Cloud's Rider

Slip followed through that gate no horse had ever been able to use, not from the village founding.

Callie and the Goss boy, Je

It was scary in this dark and strange business. Je

“Shut that gate,” Peterson said. “Bolt it good.”

“We’d better take a look down at the main gate,” Ridley said. To this hour they didn’t know why the bell had stopped. The only encouragement was the lack of specific alarm from the horses, who carried an ambient void of native presence around the village. But Serge Lasierre had undoubtedly rung the alarm for some reason. And stopped—for some reason.

“I haven’t wanted to scatter people out and about,” Peterson said. “Could be Serge is locked in. Couldbe there’s been a tu

“I want you and Jackson there both behind walls. Leave the streets entirely to us.”

“We’ll be in the office.”

“Good. —Randy, I want you to go with the marshal right now. Get behind solid doors.”

“I’d rather—” Randy began.

“ Gowith the marshal.”

“Yes, sir,” Randy said, having believed him about obeying the camp-boss and maybe having caught the warning in the ambient. Je

He swung up onto Slip’s back and rode to one side of Je

“It’s <scary,”> Je

“Don’t babble,” Callie reminded her. “Talk when you needa word. The ambient’s enough, miss.”

Frightened people were awake everywhere. The shutters were latched. People behind those shutters had guns, every one of them, as much a hazard to them as to any swarm of vermin that might have gotten in. The Schaffer house wasn’t in this end of the street, for which Ridley was entirely grateful. It was down where the marshal and Randy had taken refuge—and where he hoped there wasn’t any native creature the Goss girl could pick up. It had seemed quiet down there, and it still seemed quiet at their backs.

But the warehouses and the granary that lay right along the rider camp gate and those ru

They passed The Evergreen, which wasn’t shuttered, and which cast lamplight through its glass-windowed doors. Patrons were inside, huddling in a <fear> and <challenge> that blazed as bright as the lamplight into the ambient. Je

“They’re not doing right, are they?”

“No,” Ridley said. “Those are fools. We look out for people doing necessary jobs, first, like us and the marshal and Serge. Second, people taking care of themselves, like in those houses, locked down tight. Foolscome last on our list, always.”

They passed the blacksmith shop and the Mackeys’ house, where God knew the state of affairs and he didn’t care to.

Then the miner barracks, that was at least to outward appearances shuttered tight and proper.

After that came one warehouse set back from Serge’s place and then the Santezes and the Lasierres, who were closest to the wall. Things felt all right there.

They came all the way to the gate, where he saw nothing—nothing but the tracks one might expect about the elevated stairway to the gate-guard’s tower. Serge’s tracks. Maybe another man’s. They were just slightly rounded over by new snow. Serge had gone up there not a long time ago—maybe talked to some other man. Those tracks were trampled over. He’d need more light.

But Slip didn’t like what he smelled here. Truly didn’t like it. Neither did Rain and Shimmer.

“Serge?” he called out.

There was no answer. There was nothing in the ambient to advise him Serge was there—but Serge might be unconscious. Might just have slipped on the icy steps and hit his head. He hopedthat was the case.

He slid down from Slip’s back at the foot of the tower steps. He had had a shell in the rifle chamber all the way down the street, and he carried the gun carefully and had itready as he climbed the steps as far as the first turn.

What—met him—wasn’t a body. It might have been one before something ripped it to shreds and draped it on the rail.

He spun about and took the stairs at a skid. Slip was at the bottom of the steps and he didn’t even think clearly about launching himself for Slip’s back, he just landed there.

He didn’t need to explain to Callie or Je

<“Easy,”> he said. <“Easy.> Keep Rain calm.”

“Was <that> <Serge?”> Faint voice. Tremulous voice.

“Most likely,” Callie said firmly. “Look for tracks going away, Je

“Is < that> them?”

In fact it was: Ridley got off again to take a close look at <long-footed tracks in snow> on the otherside of the stairs, where something had—not vaulted the rail: the snow was still intact there—jumped from higher up, was what the intruder had done. He found the depression that indicated a jump clear from the next-to-last tier of the steps, <tracks rapidly filling with snow, tracks going away from the landing it had made and going toward the houses.> He let Slip smell the trail.

Slip snorted and brought his head up, dancing about nervously as Ridley swung up. Slip had smelled it twice, now, and still didn’t have a clear image of it. Shimmer walked back around and smelled the stairs and the railing, and didn’t have an image, either.

“Where did it go?” Je

“Houses. It jumps and climbs.” <Lorrie-lie,> was what he was thinking. There was a snow ridge across the tracks and he rode Slip through it—picked up the trail of footprints on the other side, both scent and tracks, until it reached the Lasierres’ porch.

The Lasierres seemed <alive people, quiet inside the house.> He didn’t want to disturb them or have them unbolting doors to the night—and possibly they’d caught the disturbance and warning from their horses out on the street and were staying close by their fireside.

They made a circuit of the house. He rode in front. Callie and Je

The tracks that had disappeared at the porch didn’t show up on any side. He considered the gap between the Lasierres’ roof and the Santezes’ roof, and it was wider than the gaps between most. But if whatever it was wasn’t lurking up there—it had jumped it and headed further up the street.