The Jackal Chapter 2

***Chapter 2***

After eating their stew and cabbage with a little bread they bedded down in the tents. It took Zerif a while to go to sleep. How would Kovo react when Zerif answered his call? Would Kovo kill him? Would Kovo possibly eat him? How could Zerif be sure. All the man knew is that tomorrow He would ascend up the Red Rock to see the greatest Ape the world has ever seen. Zerif could hear Alec sleeping near the far side of the tent. Zerif considered the boy. How brave the boy was. Zerif hadn’t asked the boy about his family or anything like that. The boy acted like nobody would care if he went traveling with a complete stranger. Zerif would never have been able to do that when he was a boy. His mother had cared for him as his father went and served with the Green Cloaks. The man he needed most growing up was off *“protecting the world.”* But from *WHAT!* Zerif should have been the main priority! His father was a great man. At least that's what is mother used to say. He saw the man maybe two times a year. That was before his fathers spirit animal had been killed in battle. The way Zerif had heard it, His father had been cornered by a man with a jaguar spirit animal. The jaguar had jumped at his father but his fathers spirit animal, a jackal named Humzi jumped to intercept the attack. The jaguar ripped the jackal to pieces. His father was picked up by A man with a moose spirit animal now known world wide by Olvan, Commander of the Green Cloaks world wide. Olvan carried Zerif’s father to safety. But even though the Green Cloaks tried to help his father overcome his grief his father couldn’t. His Father commited suicide on his way home to Zerif and his mother. Zerif had wanted his father to come home. Had wanted him to stay. But his father couldn’t get over his dead mangy dog spirit animal and become the father Zerif had wanted. Zerif wasn’t surprised when he didn’t call anything at his Nectar Ceremony. But he had wanted his dad there. To encourage him, to comfort him, to be a *father*. That's all Zerif had wanted. Isn’t that all anybody wanted. And to make matters worse his mother had gone mad with grief over her dead husband and decided to make the *Green Cloaks* pay for not protecting him and helping him more. She went to Greenhaven and with her husband's old sword started stabbing at anyone who got in her way. She was headed for Olvan. It wasn’t enough that Olvan had carried his father to safety. She wanted him to heal him and take away his grief. But she never made it to Olvan. She was stopped just beyond the gate. She had been told to stop but she kept going. Part of Zerif thought that his mother knew what she was doing. That she wanted to get killed but Zerif doubted she wanted her life to end the way it did. An animal rammed into her trying to protect the man she was going to kill. A moose. The had rammed her from the side and had torn her side to shreds with his antlers. Oh what a dreadful way to die. His mother had been buried at sea the next day. Zerif did not attend. In Fact he didn’t know that his mother was dead at all for two whole years! He had found out when he returned home after a trip he had taken to Amaya. He was an orphan at the age of 14. He had no sibling either to comfort him; all he had was Adania and she had been ripped from him.And all these issues seemed to have a nasty Green Cloak attached to the problem. Zerif sighed. What could he do? That was years ago. It seemed like a lifetime had passed. And indeed it had for two out of the three people he loved the most. Well, four. That made Zerif sit bolt upright. Four! Aidana must have had her baby by now. That's when he noticed something he had never thought of before. He blamed his father so much but what if Little Rollan was blaming him too. He must hate Zerif! Zerif was just as bad as his father! Zerif hated the feeling of uselessness. What was his purpose in life? To just take the hit every time life threw him a knock-out punch? No more! After he spoke with Kovo he would find Aidana and his son and he would be a father. With that thought Zerif fell slowly off to sleep.

When Zerif woke up, the first thing that hit him was the glorious smell of baked bread. He rushed out the tent to see Alec on a log humming a tune. When Zerif came and sat on a rock opposite of him Alec just shot him a glance and said, “your breakfast is ready.”

“Thank you Alec,” Zerif replied.

Alec smiled and started to laugh.

“What's so funny?” Zerif said with a quizzical expression on his face.

“Nothing”, was the boy's reply.

“There is something.”

“It’s just that that's the first time you’ve said my name. Before you just said ‘boy’.”

“A name is a powerful thing,” replied Zerif.

“I named myself you know.” said the boy, “I don’t remember anyone giving me a name so I named myself.”

Remembering his thoughts from the night before Zerif said, “Do you remember your father?”

“Yeah.” said the boy.

He took a long sigh and said, “He had the bonding sickness. Same with my mother. My father had a cow and my mother had an ox. That's about all I remember about them.”

Zerif told about his experience with his father.

“You blame the Green Cloaks?” asked Alec.

“Of course!” boomed Zerif, “who else am I to blame?”

Alec muttered something.

“What was that?” Zerif said in a challenging tone.

“I said, does somebody have to always be at fault. Do you have to blame somebody for everything that happens? Blaming people gets you nowhere. Nowhere but eating out of the trash bins, begging for coins and waiting to get beat up in an alley after you scavenge the trash heaps and earn your coin! You can't wait around blaming people for everything and anything under the sun. Either get a move or move out of the way because people with ambitions have no time to be entitled and ask for hand-me-downs from the richest idiots in the city!” Alec exploded.

Zerif looked at the boy. What has he been through exactly in his life? It sounded like he had been holding this in for quite a while. And what shocked Zerif the most is that the boy was surprisingly correct. The boy was probably no more than thirteen years old yet he spoke like a man with a lifetime of experience. The wisdom and fierceness in the boy that Zerifhad missed had come out. The boy was huffing like it had been such a long time ago that he had let out all of that.

“Alec? Are you ok?” asked Zerif.

Alec didn’t answer the question.

“Are you done eating?” he said in a low,gruff voice.

Zerif nodded and Alec took his plate.

“Let's head out before it gets even hotter. No sense in waiting around.”