Chapter 27 - In Which Turmoil Takes It's Tole

"Oh Christ!!!" The sheriff cried out, a sentiment that Lozen and even Judas appeared to share. All three of them jumped back from the table the second the cloth covering the bodies were unraveled. The first thing everybody noticed was the putrid smell of rotting left to stew in the sun for about a day now and the surface it had roasted on probably didn't help. It burned her nostrils and caused this sensation to stir in the back of her throat like she had just ingested lava. Flies erupted from out of wrap, filling the air with the sound of their infernal buzzing and caused everyone around the table to start swatting at the air indecriminatelty.

"Mother of Mary, what is that smell!?" Judas exclaimed as he gagged in the no longer fresh air. "That's why I wanted to keep them alive. Bodies spoil quicker in the-" Lozen choked on the stench for a moment and let out a cough before she managed to regain her voice. "Heat."

"No! I know spoilage and this isn't spoilage! It smells like Beatrice somehow vomited and shit him out at the same time!"

"Or just Beatrice." Lozen commented, tightening the bandana covering her mouth in a pointless attempt to block out the stench.

"Alright, I'm glad you two seem to be enjoying yourselves, but what exactly am I supposed to do with this? You said this was a bounty." The sheriff said, his words muffled through the elbow he had buried his mouth and nose in as he swiped his hat through the air, trying to disperse the flies and odors clutching the air.

"Sir, I promise you, this is Alberta Cane." Lozen said, gesturing to the posters she had laid on the table next to bodies. "Just look at the face." She recommended even if she didn't want to look at the bloated mess of flesh and skin covering Alberta. The heat had not been friendly to the corpse, but the face could still be made out if someone looked long enough. Though that itself was quite a challenge given how rotted it was.

Even while Judas stumbled back towards the door, the sheriff of the station managed to lean over and take a good, long look at the body. He reeled back a moment later before saying in a voice gagging on itself "Oh Christ....yup, that's here. Jesus fuck, what happened to her? You use this guy as an outhouse?"

"That doesn't even make sense!" Judas barked back as he kept his head near the door.

"Look, it doesn't matter. We brought you the body, now give us the bounty."

"And the other one? With the....." He tucked at his shirt. Lozen again, didn't blame. Out of the two bodies, Sirus's was the only one that they had trouble identifying. For some reason the rot hadn't taken hold of him, Judas had made a quip about preservatives, but the damage the former slaves had done before they finished him off was...extensive. Thought it wasn't as if he didn't deserve it.

"Sirius Cane. Former member of the.....Whatever gang wanted for murdering five sheriffs and slavery."

"Wait, what was that last one?"

"Slavery. Found about twelve dozen of them in his manor when we gunned him down."

The sheriff raised an eyebrow at that before giving a doubtful "Really?" Lozen rolled her eyes, sensing where the man's thoughts were going before saying "I'm not asking for an addition to the bounty. We'll take what we can get. Just make sure you put that on record somewhere."

"Why'd you want me to do that?"

"It's a long story."

A look of realization dawned on his expression after she said that and he replied "Ahhhhhhh. You one of them freemen from over the Mississippi?"

Lozen thought for a moment before saying "No. I'm just-"

"It's alright, son. I ain't got no qualms against you people. I lost some family in the war, fighting for the yanks."

Lozen was starting to put the pieces together and decided to just play along with the man's sympathies "Great. I'm sure the people we found would be very handful for your sacrifice?"

"Why? I ain't the one who freed them?" He said, gesturing to her and unknowingly stabbing a sharpened guilt right into her gut. She winced as she felt it start drawing up her spine, bringing with it a few voices and images that had only recently been recorded. Her hand curled into a fist as she pushed the rising thoughts down and then said in a manner she hoped wouldn't let on what she was really feeling "I suppose so."

The man's eyes drifted all over her for a moment, taking a better look at her as if he realized there was something he was supposed to have noticed. "You know, if you hand over the pretty little knife over there, I might extend that bounty just a bit." Lozen was confused for a moment before she looked down at her belt and saw what he was talking about.

The obsidian dagger was still hanging in it's sheath from her belt, the glint of black just barely being seen at the top of the blade. She had forgotten it was there in all the chaos of the past few days, but even after only now remembering it even existed, she felt her hands reached down to shield the blade from sight.

"It's not for sale." She said, the words tasting strange on her tongue and even the man seemed confused by her remark. "You sure?" He asked only for Lozen to snap back at him with more venom then she anticipated "I said it's not for sale." She didn't know what to expect from the sheriff and was prepared for him to try and take the dagger, but was thankful all the man did was give a small shrug. "Suit yourself." He said and left a small air of empty silence pass between them.

She felt like she should have said something else, especially after she had snapped, but thankfully , she didn't have to try for long before Judas cried from the back of the room "Jesus, just give us the money so we can get out of here!!? This place smells like hell's dumping grounds!!"

Lozen didn't have the strength at the moment to put a spin on his words and just muttered "What he said." The sheriff's sprouting look of admiration withered away at that, staring at her with a look of what could have been disdained before reaching down to open a small drawer hanging to the bottom of the table.

"That should be all of it." He said, his voice more gruff then before as he deposited a number of tiny bags on the counter in front of the corpses. "And where did you say you left all those poor slaves?" The sheriff continued as Lozen scooped up as many of the sacks as she could before saying "Judas, get the rest."

He chuckled at that, still holding his head near the door and said with an audible grin on his concealed face "You know how many people would kill for the chance to say 'Oh my god, I'm going to need help carrying around all this money'?"

"No, but I'm sure you have plenty of experience. Now grab some bags and start moving." Her nose curled up as the smell drove her through the doors, sucking in as much as much air as she could the second she felt the sun on her face. The town wasn't much, but for a patch of stone and wood in the middle of nowhere, it wasn't too bad. Like everywhere this far into the desert, the buildings were lined up across from one another and there was more sand then people nowadays. The signs covering the fronts of the shops were faded and there wasn't a single sound apart from the beating of her own heart.

People had yet to wander into town like they had, but she was hesitant to call for Beatrice just yet. Judas on the other hand, delivered a kick right into the swinging doors and said "Hey!! You old pile of-" Before he could finish, Lozen grabbed one of the bags in her arms and tossed it over at the deadman, striking him square in the jaw. "Ow!! What was that for!?"

"Not here, you..." The word "idiot" was caught in the back of her throat. "Look, there are probably at least a few people in this town and I would very much like that we don't give them any reason to panic."

"Yeah. Duh!" Judas replied as if it were the most obvious fact in the world. Lozen was confused only for a second. "Do you remember how we even came across Sirius?"

"Barely."

"Alberta mentioned him when she realized he had been telling her about meeting Hiawatha. So it's safe to assume he's been in contact with the other members of your team. Now, assuming Iscariot and Lorenzo are alive, they have probably heard of you too and I don't want them to hear about a walking skeleton making its way towards him."

"Eh. Sounds boring. You may not know this, but Isacriot and Lorenzo are...special."

Lozen raised an eyebrow at that and asked "Special how?"

"Trust me, you don't want to know. Let's just say I have a good reason for wanting to make them scared and nothing scares people more than knowing that somewhere out there, death is slowly shuffling towards them. It'll be slow, so much so they may have many years ahead of them, but every second of which they'll enjoy will be plagued with one, inescapable thought. Where is it now? It is a week away? A year? Or is it mere moments?"

Lozen froze for a moment as she heard that and felt a quick shudder rush down her spine at the thought. The worst part wasn't really how horrific the implication was, it was that for some reason Judas had decided to put that much thought into these two. What on earth made him use so much of what used to be his brain? Then something else hit her and whatever fear she had accumulated dissolved away into annoyance in an instance.

"You want me to ask, don't you?" She asked in a deadpan voice to which Judas instantly replied "Really? All this time and you still don't know when to hit your ques."

Lozen rolled her eyes, not wanting to indulge in yet another ego trip, but deciding that she at least could get some information about Isacriot and Lorenzo out of it. "Fine. And what might that be?" She asked.

"Oh, where do I fucking begin?"

"Where indeed."

"Shut up. You don't understand. Iscariot was one thing, but Lorenzo was Goddamnit insane!"

"Sure."

"No! I'm serious! We don't even know where he came from! Alberta was a servant from New York, Moore was a broke loser from Florida, and Sirius was a con artist, loan shark who got chased out of everywhere on the other side of the Mississippi."

"This is fascinating, but can we continue this one the way."

"The way where?"

"With any luck. To the point." Lozen said as she started wandering over down the road. "Now come on. I want to get out of range of the town before calling Beatrice."

"Fine." Judas said as he started trotting behind her, not stopping her rambling for a single moment "But Lorenzo just kinda.....showed up one day. All covered in these real nasty scars and not blinking even a little bit like some fucking demon. And I'm not talking about cat scratches on his check or something. The guy looked like he had just gotten finished being massacred. There was this really but one over his eyes and these weird ones that made it look like he was smiling all the time."

"This better be going somewhere."

"You're the one who asked."

"Under protest."

"Eh. Summantics."

"Do you even know what that means?"

"Anyways, the guy was like the boogeymen. Always wandering around the base, staring at us like this tucking creeper, and he was as good as killing as they came. I know a lot of fuckers like to say they're deadshots or whatever, but this guy, this guy was the real deal. And it wasn't just guns. Knives, axes, hatchets, you name it, he could dice you to pieces with it. The guy was basically Iscariot's private assassin, killing anyone he pointed his fingers at and the fucker did it like it was breathing. He was terrifying. Pretty good motivator though."

"Makes sense. You don't dare step out of line."

"Hey!! Don't compliment him!! That guy was terrifying!!! And the scalps! My god, he loved his scalps. Sheared off as many of them as he could. While they were still alive."

"While who was?"

"Everyone."

"Huh..." Her gut started to twist into knots as she heard that. She had expected there to be resistance if a fight broke out, but Judas's description of this Lorenzo fellow seemed a little too extreme for her comfort. Wait. This was Judas. For all she knew, he could be exaggerating, but at the very least, it had to be an exaggeration based in fact.

"So I assume his job was as an enforcer of sorts?"

"Enforcer, psychopath, gunman, anything that required someone dying, Lorenzo was the guy. Took a lot of trophies too. Guy was real proud of that fact, too."

"I'm assuming these trophies are scalps."

"Of course you would know that."

"Well then, with a little luck, maybe we'll run into someone else who came back just to kill him."

Judas paused for something before saying "I thought you'd be angrier at that."

"About the scalps?"

"Yeah."

"I'm a bounty hunter, Judas. Which means I usually need to lug around proof of my kills and that used to be heads."

"What was the probably."

"Human necks are surprisingly tough to cut. A lotta bones and muscles you have to saw through. Not the most efficient trophy."

"Huh.....did you dad teach you that?"

Lozen winced as she heard that and said "Alright, first off, be a little more ginger when talking about that. Just because I told you the story, doesn't mean you get to talk about it so freely.....It still hurts."

"Right. Sorry about that."

"And two, no. Because why?"

"I thought you savages did that kinda thing all the time."

"I..." She thought about it for a moment and then said "I don't think I've heard a tribe actually doing that. I know some take trophies, but scalps? Wouldn't surprise me, but no. Anyways, how many people do you know Lorenzo killed?"

Judas answered with hesitation "356." Lozen raised an eyebrow and said "Do you want to think about that?"

"Nah." He said as he let out a shaky breath. "I know. He counted."

"And he wasn't lying?"

"With scalps. Lots and lots and lots and lots of scalps."

"Oh." Her gut twisted just as but at the image that plopped in her head at that fact. Not just the idea of a man with a massive scalp collection, but of what came to mind when it came to such an individual's expression. She could see it as plain as day. The malice bloating his eyes, the smile carved on his face, and the laugh that scurried from his throat as he rode on, the flames to his back and breathing in the smoke that rose from the corpses....She shook her head and pushed those memories down before saying "And what methods does he prefer?"

"Knives and hatchets mainly."

"Really? No guns?"

"Nah, unless you count the throwing knives. He is pretty handy with those. Out drew a couple guys with them to."

"Out drew?"

"You know. Quickdraws, dead shots."

"The side shows attractions?"

"Look, point is, he could slash the gun right outs of your hand and bury a knife in your neck quicker then you could shoot."

"Impossible."

"Not if you kill someone before they can pull the trigger."

"Huh..." Her eye's fell to the dagger hanging from her belt. "Interesting. Where did he learn that?"

"No idea. Again, the guy just fucking showed up one day. Real mysterious like."

"Damn. Is there anything that might be a problem."

"Besides the knives, axes, guns, and sociopathic urge to kill everything with a pulse."

"I mean for you."

"Oh, dick."

"Though so. Beatrice!!!" She cried out as she stopped and noticed the twin had shrunk into a dot on the horizon. "So, where now?" Judas asked as they started hearing the clopping of hooves. "That manor seemed to have deposited us farther north then expected. We're close to the parts Isacriot and Lorenzo should be scouting, but it'll take some time to scour it all out. For now, however, we needed somewhere to stay. I haven't slept in nearly a day and it's starting to get hard to concentrate."

"Isn't there a hotel back there?"

"And there's also a village within the area Isacriot should be. Once we get there, we should be able to find a place to rest."

"Do we have to?"

"Would you prefer I collapse in the middle of battle?"

"If I say yes-"

"You'd be wrong. Which reminds me for whatever reason, did you feed Beatrice back at the manor."

"What? No. Like I could fit her in the house. Why?"

The second he asked, he finally noticed the sound of hoof prints bearing against the sand right before the head of a rotting beast smashed right into him.

"Because it probably explains that." Lozen muttered as Judas was sent tumbling across the desert floor, scattering the bags he was holding all over the dust. Beatrice reeled up on her hind legs and smashed them down on the ground as she let out a furious roar, sparking no reaction from Lozen, but a pained holler from Judas.

"JESUS!!! The hell was that for!?" He cried out as he rolled around on the ground. Beatrice spat something back as Lozen marched towards her and the deadman spat back "AND HOW DOES HITTING ME FIX THAT!!?"

"You did promise her meat." Lozen said as she walked over to the beast and started shoving the coin purses into the bag tied to her saddle. "AND WHY'RE YOU BEING NICE TO HER!!?"

"Because I did. Now pick all that up. We should get going before the sun sets. Those people will be less likely to welcome strangers if they come trotting in at the dead of night."

She climbed up onto the saddle as Beatrice kept her eyes on the corpse crawling across then sand and grumbling something about a boot as he picked up the bags.

"Why the hell am I the one picking this up!!?" He said as he poured all of the bags into the satchel and then hopped up onto a spot behind Lozen in shame. "Because you're the one who doesn't know how to take care of an animal. Beatrice, keep heading north."

The horse neighed in protest before begrudgingly starting to trot along as directed.

"So, anything I need to know about this village?"

"It's a tribe's village. Not sure which one, but they're usually a waypoint for travelers."

"Really? In white folk?"

"Trust me. When you're this far out in the middle of nowhere, you'll take what you can get. Some people would prefer a shed in a hole so long as it's shelter and these people have learned how to make some money off of it."

"Why didn't your-"

"Because we live on a piece of sand suspended in the middle of nowhere. Not much you can do with that."

"Ah. Sounds rough."

"I'm aware." She said, disdain starting to drip from her tongue without her even noticing. A part of her was fine that Judas now knew so much, but there was still a large chunk of her person that felt a swell of rage whenever he talked about any of it. He could help the people back home, but she couldn't forget that in the end, he was just another moron looking for glory and didn't care about any of what happened to them in the slightest. If she was wrong, she had yet to be proven otherwise and until then, she wasn't going to tolerate such a man talking so freely about her people. Not everything that had happened. Not after all of them that had burned.

But that wasn't going to solve anything at the moment. She still needed him and she was going to have to pander to that ego of his if he was going to help her. Right now however, it seemed like her comments had pushed him into silence against all odds and allowed her to continue through the rest of the ride in relative quiet and calm.

It wasn't a pleasant journey by any metric, but it at the very least was bearable. The sun cooked her skin and the ripples of mirages in the distance distorted her vision while the sting of insects landing on her neck pulled her attention even further to pieces. To make matters worse, every sensation she felt in this heat blasted hell was causing just a little bit more of her mind to skip away into unconsciousness. The previous night's dilemmas would already have been exhausting enough, but she had hoped she would have been able to at least get a few hours sleep in beforehand. Going from the mess on the train to that and then having to run through the manor the entire night, dodging armed men left and right, it was just too much.

Now, the heat had been dulled to a degree that made it feel rather comforting. Like being wrapped up in a warm blanket right next to the fire, the pleasant sound of wood crackling and snapping carrying you off to sleep. Even being jostled up and down by Beatrice's steady pace was soothing it's own way, the rhythmic manner in which she rose and fell making every second blur together even more.

The only thing that managed to interrupt her slow descent into sleep was the brief casting of a shadow that blocked the sun from her eyes. She snapped to attention all at once, expecting for her to find another horse galloping alongside them, but instead saw herself surrounded by a forest of bark. Her head swiveled on her neck, seeing that there was a thin field of trees surrounding Beatrice. The ground was littered with dry grass and seemed to have started rolling around, interrupting the plateauing terrain that had stretched on for miles. With every step, more and more of the desert started rising or falling all around them with some reaching upwards into the start of great hills of solid stone and downward into the start of valley's

"Oh. You're alive." Judas said as she started glancing around the steadily shifting landscape. "Jesus; you weren't kidding about that sleeping thing. I was about to feed you to Beatrice."

"How long was I like that?"

"Do I look like I have a watch?"

Lozen rolled her eyes and glanced up at the sky, seeing that the sun was getting close to setting with the blue hue cast across the heavens shifting to a bruised purple. It had been a few hours past noon when they left the left so.....Jesus. Three hours at least.

She pinched the top of her nose in annoyance and bit down on her lip until she drew blood. The pain wasn't much, but it should have been enough to keep her alert for the moment. She needed to find some place to stay before she fainted outright and left Judas to talk with their hosts. Even then, she didn't trust that everything would be in order. She had seen some impossible things, actions that didn't defy the laws of nature, but still challenged reality as she knew it. That didn't mean she was ready to lower her weapon. These lands were still hope to people worse then the money lovers and murderous colonizers. Desperate ones who saw nothing but ways to make sure they could bask under the sun for one more day. In the face of losing that, they would be willing to do anything no matter who was left buried in the process. She should know.

Her eyes kept scanning the area, trying to find any sign that she was getting close to the village up until she found a peculiar tree peeking through the steadily growing brush. It's trunk was bent at first perpendicularly only to turn straight back up and created a distinct L shape with the wood.

"Beatrice, hold." Lozen said the second she saw the tree and then slid down to the ground. "Wow. The hell is that?" Judas asked as he followed her suit. "It's a....I suppose there's not a word for it in English. One man I met called them 'trail trees'. Tribes set them up as trail markers in certain areas so they don't get lost. Think of them like sign posts and this one is telling us we're close. So get off the corpse horse and start walking." She stopped right next to Beatrice's one good eye and said as she stared right into the rotting mound "If you lose a single one of those coins, I'll feed you your own stomach and sell you to a glue factory. Understood?" Beatrice neighed at her with a look in the beast's eye that seemed to be daring Lozen to do as she threatened. "Don't play that game with me, beast. You will lose, I can promise you that." She replied to it's condescending stare and the beast almost seemed to smirk that that, a certain level of respect passing between the two as they dared the other to test them.

"Alright, I know a lovers quarell brewing when I see it. Beatrice, off you go." Judas said as he smacked Beatrice on the hind leg only to then get socked in the chest by her hoof. The beast let out a neigh that was almost a laugh and then trotted off into the woods, leaving Judas to squirm on the ground again. "Why do you keep giving her a reason?" Lozen asked as she saw the deadman slowly pushed himself back onto his feet. "I think....." His voice was weazy and he let out a tiny cough before saying in a much clearer tone "I think it's an endurance thing at this point. She tries to make me shut up and I keep flapping my mouth no matter how hard she does."

"Why?"

"Because I ain't gonna give her the satisfaction of winning."

Lozen rolled her eyes and, deciding it wasn't worth the effort, chose to ignore whatever was going on with them. "We're fairly close to the village by now." She said as she started back down the barely noticeable path and untied the bandana from her face. "Keep yourself hidden for now and try to stay out of the spotlight."

"BLASPHEMY!!

"We're only staying here for the night. Or at least until I can start seeing straight again and I would prefer to get in and out of there while drawing as little attention to ourselves as possible."

"So why're you taking that thing off."

"Because....." She swallowed and forced down Hiawatha's words again before continuing "These people have some sort of pity for the tribes. They talk about how we all need to look out for each other and so they give free housing to us."

"Sweet. Does that mean I'm gonna need some pain or something?"

"Just keep that mask on and we should be fine."

"Should I do a-"

"Don't do a voice. If anyone asks, tell them you're from the school's and that you were disfigured from a colonizer attack. They'll understand."

"The hell are the schools?"

"No idea. But a lot of kids are sent there and come out acting like your people. It should excuse...everything."

"Alrighty. Not a bad plan. Looks like I might have some competition."

"Sure. Just keep your eyes open. These people may be our safest bet, but that doesn't mean their safe." Lozen remarked as they continued weaving through the field of trees that were slowly starting to grow denser all around them. More and more trees sprouted up from the ground around them, making the pathway more difficult to discern from the thickening shrubbery if not for the trail trees lining the road. The walk wasn't long by any means and she had tread down it many times before, but the way the ground seemed to wobble beneath her feet and blur in front of her eyes made it feel as if it lasted a lifetime. Her shoulder sagged as if weighed down by fall trees and her head felt the urge to fall to her chest every step of the way as the bouncing of her body with every step she took slowly lulled her to sleep.

"Okay, I'm I gonna have to carry you the whole way there? You look more lifeless then me and are acting like you ingested enough booze to make that a reality." Judas commented as their trek stretched on. "No. No, no, no, no, no, no." Lozen muttered to herself and she bit down on the tip of her tongue. "Just.....keep an eye out. I don't want to get snuck up on."

"By what? The bears?" A moment needed to pass before he realized how stupid he sounded. "Oh wait. The bears."

"Yeah, just..." Her vision blurred once again and she stumbled along with it, but this it was much more extreme then the last. The balls of her feet wobbled in her boots and her knees bent low as her equilibrium vanished. Her entire body wobbled back and forth, its inevitable fall guided by the wrecking ball that had become of her skull. She would have been certain she was about to fall if she could have formed a single thought in that moment and barely even recognized the hand reaching under her arm that saved her.

"Okay, that's it. I'm dragging you." A voice foreign to her dying hearing said before she felt a great force wrench the limb forward and with it, her entire body. It may not have been gentle, but it pulled her along before gravity could drag her to the ground, so she found little reason to protest. Not that she could have in that moment. Everything in her head felt too thin to grab yet somehow, too heavy to hold at the same time, crushing her and fluttering away at the same time. It took more than she would have liked to even recognize it was difficult to stay awake, but by some miracle her flickering sight managed to discern something through the blurred terrain.

Interrupting the fresh greens and sturdy browns was the tan color of tarps rising up from the fields of trees. It was small and more often than not, vanished behind the trunks as they continued down the trail, but it was defitnekt out there. They were getting close. "Hey, you conscious?" Judas's voice said and after a small moan, Lozen replied "Yes."

"Good, 'cause we have company."

Before Lozen could ask, another voice came out from somewhere in front of them and said "Stop there. Not a step closer. State your business." Anticipating who it belonged to, Lozen straightened herself out as best as she could before saying in Apache "We're just travelers, who've had some troubles on the road and are hoping to find shelter. We heard you could accommodate us."

Silence passed for a moment before the voice said "I'm sorry. We don't know your dialect."

Lozen switched back to English after a brief pause she took to gather herself "My apologies. We were told there would be other tribesmen here that would give us shelter."

"Is she alright?" Another voice as the sound of footsteps started making their way towards them and Lozen replied before they could get close. "Our troubles on the road have been exhausting." She then wrenched her hand away from Judas and tried approaching the figure before her footing collapsed under her. She would have fallen onto her face if she hadn't instead been caught by two pairs of hands grabbing ahold of both her arms.

"Oh no. How long has she been like this?" One of them asked and Lozen tried answering, but her words were reduced to tiny trickles of noise that could barely even call themselves murmurs. Their voices had the slightest hint of some sort of accent, one that she could only recognize as non colonial. That fact should have let her relax, but it changed nothing. She couldn't trust them, especially not while she could barely stand. Even now she could hear the clinking of their weapons dangling from their belts and smell the gunpowder ready to be lit. They were armed and she had made the mistake of putting Judas behind her. If they pulled out their weapons now, even he would have to surrender. But there was nothing she could do now, not matter how muggy she hated the ideas and was forced to let Judas speak in her place. The one man who couldn't see eye swords hanging above their heads.

"A few hours." He said, sounding more bored then anything else.

"Not good." One of them muttered before the other one said "Are you sure about that?"

"Oh yeah."

"Did she bite by anything or maybe ate someone off the side of the road?"

"Well, no."

"Then what happened? If she's this exhausted after only a few hours, she must have been poisoned. Are you sure nothing happened to her?"

"Huh...well, not nothing. At first we got into a firefight on a train, then she had to ride a horse to outpace the tree, stand off with at least seven guys, then took a carriage ride for ten hours straight, got in another shoot out, then another one, spent twelve hours running all through this big manor thing trying to escape some gun toting recently freed slaves, and then had to ride for nearly half a day to this exact location. Oh, and I'm pretty sure she survived and cave in and

There was a brief moment of silence after he finished until one of the figures said "Well, it at least explains the blood stains and bandages. Let's get her to a bed."

At that, Lozen swung her head up as much as she could before saying "No. Wait. I can walk." She tried getting her feet under again, but her exhaustion swept them out from under her again and caused the arms holding her to tighten. Even if she could trust these people, she needed to stay on her feet and ready herself for whatever horrible thing could happen. Maybe they had been paid off by some other colonizers who wanted native slaves, or maybe they had come on hard times and were planning to eat her, or perhaps there was an unseen swarm of white men waiting over the hills for night to come. She could practically smell the smoke starting to waft through the wood.

But that wasn't going to keep her conscious. With her eyes dropping and every atom of her being letting gravity drag it down, she felt the last of her slip out of the waking world with two sentences being heard in her last moments that caused her stomach to twist into knots. They were words never uttered by the trustworthy and ones that too many dead men had placed their faith in before having a knife driven into their spines. "Don't worry. You're going to be alright."

And so she drifted off, praying her instincts were wrong and that the voice in the back of her head reciting everything that could go wrong was incorrect in its assumptions. So she could close her eyes while being able to do more than hope and pray. A sliver of hell, mocking her before the dark and silence enclosed her.