alleviate some of the wind drag as the horse raced over the prairie.
“They are gone, Bevyn,” the High Lord suddenly said in a low voice. “The young men
have disappeared from the barn.”
“Shit,” Bevyn exclaimed. “Is there a ship lurking up there somewhere?”
“There must be but we’ve not the technology to sense it,” came the disgusted reply . “We
need to get the Net operational over the Citadel and spread it over the rest of the country.
Another week and we’ll have complete protection of the High Council at least.”
“Well, I can’t do anything about the men now but I can stop the rogues from doing it
again,” Bevyn snapped. “They’ll move on to the next town if I don’t.”
“Lord Naois is checking to see if they’ve hit any other towns before this,” Lord Kheelan
said. “Let’s pray this is the first.”
“I saw a Dóigra at English’s cabin,” Bevyn said, full memory of the horror he’d seen
there surfacing in his mind’s eye to nauseate him. “He came into contact with the Amazeen
somewhere.”
“Do you need help with this? Lord Arawn is available.”
“I’ll let you know,” Bevyn answered.
“Stop them, Lord Bevyn,” Lord Kheelan said. “No matter what you have to do. Stop them
from transporting any of our people off-world.”
Bevyn knew the Shadowlord had withdrawn.
“Call on me if you need me, Lord Bevyn,” came another voice close on the heels of the
Shadowlord’s departure.
“I will, milord,” Bevyn replied, knowing it was the Prime Reaper who spoke.
Lawler set in the midst of a small vale with lush, green rolling hills cupped around
it. It was a pleasant little burg that was well kept and fairly prosperous. A serpentine
river ran to the east of the small settlement that was fairly new by Terran standards. The
town had come into existence a few years after the Burning War had all but destroyed
the entire country, therefore the clapboard buildings wore adequate coats of white paint
and the wood had yet to begin deteriorating in the harsh winters the land was now
growing accustomed to.
Tying Préachán beneath a stand of beeches, Bevyn got down on his belly and
scooted to the rim of a hill overlooking the center of town. He was being careful to block
his approach from those in the town, spreading a wavering mist around him that would
make it impossible for the rogues to pick up on his presence.
Surveying the deserted streets, he saw nothing to alert him and wondered if the
rogues were also cloaking themselves. There appeared to be no guard posted to keep
watch, no movement from any of the windows to indicate anyone was watching. The
church was boarded up and he knew that had to be hell for those inside for the day was
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sultry, little wind blowing to cool the humid air. Spying the jail, he stared at it for a long
time. Casting his senses to both buildings, he was a bit surprised that no one was
speaking although everyone inside both places was alive and well. He could pick up on
their heartbeats and was a bit concerned those beats were slower than they should be.
Shifting his attention to the saloon, he heard the slap of what had to be cards hitting felt,
but not one word from the mouths of the rogues.
He picked out the barn he figured the young men had been kept in, but in scanning
it, he could not find a single female and especially not the body heat of an Amazeen,
which was nearly as high as his own and the rogues. He strained to hear even a single
heartbeat but there was none inside the barn. The situation was getting stranger by the
minute.
The Reaper knew he could not contact the Shadowlords, for to do so would alert
the rogues to his presence. It took a great deal of energy to cloak himself and his
thoughts so he tried to expend as little physical and mental agility as possible as he
pushed to his feet and began skirting the rise, looking for an easy pathway down into
the vale.
Careful to keep from disturbing even one pebble as he moved toward the town,
Bevyn constantly swept his eyes back and forth over the town, but knew there was no
way he could know if he was being watched from the air. He had no doubt the
Amazeen had taken the young men up into a craft of some kind—most likely a Long
were on Terra to gather stock for their breeding farms on Amazeen and this was their
first batch, they could be hovering up there waiting to snatch up more and that made
the hair stir on the back of his neck. They could be watching him as he stealthily made
his way toward the saloon.
Glancing skyward, he narrowed his eyes, but there was nothing but unrelieved blue
above him, no cloud cover whatsoever. That didn’t mean the craft wasn’t there. It just
meant it was far enough away that even his supernatural eyesight could not detect it.
Crouching low, feeling as though unfriendly eyes were boring into his back, he ran
behind the saloon, pressing himself close to the building, listening intently for any
movement inside. Once more he heard the near-silent slapping of cards to baize but
nothing else, not even a single heartbeat, which told him the rogues were cloaking
themselves as he was and that they were expecting him.
Easing his six-shooter from its holster, he crept around the side of the building,
glancing down at his boots. The spurs would give him away on the boardwalk in front
of the building the moment he stepped up on it. With a concentrated blink, he rid
himself of the footwear, annoyed that he had forgotten to put on socks that morning but
unwilling to expend another fragment of his energy to materialize a pair. He winced as
a stone cut into his instep before he could step up on the boardwalk that ran the length
of the buildings flanking the saloon.
Moving as quietly as a feather floating on the wind, the Reaper advanced slowly
toward the saloon’s large window. The base of it was set high enough to the floor that
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he could bend over and pass beneath it without being seen from inside the shadowy
confines of the room. He knew he had two choices—rush past the window while
maintaining his body cloaking then burst through the batwing doors, taking aim at the
rogues and hitting them between the eyes before flicking the speal, the laser whip, to
shear off their heads, or crash through the window, taking a chance at cutting his own
head off with shards from the glass.
“Batwings,” he mumbled, and sped past the window in a blur of speed, diving
under the batwings as bullets flew over his head, rolling along the floor and coming up
to shoot three times in rapid succession—fanning the hammer with the edge of his
palm—and making neat black holes between the eyes of two of the rogues. The third
bullet went wide of its target and he felt a piercing pain in his shoulder as the third
rogue fired at him. Swiveling his gun toward the man standing by the bar, the Reaper’s
fourth bullet hit the rogue in the heart but not before the bastard fired again, his next
bullet catching Bevyn in the right bicep, making him drop his gun.
Scrambling to his feet, ignoring the pain in his right shoulder and arm, the Reaper
drew his laser whip and took the third rogue’s head off cleanly, grinning at the
surprised look on the dead man’s face. It took less time to flick the laser to the necks of
the other rogues, whose parasites were trying in vain to heal their hosts, and dispatch
them, a bit more time to wait for the hellions to wriggle out in order to turn them into
crispy ash on the barroom floor.
“Three down,” Bevyn sent to the Citadel just as he felt the strange humming around
him and the pull against his flesh.
“They are trying to draw you up!” Lord Kheelan’s voice shrilled in Bevyn’s ear.
There was no need for him to ask who. It was the Amazeen and they had latched on
to him in an attempt to pluck him from Terra. The pull against his flesh was sharp but
he felt as though his feet were nailed to the floor. It was an exacting sensation and it
hurt like hell.
“Morrigunia!” he cried out in agony, feeling as though he were being pulled apart
at the seams.
The Amazeens’ ploy might well have worked had not the Triune Goddess
interceded. Her fury vast as She suddenly appeared in the saloon, green eyes blazing
with rage, long red hair floating like seaweed on a turbulent tide.
“No one fucks with my Reaper!” the goddess shrieked. She lifted Her arm, fingers
splayed wide, and inscribed a large circle in the air and then crushed Her fingers
together as though snatching something from the air, jerking Her arm downward
quickly.
Under Bevyn’s feet, the floor of the saloon shook as a loud explosion rent the early
afternoon sky and he felt whatever had been drawing him cease. He dropped to all
fours, panting with the brutal pain that had been squeezing his insides, elongating them
like taffy at a pull. Falling over to his side, he drew his legs up in a fetal position and lay
there as the debilitating pain slowly faded from his muscles and joints.
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“The gods-be-damned!” Morrigunia hissed. “There is another!”
The entire room trembled as though it were about to collapse. As suddenly as She
had appeared, the goddess disappeared in a flash of rust-colored dust, a violent wind
whipping through the wind, smelling like rotting vegetation.
Rolling onto his back to draw ragged breaths into his lungs, Bevyn stared up at the
ceiling and the violently swaying oil lights that cast flickering shadows across the walls
as the building settled down. The pain in his arm was bad since his parasite could not
close the wounds for healing until the foreign substances—the lead bullets—had been
removed. He was bleeding badly as he pushed himself up to lean against a wooden
column, fumbling with his left hand for his blade. It was going to be a bitch digging the
bullets out of his shoulder and bicep but it had to be done before he could heal. He was
trying to do just that when the goddess returned, Her beautiful face hard and set.
“There is a Blackwind out there,” She told him, coming to hunker down before him.
“I hate Blackwinds more than I hate Nightwinds.”
Though it had been many years since he had been face-to-face with the Triune
Goddess, he was still as unnerved by Her beauty and the savage glint in Her green orbs
as he had been on the day She had made him. His hand was still on the blade though it
was deep inside his shoulder.
“How goes it, my Bevyn?” She asked, taking the blade from his grasp.
“Not as well as I would have liked for it to, mo Regina,” he admitted, trying not to
look into Her lovely face.
With efficiency, She popped the bullets from his flesh with the tip of the dagger,
snorting at his indrawn breath as the pain hit him, and then flipped the blade over,
extending it to him hilt first.
“You are not the most careful of my Reapers or the smartest,” She chastised him,
Her ivory face with its strange dusting of freckles cocked to one side. “Perhaps now that
you have something to live for you will be more careful in the future.”
He met Her glowing eyes. “You sent Lea to me,” he said softly. “My heartfelt
thanks, mo Regina.”
Her smile was brief but dazzling as She got to Her feet. “Take care of your toy,
Bevyn Coure. You’ll not get another.”
With that, She was gone in a burst of swirling multi-colored flecks of light that were
so bright they hurt his eyes, and he had to turn his head away and close his eyes to keep
from being blinded by the intensity.
Stumbling to his feet, he waved away his torn black silk shirt to better view the
damage done. Already the wounds were closing, only the red edges showing harshly
against his tanned skin. Going behind the bar, he found a clean rag and a pitcher of
water to wash away the spilled blood before fashioning a new shirt for himself.
Surprised he felt so weak, he poured a shot of whiskey, knocked it back then
another before heading out of the saloon to make his way to the church. The sweltering
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heat had to have taken a toll on the women imprisoned there and he was anxious to set
them free. As soon as he’d pulled the two boards crisscrossing the set of double doors,
the women nearly ran him over trying to get out in the cooler air. As soon as they saw
him, they staggered back, clustering in a little group as though they were as afraid of
him as they were of the ones who had trapped them.
Bevyn pointed at one of the women. “You, go set your menfolk in the jail free,” he
said, and saw the younger ones turn their heads toward the barn at the far end of the
street. He did not have the heart to tell them he knew their loved ones were dead. He
just turned away, heading back to his horse.
“Milord?”
Surprised one of them would dare speak to him, he turned to find a middle-aged
woman stepping away from the little clump of women. Her lips were trembling, her
hand out to stay his departure.
“Aye, wench?” he asked.
“The young men?” she pressed, and tears entered her eyes. “My sons?”
The truth must have been stamped on his face for he watched the woman lower her
head into her hands, heard her first faint sob as her shoulders bowed beneath the
weight of her sorrow.
“It…” he began, and was keenly aware of every eye on him. “It was quick,” he
finished. “They did not suffer.”
“The explosion?” another asked.
Bevyn nodded and winced as the wailing began. He watched women fall to their
knees with their grief. There was nothing he could do for them and as their older
menfolk and young sons began running toward them, he headed for his mount tied up
on the hill.
As he reached Préachán and untied the steed’s reins, he felt eyes on him again.
Malevolent eyes. Angry eyes. Eyes that meant him harm. Though he scanned the
immediate area, he saw nothing, detected nothing, but nevertheless he knew something
was there.
That something had a name.
It was a Blackwind, a warrior woman trained for tracking and exacting revenge on
Reapers.
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Chapter Six
Penthesilea Aracnea squatted by the creek and scooped water into her strong,
capable hands. She drank her fill then wiped her forearm over her lips, studying her
surroundings for the marauding goddess from whom Penthe had managed to barely
escape. Beside her, the glass head of her Dóigra caught an errant beam of sunlight and
the grass around the star-shaped bulb shriveled, burnt to ash in seconds.
No one fucks with my Reaper! she had heard the fire-haired termagant bluster before
destroying the LRC that had brought them to Terra.
“Aye, but that particular Reaper belonged to the Aracnea clan before You ever laid
Your hands to him,” Penthe hissed.
Having sworn vengeance for her Amazeen ancestor Kennocha Tramont, the
Blackwind sat down on the creek bank and stared into the sparkling water. It had taken
her thirty years to find Bevyn Coure and now that she had, she intended to see he was
returned to Críonna and the fate reserved for him. How she would do that now that her
transportation had been destroyed was a major problem.
“Greedy bitch,” Penthe growled, thinking of the captain of the Ostria. Had it not
been for greed, things would not have gotten so out of hand. But the Amazeen captain
had taken a look at the fine, strapping lads of Lawler and had decided they would make
good breeding stock on Amazeen. Despite Penthe’s objections, Captain Antimache had
ordered the young ones taken.
“There are hundreds of such prime specimens of maleness scattered across Terra,”
Antimache had argued. “We can take them easily and come back for more!”
“You won’t be coming back from the arms of the Gatherer,” Penthe said with an
ugly snort. “Nor will those prime specimens of maleness.”
Angry that her transportation home had been demolished and with no guarantee
another LRC would be forthcoming, Penthe kicked at the sand beneath her bootheel.
Her anger was such that she felt the blood pounding in her temples. She had not only
the covetous Antimache to thank for her situation but the bastard Reaper as well.
Thinking of Bevyn Coure, Penthe stretched out on her back, her knees drawn up as
she glared at the lacy leaves canopied over her head. For days she’d been tracking the
Reaper—keeping close watch on him, waiting for just the right moment to throw a net