A day later, they found a hole in the world and made it home for a night.

  It wasn’t much of a hole. Just a place where the river had bitten into a low bank and taken a mouthful of earth with it, leaving a shallow cave they had to duck to enter. Roots dangled from the packed dirt ceiling like thin brown fingers. The back wall curved in close enough that the boy could touch it if he stretched his legs out all the way.

  It was enough.

  Outside, the light was going thin and yellow over the trees. The river whispered along its stones, black and cold now the sun was slipping off its shoulders. The ruts of the stage road lay a ways off, just visible through the screen of brush, a pair of pale scars cut into the land. Somewhere far down that road, dust still settled where the Comanche warband had gone, a memory in the air more than a sight in the eye.

  Inside the hollow, their little fire crackled soft.

  Lily had built it close to the cave mouth, where smoke could creep out and not choke them. Stones ringed it, casting jumping shadows on the walls. She crouched beside it now, poking at the coals with a stick, cheeks pink from the day’s walking.

  Mary sat with her back to the wall, knees under her chin, blanket wrapped around all the skinny edges of her. Ember lay in her lap, face scorched and one eye scratched white, riding every small tremor of Mary’s fingers.

  The boy sat nearest the entrance, spine against dirt, where he could see both fire and outside if he turned his head.

  Mary’s eyes went again to the tiny blaze licking at the sticks.

  “How’d you do that?” she asked, for the eighth time.

  Lily wiggled the fingers of her right hand in the firelight.

  “Same as before,” she said. “I think about it and it happens. System says it’s a Skill. [Spark].”

  Mary flinched at the word System like it was something you weren’t supposed to say after dark. Her hand tightened on Ember’s stiff little body until the doll’s leather shoe creaked.

  “You shouldn’t fool with it,” she said in a rush. “Mama said that voice in our heads was the Devil, dressin’ himself up as numbers and tricks. She said if we listened, we’d all go to Hell quicker than whiskey goes down a sinner’s gullet.”

  The boy snorted softly.

  “Devil’s a poor man if he’s got to hand out beans to tempt folks,” he said. “And extra walkin’ besides.”

  Mary shot him a scandalized look.

  “You shouldn’t talk about him like that,” she whispered. “He’ll hear.”

  “He hears everything, far as preachers say,” the boy said. “Don’t change much.”

  Lily glanced between them, eyes catching the firelight.

  “What did your parents do when it came?” she asked Mary. “When the System showed them numbers?”

  Mary’s mouth puckered. She stared into the flames.

  “We were in San Antonio,” she said slowly. “That day the ground shook? Mama dropped her bowl. Papa swore, then said he was sorry for it. Then… it talked. Inside my head. Said my Level. My… my Strength and things. I told Mama, and she slapped me so hard I saw stars. Said I was tellin’ tales for attention.”

  Her fingers crept up to touch her cheek like she still felt the sting.

  “Then Papa said he heard it too,” she went on. “Said it felt wrong. Said it was a test from below.”

  She swallowed. “He made us pray ‘til our knees hurt. Said we wouldn’t use nothin’ it gave us. Not ever.”

  Lily’s brow furrowed.

  “But it gave you [Inventory] anyway,” she said. “And Stat points, maybe. It don’t ask permission. It just… does.”

  Mary wrapped the blanket tighter around herself, like she could keep the memory out.

  “I didn’t look,” she said stubbornly. “When the numbers came up, I shut my eyes. I said Psalm Twenty-Three over and over. ‘The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.’ I ain’t never opened the… the other thing. The place.”

  She lowered her voice. “The Inventory.”

  The boy’s hand twitched in his lap.

  “You got it whether you look or not,” he said. “Same as lungs. Same as a belly. Not usin’ it don’t make it go away. Might as well figure it out.”

  Mary shot him another wounded look.

  “You talk like it’s a tool,” she protested. “Like a shovel.”

  “It is,” he said. “Tools aint evil.”

  “It’s not,” she insisted. “It talks in your head. God talks in your head, and the Devil. Shovels don’t.”

  Lily sat back on her heels, stick forgotten in the fire.

  “Mary,” she said gently, “if it was the Devil, why would it give everyone the same things? Even preachers. Even mamas. Devil in stories is always pickin’ favourites.”

  Mary hesitated.

  “Maybe… maybe so we’d trust it more,” she said, but there was doubt in it.

  Lily shook her head.

  “[Inventory] ain’t good or bad,” she said firmly. “It’s just a place to put stuff so it doesn’t go bad. You decide what to do with it. You can put bread or bullets in there. That part’s on you. Not on the Devil.”

  The boy blinked. That was… wiser than he’d ever thought it. He’d just assumed use what you got or starve. He looked at his little sister like he was seeing her from a half-step further back.

  “That’s… smart,” he said.

  Lily flushed at the praise. He reached over and gave her head a quick pat. Her hair was dusty and smelled of smoke. She preened a little anyway.

  Mary watched them both, torn between terror and curiosity.

  “What’s it like?” she whispered. “The Inventory.”

  The boy shrugged. He didn’t really think of it much now.

  “Like a cellar you carry inside you,” he said. “You think hard about puttin’ somethin’ ‘away’ and it just… goes. Stays there ‘til you think about pullin’ it back.”

  Mary frowned.

  “That ain’t how cellars work.”

  “This one does,” he said. “Want to see?”

  She recoiled.

  “No!”

  Lily leaned over, tugged at her blanket with small, insistent hands.

  “Not his,” she said. “Yours. Everyone’s got their own. Me and Brother share, ‘cause the System’s mean that way. But you’d have your own little room. We can’t see in. Devil or no Devil, wouldn’t be polite.”

  Mary bit her lip.

  “What if… what if somethin’ else is in there?” she whispered. “Waitin’.”

  “Then it’s waited a long time to do nothin’,” the boy said dryly. “You been carryin’ it around since the ground first shook.”

  Lily picked up a small stone from the cave floor and rolled it between her fingers until the dirt flaked off, leaving it pale and smooth.

  “Here,” she said, holding it out. “Try with this. Worst that happens, we lose a rock. The world’s got plenty.”

  Mary took it like it might bite.

  “What do I do?” she asked, almost inaudible.

  “Hold it,” Lily said. “Think about it not bein’ in your hand anymore. Think about it bein’ in a little… sack. In your chest, maybe. Or under your thoughts. Then say the word inside. [Inventory].”

  Mary closed her fingers around the stone so tight her knuckles went white. Her eyes squeezed shut.

  “Inventory,” she whispered.

  Nothing happened.

  She peeked.

  “It’s still there,” she said, almost relieved.

  “Too soft,” the boy said. “You gotta mean it more than you mean holdin’ it. Like you throwin’ something away but wantin’ to keep it where you can still get it.”

  Mary glared at him.

  “Maybe I don’t want to throw anything away,” she muttered.

  “Then don’t,” he said. “But if you want shelves in that head of yours, you gotta use ‘em.”

  Lily nudged her shoulder with Ember’s stiff little foot.

  “Try again,” she coaxed. “And… uh… maybe don’t say the Psalm at the same time.”

  Mary flushed from throat to hairline.

  “I wasn’t—”

  “You were,” Lily said gently.

  Mary huffed, but set her jaw. She bowed her head again, shoulders tensing hard enough the blanket creaked. The boy could almost feel the effort from where he sat.

  This time, when she whispered, “Inventory.”

  The stone vanished.

  One moment her hand cupped rough, cool grit. The next there was nothing there at all. Her fingers snapped shut on empty air, the muscles overreacting to the sudden lack of resistance. She yelped.

  “Oh!” she gasped. “Oh Lord—”

  Her other hand flew up, crossing herself in a messy, hurried way, forehead to chest to shoulders.

  “I’m sorry,” she blurted to the ceiling, to the packed dirt, to whatever listened. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean— Mama said not to— please don’t—”

  “It’s just a rock,” the boy said. “Devil’s got worse things to do than steal pebbles.”

  Mary’s breath came fast and thin. She stared at her empty palm like it might sprout horns.

  Then her brow creased.

  “…I can feel it,” she whispered. “In… someplace that isn’t anyplace. It’s like when we used to go down to the cellar and I knew there were jars behind me even if I couldn’t see ‘em ‘cause it was dark.”

  Her voice trembled. “It’s there.”

  “Pull it back,” Lily urged. “Think about it comin’ into your hand.”

  Mary swallowed hard.

  “Inventory,” she said again.

  The stone dropped into her palm.

  She screamed and flung it at the wall.

  It bounced off the dirt and skittered into the shadows.

  For a moment there was nothing but the sound of her breathing and the little fire. Then Mary burst out laughing and crying both, tears dripping down her cheeks as she clapped a hand over her mouth.

  “That ain’t right,” she giggled weakly through her fingers. “That ain’t… that can’t be right.”

  Lily laughed too, relief bubbling out of her, and scooted over to wrap an arm around Mary’s shoulders.

  “See?” she said. “Not Devil. Just… the System. Whatever that is.”

  Mary shuddered.

  “Mama would’ve thrown a fit,” she said. “She said anything that wasn’t in the Bible was from below.”

  Lily leaned her head against Mary’s, hair mingling—a darker tangle and a lighter, finer one.

  “I don’t think [Inventory] cares if you’re good or bad,” she said softly, almost to herself. “Same as knives. Same as fire. It doesn’t love you and it doesn’t hate you. It just sits there waitin’ to be used.”

  The boy stared at her a moment, then huffed a quiet laugh.

  “You get that from church?” he asked.

  She shrugged.

  “Maybe from you,” she said. “You always say the world doesn’t care what happens to us. System feels like that too. Only it writes it down.”

  They talked a while longer.

  He told Mary the bits he understood: how Level went up when you killed monsters or did something the System liked; how every Level brought +1 to each Stat and four extra points you could pour where you wanted. How Strength made things lighter, Dexterity made your hands faster, Vitality made you harder to kill, and Magic made Lily’s little flames bite deeper.

  Mary listened, pale and intent, hugging Ember like a talisman.

  “That means you’re… you’re stronger than a grown man now,” she said at one point, eyes flicking to the boy’s thin arms. “Inside, I mean.”

  “Probably not,” he said. “Grown man’s gotta be a ton stronger than me.”

  “How many… numbers?” she asked.

  He considered.

  “Enough,” he said finally.

  Lily opened her mouth to brag about her Witch bit, then thought better of it and just wriggled her fingers over the fire.

  When the talk wound down, Mary drooped where she sat, eyes going heavy. Lily’s voice grew softer, words stretching between yawns. The boy watched the way both of them sagged toward him without thinking, like grass bending toward water.

  He thought about food.

  There were more cans now, tucked away in that nowhere cellar. Pemmican too. Smoked meat from the Indian camp. Beans from the coach–a lot of them. Enough to last… a while. Maybe a few months, if they were careful.

  Now there were three of them. Three mouths were a lot harder to feed than just two.

  His gut tightened.

  He didn’t say anything.

  He looked at his own Status again instead, just in his head.

  Vitality: 29.

  He’d shoved most of his free points there. It felt different now—like he could go longer without sleep, without food, without slowing, like his body was a mule he could load until its back bowed and it would still put one hoof in front of the other.

  If anyone went hungry, it could be him.

  He didn’t say that out loud either. He just watched Lily’s head tip sideways onto Mary’s shoulder, both girls’ eyes drifting shut, Ember squished between them.

  When their breathing evened out—Mary’s hitching a little at first, Lily’s settling quicker—he eased out from under the blanket, careful not to jostle them.

  The night air outside the cave mouth hit his face cool and damp. The river murmured in the dark. Somewhere an owl hooted once.

  He picked up his knife from where it lay beside the fire, slid it into his belt, and padded down toward the sound of water.

  The creek was narrower here, squeezed between banks of tumbled stone and clay. Moonlight laid a pale stripe down the middle, turning the current to sliding glass.

  He stepped in barefoot.

  Cold slapped up his legs to his knees, then his thighs. Once, that would have stolen his breath and made his teeth chatter. Now it bit and then settled into a steady ache, manageable. The System, his Vitality, had bought him that much, at least.

  He moved slowly, feeling with his toes for sudden drops or slick stones.

  Fish ghosted in the dark water.

  He saw them in glimpses—pale bellies flashing, shadows darting. They felt the ripples from his legs and fled, then crept back when he went still. Big ones, too—thick through the middle with speckles along their backs. He’d seen some hanging in Cobb’s store once, half dried and salted. Never eaten one. It was always too high up to steal.

  He didn’t have a line, or a hook or a net. Just his hands and the knife.

  He tried rushing one first.

  He saw the pale bar of a fish holding itself in the current behind a stone, tail flicking just enough to balance. He waded up slowly, heart beating a little quicker, then lunged, hands closing where it was.

  Water exploded. The fish snapped out from between his fingers and vanished upstream in a flash of silver, leaving him clawing thin air.

  He swore under his breath.

  “Fine,” he muttered. “You get that one.”

  He tried again. And again. Each time his hands were a little closer, his eyes a little better at judging how water bent the light, where a shape really was instead of where it looked. His fingers slapped scales, slid, closed too slow.

  Cold crept higher up his bones. His shoulders ached from jolting against the current.

  Finally, he managed to get both hands around a fish.

  It was bigger than his forearm, all muscle and panic. It thrashed, tail beating his wrist so hard it stung, body bending in a desperate arc that tried to wrench free. He tightened his grip, afraid of losing it, but afraid of crushing it too. Meat was meat. He didn’t want to break it before it got to the fire.

  The fish twisted, spine whip-strong.

  It slithered out of his fingers and back into the creek like it had been greased. He watched it vanish into darkness with a little hiss between his teeth.

  Next one, he wouldn’t worry about being gentle.

  When his hands closed around that cold, slick body, he locked them. The fish bucked and writhed. He felt the power in it, the fury of it, and some part of him respected it.

  “Sorry,” he muttered, and pinched harder.

  Something snapped under his fingers. A small, brittle crack, like a stick breaking.

  The fish stiffened. Its struggle collapsed into a few weak kicks, then nothing.

  It hung in his grip, weight suddenly slack.

  He stood there a moment, chest heaving a little, breath smoking in the cold air. Part of him expected to see some pale haze rise from it—the ghost-breath he’d seen leave the imp, the hermit, the Comanche, the big monster.

  Nothing did.

  He slogged to the bank and laid the fish on the stones, its spotted hide dull in the moonlight. Its mouth opened and shut once more, an echo of life that hadn’t gotten the message yet, then stilled.

  He went back and did it again.

  Not every grab worked, but more did than didn’t now. His fingers learned the trick of it, where to close, how to brace the fish against his own forearm so it couldn’t twist away. He took the spine each time, quick as he could. It was ugly, but less ugly than letting them beat themselves to death on hard rock.

  By the time his arms were trembling and his lips numb, a little mound of trout lay on the bank—silver and gray and speckled, bellies pale under the moon.

  Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  Half as many lay scattered in his wake, where he’d messed his grip and they’d torn free to vanish, injured, into the deeper black. He grimaced at that. Waste sat wrong with him.

  He was bending to pick up another fish when the brush behind him rustled.

  He straightened slowly, water dripping from his clothes, knife-hand lowering by instinct but not letting go.

  The trees on that side of the creek thickened into a tangle of underbrush and saplings. Something big pushed through, branches whipping back, leaves shuddering.

  It stepped out into the open.

  The boy had seen a monster kind of shaped like a bear the day before. That thing had walked on two legs, eyes burning red, blood caked thick in its fur. This was not that.

  This was just a bear.

  Big, though. Mangy. Its fur hung in clumps, patchy in places where scars twisted the skin underneath. It shambled on all fours to the edge of the stone bank, claws clicking on rock. In the half-light its coat looked black, but he thought it might be a smoky brown when the sun hit it.

  The smell hit him a heartbeat later—rank and musky, old fur and old meat.

  The bear huffed.

  Its nose tested the air, flaring wide. He could almost see the line of scent running from the pile of fish to its nostrils. Its head swung toward the shining bodies on the stones, then toward him, standing chest-deep in the water.

  They looked at each other.

  The boy didn’t move.

  The bear blew out a breath hard enough to puff its cheeks and lifted one paw, swatting at the air. Not quite at him.

  It popped its jaws once, a loud, clacking sound.

  It wasn’t a charge. Not yet. It felt like a statement.

  Get.

  The boy watched its eyes. Dark and small in that broad head, wary and mean. A hungry animal looking at another thing standing between it and food and trying to decide if the risk was worth the meal.

  He flexed his fingers around the knife.

  “You’re thinkin’ the same as me,” he said quietly, though the bear didn’t speak any language but its own. “That’s too much meat to walk away from.”

  The bear swiped at the air again, closer this time, big shoulders rolling. Its ears lay half-back. It made a low, chest-deep growl that vibrated in the boy’s ribs across the water.

  He wasn’t prey anymore. All his life, he’d been weak. But not here–not now.

  Not anymore.

  “All right,” he said.

  He took a breath, braced his feet against the slick stones, and exploded out of the creek.

  Water sheeted off him as he hit the bank, both hands free now, knife clutched but not raised to stab. He made himself bigger, shoulders back, arms out. His voice tore out of him in a raw, wild yell that had more in it than just sound—some leftover scrape of the roar that had thudded through his bones when he’d eaten the monster’s soul.

  He sprinted straight at the bear.

  He didn’t have to fake the speed. His legs drove into the earth, bare feet hitting stone hard enough to crack thin flakes off. He felt his own weight hit the ground and bounce, the world blurring around the edges as he closed the distance between them in a handful of strides that would have taken more, before.

  The bear’s eyes went wide.

  It had expected him to back away maybe, to inch sideways, to leave the fish and plead with his posture.

  It had not expected whatever small, half-starved thing came hurtling toward it like a fired ball, shrieking, face set and knife glinting.

  It rocked back.

  The boy saw the moment its courage broke.

  It huffed a startled, angry woof and turned, swinging its broad rump toward him, claws scrabbling on rock. In two loping bounds it vanished back into the brush, crashing through the saplings like a boulder rolling downhill.

  He stopped at the edge of the stones, chest heaving, and watched the darkness for a few heartbeats longer.

  Leaves rustled, then stilled. No charge came.

  He let out a breath.

  He looked down at the fish.

  “Fine,” he muttered. “You can have some.”

  He picked the two biggest ones from the pile, the ones thickest through the body, bellies heavy. He carried them to the far end of the bank and laid them there, away from the rest. Payment. Or apology. Or bait, if the bear came back and decided it didn’t want to test him again.

  Then he set down to work.

  Gutting was easier than catching.

  He’d done rabbits before. This wasn’t so different, just wetter. He slit each belly from vent to jaw with his knife, careful not to cut too deep. Warm guts slid out into his waiting hand, slick and heavy, steaming in the cold air. He dumped them in the shallows for the crawdads and whatever else liked that sort of thing.

  Scaling was fussy—little flakes clinging to his fingers—but he did it anyway, scraping the knife against the skin until it went pale and smooth, no more tiny rasp when he ran his nails along it.

  [The Hollow] stayed quiet.

  No shimmer rose from fish flesh. No hungry tug stroked his insides. Either fish souls were too small to bother with, or the System didn’t count them as things worth writing down.

  He lined the cleaned bodies on a flat rock, rinsed his knife, and slogged back up toward the cave, water squelching in his borrowed boots.

  The girls were where he’d left them, though now Lily’s head had tipped onto Mary’s shoulder and Mary’s onto the wall. Ember lay crooked in both their laps, squeezed in a three-way tangle.

  The boy nudged Lily’s foot with his toe.

  “Fire,” he said.

  She startled awake with a little snort, blinked gummy eyes, and blinked again at the dripping fish in his hands.

  “Oh,” she said, brilliant delight flooding her tired face. “You did it.”

  Mary jerked awake too, hand flying to her throat. When she saw the fish, she made a small, strangled sound that was half-gasp, half-laugh.

  “That’s… that’s a lot,” she whispered.

  “Enough,” the boy said. “For the three of us.”

  He propped the cleaned trout on sticks over the fire, just high enough that the flames licked but didn’t char. The skin tightened and went opaque, then split, fat hissing as it dripped into the coals. The smell that rose made his stomach clutch hard enough to hurt.

  Mary’s eyes glazed.

  “Devil’s work or not,” she murmured, maybe to God, maybe to her parents, “thank you for the fish.”

  They ate with their fingers. The meat flaked away from the bones, soft and rich, a taste he’d never had before and might never have again. He made sure both girls had more of the belly pieces, where the fat hid. They needed it more than he did.

  When they’d picked the bones clean and sucked the last bits from their fingers, the world felt a little less sharp.

  Lily dozed first this time. Mary fought it longer, like sleep was a thing that might sneak something into her dreams if she let her guard down. Eventually, though, her head tipped against Lily’s again, Ember trapped between their chins like a strange little cushion.

  The boy sat awake a while longer, listening to the river and the night and the steady, slow beat of his own heart. When he finally lay down, the hollow felt warmer than it had any right to.

  They climbed out of the hole at first light, boots slipping a little on the damp earth, breath puffing in thin white ghosts. The fire was ash. The river lay gray and flat in the early light.

  They’d barely gone a hundred paces up the slope, cutting across toward the road, when the boy felt eyes on the back of his neck.

  He turned.

  On a low rise across the river, half-hidden behind a clump of young oaks, a dark shape stood.

  The bear.

  The same one from last night.

  It stood on all fours, head up, watching them.

  Mary followed his gaze.

  Her hand flew to her mouth.

  “It’s a bear,” she whispered.

  “Yeah,” the boy said.

  “Is it… is it followin’ us?” Lily asked.

  “Maybe,” he said.

  “Is that… bad?” Mary squeaked.

  He weighed it.

  “If it wanted us, it would’ve tried last night,” he said. “It wants prey that doesn’t fight back and run at it.”

  The bear huffed once, a sound like a snort, and turned away, lumbering into the trees. Its dark back vanished among the trunks.

  They kept walking.

  The road turned rougher as it angled north-west, cutting across low hills and shallow valleys. Trees thickened and thinned in patches, scrub giving way to stands of oak and cedar, then back again to open grass. The river they’d been following slid away to the right, glittering between stones, then vanished into a cleft.

  They stayed near the road but not on it, keeping to the higher ground where they could see further.

  Hours bled past.

  Lily and Mary talked some—about dolls and towns and what dresses looked like in San Antonio—but even that faded as the miles stacked up. Their words grew shorter, breaths longer. Mary’s feet scuffed more. Lily’s face went shiny with sweat despite the cool air.

  He could have gone faster.

  He didn’t.

  He kept his pace matched to the shorter legs behind him, listening to Mary’s breath turn rough, Lily’s shoes scuff.

  The sun had climbed high and begun its slow slide when it happened.

  The world… hiccuped.

  Not outside. Inside.

  A small, sharp sensation popped in his head, like a bubble bursting.

  Minor bonus gained!

  +1 Vitality.

  Reason: Repeated Action (Walking).

  The words etched themselves across that invisible place behind his eyes, cold and clear as spring water. He stumbled a little, thrown by the suddenness of it.

  At the same moment, Lily made a small “oh!” sound and grabbed at his sleeve.

  “Did you…?” she gasped.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  Mary blinked at them both.

  “What? Did what?” she asked.

  The boy ignored her for a moment and pulled his Status up.

  Vitality: 29 → 30.

  The number felt… bigger. Thirty. No real difference inside his skin yet, but the System had thought it worth mentioning.

  He grunted.

  “It liked the walkin’,” he said.

  “What did?”

  “The System.”

  “That’s stupid,” Mary complained. “Walkin’ ain’t special. Folks walk all the time.”

  Lily touched her own chest, frowning.

  “I felt it too,” she said. “A little… push. Like someone put another log on the fire.”

  She squinted, thinking. “It said the same thing in my head. Repeated Action. Walkin’.”

  She looked up at him. “Does that mean we can… make it give us numbers? If we do a thing enough times?”

  He looked at the rocks ahead. At his own hands.

  At Strength: 27.

  “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe that’s what ‘trainin’’ is. Monsters fight and get stronger ‘cause they fight. We walk and get stronger for walkin’. What happens if you swing a stick or lift a rock ‘til your arms scream? System might count that too.”

  Mary stared at him like he’d grown another head.

  “So we just… do chores,” she said. “Forever. ‘Til it makes us big.”

  “Not chores,” he said. “Practice.”

  “Same thing,” she muttered.

  He spotted a rock near the road—a big thing, bigger than his head, half-buried in the dirt. He veered toward it.

  “Watch,” he said.

  He set the pole down, rolled his shoulders, and dug his fingers under the edge of the stone. It was heavy. Even with all those extra numbers in his Strength, it didn’t just leap into his hands. His muscles protested, the cords in his forearms standing out. A grown man would’ve had an easier time. He wasn’t there yet. But he will soon.

  He braced his feet and heaved.

  The rock came up out of the dirt with a sucking sound, clods clinging. He straightened with it, arms shaking a little, brought it up over his head, then lowered it back down to his chest, then up again.

  Up. Down. Up. Down.

  Lily watched, eyes wide.

  “That looks… hard,” she said.

  “It is,” he grunted. “That’s the point.”

  He did it ten times, breathing controlled, feeling the pull in his shoulders, the burn in his arms. His body sang with work, but it was a clean song. He could have done more. He didn’t, not here, not with Mary staring at him like he’d lost his mind.

  He dropped the rock. It hit the ground with a dull thud and sank a little.

  No new words popped in his head, no new bonuses or levels. Just the echo of strain and the faint satisfaction of movement.

  “Maybe it needs more,” he said, rolling his shoulders. “Or maybe it only gives you one of those a day. Don’t know yet.”

  “So why do it?” Mary demanded.

  He looked at her.

  “‘Cause if it does count it,” he said, “I’d rather it counted a hundred times than none. And because we need to get stronger if monsters keep popping up.”

  Mary nodded slowly.

  “Like practicin’ piano,” she said. “Mrs. Hanley made me once. Said fingers remember. System might too.”

  Lily made a face.

  “What’s a piano?” she asked.

  “Something with buttons that make music,” the boy said. “There was one in the chapel. I reckon the Comanche must’ve left it alone.”

  Lily giggled.

  Mary scowled at both of them for a moment, then, after a visible internal battle, crouched by a smaller stone and wrapped her hands around it. She grunted, face going red, and lifted it to her chest height, then dropped it, puffing.

  “Nothin’ happened,” she said.

  “Not yet,” he said. “Maybe later. Or maybe you’re just catchin’ up to what the System already thinks you’re worth.”

  She frowned at that.

  The gunshots found them in the middle of the afternoon.

  They were walking along a section of road that had been cut between two low rises, banks trimmed back on either side so wagons wouldn’t tip. The sun sat heavy in a pale sky. A few vultures wheeled way up, riding little twists of warm air.

  The first crack came faint and flat over a swell of ground, more a suggestion than a sound.

  The boy stopped. He knew that sound.

  Lily took one more step before she realized he’d halted and bumped into his back. Mary, lost in her thoughts, walked into Lily and yelped.

  “What—”

  “Listen,” he said.

  They did.

  For a moment, all there was was wind over grass and the rasp of their own breaths.

  Then another gun spoke. Closer. Shorter barrel, by the sound of it. A pistol, maybe. Then two more, overlapping—rifle, rifle.

  Then a scream. High and ugly, torn out of someone who didn’t mean to make it.

  Mary’s face went white.

  “No,” she whispered. “No, no, no—”

  “Stay–” the boy started, then cut himself off. “No. Come, but quiet.”

  He scrambled up the right-hand bank, boots digging into the dirt. At the top, he dropped into a crouch and crawled the last few yards to where the rise flattened.

  The land opened out ahead into a shallow bowl.

  On the far side of the depression, a line of men in dust-gray and dark coats hunkered behind boulders and stunted cedar, a few on horseback, most on foot. Rifles jutted out from their cover. Shots cracked from their line, little puffs of smoke blooming, drifting on the breeze.

  Rangers.

  He knew from the stars that hung from their shapes, on belts, around their necks, on their shoulders. The Sheriff talked about them a lot.

  Between the rangers and the opposite slope, the world had gone wrong.

  Big shapes moved there, green where men should be any other color.

  They were taller than any man—not as big as the monster he’d killed on the road, but not far short. Broad across the shoulders. Thick as trees. Skin the color of bruised moss, scarred and knotted. Tusks jutted from lower jaws in some of them, curving up past cracked, blackened lips. Their hair was coarse and dark, braided or tied back with strips of leather.

  They wore armor of a sort—patches of hammered metal, strips of chain, bits of boiled leather lashed together. In their big hands they held crude axes, spiked clubs, jagged swords that looked like someone had broken farm tools until they were dangerous.

  And bows.

  The boy’s eyes fixed on those.

  Massive things, taller than Lily, carved from some dark wood and horn, strings thick as his little finger. When one of the green-skins drew, the bow bent slowly, resisting, and then the string trembled like a thing in pain.

  The arrows that left them weren’t arrows.

  They were lances shaved thin, iron heads the length of his hand gleaming as they hissed through the air.

  One of those monstrous shafts punched straight through a ranger’s chest even as he leaned out to fire. It picked him up and slammed him back into the rock behind, the point sticking out of his back like a flag-pole. He jerked once and hung there.

  Mary made a choked noise behind him.

  He’d forgotten the girls were pressed in close, peering over the lip.

  “Back,” he snarled, grabbing Lily’s sleeve. “Both of you. Down.”

  Mary’s fingers dug into the dirt.

  “We can’t— they—” she stammered.

  “We can’t do anything by gettin’ hit out here,” he snapped. “Hide. Now.”

  Lily didn’t argue. She grabbed Mary’s arm and tugged hard.

  “Come on,” she hissed. “He’s right.”

  Mary fought for half a heartbeat, wild-eyed, then let herself be dragged back over the lip and down the far side of the rise, out of sight.

  The boy slid forward to where he could see again.

  The green-skins moved with ugly grace.

  They loped forward in bursts, then dropped behind rocks or tree stumps or the bodies of fallen horses. Their crude armor caught the light in dull flashes. Rough laughter carried even over the gunfire.

  And then, something in the air felt wrong.

  Charged.

  At the back of the green-skin line, half-screened by the others, something bigger moved.

  It was taller than the rest by a head and a half. Fat cords of muscle rolled under thicker armor—a coat of plates that might once have been pieces of different men’s breastplates hammered together. Bones hung at its belt—ribs and finger-bones and little skulls strung on rawhide.

  Its skin was the same sickly green, but its face bore more scars. One tusk had snapped off near the base. The other was capped in iron.

  It carried a staff that looked like a bit of lightning split off a tree and wrapped in iron wire. Charms hung from it—teeth and feathers and bits of metal. At its tip, some ugly knot of bone and stone pulsed faintly.

  The creature’s lips moved, tusk cap glinting. Its voice was a low, guttural murmur, chanting in a tongue like rocks grinding.

  The air above it darkened.

  Clouds rolled in out of nowhere, thick and black, coiling together over the hollow like somebody had rolled up the sky there and wrung it out. The hairs on the boy’s arms lifted.

  Lightning cracked down.

  It didn’t come from the clouds the way he’d seen in storms. Instead, it came from the space between the staff and the roiling dark, lancing in a blinding white-blue spear that smashed into the rangers’ line.

  Three men and three horses went down in a tangle.

  He saw their silhouettes for an instant, burned in his eyes—the wild flare of the horses’ legs, the up-flung arms of a man whose hat blew straight off his head—and then the flash was gone, leaving only the after-image and the smell of burned hair.

  The rangers shouted, voices gone higher now, threaded with panic. One fell to his knees, dropping his rifle, clutching at his face. Another grabbed at his hat where it caught fire.

  The big green-skin with the staff lifted its head and laughed, a raw bark that set its neck cords jumping.

  The boy’s hands had already found the rifle slung across his back.

  He slid it around, the wood warm and familiar under his palms. His thumb found the hammer and eased it back until it clicked into place.

  He let his breath out slow.

  He laid the barrel across a rock, steadying it with his left hand. The rifle’s front sight settled in the notch of the rear, a little iron circle he’d learned to trust.

  The big green-skin’s head was twice the size of a man’s.

  Easier target than the monster’s knee had been.

  It lifted the staff again, mouth shaping ugly syllables, eyes rolled half-back in its head as it called up the storm.

  The boy put the front sight on the center of its face and then he squeezed the trigger.

  The rifle roared and its kick was a familiar shove against his shoulder. Smoke leapt from the muzzle, dark and thick, curling in the breeze.

  Downrange, the big green-skin’s popped.

  The bullet didn’t just make a hole. It blew most of the front of its skull away in a spray of dark, thick matter and shards of bone. For a split second, its face ceased to exist. Then it toppled backward like a cut tree, staff flying from its hand.

  The gathering clouds above dissipated and then disappeared entirely.

  The remaining rangers saw.

  A ragged cheer went up, half-disbelieving.

  The boy didn’t wait to see more.

  He ducked back and slung the hot rifle behind him; he didn’t have time to reload. Instead, he pulled out the pistol.

  The revolver’s weight settled into his hand like it belonged there. Six chambers, all full.

  He dashed down the slope.

  Dust slid under his boots, but his legs caught him. The world moved in clean slices—sound here, color there, his own breath loud in his ears.

  He hit the floor of the hollow at a run.

  One of the green-skins saw him.

  It stood a little apart from the others, bow in hand, string already half-drawn. Its yellow eyes narrowed. An ugly grin split its face, showing slabby teeth.

  It hauled the bowstring to its ear.

  The boy saw the arrow leave and fly towards him.

  Time stretched and seemed to slow down.

  Or, at least, that’s what it felt like.

  His feet moved and he took a half-step sideways, weight shifting.

  The arrow hissed past his ribs close enough he could feel the wind of it and slammed into the bank behind him with a meaty thunk. The head vanished into dirt almost up to the fletching.

  He lifted the revolver as he moved.

  The green-skin nocked another arrow.

  The boy aimed vaguely and quickly at its center mass and then squeezed.

  The gun roared. The shot cracked the hollow like thunder. Smoke jumped from the barrel and blew back into his face, stinging his eyes.

  The bullet caught the green-skin at the base of its throat.

  It punched through skin and cartilage and the thick corded muscle there. The back of its neck blew out in a spray of dark blood and gristle.

  The creature’s grin snapped off.

  Its head rocked back so hard it half-detached. For a heartbeat it stood there, arms hanging, bow dropping from its grasp.

  Then its legs folded.

  It hit the ground on its knees first, then its chest, then rolled onto its back with a heavy thud, mouth opening and closing in a wet rattle that cut off as suddenly as its grin had.

  Another green-skin roared and charged him.

  This one had no bow, only a jagged ax made from something that might once have been a wagon’s iron strapping. Its eyes burned with something like glee. It came straight at him, surprisingly fast for all that bulk, feet tearing divots in the dirt.

  The boy angled sideways, watching the way its weight sat on its legs. The monster’s focus was on his chest, on where its ax wanted to land.

  His focus was on its knees.

  At five yards, he shot.

  The gun bucked again, hot and hard. The muzzle flash bloomed bright in the corner of his vision.

  The bullet smashed into the green-skin’s right knee.

  Bone shattered. The joint blew apart in a spray of thick, blackish blood. The lower leg flopped sideways, held on by meat alone.

  Momentum carried the brute forward anyway.

  Its ruined leg went out from under it. It pitched down, weight unable to find purchase, ax swinging wide. It hit the ground hard, one huge hand slamming down to catch itself.

  It roared in pain and shock and rage.

  The boy stepped in.

  From this angle, its head was a big, ugly target, tusks bared, yellowed teeth snapping. Its eyes rolled up toward him, wild.

  He put the third bullet through its skull.

  The top of its head disappeared.

  Brain and bone spattered the dirt. The roar cut off mid-note. The body jerked once, then lay still, twitching only in little post-mortem spasms.

  He moved past it without watching them finish.

  Behind him, he felt something tug.

  Not at his clothes. Inside.

  [The Hollow].

  From the ruined bodies of the two green-skins he’d just dropped, pale haze rose—thicker than from the imp, lighter than from the big monster. It curled sluggishly, reluctant to leave the meat, then slid toward him the moment his inner emptiness touched it.

  Cold hit first, then that hot flood. He didn’t slow. He’d felt it enough times now that he could walk through it.

  Soul consumed!

  +2 Strength.

  +2 Dexterity.

  +2 Vitality.

  +2 Magic.

  Again.

  Soul consumed!

  +2 Strength.

  +2 Dexterity.

  +2 Vitality.

  +2 Magic.

  His numbers ticked up in the back of his mind even as his boots pounded the dirt.

  Strength: 27 → 29 → 31

  Dexterity: 20 → 22 → 24

  Vitality: 30 → 32 → 34

  Magic: 18 → 20 → 22

  The remaining rangers, seeing two of the monsters go down like drunk men at a bar fight, rallied.

  They poured fire into the remaining green-skins.

  Pistol shots cracked, sharper and closer than rifle reports. A bowstring twanged. Someone yelled,

  “Now! While they’re turnin’!” Another voice whooped something wordless.

  A green-skin trying to draw on one of the rangers caught three bullets in the chest in quick succession. It staggered and then went over backward, still clawing at the air.

  Another turned to run and had its spine broken by a rifle shot from up the slope. It crumpled without a sound, bow flying from its hand.

  The last of them went down in a knot of men and horses—a ranger’s knife across its throat, a pistol jammed into its side and fired twice, the screams muffled in a tangle of bodies and dust.

  Smoke drifted in lazy strands. Horses blew, stamping, eyes wild. A man somewhere to the boy’s left groaned. Someone else laughed too hard, a sound with a crack in it.

  The boy walked among the dead.

  The System’s hunger tugged at him like a current.

  Soul-echoes rose from each fallen green-skin, thicker now there were more of them, the air full of pale, shimmering threads only he seemed to see.

  He stepped close to each corpse, breathing in their stink—blood and sweat and some acrid tang that wasn’t any animal he knew—and let [The Hollow] open.

  The haze poured into the emptiness inside him.

  Soul consumed!

  +2 Strength.

  +2 Dexterity.

  +2 Vitality.

  +2 Magic.

  Soul consumed!

  +2 Strength.

  +2 Dexterity.

  +2 Vitality.

  +2 Magic.

  Soul consumed!

  +2 Strength.

  +2 Dexterity.

  +2 Vitality.

  +2 Magic.

  The System didn’t bother listing each one separately after a while. It just pounded the changes into him, number after number.

  By the time he’d finished his slow circuit of the battlefield, the air around the green-skins lay still. No more shimmering. No more souls left hanging.

  He stood in the churned earth, boots sticky with blood and dust, the revolver warm and half-empty at his hip, heart beating slow and strong, and checked himself.

  Strength: 31 → 41.

  Dexterity: 24 → 34.

  Vitality: 34 → 44.

  Magic: 22 → 32.

  Ten more points in each, for the price of not looking away.