Chapter 34: Chapter 32: The Hound

The air had become pungent with the kind of rot that came from raw meat being left out in the hot sun all day and the wind carried a coyling energy that more insidious sorts sniffed out and muttered chanting seemed to slither after the wind. But he had finished his business in the city and was humming to himself as he thought about home. He hefted the final bag of honey millet into the ox cart and was about to climb on to drive it back to the village when something caught his attention.

Fresh human blood.

Cold things did not interest him, but warm things did. The scent and heat of fragile life drifting on the currents. His hand instinctively lingered on the burnt dog head hanging at his waist as he thought briefly.

“Go ahead,” he patted the side of the possessed ox who began its plodding march down the road and he went the other direction in a more familiar form.

He raised his snout into the air and sniffed. There was a whiff of rainwater hanging in the air although there was not a cloud in the sky, the scent he was looking for was strongest near the city walls, secluded by the aroma of half-dead trees and mingled with colder flesh and bone. He pawed quickly and lightly, a shaggy large stray dog in the dark that none paid any mind to.

Padding up to a group of large trees that had seen better days he sniffed the air again. The fresh blood was here along with the astringent scent of someone familiar.

“Oh Unknown Lord, oh Powerful Hunger. We are but the poor and the desperate…” the voices chanted lowly.

He took a few more padded steps up to see a group of men in hoods, with rags on their arms and legs and roughspun clothing. Their faces were covered by various fabrics. They were around a hastily made looking altar constructed from old bones and wood, wrapped in stained cloth with red candle wax running down its sides.

It was really more of a pile of trash and butcher refuse but the dark energy that it called forth was enough to bring attention he assumed they desired. From his position he could not quite see who was laid on the altar, but he could tell it was a small child, the source of the fresh blood that was turning the cloth red as they continued to bleed.

“We offer this, so that your hunger is satiated, so our own may walk in peace…”

Squatting on a branch just above the altar was an annoyingly familiar form. A young boy-shaped demon, bright eyed although the wounds of death wormed on his flesh just below his illusion. He doubted the humans chanting could see either of them.

The boy’s remaining eye focused intently on the body below, fingers digging into the branch as he gnawed on his own lower lip. His single eye was full of envious revulsion, the slender fingertips of the boy turning into long claws.

The boy was about to swing down from the branch when his eye fell upon the other and he went even paler than the moon.

“What are you doing here?” The boy whispered, even though the humans speaking were no way spiritually aware enough to hear them at the moment.

“I was going to ask the same thing!” He replied in curiosity, cocking his head to the side. “Last time I heard, you had been thoroughly warned by the Lady of Seven Caves to stay away from her territory.”

“Then why are you here, you shitty dog!?” The boy slapped the branch in anger. “Get out Lang Lang and find your own food!”

“That’s very rude, besides I needed to buy millet,” Lang Lang replied. “The Lady of Seven Caves and I are good friends and she knows I only come here to buy supplies.”

“You liar! I know she’s afraid of you, the King of Hounds. More like the ‘mutt of slobber and piss’!” the boy hissed impudently. “Besides, she’s been hiding in her Sixth Cave ever since that woman came through this city and people started disappearing. Don’t you remember what happened to all those wounded foreigners?”

Lang Lang closed one eye, keeping the other focused on the boy, “oh? So you aren’t the one the humans are calling for?” He placed the unknown woman somewhere in the back of his mind. Something to keep aware of although not something he felt like investigating at the moment.

“No! I just smelled blood and followed it and I found her!” He gestured downwards.

“Her?” Lang Lang got on two feet, brushing his pants off and readjusting to the sensation of having fingers. Now at the height of a man, he could look over and see the small child curled up on the altar, deep red smeared over her. “Oh no!” He gasped softly. The poor girl’s breathing was shallow and slow with an odd rattling. He wanted to scoop her into his arms and take her to the village.

In fact that’s what he planned to do.

“Wait, you aren’t going to take her, are you?” The boy asked, and when Lang Lang did not reply he quickly began to throw a fit. The same kind of fit a child threw when he knew he could do nothing else. “Hey no! No! She’s mine! I met her first! You can’t just take other people’s prey! She has to play with me! She ran away last time!”

“Please leave,” Lang Lang asked softly as he stared at the boy-shaped demon. He huffed, then slithered off the branch and into the darkness. Lang sighed in a mixture of pity and relief. After their first meeting had ended with the boy demon nearly shattered to pieces, he had been a lot easier to deal with. Still, whatever he went through to cause him to become a demon surely must have been awful.

Lang Lang then turned to the matter at hand. It likely wouldn’t be long before other demons came so he had to be a bit quick. He unveiled himself, carefully pushing past the chanting men to stand in front of the altar. The child groaned softly, eyes fluttering briefly.

“Hey! Who are you?” One man asked, noticing Lang Lang. The chanting quickly died away to be replaced by confused murmuring and questions.

“You weren’t with the group earlier were you?”

“Hey where is your hood? Do you want to get in trouble or something?”

“Young man, are you here for someone too?”

“-just appeared, I didn’t hear him-”

Lang Lang reached down to press a few fingers against the artery in her neck, counting softly to himself. Her heart was still strong and he sighed in relief. There was a strange scent to her blood. Medicinal almost.

“What are you doing?” The voices were becoming increasingly irate.

You are reading story Vow of the Willow Tree at novel35.com

“Oh! I’m just seeing if the little sister is okay!” Lang Lang answered, carefully reaching over to move her head to see if there were any cuts. A long one spiraled over her ear and it was then Lang Lang realized that it wasn’t just that her blood was coloring her hair. It really was red! He placed a hand lightly on the cut, coaxing the flesh to weakly knit itself back together by pulling the ambient energy of the area into it. He was no expert at healing however, and he wanted to bring her to his shrine quickly to recuperate.

“...It’s nice that you’re concerned,” one man spoke softly. His voice was full of guilt. “But she… she will not be well for long.”

Lang Lang tipped his head to the side, “oh? What do you mean?”

“Damn, son did you fall on your head the way here?” Another man asked. “There’s a demon hunting down women and girls in the city-” nods and sobs followed. “If we sacrifice this one kid to the demon then our own will be safe!”

Lang Lang put one hand on his hip and the other on the dog’s head at his waist, “huh! Is that so? Where’d you learn this?”

Everyone looked at each other.

“What are you? An investigator? A cultivator? A government official!?”

He held his hands up and gave the crowd an appeasing smile, “no, no, I just wanted to know is all! I mean can you imagine what this thing would attract?”

“...It came from a passing fortune teller,” the guilty voiced man spoke again. “My friend told me about her, and then we and some of his family…” he trailed off, as nothing more needed to be said.

He gave the man a sympathetic smile. They were similar in a way, wanting to protect people. He gave the man a firm pat on the back and then leaned slightly against the altar, “well, I think I’ll be taking her.”

“What!”

“No you can’t!”

“Do you know how much we bribed those servant girls?”

“My daughter, my daughter! What if the demon gets my daughter then? Think of the children!”

“I’m taking her,” Lang Lang repeated with a firm nod and smile.

Suddenly one of the men yelled, lunging forward with hands outstretched for Lang Lang’s neck. Lang Lang raised his own hand and lightly swatted the man away. Bones rapidly smashed into each other, blood and organs squeezing out from the tears in the flesh as the collapsed body splattered into multiple pieces against the trees. Lang Lang blinked in mild surprise, “I didn’t mean to hit him that hard,” he muttered.

“What the fuck!?”

The crowd looked at each other and at Lang Lang in panic.

“You wanted to summon a demon right?” Lang Lang asked them, holding out his arms. The dog ears at the top of his snow colored hair were alert, “well here I am. And now I’m going to take her with me.”

“S-so you’re the one that’s been killing women?” Someone asked in terror. “Will you stop now?”

“...I don’t know who is doing that, to be honest, I’m sorry,” Lang Lang replied apologetically, rubbing one of his now flattened ears. “But maybe you should consider if it really is a demon? If it was, it would have probably made its demands known in some way. I didn’t sense anyone else like me when I was in town either.”

They went from afraid to incensed, “what would you know!? You’re a demon, and only demons would do something so awful! Even if it wasn’t, it’d probably be someone being manipulated by a demon!” The crowd roared.

Lang Lang looked from the crowd, to the altar made of bones where a child was about to be sacrificed, then back to the crowd.

The little girl on the altar groaned weakly. Lang turned to look at her again and gently stroked her hair briefly. “Hey, hey little sister, everything will be fine!” Then a cold metal blade peeked out from his chest and his own black-red blood oozed out slowly like ancient ink. Lang sighed, turning around to see the guilty voiced man backing away with wide eyes and a pale face. “That was really mean, you know?” Lang Lang reached into his back and pulled out the knife. It was just a kitchen knife, fairly well made, and he placed it in his belt. Maybe someone in the village would like to have it.

Growling seeped from around the trees as Lang Lang’s shadow flickered. The group of men looked around, seeing bright eyes in shadowy shapes all around them. The smell of burning flesh and falling ash rose from the ground. “What is this?”

“Dogs?”

“Wolves!?”

“Some kind of spell? What are you doing!?”

Lang Lang turned around to gently pick up the little girl, cradling her close to his chest and resting his cheek on the top of her head for a moment before he looked back at the guilty voiced man. He took several steps to close the space between them and the man fell to his knees as he approached. “I like eating warm things, but… I don’t think you’re a bad person. You’re doing a bad thing, but you only want to protect people, and you own your guilt.” He placed a hand on the man’s head after adjusting the child so she was in one arm. “So I’m going to end your suffering, alright?” The guilty voiced man said nothing except for a whimper before Lang twisted his head completely around, letting the body fall.

He turned back towards the crowd and began walking forward with the girl in his arms. The men ran as he approached only to find themselves right in the maws of the things that waited behind the trees. Screaming and wailing replaced the chanting while Lang Lang left with a soft song he remembered from long ago.

You can find story with these keywords: Vow of the Willow Tree, Read Vow of the Willow Tree, Vow of the Willow Tree novel, Vow of the Willow Tree book, Vow of the Willow Tree story, Vow of the Willow Tree full, Vow of the Willow Tree Latest Chapter