When she opened her eyes again, she felt in control. “I’m sorry, Darius. I didn’t mean to grasp you so hard.”
He swiped his eyes and lifted his chin. “It’s all right.” His smile was genuine. She wished she could have the sense of forgiveness found in the eyes of that child.
“I really am very sorry, but we also really need to go.”
Darius nodded and pulled on Nikki’s leash. The dog jumped to its feet. The ragged reaper grabbed the Great Dane by the collar and allowed her momentum to help him up. The moment the dog pulled him to a standing position, he released her. Nikki had shown no hindrance of the man’s burden. He dusted off his breeches and asked, “So where to, boss?”
Raven seethed. She had never had a partner except her father. When she was with him, he was in charge. Honestly, she’d never given orders to anyone. She just didn’t feel comfortable with that kind of control. It was easy dragging a child around with her, the object of her protection. Dragging around this old man was another thing all together. She shook her head. Could she really stop the elder reaper from doing anything he wanted? She sighed. “Preston Woods is southeast of here. I think it will be best if we stick to the wooded paths rather than main roads. The guard is coming, but they will likely adhere to the known means of transportation.”
“So we’re taking the road less travelled.” He grinned, his white teeth shining in the moonlight.
The full moon washed out the stars and created abundant light along the way to the woods off the main road. A path ran alongside the road, a few yards in, and Raven felt that they’d be safest on it. She could keep an eye on the road from there and remain unseen, as well. She reached into her bag and pulled out a two headlamps. The lights were powered by clockwork key. With each thirty winds, the lamps produced ten minutes of light. She took one and placed it on her forehead with the strap toward the back. For a moment she was unsure whether to give the other to Darius as she’d originally intended, or if it would be more appropriate to offer it to the ragged reaper.
Monroe lifted a hand and shook his head, pulling a hand out of his overcoat. “No need, I have my own.”
Of course he did. She handed the other to Darius. The boy asked, “How come we’re not using the night vision goggles instead?”
Raven tilted her head. “Firstly, I only have one set. It’s much easier to procure one of these from a mechanist than goggles from an alchemist. Secondly, the visual in the goggles leaves you with a greenish tint that makes it harder to determine friend, foe, animal, or plant without extensive training.”
“I remember looking through them and seeing all green.”
“Right.”
Darius took the headlamp and began winding the key on the side.
“If we get into any trouble, and need to douse the light, take the key and turn it counter-clockwise. It will stop the mechanism. Understand?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Darius answered, shielding his eyes from Raven’s headlamp.
She smiled and started forward. The light on the trail kept her from tripping over roots. As a child, she had developed a fear of spiders. Her father had told her that she was never more than a meter away from one at anytime. She didn’t want to believe it, but the first time they walked in the woods with headlamps on proved it.
Across the ground, the night-shine in the eyes of a dozen spiders glistened in the light of the lamps. One glittered green and gold like a multifaceted jewel. When the light shined upon it as she passed, Raven found it to be a mother wolf spider with an uncountable number of offspring clinging to its back in a defensive position. Raven shivered, clenched her jaw, and did her best to ignore the shimmering points of reflection in their eyes.
As a reaper, she trained to conquer her fear. Yet the thought of eight hairy legs creeping across her skin made her cringe. She swallowed hard and cleared her throat. “Right then, we’ll travel until we find a safe place to make camp for the night.”
“I still don’t see why we didn’t stay at the inn,” Monroe said in sing-song voice.
Raven glared at the ragged reaper, but his head lamp pointed in another direction and he couldn’t have seen it. She turned and marched down the trodden animal trail. As they walked, they heard an occasional rustle of an animal in the woods. A deer darted across the path. It took her mind off the spiders.
After an hour of travel, they hadn’t yet found a clearing of any kind. The pathway continued to keep them close to the main thoroughfare to Moorshead. The dirt road to their left remained empty. Not one horse, carriage, or hiker broke the silence on the road.
The frogs and crickets’ songs filled the night air. As the night drew on, the air turned cooler. At least they didn’t have to deal with mosquitoes and bugs. The tree canopy here in the south created a dense ceiling. Silver flashes of moonlight occasionally filtered through to the path, but without their headlamps, the going would have been much slower.
Then a rumbling sounded in the distance. At first, Raven wondered if it might be thunder. But as it continued unabated, she realized the sound came from the steam engine of a single mechanical horse. She clenched her jaw and darted her eyes, taking a measure of the brush to be certain they had enough cover. She found the expression on the ragged reaper’s face had lost all its mirth, and grew an edge of seriousness. His eyes had become the cold grey of a winter’s sky. “Douse the lights.” His words came out in a harsh whisper.
Raven agreed and nodded to Darius whose nervous hand turned the crank on his lamp the wrong direction at first, making the light brighter. He winced and then corrected himself.
Spots of light fluttered before Raven’s eyes, and it took her a moment to adjust to the darkness. She slid the night vision goggles on, and the setting of the road washed in green. The rumbling grew in volume. Nikki whimpered and drew close. “Darius, put your dog back on the leash. We can’t have her jumping out.”
“Right.” The boy pulled the leather strap from his pocket and snapped it to the Great Dane’s collar.
“Get down.” Monroe grasped Darius by the arm and pulled him toward the path.
With the goggles on her face, Raven could see not only the glowing eyes of the spiders, but their full form. As she crouched in the path, a full web glistened green next to her face, with an enormous Orb Weaver stretched out in the center of it. Raven swallowed the bitter taste in her mouth and did her best to ignore the eight-legged monster inches from her face.
The rumbling drew nearer, and the light of a headlamp came into view. A lone automated horse squealed to a slower gait as the rotund man atop sketched a shape that she recognized though she could not make out facial features. Jasper Hollow came to a stop less than fifty feet from the portion of path on which they crouched. How had he known?
Jack Grant reached the train station in Moorshead long after dark. The full moon sat a quarter of the way up the sky. He’d never have seen so many stars from the city. The abandoned station was as unpopulated as the small town surrounding it.
“Which way do you believe we should go, Captain?” Colton asked, rubbing a hand over his red hair. His eyes scanned the surrounding fields and farms.
From twenty yards away, Rupert stood up, his skin nearly invisible in the darkness. “Captain, I believe we should follow these tracks. The tracks of a mechanical horse carrying a heavy rider came through recently. And occasionally, I’m finding the prints of a large dog.”
Jack rubbed his sore legs. The flesh horses made for a rougher ride than the smooth mechanical ones. It felt good to stretch and stand on his own two feet. The horses were clipping the grass on the roadside. They were hungry and tired. His stomach growled, but all they had in the saddle bags was jerky and hardtack. The town didn’t even seem to have an inn, much less a tavern.
Bradley teetered on his mount, slumping over the horse’s neck. His men were spent. Rupert’s stamina surpassed his own. Jack could feel how close they were to finishing the goal and knew they must press on. Besides, Jasper had an enormous head
start on them. What would the reaper do if he found them first? Could Jack trust the man to at least leave the young baron alive? Somehow, Jack doubted it. He didn’t trust the man as far as he could throw him.
He reached into his saddle bag and pulled out a stick of jerky. After shoving it into his mouth, he nodded to Rupert and mounted. “Lead the way.”
Concealment is the reaper’s friend.
What cannot be found cannot be attacked.
RAVEN HELD HER breath as the man dismounted the metal horse and flipped the levers to shut the steam-powered beast down. After a whistling huff exhausted the last of the machine’s steam, it became silent. Even the crickets and frogs had suspended their constant chirping.
The brass ocular over the rotund man’s cheek whirred as it moved in and out, scanning and measuring the surrounding woods. He breathed heavily, nearly panting. Raven let out her breath between her teeth as slowly as possible. A few crickets and frogs started their song once more, covering the silence with a blanket of safety. The dog shifted position, and its collar rattled slightly. Raven hoped the cacophony might cover the miniscule sound, but still, she held her breath again and counted while she waited for a reaction from the hunter.
Hunted. Like déjà vu, the feeling stirred in Raven the same sort of unease and fear she’d had as a child. It had been so many years, she’d forgotten. Jasper Hollow stood hunched over like a grizzly on its haunches. The massive man nearly had the girth and height of a bear. Raven knew better than to let conventions deceive her. A typical man of this size would have strength but no speed. This man was not typical; he was a reaper.
Jasper tilted his head and took a halting step closer. An owl leapt from a branch among the pines. The branch cracked and cascaded down the tree to the forest floor. The ruckus and resulting crash distracted the reaper for a moment. As if the owl’s departure had been a signal for “all clear,” the nightly chorus within the woods resumed its normal volume and tenor.
For a moment, the grizzly reaper stood with his hands on his hips, determined to listen. Provided that the threesome and dog could remain reasonably quiet, there wouldn’t be a chance they could be heard over the wood’s refrain. He shook his head and spit in disgust. His heavy boots solidly thwacked the ground with each step. Stealth would never be this bear’s strong suit.
As he mounted the brass mechanized horse once more, the tightness in Raven’s muscles loosened. She breathed a little easier. Jasper adjusted the levers on his horse and initiated start up. Steam belched from its nostrils as the engine rumbled to life. Raven felt a quiver against her leg and turned her head slowly in Darius’s direction. His eyes rolled back in his head and his body shook with great force. The Great Dane whimpered.
Jasper leapt from the back of his machine and in three quick steps, he stood directly in front of them, his pistol drawn and his sword in his other hand. Monroe leapt to his feet faster than Jasper dismounted. A squealing and grinding emanated from the machine.
Raven held the boy’s shoulders, and grabbed the leash, hooking it to the boy’s belt. She needed these two to stay out of the way. As she readied herself to stand, the horse behind Jasper exploded in a flash of sparks and scraping metal. She twisted her body to cover the boy and squeezed her eyes shut. Too late. The night vision goggles had multiplied the flare.
Ripping the goggles from her head, she rubbed her eyes, still blinded by the explosion. She jumped up and blinked. No matter how she strained, she could see nothing but the flash. The Great Dane continued to whine. Raven crouched again, feeling for Darius. The boy had stopped convulsing, but sweat covered the back of his shirt.
The clashing of swords to her left caught her ear, and her eyes had adjusted enough so that she could make out the moving shapes of the two reapers as they battled. With a couple of hard blinks, she still couldn’t make out which was which. She rued her new handicap, until finally she gave up and wound her headlamp. Through the beam of the lamp, more of the picture came into view. The two reapers grunted with each strike and parry, their movements blurred.
Light glinted off a shard of brass protruding from Monroe’s upper thigh and two from Jasper’s back, giving him grotesque brass wings. Streams of blood flowed from wounds on the bared flesh of the reapers. Sweat dripped from their faces, and if they hadn’t worn black, they’d be covered in crimson.
Raven swallowed hard, the flash blindness all but gone, now only spotting the edges of her vision. On the ground, Darius moaned and rolled over, his eyes fluttering. Nikki stood and greeted him with a lick on the cheek. A wagging tail beat against Raven’s legs.
She felt like a child again. She couldn’t help it. As she watched the two fully-trained, elder reapers, she felt like an impersonator. Like a child pretending to be what she was not. These two men fought with strength and agility, like her father. Not once did she beat her father at anything, and she doubted she could defeat either of the reapers if she’d been left on her own. The lump in her throat threatened to choke her, and tears burned in her sockets. Watching the two true professionals made her lose confidence in her own abilities.
The two fighters came to a sudden standstill. Heavy panting caused their shoulders to heave like an uneven dance. The malice had left neither fighter’s eyes, and their swords were still pointed in their opponent’s direction. Neither man looked ready to back down though both were spent. After drawing a deep breath, Jasper spoke. “Raven! I knew your father. You might remember me.” A smile tugged at the right side of his lips. “I have one of those faces no one forgets.”
Monroe leveled his sword at the grizzly. “Don’t talk to her so familiar.”
Jasper spat, blood mixed with his saliva. “As though you have any right to act as her protector. You are no more innocent or guilty than I. Don’t act holier than me.”
“No one is holy.”
“Whatever. Don’t try to win me over with whatever religion you’re trying to push. I am a reaper; I have no need to trust anyone but myself.”
“You call yourself a reaper, but you don’t even live by the code.”
“The code never got me anywhere. The training is what really counts.”
Monroe gave a hard laugh that sounded like a cough. “Earlier today you talked of true believers. What did you mean if you weren’t referring to the code?”
“The rigors of training as a reaper are too hard for most men. They want everything to come easy and when it doesn’t, they quit. Not one true believer among them.”
“Ah.” Monroe nodded. “At least some wisdom has made it through that steel-hard capitulum.”
Jasper lost his temper and jabbed his blade at Monroe a few more times. The parries lasted for about a half-dozen hits when the standstill recommenced. They were both out of breath once more.
“Raven Steele...” Jasper resumed his yelling after panting again. “Don’t trust this man. He is the one responsible for your father’s death.”
The ice cold water of betrayal poured down her spine. She waited for Monroe’s denial, but none came. The ragged reaper remained silent. Raven squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. It made no difference what the reapers said–she knew Monroe didn’t kill her father. She had been there. His death had been her fault.
When Jack and his guard found the start of the woods, the tracks split. The trail the dog’s tracks led would have been better traversed on foot. So they chose to stay on the main road, which the mechanical horse hoof prints continued along. Fatigue was an unwelcome companion and kept them at little more than an amble for the entire trip. As the moon rose higher in the sky, Jack considered finding a field to make camp and continue the search in the morning. Bradley and Harry continued to nod off, leaning on their horses.
Jack adjusted in the saddle and spoke quietly to his second-in-command. “Rupert, what do you think? Should we make camp and continue the search tomorrow?”
Rupert shrugged, but he looked worn out. His eyes had lost some of the shine and focus they’d had when he first found
the trail.
Jack sat up in the saddle and let his hips move with the horse’s motion. Honestly, part of him just didn’t really want to catch up with Jasper Hollow tonight. If the reaper had found Raven and the baron, he didn’t want to witness the grisly scene. And if the reaper hadn’t found them, he didn’t want to spend the night with the snoring bear again.
His drive to move forward dissolved. Then the thunder rolled and Jack shot a look to the northwest. The clouds made a distinct line in the sky. Overhead, they could still see a clear sky full of stars, but not far to the west, lightning struck again. It lit up the obvious line of storms. Bradley and Harry became alert in their saddles. Jack nodded and called back to them. “Men, let’s trot ahead and see if we can find shelter.”
The horses barely needed urging as the wind whipped up, rustling the trees to each side. Lifting their ears and flaring their nostrils, the horses stepped up on high alert. They felt the storm coming and wanted to outrun it just as much as the men. A sudden drop in temperature accompanied the wind.
The horses pulled into a forward trot. Over the howl of the wind, Jack thought he heard the clashing of swords. They rounded the next bend, and in the near pitch blackness, the smoldering remains of a mechanical horse sizzled in the road. And next to it, the two reapers stood still in a ready stance for battle. Jack tensed his jaw, but couldn’t see Raven or the boy nearby.
Pulling up his horse, he held his arm out for the guard to follow suit. He dismounted and handed the reins to Rupert. “Stay here. I’ll check things, but withdraw your pistol—just in case.”
Rupert nodded, the reins of two horses in one hand, his pistol already in the other.
Jack stepped forward, calling ahead to the two reapers. “What’s going on here, Jasper? Met your match?” He nearly slapped the man on the back when he noticed the protruding shards of metal. He swore. “Are you all right, Hollow? How can you be moving with an injury like this?”
Chronicles of Steele: Raven: The Complete Story Page 10