Chapter 5 Broken Toy
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The bright spot was moving away, and with it, the remnants of hope melted away, carried away by the soles of the highlanders, who stomped briskly on their mountain affairs. Elena knelt and looked at the funny knife at her feet, then at the back of the departing soldiers. The light was dying, and darkness was creeping out of the corners again, thickening into inky shadows.
Oh, God, am I done?
Elena realized that she was already accustomed to praying for help from the local god, Pantokrator, who was one and embodied in sixty-six attributes. She also remembered that Pantokrator, though called the Comforter, was stern and did not help people unless they needed it. The Lord gives at birth the most valuable gift - life, as well as the freedom to choose between good and evil. Everything else is in human hands.
Although now it's in one hand, the other is useless. And she doesn't think it's going to be anymore.
The girl picked up the knife. The shadows rustled, waiting for the highlanders to move away. The street had taken on a life of its own, angry and dangerous; it waited patiently, as a single entity, for the predetermined finale. Noiselessly stepped on the cobblestones, the tattooed figure that had disappeared earlier. In the darkness of the night, it seemed impossible to make out the tattoo with bugs in the wound, but Elena could swear she could distinguish every tendril, every barbed foot. What was more disgusting was the realization that in a matter of minutes, she would definitely be able to see the drawing in detail from a very close range. Smell the odor of someone else's sweat and dirt. Experience things not worth experiencing. And that would be just the beginning.
Elena clenched her teeth and got down on one knee, then pulled it off the stone as well. Her legs buckled with weakness but more or less obeyed. She pressed her right hand against her body to keep it relatively still. Her fingers were almost desensitized and felt swollen, puffed up like a glove on a bottle of homemade wine. The first step was hard, the second a little easier, and then it was half and half. The girl felt like a ship going by the will of inertia, trying to correct the motion with weak motors.
She didn't get far. Her right leg trembled and began to slip, and the tattooed man was there at once. He really did stink of fermented gruel and blood. Or maybe Elena had already started having odorological hallucinations.... it didn't really matter. She was surrounded like wolves on a moose, and a noose of shaggy, disheveled rope was preparing to encircle her neck. Experienced slavecatchers were in no hurry and approached the matter thoroughly, and the girl "floated" in a darkened state when thoughts and intentions died, barely born.
Elena clenched the sharpened iron in her fist and felt the hard hilt roughly hewn. She thought Charley, in the fight for the ship, had managed to sever his poisoned hand, but the Brether had been killing for years, had used his right hand, and was armed with a heavy saber. What does she have? She can't even slit her throat with her left hand and a short blade.
Someone's fingers rested confidently - one might say bossily - on her shoulder. Her right shoulder. Another bout of pain washed over her brain, working paradoxically like an invigorating ice shower. Elena realized the rope was already around her neck and was about to tighten. It seemed that in the corner, under the second floor overhanging the street, stood two brethers, Charley and Ranyan. They stood silently, watching with eyes that held no pity, no compassion, not even life itself. The girl blinked, trying to push the obsession away, but it didn't work.
How many people had each of them slaughtered? The grim and creepy Ranyan, who never smiled, and killed girls on the Wasteland roads by beheading them. Charley, who had become a legend not because of his peace and good nature. What would each of them do now? And what would Santelli do, whose past had been glimpsed by the brigade's healer? The same brigadier who, in the battle on the ship, having lost his weapon, gnawed the enemy. Matrisa, who gained her life and wealth in the Wastelands, where no one gave anything for nothing. Kai, who left the ducal house for nowhere, with only his sword.
And Shena... Sweet Shena with a past held nothing but pain, loss, and horror. A green-eyed Valkyrie who was turned into a lonely, embittered killer but couldn't be broken.
The pain burned into a rage very quickly, as if by a single movement of the blowpipe that drove the air into the blazing inferno of a forge furnace. Fatigue, anger, endless frustration, and humiliation from Draftsman melted together. Hatred for the jackals of the night Milvess and all bastards willing to do her harm. And also fear - a suffocating panic that Elena was losing precious moments that would cost her.
What exactly it would cost she wasn't really specific anymore, just getting into action.
Elena didn't know how to stab properly, but when they were side by side, proper technique wasn't as important. It wasn't perfect, but it was impressive and unexpected. This is where the small knife played to the advantage. It just wasn't noticed in the street darkness. Or maybe they did notice it, but they didn't pay attention to it because self-confidence is a universal sin beyond the world and times.
One thing was certain about the Highlanders. Their blades were good and sharpened to a fine point, not a surgical scalpel, but close, very close to it. The knife entered the naked belly at once and to the hilt, gently, very easily, making the tattooed wound a little closer to realism. Elena shuddered with revulsion as her fingers slid over the greasy, unwashed skin.
The wounded man didn't seem to realize what was happening at first, and he hiccupped oddly, giving Elena the smell of onions in a marinade of fermented wine. And then he squealed, recoiling. On the drive and adrenaline-fueled embers, the girl swung aslant upward, cutting the face of the second goat, who was just trying to tighten the noose around her neck. And again, it turned out surprisingly well, as if the universe had decided to throw in a little luck to compensate for a bad day. That's what good experience in applied surgery means. The hand didn't shake even when the sharpened steel shattered the nasal cartilage. And the old fencing lessons had finally come in handy, if only in a small way.
The shadows scurried about, muttering something in gibberish, like Wells's Morlocks. There was a twitching nervousness in the droning voices. The victim was not behaving properly. A hunted, bleeding deer suddenly raised a stalker on its horns. Elena clearly realized, however, that this was only a brief respite. There was still no way for her to get away. Too many enemies, too fat a profit at stake, even with the bruises and broken bones. Humans were expensive, women much more so.
The wounded slaver wheezed and howled. Elena decided sadly that the carrion was likely to survive. Too thick a greasy cushion on its belly, too short a blade. Though peritonitis can work wonders. The other one. The one who'd been spared a good rope and hadn't had time to tighten the noose was sniffing his split nose, sobbing, either spitting blood or vomiting wine. In any case, it smelled like a latrine where they'd poured waste that wasn't good enough for the cheapest vinegar.
The girl pressed her right hand tighter against her torso, and with her left, she hastily pulled the rope off her neck, keeping the knife in place. The red fog thickened before her eyes again, turning everything into a dark phantasmagoria. Elena jabbed herself in the thigh in fury, again spurring her exhausted mind with new pain. It helped.
She leaned sideways against the wall, damp and grave-cold. So cold that it was freezing even through the thick sleeve of her sweat-soaked shirt. It was like being buried alive in an autumn grave. She decided to walk down to the river. It was a little easier to walk down the hill. A step, another. Sparks glittered in the semi-darkness. Jackals did not use lamps. The quick light for orientation was obtained by scraping flints on stones and iron. Elena giggled madly, on the verge of hysteria, and licked drops of blood off her blade without thinking to quell her thirst for a moment. It seemed to give her another moment of calm. From the outside, this gorging on someone else's blood looked creepy and very impressive. Someone had brought a "rotter," a lamp stuffed with minced fish that glowed by the phosphorescence of decomposing flesh.
She has neither Kai's sword, nor Santeli's axe, nor Charley's saber. Nor does she have an ahlspis. But the brigadier, the knight, and the brether became fearsome not because they had sharpened iron in their hands but for a very different reason. And she will be scary, too. She already is, a whole street of bastard creatures following her, howling in greedy anticipation of prey, but each one is scared to come closer.
Elena knew exactly determined for herself as an indisputable fact in the present and future, the second time the noose should be tightened around the neck of a corpse. And to live after such a definition became simple and easy. Only her consciousness became completely clouded. The girl did not understand where she was going. It seemed to be a dark, miserable street, where her foot alternately stepped on stones worn out by centuries or squelched in stinking puddles. At the same time, the wood creaked (treacherously! but why?...) beneath his boots, like the old staircase of an old house. It smelled no longer of the filth of unwashed bodies and rotten lamps but of wax and good quality, without excess fat. Also, iron and blood. It smelled stupefyingly of blood as if it had been poured out in bowls, far more than could have come from the victims of her blows, luxurious, improbably successful, and yet not fatal.
Even consciousness was bifurcated. In one part, all her strength was spent on keeping on her feet and not dropping her weak weapon. In the other part, the fencer was burned by an endless, all-consuming hatred and not focused on the slumlords... Elena was looking at herself through the glass, being burned by the reflected waves of frenzied rage. The girl was wandering in two worlds at once. Or at different times. Or maybe both at the same time. The main thing now was to concentrate on one facet of perception, simply walk forward, clenching her teeth, and overcoming the fire in her broken arm. Clutching the blade in her healthy hand. Because every step ...
The brain lacked the hardware capacity to think it through - why each step was so important. It was just self-evident. To walk as long as there was any strength left through pain and fear.
It struck nearby, thudding and hard, scattering spiky splinters. Again, a little closer. She was being pelted with clods of dry earth. Not dangerous, but painful. That was the end of it. She couldn't get far under the hail of stones. Not far, either. Elena stopped, exhaled, and turned to face the inevitable. She covered her eyes with her left hand, clutching the knife tighter. The fish lamp flickered dimly with rotten light, and the shadows ahead swarmed like corpse flies. There were many of them. All waiting in readiness to swoop down on the weakened victim. Warm trickles snaked down his forehead and face, a couple of pebbles splitting the skin on her head. One eye was finally closed under the pillow of the hematoma, the other distinguishing only light and darkness.
That's it, perhaps...
Elena leaned against the cold hard wall, unusually smooth, with some sharp bumps. The girl found herself in a shallow archway, successfully covering the sides. Well, it would give her a minute or two more respite, and then that would be it. She felt like she was in a cave, an impression made even stronger by the "rottenness". The moon was finally hidden behind the clouds and rooftops, giving way to a dead greenish light.
That's it. The end.
It took two tries to get the knife from the normal grip to the reverse grip, and in the process, the girl almost dropped the blade. But she did it. Standing up straight was more difficult, much more difficult, but Elena managed it. It remained to put the knifepoint to the solar plexus, press, and ...
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
What could be easier than falling forward? Gravity and her weight would do the rest. Elena imagined the disappointment of the jackals, who would be deprived of both income and entertainment today. Though they would probably figure out how to make good use of her body, the corpse wouldn't care. She laughed hoarsely, fearfully, dropping drops of bloody saliva from her broken, parched lips. She spat, trying to get the disgusting taste of foreign lard off her tongue. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine Shena as she remembered her first and last night, by the fire, before she'd sailed on the damned ship to the damned Malersyde.
It didn't work. Too, too tired. The image of the dark-haired friend with the chrysolite eyes slipped through the sieve of a faulty memory. Melting away in the fire of the terrible hatred that the other Elena felt. In a different time, in an unknown place.
Was you happy?
No...
Well, at least she remembered the voice. And the voice told her it was time.
Still not opening her eyes, Elena whispered, there was no strength for more:
"Fuck you, assholes. Tonight you're not gonna fuck a commissar's body, you're gonna fuck a dead body."
And she did what she should have done.
The fall was long, almost endless. And delightful - no fatigue, no pain. Just a feeling of peace, of long-deserved rest, which - the most wonderful thing of all! - it went on and on.
Elena waited for the prick under her breast, the flash of pain as the point pierced the cluster of nerves. And then a void from which there was no turning back. She wanted to hope there was something beyond the edge other than complete nothingness. In the brief moment between life ending and death not yet beginning, Elena thought of the almighty Pantocrator. And of the miracle. Of the possibility of seeing two people with whom she hadn't had the chance to find happiness in this world. Or worlds, to be more precise. The desire to look at least one more time at the old doctor man and the young Valkyries who had never met or known of each other but were equally dear to Lena, Hel, and Teina, one in three persons.
Just one look, just one word ...
A blow. A crushing, heavy, spirit-crushing blow. Not a jab. And not in the solar plexus, but on the back of her head, as if she'd been hit with a board. Before she finally collapsed into a deep faint, Elena realized that she had fallen not forward, onto the knife, but backward, when the support behind her suddenly disappeared.
Finally, the blessed darkness came.
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The Gothic soldier on horseback was carved from light, almost white wood that had darkened with time. So much so that the burned patterns were lost against the general background. The toy cavalryman looked former and, judging by the ruined appearance, had served many generations of children. The spear had long since broken, the horse was missing its tail and ears, and the shield looked like it had been furiously scraped with a knife. Apparently, the carver had once made a coat of arms, but the design had been discarded just in case. It's not surprising, given the public's reverence for heraldry of any kind. A superfluous curl or a tint of tinture could become the cause of a violent dispute about privileges and then a reason for a vendetta or even a private war between noble families.
The wooden soldier stood next to the candle. Elena looked at the figurine and thought about the fact that she was now like a broken toy. She sighed. Instead of a sigh, she let out a long, ragged sob. She stopped thinking about nonsense. She shifted her gaze from the toy to those sitting across from her. They were silently waiting for the uninvited guest to recover a little and come to a more sociable appearance.
Elena vaguely remembered what had happened after the fall. One thing was certain: she had been lucky. The girl had leaned against a door hidden in a deep archway. Just as the maimed loser was about to commit suicide, the door opened. Then Elena was dragged somewhere, but not for long. She must have been too heavy. Splashed in the face with cold water, and then ... the next thing is nothing. Now, the beaten victim of the fencer was sitting in a gloomy room at a narrow table with a clay candlestick. Across from it sat two very small women ... no, not like that. The girl blinked her only eye, focused on the dwarf and the girl, whom Elena would have given at most about six years old
"Thank you," she whispered with broken lips. It was whispery but more or less intelligible.
The dwarf nodded. She looked to be between twenty and thirty, which meant she looked more like forty than forty by Earth standards. Fairly well-groomed, wearing a sleeveless cape over a loose dress. Her long dark hair was styled in a simple but neat style, pinned up with brass spokes. The woman looked like a bourgeois, not too weary from hard work. Her facial expression eluded Elena in the rolling shadows, but her gaze did not seem angry; rather, her savior's eyes read interest and pity. But sparingly measured, without exaltation or willingness to splash her hands. As for the girl ... Despite the single candle, the family resemblance between mother and daughter was striking. Only the dwarf's face was cute in its way, while the daughter's face was the opposite - with a normal build, her face seemed surprisingly ugly.
Elena sighed, checking to see if her ribs were fractured. It looked like there were cracks, but otherwise, they were fine.
"I was ... attacked," she explained.
"Yes, I know. I heard. You're lucky."
The dwarf spoke very calmly, stating the facts. Elena sighed again.
"Need two planks," she asked. "Or sticks, the size of ..." the girl noted on her forearm.
"Why?"
"I have a broken arm. I'll make a bandage."
"Out of sticks?"
"Yes," She had to try and articulate the words clearly to speak articulately, which made her lips ache even more. "It's special, medicinal."
The dwarf thought.
"All right. I'll check it out."
The result of a short search was a plank that looked like an old floorboard and a stick that, judging by the smell and patina, had been used regularly to stir broth or sourdough. Elena gritted her teeth, feeling the sour, coppery vinegar flavor on her tongue. She thought about what herbs she should mix now, according to the Apothecary's precepts, to calm her down and ease her ordeal. She shuddered at the thought of how much it would hurt.
The first thing Elena did was to cut the sleeve, and with a few movements, she snatched it off just below the shoulder joint. It was a waste of a shirt, but she had to at least look at her mangled arm. The pain sank its fangs into her forearm again, echoed in her shoulder and even higher. But tolerable, though on the very edge. The medic hummed, thinking that a couple of days ago, she would have screamed at the top of her voice, but now... well, sometimes people age quickly, and she felt like a very, very old person. Old and worthless, like a wooden soldier next to a candle.
Her forearm was swollen, and the skin was bluish, which meant it was broken, not just a fracture or a bad bruise as the patient had hoped. But the fracture was closed and seemed to be fairly straight. A line from my grandfather's book came to mind. If the angle of displacement is more than 15 degrees, you need a separate operation to straighten it out. Well, a separate operation is not going to happen anyway, and she can only hope the degrees are correct. Elena moved her fingers. They are moving, though weakly.
"I'm going to need some help," she turned to the hostess of the house again.
Elena was ready to promise money, but the dwarf only nodded with interest and asked businesslike:
"What should I do?"
The patient and doctor, in one person, briefly explained as best she could. The woman shook her head in agreement and understanding. Elena handed her a highland knife. She didn't want to give it to her, considering the knife had already saved Elena's life. But she had to. The girl grinned bitterly, remembering her first medical experience in this world. Truly, life goes in circles.
Let's go.
Following her instructions, the dwarf cut the cut sleeve into several strips. Elena clenched her teeth, carefully placed them under her arm, and began to form a splint. The stick was longer than the board, so Lena placed it against the outside of her forearm. The floorboard was just right for the inner side, slightly over the wrist. Good, and the wrist could be secured. After a few minutes of gnashing of teeth, bitten lips, and red fog in the eye, the installation "tire disassembled, semi-finished" turned out. Elena took a breath and began to put it back together, pulling ties from her sleeve. The dwarf helped here too. Her fingers were thin but strong. Her hands were not worn out by women's labor. The skin was normal, not faded from countless washes, and her nails were in place. She wonders what the owner and savior do?
Working by candlelight, and even with one eye, turned out to be insanely hard. Twice, the girl almost lost consciousness and had to lean her head back on the hard wooden backrest and catch her breath. But the patient waited for the darkness to recede and persisted. Her jaw muscles ached from the strain, and a quiet moan occasionally broke through the spasmodically clenched jaws. But in the end, it worked. More like "so-so" than "good," but, having judged it sensibly, Elena concluded that, under the given conditions, the work was close to exemplary. The bandage looked, to put it bluntly, ugly, but it did the job.
The girl did not take her eyes off the operation, watching with unchildlike interest. It was natural because there was no television, and any unusual event was considered entertainment. And children in Ecumene had time to watch (and get used to) the usual hardcore of everyday life from an early age.
She had to make the harness, and the neckerchief was used for it. The tears came suddenly and violently as Elena remembered that Shena had bought it for her. A simple piece of unbleached cloth still held the memory of the dark-haired Valkyrie's hands. And now ... now. Elena had had to extinguish her emotions with willpower more than once in the past months. Each time, it got easier and easier. And now she stifled her sobs like a peasant twisting the head of a chicken. There would be time for tears.
The chain with two halves of one coin on his chest seemed very cold, as if only now out of a glacier.
Elena didn't know how to do the bandage correctly but decided that a position perpendicular to the body would be the most correct. To tie the knots tightly, help was needed again. The girl hunched over the table while the hostess tightened the resulting headscarf around the back of her neck. At last, Elena straightened herself carefully, shifting the weight of her arm to the bandage.
It hurts! God. It hurts so much ... She must have made a mistake or done something wrong, but it's too late to fix it anyway. Let's assume the splint is properly applied. She should have wiped her forearm with a wet rag first, she thought belatedly. To hell with it, though! If there was any tetanus left on the skin, it was too late now.
"Are you a healer?"
Elena pulled herself out of another lapse of consciousness with great difficulty, looking dumbly at the dwarf, unable to focus her attention and thought.
"Are you a healer?" repeated the savior. It was strange, with a lively and personal interest. On the other hand, what is strange? Medicine has always been expensive. Even a poor medic in the house is already good. And the guest, no matter how it is, now must from all sides. Without the dwarf, her corpse now... Elena's vivid, imaginative imagination immediately suggested what would be happening to her self-stabbed body right now. Considering that the body would have gone to the jackals quite intact, just bruises and a broken face.
"No... I don't have a diploma," the girl replied, trying to choose her words as precisely as possible. She wouldn't fall from the fire of slavers into the fire of shop rules.
"I..."
She paused again, realizing that it was not worth mentioning the Apothecary. Who knows if the contract for the redhead from the unknown lands is still open?
"I know herbs. I know how to make ointments, mix elixirs, and mend wounds."
"Can you treat burns?"
That's a strange question. Elena couldn't see a single burn on the dwarf or the girl, not even from the charcoal.
"Which one?"
"Boiling water and red-hot iron."
After some careful thought, the girl decided that she could treat it. Though the damage from the corrosive flora of the Wasteland and the Evil Sun was more like acid damage, the skin was skin.
"Yes."
"Do you fix sprains?"
"Yes."
The little mistress tilted her head with a very serious look and even a touch of joy. The girl watched silently, keeping an expression of interested concentration on her ugly face.
"Rest," the dwarf said, almost commanded. "We'll talk tomorrow."
"I'll pay," Elena, despite her drowsiness, still tried to eliminate all possible incongruities. "I have some silver..." Here, she realized that she was tired not even badly, but just prohibitively. Her body had burned through the adrenaline, exhausted all her strength, and was falling into uncontrollable oblivion.
"On your belt, remove the purse yourself."
"Afterward," the hostess firmly retorted. "Tomorrow. Sleep. There's a bench over there. You can lie down."
"I need some water..." Lena belatedly squeezed out. Before, a fierce thirst had been in the background behind the pain, but now it reminded her sharply.
"She'll bring it."
It took a long time to figure out who "she" was, but in the end, Elena managed it. She rested her head on the firm backrest and grinned wickedly, remembering her old self, unable to fall asleep without her favorite pajamas and a pillow with Mamoru Chiba on it.
How little it takes for a man to return to the primal state of a survival machine... A little bit of cold, a little bit of real hunger, a dash of good old-fashioned ultra-violence. And a refined city-dweller in the fifth generation is ready to wear wool on her naked body, eat from bowls licked by pigs, and sleep sitting on a hard tree. And to consider even a leaky roof over the head, at least for a night, as a great blessing. Because there is no tomorrow, and death, disease, and beatings are ready to come at any moment. And about any moment is not a creative exaggeration.
Finally, sleep - heavy, painful sleep - took her in its hot embrace. Elena fell asleep with a clear, distinct thought that was repeated over and over again.
It's too much for me alone. Too much... I can't take it anymore.
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