Free Empire of Unreason by J. Gregory Keyes

ready.
    The scalped man was faster, a panther leaping. Red Shoes knew instinctively he would never be able to meet the savage attack. But something struck the scalped man suddenly, sent him snarling and tumbling aside. Red Shoes understood an instant later, when he saw an arrow standing in the scalped man’s arm. Despite this, his foe laughed as he landed, rolled, and bounded to his feet. Then he leapt again, the height of two men.
    Red Shoes drew his kraftpistole and fired. A serrated white tongue licked at the air, but tasted no flesh. When the flash faded, he saw the scalped man EMPIRE OF UNREASON
    bounding off through the grass like an antelope.
    “I have scented you now,” the voice came. “Next time I will devour you.”
    Red Shoes repressed the urge to follow, dropping instead into the cover of the grass, wondering where the arrow had come from. The enemy of his enemy was not necessarily his friend.
    “Hey! It’s me!”
    The thickly accented French was familiar. Red Shoes stood slowly. Loping toward him, bow slung over his shoulder, was Flint Shouting.
    “I got to thinking I was really going to miss something,” the Wichita explained.
    “I was halfway to the western hunting lands when I turned back and found your trail. Just in time, it seems. A scalped man! You were right—you have enemies of consequence. And now they are my enemies, too, I suppose. Ah, well. My fame will be great, though I live a short life. Who can ask for more, yes?”
    “Tell me about them,” Red Shoes said, ignoring some obvious jibes at that.
    “These scalped men. We don’t have them in the Choctaw country.”
    “They don’t live in villages. They sneak about. Some say they are good, others bad—but they are always alone. Driven out.” He twisted his mouth. “I have never known one to be good.” He grinned. “Yes, this makes me happy. How often does a man get to kill a legend? A scalped man? Bring him to me!”
    “Brave talk from a man who turned tail once already,” Tug grumbled.
    “Not from cowardice!” Flint Shouting said. He sounded genuinely outraged.
    “Why should I help you, who are not my kin or even of my nation? No reason I could think of.”
    “We saved you! Y‘ gave y’r word.”
    “Hah. Such words only count with real human beings— Wichita—which you two are not. But now you have more than words. You have my heart. This EMPIRE OF UNREASON
    interests me, now.”
    “Well, we are fortunate then,” Red Shoes said, not entirely sarcastically. After all, the Wichita had saved his life. “Can you tell us anything else about these scalped men?”
    Flint Shouting shook his head. “Not much. They are not just men who have been scalped. They are—Dreams. Dreams-Closest-to-Men.”
    “Huh. Like a warlock? So what’s this fellah want?” Tug asked.
    Red Shoes pointed with his jaw. “He wanted to keep us out of the valley up ahead. He’s guarding it. I think he’s done a good job, up until now. Those Kapaha we met two days ago went all the way around it—I found their tracks and a dead man. They just left him.”
    Tug lifted his brows in surprise. “Them Kapaha are pretty fierce. This one fellah put ‘em off?”
    “It would seem so. But they were warriors. Warriors prefer to fight flesh and blood. It’s what they understand.”
    “I’m with ‘em, then,” Tug replied. “So now what?”
    “You sleep. Tomorrow we go down there.”
    “All three of us,” Flint Shouting clarified.
    Red Shoes gave him a long look. “All three of us,” he said at last.
    “Looks like a whale carcass,” Tug remarked as they drew near the thing.
    Red Shoes didn’t answer. He was concentrating on his shadowchildren. The night before, his spirits had been unable to come here, challenged by fiercer ones. Today there was no sign of the aethereal enemy or of the scalped man.
    Flint Shouting noticed it, too. “Where is the coward?”

    EMPIRE OF UNREASON
    Red Shoes answered reluctantly. “I think he knows I’m too