Chapter 4:

Wherein The Laws Of Nature Are Thoroughly Defiled

Hell’s Horseman


Like that, another fool fell to his grave, but Lozen was just thankful the rest of them hadn't decided to start shooting yet. The loud stranger in question had his head snapped back as the bullet presumably struck it and sent his hat flying back back to land on the counter she was still seated at. No one laughed like she expected them to, but the man on the table, smoking gun in hand, said in a voice just as dismissive of the death he had enacted "Well, at least he was a good jester for a while. And whichever one of you forgot to shoot him before, let this be a lesson."

A small grumble passed through the crowd with Lozen even joking it as she saw the corpse of her best possible informant stay standing perfectly in........she needed a second to process that. She whipped a hand over her eyes and blinked in a desperate bid to start seeing clearly, but it was still there.

The body, clearly shot judging from the hole drilled through the cloth on the back of the head, was still standing upright. She wondered if it was one of those situations where the shot was so fast the body didn't have time to react to the recoil, but she clearly remembered seeing it stumbling. However, that little mishap of nature was forgotten when she saw what lay on top of the strangers head.

The hat must have been covering it but now it had given way for several streaks of glowing blue hair resting on what had to be his head. She thought the fumes must have been getting to her when she saw that, but that excuse lasted about five second before the cloth bundle wrapped around the strangers started to unravel. Everything seemed to slow down as the scarf fell to the ground and the handful of seconds she saw what was under felt like an eternity. It was as the whimpering man had described.

A skull wrapped in a soul with a spectral face that appeared to be grinning. A true dead silence washed over the room as everyone saw the impossible figure standing there, wide eyes and dropped jaws pointed right at it with not a single soul daring to speak. And the creature seemed to be loving it. A shit eating grin had crawled onto its face as it saw the reactions and concluded it's statement in a deliciously excited voice "Hell's Horseman.........Hah! Now that's timing. Maybe I should try planning that next time."

That was about all the men needed before they all started pulling their weapons out. Clicks of hammers and shells being slid into place filled the saloon as every living soul in the bar scrambled like mad to point a gun at the creature.

That is, except for Lozen.

She saw all the barrels pointed in her general direction and, without a single conscious though, pulled herself over the bar counter out of pure reaction. Luckily she managed to lay flat against the floor behind the bar before the furring could start and wrapped her hands behind her head as she heard the creature say "Oh, are those shotguns? You'll didn't have to."

Then all hell broke loose. Everything around her exploded into a burst of wood that started raining down all around her as the various shells tore everything to pieces. Shrapnel and splinters stabbed themselves down onto her, sometimes even embedding themselves, but by some heavenly miracle, she was unharmed by the swarm of bullets passing overhead. Some pellets gently bounced off her back after their velocity had been used up, but other than that and the absolute devastation of the furniture around her, she seemed to be fine.

Though, she wasn't alone for long. Most of the bullets must have found their mark because before long, the creature came tumbling over the counter and landing in a bundle on the floor just as the rampant gunfire stopped. In those two seconds of peace she had, Lozen mind went into overdrive and took a quick sweep of the area while the barbarians were reloading.

The counter to her left was filled with dozens of holes and covered in a meaty layer of splinters and pieces of wood snapped out of alignment, but was still in place at the very least. Through the numerous holes blown into every inch of it, she could see the men on the other side trying to frantically reload their weapons with about a dozen of them shouting the same thing. "SHOOT IT!!!" Over and over again with the ones wielding shotguns managing to reload their two shots before the other could refill their six. The wall on her right looked in better shape and the creature that had landed right in front of her was somehow in the best condition out of everything around her.

A pair of skeletal arms pushed themselves through the cloak and slammed down onto the floor before it pushed up itself up into a kneeling position. "Thank you god! This is exactly what I needed! A bunch of loons with guns!! Okay, so rabid wolves would have better, but still. I'll take what I can-" It started saying before finally noticing she was staring at it. "Huh. Didn't expect you to be alive. You actually a man who's poorly disguised as a woman poorly disguised as a man or something?" It finished, but Lozen's mind was on auto pilot at the moment and she barely caught a word. However, the second look of the creature managed to incite something deep in the back of her mind and pull out one fact she blurted out without even properly understanding it.

"You're a Chunuxu." She let slip before the sound of shotguns shells came ringing out through the room and tore through the counter even more. Wood scattered all over the floor once as the shell were quickly unloaded, forcing Lozen down to the floor once again and the creature to be struck by more shells, but neither of them were wounded. Then the six shooters started once again, tearing up more of her cover before they all took five more seconds to reload. When she was certain she hadn't been harmed again, the logical portion of Lozen's mind kicked back in and allowed her to start thinking about what was going on. There was something in front of her she could vaguely recall in old children's stories and about fifty armed men shooting enough ammunition at her to win the American the battle of the Alamo.

Bottomline, she needed to run. Somehow, she needed to get out and just go somewhere not here. However, the only closer she got to that was drawing her weapon before she felt a pair of hands latch onto her shoulders and pull her upright. She found herself staring into the creatures empty, her somehow wide eyes as it exclaimed "You know what I am?!"

The first thing Lozen did when she saw that thing so close to her face was reached down for her pistol and fire the weapon once she had pressed the barrel right under his chin. Another loud crack rang out, tossing the creatures head up and sending it flying backwards just before the next wave began. Lozen of course kept herself low again, but this time she felt one of the rounds get lucky and graze across her right shoulder with a wave of horrible pain rushing out from the spot. It wasn't anything she hadn't felt before, but was enough to make her let out a small scream. This was getting too tense and see was running out of cover.

"Ow!! Point blank still hurts you know?!" The creatures cried out as Lozen raised her pistol again and fired off one more round directly into the demons forehead. It wasn't dying, but it was still being tossed around by her bullets and thankfully this time it came crashing down onto the floor. Her eyes then turned towards the sliver of window at the far end of the bar and fired right at the glass, shattering it enough for her to break it.

However, the men managed to reload before she could make a run for it and let out another holler of "KILL THE FUCKING THING!!" as they filled the air with lead. Lozen was once again pressed against the floor, this time two more shoots managing to graze past her. One across the back of her shin and the other barely grazing her elbow. She screamed again and considered just making a run for it now, but the pain was too great for her to move fast enough to beat the bastards reloading. "And that's just rude!" The creature said as it sat up and bore down on her again.

"For the love of god, I'm not going to hurt you!!" It tried saying, but Lozen wasn't stupid enough to believe that nd thankfulky she didn't have to think much of it before another wave of bullets smashed through what remained of the bar. The creature had tossed up against the back wall by the force, but this turn it didn't stay down for long and started pulling itself into its feet as it said "Okay, that's enough!!" It latched it's left hand onto a perch blown into the wall by the bullet and it's other up until the hand hovered right next to it's ghostly face.

It's free finger clenched themselves in mid air as if holding a gun, but in a moment they literally were. There was a sound like crackling ice and frost like mist settling within the creature grasp before a block of ice suddenly erupted into existence from its palm. A block that formed itself into a clear weapon instead of another cube of frozen water and began spewing chilled mist from every inch of it the second it appeared. It was a six shooter, almost identical to her own and judging from how he used it, the same in function.

"I'm in the middle of talking!!!" The creature cried out before it swung it's arm over the counter and started firing like a madman. It didn't stop at six shots, unleashing multiple times that amount in seconds with panicked yells erupting from the crowd and causing a few bodies to fall to the ground judging from the thuds. Though, Lozen only knew that in that moment, the creature was distracted and the men on the other side were either afraid of dying. She wasn't going to have a better chance than this.

So, she slowly pulled her legs back under her, gritting her teeth the whole time as agony stabbed down into them, and started wobbling over towards the window. She took care to keep her head below the counter and make sure she slipped behind the creature in case it decided to kill her anyways. Every step was wracked with pain that made the thought of amputation appealing, but she thankfully managed to make it to the window without collapsing. After spinning her weapon around until she held it like a club, she brought the butt of her revolver down onto the remaining chunks of window and caused the glass to come crashing down in a rain of shards.

Before the rest of the men could be dumb enough to try shooting again, she managed to leap through the hole and out into the cooling, evening air. "Hey, wait!!" The creature cried out behind her, but Lozen wouldn't have bothered to obey even if she cared to fully listen. With her legs still screaming for mercy she started running in which direction was full of gun rotting maniacs. She ran for maybe three steps before she noticed the wall of horses lashed to the poles holding up the patio cover. Most of them were panicking like mad and close to a stampede if their reins didn't hold, but thankfully someone had forgotten to tie a few of them to the side of the saloon. Lozen bolted for the openings and finally managed to make it out into the open road. Then, she just started running back down the way she had come with the saloon quickly disappearing behind her. Somewhere in town there had to be a place she could hide and then maybe get a horse before any of the folk here realized there was something in the bar.

However, she didn't get far before she heard the creatures voice cry out from somewhere behind her "Fine! Play it like that! Beatrice, get her!!" She barely heard that before her attention was pulled towards one of the numerous alleyways dividing up the shops on her left. The sound of hoofsteps, but ones that were far faster than anything she even though was possible and in the blink of an eye, their owner came exploding out into the road. She only saw a blur at the mouth of one of the alleyways before a horse came to a sharp, impossibly quick halt right in front of her.

Lozen came to a screeching halt as the dark stallion reared up on its hind legs, a ghastly, wet neigh letting lose as if it were choking on blood, and it's front hooves kicking out as if trying to hit her. She managed to jump back just as the animal brought it's hooves down on where she had stood and flew her hands up in front of her. This wasn't the first time she had to tame a panicking horse, but before she could start calming it down, she got a proper look at the beast.

It was physical at the very least, but wounded in too many ways for it to have possibly been alive. Half of its face was had fallen off and yet somehow it felt like it was still bearing down on her. A huff caused the limbs she could see through it's rib cage to shudder and bang against its bones and every slight step caused it's exposed tendons to slide up and down the bones in disturbing fashion. Its head lowered as if it were a bull preparing to charge, the one good eyes staring right into her soul with a hate that was far too conscious to have come from an animal or whatever abomination was trying to disguise itself as one.

She started slowly backing away from the monster, wide eyes and questioning her eyes again, and staying as innocuous as she could because nothing else was coming to mind. However, the monstrous mont only took two steps before the ghostly abomination behind her cried out "Alright, alright, old girl! He gets the point! Mister......whatever your name is, turn around. Slowly. And if you do much as blink the wrong way, I have my horse beat you into a fine paste and then drink it!! Or maybe I'll just tear your dick off and fuck you with it until your dead!......Nah, that's too graphic. Let's go with the horse thing." Not wanting to piss off a literal hellspawn, Lozen slowly started turning around with her hands raised and silently trying to figure out why on earth it wasn't killing her.

It came back into view before long, it's weapon indeed pointed at her and it's hellish form on full display, but the expression carved from ghostly light seemed rather confused. Like it was debating every word it said or simply trying to figure out what was going on.

"There we go. Now, let's start at the beginning. Who the hell are you and-" It started before another set of gunshots rang out and struck it right in the chest. Lozen sucked down out of instinct, the creature stumbled, and the horse let out another neigh as it's hooves smashed onto the ground, but the actual shot itself vanished from importance before long. The creature didn't even seem to care for very long and tossed its arm out to its side before firing a few dismissive round in the general direction of the blasts.

A bolt of icy light too fast for her to properly see, but just enough for her to make out it rushing towards someone standing near the fence of horses. "How are there still so many of you bastards!? You were a good momentary distraction, now fuck off!!!! This is kinda important, you suicidal morons!!!!" The creature cried out exactly three seconds before another gun shoot struck it right in the head. Its skull snapped to the side for a moment as its expression contorted into an angry one that was either at its breaking point or trying its damned to prevent that with its lip curling back and every inch of it going rigid.

"Alright! That's it! Beatrice, pack the shit!! We're bailing!! And you-" It cried out as it started marching over to her, gun trained in her the entire time until it stood in front of Lozen, her fear and bewilderment preventing her from moving a single muscle. The thought crossed her mind to try and disable this thing long enough for her to find someway out, but she wasn't dumb enough to try that. Whatever this thing was, it was taking gunshots like pebbles, had nigh perfect aim, and commanded the stead that must have delivered Satan to hell. She had no idea what she was truly dealing with and any effort to fight such a monstrosity was going to get her killed.

"You're lucky interruptions-" It started, tossing it's head over its shoulder to direct that last word towards the saloon and raising the volume to emphasize it. "Are the one thing I despise more than alcohol, but you better start dreaming of......," It started before pausing and gesturing to its person. "What this is or else your gonna........Damn. I swear I wrote something down for this. Bottomline, you better give me something useful when you wake up." Lozen felt compelled to ask when it meant by that and much to her surprise, the creature just stopped after it said that.

It just stared blankly at her as the second slowly ticked by and turned into minutes with her horror slowly turning into more confusion than anything else. She glanced around, trying to see if this was a trap of sort and this thing's demon henchmen we're going to leap out from the shadows, but apparently it was still just her and the monster.

The creature let out an annoyed sigh after far too much time had passed and leaned towards her before saying "Guy, I said 'you better give me something useful when you wake up'. That's your cue." Lozen raised an eyebrow at that to which the creature continued "Do I have to spell it out for you? Ask me what I mean when I saw wake-You know what, I don't have the patience for this. Sweet dreams." Before Lozen could ask, the creature spun it's weapon around and delivered one good bash right to the side of her head. Then, there was just a sudden, deep darkness.

...

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