The Oldest Living Vampire Betrayed (The Oldest Living Vampire Saga Book 4) Page 2

  Minos was sitting outside with the other hunters, hardening his spears in a fire. He leapt to his feet when his mate shouted and rushed inside the cave, afraid that something bad had happened to the boy. In all honesty, he was so certain the boy would be dead that he stood staring blankly for a moment when he saw what Ona had shouted to him about. His mind was so set on the child lying dead, he could not process what he was seeing. He blinked at his wife, mouth open.

  “Minos, look!” Ona laughed. She was standing with the boy between her feet, holding his hands. As her husband stroked his chest, trying to calm his thumping heart, she released the child’s hands and said, “Go to dada! Walk to dada!”

  Grinning and drooling, the boy tottered toward his father, chubby little hands reaching for the big man.

  Minos squatted down and held out his arms. “Come to me, boy! Walk to me!”

  The other men had followed Minos inside. They stood behind their leader, watching the child walk with expressions of approval on their stern, weathered faces.

  “He is young to be walking already, Minos,” Padua said. Padua was Minos’s younger brother, and second-in-command of the tribe. “He is a strong boy.”

  “We should hold his naming ceremony tonight before we leave for the hunt,” Duroc said. Duroc was Minos’s father. He was a great burly man with hair and beard as white as snow.

  Minos swept the boy into his arms and rose. He nodded, kissing the child on the forehead. “Yes. Tell the shaman. We will name the boy tonight.”

  It would be a great relief. Now he would be able to hunt, secure in the knowledge that his son had been named before any wicked spirits, capricious beings that they were, could steal another child from him. The spirits of unnamed children, like the animals they hunted, were not allowed into the Land of Warm Days. They simply evaporated, like morning mist in the sunshine, when the body perished. Some said they were reborn into new flesh, that they were reborn again and again until they had lived long enough, and grown wise enough, to find their way to the afterlife, but who could say for certain.

  They held the ceremony that night, after the sun had passed beyond the edge of the world. Most Anaki magic rituals were held after dark. That was the time of day when magic was most effective.

  Donning his ceremonial wolf skins, old Zambi, the clan’s shaman, invoked the protection of the spirits. As a cold wind howled outside the mouth of the cave, he took the boy in his arms. Frightened by the old man’s menacing hood, a snarling wolf’s head, the boy began to cry. Zambi undressed the child and placed him in the center of a circle of stones. Chanting under his breath, the old man drew mystic runes on the boy’s bare flesh with red ochre, each mark a symbol for one of the tribe’s protective spirits: wolf, hawk, snake, bear. When he was finished, he held the boy aloft, his old bones crackling, and asked Minos what name he would like to give the boy.

  “I wish to name him Khronos,” Minos said without hesitation.

  Ona looked up at her husband in surprise. She was disappointed he had not named the boy after her father, as she had suggested.

  Khronos was a conjunction of two Anaki words: shout and loud. He wanted to name their son “Loud Shout”. It was an unusual name, but the more she thought about it, the more she liked it.

  “Khronos,” old Zambi repeated. Then, raising his voice, “O Spirits! Hear me now! This boy, the child of Minos and Ona of the Gray Wolf Clan, would like to name their boychild Khronos! If his naming displeases you, make your will known to us!”

  All who had gathered for the naming ceremony held their breath, firelight glimmering in their eyes. Minos, a superstitious man, grasped his wife’s hand. They all listened, but there came no sign of the spirits’ displeasure: no stones fell over in the cave, no animals yowled in the dark outside. The only sounds were the hooting of the wind and the crackling of their collective hearths.

  The old man lowered the boy. “The spirits approve. Your son is named Khronos of the Gray Wolf Clan!” He passed the boy to the father.

  “Khronos,” Ona said, kissing her son on the forehead.

  “Khronos,” Minos said, stroking the boy’s cheek.

  They presented the child to each adult member of the tribe then, and one by one they spoke his name.

  “Khronos.”

  “Khronos.”

  “Khronos...”

  4

  “Khronos,” Ona said.

  “Yes, Mother?”

  “Your father wishes to see you.”

  Khronos was outside by the fire pit when his mother came to fetch him. It was where her husband usually retired when he wanted to relax. How often had Minos sat there, talking idly with his brothers as he hardened the tips of his spears in the fire? Ona could not say, but she knew her husband would not be long in the world of the living, and it gave her some comfort to see her son sitting in the place where his father so often sat, staring out across the hilly terrain, lightly dusted with snow this afternoon, the clouds low and gray.

  She saw Khronos exchange a solemn glance with his cousin Tulpac, his face tight with dread. Tulpac lowered his eyes and poked at the embers of the fire with a stick. The boy’s uncles stirred but did not rise. Minos had asked only for Khronos.

  Khronos rose.

  In these modern times, at age thirteen, our father would have still been considered a child, but he was a man in that era, one who had already hunted and mated and killed. He was not very tall-- none of the Anaki were very tall compared to modern men--but his body was thick and heavily muscled, like his father, the scars of his manhood rite still fresh and pink in his flesh.

  Khronos looked shocked at the sight of his mother, but he concealed his surprise quickly, trying not to hurt her. It didn’t bother her, though. She knew how she looked. She had seen her face when she walked down to the creek to refill their water skins. Her face was sallow and lined with sadness, her eyes red and swollen. She had aged visibly since her husband was injured, as if years had passed instead of days. She could feel her grief as if it was a weight pressing down on her. It was exhausting.

  “His spirit is departing soon,” she said. Her voice hitched as she spoke, and her eyes swam. “You should hurry.”

  Khronos nodded. He swept past his mother without comforting her, but she did not expect comfort from her son. Comfort was not the Anaki way.

  Ona followed her son, head down, trying very hard to stifle her sobs. The boy hurried ahead of her. When she arrived at the hearth she shared with her husband, Khronos was kneeling beside his father, hand on the big man’s laboring chest. The medicine woman had been sent away. The shaman, too, though ancient Zambi lingered nearby, watching, waiting, like a hungry old buzzard. Ona lowered to her knees behind the boy, wincing at the pain that flared in her arthritic joints. She kept her head down, hoping her hair would hide her shameful tears.

  He is dying, she thought.

  It didn’t seem possible. It all seemed so dream-like and unreal. Minos had been her mate for more than half her life. He was the only man she had ever coupled with. The father of her children. The leader of their clan. The strongest man that she had ever met.

  And he was dying.

  5

  “I am dying, Khronos,” Minos grunted.

  “I know, Father.”

  “I have seen the spirit of my father. He came to me last night while your mother slept. He is waiting to take me to the spirit world.”

  Khronos did not reply. What could he say to that?

  His father’s flesh was hot beneath his palm, hot as a coal, and he could feel his father’s heart racing. It was fast but very weak and sometimes paused or knocked.

  Minos shifted on his bedding and sucked in his breath with a hiss. He did not cry out, but his fingers tightened on the head of the boar that had killed him. He had asked for the grisly trophy when his festering injury did not respond to the medicine woman’s treatments, when he realized he was going to die. He had set it beside him, patting it on the head with a chuckle. “We will cross to t
he spirit world together, my friend and I,” he’d said. “Perhaps we will be brothers there, or perhaps we’ll try to kill each other again!” The boar’s head had begun to stink, but so had his father’s injury. Khronos had seen it when the medicine woman changed his dressings earlier that morning. Seen it and smelled it. His left leg was swollen and red from the hip down, the ragged wound in his thigh oozing yellow pus.

  “You were wise… to bring me back to the cave,” Minos said, his speech halting and slurred.

  Minos had ordered the hunting party to leave him behind after the boar gored him, but the boy had ignored his commands, ignored his protests and angry curses. Khronos was not certain that the men of the clan approved of what he’d done. The Anaki word for sentimental was nearly the same as their word for foolish. If he’d lost their respect for carrying his wounded father back to their home, however, they had not shown it.

  “I was a fool to ask you to leave me behind,” Minos continued. “I didn’t want your mother to see me like this, but now that I am dying... I have realized... even in death I can serve our people.”

  “What do you mean, Father?” Khronos asked, but he knew what his father was talking about.

  “The clan is starving, Khronos,” Minos wheezed. “Except for my old friend here—“ (patting the boar’s head) “—we haven’t had meat in ten days. When I die… which shouldn’t be much longer… the clan must nourish itself on my flesh.”

  Khronos looked toward the back of the cave, where Old Zambi was lurking behind an outcrop of rock.

  Look at the old reptile drooling, Khronos glared. He is the one who put that thought in Father’s head!

  The ancient shaman drew back a little at the venom in the young man’s glance, but he did not retreat. His distended belly palpitated below the ridges of his protruding ribcage.

  “I… understand, Father,” Khronos said.

  “And Khronos…”

  “Yes.”

  “The spirits showed me… you will be leader of the clan someday… but that time is not now. Let my brother Dorsh be leader for now. Do not challenge him when the time comes… to choose a new chief.”

  “Yes, Father.”

  His father was struggling for breath now. The muscles in his neck and chest quivered. Beads of sweat trickled down his temples.

  “He will kill you if you challenge him,” he panted. “And you are still too young to be chief. Wait… wait until Dorsh is gone, and then…” Minos arched his back, crying out at the pain. He stared blankly at the roof of the cave for a moment, eyes wide, then collapsed back. Much of the color had fled from his flesh.

  He finally came to himself and his jaundiced eyes rolled toward Khronos once more. “Beware Tulpac,” he croaked. “He may challenge you when you declare yourself chief.”

  “Then he will die,” Khronos said tersely, eyes flashing.

  His father laughed softly. “Good. You always were… a strong boy. It makes me proud… to be your father.”

  Khronos heard his mother begin to sob behind him and was ashamed. He hoped no one nearby could hear her.

  “Father…” Khronos murmured, his eyes hot and stinging.

  His father was looking at the roof of the cave again, mouth slightly ajar. He twitched, made a gurgling sound in the back of his throat, then murmured, “The sun will shine in the night, Khronos… The trees will lie like dead men on the earth…”

  “Father?”

  “Beware the black egg, Khronos.”

  “What does that mean, Father?”

  “Beware the black egg… and beware Tulpac.”

  And then he was gone. His breath rattled in his chest as his spirit departed his flesh.

  Khronos kneeled beside his father as his mother mourned shamelessly behind him, wondering what his father had meant when he said “beware the black egg”. The young God King did not cry. It was a great dishonor among the Anaki for anyone past their toddling years to be caught doing so weak and impractical a thing. He merely kneeled, one hand on his father’s moveless chest, until he saw Old Zambi creeping ever closer out of the corner of his eye. He rose then, all curiosity concerning his father’s last words abandoning his thoughts. He had much to do. His father’s body had to be prepared. There were rituals to perform… and wood to gather for the cooking fire.

  “I can’t do it,” his mother sniffed, head down, hair hanging in her face. “I’d rather starve.”

  “Then starve,” Khronos said, not unkindly. “But the clan must eat.”

  Years later, when the dead man’s prophecy came to pass, Khronos would not remember his father’s dying words. He was chief of the clan then. His uncle Dorsh served honorably as leader of the Gray Wolf Clan for nearly ten cycles of the seasons before he was trampled during an aurochs hunt, and then Khronos declared himself chief. No one challenged him. Not even Tulpac, despite his father’s warning. But that was still in the future for the young king of the vampires. For now, there was too much to do to worry about a dying man’s delirious pronouncements. As eldest son, it was his responsibility to see to his father’s final rites. In addition to that, the other men would expect him to help dress his father’s carcass. The Anaki did not regularly devour their own kind, but as his father had said, the people had not had meat in many days, and they were starving.

  Khronos was troubled for a moment when he saw his father laid out on the bier. The women of the clan had stripped the big man and washed him like an infant. It disturbed him to see his father naked, his sex organs exposed for all the clan to see, but he did not hesitate when Dorsh passed the knife to him and instructed him where to cut. Not even when his father’s heart, still warm and dripping, was placed into his hands, and Old Zambi said that he must devour it.

  It was not the first time he had eaten human flesh. That past winter, two of the clan’s elders had died, and the Anaki were forced by starvation to devour them. And he had eaten the Others with some regularity for years. Just that past spring, he and Tulpac had come across a Neanderthal woman who was gathering food in their territory. She had bolted as soon as she saw them, dropping her basket of mushrooms and roots, but their legs were longer, and they were younger. They had overpowered her, took turns raping her, then killed her and took her back to the cave to eat.

  Yet this was his father. This was the man he had fashioned his soul after, and his stomach revolted as he brought the warm, wet muscle to his lips. He squeezed his eyes shut as he tore into the thick flesh with his teeth, and felt something akin to horror at the pleasure that he felt as he chewed and swallowed, then bit off another piece. His body, starved as it was for nourishment, did not know shame or disgust or sadness. It knew only hunger and satiation.

  He ate it all while the other members of the clan watched him closely, their mouths watering, their eyes bright with hunger, and when he was done, he looked around for his mother, his lips and chin smeared with his father’s drying blood. He wanted to see what she thought of him. He wanted to see if there was hatred on her face, or disgust or sadness, but she was nowhere to be seen. She had sworn she would not partake of the feast, and it appeared she meant to make good on that promise.

  Old Zambi addressed the clan, saying, “It is finished. Khronos has taken his father’s essence into his body. Minos shall be a guardian spirit now, watching over the Clan, protecting us from the wicked things that mutter and laugh in the dark. We pray now to Minos, as we pray to wolf and snake and bear. Minos, we thank you for the gift of your flesh! May your body nourish the clan and preserve it as your spirit watches over us from the Land of Warm Days!”

  The Clan repeated the old man’s prayer, and then Dorsh lit the cooking fire with a torch.

  A couple hours later, they feasted.

  6

  Ona was gone for a day and a night. She returned to the cave weak and confused the following evening. She had fallen into the icy river while squatting down to drink and had been swept away downstream. She had injured her left arm and both of her legs on the jagged rocks, and
was limping when she tottered out of the woods. Rena saw her come stumbling out of the forest and cried for Khronos, who rushed out of the cave to carry his mother in.

  “I’m sorry, Khronos,” she said, leaning her brow against her son’s broad chest. “I’ve been a foolish woman. I shouldn’t have run away. I’ve shamed you.”

  “Be quiet, Mother,” Khronos said, sweeping his fur cape around her. “Come, sit by the fire and warm yourself. You’re trembling.”

  He carried her across the cave to his hearth, ignoring the curious stares of the other clan members. He ignored the disapproval in their eyes, and their whispered condemnations, too. Let them tut and shake their heads. They could go to the underworld!

  Ona cried out softly as he laid her down on his bedding, and then he motioned to a female named Trava, a young woman he had been mating with regularly the past few months. Trava scurried over from her father’s hearth, eager to serve Khronos, and he directed her to bring his mother food and drink. It was not seemly for a man to tend to a female, but he lingered near his hearth to make sure that Trava did as he asked.

  “No,” Ona said, pressing her lips together, as Trava tried to feed her Minos’s cooked flesh.

  “You must eat, Ona,” Trava insisted. “If you don’t eat, you will die, and then who will help me look after Khronos.”

  Ona glanced shamefully at her son, who was watching surreptitiously from his cousin’s nearby hearth.

  “All right,” she murmured, and she let Trava push the meat into her mouth. She gagged, and feared for a moment that she would vomit, but she did not. Somehow she managed to chew the meat and swallow.

  When Wali, the ancient medicine woman, came at last to tend to Ona’s injuries, smearing a stinging salve on the cuts and scrapes that covered Ona’s shins, Khronos rose. He glanced at his mother once, failing to keep his concern for the woman entirely from his countenance, then strode purposefully from the cave. Tulpac and some of the other hunters followed, including Khronos’s two younger brothers, Ipac and Nash.