Untamed - Sample Only!

2 The End of Tarkik

Tarkik - 9 years old

My eyes feel crusty. Blinking, I open them slowly. It hurts. My head is pounding as hard as Pa hammers the meat for winter storing.

Groaning, I sit up, my hand held to my head. It's pitch dark and I panic.

Where am I?

It takes a minute to remember. The cave, the pool, the scream.

Stumbling to my feet, I feel the drip of liquid down my forehead. Blood, I must have knocked myself good. I feel dumb, but that scream is all I can think of. Maybe one of the females saw a snake? Yeah, that must be it.

It's so dark in the cave, now, that I have to make my way out by feel. Luckily there aren't any real twists and turns, but it is a long distance before I can see the opening.

It's night, almost a full moon, so the night sky is bright enough that I can see the forest outside the cave when I'm still twenty feet away.

The scent hits me, invades my nose, making me gag. Blood. A lot of blood. It smells like a slaughter. My own cry of fear now echoes in my ears. I stumble to the mouth of the cave and lose all feeling in my knees.

"Eoff," I whisper.

Eoff, my best friend, is lying in a pool of his own blood. Sightless eyes stare up at me. A huge gash across his throat tells me that he was killed quickly and mercilessly. An unshifted pup to the claws of a wolf shifter.

Choking out a sob, I reach out and touch my friend's cheek. Cold. He doesn't feel real, anymore. Standing, I look around for any others. Anyone, really; Skylar and Greta, the killer, my Pa. I feel guilty, but I really want my Pa, even more than I want to find out that Skylar and Greta are not hurt.

Once I get to my feet, I manage to break into a wavering, wobbly jog that eventually turns into a sprint. As I get closer to my village, I smell smoke.

And blood. More blood.

I'm sobbing when the village comes into view. Huge, gulps of air, choked off by my tears. I wipe the back of my arm across my face, snot and tears cover me. I don't care. I just need to know what's happening.

I see bodies. My feet slow, caution finally ripping through me. There are bodies here, some on paws, some on feet, a lot of them are my pack. Goddess, my pack is dead.

I creep around the outside of the village, searching for any familiar face that isn't dead. No one, there's no one. Part of me wants to run away, deep into the woods, to hide in the trees and pretend as though I never saw any of this.

My stumbling feet carry me home. To the packhouse, or what used to be the packhouse. Blackened timber smolders in still-red ash. At first, I'm not sure that this unrecognizable place is my packhouse, but then I see the bodies.

My father. My uncles. My cousins. I suck in nothing, no air can make it into my lungs. My knees are shaking again, shaking, shaking, shaking, until I can feel my teeth rattle in my head.

The bravest, strongest males I have ever known are all skewered on long stakes in a line of death in the center of the village. My eyes fall away from their bodies, only to be snagged on something shiny and blue. My mother is next to my father's feet, her pretty dress torn to shreds around her body. She looks like Eoff, with eyes staring sightlessly up at the moon. I can't look at my mother. She's naked. I turn my eyes away.

Oh, goddess, what do I do? Looking around, blankly, I see nothing. I hear nothing. The world is dead around me, nothing but silenced voices and the sound of broken timber creaking.