Her Reaper's Arms

  unmanned himself before her. His eyes were stinging as he thundered down the stairs,

  needing to put distance between him and the beautiful woman to whom he knew he’d

  already lost his heart.

  The sheriff was waiting in front of the saloon when the Reaper came out. “Don’t

  worry about nothing, milord,” he told Bevyn. “I’ll take good care of your lady.”

  Bevyn inclined his head as he took the reins and vaulted into the saddle. “I’ve a

  favor to ask of you, Sheriff,” he said.

  “Anything, milord. Just name it.”

  “Find me some land within the scope of the town’s limits onto which I can build

  our home,” he said. “An acre will do.”

  “I will see to it, milord,” the sheriff agreed.

  “And assemble some men to construct the place for us. Ask my lady to tell them

  what she desires our home to be. No expense is to be spared in the building of it.

  Understood?”

  “Aye, milord!”

  “You watch over her for me, Sheriff,” the Reaper instructed. He dug his heels into

  Préachán’s flanks and the black stallion took off like a bat out of hell.

  “I will guard her with my life,” Buford Gilchrist swore to the departing warrior.

  By the time the sun set on Orson, every man, woman and child in town was abuzz

  with the news that they had garnered their very own Reaper. It was an honor they all

  took to heart.

  * * * * *

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  Her Reaper’s Arms

  As Bevyn’s mount galloped over the dusty road, he kept going back to the

  conversation with the sheriff.

  Our home, he had said.

  A place for us.

  My lady.

  The Reaper’s heart did a tight little squeeze in his chest. He had never had his own

  home, his own place. He had never owned anything save the clothes on his back and

  the horse upon which he sat. He’d accumulated very little since becoming a Reaper and

  what he personally owned could be carried within the confines of his saddlebags.

  Though he took great delight in reading, he didn’t own a single book. He borrowed

  them from the larger libraries that still stood and was careful to return them when they

  were due. Not once had he been forced to pay an overdue fine.

  “A bookcase,” he thought as Préachán’s long stride ate up the miles. “A bookcase

  along one entire wall filled with tomes I have yet to read. Books I can collect, books I

  can have as my own.”

  It took him nearly a half hour of riding before he realized he didn’t have a clue

  where he was going. Reining in his mount, he sat there laughing at the absurdity of his

  actions before taking out the handkerchief and sticking the tip of his tongue to a fleck of

  the rogue’s blood. Almost instantly, an image formed in his mind of the man whose

  blood he had tasted and he turned his head to look back the way he’d come.

  Sometimes, he thought as he stuffed the handkerchief in his back pocket, the

  devilish little imp that sat on his shoulder demanded his attention when it thought he

  should be concentrating on the matter at hand. It tended to rake his tattooed cheek with

  the sharp, pointed little toe of its miniscule iron boot and draw symbolic blood.

  “Pay attention, you fucking Reaper!” it would seem to hiss in his ear, its vicious little

  teeth mauling his earlobe if only in Bevyn’s imagination.

  That had just happened, thrusting him out of his self-induced euphoria regarding

  Lea and back into the sordidness in which Reapers existed.

  “You’re close by, aren’t you, balgair?” he asked quietly. He sniffed the air, his eyes

  narrowing at the stench. “Aye, you bastard. You are very close by.”

  For a moment longer he sat there until his savage instincts took over and the fleck

  of blood he had tasted pointed him straight toward the balgair’s location. He pulled on

  Préachán’s reins and turned the ebon steed, directing it back the way they’d just

  traveled. The closer he got to the rogue, the sharper his lateral incisors became until the

  points were raking his bottom lip. With conscious effort, he retracted them, though the

  sharp claws that had sprung from his fingertips were harder to control. It wouldn’t do

  for a civilian to see him in the process of Transition.

  Not that he had much to worry about in that department. For as far as his sharp

  eyes could see no human was about. But the vile stench of balgair was rife in his nostrils

  and growing stronger with every yard Préachán covered.

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  Charlotte Boyett-Compo

  The Reaper frowned deeply for there was another scent—an obscene one—that

  washed over him the farther along the meandering dirt path he traveled. That scent was

  horrendous and it made the hackles stand up on his back. Reining in Préachán, he

  turned his head from side to side, drawing in the odor, trying to place it. The longer he

  sat there inhaling the vastly unpleasant smell, the more he rolled his shoulders as

  though something were slithering down his spine.

  He inhaled deeply. It wasn’t a ghoret, he thought. That was an odor he could never

  mistake for what it was. The pit viper was the most evil thing he’d ever encountered

  and once in contact with one, its smell was never forgotten.

  So what was the stench that made him feel as though he’d been dowsed with slime?

  Walking Préachán slowly along the trail, he saw nothing that drew his attention.

  Someone had passed this way recently, but not in the last day or two. The tracks

  weren’t fresh and though the scent of the balgair was strong, Bevyn had a strong notion

  the evil bastard wasn’t alive. Nevertheless, he moved carefully, his eyes whipping back

  and forth across the trail, scoping out the territory, his palm on the handle of his laser

  whip.

  The shack was sitting in a grove of cottonwood and Osage orange trees, half hidden

  by the shimmering leaves on the spreading lower branches. A horse neighed greeting to

  Préachán and the Reaper’s steed snorted in reply.

  Once more Bevyn halted his horse, allowing his Reaper senses to home in on the

  shack, to test the vibrations that were undulating down his taut spine. His acute hearing

  picked up no sounds, his eyes found no movement other than the impatient and—to

  him—the nervous shifting of the other horse.

  Dismounting slowly, he upholstered his laser whip—his speal—and advanced

  quietly toward the shack, keeping his senses alert to the most minute of changes in the

  air, the ground beneath his feet.

  The closer he came to the rundown building with its gray weathered boards and

  swayback roof pitted with missing shingles, the more the squirmy feeling along his

  spine shifted. Beneath the black silk, his flesh felt wet, the shirt’s material clinging to his

  back and chest as though offal had been smeared on the garment. It was a very

  unpleasant sensation that bothered him intensely.

  He stopped and listened for any movement at all, his gaze intent on the shack’s

  door that was slightly ajar. He could detect no sounds and though his ears were

  perfectly capable of hearing a heartbeat from ten feet away, he heard absolutely nothing

  save the buzzing of flies.

  It was the sudden sound that disturbed him more than the atrocious odor coming
>
  from the shack. Death was inside the cabin and the stench that was now so

  overpowering, so vile, burned the membranes of his nostrils.

  From one of the Osage orange trees, a hedge apple fell, clunking on the dilapidated

  roof and rolling down it. The light green wrinkled ball landing with a dull thud in the

  dirt as it hit the ground.

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  Her Reaper’s Arms

  Now sick to his stomach from the smell, he took out his black silk handkerchief and

  tied it over his face to filter the odor. To anyone who might have seen him at that

  moment, he looked like a bank robber sneaking up on the door to the shack.

  His spurs jingled against the rotting porch floor as he went to the shack’s door and

  he felt a board crack under his weight. Putting his boot to the door, he nudged it open,

  flinching at the piercing shriek of its rusted hinges. The buzzing sound was louder and

  despite the protection of his handkerchief, the stench was overwhelming, drifting up

  from beneath his chin, making his eyes water.

  The interior of the cabin was dark but there was no mistaking the horrors that lined

  its walls. Bevyn stopped in the doorway, staring at the awfulness that assailed his eyes.

  For a moment or two he could not move, so devastating was the scene upon which he’d

  come. Eyes wide, struggling to draw air through his mouth to blot out the putrid odor

  permeating the air, he stumbled back and barely made it off the porch before he

  whipped off his handkerchief and puked, relieving his belly of its breakfast.

  Tears stung his eyes—a valiant attempt made by his soul to wash away the

  horrendous sight he had beheld inside the shack. Clutching a rough upright that barely

  held up the porch roof, he puked again and again until there was only bitter vetch

  flooding his mouth. Wiping the back of a shaking hand across his lips, he realized his

  entire body was trembling. Nothing had ever affected him as strongly as what he’d just

  seen.

  Staggering off the porch, the Reaper put distance between him and the shack and

  made his way to a fallen log, plopping down on it, leaning forward to put his head

  between his legs in an attempt to calm the fury of his body. He was sweating profusely,

  his mouth watering so copiously he feared the puking wasn’t finished. After a moment

  or two he slowly lifted his head and looked at the cabin, every humane instinct in his

  body shuddering with disgust.

  The bodies he’d seen hanging on the walls had been brutally tortured with an

  instrument he had hoped never to see again and certainly never expected to find on

  Terra. He’d spied it leaning against one wall, its business end coated with blood, and

  had felt a shiver of cold wriggle down his spine.

  No one should ever lay eyes upon what he’d just seen, he thought. The sight could

  well pitch a sensitive soul into unremitting madness and a less susceptible one into a

  lifetime of gruesome nightmares. What lay beyond the slivered walls of the shack had

  to be destroyed, put to rest, and it was Bevyn’s job to see to it. No one should ever

  suspect the vileness that had taken place in the shack.

  Getting to his feet, stamping down the urge to throw up again, it took every ounce

  of his courage and stamina to enter the shack again. He had to make sure the rogue was

  dead as Roy English lay on his cot, his face bloated and black from the rabies that had

  infected him. Using his laser whip, Bevyn had severed the balgair’s head from his neck

  and incinerated the weak revenant worm that flopped out upon the floor. The creature

  was dying but still it opened its maw of a mouth and hissed at the Reaper, the redtinged spines along its segmented back bristling feebly. The stench from its pale green

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  body as it burst into flames was even more sickening than the odors coming from the

  horrors lining the walls of the shack.

  The Reaper went back outside and began gathering fallen branches of dead wood

  and piled them around the perimeter of the shack. When he was finished, when he’d

  stacked as much incendiary material as he could at the base of the rotting walls, he

  untied the rogue’s horse from its place on the far end of the porch and walked it out to

  where Préachán stood patiently waiting. Tying the animal beside his own mount,

  Bevyn took a box of matches from his saddlebags and lit the debris around the shack,

  standing back as the dried wood caught fire with a loud whoosh.

  It took the cabin over an hour to burn to the ground, the roof timbers caving in,

  going up in tall flames to singe the branches of the green trees and wither the leaves to

  blackened ash. While the fire hissed and popped and cleansed the world of the horror

  housed inside the shack, Bevyn had stood with his mount and the balgair’s.

  His head ached miserably and he knew one of the debilitating migraines that

  plagued his kind was about to take hold. The pain was rapidly approaching. It hurt

  even to mount Préachán, but once in the saddle, once sure there was nothing left but the

  smoldering ruins of cabin, he kicked his mount into movement, leading the balgair’s

  scrawny beast by its reins.

  “Are you all right, Lord Bevyn?”

  It was Lord Kheelan’s voice that broke into Bevyn’s thoughts as the Reaper rode

  back toward Orson. Disinclined to answer the Shadowlord’s question, it wasn’t until

  the High Lord spoke again—this time in a voice that brooked no ignoring—that he

  replied.

  “I’m here,” Bevyn said aloud, his jaw tight.

  “We felt your revulsion, Lord Bevyn,” Lord Kheelan stated. “To remedy such things are

  why you are in this world.”

  “Aye,” Bevyn agreed. In his mind’s eye, he saw again the atrocities that had been

  hanging from meat hooks along the walls of the shack.

  “There was nothing more you could have done for the rogue’s victims,” Lord Kheelan

  reminded him from the Citadel, that bastion of armed protection many, many miles

  away.

  “Had I known of English sooner—” the Reaper began, but the High Lord cut him

  off.

  “We did not know of it, Lord Bevyn. How could you?” came the reprimand.

  Bevyn swiped at the sweat that was rolling down from the headband of his hat. He

  ran the back of his hand under his chin. “I should have made my rounds of Orson long

  before now,” he said, his voice harsh.

  “There are many of them and few of you, Lord Bevyn. You can not be in two places at once

  and you were needed in Beverton.”

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  Her Reaper’s Arms

  “I was needed here!” Bevyn snarled.

  “Do not blame yourself for what the rogue did. You could not have prevented it, Bevyn. We

  understand you need time to get over what you saw,” Lord Kheelan said. “Take a few days, a

  week, and then join us here at the Citadel.”

  Bevyn felt the High Lord withdrawing. He had been given an order and was

  expected to carry it out. How magnanimous of his masters to allow him time for the

  horror to diminish in his mind. Not that it ever would. He was sick to his very soul and

  the pain lacerating his temples only added to the hell in which he now found himself.

  He could imagine the healers at the Citadel sitting down with the Shadowlords to />
  soberly discuss their Reaper’s frame of mind. There would be much exchanging of ideas

  of how best to handle him when he presented himself before the High Council, what

  would be required to return him to a state of semi-normalcy—as if there were such a

  thing with his kind.

  If there was one thing Bevyn Coure hated more than being forced to witness the

  evil perpetrated by the rogues, it was being handled. Kennocha Tramont had handled

  him—gods how she had handled him!—and his body still bore the scars of that

  handling.

  Looking down, he took his left hand from the reins and gazed at the back of it. A

  star-shaped scar stood out faintly on the tan of his skin. He stared at the old wound—

  realizing his hand was shaking. His right hand bore the same scar but was even fainter

  than this one. The pain that had accompanied the searing of his flesh by the Dóigra had

  been but a taste of Kennocha’s revenge against him.

  Where, he wondered, had the rogue found a Dóigra? From what Amazeen

  warrioress’s hand had he taken the long mahogany spear with the glass-tipped starshaped laser bulb at the end? Were there now Amazeens on Terra?

  That last question set his teeth on edge. If those bitches were here, if they were in

  league with the rogues, Terra had been thrust closer to the Abyss and the evil that

  resided there.

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  Charlotte Boyett-Compo

  Chapter Three

  Lea was helping Mable and her girls do their wash when news came that the

  Reaper had returned and had been seen down at the stable. She dried her workroughened hands on her apron and went through the saloon, pushing open the batwing

  doors to look toward the stable. Debating whether to wait for her man there at the

  saloon or to go to him, she tucked her lower lip between her teeth and nibbled on it.

  Would he be offended if she met him at the stable?

  At that moment, she saw him coming out of the building, his head lowered, his face

  hidden behind the brim of his down-turned hat, the silver conchos on the headband

  glinting in the sun. His saddlebags were slung over his shoulder and must have been

  very heavy for his footsteps were slow, almost dragging, and his shoulders were

  stooped.

  “Look at me, warrior,” she whispered to him, wondering if he would hear though

  he was a long way from her.