MAGE HUNTERS. DAMN, just what he needed right now. Silas tried to get up, but the hunter pushed down harder on his back. He craned his head, searching for Lainie. The crowd in the street between them had thinned out, and now he could see a second hunter, a man he thought he might have met before, gripping her in a chokehold from behind and holding his revolver to her head.
Silas’s rage boiled up even hotter. How dare that bastard threaten Lainie? He reached into the earth beneath him and started pulling in more power, warm amber shading to brown.
“Do you have any idea how much you’re worth, Venedias?” asked the hunter whose foot was on Silas’s back. “Fifteen hundred gildings. And another fifteen hundred for the woman. She’s even more dangerous than you, if you can believe it. Seems she can do things no one should be able to do.”
Silas felt like he’d been punched in the gut and had all the breath knocked out of him. Three thousand gildings for him and Lainie. “Dead or alive?” he asked. Not that it mattered; he had no intention of giving up. But if the mages needed to keep them alive, that would give him and Lainie an advantage.
“Either way. Dead would be easier than hauling your renegade ass back through the Gap. Maybe we’ll kill you and take the woman.”
Silas fought back another surge of anger. He didn’t want to provoke the other hunter into pulling the trigger. “Listen. We’re in the middle of something big here. We may have broken some rules, and yeah, she’s got some unusual talents because she’s Wildings-born, but we’re no threat to the Mage Council or to Granadaia. These fellows are the ones you should be worried about.” He jerked his head towards Umberton, who lay on the ground gasping and writhing, unable to get up even though the binding had disappeared, and the bodies of the other mages. “They belong to a group of renegades calling themselves the Hidden Council –”
The hunter who had his foot on Silas’s back spat on the ground, dangerously close to Silas’s face. “I’ve heard of the Hidden Council. Bunch of Plain-loving softheads, but harmless.”
“Not any more. This gang took it over. They’re out here in the Wildings stirring up trouble so they can move in and set up their own dominion. I think in time they mean to overthrow the Mage Council and take over Granadaia as well.”
“Why should I believe you?” the hunter asked. “When we both know you’ve turned against your own kind?”
“Anyhow, there’s no bounty on those fellas,” the other hunter – Kort, Silas remembered his name was – called over.
No bounty? The Mage Council really thought Silas and Lainie were more dangerous than Elspetya Lorentius and her gang of rogue mages? Either they had no idea what was really going on, or they were even bigger fools than Silas had thought.
Umberton had struggled to his feet while Silas and the hunter were arguing. The other mages didn’t move, but now two more men had joined him and were helping him over to the covered sidewalk in front of the sheriff’s office. The sheriff and his two deputies hung back, looking from the Hidden Council men to Silas and the mage hunter, clearly at a loss as to whose side they should take. Jasik was slowly scooting towards the sidewalk across the street from the jailhouse. At least for the moment, the warrior was safe and the Hidden Council mages were no longer a threat. Now to deal with these sons of bitches who were after that three thousand gilding bounty.
Silas went limp beneath the hunter’s foot, then suddenly rolled over, catching the hunter’s leg and pulling him down. He rapped the hunter on the back of the head with his gun, then threw a shield around himself and got to his feet, now planting his foot on the hunter’s back. Right away, two magical attacks, one from Umberton, who was more recovered than Silas had thought, and one from Kort, came at him at the same time. They crashed into the shield with bone-jarring force. Silas called up more power, let the shield down, and blasted Umberton and his two cronies back against the wall of the saloon next to the sheriff’s office. Glass shattered as one of them slammed through the front window of the saloon.
Silas looked back to see Lainie dig an elbow into Kort’s gut, twist herself free, and knee him in the groin. The hunter let out a yowl and dropped to the ground, curled up around himself. Silas sent magic and intent into his gun and fired a paralyzing bolt, blue swirled with dark amber, at him. The bolt of magic wound around Kort and sank in, leaving him stiff and unmoving. More power, to replace what he had spent, flowed into Silas through the connection he had opened between himself and the earth, darkening to golden brown as the amber layer wore thin and the power within him reached deeper.
Lainie ran to him, her gaze going behind him to where Umberton and his two men had fallen. “They’re getting back up,” she said.
Stubborn bastards. “Cover me,” Silas said. She nodded and took a position standing back to back with him, protecting him from the mages behind him. Silas reloaded his gun and aimed down at the hunter he had thrown, lying stunned at his feet. He didn’t want to kill a mage hunter, one of his own, even if that man had tried to capture him. But he would if he had to. “If you were hanging around here and paying any attention at all, you should know what these men are up to. Why in all the hells did you think I’d come after them, otherwise? And you heard what Umberton said. Now, if you and Kort will use your brains and agree to help us with these renegades, I’ll let you go.”
“Forget it, Vendine!” Kort shouted from where he lay helpless on the ground. “We’re not giving up that bounty!”
At his back, Silas felt Lainie move suddenly. He shifted his gun into his right hand and spun around to see a ball of rose-colored power collide with three attacks thrown by Umberton and his cronies. A second set of attacks flew towards Silas and Lainie; Silas met this one with a blast of his own, golden brown only lightly threaded through with blue.
And still the power flowed into him from where he had tapped into the earth, darkening to a deeper brown and then to black. A chill began to flow up Silas’s legs, massing in his chest and spreading through his arms, a frigid pain he recognized well. A mist of darkness formed over his sight. He knew he should cut off the flow of power; he had entered into very dangerous territory. But instead of making him feel weak and sick as the bullets had, the raw, unrestrained Sh’kimech power filled him with even greater strength. The Sh’kimech’s voices, once filled with agony and rage, now sang in his mind, eagerly offering him their power to destroy the ones who dared to threaten their sister. Almost of its own volition, a dense black ball of power gathered in his left hand.
The three Hidden Council men hastily shielded themselves. Undeterred by the shield, Silas threw the cold, heavy mass of power at them. It hit the shield and engulfed the wall of magic and the mages behind it in an explosion of utterly black power. Screams ripped through the air and quickly died, then the blinding darkness cleared to reveal three bodies lying broken and still on the sidewalk in front of the smashed wall of the saloon.
Satisfaction, hot and powerful, surged through Silas. He could do anything; he could destroy anyone with hardly more than a thought. No one could stand against him. The knowledge was as intoxicating as it had been that other time the Sh’kimech had given him their power, in that cavern beneath Yellowbird Canyon.
He turned back to the mage hunter lying at his feet, who had rolled over and was staring up at him with wide, terrified eyes. “What in all the hells is that power?” the hunter asked, his voice strained with terror.
Silas gazed down at him through the black mist over his vision. He moved his gun back to his left hand and aimed down at the hunter, savoring the moment as he prepared to destroy the infestation…
“Silas!”
From far away, Lainie’s voice pierced his thoughts. He turned to her, not angry at the interruption – neither he nor the powers within him could ever be angry at her – but determined to get on with what needed to be done.
Stop, she said. It was the Sh’kimech she was speaking to now and not him, but the sound and feel of her voice in his mind entranced him anyway. He isn’t yours, she said. He’s mine. You can’t have him.
But, Sister, the voices inside Silas replied, he is willing to do our work for us.
Sudden remembrance of the danger he was in clashed with the heady sense of power the Sh’kimech gave him. He should speak up, control them. But it was so hard to stand against their desire and their will and everything they offered him, especially when it was so close to what he himself wanted.
He only wanted to stop those wicked men, Lainie said to the Sh’kimech.
He invited us in! He wants to serve us!
If he invites you in, you’ll do what he says, just the same way you obey me. The force of her will pressed hard into Silas’s mind.
The Sh’kimech fought against the compulsion to back down, and Silas struggled as well, torn between knowing what would happen if he allowed the Sh’kimech to take control of him and his desire for the power they offered him, that would make him unbeatable, unstoppable –
A sudden burst of emotion and physical sensation shocked him out of the Sh’kimech’s grip. Just like that time in the cavern beneath Yellowbird Canyon, the feeling of Lainie’s soft, warm lips against his broke through the all-consuming longing of power, tempting him with something even more desirable…
You can give him power, Lainie told the Sh’kimech, but this is what I can give him. My heart, my body, my love, my life, our baby growing inside me.
Lainie had power that they did not. Greed gave way to a sense of awe, and the force of the Sh’kimech’s will retreated slightly.
That’s what I really want, Silas told them, pressing his advantage in their moment of weakness. I won’t serve you, not even for the power you promised me. Your job is to help me protect her and our baby and our home. With a mighty effort, asserting control as much over himself as over the Sh’kimech, he pushed the dark beings back down into the earth.
Thus rejected, they had no choice but to go.
His senses cleared. Lainie let the kiss go on a heartbeat longer, then, with a sigh, she broke it off. “You have to be careful with them,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am,” he answered, breathless.
“Hey, Halias!” Kort shouted, startling Silas out of the moment. He had almost forgotten about those two beef brains. “What’re you doing, just laying there while he kisses his birdie?”
“He’s got his gun pointed at me,” the mage lying at Silas’s feet answered. And so he still did, Silas realized. “What about you?” Halias shouted back. “Why aren’t you doing anything?”
“I can’t move! He put a gods-damned paralysis spell on me!”
Silas sighed; he really wasn’t in the mood for this. He moved Lainie aside, still keeping an arm around her waist, and cocked the trigger of his gun.
“Don’t –!” Halias yelped.
Silas fired a binding spell at him, wrapping him head to foot in a blanket of dark orange-brown power mixed with blue. “Begging your pardon, but we’ve got more important things to worry about right now than you two. The spells will wear off in a while. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll stay out of our way if you don’t mean to help us. I might not be so patient and good-natured next time we come across you.”
“Gods-damned renegade,” Halias grumbled, helpless inside the cocoon of magic.
With the Hidden Council mages dead and the mage hunters subdued, at least for the moment, the excitement of the fight drained out of Silas. Now he could feel the pain in his hip and back from when Halias had knocked him down, and every nerve in his body felt strained from the enormous amounts of power he’d been using. He turned to Lainie. “You okay, darlin’?”
Her throat was reddened from Kort’s chokehold, but otherwise she seemed unhurt. She gave him a short, sharp nod, though she frowned and her brows furrowed together in worry. “I think she’s going to Bitterbush Springs. Because of my Pa.”
It made sense. Knowing what he knew about Elspetya Lorentius, Silas also thought it likely that she would use the home of her despised Plain son as her headquarters, to show him and herself how far she had come. “That’s where we better go, then.”
The townsfolk had gathered around again, watching and listening in wary silence. Finally, the sheriff stepped up to Silas. “You killed the men who was protecting us. What do we do now?”
Silas let go of Lainie and rubbed his hands over his face. So many people, so many towns… He couldn’t take care of all of them. “They weren’t protecting you. You heard the whole thing – they provoked the blueskins to attack so they could move in and take over. And you let them. Since when do Wildings folk let outsiders take over like that?”
The sheriff looked down. “We was awful scared, and they was mighty convincing… You’re right, though. We was fools. We let our fear make us stupid.”
“I don’t think the A’ayimat will attack now. I think taking over your town was part of the next stage of the plan. But keep your guns loaded and a close watch out for trouble. And don’t let anyone provoke you into doing anything else rash.”
“Wise words, mister. What should we do about them fellas?” The sheriff jerked his chin towards Halias and Kort.
“They’ll recover in a while. If you want to put them in jail in the meantime, keep them out of your way and ours, that’d be fine. Just don’t try to hold them any longer than they’re willing to be held.” Silas didn’t think the sheriff would be able to keep the hunters in custody for very long, but any head start he and Lainie could get on them would help.
“They do seem troublesome. We’ll keep them as guests of the town as long as we can.”
The sheriff stepped away from Silas into the middle of the street. “People of Discovery!” he called out. “This fella says we should be safe now. Says the whole business with the blueskins was to trick us into letting those wizard fellas take over our town. I was told,” he nodded to one man in the gathering, a cowhand by the looks of him, “this fella and his wife is the ones that saved the herd last summer. So I judge they mean us well, even if they is wizards. Now, maybe we shouldn’t trust any wizards at all, but I do know we was fools to depend on someone else to take care of us. There’ll be a town meeting in two hours to settle on new rules and prepare our defenses. In the meantime, let’s see to the dead and start cleaning up.”
As the townsfolk went about their business, Silas and Lainie walked over to where Jasik was sitting on the wooden sidewalk across the street from the jailhouse and the ruined saloon. His arms were still tied behind him and he looked decidedly the worse for the wear, covered with cuts, scrapes, burns from the magical rope, and blossoming bruises, darker shadows on his dark bluish skin. Silas squatted down, his own bruised hip twingeing in protest, and cut the rope binding Jasik’s wrists with his knife. “You okay?” he asked.
The warrior stretched his arms and rotated his shoulders. “I’ve been worse.” He grinned. “Wrestled a grovik once. He decided I didn’t taste good. That was worse.” His expression grew sober again. “If there are more of these Hidden Council wizards, they could already be in those other towns. There’s no time to lose. Where do we go next?”
Silas considered the list of towns Umberton had given him. Bentwood Gulch, Strawdale, Canyon View, Bitterbush Springs… And no doubt there were other towns the mage hadn’t told him about. It looked like the Hidden Council was targeting every major settlement in the Wildings.
“The towns are spread out too far apart for us to reach them all,” he said. “Lainie and I are heading southwest, to Bitterbush Springs. That’s her hometown. And we think that’s where the boss of this gang is setting up her headquarters. It’s her grandmother,” he explained.
Jasik’s eyes widened, then he nodded. “That’s where you better go, then.”
“If you’re willing,” Silas went on, “I need you to go northeast to Bentwood Gulch near the Bluecloud Mountains, to a ranch called the BC Crown.” He wrote the name with his finger in the churned-up snow and dirt in the street, so Jasik would recognize the words on the signs leading to the ranch. “Tell the rancher, Brin Coltor, what happened at Thornwood and Stone Creek, and what happened here. Warn him about these Hidden Council mages, or if they’re already there, help him deal with them.”
“Will he talk to an A’ayimat?” Jasik asked. “Or will he kill me on sight?”
“He’s a good man. And he has a half-A’ayimat daughter. I think he’ll talk to you.”
Jasik’s eyebrows rose. “That’s the first I’ve ever heard of a Grana settler and an A’ayimat having a child. Some of my people don’t think it’s even possible; they say Grana folk aren’t really human, not the way we are.”
“We’ve seen her for ourselves; she lives with him. A’ayimat skin and hair, Coltor’s dark eyes. For her sake, at least, Coltor will listen to you.”
“I’ll go, then. How far is it?”
Silas pictured a rough map in his mind and figured time and distances. “About six hundred leagues. Fifteen days of hard riding. Maybe a little shorter if you go straight through the mountains.”
“I’d best get going, then.” Jasik stood, brushing off Silas’s offer of a hand up.
The three of them went to the hotel to fetch their belongings and the horses, then returned to where the sheriff was overseeing the cleanup and asked for Jasik’s weapons. The sheriff went into the jailhouse and came back out with the curved sword and short spear and a couple of sheathed knives. “We don’t mean your folk no harm,” the sheriff said to Jasik as he handed over the weapons.
“My people don’t mean yours any harm, either,” Jasik said. “Let’s see that it stays that way.”
Silas, Lainie, and Jasik mounted up, then Jasik rode off, heading towards the mountains north of town.
“If it would help,” the sheriff said, “I can send a couple of my deputies up northwest, to Strawdale and those parts, and warn those folks.”
“I’d be much obliged,” Silas said.
The sheriff walked away to rejoin the townsfolk, and Silas and Lainie reined the horses around to ride west out of town. Lainie cast a glance back in the direction of the gallows; a party of people were bringing in the bodies of the hanged man and woman. She watched briefly, then turned away, a haunted look on her face. “What if she hangs my Pa to make an example of him? Or hurts him to make me help her?”
Silas felt her fear as though it was his own, for her sake and because he liked and respected Burrett Banfrey. “I swear by all the gods I won’t let her hurt your Pa,” he said, making the vow in his heart as well as with his mouth. “And if we’re too late, I won’t rest until I’ve seen justice done for him.”