Valley of Bones by Eric Wilson

Author:Eric Wilson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2010-09-13T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Columbia River Gorge, Oregon

Kransberg was a mangy mess.

Hidden by trees along the moonlit Columbia River, Natira considered the brute and the best ways to manage his appearance. He was as tall as his father, though bent by deformities at his knees and spine, and his fingernails and teeth were formidable weapons, curved and razored for easy disembowelment. Between fleas and clumps of mud-caked hair, he was no better than a dog. Or a werewolf, for that matter.

“You make Shabtai look like a puppy,” Natira said.

A few years back, a teen male from their cluster had explored the possibilities of lupine hosts. Shabtai had prowled Romania’s Carpathian foothills and assumed increasingly wolfish traits until there was little distinction between him and the legendary vircolac. In the end, though, he’d been vanquished.

Natira’s mouth turned dry. Once they were finished here, he would see that his needs were met.

First, he wanted to be certain this was his progeny. If Kransberg was his own, with undead roots in his veins, he should be nearly indestructible, able to be revitalized by a sip of his father’s blood. Natira stepped forward. He stared into the monster’s eyes, and it was like staring into his own black soul.

He said: “You are Kransberg.”

“I . . . Kransberg.”

“Yes, very good.”

“I . . . good.”

“Not too good, let’s hope.”

He moved another step closer and still Kransberg showed no fear, accustomed to his role as apex predator in this forested terrain. Natira was pleased, both as warrior and father, but that didn’t stop him from ripping a branch from the tree trunk on his right and swinging it into his son’s hairy thorax.

Small twigs snapped away on impact, while the wood’s blunt force drove a roar from Kransberg’s mouth. Betrayal welled in his eyes. Confusion.

“I assume you are my son, yes,” Natira said. “But what’re you made of ?”

Kransberg hunched lower, his expression that of a child wanting to please, his eyes searching yet chilled by a void. Chances were he’d picked up some words, even sentences, from hikers passing through the woods over the decades, but his comprehension level was still up for debate.

“Our human connection means nothing.” Natira slapped a hand across the stubbled face. “Is that clear?”

This time, anger erupted in a howl.

Slap!

A low snarl.

Slap-slappp!

The creature absorbed the blows in silence now, his bent spine stiff, his feet planted, head jerking and tool pouch swaying from the force of his father’s gargantuan palm while eyes turned sharp as flint.

“That’s better, my son. If I think you need toughening, you will take it like a man—or whatever it is you are.”

“I . . . Kransberg.”

“Come, now,” Natira said. “Come here.” He stretched out both arms, clasped them behind the boy’s neck as though drawing him into an embrace, then jerked that large head down into a pistoning knee.

Blood sprayed from Kransberg’s nose. He wobbled back, blinked twice, and narrowed his gaze onto his abuser.

“Are you a warrior, I wonder?”

Kransberg gave no reply.

Natira coiled his body to the left, then whipped back around with a jagged elbow aimed at his son’s temple.

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