Cowboy necromancer 4 nov.., p.19
Cowboy Necromancer 4: Novella Compendium: (A LitRPG Apocalypse), page 19
Sterling dusted his hands off. “All in a day’s work.”
He limped back to the Great Saltair, where he would join the denizens of Saltair for a feast, one that saw the large hall filled with tables where people shared a meal family-style. If Sterling and his companions had arrived at this point, it would have seemed as if a battle hadn’t even taken place.
They sat with the Chronicler and the Oracle for the feast, the latter of which never removed her veil and never took a single bite of the meal.
I wish you could read my mind, Sterling thought to her as the bread came. He never was one to appreciate the kind of behavior she exhibited, this ‘holier-than-thou’ attitude. Are all telemancers screwed in the head? Likely.
It was hard not to scowl at the woman, but the food eased his mood.
The bread was warm and smelled great. It tasted even better with butter, which was dished out in thick bricks and used for almost everything. Sterling saw some of the kids using the butter on their meat, most of which consisted of beef and lamb.
“Mister.”
Sterling instantly recognized the woman’s voice. He put his knife and fork down and turned to find Lily Gray, whom he had once saved from a wicked Elder of Nauvoo in western Deseret. She looked better than she had the last time he’d seen her, the woman with a bit more weight to her frame.
“I just wanted to come over here and say thank you.”
“Ain’t no need to thank nobody. I just happened to be in the wrong place at the right time,” he said, referring to both his sudden appearance in the Salt Flats and his current presence at Saltair.
“Well, thank you anyway.”
After the meal, Sterling and the Kid were given a large space with two rooms, one that was used for visiting elders. Finally, Sterling could take his boots off.
Grumbled to himself once he looked down at his right foot to see that it was black from his toes up to his ankle. Why wasn’t this foot healing? Any of the other nicks and scrapes he’d received were usually healed by this point.
“That doesn’t look good,” the Sunflower Kid said after she peeked her head into the room. Buster came charging in after, followed by Roxie, who seemed to tilt toward Sterling’s foot.
“Don’t y’all go bothering me about this here,” he said as Buster sniffed his boot.
“Rox, ain’t nothing spreading—”
Sterling summoned a bottle of tequila, one that was about half-full. “Y’all are worrying over nothing.”
The Sunflower Kid sat on a chair near the bed and watched him take a swig of the bottle. He wiped his mouth and let out a deep breath.
“We need to get to another vortex.”
“I know that,” Sterling told his daughter as he naturally placed his hand on Buster’s head. “But what’s that have to do with this here?” He motioned to his foot. Sterling knew the answer to this, but he wasn’t about to say anything about it. Sometimes it was in his nature to be ornery. “We’ll see how it is in the morning. And that vortex is probably out there beyond Moab. Maybe that’s why the Godwalker crashed.”
“I don’t know what I think,” he told Roxie, “I’m just saying.”
Sterling laughed. “I ain’t that old, Rox. The Reset has kept me young. Just need a fresh shave, you’ll see. I’ll look like a damn twenty year old.”
She slowly drifted out of the room, leaving Sterling with the Sunflower Kid.
“We’ll monitor the leg, Dad.”
“I know we will. Sorry. Ain’t trying to bark at ya, Kid. Just don’t need none of y’all fussin’ at me. Been a day. A long ass day. Just like yesterday and hell, the day before that. I can’t tell you what I’d do for a short day, mostly because I don’t know what I’d do. I’d damn sure cherish it, I can say that, though. Damn sure.”
The Sunflower Kid smirked at him. “Try to get some rest, old man.”
Sterling laughed. “Ain’t hard for an ol’ necromancer like me,” he told his daughter as she left the room.
What followed was much needed rest, Sterling sleeping in the next morning. By the time he was up, the Sunflower Kid had already gathered with Cedric, Omar, and the Chronicler. He could hear them as he sat at the edge of the bed the next morning, looking at his blackened toes.
His foot wasn’t healing.
“Damn thing.”
It didn’t appear to be spreading, but the numbness he felt when trying to stand on the foot told Sterling that things might not turn out the way he hoped they would. Rather than join the others, he rolled a few cigarettes. Sterling knew they were waiting on him, but he wanted a moment to collect himself before trying to stuff his frostbitten foot into his cowboy boot.
“Get you fixed yet,” he said, wincing through the pain. A knock at the door caught his attention. “Just give me a damn minute.”
“It’s me.”
“Come in then,” he told the Kid, his voice softening.
The Sunflower Kid now had bright pink hair that framed her face in curls, her cheeks flushed. She looked nothing like she had during the day, the shape of her face entirely different, rounder, with a flatter nose. “Is it still bad?”
“Well, my foot ain’t dandy. I can tell you that. I’ll survive. Let’s just get to Moab.”
The Kid came forward to help Sterling but he shooed her away. “It’s all good.”
“Until it ain’t,” Sterling said. He was a bit wobbly, but he soon made it out to greet the others. There was the Chronicler in his khaki shorts even though it was cold out, Cedric and Omar in their flight suits, and Roxie. As he often did, Sterling caught a glimpse of himself upon seeing the Godwalker.
“You ready to fly, cowboy?” Cedric asked, beaming over at Sterling, his blue eyes gleaming.
“Hell nah. Never will be neither. But I suppose this is what we got to do. Y’all know where you’re going?” Sterling leaned on his good foot. “‘Cause I sure as hell don’t.”
“We’ve confirmed everything,” Cedric said as he pointed his thumb at the Chronicler. “He was quite helpful in that regard. His maps of Deseret are second to none.”
“I do pride myself on my maps,” the Chronicler said, the researcher currently nursing a pipe. “A couple other things. For one, here’s this.” He gave Sterling a bag of tobacco. “Figured you could use some. Got you some other things too.” The Chronicler stepped aside to reveal a bottle of tequila on the table and a bag full of dried meat.
“Shee-it, looks like Christmas came early. What I need to do is get the Kid here growing some tobaccy for me and then dry it out myself.”
“No, thank you.”
“Come on,” he told the Kid. “I know we are in the pepper game doing business under the name Skeleton Man and the Sunflower Kid Peppers, but dang, if we really want to get all the jewels, we should be in the tobacco biz.”
The Sunflower Kid smirked at him. Instead of saying anything, she crouched and began petting Buster, who stood near her wagging his tail. Roxie, who floated near the Kid, was the next to speak.
“What the hell, Rox? Why would you say something like that?”
“Well, I mean, we got to set some aside for research purposes and whatnot. Call that a write-off. And then there’s marijuana. Don Gasper would love it if we got into that game. Peppers, tobaccy, and Mary Jane. The holy trinity, if you ask me.”
“Um, sure,” Cedric said. By the look on his face, this was the first time he’d heard Roxie’s voice.
Soon, they were on the outskirts of Saltair, Cedric and Omar preparing their helicopter. Sterling joined the Chronicler as the older man admired the craft. “Flectomancers are truly a unique breed.”
“They sure are,” he said as he ashed his cigarette. “And so are telemancers. Any word on the Oracle? She gonna play nice or what?”
“She has yet to meet with her other advisors. These things take time, you know.”
“Do they need to, Dusty?”
A hint of humor traced across the Chronicler’s eyes. “No, they don’t. But that’s how humans operate. If we simply did everything that needed to be done when it needed to be done, we’d have nothing to do.”
“Might need to write that epithet down. You got a haiku version?” Sterling grinned at the researcher. It was nice to see one of his friends again.
This grin was soon replaced by a grimace, one that had his teeth pressing together as the aircraft lifted into the air.
Sterling tried to cancel everything out, his eyes clenched shut. Nothing on the periphery, just pretend…
He didn’t know what to pretend, but he eventually settled on this feeling that he was riding Manchester up and down a series of rocky hills. That seemed to help to some degree, Sterling trying not to think too much about the shifts in gravity, or how his stomach kept churning the higher they flew. He also tried not to think about his numb foot. That was going to be a problem. He knew it, but he wasn’t ready to admit it.
They tilted toward the ground a few hours later. Sterling felt a rush in his head, his limbs tingling as everything shifted around him. Sterling kept his eyes clenched shut, and didn’t open them until they were on solid ground again.
“Moab is gorgeous,” Cedric said as the blades started to slow.
“It really is,” Omar agreed.
“Wait until you all see the park,” the Chronicler told them. “That’s where the wrecked Godwalker is.”
The Chronicler was greeted with a warm welcome at the Moab entrance, the guards surprised to see him. “You were just here,” the one on the left said, a woman with a gruff voice.
“I was, I was. And I’m back. Is the Elder in her home?”
“Where else would she be?” Sterling halfway joked. His leg was really starting to get to him, making him irritable. He tried to soften the bite of his tone by going for a question. “Y’all don’t got a movie theater around here or something, do you? Feel like catching a flick.”
“Actually, they do. Well, it’s in the old theater that they’ve repurposed. It’s where I saw Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” the Chronicler told him as they continued down the main road of the town.
“Third Kind, huh? Never heard of that one.”
“It’s about aliens,” the Chronicler said. “Apropos, yes?”
The Sunflower Kid laughed.
“What the hell, Rox? What does seeing movies from the Before People have to do with getting out? Dang, I just came from Californ-I-Ay. Ain’t that enough getting out?”
“Use you for what?” Sterling bit his lip. He turned behind him and saw just how much he was dragging his foot. It was extra visible in the red dust of Moab. “I’ll be alright, dammit. Y’all stop fussing over me.”
While Sterling could technically float, he summoned Manchester instead. He tried to mount up and failed. “Just keep going,” he told the others. “I’ll goddamn catch up. I know where the Elder lives.”
“Come on,” the Sunflower Kid said, the teenager a true barometer for Sterling’s mood.
They moved ahead, leaving Sterling standing there next to his skeletal steed. “Don’t you worry about them, Pingo,” he said as he placed his hand on what once was Manchester’s cheek. “Don’t you worry about them none. That foot will heal, hell, and if it don’t… Well, I’ll figure it out.”
Sterling hovered high enough in the air to mount his bone horse. Soon, he had joined the others, the now salty cowboy necromancer keeping to the back of the group.
There were red cliffs beyond, the city of Moab well protected from the elements. The settlers had built the place into a valley, one that was as hidden as it was comfortable. Sterling knew. One of his best recent memories, his night out with Roxie, had taken place in Moab.
What a night…
They reached the Elder’s home, which was quaint and tucked away along the main street just as Sterling remembered it.
The Elder of Icaria was seated on the front porch—Is she always here?—when they approached. The dark-skinned woman wore light blue robes that were kimono-esque and covered in hummingbirds. It was an incredible get-up when combined with her poofy hair, the Elder much more colorful than the boring drapes that the others in the Serpents of Paradise often wore. Near her, currently resting on a cushioned dog bed, was her chihuahua, Evan.
The chihuahua started barking, only to be shushed by its owner. “Short time, no see,” she said to the Chronicler. “And long time, no see,” she told Sterling, Roxie, and the Sunflower Kid.
The Chronicler gestured toward the two pilots. “This is Omar and Cedric. They’re from the Hashknife Outfit.”
“Down south, huh?”
“That’s right, ma’am,” Cedric said.
“They have business with the Oracle.”
“So why are you here then, hmmm?” the Elder of Icaria asked Dusty. “Not that I mind your company. Anyone in Deseret will clear their afternoon for a conversation with the Chronicler, scheduled or not.”
“You flatter me. As to why we are here, the Oracle needs some time to consult her council about a matter involving a treaty. I can catch you up on that later.”
“Yes, I would like that.”
“In the meantime, I figured we would investigate the recent Godwalker that has crashed.”
“We have done some investigating ourselves, mainly Maurice, our best flectomancer.”
Sterling lit a cigarette, the cowboy necromancer still perched on his bone horse. Maurice was the flectomancer who had concocted the XP farm in Moab, the one where someone could repeatedly face off against a bull amalgamation. That had been the main way Sterling had made it to Level 90, gaming the system.
“Ol’ Maurice was out there at the site?” he asked the Elder as he exhaled a cloud of smoke.
“Sure was. He put something together too, based on the weapons he uncovered.”
“You don’t say. Shee-it, looks like we need to pay Maurice a visit.”
“He isn’t at his shop right now,” the Elder of Icaria informed him. “He left for the park earlier, but should be back in the morning. In the meantime, why don’t you all catch me up on everything that has happened since we last met? I feel like you’re skipping over some things.”
“Since we last met, huh?” Sterling took a drag from his cigarette. “I hope you’re sitting down.”
She smirked at the cowboy necromancer. “I believe I am.”
For the next hour and into the night, Sterling and his companions did just that, catching the Elder up on what had happened in Albuquerque with the various gangs there, how the Killbillies had gone to the wayside, the expansion of Comancheria and how they had brought down the terminal in Chaco Canyon. This shifted to a conversation about what had already happened in Arizona, from the discovery of the Inquisitor Godwalker to running the Angels of Woe out of Flagstaff.
It was a lot to take in.
And by the time they finished their meal that night, Sterling was ready for a good night’s rest.
The last thing he expected was to be woken early the next morning to the sound of screams, Sterling pulled from his reverie as the walls came tumbling down.
The Inquisitor Godwalker had appeared.
.Chapter Seven.
The Elder’s home split in two as a beam of energy cut right through it.
Sterling gasped awake to find the ceiling coming down on him, tiles and wood splitting and splintering as everything collapsed. He was buried in the rubble just as another blast brought more cries, the beam of energy strong enough to melt any metal it touched.
“Goddammit!” Sterling burst into the air, the debris flying off him.
His trajectory changed as soon as he was free of the rubble, Sterling going sideways and straight into a chimney. He hit the ground, and finally caught a glimpse of their attacker, the Inquisitor Godwalker, floating defiantly in the middle of town as it charged up for another blast.
Its next attempt seared right past Sterling as he looked around frantically for his daughter.
Roxie’s voice to the left brought a wave of relief to the cowboy necromancer. They weren’t in the clear by any means, but the mere knowledge that his daughter and Roxie had made it out alive inspired him to turn back to the Godwalker.
Sterling’s grenade launcher appeared in his hand.
He raced toward the alien craft and fired his first shot. It landed just beneath the Godwalker and did little to disrupt its next attack, one that shredded many of the buildings that lined downtown Moab. He wasn’t the only one to engage the Godwalker, Sterling entirely surprised to see a burst of flames indicating a pyromancer was on the scene as well.
“Cedric, no!” he shouted as the pilot grew too close to the Godwalker.
Sterling all but expected him to be incinerated, yet Cedric managed to bolt out of the way just in time. Why wasn’t the Godwalker leaving?
In his last two encounters, the Inquisitor Godwalker seemed to leave quickly, yet it now seemed hellbent on ravaging Moab.
Rather than fire a single, concentrated beam, the Inquisitor Godwalker released a sphere that produced numerous lasers, all of which cut through the Elder’s incoming forces with relative ease. Insult to injury came in the form of the floating sphere’s final act, an explosion that not only shook the ground but also coated anything in the vicinity in liquid fire.
“What do you think we should do?” asked the Sunflower Kid, who stood near Sterling now with her plant constructs at the ready. “Run?”
“I’m not really the type to—”
The Inquisitor Godwalker tore through more buildings with a blast that left the air writhing with static.
