Lawless Lands

by Emily Lavin Leverett

  Dead Guy screamed in her ear, hoarse and hollow. Rider’s chest knotted into a fist, recognizing the sound of agony. She’d thought nothing alive or dead could harm him. Pulse pounding in her temples, she whirled, shoulders scraping on rock, and found him wearing a sickly yellow cloak of skreekers. They’d flowed right past her to reach him. One tore at his neck, and wet silver trickled out. The skreeker clamped itself to the wound, sucking greedily.

  Rider fired and it vanished. Another swarmed in to take its place. Claws scraped her face. She fired again. Again. Cold boiled up her legs as one grabbed her. Another shot freed her. Three dewdrops left and still the yellow fog seethed and screeched.

  Gathering his livemetal up into a short, thick blade, Dead Guy jabbed at the skreekers. Not as efficient or elegant as the sword, but he cleared enough space that she could see him, bleeding drops of silver, leeched of color, leeched of essence. The disk around her neck scraped her breastbone, dry and virtually weightless.

  Rider pushed her way to him, sacrificing another shot. Turning to face the skreekers still foaming out of the tunnel’s depths, she took the Arbiter from her back. “Stay well behind me,” she commanded Dead Guy. The damaged rifle could well misfire, and tattered as he was, she didn’t want to risk hitting him.

  Skreekers before her, almost a solid sheet of yellow, distorted faces that hated and hungered. Setting her jaw, Rider aimed the Arbiter and pulled the trigger.

  Alternating flares of red and black throbbed behind her eyeballs. The world swum at a distance, waiting to hurt her when she returned. She’d dipped her right arm in hot tar. No, not tar, splinters, a thousand burning splinters all digging into her arm and shoulder and cheek—

  “Steady.” Dead Guy’s voice, the words cool against her skin. Rider jerked back to reality, and the world walloped her over the head.

  “What happened?” she rasped. Sitting up, she pressed all ten fingers into her scalp. Her right shoulder spasmed. Dirt gritted under her rump, something hard against her back. The storehouse wall. The dry air tasted open and clean.

  “Shh.” Dead Guy took hold of her wrist. “Your rifle exploded. Killed a bunch of skreekers, but there’s plenty more. I dragged you out while they were stunned.” He carefully tucked her arm into a sling he’d fashioned out of her bandana. The back of her neck pulled at the weight.

  Rider turned her head for a look. Not so bad, she judged, examining the torn skin. No broken bones, best she could tell. Her wits cleared further as she breathed untainted air. “We better smoke it back to town,” she said, already planning. Round up a posse armed with plenty of arcsilver, return, and clean the skreekers out of Bondee before they came to Camlock in search of fresher prey. Bracing against the storehouse wall, she levered herself upright. An ankle twinged, threatening to collapse underneath her, and her head dipped and spun, but she gritted her teeth and heaved.

  Halfway to her feet, a scream she wished she could take back hearing for the rest of her days split the silence. It started her heart pounding so hard it damn near shot out her mouth. Instinctively, her hand flew to her holster and tangled in the sling.

  “Huntsman. Oh, God.” Dead Guy peeked ‘round the corner of the storehouse, looked towards the live oak nub at the camp’s center, and jerked quickly back, his mouth a clenched line. “We have to leave. Now.”

  The scream came again, shriller and more desperate. Rider hesitated. Dead Guy caught her under her good shoulder and shoved. “He’s not alive,” he said, urging her along, away from the screams and wisps of putrid odor that fouled the good dry air. “I might be able to call him up again even if—”

  Rider stole a glance back. Beside the stump, Dead Horse reared, forelegs beating at the yellow-smoke figures clawing him, tearing bits of him away. They dragged him down again. Silver droplets spattered the ground, and the skreekers huddled like cats, lapping greedily.

  Rider’s lips clamped. She faced away. Let Dead Guy keep hoping as long as he was able.

  They moved as one across the darkening plains, his arm across her shoulders, all energy focused into keeping their four legs going. They passed over a ridge, and Bondee disappeared behind them. The screams faded, more slowly than she would’ve liked, and at length sunk into silence.

  “I need a rest,” said Rider, breath hitching in her chest. An invisible hand kept squeezing her head: pressure, release, pressure, release. Aching from crown to tailbone, and worse, her sore ankle throbbed, puffed up against the inside of her boot.

  Dead Guy eased her down into the shelter of a clump of leaping-blossom brush. Its yellow flowers drooped, spotted and wrinkled, instead of popping off their stems into her lap. Dying, like everything in the desert. She reckoned she might have discovered why.

  “Could you spare a drop of blood?” asked Dead Guy, crouching before her.

  “Might be possible.” Pulling the disk out of her shirt, she rubbed it over the still-seeping wounds on her right shoulder. Dead Guy arched his neck, a soundless sigh escaping his lips. A subtle tension went out of his face as his skin gained color. She no longer expected to see shadows of things moving through him.

  “Thank you.” He touched her right boot. “When did that happen?”

  “Damned if I can remember.” She moved her foot gingerly, wincing. “Going to make getting back to Camlock tricky.”

  Cocking an ear to the wind, he stood. “At least I haven’t heard any skreekers for a bit. Maybe they’re not following. I’ll take a look, then try to call up Huntsman.”

  She nodded. “I’ll bind up my ankle and check the crystal.”

  His boots crunched off over the sand. Rider wrapped her good hand into a shaking fist, nails biting into her palm. Not even Dead Horse deserved that end.

  Then, deliberately, she opened her hand, shook out her fingers, and reached for the Cat. She thumbed each bullet home, spun the chamber, and settled the pistol back in its holster. She tried working her boot off her gimpy foot, but flares of bruised colors erupted in her head and she gave it up. Instead, she took the scry-crystal from her pocket to check for signs of yellow.

  Its tip glowed red.

  Rider gaped. Then flung herself to her feet, ignoring her sore body’s protests. Dead Guy, find Dead Guy. He couldn’t have gone far; she didn’t dare call out. Red tip, danger, red tip, that meant—

  Clack.

  Too late. Rider bent to unsheathe her obsidian knife, twisting her body across herself, left hand to right boot, as a whole clattering of sounds echoed over the desert. Rattles and clicks, dull, hollow thumps, and the crisp, incessant jangling of tiny bells, like a load of crockery pushed down a hill. Their angular black silhouettes painted a sharp contrast against the cherry red sunset as they came over the crest of the ridge.

  Bondee behind her, Skeleton Dancers in front. Rider held herself tall and raised the obsidian knife as they surrounded her, the sky still bright enough to illuminate every detail. Bones of men, bones of beasts, bones of creatures that walked the world before the first footfalls of men, all held together with tough strips of knotted sinew. They rattled and champed at her, eyeless skulls painted with stripes of vermillion and ochre, cerulean spirals and jagged black zigzags. Beads and feathers and oddly worked bits of clay dangled from their joints, adding to the endless clatter and creak of ancient bone knocking against bone.

  Cut the sinews holding them together and they’d fall apart. Rider laughed inside her head. Sinew wouldn’t part without a heap of sawing, and here she was, one-handed, lame, and shaky from blood loss. She darted forward anyway, knife aimed at bone, and a hand like a bundle of fire-hardened twigs caught her wrist. Another grabbed her collar. Her hat fell off, and her hair, sweat-damped into strings, flopped over her face. The third hand gripped her injured shoulder, forcing a gargle of pain from her throat. Trapped. Forced onto her knees, crunch, down in the dry dirt. Bone fingers gnarled in her hair.

  The Dancers parted ranks. An imposing figure creaked forward, cocking its skull to gaze down at her with empty eye sockets.
Seven feet tall, if an inch. No man had ever worn these bones, though it was roughly man-shaped. Two fangs, like those of a mountain lion, protruded down past its lower jaw. A curving red line streaked the yellowed bone of what had once been its left cheek. Under one arm, it carried a curious object, resembling a leather melon with pipes and tubes jutting out from it. One pipe, long and flexible, curled up under the Dancer’s ribcage, ascending its spine to terminate at the base of its skull, attached to its vertebrae by carefully tied sinew.

  The Dancer squeezed the melon bag. A hiss of air. Vibration. “You steal the bones of the earth.”

  Wheezy, sibilant, but perfectly intelligible. Rider gaped at the device in mute amazement before the words sucker-punched her below the ribs. “I ain’t stolen nothing!”

  A length of bone pointed at the sack of dewdrops hanging from her belt.

  “I bought ’em,” said Rider. “I’m no thief.”

  They threw her to the ground. Bone hands clamped down, hard enough she could barely wriggle. The chief stepped aside to allow a smaller Dancer through, its bones gone brown and brittle with age. One hand held a raw arcsilver knife.

  She’d heard the stories. When the Dancers caught someone, they skinned him alive. Took off all the fat, the muscle, discarded the guts, scraped his bones clean. Then reassembled him, patiently tying all the delicate bits with thin sinew, and a new Skeleton Dancer would rise to join the rattling throng.

  Rider didn’t fancy finding out for herself if the stories were true. She flailed, bit, and bucked, managing to kick the skull right off the neck of a Dancer holding her left leg. But two more took its place before she could twist free. The arcsilver knife approached her right eye.

  And then a metal even brighter than arcsilver caught every last glint of the dying sunlight. “Release her,” said Dead Guy, stepping into the circle of bones, his livemetal blade poised to strike.

  The Dancers drew back. The vise-like grips of those holding Rider down eased a fraction. “‘Bout time you got here,” she called. “These sonabitches called me a thief.”

  “The blood of the earth, you hold,” came the wheezy voice of the talking device. The Dancer chief stepped forward again. Its fingers stroked the air before Dead Guy’s livemetal blade reverently.

  “Let her up,” said Dead Guy. His lightning-eye held the chief’s sockets. After a moment, the chief retreated a step. He clicked two fingers, and the pressure eased off Rider entirely. She struggled to her feet, cuffing the Dancers that didn’t back off far enough to suit her.

  “Dancers at Bondee. Bronson ain’t entirely a lying bastard,” she said between her teeth.

  Bronson. The image of the broken pickax returned. Could it be Bronson’s? Come to recollect, he had bought a new one recently.

  “Bone thieves,” wheezed the chief. “Take the earth’s bones. Those that pass, rest not.”

  “Do you understand any of that?” Dead Guy asked in an undertone. He’d lowered his livemetal blade, but still held it at ready.

  “They call arcsilver ‘the earth’s bones.’” Hands on hips, she tilted back her head to stare into the chief’s eye sockets. “What’s it to you?”

  “We guard the earth’s bones so those that pass may rest. When the bones are taken, those that pass sleep not. They eat the bone thieves instead.”

  “Those that pass.” Rider pulled a dewdrop out of her pouch, held it cupped in one hand, cool and light, sparkling like mist in a spider’s web. Ever since the discovery of that first arcsilver deposit in Keffren County ten years ago, a whole rush of folk had arrived, more and more every year, all alike in greed. And she, Shadowmarshal, sheriff’s daughter, had watched the plains wither over the course of her years, always blaming the skreekers that haunted the land.

  She closed her hand over the dewdrop. “You’re sayin’ arcsilver absorbs the spirits of the dead? And if there’s not enough arcsilver, they become skreekers instead?”

  “Blood of the earth to bone of the earth.” The chief pointed to Dead Guy’s livemetal blade. “Blood. It weakens over time, hardens into bone. Bone drinks the spirits of those that pass, turns back into blood. Endless circle.”

  “It bound itself to me when I was alive,” mused Dead Guy, lifting his livemetal blade. “Then, when Huntsman—” He swallowed. “When Huntsman and I were gunned down, I didn’t die, exactly. I merged with it.” He tipped back his hat. Moonlight softened the angles of his face. “So perhaps one day I’ll turn into arcsilver and absorb other people’s spirits. It’s not eternal, then. That’s a comfort.”

  “Comfort, hell,” said Rider. “What about those skreekers? They’re killing everything around Bondee—”

  She kicked herself for a fool. “That tunnel. It connects to caverns beneath Rattling Sky Mountain. Bronson must’ve gone mad with greed, hearing the old-timers talk about how there are still rich deposits there.”

  “So he dug a secret way in to elude the Dancers and started removing the last bits of ore that were keeping the dead at peace,” said Dead Guy.

  One of the Dancers perched on the crest of the ridge stirred. Lifting two slats of wood that dangled from its waist, it clapped them together. All at once the Dancers went to rattling and clattering, their naked jaws snapping, joints creaking.

  A wisp of ghastly stench floated over the rise. The sky to the south turned sallow.

  “The skreekers.” Dead Guy bit his lip. “Nothing left for them out here. They’ll be drawn to Camlock like vultures to carrion.”

  Rider whirled. “You!” She advanced on the chief. “If I promise to stop the mining, will you help?”

  “Return the bones of the earth, we help,” agreed the chief. He held out a huge hand, the lattice-work of his palm turned upward. On a hunch, Rider touched a finger to her wound and smeared a drop of clinging blood across a bone. The long fingers folded over it. “A pledge,” the voice device wheezed. He rattled his jaw, and a skeleton horse trotted up as inhuman screams echoed over the ridge.

  “Go.” Dead Guy gave her a push. “It’s your duty to protect the living. Evacuate Camlock. Tell everyone to leave the arcsilver and head north.”

  She’d already thrown one leg over the bone horse’s back. She hesitated. “And you?”

  “You need time,” he said, and it was if a cloud passed over his lightning eye. “We can buy it.”

  Sitting smack against the bone horse’s bare vertebrae made for the most uncomfortable ride of Rider’s life, but she allowed the creature was fast with no heavy flesh to weary it. She’d covered almost half the distance to Camlock when the disk resting on her chest flared, so sharp and sudden a sensation she couldn’t tell if she’d been frozen or burned.

  Jostled, jolting, naught but her sense of balance preventing her from being flung over the bone horse’s neck, she reached into her shirt and withdrew the disk.

  The moonlight revealed a circle of tarnished black. Just the barest “s” curl of a shine remained at the center. Rider traced it with her thumb. Her eyes prickled. Nose got snotty.

  “Turn back,” she said.

  The bone horse paid no heed, legs eating up the distance to Camlock.

  “Turn back.” Letting the disk fall back inside her shirt, she hooked a finger into the sinews binding its neck together and pulled. This time it minded her. Flinging up its skull, it pivoted. She pressed a hand to her chest, clamping the disk to her skin all the while they raced back towards Bondee.

  A maelstrom of yellow mist hung over the ridge, marking the spot. Skreekers, screaming like starved carrion birds. “Faster, dammit,” she cried, and the horse redoubled its speed. Its hooves crunched scattered bones littering the ground. Even as she rode by, a circling trio of skreekers tugged a Dancer apart, broke its bones, and cast them to the earth. Ahead, a curtain of maddened skreekers swirled around a central point. She knew who stood at the eye of that storm. A flash of silver cut through the greasy yellow cloud, and she caught a glimpse of him: a fading shadow bleeding silver.

  “Jace!” She lea
pt off the horse. Stupid, that: her ankle turned, she damn near pitched over and fell on her fool face. Several skreekers, perhaps sensing that her living flesh might be tastier than the Dancers’ dry bones, poured over to investigate.

  Skinning the Cat, she shot three. She heard Jace’s cry, harsh as the rasp of metal against stone, whatever words he flung at her unintelligible.

  More skreekers. The Dancers fought with raw arcsilver knives and precision, and the skreekers tore them apart. The skreekers vanished in the wake of Jace’s livemetal blade, but it swung less and less vigorously. She shot again. Only three dewdrops left in the chamber.

  She fired them. Tossed the Cat aside and drew her obsidian knife.

  “Rider,” cried Jace, down on one knee. “Rider!”

  She wondered if he meant to tell her obsidian was no good against skreekers. Damn fool. She knew that. She had no intention of using it against them.

  Working her right arm out of its sling, she pulled back her sleeve, turning her wrist so the soft white underside showed. Slashed. Took the disk from around her neck and pushed it into the wound.

  At first, the blood welling up around the disk drowned it in red. Then the dull, silver metal started sucking it in, almost faster than she could bleed. Rider lifted her head as Jace began to glow. His livemetal blade traced dazzling arcs through the night air. A moment later, she wasn’t just watching, but swinging along with him. Skreeker after skreeker vanished under the edge of their livemetal blade, no time to even scream.

  She was distantly aware when her legs turned into jelly, no longer able to support her. That was okay. She let that part of her sink to the sand. As long as she kept the disk pressed to her arm, everything would be well.

  Another flash of silver. The last skreeker vanished. She was breaking apart or coming back together; she couldn’t tell which. The world pulsed softly in her ears, a muted murmur, soothing as a lullaby. Good. She’d appreciate a nap.