Read the earth. Let it tell you its story.
—PA ABNER
At first, Keech couldn’t see anything but flashes of light all around. Then the brilliant sparkles deepened into a strange glow the color of plum wine. He glanced back and caught his final glimpse of the summit of Skeleton Peak. The Rocky Mountains dissolved as the door’s opening winked out and a new landscape unfurled around Keech like a giant patchwork quilt. Warmth cascaded over his face, and he wheezed as if he’d breathed in a lungful of campfire smoke. Even worse, a musty scent rode the acrid breeze, forcing him to wonder if the door had spirited them away to a domain of demons and Dead Rift creatures.
“Where are we?” asked Sam.
Gone were the ponderosa pines and the tall white stones, the stone ruin in which the Peak’s door had stood. Neither was there any sign of snow on the ground. In fact, they were now standing on a cracked pavement of sorts, a solid floor of hundreds of bone-colored fieldstones. To their right, rolling hills stretched, the dry grasses that covered them sepia-toned, like old daguerreotype portraits. The land on their left dropped off a bluff into a deep gorge below.
The new sky burned a bizarre purple better suited to a wild dream, drowning any sense of day or night. Across this murky violet curtain, flashes of light erupted. Terrible thunder grumbled, but the relentless growl seemed to bear no connection to the lightning. Keech searched for any sign of sunlight so they could calculate the time, but he couldn’t see the first hint of a sunray, nor any moon or stars.
“Wherever we are, I much don’t care for it,” Cutter said.
Duck said, “Me neither. I ain’t even sure we’re still standing on Earth.”
“We are still in our world,” Strong Heart assured them. She pointed to layers of prickly brown scrub enshrouding the stony land. “The ground here grows mon-hin-pa. Or as you would say, bitterweed. It would be strange for another world to grow mon-hin-pa, I think.”
O’Brien climbed down from her filly and took an inventory of herb pouches in her saddlebag. She paused to glance at their surroundings. “We’ve come to the canyon known as Thunder Pass. Believe it or not, tadpoles, we’re standin’ over one thousand miles from Skeleton Peak. We’re in Oregon Territory, hundreds of miles northeast of Bonfire Crossin’. And what’s happenin’ here, the awful darkness, is no natural occurrence or coincidence. It’s the Prime. It’s preparin’ the way for the Reverend’s liberation.”
Dismounting, Cutter led Chantico toward the steep bluff. He whistled at the gorge. “¡Dios mío! Now ain’t that a sight.”
Hundreds of feet below, a tumbling river carved a channel through the deep ravine. A steady roar rumbled from the white waters, and sprays of foam exploded along the river. Under the swirling dark sky, the tributary looked like a highway of liquid copper burning a long furrow into the earth.
“That there,” O’Brien said, “is the Rattlebrook River.”
On the opposite side of the Rattlebrook, a tower of bone-white granite rose against the purple, a giant face of jagged outcroppings and sheer cliffs that stole Keech’s breath away. Broken steeples of rock teetered along the heights like spires atop some ancient castle.
O’Brien’s face turned dire as she took in the cliffs. “The Palace of the Thunders.”
As if in response, the sky flashed with lightning, sparks of energy crisscrossing the sky.
A dusty path just wide enough for a horse led off to the side, switching back and forth and disappearing behind crooked pines and scabrous rocks. “That’s the way down,” O’Brien said. “It’ll take a short while to navigate. I suspect Coward’s on it as we speak.”
“Looks like we’ll have to ride single file,” Sheriff Turner cautioned.
“I’ll take the lead,” O’Brien said. “Sheriff, you back me up. Keep your pistol drawn.”
Strong Heart gestured down to the riverbank pines across the water. “There’s movement behind the trees, near the base of the wall.”
The relentless thunder echoed all around, making it hard for Keech to concentrate as he scanned the Rattlebrook’s opposite bank. But sure enough, he spotted a lurking figure. At first, he thought it might be Coward, or perhaps Doyle, already down the bluff and across the rapids, but then more sinister movement caught Keech’s eye. A battalion of shadowy footmen skulked behind the pines. Then a flood of soldiers infiltrated Thunder Pass from upriver, their boots chomping up the ground in lumbering lockstep. Hot winds kicked up from the canyon floor, and Keech smelled a sour tang in the air.
“That’s a whole danged army!” Sam barked.
“We’ve been expecting this,” Duck said. She yanked her amulet shard out of her coat. The silver was dormant. “We’re too far away to tell if they’re thralls, but my hunch is, those men are as dead as they smell.”
O’Brien grunted. “They’re thralls, all right. And over yonder”—she pointed to a strange desperado crawling up the Palace wall like a lizard—“that’s the Weaver boss, Lost Tucker.”
The gangly woman creeping up the limestone wore tattered garments and no boots. She splayed against the rock and surveyed the valley. Another figure scurried up to her, then slid into a gap in the wall, like a spider hiding in a crack. A third Weaver mounted a jagged pillar and issued a bloodcurdling scream.
“What is wrong with her?” Strong Heart asked.
O’Brien scowled. “She once rode with the Enforcers. When the Reverend brought us into the Palace, she dared to touch the Dead Rift inside. She reached out with just a finger, but it was plenty. Somethin’ from the other side got into ’er. Tainted Tucker’s soul. She changed. Became that thing. Whatever you tadpoles do, don’t let her bite ya, else she’ll turn ya into a Weaver, and you’ll lust for blood and death till yer dyin’ day.”
Sheriff Turner turned his gaze toward the Palace wall. “There’s at least three hundred down there. Maybe four hundred souls.”
“Not souls, my friend. They ain’t got souls,” O’Brien said as she studied the troops. “Once Coward crosses the Rattlebrook, that horde will stand in our way, protectin’ Coward as he uses the Key to enter the Palace. Once he’s in, there won’t be a way to follow. He’ll begin the ritual that’ll finally set Rose free.”
“I’ll stop him,” Cutter growled, flashing his knife. “Make him regret the day he gave Miguel Herrera the Devil’s mark.”
O’Brien hopped up into her saddle. “I admire yer pluck, tadpole, but we’ll need a better tactic than rushin’ up. I got a few tricks up my sleeve, but first we need to get down there. It’s a steep ride, so watch every step.” Spurring her filly, the Enforcer started down the path.