“Is she alright?” Dust asked, frowning.
Naismith asked. Shadows Fade replied.
“People are not supposed to touch her wolf.”
He looked back at the warrior and bowed his head. “Apologise for me.” Then, remembering Naismith was being pissy, he added “Please.”
She passed on the apology but Shadows Fade shook her head and repeated herself, gesturing to emphasize her point.
“Oh, it seems I didn’t quite get what she said,” Naismith said, sounding intrigued. “No, she meant that people are not supposed to beableto touch her wolf. She says she hadn’t expected such from even the Wanted Man.”
Dust raised his head again; if he wasn’t supposed to apologise, he didn’t know what else to do. He waited to see if Shadows Fade would say anything more but she didn’t.
He turned his attention back to the Bloat; it had so much energy still. Maybe the insect it’d once been had fed on a great creature deep in the earth, had been ‘lucky’ enough to get at the monster’s heart. Who knew? And who but the Triangle cared? What mattered was that this magic would remain for weeks if left unchecked, attracting things eager to feed on it and be fuelled in seeking glory for their masters.
Dust had to make the grub safe.
“Naismith, stand back,” he said.
“Why?”
“Please just do it.”
Naismith sighed but took a few steps back. Horse had already moved, having recognised what he was about to do, and Shadows Fade and Claw of the Gods were far enough that it wouldn’t be dangerous. He was good to start.
Closing his eyes, Dust pleaded with his tattoo to help purge this threat. It required four pleas before it granted him the most valuable of his abilities; the power to manipulate the Triangle’s dark and twisted magic.
He smiled and thanked the awkward thing; four pleas was generous for his tattoo.
“What are you doing?” Naismith asked.
“I’m making this corpse safe.”
With his mind, he reached into the Bloat and grabbed a thread of its energy, a strong artery which circulated the magic around its corpse. Then he slowly started to pull, carefully extracting the artery so it wouldn’t erupt upon exposure to the Badlands air; it was a delicate process but one he could do quickly. like a field medic sewing a wound shut in seconds or a seamstress unpicking a bad seam.
Once he’d safely removed the artery, he moved on to the largest attached vein and started again. Then the second-largest vein. And the third. After a few minutes of deep concentration he had picked every strand of magic from the Bloat and held it in his mind. Metaphorically.
He opened his eyes, double-checked the job and then dropped the corpse. It hit a shrub below him with a wet sound and rolled a foot away.
“Is it safe?”
“Please, let me concentrate?” Dust asked. He kept his voice kind as he could with the magic twisting within him.
He waited for a response and got none. Dust then transferred all the magic to his right hand, gripped it tightly. A dark sphere with purple flecks that hissed like a field of rattlers appeared in his palm, one that roared at him and begged to be used.
Naismith gasped but made no further comment.
Normally Dust had two options; release the magic or feed it to his tattoo. However, seeing as releasing this much magic would alert every eldritch creature within a mile to his whereabouts, he really only had one option.
He took a deep breath. Then he slapped his right hand and the hissing magic against his shoulder. There was a high-pitched whine as tattoo and energy fought for dominance but there was only going to be one winner; three seconds later, his tattoo began absorbing the energy.
Centipedes with sharpened feet started to crawl across his skin and liquefied flesh pour down his throat as the magic was taken from the world. His fingers numbed from the vibration and friction and the whining battle tore through his ear canal. But this had to be done so he endured, pressed his hand even harder against his tattoo.
It took several uncomfortable and horrible minutes but eventually his hand was empty. Dust slumped slightly when his palm touched his shoulder and tried to stop the world from spinning.
He wasn’t too out of it to hear Shadows Fade whisper something. Claw of the Gods seemed to nod in response.
“She said,” Naismith started, expecting Dust’s question or perhaps taking pity on him, “well, she swore and then said she never thought she’d see the Wanted Man doing such good. Now, she clearly understands what just happened but I am afraid that I am left clueless by all of this; what did you just do?”
Dust took a deep breath and straightened, squared his shoulders. Already, his aching muscles were returning to normal. He clapped his hands together to regain some feeling in them and said “I took the corrupted magic from that Bloat’s corpse.”
“And then?”
“Got rid of it.”
“Into your tattoo?”
Dust nodded. “Into my tattoo.”
Naismith threw her arms out. “Jesus, Dust. And the Solution just allow you to do this? They let you feed on these monsters?”
