by Audra Hart
When Kyle recognizes his mother, he races out from behind his would be protectors to go to her. By now Morna is back on her feet and races towards her son, the instinct to feed is overwhelming. She stops herself short and bares her teeth in a snarl, and drops to her knees again. “RUN! Dammit, Kyle RUN!” she screams wildly at him. Kyle looks confused. The emotions coming from his mother are all consuming, and incomprehensible to him. He tries to take another step towards his mother when two strong hands grab each arm and whisk him away.
“Let me go!” Kyle yells at Elias and Micah.
“No way kid!” Grunts Elias. “She’d never forgive us.”
“Something is wrong with Mom! She needs us! Go back!” Kyle insists as he tries to escape the iron grip his friends have on his arms. He is getting motion sick from being propelled through the forest at such a high rate of speed.
“She’s hunting kid! I can’t believe she controlled herself enough to stop and tell us to run. Micah, get him out of here. I am going to weave a hiding spell and go check on her.” Elias says as he slows.
“No way bro! She’ll hunt you!” Micah says as he throws Kyle over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. “Get the hell out of here. We can go find Luca or Damian.”
“I’m going back. Get Kyle out of here! She may not be able to control herself again.” Elias insists. “She needs someone to watch her back, keep her from doing something she will regret. Try to find Damian or Luca and send them here to help.”
“Fine! Be careful. I’ll try to find Luca.” Says Micah as he races off with the struggling Kyle over his shoulder. “You better not get dead, little bro!” he shouts over his shoulder in frustration.
Elias takes a deep breath and weaves the hiding spell just in time. He hears Morna thrashing through the woods. She is panting “RUN!” every few steps. When she clears the trees and enters the low spot Elias is occupying he prays she can’t detect him. He wonders if he can truly outrun her, because he is certain he can’t outfight her if it comes to that. When he sees her he is doubting the wisdom of his decision to stay behind. Her face, grossly contorted with rage and pain, barely looks human. It is obvious that she is struggling mightily with herself.
She finally comes to a stop in the low clearing. Elias hears her growl, “Please God, get them out of my reach!” She leans over and rests her hands on her thighs and pants hoarsely. “Control Morna! Get some control! This is not you! Control!”
She sniffs the air and starts toward the direction Micah carried Kyle away. She stops and turns to go the other way… then turns back toward the fading scent trails of her son and godson. She stops and sniffs and moves toward Elias. He stiffens, he knows she can’t see him and should not be able to smell him, but she is coming right towards him.
When she is about five feet from Elias, Morna throws her head back and screams in rage and animalistic need. Then she looks directly at the spot where Elias is standing and growls; “Elias, I will kick your ass if you are still here!” She races around the clearing for a few more seconds as though undecided about what to do next, and then suddenly she darts out of the clearing, obviously on the trail of another scent.
Elias trails her for about five minutes. Fear grips his heart when she stops suddenly and snarls again. But she isn’t looking toward him, she has turned to her right and has assumed a defensive crouch. She is hissing quietly and looks very confused and indecisive. Suddenly a giant creature crashes out of the woods at Morna. The pallid gray figure is taller than Valliant and is covered in scales. It has bright crimson eyes, two ragged horns on its head, eight inch long, deadly looking claws on each hand, vicious looking fangs, and evil yellow eyes. The creature is roaring its fury as it charges at Morna.
Morna yells, “Run Elias!” and then snarls something in a language that Elias doesn’t understand and leaps into the air barely in time to avoid the attack. She comes down the creature’s back and starts biting its massive shoulder. She spits out a putrid smelling hunk of flesh. The beast reaches back with one mighty hand and flings her off. Morna crashes into an ancient oak tree, shattering branches and screaming in rage at being thwarted by the beast.
Once she has leapt back onto her feet, Elias can see that her left arm is contorted in a very unnatural way. It is obviously broken. She quickly straightens the deformed arm with a screech of agony. She wipes her blood from a head wound out of her eyes and jumps on the creature again as it races towards her. He flings her away again and then dives at her. She rolls out of the way just in time. The creature crashes head first into a boulder and is momentarily stunned.
Morna again wipes blood out of her eyes and compulsively stops to sniff it on her hand. She growls, and screams in the guttural language again as she bends down to pick up a rock. Morna takes a deep breath and attacks the creature again as it tries to stand. She bashes the beast repeatedly in the head. The beast screams and tosses her off of him. Morna hits another tree and bounces onto the ground hard with an “Umph” as the breath is knocked out of her lungs.
The beast takes the advantage and dives into her again. Morna picks up a fallen limb and struggles back to her feet where she starts battering the creature in the head as it slashes at her with its treacherous claws. She screams in rage and pain when blood starts pouring from a deep gash on her right thigh. She flits out of its reach and skitters up a massive tree. The beast roars in rage and then speaks in the same guttural language Morna had been using. Morna replies from the tree’s massive branches. Elias can hear wood splintering and sees leaves, branches, and other wooden debris falling from the upper branches. He wonders what Morna is up to.
The beast and Morna continue to exchange barbs in the unfamiliar language. It’s obvious by the tone that Morna is taunting the beast and that it is quickly losing control. Suddenly the beast starts slashing at the tree trunk with its mighty claws. Chunks of wood fly off the mighty trunk with each blow. Elias is amazed that the creature is trying to fell the huge tree to get at her. Suddenly he realizes that the claws on the beast’s hands are too long to allow it to climb the tree. He hears Morna laughing wickedly in the tree branches and hissing at the beast.
The beast redoubles its efforts to bring the tree down, the trunk starts to splinter and the massive tree shudders like it is about to tumble over, when suddenly Morna drops from the tree onto the beast’s shoulders. She has a three feet long section of limb in her hands, but one end has been sharpened to a deadly looking point. She drives the sharpened point into the beast’s neck. The stake is half buried in the beast’s body, but it doesn’t even slow the monster down. The creature screams in rage and reaches up to grab Morna and slings her off of his back.
Elias sees blood spurt from Morna’s back when the creature throws her off of him. She lands on her feet and wavers for a millisecond before she turns and attacks the beast again. She runs at the beast and hits it with a flying kick that sends it reeling. The beast strikes it’s head on another massive tree trunk and seems to be momentarily stunned.
Morna had crashed into another boulder after she hit the beast with a flying kick. She too is stunned and gasping for air. She is obviously weakened and Elias fears she will lose the battle if the beast can get up before she can. He silently walks over to the beast. It is starting to stir. Elias looks over to Morna, she still seems dazed. He picks up a big rock and smashes it viciously into the head of the beast. He hears the sickening crack as the beast’s skull splits spraying its fetid blood all over him, but amazingly it starts to get up again.
Out of nowhere, Morna pushes Elias out of the way and growls, “Get out of here!” She pulls the makeshift stake out of the neck of the monster and plunges it into its chest. The screech that is torn from the beast is more horrible than anything Elias has ever heard. He backs away, out of Morna’s and the monster’s reach and watches in horror as the creature gets up with the stake coming out of its chest and backhands Morna across the clearing. She, amazingly lands on her feet. Elias is horrified to see blood running from h
er slashed chest and abdomen. His fear for her life is overwhelming.
She looks down and sees the blood and screams again in rage. She flies at the beast and kicks it again. This time the beast is only momentarily stunned. Morna flips into the air and mounts the beast on its shoulders from behind. She grabs the creature’s head and rips it off in one violent yank. The beast immediately falls over backwards. Morna tries to get off in time, but blood loss and exhaustion are taking their toll. The creature’s mighty bulk pins her legs to the ground with a sickening, crushing sound. Morna screeches in agony and tries to get from underneath the creature’s body. But every move causes her intense agony.
Morna lies back and closes her eyes, and roughly rubs her battered face. She is covered in her own blood and the sticky, putrid blood of the beast. She exhales slowly and then growls between clenched teeth, “Elias, I know you are still here. Help me move him off of my legs and then run like hell! I still need to feed.” She snarls, baring her teeth at where she knows her godson is standing.
Elias hesitates, her voice is chilling. It doesn’t even sound human. And he can’t believe Morna is looking right at his location. There is no way she should be able to see him. He decides to test it and moves to the right. She snarls and follows him with her gaze. He moves back to the left and she again follows his movements. “Quit screwing around, kid!” She growls again. Elias hesitantly moves forward and starts pulling on the beast‘s legs. Morna pushes with all of her wavering strength and two of them quickly get the bulk off of her crushed legs. Elias instinctively makes a move to examine her legs and she growls, “GO NOW!”
Elias complies and starts to run away. Then he stops and turns back. “I SAID RUN!” Morna growls between clenched teeth as she tries to sit up.
“Just a damn moment, Morna. I am going to burn that damn thing if you can move away from it. Then I am going to go get a deer or something for you to feed on. So you hang on to that damned iron control that I know you are exerting for a little bit longer. I will be as fast as I can.” Elias says quickly.
Morna snarls and then nods. Elias drags the beast away from Morna a little more. She tries to move away, but stops when the crushing pain from her legs rips through her. Elias moves towards her and she growls at him again. “Sorry, Morna.” says Elias. He weaves the fire spell and catches the beast on fire. He watches for a few seconds to make sure the beast is burning. “Hang on Pretty Morna, I will bring you some take out.” He darts for the brush.
Morna lies back and growls. After a moment she chuckles at Elias’ words. “Take out indeed!” The pain from her injuries has her immobilized but the thirst is the worst part of it all. The burning need in the very core of her being overpowers everything else. She tries several times to get up so that she can feed, but her legs are crushed beyond use. She knows, somewhere in the back of her mind, that her rapid healing is trying to put her body back to rights, but she knows if she can’t feed soon it will be futile. Her heart is starting to weaken due to blood loss, she is starting to fear for her baby’s life when she hears something coming towards her from the woods.
Elias has been gone about ten minutes when Morna hears him dragging something through the brush to her location. She opens her eyes and struggles to sit up as she sees a huge boar being dragged from the woods to her location. She chuckles weakly as she watches the four hundred pound boar being lifted up and flung towards her by the seemingly invisible Elias. It lands about a foot from her. Elias says, “It’s only stunned. I wasn’t sure if you could feed from a dead animal or not. So you better hurry, Pretty Morna.”
Morna nods in her godson’s direction and drags herself towards the boar. She can smell its blood and hear its beating heart. She can also smell her godson’s blood and hear his beating heart. Her instincts urge her to feed on Elias but she ignores those and rips a patch of bristly fur back at the neck of the boar and feverishly bites a huge hunk of flesh from the creature’s neck. After she spits the flesh out of her mouth, she hurriedly starts to drain the blood from the beast. Its beating heart pushes the blood through the wound at its jugular. Morna drinks thirstily and sighs in relief after a few minutes. She quickly drains every drop from the body of the beast but needs more.
Morna lies back to relish the strength that is slowly returning to her body, and closes her eyes. She feels a hand on her leg and quickly rolls away. “DON’T!” she roars. “Please leave, Elias. I don’t want to hurt you. I am not under control yet. I still need to feed.” She snarls at her beloved godson. She sighs in relief when she feels him leave. She didn’t hear or see him, but she knows he is gone. She wonders how she can sense him while he has woven the hiding spell.
She lies there trying to regain control over her instinct to feed and the mind numbing pain when she senses Elias’ return. “DAMMIT ELIAS!” she growls. When Morna smells the deer and its blood she rapidly sits up and grabs the animal from Elias. She repeats the same procedure as she did with the boar. Finally, her blood thirst is quenched enough after draining the deer to allow rational thought.
She looks right at her godson. “Elias, I am okay now. You can drop the hiding spell.” She laughs, and says, “I seem to be able to sense you anyway. But don‘t drop the iron-lion just in case.”
Elias drops the hiding spell and walks a couple of steps towards Morna. “Is it okay for me to examine you now?”
“I am under control. I won’t hurt you. Besides, I think I am too messed up. You could easily fight me off.” Morna grunts in pain as she tries to move. Elias looks at her skeptically. Morna sees the uncertainty in his eyes.
“Sorry Elias. You must be pretty freaked out by what I have become. I know I am.” Morna admits.
“Not really Morna. In the midst of it all, you were still in control. I just don’t see how. I know you must have really been struggling not to feed on me and yet you kept trying to send me away. And I am a little freaked out that you could see me when I had the hiding spell on. I know the spell was holding, how could you see me?” Elias asks as he moves closer to examine her severely injured body. He quickly looks at her eyes and ears, and examines the head wound. “Dammit Morna, you have a concussion.”
“Yeah I know. I don’t have to be a competent healer to figure that out.” Morna chuckles at herself and then says, “I couldn’t see you. I could only sense you. Your energy, your aura actually. Maybe it’s something I gained when Almeda gave me her life force and aura? But then again, that thought already occurred to you, didn’t it?” Morna asks in awe.
“Yes it did.” Elias says as he takes off his tee shirt and tears it into strips to stop the blood flowing from her wounded chest and abdomen. “How did you know that?” He quickly tears his tee shirt into long strips and binds those wounds and holds his hands over her rounded belly and smiles in relief.
“He’s fine, I can sense him stronger than ever now. We were both pretty weak before you brought that boar to me, kiddo.” Morna says with a smile. “To answer your question, I can get impressions of what people are thinking. I can’t read their thoughts, I just kind of have an idea what they are thinking. I guess that’s another gift from Almeda. She could do that.”
“How come you had to feed again today?” Elias asks as he examines her legs. They are healing improperly. He knows he will have to re-break them and he is honestly afraid to try it without some help. The pain will be intense and he knows Morna might try to kill him for it.
“I am not sure. The intense need to feed, the thirst just overcame me out of nowhere. Hey kiddo, don’t try to do anything with the legs or the arm right now. I am not sure I can control myself when you start re-breaking them. You should go get help. I am stable now.” Morna assures him.
“What the hell was that thing that attacked you Morna?” Elias asks as he tries to clean the filth out of the wounds on her back. “The blood, or whatever this crap is on your body smells like the filth we cleaned out of your wounds when you went to the spirit plane.”
“It was the mate to that cre
ature,” says Morna. “He was avenging his mate’s death. He said the great mother led him to me. I don’t know what he meant by that. How did it get into Asgard?”
“How do you know its language?” When Morna shrugs Elias looks Morna in the eyes and continues, “Look Morna, I know it’s gonna hurt, but I really need to get you out of these woods and get you somewhere that I can treat your injuries. Or better yet, get one of the Asgardian healers to work on you. I need to carry you to Heimdall’s place. You have yourself completely under control, right?”
Morna reaches out and gently strokes the face of her beloved godson. “I am so sorry kiddo. I was truly a wild monster today, and you still are trying to heal me. Thank you for what you have done for me today. You have saved my son’s life and mine. Actually, you saved the life of two of my sons.”
“Nonsense Morna. You stopped yourself from attacking us. Even after we ran away, you could have caught up with us, but you didn’t. And after Micah left with Kyle, you could have fed on me. You knew where I was despite the hiding spell. I don’t know how you controlled yourself, but you did.” Elias kisses her bloody forehead and says, “Stop talking and let me carry you out of here.”
“No need. I think your dad and brother are here.” Morna turns her gaze to a spot at the edge of the clearing. “Brian? I won’t attack. You don’t need the hiding spells, but keep the iron-lion spells on.” Brian and Micah drop their hiding spells and walk towards Morna. Morna sniffs the air and says, “George? Come on out brother. I am under control.”
“How did you know we were here Morna?” Brian asks. As George walks into the clearing from the other direction.
