Chapter 9 #2
He sniffed the air long and hard, smoothing the pieces back in place.
“Your body remembers me.” His smile stretched across his face, morphing into a beast. His teeth sharpened.
“Here’s the deal. You surrender, and I will end this fight.
These men,” he said, pointing his iron to the trees as if it were an extension of his body, “are no werewolves. They’re cowards, easily convinced with one promise of riches.
” Yellow Hair reached into his pockets and pulled out the golden spoon.
“I never forgot you, my little werewolf. You knew I would come back for you, for all of you.”
He held out the spoon to me. “Yu, ay. To’er,” my language sounded like sharp rocks against concrete in his mouth. “We could rule and shape the world however we want.”
A cold knot of disgust twisted my gut. I shook my head, holding the dagger with both hands, feet firmly planted.
I will kill this man, this werewolf. I will drink his blood, even if that means my death. He will not take me.
I pressed my lips together, baring my own teeth. I’ve trained myself for this, even if no one else listened. I grew stronger, became a great hunter, wrestled with beasts with greater strength than his.
“I would rather die than live in a world with men like you.”
His smile dropped. His body grew in length and in width. Hair burst through his shirt. “Then may your death be swift,” he growled.
A dark-haired man emerged from behind the werewolf and aimed the iron rod at me.
“E’kili!” My mutah’s voice slammed into my ears, following a shriek from Ooki.
My heart dropped. They were supposed to be in the temple, away from danger. From him.
Everything happened quickly and slowly at once.
A dark-haired man released his thunder.
I threw out my hand, wielding my mana to pick up a boulder. I whipped it at him. Mutah screamed, falling back into the leaves. The boulder crushed the Dark-haired man. The werewolf took off.
Ooki threw herself in front of me. The werewolf swung a hairy arm, swiping Ooki away from me. Her body met a tree; she slid down at a broken angle.
The werewolf had me in his clutches. Red beady eyes stared at me as I dangled high off the ground.
I stabbed his forearm with my dagger. A trickle of blood leaked; he smiled as his snout grew larger.
His fist tightened around my neck, cutting off my airpipe.
He raised me high above his head, bringing my body closer to his beastly face.
I felt a slimy tongue lick the pee from my thighs.
A satisfied low growl traveled up my spine.
I called on every bit of mana I could muster, and the earth dropped from underneath him.
He fumbled me, and I hit the ground. Before he could claw himself out of the hole, I willed my mana to bury him deep.
The earth sucked in his legs, his waist, up to his torso.
His nails dug into the dirt. I willed rocks into boulders, lifting them as high as I could go, then slamming them on top of the werewolf’s head, causing his body to go temporarily still.
I turned to see Mutah, blood gushing from her side, her runes waving like the ocean. She gritted her teeth and used her mana to smash the boulder further down. She glanced at me with sorrowful eyes.
As if she should have believed me when I was a child. Tears dropped to her cheek, her lips wobbled. She mouthed, “I’m sorry.”
I nodded, watching some of her runes darken.
Another dark-haired man came from the trees holding iron. He glanced from us to the beast being swallowed by earth.
The werewolf shouts from underneath the boulder, the soil was up to his chest.
“Shootah! What are you waiting for? Shootah!”
A flash flared from our right.
Ooki limped to us, holding iron. She fumbled with the shootah until another bang rang out. The dark-haired man hit the ground hard.
Ooki aimed the gun at the werewolf, attempting to release its mana again, but the shootah clicked, clicked, clicked, but no thunder came out.
The werewolf howled. His body fully changed into the beast. Half man, half kykyo. His resistance grew stronger. The boulder was lifting. Blood dripped from my nose. I felt my mana slipping.
My mutah dropped to her knees, her runes blinking out.
“Re’un!” She choked out.
The earth was puking the werewolf up.
Ooki attempted to quickly limp to the second shootah close by.
I couldn't leave my mutah.
“Re’un,” she gasped. Blood squirted from her belly. “Re’un!”
I dragged myself to my feet.
The werewolf roared, “Enough!”
I released and sprinted to Ooki, who picked up the shootah.
The boulder flew into the air. I whipped around just in time to see the werewolf take my mutah by the neck, then a sickening crack. Golden runes blinked out.
I didn’t hear myself screaming. I didn’t feel my body trembling. I didn’t register Ooki firing into the werewolf until the iron clicked. Nor the bleeding holes in the werewolf’s chest that ate the flames and healed over.
My mutah was dead. My mutah was dead!
Power ripped out of me, my vision blurred by the sheer force of my mana exploding from my skin. Everything from boulders, soil, trees, every living thing, I willed. I cried to the moon, to the dragon, to my mutah’s heart. Screamed into the universe and heard my voice echo back from within the void.
The werewolf ran. With one more push, I threw the forest. Trees walked, vines swang, the mo’kures swooped, the great t’ku’nuks shook the earth, grass pulled at the werewolf’s feet, boulders struck him like lightning. The soil opened up and buried him inside.
Runes blinked out, blood dripped from my ears to my shoulders. From my eyes like tears. From my nose to my top lip. I tasted my blood, and in that taste was the remembrance of my mutah’s love.
I went to her. My knees scraped rocks. Mutah’s body was already losing warmth. Her eyes were peeled open in shock. I closed them, cradled her. Sang to her as she did to me when I was a child. She would smooth out my hair, wipe my tears, and kiss my forehead.
I did this to her now.
“Eyoki,” I said, rocking her with the last of my strength. “Eyoki.”
Everything will be okay.
I didn’t know how long I stayed there cradling my mutah.
Brown hands were placed on top of my hands; they were Ooki’s.
I shook my head, holding my mutah closer.
“She will wake up any moment now,” I repeated. “She’s just sleeping, she’s tired.”
Ooki’s voice told me to let go. More men were coming. We could not take them all; we must get to the temple. But I didn’t care to listen. I attempted to drag my mutah with me, but Ooki stopped me. I couldn’t leave without my mutah. I couldn't live without her.
“Le’ ey d’ plee’sa.” I rocked my mutah’s lifeless body. Just let me die here.
Ooki gently unattached my mutah’s cowry shell necklace. “Yu leyv. Fi’eta,” she said, pushing the necklace into my palm, easing my mutah to the ground. Voices broke through the trees. Ooki gripped my hand.
Her words, we must live to fight, rang in my ears.
“Plee’sa,” she cried, tugging me off my knees. “Kohm.”
I held Mutah’s necklace, hating to leave her. As Ooki dragged me away, little yellow flowers bloomed around my mutah, engulfing her in yellow against the ravaged black forest. The soil pulled mutah’s body down, down, down …
We ran to the temple.
The golden doors were sealing shut, and Ooki and I squeezed through them just in time. Inside, the elders were already at work, preparing the dragon’s heart in the atrium.
An elder gripped me. “Yu mutah?” she asked.
I shook my head, trembling.
The elder cursed, then let go.
I sat on the stone floors, a ghost floating above my body. The atrium was packed with crying children, and voices piled on top of each other, wanting to know what comes next. “How do we survive?” “Where was my daughter?” “Where was my mutah?” A child, no older than six, sat beside me.
My chest stung, and I pulled the child into my arms. My tears dripped on top of her head.
“If we leave the temple, they will murder us, just like our fallen sisters.”
I heard someone say.
The elders quieted the room, then gathered in a circle around the stone door embedded in the floor. It had a red dragon drawn in mid-flight as it soared across the night sky and up to the moon.
The elders' skin glowed, their runes reminded me of the sun shining its rays.
A circle with four semicircles surrounding it and an X criss-crossing in between the spaces.
They chanted, their mana flowed from them equally.
They concentrated on the dragon door. It slowly opened.
A column rose, and on top of it sat a golden box.
Whispers stopped. This was the first time any of us had seen the heart. The elders were chosen to care for it. It was the very thing that kept this island—us, alive. They opened the box, the oldest elder, Yamamaya, held the heart, placed it to her chest, and absorbed.
“Mutahga!” The little girl shouted to Yamamaya, tugging out of my grasp and running to her grandmother’s side. The little girl wrapped her arms around Yamamaya’s thighs. Yamamaya patted her head, then spoke.
“The heart has spoken.” She patted her chest. “And she mourns with us.”
A woman burst out crying next to me.
Blood stained her hands, too.
“The heart has given us a way to survive.” Yamamaya raised her fingers to the atrium's glass roof. It opened outward, letting in the peaks of light stabbing through dark clouds. “The heart grants us life so that we may see our land again.”
“What does that mean?”
“What will happen?”
“What about the others?”
Questions flew from each corner of the atrium.
Yamamaya quieted the crowd by lowering her hand to her thighs.
“It means the heart is giving us a second chance to live. But even I can not interpret the exact meaning of the heart’s beat.
Three of us elders will stay here. Protect the temple, place a cover, so no others will discover the temple if they do not share our blood.
Each sister who comes searching, we will be here to greet them, and send them to safety, just like we are now. ”
Four elders separated from the three and joined us.
Yamamaya bent down, unlatched her cowry shell necklace, and placed it around the child's neck. Yamamaya kissed her granddaughter on her forehead and handed her to two sisters who were heart-tied two cycles ago. They held the child in their arms, and I knew the little girl would be alright. “Do not be afraid, my little Mytu’fi,” Yamamaya said to her granddaughter, then the elder’s eyes locked on mine, “for the dragon is within you.”
Yamamaya's chest pulsed. Her mouth opened toward the sky. A beam of life shot down into the elder’s mouth. In the middle of her chest, it glowed gold. Her runes morphing and shaping into runes I could not describe.
The room shifted, warping in and out of focus. Ooki squeezed my hand. Her face, a mixture of dark brown skin, black hair, and gold, dripped down like wet paint. The entire room smudged, body warping in and out of focus.
My head pounded, pain pierced my belly. I buckled over, gripping myself, my legs began to merge together.
“What was this?”
Something wet gushed into my palms. I pulled my hand back from my stomach, and my fingers were coated with blood. When did I get injured here?
My body lifted from the ground. My sister’s faces blinked out everywhere I looked. Something rattled in my hand. I held on to Ooki’s, my mutah’s, and Yamamaya's cowry necklace.
“Ooki!” I shouted. “Ooki!” I reached for a hand no longer there.
“Don’t leave me, too.”
I drifted higher into the air, out of the atrium’s roof, my body was thrusted across the island. I blinked and landed in the sea.
I was cold.
Bones freezing. Teeth chattering. I needed warmth, heat—fire.
Deep, deep, deep into the sea, my body grew gills, my legs transformed to fins.
Alone in the vastness of the waters, I reached for mutah, reached for Ooki. Their silhouettes were dancing fish on the surface. I reached, but the cold seeped deeper into my bones, a relentless weight, pulling me under. Grief wrapped around me, dragging me farther into the abyss.
A low vibration rippled through the water. A school of fish darted past in a frenzy. Then, I heard it ...
Drums.
A primal thrum rising from the sea’s great depths. A frequency so deep, it vibrated through my core. I sank toward it.
I knew what it was.
A whale.
Its mouth opened wide. Water funneled around me with a force so great, it sucked me in.
I didn’t resist.
Its jaw snapped shut—pitching me into total darkness.
And I settled into the pit of its belly.