The Caddite commander, battered and bloody, ordered the remainder of his unit reform. With horses in flight and rifles spent, there was little the Caddites could muster. The spirited Mascogo force split the remaining Caddite line in two. Divided into mounted and dismounted men, the Mascogos on the ground attacked the flanks of the Caddite line with axe and rifle-turned-club. Bludgeoned, slashed, confused, and overwhelmed, the Caddites broke and fell back. The Mascogos swarmed like bees as their mounted force knocked over the fleeing Caddites and trampled straight through them with their chargers.

The Caddite commander turned, retreated to the ridge, and found refuge among his last troopers. The riflemen fired with wild abandon in alternate groups of fire and reload. The Commander slumped to the ground exhausted, his eyes drawn to the witch Victoria Vargos, and the black-clad Escuridon Watcher. Their eyes met and seconds later a tentacle erupted from the ground between the commander's feet. He jolted back, his eyes shut, expected to be crushed to death in its python grip, only to blink at the sound of a deep female voice.

"Where are your katanic fusiliers? Your goetic knights?"

The Caddite almost choked, stunned. A sculpted head, the beautiful face of Victoria Vargos, glared from the end of the neck-like appendage.

"Well?"

The commander waved his hand. "They're all deployed in the war? Why would they be here? Why would you expect that?"

The mouth hissed as the tentacle absorbed the countenance and withdrew into the dirt with a sickening gelatinous suction.

*

DaFaca fought to draw in the smallest of breaths as Vargos, enraged, squeezed his throat in her tentacles. The dirt fallen away, revealed the off-yellow, fleshy appendages extended from her feet, which still held the appearance of leather boots. Vargos hid beneath a glamor, or shapeshifted and wore nothing. Her dark hair hung straight and long down her back; Galtero Gasento's fancy, embroidered, black jacket and trousers dusted and soiled, but not yet torn. Even so, the clothing couldn't have been more contrasted to DaFaca's eldritch black suit, untouched by the sun, blood, and dust of battle—the material remained devoid of light.

Vargos hissed and threw DaFaca against the ground, once more, into a deepening hollow. A cloud of dust hung over the ground from the previous round of brutal hammering. She never once let go of the Ouroboros blade, her arm extending as she hammered the Watcher with each impulse of rage and frustration.

"Let go of the weapon. You've lost."

DaFaca lay in the depression, his face covered in blood and dust. Tiny bits of sage and rabbitbrush clung to his skin and yet, his suit remained immaculate, the only thing preventing Vargos' incredible strength from crushing him outright. Although she tried, her tendrils couldn't find a way under the clothing, nor was it possible.

Vargos drew DaFaca and the Ouroboros blade to her, the weapon held between them. His face so close to the hilt of the blade, he noticed the skin of her hand rippled. Her skin flowed like a shallow stream over rocks, or ripples on a pond. The ripple repeated, like an ornate detail in a fountain. Vargos was in pain and hiding it. She was being damaged by the weapon, constantly shapeshifting and healing the damaged tissue. What incredible strength and metamorphic power did she possess? Was her rage tinged by the possibility the weapon's defensive wards weakened her?

Vargos looked up from DaFaca, past the Watcher, to the routed Caddites. Her face, already twisted with rage, contorted and DaFaca strained to follow her line of sight. His head and neck held in the vice-grip of Vargos' tendrils, DaFaca peered from the corner of his eyes, past the gunman Nico, to the diableros engaged with the ancient soul. Beyond the man, the ancient soul who held his blade, Mascogos slew Caddites with savage blows and reaping slashes, while three more of the ancient souls fled with the unconscious mestizo drover beneath the darkening sky.

*

The main Mascogo force served as a defensive screen between the drovers and the Caddite-held ridge as Day Long and Nathan spurred their horses in a punishing gallop, south west, toward the rear force of mostly female Mascogos. Teven and Juan Semos needed to be exorcised to the satisfaction of all, Juan Semos' wounds tended, and Van rescued.

Teven yelled over the thunderous gallop, his mouth an inch from Day Long's ear. "These are your people?"

"Brethren."

Teven snorted. An apt description.

Day Long continued. "Figured we could use their help against the skinwalkers. They have history with their kind. Know how to kill ‘em."

The ground rose up as pale yellow swaths whipped around Day Long's mount. Teven careened into the conveyor of desert scrub at great speed, shoulder and neck wrenched him into a brutal spin with a searing snap.

Nathan pulled up his mount as Day Long landed heavy to his left, just as tentacles erupted from the anchoring earth to encircle Nathan's gelding. The blonde scout leaned away from the fall as his horse whipped head first into the dirt with an incredible crunch like that of broken timber. Nathan flew forward and swung on the reins with the momentum; the horse, dead in that instant, angled ass-up, held by the ground-rooted tentacles. Juan Semos hung from behind the saddle by the rawhide and hemp rope which secured him to the gelding. Nathan glanced at Day Long, unmoving on the ground, but couldn't see Teven. Day Long's horse squealed as the tentacles broke its back and legs as Nathan returned to Juan Semos, drawing his knife on the run.

*

Van rushed, focused westward, on his friends, his already overworked legs pumped the ground, his lungs ached as air rasped through his throat, pursued by the incensed, surviving diableros. He was too late to cut the pale, lashing tentacles around the scouts' horses. The appendages, sent underground by Vargos to capture the drovers, released the mangled horses.

An electric sting of pain lanced through Van's body, his legs tangled in an unseen web. His exposed skin burning, Van fell, rolled and came to a stop as the Ouroboros blade dug into the ground. Strands of glowing gold magic, visible where it cut across the Watcher's weapon, revealed a binding cast by Nico from his spellcasting weapon. Van struggled, but the gold strands tightened and burned his skin.

As the vortice at the ends of the Ouroboros blade crossed and came in contact with the magic, its spatial effect cut through the sorcerous strands above his head and below his knees, but failed to unravel them. As Van struggled, Nico grinned at him with his hand raised in a fist shrouded in a web of golden, glowing strands connected with the ornate spellcaster gun.

*

DaFaca blinked as Vargos shrieked. "Nico use your spellcaster to blast off DaFaca's hand!" Nico did not react fast enough and Vargos spat. "Forget the rest of the ancient souls, you've bound the one with the Watcher's blade. Come here. Prepare your spellcaster!"

DaFaca's vision darkened. He couldn't remember the last time he was so weak and his essence so drained. DaFaca's life force, and that of the bat demon within, acted as a dual bond and warding to his Ouroboros blade. This prevented anyone from usurping control. For that reason, he knew his fellow Watcher died at Vargos' hand. She was not in control of the stolen weapon, but nor could DaFaca take control, as it was not his personal weapon. As a Watcher, bound to his own blade, he looked across the battlefield at Van, as Nico approached. Control of the stolen Ouroboros blade impossible, he maintained a tenuous communication with his own weapon, the Ouroboros blade held by the ancient soul. He reached out through the soul-bond to his weapon and released its security wards.

Nico protested to Señora Vargos. "Mistress, we can't shoot through DaFaca's shadow suit. It will absorb any assault by my spellcaster."

Vargos sneered. "You will shoot his hand, not his arm."

Nico darted his eyes between Dafaca's clenched hand and Vargos' mask of rage. "Can't shoot his hand with it around the weapon's hilt."

Vargos yanked Nico close, her human hand twisting his jacket tight at his chest. "Shoot his wrist."

DaFaca prepared, unable to move, held vice-like by Vargos' tentacles and tendrils. Nico placed the muzzle of his spellcaster against DaFaca's wrist and fired.

*

The sun crept behind the western mountains trailed by flamed skies of amber as the chill of winter swept in with the twilight and first twinkling stars. Christian chewed a strip of dried beef from his saddle bags and swirled the few ounces of coffee in his tin cup. His hand on the horse's shoulder, he sighed. Sende stepped beside him.

"This is for the best. We ride to Albuquerque, purchase supplies and return to the herd."

Christian sipped from his cup. "We're losing the light. Have your cousins decided who will take first watch?"

Sende watched the vaqueros lay out their crude bedding from blankets and tarp. "And you still insist on taking the small hours?"

Christian shrugged. "We'd not be out here had I not stopped us. You'd be in a proper bed."

"Or we would be many miles back, bedding the ganados and remuda for the night."

His eyes fell, weary, on the mestizo girl. "There are many would-be's."

"Yes." She rubbed her arm, whether from the chill or the memory. "And I might have died with Galtero Gasento."

Christian frowned, the scent of her in his nostrils. "So might my brother be, he, Van and your elder cousin Juan. What good then is any of this? What do I tell their wives? At least you know, you and Marcos, your cousins and extended family. Yet I must carry that burden the rest of the drive to market in Denver and beyond. Hold it with me until I return to St. Maria and to the ranch."

"Do you feel they are dead? Do you truly believe it?"

Christian turned the cup in his hand, its warmth faded, the coffee as cold as the chill across his shoulders. Did he believe?

*

Van rolled towards his fallen friends, catching a glimpse of Nathan with each roll. The blonde scout, having cut the unconscious Juan Semos loose, dragged the old drover toward the second of the two dead horses. Teven and Day Long remained hidden behind their fallen mount, but Nathan appeared to be yelling to someone over the din of battle.

Bobbing up and over the Ouroboros blade with each roll, he took care to avoid its ends, but at the weapon's seven feet length, he only needed to protect his lower legs as he forced each roll. The conical shape of the weapon also caused him to correct his course. With each roll he saw the diableros behind him, set upon by Mascogo warriors, black men of mixed heritage—Day Long's "brethren". He allowed a laugh at that. Something Day Long would say.

*

Day Long held his head, the six-day growth of hair matted with blood. He'd shave his head again the first chance he got. No question of surviving, he'd put an end to all these bastards and see to it that ol' Silver Hair knew it. His vision doubled and blurred, he felt along his scalp for a cut, but no, the blood must've run from his mouth and nose while he lay unconscious, however long, on the ground. To his left and right, his Mascogo friends dispatched Caddite and diablero alike. Good, but where was Teven? Where was ol' Silver Hair and old man Semos? Day Long rubbed his eyes, blood, sweat, and sand smeared across his face, the fine red dust mixed into a clay-like mud that stung and stunk of iron and lime. Teven lay at an awkward angle not ten feet from him. Caddite corpses and wounded all around. Crazed horses darting this way and that.

Silence. Realization struck him like the kick of a mule. He couldn't hear a blessed thing. The thrum of battle shook his body, but not even the eerie ring that follows a close cannon blast came to his ears. He let loose a vile string of curses until his throat grew raw. He'd felt that too.

Deaf and half blind he found his axe and a fallen macuahuitl, ripped both from the ground, and bellowed as he rushed forward to protect Teven. The damned Caddites and skinwalking bastards, he'd kill ‘em all.

He whirled around at the sense of a presence and withheld his blow at the final moment. Before him stood a Mascogo kithla with raised hands. Among the Mascogo, and their Seminole legacy, the kithla served their people in shamanistic practices.

"Get yourself killed sneakin' up on a fella, brethren."

The kithla pantomimed a number of gestures and pointed at his own ears.

His chest heaved, but Day Long took the offer, lowering himself to the ground. The kithla touched points along his neck and back. The shaman paused, pressing his fingers in front of Day Long's ear lobes, at the top of each ear for several minutes. A warmth flowed through his ear canals and erupted a sneezing fit. Sneezes the Seminole scout both felt and heard. His vision cleared, Day Long made to stand but the Mascogo pressed down on his head.

The kithla smiled. "Take a moment, let me mend your wounds."

Day Long spat a wad of blood. "And the others."

"Of course."

*

Sour. Van's entire body, weak and numb, betrayed him. The spell further sapped his strength, and yet the arcane crystal weapon no longer did. The pulse of endless pain from the weapon ended with an abruptness that was its own impact. His eyes stung and his face itched such that nothing short of a dunk in a cold river stream might soothe it away. In all, a relief, the weapon still functioned, but something was different. Was the weapon disrupting Nico's binding?

Having absorbed many of the skinwalker's memories, a skinwitch, Van understood the binding around him, but could not dispel the web. The spell served Nico as one of many, loaded within his spellcaster, one of a variety of weapons wielded by goetic, theuric, and thaumic knights—mercenaries armed with magical weapons. Nico was either of the three and this left Van as he was, bound by the binding web, with Vargos ready to pounce.