Chapter 1

This ride had worn him out good. It was bad enough having to ride for three weeks without pausing, but to have to do it under the Patagonian sun... He didn't like sun at all. In fact, he hated it. He used to have daydreams where he used his tremendous powers to cover the big ball of scorching heat and light completely with ice. This attitude was quite common for his kind. I mean, think about it, his mother was a vampire and his grandfather was the god of darkness and death... ok, so there have never been anyone like him, but still, it's pretty understandable...
-Shut up! Let me tell this story! You're just scurrying back and forth trying to explain yourself! Besides, you're way too much of a wuss to tell this part! Makwe yelled at me. Well, Makwe, here you go.
“So finally we have arrived at the capital of the Amazon empire. It took three weeks, as the human said. Father have pushed me the whole way, even though he knows the sun causes my skin to peel off unless I cover it with my hood. That covering is quite hard to maintain when in gallop. And the crack he gave me in the head before we left is still bleeding. The pain is making it hard to think.. I can't even use the easier kinds of magic.. I couldn't even summon a sack of water for Darkhed's sake! One day, I'll kill that man. Fortunately, it's only the Patagonian sun that hurts. I'm not like my mother, the sun isn't lethal for me, it's more like an allergy. But when out of Patagonia, my pigments aren't different from that of a very pale human. Now I am superior to all, hehe...
Now we are in Qutzalcoatl, the capital named after the dragon that lives under it. It's beautiful... In some yucky, gold-covered, sunny, happy-happy-joy-joy way, that is...but still, in some weird way, I find it beautiful. The city is surrounded by the Amazon forest from all sides. The buildings are situated in a valley and it doesn't take a genius to realize that if there would have been a fog here today, the city would have been invisible. There are three golden pyramids of which one of them is double the size of the other two. They have silver and ruby embeddings in different complicated patterns which tells you the history of the mighty Amazon kingdom. The only matriarchal rule in all of South Campea. Around the pyramids the town is cluttered with small gold and marble cottages, leaning towards each other, but without any sign of being near to crumble. I wonder what the secret behind that architecture can be...
-Whaddya thank zunn? I didn't realize I had my father behind me, so the sound of his voice startles me a bit, making me lose just enough concentration to fall out of the saddle, down the hill and land face down in one of the swamps surrounding the city. My father pretends it didn't happen.
-Well? he asks, as innocently as he can. I lift my head and take a deep breath while trying to calm myself. Then, after about half a second, I hurry to breathe it out as I notice it tastes pure decay. Resisting the reflex to vomit, I answer:
-Well, I don't know if I'll ever be used to permanent settlements... in an attempt of making him confused enough not to bother me anymore.
-Yeah, I know what ya' mean... these houses or whateva' them call it, makes me a bit uncomfy.. he answers looking down at the city with a troubled expression in his face. A bit annoyed of his newfound intelligence, I continue:
-But the the decay of this settlement shall be visible in their sins, for they are worshipers of Aifos. They do not kill, they capture. Those who slaves take, will slaves be. Those who lives take will lives live. For so tells the prophecies, and so tells the scriptures. while trying not to grin too much.
-True, ma' son. Very true... he agrees with great reluctance in his voice. That's the same thing he always says when he doesn't understand what I say. He continues to lead the tribe down the road while discussing with my mother what it could have meant.
Pleased with the result, I rise up and start wading towards the shore. When I've passed the last tree and the town is visible I see a girl standing on the shore, holding a golden bow loaded with an arrow of the same material. She's aiming it at me. When I'm about 50 yards away from her I notice that she's very beautiful. Thinking about it, all the rumors I've heard about the Amazons included their beauty, so she could be considered ugly, as far as I know...The thought makes me grin, which seems to tick her off, since she releases the arrow. It passes just an inch above my head. I know I should be frightened,or at least angry, but I get this warm feeling and a reaction from my nether regions. Confused by the reaction, I stop and just watch her. She's clad in a leather armor covering every part of her body except for her head, but since she needs to be able to move through the forest, it's tight enough to make all her curves visible. While studying those curves, her red hair blowing in the wind and those beautiful emerald green, but completely hateful eyes, I lose focus long enough for her to shoot me in my right shoulder.
-Ouch! I see my shoulder slowly turning into big chunks coal right before my eyes! I watch my arm fall off almost terrified by the sight. The arm floats around for a while in the water until it slowly starts turning into ash. I look into the green water as it starts turning gray. Colored by my flesh. I shudder at the thought. The shudder is just enough to dodge an arrow passing by my ear. Slowly realizing the danger I'm in, I jump back into the water. Now she can't see me, but I can see her. All I have to do is crawl through the water towards the beach and knock her down...
That's when I hear the sound of boots splashing repeatedly through the water. I gather the courage to lift my head. She is running through the water with a golden spear in her hand. Now I realize something. Neither her arrows or her spear shines by the light reflexes such a sunny day should cause. They must be made out of pure sunlight. That's why they hurt me so... I decide to lie still. After a while she comes to me.. she lifts her spear, she's ready to strike. Then everything happens so fast that anyone would reject the possibility of me being human after seeing it. I roll out of the way of her spear, which sinks deep into the decaying plants. I get up on my feet and then I point at her shouting:
-Tremendi cansanci! with a voice reeking with the annoyance I am feeling towards this insulting attack. She falls down unconscious into the water, as it was meant. For about ten seconds I consider leaving her, but then I look into that beautiful face and realize it wouldn't be right to steal such a creature from the earth...
I lift her up with my remaining arm while spewing out curses towards the pain in my arm, the pain in head, and the pain my ego is feeling now when it can't call itself the only thing the earth ever got really proud of making.

After a few minutes I get to the shore and lay her down. When looking up, I see that there seems to be a duel going on. And if I'm not mistaken, my father is involved in it, as usual. Actually, I'm a bit disappointed. He uses to have been in a city for at least two hours before he gets in trouble...
This time he's fighting a woman. I can't see who she is at first, since my whole body hurts, and I'm trying to figure out why my magic suddenly decided to obey me out of a sudden. I mean, really? I can't summon water, but I can make people fall asleep? Then I recognize her. It's the Amazon queen, my grandmother. Mamoara raised my father here in Quetzalcoatl to become a bodyguard for the manhunters. His work was pretty much to kill anyone they couldn't capture. He got tired of it when he was about my age, thirteen summers. Then he left and sought contact with the barbarians who made him chief immediately because of his strength. Now I realize why we are here. We weren't here to by supplies. We are here so that father can claim his bequest.
In Amazon as well as Barbarian tradition, in order to get your heritage, you have to neuter the parent whose property you want. This is normally a part of the burial ritual, but the scriptures mention cases where there have been duels where both sides have tried to neuter each other in order to claim each others' possessions. Unfortunately, this was actually being handled by the book.
They seem to have been fighting for quite a while. Father has lots of small cuts over his arms a large gaping hole in his stomach. I don't know what keeps his bowels from coming out, but I guess it's one of those perks he has being the son of Darkhed... Mamoara has got one finger and an ear chopped off. I wonder what will happen next...
My gigantic father wields his two famous roundaxes(pretty much two round blades the size of a wagon wheel with a handle in the middle) which has already made deep holes in the holes from where Mamoara has dodged. My slender grandmother is wielding a long golden spear just like the one the girl had been wielding. Father launches a new attack. He swings his right axe above his head while he slashes forward with the left one and I can see in his smile that he's got something else planned. The attack that you can see is probably half of it. Mamoara doesn't realize this, so she dodges between both while taking a big leap forward with the spear pointing towards my father's genitals. My father had all this planned, so he jumps right up, which causes Mamoara to miss. She is so sure about getting him this time that she falls on her face. At the exact moment in which she has turned around facing up, my father lands and put one axe below her waist and one under her chin. He waits for her to accept her defeat, but then she starts yelling at him:
-What is it!? Can't you follow the traditions for once? Neuter me! I have nurses nearby, so I'll be all right!
-But, mother...
-I won't have any more kids anyway, so start slicing!
My father hangs with his head for a while, in deep thought. Then, when everyone seem to have waited enough to be mad at him, he does as she says...
Just about then my headache returns in a new burst. It feels like my head is being split in two. In two ways. My puberty started about two years ago, but my Vampirian puberty seems to have started today, since my teeth feel like huge nails and I can't drink anymore. It doesn't give me anything. I just piss it out. These worrying thoughts makes me enough out of balance for the wound on the top of my head to open. I start screaming. The pain. It's awful. It's like someone is trying to make room in my head for one of those pyramids by pushing it with the top down through my skull. I feel the black liquid run down my face and neck, and while my father leaps forward to help me, I fall backwards losing conscience. While lying there, I use my last few seconds to look next to me. There lies the girl. Her eyes are open, and they aren't filled with hatred anymore...