Tribes of Venara Read online

  TRIBES OF VENARA

  THE ARCHAIC RING SERIES

  REED STEVENS

  Copyright © 2019 by Steve R. Nantais

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be copied, sold, or reproduced in any medium without the written consent of the author.

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  Table of Contents

  Prologue: Heaven’s Greed

  Chapter One: Five Hundred Dollars

  Chapter Two: Through the Looking Glass

  Chapter Three: Where the Hell Am I?

  Chapter Four: Bleak Outlook

  Chapter Five: It Gets Worse?

  Chapter Six: Hopeless Situation

  Chapter Seven: The Glade

  Chapter Eight: The Netherwolf Tribe Arrives

  Chapter Nine: The Ancestral Body Technique

  Chapter Ten: The Last Daughter of Patriarch Ravenwing

  Chapter Eleven: To Redfox Village

  Chapter Twelve: Intense Battle on the Hilltop

  Chapter Thirteen: Reunited at Last

  Chapter Fourteen: Do or Die

  Chapter Fifteen: Premonition

  Chapter Sixteen: Looming Threat

  Chapter Seventeen: Recovery

  Other works by Reed Stevens:

  Prologue: Heaven’s Greed

  As far as planets went this one was truly a marvel to the eye. Despite its evident taint, the oceans were a dazzling blue, its atmosphere healthy and active, and its geography comprised of a satisfying distribution of a decent variety of climates. It might have been tiny, exaggeratedly so when compared with Alm’s home world, but this hidden gem sat tucked away in the farthest reaches of Infinite Space. Its characteristics made it a superb candidate for a temporary home.

  “I never thought we’d find such a small world with a pulse on the edge of Infinity.”

  Hearing the voice of his friend, Alm flashed a joyous grin from behind his short but dense snow-white beard. It was the third world that he and Sven had scouted since their heaven-defying transcendence. “No need to look any further. I’ve taken a liking to this peculiar little place.”

  Sven tugged at the smooth strands of his orderly beard, unaffected by the cold temperature of the planet’s desolate moon. “Don’t you think it’s a bit too plain? Its denizens are the weakest of any world we’ve visited, completely cut off from the world’s heart. They’ve pursued Laws in the wrong direction, so it’s been reduced to this state. Its pulse has already weakened significantly.”

  Hovering a few paces above the rocky ground, Alm fidgeted with the hem of his modest, verdant robe. “A quick fix for us now, I should think. Come now, Sven, haven’t you been babbling on about wanting to explore your new boundaries? Why not send these fellows off to somewhere a bit more interesting, and then we can fix things up as we like?”

  Sven snickered. “As you like, you mean.”

  “Just for a few thousand years!”

  “Fine, then the next one’s my choice. But don’t blame me if they all die.” Looking down at the largest cities of this world, Sven’s lip curled up in disdain. He disliked worlds that strayed from the path of enlightenment and profound ascension, and so tended to transfer the inhabitants of such worlds to lands where the propelling force behind sentient evolution was centred upon the pursuit of Immortal Ascension, that is, the cultivation of the self to subvert the Laws of Infinity. There were hardly any living beings left in the boundless universe that could accomplish spatial displacement as flawlessly as Sven and to such an exaggerated degree, and so those life forms that he ferried between worlds on a whim would indefinitely remain at whatever destination he’d decided for them.

  “Where will you send them?”

  “Venara.”

  Alm sighed. “You’re too cruel.”

  Neither Sven nor Alm had ever attempted a largescale spatial displacement at such a distance, though Sven was surely the only one who could manage it. As far as he was concerned, sending the pathetic residents of this world to a higher realm was a gracious act. “While it might be dangerous, Venara holds innumerable mysteries and untold opportunities. Even the Primordial Gods were quite fond of it before they all died off.” A rare look of concentration stole away Sven’s domineering expression. “Besides, when was I ever some saint?”

  Though Alm’s immortal smile remained unchanged, he was incomparably excited. He was very much looking forward to the experience of modeling his own planet. At Sven’s instigation, the Origin Energy for millions of kilometres in every direction had already begun to stir, a sure indication that the extensive process of relocating this planet’s inhabitants had already begun.

  Chapter One: Five Hundred Dollars

  “You’re the ones who jumped my brother?” Of the four boys in front of Nolan, there was not one who wasn’t glaring.

  “Nolan, forget it,” said a shaky voice from behind him. “I honestly don’t care anymore!”

  His younger brother had just turned fourteen a few days ago. For the past year he’d been saving up for a new gaming console and had finally reached his monetary goal with the most recent batch of birthday cash. An hour ago he’d run off to the nearest electronic store with his hard-earned savings only to return emptyhanded and in a sorry state. As soon as he’d seen Thomas’s torn shirt and swollen face, Nolan had taken off in search of the bastards who’d attacked his brother for no good reason. Luckily the group of older boys—young men, really—hadn’t gone far from the scene of the initial incident, so he was able to find them rather easily.

  After a tense staredown the largest of the group spoke up, a beefy guy several centimetres taller than Nolan. “So what?”

  “So what? So you’ll be giving him his money back plus a hundred dollars more than what you stole. If I don’t have five hundred dollars in my hand soon then we’re going to have ourselves a really unpleasant situation.”

  “Yeah?” The big guy spat on the ground. “How about we just beat the shit out of you like we did to your little bitch of a brother?”

  Nolan had been in his fair share of fights. If he’d learned anything by now it was that making the first move definitely wasn’t a bad thing. Take the big guy in front of him for instance; if he’d have struck first then Nolan’s fist wouldn’t have just smashed into his nose with a surreal crunching sound and a small spurt of blood.

  Nolan was on the second guy before the first hit the ground, viciously wailing on any part of the older boy’s body that caught his eye while trying to avoid the expected swings from the other two goons. By the time the second guy was unconscious, Nolan’s lower lip was bleeding and his right eye was already beginning to swell up. It had been four on one to start, so it was inevitable that he’d take some hits. He fought off the other two as best he could, eventually sending them to the ground after suffering through a beating that he knew would leave him sore for days.

  “Here,” Nolan said. “They must have jumped a lot of people today. They had around a hundred dollars each.”

  “Thanks,” mumbled Thomas as he received the money.

  “I kept a hundred for the hassle.”

  The two brothers painted a sorry image, their faces and knuckles bloodied and their shirts torn in several places. The short brown hair that they shared was tousled and slick with sweat.

  “You came in clutch at the end there, Thomas. That was a nice boot to the face you fed that lanky one. If he hadn’t tapped out when he did I’d have never been able to choke-out that last guy.”

  “Yeah.”

  It’s a good thing I got him to start working out with me. Nolan recalled how his brother hadn’t hesitated to help him fight the older boys despite the fact that they’d already kicked his ass not an hour before. He was a good kid, Thomas.

/>   They were only a couple streets away from their house in the suburbs, their skin beaded with sweat in the humid heat. It was the middle of the summer and it was a Saturday, so they got a good amount of stares from their more proactive neighbours as they shambled down the uneven sidewalk with shaky steps.

  “Don’t be so down,” Nolan sighed. “You got your revenge in the end, didn’t you?” He paused to wave at a startled friend of the family, whose mouth had dropped open as they passed by her weathered colonial home. “Hey Mrs. Gagnon, loving the garden!”

  Thomas really had dog-shit luck getting jumped and robbed on the one day he happened to be running around with all of his savings on him.

  Seeing that his brother’s mood wasn’t changing, Nolan patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t beat yourself up, man—ah, wasn’t going for the pun, there. Seriously, though. Those guys were eighteen, I checked their ID’s. You’re not even in high school yet, there’s still a month left of summer break.” He messed with his brother as much as any other guy, but ever since their weasel of a father had bailed on the family when Nolan was just a freshman himself, he’d been forced to take on a more responsible attitude toward his siblings. “How about I get a hold of some beer? I was your age the first time I struggled through my first six-pack, and we’ve got cash to burn.”

  Thomas couldn’t help but roll his eyes. “How’re you going to get beer? You’re only sixteen, you need to be at least—”

  Ignoring the pain of his split lip, Nolan smiled wide and dug something out of his pocket. “Believe it or not, the smallest guy back there was actually nineteen! He looked a bit like me, so…”

  “Why’re you always so reckless?” Thomas said. “Mom’s been worrying a lot about you lately. She blames herself for always being busy with her jobs. She thinks it’s her fault that you’ve been acting out.”

  Nolan’s smile dissolved. “I’m not acting out. What, you’ll smoke a joint with me behind Uncle Ted’s camper but the second I say beer you turn into Mother Teresa?”

  “It’s not about that.”

  “Alright, well, do you not care that those guys robbed you?”

  “Of course I care! What just happened could have been a lot worse though, but that’s not something you’d ever take a second to think about. You’re always starting trouble with every person that rubs you the wrong way. What if those guys had a knife or something? I’d rather lose a few hundred dollars than… You’ve got to think before you do something over-the-top, Nolan. Every time I get home from school you look like you just got out of bed. You used to top out the honour roll every year, but ever since Dad…”

  Nolan came to an abrupt halt. “I don’t need you getting all real with me out of nowhere. I did you a favour, so either accept what happened or don’t. Go home and get cleaned up before Steph sees you, the last thing we need is her telling Mom what happened.” With that, he turned back and began to retrace his steps.

  “Where’re you going?” Thomas’s voice was weak.

  “To get some beer.”

  “Even if they believe it’s your ID, they won’t sell anything to you looking like that!”

  “Worry about yourself.”

  Why was Thomas always fidgeting over every little thing? This was coming from the kid who kept every part of his life to himself. If Nolan hadn’t caught him slinking into his room all quiet and sneaky-like then he would never have known that anything had happened to him. He spat on the ground. Why did he have to bring up their waste of a father? Thomas knew how much it pissed him off, how easily it could cause his mood to crumble.

  A while passed and Nolan found himself standing at the crest of a big hill with a fantastic view that overlooked the city’s congested core. The hill stood at the edge of a large park not too far from his neighbourhood, the majority of its perimeter walled in by a dense mass of encroaching forest. Staring out at the distant skyline, Nolan was lost amidst his thoughts.

  How long had it been since Thomas had foregone that care-free look that he’d always worn, or that smug little grin he’d put on whenever he proved Nolan wrong about some mundane fact or useless bit of knowledge? If you’d have told him a few years ago that he would soon come miss those expressions terribly, or the entitled and bratty attitude that his demon of a little sister had pestered him with all throughout their childhood, he’d have had himself a good laugh. But now with money tight and their mom working three part-time jobs, all Thomas ever did was worry and brood, and Steph hardly ever said anything at all.

  He’d tried to convince his mom to let him get a part-time job to make things easier on her, but she adamantly refused. She would only ever tell him that he needed to take care of his brother and sister, and so for the past two years he had basically been a live-in maid. The truth of the matter was that his mom’s brittle heart couldn’t handle the weight of her husband’s betrayal, that she couldn’t stand to see her own children because she saw him in each of their faces, three living reminders of everything that’d happened. She spent every waking hour at one job or another, perpetually distracted, the damn useless woman…

  The way that she was always… And now it was up to him to… Irresponsible bullshit…

  Suddenly nauseous, Nolan could tell that something was wrong. When did he wind up on the ground? Was he really lying on his side? No, he was standing, but on what? Why couldn’t he move?

  He was unconscious before he could make any sense of the sudden failure of his faculties. Even if he had remained conscious, he wouldn’t have stood a chance at perceiving the sensation that took dominion over his body and soul in that strange moment.

  Chapter Two: Through the Looking Glass

  Nolan woke up with an alarming sense of wrongness nestled in his heart. He wasn’t sure what had happened to him but the last thing he remembered was an absolutely bizarre and uncomfortable break in his perception, like what he imagined it’d be like to take too many hallucinogenic drugs. Clearly his mind had suffered some sort of mental affliction and now the lasting effects of whatever it was that’d just happened had left his head ringing like no migraine he’d ever experienced.

  Pushing himself up and looking around for the first time, his breath caught in his throat. How did he wind up in the forest?

  Hardly any light bled through the thick upper canopy, which cast the woods in a gloomy shadow that left an uneasy sensation stirring in his gut. The air was heavy and warm, a claustrophobic element to the backdrop. This was a lot deeper into the woods than he and Thomas had ever braved as kids. He didn’t even know that undergrowth could get this dense, nor the trees so tall and broad.

  Nolan grew exceedingly disturbed as he continued to gather his wits about him. Why was he here? Was it related to that indescribable feeling from earlier?

  Before he could invest too much thought into it, he began to hear a rustle in a nearby thicket that soon showed signs of movement. Normally he wouldn’t have to worry about encountering some dangerous animal due to the fact that there was pretty much nothing in these woods that could pose a threat to him. Even though this was a known fact, he froze on the spot as adrenaline began to pump through his veins and sharp warnings started to echo within the haze of his muddled mind.

  While he was deliberating on whether or not he should run away, the wall of bushes parted and an exhausted middle-aged man staggered out ahead of him. His clothes and short gelled hair were in disarray, eyes wide in evident panic. Catching sight of Nolan, his expression lit up and he hurried over.

  As he regarded Nolan’s troubled frown, the man gestured at their surroundings and asked, “Hey, kid. Do you know where this is?”

  “On the edge of Collinsville, in southern Ontario.”

  The man blinked a few times. “Ontario? Remind me where that is.”

  “It’s in Canada. What, you hit your head or something?”

  “Canada? Do you think I’m slow? I was just in Chicago! I was getting groceries!”

  “Chicago?” He gave the man a wary look. “I
don’t know what you’re going on about man, but I was just at the park near my house and passed out near the edge of the forest. After that I woke up out here and ran into you.” Nolan knew how his own account of things sounded, but the park was tucked right up against the forest wall, whereas a grocery store in Chicago was at least eight hours away from where he lived. He fought off his delirium and struggled to give the surroundings a thorough inspection, a cold feeling in his stomach as it registered in his mind that this was an entirely different place than the forest by his house.

  Even though he’d never been too far into the woods, he wasn’t so naïve as to believe that the trees grew to such heights. The smaller ones within his line of sight topped out at over a hundred metres. His head was still groggy from whatever had just happened, so he was having a hard time absorbing this sudden predicament.

  “Quiet!” As Nolan was running the facts through his mind, the man suddenly loosed a harsh whisper and held up a hand. A rare breeze filtered through the forest, rocking the smaller trees and making a few older branches creak with decay.

  Nolan was about to break the silence when the man turned his head and caught sight of something that made his eyes jut out of their sockets as if he were a poorly drawn caricature of himself. Following his gaze, Nolan was astounded to see a gigantic centipede winding its way down the impressively wide trunk of one of the bigger trees in the area. It would take a ring of at least eight people linking hands to wrap around the tree’s circumference, and the centipede’s body had already been fully looped around it five times, a portion of it’s frightening length still hidden in the upper confines of thick foliage.

  “Canada, my ass!” The man sprinted off into the forest.

  Nolan was right behind him. What was with this situation? Even a centipede that was three centimetres long made him uncomfortable. How could that gigantic creature be real? What kind of lucid nightmare was this?