by Ford, Lizzy
“No,” was the response. “The tribal elders have spoken of the Free Lands to the north for many years, but no one has ever ventured that far to see if they exist. It is believed that there are far worse dangers than the forests, plains and Ghouls that lie between us and the Free Lands. Perhaps we have never heard of anyone returning from them, because no one who sought them reached them in the first place.”
I need them to be real, Arthur thought. Leaping Deer’s fears had been repeated to Arthur by everyone he asked about the Free Lands, including the clairvoyants he was only allowed to speak to in passing. Under the watchful gaze of his father, Arthur had little opportunity to pursue the questions burning hottest inside him and instead was forced to play his part and seize any chance presented to him to further his quest for knowledge.
But the older Tiana became, the less time he had. Their father had rebuffed both the council and the pressure other wealthy families put on him to marry her off and cement an alliance between powerful families, as was traditional. When she turned eighteen, people would begin to suspect she was disfigured, if their father did not announce her engagement to one of the many available heirs from other families wishing to climb the social strata.
“Your dream,” Leaping Deer prodded him.
Arthur blinked out of his thoughts. “Nightmares are more accurate,” he said. “Do not laugh at me, either of you!” He gave them looks of playful warning, self-conscious of sharing the odd dream. “No matter what dream I am having, a native man will appear and begin chasing me. He’s not from the Apache or Navajo or any of the nations with whom your tribe, or our city, is at peace,” he said to Leaping Deer. “This native is different, and if you ask me why, I am uncertain what to say. I know it, just as I know which direction we must go to hunt game.”
“Not all of the first peoples were destroyed with the Old World. It is said there are a few very old tribes from the Northeast, where it is winter for nine months a year,” Leaping Deer said. “It is possible you have made contact with one of their holy men in your dreams.”
“I hope not,” Arthur said with a snort. “This man is not like us. He takes on the form of a bear sometimes and a wolf at other times and still other times, a horrible creature I have never seen before and cannot even begin to describe.” He paused, recalling the dream, before continuing. “But he finds me no matter what dream I am having or where I am in my dream. When he appears, everything changes, and I return to the same place every time.”
“Where?” Warner asked.
“I don’t know for sure,” Arthur admitted. “In every dream, I am running from him across the plains, but I cannot identify which grasslands these are. A place I have visited? A place far away?” He shook his head. “I am always in a prairie.”
“What else do you see?” Leaping Deer asked.
“Spring is in the air, a little cool, yet warm enough not to need furs or a cloak. The grass is high, the wind strong, and the full moon is above, bright enough to make the grass glow silver. I run, and he chases me, sometimes in one of his animal forms, sometimes in his man form. In his man form, I can see he is crippled. One of his legs is only half a leg, and he wears a contraption that allows him to move like a normal man. This … contraption,” he made motions in the air, uncertain how to explain the awkward sight from his dream, “is covered at all times in black leather. Whether he’s an animal or a human, one of his legs is always black, which is how I always know he is the one pursuing me no matter what form he takes.”
Arthur paused. His audience was completely enraptured. Warner appeared concerned, but it was Leaping Deer’s narrowed gaze that alerted him something about the dream was of particular interest to the tracker.
“I started calling him Black Leg,” Arthur admitted, a little sheepishly. “This magic that lets him change into animals, and lets him track me, no matter where I am in my dreams, and which pulls me back onto the prairie in Spring, is contained in his leg.”
“His leg is magic?” Warner echoed, brow furrowed.
“Yes. I know it sounds comical or bizarre,” Arthur said. “But his magic is stored or … maybe just exists in his leg. I cannot rationally explain it.”
“And Black Leg appears in every dream?”
“Every one for the past month.”
“Does he ever catch you?”
“Never. He never comes closer than that tree.” Arthur pointed to a tree ten feet away. “But he never stops trying, either.”
Leaping Deer was frowning fiercely.
“What is it?” Warner asked the tracker. “Does this mean something to your people?”
“According to the spirits of my ancestors …” Leaping Deer began and then winked.
Warner’s face flared red, and Arthur chuckled.
“We are not all mystics and shaman,” the native said. “But, Arthur, there are two elements of your dream I recognize. The first scares me less than the second. You frighten your children with tales of the Ghouls, and we tell our children stories about skinwalkers, men who can turn into bears or wolves or similar.”
“But Ghouls are real,” Warner insisted and then sighed at the tracker’s patient smile. “Ah. So are skinwalkers.”
“When the Old World ended, a lot of strange things happened. Skinwalkers became as real as the Ghouls.”
“If skinwalkers are anything like Ghouls, how can anything else frighten you more?” Arthur exclaimed. “I have seen the forms a skinwalker takes. I would rather meet a Ghoul!”
“What frightens me more: this man who chases you in your dreams really exists,” Leaping Deer said. “He is a boogeyman among my people. They fear speaking of him, lest they become his next victim.”
Arthur’s stomach twisted. He had sensed the dream was not entirely fiction but hoped he was wrong.
“He is from the far northeast, or the south or perhaps even the west. No one knows, except he is the last of his kind, a legendary bounty hunter who invited the dark spirits into himself so he could seek vengeance on those who murdered his family,” Leaping Deer said. “In the meantime, until he can find them, he is hired by wealthy natives to hunt down and kill the descendants of the Old World and the invaders who stole our lands from us long ago. He has killed other natives, too, and worked for men of all nations and colors. He serves any master willing to pay his price, and he never accepts money as payment.”
“What else is there?” Warner exclaimed.
“No one knows except those who pay him. They are sworn to secrecy.” Leaping Deer shrugged. “It is also believed, and widely ridiculed, that the dark spirits he invited into his life live in his leg. If you have seen this, Arthur, without knowing the legend, maybe it is far truer than anyone thought.”
Silence fell, and Arthur’s heart began to skip beats. The part of his dream he did not reveal was that he was not himself when he was running. He had long, blond, wavy hair and wore a sleeping gown. Tiana had been the one fleeing the bounty hunter, not him.
“He is said to be ruthless, violent and invincible, and his magic leg protects him from harm. He has never failed to find his target,” Leaping Deer continued.
“What would he want with Arthur?” Warner spoke in a hushed tone. “The natives do not trust us, but if they wished to kill someone, why Arthur and not his father?”
A better question: why Tiana? Arthur mulled.
“Shall I ask my ancestors?” Leaping Deer asked dryly.
Warner shook his head. “We have no enemies outside the city that we know of. Do we?”
“It might be possible the natives have hired him, perhaps thinking if they can topple the Hanover’s, the city will crumble. Our truces of the past generation have pleased no one, inside the city or out,” Arthur said. “Or, maybe our enemies within the city hired him to unseat my family. The fact someone wants me dead does not surprise me. My family has built up a long list of people who would like to see us gone over the past two hundred years. But the man chasing me in my dreams …” he drifted off, more dis
turbed after Leaping Deer’s explanation than he had been waking from each dream. “… every night, Warner. He is there every night.”
It was one of the reasons behind Arthur’s search for a guardian for his sister. When she turned eighteen, Tiana’s continued existence would become a larger challenge. Matilda and members of other ambitious families had always hated Arthur’s sister, but it was his father he feared the most. Tiana could not be married off when she turned eighteen for fear of someone discovering her deformities, and this caused his father a political problem. Arthur did not have enough faith in his father to hope for another creative solution to the issue of Tiana. A quiet assassination made the most sense.
However, a native with one black leg would not go unnoticed in a city that did not welcome natives in the first place, which meant Tiana faced potential threats from at least two directions.
With the Winter Hunt looming, two months before Tiana’s birthday, Arthur grew concerned about leaving his sister vulnerable in her own home. Amongst the nightmares of being chased by Black Leg, Arthur had also dreamt nightly of a young woman of mixed heritage standing beside his sister in front of the window in Tiana’s room, overlooking the city. The girl had not been among any of the slaves, and Arthur’s search hastily expanded from the outer city residents to those of the inner city. When his spies uncovered the identity of the girl, he was confronted with another problem. How could he place Tiana’s life in the hands of the Devil? By the rules of the Guild, an assassin-in-training would not be permitted to protect Tiana without the leader’s permission.
Even if it had been possible to arrange for Aveline to become Tiana’s protector, how did Arthur welcome the daughter of a mass murderer – both of whom were rumored to have the blood of the devil in their blood – into his home? His and Tiana’s own faulty breeding was the reason Tiana could not leave her room.
Or was it the blood of the devil that would protect Tiana? In his discreet pursuit for more information, carried out by faithful slaves, Arthur had found no other explanation as to why Aveline was special, aside from her demon blood. At the last minute, a clairvoyant had slipped him a tip about the pending death of her father, the day before the hunt, and advised him as to how and where he could contact her. Aveline had possessed no other choice but to accept the only position that would guarantee her life.
One of Arthur’s visions had been accurate, and it scared him to consider the other might be as well.
“I will die to protect you,” Warner vowed, assuming Arthur’s troubled silence was for his own life.
Arthur’s gaze flickered to his friend. “I would not let you. Besides, I am not concerned for myself but for my sister. If anything happened to me, she would be alone.”
“I will take care of her as well,” Warner said without hesitation.
“I know, and I am grateful to have you in my life and by my side,” Arthur said with a quick smile. “Do you know the name of this bounty hunter?” he asked Leaping Deer.
“No one does. He is called many names. Black Leg is one. Black Wolf. Black Bear,” Leaping Deer shrugged. “The names are never the same but the magic leg is.”
“Then he will be easy to identify, if I pay for a bounty of my own,” Arthur responded confidently. “I will have him killed before he reaches the city.”
“If you can find him. He is known for his stealth.”
My sister has suffered enough, Arthur answered silently.
They sat in quiet for a long moment, each of them deep in thought.
“Go and rest,” Arthur said finally. “We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow. We need to reach the other end of the forest and the herds before the snow starts again.”
Leaping Deer nodded and rose. His steps crunched across the snow as he strode towards his tent.
Arthur stood more slowly, and he and Warner struck off towards the tent they shared. The men were paired up for safety reasons, and it was easy for Arthur and Warner to share a tent when Warner was Arthur’s official guardian.
When they were outside the firelight, Warner slid his hand into Arthur’s. Arthur squeezed his in return, but he was unable to take his mind off the dreams surely awaiting him this night, or the coldness at his core no amount of furs and flames could warm.
His visions, while powerful, remained frustrating glimpses in time, often with no way for him to know when or how the events he foresaw would unfold. The strange abilities he and Tiana both possessed were beyond rational explanation. Since such sorcery was also forbidden within the city, he rarely had a chance to speak to anyone about it. None of the books in his father’s expansive library addressed the odd abilities, and nowhere in his family history was there any record of deformities or special abilities. Whatever secrets his family kept were so tightly controlled, no trace remained.
Once, he found a sentence in the records kept by his forefathers, not pertaining to the family itself but detailing what happened during the first few decades after the Old World collapsed, when many strange events were recorded during the Age of Darkness, when the world existed in permanent stage of night for a century. Along with the waking of the Ghouls – human predators from a bygone age – during this period, the book had referenced a second awakening.
The hands of men shattered the world, but it was also the hands of men that coaxed magic from the land and began to repair all that had been broken.
Arthur had been puzzling over the sentence every day since the bounty hunter began interfering in his dreams. Were his abilities and Tiana’s telekinesis considered magic? Or was this description figurative in nature? How would tracking game and seeing the future, or Tiana’s diverse mix of abilities, heal the world?
There was no one to ask, and even if there were, no one would dare answer the son of the Hanover leader known to burn men and women at the stake for merely uttering the word magic. At a loss to explain his and his sister’s deformities, Arthur was resigned to quietly finding alternate methods to protect his sister. If he did not find a way to stop the bounty hunter, or his father, or any others attempting to murder Tiana, by her birthday, all he cared about in the world was lost.
“Do you hear them?” Warner’s whisper was terse.
Except for my sweet Warner, Arthur added with a glance at Warner. Their forbidden romance, which could earn them both being burnt at the stake, was as troubling as how Arthur was going to keep Tiana alive.
He lifted the flap from one of his ears. In the distance, on the side of the forest opposite the direction he had traveled from the city, wailing screams had begun to fill the night. No human or any other kind of animal made a sound so horrible.
“Ghouls,” he murmured dismissively. “Our force is too large, and our fires too many, for them to attack.” His eyes were trained to the north. “In the Free Lands, we would all be safe.”
“If they exist,” Warner said.
“They must.”
“How will we ever know for certain?”
Arthur fell silent. Unless he went north, he would never know. Such a journey would never be approved by his father. Even if it were, he dared not leave his sister alone for the amount of time it would take to explore the far north. If the trials standing between the city and Free Lands existed, he was not likely to make it there alive. He estimated he had two months until his vision came true. His sister’s immediate chances of survival were far more pressing than leaving her to find the Free Lands.
Except … the Free Lands might hold the key to saving her.
There was no right answer.
“Let us sleep, assuming we can,” he said and turned towards their tent, frustrated again by the problems for which he had no solutions.
“Rest. I am on the night watch this evening,” Warner replied.
Arthur faced him. He started to reach for his friend and lover and then stopped, clearing his throat. Warner smiled, his blue eyes dancing with amusement and dark hair hidden beneath his hat. Cautious about being too open in their displays of affection,
unless one of the ambitious Shield members dared to approach his father, Arthur also resented his inability to openly express how he felt and live the life he wanted.
I need to know if the Free Lands are real for me as well as for Tiana. This time, the thought was tinged with anger.
“Be well and safe,” he said awkwardly.
“You, too, Arthur.” Warner turned and walked away, towards the corral where the horses were kept on the prairie side of the encampment.
Arthur stepped into his tent, warmed by a fire at its center. The earth at its base had been cleared of snow and was covered in furs. The satchels and rolls containing his and Warner’s possessions were neatly stacked in one corner.
Arthur stripped out of his weaponry and placed it beside the pallet making up his bed. He tossed his boots and outer coverings, except the scarf he kept with him at all times, and stretched out on the pallet.
Every night for the past few weeks, he had fought sleep, and every night, he had fallen into slumber despite his best efforts to remain awake. He dwelled on his discussion with Leaping Deer. Before learning the man chasing him in his dream really existed, Arthur had often debated whether the dream was literal, or if he were being warned of general danger towards his sister.
His fear grew when he found Aveline, a woman from his dreams he had never met before. Yet he felt more confident, not less, after speaking to Leaping Deer. It was a relief to know the threat to Tiana had a face and identity. He would send a team of assassins after the bounty hunter before he reached Lost Vegas. If everyone knew about this native possessing dark spirits, then he would be easier to find.
“I’m coming for you, Black Leg,” Arthur said firmly to the dream waiting for him. “If I fail to catch you by spring, I will take Tiana to the Free Lands. Either way, you will never be near enough to harm her.”
Arthur’s eyes drifted closed and his body relaxed.
Moonlight reflected off his hair, rendering it silver, while the brush of grass against his legs tickled. Arthur, in the body of his sister, ran hard through the prairieland, against the strong wind. He knew without looking over his shoulder that the skinwalker pursued, and he ran faster. He had tried many times to lift his eyes from the grasses before him to the horizon in the hope of determining where exactly he was. The city of Lost Vegas was surrounded by the prairie, which ended at the forests and then picked up on the other side of the woods. Was he running close to Lost Vegas? On the other side of the forest?
