shaky hand through his damp hair. “He’ll just wish to the goddess he had.”
Fontabeau staggered to the window and leaned toward a thin slit between the
boards he had nailed over the opening. He pulled back, blinked and then looked again,
his words spoken in a low whisper. “Holy fucking shit.”
Cynyr and Brell hurried to his side and jockeyed for positions so they too could see
out into the clearing before the mine. What they saw made both of them gasp.
Every single foot of ground from a two-foot section in front of the mine to the cabin,
from headframe to hoist house to equipment shed to barracks was covered with the
crisped and smoldering carcasses of ghorets. There was not a single inch of dirt to be
seen. Rather the expanse was a charred blanket of black that resembled smoking
charcoal.
“You think the Shadowlords got them all?” Brell asked in an awed voice.
“I hope to the gods they did,” Fontabeau replied.
“As best we can tell, we have,”
Lord Dunham reported from the Citadel.
“Lord Cree?”
“Aye, Your Grace?” Cynyr said, looking up at the ceiling.
“Lords Arawn and Eanan have arrived and are sitting perched on your rooftop. They are not
happy warriors.”
“I sensed them, Your Grace.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Do you think it
safe for us to go outside?”
“We believe so, but please be cautious.”
“Be vigilant as well. There could be more vipers within the mine.”
It was Lord Naois
issuing an unnecessary warning.
Cynyr went to the door and reached down to pull the blanket away. Warily he
cracked the door open, his lip quirking upward when he saw the mound of fried
ghorets piled in front of the portal.
“By the gods that stinks!” Fontabeau complained, holding a hand to his nose.
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Charlotte Boyett-Compo
“And it doesn’t get any better as the day wears on either,” Cynyr informed him. He
stepped outside, wincing as his boots crunched crispy critters beneath them.
“Remind me to take leave the next time you need help, Cree.”
Cynyr looked up to see the Prime Reaper Arawn Gehdrin glaring down at him
from the tin roof where he sat beside Eanan Tohre.
“Blame Phelan,” Cynyr said. “This was his assignment, not mine.”
“You’ll not blame Phelan at all!” Fontabeau snapped, pushing past Cree to turn his
glower on the Reapers sitting above him. “I am Fontabeau. Who the fuck are you?”
“Arawn Gehdrin, your Prime,” Cynyr whispered.
“He might be your Prime but he’s not my Prime,” the gunman decreed. “Dusken
Kullen is my Prime!”
One moment Arawn was on the roof and the next he was nose to nose with
Fontabeau. “Kullen?” the Prime Reaper hissed. “From whence?”
To give him his due, Fontabeau did not back away from the intense look on
Gehdrin’s face.
“
Breathnóir
,” came the reply.
“Son of a bitch,” Arawn said so softly only Fontabeau heard him.
“He is not!” the gunman growled, and reached out an angry hand to shove
Gehdrin.
Both Cynyr and Eanan—who landed on the crackling ground with a grunt—made
a grab for Fontabeau and pulled him back.
“My Prime is not a son of a bitch!”
“No, but he is the son of the same man who fathered one of my Reapers,” Arawn
said with a grin. “A brother Glyn Kullen thought was dead.”
Fontabeau’s mouth dropped open. “Phelan told me of this Reaper Glyn Kullen but
it did not register with me.” He shook his head. “Not even when he said Kullen hailed
from
Breathnóir
. Kullen is a common enough name there.”
Arawn motioned his men to released Fontabeau then shot out his hand. “It is good
to meet a teammate of Glyn’s brother.”
Fontabeau gripped the Prime’s wrist warrior-style. “My apologies for the shove.”
Arawn pulled the man toward him and hooked an arm around his neck. “Let’s get
something straight, Reaper. As long as you are on Terra, you are under my command so
that makes me
your
Prime for now.” He stared into the other man’s eyes. “Are we clear
on that?”
“The goddess brought me here and—” Fontabeau began, but Arawn tightened his
grasp on the other warrior’s neck, cutting off his words.
“She brought us all here, but She made me Prime. I’ll not ask anything of you that I
would not ask of myself or my other men. Do we have an understanding?”
Fontabeau nodded. “Aye, milord, we have an understanding.”
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BlackMoon Reaper
“And one other thing,” Arawn said. “Cyn was not blaming Phelan for this disaster.
My men are as close as brothers and in some cases even closer. They taunt one another.
They berate one another. They insult and verbally abuse one another. They might
pound on one another, and they have even been known on rare occasions to tease one
another. But through it all they are friends, brothers in arms, comrades and
consummate warriors. Is that clear to you? Do you ken what I am saying?”
“Aye, milord. I do,” Fontabeau acknowledged. When Gehdrin released him, the
gunman stepped cautiously back and out of the Prime’s reach.
“Good, now where is Phelan?” Arawn asked.
“Still in the mine and most likely in great pain,” Cynyr said.
“Then let’s go get the little bastard before he causes any more trouble for us,” the
Prime said with a hard glint in his amber eyes.
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Charlotte Boyett-Compo
The Ceannus had fled in the BlackMoon, leaving Phelan in sheer agony, writhing
on the table so savagely his wrists and ankles—abraded and cut by the thick band
securing them—were slick with his own black blood. His back lay open now that the
queen was gone for without her the wound would take a long time to close. Black blood
ran down his sides, pooled beneath him on the table, and was smeared on the metal
surface as he writhed. It dripped to the floor. A low keening sound was all his throat
could emit for he had screamed himself hoarse, strained his vocal cords as the ghoret
expelled her eggs and the nasty little things hatched almost instantly. He could feel each
of them squirming around inside him. Though the vipers did not bite, the slick coating
from the female’s birth canal and the fluids within the eggs when they broke open was
a burning, stinging, ravaging torment. His screams had echoed through the tunnels but
there had been no one to hear.
He heard the running of feet and sensed who was coming. Blood had been
exchanged between two of the men rushing to his rescue, making it possible for him to
catch their scent. He would need to do the same with the third man as well as
Fontabeau when he was able. At that moment in time, all he could think of was
stopping them from touching him, from getting too close. As soon as Cynyr came into
the room, Phelan shouted as loudly as he could.
“Don’t!”
he grated
. “Don’t touch me!”
Fontabeau halted just inside the lab, stumbling forward a bit as Arawn and Eanan
crashed into him. His eyebrows slashed together. “Why not?” he asked. “What’s
wrong?”
“He’s sweating,” Arawn said, reaching out to grip the gunman’s arm to keep him
from getting too near Phelan. “The poison is all over him. You touch it and you’ll
become contaminated.”
Cynyr flinched for he remembered all too well what effect ghoret poisoning had on
humanoid flesh.
“How many times were you bitten, Phelan?” Arawn asked.
“Stay away,” Phelan said. He was staring into Fontabeau’s terrified eyes. “Fluid is
leaching through my skin.”
“We’ve got gloves,” Eanan said, fashioning thick leather gloves on his hands. He
started forward. Unlike Arawn and Cynyr he had no experience with the ghoret, did
not understand the danger.
“No!” Phelan gasped. “Stay back! My back is open.”
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BlackMoon Reaper
“They took your hellion and the fledglings. I figured they would,” Arawn said.
“How many times were you bitten, Phelan?”
“One escaped them,” Phelan grated, seeming not to have heard the question. “I felt
it boring into my lung and I’m having trouble drawing breath, but it’s alive, hiding. It’s
struggling to give off antitoxins.”
“Thank the gods for that! Hopefully the new hellion won’t kill the little one when
she takes over but will accept her into the nest for her help in keeping you alive,”
Arawn stated. He too started forward but Phelan shrieked.
“
They put it in me, Arawn!
It is inside me and it laid its eggs! The fluid from the
birthings is leaching through my pores. I think it may be in my bloodstream too.”
“Fluid? What did they…?” Arawn came up short, his face turning as pale as fresh
buttermilk as realization set in. “They put a ghoret inside you?” he asked.
“Aye,” Phelan whimpered.
Cynyr and Eanan took a step back. They too had paled at Arawn’s question. Each
looked as though he might heave up his breakfast. Fontabeau’s knees sagged and he
would have gone down had Arawn not grabbed him.
“You can’t touch me,” Phelan whispered. “The fluids will get all over you.”
“Those things have to come out, Phelan!” Arawn hissed. “We can’t leave them in
you!” He started forward again, but Phelan’s ululation of agony stopped him.
“It’s not just one or two, Arawn. There are twenty or more inside me,” he said, his
voice almost gone.
“Oh my gods,” Cynyr whispered, face turning a putrid green shade at that news.
Fontabeau put out a trembling hand. “Phelan,” he said, his voice breaking. “Tell me
what to do. Tell me how to help you.”
“We need to get him to the Citadel,” Eanan suggested. “Once we get him outside
the drone can pick him up. They can put him in quarantine and find a way to extract
the bastards.”
“And just how do we get him to the Citadel, Tohre?” Arawn snapped. “If we can’t
pick him up, how do we get him out of this room?”
“BlackMoon,” Phelan croaked.
“What?” Arawn came a bit closer.
“Transport,” came the last word Phelan could force out. His gaze went to the
machine.
Arawn walked to the machine, stared at it, but had no idea what it was. Eanan
joined him.
“It’s a transfer vessel,” Tohre said. “I saw one once on
Caillaigh
. You stand on the
platform and it flings you through time and space to another destination.”
“How?” Arawn demanded. He was searching for buttons to push, levers to pull.
Eanan shrugged. “I don’t know. How the hell would I know? Would Lord Naois?”
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Charlotte Boyett-Compo
The Prime Reaper chewed on his bottom lip for a moment then glanced at Phelan,
who managed to nod in agreement. He turned to Eanan. “Memorize everything about it
then get outside and contact Naois. See if he knows how we can utilize the thing!”
Arawn ordered. “Try reaching Her again too! Make it quick, Tohre!”
Eanan didn’t need to ask whom Arawn meant. He took off running as fast as he
could through the tunnel, shouldering Fontabeau out of his way.
“What can we do, Arawn?” Cynyr asked. He was hurting for his fellow Reaper,
remembering his own pain.
“We need to find water and rinse him down,” Arawn replied. “That will at least
wash some of the irritant off his flesh.” He locked eyes with Phelan. “Is that all right
with you?”
“Don’t come too close,” Phelan grated.
“We’ll keep at a safe distance,” Arawn assured him. “All right?”
Phelan nodded. He was panting from the extreme heat enveloping his body, the
toxins attacking his organs, his nervous system. Each breath was labored, grating in his
throat. He no longer had the strength to writhe beneath the pain so lay inert, suffering,
wishing he could cease to be.
“Hold on, my friend,” Cynyr said. “Just hold on.”
“Is he going to die?” Fontabeau asked as he walked beside Arawn to fetch water.
“If he’d been bitten by a score or more of the creatures, then I’d say there was a very
good chance he wouldn’t survive with all but one of his revenants gone,” Arawn said,
“but it’s not venom that is doing this to him. It’s the fluids given off from the birthings.
That remaining fledgling is working overtime to produce antitoxin to combat the fluids.
Let’s hope that will be enough until we can get him to the Citadel.”
* * * * *
Eanan braked to a halt in the center of the clearing, panting. He bent forward with
hands on his knees for a moment then straightened as Brell came hurrying toward him.
“How is he?” Brell asked.
Eanan held up a staying hand until he could swallow, calm his gasping. “Not
good,” he reported. “They put a pregnant ghoret inside him.”
Brell’s mouth dropped open and his eyes flared.
“Lord Naois?”
“I’m here.”
“Get inside my mind and see what you make of what I need to show you!” Eanan
declared. He felt the Shadowlord probing, heard a loud hiss then a short rapid
exchange between the three Shadowlords in a language he did not recognize. The only
words he understood were Phelan and ghoret.
“The Ceannus are gone?”
Lord Kheelan asked.
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BlackMoon Reaper
“I think so. They must have used the machine. Phelan said it’s called a BlackMoon.”
“Made by Tappas Industries,”
Lord Dunham said.
“The same ones who made the Fiach