by Scott Moon
Ogre barked.
“Well, that is just the way it is. Don’t blame me.”
Ogre huffed, then lifted a leg toward a tree.
When Kin and the others finally exited the ship, Rickson jumped to his feet and walked forward without looking where he was stepping. He didn’t go far, although he wanted to wave his arms and yell for Kin and then run to help. They carried a Winger in mashed up armor. Ceana?
“We need to find Clavender. I think Ceana is hurt pretty bad.”
Ogre barked.
“Show me where she is. This time, I am not taking no for an answer, even if she is a princess.”
RICKSON wondered for about three seconds why Clavender didn’t take to the air when he caught up to her — well, almost three seconds. Each time he saw her since arriving in the Ror-Rea had ended with her leaping into the thermal updrafts to free herself from her troubles. On the fourth second after he began following the Ror-Rea woman who looked like Clavender, Rickson understood she, he, it wasn’t a Winger at all. Images of William and Iso-tri-tross conspiring to imitate each other and the Mazz Emperor came to mind.
“Ogre,” he said.
The dog looked up.
“I am not a huge fan of shapeshifters.”
The dog whined, then wagged his tail.
“William, sure. He’s just a kid. But I don’t trust them,” Rickson said. He rubbed behind Ogre’s ears, then watched the Clavender imposter walk into a stand of trees. “How can we trust them?”
He didn’t follow immediately. There were a lot of Wingers and Crater Town people in the camp. A shining city with gold-topped towers was visible in the distance but seemed no closer than yesterday. Rickson angled away from the direction his quarry was heading. Once he was in the trees, he stalked her.
“I bet it is William or Iso,” he whispered to Ogre.
The dog might have heard the words but seemed to ignore them as he stalked through the alternating patches of light and shadow of the forest. Hackles rose on the back of Ogre’s neck and he growled low in his throat. Rickson crouched as he walked, one hand on a holstered pistol and the other on the chipped and scarred staff from Crashdown. Deeper he moved into the wilderness. Danger and excitement improved his mood. The promise of deadly adventure placed an odd effect on him. There was probably something wrong with that.
A rich, feminine voice resonated from nowhere. “Why are you following me, boy?”
Rickson moved his back against a tree as though something or someone might attack him from behind. He swallowed, darted his eyes right and left. For several seconds, he searched for the source of the voice, despite knowing where it came from.
A woman in a dark cloak stepped into a beam of light now reflected from the seas of Crashdown above as the enormous planet loomed in a way that disoriented everyone except Rickson. He moved beside the tree, ready to duck behind it. Just because she had a nice voice didn’t mean she couldn’t have a firearm or a blade and a strong dislike for nosy shepherds.
Using both of her delicate hands, the woman lowered her cloak to reveal a serene face of perfect ebony. Her eyes were as black as her face and lips. Her teeth were dark silver and looked sharp. As he gaped, she seemed to grow taller, almost floating toward him.
“Why are you following me, boy?”
Ogre growled, edging forward like a guard dog. Rickson stepped in front of the animal and shoved it back with his leg. “I am real sorry. This place makes me kind of sick and I never went to school or learned smart things. Thought a friend of mine wandered in here and I was real worried, so I kind of followed her in to check on her, you know.”
The woman of shadow narrowed her eyes, measuring him without acknowledging that he had spoken.
“You haven’t seen her, have you? I mean, because you couldn’t miss her. Wings, you know. Hope that’s okay she’s a Winger and I am just a shepherd boy. She’s real pretty, but I don’t want anything to happen to her,” he said.
“You are the shepherd boy. Kin Roland’s friend,” said the woman. “Stop acting like a fool.”
“If you say so. Have you seen my friend?”
“I have not,” the woman said.
Rickson thought about William and the other shapeshifters. If he remembered right, the boy never actually possessed the strength or claws of a Reaper when he pretended to be one. Rickson was looking at an illusion. The realization didn’t make him understand shapeshifters, but his fear diminished. Almost disappointed, he doubted the woman would attack. Unless her real form is dangerous. What about that?
The shadow woman moved very near to Rickson, matching his height before he realized anything had changed. Her dark lips lingered near his ear. She breathed onto his neck and looked down at his body. “Do you want to be my friend, boy?”
“I want to be everyone’s friend,” Rickson said. “Why do you ask? Hey, where are you from? I’ve never seen anyone like you. Are you from the Ror-Rea?”
“Stop with the farm-boy act. It is not dignified for a hero of the Bleeding Grounds,” she said, touching her body to his side — pressing against him as she breathed.
The touch, and the hero comment, took him off guard. His brain melted. For several long moments, he felt dizzy and hot.
“I can be anyone. You understand this?” She took a step back and became Clavender.
Rickson resisted a surge of nausea and knew it was because he hadn’t looked away during her transformation. There was no sleight of hand or moving through shadows to hide the exact moment of her apparent change. His mind didn’t like it.
“Don’t do that,” he said in a throaty whisper.
She flared her wings, gathering the inconstant Ror-Rea light and reflecting it down onto her naked body. She strode forward. Leaning toward him, about to kiss him, eyes open, she allowed her face to change slowly and intentionally into that of a blood red Reaper.
Rickson threw himself backward, striking the tree hard. Ogre barked and snapped his jaws at the shapeshifter.
A second later, the ebony woman wearing a black cloak stood several meters away, arms tucked inside of the garment, everything but a slice of her face concealed from a beam of light angling down between the trees. “Do not follow me. Do not talk about me. You know what I am, but not who I am. Kin Roland will tell you that shapeshifters are liars and spies.”
She paused. “Some of us are also assassins. He told William that he could look like a Reaper, but never be a Reaper. That is not true, shepherd boy. When one of us assumes a form permanently, we become the very best of our choice. You have not met the Rage.” She laughed. “Pray that you never do.”
Rickson tried to watch her leave, but the moment became confused, and to his addled brain, she vanished.
“I really don’t like shapeshifters.” Nothing the shapeshifter said made him happy. “What now, dog?” he asked.
Ogre sniffed the air and moved toward the last location of the shadow woman.
“Yeah, that is what I was thinking.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Kin’s Decision
KIN lowered Ceana onto his side as Mikey-Danny, who was holding the wings somewhat awkwardly, rested them on the ground at the same time. Some of the feathers were three feet long and sounded like swords sliding into silk scabbards each time they moved. During the long trek, Kin and the other humans took turns helping Ceana. Touching the wings was intimate for reasons none of them understood. It had been Rebecca to first mention the awkwardness.
As the most visible part of a Ror-Rea man or woman, Kin would have thought grabbing a wing would be like a handshake or patting someone on the shoulder. What he found was that when he was touching the feathers or the musculature that supported them, he was able to focus on the rest of Ceana without the powerful and miraculous wingspan distracting him from his friend’s private expressions and alien aspect.
The wings appeared lightweight but were dense and backed with muscle that could expand wide. The feathers might be silk or the toughest fabric in the
galaxy. Near the base of the under-wing and lining, he swore the mesh of feathers was like woven threads of steel.
“I don’t want to pull on them,” Mikey-Danny said.
“It’s okay as long as you say good game afterward,” Rebecca said.
During the last portion of their journey to the camp of King Dax, Ceana had lost consciousness. At the same time, his wings became heavy and loose. The short night became a short day.
“He was heavier in the armor,” Mikey-Danny said. “I expected that. But wow, I always thought the Wingers must be light as birds.”
“You’re tired,” Kin said. He massaged his lower back through his ill-fitting armor, then reached out to take Clavender’s hand as she approached. “You look tired too.”
She was sick. Her pale skin lacked vitality. The expression of a gut-shot trooper on morphine stared out from eyes that could hold the beauty of the universe or wisdom of the ages. By contrast, her wings gleamed and sparkled as he had never seen them.
“Much has happened,” she said. “Healing my father’s warriors is like carrying them one at a time to a mountain top.”
“Can you save Ceana?” He hated asking her to heal the warrior when she looked ready to fall over. “Do you need to rest?”
She smiled and patted the top of his hand. “I have been flying often. Here in the Ror-Rea, it rejuvenates me.”
“Doesn’t look it,” Rebecca said in a low voice.
“Clavender,” Ceana said as he reached up with one hand.
She went to his side and knelt, creating a dome of semi-privacy with her wings. The two Wingers remained together for a long time, speaking and singing in low voices. When she stood and turned away, Ceana was sleeping with tears running down his face.
“Will he live?” Kin asked.
Clavender nodded. “He will survive his wounds, but I fear he is changed by this battle. The Ror-Rea will not open to him.” She gave Kin a look he didn’t understand, but felt like an accusation. Before he could question her, the shadow of her wings passed over him. She slipped her arms around his waist and folded her wings downward.
“You have many wounds and many, many doubts,” she said. She sang in his ear and held him for a long time. Contentment spread through him like a dream.
“You do not know the way. Your wounds will be nearly as difficult to manage as were Droon’s,” she said.
Kin wanted to be angry that she had helped Droon what seemed ages ago. Despite several quasi-truces between them, Kin understood his long-time adversary. The Reaper would feast on him at the first sign of weakness. The only thing that had kept Kin alive was courage. That single human trait turned Droon toward easier prey.
“Droon wouldn’t be hunting us if you had let nature take its course,” Kin said, striving for a neutral tone of voice.
“He lived but was not healed,” she said. “Nor was I.”
Much of the Reaper horde that existed at the beginning of the Crashdown conflict had stolen into the Ror-Rea to follow Droon. One Reaper was bad and Kin suspected thousands had breached the Ror-Rea. Kin reflected on the room-to-room carnage of the ship battle — thought of Droon, thought of the Burning One. Could Dax and his warriors scour the monsters from their home? They were valiant and dedicated. Once the Reapers scattered and claimed individual territory, Wingers would seek them out and destroy them.
But eliminate them all? Earth Fleet and the Mazz Imperials had been trying to eradicate them without success for centuries.
Kin had two choices. He could act as the pawn of Emperor Onderbock and Admiral Shield — allow himself to be sent with the Reapers to their blasted home world or he could charge into their ranks, fight the Reapers and the Burning One, perhaps die as he eliminated the Slomn-Reaper, and hope that his death would eventually bring the extinction of Droon’s Kindred in the Ror-Rea.
The rest of the universe would remain in jeopardy. Everything about this line of thinking was wrong and tragic. Fatigue was making him a coward.
You should have died on the Bleeding Grounds, Kinrolanda.
Kin looked up, searched the horizon as he reached for a gun. The imagined voice had sounded like Droon if the Reaper King shot himself full of amphetamines and scraped his low voice with steel wool. He never wanted Droon in his dreams or in his mind when he was awake. Each time it happened, he wanted to run. Becoming accustomed to a monster in your head was not the same as being okay with it.
The idea of this new monster getting familiar with the inside of his head was scream-for-mercy bad. He mentally cursed and threatened the voice, receiving no response. Silence might have reassured him once, but now it made him feel vulnerable and crazy.
Once he was alone with his thoughts, he looked back, wished for better days, and realized that the voice was right. Whether it was his crumbling sanity or the mental assault of the Slomn-Reaper, there was truth in the words. Not since the assault on Hellsbreach had there been so many Reapers in one place.
If Kin had died there, all of them would have been doomed. In the long term, galactic point of view, that would have been best.
He searched for the owner of the voice, who was probably watching him from shadows. Clavender did what she could for him before moving to attend other warriors. A disturbance with several of the tired and battered guards marked the approach of Rickson and Ogre.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Rickson’s Warning
“I need to tell you something right now, Kin!” Rickson said.
Kin spun to face the young man, fist clenched and out of patience. “Is it more important than Reapers killing everyone in the Ror-Rea?”
“Yes, Kin, it is.”
Kin stopped. The expression on Rickson’s face made him appear a grown man full of knowledge he wished he could put back in the box. Kin stopped what he was doing, pulled the young shepherd aside, and motioned for him to sit.
“Talk to me, Rickson.”
“I was trying to follow Clavender, only I was pretty sure it wasn’t her. She was walking, and all I have seen her do since coming here is fly,” Rickson said. “The Toines family is struggling to adjust. That’s something for later; I just have a lot going on right now.”
Kin nodded, wishing he could explain to Rickson why she was flying so much but didn’t want to interrupt him. He listened and waited for the important details. He worried about the people who chose the Ror-Rea over Earth Fleet but sensed that wasn’t the reason for this visit. Rickson described a woman of shadows and threatening mystery that made him remember Susso, the shapeshifter who had maliciously imitated Rebecca.
“Tell me again what she said.”
Rickson took a drink from a water skin, cheeks flush with embarrassment and nervousness. “She was trying to manipulate me. I bet she altered her height three times until she decided on slightly shorter than me. She touched me a lot, then ended with threats.”
Kin waited several moments before he spoke. “Disturbing, but not related to Reapers invading the Ror-Rea.”
“When we were on Crashdown, I saw William and Iso-tri-tross mimicking each other. Iso joked that he could be the Emperor,” Rickson said.
Kin leaned close, holding the boy’s gaze. “Details are important. Think back to that scene, Rickson. Tell me everything. Could Iso be the Emperor?”
Rickson pulled away and studied his hands before running them through his hair. “That is what I am trying to tell you. There was another lurking in the shadows. Iso called him the Omega Lord or something. He looked scared.”
Kin pulled back, analyzing the information.
“My gut tells me this shapeshifter is posing as the Mazz Emperor,” Rickson said.
The boy possessed good instincts about people, even if he wasn’t politically sophisticated. His own reservations about the Mazz Emperor might be influencing his evaluation of Onderbock, but the boy had come to him without being asked or guided by his paranoia.
He gripped Rickson’s shoulder. “You were right to tell me this.”
&n
bsp; “What do we do?”
“Not sure. The Reapers can’t be allowed to remain in the Ror-Rea. As soon as I check on Ceana and Clavender, I will try to talk to Dax. If William is here, I want to talk to him. If you see any other shapeshifters, watch them, learn what you can, then find me. Don’t do anything else.”
Rickson nodded.
“I am serious, Rickson,” Kin said.
“I know. Don’t worry. Whoever I met in the forest really freaked me out,” Rickson said.
Kin thought the boy’s subdued expression betrayed the true depth of his fear. Saying he was freaked out was probably another way of saying something had fundamentally changed his outlook on life, death, and his place in the larger scheme of things.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Who is the Omega?
KIN found William first because he knew the boy’s father and heard an echo of his voice in the way the flightless Winger talked. It was easy to catch up to him because William could neither fly away nor run especially fast. It was just like when the boy had taken the shape of a Reaper. He appeared fierce but lacked actual claws or killer instinct.
“You should pretend to be anything but a Winger, William. All the rest of them are flying and singing their Ror-Rea anthems when I see them. You stand out,” Kin said.
William became William, the son of Earth Fleet Planetary Assault Forces Sergeant Jack Washington Orlan. “All the Crater Town people know each other. I can’t pretend to be one of them for long.”
“Then be yourself,” Kin said.
“I am who I am,” William said. “I am what I am.” He turned into a convincing image of Randal Dogface. “Being myself isn’t that comfortable.”
Kin didn’t know what to say but felt bad for the boy.
“Iso tells me I am talented for my age,” William said.
“I need to talk to him. Where is he?” Kin waited for an answer. When no response came, he moved closer and put on a stern expression. “This is important, William.”