Cruel and Unusual - serialised novel EXCLUSIVE to Steemit Part 80

Here are the links to catch-up, read again or start from the beginning

Episode List From 1 – 52
Then: 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79

Images below from Google, Getty Images, and Pixabay

Please read the start of the story using the link above. I promise, it’s well-worth the time to check it all out. At least then, this excerpt will make more sense

Hazel was the first of the group to leave Anton’s home. She left one late spring morning just after the full moon had disappeared from the horizon.

She had mentioned that she was growing restless to be off and that they were not to be surprised if she was there one day and gone the next.

Hazel wandered through the Italian countryside, a pack on her back, her hair pulled into a tight ponytail and her face hidden in the shadow of a large, and rather masculine hat. The worn shirt and trousers she wore as she travelled gave the impression that she was perhaps a young man out to seek his adventure and fortune and she was not approached or accosted.

She slept in fields - or barns if the night was too cold and she had money for food if she could not or would not hunt.

She travelled at her own pace, as slow as she liked and for the first time in decades – perhaps even centuries – she was at peace. There were no others to speak to, none to ask questions of and none to answer to. She sometimes talked to herself and reminisced of times long ago.

On one morning when she had been alone for almost two months and just deciding that it was perhaps time to get back in contact with her network, she sensed another Wolf presence. It was not close and she knew that it did not know where she was, but she also knew that she was being searched for, perhaps even tracked.

She could not tell if it was she, as Sentinel Exemplar that was being searched for or just a Wolf that had crossed the tracks of another, but she was aware and on alert.

Any other that was being tracked that way would have lost their nerve and become anxious, especially after being tracked for a week or more, but not Hazel.

She continued as she had been, travelling in a Northerly direction, or thereabouts, meandering through villages sometimes, but never anything larger. The tracker was keeping pace with her wanderings and perhaps thought himself to be unnoticed because of the distance.

When Hazel tired of the game of cat-and-mouse, she turned the tables and the hunter became the hunted and in no time at all, became the captured.

Hazel was not surprised to see who the erstwhile hunter was.

Marcellus’s brother confronted her and he realised that his game had been cut short before he was ready.

“So, Marcus, what do you have to tell me?” Hazel asked. She put down her back-pack, removed her hat and looked up at the moon which was once again a good way towards being full.

“My father tells me that you caught the Throwback that slaughtered my little brother.” His demeanour belied the pent-up fury, yet his tone was calm, almost serene and as he spoke his voice was gentle and sophisticated, like a patient tutor indulging his favourite pupil in the lesson which both loved and excelled at.

“I did,” she nodded the confirmation. “And because of the journal that I discovered, we found his remains, and your father and sister were able to lay him to rest properly. I take it that you have not sought me out all across Italy to thank me for my efforts.”

“No Hazel, I have not. I have come to ask for answers.”

“I understand. If I can answer your questions, I will.”

Both Wolves stood facing the other, both relaxed and smiling under the moon’s glow. To an outside observer, the encounter would perhaps seem as though two friends had met in an unlikely happenstance – another Wolf would be very wary.

“You did not kill the Throwback.”

“That was not a question, it was a statement,” Hazel pointed out. “But no, I did not kill it, nor did I give the order to kill it.”

“Will it be killed?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Ah, that is a question to which I do not know the answer.”

“So it is true, you have allowed it to kill Wolves and will not complete your obligation to the First Laws.”

“What obligation is that?” she asked, for the moment playing dumb until she knew the full reason for the confrontation.

“Suffer not a Throwback to live – that obligation.” Marcus was showing that he was indeed the elder of the brothers; he played the patience game very well indeed. She had not managed to rile him yet, but he was close, she could feel his mind raging.

“I did not suffer a Throwback to live. It was no longer a Throwback when I found it.”

Marcus was puzzled for the moment. She saw the emotions fighting in his mind – rage that she was so very calm and unrepentant, bewilderment because he had always been brought up to believe that Justice would prevail, and sorrow because of the loss of his youngest brother.

“Marcus, you should not be here, you should not have tracked me this way – you should have told your father of your plans, he would have stopped you. What of your sister? She will have lost two brothers if you continue on this path. Your father could not bear another one of his sons killed.”

His eyes narrowed, he seemed to be considering this statement.

“The murderer of my brother and his fiancée has escaped punishment because he was Throwback when he killed them, but Wolf when you found him?”

“Yes, that has summed it up adequately I think.”

“And it was you that made that decision?”

“I held off on his immediate execution when I realised that he was – or was soon to be – full Wolf, yes.”

“And you felt no remorse; you feel no remorse for that decision?” Marcus’s anger was building.