Free Chronicles of Kin Roland 1: Enemy of Man by Scott E Moon Page A

Reapers. Even the greenest recruit understood Reapers fed on fear. Kin thought they needed to taste fear as much as they needed to taste blood.
    Their only true weakness was their fixation with the present. In this way, they were like animals with no concern for the past or the future. The difference was Reapers possessed both memory and the imagination necessary to consider the future, but could not differentiate bet ween past, present, and future.
    Kin tried to explain this to his superiors, but all they were interested in was how he could possibly know such things. He didn’t want to explain.
    Kin crawled forward as the Reaper moved toward a part of the stream out of his view. Without warning the Reaper stopped, lifted its face to the sky, and roared, exposing row upon row of jagged teeth, like a shark with a plaque problem. Blood and fur smeared the yellow film on the teeth. Something had died recently. The Reaper’s gray skin was blotched by irregular black and brown spots.
    Kin pulled a small pair of binoculars from his belt and studied the spots more carefully. Spots were excellent identifiers. He frowned as he realized the markings were misshapen and improperly spaced. Something was wrong. It seemed to have been tortured. Kin didn’t want to think about who or what could capture and torture a Reaper, though he had a good idea who would want to. The Fleet Weapons Research and Development Division had long sought to weaponize the deadly race, but were never able to secure a live specimen.
    The eyes were wrong as well. They should’ve been deep orange or red, but this Reaper had eyes the color of animal urine in a dirty glass. Kin slowly, carefully, and with great deliberation, returned the binoculars to his belt.
    What did it mean? Why was this Reaper different?
    It took a few steps and roared again, voice clicking and rattling afterward.
    Kin, despite his knowledge of Reapers, didn’t understand the random outbursts. He had assumed it was a challenge or a warning to other Reapers, but when he was a captive, he witnessed such behavior without provocation.
    The Reaper below looked right and left in rapid succession, jerking his head abruptly one way and then the other. Then it scanned th e ridge where Kin remained concealed. Perhaps it had seen him. Kin stared back. When it moved, Kin realized it was injured, presumably from the crash. An injured Reaper was still dangerous. Healing made them hungry.
    The Reaper squatted on a rock near the stream, then bit its hand savagely, moaning and whimpering as it shifted its weight side to side. As Kin watched, the Reaper smeared blood over its face, body, and extremities. The blood hardened into a new layer of skin. Then, very abruptly, the Reaper thrust his arm into the water and dragged up a body.
    “You son-of-a-bitch,” Kin muttered.
    The Reaper paused and listened before beginning its meal. Jason Denton was stretched across the rocks—right arm missing, head bashed in. Denton had been an old fur trapper who always got drunk with Kin when he visited. He had been tough, one of the few men on Crashdown worth sparring with. Denton claimed to never have been Fleet, which probably meant he was a deserter. From the condition of his bo dy, the man had put up a fight.
    That must be why the Reaper is so angry , Kin thought. Denton had forced the Reaper to kill him rather than torture him.
    Reapers weren’t especially attentive to their surrounding while eating, giving Kin the opportunity to move down the mountainside as far as he dared. Just as he crawled a few feet nearer the Reaper, a hopper bird landed in front of his face and squawked, “Kin. Kin Roland. Sexy Kin.”
    Kin grabbed the bird, dragging it into his meager hiding place. It was the worst possible time to receive a message from Laura. No one else taught the messenger birds to talk dirty. He untied a small piece of weatherproof paper from the bird’s foreleg, th en hurled the bird away. The Reaper saw the