(Book 1) The malediction of the Undertaker

Chapter 49: Pay back

A few days passed, A pandemic sickened half the people in the fortress. Fever, cough, stomach ache until vomiting. they lost men, women and children during those few days. Pat tries to do what he can to save the sick, he uses magic, spell books but in vain and had trouble finding doctors who agree to come to the fortress to save the population because they knows who it belonged to the fortress. Diana also fell ill, she coughs, has a fever and lacks strength; she thinks she won't survive but Kinsey reassures her that she will.

~!~

Taker, Markus, and Anastasia have come a long way to find Mendal Fortress for the past few days. She agreed to join Taker's clan in order to find her daughter and fight by his side and offered to make potions of destruction and to heal for the fights. They passed through a lot of town and fought so many enemies, Taker is impressed that this old lady still knows how to fight.

They arrive at the top of a hill and they see at the top of a mountain, a fortress surrounded by a thick forest, red lightning and clouds which revolves around this fortress. It's Mendal's, I can feel it, Taker thought.

"Can i have the heads?" He asks Anastasia who is sitting just behind Taker near her cloth bag. He gently takes the bag that contains the heads of his enemies then pulls out a knife and begins to make cuts on the forehead, gouge out the eyes and make his symbols on both cheeks at each head and shoves the pendant of Mendal in the mouth of each head before throwing the heads into the forest. "Let's go." He said to Markus after a few seconds, it's time to go home.

~~

Mendal was walking quietly with his hands behind his back when the soldiers ran towards him, eyes full of astonishment and surprise could be read in their eyes. "Master! you must come quickly into the forest!" Said one of the soldiers before walking beside Mendal who quickly goes out in the direction of the forest. He could see his creatures in the forest but stops short when he sees the heads of his allies and their creatures. He picks up a head and looks at the symbols carved into the flesh and smiles devilishly.

He closed his eyes and saw his son, his creature and a woman surely venturing towards Araneolus Shire. He turns suddenly when he hears a cry of terror from Orok who discovers the head of his female, decapitated. He stopped Orok by holding one of his hind legs when his creature wanted to find Markus and kill him for good. "Calm down! That's what he wants us to react..." Mendal said looking at his creature then looked at the decapitated heads and smiled mischievously. "Prepare y'all, there will be a war between Calaway!" he added.

~!~

They stopped to take a short break, refresh themselves and eat near a lake. Markus eating his fresh meat is a bowl of fresh blood that Taker kept for himself while Anastasia remained calm, tense at the thought of seeing her daughter again. Taker returns to where his creature and Anastasia are after taking a dip in the lake, he could see that the old lady is very calm and he could feel the stress she was feeling. "Are you doing well?" He asked taking some meat out of his bag to eat a little bit before heading back on the road. "It's just...I don't know how Diana is going to react to me.." She said looking down at her bowl of nettle soup, Taker smiled sadly at the thought that Diana might take her mother left the family home without saying anything. "She will need an explanation but I'm sure she'll forgive you." He says before eating his juicy meat, Anastasia looks at Taker then smiles at his words. Taker loves Diana.

Taker glares at Markus at what he just said, knowing that Anastasia knows how to understand the language of creatures. She looks at Taker who has a facial expression that could tell Markus is telling the truth. "You...are you in love with my daughter?" She asked Taker who was still watching Markus who recoiled in fear at what his master might do then looked down and sighed. "I..I'm intrigued by her..I don't know if it's love.." He said finally looking her in the eyes, she drinks her bowl while listening to him feels honesty in his voice.

"I..I feel every time I see her, an immense power, a strong aura in her despite being a mere human..." He added. "Well...a mere half human..now that I know you're like me." He finally says. She smiled as she drank the rest of her soup as Taker closed the bag of food to put it back on Markus' back. "You never thought that Diana was made with a human and from someone like you?" She asked standing up and going over to Markus to pat his head. "No, because she didn't have any powers, I just noticed that she learned quickly how to communicate with a spider." He said as he climbed onto his creature's back and reached out to Anastasia to help her up as well. She smiled at what Taker told her, her daughter learned very quickly like her, her father was impressed how quickly she learned to communicate when she was little. She hopes she can explain everything to her daughter and forgive her.