7. Passing Ships
Passing Ships
Pearl pushed her horse to go faster, knowing she was too late. She’d risen well before dawn to heat the pie, which she was rather proud of herself for managing. But the sheriff had also been up early.
Some days, Pearl really regretted still living with her mother. But Pearl wouldn’t leave her. Not like Pa and her brothers had. Where else would Pearl go, anyway?
But it had taken too long to get away today, and now the cold pie on her saddle would not reach its intended. She’d taken her horse in the hopes she could make it, which would just draw attention to herself now.
The first rays of sun lit the tops of the bluffs and then struck the corner of her eye in accusation. She turned and glared back at it, slowing her mount, but proceeded onward, up and over the wooden bridge that crossed the river to the bluff side.
She left her horse at the mouth of the silent ravine and hurried inside.
The edge of a folded wing stuck out from behind an outcropping halfway up. Pearl paused, heart in her throat, and approached slowly, trying not to make any sound, driven by a reckless curiosity to see Driz in the light.
Pearl nearly dropped the pie. Driz’s eyes were open and aimed at her.
As Pearl’s heart slowed, she realized the eyes were unseeing and made of stone.
All of her was stone. Waving lines of variegated reds and tans streaked diagonally across her face, from her hairline to her opposite jaw, like the sedimented layers of stacked bedrock that made up the canyon behind her, darker and more intense in daylight than her coloring had appeared at night.
Pearl both wanted to look away and get closer.
Driz’s brow extended outward, shadowing her deep-set eyes.
Her nose was curved, almost a hawk’s beak in profile but thin head-on, her cheeks sunken to highlight the chiseled sharpness of the bones around them, leading down to a pointed chin.
Her mouth was parted, a snarl on her lips, which just pulled the rest of her features even more terrifying.
Her teeth were sharp, short fangs near the front extending and pressing into the stone of her lower lip.
Pearl hoped that ferocious expression wasn’t her fault. But it probably was.
Pearl had made a deal with this creature and let down her end. And for nothing, because she hadn’t even learned what Driz discovered.
She finally noticed the clothes. She’d been too entranced by the goyle’s face, but now Pearl saw that Driz had managed to put on the garments. They were already dusted and smudged with red dirt, but they humanized her. Even though she wasn’t human and the garments didn’t fit well.
Pearl took in the rest of Driz’s form more closely.
Her feet were bare, toes curled and tipped with claws, and muscular calves poked out from the legs of the too-short trousers.
The waistband sat low on her hips, the definition of corded muscles running up her waist apparent in the gap between it and the hem of the shirt, which strained slightly over her chest, and the bulk of her arms. The collar gaped and folded back on one side to expose the line of a collarbone and bulging shoulder.
Pearl grew lightheaded and reminded herself to breathe, though not too loudly. If Driz’s face had been carved to terrify, her body had been carved to entice. Pearl shook herself and stepped back. It had also been carved with unnatural strength and could kill her easily.
Pearl was wasting time. She glanced around before resting the towel-draped pie on a rock near Driz’s feet. It would attract animals or insects by the time night fell, but Pearl needed Driz to know she’d been here. That she’d tried.
Pearl backed up carefully, leading her horse away before remounting. She wasn’t certain what it would take to wake a sleeping stone goyle, and she wasn’t planning to find out.
Driz looked around the shadowed ravine. A tiny part of her hoped Pearl would be waiting.
She wasn’t. The ravine remained empty.
A circular object rested on a rock, draped in cloth, which had not been there when Driz slept. She pulled back the top. It smelled strange. Was this the pie Pearl had promised her?
Pearl had been here, but Driz hadn’t known. She was pleased and disappointed at once. If Pearl had left the pie, it meant she didn’t plan on returning.
It meant she’d already left.
Driz leapt into the air. The wind caught and rushed through her new clothes strangely, but she didn’t mind. She followed the road again, the one she had the night before. How far could they have gotten? Would they have reached the side road already? She pushed her wings faster. Harder.
Pearl had broken her word, but maybe there had been a reason. Driz wanted there to be a reason. She wanted to see Pearl again, if she could.
Driz tucked her arms around herself, feeling the fabric of the clothes. Humans didn’t want to see goyles. They feared them. Mistrusted them. But Pearl had seen her anyway. So perhaps, if Driz could make herself useful enough, Pearl would keep seeing her. Keep talking to her.
Her heart sped up when she spotted the distant shapes of horses closing in on the valley. She was too late.
As Pearl approached the wagons, the surroundings were suspiciously quiet. It made her bones itch.
She tossed blight-packed ammunition to Steve and took the front, flanked by one of her other sharpshooters, two more hiding up in the bushes to be backup if, and probably when, they were needed. They edged forward.
She made it all the way up to the closest wagon and peered inside.
Empty.
“Get ready to use those bullets, boys,” Pearl muttered.
She turned back and was unsurprised to find a horse blocking their path to the main road. They were caged in here, the bushes dense on the hills around and above them. She glanced back at two more unfamiliar riders on the road leading away into the valley.
Her blood already hummed, blight burning in her veins and waiting to be used. Her heart thudded too hard, almost painful in her chest. She had to be careful. She’d eaten too much of it in the last week and her body was revolting.
“What d’you want?” she called out. The riders were too far away for her to see them clearly without wasting blight.
A fourth rider appeared and nudged his horse forward. Casual. Relaxed. Pearl moved to meet him.
“It’s pretty late for a pretty lady to be out riding at night,” he said.
Pearl rolled her eyes, regretting the motion as the world tilted and spun. “If you’re gonna shoot me, just do it and spare me your dribble.”
The man had a scarf wrapped around his face, so Pearl couldn’t see his expression, but the fabric shifted and she thought he smiled. He swung a leg over his horse and slid to the ground. “How about you join me down here and you can tell me what you’re offering.”
“Nah, I’m good up here. Thanks.”
His chuckle accompanied the clicks of several cocked weapons and rustling in the brush. Rave and Rob tumbled from the bushes, hands behind their heads. Shit.
“How many you got out there?” Pearl asked, counting with her heightened sense. At least four.
“More than you. Now, I suggest you dismount before we show you.”
Pearl glanced at her fellow riders, who were surrounded and had already started climbing down. She wouldn’t leave them, and two were already compromised. So she dismounted. Her stomach churned from the blight, threatening to come up her throat, but she ignored it.
“What’re you looking for in our wagons?” the leader asked.
He didn’t know who they were. Good. “We pulled off the main road for a place to camp. Just checking out the scene. Didn’t know this valley’s taken. But we can move on.”
“There’s plenty of room in our camp for at least one more.”
He stepped forward and Pearl leveled her first gun at him and her second at the man nearest.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” the leader said. Behind him, something huge swooped through the sky.
“We’re not looking for trouble.”
“It seems you were.”
Pearl bared her teeth when he started to take another step.
His gaze caught on her mouth and he hesitated, raising his lantern higher. “What’s your name?” he asked, but some of the bravado had left his tone.
“Like I’m gonna tell you.”
He studied her intently. “Well, I’ll be. You’re the Princess of Salt Bluff.”
Pearl hated that name, but it clung to her like a wart.
“Does your mama know you’re here?” he asked as the hulking shape swooped again.
Had she imagined it? Or had the blight simply distorted a bat? Was it a hallucination? She was already on the edge of control with it. “Sure does. We’re just the scouting party for the rest,” Pearl lied.
The other riders shifted, their hearts speeding up, but the leader narrowed his eyes. “I don’t believe you.”
“Don’t have to. You’ll see soon enough.”
A gust swirled dust around their boots as a massive shape flew over their heads. This time, everyone else noticed it. They all instinctively flinched and looked up. And Pearl pulled both triggers.
She dropped to the ground and rolled beneath the fire of answering bullets. She swept the legs of one of the bandits and he fell on top of her. He was big, and just his weight pinned her. She used him as a shield for a moment as more gunfire rang through the air.
Gathering and burning through her limited reserve of blight, she knocked the gun from his grip, breaking his wrist with her left hand and sending his weapon flying into the darkness.
He shoved his forearm into her throat and curled his left hand around her right, twisting it in retaliation, her own gun slipping from her fingers.
A roar tore through the night. Her meat shield was abruptly gone, ripped from her and cracked in half like a twig. Pearl sucked in a searing breath as shivers of fear ran over her skin and the battle-hardened horses reared in fright.
For once, Pearl hoped she truly was hallucinating.
The outline of a horned, winged nightmare appeared above her. She scrambled back, but arms clamped around her.
Then the land fell away, leaving her stomach behind as she was hoisted into the air.