The images from his nightmare swam before his eyes, images of blood, death, and decay, of misery and suffering. The whines of his injured and dying pack filled his ears. He howled and shut his eyes tight, not wanting his mind to conjure those horrible images.
He had to leave, Aceso hadn’t given him a choice, and it wasn’t her fault either. Those people that Kenneth must have sent to his valley were to blame. They were the invaders and it was them that had chased him out of his home and away from his pack.
They were fine, his pack was alive even though wolves were never truly safe. They hunted prey that could easily kill them, deer, antelope, and moose even. They sustained life shortening injuries and of course people would hunt and kill them for no more substantial reason than, “wolves kill our livestock and lower the value of the land.” Humans never did understand predators, and that included themselves in many ways. He was a glaring example of this. He hadn’t understood even a basic truth about himself. That realization had come almost too late.
As his panic subsided and his breathing slowed down into a more relaxed rhythm, he was able to open his eyes once again. The images of his nightmares had been even more vivid since the attack on his home under the mountain. The images could assault him at any time and they were so real. He fought with himself to steal himself against what he desperately hoped were false images. But there was a part of him, a seemingly growing part of himself that held himself more and more responsible for what had happed in his valley. He hadn’t returned and he was growing more and more anxious about what had happened to his first pack.
He took full measure of his surroundings now. The rocks around him were not even trying to feign being naturally formed. The rocks and formations around him were indeed man made and the stones that he could see, were laid with a definite pattern. After weeks of searching this maze of mountainous terrain, he may have finally found what he had sought all along.
He spent hours searching. He would trace a small outcropping of a boulder with his claws and move around following the lines rebuilding, in his mind at least, this place where people of some kind had lived and worked. The buildings were spaced out evenly and the rows in between them were straight, that ran perfectly along north south, and east west lines. So far, however he had only found some rubble and the ruined walls of some huts. He had a feel for the place, it was pretty sizable and it went on for who knows how much farther into the mountains. It was grand in size and scope and the people who had built it, had built it to last.
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
He searched and traced and followed the remains of things left behind as best he could. He wasn’t an archeologist and he had no idea what he was doing. But he searched through the night.
He was engrossed in the ground and the rocks therein; he hadn’t noticed that the peaks around him had started to lighten with the dawn of the new day. His entire will was bent on his nose and the scents that it was receiving as he sniffed the various minerals that he had no idea what they were or even what his nose could tell him. So deeply focused on his search that the warming temperature around him was completely lost to him.
The sunlight finally peaked over the mountain range, shining off the magnificently snowcapped peaks. The sun bathed the plateau that William had so diligently searched and all at once he was able to see the whole of the rock strew flat plain that he had searched. He stared in disbelief at the place, the rocks and boulders, and the peaks around him as they enjoyed the cold, golden bath of light from the life-giving orb high in the sky.
His frustration got the better of him and he slumped down against a large boulder. There was nothing here. If this was the great City Under the Clouds that he had been sent to find he had been sent in vain. He put his face in his giant clawed hands and heaved a heavy weary sigh. There was nothing here and he was bone tired.
So tired in fact he hadn’t noticed that he had spent the entire night in a fevered search and only after the bright morning sun peeked over the mountains had he realized just how long he had spent. He looked around him and saw nothing but rocks, clumps of stone here and there. Under the sunlight, the lost city he thought he had found looked like nothing but a strange flat space amidst the mountain range. And the stone formations he thought were the remains of buildings and walls were just random various outcroppings and stones littering the ground around him.
Had he really just spent the entire night searching and tracing clumps of stones and rocks? He had to laugh. His Lunar Mother had played a giant practical joke at his expense. He covered his wolf face in his claws and almost screamed into them. He had searched all night, and under the guiding light of the moon he had found what he wanted to find, a lost city in the Himalayas. Only to have that image and place reduced to rocks and perfectly natural stone formations in the light of the sun. He could do nothing but regret his missed night of sleep and wonder, Will this search ever end?
Standing up he looked around himself, marking the area as best he could in his mind, where the mountains around him were, the plateau he stood on and how the place felt. He would continue his search from this place when he returned in a day or two. For now, it was time to get back, take a well-deserved shower, and get some sleep.