The night was Bonner's friend. While other men feared the darkness, Bonner welcomed it. He knew that a night fighter was the most deadly, dangerous type of warrior there was, one who could do untold damage to his enemies, silently and unseen. But you had to befriend the darkness. You had to leam how to use it, to wear it, donning it as you might a worn, comfortable leather jacket. You couldn't resist the blackness, you had to adopt an easy familiarity with its all-encompassing grip on your senses and vision. There was no big picture: the few feet ahead that you could see had to become your world.

Tiny sounds, an inch or two of visibility had to be seized and used to your advantage. If you knew how to do it, to work in the night rather than against it, you became deadly. From the darkness a man could attack, quiet and unseen, using a blade as deadly and silent as the night itself. The men that cowered in fear of the night, praying for daybreak, they were the men condemned to die in it.

Bonner had decided against taking the Mean Brother with him. Sure, he was silent and dangerous, but he was just too big, not stealthy enough to wade through the black without making a sound. The Mean Brother had looked very disappointed when Bonner told him of his decision, but Bonner had spoken and that was good enough for the Mean.

Bonner made his way down the valley sides quietly, although he didn't know the ground. He proceeded slowly, unsure whether or not there might be patrols in the foothills and fields that surrounded the slave farm. He doubted it, he paused every few yards to listen for voices and footsteps and heard nothing. He imagined that Farkas and his lieutenants thought themselves too well protected to bother with something as cautious as patrols.

By the time Bonner reached the valley floor the moon was high and the fields and farm were bathed in a silvery light. From within the compound came some sounds: a burst of song, a shout of laughter. Bonner figured that Farkas' men spent most of their evenings drinking their master's booze and carousing. There wasn't much else to do.

Bonner was making fairly easy going of it through the regular rows of trees in an orchard. Once he got close to the wire he was going to have to take a long, hard look at the compound before deciding where to enter it. Thrust into the belt of his pants was a set of heavy wire cutters. He hoped he would be able to find a remote part of the wire and let himself in without doing too much damage to the fence.

A sound, a footfall, reached his ears. He froze. There was someone near. Bonner was sure he could hear the man breathing. Carefully, he mentally divided the blackness around him into quadrants and checked each black box, peering into the gloom with his eyes, listening hard until he thought he could hear the circulation of his own blood.

On either side of him were trees. A man could be concealed behind any one of them. Bonner took another step then. stopped. He sensed the bulk of a man flying out of the darkness before he saw him. Bonner half turned and saw, above him, a man, a big man barreling towards him in a flying tackle. One gloved hand held a knife. Bonner knew, in the second before impact who the foe was: a Psycholep, another night fighter.

The hard body of the man scythed into Bonner and he fell, he hand dropping to his side to pull his one of his own blades from his belt. Bonner's other hand shot up and grabbed the raw, red wrist of the 'lep's knife hand.

Bonner caught the horrible, rotting stench of the 'lep. It seemed to flood his nostrils and make him gag. It clung to the inside of his throat like glue.

The man hissed through broken teeth, his hideous scarred face almost on Bonner's own: ". . . kill you . . ."

The 'lep was strong. Bonner could feel the freak-man's hate-powered muscles working like hydraulics forcing his knife-wielding hand down towards Bonner's throat. The terrible stench the man gave off triggered a flow of bitter bile from Bonner's gut. He spat. The warm juice slashed across the 'lep's face and he pulled back for a second, long enough for Bonner's knife hand to break the hold which the freak held it. He buried the blade deep in the 'lep's back.

The sudden pain and unexpected humiliation of the drawing of first blood, caused the 'lep to pull away, his body twisting, like a fish suddenly dropped in the bottom of a boat. The sudden wrench made Bonner let go of the handle of his blade. Anger and pain drove the wide slash of the 'lep's blade. If he had thought about it, he would have killed Bonner, but he struck without considering his blow. The tip slipped across the thin skin of his forehead, carving a fine four-inch line of blood there. Blood cascaded down into Bonner's eyes, blinding him.

He couldn't fight blind, so he rolled left, hoping that he could avoid the second, more carefully planned fall of the 'lep's knife.

Maddened by the pain of the blade that still lodged in his back, the 'lep twisted his hand around to reach it. But the wicked eight inches of steel was beyond his grasp. He tried to clear his brain long enough to dispatch Bonner. He swung again.

Bonner had cleared his eyes of blood long enough to catch the knife hand again. But this is where the Psycholep had him. The scarred man was crazy with hate and pain—and he knew that the waggling blade in his back would probably kill him. So he must kill this man before him. To die without having destroyed the man that killed you was the ultimate 'lep disgrace.

Bonner on the other hand was not fatally injured. But he was blinded and weakened. He summoned every ounce of energy in his body, the last atom of strength he possessed to keep the 'lep knife hand from delivering the fatal blow. He couldn't see. His own warm blood trickled into his eyes and on down his face, pooling on his chest.

Then, when he least expected it, he heard a sound that reminded him of the smack of an axe against a stout tree. The arm of the 'lep went limp. Bonner dashed one hand into his blood-clogged eyes and rubbed enough away to look up and see that the 'lep had been attacked from behind. A huge machete blade was buried two inches deep in his torn skull, the point of the blade neatly halving his forehead—it looked as if the freak warrior had suddenly and unexpectedly grown a rusty metal horn. The 'lep's bloodshot eyes swiveled in his head, as if trying to look up at the shaft of metal that slashed through his brain. As he toppled off Bonner the man's long thin arm swished out behind him, as if he was trying, hoping, to catch his unseen attacker with the tip of his blade.

But the blow was weak, and Bobby just brushed the man aside. The 'lep fell like a chopped down tree.

Bobby dropped to his knees next to Bonner and tried to wipe away the blood that robbed the Outrider of his sight. Bonner still did not know who his savior was.

"Who the hell is that?" he gasped.

"It's me, Bobby."

Bonner felt as if he had been struck by lightning. He sat up. "What the hell are you doing here."

"I . . . I followed you . . ."

Bonner was about to get angry, then he changed his mind.

"Damn good thing, too," he said. As he spoke he slipped the second of his knives out of the holster and roughly chopped the sleeve of his shirt off. With the rag he mopped up the blood on his face and forehead and then tied it around his head so it could catch the blood that still seeped from the wound.

Then he looked at Bobby. The kid had taken his first kill. A Psycholep—a creature that had probably killed more men, women, and children than Bobby had seen days in his young life. The kid showed no emotion. Bonner would have expected that he would be trembling or upset or even in tears—Bonner had seen riders real shook up after a close-quarters fight with a less dangerous foe than a Psycholep. But the kid showed nothing, not a hint of emotion. Bonner wondered if this was because the kid didn't know, or he just didn't care.

"You know what that was," Bonner said, gesturing towards the dead man.

"Some 'lep," said the kid. "You want me to pull out your knife?"

"Yeah," said Bonner. "And does Floyd know you stole his machete?"

"He probably does by now," said Bobby with a hint of a smile.

"Then we better get it out of the 'lep's head and back to him."

"You gonna look around more-tonight?"

Bonner thought about the throbbing pain in his forehead. He had a headache that felt like someone was pounding on his temples 'with a sledgehammer. "Yeah," he said, "we better do some."

"We?" said Bobby hopefully.

"Sure." Bonner smiled. "If we run into more Psycholeps you'd be a good man to have around.

It seemed to Bonner that the kid lit up the darkness with his beaming face. Getting the machete out of the 'lep's head was no easy matter. It was also messy. It was only then that Bonner saw Bobby cringe a little.

"Welcome to the real world, kid," thought Bonner.

Web Site Contents (Unless Mentioned Otherwise) ©2012 By Atlan Formularies, Post Office Box 95, Alpena, Arkansas 72611-0095
Phone: 870-437-2999 - Fax: Out of Order -  Email: Addresses

[ Back ] [ Home ] [ Up ] [ Next ]