This Battle Lord's Quest (8 page)

Chapter
Nine

Coon

They left long before the others awoke and set a
course due south, using Renken’s compass to help guide the way as the clouds kept
the stars hidden from view. Atty led the way, with the two men alternating
positions to watch their rear. The going was slow, but the small hand torches
they carried helped to light the way.

Once they were what Atty estimated was a mile away,
they turned east again. Almost immediately, they noticed a difference in their
surroundings.

“Tell me I have nothing to fear,” Paxton commented
softly. He motioned at the glowing eyes peering at them from the brush.

“Unless it rushes out and tries to bite you, you
have nothing to fear,” Atty told him.

Renken chuckled. “Relax,” the man added. “So far,
most of what we’re looking at is the best news we’ve ever seen this trip.”

“What do you mean?”

“He means we’re seeing a lot of smaller animals,”
Atty explained. “Smaller animals means dinner to bigger game. The more we see,
the greater the chance we’ll come across something worth bagging.”

As the sun came up, the eyes disappeared, but the
woods continued to give them difficulty. The dense growth was thick and
overgrown, and the trees became larger and taller as they advanced. Every so
often, Atty would carve an arrow pointing back the way they’d come into a
trunk, to guide them on their return.

By midday, they were tired, and had to resort to
using their rations and water bags. There was too much vegetation to try to
clear away in order to start a fire, and Atty didn’t want to waste any more
time than they had to, since the going was already slow.

“We can have a fire and cook something when we stop
for the night.”

“If we come across something big, how are we gonna
drag it through this mess?” Paxton commented during their rest.

“We don’t,” she responded.

Renken raised an eyebrow. “Are you thinking of a
carrying pole?”

“Yeah, depending on what we get.”

“How’s that?”

She pointed to the two men. “Either you two would
hoist it and carry it between you. Or, if we’re lucky, and the catch is really
big, we could cut it into chunks first before tying it to a beam and carrying
it.”

Paxton glanced up at the canopy of trees. “Smells like
we might get rain.”

“It’s already raining. The trees are keeping most
of it from reaching us. Cold front must be on its way,” Atty noted.

“A bad one?”

She squinted at what sky they could see between the
branches. “I don’t think so. Might make the temperature drop a bit, but it’s
not the big one. Not yet.”

Renken shook his water bag. “I don’t suppose those
Mutah senses of yours could find us a stream somewhere?”

“I’ll keep my nose open,” she promised with a grin.

They continued southward, pushing to cover enough
ground. Despite the awning of leaves, moisture soaked through their clothing
and matted their hair to their heads. Their boots quickly became covered in mud
and leaves. If there had been any wind blowing at their level, they easily
would have gotten chilled and perhaps sick.

After several hours of moving, they came to a small
clearing where several sets of tracks crossed each other. Atty crouched down to
examine them.

“One of them looks like bear,” Renken commented,
bending over her.

“I agree,” she nodded, touching the outline. “It’s
still wet and soft around the edges. Bear must have passed this way not too
long ago.” She glanced to her left and pointed. “It was going in that
direction.”

“What about the other tracks?” Paxton asked.

“This one’s deer. This is either muskrat or
beaver.”

“If it’s beaver, there could be a pond or stream
nearby,” Renken observed.

“I thought that, too” she agreed. “Only problem
is...” She ran her fingertips over several indentations. “I can’t tell which direction
they’re going. Even if I could, question remains, were they heading
to
water?
Or away from it?”

“What about this one here?” Paxton outlined what
appeared to be a very large but indistinguishable paw print. Atty squinted,
trying to discern its overall size. A shudder went through her. Surely it
wasn’t as huge as it appeared.
Damn it, Pawpee! Why didn’t you teach me more
about tracking?

She shrugged. “It’s hard to tell. There’s too much
overlapping. What do you think, Renken? You’re a tracker. What does it look
like to you?”

The man threw up his hands in mock surrender. “Hey,
when I was hired to do so, I went after the worst of the worst. But they were
men, not animals, although I’ll admit, sometimes the line between the two got
blurry. No, Madam, you’re the expert here.”

Getting to her feet, Atty closed her eyes and
sniffed the air while slowing turning a complete circle. “Damn. I can’t detect
a thing. Not even water. The rain’s messing with me.”

“Keep heading east?” Paxton said.

“Yeah. Might as well. I’d hate to start wandering
around, wasting time looking for a place to fill our water bags. If we’re
lucky, we’ll come across some game that will lead us to a spring or something.”

They remained on a southern course, during which
they ran across more and more tracks, many of them fresh and resembling pockets
of earth filled with rain water.

“I haven’t seen this much available game in years,”
Paxton remarked.

“Don’t count your eggs before the chickens have
laid them,” Atty laughed. “Just because we see evidence doesn’t mean much. It
only proves the game is here. For all we know, the same animals could be
crisscrossing the same territory over and over.”

“But at least your hunch was right,” Renken told
her. “Moving over that extra mile made a difference.”

“We really don’t know that for sure,” she admitted.
“We didn’t give the other site enough distance or time to prove or disprove my
theory.”

“Hey, that one paid off, and this one looks like it
might do the same,” Paxton smiled.

Conversation died as they continued to push their
way through the forest. By the time the sun began to sink behind the trees,
Atty called a halt and tossed the two large birds she’d shot to Paxton.

“Start dressing these. Renken, start a fire. I’m
going to climb a tree.”

Amused and curious, the two men did their chores
while Atty scaled one of the taller trees nearby. She didn’t stop at the first
overhanging branch, or the next one. It wasn’t until she was nearly twenty feet
off the ground that she paused and appeared to survey the surrounding area.
Paxton already had the birds skewered and on the fire when she hit the ground.

“Listen up, guys. We sleep in the trees tonight.”

“Not arguing with you,” Renken drawled. “But can I
ask why?”

“Remember those bear tracks we saw some ways back?
They keep popping up again and again, and they always look fresh. Although I
didn’t see anything big moving about, the last thing I want is to be awakened
by a hungry or pissed off bear.” She threw a thumb up at the trees. “There’s
plenty of room up there. The branches are big enough. All we need to do is tie
ourselves down so we don’t fall.”

“What about the fire?” Renken asked. “Want to bank
it? Or keep it going?”

Paxton spoke up. “I thought animals were afraid of
fire.”

“They are,” the ex-mercenary noted. “But the smell
of meat cooking might make them curious enough to investigate.”

“We need to eat, and I don’t want to deplete our
rations if we don’t need to,” Atty told them. “We’ll bury the bones, but build
up the fire to keep it burning throughout the night. Hopefully we won’t be
bothered.”

“What about sentry duty?” Paxton suggested.

Atty shook her head. “Forget it. If we’re high
enough, anything sniffing about won’t be able to reach us.”

Renken smiled as he scratched the side of his nose.
“You forget bears can climb trees?”

She grinned. “If it’s as big as a bear, and tries
to climb the tree to come after me, it’s going to make a hell of a lot of
noise, not to mention shake the tree. By then, I’ll be able to get out of its
way, or put an arrow in it.”

“Atty.”

She glanced over at Paxton. The Second’s face was
pale. Before she could open her mouth to respond, he asked, “What about Bloods?
Do you see any sign of them? Or sense them?”

Renken also turned to give her a burning,
questioning look.

“No,” she replied with all seriousness. “I detect
nothing. Trust me, men. If I did, I wouldn’t keep it to myself.”

They ate the birds, making a pile of bones to bury
later. Several times Renken tried to toss a couple into the dirt to make them
stand up the way Fortune had, but without any luck.

“Damn. How does he do it?”

Paxton laughed. “It’s easy. But first, you have to
be Mutah.”

Renken took the ribbing good-naturedly. They
continued to eat in silence as they listened to the familiar night sounds
surrounding them.

“Is there anything in particular you’re hoping we
take back to Alta Novis?” Paxton asked her. “Or is it going to depend on what
we find?”

“After examining the tracks we’ve found, I’m hoping
for a deer or elk. You can use every part of a deer or elk, unlike some of the
other animals. I’d even settle for several smaller animals like those beavers
or muskrats. Guess it depends on what we find.”

“Or what finds us,” Renken dryly commented, making
the others laugh.

When they were done, Paxton buried the bones
several yards away, making sure to cover them with plenty of dirt. A quick
check of their water bags revealed they were dangerously low, with Paxton’s
already empty. After taking a few swallows from Atty’s, which seemed to have
the most, they each climbed a tree and used their weapons belts to tie
themselves to the limbs. Wishing each other a good night’s sleep, they tried to
settle in and get some rest.

Atty resisted closing her eyes for one last look
around. Something had been bothering her ever since they’d come across the
first set of tracks. It wasn’t so much the number of animals evident as it was
which animals.

Ever since the Great Concussion, many species had
been touched by what her teachers had called “fallout”. She never understood
what it meant. Only that something in the air had changed, causing many people
and creatures to change also. Some people were drastically affected, like the
Bloods, whose mutations were so extreme, they were almost unrecognizable as
human. The Mutah, like herself, only changed a little, but the changes were
still evident, yet unique to each person. Which was why her hair was blue
instead of brown like her parents’ hair. And why Fortune sprouted a tail. And
why Mattox had eyes that were completely red, without an iris or pupil or
visible sclera.

And then there were the Normals, which included her
husband, Yulen D’Jacques. Although none of them appeared to show any form of
mutation, Atty couldn’t help but feel that maybe deep down, perhaps at the
cellular level, it did exist. But it was buried so deeply that it wasn’t able
to manifest itself.

Like people, the animals also exhibited wide ranges
of changes, changes that sometimes extended all the way to the bone. Rabbits
which, she’d been told, once had fur, but now had short, spiky, furred
extensions people referred to as feathers. Chickens were wingless, the wool on
a sheep was tough and thick enough to make armor out of, and many creatures,
such as the ones called dogs, were extinct.

Most of the animals were vastly larger than they’d
been prior to the Great Collision. It was hard to envision hamsters as being so
tiny as to fit in a person’s palm, or that a crow was once small enough to sit
on your shoulder.

Unfortunately, the worst abominations were the most
dangerous. The animal it had been no longer existed in any shape or form, other
than to retain its name. In many cases, the creature’s origin was totally
unknown, so it was given a new name. One that reflected its new nature or
appearance. They were the ones Atty feared most because there was no telling
what the animal would do. Or, in a lot of cases, what it
could
do.

Of those tracks she’d seen, she could identify some
of them. What worried her were the ones she couldn’t classify. The ones made by
a beast she’d never tracked before, much less encountered. Bloods she could
handle. She’d fought them countless times in the past, and her Mutah senses
never failed to alert her to their presence. But no matter how bizarre or
brutal they were, Bloods still reacted with human emotions, which made it easy
to understand their actions.

Animals were never predictable.

She was twenty feet above the ground and securely
lashed to the limb at her back. Her bow lay across her lap, and her Ballock was
within split-second reach. Closing her eyes, Atty tried to rest, but her sixth
sense remained uneasy. Below, the fire soundlessly burned the green wood. The
smoke floated upward, undaunted by any wind. She was tired and drowsy, and her
muscles protested slightly from the day’s trek, yet her mind continued to race
along at breakneck speed.