by R S Penney
If only fate were that kind.
Chapter 23
The scrubland stretched on from horizon to horizon, unbroken in all directions except for one thing: a small town of white stone buildings constructed near the edge of a lake that Desa could swim across in about ten minutes.
The instant they got within shouting distance, a man who waited on the roof of one of the outer buildings turned and vanished from sight. Moments later, doors opened and men came spilling out into the main street with rifles.
They formed a line at the edge of town, lifted their guns and pointed them directly at Desa's group. “That's far enough!” one shouted. “We want no strangers here! Ye'll be turnin' back if ye know what's good for ye!”
Sitting atop Midnight with her hands raised defensively, Desa felt her jaw drop. She shook her head in confusion. “We mean no harm!” she replied. “We just want to purchase supplies and then be on our way.”
She urged Midnight forward.
The six men in the street all choked up on their rifles. One even worked the bolt to emphasize that he would fire if they got any closer. The sight of it made Adele cling a little harder to Desa.
Shutting her eyes tight, Desa scraped a knuckle across her forehead. “Of course...” Why should she have expected anything else? With the exception of Thrasa, she had been greeted with hostility almost everywhere she went since forming this little group.
Marcus decided to escalate the situation by rushing forward on his gray with a hand on his holstered pistol. “Try to bar our path,” he said. “And you will face a power such as you have never seen before.”
Desa covered her face with one hand, rubbing her eyelids with the tips of her fingers. “Trust a man to make things worse.” The fool only saw one solution to any problem, and it was going to get them killed.
“Why are you barring our path?” Miri asked.
One of the townsfolk, a spindly man in overalls with a broken strap and a straw hat that had seen better days, stepped forward and spat on the ground. “The man in black told us ye'd be coming. Said to stop you.”
“Man in black?”
“Scary fellow with dark veins on his face.”
Bendarian.
Grunting as he gestured with his rifle, the spindly man stared them down as if he thought force of will alone could bar their path. “We've already faced a power such as we have never seen before,” he said. “Man in black killed three people when he came through. He said he'd kill more if we let you pass.”
Desa retrieved an Infused coin from her pocket, triggered it and nearly flinched at the powerful glow. It seemed as though she held a tiny star in her hand. She lifted it up above her head, and several of the townsfolk gasped. “We have a power too!” she said. “But we won't kill you! I will teach you to wield this power!”
Several of the townsfolk murmured.
Others looked as if they might fire those rifles.
Miri urged the filly forward. She was holding the reins with Tommy behind her, and the lad was very pale. Young as he was, he had learned the difference between men who shouted and blustered in the hopes that you would back down and men who would make good on their threats. “Perhaps we could speak to the sheriff,” Miri suggested. “Or make an appeal directly to the Village Council.”
The spindly man spat another gob of phlegm onto the ground. “Lady, yer talkin' to the mayor. And he says ye ain't passin' through.”
“Enough of this.” Marcus booted his horse forward.
Desa reacted by instinct, urging Midnight to keep pace with the gray and lifting her left hand to shield herself with her bracelet. Thunder cracked as rifles let loose a storm of bullets, each one coming to an abrupt halt in front of Desa or Marcus, then falling to the ground as they passed.
The riflemen saw that their weapons were useless and began retreating through the street. “No!” some shouted. “Demon!”
“Marcus!” Desa growled.
The fire in her voice urged him to pull on the reins and bring his mount to an abrupt halt. He looked over his shoulder, snarling at her. “We gave them a chance to show good sense,” he said. “They refused.”
Scowling at the thought of what he might do, Desa shook her head. “I will not kill these people,” she said. “I swore that I meant them no harm, and I have every intention of making good on that promise.”
“We must stop Bendarian!”
“There are other ways.”
Without waiting for a response, Desa turned Midnight around and urged him back to the spot where the others waited. Miri and Tommy looked very uneasy as they watched the whole scene play out. And the pack-horse had been spooked by the noise.
“Come,” she said. “Let's put some distance between us and them.”
The glow of Desa's ring sitting on top of a pile of rocks illuminated their campsite. The five of them sat in a tight circle around those rocks, though no one was talking. No one wanted to address the question that had been hanging over them like a shadow since Desa had turned away from Fool's Edge earlier that afternoon.
What did they do now?
Pursuing Bendarian into the desert without supplies was a death sentence. Oh, they might survive for a few days, but they were already low on food, and there would be no water. Worse yet, the five of them together were too slow to catch Bendarian anyway. It irked Desa to no end.
She might be able to make a run for it on Midnight. The two of them alone at a fast gallop might just give her enough speed to overtake Bendarian. But would the others let her? Adele, in particular, would insist on coming along.
Desa squatted over the glowing ring with hands on her knees, her head hanging with fatigue. “We're wasting time,” she said. “If we want to have any hope of catching Bendarian, we must leave now.”
Marcus sat on the dusty ground with his legs stretched out, chewing on a piece of meat as he considered their options. “We would almost certainly die in the attempt,” he countered. “I say we take Fool's Edge.”
“No.”
It was one flat word, delivered in a hoarse voice, but Desa meant it with all of her heart. Those people were only trying to stay alive. She could imagine what Bendarian had done to intimidate them. She would not do the same.
Sliding a toothpick into his mouth with two fingers, Marcus chewed on that instead, and it waggled around as he spoke. “We need supplies,” he said. “They have supplies. It's fairly simple, if you ask me.”
Tommy was lying flat on his back, gazing up at the night sky with his hands folded over his chest. “Simple,” he said. “If you're willing to kill a few of them. You must know they'll leave you no option.”
“The fate of the world may depend upon us stopping Bendarian,” Marcus replied. “I will not hesitate to do what is necessary.”
“We're not killing them,” Desa insisted.
She stood up, turned away from the light and stalked off into the empty wilderness. Sliding her hands into the pockets of her duster, she blew out a breath. There was only one solution to their problem. She knew it.
The sound of approaching footsteps was no surprise to her. By the gait alone, she could tell who had come to speak with her, and when she turned around, she saw exactly what she expected to see.
Adele was standing just a few feet away, silhouetted by the light from the campsite, only a shadow to Desa's eyes. “I know that you won't want to hear this,” she began. “But Marcus is right. We must-”
Tilting her head to one side, Desa raised one eyebrow, and that alone was enough to forestall the other woman. “You think we should attack frightened people?” she asked. “If we did, would we be any better than Bendarian?”
The silhouette shook its head, and the ground scuffed beneath Adele's shoes as she strode forward. “I don't want to do it!” she exclaimed. “You should know me better than that...But Bendarian must be stopped.”
“On that, we agree.”
“Well then...”
Desa stepped up to the woman that she had
grown to care for, craned her neck and stared unflinchingly into Adele's eyes. “There is a solution,” she said. “But I am certain that you won't like it.”
An instant later, she was striding back to the campsite and steeling herself for what she knew would be a painful conversation. The others were gathered around her glowing ring. Three heads turned at the sound of her approach.
“I'm going alone,” she announced.
The toothpick fell out of Marcus's mouth as he looked up in slack-jawed confusion. He remained dumbstruck for a moment, then blinked and regained his wits. “You cannot be serious. There is no way you could survive the trip.”
“That is irrelevant.”
“No, it's not,” Tommy insisted with more backbone than she would have expected from him. “You're our friend. We're not leaving you to die.”
“The boy speaks wisdom,” Marcus added.
“It's a welcome change from the other men in this group,” Miri put in. She stood up to face Desa on the other side of the glowing rocks, then nodded. Perhaps in respect. Or perhaps in assent to Desa's plan. “If you must go, I will not try to stop you. But I feel this is a decision that should be made by the group.”
Adele strode back into the light and paused beside Desa, the wind teasing flyaway strands of her golden hair. “And the group has decided that you are not going alone,” she said. “We set off on this quest together; we will finish it together.”
“Enough! All of you!” Desa shouted. “Every second that I linger here only lowers my odds of success. Midnight and I can cover more ground when we aren't hindered by the four of you and your animals. I can find him by morning...and then I will end this.”
“You're not going alone!” Tommy growled. “And that's-”
“This is not a debate!” Desa had learned, over the years, how to stand tall with her shoulders square. It was a little thing but absolutely necessary when you were shorter than everyone else. “I am going. My love to all of you.”
“You wish to leave now?” Marcus protested. “Your horse will break a leg running headlong through the dark.”
“Midnight is no ordinary horse.”
She didn't give them an opportunity to argue; she just turned away and paced over to the spot where Midnight waited just beyond the edge of the light. In the darkness, she could still make out his shadowy form. The horse was watching her. She felt a resonance from him and she knew that he had been watching the entire argument.
Closing her eyes, Desa nodded to him. “You don't have to come with me,” she said, reaching out to lay a hand on Midnight's long face. “You've been a loyal companion, but I won't condemn you to death in the desert.”
He licked her fingers.
Warmth flooded Desa's cheeks, but she breathed in slowly and then took control of herself. “All right then,” she whispered. “As long as you're willing.”
“Desa!”
Unexpectedly, she found Tommy coming toward her, and though it was too dark to make out his features, she was certain he wore a snarl that could frighten off an angry wolf. “You are not going into the desert alone.”
“Tommy-”
“No! I won't listen to any more talk about your duty or the danger that Bendarian poses or any other hair-brained explanation for why you think you must ride off to your untimely death. You saved my life, Desa. And though he came to a bad end, you saved Sebastian as well. Do you think I'm just going to let you-”
“Tommy-”
“I owe you my life and a whole lot more than that,” he pressed on. She could see his silhouette, standing a few feet away and glowering at her. At least, she assumed he was glowering. “You saved me from the whims of backward townsfolk. You gave me a sense of purpose. You saved the man I love-”
“I killed the man you love.”
That brought him up short. In fact, he actually recoiled from her, stumbling away as if she had suddenly become a demon. “What...What did you say?” The stammer in his voice had returned.
Desa felt a single tear on her cheek, felt it run down all the way to her jawline and then drip to land on her shirt. “He was with Bendarian,” she whispered. “He betrayed us all. I knew I couldn't trust him, so-”
“He was with Bendarian,” Tommy murmured. “You mean he attacked you?”
“No.”
“He was trying to kill you.”
She forced herself to look up, forced herself to meet Tommy's gaze even though he would not be able to see her. “No.” One syllable, and yet forcing that word through her lips was agony. “Sebastian was in league with Bendarian. Two weeks of feeling that boy's hateful stare on me everywhere we went, and then he allied himself with Bendarian even after seeing the abominations on that farm, even knowing that Bendarian was a creature of unparalleled evil.
“I looked at your lover, Tommy. I saw his snide little grin, and I reacted without a second's hesitation. It was over in an instant. Before I even knew it, I had my smoking gun pointed at Sebastian's chest. I watched him fall backward, watched him die on the floor. And I didn't feel guilty. Not even for an instant. Not until I thought about what it would do to you.”
“How...” Tommy shuddered. “How did you feel...when you shot him?”
“Righteous.”
It hurt more than she would have expected when Tommy turned away from her and shuffled back to the campsite. She saw Miri standing in the light and watching the whole scene play out with a pained expression.
Bendarian was forty-miles southwest of here and stationary for the moment. Most likely he had stopped for the night. Midnight could cover that distance before sunup if he pushed himself. Unless she missed her guess, Bendarian would have no way to sense her approach until she was right on top of him. It was time to end this at long last.
Desa climbed into Midnight's saddle, making no effort to stem the tide of tears that flowed over her face. She sniffled. “Come on,” she whispered. “You only have to endure until morning. After that, what happens to us won't matter.”
They took off into the night.
Chapter 24
Desa fled into the desert.
She rode atop Midnight as he barreled across the sandy plains, his hooves kicking up dust, his tail streaming out behind him in the wind. She was no longer aware of the ache in her thighs from long hours in the saddle, no longer aware of the gnawing hunger or the sting of leather reins on her palms.
Morning had come, and the sky was now a fierce blue without a single cloud to be seen. There was nothing but an endless expanse of dusty red clay. Even the sparse plants of the scrubland near Fool's Edge were gone.
She leaned forward in the saddle.
Clenching her teeth, Desa hissed as the wind assaulted her. “Just a little longer,” she whispered for the hundredth time. “We're almost on him.”
They were; she could feel the presence of her Infused knife within about two miles of here. In less than an hour, they would be on top of Bendarian. In less than an hour, this quest that had consumed the last ten years of her life would be over. One way or another.
Midnight slowed to a stop, and Desa felt the resonance as he communed with the Ether. In seconds, he would know the terrain for miles around this spot. It was rare for an animal to achieve Communion, but doing so enhanced their cognition considerably. He would be able to remember every hill, every pit, every bump in the ground.
Before Desa could even catch her breath, the stallion took off again, racing up a gentle slope and then down the other side. She would have liked to have seen something: a cactus, an outcropping of rocks, maybe a small oasis. But of course, there was just more empty land.
They ran on.
As the sun climbed halfway to its zenith, the air became uncomfortably warm. Desa wanted to take off her coat, but there was nowhere to put it. Except for her saddlebags, and that would require a lot of finagling. More time than she wanted to waste on comfort.
They pressed on...and on...Soon, they would find Bendarian. Soon-
The knife s
hifted.
Desa felt her jaw drop, creases lining her brow as she shook her head. “No,” she whispered. “Please...Not now!”
The knife was now just over ten miles away. Bendarian must have used his strange powers to traverse the distance in a matter of seconds. Which meant that Midnight had to keep running even further.
Desa pulled him to a stop.
She sat up, covering her face with both hands, and then let out a shuddering breath. “I can't ask you to go further.” It was a hoarse whisper that passed through her lips. Her throat felt like it had been coated with sand.
When she let her hands drop, Midnight had turned his head to give her a sidelong glance. She knew what he was thinking. Staying here would be just as bad as collapsing from exhaustion. There was no water, no food. And it was unlikely that Midnight would have the strength to run back to Fool's Edge. Less likely that they would find respite there even if they tried.
Desa let her head sink, then reached up to pinch the brim of her hat. She removed it and felt the sun beat down on her. “All right,” she said. “You're stronger than any horse I have ever seen. If you can carry me the rest of the way.”
Midnight was galloping again before she even realized it. The surprise nearly threw her out of the saddle, but she steadied herself, set the hat back on her head and tried her best to ignore the fatigue...and the thirst.
It wasn't long before she saw something on the southern horizon. A glimmer. As if the sun were glinting off something. But she couldn't make out what it was. In the end, it didn't really matter. Bendarian was there; she knew that much.
Midnight ran, and the glimmer became sharper, clearer, more distinct to her eyes. Within an hour, she was certain that it was a man-made structure. In fact, those big gray lumps surrounding it weren't hills or boulders. They were the remains of buildings that had crumbled centuries ago.
There were towns in the desert, all of which were located near wellsprings formed by underground streams that flowed down from the Molaran Mountains. The largest was Dry Gultch, but it was nowhere near here. And its buildings would not be in ruins.
