The Black Wolf's Mark (8 page)

Chapter 23

In the afternoon, Murad returns to the cavern carrying a dead animal over his back.
He throws the dead animal on the ground and walks on, glancing at everything there, however, he sees Zidane is standing, his head is bent and his hands are against the cavern wall.

The old man senses the boy’s agony through his posture.

“Where is the blind girl?” he asks surprised at not seeing her there.

“She returned to her village.”

His voice sounds unhappy.  At the same time he answers looking at the ground,

“And you are sad because she abandoned you.”

Murad supposes as he holds a water mug.

Zidane moves away from the wall and walks in the direction of the old man, saying in agony, “I am sad because they’ll burn her tonight.”

Murad opens his eyes wide and asks him, “Why will they do that to that poor blind woman?”

“Because she is a
witch
.”

Zidane pulls Murad by his mantle and implores him as he looks lost.

“Help me do something.”

“What can we do to save that young woman?” Murad
questions quite frightened.

“I just need you to let me be free this night.”

“You are crazy
! It’s a full moon night.”

“That's just it! I know what I have to do.”

“Zidane, it’s a big risk − you can die or kill all those people and that includes that blind woman.”

Zidane withdraws from Murad and says apprehensively,

“I need to take that risk for Amarilis.”

He puts his hands over his head and roughs up his own dark
hair.

“That’s not correct what they’ll do to her this night.”

Murad stares at Zidane and  warns.“Think better of it, that woman runs a risk of being killed by the beast that exists within you.”

Chapter 24

11:00 pm

Lyra hugs her niece for the last time and Amarilis feels the tears of her aunt going down her shoulder.

“Don’t cry aunt
! My death won’t change anything.”

She abandons her aunt’s arms and Norton holds her and confesses with bitterness,

“If only we could do something to prevent your death.”

“You can’t
do anything.” She thinks of Zidane at this moment. “No one can do anything.”

Her male cousin embraces her and kisses her on her hair.

Then someone gives three knocks on the front door.

“They’ve arrived
,” Lyra informs them.

Amarilis lets go of her male cousin’s arms and says to them, “I don’t want you to watch my death.”

She turns her head from side to side

“Please, you don’t go outside of this house  tonight.”

Lyra and Norton stare at each other and they look startled at Amarilis’s advice; however, they look at the front door as  three loud knocks sound through it and a male voice says, “We came to take the witch!”

Norton and Lyra walk Amarilis to the front door and ten men are there facing them, waiting for the young woman.

When Amarilis steps outside the house, some men bind her arms with a cord and they walk onward, and the girl fells she is being guided by the cord.

People in the village come out of their houses at the moment that the witch is being taken to a trunk that is situated in the center of a dry grass mount.

Amarilis is tied up to that trunk with a cord around her body.

She looks up at the sky, already hoping for her death.

However, the ten men that are around the young woman are waiting for the right moment to place the fire on the grass.  They all lit  their torches on a bonfire earlier on.

11:59 pm

The full moon appears in the sky.

00:00
pm

Men stare in shock when they see an enormous shadow behind them. People in the village run inside their houses when they see a gigantic creature, that is, a black wolf.

“THE BLACK WOLF!” One of them screams out.

“Let’s kill it!” Another man says.

They throw the torches’ flames at the wolf and the dark animal roars at them.  The wolf attacks them and tears violently the arm of one man.

Amarilis feels the wolf’s presence and she shouts, “Take care!”

A man notices Amarilis is trying to alert the wolf against danger and that same man sets fire to the dry grass and exclaims,  “DIE! CURSED WITCH!”

The black wolf leaps up to the man that put fire on the grass and he maims him with his enormous teeth.

In the meantime there are still eight men around and some of them take up their flames and move them against the wolf’s body.

The wolf jumps from side to side, but even so he is reached by the fire arrows several times.

His bellows torment and frighten the people in their houses and those that are also out of them.

“The wolf!” Lyra shouts as she is embraced by her son in her house.

The violent animal gives several leaps in the direction of the men and throws them to the ground. A good many of them are bleeding, others are lacking their inferior limbs or posterior limbs, or lacking their heads.

That is, there is a massacre in the village.

Then the wolf sees that everybody has fallen on the ground and there is no life before his yellow eyes except for the life of a young woman that is tied up to a trunk.

The wolf approaches the trunk slowly where the girl is.  The fire is raging next to her growing more and more.

Amarilis feels that the wolf is before her at the same time as he roars at her.

“It’s you!” The witch exclaims as she looks up at the sky and her white eyes roll from side to side.

The gigantic black wolf sees the young woman tied up to the trunk through his yellow eyes. Then he gazes at the full moon and roars loudly at it and makes a long leap in the direction of the sightless witch.

Chapter 25

Early in the morning, Zidane is asleep in the middle of the forest. He is lying down with his belly on the ground which is very full of dry leaves.

He is badly wounded; there are burns over his whole body and also stab wounds on his face.

The young boy awakens and looks at the forest round him. The trees look bigger than they normally look and it seems Zidane is looking for something or someone, even though he is feeling a little giddy and powerless.

***

Murad sees the boy is quite wounded as he passes over the cavern door.  For this reason he looks quite serious.

“Thank God very much! You’re alive!” The old man exclaims relieved.

“Where is the blind girl? Didn’t you get to save her?”

His expression gives margin to martyrdom.

Zidane doesn’t answer him, and at this moment someone walks slowly into the cavern, a woman with her long black hair, in a long black dress, comes after Zidane’s steps.

“You got to save her!”

Murad shouts as he looks at the witch that is moving her hands on the cavern walls. Then he runs in the direction of Zidane and hugs him, shaking the boy’s body.

“You got to save her!” the old man exclaims and breaks into a fit of laughter.

“Calm down!” Zidane tells him, “I’m badly wounded.”

“Now you have someone to take care of your wounds.”

The gray haired man jokes as he looks at the blind witch.

Chapter 26

Even though Amarilis is blind, she perfectly takes care of the wounds on Zidane’s body.

While he lies down on his bed, completely nude, she makes use of a cloth that is wet with some herbs to cicatrize the terrible burns on the young boy’s body.

He holds her hand and makes her stop washing his wounds. She stops what she is doing.

Zidane gazes at her, sits down at her side and he says to her as he is squeezing up the delicate fingers of the young woman, “
The black wolf’s curse
served some good in my life.”

He touches her face lightly and continues saying to her, “IT SAVED YOUR LIFE.”

Chapter 27

Some weeks later...

Zidane intensely embraces Amarilis’s body while they are standing at the top of a mountain. She is with her back to him and both of them are gazing at the orange skyline.

A wind comes in their direction and Amarilis’s long hair flies back.

Amarilis feels happy standing in the wind with her love and Zidane’s strong arms around her body make her feel like the happiest woman in the universe.

She no longer fears death, not even uncertainty, not even,
the
black wolf’s curse
.

Zidane gazes in other directions and says into his lover’s ear, “You complete part of my happiness.”

She smiles at herself and lowers her face, while he continues saying.

“The other part of my happiness I’ll just have it when I actually meet – my f
ather – my mother − and my six brothers.”

THE END