Beyond the Western Sun

by Kristina Circelli

  With the combination of her strange accent and hoarse voice from the strangling, Ian didn’t understand a word she said. “Don’t try to talk. Just take it easy for a second.” He was pleased that she followed his command by lying back down and getting her breathing under control. Her bottom lip was bloody, her right cheek purple and swollen, and judging by the hand she had clutched on her side, her ribs were bruised and possibly cracked.

  Whisper lifted a hand to her bare but bruised throat. “My necklace,” she said fretfully. “Where is it?”

  Ian glanced around until he saw the beaded necklace that had been ripped off by the witch. He retrieved it and handed the hemp-string bones to Whisper, who quickly fastened it in its proper place. The bright white bones and beads looked out of place against the purple bruises and black blood. “So,” he commented thoughtfully, “I guess you’re not as invincible as I thought.”

  The statement irritated Whisper. She sat up, glaring at Ian through slightly-blurred black eyes. “I am still alive, am I not, Mr. Daivya?” Her voice was surprisingly cool and collected, even though her neck and shoulders were covered with multiple contusions, some of which surrounded deep lacerations, and her ears were still ringing while blood dried on her lobes. But she couldn’t be too angry with him, for even she was surprised by her weakness.

  “You proved yourself a warrior,” she complimented, glancing down at the blood-covered machete. Ian smiled proudly in response, then helped her as she attempted to stand. Her knees buckled once when her ribs shouted their protest, but she ignored the pain. Once she was sure her balance was restored, she rubbed her neck and ran a slightly-shaking hand through her hair. “Now you must prove yourself a man.”

  Rather than be insulted, Ian laughed to himself and shook his head. The woman just had her ass kicked and she was still as arrogant as ever. The blood smudged across her face made her look like a masked bandit, and her attitude certainly matched the appearance.

  Whisper took a few hobbling steps forward, determined to be the strong, unwavering guide she knew she was. He stared at her back as she walked away, slow and limping. Her shirt was torn, claw marks shredding the material. Through those holes he could see the rest of that fascinating tattoo, the wavy lines that surrounded primitive trees, the jagged lines that looked like mountains, and there, in the center of one long black strip, the word Ayohuhisdi.

  “Whisper.” Ian picked up the machete, then jogged until he caught up with his guide. “What does that word mean? The one on your lower back?”

  Whisper turned, surprised to see the shreds of blood-splattered cloth. She took in a deep breath, fighting the pain in her chest. “It is no concern of yours, Mr. Daivya,” she answered raspily. “Your concern lies with your son.”

  “My concern lies with the truth.” He was mad, and his fatherly, alpha-male tone reflected that. “Don’t forget that I just saved your life.”

  Whisper stalked up to Ian until she was right in his face. “And I thank you. But I too have saved your life, Mr. Daivya, so now our souls are at peace with one another.”

  She had him there. The woman, despite being the reason behind his death, had kept him safe throughout their journey in the Land of the Dead. So he caved and backed off. “Fine…then at least answer me this. Why was that psycho trying to kill you?”

  In response the sky erupted with ear-splitting wails that had Whisper and Ian cringing and gripping their heads. Swirls of black spun around them, circling the pair and forcing them back-to-back. Ian’s hand tightened on the machete handle, while Whisper grasped for her knife only to find it missing. She glanced to her left to see it lying on the ground where the witch had attacked just moments ago.

  “You got to be kidding me,” Ian muttered when the sulfur-smelling spinning stopped, and six evil spirits stood in its place. “Family reunion, huh?”

  They resembled the witch killed by his own hand—the same scraggly black hair, flowing and translucent rags hanging from bony bodies, pale skin that flashed with images of bone and blood. Their faces were twisted into grimaces of hate, sharp teeth flecked with brown spots and saliva eagerly awaiting a taste of enemy flesh, sunken and hollowed eyes wide with anticipation of a fight. They stood with their gnarled hands out at their sides, taking small steps forward towards their next victims.

  “Are you ready, Mr. Daivya?”

  “Ready?” Ian repeated incredulously, shouting over the wind as it picked up and threw dirt in his face. He lifted the machete. “What the hell are we supposed to do?”

  “Fight.”

  He could feel her back tense against his. He spared a second’s glance over his shoulder to see that she had no weapon. “What are you going to fight with?! Take the machete!”

  Whisper lowered herself slightly, glaring at one of the spirits and silently goading him into a confrontation. “No, Mr. Daivya, I have other ways.”

  Before he could ask just what those ways were, the first spirit lunged.

  On reflex Ian lifted the machete in front of his face, and the witch exploded on contact. A whoosh of black dust swarmed over him, clogging his ears and eyes. But just as he was marveling over how easy the kill had been, a set of razor-sharp claws dragged its way down his shoulder and across his chest. When they reached his throat, Whisper spun around and grabbed hold of the witch’s wrist, twisting the arm and snapping the bone clean. The scream of pain echoed throughout their minds, but before the witch could move Whisper had pulled an arrow from her quiver and slammed it down into its eye, yanking it out just as the spirit vanished in a cloud of darkness.

  “Four left, Mr. Daivya.” She was panting, but he could still sense the thrill exuding from his guide. She lived for this kind of danger.

  As though driven by some sort of primal competition, Ian released a guttural scream and launched himself forward, right in between two snarling and spitting spirits. At the same time, Whisper pushed off of him and went hand-to-hand with the third and fourth, dodging the daggers with a grace born out of need and desperation. She kept her eyes trained on those weapons, arching back to avoid a slice to the gut. She felt a hand wrap around the back of her neck and she grabbed for the witch, fingers grasping cold, hard hair. She yanked down, feeling the spirit’s hot breath on her throat while the other shifted the dagger in its hand, poised to cut her open from navel to nose.

  Just as it was lowering the blade, Whisper stomped the earth. The ground erupted in a flurry of dirt at the spirit’s feet, a flash of brown and fur lashing out and sucking the spirit into the narrow hole. Leaving Mole to devour his prey, Whisper spun agilely from the witch’s hold and dropped to her knees, sliding across the ground to her knife. The witch followed, shrieking and flying with a speed not humanly possible. As it leapt with arms reaching for her throat, Whisper lifted the blade and sent it straight into the spirit’s heart.

  Just feet away, Ian was struggling through his own battle. He had fought them off for as long as possible, knocking one to the ground and battling sword-to-machete with the other. His body showed the signs of his fight—shallow lacerations across his chest, deep cuts in his forearms and upper thigh, bruises on his face. His ears burned with the spirits’ screams and his head felt as though a freight train had just run through it.

  With one last push, Ian kicked the witch in the shin, then lashed out with the blade, burying it in the spirit’s neck. Rather than a burst of air, this one died slowly, melting to the earth in a pool of black, steaming blood. When it was gone, Ian stood over the spot, satisfied.

  Then he heard the shriek behind him. Spinning in a circle, losing his balance, Ian could do nothing but watch as the dagger came down towards his chest.

  Out of the corner of his eye Ian saw Whisper move. Less than a second later, her knife pierced through the spirit’s back, and it disappeared with a look of shock on its face.

  Free of the fight, the pair took a moment to collect themselves and catch their breath. Whisper picked up her knife and held it tightly, ready for more unwelcome vis
itors, while Ian took a seat and tended to his wounds.

  Whisper watched him, noting the look of both anger and pride spread across his ragged face. “Oh no, Mr. Daivya, you are not a murderer at all.” She said it slyly, wiping a spot of blood from the corner of her mouth. There was a hint of satisfaction in her voice.

  “I’m not like you.”

  “Are you convincing me, or yourself?”

  Ian hesitated, looking over his shoulder at the bare ground. Not a trace of the evil spirits remained but for marks in the dirt from their feet. And they were gone because he had killed them. Or at the very least, sliced them open and sent them into whatever world awaited those who died their second death.

  He avoided Whisper’s haughty gaze and shrugged. “Believe whatever you want. I know who and what I am. But what I don’t know is why those witches were after us and wanted to kill us.”

  “Because Utlav did his duty. He aided us during the fight because I asked him not to, and he sent word to the Fire Tower because I asked for his secrecy.” Whisper looked off to the west, towards the Fire Mountains, as she wiped away the blood from her ears. Her stare shifted to Ian. As always, he felt saddened and terrified by her eyes, and wondered what it was she had seen through her years that gave them such age.

  “So what does that mean?”

  Whisper’s lips curled into an evil smirk. “They know we are here.”

  Safely tucked away in his new room, Cole bounced from foot to foot and jabbed at invisible bad guys with his freshly-sharpened spear. One of the guards outside the door had shown him how to rub the blade against a special rock to grind it down to a point, and ever since then, the boy hadn’t stopped practicing his hunting skills.

  I’m gonna be the best hunter ever, he told himself, pretending that his enemy, the giant buffalo, had just fallen to the ground. He pumped his arms in victory. Raven daddy will be proud.

  He paused then, frowning. The scary Raven man wasn’t his father. But…who was? He couldn’t remember his real father’s name. He knew he had blue eyes, and that he worked outside, but…what else? All Cole could see when he tried to picture his father was the Raven-Eater.

  Oh, well. Cole shrugged his shoulders and went back to hunting practice. He wasn’t too concerned with who his father was anymore. Here, wherever ‘here’ was, he got awesome food, lots of awesome toys, and a huge awesome room. The woman named Gentle Heart had even given him a shaggy black dog that he named Ghost. He couldn’t remember why he liked that name, but it fit his new pet, who was quiet and liked to sneak up on people.

  Cole was so consumed by his pretend hunt that he didn’t hear the fierce wail that echoed through the Fire Mountains from the direction of the Barren Plains. But even if he had, he wouldn’t have bothered to care. There were strange noises all the time. Sometimes they sounded like people crying, sometimes like wolves howling. Sometimes he couldn’t figure out what they were. The noises used to scare him, but now he was used to them. He didn’t even jump into defense-mode anymore when someone started to open his door.

  The door was opening now. The guard appeared in the frame. He was tall and well built, with thick black hair, dark eyes, a strong chin, and even stronger cheekbones that signified his Navajo heritage. A long scar, accented by several smaller wounds, was spread across his left cheek, trailing down his neck and shoulder. It was that wound that killed him, a wound he was forced to wear even in death. His face could have been friendly, but a guard for the Raven-Eater never smiled.

  He wore buckskin pants carefully stitched by Gentle Heart’s own hand, with three solid red stripes just above the right knee that showed his acceptance into the Fire Tower. His shirt was one made for a warrior, fringed at the end with red beads, slit at both shoulders to reveal thick black tattoos, and decorated with a blood-red bird silhouette design that spread across his chest to announce that he was under the protection of the Raven-Eater. His beautiful clothing was accented by the leather bands wrapped around his wrists, the white bone beads in his hair, and the small black circles that lined his cheekbones.

  Cole once feared this man, named Hunting Hawk. Now, he was his friend. He thought of them as cousins of sorts, since they both proudly wore the Raven-Eater’s mark. Hunting Hawk displayed his on his clothing, but Cole’s had been burned onto his upper arm.

  He’d been terrified when Hunting Hawk and three other guards held him down and lifted a red-hot metal rod from the fire. When the metal touched his flesh, he’d screamed and kicked one of the guards in the stomach, but the grip on his wrists and legs only tightened. These burns were to show Cole’s acceptance by the Raven-Eater, they’d explained, to announce to the Land of the Dead that he was protected by Greatness.

  The boy’s arm now boasted that protection with three straight lines stacked on one another in increasing lengths.

  “The Raven-Eater wishes you to see something,” Hunting Hawk said, his deep voice booming into the room. “Come with me.”

  Cole set down his spear and followed the guard through the Fire Tower, glancing around excitedly when they walked outside. He hadn’t been allowed outdoors since he first arrived, getting only glimpses from his window. The vast openness of the world surprised him. There was so much land, so many mountains and plains and dying trees, but no houses. He wondered where everyone else lived.

  He saw the Raven-Eater in the distance. The Guardian of the Dead no longer scared him and he was getting used to his frightening appearance, but he still was nervous about speaking to him. Cole was glad the Raven-Eater was far away, standing at the edge of a cliff as he stared down at the Barren Plains.

  “Great things are happening, Fighting Fox.” Cole still didn’t like being called Fighting Fox, but didn’t feel the need to say anything. The guard, though, wasn’t pleased by the look on the boy’s face. It meant he still remembered his past life.

  Gentle Heart too refused to give up her memories, in the beginning. Hunting Hawk supposed that was because the Raven-Eater took her while she was still alive. Only a living woman in the Land of the Dead could act as the guardian’s proper wife, warm and real with beauty that never faded, but being alive meant she still remembered. The Raven-Eater had taken care of that, though, clouding her mind with thoughts of him, and him alone. She fought them at first, and eventually gave in.

  His magic also made sure she stayed young forever. His son would age only as quickly as the Raven-Eater allowed, a body able to grow in death because of the guardian’s great magic. With a wife devoted to him, and a child trained to one day take over his kingdom, the Raven-Eater’s family was restored, just as they were in the living world. Cole’s mind would strengthen, his knowledge would grow, and the guardian’s wife would be there to answer his every beck and call.

  The Raven-Eater no longer trusted Gentle Heart to give him a proper heir. She failed him once, producing a hideous child born only to destroy him, and it would not happen again. He had destroyed that abomination, and his children would now be taken from the Land of the Living.

  “The world is changing,” Hunting Hawk asserted to Cole, his voice shaking the boy’s soul. “The world is the Raven-Eater’s to command. Soon, his army will rise and make war with the living. Our world will consume theirs, and both the living and dead will be cast into darkness.” Then he pointed, and Cole followed his finger to the Barren Plains that sat at the base of the Fire Mountains.

  Through wide, amazed eyes, Cole watched as the earth shook and rumbled in the distance. Bodies buried deep in the ground emerged, shaking off dirt as they slowly rose, turning to face the Raven-Eater. They were his loyal followers, forced into servitude by their own greed and malicious actions. Now they would be ordered to destroy the world they tried so hard to perfect.

  “Together, Fighting Fox, you and your father will take over the Land of the Living, and will rule both worlds.”

  Chapter 23

  The day was crisp and clear, the bright sun shining down from a cloudless blue sky. It seemed that finally, after a m
onth of incredible and mysterious fog, nature was giving Sheriff Ray Forbe a break. By this point, he believed Cole Daivya to be dead, but he would find the boy’s body if it was his final task on earth.

  The Elder’s Testimony, as they were now calling the sketches Julia brought back from Howling Vines, was being treated as evidence towards Smoke Speaker and Whisper’s guilt in the child’s disappearance. To physically call them murderers was too much of a stretch for him right now—he’d known Whisper since she was six years old and she’d never caused harm to any one or thing—but he couldn’t ignore the facts.

  His plan had been to bring Smoke Speaker in for questioning, but he and his deputies had run into a new kind of problem. When his officers had gone to collect the Elder, they had encountered an entire brigade of animals and insects blocking their path. The creatures formed a circle around Howling Vines, everything from bears and mountain lions to rattlesnakes and hawks. Tranquilizer guns had been brought in, but to no avail. They were chased off before any break in the line could be made. The sight was amazing and awe-inspiring, but frustrating nonetheless. Even Forbe was surprised by the Elder’s power and influence.

  The media, having finally caught wind of the boy’s disappearance, was having a field day with the story. Reporters were throwing out speculation after speculation, dubbing Smoke Speaker and Whisper the “Cherokee Killers” and accusing Ian of having an affair with the beautiful apprentice. Some even went so far as to question Julia’s competence as a mother and wife, blaming her for her son’s disappearance. All the negative press had forced the owners of Big Creek Campground to ask Forbe to move his headquarters elsewhere. Now, they had set up camp at the nearest hotel, and were working round the clock.

  With the good weather, volunteers had rejoined the search and were currently combing the woods. Julia and her parents were out with them, while her sister was helping keep the deputies fed. In Forbe’s opinion, the young hippie was more interested in flirting with Deputy Duff than finding her nephew.