All three rolled sideways and hit the ground before the goblin’s green attack spell crashed through the air where they would have been standing. It blew a basketball-sized hole in the corner of the closest outbuilding.
A strangled choke came from the goblin and he grappled at her purple-gray forearm wrapped around his throat, his feet kicking the dirt beneath them until she jerked him upright and nearly crushed his windpipe. With the other hand, she raised a black crackling orb of drow energy and brought it within inches of his blue face. “Stop fighting. Don’t move.”
Taaz choked and wheezed in response, but he quit struggling.
Rhynehart and the other rez guards came running toward them through the outbuildings. The FRoE operative trained his pistol on Taaz’s chest while grimacing at the heavy burn on his left shoulder.
Cheyenne cocked her head to meet Rhynehart’s gaze around the choking goblin’s head. “Seriously? Put that thing away, man. Somebody get some dampening cuffs on this guy because I am not holding him all day.”
“Get your filthy halfling hands off—”
The half-drow squeezed Taaz’s throat, choking off the rest of his attempted insult, or threat, or both. The crackling black energy in her hand sparked a little closer to his pale-blue face. “What was that again, goblin?”
Taaz choked and wheezed some more, but for some reason, he couldn’t get out another word. Rhynehart turned to the huge orc guard Taaz had started the fight with in the first place. “Grab some cuffs, Keb.”
The orc’s eyes narrowed, and he glanced from Rhynehart to Cheyenne and back again. “Can we do that here?”
“It doesn’t matter, does it? Taaz blew it.”
Keb frowned, but he nodded and turned to grab a pair of magic-dampening cuffs from wherever they kept them. Apparently, they didn’t use them in Q1. Rhynehart strode up to Cheyenne and holstered his weapon.
He nodded at the halfling. “I’m glad I talked you into coming here.”
Cheyenne snorted. “Yeah. That’s what happened.”
Then she remembered Sha’gron, the troll healer, and her female-orc escorts. She jerked Taaz to the side enough to glance at the trio, who’d all made it back to their feet. The healer was still dusting herself off after being tossed aside by the speeding drow halfling.
At least none of them got their heads blown off by that massive goblin bomb.
Keb jogged back. When he reached Cheyenne and her captive, he nodded and grabbed Taaz’s right wrist. The halfling dropped her black energy so she could snatch up the goblin’s left wrist before letting his neck free. Taaz gasped and sputtered and the orc guard slipped the first cuff onto the wrist as Cheyenne let go, then the blue-skinned troublemaker was cuffed and dampened and harmless.
Stepping away from the prisoner, Cheyenne nodded at Keb and tried to bring herself out of the buzzing excitement.
Two in one day. Not bad for my first unrequested FRoE ride-along.
The thought made her snort, and as Keb dragged Taaz away, Cheyenne took a deep breath and centered herself. She shifted back into human form.
Practice makes…I guess, better at this point.
When she looked at Rhynehart, the man raised an eyebrow and gave her a slow nod. An immense metal bang came from behind her, and Cheyenne turned to look over her shoulder.
Sha’gron, the troll healer, stood beside the dark-gray metal door of the closest outbuilding, her fist poised inches away. She stared at Cheyenne with a knowing smile that made the drow halfling’s stomach twist on itself.
There it is again. That look.
The healer thumped her fist on the door again with another echoing metallic thud. The female orcs beside her stood on the other side of the door and joined in. Some of the rez guards caught on and pounded their fists on whatever metal objects were close at hand—Rez 38 vehicles, outbuilding doors, metal trunks knocked over from the stacks of supply crates. All of them pitched in, pounding to the quickening beat set by Sha’gron the healer.
Cheyenne nodded. “Yeah, okay. Thanks.”
But the banging didn’t stop. Instead, it got faster and louder. None of the magicals in Q1 said another word, but everywhere she looked, they were pounding on metal doors and trucks and posts, kicking with their boots if their hands weren’t close enough.
“Oh, boy.” The half-drow took off toward Rhynehart, who looked as surprised by the magicals’ strange reaction as she was. She nodded toward the Intake building and the electric gate serving as Rez 38’s entrance.
“That’s the weirdest slow clap I’ve ever heard. Let’s get outta here.”
Rhynehart took another glance at the magicals, all still pounding, although none of them returned his gaze. All eyes were on the drow halfling who was limping away, looking like a pale black-haired Goth chick with dried blood smeared down her right shoulder.
“Yeah.” The FRoE operative followed Cheyenne through the outbuildings so they could get out of Q1 and away from Rez 38 without having to deal with anything else. “I think we’re done here.”
Chapter Fifty-Eight
The electric gate finished opening by the time they reached it. The goblin in the gate tower nodded at Cheyenne on their way out, and she almost lifted a hand in a half-hearted wave until she saw him beating a fist on the stainless-steel table in front of him. What’s with the pounding?
She wasn’t about to ask Rhynehart. Out of all the things he could’ve told her about the reservations and the Borders and the portals into another world where magic was part of everyday life, she had no doubt the FRoE operative knew less about this than she did.
They went through the open electric gate and through the magical outer wall that kept the entirety
