This Battle Lord's Quest by Linda Mooney Page A

particular you’re hoping we
take back to Alta Novis?” Paxton asked her. “Or is it going to depend on what
we find?”
    “After examining the tracks we’ve found, I’m hoping
for a deer or elk. You can use every part of a deer or elk, unlike some of the
other animals. I’d even settle for several smaller animals like those beavers
or muskrats. Guess it depends on what we find.”
    “Or what finds us,” Renken dryly commented, making
the others laugh.
    When they were done, Paxton buried the bones
several yards away, making sure to cover them with plenty of dirt. A quick
check of their water bags revealed they were dangerously low, with Paxton’s
already empty. After taking a few swallows from Atty’s, which seemed to have
the most, they each climbed a tree and used their weapons belts to tie
themselves to the limbs. Wishing each other a good night’s sleep, they tried to
settle in and get some rest.
    Atty resisted closing her eyes for one last look
around. Something had been bothering her ever since they’d come across the
first set of tracks. It wasn’t so much the number of animals evident as it was
which animals.
    Ever since the Great Concussion, many species had
been touched by what her teachers had called “fallout”. She never understood
what it meant. Only that something in the air had changed, causing many people
and creatures to change also. Some people were drastically affected, like the
Bloods, whose mutations were so extreme, they were almost unrecognizable as
human. The Mutah, like herself, only changed a little, but the changes were
still evident, yet unique to each person. Which was why her hair was blue
instead of brown like her parents’ hair. And why Fortune sprouted a tail. And
why Mattox had eyes that were completely red, without an iris or pupil or
visible sclera.
    And then there were the Normals, which included her
husband, Yulen D’Jacques. Although none of them appeared to show any form of
mutation, Atty couldn’t help but feel that maybe deep down, perhaps at the
cellular level, it did exist. But it was buried so deeply that it wasn’t able
to manifest itself.
    Like people, the animals also exhibited wide ranges
of changes, changes that sometimes extended all the way to the bone. Rabbits
which, she’d been told, once had fur, but now had short, spiky, furred
extensions people referred to as feathers. Chickens were wingless, the wool on
a sheep was tough and thick enough to make armor out of, and many creatures,
such as the ones called dogs, were extinct.
    Most of the animals were vastly larger than they’d
been prior to the Great Collision. It was hard to envision hamsters as being so
tiny as to fit in a person’s palm, or that a crow was once small enough to sit
on your shoulder.
    Unfortunately, the worst abominations were the most
dangerous. The animal it had been no longer existed in any shape or form, other
than to retain its name. In many cases, the creature’s origin was totally
unknown, so it was given a new name. One that reflected its new nature or
appearance. They were the ones Atty feared most because there was no telling
what the animal would do. Or, in a lot of cases, what it could do.
    Of those tracks she’d seen, she could identify some
of them. What worried her were the ones she couldn’t classify. The ones made by
a beast she’d never tracked before, much less encountered. Bloods she could
handle. She’d fought them countless times in the past, and her Mutah senses
never failed to alert her to their presence. But no matter how bizarre or
brutal they were, Bloods still reacted with human emotions, which made it easy
to understand their actions.
    Animals were never predictable.
    She was twenty feet above the ground and securely
lashed to the limb at her back. Her bow lay across her lap, and her Ballock was
within split-second reach. Closing her eyes, Atty tried to rest, but her sixth
sense remained uneasy. Below, the fire soundlessly burned the green wood.