18. A Battle to be Won
While the images tried to evade my mind, her face would suddenly appear. A face I haven’t seen in years, yet it was still so clear to me like it was just yesterday that I had last seen her. She was so young then and I couldn’t help wonder what she looked like now matured. It was a lost hope that she would still be there, but it was all I had at the moment.
To be able to see her again, even to wish her happiness should she already have a family of her own was all I wanted. To give this desperate and lonely heart a closure it was seeking. To be able to move on. I didn’t understand why I had been so fixated on her, but she had been a beacon of light every time I set my eyes on her small frame, watching her there at the river as she washed the sheets.
I could still picture the way her soft hair, because it looked so soft to me, gently grazed her cheek from the wind, the way she reached up her arm to wipe the sweat off her brow, and the determination that creased her forehead as she did her best at her task.
Everything was etched like a pencil drawing into my mind, never to be erased or forgotten. And I wish I had at least the courage to hop over that wall and introduced myself and gotten her name. Now, I may never be able to receive it or even see her ever again.
A long deep eerie howl suddenly pierces the air causing the hairs on my body to stand with attention and a nervousness that wasn’t there before. Every single person stiffened as we all looked far out in the fields.
There, standing in the middle of nowhere, was a lone figure that was too massive to be a human body. With my senses I could see him clearly, even though the bright moonlight casted a shadow over half his frame, his eyes still pierced with vivid brightness of a deeper purple than my own. Seeing them in the flesh sent shivers of disgust down my spine and I was suddenly very uncomfortable.
Then it dawns on me that this creature, that was once a man, had been the cause of my mother’s demise. Because he had attacked her, she had to live the rest of her pregnancy locked up in a small palace to be shunned by my father, only being kept alive in hopes that I was born normal.
Which I turned out anything but.
It was because of him that I was raised to be isolated and hated by so many people. My people, who only looked at me with fear and contempt of what I was. Something I had absolutely no power over.
I take a deep breath as I stared at the lone creature, until thundering sounds in the distance and the anxiety begins to fill me when hundreds, no thousands, of more like him show up from the forests that laid behind. The air spears with their howls and before any of us could comprehend their presence they all start charging at us, quaking the earth with their thunderous feet.
I could sense the panic all around me, some trying to stay brave, others full on freaking out as they start to cry in hysterics wanting to ran away. So, I close my eyes and calm myself, envisioning a deep reservation that I was having a hard enough time doing for my own sake and I release that feeling of determination, a cause to stop this once and for all to everyone around me.
Slowly the panic-stricken warriors breathed a giant sigh of peacefulness as they come to terms that this is what needs to be done and with that in force, I look down to Shenzu, who was staring up at me with a bright smile.
“Now, those are the eyes of our salvation.” He whispers, then looks dead forward with an even more determined expression I had never seen him wear before.
I wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but Achak grabs my attention when he suddenly cries out a very loud war cry with his tongue, brandishing what looked like some kind of weapon that was made of stone, wood and leather encouraging his men as they follow to do the same.
“For King Henry and our homeland of England!” Lucian follows right after, stabbing his long giant sword into the air, his men following suit.
Rudina just screams loudly, and she was the one who broke the dam as she charges forward with a look of pure loathing at the creatures that were near upon us. I watch with wide eyes as they all start thundering towards them not even realizing that Pierre and the others had followed.
Cho Cho side steps and snorts in all the excitement, just as disturbed as I felt at seeing something so extraordinary. After blinking for a few minutes I get my head in the battle and look behind me to see my people still hanging back, looking to me for guidance.
For once Taewon looked terrified, but there was a light in his eyes that shone bright with excitement. He looks over to me and simply nods, his face turning dead serious. I nod back and face my people fully.
“I know you all are scared. I don’t blame you for I’m scared as well. But know this that I will do everything in my power to keep you safe. I wasn’t born with these abilities with no purpose. I truly believe that that,” I point right at Lycaon that was hell bent on reaching all of us, “is what I was created for. To destroy an evil that has been roaming freely, killing, kidnapping, and turning against people’s will for greed and hatred. So…please stay by my side and help me vanquish an evil that was placed on our homeland. I need your help, so will you help and fight with me?”
At first no one speaks, until one of the younger trainees, who was still clearly shaking in fear, nods his head and bows to me slightly. “For all of Korea.” He states and soon others begin to do the same.
“Good. Now we should join the others. They don’t seem to want to wait on you.” Shenzu points a thumb over his shoulder where the battle finally collides and the air was riddled with loud clangs of metal, bone crushing, and growls.
I whip my head back to them. “Stay close to me!” I yell and before anymore could be said, I roughly turn Cho Cho towards the fight and spear the horse into the fastest gallop he could manage and I hear my men scream out just as loudly as the others.
And flanking on my sides were the imperial guards that took it upon themselves to take over the front of the line, readying their bows with arrows to fire right into the fray, with Taewon just to my right.