Carpathian 22 - Dark Predator

small tinge.
    Rafael spoke softly in his mind. Arwa-arvo olen isäntä, ekäm —honor keep you, my brother.
    Kulkesz arwa-arvoval, ekäm —walk with honor, my brother, Manolito added.
    Arwa-arvo olen gæidnod susu, ekäm —honor guide you home, my brother, Riordan said.
    It had been a long time since he’d heard the native tongue of his people. They spoke the languages and dialects of wherever they were. They’d taken names as they’d moved from country to country, even a surname, when Carpathians never had such names. His world had altered so much over time. Centuries of transformation, always adapting to fit in, and yet never really changing when his world was all about death. At long last he was going home.
    That simple statement meant nothing—and everything. He hadn’t had a home in well over a thousand years. He was one of the oldest, certainly one of the deadliest. Men like him had no home. Few welcomed him to their fire, let alone their hearth. So what was home ? Why had he used that word?
    His family had established ranches in the countries they patrolled throughout the Amazon and the other rivers that fed it. Their range was spread out and covered thousands of miles, making it difficult to patrol, but having established a relationship with several human families, the various homes were always prepared for their coming. He was going to one such home and he had to cover the long miles before dawn.
    Their Peruvian ranch was situated on the edge of the rain forest, a few miles away from where the rivers formed a Y and dumped into the Amazon. Even that area was slowly changing over the years. His family had appeared to come into the area with the Spaniards, made up names, uncaring how they sounded as it mattered little to Carpathians what they were called by others, not knowing they would spend centuries in the area—that it would become more familiar to them than their homeland.
    Zacarias looked down at the canopy of the rain forest as he flew. It, too, was disappearing, a slow, steady encroachment he didn’t understand. There were so many things about modern times he didn’t understand—and really—what did it matter? It was no longer his world or his problem. The compulsion driving him puzzled him more than the answers for the vanishing environments. Little aroused his curiosity, yet this overwhelming drive to return to a place he’d been a few times was disturbing on some level. Because the drive was a need and he didn’t have needs. It was overwhelming and nothing overwhelmed him.
    Small droplets of blood fell into the misty clouds surrounding the emergents, the scattered trees rising above the canopy itself. Beneath him, he could feel the fear of the animals as he passed. Below him a band of Douroucoulis, very small night monkeys, leaped and performed amazing acrobatics in the middle layers of branches as he passed overhead. Some fed on fruit and insects while others watched for predators. Normally they would screech an alarm as soon as the harpy eagle was spotted, yet as he passed over the family of monkeys they went completely and eerily silent.
    He knew it wasn’t the threat of the large bird flying overhead that caused the forest to go so still. The harpy eagle sat still in the branches, often for long hours at a time and waited for the right meal. He would rocket down with shocking speed and snatch a sloth or monkey right off the trees, but he didn’t, as a rule, hunt in flight. The mammals hid, but snakes lifted their heads at his passing. Hundreds of dinner-plate-sized spiders crawled along branches, migrating in the direction he flew. Insects rose by the thousands at his passing.
    Zacarias was used to the signs marking the darkness in him. Even as a young Carpathian, he had been different. His fighting ability was natural, bred into him, almost imprinted before birth, his reflexes fast, his brain working quickly. He had the ability to assess a situation with lightning speed and come up with a battle plan instantly. He killed without hesitation, even in his early days, and his illusions were nearly impossible to detect.
    Darkness went deep, a shadow on his soul long before he’d lost his emotions and color—and he’d lost both far earlier than others his age. He questioned everything. Everyone. But his loyalty to his prince and his people was unswerving and that had earned him the undying hatred of his best friend.
    He flew with strong wings, fast through the night, ignoring the