Lost Bloodline 2 - Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Koda was glad that no one seemed to be against the idea of trying to help Amberpost. He figured that these people, as natives to the world, were more familiar with what might happen to the people of the town if they were left to the ‘tender mercies’ of the Crooked.

It took only a handful of minutes for everyone to pack their things away. As no one had bothered with tents, instead just laying out bedrolls on the soft grass of the clearing. So all it took to pack up was to quickly dress, fold up the bedrolls, and stuff the bundles into packs.

Hans passed around thick slabs of dried, salted meat and hunks of crusty bread while they marched.

“If this turns into a fight, you are going to need the energy,” he insisted when one of the others protested that they couldn’t eat because of nerves.

Arthene echoed Hans’ statement, though her words were muffled by the mouthful of food as she dug in without hesitation.

Once everyone had eaten and finished waking up, Koda urged their quick march into a loping jog. He could tell that the town of Amberpost was definitely under attack when they came around the edge of the hill that they had been using to hide their presence.

The smattering of lights around the outside of the town were fewer in number now, the campfires of the Crooked having been put out or just gone out during the attack. Smoke rose from several places inside the city now as well, and Koda swore he could hear the distant sound of shouting and screams echoing over the grassland.

Such was the confidence of the tribal warriors in him that they were halfway to the town before anyone raised a question regarding their actions. And even then, it wasn’t an argument or protest in regards to what they were doing.

“So. What is the plan, Aegisclaw?” Todd asked, increasing in speed until he was jogging right beside Koda, between him and Arthene.

“Get closer, scout out what is happening. Help anyone we can and kill as many Crooked as possible,” Koda answered, realizing for the first time since they’d set out that he wasn’t even winded in his run.

Arthene was right when she said that the others would hold us back, Koda thought, glancing over his shoulder at the rest of his forces.

Most of the hunters were breathing quickly, but evenly. Poor Hans was puffing like a steam engine as he ran, but keeping up for now. Both Sienna and Arthene looked as calm as if they were moving at a walk rather than a sprint.

“So you don’t plan on trying to single-handedly liberate the city?” Todd asked, the gruff fox beastfolk sounding amused at that.

“Not if it risks our people,” Koda answered simply. “If we can turn the tide, though? You bet your tail I’m gonna do everything I can. I’d rather the Crooked don’t make it out of the plains, and if we can do that by turning their victory here into a defeat? Then all the better.”

“Clever. Never hurts to have another owe you a favor, either. If we can save Amberpost, then the village elders will owe us, too. Can’t argue with a favor owed like that.” Todd dipped his head once, making his red fox-ears bounce with the motion. “So I take it we are going to go in quietly? I’m sure the Crooked are going to be taking as many prisoners as possible to make more of their foul kind.”

“Gonna need more information on that.” Koda darted his glance from Todd to Arthene and then back to the older man. “Thera didn’t have time to tell me much about them, other than they were a threat.”

“Crooked are twisted perversions of mortal races, but are ultimately sterile because of that twisting.” It was Arthene who answered him, her lip curling up in disgust. “They raid the other worlds through portals to capture people so they can make more of their own. The rituals they subject captives to will twist those poor, unfortunate people into more of their kind and drive them mad at the same time.”

Koda blinked. He swore that he’d heard something to this effect before, but at the moment, he wasn’t sure. Maybe something Sienna had mentioned to him during their whirlwind charge through the vale previously. But now that Arthene was mentioning it, he was starting to recollect the idea. It wasn’t just lives he was trying to save here, but minds and more.

“You are going to have to fill me in on more details later,” Koda grunted, shaking off his distraction. “We need to get off the road soon.”

Todd nodded in agreement. They’d been following the road to allow for easier passage thus far, but as they grew closer to Amberpost and the encircling Crooked camps, it was getting riskier and riskier. No one complained though, as they needed to make all the haste possible and it was much easier to see the road in the dim light provided by the canopy of stars overhead, as the moon had settled beyond the horizon while they slept.

They continued on for several more minutes before Todd directed them off to the side of the road. There they moved at a steady clip through the tall grass, ensuring that they would be relatively out of sight as they approached the first of the camps to check it over.

Much like the ones that Koda had encountered over the previous week, the camp was ramshackle at best. A mixture of tents and half-built hovels clumped around a larger central fire. Everything was asymmetrical in a way that made it more than a little disturbing. Tent poles were too long, and no seam on the tents was straight. Even the canvas had stains in patterns that repelled the eye with just how bizarre they overlaid each other.

Scraps of food, bits of broken equipment, and more than a little bit of blood lay scattered around the open space of tramped grass around the firepit. Koda pointedly ignored the shape of a rabbit that had been flayed and crucified to a piece of wood next to the pit.

Th rabbit wasn’t the only one treated that way. None of the animals showed signs of having been eaten. The animals were just cut open and then hung up like some kind of macabre signpost.

They checked the camp meticulously, but found no signs of the Crooked that had once inhabited it. The ground around the fire was pounded flat, feet had churned the long grass into the mud as they went back and forth.

Several more paths spread outwards from the camp, leading to other small collections of tents around the area.

After finding nothing, Koda gestured for the group to move closer to the town. As they did so, they checked two other camps that were in their way, but each was as empty as the first.

“Do you think they all went into town?” Netta asked, the hawk beastfolk’s voice tremulous as they worked closer to their target. Amberpost was now alight in several places, the burning buildings lighting the night up. The screams had died down as well, though there was the occasional one that would rise through the night.

“Possible. The Crooked haven’t exactly been organized in the past,” Sienna growled as she glared at the town ahead of the group. Her tail flicked angrily behind her, and Koda swore that he could hear a growl behind her words.

“Keep moving. If we see any Crooked, do not hesitate to take them down. Until we confirm whether the villagers are fighting still, then we need to be careful. I will not have us be surrounded and overwhelmed.” Koda’s words reassured the other fighters, and several backs straightened where they had been bent with worry only moments before.

They followed the road until it reached the edge of town, keeping close but not directly on top of it in order to avoid being spotted by anyone on watch. They needn’t have bothered though, as the only thing waiting at the barricade were a couple of corpses.

First, they found several bodies that appeared to have been nailed up to parts of a wooden wall that was badly burned. Koda guessed that it was a stable or warehouse of some kind, as it was one of the burned buildings that had lain outside the protective circle created around the town. Those bodies were mostly destroyed by the fire, but bits and pieces still hung from the wall while the rest lay in sad piles at the base of the wall. He tried not to think about them as his group snuck past.

The most intact corpses he found were closest to the barrier that lay over the road. Almost a dozen Crooked lay sprawled out on the dirt, the tails of crossbow bolts protruding from their chests or heads. Though the Crooked weren’t the only dead on that field. Koda found a few more as they reached the barricade.

The bodies were dressed in a mixture of leather and chainmail armor, though their throats had been cut. The two bodies lay draped over a barricade made of a wagon tipped on its side and reinforced by barrels filled with sand and rocks. Nearby, the wagon had been dragged at an angle in order to open the road up, and Koda could see the marks of scores of feet in the dirt of the street.

“Quietly, keep to side streets,” Koda reminded, though he honestly shouldn’t have bothered. Of the fighters with him, he was the least able to move quietly. Even Hans and Arthene stepped softer than him as the group worked their way through the deserted buildings on the edge of town.

Maybe a dozen feet past the barricade, the rough dirt of the road transitioned into ancient gray cobblestone that was pitted and missing cobbles in places. Koda figured the town’s longevity was due in part to the stone construction of most buildings on this edge of town, which provided reinforcement to the barricades.

Yells from up ahead, followed by a shout of pain and the garbled cackling of the Crooked, spurred his group into moving quicker. Koda didn’t need to direct them. He could feel each and every one of his fighters was eager to find their enemies and begin the battle.

Arthene led the charge around the corner, and, when she bellowed in challenge as soon as she came around it, Koda knew that a fight was in the making.

He’d summoned his totemic gauntlets as they’d approached the first camp. Both of the leather, bone, and stone gloves wrapped his arms tightly with the promise of violence, and he knew that before the sun came up, they would taste blood again.

In defense of others, Koda reminded himself.

While he had become numb to the violence of his new life already, having been able to set aside his reservations in order to carry the day and get things done, he still needed to remind himself why he was okay with becoming used to the death. To ensure he didn’t lose his way.

Koda was next around the corner, only bare steps behind Arthene, with Sienna hot on his heels. He found his mate already charging a group of a dozen Crooked who had easily twice their number of villagers on their knees in the middle of the street, apparently fastening chains around their ankles.

One of the villagers, a teenage woman by the look of it, was sprawled on the ground between two of the Crooked and bleeding from a wound in her arm. It was good that the teen was down, because Arthene’s sweeping blow took the girl’s attackers off their feet in a single pass.

Still bellowing her fury, Arthene brought her bone club around in a back-swing that launched another of the standing Crooked backwards with a stove in chest. The massive bear woman bellowed the entire time, only stopping her charge when she stood over the sprawled teen. Instead, the bear woman stood astride the injured girl, guarding her as the other Crooked shrieked in fury and charged.

They were met with Koda as he bounded past his mate, claws flashing through the night and the light of the fires reflecting off of the bits of polished stone on his gauntlets. Each strike that landed clove through flesh, clothes, armor, and bone as he led his own charge into the ranks of the enemy.

“Citizens of Amberpost, rise up!” Koda shouted as he drove a right knife-hand into the chest of one Crooked and yanked sideways, his clawed fingertips tearing free of the creature in a spray of gore and sending the monster catapulting to one side. 

The villagers watched on in numb surprise, some injured and others just confused as the tribal warriors crashed into their foes and reaped them like so much wheat. But at Koda’s words, several of them stirred and began lashing out with limbs still heavy with chains. They fouled legs, struck at elbows, and in the case of one large man with dark green skin, snatched weapons from the Crooked and struck back.

It took only a handful of seconds for the fight to end. Sienna drove into the flank on the other side of Arthene from Koda and her flashing spear corralled the Crooked together and blocked several attacks directed at the captives that were striking back.

The arrival of the rest of their group spelled the end for this clump of Crooked raiders, though. A storm of arrows combined with flashing spears and the thunk of Hans’ mattock to reap the final tally.

In the wake of the fight, Koda was quick to move from enemy to enemy, ensuring in his own way that they were dead by slashing the throat of each of the twisted creatures with his claws.

“What the blazes are you doing?” demanded one of the villagers, an older human man with only bits of black still in his graying hair. Koda noted that the man was one of the few who had remained kneeling the entire time, only rising to his feet now that the danger had passed.

“Saving your ass. Now, are you going to help us retake your town from these monsters?” Koda snapped at him, turning a glare at the old man that made him step back slightly.

“Oh, shut it, Yanus!” growled a feminine voice from behind Koda. “If you want to piss and moan about your savior’s actions, do it where I can’t hear you. Otherwise, I’m going to take your scroat, wrap it up and over your head, then punch you in the taint!”

The impressive bout of vulgarity caused everyone present to hesitate and then turn to look at the speaker, some in horror and others in amusement.

Arthene was helping up the teen that she’d been standing over.

No, not a teen, Koda realized as he got a better look at the brown-haired woman who was grimacing even now, favoring her left arm, which bled sluggishly. She is far too well built to be a teen, dwarf maybe?

“Now see here Dempsey—” blustered the older man before the dwarf woman rode right over top of him.

“No, shut it! You were the idiot who thought you could talk them down since you are part of the town council,” snarled the brunette as she waved her uninjured hand at the other man.

“Easy now,” Arthene said, setting one large hand on the much smaller woman’s shoulder. “Don’t make your injury worse. Sienna, bandages?” Arthene directed the last part of her sentence at the wolf beastfolk, who nodded and unslung her pack to rifle through it until she produced a roll of cloth, which she tossed to Arthene.

“Thank you, stranger,” the dwarven woman said, sending one last glare at the old man who was glaring right back, clearly offended at being called out by the smaller woman. Arthene kneeled to help wrap the bandage around the woman’s arm, her large hands moving quickly to get the bandage in place while talking in a low tone with the dwarf woman. Koda was now sure that she had to be a dwarf, given her full figure and the depth of her voice during the confrontation.

With the argument resolved for the time being, Koda finished tending to the Crooked and ensuring they were no longer a threat before turning back to the villagers. More than a few were watching him and the others warily. Hans was in the process of breaking locks off of people to get them free of the chains. Once they were free, the villagers clumped up to one side, though several snatched weapons from the dead and were eying Koda’s group warily.

“I need information from one of you,” Koda said, shaking the blood from his claws and glancing amongst the freed villagers. Koda noticed that Yanus was standing with the group that hadn’t bothered to take a weapon, just clumping up like a group of scared sheep.

“What do you need, stranger?” His answer came from the large, green-skinned man. His voice was deep and had a faint burr that reminded Koda of a few of the Samoan guys that used to work construction with him. The man had thick features but an amiable smile on his green face. Muscles knotted his shoulders and arms, showing that the man was a hard worker and the way he carried the bent axe that he’d taken from the Crooked had the feel of someone who was familiar with the weapon.

“What happened? How did you all get captured? How many of the Crooked are there? Is there somewhere safe nearby where you all can hole up?” Koda reeled off the questions rapidly.

“Town hall is safe,” Yanus interjected. Koda glanced his way to see a spark of hope in the older man’s eyes. “If you will escort me to the town hall, then I can guarantee that you will be handsomely rewarded for the effort.”

“And what about the rest of us?” the dwarven woman asked acidly from behind Koda. He glanced back to see her glaring at Yanus again. The light of the fires in the city was reflected in the trio of long, chocolate-brown braids that kept her hair under control, as well as in her olive-colored eyes. 

“Not my problem, Dempsey. You failed in your duty to protect me and—” Yanus started to say airily, only to flinch backwards when the dwarven woman lunged at him. Arthene caught her with an arm around the waist, keeping the smaller woman from throwing herself at the other man.

“Calandra is right,” grumbled the green-skinned man, nodding towards the dwarven woman. “You act like you alone matter, Councilman Yanus.”

“Look,” Koda cut in, holding a hand up for silence. “I don’t care who is in charge, or what position you hold here. I need information if I’m going to risk my people in trying to help save anyone else. We need somewhere safe to put those who won’t fight, and I need anyone who will fight to come with me. This is your town. Fight for it!”

“I’m in. I don’t care who you lot are, but if you give me a chance at getting even with these bent fucks, then I’m in,” snarled the dwarven woman, her lip curling in disgust as she kicked out at one of the dead Crooked nearby even as Arthene kept her from falling over as a result. “Name is Calandra Dempsey. These bastards took my gear when councilman Shit-For-Brains over there broke cover and got us all caught. But if someone saw where they tossed my axe, I'd be happy to help. Oh, and if we are gonna scrap together, just call me Cal.”