An Offering for Revenge: Pt. 4
A Life is Spared
The Civil Peace Officer met Si Hotep’s vacant gaze in the mid-morning light. Despite the horrible wounds that covered his body, Si seemed to be awake and aware.
The family alerted the authorities at sunrise when Si did not return the night before. Em-tiri waited at her door with her sons as Kel and Una talked with the guard, sent out to investigate. Blood was everywhere.
“What could do such a thing?” Kel asked the officer for the fourth time.
“These look to be the tracks of a jackal.” The officer answered, again.
“I’ve never heard of a jackal attacking anyone; they are carrion eaters.” Una was frustrated, and sick at what he saw before him. “Besides a jackal is a rather small animal to attack a grown man, could father been attacked by a pack?”
The officer considered Una’s words patiently. “There are only one set of tracks leading here, and one leading away.” The officer was an experienced hunter as well as a soldier; he well knew the signs of an ambush, and the wounds that came with them. “Lady Em-tiri, what did you hear last night?”
“I heard the growling of a beast, and Master Hotep screaming. It was terrible; it seemed to last forever.” She carefully watched the faces of the sons of Hotep cringe at her words. She wanted to say something that would cut even deeper into the spawn of Hotep, but she did not have the words.
“And you did nothing?!” Kel cut her off in a condemning voice. “You could have offered him shelter!”
The officer observed her as Em-tiri tried to comfort the raving son. “I’m sorry Kel, I would certainly have opened my door last night, but there was a mad beast out there, and I feared for the safety of my two sons.” Besides, there was also a big mean jackal; she did not say out loud.
***
The sun was falling in the sky. Kel had been restless all day. He had practically emptied the kitchen’s stores of beer, yet was still painfully sober. There was something about his father’s death that bothered him. More than the horror he saw this morning. The issue that bothered him was that if a jackal had gone through the trouble of killing his father, why didn’t it eat him.
Considering this point made Kel want another drink. As he pushed this issue away, he considered the comments from one of the embalmer’s assistants as he and his younger brother were leaving the temple earlier that day. They had left their father’s remains with the priest for holy preservation and heard one of the assistants comment how easy it would be to remove the necessary organs, but all the more difficult to stitch the pieces of Master Hotep back to gather. The comment still made Kel dizzy.
The sun was going down, Kel once again checked the shutters and locks on at the doors for the 10th time. He was alone in the main house. All the servants had left for the evening, along with his younger brother.
***
As the western sky changed from a deep magenta to a dark blue, a pair of sharp ears perked atop a ridge overlooking the House of Hotep.
There was so much that was new to this creature. Stabbing a pointed snout into the air, he breathed in the odor of the oldest son. In another life, he was around this smell all the time, yet he never considered it. The pointed ears could also hear him stirring nervously inside the main house; he could even hear Kel’s terrified heart pounding in the chest.
The beast narrowed his eyes onto the front door, shut tight against the night then launched its self from the hilltop, eager for the night’s game.
***
Kel jerked himself awake; the sound was faint but clear. Paws scratched against the hard sun-baked ground. Before he could jump from his chair, there was a violent scratching at the door. Then the shutters of the front window, then around the side of the house.
Kel’s breath quickened, sweat began to pour from his brow. “Somebody! HELP!!” His voice echoed to an empty courtyard.
Then, a guttural growl came from the front door. Kel saw black paws digging into the hard-packed earth under the front door. A sharp black snout poked into the opening, teeth snarling.
He smashed a chair onto the intruding snout, or at least at the empty hole that once held it. A wild barking answered his failed attack.
Kel backed away from the door and nervously followed the tapping claws around the walls. Sounds of intrusion seemed to blanket the entire house, first at the front, then the side, the back then front again.
He ran to the back room grabbing a bench to answer another clawing sound but found silence as he entered. The intruder had given up as quickly as it had started. A deep sigh of relief escaped from Kel’s chest, then jumped back in as he raised his eyes.
A small hole in the ceiling was scratched away, with the animal standing just to the side... On the ceiling.
Kel watched in amazement as the hound stared down at him as though he had just chased a small animal up a tree. A thick rope, doubled, dangled from the beast’s jaws.
“Where did you get that?” The jackal approached with short leisure steps, backing the eldest son into the front room, where he stumbled over a small table. The rope landed in his lap, signaling the beginning of the game.
A deep snarl came down from the animal as it lowered into a crouch. Kel grabbed the rope and swung wildly at the beast that scampered above him.
The jackal ran around the sides of the room, leaving a dusty trail of paw prints on the walls. When it reached the floor, it turned into Kels attack with a playful leap. Sharp teeth ripped into the face of the oldest Hotep, who fell back over the small table.
The jackal charged its victim, lying helpless atop the shatter wooden stand, then inches from the unprotected throat, it stopped. Kel laid helpless and unconscious.
‘That’s it?’ A deep, frustrated whining growl burned from the belly of the beast. The game was over before it had begun.
***
Kel’s eyes opened slowly, fighting the fog that followed a beer binge. Awareness was met with pain that seared across his entire frame announcing that he still lived.
A blurry shadow of his father’s mutilated body appeared to Kel for a moment. He shook this vision away to realize that his own face was covered with deep scratches. His one working eye could still see, unfortunately.
In every direction, he saw a crimson smear marking the floor, the furniture, and walls. As the realization settled, he saw, sitting on the desk, the black hound staring down in judgment on him.
The jackal was chewing on something trapped between its paws — a hand. Suddenly, Kel was much more aware of the pain running up his right side, but not all the way to the end of his arm. His breathing quickened as he swore that he would not look there.
A pointed snout turned towards then awake from Kel.
“I’m alive?” Kel croaked.
The animal hopped off the desk and made for the front of the house. Nuzzling a shattered chair away from the door, it walked up the wall and began scratching at the door bolt, as though it were a root sticking out of the ground. The door opened. The animal looked back at Kel, then scampered into the night.
“I’m alive,” Kel said quietly in disbelief. “You didn’t kill me.”
The creature had been busy that night. It had mauled Kel terribly, but not mortally. The oldest Hotep tried to pull himself to his feet but found it hard. His legs didn’t want to cooperate. He looked down to see his legs shredded from the jackal’s paws and teeth, yet he could not feel them. The memory of falling back on the table floated back to him.
A few moments passed, then the Jackal returned. With a passing glance at Kel, it hopped onto the desk and returned to the statue-like perch it previously held.
“This is how you’re going to leave me?” Kel sobbed into the unblinking eyes on the desk. They considered each other for a time. Something stirred near the front door. Kel turned his one good eye to find a dozen or so youthful eyes staring back at him. Between each pair, a pointed black snout.
The jackal pups looked up to the perch where the one who had called them sat.
The elder Jackal met the collective gaze of the pups. He poked his tongue out and ran once across the front of its pointed snout.
In response, the pups licked their snouts in perfect unison, then as one, turned to face Kel, laying in the middle of the room.
“No.” Kel shook his head. “I’m not dead.”
The pups slowly spilled into the house, smelling the blood around the room.
The broken body tried to pull himself away.
“Stay away-- STAY AWAY!”
Little tungs began lapping at the open wounds on his legs and torso. Kel swatted at the tiny invaders with his stump that once held the double rope. He was shocked to see a protruding bone taking the place of his hand. The pups playfully leaped and nipped at the bloody sleeve as though he were teasing a house dog with a stick to fetch.
Kel’s broken frame was soon covered with feasting dogs.
“I’m not dead,” he cried. “I’M NOT DEAD! STAY AWAY!”
The Jackal watched.