Lost Bloodline 2 - Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Again, Koda dreamed of running.

This time, rather than running down a mountainside, he was running beneath the open sky across a great plain. The familiar tufts of waving grass swayed all around him.

As before, he could hear the sounds of someone else running with him. But rather than the padding of paws, instead he heard the thump of another set of boots on packed earth.

To his left, a section of grass rustled back and forth to mark the passage of something, but when he turned to look, he didn’t see anything other than the stalks swaying back into place.

Koda didn’t feel intimidated by the movement, or the fact he wasn’t alone. In fact, he felt reassured at the presence of a companion close at hand. He felt absolutely no maliciousness from the presence.

That would be as strange as the sun or the sky itself being malicious. The thought floated through Koda’s mind like a wisp of cloud, allowing a smirk to form on his lips. He didn’t question the confidence he had in the presence.

Another flicker of movement, this time from the side opposite that the footsteps had come from. Koda turned in that direction to see a blot of gray forming in the distance, a far-flung thunderhead boiling across the open plains, smearing itself across the blue sky and consuming the fluffy white masses that it passed. Something about the cloud struck a chord in Koda’s heart that felt wrong.

It didn’t scare him. Instead, the presence of that rumbling thunderhead as it boiled over the plains irritated Koda. It was ruining a perfectly good day, and he felt the urge to challenge the coming storm, to drive it away from his lands.

There was enough of his logical mind present that as soon as that emotion rose up inside him, it startled Koda enough that the dream began to dissolve. The last fragment he remembered was another rustle in the bushes near him, and then the thump of boots once more, this time accompanied by the pad of paws as several presences made themselves known from the tall grass nearby. But before he could turn away from the oncoming storm to look their way, Koda twitched awake.

While he had fallen asleep draped over top of Arthene, as the night wound on, the big woman had rolled on her side so that he slid off and landed between her and Sienna. Koda’s face was now pressed into Arthene’s bare breasts, and all he could see was the expanse of pale skin glowing in the faint light of the stars. Arthene’s chest rose and fell again once as he stared at it, his brain whirring and trying to catch up with what had happened.

Against his back, Koda felt Sienna shift and burrow her face into his spine for a moment, letting out a quiet breath to tickle his back before she abruptly shifted again, then stiffened.

A moment later, what had woken Sienna finally made it to Koda’s ears: voices from the main camp, whispering urgently.

“Fire… moving… town…” Koda only caught bits of what was being said, but he recognized Hannah’s soft voice as she spoke urgently.

The rustling got louder from the camp, and Sienna gave him a squeeze.

“Koda?”

“I’m awake, Sienna,” he responded quietly, turning to look over his shoulder at Sienna. The wolf woman’s eyes were wide and worried. When he arched his eyebrows at her questioningly, she elaborated.

“Something’s wrong. I heard them talking about fires in the town.”

“We should get up.” This time it was Arthene who spoke, having woken from their conversation. The bear woman’s voice was thick and muddled, clearly still half asleep, but she was coherent enough to know they needed to move.

“Guess I’ll have to wake you up that way some other time, Sienna,” Koda sighed, trying to add some levity to the tense moment.

Koda succeeded, getting a surprised snort from Sienna before she giggled into his chest.

“I’ll hold you to that then, Koda,” Sienna said, kissing the base of his throat before turning to roll over and out of the pile of blankets.

When Sienna had gone to bed last night, she’d stripped off her shirt and pants to sleep in only her underwear without even a breast-band. Now she bent over her pack to grab fresh clothes, her tail flicking back and forth idly in a distracting fashion while Koda and Arthene stared for a moment.

The sudden increase in noise from closer to the rest of the camp shook Koda out of his distraction first and he wriggled free of Arthene’s arms to get to his feet and start searching for where the bear woman had tossed his clothes earlier in the night.

“Come on, Arthene,” Sienna cajoled as she quickly wrapped her breasts with the length of linen she used to keep them under control, before pulling her shirt on.

Arthene grumbled, still clearly half asleep but understanding enough that this was not the time to be difficult, and began working her way out of the blankets.

Koda had gotten his pants on and was tugging his boots on next when Hannah softly called to them through the shadows.

“Sienna? Aegisclaw? Wake up. We need to talk.”

“What is it, Hannah?” Sienna asked, buckling her belt closed after tucking her top into it.

With someone speaking to her, Hannah must have decided it was safe to approach. She, unfortunately, happened to emerge from the tall grass as Arthene stood, her bare ass pointed towards the smaller cat beastfolk.

Squeaking in surprise, Hannah covered her eyes with both hands and nearly ran directly into Sienna, who had stepped around the still groggy bear woman. Sienna then hooked her arm in Hannah’s and towed the other woman over to where Koda was lacing his boots as quickly as possible.

“Okay, tell us what you needed to, Hannah. Ignore the giant nudist for now,” Sienna huffed, rolling her eyes. “Honestly, you act like you’ve never seen a naked woman before. We used to bathe together in the spring with several of the other female hunters.”

“That was different,” Hannah protested. Koda smothered a snicker and finished tying his boots. “Then we were just washing. That was just…” Hannah let the sentence trail off, clearly unable to find the right words to describe it.

“What is going on, Hannah?” Sienna prodded her friend before turning to smack Arthene on the bare bottom as the other woman continued to root through the blankets for her clothes. Arthene yelped and stood upright, turning to glare at Sienna and finally noticing Hannah with them.

“Oh… sorry?” Arthene said questioningly, blinking sleepily again now that the burst of awareness from the slap to the ass had faded.

“Get dressed!” Sienna snapped at her before turning her eyes back to a blushing Hannah, who held up a hand to stifle her own scolding.

“The sentries saw something suspicious a few minutes ago. One of the braziers at that impromptu barricade turned green for a few minutes, and then the encircling fires near it started going out and smaller ones started streaming towards the barricade. They watched long enough to confirm, but when no signs of fighting broke out near the barricade and it looked like whatever was carrying the torches passed through, they sent word to wake the others.”

“That’s not good,” Koda said, his stomach dropping. There was only one reason why they’d be letting those outside through the barricade. Someone was letting the Crooked into the town.

“That’s what Todd said. I woke him on the way by to confirm before I bothered you.” Hannah’s blush was dark enough that Koda could see it even by the starlight. “What do you want to do, Champion Aegisclaw?”

Koda frowned, her words sending his mind through a spiral of thoughts right now. If the Crooked were breaking through the barricade, then that meant that the town was in the process of falling. He had two choices at the moment: race with his forces to try and turn the tide, or abandon the town as lost and fall back.

The threat remains, though. If I order the group to retreat, then we are stuck waiting for the Crooked to return and also dooming those in the city that are captured. But can fifteen people make a difference in this situation?

Movement behind Hannah and Sienna drew Koda out of his thoughts and he met Arthene’s yellow eyes over top of the other girls’ heads. She nodded to him once, her expression stern after the sleep had finally fallen away from it. In those yellow eyes was a level of confidence and trust that humbled Koda, and he felt a surge deep within his chest. A surge that demanded he live up to that trust.

Follow your instincts. Arthene’s words from the previous day came back to him. But what do my instincts say? Koda asked himself internally, turning back to where Hannah and Sienna waited for him to answer the question. Looking down at his hands, Koda closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and listened for the voice inside his heart.

He’d felt urges before, directions and guidance in how to act or react to situations. It was what guided him to protect Sienna and save both his life and the lives of others in the last few days. He’d felt such satisfaction in the role of a protector, it made him feel whole in a way that nothing else had in years.

Protector.

The word echoed in his mind, bouncing around inside his chest like a trapped bird.

Koda inhaled slowly, and the concept moved quicker around his body. Each time it made contact with the inside of his being, he felt a quiet ringing noise sound out.

Koda exhaled, and the idea rode his breath up and out of his body to swirl around them.

Protector.

He felt more than saw the swirl of energy as it settled around first Sienna and then Arthene like a cloak.

A moment later, as he panned his gaze over Hannah, it settled about her too.

Koda felt the ripple of energy trace back through Hannah’s path to find the others and gently wrap around them as well.

Protector.

Koda nodded once. He knew what was needed of him. It was his duty, passed down through antiquity by a bloodline that he may not have been aware of, but it was aware of him. And it would do what it could to help him in this.

His goddess had charged him with a duty: to protect her people.

The most expedient way to do his duty would be to end the threat as far away from her people as possible. If he could save others, then they too could join the cause. Not just to protect his people, but to protect their own.

No beast fights fiercer than when protecting its den, its young, and its very life.

“Prepare to march. We make all haste to Amberpost.”