James Axler – Shadowfall

“You greasing my pipe?”

“No. I’ve hardly ever seen such a beautiful piece of engineering workmanship.”

“It’d break your wrist if you fired it. If you weren’t ready for it.”

Jamie looked wistful. “Oh, I do wish that you and your family could stay awhile with me. There’s so much that you could teach me, Dean.”

” Me teach you !”

“Of course.”

Dean rode in silence for the next mile or so, locked into his own thoughts.

JAK’S HORSE STUMBLED over some loose rocks, nearly throwing the albino, but he kept his balance. The animal was less lucky, the accident resulting in a deep gash on one of its hind legs.

They stopped for nearly an hour until the horse seemed to be recovered.

Ryan had gone into the woods off the path to take a leak. Standing in the stillness, he was aware of the deep gouges on the bark of a nearby beech tree, where some animal had been sharpening its claws. Or its tusks. It was about the right height for a large mutie pig.

He realized suddenly how quiet the forest had become, and he stopped pissing, quickly doing up his pants and drawing the SIG-Sauer. The birds had ceased singing and vanished, and there was a sinister total silence.

Several minutes passed before the noise came creeping back again and he relaxed, rejoining the others.

Jak saw him coming and strolled over. “Hear something?” he asked.

“Sounds stopped.”

“Heard it here.”

“See anything, Jak?”

The youth shook his head, a stray beam of sunlight breaking through the foliage and illuminating his hair like a napalm flare. “Nothing. You?”

“No. We passed a trail turning a little while after leaving the ville. Looked like it might run in the same direction as this one. Higher up the hill.”

“Think someone riding on that?”

“Mebbe.” He laughed at his own fears. “Mebbe not.”

“SHOULDN’T WE HAVE SEEN some sign of the main party?” Dean asked. “We’ve been riding for over two hours now. Must’ve covered twelve to fifteen miles since we left the ville. Could we’ve passed them?”

Jamie shook his head. “Doubt it. This trail joins the main track soon. By the old burned-out water mill. Look, you can see it through the trees.”

The gloomy, isolated building was made from quarried stone, covered in dark green lichen, almost the same color as the ville’s livery. The roof had fallen in years earlier, showing the jagged stumps of beams and joists beneath tumbled slates. The great iron-bound waterwheel had toppled from its mounting, lying on its side, water foaming past it in the narrow millrace.

The glass had gone from all the windows, and the dark rectangles peered suspiciously at the two boys as they heeled their nervous ponies nearer.

“I believe that it’s the sound of the river that frightens the animals,” Jamie said.

“Yeah,” Dean agreed warily.

He peered down at the damp mud. “How come there’s no tracks from their horses?” he asked.

Jamie looked down vaguely. “Are there not any?”

“You can see there aren’t, you stupe! Don’t you even know what horse tracks look like?”

“No. Sorry, Dean. I mean I’m really sorry, but I wasn’t ever taught that sort of thing.”

Dean shook his head in disgust. “Look, we’re going to be in some seriously deep shit when we get found out. Best we can do is go and hide in that old mill and keep watch. You reckon they’ll come this way?”

Jamie seemed to be on the edge of tears. “I think so. Yes.”

They tethered the ponies around the back where there was a cobbled yard, slick with spray from the millrace. Dean led the way inside the ruined building.

There was a single moment when he suddenly sensed the taste of danger in the air, but it was too late. Something hit him on the side of the head, stunning him, then his blaster was snatched and a sack was thrown over his head.

The gold tooth in the mouth of the bald man gleamed in the dimness as he laughed and laughed.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Ryan reined in on the side of the hills, where the main trail wound down toward a ruined building. “That a mill?” he asked Rainey.