The Beast Within Us

Chapter 30: ↭ Yara

↭ It was shameful for Lady Yara Wheiler to admit that with the chaotic events that morning, Darryn had fallen far from her thoughts. The wardeness had found herself wrapped so tightly around Chala that the captain's failing health had slipped her conscious mind completely. Even on the way back to camp, and onward to the caravan, Yara found herself thinking of solutions for the tight band that smothered Chala's freedom than checking on her late lover. Whilst in the caravan, keeping Chala safe had strung importance yet again, as the man struggled for his life and called for the guards to bring her to him. Yara had not thought about any of that until she stood in the face of the trembling squire who stated that his condition had worsened.

As they made haste to the tent near the center of the camp with the captain's sigil, Yara questioned his condition verbally to the squire, perhaps with more anger and frustration than needed.

"I-I don't know, My lady. Every healer who has seen him since we've been on the road has said they have never seen anything like it before. He's been asking for you for hours....... I-I just couldn't take it anymore! I had to find you for him."

Approaching the brown tent, Yara's hand clenched into tight, white-knuckled fists. The warden brushed past the squire and Chala, and fell to her knees before Darryn inside.

"Oh my god! Darryn, what is happening?"

When Yara had left him this morning, he was pale and hollowed. His skin was feverish and he could barely hold his eyes open for longer than a brief period of time, much as he had been the last few weeks. It was evidently clear that his condition had worsened in the mere span the few hours she had been away from camp and the rage that coursed through her veins threatened to burn her insides as she gazed into the face of her captain.

Captain Darryn Wykle had once been a strong, handsome man. The sickness had left him pale and hollow, but nothing logical made sense for his current situation. His once large and muscular frame was stringy and his skin was gaunt over his body and felt like rubber to the touch. Yara's fingertips threatened to singe from his fever as she caressed his ghost-like complexion and cried for his familiar hazel eyes to find her. His eyes were open, but his gaze struggled to focus on anything at all. The once brilliant hazel with olive and mahogany flecked irises of his intelligent eyes were muddied stones of sickly, dull brown.

"He's....dead! Is he dead? Why have you not called upon me before now?!" Yara rounded her furious gaze on the medic footsoldier charged with tending to her beloved captain. The man's grim expression contorted as he struggled to find the words to describe the bizarre sickness that corrupted Darryn's frail lifeforce.

"He was same as he was for weeks until a couple of hours ago. We don't understand it. S'not like anything I, or anyone has ever seen, My lady. He's been in and out of his right mind since his fever spiked again. When he's come around he called for you....The guards wouldn't allow us to fetch you...Said you were attending business in the inn...I'm sorry, My lady. We've done all we can....I don't expect him to make it through the day..."

Yara's throat threatened to choke her words and she pulled Darryn's face in her hands, the trembling of her touch rattling his dead eyes as she begged for him to wake up. Outside the tent she could hear Chala and the two guards posted outside, arguing over her ward's right to be admitted inside to see their dying captain.

"Stand down!" Yara's voice quaked through the tent with the ferocity of a woman protecting her child. She turned to face the two guards, the medic and the squire outside. "Get out! All of you!"

Their hesitance made the fury that pumped through her quiver and her head felt as if it would explode from the pressurized heat of her emotions.

"I said get out! NOW!"

As the soldiers hurried off, Yara was left clutching the frail and burning ghost of her past lover whilst staring into the wide silver pools of Chala's eyes.

"Y-yara." The words were followed by a gut-wrenching cough that sounded wet and sickly. Darryn's breathing came out in short labored gasps for air to fill his wet lungs. His eyes found hers and his weak hand reached to touch her face. His once beautifully tanned skin now matched her own pale porcelain tone.

"I'm here, my love. Darryn, I am right here." The warden struggled to keep her voice controlled, and the tears that streamed down her cheeks felt cool against the burn of her anger.

"I.....I don't...I'm-" His chest rattled as another fit of disgusting congested coughs shook the cot that held Darryn and his warden.

"Hush, my love. Don't strain yourself." Yara bent her head and kissed his pale lips tenderly, the rust of fresh blood assaulting her senses. Her own salt-washed tears mixed with the trickle of blood pooling from his jaw, and his own tears were tinged pink from his bloodshot eyes. His breathing became struggled gurgles as more of his crimson life force threatened to drown him alive.

Yara's streaming silent sobs began to produce wailing shrieks as she clutched Darryn's hot and trembling body. Her voice was not controlled by her own mind it seemed, as she begged him to hold on, begged him to get better instantly.

"I......love...you...Yara...tell...Chala...take...car-" The violent wrenching of his body spattered the wardeness with his steaming blood in the cool air. Darryn's spasming form clutched to his former lover as he dispersed the entirety of his spirit off the side of the cot in the form of oozing, bubbling blood.

Yara clamped on his limp body, cradling the dead face of her previous lover to her chest as she screamed for him to wake up. Her high-pitched screeching begged him, anyone to help him open his eyes, to tell her that it was all a cruel joke. Captain Darryn Wykle would not wake up, despite the incessant and pathetic screeches of the wardeness of the north, the woman he had loved since she was a girl. Darryn died in the arms of his blood soaked lover, and his corpse remained in her arms long after, as she screamed at the heavens until her throat felt raw and the blood surrounding them crackled and dried to hard black crusts. Darryn Wykle died with the bannerman of his warden grouped outside, praying to their gods for his mercy on the kind man's soul. But most of all, Darryn Wykle died surrounded by the two people who loved him more than anyone else ever had. ↭