Monsters of Our Own Making (Crowmakers: Book 2): A Science Fiction Western Adventure Read online

  Kellen’s Crow bobbed. Wobbled.

  A thread of panic trickled up Kellen’s spine. She sucked in a breath and made herself hold it a second. Ignoring the instinct to surge back into the Crow, she reached a little further out through that link in her mind—gently, calmly—and adjusted the Crow’s wings.

  The Crow steadied.

  “Everything all right, Ward?”

  Jennett had heard her gasp, of course. Through the half-solid image of unfurling forest beneath the Crow’s wings, Kellen saw that Kalvis and Rawle had both turned to look at her.

  The Crow banked steadily in a wide arc, heading back toward the smoke and the probable creek crossing.

  “Yeah. I’m good.” She made herself sound like she meant it. She did mean it. Everything was fine.

  A whispering laugh burbled up from beside Kellen—no. Behind? The back of her neck tingled. The phantom voice reminded Kellen of rushing water and rising wind.

  Her Crow lurched. Kellen spun around. She was dimly aware that the shadow-images of Rawle and Kalvis drew their .36s.

  No one. Nothing was behind her.

  Through the Crow’s eyes, the green of the forest grew abruptly brighter and larger.

  Falling. The Crow is falling.

  “Ward?”

  Jennett’s voice, but distant and distorted. Dizziness clutched at Kellen.

  The dizziness blocked her from that place in her mind that linked to her Crow. She reached desperately, trying to find the Crow again.

  Through the Crow’s eyes, the forest spun closer.

  Reach harder. Oh God, help me.

  That place in Kellen’s mind where the Crow was flickered. She grabbed at the link, threw herself into it like someone trying to save a drowning man.

  Steady the Crow. Slow it, have to stop it.

  “Ward!” Jennett shouted.

  3

  The Crow jerked away from Kellen, banked too steeply, and slammed through the forest canopy. The impact jarred through Kellen’s head, as strong as a real blow. Kellen shoved past the pain, grabbed hold of the link in her head, and pulled on it as hard as she could.

  Up. Up, damn it!

  The Crow cut an arc through the treetops, smashing branches and shredding leaves. Down, down…

  And up. Up through the green-tinted gloom and bursting into daylight above the forest.

  Kellen gasped again, but the sick pressure in her chest eased.

  “It’s all good.” She couldn’t see the other Crowmakers anymore. At some point in the panicked struggle with the Crow, she’d fled her own head and thrown herself completely back into it. “It’s fine now.”

  It’s fine.

  “What the hell is wrong with you, Ward?” Jennett’s face had turned a dangerous shade of red. He stood way closer to Kellen than she liked and leaned down to put his face in front of hers. For a second, his fury reminded her of Vincent. “What did you think you were you doing?”

  You cannot back down.

  Kellen pulled herself up straight and lifted her face toward Jennett’s. “Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

  “You lost fucking control of your fucking Crow!” Jennett’s breath flooded Kellen’s face. Then he took a breath so hard Kellen could hear his jacket straining and took a step back. That was not something Vincent would have done. Vincent would have stayed right in her face and kept yelling.

  “She heard something.” Rawle’s words came out tentative. Kellen didn’t dare to look at him, but she’d have bet his eyes were round. Probably he was shifting from foot to foot.

  Jennett swung his gaze toward Rawle, scowling.

  “I heard something, too!” Rawle scrambled on before Jennett could speak. “Voices! I thought I heard voices.”

  Jennett shut his open mouth and frowned. “Kalvis. You hear anything?”

  “No.” But Kalvis wasn’t looking at any of them. He was still scanning the trees around them. He still had his .36 in his hand. “But it may perhaps be wise to have the rest of this conversation after we rejoin Captain Ellis and the others?”

  Jennett turned his head, looking around him like a man just waking. He grumbled a few words under his breath. Kellen didn’t need to hear them to make a good guess about what kind of words they were.

  Around them, the forest hadn’t changed a bit—except that the light had deepened from sunlit shadows to overcast gloom. The thunder Kellen had been expecting rumbled in the distance. Overhead, the leaves whispered as the wind changed direction, carrying the stringent scent of impending rain.

  Just the wind in the leaves. That’s what you got all worked up about, you stupid shit.

  Pissed as she was at herself for screwing up, Kellen still wasn’t quite sure she believed that.

  “We were supposed to get a full report if we found an encampment. Numbers. Whether they’re wearing war colors or hunting deer. We ain’t finished our job yet.” Jennett sounded like he was talking more to himself.

  Rawle, being Rawle, answered Jennett anyhow. “But what if they know we’re here now? What if it was their scouts me and Ward heard? What if—”

  “I get the point, Rawle. Ward, you get any of those details at all while you were right down there in their business?”

  Kellen’s face burned. She tried to make herself think, anyhow, because it was an important question. Finally, she had to shake her head.

  “No. I wasn’t that close.” She emphasized that last. “If they were all at their gathering place, then not a one of them saw or heard my Crow.”

  Jennett’s ice-blue eyes fixed on her. “If.”

  Kellen clenched her jaw and didn’t reply.

  “John makes a good point.” Kalvis was still the picture of calm wariness, eyes moving as he watched the trees. “Plans must sometimes change.”

  Still frowning, Jennett scratched the white-blond stubble of his jaw. “All right. We move a little ways east, closer to where Ellis set up camp. We keep our eyes and ears peeled and see if we’re being tracked. Then we stop and have another, closer look at that encampment.”

  Rawle stood up straighter, and the tight, worried lines around his too-big eyes eased some. Thunder growled, still a ways off, although the first fat drops of rain slapped through the canopy. A few managed to slip between the leaves and spatter their hat brims.

  “Kalvis, take point. Rawle, you have the rear. Both of you keep an eye out for places along the way to go to ground. I’ll send my Crow to trail us, keep an eye out for signs of anything that ain’t us or squirrels. Keep your Crows directly overhead and low.” Jennett shot a hard look at Kellen. “But keep them in the air.”

  Kellen swallowed back the fuck you she’d have liked to spit at Jennett and instead spent the energy checking the tug at the back of her mind to be sure it was still there. Still steady.

  “Yes, sir,” she snapped smartly at him instead.

  Jennett blinked. As Kellen turned away, ready to follow Kalvis east, she thought he heard Jennett chuckle.

  “Damn, Ward. Don’t start confusing me with that bastard,” Jennett muttered, and they both knew which bastard he meant. A second later, in the same low tone, Jennett added, “No more bullshit, all right? Keep your act together.”

  4

  Kellen concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, which was tougher than it sounded when every plant close enough to do so seemed to be reaching out and trying to yank your feet out from under you. The going was made some easier by following in Kalvis’s trail. How Jennett, walking behind Kellen with half his attention up in his Crow, managed to not fall flat on his face, she wasn’t sure.

  Part of her wished he would fall. At least then she wouldn’t be the only one who’d made a mistake. Between steps, she reached back into her mind and tested the link to her Crow.

  Still there. Still steady.

  And there was no repeat of the voices she’d thought she’d heard, of the whispering, gurgling voices that reminded her all too much of Philadelphia and Burke Ripley.

  No. R
ipley was dead, and Philadelphia was far behind. And Rawle had heard something, too, or thought he had. While Kellen hated to believe she’d let her imagination and her nerves get the better of her—who wanted to be a big baby like Rawle?—she was starting to think that’s all it had been. She’d spooked herself, gotten distracted, and let the Crow slip away from her.

  A strangled sound behind Kellen dashed all other thoughts from her head. She stopped dead and turned around.

  Jennett had stopped walking and stood stock still. Rawle, walking half-turned to check their back trail, pulled up short just before he would’ve run smack into Jennett.

  “They’re out there.” Jennett’s voice was tight. His hand dropped to his .36 even before he’d finished talking. “Kalvis—”

  “There.” Kalvis cut in before Jennett could finish his question. Kalvis motioned toward a fallen tree only a few feet away.

  “Go. Go!”

  Kalvis, weather worn and weary-looking and older than any of them by at least double their years, vaulted the tree’s trunk and disappeared into the other side. Mentally cursing, Kellen crashed through the underbrush and scrambled after him.

  They can probably hear us. Hell, the encampment miles back can probably hear us. Shit!

  As Kellen’s feet touched ground, Kalvis grabbed her arm, steadied her, and pulled her back to crouch beside him, making room for the other two men. Rawle came over next, all long legs and flailing arms and big eyes, and fell into place beside Kellen.

  “Into the Crows. Split your sight.” Jennett’s voice, on the other side of the fallen tree and above them.

  Kellen reached back in her mind, touched the link to her Crow, and sent her mind out to look through its eyes. She could still see her physical surroundings, shadow-dim, but she was too busy commanding her Crow to do more than hear Jennett come over the fallen tree’s trunk and land in the brush beside Rawle.

  And then, after their flurry of rushed activity, quiet fell, a strained and waiting quiet filled with the hiss of rain against leaves and not enough of any other noise. The birds and squirrels had stilled, and Kellen realized they had been for a while now. She’d thought they were sheltering from the coming storm.

  Probably were. Different kind of storm, is all.

  “To the southwest.” Jennett’s voice was only a little louder than their combined breathing. Kellen strained to hear him. “Different creek. Canoes.”

  Rawle gasped. His voice wavered, but what he said was, “Well, they won’t come ashore just to look for us, will they?”

  “Scouts,” Kellen murmured. Her heart felt too big for her chest, like it was cutting off her breathing. Even as she settled into her Crow and then eased back out just enough that she could see through its eyes and her own, she reached for her .36.

  “Keep the Crows above the canopy unless we need them.” Jennett still half-whispered. “Don’t want to give ourselves away if we don’t have to. But keep close track of where we are. Last thing we need is to shoot ourselves with our own Crows. Now hush.”

  That straining, waiting silence fell again, broken only by the rain and occasional thunder. A combination of trees and hat kept the rain out of Kellen’s face, but it sliced in sharp diagonals across her Crow’s vision. Judging mostly by the link to her Crow, the strength of its tug on her mind and the feel of its direction, Kellen circled her Crow a little to the southwest, away from where the Crowmakers huddled in the forest below. That was the direction the Indian scouts would come from if there were any, she reasoned.

  The first bird call came from behind them, to the north. A hoot answered to the east, and another to the south a few seconds later. Kellen’s heart kicked and thrashed in her throat, but…

  You’d think they’d be better at this. They must think we’re really stupid if they believe we’ll think those are real bird calls.

  Beside Kellen, a pistol cocked.

  “Steady, John.” Kalvis’s voice, as calmly stern as ever.

  They’ll try to lure us out, Kellen remembered. Much as she itched to follow Rawle’s lead and cock her own gun, she settled for rubbing her thumb along its coldly reassuring metal.

  We have the advantage. They just don’t know it yet.

  Something crashed in the underbrush close by. Kellen’s grip jerked tighter around her .36, and she only barely kept herself from spinning toward the sound.

  A split second later, light flared beside Kellen’s head. The crack of a gunshot ricocheted through her ears, rattling her skull.

  5

  A dreadful quiet fell, deeper by far than the one before.

  Not just quiet. I can’t hear. I’m deaf. Maybe I’m dead.

  No, not dead. Kellen could feel her heart pounding, clear up in her temples. And the overlapping images of forest below and forest around still flickered in her doubled-up vision.

  Rawle! Did she think it, or did Jennett say it out loud?

  And then, riding over the top of that thought: They know we’re here, now. They know right where we are.

  “Crows!” And that was Jennett, spitting the command like a gunshot of his own.

  Kellen reached through the link, figuring she knew pretty well already what Jennett was going to say next.

  “Get them down here.”

  She brought her Crow down. Branches and leaves slapped and snagged, spinning in dizzy patterns before her Crow’s vision. She let the sight slide past and concentrated on the feel of the link to guide her.

  Down. Close but not too close. Below the trees now, ducking around trunks and dodging low branches, looking for anything that wasn’t plant or animal.

  Movement, off to her Crow’s right. Kellen tipped her wings and angled toward it.

  The Indian was crouched low, black-painted face barely visible in the shadowed trees. Rain had dampened his hair and smudged the paint off his nose. He turned his head toward the Crow, and the whites of his eyes grew larger.

  Kellen steadied her Crow’s wings and went straight at him.

  The Indian hesitated only a second. Then he stood and raised the musket in his hands.

  The sound of gunfire chopped through the trees somewhere in front of Kellen’s physical body, a series of quick, pinging cracks. To the left of Kellen’s Crow, sparks trailed from a second Crow’s underbelly. Somewhere unseen, a man screamed. Then holes appeared in the Indian in front of Kellen—shoulder, neck, the top of his head—followed a heartbeat later by blood. When he dropped, the musket fell from his hands.

  More gunfire, behind Kellen this time. Then again, ahead of her. She banked her Crow around and looked for it, watching for more scouts.

  Nothing else moved. After a few endless seconds, a real quiet fell.

  “Put ‘em back in the sky.” Jennett’s voice shook. “But keep ‘em on a tight leash, just in case. And damn it, Rawle, I mean a fucking leash.”

  Kellen took another long look through her Crow’s eyes. When the forest still didn’t spit out any more Indians, she took the Crow up, crashing through the same trees it had just dived through, and set it to circling just over the treetops.

  “Sorry,” Rawle mumbled. For a second, Kellen felt bad for him. She knew how it felt to screw up. Then he pulled himself a little taller and stammered, “But I flushed ‘em out, didn’t I?”

  “Just because it ended up all right, that don’t mean it was a good idea to start with.” Jennett jabbed the forefinger of his left hand at Rawle—his right still held his .36. “Next time, you don’t fire until I say fire.”

  Rawle’s shoulders slumped, and he ducked his head.

  “The others of the tribe will have heard the gunfire.” Even Kalvis, stoic as a slab of stone, looked pale in the drizzling gloom.

  His voice seemed distant, and Kellen realized he was probably still half in his Crow. Through her Crow’s eyes she could count the other three, black wings flitting over treetops. She couldn’t see a whole lot more, not from so low over the forest.

  “They won’t know what it means,” Jennett replied
. “Yet. Kalvis, take your Crow up a ways and see what they’re doing now.”

  Kalvis’s Crow banked immediately away from the others. Kellen pulled a little further back in the link to hers and let her vision fall fully back into her own eyes.

  Jennett was scraping his fingers along his jaw again. His brows pulled together.

  “We going after ‘em?” Rawle leaned toward Jennett like a scolded boy confronted by a piece of candy might forget the lesson he was supposed to have learned. His question ended up a bright, upbeat note.

  “Just the four of us?” Kellen shook her head at Rawle.

  “We might have to.” Jennett left off scratching at his stubble and lifted an open hand toward Kellen. “They’re moving faster on water than we can on foot. We didn’t expect them to be moving at all—a camp, yeah. Some scouts, probably.”

  “They are not simply preparing for an attack.” Kalvis spoke without opening his eyes or lowering his face from the sky. “They are warriors in those canoes, wearing war paint and carrying weapons.”

  Jennett turned his head to look at Kalvis. “Where do you figure that creek will spill them out?”

  Kalvis was quiet a moment before answering, “John’s Creek.”

  “John’s Creek.” Jennett turned toward Kellen. “Not Fort Paxton, where Ellis and the rest of them are. John’s Creek.”

  “Just settlers.” The words spilled from Kellen’s mouth, and she was surprised to not sound surprised. But why would she be? That’s what had brought the Crowmakers this way to start with, Indian attacks on settlers—men and women and children, not soldiers. Not every tribe or all members of any tribe, but enough Indian marauders that they needed dealing with.

  “Buck up, Ward.”

  Jennett slapped Kellen’s shoulder. That gesture, a sign that he’d forgotten how she’d screwed up once already and what’s more that he’d forgotten she wasn’t just one of the men, should have reassured her. Instead, her stomach turned sour and her mouth turned dry.

  “It’s what they made us for, remember? A handful of us to take on hundreds of them.” Jennett looked at Rawle. “How many bullets you spend on those scouts, boy?”