Boarding along the Way

Chapter 2

I

The fact that they reached the Mihal way station without incident was a joyous event worthy of special note. Dinner was the customary spread of salt pork, a salad of chopped vegetables, bean soup, and plum brandy, and after, when there was nothing left to do but go up to their rooms and get some sleep, Al stepped outside in order to have a cigarette.

Even at home, the farmer preferred smoking in the great outdoors instead of in the cramped confines of a room. The air wasn’t filled with so many other scents as it was indoors, but rather it was the clean breeze of the wilderness that caught his smoke. This man who never thought of anything save his family disregarded their protests that he shouldn’t go outside, where something might spot the smoke or glow of his cigarette and come after him.

I’ve done it a hundred times before without any problems, Katie, Al called to his wife across the miles. Just pray I make it safely through one more day.

Slowly letting out a deep drag, Al then looked down at the ground at his feet. He could clearly make out his own shadow and that of the stand of trees in front of the station building. It was bright out. He looked up to find the sky filled with stars. Half of his cigarette vanished just like that, and he got the feeling that was the stars’ way of telling him something.

“Mind if I join you?”

“Holy shit!” Al exclaimed, reaching for the rifle across his knees, but the second he realized it was only Claire he halted.

“Don’t go shooting me, now!”

“Don’t scare me like that. I’m about as jumpy as they come.”

After a long gaze at his stiffened features, Claire twisted her lips into a smile. “You’re not even joking, are you? You’re an interesting fella.”

“I ain’t interesting at all. People been telling me as much since the day I was born. I’m strait-laced. I know how to till my fields and sow seeds, but I couldn’t sing a single damn song if I had to.”

“That’s all a man really needs to be able to do.” Claire let out a deep breath. Holding out the bottle of liquor in her hand, she said, “Have some? Though I must say, it’s cheaper stuff than the blacksmith’s.”

Al declined.

“Why not?”

“If I drank that, I wouldn’t be good for anything after. Out here, getting sloppy could be serious business.”

“What about that servant fella?”

“He’s in the stable. We’re all taking turns watching him round the clock. Belbo and Lantz are up now. Three hours from now, it’ll be me and the sheriff.”

“So—does he have the powers of a Noble?” she inquired, her voice instinctively hushed.

Though only the two of them were there, the question concerned the very fate of their journey. What if, somewhere along the line, the servant demonstrated some inhuman power even he himself didn’t know about?

“I don’t know. But let’s pray like hell he don’t. Just gotta hold out for one more day.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“What do you mean by that?” the man asked, and it felt like his heart was being squeezed in a fist.

“I’ve got no basis for saying so. It’s just, when you’ve been living the way I have long enough, you stop believing in rosy pictures.I traveled six hundred miles to a pleasure district with a good reputation only to find the local laws regarding ‘entertainment’ had changed and wiped the whole place out. I also sped off to meet a farmer who said he’d have me for his wife only to find he’d dropped dead of a heart attack the day before I got there. My whole life’s been one thing after another like that. You actually believe someone could spend better than ten years with the Nobility and not have them do anything?”

“I don’t know. Not much point in stewing over it. We don’t know what’s gonna happen tomorrow until tomorrow gets here. That’s the way I look at it. I’ve got no way of knowing if it’s gonna rain, or if a drought’s gonna keep going. That being the case, my time’s probably better spent thinking about something else.”

“You’re a lot more of a realist than me. So, at times like that, what do you think about?”

“Well, all kinds of stuff.”

“Your family?”

“For the most part, yeah.” Al’s reply seemed somewhat bashful. He wanted to change the topic. “Earlier today when you laid into Belbo, didn’t you say something about not bullying the weak? You’re the only person I’ve ever met who’d consider one of their servants weak.”

“I didn’t really mean anything by it,” Claire replied, smiling and fanning herself with one hand. “But to take a looker like him, put him in chains, and lock him in a cage . . . That’s no way to treat a human being. You could hardly call him strong or even normal, am I right?”

“It might not be the greatest example, but we can think of him like a mad dog or some kind of supernatural beast.”

“You’re probably right.” Claire tilted the liquor bottle way back. That was the way someone drank when it was part of their daily life. After finishing a swig, she continued, “So, if we make it through this trip safe and sound, you heading back home?”

“I sure am. Everybody’s waiting for me, after all.”

“Your wife, and you have kids, too?”

“Yeah, five and three. All three of ’em always complain about me going outside to smoke.”

Claire said nothing.

“But enough about me. Where are you headed? To the Capital?”

“Damned if I know. I only got on this coach because I was being run out of town. The next town’ll probably be more of the same. Not that I envy you or anything, but every once in a while I wish I had a man around to ask me to stop drinking.”

“Oh, you’ll find one someday.” Al’s tone was gentle.

The woman chuckled a little. “I hope you’re right.”

Al put what remained of his cigarette in his pocket. “It’s starting to get chilly,” he said. “Should probably call it a night.”

“I’m gonna drink a little longer. You go on ahead.”

“Okay,” said Al. For some reason, it wasn’t easy to say. And then, he suddenly added, “You really shouldn’t drink too much.”

After the farmer had gone, Claire didn’t lift the liquor bottle again, but rather gazed out over the plains spreading like a sea beyond the fence.

“I wonder how far I’ll go.”

As she muttered that, a shadowy figure slipped by her side. After he’d gone a few paces more, she finally realized it was the Hunter. Claire had overheard his exchange with Harman the blacksmith. On a still night without even the cries of supernatural creatures, this man had walked up and then away with silent footfalls—after Al had left. Claire felt as if she were being drawn into another world.

The man advanced ten yards as if he hadn’t even seen Claire, then halted and gazed straight ahead. As if something lurked out in the wilderness.

The man swiveled ninety degrees to the right. When Claire saw that his right hand gripped a sword, the wind was knocked right out of her. She hadn’t even noticed that he wore one.

And then—

Claire was reduced to a spectator of his blade dance. The sword moved in the man’s hand. He struck a pose so elegant it could only be called dancing, but then transformed into a movement so rough it no longer deserved the name. The man moved, and the sword moved. Though it was supposedly under his control, the blade flashed out as if possessing a will of its own, glinting in the moonlight. The light it reflected seemed to put the moon itself to shame, Claire thought, the very idea turning her entire body to ice.

The bar girl quickly noticed that the man was scribing a diagram with the tip of his blade. It wasn’t a shape that mere words could define, but it was clearly a lethal one—an orbit that would end with a life taken. Every time he finished scribing it, Claire could see a figure reel backward in a bloody mist while clutching at empty air. Another diagram was traced in empty space.

No, she thought. This one’s entirely different than all the others, isn’t it?

There was bright blood—and a figure thudded to the ground.

The air trickled out of her. She couldn’t exhale. It wasn’t that she was in pain, but because she thought she was going to die.

Suddenly Claire could breathe easy again.

The man had sheathed his sword.

Numb from head to toe, Claire fell over onto the ground. Her eyes never left the man. He melted into the darkness. This man whose form stood out in the darkness was becoming one with the world—that was the thought that fuzzily coalesced in the void that’d just formed in her head.

“Did you see me?” someone suddenly asked her.

A man stood right in front of her, in the very place the voice had originated.

“Yes, I did,” she replied, unable to think of anything but telling him the truth.

“Go take a shower.”

It was the same voice she’d heard in the coach. Claire finally realized she was soaked with sweat. Her hair was plastered to her brow.

“Thanks for the suggestion,” she managed to reply. “I’ve seen my share of swordsmanship, but I’ve never seen anybody like you before. Doesn’t seem like the sort of thing you’d need against human beings. You really are a Hunter, aren’t you? And a Vampire Hunter, at that.”

“That was a long time ago.”

“What? You’re retired? But you’re still—”

She was going to tell him he was still fantastically skilled. The sweat that’d poured from her testified to the uncanny skill of his swordplay, as his blade seemed to dance. It seemed impossible that anyone who’d ever attained such impressive skill could ever settle down in an honest job.

“No, I can’t.” The words came from his heart.

“But to me, you still look like . . .”

“I can’t do it anymore.”

“Why not?”

“Could you see me?”

“Yeah.”

“Right up until I swung my sword, you could make me out clearly in the dark, right?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“But as soon as I sheathed my sword, I melted into the darkness.”

Claire nodded.

“That’s why I can’t work as a Hunter. You always have to get the better of the darkness—that’s a requirement for Hunters.”

The woman couldn’t answer him at first. It seemed so terrible. To Claire, it felt like a knife to the heart. How hard had he trained to get to that point?

“And now?” she couldn’t help but ask.

“Good question.”

“So, you’re traveling around in search of an answer?”

There was no reply.

She was just about to call out to him when suddenly there was something overhead. Falling without a sound, it thudded loudly at Claire’s feet. The breeze from it struck her face on both sides.

Claire held her right hand out in front of her. There was the sound of stone on stone, and a flame sprang into being. Within the circle of light lay a creature that’d been bisected lengthwise. Each half had a wing nearly three feet in length growing out of its back. It was these that’d stirred the breeze that struck Claire’s face. But the strangest phenomenon made the woman’s eyes go wide.

That thing’s not bleeding! she thought. Not only that, but all its innards remained in their original locations.

“A winged beast-man. They’re lapdogs of the Nobility. Probably sent to keep an eye on us. Won’t be long now before they come for us,” said the former Hunter.

“Why would a lookout attack us?”

The instant the woman asked, she realized the answer. His swordplay had drawn it in. The otherworldly creature had no doubt been lured by his unearthly skill.

“Go inform the sheriff.” That was all the man said before walking off.

“Um, I’m Claire, by the way. And you are?”

“JJ.”

Once the darkness had swallowed his voice, Claire pulled herself up. Somehow she made it to her feet. She was just about to follow after the man when she turned and looked back at the corpse on the ground.

“What in the—?!” the woman exclaimed.

The bloodless carcass that’d seemed like a piece of taxidermy had dumped its organs and bones on the ground, which was now damp and black with its fresh blood.

II

After getting word from Claire, Sheriff Louise raced to the scene, where she had the monster’s remains carried into the barn so she could conduct an autopsy with a medical kit from the inn. She ordered her two deputies to assist her, but in the course of her two-hour medical foray both of them threw up and were left trembling, so they weren’t even good for guard duty any longer. She promptly sent them back to their rooms, and was having a smoke beside the bed that was serving as her dissection table when Al showed up.

“How’d it go, Sheriff?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be keeping watch over the servant?”

With Louise glaring at him, Al falteringly replied, “He’s sleeping now. I was worried about you, Sheriff.”

What point is there in telling him anything? Louise thought, but even though his appointment was temporary, he was a deputy all the same. She had to tell him what she knew.

“This creature is a human/bat combination. It combines the cunning and intellect of a human with the flying ability of a bat, plus the bloodsucking abilities of a Noble. One look at its fangs and you’ll see. We’re being followed already, and being watched.”

“Duke Sinistre, is it?”

“Who else would it be?”

“Well, if we don’t roll our sleeves up and get a move on, we won’t last another day,” Al said, adjusting his grip on the rifle he carried. Though he couldn’t hide his fright, his eyes burned with a fighting spirit that would overcome it. He might not be much of a deep thinker, but he was probably a hell of a lot more dependable than the other two deputies.

“We’ve got to be on our toes tonight, too. Night is when the Nobles have their greatest power, and this one’s not over yet.”

“I follow. I’ll get right back to him.”

At the man’s low, powerful reply, Louise clapped him lightly on the shoulder and told him, “Go get some rest. I’ll keep an eye on him.”

Leaving the barn with a certain something in one hand, the sheriff immediately headed for the stable. Actually, the stable had long ago been replaced by a much larger building and left to decay, but it was still more than large enough to secure the servant.

Dorleac was staring out through his cage. His skin was more lustrous than in daytime, and both his eyes and his expression carried power. Even with her sunglasses on, Louise could clearly make out a vivid, lovely shade of rose—his lips.

“Just as I thought. You really have been bitten, haven’t you?”

“No, you’re wrong,” Dorleac said, swinging his lovely countenance from side to side and gazing at Louise. “I swear I’ve never been bitten. However, after spending so long among the Nobility, one gradually absorbs their atmosphere.”

“How so?”

“If you’d be so kind as to look down at my feet. Never fear, I won’t cast a spell over you or anything. Because I don’t know how to do anything of the sort.”

“What about hypnotism?”

“It’s no use. Even if I knew how to do it, it wouldn’t work with you wearing those sunglasses.”

Saying nothing, Louise lowered her gaze. She soon realized what the servant had been driving at. His shadow was faint. Louise’s shadow, those of the shelves or the ropes hanging from the ceiling—all were as black as ink, while Dorleac’s shadow was like muddied water. This gorgeous young man ran contrary to the laws of nature that applied to everything else in the universe.

“It’s not always that way. Sometimes it’s that way for just a second, and other times it takes a whole day for it to go back to normal. Aside from that—ah, yes, sometimes I don’t cast a reflection in mirrors or windowpanes. Oddly enough, there have been times when I had no reflection in large mirrors but did in small ones. I don’t know if the reverse is also true.”

“It’s getting harder and harder to trust you. You might even believe what you’re saying, but it could still all be a pack of lies.”

“If you’re that suspicious of me, nothing I can say will make any difference. I’m simply telling you the truth, though.”

“And in my line of work, I’m not allowed to believe that.”

“What do I have to do to get you to believe me?”

Louise took a seat in the rough chair beside her. She made sure her hands were resting on the pistol and stake launcher she wore on her gun belt.

“I want information,” she told him. “Everything you know about Duke Sinistre.”

“But I already told you when I was brought into town. I can’t remember anything more than fragments. At times, memories suddenly come back, but they quickly fade. I can’t even remember why it was I left the duke’s castle in the first place.”

“There must’ve been some trouble, eh?”

“I don’t know. While the duke’s castle was quite luxurious, parts of it were like an old, old dungeon. I recall working in the duke’s flower beds, and that I fed some huge beast whose growls alone are still with me.”

“There have been reports of others who’ve had similar experiences,” Louise said without emotion. “What they have in common matches with what we know about you: taken before the age of ten, made to serve as a Noble’s manservant for years—and that should be the case with you, too.”

“And I keep telling you—I don’t remember!” Dorleac shouted, wringing the words from his throat. “Duke Sinistre—I may not remember his face or his build, but he kept me close at hand for more than a decade and saved me from starvation. I can tell you anything you like about my life before the duke made off with me. I was lured to the duke’s carriage because my parents had abandoned me in the forest to make their own food go further when a famine struck the area where we lived. And so I went off to the Noble’s castle—and what do you think I could do there? I know what you, the scholars, the higher-ups in the government, or even everyday people think. I saw the lascivious looks in the eyes of those who captured me. As I explained, Sinistre’s castle contained more lovely women and strapping men than I could count. However, as I grew older their numbers dwindled, until ultimately there was only the duke and his robotic servants. That much you also heard, did you not?”

Louise got the impression the young man was a sort of pet in need of protection. Look how weak I am, he seemed to say. Treat me more gently, please. Feed me tasty victuals, give me warm clothing, and ask me nothing that might be difficult to answer, all the while doing everything in your power to spare me any pain.

“To be honest, while I’m interested in what happened while you were a captive, no matter what it was, it doesn’t change my responsibility for you or my attitude. There’s no point in trying to make someone answer if he insists he can’t. I want to know about Duke Sinistre because it’s my duty to escort you safely, and I won’t have even the slightest obstacle getting in our way. The duke’s character, his strength, the powers he controls, the monsters he commands—these are all things I guarantee will be brought to bear on us when he attacks tomorrow. You know, you’d do well not to delude yourself with dreams of all of us being slaughtered and you alone saved so you can go back to the duke. There’s a good chance the duke’s trying to get at you so you’ll keep your mouth shut. After all, you’re a human who lived with him day in and day out for over a decade. You know everything about the duke—his weaknesses, his routines, his secret hiding places. That being the case, it’d be a lot easier to just finish you off instead of bringing you back alive—and I recall reading somewhere that the Nobility are surprisingly practical.”

Louise was expecting one of three reactions. He’d laugh it off, insist that such wasn’t the case, or sneer at her.

“Instead of asking about the duke, I believe it might be easier to come to a solution if you were to ask me what I think of myself,” Dorleac said, allowing his body to sink into the languor that followed excitement. “I’ve never entertained the thought that someone who’d spent more than a decade among the Nobility would be accepted back into the human world. If I were you, I’d want someone like that wiped from the face of the earth as soon as possible. And I can accept that. Is there no drug that could dissolve me down to my bones before the night is through?”

“I see. In that case, how about—this!” Louise said, slamming something she’d kept hidden behind her back all the way from the barn against his cage.

There was a soft impact, and Dorleac stared at the bloody chunks that were slowly falling. Beads of blood adorned his face like jewels. Dorleac peered down at half a creature with a human face and a bat body, looking as if he were about to faint.

“Half human, half beast. The handiwork of the same Duke Sinistre who treated you so kindly. Take a good look at that face. It’s an infant’s, wouldn’t you say?”

A long time passed.

When his lips finally parted, the young man’s voice sounded like it’d been forced through some malignancy in his throat. “And what are you saying I should do?”

“Nothing. I just wanted you to see this side of your kind old duke. I had no choice but to dissect this kid. Can’t let the creep who’d make something like this get the better of me.”

“You’re a brave one, aren’t you?” Dorleac said with a grin. It was the doleful smile of an herbivore. “Still, I can’t be of any help to you.”

“I’m well aware of that. However, the next day will determine your fate. And if, at the very end, you should recall the Nobility didn’t give you eternal life, well, it’ll be too late then. You’ll just have to accept a quick death.”

Just as the sheriff finished saying that, Al came back.

“Be sure and stay on your toes. I’ll send Belbo and Lantz right over.”

And with that, Louise left.

Al looked at the handsome visage of the young man seated in the cage and said to him, “Why, you’re covered in blood!” His eyes then stopped on the remains lying at the base of the cage. “That sheriff sure does make a mess. Here, use this to wipe yourself off,” he said, passing the servant his own handkerchief.

“Thank you.”

Dorleac looked overjoyed to be able to wipe his face, but naturally Al didn’t notice how the drops of blood that’d clung to the young man’s lips a moment earlier had somehow now vanished.

III

One last day. And that wasn’t all. He’s sure to come. That was the premonition each of them carried in their head as the stagecoach pulled away from the station with daybreak the following morning, racing across the wilderness until just past noon, when that became reality.

Both sides of the road were now filled with enormous statues staring across at each other. At a glance it was clear the individuals they depicted were Nobility. Though they were dressed in the full gamut of raiment, with everything from medieval court fashions to capes, tuxedos, and morning coats, their cold refinement and chilling stares froze even the hearts and bodies of those who glimpsed them from the stagecoach.

There were women, too. Garbed in cruel elegance in everything from old-fashioned dresses to the latest styles, the sixty-foot-tall ladies were ready to attend some ball, with glittering necklaces of stone about their necks and bracelets on their wrists.

Not all of the statues were complete; some lay at length with lower halves still rough-hewn stone, and there were piles of wreckage apparently abandoned after only a face or arm had been sculpted that seemed to stretch as far as the eye could see. Advancing down the road that ran right through the middle of them, the stagecoach looked like some pitiful humans who’d accidentally strayed into a land of giants.

“It’s called the Gallery of the Nobility,” Claire said. “They sure are big. And they look like they could start moving at any second.”

But there was something about them that made those viewing them for the first time recall a question they’d harbored since childhood.

“Why aren’t their images showing their fangs?”

A cry of astonishment precluded the answer to that question.

“What’s that lying over there? A hammer and chisel? Look at the size of them!”

“Long, long ago, when the Outer Space Beings attacked from beyond the stars, it seems the Nobility breathed life into sculptures that were under construction and used ’em as soldiers on the front lines,” Harman explained. “Look. See that square over there? It’s empty. Really, it should’ve been full of statues.”

“So, what was the outcome?” inquired Claire.

“Well, it seems the Nobility won. They say the OSB had planned on killing every living thing on the planet, so hurray for us, I guess. Of course, even ten thousand years later, seeds sown by the OSB, or stragglers, or holdouts—call ’em what you will, it seems they’re still lying low somewhere and plotting their conquest of the planet.”

Just then—someone stood bolt upright in the middle row of seats. It was the Hunter—JJ. With all eyes upon him, he ascended the stairs leading to the driver’s seat and exited to the roof of the stagecoach. When he told the men in the driver’s seat he’d take someone’s place, the two deputies turned around.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Belbo said with a shake of his head from where he rode shotgun. “It’s dusty as hell, and you’ll be a sitting duck. Your life’s at risk just sitting there.”

“In that case, wouldn’t it be best to change with me?” JJ asked. “Just leave it to me until we get out of this valley.”

The two men looked at each other, and then told him to hold on a second. They then did rock-paper-scissors, and Belbo won. After deftly swapping places with JJ, he vanished into the carriage.

“You were a Hunter, isn’t that right?” Lantz asked, sounding a little unnerved. Louise had filled him in on the passengers the night before. “You sense something strange or something?”

“Yeah, a little.”

“Hey, don’t give me that. I’m the most skittish deputy in the whole western Frontier. If something’s gonna happen, do me a favor and don’t tell me about it.”

“That’s odd.”

“What is?”

“Here, there are indications of all kinds of creatures moving around. Nobles, OSB, humans—but this thing . . .”

“What do you mean, ‘this thing’?” said Lantz, his voice nearly cracking.

JJ fell silent.

“Come on!” the deputy said, looking like he was about to cry.

“There!” the former Hunter snapped, his finger jabbing off to the upper right. Sheer cliffs left craggy where the rock had been carved away continued on and on—and he pointed to the precipice.

Lantz looked over that way, too, and exclaimed softly, “It’s a person!”

He craned his neck just about as far as he could to the right—and then turned forward again. The figure had left his field of view. However, Lantz was still looking. And as they worked the reins, his hands seemed less than reliable.

“Did you see that? That face?” the deputy murmured as if in a trance. He hadn’t been wearing his sunglasses. “It was so far away, and I only got a little glimpse, but I saw it clear enough. I’ve got good eyes. If only my vision were about one-tenth weaker, I wouldn’t have had to see it—a man like that in this world of ours . . . Sorry, but you’ll have to take over for me on the horses. The way I’m feeling, I can’t do anything right.”

The former Hunter assumed the reins without incident.

“Him, way out here.”

The half-dazed deputy responded to JJ’s muttering, saying, “Him? You know that guy?”

“That unearthly aura of his . . . I was the only one to sense it . . . Still do. But I didn’t wanna run into him.”

Lantz shook the man by the shoulders, pressing him for more. “C’mon, spill it already. You know him, right? What’s his deal? Is he one of your kind—a Hunter?”

Without waiting for his response, the world around them opened wide.

“What the hell is this? A monster banquet?!” a bug-eyed Claire exclaimed inside the vehicle.

There were no longer any Nobility who would glitter in the darkness. Watching the stagecoach from either side of the road, poised for action, were enormous spiders and monsters that were nothing but claws. As they passed by one with tentacles like an octopus, Claire thought it moved, freezing her in place.

The human imagination had its limits. It simply couldn’t picture something that was beyond those bounds. However, while the statues now surrounding the speeding stagecoach had clearly been crafted by a human hand, they originated from somewhere outside human imagination.

“First time seeing ’em?” Harman asked, wiping his face with the scarf from around his neck.

“Of course so. What, have you seen them once or twice?”

“Nope. Only seen a picture of ’em in a guidebook. From what it said, seems these things were dreamed up to use against the OSB. The Nobles used their technology to get ’em up into space and make ’em fight. Now, a human being wouldn’t wanna mess with monsters like these, and they seem to have had even more effect on the OSB. Must’ve been a sensitive bunch,” the blacksmith laughed.

Making a disgusted face in such a way that the guffawing blacksmith wouldn’t see it, the woman said, “You’re not really tied down in your line of work, right? With that in mind, why don’t you give this some thought? How about you quit smithing and become a sculptor?”

Harman buttoned his lip. The woman thought he might’ve been rubbed the wrong way, but he made a low humming noise to himself. Apparently he was seriously considering it.

Claire stuck out her tongue.

“That settles it,” he declared gravely some three minutes later—by which time Claire’s hard drinking had left her slightly buzzed. “Missy, I’m gonna take your advice. I’m through with being a blacksmith. I’m gonna cut stone.”

The woman didn’t know what to say to that.

“Just you wait and see. I’ll sculpt the stone into statues so real, they’ll come to life and start moving around!”

Claire wasn’t looking at Harman. Her focus was on something beyond the window.

“What is it?”

No sooner had Harman posed that question than the hatch in the ceiling opened and Lantz could be heard shouting, “The damned things started moving!”

Harman’s eyes shifted. All the passengers were drawn to the windows.

Movement had suddenly come to a world that’d been frozen for dozens of centuries. See how the spiders rub their legs together and hoist themselves up? Creatures with faces that can’t even be seen scratch at the ground with claws the size of buildings. However, more than those they’d already passed, it was those blocking the way up ahead who drew the attention of the passengers.

Some five hundred yards up ahead, towering statues of half-naked gods had risen, with the one on the right carrying a hammer that looked to be thirty feet long, and the one on the left with a pair of bellows. At the feet of the statue on the right was a heap of melted metal. The stone god on the right then put his hand into the sack beside him and pulled out a black lump. He laid it atop the smallest of the sculptures, a stone carving of a forge ten feet across. The stone god spread it all over the melted metal at his feet, and on the surrounding area. The sound of it became a roar that made the earth tremble and rocked the stagecoach.

What frightened the passengers most was the sight that followed. The stone god from the left side crossed the road, aimed his bellows at the forge, and began working it. A wind was whipped up. It was powerful enough to make JJ and Lantz up in the driver’s seat turn their faces away. However, the forge was also made of stone. Though the wind was almost two hundred knots, it should have had little to no effect on the forge. The people saw the forge glow red hot. A scalding wind slapped JJ and Lantz’s faces.

Look! The mass of stone blazes up with each blast of wind!

A hundred yards to go. What would be waiting there?

“Could we change direction?” asked the pale Lantz.

“No, it’s too late for that. Not even changing direction would get us out of this. Run straight at it!” JJ ordered in a low, hard tone.

The wind had become a blistering gale. And it was red with sparks. The stone god on the right stuck one hand into where the stone bar of iron met the coals and scooped up the forge. Was the red-hot liquid that spilled between his fingers and rained to the ground metal or stone?!

“No!” Lantz, Harman, and Al all groaned.

Just as they’d envisioned, the stone god had hurled the blazing forge at the stagecoach. It didn’t need to burn them. The way it was thrown, the shock just before it landed would be enough to toss the stagecoach like a tin toy.

Perhaps that god hadn’t been cut out for manual labor. The stone forge hit the ground thirty feet shy of the stagecoach, sinking into the earth to a depth of about six feet and sending up a plume of dust. Dirt and rocks rained down, and the horses—didn’t go crazy. Only at the very moment of impact was their gait broken, but in a heartbeat they were back at it, and the stagecoach made a huge turn that took it off the highway, but barreling straight toward the pair of murderous statues.

“The horses aren’t scared,” Sheriff Louise murmured absent-mindedly within the vehicle. “Who the hell is at the reins . . . ?”

A scream rang out from Claire. She was hiding her eyes now, but outside the window and off to the right, the stone god was preparing for a second throw.

Once again, a stone sphere sketched a straight line in flame. This time, it was well aimed.

Could a human being hear a silent scream? That was precisely what the people heard in that instant.

A cry went up from something that had no voice. From the giant spider that had closed to within thirty feet of the stagecoach’s rear and made a carefully aimed leap! The blistering chunk of rock had smashed its face in. Not only that, but it kept up a full head of steam, rolling like a ball and scoring a direct hit on the titanic claw that was behind the spider!

Whatever had brought the statues back to life, it didn’t appear that power extended to a mastery of their will. The spider with the crushed head and the claw creature that’d had its weapon half destroyed charged with renewed hate at the sculptor and the blacksmith, the bodies of each threatening to sink into the earth under their hundreds of tons of mass. The colossal hammer crushed the thorax of the pouncing spider, and as if waiting for that, the titanic claw dug into the statue’s neck, taking its head off with one swift motion.

The shock of that head impacting on the ground shook the stagecoach violently. The chunk of stone was easily in excess of a hundred tons, and had dropped from a height of over sixty feet. If not for the power of its stabilizers, the vehicle would’ve rolled two or three times across the ground like a ball.

“Now! Make a break for it!”

JJ’s whip cracked, and two dozen hooves tore into the earth.

The titans battling high above the stagecoach drew closer. The stone god’s foot came down. And, moving like a shooting star, the stagecoach narrowly sped out from under it.

“We did it!” the passengers shouted within the vehicle.

Up where he was riding shotgun, Lantz dropped his shoulders. A streak of gray had fallen right in front of him.

“What the—?”

The deputy tried to brush it off with his hand, but he only stuck to it. Or rather, it was the thread that had stuck to him. Gripped not so much by surprise as by a disquieting feeling, he had another thread flutter by his squinting eyes. Another, then another. And every last one of them stuck to the body of the stagecoach or to Lantz’s shoulder.

“What the hell is this? Hey, it’s stone!” Lantz groaned, sounding close to madness.

It was stone. Threads of stone were raining down from the heavens. What’s more, despite the fact that they were stone, they had all the elasticity and adhesion of actual spider silk.

JJ turned around.

One of the enormous stone gods had toppled, there was no sign of the claw creature, and the hammer-wielding statue that remained had been transformed into a lumpy chrysalis. The giant spider perched on its head had expelled threads from its abdomen. The threads now pursuing the stagecoach were the last remnants of that, borne on the wind. And, demonstrating the strength that had bound a stone statue weighing thousands of tons, the threads tore away iron plating where they made contact with the vehicle, and even ripped some of the flesh from Lantz’s shoulder.

The horses whinnied. Threads had fallen across the backs and rumps of a number of them, taking with them chunks of the animals’ flesh and hides.

“This ain’t good—take the reins!”

Handing the reins to Lantz, who groaned as bright blood seeped from his shoulder, JJ leapt up from the driver’s seat to the roof of the stagecoach. Even on the roof of the wildly rocking vehicle he showed not the slightest signs of anxiety. The instant he saw the strands of webbing that continued to pursue them, the former Hunter sprinted to the very end of the roof and reached for the longsword on his hip. Just as the dangerous threads were about to touch him, the man drew his blade.

The indescribable figures JJ scribed in empty space tossed and baffled the threads. Though none of them seemed to be within the borders of the shapes he scribed, all of them were drawn toward the center. There was the sharp sound of something being cut, and the severed threads scattered to the winds.

Lantz let out a scream of pain as a number of pieces struck him in the face, and the vehicle sang in release. A thin piece of webbing just a foot in length draped Lantz’s knees. But even the victim couldn’t believe this sinuous fragment of thread was the same thing that’d torn a chunk of flesh out of his shoulder.

In the distance, the expanse of the plains rose into view. A minute after outrunning the threads that still obsessively pursued it, the stagecoach escaped the valley of death and sped off across the vast plains, the wind eddying in its wake.