Page 13 of Moon Chosen

But instead of offering the sacrifice to the Watcher as expected, Dead Eye abruptly stood, brandishing the triple-tipped dagger he drew from its sheath at his waist. As the Watchers gasped in horror, he bent the rodent back so that its body strained to form a crescent, and with a deft motion slit the creature’s throat. Hot scarlet blood spewed, arching up and up so that it splattered the Reaper’s face.

“She cries! Dead Eye’s sacrifice has made the God cry!”

From the corners of the balcony on which the statue perched, Her Watchers rushed forward, jostling one another to get a closer look.

“Why? Why have you caused the God to cry?” several of the old women asked fearfully.

“Can you not answer that question?” Dead Eye’s voice was filled with disgust. “Does She not speak through you?”

The lead Watcher’s eyes narrowed. “Do you dare to question the Watchers of the God?”

Dead Eye stood, tossing the still warm body of the rodent onto one of the many fire pits. He ignored the lead Watcher. The rest of them were mute, staring at him with a mixture of horror and fright, while others poked sticks into the fire pit to retrieve the burning rodent entrails, sucking them noisily into their ravenous mouths. They were revolting. What were they but fear-filled old women in sick, wrinkled skin sacks that proclaimed they were past fertile years, past harvesting, past life? Lithely, he jumped up on the lip of the Reaper’s ledge and looked down at the People.

They were milling with nervous excitement, having taken up the cry of the Watchers, “She cries! She cries!” They stared up at Dead Eye, their eyes catching the reflection of the flickering firelight and sparkling like glowworms in a sea of pale faces.

“She cries with joy because Her Champion has finally appeared!” Dead Eye’s voice was a clarion trumpet that silenced the People. “I have prayed for strength. I have prayed for guidance. I have been answered!”

The most ancient of the Watchers approached him, her sallow, sagging face set in disapproving lines.

“It is only for the Watchers to say whether the God has spoken.” Her voice was so shrill that Dead Eye felt it like daggers. “Now go! If the God needs a Champion, he will be chosen as all is chosen for the People, though our reading of the sacrificial entrails.”

“You mean through what you decree. And what is it you old women decree except the same things you’ve been saying for generations? But are the People better for your words, or is it only a select few, you Watchers, who gain from them?” Dead Eye said.

“Blasphemy! Blasphemy! Blasphemy!” the Watchers began to chant in their pathetic old voices.

“I agree! Blasphemy has been committed against the Reaper, but Her Champion will right this wrong that has gone on far too long.” Dead Eye’s deep, powerful voice cut through the whispering women, as easily as his trident sliced through living flesh. “Look at me! Look at my skin! I did not sit idly by, waiting for one of the Others to wander close enough to the City to be taken. I Harvested a stag and our God rewarded me. I have absorbed it. I am the stag, just as the stag is me!” He held open his arms for all the Watchers to see. “Bare yourselves and prove that our Reaper shows you favor as well.”

The old woman made a dismissive gesture with her long, skeletal fingers. “I am a Watcher of the God. You are a mere Harvester. I need not show you anything.”

“Did you not hear me? I am Her Champion!” With no hesitation Dead Eye sprang forward. Lifting the Watcher by her scrawny waist he hurled her up, impaling her on the three-tipped spear the statue held above them. As the old woman shrieked and writhed in the agony of her death throes, Dead Eye closed on the other Watchers. Panicked, they tried to flee from him, but he caught each easily, throwing them from the balcony to the broken pavement below.

Filled with righteous power, Dead Eye leaped to the ledge again, this time standing intimately within the curve of the Reaper’s beckoning arm, as if She embraced him.

“Does anyone else dispute my right to be Champion?”

Scattered around the bleeding, broken bodies of the dying Watchers, the People fell to their knees. Dead Eye memorized each face, noting who remained and who had disappeared into the shadows of the night-shrouded City. He was pleased to see the younger People had stayed. He was equally pleased to see that Turtle Man and the rest of the old ones were absent.

Good. He had no use for the weak and dying.

“We do not dispute you!” First one voice lifted, and then another and another. “We do not dispute you! We do not dispute you!” the People took up the chant.

Dead Eye basked in their worship, smiling down at them beatifically as his mind whirred with the limitless possibilities the future held.

5

High above the forest floor, the female stirred. She uncurled herself from around the last of her littermates—the only other pup who had yet to choose a Companion. She snuffled at him, breathing in the familiar, comforting scents of their whelping nest, their mother, and the raw rabbit on which they had both recently fed. The big male pup sighed, yawned, and rolled a little toward her before putting his paw over his nose and drifting back to sleep. For a moment the female almost allowed the pull of sleep to reclaim her as well, but thecallsounded through her body again, and this time it was more insistent.

She must not sleep. The young canine must find the one who would be her partner, her life, her Companion.

The door to the whelping nest was closed against the coolness that was coming with the lengthening of shadows. She sat before it and barked twice, two sharp bursts of sound that were far from the puppy-like yaps that had been her norm until that evening. From a cozy spot near the opening, the man who had been drowsing came instantly awake—as did the big Shepherd that lay curled beside him.

“Finally!” Pleasure filled the Guardian’s voice as he quickly patted his canine’s head and then untied and lifted aside the pelt curtain that served as door to the whelping nest. The man’s expression telegraphed excitement to the pup. She met his eyes, body trembling as she waited impatiently. Then the man smiled and gave her the most important command of her young life,“Seek!”

With no hesitation, the female leaped from inside the nest onto the narrow walkway outside and began to run. The Guardian, with his canine close behind, called ahead of them, “The female has begun the choosing! It is time!”

The Tribe often debated what it was that compelled a pup to find its Companion. Was it something in the look of a particular person? Something unique about their scent? Or was it luck mixed, perhaps magickally, with fate? Had the Tribe been able to share the moments just before choosing with the pup the factions would have been surprised to learn that neither and both were correct.

“Clear the walkway! Clear the walkway! The female is choosing!” The Guardian cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, warning the people who were slowly meandering to their nests thinking more of the beauty of the waning sunlight and the aromas of simmering meals than of the young canine who ran silently and swiftly along the winding walkways with a single-minded goal.