When I was done, there were four bodies.
Reunited
I reckoned that I would not have to wait for long.
With Luerl’s arcane talents, he should be capable of at least one teleport to and from the hoard each day. I had no idea how much longer Eustace would keep Luerl around after his teleports were no longer needed, but, given the amount of treasure here, and my hunch that Eustace would be reluctant to ask for any help to speed up the process at the risk of losing some of his share, Luerl would be alive for a good long time.
But that was without my intervention.
I almost felt sorry for Luerl.
But being the lesser of two evils still made him evil.
At the outside, with one trip back and forth to the den a day, that meant that I would be reunited with my old traveling companions on the morrow.
My excitement knew no bounds.
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I had the faintest warning from my weira, easily enough time to open my eyes, tip my hat out of my face, and draw my guns before a faint, rustling disturbance filled the air.
Luerl and Eustace stepped through the wavering air, a hazy image of reddish-orange desert and steel-grey sky quickly fading behind them.
I waited a moment to make certain they were alone.
No one else stepped through the portal with them.
The portal flickered briefly and disappeared.
I could offer them a speech, perhaps outlining all the ways they had wronged me, hoping they would recant their evil ways before I killed them.
But then I risked giving them the opportunity to retaliate.
Or, even worse, talk.
I could try to make myself feel better by putting them down, by pointing out the errors of their choices, their actions, and their worldview.
But I didn’t care about their feelings, or how they felt about the world.
I felt just fine.
And I was here to correct their actions—or at least make sure that they made no further mistakes in the future.
I could threaten them, full of righteous fury and indignation, and make their last moments alive ones of fear.
But I preferred to just kill them.
At least that way, their last moments would be filled with what they cared most about—themselves, and their greed. That was the least I could do.
One final gift.
I could see their excitement, the glint in their eyes as they gestured affably and smiled at one another, eager to begin.
The echoes of two shots reverberated through the cavern.
* * *
I gave them quick, clean deaths, far more than they had offered me.
Returning my guns to the holsters at my sides, I gazed briefly upon the fortunes of empires.
I did not need the hoard’s wealth to secure my future, but there were those who did.
I would see they got it.
* * *
Sadly, two more lives had been added to the dragon’s hoard.
I hoped no more were yet to come.
* * *
I took the bodies and dumped them into the crater. Unlike the dragon, they would decompose quickly.
Scarlack would appreciate the company.
To Take Arms
What would drive these men to kill my father?
What could they see in him other than a man who was good and true?
Perhaps they had considered him a threat to their plans.
Perhaps they had known he would stand against their intentions.
And I had killed them before I found out their cause.
I walked up the hill past the corpses lying in the dirt and reached my father’s side.
His body was still warm.
I turned him over and cradled him in my arms, tears falling.
His eyes were still bright.
Blood dribbled from the corner of his mouth.
His body was so warm!
His eyes slowly focused.
And he smiled.
Then the light left him and he went limp in my arms.
* * *
I buried him in the field beside my mother, the one tether that had kept him here after years of wandering, now never to leave again.
At my sides, I wore his guns, his life continuing through mine.
And I would have vengeance.
Through vengeance, my father would know peace.
On the Horizon
The men I had just killed were not worth the dirt that supported them.
But I would carry them with me.
As I did all the others.
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The journey back down the mountain was far longer than the one up, mostly because I knew what lay ahead.
My heart was heavy with its burden, and it only grew heavier.
But that was life: bearing one burden to the next, being shaped and remade by our sorrows and travails.
I needn’t look into a mirror to know what I had become.
* * *
I burned Smoky beneath the volcanoes of the Hellfire Range, returning his ashes to the sky from whence he had come.
A part of me left with him.
* * *
Picking up my saddlebags and turning east, I looked to the horizon.
Sky’s End was a long walk.
I got started.
Also by Joseph J. Bailey
The Chronicles of the Fists trilogy:
Shadow’s Rise
Shadow’s Descent
Lords of Light
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The Legacy of the Blade trilogy:
Soul Stealer
Wild Mage
Stone Singer
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The Orc PI series:
Grak – Private Instigator
Grak – Orc on Vacation
Grak – Gnomercy
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The Exceptional Advice for Adventurer Everywhere series:
Mulogo’s Treatise on Wizardry
Everygnome’s Guide to Paratechnology
Nemesis – A Good Guide for Bad Guys
Confessions of an Angry Dwarf
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Other works:
Contagion
Spellslinger
Octopocalypse
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Joe is also working on something else but really cannot say more on the matter at present.
Help Spread the Word!
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Joseph J. Bailey
Glossary of Terms - People, Places, and Things
Abyss – the nether realms of Chaos.
Abyssal – a curse.
Aeryavore – literally, ‘magic eater’. Organisms that feed on magical energies.
Androsian – massive humanoid elementals with varying degrees of intelligence—and temper.
Arcana – magic in any form.
Arcana Empyrium – wizards dedicated to understanding the theory of magic itself, its laws, relationships, and genesis.
Archmage – a highly skilled, powerful practitioner of the arcane arts.
Art – the highest expressions of magical endeavor.
Artificer – a general name for a magic user.
Bot – short for robot. Often representing a combination of magical and technological arts.
Craft – high magical arts. See Magic or Art.
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p; Cuythia – one of the most numerous and successful races on Ilaeria. Psychic inorganic humanoids whose racial memory and shared knowledge are said to be stored within their crystalline facets.
Degan Baird – sheriff of Ghost’s Gulch. Called Deathsbane by other lawmen.
Delphine – cowgirl wizard of Sky’s End. Twin sister to Phinea.
Doerne’dane Thunderhammer – a particularly fearsome dwarven mercenary of the Skyfire Clan. Also known as Eustace.
Dragon – fearsome reptilian predators, often as intelligent and skilled in magical arts as they are physically powerful.
Drogma – a savory drink brewed from native plants that is both refreshing and sustaining, often serving as a meal replacement for travelers in harsh surroundings.
Drute – a member of Doerne’dane’s band. A furer.
Dwarves – hardy humanoids known for their toughness, independence and skill.
Ea’ae – a diverse world, one of the cradles of humanoid civilization.
Edgewalker – a colloquialism for ja’lel.
Eiŕ and Eiŕ’hod – literally, ‘father’ and ‘son’ or, more loosely, ‘life’ and ‘from life’. Twin revolvers of Koren D’uene of unmatched eldritch craftsmanship. Legendary weapons of the ja’lel.
Eustace – Dwarven bounty hunter. See Doerne’dane Thunderhammer.
Extradimensional – entities from another plane or dimension.
Far stride – to walk great distances with a single step. Called striding for short.
Fronus – a member of Doerne’dane’s band. A furer.
Fualen Quadrant – a galactic backwater within the larger macroverse.
Furers – a violent, sadistic people who disfigure themselves in an effort to live in a universe of glorious suffering.
Ghost’s Gulch – a small, hardscrabble community on the outskirts of the Skaelyrian Wastes. Home to miners, ranchers, merchants, and adventurers trying to make a living outside the edges of civilization.
Gnomes – small, curious humanoids known for their intelligence, good humor, ingenuity, technical aptitudes, and arcane knowledge.
Gornak – bestial, powerfully built humanoids known for their blood rage, clan wars, and racial feuds.
Guernden – a magical dwarven hand cannon similar in appearance to an ornate rifle. Sometimes referred to as Dragon’s Gullets for the fires contained in their bellies.
Gunman’s intuition – see Weira.
Gunte – a bone meal gruel favored among the gornaks.
Hedge wizard – a term for an unskilled magician, often self-taught, with little innate skill or talent.
Hellfire Range – volcanic mountains to the west of the Skaelyrian Wastes.
Ilaeria – a diverse, magical world in the Fualen Quadrant. Homeworld of Koren D’uene.
Ja’lel – literally, ‘gun knight’. One who follows the way of the gun. See Ja’tet.
Ja’tet – literally, ‘one way’. A general name for the way of the gun. On the lowest levels, ja’tet encompasses martial magic focused on firearms, survival, and right action. On higher levels, ja’tet provides a path to realization.
Kiersaegian – literally, ‘fiery lord’ or ‘lord of fires’. An ancient, malevolent red dragon. Bane of the Wastes.
Koren D’uene – a human ja’lel.
Kuen – a mantra of true perception among the ja’lel.
Leila Tavers – owner of Sky’s End Ranch.
Legen – a cowboy wizard of Sky’s End.
Loene – a highly regarded magical bird of high intelligence. Loenes are often kept as familiars by wizards due to their near-human intellect and magical abilities.
Lueffa – magical creatures of immense value native to the Wastes.
Luerl – a member of Doerne’dane’s band. A lustran.
Lustran – a dark, fey race of unknown origins with a proclivity toward dark magics and unholy rites.
Macroverse – the multidimensional multiverse. See also Multiverse.
Magic – the manipulation of Reality in its various manifest states. The more refined the magical symmetries, the greater the Art.
Morgran – a young wizard deputy from Ghost’s Gulch.
Multiverse – the totality of existence across all planes, dimensions, and universes. See also Macroverse.
Mystral – a winged, four-legged predator resembling a cross between a dragon and a horse. Sometimes called a dragon or demon steed.
Nüaer’Daer – literally, ‘life’s heart’. A dwarven term for dragons.
Oden’el – literally, ‘the high will’. The force of the mind in action, fuel of magic, and source of the ja’lel’s art.
Ondar – literally, ‘beardless’. The state or quality of not having a beard. In the Dwarven reckoning, being beardless is horrid indeed. A Dwarven curse.
Paratechnology – the gnomish art of blending magic and science, enchantment and technology.
Periphery – sere borderlands to the west of civilized Tellar.
Phinea – cowgirl wizard of Sky’s End. Twin sister to Delphine.
Reality – the macroverse, or its fundamental nature.
Rhonesia – one of Ilaeria’s major continents.
Scarlack – a member of Doerne’dane’s band. A gornak.
Skaelyrian Wastes – vast, largely uninhabited lawless wastelands in western Rhonesia.
Sky’s End Ranch – a major ranching and mining operation in the Skaelyrian Wastes.
Slinger – short for spellslinger.
Smoky – mystral companion to Koren.
Spellslinger – a magician who channels his or her power through guns. Most often a knight-errant married to the way of the gun. See also Ja’lel.
Stride – see Far stride.
Talen D’uene – brother to Koren D’uene.
Tellanon – a magical city in the sky on Ea’ae.
Tellar – a wealthy confederacy of kingdoms in eastern Rhonesia.
Therans –massive humanoids known for their formidable strength and skill at arms, often belied by their keen intelligence, gentle nature, and sharp wit.
Wastes – short for Skaelyrian Wastes.
Way of the gun – the arcane art of the gun. Although there are many styles and schools, they are all ja’tet. See also Ja’tet.
Weira – a heightened sense of alertness and readiness cultivated in ja’lel. Sometimes called a gunman’s intuition.
Woden – an eldritch elder race not native to Ilaeria. Most often accompanied by gregarious swarms of native spirits. Surprisingly adept at both higher magical and technical arts.
Wyrm – a dragon, often of the ancient variety.
Xerist – one who offers himself or herself to the desert in hopes of gathering wisdom, understanding, and power.
Xyeres – a living force of nature said to be a hybrid of elemental and demon.
About the Author
Joe holds an advanced degree in environmental management from Duke University, where he also studied religion with a focus on meditative, experiential, and transformative traditions. Additionally, Joe graduated with (dubious) honors from the Tellanon Institute of Noetic Knowledge, Education, and Research (TINKER) but has yet to put this knowledge to good use.
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When not at play with his family, he enjoys reading, writing, and relaxation. When he can, Joe also practices various martial traditions in which he has attained the victim level of proficiency.
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www.josephjbailey.com
Synopsis
No one should ever come between a man’s family and his guns.
Not if they want to live.
Not even a dragon.
Especially when those guns belonged to a spellslinger.
The dragon who had killed his brother had a death wish.
Koren D’uene was a ja’lel, a gun knight, and his was the job of granting wishes.
His guns spoke and the world listened.
Spellslinger is a Wild West-inspired fantasy novel of roughly 40,000 wor
ds.
First Edition: February 2016
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ISBN: 978-0-9964756-3-1
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This is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, places, ideas, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Copyright © 2016 by Joseph J. Bailey. All rights reserved worldwide under the Berne Convention. No part of this document or the related files may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form, by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the both the copyright owner and publisher of this book.
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If you have this file (or a printout) and did not pay for it, you are depriving the author and publisher of their rightful royalties. Please pay for your authorized copy by purchasing it through the appropriate retail channels.
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Cover by Rodrigo González Toledo and Sol Devia.
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Edited by Carol Davis.
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For more information on Joe and his works, please visit his website or Facebook Author’s Page.
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Spellslinger--Legends of the Wild, Weird West Page 14
