This Battle Lord's Quest Read Online Free PDF Page B

noted movement in the crotch of his pants.
    It had been late when they had left the clinic last
night to return to their lodge. Yulen had taken a late bath and joined an
already sleeping Atty in their bed. In the morning, she’d been awakened by a
toy horse clip-clopping across her arm, and a son plaintively crying he was
hungry. The child still wore his father’s old tunic he insisted on wearing to
sleep in, leaving Atty to wonder if the baby had left the Kalich apartment and
wandered home on his own after spending the night with Granma Tory and Granpa
Fortune. He had tried that same stunt in the past, but had gotten lost along
the way. After a frantic search, they’d found him happily playing at swords
with one of the guards, who hadn’t known the child was missing.
    A clunking sound coming from downstairs was her
clue the front door was wide open, as Mattox hadn’t closed it when he’d come
in. Since the other side of the bed was empty, it meant Yulen had arisen
earlier and was already gone, which was why the door had been unlocked in the
first place. Her husband’s absence also meant any chance for some early morning
sex was nil. The memory of last night in the kitchen, and that moment that
nearly escalated into ecstasy, would have to remain unfulfilled for a while
longer.
    Yulen’s remark drew her from her reverie, but did
nothing to stop the sizzling want growing hotter and wetter between her thighs.
    “Fortune, I know you wouldn’t call us together to
discuss this issue unless you have a plan.”
    The Mutah nodded at the Battle Lord. “We would like
to call in all members of the hunters caste from the surrounding Mutah
communities, and those from Foster City. We will split into eight groups, and
each of us take a compass point, north, northeast, east, southeast, south, and
so forth. Travel two days out, two days back, and report on what they found.”
    “Is that to include bringing back prey?” Atty
questioned.
    “Definitely.”
    “Is two days enough to give you a clear grasp of
what’s available?” Mastin wondered. “Why not three days? Or a week?”
    “We feel that two days will suffice,” Dergus
answered. “Any further, and we could encroach upon the lands hunted by other
compounds.”
    “It would also provide us with current information
for the map makers,” Vashayn added.
    Atty agreed. “However, we’re all aware that the
majority of the population growth is coming from the north to settle in the
south and west. For all we know, the east is mostly barren and unexplored. Why
not send a larger force to investigate what lies east?”
    Gerenth shook both of his heads. “It’s too risky.
Too dangerous. We’ll only send our most experienced hunters in that direction.”
He looked at Yulen pointedly. “If the Battle Lord agrees to our plan.”
    But Atty refused to have her idea so easily
dismissed. “Why are you balking? How is it too risky and dangerous? Is it
becauseit’s largely unexplored?”
    “Too many big animals roam there,” Dergus told her.
“Dangerous animals, most of them highly mutated creatures.”
    “How do you know that?”
    Fortune stepped in. “Because we’ve had hunters in
the past go in that direction, and those who survived returned to tell us
accounts of nature gone amok. Ants the size of cows. Vultures with thirty-foot
wingspans.”
    “I see your point,” Yulen agreed.
    “So do I. I remember hearing those tales when I was
growing up. However, there’s still a very important point to be made.” Atty
noticed she had everyone’s attention and curiosity lit. “If there are creatures
out there of those proportions, who’s to say none of them are edible? We all
know that, with few exceptions, nearly every living thing is palatable.” She
caught Fortune and Yulen exchanging glances, and smiled. “Furthermore, animals
don’t grow to those extremes unless they have plenty to eat themselves.
So...what are they feeding on? Each other? If there are so many of