Chapter 12

Today was a good day. Lucas and I held hands for the first time! Kyaa! I’m so excited!

When we settled down for lunch, Lucas sat next to me and we had a great time. Jacob seemed to be a gloomy mood when he saw Lucas and I sitting together and I knew that I was the reason why.

I know that Jacob likes me and all that but I never really found him that attractive and I think that I was pretty obvious in telling him in subtle ways that even morons could understand that I wasn’t interest in him.

Dylan asked Mayor Ferbias a question while we were eating.

“So, is your country in some sort of war or something? Because I heard some of the guards yell, “traitor!” when you were chasing the cloaked man.”

“Sigh… yes, well, it’s complicated. Our kingdom is over 800 years old and there have been good and bad monarchs. But the past three rulers were quite horrible and they treated the people unfairly and therefore, a rebellion occurred.

The first rebellion was quickly squashed by the military but wasn’t able to completely eradicate them. The ones that escaped got smarter and planned better the next time around and created a huge organization that became quite influential in politics and towards the citizens. They want to overthrow the monarchy and create some sort of system called democracy, where the people’s voices are heard and want equality for all.

But the current monarch right now is a righteous man. A true man that cares for the people unlike his predecessors. But by the time he came to power, the rebels became quite a force and ignited a second rebellion. Although unsuccessful, they still have quite the back from other countries and are still able to run their organization to overthrow the monarch.

After the civil war there was an invasion from another country because they saw our weakness and wanted our resources.

That was when I got involved in the war and helped fight back against the invaders.”

“General Ferbias is a true hero. He stopped an army of ten thousand with only one thousand men.” A soldier said with a look of fanaticism.

“Haha, you praise me too much Carson. Anyway, I was a general for quite a while and made many military achievements. But I grew tired of the slaughter of man and retired from the army. Also, I got tired of the many assassination attempts on me and didn’t want to live my life that way.

Soon after I retired the enemy too grew tired of the war and a peace treaty was signed by both countries and the war ended.

These soldiers were who are traveling with us are actually a couple of my subordinates who followed me from the war, for some reason, I don’t know why, haha! Must be my manly charms! But nonetheless, they are all fine men!”

That night, after dinner, I was too excited to go to sleep and kept on rolling around.

‘Grandpa! Tell me your story!’

‘Sigh… Lily… I told you not to do this… sigh… You’re too young to be in a relationship Lily. You’re only 15 years old!’

‘Grandpa… I asked for a story, not for you to give me relationship advice.’

‘Sigh… this is why I never wanted daughters… nor granddaughters…’

‘What!?’

‘Nothing… sigh… anyway… where were we?

‘You were being completely useless and screaming like a girl.’ I retorted.

‘That was very uncalled for Lily. Hmph. How rude. I should’ve have raised you better.’

Grandpa’s Memories

“Aah!”

I heard a scream in the distance and it sounded familiar.

“Adira!” I heard the chieftain of the Black Scorpion Tribe.

I halted. I looked back. I ran towards where I heard the scream.

“Umf!” I stumbled over a body and fell.

*Whoosh* I heard something fly overhead.

*Screech* Multiple large, brown hawks swarmed over the scorpion godbeast and the chief who was on her back.

They scratched at them with their talons and the hawk riders shot arrows. But the arrows did nothing to the impenetrable armor of the scorpion and the talons only made some small dents.

The scorpion godbeast’s three stingers pierced through the hawks like lightning and many died. I saw brains and other matter erupt from the places where the stingers drilled holes through their bodies and I almost puked again.

Those magnificent creatures were being slaughtered like pigs in the butcher house and the butcher is the scorpion godbeast.

But then again, they were the ones that invaded, so I guess they kind of deserved it.

I saw Adira unconscious about a dozen meters away from me and so I crawled and made my way towards her trying to be as inconspicuous as possible.

A hawk almost fell on me as it crashed towards the ground but I guess I was lucky and it fell on the dead bodies next to me.

I finally reached Adira after the time it took for half an incense stick to burn. I crawled up to her body and measured her pulse and her breathing. She was unconscious, but other than that everything was fine.

After a couple of fails on trying to be inconspicuous and get her on my back without anyone noticing. I stopped caring and just slung her over my shoulder. Surprisingly she didn’t weigh that much at all and her slim waist felt good on my hands but I managed to focus and quickly made my way to where I left Aashiq.

The battle seemed to by dying down by then and there were heavy casualties on the Black Scorpion Tribe’s side. Women, children, warriors, slaves and scorpions were killed. But the Brown Hawk tribe had many casualties also.

The chief and scorpion godbeast were still slaughtering hawks and hawk riders left and right.

I saw Husseng run closer to the chief with his red aura activated and jumped up behind him with his sword in hand.

“Watch out!” I tried to scream as loud as I can but it was too late.

*Stab* A sword pierced through the back of the chieftain and out of his front.

It was at this moment that Adira chose to stir and wake up. I think it was because of my scream.

She saw her father cough up blood and he was pierced by arrows from the hawk riders.

“No!” Her eyes widened in disbelief and just sat there looking at him. The chieftain was somehow able to notice her past the fighting and the fallen tribe members and stared back at her.

He gave her a small smile and he closed his eyes and fell.

At that point the scorpion godbeast began stridulating in anger. It seemed that it wasn’t going all out while fighting them and she began to emit some sort of black, hazy mist from her body.

Anything that touched it turned into dust and it spread everywhere. All of the hawks hawk riders disintegrated and their remains were just dust in the wind.

But strangely enough it did nothing to the members of the black scorpion tribe. The Brown Hawk tribe members screamed in terror and they fled from the black mist, but it was too late for the majority of them and only a handful were able to flee on the backs of their hawks.

We all stared at the scorpion godbeast and she transformed back into her human form. She walked towards Husseng whose face was half disintegrated by the black mist. All of his lackeys were gone, presumably reduced to dust and he had an expression of being absolutely terrified.

“Why have you betrayed your tribe?” the scorpion godbeast asked.

“Hehe… ha… hahaha!” Husseng began to laugh maniacally and was grasping for air. “Do you have any idea what you have just done? You killed the first son of the chief of the Brown Hawk tribe! Now there will be irrevocable hatred towards our tribe!”

“You still have the face to call this your tribe? You are a traitor who killed your own chief. Why?”

“Do you have any idea how powerful their tribe is? This is only one of their many legions of hawk riders. They have thousands! I betrayed the tribe so that we could survive! They would have slaughtered us all! Now it is too late to go back. They will come back and destroy us.”

“Your decision to betray the tribe is a serious crime and you will be punished. I shall consume your soul and sever your fate. You will no longer be bound by fate and will not be able to reincarnate.”

As she said that she put her palm in front of his face and a white light emitted from his eyes and mouth and the white gas resisted her but was unable to do anything and was completely ejected from the body. As soon as that happened, Husseng’s body slumped to the ground, unmoving.

The scorpion godbeast brought his soul to her mouth and consumed it. Everyone was shuddered at what happened but they felt that he deserved it.

I on the other hand was kind of freaking out. I am a Christian and believed in Jesus, God and the Holy Spirit. This completely shook the foundations of my belief. How in the world was she able to consume his soul? Reincarnation exists?

“Cremate the dead, prepare to migrate out of the desert. I need to rest.” The godbeast transformed and went back into her cave.

She said she needed to rest and looked completely fine. But what I didn’t know was that she was actually putting up a front and was extremely exhausted.

What I would later find out was that she used up her divine essence, which is what makes her a godbeast and gives her, her demigod status. She used a large portion of that to save the rest of the members of the tribe and she would need a long time to recuperate.

Adira was silently crying and I didn’t know what to do. I put my arm around her shoulders and stood next to her in silence.

By nightfall we had gathered the dead into one huge pile in the middle of the canyon before the cave of the godbeast and lit it on fire. Over 3,000 people died. The smell of over 3,000 people burning was not a good smell.

Many were mourning for the dead, especially Adira. That night I didn’t sleep well. I don’t think anyone did.

The next morning everyone woke up and got to work in preparing supplies for the migration out of the desert. We needed to work fast because Brown Hawk tribe has an advantage in terms of speed because they can fly.

We began our trek by midday under the scorching hot sun. The shaman’s apprentice Farfer showed remarkable leadership capabilities and now he is the one that is somewhat leading the tribe under the scorpion godbeast.

I haven’t talked to Adira the whole day. When I saw her I tried to cheer her up but she wouldn’t respond and so I just decided to give her some space.

‘Hey grandpa, sorry to interrupt but what about grandma?’

‘Oh, she’ll come later in the story, waaaaaay later. Don’t worry about it.’

It was been a week since our journey. Apparently it will take three months to get out of the desert and I was pretty sure that we were traveling at least 100 miles a day. The scorpions can go pretty fast and they don’t need that much rest.

Adira still hasn’t been talking and I think she lost weight. I decided to focus much more on my training on getting stronger. I realized how pathetically useless I was during that battle and I hated feeling useless. Every time we rested I asked Aashiq or some other warrior that I was friendly with to spar with me and my skills slowly but surely improved.