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They weren’t both going up the ladder.
One was remaining down here.
I panicked. I could see the situation playing out right before my eyes. The one heading up the ladder would learn we weren’t up there. He’d warn the other creature below. Then they would search the barn.
It wouldn’t take long for them to discover us.
Fiath reached for an empty metal bucket that sat to one side and held it by its wooden handle. It had twelve different sections, one for each udder. The farmers must use it to milk the creature with.
What was he intending on using it for?
I saw the determination on his face and got a sinking sensation in the pit of my stomach.
He was going to use it as a bludgeon.
I rested my hand on his arm and shook my head. Don’t do it.
They had advanced weapons. He was reduced to swinging a bucket. He would get hurt.
He placed his hand on mine and smiled reassuringly at me.
I melted beneath his caring expression and I relented.
He stood and raised a hand to me. Stay here, it said.
I hated letting him go by himself but what could I do except get in the way?
Fiath eased up into a crouch and placed a hand on the nearest cow-like creature, soothing them to keep quiet as he edged toward its rear-end.
The first Changeling took one step at a time up that rickety old ladder. If we were asleep up there, he didn’t want to wake us.
He was already two-thirds of the way up. And he didn’t need to take every step to see we weren’t there. The bed was empty, the blankets hastily tossed aside. There was little else we could hide behind. I cursed myself for not thinking to make up the bed with random items. It would have bought us a little more time.
Fiath was in position. He peered around the cow-like creature’s rear-end and eyed the Changeling on the ground floor.
With the Changeling up the ladder about to peer over the edge of the loft, Fiath took two strides out from cover.
The Changeling started, spying movement out the corner of his eyes.
Fiath swung the bucket around and smacked the soldier across the head. He fell, clattering, to the ground.
“Run!” Fiath said.
I pushed off the wall and bolted toward the barn door. Fiath was already there when I reached it and we squeezed through sideways.
“Hey!” the Changeling up the ladder said. “Hey! Hey you!”
We swung out of the barn and bolted across the open clearing toward the nearest cover—the hedgerow we’d hid behind the previous day.
Bolts of plasma screamed over our shoulders, kicking up plumes of dirt and scorching the trees.
We bolted around the hedgerow and continued in the direction we’d been heading before we stopped at this farm.
This trap.
I vaguely wondered how many innocent people the farmers had condemned in this place, how many they had betrayed and handed over to the Changelings.
All for what?
