Shortstories

“Here’s the last of it,” Petra grunted as she set the large sack of salt on the bar.

Vic glanced up as she finished filling her last casing. “Good. That’ll be plenty. You sure you don’t mind?”

“Not getting much use for it now,” she shrugged. “And no one’s comin’ in again if you don’t lick this problem right quick.”

Vic sealed the cartridge with a wad of paper. “Well, I ain’t goin’ to promise I’ll win. Never fought a dry-one before.”

“What’s that?”

Vic sighed as she slipped two prepared cartridges into Petra’s shotgun. “The deserts, the windy places of the Borderlands…they do something to the dead, but they can do something to the living too. You get thirsty, even if you have water. You start losing things; your self, your skin, your thoughts…eventually, all that’s left is hate.”

Lakeside was a quiet town; only a few families, fewer children. Times were generally hard for the town, but they had always been so. The eldest Hunters had never known Lakeside to be full of anything but struggle and hard living, even before Old Splitfoot had staked his claim. The hard life had made the people of Lakeside wary, but through determined stubbornness, Lakeside had survived even in the Borderlands.

They weren’t the only town that survived — Boone’s Rest and Prudence both managed to scrape together a living, and Cloudy Vale was almost thriving — but the price had been high; high enough that Cloudy Vale was still paying, and paying hard. Lakeside was not only proof that survival was possible, but without making unwise deals.

The town had one tavern, and it wasn’t a good one. Lakeside couldn’t afford to stock their larders with food or drink from other towns, and the local still was the only source of moonshine. The owner of the tavern, Petra, tried her best to keep the barrels stocked, but she could only do so much.

Nevertheless, Vic knew better than most that every little bit helped, so she pushed the tavern doors open on their rusty hinges.

The tavern was empty. Dust covered the tables.

There were few people in the world who remembered the Borderlands before Old Splitfoot staked his claim: legends of forests free of monsters, deserts without the wailing dead, and plains full of fresh water and dancing deer, sleeping field-mice and singing birds.

The true telling of it was kept by the Grand Order of Monster Hunters in books and journals held as sacred, to be protected above all else. It was a holy memory — there was a time before Old Splitfoot.

Now, the plains were dangerous.

The worst danger of the plains was their lure of ease. The plains weren’t the hungry earth of the swamps nor the treacherous cliffs of the mountains. The plains could seduce even the wisest and most experienced into lowering their guard just long enough to become the hunted instead of the hunter.

For Vic, such feelings were lies. There was no peace and quiet in the Borderlands. Silence was the sound of stalking, gentle breezes the same as a predator’s breath. The peace of the plains was the allure of a fly-trap ready to snap closed.

She sat quietly, staring over the cold and empty expanse. Even without her training, these plains were unnaturally quiet. Even in the harshest lands there were sounds of a twisted nature; birds howled over still winds while emaciated deer and coyotes picked through rattling twigs. There was life, of a sort, among the dead.

The drawing room only had two windows, and both of them were still intact. The rest of the room was bookshelves and fancy statuary, fitting for a high-class lady and sir to entertain their guests. Vic closed the room’s doors and forced a chair under the handle. There. They were as safe as they could be, for the moment.

The moment didn’t last long.

Only a few minutes after she had laid the man out on the threadbare lounge and seated herself on a ragged chair, a deep thudding sound tickled her ear.

Damn. Gripping her rifle, she moved to the windows. Leaning her back against the wall, she carefully tilted her head to peak out and see what was making the sound.

She couldn’t see anything. A fog was crawling up from the south and already starting to cover the ground in its white glow. The sullen throb was following the mist, an ominous heartbeat, slow and steady.

Vic licked her teeth. The building wasn’t a terrible place to fortify, but it could also trap. If she left the house, she could engage the monster — whatever it was — in the open, but that too could be a double-edged knife. If she could only see what the monster was, then she could…

Her eye fell to her unconscious companion. Damn, damn. If the man couldn’t move, neither could she. If there was more than one monster, or it decided to ignore her in favor of easier prey…no, she needed to stand her ground. As quietly as she could, she unlocked the window and pushed it open. Kneeling next to the window, she propped her rifle on the sill and waited.

Vic woke with a start, gasping for air in the dark of the cave. Her heart was pounding in her ears. The air was cool, but sweat was pouring down her face. On reflex, her hand grabbed for the hatchet resting at her side, ready to strike at anything nearby.

The cave was quiet. The dawn light outside was leaking gently into the room. Vic exhaled. It had been a dream. She had been running…no, she had been still but the world was running around her…but weren’t her legs moving? And there was a…shape…

Vic took another deep breath. The dream was gone already, and she wasn’t interested in bringing it back to mind. Dreams were for seers and shamen, and she wasn’t either. She had a long way to travel, and wasting time with dreams wouldn’t help her find the next bullet. She stood up from her roll and stretched the kinks out of her muscles.

Her eye lit on her father’s revolver as she dressed. For six months straight she had been hunting the Borderlands for the bullets, and now the first bullet was in her hands. It didn’t feel real.

As things turned out, the man was finished and standing by the ash of the fire when Vic returned. She tossed him a waterskin and hoisted her bag over her back. “Let’s go.”

“Towards the mountains?” The man coughed. “I thought we were headed east. What’s over there?”

“Me, before nightfall. Quit your whining.”

“What about the…the body?”

“Doesn’t keep good, let the vultures take care of it,” Vic sighed. “Come on, move it! We’re losing light.”

As they walked, Vic took out her father’s map and compass. They were heading northeast, now. If she had read the map properly, they should be about here, but if she saw what she thought she saw, they needed to be about here…

Vic cursed her father again. Then, out of misplaced frustration, she swore at her mother. Neither of them had bothered to write a proper map, and now it was her job to wander around the Borderlands, searching for the bullets that they should have picked up years ago.

Vic opened her eyes.

The icy chill of morning fought to keep her still, poking at her aching muscles and urging her to sleep longer, to wait until the day was warmer. Vic would hear none of it; she sat up, brushing the frost off her cheeks and hair and streching her cramping limbs.

The man was still there, sleeping as best he could while wrapped in what was left of his blanket. Vic took a deep breath and slowly let it out. Damn it all. Kicking dirt on the smoking remains of his fire, Vic walked past the man and snatched up her pack and rifle. “Come on,” she shouted. “Up you get. Time for us to get a move on.”

The man sputtered, jerking upright and casting about. When he realized where he was, he stifled a yawn and slowly crawled upright. “What are you…where are we going?”

Damn, damn, damn fool woman. “If I let you wander off, you won’t make it past sundown. I’m going to take you east a ways until I’m sure you can make it home on your own. This is taking time out of my Hunt, you ken? So I don’t want to hear any complaining about how hungry you are or how much your feet hurt. We’re heading east and we’re going as fast as we can. Got it?”

“I…I got it,” the man rubbed his face. “I suppose asking for breakfast is out?”

The locals called it Old Man Hollow. Vic Duncan called it warm and dry, and in the Borderlands, especially during the cold times of the year, that weren’t nothing to sneeze at.

That said, it wouldn’t remain warm and dry much longer. The sound of rain and thunder was rolling across the distant plains; if Vic wanted to beat the rain, she figured, she’d have to start moving soon.

When she was younger — back when she had first became a hunter — part of her would have wanted to remain surrounded by the gnarled hangman-trees that cradled her small camp. These small moments of warmth and security were rare in the Borderlands, and she used to take all she could get. That part of her had died a long time ago; there was no comfort to be had here, surrounded by ancient woods and dark shadows. Ever since Old Splitfoot came to the Borderlands, there was little comfort to be had anywhere, least of all for Hunters.

Vic began to pack up: her father’s old map and compass, her mother’s traveling pan, her roll and flask, her last few bits of food…it all went into her saddlebags. When was the last time she had seen a horse? There were still a few back in the corelands, but not many hunters ever rode horseback. Horses were too unpredicatble when it came to the Hunt. If they weren’t prepared they’d never survive, and there was nothing that could prepare you for your first time in the Borderlands. Too many horses died or caused trouble to be worth the risk.

The Calculator crawled along the many surfaces, gently poking its way through and around the different detritus surrounding the floor. There were ancient rusted urns and tarnished pots, scraps of withered parchment and dry leather. Some spots held tiny jewels or metallic chains, or small rings made of silver alloy and porcelain.

The Calculator studied each one, noting the size and shape, as well as any other pertinent details. As time passed and its inner clockwork continued to churn, it realized a question was beginning to develop. The pieces were all old, and certainly significant — for why else would they be on display like this? — but none of them were the sort of things that were usually put in a museum or collection.

The more the Calculator looked, the more certain it became: an unsigned letter, a shard of a broken pendent, an unremarkable cup, a fired clay statue of a bird…these things had all belonged to one person.

The Calculator admonished its heretical sense of certainty; the collection could be an entire family’s belongings, or perhaps everything from a single rubbish pile.

For the first time in perhaps sixty years, the Cat and the Calculator agreed on something.

“It’s here,” the Cat muttered again. “I’m sure of it.”

The Calculator sniffed in mild derision. Who knew, in the whole of the Myriad Worlds why the Cat was sure of anything. It hadn’t even bothered to look properly. It had just sat there, seeming pleased with itself, while the Calculator had done all the work.

It didn’t blame the Cat, of course. It had at first; almost sixty years ago, the Cat had confused the Calculator terribly. It was an ordained priest of the Linear Church, and had certain expectations about the world. It didn’t expect perfection — only high deacons, like the calculator, knew all thirty-six of the divine senses — but the mangy beast didn’t even seem to use the four or five they did know about.

Now, some three-score years later, they had come to an understanding.