Kathie fired a warning shot over the heads of the thieving mob that had surrounded the gunslinger’s prone body. Her former mentor may have lost the duel but those scrabbling vermin wouldn’t rob his fancy boots; they’d now pass to her.

Kathie thought somberly, “To the victor go the spoils.”

Emma Grave is a speculative fiction writer who lives near the forest of Cannock Chase in the UK with her husband and house rabbit.