My bonecrusher roared as a wave of thin, needle-sharp spines peppered its hide. Most of the glistening spikes bounced off its thick scales, but a handful of them slipped between or beneath the plates of its armor and found flesh beneath. It lunged forward, its jaws gaping to rip into its opponent, but its teeth slid off the enemy’s slimy, smooth skin, failing to make purchase, while in response, more spines found the inside of its mouth and pierced the back of its throat.

I pulled out one of my new runes and activated it. Power flowed down my arm into the bonesnapper, and a sudden wind wrapped around it, sheathing it in currents of air. The lizard charged forward, Deadly Lunge increasing its speed by fifty percent or so. The bonecrusher bowled into the smaller creature facing it, driving it backward. More spikes lodged in its flesh, but it endured the sharp pain and surged onward, its sheer mass knocking the four-foot-tall frog off its feet and onto its back. Overhead, my bloodbeak screamed in anticipation as the toad’s pale white underbelly turned toward the late afternoon sun, and I ordered it into a dive upon the now-helpless foe.

“Hold!” a voice called quickly, and I sent a mental command to my pets to disengage. The raptor quickly swooped back into the sky, but the bonecrusher resisted my efforts. I could feel its eagerness to tear into the frog’s soft innards, and its hunger drove it to struggle against my control. I kept my will firmly on it, though, and it grudgingly complied, sliding backward a few steps and crouching down submissively. I made a mental note to send it to the river to feed when we finished; the monster was much easier to command when it wasn’t hungry.

“Nayik wins again,” Sheriff Ramka sighed, shaking his head as he walked over. “Boden, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you were trying to lose.”

“I’m not,” the shorter man protested a little grumpily. “And I don’t know why we’re doing this, Sheriff. Nayik beat Paisley, and I’ve never been able to. Makes sense that he’d take me, too.”

“Of course, he’s going to take you, Boden. He’s got two pets to your one, better scores, and a Greater pet when you’ve just got a Lesser one. No way in hell I’m expecting you to win.” He snorted in frustration. “I am expecting you to put up a decent fight, though.” He turned and looked at me. “What’d you do wrong in that battle?”

“I let the bonecrusher get too close,” I admitted. “I wasn’t expecting that spine attack. If it had gotten my pet’s eyes, things might have gotten dicey. I should have kept harassing it until the spines went off; I’ll bet the farther you are from the thing when that happens, the fewer spines hit you. Once it used it, Power Jet could cut through the Slime Armor, and I would have won.”

“Yep. Gotta be careful fighting pure Water types. They’ve always got some surprise defense up their sleeve. Toy with them until they fire it off, and you’ll have the advantage.” He looked at Boden. “What did you do wrong?”

“I don’t know,” the young man grouched. “I did what I always do, Sheriff. I made my toadspike hard to hit and tried to let his pets hurt themselves attacking it. It works on the things in the river.”

“That’s because they’re stupid, boy. A handler isn’t. You need to learn how to fight handlers, not just beasties.”

“Why, Sheriff?” Boden demanded bluntly. “It don’t make no sense! I just keep the river clear of big monsters, nothing more. You can deal with any handlers in Murkburg. Besides, aren’t you gonna train Paisley up to be your deputy or something? She’s been bragging about it for the past week non-stop. Seems like she should be the one getting this training, not me.”

“Paisley’s in for a big surprise if she thinks being a deputy’s something to brag about,” the sheriff snorted. “Besides, you aren’t planning to live your whole life in Murkburg, are you, boy? If you ever want to find work elsewhere, you’ll need to make a name for yourself, and that means dealing with other handlers. There’s no other way.”

He glanced up at the sky, then pulled out his watch and glanced at it. “We’re done for the day. Train’s coming in soon, and I’ve gotta be in my office just in case. The two of you can talk out what happened; hell, maybe Boden’ll listen to you, Nayik. He damn sure ain’t hearing me.”

The man turned and walked away, leaving me standing awkwardly beside the dour Boden. I’d spent the past week sparring against the young man at least once a day, and in all that time, we’d barely exchanged more than a simple greeting. He didn’t seem like a bad sort; I got the feeling he just didn’t have much to say.

Finally, the shorter man sighed. “You know what the hell he’s talking about, stranger?” he asked grumpily. Boden apparently refused to call me Nayik, which was fine with me since it was something of an insult. I needed to pick something to actually go by, but until I did, “stranger” worked well enough.

I looked the young man over appraisingly. His hands were jammed in his pockets, his shoulders were hunched, and his jaw was set. He was asking because he felt like he had to, not because he wanted to actually hear what I had to say.

“Does it matter?” I shrugged. “You’ve got your way of doing things, and it looks like you’re not really interested in learning another way.”

“It ain’t like that,” he protested. “I just…” He sighed. “I don’t see the point, that’s all.”

“Exactly. You’re fine with how you’re doing things, and you don’t want to change.” He opened his mouth to protest, but I held up a hand. “I’m not telling you you’re wrong. I’m just saying that’s how things are. Am I wrong?”

“No,” he sighed, his body relaxing slightly.

“I didn’t think so.” I looked down at my bonecrusher and sent it a mental command; it quickly turned and scampered off toward the river to go rest and hunt. I glanced up at the raptor overhead and gave it similar instructions, and it wheeled and soared out of sight as it sought prey. I turned and began walking after the sheriff; to my surprise, Boden quickly caught up with me and fell into step beside me. We walked for almost a full minute in silence before he broke it.

“You’re pretty good at dueling,” he said. “Paisley’s wolfion should have taken you, by all rights. It was higher ranked, stronger, and more dangerous. You beat it, though.”

“I think Paisley beat herself, there,” I chuckled. The woman’s skin was mostly healed by now, but only the stubble of hair covered her head, and her eyebrows were little more than shadows. She was finally able to tolerate wearing a hat, so she could keep her bald head covered, but she didn’t have enough money to buy makeup to fix her missing brows and lashes, and none of Shina’s girls seemed willing to share theirs. My guess was that Paisley had burned a bridge or two with them in the past, considering that Rose refused to sleep in her room again until the sheets on her bed had been fully laundered, and she made a point of announcing that to the entire saloon the first chance she got.

“Nah, you’d have won either way,” he shook his head. “If she’d been smart and used her deck better, things might have been different, but you were just a better fighter.” He looked up at me. “You gonna be a professional duelist?”

“A professional?” I echoed.

“Sure, you know, them fellas that go from place to place and hire themselves out to fight for someone who don’t want to or can’t. I saw one of them come through here once on his way north.”

“What was he like?” I asked absently, only slightly interested. Professional duelist would probably make an okay cover for me as I traveled, but I would need to get better at dueling before I even considered it. I could handle people like Boden and Paisley just fine, but they weren’t all that well trained. Facing someone like the sheriff – even with a monster less powerful than Parri – would be a totally different story.

“Looked pretty normal, except he dressed fancy. Went to Shina’s and had a couple drinks and played some cards while he waited for the train to finish loading and unloading. Didn’t really talk to nobody, and nobody talked to him.” Boden shivered slightly. “He looked – cold, I guess is the word. Like he’d kill you as soon as look at you if you bothered him. The sheriff, he kills, but you can tell he don’t like it much. This man, he seemed like it’d bother him as much as swatting a midgemite.”

“If he didn’t talk to anybody, how do you know he was a duelist?” I asked dubiously.

“Oh, he had to tell the sheriff, and word got out from there. All duelists have to go register with the sheriff when they come into town. Them that don’t get run out of town or locked up – or they end up facing the sheriff, which means they’re food for Parri.”

I nodded. I knew that bounty hunters and detecting coming into Murkburg were supposed to tell the sheriff they were around and the reason for it. I hadn’t seen it happen yet, but I knew it was a law. It made sense that law would include professional duelists – and probably any handlers who came into town at all. Sheriff Ramka liked to keep the town quiet and orderly, and handlers were probably the biggest threat to that order.

“I’ve never thought about being a duelist,” I answered his question at last. “I’m just looking to travel around and see places, maybe make some money by taking odd jobs or gambling. I suppose dueling is as good a way to make money as anything else, though.”

“I hear that if you’re good at it, you can make sonats just for a single duel,” the shorter man nodded. “People like Feathertop Laya and Bloody Hand Kandu, the ones who everyone knows, probably make hundreds of sonats just to show up to a fight.” His eyes gleamed as he spoke, and I couldn’t help but chuckle at his eagerness.

“Sounds like you want to become one more than I do,” I pointed out.

“Me? Nah, that’s not for me.” He hesitated. “I don’t like fighting, stranger. Not against other handlers, at least. I’m fine with killing beasties, but duels and the like?” He shook his head. “I’m no good at it, and neither is my toadspike.”

“You could get better if you wanted, though. Your toadspike could be pretty dangerous if you used it the right way, I think.”

“The right way?” he scoffed. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” I shrugged. “Just that it could be more dangerous if you wanted it to be, that’s all.”

We stayed silent for another minute before he spoke again. “If – if I did want it to be more dangerous,” he said hesitantly, “how – how would a body go about doing that?”

“I’m not exactly an expert,” I chuckled. “You’ve been handling longer than I have, Boden.”

“Sure, but like I said, you’re good at dueling. So, if you had a toadspike like mine, what would you do differently?”

“That depends, I suppose. How well does it jump?”

“Higher than a man’s head,” he said proudly. “And about three times that long.”

“And does it need to recover after a jump? Can it jump in different directions?”

“No, and yes.”

I nodded. “Then, if it were me, I’d keep it moving. I’d have it keep jumping in different directions to force the other pet to scramble around, trying to catch me. When it got close, I’d fire off that spine attack, then hop away. If the other pet got tired or stumbled trying to catch me, I’d jump right into it and stick as many spines into it as possible, then jump away again.” I shrugged. “With that Slime Armor on it, it could probably jump onto something like a wolfion, jam a bunch of spines into it, and jump away without taking any damage. A few attacks like that, and most handlers would be calling it quits, I would think.”

Boden frowned. “I – I never thought of that,” he admitted. He looked up at me. “Think that’s the sort of thing the sheriff was talking about?”

“Probably, yes.” I stopped and looked at Boden. “I’m not saying that’s a perfect tactic, or that it’s the best thing to do all the time. You know your pet better than I do, and you know what it’s capable of. But I’m pretty sure that just sitting there, soaking up attacks isn’t the best way to use something that mobile.”

“I – I’ll think about it,” he nodded at last as we walked between a pair of buildings and emerged back in the town. “I don’t know that it’ll help, but maybe I can try it in our next match.”

“Maybe,” I said absently, no longer really paying attention to him. Something was wrong, but I wasn’t completely sure what. The street before me looked mostly normal – people walked up and down the sidewalks, talking normally. It was busy with the train in town, as wagons pulled by roadwalkers headed back and forth along the street, either coming from or heading toward the train station to the west, but that was normal as well. Still, something about the scene bothered me. I swept my gaze over the crowds, not really looking at individuals but just giving my brain a chance to process whatever anomaly had caught my attention.

My gaze settled on a woman wearing a black, wide-brimmed hat and a matching coat that fell to her knees. She stood just beside the door to Miss Aana’s boarding house, her arms crossed over her chest as she leaned against the wall. Her clothing was neat and tidy, making me think she might have come up from Vadoo, but I saw the gleaming buckle of a gun belt around her, and the way she stood made me think she had a longer gun hidden beneath her coat. Her eyes swept over the crowd of people, coldly analytical, and I looked away from her quickly before she could catch my gaze.

“There are two more people dressed like her in the crowd, John,” Sara said quietly. Two spots of soft white light bloomed in my vision, highlighting a man in black loitering outside the stable and another walking slowly down the sidewalk from the train station toward the center of town. All three looked tense, ready to fight, and I quickly loosened the pistol at my hip as I resummoned both my pets.

“Boden, the sheriff should be in his office,” I said quietly. “Can you go get him for me?”

“What?” the young man asked. “The sheriff? Why?”

“Tell him there are three people he needs to meet in town, all dressed in black hats and coats.” Boden opened his mouth to ask another question, but I shook my head. “Please, Boden. Just go tell him – but don’t hurry. Try to walk as normally as possible.” The short man looked worried for a moment, then turned and walked away, heading for the sheriff’s office.

I walked out into the open and leaned on the railing in front of me, trying to look nonchalant. I let my eyes drift, watching the trio peripherally without ever looking directly at any of them. The man walking along the sidewalk kept pulling out his watch and glancing at before slipping it back into his pocket. At one point, his face set, and he jammed the watch back into his pocket more firmly than usual, then set off walking briskly to the west. I watched in confusion until he stepped out into the street, making a beeline for the sheriff’s office.

The door to that office opened, and the old man stepped outside with Boden trailing behind him, adjusting his hat and glancing around. His eyes met mine briefly before they settled on the man in black, who’d stopped in the middle of the street, his hands at his sides as he looked up at the sheriff.

“That’s a bad place to stand, stranger,” the sheriff drawled loudly, walking forward and leaning his elbows on the railing overlooking the street. “Likely to get yourself trampled or worse that way.”

The noise around me quieted as the sheriff spoke, and people began quickly backing away from the space between the two. Wagon drivers goaded their roadwalkers, quickly clearing the area, and within a minute, the two stood watching one another in a wide, empty space in a silence broken only by the braying of the occasional roadwalker.

“You’d be Sheriff Ramka, then?” the black-garbed man asked calmly, halting in the center of the street.

“I would. Who’s asking, exactly?”

The black-coated man pulled aside his coat, revealing a gleaming, silver star with eight points fastened to a bright red vest beneath.

“The name’s Kamath. Marshal Kamath, out of Na Jhauta. You’ve heard of me?”

“Can’t say that I have,” the sheriff replied easily. “Then, Na Jhauta’s a long way away for a man’s name to travel. You probably just beat it here.” He shrugged. “What can I do for you, Marshal?”

“I’m here on behalf of Gold Diamond Shipping,” the man said in a loud voice, obviously speaking to the entire town. “I’m certain you’ve heard of them.”

“Reckon I have,” the sheriff nodded slowly. “And what would such a fine company need from a town like Murkburg?”

“As you may know, Gold Diamond is the premier riverboat transporter on this continent,” the man said, still speaking to the crowd. “Their boats run up and down every major river in Mukkal, carrying everything from gold and silver to rice and beans.”

“I’m gonna have to ask you to get to the point,” the sheriff drawled. “Don’t none of us here need to know about the daily business of Gold Diamond.”

“Well, Sheriff, that’s where you’re wrong,” the Marshal replied. “Because Gold Diamond has decided to buy this town.”

Murmurs of shock and outrage exploded all around me, although I heard a few speculative comments as well. I ignored them, slipping through the back of the crowd toward the closest of the three people, who happened to be the woman. I moved slowly and cautiously; she was alert and watchful, and I didn’t want to catch her attention.

“Tell them Murkburg ain’t for sale,” the sheriff shrugged, standing. “If that’s all…”

“It’s not quite that simple, Sheriff,” the Marshal chuckled. “See, Gold Diamond hired me to come out here and make sure this deal happens, and I’m not leaving until it does.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his watch once more, looking at it in satisfaction. “And in about ten seconds, you’re going to understand why it’s going to.”

The sheriff opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, a loud buzzing sound rose above the noise of the crowd. The buzzing turned into a rattle that was quickly drowned out by the screams of panicking roadwalkers. Through my bond, I felt a similar panic in the bonecrusher that crouched beneath the sidewalk below the second man, lying in wait. I stopped, focusing as the bonecrusher fought to break free of my grip on it, then grabbed the nearest building as the ground beneath me started to shake and tremble. The shaking rattled the building I stood next to, and the glass window nearest me cracked with a loud snap. People screamed, and panicked roadwalkers rushed down the street madly, trying to escape the shaking.

More importantly, as the ground shook, my stomach lurched and trembled. I resisted the urge to clutch my abdomen at the now-familiar feeling of queasiness in my gut and kept enough presence of mind to slowly turn around, facing different directions. As I looked to the south, the pain in my gut eased; when I shifted east, it grew once again, and when I faced north, it stabbed at me with its intensity.

I’d found my first hint of imbalance, and it was somehow connected to what just happened – which I assumed meant these three people were involved, as well.

As quickly as it had come, the trembling passed, leaving the town mostly undamaged but its people in a state near terror.

“That was an earthquake,” I told Sara silently.

“You’re right,” she agreed. “And a strong one – but its epicenter wasn’t near here.”

“It wasn’t? How can you tell?”

“Earthquakes generate energy, and I can see that as a disturbance in the world’s energy field. It came from the north – the direction you felt the imbalance. You’re right. This has something to do with it all.”

“What the hell was that?” the sheriff demanded, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a pair of cards, his face angry. “Some sort of earth-shaking rune?”

“That was the feeling of Whitestone going out of business,” the marshal replied. “Permanently, I’d imagine. Damn shame about it, too.” He looked around at the gathered crowd. “Wonder what’ll happen to Murkburg without Whitestone’s ore to ship? Will the trains keep stopping here for Grimbark’s lumber? Or will they race by and leave this place behind?”

He shook his head. “It’d be a damn shame for you people to have to find out – especially when Gold Diamond is offering to buy you out, even after that tragedy. Of course, the prices will be a little lower than they might have been, but better to get less than nothing.”

“Get the hell out of my town, you son of a bitch,” the sheriff said angrily. “Or you’ll find out what happens to people who break the peace here.”

“I haven’t broken anything, Sheriff. I’m here overseeing my territory and telling my people about an opportunity – one that they don’t have much choice but to take.”

“This ain’t your territory, Marshal. It’s mine. And here, the law is what I say it is – and I say you’re peacebreakers.” He raised his cards, both of which pulsed with a bright light as he began activating them.

“You’re wrong, Sheriff. This territory belongs to Gold Diamond – and Na Jhauta.” The marshal also pulled out a card and tossed it on the ground a few feet from the sheriff. That card exploded with light visible only to my magical sight as the man channeled a massive amount of power into it. A globe of multihued light formed around it, a globe that slowly rose to about head height – and exploded.

The sheriff cried out in surprise as the power washed over him. I took a half-step toward him before the wave of energy struck me, as well – and I dropped to my knees, shaking my head as pain ripped into the sides of my skull. I felt the energy worming its way inside of my head, drilling into my brain. A lash of power plunged into my thoughts and wrapped itself around the twin cages in my mind representing my hold on my pets. The power grabbed those cages and suddenly pulled, trying to drag them out of my brain.

“It’s stealing your bonds, John!” Sara cried out in surprise. “That rune is trying to sever them!”

I growled as I reached out with my thoughts and grabbed hold of the two orbs of power still pulsing in my thoughts. The spell yanked on them, and pain stabbed through my brain, but I pushed it aside and held on, refusing to let go. The spell’s force increased, and my head throbbed as I gripped it even harder.

“Got a handler over here, too,” a voice called out nearby me.

“He won’t be one for long,” the marshal’s voice called back, laughing.

Anger flared in me, and I quickly sent a command through my bonds. The response was slow and hesitant, almost delayed, but I could still sense my pets, and they responded at last. A hoarse shout rang out as my bonecrusher shot its Power Jet at the second man, then rushed forward to attack him. Another cry came from beside me as my bloodbeak swooped down and unleashed a Cutting Breeze on the person beside me.

I pried open my eyes and saw a pair of boots standing beside me; a glance upward showed me the hard-faced woman who I’d been moving toward before. She clutched her face, apparently stunned by the Cutting Breeze, and I quickly yanked my revolver out, pointed it at her skull, and pulled the trigger.

The woman shouted in dismay and fell backward as the bullet slammed into her. No blood erupted from the side of her face, though; as I guessed, she was a handler, too. No one would send someone who wasn’t a handler after a handler, after all, and the sheriff was a famous one in these parts. I fired again, not really doing any damage, but I knew the bullets hurt like hell even if they didn’t injure her. She stumbled backward and tripped, and I lunged after her, knocking her flat onto her back on the sidewalk.

As she hit the ground, her hat flew off, and her eyes widened instantly. “No!” she screamed loudly, clutching the sides of her head. I ignored her and grabbed hold of her collar, crossing my hands as I did. I twisted the collar, and she suddenly gasped as my grip cut off her wind, choking her. She lashed up at me wildly, but I pulled her up and slammed my forehead into her nose, then slammed her head back into the sidewalk. Again, I didn’t really damage her, but I knew it had to hurt like a bitch, and most people had trouble staying focused through pain. Her face purpled, and a moment later, she fell limp beneath me.

“Her hat, John!” Sara said urgently. “Put on her hat!”

I grabbed the hat, yanked mine off, and jammed hers on my head. It was too small and just rested atop my skull, but the moment it touched me, the pain in my head eased immediately. I reached under her coat and yanked out the rifle I’d guessed was there, resting it on the railing and aiming it toward the marshal. The marshal still stood in the street, gazing up at the form of Parri, circling overhead but making no move to attack. The sheriff lay facedown on the sidewalk, his chest moving but otherwise seeming to be unconscious, and the deadly rune still blazed with power in the street.

The marshal took out another card and flung it upward, and a massive tangle of air that dwarfed my rune wrapped around the dracodile. Parri screeched as the spell enfolded her and seemed to drag her to the ground to rest in a heap before the marshal. The sheriff moaned in protest, but he seemed unable to even stand, much less fight. As the marshal reached toward Parri, I pulled the trigger on the rifle, and the man spun as a bullet slammed into his back.

“Turn off that rune, Marshal!” I shouted. “Now!”

“Or what?” the man called back, laughing. “You’ll shoot me? Go ahead, kid. I don’t mind.”

“No. I’ll shoot your hat,” I replied, cocking the rifle and taking aim. “I’m not sure how many shots it would take to stop it from protecting you from that rune, but I’m willing to find out.”

The man reached toward his jacket, and my finger caressed the trigger. The rifle was well-made, and the action worked smoothly, with barely any effort. The weapon roared as it fired its round, and the marshal swore as the bullet punched through the brim of his hat and slammed into the skull beneath. I quickly worked the lever, chambering another round, and the man held out a hand.

“Fine!” he said loudly. The power flowing into the rune at his feet cut off, and I sighed in relief as the energy wrapping about us fading and died. “It doesn’t matter.” He shook his head contemptuously. “All those stories about the sheriff’s ‘epic pet’, and it’s just a damn dracodile. I can find a dozen of those north of Lake Badjhee.” He reached down and picked up the card, slipping it back into his jacket, then turned around to look at the townspeople.

“In a couple weeks, a representative from Gold Diamond will be here to negotiate the purchase of your town,” he said loudly. “Those of you still here at that time will be strongly encouraged to sell – the same way Whitestone was encouraged.” He laughed. “I suggest you take their offer.” He began walking back toward the train station, Parri’s unmoving form trailing in the air behind him. He paused over the still form of the second man, whose hat my bonecrusher was busily savaging, then looked over at the fallen woman beside me.

He shook his head and looked at me. “Kid, you’re a pain in the ass, but you’ve got good instincts.” He reached into his pocket again, and I quickly sighted down the barrel, but the card he pulled out was small and simple paper. He flipped it in my direction, and it landed corner-down in the dusty street.

“You ever decide you want to do more than fight monsters in pissant towns, head to Magoor or Fazil and show the local law enforcement that card. You’d make a hell of a marshal.” He seemed to blur slightly, and a revolver appeared in his hand. My finger squeezed the trigger instantly, and another hole appeared in his hat, but he ignored it as he fired twice, once toward me and once away from me. He holstered the weapon, tipped his hole-filled hat toward me, and strode off toward the distant train.

I lifted the rifle and looked behind me to see the woman laying still, a red hole in the center of her forehead. I looked across the street and saw a similar hole in the back of the other man’s head.

“He executed his own people,” Sara observed. “Why?”

“So they couldn’t talk,” I replied grimly, rising to my feet and hefting the rifle. “With them both unconscious and presumably no longer bonded to their pets, I guess he didn’t have any use for them anymore.”

“That’s practical, if a little dark.”

“I’d have done it, once upon a time. Better to lose a broken asset than to have someone else turn it.” I hefted the rifle and jumped down to the street, jogging across to where the sheriff lay unmoving on the sidewalk. I slipped under the railing and turned him over, finding his eyes open and staring blankly.

“Sheriff?” I asked, waving a hand in front of his face.

“Parri,” the old man muttered, his voice faint and lost-sounding. “The bastard took Parri.” He closed his eyes, and I felt his chest shaking beneath my fingers. In the distance, a train whistle sounded, the mournful cry matching the moan of despair that ripped from the sheriff’s lips.