Friends (2013) - Adams, Robert

This wasn’t the sort of thing he had wanted. Not ever. But it was a matter of tradition, perhaps of necessity. His many-times-great-grandfather, before the Blast, had been what the ancients called a “sheriff’; while the original functions of the office had long been lost in travels of the Kindred, the office, the blackened badge, and the pistol had been handed on; it was a family tradition.

It weighed heavily—literally.

The crude leather pistol belt wasn’t a bad example as it hung on his hip, its weight threatening to cut him in two. It wasn’t supposed to have been his yet, but his father, Micah, had died last year in an idiotic accident, his chest crushed when his horse had fallen and rolled over him.

It wasn’t right. The responsibility shouldn’t be his.

Not with only fifteen summers behind him.

His hand fell to the strap holding down the butt of the ancient weapon, his blunt fingers feeling at the runes that Kindred had long lost the ability to decipher.

It felt strange under his hand. And that was more than passing strange in itself. Under Micah’s instruction, he had dry-fired it perhaps ten thousand times, practiced with it for hours and hours, ritualistically cleaning and oiling it after each such use.

Never, of course, had he placed it loaded in its holster. The pistol and seven cartridges had been handed down to him by his father, Mikah, as he lay dying; Dunkahn had intended to hand all down to his son. Never, that is, until this morning, when Chief Milo of Morai had wakened him, saying formally: “Sheriff Lehvee, there has been a shooting.”

There has been a shooting. The words felt strange on his tongue as he tried them out silently. The last time that had been said it had been to his grandfather, when the Kindred’s travel had brought them up against a band of roving raiders with rifles. Simon, who had inherited twenty-three bullets from his father, had tracked them down; when he returned to the Lehvee encampment, there were only seven.

Someday, perhaps, a Lehvee sheriff would fire the last round. There was, after all, a last time for everything.

Dunkahn Lehvee, of course, had never fired a shot in anger. Not even with a hornbow; he was renowned among Clan Lehvee as perhaps the worst bowman that the Kindred had ever produced. His skills with a sword were similar; with a lance, he was only passable, and that was only because of the almost instinctive way that his dappled mare responded instantly to almost microscopic nudgings of his knees and twitching of the reins. If he didn’t know better, he would have thought that Sunflower could read his mind.

How was he with a pistol? He didn’t know, despite all the hours of practice. The pistol was supposed to be a symbol, not a weapon. To actually have to use the pistol was something he had considered only idly.

And for what? To avenge a God-forsaken Braizhoor horsethief, his woman, and their cubs? Ridiculous. Granted, dirtmen had to be persuaded that attacking Kindred was a fatal mistake, but the point could have been made another

way. Still, he didn’t like the memory of the large hole in what had been little Ahrthuh Braizhoor’s chest. Braizhoor

cubs were cute, just like all little children. Why had the dirtmen shot the little one?

That wasn’t right. Nothing wrong with killing a full-grown Braizhoor, but a baby? That wasn’t right.

“Chief Milo?” he asked from the back of his horse, while the big, black-haired man knelt next to the ashes of the campfire. “How long?”

Milo Morai eyed him levelly. “More than a moment, less than a year.” With a grace that belied his size, the big man swung to the back of his brown gelding and kicked it into a slow wafk, leading the two packhorses while Dunkahn led their two spare mounts.

Riding toward a setting sun felt strange. The long travels of the Kindred were always to the east, occasionally veering north or south, but never west. The morning sun had been created to beat into one’s eyes; the afternoon sun was supposed to warm one’s back.

Milo Morai’s eyes didn’t meet Dunkahn’s as they rode. Not that there was anything shy about the big man, but eyes fixed on the next stand of trees or rocky outcropping had no time for the courtesy of looking at the one he was addressing.

They rode in silence as the darkness slowly fell; before the light totally faded, Milo called a halt and they made a rude camp in a stand of trees at the edge of the forest, although he relaxed visibly only after Dunkahn had climbed the tallest of the leafy giants in an attempt to spot their quarry.

There was sign of them—they had clearly entered the forest and were likely camped somewhere along the trail—but they were clearly not near. Yet.

Supper was a swig of water and a few mouthfuls of pem-mican for the humans and water for the horses, who were hobbled to graze nearby. Good Horseclans ponies, they wouldn’t wander far, and would sound an alarm if anything approached. Except for Sunflower; Dunkahn patted her solid neck and let her roam free, knowing that she would return at his whistle.

The two men took to their furs. Dunkahn eyed the sky; it was a clear night, stars burning overhead like distant campfires.

“Are you sure that you won’t lend me the pistol?” Chief Milo asked from the dark.

It had been a shock to Dunkahn when Morai had made that suggestion two days before, before they had set out on the trail of the fleeing murderers. After several gentle repetitions, it wasn’t shocking anymore. He wasn’t certain why Morai kept it up; didn’t repeating the same silly question bore the older man?

“No,” Dunkahn responded gently. “Only the Sheriff of Clan Lehvee or his heir may touch the badge of office,” he said, refiexively bringing his thumb up to touch the blackened shield pinned to his rough leather vest, “or the pistol that backs up his au-thor-ity,” he finished, stumbling over the old English word that wasn’t Merikan.

“Understood.” Morai nodded. “I’d really like to take a look at the rounds, though. Probably most don’t fire, after all this time. Although your ancestor did choose well; Remington Archivals were designed and packed to have an indefinite shelf life.”

Dunkahn wondered, again, where such knowledge came from. If knowledge it was, and not mere braggadocio; Chief Milo often let go pieces of information that it would seem he couldn’t possibly have come by. But Milo Morai didn’t impress Dunkahn as a braggart.

And while it simply had never been done for another to touch the sheriff’s tools of office, looking was something else, Dunkahn decided.

Dunkahn burrowed into his furs and took the spare round from his belt pouch, holding it in the palm of his hand as he walked over to Morai. Sealed in something like intestine, only thinner, brass shone brightly in the moonlight.

Dunkahn had never seen prettier metalworking; the smiths that had built the pistol and rounds must have been true wizards, indeed.

But they and their magics were long since gone. The world was left to the damn bowmen and swordsmen.

“Looks good.” Morai shrugged as Dunkahn returned to his furs. “Can’t tell by looking, but some have clearly survived the centuries.” He patted at the hornbow strapped to his saddle and hitched across his belt at his sword. “But maybe we’ll have to rely on this.”