A Creature of War, Book 7, CH01

/Author’s Notes
This chapter in LRK’s life is unfinished. This chapter is also the last of what I wrote for his life and I have no idea if I’ll return to it. At this point, all I have left if a vague sense of where the story should go. And I don’t know if I could recapture it.
There is an epilogue, which I will post, because it is independent of what is taking place in the chapters.
There are more stories in the World of Tiranis.
/End notes.
 
Yes, I thought of the next story to tell. No, it doesn’t immediately follow what Kal did, in fact, enough time passed that I think I need to establish the setting.
In time, the Celeste and its Keepers become nothing more than memory. Those who knew Kal grew old and died. Those who heard first hand account of what happened, grew old and died.
During that time, no lynx does any act that draws attention to him. Kal and his war remain, because stories always remain. But it, and he, are changed. Become more legend than fact. A war between entities, instead of between soldiers.
This chapter starts within a wood those who lived around it called dead. And whose sole inhabitant, they called mad.
* * * * *
The villagers called the lynx mad. After all, who but a madman would live in a place reputed to kill anything that enters it. Some claimed he was a creature, a spirit, all the dead the woods had claimed, coming out to remind them of the danger of entering it. Some even said he was one god, cast down by the others for daring to be king to the living. Some said he was just one of them, cast out. Others, that he’d always been in the forest, far before they built this village.
What they all agreed on was that when he walked out of the woods, no one approached him, If he offered you something, you accepted it, regardless of what it was, because the spirit of the wood could take away far more than he gave if he was angered.
One day, so far back, they couldn’t say exactly when, one of the town’s drunk shoved him when the spirit walked out, made him fall, spilling the tanned skins he always brought to exchange for needles, threads and other things the woods couldn’t seem to provide.
The spirit rose, gathered his possession, and the drunk crumbled to dust. That year the crops failed, many of the animals in the pens died for no reason. That year was hard, they said, so hard that no one ever angered the spirit again.
* * * * *
The truth was that he’d moved into the forest over forty years ago. His travels had taken him across the land, trying to get away from people, but they were everywhere, or so it felt to him. He couldn’t walk two days without encountering a village or town. Every week there was a city in his way and all the people in them, the noise, the demands. The crimes, the violence.
When he came to this village, he hadn’t intended on staying, this was just one more place to walk through, get some supplies and get away from. But he heard stories of how the woods killed any who entered and curiosity got the better of him.
That’s what he told himself. He wasn’t doing this because these people needed his help, needed protection. He was done with that. All he wanted was to be alone.
And assuage his curiosity. Lynxes were cats after all.
He didn’t find some creature attacking people, but he did find bodies. Animals and the occasional people, who were either brave, or stupid. All the bodies were old, decomposed. None had been eaten by animals, which told him this wasn’t the result of some person or beast.
He found what caused it when the winds shifted and a different odor came on it. Immediately he felt sick. He threw up and had trouble getting to his feet. Fortunately, his command over the air required only thought, not concentration, and he was breathing clean air again.
There was a poison in the air. He didn’t know what it was, but he suspected it was something from before. Many countries had experimented with ways of killing their enemies. Chemicals had been popular, even if officially they’ll all agreed they were just too horrible, as if there had ever been something about warfare that wasn’t horrible. When something was too powerful to be destroyed, it was buried.
Now that he knew about it, he could feel the difference in the air where the poison floated and he followed that back to its source.
The lake bubbled slowly, each one releasing the poison to the air. Feeling down, he felt the minuscule cracks in the earth, the stone, and further down the cavern. It was vast, and while he couldn’t feel the containers that had to be there. He suspected there was enough to turn this entire area into a cemetery if its content were ever released at once.
He closed the cracks in the rock, and sent the poison already released high in the clouds above them, where he could feel the air thin out. He dispersed it, so thin that if it even made its way down, at worst it might make someone’s stomach turn.
The forest wouldn’t be immediately safe. The poison had permeated the vegetation, and the soil, but the quantities were small enough that as it was released in the air it too wouldn’t hurt anyone. He expected someone could live here and so long as they didn’t eat any of the plants, they would be fine.
He realized that with the reputation this forest had, someone could live in it and never be bothered. So, instead of walking the half-day to the village, he walked deeper into the forest, found a clearing and set to making himself a home.
He survived by hunting, walking the days needed until there were animals, and by growing his own food. He cleansed the soil in the clearing and planted seed he bought in one of the town on the other side of the forest.
As the years passed, the animals returned, so he didn’t have to go so far to hunt. The plants breathed the poison out, so he could eat the fruits that grew naturally in the bushes and trees.
In the first years, he took care of himself. Used the tanned leather to make clothing to replace what got worn down. But over time, as the need to go to the towns for supplies grew less and less, he stopped caring about his appearance. Even the one pair of pant he maintained for those times he did need to go to them grew less and less clean, and he didn’t care.
His rough appearance helped him remain alone. As it grew worse, as his fur matted and knotted, fur covered in soil and blood and other things, he stopped being a person to the people living around the forest, and became a thing. One of the legends that kept them out of it.
Finally, LRK was utterly alone.
* * * * *
He could tell things would change that day. He could feel the person approaching in the distance. Braving the stories the villagers had to have told him. The monsters that resided in the woods. How even now, anyone who entered was never seen again. Of course, now it wasn’t that they died, just that he made sure they found their way to one of the other towns, with no way of knowing how to get back where they came from.
Even those strangers, who stumbled out of the woods disoriented, with stories of whisperings and strange beings, help ensure his isolation. He’d been surprised at the kind of hallucinogenic compounds could be carried on the air if the concentration was right. Maybe he’d do the same with this new traveler, seeking the secrets of the Dead Woods.
Except this traveler seemed adept at avoiding his traps of gases, or maybe he was simply lucky. He thought as he kept track of his movement. Over the years, a few had made it deep enough to come across his home. He hadn’t killed them. He wouldn’t kill. Not anymore. He had killed too much already, before and after. No, those he scared to the point they wished they’d died, and then made sure they exited the forest away from anyone so they had time to convince themselves there had been nothing there, just their imagination.
When this traveler stepped into his clearing, he was preparing leather to be tanned. Over a low fire he was smoking the meat of the animal he’d killed the day before, when he’d thought the traveler was finally turning away.
“Are you him?” the stranger asked.
He didn’t turn, or stop his work. If he was still there by the time he was done, then he’d scare him.
The silence stretched. The man didn’t move from where he stood.
“Leech is dead,” he said.
The news made LRK’s knees grow weak, and he used the workbench to keep himself up. Another one of his brothers and sisters gone. How few of them were there any more? Was he the only one? Was Vee still alive? Was he truly alone? Wasn’t that what he’d wanted?
Then why the tears?
“How?” His voice was a croak. How long had it been since he’d uttered even one word?
He didn’t want to know; it wouldn’t be pleasant. It took a lot to kill one of them, especially Leech, who could draw on others’ life to heal himself.
“He was starved to death.”
Starved?
He finally turned and looked at the intruder. A lion, young, so young. Or maybe it was more that he was old. So old. Too old. No one should live as long as he had. His clothing had the wear on them of someone who had traveled far.
“How?” he repeated.
“He was imprisoned. Isolated in the deepest parts of the dungeon. Forbidden visitors. Even the guards weren’t allowed anywhere near him. It was a year before I was allowed in. By then there was only a corpse left of my grandfather.”
LRK closed his eyes. How horrible must it have been for Leech to be so alone? To have felt himself die and not be able to do anything to stay alive. To have no one to draw on.
“Why?”
“He spoke against the king.”
Spoke? What could he have said that warranted such treatment?
“He said he needed to be stopped,” the young lion said. “That he shouldn’t treat the people he ruled like slaves. That if we banded together, we could stop him. Show him that he had to treat us fairly. They came in the night. He fought back. Grandfather was a warrior, but we’re not. They threatened to kill us if he didn’t come quietly. It was a year before I saw him again.”
He’d saved his family. He’d kept them alive, at the cost of his own life. LRK wished he had been able to do the same. The pain wasn’t as cutting after all those years, but he couldn’t seem to get rid of it.
“He left me a message, carved in the stone of his cell. ‘Find someone of my family. Tell them Leech is dead.’ We knew of his other family. The warriors of his youth. Of before the world changed. Not all of us believed him. I didn’t. But my sister did. She said I had to be the one to go looking for you, for one of them. I had to be the one to carry the message.” There was anger in the voice.
“Thank you.”
“You think I came here because you needed to know he’d died? You think I care about that? We’re dying! He’s forcing us to farm the land until we drop dead. To cut the stones so he can make his castle bigger. He needs to be stopped!”
“No.” He turned his back on the lion and got back to work.
“No? You’re going to leave us to die? Aren’t you a warrior? Don’t you protect those that can’t protect themselves? Wasn’t that what your family did? Fought battles others couldn’t? Stood in the ways of monsters who would oppress the weak? What happened to that warrior my grandfather praised?”
“That isn’t me anymore.” He downed the water to soothe his raw throat.
The lion snorted. “I can see that. I thought I’d find some proud warrior, not whatever you are.”
LRK spun. “You think I’m here without reason? You think I stay away from them because I want to?” he raised his hands. “Do you have any idea how many people these have killed? For no better reasons than I lost one person? Anytime I’m among them, people die!” he motioned at the clearing. “This is the only way I can keep them safe from me!” His throat hurt, but the wooden cup was empty. He turned his back on the lion again to avoid seeing the anger in those blue eyes. He knew the pain the anger hid, but he didn’t want to deal with that. Let the lion go on a rampage; it wasn’t his fight. He would never fight again.
He felt the lion approach, but LRK didn’t tense. He would react after he’d been struck, not before. He would defend himself but not attack.
The lion dropped something on the workbench. “There was more to the message my grandfather left me. He said that when I came for your help, I was to give you that.”
LRK looked at the small metal tags with three letters and a number engraved on them, ELH-32. He turned it over, ‘Specialist Team 1’.
LRK closed his eyes and curse the lion. Curse his brother for carrying the reminder of who he had been all these centuries. Of not losing it, as LRK had done at some point. Of reminding him of who he had been, why he had been made. Of calling in a debt of honor that hadn’t needed to be said.
‘We are brothers and sisters. We stand at each other’s side, at each other’s back. When one of us falls, we will carry on his or her mission. We are a family.’
He put the tags down.
“How did you find me?”
“My sister said I’d find who my grandfather meant in the woods mourning the dead. I’ve been traveling for over two years, going to any place where trees had anything to do with the dead.”
“She’s precognitive?” LRK turned and leaned against the workbench.
“She lives in the past and future more than in the present,” the lion answered.
“That’s… different.” LRK tried to remember if he’d ever heard of someone like that; seeing both past and present. Suff had been precognitive, and there had been someone who could see the past in one of the other teams. Both abilities had resurfaced in people since then, but always in different people.
“It makes it difficult for her to help around the farm, fortunately we’re a big family.”
“Do you all have powers?” LRK asked. This was the first time he had a multi-generational group descending from one of them. He didn’t know if he had descendants. He’d purposely stayed away from his daughter’s children. He didn’t want to risk getting attached to someone who would simply die one day.
The lion looked away. “They do.”
“But you don’t?”
He shook his head. “The first one without powers. Grandfather didn’t care, but he was about the only one. It’s why father let me look for you instead of forcing me to stay and work on the farm.”
“Wasn’t he worried you’d get hurt, or die?”
“Father doesn’t care if his one useless son dies. Not when he has three more who can help, along with many grandchildren. Mother and Grandfather were the only ones who didn’t think I was useless. Grandfather taught me to fight.”
Unless the roads had been made safe, that was how he’d survived this long. “I want to make something clear. I’ll help free your city, but I’m not fighting this war for you. You’ll have to get the people there to want to be free. If they aren’t interested, there’s no point in even trying.”
“They’re scared. It’s been like this for years. Even we barely have enough once the collectors have taken the king’s part of our harvest. The other farmers are barely surviving. I don’t know that they’ll have the strength to fight.”
“They’ll have to find it, because I’m not fighting this alone. And I am not leading them.” He was done leading people to their death.
“Do you expect me to lead?”
LRK shrugged. “You, someone else, I don’t care. But it won’t be me.”
The lion nodded. “Alright. I don’t know how someone leads, but If that’s what it’ll take, I’ll do it.”
“Good.” LRK pushed himself away from the bench. “Let’s get going then.”
“Are you planning on traveling like this?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re naked, and you look like a madman. When was the last time you washed?”
LRK looked down at himself. “I don’t know. Haven’t cared what people think in decades. Can’t say that I do right now.”
“If I’m going to be in charge,” the lion said, “I’m not traveling with someone who looks like he’s lived alone in the middle of the woods for twenty years.”
“More like forty,” LRK replied.
“I still want you to have a bath. The town I came from has an inn. I’m sure they can accommodate us.”
LRK shook his head. “There’s a lake not far from here. I’ll do it there.” He started walking without waiting for the lion, who ran to catch up with him.
At the lake LRK walked in, forming an air bubble over his muzzle and pulled more air from the water to replenish it as he had the water work into his matted fur, used it break the tangles, to carry the dead fur away from him.
He took his time, wondering how long the lion would wait. If he’d leave or jump in to come save him from drowning.
When his fur moved freely in the water he had it carry him back to the shore until his feet touched the ground and he walked out of the water.
The lion was still there, looking relieved.
“You didn’t come in to save me?” LRK asked as he walked by him.
“I figured you knew what you were doing. Is breathing underwater your power?”
LRK shook his head.
At his cabin he put on the pants he had. The leather was stiff and ripped in places, but they covered him. The vest was in better condition. He looked at the scabbard in the corner, and decided against bringing it. He’d help, not lead the charge. He didn’t need a sword to offer support.
He packed the meat that had dried and left the rest for the animals. He probably wouldn’t be back. After this, he’d find somewhere else to isolate himself. A place where this lion couldn’t talk about. Stories would spread, they always did.
LRK led the lion out of the forest by a different path, so those who saw him enter wouldn’t know the lion had left. He also hoped he could have them exit without being seen, but a day from the forest’s border, he knew it wouldn’t happen unless they traveled at night. Not only had the towns he could feel grown since the last time, the land they farmed had expanded until one town’s fields reached the next one over.
LRK stopped an hour from the forest’s end. “We’ll wait here for the night. That way no one will see us leave.”
The lion looked at him in disbelief. “We can’t travel at night.”
“I’ll guide you, I have no problem with the dark. Once we’re on the road, we can camp and continue in the daytime.”
“No, we can’t. How far from the town are we?”
“It’s an hour to the forest’s edge, then maybe twice that to the town proper.”
The lion looked up, then at the shadows he cast in the little sun that made it through the canopy. “We have the time. We can take a room at the inn. I have the coins.”
“It doesn’t matter. The point of leaving a different way than you came in is so no one know will know we left. Being seen by the people in the field defeats the purpose.”
“We can’t travel at night,” the lion stated.
LRK sighed, “and why is that?”
“Night is the time of the spirits. Any work done in that time only serves them.”
“Says who?”
“Ragar the Holy,” The lion answered in a tone that screamed LRK should already know that.
LRK had trouble finding the words. “Religion? Some religious idiot said that and you just believe him?”
“Her.”
“Whatever. There are no spirits, there are no monsters. The only evil out there is what people do.”
“Of course there are spirits.” The lion replied, offended. “What else turn wine sour, spoils milk and meats. Those things happen in the night, when no one watches.”
The lynx groaned. “This is why I don’t want to have anything to do with you people. You turn every natural process into one mystical thing after the other. Fine. We’ll keep going and deal with the talk.” He strode forward without waiting for the lion.
* * * * *
Work in the field stopped the instant the first worker noticed them. By the time they reached the field itself, a handful of workers pointed, talking among themselves.
“What are they pointing at?” the lion asked.
“Spirits, ghosts, monsters.”
The lion looked around. “It’s day. There are none of those things about in the sunlight.”
“As far as they’re concerned, there’s two of them about right now.”
One of the worker ran off.
“And the whole town’s going to know about us now.”
“Why would they think—”
“You do know the name of the woods, right?”
“The Dead Woods.”
“Right. Odds are they have plenty of stories people going in, and hardly none of them coming out. If they have one story, it’s going to be about the evil spirit that lives in it, who comes out every few years to take from them.”
“You?”
“Not that they’ll recognize me, and I traded, I didn’t steal, but anything bad happening was my fault.”
“Why would they think that?”
LRK didn’t respond.
“Did you give them a reason?”
The lynx sighed. “I was angry when I got here. I overreacted to small slights. Hurt people, destroyed stuff. Then stories get exaggerated and instead, I’d killed people, caused a blight. The kind of things attributed to those spirits of yours.”
The workers didn’t follow them, for which LRK was thankful. He expected enough problems once they reached the town as it was. A crowd wasn’t going to help.
The town had a wooden palisade with an opening, guarded by six men. More than LRK expected normally guarded it. Four with spears held in both hands, the other two held worn swords. These might be the town’s entire militia.
“Who are you?” the taller and bulkier of the group asked, stepping forward. His bulk was more fat than muscle.
“I am Aemid of Loresdale, Son if Farlon, son of Geason, son of—”
“You might want to stop there,” LRK said.
The man’s knuckle were turning white as he dripped the sword tighter.
“Are you a noble?” the man’s voice shook, but he was eying the lion’s attire dubiously.
“No,” Aemid answered, and the man relaxed.
“What do you want? Did you come from the forest?”
“We—” the lion started.
“No,” LRK cut him off. “We followed its edge until we saw the town.”
The lion gave LRK a surprised look, and the man looked from one to the other. The lynx sighed silently. The man wasn’t as dumb as he’d hoped.
“Loren says you walked out of the forest.”
“I guess he missed us approaching. We just need a place to rest for the night and we’ll be on our way in the morning.”
“Back to the forest?”
“Of course not.”
“We are returning to Loresdale,” Aemid said.
“What brought you to us?” the man asked.
“Wanderlust,” the lynx answered as the lion opened his mouth, “but we’ve been traveling long enough, it’s time to head back.”
“So you’ll be on the road in the morning?”
“As soon as the sun’s up,” the lynx replied.
“Follow the street until you see the sign with the broken tankard, Jeoleen has a few rooms she keeps for traveling tinkers and merchants. Don’t have any of them right now, so she might let you have them. You cause any problem and you’ll answer to me.”
“Got it,” LRK said and waited for the man to move out of his way. When he didn’t LRK asked. “Is there anything else?”
“Don’t cause problems.”
“Got that already. I’m waiting for you to move to avoid causing one of those problems you don’t want me to cause.”
The man glared, them stepped out of the way.
The lynx entered the town.
“You lied to them,” The lion said in hushed dismay.
“Easier than having to explain I’m the guy all their horror stories about the wood are based on.”
“You could simply have told them you live in the woods.”
“And have to explain how it is I’m still alive. You think spirits spoil wine, they think nothing can live in those woods. I’m not going to waste time explaining how you’re all wrong.” He pointed to the sign. “There we are, and with an hour of sunlight to go. You must be happy,” LRK said with derision.
“I am.” The lion entered and LRK followed him.
The inn was somber, the only window casting a shaft of light over the bar. A few lamps tried to compensate in the rest of the room, but only succeeded in highlighting how dark it was.
The few people LRK made out in the gloom watched the two of them back intently. At the bar Aemid looked to LRK.
“You’re the one with the coins,” the lynx answered. “You go ahead.”
“My lady,” the lion said, which earned him a raised eyebrow from her, and snickering from the audience. “I’m told you have rooms we can use.”
“Show me your coins, and we’ll see what I have.”
Aemid took a pouch out of a pocket and pulled half a dozen coins, which he handed to her. She studied them. “You really from the forest?”
“No,” LRK said, which earned him a glare from the lion.
“The night?”
“Yes,” Aemid answered.
“One or two rooms?”
“I can take the floor,” the lynx said.
“One room then,” the lion said.
“You’re going to want breakfast?”
“Yes.”
“That’s going to be in the dark,” LRK said.
“I can eat in the dark,” the lion replied.
“The food is going to be prepared before the sun’s up.”
“Really?”
“Is that a problem?” she asked.
Aemid seemed at a loss for what to say.
“It’s a religious thing for him,” LRK said.
“Maybe you can prepare it now and set it aside?”
“There’s no breakfast now. I have stew right now.”
“I can have stew in the morning.”
“And be sick by the time we’re on the road, I’m guessing you have ways of keeping food cold where you're from.”
“Of course. The city has three ice mongers.”
“Figured. I’m guessing you don’t have anyone here who makes ice,” LRK asked for the lion’s benefit. He would have felt the cold spots if they did.
“No, the only person we have with powers is Garston, the blacksmith.”
“What will you have that’s prepared after the sun is up?” the lion asked.
“Start lunch after cleaning up after everyone’s left for the fields.”
“We can stay until after lunch.” Aemid looked at the lynx as if asking his opinion.
“It’s your schedule, I’d stayed home if I’d had any choice.”
“Then we’ll leave after lunch.”
She handed back all coins except a silver one, then she unlocked one of the rooms for them.