"What do you think them gon do?" Kogna finally managed to asked Nebulous in the dark cold night.
"What do you think, Kogna? Use your sharp-slinger instinct to figure."
"Bad timing for jokes, old man..."
"Kanka is a reasonable man. If that's what you mean. That's why I didn't shoot him in the palace that day when I had the chance."
"A bloody mistake, oldman. Ain't no damn way them gon cut we loose now. I make the other old fella bite the bullet. A savage kill. You did position yourself in my peripheral to save the third man."
"You figure right, Kogna. Kanka is the most powerful panther lord. The enforcer of the Panther laws. Such a just man could've been a bargaining chip. That's why I spared his life...".
"Well, my back breaks from this way them tire we up, man. My back breaks before them touch my sorry ass."
"Stop niggling like a maiden in her first moon," Nebulous replied in a snigger.
"Well, how about do some off your misty thing in this darkness? The damn hungry suckers gon drain our blood, before any bullet does. What do you think they are doing to the bevy inside the palace?"
"I think they want to help revive them. That's why they send Mika in there with the antidote. They are their kind afterall. They wouldn't want to wipe them out indiscrimately. I think they need them as much as the Alpha needs them. Without them, he has no power against the power hungry panther Lords.
Lord Kanka knows this. But as the enforcer of the Panther' clan, his first loyalty goes to the Panther' maidens, just like Kuga, the Alpha. These ones are last of a dying breed. Kanka will kill any one, starting with Kuga, the Alpha.
"I wanta put a bullet in the third eye of that Alpha, oldman. That makes me a friend to these rangers," Kogna said with a cocky smile, mocking the approaching amiable looking dandy, Rygna.
"Well, Kuga's return is what shall save us all. And the earlier he comes with Shilla, the better." Nebulous replied.
Rygna approached the two manicled gun men. He wears an expressionless look that betrayed no emotions.
"Where is the hybrid, Nebulous?" Rygna asked locking eyes with Kogna, although the question was for The oldman with snow-white dreadlocks. Silence.
"Why will I tell you schoolboy panther. Ice cubes crush you from above…" Kogna reacted venomously. Rygna grinned. Followed by a sinister smile.
And when he slammed his smooth hard knuckles on the front jaws of Kogna, he spat out a bloody tooth.
"You killed a panther lord. Do you know what that means? Haha. You don't. Had you known, you would've swallow your tongue, choke and die. I will have a great time skinning you alive slinger. There gon be a waterfall between your legs, drenching you down to your mouth, where you shall drink to your heart desire, your own urine... because you will be hanged upside down."
Rygna freed the shackles. He indicates to three of his men to chain Kogna separately.
They took him to the far end of the courtyard of the harem, where stood a neem tree with horizontal branches.
They nailed Kogna's ankles to one brunch, one feet apart. His head was 3 feet from reaching the ground. His screams ragtag across the courtyard, and reviberates into the surrounding forests engulfing the harem.
Head down with his hands tied to his back, Kogna concluded there isn't an agony to surpass this in the whole universe.
"Water choke you when you drink…". Kogna bellowed in a strain hoarse voice....
"Maybe I should start skinning you right away. But I want your bare skin expose to the sun on the morrow, when I shall start to work on you," Rygna replied.
"Where is your grandson, crony?" Rygna asked Nebulous again.
Nebulous robbed his wrists as he answered, "kidnapped with Shilla, a deed by the barbaric gorilla clan the night before".
Rygna didn't asked further. He went into the palace as his men edges Nebulous to stand up end follow them. He felt so tired for being retrained in one position for so long.
He was as stiff as a corpse in a mortuary. The guards helped him stand up. Most of them knew the legend of Nebulous in the ships. He device most of their combat techniques.
This is a hard thing for him to do, but Rygna has to do it anyway. Besides, it wasn't his call to make. The Alpha must know there are hard choices in this life, especially in panther society. Killing his grandfather will be a pragmatic example.
Rygna took his seat beside Kanka in the grand hall. The guards brought Nebulous forward.
"Misty-one, my dearest friend....", Lord Kanka address Nebulous amicably.... "How quickly life do shift phases. You should have kill me when you had the chance my friend. I have reasoned out all the possibilities, strength and weaknesses, check and balances. Whenever I think about this young ruthless hybrid, your grandson, it leads to you and end with you and shall seize with you. You are his backbone, the source of his power. But you however, have forgotten who we are...." Kanka paused to wet his throat from contents in a stained glass.
"Perhaps, you've never been one of us. He however, is a true panther. As ruthless and sly than all the ancients combine. There is not a place for you in our world with your weak human impulses, Nebulous. Oh dear friend.. you should have known better....." Kanka paused again, turning around to connect eyes with the panther and human legions filing the Hall to witness the savage mallet of justice drop it's ugly weight upon any man who dares undermines the 'Way of the Panther'.
"In the name of the whole clan. In the name of all the powers vested upon me by our sacred order, I take from you life, which you have taken from two of our own. You should have teach the boy better. We are not barbarians Nebulous! we are an order, and there are rules.What sort of people shall we be if we don't abide by the sanctity of our order..." Kanka exhaled heavily, and continued;
"Under your watchful eyes, a converted artificial pantheress deviced by Nka nearly wiped out the future of our whole race. Poisoning they say. When do we start poisoning each other, our own kind, under our own roof. You know the rules. Our maidens are our treasure. In the name of avenging them against the Lords, who poses no threat to them, you did massacred Lord Agna, and Lord Pragna. I believed you did want all four of us slain. Lord Nka at the top of the list. Except he never showed up here for the hoaxed honored meeting your grandson had organized. Now pray, I get to him before Nka did... He will rip him apart...
It shall be swift my friend, that I shall promised you…. speak now! for the spike awaits your head where it shall be staked as exhibit for all to see… and to know the end of those who goes against the way of the Panther..."
Silence, belligerent silence. On his knees Nebulous knew his time has reached the zenith of its worldly affairs.
His mission has not ended though. He has come this close to witnessing the advent of he, who shall restore the way of the Panther to it's original glory. There lays a dicey future ahead. And he shall reign. His Alpha. His king, his legacy.
Like a dejected puppy, Nebulous felt loss. An expedite passionate sensation. No amount of meditation prepared him for what he was about to encounter. 'Let a meditate all he want...never shall he conquer death. At least not in this life. Let a man smile in bravery, when death stares him in the eye. The horrific certainty of death forever remains dreadful.' Nebulous thought.
The packed hall was as silent as it was dark. Even the candles seems to shed tears in the melting process, and could barely illuminate the closely packed shadows casted by the crowd in the hall from the top platforms to the down floor.
The chilly air about him made his feet buckled in a gruesome shiver. Beads of running sweat flows down his face.... Nebulous kneeled on his knees to avoid tripping over in his standing position.
He closed his eyes meditatively, and sucked in air into his core. He exhaled as he repeats the mechanism, slowing down his breath till it subsides to the sublimity of bacteria breathing underwater.
Only one man comes to mind in his last state of distress. His friend. His only companion. He didn't know he had friends. But this slinger, Kogna had become so close to him they have become friends and brothers for life. All thoughts disappeared from his mind except the image of this one man who shall succeed him.
He is worthy of the gift, the misty gift. The mission is not his to complete afterall, and through the eyes of this man, maybe he shall see justice served some day. "Kogna!" he whispered and the still air started to move and turned misty.
There was a unison murmur of dread across the dark space in the grand hall of the Panther' palace at Kong...
Kanka signaled the soldier with the axe standing by Nebulous, and turned his head to wipe his tears. Nebulous had been a man worthy of respect.
Kanka cried for having to lose such a worthy man, but without this; they have no order. That can't happened among them. It will destroy them all, and their generations down the line. The panther clan watched the execution of the lengend they have come to admire so much.
The axe made a zipping sound as it dropped. The now bloody decapitated head of Nebulous flew across the hall as blood gushes forth in rivers.
***********†*****†*********
Kogna awakened from his mental delirium as the foggy cold air reached him outside in the courtyard.
All his blood descended to his head, turning his mind sluggishly heavy. Albiet, in that condition he realized what has happened. He found his heart of stone melting as the fog enters his body through his nostrils and mouth as he started to cry. He whaled like mating cats in the middle of the night.
"They dare kill him! The bastards killed Nebulous!" he cried. He bellowed like a cow stacked in a quagmire! And more of the mist engulfed him fusing into his body to the last drop. He went into a coma, and his body turned rigid still.