The Outlaw and the Upstart King by Rod Duncan

Author:Rod Duncan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: the map of unknown things, fall of the gas-lit empire, steampunk, fantasy, alternate history
Publisher: Watkins Media
Published: 2019-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Elizabeth had tried to get warm in the tent. It hadn’t worked. Her clothes were soaked through, her fingers numb. She forced her hands to grip and release, to grip and release, until the muscles started to move more easily. By then she was losing feeling in her toes.

The rain had stopped and the wind no longer whipped the slack canvas. She crawled out, thinking to run on the spot or do some other exercise. The fire had gone out hours before, and the storm lantern. Fingers shaking she unscrewed the cap from the lamp and poured its oil over the blackened sticks and sodden ash. A flame caught with her first strike of the steel, but the wind snuffed it out before she could shield it with her hands. On the second try it caught and held. The flames spread, catching quickly in the oil-soaked charcoal.

Logan sat up from where he’d been lying under a sheet of waxed canvas. He’d slept through the storm. And the fight. Blinking in the firelight, he came over to sit next to her. He didn’t ask about her wet clothes. Nor did he ask where the others had gone.

Firehand still wished to kill her. She had no doubt of that. And yet, obedience to his oath-holder had been the stronger force. As for Saul: he’d kept his true thoughts hidden. She shuddered, from the cold, she thought. The clothes on her body had started to steam. She’d met bad men before, men who’d done unspeakable things. Yet few of them had managed to so completely hide their evil. Somehow that made it worse.

She stole a glance at Logan, who squatted, hands held to the fire.

“Saul is gone,” she said.

“Gone?”

“Dead.”

He looked at her, disbelieving for a couple of seconds. Then he nodded, as if it somehow made sense.

“He attacked me,” she said.

He nodded again. “It was coming.”

“I didn’t kill him.” Logan seemed confused by her suggestion. “Firehand did it.”

“Of course,” he said, then looked away.

Neither of them spoke again. It was the strangest silence. He got up and brought the coffee pot. As the water boiled she caught a sound from away in the darkness: the methodical crunch and scrape of a shovel digging a grave in stony soil.

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