For the Wildings

by Kyra Halland

  “One!” the sheriff said.

  Brin kept his hand in position, unmoving. His heart pounded; no matter his advantages, the man who wasn’t a little nervous before a shootout was a fool. There were never any absolute guarantees in a gun duel, especially when magic and treachery might also be afoot. Still, he made every effort to appear completely calm and hide his suspicions. His opponent held stock-still, but his dark eyes glanced over in the direction of his associates, as though he was waiting for them to do something. Brin constantly shifted his own gaze between his opponent and the other two mages, watching for signs of motion.

  “Two!”

  Time stretched out. Brin’s heart pounded harder. The mustached gunman glanced nervously at the other two mages again. Brinna and Shayla’s faces came to Brin’s mind; quickly, he dismissed them. This was no time to get distracted by longings and regrets.

  “Thr –”

  Balls of colored light flared up in the other two mages’ hands and exploded into the street. Jolted by the explosion and briefly blinded by the glare, Brin staggered, fighting to stay on his feet. Cold, wet clods of dirt pelted down on him, then his sight and the air cleared to reveal the three mages running down the street.

  Jasik let out a long, bone-chilling cry and threw his spear. Glowing bright blue-green and trailing a stream of magic, it sailed towards the blond mage and pierced his back with astounding force and accuracy. As the stricken mage stumbled forward and fell to the ground, Brin and Storts drew and fired at the other two mages. Shields shimmered into place behind the mages; Brin’s bullets dropped to the ground, but Black Suit staggered as Stort’s shots, coming from an angle to the side, struck his arm and shoulder. Still, he kept running, keeping pace with the mustached mage.

  Brin stood watching the two mages flee, torn by sudden indecision. He could just let them get away. He had protected his town, his land, and his family, as he had promised Vendine he would, and he doubted the Hidden Council would threaten them again. But there were other towns, other families…

  With a quick prayer to the Defender and a silent apology to Brinna, Brin called up as much of his power into his hands as he could, shaped the deep green light into a massive ball, and lobbed it towards the mages with all his strength.

  The ball of power soared over the heads of the escaping mages and hit the ground in front of them with a tremendous explosion. Their shields disappeared as they flew backwards and landed hard in the street. Immediately, they both rolled over to their knees and began shaping magical attacks. Brin dropped to the ground and aimed both guns towards the mages. They launched their attacks; at the same instant, Brin fired, emptying both chambers, then rolled aside and covered his head with his arms as the magical attacks plowed into the ground where he’d been lying. The world disappeared in the light and noise of the explosion, and the shockwave jarred him to his bones.

  When the dust and smoke and light cleared, he saw the two mages lying motionless in the mud and trampled snow in the street. Storts ran over to him. “You all right, Mr. Coltor?”

  “I’m…” Brin shook his head to clear it. “I’m fine.” Still, he accepted Storts’s hand up as he got to his feet, his legs shaking and his ears ringing.

  Flanked by Storts and Jasik, Storts holding his six-shooter at the ready and Jasik’s sword glowing with blue-green magic, Brin walked over to the fallen mages. The blond mage lay unmoving in a pool of blood, Jasik’s spear protruding from his back, where his heart was. Brin crouched down and found no pulse in his throat. With a hard tug, Jasik retrieved his spear.

  The mustached mage was also clearly dead, his bald head severely damaged by at least one bullet to the skull. Black Suit lay crumpled on his side, moaning, wounded in the chest and gut with injuries that would certainly lead to a slow, painful death.

  As Brin, Storts, and Jasik looked at the mages, the mayor and the sheriff hurried over. Jasik squatted down beside Black Suit with a hard look on his face that gave Brin chills and made him even more glad that the A’ayimat clans hadn’t declared war on the settlers.

  Jasik pushed the wounded mage onto his back. “He’s one of the men I saw outside the town my clan destroyed, watching to make sure we did their evil work. Which one did you rape?” he demanded of the dying mage. “The boy or the girl? Or both of them? Did they cry for their mothers and fathers? How long did you make them suffer as you killed them? Did you enjoy the screams of the people dying in Stone Creek as we put the town to flame?” Tears rolling down his face, he rested the glowing point of his short, curved sword against the hollow of Black Suit’s throat.

  “Go ahead and kill me,” Black Suit moaned. “I know I’m dying anyway. Have mercy, give me a quick death.”

  “Why should I have more mercy on you than you had on A’ayimat children and Plain settlers?”

  “I didn’t rape them! That was the others. I was only there to make sure the job got done. They thought they’d have some fun with the assignment, but I have no taste for such things, so I didn’t join in.”

  “You were their leader. You let it happen. You didn’t stop them.”

  Black Suit had no response to that.

  “What other towns in this part of the Wildings are being targeted?” Brin asked. “Tell us what we want to know, and maybe we’ll give you what you want.”

  “The plans were secret,” Black Suit gasped. His voice gurgled; he turned his head aside and coughed up blood. “I only know what my own assignment was – Stone Creek, then meet up with this team and come up here.”

  “Was that all?”

  “Fairbank.” Blood dribbled from his mouth. “She sent a team to Fairbank. I was supposed to go see how they’re doing once Bentwood Gulch was secure. And White Cloud. A team went up there. I was supposed to check on them, too.”

  “Well, then, you can rest easy about your tasks,” Brin said. “We’ll be happy to go say hello to those fellows for you.”

  “Please,” Black Suit said through the blood in his mouth. “Mercy.”

  “With your permission?” Brin looked at the sheriff; he had the final say on punishments in Bentwood Gulch.

  “Is it true what they said?” the sheriff asked the dying mage. “Tell us the truth, and we’ll give you the mercy you asked for.”

  Black Suit nodded. “It’s – true,” he choked out through pain and a mouthful of blood. “Swear it by – hope of heavens and fear of the hells.”

  The sheriff nodded to Jasik. “Go ahead.”

  Jasik drove the point of his sword though Black Suit’s throat.

  Brin watched the last signs of life fade from the mage’s face. Then he turned to see the mayor staring at him as though he’d never seen him before.

  “You’re a wizard,” the mayor said.

  “I am what I’ve always been,” Brin replied. “You know me, Warrit.”

  A number of the townsfolk had come over to see what was happening. “Now, wait just a minute,” said the owner of the Bentwood Valley Quality Mercantile. “You’ve been living among us all these years, an’ you’re a wizard?”

  “I’m not sure I like being fooled, even if you are the richest man in the Wildings,” said another man, a clerk at the bank. Angry murmurs rose from most of the other men gathered around.

  “You know me,” Brin repeated in a louder voice. “What you’ve seen is who I am. I’ve worked hard to make a good life for myself and the folks who live here. I gave up magic years ago because I was ashamed of how mages treat Plain folk. The life I’ve lived here among you is the life I want. I knew if I used magic to save this town I might get myself some trouble for it. But I’d rather do that than see this town taken over by mages who treat Plain folk like animals, or less than animals.”

  “They was going to save us from the blueskins!” the barkeeper from Dirty Deke’s retorted.

  “Those men were the one who provoked the attacks,” Jasik said. “They tortured, ravaged, and murdered A’ayimat children and made sure the townsfolk were blamed, and then they watche
d my people, angry in our grief, take revenge. I saw this man myself –” he pointed to the dead mage in the black suit “– at Stone Creek. That’s where I met Vendine, and we followed the murderers’ trail to Discovery. We found the people there afraid to speak to each other, afraid to even look at each other. There were rules, no one was allowed out of their homes from evening until dawn, no groups of more than three people were allowed to gather together. The wizards wanted to know where everyone was and what they were doing at all times. They could arrest anyone they wanted, for any reason, or no reason, and hang anyone who disobeyed the rules or even complained about them. That is what I saw, and I swear its truth by the spirits of my forebears and my clan’s murdered children.”

  “Indeed, these fellows were proposing that the same rules be established here,” the mayor said. “I wasn’t sure it was a good idea, the business about hanging seemed rather extreme, but Foreston said better safe than sorry –”

  “Hold on now,” the sheriff said. “It was me didn’t like them rules and you that said better than a blueskin attack.”

  “No, I clearly recall –”

  “In any case,” Brin cut in, “we stopped them. We folk of Bentwood Gulch don’t need outsiders telling us what to do; we can look after ourselves. Right?”

  The people standing around, who had been joined by another dozen or so men and women, began a murmured debate among themselves.

  “Isn’t that why we, or our parents, or our grandparents, came to the Wildings?” Brin went on. “Isn’t that why we’ve faced hardship and sacrifice, so that we can live our lives our own way, free and independent?”

  The murmuring turned louder, then swelled into agreement. “Damn right, that’s why we’re here!” a man shouted. “My grandad who died in the Gap would be rolling over in his grave to see us bowing to anyone else!” Cries of agreement followed this, then fell silent at a gesture from the mayor.

  “We will meet in the music hall in an hour to discuss our defense should future incidents occur,” the mayor announced. “But first, proper disposition must be made of these bodies, and the damage to the street must be repaired lest any unfortunate mishaps occur.”

  As work crews began to form, Brin thought of Brinna again and how worried she must be. But would she want him to come home now, while other people were still in danger? Could he look her in the face, or himself in the mirror, if he quit now?

  He already knew the answer to that. “I’ll head up north to White Cloud, then out to Fairbank,” he said to the sheriff, “and deal with the rest of these troublemakers. I doubt there’ll be any more blueskin attacks, but from what Vendine told me about the people behind this plan, they’ll do whatever it takes, kill as many people as they have to, to get what they want. So be on your guard.” He looked at Jasik. “You coming with me?”

  “I need to get word about what’s happened to the rest of the clans around here, but I’ll be right behind you.”

  “I’ll send a crew with you,” the sheriff said.

  “I’d be grateful for the help,” Brin replied. He turned to Storts. “Look after the ranch and my family while I’m gone, and make sure they come to no harm.” He couldn’t be certain that no disgruntled townsfolk, unhappy that a mage had hidden himself among them all these years, would try to take out their fear and anger on his property or, gods forbid, his family.

  “I’ll protect them with my life, Mr. Coltor,” Storts answered.

  Brin clapped him on the shoulder. “I know you will. Let’s get moving,” he said to Jasik and the sheriff. “The sooner we hit the trail, the sooner we can run this vermin out of the Wildings and back to Granadaia or down to the hells where they belong.”

  Chapter 24

  ON A COLD, gray afternoon a nineday after they left Honeybee, Lainie and Silas approached Bitterbush Springs, riding down through the valley from the north. The cold wasn’t as biting and the snow wasn’t as deep as north of the Gap River, but now, in the depths of winter, the Bitterbush Valley was as cold and snowy as it got. Ahead of them, in the cloud-dimmed light, the town was a blackened smudge against the snow-dusted valley floor. A handful of buildings appeared to still be standing; the rest were burned to various stages of ruin.

  Lainie reined in, swallowing a wave of sickness. Maybe Bitterbush Springs had been on the list of towns to be destroyed, after all, instead of being taken over. Maybe Elspetya wasn’t here; maybe no one was. There were people here who had hated Lainie, but she also hoped that some of her friends would have still been her friends, even knowing she was a wizard. Were they all dead now? And what about her Pa?

  “Darlin’?” Silas asked.

  She had to learn the truth, not hide from it. “I’m okay,” she said, and forced herself to nudge Mala forward.

  As they got closer, the gallows at the north end of town, where Lainie had nearly been hanged a year and a half ago, came more clearly into sight. Five bodies hung from it, swaying slightly in the wind.

  “Pa!” Lainie cried out, suddenly, horribly certain that her Pa was among those bodies. She drove Mala into a gallop towards the town. She didn’t want to know, but she had to know; she couldn’t think, she couldn’t even breathe, until she knew. Memories flooded through her mind: the roughness of the rope around her neck, the bone-melting terror as she struggled to break away from the hanging mob…

  “Lainie, don’t!” Silas called, racing after her on Abenar.

  She didn’t look back. She reined in before the gallows and scrambled down from the saddle. Standing in front of the gibbet, she took a deep breath, bracing herself for what she might see. Then she looked up at the dangling bodies, three men and two women. The cold had preserved them, but the hanging had left their faces swollen and darkened, nearly unrecognizable. Still, from their builds, hair, and clothing, she could guess who they were.

  None of them were her Pa, or, she was sure, her friends.

  “Darlin’,” Silas said from beside her.

  She turned to him, and realized she was crying. His arms went around her. “It isn’t him,” she wept against his chest.

  “I’ll take you somewhere safe,” he said, holding her tight. “Maybe to the A’ayimat in the Great Sky Mountains; they know us. You don’t have to do this.”

  Was it the Great Sky A’ayimat whose children had been murdered to incite the attack on Bitterbush Springs? Or the ones in the Bitterbush Hills? Either way, more children and settlers were dead at her grandmother’s hands, and she had no business hiding, even if she wanted to.

  “No,” she said, pulling back and drying her tears with her coat sleeves. “I do have to do this. She’s my flesh and blood, and I’m going to make things right. She hurt you. She killed these people, and A’ayimat children and my brother and Garis Horden and Bissom, and a lot of other people. I have to see justice done on her so she’ll never hurt anyone else.”

  He pulled her into his arms again and held her for a long moment. “I know,” he finally said. “Just promise me you won’t get yourself killed.”

  “I promise.” She looked up at him and forced a smile. “And I promise, if I do get myself killed, I’ll let you find me in the Afterworld and give me the whupping I deserve.”

  “I promise, too.” He grinned down at her, though his grin was shaky. “And if I get myself killed, I’ll let you find me in the Afterworld and tie me up.”

  She snorted out a laugh through her tears. “That was on accident, that one time, and you know it.”

  A tender look replaced his smile, and he brushed tears from her face even as tears swam in his own eyes. “I know.”

  He kissed her, then they held each other for a long time. Lainie filled her mind with his face and how his arms felt around her and the feel of him in her arms, trying to memorize them in case something did happen to him and so, when the fight got hard, she would remember part of what she was fighting for.

  A gust of wind curled around them, colder than before, reminding Lainie that the afternoon was wearing on. She didn’
t want to wait all through a long, sleepless night until morning to confront her grandmother. “You ready?” she said.

  “I’m ready if you are, darlin’.”

  “Then let’s go find my grandmother and finish this.”

  * * *

  THEY WENT IN quietly on foot. The town looked and felt like a ghost of the town where Lainie had spent her first nineteen years. Unquiet spirits teased at the edge of her mage senses. The icy wind whistled through the burnt-out buildings, carrying small, hard flakes of snow with it. Except for the eerie sound of the wind and the clopping of the horses’ hooves on the hard ground, the town was utterly silent. Lainie wondered if everyone except the people who’d been hanged had fled or been killed in the A’ayimat attack.

  Silas suddenly stopped walking. Something tingled at the edge of Lainie’s senses, a feeling that someone was watching them. Silently, Silas jerked his head towards the stable between the half-built hotel and Mundy’s Boarding House, which was partly blackened but still mostly standing.

  They settled Mala and Abenar in the relatively safe shelter of the stable, with buckets of water from the nearby pump and some armfuls of hay. They left the gates of the stalls unlatched so the horses wouldn’t be trapped if worse came to worst. Still concealed in the stable, they made sure their guns were loaded and that they had plenty of extra ammunition in their gunbelts and pockets. Then they went back outside, keeping themselves hidden behind the half-burned fence that separated the stable yard from the street. The fence was more holes than wood, but it still gave them some cover while letting them see what was happening in the street.

  “I’m pretty sure someone’s out there,” Lainie said in a bare whisper. Despite the quiet and the empty street, her nerves screamed with the sensation of being watched.

  “Not a mage, though,” Silas whispered back.