Halfling Moon Read Online Free PDF Page B

grip
on her hand.
    Elsewhere in
Shadow Drake's
piloting chamber, Quin sat, palpably
patient, and studying the board as if he had never seen one before.
Daav yos'Phelium lounged against the back of the co-pilot's chair,
to first glance completely at ease.
    Second glance, however, marked a certain
tension in his shoulders and the cock of his hip, and the way his
glance returned, time and again, to the door that led to the
passenger's section.
    "Lady Kareen," Natesa began, and paused as
the door flicked open, admitting the lady herself, none the worse
for the wear, saving some singed hair and a neatly bandaged scrape
along her arm.
    One step into the chamber, she paused, dark
eyes on the tall shape in his lounge against the chair.
    "Kareen," he said, his voice quiet, his tone
absolutely neutral.
    The lady took a breath deep into her
lungs.
    Sighed it out.
    "Daav," she temperately, in the mode between
kin. "Well met, brother."
     
     

 
     
    Moon on the Hills
    Surebleak
     
    Yulie had the frights pretty bad this time,
bad enough that he'd waited, tucked down and froze-quiet in the
rugged hatcher-nut grove in the hills well above the road, shaking,
until long after the noisy threesome from somewhere down-road
rushed to the clearest of the paths to the south in the face of
impending darkness.
    What exactly his visitors had been doing he didn't know --
they'd called out
hullo
and
whoha whoha
a few times, like they didn't know if the
place was empty -- and one of them called out "Captain Shaper"
twice, and that made no sense since Grampa had been dead for so
long Yulie could hardly remember his face sometimes without looking
at the image files. Likely someone had the house-spot listed
somewhere as a leasehold to the dead company, but heck, that was so
far back it shouldn't matter to no one. They'd called
his
name once or twice
too, he thought, but by then he'd been moving away and it might
just as well have been a trick of the wind.
    "We need to talk with you!"
    Maybe those were the words he'd heard, but
even as he'd thought to come down, he hadn't -- there was dread in
his way. He hadn't had any company since Melina Sherton had walked
up some butter awhile back, being a good neighbor like she was, for
all that she was a Boss. But he'd known her since he was a kid.
Strangers -- no he wasn't much used to strangers around and it did
make him worry.
    They'd probably been in the house if they
wanted, since the door didn't lock beyond mild, and he could only
hope that they hadn't searched too hard -- if he was lucky they'd
left him the gun on the wall. Real luck was that they'd probably
believed the ancient outhouse shoved against the outcrop was what
it looked like.
    The whining of the overloaded buggy died
down along with the temperature, and still he waited, hearing the
regular sounds return as the mindlessness of fear receded. He
wilted against a tree then, aware of the tiny movements in the
leaves and drying field grass, of the wind's sigh, super aware of
his vulnerability. The visitors all had guns, and he -- he'd left
his hand gun back in the safe and the long gun locked into the
rack. He hadn't carried them with him for quite some time.
    He knew better, he did, especially since some of the city
folk thought they could come up and hunt anywhere that wasn't in
the city. He didn't mind them shooting at rats or wild dogs or
whatever
someplace else
, but here -- here they had no dogs, and the field
creatures were few and far between mostly. The other potential
targets -- well, Rollie'd explained it to the neighbors the year of
the problem, and they'd posted signs, and it ought to be clear he
preferred being left alone, him and the cats.
    And they hadn't looked to be intending
assault…
    Not that he had reason to be assaulted, but
they came from down the road, and Rollie'd gone down the road one
day and never come back, dead from not knowing one boss from
another, or from not having the sense not to antagonize a port