Page 6 of Shadow Blind

After three cycles of drifting with one foot in, one foot out of the Shadow Realm, it surprised him she had not succumbed to her spirit children and joined them at the web of her ancestors. Once, her resistance to death had offered hope that her spirit might return to her, and thus to him.

That had not happened. And such hope was long gone.

“Do you train with Daniel today?” Wolf shot his second a quick glance.

“I do. He becomes more skilled with each rotation.” Pride shined in his Caetanee’s eyes. As it should. Samuel had been more father than uncle to the young one and coached him well.

As Jude had done for Wolf.

Perhaps he should join them. He could use the exercise of his mind and body. Samuel’s nephew had become a fine tactician, and a fine warrior, although he’d yet to set foot on his first aggress. It would be soon, though. The young one was ready.

“Betanee. Caetanee.”

A raspy, parchment-thin voice drew Wolf’s attention to the right. Milky eyes caught his gaze. He stopped and turned, instinctively bowing his head and shoulders. All elders were accorded respect for the cycles they had walked the Earth. But Benioko—the Taounaha or earthside voice of the Shadow Warrior—was due instant obedience as well.

The Taounaha’s visions led the Kalikoia. Not just the warriors who called Shadow Mountain home, but the entire tribe. He was the voice, ears, and eyes of the Shadow Warrior, and thus, the most influential of the Hee’woo’nee.

“Come,” the Old One said. Turning, he shuffled toward the utility vehicles parked at the charging station beside the cafeteria.

The shuffling was a fresh worry. So were the faded and filmed eyes. Once Benioko had stood tall, walked with pride—even arrogance. He had faced all challenges with fierce strength. But his years of walking the Shadow Realm and battling the younger gods hung heavy on him. The shaman had long since left the energy and health of youth behind. He had been old before Wolf had joined the warrior clans. He had one foot across the veil now.

As did Jillian.

With Samuel beside him, Wolf followed the Taounaha to an electric cart with seats for four. They climbed in, Benioko settling behind the wheel.

The fact that the Old One had addressed him and Samuel by their warrior designations, rather than their given names, meant this meeting was about warrior matters. Benioko silently confirmed that expectation when he drove the vehicle straight to Shadow Mountain Command.

Wolf listened to the whisper of the Taounaha’s shuffling steps, as they entered the decades old stone building and traversed the cold, echoing halls.

They entered the briefing room and took seats around the massive table. Wolf scanned the archaic wood, his eyes skimming over the names carved into the surface. Hundreds of names, each representing the spirit of a warrior—one who currently walked or had once walked these halls. His gaze easily found Jude’s name. His mentor. His mother’s brother. The loss of his anisbecco still stung his heart, even though the wound was three cycles old.

In the corner of the ancient wood were his and Samuel’s names. It was customary for young warriors to carve their name into the table of memory, but only after they survived the binding ceremony and joined the warriors’ neural web.

All warriors, in and out of the Shadow Realm, except for O’Neill and the four white warriors, were represented on the table. But then the four SEALs were not bound to the Neealaho. And while O’Neill had survived the binding ceremony and joined the warrior clans, he was an outsider, an unwelcome addition to the Neealaho. O’Neill knew this; thus, his absent name from the table of memory.

Wolf still did not understand why Benioko had forced the jie’van upon them.

Custom dictated that the Taounaha speak first, so Wolf and Samuel waited for the Old One to gather his thoughts. As he waited, Wolf studied the crevices digging into Benioko’s forehead. His gaze dropped to the lines bracketing the ancient one’s nose and cheeks. He recognized the vacant look in the elder’s eyes, and the exhaustion folding his face. The slow, shuffling gait he noted earlier came to mind. All were signs of a splintered soul.

Benioko had spirit walked again. And recently. It often took several rotations for the Taounaha to reclaim the pieces of his spirit from the Shadow Realm.

Wolf straightened in concern. It was never wise to walk among the shadow gods without an attendant—someone versed in drawing the spirit back into the physical realm. Sometimes the ancestors were capricious, or the tricksters paid a visit, or the younger shadow gods refused to allow return.

Since Jude’s death, he had attended the elder during the crossing ceremonies. He bore witness as the shaman pierced the veil to the Shadow Realm and consulted with the Shadow Warrior.

Yet, the last request to attend the Old One was long ago.

“Last night, the Shadow Warrior walked my dreams. He showed me a rising darkness, one that will blot out all peoples, across every web of life,” the Old One said, his voice tattered and thin.

Wolf jolted upright in his chair. He must have misunderstood. The Shadow Warrior did not seek out his earthside mouthpiece. His Taounaha went to him through dreams, or if the mind and spirit were fatigued, through the crossing ceremony and the ritual smoke.

Benioko read Wolf’s shock and offered a single solemn nod. “He came to me. In my sleep. I did not seek him out.”

Wolf tensed. If the Shadow Warrior had invaded Benioko’s dreams, something was very wrong in the waking world. So wrong, the elder gods had interfered.

“What did the Shadow Warrior show you?” Wolf asked, dread drilling down to his bones.

“He showed me Hokalita swallowed by a new—” the Old One paused, and frowned, as though contemplating his words. “People,” he finally said. “A people unlike any before. Dead, yet not dead. Connected by thought as one mind, like our sisters the ants and bees. They rise as few but multiply to many and lay waste to all peoples, from all places and customs. They become the one, the only. A swarm of locusts across sister earth.”

---