128. Bloody moonwalk

More than a thousand years ago, during the time of the Great King Athira, almost all members of the hegin people surrendered to the great warlord, who led his people towards the Karrabata at the head of his troops. However, his troops were not the first in line. Several smaller units served as outposts. The family of Kamu, Kele, and Keche were among the members of one of these smaller outposts.

"As you know, contrary to what people believe, demons and daimons in the Shadow World do have a rank and live in a system." Their father explained to the two barely eight-year-old boys, on the shore of the lake at the edge of their outpost camp, where they had always gone to practice since they had camped here.

"The system of chaos." Kele said enthusiastically, his eyes sparkling.

"Exactly." His father agreed.

"And yet only this village knows about it. Seriously, how stupid can you humans be?" A ghost about four steps away from Kamu sighed. The little boy looked in his direction for a moment, grumpily, before picking up a stone and throwing it at him.

"Kamu, please! I know you find it boring, but it is important that you understand why our family follows Athira." His father scolded the boy. "The daimon king himself is at the head of the Shadow World's chaos. Our ancestor, the ghost king, helped the daimon king rise to power, sacrificing himself so that the leader of the daimons could rise. As his descendants, it is our duty to follow the man who is the favorite of the daimon king himself." The children's father explained, raising his right index finger.

"Dad, dad, if we are descendants of the ghost king, then why are we humans?" Kele asked, scratching his head. The boy's father just stroked the child's head.

"My dear boy, because the ghost king is a special being. He can come back to life, he is not dead, but not alive either. Once when he did so, as a man he chose a woman as his wife, she became our ancestrial mother. Our family, the Teike family's ability come straight from the ghost king." The man said.

"She was an adorable girl." The ghost, who didn't move even though Kamu hit him with the stone, smiled.

"When she grows up, will Keche also study with us?" Little Kele asked, pointing back to the camp, where the children's newborn sister slept in one of the tents under the care of their mother.

"No, my dear by." The man shook his head. "Girls can't use the Teike ability." He sighed, then clapped his hands. "So let's try again. Put on the ghost form." He gave the order, and the two little boys closed their eyes at the same time, summoning the power from their blood that enables the Teikes to leave their bodies.

The two little boys had been learning how to use their ghost forms since they were four years old. In the first three years of their training, they had not yet succeeded in taking on a ghost form. And for the past year, they had practiced taking on a ghost form as quickly as possible. At their father's request, about half an hour later, two completely blue-eyed children stood in front of the adult man, with fish swimming in their blue eyes.

"Perfect. Now take a walk. I'll meet you on the other side. Don't move the surface of the water." Their father said happily, as he set off towards the other side of the lake, and the two boys set off on the lake's surface to the other side.

The water rippled under their feet, sometimes, but much less than when they first stepped on the water's surface a year ago. The Teike family had never been afraid of death, even though they had seen the last images of their coming death in their eyes, they usually happily awaited that moment. They believed that if a Teike died and was strong enough, then as a hungry ghost they would have the opportunity to serve alongside the first Teike, the ghost king.

So the two boys were not afraid of the lake beneath their feet, even if they clearly saw images of the bottom of the water in their eyes. As part of their daily training, they walked the entire lake surface twice, so that day they walked the entire lake, then ran two laps around it, and then helped out at the camp, and one of them, Kamu, found time to take a nap under a tree. It was all like any other ordinary day. As evening came, the men of the camp gathered to go on a moonwalk. Sleep slowly fell upon the camp, and then the two Teike boys were shaken awake by their mother.

"We don't have time, hurry up." The woman said in a worried voice as she picked up Keche, who was just starting to cry, and hurried to the tent in the center of the camp with the two boys at her heels. All the people of the camp had gathered in the tent. "Stay here. The men will be back soon. I will hold them up." The children's mother announced seriously, looking at the other women and children, then turning to her sons and placing little Keche in Kele's hands. "Take care of your sister." She tried to smile at the children before turning her back on them and leaving the tent.

The silence of the night was soon broken by the sounds of horses neighing in pain. Everyone in the camp knew that the matron of the Teike family came from the village of the guta summoners. The guta, was a black poisonous liquid covering everything that it touched. Of the women left in the camp, she was the only one who could fight, the others were all ordinary women and children. All the men and boys who could fight were on a moonwalk.

Time seemed to slow down, the painful cries of horses and people could be heard, thanks to which the whimpering children covered their ears. Kele kept rocking little Keche to try to calm the constantly crying baby. Little Kamu was getting more and more nervous, with each slowly passing minute. His nervousness reached a point where he finally couldn't take it anymore and slipped out of the tent as quietly as he could. However, he had barely reached the nearest tent when someone caught him by the clothes.

"Where do you think you're going? You'll kill yourself." The ghost that caught him growled.

"Teike?" The boy swallowed hard, and the ghost rolled his eyes.

"Yes, it's me. You can't go any closer." He announced, but little Kamu still tried to free himself, even though the ghost wouldn't let him. Then the night was shaken by a cry, then loud screams filled the camp, before Teike let little Kamu go. "I'm sorry." He whispered slowly fading.

The child started running in the direction of the cry with wide, worried eyes, he recognized the voice - that voice was his mother's voice. He only had to run past two tents to see his mother lying on the ground and in the distance their attackers fighting with men who had just returned from a moonwalk.

However, Kamu didn't care about the fighters. He ran straight to his mother and fell to his knees beside her. The woman took a deep breath, then looked up at her own son in surprise when he took her hand and tried to help her sit up. Tears were streaming down little Kamu's face.

"Mom, don't go, mom, please! Mom!" He shook his mother, hoping to keep the slowly blinking woman awake. His mother gently caressed the boy's face, wiped away his tears and smiled up at him.

"I love you, my little one, I love you very much." She whispered, then coughed. "Tell your father it's not his fault." The last words of her life left her mouth, before her body went limp. Little Kamu screamed loudly and began to sob, unable to see the ghost woman standing next to her, whose eyes were filled with the face of her own son.