Gunlaw

Gunlaw 4

"What time is it?" Mikeos asked.

Hemar patted his legs. "Do I look like I own a pocket watch? I ain't even got pockets."

"It's about eleven," Lilly said.

The three of them sat atop a marble sepulchre with a good view of the 'high street', a strip of clear ground running between the tombs closest to the pillar. People from town packed the way, more coming by the minute, some in their holiday best, bonnets and morning suits.

"Looks like the sect man's here." Hemar pointed to a disturbance in the crowd back along the road to town.

Mikeos looked out across the hats and horns, and squinted. He couldn't make it out.

"Yes," Lilly said.

"Ever seen a sect man, Mikey?" Hemar asked.

"Saw one once when Ma took me to the fair in Oh-One."

"Scary fellas," Hemar said. "Armour all over, like those old taur knights, only it ain't ironwork, it's part of them, like a beetle. Sect been breeding them up, tryin' to get something that can hold a gun."

"I remember the eyes," Mikeos said. "Bug eyes, like a fly. Hundreds of little windows."

He could see the black gleam of the sect man now, the crowd surging around it. "What about you, Lilly?" he asked. "You seen a sect man?"

"I've seen sect worlds." She said it softly.

"What?" Hemar seemed to notice her for the first time.

"The sect hold worlds by the score," she said. "Only the gun-law keeps them from swarming this world too. Something to thank the Old Ones for."

"And if Remos loses?" Hemar asked.

"The sect get their first toe-hold here. The sect fighter becomes the Five-Oh-Seven's gunslinger and controls who comes in on the world rails. All of a sudden you'll have sect swarming in, along with as many fighters as they can breed, and the trains will take them to any other pillar they like, long as they've got the fare."

"Hey! There's Remos!" Mikeos pointed to the far end of the high street.

Remos strode out into the center, a lone black figure. Somebody followed him from the crowd. A woman in a red cape, her skin too pale for the midday sun.

"That's the hex-witch from the bar," Mikeos said.

"Yes." Lilly got up and started to climb down from the tomb. "She's Jenna Crossard."

"Hey, wait up, where're you going?" Mikeos followed, scraping his chest while he slid down to the ground.

He tried to keep up as Lilly slipped between legs and twisted through any gap that presented itself. "Wait up!"

"She wants Remos to take her help," Lilly said.

Mikeos dodged an elbow. Panting. "That's good? If he wins it keeps the sect out."

"If he cheats the gun-law won't hold."

"Why would she want that?"

"Jenna thinks her magic will fool the gun-law."

"Will it?" Mikeos squeezed between two prospectors and suddenly he was out in the clear, stumbling into the high street.

"No," Lilly shouted over her shoulder, and ran for Remos.

Mikeos ran after her, glancing back at the far end of the high street where the crowd had parted to let the sect man pass.

They reached Remos and the hex-witch together.