Banished To Earth Book One ( 8)

   Despite their penchant for cruelty toward fallen men, she loved her sisters and trusted them, and naturally assumed they felt the same.

   However, some knew they were witnessing much more than an extraordinary mingling. Procreation for the Criechee was distilling strength from weakness and filth. Like a tender, perfect sprout arising from the crumbling rottenness of a fallen tree, Chreichee children were born, always girls, always pure. Pure, at least by Criechee standards. 

   And like a fallen tree, their weak, rotten fathers always returned to the ground from which they sprang.

   This man, however, was not a fallen tree. The mingling would not kill him. His survival, his offspring, this union would change them, corrupt them, possibly even destroy the sisterhood with a boy child. 

    Lostereal, the eldest of the sisterhood, knew this, even if the younger less perceptive Chriechee, did not. With lizard like speed and fluidity she darted through the dense foliage past the younger stupidly enthralled sisters and skittered down the tree toward Gyle and Phyilmorphet. 

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    Phyilmorphet, was of course, oblivious to all this. She was solely fixed on Gyle. Like Priathamel, still trapped inside Gyle’s heart, she could not know what Lostereal had determined in her wicked heart to do.

   Gyle, his eyes still open, fearing closing them would be a sign of weakness, focused his attention inward. Phyilmorphet’s presence inside him, afforded him a preternatural awareness he could not have imagined. 

   He could feel Priathamel, even see her in his minds’ eyes. She was waiting for Phyilmorphet, ankle deep in the Wayward Glen’s meadow. Then she started to run, racing toward Phyilmorphet. All he had to do was remain perfectly still until she could reach out and claim her daughter.

    A smile stretched across his face as he watched Phyilmorphet run up to Priathamel, gather her up and absorb her tiny little body into hers. Now the little wanderer could be born into her new home Phastanar.

   Lostereal saw none of this, only the stupid grin on this lowly farmers’ face. The joy in his eyes infuriated her. He should be terrified. Screaming in agony. He should be dying. He would be dying. Soon.

    The Chriechee Sisterhood would remain unchanged untainted by the rotting fallen trees calling themselves men.

   This outrage must end. She would end it now. With forked fingers she pushed the corners of her lips up until they formed a gentle smile and eased up to Gyles’ face. Through pursed lips she blew hot air into his face, until he blinked and rolled his eyes down at her.

   At first he saw only affection and delight in her soft violet eyes. However, as he continued to look, she drew closer as her eyes slowly shifted from violet to deep purple, narrowing and darkening until they were little more than black slits. 

   They no longer looked like eyes but tiny razor-sharp scythes slicing toward his face. It was only an illusion. Lostereal dare not touch him. Hatred, however, was hers to pour on him, without measure or mercy. Only he could see it. Only he could feel it.

   She was too close for the others to see her hatred. Phyilmorphet, much too busy conceiving Priathamel, to see her murderous intent.

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   But Gyle saw the hate, felt it part his flesh, fold it open like a book. Lostereal wanted him dead. Gyle could see her disdain for him with terrifying clarity. It glinted on the cusps of her squinting scythe-like eyes. He flinched back, not even a half an inch. But more than enough. His flesh opened all over his body at the same time, as Phyilmorphet’s hair combed through his skin and flesh as if it were made from smoke. Blood gushed from a thousand bone deep lacerations. Neatly sliced chunks of his lifeless body flopped away from his bones dripping and dangling as his pitiful bloody remains crumpled to the ground.

    Of course, Phyilmorphet knew none of this, her attention solely focused on the tiny person now curled up inside of her.

    A chilling draft swept through her soul. A void suddenly appeared on the horizon of the Wayward Glen, black immense and growing. It swelled instantly swallowing everything including her before she could turn away, dissolving their union with jolting suddenness. … ‘Gyles where are you…’her mind yelled. Her answer was a pile of bloody meat and bone piled up at her feet.

   She collapsed to the ground her hair matted to her body by his blood. Even before she opened her eyes she knew. He was only strong enough to save Priathamel, but not himself. She turned her face away. She had to force her eyelids open. They were glued shut by his blood. Fortunately, she only glimpsed the horror that was once a good man. A good man that only wanted to save a daughter he would never see.

   She moaned and wept letting her exhausted body crumple away from the bloody mess she had made. Lostereal rushed to her, gathered her trembling blood soaked body to her bosom, wearing a perfect mask of pity and dismay.

    She would stay by Phyilmorphet’s side until the child was born. If it were a boy, she would of course, kill it. If not, she would study it for any signs of weakness or corruption all the while pretending to care for her grief stricken sister until she decided what needed to be done about this abomination.

    This was Lostereal’s cruel murderous deceit. A deceit that would eventually consume Phyilmorphet with self-hatred and finally force her from life itself…

   Spellbound, little Priathamel watched the old warrel wander between the towering tree trunks far below, while her mother climbed down to her. It was feeding time.

   “Sweet one, hungry?” Her mother asked as she deftly manoeuvred through crooked boughs toward her daughter.

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   The tiny puff of white looked up, saw her mother and forgot all about the old, grizzled beast and scampered happily to her mother’s open arms. A moment later she lay nestled against her breasts. Phyilmorphets’ protective pure white mane wrapped loosely about her as she nursed.

    Her little tummy was tight with milk when she heard an odd mewling coming up from the forest floor.  She rolled her head upon her mother’s soft pillow and looked down. Through the gauzy shifting screen of her mother’s living mane, she could barely see the squat heavily muscled shape of a warrel lightly padding toward their tree. A little white something was swinging from its’ mouth. A fresh kill? She craned her neck and brushed her mother’s hair aside to get a better view. A mahrah, alive and apparently unhurt was dangling from the warrels’ mouth.

     As young as she was, even she knew this was not natural. Her eyes widened and turned deep purple as her tiny hands pushed against her mothers’ breasts. She needed to see the mahrah. Moreover, she wanted to see the strange warrel who cradled his prey, rather than eat it!

    Struggling against her mother’s embrace until she was finally free, Priathamel ran across the vine tangled branch to get a closer look. The child’s desperate interest was not lost on Phyilmorphet. She knew she was witnessing something much more than typical, childish fascination with animals. This was about her and Gyles’ shared dream. Releasing her seemed the thing she must do. But following her was the thing her heart drove her to do.

   Just as her mother sidled up behind her, she spotted the old warrel silently circling the base of their tree, not unlike a snake winding around a pole. With one quick swipe she scooped her daughter up into her protective arms.

   Priathamel was still a child, weak, unpredictable and no match for the brutal predator skulking far below.

   A low growl that sounded as if it boiled up from the bowels of the planet rumbled through the mist laden vines and ancient arthritic boughs of the deep wood. The young warrel(Chase) stepped back, sat back on his haunches as he looked for a safe place to hide the mahrah. 

   A tangled nest of vine and moss hung from a sagging limb twenty feet above and behind him. That would do nicely. He darted his eyes down sensing the approach of the other warrel. Careful to keep his gaze fixed on it as it eased closer. Fortunately, it was still a fair

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    distance away. But as quick as warrels were, the distance made little difference. Timing however would be crucial. 

   Hunched close to the ground the old warrel slinked closer, its shoulder fur spiked up like quills and hid upper lip curled back. Curved white fangs long and gleaming with saliva appeared ready to spring from its black gummed mouth like grappling hooks as it drew near enough to leap at them.

   Chase slowly turned his head toward the wad of vine and moss knowing the old warrel was about to pounce. Relaxing his jaws he looked back at the warrel and lowered his snout until the tiny Mahrahs’ feet were able to kick against the moss.

   His enemy slinked closer, ready to spring in any direction the mahrah might scurry once Chase dropped it. Chase whimpered and backed away. It seemed he had rather surrender his prey than fight for it.

   Just as the older warrel lifted its shoulders and began to walk triumphantly over to Chase to claim its prize, Chase snapped his head up slinging the mahrah over his shoulder toward the safety of the mossy vine nest.