The Realms of Animar (42 page)

Felia stared at her son for a moment then looked into the fire.

Thane could see the anguish on her face and it tore at his heart to place such a demand on her. Surely she would understand.

“If anything happened to you I don’t know what I would do,” Felia said softly. “I can’t lose you too.”

“If you had seen what I did to them…what I am capable of…you wouldn’t be worried,” Thane said boldly.

Felia looked into his eyes. “Oh I’ve seen what you can do Thane. That’s why I am worried.”

She then straightened up and looked at Guderian. “How many are going with you?”

“Six others including Joli,” he replied. “I don’t know how long we will be gone though. I really have no idea where Arodon is taking us.”

“And if the carnivores come back?” she asked.

“I’m sure we have seen the last of them for a while,” Guderian replied. “With their leader dead they will be busy fighting amongst themselves to decide who takes control of his throne.”

Felia peered into the fire as if searching for answers. Thane watched her face carefully, looking for a hint as to what she might say. Inside he begged her to let him go but instead she just stood in silence while agonizing moments slipped by.

Thane followed her eyes to the flame and he was instantly gripped by shame. How could he be so cold? At his father’s funeral he was mired in his own desire for answers. Desperate to make amends he squinted as he searched the pyre for his father’s wrap. It was no use. His body was gone.

“Just look after him,” Felia said at last. “He is all I have left.”

Although Thane would later regret it, a relief instantly pushed aside the sadness and guilt. This feeling that he could not deny, this thing that was so wrong, was excitement. She was letting him go.

After countless nights wondering about the change to his animalkind and the magic that now rushed through his veins, Thane was going to wonder no more. The Aquans had answers. He just knew it. He felt the connection the moment Arodon and his men had arrived at Avryndale. An incredible world awaited beneath the waves, a world that held the key to his destiny. His next adventure was about to begin.

Epilogue

F
ar to the west, far from the village that had miraculously endured, far from the land of peace and hope, a scream erupted from the depths of a cavernous chamber. It was a scream of utter agony, one made from the fires of despair and a pain so deep that it would crumble the strongest of men to their knees weeping like children for a reprieve. For the source, there was no peace, no freedom from the torture of her burden, no light in her suffering gloom.

Felidae gripped the sides of the table with all of her strength, her knuckles turned white and her arms ached. Two women stood between her gaping legs and another stood beside her head, wiping sweat from her brow and whispering unwanted words of encouragement. Felidae wanted to rip the mid-wife’s tongue out each time she spoke. Her support was as desired as the creature that was ripping its way through her body. Sadly, she lacked the energy to strike out at the attendant, at least for now. Birth was upon her. She hoped death took her soon.

Cast forth by a handful of torches mounted along the wall, shadows leapt around the room as if specters of the afterworld had come to witness the miraculous event. Of the living, hundreds knew of the impending birth yet only a few were present to bear witness. The others waited elsewhere, curious as to what spawn, what powerful animalkind, their fallen Alpha Lord had left behind.

Felidae grimaced and pushed yet again. A fiery pain shot through her abdomen once more and again she screamed, her cries echoing through the cavern and into the land nearby. A dark embrace nearly took her, a brief pull at her will offering an escape from the agony. Despite its allure, she fought back as the innate instinct of survival forced its hand upon her. The pain was lower now, a pulsing stinging pain that descended down her pelvis and turned her limbs numb.

“Come on dear, almost there!” one of the hags yelled from between her legs.

“Push!” the other added, her words uttered from a face as equally hideous as the first. “Push! It’s almost over!”

For a brief moment, a momentary pause in her torture, Felidae grinned. Surrounded by such ugly women, it was no wonder she had such power over the men of her kind. For months she had carried the spawn of Fatalis and yet, during that time, the wanting glances of the carnivore men had never ceased. Perhaps she should pity the mid-wives, but pity was not once of her strengths. Instead she would use her advantage - if she survived the ordeal of course - to join with the newest Alpha Lord, whoever he might be, just as she had done with Fatalis so long ago. He had been a bastard, she had always known that, and most likely his successor would be as well. But she was a survivor, a stunning creature in a world of ugliness. She was not the sweaty, bloated mess that currently lied upon the table adorned in a tattered gown with ratty hair and tears that dripped endlessly from her cheeks. No, this was not her true self. Her beauty would be restored just as soon as she separated herself from the life-sucking leech that had drained her life for nearly a year. Anxious for her freedom, she pushed harder.

“I see something!” one of the wenches yelled with delight, as eager to end the day-long ordeal as the person they served.

The mid-wife standing to the right of Felidae pulled one of her hands from the table and grasped it in her own, an offer of support welcome by most. Felidae, however, reacted harshly, glaring at the woman with hate-filled eyes as she squeezed with an incredible adrenaline-fed force. The sound of cracking fingers was silenced by a painful yell that sent the woman fleeing from the cave holding her wounded limb. The others were unfazed and stuck to their task. The time was upon them. Soon it would end.

Sensing her freedom, Felidae pushed with all of her might and called forth whatever strength remained within her. A crippling pain erupted from her bowels and her muscles flexed.

“It’s coming!” an attendant yelled. “Push!”

“Come on dear, so close now,” added the other ignorant beast. “Doing good…keep trying.”

Felidae yelled once more, this time a prolonged deafening scream that forced the mid-wives to wince as their ears threatened to burst. And then, at last, after countless hours of suffering, after months of toting the extra weight of her fatherless burden, after submitting her body to the rigors of pregnancy, at long last, she felt movement between her legs. The parasite was free.

Numb from the ordeal, yet somehow maintaining her wits, Felidae lifted up on her elbows, hoping to glimpse the creature that had spawned from her innards. Her eyes at first fell upon the attendants that held the newborn child beneath her line of sight. Their eyes were fixed on the infant, faces likely frozen by the beauty that had been passed from its mother. Although for months she had waited for this moment, waited for the time to free herself from the life inside her, now, at the climax of her torment, a pang of compassion if not love - surely not love - tugged at her heart. There was no question that her child would be beautiful, despite the rage-filled hulk of a man that had fathered it. In that moment, as the women stared speechless with eyes transfixed on her offspring, she knew that indeed it was a marvelous creature possessing such beauty that it could quiet their once relentless chatter.

The awkward silence was broken by an odd cry, not quite what she had expected but, then again, she had never before been present at a birth apart from her own.

“Show me!” Felidae demanded. “Bring it here! Is it a boy or a girl?”

In an unexpected show of defiance, one of the attendants turned and fled the room, taking with her a shadowy accomplice that followed along the wall close behind. At first angered, Felidae quickly decided that the woman had left to tell the others of the beauty she had seen, of the child whose features had captivated her eyes and subsequently silenced her nagging tongue.

Alone with the infant, the other mid-wife glanced at Felidae. Her face was white and her mouth hung open as if the ability to speak had been stolen from her by the newborn creature balanced between her arms. Her eyes were marked with indecision and confusion.

“Are you deaf you idiot? Bring me my child!”

With haste the woman bolted from between Felidae’s legs and carried the newborn child, wrapped in a thin blanket, to its mother. The woman quickly placed the squirming creature on its mother’s chest and then fled the room without glancing back.

Felidae’s anger was quickly replaced by relief now that she was rid of the useless attendants who had toiled beside her. With anxious eyes she peered at the blanket that concealed her beautiful creation and then a sudden movement captured her attention. While clutching the bundle with one arm she slowly pried open the folds of the blanket with the other, desperate to gaze upon her newborn child, the future leader of the carnivores.

A startling cry erupted from the infant as at last their eyes met. Of the images formed in her mind over the last several months, in her thoughts and dreams of the power and beauty that her child would possess and of the possibilities of its animalkind, she never pictured the horror that gazed upon her with large blackened eyes that reflected her distorted face as she screamed. And then, at last, the beckoning darkness welcomed her.

The End of Book One

Book Two is scheduled for release in fall 2012.

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on the Realms of Animar visit

http://www.TheRealmsofAnimar.com.