Authors: P. A. Bechko
Stormrider
STORMRIDER
Fantasy by Peggy Bechko
Kindle: 978-1-58124-390-1
ePub: 978-1-58124-801-2
©2012 by Peggy Bechko
Published 2012 by The Fiction Works
Photo credits:
Photosani - via
Big Stock.com
for Wolves and Stars
Moon & Zoom Team - Tomasz Tulik
via
Big Stock.com
for the Woman Warrior
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without written permission, except for brief quotations to books and critical reviews. This story is a work of fiction. Characters and events are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
“Absolutely memorable mix of mysticism, magic, and lore . . . Vividly rendered and entrancingly told,
Stormrider
comes highly recommended . . . . Readers accustomed to the traditional quest in the fantasy genre will find that Bechko has a striking flair for originality.”
— Cindy Penn,
ParaNormal Romance Reviews
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Stillness, galvanizing in its intensity, overwhelming in its suddenness, a stillness not her own, it nonetheless surged from some inner repository, filled Tanith, pushed all else aside.
Her head jerked up. The important work of gathering plants for food and medicine was forgotten and the stillness transformed into an unmistakable, undeniable pull. Her heart took up a skipping rhythm. Ears buzzed with silence, a void soon filled.
Come
, it beckoned, rippling softly through her mind, disturbing the great stillness.
Come
.
Tanith Aesir grasped her collecting bag tighter and bolted to her feet, rising from the mottled forest shadows into brilliant sunlight. Tension snapped through her body like a whip crack as a sudden breeze surged, swaying the surrounding trees. Their movement dappled the sunlight, flickering shadows impairing her focus. The grove’s serenity evaporated in an instant.
Expert training strained to the fore. Years of it. Green eyes rapidly swept her surroundings, adjusting, that adjustment delaying her only a moment while she analyzed the throbbing quietude about her. Barest moments of time were swept away on an indrawn breath and then she began to run.
She ran not with the small, mincing steps of a maiden, but with the long, athletic strides of a female warrior, muscles flexing, blood heating. Her hair, the color of rich, well-aged Octurian brandy, streamed unbound in a silken wave behind her, caught upon the chill wind of her passage. Her stomach wanted to knot but she forbade it, calling upon iron control as she sought to hold firmly to that mind-touch which drew her.
More urgently now—the voice; the thought; rippling across her mind—
come, swiftly, come
.
Not words precisely, more like impulses of knowledge threaded through with an urgency she had never felt before, crashing over her with the power of cascading waters. She had a general direction, but no more. It drew her on with its power, its compelling urgency, this voice, this presence in her mind. She no longer feared it as she had at the very beginning when first contact had been initiated; instead she feared
for
it. This was not a normal contact. This was something very different with something very much more deadly underlying the summons. And there were plenty of things here in Nashira which were deadly.
The mind-touch held and Tanith increased her speed. Her chest burned inside and her extremities felt the chill of blood loss as it was diverted to her laboring heart and lungs. Hide gathering bag clenched in one fist, half-blunted digging knife in the other, she answered the anxious call—without words, but answered nonetheless.
I’m coming, coming—let me feel you—where
?
She ran, direction determined by those impulses throbbing through her soul.
Her feet clad in leathers, soft wraps nearly to her knees, hardened sole pounding softly, nearly soundlessly, against pliant soil, she swept on. With the wind at her back, she ran. Blood pumped heatedly through veins and sweat misted her forehead in a fine, gathering sheen. Mind tried to take over, threatened to imagine all kinds of disasters to foster such an urgent call. Fear threatened to blossom, but, with the years of studied discipline at her beck, she deftly turned the imaginings aside and pressed on.
Suddenly the silent communication was lost. Link broken. In its place, echoed the familiar, wolfish, yips and howls of Strongheart, Littlefoot and One Eye. The three wolves, sensing her nearness, had begun vocalizing, beckoning to her, giving her more than the power of the bond to draw her on. Understanding her need better than she did herself, the sound of the haunting chorus brought the hair at the nape of her neck to attention along a rippling wave of goose-flesh.
But there was more—a texture of sight, sound and roiling impressions, mental chaos. Images, isolated, which made no sense. For a moment she was aware of fang and claw, then a man, bloodied, replaced it. Guided confusion. Order in chaos. Tanith fought to assimilate it and understand, but gave that up as futile. And helplessness was not a condition she was willing to accept.
She turned. Carried by the wind as it shifted came growls, animal screams, moist, guttural snorts and snarls—the rough bellowing of another. By the Gods and Goddesses! It was a fight she was hurling toward like a juggernaut, and she had no weapon with her save her digging knife!
She swung around the thick bole of a split-leaf tree, and nearly tripped over a body. She had no time to analyze what lay before her except to note the bloody, mangled body was most assuredly dead; that it wore, in tatters, the leathers of The People—and that other more familiar clothes lay in a balled-up heap nearby, nearly concealed by leaves.
Enemy!
The alarm exploded instantly inside her head.
Enemy here!
Anxiety added to chaos. If the enemy was here—if they knew of the golden torque—if they stopped her—so much would be lost—so much. She had heard the mechanical roar of war in simulation. She had no desire to experience it first-hand.
A hideous roar of a different kind shook the ground, drove the birds from the trees and silenced, for the moment, the apprehensions clamoring in her mind. Those could be confronted later. Now she must reach the trio of wolves because whatever it was they had found to tangle with would not wait. Urgency in her mind from Strongheart.
Picking up the thread, she dove through the trees once again, noticed them thinning abruptly before she was spilled unceremoniously onto the edge of an immense clearing. Soft grasses rolled before her feet. Sunlight, painfully bright, made the green all around throb iridescently. Deep, cool shadows cast on either side by limbs intruding into sun’s space moved, and seemed almost alive.
Chest heaving, hair in a tangled mass, eyes wide, she allowed the sight to wash over her, through her, absorbing what she needed with the speed of her sense functions. Even thoughts took longer than impressions.
Legs spread to steady her balance, moccasin-clad feet planted firmly upon the ground, she gaped while the sounds of her own blood rushing filled her ears. She couldn’t help staring, but she couldn’t spare the time for it.
There, before her, Strongheart, magnificent in battle, wore his great silver ruff stiffened across massive shoulders like a cape. Head down, ears up, lips peeled back from impressive white teeth in a deadly, guttural snarl, he challenged the enraged bear for possession of his victim—a man (a rather torn-up man), caught between bear (who seemed prepared to make short shrift of him) and wolves (who undoubtedly seemed not much different than the bear to the man). Already battered and bloodied far more than any man should be and remain standing, that hardy soul stared warily from beast to beast to beast, his lips peeled back in a rictus of a man-snarl, his body half crouched in readiness, but bleeding, weakening, swaying on his feet.
Readiness—readiness for that? The bear towered over them all, standing a solid twelve feet tall if he was an inch.
The Goddess only knew what he weighed! Staring, gauging, Tanith translated all that poundage and fury into physics of force and momentum—the damage just one paw swipe could do ñ and shuddered. The wolves were all crazy!
She
was crazy! Her eyes flicked back to the wreck of a man.
He flinched every time Littlefoot or One Eye followed the choreography of a master; entering the dance as Strongheart directed with impeccable timing. It was a stunning stand-off, for the moment. One Strongheart fully expected her to break.
In the space of a heartbeat, she watched in horrified fascination as both Littlefoot and One Eye dashed in to harass the bear. Littlefoot, less aggressive but quick and protective of the pack, moved like lightning. Sharp teeth sank momentarily into ankle or leg and then she was gone, wind rippling across her bloodstained muzzle.
One Eye, blind on one side, flew to the attack with brutal ferocity. Teeth snapping he leapt high, raked the bear’s golden pelt above the hip, turned, raced between the animal’s massive legs, and went for the hamstrings. But for all his bulk, the bear, too, was swift in retaliation. One giant, sickle-clawed paw descended to rid himself of the annoying pest. The bear missed One Eye and the wolf flowed clear, dodging the tottering man, eye fixed momentarily on Tanith before jaws snapped in final assault.
Heart in her throat, Tanith slid smoothly to one side, out of the bear’s immediate line of concentration. She gripped her dull, pitiful knife tightly, feeling the direction of the fight, sensing Strongheart’s intent as he lunged forward—deflected most of the force of the bear’s blow while One Eye dashed clear—and powerful jaws tore out a piece of bear hide in his passing.
Hammered by the impetus of One Eye’s flight, the man, badly leaking blood everywhere, fell with a disturbing finality arms pinwheeling past Littlefoot who slipped into the fray again. At first she went unnoticed. Then sharp teeth scored where intended and the ground-shaking bellow of the great bear once again rocked the earth beneath Tanith’s feet.
She felt the direction of Strongheart’s plan; knew she had to move swiftly. The delaying action thrown up by One Eye and Littlefoot could not last much longer. The bear was clearly the superior force and definitely was not willing to be turned from his goal: the man now prone on the raw turf. She was the deciding factor. She was the tie-breaker. By the Goddess she was good! But this was not the kind of fighting she had been trained for. Nonetheless, it was the kind she would do. Attention spread thin, she glanced again at the prone man.
He was not important. He was a stranger, possibly an enemy, though Strongheart was rarely wrong in his impressions of people and would not have bothered to defend an enemy. Still, her primary concern was for the wolves, her pack. Death would be swift if one of the bear’s paws connected directly. Plainly, the wolves did not intend to disengage and leave the man to the bear with the bloodied muzzle, ragged ears and fetid breath.