The Unforgiving Moon

8.

As her teeth seemed to brighten even more, the blackness of our surroundings suddenly vanished. The darkness ebbed away, and trees formed around us; trees and grass and bushes and life.

Sariranyasa kept her stare locked on me, but my eyes traveled to the left, where a battle seemed to be happening below us. We were standing atop a hill of some sort, looking down on the ravage. I didn't recognize the grounds where Sariranyasa had transported me—it couldn't be Rahas, or Spitta.

Death like never before lay before me. The battle in Spitta had meant nothing compared to this. Armies were fighting each other, leaving corpses over every free space on the battlefield. Men seemed to fight men, and no wolves were around. The grass was trampled and turned crimson, and death didn't stop at the human and wolven lives—Zyama seemed to die under the weight of this war, too.

I hadn't noticed I had stepped forward until Sariranyasa had caught up to me, and I heard her speak over my shoulder, "Your people went to war with humankind many Moons ago. That much is not a lie. And you were losing."

I looked sideways, and saw an amused, yet hurt and sour smile on her face, keeping the white teeth hidden. I was thankful for that.

"So much death infested itself here, deaths that came too early, and too soon."

Suddenly our surroundings blurred again, and when they reappeared, we were standing in the middle of the battlefield. People around us kept fighting, ignoring our presence. Swords and daggers and hammers and arrows and shields clouded everything before me. Guts were hanging out, limbs were severed, screams had become the song of the world. The smell was nauseating, the sight was unbearable to watch. My lips quivered as I took in the sight around me—unable to escape it.

Standing so close, it was easy to discern who was fighting who—one side used metal weaponry, and the other side used black arms. No silver sword clashed against another silver sword, no black hammer smashed down on someone holding a black dagger.

Sariranyasa's face remained unreadable, though filled with a complexity of emotions. "Our greatest mistake was our Creation," Sariranyasa continued, her voice neutral, yet alive and dead. "We should have never tempered with Zyama's life. Yet, we too, got caught in our pride. We could not watch our Creation be destroyed, not when it was such a beautiful thing!"

Suddenly the Sun lowered faster, and the sky darkened. The fighting around us kept going, and going, and going as the night began to fall.

I gasped when I looked up in the darkness—and saw twelve Moons shine bright in the sky. All twelve were shining their brightest, together. It was beautiful—surreal, even.

A few howls seemed to replace the screams, and people around me turned stronger, more lethal. But more black arrows pierced the sky, and the humans fought back steadily. Wolves fell down next to men, and death grew even more.

My heart was racing, my lips were shaking and my eyes were stained.

"Dyotana came down first," Sariranyasa said, "as she saw the end before we did."

I followed the goddess' gaze upward again, and I gasped. One of the Moons seemed to melt away, liquifying in the skies before she shot down to Zyama.

A bright, silver flash pierced the sky, illuminating the battle around us. The fighting halted, for the briefest moment, as the bright flash connected with the ground atop the hill I had just been. I heard gasps all around me—I was sure one of those belonged to me, as the silver glow grew and shone.

"Your kind found their powers again, unstoppable now that my Sister had arrived," Sariranyasa explained.

"She's beautiful," I whispered.