Bad Hunting (Daughter of the Wildings #2)

by Kyra Halland

  He went over to Fazar’s body where it lay crumpled on the ground and took the dead man’s mage ring from his hand. He put the ring in the message box, set it aglow with a touch of his finger and a word, then closed the box. “Now whoever he was communicating with will know he’s dead.” He looked at the body. “You didn’t shoot him. How did you kill him?”

  “I…” The enormity of what she had done finally hit Lainie. For the first time in her life, she had killed a man. And not only that, she had killed him with magic. She started shaking. “I suppressed his power till it went out. Like smothering a fire. And his life force went out, too. And he died.” It was strange and terrible to think of. “Does that make me a monster, with no heart and no soul?”

  “Fazar was the monster. You did what you had to do. And he was dead anyway. You know that. Or Stripped; but to a man like him, that would be worse than death.”

  She nodded again, though the burden of knowing that she could – and would – kill when she had to remained, along with the knowledge of just how far she was willing to go. “There’s more. I used the Sh’kimech.”

  He gave her a sharp, probing look, then asked, “They’re gone now?”

  “Yeah. It wasn’t easy, but I sent them back. I know it was dangerous, but I wasn’t strong enough to fight him by myself.” A memory from the fight came to her. “When the Sh’kimech were attacking him, he said he’d heard about that power. He said he tried to use it, but he couldn’t reach it. I wonder if the people he was working for are the same people who were paying Carden for the Sh’kimech ore.”

  Silas gave her another piercing look, then his eyes narrowed in thought. “The Mage Council… That would explain why Carden had so much money to throw around. Not to mention the damned lousy bounty they paid me for him.”

  “Do you think this might be part of a plan to take over the Wildings?”

  “If it is, I’m not sure I see much sense in how they’re going about it. But whatever they’re up to, you can lay money it’s no good.”

  He went back to the wall of the cave and squatted down to examine Fazar’s belongings. Lainie followed, curious. Among the dirty clothes and empty food packets in the knapsack was a framed miniature painting of a boy about twelve years old standing with a man and woman who looked like his parents. All three of them were dressed in very fine clothing. The boy had a broad, pleasant face; he definitely wasn’t Fazar. “Bissom,” Silas said. “It looks like Fazar kept souvenirs.” Also in the knapsack was an unholstered gun; Bissom’s, Lainie supposed.

  In a side pocket of the knapsack were several torn sheets of paper. Lainie picked some of them up and looked through them; they were the top and bottom thirds of folded letters. The missing middle portions would have had the address on the other side. I miss you so, my dearest Garis, the ending of one of the letters said in a neat, careful, feminine hand. Not knowing exactly what sort of work it is that takes you away from me for so long makes it harder. But I do know you’re working hard to make a good life for us, and I’m grateful for that. I must remain cheerful and strong, and have faith that you’ll return to me as soon as you are able. With all my love, I remain your devoted wife, Adelin.

  Lainie blinked back tears, and her heart ached for this woman who was waiting for her husband to come home, unaware that he never would. She reached for Silas’s hand and gripped it tightly, reassuring herself that he was alive and well and with her.

  He squeezed her hand in return. “Fazar left Horden’s mage ring for me to find,” he said, “so he must have sent in the addresses from these letters as proof of the kill and kept the rest for his trophy collection.” He carefully stacked the torn letters together and tucked them into the inside pocket of his duster, along with the painting of Verl Bissom and his parents. “Adelin Horden’s last letter was delivered to Bentwood Gulch. Let’s head up that way; the clerk at the mail depot might remember where that letter came from if he has the handwriting on these letters to remind him. I’d like to find Mrs. Horden, to tell her what happened and give her his things.”

  “Let’s do that,” Lainie said. Bentwood Gulch was a long way away, but where else were they going to go? With the Mage Council, or someone on it, trying to kill Silas, that meant he was out of the bounty-hunting business. And it was what she would want someone to do for her if she was in Mrs. Horden’s place. She put her hands on Silas’s shoulders and made him look at her. “Promise me, no matter what, you’ll never leave me behind waiting and wondering where you are and if I’ll ever see you again.”

  He cupped her face in his hands. “I can’t promise not to do whatever it takes to keep you safe, darlin’. But I promise I won’t leave you unless there’s no other choice. And if I do have to leave you, I promise I’ll do my best to come back to you.”

  It wasn’t enough. But life was dangerous, and men often had to do dangerous things. That was just the way of it. If this was all he felt he could honestly promise, she would have to accept it. It wouldn’t be right to force him to make promises he didn’t think he could keep. “I guess that’ll do,” she said.

  Using Fazar’s knife, Silas dug a small hole next to the renegade’s body. He took Fazar’s other mage ring from the inner pocket of his coat and put it and the message box in the hole.

  “How’d he get two mage rings, anyway?” Lainie asked as Silas filled the hole with dirt.

  “Making a mage ring is no secret,” Silas said. “When a mage is judged ready to receive his ring, he works with the teacher who served as his mentor to make it. If you pay close attention to how it’s done, it’s not too difficult to figure out how to make one yourself. It’s illegal, of course, and anyhow there’s no point in having two mage rings at the same time. If you try to use them both, you’ll only divide your power instead of focusing it.”

  One mystery came clear to Lainie. “Maybe that’s how he split the Wildings and Granadaian parts of his power and fooled me.”

  “That could be,” Silas said. “Even though I’ve never heard of anyone else intentionally dividing their power.”

  “I wish…” Lainie trailed off. What she was thinking seemed wrong, somehow.

  “Wish what, darlin’?”

  “Well… I wouldn’t ever want to be like him. But I wish I knew the things he knew about magic and how to use this kind of power.”

  Silas gave her a quick grin. “You’re smart. Smarter than him; you beat him. And you have me for a teacher. You’ll figure it out.”

  They left Fazar’s body to the wild animals and the elements, and walked back down to the entrance to the small canyon. The keeper charm on the horses had held; they were waiting there, grazing on some scrubgrass. Fazar had left behind the smaller knapsack he’d been carrying. After a quick look through it, which revealed nothing of interest, Silas threw it as far out into the desert as he could. “Maybe a packrat or ground squirrel will use it for nesting,” he said to Lainie.

  As they rode out, Lainie looked back at the ravine. In the long, golden rays of the setting sun, she saw an A’ayimat woman standing on the hillside, high above them. The woman raised one hand to her in salute or farewell, then climbed up the slope and disappeared over the barren, rocky ridge.

  * * *

  THREE DAYS’ RIDING brought Silas and Lainie back to Ripgap, where they ate, bathed, regaled the folks of the town with a version of the story that didn’t involve mentioning that they were wizards, and claimed their fourth night at the hotel. The next morning, they went to Horden’s grave, out past the edge of town. Now, with no curious eyes looking on, Silas buried Horden’s message boxes near the grave, to mark Horden’s resting place. He kept Horden’s mage ring; its magical properties had died with its owner, but as an ordinary ring it would make a fitting inheritance for his widow, either to keep as a memento or to sell to help support herself.

  Silas stood over the grave for a few moments in silent salute to a man he wished he’d had the chance to meet. He and Horden, both allied with the Hidden Council and married to W
ildings women, might have been friends. “We’ll find your Adelin for you, Horden,” he vowed. “She’ll get your last letter.” In the wind, wisps of dust blew up from the grave and spun away, as though carrying his words to Horden in whatever heaven or hell he was in at the moment.

  Silas looked at Lainie, standing a short distance away to give him some privacy. Pain gripped his heart at the thought of her in Adelin Horden’s position, waiting, wondering, unaware of the grief that was coming her way, and he prayed to the Joiner and the Defender that he would never have to leave her alone and waiting. He turned from the grave and went to her, and held her tight for a long time. She clung to him as though she never meant to let him go.

  Finally he pulled back. “Come on, darlin’. Time to get moving.”

  They rode away from Ripgap on the same trail they had followed to get there, heading northeast towards the Onetree. When they reached the tree a few days later, Silas buried Verl Bissom’s message boxes near the grave. The painting he kept, in case he ever had the chance to return it to Bissom’s family.

  He also buried his own Mage Council box next to the tree, though he kept his Hidden Council box. “Why are you doing that?” Lainie asked.

  “I think I told you, the location of a message box can be traced. With the Mage Council – or someone on it – wanting me dead, I don’t want them to be able to find me. And especially not now that they probably know about us and your power.”

  She looked down at her feet. “I guess we are pretty deep in the cow patties.”

  Well, that was one way of putting it. “Yep.” He looked up at her; her face was drawn in worry, as though she was thinking again that their problems were all her fault. He stood up, brushing dirt off his hands on his pants, then took her chin in his hand and made her look at him. “But there’s no one I’d rather be deep in the cow patties with than you, darlin’.”

  That got a smile from her, but as they returned to the horses she turned serious again. “This also means you’re out of a job.”

  He sighed. “You’re right about that, too. But we’ve got our minds and our skills; I think we can make our way. And if all else fails, I’ll just show you where the nearest card game is.”

  She gave him a stern frown that didn’t quite hide the laughter in her eyes. “You’re not allowed to play, though. At least, not for money.”

  Silas laughed and hugged her tight, nearly knocking her hat off. “As long as we’re together, darlin’, I think we’ll do just fine.”

  The End

  Thank you for reading

  Bad Hunting

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  The World of Daughter of the Wildings

  Money and Measurements:

  copper bits = 3 per penny

  pennies = 3 bits

  drinas = 10 pennies

  gildings = 100 drinas

  Week: nineday. 8 gods/one day per god, All-Gods day

  Month: three ninedays plus a Darknight

  armlength = 26”

  measure = man’s arms spread out, from fingertips on one hand to fingertips on the other hand (72”/ 6 ft)

  league = 1000 measures (1.13 miles)

  The Gods:

  The Provider – giver of what's needful, provider of good crops and herds

  The Maker – creation, childbirth, creativity, growth of seeds, increase in herds

  The Joiner – bringing separate things together, marriage

  The Sunderer – violent death, separations, breaking apart

  The Defender – defends, protects

  The Gatherer – death, return to origins, harvest

  The Avenger – attacks, avenges

  The Mender – brings together things that were formerly together then separated, reconciliation, restoration. honesty, integrity, wholeness.

  The Dragon's Threes Deck and rules:

  7 suits/point multipliers: Sun (4x), Moon (3x), Stars (2x), Earth (1x), Water (2x), Air (3x), Fire (4x)

  ranks/points: Dragon (15pts), Mage (14), King (13), Queen (12), Priest (11), Demon (10), Warrior (9), Crone (8), Merchant (7), Hunter (6), Farmer (5), Harlot (4), Begger (3), Joker (2), Death (1)

  Straight: pts x 3 (3 cards in a row from same suit)

  Level: (3 cards of same rank) pts x 2

  Ranking points: number of players -1 x 10. e.g. 7 players: best combo gets 60 points, next best gets 50, etc. Worst combo gets 0 ranking points.

  The cards are dealt out evenly, extras are taken out of play and placed face-down in the center of table.

  Players lay down combinations of three cards. All chosen combos for the round are placed face down before combos are revealed.

  Points earned depend on combos, how good they are compared to other combos. Points may be kept with colored pebbles.

  Bets change during play.

  Up to 10 players can play at once.

  Rules of courtesy:

  No smoking at the card table if any of the players object to it.

  Onlookers may not discuss the cards in players’ hands (this is a shooting offense).

  For maps, character interviews, previews of the other books in the Daughter of the Wildings series, and more book extras and information, visit http://www.kyrahalland.com/daughter-of-the-wildings.html

  Read on for a sneak preview of The Rancher’s Daughter,

  Book 3 of Daughter of the Wildings!

  “Was that really all you had left?” Silas asked as he and Lainie walked along the wooden sidewalk back towards the center of town. “Maybe we shouldn’t have taken that hotel room.”

  He thought back over their expenses. Since he’d been paid twenty-five gildings for Carden – an insulting amount, lending credence to Lainie’s idea that the same people who’d hired Fazar to kill him had also been bankrolling Carden – he and Lainie had had an expensive stay in Ripgap, had stocked up on ammunition for their revolvers, and had the horses re-shod twice and would have to do it again soon. Silas had also bought ammunition for his hunting rifle, along with a cookpot and skillet for Lainie to cook what he killed over the campfire. She liked to cook, and could work her own kind of magic with just a few ingredients, and the old familiar staple of ground squirrel on a stick just didn’t have the same appeal it used to. Some of their clothing had needed to be replaced, and Lainie, much to her embarrassment when she discovered her oversight, had forgotten to bring a winter coat with her from Bitterbush Springs, so Silas had bought her a warm rose-dyed duster when they came into the cold weather.

  Not to mention all the other expenses and supplies associated with months of travel. Under the circumstances, a hotel room was an extravagance, even if it was at the cheapest hotel in town, but neither of them had been able to stand the thought of one more winter night spent outdoors.

  “Don’t worry.” Lainie reached into her pocket again, then showed Silas three more drinas. “Seed money,” she said. “Let’s see what’s going on in there.” She pointed to a large building, the false wood front gaudily painted, the windows brightly lit in the early winter dusk. “Dirty Deke’s,” the sign said. It appeared to be the largest of the four saloons in Bentwood Gulch, which also boasted three hotels, two banks, a free-standing restaurant, a two-story school, three mercantiles, a number of other office buildings and shops, and even a music hall and a shrine. Everything looked neat, well-kept, and prosperous; the Bentwood Valley was rich cattle and sheep country. In a town the size of Bentwood Gulch, there was almost sure to be work for Silas, and, failing that, the card games would likely be richer than they had seen in a few months.

  There was only one drawback. “By all the gods,” Silas grumbled as they approached Dirty Deke’s and the jangling music of a hammerbox poured out through the swingi
ng door, assaulting his ears. “Isn’t there a saloon in the whole damned Wildings that doesn’t have one of those blasted things?”

  Lainie tugged at his sleeve. “Come on. I feel lucky tonight.”

  “Why don’t we just go back to the hotel room, and you can really get lucky?”

  It was funny how after all their months together, he could still make her blush. Still, she collected herself enough to respond, “It’s more fun if I’m not worrying about where our next meal is coming from.”

  She had a point. He let her drag him through the swinging doors of Dirty Deke’s. Inside, the saloon was brightly lit, and the air was thick with tobacco smoke and the smells of alcoholic drinks, house ladies’ perfume, and food. They paused just inside the door so their eyes could adjust to the light and they could take the measure of the place and its patrons. As was his habit, he did a quick check for signs of mages in the saloon, power or shields or, remembering Carden, concealed life force, and found nothing.

  A number of the customers and saloon workers took note of them in return. On the whole, the crowd looked cleaner and less worn-down than in most saloons Silas had been in in the Wildings. He noted the appreciative glances that several house ladies directed his way, while doing his best not to show that he noticed them. Lainie knew he loved her and was faithful to her, but she could still tease him unmercifully if she thought he was enjoying the attention a little too much. The gazes of several men lingered over Lainie, more curious than covetous, but still Silas put an arm protectively around her shoulders.