Chapter 17
The Demon Catchers
I can't see her. I look around frantically among all the chaos, the flames, the shrieking. I hear voices lifted up in a ghostly chorus of devastation. The scent of smoke and soot overtakes my lungs and breathing makes my chest burn in pain. Tears are welling up in my eyes and I can't make them stop. People are running in the opposite direction that I am. I know them. I never forget a face that has the image of pure terror in their eyes. The screams grow louder, but I can't pay attention to them. I can't save everybody. Then, I hear her. A cry in fear that lifts higher than the rest, the last sound she makes before the silence.
I wake up with a start, swishing my ears around and on full alertness. I still feel the heat of the fire, the pain in my lungs, and the ring of her shriek. My paws shake and my fur stands straight upward. My breath is rapid, forcing air in and out of my body. I realize that I am in wolf form. Did I fall asleep that way? Memories from last night are shrouded in my mind. I remember hunkering down in the protruding roots of the willow tree. The roots form walls around my bed of fallen leaves nestled tightly against the trunk.
I look up to find the twinkling stars in a gap between two branches, lighting a clustered streak of white across the sky. Somehow, the sight of it makes me calm. My heart rate slows to a normal pace and my muscles relax again. The shining beacons of white light illuminate the sky like a firefly show on a warm August night. It is almost beautiful how the stars don't change. They are almost always the same, no matter where or when one sees them. Unlike my up-and-down mountain range of life as of late, the stars are the one reliable and clear being in this world. All else seems to be shrouded in mist.
I rest my head on my paws but I do not close my eyes. I don't want to go back to sleep. I'm afraid to drift off into another nightmare. Another horrible nightmare filled with the raised voices of the dead. My white tail curls around my legs tucked underneath, reassuring myself that nothing can hurt me and I am safe in the security of the forest. My eyes drift shut and I even out my breathing, inhaling deeply and exhaling slowly. It seems to work and I feel my consciousness ebbing away with every breath.
I don't even notice the intruders until the net comes over me.
As soon as the net touches skin, I lash out like a mad wolf to anything close enough to tear to shreds. I quickly realize, with the sudden weight pushing me down towards the ground, that the net is made of chain-links. Heavy chain-links. I move my snout around to find any opening and it pokes through the net. Only my mouth actually emerges outside the small holes in the chain-links. I can't even open my jaw without the metal bars biting into my skin. I yelp out in pain and draw back. My head whirls in circles, searching for a way out, an escape. I try to jump to my hind legs, testing the strength of the net. The heavy chains pull me back to the ground, stuck in the grass as if they are bricks.
I search around again for an escape route, but what comes into view are three men, instead. They emerge from behind the tree and tilt their head as they stare at the creature they captured. One of them whispers something that I can't quite make out as they watch me flail against the net. Another holds a torch closer to his face and I stop moving for just one second. The one with the torch is short with a very long, white beard. His eyebrows match the color of his beard and are raised in surprise at the rumored "demon wolf". That face is a face I recognize. I don't know his name, exactly, but I do know that he is not just an ordinary villager seeking a home. He is a monk, living in the monastery as a brother. Not only that, however. He is one of the close followers of Brendan. The light shines on the other two and I determine that they are brothers as well. Their motive becomes clear, then. They've betrayed Brendan to come capture me!
The three brothers get to work in surrounding the net, seizing an edge of my prison. I fight, I struggle, I do everything I can but, it is no use. The brothers join the edges together and close the edge of the net. I am knocked off my feet with my back against the chains. They pinch and tear into my spine. I tell myself not to cry, not to even wince. I maintain my vicious growl at the brothers. They don't turn around. They work together to drag me across the uneven terrain. Mud coats my white fur and I can feel bruises already forming from the rocks and roots that roll under my body. Every single ounce of me screams in pain and anger. And there is nothing that can be done about it.
I must have fallen asleep fairly close to the abbey because it does not take long until the ground smooths out to a worn, dirt path that is, thankfully, smooth. The gates are already open, but no one mans it. Everyone is sleeping in their huts. The entire abbey is quiet. Even though there is no one outside, I still tremble as if there are thousands of eyes boring down upon me. I have only been in the abbey twice. Once was to break Brendan out of his bedroom as a child. The second time is when I am being dragged to whatever fate the brothers have for me. I am dragged past hut after hut. My head swerves in all directions, trying to predict the destination of where they plan to take me. I don't even consider the possibility of the tower until it looms over me.
My neck arches to take in the massive structure. It is just as I remember it, looming and gray. The window at the top is dark. Brendan is asleep. I am about to let out as loud a bark as I can manage with my limited energy when the monks throw open the door and rush me inside. The jostling makes the sound stuck in my throat. I hear the door slam behind me, but I am focusing on the door in front of me. The shorter brother unlatches the trapdoor and hurls it open. It is the same trapdoor I saved Brendan from when we were children. The three brothers work together and push my back, soaking with blood towards the edge. My paws hang over the hole to the darkness below. I flail to get back and my muscles come to life again. I push back, but they push forward. It is a battle of supremacy of animal versus man. The claws that tip my paws scratch against the wood, but the combined monks overpower my massive structure and push me over the edge.
Suddenly, I have the frightening sensation of falling, falling into the abyss. I land hard on my side and the pain screeches through me. The chains flop to my side. I feel too paralysed to move, too frozen to cry, to terrified to think about anything else than the pain and my fate. As I lay there, still on the ground, I hear the door slam shut above me. Thus, plunging me in the pitch of night.