Book of Curses (The Renning Chronicles) (12 page)

“Huh?” I said aloud, looking at him as I continued to pet 'Fire' as they had put it. I was trying to figure out what his expression was all about, and just got an even stranger look before he walked inside and started to explain to me.

“Fire usually hates everyone, she’d rather eat them than let them come near her or ride her.” Eyloff explained, pulling on some lead ropes as he pulled three horses along with him. Walking towards Fire, he stretched his hand
out to let
her sniff it, watching her carefully.

“Thankfully she likes me.” He took the horse leads, tying then onto the post next to Fires stall.  I looked at the other horses to see a paint mare, and two stallions that were chestnut colored. All of them looked a lot like quarter horses.

Eyloff finished what he was doing, and walked into Fires stall with a saddle and reins to get her ready to be ridden. She let out a neigh and happily followed him out towards the other horses where he stopped and untied them. 

“Diego, Spirit, Flare and now Fire, why did you pick Flare for me? You’re out to get me murdered!” Dolphus shouted accusingly, as he recoiled away from the horse that flared its nostrils at him, and let out a whinny.  They're only horses Dolphus, besides I told you to pick one, and you wouldn’t.” Eyloff stated simply, shrugging his shoulders as he looked from the horses to him, and back to the horses again.

“Murderer!” Dolphus stuck out his index finger, pointing it and speaking in a horrified voice.

“For the love of the gods…” Eyloff groaned to himself, turned and gave Dolphus a dark look.

“
Besides
, who has ever gotten close to any of these horses before, they’re ignored for a reason.”

“Me,” Eyloff stated, as he nudged Fire to walk with him. Thinking
about it for a moment. “You and Lupus, now Thomas and Raine.”

Dolphus let out a grunt, following after Eyloff before he began to mutter under his breath. I sat where I was for a moment longer, trying to wake up fully. When I finally had, I bolted out after them, nearly tripping over my own feet and falling on my face. 

“Raine, here, I’ll help you up. You probably don’t even know how to ride a horse, let alone mount one, and all I need is you killing yourself.” Eyloff spoke to me in a tone that declared how irritated he already was with everyone. Tom let out a laugh beside him, trying to cover it with a fake cough before he mounted his own horse, circling away from us a bit.

“Actually, for your information, I have.” I glared at him, pushing him away and speaking as insultingly as I could. Grabbing the reins and the horn, I pulled myself up and swung my right leg over to the other side, putting both feet snuggly into the stirrups. Then I pulled back on the reins and pressing my legs into the horse's side, I pulled Fire away from the group and moved her out a bit to get a feel for her. 

“Got to say, she’s good, better than Felan anyway. I hope that means she’s extraordinarily good at riding a horse, or I may have to kill myself.” Dolphus announced, watching me and Tom for a long moment, before trying to move his own horse and flinching when the horse let out a sigh. 

“She used to ride a lot.” Tom told them, shrugging his shoulders a bit as he patted his own horse's shoulder a little.

“Let’s go.” Eyloff grunted, looking away from us both.  “Since you two can obviously ride; I won't need to go slowly.” With that statement, I watched him kick into his horse's sides, and take off in a full gallop. I smiled happily from the fact that I was on a horse again, and I might get to show up an arrogant werewolf. Life was sure as hell interesting, that was for sure. I sent Fire into a gallop following after Tom and Dolphus, passing them as I headed towards Eyloff.

Lost among the walking undead,

Lost souls litter the dirt, bled.

Not a drop of pure light,

Walking in the dead of night.

Bloodthirsty vampires want me see,

Not gonna find me, I flee.

-Vampires by Kristi Worrell

Chapter 5

_______________________

Eyloff started to pull up on the horse's reins, giving me the chance to come up next to him and stop my own horse. I looked at him curiously, trying to figure out what the reason was for stopping so abruptly.

Dolphus and Tom came up a few seconds later and when I looked from them back to Eyloff, I realized he was grimacing and looking at all three of us. That actually worried me a bit, having him look at us like that, and I felt my stomach flip. I kept eye contact with him waiting for him to speak.

“Take it slow from here, we’re heading into their territory
.”
He warned us. His grimace didn't waver at any point; it only seemed to grow worse.

“Oh joy!” Dolphus shouted; sarcasm rolled off his words. “Maybe, we can turn around before it’s too late, and you know, go for a three-
day journey
towards the air Region!”

“Dolphus…” Eyloff started to groan, turning and looking at him with a pleading look before he closed his eyes. 

“Wait what? We’re not going to the Air Region?” I asked, looking from one to another.

“Uh no, we’re closer to the Darkness Region, in order to go to the Air region we have to go through a massacre; I'd rather not take the chance of either of you getting any more beat up than what you already are.” Eyloff snorted, giving me a once over before nodding his head forward. “We’ll just have to deal with it, and that mainly means you Dolphus.”

“No! I absolutely hate it when you make spur of the moment plans; we’re supposed to go south first, not north!” Dolphus growled, his tone actually made him sound threatening for once. I turned and stared at him, waiting to see what he'd say or do next.

“Gods forbid; you do something and just stick with it! Maybe I should just kill myself here and now. You would greatly enjoy that wouldn’t
you?
We both know you hate me, don't you Eyloff! Just tell me you do; I know it’s true!”

“I hate you.” Eyloff shrugged his shoulders.

“You, you…” Dolphus started to pout, looking as if he'd just stabbed him in the heart. “You hateful jerk!”

“I thought it’d shut you up, ugh forget it,
and let’s
go.” Eyloff rolled his eyes, nudging his horse forward again before Dolphus could so much as complain to any of us once more.

“Honestly, I think this is better anyway; you'll get a safer area to stay, training, and learn what you’re lacking knowledge wise.” He called out from up ahead. We stared at him for a moment, watching where he went before anyone moved.

I set Fire into motion, letting her canter up towards Eyloff. Tom and Dolphus followed behind me a split second later; I could hear the clicking of hooves behind me as they fell in line.

“I’d rather die really, than have to deal with the inhabitants of this Region. But I have a job to do, so I’ll do it right.” Eyloff said beside me. He was keeping his head up high and moving along.

"Job?" I looked at him. My curiosity was peaked from all of this, and he looked at me frowning.

"Getting you two trained, and learning some things." He replied, shrugging his shoulders at me.

“Training and learning?” I blinked a few times, letting that set in.

Eyloff let out a sigh, shaking his head slowly. “I may not be fond of the Vampires, or Demons, anything that lives here really, but I will not say that they are not good warriors, because, in fact, they are great ones. They can teach you to fight and defend far better than I could.”

I looked at him, keeping my eyes on him as I spoke. Trying not to sound worried. “So, really you think we’re better off this way?”

“Precisely.” He said with belief.

We headed
north
for a long time, before we headed into what seemed like a forest of dead trees. The farther we went, the darker it seemed to grow. I realized it wasn't my imagination when we were pulled into the pure blackness of the night sky, which to me was utterly amazing, since barely five feet back it was still daylight. I remembered part of my dream from last night, looking around I realized how much this scenery looked like what I had dreamed. There was the black night sky, the moon hanging above it, dead trees, swamp like areas. It was all so close to my dream that it was eerie.

“Welcome to the Region of Eternal Darkness." Eyloff announced, then groaning a bit he stared looking around. He seemed paranoid, and on the edge. It couldn't be the quiet that was bothering him, but it didn't seem like a normal quiet regardless.

“On your left you’ll notice the black water of Lake Death, notice how it seems to absorb the darkness of everything around it, on your right the ever so lovely Black Forest, above us the never ending black night sky.” Dolphus said to us in an announcer's voice, with forced cheeriness. I turned my head and looked back at him as he continued on. “On your way through don’t forget to keep fond memories of lush land, the warmth of sunlight, and the more or less living.”

Tom started to shake his head, then let his horse drift back towards Dolphus a bit more. I rolled my eyes at them, and turned around following Eyloff as I watched the scenery around me. What Dolphus had said seemed to actually be true, there was nothing but darkness around us. Everything was still and quiet, and dead.

“So enlighten me, what creatures may I see here?” Tom asked, loud enough for all of us to hear clearly.

“Dhampires, Vampires, Demons, half-demons, Demonic pets: like dark wolves, snakes, ravens.” Eyloff replied to him, trying to answer as best he could.

“Maldre’s summoned up the literal undead around here too, Zombies if you’d like them to be called that, he wants to dwindle the numbers of all those who live here. Then rage a war against them, thankfully, Maldre’s not here at this given moment.” Dolphus added to what he had said, frowning when I looked back at him. It seemed like it was a wolf thing, neither one of them wanted to be here and seemed overly disturbed by it.

“Back to a lighter note….” Tom announced looking at the two of them, arching one of his eyebrows. “What’s a Dhampire?”

“Half-blood’s, they’re the outcome of the mixing of humans and vampires, only humans willing to become exiles from their homes do it though. The light region despises all creatures
from the Darkness Region
that
much
..." Eyloff turned his upper body, looking back at Tom.

“Vampires really have nothing against any region, even though war breaks out against them a lot,” Dolphus stated, frowning a bit as he looked from me to Tom. “Practically, every region but fire hates them.”

“I hate them all.” Eyloff growled deep in his throat, staring straight ahead.

“Well then, this’ll be a pleasant trip.” Tom’s voice rang clearly around all of us, with pure sarcasm dripping off each word.

“Oh, but of course little Tommy! There will be laughter, and cake, and tons of flowers! Oh can’t you just see the lively happy people who await us?” Dolphus said to him in a dramatically sarcastic tone that made me shake my head slowly and have to laugh at him.