to her. “We’d not thought to see so-called civilized men ever again. Nor women. Never a woman and an old man alone like this . . .”
“We are not alone.”
Red-jacket drew himself erect and placed his hand on the pommel of his saber. “Madam. You and your companion must come with us. I must insist. These woods are not safe.”
“Who are you, sir?”
“Captain William Morton, ma’am, of the town of New Design, which is not only the very most westernmost outpost of humanity, but also the last refuge in exile of the Red Valley Republic, and if you have news of the world back east and how they remember us, I’d be delighted to hear it. May I ask your name? And your friend here, or is it your grandfather perhaps—who’s he?”
CHAPTER 38
THE HUNT
Creedmoor crouched among weeds. Their leaves were thick and spiny and dark. They had tiny flowers, which resembled golden pen nibs. The serpent had thoroughly crushed them on its passage through, wriggling and thrashing its fat tail from side to side, perhaps just for the sheer pleasure of destruction. Not too long ago, either—the weeds still bled ink.
The weeds grew in the shadow of rocks. The beast had slithered up among them. A few of the creature’s scales lay glittering among the flakes of stone chipped loose by its passage. Above the rocks stood more oaks, which the creature had slashed in passing, leaving its distinctive two-clawed mark on their trunks or tearing off branches, which Creedmoor suspected it did with its teeth. The ground rose sharply upward. Among the oaks were scattered rocks and smaller trees, pinelike, that Creedmoor couldn’t name; the woods thickened and darkened.
—It seeks high ground.
There was no answer.
Creedmoor picked up one of the creature’s scales. It was no larger than his thumb. It was covered with soft spines, which he carefully pressed down, wary of poison. Beneath the spines, its surface shimmered with an uncertain color—depending on how it caught the sun, it was either pearly white or a dark bruised purple—it shifted like a puddle of motor oil.
—Imagine it, old friend. Imagine what it looks like. You’ll be sorry you missed this.
He waited. Nothing answered. Eventually he smiled.
—Good. Just making sure.
He leapt up onto the rocks and ran headlong into the woods.
Destroy his weapon!—the Doctor had no idea what she was asking. Destroy it or, worse, leave it behind, like a Jasper City businessman forgetting his umbrella at the office—like it was nothing of importance!—the Doctor was mad.
If he broke the weapon, that would be the end of him. The pact would be canceled, the contract rescinded, the marriage annulled. His strength would be gone. He’d heard of it happening, to Agents caught in ambushes of the Line, caught drunk or drugged or otherwise vulnerable. The weapon could be quite easily broken, and the spirit within unhoused, sent back to its Lodge to lick its wounds, leaving the Agent only an ordinary person again, weak and frail. The obvious analogy wasn’t lost on Creedmoor. No doubt if he were to explain this to the Doctor, she’d give him a knowing look and say, Aha, you fear aging, you fear impotence, you fear loss of—well, yes, he did, as a matter of fact. But the matter of his weapon was also a very real and practical problem. Without it, he’d be an old man, with no property or family or friends or land or career or prospects or pride, nothing to show for the last thirty years. . . . Without it, he wouldn’t be running through dark woods, leaping from rock to rock, heedless of the branches whipping past his face, full of fierce animal joy. . . .
He scrabbled up a sheer rock face. The creature had gone before, slithering up a crack twice the width of a man’s waist, shedding scales and traces of black blood.
There was no doubt in his mind now that it knew he was chasing it. It fled. It led him on.
At the top of the rock face he stopped and looked back the way he’d come. They were high up now, him and the monster—the oaks were a shifting green sea far below. The Doctor and the old man drifted somewhere beneath them, far out of sight. The sun up in the heights was intensely bright and the sky was cloudless.
—A pleasant day. How goes it?
Still no answer. That couldn’t last. Sooner or later, they’d find their way back to him—certainly if he ever