Dark Empathy, Archibald Bradford [the red fox clan txt] 📗

his senate, just like the uniform I’m wearing says. You and I are enemies, Evadne.”

Her mouth worked as her grip on his shirt loosened, too shocked to know what to say or do next.

But the memory of her children tugged at her and she let loose a snarling hiss of frustration as she snatched the pendant containing her stone from his limp hand and turned away from him.

“You’re too late! Don’t go back! You can’t save them!”

His words nearly proved fatal.

While she stretched out her bat-like wings to take flight, the thick snake that was her tail lashed out at him, its fangs stopping just shy of sinking into his jugular.

Her message was clear: there was nothing that would keep her from her children.

But even as she took to the sky a deep gong-like boom sounded in the earth, startled birds similarly taking to the air all around as a shockwave caused the trees they were nesting in to vibrate and sway perilously.

Eyes widening in horror, she looked upon a strange swirling plume of dark smoke rising in the distance.

He was right: she was too late to stop what came next.

Chapter 1: Awakening

Adrian Shaw woke with a start, his eyes rolling as the violent ghost of his nightmare still haunted him.

“You talk in your sleep.” A woman’s throaty voice interrupted the chaos of his thoughts.

He swallowed a couple times to try to moisten his dry throat as he slowly became aware that he was safe; warm and cozy in Olena the Witch’s odd home in the woods.

She lived inside a truly massive cedar, the bark seeming to have simply parted and opened up for her as the flesh of the tree formed a large semi-circular room which she had then filled with a bed and several tables, all arranged around a central divot where a fire cheerily burned.

Strewn across the surface of the tables were countless mysterious bottles and vials, containing everything from sprigs of evergreen to the husk of a dead serpent. Numerous other containers hung from lengths of twine suspended from the bark of the dome-like ceiling alongside drying herbs, mushrooms and various animal bones.

At least, he hoped they were animal bones; he made a point of not studying the larger ones too closely.

With a grimace of pain he sat up, gripping his wounded arm as the tight skin around the injury strained with the movement.

“H-how long have I been out?” He rasped as he looked to the Witch.

She was standing near the fire in the middle of the circular room with her back to him, reaching above her head to tie a free length of twine around the neck of an opaque yellow bottle.

“A day and a half, this time. Five total. Your fever broke during the night.” She finished the last knot and turned to face him; “You’re lucky, the infection alone nearly killed you.”

He blinked in surprise, not from the news of his condition, but because she was topless, her shapely breasts swaying with her movements.

Her head tilted to one side as he averted his eyes.

“Ah yes. Humans and their modesty.”

She carelessly draped a shawl over her shoulders to cover her chest before bringing him a large bowl of steaming water, along with soap and a wash cloth.

“You smell. I kept your wounds clean so you wouldn’t die, but I am not a bed nurse. I will return.”

She dropped a couple more pieces of deadfall into the fire-pit sunk into the packed earthen floor before stepping towards the opening in the roots of the massive tree.

“Wait! The people that attacked me, we have to warn-”

“They are dead.”

He shook his head.

“No, there were more. Upriver, um, to the southeast?”

She smiled slightly.

“Close. The river flows from the northwest.” She crossed her arms; “How many?”

He swallowed, still trying to get past the rasp in his throat, but the memory of his bond-mate dying in front of him suddenly overtook him and he gasped. One hand gripped his stomach at the pain of her loss, and he shed a few tears as the Witch watched him with an indecipherable expression.

After a moment she sighed.

“I see. You did smell of mushroom blood. You were bonded to a Truffle?”

Wordlessly he nodded.

The fungal girls had a number of useful abilities that made them ideal for working with the ordinance disposal teams in the Aegis. They could hold as perfectly still as a Gnome, and move with such deliberate slowness that even the most unstable of explosives would be undisturbed.

They were also able to emit a cloud of spores that would knock out any human that inhaled it, but they mainly used it to gum up the workings of dangerous lost-tech machinery with fungal growth so that their human partners could safely dismantle them.

The Witch shifted her weight to one leg and pointed towards the door.

“And the ones who killed her are still out there?”

Her tone wasn’t unkind, simply matter of fact, he didn’t notice though as he remembered the day they were ambushed.

For a moment it was like he was there again, his heart pounding in his chest as his friends died all around him, as Cheri died right in front of him.

Finally he nodded as he rubbed at his eyes.

“There were dozens of them. Armed to the teeth.”

She pursed her lips.

“That is unfortunate, now I really need to leave.”

He glared at her.

“What, that’s it? Do you even care?” His words were bitter and angry.

“Yes, but there is a blizzard coming. And before it arrives I must go and inform the Saenga that there was a small army trespassing across their lands. I should have done so days ago, but if I had you would have died.”

“Oh.” He shifted uncomfortably;