A supernatural tale for the season… a complete Otherwest novella on Royal Road.
What if the life you want is taken from you?
After surviving the brutal slaughter of his naval squadron, Van Bran believed he could escape the world of empires, war, and magic by forging a new life on the American frontier.
As a rancher, Van’s life was simple, quiet, and far more peaceful.
But when Van and his drovers come face to face with an ancient evil vying for control of the New World, a life of peace may be forever outside his grasp.
Unless Van can take up arms once more and face the terrors of his past, he and his friends will serve as spiritual hosts to demonic skinwalkers.
Enter the Other West…
Chapter One: Brethren
Proverbs 10:11 – “The mouth of a righteous man is a well of life, inspiring the weary”.
Van tossed and turned before he jolted awake, free of another nightmare of the Crimea. Rubbing his eyes, he cast his gaze about the star-lit camp. The Black Seminole, Day Long, snored, mouth open, his limbs at all angles. Nathan Drake, their scout, was silent beneath his furs. Van’s childhood friend Teven Har lay with a lock of his wife Jessica’s hair held in his hand from the rawhide tied around his wrist.
Day Long coughed and broke wind in a prolonged release. Van smiled and shook his head. The terrors in his nightmares of Azov were nothing compared to the horrific odor that rose from the Seminole warrior’s back end. Its smell, like the memories, lingered. The horses hobbled nearby snorted and whinnied. The stench was unpleasant even to their noses.
Van looked around. Something caused him to wake. He touched his forehead and thought of the battles on the Sea of Azov, his instincts and headaches that warned him and kept him and Teven alive. In the dim light of the stars, shadows loomed beneath boulders and rock formations resembling mushrooms and goblins. Perhaps the danger was closer at hand; they might die from Day Long’s foul flatulence.
No, young Christian Har still stood watch, sitting ten feet away, atop one of the goblin-like formations.
Van snorted, breathing through his mouth beneath his hand. His stomach gurgled. Rather than being sickened by the smell, he found he was hungry. What did that say, and had hunger awoken him? Patting the ground beside him, he found and drank from his canteen. His tongue tingled. He pulled a small packet from within a saddle bag and opened it. Delicate flakes fell from his new favorite food—piki bread. The flattened, thin, blue corn rolls almost resembled parchment and lay black in the night on his lap. Next, Van removed a second canteen, this one filled with honey. He sat back against his thick-horned, A-fork framed saddle, stared up at the stars, and thought of Aleya.
The morning of their journey south, Aleya gave Van a jar of honey. Van recalled how she looked that morning, fresh from a bath in the ranch’s nearby brook, “For luck, Honey Sly,” she said. She grinned and laughed to see Van’s eyes widen at the thought of honey, almost not hearing her affectionate nickname for him; borne of his love for the sweet nectar. The Mormons had only recently introduced honeybees to the region, but Van believed he’d go without honey after the move to the Colorado territory.
On the porch of their ranch house, speaking their goodbyes, Van whispered between them as he embraced Aleya. “When you look up at night, those will be the same stars I see.”
Aleya pulled back and laughed at the cliché, raised a finger to his lips, caressed his cheek with the backs of her fingers, and said, “Bring me the night that brings me to you.”
The sound of a cleared throat drew Van’s attention to the present. Day Long, propped up on an elbow, reached out his open palm with his other arm. He raised his chin and bobbed his head. Van looked down at the remaining portion of piki in his hand. Day Long wiggled his fingers.
Born on Andros Island, John Day Long traveled west as an Army scout and his heritage of Black Seminole and Carib Indian gave him a unique perspective on the tribes along their current journey.
Known as Johnny Day Long, he was just about the craziest, fiercest man Van had ever known. No one had a quicker temper than Day Long. He wasn’t long on patience. Van called on him to help them scout a suitable trail and locate the herds of wild Spanish cattle to drive east and then north into the Colorado Territory, around and back to his ranch in St. Maria.
Nathan traveled with them, dressed in his usual buckskin and wearing his hawk-motif buckle. Drake served as a scout and guide and thrived in the extreme conditions he encountered walking the Rocky Mountains from the Colorado territory to deep within Canada. He spoke French, employed conversational knowledge of Spanish, and several native languages; often mediating between native tribes and encroaching Easterners.
Teven stirred in his sleep, nose wrinkled. Behind him, Day Long made doe-eyes and pouty lips; his hand remained outstretched.
Van dipped the blue corn roll in honey and turned away. Day Long laughed. “Best I take over for young Mister Har,” he said. “After I drop a load.”
Van coughed. “Downwind and far away.”
“Absolutely, brethren.”
Continue Diablero on Royal Road—for free!
What is Otherwest?
Otherwest is a fantasy epic that follows Van, a former naval sailor turned rancher, as he learns of the ancient Otherwest—the spirit world of fallen gods, demons, immortals, and monsters harness etheric energies to wield magic and supernal abilities which spill onto the Mundane Plane—our reality.
Fans of eastern fantasy and the cultivation of qi will be familiar with such themes in Otherwest, as Van’s journey plunges him into the supernatural cultures at war and broadens his knowledge of ley energy, mana, and personal chi.
Magic and mayhem await, along with the literal western flavor of adventurous heroes testing the limits of the frontier—the unknown and hidden worlds that surround us.
All Content TM & © 2007-2024, the First Salvo Partners, Thaddeus Branco. All Rights Reserved.
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