Patreon or PayPal Me keeps this site and its author alive. Thank you. |
Stories from the Verse
Con Verse Lea
Chapter 32: Beam 133
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Takano 67
The pounding on the door echoed through the hills; the soldier was shouting something about opening the door in the name of someone-or-other.
Ashleigh, standing on the white-haired man’s left, looked nervous.
“He’s important?”
She nodded. “And powerful. He has a lot of soldiers.”
“Well,” Beam replied, “in a few minutes he’s going to have a lot fewer.”
A small ram was used, and the door opened.
“Figures. They didn’t even check to see that we left it unlocked for them. Wait for it, Dawn,” he said to the girl on his right, unnecessarily. The soldiers poured through the doorway, the last two in line flanking the entrance with guns ready.
“It looks like they took you seriously,” Ashleigh said.
“Not, I think, seriously enough. Dawn, I think now is the time.”
“Sir, yes, sir,” she said, and pressed a button on a radio remote. Preset charges on critical supports exploded in unison, and Beam and his companions watched from their perch on the wooded hillside as the grand villa collapsed atop the army sent to kill or, perhaps worse, detain them.
“They’ll take me more seriously next time,” he said. He stared another minute, watching secondary fires begin to spread. Finally, “Time to go,” he said. “We’ve got quite a distance to travel to reach our quarters for tonight, and with these provisions we’ve packed we’ll be moving a bit more slowly. That pack fitting you all right?”
This last he said to Ashleigh, who nodded.
“Then lead on. Bron, guard the rear.” And with that, the quintet headed farther into the woods.
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with twenty other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #463: Characters Unsettled. Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter. It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
