Something drastic had changed here since the General had come the first time and found her. She didn't remember much before that. Flashes and images, but nothing made sense to her. All she remembered was seeing him and knowing he needed her help as much as she needed his. He had given her a safe place to hide and she was important there. She knew if she had stayed here she would have died, or worse. As the sun set even lower Dawn shifted her search for something else. She put her sword back in its scabbard unwillingly, and used both hands to dig through the piles of useless junk that had been left behind by other scavengers. Eventually, her hand hit something that felt right and she pulled it out carefully.
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The sun was getting too low and Shade was having a harder and harder time seeing. He had found a pair of shorts that might fit him, but so far, that was about all. It wasn't turning out to be a very useful trip. With the sun getting lower and lower, he knew they were going to have to find a place to sleep for the night and work on looking more with the fresh sun in the morning. Dawn flashed him an image of heads up and he turned to see what she meant. A flashlight sailed through the air and he dropped his dagger to catch it. The metallic clink of it hitting the floor echoed through the mall. The sound bounced off the walls a moment before fading away. So far they had been keeping very quiet in their search. The darkness had become complete in the back end of the mall. Shade tested the light and it worked, as long as he held it of course. He began to play around with it, shining it everywhere in the mall until he passed it through a dark area in the back and heard a moan come from that direction.
"What was that?" Shade brought the light back again and tried to illuminate the corridor but nothing was there.
"Did you hear anything?"
Dawn simply shook her head no, but once again drew her sword out. The metallic ring bounced off the walls. Shade began walking carefully down the hallway searching out the source of the sound.
"This must have been an administrative area. These are all offices." Most of the doors were off their hinges and the few windows smashed. It wasn't often a room had any light in it, so Shade had to search slowly as they moved farther down. At the end of the hallway, there was only one door left. This one locked with one of the scanner card type locks and showed signs of someone trying to smash it open. Whoever had tried hadn't had any luck.
"I guess I was just hearing things then. There is nothing down here at all. I guess we should just get back to searching. Should we sleep in here tonight?"
The look of panic on Dawn's face was answer enough for Shade.
"Ok, outside it is then. We had better get headed out and find a place for the night."
Dawn relaxed visibly and turned back down the hallway, retracing her steps towards the entrance. Shade did his best to give her some light. He wasn't paying attention when Dawn sent an image of panic. She tore the flashlight from his hand and plunged the area back into darkness. Shade moved to grab it back, but she placed it on the floor and put her hands aside his head to speak.
"We aren't alone."
Shade searched the darkness looking for what she saw. Dawn had crouched down next to him and was tugging on Shade to do the same. As his eyes became accustomed to the darkness, he could make out the broken windows at the front of the store. The two doors wide open on their hinges. At first, everything looked as he had seen before. Then he saw it. Something was moving around by the doors...no, it was a lot of something's. It looked like people. The starlight outside was just enough to show some shadows as they passed by the broken windows. Shade moved to get up, his fear passing. "They are people! It's ok."
Dawn clapped a hand over his mouth, but it was too late. Shade had spoken loud enough that one of them heard and began to move closer to investigate. Its walk a slow shamble as it moved through the piles of discarded items.
"I can see they are people but how many people have you seen? We have no idea if they are friendly or not."
Shade realized that Dawn was right. The only person they had seen was that one his father and Dawn had killed, if you could still call that a person. Shade and Dawn moved back down the hallway as the outline of a person drew closer and closer. It didn't call out to them or make any other sound other than the slow shuffling of its feet.
Handing back the flashlight Dawn sent an image of him turning it on when the thing got closer. Dawn still held her sword out as well. Her practice had paid off for her and she held it with confidence as the shape loomed closer. When Shade was sure they must see them by now, Dawn told him to turn it on.
The familiar tickly feeling formed and the flashlight burst back on chasing away all the shadows of the person in front of them, although it was only a person in the loosest sense. It had two arms, two legs and a head still on its shoulders. The clothing torn to shreds, and only somehow did it still hang off the body. The hair was almost all gone, what was left was in tatters and hung lose over the face, matted in place with sweat and grime. The face was the hardest thing to ignore. The mouth hung open and slack showing yellowed teeth. Dried blood covered the bottom half of the jaw. The eyes were wide open, and before it threw its arms up to shield its eyes from the sudden light. Shade could see that they held no color what so ever. It looked like the pupil of the eye had opened up as far as it could only to open up even farther.
With a roar of pain, whatever it was standing before the two fell backwards into a pile of refuse and thrashed about, trying to get out of the beam of light. The call it made alerted more that had been hiding in the darkness and they all began to move away from the doors and towards the hallway containing Shade and Dawn.
Dawn stood up quickly and rushed down the hallway away from the person on the floor. She flashed an image to Shade. "Run!"
Shade didn't need to be told twice as he turned the beam away from the person and back down the hallway the noise lessoned. Dawn began franticly rechecking every door as they moved down into the depths once again. Shade realized what she was looking for and began searching his side, speeding up the time it took. They needed to find a door with a lock. Every door was broken beyond repair as they moved yet farther down. Shade took a moment to shine the light back down the hallway they had been hiding. The light brought out a yell from the shapes that were looming behind them. They didn't move too fast but they didn't waste time either. A slow shuffling march brought them closer and closer. As Shade brought the light back to their destination it showed Dawn standing in front of the last door of the hallway sword in hand. The door still closed behind her.
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"Why did you attack us?"
The General asked as he paced back and forth in front of the two werewolves. They had healed remarkably fast. Faster even then the General did. The younger of the two rarely spoke and this time was no different. Even under the Generals stern gaze.
"You killed the leader, but did not come to take his place. We waited but unrest grew. We had to do something, so some of us left to try to kill you ourselves. Then we could have a leader again." Greytop spoke carefully. His leg had healed and he moved about as though he hadn't been hurt. It had been his job to dispose of the bodies as soon as he could move. He had done so without argument or complaints. The upturned earth was still strong in the Generals nose. The Oracle stood behind the General listening. She was always with him now. He didn't trust the two that had only a few days ago tried to take his life.
"They are talking about the one that came before, but they think that you..."
"Shh," The General waved his hand back at her stopping her mid sentence. "We will talk of this later."
Bonetwister still held his arm even though it had fully healed.
"When will you go back and retake the Clan?" His voice cracked as he addressed the General.
"I have things to finish here before I can think about that. For now, you both will continue to answer my questions. For one, why did the old leader seek me out? What did I do to offend him?"
Bonetwister lowered his hea
d deferring once again to Greytop.
"You... are an abomination."
The General's hands curled into fists as rage began to set into him.
"No. Hear me out please. I do not mean it as disrespect. You stand there before me looking like a human. If I use my eyes alone, you look just like we do now. Your eyes though are that of a werewolf, much like ours when we change form. You see me now, look at my eyes and tell me what you see."
The General stepped closer and looked deep into the eyes of Greytop, He saw eyes of blue like the light from under a glacier.
"Now, if you would permit me to change forms?"
The General stepped back and moved his wife behind him. "If you attack, you will be stuck down dead."
"I would not do that. I am yours to command now. If you wish something of me, you but have to ask. I could not deny it if I tried." Greytop placed his hands in front of him as his form melted, and changed into that of a wolf. The hairs down his back tinted with grey.
"Look at my eyes now." The words tripped over his tongue. The sounds were intelligible, but not meant to come from the throat they came from. The General stepped closer slowly still wary of the wolves. His eyes had now changed from the striking blue to the same as his own now. Black centers larger than normal, surrounded by a yellow that chased out the whites. In a moment, Greytop was once again his human self, standing before the Oracle and General.
"You have the eyes of a changed wolf, yet you stand here as human. The leader didn't know how you had not changed after his attack on you. The wound you gave him was only a glancing blow and he recovered from it within hours. He followed your scent and watched you for weeks, waiting on the change. All of us that changed like you did so within three days. Yet somehow, you didn't change over. You don't hear the call that we do the call of the Pack. Why are you different?"
The General relaxed his hands. Many things made more sense to him now. The strength he had, his heightened senses. All these things were powers that these werewolves got when they changed to wolf form. He had them all the time."
The Oracle whispered into his ear so the other two wouldn't hear them. "The lights in you, they are always fighting, but the yellow is stronger. Inside these two, the lights fight inside as well, but in them, the black is dominant. You were healed as a human, so you stayed that way. This must be how you are different. I think it best you keep this a secret for now."
The General nodded his agreement and turned his attention to the two human-werewolves before him. "What I am makes no difference right now. Or, for that matter, how I got this way. What was the leader doing in the same place as me, and where is the rest of the Clan now?"
Greybeard nodded his agreement at the order. "We are from across the fire wastes. You do know of these?"
The General nodded. "You mean where the forests burn yet and no life stands up to reclaim it."
"Yes, the world has turned and many things that used to be are no more. Across the wastes from here is our valley. It is not as large as this one and there was no civilization there before. We all live there, hunting and working for the better of the Clan. Others seek to take what we are building. The leader was here looking for them. He told us that he found them in a town not far from here. It was there that he came across you. He thought you one of them at first but you walked in the daytime so you could not have been. It was then he told us his plan to turn you to our side as well."
The Oracle pushed herself forwards against the General's wishes.
"What was the leader looking for in town? What is taking your accomplishments from you?"
Greytop looked to the General and received a nod to answer.
"Not what, but who." Bonetwister broke the silence and then looked to the ground.
Greytop stared at him a minute then continued.
"Bonetwister is right, it's not a what. We call them Nightwalkers. We don't really know what they are, either but they will only come out at night. Under the light of the stars, they move about collecting things of the old world. The items they take serve no purpose. They are things that no longer work. Sometimes though, they take a piece of something we have built, a pulley or a length of rope, things that we find hard to replace. We started to attack them when they would come to our camp while we slept. They are very hard to kill the Nightwalkers. You can cut them but they feel no pain. It's best to take their heads from their bodies. They do not heal like us but wounds have little effect on them. Only light of day causes them pain."
The General pulled his wife back towards him as she again moved closer to the two werewolves.
"Where did your other leader find these Nightwalkers?" She asked with barely a whisper.
Greytop looked again at the General waiting his nod to answer.
"You can answer her questions as though they were my own from now on."
Greytop gave a slight nod of consent, as did Bonetwister in his continued silence.
"There is a great tear in the earth we were told. Inside it, much of a town has sunk into darkness where the sun only shines an hour a day at most. Inside that rift, the Nightwalkers move freely. No one knows what they are doing there. The old leader sent a few of us to try to find out but none has returned. They are not so strong in one on one combat. Their movements are too slow, but they overwhelm with numbers. Inside the rift, they make their homes and do god knows what."
The Oracle fell to her knees in front of everyone the tears in her eyes unhindered.
"They are in their domain. I can see it now."
The General held her by the shoulders as he stared intently at the two werewolves.
"How is it we have not seen these Nightwalkers yet? Why haven’t they come to take things from us?"
Greytop shrugged his shoulders. He had no answer for that. Only silence and the sobbing of the Oracle were in the air.
"They can't stand it here, there is too much life." Bonetwister broke the silence "This place stinks of it so bad I can barely stomach it myself." His lips turned up in a snarl. "You must task me something away from this place. Everything around here makes my skin crawl. If I stay here much longer, I will go crazy with it. I itch to change now and run from here as fast as my legs can take me. The desire is so strong I beg you to task me now so I can try to outrun this feeling!"
The General considered this a moment as Bonetwister sunk back into his usual quiet self, still holding the arm that had been set so few days ago. He turned again to Greytop.
"I am the leader now, correct?"
"Yes, until you die. That is the way of it."
"The Clan, how many stayed behind when you came here to attack me?"
Greytop considered a moment. "If they are still there then perhaps fifty remain. We have not had a leader in some time, now dissention has taken over."
The General pondered a moment turning his eyes back and forth between the two.
"Do you feel as he does Greytop? Is being here tearing at your skin as well?"
Greytop lifted his eyes and considered before speaking."Yes, but I am not one so young as to listen to everything my body tells me. I can endure."
The General turned again to Bonetwister.
"You then will have your wish Bonetwister. I command you to do this, return to the Clan. Tell them there is a new leader unlike any other. How long will it take you to return to the Clan with this message?"
Bonetwister began to shake with the excitement of being able to leave. "I can be there in three days at a full run if I do not have to shift back again."
The General nodded. "Then this is what I would like. When you return, I want ten of the strongest to return here as soon as you have told them what has transpired, only the strongest. They must come back as fast as they can. We will need them here soon. My son and daughter are inside that town and I mean to get them back out. Will you do as I have commanded or should I send Greytop?"
A look of horror crossed Bonetwister's eyes as the thought of being trapped longer inside this valley sunk into
him."No! You are the Clan leader now, and to disobey you is death. I will do as you say immediately."
"Then go now, you must have the others back here within the week."
"It will be done as you say." Bonetwister shifted into the wolf and nodded once to the General, his eyes too had changed to the black on yellow. With barely a grunt, he launched himself off towards the trail and was out of sight within an instant.
The Oracle still sat on the ground, her eyes wet with tears. "I can't see them; I don't know what’s happening."
"We will have to wait for now. If what they say is true, I will need all the help I can in getting them back out of there. I hope they can stay safe till we can get to them."
The Oracle stood and looked into the Generals eyes. "You can't go to them! Remember what I saw?"
"I can't leave them there either. We have some time to think of another plan while we wait for help. There is nothing else we can do for now."
Chapter 9
Dawn held her ground in the narrow hallway. She didn't waste time trying to convince Shade to hurry. He already knew that time was limited and was working as best he could. Her sword flicked out as quickly as she was able. With almost every thrust, her blade came back slick with red. The blood didn't look right to her though, it seemed thicker. More like a thick red sauce. Almost like the blood had already congealed. She didn't have time to consider it more. She tried to project an image into their minds as she had the werewolf, but they showed no reaction at all. Either they were immune or there was no mind inside to receive the images.
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