The Forgotten Island
NO MORE RUNNING

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO:

NO MORE RUNNING

-Arya-

Save the puppies, my conscience had said; don’t leave them behind, I had told myself. I was a masochistic idiot. After a full day of dragging these ankle biters around, I sat in my usual tree ledge creation as the sun went down, staring at the pups while they slept. After they had almost nose-dived off the edge a few times, I finally made a short trellis so they couldn’t accidentally kill themselves. Then they spent another couple hours chasing each other around the platform and letting out tiny screams when the usual chorus started at sunset. Each little screech sounded like a mini poltergeist throwing a tantrum. Laying down in my sunken indent, I closed my eyes and imagined a pair of gray eyes above a pair of full lips. Strong hands gripped my hips and pulled me into stronger arms. Thoughts of my dream lover surrounded me with peace and brought me uninterrupted dreams.

-MALAKAI-

With a roar I shoved my blade through the soldier’s chest, hearing spurting of blood and crunching bones as I sliced through his ribcage to his heart. Tearing my blade out I sideswiped a mace aimed for my skull and parried the blow of another soldier to my right. Sweat streamed down my face as I focused on my breathing, my stance; and with a measured breath beheaded the attacker with the mace. I had just enough time to bring my sword up to block a fatal blow as the onslaught continued. Screams, roars, and the wet ripping of flesh filled the air around me, filling my nostrils with the scent of death. A dagger whipped by my head and implanted itself into my enemies instead. Glancing to the side I saw my brother, an emissary of the grim reaper himself, smirking at me. “Keep up, big brother!” he called through the chaos, his sword singing as it sank into limbs. I spared a second more to glance around me; we were losing the battle.

-Arya-

The pups whined relentlessly, stopping every few feet to sit and communicate with little shrieks of unhappiness. They were hungry, and what did I know about feeding devil beasts? I had been surviving these past weeks alone on vegetation, not having the mental clarity to hunt anything more substantial. I sat down on a fallen trunk, letting the pups crawl into my lap to mewl some more. Well, I couldn’t let them starve to death, otherwise I might as well have left them to die at their mother’s corpse. I started rifling through my memories of hunting, which didn’t take long as I knew next to nothing. It was too bad there wasn’t any rabbits around here, those wouldn’t have been too hard to get a trap around. The only swine I had seen thus far had been the one that had shown up on the beach. In fact, there weren’t many land animals here at all. A few lizards here and there, I had even heard a rooster at one point but never actually saw it. That about settled it, I was going to have to catch some birds. Thinking of a strategy I stood up and got to work.

-Malakai-

As the remainder of my army retreated, I heard her laugh reverberate through the air. She hadn’t even bothered to physically join the battle, simply sending projections of herself to harass both her own and my men. Thinking of the demon brought her image in front of me, her fangs elongated in pleasure at her triumph. “Poor, poor prince. Sent back with your tail between your legs again. I almost pity you with your feeble attempts” She threw her head back and laughed, her appearance pristine next to my own blood soaked one. “Begone, witch!” I snarled at her, continuing to walk briskly from the battlefield, attuned with my men as we disappeared from the battlefront. We had taken heavy losses this night, and I had little energy left. Thankfully, the queen didn’t follow, and I sank into the shadows with her cackle ringing in my ears.

Arriving back at our headquarters, my shoulders slumped with defeat. The members of my conclave awaited me, around a large circular table. As much as I wanted a bath and sleep, I plopped down in a chair to join them. Starting the uncomfortable conversation, I plucked a piece of brain matter off my shoulder and turned to Eupixa “Eupixa, the fallen.”. She nodded her head solemnly and we all watched as she stood and walked to the room’s fireplace, picking up a candle burning with a blue flame. Quietly, she blew out the flame, and we all took a deep breath. Whenever a soldier enlisted in our rebel army, they were given a talisman which Eupixa joined with their essence. At the beginning of each battle Eupixa spoke an incantation and lit a candle; if the soldier was no longer living when Eupixa blew the candle out, the talisman would alight and their corpse would burn to ash in blue flames. It was a cruel but necessary precaution. We learned in the first few years that any dead left behind would be desecrated by the queen and her men, left to rot in pieces as palace “decorations”. As Eupixa settled back into her chair, I looked at my closest allies surrounding me. From left to right was my brother, Silas, sitting beside my military commander, General Draven. Next were my medical advisor and munitions expert, Nija and Axel. Lastly was an aged demon named…well I wasn’t quite sure what his name was, he was simply referred to as the old man, and he served as historian. I stared at them all as I prepared for an answer I knew would tear into my soul. “How many?”

General Draven answered first. “Half, your majesty.” Shit. Half of our army had just been wiped out. We were dwindling down to almost nothing and soon the queen would win. How was I going to save my people?

-Arya-

I stood triumphant with my catch of two birds and laid them at the pups’ feet. Unfortunately, they just sniffed the birds before looking at me questioningly. Flustered, I then defeathered the bodies and tried again. They had sniffed a little more enthusiastically but still didn’t eat. Feeling like I was about to throw the hellhounds into the ocean, I stared at the naked avian specimens. These two terrorists I had been dragging with me were a complete pain in my ass. They had a plus side though, herding them around and keeping them in line left me very little time to digress into an emotional black hole. With as much sass as I could muster, I smashed up the birds into mush. The pups jumped on the meat puddles with gusto, seemingly swallowing the carcasses whole. With that, we established our routine, starting each day with a hunt and ending it high up in the trees at sunset. I trudged along on another humid day, the greenery around me all looking the same no matter how far we walked. The pups, Flotsam and Jetsom, ran circles around my feet as we went, their happy yipping and yapping constant background noise. The trees began to thin around us, and I slowed down, praying that the pups would shut their yappers just for a second so we could be stealthy for once. We broke through the tree line into a large clearing filled with tall red colored grass. Sunlight fell in patches on the sidelines with a pool of light in the middle that gave the area an ethereal glow. I looked at the tiny field in awe. This was it; this is what I had been looking for. It was time for me to stop wandering, stop running, and build a home. I wasn’t sure how I would survive on my own long term, but I had to try.