Murkburg was a hot, dry, dusty place during the day. I’d seen a thermometer a couple times in the town, but the scale didn’t mean anything to me, and I had no real way to convert the numbers into a scale I could understand. Apparently, even the more scientific Celsius scale wasn’t helpful, since water boiled at different temperatures depending on the physics of any given Doorworld. I’d been in enough hot, dry, dusty places, though, to know that the daytime temperatures hovered around 90 Fahrenheit most days, more than hot enough for my tastes.

The problem with hot, dry places, in my experience, was that overnight, they got cold as fuck. Without any water in the air to hold the heat in, the ground cooled off rapidly once the sun dropped, and just before dawn, it was cold enough to make the sandy brown coat I’d bought a necessity rather than a convenient way to hide my weapons. It wasn’t quite cold enough to make my breath steam, but after the day’s heat, it felt almost icy as I finished packing my saddlebags and rigging up my weapons in the predawn darkness.

My bloodbeak and bonecrusher agreed with my sentiments. The bird soared fairly low overhead, closer to the lingering warmth of the earth, while the lizard seemed sluggish and tired in the cold. I considered trying to carry the reptile on the back of my roadwalker for a while – I didn’t know if the thing was warm-blooded or not – but I decided to hold off until I could tell it was a necessity. The sun would be up in an hour or so, and at that point, the air would warm quickly. It just had to last that long, but if it couldn’t, I’d figure out a way to carry it without spooking my mount.

I looked back at the sheriff’s office. The old man hadn’t been up when I woke, and while I was sure that my preparations were loud enough to rouse him, he hadn’t come out of his room. I suspected he was avoiding me; I’d pushed him a bit the day before, and he was probably angry, guilty, or a bit of both. I considered sticking my head in and saying goodbye, but there really wasn’t a point. I’d never be coming back to Murkburg, I was certain, but even if I did, it was unlikely he’d still be there. That wasn’t really my problem, though; I had enough worries of my own that taking on someone else’s was just stupid.

I climbed up into the saddle, which was decidedly uncomfortable under my ass, but I hoped would break in quickly, then turned the roadwalker to the east, toward the river. I let the mount move at a walk to keep from overtaxing the bonecrusher and moved quietly through the town’s dusty streets. The townsfolk were still in bed, although I knew some would be getting up soon, and the buildings were dark and silent as I passed. I looked around, expecting to feel some sort of melancholy or sorrow, but I couldn’t seem to work up to it.

I’d always been good at leaving places, cutting ties and turning my back on them. I wondered if the Doorverse, with its unending series of permanent goodbyes, was making that even worse.

As I passed Shina’s, her door opened, and the small woman stepped out into the chill air. I reined in the roadwalker and turned it to face her as she walked quietly to the railing, her boots striking softly on the wooden planks.

“So, you really are leaving,” she said in the hushed tones people always used when talking early in the morning.

“I told you I was,” I shrugged.

“You’re chasing that marshal, aren’t you?” she asked. I opened my mouth to answer, but she shook her head. “No, don’t bother to lie to me. You’re leaving on the east road, which means you’re either heading to Whitestone or following the river south to Southfork and Vadoo – and if you were doing that, it would have been faster, cheaper, and safer to wait for the next riverboat.”

“I’ve got a job to do,” I shrugged. “I mean to do it.”

She nodded. “There’s always been something special about you, Nayik. Something different. Anyone else, I’d tell to stay the hell away from Lightning Hands, but you?” She shrugged. “Maybe you’ll get lucky, and the world’ll surely be a better place without him.”

There wasn’t much I could say to that, so I changed the subject. “Are you staying, then?”

“Hell, yes. That Gold Diamond isn’t pushing me out.” I began to protest, but she laughed softly. “Don’t worry, boy. I’ve dealt with people like them in the past. They’ll let me keep my business, so long as they get a taste of the profits.” She shrugged. “I can live with that, and it’s easier for them than setting something up from scratch.”

She looked to her left, toward the lightening sky in the east, her expression thoughtful in the waning moonlight. “They’ve got plans for this place, Nayik, plans that don’t involve killing everyone and burning it to the ground. I’m guessing they intend to rebuild Whitestone and turn Murkburg into a major hub for the area. They’ll put in a riverboat landing, and when they do, the trains will start stopping here again. We might even have to add a hotel to the saloon.” She laughed at that. “It’ll be like them big cities back east, with the fancy gambling halls downstairs and the guest house upstairs, and the girls’ll come to you instead of you going to them. Very classy.”

“Very,” I laughed, imagining Murkburg turning into this world’s version of Vegas. “You can water down the drinks and give them to the gamblers for free, and maybe get some dancing girls people have to pay to see.”

“Now, those are interesting ideas,” she murmured speculatively, then shook her head. “Whatever the case, though, I’ll be here when your business is done, Nayik. Most of us will. We’ll just be paying rent for what we own now, but we’ll still be here. And that means there’ll always be a place for you to come back to, no matter what Gold Diamond might say.”

“I appreciate that,” I said feelingly. “You’ve been good to me, Shina, and I’m grateful for it.”

“You’ve been good to us, too, Nayik.” She shook her head. “Now, go on. Otherwise, we’ll be talking all day, and you’ll never make it out of town. And no goodbyes – we’ll be seeing each other again.”

“Until I see you again, then,” I tipped my hat toward her and turned my mount back toward the edge of town. I didn’t look back as I rode; I didn’t really want to see her standing there, watching me go, but I also didn’t want to see that she’d gone back inside. Despite what she said, I didn’t have a lot of hope that this place would survive the coming weeks, and I wanted to remember it with relative fondness.

“Look at that, I’m leaving a place without it being burned down or destroyed,” I thought with a sigh.

“Well, it was attacked, John,” Sara reminded me.

“Yes, but it’s not actively burning, is it? That’s a step in the right direction.”

The road led to the bridge over the Sonkhee, and as I mounted the span, I saw a dark shape on the other side. It was too far to make out in the little moonlight remaining, and just to be safe, I opened my jacket to free up my revolver and ordered my bloodbeak to circle closer. The bonecrusher was still lethargic, and I could feel its desire to clamber off the bridge and plunge into the river below us, so I simply held it on a tight leash and let it stumble along beside me. My mount’s hooves clattered across the wooden planks of the bridge, and I knew that whatever waited on the other side had to be aware I was coming. As I drew closer, though, a familiar voice rang out in the darkness.

“Took your ass long enough,” the sheriff drawled laconically from atop his own roadwalker. “I’ve been sitting here for damn near half an hour, boy.”

“Sorry, Shina stopped me,” I grinned at him as I moved closer to him. “You know how talkative she is.”

He snorted. “If she talked with you for five minutes, I’ll eat my hat,” he said. “Even worse, I’ll eat yours, and that damn thing’s an abomination.”

“What’s wrong with my hat?” I asked, taking it off and looking at it. It had the same wide, stiff brim as the sheriff’s, light brown instead of white like his but otherwise more or less identical.

“It’s the same damn color as your skin,” he grumped. “Makes you look like a mushroom. You need something darker that people can tell is a hat instead of a particularly wide, flat head.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I chuckled. “Any other fashion suggestions?”

“Hell, yes. Take that rifle out from under your jacket and stick it in the holster behind you that’s meant for it.” I glanced back and found the loop he was talking about and quickly slid the weapon into it so that the barrel pointed down and back, with the stock within easy reach if I needed it.

“Better,” he nodded, then turned his mount. “Well, come on. The sun won’t wait for us, and Whitestone’s a week on walker-back.”

“A week?” I asked. “The wagoneers said it was ten days.”

“It is, by wagon. You gotta rest a roadwalker hauling a wagon every couple hours, and they move slower when they’re harnessed together.”

I fell into step beside him, our mounts’ hooves clumping softly on the hard-packed dirt of the road leading away from the river. After a couple minutes of silence, I glanced his direction.

“So, what made you change your mind?”

He snorted. “You gonna make me say it? Fine. You were right, boy. Feel better now?”

“Not really,” I shrugged. “I’m just curious what it was that convinced you.”

“Two things. First, you’re right about the trouble I’d bring to Murkburg, and I care about most of those people too much to put them through that. Second, I’m not leaving. I’m just heading out to find a way to take care of the town again.” He spat to the side of his roadwalker. “One day, I’ll be back, and I’ll put the town back to rights. I did it once; I can do it again.”

“I’d put money on it,” I agreed.

“Plus, I wanna help you stomp that no-good marshal. Never heard of a rune like that cheating bastard had that could break a bond.” He looked at me curiously. “How come it didn’t work on you?”

“Oh, it did. I was fighting to hold my bonds, and I might have lost them if I hadn’t knocked off that deputy’s hat and figured out it was what was protecting her from the rune.”

“Her hat, huh?” He shook his head. “I take it you’ve still got that hat?”

“Of course,” I nodded.

“Good. At some point, we’ll have to take a look at it and see if we can figure out how it works. Gotta be a counter-rune of some kind.” He glanced down at my hip disapprovingly. “And that’s not the only thing we need to work on. Tell me, boy, you have any clue how to use that whip?”

“Nope,” I said easily.

He sighed. “Then, we’ll be working on that, too, I guess. Plus, we should see about finding you a Predator type to bond, something that can do some real damage. Maybe we’ll get lucky and get hit by a storm; a Wildstorm type like a cloudracer would be perfect.”

“Wildstorm?” I asked. “I didn’t see that in the book.”

“Hybrid Lightning and Predator type. They’re rare, damn rare, since you only find them in destructive thunderstorms. Fortunately, it’s the time of year for them.”

“Well, I can bond up to seven pets right now,” I said, checking my status quickly. “So, no need to wait for a storm if we find something worthwhile.”

“Seven pets,” he shook his head. “Up to Greater rank?” I nodded, and he sighed. “Damn, boy. I can’t believe you’re actually walking all three paths and not screwing it up. Never thought I’d see the day.”

“Is it really that unusual?” I asked.

“Unusual for people to do it? Not as much as I’d like. Unusual for them to do it and not die? That’s a bit rarer.”

He glanced over at me. “You remember how I told you that the hunter and tamer paths sort of cancel each other out?” I nodded. “Well, that’s true up to a point. If you can get your paths up to the Greater ranks, they sort of combine into one that gives you a little bit of the bonuses of both and none of the penalties. Some people call it the pack leader path, and theoretically, it’s pretty powerful, so every so often, someone tries to walk it.

“Here’s the problem, though. Let’s say you get yourself all the way up to the end of the Trainer and Herder paths. Assuming you’re pretty normal, you’ll have at most four pets, all Simple or Lesser ranked. That’s it; you’re not really any better off than a brand-new naasi, except that your scores are better.

“Now, if you’d stuck to, say, the hunter path, you’d already be in the Greater ranks, a menagerist, and you’d have a swarm of thirty pets or so. They’d all still be Simple and Lesser ranked, but you’d have a damn sight more of them. If you’d stayed as a tamer, you’d be a Greater cultivator, with five or six pets, all up to High rank and powerful as hell.”

He shrugged. “Point is, you start your Greater path almost no better than a naasi. Now, once you get there, you get stronger fast, but getting there without getting killed is the trick. Add the shaper path to that mix, and you just make things worse, since you slow down how long it takes you to get to that Greater path where you finally start to grow. It only works for you because your natural scores are so damn high that they overwhelm the penalties.

“Of course, you’re still slowed down; as fast as you’ve been growing, if you just walked one path, you’d probably already be getting to the end of your Lesser path and be worried about your Greater one. You’re gonna be stronger overall this way, though. The path to power is a long haul, not a quick sprint – just like this damn road to Whitestone.”

The sun rose slowly as we traveled. For the first couple hours, we headed directly toward it, and I had to keep the brim of my hat pulled low to keep the light from burning into my eyes. I would have thought that a green-tinged sun wouldn’t be as bright as Earth’s white one, but I was wrong. Fortunately, the road curved to the north soon enough, providing some welcome relief. I didn’t know if this world had the equivalent of sunglasses, but if I found a pair, I was buying them, no question.

Our first encounter happened not long after we’d shifted to the north. A group of dark specks appeared on the horizon to the east, heading to the northwest. We watched them as they slowly curved to the southwest, heading in our direction. They specks grew larger as they neared, resolving into large, winged shapes. The sheriff peered at them, then spat to the side and reached behind him, pulling out a double-barreled shotgun.

“Livereaters,” he said tersely as he broke the gun in half, making sure it was loaded.

“What?” I asked, a little repulsed.

“Lesser Air types. They’re usually scavengers, but they’ll hunt live prey if they think they can take it.” He glanced at me. “How good are you with that rifle?”

“Pretty good,” I admitted.

“I hope so. A scattergun’s the best way to bring them down, but they’re big enough that a good shot with a rifle can do it, too. Just watch out for their Dive ability; they’re a hell of a lot faster than they look.”

That turned out to be an understatement. The six birds swept over us, circling overhead in a wide radius. They had heavy bodies covered with light gray feathers, and their head ended in a bright purple beak. I pulled out my rifle and sighted on one, leading it in its circular path before pulling the trigger. The livereater wobbled and tumbled as the bullet hit it, dropping out of formation. As if that had been a signal, the remaining five suddenly banked hard and dropped toward us. I levered the rifle’s action, chambering another round, and sighted along another bird’s glide path, but it suddenly accelerated, racing toward the ground faster than I could track it.

Its heavy body crashed into me, knocking me from my saddle, and I fell hard onto the grass below. The bird landed atop me, battering at me with its wings while its heavy, hatchet-shaped beak scraped against my stomach, tearing my coat. I slashed with the stock of my rifle, catching it in its neck and knocking it off me, then scrambled to my feet. The bird half-waddled, half-hopped away from me, its wings outspread as it tried to make room, probably so it could launch itself into the air again. I didn’t give it the chance; my rifle barked again, and the creature dropped with a small hole oozing blood from the center of its chest.

A loud boom caught my attention, and I saw the sheriff sitting calmly atop his roadwalker, aiming his shotgun toward another of the birds. “Might want to get back in the saddle, boy,” he advised calmly before firing again, dropping one more creature. “If these things spook your mount, you’re gonna be walking to Whitestone.”

I scrambled back into my saddle and levered my rifle again, but the remaining livereaters spun and winged away, swiftly moving out of range before I could fire. I watched them go, then lowered my weapon, slipping the safety back on before sliding it into its holster.

“Well, that didn’t go well,” the old man chuckled. “How’s your back, boy?”

“Fine,” I sighed. “I know how to fall. Sorry about that; it moved a lot faster than I was expecting.”

“The Dive ability’s pretty common for Air types, so you should get used to it. Lets them get real close real fast, as you saw.” He shook his head. “That wasn’t your mistake, though. Any reason you didn’t just send your bloodbeak after them before they even got to us?”

I blinked in surprise, then gave him a shamefaced look. “Yeah, because I forgot that I could.”

He nodded. “Thought you had. Your bonecrusher’s Power Jet would have been useful, too; it could have knocked a couple of them from the sky during their dive.” He looked at me seriously. “I can tell that you’ve got a habit to solve problems like that with your guns, and generally, that ain’t a bad habit to have. You’re a handler now, though, so you’ve gotta get in the habit of using your pets first and your guns second.” He barked a laugh. “No, that’s wrong. Use your brains first, then your pets – and hope that there’s no need for guns at all.”

The next attack came a couple hours later, when the ground to our left surged upward, revealing a six-foot-long, dark brown spider covered with light green hair. The creature sprang at the sheriff, but before it reached him, my bonecrusher intercepted it. The lizard grabbed the huge spider by one leg and dragged it backwards away from us. The spider tried to break free, its long legs digging into the soft ground, and with an audible pop, its caught leg tore off its body. The spider spun toward the bonecrusher, its front legs raised high, and its gleaming fangs spread wide, but the ‘crusher’s jaws gaped open, and a needle-thin line of water burst from its mouth. The Power Jet tore into the spider’s thorax, ripping through its exoskeleton and shredding its internal organs. The spider dropped as its legs collapsed beneath it, and I let the bonecrusher move forward to feast on the fallen creature.

“Better,” the sheriff said approvingly. I just nodded, unwilling to admit that the bonecrusher had acted on its own, at least for its initial attack. The lizard was hungry, and when prey presented itself, it struck instinctively before I could bring it under control. I’d told it to use its Power Jet, but I couldn’t take any credit for its initial reaction.

The road north could honestly barely be called that. It wasn’t a road as much as a wagon track worn into the grasslands, winding around soft low patches and exposed hills. It was nothing but packed dirt, rutted from where wagons had rolled through it after rainstorms and uncertain beneath the roadwalkers’ hooves. It dipped in places, turning into pools of soft mud that we avoided, and rose in others, giving us a better view beyond the tall grass – and I had to admit, the view was pretty spectacular.

Grass swept out in all directions, tall enough that if I’d been on foot, I wouldn’t have been able to see to my left or right. The tops of the grass were sere and brown, making it seem like we floated on a tawny sea. Wind blew almost constantly across the top of the grass, waving the stalks hypnotically. Dust roiled in the air on the horizon, making the edge of the sky match the light brown ocean around us and blurring the edges of where land and sky met. White, puffy clouds drifted in the powder-blue sky, and we traveled through a seemingly empty and endless expanse of prairie.

Had that been the case, the journey would have been pretty enjoyable. Unfortunately, the prairie only seemed empty. The constant wind hid the rustling of grass that would have warned us of the large predators moving through it. The blazing sun and low dust obscured the black dots of predatory birds that swooped from the sky and struck at us. Muddy patches hid amphibian creatures with slimy brown skin that burrowed beneath the mud and waited to strike as we rode past. Instead of relaxing and enjoying the scenery, I rode on high alert, my hand never far from my rifle.

This wasn’t a fun jaunt in the prairie, after all. We were riding toward what might be an entire town filled with dead people, and I for one wasn’t looking forward to it.