by RW Krpoun
What sounded like a gunshot snapped him awake, Colt in hand. The building was dark and quiet, although the Shootist could sense the others were awake and listening intently. The sky had finally cleared a few hours before sundown and moonlight now illuminated the doorway.
After an endless minute of straining his ears Shad sat up. “What was that noise?” he whispered.
“Sounded like a shot,” Fred muttered.
“It came from in here,” Derek objected quietly. “No smoke.”
Jeff stood and carefully felt over his head using his saber as a probe. “The ridgepole cracked.”
“The what?” Shad finished strapping on his shoulder rig.
“The ridgepole, the center support of the roof. It split, probably because of all the rain soaking it and then our fire and lanterns drying out the underside. One side wet, one side dryer, and it cracked. Old wood does that.”
“Damned loud,” the Shootist holstered his Colt and climbed to his feet.
“It’s an eight-by-eight beam twenty feet long supporting the entire weight of the roof.”
“Is it safe to stay under it?” Derek asked.
“Yeah, its still got some service life left.”
Shad sighed and walked over to the doorway in his stocking feet. “Helluva thing.” He leaned against the doorframe and looked out. A dozen feet away a Human skeleton of age-browned bone stood in the moonlight, a wickedly sharp short sword in one hand and a spiked buckler in the other, a greenish-black glow filling its eye sockets.
“SHIT!” Shad drew and fired three times, blasting ribs off the sternum as the Undead creature lunged forward, belatedly shifting his point of aim to put a round through the thing’s bony pate as it closed, causing it to collapse into inert bones.
Half-blinded by the muzzle flashes he fired off the last two rounds in the Colt at movement and ducked behind the wall as a hurled spear flashed through the door. “Undead!” he called as he holstered the empty weapon and drew the other.
“How many?” Jeff lunged to the other side of the door, saber in hand, stuffing a deck of charms into his pants pocket.
“One less,” the Shootist slapped his waistband and cursed: his cartridge belt was at his bedroll. “Cover the door-I’ve got to get ammo.”
Derek had bought a second tube-carrier and loaded only silver-tipped rounds in those magazines, wiring beads to the shoulder strap so he could tell the two apart even in the dark; slinging that carrier’s strap over his shoulder and his spell-bandolier over the other he pushed past the nervous animals to the far end of the building where moonlight cascaded through a hole in the shingles the size of a washing machine.
Dumping a box of silver-tipped .44-40 cartridges into his shirt, Fred grabbed up his Yellowboy and rushed to the doorway as Jeff parried a skeleton’s wild slash and cleaved its skull apart with his return stroke.
Yanking his other cartridge belt from his saddle bag, the one loaded with nothing but silver-tipped ammunition, Shad hastily buckled it around his waist, cursing the darkness and his lack of boots. Ducking past the horses (skittish over the fighting) and Durbin (stoically watching the action) he joined Derek; the Alienist had chinned himself on a beam and was struggling to use it as a stepping stone to the hole in the roof.
Grabbing one of Derek’s feet Shad guided it to his own shoulder and braced himself. With the extra support Derek reached the hole and scrambled out onto the roof, sending down a shower of fragments of rotting shingles.
Leading Durbin over to a point below the hole Shad swung himself aboard the stolid mule, then scrambled onto the beam and from there out onto the roof. Like Derek his passage widened the hole, but he managed to make it to solid footing.
Drawing the empty Colt he reloaded as he took in the situation: a score of skeletal Undead were assaulting the trapper post; most were converging on the doorway, but two groups had secured tree trunks from the river, great lengths of water-hardened driftwood that they were employing as battering rams against the sides of the building. Derek was blazing away at one such team, and as soon as he had reloaded Shad scooted over to the other, mindful of the spongy surface beneath him.
He shot two of the skeletons in their craniums then scuttled back to blink away the after-images of the muzzle flash. Closing his left eye he eased forward and shot another in the skull before heaving himself back to avoid a hurled spear. Crabbing sideways, he slipped to another viewing point, shifting the Colt to his left hand and keeping his left eye open and the right closed. He fired three rounds in rapid succession, gratified to see that the silver in the rounds created a much more dynamic effect, blasting away a shoulder socket or an entire side of a rib cage as if they were explosive rounds.
Ducking back, he drew the other Colt and blindly fired all six ordinary rounds in the general area of the ram before withdrawing to reload. He was just finishing the second Colt when he heard Derek yell.
Crab-walking over the peak he saw that the roof was sagging and that Derek was sprinting away across the prairie; apparently the wall had caved in under the ram’s attack, causing the roof to sag abruptly, spilling the Alienist to the ground. The good news was that the surviving skeletons in the ram crew had opted to pursue the target at hand and were lurching at best speed after him. Taking up a two-handed shooting stance Shad blew a pursuer’s spine apart before returning to his own Undead problem.
The saber was light, well-balanced, and deadly effective against the Skeletons, but Jeff was tiring. Worse, something was smashing at the walls of their decrepit building, and neither Shad nor Derek was anywhere to be found. With Fred blasting away right next to him he couldn’t tell if there was anyone else shooting.
Then the wall to the left caved in halfway between the door and the corner; Fred leaped to cover that new entry as dust and bits of moldy shingle rained down from overhead and rafters snapped like pistol-shots. Alone at the doorway Jeff parried another thrust and bore in, using the curve of his blade to go over his attacker’s guard and transfix its bare sternum. The creature collapsed to join the growing mound of bone fragments as a spear caught the Jinxman in the side, burning away the three armor charms he had managed to activate in the midst of the fight and cutting him deeply.
Staggering back in pain, Jeff saw the end coming as a skeleton lurched through the drift of inert bones and stepped into the cabin. And then abruptly collapsed as its cranium exploded: Fred was back at the doorway, firing, and Jeff had an instant to flip a blood stop charm and two healing charms at his side. Dragging a few deep breaths to feed the burning ache in his arms, the Jinxman mopped away sweat and moved up to cover the Scout.
Derek was limping along on a sprained ankle, cursing steadily and wondering what in blazes he was supposed to do. The skeletons were faster than he was, although he had a head start and twice he had spun around and dropped the nearest pursuer. Nevertheless they were very certainly going to run him down and kill him.
He wished he had his Le Mat with him, but it was in its holster next to the folded coat that served him as a pillow. Thumbing back the Spencer’s hammer as he trotted across the uneven ground, his ankle sending a flare of pain with each jolting step, the Alienist spun on his good leg and faced his pursuers.
Only to discover that they were turning back toward the trading post. The significance of the mindless Undead breaking off their pursuit was not lost on him; he immediately dropped prone, instinctively turning toward the faint sensation of magical activity that tugged at his scalp and ears.
A shotgun fired nearby, the shot screaming through the very air where his torso had been a second ago. Derek fired just below where the muzzle flash had erupted and rolled twice to his left, his pants soaking up water from the grass and mud smearing across his bare torso as he went. Coming to a halt he levered in a fresh round and cocked the Spencer, waiting.
The shotgun blasted again, the muzzle flash distinctly lower; buckshot tore up the sod ten feet to the Alienist’s right. Derek was quicker off the mark and fired at the fla
sh a split-second after the shot. He rolled once to his right and chambered another round.
Easing forward on his belly as the after-images of the muzzle flashes slowly faded from his retinas, the Jinxman spotted a long-haired man kneeling on the grass up ahead, sitting back on his heels with his chin on his chest and his hands resting limply on a long gun lying across his thighs.
Closing his left eye Derek carefully shot the man in the head, rolled twice to his right, and then worked the action of his carbine. Carefully sliding the tube magazine from the stock he ran a dirty finger over its top: there was a cartridge ready to be loaded, which meant he had one in the chamber. Shoving the partially empty tube in the back of his pants he slotted in a full one.
Staggering back from the doorway wheezing for air, Jeff dropped his saber and flipped two healing and two armor charms onto Fred. Stumbling to the pack saddle he found the bundle of torches and pulled out three. Wedging two into his armpit, he thrust the greasy head of the third into the bed of coals that had been sleeping under a layer of ash in the fireplace. The torch burst into flame; touching it to the others as he made his way to where the wall was bulging inwards, he extended one burning brand out the nearest firing slit as far as it would go, tossing it toward the battering ram.
He threw another out the door and the third out the hole battered through the wall before moving wearily to his bedroll and snatching up his Winchester and a small leather sack filled with silver-tipped cartridges.
The sudden appearance of a torch near the toiling skeletons cleared away Shad’s vision issues, and he was able to swiftly cut down the remaining Undead without undue difficulty. Reloading as he crossed over the peak he spotted five more skeletons homing in on the hole battered through the building’s wall; they were illuminated by yet another torch and he made short work of the five, close-range shooting being his class specialty.
The last of the doorway attackers were being shot down, so he reloaded his weapons and carefully dropped down into the building. He would rather have gone directly after Derek, but that would have made him a good candidate for friendly fire, as Fred and Jeff were undoubtedly shooting at anything that moved.
Low-crawling forward across the wet ground Derek was startled by the sudden appearance of a light at the trading post. It wasn’t a big light source, and both training and experience kept him from looking towards it, but it gave a slight improvement to the definition in the night.
Movement caught his eye, and he swung the Spencer’s muzzle towards it. Searching with back-and-forth sweeps using his peripheral vision he made out the dark outline of a crawling figure slowly easing away from the building. Steadying his carbine, he settled his cheek against the stock, took a slow, careful breath, and squeezed the trigger.
Chapter Ten
“He fell off the roof and took off to avoid the Undead,” Shad explained a bit over-loudly as he and the others were all a touch deafened by the gunfire. “Some of the skeletons came back, but I don’t think they had blood on their weapons.” He pulled on his other boot. “I’m going to go look for him.”
“No need,” Fred advised from the doorway. “He’s standing out there with one of those glowing balls above his head.”
“Since when?” Shad stomped the boot to set it and walked over.
“Since about one second ago. Startled the blazes out of me.”
“OK, well, I’ll go see what he is doing, you guys clean up around here. Make very sure there is no leftover Undead around.”
Outside a shot rang out. “SHIT!” Jeff yelled, grabbing his left arm; Shad and Fred likewise staggered in pain.
“What the hell?” Fred exclaimed, examining his forearm. “I just lost a rune!”
“Man, that never goes easy,” Shad swore, rubbing his arm. “I always think I’m having a heart attack.”
“Why the hell did we lose a rune?” Jeff wondered.
“Who knows?” Shad straightened, working his left arm. “Let’s get secure and we’ll sort it out later.”
The east horizon was graying by the time the Black Talons had finished sorting through the mess the fight had left, cleaned their weapons, and cooked and eaten a meal.
“Well, that wasn’t really a night worth having,” Jeff leaned back against his saddle. The Talons and their mounts had moved outside the building because the damaged walls made its structural integrity suspect.
“We survived, didn’t we?” Shad shrugged. “The Lord was looking out for us. If that beam hadn’t split when it did and woke us up the fight would have been a lot different.”
“We need to resume posting guards,” Fred mumbled.
“You’re right,” Shad nodded. “That one’s on me-I thought the horses would be more alert.”
“They normally would have,” Derek said absently from where he was examining items under the ball of light hovering over his head. “There was a pretty potent hex in play preventing noise and scent from reaching the building ahead of the attack.”
“Good to know,” Shad nodded. “Still, it’s a reminder of how important the basics are.”
“Speaking of basics, we need to be better prepared for a night action,” Jeff observed. “Derek, how about some support in that department?”
“Next level I can write some mobile light hexes,” the Alienist advised. “Until then all I have is this ball, which makes whoever it is following around the number one target for everyone.”
“Nice work with the torches, by the way,” Shad pointed out. “Now let’s address issue prime: why did we burn off a rune? We just jumped twenty per cent closer to getting home.”
“All our runes are identical,” Fred pointed out. “Which means that unlike last time we only have one mission, duplicated five times. Four, now.”
“We eliminate the runes by killing a Death Lord,” Derek announced, pointing towards the corpse of the last man he had shot, a short, wiry Asian with a shaved head whose scalp, neck, torso, and arms were covered with row upon row of tiny tattooed symbols. “That’s what burned off this one.”
“Your last shot and the arm-burn were really close together,” Jeff admitted. “You sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure,” the Alienist sighed. “And its making my head hurt.”
“Why?” Jeff asked. “Sounds like we just got a free ticket home. I don’t have a problem icing necromancers.”
“Because it opens a bunch of questions,” Shad rubbed his scar. “Are you sure tattoo-boy was a Death Lord?”
“Yeah-Undead Lore. But it gets even weirder: this guy was hunting us.”
“That explains the extra XP, but so what? Technically our contracted mission was acting against their best interests,” Jeff shrugged. “And we know that we’re only five dead ones from being home. Four, now.”
“Because this guy had a copy of the itinerary Amid gave us, and a device,” Derek held up a polished onyx plate set into a skull cap from a humanoid creature. “A device which tracks the magic marble Amid gave us.”
Silence hung over the small camp. “Could they have captured or stolen an itinerary from elsewhere, say by ambushing Amid, and gotten the low-down on the marble from the same source?” Fred asked after a long pause.
“Nope,” the Alienist held up the small ball in question. “Now that I have both to compare it is clear that the ball is nothing more than a homing device.”
Shad twisted a stick back and forth. “So Cecil summoned us here, fed us the story about his girlfriend and sent us out to kill Death Lords? Why not just tell us to whack five necromancers and you can go home? What the blazes is going on?”
“I don’t think Cecil wants us to kill Death Lords; I mean, he won’t care about the Death Lords, but the fact is he summoned us and put a tracker on us, and then tipped off the Death Lords. Why would he do that?”
“Maybe Cecil isn’t the main actor,” Jeff suggested. “Maybe the Death Lords wanted us dead, and Cecil just set brokered the deal? We did put the hurt on Undead in the Prison.”
“No,�
�� Shad shook his head. “If this was the Death Lord’s show we would have arrived unarmed and with a legion of Undead waiting. This guy had one Human bodyguard, a Celt from the looks of him, and about two dozen skeletons. Cecil tipped the Death Lords off after we were in-country, and they dispersed search groups along the itinerary to watch for us. I expect this guy,” he pointed the stick towards the necromancer’s corpse. “Was supposed to just report and wait for back-up, but he piled on for personal glory.”
“Why would Cecil do that? Why go to all the trouble of summoning us just to set us to fighting necromancers?” Fred shook his head. “There’s no advantage for him.”
“There’s an advantage,” Shad tossed the stick into the fire. “We’re just not able to see it.”
“So what stops us from going after Cecil now that we’re survived?” Jeff asked. “This is a pretty left-handed way of going about things.”
Derek pointed to his forearm. “Because if we survive the Death Lords’ first move we learn how to get out. Cecil is betting we’ll go for the sure thing, head for home by killing Death Lords.”
“Without the homing beacon they’ll play hell tracking us,” Fred nodded. “Outlanders are a blank spot.”
“Which drags us around to the same old question: why did Cecil bring us there if all he wanted to do was either get us killed, or see us scamper back home?” Shad shook his head. “As always we’re out of our league.”
“Maybe not,” Derek said slowly. “Or maybe we are and that’s what he’s counting on.”
“That’s clear as mud,” Jeff pointed out, pouring himself the last of the coffee.
“Look, we were summoned to the Prison and told the reason was X, when the real reason we were summoned was Y,” the Alienist scowled into the fire, thinking hard. “So we end up here again, we’re not deep thinkers, so we automatically distrust the initial story of why we’re here and keep looking for the real reason why we were called.”
