The Mokarran are not one to waste possible nutrition sources either. Without medical personnel in those station sections, the children are being transported there for only one designation—food.
Svetlana monitors communications traffic. She thwarts any off-world transmissions of this, even from being broadcasted. Nytalyan joins her at the chair-less station. “If you had your information, now would be the time to transmit. Trafficking among such a communications cluster, no one would notice my transmission.”
“I don’t keep it on me.”
“You should. Next time this occurs, I’ll do it.” Svetlana never glances away from her task.
“Saltāl wants—”
“To hell with Saltāl. He’s not here. He spends a great deal of time with Peratimas, a known insurgent.”
Nytalyan notes she didn’t even know the alien’s name. “Saltāl wouldn’t condone the bombing of children.” Not after he knows how mine died.
“Then you don’t know him.”
EYMAXIN STABS THE floating sable robe. The cloth soaks up water as the blade pokes at it.
Reynard blinks, waking from slumber. Cold water laps around him as he slumps into the river. “What did they do to me?”
“Sandmen drink thoughts,” she says.
“They made me relive—”
“We must retrieve my horse before the Sandmen children return.”
“Sandmen children?” Reynard drags himself to the bank.
“You’ve encountered Sandmen, but never their children?”
“Until a few days ago I’d never encountered a Sandman before. They were forgotten myths. We’ve no way to fight them.”
Eymaxin slogs through the water. “Move.”
Reynard wades after her. “I need your help to defeat them.”
“I’m not powerful enough.”
Reynard’s stomach cramps. “What about this Thaumaturge?”
“I told you, he’s not known to assist your kind.”
“My kind? You know—” Reynard snags her wrist.
Fire sears his chest as water surrounds him. Gasping for breath, Reynard breaks the surface of the river.
“Never touch me again,” she commands.
He pats out the blue fire searing his torso.
“You are a natural weapon against those monsters,” he gasps.
“Even if the Sandmen don’t drink your mind, my powers won’t prevent your death. You aren’t meant to exist here.”
The white charger races full gallop toward them, spraying water everywhere as it flees the trolls pursuing it.
Water sloshes from his holster as Reynard draws his magnum.
Thundering booms explode two trolls. The river runs with inky blood as trolls stop advancing to eat the bodies of the fallen.
Eymaxin jumps at the barking thunder but doesn’t allow the startle to prevent her from snagging the reins as the horse gallops past.
Reynard blasts more trolls before holstering his weapon. He grabs Eymaxin by the waist, lifting her into the saddle. Her physical appearance may be shared with Amye, but she lacks the heft of the Tartarus native. He slides on behind her, spinning the mount around and facing the pile of canalized trolls.
“How far is this village?”
“A dekrack.”
The unit of measure fails to decipher through his universal translator. Reynard drives his heels into the flanks of the steed. It jumps forward in a canter. Reynard fires his magnum, destroying another troll. The boom ensures the horse bolts past the feasting creatures.
Reynard topples from the horse.
The boney hand of a Sandman grips his face.
••••••
AUNDREA SHIVERS HARD enough to shake water from her hair. Reynard throws the saddle on the rack and grabs the cleanest, driest horse blanket he can find. He wraps it around her shoulders. She smiles. A perfect smile except one incisor’s slightly crooked—noticeable within inches of her mouth.
“I didn’t get a chance to ask, but you want to go to the Winter Formal with me?”
“You pick now to ask?” she says, her teeth chattering.
“I didn’t plan on the rain.” He entwines his fingers in the blanket, pulling tight around her to prevent her escape.
“George already asked me.”
Reynard wishes she’d just kick him in the balls—a pain possible to get over.
“I can’t seem to convince him I’m over him.”
“We’re all over him…by about two feet.” Reynard rolls his eyes.
She slips her hand from under the blanket and grips his crotch.
Reynard’s eyes panic. He gets hard.
“For a man of your stature, you sure are threatened by a munchkin.”
“Oompa Loompa,” he corrects her.
She twists her hand slightly. He winces and then swallows hard. His mouth dries.
“You, um…I…what…you.” Confounded, Reynard bites his own tongue.
“How long have you wanted to kiss me?”
Kiss her, stupid.
She means kiss her.
Who knows what a woman means?
She’s got your balls, don’t offend her.
Just kiss her.
Kiss her, stupid.
A dozen voices seem to play tennis with his thoughts.
Reynard leans in. Aundrea lets go of the blanket. As it falls to the ground, she grabs the back of his head and locks her lips against his, leaping into the air to wrap her legs around him. It takes everything Reynard has not to stumble and fall. He concentrates so hard on not falling he fails to open his mouth.
••••••
THE RIVER EBB drags Reynard, under filling his lungs. Eymaxin yanks the empty sable robe from on top of him.
Reynard coughs up water. “Why do they keep attacking with the same memory?”
“Sandmen aren’t connected. They select the best memory to gateway into your thoughts to reach in and manipulate you. They use what you desire most against you.”
“I need to prevent them from getting into my head.” Reynard’s stomach cramps, doubling him over.
Eymaxin grabs the reins of the steed. “We must get to the village.”
Reynard tugs at the empty robes. “You blast this one too?”
“Tilel should be around this bend in the river,” Eymaxin says.
Concentrating on the Sandmen problem does nothing to elevate his stomach cramps.
“Are you in pain?”
“My stomach. It’s been upset ever since a Sandman snatched me.”
“I know of a remedy for your agony,” she says.
“But you won’t show me how to defeat the Sandmen?” Reynard snaps.
“No one can defeat them. We only defend against them.”
Reynard tosses the robes on the bank. He marches upstream in the direction of the village.
Eymaxin trots beside him, offering her hand.
