Page 39 of Tusks & Saddles
She aimed at the bandit, finger moving on the trigger to fire—
Nothing.
Misfire.
“Balls.”
Chapter Three
Welborn
The moment the passenger door opened, Welborn felt a pulse.
A latent arcane energy that lay within the palm thrummed beneath his gloved hand. Welborn acknowledged it, but kept his attention toward the back of the cabin where a man appeared. His expression was twisted in anxiety, his movements hurried. Normally, Welborn would have taken a moment to observe the stranger before approaching him, but the short sword suggested that intervention would be needed.
Startled cries filled the space as the passengers pressed tightly to the windows, giving the armed man a wide berth. Mothers gathered their children, husbands sheltered their wives, but all of them shared the same expression of fear. Cavila was one of those people, tucking Suri tight to her side and away from the aisle.
Welborn raised just enough that he was awkwardly hovering above the bench. He caught Cavila’s eye, gestured with his head, and she quickly followed his intention. She slid across to Welborn’s vacant seat, allowing him to take the end of the bench nearest to the aisle. It would hopefully keep the small family from any harm if Welborn was in the crossfire.
Okay, okay, okay…
The word was stuck in Welborn’s mind as he reached for his right hand. The strap that tied at his wrist was held together by a small silver button. All Welborn needed to do was unfasten it, pull the glove off, and—
The sound of the cabin door banging open caused screams to fill the cabin. Welborn’s gaze tore from the man who had made it halfway down the aisle toward the door. He was startled by the sight of a woman in a large brimmed hat dressed entirely in black. The question of her ancestry was hidden by the black veil that hung from her hat and obscured her face. She was tall though, perhaps just a few inches shy of having the same line of sight as him.
Welborn’s observation of the newcomer died upon seeing her lift an arm with some kind of metal device in her hand. He only saw the front of it for a second before a loud crack echoed in his ears. A small plume of smoke drifted from the end of the metal device in her hand. To Welborn’s astonishment, the man had dropped the short sword and had fallen to his knees. Blood was seeping through the thin linen of the man’s dusty shirt, falling onto the dirty floor.
Whoever that woman was, she had managed to take out the potential threat without harming anyone. Quite the feat, given how crowded the passenger cabin was. Welborn silently thanked the All Seer for protecting the passengers on the train. She must have been listening, because he felt another pulse in his hand. Curious, Welborn pulled his hand free of the glove.
There was a hole in the center of his hand, large enough to take up most of his palm. A wound from a long time ago that had never healed exactly right, but for all intended purposes, Welborn could still use it. Some of the movement was a little stilted, but Welbornwasn’t an arcanist. He didn’t need to rely on intricate hand motions to access spell work.
Welborn lifted his hand, pressing the palm to his eye. As he gazed through the hole in his flesh, the world he saw was now a sepia monochrome. A wave of divinity drew Welborn toward the fallen man. For a moment, he was the same shades of copper as everything else. But then Welborn saw it, the faint glow of sapphire coming from the man’s pocket in the shape of a vial.
Call it an educated guess, intuition, or perhaps just the blessing of the All Seer, but Welborn was suddenly flooded with the knowledge of what that vial contained. As he pulled his hand away, the world becoming rich in color again, the injured man was reaching for that vial. He needed to act quickly, otherwise that woman who had been slowly approaching him could be hurt.
Welborn stumbled out his seat, standing in the aisle. A moment of hesitation gripped him, but the moment the man revealed the vial, Welborn was already acting. Drawing to the divine magic that lay within the empty space of his hand, Welborn gathered it. He raised his hand, clasping the emblem of the All Seer at the base of his throat. The sea glass cradled perfectly within the hole in his hand began to glow.
A moment later a brilliant flash of white light shot down the aisle like lightening. The beam struck the man’s chest. He let out a cry, body arching as the searing divine energy coursed through him. When the magic ran it’s course, the man dropped to the ground. The vile of green liquid—acid, Welborn realized based on his brief studies of alchemy—had rolled beneath one of the long benches.
Within the cabin, there was stillness. The shock of what had just occurred most likely running it’s course through the passengers. Welborn’s heart was beating wildly, but his training at the All SeerTemple swiftly overtook his body. He rushed to the fallen man, felt for breath, and when he found it, Welborn breathed a sigh of relief. He reached within his robes for the small satchel that contained his healing supplies. As long as he could stabilize him, that was all that mattered.
Welborn was in the process of sorting through the items he would need, when he realized someone had drawn close to him. Unable to help himself, Welborn’s gaze moved from the man’s head toward the edge of black boots peeking from beneath the hem of a skirt. As he continued the path up more long skirts, Welborn felt his mouth go dry. He wasn’t the type to objectify women. In all honesty, his experience with women was non-existent other than the other clerics of the All Seer. But he had never seen them as anything other than companions who walked the path of curiosity.
I didn’t know blacksmiths made armored corsets…
By the time he reached the veil hiding the woman’s face, Welborn could feel the heat in his cheeks. The blood making his skin a darker green as he hastily withdrew some herbs from his satchel.
“How’s he doing?” the woman asked.
Welborn blushed harder.
Why was her voice like that? Why was it so… so…
“He’ll be all right! He’s fine, totally fine, everything is great! Even though I hit him with a spell, his mind and body should be totally fine, I swear! No life long damage, not here!” Welborn babbled, then shook his head upon realizing that’s what he had been doing. “I… I’m just stabilizing him.”
“You’re a caster, I’m assuming,” the woman continued, leaning her back against the wooden armrest of one of the aisle benches. “What kind?”
Welborn stole a glance. He couldn’t see her face and she was completely covered from head to toe. Yes, the corset helped fill in some of the gaps in his head, but a lot of women had waists! Why was he reacting this way—
