Role

Chapter 4

Days and weeks passed and Nikravnek got by, catching rats, mice and insects.
He would forage for what he needed and bask in the sun, shelter in caves from
the rain and lived like a near animal. He would dream of a beautiful land that
ran with the blood of all the city folk he now despised. The fauna and flora
would help sustain him until he could rise again from the blood and ashes of
the cities.

He would often awake miles from where he had fallen asleep. A sleep when
he dreamed of running in this new world like a beast of the forest.

One night after he had eaten some snake, soft bark and mushrooms he lay by
the river and drifted in and out of sleep. Then he saw her, a vision of beauty
standing naked, but for water covering her body like clothing. Her hair waved
in the still air and her eyes were black like limpet pools of time. She spoke to
him saying 'I am a dreamwalker Nikravnek and I have missed you these long
years, only watching my son from his dreams, but never daring to speak unless
I frighten you never to dream again.'
Nikravnek was stunned. This woman is his mother?
'How can you be my mother, she is dead?' he half asked, half stated.

She smiled and spoke again 'I did not die from the fall on the horse, but
instead I slept too deeply for the healers to rouse me and live my life in the
world of dreams, free of cities and beasts like your father. I was a possession
of his, a trophy without love, wanted only for others to admire and to provide
him with an heir. I could not stand to live a captive life even with my love for
you, my son. The city men who hurt you, hurt me too but worse than that they
hurt the mother earth, ripping her open and pillaging her bounty with relish.

'Use your hatred of them to bring the cities down, find inside you the little
power you inherited from me' Nikravnek interrupted 'What Power?'
and she smiled sympathetically 'You wake often miles from where you sleep?'
Nikravnek nodded, 'And you dream of running like a beast in the forest?'
Nikravnek nodded again, 'This is your power Nikravnek, you have the spark
of a dreamwalker in you, a shapeshifter some call them, but it is a power that
you can learn to control and bring the city men to their knees before gutting
them'.

The last words spoken were acidic enough to cut through steel but as
Nikravnek tried to ask one last question a huge roar pulled him from his sleep.
He awoke with a start, and the taste of blood in his mouth. A dead rabbit lay at
his feet, its throat ripped out. Nikravnek looked to the mushrooms he had left
in his pocket and then to the rabbit. Confusion was written all over his face.