Chapter 1: Captured!

McDougall stifled a heavy breath. His steady hand gripped and drew his revolver.

The full moon rose at his back casting his dark shadow tall and wide.

He looked at her grey-clad prone form, her eyes focused on the mountain below, the moonlight giving her clear sight of any fool ascending up the hill.

McDougall may not be the fastest shot west of Loch Logan, but damn, he could outclimb a mountain goat. The impassable route to flank her from behind had proven to be a simple if arduous challenge.

He cocked the hammer.

She spun around her repeater at the ready. But for a second, she was moonstruck.

Bang!

McDougall always fired first.

MacElory sunk into sleep.

The puff of smoke at the muzzle faded, as the hammer closed shut.

McDougall holstered his pistol: a single action, breech-loading, six-sleeper-shot 44. calibre revolver. He unwound his lasso and tied the outlaw up tight. He hoisted her onto his broad shoulder.

Last summer, he had tied cattle with the same rope. The following autumn sickness spread and by winter’s end, his cattle were gone. Now to get a mere one hundred credits he was hunting a bounty for the clan.

MacElory, the red-haired sharpshooter from across the puddle. A giant of a woman who stole the Fae-Eye Scope.

McDougall pocketed said attachment in his bag.

He clambered down the hill, a step at a time trusting in the moon to light his path as he carried his bounty on his back. She was heavy, thick with muscle, but years at the farm lifting all sorts of odds and ends fared McDougall well. He had carried a baby calf from one end of the town to the other.

MacElory, in comparison, was equally agonising to carry. It was not just her weight, but the joints of his wrists and knees ached from the climb up. However, he bore it stoically, with a stone-faced stillness to his expression: like the harsh mountain winds that carved a strong body, and an enduring, uncompromising will.

At the hill’s base, he waited for his ride. A Unioat (or to be specific a Uninanny) skipped out and stopped before him braying playful.

“Good girl, Thistle,” His coarse hand patted her white thick fibre coat, “Stay still for a second.”

He tied MacElory on Thistle’s back and led the Unioat by the reins to the path. A single rainbow horn pointed out from her head and lit the way along with the moonlight. He hopped on her back and with a kick of his heel rode off.

The journey, as any in the hills, was arduous, and in the relative darkness, it was a long night’s ride. Some distance into the journey back to Town McDougall he saw the smoke of campfires ahead of him. He rode closer until he saw the bright orange glow. He dismounted and led Thistle by the reins, one hand closer to his firearm.

He shepherded Thistle into the clearing. He was greeted by the sight of many campfires and tents. Two of the folk from the camp stood up and walked over to greet McDougall.

They were as small as children, shaggy and under their clothes were thick brown fur from where their names came from, they are rather unimaginatively called brownies.

McDougall tipped his hat to them, “Greetings, I’m from clan McDougall. I chased the bounty, the one named MacElory. Not sure if yer heard of her. I could do with some hospitality if that wouldn’t be too imposing upon yer persons?”

The two wore thin cloth ponchos, the taller of the two with fibres of grey fur lining their coat gave McDougall a long, hard stare.

Then he grinned showing milky white teeth and waved him over, “Come, come. We heard about of the MacElory.” he said in a pipsqueak tone.

The second, smaller one said with an even higher pitch, “Aye, aye when we passed through McDougall town, they warned us not to leave lest she harm a Brownie.”

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“Nonsense ma Eldest said. Who would want to harm a Brownie, we who clean and tidy and ask for naught.” continued the Older Brownie.

They sat by the fire, while other Brownie folk took the sleeping MacElory off Thistle and laid her by the main fire along an arm’s reach from McDougall. At the main fire was a round protective amulet hung upon an oak staff. Its aid was far more adept and ancient than the wards around town at wandering off strange, malicious influences.

Thistle was led away to be fed and watered.

“We were right, not till you came you of the McDougall’s did we see hide or hair of the MacElory.”

McDougall blushed red in the cheeks, “I not be meaning to bring any danger upon you fine folk. She is out in the land of nod more surely than be the dead. She won’t wake to dawn, and even if she does, I’ve bound her up so tight an Angus bull couldn’t break free.”

“Nae, nae you have an honest look to you of McDougall’s. A Brownie rarely judges wrong and I Coid never have.” said Coid as he stroked his great furry beard.

McDougall’s belly growled fierce as a berserker.

The second, smaller Brownie, laughed gently before leaving and returning with a hank of seared lamb, “Eat, hunter. Your prey is captured. Rest now.”

Somehow in his distress and embarrassment, McDougall blushed an even deeper shade of crimson, “It was nothing, but yes. I think I will sleep.”

It was hard to tell under all the thick brown fur that fell down her face like a veil, but she smiled, “Sleep well,” She half-turned to walk away…“After eating.”

She turned back and cleared her throat, “Goodnight, Hunter of the McDougall’s.”

“Night.”

A thousand thoughts raced through McDougall’s head, why of why couldn’t he speak half as well as wee Tam. His friend was always so funny and calm. On the other hand, he couldn’t ask for a hospitality without being a burden. No matter how hard he tried to help, how much he debated and tried to live a good life, he always seemed to fail.

He couldn’t win.

He ate his food in silent consternation. The Brownies wanted to talk to the human who had wandered into their humble camp with another human tied to the back of their ride! However, if ever someone waved a ‘stay away’ flag then it was McDougall here in this clearing at Wapt Woods.

Coid, in particular, had questions and further being the eldest Brownie had many dull stories to tell. Even he, who cared not on whether he annoyed others with the same tale three times in the span it takes to draw water from a well did not approach McDougall. Something in the human’s posture, the hunched shoulders or was it the narrow eyes? Perhaps the way his hand never seemed to drift too far from his pistol.

Soon though, alone to himself in a crowd of friendly strangers, McDougall finished his meal. The sound of gentle singing and the crackling of the fire filled the camp. Thistle was guided over and they rested together, his neck pillowed on her soft fur. Not long after McDougall drifted into the land of Nod.

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While McDougall slept. Tens of miles from the camp but near Town McDougall, a three-fingered hand with each digit bigger than a mountain tore open through the sky. But the arm did not come from the sky but ripped a gateway between dimensions. When the tips of its fingernails dug into the land, barely half its hand had come through.

A hill was squashed. Then another the way grains of sand depress under the touch of the human hand, the very surface of the planet was being remoulded. New rivers were formed and tracts of forest cleared under the force of fingertips. There was no design to it, merely grasping.

A second hand wiped away the sky, and where once there were stars and the black void of space, now a singular white eye glared down upon its next harvest. A head vaster than the oceans broke in. Below the eye was a maw of millions of tentacle-like teeth. Then, came the rest of the body as huge as a continent and floating above the planet. Four arms one each at the front, sides and back that shifted like snakes.

It was new to this dimension, never before had in this universe had a creature stranger than Fae and more powerful than the planet itself emerged.

The gateway closed behind it.

A Shepherd had arrived.

A creature from Tilled here to pillage the dimension called Icarius. An action that would set off a war that would earn their species the moniker Godkillers. But, that is a different story. A tale of doom and despair. That is not this story. Here, hope may yet prevail.

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