Chapter 18
The Details
The two of them did not stick around Meister Village much longer. They had not seen evidence of any more shadow creatures, but that didn’t mean they weren’t around, lurking. If anything, the explosion of the revolver would draw more attention, and right then, attention was the last thing they wanted.
Had authorities from a neighboring town come to investigate and discovered them among the ruins, Isaac and Swan would have had a hard time explaining the cause of the village’s death. Shadow creatures were myths and legends from an ancient time, difficult to believe in now. It was more likely that they would be hanged for crimes they did not commit.
So they rode out of the valley, continuing on to the other side of the mountain. The air had grown considerably colder; the snow and ice on the peaks seemed to reach out toward them with freezing fingers.
Neither of them talked on their descent, and by daybreak, the mountains stood tall at their backs. They made camp in the distant woods, not a road in sight. The forest was alive with the night sounds of crickets and chirruping birds.
Once their fire was ablaze and the horses were grazing, Swan said, “There’s something you’re not telling me.”
She rubbed at her arm, which she injured when she fell. Her elbow was swollen and turning a nasty shade of blue. Other than that, she was unscathed.
Isaac nodded. No point in denying it now. He still wasn’t sure if he could totally trust Swan, but when it came to secrets such as the ones he bore, there was not much of trusting anyone.
“The gun…how did you get it?”
“My mother.”
“You know if the wrong people knew you had that gun, you would be executed, right?”
“I do,” Isaac said. “That’s why I’ve not told anyone, save for Dolan.”
“The drunkest man in all of Track City.” Swan laughed. “Ale loosens lips, they say.”
“I’m not worried.”
“Why does your mom have a gun knight’s revolver? Probably one of the only ones in Aendvar, for that matter?”
“That I don’t know. I wish I did. I hope to find my answers out west,” he said. “But I’m not clinging to that hope much.”
“Smart boy. So your trek west has to do with the gun?”
Isaac nodded. The revolver was once again nestled in its box. He had reloaded the three shots discharged from it—two for the shadow creature, and one from the bandit. Still, sitting next to him in its case, it might as well have been live dynamite.
“Why?” Swan asked.
Isaac averted his eyes and picked up a stick. He poked at the fire with it, sending ashes and floating embers into the dark air. In the light of the flame, the cast shadows made their surroundings look ominous, and the burning wood did not cover up the rich scent of the forest: the leaves, the grass, the sap.
“Out west,” Isaac said, “a gun knight lives in hiding.”
Swan tilted her head back and laughed. “Not even you are that naive, Isaac Bleake. The gun knights are all dead, executed and hunted down by order of Goroth. They’re about as real as the Dwellers of Light.”
A wave of humor rippled through him, and he wanted to tell her that the Dwellers were also real, that he’d seen them with his own two eyes, had touched one, but ultimately decided not to. There was enough unexplainable things on their minds as it was.
“And shadow creatures aren’t real, either, right? They’re nothing but legends of old. You know the tale as well as I do—probably even better, since you grew up among a variety of people who came from all over. The Mad King Zoroth went insane in his pursuit of the Undervoid. He found a way to open the door and let the abominable creatures into Aendvar, but the gun knights caught wind of it, and a great battle was fought. Zoroth died in the battle, and then his son, the heir to the throne, who some would argue is growing just as mad as his father, ordered the extermination of the Order of the Gun, and—”
“Bullshit,” Swan said. Her face had gone slightly red with anger. “All of that was made up. The gun knights betrayed the kingdom, and because of that, they were punished.”
“Is that what you believe?”
Swan didn’t answer immediately. She chewed on the words she was about to say.
Isaac spoke before she could say them.
“The gun knights, the protectors of the innocent…you actually believe they would betray the very kingdom they were sworn to protect?”
Swan shook her head indecisively, conflicted. “I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter. That was a long time ago, before we were even born. The world has moved on. The past is the past.”
“I fear it’s not the past anymore. You know what you saw. Not admitting it to yourself, living in denial…that will get you killed.”
Swan shook her head slowly. “It wasn’t a shadow creature. It couldn’t have been. Maybe a something like it…”
Isaac nodded. “It was a shadow creature. One killed my mother. Then, when I got to Track City, a man got caught smuggling in a Death Fang Serpent. The—”
“Shadow’s mark,” Swan finished.
For the first time since Isaac met her, she looked truly frightened. Her skin had paled, and the confidence she carried herself with deflated like a party balloon that had met a needlepoint.
“And you’re going west to find this gun knight, to give him your mother’s weapon?” she asked.
“I am.”
“And you hope you can convince him to fight for good again.”
“I do.”
“What if you don’t find him?” she asked.
“I will.”
“Then I’m going with you. There’s nothing here for me. I was too late to save the town.”
“It wouldn’t have mattered,” he told her. “Count yourself lucky that you weren’t there. A sword wouldn’t—”
“Kill them. Yeah, you need a magic revolver.” She grinned. “How did you know to use that?”
“I didn’t. It was the only thing I had nearby. When it came at us, it knocked my sword a good distance away, and I needed to act fast, otherwise it was going to rip your throat out.”
Swan’s jaw clenched. “I don’t know about that. I think I had it under control.”
It was Isaac’s turn to chuckle. “You most certainly did not have it under control.”
“Whatever.” She looked away and rubbed the back of her neck, obviously agitated.
“If I’d had my sword, I would’ve run at it, and we would both be dead,” Isaac continued.
The fire’s warmth cut against the chill night wind. Far off in the distance, a wolf howled, and he thought it had probably found what was left of the town. The wolves would fill their bellies with the corpses of the townspeople.
The thought brought shivers down Isaac’s spine.
“Luckily, you’re not dead, and neither am I,” Swan replied.
She stretched her arms high above her head, then reached into her bag for food. They ate a small dinner of rabbit meat and crackers, but Isaac found it difficult to chew and swallow. The bulging eyes and bloated faces of the dead kept swimming to the forefront of his mind, and behind these floating faces was the unhinged jaw of some abominable creature from another world.
When they were finished eating, the moon was high above them, casting its white light down upon their camp. Lightning was sleeping, snoring softly, sounding almost human, and sleep weighed heavily on Isaac’s eyelids.
“We better get some rest,” Swan said. “I know it probably won’t come easily, but we have to try. We are not far from the Infected Lands. Perhaps three more days’ ride, if we pace ourselves and stay out of trouble.”
“Easier said than done.” He grinned despite the deep terror of the future he felt in the very fibers of his soul.
“It’ll only get harder from here, kid.”
With that, she undid her bedroll and lay down. Isaac did the same.
The forest remained still for some time, and the flames crackled;
it was a comfortable sound. Sleep didn’t come easily, as predicted, and Isaac lay there with his head full of the future.
What would happen to him? Would he make it to the town by the Infected Lands? What if Ansen Kane denied his help?
Well, the answer to the last question was an easy one. If Ansen Kane denied his help, then he and Swan would fight for the world. He didn’t have much left in his life worth fighting for, but if he could prevent the darkness from falling over the land again, he would.
Perhaps three hours after his head hit the saddle, he finally found sleep. But it was not a dreamless sleep.
In the dream, he saw the gun knight. Ansen Kane. He was older than he had expected, his long, dark hair peppered with gray. His face was scarred by time and many battles, and in his eyes, death lingered. This was a man who had seen it all and was disappointed by it.
Ansen Kane sat in a cell. Dark figures surrounded him, but they weren’t creatures of the shadow. They were human. Except there was something greatly off about them, like they shouldn’t be standing. The image was not clear; only the feeling of cold terror they exuded. It was a feeling he almost associated with the shadow creatures, but not quite.
In this cell, Ansen Kane suffered. His bruised skin showed through raggedy clothing. He smelled rank, and his lips were chapped from lack of water. They gave him no bucket to do his business in, so he was reduced to doing it in the corner.
Then another man came and he grinned like a clown. He was heavier, but his arms and his chest were corded with thick muscle. On his shirt, he wore a brass star that read SHERIFF.
“Time’s up,” said the sheriff. “They’re not coming, and you’re more dangerous to me alive. We’ve voted. You’ll hang at sundown on the morrow.”
Ansen Kane regarded the sheriff with a weary eye. He had the look of a man who was fed up and tired.
“It was nice knowing you, Kane. If we hadn’t met, I wouldn’t be wearing this badge.”
“That badge is a lie,” Kane said coldly.
“Then why am I the one on the outside, and you’re the one behind bars?”
For that, Kane didn’t have an answer, not because he was stumped but because he seemed bored.
“That pretty weapon of yours is gonna get melted down. We’ll get enough worth out of it from the southern buyers to more than make up for the bounty I was gonna collect on you. I can really turn this town into a hub, get us out of the dark ages. And I can do it all because of you, Kane. Your life is proving to have at least some worth. For that, you should feel good.” The sheriff spun around and motioned to his dark soldiers.
Isaac’s eyes shot open. He sat up quickly. The air was still cold, and the fire burned low, but his skin glistened with sweat.
In his head, as the images of the dream faded, he heard Aen say in her sweet voice, “I have given you a limited gift of prescience.”
Chapter 19
Haste
He woke Swan up, much to her displeasure. In the low light from both the moon and the flames, he saw how bruised her arm had become. Swollen, too. Looking at it brought a twisting feeling deep in his gut.
“What?” she asked, her eyes wide, instantly alert.
“We have to go.”
“Now? The sun won’t be up for hours.”
“I know, but it’s Kane. He’s in danger. He’s going to be hanged.”
“How do you know?” She snapped her fingers in front of his face. “Are you sleepwalking? Hello? Isaac? Or are you just drunk again? You should’ve never befriended Dolan. He’s nothing but—”
Isaac pushed her hand away. Her skin felt abnormally hot, like she was fighting a sickness, but he put it to the back of his mind.
“I’m not sleepwalking, I’m not drunk, I’m fine! But we have to go. He’ll be hanged tomorrow at sundown.”
“How do you know? You’re talking crazy.”
He thought about how to broach this subject. If he told the truth, she wouldn’t believe him, but if he lied, she would distrust him if she ever found out the truth. He couldn’t think of a viable lie anyway. His mind whirled too fast, and his heart nearly beat out of his chest. If he tried to lie, Swan would see it on his face as easily as she could see an opponent’s next blow in a sword fight.
So he spoke the truth about his run-in with the Dwellers, though the words sounded silly once he said them aloud. Dwellers, gifts, foresight… If the events he’d gone through over the last week hadn’t transpired, he would’ve thought himself crazy. But they had, and he knew he wasn’t.
“Dwellers?” Swan repeated when he was done regaling the tale.
He expected her to deny it, but she was no dummy. She stood up without another word, gathered her bedroll, and began shrugging into her armor.
He did the same thing, and he was smiling. It felt good to have a friend again, to have someone who would follow him to the Infected Lands based on some wild dream.
As they mounted their horses, Swan said, “If we ride hard and fast and barely stop, we’ll get there near noon tomorrow. If your dream is true and he’s to be hanged at sundown, I think we’ll have plenty of time. Still, better safe than sorry.”
If he hasn’t already been hanged, Isaac thought sickly. But he only nodded.
He wanted to thank her; hell, he wanted to climb off Lightning and throw his arms around her.
He didn’t do either.
No time.
So they rode on into the darkness.
Chapter 20
Hanged
Isaac’s dream had in fact been a vision, and what he saw had already happened.
Weak, thirsty, and stinking, Ansen Kane sat on the floor of his cell with his back against the wall.
The rotting guards watched him with blank, dead expressions. Ansen had been in the cell going on a week, and now he was set to be hanged. The sad fact of the matter was that a hanging didn’t sound as bad as the crown’s agents coming out to the wildlands for him. If they got him back to Aendvar Point, he would be tortured and tortured until he had one foot planted in the mortal world and another in death.
When he had been a gun knight, a true defender of the kingdom, he had heard of the types of torture Zoroth carried out in the privacy of his castle. Of course, they were rumors, but rumors always contained a hint of truth, didn’t they? As such, it would not be remiss to think his son could have picked up some of those techniques over the years.
On top of that, there was the dark magic that had found its way to Low Town.
Still, Ansen was not ready for death. He was in his middle age now, and his mind was haunted by the past, but that didn’t mean he was ready to go. Not yet.
So he had to find a way out of here.
The problem was that after being beaten senselessly by Watts’s cronies, he could hardly stand up without falling over. Surely he wouldn’t have enough strength left in him for a fight.
If he was going to see the sunlight again, he would need to be smart. But he’d been through worse situations. If he had a copper for every time someone wanted to kill him, he’d be a rich man.
For now, though, he would rest and meditate, and hope a plan came to him.
* * *
When he begrudgingly awoke, his muscles screamed in pain. His bladder ached. He had to urinate, but that would mean losing the little water he had inside of him, and every drop was important.
He looked through the rusty bars. Then he grabbed one and pulled himself up off the floor. Two dead guards stood just outside of the holding area. They had wasted away to near nothing, the dark magic depleting.
They stood with their backs to the wall, looking in his direction. They were the perfect types for stretches of long guarding; no need to use the bathroom, no useless conversation, no lunch or smoke breaks. The magic infused in them by Watts, however he had done that, had programmed the guards to do nothing but make sure Ansen Kane behaved.
Kane had other plans.
He unzipped his fly and leaned up against the bars on wobbly,
bruised legs. The closest guard, his face now growing mold, the gummy wound in his neck from Ansen’s revolver festering and covered in squirming maggots, stepped away from the wall.
‘Next time he does it, cut his prick off!’ Watts had said, and now the guard, his upper lip perpetually snarled, pulled his knife free from his belt.
Ansen let his bladder loose. He urinated all over the floor, a dark yellow, unhealthy stream.
The dead guard reached his cell.
“C’mon,” Kane said weakly, “can’t a man piss in peace?”
Of course, the guard didn’t care for Kane’s words. All he knew was the duty programmed into him by Watts’s magic.
Unabashedly, he reached for Ansen’s penis; he might’ve grabbed ahold of it, if Ansen had been a little weaker. Thankfully he wasn’t. When the blade came down, Ansen grabbed the guard’s wrist. He grimaced at the touch of the cold, clammy flesh—Ansen dealt in corpses, but he didn’t usually go up against walking ones.
He pried the knife from the corpse’s hand, a feat that proved harder than he’d anticipated and zapped him of the little energy he had. But he couldn’t quit now.
With his other hand, he grabbed the guard’s long, grimy hair and pulled his face to the bars.
The blade went right through the guard’s eye.
The abomination tried stumbling back, but Ansen’s grip was iron. With the hand holding the knife, he twisted and drove with all the force he had left. The sound of splitting brains brought a sickening lurch to his stomach, as did the smell—the pungent odor of rotting meat.
Thick blood gushed from the wound, and the reanimated guard dropped.
The other guard noticed the commotion and began walking over. Not rushing.
Kane, however, rushed. He patted the guard’s pockets for the keys, feeling all over the cold, quickly deteriorating body. Once the reanimated brain had been severed, the spell on it broke, and the body made up for lost time. The chest sank in, and the outfit grew too big for it. Skin sloughed off like wet parchment, snarled lips peeled back, and the gums were eaten away as if touched by acid.
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