Shay forced herself up again and gripped the sword tightly with both hands. The monstrosity charged her, but she held her ground.
Five yards. Four. Three.
Stomach churning and the horizon still rocking, Shay spun to the side and slashed with the tachi. The magical weapon dug deeply into the monster. It roared as green blood sprayed from the wounds and tumbled to the ground.
Shay stumbled toward it and kept stabbing into the monster’s head until it stopped moving.
The tomb raider stood there for a long moment, her sword covered in the blood of a legendary beast and her lunch threatening to come up.
She shuffled over to her horse. The animal whinnied and pushed to its feet.
Shay took the reins, grateful that he hadn’t immediately bolted and apparently didn’t have any broken bones.
“Hey, I know we’re both unsteady. How about I just walk with you a while?”
They walked forty feet before Shay looked back at the dead bunyip.
“By the way, I hope you’re fucking endangered, asshole.”
Chapter Four
Shay let out a yelp of joy and the horse nickered.
The setting sun painted the sky an orange-red, highlighting the angular shape of the ship half-buried in the red sand, its prow pointing upward as if it were ready to launch into the sky.
A massive gum tree stood next to the ship. Since it was one of the few large ones she’d spotted since entering the cursed lands, and with no obvious water sources nearby, she assumed the wizard had helped the tree grow with magic.
Shay pulled out her pistol and pointed it upward as she scanned the tree. There was no way she was letting some drop bear ambush her, but there wasn’t a single animal in the branches, magical or otherwise.
She holstered her pistol and returned her attention to the Mahogany Ship. The masts were missing, with evidence of cuts centuries ago suggesting a purposeful removal. There was no sign of the sails or much of anything on the top deck. The colorful sand of the central Australian desert had infiltrated the ship through its many cracks and holes, but the wreck was well-preserved otherwise. That was likely due to the dry conditions or a spell, or maybe both.
The tomb raider didn’t care much about the reason. She only cared that she’d found it.
Of course, the damned Mahogany Ship had to be at the last site she’d checked, but it didn’t matter now. She’d found the cursed thing, and soon she could get the hell out of the desert and away from all the bizarre and violent creatures inhabiting the area.
The trip could have merely been annoying with a little violent spice from the bunyip, but that was only the start of her fun. She’d had to take down two more bunyips, some giant lizard bigger than a Komodo dragon, and some sort of weird-ass tentacle that popped out of the sand. Given the size of the last, she didn’t even want to think about the body of the creature it had been attached to.
Her solution had been to flee. Being brave when it could get you killed was just another way of being an idiot.
“You thought you had problems, Brownstone. All you had were some gangsters trying to kill you. This entire fucking country is trying to kill me! The Australians should just get someone to nuke this place for them.”
Shay shook her head. He would never know about her troubles. She couldn’t tell him.
The man might be a badass, but he didn’t deal with the kind of shit she did, at least not on a regular basis. He’d killed a strange creature in Japan, but for the most part, Brownstone stuck to two-legged threats. The last thing she needed was for him to tag along on every job out of worry.
Sometimes absence really did make the heart grow fonder.
She dismounted and tied her reins to the gum tree before she made her way to the ship, sword in hand. With her luck on this trip, there was probably a zombie kangaroo waiting inside to rip her throat out.
Shay sheathed her blade and scampered up the side of the ship where the hull met the ground. The mild angling of the bow made climbing onto the deck a challenge more of concentration than true agility. With careful steps, she made her way toward the captain’s quarters. The door collapsed with a thud at her touch, the hinges long ago rusted into oblivion.
According to the client’s records, the rest of the crew had attempted to flee into the desert, which might explain the absence of the masts. They must have tried to use the wood somehow.
The wizard had stayed behind, trusting his superiors to recover him and unable to admit his magic to the mundane crew.
Shay shook her head. The light illuminated a skeleton in a chair against the back wall of the room, which was pinned by a desk. Holes and cracks in the floor revealed that the desk had once been bolted down, but time and gravity had won against Portuguese carpentry and metalworking.
The skeleton’s head was slumped forward. There was a flintlock pistol in his right hand and a lead ball embedded in the skull.
Shay sucked in a breath. “Guess I wouldn’t have waited to starve, either. Sorry, pal.”
His tattered uniform was more scraps of fabric than proper clothing at that point, but the fact that there was anything left after centuries was impressive.
Something glinted in the skeleton’s other hand. Shay stepped forward to peer closer. The compass.
“Sorry, but it’s not like you need it anymore.”
Shay extracted it and dusted off the fine layer of sand covering the silver. If she had any doubts about its magical nature, the lack of tarnish on a centuries-old silver compass dispelled them.
A quick shove repositioned the desk, then she grabbed a drawer and pulled, but the handle snapped off after an inch.
Shay shook her head and pulled out the drawer from the top. There was nothing in there but dust and the
