Author's note: this story continues my tale, 'Going feet First', and follows Galen, a soldier once in Vietnam, now on an interesting journey into a medieval fantasy world filled with Elves, Magic, and all kinds of interesting creatures.
I will say now that this story is longer and much more detailed than both of my previous chapters. This chapter does not contain any sex scenes, but I will make up for that later.
Any point where there is a line of dots it is a scene-change. A three-dot break is only a change of perspective within the same scene.
Now, without further ado...
Welcome to Raska.
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Going Feet First
Chapter 3: Unto the Breach
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The weight of a well-fed deer hung over a Neko's left shoulder while a heavily muscled boar lay limp over the right. With a long string of squirrels hanging off his belt, the stocky male groaned with the weight of his catch as he staggered out into the open clearing around the Willher village.
Sweat dripped down from his cropped mane of mud-brown hair and fur; the salty beads ran along discolored patches of grey in his coat wrought by old scars. Down his right arm lay an entire strip of silver hair a finger-width wide where he had been sliced by a Ra'zorlich blade. Where injuries like this had gone deeper, his fur never had recovered its natural shade. The skin, muscles, and bone healed; the hair never did. All over his body, his torso and arms especially, lay the patches of grey or silver in varying sizes.
These marks from battle were looked upon by some with disdain, though he showed them off with pride as they were his trophies from years of fighting, and winning.
As the Hunter stood staring at the village across the clearing, his perspiration began seeping into the cuts on his leather armor and over the open wounds in his skin. He winced, biting down on the scar that ran over his lip and down the chin of his otherwise fair, if not handsome face.
So close now, then I'll give that lazy disgrace a lesson not soon forgotten
.
I'll
tear her claws out for this...
he swore in his mind.
The first glimpse of daylight was emerging over the horizon; it would not be long until the sun's rays will cast down onto her bed to wake her. As the male Neko learned from previous mornings watching her, she always struggled with the waking hours, overcome with drowsiness and the wish to return to the dreaming world. It would be during this time of stupor that he would take action. No second thoughts this time, no inhibitions of morality, he would finally go through with it.
A year he had pressed her for this; a year she had been his tracker, a year she had always pushed him away. No longer. This morning he would have her purity and she would have his kittens whether she wanted to or not. With everything he had done for the tribe, the bandits he had slain and the bounties of meat he had claimed to feed their numbers in excess, none would stop his courting of her or punish him for his act. She belonged to him.
Shoulders aching and legs nearly dead from exhaustion, the Neko hunter made started across the clearing toward his village. Even in the early dawn light, the two guards standing watch at the entrance immediately took notice of his presence. Hands moving to their weapons, they took a defensive stance and stood prepared to defend at a moment's notice.
The fire in the braziers beside them had inadvertently hindered their night vision, the breeze blowing at their back carrying the new comer's scent away from their post. Both guards could only wait to see who the visitor was. When the hulking figure drew near the guards began to move forward to greet him. The second they made out his face however, their hands quickly parted from their swords.
"
Emiel?
" the one guard said in shock. "
Where have you been?!
"
"
Bandits,"
the discolored Neko answered, wincing as another bead of sweat slipped into his wounds. "
Take these to the butcher for me; I have business to tend to."
Before either guard could probe him further, the hunter tossed both his deer and boar into the arms of the guards and dropped his squirrels at their feet. While they stumbled with the sudden and unexpected burdens, Emiel yawned and pressed on into the camp.
Free of his gathered game, he straightened up his back and stretched out his arms, sighing in sweet relief as his spine cracked and popped into alignment. With a growing smile, he pulled a chip of medicinally impregnated wood from a pouch on his belt, the last of three from his semi-annual limit, and placed it in his mouth.
It took time for the medicine to act, for his saliva to moisturize the dried medicine in the wood as he bit down on it, but soon pains all over his body melted away from his muscles with the comforting warmth sweeping over his skin and insides. Relief and pleasure were audible in his sigh; he felt as though he had stepped into a steamy hot spring on a cold winter night.
He knew the concentrated herbs boiled into the wood wouldn't heal him, but the lack of pain and restored vigor would still serve him well. After three days in the forest, two of which were spent driving a pack of human bandits from the Willher territory after his tracker disappeared, he needed the relief, and release greater than the addictive lure of Kultren medicine.
The sky above had grown a bit brighter as Emiel stalked the streets of the village, dirt and rocks crunching under his bare toes. He didn't care for the stones jabbing into the pads of his feet though, as they were too numb from both his walk and his medicine.
By the time the last ache in his muscles had been suppressed, he'd come into sight of her home. Looking around at the barren streets of the village, he inwardly grinned as there was not a single waking creature in sight. None would disturb him, this time was his.
