Chapter 8 Sabbath of New Moon
Nebu moved deeper into the woods. The tree branches surrounded him. He felt like the forest swallowed him like a giant beast. Nebu was frightened of the eerie atmosphere. Yet he hastened his steps. He had to find the priestess of the Silver Moon quickly. Finding her was the only purpose of his journey. He had come far apart from his home already. He was thirsty and tired.
In the mist, he identified the face of a young woman. She wore black crows´ feathers over her head. Her face shone white like the moon disk above their heads. Nebu assumed that she was the priestess. But he didn´t know that it was Kaori. She stood ten meters apart from him. He didn´t recognize her at first sight. After studying her face for minutes, he realized that Kaori was the priestess.
Her black crow feather outfit seemed scary. It made her to appear non-human in his eyes. She wasn´t the same sweet girl as she used to. Something had changed in her innate nature. Something had gone wrong in her heart. He could sense it. He began to fear her.
Kaori lifted a stone in between her hands. She brought it up from the earth and pointed it towards the sky. She uttered a low moan, which resembled the sound produced by cows. He stared at her. Kaori threw the stone at him. She attempted to kill Nebu. Nebu avoided the stone, which hurled towards him.
Kaori started to laugh maliciously. She was evil. He knew it now for sure. Quickly, he left the place. He ran away from her as fast as he could. She had gone mad, while being alone in the forest for so long. The girl, whom he´d once loved, was a terrible witch.
On the way to the camp, Nebu looked at the sky. He didn´t see the moon anywhere. It was night of the dark moon. Suddenly, his cousin Chori came from behind a tree trunk. They met each other by accident. Chori´s expression was full of concern. He grabbed Nebu´s shoulder and tried to calm him down. Chori noticed Nebu´s devastated face. Blood dribbled from Nebu´s forehead. He´d been cut by one of the tree branches on his way.
“Are you hurt my king?” Chori asked.
“No, not so badly. I found Kaori in the forest. She threw a stone at me. She tried to kill me. I ran away.”
“That is so sad to hear. You shouldn´t go there alone ever. The place is dangerous. She is insane and that´s why she was abandoned from our group. Don´t you remember what she did in the past to that poor woman?”
“Yes, but I didn´t believe it at first. Now I think that she might have been the evil witch.”
“She is that for sure.”
Chori´s face revealed his terror. He was pale and sweating, like he´d just seen a ghost. They went inside Nebu´s cave. There they took warm water and ate cooked meat. They listened to the sounds of rain and thunder outside. All the children had moved away from the yard. They went hiding in the caves, where their parents waited. The people feared that they could get struck by lightnings. It had happened sometimes.
Nebu stared into the fire. His eyes looked empty. He couldn´t believe that Kaori was not there to defend him, but to hurt him. She´d turned against him. Nebu couldn´t forgive her. She was expelled from his tribe for good. He took a stick from the earth beside him. He began to draw a circle in between his legs. The circle resembled the sun with rays that he also added.
It is the time for the sun to rise and for the Crow Priestess to fall. He thought. I´m not going to let her to hurt anyone I know. Kaori is gone, and she will not return. She is possessed by a demon. He knew that he was right. It was his time to go to sleep. Nebu went to rest in his own place. Soon after closing his eyes, he fell asleep.
