by Mikayla Lane
“How long will you be gone? Are you taking enough people with you?” Tricia asked, beginning to worry as she always did when Grai went out on one of his missions.
Grai chuckled at Tricia’s concern. Most days she claimed to be in awe of his warrior skills, but anytime he had to use them; she worried. Something as simple as her concern was precious and beautiful to him, having never known it from anyone but his mother.
Hugging her tightly to him, he kissed the top of her head. “We should be gone only a couple of days. And I am taking our beast bonded, Dread, Viper… and Balduen.” Grai almost grinned when Tricia sucked in her breath at the mention of Balduen’s name.
Tricia’s mind raced with her thoughts before spitting out exactly what she was thinking, her voice trembling. “Are you sure he’s not going in order to find a way to… to hurt you?”
It was a thought Grai had also had and could not discount. However, that was a truth Tricia didn’t need to know. Instead, he tried his best to alleviate her fears.
“If he wanted to do me harm; he's had a lot of chances to do that down here. Besides, I’ll be surrounded by our people and the Tezarian’s, there is not much that can go wrong, my love. Don’t worry.” Grai told her, ignoring the fear gathering in the pit of his stomach that told him he would eat those words later.
Chapter Twelve
Grai moved silently through the trees and ground cover, leading his team to the village where Bratan had located the desecrated bodies of the people that had lived there.
“Still clear. No sign of the dark ones.” Dread said through the Shengari’. The same statement was echoed by Viper and Balduen, each team staying in contact with the others as they converged on the village from different angles.
“There is a smell. I cannot place it. I have scented it before, but I do not know where yet. I see no sign of the dark things.” Gibly told Grai in his mind.
Grai almost shook his head at the brave cat who had staunchly refused to be left out of this mission. He had successfully argued with Grai and Ivint that his ability to see the dark ones and use the canopy of the trees as a cover would assist the teams by giving them an aerial view of the area they were heading into.
Grai had been the biggest hold out to Gibly joining them. It wasn’t that he didn’t like the animal. On the contrary, he respected and genuinely liked the cat. Which is why he didn’t want to feel responsible if anything happened to the intelligent little creature.
Grai had finally relented when Gibly and Ivint had pointed out that he was going to be the safest of all of them because of his ability to use the trees to escape if needed.
Fifteen minutes later, Grai knew that they were getting closer when the smell of blood and decaying flesh began to drift to them along the wisps of wind.
“Grai, we have reached the village. It is worse than we thought. There is no sign that anything is alive, or has been in days.” Dread reported through the Shengari’ to the others.
They had agreed prior to arrival that they would only speak using the energy paths to ensure that their voices would not carry and give away their location, in case Dagog’s forces were still in the area. Grai and Ivint agreed the element of surprise would give them an edge.
Grai cursed quietly, moving his team forward the few extra yards to the village, the smell overpowering his senses momentarily. Viper’s team and Gibly were to stay hidden surrounding the village while Grai, Dread and Balduen would search each structure and inspect the bodies.
Stepping into the clearing, Grai noticed the eerie sounds of the insects flying around although the normal sounds of birds and animals were strangely absent.
Looking around the area, Grai was surprised that more care hadn’t been taken to secure the scene. Normally, when his brother and father tried to cover up their activities, they were usually more thorough than this.
Large pools and splashes of blood dotted the packed dirt in the center of the village. Bodies and body parts in deep decay and riddled with insect activity littered the area as well.
Squatting down, Grai inspected the first actual body that he came to, a few feet into the clearing. Bratan was right; Grai thought. These were no victims of Ebola.
The deep slashes covering the torso of the body spoke of intense violence, the obvious defensive wounds to the hands and arms an indication that the man had tried to fight back.
Standing again, he moved through the village with Dread and Balduen and their teams, going through every body and body part they came across. They had to be thorough and make sure there were truly no survivors they could help and find out for sure the cause of this tragedy.
Although, there was no longer any doubt among any of them who had done this unspeakable thing to these innocent people.
“There are no women or children among those out here.” Balduen said angrily. He was sick at what he was seeing and joined the others in vowing to avenge these people whose only crime had been to try to eke out an existence with their people and families.
Grai knew that Balduen was correct, having noticed it himself. Looking sick to his stomach, Grai turned to face the huts that were scattered throughout the village. His mind and stomach rebelled as he moved to the nearest hut.
He’d barely pulled back the animal skin flap covering the door before his stomach heaved involuntarily, and he was driven to his knees as he threw up what little had been in his stomach before he had arrived.
Dread saw Grai go down and ran over to him to see if he was all right, knowing that whatever was in the hut was not something he wanted to see.
“Stay alert out there.” Balduen called to Viper’s team as, he moved his own team closer to Grai and Dread. The silence was making him really uneasy.
“Do not!” Grai called out to Dread when he tried to pull back the flap on the hut.
“I must.” Dread replied, knowing that the vids they were recording were being sent to Ivint and the others, and that they needed a full picture of what happened here, to these people.
Steeling himself for what he knew would be bad, Dread pulled back the flap and stood rooted to the spot. His mind tried desperately to process the horror of what he was seeing.
Ignoring the verbally spoken curses he could hear behind him, Dread threw a light stone onto the floor of the hut and waited for it to light the interior. Once it did, Dread and the others wished it hadn’t.
Some did exactly what Grai had done and dropped to their knees, emptying their stomachs. Others cursed and walked away, turning their backs to the village to look at the surrounding trees, unable to look any more. They had found the women and children.
Obviously, the men had faced the intruders in the center of the village, while the women and children had hidden in the huts. When the men were cut down, the women and children had been left defenseless.
Like all Relian’s, his brother considered women and children weak and expendable. To be used only for a man’s personal pleasure. Whether that pleasure was abuse, torture, rape or even death didn’t matter as they believed they were their property and useless for anything else. This was a message for Grai. From Dagog.
“Ivint, are you seeing this?” Balduen asked into his comm, fighting to control his own stomach as, he looked into the hut.
The silence they had agreed upon having already been broken, it no longer mattered if they spoke aloud. And Balduen wanted to make damn sure that Ivint, and the others could see this. He burned with the urge to avenge these people.
It took several moments, but Ivint’s shaky voice finally came through the comm’s. “We see it.”
“I’m sorry.” Grai said, pulling himself together and standing up again.
“Do not be. I would be more concerned had you not reacted so strongly to this… barbarism.” Dread said angrily.
“This cannot be all of them. We have to look in the other huts.” Grai said sadly, hoping that all the women and children had not been treated the same way.
Several team members nodded
their heads and strode angrily to the other huts, each finding the same scene as the one Grai had come across until all the huts, and buildings had been searched.
Back at the control center in the silver mine, Ivint and Reven watched with anger and sadness as each hut produced the same result as the one Grai had opened first.
The women and children were strung up by their feet and ankles from the ceilings and then gutted. Their intestines and internal organs pulled from their bodies and hanging over their faces.
The huge pool of blood covering the floor told them that each had died in the huts, cornered and unable to defend themselves against the unseen enemy that had delivered them to such a horrific death.
Ivint was surprised when the normally vibrant and loud Traze, whispered quietly, “That’s how he killed my mother.” The tears ran silently down the boys’ cheek as Risk put an arm around the man-child to comfort him.
Ivint cursed loudly when Traze shrugged off Risk’s arm and quickly left the room. That was why Grai had gotten sick, Ivint thought sadly.
“The bastard did that on purpose. It’s a message to Grai and his brothers.” Risk said angrily before leaving to go find Traze and try to help his new friend.
“Sirs, I think Risk is right. I’ve seen the vid of their mother’s murder; the bodies are displayed in exactly the same way.” Cristali interjected, concern evident in her face and voice. The news only caused Ivint and Reven to become angrier.
“I think Gibly found Bratan.” Viper said through the comm, causing Grai to immediately head in his direction.
If Grai had any doubts that his brother was responsible, they were erased the moment, he saw his friend’s body. Metal spike weapons had been used to impale his body to a tree; his eyes were gouged out; his genitals cut off, and the word traitor had been written across his chest in what looked like his own blood.
“We have our answers. You need to leave… now.” Ivint said through the comm. He didn’t like the situation at all; something was wrong, but he couldn’t put his finger on what it was.
“We cannot leave them like this. Besides the fact that we can’t let the humans see this… they need a proper burial.” Grai said, unwilling to let these people be forgotten, even in death. Their lives meant more than that.
“Agreed.” Balduen was the first to say, quickly followed by Dread and the rest of the team members.
“What would the humans normally do if this had been an outbreak of the Ebola?” Ivint asked, agreeing with them that the people deserved a proper burial, but wishing that they wouldn’t remain too long. He didn’t feel right about the situation.
“The entire village, bodies and all would be burned to the ground to prevent the contagion from spreading. Although we cannot use fire, we can use the light stones.” Grai said, wishing he could bury them instead of wiping their existence from the planet. No one deserved that, especially not these innocent people. Especially the children…, Grai thought.
Everyone nodded before Dread, and Balduen’s teams reentered the village and began using the light stones to destroy the bodies and the huts.
Viper helped Grai remove his friend, Bratan, from the tree. Uncaring that he was getting his blood on his clothes, Grai carried Bratan’s body to the village and laid him down near a fire pit in the center.
When the others had finished with their gruesome tasks, leveling a once thriving village into several large piles of ash, they joined Grai in the center.
“We lost a friend and a village of innocents. If nothing else, this tragedy reminds us of why we are here. Why we fight. To prevent this fate from happening to all of humanity. Not only, on this planet, but every other planet the Relian’s have in their sights.”
“We vow not to let this go unpunished, to let these people be forgotten or their deaths be in vain.” Grai continued, grabbing his light stone and holding it to the circle of stones surrounding the fire pit in the center.
Everyone watched curiously as Grai held the crystal to the stones until it glowed a bright red in his hand, the smell of his flesh burning from the heat, until the stones had fused together into a large flat ring of stone.
Ignoring the burns to his hand, Grai continued to use the light stone until he had engraved the name of the tribe, the number of people who had died and the year into the stone as a burial marker. He added Bratan’s name last.
Standing again, Grai began to softly recite the Death Rite, hoping that their God would show mercy and allow these people to be reunited in the next life with their families again.
So caught up in his own sadness, it took a moment for Grai to realize that everyone was reciting the Death Rite with him. Even Ivint, Reven and Cristali back at the command center lent their voices to the prayer through the comm.
When they were finished, Grai leaned down again. “My friend, I will miss you greatly.” He whispered before holding his light stone to Bratan’s body. When dust remained, he stood and looked to make sure nothing had been forgotten. No trace remaining other than the stone circle to mark that these people had ever existed.
“Let’s get ready for extraction.” Grai said before he was interrupted by Gibly.
“The smell! It is not death; it's the dark ones! They are here!” Gibly shouted into Grai’s mind before he heard the cat crashing through the upper trees towards the clearing.
Fear for the courageous cat coursed through Grai’s body, and he began a full-out run towards the animal, hoping to reach him before he was injured.
He called out a warning to the others through the Shengari’ as he ran past Viper, following the sound of Gibly’s progress through the trees.
Grai skidded to a halt as the black feline dropped to the ground near his feet, turning to face the direction he had come from, the cat’s fur stood on end, and he hissed, crouching low as if to spring at any moment.
Grai could hear the sound of the other teams coming up behind him and withdrew his swords from the scabbard on his back, the others following suit as they lined up around him and Gibly.
Although gunfire was not an issue in this part of the world, Grai wanted the battle, and he didn’t want it to be over too quickly. He had his own message for Dagog, and a quick bullet impregnated with salt wouldn’t assuage the full-blown rage he felt over what had been done to those people.
Apparently, the others agreed as not one of them drew a gun or rifle, all of them choosing their bladed weapons to fight.
Grai growled low in his throat as he heard the enemy getting closer to them, closing in quickly on their location. It told Grai that they had never been too far away from the village and had expected them to come sooner or later to investigate either the disappearance of Bratan or the events that occurred in the village.
Grai didn’t have any more time to think about it as the first dark one emerged from the surrounding trees and immediately headed towards him and Gibly.
With a cry of rage, Grai ran to meet the dark one, his blades flashing expertly as he launched a violent attack that left the dark body hacked up on the ground at his feet before he moved on to another one that was driving back one of his beast bonded female hybrids.
With the memory of the innocents in the village in the back of their minds, the teams held nothing back as they took on the small force of ten dark ones that had emerged from the trees.
Even Gibly made sure to make an impression as he attached himself to the head of a dark one, his sharp claws blinding and tearing at its face until it could no longer see where it was going or where the enemy was any more. Which didn’t matter since one of the others finished it off while Gibly headed to another dark one to blind.
Outnumbered and unable to deal with so many enraged beast bonded warriors, the dark ones quickly fell, leaving nothing more than their bleeding bodies to litter the area.
With his rage still coursing through him and no one left to kill to ease it; Grai roared out his anger to the silent trees around him.
“Is that all you have Brother? Is t
hat it?” Grai roared in rage, knowing his brother was probably watching… listening.
“Women and children? You never could act like a real man; you always hid behind others and harmed only those you knew you could beat! You are a coward! A useless bastard! Come fight me yourself, you bastard! Come to me!!” Grai roared as he stomped around the area, kicking the fallen bodies of the dark ones with the force of his pent-up fury.
“Get out of there!” Ivint screamed into the comm, hoping that Dagog wouldn’t send in more reinforcements and overwhelm the teams.
Grai was furious and beyond paying attention as he continued to rage at his unseen brother. “Bring it to me, you bastard! Not the innocent and women and children! I’ll give you the damn fight you want you fucking piece of shit!” He stomped around replaying the image of the women and children hanging in the hut in his mind, fueling his anger even more.
No one in the area doubted that the rage he felt was real, everyone could feel it, the impact like a sledgehammer to the chest. And no one could blame him for it. They felt it as well. The images in the village something that would haunt them all until their last breath.
“Stop it! We need to get out of here. Now!” Balduen said, shaking Grai by the shoulders as he tried to break through the haze of anger that was overwhelming the man.
Balduen watched as Grai’s eyes cleared slightly and pushed harder to get through to him. “We have mates and children to return to and plans to make to ensure this doesn’t happen again. Let’s get our people home safe.”
That snapped Grai out of his anger quickly. Looking around at the assembled group that was now staring at him, Grai felt stupid and ashamed for losing control. And even worse he should have been thinking of their safety first and not his own anger; he thought.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have lost control like that. We need to destroy the bodies and move to our extraction point.” Grai said to everyone through the Shengari’, running a hand through his hair in frustration at himself.”
“Don’t apologize, you only expressed what all of us are feeling.” Dread assured Grai, squeezing his shoulder in sympathy. Everyone knew that finding those women and children murdered in the same way as his mother had to have ripped his heart out. No one blamed him for his reaction, if anything they agreed with it. However, now they needed to get the hell out of there.