Town McDougall was built on the tomb of a dragon. The silver-scaled serpent fell and formed its tomb long ago. Out of the crater, a group of humans called Clan McDougall built their homes and raised their Unigoats. Centuries later they had a connected town with wealthy mines, productive farmlands at the base and one of the finest flock of Fae in the Northlands.
Even as they were riding up the Mountain, Boyd knew something was wrong. It was too damn quiet. There were people but they walked glass-eyed. Have you ever seen a human walk inhumanly? Boyd had seen Silkies before, ghostly women who wandered alone making nae sound but the swishing of their skirts. He hadn’t the nerve to reach out and talk to his own people.
A McDougall unable to say hello to another McDougall; what had the world become?
“Boyd, please. There is something not right about this. You gotta see it?” implored Bren at the volume of a whisper.
Boyd had no reply to her obvious truth. All his senses showed him to be wrong. But he was committed. He clung to the desperate fiction that if he could talk to the Sheriff all would be well.
“Boyd!” she whispered.
They rode to the town’s edge. There stood the Sheriff armed with her rifle, the muzzle pointing skywards. Her legendary Fae-Eye Scope was still in Boyd’s pocket. At her waist, where her auburn hair curtailed rested her own six-sleeper-shot 44. calibre revolver.
Beneath her wide-brimmed white hat, white eyes coldly analysed Boyd. Her soothing blue eyes gone.
“For the crime of assault against Jock, Jacques and wee Bob you are under arrest. Resist and Die or Submit and join the Flock.”
Boyd faded pale and he stammered, “I acted in self-defence! Sheriff, we don’t do killings and why are you siding with Black Jock? Please, you know what kind of person he is?”
A drizzle started to fall down.
The Sheriff answered, as if pulling the words out of Black Jock’s mouth, “You’re not one of us.”
“And how do you even know what happened?” Bren argued from the back of Thistle, “She wasn’t even there! How can you not see Boyd! She is one of them!”
The Sherriff loaded and readied her rifle, “Last chance, my friend.”
The drizzle grew to a deluge. In the wet North weather, everyone was getting soaked to the bone.
Wet drops poured down Boyd's wide brimmed hat.
The Sherrif lowered her rifle and… Click.
Magic arms were useless now. Too much rain from the finite powder to launch the round.
“Praise me stars,” Bren words were muffled by the downpour.
Boyd turned Thistle around.
“After them! Dead or Alive!” screamed the Sheriff, and one of Boyd’s few friends commanded his death.
He ducked an axe.
The axe flew past and clipped another McDougall.
There was no time left in town McDougall for them to stay alive.
Boyd flicked the reins of Thistle hard, “Ha!”
The rain cascaded down, as Thistle sprinted out.
The town was up in arms. A few hundred folks rode and ran after them. They chased them down the mountain like an avalanche.
A knife flew and stabbed deep into his shoulder.
“Boyd!” screamed Bren.
“Ride Thistle, run faster than the winds!” Boyd demanded as the knife twisted through every step Thistle made.
He was white as milk but his teeth bared in brutal determination to escape.
A McDougall rode next to them. Boyd deflected their punch and gave him midland’s kiss; slamming his forehead through the numpty’s noggin.
The numpty reeled back and diverted away.
“Boyd, free me!”
Boyd kicked another McDougall we drew close, “No!”
“There are too many. We will die if you don’t”
Boyd looked around and saw familiar faces contorted to rage. Riders were closing in on all sides, and further back hundreds of townspeople chased after them. He grounded his teeth, and drew the knife at his waist.
He slashed the bindings and freed Bren MacElory; the Red-Haired Giant.
She laughed, “Deputy and Outlaw working together.”
One of the McDougalls came up the rear and Bren clobbered them with a meaty fist.
The McDougall flew off their ride and hit the dirt with a nasty thud.
The pair fought off the McDougall riders, but by the end, Boyd was panting heavy breaths. He swayed slightly from side to side. But, he kept a firm grip on the reins.
The Sheriff drew near. Her unicorn – Whitebeam – puffed with exertion. The Face of the McDougall law threw a knife but it flew wide, the second fell short, and the third Bren batted away with her hand.
Bren and the Sheriff traded blows and each came away bloodied and bruised.
Thistle and Whitebeam collided and side-by-side locked horns.
Whitebeam was older, taller and broader. However, charging downhill Whitebeam had no chance to use any of this to his advantage.
Thistle had greater stamina and shorter stride. She was also furious that her friend was hurt. She drove Whitebeam to a crack in the path.
The Unicorn fell face first into the dirt and toppled over.
The Sheriff flew off and tumbled like a barrel rolling downhill. A snap echoed as her arm crashed into the hard earth.
Thistle blasted onwards.
The trio rode out of the mountain and to the fields. They fled as townspeople continued to hunt them down.
Thistle’s hooves thundered across the dirt path and the farm fields swallowed them.
But, still driven on by an inexorable will the McDougall townspeople chased them like a pack of hunting dogs.
Boyd and co. had the lead. Further, Thistle was too quick. They would never catch up.
Boyd turned back, to confirm this thought. To his terror, he saw they were lighting up magical firebombs. Fierce, deadly magic not like the tales of Micheal Scot.
Dozens of these little firestarters arced into the fields. The heavy rain could not stop the ignition of the soaked crops. The full harvest burned. The thick smoke rose and spread across them all.
Blinded and choking, the trio carried on. The group had lost the townspeople, but the smoke would kill them softly.
The fire stopped rising. Even magic could only push nature so far. But. The smoke suffocated them; where flame could not reach.
Somehow, Thistle made it out of the fields and beyond the smoke.
The rain poured down continuously and was sapping the energy from the drenched Thistle and the pair to the bone.
They were tired, with their throats burning and miserable. They were not in the clear yet.
“The weather is covering our tracks. Keep going! We will lose them in the hills.” Bren called out.
Boyd nodded. The knife was still lodged in his back. He flicked Thistle’s reins.
“I know a cave where we can rest.”
They rode to the airy cave where Boyd passed out.
In a far away continent of lush green and coarse yellow sands. A great Blood Witch sacrificed herself in a terrible ritual. The price was simple: her death and retroactively that of ten years back in her bloodline. Time and history were twisted and altered. However, the reward was that in this distant continent of Darshua they were free of the Shepherd’s mental domination.
The many peoples and societies of Darshua rose up. They fired great cannons that with every shot a million died in sacrifice.
These attacks did not slay the Shepherd. But they hoped still. In consequence, the arcing shots of magic did distract it. As other forces moved against it; these red arcs in the sky were a symbol of hope.
