A Creature of War, Book 7, CH02

People. LRK had forgotten how many people were out there. Not just in towns and cities, but on the roads going to them. His sense of water extended twenty-five kilometers around him, which was only a fraction of the forest he’d lived in, so he’d left his sense extended. Knowing where the animals were was useful, as was getting warning someone was wandering into his territory.

But out here?

People thought 5 kilometer was on the other side of the world, but for LRK it was all crowding his senses. That first day walking the road gave him a headache. They only crossed three caravan in the whole day, but LRK sensed them for hours before and after crossing their path. He was so out of practice limiting how far he sensed that reining his senses in gave him almost as much of a headache as letting people crowd them.

Stopping for the night didn’t help. There were six towns in range and one city at the edge, but the strength of the intrusion didn’t diminish with the distance, only the definition, so there was the mass of people pressing on his mind and anytime his control slipped while he slept he woke up to the suffocating sense everyone wanted something from him.

Control did return, and quickly, all things considered, but for that week, he was an ill-tempered lynx. And his companion wisely avoided engaging in conversation.

For all the peace, not sensing other afforded him, it meant that two weeks later, when the man dressed in green and red dropped from a tree overhanging over the road, LRK didn’t see it coming.

“Good day, travelers,” the fox said jovially. He had a rapier at his hip, and a knife at his calf.

“Good day,” the lion replied, putting a hand on the pommel of his sword.

With a sigh, LRK extended his sense and found the seven others waiting in the trees. He so didn’t want to do this.

“You seem to be lost,” the fox said, not even glancing at the lion’s hand. “Mayhaps you could use a guide through this tangled path?”

“We’re not lost,” the lion replied, his tone neutral. “This is the road to Kaltran.”

“So it is.” The fox smiled. “But it seems no one informed you that this is Varalan’s forest. I’m Varalan, and all who cross my forest must pay for the right to do so.”

“This isn’t—”

“Can we not do this?” LRK asked, cutting off the lion.

“Do what, my good sir?”

LRK indicated the woods on the side of the road. “You and your seven friends are planning on robbing us. I’m really not in the mood.”

The fox narrowed his eyes at LRK, then scanned the treeline. “Bormyk, I told you to stay out of sight.” The tone was annoyed.

The response was slow in coming. “I am out of sight,” a deep voice said. “I can’t see you, so they can’t see me.”

“Well, you might as well all come out, they know you’re there,”

The leaves rustled and seven people stepped out, all dressed in green and red. Four Anthro, three humans, three women, four men. They were armed with swords and knives, and the large human had a shield on his back.

“As you can see,” the fox said, “there’s really no point in making this any harder on yourselves than it has to be. Hand me the sword, your coin pouch, let me go through your packs and I promise I’ll leave you enough food so you can make it to the city.”

LRK sighed.

“Is this boring you?” the fox asked, surprised.

“Look, go back into your forest, pick on the next group. It’s going to be a lot easier on you that way.”

The fox studied him, and LRK returned the look, unwavering. The lion was surprisingly calm, LRK thought.

“Bormyk, it seems this lynx will be a problem, why don’t you make sure he isn’t?”

“Oh, it’ll be my pleasure.”

LRK turned to face the speaker. The large man with the shield approached. He punched his other hand, smiling viciously.

“Why doesn’t anyone ever listen when I ask not to fight?” LRK grumbled, stepping away from the lion. “Don’t make me do this, Varalan.”

“I’m afraid it’s now out of my hands. You brought this onto yourself by not obeying me.”

“Fine.”

The brute was close to 2 meters, and muscular, by the looks of him, he might give Vee a challenge. He’d probably never encountered anyone he couldn’t pound into the ground. Certainly not someone like LRK, who was almost half a meter shorter and lean.

The brute swung lazily. He didn’t care what LRK might try. As far as he was concerned, no one could defeat him. LRK caught the massive fist and defected it. He punched the man’s elbow, dislocating it. A punch at the shoulder shattered it, a kick at the knee broke that, and for good measure, as the man fell forward, LRK slammed his knee under the man’s chin, sending him flying back and on the ground, unconscious.

The only sounds were the wind rustling the leaves and the man’s groaning. They were all staring at him. Even the lion seemed to have trouble believing what he’d witnessed.

“Now,” LRK said, “was that enough of a demonstration to convince you to leave us alone?”

The fox got over his surprise and drew his rapier.

“Of course, it didn’t.”

The lion intercepted the fox’s attack with his sword, and LRK left them to their fight. A woman and man, both squirrels, ran at him, knives in each hand. A human ran to assist the fox while the three others remained behind. Two with swords in hand, while the other, a human woman, assembled a device.

LRK cursed. A wizard.

He had the woman squirrel on her back with a throw, and broke the man’s arm, before shoving him back. He turned in time to block her stab and punched her hard enough her feet left the ground. Before she fell, he had a hand on her back and added to the force of the impact.

The man was up, sword in hand. He was angry and rushed LRK mindlessly. He caught the wrist on the downswing, twisted until it broke and punched him hard enough in the face the muzzle broke and he stayed still once he was on his back.

The wizard was done assembling her device, something she held in two hands with the glowing opening pointing at him. He grabbed a knife and threw it at the device, caught it on the side and the beam of intense light missed him, but he felt the heat from it.

A laser. She’d built a laser. He hated those things, their heat was beyond his control, and judging by the line it cut through the trees, there might not be anything he could throw between it and him that would stop it. He considered using his power on her, desiccating her, burning her from the inside, suffocating her, but those were what he killed with.

He ran at her, and a rhino interposed herself, swords in both hands. LRK didn’t know if she was brave, or stupid. He’d taken down three of her compatriots by himself.

Then, she moved.

She wasn’t as fast as some he’d known; Silver could move so fast as to be imperceptible. But she was fast enough to negate his own enhanced speed.

He blocked and struck where he could, but she moved with the blows without disrupting her attack. Even when he shifted the ground under her, she was back up almost faster than he registered.

The one advantage was that their fight kept the wizard from using her laser on him. She wasn’t so crazy as to sacrifice the rhino for his death.

He could keep this going until she exhausted herself. One common traits of those born with enhanced speed was that, unlike him, who had been created with it, it burned through their energy quickly. It varied from person to person, but he’d yet to meet one who could last longer than he.

The problem was that the lion was now fighting the last two bandits. He’d taken down the fox while LRK had been busy. LRK could outlast the rhino, but could the lion last until then?

Time for calculated risks.

As she regained her footing from his latest attempt to make her stumble, he leaped at her. She got a sword up, and LRK twisted so it impaled him in the side rather than anywhere immediately fatal, and fell on her. His weight and her already precarious position meant that this time she fell down, and before she could push him off her, he pummeled her face.

It was a bloody mess by the time she stopped moving, and LRK got off her, ignoring the pain of the sword pulling out and keeping the blood from flowing out the wound, and kept moving. The heat of the laser seared his back. Her curses were louder each time she missed him.

After her last blast, he made a ramp of earth to anchor his foot against and compressed air under it. Before she could fire again, he launched himself. They collided, crashed on the ground, and she was already unmoving.

He stood and had the earth swallow her device, crushing it. He turned to help the lion, but he was pulling his sword out of the last of his attacker.

The lion turned and looked around.

“Are they still alive?”

“I’m done killing,” LRK replied.

“You’re hurt.”

“I’m fine. You’re the one who’s been cut all over the place. You need to see to them.” LRK searched the rhino. She had some dried meat in a pouch, which he took, and a foul-smelling brew in her water skin. He left her that. He took the few coins she had, but left her the ring on her finger.

“You’re stealing from her?” the lion asked.

“They were going to rob us, probably kill us, too. I don’t see the problem with helping myself to things they probably stole from others.” On the male squirrel he found more dried meat, a few more coins, and a gold locket with an etching inside. A squirrel with two children at his side. He put that back in the pouch. “Where did you learn sword fighting?”

“Grandfather taught me.”

“He taught you well.” LRK went through all their possessions, punching the brute back into unconsciousness when he got to him. “Is Leech your actual grandfather?”

“No, he is many times removed from me, but he had a son at the same time I was born.”

LRK stopped. “They knew he didn’t age?”

“Grandfather never hid who he was. Few outside my family believed him, but he would recount stories of before the world turned dark. When science and technology ruled the world. When everything was plentifully for everyone.” LRK couldn’t imagine just telling others his past, but then again, Leech probably hadn’t become the monster LRK had.

“Wizard,” the lion said hatefully. LRK looked up from the fox’s body. The lion pulled his sword out. “Her, you should have killed. Foul beings like them shouldn’t walk in the light.” He raised his sword, stopped and looked at LRK.

The lynx shrugged. “It’s your conscience. If you can live with it, go right ahead.”

The sound of blade in flesh came as LRK pulled a heavier coin pouch off the fox.

“We should go,” the lion said. “The light will be gone in a few hours.”

“You haven’t seen to your cuts,” LRK said.

“I’ll see to them once we make camp. I don’t want to be near anyone who’d ally with a wizard once night falls.”

LRK could tell the cuts weren’t bleeding any more. Leech’s grandson might not have any overt powers, but he suspected he’d inherited the increased healing that was standard with any soldier the military made.

*

The city became visible in the distance, a tall stone wall with a few spires over it. Not long after that came the staffs lining the road.

“I wouldn’t touch those is I were you,” the lion said as LRK studied them. Straight pieces of wood with things attached to it. Insane things of metal, stone, crystals and other things he didn’t outright recognized. “Those are wizards’ things.”

That made sense, but not what they were doing on each side of the road. “So, why are they on display? Some sort of memorial? Honoring heroes?”

No response came. The lynx turned, and the lion was staring at him. “Who in their right mind would honor a wizard? Those things are of the night.”

“You said that with that wizard working with the bandits.” LRK stepped away from the staffs. “What does it mean?”

“How can you not know?”

“I’ve had my fill of religions with the Celeste.”

“That’s old,” the lion said, “it fell to—”

“I know the stories,” the lynx snapped. “I was there. Saw what religion does to people.”

The lion waved to the staves. “That isn’t religion. Wizards are evil. They destroy everything they touch, corrupt men, women and children. Even those willing to walk at night will kill wizards on sight.” He eyed LRK. “How can you not know that?”

“Been away from people for a long time. There was no indication things were turning to that the last time I walked the world. Didn’t Leech tell you of the wizards who fought at our side?”

“No. Grandfather never mentioned wizards in his stories, but even then, those were different times. Times of light. Maybe wizards could be good then; but now they are consumed by the night.”

“Well, people’s ability to justify their beliefs hasn’t gone down, that’s for sure,” LRK grumbled.

“It’s not belief, everyone knows that—”

“Spare me. I really don’t care.”

The lion studied him. “Would you really work with one of those?”

“Not by choice, but then again, I wouldn’t be with you if I had any choice in it, either.” He headed for the city. “Tell me that’s our destination so I can be done with this.”

“That’s Kaltran, not my home. It’s months away still.”

“Of course it is. Nothing can ever be quick anymore.”

*

Loud.

LRK had forgotten how loud cities were. All those people clamoring at one another, raising their voices ever louder to be heard over the cacophony. It took them two days to get travel supplies for their journey. Two hellish days where more than once he resorted to wind burst to push people away and gain breathing room.

By the time they left on the third morning, the city guard kept an eye on him at a distance. None of them had approached after any of the incidents, but he’d noticed the discrete escort over the last day.

Then it was the quiet of the road again, where LRK could hear himself think. Somehow, under a day he found the silence oppressive and ask for stories of Leech’s life.

Leech had wandered for a long time, the lion said, helping those he could, until he decided they needed to solve their own problems instead of depending on him. He isolated himself for another long time, but eventually needed to be among other people again.

He sought out some of his comrades, reconnected, then went his own way, but as one of the common folk, instead of the soldier. He learned trades, taught them, traveling from city to city. Was almost killed by one of his old comrades, the lion didn’t know which one, and in time settled in the village of Keene Valley. Starting a family and watching the place grow into a town, then into the city of Loresdale, and in time become the capital of the kingdom of Rumford.

Through his time there, Leech never hid who he was, even in the years of the Celeste, fighting any who would threaten his family. Because of him, Loresdale became a place of refuge, and even centuries after the Celeste’s fall, the population was disproportionately Anthros, although the king, Rumford the eighteenth, was human.

LRK envied Leech’s ability to stand up to the atrocities committed by the Celeste and not become the monster LRK had. He wondered for a second why he hadn’t heard of Loresdale during his war, but quickly concluded that even if someone had told him about it, he’d have dismissed the name. He had no interest in refuges back then. He wanted soldiers, he craved the war and the destruction that came with it.

It was more than a month before they reached to border to Rumford, where a bored guard ask why they were entering and waved them through, barely listening to the lion’s answer.

That month meant a dozen city, enough that by the time they reach Loresdale, LRK no longer dreaded the crowd of people. It meant over a dozen encounter with bandits, only two who which didn’t turn violent, after LRK demonstrated he had powers.

Once crossing the border, the traveling was easier. Inns were set up close enough to one another that they could spend each night in a bed, not that LRK cared, but the lion was in a better mood for the rest of the trip.

The way to the wall was all fields, with people working them, people LRK noted looked thin. Human and Anthros alike looked malnourished. They didn’t enter the city, instead taking a path between two fields and going around it until they came to a small settlement of houses with young lions playing and old ones watching them, weaving and sewing.

One of the children had been looking in their direction, almost searching for them, LRK thought. And pointed, yelling and then running in their direction. He jumped in the lion’s arm.

“You came back! Exactly when Jamine said you would.”

The lion caught him, “really? And when did she say that?”

“When you left. The others forgot, but I didn’t. Three years hence, she said, Aemid will return with a companion. Three days before the collector, eight days before he will have to make the sacrifice. I don’t know what that means, but I knew you’d be back today.”

“Where’s Jamine?”

“Who knows?”

“I’m Kubert,” the boy told LRK. “Who are you?”

“Didn’t Jamine say?”

The young lion scrunched his face. “She said that Aemid, would return with the thunder, the old protector and the young defender. So which one are you?”

“Old. Definitely old, but I’m no protector.”

“You look young.”

“Looks can be deceiving. If those three are my only choices, I’m going to be the thunder, that one I know I call to.” To demonstrate, he made thunder rumble in the clouds.

“Wow. I can make flowers grow. Mother says that when I’m older, I’ll be able to help with the field like Uncle Hyearlin.”

“It’s why my family prospers,” the lion said. “Every generation someone is born with a connection to the earth. It’s made us enemies at times, when they aren’t strong enough to help our neighbors, but usually they understand.”

They reached the houses, and the elders stopped their work.

“So you came back,” one of the older women said, sounding more disappointed than happy.

“Jamine said I would.”

“One can still hope she’ll be wrong this once.”

“I told you not many in my family cares for the powerless son,” the lion said.

“They’ve never seen you fight, then.”

“So you’re the hero,” the same lioness said.

“No,” LRK replied.

“Jamine said Aemid would return with one who would save us.”

“You wanted her to be wrong about something. You should be happy now.”

“I don’t like you.”

“I couldn’t care less.”

She glared at him.

“Where’s Jamine?” the lion asked, putting the boy down.

The old lioness waved toward the fields. “She’s off that way, mumbled something about paying her respect before it was too late. That girl never makes a lick of sense.”

“She sees the future, right?” LRK asked. “Any reason you haven’t asked her how to get that king of yours to see reason?”

“Clearly you haven’t dealt with a seer before, they—”

“I have. Had a friend who saw the future. Anytime she was part of our unit we used her information to make things easier on us. I don’t see why you aren’t doing that here.”

“Because talking to that girl is impossible.”

“I told you she lives in the past and future, right?” the lion said. “It makes hard to get her to answer questions.”

“No one reads minds?”

“He tried it, once.” The lioness said. “Took him a week to stop babbling about the end of the world. He never spoke of what he saw and never got within ten paces of her again.”

“You’ll get a chance to try,” the lion said. “She’ll be home before night.” He motioned to a house, “I’ll show you where you can stay while you’re here.”

The oldest of the boy couldn’t be more than five, which meant anyone older was in the field. The youngest kept their distances, but the rest crowded them, asking about his travels, which the lion answered without details.

The house was a sturdy wooden structure, and LRK could see that powers were used in the construction in the way the planks bent to accommodate their functions and the way the beams looked grown in place rather than cut and fitted.

“Gran Aloka grew the house, a long time ago. She did most of them, except for Mirchel and Groum. I don’t think she ever expected our family to grow like it did.”

The ground floor was a large room, with a space to prepare food, with a fireplace, a place to eat, with a table that could fit twenty people, and one to relax, with its own fireplace and a mix of chairs and cushions on the floor. It felt more like something from before, than the houses he’d lived in since then.

“Grandfather told her how to grow it,” the lion said, going up the stairs. He grinned. “The advantage of powers as widespread as ours is that we can work outside the norm. She also sold her services to others. A few of the buildings she made, back when Loresdale was just a town, are still standing.”

The third door he opened was an empty room. “Going to find out who moved in when they come back, I guess. Our houses aren’t restricted to one family, although they officially belong to one. This is my family’s home. But when another gets overcrowded, we’ll take them in.”

The room was spacious, comfortable. “If you need it, I’ll be happy to take the hayloft in the stables.”

“If it was needed, there would be someone’s stuff in it already. Get comfortable, I’m going to go see what’s available and help get food ready for dinner.”

LRK looked around the room once he was alone, a mix of envy and anger in him. This family was large, not entirely loving, but he had the sense that in the end, they’d stand at each other’s side.

He took the tags out of his bag and sat on the bed. “How did you do it? You bastard,” he asked them. “What made you able to nurture them when I had to bury my son?”

“He’ll bury many sons,” a lioness commented, passing by the open door. LRK looked up only to get hints of gold fur and a gray dress.

“Then how did he not go mad with grief,” he asked the emptiness before closing the door.

*

The voices pulled him out of the room. Happy, tired, many of them. LRK found he was nervous. These were Leech’s descendants, his family. For the first time, he questioned the wisdom of going along with the lion. Not only wasn’t he anyone’s savior, but he’d be marring Leech’s memory when he failed them.

He eyed the closed shutters. It would be easy to leave before anyone noticed. They’d be stopped by the night soon enough. Motion out the corner of his eye made him turn. No one, but the door was now open, the voices louder, the smells of cooked food stronger.

They drew him out. It was only a question of time before the lion came to get him, anyway.

The rooms looked so much smaller, crowded as they were. Lions everywhere. Manes, long and short, almost black and nearly blond. And the lionesses, as many of them as the males, talking and laughing, mixing in. He froze halfway down the stairs.

“Thunder!” the boy yelled before running up the stairs. He grabbed his arm and pulled him along. “Everyone. This is Thunder; he returned with Aemid. He can make thunder.”

The rooms quieted a little as heads turned, then picked up as they went back to their talk and laughter. He followed along as the boy introduced him to the others near his age, then the adults. LRK couldn’t keep track of all the names, and with a few exceptions, the adults were amused at the procedure.

There was a banging on the table, and everyone rushed it. LRK pulled along by the boy found himself seated between a young girl and an older man. The table was loaded with food; meats, breads, vegetables, sweets.

Except for a young woman in a gray dress who was loading a wooden plate with meat, everyone waited. No one paid her any mind as she started eating.

“The day has been long and rich,” a deep voice said. The man at one end of the table. “It brought work and the return of my son, along with a guest. The harvest goes well, and we’ll be done in time. In these last hours of light, remember those who went before us to light our way.” He paused and all but the woman eating bent their heads. “May your night be well lit and short,” the man said.

With those words, the feeding frenzy began. Before LRK could react, he had a plate full of meats and vegetables before him, with a large chunk of bread.

“You’re the elementalist, aren’t you?” the older man asked. “Grandfather spoke of all his brothers and sisters. If I remember correctly, the lynx was who controlled the elements.”

“I am. Did he say what I was called?”

The lion shook his head. “He said that you had,” and he worked at the word, “designations,” he said the English word, “and those weren’t really names. More a thing a master calls his horse by, when he sees it as no more than a beast of burden, and not where we came from. Well, lions for us, obviously, but you understand what I mean.”

“Did Grandfather tell you how he and we came to be?”

“Wizards from before the world changed—” he stopped as silence fell. “What?” He asked the table. “That’s what they were, no matter what Grandfather called them. Humans with machines that could make beings from nothing but their desires to make them.”

“You know better to say that word,” the lion at the head of the table said.

“Oh get off it Erin, it’s just a word. They’re not going to fall on us just because I say wizard.”

The lion glared. “Stop. I will not have you tempt the night this way. You want to call on them, do so in your own room once the sun’s set.”

“I’m not calling them, I’m explaining—” LRK’s neighbor sighed. “Just forget it.” He continued to LRK. “But yes, I know you were made from those machines, so that’s where we come, but even the scientists,” he pointedly looked at the head of the table as he pronounced the English word, “needed to start from something, even if it was just the idea of the animal we look like, so regardless of if their blood was involved, they are where we came from.”

LRK shrugged. That worked as well as anything else he’d heard over the centuries.

He looked at the head of the table. “I want to make something clear, before this goes too far. I’m not—”

The lion raised his hand. “Clearly, my son hasn’t told you how we do things. This is not the time to engage in discussions of dire things. This is the time to eat, to enjoy each other’s company before the night separates us. There will be time before the sun sets to speak of why my son brought you here.”

“Alright,” LRK said. He was the guest. He’d do things their way. He set about devouring the food before him.