Desa Kincaid- Bounty Hunter

by R S Penney

  Desa approached the young horse with one hand extended, careful to avoid doing anything that might agitate her further. “Easy girl,” she whispered. “Everything's all right now. We're your friends.”

  The horse retreated further, dancing backward.

  Shutting her eyes, Desa trembled as she drew in a breath. “We might have to leave her here,” she whispered. “The poor thing is too spooked.”

  Midnight trotted past her and went right up to the filly, who seemed quite willing to tolerate his presence. Something passed between them, something that Desa couldn't even hope to understand, but when it was over, Midnight simply turned and started off into the desert, and the filly followed him without complaint.

  Desa had to jog to keep up, and as she fell in beside her horse, she shook her head ruefully. “You old charmer,” she teased. “If I didn't know any better, I'd say you fancied the poor girl.”

  Midnight gave her a look that said it was none of her business.

  Once they had put a little distance between themselves and the abandoned town, Midnight slowed down long enough to let her mount up. Unfortunately, Desa had to ride bareback; Midnight's saddle was useless with all of its buckles melted. It was going to be a very long and uncomfortable journey.

  The air was still warm with the onset of evening, but the sun was sinking slowly toward the western horizon, and Desa was happy to be free of its glare. Soon, the chill of night would be making her huddle up in her coat – which no longer had buttons – but for now, she was thankful for the drop in temperature.

  She wasn't sure what made her do it – curiosity, she suspected – but she ventured a glance back over her shoulder. She knew what she would find, but she forced herself to look anyway.

  The abandoned town was as silent as a tomb, its buildings cloaked in the gloom of lengthening shadows. And there between the rubble of two houses, a figure in unrelieved black watched them go, a hooded figure who seemed to make the very air grow cold.

  Desa peeled her gaze off the spectre and rubbed her forehead with the back of one hand. “Let's hurry,” she urged Midnight. “I have a distinct impression that we do not want to be here when the sun sets.”

  She risked another glance.

  The hooded figure was gone, of course. She saw nothing but broken buildings and the faint glint of evening sunlight on the distant crystal. Despite herself, she shivered. The dead could have their town. Now that she had failed in her task, she had no further need of it.

  Midnight did not bother to look back, but she could tell by his stiffness that he had sensed whatever that thing was. Perhaps it left a kind of reverberation in the Ether. And maybe that was how Desa could feel its eyes on her back.

  They carried on in silence.

  When the last traces of daylight were gone, they were miles away from the town, and the night's chill was making Desa huddle up in a coat that lacked buttons. The wind threatened to whip the hat off her head.

  Stifling a yawn with one hand, Desa shut her eyes. “Maybe it would be best to stop for a while,” she murmured. “We are in no hurry, and even with the Ether to guide your steps, riding at night is unwise.”

  The filly could not duplicate Midnight's feat of mapping the terrain with his mind and using that knowledge to avoid danger. Of course, their gentle pace made it unlikely that they would have to worry about one of the horses suffering an injury. A fierce gallop through the dark – the kind of mad dash they had employed in their pursuit of Bendarian – was inadvisable, to say the least, but horses could carry on in low light. Still, Desa would take any excuse to stop and sleep.

  Midnight, however, seemed determined to press on. He didn't even acknowledge Desa's suggestion; he just continued on his steady pace forward with the filly eyeing him from time to time.

  Scrubbing a hand over her face, Desa moaned her displeasure. “Yes...I suppose you have the right of it,” she mumbled. “Better to cover more ground before the sun scorches us again.”

  She was about ready to nod off, and the difficulty of keeping her balance without a saddle only made things worse. Thankfully, there didn't seem to be anyone else out here. If they ran afoul of bandits, she would have a very hard time of it without guns, knives or Infused weapons.

  Suddenly, Midnight stopped.

  Desa felt him communing with the Ether, and then his ears twitched. Before she could say one word, the stallion took off like an arrow loosed from a bow. In the wrong direction! As far as Desa could tell, they had turned northeast but Dry Gulch was about forty to fifty miles northwest of the abandoned town. “Where are we going?” she asked.

  Midnight didn't answer; he just galloped.

  The filly whinnied as she struggled to keep up, and Desa felt a moment of panic. She was likely to hurt herself, running at that pace through the darkness. Desa hoped her horse knew that the terrain was level.

  They had traveled for at least fifteen minutes, maybe longer, when Desa decided that enough was enough. She was about to insist that they stop this foolishness and turn back toward Dry Gulch, but a light in the distance caught her eye. It seemed clear that that was Midnight's destination.

  But what was it?

  Not a fire. The light was too even for that. And the glow had more of a white tinge than the fierce orange of flames. In fact, the only thing outside of an electric bulb that could emit that kind of light was an Infused object.

  Grinning like a fool who had drunk himself stupid, Desa shook her head. “Why you glorious bastard,” she shouted, patting the stallion's neck. “You could sense them even in this endless wilderness?”

  The light drew near, and she saw people standing up to face her with guns in hand. No doubt they had been roused by the sound of Midnight's galloping. Tommy projected a bravery she would not have expected from him, moving to bar her path with grim resolve on his face.

  Miri was at his side, of course, but she seemed more confused than focused. And the fact that Desa couldn't see Marcus meant she would have bullets flying her way any second now. “Don't shoot!” she hollered. “It's me!”

  Tommy lowered his weapon.

  Miri sighed visibly and immediately sank back down to sit with her legs curled up. Even at this distance, Desa could see that the poor woman was exhausted. Had they been riding all day to catch her?

  Midnight slowed to a trot as they approached the light, and then a gruff voice from the darkness made Desa flinch. “What happened?” Marcus demanded. “Did you kill him? And where is Adele?”

  “Bendarian is no longer a threat.” Desa replied.

  “And Adele?”

  She dismounted and told them everything: her frantic scramble through the desert, the abandoned town, the crystal and the strange orchard that ran on self-renewing Infused technology. She told them of her fight with Bendarian, of Adele's betrayal and possession by the entity they had encountered on that farm.

  Marcus stood at the edge of the light with teeth bared, shaking his head in disgust. “I knew that girl was no good,” he growled. “We should have been done with her a long time ago.”

  “She would have followed us anyway,” Desa lamented.

  Tommy, she noticed, was unwilling to look at her. His face was turned away, bathed in light from glowing coins that Marcus had set on a large flat rock. It pained Desa to see that, but she offered no complaint.

  She was on her knees in the dust, head hanging as she exhaled. “Somehow, Adele learned of Bendarian's plan in Ofalla,” she went on. “She made up all that nonsense about soul mates and destiny so that we would take her with us.”

  Desa did not state the painfully obvious: that it was she herself who had been taken in by Adele's lies. Now, the world itself was in danger, and she did not know what to do. “We were headed for Dry Gulch,” she added faintly.

  Marcus paced a circle at the edge of the light, tapping his thigh with one hand. “It seems as good a plan as any,” he said at last. “We'll find no welcome at Fool's Edge, and we lack the supplies to travel back to the w
etlands.”

  “After that, I don't know what to do next.”

  To her surprise, Miri rose, came forward with the caution of a man approaching a feral tiger and then knelt beside Desa. “You needn't decide that on your own,” she said, clapping a hand on Desa's shoulder. “We will face this challenge together.”

  Closing her eyes, Desa felt tears on her cheeks, but she nodded anyway. “Thank you,” she whispered. “But I fear it won't be that easy.”

  “One problem at a time,” Tommy said without looking at her. “First we get out of this wilderness, and then we decide what to do about Adele.”

  Desa couldn't argue with that. She wasn't entirely sure how Adele's new powers worked, but she suspected that the woman could travel great distances in a single hop. It would do no good trying to chase her. Their first priority was to secure food and supplies. That meant a trip to Dry Gulch.

  “Sleep well,” Marcus grumbled. “We ride hard come morning.”

  Chapter 28

  Dry Gulch was a village of white stone buildings with flat roofs, tucked away inside a ravine between two rock walls. The town was built upon the bed of a river that had dried up long ago. And yet the people were thriving. Tommy wondered how they found water in this wasteland.

  He saw people in ponchos and wide-brimmed hats as they shuffled through the streets, the men in tan pants or dungarees, the women in thin dresses with short sleeves.

  One lovely young lady with copper skin and black hair that she wore tied up in a bun eyed them as she carried a basket of laundry down the street. A short little man with a bushy mustache smiled at them from the saddle of his horse.

  Tommy led his father's horse by the reins, frowning as he glanced this way and that. He kept expecting Adele to suddenly appear in the middle of the street and rain lightning down on him. That would be just like her; the woman had been insufferable before she had taken up with a demon.

  Tommy shut his eyes, his head hanging with fatigue, and then he slid the knuckle of one fist across his forehead. “So, this is what our journey comes to,” he mumbled. “Stuck out here in the middle of nowhere.”

  Miri was at his side, walking casually, but the way her gaze settled on everyone that passed told him there was nothing casual about it. From what he had come to understand about the Ka'adri, she was one of Aladar's greatest assassins. “Only a brief stop on a very long journey, my love,” she assured him.

  In a way, she had been his saving grace these last few days. Marcus had been in a fit from the very moment that Desa rode off into the night, and Tommy had feared that his inexperience would ruin everything. Every time he wanted to lament the burden that he was to the rest of the group, Miri just smiled and told him that everything would be all right. He was growing to care for her.

  Desa walked beside Midnight, but the stallion had neither saddle nor bridle, and for that matter, Desa's gun and knives were conspicuously absent. He was dying to ask why she had removed the buttons from her coat, but doing that would require him to confront a storm of emotion that he was more than happy to ignore for the time being.

  Desa had killed Sebastian.

  It bothered him that she had done so – that she could do so without hesitation – but what bothered him even more was the fact that he wasn't even mad about it. Oh, there had been anger, but it quickly faded into a kind of somber resignation. The sad truth was that, sooner or later, Sebastian would have forced Desa's hand. There was just no getting around that sad reality.

  A woman in a brown hat suddenly rode her dun mare into the middle of the street, barring their path. Tommy could see that she wore a sheriff's star on her tan vest. “Whoa there now,” she said. “What brings the lot of ya to our fair city.”

  It wasn't much of a city. Not compared to Ofalla, anyway, but Tommy had enough sense to keep that observation to himself. “We need supplies,” Marcus said gruffly. “We don't intend to stay long. Is it common for the sheriff to greet new arrivals?”

  The woman dismounted with a scuff of dirt, and when she stood up straight, he saw that she wasn't much taller than Desa. Her face was lovely with a delicate nose and tilted eyes. “It is after the sort of strangers we've had comin' through here,” she answered. “A few days back, we had a fella with black veins on his face come round and start harassin' everybody, threatenin' them.”

  “That man won't trouble you again,” Desa said.

  The Sheriff put fists on her hips, drew herself up to full height and strode forward with a smile on her face. “That a fact?” she asked. “How would you be knowin' that?”

  Marcus stepped forward to meet her. Tommy could only see the back of the other man's head, but he was well acquainted with Marcus's scowl. “What matters is that we do not intend to stay.”

  “Just the same, I think it'd be wise if I had a word with y'all,” she said. “My name's Sheriff Kalia Troval. Right this way, if you please.”

  Sheriff Troval's office was exactly what Desa would have expected: walls of white plaster, a simple wooden desk with an unlit lantern on top, windows that looked out upon the street and allowed sunlight through. There were a pair of pistols hung up on the wall with their barrels crossed. An interesting sight, that.

  Desa seated herself with hands on the armrests of her chair, frowning as she studied the other woman. “Is this really necessary?” she asked, raising one eyebrow. “We've told you our intentions.”

  The sheriff rounded the desk and leaned forward with her hands braced upon its surface. The intensity of her scrutiny almost made Desa flinch. Almost. “That you did,” she admitted. “But I want to know what you know about the man with veins on his face.”

  Shutting her eyes, Desa took a deep breath before responding. “All I can tell you is that he's gone,” she said. “And he will never trouble you again.”

  “Why should I take your word for that?”

  Desa sat back with her arms folded, nodding once in respect. “Perhaps you should not,” she answered. “But I've told you all I can.”

  A sigh exploded from the sheriff as she removed her hat and tossed it aside to land on an empty chair by the window. The woman was quite lovely. Long brown hair framed a face that belonged on a statue. “You'll forgive a country lass for her trouble keeping up. We are a bit thick-headed.”

  “I said nothing of the sort.”

  “No...But you seem to take me for an idiot.” Kalia Troval dropped into her chair, propped her feet up on the desk and crossed them at the ankle. “You come into my town. You say you know the man who terrorized some of my people, but you refuse to tell me anything specific, and then you expect that I'll let you be on your way.”

  “His name was Radharal Bendarian.”

  “See? Now, we're getting somewhere.”

  With her mouth agape, Desa blinked several times as she considered exactly how much she could tell this woman. “What do you know of Field Binding?” she said. “The secret of Aladar.”

  To her shock, Kalia Troval actually laughed and shook her head. “Now who's the idiot?” she exclaimed. “You've got a lot to learn if you think Field Binding belongs only to the Aladri.”

  That was like a splash of cold water in the face. In all her travels, Desa had never encountered anyone beyond Aladar's borders who had learned the arts of Field Binding. But then, she had never ventured this far away from the eastern coast. Was it possible the people of Dry Gulch had been using the talent themselves? Perhaps to grow food in the desert? She was suddenly reminded of that strange orchard.

  “Well then,” Desa began, “Since you know of Field Binding, that will make things easier. Bendarian was a student in Aladar, the son of a foreigner, but he had a remarkable talent when it came to Infusing items. He came to believe that people could be Infused with the power of the Ether. His experiments never worked, of course, until one day, he tried something different.

  “No one knows what he did, but every one of his subjects died. The Synod ordered his arrest. Bendarian fled the city, and I pursued him.
I have continued that pursuit for ten long years.”

  “Quite the story,” Kalia replied. “But it doesn't explain how you ended up in these parts. Would y'all mind skipping to that?”

  Desa shoved her reservations down into the pit of her stomach. Given a choice, she would have preferred to avoid discussing the pyramid and the abandoned town, but it was clear the sheriff would accept nothing less than the whole tale. “I pursued Bendarian to a town southeast of here, an abandoned city with-”

  Kalia Troval shot out of her chair and practically leaped over the desk. Perching on top of it, she leaned forward until she was almost nose to nose with Desa. “You went into the Nameless City?” Her breath stank of whiskey.

  Blinking in confusion, Desa recoiled from the other woman. “Yes,” she replied. “It was necessary to prevent Bendarian from-”

  “You went into the Nameless City.”

  “As I told you-”

  The sheriff sat on the edge of her desk with hands on her knees, her eyes fixed upon the floorboards. “Well, isn't that just dandy?” she muttered angrily. “Tell me true now, did you see it?”

  “See what?”

  “The thing that lurks there!” Kalia blustered. “The thing that watches anyone stupid enough to venture into that graveyard.”

  Desa felt sweat on her brow, and yet, at the same time, she was cold from head to toe. Her first breath was a frigid shudder. “Yes, I saw it,” she whispered. “Watching me from the shadows. What is that thing? And who built that city?”

  “She asks me who built the city?” Kalia grumbled. “We don't know who built it! It was here when our ancestors settled these parts two hundred years ago. Some folks went in looking for treasure. And some found it, you might say. They studied the devices there and learned what you call Field Binding.

  “But the Watcher was always there. Everyone who came out of that place spoke of feeling eyes on them everywhere they went. Some claimed to have seen the Watcher, but no two could agree on exactly what it was they saw. Some folks who went in there didn't come out quite right. And some didn't come out at all. After a while, we stopped sending expeditions. Best to let the dead sleep undisturbed.”