Prophet of the Badlands (The Awakened Book 1)

A Division of
Whampa, LLC
P.O. Box 2160
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© 2015
Matthew S. Cox
http://www.matthewcoxbooks.com

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ISBN 978-1-62007-746-7 (ebook)
ISBN 978-1-62007-747-4 (paperback)
ISBN 978-1-62007-748-1 (hardcover)

1. Start Reading
   
2. A Taste of
   Virtual Immortality
   , by
   Matthew Cox
   
3. About the Author
   
4. More Books from
   Curiosity Quills Press
   
5. Full Table of Contents
   

ure and cool, a breeze filtered through a curtain of lustrous ivy, casting a fluctuating camouflage of sunlight and shadow on the face of a young girl. Althea crouched amid the dancing lights, motionless against a crumbling wall of mismatched stone and rusting metal parts. The raven calls of bickering old men fluttered away into the sky from the other side. The tribal elders could not agree on which direction to send the Seekers. She smiled to herself. That they still talked about it meant they had not yet discovered her missing from the Cha’dom.

Her hands clutched the dirt as she stalked, low to the ground, toward the end of the hanging greenery, quieter than the faint hiss of wind through the vines. At the edge of the wall, she crouched and waited for the path ahead to clear of villagers.

When opportunity came, she burst through the strands of green, carried on sinewy legs hardened by many hours spent running. Tattered leather strips that served as a skirt trailed behind as she careened down a curving walkway, under the front end of an ancient car sticking out from the second story of the spearmaker’s home. One wheel, long devoid of rubber, intoned the song of rust to the wind as it spun in the moving air. At the end of the row of scrap metal dwellings, the collage of dead vehicles, the village wall, offered a gap through which only a child could fit.

She hooked her hands and toes here and there, a spider monkey climbing through the lattice of metal bars, struts, and old machines. Her breaths came rapid with fear and anticipation as she worked her way through the vertical maze toward a beam of daylight far above. At the midway point, she slid through the long absent door of an old crushed car, scooting across the crumbling upholstery to emerge through the shattered rear window. Althea stood and crept to the edge of the trunk, cringing as the metal beast creaked. A short jump sent her lithe figure slipping higher into the tangle, legs flailing for purchase as she grabbed a bit of rebar; maroon footprints in dust the only trace of her passage over the car.

Minutes later, she propped herself against metal tubes and leaned her face through a round opening. After a glance outside to be certain it was clear, she grabbed an overhead bar and pulled herself up until she could slide her legs through. She sat on the edge of the hole for an instant before sliding down corrugated plates into the thick growth at the base.

The plants, laden with the dew of morning, tickled her with cold, wet fingers as she crawled toward the sound of the boys preparing for their foray into the Lost Place. Her toes dug into the cool dirt as she stretched forward, peeking through a veil of tousled flaxen hair around the wall. A dozen Seekers, skin the color of sienna, gathered in a circle of powerful bodies under the shade of the Spirit-Tree. Their raven hair all cut short, save for Palik, who fancied himself a half-chamán and wore it down to his belt, loaded with baubles.

Den was among them; she watched the lean contours of his muscles shift as he helped the older seekers gather supplies. The sight of the only boy in the entire tribe who was not terrified of her made her smile, but delight faded as a sense of worry entered her mind. The past night’s sleep had left her with a foreboding feeling something bad would happen to him today.

The elders of this place had been kinder than most villages that found her. It had taken a mere two months before they trusted her promise she would not try to run away. Only two months of pleas before they no longer kept her in the cage. Den believed her; as the son of Braga, the chief, he had demanded her release. She was not permitted to leave the Cha’dom, much less allowed out of the village. The chamán expected her to assist with the rituals, even if she didn’t understand them. To earn their trust, she did. Althea feared the cage more than the bizarre wild-eyed man with a dead wolf skin upon his head and paint upon his face. She had done as he told her to do, holding the bowls and spreading the powders, even swallowing the odd plants that made her feel funny and see strange things.

Fear knotted her gut at the thought of running outside, even though she had no desire to flee. The elders would be furious, but she had to warn Den no matter the consequence. With any luck, the sleep she had given the chamán would still be upon him when she returned.

Althea picked at her frayed leather skirt while she watched the Seekers prepare, thinking to find some more material to add. She made it around the time she turned ten. Collected scraps of old belts, shoelaces, and leather armor had become a tough garment. Most tribal Scrags wore only what they made or found on their own, or what a courting seeker gifted to them. She was not content to wait for the latter. Roughly two years later, the steady process of repairing and adding to it had created a tangle of tatters down to her knees. It served its purpose well, though the dingy grey chest-cloth Den had given her would not last as long. Althea squirmed, still unaccustomed to the feeling of wearing something like that. Wrapped about beneath her arms, it left her shoulders and stomach bare and seemed utterly without purpose.

She kept the itchy before-time scrap only because
he
had given it to her.

The boys marched off in a line, following a rocky trail down out of the hills. Althea looked between the wall and the hunting party with a desperate grimace. If they caught her, the elders would think it an escape attempt and put her back in the cage. If she did not go, Den would have no warning of danger, and she feared he would die.

It was not much of a choice.

As soon as they were out of sight, she closed her eyes for the span of a breath and dashed from her hiding place. The clearing between the wall and the forest blurred as she sprinted, tall weeds smacked her shins, fingers clawed through the tall grass. At the woods’ edge, she leapt into the first bits of underbrush and clamped onto the nearest tree. Her dirt-smeared figure blended against the coarse, wet bark scratching at her skin. She stood on her toes, frozen for almost a minute, listening for any trace of danger.

Althea knew motion attracted eyes.

No shouts arose from behind, no one came running, and the hunting party did not react. Her keen ears found only the soft hiss of the wind in the branches. She let out a gasp of relief, pulled her hair out of her face, and followed the rustles and snaps drifting into the forest.

She stepped around rocks and roots, brushing vines aside, walking as fast as she could without creating noise. The hunters had trained senses, but she was far quieter than the boars they preyed upon. Moving from tree to tree in a series of sprints, crawls, and leaps, she soon got within sight of them.

A birdcall echoed as one of them made a signal, gathering the spread-out group close. The boys collected around something on the ground. The eldest, Nalu, crouched and stuck a large knife into the dirt, picking at his beard while the scent of something dead teased at her nose. Trying to get a look at what they found, she circled through the dense brush. She drew closer, crawling into a thick patch of fern for cover. Sitting back on her heels, she craned her neck to get a better view. The cause of their delay, a huge dead boar, had been torn open from neck to groin. Her eyes widened at the sight as she tried to imagine what could have done such a thing.

Jake, the youngest of the group, backed away from the mangled beast. Scrawny and small, he was about the same age as Althea and clad in a pair of boar-hide shorts he had made after his first hunting trip. Pants had let him feel as though he left his boyhood behind and had become a man; he had spent several days showing them off to everyone. Unlike her, he had taken the time to smudge the dirt on his cheeks into something resembling war paint.