Flirt. Son of a bitch. The bowman hadn’t been wrong.
He might have to shoot her after all. Or himself.
He lowered himself onto a sand-colored outcrop a couple arm-lengths from where the wounded man reclined on the grass. The bowman lay on his back, his eyes squeezed shut. His forehead glistened with sweat, despite the spring chill and freshening breeze. Having considerable experience with grievous bodily harm, received as well as delivered, Jonathan Fist knew the bowman was only now getting a real taste of how much the rest of his life might suck.
After a minute or two he admitted to himself that even if the horse-witch didn’t care about the bowman’s story, he did. People in this part of the world don’t travel alone. And questioning the man would give him something to think about. Something other than long, elegantly muscled sun-bronzed thighs, or a glance that could chill or warm or do both together but seemed in his mind to be trending definitely in the direction of warm. Maybe even hot.
He shook his head. He was, he reminded himself, old enough to know better. “Start with your name.”
“Do I have to?” Hoarse. Going faint. Blood seeping out around the belt. “Talking makes it worse.”
“I’d care, except ten minutes ago you tried to shoot me.”
“If I talk …” He licked his lips. “You got water?”
“Not with me.”
“But you can get it.”
Jonathan Fist shrugged. The bowman still had his eyes closed, but he seemed to understand. “Listen, my horses are back there. I got three full skins. Hell, you can have one.”
“I can have them all.”
“Pardon me for saying, but you don’t seem the type.”
“Start with your name.”
“Patch me real, can you? Better than this. Get me horsed and aimed on toward the rest of my life?”
“It’s possible.”
He coughed, and there was blood on his lips. Might have nicked a lung. Might just have bit his tongue when he fell. “You ain’t as reassuring as I’d like.”
“You tried to shoot me.”
“Yeah.” The bowman sucked in a halting breath, and he let it out with something like a shudder. “Folk who know me call me Tanner. My momma calls me Hack. Hackford, if she’s mad.”
“Still got your mother?”
“Sure. I ain’t old as you. Shit, she ain’t old as you.”
“I’m younger than I look.”
“You and me both, pappy.” He coughed again. More blood. “It’ll kill her to have to bury me.”
“She won’t.”
He rolled his head a little, and one eye slitted open to examine Jonathan Fist’s expression. Lack of expression. “That don’t sound like a promise I’ll live through this.”
“It’s still a promise.”
“I guess.” The eye drifted shut. He turned his face away. “What do you want to know?”
Tanner’s story was depressingly familiar: something of value turns up where people can see it, so people, being people, decide to take it.
Ten thousand or more horses in the witch-herd, almost all of them already broke to ride, which was enough cash on the hoof to buy a good-size town. The local warlord does a rough cost-benefit analysis and decides it’s worth paying twenty-five or thirty guys to collect the horses, and then five or six hundred more guys to use those horses to take over the range, cropland, and water holes belonging to warlords next door. The Lincoln County War with swords, bows, and magick.
And just like the Lincoln County War, the most interesting parts of the story were the hired killers.
None of them were anything resembling secrets. The local warlord, who called himself Count Faltane, wanted everyone to know just what kind of heavies he could afford. About half the witch-herd outfit was local, and the other half was a selection of imported hardguys and general-purpose psychos under a high-powered combat mage who called himself Bannon. Tanner was one of them. “I’m a hunter. Never miss a kill. Never spook the prey. First clue I’m there is an arrow in the back of the neck. Like being invisible.”
“Not to me.”
“Wasn’t hunting you, was I?”
“And don’t. Next time I won’t be in such a gentle mood.”
This outfit had been nipping at the skirts of the witch-herd for three days, but had only managed to carve off a few dozen aging, sickly, half-crippled nags. The rest of the witch-herd was smart and skittish, and always seemed to be a couple steps ahead of the men who were trying to chivvy them down into the flats. “Some of these local boys, they talk about this horse-witch, this twist who rides with the herd. Seems she’s kind of a legend in these parts. The villagers leave out little gifts for her when the herd’s nearby, and sometimes somebody turns around to find a horse coming up behind them like they already know each other. Story is, the witch-horses are half magickal or something, superstrong and supersmart, and if you treat ’em good they’ll die for you. If you don’t treat ’em good, it’s you that dies.”
“Sounds fair.”
“Maybe it is. Except one don’t seem to be enough for some folk.”
“Somebody always gets greedy.”
“I have been known to suffer a touch of that affliction myself.”
Jonathan Fist pointed at some brown splotches on his pants leg. “This blood here? It belonged to a guy who thought he could grab some of these horses and drag them off this afternoon.”
“Thought,” Tanner said. “Not thinks.”
“That’s right.”
“Well, I don’t think, I hunt.” Tanner shook his head and grimaced. “Hunted.”
“Killing the horse-witch won’t get you these horses. She’s not your problem. Your problem is you.”
“I suspicion that’s true for a lot of people,” Tanner said. “How about that water?”
“In a minute. Tell me again about this Bannon guy.”
“He’s the boss. Him and his pal Charlie. Bannon don’t have a lot to say, but Charlie makes up for it. There’s a man as loves the sound of his own voice. Good-Time Charlie, he says the girls call him, and he can tell a story, I confess. Show you the pictures too, just like being there—as pretty a sightcaster as I ever saw.”
“Bannon.”
“There’s juice and a half in that one. On the trail out here, we flushed a K’rrx raiding party by accident—in full shell and big enough to do us the kind of harm as don’t heal, and backed by a couple of them ghostsingers of theirs. Bannon didn’t even get off his horse. None of us did. After about a minute, most of them was in pieces, and those as still whole was all over afire. I never even touched my bow.”
Jonathan Fist had some experience with hostile K’rrx himself. “I’m impressed.”
“You say that like it don’t often happen.”
“It’s been a while.”
“This is me returning the favor of you letting me live. People who get on the boss’s wrong side come down with a bad case of dead. That you’ll get hurt trick of yours is pretty nifty, but I don’t recommend you try it on Red Bannon.”
“Red?” Fist frowned. “That’s his name? Red Bannon?”
“That’s what we call him, ’cause of his hair and beard. Red as a fox, though on him it’s more bear, as he’s a more bear-size sonofabitch. Charlie calls him Lazz sometimes, but he don’t like it. I don’t even know if Bannon’s his family or his given.”
“Or just fucking made up.” Fist looked at the ground, and allowed himself a couple of seconds of hoping he was wrong. “So Bannon’s big, red-haired, and a bust-ass combat magicker. This Good-Time Charlie, the sightcaster who backs him up—he wouldn’t be a hand or two taller, skinny as a straw? Laughs like a donkey getting kicked in the balls?”
“You know them.”
“Not exactly.” He rubbed his eyes, which turned into a futile attempt to massage away an oncoming migraine.
A few days tracking down his daughter’s stray horses. Like a vacation. Camping in the mountains. Fresh air and spring water instead
of smoke and whiskey. And instead of all that, he had somehow stumbled into another fucking meat grinder. Would have been nice if somebody could have posted a sign or something.
It’s a little late to spot the grinder once your dick’s already caught.
After a while, the gelding trotted off and the horse-witch came over to the two men. “Let’s see that shoulder.”
Both men looked askance. She said, “Well?”
Jonathan Fist moved out of her way. Tanner chuckled wetly. “Me dying ain’t keeping you from something, is it?”
She uncinched the belt. One of those little knives was in her hand. She cut his tunic around his shoulder and peeled it back. “You’re not dying.”
“And if I was, would that have been important enough to get you over here before you finished trimming some goddamn horse feet?”
“No.”
Tanner blinked, frowned, blinked again, and looked over at Fist, who opened his hands and turned his palms upward. “You asked.”
“I guess.”
The horse-witch reached inside her jerkin and brought out a big pinch of some kind of leaves that were dark and shriveled-looking, but still moist. She put them in her mouth and chewed thoughtfully, not unlike a contented horse with a mouthful of sweetgrass.
“You are nothing like a normal person,” Tanner said.
She nodded absently and scooped the chewed leaves from her mouth with two fingers. After packing the leaves into the wounds, she plastered the sodden tunic back over them and rewrapped the belt around his shoulder. “You’ll heal clean.”
She stood and started walking up the slope.
Color was already returning to Tanner’s face. “That feels … damn. Did you really just …?”
His voice trailed off. She walked like she’d already forgotten about them both.
Fist went after her. “Hey, wait a second. Hey!” Dammit. “What the hell’s your name, anyway?”
She paused at the crest of the slope. “They’re worried about the blood,” she said. “And there’s an ogrillo up on the bluffs.”
“Who’s worried? And—” He squinted toward the bluffs. “You can see him?”
“The herd knows.” She nodded toward the shallow defile where Tanner had left his two horses. “They’re all right now.”
Tanner’s horses came walking cautiously up toward them, as though they’d been waiting only for permission. Fist stared. “I don’t understand you at all.”
She looked bored.
“If I hadn’t stopped him, he would have killed you—”
“I get killed all the time.”
“—and you’re helping him, and what the fuck is I get killed all the time supposed to mean?”
She winked her ice eye at him. “Permission.”
“Bullshit.”
She started walking back through the rocks, heading for the ravine and the herd. “They love him.”
“What, his horses? Are you fucking kidding me? ‘His horses love him’ means he’s a good person?”
“Better than you.”
“Well, no shit,” he said. “Who isn’t?”
She kept walking. The big bay she’d been riding rounded an outcrop and ambled toward her. Tanner’s horses picked their way up through the rocks, nickering warily as if calling for him but afraid of getting an answer.
He beckoned to them, feeling ridiculous. “He’s down there. It’s all right.”
They came on like they understood him.
He looked back downslope toward Tanner. “Your bow’s up here. The knife too. Hell, even the arrows. It’ll be a while before you’re shooting again.”
“If gratitude from me means anything—”
“Thank me by staying out of my way. Killing somebody after saving his life makes me feel like an idiot.”
“Nobody wants that.” Tanner waved his good hand. “Thanks anyway.”
“Fuck off.” He was already trotting after the horse-witch.
Again.
“A girl likes to be asked, dumbass.”
— THE HORSE-WITCH
HISTORY OF THE FALTANE COUNTY WAR (Rev. Ed.)
He trotted after the horse-witch.
She was up on the bay now, sitting his big bounding trot like the horse was actually just her legs. He leaned forward and picked up speed. He ran without effort, and found himself wearing a fierce grin at how good it still felt when his legs did what they were told. The bay must have heard him coming; its trot lengthened until his without effort dried up and blew away. “Will you for fuck’s sake please just stop?”
They did.
He caught up with them, puffing. “Finally. What changed your mind?”
“Nothing.”
“Then—?”
“A girl likes to be asked, dumbass.” She had her doe eye on him, and her unexpectedly gentle, good-natured smile made something in his chest lurch sideways.
“Yeah, all right,” he said, shaking his head, looking away to stop himself from smiling back at her. “I should probably take notes.”
“You’re very rough,” she said. “With you, everything’s harsh. Jagged. You’re always pushing. Shouting. Bullying. That’s a bad way to come at a horse.”
Or a woman, apparently. This one, anyway.
“Sorry,” he said, surprised to discover that he actually was. “I’ve been living a life where manners don’t count.”
“That’s sad for you.”
“Sad doesn’t count either.”
She seemed to consider this for a moment. “I’m sad for you anyway.”
“Don’t be.” People getting sad for him might lead him to getting sad for himself, which could be fatal in a multiplicity of ways. “Don’t worry about me.”
“You’re ordering me to not be sad?”
“Lady, seriously, you have bigger problems than my shitty life.”
“How do you know?”
“Will you stop that?” He lifted a hand. “Please. Don’t answer. Listen.”
Her gaze was patient as the bluffs behind her.
“That guy with the bow, he’s not the only swinging dick out here to kill you today. There’s more. A lot more. And compared to the guy running the outfit, I’m about as dangerous as a bag of puppies. The herd is what they want. They think killing you will get it for them.”
“They’ll be disappointed.”
“Yeah, and it’d be nice if somebody could explain that to them before you die.”
She nodded thoughtful agreement. “That would be nice.”
“They don’t want to come after you when you’re with the herd, but if that’s the only way to get you, they’ll do it. Then horses will get hurt too. Killed.”
“Very likely.”
“You don’t look too worried about it.”
“That’s not what I do.”
“What, you don’t worry about the horses? And you don’t protect them or rule them, and really what the fuck do you do?”
She gave him both eyes. “Forgiveness—”
“And permission, yeah yeah, whatever. Forgiveness, permission, and the occasional hoof trim.”
She smiled down at him, and spoke clearly, companionably, without the slightest trace of condescension. “Sometimes a horse has a problem I can help with—a sore foot, a cut, cactus needles. Other things. Many things are done best by someone with thumbs. Sometimes I have a problem a horse can help me with—when I must travel swiftly, or far, or need someone to watch over me when I sleep. Many things are done best by someone with hooves. They don’t do this because I’m the horse-witch, and being the horse-witch isn’t why I do this. These things are what friends do for friends.”
“Hey, wait.” He frowned. That had actually made sense. “What happened? This is suddenly almost a real conversation.”
“You’re starting to understand what I am.”
“I said almost.” He waved a hand. “I’d like to understand you. I would. I was wrong before, when I said I didn’t give a shit. But trying seems like a wast
e of time, when you’ll be dead by sundown.”
The crinkles around her eyes bespoke only impenetrable serenity and a reserved, patient compassion. “I’m never dead.”
“What happened to I get killed all the time?”
“Being killed isn’t the same as being dead.”
“For most people, one follows kind of hard on the heels of the other.”
A dismissive shrug. “People.”
He knew this would piss him off, but somehow he couldn’t help himself. “You’re not people?”
“I’m the horse-witch.”
“The horse-witch isn’t a person?”
“The horse-witch,” she said, “is me.”
He opened his mouth to retort, then changed his mind and just lowered himself onto the rocks and sat, resting his forehead on the palm of his hand. “Never mind. I was having this dream, I guess, where I was talking with this nice-looking woman on a horse and actually getting somewhere. Shit was starting to make sense.”
“You’re getting farther than you think,” she said. “I like you now.”
“Excuse me?”
“I like you,” she repeated. “When you’re quiet. You get sane. You care. Even about me, though you don’t know me. I wanted to like you from the instant I saw you. But you’re difficult to like.”
“So I hear.”
“I hope I can keep on liking you, because I want you to like me. When I look at you, I think about sex.”
He coughed, caught his breath, and coughed again. “I’m sorry?”
“You are a conspicuously beautiful man, and you’re very fit, and strong, and competent in unexpected ways. You expect women to be attracted to you, and I am. When I look at you, I think about sex. With you. Sex with you will be very, very good.”
He coughed again, but it didn’t help. “Little old for you, aren’t I?”
“Old?”
She laughed, and in her laugh was the creak of calving glaciers, the grind of rock along subterranean faults, the hush of surf and the soft, wet layers of decay that become the rich dark earth thundering under a billion years of hooves and feet and claws of creatures so ancient that all trace of them was gone from the world …
But not from her.
In her they still lived and ran and fought and fucked and called to her to come play with them in their vanished eternity.
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