Today's Art-ifact (Patreon)

This could have been a nice scene, if it wasn't for that dust.  At this point, Dave had never been out west.

And so begins our story.  Each chapter will appear when an illustration is done, depending on how it lines up.

Chapter 1- Outskirts

There had to be something out here that could kill him faster than his damn stomach.

Xyk flicked an ear forward to shade a squint and scanned the horizon.  Seething sandstone glared back.

A place this awful absolutely had to harbor scaly flesh-eating predators, perfectly suited for ending the suffering of lone wanderers.  Of course, if there was a predator in the region, it was probably back munching on Swift.

Gophers.  Heaven-blasted mother-mauling unforgivable bastard gophers.

Together, they had outrun the entire Fort Shen brigade, escaped the mounted savages of the Khan plains, even braved the thundering Dead Canyon rapids- only for Swift to be crippled by a small hole fashioned by rotund pests.

Xyk’s face tightened as he filed another entry in his lexicon of ideas to annihilate gopher-kind, should he ever find himself gifted with the powers of a high god.  Eyes to his boots, the scruffy coyote shambled towards the next rise, where toasted stone met a wild arc of blue.

THMMMMMM!

He felt the earth tremble an instant before the sound washed over the rise- a distant impact, muffled but powerful.

What the hell was that?  Not thunder- the sky was untouched.  Was there a battle unfolding over there?  Between whom?  The last thing Xyk wanted was to catch a stray packet of grapeshot.  Scratch that, the last thing he wanted was to be caught on the outskirts of a war by a Khan skirmishing party.  He placed a hand gingerly to his ears and scalp, perfect right where they were.

GRWWLLLRR!

Xyk looked down.  That salvo had come from his belly.

Scratch skirmishers, the last thing he wanted was to starve alone in the desert until he was too weak to fend off the scavengers.

Over that ridge was dramatic death- or salvation.  Xyk lashed his tail to get the blood flowing and marched boldly to the brim.

...Salvation was ugly as hell.

Spread below was a mining operation.  It looked as though a deity had smote the landscape square in its face.  Winding cliffs lay with gaping craters, bleeding washes of rubble.  Workers toiled, picks swinging in the baking air.  The breeze carried their clatter, the creak of pulleys, the odors of smoke and sweat.  Beyond the mines, ridges dropped away to a panoramic valley- a packed nest of rooftops under the shadow of a palatial tenshu.  Sky fell to dark clouds on the horizon.

Thank the gods it wasn’t a battle.  Xyk suppressed a grin and, without breaking stride, descended into the camp.  Workers meant lunches.   The key now was to act natural, unobtrusively pilfer bits and pieces, and make himself a meal.

His stomach felt like it was trying to leap from his ribs and get a head start.

Feigning an itch, Xyk took a sidelong assessment of the nearest cooking site.  It lay perfectly abandoned at the moment, cold ashes waiting near a solitary corroded pot.  And that was all.  His ears drooped.  No knapsacks marking out spots around the ring.  No stashes of food or supplies where… Wait.  On a small rise, visible to all, sat a crate crudely labeled “GRUB.”  A heavy stone secured the lid.

Not a trusting bunch.

Xyk hastily ceased his snooping as an ox lugging a bucket of gravel trundled up the path towards him.

Always best to retain the initiative, so others assumed you had nothing to hide.  Xyk donned an easy smile.  “Afternoon.  Would you happen to know where a guy could-”

The ox moved past him without so much as batting a whisker, lidded eyes tied to their destination.

Xyk felt the hairs rising on his neck.  He kept moving.

To his left, water dribbled through a sluice propped by bamboo slats.  Three laborers in filthy coveralls stood against it, aimlessly sifting the soil.  Silhouetted on a cliff top, a lone figure bearing a spear watched over the miners.  As he continued surveying the worksite, Xyk was startled to see one bony, sprawling prospector staring right back at him- no, not at him-

At his boots.

The coyote’s ears flattened as he took a second look at the stray workers.  A solid majority of them had resorted to wrapping their paws and shins in canvas.

Holy shit.  Was he the richest person here- just by virtue of being in a beaten-down set of boots?

Xyk erased any thoughts of pilfering from his mind.  Stealing would be nigh impossible.  There was no banter, no texture he could weave within.  Only stark, sullen misery.  Despite all appearances of an actively producing mine, these men were destitute.  Taking food from their packs would be equivalent to flourishing a “Lynch Me Now!” sign while prancing about and distributing gloved slaps.

One pair of workers stopped hacking at a pile of rubble and stared his way.

Stealing, hell.  Just being here was dangerous.

Xyk jammed his hands into empty pockets and crossed the mining grounds, disappearing into the winding, stony paths descending to the valley floor.

As the trail twisted among boulders, the sights and sounds from the camp fell away sharply.   Xyk’s footfalls seemed abruptly loud.  The air stilled around him, and his fur prickled.  Leaving the camp wasn’t easing his tension-

Because he wasn’t leaving alone.

Long ago, Xyk had learned to pay attention to anything that set his whiskers twitching.  He slipped from the path and tucked himself into a fold of the rocks.

Deep breaths filled his lungs- silently, slowly, calming nerves.  He stilled the sudden urge to itch his nose.

He’d played the waiting game before.  Imperial rangers, bounty hunters, Dynasty warriors- he’d out-hidden and out-waited them all.  Whoever was following him- and he had no doubt someone was- hadn’t the faintest idea whom they were up against.

They might know he was on the path somewhere, but they couldn‘t place his hiding spot precisely.  He’d wait, let them make the first move, reveal their position.  And then-

GUURGGLE- SQUARF!

Xyk’s eyes shot to his stomach in horror.

No…

A wiry arm darted around the stone, yanking him back onto the path.  Xyk flailed, using the momentum to spin himself away from his assailant, a bristling muskrat cloaked in a tattered patch of canvas.  The bandit gestured ferociously with a knife, concealed amid his baggy poncho.

“Drop your money or I’ll leave your guts in the dust!”

“What, all of it?”

The rat leapt forward, throwing a left hook at Xyk’s head.  The coyote leaned in, clearing the arc of the fist and thrusting the length of his body into his assailant.  Tumbling together, heels trailing dust in the air, they both toppled to the ground.  Wrenching the weapon away, Xyk rolled to his feet, brandishing the-

Old chopsticks?

“Wait, chopsticks- chopsticks?  What, were you gonna pinch me to death?”

The bandit spat, pushing himself up.  “I might yet!  You think we’re done here?”

“You already got everything I own in this world: nothing!  So you may as well just…”  Xyk trailed off.  The bandit had become utterly still.  Ears rigid, he was staring at something just over Xyk’s shoulder.

Turning, Xyk saw a figure perched atop a boulder.  Fluid, strong shades of red blazed almost painfully against the cobalt air.  She was situated precisely so her shadow hadn’t alerted the pair dueling below.  One hand lightly held a ten-foot pole, bound in iron and tipped by a blade- a rifle spear.

Hearing a scuff behind him, Xyk turned to fend off an attack- but the bandit was fleeing.

The fox pounced gracefully to the earth in front of Xyk, the butt of her spear whistling through the air to crash, seemingly at chance, into the muskrat’s head.  THUNK.  He collapsed to the ground with a pained squawk.

Xyk danced back a step.  “Where in the hell did you come from?”

She turned- slowly, methodically- to Xyk.  As though she were gazing raptly at nothing.  Her flame-orange pelt was unruffled, smooth, clean.  Lovingly lacquered rows of armor plates hung from shoulders and hips lined in black silk.  The handle of a katana protruded, braided in leather.  The bandit moaned in pain at her feet.  She remained precisely motionless.

The moments stretched by, and with a rush of clarity, Xyk realized this was one of those times when patience meant survival.  One wrong move or misplaced word might trigger a sudden and terrible end to her stillness.

Finally, as though coming to a decision, she straightened, lazily rolling one shoulder.  “Brown eyes.  How unremarkable.”

“You come all the way down here just to flatter me?”

The vixen leaned forward, something like a smile revealing her canines.  “I was watching.  I watch… Everything.”

Her muzzle inches from his, Xyk caught scents of lavender and gunpowder.  He realized he was still pointlessly gripping a set of chopsticks.  Stepping back, he casually slid one into each pocket of his duster.

“Glad to provide a show.  And I appreciate the effort but your intervention isn’t needed, my, er, lady.”

“Vritra.”

“Yes, that.”

Preening, Vritra strolled casually about the path, her tail inscribing little arcs in the dust.  Xyk was aware of the bandit watching from the ground, crouched like a brittle spring.  Terrified.

For the first time, Xyk noted the lean lines on that face, the thin limbs jutting out from his ragged cloak like spider legs.  This guy wouldn’t have the stamina to outpace someone like Vritra, and he knew it.

She murmured to Xyk as she stalked- softly, as though to herself.  “Needed or not, it is my duty to uphold the law in Shaniko Valley.  I have failed to prevent this criminal assault upon your person, Mud Eyes.  However-”

She turned to face Xyk, flashing her back to the rat.  “I will see to it the offender is executed.  Quite publicly, quite slowly- that his example may deter future bloodshed.”

With a grunt of effort, the bandit sprang upward, a jagged stone in hand.  He lashed out with the shocking velocity of desperation, pouring everything into a blow that would crush Vritra’s skull like an egg.

She fell forward bonelessly.  Xyk couldn’t tell whether she had been struck or not.

But then she rolled past him, a concise flash of silver disrupting the corona of dust.  One of Xyk’s whisker-tips dropped past his shoulder.  The sunburnt stone at his side was splattered by a jagged crimson tree, the color impossibly rich, glimmering against the paper-dry rock.  The bandit wavered, then dropped into a spreading pool of his own blood.

Heart fluttering, Xyk patted himself down, affirming none of the gore was his.  Vritra stood slowly, katana bared.  With a familiar motion she flicked the blood from her blade before it slithered home into its sheath.

She gave Xyk a coy nod and strolled back up the path.  “You will enjoy your stay in our fine town.”

Xyk stared at Vritra sauntering away, then at the body sprawled under the callous sun.

Showing off.  She had just been showing off.

There was something deeply wrong with this place- all of it.  He surveyed the town as encroaching thunderheads dimmed the crooked alleys.  Going down there was not a choice for him- it was a necessity.  Without food, supplies, and some kind of a plan, he wouldn’t last long enough to find another settlement.

Gathering his resolve, Xyk descended into Shaniko Valley.