The Feral Path: Homeward II Read online

  Homeward:

  THE FERAL PATH

  BARB HENDEE

  Tales from the world of the

  Noble Dead Saga

  Barb and J.C. Hendee / NobleDead.org

  First Edition, June 2012

  www.NobleDead.org

  Copyright © 2012 by Barb and J.C. Hendee.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  Design, layout, and cover art by J.C. Hendee.

  ISBN-10: 0-9855616-2-9

  ISBN-13: 978-0-9855616-2-8

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior contractual or written permission of the copyright owner of this work.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to persons, living or deceased, businesses establishments, events, or locales is entirely incidental.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Colophon

  The Feral Path

  Other Works

  The Noble Dead Saga

  Tales from the world of the Noble Dead Saga

  The Vampire Memories Series

  The Feral Path

  Rashed drove the wagon down a dark road lined with even darker trees. The undead could only travel at night, and along this journey, he’d consulted his maps carefully, making certain he would roll into a small town or village well before dawn, ensuring that shelter was available before sunrise.

  He had three others in the wagon with him, Teesha, Parko, and Ratboy—companions he needed to protect. Teesha sat on the bench beside him, while Parko and Ratboy rode atop four canvas-covered coffins, stacked two by two, in the back.

  Allowing his night vision to expand, even through the darkness, Rashed could see smoke from chimneys rising above the trees ahead. After pulling up the team of horses, he climbed down from the wagon and strapped on his sword. They still had hours to dawn, so it was too early to wake up an innkeeper, but this was the only village for leagues, and he thought it best to stop now.

  Though he always kept his expression impassive, the magnitude of what he’d recently done and currently attempted weighed heavily upon him. Not long ago, he’d beheaded his own maker, his master, Lord Corische, and fled from his home of Gäestev Keep in Stravina.

  His instincts had screamed against this act, but in the end, he’d known it was necessary to free himself and the three traveling with him.

  Teesha remained up on the wagon’s bench, half turning on her wooden seat.

  “Rashed, how far is it to the sea?” she asked. “I’m so tired. Will we find our own home soon?”

  He looked back at her.

  Few would call her strikingly beautiful, but she possessed a brightness in her doll-like face that caused men who met her to think of marriage one breath later. Rashed knew her exterior was a sweet garment covering the truth, their shared truth. Still, her appearance was as pleasing to him as it was to anyone—perhaps more so—as was her company.

  Moonlight reflected off her wavy chocolate-brown hair, and she wore a simple red dress covered by a black shawl. This journey to the sea had been her idea, but her dream had become his dream.

  He climbed back up onto the wagon and sat beside her.

  “We have a long way to travel yet,” he said, “but we have the maps I took from the keep. Before we sleep in the morning, I’ll show you where we are and where the sea is.”

  At the last of those words, a raging howl rose from the wagon’s bed, jerking him around.

  Parko—his brother—crouched there on the top of a coffin.

  His emaciated white face looked as if it were carved from bone. Strands of filthy black hair hung down his back beneath a tied kerchief that had once been green. His body was thin, and his movements were quick like a predator. Darting to the wagon’s rear, he sprung off, catching himself on the ground and using both hands to propel himself around. White flesh appeared stretched over his thin face.

  “Home! Sea!” he shouted, angrily, as if the words stuck in his throat, and his black eyes turned toward Teesha. “You! No home… Hunt!”

  Rashed’s own face must have betrayed the pain he felt, because Parko fixed on him briefly before turning away to run into the trees.

  “Do you think he’s troubled?” a sarcastic voice asked. “He seemed troubled to me.”

  Rashed turned his eyes on the final member of their undead quartet, Ratboy.

  He appeared to be about seventeen years old, though small for his age. Everything but his skin appeared brown, and even that had a slight tan cast from possibly years of old filth. Plain brown hair stuck to his narrow, pinched head above plain brown eyes. He played the part of a street urchin so well the persona had become part of him. Perhaps that was one of Ratboy’s strengths; no one ever remembered him as an individual, just as another grubby, homeless adolescent.

  In appearance, Rashed was a sharp contrast… tall, muscular, and pale, with light blue, nearly clear eyes and short-cropped black hair. He tended to dress in boots, dark breeches, and quilted tunics. Everyone noticed him, but he too could use that to his advantage.

  Unable to bring himself to go after Parko, Rashed asked Ratboy, “Will you go after him? Make sure he doesn’t do anything to endanger the rest of us?”

  Ratboy blinked, perhaps surprised at a request instead of an order. Without answering, he jumped off the wagon’s back and jogged off into the woods.

  “Are you certain that’s wise?” Teesha asked gently.

  “Is what wise?”

  “Sending Ratboy. Lately, he seems… torn between paths. I fear he’s succumbing to Parko’s influence.”

  Rashed didn’t respond. He didn’t need to.

  In their living days, Parko had been a gentle creature who needed the protection of his older brother. However, after being turned, after becoming undead, Parko was different: savage, often incoherent, and more and more difficult to control.

  Once they’d left Gäestev Keep, Rashed’s thin hold on his brother grew even weaker.

  A few nights before, Parko had broken away and slaughtered an innkeeper and his wife in their bed in a village where Rashed had planned to stop. As a result, Rashed had known strangers would not be welcome there. They’d all ended up in an abandoned shrine along the road to hide from daylight when they fell dormant. Anyone could have walked in on them while they were helpless and unaware. The thought of Teesha having slept in such unsafe conditions still filled Rashed with dread.

  Parko was becoming a danger to them all, though Rashed wasn’t sure what to do about this.

  The air beside him shimmered, and a translucent form took shape—Edwan, the ghost.

  Edwan rarely appeared in Rashed’s presence, preferring to show himself to only Teesha, but since they’d left the keep, Teesha was never alone.

  In life, Edwan had been Teesha’s husband.

  He wore green breeches and a loose white shirt, their colors vivid in the light of a candle lantern sitting on the wagon’s bench. His partially severed head rested on one shoulder, connected by a remaining strip of what had once been flesh. Long, dark-yellow hair hung down his blood-spattered shoulder and arm with the illusion of heaviness. His appearance was exactly the same as the moment he’d died.

  Edwan glared at Rashed with thinly veiled hostility from the strange angle of his lopsided head.

  “Teesha is right,” he said. “There’s trouble brewing… so you’d better go.”

  Rashed wondered if the ghost was a
ttempting a ruse to get him away from the wagon.

  But Teesha leaned forward anxiously. “Perhaps you should go, Rashed. I worry so… that Ratboy will give in to Parko’s darker nature.”

  Ratboy’s nature was already as dark as Parko’s—he just hid it better—but Rashed wouldn’t refuse a request from Teesha.

  Nodding to her, he dropped from the wagon’s bench and headed off on his brother’s trail.

  · · · · ·

  Rashed smelled the blood and heard macabre laughter before he saw anything.

  Stepping through the trees, and into the village, he spotted the side of a large stable. Then his gaze moved down, and his mouth fell open slightly.

  Four boys and two men lay dead on the ground, some with their throats jaggedly torn while others had died from crushed or broken necks. A smattering of shabby shacks and dwellings stretched out on the north side of the barn—all silent with their doors closed. At least some of the other villagers must be aware what was happening and were now huddled away in hiding.

  Ratboy laughed euphorically as Parko danced with the limp corpse of a fifth dead boy. Parko barely seemed to notice Rashed’s presence, but Ratboy fell silent as fear passed across his brown eyes and he looked down at the mangled bodies.

  Rashed searched for words. “What have you done?”

  Parko dropped the dead boy, hissing like an animal.

  The cold truth became clear. This creature before Rashed was no longer his brother and only a risk to the group and Teesha’s safety.

  One of the boys’ bodies twitched.

  Rashed closed the distance to Parko and swung hard with his fist. At the cracking sound, he heard Ratboy gasp from somewhere behind. Rashed had never struck Parko before. Parko crumpled and dropped but tried to rise. Rashed struck again so hard that his brother flew back and smashed through the stable’s outer railing.

  Parko lay still and silent in the straw strewn mud.

  Without letting himself think, Rashed strode over and grabbed his brother’s limp body by the leg, jerking him out onto the road. Lifting Parko, he slung the unconscious form over his shoulder and glared at Ratboy.

  “You come now.”

  · · · · ·

  “We never get to speak alone anymore,” Edwan said, sounding petulant.

  “Mmm?” Teesha responded, only half listening from where she now stood beside the wagon, looking off into the trees. “I’m sorry, but it can’t be helped on the road. Things will be different once we’ve found a home by the sea.”

  Normally, she didn’t mind Edwan’s company, but this journey was proving both exhausting and trying. She sensed a necessary crisis was about to erupt, so her attention was not on Edwan. She’d known before they’d left the keep that Parko would have no place in their future. But she’d had to be careful about planting that realization in Rashed’s mind.

  Parko had been growing steadily worse, and perhaps tonight, he would finish the job for her.

  Hearing movement from behind, she looked back to see Rashed walking openly up the road toward the wagon with Parko over one shoulder. Rashed’s expression looked like it was cut from ice. She watched him come, taking in the sight of him.

  His physical height always caused him to look downward on others. Close-cropped hair the color of blackened corn silk looked even darker around his pale features. His otherwise blue irises were nearly colorless in the moonlight. A frightened-looking Ratboy came scuttling behind him, and hope began to grow within Teesha’s chest.

  When she glanced aside, Edwan had already vanished.

  The instant Rashed reached the wagon’s back, he dropped Parko onto the ground. After climbing up into the wagon’s bed, he jerked up a corner of the canvas cover. Then he cut Parko’s coffin loose from atop one of the others and shoved it out the back. It thumped and skidded to the ground as Parko began to stir.

  Ratboy looked wildly to Teesha, his frantic expression begging for her help to once more smooth over difficulties between her companions.

  But Teesha remained silent, letting the moment take its course.

  Rashed threw a pouch of coins at his brother’s feet. “I am finished with you. You will not travel with us further. Go down the feral path if that is what you want. Perhaps the mob that village forms will hunt you instead of us.”

  He climbed across the three remaining coffins and settled on the wagon’s bench, picking up the horses’ reins.

  “Teesha, get in the wagon,” he said before looking down at Ratboy. “You have a choice. The careless abandon of this night was not your doing, but you gave in to him. You either come with us or stay with him. Choose now.”

  Parko began hissing where he sat upon the ground, and Ratboy stared up at Rashed.

  Climbing to the bench, Teesha wished she could say something to get Ratboy into the wagon. Without Parko’s influence, Ratboy could be a part of their little family, and she wanted this, but getting rid of Parko was more important. She feared saying anything that might change Rashed’s mind.

  Ratboy appeared torn as he looked from one brother to the other.

  Teesha knew he longed for the safety and comfort that Rashed could provide… but he also hungered for the wanton bloodlust of the feral path that Parko followed.

  Thankfully, he made the correct choice. After glancing once more at Parko’s hissing, writhing form, Ratboy clamored up onto the wagon’s bed, atop the coffins.

  As they pulled away, Rashed didn’t look back once. For two more nights, he didn’t speak at all.

  Teesha was sorry for this, but it couldn’t be helped.

  · · · · ·

  At first, they traveled southwest down through Stravina, but after crossing into Belaski, Rashed turned the wagon straight west. One night, the road they followed met up with the coastal one running north and south. He’d barely stopped the wagon when Teesha scrambled out like a girl.

  She ran to a sandy slope and stood gazing out over a seemingly endless ocean under the stars in a clear night sky.

  “Oh,” she said, watching the waves crash into the shore. “You did it, Rashed. You brought us to the sea.”

  He didn’t answer, but her words filled him with an emotion he couldn’t name. He’d not failed her—at least not yet.

  “Now what?” Ratboy asked, standing in the back of wagon’s bed as he looked out as well.

  Rashed consulted a map. The king’s city of Bela lay a ways to the north. From what he understood, it was huge and heavily populated and would not suit his taste or Teesha’s. They needed a settlement larger than a village, with a partially transient population for feeding purposes—possibly sailors, merchants, and other travelers. But Rashed had no desire to live among a crush of humanity either.

  There were several villages and a few towns along the coastal road marked on the map.

  “We go south,” he said.

  Teesha climbed back into the wagon, smiling. “We’re almost home… I can feel it.”

  The remainder of that night proved fruitless. They passed through two coastal villages, but neither were large enough. He could feel Teesha’s disappointment growing as they left each one behind. Near dawn, they stopped at a third village and found an inn where they could sleep out the day.

  Rashed and Ratboy had been told by their master, Lord Corische, that they must sleep with the dirt of their homeland. Unloading and reloading the coffins at village inns was out of the question, so Rashed had filled small muslin bags with dirt from each one. As often as he could, he arranged for basement or cellar sleeping quarters, as these made it easier to block out any sunlight, and then they slept in beds or on bedrolls, clinging to their bags of soil.

  He always gave innkeepers the same story. They’d been traveling all night, in hope of reaching a certain destination, but had grown too weary and decided to stop to rest. No one questioned this.

  Now, in another shabby, unfamiliar room for countless pre-dawns in a row, Teesha sank down on a bed’s edge.

  “Tonight,” he s
aid, trying to comfort her. “We’ll find our home tonight.”

  “Making promises you can’t keep?” Ratboy asked dryly. “How unlike you.” He’d not spoken much since Parko’s banishment, and when he did, it was usually to offer some cutting jibe.

  “You’d do better in trying to be helpful,” Rashed shot back at him.

  Ratboy glowered in silence and laid down on a bedroll on the floor.

  That night, they awoke just after dusk and quickly returned to the coastal road, passing two smaller villages before Rashed reined in the horses and laid the map out before Teesha.

  “The next place is an actual port town,” he said, pointing down, “called Miiska.”

  “Miiska,” she repeated.

  Rashed urged the horses onward.

  It was after midnight when they rolled into a large port town with shops, taverns, countless dwellings, an open space with the remnants of a day’s market, and at least two warehouses. They rolled along, turning between varied side streets in their search, and Teesha’s head swiveled back and forth.

  The place was large enough, would be populated enough… but was not some sprawling, crushing city.

  “This is perfect,” she said and then suddenly pointed, “Oh, look, a proper inn.”

  Rashed halted the horses before a fine two-story building with a sign over its front door that read THE VELVET ROSE. The recently re-planked porch and freshly painted white shutters gleamed in the scant moonlight.

  “Wait here,” Rashed said, after driving the wagon to one side of the street and setting the brake. “I’ll see what I can arrange.”

  Making arrangements here would be different. They might have stay at this inn for some time while deciding on a more permanent dwelling. At present, money was not an issue, for Rashed had taken every bit of coin that Lord Corische had built up, most of which was now stowed inside of saddlebags, hidden in his own coffin.

  Opening the front inn’s front door, he paused, noting the plush carpets and long red drapes hanging from the ceiling to the floor. A polished mahogany desk awaited him, sporting two glowing oil lamps. This place had the feel of a home as well as a business, and Corische had told him that he could not enter the home of a mortal without permission.