Rise of the Fallen

Chapter 17: Under the Blood Moon

As we kiss under the full moon, a warm red tinge fills the night sky as the moon turns from a bright white into a deep red. Something rustles in the bushes behind us as Tianna pulls her lips away and asks, “Danny?” 
Sitting up I say, “You heard that too right?”
She nods as the both of us get up from the ground and grab our weapons. The bushes continue to rustle as we slowly approach the it. With my bow drawn and arrow nocked, I look into the bush where two green eyes stare back at me. The emerald eyes slowly rises up and what leaps out of the bush was a large silver and black wolf with a bone in its mouth. I reactively shoot the bow and pierce it in its underside as it jumps over me and lands next to Tianna.
The wolf drops the bone and snaps at Tianna. She leans back and then steps forward as she uses her knife to stab the wolf from under the jaw. It let out a quick yelp before its body goes limp. Tianna yanks the knife out of the wolf.
“Are you alright?” I ask
Tianna nods, “Yea I’m fine. Was that a…”
“Beast?” I say finishing her question, “I’m not sure, maybe. I does have silver fur. You have your guidebook with you?”
“Uhhh…” She says.
I let out a slight chuckle as I say, “I have mine it’s in my bag, by the fire.”
She walks over to the fire while I inspect the wolf. Its paws are the same size of my hands. Each claw is as long as my finger.
“Here you go Danny.” Tianna says as she hands my the guidebook. 
As I flip through pages in the bestiary section, I land on the Beast of Gèvaudan page and compare descriptions. “Yup, we got one.” I say, “But it’s a little small you think?”
“Maybe?” Tianna says as she shugs her shoulders, “I’m more intreseted in the bone it was carrying.”
She walks over to the bone and picks up. “What is it?” I ask
' “I’m not sure. It has some sort of writing all over it. Its mostly symbols but you can tell its something written.” She answers just as a long howls reverberates through the forest.
More and more howls add to the chourus of their eerie song. Something tells me that we have to get as far as we can from her as quickly as possible.
“Hey, grab what you can we have to get out of here.” I say packing up my stuff before looking back at the beast carcass.
Sucking my teeth, I sling my bag over my shoulder, run over to the wolf, take out my knife, and cut one of its claws off.
“What are you doing? You said we had yo go right?” Tianna says
“Yea, let’s go we needed proof of the kill remember.” I say as I lead the way through the forest.
As we run under the blood red sky, it feels like we’re being watched and hunted. I stop running, grab Tianna and hide behind a tree.
“What was that …” she says
“Shh,” I say interrupting her, “Listen.”
It was faint the I can hear the forest floor rustle and crackle under the weight of someone or something. The predator like footsteps inch closer and closer to us. I take out on of my ringed knives and wait for the creature to walk by. Every second feels like eternity. My breathing feels heavy and my heartbeat is probably the loudest thing in the forest right now.
A large silver paw crosses the trunk of the tree and I immediately come from behind the tree, stab the beast in the side of the neck and bleed it out. It’s roughly the same size as the last one.
“They’re scouts.” I say breathing heavily, “They’re on to us. More will be coming soon.”
I cut off one of the claws wave at Tianna to follow me. As we continue to run, five gunshots ring out through the forest, followed by screams. Tianna and I stopped to listen, while one after another gunshots and screams follow them.
“Uhh, What’s going on?” Tianna asks
“I’m not sure, but let’s go this way and see if we can figure that out.” I say pointing left.
“Sounds like a plan.” She says
We run towards the gunshots for about five minutes through thick bush and vegetation. With every step I take my heart starts to beat faster and faster and as we reach a small clearing, two of our class mates lie dead on the ground. My heart sinks into my stomach as I approach the bodies.
“Hm.” I say inspecting the bodies
“What is it?” Tianna asks
“It’s weird. It doesn’t look like a beast did it. The bodies are intact and their necks were snapped.” I say as I stand back up and walk towards Tianna, “I don’t like this.”
Looking around I take out an arrow and nock my bow. Tianna draws her knives and readies herself. Seconds pass of pure silence when something makes a rustling noise in the brush in front of me. As I draw back my bow, the noise goes from in front of us to all around us. We’re surrounded.
A massive beast leaps out of the darkness and lands at my feet. Instinctively, I shoot the arrow right in between its eyes. More and more of them start to come out the forest one by one, slowly surrounding us, as Tianna and I fight them off.
Shooting arrow after arrow I hit three beasts charging me. Looking out of the side of my eye, a giant paw with razor sharp claws comes at my face. Rolling out of the way, I quickly nock and arrow and shoot it center mass.
As the monster drops, I look behind me to see Tianna fighting six wolves at one with just her two karambits. The way she moves is like a deadly, but hypnotic dance. With every step she either slashes, cuts, or redirect the wolves’ attacks while at the same time dealing the fishing blow to two of the wolves, while the other four she bleeds them out systematically before they collapse, lifeless and cold.
“Danny! Look out!” She yells
Turning around one of the bigger beats is inches from my face before I raise my bow catching it in between the drawstring at then grip. Falling back towards the ground I twist the bow, forcefully turning the beast the same way. We hit the ground sideways. It tries to grab me, but I kick it in the stomach, take out my dagger and roll on top of the beast and quickly stab it in the neck before it can overpower me.
Blood explodes from the wound and onto my face. In a futile attempt to take me out the beast slashes its claws across my chest leaving a deep gash. A burning pain from my chest shoots through my body.
“Ahh,” I let out a short burst of pain as I stab the beast again in the head killing it.
Breathing heavily, I get up off the dead beast and quickly pick up my bow. Looking around as I nock another arrow, we were surrounded on every side. I look behind me and see Tianna making her way towards me. As the beats enclose the circle little by little, I look back at Tianna and say nervously joking, “Didn’t think this would be the way I’d go out.”
Tianna laughs a little and says, “I kind of did, either that or something stupid like a dying from a coconut.”
Laughing a little, I look back at the beasts as they stop in their tracks and create a path.
I nudge Tianna and as she turns around, kid around our age walks through the path made by the beasts. When he came under the light of the red moon, I can see that he was around my height, had back hair, a scar on his left eye, and was built like a roman gladiator. He was shirtless wearing a pair of leather pants and the scars on his body tell an elaborate and battle torn story.
The kid walks towards us, stops and says in French, “It’s over, just give it up.”
“Non, je pense pas.” I say to him as I draw back my bow.
The beasts surrounding us start to growl and snarl. The kid raises his hand and they instantly stop.
“I just want to talk, If I wanted you two dead then you’d be dead.” he says coldly
My grip around my bow tightens and I say, “What about these two then?”
The kids grins and says, “Who says the hunter can’t be hunted? Aren’t you aware of that possibility kids from the Academy?”
“You know where we’re from?” I ask
“It isn’t like it’s a big secret. They do this “hunt” every year. So what if two or three of you die when you take out hundreds of us like we’re animals!” he says with his temper starting to flare and his eyes turn from a black to a gold, “Normally I wouldn’t have bothered with any of you, but since you killed a messenger from another clan in our territory, I have to deal with you. Swiftly. So you can either come quietly or in pieces.”
I take deep breath, drop my bow and say, “Fine.”
“Merci.” The kid says as he motions for more humanoid beasts to restrain us. They take our equipment and lead us through the forest.
After a few minutes of walking, we pass two tress across from each other with towers built into the canopy. Two guards stand post as we continue to walk deeper into the forest. Not long after that, we enter a forest clearing with a lively and bustling village residing inside.
Human shaped beasts and their wolf counterparts, stop and watch as we’re escorted into a cave built into the hillside. It was dark, cold, and wet. Cells made of stone line both sides of the cave. They throw in one of them, close the cell door, and leave without saying a word.
Sitting on the cold, wet ground, the sound of thunder echoes through the cave. I look at Tianna and say, “Sorry Tianna.”
“It’s ok we did what we could. We just have to find a way out of this right?” she says
“Yea, your right.” I say as drop of water drips down my head. My chest starts to feel slightly better as Tianna says, “Woah,”
“What is it” I say as I look for the source of the leak.
“Your chest just healed a little bit.” She says
“Oh, yea that,” I say as I watch another water droplet leaks from the top of the cell, “that happens.”
The ceiling of the cell isn’t that high to where I can’t reach it. Streching my out up towards the crack, I place mu hand on it, close my eyes, and try to remember what it felt like when I fought the Fallen. I can feel my scar get warm and start to glow.
As I slow my breathing and concentrate, and image slowly forms inside of my head. I can sense the entire layout of the village through the puddles and the rain. The cave is directly underneath the leader’s house, next to it is the barracks, to the south, is the entrance which is guarded by two wolf like beasts. Turning my focus back onto the leader’s house, I follow the water trail all the way up to their war room.
I can hear them talk through the vibrations in the water. “So what do we do now?” one of them say, “Yea we captured the ones who killed White Moon Clan’s messenger, but that still doesn’t get us out of the war. If anything it gives them a reason to wipe us all out.”
As most of the others in the room mummur, clamor and agree together.
“Enough!” the leader yells as he slams his hand on the table and breaks it in two.
The room falls silent as the leader says, “Kivara, hand me the bone.”
She hands him the bone and as he inspects it the others watch with intensity. He tosses the bone back to Kivara and says, “They sent over terms of peace and are asking for a polictal marragie to the Alpha, Hiso.”
“They’ll want more than that now.” Another one says
“That is true, but we did just get two prisoners. A female and a male tha6 just so happen to be the ones that killed the messenger. We just use them instead and wipe our hands clean with it.”
“Hmmm,” Kivara says, “Won’t they notice that she’s human?”
“You’ll just have to see for yourself,” he says as he looks to one of the guards, “Go get the two prisoners for me and bring them here.”
The guard bows and leaves. I take my hand away from the ceiling and my surrounding immediately come rushing back to me.
“You ok Danny?” Tianna asks. 
“Uh, yea. I’m fine, but they’re planning on using us as a bargaining chip.” I say just before Kivara enters the cave. She opens the cell and says, “Come on.”
We stand up and walk out of the cell following behind Kivara up towards the war room. Stepping outside the cave in a heavy downpour, we walk up hand cut stone steps leading up to the side of the hillside. The rain helps my chest finish healing by the time we get to the door of the building. Kivara enters first and as we follow close behind the corridor is lined with bone carvings and skulls of various animals all lit by the ambient light of wall torches. As we walk down the corridor and up the stairs, elegantly made fabrics with unique color dyes I’ve never seen before decorate the walls.
We reach the second floor and are greeted by a single hallway with a large double door at the end with the words “Family before Honor, Honor before Death” engraved above in French.
Kivara opens the dark oak door to a room filled with humanoid beasts and at the front of the room stood the leader, the Alpha. We step into the room and as the guards close the door behind us, the other beasts stare and inspect us. 
“I see what you mean Kiva. It won’t be impossible, a gamble maybe but not impossible.” a man says in a deep voice.
Kiva, the Alpha scans the room and says, “So, any more disagrements about how to handle this?” He asks
No one uttered a word as Kiva turns his attention to us and says, “Now you two. I’m sending you to the White Moon Clan at dawn. They’ll decide what to do with you.”
“What do you mean? What’s all this about clans?” Tianna asks
Kivara backhands Tianna sending her to the ground next to me and says, “Who told you to speak?!”
I quickly step up and get in her face, before Kiva raies his voice and says, “Kivara! That’s enough. Stand down.”
She stares at me menacingly before shifting her gaze and backing away. Helping Tianna to her feet Kiva says, “To answer your question, there are five great clans in the forest and we always don’t get along so we fight just as you humans do. Though, we were close to peace, you killed a White Moon messenger and I had to figure out a way to fix it. By giving them you in place of their demands.”
“What do they want?” she asks
“A political marriage to bind our two clans by blood, but of course with one of their members dead this won’t be enough to appease them. So, as an apology we’ll send him,” he says pointing at me, “Blood for blood