Unicorn Western

by Sean Platt

  “There’s no way to win,” said Clint.

  “Sometimes,” said Rigo, “it’s okay simply not to lose.”

  In the distance, Clint watched as one of the enormous black machines appeared out of nowhere past the ranch, near the buildings beyond, in the city’s center. The thing vented an enormous mechanical bellow and belched fire from its front. Smoke rose where the beam struck. Debris flew into the air. A zeppelin joined the black tripod. Fire bloomed as something exploded. Angry lines of smoke rose beneath the zeppelin.

  In front of them, the Realm marshals hadn’t so much as moved.

  Clint looked at the heads of the white unicorns held captive in the stables. If what the scholar had told them was true, those unicorns would have no horns and wouldn’t be able to speak with the white unicorns in the Sands party. They were weak, unable to do much (if any) magic. But why? Why couldn’t they heal themselves and fight? But as his eyes watched the unicorns in their cells, he realized there was more to the picture. There was something up near the barn that Clint couldn’t quite see, above his line of sight. Something between stables and ranch house. Something that hadn’t been there before, that was keeping the unicorns weak and in line.

  At the party’s head, one of the Teedawges slowly reached for his pistol and drew it, pulling it from his belt as the marshals in front remained stone-faced and cold, assessing. The Teedawge raised his pistol to hip-height, his head even with the marshals, watching. And still the marshals stayed frozen.

  Oliver looked at Clint, seeming to probe the old gunslinger’s mood. But Clint was neither intrigued nor nervous. He simply wanted to see what would happen, same as the Teedawge.

  The archetype held his gun in front of him. The marshals, their eyes mostly on the surrounding white unicorns, didn’t flinch.

  Then the archetype cocked his pistol. In the same moment, a gun fired. But it wasn’t the archetype who had fired. The archetype couldn’t have fired, because none of the marshals had fallen, and the Teedawge lay killt on the ground. One of the marshals must have shot him, but Clint had no idea which. It had happened too fast.

  The Teedawges, Sands gunslingers, and ropers began looking at one another, their eyes full of fear. The Sands army’s superior numbers suddenly meant nothing — and the Realm marshals hadn’t needed to so much as cock a pistol to make that fact obvious.

  In the distance, the city’s buildings began to collapse, roaring with orange fire.

  “Hickory dickory dock,” said Boricio. He reached down, yanked a rock from the rectangle of floating path underfoot, reared back, and launched it into the cluster of marshals. The rock struck one of the marshals, who didn’t bother to duck.

  All of a sudden, the standoff collapsed.

  The Realm marshals drew. A hail of bullets mowed through the archetypes and ropers as if pushing through a crowd. None missed. Around the edges, the white unicorns fired spells at the marshals, but the grays seemed to have networked themselves in some way; they had created a single yellow umbrella that undulated the air around them and bounced the white unicorns’ spells away from the marshals like rubber from a road. But the white unicorns were more powerful — a few dozen holding more pure magic than hundreds of their ashier, depleted cousins — and soon the umbrella began to sway and buckle. Clint could see it denting beneath the bombardment like alloy wrapping a sandwich. But it was too little too late; in the meantime the Realm marshals were doing too much damage, turning row upon row of soldiers to bodies. The Sands army began to duck behind obstacles, but as soon as they did, the gray unicorns projected red spots onto the other sides of the obstacles and the Realm Marshals pierced the red spots with their bullets. Teedawges fell. Ropers fell.

  The white unicorns advanced on the lead group of marshals, smashing into the umbrella with their far more powerful spells. The umbrella dented inward. The white unicorns’ spells began to penetrate it, striking those inside. Many of the marshals dismounted, looking outward, humanity finally starting to enter their eyes. They watched the unicorns, watched the Teedawges. They fired their guns faster than anything Clint had ever seen.

  Clint’s own guns were out, but he’d yet to fire. His bullet supply was finite, and his shots had to count.

  He could pierce the unicorns’ shield with his bullets, so he sighted and fired, leaving one marshal killt. The other marshals turned to look at him, their expressions sobering. They didn’t look precisely afraid, but Clint could see a marshal’s version of trepidation smudging the eyes of a few. The look said that despite their inferior numbers, they hadn’t expected any of their own to fall so soon. Guns came up, more than one lip twisting into a snarl. Pistols fired. Clint dove for cover.

  The white unicorns charged forward, unafraid. A handful of the marshals beneath the umbrella concentrated their fire on the advancing unicorns. Their bullets did nothing; the unicorns’ chests peppered with multicolored blood but they didn’t slow. Their eyes — all blue — remained steely and determined.

  The power held by the pure white unicorns bested that of the more numerous grays by at least a factor of ten. They bombarded the shield, battering it like a can of beans. Clint fired again and again and again, with both guns, staying low. A marshal looked up, found him, and drew. Clint saw the puff of dull red smoke, anticipated a magic slug of lead to fill his forehead. But instead, the bullet exploded in front of him like a firework.

  Clint looked over and saw a large white unicorn. It’s horn glowed as it nodded at the gunslinger.

  Clint’s puzzled eyes asked the unicorn what had happened, because marshal’s bullets could normally pierce shields. But the unicorn just gave him an amused look — so like Edward’s — that told the gunslinger he knew exactly what Clint was thinking but that he coyly refused to share. Surprisingly, the unicorn’s big equine eye seemed to wink.

  Rigo said, “Ah… the white magic has learned a few new tricks against the dark!”

  Clint, now under the new-and-improved shield, stood tall and marched forward, both guns drawn. White unicorns continued to close on the marshals and their grays from the sides while Clint came at them from the front. The marshals pressed in toward each other, involuntarily shrinking their group. Spells battered the umbrella, making it waver until it threatened collapse. Edward had always said that when a unicorn surrendered some of its power and became less than pure white, it weakened. It was true. The grays and the Realm marshals were learning how true.

  Marshals fired at Clint. Bullets struck his shield and exploded, plinking off the surface into wisps of pink smoke. As more and more fired, the umbrella weakened and a few slugs eked through, falling to the dirt at the gunslinger’s feet. A second white unicorn broke from the group and stood beside Clint, adding a second-layer umbrella to protect him further. A third unicorn joined the first two. Bullets ceased their ingress, each new shot blowing to shards as it struck the reinforced shield. Clint’s own bullets, coming from inside the shell, were unimpeded. His bullets sliced through the feeble, failing umbrella cast by the ashen unicorns, dropping marshals and stirring their unicorns into a frenzy.

  Clint fired. And fired. And fired. Both guns at once, until empty.

  The gunslinger reloaded and fired again.

  A dozen marshals fell. Fifteen. Twenty.

  The gray unicorns panicked and scattered. The umbrella collapsed. Marshals and unicorns (some still paired, some solo) spread out, each now on his own. Clint continued to fire, tracking those he could and bringing them down.

  The chaos in front of the gates cleared a path. The remaining marshals from the flanks pressed in to block it. The marshals, though flustered by Clint and the white unicorns, were still strong; their bullets and their unicorns’ spells had knocked out a third of the Sands army. But Clint (and now others) had drawn blood, and it was happening too fast for the gray unicorns to heal all of their fallen riders. The Sands army smelled fear in their opponents. The marshals, they realized, weren’t made of stone after all. They were fallible, and they were human
.

  The Army of the Triangulum mustered their numbers and stormed the gates.

  The newly reinforced group of Realm marshals rallied as the Sands army charged. They and their gray unicorns continued to fire, cutting down Teedawges, Sands gunmen, and overconfident elves. Ropers flanked them, rushing to the sides, and managed to catch a few marshals by their necks. The marshals rolled, drew seven-shooters, and knocked the ropers to the dirt. Ropers began doubling up, using three or more of their magic ropes to pin the marshals’ arms to their sides, but their victories were short-lived because the gray unicorns easily outmatched the humans, blasting them to dust.

  The Sands army, populated by soldiers raised through generations of anticipation, was relentless. Ropers encumbered the gray unicorns’ hooves, using blunt force to knock them down. The grays righted themselves and returned fire, obliterating barrels and coaches and other obstacles from their path to find their foes. The tank never had a chance to fire. It was struck by an incidental shot from one of the unicorns attempting to hit a Teedawge, evaporated into white mist, and was rendered an oversized joke.

  Clint watched the Teedawges advance, firing their guns until empty and then drawing long, glowing scimitar weapons. A few of the Teedawges’ attacks struck down Realm marshals with their sheer brute numbers. The gray unicorns, however, began to team up and quickly regained the advantage. Two would stand together, head-to-tail, and the first would take fire so the second could pause to heal marshals.

  An imperative began to ripple through the Army of the Triangulum: Occupy the gray unicorns. Keep them busy so that they can’t heal the others. Then shoot at the marshals near them, several gunners to a target. Aim for the head, for an immediate kill.

  Teedawges, Sands gunmen, ropers, and elves surged. White unicorns began to batter the grays. The gray unicorns staggered back to defend themselves, leaving the marshals exposed. The Realm marshals were much better guns, but there were too many facing them, and The Realm’s forces began to thin marshal by marshal.

  There was a thundering from behind Clint as the giant charged. The gray unicorns and marshals saw it coming. Spells and bullets rained at the beast’s head, but the giant wore a helmet of magic alloy specifically designed to turn him into the perfect instrument for a berserker run. Clint had seen them practice the maneuver — ideal as a way to clear forces, but also acceptable as a suicide mission. Giants trained as berserkers were prepared and willing to die.

  The giant unsheathed its massive hammer with its juggernaut hands and swung. The blow was devastating and clearly unanticipated. With the gray unicorns’ umbrella gone, the giant’s first swing turned six marshals to white smoke. Then the giant turned, spells striking it, weakening its knees to a buckle. Bullets tore into its flesh. But as the giant fell, it managed a final swing and — drawing a gasp from all who saw it — its hammer struck two of the gray unicorns. They poofed into white smoke and were gone.

  Clint suppressed his shock. There would be time for assessing later. Stowing both fear and surprise, he ran, ducked, and fired.

  The giant was down. Small, green-clad elves were swarming the compound, slipping by marshals and unicorns and running between their legs. The marshals used their guns to knock down the elves like pins in a game of heavyball, but there were too many of them to strike them all. So the gray unicorns cast a wall, holding them back. Once the grays were occupied, Teedawges stormed from behind and started firing at the unicorns, emboldened by the realization that the magical steeds could indeed die (or at least be poofed into smoke) and pumped shell after shell into their bodies.

  Clint’s small, wild bunch of Conspiracists had scattered from the flying carpet when Clint began firing his seven-chambered guns, but as the Teedawges shot at the unicorns that were casting the wall, Clint saw Oliver working his shotgun’s slide, pumping rounds into one of the grays. Churchill was on the other side, but Clint was glad he’d given the sliver bullet of a thinking machine a rifle since his chest didn’t have a cannon like Buckaroo’s. Buckaroo had been built to work the dangerous Sands, but Churchill was made to serve a wealthy Realm family. He did have a weapon in his chest and was using it in addition to the shotgun, but instead of a cannon, it was a small, delicate, pearl-handled ladies’ pistol on an accordion arm.

  The only other member of his crew that Clint could see was Rigo. The old, white-haired man hadn’t moved. He was still on the magic carpet, which was no longer flying. Battle churned all around him without the old man seeming to notice. He stood perfectly still, his long eastern robes flowing and his arms crossed on his chest, his gaze straight forward.

  Clint tried yelling for Rigo to take cover, but as he did, something massive struck him and he looked over to see four gray unicorns — their colors ranging from an off-white to one the dusky color of twilight — beginning to focus their assault on him. Another spell struck his bubble like a rock to the face, making him shudder. His protecting white unicorns hadn’t faltered; they had continued to hold the gunslinger in their umbrella as the one man who could shoot true and pierce the gray unicorns’ shields. But with four firing spells at him at once, he could still be beaten to death.

  Clint fired at the grays, finding his bullets as useless as he’d known they would be. Body shots did nothing. Neither did head shots.

  Clint ran. The gray unicorns followed. The whites stayed where they were, still projecting their protection over the gunslinger. But there was no evading the grays. Their spells struck his bubble, knocking him down. They were using the same strategy on him that the others were using on the grays: encumber the gunslinger and keep him off balance. They couldn’t kill him — four gray unicorns were still woefully inadequate against three white unicorns — but they could keep him from doing more damage than he already had.

  Beyond him, Realm marshals swarmed amongst Teedawges, elves, and trolls. Clint saw Morph; he’d transformed himself into a kind of clockwork jaguar and was striking his enemies at their throats. Ropers surged, yanking whatever the marshals tried hiding behind to pieces. The marshals fought back, driving the Sands army toward the rip they’d come through. The balance of power undulated back and forth like a wave. Clint watched as a roper stole one of the Realm marshals’ guns, then cringed as the roper caught it and tried to fire. The marshal’s gun folded in half and fired six slugs backward, dropping the roper to the dirt.

  The grays continued to batter Clint with spells. The white unicorns protecting the gunslinger couldn’t strike at the grays because they were occupied in protecting him, so Clint could only run or take the abuse. Inside the umbrella, he was safe from the spells… but being slugged by magic while inside his shell was like going over a waterfall in a sealed barrel. Everything hurt. His head was battered. His shoulders throbbed from concussive blows.

  Clint fell to the dirt. Looked up. A gray unicorn reared above him. He fired at it, knowing it would matter nar. He struck the unicorn in its giant eye, but the gray healed itself instantly, spitting the gunslinger’s slug back at him as if fired from a pistol.

  A red spot of light appeared at the base of the gray unicorn’s horn.

  It took Clint a moment to understand what he was seeing because the context was so wrong, but then it dawned on him. Edward had projected similar red dots in battle before, to tell him where to shoot. He looked at the white unicorns that were making his shield, then at the dot of light. He looked back at the unicorns. One of them nodded.

  Three more dots appeared at the base of the other unicorns’ horns.

  He found himself remembering something Edward had said when they were leaving Aurora Solstice, before they’d found Mai but after he’d re-gained his memory and regrown his severed horn: The only magic a unicorn can perform if its horn is severed is to regrow the horn.

  Clint looked at the other unicorns. Ready? his eyes asked.

  The white unicorn nodded.

  Clint swiveled both of his arms as one, leveled his guns, and fired them in unison, severing two of the gray unicorns’
horns. In an instant’s flicker he fired both guns again. The four gray unicorns, now looking like four gray horses, panicked. Their heads jerked up, seeming to grasp for their magic like a man who’s dropped a coin. But the white unicorns were too fast; they surged forward and, letting Clint’s shields fall, turned their own magic on the grays. Three white horns glowed. A jet of green fire shot forward and consumed the grays, which tumbled end over end before falling still forever.

  “Don’t tell anyone about that little trick,” said the white unicorn who’d nodded to Clint.

  The gunslinger blinked, then stumbled to his feet without reply. He felt the shields shimmer back into place around him. He marched forward, toward the gate, and found Boricio behind a sheared-off piece of something large and alloy that Clint couldn’t identify. He looked down, inviting Boricio to join him. Boricio saw the wavering air around Clint and got to his feet, now inside the shield as well. They stood in a hail of ineffectual bullets, Boricio holding his shotgun with both hands across his hips.

  “So unicorns can die,” he said.

  “Apparently,” said Clint.

  “Well,” Boricio said with a whistle, “hickory dickory dock.”

  “Have you seen the others?”

  “From our side?”

  “The others who came with us,” said Clint. He wasn’t willing to commit to sides, except possibly the side of the white unicorns — who, incidentally, didn’t seem to truly be on anyone’s side, either.

  “Well,” said Boricio, “there’s Jack-be-Nimble over there.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. Clint turned to see Rigo, still unmoving, still with no weapon or obvious shield.

  “What is he doing?” Clint said.

  “I don’t know,” said Boricio, “but I’m not taking my eye off him. He hasn’t done anything yet, and you just know that when he does, it’s going to be something really cool.”