Chapter 5- Trackers and Berries
It's been a while; my life's a mess, lol. Everyone had a good Thanksgiving? Pshaw, that was like a week ago. Oh and I realized that I made a mistake in Chapter 1 so I went back and changed it. So the Queen's right hand man is now Gunther-Hagen instead of Jeb. You'll see why.
Max
I heard Mom and Angel come up behind me, both of them curtsying daintily.
"You may rise, my children," the Cardinal North intones in his sullen voice. The Cardinals were inherently powerful. Instead of two skins, they can change into any animal in existence or has ever been in existence. They wear a circlet of blue markings around their foreheads. The markings give them power. They rule us, they keep the peace. They possess strength unlike any other. There are four; there's always been four, one for each of the directions.
"Your Grace," I keep my head down as I rise, I feel Angel's tug at my sleeve. Mom seemed shocked to a silence, "Your Grace, our race is almost extinct."
Mother was still in a frenzied state when I brought the Cardinal to our makeshift camp. I explained that Mom was still grieving.
"Have you found other survivors, Your Grace?" I asked before we turned in for the night.
"No," I feared this answer. I could sense how this affected him. He was one of four rulers who ruled our people. Never has he been so alone and powerless and hurt. To escape the fire, he had explained, he turned to stone in wait of someone who read our language to free him.
He gave a humorless smile, that looked strange on his old weathered face, "That's enough of that Your Grace business, the time of the Shifters are over, I'm no longer deserving of that title, seeing as I failed to protect my own people."
"Then what should we call you?"
"Jeb," he sighs, "That was my name many many years ago."
Fang
"Fang, just turn back now. Think of your sisters. It's been weeks, we're never going to find her. She can't help us."
I ignored him and kept walking. Iggy touched a branch and then shook his head. I smirk.
"If you're all that good of a tracker, we would've found her already," I grumbled. He was the best tracker in the Queen's Army. We grew up with each other and trained together, both tools of my mother in our own special ways.
"You wound me," he says joking but not joking. It's his only pride, his only sense of accomplishment. He was abandoned by his parents. His skill is the only thing he lays claim to.
"So, where to now?"
He rolls his eyes, and pulls at something invisible at the base of a tree and holds it up to me; it's a strand of blond hair. "We're on the right trail. Chances are, she's looking for survivors. Which means she's on the move. Animals tend to-"
"She's not an animal, she's a human being too," I interrupt, not liking the direction of the conversation.
"But her animal instincts come first, you know how shifters are, the animal in them always come out," he continues, tracing the ground with a pale finger, "As I was saying, animals tend to travel in herds in times of crisis."
"She's a bird."
"A hawk, remember? They're solitary animals. This is where her human instinct comes in. Her attachment to family overpowers her hawk instinct."
Then her family's alive. She's not alone. Good, being alone is vulnerable. I look at where Iggy was rubbing dirt between his fingers. There were footsteps, a couple just the right size for the shifter. There were two other sets of footprints. Two people are traveling with her. That would make sense. If her entire race was wiped out, her eyes would've been dead, lifeless, but they weren't. They were still fiery and angry, still alive. She would've felt her family's not dead.
"Why way?"
Max
"Get up," Jeb's voice woke me from my dreamless sleep. I groaned, stretching, my back cracking a bit. I winced, "Get up."
"What is it?" I yawned.
"I'm teaching you how to fight."
"I can fight just fine," I grumble, lying back down, "Wake me up at a reasonable hour."
"It's eight o' clock, I was contemplating waking you up at seven but I decided you'd need more sleep."
I felt myself being dragged up and thrown to my feet. A breath of icy wind hits me and a shudder wracks through me, "Fine."
Then I see Mom and Angel sleeping peacefully (or at least as peacefully as they can these days) on the forest floor, "Why aren't they awake?"
"You're mother is emotionally incapable of taking care of both of you, you're sister is too young. Besides, if I teach you first, then you can teach them."
"My mom isn't as weak as you think."
"It doesn't matter, on your feet, wash up in the stream, meet me in the clearing in ten minutes, Max."
I spit, seeing the phlegm mixed with blood on dirt. I wipe me face, every part of me aching, "Again," I growl.
He flies at me again and I dodge just in time, but don't expect the blinding pain on the back of my skull. I fall forward almost and then catch myself, rolling out of the way before I got hit again. It didn't matter because I was flung against a tree, a vicious blow at my waist, making me tumble to the ground. I groan my arms and legs wobbling a little as I try to stand again.
"That'll be enough for now," he walks away, back to the camp, "Your family will be awake in a few moments."
I steady myself against a tree, until I pass out again from pain.
I woke up to a concerned Mom and Angel. The Cardinal was a little off to the side, mixing something in a make-shift birch bowl. I curl my lip in disgust.
"Max," Angel's sweet voice tentatively whispered, brushing aside a strand of my dirty hair, "You're awake."
"Yeah," I sit up, then immediately regretting it. "No thanks to Jeb," I say with much venom.
"Max! Is that how you speak to a Cardinal?"
I ignore that comment, rubbing the back of my head and flinching. The Cardinal comes over with the bowl, inside is a slimy red mixture maybe made from some sort of berry, "Put this on your wound."
I push it away dismissively, "No."
He dips two fingers in the bowl and slaps his hand to my skull. There's a little stinging ache and then a numbingly tingly feeling. Then I can't feel it anymore.
"What is that?"
"Keevy's berries."
I turn away. Stupid city technology.