“Raven, we gotta move, come on girl”
“Attina I’m stuck. Run! Leave me! Get out of here please!”
I take in a deep breath. Grabbing my necklace I pray to the Gods, “Please give me the strength to do this, the strength to save her life”. I yell out to Raven, “Let me try one more time and if we can't get you in there then I will turn around and protect you.”
“No!” Raven bellows.
Sending up a silent prayer to the Gods, I steel myself and take a deep breath. I feel that warmth spreading throughout my body again and I feel like my insides are vibrating. I close off my hearing and take another steadying breath. I shut my eyes and ready myself to use all my strength on one more push. I let go of my necklace, putting both my hands on her flank before I heave one last time, and feel her move under me. I can’t believe it.
At first I think my mind is playing tricks on me but then I open my eyes and see the ground moving under me. Then I hear a grunt and she’s on her feet inside the cave. Behind her I quickly dive into the dark with her. By now we’re both covered head to toe in stinky mud; hopefully the smell of it will be enough to cover our scents.
The cave is dark but shallow. As soon as we get past the short threshold, the top of the cave opens up enough so I can sit atop Raven if I wanted to. Only an eerie silence can still be heard outside the cave. My eyes flick over to Raven and place my forefinger over my lips urging her to be quiet.
It takes a few seconds but then we hear it, a huge paw hammering the ground, stalking our way. I can hear the huffing sound of the wolf sniffing. I had hoped he would keep running in the direction we were running before but as he was falling he must have seen us take off to the left. I see his enormous paws, sharp razor-like claws and all, stalk slowly along the ground in front of the cave. I don’t even want to think of the damage he could do with those things.
Following his nose, he continues across the front of the cave until he disappears from sight. Raven makes a move to walk to the front of the cave, but I put a hand against her chest, stopping her. She turns her head, glancing at me, a smile starting to spread over her features and I shake my head. I don’t trust it. It was too easy to get away; even a normal wolf wouldn’t give up so easily, let alone whatever that thing is.
We stand together in the dark for what seems like an eternity. Then I feel little clumps of dirt fall on my face. I wipe it away only for more dirt to land in my hair, a bigger clump this time. I gape up at the roof and see it’s now raining down dirt. This can’t be good.
A low growl drifts in from outside, it sounds like it’s coming from the roof of the cave.
Great—this can’t be good. Slowly, the wolf’s face appears in front of our cave from above. Up close, I can see his black face is scarred like someone burned him over and over and I again smell the rancid garbage-like stench coming from the drool dripping out of his mouth.
He snarls and snaps trying to force his face into the mouth of the cave, but the entrance is too small. Only his muzzle fits in and it’s not enough to reach either Raven or me. He jumps down so he is standing in front of the cave opening and starts digging with his ginormous claws. The dirt falls away easily, the cave opening has no chance against those razor claws and neither do we.
“Um Raven, do you have a plan to get us out of this?” I say as I clasp at my necklace.
“No kid, I think we’re done for once he gets through that wall, but it was a solid plan.”
Raven moves closer to me and I drop my necklace and wrap both my arms tight around her neck, holding on to her for strength. At least we won’t be alone when we meet our end.
All of a sudden I hear a war yell.
No not a yell, but a whinny. A noise I could imagine coming from a war-horse.
Raven whispers, “Oak.”
Then I hear Father wail, “Get away from them!”
The wolf disappears from the front of the cave. I hear snarling, flesh and bone meeting steel, then a huge thump on the ground outside. I run out of the cave, not thinking of myself anymore. All I can think of is how Father and Oak must be laying on the ground in a pool of their own blood. I don’t even think to knock an arrow in my bow before running out, every single bad scenario playing in rapid succession through my mind.
The sun is too bright for my eyes, so my hand raises to cover them. As soon as they adjust, I see a giant wolf lying on the ground, bleeding out from a deep slice across its throat.
I feel the panic rising when I can’t find Father or Oak. I scream “Father! Oak! Where are you?”
13
Attina
I hear my father’s loud chuckle and they both stride side by side out from behind the ginormous, limp wolf body. Father pats Oak on the neck laughing as he says, “Well that was fun old man. Almost made me feel young again, how about you?”
Oak’s head bobs up and down as he replies, “Yes sir, it was great fun. Almost like running into battle again.” There is something relaxed in both of their postures, which I haven’t seen in years. Like defeating a monster took a huge weight off of their shoulders. Then Father sees me.
“Pumpkin!” he shouts, running over to me.
Then he goes to pick me up just like when I was a kid, but this time when he takes my weight he folds in half and drops down to his knees. I catch myself and fall down with Father, steadying him so he doesn’t hit the ground too hard. Father’s hand goes right to his side.
“What’s wrong? What happened?”
I see his side and pull back. There is blood seeping through his shirt. I lift his shirt and it gets stuck on a sword I hadn’t seen before, which is hanging from his side. Its pommel is in the shape of a fully bloomed rose but before I can analyze it more, I’ve got the shirt over his injury and my focus locks on three huge gashes across his side.
“Father you’re hurt.”
He snatches his shirt and pulls it back down chuckling. “Man, I thought he missed me, guess I was a tad too slow. I’m fine, pumpkin, it's not a big deal.”
“It is a big deal; you're seriously hurt.”
“I’m tougher than I look.” He shoots me a wink, but the effect is unconvincing.
Then he sits up and puts his hands on either side of my face. His hands are firm and familiar which calms me, and he says, “Pumpkin, I’m fine. Are you okay? Not hurt? Where’s Raven?” The concern in his voice breaks me.
He sits here so hurt, but is still more concerned about Raven and me than himself. The dam breaks and I start ugly crying, I hate showing any weakness, but around Father and our horses I feel safe enough. I still can't believe what just happened. Father wraps his arms around me and pulls me in close for a hug. In his soothing voice he says, “Aww, pumpkin, it’s okay, it’s just the adrenaline leaving your body. Where’s Raven?”
At this point, I’m hiccupping from crying so violently I can only point towards the cave. Father releases me and runs to the cave but Oak, my old faithful, takes up his position and lets me lean against his shoulder for comfort. While I stand there getting my emotions under control, I scan over to the huge dead wolf monster.
In death, its fur stuck to one color, it is a deep black, almost like a void in the landscape. I walk over to the limp dead body and touch its pelt. Its coat is rough and sticky and when I smell my hand it smells like rotting flesh, but how is such a thing possible this creature hasn’t been dead five minutes. It couldn’t already be rotting. Could it? So what is with the smell?
I walk around its body searching for my arrows but they’re nowhere to be found, he must have ripped them out before he found us hiding in the cave. When I walk over to his face, it’s stuck in a growl with its lips pulled up over its teeth. His tongue in death is purple and hangs out of its mouth onto the ground in a puddle of bright red blood, which leaks from the massive gash across its throat. The gash is so deep you can see the wolf’s white, blood splattered spine. Father must have been furious to drive his blade across the wolf’s throat so severely.
It tak
es a while, but Father digs Raven out of the cave and after a short break we start the ride back to camp. On the way back, I ride Oak, Father happily rides Raven, and everything feels right again.
I peek over at Father and I can’t seem to keep my eyes off of the sword hanging at his side. “Where did you get that?”
Father glances at me and then scans his eyes to where my eyes are focused and a small smile spreads across his face as he turns back forward he says, “It was your mother’s”.
My eyes widen in shock as I quietly whisper, “What the fuck,” to myself.
I take a better look at the sword. I didn’t realize how stunning the hilt was earlier when I saw it on Father. It has a rose in full bloom and the hand guard is made of metal vines complete with thorns pointing out away from the wielder's hand. Engraved down the blade of the sword are some sort of symbols I haven’t seen before in any of the books I’ve ever read, but they’re beautiful. They flow and glide over the blade, the symbols so finely crafted into the weapon you almost lose yourself in where the engraving stops and the sword itself begins. It is an absolutely stunning weapon and knowing it was my mother’s makes the sword even more special.
“Why did she leave it with you? It’s gorgeous, it must have been extremely important to her.”
He turns and peers at me, sadness coating his features, then sighs. “She wasn’t sure what would happen to her when she went back to her father and she wanted to make sure this sword was passed down to you when you were strong enough. She figured leaving it with me would be the safest way to guarantee you would get it one day.”
Staring down at the sword I focus on those black, winding, flowing symbols. "What do the symbols mean?"
Father glances back to the sword then to me. "Your mother said they meant ‘moonlight reveals all shadows.’ She said it was a reminder to her, but she didn’t ever really explain what they reminded her of."
I let that sink in. Then, I ask what has been poking at the back of my mind. “How did you and Oak know where to find us?”
Oak turns his head to gape up at me and says, “You really think we didn’t hear that monster? I knew what area you would most likely be in from all our years hunting together and from there we followed the huge paw tracks.”
Raven laughs out. “And we both figured taking that monster back to camp would just put you guys in danger. I guess we were wrong.”
Father breathes out heavily. “Well, we didn’t get out of there unscathed so I’m glad we were able to sneak up on him. Things might have turned out worse if you’d brought that werewolf back to camp. Attina, you know that’s what the monster was, right?”
I glance at Father with what must be confusion written on my face because Father squints down at Raven. “You didn’t tell her?”
Raven huffs and snottily replies, “We didn’t have time for a heart to heart, sorry.”
He ignores her haughty remark and turns to me. “That was a werewolf; a hunter for the Fae King. Your mother told me when the King has top secret missions he doesn’t even want his top slayers to know about, he sends one of these werewolves.”
“Wait so that thing was a Fae creature? That explains it’s strangeness.”
Both horses turn to peer up at me, which makes blood rush to my cheeks. I backpedal, “Oh I didn’t mean you two––I just meant—”
Oak turns his head back forward “we know what you meant. It’s okay, most Fae creatures are strange.”
Father continues, “Yes, and obviously that bastard knew someone was out here or he wouldn’t have sent a werewolf. I don’t know how, but he seems to know more than we think he does. The upside of this whole thing is now he’s shown his cards a little. He must think something here is a serious threat or he wouldn’t have sent the werewolf. Now we need to head back to camp, pack some essentials, and get back to town.”
“Why? Are we going home for good now?”
“No, I need to get you the map to Sanctuary, the place where the rest of the town went to, just in case something like this happens again and we aren’t so lucky the next time around.” Then he grabs his side making a pained noise and bending over in pain.
I gasp out worriedly, “Are you okay?”
Father sucks in air through his clenched teeth and eyes me before sitting up and plastering, what I know is one of his fake smiles, on his face.
“Yeah, Pumpkin I’ll be fine. I just need you to sew me back up.”
We sit in silence for the rest of the ride back to camp, both adrift in our own little worlds. Besides worrying about my Father’s wound, I am thinking of everything I’ve learned. It worries me. Obviously, Henrik knows I exist. Why would he bother sending such a monster after a half-breed like me? Why am I so special to rate such an extreme measure? Does he know my mother wanted me to take over his kingdom? How could I scare him so bad? A girl with little to no power should not scare him enough to warrant a werewolf being sent to kill her. The only answer I can come up with is he’s a madman and there is no use in trying to understand a madman.
It takes longer to get back to camp than I thought it would. We ran a lot farther than I thought possible, just more of a testament to how fast Raven is. When we finally do make it back, Father gingerly dismounts, grunting and groaning the entire way down. Then he calls to me, “Attina get over here.” I dismount and walk around Oak, petting his cheek as I walk. Father unbuckles the sword from his side and he holds it out to me.
“I want you to carry this and get used to the weight of it. I was going to give this to you after we finished your training, but you definitely proved yourself today.”
I reach out for my mother’s prized possession and start tearing up. “Thank you Father, this means the world to me. I will cherish it forever.”
He smiles and says, “No reason to tear up. I was tired of lugging it around anyway and besides it’s kind of embarrassing having such an obviously girly sword strapped to my side, it’s hard to look manly wielding it.”
That does it. I start laughing through the tears along with him. He knows what to say to make me laugh, no matter what, without fail.
I smile at him. “Okay, manly man, just tell me what you want to take with us, you’re in no shape to be carrying anything.” I glance over to Father and now his smile reaches his eyes.
“Thank you, pumpkin” he says. “We need to take only the essentials like I said, so basically just our medical kit, weapons, some water, and some food.”
“Okay, just point and I’ll grab.” As I’m saying this, I strap on my mother’s sword—no my sword—to my hip. The baldric feels like it was made for me. The dark leather is soft and hugs my body exactly where it should, so the sword feels weightless on me. You would think the scabbard banging against my hip and thigh would be annoying, but in reality, it feels comforting even though I haven’t ever wielded a sword for real, in my life. I mean I’ve chopped at a tree with one but that’s about it.
Father sits down on one of the logs by our fire pit and points out the few things we’ll need. After I’ve grabbed these things, I open our meager med kit and wrap Father’s wound as best I can with it, hoping it holds for the ride home. Then I help Father up and walk him back to Raven.
“Raven can you kneel down, please?”
Raven kneels on the ground and we both help Father get back on.
“Okay, hold on to the horn and give me your foot.” I see him grab onto the saddle horn and I lift, giving him a boost to get him in the saddle again. Raven gets back up as slow as she can to keep from jostling him, but I see Father still cringe in pain. I load our few items in Raven and Oak’s saddle bags then climb back on top of Oak.
Father turns Raven around and we start the ride back towards home.
I take one last scan of our campsite and then bend down and pat Oak. “Okay, old man let’s go home, we’ll be back here soon enough.”
“Yes, you’re right. Let's get going my lady, it’s a long ride home.”
14
Attina
The trip home goes much quicker than the trip to camp, even with Father hurt. Raven and Oak are less weighed down with only us and the essentials on their backs, so now they can both move faster, and it only takes us a full day to get home this time.
When we get home, I help Father off of Raven then I unsaddle the horses while he goes inside the house to wait for me to tend to his wounds. When I get done unsaddling, I brush down both of our horses and give them fresh food and water before heading inside.
As I walk into the house, I can hear Father sucking in breaths deep and loud. He must be in much more intense pain than I thought. I walk into his room, his shirt and the bandage is off and he has a small towel pressed against his side. His blood is already seeping through the white towel, coloring it a deep red.
“Let me look,” I say walking across his bedroom towards him.
I kneel down next to his bed and pull off the towel, now seeing the damage fully. The whole right side of his torso is all red but that’s not the bad part. The bad part is the three deep cuts across his side have yellow puss barely starting to crawl away from the edges.
“I have to see how deep these are,” Before Father has a chance to answer, I push open the cuts and Father grunts in agony.
“It looks like the claws missed anything vital, thank the Gods, so I’m going to clean out the puss and then you’ll need stitches.”
With a pained expression on his face Father says, “I swear those claws barely touched me.”
“We’re lucky it wasn’t worse then.”
I pat my Father’s knee, stand up, and head to the kitchen to get all of the supplies I’ll need. I pull out our full first aid kit and then go to the cabinet and take out our whiskey bottle. Father received it, as a present, years ago, and he only uses it to take a shot to “burn out a cold” as he calls it. The bottle is still almost full. I grab everything I’ll need and walk back into Father’s room. He’s already starting to look pale from the pain. I hand him over the whiskey bottle.
She Awakens Page 11