James Axler – Trader Redux

“Right.” The teenager looked, pointing to a circular blemish on the feather-edge timber wall of the barn. It was about the size of a man’s palm, roughly thirty feet from where Jak was standing. “See that, Dean?”

“Sure.”

“Watch it.”

The boy kept one eye on the slightly built teenager, seeing how he stood in a half crouch, looking both tense and relaxed at the same time. Both hands dangled loose at his sides, fingers flexing, as if he were practicing to play a complex piano concerto.

“Give word, Dean.”

“Ready and go !”

The albino seemed to slide into a bizarre, shifting dance, spinning at least twice, maybe three times. He dropped into a deeper crouch and straightened to his full height of five feet four inches. His hands were a blur of movement.

Dean heard a number of small, hard thudding sounds, but they came so close on top of one another that he couldn’t hope to count them.

He turned to look at the blemish on the barn wall. “Holy shit!”

Six short knives quivered in the wood, every one within that tiny area.

“I would have bet you couldn’t get them all in there, Jak.”

Catfooted, graceful, the teenager walked toward the barn to retrieve his weapons. “Would’ve lost.”

Chapter Fifteen

At the best of times and on the best of horses, Ryan would never have considered himself to be one of the world’s great riders.

Sprawled half on and half off a powerful runaway carriage horse, hanging on to its mane to save himself from taking a terrible fall, Ryan was totally out of control.

The animal was going at a full gallop, the severed harness and reins trailing dangerously in the mud and dirt. Every single pounding step sent an agonizing jolt through Ryan’s stomach and groin, making him feel desperately sick.

His legs hung down, so that the toes of his trailing combat boots were only inches from the highway. The vibration made it impossible to even see where they were going.

There was a real temptation to just give up and let go, open his cramped fingers and release the coarse hair of the black mane, slide off the side of the charging horse and take his chance on making a safe landing.

A tiny part of his mind was intrigued by the fact that he wouldn’t have hesitated to try to save himself by throwing himself off the side of a wag traveling at an equivalent speed. But there was something about the raw animal power of the horse and its pounding contact with the highway that made the prospect much more frightening.

Trader’s voice shouted inside his brain. “Man don’t try, don’t get.”

The horses’ skin was slippery with sweat, and Ryan’s groping left hand was losing contact. Making an enormous effort, he kicked out with both feet, simultaneously heaving with his right hand on the flying mane.

He was so successful that it nearly turned into a lethal disaster.

Ryan’s desperate effort heaved him up onto the animal’s broad backand nearly straight off, headfirst, the other side.

With a struggle he got his legs astride, head leaning forward on the horse’s neck, both arms grasping it. The first sensation was of his balls being jellied by the uneven stride, but he managed to acclimate to that, rising and falling with the horse, rather than against it.

“Fireblast!”

Now Ryan had a transient, fragile sensation of security. Not total safety, but at least some measure of control over his own destiny.

He tried shouting at the animal to slow it, but there was no response. Ryan risked a glance behind him, nearly losing his balance, and saw no sign of the hearse or of his friends. The carriage horse was still thundering along at a full gallop, heading in a vaguely southeasterly direction, out and away from the heart of the ville.

The houses were more scattered, gardens bigger, the trees and bushes thicker. Not far off, to the left, Ryan glimpsed water, shining beyond the lush grass of a wide meadow. Some rotted tables might once have been at the heart of a picturesque area for picnics.

The sight gave him hope.