Shepherd’s Awakening (Books 1-3)

by Pablo Andrés Wunderlich Padilla

  The mercenaries appeared restless. They said that killing the lady had not been difficult, but that what they had taken out of her womb was of a different nature, that it was all goodness.

  “What’ll become of the baby, Lord?”

  “It’ll die tonight, just as the master, Legionaer, ordered. In Némaldon, sacrifices are necessary.”

  One of the mercenaries did not seem to agree. “I’m pretty sure we’ve made a mistake,” he told his partner. “That baby is different. Didn’t you notice? To kill it would be an act of barbarity…” He turned to the pale being. “May the Gods condemn you forever, dethis. May the Goddess of Night judge you and send you to her eternal dungeon. The baby will remain with us.”

  The other mercenary unsheathed a curved sword and confronted the strange being: “You damned dethis… I don’t know how you got us to accept the deal. May the Gods forgive me for what I’ve done to this woman… This is a disgrace. We’re leaving, and the baby’s coming with us.”

  “The creature belongs to the master. The deal was sealed in blood and nothing can revoke it.” The dethis grinned scornfully, revealing a pair of wolfish fangs.

  With a nimble movement, he attacked the first mercenary. He bit him in the neck and tore away skin, flesh, and veins. The second mercenary had barely had time to raise his sword when the claws of the demon speared him through. Once both were dead, the monster began to feed on them hungrily.

  The man with the torch was paralyzed. The demons of Némaldon… in the village of San-San-Tera? It made no sense, but that was the last thing he needed to worry about. The baby was still alive. He left his hiding place, running at a crouch to get a little closer. From his new position he could see the woman’s body drained of blood, with her throat slit from side to side. Beside the grey afterbirth he found the body of the newborn, still joined to its mother by the umbilical cord. He took off his llama vest and wrapped the baby in it. Its cold little body barely moved. He cut the cord, tied a knot, and returned in haste to his hiding-place. He rekindled the embers of his torch and started back to find the access to the tunnels bedeviled with that greenish light.

  Eromes went into the Ranch perturbed. The shadow had touched him with its tentacles, and he had noticed the contamination of his mind and soul. In his arms he carried something very special, wrapped in his llama vest.

  “Eromes, my love!” Lula cried, frightened at the sight of her husband’s face, his blood-soaked hands, a bundle in his arms. “Where have you been? Speak to me!”

  “Here, take him! Take good care of him!” he told her, handing her the bundle.

  The woman held out her arms. “By the Gods!… who is this beautiful creature?”

  Moved, filled with maternal instinct, Lula started to weep. For years they had tried to have children, but the Gods had not honored them. She had only become pregnant twice, and both times she had lost her babies. They were buried in the graveyard.

  “Lulita, nobody must find him. Give him the best of you, love him like a son, and try to make him happy. The shadow… it’s terrible… malevolent… the shadow…”

  The woman tried to stop Eromes, to calm him. “Wait… don’t go! Why are you going away like this? Tell me! My love!”

  …

  A young Lulita, with somber gaze, rang the bell. “Manchego!” she called the growing boy. “Breakfast is ready!”

  A boy with a sad smile sat down at the table. A dog came to sit at his feet with its tongue hanging out from its friendly face.

  “Thanks, Grandmother. I love you!”

  ***

  It was like a slap. In that reflection he had seen his origins and now he was crying. His legs were shaking and finally his knees gave out. He slid down the stone wall and hugged himself on the floor.

  “I’m an orphan? And nobody ever told me! My mother was murdered by order and someone, the man I thought was my grandfather, saved me and that’s why he died… I’m the result of a disgrace, I’m the seed of disgrace. That’s the truth that Lulita and Balthazar have been hiding from me… It was all a great lie to keep me away from the truth. That’s why I don’t look like Lulita, or Eromes, or anybody… I’m nothing but a miserable orphan, a bastard most surely… By the Gods! A curse on it!!

  The boy wept, unable to hold himself back. The surprise of finding out the past in the mirror had been a great shock. “They wanted me murdered… That demon dethis had mentioned a certain Legionaer. And my father? What could he have looked like? Is it because of him that I love watching the sunrise? Or because of my mother? Why did I have to be so different? Oh Gods, be merciful to me!”

  He remained sitting for a while, with the crackling fire for company. The owl-headed corpses had not stopped their ritual, the portal was still open. He had resolved many of his doubts, but he was still not satisfied. What use was this truth to him now? Someone had led him there, to the truth. What had he been trying to achieve? If he had him there he would gladly have punched him, Manchego thought. Did he not guess the pain it would cause him? He wiped his nose on his sleeve. He felt the Teitú nut in his hand. The tears fell on to it. He squeezed the totem hard. “Orphan… they meant to sacrifice me, but what for?

  “And now? Would you let them offer you in sacrifice?” he asked himself. “Never!” he replied at once. “I’m not going to be anybody’s sacrifice And it’s thanks to Lulita and Eromes that I’m alive.” This thought brought him out of his numbness. “Grandmother! The Ranch! The village!”

  He had recovered his judgment. In spite of his pain, the world went on, and if he did not hurry, soon the violence would consume the village, and he, his grandmother, Luchy, Balthazar, the Ranch—everybody!—would be buried. Could he manage to bear his grandmother’s death, the helplessness he would sink into? His love for the woman who had looked after him, who had given him her heart, just as a mother would to her son, brought him out of his sadness.

  The bodies stopped moving their arms and began to leave their places. The fire went on burning lower until it was no more than a tiny light. Above, the brightness of the mirror of the Black Queen of the Morelia Abyss went out.

  Chapter XVII – A Tragic Cascade of Events

  A column of black smoke rose to the sky, like the finger of some evil being prodding the white clouds. A wind from the East brought with it the smoke and ashes, and a smell of violence. Manchego opened his eyes suddenly. He was outside Ramancia’s house; he could not see Mowriz anywhere. Had it been a dream? Had he fallen asleep in front of the witch’s house? He straightened up and could not believe what was around him.

  There were three piles of corpses by the dozen, all with a look of extreme suffering on their faces. He heard the clash of metal on metal. With a start he got to his feet, looking all around him, fearing he would be caught in some failed attack.

  There came an explosion, followed by flames, cries, and more clashing of swords. A group of ten to fifteen people were running, at the end of their strength, towards him. They seemed to be fleeing.

  “We’ve got to retreat! Retreat! To the Vengeful Arrow Fort!” yelled one of the men, with beard and hands bloody, clothes torn and dirty and boots in no better state.

  Manchego ran after them. If he stayed there, whatever was pursuing that group would finish him off too. A spear struck a man. He fell, rolled as far as a mound of bodies and lay there inert. Another spear flew overhead, buzzing like a devil, and buried itself in the back of a woman’s neck, nearly decapitating her completely by the force of the blow.

  “Inside, quick!” A man was pointing to what seemed a secret entrance, hidden among ruins.

  “We’re bringing a survivor of the March of the Two Hundred with us!” announced the bearded man.

  “Hey, you! What’s your name?” cried another man from the roof of a house.

  “Manchego,” he replied nervously. Exhausted by hunger and sleep, the boy crossed the threshold and came into a space that was no more than a street shut off by two booths assembled from rubble and garbage. So this w
as the fort, or at least one of the ones that Savarb, the leader of the resistance, had talked about. Manchego looked around at the defenses they had created. Those wooden houses would not withstand an attack by the soldiers.

  A man came up to him with eyes staring wide, bow in one hand and an arrow in the other. It was the one who had hailed him from the roof.

  “Lord Manchego? The rider with the white horse?”

  Manchego did not know what to say. He could not guess the archer’s intentions, and he was armed.

  “By the Gods!” the man cried joyfully. “He’s come back from his mission! The Gods are good… Did you save your loved one? Did you accomplish your task?”

  He held out his hand and Manchego recognized him.

  “… Savarb at your service. We have to thank the Gods for your life. It’s a miracle. The battle of the Two Hundred was a massacre, a complete extermination. And those sons of bitches are piling up our dead in stacks for reasons we don’t know, but it’s obvious that they’re doing it with some unholy purpose,” the Captain muttered.

  “Soldiers at the entrance!”

  At that moment, a squad of twenty enemy soldiers came in through the secret entrance. They were met with a volley of arrows like wasps, some of which hit their targets. A bomb of fermented lard ended the skirmish when it fell on the daring intruders and burnt them alive amid howls of pain and the crackle of charred flesh.

  Savarb sighed and turned to Manchego: “Right, my lord, we don’t have much time. We need to join forces and secure the Vengeful Arrow Fort, the last of the three points that are still standing against the enemy. Follow me… What’s up? Are you worried?”

  “Yes, Captain… I’m worried about what might be happening at my house, with my family. It was peaceful when I left, but now… I don’t know how things are. I’m afraid I can’t help you; I need to get back right away.”

  “Get back? Are you crazy? Do you know the dangers you’ll be facing if you head toward the ranches? The soldiers’ll cut you to shreds, Lord Manchego.”

  “But… I have a grandmother… she’s old…” muttered the boy, swallowing his panic.

  Savarb studied the lad and knew he would not manage to dissuade him. “I know of an alternative way, my lord: the sewers. It’s not free from danger, we don’t know what’s in there, but it’s the only option. And there’s a problem: The nearest entrance is two blocks away.”

  “I’ll risk it!” Manchego said, suddenly hopeful. “I can’t stay here when my grandmother’s still at the Ranch, and Luchy and Tomasa and Rufus… They need me! I’ve got to get there one way or another!” The boy clenched his fists. “I’ll go by the sewers.”

  He felt full to the brim with determination; he even noticed that his voice had changed, as if there were no trace of innocence left in him and he were now just a sad man with a longing for revenge.

  Savarb nodded. “Two of my soldiers will escort you and help you take off the lid at the entrance; it’s metal and very heavy. At the end of the access stairway there ought to be a torch, and it should be easy to light. Here’s tinder and flint; they’re good quality. When you’re inside the sewers, don’t forget to follow the current. The exit is near the Farmer’s Avenue.”

  “Soldiers! The devils are coming!” came a cry in the distance. A sphere of flames flew over their heads. Arrows fell in showers.

  “Those sons of bitches never rest,” muttered Savarb. He turned to Manchego: “Set off at once! Here, take this dagger, you might need it. Get away before night comes!”

  ***

  Maslon and a comrade named Ermand guided Manchego amid shouting and the noise of the battle they had left behind them. The shepherd was tiring fast; he was not used to moving so cautiously, bent double, his nerves and muscles tense. For a moment he thought a few soldiers were coming toward them, but the noise was lost amid the hurly-burly of the war.

  He scanned the windows and doors of the houses. Maslon and Ermand stopped in the middle of the street. There in front of them was the metal lid, heavy, with a smooth rusty surface, which gave access to the sewers.

  “Now push from one side with the club,” Maslon said. “One, two, three!”

  The lid gave with a powerful screech. The pestilent breath of the drains surged up from the black mouth. Manchego recovered from the stench and began to go down the steps. What mattered was to get to his grandmother as soon as possible.

  “My lord, wait! There’s something I want to tell you. It’s a song my grandmother used to sing in difficult times, and you seem to me one of those bright beings my grandmother called revealers. The song goes like this:

  You fret, and you’re smothered by words,

  Meaningless, fluttering like birds,

  You’re hooked, on the route that you know,

  Conquering wherever you go,

  Eclipsed, you surge from defeat to the fight,

  The lion’s battle-roar proclaims your might.

  Your sorrows you long to discard, to forget,

  To take refuge in others, to flow freer yet,

  Dulling yourself with tears, your ideas flowing free,

  You swing in a hammock of sorrows, cease to be.

  Emotion turns to energy, your scheming

  Thoughts become arrows that cut through your dreaming

  You lose all the peasants weave into their song,

  What pleased you in other eons is now sad, is now wrong,

  And yet your flag in battle flutters proud and free,

  You resist the oppression that drowns you in misery,

  You weaken, O powerful unveiler, you taste despair,

  Your swollen heart holds treasures of memories in rosaries, and when boiled

  they suddenly wake in your mind, and you remember when and where.

  Bleak, the ideas that swarm to sulfur disdain:

  Dulled, you sink like a ship adrift in the main.

  Cheerful puzzles you’ve talked about slip from your hand

  And fall, frozen, over mountains of words on the land.

  Warrior heroes casual Time has evolved for your aid:

  You take up the whole, not the part they say you have played.

  Not for you the frothy heroics of a day or an hour:

  You defend the flanks you’re assigned with fury and power.

  Yield not, avoid all shabby temptation,

  March, warrior hero, let your strength be illumination!

  So onwards, divine angel, give your flock the care which is owing,

  Keep vivid that life which the saints send endlessly flowing,

  Shout with power your eminence, let your warlike passions shine clear,

  March onwards, let your dwelling be strong, your brightness austere!

  These words were like a fresh breath of hope, and they drew Manchego away from the wish to take revenge for the murders of his mother and grandfather. “Thanks for the song… Now I have to go. Maslon and Ermand, may the Gods be with you!”

  The warriors wished Manchego a good journey and with great effort began to close the entrance to the sewers. With his eyes on the hole above his head, Manchego watched the evening light disappear in that ever-narrower half-moon. With a clatter everything went black and silent.

  In the distance was the sound of something dripping. His heart froze when he heard metal-soled boots running over the cobblestones outside. He wished his new friends Maslon and Ermand the best, that they would manage to escape and reach the fort in time. The silence was almost an oasis of serenity. Apart from the intermittent dripping, he could only hear his own breath and the beating of his heart.

  He took out the tinder and flint the Captain had given him. With one hand he touched his other pocket; yes, his Teitú nut was still there. In the darkness he rubbed the flint against the rock as to create sparks. The tinder quickly caught on.

  He went on down the stairs, slowly, so as not to put out the flame. As Savarb had told him, the torch was beside the last step. A breath of air came up the tunnel and extinguished
the light. He blew on the embers and fed them more tinder. The flame caught at once, vigorously, licked the walls and almost reached the ceiling.

  Secure in the light, Manchego stepped off the final step, and his boots sank into a thick green liquid with feces and other refuse floating in it. The stench made him retch, but he had to go on. This was nothing in comparison with what he had just been through, with what Grandmother might be going through. Savarb had warned him to follow the current of the water, and so he did.

  He walked as fast as he could, making as little noise as possible. When he came to a crossroads, he took account of the flow of water and refuse and took the same direction. He preferred not to think too much; enigmas and secrets he had barely begun to make out were accumulating in his mind. His whole life had been turned upside-down, and he knew that the Manchego who was going back to the Ranch was not the one who had left it.

  Noise.

  He stopped and the noise ceased. It was the sound of footsteps, he was sure of it. Someone was walking at the same pace as himself. He stood still for a few seconds, looking back, in case that person should appear. Nothing. All the same, a few waves in the current confirmed that someone was nearby.

  On an impulse he started to run in that direction. Whoever was there was not fleeing, but coming towards him.

  “Stop, in the name of the Mayor!” The shout echoed between the eroded walls. Something shiny flew towards him. He soon realized what it was and crouched down. The spear hit the torch, sending sparks and embers everywhere. There was darkness.

  Without being aware of it, he sent out a pulse of angelic energy. As though in a gentle wave, a body traveled across the distance that separated them. Manchego felt only that this presence moved away from him to release its fury on the soldiers who were pursuing him. The boy stirred and wiped his sleeve over his face. In the darkness he felt for the torch: It was wet and now useless. He still had some tinder left. He rubbed the flint on the wall. By this small light he made out two soldiers fighting to the death with a being who wielded a sword with only a single arm. Manchego felt a current of energy that electrified him as he recognized Mowriz fighting with a passion he would never have imagined in him. It infected Manchego. The wish to avenge his mother and grandfather awoke in him, and he joined in the fight. Before the match went out, he managed to thrust the dagger into the side of a soldier. He felt horror as he noticed the flesh yielding, deeply and cleanly, before the advance of the blade. The soldier collapsed with a yell.