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Beyond the Duststorm

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An A/U Immortals/Tamora Pierce/DN Fic - By Sivvus

A/N: This is from the Adopt a Fanfic writing contest prompt to write an A/U of your fanverse, set in the wild west. I thought a western Immortals fic was unusual enough to have a go! I actually like my first chapter enough to carry on with this fic, so let me know what you think and I'll (hopefully!) keep updating!

Blurb: AU – Wanted criminal Numair Salmalin shadows the Cart Hak Railway as it moves through the West. Daine, a dangerous outlaw wanted for the murder of twelve bandits, is the only person who can expose the corrupt Cart Hak Chairman and clear Numair's name, but her help comes at a heavy price. D/N, AU, fluff

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Chapter 1: Vicious Raindrops

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The man strolled through the desert, leading his horse with an absentmindedness that made him repeatedly drop the long reign into the swirling dust eddies. The horse, long used to her master's thoughtful thoughtlessness, followed him obediently even when she was dragging her own tether behind her. There was nowhere else to go, in any case. The lush green fields of her foal-hood were far away, so many hundreds of miles to the east that they might have been across a great ocean.

The horse might have missed their carefully cultivated luxury, but in truth she knew her life was an easy one. The man did not like to ride, and apart from the water skins that were strung across her back and the small saddlebag of supplies the horse carried very little. She ambled along at his strong, steady pace, and only occasionally nipped at his horsetail of dark hair to remind him to stop and sleep.

She was about to do just that, aiming carefully for the faded leather tie that drew the hair back from his sunburned neck, when they both smelled the distant bitterness of smoke on the breeze. The man didn't stop, but he drew himself up a little straighter and walked with a little more speed.

"I know it's getting dark," he said, glancing back, "But by my estimation the wind can only carry scent particles a few miles. We should find the homestead before the moon rises," He turned his face away again, brushing dust from the sleeves of his long coat as he added in a low voice, "And I think it's what we've been looking for."

The horse tossed her head and watched the flies scatter away from her knotted mane. She hadn't been looking for anything. She hadn't been traipsing from hotels to taverns to brothels to tent cities asking questions. Privately, she thought that she was more sensible than that. The man's questions had chased them from far too many towns. The horse's feet were sore from cantering over the sharp stones of the desert away from mobs.

Still, she looked ahead with bright curiosity. The smoke was visible now, a distant grey plume that scattered in the breeze like feathers. Not a large fire, and there was only one of it. Not enough humans to chase them from the warm with rifles and pitchforks, at least. The horse whickered softly and nudged the human in the small of his bony back, making him speed up. He looked back and smiled, patting her on the nose with detached affection before looking away again.

Despite the man's guess it was long after dark before they finally found the homestead, and that was pure chance. The man had never been good at following trails, and whoever lived in the homestead barely seemed to leave any. Or rather, the small valley that the smoke poured from had so many trails in it that it was impossible to tell which were coming and which were going, let alone which should be followed. The valley floor was cool and shaded after the open dust of the desert, and a tiny stream cut through the cracking rocks to drain into invisible caves beneath the ground.

The wind shrieked through the towering rocks around them, dragging at the leaves of the hardy plants that grew along the waterline. It was impossible to hear anything. The man shook his head in frustration a few times, eventually pulling tufts of wadding from a tear in the saddle and blocking his ears with them. Almost as an afterthought, he tied a bandana around the horse's ears too, and they continued in a suddenly-silent world.

The towering rocks grew denser, forming shelves and odd tunnels, and it started to grow dark. They would walk in one direction only to find that the rocks had turned them about, and the smoke was suddenly behind them. They would start again, and come out of another passageway in the same place they'd started from.

The rocks grew so dense that even the wind couldn't reach them. The man muttered to himself, tugging at his nose thoughtfully and pulling the cotton from his ears. He lit a dry branch on fire with his tinder box, blowing out the smoking wood almost as soon as it caught. He used the charcoal to mark the tunnels that they had taken, squinting to see his own marks in the darkness.

They were about to give up when they turned yet another corner and something caught the horse's eye. It was faded amber, like a dimming gaslight. She shook her head, wondering if she was dreaming-awake. There were no gaslights this far from the cities. But she planted her feet in the ground and refused to move, staring around wide-eyed for the source of the light.

There! A small, almost invisible crack between two stones. They had walked past it. The horse could see that light glowed through it from this angle, but from where the human was standing it must be hidden. She nipped at him when he tried to drag her onwards, and flicked her ears towards the light.

"Come on, horse." He muttered, dragging one hand through his hair in frustration and then lowering it to yank at the reign with both hands. "Don't do this. If we can't find it in another hour then we'll stop, I promise. Maybe two hours. But we will stop."

The pony rolled her eyes and let him drag her. For a moment she petulantly thought about letting him get completely lost in this labyrinth, and then some softer part in her nature scolded her. With all the affection she had for her irritating, absentminded master, she caught his shoulder firmly between her teeth and hauled him physically around to where she had been standing. He yelped and grabbed at her head, but she shook him with a muffled whinny.

"What the hell are you…?" He started, and then his eyes widened and he hung limply from her grip. "There's a… a light! A light, horse! Look! We've found it!"

The horse snorted loudly and dropped him, hearing him thud to the ground with some satisfaction. Perhaps she was petty. She hoped he knew that she only did it because she cared.

They were about to squeeze through the gap, peering blearily into the darkness, when a strange sound made them both freeze. It wasn't that they didn't recognise the sharp, clicking promise. It was a noise they were all-too familiar with. Both the horse and its master took an instinctive step back, poised to run away, as the barrel of a shotgun emerged from the passage and shone in the grey moonlight.

The hands holding the gun were small but held the gun with practiced ease. That was all they could see of the girl before she spoke. "You both had best be heading back where you came from. I don't ask twice." She raised the gun slightly, aiming at the man's heart, and her voice took on an edge. "And I don't miss, either."

"I'm not here to hurt you." The man said quickly. His voice had none of the tobacco-stroked coarseness of the locals, and the horse had known his cultured accent to lower more raised guns than she'd eaten sugar lumps. The girl's aim didn't waver for a second.

"That so?" She asked lazily, "Why are you here, then? Seein' as how it's not exactly a swarmin'trade route, I mean."

"I was looking for you." He said simply, spreading his hands wide to show they were empty. There was an intake of breath, and this time the gun did move – not shaking or wavering, but moving to point at the man's head.

"Choose your next words carefully," the girl's voice was rough. "For if I hear you say 'bounty', it'll be the last thing you ever say."

"I couldn't hunt you if I wanted to. There's a price on my head, too." The man shrugged, and even faced with the gun his words were gentle. The horse blinked. Was the man's admission supposed to be reassuring? But for some reason they made the girl relax; her harsh breathing faded, and she took a step forward. The fading moonlight finally caught her face, and they could see that she was young, far younger than her calloused words had made her sound. She still held the gun up as she asked the question, her eyes far more fearful than her brisk words.

"You? What did you do?"

"I made a powerful man into an enemy." It was almost as if they were baiting each other, waiting to see how the other one would react to their words. The girl blinked, and then lowered the gun and shrugged. The corner of her mouth quirked up, and then she forced it into seriousness.

"You know what I did, I reckon, if you're lookin' for me." She laughed shortly, humourlessly. "And if you know that, then I don't need a gun to make you act proper, do I?"

"No ma'am." He nodded sardonically, matching her grim humour. She smiled and holstered the shotgun across her back with a speed that made the horse whicker in alarm. The man's own voice was sincere when he added, "I don't need to be threatened. I'm not a threat to you."

"Well, we'll see about that, won't we?" She muttered, and raised a hand to the horse in greeting.

"She bites," The man said quickly. The girl rolled her eyes at him and let the horse nibble at her palm.

"I know that. Your shirt has tooth marks bleeding through the shoulder. I didn't think you'd found a particularly vicious raindrop." She turned back to the horse and chucked her under the chin, frowning as she untied the bandana. "What's this?"

"It was for the wind." He explained, and then waved his hands vaguely in the air at her blank look. "You know, in the valley? It was screaming."

"Screaming?!" She shrieked. Without saying another word she grabbed the horse's halter and started dragging her through the passage at a half-run. Seeing that the man wasn't following, she stopped and yelled back, "Well, come on! Screaming! Odds bobs, and you didn't think to say anything?"

"I didn't want you to shoot me!" He sprinted after her into the dark and tried to catch his breath, run, and explain at the same time. The result was a mess of half-gasped sounds, but she clearly heard him because he heard her laugh wildly. Irritation gave him enough air to demand against the mocking echoes, "Doesn't the wind always do that?"

"No!" She sounded scornful. "Of course not!"

He was about to ask what the screaming meant when the tight air in the tunnel suddenly cleared, ad they burst out into the darkness of a clear night. The passage had led into a perfectly enclosed stretch of empty land, and even in the pitch-darkness he could smell the sweetness of flowing water and the softness of grass and living trees. Then a hand closed around his wrist, and the girl dragged him urgently into the blackness towards a dim light.

"Inside!" She gasped, "Take Emmie with you and leave the door open behind you. Go!"

"Emmie?" He asked, his head reeling. She laughed harshly and ran away.

"Your horse, dolt!"

He gaped after her, then blinked at the horse, whose dim outline glowed with smugness. "Emmie?" He said hesitantly, and started reaching out for her when something stung his hand. He yelped and pulled it back, but it didn't feel like a bite. It felt more like a burn, as if he'd dragged his hand along sandpaper. Frowning, he looked up, and his eyes widened with realisation.

The night was pitch black now, but it wasn't clouds that covered the moon's face. Coils of dust filled the sky, writhing and pulsating in the grey-yellow darkness with intestinal grotesqueness. The storm was still young, still scatty, and sometimes a gasp of fresh air could be seen before it was torn away again by the howling dust. Only the tall walls of the valley had stopped the storm from flaying the flesh from their bones, but the rocks were starting to retch and creak at the onslaught as it grew stronger. It must have been building up for a while, and neither of them had noticed it.

The man gasped and ran for the house, realising in terrified alertness that the horse had already made her way through the door ahead of him. It was a strange door for a makeshift home, much wider and taller than a normal door, and dust was starting to blow in small drifts around it. Apart from the door, the wall was made of strong rocks and wood, held together with compacted mud. It looked like it could stand against anything.

He couldn't shut the door, not without the girl, and he wondered where she had run to. She obviously knew the danger far more keenly than he did, and yet she had run off into the storm. The man turned back, not going in to the house, and looked around for her desperately. The wind was stronger now, already blowing stinging dust into his eyes and mouth, and he spat grit from between his teeth in breathless impatience.

"Girl!" He bellowed, "Where are…!" He stopped and coughed, spitting out another mouthful of dust, and when he looked up he saw her. She was running towards him, her hands full of something, and the shadows from the dim light in the doorway made figures dance at her feet. One of the figures suddenly stopped, and she gasped and tripped over her own feet in an effort not to tread on it. She rolled as she landed, protecting whatever she held with desperate tenderness.

The man ran to her and caught her elbow, helping her up. She shook her head dizzily and looked up, then doubled over in a fit of coughing as another billow of dust dwarfed them. It tore at their skin, scratching it raw, and the girl cried out and scrabbled for something on the ground. It was the thing she'd tried not to step on, lying still and silent in the soft dust. The man picked it up for her and found that he was carrying an unconscious cat. The girl nodded her breathless thanks at his baffled expression. They fled to the house together, crouched against the dust, blinded by the storm.

The door slammed shut behind them and they both stumbled through, falling to the ground in exhaustion. In the sudden silence Numair could hear the girl breathing raggedly, coughing up lungfuls of dust and retching against her torn throat. He put the cat down carefully and struggled over to her.

"What the hell did you think you were doing?" He demanded in a voice that bled, and started hacking harshly. She shook her head, sending clotted dust into the still air, and he caught her shoulder. The end of her shotgun was cold against his hand, and the steel was flayed dull by the dust, but it looked like a toy compared to the horrors outside. "You could have been killed!"

She looked up, and her eyes were red and almost blinded by tears. It might have been the dust making her cry but the man didn't think so. She held out her hands, and he understood.

Veralidaine Sarrasri, the dangerous outlaw wanted for the murder of twelve people, held out the five tiny kittens that nestled safely in her ravaged hands. They mewed weakly, their eyes still gummed shut with sleep even as the girl's eyes swam with tears.

"I just couldn't let them die."