I spent three nights out alone, camping and it was almost as if I were home, or just a day’s ride from the Valley. I remembered Mom’s apple pie and dad’s strong hugs that I pretended to shrug off but secretly loved.
It was getting harder and harder to remember their faces. Increasingly, it was becoming more of the attitude of them versus me. I was starting to think of myself as more than human. As superior and that scared me. If I thought I was above my neighbors, it was only one step further to thinking of them as fodder. That way led to mass slaughter and utter contempt for humans.
The terrain was still gently rolling hills, vast prairies with small cottonwoods in the gullies and ravines. Broad rivers, some nearly a mile across and signs warning of Quicksand, Use Only Sanctioned Ferries, Fords or Risk Drowning.
Others had traveled the trail I followed. There were broadened tracks of wagons, carts and horses. Yet the trail was empty and I saw no one but my own shadow. I hunted. Took deer one day and several beavers the next, butchering the carcass and burning a portion of it. I heard scavengers going after the rest yet the coyote, mountain lion and bear did not bother me. In fact, when they scented me they turned tail and left.
I noticed this morn more as I drank from the vast well of animal life, that they feared me as if I were a predator. Something more dangerous than man for bear would not run from a human but consider them prey. I found it no harder to take down a deer or even a bear without my musket or bow. I tried not to eat until the craving became almost impossible to ignore but not so that I lost control of it. I pushed it and kept pushing it until I could stare at blood and not be moved by the sight.
The horse I named Almond carried me for two months up into the great range called the White Fangs. These mountains separated the continent East from West and petered out somewhere in the Badlands of the South.
Giant storms hammered the mountains and flash floods were prevalent. As we were coming down a narrow, tricky deer trail, he slipped and fell on the greasy track. By the time I’d departed his back, and he’d stopped bouncing off tree trunks, boulders and dead falls, we were both at the bottom of the slope. I got up and made my way over to where he lay but he wasn’t struggling to get up.
I reached down and heaved. Trees the size of my trunk went flying to crash further downhill until he was free of the logjam. I stroked his neck where sweat was already darkening his coat and found my worst fears had come true.
He had broken both his front and back legs nearly in half and there was no way I could get him up.
I gently removed the saddle, bags and bridle stroking and talking to him the entire time. His eyes, so patient and trusting remained on me.
“It’ll be all right, boy,” I said rubbing his star. I squatted near him and gently laid his head on my shoulder while watching the rapidly escalating beat of his jugular. Felt my fangs extend and promised he wouldn’t feel any pain just pleasure.
It took me a long time to drain him and I cried the whole time. I cried for him, for Diomed and Beau, for Sgt. Tolliver and Sally Mitford. For all the others who had died because of me. I cried for Arianell and her family, my mother and father and because I was selfish, I cried mostly for me.
*****
I could move faster, go places that the horse could not. So, it was with some surprise that I came wearily down the mountain to gape at the expanded Fort Tigh outpost which was only a four day hike from the town of Caladia. I looked up at the mountains before me. True, they were still far off in the distance but I could see the huge Caladienne Glacier that marked the boundary of Cayden’s Valley.
Home. With a sob in my throat, I ran stumbling down the ridge until I met one of the trails that merged with the main road. It was overcast and storms had pummeled the mountains. That had been a partial cause of Almond’s fall on the greasy slopes. I steamed in the faint sunlight and it reminded me that I was soaked to the skin. Heat and cold no longer bothered me. I wasn’t sure if it was because of my new and enhanced metabolism, I just knew it was no longer a concern. I didn’t need a cloak to keep me warm or a fire. My new clothes that I had purchased before sailing were also on the outs, they had nearly fallen to rags.
The first people I saw actually sneaked up on me and I whirled around gawking at their cheery ‘hello’. I saw a party of six. Hunters, all under the age of forty. Healthy, well-armed and clean. All of them were dressed in green and tan to blend in the woods.
“I didn’t smell you,” I managed foolishly.
“I hope not,” the bald one smiled. “We paid big money for the scent masker. You look rough, been out long?”
I sat down on the nearest stump along the trail. They didn’t seem alarmed at finding me. “I was on a hunting expedition near Askwan. A bear drove through camp. Killed my horses and scattered my party. My father was killed and the rest of us gone. I watched and waited by camp but no one came back.”
“Have you eaten? We can share some of our food. How did you survive the bear attack?”
“I climbed a tree. Shot at it but I ran out of arrows before it did more than piss it off,” I lied. They handed me dried venison and journey cakes. I nibbled at them and found to my surprise that they stay down even if they didn’t taste all that good.
“How long have you been out here? Can you make it in or do you want us to get a wagon, someone from the hospital?”
“Hospital? Fort Tigh has a hospital?” I gaped. Of course, the Fort was twice as large as I remembered from the last time I’d been here.
“Since the Warlord moved into the valley, yes. They’ve expanded the Army and doubled the size of the cities. Building all the time. Some new technology that his grandson discovered before he was murdered by the Borderlanders.” He paused. “You haven’t seen any, have you? The Scouts and Rangers have reported they’re moving on to the Midlands by way of the Caladienne Glacier.”
“Over the Fang Mouth’s?” I didn’t know was it possible to travel the Glacier and the mountains that channeled it. Every expedition sent out to explore it had never returned. “You say his grandson was murdered?” I asked carefully.
“Why? Did you know him?” The quiet one in the back spoke up and I watched him. He had wary eyes that bespoke of mistrust and his hand remained on his musket.
“What were you hunting?” I asked abruptly and wasn’t surprised at his answer. I saw no sign of any furs or carcasses and the only thing they carried where their backpacks.
“There’s a strange beast loose roaming. It kills the wildlife and drains their blood but doesn’t eat the liver, heart or organs. Doesn’t rip or cut the carcasses. Just bites the neck leaving two tiny pricks and drains every last drop of blood. No signs of a struggle and the victim doesn’t fight back. We’ve found deer, elk, bison and even bear. What predator could take out a giant bear? You’re lucky you didn’t come across it.
“How are you tracking it?”
“Its trail is a beeline straight for the northwest corner of Caladia–a place called Cayden’s Valley. Ever hear of it?” The bald one said.
I nodded slowly. “That’s where he lived. The grandson. Spencer.”
“Tobias Spencer. The hero of Cayden’s Valley.”
I stood up and was shaking. They thought it was weakness but it was rage. I heaved air into my lungs and drew upon the lessons I had learned cross country. I calmed myself, ruthlessly crushing down the rage, the solid conviction that it was my right to destroy these puny vermin if I so chose. I wanted to race towards the Valley and teach those that intruded in my family home what it meant to fear the dark. Instead, I stood quietly and told them I’d made it this damn far, what was another few miles?
They ringed me in the guise of assistance but I knew it was to keep me surrounded so I could be watched from all sides. Truthfully, even these six weren’t enough to seriously hamper my strength. I had taken down a great bear with only my hands and although the thought of their blood tempted me, I could not smell it over the taste of the horse’s still in my stomach.
“What day is this?” I asked abruptly and was shocked at the reply. August 14, nearly two months since I’d left the western reaches of both the Newlands and the Borderland. Two months since I’d walked, ridden or ran across 10,000 miles of country that was still wilderness. The last team to have done so took nearly six months.
I caught my breath and stopped. They halted around me as I drew in a shuddering breath and clenched my hands, fingers digging into my palms.
“Today’s my birthday,” I said in wonder. “Today I turned seventeen.”
No mother to bake me a fancy birthday cake and give me a precious handmade gift. No father to pat me on the back, hug me and tell me he was proud of how I’d grown into a fine young man. No girlfriend to kiss me under the apple tree and promise to wait until we were old enough to wed. None of these things were mine to hold anymore and I wondered how many more would be taken from me.
“You all right, boy?” The gruff one asked and laid his hand on my shoulder. “You didn’t tell us your name.”
“Lynn,” I sniffed. “Lynn Tiobhan.”
“Come on, Lynn. It’s just around the river’s bend.” We came into town slowly, they had slipped back behind me leaving only the bald man in front next to me. They told me their names. The bald man was called Ivar Ives and the gruff man, Tommy Burgess. The quiet one said his name was Wesley Jencks and the last three were brothers, Cliff, Wade and Jake Chapin. All of them had come from Albans to Fort Tigh to settle it and have been given plots of land on the west side of the fort in exchange for hunting the beast. If they succeeded in killing and returning with its body, the Commander of the fort would endow them with a title and income from the Emperor. Elevating them to the noble class even if just a lowly Baron. It was a prize many would jump at and I was surprised that I had only run into one such band hunting me.
Once, the fort had been a small village of log and timber cabins surrounded by a palisade of high trees. Now, concrete walls shimmered with some strange effect and circled ten square miles of brick, stone-block and metal buildings. The roads were smooth and paved with concrete, almost as perfect as the ones we’ve seen in the Lost City. We came in at nighttime and lights glowed on in every home we passed. Homes four and five stories high and businesses everywhere. More streets than I’d seen even in Albans, the capital. Buildings taller than any but those from the lost city. I could see one going up at the heart of downtown that resembled a smaller version of the twin black towers.
“Where do you want to go, Lynn?” Ivar asked me. “There’s the government offices where we report in all sightings. If you have money, we can drop you off at a boarding house. The hospital or the Constable’s office? Or do you have family we can notify?”
I had a small bank account in the Bank of Caladia in Fort Tigh for when I made overnight trips there from the farm but I was sure if I walked in and tried to access it, no one would believe I was alive or let me have the contents. In fact, I believe that I wouldn’t even make it out the doors.
I had stayed at a bed-and-breakfast enough times so that the owner would remember me but remembering me wasn’t what I wanted. “I’ll go to the Mercy Mission,” I said and they relaxed. Only a native of the area would know of the small church that helped stranded travelers, down-at-luck families and runaway slaves.
I would be surprised if it was still there yet when the group kindly offered to show me to the front door and did so, there it stood in it all its original simplicity.
A small building built of stones from the river, it stood twenty feet high with its modest steeple yet housed beds for nearly 40. They left me at the front doors making sure I went inside before walking away.