Her Reaper's Arms, Charlotte Boyett-Compo [world best books to read .TXT] 📗

“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Bevyn knew the Shadowlord had withdrawn.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

Range Cruiser—and those men were lost to them at this point in time. If the bitches

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