The Terror of the Raiders

Chapter Eight - Strange Cat (Revamped)

It took three days before Charles was spotted.

Thankfully, not by any of the humans that he was still weary of. Not that he felt it was any better that the tom had seen him instead. It was unnerving to see something that had been dead only four days ago stare back.

Not as unnerving as it had been to watch him wake up for the first time, at least. It had taken until the moon's rise on the second night abroad before Charles had been able to relax the course fur along his spine. To finally close his eyes.

It had helped that he'd acted so normally. Maybe the tom spent a bit too much time sleeping on his dead master's chest, but he did nothing else unusual.

Between the fitful rests and lack of food, the adrenaline that had been fuelling the kitten since everything began had faded. Using the last dregs of energy, he was able to slither through the shadows along the edge of the ship towards the waxed basket where the raiders kept their food supply.

Careful paws were able to crack open the woven lid and delicate claws were able to hook themselves into a piece of smoked meat.

"Looks like I found a thief."

Charles dropped the dried goat as if it had burned him and, and spun around so fast that his tail whipped his whiskers. He swallowed his bite down a too-dry throat to clear his mouth.

But no words came out.

He knew it hadn't been any of the humans speaking, because he could only understand a handful of their words at the moment. Yet he'd still forgotten to use the process of elimination and realize that the only other being on the raider's ship was the ginger cat.

It took everything in him to keep his hackles down and ears forward. There was no energy left to respond, not that the other cat seemed to need him to.

"I had wondered if you'd survived."

It took too long before Charles was able to stutter out a reply. "I- I saw you die."

"No, you saw me get hurt. Clearly, I was able to heal myself and am still alive. I did not die."

Charles gulped drily at that. "But h-how?"

The tom's sharp eyes missed nothing as he looked down at the black scrawny kitten, however. He turned about and paced a short distance to a wooden barrel near the food baskets. Charles recognized the charcoal drawings along its bottom as the artwork of one of the village children, the coopers young son.

"Come on," The cat flicked his tail. "We can chat some more once I know that you'll not pass away from thirst."

The kitten nervously slinked forward, the tip of his tail twitching uncontrollably, until he was next to the bigger feline.

"There," the tom gestured with a nod of his head towards the fired clay bowl that was as tall as Charles' shoulders, with a thick base on it. It had been hidden from view until now, tucked behind the barrel and out of the way of men that would accidentally kick it.

He crept further forward, until he could just peer over the side of the bowl. It wasn't quite half full of fresh water, and the kitten almost choked himself on the bowl's rim trying to lean down far enough to drink.

He backed up, then jumped with the swell of a wave, and landed his forepaws on the rim. This time Charles was able to get a drink.

Once he was sufficiently hydrated, he turned back to the tom. Sitting on his haunches and curling his tail over his paws, he perked his ears forward in curiosity. "How did you survive?"

The tom also lowered himself, all the way to his belly and turned in to a relaxed resting position, before beginning. He told Charles about magic, and the familiar-bond that allowed an animal to store and access his master's power when needed. Such as to heal.

"I can't control it the way my master could, nor am I able to get anymore magic. It will heal me if my pains are great enough, but I don't get any choice in that."

"So, can- you can't do anything with it?"

"There is one thing. Your eyes are very bright and I'm sure you've noticed me sleeping on my old master's chest over the last few days. Yes?"

Charles nodded his head in a yes.

"I let the magic drain out of me, and back into his body. It's why his flesh is not rotting. I have enough inside me after healing to keep his body frozen for probably another week."

Charles tilted his head, "what then?"

"By then we'll be back home," the tom chuffed. "We're only a couple of days away as it is. I'll help get his body back home so his wife can burn it, and then I will stay to become companion to his son."

And indeed, the tom – who never volunteered his name – was right.

The morning three days after their conversation, the raiders began shouting excitedly at each other. Gesturing animatedly over the ship's side they called a gunwhale and exclaiming a word that Charles believed to mean land. He couldn't be sure, but he didn't know what else would cause such excitement.

He watched from his shadows as they prepared to dock. Raising the giant cloth that caught the wind they called a sail, and sliding onto their seats to push out the oars.

The raider with the gentle hands had spent almost the entire time next the carved stick at the back of the ship, which Charles now realized reached down into the water and was called a steerboard. The raider pushed or pulled on it to control the ocean's flow around the ship and help manoeuvre in in the direction he wanted.

From his vantage point in the shadows of the bench, Charles was able to watch him. His name was Donovan, but mostly Charles just heard the other men call him Donnie.

Donnie kept his gaze focused on the nearing port, shouting out order to the other men every now and again that Charles could barely understand. The sun had not yet reached its height in the sky by the time the starboard – the right side – clacked quietly against the dock's deck.

He watched as the men lowered down the raider-druid over the side, another man grabbing the chest that Charles had come to realize belonged to the dead human. The tom followed them, discretely flicking his tail in farewell to the kitten.

He hid and watched until he was alone.