Perry didn’t particularly want to fight the Yuuks. He was sympathetic to them, half because of the whole colonialism thing that was clearly going on, and half because of his time with Anaksi. Most of what he’d studied in college was about the tribes of the Pacific Northwest, which was pretty far removed from the so-called Wild West, but the story had been the same all over the United States, and it was cripplingly tragic. He didn’t know how much it was the same here, whether they’d had the same wave of disease that had killed four-fifths of their population, but from everything that Anaksi had said, there was at least enough to say that the pattern was similar. The harmonizer was going to kill their way of life.

  Maya would probably have slapped him for being on the side of the settlers. Actually, she might have tried to kill him. Hell, she’d have been the leading spear of the Yuuk offensive. It was possible that she would be, with more years of power under her belt. Fate and the Grand Spell could unite them again. It was unlikely but possible, and that gave Perry pause.

  But he’d pledged himself to these people, and they were defending themselves against an attack, so he rushed to the southern edge of town with the others.

  “You wait until you see them a’fore you shoot!” yelled the marshal. “You steady your aim, hit the horses if you have to! Wait until they’re close enough, wait until you’re not wastin’ your shot!”

  The Yuuks could be seen a mile out, kicking up dust. The town had no walls for defense, so the townspeople — the ad hoc militia — were just lining up behind wagons and barrels that had been moved into place. More people were taking up positions in the upper floors and on the roofs of the south-facing buildings at the edge of town.

  Perry had his sword at his hip. There was a rifle in the shelf space, but he depended on Marchand for actually hitting targets, and had only ever been a half decent shot without the AI’s assistance — as proven by trying to hone his skills in Esperide. There was a pistol there too, easy enough to grab one-handed from the shelf space, a move he’d practiced doing smoothly a few times.

  He wasn’t sure of how much of his power to put on display here. He’d shown off in the bar fight, and that level of skill seemed alright, but if he went all out, turned into the wolf, he imagined there would be trouble, not to mention that night was coming soon and he didn’t like the way the moonlight had felt the night before. But even short of that, springing across the battlefield, slicing through the Yuuks with his magical sword, flying up in the air and dropping down on top of them, seemed like it might raise questions that he didn’t know how to answer. He could masquerade as a Black Peony, whatever they were, Cleo had even used the phrase “no two alike”, but that risked him running into more trouble, particularly from the marshal.

  Maybe they’d simply be grateful for the help, however unconventional.

  The opening shot came early, very early, a crack of thunder rolling over the plains. One of the men had been dropped with a gaping hole in his chest, and there was panic as people hid from the unseen sniper. Perry did the same, ducking behind one of the buildings. He stilled his rapidly beating heart and then looked toward where the Yuuks were still coming, at least half a mile away still, too far for anything but a very lucky shot to have managed to hit anything.

  “March, you said effective range was three hundred yards, if that,” said Perry.

  “I was making a comparison to historical weapons from our shared history, sir,” said Marchand.

  There was another crack of a gunshot from very far away, and a scream of pain from another of the men. There was too much chatter, and the militia was clearly suffering a crisis of morale. How the fuck they were being hit from that distance was unclear.

  “They have someone with magic, powers, something,” said Perry. He swore. Flying was seeming like a worse idea now, though hitting a moving target was difficult. The Yuuks would be on them soon.

  It was the same gun every time, Perry was pretty sure, and he grew more sure when he heard it a third time. That shot sounded like a hit as well, if the cry of pain and panic was any indication. Their gunman was three for three at insane distances. A modern sniper rifle would have had trouble, and on horseback, it would have been damned near impossible.

  “The other thresholder,” said Perry. “Be ready.”

  “I am currently immobile, sir,” said Marchand.

  “You have wifi up and running?” asked Perry. “Get ready to hack anything that comes in range.”

  There was an aggrieved sigh from Perry’s earpiece. “Yes, sir, I shall ‘hack’ any interlopers.”

  “What’s the timing on those shots?” asked Perry.

  “Fifteen seconds, sir,” said Marchand.

  The fourth shot was right on schedule.

  This time Perry moved out, scanning the horizon. The Yuuks were closer, and they’d be in the town in half a minute, but if they had a sniper out there, then that, at least, was a problem that Perry could handle.

  He spotted Queenie, right in the thick of a pack of at least forty Yuuks, red scarf flowing behind her. She had an enormous rifle she was in the process of reloading on horseback, feeding an oversized bullet into it that gleamed for a moment before being closed into the chamber.

  Perry ducked back behind the building. He didn’t know if she was going for headshots, and with a rifle that size, he wasn’t entirely sure it would matter. If his heart got splattered out on the ground behind him, he wasn’t going to be able to just recirculate his blood until an outpouring of energy mended him back together. Someday, maybe, but not today.

  The sniper rifle cracked again, louder and closer, accompanied by the shattering of a window and another scream of pain. The marshal was trying to keep everyone together, to keep their guns pointed at the enemy and ready for massed fire, but many of the militia members had already fled, getting ready to lock themselves up and hide until the danger had passed.

  Perry waited, trying to time it out. Queenie shot her giant sniper rifle again, and this time Perry ran out away from the buildings. The bullets were flying and the Yuuks were whooping, and it was probably suicidal to be out there, but Perry had his sword drawn and moved like the wind. Every press of his foot against the ground thrummed with energy, lifting him into great leaping jumps that kicked up sandy dirt.

  The Yuuks were all dressed up in warpaint, and their horses had been painted too. They had rifles, all of the same model, and they were shooting from horseback, but Perry was coming at them from an angle, and the few who tried to fire at him missed by a wide margin.

  Perry leapt through the air and swung his sword through the body of one of the Yuuks, cutting through an arm and part of his chest. Perry landed on the ground and changed direction with a step of his foot, kicking up a plume of dust and coming at the line of warriors from behind. He ran after their horses and leapt again, landing just behind one, then with another bound decapitated another of the men.

  He felt Queenie’s sniper rifle on him more than he actually saw it, and he kicked off away from the horse, sending it toppling to the ground with its headless rider still on top. The sound of the sniper rifle was deafening up close, but the air was thick with gunfire as the riders had approached the buildings. The Yuuks had lost men, aside from the two that Perry had killed, and Queenie was off between the buildings, flying right by the hastily erected defenses.

  Perry went after them. If they had a target, it was city hall, and they would have a plan for getting into the vault in the basement. Queenie had a sniper rifle, and she was damned good with it, but it was a distance weapon, and if she had other tricks up her sleeve, he was going to force her to use them.

  How and why the Yuuks were on her side was anyone’s guess, but they were aligned for the time being.

  “They’re at city hall,” said Marchand. His voice was terse. “Explosives have been produced.”

  There was an explosion just as Perry got onto the main street, remarkably fast given that he hadn’t wasted much time following on foot, and he was there in time to see Queenie stepping into city hall with a handful of Yuuks behind her. They’d left their horses standing around, trained creatures that weren’t spooking at the gunfire going on in the town.

  The other Yuuks, maybe twenty of them, were riding up and down the main street, whooping and hollering, brandishing their guns more than actually firing them. This was both intimidation and distraction, and he saw one of them lob what looked suspiciously like a molotov cocktail against the butcher’s shop. It went up almost immediately, dry wood taking any opportunity to start on fire, and Perry had no idea what the city did in the case of fire.

  Perry stayed back for a moment, watching their movements. The harmonizer was Queenie’s goal, and she was the enemy, which meant she had to be denied. There was a vault that contained the harmonizer, and they were going to rip it out, but that would take them some time, even if they could melt through metal. Or maybe they had enough explosives to simply blow the thing open.

  A pair of Yuuks went into the sheriff’s office, and at least that meant that Anaksi was probably getting out.

  Perry made his way to city hall, running across the road to get there, trying to keep out of anyone’s line of sight. He went in the front door, which had been blasted apart, and stepped over one of a few corpses of the men who’d been at the door to defend the place when it was blown open. Perry had no sense of the interior, but he found the stairs readily enough, and stepped carefully around every corner, worried that there would be a gun pointed right at his face. He trusted in his reflexes to be faster than anyone he came across, but Queenie was down there, and there was no telling what her skillset was, aside from being a crack shot.

  The basement of city hall was a place of corridors and sharp turns, and Perry came across his first Yuuk suddenly. The man was holding a rifle and had it aimed down the hallway, so Perry pushed off against the wall and bounded from side to side. The rifle fired once and Perry punched the man in his throat, hard enough that something broke. The Yuuk fell to the ground and Perry took stock of himself — the bullet had missed.

  The Yuuk was shockingly young, which was apparent only after Perry had a chance to look at him. He was in his teens, almost certainly, scrawny and baby faced, and clutching at his throat while looking up at Perry with hatred on his warpaint-covered face.

  Perry stepped past him. His sword was casting light. There were, to his surprise, electric lights overhead, which he hadn’t known was a technology that existed in the Dusklands. Where the electricity was coming from was unclear, but there hadn’t been any wires between the buildings, and no power station to speak of.

  Perry went through a door at a dead end and found himself in a records room that had almost nothing in the way of actual records. City hall was a new building, and there hadn’t been much need for deeds or certificates to be filed in duplicate yet. Maybe the plan was for the records room to be put through its paces after the harmonizer.

  The doors at the back of the records room were made of thick wood, reinforced with metal. They had been blasted open already, and were hanging off their hinges. A pink light could be seen from inside.

  Perry realized there was a barrel of a gun sticking out from a gap in the doors and started moving. He went left just as the shot went off, and this time he took a glancing hit to his ribs, not actually piercing his body or breaking a bone. He pushed forward, using a burst of energy down his leg to gain more speed, then kicked the door at full force. He was inside the room, swinging his sword, not waiting to see whether he’d succeeded in knocking the Yuuk over. His sword swept left on instinct and cut through a man whose knife was raised, and he was shot in the back three times as he turned back around.

  Perry lay on the ground, coughing blood and half stunned as he looked up at Queenie. She had her scarf slithering around her and her giant sniper rifle on her back. Beside her was the harmonizer, or the machine that it sat within, a giant clunky thing she’d wrenched open like an oyster to get the pink pearl inside. This was held in her hand now, and she looked over Perry with a smile. Her gun was, for the moment, pointed at the ceiling. He was trying to circulate his blood, to not exsanguinate onto the ground.

  “Well, well, well,” said Queenie. “Didn’t think that would do yeh, if I’m bein’ honest.”

  “Gruh,” said Perry. It was time for plan B, and he was having trouble with it. If he passed out, it would all be over.

  “Figured you for a K-man,” said Queenie. “Or somethin’ else, maybe the partner I’ve been thinkin’ would be here soon.”

  It was only second sphere that was keeping Perry conscious. He’d been hit in the heart, nicked, maybe, but enough that it wasn’t beating anymore. One of his lungs had collapsed. He could use energy to move everything around, but it was taking all his concentration, and the energy was draining from him quickly as he tried to put everything back together again. He wasn’t breathing, and was pretty sure that if he tried, he’d end up pushing a lot of blood out the holes in his chest.

  “Well, so long,” said Queenie. She waited a beat, maybe to see whether Perry had more stunts to pull, then brought her gun down to aim it squarely at his head.

  Perry went with plan B. He abandoned all other efforts to keep himself alive and cracked the Wolf Vessel, supercharging it with an internal blast of stored moonlight. The transformation ripped his clothes, and Queenie shot him a few more times, but the healing power overcame the damage, and her revolver was quickly out of ammo.

  Before he could swipe his claws at her or snap his jaws around her limbs, she was off and running.

  Perry scrambled after her, following the pink glow as she fled.

  The only reason he wasn’t able to catch up to her was the doorways. They hadn’t been built with an oversized wolf in mind, and he tore at the door frames with his paws, snapping and snarling, pushing his way through. The red scarf trailed behind her like a wagging tongue, taunting him, and slammed against one of the walls as he turned to go upstairs, cracking plaster.

  Queenie threw something at him as he came up the steps to the front of the building, a short brown stick, and he almost snapped at it out of instinct, but it was sparking, and he turned away at the last moment as it exploded.

  The pain was incredible, raw endings of nerves exposed to the air, his whole body feeling like it was a towel that had been wrung dry, but if the wolfish form was good for anything, it was healing.

  When Perry got back to his feet, he was still disoriented. Queenie was just leaving on her horse, it couldn't have been that long, but his body was still stitching itself back together, and a first attempt to chase after her left him stumbling to the ground. He shook his head from side to side, then pushed out through the door.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  The Yuuks were still hollering, but they were leaving, and giving him a wide berth. Queenie had gone around a building, but Perry had her scent, strong, sweet, and spiced. He took off after her, digging his claws into the wood floor and moving at full speed, leaping up onto the rooftop of the general store to get a bead on Queenie and the retreating Yuuks. He spotted her, going at a full gallop, leading the retreat. The town was on fire in more than one place, and they had their prize.

  Perry was faster than them, but not by that much, and he was drawing heavily from the Wolf Vessel to keep himself at top speed. It had been diminished when he’d healed back from being shot, then diminished again when the stick had exploded — likely dynamite — and the only reason he’d survived was because it was a raw stick of the stuff, not wrapped in shrapnel.

  Queenie glanced behind her and saw him, even with the trail of dust they were gathering. She unslung her sniper rifle as she bounced along, setting it so that it was backward, with the barrel resting on her shoulder and the stock out in front of her. The whole thing was pointed at Perry, in other words.

  Perry started zig-zagging, which slowed him down, but he could feel the killing intent coming off her, as impossible as shooting at a target behind her while on horseback should have been. She did, at least, turn to look back at him before firing.

  The flash of the gun came before the sound, and the sound was just after the bullet actually hit Perry. It struck him in the meat of his front leg, and he collapsed to the ground, howling in agony as the leg rebuilt itself. The Wolf Vessel was being drained, and if she could make that shot, predicting his movement, compensating for all kinds of things, then she could make it a second time from a greater distance. Perry limped, then ran, moving away this time, and dove behind a large rock just as the fifteen second countdown he’d been keeping was up.

  There were no further cracks of the sniper rifle, but he waited, crouched and growling, until the thunder of hooves was faint in the distance.

  Night fell, and the moon was green this time, not the green of moss, but the sickly green that was supposed to precede a tornado, or the green that sometimes showed up at the edges of a large and fading bruise. It made Perry feel nauseous, and the Wolf Vessel filled slowly, so he transformed back into a human, which didn’t help the nausea in the slightest.

  On the plus side, he hadn’t died, but that was as much as he could say for the night’s activities.

  ~~~~

  The shelf space had a change of clothes, and Perry took a moment to drink some water and take a bite of food. Being in there confirmed for him that it really was the moon that was making him feel sickly, and he was loath to go out, but he figured that he needed to. There were probably people he could help with a healing touch, if the wounds were small enough, and he had given himself away to Queenie. Besides, Marchand was probably booted up now, having missed the battle.

  The streets were deserted when he got back to town, which was no small wonder if the moonlight was making everyone else as sick as he was. Bodies had been left laying in the street, both settler and Yuuk alike. The fires had been put out, or in one case, the building had been left to burn itself up.

  “March, how are we doing?” asked Perry.

  “Still in the process of rebooting, sir,” said Marchand.

  Perry stumbled into the saloon, whose shutters were closed, and saw that the bar was full of people.

  No one paid him too much attention, which was a relief. He had transformed in front of Queenie, but if people had made the connection between him going into city hall and the wolf coming out, they weren’t immediately pointing fingers at him. Maybe werewolves were just no big deal in the Dusklands, but it seemed more likely that it had gone unnoticed. With all the shooting, most people who weren’t a part of the fighting had probably stayed away from their windows.

  Cleo came out from behind the bar to look at him just as soon as she’d spotted him.

  “You’re okay!” she said. “And … in different clothes?”

  The clothes were less of a clean match for the stylings of the townspeople. The shirt was crisp and white with buttons that were made from polished shells, and the slacks were likewise crisp and tan. He’d had to replace his boots too — the basement of city hall would have the old shredded ones, and he wasn’t sure how he would explain that, but maybe he would go down there and clean up the evidence. His sword was still in there, and that he couldn’t go without. He’d go claim it later.

  “Long story,” said Perry. “What are casualties looking like?”

  “Fifteen dead,” said Cleo. “The Yuuks had some kind of protection, lots of people swore up and down that when a bullet hit one, it burst into a cloud of dust. The harmonizer is gone, but it’s the Verdant Moon, so it’s all going to have to wait until morning.” That was more than he’d asked, but he was thankful for it. “You lose your lunch out there?”

  “No,” said Perry. “Nearly. I’ve never felt it before, the Verdant Moon.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Marshal came through alright?”

  “He killed a few of the Yuuks,” said Cleo. “Shot them in the head, I guess, which got past whatever they had. Killed four of their horses.” She looked Perry up and down. “I heard a wild story about you.”

  “Yeah?” asked Perry, wondering exactly what kind of story it would be.

  “When the shooting started, people hid, but you ran out and leapt around like a madman, jumping so high in the air you could slice through a man on horseback,” said Cleo.

  “Sounds fake,” said Perry.

  “Well, it wouldn’t be the strangest thing,” said Cleo. She gave Perry a skeptical look. “Where were you, until now?”

  “I did some of the fighting, ran after them trying to catch up with the horses, then passed out and woke up sick,” said Perry.

  “Marshal was looking for you,” said Cleo. “He’s off in the sheriff’s office, but I think he has some words. You were telling everyone there would be an attack, and then there was, which I’d think is a point in your favor, but I’m not sure he sees it the same way.”

  Perry cracked his knuckles. “He expects me tonight?”

  “No one knew whether you were living or dead,” said Cleo. “So you’ve time, if you need it.”

  “No, I’ll go,” said Perry. “You made it through the attack alright?” He looked her over, and she didn’t have a scratch on her.

  “Seems the Yuuks didn’t want to come in for a drink,” said Cleo. “I had my shotgun at the ready, but didn’t have to use it this time.” Her face darkened slightly when she said it. “The girls are all fine, and there’s relief floating in the air right now, even with the dead rotting outside.”

  “Are they going to be picked up?” asked Perry. “Laid into a grave?”

  Cleo raised an eyebrow. “Verdant Moon. None of it will be there come morning. The ones that died will get gravestones, but … they don’t teach this in the city? They don’t have the Verdant Moon?”

  “I just meant … sorry,” said Perry.

  “The girls’ room you’ve been using won’t be empty much tonight,” said Cleo. “People are trying to make the bad feelings go away. You’ve still got your helmet in there, and I’ve told people not to touch it, but you might want to grab it.”

  Perry nodded. “Thanks, will do.” He was about to move past her, but placed a hand on her shoulder and looked at her face. “You’re okay?”

  She gave him a nod. “Holding together.” She placed her hand on his. “Thanks.”

  Perry went up the stairs to the upper floor, and caught one of the girls leaving. He dipped into the corner room and plucked the helmet from where it had been sitting, noting that someone had pulled the curtains and shutters closed, making the positioning pretty useless. He took it back to his room, momentarily startled by the rifle in Marchand’s hands. He hadn’t forgotten about it, exactly, but it was still a surprise.

  “March?” asked Perry once the door was closed. “What’s the word?”

  “I’m in the process of reviewing the technicals,” said Marchand. “The reboot appears to have gone well, and the error correction is in place, but it does appear that several features will be beyond my capacity.”

  “What are we losing?” asked Perry.

  “In the past, I have done scene reconstructions, which I do not believe myself capable of with this limited processing power,” said Marchand. “Additionally, real-time object tracking can be vital in a combat scenario, and I do not believe I can accurately perform that function. Furthermore, any complex physics simulations are beyond me.”

  “Alright,” said Perry with a sigh. That was less bad than he’d feared. “Well, you do your best.”

  “Sir, I believe my supposition that the harmonizer changed the nature of the computation errors was correct,” said Marchand. “It was not long after Trigger Queen went into city hall with her fellows that the nature of the errors reverted to what it had formerly been. Thankfully, the error-correcting code was essentially finished at that point, and currently works in either configuration, with some additional future-proofing against variant conditions we might find ourselves in.”

  “No radio signals to speak of?” asked Perry.

  “No, sir,” said Marchand. “I was unfortunately unable to exercise my ‘hacking’ skills.”

  “We’re going after her, after Queenie,” said Perry.

  “She does appear to be the enemy thresholder, sir,” said Marchand. “I observed her using a flip-top lighter, which is horribly anachronistic to the time period.”

  Perry paused to think about that. “Is it?”

  “Oh, quite,” said Marchand. “I do not know the history of your world, but lighters, particularly in that style, were not common in the analogous time period on Earth 2. They rely on predecessor technology like oil liquefaction which was quite far from being invented. Now, it is possible that she could have used something like naphtha rather than butane, but that would raise questions about where she had sourced it from.”

  “That’s … I mean, the shooting she was doing, the way she moved, the magic scarf and the giant fucking sniper rifle, those were the things that I would point to,” said Perry.

  “I didn’t witness any of that, sir,” said Marchand.

  “Well, yeah, alright, if a flip-top lighter is somehow ahistorical in a way that makes sense here, then sure,” said Perry. He ran his fingers through his hair. “Microfusion reactor is back online?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Marchand. “Batteries are charging, and I expect that everything will be in peak condition shortly — or as peak as it’s possible to be, in these times.”

  “I’m going to speak with the marshal,” said Perry. “I don’t know what the plan is for the train leaving, but we can’t go if Queenie is here. She stole the harmonizer and led a troop of Yuuks, plus she shot me several times, and I take offense to that.”

  “Very well, sir,” said Marchand. “I shall remain here and complete the integrity checks in preparation for armoring you.”

  Perry went out of his room, locked the door, and headed back down the stairs. He had half a mind to go into the sheriff’s office with his full armor on, but that might have seemed a little aggressive, and besides that, tipped his hand.

  The green moonlight was worse than he’d remembered it being, and the nausea lasted until he was actually inside the sheriff’s office, where he took a moment to breathe through his mouth and try to quiet his stomach. It was something he should have been able to do by pushing energy along his meridians, but it was clear that something in the moonlight was affecting him in terms of the energy absorbed through his skin. No doubt the scholars of the Great Arc would have been fascinated by it, but at the moment it was just sickening. The window in the door was still broken, but someone had swept up the glass.

  The marshal was looking at Perry expectantly. He was at his desk, apparently doing some paperwork by candlelight. To Perry’s surprise, Anaksi was still in her cell, and they locked eyes for a moment before Perry returned his attention to the marshal.

  “You asked for me?” asked Perry.

  “More like she asked for you,” said the marshal with a snort.

  “Surprised to see you’re doing paperwork at a time like this,” said Perry.

  “Paper is the fuel of the law,” said the marshal. “Besides, I’ve never been keen on a Verdant Moon.” He touched his stomach. “I’m sleepin’ here tonight, if the bitch will let me, can’t cross the street without doublin’ over and losin’ my dinner.”

  Perry went around the desk and to where Anaksi was standing behind the bars. She was gripping them with tight knuckles.

  “You’re Commission?” she asked.

  “I can neither confirm nor deny my employment or allegiance at this time,” said Perry. “I saw your men come in. I’m surprised they didn’t let you out.”

  “Something is deeply wrong,” said Anaksi. “They came in here, and I pled with them, and they ignored me.”

  “Fully?” asked Perry. “They didn’t speak with you at all?”

  “They spoke, but not to free me,” said Anaksi. “They asked only what I could offer them.”

  Perry frowned at her. “Why would they do that?”

  “I don’t know,” said Anaksi. “They wouldn’t.” She stared into his eyes. “They were possessed, or … transformed, not in their bodies, but their minds.”

  “They were following Queenie,” said Perry. “Or at least, she was with them.”

  “They wouldn’t,” said Anaksi. “Not the men I know. Please.”

  “What are you asking me for?” asked Perry.

  “You’re Commission, or you’re not, but you’re a man with power,” said Anaksi. She took a breath. “If she can do this to my people, she can do it to yours.” She clenched her fingers hard on the bars of the cell. “I know where she’s going.”

  “Now hold on,” said the marshal, rising from his desk. “I couldn’t help but overhear, bein’ as I’m three feet away. You know where this woman is from? Where’s she’ goin’? How?”

  “None of your concern, marshal,” said Perry. “Though I do want to know the answers.”

  “I told you there was a woman who came to us,” said Anaksi. “She wasn’t the same woman who dropped on the train, she was withered and old … but she had a strange way of speaking, and that same red scarf. She wanted to make a deal.”

  “She spoke Eshkee?” asked Perry.

  “What’s Eshkee?” asked the marshal.

  “It’s their language,” said Perry.

  “The Yuuks?” asked the marshal.

  Perry looked at Anaksi and raised an eyebrow.

  “She spoke it, poorly, strangely,” said Anaksi. “She was more comfortable in Commish.”

  “And she didn’t just want you to steal the harmonizer, she wanted your help with other things,” said Perry.

  “She had a plan,” said Anaksi. “Or the beginnings of one. She wanted to use the harmonizer to destroy the Commission.”

  “And you thought this was possible?” asked Perry.

  “No,” said Anaksi. “We were going to steal it from the train and sell it back to the Commission. The whole tribe was going to move south, away from here, closer to the city, until the deal was done. There are a few who are hayuuk, light-skinned enough and with good enough Commish that they could sell it in the city.”

  “And you think that’s where she is,” said Perry. “The city.”

  “I know exactly where she said she would go,” said Anaksi. She was staring intently at Perry. “But I won’t tell you unless you let me out.”

  Perry considered that.

  “I’ll be damned if I let that happen,” said marshal.

  “The harmonizer is gone again,” said Perry. “Heads are going to roll over that, you know how valuable it is. And she’s right, it’s strange that they came in here and didn’t take her out.”

  “It’s all Yuuk tricks,” said the marshal. “As soon as she’s out, she’ll make a run for it. And what are you gonna do if she leads you into a trap? We hardly got any of them, they had something about them that made our bullets turn to dust. What happens if she walks you into a valley with thirty Yuuks?”

  “I’d kill them all,” said Perry.

  “I won’t,” said Anaksi. “She did something to them.” She leaned forward and looked him in the eyes. “Please.”

  “Alright,” said Perry with a nod.

  “Now hold on,” said the marshal, raising a hand. “I can’t just let you take her, she’s not yours to do with as you please.”

  Perry turned to look at the marshal. “What do you need from me?” asked Perry. “Do you need money? My assurance?” He glanced at the desk. “Some paperwork?”

  The marshal stared at Perry. “You know, I have it on good authority that you were talkin’ to that woman, Queenie, just the day before the train robbery. Mighty suspicious, that.”

  “I brought the harmonizer back,” said Perry. “Don’t be a dumbass.”

  “Well, I can’t figure what your game is,” said the marshal. “And without orders from the Commission, some kind of authority higher than your own say so, it’d be hard to let you take her.”

  “So don’t let me,” said Perry. “You leave, we disappear, you had nothing to do with it, and best case, I put you in for commendation. Worst case … it wouldn’t have made too much difference if she’d disappeared with her people during the fight, right?”

  “And where are you goin’?” asked the marshal. “Off to her people?”

  “The city,” said Anaksi. “Charlonion.”

  “You heard her,” said Perry. “We’ll leave in the morning. Nothing illegal about taking a Yuuk on the train, and I have more than enough to buy us tickets for first class, out of the way of the common folk.” He looked Anaksi over. “And maybe some clothes that will make people mistake her for a settler, or at least a hayuuk.”

  “If I hadn't seen you leap up and cut down the Yuuks, I wouldn’t be havin’ this,” said the marshal. “And I think it’s a mistake, I want that clear. But I’m going to crawl out there under the Verdant Moon and lose my lunch, and I’ll avoid the train station until the train is gone, but that’s as much as I’m willin’ to bend the law here.”

  “Appreciated,” said Perry. “No one will ever know.”

  “And I’m sendin’ papers to the city,” said the marshal. “I’m tellin’ them about you. And if you’re a renegade, or pullin’ the wool over our eyes, you’ll be mince, you understand that?”

  “Of course,” said Perry. “Nothing to worry about.”

  Perry watched the marshal go, and heard the sound of him heaving once he was out the door, then turned to Anaksi.

  “Now then,” said Perry. “Let’s get you ready for the train.”

  Thresholder is . I've been getting some feedback on it, and so far it's been very good. People seem to like the changes to the first book, and the audiobook version is excellent. The next book is in the pipeline, and won't have as much new content to it, but the Great Arc didn't need much in the way of alteration, I don't think (your mileage might vary).