Eagle's Eclipse

Chapter 1 Dart of Sensation He grunted, fell to his bare knees into the dry earth, which created a puff of quickly dispersed dust, and clutched at his ribs. He pressed long, thick and brown fingers into the area of pain and disturbance. Instantly though, he gathered his equilibrium and stood slowly as he continued to seek for anything residual. The dart of sensation had disappeared as abruptly as it had appeared. Those surrounding him in the nearly seeded field had frozen upon seeing their Great Eagle stunned and paralyzed but then they relaxed slightly as he arose of his own accord to his customary height. It was as if he had never paused. Only his automatically probing fingers, which still roved over his ribs, gave the ruse to anyone’s notion that nothing had transpired. As if without regard, he waved his concerned compatriots back to what had been their preoccupation with the planting of maize seed into the just hoed land. The initiation of placing kernels into several inches of turned dirt was so excruciatingly crucial that their revered leader, who had come down from his luxurious structure upon the towering mound above them, was overseeing the process. His skill in laying down the tight hard nubs of corn into the soil was superlative and demonstrated his concern for the staple by which his people principally survived. He very well might have been dabbling in late hour leisurely pursuits or conjuring up ideas to turn political tasks and machinations into reality. But he was here: roughened elbow to roughened elbow. He never shirked his people’s hard work. All appreciated that. He cared; he cared for them all. Kakeobuk stared out to the inky horizon now and then closed his eyes languidly and left them that way briefly. Behind his eyelids, his thoughts ceased wavering and he refocused easily. His eyelids separated without his willing it and he discovered a vivid clarity that he had never experienced prior to the singular moment of that flaring, vanishing pain. The pain had morphed into a sea; it was a sea that spread throughout him. He felt revived, refreshed, calm, and with a newly infused surety. The planting proceeded beneath the warm and quiet night sky. The heat of day often was a scourge upon both people and seed. There was habitual movement through the fields, emptying of animal skin sacks filled with the precious golden kernels as those kernels were then squeezed into the loose earth. This was done purely with the aid of the light of the moon… Kakeobuk seemed the same but he was utterly altered for an indeterminate amount of time. The new essence that had just intruded here had silently groaned through nearly four hundred and fifty years in a maligned existence dwelling in a deep hole in an otherwise verdant set of Spanish hills. The agony of the wait for the arrival of his master’s call was intense torture for the shade that this demon was forced to presently be. He had his master. Otherwise, his power, potential and actual, knew almost no bounds. The call had come unexpectedly, as was so typical, and this had been the way of it in his habitations of Septimius, Eumann and Cinaed. He had such pent up and violent energy as he exited his hole. He was to re-inhabit a human body and take his place in the forward climb of civilization’s journey. He had been ecstatic as he shot to the dark and murky heavens above. His glee and fervor were so intense that he did not even take his despised bat form as he had while seeking out Eumann and then Cinaed. He was an engine of concentrated speed, shapeless and rife with anticipation. This flight of his was long in miles yet brief in time. He traversed the Pacific Ocean and a third of the North American continent continuing to flow west. Peripherally, he noticed the drier and overwrought lands cultivated below him. That was information stored for later use. His master forced him onward and downward with an invisible hand. Dart, stone shot, he was both and exploded toward the tall, tan skinned individual rapidly filling his vision. Instantaneously, he merged with this person and then became the very soul of this person. His master was pleased. He was now Kakeobuk and the prior Kakeobuk became subjugated and lesser. The entity understood much immediately about the skin and the skin’s culture that he had now taken over. This was the Indian’s elite ruler who he now reposed within. He was unusually tall for this tribe of people. Most were of short stature. He towered over his kith, kin and subjects. He was of raven colored long hair tied in a very tight tail that was clasped with many thin copper rings to hold the hair in place. No other male had hair in his fashion. Many men and women had bangs at their forehead but not he. This Indian was not in his dwelling presently but was aiding his community in their planting of maize that was essential for their sustenance and survival. He did not simply rule, he participated as a true leader should. Other leaders past had let the fields be over used and these wayward acts had necessitated urgency now. Those earlier leaders would have been content to have slept the night through in their sumptuous surroundings of a very large, ornately decorated rectangular wood, thatch and mud structure built on the highest flat topped mound for near absolute protection. Those casual chiefs would have been wrapped in luxurious animal skins and would have displayed no concern for the success of the fields as they dreamt of other issues. Not so for the sagacious Kakeobuk. Yet he was now to be industrious only as the sun hid below the horizon. Chapter 2 Round Mounds Kakeobuk recalled back to when he had been Eumann. A hidden, dark chamber had been difficult to find then and had been fortuitously located with Catrione’s loving assistance. Here it was to be easy in that regard. The flat topped mounds of his tribe were for lavish homes; homes of their leaders and priests. But the round and conical mounds were their site of disposal and burial of the many corpses of natural or unnatural demise. As The Great Eagle, he was planning on taking one of these hills of burial for his own. He was, after all, able to confiscate whatever he wished as their leader. He was that powerful. His mother had brought him into this position and he aimed to hold it without doubt. He was deemed a god of sorts and was embraced in awe and worship. And so he took one. And it became his daylight tomb. No coffin was necessary either. With arms crossed over his chest, he simply reclined upon any level surface in the always midnight chamber. Oil lamps routinely lit these dugouts but he had the sight of a vampire now and required no such device. His vision in shadow was better than a mortal’s in the light of the hard shining sun. His distinctiveness of height and power was not the only unique facet that pulled on his life. This other was something that did not favor him. It was an aspect in a leader’s life that, at his age, he should have acquired previously. He was determined to have it soon. He was already into his mid-twenties and he had no bride as of yet. He was vigorously sought after; he had taken many maidens to their deflowering already but had not discovered his heart’s desire. Many stoked his passion but not one had stirred and enflamed his always seeking heart. With the entity inside him, he comprehended why that had been. Kakeobuk remembered back to a period of shared bliss with a woman of Dal Riatan descent. He searched her in his mind but caught no inkling of her presence or even existence. She blocked him still. Yet she was who he must have. He was willing to wait. He had waited four and a half centuries. He was ready to wait some more.