Lost Bloodline 3 - Chapter 20

Chapter 20

“What are the odds that there are still trolls wandering around up here?” Hans asked after they’d been walking for around an hour.

The big bull man carried his iron mattock across his chest and was fingering the wooden shaft warily while he looked back and forth, scanning the treeline they were paralleling as well as any ridges that they walked under. It was clear to Koda that, for all his training and experience over the last several weeks, the former miner was feeling out of his depth.

“Not very high,” Arthene answered without hesitation. “The presence of an obvious chieftain is that much of a curse.”

“How is it a curse?” Hans asked. “I’d much rather not have one of those things come at us in surprise.”

“Because, Hans, it means that they will all be together when we see them next,” Arthene answered gently, shooting the nervous beastfolk a reassuring look. “Frankly, I’m surprised that the two in the village had snuck off. They were likely some of the more cunning amongst their number to have pulled that off.”

“So we killed off the smartest ones, that’s good at least,” Sienna piped up, her tail waving jauntily from where she marched beside Koda.

The wolf beastfolk had started teaching Koda more of her tricks for tracking, using the trolls’ trail as easy examples of what to look for.

“Yes, there is that,” Arthene assented before glancing back at Hans. “Do you think you’ll want to try for the troll-slayer blessing? I can see why you’d want to catch one alone if you can.”

Hans grimaced at that, looking down towards the trail they were following before he sighed and nodded.

“I don’t want to take the risk of leaving Brit without me, but I want the strength to protect her. It’s been bothering me for a while now.”

“Good on you for admitting it,” Todd said, clapping the larger man on the shoulder with one hand. “I think I’ll pass on taking one down in single combat. I’m too old to put it to good use, but I’ll happily support any of you young ones to get it.”

“Arthene and I will have the easiest time in claiming the blessing, given our first share of it. But I don’t want to double up unless we have to. I’d much rather use this opportunity to share the power amongst the rest of you. At least those willing, and I won’t shame any of you who don’t want to take the risk.”

Koda glanced back to lock eyes with each of his four friends. Hans nodded in understanding, clearly still concerned about the potential consequences of the fight. Todd looked thoughtful, but sure of his decision. Hannah and Netta both looked eager, the pair of huntresses clearly wanting to make the most of the opportunity.

I hope they don’t come to regret that. Hell, I hope I don’t come to regret it. They have to fight a troll alone and win to get the full measure. Wouldn’t it be safer to take a partial blessing first? Something to bring them closer to the level that Arthene and I are at?

Shaking the thought away from his mind, Koda turned his attention back to the trail they were following. Samira hadn’t joined into the brief conversation, as the caracal woman was leading the group while studying the tracks and surroundings. She’d pointed out several more territory markings as they went, showing they were getting deeper into the stonecracker’s hunting grounds.

“Samira, how much further?” he called, getting the feline-featured woman’s attention.

“Not much,” she replied tersely, looking back to meet his gaze. The normally excitable woman was serious for once, which told Koda just how focused she was at the moment. “While I haven’t been here myself, I’ve heard all the stories of the high-mountain hunters. They should have a den somewhere nearby.”

Koda nodded before turning his attention back to scanning their surroundings. There was something in their environment that was raising the hackles on the back of his neck. Koda wasn’t entirely sure what it was, but something felt off to him.

Arthene giving a deep, sniffing sound tripped his mind to what it was, and he finally registered the very faint hint of rot in the air.

“Arthene?” Koda asked, taking another sniff of the air.

“I smell it, too,” Sienna added, her ears laying back. “Something died nearby and is rotting, but not recently? Or maybe it’s just something small?”

“What? I didn’t…” Samira said abruptly before letting the sentence trail off as she sniffed at the air again.

“Well, don’t just stand there snuffling about,” Calandra prodded dryly once several more seconds passed. “Not all of us have sensitive noses—some of us are built delicate.”

“Nothing about you is delicate, Cal,” Koda laughed, bumping her shoulder with his hip playfully so she knew he was joking.

The blow made her armor jingle, and the dwarf stumbled a step, as Koda was still acclimating to his new strength. She righted herself without a problem though and mock-glared at Koda from under her helmet.

“I suppose you are glad of that, considering how rough you get with me when I—”

“Peace, Cal,” Sienna interrupted, holding a hand out to the shorter woman. “This is serious. I think we are near the den, so we all need to be ready.”

The dwarven woman growled playfully but nodded, slipping her Dane axe down into her hands and rolling her shoulders to loosen them. Koda knew that she’d not drop the conversation and would want to harass him more later, but his mate would focus on the moment and protecting her family.

Amazing how quickly she slotted in beside the other girls, Koda thought as the group picked up speed again, with Arthene moving to the front to help Samira lead. Sienna was just luck, and Arthene already said she followed her instincts, which led her to me. But little Cal latched on like a limpet and has been happy to ride along since.

The thoughts of people acting like limpets drew his attention to Samira where the caracal woman walked beside Arthene, pointing to her left and whispering something to the bear woman, but Koda pushed that thought away.

I’ve got three women already and Thera keeps threatening me with more. Samira might just be curious and want to know more. I’m not going to chase her just on a hunch. If she makes her interest plain and the other three agree, then maybe. I’ve got more love in my life now than I know what to do with.

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With the season drifting through the tail end of summer and into the fall, it put the sun at a steeper angle with a shorter amount of time during the day. But given the boost to speed that came with Calandra’s wind magic, especially as the dwarven mage was getting the hang of the power, they reached their goal shortly before midday.

The path had taken them up a wide ravine studded with pine trees. The increased tree cover made it far easier to spot the passage of the group of trolls, given their penchant for smashing and uprooting everything that was in their way. But when their upward-sloping path flattened out into a wide plateau centered on a crystal clear mountain lake, the trees fell away again and stone took over as several mountains soared higher in the distance.

The lake was small—Koda guessed it to be maybe three hundred feet across and four times that long. It backed up against a sheer cliff that soared upwards, distantly rising into a craggy peak several thousand feet above them. The clear water was deep, fed by several mountain streams he could see trickling down through the rocks on the far side.

Looking further up the other mountain side, Koda could see several more spots that he bet were other plateaus that slowly climbed higher into the mountains, and saw the silhouettes of several fuzzy figures walking the edge of those ridges.

Mountain goats, I think. Koda squinted his eyes, studying the distant shapes as their group followed the edge of the lake. The trail of the trolls was less obvious here given the broken stone of the lake shore, but Samira led them without hesitation towards the cliff that sat on the narrow side of the lake.

The scent of rot had remained with them for the last hour, still very faint on the wind but growing stronger. Koda couldn’t rationalize how any of them had picked it up, given the amount of greenery on the mountain and other smells competing with it, but it was there, and growing stronger now that they circled the lake.

“Cave?” Hannah broke the silence, pointing towards a shadow in the cliff face Koda had ignored at first, thinking it was just a fold in the rock.

“Yes, that’s the den, I’m sure of it.” Samira replied, keeping her voice low. “We need to be careful approaching it. The troll’s path goes right past it, so that’s more evidence for them having fought and defeated the stonecracker leopards. But we don’t know if they got them all.”

Koda felt a tugging sensation in his chest and didn’t hesitate to call his armor out of his soul. The rushing sensation that always accompanied the spiritual garb and weapons enveloped him like the wind, leaving behind the thick leather and bone garb. The rapid shift from his clothes to armor startled everyone save Arthene, who knew the moment he’d called it out because of their deep connection and her nature.

“I’ll take the lead,” Koda asserted, briefly catching Sienna’s hand and giving it a squeeze before stepping past her and his other mates to walk ahead of Samira. “We know where we are going, so tracking is not as necessary. I may not be the most stealthy, but I’ve got the best defenses right now.”

“Armor isn’t going to help—” Samira protested, before she remembered who she was speaking to and what he’d told them earlier that day already. “Right, that’s not regular armor. Sorry, Champion Aegisclaw.”

“It’s fine, dear Samira,” Arthene reassured her for Koda, patting the feline beastfolk between the ears gently. “Even his mates are still getting used to the way our Koda thinks. I swear he intentionally does things to confuse us.”

“I know he does,” Calandra grumbled as their group shuffled their organization a bit and followed Koda.

As soon as the armor had wrapped around him, Koda felt his sense of smell increase in strength. The smell of rotting meat was there, but not as cloying as it had been before. He could simply set it aside, as there was a far stronger scent billowing from the cave. Even without the trail of the trolls to follow, Koda was sure that he’d have been able to find this cave now.

The scent reminded him vaguely of that wild, primal scent that clung to Thera and Arthene. But unlike the purely animalistic scent of his patron and his mate, this one crackled like a late afternoon storm one second, then crunched through his nose like frost-clad grass breaking underfoot.

Is this what I think it is? Thera promised me the ability to sense the sites of power with this armor. I had forgotten until now, Koda thought as he closed in rapidly with the cliffside.

Now that he was closer, Koda could make out the fact that hundreds, maybe even thousands, of deep scratches marred the cliff. A small mountain of gravel had been crushed into the soft soil of the lake shore between the edge of the water and the cliff. The narrow slit that had been pointed out to him was far deeper than it had first appeared, yawning eight feet across and nearly ten tall now that his angle had changed, vanishing into the darkness.

“We are going to need light. I’ve got a lantern in here,” he heard Netta mutter behind him and there was a bit of a scrambling noise, but he didn’t slow his steady tread. The power that billowed out of the cave drew him like a moth to a flame.

Despite the many claw-tracks in the granite cliff, Koda could see hundreds of small smears of lichen clinging to the rock surface, along with ancient stains showing just how long this cliff had faced the sky. As he neared the cave mouth, Koda spotted a scattering of cracked and weathered bones amongst the gravel, but from their age he knew they had to have belonged to the prey of the stonecrackers.

“Koda, hold up!” Hans called to him, but he didn’t pause. There was something waiting in that cave for him, calling to him, and Koda stepped into the dim shadow that guarded the entrance.

The pressure shifted abruptly, from that of an oncoming storm to the silent regard of a looming mountain pressing down from above him, pinning Koda into place at the entrance to the cave.

Behind him, Koda heard the rustle of his companions’ movements and the click of flint and steel as Netta worked to light her lantern. His focus, however, was on this power he felt welling from the cave in front of him, and the intense gaze he felt emanating from the heart of the cave.

Deep within his soul, in the place where Koda felt the chains that tied him to the legacy of his forebears and the power that he’d tapped into in the past to defeat the Crooked warleaders, Koda felt something shift and rise to meet that weighty gaze laying upon him.

Determination and defiance wrapped about him like a warm cloak, banishing the weight of the invisible gaze on him. Buoyed by that rising tide of inner strength came a wash of confidence that he knew was from Thera, as it joined the other emotions as the power rose past the pocket in his soul that held his connection to her.

Behind him, Koda heard a faint grunt of surprise from Arthene when the trio of emotions washed past her own connection to Koda.

“Be at ease,” Koda said aloud. “We do not come as scavengers to steal.”

“What is he—” Samira said, but cut off suddenly as the weight of power shifted to her.

“No, you will talk with me.” Koda sharply demanded, and the sensation bounced back to him, the intense regard turning sharp.

“Shh,” Sienna hushed Samira. “The spirits are here, just like we thought. Right, Arthene?”

“Yes,” grunted the bear spirit from directly behind Koda. “Be silent and let him work. The trolls did more than just devour them, and their grudge must be laid to rest or else something darker will fester. I am suddenly very glad we came this way.”

“But—” Samira protested, then cut herself off again when Koda took a step forward out of the light and into the darkness of the cave.

The scent of many animals was thick here, cut through by the stink of the trolls, spilled blood, and fading rot. Having paused by the door, Koda’s eyes had adjusted to the shadows and he could see the faint outlines of the cave well enough for now.

Bones lay strewn about the floor, along with rags of flesh and hide that had been bodily torn apart. Hunks of meat, organs, and other bits of festering flesh lay strewn amongst the gnawed-on bones, showing the disregard of the trolls in their feasting on the dead.

Several larger skeletons were jumbled about here, but what drew Koda’s eyes was a small mound of tiny skulls that were piled in one corner amongst shattered bone fragments. The way the skulls sat, carefully organized, told him more than he wanted to know.

Unbidden, his mind played back how and why such a pile would occur. That more flesh clung to the skulls told him they’d been set there with intent and not part of the trolls’ feeding. That, and the tiny bones arranged around them in crushed fragments.

“They tortured your cubs.” Koda’s statement was a growl of barely suppressed fury. “It was not enough that they killed you and devoured your desecrated bodies. They tortured your cubs for amusement as well.”

The power that roiled about the cave swelled, and Koda heard grunts of surprise from his group, even from Arthene. But as the fury of that power washed outwards, it broke around him like water pouring over a stone.

“They did what?” Sienna’s snarl broke through Koda’s focus and he felt his heart swell at the disgust in his mate’s voice.

“Trolls are monstrous like that. I wouldn’t be surprised if they kept a few alive to toy with for a while,” Calandra added in her own furious growl.

“There are many reasons Oluk’s kin have no allies and only enemies,” Arthene stated firmly. “Not even amongst the dead.”

Koda heard movement behind him and a moment later felt someone take each of his hands. He didn’t need to look to know that Sienna stood on his right; the rich scent of pine that always followed her told him that much. The scent of leather and weapon oil on his left confirmed to him that Calandra had that side of him, while he knew without a doubt that Arthene stood at his back.

“Restless fathers and mothers,” Koda said, the words echoing from within his chest as the anger of ages rolled up from his ancestors and out through his mouth. “Your children will be avenged. I wish I could have stopped what happened here, but I was not. Death may be part of the cycle of life, but what was done to your children was unjust and gives me further cause to end their killers.”

The power pressed down on Koda again, and he felt his knees buckle for just a moment before steel shot through him. He felt his mates sway as well, clearly affected by the regard.

“No! Do not direct your anger at us! If you must bear rage, then rage against those who wronged you!” Koda ordered, taking a step forward to put himself at the front of a diamond shape with his mates behind him.

The pressure of the restless spirits, empowered by the energy of the site and the anger that they carried for what had happened here, split before him and receded.

Koda heard muttering behind him from his allies, but his mates remained silent as they waited. All four of them knew something was coming, but not what form it might take, so they prepared.

A stirring in the darkness ahead of Koda drew the attention of all four of them like iron to a magnet. A shifting of movement that was there and gone. Then another came from their left.

“Koda, call them into being. Offer them service to see revenge done,” Arthene coached in a low tone as another flicker of movement appeared amongst the bones.

Even as Arthene spoke, Koda felt the chains of his ancestry ripple with power and tell him the same thing. He was bombarded with a thousand visions of other people doing the same, either binding spirits to serve them or laying them to rest. Some commanded, some beseeched, and some bargained. But by far, most of them simply offered understanding.

“Come with me and my mates to bring down these child-killers. Or pass from this world into the next. Do not let your anger bind you here, away from the open sky. Run free.”

Koda’s benediction echoed like a struck drum, reverberating about the cave. Unlike a normal echo that would fade as time passed, this echo grew in strength with each rebound until it turned from words into a defiant and proud roar.

From amongst the scattered bones, seven ghostly forms, composed of brown and gray light, surged from the earth. Their forms were transparent and glowed faintly with power, shedding a shroud of light around them as they bounded towards Koda with mouths open wide in an echo of that earth-shattering roar.

The largest, a male leopard of size more akin to that of a draft horse than a hunting cat, bounded straight for Koda with its paws held wide. But Koda knew its intent. He felt the echo of that roar deep within his soul, a sound he’d made himself on more than one occasion.

Spreading his arms wide, Koda accepted the charge without a hint of fear in his bearing.

The ghost slammed into Koda’s chest, its paws catching him in the center as the spirit dove into his armor. A moment later, Koda felt a surge of power rush through his armor before the claws at the end of his gauntlets surged in length, doubling in size. Meanwhile, a pauldron formed from a massive cat’s skull flashed into place over his right shoulder as the spirit settled into him and empowered his armor.

Even as this all happened, he still sensed what else was going on. The group of six females split, with three going to each side. Two each mirrored the actions of the male, diving into Sienna and Calandra. The remaining one on each side circled around their group and vanished out of sight.

Koda thought for sure they were moving to Arthene until he heard a gasp of surprise from behind their group. Whirling even as his armor adjusted, Koda blinked in surprise when he saw Samira standing just behind Arthene, anchoring the back of their little formation, just as the last two ghosts vanished into the caracal woman.

Samira’s mouth hung open in a gasp, which is why Koda could see as her incisors sharpened and lengthened and a ripple of ghostly fur passed over her body before everything settled in once more.

The caracal woman stared at Koda in surprise, blinking several times. Her mouth opened to ask a question right before her eyes rolled up in her head and she collapsed in a heap, unconscious.