by Scott E Moon
“Was that the Reaper?” Rickson asked. “Aren’t you going after Clavender?”
Kin jumped.
“I didn’t mean to surprise you.”
“I saw you coming,” Kin said.
“Why’d you jump?”
“Never mind. I need supplies. Make yourself useful, fetch one of my pre-packed go-bags.”
“Right away, Kin!”
The boy sprinted toward town and Kin realized how slowly he was moving by comparison. The kid had too much energy.
“You’re not coming with me!” Kin shouted. He stopped several times to massage cramps out of his leg muscles and resisted the urge to pull off his boots and look for blisters he knew had already burst.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
KIN scarcely arrived at the well before Rickson came rushing across the square carrying two heavy travel packs. He also carried a staff that had seen years of use. From the time he was a boy with his first flock, Rickson could be seen on hilltops and mountain slopes whirling the staff against imaginary foes. His rough spun tunic was long and simple, but Rickson had dyed it purple claiming it was the color of royalty and he was the prince of shepherds. The color had faded and the edges were beginning to fray. His pants and shirt were patched and mended. He did everything himself.
“I only need one pack and a water skin. The Reaper moves fast. I have to move faster,” Kin said.
“Shouldn’t you ask Commander Westwood for soldiers and an armored vehicle?” Rickson asked. “I thought the woman captain was supposed to find the Reaper.”
“Has Captain Raien returned?”
Rickson shrugged. “I don’t think so. Ask the Commander.”
Kin had no intention of going near the Commander. He had already pushed his luck farther than was prudent. “That’s a good idea, Rickson. Go and find Laura. Ask her to meet me at the Commander’s headquarters.”
Rickson eyed him skeptically, but took one of the travel packs and his staff and left. Kin waited for several minutes, searching the area to be sure the young shepherd wasn’t lurking about, then left Crater Town. He set an aggressive pace despite cramping muscles.
The day passed with endless tedium—hiking on a near empty stomach and sore feet. His mind wandered among memories of Becca, nightmares of Hellsbreach, and speculation of what would happen to Crater Town if he didn’t rescue Clavender. She had called the wormhole down on Droon. Kin replayed the scene over and over in his mind. Believing she could do magic wasn’t the same as seeing it. For the first time, he truly believed she protected Crater Town.
Darkness fell as he ascended the mountains. He sheltered under a rock outcropping and lit a small fire. He cooked food and ate. He tended his blistered feet as best he could and allowed himself to sleep for almost two hours.
Hunting the Reaper alone was a fool’s quest. His only hope was to ambush the monster and even then he’d have only one chance. The first time had been lucky, but at least he understood what he was up against. Droon might be injured or sick, but he was more dangerous than most of his kind. If Kin had allowed Rickson to accompany him, he might have slept longer and taken turns standing guard, but the boy would be a liability when it came time to fight. Bear, on the other hand, would be a useful ally.
Kin obliterated all signs of his campsite and left the Reaper’s trail, confident he could find it again. Marcus Michael Robert was a mountain man who lived alone and rarely descended to Crater Town. Laura called him Bear, because he was big, harry, and uncivilized. He was also a superb hunter and knew every trail and creek in the area. Kin climbed the path to his cabin as soon as the sun peeked into the sky.
Playing their usual game, Kin crept toward the cabin until he realized Bear had slipped out the back and was stalking him. The man moved with surprising stealth despite his size and propensity for loud conversation. Once, long ago, Kin had tired of the game and merely went into the cabin to wait. This prompted Bear to go fishing and return at dusk, an inconvenience, but they had eaten well. Now, as the game progressed and Kin’s frustration grew, he realized there was a third player. He whistled three times. Bear answered with two. They started working together.
Kin intentionally revealed himself, moving with feigned caution toward a dense stand of trees that would be an excellent hiding place, then turned and ran the way he had come. The ruse was artless and loud, but he needed to find the intruder before Bear did. If his assumption was correct, he didn’t wish to see Bear attack.
“Kin! Kin, it’s me!” Rickson shouted as Kin bore down on him, pistol drawn.
He shoved the young shepherd to the ground and stood over him. “I told you not to follow me.” He sensed Bear moving behind him and soon felt the presence of the large man. Ogre jumped from the underbrush, undaunted by the tension among the men. Other dogs would have growled and bared teeth, but Ogre seemed to recognize the game from the beginning.
Rickson stood. “I never listen to you. I thought you knew that.”
“Sometimes, Rickson, you must do what I say. This isn’t a game.” He turned and shook hands with Bear. Ogre jumped on Kin, who wrestled him down and scratched behind the ears. The dog huffed, twisted free and approached from a new angle, tail wagging. Kin roughed him again.
“Good to see you, Kin,” Bear said. He was a giant man with broad shoulders, thick chest, and a torso like a tree. He wasn’t fat. Scrawny rabbits, fish, and wild vegetables didn’t exactly pack on weight. Hair and a beard framed his face. The hair on his knuckles suggested he was slightly closer to being a Neanderthal than any other man on Crashdown. He hadn’t arrived on the planet with the Goliath, though he wasn’t a native. Kin had learned that much during their conversations and adventures.
Kin nodded. “Have you been in the woods?”
“Are you looking for someone?” Bear asked. “Ogre, you smelly mutt, I thought you settled down years ago with some Crater Town bitch. I’ll still feed you, even though you never visit.”
The dog huffed.
“We better get inside. I’m starving,” Kin said.
“Me too,” Rickson said.
Kin and Bear turned as one to stare at the boy.
“What? I don’t get to eat?”
Neither Kin nor Bear answered. They went inside and Rickson followed cautiously. Ogre waited outside.
“What kind of mutt refuses to sit by the fire?” Bear asked.
“He’s a guard dog, or was,” Kin said.
“Take off your boots. You’re walking like an old man,” Bear said. He knelt and examined Kin’s blistered soles. “You have to take care of your feet. Bad feet will kill you up here.” He washed Kin’s feet and dried them. “Sit by the fire.”
“Did you see what came through the wormhole?” Kin asked.
Bear nodded and checked a pot on the fire.
Kin warmed his feet as the smell of the stew filled his nose. “There’s at least a division of ground forces, more ships than they need, transports and science vessels, though they all took damage. The Commander’s name is Westwood. I think they fought a hard campaign before stranding themselves on Crashdown. The troopers have a certain look in their eyes—glad to be alive, but dangerous. They know there’s a Reaper on the loose, but aren’t hunting it, as you’d expect.”
“They’re licking their wounds,” Bear said.
“Probably. But the Commander and his officers spend most of their time in the meeting hall studying space charts and reports I didn’t get a good look at. If you ask me, they’re in a big hurry to get off Crashdown.”
Bear moved around the small room preparing the meal. “It takes time to become accustomed to the wormhole. After my ship crashed, we thought it was going to swoop down and whisk us into space.”
“What happened to the people you landed with?” Rickson asked. He sat on a stump near the door.
Bear stared at him, briefly touching his wrists as though to adjust a uniform that wasn’t there. Hard lines creased his expression. He gazed through the young man. After several uncomfortable moments, he shoo
k away a private memory and glared around the room.
“I was just asking,” Rickson said.
“Don’t.” Bear served Kin a bowl of stew.
“The Reaper has Clavender,” Kin said, but was disappointed by Bear’s response. The man raised an eyebrow and spooned food into his mouth, staring at Rickson.
“Without Clavender the weather around here is going to grow more dangerous every day.” Kin wondered what was on the mountain man’s mind. He never seemed impressed with Clavender, but Kin expected more of a reaction to her being taken.
“Probably. But Clavender isn’t the only one of her kind on this rock. I’ve heard there is a kingdom on the far side of the world where abundance is the rule and scarcity is barely understood. I might have to move. Your townspeople will probably find the change more difficult, since half of them will be too stubborn to journey inland through the mountains,” Bear said. “It’s not so much the weather they need to worry about, but the things that come out of the ground without a Sun Princess.”
Rickson frowned. “Clavender is a Sun Princess?”
“Each settlement has a different name for the natives, though I’ve never heard of anyone like her,” Kin said. He barely glanced at Rickson. His attention was on Bear. “Can you help me track the Reaper?”
“Never seen a Reaper. Heard stories.” Bear drank something that smelled like alcohol and honey. “How’s Laura?”
“She’s not your type, Bear.” He watched his friend carefully. They had spoken several times about Reapers. Bear knew a lot about them. They had been drunk, but Kin remembered the conversation well. Talk of Reapers usually sent the mountain man into a fit of depression. Now he acted as though they were imaginary.
“I think she likes me.”
They laughed. Kin drank some honey mead and told his story of the Reaper and the Valley of Clingers.
“That explains the Clinger I killed by the gorge,” Bear said. “But that was yesterday.”
Kin pressed his friend for details, all the while remembering his encounter with Droon at Stone Forest. The Reaper was still wearing a Clinger. It didn’t make sense there would be another one this far outside the Valley, unless they were following the Reaper. In all his years on Crashdown, he found only one Clinger outside their territory.
He didn’t like the thought of a Clinger migration.
Bear began to tell Rickson a story, part humor, part terror, and Kin’s thoughts wandered.
“Kin,” Bear said.
He looked up. A hopper bird sat in the window. Laura had sent more birds to him in the last day and a half than she had sent in six months. The bird landed on his arm. He untied the message and then shook his arm gently but firmly. The bird hopped to the ground, wandering around looking for food.
Commander Westwood demands your return to lead Raien’s search for the Reaper.
Kin wrote on the back of the note. I’m already tracking the Reaper. He fed the bird, attached the note, and placed the bird on the windowsill. It squawked, apparently being the only bird that couldn’t be taught to harass Kin with speech, and flew away.
“Laura wants me to help the Fleet track the Reaper.”
Bear grunted.
“I told you to wait for them,” Rickson said.
Bear put away his bowl and smoothed his beard. “Why don’t you use them? I know you do everything yourself, but they have weapons, armor, and vehicles.”
“The last time I led Captain Raien’s company on a mission, they were more interested in Gold Village,” Kin said. He didn’t want Commander Westwood to capture Clavender. She would never be released. He would probably take the girl with him when he eventually left the planet and that would leave Crater Town vulnerable. The thought of Clavender in captivity sickened him. The thought of Droon being turned into a weapon also bothered him.
“Do they need gold for their ships?” Bear asked.
“No.”
“Well you should tell them a good animal hide or a sharp saw is worth more than gold here. You told me once that the Fleet Weapons Research and Development Division had a bounty out for a live Reaper. You were drunk, but I remember what you said.”
“Raien will want to capture the Reaper, now that she thinks it’s alive. There was a debate about the unidentified ship. Most of the officers refused to believe it was a Reaper craft. When I find the Reaper and Clavender, I’ll ask for the Fleet’s help, if I have to,” Kin said.
“It’ll be too late.” Bear rolled a bundle of food in a fur cloak and tied the assembly on the back of his belt. He adjusted his broad hunting knife on his hip and picked up a wood axe that made Kin’s seem small and light. Kin’s weapon was balanced for fighting and was sharper, but the wood axe was intimidating. Bear had split more than a few logs during his long years as a mountain man. Kin suspected the axe may have damaged a few bandits and raiders as well.
“So are we going?” Rickson asked.
Bear stared at the boy, but Kin answered. “I can’t leave you up here with Clingers marauding through the forest.”
Rickson smiled nervously.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“CLA-VEN-DA.” Droon leaned close. His teeth brushed her mouth. Saliva dripped from his sharp incisors. Sounds clicked deep in his throat when she didn’t answer. “Cla-ven-da.”
She turned her face away.
He squatted over the young woman, dripping venom on her cheek, bending his face to hers to make her understand his words. He held a squirming rabbit by the neck.
“Hungry?” Each syllable rasped from his throat, stretching vowel sounds and carving consonants from the back of his teeth.
She whimpered and jerked her face the other way.
“Eat.”
The rabbit struggled. For a small creature, its fear was very good. Its heart raced and the strong leg muscles were gorged with blood. Cla-ven-da began to weep. Droon’s frustration mounted.
“Czaa, czaa, hauak,” he cursed. “Eat!”
She closed her eyes and thrashed to get free, but he pinned her to the ground. Her body twisted one way and then the other. He retracted his claws slowly, paused, and struck the side of her head, careful not to render her unconscious. She continued to fight, but he was too strong.
Droon commanded her attention by extending his claws. “Why did you take me beyond?” He looked at her face and marveled at the strength of her wings. “Dangerous. You must eat and take me back to Kin-rol-an-da.”
“I would have taken you farther from here, if the way was not blocked,” Cla-ven-da said. She held her arms across her chest and attempted to draw her wings in, but Droon stood on them. The portal had blinded and deafened him, but he had sensed the movement of armies, rivers of destiny, and faraway places. Most of all, he had sensed Cla-ven-da’s fear. She had seen something during the wormhole crossing.
“I must go back,” Droon said.
She smiled at him, her eyes full of malice. “I could try the portal again, but you might want a ship first. Without me, you would die in space.”
“No tricks,” Droon said, but he realized she’d never help him. He should kill her before the incessant chattering of the Clinger on his back drove him crazy. The creature hungered for her, wailing in Droon’s mind like a siren. “No tricks.”
Cla-ven-da looked past Droon, searching the night sky. He thought she waited for someone—Kin-rol-an-da, perhaps—someone to help her. “Will he come?”
She seemed surprised when Droon named Kin-rol-an-da, but said, “My people will come and you will die.”
Droon looked around. Mountains loomed above the pass. Lights danced in the sky. “Your people won’t come. Something blocks them. I felt it in the portal beyond this place. I felt your fear and surprise. You wanted to trap Droon, but you failed.”
Cla-ven-da trembled in his grip, filling him with a strange emotion. Her eyes drew him in. His pain eased. His heart slowed and the terror of his burning home world seemed far away. Droon relaxed and wondered at the woman with falcon wings. He
had never felt this way.
The Clinger stretched over his shoulder, reaching for the woman. It whispered Cla-ven-da’s name in Droon’s mind. An image of Clingers curling around her body came to him. The Clingers in the image flexed in unison and Cla-ven-da’s flesh tore from her skeleton. Other Clingers rushed forward to slurp her blood and guts.
Droon had seen many images of how Clingers fed since bonding with the hive queen, but this was something different. They hated Claven-da more than any creature.
Droon grabbed a fist full of the living cloak and squeezed until it retreated. He felt pain through their connection, but welcomed it, even as he feared the unnatural bond. He commanded the Clinger to spread. Obeying, it slowly covered most of his body.
The Cla-ven-da woman watched in horror. Her fear stank wonderfully, but he couldn’t eat her yet. He was lonely. She couldn’t stop the loneliness, but she could almost stop it. He would try again when she was stronger.
“You must eat. You must take me beyond,” Droon said. The words took a long time, but she quit her struggle and listened.
“If I could call the wormhole again, I would escape,” she said. “Something powerful is trying to control it. There will be a storm.”
Droon believed she didn’t expect him to understand. But he did. Human speech wasn’t hard to understand. Making the words was hard. Thinking was hard.
But I am learning.
“Mate. We mate. You heal me.”
“No mating. I could heal you, but you would not be the same.”
Droon crouched over her for a long time. He narrowed his eyes and studied her. This winged human wasn’t like those who destroyed his home world or the others who took his kindred away. She wanted to heal him. She needed to heal him. He thought this woman fed on healing just as Droon fed on fear. “Stay.” He turned his back to her.
“I will not stay. You cannot carry me and escape Kin.”
Droon whirled and jumped on her. He grabbed her throat, pushing her head against the rocky ledge. “Stay, or I kill everyone.”
He left Cla-ven-da on the ledge. The clinging parasite on his back wanted the woman, but he wouldn’t allow the monster to have her. He needed someone to handle the ship now that the pilot man was dead. She had no ship, but could go beyond. And he needed a mate before he could heal from the far-sickness that came when his kind left home.