Dangerous Women Part 30

That she looked like a pig. Just had a real piggish quality to her features. Never saw it before.

Funny.

Her eyes opened. And her mouth started running, telling me it had never been like this before.

"Did you-"

"Not yet."

"My G.o.d, you're still hard! Is there anything-"

"Not just yet," I said. "Something I'd like to know first. When you walked into the bar?"

"A lifetime ago," she said. And relaxed into what she thought was going to be a stroll down memory lane. How we met, how we fell in love without a word being spoken.

I said, "What I wondered. How did you know?"

"How did I-"

"How'd you know I was the one man in there who'd be willing to kill your husband for you?"

Eyes wide. Speechless.

"What did you see? What did you think you saw?"

And my hips started working, slowly, short strokes.

"Had it all worked out in your mind," I said. I moved my elbows so they were on her shoulders, pinning her to the bed, and my hands found her neck, circled it.

"So you'd be out of town, maybe pick up some other lucky guy to make sure you'd have an alibi. Get off good with him, because all the while you're thinking about how I'm doing it, killing your husband. Wondering exactly how I'm doing it: Am I using a gun, a knife, a club? And you think of me doing him with my bare hands and that's what really gets you off, isn't it? Isn't it?"

She was saying something, but I couldn't hear it. Couldn't have heard a thunderclap, couldn't have heard the world ending.

"Filling my head with happily ever after, but once he's gone you don't need me anymore, do you? Maybe you'd find another sucker, get him to take me off the board."

Thrusting harder now. And my hands tightening on her throat. The terror in her eyes, Jesus, you could taste it.

Then the light went out of her eyes, and just like that she was gone.

Three, four more strokes and I got where I was going. What's funny is I didn't really feel it. The machinery worked, and I emptied myself into her, but you couldn't call it sensational, because, see, there wasn't a whole lot of sensation involved. There was a release, and that felt good, the way a p.i.s.s does when you've been walking around with a full bladder.

Fact is, it's like that more often than not. I'd say the army shrink could explain it, but let's not make him into a genius. All he knew was the army was better off without me.

Most anybody's better off without me.

Claudia, for sure. Lying there now with her throat crushed and her eyes gla.s.sy. Minute I laid eyes on her, I knew she had the whole script worked out in her mind.

How'd she know? How'd she pick me?

And if I knew all that, if I could read her script and figure out a different ending than the one she had in mind, why'd I buy her a drink? All's said and done, how much real choice did I have in the matter once she'd gone and laid her hand on my arm?

Time to leave this town now, but who was I kidding? I'd find the same thing in the next town, or the town after that. Another roadhouse, where I might have to fight a guy or might not, but either way I'd walk out with a woman. She might not look as fine as this one, and she might have more hair besides what she had on her head, but she'd have the same plans for me.

And if I stayed out of the bars? If I went to some church socials, or Parents Without Partners, or some such?

Might work, but I wouldn't count on it. My luck, I'd wind up in the same d.a.m.n place.

Like I said, I really know how to pick 'em.

Brandon Sanderson Another of the fastest-rising stars in the fantasy genre, along with writers such as Joe Abercrombie, Patrick Rothfuss, Scott Lynch, Lev Grossman, and K. J. Parker, New York Times bestseller Brandon Sanderson was chosen to finish Robert Jordan's famous Wheel of Time sequence, left uncompleted on Jordan's death, an immense task that Sanderson tackled with volumes such as The Gathering Storm, Towers of Midnight, and A Memory of Light. He is also well-known for another fantasy series, the Mistborn sequence, which consists of The Final Empire, The Well of Ascension, The Hero of Ages, and The Alloy of Law, as well as the young adult fantasy series Alcatraz, consisting of Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians, Alcatraz Versus the Scrivener's Bones, Alcatraz Versus the Knights of Crystallia, and Alcatraz Versus the Shattered Lens. His other books include the novels Elantris, Warbreaker, and Firstborn, and the start of the new Stormlight Archive series, The Way of Kings. He lives in American Fork, Utah, and maintains a website at brandonsanderson.com.

Here he takes us deep into the sinister silence of the Forests for the tale of a desperate and dangerous woman who will risk anything, do anything, to save her family, even in a place where hungry ghosts wait unseen behind every tree, and one false move means instant death ...

SHADOWS FOR SILENCE IN THE FORESTS OF h.e.l.l.

"The one you have to watch for is the White Fox," Daggon said, sipping his beer. "They say he shook hands with the Evil itself, that he visited the Fallen World and came back with strange powers. He can kindle fire on even the deepest of nights, and no shade will dare come for his soul. Yes, the White Fox. Meanest b.a.s.t.a.r.d in these parts for sure. Pray he doesn't set his eyes on you, friend. If he does, you're dead."

Daggon's drinking companion had a neck like a slender wine bottle and a head like a potato stuck sideways on the top. He squeaked as he spoke, a Lastport accent, voice echoing in the eaves of the waystop's common room. "Why ... why would he set his eyes on me?"

"That depends, friend," Daggon said, looking about as a few overdressed merchants sauntered in. They wore black coats, ruffled lace poking out the front, and the tall-topped, wide-brimmed hats of fortfolk. They wouldn't last two weeks out here, in the Forests.

"It depends?" Daggon's dining companion prompted. "It depends on what?"

"On a lot of things, friend. The White Fox is a bounty hunter, you know. What crimes have you committed? What have you done?"

"Nothing." That squeak was like a rusty wheel.

"Nothing? Men don't come out into the Forests to do 'nothing,' friend."

His companion glanced from side to side. He'd given his name as Earnest. But then, Daggon had given his name as Amity. Names didn't mean a whole lot in the Forests. Or maybe they meant everything. The right ones, that was.

Earnest leaned back, scrunching down that fis.h.i.+ng-pole neck of his as if trying to disappear into his beer. He'd bite. People liked hearing about the White Fox, and Daggon considered himself an expert. At least, he was an expert at telling stories to get ratty men like Earnest to pay for his drinks.

I'll give him some time to stew, Daggon thought, smiling to himself. Let him worry. Earnest would pry him for more information in a bit.

While he waited, Daggon leaned back, surveying the room. The merchants were making a nuisance of themselves, calling for food, saying they meant to be on their way in an hour. That proved them to be fools. Traveling at night in the Forests? Good homesteader stock would do it. Men like these, though ... they'd probably take less than an hour to violate one of the Simple Rules and bring the shades upon them. Daggon put the idiots out of his mind.

That fellow in the corner, though ... dressed all in brown, still wearing his hat despite being indoors. That fellow looked truly dangerous. I wonder if it's him, Daggon thought. So far as he knew, n.o.body had ever seen the White Fox and lived. Ten years, over a hundred bounties turned in. Surely someone knew his name. The authorities in the forts paid him the bounties, after all.

The waystop's owner, Madam Silence, pa.s.sed by the table and deposited Daggon's meal with an unceremonious thump. Scowling, she topped off his beer, spilling a sudsy dribble onto his hand, before limping off. She was a stout woman. Tough. Everyone in the Forests was tough. The ones that survived, at least.

He'd learned that a scowl from Silence was just her way of saying h.e.l.lo. She'd given him an extra helping of venison; she often did that. He liked to think that she had a fondness for him. Maybe someday ...

Don't be a fool, he thought to himself as he dug into the heavily gravied food. Better to marry a stone than Silence Montane. A stone showed more affection. Likely, she gave him the extra slice because she recognized the value of a repeat customer. Fewer and fewer people came this way lately. Too many shades. And then there was Chesterton. Nasty business, that.

"So ... he's a bounty hunter, this Fox?" The man who called himself Earnest seemed to be sweating.

Daggon smiled. Hooked right good, this one was. "He's not just a bounty hunter. He's the bounty hunter. Though, the White Fox doesn't go for the small-timers-and no offense, friend, but you seem pretty small-time."

His friend grew more nervous. What had he done? "But," the man stammered, "he wouldn't come for me-er, pretending I'd done something, of course-anyway, he wouldn't come in here, would he? I mean, Madam Silence's waystop, it's protected. Everyone knows that. Shade of her dead husband lurks here. I had a cousin who saw it, I did."

"The White Fox doesn't fear shades," Daggon said, leaning in. "Now, mind you, I don't think he'd risk coming in here-but not because of some shade. Everyone knows this is neutral ground. You've got to have some safe places, even in the Forests. But ..."

Daggon smiled at Silence as she pa.s.sed him by, on the way to the kitchens again. This time she didn't scowl at him. He was getting through to her for certain.

"But?" Earnest squeaked.

"Well ..." Daggon said. "I could tell you a few things about how the White Fox takes men, but you see, my beer is nearly empty. A shame. I think you'd be very interested in how the White Fox caught Makepeace Haps.h.i.+re. Great story, that."

Earnest squeaked for Silence to bring another beer, though she bustled into the kitchen and didn't hear. Daggon frowned, but Earnest put a coin on the side of the table, indicating he'd like a refill when Silence or her daughter returned. That would do. Daggon smiled to himself and launched into the story.

Silence Montane closed the door to the common room, then turned and pressed her back against it. She tried to still her racing heart by breathing in and out. Had she made any obvious signs? Did they know she'd recognized them?

William Ann pa.s.sed by, wiping her hands on a cloth. "Mother?" the young woman asked, pausing. "Mother, are you-"

"Fetch the book. Quickly, child!"

William Ann's face went pale, then she hurried into the back pantry. Silence clutched her ap.r.o.n to still her nerves, then joined William Ann as the girl came out of the pantry with a thick, leather satchel. White flour dusted its cover and spine from the hiding place.

Silence took the satchel and opened it on the high kitchen counter, revealing a collection of loose-leaf papers. Most had faces drawn on them. As Silence rifled through the pages, William Ann moved to look through the peephole back into the common room.

For a few moments, the only sound to accompany Silence's thumping heart was that of hastily turned pages.

"It's the man with the long neck, isn't it?" William Ann asked. "I remember his face from one of the bounties."

"That's just Lamentation Winebare, a petty horse thief. He's barely worth two measures of silver."

"Who, then? The man in the back, with the hat?"

Silence shook her head, finding a sequence of pages at the bottom of her pile. She inspected the drawings. G.o.d Beyond, she thought. I can't decide if I want it to be them or not. At least her hands had stopped shaking.

William Ann scurried back and craned her neck over Silence's shoulder. At fourteen, the girl was already taller than her mother. A fine thing to suffer, a child taller than you. Though William Ann grumbled about being awkward and lanky, her slender build foreshadowed a beauty to come. She took after her father.

"Oh, G.o.d Beyond," William Ann said, raising a hand to her mouth. "You mean-"

"Chesterton Divide," Silence said. The shape of the chin, the look in the eyes ... they were the same. "He walked right into our hands, with four of his men." The bounty on those five would be enough to pay her supply needs for a year. Maybe two.

Her eyes flickered to the words below the pictures, printed in harsh, bold letters. Extremely dangerous. Wanted for murder, rape, extortion. And, of course, there was the big one at the end: And a.s.sa.s.sination.

Silence had always wondered if Chesterton and his men had intended to kill the governor of the most powerful city on this continent, or if it had it been an accident. A simple robbery gone wrong. Either way, Chesterton understood what he'd done. Before the incident, he had been a common-if accomplished-highway bandit.

Now he was something greater, something far more dangerous. Chesterton knew that if he were captured, there would be no mercy, no quarter. Lastport had painted Chesterton as an anarchist, a menace, and a psychopath.

Chesterton had no reason to hold back. So he didn't.

Oh, G.o.d Beyond, Silence thought, looking at the continuing list of his crimes on the next page.

Beside her, William Ann whispered the words to herself. "He's out there?" she asked. "But where?"

"The merchants," Silence said.

"What?" William Ann rushed back to the peephole. The wood there-indeed, all around the kitchen-had been scrubbed so hard that it had been bleached white. Sebruki had been cleaning again.

"I can't see it," William Ann said.

"Look closer." Silence hadn't seen it at first either, even though she spent each night with the book, memorizing its faces.

A few moments later William Ann gasped, raising her hand to her mouth. "That seems so foolish of him. Why is he going about perfectly visible like this? Even in disguise."

"Everyone will remember just another band of fool merchants from the fort who thought they could brave the Forests. It's a clever disguise. When they vanish from the paths in a few days, it will be a.s.sumed-if anyone cares to wonder-that the shades got them. Besides, this way Chesterton can travel quickly and in the open, visiting waystops and listening for information."

Was this how Chesterton discovered good targets to hit? Had they come through her waystop before? The thought made her stomach turn. She had fed criminals many times; some were regulars. Every man was probably a criminal out in the Forests, if only for ignoring taxes imposed by the fortfolk.

Chesterton and his men were different. She didn't need the list of crimes to know what they were capable of doing.

"Where's Sebruki?" Silence said.

William Ann shook herself, as if coming out of a stupor. "She's feeding the pigs. Shadows! You don't think they'd recognize her, do you?"

"No," Silence said. "I'm worried she'll recognize them." Sebruki might only be eight, but she could be shockingly-disturbingly-observant.

Silence closed the book of bounties. She rested her fingers on its leather.

"We're going to kill them, aren't we?" William Ann asked.

"Yes."

"How much are they worth?"

"Sometimes, child, it's not about what a man is worth." Silence heard the faint lie in her voice. Times were increasingly tight, with the price of silver from both Bastion Hill and Lastport on the rise.

Sometimes it wasn't about what a man was worth. But this wasn't one of those times.

"I'll get the poison." William Ann left the peephole and crossed the room.

"Something light, child," Silence cautioned. "These are dangerous men. They'll notice if things are out of the ordinary."

"I'm not a fool, Mother," William Ann said dryly. "I'll use fenweed. They won't taste it in the beer."

"Half dose. I don't want them collapsing at the table."