The Feral Path: Homeward II

by Barb Hendee

  “Hello?” he called, his voice echoing off the walls.

  A door opened behind the desk, and a slender man stepped out of what appeared to be an office.

  “Please come in,” he said. “May I be of service?”

  By lamplight, Rashed stared at the proprietor in surprise. The man’s long, light brown hair was tied at the nape of his neck, pulled back behind two elongated ears. His tan face was nearly triangular with over-sized, slanted eyes a shade of amber-brown.

  Since arriving on this continent, Rashed had not encountered what others here called “elves.” This one was well dressed in breeches, a white shirt, and dark vest, like a prosperous human.

  “Yes,” Rashed finally answered, entering and stepping to the desk. “I have two companions, but we’d like one large room to share, and we may be staying for some time, ”

  “Of course.” The elf’s voice was smooth and polite. “My name is Loni, and I can show you several suitable rooms.”

  “We’d prefer… the lowest level possible. Do you have any cellar rooms?”

  At that, the elven proprietor hesitated for perhaps half a breath. “I have one. It’s rarely in use, but the furnishings are on par with the upper floors.”

  “Is there a rear entrance?” Rashed asked, and then regretted it, as he’d already made several unusual requests. “We have some large trunks to bring in, and I was hoping to avoid carrying them through the front and downstairs.”

  The elf didn’t blink this time. “Of course. There is a rear access to the cellar. May I help you with your luggage?”

  Rashed briefly crossed his muscular arms over his chest, to illustrate that he required no assistance. “No, thank you. I can manage.”

  Loni simply nodded as if he engaged in such conversations every night.

  Then the elf led him downstairs and showed him both the room and the back entrance.

  “Thank you,” Rashed said. “My companions and I wish to be undisturbed during the day. Can you please make a note for your staff? We will not require any meals or maid service.”

  At this, the elf’s expression flickered in a longer pause.

  Rashed held out a palm-full of coins and added, “This should suffice for at least a moon, if we stay that long.”

  It was late winter in a port town, when sea travel was more limited, and business here would probably be slow. He didn’t think the innkeeper would hesitate over a few eccentric requests in the face of certain profit.

  “Very good, sir,” Loni said, accepting the coins and handing him the room key.

  · · · · ·

  The following evening, Teesha found herself well pleased by both the town of Miiska and their current accommodations. Their large cellar room was a far cry from the shabby places they’d stayed along the way, and she was beyond relief at being able to sleep in her coffin again. Rashed had unloaded and carried the coffins in quickly through a back entrance the previous night.

  The act seemed effortless for him. He was the physically strongest man she’d ever met. That was one reason she’d chosen him to be her champion.

  Even Ratboy had softened a little when he saw the unusually plush room with its polished tables, chairs, and thick rugs, and he realized he’d be sleeping in his own coffin for the foreseeable future.

  Upon awaking tonight, Teesha had wanted to see more of the town, so Rashed was now taking her for a walk along the beach. She was barefoot, feeling the sand between her toes.

  She’d never seen the sea until the night before last, and she loved to watch the waves crash against the shore.

  “This is perfect,” she said to him again, “Just as I imagined.”

  She could tell he was pleased by her reaction, for he always wanted to make her happy.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked. “You haven’t fed for many nights.”

  “I am. Do you want to watch?”

  Sometimes, he liked to stand in the shadows and watch her feed. They all had a different method for luring prey, and hers fascinated him. But they all lived by the same rule.

  Do not kill in order to feed.

  If they drained their victims dry and left a string of bodies, they would not only depopulate an area too quickly, they would soon call attention to themselves. That was why Rashed had no choice but to banish Parko.

  They had to maintain safety and secrecy in their chosen territory. Ratboy was fully capable of following this rule—so long as he was not subjected to a feral influence like Parko.

  “Let’s go back down by the fisheries,” she said.

  Without a word, Rashed followed.

  As they walked, Teesha looked inland. A few people were still cleaning up after a long day’s work before going home for supper. Some scrubbed blood and fish guts from long wooden tables while others were putting crab cages and tools away into little sheds. A few old wooden poles the size of tree trunks, probably remnants from long decayed piers, stuck up from the sand along the way. She stepped in behind one, and Rashed slipped in behind another.

  It was only a short while before a young man left his work behind and hopped down off the waterfront to the beach, heading their direction.

  Teesha waited for him to come nearer. When he did, she slowly stepped away from the pole. He stopped, staring at her pretty face, her wild brown hair, and even down to her bare toes. All the while in the long moment, Rashed remained out of sight in the shadow of the remnants of the other pier post.

  “Are you lost?” Teesha asked the young fisherman in a soothing tone. “You must be. Where is your home?”

  Of the three companions, Teesha possessed the strongest mental ability by far.

  Rashed simply tended to create a blank space in his victims’ memories after he fed. But Teesha had learned to create dreams and manipulate more complex memories. She let her suggestion wind around and into the young fisherman’s thoughts.

  For an instant he frowned in confusion. She could see her words playing over and over in his mind. A haze crossed his eyes.

  “Lost?” he whispered. “Where… where is my home?”

  “Here,” she said in that same voice that tangled memories into waking dreams. “Your home is here.” And she traced her delicate fingertips down the side of the old, rotted pier post.

  “Look, here is your supper table,” she added barely above whisper. “Oh… and there… the glow of the hearth, already lit to warm you. Come and see.”

  Holding out her hand, she waited until he took it. With a soft grip, she urged him, never pulling with force, to follow her as she stepped back behind the old post and sank to the sand. He followed her easily, dropping beside her.

  “Here it is,” she whispered with a smile. “Here we are… home at last.”

  He was indeed young, barely a man, and he stank of fish, but that didn’t matter. His eyes were locked on her face as she ran her fingers through his hair, and then she kissed him lightly on his mouth. She was hungry, but feeding had never been difficult for her once she’d learned her own way to hunt.

  He reached out and grasped her arms to kiss her again.

  “Not yet,” she cooed, pulling his head against her shoulder and exposing the side of his throat, wasting no more time.

  Sometimes she fed from their wrists or the vein inside the joint of an elbow. Here, she punctured one side of the fisherman’s throat, holding his head to support his weight and keep him from jerking away. His body bucked once, but he quickly relaxed, lost in his waking dream yet again.

  She drank, tasting the salty blood as it passed over her tongue and down her throat, but she took no more than she needed and withdrew her fangs without tearing his flesh. Then she let him fall unconscious upon the sand.

  Rashed stepped out of the shadows with his irises now colorless and glittering.

  She smiled at him. “Hand me your dagger.”

  Taking the blade, she connected the punctures on the young fisherman’s neck with a shallow and slightly ragged cut. She then took a small purse of coins
tucked inside his shirt, so that when he awoke, while he wouldn’t recall what had happened, he’d simply think that he’d been robbed.

  Teesha rose, fully sated, and brushed the sand from her skirt. “What about you?”

  “No, I’m fine,” Rashed replied, though his eyes were still colorless in the night.

  They continued down the shore as if nothing had happened.

  Beyond a smallish warehouse along the way, they came upon a large empty area near the port’s center. It was completely cleared but for wooden planks laid out in a vast square, as if to mark where a new building would be constructed.

  Curious, Teesha urged Rashed to lift her up, and as he climbed up after her onto the waterfront, she spotted a dockworker leaving the small warehouse.

  “Pardon,” she called.

  The man stopped, but once he saw her, his gaze shifted instantly to Rashed standing a few paces behind her.

  “Yes,” the man asked cautiously.

  Teesha smiled and pointed to the large cleared area. “We are new in town and wondered what will be built here?”

  The dockworker relaxed a little, as if the question was welcome. “Ah, the land was purchased by one of Miiska’s warehousemen, Master Volos. He’s going to build the largest warehouse this town has ever seen. It should draw merchants, foresters, and farmers of the region, and cargo vessels from near and far.”

  She looked up at the small warehouse, its planking faded and in need of repair. “Does he currently own this one?”

  “Yes, him and his partner, Master Poyesk.”

  She smiled again. “It’s always good to learn of new places. Thank you.”

  Turning away, she headed in through town toward their inn with Rashed walking beside her.

  “What a fine thing that would be,” she said, “to own and operate a business of such size in a town like this.”

  Rashed said nothing, but she did note that he glanced back once, as if thinking. She knew he’d been struggling with how to provide a home for them here, establish a long-term income, and blend in with the community.

  “Such a place could be a home and haven,” she remarked.

  Again, he didn’t respond, but she knew his thoughts were working upon her words.

  · · · · ·

  Ratboy reveled in the glorious freedom of being alone as he crept through the alleys between the buildings of Miiska.

  Even back at Gäestev Keep in Stravina, when his purpose in life had been to serve his master, Lord Corische, he’d still managed to find copious amounts of time to himself. But spending weeks trapped either in a wagon or a room with Rashed and Teesha had nearly driven him to the edge. He was fond of Teesha, but Rashed’s harsh judgment and cold watchful ways were smothering to him.

  Finally, he was alone in the dark.

  Well… not alone exactly. He could feel the life bustling in this town. He could almost smell the blood pumping just below the skin of hundreds of people in the buildings all around him.

  This was no shabby village nearby to a petty warlord’s decaying keep. Rashed had found them a thriving port town.

  Again, this fact only broadened Ratboy’s dilemma between hating Rashed and needing him. Back on the road, on that night when Parko was banished, Ratboy had come so close to staying behind, to simply melting into the forest and losing himself to the ecstasy of the feral path.

  Only Parko had understood such joy—not cold, calculating Rashed

  Yet, here Ratboy was, grateful for the plush inn, for the safety of four walls, for the security of Rashed’s money, and the comfort Teesha always managed to create.

  Had he made the right choice?

  A voice in the back of his mind said, Yes. But right now, the hunger was upon him—for more than just to feed.

  It had been Lord Corische, not Rashed, who’d first instilled in Ratboy the absolute need to follow one rule: Do not kill in order to feed.

  Once that was explained, Ratboy understood its reason and had learned how to follow it.

  He was not gifted like Teesha. Rather, he had to blend in. No one noticed or remembered the sight of him with any detail. He did not hunt with finesse or by creating dreams. He fed by his mere presence for what he was, common and of little worth in notice, which intensified his innate ability to be forgotten.

  That was all, and it worked.

  But tonight, in remembering the deep, freeing satisfaction of his last hunt with Parko, Ratboy almost couldn’t face the prospect of luring a victim into an alley, feeding from a wrist, hazing out the memory of his presence, and then returning to the inn… fed but not truly sated.

  The wild abandon of ripping open a throat and gulping blood with no thought or concern pulled at him. He wanted to feel that euphoria again.

  Hearing the voices of a man and a woman, he slipped between two buildings, flattening against the side of one, and he peered out. Across the street, a slender woman in a thin dress was coming out the door of a dwelling. A man, with his shirt open, stood in the doorway and handed her a few coins.

  “Next week, then?” he asked quietly.

  “I’ll be here,” she answered, barely above a whisper, quickly taking the coins.

  She glanced both ways before hurrying up the street as the man closed the door.

  Ratboy slipped from the alley, following her. He had no illusions about what he’d just witnessed. Prostitution in a small town was not often visible. There were no brothels or desperate women hawking themselves outside tavern doors. But such a profession was found almost everywhere. It was just more discreet in some places than others.

  The woman looked to be in her late twenties with dark blond hair in need of washing.

  Ratboy moved closer behind her and then stepped into the mouth of another alley.

  “Miss,” he called.

  She whirled, perhaps still nervous that she’d been seen. At the sight of him peeking out between the buildings, her expression shifted from nervousness to caution.

  “Yes?”

  “Is there somewhere one such as myself could sleep for the night? I can’t pay, but some towns have a place for weary travelers.”

  With his posture, expression, and the tone of his voice, he projected his absolute unimportance. He was harmless, forgettable, and little more than a flea in the dark. He watched her caution start to fade.

  “For free?” She shook her head. “Not around here. Sorry.”

  “But my feet are blistered,” he said, “and I can’t go on. Will I need to sleep in this alley?”

  Looking down at his feet, she came closer. “Are they… bleeding?” she asked in brief concern.

  When she was within reach, he grabbed her arm.

  Clamping his other hand over her mouth, he jerked her in between the buildings. Usually by this point, his presence, his inner nature, increased his aura of being harmless and forgettable. His victims were like clay in his hands.

  But he didn’t want that tonight. He wanted to feel her fear. He wanted to taste it.

  She struggled against him, and as her eyes widened, he slammed her against the wall and bit into her throat. This was the way it should always be, as in his hunts with Parko. No concerns—no rules to follow—and only the salty warmth of blood and the joy of a prey’s fear flooding through him.

  He gave himself up, gulping in mouthfuls as the woman’s struggles and chokes in trying to breathe grew weaker—until both finally stopped. Dropping the body, he looked down at her dead, open eyes. The coins the man had given her were still clenched in her hand.

  Ratboy’s euphoria began to fade as anxiety crept in. What if the body was found? What if Rashed heard rumors? Suddenly, he regretted giving into the temptation of Parko.

  Looking out the alley’s mouth, he spotted a sewer grate down the street, nearer to the sea.

  Could he get the body out there and drop it without being seen? Glancing both ways, he saw the street was empty, so he grabbed the woman’s arm, dragging her in a rush for the grate. He pulled on the ir
on bars, trying to be quiet, though the grate’s frame made a grinding sound as he lifted it. But at last, he dragged the woman’s body over the edge of the opening, threading her headfirst to drop her through. After sliding the grate back into place, he scurried off into the shadows between two buildings a little farther up the street.

  Then his panic left him embarrassed. Why should he fear being discovered? He was smart enough to hide a body. Of course he couldn’t feed like this all the time—or too many disappearances would attract attention. But he could let go sometimes, often enough to not feel caged in. What was to stop him?

  Thinking back on the sensation of the woman struggling in his grip, he almost couldn’t wait to do it again.

  · · · · ·

  The following night, shortly past dusk, Rashed left the Velvet Rose. Since the previous night, he’d not stopped considering Teesha’s idea of a warehouse in a port town like this.

  Such a place could be a home and haven.

  He had enough coin to keep them for years, but it wouldn’t last forever. Were they to continue living in the cellar of an inn? And how would they spend their nights? Back when he’d served Lord Corische, they’d overseen a fiefdom together, and Rashed had nearly always been occupied.

  He needed an occupation.

  Teesha’s suggestion had set his thoughts in motion. Operating a large import/export warehouse—that could also serve as a home—in this town was the answer to everything. He’d decided. Again, her dream had become his dream, and he would make it happen for her.

  Miiska only boasted two warehouses, and the one owned by this Master Volos and his partner was the smaller of the two. Rashed made his way there and stood outside for a moment. Judging by the decaying state of the exterior, he wondered how Volos was planning to fund his grand new construction.

  The warehouse’s bay doors were opened wide. This was no home, just a place of business, and he freely stepped inside. Dust floated on the evening air around crates of wool, casks of ale, and other packaged goods stacked in open rows and along walls. The interior looked as shabby as the outside with loose boards and a crack in one window. He spotted a short, weasel-faced man writing on a torn bit of parchment. In the same instant, the man spotted him, taking in his height, bearing, sword, and quilted tunic all at once.