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Thorn the Bounty Hunter
In
The Amber Bones
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By Brom Kearne
Copyright 2013 Brom Kearne
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Books by Brom Kearne:
Thorn the Bounty Hunter in The Amber Bones
Thorn the Bounty Hunter in The Crystal Countess
Thorn the Bounty Hunter in The Witch of Lyster
Thorn the Bounty Hunter
In
The Amber Bones
1
The slow and rhythmic clip-clopping of the horses’ hooves on the hard-packed road was lulling Brad Hadlik to sleep. He knew that this shipment was too important and too delicate for him to allow lethargy to cloud his mind, but he was having a difficult time fighting it. The sky was turning deep amethyst above and pinpoints of diamond stars were beginning to sparkle. The horse’s gait seemed as slow and tired as he was. The lazy rattling of the cart behind him helped create a background of white noise that finally got the better of him. Hadlik fell into a short snooze, awakening only when his chin fell on his chest. Shaking his head to clear away the lethargy, he refocused his attention to the road before him.
To help keep himself awake Hadlik pulled a cigarillo out of his breast pocket and jammed it between his lips. He shifted the reins to his other hand so he could fish under the red and gold blanket draped over his shoulders for a match. A couple of hours ago that blanket had been folded up on the bench seat beside him. Hadlik had been making shipments in the Western Frontier long enough to know that no matter how hot it was during the day he always needed the extra warmth of a blanket once the sun went down and the night wind started to whip him mercilessly. He found a match and struck it on the seat. The match head flared to life in the thickening dusk. He had to cup a hand around it to keep the wind from taking the flame. He held it to the tip of the cigarillo and took a few puffs until the tip glowed and exhaled a trail of blue smoke around his head. He didn’t even need to shake the match out. The wind took care of that for him.
Hadlik looked out over the sandy dunes silhouetted in amber against the purple sky. Nothing but sand and rocks as far as the eye could see. During the day this land was a blinding yellow and orange desert. The yellow in the rocks was so unnatural-looking that it had given rise to many superstitious stories attempting to explain it: stories of betrayal and robbers and walking skeletons. These were the folkloric legends of Court Raleigh. Hadlik shivered and pushed those thoughts from his mind. He didn’t like traveling through this barren desert at night. Then again he didn’t particularly care for traveling through this barren and scorching desert during the day, either. Truth be told, Hadlik didn’t like making deliveries west of the Old Foss at all. He preferred the more civilized land to the east, because there the roads were paved and well-traveled, and the mind couldn’t play tricks as easily as it could out here in the lonely wilderness.
The wind carried the cigarillo’s smoke away to the east. It was already beginning to sting, and it was early. Within a few hours it would be unbearable. Hadlik had wanted to get started in the late afternoon so he could do most of his riding in the evening, splitting the difference between the blazing day and the windy night. He had wanted to be pulling into Tabor’s Hollow right about now, delivering his cargo to the Browning Trade Caravan before heading over to the Cogs and Lie for a pint of brown ale. He had gotten a late start from Webster Grove because of a mix-up at the private security firm that had provided his protection for the evening. Len Dietrich the Fourth, owner of L & D Shipping, was adamant that he have guards protecting the shipment. Hadlik had initially balked, but now that darkness had fallen and he was alone in the wilderness with a very dangerous shipment of goods, he was glad to have them.
Hadlik glanced over his shoulder at his cargo. His cover was a farmer carrying grains for L & D, and there was nothing in his deportment to indicate otherwise. The crates stacked in the back of the cart were stamped with the red and gold L & D Shipping Company logo. It was a red L and a gold D with an ampersand between and overlapping them: gold in the part that overlapped the L and red in the part that overlapped the D, all enclosed within a red circle. His guards rode on either side of him. They were both dressed as farmers as well, with blankets much like Hadlik’s draped over their shoulders, and wide-brimmed straw hats pulled down low over their faces to protect from the wind.
With the thought of what he was really carrying, Hadlik’s languor left him in an instant. He looked around, scanning the amber dunes. He couldn’t see much. The low light of the late evening had passed into darkness. The two guards were riding along normally and didn’t seem to share his sudden fright. Hadlik tried to tell himself that it was just his nerves. These were vast stretches of wilderness out here in the Western Frontier and they sometimes played tricks on the mind. Hadlik knew that very well, since he’d been making runs similar to this one for over twenty years. It didn’t help that he had been thinking of the legends from out here: the legends that Court Raleigh’s skeleton still walked these amber hills searching for his long-lost treasure. At least during the day he knew these were just silly stories, but here, now, with night having fully descended on them, those stories were quite a bit more difficult to discount. He told himself quite firmly that his sudden sense of unease was nothing more than an overactive imagination.
On the other hand, he had learned during those twenty years to trust his intuition, and right now something didn’t feel right. Twice in just the past month L & D shipments had been attacked. Ghosts were one thing, but the threat of pirates was very real. Normally pirates wouldn’t bother with a shipment of grain. He carried a little money on him in case he was stopped. He’d have something to hand over and most of the time pirates were content with that. They might poke around in the crates in the back, which was fine too. Well, it was fine as long as they didn’t poke too deeply. That’s when things would start getting violent.
But he couldn’t shake this feeling of unease. It may have been the dark and the loneliness of the road, but it didn’t hurt to make sure. Hadlik leaned over the bench and called to one of the guards behind him. He couldn’t remember the guard’s name. They had met only moments before embarking when Melina Bann, Len Dietrich’s right hand, had introduced them.
“Psst,” he hissed. The guard couldn’t hear him over the wind, which had been steadily increasing its intensity. Hadlik hissed again, more loudly this time.
Finally the guard turned. He raised his eyebrows questioningly.
“Do you see anything?” Hadlik asked.
The guard shook his head. Of course he didn’t. It was just his nerves getting the better of him, Hadlik thought to himself.
“Keep your eyes open,” Hadlik said. The guard didn’t hear him, so Hadlik pointed two fingers at his own eyes, then pointed at the dunes. The guard nodded and turned his gaze in the indicated direction. His hand instinctively dropped to his side where he had a sparker pistol hidden under his baggy farmer’s clothes.
Hadlik carried a pistol as well, hidden beneath his blanket in a holster on his hip. He touched it and felt a little better.
The wind was blowing sand from over the tops of the dunes, whipping it up into l
ittle dust devils. Hadlik continued to ride on, but he did so watchfully. As the last of the light disappeared the purple sky became black and the silhouette of the dunes became difficult to make out, even as the stars shone more brightly and numerously above. The moon wouldn’t rise for another hour at least. Hadlik was hesitant to light his lamp out of fear of giving away their presence to potential pirates, but when he couldn’t make out the road at all anymore he didn’t have much choice. The last thing he needed was for one of his horses to step into a divot and twist its ankle.
Hadlik produced another match and struck it against the bench seat. As the light flared before his eyes he thought he saw something in the dunes. In his surprise he dropped the match. The afterimage of the flame made it impossible to see anything. He didn’t know what he had seen. It had almost looked like a glowing yellow light. But he could see nothing now. Probably just an optical illusion, he told himself. Light reflecting from an exposed piece of quartz. These hills were filled with the stuff. He dug quickly for another match and lit the lamp with it. He half-stood with the lamp held aloft in one hand, the reins held in the other, and scanned the dunes.
He tried to quiet his growing anxiety but he couldn’t do it. He had to trust his instincts, and his instincts were telling him that something wasn’t right.
His instincts were telling him that he was being hunted.
They rode in silence for several more minutes. Hadlik sat forward on the bench seat chewing the end of the cigarillo, which had long gone out, as he watched the dunes around them. He no longer needed to worry about nodding off; now he was jumping every time the crates in the back shifted slightly. He could not shake the feeling that they were being watched and the further they rode the worse it got. He kept an eye on the guards but they didn’t seem to share his nervousness. They rode along as if nothing at all were wrong.
Hadlik’s feeling of unease worsened as he squinted his eyes at something in the distance. He couldn’t quite make it out in the darkness, but it appeared that something was wrong with the road. Hadlik’s stomach felt as though it were filled with lead as he slowed the pace of his horses. Outside of the circle of lamplight it looked as though the road had a hole in it, but then Hadlik remembered where he was. The Gorges Linger Mountains dipped into the Bradenfield Province to the north. During the spring season rains in the Western Frontier combined with the melting snow from the mountains to form tributaries that cut through the dry land, eventually emptying into the Old Foss to the east. The trade caravans had built a wooden bridge for the suppliers coming up from the south because even during the dry season, when the creek bed was as dry as the rest of the hills, it was dangerous to cross.
What Hadlik had taken to be a hole in the road was nothing more than the dry creek bed which cut through the road here. He breathed a sigh of relief and cursed himself for allowing his nervousness to get the better of him. As the horses drew closer, however, and the lamplight revealed the creek bed, fear seized Hadlik’s heart.
The bridge was missing.
Hadlik’s unease became panic as he saw the splintered boards reaching over the small crevice. Whatever had torn out the bridge had done so recently, and with a great deal of force. Hadlik pulled his sparker pistol from under his blanket and held it at the ready, its coiled muzzle glinting in the light of the lamp. He looked around fervently, watching for the inevitable trap to be sprung around them.
“Guns out!” he ordered the guards on either side of him. “It’s a trap. Be ready!”
The guards exchanged glances as though they didn’t feel Hadlik’s urgency.
“Confound it all, what are we paying you for? You’re supposed to protect me and this shipment,” Hadlik spat. “I want you ready. Guns out. We’re not alone.”
Only at his incessant urging did they pull their weapons out and look around.
Hadlik was holding his breath as his breathing seemed loud in his ears. He listened. Not a sound aside from the wind whistling over the creek bed.
“I don’t like it,” Hadlik said. “You, go scout that way. You, that way.” He pointed each guard in a different direction. “See if you find anything.”
The guards kicked their horses and rode into the darkness outside of the circle of lamplight. Hadlik barely breathed as he awaited their return.
The moon was beginning to peek over the dunes. Hadlik realized that he’d been waiting for quite a long time. He was measuring each breath, each heartbeat, as he waited. Once their hoof-steps had drifted out of the range of his hearing Hadlik had not heard a sound. That deafening silence bothered him. It bothered him a lot. Hadlik had chewed on the end of his cigarillo to the point that tobacco leaves had gotten stuck between his teeth. He spat and flicked the remainder aside.
Hadlik stood on the bench seat in a futile attempt to see better. He wanted to call out to the guards but he was afraid of making noise. The emptiness of the desert made him feel small and vulnerable. The wind had picked up again and it was whistling, droning and whining, steadily increasing its volume, almost buzzing. He felt like an attack could come from any direction. It didn’t matter which way he pointed his pistol.
The droning of the wind intensified. It felt like a sandstorm was coming from the noise it was making. Hadlik’s courage failed him as he realized that what he was hearing was not the wind. And whatever it was, it was getting closer.
The night was suddenly ablaze with light and buzzing as headlamps came swarming over the dunes. Like angry wasps they began circling the cart. The horses reared up in fear and Hadlik fired wildly. They were dune bikes, yellow dune bikes, and the riders wore amber bandanas over their faces, each with skeletal black hands touching over their mouths.
Hadlik was screaming and firing repeatedly until the sparker pistol was out of ammo. He didn’t hit anything. He was too panicked to hit anything.
A hand grabbed his arm and pulled him hard. He thrashed wildly to maintain his balance. Another hand grabbed at him and then another as the riders buzzed by on their bikes. One more upended Hadlik’s balance and sent him falling headfirst off his seat.
Hadlik spilled over and over himself, rolling into the dry creek bed. He twisted his arm and landed very hard on his shoulder, but fear and adrenaline were coursing through him so he didn’t pay his injuries much mind. He looked up through sand-blurred vision and saw one of the riders unhooking the horses. The spooked horses ran off into the night. The riders were cheering, hooting and hollering as they rode round and round the cart. One of them had climbed into the back and had broken open a box. This one had a black bandana with amber skeleton hands on it, the reverse of the others. He punched a hand through the grain and came out with a pulse rifle. Hadlik’s stomach sank.
The rider punched another hand through the grain and came up with another pulse rifle. He held one in each arm and began firing them into the night. Then he kicked over the box, spilling grain everywhere and revealing the secret cargo Hadlik had been carrying: pulse rifles, sparkers, blue shots, and more, with plenty of battery cartridges and ammo.
A line of bikes broke off from the main group and began circling Hadlik. He rolled over fearfully and put an arm up to protect his face as they were cutting their corners close to him, threatening to run him over. They raced down the embankment of the dry creek and shot up the other side, gaining at least ten feet of air before landing and cutting a one-eighty with a kick of sand to come back in the opposite direction. Their engines whined like angry wasps all around him, and he could hear their triumphant laughter from under their amber bandanas.
After tormenting Hadlik like this for what seemed an eternity they finally stopped, and all of the bikes turned their harsh yellow headlamps towards him. Hadlik held up a hand to shield his eyes from their blinding light. He felt as though his heart would stop from fear.
The engines were idling. They seemed very quiet after the noise, but that quiet only made Hadlik more apprehensive. He wanted to shrink into the ground. He had never felt so exposed and helpless.
With all of those headlamps bearing down on him he had nowhere to hide. They had completely surrounded him.
He became aware of a black figure standing between two of the headlamps directly ahead of him. It was a squiggle against the glare of the lamps. Hadlik squinted his eyes, his breath catching in his throat. He could make out nothing.
Hadlik turned his eyes away, but he looked back quickly as the shadow of the figure was growing upon him. It was walking towards him with great menacing purpose, the black silhouette wavering before his eyes like a specter.
Hadlik averted his gaze. He didn’t want to know what it was. He wanted the earth to open and swallow him whole and release him from this hell. A pair of black boots filled his vision. Hadlik swallowed hard. The figure knelt down over him.
Hadlik forced himself to look up. What he saw filled him with so much horror that at first he was unable even to scream.
Above the black outline of the figure kneeling over him floated a bright, glowing amber skull with deep black sockets surrounding a pair of lifeless amber eyes. At the center of each eye was a black pinprick, staring straight down into Hadlik. They seemed to peer straight through to his soul.
A glowing skeletal hand reached out for him and Hadlik was too terrified to move. Those lifeless eyes were locked on him. As the hand neared him Hadlik finally found his voice. He began to scream. He screamed and screamed until that hand found him. Those lifeless amber orbs in that glowing skeletal face filled his vision. And then everything went black.