“I wasn’t allowed to hold a pistol or fire a shot for a year and a day. No. Corbrae taught me how to kill using my body, then knives, clubs, sticks, and eventually the sword and spear. I only learned proficiency, though, mind you. A single year is not long enough to master a thing. But when the old bastard handed me this,”—the gunsinger drew one of his huge pistols—“everything changed.”
Alysand stopped talking and just rubbed at his face for a moment, ruffling some of the refinement his comb had managed. I thought he was done when at last he began again. “There is an old magic in these weapons. When I bonded with my guns, they taught me more in a single painful second than Corbrae could in his year of training—or a lifetime, for that matter.” He shook his head, as if clearing his mind of something dreadful. “What I’m rambling on about is the first time I worked with Corbrae. News came that a band of thieves had ransacked a farm, and we took to tracking them.
“We found the thieves in a thicket of trees a few hours’ travel from the farm. No less than twelve men sat around a cookfire when we approached. I thought Corbrae mad when he simply walked up to them. They had at least posted a guard who alerted the group immediately. A few old rifles were leveled at us and a handful of swords. Only the leader had proper pistols on his hip, and he kept them holstered.
“My master spoke in simple terms. ‘Come with me or resist and die here.’ He was never an eloquent man. The leader laughed, and I remember his eyes. They were filled with an evil fire that I hadn’t seen before. Not the blind rage of the bull rampaging, but a malevolence that was hungry and aware. I knew at once there would be no peaceful end that day.”
Alysand stared at me, as if trying to impart some message that words could not portray. He shifted his gaze to Madi as well, and for once, the wily warrior grew solemn.
The gunsinger continued his story. “And nothing can prepare you for that first fight. Slow as melted glass and over in an instant. Impossible to describe. The bandits made to shoot down Corbrae, but it just looked like the man sprouted flowers of smoke. The legs of men facing him were plucked by invisible strings.
“The last bandit, the one that had kept his pistols holstered, drew when Corbrae was distracted. I thought my master would die, and for the life of me, it seemed like I couldn’t move. But before the man could squeeze off a round, Corbrae had put a bullet in him as well.
“Then he looked to me, in disgust almost, maybe just disappointment. ‘Go search for the prisoner,’ he ordered, pointing to a couple of wagons that stood nearby. I walked toward them, my legs feeling like overcooked noodles. And when I looked inside the first wagon bed, I found the boy. But he was bound and held by a dirty man, his face a mask of fear and hatred. ‘Leave off, lawman, or I’ll kill the boy. I’ll kill ‘em, see I won’t,’ the man promised me.
“Something seemed to stir in my chest at that. The look of panic in the boy’s eyes and the crude knife at his throat. My hand shot down to my hip, and my pistol came free. A single shot and the man’s head whipped back, his hold on the boy going slack at once. Corbrae looked at me different after that. His relief was tangible. I’d acted when I had to.”
Alysand stopped his story and rubbed the palm of one hand with the other. He looked old, too old for the road or gunfights, too old even to ride his horse.
“And the boy?” Madi asked. I shot her a warning. It seemed to me that Alysand had finished. She wouldn’t look at me, though, intent as she was on the gunsinger.
“Was Sherman Hesperine,” Alysand said. “And now I fear the man has turned on us.”
I said all I could offer. “We will be there to help you.”
Alysand just nodded.
Gearing back up and preparing to finish our march to Gilsby was the only proper thing to do after such a solemn and honest accounting of Alysand’s past. It wasn’t hard to imagine the pain of being betrayed by the same boy he’d saved so long ago. What had turned Sherman’s heart? Perhaps it was greed, as is the case with so many who fall to evil. But it might also have simply been pressure from a fell hand to bow and obey. Could I resist such a force myself?
Our company rode in silence for some time, the hours blending together with the unique sound of travel it made. Pachi’s feet clicked along, her claws making high-pitched noises as they struck the stones of the road. Tejón’s feet tended to grind into the road with each footfall, the weight of his body loosening the packed soil. The horse made its trustworthy clip-clop. All together, along with the shifting of bags and occasional cough or chuff of breath, I found myself giggling at the amusing sounds.
And it was this fascination, perhaps, that saved us. My eyes were closed, and I was listening to the menagerie of sounds we were making, when something new caught my attention—the spill of stones down a slope just ahead and the patter of many feet.
The sound was subtle, and might easily have been missed, but luck was on our side. I tugged on Pachi’s fur, encouraging her to turn, then shouted to my party, “Ambush! Ambush ahead!”
Several arrows darted out from the brush lining a hill to one side of the road. Most skittered across the road, but one plunged
