Title-- The Panthera Walkers: Freedom - Prologue
Rating and Warnings-- G; no warnings.
Species and Characters-- Species are humans and Panthera; characters include a nameless engineer and a for-now-nameless witch, both human, and a tribe of Panthera. The Walker tribe is led by spiritwalker Cloudmover and her apprentice, Ashsower.
Summary and Notes-- The prologue to the first of three Pantheran novels. This introduces the Walker tribe, and the humans who mean to capture and enslave them.


The human town was just beginning to awaken as the morning sun sent orange rays slicing through the pre-dawn shadows, and merchants were setting up their stalls with groggily cheerful calls to the few shoppers out so early. One such man, a broad-shouldered hulk dressed in a mismatched outfit of tunic and overalls, utterly ignored the wares being displayed and marched purposefully down the cobblestone street. Black footprints marked his path between stalls and towards a small but extravagantly-decorated hut near the town square.

Heedless of the grease and oil stains still oozing down the thick fabric of his clothing, he reached out a black-smeared hand to push aside the curtained doorway and step inside.

A thin, lanky woman with mouse-brown hair sat behind a round table in the only room of the hut. But for the doorway and one small window directly to her left, which faced into the street, the walls were covered floor to domed ceiling with shelves - and on those shelves were books, tied scrolls, vials, strange pottery, and cryptically-labeled pouches.

The stocky man cleared his throat tactlessly and inclined his torso in a shallow bow, drawing the woman’s gaze up from a parchment spread before her.

The witch knitted her long fingers together under her chin and smiled with unpainted lips. "You have located the ... what are they called, packs? Prides? The group in question?" She wrinkled her nose slightly after inhaling; he reeked of a lightning storm and broken machinery.

With no expression, he nodded. "Think ‘eir called tribes, missus," he replied in a sloppy drawl. "Think ‘ey thinks ‘ey’re smart ‘nough ter be civ’lized."

Arching a brow, the witch laughed under her breath. "Well, that is what we need, isn’t it, my dear engineer? A beast that is capable of thought - but a beast that can be domesticated, and controlled. These cat-creatures will do nicely, I think." She smiled widely. "Do they have a language, or any shred of culture?"

The engineer shrugged a thick shoulder. "Dunno, missus. ‘Ey gots wild animals ‘ey tamed, an’ I guessin’ ‘ey gots a speech. ‘Bout culture, dunno. ‘Ey might be puttin’ up a fight, yunno, when we comes to take ‘em." He shifted his weight, heedless of the black oil and thick mud that squelched from the treads of his boots.

"A fight?" She laughed again, her pretty voice too loud in the enclosed space. "A fight! Those primitive cats cannot stand against our guns and spells, our soldiers and our machines. They may hiss and spit, but they will be enslaved, no matter their ‘feelings’ on the matter." The middle-aged woman gestured with one bony hand, nails and fingertips stained from years working with the many dyes and herbs of her profession. Witchcraft was not a clean business, after all. "Go on. Get some rest. I’ll make the necessary preparations for tonight."

"Thankuh, missus." The man leaned forward in a second shabby bow, then turned and stomped out, leaving black-lined footprints on the previously clean wooden floorboards.



The nomads had watched the red sun sink behind the low, twisted trees of a dank marshland, and reluctantly they had stopped their trek as darkness made the root-trapped mire impassable. They numbered between fifty and sixty, these tribesmen whose eyes reflected the rays of the dying sun and whose teeth were as long and white as a wolf’s. They were few, but they were strong, and there were no complaints of hunger or weariness as they squatted on the scattered clumps of solid land, sharing strips of dried meat and sips from elk-hide canteens filled with lukewarm but clean water.

Their leader, an old woman with scraggly white hair and pale scars beneath grey and patchy fur, drew a fire into the palm of her hand with a whisper to the spirits around her. The shamanic flame cast precious little light in the overhanging gloom of the swamp, but it lit her creased muzzle and glittered in the eyes of those around her. "Ahj’n krrac," she pronounced in a voice that creaked more than the half-rotted trees around them. "Rrec, nwa hirrn mrreh." We rest. Tomorrow, we move. The message was passed in guttural mutters, words sliced into near-incoherency by feline jaws and teeth.

"Kwirr’mrrin," a deeper voice growled near her elbow, "errik’n thrric, wrref?"

The crone’s muzzle wrinkled further in a smile as she turned slit-pupiled eyes to her apprentice. He crouched next to her, clothed as all the males of the tribe in a draping cloth about his waist and then sturdier bands around his forearms and shins; but he was painted with the black water in the symbols of the spirits. Brown-furred and green-eyed, he was strong and wise - he would make a good leader when the earth chose to consume her flesh. The day would be soon.

"Yes. We are safe here. The spirits are calm, and the land dies quietly." She laid her hand gently on his shoulder, the other still cradling the fire that fed upon her own spirit to keep burning.

He was not placated. "But why does the land die, Cloudmover? It should be thriving with insects and reptiles and birds."

Kwirr’mrrin, Cloudmover, shook her head with a rustle of her matted mane. "The waters are black, like what painted your fur, Ashsower. What drinks of the black water dies."

Around them, the tribe settled down to sleep, curling up in small groups of two and three for warmth. They were family; they were huntmates; they were the Walker tribe, and they were home as long as they had each other. Cloudmover smiled again as her sharp eyes gazed at her tribesmen. One day, perhaps the elk herd they followed would stop wandering, and then, perhaps the Walkers would walk no longer after that which gave them life.

Ashsower’s dark muzzle twisted into a frown that bared his fangs and flattened his ears against his own filthy mane. "What brought the black water to the surface here? It was my task to call it to me with the spirits, to paint my fur. Surely it is not so common? The trees are only now dying. It must be recent--" He fell silent, feeling the gentle squeeze his mentor gave his shoulder, the tips of her curving claws touching his skin lightly.

"Recent, yes. I know not why. The wolf-clans do not call the black water up. Not even the bird-clans use the black water." She sighed quietly, allowing the flame in her hand to flicker, dim, and extinguish itself. The heat glowed like embers against the pads of her fingers and palm for just a moment, then even that was lost to the damp shadows. "It is no matter to us, Ashsower. We pass through on the morrow. The swamp is not large."

"It is every matter to us! We keep the balance!" Despite the vehemence in his words, his tone was hushed, letting those around him drift to sleep. They kept no guards, other than the wild animals a few had taken as companions. Those stood watch - a long-legged bear over there, with the clump of three; a spotted jungle cat with the one who slept alone, to the left; a scarred little jackal with the pair entwined in sleep up ahead.

"We keep the balance between Panthera and nature; between the Walkers and the elk. But the world is beyond us, my boy." Cloudmover smiled affectionately at him, giving his shoulder another squeeze before she drew her rag-hemmed cloak more tightly around her thin frame. "This is the world, and we merely pass through. We keep the balance by ensuring we do not harm it. But the black water came and killed long before we came and walked." She tucked the oversized hood of her cloak over her long mane and rounded ears, face obscured now by thick cloth. "Sleep, Ashsower."

The dark-furred Panthera was not content with her answers or her wisdom, but he would not disobey his elder. With an uneasy huff, he curled up at her back and pillowed his head on his arms. "Good dreaming, Cloudmover," he whispered as he felt the old woman settle into the rhythm of sleep.



In the darkness well beyond the outermost sleepers, a man in oil-stained clothing grinned at the slumbering tribe. All around him, other human hunters crept in to set and spring the trap.