by Dan Willis
“Sword.”
John tossed the sword into the air as Hickok rose. The enforcer caught the weapon and swung it in one smooth motion, sending the Scrapstalker’s head flying over the hill, raining bits that reflected the twilight sky like a shower of fiery embers.
The body of the creature spasmed and jerked and John suddenly wondered if removing a Scrapstalker’s head would actually stop it. Hickok brought his booted foot down on the creature’s torso, shattering it into a mass of wiggling, shuddering parts.
A wailing cry of anger and frustration suddenly floated over the rolling hills.
“They’ve figured out our trick,” Hickok said, giving the writhing mass of moving parts a kick for good measure. “If we can outrun them, we might have a chance. Come on.”
John cast a last look at the Scrapstalker on the ground. Even as he looked, its parts were beginning to return to it, building it back up into its monstrous form. He shuddered, then ducked below the hill and followed Hickok into the darkness.
Chapter 23
The Paragon
“This way,” Hickok said, leading John through a dry river bed.
“Aren’t we going toward the trees?” he hissed back.
“Yes.”
“I thought you said there might be Shredders there,” John squeaked, his voice breaking.
Hickok approached a steep rise, dropping to all fours to crawl up to the top. John scrambled after him and peeked over the top.
“The Scrapstalkers will have picked up our trail by now,” he said in a low voice. “They’re good hunters; the trick is that they love killing. As long as they’ve got something to kill, they’re happy.”
“They wouldn’t attack a Shredder, would they?”
“Yup.” Hickok nodded, dashing over the hill and heading for the trees. John scrambled after him, struggling to keep up. Even with broken ribs the enforcer moved faster than he did, striding easily through the brown prairie grass. As they got closer to the trees, the grass got taller, evidence of a water source.
The high grass made the hair on John’s neck stand up as he went. Shredders were known to lie in wait, waiting to strike until some unwary prey came along.
Shredders were once alligators, before Edward Jenner had released the Black Kudzu and destroyed the Old South. The Black Kudzu choked out everything, rendering the south unlivable, a wasteland where nothing useful could grow. The people who ended up trapped had to eat the Kudzu—some even survived.
Jenner had seeded the waterways of the south with thousands of crystals bearing his pathogen. Most attached to lake and river beds, spreading the Black Kudzu to the surrounding areas. Some, however, were eaten by the local alligators.
The Black Kudzu crystals attacked their living hosts, changed them.
Normal southern alligators became something closer to their prehistoric ancestors, with longer legs and bigger bodies and jaws that could snap a man in half. Without the need to live in water any longer, Shredders spread out into the great plains, driving range cattle almost to extinction, until some enterprising alchemist crossed longhorn cattle with porcupines and created the razorhorns. Only a starving Shredder would attack a ton of rawhide sporting sharp quills and horns like scythe blades. They preferred softer prey. People who lived in the Alliance knew never to be on the plains alone and to stay away from water at night.
So how was getting eaten by a Shredder better than being killed by a Scrapstalker?
“Shredders can’t climb trees,” Hickok said, answering John’s unasked question.
A small stand of scrubby hackberry trees stood beside an even smaller stream that cut a winding, narrow course through the arid landscape. John didn’t see any Shredders, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. He could, however, hear the eerie scraping sound of the Scrapstalkers getting louder as they rushed forward through the darkness.
As they got closer to the stream, the prairie grass grew taller, reaching his waist.
Plenty tall enough to hide an ambushing Shredder.
Almost on cue, Hickok spun around, bringing his sword up and over his head before sweeping it down with all his force into the head of a lunging Shredder. John hadn’t seen or heard the creature, lying in wait, but Hickok did. His sword slammed into the creature’s skull, shattering it, and driving down into the brain.
Before the battle had begun, it was over. The Shredder let out a keening cry and flopped down in the grass, dead. Hickok had gone pale; the force of the attack must have been torture on his ribs and left him gasping and breathing hard.
“Keep moving,” he said, shaking blood and brain matter from his sword blade. “There’s sure to be more.”
John ran.
Hissing growls erupted from the grass all around, followed by the thud of lumbering footsteps. One of the nightmarish creatures rose up from the grass mere feet from John. It was big and bulky and heavily muscled, looking more like a small horse than a big lizard. It stood almost four feet high and was longer than a steam wagon, easily twenty feet. The front legs were longer than the rear, making the Shredder appear to be hunchbacked, and a ridge of bony plates ran from the crest of its head and down its back to the tail. The monster’s snout ended in two, massive, upward thrusting teeth that set outside the maw. Dark, reptilian eyes fixed on John as he ran, and the creature opened its maw full of teeth and roared.
John ran for his life, but even as he passed the Shredder, he knew he’d be too late. A monster that size would run him down in seconds. Terror flooded through him as the Shredder leaned back on its haunches, preparing to charge.
It never got the chance.
With a metallic shriek of insane rage, two Scrapstalkers leaped from the grass and slammed into the Shredder. The beast had been intent on its victim and hadn’t perceived its danger. Metal claws tore into the Shredder and it roared in pain and defiance.
Twisting its head in a way that didn’t seem possible, the Shredder tore one of the Scrapstalkers off its flank and flung it into a nearby tree trunk. The Scrapstalker exploded into a shower of parts as it hit but John didn’t get to see any more.
“Up,” Hickok said, pointing at a reasonably tall tree. “Climb.”
Without waiting for John to obey, Hickok grabbed him by the back of his waistcoat and the seat of his pants and, grunting in pain, threw him into the lower branches. John caught hold and began to climb. As he went, he could hear the battle raging below, the roar of the wounded Shredder and the shrieks of the Scrapstalker.
“Keep climbing,” Hickok yelled, then John heard him start running.
He twisted his body to see the ground below. A new Shredder had appeared and Hickok kept darting just out of its reach, taking cover behind tree trunks and then moving on when the monster pursued.
A thrashing sound drew John’s attention back to the first Shredder. It was bleeding heavily from deep wounds and had thrown itself on its side, crushing the Scrapstalker that clung there. It rose unsteadily to its feet but before it could move, three more Scrapstalkers appeared. Two swarmed the Shredder, driving it back to the ground and tearing great bloody holes in its side.
The third stalker went right past the Shredder to the base of John’s tree. Then it began to climb.
Hickok yelled something that John didn’t hear; he was too focused on the grinding horror that was sinking razor-like fingers into the tree trunk below him, pulling itself up a foot at a time.
John might not be as fast as Hickok, but he wasn’t stupid. He’d seen the enforcer take on the Scrapstalker with his hands literally behind his back. Hickok had hit the thing fast and hard and never let up.
Without taking time to think better of it, John let go of the tree. Keeping his legs extended, he fell straight down, slamming into the Scrapstalker’s head with his feet. It felt like he’d landed on sand as his feet seemed to slide out from under him, raking parts free from the abomination as he went. His feet suddenly slipped off the body of the Scrapstalker. It had let go of the tree in an effort to slas
h at John with its hands and now both of them were dropping to the ground.
John kept his balance, hitting the ground and rolling away from the Scrapstalker. Right into the remaining Shredder’s path.
When John looked up, a baleful, yellow eye regarded him. The Shredder opened its maw, revealing rows of bone-white teeth. It was so close John could feel its breath.
John swore. Since it was likely to be the last thing he ever did, he made it a good one.
Apparently the Builder heard him. The Shredder’s head exploded, sending bone, brain, and bits of gore showering all over.
John just stared at the bloody lump that used to be the Shredder’s head, unable to do anything else. Next to him on the ground, the Scrapstalker shrieked. It had reassembled enough of its head to see him. Before it could act, however, thunder sounded and it shattered, blown apart by a blast of crystal bits.
“I can’t leave you alone for a second,” Robi’s voice came from the darkness. Seconds later she appeared, sliding down from the dark sky on a black rope. The rope attached to her back at the waist and ran around her body to the front. Whatever controlled her descent seemed to be in her belt buckle, allowing her to use the still smoking shattergun. The recoil of her shots sent her spinning, but she moved the gun with her rotation, keeping it trained on the remaining Scrapstalkers.
Hickok had said Scrapstalkers were stupid, but they’d seen shatterguns before. The two remaining abominations howled in rage, then darted off into the darkness over the corpse of the downed Shredder.
“How did you find us?” John asked, picking himself off the gore-strewn ground.
“No time for that,” Hickok said. “Where’s Sylvia?”
Before Robi could answer, the sound of airship propellers filled the air and the Desert Rose dropped out of the sky.
“We’ve got to get John aboard, right now,” Hickok said, grabbing John’s shoulder and pointing him toward the boarding ladder that dropped out of the darkness. “Go.”
“I’m all right,” John said, waiving Robi off, but something in her face made him stop.
“He’s bleeding through his skin,” she gasped. Hickok swore.
“There’s still a chance we can stop it,” he said, pushing John forward. “Now hurry, dammit.”
John’s hands, wet with leaked blood, kept slipping as he climbed. He wanted to vomit, clenching his teeth together against the feeling. As soon as he made the deck, Hickok hurried past him. He had no idea how the enforcer had managed the boarding ladder with broken ribs. The pain must have been excruciating.
“Bring him to the galley,” he called before disappearing below.
“What happened?” Robi said, helping John to his feet.
“Not much,” he said as Robi put his arm around her shoulders. “We met the professor. He infected me with the leaker’s disease. You know, the usual.”
Robi’s face paled but she said nothing.
“How did you find us?”
“The compass,” Robi said. “We just followed it until we saw Hickok leading that Shredder around.”
Lucky.
I must have dropped my compass on Solomon’s airship. Robi followed it, thinking I still had it.
“How did you do that?” John asked. “You just dropped out of the sky.”
Robi tapped the wide leather belt that encircled her waist. A black metal device, shaped like an infinity symbol, hung there.
“My father taught me how to wrap a rope around it so it controls your descent, leaving your hands free.”
Whenever Robi spoke about her father, her face beamed. John suddenly found himself wishing he could have met the famous thief.
“Sit him down,” Hickok said as they entered the galley.
John flopped into a chair, still feeling queasy. He tried not to think of his oozing hands and forced down another wave of nausea. Hickok put a polished box on the table in front of him, opening it to reveal a velvet lining holding twelve small vials of purple liquid.
Paragon Elixir.
John remembered seeing it at the Homestead when Doc Terminus had given it to Hickok.
“This is it,” Hickok said, removing one of the vials. “The rest is up to you.”
“What’s he talking about?” Robi asked.
John wanted to tell Robi, to let her know the terrible decision he had made, but there wasn’t any time. He could feel his insides going slippery as the leakers’ disease tried to claim him.
Without any hesitation, John picked up a vial, pulled out the cork stopper and drank.
He could tell by the look on Robi’s face that she’d guessed something momentous and important had just happened, even if she didn’t know what.
“What just happened?” she demanded of Hickok. “What was that?”
Hickok explained how the Paragon Elixir would cure John’s leaking and how he’d have to take it regularly from now on. He left out any mention of the Prophet or Doc Terminus, however.
“I’ll arrange to get you your own supply,” he said to John, closing the lid of the elixir box.
John nodded, feeling a warmth spreading out into his limbs from his stomach. It reminded him of the time he drank a shot of tequila on a dare, though that had burned going down.
Lightning abruptly lanced under John’s skin and he gasped.
“Lay him down on the floor,” Hickok said as John began to tremble. “The Paragon Effect isn’t pleasant.”
O O O
John’s knees buckled and Robi had to hold on tight as his full weight suddenly pressed down on her. John was solid for a fifteen-year-old, but Robi was used to pulling herself up the sides of buildings with her hands. She adjusted her grip and lowered John to the polished wood planking of the floor.
“Why don’t we put him in a bed?” she asked as Hickok returned from his cabin with a blanket. Before Hickok answered, John curled into a ball and threw up all over her shoes.
“That’s why,” Hickok said, tossing her the towel from the sink.
“Ug,” she said, wiping the remnants of John’s last meal from the soft leather of her uppers.
“Crankshaft,” Hickok called down the ladder. “Get up here with some towels and a bucket of water.”
When no response came, he called down again.
“Shaft? What are you doing?”
“He’s not down there,” Robi said, trying to wipe up the pool of vomit with the dish towel.
“What do you mean?”
John suddenly cried out, tightening his body into a ball as if all his muscles were contracting at once. Sweat broke out over his face and arms; some was red with blood, but most was clear.
“Hold him down,” Hickok said.
Robi grabbed John’s arms and pinned them to his chest. His eyes were open, but there was no sign that he saw her or felt the weight of her body pressing him down.
Hickok grabbed his legs just in time. John thrashed suddenly, throwing out his arms and legs in horrible jerks as Robi and Hickok tried to prevent his hurting himself. He opened his mouth and cried out, a sound filled with desperate agony, then he went limp.
“You can let go now,” Hickok said. “He’ll be calm for about an hour.”
Robi got up and Hickok laid the blanket over John’s prone form.
“Now, why are you here and where is Crankshaft?”
“Crankshaft was arrested,” Robi said. “As for me, John thought I might be useful to have along. Sylvia agreed.”
Hickok’s face was implacable. The Old Man had spent years training Robi how to read expressions but the enforcer betrayed nothing.
“Sylvia,” he called, a stern edge to his voice.
“Yes, Bill,” the scratchy voice filled the galley.
“Turn us around and take us back to Piston Falls, as fast as possible. We’ll talk about unauthorized passengers later.”
“Of course,” she said, the neutral tone in her voice stating plainly that she didn’t care what Bill thought about Robi’s presence on the airship.
> Hickok hurried below, then returned a few minutes later with a bucket, a scrub brush, and several towels. Robi took the brush, dunked it in the bucket, and proceeded to scrub the floor where John had vomited. John’s eyes were open and unblinking, but his breathing was slow and regular, as if he were asleep. When she finished, Hickok wiped up the water and vomit with one of his towels.
“Now,” Hickok said turning back to Robi. “Tell me what happened.”
Robi sighed, pulling out a chair and sitting at the big table.
“It was just after you reached the flux works,” she said. “The town marshal showed up and said he had a warrant to arrest anyone on board.”
“Did Crankshaft fight them?”
“No,” Sylvia’s voice answered. “Despite the fact that they were very rude.”
“He’s locked up in the town jail,” Robi said.
“Why didn’t you bust him out?” Hickok said, looking pointedly at Robi.
“By the time they finished snooping around here it was either take the time to free Crankshaft or try to follow you two. I figured Crankshaft could handle a night in jail. He’ll be safe enough.”
Hickok regarded her for a long minute then nodded.
“You did the right thing. Good call.” This last seemed to be torn out of the enforcer, as if his teeth didn’t want to let the compliment go. “How far is it to town, Sylvia?”
“Another fifteen minutes or so,” she answered. “I think something is wrong, though. You’d better see this.”
Hickok cursed and ran out onto the deck, heading forward. Robi hesitated a moment. If John had another fit, someone would have to be here. Still, Hickok had said he’d be okay for at least an hour. As she looked at his still form, she hoped he hadn’t simply traded one malady for another.
Leakers were ostracized, sure, but they were free. What would John be now? Beholden to Hickok and the Prophet, that’s what. They seem like good men, but they wouldn’t be the first to use pleasant faces to hide evil designs.
Perhaps his choice was best.
After all, he’d have almost no chance to track down his mother as a leaker; he’d have to stay close to a blood source. Not to mention, what mother would want a leaker for a son?