by Sean Platt
“Well,” he said. “I suppose you feel that with a gunslinger, the giant everyone thinks I’m afraid of, and a magic horse, that I’ll just turn tail and run. That about right?”
“Mayhap,” said Stone. He’d unholstered both guns in the Otel stairwell and was holding them vaguely upward, his fingers on the triggers. Beside him, Buckaroo did nothing. Clint urged him to open his chest to free his canon, but Buckaroo seemed frightened, if not downright terrified. He kept muttering about “bird acid” and how deadly it was. The foursome stood with their backs together, but they’d had to shift so Whitney and Buckaroo weren’t standing beside one another, since both were so useless.
“Well,” said Lee. “You’re right, and I’ll be running now. Have fun without me.”
Lee started to move. Clint’s hand flew toward his holster. He was fast, but not fast enough. All at once, all of the crows on the ground between Clint and Lee began to flap and take flight, blocking his vision.
The big black birds lumbered into the air, then began to scream toward the foursome. Every crow in the square had flown in unison, as if someone had fired a shot to send them off startled. Lee was no longer remotely visible, but still Clint fired, watching birds fall in a line below the perfect trajectory of his marshal’s bullets. There was nothing behind them.
Clint fired. And fired.
“He’s gone!” Edward shouted. “Save your ammunition!”
“He became birds?” said Stone.
“He became gone!” said Clint.
A beam of red light shot toward Clint, Stone, Buckaroo, and Whitney. The beam widened, pushing away birds like a strong arm, and a tunnel appeared between their two parties. As the foursome ran toward the giant and unicorn in front of the barn, glass began to shatter above them. Clint looked up. Birds were breaking every one of San Mateo’s windows, streaming into every house. Screams trumpeted above the chatter of beaks and the strange dying machine sounds of swooping birds.
Stone ran behind Clint. Buckaroo passed them both, screaming by Edward and the giant, then into the barn. Whitney didn’t make it. The tunnel closed as Edward’s concentration faltered or the bird attack grew too intense. Last they saw, the lawyer was swatting at birds with the hanger, using his other hand to protect his head.
“Again!” said Clint.
Edward seemed to summon great concentration, then blasted another red shot from his horn that again blew birds to the sides, sending them crashing into each other and into walls and ground. Glass continued to break. Above them, it was as if a stream of birds had pierced the buildings, preparing to thread giant strings through them before lifting them up. A black line of crows streamed in one side and out the other as if taking shortcuts.
The tunnel turned Whitney visible. He was scratched but otherwise unharmed, still swatting at birds with his hanger.
“Run!” yelled Stone.
But Whitney either didn’t hear or was being stubborn.
“Pompi get him!” bellowed the giant.
He stormed forward. His hammer rose and fell over his head, crashing into the square’s packed clay with a sound like armageddon. The birds seemed to whiff away in its wake, popping like heated kernels of corn. Each vanished in a puff of white smoke with a sound like POOF. When Pompi struck many at once, the air thickened with the whickering sound of a large fire in the wind.
It took Pompi two giant strides to reach Whitney. He scooped him up in one hand and then — Clint didn’t believe it until Pompi returned — tucked the lawyer into the waistband of his pants so he could return while fighting two-handed.
Beside Clint, Stone made a curious, almost ritualistic series of motions with his gun barrels. Both jerked up twice, then down, then both barrels to the left, to the right, to the left, to the right. He pushed two buttons on the stocks and, in a final display of showmanship, spun both shotguns on his fingers before starting to fire.
Stone’s guns became the blaze that Clint’s were, except that Clint could only fire each gun seven times whereas Stone’s guns seemed to be able to go much farther. It wasn’t hard for Clint to count shots while firing his own, and he heard Stone tally sixteen shots, eighteen, twenty. The way cleared, but the birds were a swarm, and any gaps they made refilled in an instant. Birds were swooping and diving, but most hovered in a cloud around them — up and down the street like an opaque cloud. Visibility was nearly nil.
Stone fired, fired, and fired again. Green flame belched from the barrels of both shotguns. Birds puffed into clouds — purple, in sharp contrast to Pompi’s white. Buckaroo had vanished; they could hear him whining from somewhere back in the barn. Edward tried blasting the birds away, but with his attention held on Mai in the Otel, he couldn’t manage much more than to repel them. His frustration came out as an equine bellow. He retreated, backing into the barn beside Buckaroo. Waves of birds dove at them. Splinters of wood flew as the birds struck the barn, digging into the wooden meat with their beaks. Clint felt a stabbing pain, and looked down to see the birds’ talons were shredding his shirt and scratching his face. He swatted them away.
The gunslinger fired. First one gun, then the other. Dead birds rained from the sky as Clint’s imperturbable rounds tore through bird behind bird like a skewer through meat. Beside him, Stone fired, fired, and fired again.
Clint tried reloading his guns while taking scratches and failed, dropping his bullets. He had filled his reloaders, but birds kept knocking them from his belt. He ducked, feeling for the devices and the shells, finding his hand scratched long across the top, swiping the veins. He pulled his hand back. The reloader skittered away, too far to see.
“Edward!” Clint cried out.
“I’m doing all I can,” the unicorn spat, annoyed.
“Fetch me my reloader!”
“HERE,” Edward grunted, sounding angry. The seven-shot reloader flew toward Clint, struck him in the knuckles, and sent his entire hand into a dull ache. It fell to the ground and Clint squatted, birds beneath him. He kneeled on one, making it scream, and found the bullets.
Beside him, Stone continued to fire. They were most of the way into the barn. The birds were bottlenecked, now only able to attack from the front. The barn didn’t have windows, and the back door was closed. They could hear the sounds of birds attacking the frame, pinging onto the roof like hailstones, pecking at the walls like woodpeckers.
A few birds had flown by them, into the barn. Stone held a gun in front of him and another one backward, toward the stall where Edward, Clint, and Pompi slept, and started firing both.
Green fire. Purple smoke. Birds vanished.
Clint chambered his rounds, feeling slow. Birds were all over him. He used his guns like clubs, feeling the heavy clunk of his arm against body, claw, and beak. He cleared the way and fired again, but it wasn’t close to enough. There were too many of them.
Pompi was at the front of their group, using his great hammer like a fan. The birds gave no resistance; the giant swung and the birds poofed with a trail of smoke behind, curling in the weapon’s wake. Back and forth, back and forth. Pompi swung away, clearing the air.
Clint’s hands refused to work. They dripped red, cut and scratched. His thumb was tired; his trigger finger wasn’t fast enough.
But Stone was equipped; he fired without tiring, moving like the engine their party’s machine couldn’t bring itself to be. Guns roared. Birds vanished. Still he wasn’t making a dent.
“Why do you never have to reload?” Clint shouted, clubbing another bird from his arm.
Stone’s teeth were gritted, his gums showing. He fired while shouting back, “Magic!”
Edward was beyond frustrated. Birds struck him, drawing multicolored blood. Given his magic’s distracted nature, he couldn’t always repel the crows and he couldn’t protect the others. He tried blasting the birds with his horn, but too much of his attention had gathered in the Otel room and the shots were too weak. Clint turned his gaze to the second-floor window where Mai was still in her sleep or trance
. The glass there was shattered. The draperies waved as a stream of black birds flew into the room like a torrent. Clint could imagine them circling Mai, landing on her bubble, trying to snap at her. He looked at the unicorn, silently urging him to not worry for their party. Protecting Mai was the most important task.
“She’s fine,” said Edward, reading the gunslinger’s face. “It’s us who are in trouble.”
Stone spun in place and fired three shots at a trio of crows that had been crawling inside the barn and approached them from behind with their talons bared. Purple smoke wafted by like machine exhaust.
“We need to get into the barn,” Clint said, still edging backward. They were almost there; another few feet and they’d be able to close the doors. The only problem was that they were barely holding the birds at bay; if one of them stopped working (Pompi was keeping most away with giant swings from his hammer, but would crush the barn if he didn’t stop before backing in), the birds would rush them.
“Yar,” said Edward. “Because then things will be peachy.”
“I’ll keep them back!” Whitney yelled, still swashbuckling with his coat hanger.
Edward turned an eye to him and, using a kind of invisible hand, grabbed Whitney and flung him far into the barn. He rolled to the other end, into a pile of loose hay.
“Good idea, stopping to help that guy,” Edward said to Clint.
Clint didn’t reply. His hands were scratched and battered and dripping, but Edward couldn’t heal him. Everything on him was too slow. They were overwhelmed. He was overwhelmed, suddenly feeling old.
“I know what to do,” Edward said. “Get your guns ready. And if you laugh, I will impale you.”
Clint, feeling not the least bit jocular, didn’t even look over. He kept firing, and kept struggling to reload. Beside him, Stone still hadn’t reloaded. His guns and Pompi’s hammer were all that held the murder at bay.
A weak, poofing sort of spell puffed from Edward’s horn in what could only be described as a spreading rainbow, like multicolored ripples in a pond. When the waves touched the huge, menacing crows fronting the party, they turned into tiny chirping bluebirds.
Clint stopped firing, cocking his head. Several of the tiny birds began circling his head and tweeting merrily. One dove and speared a hole in Clint’s cheek with its beak.
“YOU STILL HAVE TO SHOOT THEM!” Edward bellowed, furious.
But the tiny birds were too close, so Clint batted at them with his hands. The tiny things fell to the ground, still chirping. Then the birds stirred and flew at them, sharp beaks out. Clint had to shield his face.
Pompi shifted his hammer to one hand (for the crows) and swatted with the other (for the tweety birds), doing double duty. Clint, reacting purely from self-preservation, stepped on the things that didn’t poof away as Pompi felled them.
Edward hit another wave of birds with a second burst from his horn. Being attacked by small birds rather than large ones was a definite improvement, but not by much. The giant crows with their sharp beaks became tiny bluebirds with teeny beaks — small, but sharp, and still constant.
Clint stomped. Stone fired. But the smaller birds were harder to hit, and eventually Stone turned his guns around and started using them like clubs, knocking the tiny bluebirds from the air.
Pompi was still swinging his hammer. Stone tapped him with the butt of one of his guns. The giant turned, still swinging. His eyes asked Stone what he wanted, and Stone, resuming swinging himself, jerked his head inside the barn. Pompi didn’t hesitate; he stowed his hammer in its tiny pouch and practically rolled into the barn, bringing thunder with him.
Pompi sheared a post, collapsed a wall between stalls. The barn’s frame shook. A new wave of birds screamed forward — still crows — sending Clint and Stone to the doors, sliding them closed.
A few cleanup shots dispensed the final crows that had come inside, and then five sets of lungs and one set of mechanical bellows heaved for breath. Outside, a rain of beaks struck the barn, slowly pecking their way inside.
CHAPTER EIGHT:
BEYOND INFURIATING
According to Buckaroo’s chronometer, a half hour passed before the birds paused their assault on the barn. The sound outside during that time became cacophonous, sounding more like an artillery attack than a flock of birds trying to peck their way in. There were sounds like flying machines streaking down from the sky — a sort of descending, paralyzing squeal of noise. There were explosions, like incendiary powders. And on top of that, there was the neverending chatter of birds and the scratching of a million talons and the clicking of a million beaks.
The barn’s roof was alloy; they could hear the birds clacking across it like rain plinking into a can. They could hear the crows dive-bombing into the barn’s wooden sides. They heard them clawing the vents, trying to get in. Edward was able to extend small protections to keep them out, but with the protection he still held for Mai, he became like a boy with his fingers and toes in many holes in a leaky dike, spread too thin and too exhausted to so much as think. The unicorn couldn’t even get his own water, so Stone brought it to him in a bucket.
By the time Buckaroo’s chronometer showed that a full hour had passed, the birds outside had started to settle and diminish (ruffling noises replaced the sounds of bombs and shells, and even the more mundane sounds of angry pecking beaks), and after two hours were gone, every sound had ceased. The barn took on an ominous quiet, like a waiting storm. They were all imagining the birds sitting patiently outside with their beady black eyes, ready and willing to outlast the four men, the unicorn, and the machine for as long as they had to.
After a full hour of quiet — now into proper morning in San Mateo Flats, when citizens should be up and stirring — Whitney stood, brushed off his pants, and announced that they should move on with their mission. There was a bandit out there who must be brought to justice.
“You’re kidding,” said Stone.
“Of course I’m not kidding.” Whitney picked up his coat hanger and gave its end a twist as if checking the sights on a fine revolver. “Do you plan to stay in here forever?”
Clint looked at the lawyer. His hair was wilder, having grown from sleepy corkscrews into wild points and tufts, his scalp now pocked with scratches and scabs. He was still in his pajamas. Stone, who had slept in his clothes (and didn’t, as far as Clint knew, own pajamas), was still sitting on the dirt floor, his eyes on the closed barn door. His knees were up. He sat with his arms crossed atop them, fingers brushing the holstered stocks of his magic guns — the ones that seemed to carry unlimited ammo. The lawyer looked ridiculous and out of place in the company of his five strong and battle-scarred companions. Yet, the ridiculous lawyer was also most eager to resume fighting. Clint couldn’t decide whether he admired or loathed the man.
“I plan to stay until the birds are gone,” Clint said.
Whitney shrugged, then climbed a cobweb-covered ladder mounted to the barn’s wall and peered through one of the vents. A pink shimmer wavered in front of the vent, projected by Edward. Whitney touched it and it sent a shock into his hand. He pulled the hand back, startled. Then, keeping a safe distance, he peered outside.
“I think they’re gone,” he announced.
“Well… do you know why they stopped?” said Stone.
“I don’t know.” Whitney shrugged. “Maybe they got tired.”
Stone, still half-statue, shook his stoicism away and stood. He avoided eye contact with Clint, Edward, and Whitney, glancing only at Pompi briefly. Finally he said, “It’s a trap.”
“It’s not a trap,” said Clint. But he wasn’t feeling himself. He felt weak whenever his hands were wounded, and hadn’t asked Edward to heal them since he was spread so thin with his protections.
“What do you mean?” Stone asked.
“Edward,” said Clint. “You may drop your protections.”
“Except around Mai,” said the unicorn.
“Except around Mai,” Clint agreed.
> Edward looked at the gunslinger, measuring his gaze. They’d been partnered for most of Clint’s life. As much as it was possible for a unicorn and man to know each other’s souls, Edward knew Clint’s and Clint knew Edward’s.
The shimmers vanished at the vents. “Done,” Edward said.
Stone unfolded his arms and stood. “What’s on your mind?”
“This isn’t a trap. Never was,” Clint said. “This was a distraction.”
Whitney hopped down from the ladder and walked over, brushing cobwebs from his arms and, ridiculously enough, from his fancy shoes.
“He loosed his birds on us, then ran off,” Clint said. “So where did he go? If this was about us, why would Lee leave? The birds came up like a magician’s poof and when they scattered, he was gone. He didn’t even stay long enough to gloat.”
“Trap, diversion,” said Stone. “What’s the difference? A villain is a villain. Birds are birds. How does this change anything? We should have left when Edward said.”
“Yar.” Clint nodded, then shook his head. “And nar. Yar, we should have left. But nar, we couldn’t have left. We thought this was an errand of mercy? That our duty was to keep this man —” He nodded to Whitney. “— from getting himself killt? Well, isn’t it convenient that we found him practically under our feet? That he wasn’t killt outright? Isn’t it convenient he wanted to run off to confront a man in the town that we were headed toward?”
“You’re saying we were supposed to face Lee,” Stone said, fingering the butt of a shotgun. “That he wanted us here.”
“Yar. What better way to keep us from the Meadowlands?”
“But if Lee is your ‘Darkness’,” Stone said, handling the word deftly, using it in the way Edward had explained it while they’d ridden together, “then that Darkness would want to move on toward The Realm too, not stay here. And yet, he’s settled in as the Mace-Wielding Bully of San Mateo.”
