Scareship_Issue8

“So what happened to my boy, then?” asked Dugan, and Gilly
related the recent doings.
“Mountain’s Blood… he needs Mountain’s Blood. The injuns
say it can cure any ailment, even ones of magical origin, and can
even slow down the aging of men.”
“Where can I find it at?”
“Well, that’s the trick, ain’t it, nephew Gilmore?”
“You don’t know where it is, do ya?”
“Oh, I do, I do… I jes’ don’t know if I should be tellin’ ya, is
all. You and Inky is my only kin, after all, and it would be a mortal
sin to put such a burden on ya both.”
“I’ve done enough sinnin’ in my life fer all of us, uncle. So
don’t you worry bout that. Now jes’ tell me how to find it.”
And so Dugan did and, upon doing so, vanished once again
back into the mountains without another word, for either good or
ill, him being an unsentimental sort.
Gilly rode off north, as Dugan instructed, to Lake Thannat. He
arrived at daybreak and was shocked to find Ole Newt… dead.
Dead, and hard as a trail biscuit. Newt, it seemed, had petrificated
while staring out at the lake from a rocking chair on his porch.
Some say he suffered a heart attack when he saw Gilly ride up with
the head of the great bull. Others think that Izzie Starr,
murderously impatient with her da’s failure to defend her honor in
a timely manner, done witched the juice right out of him, or some
such mumbo jumbo.
At any rate, Gilly shook off his shock at Newt’s hardened
condition and proceeded down to the lake from the ranch house.
Dugan tole him that Mountain’s Blood could only be made from a
weed that grew in fresh water below a new mountain. He had
instructed Gilly to take the Bull’s head and throw it into Lake
Thannat, to start the process.
Lucky for Gilly that Dugan left unsaid what happened next, or
he’d likely never have gone and done as he was tole. Ya see, when
the bull’s head hit the water, Isabelle emerged from the depths of
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