Shepherd’s Awakening (Books 1-3)

by Pablo Andrés Wunderlich Padilla

  Not far off were two other bodies, killed by well-aimed arrows, and then he recalled something Balthazar had said. Lulita had been a great warrior, and being a Wild Woman, there would have been nothing surprising if she had shown great skill in the use of those weapons, which were common in those lands.

  I think you should take a sword and a shield.

  Manchego felt fear. He had never been moved by violence, although at that moment he wished to take revenge with all his soul. But it was one thing to think about revenge, quite another to carry it out. Wielding a sword at this moment scared him; it meant taking another step on the path which would turn him into a different person. There was one broken in two and he thought that would be ideal for him, since part of him identified with this mutilated weapon—it would also be lighter to wield. The shield turned out to be very heavy for him, so he gave it up and put it aside. He concentrated on the broken sword. It made him feel powerful, closer to his goal: to find and stop Feliel, come what may.

  Without more ado, the boy and the seraph set off towards the village, the epicenter of the shadows.

  Chapter XXVI – The Breeze of Silence

  Savarb led them to the village. In spite of the piles upon piles of corpses there were still survivors, and they were waiting in the Fort.

  “Soldiers!” one rider shouted in warning, but too late, because the spear pierced his chest at that precise moment, and he fell dead.

  Another spear, and another and another, flew out of the darkness.

  “To the booth!” shouted Savarb, possessed by a madness which threatened to overcome him. His companions were dying in an ambush; he had already counted ten bodies, and he saw no way of saving the lives of the others. The leader of the Resistance knew perfectly well that they would all be dead soon. What was wrong with those soldiers, that they were capable of such cruelty? He was convinced that they must feel like pawns of an unstoppable force, and automatically he looked up at the sky, at that gloomy cloud.

  The riders went into the booth, among the mass of junk which had been gathered together and put there to block the entrance of a large number of soldiers. Savarb, a man of war who had served under the command of General Leandro Deathslayer, knew they were all doomed, since the Vengeful Arrow Fort would not withstand an attack by over two hundred soldiers. He was sure that very soon the Resistance would fall.

  “To arms!” he yelled. “Get ready!”

  A brutal detonation spread like a curse through the village. The sound came from the center, most likely from the Town Hall.

  Lulita opened her eyes wide, staring up at the sky. Luchy’s gaze was still fixed on the horizon. All turned their attention towards the same place: the Town Hall. In the distance a few clouds were moving at unusual speed, very rapidly and in the same direction, as if some gravitational force were drawing them on.

  Savarb, together with a few others who had seen other extraordinary phenomena, suspected that behind all this must be a necromancer’s spell. The Black Arts were practiced by the Nemaldines, the Mandrake Empire’s oldest enemy. Némaldon was a land of occult powers and monsters fetched from the deepest, most inaccessible reaches of the shadows. But after four hundred years of peace, nearly everyone had forgotten the existence of such ill-omened beings as orcs, wraiths, and other beasts.

  The clouds continued on their way and amassed in the center of the village, one after another, creating a gigantic sphere which occupied most of the horizon. There came another blast, and a green beam crossed the sky as if a god had unleashed his fury on the world.

  The sphere began to move at ever-increasing speed, and arms emerged from that shape, stretched and twisted, then danced around the spiral cloud. The watchers were all left staring in wonder, paralyzed, caught up by this spectacle. The spiral spun around a central axis: the Town Hall.

  Savarb’s heart raced insanely in his chest. The survivors were people little used to war; they would be an easy prey for the soldiers, who were clearly possessed by the effect of some potion or powerful spell.

  “To arms! To arms!” Savarb urged them, gripped by fear, without taking his eyes from the horizon. He knew his moment had come, that today he would die, but with the honor due to the people for whom he had given himself up to his last breath. He touched the metal of his sword, felt the coldness of the blade, its powerful and savage edge. His breathing became agitated.

  He drew his weapon and pointed to the center of the village, as if he were challenging the Mayor himself, and said: “Let the final battle begin! May your soldiers taste the edge of the metal I shall use to overthrow you!”

  A wave of peace ran throughout his body, as if accepting that his fate had prepared him for a fight whose unfortunate end he could foresee, but with the certainty that one day a force of good would defeat evil. He thought of Manchego, the boy he had met a couple of days before. He prayed to the God of Light that the boy might be far from the shadows.

  The sound of metal boots on the cobbled ground brought the Captain back to reality. It was time; the battle of the besieged would begin and end today. The survivors would be decimated, their bodies piled in heaps, and death would spread like that blackness itself. But they would not accomplish it easily.

  The people of the village had nothing more to lose; they had been cornered—and there is nothing fiercer than a cornered beast. It might have been a fight between rabbits and wolves, but even rabbits have teeth.

  “To your posts! To battle! The end has come!”

  Savarb watched several villagers form a group, then join him on the roof of the house where they had made their stand. Among them was the lady he had found in a ranch, together with another rancher.

  ***

  Luchy was sitting on a bed made of straw and refuse. It was the place which a nurse had pointed out to her so that she could find a little comfort. She knew she was not the only person who had lost her whole family, but she could think of nothing else; she had not even had time to get used to the idea of being left all alone. Her world had just collapsed around her.

  Yes, she had seen misfortune, seen death, but she had never imagined she would be a witness to the murder of her entire family. She would never forget that moment. The sound of the metal boots, the wild screams, the swords rending air and flesh. The howls of her mother, her father’s helplessness, the crying of her siblings when the metal sank into their hearts. They had arrived without warning, from behind, and they began to kill. But she had managed to hide.

  From her shelter she had had to see the atrocities those swine committed on her loved ones, without crying out, without weeping, and then react in time to leave there before the fire which engulfed the house swallowed her up with it. Now she was here, in a cluster of huts the people called a fort, a stronghold. But it was not strong. She knew by the murmurs of the wounded. There was little hope left.

  The Captain was the only inspiration, the only man who still believed they could do something. As for the others, Luchy felt they had already been given their notice of eviction.

  It was a couple of days since the girl had seen Manchego. Lulita had been inconsolable when she reached the village, screaming her grandson’s name. Then Luchy had understood that her friend had disappeared. She did not want to think of any other possibility, did not want to imagine him buried under other corpses.

  She prayed to the Goddess of Night, D’Santhes Nathor, that she would look after her best friend’s soul and grant him access to the Deep Azure of the Heavens. A soul like Mancheguito’s would not have to pay for any sins, for it had been pure and filled with grace. The girl leaned back. Her physical and emotional weariness was so great that she fell asleep at once.

  Hours later she was awakened by a noise of weapons and harangues; the war had not ended. She saw that Lulita was sleeping beside her, her face swollen with weeping. On her other side was Lombardo. The good-looking young man was absorbed on other matters, staring at the ceiling, his lips tightly closed, and his fists clenched. There was nobody else
. How many survivors were left? The Mayor’s soldiers were determined to finish them off. Why?

  ***

  Lombardo, of the Zapotillo Ranch, was lying on the bed staring at the ceiling of the ramshackle house the Resistance had assigned to him. Savarb was a brusque man with little patience, used to giving orders without caring whether he gave offense. His long unkempt beard, his black eyes, deep and wounded, made it clear that the man had suffered unfathomable pain. The rancher could not explain to himself how they had reached this situation so quickly.

  He knew about the socio-economic problems of the village, but he had never suspected that the crisis would degenerate into an indiscriminate mass killing. So many corpses, so many dead piled in heaps, so much bloodshed, viscera, and decapitated heads. Who had come up with such an outrageous idea?

  The young man had inherited the ranch from his parents, who had died of natural causes a decade before. He recalled the moment when the soldiers had come in by force, setting fire to everything, swords raised. He was glad his parents had not been there. He had grabbed a spade and a rake and killed some of the rabble. Had it not been for his formidable size, the rancher would have died. Thanks to Savarb and his reinforcements he had managed to escape. What he could not explain was how the Captain had known the ranches were in danger. He could not imagine it had all been due to a young man called Manchego.

  He was deeply affected. He was no longer a peaceful rancher, living quietly; he was now a man who had killed several soldiers. And the worst thing was the certainty that the cycle of violence had hardly begun. He wanted to go on shedding blood, knowing that if he did not, the blood which was shed would be his own.

  The complexity of the problem had been reduced to a simple conclusion: kill or die. There was no way back, and he had made the decision to kill. He would not give up; he would throw himself bravely into the battle. Beside him, Doña Lula of the Holy Comment Ranch had awakened and was weeping anew.

  ***

  The lady was delirious. She could not accept that when she turned round her grandson would not be there beside her, that he might have died. Sometimes she thought about Balthazar. She had not found him when the Ranch was set on fire, which might mean that he and Manchego were together. Perhaps…

  But she felt it was not true. Balthazar was a furtive individual; he would leave without any explanation. He would have fled like a coward, just as he had before. The old woman could not get rid of her astonishment at the war’s voracious advance. She, who had fought in other battles, had never seen anything like it. It was not normal. The only possible explanation was that something or someone was controlling the soldiers. Maybe they were possessed.

  She did not want to open her eyes. She clutched axe, quiver, and bow close to her body. They were her souvenirs, inherited from her mother, who had been a dominant alpha female of the Wild Lands. She had fled from Devnóngaron with her husband, a non-dominant male, in search of better opportunities. In this way they had come to the Empire and had indeed found rich opportunities.

  Their daughter Lulita, who had been born with her mother’s gifts, had enrolled in the militia of the House of Thorén. Because of her worth, she had been transferred to the Imperial Army, where she had met General Leandro Deathslayer. It was a time filled with adventures, when she had been able to show her ability as a Wild Woman and her superiority in the battlefield. But when she retired she met Eromes, and after their wedding she locked the souvenirs of her time as a warrior in a chest and devoted herself to the Holy Comment Ranch.

  She had never thought she would ever open that chest and use her weapons again. The woman hugged the axe to her and felt her Wild Woman’s spirit emerge. She sat up, opened her eyes, looked at an indeterminate spot, visualizing the image she had in her mind. Her face wrinkled. Every fiber of her being cried out for revenge.

  ***

  “Captain!” Lula said, facing Savarb. “I used to belong to the army. I served with General Leandro Deathslayer more than twenty years ago, when the General was young and newly promoted. I’ve come to take my position in the battle!”

  Savarb, a man who seemed made of iron, softened at this show of courage.

  “Ma’am… forgive me, but the people your age are helping to make arrows and shields, and nothing more than that. I’m sorry to have to say this, but…”

  The slap she gave him made the Captain’s head spin. “Of my age? I’m not senile, nor am I a useless old woman. I told you I’ve had a great deal of experience in the battlefield, and both my axe and my arrows are hungry. They say the Mayor is responsible for this mess, and if that’s the case, he’s the one responsible for the loss of my grandson Manchego.”

  “Manchego…?” Savarb was surprised. Lula saw emotion in the leader’s face but could not guess what it was. It left her with no doubt that this man knew Manchego, but how? Could he know where he was? With a look, the woman urged him to go on.

  “Manchego… it’s because of him that I reached the ranches. He said he was going to find his grandmother,” Savarb said, recognizing in the old woman a relative of the boy’s. Lula burst into tears.

  “So… you’ve seen him? Was he near here?”

  “We met him in the village. He told me he had a very important mission. He set off to Ramancia’s house. Then, around six in the evening, he turned up here, by the fort, in a hurry. He said he had to go back to the Ranch, that his grandmother would be waiting for him anxiously…”

  The woman grabbed the Captain’s jacket, but Lombardo—who was watching what was going on—stopped her.

  “Easy, Lulita. Let Savarb explain himself.”

  “How could you let a boy of thirteen go away alone, with so many dangers around! A responsible man would have stopped him and put him somewhere safe, not at the mercy of death! Where did he go!”

  “We escorted him to the sewers…”

  “And suppose he never came out of them? Suppose he’s still there amid the waste? Didn’t it ever occur to you that an innocent, inexperienced boy, alone, might easily die? Are you a complete idiot?

  “Ma’am… you should’ve seen your grandson. Manchego was more than determined, he didn’t even look like a frail child to me. Nobody would have been able to hold him back.”

  “And what the hell was Manchego doing in the village at that hour? I bet it’s all the fault of that accursed Balthazar…” Lulita wept again, unable to understand why Manchego had come into the village, in the thick of war and in darkness. Savarb had said he did not look frail… She wished it might be true and that he was still alive. She prayed to the God of Light and the Goddess of Night. She had recovered some hope, but she would not be happy until she saw him again.

  “I need someone to help me protect the front on its western flank,” Savarb said firmly. “I’ll take charge of the booth, at the east. Otto’s offered to watch the northern front. Lula, could you take the south?”

  “All right, but I’m not done with you yet, Savarb. You made a big mistake, and I’m going to find it hard to forgive you.”

  The lady turned and left, descending from the roof by the stairs.

  “Greetings, Savarb. I’m Lombardo, of the Zapotillo ranch. I’m here to offer my services in this battle.”

  “Thank you. All are welcome. This war is about to end, and it doesn’t look good for us… What weapon d’you use?” Savarb asked, studying the rancher and his cotton clothes.

  “None. I’ve never seen myself in a situation like this. But I killed some soldiers with a spade and a rake.”

  “We’ll have to work something out, then. Come here. Only someone of your size would be able to use my father’s weapons. This is a two-handed sword made from Vásufeld iron itself, forged in the furnaces of that city. My father, Aronoff the Woodcutter, was part of the militia, and King Aheron II rewarded him with this sword. The blade’s rusty, but a sword this heavy doesn’t need an edge, just someone who can wield it easily. It’s yours. Come on, there’s no time to lose.”

  ***
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br />   Lula sat down on the bed where Luchy was still lying. She was whetting the blade of her axe with a smooth, sharp stone. The noise made the girl nervous. The woman, ignoring her discomfort, continued with her sharpening while she imagined Manchego being ill–treated by some deranged soldier.

  “I can’t believe Mancheguito isn’t here…” murmured Luchy. The grandmother had told her everything she knew, that Savarb had met Manchego and that he had let him leave in spite of the dangers.

  “Stupid… that Savarb is a complete idiot…” Luchy said in an echo of the old woman’s thoughts.

  “It hardly matters what we think of Savarb or of Manchego at this moment,” Lula replied. “Pray to the Gods, that’ll have to do. If, as they say, the Mayor’s the one to blame for all this, he’ll pay a very high price for his cruelty. You’ll see. For the moment, we’ll just have to do our best to survive. It’s the only way of seeing Manchego again some day. If we die: Well then, that’s it.”

  “Don’t say that, Lulita,” Luchy said sadly, though she could not forget that her own family had been murdered, that death was an all-too-likely reality.

  “It’s nearly midnight!” someone shouted outside. A breeze arose, dragging with it dust and bad thoughts, hatred and the smell of the dead.

  “Get ready, Luchy,” Lulita said, and struck the stone against the axe.

  “What for?”

  “To live or die.”

  Luchy was stunned at the coldness of Manchego’s grandmother. She knew the woman had served in the militia, but had not imagined her heart could have a dark side. She watched the old woman, those wrinkles of rage which crossed her face, her lips which were now two thin lines, her sky-blue eyes bright in spite of the darkness. She felt a tremor. It had only been her body.

  “We can hear boots coming towards here! It sounds like thousands of them!” came a cry from outside the house. The great moment had arrived. The great battle of the besieged would take place at midnight, under the spell of the Black Arts.