Chapter 5: Human Child
The panther made his way down the steps and into the darkness where the cries were coming from. The knight realized it was only maybe a fifteen by fifteen stone room upon reaching the base, furnished with nothing but two chairs, and a single bed. `It was likely used as a secret hiding place for the royal family during times like this.’ The knight thought to himself before he turned to face the bed and the source of the wailing bundle atop of it.
He saw a hook for the torch to the left of the bed, so he hung it there before slowly walking over to the wailing mess impatiently kicking against it’s own bedding now that it had realized it wasn’t alone anymore.
At this point, his sense had begun to return. His dedication was faltering as the reality that his son was not under those blankets became more and more evident, but still, the knight had too much hope to turn back now. He stepped up to the mattress, pulled off the top blanket, and picked up the noisy creature, bringing it up to his face in the dim lighting.
Staring back at the knight, was a plump, human child. No, only a cub, probably on his first year still... The child had a silky, dark brown tuft of fur on his head the color of muddy soil, though, the humans called it `hair.’ His eyes were a rich brown color that reminded the cat of stained walnut wood, the grain of such wood mimicked by the tiny golden lines forking through the dark brown of his eyes. The cub only stared wide-eyed back into the gaze of the panther, whose demeanor had now began to shift.
His head dropped to the floor as the reality set in. His wife, and his cub weren’t here. They weren’t going to be anywhere else ever again either. His anguish began to build again.
The knight felt foolish that he had allowed himself to hope, angry that this world would take so much from him when a time of peace finally seemed in sight after endless fighting, and cheated by fate, and the fate of his broken family.
He was angry for his two remaining sons growing up without a mother. He was angry with himself for refusing to return to her side and instead choosing the battlefield. He was angry at the humans for starting this damned war in the first place.
A cold-blooded growl began to build in his throat, growing louder by the second, the same sound many a soldier had heard moments before their gruesome deaths.