"I have... I have never used a sword in my life.
And I hope you never have to. But if you do, remember this: true courage is about knowing not when to take a life, but when to spare one."
― J.R.R Tolkien
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From the time of my birth, a wee babe born amidst the bushes of poisonous flowers, Oleander has been my name. I have seen births and deaths aplenty. The bindings of many brides and grooms. I have witnessed the kidnapping of my oldest daughter Lisa, the slaughter of my husband, the rearing of my remaining child, Nyx.
A child her father asked to name after an ancient deity of the night, and one I agreed to for it reminded me of the nightshade plants that grew in abundance round the village outskirts. A child I watched go to defend our people only for one of her friends to return with the grievous of news. My daughter, the last piece of my husband and Lisa had been claimed by the Alpha King.
It was with a heavy heart I made my way to their camp and helped the wolf preistess heal my daughter. We bid our goodbyes, and I my wisdom to my sweet girl before I returned to my people and bid us hide in the secret caves beneath the Old Mountain. For a while we stayed within the protective fortress carved by nature, only a handful leaving to find food, water, and herbs.
I had gone by myself as I always did, finding the last bit of herbs still struggling to hang on before the winter frost killed them all. My task in collecting and stowing these herbs and plants into the dozens of pouches and sewn into my robes was time consuming. The effort however would prove its worth when sickness would strike in the midst of the winter snows.
Disease that would hope to take child and adult, babe and elder from our fires. My last time in going out, I knew after the sun barely rising between the trunks of the trees, I was being hunted. My answer to my pursuer was answered when the towering form of Griselda the Grey loped into my path, as my fingers plucked the needles and bark off a fallen branch of a pine tree.
"Why is it that I am your prey?" I asked the wolf, my question catching her off guard but one she played off with a mirthful dry chuckle. Her laughter not hiding from my ears the approach of other hunters stalking up behind me.
"Think you wise little shaman?" Griselda spoke, pulling out her axe from its sheath, letting either end of the long handle rest within her callused palms. "I hope you are, for my king has some questions to ask you. Ones that concern his queen, your rebellious silver tongued daughter."
With a jerk of her head she signaled her hunters forward, a gesture and lax of judgment that cost her much. One handed I threw up a clutch of pine, spoke a single powerful word, and blew the needles straight into her eyes. A small blast of fire erupted, sending lit pine needles into the lead wolf's face, and over my crouched form into the other wolves' eyes.
I dashed away into the brush, praying to the gods I might find one of the tunnels before they caught me. But me being older than I once was, my joints no longer able to withstand the growing cold as they once did, made my pace slower and cost me my escape. A bash to the back part of my skull took away my consciousness, left me in a state between being wakefulness and slumber.
For what felt like days I was tossed and carried from shoulders to a horse. New wounds seemed to appear with each new moment of conscious thought before it slipped away yet again. Only when I felt my body thrown onto cold stone, the stink of mildew, blood, and rot entering my nostrils, did my head clear.
YOU ARE READING
Forest of Lies
FantasyA thousand years past, the world was run by humankind. But it changed, when countries became embroiled in a war that gave the werewolves the opportunity, to recreate the earth in their own image. Now humans are the lowest on the food chain, little m...
