The War for Mare (The Fall of Man Book 3) (6 page)

“Stop, please,” Susan held up her hands in
surrender. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’

“What are you doing?” Iry grabbed her arm
and yanked her to her feet. “Vala, wash and bandage that wrist
now.”

Still holding Susan, Iry bent down and
lifted something from the floor. “The throng,” he said. “Where did
you get it?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Can’t tell or won’t tell?”

It took a second, and then I realized it was
Susan. Susan was drawing my blood?

Iry shook the throng. “You know her blood
does nothing for you, right?’

“Yes,” Susan answered emotionally.

“Then why take it?”

“It wasn’t for me.”

“Who?”

Susan shook her head.

“Who!” Iry roared.

After a few breath filled sobs Susan
replied, “The queen.”

<><><><>

The palace was quite a distance from Iry’s
home. It was a challenge to walk after such an exhausting day.
However, it was nothing compared to the wait inside the palace to
see the king. The longer the minutes clicked, the more irritated my
new husband was. Actually, I’d say infuriated. And Susan became
more and more indignant, almost cocky. That told me she knew
something. Did the king? Did she feel a sense of being protected,
or was she actually doing this for the palace. Who was the queen? I
assumed it was Nito, it was not her. In all of my years, I had
never heard a queen mentioned, nor had I seen one.

“What do you suppose the king will do?” I
asked Iry.

“It depends,” said he replied. “It depends
on whether or not the king knows about this.”

“Who’s the queen?”

“I haven’t a clue. I have never met the
queen. No, that’s wrong, I suppose I met her when I was a mere
baby,” Iry said. “But I’ve not seen her in thousands of years.”

Iry tapped his foot in irritation and wrung
in his hands. I reached over and placed my hand over his. “You are
nervous.”

“Not nervous. Infuriated, angry, mad, you
name it.”

“That is an abundance of negative
emotions.”

“I just don’t know what’s going on,” Iry
said. “This is exactly why so many Ancients have fled and just
lived out in this world amongst the humans.”

“How is that possible?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, live amongst the humans? Surely
that is not possible. Plus you cannot be hidden, you look
different.”

“Slightly different,” Iry stated. “But is it
inconceivable to you that we live amongst you in peace? As brothers
and sisters?”

I laughed. “Yes.”

“Then you have not learned anything of us in
your time here, Vala. Many of us can coexist with humans very well.
Only those of us who are pure, one hundred percent Ancient are
those that look slightly different.”

<><><><>

Finally, after hours of waiting, and the sun
had already risen, the court guard open the door for us.

“The king shall see you now.”

We stood up from our chairs in the hallway
and that was when I noticed the look on Susan’s face.

“Why do you look so smug?” I asked.

“It’s not smug. It is confidence,” Susan
said. “Because I am certain that the king will understand my
intentions.”

Iry was bothered by her response, and it
added even more annoyance to his mood. He gripped her arm tightly
even though he didn’t need to all the way to the king’s
chambers.

We stepped into the court of the king where
he sat on his throne.

“What is it that beckons my attention,
educator?” he asked.

“Iry pushed Susan forward. “This human
has—”

“This human, if she has done anything,” said
the king, “is your business. She is from your house. You should
handle it, not me. What could she have done that has made you
disturb me?”

“This.” Iry held out my arm exposing my
fresh wound marks still bleeding on my wrist.

The king stood from his throne. “She draws
her blood?” he asked. “This is unheard of. It means nothing from
one human to another.”

“Exactly,” Iry said. “This is the second
time she has done it. But it is not that she has done it, it’s
why
she has done it that I bring her to you.”

“Why?”

Susan answered “I did it for the queen.”

“What queen?” the king asked.

“Your queen,” Susan replied.

“That is absurd. My queen was lost many
years ago during the Starvation period”

“No!” Susan said strongly. “She is
alive.”

“You lie. Guards! Take care! Take her for
treason and for taking from a food source.” Two guards hurried
forward both taking hold of Susan and dragging her back.

“No!” she screamed out. “No! I’m not lying.
She’s alive. Ask Vala. She is seeing her.”

Hearing her accuse me of something like
that, of seeing someone I did not know existed, threw me a little.
I looked at the king and shook my head. “No, I am not.”

“Yes!” Susan screamed from the room. “They
brought you to them!”

The king looked at me. “What is she speaking
of ‘has someone transported you?’

“Not that I…” I paused. I remember.
My
dream.
“Unless it was a dream.”

“What dream?” the king asked. “Did you have
an ejecting dream?”

“Tonight. When I was awakened, yes. With all
that was happening was Susan, it slipped my mind. But I was cut
from it very quickly.”

“What was the dream?” the king asked.

“Savages. Many, many of them. Too many to
count. This thing stood up right in the middle of them. He was a
man from what I could tell. My eyes shifted from Iry to the king.
And then to Susan who had been halted by the door. “He was a large,
tall man with a human body, his skin was black as tar. Yet he had
the head of a Savage beast.”

“Anubis.” Iry looked up to the king. “It
sounds like Anubis.”

“I will agree. I should have known. He would
lead the Savages,” the king said.

“Who is Anubis?” I asked.

“He is the god of the dead,” Iry told me.
“The world in between the suffering and the damned.”

“He would have the power to pull you through
past any blockader guard you have of your dreams,” the king said.
“But this does not mean you have seen the queen.”

“Was your queen not a Savage at one time?”
Susan spoke up.

The king looked as if he wanted to kill her.
“How do you know these things?”

“Your daughter told me. She told me that the
queen was transformed and never returned from the Great Starvation.
But she is turning. She’s turning with the Mare’s blood. Don’t you
want your wife back? Don’t you want to see her human again?”

The king looked at me. “Did you see a
female?”

I nodded. “Yes. She was still in mostly
Savage form, but she did stand upright.”

“I told you,” Susan said. “Save her. Give
her the blood of the Mare. If you do not she will continue working
with Anubis and the Savages.”

The king threw out his hand again and
pointed at the guards. “Take her away.”

Susan screamed and cried, fighting the
guards as they dragged her away. “You will regret this! You will.
They’re coming! All of them! For the humans. The Ancients. No one
stands a chance. It will be a Savage world!”

Just as the sun
began to lighten the sky, a car arrived for me and Snake. Snake
hadn’t been asleep at all. But I had fallen asleep for about an
hour so, enough for my body to feel the effects of all the alcohol
I consumed the night before.

My God, if I didn’t know any better, I would
swear I had a killer flu. Or maybe they had poisoned us. My head
pounded, my mouth was dry, my throat was itchy, and my stomach felt
like it was doing a dance of a thousand nights. I wanted to
vomit.

Nathan gave us some bread and fruit, and
some juice. After we ate, we took off. To my surprise, we didn’t
take an airplane like we did the last time. They told us “will get
you to a point, and you’ll be able to get home just fine.”

Without flying, I didn’t see how that was
possible. Although, I wasn’t quite sure how far from Angeles City
we were. I would assume quite a distance.

<><><><>

We drove for about two hours and finally
they just pulled over, stopped the car, said good luck, and waited
for us to get out.

“You’re joking, right?” I asked the driver
with a chuckle.

“No I’m not,” he said. “You should be just
fine from here.”

I looked out. There was nothing there.
Nothing but rock and desert. From what I could tell, we were
nowhere near Angeles City. How in the heck were we supposed to get
home?

“Just get out,” Snake said. “Say nothing.
Apparently they either don’t have any geographical instincts, or
this is their way of killing us.”

The driver peered into the mirror to check
us out after that remark. He merely shook his head, and said
nothing.

I opened my door and grab my bag, as did
Snake. No sooner had we stepped out and shut the door than the
driver took off. He took off so fast he left us in a trail of sandy
dust.

“Great. Just great.” I looked around again.
There was nothing for as far as the eye could see.

“Well, we can stand here,” Snake said. “Or
we could start walking.”

“Walk where?”

“Well,” Snake looked up to the sky, “there’s
the sun. It sets in the west. Home is west. We’ll follow that.”

“That’s the big plan? Follow the sun?” I
shook my head. “We’re going die here. We have no provisions
whatsoever.”

“We’re alive,” Snake said. “And we had a
heck of a vacation.”

“Vacation? That’s the way you look at
it?”

“You could’ve had a good time too if you
hadn’t been sulking the whole time.”

“Sulking? Of course I was sulking,” I said.
“I chased Vala out here by telling her we found the Savage camp and
there was no reason for her to stay, and then she got
married
.”

“Yes she did.”

“And her sister was made into one of those
things, which was the reason she had to get married.”

“If that’s what you believe.”

“What do you mean?”

“That’s what she told you. Right?”

“Yes. Why would she lie?”

“To spare your feelings.”

“Please,” I snorted.

“She looked pretty happy with that—”

“Stop. If you’re trying to irritate me, you
are. I’m on the verge of death, walking in this desert, in this
heat, can I at least die less angry?”

“With the way you been, not enjoying your
vacation, your food, or anything, I don’t see any way you’re going
to die a happy man. Let alone less angry.”

“Gee, thanks.” I didn’t say much after that.
I wanted to save my breath and keep my mouth moist. They didn’t
give us any water or anything. We walked for a while, then in the
distance I spotted a small wooden shack. It was the tiniest little
building I had ever seen. Maybe 8’ x 8’. A little distance from it
was another small, open, wooden structure. Did someone live out
there? Were they out in the open, with the Savages flying around at
night?

“Look ahead,” Snake said, pointing
outward.

“I see it.”

“I think that’s what they meant, by us being
able to get home from here.”

“Maybe they know someone is here and that
person can give us provisions.”

“Funny how they just left us out here
without any protection whatsoever. Can’t be alive. No way. Savages
would tear that place apart.”

“We are awfully close to the Ancient City,”
I said. “Maybe the Savages don’t come out this far.”

We walked further towards the shack,
expecting nothing, and were surprised when a man appeared from the
building.

He stood there in the distance, not moving.
Watching us. As if he were expecting us.

He lifted his hand high in the air when we
drew closer.

“Did they call him?” I asked in a whisper to
Snake.

“How do you propose they would do that? This
isn’t one of your sitcoms, or even a pre-vamp world. There’s no way
to call.”

We kept walking, focusing on the man, an
older fellow as I could tell the closer we got to him.

He finally moved when we were at a good
twenty feet away. He jogged our way with a big smile on his face.
He extended his hand to Snake first. “Hey there,” he said. “Nice to
see you. My name is Burt.”

“Did you know we were coming?” I asked. “How
in the heck would I know you were coming?” Burt asked. “I came out
to enjoy the sun, even though it’s hot as hell, and then I saw
you.”

“You saw us?” I asked.

“Thought maybe you were a mirage of first.”
Burt laughed at his own joke. “Just kidding. I saw you, heard you.
Voices carry in the quiet. What in the blazes are you doing out
here in the middle of nowhere? You don’t talk like one of those
streets people.”

“We aren’t,” Snake answered. “We were in the
City of the Ancients. We went there searching for one of our own.
We found her, but she is staying there. The Ancients dropped us off
here and told us that we could get home from here. But we don’t
know where
here
is.”

“Well,
here
is a place that I swore
the Ancients didn’t know about,” Burt said. “I thought we only knew
about them.” He chuckled. “But they were right, you can get him
home from here.”

“Are we that close to Angeles City?” I
asked.

“No.” He shook his head. “Over one hundred
miles away. At least.”

“Then how are we getting home from
here?”

“We can help you,” he replied.

He said ‘we’, plural, implying there were
more than just him. I found it hard to believe. Here we were in the
middle of nowhere with one shack, one even smaller half shack, and
a middle-aged man. We? I thought for a moment he had lost his mind.
I suppose he saw the look on my face.

“Don’t believe me?” he said. “That’s okay.
We don’t have to help you.”