The Black Wolf's Mark Read Online Free PDF Page A

the herbal tea.
    “You’re a boy in luck!”
    “Luck? Me?” His voice was ironic. “I have no family, I am being hunted like a savage animal because of this cursed mark, and the girl I love is sentenced to die before her twenty first birthday.”
    “Perhaps you could be dead, without the knowledge of the  people and mainly this girl for whom you have strong feelings.”
    “What do you understand about my life? −And also about this mark on my back?” he asks as he looks annoyed at the old man.
    The wise old man answers him with a rude gaze like one who has lived more time than him.
    “I know much more than you can imagine.”
    “Upon my soul! Then you start telling me all that you know!”
    “Are you sure that you’re ready to hear the entire truth?”
    “Start! I’m ready to hear it.”
    The old man stands up, walks to the boy and stops behind him and his hand touches the engraving on the left side of his lung and the old man starts saying, “You have the black wolf’s mark.”
    “That is nothing new − the entire village yelled this in my ears last night.”
    “You were marked as soon as you were born.”
    “And who marked me with a hot iron?”
    “Likely an elder of any village,” he explains.
    “And why did he do this to me?”
    “It’s because you’re the seventh male son from the one family.”
    Zidane gazes at the mountains in front of him and he tries to imagine his family, his six brothers he has never seen.
    “You carry the black wolf’s curse.”
    The old man’s fingers go through the numbers on the boy’s ruddy skin.
    “When you have finally concluded 277 full moons, the beast that is within you, it’ll awaken and you’ll be a black wolf.”
    Zidane’s eyes become full with tears while he assimilates the entire truth in his brain.
    “That means I’ll be transformed into a wolf.”
    “Exactly , a black wolf.”
    Again Zidane remembers Amarilis, as she spoke the words - “FIRE! WOLF!”
     
    “She always knew about my fate! She saw this,” he says in a loud voice.
    “Her? Who are you talking about?”
    Zidane lifts his head and gazes at the cloudy sky and he also gazes at the endless mountains.
    “What should I do now?”
    “You should withdraw from people − soon you’ll be an extremely dangerous creature. Or people will kill you, or you’ll kill them with no piety − you weren’t born to live in civilization,” he confesses.
    “Where will I live?” he asks as he glances at everything around him.
    “You’ll live with me here− I’ll know to work with your curse.  You just need to trust me.”

Chapter 15
     
     
    A month later             
     
    Amarilis is in her bedroom still holding the boy’s dark shirt.  She brings this piece of clothing to her nose and her eyes close at the same time as she deeply absorbs the boy’s smell.
    She still has hope he is alive at some place, even if it is very far from her. Her hands go down in the direction of her breasts, still holding the dark fabrics, where she presses the piece of clothing against her chest and prays in silence for everything to be well with him.
    And at that moment she has a vision of the boy, where he is on the top of a mountain, carrying some fire wood, and she feels that this vision is real.
    Then a smile appears on her afflicted face while she exclaims in a low voice,
    “He is alive! He is alive!”
     

Chapter 16
     
     
     
    “Murad, I already guarded all the firewood.”
    Zidane reports to him, as soon as he enters into the cave. He is replete with sweat and his dark shirt is wound round his head.
    “Your food is on the table,” the old man advises and sits at a rock table.
    The boy gazes at his aluminum plate and sees a strange food, however, he doesn’t protest and then he sits at his place before the table.
    “What are you preparing with those steel bars?”
    Zidane questions as he glances at the cavern corner and sees several steel pieces on the ground.
    “When your