Lost Bloodline 4 - Chapter 14

Okay! So this is the last teaser chapter for Lost Bloodline 4. Book releases on 9.23, which means these will all come down on 9.22 so make sure to give them a read before then! I hope you enjoyed the glance into Koda's world to whet the appetite! Look forward to learning more about the newest primal spirit we introduced here soon! (it's not a cliffhanger, because literally the next chapter would come out on release day!)

Next Release is SMG 2 - but you all have those chapters already, so instead we'll start teasing chapters for Steelforged Legacy 4 (pre editor) which comes out in November!

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Chapter 14

Koda talked with his mates when he had the opportunity. As he’d expected, Sienna elected to stay behind with the Silent Plains tribe to conduct the trading that she’d masterminded in bringing the extra supplies with her. What surprised him the most was Arthene’s decision to stay behind with her.

“I’ll keep a close eye on our sweet Sienna,” Arthene had advised Koda when he brought up the suggestion. “You can go run around through the snow and play with the sleigh some more.”

“I’m surprised,” Koda admitted, and Arthene had given him a mysterious smile before snuggling in closer, pulling Koda’s head further into her bosom as his other mates made themselves ready for bed.

Koda and his girls had been offered a room at Vysin’s house, but had instead opted to simply camp at the meeting hall, as they had when cleansing the town of the trolls. The large room still retained plenty of warmth, and the only others staying there were Jordan, Melia, and their tribesfolk.

Arthene had summarily claimed them a corner for themselves and dragged Koda onto the heap of hides and blankets that they’d brought with them. He’d waited until they’d been laying out the bedding to relate the plan to his mates. Not because of any concern they’d object, but because they’d been having so much fun with the women of the tribe.

“Why would you be surprised? Someone needs to stay to keep watch over our dear wolf. While the Silent Plains appear to be good people, I will not leave a member of our family alone to fend for herself unless it is absolutely necessary,” Arthene insisted, running her fingers through Koda’s smooth black hair.

The gesture was both soothing and intimate, especially considering Arthene was once-again nude and smothering Koda with her luscious body while she caressed his hair. Only he knew that she was naked under the furs, but with the way Arthene’s hands wandered, he doubted that it would remain a secret for long as she started to tease and arouse Koda.

“I appreciate it,” Koda said finally, shifting so that he could extract his face partially from Arthene’s bosom and speak to her directly. “I wasn’t really worried about her safety, considering that each of you has the boost of strength from killing a troll…”

“But one must sleep some time,” Arthene finished with a loving smile. “Don’t worry. I will look after Sienna while you are away having fun. Having Calandra and Samira with you will ensure that you don’t get lonely. Just don’t spend too long out there chasing rabbits—come back home to us quickly?”

Koda didn’t answer Arthene’s question verbally, instead he let his hands roam over her sculpted form while his lips answered her in another way, starting with a trail of kisses between her breasts and working his way outwards.

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The herd of bison snuffled through the thick snow, scraping away with their heads and horns until their foraging turned up clumps of the thick grass that had been hidden before. Each large animal was, by itself, an eating machine that could forage their way through vast swaths of greenery. The snow fall had only slowed their work as the herd ambled south away from the mountains.

Despite the placid way in which they grazed, none of the bison relaxed. Great hunters walked these plains. Wolves half their size but vicious in their demeanor, and cunning beyond reason in their packs. Large cats capable of bringing one of their number down in ambush. Those and more kept the large herbivores wary, but as time passed and the day wound onwards, the bison relaxed.

Just before noon, as the watery sun hung as high as it could climb in this chilled land, a new noise made the herd pause. 

First one shaggy head rose, then another. Soon, the bison clumped closer together as the sound grew louder and louder. A rushing, shushing sound, not unlike a river that broke through an ice dam and was charging down its banks once more. 

Finally, nerves broke and the herd—easily several hundred bison large—wheeled as one and thundered away from the strange, rushing noise that was approaching them at high speeds. Bison bellowed in both anger and fear, but as they could not identify the threat, the fear won out and they fled as their strange noise crested a nearby hill. That their flight drove them northwards, back the way they had come, didn’t matter. Only getting away from the perceived threat.

“There goes another herd!” Calandra laughed from her spot at the head of the sleigh. Her wool scarf covering her nose and mouth muffled her words, while she pulled her cloak's hood tight against the wind and flying snow.

“Yes! Flee before us!” cackled Samira, seated right next to Calandra.

“But not too far, I hope,” Jordan snorted from further back in the sleigh, grunting as it caught air for a moment before landing with a solid thump once more. “I doubt your village would appreciate the bison moving into their homes.”

“Oh, I doubt they’d let that happen,” Samira laughed. “The hunters would claim the easy kills and then rest happily for the rest of the winter to process the game. Some of the more superstitious might even see it as a sign!”

“I don’t think tricking your tribesmates will be a good idea,” Koda called from the front of the sleigh as he dragged it ever onwards.

Milia didn’t add to the conversation. She remained at the back of the sleigh, talking in low tones with the other representative from her tribe who had come along.

When Koda had set out the previous day, it had been with plans to bring along Jordan, Melia, Samira, and Calandra to speed their passage, while Arthene and Sienna stayed behind, along with the other representatives. Melia’s tribe had sent another along to observe, being more wary than the others, but that still kept the sleigh to well under half what it weighed before, allowing for even greater speed.

I have to thank Kris when we get back, Koda thought with a grin as he pounded up another ridge. This was a brilliant idea, and whoever made these sleighs did good work since it’s holding up so well.

Koda could move even faster if he wanted to, but without Sienna to sound out the footing ahead of him in case the snow hid a ravine or a divot, he’d had to restrain himself more. Not entirely, however, as he’d gotten good at picking out the danger spots and how the snow draped over them.

“That’s the best part!” Samira called, dragging Koda back to the previous conversation. “We wouldn’t need to trick them—they’d be tricking themselves. People are superstitious enough that we wouldn’t need to do anything at all.”

“Devious—I like it!” Calandra laughed before nudging Samira with one elbow. The multiple layers of insulating furs that Samira wore softened the blow, though the two were sharing a lap blanket to combine their warmth against the wind.

“Koda, steer more to your right,” Samira called a moment later. “We are looking for a long lake that feeds three rivers. Its current is strong enough that it normally doesn’t freeze over.”

“Got it!” Koda called back, the wind whipping past him, carrying his words away as soon as they left his mouth.

He’d chosen to experiment on this trip, stripping away a layer of his warm underclothes and loosening his cloak under the draw-harness that attached him to the sleigh. The air was chill, but in a bracing fashion, even on the bare skin of his face.

I guess that confirms my earlier suspicions. Thera has done something to make me more than just a normal person, Koda thought as he trotted along.

The steady, loping pace that he maintained didn’t slow going up the hills, and he only sped up on the downhill slopes to match the speed the sleigh gained on those.

Behind him, he could hear Calandra and Samira chatting. Samira was telling the stories she knew about this site of power, about how the people believed this lake to be the home of an ancient spirit of water as it had no source, simply welling up from the earth and pouring itself out into the far-running rivers.

There are so many legends in this world, Koda thought with a smile while hitching his harness higher on his shoulders so it wouldn’t bite into him so much. I wonder how many of them are fanciful tales and how many have their basis in reality?

He hadn’t been a strong student back home on Earth, so Koda couldn’t really draw any comparisons between the two. He was more interested in the modern tales of cryptids than history after all, as it was much more amusing to imagine Mothman visiting the local Waffle House or Denny’s than ancient tribal tales. But now, those stories were far more interesting, since monsters really existed in this world.

The crisp, icy scent of winter in his nostrils was briefly infused with the musky scent from the bison as he crossed over a corner where the herd had been lingering before he’d startled them away. But just as quickly as it had come, the scent vanished, to be replaced with the sharp smell of winter once more.

My senses are so much stronger now too, Koda thought as the brief change brought that concept to the forefront of his mind now. I mean, I worked construction before. Everyone smelled like sweat, cigarettes, and stale coffee. Maybe hot metal if I was helping the welders.

Turning over how his life had changed for a moment, Koda couldn’t find anything to really complain about. Sure, the lack of indoor plumbing was annoying, but he’d gained far more than he had lost in this exchange. Even with the risks involved in fighting monsters like the Crooked or the trolls.

“There!” Samira’s sharp call pulled Koda out of his thoughts, and he glanced back to see her pointing to his left while bouncing in her seat.

The caracal woman’s hood had fallen back, and the wind was dancing amongst the tufty fur on the tips of her large feline ears while her hair flicked and bounced as the breeze danced amongst it. Samira caught his eyes and smiled so broadly at him that her eyes narrowed to slits, making Koda’s heart jump in his chest at just how happy she looked.

You’re falling fast for her now too, aren’t you? Koda thought before dragging his attention to the front once more. Now that Samira had pointed it out, he saw the large, flat depression that indicated the lake, the shimmer on the surface of the rippling water so similar to the snow that he’d missed it at first.

“Is it such a bad thing?” Koda asked himself quietly as he veered towards the water.

He didn’t have time to answer his own question, as the scent in the air changed once more when the wind shifted. While it had been the chill of winter, that sharp scent of ice and snow, the scent of green grass, warm sun, and a familiar tang of power.

Without hesitation, Koda turned even further to the left, angling away from the lake in a wide turn. The terrain was hilly around the lake, with several narrow draws and ravines that he would have to avoid. However, one drew him like iron to a magnet.

Bushes and low trees protected the draw, but the scent he’d picked up, one that reminded him of the raw, primal energy that welled up from the sites of power, was unmistakable.

“Koda, not that way!” Samira called, but Koda ignored her as he towed the sleigh in a wide loop around the edge of the lake. He slowed as they reached the entrance of the draw, reaching up to unbuckle his harness as Calandra called to him.

“What’s going on, Koda?” Calandra asked, before turning to the beastfolk woman next to her. “Samira, pull the brakes for me. Something is up.” 

As soon as he felt the tug on his shoulders that told him the brake on the sleigh was engaged, Koda reached for the quick-release catches. They’d allow him to detach his worn harness from the traces and investigate what he was smelling.

If this is another site besides the one Samira knew about, then all the better, he thought with a smile. I need to thank Thera again for that blessing. I hadn’t expected it as part of the package for the armor, but it’s come in handy.

Koda had just finished undoing the catches when the sleigh came to a full stop behind him. The rasp of the runners through the snow became a sharp squeal as one found a stone, and the loud noise made him jump.

It also made the figure in the bushes directly ahead of him jump. Not much, but enough that Koda’s eyes snapped towards it. He caught sight of the brilliant blue eyes peeking between branches, watching them.

Koda’s instincts screamed at him to act, and he reacted before his brain finished processing what he was seeing.

Lunging forward through the snow, Koda summoned his totemic gauntlets with a thought. The bushes between him and the mostly hidden observer were no barrier as he crashed through them.

But his target was quicker. Koda had just reached the brush when his watcher threw herself backward and into a roll, using the motion to push herself up and out of the bushes and into a dead sprint away from him.

“No, you don’t!” Koda bellowed and pushed as much of his strength as he could manage into his legs. He felt it as his muscles bunched and bulged before exploding with enough power to send him flying at his target.

The woman—because he had seen enough through the dead bushes and tree trunks to tell that it was a woman—turned in time to see him coming directly for her like Koda had been shot from a bow. Her bright blue eyes widened in surprise before she reacted as well. She leaped straight upwards, clearing almost ten feet as Koda shot by just underneath her.

“Peace, Champion!” the woman called as she soared through the air to land with a soft thump.

Koda’s landing was less graceful, and far more devastating. He slammed shoulder-first into the trunk of a young tree, tearing the pillar of wood in half, sending a cloud of splinters away from the point of impact. He landed in a roll that tore up several bushes but didn’t actually hurt him, as he’d unconsciously summoned his armor over top of his clothing and the harness. Koda whirled to take in the sight of the woman before him.

She was long-limbed and graceful as she stood up. Hair the soft gray of storm clouds hung in waves around her shoulders, while bright blue eyes watched him with interest rather than fear. She wore a fur-lined leather vest that left her arms bare while compressing a full set of breasts, and a pair of pants that hugged her muscled legs like a lover. She had a knife at her belt and a large, flat package made of leather strapped to her back. 

The stranger looked like many of the tribal people he’d met with the Silent Plains and their allies, save for a few major differences.

First, she easily stood at least as tall as Arthene, putting her a good head over Koda’s height, at least halfway to seven feet tall. Second, and more surprising than her height, were the pair of long, slender rabbit’s ears that protruded from amongst the flowing mass of her gray-white hair.

Shouts from the sleigh told him the others had spotted the woman and were reacting already. Or had they been shouting this whole time, and he had been so caught up in his instincts that he hadn’t noticed? Koda wasn’t sure at this point. But now that he was looking at her, at those bright blue eyes watching him with a fascinated air, he felt the roaring of his instincts to give chase quiet down as the scent of springtime invaded his lungs once more, while his mind replayed one word she’d spoken.

“Champion?” Koda asked. Well, the tone was more of a growl in reality, but from the gentle smile that crossed the woman’s full lips, she understood.

“Yes,” she said simply. “Champion. I apologize for startling you. This ‘wayward daughter’ would ask for your forgiveness.”

The tone that she used, the smirk that her smile morphed into while she spoke, and that scent of power finally clicked in Koda’s head and he groaned.

Two things held that scent: sites of power, and beings of power like Thera and Arthene.

This woman was one of Arthene’s sisters.