“Hoo-yah!” Brother Two whooped. “How’d ya like that, y’stinky bastards?”
She saw them then, low black shapes beyond the circle’s glow to the south, scattering dust as they charged, the light catching on spearpoints and hatchet blades. The Crawdens’ long-rifles fired simultaneously, two shapes falling, the others coming on without pause. Bluesilk began to fire when they reached the circle, standing and blazing away with both pistols, more shapes twisting and falling, the rest leaping the circle amid a chorus of inhuman snarls. Ethelynne could see their faces now, dark and scaly with spines protruding from forehead and jaw, their eyes bright yellow, slitted and full of hate, just like the Red back at the river.
“Guard Miss Ethy!” Wittler yelled, rushing to Ethelynne’s side and loosing off a rapid salvo with his revolver, two Spoiled falling dead as they reached the edge of the camp. The rest of the company followed suit, Bluesilk crouching as she replaced the cylinders in her pistols with a swiftness that seemed incredible, the Crawdens blasting away with their revolvers whilst Clatterstock emptied his repeating carbine with practised efficiency.
A lull descended as the Spoiled drew back, lingering in the shadows beyond the diminishing glow of the circle, the air now filled with their guttural snarls. Ethelynne scanned the surrounding sands, snaring the intermittent arrows launched by the Spoiled and snapping them before they could reach the company, the Black diminishing with every catch. The chorus of snarls increased in pitch, building by the second, a discordant but definite cadence becoming discernible among the babble, almost like a chant.
“Shit,” she heard Clatterstock growl. “Death song.”
“If you got anything left, Miss Ethy,” Wittler said. “Now would be about the time.”
She reached for the vial of Black once more, drinking deep, leaving only one last drop. “You need to be quick,” she said. “I won’t be able to hold them all for long.”
The snarling chant rose to a crescendo and the Spoiled came surging from the dark, yellow eyes gleaming and malformed lips drawn back from wicked sharp teeth. She stopped them ten feet short, summoning the Black to snare each one, some caught in mid-air with club raised.
“Aimed shots!” Wittler said, raising his pistol.
It took maybe five minutes but it seemed an age, Ethelynne feeling the Black ebb away like water from a leaky cistern as the Sandrunners methodically put a bullet into each and every frozen Spoiled. When it was done, and she had let them fall, they counted eighty-six bodies on the sand.
“Looks like we bagged us a whole tribe, cap’n,” Brother One said, drawing his knife and crouching beside a body. “Ironship pays cash-money for every Spoiled head.”
“Leave it,” Wittler told him, casting a disinterested gaze over the corpses before turning to the south. “Got us a White to find.”
She used up the Green before getting clear of the Badlands, feeling the last of it drain away as she leapt to propel herself onward with a shove against one of the tors, landing hard on suddenly weak legs. She fell face first and lay still for a time, willing herself to move, but finding only the strength to keep breathing. “Black…” she murmured, lips dry against the stony ground. “Black for the push… Red for… Red…”
Her eyes were already half-closed when she heard it, echoing through the Badlands, rich and vibrant in its utter madness. “You know what I saw, Miss Ethy!” Wittler screamed, voice growing louder with every word. “You know what it showed me! I ain’t gonna burn! You hear me, girl? I AIN’T GONNA BURN!”
Ethelynne abandoned all pretence of focus and let the terror seep into her, filling her with a single desperate urge; stay alive.
She yelled with the effort of raising herself up, wept as she gained her feet, stumbling on and voicing curses so foul she didn’t realise she knew them, regaining focus, mind fixed on a single goal. There’ll still be blood in the heart…
Ethelynne had been hearing or reading about the Crater all her life, the centre of the Red Sands, site of a calamity great enough to turn an iron-rich mountain range into a desert and, some said, provide a birthing ground for the fabled White Drake. In the event she found it a disappointment, just a circular gouge in the red wastes about sixty feet wide and ten deep. No great colony of Whites nursing nests full of precious eggs, no treasure to reward their perilous quest.
“You, uh, sure this is it, cap’n?” Clatterstock ventured after they had clambered down the steep but not unassailable wall to the Crater floor.
Wittler ignored him, eyes locked on the ground as he roamed about.
“I mean to say,” the harvester went on. “The map is plenty old. Could be there’s other craters to the south…”
Wittler stopped and held up a hand, waving him to silence, eyes now fixed on something next to his boot. Abruptly he went to his haunches and began to scrape away at the sand with his hands, Ethelynne hearing a laugh of unalloyed triumphed as the dust rose around him. After several minutes digging he rose and stood back, the others coming to his side to peer down at his find. It was maybe six feet in length, longer and broader than either a Red or a Black, and more bulbous, perhaps to accommodate a larger brain.
“Contractors,” Wittler said in a formal tone. “I give you the skull of the White Drake.”
It took a full day to dig it out. They had no spades and were obliged to rely on hands and knives to scrape away the soil, but by nightfall they had revealed a complete skeleton some thirty feet long, sixty including the tail. It snaked around the body in a tight protective arc of revealed vertebrae, and there, nestled, between its two great forearms, a single white egg.
“We’re gonna be so Seer-damn rich,” Brother Two breathed, then laughed as he lunged for Ethelynne, lifting her up and whirling her around. She found she couldn’t contain a giggle when he set her down, sank to one knee and took her hand to formally propose marriage.
“You’re only after my money,” she laughed, gently but firmly disentangling her hand.
Clatterstock stroked his thickening beard as he ran a hand along one of the great ribs. “Don’t look so old,” he mused. “Old bone turns to rock after a time. Could be there’s still some marrow to be had here.”
“Marrow?” Ethelynne enquired.
“Surely, Miss Ethy. Grind up drake bones and the powder’s still of use. Not so potent as blood but it’ll fetch a fair price. I’d hazard this here beauty will fetch a sight more.”
“Just one,” Wittler said. “The smallest. Wanna keep her as intact as we can.”
“Certainly, cap’n.” After some pondering the harvester chose one of the claw bones, only as long as Ethelynne’s forearm.
“Well now,” he said, laying the bone on a leather ground-sheet and hefting his hammer. “Gather round and watch the show…”
She had feared it might not be there, scavenged to nothing by its own kind or slipped into the river and carried away. But there it was, the skin already peeling and shrouded in flies, but still wonderfully, actually there. She slid down the slope, grunting as she collided with the Red’s corpse, the flies voicing an angry buzz as they rose from their banquet. She hauled herself over its thick neck, crouching next to the sternum and fumbling for her box.
“ETHYYYY!” The voice was hoarse, the madness even more evident in its roaring croak. And also close. Too damn close.
Ethelynne lifted the vial of Black and tipped the last remaining drop into her mouth. She let it burn its way down, staring at the patch of desiccated skin on the Red’s chest. Focus.