“Well done, Sunder. I have trained you well,” the teacher said, wiping his brow with the back of his hand.
“You were holding back.”
“I wasn’t. You were trying harder this time. You were fighting with your mind, not just your body. That takes focus and skill. Both of which you demonstrated today.”
“Thank you, Sophós,” Sunder said with a smile. He bent down to retrieve his teacher’s spear.
Before he could reach it, an eerie, high-pitched call halted his movement. It was followed by a bloodcurdling screech from deep inside the tree line that surrounded them.
“Sunder! Back!” Sophós called. A large creature flew from the trees into the small clearing.
Sunder stood, eyes wide, clutching his spear. His teacher’s spear still lay on the forest floor. Should he try to grab it or should he take refuge behind his elder? The indecision made him freeze. The beast hurtled through the air toward him. He could not move. His heart hammered in his chest as he watched the large black beast approach with its yellow teeth bared.
Without warning, he was hit from the side. Sophós pushed him to the ground, snatching Sunder’s spear and raising it toward the creature. He caught it in the chest in mid-air, impaling it on the spear. The creature stopped moving. Bright green blood seeped from the entry wound.
Sophós lowered the spear and the creature slid off onto the forest floor. His eyes were tense, focusing on the beast that lay in front of him. “We need to find out how this one got through the fortifications.”
“Yes, Sophós.” Sunder still lay where he had been knocked down, disappointment heavy in his heart. “I’m sorry I failed you.”
The teacher turned to face him. “You did not fail me, Sunder,” he said, his eyes softening. “It is I who failed you.”
Sunder shook his head in disbelief. He had frozen out of fear, and in doing so he had risked the life of his teacher, his elder, leaving him unarmed to face the beast alone. How had his teacher failed him?
“I have every confidence that you could have defeated the beast. Perhaps if I had given you another moment, you would have found your focus, but I panicked. I let my fondness for you cloud my judgment. I failed you, Sunder. And because of me, you were unable to test your skills in true combat.” He turned away and hurled the bloodied spear at the creature.
“Sophós,” Sunder called. “Thank you for saving my life. I owe you a great debt.”
The teacher smiled. He made to speak, but the words never made it from his mouth.
A second creature flew from the trees. Releasing a high-pitched shriek, it slammed into the older centaur’s body, gripping onto his back. Sophós began to buck and thrust but the creature held tight.
Sunder sprang to action. Retrieving the teacher’s fallen spear, he raised it high and hurled it at the snarling beast. The spear flew, striking the creature in the chest. The force of the throw sent it flying into the trunk of a nearby oak, where it slid to the ground.
Panting, Sunder assessed the vile Skadhavar. Dead. But how many more were there?
“You are right, Sophós. We must find the breach in the fortifications. We must be sure there are no more of them inside the perimeter.”
But the teacher was silent.
“Sophós?” Sunder called. He turned to see his teacher sinking slowly to the ground, his four legs folding beneath him. His arm wrapped around his neck, cupping a spot on the back of his shoulder. His eyes were wide, his face pale.
Sunder ran to his side.
“Stay back boy!” Sophós snapped. “Don’t risk it. We can’t lose you too.”
Sunder peeled his teacher’s hand from the wound. It oozed with black venom and red centaur blood.
“Don’t touch it, Sunder!” hissed Sophós.
Tears welled in Sunder’s eyes. He inhaled sharply in an attempt to stifle them. “No, it is not a bite, it must just be a scratch! I didn’t see it bite you.”
“Sunder—”
“We can fix this, we can use fire and herbs. Johannes said that worked once when he was young, we must try it. Come, let’s get you to Raphael, he can tend to your wound—”
“Sunder!”
Sunder stopped talking.
“I am done for,” Sophós hissed. He was breathing heavily, sweat forming on his face as the venom entered his bloodstream. “There is nothing for it. Soon I will turn. I do not want to put you or the rest of the herd in danger.”
Sunder bit down on his lower lip. Sophós had been like a father to him. The only father he’d known since his human years.
“Sunder, you said you owed me a great debt, do I have your word?”
“Yes, Sophós, of course.”
“Very good. Do you see that spear over there?” He motioned to the blood-smeared spear he’d used to kill the first beast. Skadhavar blood, one of the few poisons strong enough to bring death to an immortal centaur. Their venom only succeeded in turning a centaur into one of the creatures.
Sunder nodded. He reached down and grabbed it, holding it out to his teacher.
“No son,” he wheezed, black slime now seeping from his mouth. “I need you to do it. I need you to drive that spear into my heart.”
“Yes, Sophós.” Tears rolled down Sunder’s cheeks. He looked at his teacher, the wise man, the once magnificent creature, now fading before his eyes. His skin sallow, his breath labored. Sophós was transitioning. Soon he would be a Pre-Skad; a hybrid of the creature he was and the one he’d soon become. Venomous and deadly. He’d turn the whole herd in no time at all before transitioning into a full-blown Skadhavar.
This had to be done.
“Don’t look so sad my boy,” Sophós said. Something close to a smile formed on his black lips. “I’ve had a good long run. Seven hundred years is a long time, even for a centaur.”
Sunder had known his teacher for nearly one hundred of those years and had grown to love him.
The old centaur exhaled, his face calm. Peaceful. “I am ready to die, Sunder.”
Sunder raised the spear. “Go well into the light, dear Sophós.”
“Blessed be, my boy, blessed be.”
With a fierce cry of pain and anger, Sunder brought the spear down into the chest of his teacher. The spear ripped through the muscle and found its mark. Sophós’s eyes grew wide and his lungs fought for air as his heart bled out.
Then, the evil creature vying for life inside him took over, furious that its vessel had been compromised. It took charge of his body. Sophós’s eyes filled with black and he began to shriek in a guttural gasp as he writhed on the forest floor. Black bile poured from his eyes and seeped from his mouth. His body deflated as the slime oozed from its deceased host. Soon there was nothing left but a large, shiny pool of black.
The forest, knowing that one of its protectors had been returned, threw up a thick carpet of wildflowers before Sunder’s weeping eyes.
He rubbed them and took a deep breath. Then he looked up to the forest canopy. His sad, ice-blue eyes shone vividly in the dim forest light.
The eyes.
It was him.
Chapter Nine
The vision jolted me awake.
Sunder. His name was Sunder.
Or was it? What I’d seen might simply be a dream. A product of my exhausted, overwhelmed brain. I mean like, really? Last time I checked there were no such things as centaurs. But then people like me, who saw auras and sensed emotions, weren’t real either.
I sighed and reached for my phone. 1:23 a.m. I groaned. At least I hadn’t managed to escape the house yet.
I closed my eyes and resumed my box breathing. The creatures from the dream filtered back into my mind; dark, festering flesh, protruding yellow teeth. The contorted face of Sophós—such a beautiful creature, reduced to a pile of glistening slime.
I inhaled deeply, trying t
o flush the images from my mind. Just chill, Bianca, I told myself. Think of an empty green field.
“Bianca. I am here.”
His voice resonated in my head. A haze of crystal blue light touched my aura.
He was outside.
I stood in the quiet, moonlit yard, taking in the spring air. No one was there. I peered toward the tree line but saw no one. Great. Maybe I’m just going insane.
“Hello?” I whispered into the darkness.
There was a crunch of twigs and a rustling of branches. My heartbeat hammered in my ears. Thump-thump-thump.
A tall man-shaped figure emerged from the trees, his silhouette shining in the moonlight. Thump-thump-thump went my heart. I didn’t know this guy. He could be anyone. I pushed my aura forwards and met his. There was no darkness there. Just the cool and calm of his ice-blue aura.
He stopped about a meter away from me and smiled, the moonlight illuminating his features.
I smiled back, butterflies taking flight in my stomach.
“Bianca,” he said.
I nodded. “Sunder?”
“Yes,” he said. “It is lovely to meet you.” He thrust his hand forward.
I hesitated for a moment and then stepped toward him, taking his hand in mine. A shiver rippled down my spine. I locked eyes with him, feeling my way around his aura. It shimmered with complexity and time.
“I’m so glad you came outside,” he went on, a lilt of an accent on his tongue. Perhaps German or Swedish. Definitely not ancient Greek, as I would have expected from a supposed centaur. “Thank you.” He smiled, a dimple forming in his left cheek.
My throat went dry. “That dream.” I swallowed. “You… sent it to me?”
“Yes,” he said. “I needed you to see. To see is to believe. To be told is not always the same.”
He was wore the same shabby clothes. Didn’t he own a decent outfit? “So that means you’re a—”
“Yes, a centaur. But not, as you can see, all the time.” He gestured to his long human legs, clad in mussed brown trousers. “But I guess you’d know a bit about that,” he added with a knowing smile.
“Oh,” I said, hugging my arms around my chest. “How does that work? Are you like… a werewolf?”
He chuckled, the cute dimple reappearing. “No, not like a werewolf. Centaurs live for a very long time. The older we are, the stronger we get. At a certain age, we learn the skill of shifting into human form.”
“How long can you stay like this?”
“As long as I like. At first it was tiring, but now I am used to it.”
I narrowed my eyes. Anyone could claim to be a centaur in their spare time. “You know how you said some things need to be seen to be believed? Well, this is kinda one of those things.”
“I see. You wish to view me in my centaur form?”
“I do…I have to. So I know that what you say is true. So I know that I’m not going crazy.”
“Very well.” His hands flew to his waistcoat. He unbuttoned it and then started on his shirt.
“Um...what are you doing?”
“I only have one set of clothes. If I shift in them there will be no repairing the damage.” He slipped off his shirt and placed it on the ground with his waistcoat, then he started on his trousers.
“Wow! Okay!” I said turning around to face the house. “You just tell me when you’re done!”
He chuckled behind me. “For someone who runs through the trees unclothed yourself, you are very shy about nudity.”
“You saw me?” I gasped. My face prickled with shame at the thought of him seeing me running naked through the woods.
“Why of course,” he said. “Don’t you remember? I tried to warn you off.” He shuffled around behind me. “You are magnificent in your true form.”
“Wait. That was you?” I said turning. “Last night, in the forest?”
I stopped talking when I saw him. He still had the same kind face with those bright blue eyes. Still the same human torso; bare and muscular, with a light dusting of hair that grew thicker below the navel. But his legs were gone. In their place was the body of a horse. Just as he’d looked in the memory he’d shown me. He was beautiful. The most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
“You’re a…”
“Centaur,” he replied with a smile.
Understanding washed over me. Last night in the forest, he hadn’t chased me, he’d run alongside me. Warning me. But why?
I felt dizzy. “OMG!” My hands were on my cheeks. “There’s like, a freaking centaur in my backyard!” My knees gave out.
Sunder paced around me, hooves digging into the lawn. How would I explain that to my mother? (Yeah sorry Mom, it was just a friend’s horse!) He came to a crouch next to me, his legs folding beneath him.
I exhaled a long breath. “Okay. So you’re a centaur, I think we’ve confirmed that!”
After a short silence, he spoke. “Tell me about your first time.”
“Ah… excuse me!?” Who did this guy think he was?
“Your first shift.”
“Oh.” I swallowed. “Shift?”
“Into your true form? Most of your kind begin to shift at sixteen human years. Were you the same?”
My eyebrows knitted themselves together. “What do you mean? Shift? I’m not a centaur if that’s what you’re thinking.”
He laughed again. “I know you’re not a centaur!” He stopped laughing and stared at me, realization settling on his face. “Oh, Bianca, you don’t know, do you?” His eyes studied my face, his aura rippling with fascination and affection. “You have no idea what you are, how important you are.”
I stared up at him. Whatever he thought I was, I didn’t want to disappoint him. I didn’t want him to leave. Not yet. “Well,” I went on, “I know I can see auras and feel other people’s emotions, sometimes I see things.” I looked down at my feet. “But I don’t…shift.”
He shook his head. “I’m sorry Bianca, I thought you knew—you were meant to be told by now. Otherwise it would have been the first thing I’d told you. After all, that’s why the Skadhavar are after you.”
A shiver rocked through my body. The Skadhavar. Those awful creatures from the dream. I saw Sophós again, black slime dripping from his eyes.
“The Skadhavar?” My mouth went dry. I swallowed. “Those creatures? That’s what’s after me? That’s what’s been killing cattle on the Coutts ranch…”
“The Skadhavar know you are the one who, it is said, will stop them. No matter how strong we centaurs are, we are no match for the Skadhavar.
“What? Me?” I laughed. “You’ve gotta be kidding. What about guns?” I asked. “Explosives?”
Sunder shook his head. “Many a being has tried and failed to defeat the Skadhavar. Sadly, modern weapons are of no use.” He looked at me, his face stern but kind. “Bianca, you are our only hope. But we must keep you safe until you are strong enough. Until I can teach you to unlock your gifts. If they find you before then, I—”
“Sunder!” I snapped “What gifts? What the hell am I?”
He looked at me with an expression of awe. “Bianca, you are—”
A beam of light flickered across his face, making him squint.
My mom’s bedroom window scraped open and her terrified face peeked out. “Who’s out there?” she hissed into the darkness. “I have a gun! I’ll shoot!”
If I hadn’t sensed the terror in her aura I might have laughed out loud at her empty threat. My mother does not own a gun; in fact, she can’t stand them.
There was a scuffle next to me as Sunder disappeared into the forest.
Then her eyes found me, slumped on the ground.
“Bianca! What are you doing out there?” Her aura skipped through the purples and roared a violent crimson at me.
“I-I heard a noise, Mom.�
�
“What part of stay away from the forest didn’t you understand, Bianca?”
Her face disappeared from the window and I heard her stomping down the hall. The back door flew open and she stood there, her eyes wide with fury.
“I am trying to keep you safe! And here you are outside! IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT!”
“I’m sorry Mom, I was…” For the life of me, I could not think of an excuse.
Her eyes narrowed, out of anger I thought, but she was staring at something on the lawn. Had she already seen the hoof prints?
Her aura bubbled over. “And who,” she hissed, “do these belong to, Bianca?” She held up a pair of men’s trousers. “You tell me the truth!”
The truth? It’s okay Mom, they belong to this really cute guy who also happens to be a centaur, but it’s okay because he is only trying to protect me. He was about to tell me something really important until you came out here. I couldn’t tell her the truth.
I took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Mom. One thing led to another and…”
She shook her head. “We will talk about this tomorrow!” She raised a finger at me. “I want you to come straight home after school, do you hear me?”
I nodded.
“So, where is Casanova then?” She shouted it into the trees.
“He ran,” I said. “As I was getting dressed.”
She laughed. “What a hero, Bianca! Runs away leaving you to cop all the blame! A real catch!”
“Mom, shhh! You’ll wake the neighbors.”
“I don’t care if I wake the whole town, Bianca!” She turned to the trees again. “Are you
coming to get your clothes, young man?”
I covered my face in my hands, my cheeks burning in embarrassment. I wondered what Sunder was thinking right now.
“Well, the young gentleman can walk home naked then!”
“Mom!” I hissed.
She bundled up the clothes and tucked them under her arm. “OFF TO BED!”
I got up from the ground and trotted dumbly to my bedroom door, again opening it carefully so the pots and pans didn’t hit the cobbles.
Bianca De Lumière : High Suspense Urban Fantasy Romance (The Re'em Prophecy Book 1) Page 5
