Prophet of the Badlands (The Awakened Book 1) (2 page)

He leaned on his wooden spear, looking anywhere but at the pig. She sensed fear on him the way incense exuded smoke. As his gaze swept across the trees, he gasped and pointed right at her. Althea stiffened as they all turned and stared at her one by one. Den smirked and waved her over. With a guilty face, she rose to her feet and trudged out into the open.

“You have the sight of a hunter already.” She smiled at Jake.

“Did you forget your eyes make light like the stars and your skin is pale?” Den tried not to laugh. “Why did you follow?” He jogged over and put his hands on her shoulders. “Girls should stay safe at home. The elders will think you are running away.”

Althea glanced at his hand, dark against her skin. “The Alamos tribe has more girl seekers than boys.” She folded her arms in defiance. “Their boys are lazy.”

The other six fixed her with uneasy stares. Jake took a step back with his spear all but pointed at her. Nalu stood, turning away from the dead pig, and shook his head. Like Althea, he wore a garment resembling a skirt made from leather strips, only his had a rectangular orange metal plate hanging in the center with strange marks on it. She had seen similar things attached to old cars, and thought it silly to use such a thing for armor. They did not protect the cars at all. He pulled his machete out of the ground and approached.

Den poked her in the belly. “You can’t be a Seeker. You won’t kill anything. You don’t have trouble eating the boar, but you refuse to kill one.”

She thrust her lower lip out, unable to argue his truth.

Nalu’s face grew stern. “It is not that you are a girl. You are the Prophet.” He frowned. “You promised you would not flee.”

Althea clung to Den after scooting behind him. “I am not fleeing. I came to warn you.”

Den smiled at her touch, but the others looked fearful. “Warn us of what?”

“I had a bad feeling.” She tried to touch the blue light on his back cast off by her eyes. “I dreamed you would be hurt today.”

“You should go back.” Jake’s voice quivered as he gestured at Den. “Glow-eye says you will die.”

Den puffed his chest up and hefted his metal spear. “I’m not scared.”

Althea looked down at his one large boot and one torn shoe, fruits of a previous trip into the Lost Place. “I go with you.” She looked up, past the agate arrowhead hanging around his neck, into the eyes of a man staring out from the face of a boy. “Please trust me.”

Jake shook his head. “Glow-eye will bring bad luck.”

The other hunters shifted with unease.

The wind picked up; scraggly blonde hair tickled the center of Althea’s back and strands of leather caressed her legs. Nalu looked to the whispering treetops and sniffed.

“Something comes.” He dropped into a fighting stance with his machete held high.

Den dragged Althea by her arm to a tree. “Up. Animals approach.”

He grabbed her about the waist and lifted. She took hold of a branch and stepped on his shoulder. No sooner was her weight in the tree than grey furry streaks darted through the group and circled around. The creatures stood in a line, staring the humans down with intelligence beyond what one would expect from such animals.

Five canines with bright yellow eyes and jagged, mismatched teeth protruding sideways from their snouts snarled in unison. The largest, as tall as Nalu’s chest, sniffed at the air and stared at Jake. It seemed to tell the others he was the weakest of their prey. Althea’s gaze jumped around as she sensed emotions; Nalu radiated annoyance, Den confidence, and Jake terror. The others were also frightened, but not to the same degree. As the alpha tossed his nose in Jake’s direction, the pack ran at him.

Nalu grabbed the boy by the shoulder and hauled him back, telling the others to circle around. Den remained close to the tree to protect her. Happiness at his concern faded when she felt a wave of embarrassment surround Jake and become rage. He did not want the others to think of him as a little frightened boy, even if he was only eleven.

She bounced to her feet on the branch. “Jake, no!”

Spear held high, he leapt out from behind Nalu and went for one of the creatures with a high-pitched cry.

The bonedog ducked the attack, nipping at the spear and backpedaling to lure him out. Jake followed with a bloodthirsty grin, mistaking the trap for the dog being frightened of him. Two distracted Nalu with a flash of snapping teeth and drool while the last one crept around, taking advantage of the boy’s blind focus. Jake screamed as teeth sank into his calf and the animal wrenched him to the ground on his chest with a twist. Nalu turned at the noise and sliced at the ambusher, exposing himself to the two distractors.

The dog with a mouthful of Jake’s shin leapt away from the machete strike, baring bloody teeth with an angry glare. Now it protected its meal.

“Bonedogs. They like ta rip off arms or legs and run away with ‘em.” Den looked up, amused at her lack of squeamishness.

“I know. I have seen them before.” She pointed past him, yelling. “Den! Look―”

He turned as the Alpha pounced, managing to wedge his spear handle sideways into the beast’s mouth before it got him by the throat. The weight and momentum of the animal knocked him flat on his back. The wind flew out of him as he hit the ground. With one twist of its great neck, the enormous dog thrashed the spear out of his grip and tossed it to the side. When its head swung back to lock eyes with him, she had the sense it grinned at him.

“Nalu,” Althea screamed. “Help!”

The eldest hunter wrestled with another dog in an effort to keep it off Jake. The boy had seized with fear. He did not cry, but was defenseless. The others traded superficial wounds with the rest of the pack in a roving skirmish through the trees. Nalu could not do anything for Den in time to matter.

She looked down as the alpha lunged at Den’s face. He grabbed it by its cheek fur and held on. Teeth snapped at his nose and drool sprayed in his face as its effort to overpower him pushed him along the ground. It changed tactics, twisting to bite him on the forearm. Den grunted, kicking at the dog’s underside, not that it appeared to notice.

“No!” Althea slid from the branch, landing on all fours like a wildcat.

She ran to Den’s spear, urged into a panic at the sound of bones splintering behind her. With a feeble attempt at a roar that came out as a wail, she lowered the point and ran at the giant canine. Desperation flared in her face; her body empowered by unconscious command. The spear hit it in the side, its bloodlust having distracted it from her approach. The shock of impact knocked her grip loose; her hands slid over the leather cording on the metal bar. The dog wheezed and released the arm, stumbling sideways several feet before it collapsed on its side, emitting a belabored moan.

The other four dogs abandoned their prey and converged on her, enraged at the death of the alpha. She turned to face them, standing over Den with the spear aimed forward. His left hand circled her ankle, sliding up, squeezing her calf.

“Run,” he wheezed.

Her determination to protect him emerged into the world as a telempathic emanation of fear. The perpetual azure glow grew brighter as her gaze jumped at random from one monster to the next, daring them to attack.

Stalled in their tracks, the animals hesitated for a moment before their tails swung down through their legs and they backed away with hesitant growls. Althea took a step at them, thrusting the spear and wanting them to feel frightened of her. The pack turned as one and vanished, smears of grey into the woods.

The hunting party, except for Den, gawked at her in silence. Nalu did not seem to know what to make of this, while the younger ones looked at her as though she had become a dangerous entity, not some child to be protected or a precious commodity to be guarded.

The Prophet had killed.

lthea watched the creatures dart into the shifting greens and browns of the wood, standing motionless until the sound of their passage faded to silence. She let the tip of the heavy spear sag to the ground, no longer able to bear its weight. Tossing it aside, she knelt and pulled Den’s mangled arm into her lap. Her touch made him moan, and his head rolled around in a half daze.

“You… killed it?” Den blinked at the dead alpha.

She frowned, ashamed. “I’m sorry! It was on your arm and I―”

“It’s okay… it was just a bonedog.” He let his head fall back to the ground. “You saved me.”

Althea stared at the mound of charcoal fur, on the verge of tears at the sight of its lifelessness. True, it would have killed Den, but that did not weaken her guilt at ending a life. The drip of hot blood on her leg brought her attention back to him.

With a firm grip on either side of the bite wound, she reached out with her mind, searching for a connection with his body. She sensed his heartbeat and the ebb and flow of his breaths. Upon the back of her eyelids, she made out the discrete systems within him as amorphous masses of color: white for bone-shapes, stringy red for blood-shapes, and dark blobs for the important things in the middle. Althea commanded his body to work. After detaching his mind from pain, she pulled and twisted the arm, feeling the bones scrape over each other as she worked it back to its natural shape.

Her breaths came deep and rapid as she poured her energy into him. His body’s normal healing process sped up by an order of magnitude. A pale grey form flowed whole from splintered fragments as the bones knit. Crimson strands launched threads over black chasms that pulled closed as his muscles re-grew, before at last, new skin covered the wound. Within a few minutes, a pink blotch of tenderness remained as the only hint of a formerly destroyed arm. She opened her eyes and let the link fade. The shapes receded to nothingness. Den drew in a hiss, cradling the tender spot.

Althea knew full well why everyone in the Badlands wanted to own her.

When she looked up, Nalu stood over her with Jake in his arms. The leg had shattered, but the older hunter’s quick reaction had spared the boy a missing limb. As Nalu set him down, the youngest hunter scooted away as if she would devour him.

“The Prophet will not harm you.” Nalu held the squirming lad down with one hand.

She made a sad face and radiated calm. As the trembling left him, her grimy, blood-soaked fingers touched his wounded leg and she concentrated. He tensed as his muscles undulated, rebuilding themselves. When he saw his skin seal without a mark, he gasped.

“They guard their kill.” Nalu pointed at the pig carcass. “They have fed from it, it is unsafe for us to eat. We must move.”

“The bonedogs hunt too close to us,” said Palik, glaring at Althea. “This is omen.”

Den sat up, his attempt to speak stalled by a loud gurgle from his gut. Althea giggled.

“Making hurts go away makes hungry.” She offered a weary smile, fatigue evident in her voice, and mended Nalu’s superficial wounds.

Jake got to his feet, stumbling as soon as he put weight on his leg. Nalu caught him, lowering him back to the ground. She looked from Den to Jake, and then up at Nalu.

“The hurt will be sore for a time, maybe an hour. Please let them rest.”

Nalu shook his head. “Understood… but not here. We must distance ourselves from their food before they return in greater numbers.”