Songsnatcher - A Science Fiction Western Adventure (The Coilhunter Chronicles Book 7) by Wilson Dean F

Author:Wilson, Dean F.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dioscuri Press
Published: 2022-04-29T00:00:00+00:00

29 – DUST COUNTRY

This was Dust Country, one of the many cousin territories of the Devil's March down south, regions that belonged to no one but the dust and the wind, and those freaks of nature they sent spinning through the sand. You couldn't live there. You couldn't mine there. A few unwise folk had tried, and there were a few signs and flags declaring ownership buried beneath the dunes. The bodies? Well, who knows where they were.

​Nox knew one thing: he could've gotten out of there quick if he'd had his monowheel, though even then he knew it wouldn't be easy. But on foot was different. On foot was deadly. That damn rocket'd gotten him out of one trap and sent him into another. Some folk spoke about frying pans and fires. They never spoke about the wind.

​The dust devils were far off for now, little tornadoes of sand, some hovering in one spot, others leisurely roaming, and others still darting around in a frenzy, as if there wasn't enough sand to consume. Well, there were always the bones of men. Men like the Coilhunter.

​Nox took out his eyeglass and scanned the area. He wasn't entirely familiar with this land, because folk didn't go here—for good reason. This was one of nature's last enclaves, and it grew a little every year as the workings of the weather pushed the sandbanks out further. There was only one God, but there was always room for more devils.

​There was no noticeable exit, and the landscape looked similar in all directions, with the dust devils spread out relatively equally. Chance had put him bang smack in the middle of Dust Country, and chance wasn't betting on him making it out alive. If you were going to trust in the spinning table, you'd trust the spinning sand even more.

​Nox knew he couldn't loiter there to plan things out. The sun was getting lower, and night wasn't much more merciful. At least day showed where those dust devils roamed. The last thing he needed was to wander that landscape blind.

​He headed south-east, trusting that at least that would get him closer to familiar territory, to a semblance of civilisation—and one that wasn't out to kill him. Well, one that didn't have him top of the list. He limped, still exhausted from his prior struggle. His oxygen tank had lost some of its supply and was buckled badly, just like his bruised guitar, but at least he could breathe again. The pain-numbing cocktail was kicking in, but he could still feel the pressure in his lungs. The pain was gone, but the pressure would stay for a day or two. And maybe life would stay a little longer.

​The dust devils were far-off initially, but the fast ones, which folk dubbed whirler-dashers, travelled quicker than he limped. The slow ones, the steady-swirlers, could be mostly avoided. But the sand was a father and the wind a mother, and they could birth new dust devils all the time.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.