Into the Desert Wilds Read online

  I needed Feanne and I needed her love.

  Love for another can drive you to survive even the most horrific life, knowing that anything—no matter how small—done to improve their life, improves your own. I lived for her, not for myself.

  Once I had made my pledges to Feanne, I thought that the world could do nothing more to me. At worst, I thought that the undead would kill me, or her, or the children. It was morbid, but it was a fact of living in the world after the war. Dying was not unexpected, so it was hard to truly fear it. You always tried to avoid it, but if it happened, that was just the way things were.

  I swore I would stay at my mate’s side every waking moment to the day I died, clinging to her and our children through anything up to and including death. I very nearly had when we passed through the mists. Even after surviving that, I re-pledged that desire to never leave her for any reason.

  I despise lying, especially to myself.

  Estin stumbled into the dimly-lit room, clutching at his torn side, attempting to slow the loss of blood. Deep gashes from an undead creature’s broken fingers had been bleeding for more than an hour, weakening him as he ran. Now, he found himself in a room with no other visible exits, and no idea how many were still after him, though he had only seen one creature in pursuit.

  Checking his hand and finding blood still trickling from the wound, Estin gasped for breath. His heart raced painfully, made worse by the exhaustion.

  He collapsed in the corner of the room, trying to focus his mind enough to eke out one more bit of healing magic. After weeks on the run, without his notebook or rest, Estin could barely remember his own name, let alone the intricate motions of his spells.

  Slowly, Estin brought his breathing under control and forced himself to listen to the whispers of the spirits. They were faint, some of the voices speaking directly to him for the first time that he could recall. Only one was clear enough for him to make out.

  “He is close to us now. Welcome him when his breath stops.”

  Estin snapped his eyes open, his attempt to draw out the magic lost. He had always hoped to make out the words of the spirits’ voices, but now he regretted it. He could only imagine that if one could understand the voices, then they were on the verge of joining them. That did incredibly little to boost his morale.

  A nearby crash somewhere made Estin sit up, watching the door for his pursuer. Long minutes passed and his left hand felt as though it were beginning to stick to the wound below his ribs.

  Estin started to get up, but stopped as his nose picked up the faint scent of decay. He had smelled that odor too often over the last few weeks, so there was no doubt as to what was coming. Since the day he had given up on running and attacked his original pursuer, the creatures had found him twice, forcing him back on the run. Now, another was getting close.

  Pulling himself upright, Estin tried to think through his options. Finding none, he closed his eyes again. This time, the magic came more easily as he ignored the voices. Warmth flowed across his side, partially closing the wounds. It was far from healed, but it would be enough to let him try to defend himself.

  The room he was in was mostly empty, but Estin scrounged around the broken furniture. The only weapon he could find in the whole place was a single rusted metal bar. Hoisting it and testing its weight, Estin prepared himself to fight for survival once again.

  He waited, standing perfectly still with the bar held at the ready, trying not to blink as he stared at the door. Estin had dealt with the undead stalkers enough to know that the creature would attack swiftly, trying to take him by surprise, unlike the zombies, which just endlessly marched after their prey single-mindedly.

  With a sudden rush of movement, the creature leapt into the room, kicking the damaged door aside as it dove for Estin. At first, all he could see were teeth and claws.

  Swinging the bar as hard as he could, Estin caught the creature across the jaw, knocking it to the floor. It snarled and tried to lunge again, but he brought the bar down on its back with a snap. The blow would have killed any living creature, but the undead hissed and continued to try and stand.

  Again and again Estin hit it, having to keep moving to avoid the creature’s grasping claws. His arms were tired and his side was bleeding again by the time the undead finally stopped moving. Blackish tar-like blood covered not just the bar, but most of the floor, and Estin’s entire front, yet the creature continued to twitch, as though it would rise again. Just for good measure, Estin hit it one more time in the head.

  Panting and clutching at his side, Estin tossed the bar away as he surveyed the carnage. Like the last two stalkers, this one had clearly once been human, but was a twisted thing now—even before being mangled by the bar. Its skin had thinned almost to the point of transparency, taking on a dingy grey color. As if from digging, the creature’s fingers had been torn down to the bones, making the white tips of the fingers as sharp as Estin’s own claws, if not more so. Every bit of hair had fallen from the creature and sunken white eyes stared up at him, while its broken grin of shattered teeth lay frozen on that awful face.

  “Please tell me you’re the last one Arturis sent,” Estin told the body as he picked up the creature’s hand, examining the claws. He let it drop back to the floor with a thump, somewhat pleased that the creature did not move.

  Though his feet were unsteady and his muscles shook, Estin forced himself to move. He hurried from the room and down the damaged stairs of the old structure, making his way out onto the nighttime streets of Corraith.

  Estin had learned a lot about the city while hiding in it over the previous five weeks. Most important to him was that the guards were meaningless and were being paid by someone, but no one knew who. They had no authority anymore and were mostly kept on patrol to give the people the sense that the city was operating normally. If someone were seen breaking the law, they would act, but unusual situations—such as a bleeding wilding staggering through the streets—were entirely ignored. They simply had no desire to get involved.

  With the streets mostly empty, Estin was able to cross the more mist-damaged section of town swiftly, giving a nod to the one group of guards that passed him. They turned their attention elsewhere, saying nothing until he was past them, after which he heard them quietly guessing at what had happened to him. To them, this was no longer a matter of duty. It was more of a gambling game.

  Estin kept sniffing at the air as he went, keeping his nose and ears perked for any hint that the undead had more trackers after him. For the first time, he picked up no indications of pursuit. He knew that would not last long, but he did not intend to wait around for them to find out he had killed his latest stalker. When Arturis figured it out, Estin had no doubt that another group of the awful monsters would be on its way to him within minutes.

  The road between the center of Corraith and the inn where his family was staying was clear, so Estin made very good time. Within minutes, he could make out the inn, with its dimly-lit windows and always-present group of drunks on the front step. He had scouted the building every few days since he had gone on the run, but this would be the first time Estin felt confident approaching without fear of bringing death down on the residents. After so long, even if he had one of the creatures trailing him, he was confident that Feanne would be more than capable of fending it off.

  Estin slowed as he got close to the inn. Though he still believed he was not being followed, his instincts begged him to be more cautious. Whether it still mattered or not, he realized he should not leave too obvious a trail.

  Circling back around the block, Estin found a suitably abandoned building that stood very close to the wall of the inn. It took him almost no effort to pop the locked front door—closing and locking it behind him—and he made his way up to the second floor. There, he looked out at the inn’s wall, with his family’s room just off to his left.

  “This is going to hurt,” he assured himself, touching his side. The bleeding had slowed, but not come close to
stopping. Pain from those gashes made his left arm shake, but he did not see many choices other than marching in the front door and leading anyone and everyone straight to Feanne.

  Stepping up onto the windowsill, Estin balanced himself carefully, trying to gauge his own strength for the jump. It would be difficult, but as long as he could manage to use his injured left arm, he would be fine. He had jumped much farther in the past, but rarely had he been quite so injured when doing so.

  Estin waited until he was sure there was enough noise from the drunks in the alley below to cover any sounds he made, then threw himself across the gap between the buildings. His claws dug into the dry wood easily, letting him hug the wall without too much sound. The second after he landed, his left arm gave out, making him gasp in agony as he twisted to keep his grip.

  Shifting his weight to his legs, Estin tucked his arm to his side and began working his way over to the window. It was slow going without his other hand, but after several minutes and another near fall, he hopped through the open window, ready to grab up Feanne in a hug and fight off the affection of his children. It was something he had dreamed of during every brief nap he had taken for more than a month.

  Instead of his loving family, he found himself kneeling in front of two naked humans standing near the room’s bed, both staring wide-eyed at him. After a second of confused silence, the woman screamed and grabbed a blanket to cover herself, while the man continued to stare at Estin.

  “Wrong room,” Estin told the two, trying to offer a reassuring smile.

  The man reached slowly toward a sheathed knife lying on a nearby table, as though Estin might not notice him.

  “Please don’t do that,” Estin said firmly and the man froze. “You will not be able to draw it before I put you on the floor. Understood?”

  The human nodded and moved his hand away from the knife.

  “Been here long?” asked Estin in an effort to sound conversational as he stood up. He swept his gaze around the room, trying to ignore the panic in the human woman’s face.

  “Just today,” answered the man, staring intently at the knife. “Why did you just break into the room?”

  “I’m looking for my family. Can you please cover up? Seeing anything as hairless as you two makes me itch. How you keep from freezing to death is beyond me.”

  The humans did not move, but Estin began pacing the room, hoping to hurry out of there before the shock wore off. Once it did, he had no doubt that they would start yelling for someone to hang him. The man’s knife would also be a distinct threat.

  Sniffing, Estin could still clearly make out Feanne and the children in the uncleaned room. They had not been gone long. That, at least, was some good news. The downside was that Estin knew he could not track them once they left that room. The city was far too full of scents for his nose and they could have gone anywhere. Feanne would have also worked to cover their trail.

  “Thanks for your time,” he told the humans, grabbing a light cloak off the chair near the room’s central table before climbing back out the window.

  Before Estin had hit the street, he could hear the commotion within the inn. Apparently, the shock had worn off.

  Pulling his stolen cloak over his bloody clothing and the hood over his face, Estin held his tail as close to his body as he could to reduce the chance of someone recognizing him. He doubted any of the city guards would be a concern, but an angry mob could be deadly.

  Ducking off the main street, Estin headed for the only shelter he could think of to recover, at least until he was strong enough to travel out into the desert and check on the old den.

  He soon stood before the abandoned home that Arturis had sent him to search. The place had taken on a truly empty smell, reassuring Estin that no one had come back to the dwelling since Arturis, or his creatures, had searched it again. Estin hoped that meant that the Turessian had moved on to look elsewhere for his prize.

  At first, Estin walked straight toward the gate of the property, before realizing that he was asking for trouble if more stalkers were sent after him. He detoured around the back, hopping the wall where his scent would be farther from the street and then headed inside.

  The last few weeks had been hard on the abandoned building. Sand covered much of the floor, having blown in through the windows. Several books and a lamp had fallen to the floor, possibly during a mild sandstorm the week prior. To Estin, the disarray was a gift, letting him clearly see that nothing had come through the room in at least a week.

  Picking up the lamp on his way through, he slid his tail in the sand behind him to avoid leaving footprints of his own. Estin made his way to the basement door, finding that it had been left ajar by whoever had last entered. Carefully, he slipped through, closing the door behind him on his way down the stairs into the cellar.

  He continued into the main room of the basement, lighting the oil lamp as he went. Absently, he looked at the last step, where he had cleaned up the man’s blood while hiding the body. In that moment, Estin wondered idly if the man had actually been killed by one of Arturis’ stalkers, but that really did not matter much anymore.

  The room he came into at the end of the hall was absolutely destroyed, with every piece of furniture toppled and thrown about. The books that had been placed on the shelves with such attention to order now lay scattered across the dirt floor. It looked as though the sandstorm had struck this room, leaving the rest of the building relatively intact.

  Stepping over the remains of the room’s desk, Estin pulled aside the broken frame of a bookshelf that covered the secret entrance to the healing circle. As he pulled the door open, damp air washed over him, confirming that the hidden chamber had been sealed for a while.

  Estin climbed into the darker natural tunnel, attempting to pull the broken furniture along with the door as he closed it, hoping it still would look like it had not been disturbed since the place had been ransacked. Soon, the darkness and damp air closed in around him, silencing the faint noise of the city far above.

  Just inside the door, he knelt at the soft dirt where he had buried the previous resident of the home. Estin still felt awful about leaving the man buried in his own basement, but there was little else he could do.

  “I promise I won’t intrude on you any longer than I must,” he said, placing a hand reverently on the shallow grave. He offered up a brief prayer to the spirits to be kind to the man.

  Estin practically crawled to the end of the tunnel, where the passage ended in a roundish room, decorated with colorful stones and sands to mark the region as more than just a dark cave. Had Estin been untrained in healing, he would have completely ignored the place, but things being what they were, he found himself drawn to the delicate detailing applied to impress its importance on any visitor.

  Lying down on the cool dirt, Estin rested his head against the stones. His exhaustion was getting the better of him, dragging down his eyelids. Sleep came too easily, pushing aside the stress of wondering where his family had gone in his absence.

  Closing his eyes, Estin curled himself into as small of a ball as he could, wrapping his tail tightly around himself as his blanket. His mind filled with thoughts of his mate and children, envisioning himself holding Feanne again. Shivering in the cool damp air of the cave, he fell asleep thinking of them, hoping that he would wake to find them with him.

  *

  Cloak clutched tightly around his neck, Estin walked quickly through the streets, keeping his face as well-hidden as he could manage. He doubted that anyone knew or cared who he was, but his caution was just in case Arturis had agents watching for him. It was unlikely, but Estin had no desire or strength to risk anything further.

  The rest and moments of sleep during the night and into the next day had helped him immensely, giving Estin enough strength to go on. He struggled to push Feanne and the children from his mind, forcing himself to act, rather than think about what he had lost. Though he intended to head into the desert to find them, he needed to let their
memories wait a little while, lest his determination to survive waver in the face of sorrow or a feeling of loss.

  Making his way through the streets toward the hole in the city walls, Estin did his best to look as though he belonged among the other citizens, making a point to drift close to several lizard wildlings that were going the same direction. One of the lizardmen gave Estin a brief glance, but the group made no effort to distance themselves from him, allowing him to appear to others as if he were traveling with them.

  No one outside of the group of wildlings so much as looked at him, but his paranoia of being found kept him from meeting the gaze of anyone. Idly, his mind drifted to Feanne’s insistence on hiding her face while in the city, which he had thought foolish at the time.

  By noon, Estin had passed through the broken wall, then parted from the other travelers who were mostly moving northeast toward the gypsy camps, where the trade district had been relocated to. Though Estin had considered looking into the gypsies more than once to see if anyone there was related to the gypsies he had known back in the mountains, he had more important concerns. Visiting a trading camp that had been moved outside the city limits to avoid the watchful eyes of the Turessians and their subservient living allies was something he felt could wait.

  Estin hurried across the desert, slowed by the loose sand and high winds that picked up as he went. The constant drag of the wind against his cloak forced him to abandon the hood and keep one arm up to shield his eyes as he pushed on into the stony hills.

  It was nearly noon when he finally reached the area where they had been hiding during their early stay in the region. The sun had burned the top of Estin’s head and tips of his ears fiercely, but he was more concerned with finding his family than the discomfort of a sunburn through his fur.

  Hopping down into the more sheltered valley among the tall rocks where they had dug out their den, Estin knelt a moment in the shaded area, catching his breath and sniffing for anything familiar. The winds had muddled any scents, making the whole area smell of sand and little else.