Guns of Legend: Chapter Five
Chapter Five
Ambalin rum coursed through
Kulgan's veins. The amount of alcohol he
had in his system would have been enough to make a kashni pass out, but it only
invigorated the watchful zik, enhancing his senses and giving him the energy he
needed to stay awake for yet another night.
It was funny, he thought. From
what he'd heard, getting drunk had the opposite effect on most people. If he had any sympathy left to give, he might
actually feel sorry for them.
Not that it would matter tonight,
though. The last kidnapping had happened
less than 24 hours ago. The closest two
kidnappings ever occurred to each other was three weeks. It would be a while before the
whatever-it-was returned for another.
Still, Kulgan did not let this thought lull him into a sense of
security. He would remain vigilant
through the night, as he always did.
The hours passed slowly, but Kulgan
didn't mind so long as he had a spare bottle of rum on hand. Popping the cork on his fifth one of the
night, he tilted his head back and allowed the drink to pour into his mouth.
"No!" someone down below screamed.
Caught completely off guard, Kulgan
choked and spewed his rum all over the side of the watch tower. Without stopping to think, he threw open the
hatch and slid down the ladder, pulling his pistol out of his belt as he
went. His feet hit the ground running as
fast as they could carry him towards where the sound had come from. Lights in a nearby house had been lit, and a
small group of villagers had crowded around the doorway to see what had
happened.
"Get out of my way!" Kulgan
shouted. "Back off!"
Shoving his way through the crowd, he
found a toola waiting in her doorframe. Four
of her spindly insectile knees rested on the floor while her large claw pointed
dumbly out into the distance. Kulgan
recognized her instantly. She was
Bivvip, the mother of a small child named Rhow.
About three years ago, before he'd even come to Everdry, a pack of wastraps
had attacked her in the desert, and she'd lost one of her foreclaws. Kulgan knelt down next to her and placed a
comforting hand on her remaining shoulder.
"Bivvip, what did you see?" he
asked as gently as he could.
The toola didn't answer, just kept
pointing out into the desert, her vertically hinged jaw quivering in
shock. Kulgan sighed and got up.
"I said get back!" he yelled at the
crowd. "How am I supposed to track this
thing if you destroy its trail?" The
villagers backed away, except for one.
"This is the closest these
kidnappings have gotten to your tower," Tikta growled, walking up and angrily jabbing
his claw into the zik's chest. "If you're so good at this, how on Larz did
you not realize something was happening?"
"I don't know," Kulgan answered,
meeting the kashni's glare. "It makes no
sense that something like this could have happened so silently. All I know is that every moment you stand in
front of me is taking Rhow further away from his mother."
"You know what I think?" Tikta
snarled, baring his formidable teeth. "I
think you're letting them happen so that we'll have to keep paying you!"
"Are you really going to do this
now, of all times?" Kulgan asked, his voice rising in anger.
"Either that or you've got no idea
what you're doing, and you're stealing from us!" Tikta concluded. "Either way, I've had it with you!" The kashni raised his claws, intending to cut
the zik down on the spot his drunken rage.
A sharp crack rang out, and Tikta screeched in pain before falling over,
a bullet lodged deep in his left foot.
"Anyone else want to argue with me?"
Kulgan roared. "Or may I be left alone long enough to do my work?"
The crowd scattered, only two people
sticking around just long enough to grab the crying Tikta and drag him
away. Fuming inwardly, Kulgan knelt down
at the base of the doorway and studied the ground. He cursed under his breath. The idiotic villagers had tramped all over
the scene. Any normal tracker would have
deemed finding any of the real tracks hopeless, but Kulgan was a Ranger, and
finding what he was looking for only took a little extra effort. There they were, clear as day to Kulgan's trained
eye. Standing up again, he turned to
face the toola again.
"I'll get him back, Bivvip," he
said. "I promise."
As he began to follow the tracks,
though, all he could think of was how he'd said that same exact thing to every
mother and father who'd had their child stolen away. How long would it be, he wondered, before he
had to say it again?