I have not seen Rana for many of the past few years. She left me and joined with the Walkers back before that night by the river. I let her go. In a way, I forced her to leave me, and now I am feeling disheartened by what I have done. Things have not gone according to plans.
She, like me, has grown bitter over the years. She has grown angry. Watching the humans slaughter the Walkers did this to her, I have no doubts, but there was more to it than that. What happened between our father and us was the true cause of her hatred to me. I do not blame her for this. Just as I have had to do what I did, so I know that she had to do the same. As I have helped the humans do the slaughtering, she has helped the Walkers to survive it. I know. I still see her mind, although now it is nothing but a whisper to me. It is nothing but a feeling of shadows inside my head, and nothing like the words she used to speak to me when we were together. I do not know if she has blocked my thoughts or not, but I do know she is fading from me with each passing year. She is fading from my life, and now I fear this. I hate watching it happen, and I have no idea how to set it right. One thing I do know is that soon, this may all be over. The blood may soon stop flowing over the world. The Blood Walkers are now down to only one and he is running out of time.
King Jameson has used all of his hatred of the Walkers to an ebbing conclusion that may happen soon. He and his people have stretched out over the entire world and have hunted them down to only a few remaining clans. Asia, the lands of the vast and far East is now completely clear of them. Africa, the great southern continent is also quiet now. The remaining clans have gathered in the far north of Europe, and there they wait. This is where our king has driven them to their end. And now, we have come to finish them off for good.
After the initial onslaught of the Walker Elders, Devish survived. He escaped and disappeared from the world. No one had seen him in years, believing that he just gave up his need for human blood, but Jameson and I believed otherwise. I believed he was biding his time, building his legions of Walkers, and readying them for the conclusion of his life. When he returned doing just this, he miscalculated his gravest foe. Jameson was waiting for him.
We slaughtered a thousand Walkers over that month. A hundred more humans died during the assaults. We pushed Devish back. We pushed him to the far north of the Island of Britain and there he now rests. There he waits for us. There we will finish the spilling of blood and finish the war that he started. I only hope I am right.
And now, here we are. King Jameson and I, Rochie the Rock-thrower, have come. We have gathered our full forces for the coming fight. We have gathered thousands. We have gathered an army, and with them, some old friends have also joined us again. Now, fully gathered, we wait for Devish’s next move. We wait for him to come down and end this war. Again, he has run out of time.
1
“Where are you going son?” Georgia asked as she watched her only boy heading away from the house. He was walking. He was stomping. He was obviously angry, and she knew why. Since he was now a teenager, since he was now becoming a man, he and his father Gregory never get along. They were both strong. They were both stubborn beyond rational thought. They were a lot alike, but yet, they were completely different. They wanted different things. They had different dreams. They had different fears and hopes.
Gregory wanted his son to be a farmer, to raise crops along with a family. Kalima wanted nothing of the sort. He was determined to make his own way. He wanted something else entirely, and being of the age he now was, that something he didn’t know. He didn’t know what he wanted and that caused the problem. This caused the anger between father and son. And here she was completely caught up in the middle of that same old feud all over again.
“I cannot take his wrath anymore mother. I cannot take his hatred of me.” He plunged down the road with a purpose. He continued his stomping, noticed it, so he gathered his legs beneath him and slowed his strides. At least he had to act like a man, so he did his best.
She watched him slow down, and this told her that he didn’t want to leave. He just wanted someone to hear his pleas. She knew her son all too well.
“Your father does not hate you Kalima. He is just anxious for you to make a life. He wants so much more for you. He wants you to be able to support your own family someday.” She followed him up the road. Living on this small farm just outside of the village of Glomar meant that he had a long way to go to get anywhere. She knew that was a part of his problem too. He never seemed happy without knowing which direction he could go. In all honesty, there was no place for him to go at that. He was a man looking for something that he would never find. “He wants you to settle down. You cannot do that; support a family of your own without knowing how to feed them. What would you do for them? How would you live without it?”
He stopped and his head went down. He knew what she was trying to say, but at the same time, he still didn’t want to hear it. He couldn’t let them know the full truth about what he felt. He couldn’t hurt them like that, and he never would.
She stopped with him and stayed just behind him. She felt happy to see him do it too. She was now in her forties, and she was getting too old for this.
“What if I do not wish for that?” He huffed out with a strong sigh. “That is his life, not mine.” The burning feeling was growing inside him like never before. It was getting stronger. The need to leave, the need to breathe, it was growing even stronger than that.
“You do not agree with that.” She touched the back of his shoulder with a soft hand.
He calmed down some within her touch. He always did. “I cannot see my life just sitting here and doing nothing. I have to do something else or I feel like I am going to die.” He has felt this way for some time now. He has felt lost. He has felt anxious. Every day now, he felt himself growing angry. He could almost feel his blood boil from within his chest. Everything made him feel like he was about to burst from his own skin. He couldn’t fight the feeling anymore. He just couldn’t sit still. He couldn’t stop the burning inside his heart and mind.
Beneath her hand, he did feel hot. It felt like he was sweating from working the fields all day, and to her it felt different. He felt almost like he had the fever. He felt like he was burning up from within.
“You do feel ill.” She moved around him and faced him. Her hand stayed on his shoulder as she turned. “When have you started feeling like this?” She felt concerned that more was happening to him then something that his father said. She had never seen him ever get sick before, so this was new to her. She didn’t like it but it was.
He liked hearing this in her voice. He liked hearing her listening to him. He loved her so much.
He shook his head. “It is something that I cannot explain.” This was true. He didn’t know how to say it. He didn’t know how to describe it. He just felt it.
She pressed on. “You can tell me anything Kalima. You are my son, and all I care about is you. I am here for you, for always and forever.”
He bowed his head. Would she understand? He didn’t know, but he did know one thing. He had to try. “For a while now I have been feeling this need. I have felt the need to run from here. I have felt the need to just go and leave everything before it was too late.” He did and there was more to it than that, but he wasn’t going to say the rest, so he didn’t. He just kept his head down from looking into her eyes. He just couldn’t bring himself to see her now. The burning feeling made him think of so many crazy things. He could hear people inside his head. He could see through some of their eyes. He could feel the breeze like it was a part of his mind. He could smell freshness. He could smell them, people, and he liked it. He wanted to taste their sweet taste, and this made it all so much worse. He didn’t trust himself with those thoughts. He didn’t trust himself with what he might do if he did.
“Why? Why do you want to run?” She didn’t understand this. She may have given birth to him, she may have raised him, but sometimes, he didn’t feel like her child. She didn’t know wh
y she felt like this, but she did. Now was one of those times and she hated herself for it.
He kept his eyes down. “I do not know. I am feeling lost. I feel trapped. I feel completely caged.” There was more. Again, he stayed quiet on this. He didn’t understand it, and doubted she would too. It all started with the dreams. It started with the sweating nights. It started a few months ago, but now it seemed worse. It was getting worse every day.
He was right. She didn’t understand this at all. To her, he was getting the fever—a dreadful disease that a few in the village have gotten over the years. It started with the body’s heat, and then got worse from there. Following it was weakness. After that came mental illness, and then, heaven forbid, death. This was all she knew, and it was what scared her the most.
“You must return to the house. You must rest.”
He didn’t agree. “I cannot go back.” He looked down the dirt road, and across the fields of grain not far from there, he could see the trees. He saw the forest, but there was more there that felt hidden from him. He could feel the wind blowing. He could feel the heat. He could feel the very earth breathing his name.
Georgia dropped her arm. “You are not well Kalima. There is something wrong.” Tears swelled up with in both of her eyes as she shook her head. The fever must have already started making his mind burn too. This made her cringe even more.
This time, he did look up to face her. He looked into her eyes. “I feel better than I ever have.” He looked at her, into her, saw her tears, and felt his own beginning to build up on his face. She always did this to him. He couldn’t bear to see her cry, and it made him drop his head again. He couldn’t bring himself to see her do it, not ever.
She relaxed seeing his face, if only for a brief moment. It told her that he still felt something. He still thought something, and this made her calm down instantly. Maybe he wasn’t sick after all.
“What are you feeling then?” Her thoughts turned. She wanted so much to understand him. No mother would ever feel differently.
He took a deep breath, and caught something on the wind. It came to him strongly. It came from the trees. He turned to it and took it all into his mind. He tasted it. The smell coursed through his chest like nothing he had ever felt before, and it made him gasp. He even knew what it was.
“Wolves are coming.” He looked out to the trees, and could almost see their stench on the air. It seemed to move. It looked almost like smoke from an unknown fire flowing out on the breeze. It surprised him with how strong it all looked.
She heard him and instantly grew afraid. Wolves never came out while it was still light out. Something seemed wrong. She didn’t doubt him, and this made her feel worse. She always knew that there was something different about him; she knew this ever since he was a small boy. He could see and feel things that none of them ever could. She always tried to tell herself that it was something else, something that they all could do, but now, as he has turned older, those feelings faded fast. He was different. He was his own soul, and she accepted it.
The smell grew stronger. He could see it move. He could see them moving through the trees. In fact, he could even see four of them coming towards the fields. They were moving fast. They would be there in just seconds, if not faster than that.
“We must warn the others.” He grabbed his mother’s right hand with his, and turned her before she could say anything else. He pulled her with him back up the road. He headed straight to their home, just near the crest of a small hill. He dragged her inside and slammed the wooden door of their small, earth bricked three-room home.
Gregory, his father, sat at the meal table just in front of the hearth. He didn’t even look up when the door slammed. He was still too hurt for even that.
Kalima knew why, knew what he felt, their argument was as nasty as it had ever been, but this was no time to fight. Wolves, a pack of them was moving towards the town.
“Wolves are coming. They are moving from the trees. They will soon come across the fields.” He took his mother to the table and stood her there. With her near his father, he turned back to the window at the side of the house, facing the fields, and looked outside. He didn’t see them yet, but he knew there were still coming. Even here, inside the walls, he could still smell their musty scent. He could still see them moving. He could still see them gathering for the strike.
Gregory heard him, and agreed with his son. He also agreed with his wife about what his only son could do. He had gifts that none of them had, or could ever dream of having. He could smell flowers on the other side of a mountain. He could see people coming from a mile away. He could feel animals before anyone else could see them as they hunted. He was gifted beyond words.
“When?” He stood up quickly and took his wife’s waist into his right arm. He held her tightly. In times like these, he would never let her go. “When will they attack?”
“They are waiting.” Kalima kept his eyes outside. He could now see them gathered across the field. Why are they not coming? He thought about this some. It didn’t feel right, and he was right. They were acting differently, and he didn’t know why. Moonwalkers always attacked at night so they could hide their numbers. They hunted with stealth. They only attacked with an advantage. This time they felt different. “They look like they are waiting for something.” This was the only thing that made sense.
Gregory didn’t like the sounds of this. “We must head to the village, and warn the others. If they are waiting for something it may be because they are gathering more of them.” There was something more terrifying than even this thought. “They may be waiting for the sun to go down. They may be waiting for a Nightwalker to join them.” Nightwalkers hated the sunlight. They were allergic to it. It burned them if they stayed out in it for too long. With the sun ebbing down for the day, this might explain what his son saw. If that was true, and a Nightwalker was with them, then they had a serious problem. Wolves, as dangerous as they were, could still be fought off with relative ease, but a Nightwalker was not so easy. They were fast, and only one thing could kill them and that was gold. Gold was hard to find. Only the elders of the village possessed it. This meant that the average people, the average families, would suffer the most. More people would die before the night ended.
Kalima agreed. “Take mother with you. I will stay here and watch them.”
Gregory shook his head. “No. We all go together.” He stressed this. His son was stronger than anyone he had ever known before, but even he had limits. He may not know what those were yet, but he didn’t want him to find out.
Again, he didn’t agree with his father. “I have to be able to know where they are. If there is a Nightwalker with them, they will move too fast. I will not be able to see them until it is too late.” Wolves moved slowly and with purpose behind them. Their stench came before they moved. Nightwalkers moved faster than their smell. He wouldn’t be able to track it before it was too late.
The wind turned. The smell of a heavy mustiness came on the breeze. From the direction of the wind, he could tell that they were moving. They were coming down wind.
“They have left the tree line.” He turned back to the window, and even from this distance, he could see them moving across the field. Even with the wheat swaying high off the ground, he could see them running towards the house. They were running towards them. “We are not going to have time.” He looked back to his mother. “It is too dangerous for her to go with you. You have to be the one to get help.”
Again, Gregory didn’t agree with his son at all. “We go together. If we run, we can make it to the gate of the village before they get here.”
Kalima shook his head. “We will not make it as a group.” He turned back to his parents who now smelled of nothing but fear. He could almost see their smells. He could see them shine with it all around them almost like a bright light was shining directly behind them and lighting them with its overwhelming brightness. He had never seen this before, not like this, and it boggled his mind
. If he had the time, he would dwell on it, but he didn’t. The wolves would be there too quickly for this. “You have to go father. They will not follow you.” He didn’t know why he knew this, but he did. Deep inside him, deep inside his mind, he could feel it. He could even hear a voice, a woman’s voice and she said this to him through the void of time and space. He knew they were after him. They were after her, his mother. His father, they didn’t even know he was there.
“He is right Gregory. You have to go and tell the village. One of us has to warn them before it is too late.” Georgia didn’t want to argue this. She knew they were running out of time.
As much as he hated hearing this, as much as he feared it, and everything it might mean, they were right. This was his family, but there was more at stake than this. He had to do it. He had to go, but before he did, he turned back to his son. “Protect her. With whatever power you possess, she is in your care.” He did trust his son. He always did, and no argument between them would ever convince him of anything else.
“I will.” He looked back to the window and now saw them only a hundred yards away. They were almost there. “Go now!”
Gregory did. He opened the door and ran. As much as he wanted to, as much as he feared what he was leaving behind, he didn’t look back.
He ran down the road and headed straight to the wall across the field. He ran to the gate at the center of the wall as fast as he could go.
With the door shut again, Kalima ran to it and stood his ground.
“I am frightened Kalima.” Georgia closed her eyes. She concentrated on every sound. She held herself with both arms and now waited for the attack.
A Werewolf's Saga, The Beginning (A Werewolf's Saga Boxed Sets Book 3) Page 27