Chapter 31
"Mercy"
I must not doubt my purpose. It was difficult given the way Runner looked at me as we stood on the crossroads of our mission.
"Mother, will you not fight with us?" he asked.
His words showed just how much he was willing to slow down for me to catch up. As much as I wanted to follow him down into the valley where the other packs were fighting, I must go higher, to the peaks, where the life blood of this hunt first flowed.
"There is something I must do," I told him without further remark.
I did not know what curses I would find at this moon altar, so I would make no promises. Instead, I must prepare for the worst. Runner dropped his head, but quickly lifted it again.
"I tell Forests," he said, picking up speed.
I would not slow him down.
Runner turned away and trotted off to rejoin the fight in the valley. I watched him a moment. How graceful his bounds and steps were. He would need every ounce of his gifts to make it back before the next nightfall, so I empowered my voice and howled, renewing the blessings of darkness upon him. No bramble would snag his coat. No stone dash his paw. The moonlight would guide him and none would catch his passing. Listening to the way he disappeared into the woods, I was sure he would make it back safely. The Forests would be overjoyed at his return. Even more so to know that their howl had been answered. Now, all of the forests and mountains knew that the grasslands had come. My howl echoed back, yet it was not my voice I heard. Every Mighty Hena within range cried out in jubilee at its utterance. It meant they felt my blessing and enhanced it with their own strengthening howls. A great thumping pulse of Spirit pounded up the mountain from the valley.
The pack would not be defeated this night.
I left the crossroads and started up the mountain. The path was dark and quiet. A light snow, made lighter still by the conifers outlasting winter's reign, began to fall. As daylight broke, I stopped near a ridge and dug out a suitable snow hold. When the moon rose again, I detoured deeper into the woods where a colony of Sky Shriekers gathered. There was a great many of them, too many for the season. They must have a cave nearby. Excitement stirred their wings. Curses must be the cause. I felt them flowing down the mountain like a fog, and the higher I went, the thicker they became.
The ghosts were probably hard at work preparing for some type of ritual that would peak at the full moon. Red eyes burning through the haze, I made quick work of several Shriekers that got too close. As if attracted by their deaths, several Smokey Eyes and a Phantom appeared. Given the way they scanned the area, they were looking for the one that caused the disturbance, maybe to recruit the creature that caused it. I hid from them by falling into shadow, emptying myself to be indistinguishable from the wild as I once did back in the riverlands.
Elder Bear was right. This mountain was the source of much evil, and if I stood at the mere fringes of its territory, I did not want to imagine what I would find at the top. So, I stalked and watched and counted. Smokey Eyes, Phantoms, Ghouls, Sky Shriekers, Dark Crows, Will-o-wisps. The mountain was a wailing shrieking burning torch of death at night. Traveling in the day was much safer. The Dark Crows were still there, but no Mountain Cats or Bears or Mighty Hena. They were all probably down in the valley fighting on the front lines. Compared to the night, the day felt strangely uninhabited, but it was not undefended.
When the land turned steep and icy and treacherous, I came across an old rough path snaking its way up the mountain, undoubtedly to the peak. Two large boulders marked the entrance to the path. A Doom Seer slept at the top of each boulder. The sun was bright upon them, catching in their black coats to warm their bodies and help fuel the internal fire that let them survive such temperatures and altitudes. Having used my shadow step since leaving Runner, and hiding the presence of my Spirit since the Sky Shriekers, they did not detect me. If they were the gate keepers Elder Bear mentioned, I could see how the ghosts moved in without resistance. The Doom Seers probably opened the doors for them. I lowered my shoulders and leveled my head, legs braced and hackles rising.
Balance. I needed balance.
I dropped down into the snow to cool my hot blood and carefully slipped up towards the closest boulder. The horns of the two Doom Seers were relatively short and straight. Their armor and shackles, thin. With age came thickness and curvature. They were likely similar to young ones looking for rank and name. If I knocked the first off of the rock, I could be in the air leaping towards the second by the time the first hit the ground. Two matching initial strikes would put both of them on the defensive. A couple shadow doubles would ensure at least a second hit. None expected a Mighty Hena to be alone, so none would suspect them to be fakes. By the time they realized it was a trick, the damage would already be done and a third strike would surely hit. Given the Seers' thin frames and warm, but not hot temperatures, a fourth blow would be unnecessary. Then again, I could mitigate the risk entirely by striking with my strongest and most devastating technique. A Dream Eater strong enough to induce a fright so terrifying their hearts would stop. The thought chilled me worse than the snow at my paws, the wind at my back, or the icy air around us. The last time I used such cruel ferocity was during the Bone Wars.
I wondered what history would call this one…
I crept a little closer, finding a suitable position just below one of the Doom Seers. He was not the one I would Walk with first. I would target the farthest so that if he startled his partner awake, I could take the closest by surprise while the farthest served as a distraction in the opposite direction. Settling into place, I closed my eyes and entered the dreams of the farthest Seer. Like most outside of a heavy cycle, his mind was muddled with memories and feelings and thoughts. His past was jumbled with the present which was influenced by what he envisioned of the future. These dreams would not be remembered in awakening. They were mere whispers of consciousness, settling of the mind while in its restful state. It was where I often went to find the information I needed to create dreams or nightmares, sorting through the subconscious to find what it was the dream maker feared or enjoyed the most.
This Seer was young. There was not much to sort through. He was rather simple. Uncomplicated. Devastated yet kept in a state of equilibrium by something I did not recognize. Weaving a little deeper towards that equilibrium, I found that it was something foreign entirely. A thin glowing blue line in the Seer's mind. I cleared away the surrounding noise of the Seer's thoughts to isolate it and found myself in the black void created by the collision of two Dream Eaters. The line hovered below eye level. It vibrated so quickly that it appeared still but glowed.
It was made of energy.
I glanced around and found no other. Just me and the darkness, the Seer's thoughts carefully controlled. I came up close to the line, looking and smelling and feeling. One way went to the Seer. The other, into the void, ending where I could not sense it. I could try to follow it, but that would be a dangerous journey for one even as skilled as I. A Dream Walker without a path was easily lost. So I focused on the line before me. I never saw such a thing. It was very powerful. Splitting, branching, and webbing into an intricate network of light within the Doom Seer's mind.
Curious, I left the Seer and entered the dreams of the other. His dreams were also in disarray, but of similar make and feel as the other. They shared deep memories which likely made them of the same pack. Brothers. In this one's mind, I found another network of lines. It too had a central, slightly thicker line that trailed back to the Seer one way and into the void the other. Only this one was red. I stepped out of the Seer's dreams to reexamine my surroundings, feeling for these two very special energies. Nothing but the low lying hum of the wild sounded back at me.
Smooth rocks, snowy trees, and a cloudy blue sky. The stench of the nightly fountain of curses had polluted much of the land, giving an eerie stillness to its beauty. Diving back into the dream world, I crept outside of the Seer's memories. This time, specifically looking for another Dream Eater stalking the shadows. No one else flickered around in the darkness. I avoided any type of memory manipulation or dream making. One touch could trigger the network of lines like a nerve and I did not know what would happen then. These lines could be some type of defense mechanism the Doom Seers wired within themselves.
If I intended to tamper with it, I would have to do so at full force. I isolated the blue line once more and walked up to it. The center was white hot. Silent like the deadly force of electricity. It might bite back, but judging by the way the line was wired through all of the Seer's memories, cutting it would also result in collapse. The Seer would lose all stability and my purpose would be fulfilled. So I closed my eyes and summoned my strength as a Dream Eater, slowly opening my jaws as one would the heavy gates of the otherworld. The glow of the line highlighted the contours of my teeth, sharpening their curves and points. I positioned my jaws carefully around the line.
Shadow pooled in the back of my throat. It slid under my tongue and over the roof of my mouth. Smokey ice crystals puffed out with my breath. They were quickly followed by jagged streaks of electricity along my lip that ended in a flaming spark. An awful taste filled my mouth. It was poison. Blood. Death. It tasted like ghosts and Bone Takers between my teeth. The snarling ripping and cracking of flesh and bone in my mouth. The great power and dread I felt when I knew I was about to take a life. It was a feeling both utterly catastrophic and exhilarating all at the same time.
My muscles tightened, pulling back like a battering ram on a spring. All I had to do was let go. One bite, with all my fangs, my strongest Dream Eater to date, and it would be over in an instant. I knew my teeth were strong enough. My technique perfectly refined. Yet a single thought immobilized my jaws, locking them in place, even at full capacity.
What if the Doom Seers were innocent?
I paused before slowly relaxing my jaws. My shadow fell away. I looked at the line and sighed, releasing all of the energy and Spirit I built up. But even that was too strong. Too close. The blue line shuddered, stimulated by my energy, and when it stilled again, a voice whispered in the darkness of the void.
"Who's there?'
This was no line at all, but a thread, connecting two points together. Two creatures. This was the work of a pokemon with psychic inclinations. One that was now aware of my presence. A blue filament separated from the thread and bent in my direction as if looking at me. Now that it knew what my Spirit felt like, I could not hide from it. The string lashed out to grab me. This was not the real world, but it was still connected deep within my mind. It did not matter if this dream was mine or not. If a psychic creature got a hold of that connection by touching me, it could hurt me all the same.
Psychic attacks were especially weak against us creatures of the dark. One pulse and I could cleave the connection. But the energy I built up and so recklessly released took time to regain. I also did not want to return to myself right away in case the thread followed me there. It would be much harder to find and destroy then. I only had the shadow of my physical prowess to fight back with. So I snapped down on the thread, breaking it between my teeth. Many more spawned in its place. They reached out from the thread to twine and tangle around my head and neck and legs. I bit and tore and ripped, back peddling away from the line that now spread rapidly towards me.
They kept coming and I kept biting, shredding the strings I missed in groups before they could pull me in. Step by step, the lines grew tighter and began to snap more easily with my thrashing. If I could break away enough, I could return to my body and wake up. But another thread came surging out of the void from the other side. It was red and turned the blue line purple as it rocketed down the connection. Different colors, different creatures. It was now two against one. The red connection jumped out from the same points as the others, reinforcing the filaments already restraining me. They lassoed around my neck and yanked me toward the line. Had it been grass or dirt or snow under my paws, it would have buckled as I resisted, pushing as hard as I could against their pull.
Just a few more seconds and I would have the energy for a pulse strong enough to slice through all of the strings at once. But two enemies became three as the misty voice from the void shouted at the Doom Seer we were in to wake up. When it did, the darkness suddenly vanished around me, leaving nothing but emptiness, and I lost my hold. It felt like getting pushed off of a cliff, unexpectedly losing all traction and control without the preparation of a leap. But instead of falling back to my body, the growing net already around me yanked tight, catching my consciousness and reeling it in to exactly where these creatures wanted it to go. I bared my teeth one last time before it all went blank, buying enough time for one last thought before I lost my mind.
I should have killed them all when I had the chance.
