Riverwatch

Chapter Twelve: Bloodstone

The dream begins innocently enough.

In her sleep, Katelynn moves through an amusement park with Jake at her side. Sights and sounds slip past in a kaleidoscope of activity. Flashing lights, turning wheels, the harsh bark of a carny’s voice. They ride the Tilt-a-Whirl, then the Viking Longboat. Jake wins her a teddy bear by knocking down milk bottles with a softball. It is a typical dream, skipping from scene to scene with no real connectivity, yet somehow making sense just the same.

Suddenly, a flashing red light intrudes from the other side of the carnival. A light so sharp, so insistent, that Katelynn is drawn irrevocably toward it. Jake fades into obscurity behind her as she moves out of his reach. The light draws her forward, and the cacophony on all sides slips away into oblivion as all of her attention is tied up in chasing that insistent beacon.

In reality, Katelynn tosses and turns beneath the sheets, the ruby red stone about her throat pulsing with light.

She sleeps on and the carnival fades away, replaced with a thick gray haze that swirls around her in lazy spirals, shifting and churning. The light shines before her, closer now, hidden somewhere in the depths of that mist.

Katelynn stumbles in after it.

The haze shifts, and Katelynn finds herself standing before the light as it hangs motionless in the air before her. It shines vividly, cutting through the murk, pulsing with an eerie life. Katelynn watches as her arm lifts of its own accord and reaches to touch it…

She soars high above the ground, carried aloft like a glider tossed into a storm. The wind is cool, flickering across her flanks in a silken caress. The sky around her is dark with heavy rain-laden clouds extending out to the horizon, shutting out the afternoon light, for which she is thankful.

The storm comes on fast, without warning, and she rejoices in the opportunities it could bring.

She drops lower, riding one of the storm’s savage currents in a swift, sickening drop that plunges her several hundred feet in seconds, the air screaming past her ears with a shrill, bestial shriek. She recovers easily; swooping along now just above the tree line, following the trail she sees below her, knowing that it was often used by those she sought.

Movement catches her attention.

She shifts lower, mere feet above the ground now, and angles off to the left in order to intercept whatever it is. A moment or two and the thing comes into view.

It is an antelope, with long curving horns atop its head and a brown and golden coat. It is part of a herd, which comes into view as she sails over the head of the first animal. Her presence starts them milling about, nervous but not yet panicked. As a group they collectively wait to see what she will do, watching her closely with upturned heads.

She has better sport this night, however, and she glides over their heads without giving them another thought.

She regains some altitude, and uses the warmer currents to glide and detect movement on the plain beneath. A dark, scorched section of earth can be made out to the west, and she notes it with a sort of grim satisfaction. Her enemies had once lived there, in a great sprawling city that stood as a fortress against her kind, but had finally fallen in a glorious battle. The streets of that city had flown red with the blood from those fed upon that night.

Not long after she passed the city, she spotted what she was looking for. A thin column was moving along the path, at this height little more than specks in motion. She had hunted here before and knew that she had found her target.

She swooped closer, and counted fourteen of the herd moving in tandem the way the Elders had taught them. They found a certain level of protection in this fashion, occasionally managing to fend off an attack with the help of the four-legged animals that traveled with them. It didn’t happen often, but it also didn’t hurt to assess the situation before attacking.

Another of the Na’Karat was trailing this group, she noticed, a large male, hanging off to the side, watching just as she was. From the haste of the group below, they had obviously seen him, and were now trying to reach a sheltered location before he attacked. The fool, she thought. He had allowed himself to be seen too soon and was now simply compounding the error. He would lose his chance if he did not engage soon.

She decided to make her move before he could.

She flew overhead and began to circle the group. Below, the cattle swiftly pulled in their ranks, moving to form a large circle with the weakest in the center and the strong on the rim, just as the Elders had taught them.

It would do them no good.

She spotted a straggler, an offspring by the size, tens of yards away from the group and moving slowly. She smiled, her tongue flicking across her teeth. That would be the one.

She folded her wings and dropped toward the earth.

Her victim was twenty feet from the group when she struck.

Unfolding her wings, she used the resistance of the wind to slow her descent abruptly, so she seemed to appear out of nowhere directly in front of it. As expected, it froze in place for a moment.

That was all the time she needed.

She swung one of her arms around in a blinding fast arc, the talons on the end of each finger extended.

She shrieked with satisfaction as flesh tore, blood flew, and the stench of pain rose into the air…

Katelynn awoke screaming in her bed.

She knew instantly she’d had a nightmare; her heart was thundering in her chest and her body was soaked with sweat.

She had only a fleeting recollection of what it had been about, however, and that quickly slipped away as she tried to get herself under control.

She got up and went into the bathroom. Using a facecloth soaked in cool water, she wiped her upper body down and splashed some water on her face. Her heartbeat slowly returned to normal.

By the time she climbed back into bed, the dream was no more. It had slipped away as swiftly as the morning dew under the summer sun.

Five minutes later she was fast asleep.

It had been the first of the dreams, but it would not be the last.

Across town, the beast turned in his sleep, his dream disturbed by an unwanted presence.

It lasted no more than a moment, however, and the creature never fully awoke, preferring to sink back into his memories of another time and place.

He gave the presence not another thought.