Gunlaw

Gunlaw 49

Chapter 34

Jenna crouched beside Eben, her side burning where the mantis warrior tore her. Hemar fell to his back close by, his leg no longer able to support him. He fell between Mikeos and the boy, and lay there, looking as if he were waiting for death. Jenna coughed, looking from side to side. The last thing she'd seen before the cloud of steam and gunsmoke closed off the steel blue of the sky had been George and Billy Ay still pounding out bullets. Their guns had been feeding on the ammunition belts Hemar had dragged from the stores in the carriage. Billy Ay had been laughing maniacally, bodily lifting the mechanised gun to sweep bugs from the cage even as they tore holes in it. He'd fallen back, pinned to the deck by the pounding of the gun, pulverising bugs atop the cage. George had been sweeping his gun left then right, one handed, shooting bugs from the deck outside the cage with his handgun before switching to the sawed down shotgun slung over his back. The guns still rattled, but erratically now, and nobody was laughing.

The wind began to clear the deck, revealing a figure approaching. Jenna wiped blood from her eyes, the hex on her forehead bleeding freely now. She gripped Eben's twisted hand and pointed at the figure, revealed in the moment as mantis warrior advancing upon them. She reached for an Ansos mind-trick, expecting it to be her last act. To her surprise a warmth flooded the arm holding Eben's hand and the mantis turned away, losing interest. Two bugs quickly leapt up to replace it. Jenna stole their interest just as she had before, pointing with her index and smallest finger. Both bugs turned toward the corpsers still battling in the cage. Jenna used her free hand to wipe the blood from her eyes.

"Mikeos?" Beside Jenna Hemar rolled to face the gunslinger.

Somehow Jenna found herself seeing Mikeos with the domen's eyes. A moment's confusion, then she understood it was Eben's doing. Eben sharing Hemar's experience. She almost let go of Eben's hand, but somehow she couldn't bring herself to.

Hemar gazed down at the fallen gunman. He always saw the child from the 'Oh-Seven when he looked at Mikeos. Breathing in the scent of him put Hemar in mind of the little boy racing in and out of the Bullet and Rye, short enough to duck beneath the saloon doors. "Mikeos?"

The domen reached out to take the 'slinger's hand. He knew before he took it that the boy would be dead. Mikeos's gun lay beside him, fingers no longer clutching it. A deep and mournful howl rose through Hemar, hurting his chest, filling him with sorrow until it overflowed into the dead-call. Over and over he spoke it, mourning Mikeos, mourning the pack, lamenting his wasted life, howling his regret that he had brought Eben from his dreams to die here, crying out every hurt done to him and that he had done to himself.

"Can you shut him up or do I have to drop an ammo crate on his head?"

"Hemar!" Someone shook his shoulder. "Hemar!"

Hemar drew breath for another death-call then held it. He looked up. "The guns have stopped."

He levered himself to a sitting postion.

Jenna returned to herself with a start. She had been so deep in Hemar's grief that a bug could have come up behind her and snipped her head off without her noticing. She dropped Eben's hand as if it were a hot coal.

"W-what happened?" She stared at the scene before them.

Dead and broken sect littered the deck. Ichor dripped from the flatcar. The guns creaked as they cooled, and smoked where ichor had splattered them. Out to either side of the tracks corpses extended in a deep and unbroken black field. The occasional click and hiss emerged from the mass. Here and there broken limbs lifted or twitched.