Guns of Legend: Chapter Seven
Chapter Seven
"What the heck are these?" Kulgan wondered out loud, knowing there was no one
within ten miles to hear him.
He had been following the trail for
over half the night, and he was utterly perplexed by them. The prints looked as if they were made by a
zik, if zik were able to grow ten feet tall.
There also seemed to be toola prints among them, judging by the small,
round pockmarks that ran through the sand as if someone had stuck a giant
needle into the ground. The odd thing
was that these two tracks did not run side by side, but rather directly on top
of one another. At first, Kulgan had
thought that the second person had simply walked directly behind the person in
front, but a closer examination revealed something that was difficult even for
a Ranger of his skill to notice. The
tracks did not simply cover the same ground, they had been made at the exact
same time. Kulgan scratched his head in
confusion before pulling out his hip flask and taking a swig.
It would seem, he thought, that he
was either chasing a giant zik that was carrying a toola on its back, or a
toola that that had somehow grown the feet of a zik.
With a nervous glance, Kulgan
reached down and patted the comforting cold iron of his pistol. He had no idea what was waiting for him, but
his trusty six shot had gotten him out of worse situations. One bullet to the head, and everything would
be...
There was something in the
distance!
It was roughly fifty feet
away. He could only see the vaguest of
outlines in the dark desert night, but it appeared to be lying down. From here it didn't look very big, but there
was no telling what the shadows were hiding from him. A fire surged up within Kulgan's heart, and
without a moment's hesitation he charged at it.
He pulled out his pistol and skillfully loaded each of the
chambers. Flipping it closed, he took
aim and prepared to fire. But then the
moon came out from behind a cloud, and Kulgan could see clearly what he was
aiming at. He skidded to a halt, sending
sand flying everywhere, his tail twirling to help him stay balanced.
"Vikka!" he shouted, holstering his
gun and kneeling down over the child. It
was Kilo's lost child, all right. The
creature must have abandoned him here the night before. And judging by the state the boy was in, he
had been a very good meal. One of his
arms, half his torso, and both his legs had been ripped clean off. His face was calm now, caught in peaceful
slumber of death, but Kulgan couldn't help but imagine what it had looked like
when this had happened. There was no
absolute guarantee that the creature that had stolen Vikka had done this. For all Kulgan knew, it had abandoned him
here and the child had been picked off by one of the countless other predators
that lived in the desert. Whatever the
case was, Kulgan could only hope that the child had already been dead before
this happened.
With a sigh of resignation, he
reached out to scoop the child into his arms.
The moment the backs of his hands touched the sand, though, a strange
feeling came over them, as if he were dragging them through swamp sludge, not
sand. It was a familiar feeling. Forgetting the boy for the moment, he reached
out and scooped a handful of the sand up from the ground and held it close to
his face. Even in the dark of night, it
was impossible for him to mistake what he now saw in his hand. Tiny flecks of black stone dotted the
otherwise pale sand. If that hadn't been
enough, the familiar sensation of unnatural magic coursed across his palm and
into his hand, too weak to do anything but still strong enough to be noticed.
It was vashiil, the unnatural stone
that was crafted by magic users in secret and forged into very specific magical
items. He, himself, wore a piece around
his neck. Vashiil was illegal, and had
to be bought and sold on the black market because Twisting Pendants were all
that it was good for making. People
feared it because of its ability to twist nature itself out of order by giving
creatures body parts they were not meant to have.
With a grim look on his face,
Kulgan allowed the tainted sand to run through his fingers, back to the ground. Suddenly, the tracks he'd been following made
sense. Only a Twister like himself could
have the feet of both a zik and a toola.
But why would someone Twist themselves like that? As a general rule, Twisters only gave
themselves body parts that would benefit them in some way, like Kulgan and his
wings. What benefit would having two
types of feet give someone? That also didn't
account for the creature's apparent size.
Vashiil could create new body parts, but increasing or decreasing one's
size more than the slightest amount was beyond its abilities.
Whatever the case, if another
Twister was involved in these kidnappings, that only meant that the situation
was worse than he'd originally thought.
It meant that Kulgan was not dealing with some mindless beast that had
happened upon Everdry in search of a meal.
He was matching wits with another sentient creature, one that was able
to use magic.
Kulgan glanced down at Vikka's shredded
corpse once more. The right thing to do
would be to bring him home so he could have a proper funeral. But Kulgan already knew what he was going to
do. He was hot on the trail of another
Twister, one that had taken a liking to children of Everdry. It would be worse to return to town now than
it would be to continue chasing his quarry, and collect Vikka on his way back,
right?
"I'm sorry," he said softly,
knowing that the boy was somewhere his voice could not reach. "I'll be back for you. I promise!"
Without another backwards glance,
Kulgan began walking again, his eyes never leaving the trail. He could feel the cold stone of his vashiil
pendant under his shirt. It pulsed
softly against his chest fur, as if it knew that it would soon be put to use
again- and eager.