The junior godslayer rode into town expecting rain. It was a perfectly cloudless day, the sky clean and blue, the sun distant and round like a copper coin. Despite the windless heat, the godslayer wore her standard-issue slayer’s longcoat with the cowl pulled up to shade her face. Slung across her back was her GS3 series bolt-action rifle, and sitting comfortably at her hip was the ancient elenim pistol she had stolen as a child, its grip bound in canvas. As she passed under the cast iron archway that named this town Argyle, the god that haunted it shivered in fear, and a wind stirred the perfect dry stillness of the day, tickling the ends of the pony’s mane, flapping the hem of her blue longcoat. The godslayer stood in her stirrups, shielded her eyes with a hand, and faced the horizon. Yes. It would rain.
Argyle, that small town positioned just south of the river, had once been a neat and well-regarded post along the north-south railway. Now, it was a town in disrepair. Empty clotheslines drooped between buildings with cracked concrete walls and missing shingles. Wheel tracks and debris rutted the main road, and the fountain at the center of the town square was dry and full of dead leaves. Every window in sight was shuttered, and the only sign of local life was the occasional wisp of wood smoke curling from a chimney. The town might as well have been abandoned.
The highlands pony took high, slow steps around the central fountain and headed toward the mayor’s house. His junior godslayer held his reins loosely, watching the town slide by, checking rooftops for signs of danger and for perches from which to hunt. Tied to his saddle was a cloth sack that bulged with the tools of her trade. The godslayer loosened the drawstrings and let the sway of the pony’s gait dribble its contents along their path. A trail of torn dresses and dirty undergarments chummed their wake. The sun drew the gleam of sweat to her mount’s shaggy coat.
The mayor’s house, overlooking the rest of town from the top of the hill, was a stocky, two-story building built in the monastic style of the previous age. The symmetrical front windows peered from between columns of white marbles, all of which were topped by an overhanging entablature that shaded the decaying altar on the front porch. Above this was a row of tall, orderly windows wreathed in iron filigree, the rightmost of which was flung open to admit the day. On the left side, the red of modern reparative bricks intersected the brown stone of the original building. A small lawn stood strikingly green against the surrounding desert.
The godslayer dismounted at the porch and loosed the pony to graze the lawn. A heavy brass knocker fronted the door, above which peered a glass peephole. The godslayer let the knocker fall once, twice, three times, before the door opened to reveal a hands-width gap. A chain barred entrance, and the voice that issued from the gap was over-loud and enunciated, as if intending to intimidate.
“What's your business here?”
The godslayer removed a folded writ from her coat pocket and passed it through the gap. The door shut, a moment passed, and then the chain rattled. A stocky, middle-aged woman in a pantsuit opened the door. She introduced herself sheepishly as the mayor’s assistant and led the godslayer into the building. They mounted a set of grand stairs and proceeded down a long hallway lined with portraiture in gold frames. Old, unpleasant faces gazed down at them as they passed. The assistant gripped the writ with white-knuckled hands and alternated nervous glances between its script and the rifle on the godslayer’s back. A warding symbol, hung from a silver necklace chain, bounced on the assistant’s chest. It looked new.
At the end of hallway was a set of double doors that opened into what appeared to be a converted bedroom. Bills and other official documents were tacked on top of expensive wallpaper, and a loveseat had been pushed into the corner to make room for a heavy mahogany desk. A glorious floor-to-ceiling window, affording a full view of the town as well as glimpses of the distant river and even the shadowy impressions of the Northline Mountains, far, far away, explained why the mayor had chosen this room for his office.
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The assistant gestured to a chair in front of the mayor’s desk, and the godslayer sat. “Dekim?” his assistant said. “The godslayer Eyeralo-to here to see you.” The assistant stumbled on the name, glancing uncertainly from the writ in her hands to the godslayer seated before her. “Am I saying that right? Eye-er-all-oh-toe?” When the godslayer did not respond, the assistant chuckled nervously and took the seat by the door.
The godslayer removed a small scroll sealed with blue wax from a zippered pocket on her cross-chest bandolier and passed it to the mayor. Cracking the seal, the mayor flattened the contract on the scuffed surface of his desk and repositioned his spectacles to better read the script. He glanced from contract to contractor, and his eyes bulged.
“They sent you?” he said.
The godslayer nodded.
“Just you?”
The godslayer nodded.
“And you’ve, you know… dealt with this… something like this before?” The mayor was not a tall man, but had he stood shoulder to shoulder with the godslayer, her head would hardly have cleared his chest. Her slayer’s rifle, propped against the cushioned chair in which she sat, was almost as tall as she was. She was tiny. Gods on earth, she was shaped like bait. The mayor squirmed and gestured to his assistant. “Give us some privacy, will you, Palmer?”
The office door clicked shut behind the assistant.
“I have to ask,” said the mayor, then paused and cleared his throat. The mayor was also, inconveniently, not a confident man, and so as he spoke he repeated the motion of adjusting his spectacles over and over, like a nervous tick. “You do know what this… this god of ours has been doing? To people – to girls – like you?” He feared some administrative mistake had occurred, wondered if perhaps the Order had sent a slayer’s squire (if such a thing existed) ahead of the real warrior, and that that bronze-cast bolt-action rifle at her side was a merely prop to acclimatize him to its strange, depthless presence before the real thing arrived.
The godslayer nodded.
“What’s been happening… it hasn’t been pretty. Hence the summons. We’re in trouble here.” The mayor hesitated. “How old are you, anyway?”
Nothing. With the cowl over her head, it was difficult to make out the slayer’s features, let alone determine her age. She was a statue cradling the barrel of a god-killing machine in her gloved left hand. The mayor wiped his forehead with a handkerchief, and it came away wet and yellow.
“Don’t you have any help?” he asked plaintively.
A quick jerk of the head.
“And, uh… what happens if you fail?”
The godslayer’s head tilted, the cowl shifted, and at last the sunlight from the open window reached her features: a slim, serious face with thin lips and thick eyebrows, separated by a nose that hooked like the sharp edge of a scythe. Her gray eyes, wide enough to reveal the round entirety of the iris, were chillingly unexpressive. They fixed the mayor to his chair. When the godslayer spoke, it was the mayor who felt small.
“They will send another.”
“Ah. Right, then.” The mayor eyed the price scripted in bold at the bottom of the contract and swore, then looked guiltily over at the gray-eyed, gun-toting maiden sitting quietly before his desk. “I hope you’re worth it,” he recovered. “Tea?” She declined. “Well, best of luck, then.” He forced himself to speak kindly, but the effect was more patronizing than encouraging, like a nurse offering comfort to a terminal patient. He glanced again at the price listed on the contract, and his heart throbbed. For her sake as well as the rest of the town, she had better not fail.
When he looked up, he saw the godslayer had paused at his door.
“You should close the window,” she said. That young, solemn face betrayed no trace of humor or jest. “It’s going to rain.”
The mayor turned, baffled, to view the cloudless blue sky through the open square of his window. When he turned back, the godslayer was gone.