will soon shine with joy so fair,
his night disappears from the rubble
and his discontent never return.
“That’s all, children, Goodbye!” Ramancia said desperately. “And never come back to this house. Never! It’s bedeviled! Flee! For the Gods’ sake, flee!”
A dark shadow enveloped Ramancia and devoured her in a single gulp. In the blackness they could hear the witch weeping. Manchego and Luchy did not delay a single second longer. They flew out of Ramancia’s shop, as if the hounds of hell were licking their footsteps.
***
Manchego slammed the door and hugged Luchy. “We’ve got to get back to the Ranch! It’s not safe in here at all! Ruan was right! This place is ruined! Come on!”
“Wait, you knew and still brought me here!” yelled Luchy in a mixture of anger and frustration.
Manchego dropped the flask and the glass shattered into a thousand pieces. The orange liquid soaked into the cobbles. He had not been careless; the flask had not slipped out of his hands because of nervousness. Manchego too fell, with a thread of blood running down his forehead. Luchy bent over him, and in the confusion heard laughter behind her. She turned round, on the brink of tears. There was Mowriz, with his friends, Findus and Hogue.
“Idiots! Why can’t you just leave him in peace? Don’t you see the village is a complete mess? Don’t you even have enough sense to realize there’s enough violence around us already?” Luchy spat out.
The girl stood up with her fists clenched. She wanted to give them a beating, but she was aware that she did not have the strength, and what was more, she was alone. She felt choked with frustration.
“It seems the little whore wants a fight,” Mowriz said with a wolfish smile. “You’d better control that mouth of yours, bitch, or I’ll make it hurt so much you won’t want to talk for the rest of your days. Now, get away from that scum!” he shouted, gesturing at Manchego. “We’re going to give him what’s good for him… That pretty boy doesn’t deserve life on this world! Get away from here!”
She did not. She held onto Manchego as hard as she could. She tried to put him over her shoulders and run away with him, but her arms would not respond. Mowriz and his lackeys approached. There was no time, there was no way out. But then a window of hope opened up.
She took three quick steps to the mare and untied her. She ran back to Manchego, hoping the mare would come to their aid.
The boys were coming. Luchy held onto Manchego. She noticed his fist was tightly closed, just as it had been when he had had that illness. Was he holding that strange nut? A strange pulsation echoed around Luchy. It happened so quickly. It was there and gone in an instant.
Sureña clearly reacted to the pulse. Luchy also felt a change in her own emotions and felt as if she had to protect Manchego with her life. At that moment, she was convinced she would die for him, that she would give every single breath and devote it to saving this innocent boy, even if it meant her own destruction. The mare must have felt the same thing. It charged against the thugs with all her strength.
With her muscular chest she struck Hogue, and when she had him under her hooves she crushed his legs, his ribs, and his skull. The brains of the young redhead were left as a paste on the stone. She went after Findus, who was moving away from Manchego, shaking. With her teeth she bit off an ear and went on biting. He who had been the handsomest student was howling now with his face bitten, skinned, shapeless. He fell to the ground, maddened by pain.
Mowriz took a while to react. When he realized the danger he was in, it was too late. The mare let the full strength of her forelegs fall on the boy’s chest, so that he felt his lungs exploding in bubbles of blood escaping through his mouth in pink foam.
Manchego felt two warm arms holding him, felt a kiss on his cheek, feathers beneath his body. He felt love. He felt peace. Luchy…
Chapter X – Miasma
Balthazar kicked the door open and came into the Ranch with Manchego in his arms. Luchy ran behind, trying to help. The girl knew she had to go home and tell her parents how wild things were in the village, but she was still engrossed with the necessity to ensure the boy was brought to safety at any cost. The boy did not look his best; he was pale, and his breathing was shallow.
The wildborn laid him on his bed and made him comfortable with pillows and blankets so as to keep him warm. Luchy sat down on the edge of the bed and stroked his dark hair, weeping.
Balthazar picked up his satchel and took out different herbs. With a mortar and pestle, he began to mix and mash them together until what resulted was a thick but smooth paste, which he put into the boy’s mouth. He whispered a few unintelligible words, as if invoking the force of nature.
“I need you to bring some water, Luchy,” the Wild Man urged her. The girl did not think twice. She would do anything to help her friend. She flew to the kitchen.
Balthazar had great hopes for the efficacy of his herbs. All that remained was for water to spread those effects through the boy’s veins.
He began to despair as time went by and Luchy did not come back. He stood up, intending to look for her, but as he went into the kitchen he met something he was not expecting, which he could not even believe, knowing that this evil presence was as real as the one which had taken Eromes. The darkness was back!
The wood of the ceiling began to give way, pushed by a titanic weight. Balthazar and Lula looked at each other, and a look of understanding passed between them. Luchy shrank back in a corner.
The Wild Man took his axe in his hands.
With a kitchen knife in her hand, the grandmother started to move carefully around the room, her eyes staring wide. With her free hand she felt the air, in search of the evil presence.
Luchy felt the same terror she had felt at the witch’s house and ran back to Manchego’s side, fearing there was no one there to look over him.
The young shepherd was beginning to wake, and his face still showed the confused expression of someone waking from sleep. He was moving his mouth in puzzlement, becoming aware of an acrid taste. His puzzlement gave way to fear as soon as he saw his grandmother with a knife in her hand and… the weight of the same entity he had perceived in Ramancia’s house.
The old woman gestured Manchego to keep silent. Luchy was at the boy’s side, already succumbing to the terrible pressure imposed by the dark presence. The atmosphere became more oppressive. Light dimmed as if a shield was sucking the light from the house.
Lulita struck at the air but failed to find her target. The darkness seeped through the cracks on the roof. Images of death and decay came into Manchego’s mind. Worse was to see his grandmother cave in as the pressure amounted. “No more!” she cried in an insane fury. “Die once and for all and leave us in peace! No more! Why have you come back? What do you want? Aaaah, aaaah….! Noooo!”
The knife Lulita had in her hand fell to the floor and his grandmother collapsed.
“Grandma?” Manchego said faintly. He knelt beside this woman who was his grandmother, his mother, his father, his friend. He hugged her, moistened her face with his tears, stroked her with his hands. He found no solace.
“Grandma!” he yelled in a sudden fit of emotions.
The boy was clutching the Teitú nut so tightly his knuckles became all white. He bared his teeth and clenched his jaws so tightly he could barely breathe. As his vision clouded from the lack of oxygen, a strange energy pulsed from his very soul. The pulse was there and gone in an instant. A tidal wave of protection swept though Luchy once again. Balthazar was moved as well, again. He had been summoned by this strange energy when he rescued Manchego in the village, and once again the energy had summoned him to protect this young boy at all cost.
Light flushed the house. The full brilliance of the sun shone through the windows. The darkness vanished as if it were never there, and the enormous pressure that had threatened to devour the occupants within the house was gone as well.
Manchego looked around in surprise,
unaware of what had just happened, and unaware he was the source of it. “It’s gone!” he yelled. He laughed and cried and then laughed again. “It’s gone! Grandma! It’s gone!” he continued yelling in a frenzy. “Grandma! Come back! Don’t die,” wept the boy.
“She’s not dead,” said the Wild Man.
“Blessed be the Gods!” said Luchy, slowly coming out of her own emotional trance. “What just happened… that darkness… I felt it in Ramancia’s house…” she wondered to herself.
“This isn’t the first time it’s happened to her,” the Wild Man said about Lula’s collapse, “but I have to see to her at once. Manchego, please listen, look into my eyes. You must leave here, now. Luchy! Take him away, it doesn’t matter where! Believe me, Manchego, for the sake of your Gods you must believe me: It’s the second time this has happened to your grandmother. I can only help her with mystical methods and… you two mustn’t be present when I summon the spirits of the forest…”
“What?” said Manchego. “But… it’s safe now!”
“No it isn’t!” yelled the Wild Man. “She’s been touched by the darkness…”
“But what is it? What is that darkness? Tell me!” the boy shouted.
“Do you wish your grandmother to live, yes or no?”
“Yes…” he said tearfully.
“Then shut your mouth and do as I say,” said Balthazar, turning to the old woman. She was already looking ashen.
Without delay, Luchy took Manchego by the arm and dragged him out of the house.
Chapter XI – Revelations
Lula woke up with the headache of a lifetime, perhaps because so many memories had come in a rush and threatened to break her fragile balance. How could she forget every detail of the day when the love of her life succumbed to the force of that blackness, of a darkness that throbbed with malice?
It had all started one afternoon when Eromes arrived home in a hurry, calling for a rope and a torch. He kissed her on both cheeks with the delicacy which announces a tragedy.
Hours went by. Eromes returned that night with his face pale and dirty, covered in a black sweat, as if his skin had been that of a demon. He talked to Balthazar and then disappeared again. She waited for him for three whole days, missing him, feeling those tepid kisses with which he seemed to have said goodbye forever. She could stand it no longer and called Balthazar. The Wild Man evaded the questions, offered reasons with no basis which left the lady disconsolate and with a grudge towards this man that would last over a decade.
Why did she have no news from Eromes? Why had he not told her where he was going? There had never been any secrets between them. The woman went on being on edge, with her heart in her mouth all the time. She tended to the fields and the chores at the house, she helped Tomasa during her training at the Ranch. She was insistent with Balthazar. “I promised I wouldn’t tell you a word…” What little love Lula was able to feel for him vanished at once. Then she stopped sleeping in peace and shortly afterwards Eromes came back, but broken.
With these memories, Lula could not find the strength to get out of bed.
“Breakfast is ready,” Tomasa announced at noon.
The old woman made the effort, grateful to Tomasa, and sat down at the table. The food smelt delicious, but she had no appetite for any of it. She was feeling once again the effects of that terrible depression which had left her breathless for many long years. She had now been like this for three weeks, since the shadow that murdered her husband had returned. Rufus came to her side, wagging his tail, alert in case any food found its way to the floor. The woman petted him and let her hand drop for the dog to lick.
To make things worse, the property was in ruins. Manchego’s effort had been all for nothing, with the village sunk in chaos and trade suspended. The hen was still sick, on the verge of death, with no recovery possible. They couldn’t even eat the damn animal in fear it was poisoned.
To eat they only had vegetables and some fruits. The Ranch would soon go under and Lula would be forced to sell the land she loved so much. She sighed uneasily. As if he could understand her sorrow, Rufus put his head on Lula’s knees. He seemed to be giving her encouragement with his eyes. The woman smiled. She took his muzzle between her hands.
“I’m too old for this, boy. I fear my days are numbered. I may not reach next spring, or even next week. I’m a sack of organs that are worn out…” the grandmother said.
Rufus barked twice, showing his disagreement. He put his nose to the floor looking for crumbs and went outside in search of Manchego. Lulita broke into quiet weeping. Manchego at that moment was on his way in, hungry, and when he saw his grandmother bent over he ran to hug her. The old woman sobbed in the boy’s arms, though he did not understand the sadness into which the woman had sunk.
***
“Do you know anything new? Hasn’t your grandma told you anything?” Luchy asked. They were at the Observatory, watching the sunset.
“She doesn’t say a word about anything,” Manchego burst out, throwing an apple up into the ceiba tree. “I’m fed up with her keeping everything secret. And Balthazar’s the same: evasive. We’re not selling a single seed either. I haven’t even found out anything about what happened at the witch’s house or at mine, the same day. It seems obvious to me there’s some connection between the two. I mean… you felt it, right?”
“Yes… I did. It was so weird…” I also felt a pulsation as if it came from your soul, thought the girl. She wasn’t sure why she didn’t say it, though. She wasn’t someone who held back her thoughts, not usually. Maybe she felt saying to Manchego something pulsed within him would alarm him even more than he already was? Luchy wasn’t sure of anything anymore. Even her parents were confused by how drastically and horribly the village had gotten. Luckily, they were far away… for now.
Luchy said. “I’m having nightmares, you know? It was like being in the presence of something very bad… very dark. But I don’t know anything else.”
“And you don’t know what happened to Mowriz?”
“No.”
“Do you think he’ll have died?” ventured the boy.
“I don’t know… But he wanted to kill you, I’m positive about that. Sureña protected you. If you’d only seen her… it was amazing.”
“Oh no, Luciella…”
“You’ve never used my full name before,” the girl said in surprise. The sunset lent color to her face.
“What can be going on in the village? It’s got to be something really bad. Something terrible’s about to happen.”
“Don’t say that, you silly, don’t scare me.”
“I don’t mean to scare you. It’s what I feel in… in the air… in everything. The shadow we felt was an omen of what’s to come. I have a feeling everything’s going to get worse.”
“Don’t even say that! We’ll pray to the God of Light every day, we’ll go to the Décamon, and you’ll see, the Gods will listen to us,” Luchy said warmly.
“I hope so… I hope everything goes well,” muttered Manchego. The sun concealed itself on the horizon. Darkness covered them.
***
“You knit like Urdelia, Doña Lula. You were always a wonder with the needle.”
The old woman recognized the voice. “What do you want, Balthazar?” she said without turning around. “Drop the flattery, don’t take advantage of your friendship with my grandson, or that you saved my life. You already know what I want. Just because you had my tacit permission to train my grandson doesn’t mean we’re friends.”
Balthazar’s face twisted a thousand ways. All his attempts to regain ground with Lulita had failed. The light of the sunset shone on his golden skin, the same color as the grandmother’s. “You, as a Wild Woman, should understand what a blood pact means.”
“Blood pact?” The woman leapt to her feet, faster than her years might lead anyone to suppose. Her height was impressive, her shoulders broad, her body slender but athletic, typical of the Wild Women. Her white hair contrasted wi
th her golden skin.
“You’re a conniver. I don’t exactly know what you did to make the dear Mother of the Wild Lands banish you, but it’s clear that you know very little about respecting a pact. My husband died protecting… Still, today, you’re hiding things I long to know.”
“Eromes and I made a promise, and I’m trying to keep it. Don’t give me all that…”
“I know what promise I made, and I don’t need you to remind me of it!” the woman shouted, throwing her knitting on the floor. She had lost control. “He was my husband! My beloved! Who are you to rob me of his last words? Tell me!”
“He made me keep silent, Lula. You have to see that it’s not my fault!” Balthazar answered passionately.
The woman let fall a tear. Not knowing exactly what had happened to Eromes before he died was something which frustrated her deeply. She asked herself every day, and she would not die in peace without knowing the truth. The only person who could tell her what had happened was Balthazar, this man she detested so much.
“But it’s my right, Balthazar. It’s my right!”
“I didn’t come to argue, Lula. I need you to listen to me. I want to talk about what happened here three weeks ago, when that shadow… returned.”
The mention of the shadow stung her heart. The blood drained from her face. “Why have you come to torment me? Do you enjoy doing it?” she asked with a moan. The grandmother’s lower lip was trembling, her eyes were filled with tears.
“It’s not that, Lula,” Balthazar said impatiently. “I haven’t come to torment you. It’s important to understand what that shadow is, why it’s come a second time. Thirteen years ago Eromes died. Do you want another misfortune now?”
“Do you think I haven’t considered that?”
… That shadow came to kill someone, the man thought, pondering.
“The last time it came looking for Eromes… it killed him. So now what?”
“Perhaps it didn’t come looking for Eromes, Lula. I suspect it came for Manchego. Think about it: Eromes is no longer alive. But that day thirteen years ago and the one three weeks ago have one thing in common: three people are present once again. Those three people are you, Manchego, and me. Perhaps it wants me or you, but I think it’s unlikely. Remember Eromes’ words before he died…”
Shepherd’s Awakening (Books 1-3) Page 8