The Black Wolf's Mark (2 page)

“If you survive this it is because destiny wishes you to remain in this world.”

              After those words the man holds the wood with the child and places it carefully into the river’s water.

The river’s dark water continues to flow taking away the wood and also the child to an uncertain destiny.

“Your luck is cast, boy!” the man says still gazing at the boy that is moving ever  more into the distance with the help of the river’s little waves.

Chapter 2

21 years later

“He is coming back! He is near!”

Amarilis exclaims while she runs from side to side keeping her hands on the house walls.

Her aunt holds her and she looks for refuge in her arms.

“He is coming back, aunt! I
can feel it!”

“Feel what, my dear?” she questions and kisses the long black hair of her blind niece.

“He is coming back.”

“Amarilis is going crazy!” her male cousin says while he turns a water can into his mouth.

“Norton, believe me!” Amarilis insists, even though she cannot see her male cousin.

“Only one who is crazy believes in a blind girl,” the dark haired youth says and leaves his house.

Lyra patiently walks her niece to a seat in the living room and she sits at her side.  The girl, with her black hair and white eyes, fixes her gaze in a particular direction while her aunt caresses her long black hair again.

“Now, tell me, who is coming back?”

“The black wolf.”

Chapter 3

Three days later

The village receives new workers to extract minerals in the region and adjacent areas there and due to this the village begins to receive new dwellers in that place.  These dwellers have children, girls, women, old men and boys, that is, every man has brought his family.

Among them is a boy in dark clothes and he is carrying a bundle of clothes. However, he looks alone while he walks among the crowd of people.

Minutes later he gets a lodging to dwell in while he stays in that village. That is, he’ll share a house with more than twenty men, some of them are his age and others are older than him.

He decides to take a stroll by the village to try to get to know the place. He sees several people entering a tavern and he asks for the same as the others, a red wine mug. He sits down at a wooden table.

By his side are some men drinking and talking. But that same boy is not yet able to go out of his place and try to make friends.

When he leans his mug against the table he feels someone sit down on the other side of his table.  He glances up and sees a boy about his age also holding a red wine mug.

“Hello
!” The dark haired youth says.

“Hello
!” He also says.

“I see you are new here in this village.”

“I ended up getting here after a long jorney.”

“Welcome to our village
!”

“Thanks
!” He drinks more from his wine mug.

“My name is Norton.”

“Zidane.”

“Well, Zidane, I think we can be very good friends.” 

Norton smiles and drinks his wine.

Zidane shakes his head positively and drinks his wine too.

***

The two youths walk through the village and Zidane observes the houses with their doors marked with a circle and an x.

The foreign youth is not able to control his curiosity and asks his new friend,

“What are these designs on the house doors?”

“Don’t you know the
black wolf legend
?” he says raising his eyebrows.

“BLACK WOLF LEGEND?” His eyebrows move over his forehead.

“The black wolf legend goes through the villages in the entire world. And due to this, people here seek to be secure from this legendary creature through certain rules.

“I already heard talk about wolves but I confess I don’t believe in this foolishnesses.” Zidane says shaking his head and gazes at his dark top boots.

Norton puts his hand on his friend’s shoulder and advises him.

“Believe me friend, wolves exist and they can be nearer to us than we imagine, truly.”

Chapter 4

At nightfall, Norton takes his friend to his house after asking him to have dinner at his home and meet his unique family.

The two youths are walking in the direction of Norton’s house, but before they arrive at the front door, a female voice says from the inside the house, “He is coming!”

Amarilis runs to the door and pushes it with her own body. She also fastens her dark nails up on the door wood trying to impede its opening.

“Aunt, don’t let him enter!”

Her aunt makes a grimace as she looks at her niece pushed up against the door.

“Amarilis, no one is coming here.”

“He ended up coming here!” the young blind woman affirms still behind the door.

Lyra abandons the plates on the dining table as soon as she hears knocking from outside the door.

She walks toward the door and holds her niece’s arms.

“Who is it?”

“Mother, it’s me.”

“Amarilis, it is your male cousin,” she says, her anxiety alleviated.

“He is not alone.”

The dark haired young woman becomes alert to the noises behind the door. Lyra pulls Amarilis by the arm and takes her away from the door.

“Your male cousin needs to come in.”

The door is opened and Lyra sees her son standing next to a boy with dark hair and ruddy skin. However, she is amazed at her niece’s insistence that she felt somebody was in the company of her male cousin.

“Mother, this is my new friend Zidane.”

“Hello, I am − Lyra.”

She raises her hand and the boy holds it strongly.

“Happy to meet you, Madam.”

“Please come in!” says Lyra using her hand to guide the two boys inside.

They enter into the house and Zidane gazes at the lass in a long black dress with
her dark hair and white eyes. She is standing in the middle of the living room.

Amarilis senses every movement of the boy and at that moment she has a vision of a little boy being marked on his back with an iron lance.

She glances frightened to all sides, at the roof and also at the ground.

And her male cousin approaches her with his friend and says in exultation, “This is my female cousin.”

“It's him!” Amarilis shouts and she runs to her bedroom, but her body slams against a cabinet in the house and throws down some objects.

Lyra goes after her niece and Norton stares at his friend with bashfulness after the savage attitude of his female cousin before his guest.

“Pardon Zidane, I forgot to inform you that my female cousin is − blind.”

“I understand,” Zidan
e says after he has looked at the ground, trying to comprehend the unusual attitude of the young woman. He has never seen anyone behave like that before, acting as if he were a ferocious dog.

However, despite this initial awkward moment, the three dine in Amarilis’s absence.  The young woman refuses to dine with the unexpected house guest.  She prefers to remain locked in her humble bedroom.

Lyra asks the boy many questions during dinner and he looks well disposed to answer all of them.

After dinner, Zidane takes his leave from his friend’s home; after all he didn’t feel well during the entire dinner, as he was imagining that the blind female cousin of his friend refused dinner because she objected to his presence.

The two boys step out of the house by the front door and they stop just outside the house.

“I thank you for dinner.” Zidane finally expresses gratitude while he rests his hands on his waist.

“I offer my apologies to you once again for my female cousin’s discourteousness.” Norton says after that.

“Don’t worry, I am not annoyed.”

“But you were troubled.”

“Oh, I confess I have never been received this way, being treated like a ferine.”

“My female cousin, over and above being blind also gets hallucinations, you know!”

At this instant, Zidane glances at his friend house’s side and sees the white eyes of the young blind woman through the window.

Even though he knows she is completely blind he still feels she can see him in some way. Then he comes back to face his friend and says to him,

“I am going home! I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Good night, friend.”

“Good night.”

The youth in dark clothes walks away and his friend enters his home again.

Chapter 5

Fire festival

Every year a great event called a fire festival occurs in the village.  The town people use this feast to celebrate the winter’s arrival.

The village’s dwellers celebrate this day with lively music, folk dance, food and drink.

Several bonfires are also lit on all sides of the village.

The full moon adorns the sky for the revelers.

Zidane is seated on a stone beside his friend Norton and both are holding a red wine mug. They observe the people around them drinking, talking and dancing around the bonfire.

“Don’t you want to dance with the people?”  Norton asks his friend.

“No, I don’t. I prefer to stay far, looking at people having fun for me.”

“Well, then in that case I’ll have to abandon you for some time. I’ll dance near the village girls.”  

Norton rises from the stone and walks from front to back, “I think you should do the same.”

“If I
itch to dance − keep calm, I’ll look for you.” Zidane mocks in a good temper.

“All right, just don’t spend the entire night trying to decide.”

The boy turns his back and walks away.

Zidane stays far from people for some time. He thinks of his family, whom
he doesn’t know. And he also thinks of his new life in the village. The new friends and companions he has already made there.

He gazes at the full moon in the sky again and he feels something familiar rising inside him. After some time, he glances at a bonfire on the other side of the village. The area around this bonfire is empty because there is only one person standing before it, a young woman standing with her back to him, with her long black dress and dark hair.

“FIRE! FIRE! DANGER!”

Zidane hears these words that come out of the mouth of the dark haired young woman, while he approaches her carefully. After all he already knows a little about the girl’s temperament.

“DANGER!”

She says and glances back, but she doesn’t see the friend of her male cousin before her holding only a wine mug, but she senses his presence before her.

“You!” she exclaims turning her white eyes from side to side.

“How do you know it’s me?” he says staring at her face.

“I can smell your scent,” she answers thunderstruck and her hands reach out but touching nothingness.

The boy approaches more and the young woman tries to run away, but he catches her arm and he impedes her from going away.

“I don’t want to do any harm to you,” he confesses gazing at the girl’s scared countenance.

Nevertheless, she remains immobile for a time and she whispers in a low voice,

“FIRE! WOLF!”

Zidane wrinkles up his brows and compresses his lips trying to understand what she wants to say with those loose words.

“Fire?
− Wolf?” He insists, “What do you want to tell me with this?”

Amarilis shakes her head from side to side and doesn’t answer him, but Zidane senses she wants to say something important with that.

At last, she gets to take her arm out of the boy’s hand and she runs away frightened of him. She disappears into the midst of people that are dancing around another bonfire.