Guns of Legend: Chapter Four
Chapter Four
Adlis and Za could only watch in
defeat as Kulgan took his seat in the town's watchtower, locking the only hatch
tightly behind him. No child had been
stolen as of yet, and according to the villagers it only happened every other
week or so, but the Ranger was determined to keep an eye out all the same. That, or he just wanted a place to be alone
with his whiskey, Adlis thought as she saw the zik take a long drink out of the
bottle he'd brought up there with him.
"What a waste of time," Za grumped,
crossing his arms and staring at the ground in dejection.
"Not necessarily," Adlis
argued. "There's still a chance he'll
come with us. He just needs to finish
his job here, first."
"And from what the villagers say,
it could be weeks before the next child gets stolen," Za said. "And that's assuming he actually manages to
catch the thing this time."
Adlis turned to look at the town of
Everdry, with its ramshackle homes and decrepit buildings. If it weren't for the people still walking
the streets despite the growing darkness, she would have believed it to be a
ghost town.
"I can't help but feel sorry for
them," she said softly. "These people
already have so little, and what's most important to them is being taken
away. I wish there was something we
could do to help them."
"There is," a voice said from
behind them.
The companions spun around in
fright to find the fuaro from that morning standing behind them.
"Oh, hello, Ms. Kilo," Adlis
greeted her, managing a hasty curtsy. "How
are you tonight?"
"Spare me the pleasantries," Kilo
answered, her eyes hard with anger. "I
just found out that that worthless Twister let my son die this morning. How do you think I am?"
Adlis backed away, taken aback by
Kilo's bluntness.
"I beg your pardon, Ms. Kilo. I didn't mean anything by it."
"I don't care," the fuaro replied
curtly. She cast her gaze to the ground
in grief, "I don't care about anything anymore."
For a moment, there was silence,
and then Kilo spoke up again, "I heard you say that you want to help us. Is that true?"
"I would like to help if I could,"
Adlis answered, nodding.
"Good. Then you, me, and your overdressed friend
there are going out after that thing tonight, and we're not coming back until
it's good and dead."
Adlis' eyes went wide with
surprise, and she took a step back from the fuaro.
"But we can't go into the desert at
night!" she protested. "Not without
Kulgan to protect us!"
"That stupid zik is too busy
drinking all of our booze to care about our children," Kilo snarled. "If anything is going to get done, it has to
be us that does it!"
Adlis took another close look at
Kilo, but this time she no longer saw a grief stricken mother, but a fuaro
driven so mad by her loss that she was willing to dive straight into death's
embrace if it meant the slightest bit of comfort.
"I'm sorry, Ms. Kilo," Adlis said,
slowly backing away, "but we can't help you."
A savage gleam appeared in Kilo's
eye, "You said you wanted to help," she growled, "and I intend to hold you to
that!"
With that, she drew a pistol from a
pocket in the side of her raggedy dress.
Pointing it at the young zik, she said, "We're leaving right now from
the eastern end of town, where that Twister won't see us go. Get moving!"
She suddenly turned the gun on Za,
who was poised as if to grab the gun out of the fuaro's hand, "Are you sure you
wanna try that, boy?" she asked, cocking the hammer back. "I don't want to kill the pretty little zik,
but I've got no qualms about shooting a simmk right between the eyes!"
Za recoiled behind Adlis like a child,
his eyes wide with fear behind his mask.
"Now come on," Kilo ordered, waving
her gun in the direction she wanted to go.
"If that zik finds out what we're doing, we'll never get out of here!"