dragon’s eyes, Edward felt it was unlikely that the dragon would bother to look back. The umbrella would, however, keep them invisible to the dooners and protect them from their weapons.
“Their party is smaller,” Clint said as they drew near.
“Yar. I’d suspect the dragon has been eating them.”
They were walking side by side. Clint stopped just for a second, processing a feeling of shock.
“This is now a traveling cult,” Edward explained, seeing the gunslinger’s face. “They’re brainwashed by the dark magic of the dragon. They still have their will, but it’s been mostly relegated to the shaman’s will, and the shaman is controlled by the dragon. Of course, the shaman probably thinks it’s the other way around. It doesn’t matter. Either way is the same.”
“Why would it need to eat the dooners? I thought it could pull magic from the sand.”
“It can. But it’s also traveling. Dragons aren’t supposed to do that. It’s probably using all of its energy to maintain its shape, so it needs more fuel than the sand can provide. The shaman probably doesn’t even know what he’s dealing with. He probably thinks the dragon is a real thing, when in fact it’s just a giant puppet made of sand. But that’s good for us; it can’t dive or reconstitute without revealing its true identity. It must remain a dragon to keep the shaman on its side. And that, I’ve decided, is how we must fight.”
“What do you mean?”
“In a battle, you can fight to win, or you can fight not to lose.”
“I don’t understand,” said Clint.
“You seldom do,” Edward replied.
Clint waited for more, but the unicorn offered nothing, so he squinted at the party ahead. The party seemed to be stopping. Clint gestured at a massive rock at the side of the trail, and they moved behind it.
“I count an even two dozen,” the gunslinger said.
“Yar,” Edward agreed. “With so little fuel remaining, the dragon won’t last much longer. But unfortunately, if I’m right, it will last long enough to do what it needs to do.”
Clint turned, propped himself up on an elbow, and stared at the unicorn. “Why don’t you just tell me what it’s after?”
“It’s not for your ears.”
“You suck,” said Clint.
“Yar,” Edward replied.
“I can take two dozen men,” Clint said, returning his attention to dooner party and the large, lumbering, half-buried shape of the sand dragon. “So I’ll get the pack. You get the shaman and the dragon.”
“Yar.”
“How are you going to destroy it?”
“I’m not. Don’t you listen?”
Clint stared at Edward deciding that the unicorn was being deliberately obtuse. This was a good sign. Edward was a jerk by nature, so him being pleasant was worth a worry. Once, Edward had purchased a cake as a gift for the gunslinger in a town they were passing through. Clint had had panic attacks for days after receiving Edward’s gift, wondering what disaster must be waiting. That turned out to be the day, not far from Solace, when Kold’s trail first went completely cold.
Clint shrugged, deciding he would be getting no more from Edward.
They moved from large rock to large rock along the path, both on foot, steadily closing the gap between themselves and the dooners. The party had paused in a shallow valley. When Clint and Edward finally got close enough, they climbed up onto one of the valley’s edges and peered down.
Clint proceeded to load his guns and reloaders, clipping the reloaders in place on his belt.
“It just ate one,” Edward whispered, still watching the party as Clint’s eyes stayed on his bullets.
Clint didn’t bother to ask what had eaten what. “I barely need to bother with this second set of reloaders,” said Clint. “Let’s just keep following them. Maybe that dragon will eat everyone.”
They’d discussed that, but had ultimately decided that one of two things could easily happen if they waited too long, and neither was good. Possibility number one was that Kold might veer away from the more or less straight path the dooners had been following, and their possibilities of finding Mai after they were done here (assuming they survived, of course) could go cold again. Possibility number two was that the dragon could eat Cari. That seemed unlikely, as Edward assumed they’d taken her in the first place because the dragon would eventually require a girl to sacrifice for some impressive bit of magic, but it was true that Cari would be eaten before the shaman, and the party was running out of third options.
“Load all of your bullets,” said Edward, who knew Clint’s cockiness.
They crept down the slope, toward the backs of the dragon and the chief. They approached in front of some of the dooner warriors, but the men couldn’t see them through Edward’s umbrella.
Clint leaned toward Edward’s ear and whispered, “Do you know what you’re doing?”
“I know what I’m going to do. That’s not quite the same, but yar, I suppose.” And then, Edward explained to Clint what was going to happen.
“Okay,” said Clint, unholstering his guns.
“You understand I won’t be able to protect you?”
“Yar.”
“If you get hit, you’re dead.”
“I understand.”
“For that matter, since I’ll be so gassed, if I get hit, I’m dead.”
“Maybe after you’re dead, you’ll move on to a beautiful world filled with elves and fairies.”
Edward ignored him.
“Ready?” said the unicorn, a moment later.
“Yar. No. Wait.” Clint surveyed the dooners, five in a line and four behind, gnawing on some sort of food. Another dozen or so were scattered throughout the valley. He re-holstered his left iron and held only his right, steady before him. His left hand hovered above his holster, ready to do the magic trick of making bad guys disappear.
“Okay,” said Clint.
Edward nodde
d. “Not until it pops.”
Clint nodded back.
Edward turned to face the gunslinger, then slowly backed away. The umbrella of protection elongated into an ellipse, like a long capsule with Clint at one end and Edward at the other. Edward moved ten feet back. Fifteen. The umbrella shimmered, as if held taut and barely able to take the strain. Edward’s horn began to glow and spark as if struck with flint.
Twenty feet.
Edward’s face was pained. Clint felt nothing behind him, but when he looked over his shoulder, he could see the umbrella stretching and shaking like a rubber band, wrapped around something invisible at his back. The same thing was happening behind Edward’s rump. He watched the unicorn’s head as if he were looking down a long, narrow tunnel that was just large enough for the two of them. It was as if they were both safe inside an enormous sleeve of elastic fabric, but the fabric was about to rip.
Twenty-two feet. Twenty-five. Edward was a quarter-way around the gathering, staying close. He couldn’t go much farther anyway. Once he started rounding the circle to where the dragon lay scratching at the sand, their elongated umbrella would cross the dooner circle, allowing their enemies inside.
Edward began to yell.
“Hey, dragon!” he shouted.
The dooners in front of Clint turned, and saw nothing.
“Hey ugly!” Edward yelled. “I’ve got a joke for you!”
The great, lazy head of the resting sand dragon rose from the sand and, after a moment’s search, settled with precision facing Edward as if the dragon could see through the bubble, which was exactly what Edward had said it would be able to do.
The sand dragon stared at the unicorn with curiosity, its long pinched face seeming to say that it would get around to squashing him eventually, but didn’t consider the matter particularly pressing.
“Hey!” Edward shouted. “Why did the sand dragon cross the road?”
The dragon’s mouth opened in a stretch. From the side, Clint could see red and purple fire begin to glow inside of it.
“Because it sucked!” Edward answered.
The dooners were all looking toward the unicorn’s approximate location, where Edward was still straining to maintain the elasticized umbrella. They chatted in dooner speak, spitting furiously across the sand as they shrugged and shook their heads. None of them could see Edward, but they could hear him… which was of course the point.
With a great heave and shudder, the umbrella finally ruptured. For a split second, Clint fancied he could see pinkish yellow bits floating in the air like a popping balloon.
In the space of two seconds, Clint had fired all seven shots from his pistol, fanning the hammer with his left palm. As soon as his left had made its last pass, it reached into his holster and drew the other pistol, which he used to dispatch the other two dooners on his side. A few heads turned, but the remaining dooners didn’t know where to look. A unicorn had just appeared from nowhere at one end of the valley, and shots were ringing from the other side.
Clint moved like wind, ducking behind the large stone he’d picked out when Edward had explained his plan. The remaining dooners were grabbing weapons — arrows and spears that were surely tipped with helioroot, and rifles, which needn’t be tipped with anything. Clint couldn’t afford so much as a scratch from the bladed weapons, and he was unprotected. As promised, Edward’s focus and energy was already set on the dragon.
The sand beast slowly rose to its feet, creating a vast sheet of falling sand that was like a massive tan waterfall. It roared as it rattled its head. The ground shook beneath its every step as it pounded toward Edward. The unicorn ran.
The dragon’s neck compressed as its head pulled back. It pushed its face forward and a giant plume of purple and red liquid fire belched from its mouth. The dragonfire struck the sand a foot behind Edward as he retreated, then followed him for the duration of the dragon’s exhale. Everything the fire touched melted into black, smooth glass. The dragon stepped forward, now coming after Edward. An enormous cracking shot through the air as the dragon’s talons hit the black sand and shattered it. Clint watched as a sheet of nine-inch-thick glass sheared up from beneath its enormous clawed feet.
Edward was faster than the dragon, but the dragon was far more powerful. The unicorn dove behind a rock as arrows and bullets rained against it.
Clint leaned out from behind the rock. His gunslinger’s eyes showed him a pair of hood-draped shapes near where he’d originally sighted them, both holding rifles. One of the dooners fired, but Clint saw from the barrel’s position that the shot would miss. Clint fired his own gun twice, both shots coming from his left pistol because he’d only leaned partway out from behind the rock. Both found their mark. The dooner bullet, as he’d predicted, went wide.
With the two men cleared, Clint again emerged from behind the rock. Then, as if in slow-motion, he suddenly saw a silver metal cross seeming to float in the air ten feet from his face, with fat tufts of feathers blooming from behind. It was an arrow that he was seeing head-on, and it was a fraction of a second from striking his eye. Clint ducked back just in time, and the arrow speared the sand beside him.
The dragon made thunder, roaring as he blasted magic at Edward, the sound like a steam engine derailing. Even the dooners winced, shaking hard enough to bring conscious fire back into some of their eyes.
Still, they raised their rifles and nocked their arrows.
The next time Clint peeked out, only three dooners were visible, none with weapons raised. Clint used his guns to make them disappear, but hadn’t bothered to duck. A shot ricocheted off the rock behind him, too close. Clint fell to the sand, searching for the shooter and finding nothing.
How many could be left? Clint did the math. He’d felled nine in the first volley, then two, then three. That made fourteen. He’d counted twenty-three when the fighting had started, so nine remained.
A party of three saw him lying in the dirt and stormed him. Clint couldn’t get at his left iron since he was laying on that arm, so he took aim with his right. Too low. He hit one of his attackers in the leg and another in the arm, but all three kept coming at him, slowly, steadily. They watched his right pistol, ducking and dodging behind sparse trees and scattered rocks until that gun was empty. Then they advanced faster, but the gunslinger fired three times with his left, which he’d pushed through the loose sand and was holding out at his side, its barrel barely visible. He could smell the burning sand in the barrel and reminded himself that while the bullets wouldn’t be stopped by sand, that sand could easily jam the cylinder, hammer, or trigger.
The three men fell, leaving six.
Clint stood, now in the open, and saw the sand dragon direct another volley of magic at Edward. Its entire mouth opened with each shot, nearly unhinging like a snake swallowing prey. A cylinder of fire billowed out, as big around as a car on a train. Just as the dragon began belching fire, Edward’s horn sparked red and he vanished, appearing behind the dragon.
Edward taunted from behind. “Come on, you stupid lizard! I’m right here! Is that all you have?”
The shaman was still atop the dragon’s head, riding it like a mount. He seemed furious, his mouth drawn tight in a snarl.
Edward ran directly at two dooners with rifles as they opened fire. Both bullets struck the unicorn with bright sparks, bouncing against a small, freshly raised shield — fortunate for Edward, since he wouldn’t be able to summon a large shield or heal himself without giving the dragon a golden opening.
In his peripheral vision, Clint saw a dooner running toward him, his spear held high. Without turning, Clint fired his right gun, having holstered his sandy left for the duration. The man fell.
Edward yelled something else to the sand dragon that Clint couldn’t hear, then charged at the duo of dooners who’d fired on him. The shaman yelled back, and the dragon, as if obeying orders, shot another column of purple-red fire at Edward. The unicorn fell to the sand as the dragon reared. The dragon tried to pull up at the l
ast second, but was too late. The column struck the dooners instead of its target, melting the men into more black glass at their feet.
Edward’s next fold opened near where Clint was standing, and they found themselves side by side. The gunslinger looked over. Edward seemed surprised, but then his horn glowed and Clint felt himself flying through the air before landing hard enough on the unicorn’s back to knock the wind from his body. Without a pause, Edward galloped up, toward the lip of the valley.
“Are you retreating?” Clint yelled.
“Just getting better footing,” Edward answered, unhurried. Clint looked down at the dragon still standing in the center of the shallow depression, its massive brown form nearly surrounded by smooth, cauterized black sand.
“He’s turned that entire valley’s sand to glass,” said Edward.
“Yar,” said Clint. “Great plan you had, by the way. How’s it working out for you?”
“It’s on track,” said Edward. “How many dooners are left?”
“Three, not counting the chief.”
“Not for long,” said Edward, nodding. “Look.”
Clint looked. The three remaining men had run toward the dragon’s feet, yelling something frantically up at the shaman. The dragon reached down, grabbed all three men in its talons, and tossed them into its mouth.
The musical chewing was the soundtrack to a nightmare.
“You owe that dragon a thank-you note for doing your job,” said Edward, gesturing toward the absent three that Clint would no longer need to dispatch.
It was now the gunslinger and the unicorn versus the sand dragon and shaman. The dragon was still swallowing. The chief was yelling, beating the dragon’s brown sand back beneath him.