Chapter 15

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The air became misty as soon as we left the tribe for the fairy princess’ ceremony. Knowing that the tribe was in Ragnar’s hands gave me some form of comfort. I say some because, Tumak’s willingness to support me during the Council meeting weighed heavily on me mind. He had never, not even once, been on my side. Not before I became Chief, not during the trials, not after I became Chief and certainly not after I decided to send everyone away from our land, from our home. This uneasy feeling felt familiar.

Why! I wondered. And why now?

A faint memory clung to the edge of me mind but the more I tried to get hold of it, the more it tittered on the edge, threatening to fall off. I took in a few deep breathes and coed the thought towards me. Slowly, like a frightened child it opened up to me.

So that’s it! That’s why this feeling is familiar. The first time I experienced it was when….

“Chief!” An annoying, familiar voice called out to me and I lost hold of the memory. It fled as soon as I gave a responsive hmm. A lazy way of telling people that they can approach and say whatever it is they came to say.

“Should we continue on through the woods or camp for the night?” Tumak asked.

From where we stood, you could see the path leading into the woods which sat in a valley. To me, the whole thing looked like a bowl with a swirling mist at the bottom, and sticking out of the swirling mist were trees with pointed tips and green leaves. I half expected a giant to deep a spoon into this bowl and scoop up the misty soup to give us a good view of the bottom of this bowl shaped valley.

“We’ll camp once were out of the woods. Stay vigilant.”

The mist wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. In fact it almost seemed magical. We were always able to see more than ten to twelve paces around us. The path was well marked and all fears of being lost soon vanished.

Things might be taking a turn for the best.

A ghostly screech rang through the air and we all came to a standstill. The second screech made us bring out our weapons. The third thing we heard was a howl.

“Wolves? Those black-eyed monsters have wolves?” one of the men asked.

I turned to him and said, “Climb a tree and tell us what you see.” He planted his sword, steel first, into the ground and then climbed up a nearby tree. He was barely visible when he reached the top.

“I can’t see anything,” he shouted. I was about to yell at him but Tumak beat me to it.

“Stop yelling you fool! You’re going to give away our position!”

“Wait, I see something!” He shouted back.

“Someone give me an arrow so I can shoot that fool down,” Tumak barked. Luckily for us, the man came down without Tumak’s help. He seemed to be very surprised when he found all his tribesmen glaring at him.

“What’s with all the staring?”

“What did you see?” I asked.

“The mist is everywhere but its lighter to the south. Even saw a few people flying. One of them hit into a tree.”

Either the magical mist was playing tricks on him or he really did see people flying.

“Alright men,” I said as handed the man his sword. “Let’s see what other kind of creatures live on Kelor.

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“Regroup! Single Line!” Leon shouted.

As the vampires moved to join their human counterparts, the werewolf-shrieker took advantage and ran at them and breaking through the first line of defence and crushing into the second. Its massive claws seized the head of one unfortunate human and tossed him into the air. His screams suddenly ceased when he came to a sickening halt as his back struck a tree with aloud cracking sound. His body then fell to the ground where a group of shriekers pounced on him. The werewolf-shrieker continued to toss more bodies around and the air fiiled with the cries of humans and vampires.

“Single Line!” Leon shouted once more. “Leave the werewolf-shrieker to us.”

The beast rose to its full height and Leon saw his chance. He ran at it and thrust his hand into its belly like a spear. The beast swatted him away and he crushed into the carriage causing it to fall on its side as splints of wood flew through the air. The horses that were tied to it also found themselves on the ground.

I ran at the beast and it swung its big claws at me but I got out of the away by sliding underneath it, clawing at one of its hind legs as I went past. The beast went down on all fours and turned slowly. Monica attacked it by swinging her spear in an upward arc, wounding its side. It shifted its focus to her pounced in her direction but she quickly evaded it by pirouetting to the side.  

“We need to pin it to the ground,” I said.

Monica found and opening and forced her spear through one of the beast’s paws. The spear went through but it didn’t stick in the ground. The beast swung its head and knocked Monica to the ground and then clamped its big teeth around the spear and yanked it out of its paw. It proceeded to pounce on Monica who was still on the ground and before it could sink its teeth into her neck, Leon burst out of the wrecked carriage and held the beast’s jaws in place. I picked up Monica’s spear and copied her movements from her first strike but instead of swing the spear in an upward arc along its side, I aimed for its neck. The beast instantly turned into pile of black sand.

Leon helped Monica to her feet and embraced her.

“Are you alright?” he asked, still holding her close to him.

“I’m fine Leon,” she replied.

I looked around to find that our defensive circle was no longer visible. On either side of us, shriekers fought with the guards and the land was covered with black sand tainted with splotches of red blood.

Monica’s gasp drew my attention. Leon was now kneeling on the ground with blood dripping from his side.

“I got impaled when I flew into the carriage,” Leon said.

“Monica. Help him get to the horses, he needs blood.”

“He can have some of mine.”

“No,” Leon said. “The amount I need would kill you. Help me get to the horses. I only need to feed from one.”

The damaged carriage lay a few feet away from us and right next to it lay the dead horses, still strapped to it. We encountered some resistance but that was nothing compared to the number of shriekers we had to fend off until Leon had his fill. He only needed one horse, or so he had said, but now, our escort had shrank down to the three of us and it was getting difficult to keep the shriekers away from Leon with just Monica and I acting as his guards. But as luck would have it, a group of men led by a woman with ginger red hair came to our aid. I have never seen a woman wield a two-handed axe with such ease.