Ellen's Arc

Chapter 46 of 45

Ellen dragged Morrell's body from the spring and rolled it into the flats. She scrubbed the wet sand where his blood had pooled. Then she saw the fresh tracks. A single rider had crossed the salt near her wagon, following Freddy's trail in. Killing Morrell had not ended the hunt. It had drawn a new eye. And that eye was bent toward the fourth spring, where her women now sheltered. She pulled her cord to warn the north camp. Then she waited by the wagon, knife ready, and watched the horizon shimmer. The rider came slow. Not slow from caution. Slow from certainty. His armor caught the sun in dull gray plates, and a green hood hung over an iron mask. An axe rode across his back. She had made enemies of gods and hunters both, but this one she knew by the file Vincent once showed her. Victor Von Doom. A man who blamed her for a wrong she barely remembered, and who never forgot a debt. "You left a body," Doom said. He did not dismount. "Careless. Bodies draw men like me." "You came for the body?" "I came for you. The body only told me where to look." His mask tilted toward the spring. "Your women drink here. I smelled the smoke of their fires two ridges back." Ellen's stomach dropped. He was not bluffing. He had circled wide and found the true camp before he found her. A sharp crack split the air. Doom's horse screamed and buckled. He rolled clear as it fell, and rose with the axe already in his hands. On the far rise stood a small armored figure, one gun still raised. Kara Vex. The hunter who had given Ellen the map to this very spring. "That mark isn't yours," Kara said. She walked down the slope, gun level. "It was pulled. She's worth nothing now. You're wasting a day." "This is not for credits," Doom said. "This is older." "Then it's not my business." Kara stopped between him and Ellen. "But she's under my map. I don't like my work undone." Doom measured her. The gun did not waver. He was fast, but Ellen saw him count the distance and find it short. He lowered the axe an inch. "Another day, then," he said. He caught his fallen horse's line, hauled it up, and led it limping into the flats. He did not look back. Ellen breathed for the first time in a minute. "Why?" "You owe me now," Kara said. "Move your camp off this spring by dawn. He knows the water. He'll come back to the water." She holstered the gun and turned to go. "Debts add up, Ellen." Ellen watched her cross the salt. Morrell was dead, but she had traded one hunter for a worse one who knew her water. By morning she had to move six women and bury the spring behind her.