Red Waters Rising: Volume 3 (Devil's West, The, Band 3) - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Laura Anne Gilman is the author of the Locus bestsellers Silver on the Road and The Cold Eye, the popular Cosa Nostradamus books (the Retrievers and Paranormal Scene Investigations urban fantasy series), and the Nebula Award–nominated The Vineart War trilogy. Her first story collection is Dragon Virus, and she continues to write and sell short fiction in a variety of genres. Follow her at @LAGilman or LauraAnneGilman.net.

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Red Waters Rising

ONE

Isobel had traveled from the low plains to the high reaches of the Mother’s Knife, through storm and sun and snow, but the past few days had found her limit. “It’s winter,” she said, not for the first time. “Why is it still so warm?”

“Welcome to the southlands,” Calico Zac said with a shrug. “You get used to it.” Both Isobel and Gabriel gave him a side-eye at that, and he laughed.

They had met up with the native Rider a week earlier, traveling through Nanatsoho lands. He had proven a fascinating companion, especially for two Riders well and truly sick of each others’s stories, but spoke little of himself, saying only that he’d been gone from home for some time, and offering to keep them company along the Road if they were heading in the same direction.

They had been. Although Isobel was having deep second thoughts about Gabriel’s insistence that the winter months would best be spent traveling the southern swing of the Territory, if it was all like this.

The morning sun dappled through still-green branches overhead, the Road stretching clear and flat ahead of them, following the slight curve of the stream that Zac said would lead them to their destination. But despite the shade, the air was thick and heavy with moisture, making the simple act of breathing exhausting and leaving Isobel with the constant urge to scrape at her skin. She knew it had not in fact begun growing moss to match the sides of the trees bunched up alongside the road, but knowing that and believing it were two vastly different things.

Gabriel made a rueful noise as he mopped the sweat from his brow before tugging his hat back down over his forehead. “He’s right, Iz. You will get used to it. Eventually. And summer’s worse.”

Isobel glared at them both then, using the edge of her own kerchief to wipe the sweat gathering along her hairline. It didn’t help; within minutes, her face was again lightly coated, matching the wetness under her blouse and settling around her waist. Her hat hung from its cord down the back of her neck, the weight of its brown felt too much to bear, even if it meant she had to squint in the occasional spars of bright sunlight coming between the trees.

She glanced at the men riding on either side of her. Gabriel had shed his jacket and rolled up his shirtsleeves, but Calico Zac seemed utterly unaffected, save for a faint sheen of sweat on his face. Their horses, and the mule following behind, seemed likewise unaffected, their tails swishing lazily at the insects but otherwise showing no signs of distress. She hated them, just a little, just then.

Still, it could have been much worse without their companion to show them what leaves, rubbed on the skin, could dissuade the worst of the insects, and how to tie their bedrolls off the ground at night to catch even the faintest breeze.

Isobel had spent the first sixteen years of her life in the high plains, where storms left the air crisp and clear, and summer heat could be avoided until night fell and things cooled again. Even in the months she’d been on the Road, they’d traveled up into the mountains, where the high summer sun might pink her skin, but never felt particularly warm. She felt as though she’d passed into another world. Maybe the one folk said the devil came from, infernally hot and filled with suffering. Damp suffering.

“We’ll keep the southland for last,” she muttered, mocking Gabriel’s deeper voice. “?‘Avoid the snows, you’ll see enough in your time, no need to rush it.’ You didn’t say anything about the air pretending to be water, or the insects.”

He ducked his head just enough that she knew he was hiding a grin. “Oh, now, they’re not so bad . . .”

“There are beetles. Everywhere.” Specifically, large back beetles in her clothing when she woke up in the morning, and a massive brown spider in the grain she’d been cooking for breakfast.

She had not screamed, but she might have used some words that might have gotten her ears boxed, back home.

“You’ll get used to it,” Calico Zac said again, just as a brightly colored darner swooped and fluttered in front of her, seeming to alight between Uvnee’s ears before shooting off again.

Isobel scowled down at her hands, staring at the ragged edges of her nails, the sun-darkened skin and the dirt ingrained into the leather of Uvnee’s reins, then glanced sideways and saw that Gabriel was smiling, his gaze following the darner as well.

It was the first time she’d seen him smile in days, she realized suddenly. That particular smile, the one that wasn’t about something funny, but a good thought, that made him happy. They’d ridden together long enough that she could tell the difference, and she wondered why—and when—that smile had become rare.

She looked up to see more darners, diving singly and in pairs, skimming low before disappearing into the foliage. Darners were as pretty as butterflies, maybe even more so, Isobel had to admit. And didn’t bite or sting.

“All right,” she admitted, letting the reins go slack on Uvnee’s neck long enough to cross her arms and direct a glare at Zac. “Maybe there’s something to be said for this part of the Territory, too. Still doesn’t make up for finding a widder in my boot this morning.”

The two men glanced at her, but didn’t respond, and she shifted in her saddle, terribly aware of the weight of her skirts and the close fit of her boots. She’d rolled down her stockings the day before, choosing one discomfort over another, but the heat still prickled on her skin, damp and uncomfortable. Uvnee snorted, and she eased on the reins, aware she was holding too tight and the mare was becoming uneasy. “Sorry, girl,” she said. “I’m just . . .”

“The word you’re looking for,” Gabriel said, “is ‘cranky.’?”

She couldn’t deny it. Nor could she avoid the reason for it, far more than the too-damp air or the increase in biting insects.

They weren’t only heading south. They were heading toward a place called Red Stick. A city.

Isobel had never been in a city before. She couldn’t quite imagine it, no matter how many times she’d asked Gabriel, and now Zac, to describe it to her. That many people, all in one place . . .

With all that had been happening in the past few months they were on the Road, all the things they’d dealt with, it was sometimes easy to forget that she was riding for a reason. This was her mentorship ride: She was the Devil’s Left Hand, the physical form of his judgment and protection, and the people of the Territory needed to know her—and she them. She did not have the freedom to say where she might go or where she might stay; she went where she was needed, same as any of the devil’s tools.

And the southernmost corner of the Territory was important. The Mother’s Knife held the silver mines and kept the Spaniards from invading in force from the west, but they were inhospitable, even for the native tribes; few people lived there year round. The plains were kinder, but the largest town they’d visited had held no more than a few thousand souls, and more often they saw farm-groupings, two or three families gathering together...