The Path of Ashes [Omnibus Edition]

by Parker, Brian

  Aiden exhaled loudly and said, “I don’t think so. I have to wake Blake and tell him what I thought I heard.”

  “Just come back to bed, you old fool! There’s nothing out there but the wind. We’re safe here.”

  He stood up and grabbed his sword with another sigh. She’d become complacent behind the Homestead’s fence. Almost ten years younger than he was, she didn’t remember the horror of San Angelo as almost four thousand people perished in less than a week. Anna was only an infant when her grandfather Tyler had led the survivors to safety. She’d been a toddler while the group struggled through the wastelands, fighting against mutated creatures and raiders as they looked for a permanent home and she was a young child when the Homestead was founded. Anna’s childhood had been drastically different than Aiden’s, who’d watched a madman behead his grandfather while he hid in a field, too afraid to intervene.

  No, Anna had come of age in a simpler world. She didn’t understand the true level of depravity in the new world.

  “I’m going out to check the perimeter,” he stated gruffly. “Then I’ll come back to bed. It will only be a few minutes.”

  His wife harrumphed and turned over on the threadbare mattress that had been a permanent part of their lives for as long as either could remember. Aiden shook his head and padded slowly across the floor to their door, opening it cautiously and stepping out into the hallway. A shadow at the bottom of the stairs startled him.

  “Blake?” Aiden called into the darkness.

  “Yeah, it’s me, Dad. You heard them too?”

  Aiden’s knees popped as he eased himself down the stairs. “The alarms?” he asked once he made it to the landing.

  “They rang for just a moment and then stopped,” Blake stated as he shrugged into his greatcoat and strapped the sword belt around his waist. He also stuffed an antique pistol into his pocket.

  “I thought I’d dreamt it,” Aiden said, putting on his own coat. “You sure that gun will even work anymore?” Guns were unreliable at best these days, usually more deadly to the user than their target since the years of intermittent ash and acid rain had wreaked havoc on most metals.

  “Yes, sir. I’ve kept it clean and oiled like you taught me. I figured we might need the additional range if something did make it past the perimeter.”

  “If something made it past our guards then that little pistol isn’t going to be able to stop it,” the old man muttered. He patted his grandfather’s sword on his hip. “This is all that matters now.”

  They went out through their front door into the Homestead’s central courtyard where they maintained picnic tables and a communal fire pit for cooking animals too large for the fireplaces inside their individual homes. Aiden glanced wistfully at his old chair pulled near the pit’s low brick wall. He was too old to be sneaking around in the darkness looking for intruders. Over the course of the night, the fire in the pit had burned down to small embers.

  The night before, he’d sat in his chair and told his grandchildren about Aeric and Tyler’s exploits in the beginning, at the end of the old world. As they stalked toward the wall’s gate, he wondered if he’d ever have the chance to complete the story. His world was so different than it had been as a child, and his grandfather used to tell him how different this world was from the one he’d grown up in, before the nuclear missiles had irrevocably changed the landscape.

  It seemed quiet outside, so what had caused the alarms to ring? Even more disconcerting for Aiden was the question of where the other residents were, or at the very least, where were the Traxx men? The noise should have caused the courtyard to be filled with men and the women who were not pregnant or not assigned the task of guarding the young. He looked around at the darkened buildings in disbelief. They’d trained for this scenario, where was everyone?

  Blake had noticed the lack of response as well. “Why is no one else awake?” he whispered. “The alarm only came from the west. The other two guards didn’t answer the sound with one of their own.”

  Aiden shook his head in confusion. “Something isn’t right here, Blake.”

  The pistol glinted in the moonlight as the younger Traxx pulled the weapon from his pocket. They began heading for the western section of the perimeter fence when the scream of a woman broke the night’s stillness. It had come from inside Luke’s house.

  The old man reacted slower than his son, who’d also pulled his sword from its sheath as he raced toward his brother’s house. He slammed through the front door and tumbled into the entryway. Blake had expected the door to be locked, but the door had been ajar, not latched, and caught him off guard.

  Aiden’s sword felt comfortable in his hand as he took the porch steps two at a time. Adrenaline surged through him, causing the aches and pains of his old body to be temporarily forgotten. He arrived in time to see Blake sprinting up the stairs to the family’s sleeping quarters, so he turned, heading into the family room to clear the bottom floor.

  He wrinkled his nose at the metallic scent of blood and the acrid stench of loosened bowels. Aiden followed the odor toward his brother’s room. His younger brother, Alex, had moved out of his home when his wife Mary died and now lived with Aiden’s oldest son, Luke.

  The smell got stronger and more pronounced the deeper into the home that Aiden walked. The clash of steel on steel drifted from the stairwell, startling him. Blake had found someone upstairs and fought with them. He wasn’t worried for Blake; every member of the Traxx family was trained to fight from the day they could walk. Whatever he’d encountered upstairs would soon be nothing more than a quivering mass of flesh.

  He took a deep breath to steady his nerves and walked several steps towards the room where his brother stayed. There was a strange sound coming from around the corner. It was something that he’d heard before. He couldn’t quite put his finger on what it reminded him of, though. There was a wet, sucking sound and then… Is that chewing?

  Aiden rushed around the corner with his sword held low. The darkness helped to hide the creature as it shrieked at him and charged. He had less than a second to lift the tip of his weapon, preparing to defend himself when the hilt jammed hard against his knuckles and knocked him backwards. The animal had run into the blade, heedless of its own safety, and skewered itself on the hardened steel.

  It wasn’t difficult to identify the creature, even in the darkness. It was one of the nightmares of the new world. The patchwork of black and gray fur mixed with hardened bone outcroppings made his bladder weak and the claws that flashed like wickedly curved daggers in the moonlight promised a swift and painful death to anyone who encountered the animal. It was a demonbroc. Long ago, before the radiation had changed them into the terrifying predator that they were today, the thing’s ancestors had been called badgers. Somewhere along the line, someone who’d known that the Old English word for badger was “broc” had named the new, twisted creatures “demonbrocs,” and it had stuck.

  A lot of wild animals in the area had died out once the vegetation began to die. Not the badgers; they were omnivores and could eat almost anything to stay alive. They’d survived the devastation of those first few years after the war and over the years, their bodies had mutated to adapt to the harsh conditions of the wastelands. Besides the wandering human tribes, they were the largest threat to humanity in the wastes, at least that he knew of.

  Aiden’s mind reeled. Somehow the beast had gotten into the home without breaking down the door. Had it came in behind the person that Blake fought upstairs? What were the odds of an intruder and a demonbroc attack on the same night? He was reminded of old Huerta and his foolish breeding program in San Angelo.

  The broc shuddered against his blade. Too late, Aiden stepped back away from it as its talons sliced through his coat and deep into his forearm. He screamed in pain at the creature’s white-hot touch. A lifetime of weapons training was the only reason he didn’t drop the sword as his body rebelled against his mind to turn and run away. He knew that if he let go and allow
ed the creature to maneuver, he’d be dead in seconds.

  The broc jerked hard to the side, seemingly oblivious to the blade that had entered its chest and exited along its back. Aiden grunted as the damned thing pushed him hard into the wall and grabbed a handful of his coat. The thing pulled itself closer, jaws open wide to tear away the flesh on his face. The broc’s mouth snapped shut on the empty space only inches from his nose.

  He pushed the sword outward, using the crossguard to provide leverage against the creature’s chest. The demonbroc dragged itself backwards several inches and the tip of his sword disappeared inside the creature. It was trying to pull itself off of his blade so it could get around his defenses and attack.

  Aiden laughed bitterly. All his efforts were simply delaying the inevitable. Besides man, demonbrocs were the deadliest creatures that he knew of. He pushed forward, trying to reestablish control with the sword, and the broc yelped. The creature’s back legs collapsed and it turned its head to snap at its backside. It couldn’t determine a threat from behind, so it turned back to him, slashing once again with the daggers on its forefeet.

  The knifelike claws jarred hard against the bone in Aiden’s forearm. This time, his body ignored his training and dropped the sword. He was able to keep his wits about him and staggered back from the abomination. The demonbroc used its front legs to pull its unresponsive body forward toward him.

  He allowed himself a moment’s hope. When he’d thrust the sword in a second time, it must have severed the broc’s spine. He rushed backward across the living room to the kitchen where Luke’s wife, Skye, had an old world set of knives in an original chopping block. He pulled the meat cleaver from the top slot and turned in time to see the demonbroc scrabbling across the tile.

  His left arm was virtually useless, so he swung the cleaver hard with his right across the front of the broc’s snout. The blade buried halfway through the side of its muzzle and it screamed like a woman as it fell to the ground, trying to claw the cleaver out of its face. In its desperation, it inadvertently stabbed itself through the eye with one of its eight-inch claws and bellowed in rage. The gelatinous substance inside the destroyed orb oozed through the wound.

  Aiden grabbed another knife and stabbed down through the demonbroc’s ear into its brain. It shuddered once and died. He slid down against the cabinets and stared at his arm. The blood poured freely from multiple lacerations. The second cut was much deeper than the first, which had been blunted by the old man’s greatcoat. The broc’s second attack had gone all the way down to the bone.

  He examined the wound with detached interest. His skin gaped wide as if it had been stretched across his arm too tight and the cut allowed it to spread open. A thin layer of round, pink fat cells lined the injury, just under the layer of skin and his forearm muscles vibrated uncontrollably. Blood pooled inside the wound so he tilted his arm to let the dark fluid pour out. For half a second, he could see the light-colored bone inside, then the blood filled in again.

  Aiden didn’t know how long he sat in the kitchen. He was dimly aware of wetness under his ass, unsure whether it was from the blood that he’d lost or if he’d pissed himself; it didn’t really matter which. He knew that he needed to stop the blood flow somehow, but his body refused to respond to even the simplest commands. The injury to his arm was bad; and it was getting worse by the second. He allowed his chin to rest on his chest. He just needed time to think….

  The old man slapped himself in the face to stay awake. He’d imagined being enveloped in a warm white glow. This must be the light that some people claim they see when they die, he thought. In all the years that he’d fought against scavengers, gangs and slavers he never imagined that he’d be killed by a demonbroc. The creatures were extremely dangerous, but were easy to avoid as long as you stayed away from their nests or didn’t anger them when you came across one. What had brought this one into his son’s home?

  “Easy, Dad. I’ve got you,” Blake said.

  “Huh?” Aiden muttered, allowing his eyes to focus. Blake crouched in front of him, tying a length of rope around his forearm. Skye stood further back, holding a large candle aloft, which cast a weak light across the kitchen.

  “You killed a demonbroc, old man,” Blake said as he continued with the tourniquet. “That’s amazing.”

  Aiden’s mind thought back to the battle and then he realized what his son was doing. “Hey!” he shouted. “Don’t put a tourniquet on me; I want that arm.”

  Blake gestured for Skye to bring the candle closer. He examined the wound before saying, “I don’t know if we can save it, Dad.”

  “Bullshit. Get Luke. He’s the best doctor we have.”

  Blake’s lips thinned. “Luke is dead.”

  Aiden nodded, he’d expected as much. “Alex?”

  His son shook his head. “Dammit!” Aiden burst out. “What were they?”

  “Slavers. They hit a few other houses. Most of the adults are dead on the western side and the children are missing.”

  His heart broke. Not the children. Slavers were the most despicable creatures imaginable. “Tanya?” he asked, his voice shaking.

  Blake shook his head. “They didn’t make it to Garrett’s house. They’re all safe.”

  “Why didn’t anyone else respond to the alarm?” Aiden asked as his son placed wadded strips of clean cloth into the wound and then loosened the rope incrementally to see if the blood flow would stop.

  “It looks like they came over the walls and killed all the sentries before they could alert anyone. They went to the houses on the west side of the compound and grabbed the kids. Nathan was able to ring the alarm a couple of times before he died; it wasn’t loud enough for the families on the east to hear it.”

  “The west? Are Caleb and Varan safe?”

  “No. They’re missing.”

  “Humph,” he grunted. “How’d that damn demonbroc get in here?”

  Blake turned, picked up a device off the counter and held it up for Aiden to see. It was a long pole with a loop of metal cable on one side. “They must have brought it with them and released it inside the Homestead to cause confusion.”

  Aiden tried to stand and his vision threatened to go black. “Sit down, Father,” Blake ordered. “I’ve already discussed it with the others. We’re going after them at first light when our trackers can see. It doesn’t do us any good to bumble around in the darkness outside of the walls.”

  “Good. That will give me time to make a cast for this arm,” Aiden said, lifting his left arm.

  “No. You’re not going,” Blake answered sternly. “Dad, you know that you’ll slow us down. You’re better suited to stay here and run the defense of the compound.”

  “I’m going after the children,” he protested.

  “Garrett and I have this, Dad,” Blake said with a comforting hand on his thigh. “You have to trust us now.”

  Aiden knew the truth of his son’s words, and the truth hurt. For as long as he could remember, he’d been the leader of the Traxx family. Over time, the mantle of leadership had slowly been transitioning to Luke. Now Luke was dead and Aiden wasn’t certain which of his two remaining sons was strong enough to lead the family. The world seemed to be sinking even further into depravity—if that was possible.

  He was rocked hard as a small pair of hands clasped around his neck. “Oh, Grandad! I’m so happy you’re safe,” Tanya squealed in his ear as she buried her face in his hair. “You can’t leave us.”

  Aiden knew that he was stuck. His granddaughter had overheard him saying that he wanted to go on the search party. Now she’d requested that he stay. He reached across with his good hand and patted her head softly. “Of course, little one. Grandad will stay here and fight off any more of the bad men.”

  Tanya pointed across the kitchen at the bloody carcass. “Is that a demonbroc?”

  “Yes, child,” Aiden answered. “I told you and your cousins that they were very dangerous. Now do you believe me?”

  She nod
ded her head, rubbing his scalp painfully as her forehead grated into the side of his head. “Are you okay, Grandad?”

  “I’ll be fine, little one. I just need some rest.”

  Tanya accepted his half-lie and asked, “Can you tell me the rest of the story about Aeric?”

  “Yes, of course,” he said. “I’m going to try and get some rest tonight. Tomorrow, I’ll tell you about my childhood and the first time I saw a demonbroc.”

  “I’ll tell Caleb and Varan that you’re gonna continue the story!” she said, visibly excited.

  The tears welled up in his eyes and threatened to spill onto his cheeks. He composed himself, he was a Traxx. He had to be strong for the others. “Caleb and Varan will have to hear the story later. Tomorrow will be just for you, little one.”

  Tanya nodded her head once again. She understood what his unspoken words truly meant; the family had seen it before. Her cousins had been taken by slavers. “Daddy and Uncle Blake will bring Caleb and Varan back home, Grandad.”

  ONE

  Tanya fussed with the blankets that she’d piled high around her grandfather. She wanted him to be as comfortable as possible given the battered condition he was in after his fight with the demonbroc. “How’s that, Grandad?”

  “It’s fine, child,” the man told her with a weak smile. She’d overheard her father and uncle talking before they left to track down the slavers this morning. They were positive that an infection was going to set in and Grandad would lose his arm. The cuts were too deep and the muscle too torn to repair.

  She made a face that her grandfather mistook for anger. “Varan and Caleb will be alright,” he said. “They are both strong young men who know how to take care of themselves.”

  “Daddy said that you’re gonna lose your arm,” she replied. “Is that true? Is your arm going to come off, Grandad?”

  The old man scoffed at her question. “No, child. Your father’s a damn fool. I’ve had much worse injuries than this little scrape. Don’t you worry, Tanya, I’ll be around for a long, long time.”