I looked into my drink. Wasn’t much of a decision, really. I wasn’t exactly a regular in Watermanse, but they were good people. They deserved to know what had happened to the boats and their crews. As for Osterway, they weren’t good people, generally, and if they had some design to come raiding west—
I looked up at Flint, but she wouldn’t object. At least, she hadn’t so far.
“Okay,” I said to Lorna, “I’ll go, see what I can find out.”
“We’ll pay you, of course.”
“Damned right you will.” I said it with a smile, though.
3
Reyna and Aldebar were going to wait for me. Or, rather, they were going to wait for a flotilla of trade ships supposed to arrive the day after next, if those squalls on Le’kemeshaw Lorna had mentioned didn’t hold them up. That surprised me a bit. Sure, we’d come this way together, but that didn’t exactly make us regular companions. Truth was, I preferred it just being me and Flint, and I almost said so, worried that they might have some expectations I didn’t share. But as soon as I looked at Reyna, the words just puffed away like dandelion fluff. I just told her I’d be back soon.
She smiled and said, “Good.” Then she kissed me.
It was a polite kiss, but a lurking passion growled at the edge of my senses, like a wolf beyond the circle of firelight.
I was still thinking about that kiss as Flint and I headed east and Watermanse was just a cloud of woodsmoke drifting above the ridgeline behind me.
“Can’t go by that, though,” I said to Flint. “She lost her husband. That’s a hard thing, right? Girl probably doesn’t know what she really wants.”
Flint gave me a toothy grin but, as usual, kept her wisdom to herself.
East of Watermanse, the going actually got easier, the ground rolling and not too rough, well-forested but with enough open, grassy plain to offer easy walking. We worked our way among and around remnants of old ruins—crumbling heaps of concrete, often stained the color of old blood where metal parts had rusted away. Enigmatic things made of metal were scattered among the grasses and undergrowth, too, along with vitreous fragments of shattered glass and ceramics. A lot of these were shinier, obviously made of something more resistant to sun and rain and snow. I thought I might grab a few of the more interesting pieces I found on the way back and see what I could get for them. For now, though, they’d just be a needless burden.
The biggest trouble was crossing water. The various creeks meandering down to superb places to get killed. There were fangs and claws and creatures with neither, but you could still end up in their gut just the same. A couple of times, Flint and I had to swim. Crossing one, I shouted, “Race ya, Flint!” and shot off across the water. Flint charged ahead, moving damned fast despite dog-paddling. I beat her by less than my own body length even as darker shadows began to cut the water behind us. Like any cocky hunter, I masked my fear by cheering Flint on with whoops of laughter.
“Good try, girl!” I laughed, earning a hard look from her before she shook herself, soaking me all over again. I kept my eyes from the pursuing predators, but Flint knew. She always knew, and her hackles rose as a low growl burbled in her throat. “My sentiments, exactly.”
For three days we traveled along. Flint roamed during the day, feeding herself on small game she caught, though never leaving earshot and usually staying in line of sight. At night, she prowled the edge of my camp, sleeping in the darkness some ten five meters away. It was an old routine, well-established, so much so we both just did it without thinking.
The fourth day out dawned with us standing on a height of land that gave a spectacular view of Le’kemeshaw, sparkling under the newly risen sun. I scanned it, left to right, out to the far horizon. Even without my tech I could see the big water was empty, with no sign of the missing ships from Watermanse.
I shrugged at Flint. “Huh. Maybe they’re wrecks on the bottom.”
She gave me a slightly mournful look at that, and I nodded. “Yeah. Hope not. That’s not news I want to bring back to Watermanse for sure.”
I was never entirely sure how much Flint understood my words. She clearly picked up on my tone, though, and I was kind of touched by her apparent concern for the missing crews from Watermanse. But she suddenly leapt and spun and snapped a passing bug out of the air, showing she obviously didn’t dwell on these things.
Around noon, we saw our first blackhorn.
We weren’t far from the big water, following the edge of some sandy dunes that lined the shore. I wasn’t short of food by any means, and Flint was taking care of her own meals, but I’d long since learned never to pass up a chance to hunt if it came along. I dug into my pack and took out the pieces of my rifle, snapping them together and loading four of my remaining bullets. Flint, meanwhile, scouted the herd, keeping herself carefully downwind of them. That made her head inland, so, for the first time in a long while, I lost sight of her. Not that it really bothered me; we could both take care of ourselves if we had to. Still, I preferred having her near to not, and headed inland myself.
The blackhorn were acting strangely. Predictably, they were staying away from the dunes, keeping to the grassy meadows. But the big animals would be grazing, then suddenly go on alert, massive heads lifting, snorting as they scanned around them, and then they’d move, rumbling forward a hundred paces or so before stopping and jamming their snouts back into the grass. They’d settle down grazing for a while, then do it all again.
Watching them from a tree line, I thought of Reyna’s husband, torn to pieces by one of these hulking beats, and that led to thoughts of Reyna. Then I winced, reconciled the two thoughts, and got carried away in the memory of her kiss—until I buried that thought with a harsh shake of my head. Getting distracted around blackhorn was exactly the sort of thing that got you killed.
The herd spooked and moved again, this time passing over a crestline, out of sight. I gave it a minute, then broke the treeline, moving slowly through the grass, crouching, my rifle cradled. I scanned around as I moved, looking for anything that would obviously be making the blackhorn nervous. But I saw nothing. And they didn’t seem to be aware of me at all. So it must be Flint—and that was odd, too, because Flint was as good a hunter as I was—probably better. It wasn’t like her to get herself caught out by a lumbering herd of blackhorn on a day with a steady wind.
Or, they were being spooked by something else.
I stopped and knelt so I could just see over the crest. The blackhorn hadn’t gone far. I raised the rifle and aimed at the nearest, a big cow. My tech enhanced the view, making the sight picture clear, which would make the shot true—
Flint growled, a primal sound that made me whirl, hands at the ready and my blood cooking in anticipation of battle.
I saw nothing except Flint herself, staring at the tree line behind us.
“What is it, girl—?”
Shit.
I raised the rifle again as a small mountain of muscle and fur shot out of the distant tree line, moving so fast it was a blur. I shouted for Flint to move, and she did, lunging off to my right. I had to track the rifle fast, keeping the sight picture on the thing racing toward us.
Wham. The rifle bucked against my shoulder and an instant later, the round hit high, ploughing a blood furrow across the creature’s back. Now I could see it—bobbed tail, cream and yellow fur, black-tipped ears, at least four times Flint’s size. A feline killing machine—a ghost.
No point running. Nothing could outrun a ghost. Except a bullet.
I held my ground. Aimed. Let out a calming beat of breath and squeezed the trigger. Wham. Blood erupted from the ghost’s shoulder, earning me exactly fuckall of a reaction as the streaking beast came toward me without hesitation.
“Well, fuck me.”
I aimed again, then fired as my rifle slammed into my shoulder, but the ghost leapt over a hump in the ground at exactly the wrong time, the bullet puffing dust from the grass behind it.
“And fuck me again,” I h
issed.
That was three rounds. One more, then the ghost would hit me like a battering ram with fangs the size of daggers.
I aimed. Movement in my peripheral vision—Flint, snarling, closing in from a flank. She was a blur of muscle and teeth in her own right, covering enormous amounts of ground with each powerful stride. I stay focused on the ghost. I had two seconds for the kill, or I would be taking a trip out of the ass end of an apex predator in a day or three.
Wham. Ten meters away, the round went home.
The ghost’s head burst like an overripe melon. I dove aside as its carcass thundered past, the toe of my left boot brushing its dun flank. I rolled and came back up just in time to see it flop to a standstill on the crestline, dust billowing around it. Flint raced up to it, growling. When it didn’t move, she relaxed and trotted to my side, looking awfully pleased with herself.
I stood. The blackhorn were just darkened shapes dwindling into the distance, horns flashing in the sun.
“They got the right idea,” I told Flint. Her only answer was a wagging tail and a casual snap at the dead ghost’s leg.
Looking at the dead beast, I couldn’t blame the blackhorn for running.
Four times Flint’s size was a lot of meat. I skinned the ghost and stripped as much as I could easily carry, brought it into the nearest tree line, and built a fire. The meat was leaner than I liked, making it a little dry and chewy, but not bad at all. I spent the rest of the day washing the meat in a stream, cleaning it and cooling it off, then slicing it into strips and drying it by the fire. The resulting jerky was tough and stringy, but it would last a while. I jammed some in my pack but pulled the rest high into a birch to keep it away from the many things that would otherwise eat it. Most of the carcass I had to leave for the scavengers, unfortunately—I just didn’t have the several days it would take to preserve it all. I did my best to cure some of the hide, too, scraping it clean and using what remained of the ghost’s brain as a tanning agent. It was crude and, again, wouldn’t last forever, but it should keep it from rotting long enough for me to come back this way, retrieve it from the tree, and haul it back to Watermanse. I cut away and cleaned up the claws and fangs, too. I didn’t really have much use for them, but they made nice trophies, and might even be worth something back at Watermanse if they made it all the way back with me.
“Sometimes,” I said to the hide as I scraped away bloody fat with a piece of shale from the creek, “you gotta know when a fight just ain’t worth it.” I glanced at Flint, happily gobbling down a bloody chunk of the ghost’s hindquarter. “Guess this ghost won’t make that mistake again, eh?”
Flint looked back at me and chewed wetly.
We pushed on that evening, stalking our way into the darkness later than I usually allowed. What remained of the ghost’s carcass—and there was a lot—would attract all sorts of scavengers, so I wanted to put some distance between us before we bedded down. The next day we resumed our way, angling back toward Le’kemeshaw. I was still mindful of the missing ships, but even more mindful of the supposed incursion coming from Osterway. If those slave-owning assholes really were moving west, then every step we took east made it more likely we’d run into them. I was down four rounds for the rifle, but this trip wasn’t supposed to be about fighting—it was about recon that could save innocent people from a life of slavery, death, or worse. I could spare the bullets for a just cause.
Around noon, we stood beside a small stream bubbling its way toward Le’kemeshaw. The water should have been fresh and cold, perfect for refilling canteens and taking the edge off the midday heat of glory season. It wasn’t, though, because the ghost wasn’t the only hunter out here.
I scowled at the bloody, scattered remains of at least two deer, judging from the number of right hindquarters heaped beside the stream. I saw parts of a blackhorn, too. Whoever had killed them had butchered them sloppily, wasting a lot of meat, contaminating more, and shredding the hides while doing it. My first thought was a predator, maybe even the ghost I’d shot, but ignoring the buzzing flies and stink of rotting meat and taking a closer look, I could tell it wasn’t. Many of the cuts were straight, and there were numerous chips and nicks in the bones, all the obvious work of a knife poorly used. This was the work of the sloppiest predators: men.
“What a fucking waste, eh, girl? They’re prey, sure, but they still deserve more respect than this.” Whoever had done this, though, had slashed out the bit they wanted then left the rest to pollute the little stream.
Flint and I backed off, avoiding a greasy heap of intestines as we retreated to the west side of the watercourse. Heading north, back toward the lake, I ruminated on the inexpert kill. No true hunter had done that. Bringing several big animal carcasses to one spot was a lot of work—probably too much for one person. So a group of people, who either weren’t hunters, or just didn’t give a shit about hunting, were roaming the lands east of Watermanse.
I kept the rifle assembled, a round chambered, and maintained a careful watch as we moved. Flint picked up on my caution and kept closer to me, never moving out of direct line of sight. A lot more wary now, we pushed on, keeping close to the lakeshore and progressing slowly east.
Through the afternoon, we encountered two more fly-blown sites of slaughter, each as sloppy as the first. It didn’t seem likely one group was doing that much hunting and killing, so that probably meant multiple groups—or one very large one. I wondered how many people were on the move here, and if it was just a raiding party, or a whole army.
As I pondered that uncomfortable question, something about this last bloody mess we’d found caught my eye. There was a clear trail beaten away from it. I showed it to Flint so she could get a scent, then scouted a circle around the site. Sure enough, several trails converged here. I envisioned hunting parties coming back with whatever they’d taken, gathering here and then heading out.
North. That was the way Flint wanted to go to follow the trail. Back toward Le’kemeshaw. So, that was the way we went.
The trail ran as clear as a road, winding among copses of trees, avoiding low, wet ground and generally following the easiest path. Flint had no trouble tracking it, but neither did I, for that matter. Many feet—at least a dozen pairs, and maybe twice that—had beaten the grass and stomped down the foliage, pointing a clear way to go. Anyone could have followed it. And that actually made me nervous, again. It was too easy, too obvious. Either whoever these people were had absolutely no wilderness skills, or they did and just didn’t care . . . or this was more than it seemed.
“I’m thinking ambush,” I said to Flint.
Her tongue lolled, but she kept her eyes fixed on the trail. If it was a trap, then it would happen when the path passed close to some sort of concealing ground, like a stand of trees, or a bushy watercourse, or even one of the occasional piles of ancient concrete. So I paid special attention to those, leaning on my tech to spy out trouble before we wandered into its grasp. But the path blazed on, the lake drew closer, and we saw nothing but bugs, birds, and the occasional rabbit or squirrel.
Just before sundown, we crossed a tree-lined ridge. Starting down the other side, the trees fell back, revealing Le’kemeshaw in all its expansive glory. Maybe two hundred paces on, and we’d gone as far as we could. The trail ended there, on a narrow beach. It held evidence of a lot of recent activity, but what caught and held my attention were sails in the distance. Three ships, one with two masts, and two with a single mast—a ketch and two sloops. They were the missing ships from Watermanse.
And they were sailing east, away from the town.
So the hunting parties had joined up and come here, probably to meet up with these ships. That meant the ships had been captured. Fuck that. Flint and I were going to fix that—
Flint growled and I spun around, surprised to find myself facing the muzzle of a shotgun just yards away. Whoever this was, they were very good.
“What’s it like,” the voice behind the shotgun said, “being about to die?�
��
4
I spread my hands apart, proving they were empty. “If I’m about to die,” I said, “could you at least tell me why? Just, you know, curious.”
I felt Flint tense as soon as I spoke; she was about to lunge at whoever this was. The shotgun swung toward her, but I put my hand on Flint’s scruff. “It’s okay, girl. Let her speak. As long as we’re talking, no one’s getting hurt.”
I stared into the bushes, looking past the lethal black muzzle of the shotgun. Blonde hair, blue eyes, high cheekbones . . . a woman of astonishing beauty, but with fine features set in a look of such determination she could have been carved from stone.
She hadn’t just opened fire, either. So probably not a raider—
“Who are you?” she asked.
“Name’s Custis Mars. Most people call me Cus. The ones who don’t wanna kill me, that is. And this is Flint. People call her . . . well, Flint.” I made sure to end it with a smile.
The shotgun lowered a touch. “So you’re not with those boats?”
“With them? No. Interested in them? Yes, that I am.”
The shotgun stayed leveled for a few heartbeats more, then it dropped and pointed at the dirt. “What’s your interest in them?”
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