Page 19 of Suncatcher

Pearl glanced at her fellow riders, who were surrounded and had already started climbing down. She wouldn’t leave them, and two were already compromised. So she dismounted. Her stomach churned from the blight, threatening to come up her throat, but she ignored it.

“What’re you looking for in our wagons?” the leader asked.

He didn’t know who they were. Good. “We pulled off the main road for a place to camp. Just checking out the scene. Didn’t know this valley’s taken. But we can move on.”

“There’s plenty of room in our camp for at least one more.”

He stepped forward and Pearl leveled her first gun at him and her second at the man nearest.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” the leader said. Behind him, something huge swooped through the sky.

“We’re not looking for trouble.”

“It seems you were.”

Pearl bared her teeth when he started to take another step.

His gaze caught on her mouth and he hesitated, raising his lantern higher. “What’s your name?” he asked, but some of the bravado had left his tone.

“Like I’m gonna tell you.”

He studied her intently. “Well, I’ll be. You’re the Princess of Salt Bluff.”

Pearl hated that name, but it clung to her like a wart.

“Does your mama know you’re here?” he asked as the hulking shape swooped again.

Had she imagined it? Or had the blight simply distorted a bat? Was it a hallucination? She was already on the edge of control with it. “Sure does. We’re just the scouting party for the rest,” Pearl lied.

The other riders shifted, their hearts speeding up, but the leader narrowed his eyes. “I don’t believe you.”

“Don’t have to. You’ll see soon enough.”

A gust swirled dust around their boots as a massive shape flew over their heads. This time, everyone else noticed it. They all instinctively flinched and looked up. And Pearl pulled both triggers.

She dropped to the ground and rolled beneath the fire of answering bullets. She swept the legs of one of the bandits and he fell on top of her. He was big, and just his weight pinned her. She used him as a shield for a moment as more gunfire rang through the air.

Gathering and burning through her limited reserve of blight, she knocked the gun from his grip, breaking his wrist with her left hand and sending his weapon flying into the darkness. He shoved his forearm into her throat and curled his left hand around her right, twisting it in retaliation, her own gun slipping from her fingers.

A roar tore through the night. Her meat shield was abruptly gone, ripped from her and cracked in half like a twig. Pearl sucked in a searing breath as shivers of fear ran over her skin and the battle-hardened horses reared in fright.

For once, Pearl hoped she truly was hallucinating.

The outline of a horned, winged nightmare appeared above her. She scrambled back, but arms clamped around her.

Then the land fell away, leaving her stomach behind as she was hoisted into the air.

8

Twice Betrayed

Pearl screamed. She reacted without thought, jamming the heel of her palm into the jaw near her face. It hurt, and did nothing to slow them as the earth drew farther away. She twisted and struggled to free herself, but the blight wasn’t cooperating. She could feel it, but it wasn’t obeying her. Her instincts were telling her to fight. So she did.

Her knife. She stabbed it into the closest thing.

And she was suddenly falling, tumbling toward the land that rushed right back at her. Too fast.

Arms closed around her middle. Air exited her lungs in a whoosh, her ribs straining as she was yanked back up, like a rag doll.