Eugene’s body laid prostrate under the night sky, draped over the cold ground, gathering frost. It’s pale fingers still grasping the hard ground, fingernails chipped and caked in dried mud.
Under the hot sun of day Mr. Dan’s body would eventually bake, rot, petrify; the stains of blood would become dust, his bones buried by silt and sand. What was left of the young deputy would quietly become a part of the landscape. Brown hair mixing with dried yellow grass and swaying in the wind, perhaps a colony of stinging ants would make a home inside the new hole in his ribs, or a family of nesting owls take refugee in his old brown duster coat.
Or it would have had Eugene’s soul not had other ideas.
Eugene’s body laid prostrate under the night sky, draped over the cold ground, gathering frost. It’s pale fingers still grasping the hard ground, fingernails chipped and caked in dried mud.
Under the hot sun of day Mr. Dan’s body would eventually bake, rot, petrify; the stains of blood would become dust, his bones buried by silt and sand. What was left of the young deputy would quietly become a part of the landscape. Brown hair mixing with dried yellow grass and swaying in the wind, perhaps a colony of stinging ants would make a home inside the new hole in his ribs, or a family of nesting owls take refugee in his old brown duster coat.
Or it would have had Eugene’s soul not had other ideas.
A day earlier Eugene’s body sat on a horse. Not the abandoned body currently decomposing on the ground, future home of ants, and owls, covered in its own goos and laying on the ground face down just ASKING for a coyote to start eating it’s dirty ears off! No this was Eugene Dan full of life, just filled to the brim with good human goo and only the appropriate amount of holes and none of the goo was leaking out of any of them right now.
“So you’re saying you saw THE Dragon-Faced Bandit?” Eugene’s brows raised in surprise. Sheriff Hayden Reid scowled at him, his ageless elven face creased by a deep frown. “Yes, THE Dragon-Faced Bandit,” He growled. “I received a report from Wruthan a week ago that they had been spotted not too far from here.”
Eugene gritted his teeth “Great, just in time for another Empire Caravan to be coming through.”
Reid nodded “Exactly, the report said that they are carrying something very valuable…if the Night Dragons caught wind of that somehow, that’ll be why their leader finally chose to reappear.”
Sheriff Hayden Reid had taken over the post of Sheriff in Scornflat when Eugene was still a child. Hayden had been brought into the town after having been injured in a fire-fight between the Dragon-Faced bandit and their gang, the Night Dragons and a Wruthan Empire supply caravan. Eugene still remembered the elf arriving, shoulder to shoulder with three other soldiers lying in the back of a wooden farm wagon. He had been wearing a uniform too big for him that clung to his muscular elven frame, sticky with their own blood. All the soldiers died before the next morning but him. He was lucky, the Night Dragons weren’t known for leaving survivors. The mayor offered him the sheriff position after he recovered. The borders were becoming more dangerous it was time for the town to have someone that could enforce law, a Wruthan soldier would do nicely.
Nobody had seen the leader for years and nobody learned their true name. No “dragon faced” bodies were recovered from the fight so rumors abound that the nameless crime lord could be alive still. The Night Dragons were certainly still alive, causing havoc across the small border towns outside the Wruthan Empire. Travelers and stragglers leaving the Empire made easy prey for the predatory Night Dragons. Hayden didn’t like to talk about that night, and his coldness froze people before they could ask him.
Most people left Reid to his own company, but the child Eugene had been fascinated by him. He seemed dangerous and strong, the lone survivor, the last soldier. He often watched him, peeked through the window of the healer’s while she cleaned his wounds, his skin already riddled with scars. Young Eugene would watch from between the wooden panels of the fence while Reid practiced his aim, shooting bottles and cans, he never saw him miss. Eugene learned how to fight from watching Reid putting away ruffians. He was only half surprised when Sheriff Reid told him he knew about his spying after Eugene asked him to take him under him as a Deputy years later. He weathered The Sheriff’s frigid personability to help keep his home safe.
Eugene couldn’t imagine how Hayden Reid felt about the return of the man that had almost killed him so many years before. He seemed serious but then again the Sheriff always seemed serious. Sheriff Dan looked over to Sheriff Reid. It was getting hard to see him in the dying light “Right.” Eugene finally broke the silence “So I’m just supposed to keep watch for them out here?”
Reid nodded and stopped his horse. “Right here will do.”
Eugene hopped off his horse, his boots disturbing parched, hard earth that hadn’t seen moisture in a long, long time. Reid pointed a long finger to the north “If they want to try to sneak into town they’ll come from this direction.” Eugene squinted at the dark horizon, trying to catch a glimpse of approaching bandits against the star filled desert. His breath made clouds in the still night air. “So if I see them how will I signal you?” He asked the sheriff, facing away from them.
“Well all you have to do is shoot your gun into the air.” Reid answered, “Like this.”
Eugene heard a click from behind him and turned to face Sheriff Hayden Reid.
When he turned he saw the flash of the Sheriff’s gun, and he looked at the Sheriff’s face.
He looked at the mask the sheriff was wearing. The bright mask, shining like fire, like the face of a dragon. He heard a second boom. Behind the sheriff he could see the town again, wreathed in a bright white ball of flame.
He took a step toward the sheriff and stopped.
He felt hot liquid pouring down his front.
He saw the sheriff’s gun pointed at his chest. He felt his head spinning as the ground came forward at him. The sheriff’s footfalls overcome with a ringing filling his ears. His fingers grasping for purchase in the ground as the thirsty earth drank his hot blood, making the desert floor turn to mud around him. Then he felt cold. Then he felt nothing.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
And then he saw a figure. He was holding their soft weathered hands and they were walking. His head felt fuzzy. What had just happened? It felt like a great span of time had passed. Or maybe none at all. He felt warm familiarity to the figure he walked with though he was almost sure that they had never met. The figure had a long shepards crook that tapped quietly as they walked. Where were they going? He saw the stars. North, they were going north but why? Why were they going North. He stopped walking and the figure stopped too. He let go of his hand and turned. He saw that his friends were walking North now too. Following the shepherd. Their glowing forms passing him. He began walking South. The Shepard turned back and continued walking North.
Eugene saw the sheriff’s face. He felt a small pain in his chest. Eugene picked up his pace. He saw Reid’s mask, a fearsome simulacrum painted from liquid gold on unyielding black like the cloak of death. His chest was burning. He began to run. He saw Hayden’s gun. Time slowed as he saw Hayden Reid’s scared finger squeeze the trigger, the steel shone silver under the moon, the bullet flash in the barrel and enter his own chest. His chest was on fire as he ran. Eugene yelled and he felt the world invert around him. He was filled with a burning rage, like he had never felt before. He felt that if he had been a fire he would consume the world and himself to destroy Reid for having killed him! Then in an instant he felt weaker then he ever had before. His body was cold. He shuddered, then pushed himself up of of the desert ground. The wind blew, and nobody saw as Eugene Dan’s body once again stood and began walking South.
