Chapter Four
Tame Him
Kana’s eyes opened wearily. What had awakened her? She sat up slightly from where she had been leaning against the tent pole. She looked at the stretched out form of the Hunter and saw nothing different for a moment and then she saw muscles throughout his frame twitch and clench briefly. The Hunter was waking up!
The knowledge or the uncertainty of what that could mean had her clenching up inside at the prospect. She elbowed her sister and Eshta woke up with a start, “Go get Zora! He’s waking up!”
Eshta left the tent within seconds, as she caught sight of the awakening Hunter. Kana warily approached the table with the use of her crutch, as the muscles held captive to the table twitched and strained more and more and she began to doubt that the flimsy ropes that bound him to the table would hold.
His head was turned to her and she saw his eyes open. She had to fight against the urge to step backward from the fierceness of the raw emotion that burned within them. The Hunter’s face twisted harshly and every muscle contracted and surged as the table groaned. He screamed. It wasn’t a scream of pain or fear, but one of utter fury.
Kana’s crutch fell to the ground, as it slipped from her slack fingers. She took a step backward from the Hunter and fell herself. Eshta raced into the tent and almost tripped over her, but then helped her up. Zora moved past them and stopped to stare at the powerfully convulsing body of the Hunter, even as his roars threatened to overcome everyone in fear.
“Run along girls. You don’t need to be here.” Zora said softly waving them away.
After the girls were gone Zora blew out most of the candles in the room and finding a darkened corner she sat down tiredly and rested. The rest of the camp did not rest though, as each of them lay awake listening to the enraged bellows of the Hunter and wondered what would happen should he break free, but the table held on as did the Hunters roars of rage for hours. When they stopped everyone gave a sigh of relief and drifted off to sleep except for Zora.
Zora watched the still sweat soaked body on the table expectantly. The powerful back jerked once and then again and again, as deep sobs racked through the man on the table, which caused her to relax inwardly because it proved that the Hunter wasn’t beyond feeling the emotions inherent to sane humanity. The strong bitter sound of the sobs emanating from the Hunter were awful to hear.
Getting up slowly Zora approached the table and laid a weathered hand on the Hunter’s back. Disregarding the beaded up sweat her hand contacted with she rubbed lightly in a circular motion. Her old voice cracked slightly, as she began to sing lullabies that she hadn’t sung since she had comforted her own children when they were little. That had been a long time ago in another world it seemed than the one she now lived in.
The words of the songs calmed the man beneath her palm’s touch just as she had known they would, because she knew what he was. He was a Valley Lander just as she had once been and the words were ones that he had heard before. His breathing evened out and she let her words drift away, as she sank to her knees painfully at the head of the table.
Zora eased the sweat soaked black hair away from the hunters face and combed it back over his ear. The fury was gone from his eyes and all that was left was pain.
“Oh you poor boy! You remember everything don’t you? Everything that you’ve done?” Zora said in a choked up whisper, as she leaned forward and kissed the Hunter’s sweaty brow.
Hoarse from screaming his voice came out rough, “Kill me!”
Zora shook her head no, “No, I will not do that and neither will you when you have the chance!”
His eyes closed and he made to turn his head the other way, but she stopped him with a gentle pressure to his head.
“Look at me!” Zora said in fervored passion.
Almost reluctantly his eyes slid back open to view her.
“This is the way it will be, listen closely! You are going to remember who you were before all this happened and you are going to be that person again. You’re going to need help, which is why I’m going to send Kana in the morning to help you. I need you to find a way through this! Do you understand me? There is work that needs to be done! There is a purpose to everything I have come to learn in my long life. You have a purpose and you need to step into it, because you are needed! Soon we will need you! Now try to get some rest. I’ll send Kana by in the morning. She’ll show you what it is to love life and to pursue it with everything that one has within oneself. Now I wish you a dreamless sleep. Good night dear.” Zora said leaning forward and kissing him lightly on the brow once again, as she got up stiffly and left the tent.
Kana turned in her bed of blankets and then popped upright with a surprised gasp, as she saw Zora standing above her. It had to be very early in the morning, as it was just becoming to grow a grayish half light outside.
“What’s wrong? What did he do?” Kana quickly asked.
“Nothing, it’s more of a case of what you’re going to do. He needs someone to take care of him Kana and I believe that you would be the perfect woman for the job.” Zora said confidently.
“Me? Take care of him, how?” Kana exclaimed, in disbelief, of what was being asked of her.
Zora just smiled at her and didn’t say anything.
“I can’t handle him Zora! You’ve seen him! He’s a beast! What do you expect me to do with him?” Kana exploded out with in what seemed like one breath of air.
“Well I expect you to go about treating him the same way that you’ve treated all the wild animals that you’ve tamed and gentled over the years. First you show him that you’re not a threat, then you show him that you care for him, then you trust him not to hurt you and that you’re not afraid of him, because you in turn trust him to do the right thing. Once you’ve accomplished that I think he’ll be just like the rest of the wild animals that you’ve befriended over the years. He’ll want to be with you wherever you go and he’ll do absolutely anything for you.” Zora finished with matter-of-factly, it being an apt description of every pet that Kana had ever befriended.
“Why would I want that?” Kana asked thickly not daring to meet Zora’s eyes with her own.
“Who are you trying to fool Kana? We both know why you would want that.” Zora answered forcefully not letting Kana retreat.
Kana felt like her face was on fire and she still couldn’t bring herself to make eye contact, “I don’t know Zora!”
“Well I do know, now go! This could be your big chance at the life you’ve been waiting for! The chance to see change and experience hope of the future for not only yourself, but your children after you.”
“I don’t understand?” Kana said raising her eyes up to Zora’s.
Zoar reached out her hand and stroked the smooth jaw line of the girl, who was as her own children had been to her, “You will my dear, you will. Now go! He’s been tied up and alone long enough.”
More out of obedience than desire Kana crawled out of her bed and exited the tent, able to limp now with her foot, and wondered if she wasn’t going to her death for the second time.
Eshta rose to her feet to follow after her sister, but Zora caught her arm holding her back, “Let her go Eshta. I know the protective love you have for your sister and I assure you that she will be all right.” Zora said firmly.
“How can you say that? How can you let her be in there alone with him? It isn’t safe!” Eshta fired back at Zora.
“Eshta you must trust what I say, when I tell you that Kana will never be safer in this life than when she is with that man.”
“How can you say such a thing?” Eshta accused harshly.
“I can say that because I know both who and what that man is. He is of a noble bloodline that I thought long dead, but now I begin to see a Divine plan emerge from the mess of our dire situation. That man is the key to not only Kana’s future, but also for all those of our group, who yearn for something more than this barely managed existence, which is poised precariously on the edge of human sanity and endurance. We can’t go on much longer like this Eshta! We needed this man to come to us no matter how strange his way of doing so has been.” Zora finished passionately.
Feeling calmer, but still concerned for her sister’s well-being Eshta asked, “Who is he?”
“Someone that the Enlightenment Society should’ve killed when they had the chance to. How fitting it is that they will have brought their own ruin upon themselves by their own actions. Be patient Eshta. Let Kana first give the man a purpose for living and then God willing something much more will be accomplished in these sad days we live in.”
“And what would that be?” Eshta asked softly.
“Why our freedom of course!” Zora responded with a smile, as she hugged Eshta to herself lovingly.
Kana slipped into the tent and closed the flap behind her and then thinking better of that she opened it back up. Cautiously she approached the table and its occupant that was still strapped to it, her would-be killer, who she was supposed to now befriend and take care of. He was awake and staring right at her.
“Good morning. I need to check your bandage. The one on the back of your neck. I need to move your head around a little.” Kana said hesitantly, as she reached out cautiously to do what she’d said she would.
His head wouldn’t budge from its side laying position, granted she hadn’t tried to force him to move it either. He was clearly resisting her.
“Please.” She asked softly. Something flashed in his eyes briefly and grudgingly he turned his face down to the table. There was that power of the word ‘please’ again. Kana could only wonder, as to the significance of the word’s effect on him.
Carefully trying not to hurt him Kana pulled the bandage free and was pleased with what she saw. She had been afraid that he would pull the stitches free with his struggling the night before, but they were still tight and he looked to be a fast healer. She added more paste overtop the incisions and put a fresh bandage on. When she had finished he turned his head back to the side to enigmatically stare at her. He tried to move a little, but winced slightly when he did, which caused Kana to glance down.
“Oh no! I’m so sorry!” Kana exclaimed, as she saw how badly swollen his hands were from the tight bindings that held him to the table. She knelt down and reached for small knife to cut the bindings free, when she abruptly stopped.
What was she doing?
She couldn’t cut him free!
He could do almost anything then, especially to her!
She gazed at his swollen hands again and she swallowed hard, because she knew it wasn’t within her to leave him to suffer like this. Slowly her eyes rose up to meet his, which were level with hers. His eyes promised her nothing and threatened nothing all at the same time. Zora had promised her that she would be safe with this man, but was that the truth?
There was only one way to find out. Kana reach the knife forward and carefully cut his hand free, when it was free he clenched and unclenched his fist repeatedly, but he did nothing else and his arm continued to hang free beside the table. Kana moved around and cut his other hand free and quickly moved back out of reach, but he just continued to lay there on the table.
She gazed at him in indecision. Maybe she could leave his feet tied, but no that wouldn’t work either, they were swollen too. She moved forward and cut them free. Breathing hard she stepped backward, until she touched the side of the tent, the little knife clutched in her hand for all the good it would do her against somebody like him.
He continued to lie there for a moment and then he pushed up off from the table and swung his legs around so that he was sitting on the edge of the table. Kana swallowed hard for a completely different reason other than fear, although that emotion was still very much a part of what she felt in this moment.
Kana couldn’t get past what her eyes were telling her. He was beautiful. She and Eshta were taller and more muscular than almost every man that they had ever encountered thanks to the hereditary traits of Khartian descent somewhere back in their family tree that had also given them their creamy black skin, dark eyes, and black hair. This man however made her feel small, even weak, as her eyes scanned over the corded muscles of his arms to the ribbed plane of his stomach and the powerful legs below.
He slid off the table to stand before her and she saw that he was even taller than her by an inch or two. He could overpower her in seconds and then do absolutely anything that he wanted to her, which she had made possible by cutting him free. You idiot, she thought to herself savagely, now why did you do that?
He walked toward her and she was just about to slash a whole in the tent behind her and run, when he stopped and held out his hand toward her. What was this about? What did he want from her? Then it dawned on her, he wanted her knife!
Kana looked down at the little knife and reflected on the fact that it wasn’t going to do her any good and Zora had said that she would need to trust him to do the right thing. Kana meekly reached forward and laid the knife in his open palm. His hand closed over the handle and he turned it on himself and in alarm Kana saw that he meant to disembowel himself with it.
“No!” Kana cried out and grabbed at his arm with both of hers and pulled at it. In the brief struggle that followed Kana ended up pressed up against him with her back to him, as she placed yourself between him and the knife.
He took the knife with his other hand, as he clamped his open arm across her holding her immobile, as he lifted the knife up to his throat. Kana twisted her right arm free and she stuck her finger up in front of his throat just as the knife reached it. The blade pressed her fingers back against his throat and she thought he would slice through them in pursuit of his grim pursuit of self justice.
The edge of the knife sliced into her fingers slightly, she winced and he stopped. His eyes met hers, as she turned her head and she pleaded softly, “Don’t! Please don’t!”
He looked at her for a long moment and then asked, “Why?”
It was the first time she’d heard him speak and she hoped it wasn’t the last time.
“I don’t really know why, but maybe we can find out a reason why not to. I promise I’ll help you!” Kana said softly meaning every word of her promise.
A moment passed by, as she stood under the scrutiny of his intense study. “Please put the knife down.” Kana asked more firmly and he took the knife away from her fingers and slammed the knife behind him into the table.
His sudden action caused Kana to jump slightly in alarm, which only served to make her very aware of how close she was to him. She didn’t have long to dwell on that feeling before she found herself seated on the table with the fingers of her right hand held out for inspection by him.
“It’s just a few little cuts. Don’t worry about them.” But he didn’t seem to be listening to her. To her surprise he cleaned each of the cuts with the supplies that were still left out and then he tied a little white bandage around each finger.
Kana held her hand out to study it when he was done. The bandages were more cute than functional, but they rocked her world. In that moment she realized the reward for every moment of blind faith that she had put into saving this man’s life. He had just shown her that somewhere in there was a caring person, who cared enough to tie clumsy looking little bandages on her fingers.
A man that would do that was a man she could trust. Her fear of him and what he could do to her drained away as if it had never been there. He glanced up at her and she smiled at him with everything she was joyously experiencing inside at this moment. He blinked repeatedly and she could tell that she’d shocked him with her open smile. It was painfully clear that he had no idea what to do or say.
He turned away abruptly and said, “Now go away and let me be!” He said roughly, but she wasn’t put off by his tone of voice in the slightest. He walked over to a bench and sat down hard on it and let his head fall into his hands, which he propped on his knees.
Feeling excited inside at the possibilities that were unraveling and being revealed to her Kana walked toward the door of the tent to leave, but it wasn’t a retreat. The next thing to be done in the process of his recovery was that he needed to eat and there was probably still some soup left over from last night.
Eshta was waiting for her, when she saw her hand she asked angrily, “What happened to you?”
Kana squeezed her sister’s cheek and said, “Nothing for you to worry about dear sister. I have it all under control.”
Kana dipped out a big bowl of soup and noticed Zora smiling up at her from her seat by the fire, “Have him eating out of your hand already do you?”
Kana smiled back feeling both wonderfully female and powerful all at the same moment. “Soon.” Was all she said in reply before she turned and headed back towards the tent.
Eshta watched Kana go not understanding her sister’s behavior or the situation that was piling up in layers of complexity she had no comprehension of. Eshta turned to Zora, her look of frustration expressing her lack of understanding of the situation.
Zora just smiled as she gazed into the fire, “Male and female. Masculine versus feminine. Eshta it’s an interplay of opposite, but equally compatible, emotions that has been going on since time began and it has had the same result countless times over and over again. Don’t try to figure it out Eshta, it’s something that you have to feel for yourself to fully understand. What’s taking place right now is just as it was created and meant to be from mankind’s creation upon the Earth.
Blankly Eshta asked, “What’s the Earth?”
Zora’s expression turned bittersweet, as she continued to stare into the flames, “So much has been lost. How I pray that there will be a new beginning for you and your sister and so many others.”
Kana slipped back inside the tent and after looking up the Hunter looked back down. She didn’t like calling him Hunter anymore and wondered if he had a name.
“I brought you some soup.” She said, as she came to a stop in front of him. He remained still and she decided to take matters into her own hands. Grasping his left wrist lightly she lifted it up off his knee and sat down on it.
He abruptly leaned back from her and gave her a look that said he thought she was crazy. Lifting a spoonful of the soup to his lips she waited for him to open up, but his lips and the strong white teeth behind them remained clamped shut. It was another hurdle to have to overcome apparently.
Kana balanced the bowl between her knees and lifted her left hand up toward his face. She didn’t dare make eye contact with him, as starring fixatedly at his mouth she squeezed his nostrils shut. Eventually he was going to have to open his mouth, unless he could breathe through his ears.
His mouth came open grudgingly and in went the soup spoon, even as she let go of his nose. She got another spoonful and lifted it and this time his mouth opened without coercion. The success she was having was lost on her, as an unintended awareness of being so close to him and watching his mouth move was impinging on her control of the situation.
She grabbed his hand and stuck the bowl into it before standing up quickly, “There, you see how it’s done. You can finish the rest of it on your own.” Kana said, as she retreated quickly towards the tent flap needing the fresh air that lay outside.
She’d reach the tent flap, when his voice calling her name stopped her, “Kana?” She looked back at him questioningly.
“Kana means beautiful doesn’t it?” He asked slowly.
“Yes.” She whispered before ducking out of the tent.
The Hunter looked at the tent flap for a while and then down at the bowl in his hand. He stared at it for a moment and then glanced over to the knife lodged in the table seeming to weigh the option that it represented and then he glanced back to the swaying tent flap. He picked the spoon up and began to finish off the rest of the soup. This would be his decision, for now at least.
Kana stayed away for the rest of the day feeling too emotionally exposed to the stranger to want to be near him. Her life had been turned upside down by this Hunter and it wasn’t fair. She didn’t know what she wanted or what was right. Maybe it was her inner turmoil over the strange connection she had with the Hunter or perhaps from guilt, because of not going back to changes his bandage in the evening like she should have. Whatever it was it was keeping her awake and restless long into the night, which is why she heard the slight cry that she probably wouldn’t have, if she’d been sleeping and instinctively she knew it was him.
She jumped out of her blankets and winced, as she forgot about her ankle and then as quickly as she could she hobbled over to the Hunter’s tent. In the dim light of the single candle burning in the room she saw the Hunter thrashing about on the floor moaning.
Kana dropped to her knees beside him and shook his shoulder hard and he jarred awake and almost knocked her over backward with how abruptly he sat up. He was breathing as hard as if he’d been in a race and he was covered in sweat.
“A nightmare?” Kana asked softly wanting to console the terrible look in his eyes.
He looked at her and blinked briefly, “No, not a nightmare just reality.” He abruptly got up and walked out into the night and she stared in shock after him. Where was he going?
Kana got to her feet and ran out of the tent into the darkness of the night and almost smacked into his back. She pulled off to the side of him a little and watched him, as he stared up at the starry night sky.
“What is it that you want from me?” He asked his voice loud in the night.
“Zora says that you’re important to our future. She believes that you could be the key to our freedom from the survival on the edge that we cling to.”
The Hunter snorted loudly in contempt, “Do you believe her?”
Kana stammered slightly, “I trust Zora with my life.”
“That’s not what I asked, do you believe her?” He pressed.
“I’m not sure.” Kana stammered out in response.
“Then why are you risking anything to do with me?” The Hunter declared angrily turning to face her.
Kana wanted to back away, but didn’t and instead held her ground, as he came up to stand inches from her. “Zora asked me to and because I saw… I saw something in you.”
“Tell me Kana what did you see?”
Kana looked down and then back up and firmly got out, “I saw a man. A man who still cares. A good man!”
He was quiet for a moment and then in a calmer tone he asked, “Kana do you know how many people I’ve killed with these hands?” Both of his hands came up to rest on her shoulders and involuntarily Kana quivered in remembrance of having those hands around her neck choking the life out of her.
“How close I came to killing you?” He pressed.
She didn’t have an answer and she stood quivering slightly in the dark under the weight of his hands.
“I’ll give you a hint Kana, it doesn’t stop at a thousand or two thousand or even three thousand.”
Kana’s lips quivered and tears ran down her face at the awful intensity she saw in his eyes. “That doesn’t matter.” She managed to whisper out.
Anger surged through the Hunter and his hands squeezed down over her shoulders to the point of pain. “Doesn’t matter! Tell me Kana, has a Hunter ever killed someone you cared about?”
Kana’s eyes were awash with tears and all of her shook as she stood in his grasp. She looked down, but he shook her hard and she looked back up at him barely able to hold back the deep sobs that wanted to come out.
“Well have you?” He almost shouted into her face.
“Yes!” She choked out emotionally.
“Who was it Kana, who did I or someone just like me take away from you for forever?”
On a sob she breathed out, “My parents.”
His grip on her shoulders relax slightly and his tone softened a little, “I took your parents from you Kana! You of all people should hate me and want me dead this night!”
“But I don’t! What you did or didn’t do doesn’t matter now because….” She trailed off, as she saw the intensity of his eyes.
“Because of what Kana?” He asked brutally.
“Because I’ve forgiven you!”
His face reflected stunned shock, “You’ve forgiven me?”
“Yes, because you’re not the same man that you were when you killed all those people!
“Yes I am Kana!” He said angrily just before he turned away from her.
“No you’re not and I can prove it to you!” Kana said forcefully, as she regained her composure slightly.
He turned back to her threateningly and asked, “How can you prove that?”
Kana stepped forward and grabbed both of his wrists and then brought both of his hands up to her throat, “If you’re the same man then finish what you started and kill me!”
He looked at her in stunned disbelief shaking his head no reflexively before ripping his hands free of her grasp and hurriedly stepping back from her several paces.
“That proves nothing!” He said less passionately, as if he didn’t quite believe it himself.
“It proves a great deal! That machine thing they hooked up to you is what controlled you to do the things that you have done, otherwise you would’ve killed me just now, but you can’t because you’re a good man at heart. The monsters, who put that device on you are the ones responsible for what they made you do! You are just a weapon in their hands to use, but now you have a chance to do something good with the very skills they taught you to kill us with and thus define who you truly are as a person!” Kana had advanced, as she had spoken pointing her finger passionately at him, until she was close enough to jab a finger against his hard chest with her last words.
He gazed at her and swallowed slightly, as he watched her breathe hard after delivering her impassioned speech and not for the first time he was overwhelmed by how beautiful she was, especially right now in her impassioned defense of his character. He wanted to continue to wallow in the self-hatred that came so easily in regards to the innocent blood that his hands had spilled, but she had left him no room to do so.
“What is it that you want me to do?” He asked softly in defeat.
Kana blinked, had she really just convinced him of his worth as a human being enough for him to throw in with them and stop from the quest of killing himself? Where was Zora when you needed her, thought Kana, as she scrambled to come up with an answer to his question.
Out of the darkness Zora’s aged voice spoke, “I need you to protect these girls Loric. I need you to lead them somewhere where they will be safe and you know where that is. It’s the only place left that still holds the secrets capable of defeating the enemy. It’s time to wake the Guardian. You alone know where she sleeps.” Zora had approached, as she had talked from out of the deeper shadows, until she stood in the slight light cast off from the moon that Loric and Kana stood in.
Kana looked from Zora to Loric and back again, a sense of awe overcoming her as she watched the two. Every nerve and muscle seemed to pulse within the Hunter’s body. Zora knew his name? Loric?
“Who are you and how do you know about the Guardian?” Kana heard the man called Loric breath out in question.
“I was your grandmother’s youngest sister. I was born a Ta’lont just as you were, only then my name wasn’t Zora, but instead it was Ellasantha.”
Kana watched Loric suck a deep breath in, as Zora held out her arms before her. “These arms rocked you to sleep when you were just a baby. I saw what happened that night Loric. I saw you rush to defend your mother being just a boy of seven years. I saw you carried away by the dark ships of the enemy. I and a few other survivors buried your mother next to your father. Little did I dare hope that you could have survived all this time, but when I saw you but a day ago I knew. You have the strength and bearing of character of your father and his father before him and so one dating back all the way to Tadias the great patriarch of our family. That you have come to us is no coincidence, but rather instead it is a sign from God to me of the excellence of His ways and His mercy that my old eyes should once again see the glory of my family bloodline continue on