As he was sound asleep, he had a dream about the time he was devouring the venison earlier. He must have enjoyed the meal so much to even dream about it.
Suddenly he was abruptly awoken by loud reverberating growls of scavenging foxes tearing apart his venison. The makeshift bag of hide was torn open and the brazen opportunistic hunters voraciously devouring the already sliced meat.
"No no no!"
"This can not be happening." He thought as he was squinting his eyes open, not believing if it was reality or a nightmare.
Springing up into action, Kodesh dashed towards the pack of foxes but there was only so much he could do.
The opportunistic predators had devoured the venison in seconds. What was left was a torn leather bag.
Not sure if it would still be of use now.
His mind raced in disbelief as pangs of despair enveloped him and his eyelids drooped over his teary eyes.
For a moment he felt bitterly sorry for himself but somehow managed to have control over his stirred and fervent emotions.
Not allowing himself to cry for lost milk, he summoned the long white bow. The magestic pure white bone of golden and ancient inscriptions instantly manifested and with his enhanced sentience, he locked on one of the foxes as they were chaotically pelting in all directions.
Stretching the bow with all the strength he could muster, a ghostly arrow appeared in the dark of the night, engulfed in white otherworldly light.
The wooden arrows were at his shelter so he could only use the limitless quiver of the Orion.
But even if the wooden arrows were nearby, he would have still used the divine ranked arrows of the bright stars. He was too flared with fury to use mundane arrows.
A moment later, one of the foxes rolled to the ground as it was struck by the Orion while dozen others disappeared into the night. He glared at them bitterly as they were on all fours, rotary galloping as far away as possible.
Even if he could have killed them all, it wouldn't had made him feel any better.
He had carried that heavy load for two hours only to be scavenged by loathsome foxes.
'Why didn't I cook some before I sleep?'
He didn't even eat any of that venison. As soon as he made camp, he went to sleep. And now it was all gone. It was really a nightmare of nightmares.
On the bright side, he no longer had to carry loads of meat so he was going to cover lot more ground. And he learnt one more thing about his sentience. He didn't sense the foxes because they didn't pose any direct threat to him. They only wanted to scavenge his kill. He could only sense them when he was awake, that was why he killed one of them in the consuming darkness of the moonless night.
'What was that dream about?'
'I was eating the venison then suddenly I was awoken by foxes helping themselves with my kill.'
As he was pondering, he learnt what the dream meant. That time when he was devouring the mountain of meat, he thought to himself that he was voraciously chewing the meat like a pack of foxes at a carcass. The dream literally meant that.
A while later he went back to sleep and at the crack of dawn he continued his tedious journey. He had planned to hunt birds along the way because they are not as demanding as wild game.
The day before he had eaten a large potion of meat just so he could reduce the weight of the venison that he was going to carry and it slowed him down considerably. Eating a lot of food is not good. Well at least when you have hundreds of kilometers to cover. So it was good for him to have no weight slowing him down because he didn't have any water left.
Traversing the wilderness throughout the day, he covered a lot of distance. So much that he reached the great Euphrates river. He had also managed to kill two guinea fowls along the way.
The serpentine river was as majestic as he had last seen it and it's calm, clear waters were very inviting.
Filling up his skins of water, he quenched his thirst and made fire by the river bank. He then feathered the guinea fowls and roasted them over the burning coals. As they were slowly cooking, he took off his blood soaked shirt and dived into the river.
"Refrrr"
Immediately as he was submerged, bubbles formed ascended to the surface as his hands flapped into the waters like he was being pulled down by a leviathan.
Again, he had done a stupid thing. He had inadvertently said refreshing out loud and the waters didn't allow him to finish that word. Immediately, gallons of water vacuumed inside his mouth and as soon as he realized his mistake, he began to drown.
It wasn't the amount of water he had vacuumed in that was drowning him.
The heavy hand was the one drowning him, dragging him to the depths with its mountainous weight. In panic he flapped his hands like a guinea fowl trying to fly in an attempt to reach the surface of the river but to avail.
In any case, he somehow managed to swim towards the shallow waters and bathe.
He was starting to question his sanity. First he said yummy out loud and now he opened his mouth underwater.
Maybe it was the fact that he only had his thoughts as a companion. Being alone for a long time can make a person a bit slow and weird in a way.
A while later food was ready. He sat on his coat like he was on a river view picnic and he devoured the meat.
"Yummy."
Moments later he washed his clothes, hung them on a tree and rested until the long shadows of the afternoon. He had planned to set up camp on the river bank but as soon as the day lost its heat, a shivering cold began pouring all around the river.
He had to set up camp as far as possible if he wanted a cozy, and comfortable sleep.
Four days later as the shadows were extending as far from the descending sun, he found himself just outside the village of Nomia. It is one of the villages of Oakland.
Glancing at the village from a distance, he couldn't help but think about what had transpired in the last few days. Oaklanders had destroyed his city and mercilessly killed his people on his account. They had sent trackers to kill him and now here he was, back in the lion's mouth. It was a rather strange twist of fate.
They didn't know how he looked like and they couldn't sense him now so he felt a bit more confident and the more he traversed the streets of the village the more confident and comfortable he became. They were not giving him any looks like he was some kind of freak. They couldn't sense him and for the first time in his life he was completely comfortable in public.
Trying to walk like he wasn't strained by the weight arm, he looked for a lodging and before long he found a small lodge owned by an aging woman. The old woman had three helpers, two teenage girls and a young man. One of the teenage girls, the white haired one showed Kodesh to his room.
The room was an improvement to the shelters he had built over the course of the past few days but it was just something you'd expect from a small village.
A small fragmented and sagged bed was at the far end of the room. It looked like it would bulge down at the slightest of pressure. There was also a busted chair by the corner. It looked like it had been repaired as many days as Kodesh had lived on earth.
In short he wasn't going to seat on any chair or sleep on any bed. He was going to have to sleep on the ground like he was still in the wilderness. His heavy hand would finish off that bed and chair.
However it was still nice to sleep under a roof for a change.
A while later he went outside to conversate with the three helpers and learnt a few things. First he learnt that the tombs of Samson are at the region called Ziha. That area is a camp for warriors who had served in the Oakland army for less than five years. They are not allowed into the city until their five year service had been completed. And he also learnt that the three kings were throwing a banquet to celebrate their sounding victory over Olive and there they will sacrifice the captives.