Regicide

Chapter 19

'What's that?' A juvenile raptor asked her mother, her light green eyes wide with nervousness.

'What is it?' The mother replied. She was rather busy, being the alpha of the pack, but when her daughter, Leaf, wanted her time she was willing to give it to her.

'Look,' Leaf gestured out to the horizon, where the sun was setting. The mother squinted her eyes, and in front of the suns rays, saw the silhouette of a strange raptor. It was covered with blood, had white stripes and such decorations on its black feathers, and its fiery eyes were narrowed.

The mother tilted her head. Who did this raptor think he was, waltzing into her territory as if it was his own?

But then she saw the scar on his chest.

And she knew exactly who it was.

It can't be, She thought. He's dead! He's meant to be dead! Yet this raptor looks just like him... it even bears the scar I carved into his chest. This is impossible- I refuse to believe this. I can't believe this!

'That's an intruder,' Tree, her temporary second-in-command (since Bone had been separated from the pack) stated, flexing his claws.

With their acute eyesight, the raptors in the pack noticed that the intruder had strings of saliva dripping from its jaws.

'Kill it,' The mother spat.

'Fern? It's just an intruder, we can chase it off,' Tree said, surprised by his alpha's sudden aggression.

'Mother?' Leaf asked uncertainly. She didn't like the look in her mother's eye- it scared her.

'Kill it. That's an order. And under no circumstances can you allow it to see me,' Fern quickly left, leaving the rest of the pack to deal with the issue.

---

Dune could see the pack from where he walked. His sight could not really let him see who was Fern, since it was not as good as your average raptor's, but he knew- she had seen him. He felt the skulls of his enemies press against his skin, and he remembered the four he had already taken out. But all of their skill and strength did not live up to the kind that Fern had. She was in a completely different league. Her skills were already extremely developed the last time he had seen her- he could only imagine what she was like now.

How many years had it been? He hadn't kept count, but it must have been a lot. In those years, in which Fern had been alpha, he had been training himself every single moment of every single day, to prepare himself for this single moment. And it was only minutes away.

Out in the desert, all alone, he had learned to become utterly silent. He never spoke, not even to some of the loner raptors he occasionally stumbled across. Some may have thought he had forgotten how to speak- but he knew very well that it was not the case. He remembered, of course he did- he merely couldn't bring himself to say words to others. Not after what had happened.

The sun beat down onto his back. Dry blood encrusted his feathers, but he had never bothered to preen them off. The blood made him menacing, it made other creatures know that he was a merciless killing machine. Small, fast, and devastating.

He could now make out some juveniles dotted around- youngsters that ranged from two months to a year old. Only one stood out to him- one that looked like Fern.

Now that he could make everyone out, he snorted in annoyance when he realised he couldn't see Fern. There was a large, slanted rock nearby- she could be behind it, since much of the pack was spread around it. He hoped she wasn't dead- after all, he had come all this way and gone through so much trouble to kill her himself.