Shepherd’s Awakening (Books 1-3)

by Pablo Andrés Wunderlich Padilla

Manchego clenched his teeth. I think I know whose voice that is.

  Dethis? What does that mean? It looks horrible. I don’t like it.

  I don’t know what Dethis means, but you’d better turn yourself off, Teitú. Can you do that? I don’t want to attract his attention.

  I think I can. Teitú became transparent.

  Manchego chose the tunnel he thought would offer the shortest way to the voices. He was walking close to the wall, taking cover behind the piles of rock he found along his way. At the end he leaned against a rock to watch closely. The voices reached him clearly.

  “Alfarón said he’d come to subdue the witch, but he’s taking too long. I don’t understand why he wants to do it himself. It’s as if he had a grudge against the old woman…”

  “Yes, it’s strange for Alfarón to be late. Something must have happened, and we’d better go on without him. We’ll have to carry out the plan, that’s the priority.”

  “So then what? We kill her?”

  “She’s mortally wounded. Let the rats finish her off. We can go on with the ritual. We have to leave everything ready for the sacrifice, which’ll be soon, and it has to be perfect. Revenge is near… I can feel it.”

  Those voices, those beings… Teitú said. What are they? Their voices are cold as stone and cruel as the shadow. With pale faces and dead eyes.

  Manchego was absorbed in the conversation which was unfolding a few yards further on. Did you hear, Teitú? They say they’re going to carry out a plan. What can they mean?

  Neither had the answer to that, but they were sure that this plan was something more than a light-hearted trifle.

  When the beings with pale faces and dead eyes went away, Manchego thought he could hear a weak voice calling him persistently. He felt his heart breaking into little pieces and ran in that direction. When he discovered the source of the call the boy dropped to the ground, his heart in his mouth, his soul shrunken within him. He began to cry over the inert body of the witch. He shook her, like a puppy that refuses to be left an orphan.

  The body responded: “Oh… it’s you… feels good to be around you… Don’t delay… leave right away, there’s the exit, over there. But first I must tell you great things, my dear Manchego. For a long time I’ve been watching you, studying you, protecting you from the evil forces that are searching for you. And we’ve succeeded in that, but things have speeded up; the inevitable is around the corner. You must avoid the sacrifice.”

  The witch coughed blood. Her breathing was a sharp whine. She gasped for air before she went on: “Go to find Mayor Feliel. He’s the creator of the shadow, and he’s to blame for the people’s suffering. They mustn’t leave… it mustn’t come back to life…. Here, take this,” Ramancia said, and reached out her hand to him. “Go on, I tell you, take it.”

  It was a small, corked flask. Inside was an iridescent blue liquid. “Drink it, Manchego. It’ll give you strength for the battle you must fight. You are who you are, Manchego, and you can’t change the essence of your soul. The warrior of the Naevas Aedán is your guide from now on. Told you it was an indispensable totem. Now run! Follow your faithful warrior Naevas Aedán. You’ll come out beside the entrance to the Litiadas caverns, leagues away from the village, thanks be to the Gods. Now… go!”

  Manchego ran away, unable to stop weeping. There were so many questions he wanted to ask Ramancia and secrets he wanted to tell her… but circumstances were against him, and he had to swallow his sadness and powerlessness.

  He stopped for a moment, just to drink the blue liquid from the flask. An unfamiliar vigor whirled in his navel and radiated around, running through his veins. His limbs seemed new, his senses finely tuned. With powerful strength he set off at a run, swift as a wyvern. With a precise leap he came out into the open. A cold wind was blowing. It was night-time.

  Chapter XXIII – A Broken Heart

  There, outside the house, Lulita could not shed her worry. A decrepit moon barely shone. “What’s happening that even the God of Light can’t resolve?”

  The old woman sharpened her senses. Manchego was not answering, Balthazar was nowhere to be seen: Something terrible was going on. She heard the horses’ hooves in the stable. The door was open. When she went in she found Sureña restless, covered in blood… fresh blood. She examined the mare but found no injury that would explain such a quantity of blood.

  Desperate, melancholy barking sounded in the distance. Lula rushed out, taken over now by the spirit of the warrior that still lived within her. She ran to the limits of her strength, her old joints working together without complaining. She reached her house, went to the kitchen and took a copper key out of a small chest. She went to her bedroom, swept off all the ornaments which lay on a gigantic chest and opened it with the key.

  The hinges creaked after so many years of disuse. From the inside leaked a breath of oblivion. She took out a long axe, with a wooden handle wrapped in the pelt of a wyvern. The head was a particular type of stone, heavy and sharp.

  It was covered by a thin veil of dust. The woman blew it off. She also took a longbow with feathers at the ends and a quiver full of arrows tipped with volcanic stone. She tied the axe to her back and slung the bow over her shoulder, then left at a run with the quiver in her hand.

  She was ready to kill.

  She mounted Sureña and set off at speed towards Rufus’s barking. The night enveloped her in its blackness. In the leaden sky the silver light of the moon edged through the clouds like stone slabs. In a short while they reached the Observatory. There was nobody there, but the barking grew stronger. Further away, near the ceiba tree, something was dimly visible. Lula knew it was Rufus. She dismounted, looking to all sides, ready to defend herself. She found nothing. She went to the dog. “Rufus! Tell me what’s happened to my boy! What’s happened! Tell me! Where’s Manchego?”

  Rufus stopped barking as soon as the grandmother mentioned his master’s name. His eyes clouded over, and he howled with pain. Then he went on barking furiously, toward the ground, at the exact point where the earth had swallowed the boy. The old woman needed no words. She burst into tears and for some time was unable to do anything else. Her head started to hurt, as if the tears were about to burst a dam. Sureña snorted and the woman fell silent.

  She heard the tread of boots on the grass. There was more than one pair. A patch in the clouds let through the silver light, which fell directly on three metallic surfaces reflecting that light. Sureña reared, trampling the ground. The grandmother mounted the mare and with a touch on her ribs encouraged her into battle.

  The animal trotted toward the soldiers, with Lula at the reins, former member of the Emperor’s legions. The soldiers stopped and readied their shields. For a weapon they carried a long and dreadful spear. But they did not know the warrior who was on her: Daughter of the Wild Land, and a skilled shot.

  She took an arrow, drew the bow and released in a matter of seconds. It whistled and buried itself in the eye of one of the Mayor’s soldiers. He fell to the ground dead. The other two kept coming, unflinching in the face of the grandmother’s daring defiance, focused only on killing, destroying. They seemed possessed by dark forces. The woman once again was touched by something of the rage that had come over her when she fought against the forces of the South, Némaldon, the ancient enemy of the Mandrake Empire, where dark powers lay dormant, waiting to rule with their domain of shadows.

  The dog, who had always shown himself to be a docile, quiet pet in the company of his master, turned suddenly furious and ran towards the soldiers. He seized the arm of one and tore the flesh in a matter of seconds. The soldier did not complain about the wound or the pain, but nor did he give up either. He replied to the attack with a powerful punch. Rufus ran off in terror and disappeared into the depths of the forest.

  The distraction gave Lula an opportunity. She nocked a second arrow and aimed at the jugular of another soldier. She hit her target. Meanwhile, the one who was still left alive kept advancing, showing no sign o
f fear. The woman, who could not stand it anymore, dismounted from the mare and went straight for this assassin with the axe in her hand, ready to teach him a lesson. The soldier attacked with his spear, missed.

  The grandmother seized the weapon and pulled it towards her with a quick, sure move, narrowing the space between them so that barely a breath separated them, and with a blow shattered his shield. The officer tripped, and the moment he touched the ground the woman split his skull in two. His brains spattered everywhere.

  The fight was over, but only there. From afar she heard the croaking of a beast. It was the fire, which was crackling among wood and memories. The Ranch! The grandmother ran back. She was consumed by a terrible lament as she saw the hungry flames.

  She fell to her knees, weeping in desolation as her home was consumed by the fire. She wept and wept, howling with pain. She prayed to the God of Fire, ArD’Buror, but knew it was already too late. And what if Manchego was inside? And if the fire had caught him in his sleep…?

  She looked around in search of help, of anything that might be some use. She collapsed when she saw the fire and the smoke in the distance devastating the village.

  “We’re off now!” came a voice at a distance. “Come!”

  It was a man riding a black courser, with unkempt beard but a penetrating gaze. Lula knew him; his name was Savarb. He came together with several riders, and on one of the horses was Luchy. The girl’s gaze was lost, shattered by a pain she could never have foreseen. The massacre the Mayor had begun was a reality.

  “We’re off! To the village! To the resistance! To the Fort of the Vengeful Arrow. There’s nothing else left for us!”

  Lula felt the warrior within her taking over and concentrating on a single thing—survival —she mounted Sureña and galloped out behind the Captain of the Resistance, towards the village, where horror would very soon greet her.

  Chapter XXIV – The River of Murria

  The sky was as deep blue as the sea, starry as if thousands of glowworms were hanging from the vault of the world. A great cloud of spidery arms darkened the horizon to the northeast. The silver light of the moon captivated him with its beauty, and he stayed like that for a long while, before a landscape which took his breath away.

  The cold wind stirred him. He looked at himself, felt his body, recovered and strengthened thanks to Ramancia’s brew. He moved his limbs, tried his flexibility, his strength. He touched his face, stretched like a cat. He felt as good as new; he felt the way he always did.

  Teitú was flying around his head. Manchego blinked; he could not believe that what had been a nut was now something like a seraph. He could barely reason; his mind was in a whirl. Too many things had happened, which had awakened a multitude of contradictory emotions. He preferred not to analyze, otherwise he would give way to depression.

  Teitú, on the other hand, was all enthusiasm: This world is so pretty! It flew swiftly, going up and down, examining plants and rocks, like a child discovering everything around it. The boy’s heart was heavy, realizing that this pure spirit was beginning to experience the world under the torments of a horrible shadow. Even without knowing the details of the Mayor’s plan, or whoever was behind the killing and devastation, he was sure that something of the utmost importance was about to happen. The dethis had talked about a Sacrifice…

  He prayed to the God of Light, wishing everything would be solved soon and that nobody else would die. Despite this, he did not even believe in his own hope. Perhaps the rumors were true. Perhaps the God of Light was dead, and that was why the shadows were coming out and wreaking havoc.

  There came a flutter and a screech. The boy looked up. He had never imagined he would see that mysterious owl again. It was not more than a stride away from him, its powerful claws on the wall of the cave. It was bleeding from one side, and the blood had stained its plumage and claws. It took off and moved further away. Manchego’s surprised gaze followed it.

  Follow it! Teitú had given up its rapt exploration and was now shining intensely.

  “What?” Manchego felt both lost and tired. We’ve only just got out of the shadow, and I can’t even rest?

  I understand that so much fighting has overwhelmed you, but something terrible is going on in the village, and the owl wants to lead you to a particular spot. We have to follow it!

  Teitú’s red light alarmed Manchego. It confirmed his guess that this being shone with different colors, in accordance with the different situations that arose. This would be useful in the future. For the moment, he heeded his companion and ran after the owl.

  He went into the forest, guided by the bird of prey’s firm, steady wing-beat. There were obstacles in the terrain, but Manchego dodged them without difficulty. He attributed this energy to Ramancia’s potion and thought that perhaps the witch had foreseen that he would have to face some challenge which would test his capacity to an unimaginable degree.

  Chapter XXV – Oh Heart, How You Suffer

  The black owl did not stop for a single moment, driven by an urgency which Manchego was very soon to understand. Teitú continued to give out a fire-red sparkle, which did not make the boy’s spirits any easier.

  The owl landed on the branch of a tree, camouflaged in the blackness; only its eyes could be seen. They were on a stretch of flat land which reached as far as a small hill with a great solitary pine at the top. Manchego felt emotions brush hard against him. It was the Observatory, his favorite place.

  The owl had guided him to the Ranch! He scanned the plain and saw, with a feeling of despair, the ceiba tree, the spot where the earth had swallowed him up. How much time had passed since then? He walked toward the tree curiously. The roots might have been thick snakes burrowing into the earth.

  Thanks to Teitú’s brightness, he examined his surroundings. Everything was as it always had been. It did not even look as though anything as terrible as the earth giving way had ever happened there. Ounces was nowhere to be seen either. He had no time to think of anything else. He glimpsed a corpse. He went closer and recognized the armor and badges at once: it was one of the Mayor’s soldiers! A smell of burnt wood assaulted him.

  He looked up, towards a fat worm that penetrated the sky. It was coming from the Ranch! Lulita! The name exploded in his mind like lightning. He ran towards his house, with Teitú guiding him through the darkness of the night and the smoke.

  The plantation was devastated, his enormous effort reduced to ashes. Teitú’s brightness changed to a deep, turbulent purple, mirroring the boy’s feelings. As they neared the wooden skeleton of what had been his home, Manchego reached out with his arms, as if he wished to embrace that ruined structure.

  His legs gave way and he fell to the ground. He stared at the disaster: the sheep, the cow, and the donkey burnt to a crisp, the horses missing. The neighboring ranches seemed to have suffered a similar catastrophe. And Luchy? And Grandmother? What had happened to them?

  A fierce hatred took hold of the young man. This was too much. First he had had to face the conditions of his birth, then the fall into a world of shadows, the injuries, the broken body; now he had to see his home reduced to ashes. His hands stiffened; he felt the urge to seek revenge. Revenge! The word etched itself on his mind in letters of fire.

  “Feliel! Only that son of witches is capable of something as terrible as this… Lulita!” he screamed. The cry echoed in the night. “Felieeeeel!”

  Everything’s quiet and empty, Teitú said. You should look more carefully; you might find signs of life of your grandmother. Not everything’s lost. I can feel it.

  “It’s not true! I’ve got nothing left in this world! They’ve always persecuted my family; they wanted my blood for a sacrifice… You know what they did to my mother, what they did to my grandfather… what they’ve done to my grandmother! Everybody around me suffers! They all die because of me! I only bring disaster to those I love, misfortune and destruction… Feliel! Where are you hiding!”

  Manchego began to hyperventilate, his ey
es reddened. A vicious madness was gaining ground within him.

  Teitú wanted to help its master. That’s not true! You’re not the only one who’s suffering the misfortunes of these times. For the love of love, don’t give up and don’t be defeated by those thoughts! No, Manchego, don’t allow yourself to become degraded. It’s true your life hasn’t been an easy one, but hardships come and go, you decide whether you’re prepared to do something about it or give in.

  These arguments were charged with reason, Manchego thought. He felt the sharp slap of the lesson and burst into tears, but amid the tears he managed to focus. His hands relaxed, his fingers let go of the tension. Teitú stopped emitting a purple light and changed to a color between rose and sky-blue. Manchego stood up and headed for the Ranch.

  Apprehensively, he searched among the ashes for the charred bones of his grandmother. He did not find her. With his soul inflamed, he went to the graveyard. He found the place devastated, the trees fallen, the headstones of Eromes’ ancestors stained with smoke and ash.

  Manchego watched and moaned. He remembered the red book and went for it, but it too had been devoured by the flames. Sadness gave way to curiosity when something moved behind him. The ground shook. A powerful explosion echoed around. When Manchego opened his eyes, he saw a thick black cloud of smoke in the shape of a mushroom which scattered sparks and gave off an intense yellow light. That cloud hung above the village, and there was nothing spontaneous or natural about it.

  I don’t like that smoke, Manchego, we must find out what it is, but it’s sure to be some villainy of Mayor Feliel’s, Teitú said.

  They went back to the Observatory. Before he turned his attention to anything else, Manchego needed to make sure that Lulita’s body was not there. At the top of the hill he found nothing but silence and the murmur of the foliage touched by the wind. Luckily, the Great Pine had been spared by the tongues of fire. He went down the hill and headed to the ceiba tree, where not twenty strides from it the body of the soldier lay.