The drum is his glory, his joy and delight,
It leads him to pleasure as well as to fight;
No girl, when she hears it, though ever so glum,
But packs up her tatters, and follows the drum.
The song came to Whiskey like a leaf tumbling in the wind. He tried to hold on to it—the song reminded him of warmer days, before the Gita-Skog, before the Reverend Rose—but the tune faded.
He knew the song was an old Revolutionary War tune, but Whiskey couldn’t remember who had sung it to him. His father? His mother? To be honest, he couldn’t remember either of them anymore. Not their faces, their names, not even their voices. His memories were dying.
He opened his eye, saw nothing but darkness, and heard a muffled growl rumble at his feet.
He was lying deep under Floodwood forest. The growling thing was a bear. The crumbled ceiling had pinned the monster. The bear had swiped off his right arm. Those things were certain.
Whiskey reached out to look through the eyes of a thrall, but no woken vessel remained. The orphan boy—the son of Screamin’ Bill—had crushed the last of his Tsi’noo under rubble.
However, there was another he could raise. A corpse back in the forest with his stallion and the packhorses. But did he have enough strength? The Prime was near gone. The Reverend had withdrawn so much of the dark energy. Only the smallest spark lingered.
Whiskey coughed up dust and tried to sit, but his body was as weak as a rag doll. He collapsed back to the ground and stared into the darkness.
And he pays all his debts with a roll of his drums …
He tried to whistle the song. Nothing came out but a wheeze.
Suddenly, Whiskey realized he couldn’t remember his own last name. The darkness of this place was stealing everything from him.
He felt around the stony ground with his left arm. His gloved hand turned up his faithful Dragoon, but nothing else of use.
A tiny fire, no larger than a penny, flickered near his feet.
He was seeing the eye of the great bear, still open. The Wasape, the boy had called it. A glint of light reflected in the bear’s eye.
Whiskey looked around for the source of illumination.
Lying in the cave dust was the glowing amulet shard. After all the chasing and battling with Screamin’ Bill’s orphan, a vital part of Whiskey’s mission was lying only a few yards away.
Once he had it, there would be only one last thing to retrieve—the Char Stone, the source of new life. If he found it in time, Whiskey would no longer need the Prime to sustain him. The Stone could put back all that had gone wrong. The Stone could make him a whole man again.
A fluttering noise, the flapping of wings, interrupted his thoughts. The Reverend’s dark mouthpiece, one of the emissaries known as the P’mola, had found him.
There was a scratching sound at his left ear, followed by a vicious caw. The Reverend’s voice bored into the hull of Whiskey’s mind.
You’ve been beaten, Nelson.
Nelson! That was his last name. “No, boss,” Whiskey said. “I’ve got Isaiah’s shard! It’s here, in the cave!”
You are useless on your own. Ignatio and Big Ben will finish the hunt.
“I won’t mess up again! If I just had more time, I could have the Stone by midnight.”
After a long, empty silence, the Reverend spoke again.
You have been a loyal hand, Nelson. When the Enforcers betrayed me, you stood beside me. You fought Screamin’ Bill, you fought Isaiah, and you died for me. I will give you one more chance. One.
“Yes, boss!”
You have till midnight. Retrieve the Stone.
“I can do it! Please don’t let me slip away.”
There was another long pause. Then a trickle of power flowed through Whiskey’s limbs. The Reverend was feeding him one final taste of the Prime. Enough to raise more men and finish the hunt.
Refreshed, Whiskey stood, stretched his legs, and dusted off his trousers. He searched for the crow but saw nothing but darkness. He knew it was still there, watching. Darkness always felt different when the P’mola were about.
“The bear took my arm, boss. I can’t swim out by the river’s way. Lift the curse or I’ll be stuck in Floodwood.”
The bear is the Keeper. Finish the bear, and end the magic that binds you here.
Whiskey grinned. Smart of Raines to create such a Curse Keeper. Most men would never be able to defeat it.
He picked up his Dragoon, blew the cave dust off the barrel, and stepped over to the mountain of shadow that was the Wasape. He cocked the gun—but paused. “No,” he muttered to the bear. “Not a bullet for you. Prob’ly wouldn’t work nohow.”
Whiskey stepped to the amulet shard and lifted its cord from the cave dirt. His gloved hand held the fragment away from his body, as a man would hold the tail of a viper.
“This wretched metal works on most magics. Let’s see if it does the trick on you, Curse Keeper.”
The creature grunted, straining to move, but a stone chunk the size of a thick tree pinned the massive body. Whiskey squatted in front of the creature’s head and lowered the shard.
The second the glowing metal touched the monster’s snout, the Wasape gave a tremendous roar. It thrashed for a moment as if hoping to flee the inevitable; then it slumped, and moved no more.
Whiskey waited for something—a sound, a feeling, a flash of mystical light—to signal the end of the Floodwood curse, but nothing happened. Nothing visible, leastways. Yet he detected a silence upon the energy imparted here, a stillness under the surface. The obnoxious buzzing that stained the air was gone.
He felt the rustle of wings again as the P’mola landed on his shoulder. The creature dug its talons into his flesh.
Go now, the Reverend murmured through the crow. Retrieve my Stone.
“Yes, boss.”
Midnight, Nelson. Your clock is ticking.
Whiskey found no trouble backtracking through the cave and emerged from the hole he had blasted through Raines’s door with his Dragoon. The October sky had darkened. What little sun was left would be setting soon. No time to waste. He had to find the Sullied Place.
His stallion waited for him at the base of the embankment. The other packhorses had fled while he was in the cave. On the ground at the stallion’s hooves lay Whiskey’s special bundle—the corpse he had hauled from the orphanage.
Whiskey stooped to murmur in the corpse’s ear. “I’ve a special task for ya, old friend.”
He then uttered the ancient words from another place, the Black Verse the Reverend Rose had taught him. The drop of Prime stirred in his veins.
A finger slowly curled. Then a hand. Soon there were mutterings. A cough. A blink of an eye.
Isaiah Raines, known by others as Abner Carson, stood. The bullet wounds that had taken his life were still fresh upon his body.
Whiskey said, “Lead me to the Sullied Place, Raines.”
The thrall gave Whiskey a curious look, as if it wanted to question the command. But that was impossible. No thrall could oppose its Master.
Like a farmer prodding a stubborn mule, Whiskey nudged the thrall with his mind.
WALK, he commanded.
The dead man grimaced, then shambled forward.