Despair

When the second moon rose in the sky that night, they had to admit they had lost.

Shay fought through her intense feelings of grief and despair. All she wanted to do was curl up into a ball and let the world consume her but she knew deep down she must fight until she had no more breath left in her lungs, until there was nothing else to spare. But not yet. All that despair that threatened to suffocate her could not quench the thirst for blood of those responsible for this masacre, nor stop her from caring for the people who were of her blood. People she grew up with and amongst, people who she trained with and learned from, laughed and danced by the bonfires in the darkest of nights. She had to ensure that her people survived…she owed that to them now. She was now their queen.

“We must carry on, fight with all you have left. Fight for your loved ones. They must not breach the village!” Shay screamed to the fighters who flanked her on both sides, eager to hear every word she had to share.

“But the battle is lost, we have no hope…” one of the men breathed out in what sounded almost like a whimper. She could see he was already defeated in his mind, and she could not afford that. There were people who still needed them. She had to find a way to raise their spirits, even if all she could offer in return was the promise of a valiant death at best.

Shay was trying her best to hide her fear and loss…she knew that with the second moon appearing her beloved had already had his blood sacrificed by the enemy.

Two months of knowing him, two months of loving him and all that time living in fear of this moment. Maybe she was selfish…at the beginning she had thoughts of killing him herself to prevent this very moment from ever happening, but she quickly realised that he meant to her more than all the moons in the sky. She couldn’t go through with it and now she was about to die on the field of their final battle, while he was already beyond her grasp for all eternity.

“As long as we still breathe, there is hope! If we manage to offer as little as a ten minute escape window for our people, then that is exactly what we shall do!”

“We must not lose hope…if only a few survive then we’ll have a small victory in that.”

All the warriors looked at their leader with a newfound fervor imbued with respect and love. Her words of encouragement and hope gave them a new purpose, one that they could grasp onto in this time of despair.

Shay summoned her two best warriors to her.

“Markus, Darius! I need you to hurry; go to the village, search it for survivors and take who you can when you run. Protect them, find them a new home. Leave the dead….nothing can be done for them now.”

“We can’t leave you!!” Markus said in disgust.

“We must protect our people!” Shay shouted with her mind already made. “Those beasts can’t be allowed to wipe us out of existence”

“They have blocked us from connecting to our powers but that won’t last forever. Run and run fast, hide but live. That is an order!” She commanded, no room left to argue.

Markus and Darius each clasped one of Shay’s forearms and bowed their heads in respect.

“Always our queen. Always our sister.” Their devotion moved her heart burdened with a loss so vast and Shay tried hard to not let the tears in her eyes fall but was seconds away from failing. Instead,she turned quickly and addressed the fighters now gathered in front of her.

“I give you a choice” she said and paused, letting the words sink in. “Those who want to go and protect your families and run do so, but do it quickly. I will not hold it against you but I will ask of you only two things in return; take as many others as you can with you, and survive. Those of you who are willing to stay and help fight to give the survivors as much time as possible to escape, we must come together and create a line. We might not be able to use our powers, but we are trained and we can still fight hand to hand. The wolves will come in their beast forms and are stronger and faster than us, and without our magic we are at a disadvantage. The woods will still help us so we must fall back behind the treeline to have the best possible chance at preventing them from surrounding us and forcing us into the middle of the clearing like cattle, making us easy prey”

Shay looked around acknowledging the fear on her warriors faces but she couldn’t have been prouder. Not one person had left the group, leaving her with a difficult task of picking amongst them herself. Their village needed more help evacuating.

“I will say it again but in different words this time…if you have families you want to try and save, please leave. Go now and survive. I need you to.”

This time about ten men stepped forward and Shay smiled at them, unspoken gratitude etched on her face.

“Go quickly and let our beloved mother keep you safe. We will give you as much time as possible.”

“No. We stay and we fight with you, but we want you to order our sons and daughters to leave.” Shay stood perplexed looking at the man she knew as Fredrick, but she sobered up quickly, finally understanding what he meant. Frederick had been her fathers most trusted fighter, one who never let neither of them down, and Shay felt pride and love in understanding they wish her to force their children to flee in a desperate attempt to move them as far away from this fight as possible. Children were their future after all.

“I agree. All those with young ones and sons and daughters of these ten men, step forward. You will help people left in our village to evacuate now. No one will think less of you as you will help people survive and ensure our kind has a future still. Leave now and don’t look back.”

About thirty souls stepped out of the formation, bowed, then turned and ran towards the village as fast as their legs could carry them. Alas, they needed to outrun the wolves as their powers were of no help now.

“Fall back to the woods!!!” Shay ordered screaming into the night.

On the other side of the forest, a man lay dying. Mortally wounded, only his thoughts kept their freedom to move so they raced fervently, making up for the numbness of his battered body. "That vile b****...", his mind went into an overdrive repeating those words over and over again, almost like a chant. He thought he was already dead and left him like this. He was his friend...how could he betray him like this? Lying there cold with blood still gushing from under his ribs, sanity was now slowly slipping away too. Damian knew he did not have much time left and all those thoughts previously swarming in his mind reduced to only one; reversing this curse. He needed his mate to survive even if he would not be there for her...she and her people, or at least most of them, were innocent. His friend had betrayed them all. If only he could go back in time and change things...he would do it all differently. He would have learned to open his eyes and truly see what was in front of him. He would have protected her…

”I love you Shay” he whispered painfully and with that his eyes gazed upon their last star in that night’s sky.