As much as I feel deep shame about having to go into the corner to pee in the bucket that was finally provided for me after Tavarrat brought us some food and water, I must admit it feels a good deal better than just wetting myself because I couldn’t move. I spent a few extra minutes while I was squatting with my britches around my knees inspecting the state of my thighs, but thankfully while they’re still a little clammy they’re nowhere near as red as I expected, despite the chafing. Even so, as I hurriedly pull them back on after buttoning my drawers up, I find myself looking out around the room again, wary of being caught out even though I know we’re both alone in here. And da’s out again, hanging slumped where he was left before but now, at least, sitting a little more comfortably than before.
It’s another little mercy that Mallys came up with, while we were having our very guarded conversation about my friends, or at least what little I was willing to reveal. When Tavarrat returned with the food and water, she sent her off again to fetch the bucket and also the little stool he’s now perched on, taking at least a little of the weight from his arms now as he remains comprehensively lashed to the pipes. I couldn’t help it, I had to thank her for that too, it was a small gesture but it meant a lot.
We were almost becoming friendly, I think, even if I was working hard to keep it clear in my mind that this is not someone that I can trust in any capacity right now. And then she spoiled it by accidentally letting slip that one of her people might have killed Thelgaewynn during the fight after they took me captive … I blew up, I was so angry, but more than that I was horrified, this bare-faced reminder that she really is my enemy, that they all are, that they’ve been hired to murder every one of my friends, and that eventually they’ll murder me too, most likely. I called her a conceited, two-faced bitch who deserved to fry in a thousand hells for the rest of time for having any kind of part at all in that, and I’m sure I called her much worse things too, I can’t really be sure. After that it got a whole lot more fuzzy. She left soon after, but by that point I barely noticed.
No, I was curled up in the other corner, my arms wrapped around my head while I wept like a baby. Fuck … Thel … I mean I didn’t know her yet, not really, but … no, I think I knew her enough, at least. Enough to like her, I really did, and now … well no, once I got myself under control it was mostly through reminding myself that, honestly, she never actually said that they definitely killed her, she didn’t know herself, that they were already gone before her friend could know for sure, she was just really hurt. Enough to kill her, but still … no, I don’t believe it, that dwarf is too fucking tough to die like that, I know she is. Or maybe I’m just trying really hard to convince myself of the fact …
Buckling my belt, I let my tunic settle back over it and take a quick step away from the bucket, uncomfortably mindful that it smells no better than I did last night. Worse is that it was never actually made clear if anyone’s actually going to come and collect it at some point to empty it out, or if it’s just going to stink the place out further as I have to keep topping it up. Or perhaps Vandryss might devise something even worse for it when she comes back. Oh for the love of Minerva, Gael, why do you have to put those kinds of thoughts in your head in the first place?
Moving as far across the room as I can from the bucket now, I plant myself against the wall and take a long moment to stretch my arms, then each of my legs one at a time. Making the most of my relative freedom while I have it, uncomfortably aware of what they plan on doing with me, sooner of later. I’ve still got a whole lot of chains hanging from the shackles locked around my limbs and throat, but for now, at least, I’m otherwise largely unrestricted. Although with the door locked it doesn’t really mean a whole lot.
Like a glutton for punishment, the first thing I did once I was in a state to actually use my newfound good fortune, such as it is, was try to weave a sigil, hoping against hope that perhaps Tavarrat might have made a mistake with her work after all. A glyph inscribed wrong, perhaps, a small but important portion of spell-binding overlooked or fudged without being caught first. Tiny niggles, perhaps, but enough to create a chink that I could exploit, anything that might allow me to use just a sliver of my magic. Nothing happened. As if I really expected anything else.
Frustrated with that inevitability, I instead planted myself against the wall and closed my eyes, trying to send a message to Lady Sulin Naru instead. That didn’t get through, any more than my subsequent attempt to contact Tulen. I started crying again at that, but stopped myself quickly, growing quite furious with myself for getting so upset over something which is entirely out of my control. Fucking Vandryss and her pet witch put me in this position, and I have to find another way to get myself out of it.
So I spent the next ten minutes going over the room, checking everything I found. Not that there’s much here – stacked chairs and odd boxes, but they’re nailed shut too tight for me to be able to check the contents, and I doubt they’d leave me alone with them if there was any real chance I could actually use anything in here to escape. The only other things of any real note in here are the pipes da’s chained to, but while they’re broad and sturdy there doesn’t seem to be anything running through them, at least right now. None of them are warm to the touch, nothing’s leaking out of them, they’re just there. Cold and implacable. Waiting for me to join him, like an uncomfortable but inevitable promise …
I would have liked to at least talk with him, but since we’ve been left alone he’s just passed out again, still tired from his treatment, probably, and made all the more sleepy after finally being fed and watered. I haven’t the heart to wake him, I’d much rather just let him sleep, he needs it after what’s been done to him. To be honest I have half a mind to follow his example, catch up on my own rest while I can, but I’m wary to close my eyes right now, not while I have to do something, anything, whatever I can to get out of here, however futile.
Finally I push myself away from the wall and move to the other side, pulling one of the chairs down and carrying it close to my father before setting it down and dropping into it. I let the chains drop without ceremony and they’re a little louder than I’d like, but when I look to him he doesn’t stir. I breathe a sigh of relief and sit forward, letting my wrists rest across my knees as I turn to ponder the room in general, and that door in particular.
In spite of the restrictions, I still reach out with my senses, quieting my mind by smooth, subtle increments as I concentrate entirely on the door and whatever must be beyond. The corridor and the other cells and … whoever’s out there. My breathing slows, my limbs becoming strangely light despite the chains weighing them down, my body becoming increasingly insubstantial to me as the moments tick by, as I recede into my mind while still reaching out. My focus remains stubbornly fixed on the door, never leaving it, I let myself blink without consciously thinking about it but leave my lower mind to handle that business now as I let myself drift away through what I can see, what I can hear, what I can now feel.
But even though the drift begins, it fails to pierce the cold, solid barrier of the door. I become unnervingly aware of it, every inch of its surface, every nail and screw in the boards and banded iron, even of the many locks, although only the one slipped at this time. Locking me in, of course, but only so much as they need to prevent me from wandering, otherwise powerless as I am now. This door … I know everything about it already, where the weak spots are, that the top hinge is rusting some and that a particularly heavy boot could probably take it down with a single kick, that the locks have been changed three time since it was put in. That the latest collection are all very new, installed barely three months ago, and all in the same sitting. Not that I have to surmise why that was, of course …
And yet, no matter how hard I push, I just can’t get beyond it, either through my feelings or my hearing, no matter how much augmentation I might be able to scrape together from the pitiful dregs I actually have at my disposal. Presented with the first solid obstacle, any attempt at anything beyond the simplest, most pathetically simple cantrip falls down flat. Damn it … these fetters really are too bloody strong.
Letting out a frustrated grunt, I throw my arms a little and the chains give a louder clanking clatter, but I just let it happen this time, simply sitting back now so I can slouch into the chait, hands hanging between my legs while I just wallow. Damn it … fucking … gods, what the fuck am I supposed to do about any of this? I have no power, no weapons, I’m trapped in a place my enemies can gain uncomfortably easy access to, and my friends have no idea where the bloody hell I am. I can’t even hold out much of any hope that either Tulen or Lady Naru could get in contact with me, since I’m sure Tavarrat will have thought about that ahead of time and simply deadened the whole place. It wouldn’t even have been particularly difficult for her, I was learning to do spells like that in my first year at the Academy.
Besides, even if they could reach me, I doubt I could actually respond thanks to the collar. It’s all I can do now not to just reach up and start yanking at it, try to pull it off even though I know there’s not the slightest hope I could actually manage it. It’s not a matter of not being strong enough, this thing is far beyond mortal might. Only magic can break these bonds. So I just stay as I am, glaring daggers at absolutely nothing, my shameful, ineffectual fury wasted on empty air.
Then I hear da start to stir again, the subtle clinking of his chains announcing his shifting as he lets out a low, muddled grunt of his own and starts to sit up, his bonds producing even more noise now. Then he lets a coughing groan go, and then there’s a sudden clatter as he must jump, coming to himself now and realising he’s trapped, fuzzy for a few moments before he finally remembers what’s actually been going on. I sit up as soon as I hear this, turning enough to be able to turn sidelong to him, gripping both my hands together in my lap now as I watch him blink his one good eye while the other barely opens a slit under the swelling, and he turns his head my way. Even so, he takes long seconds to focus enough to actually see me, and then he almost sobs. Like he forgot.
“Oh … oh … I’m sorry, my dear. I’m … oh, my mind is just … I’m so much less than I should be, I don’t … I’m …”
“Da, it’s okay, don’t torment yourself, I understand. You’ve been through so much, I’m sure I would be the same after … I don’t even know how long you’ve been here. I can only just keep track of how long I’ve been here, and it’s been …” I falter as I go through in my head how long it might have been since I first work up in here. “Shit … a couple of days now, I think. Well, maybe more …”
“No, Gael, I’m … I really am sorry. I wish you weren’t here. I mean … no, I mean there’s a part of me that is glad you’re here, it is wonderful to see you again, despite the circumstances, but … no, I would rather you weren’t. at least not trapped here with me. I wish you were out there, with your friends …”
“So do I, believe me …” I mutter that, mostly just to myself, giving the door another dark, frustrated hard stare now. “But they’ll be looking for me. For both of us, like we were searching for you before. Kesla won’t give up, no matter what they throw at her. She’s the most stubborn person I’ve ever met, it’s one of her best qualities.”
“I remember …” He chuckles a little, and while his smile’s weak it still feels sincere. “You mentioned that, more than once … in your letters. You’re very fond of her.”
“You’d definitely like her. And the others. Even Art …” I falter at his name, I don’t know why but I do … something hurts inside me saying it, because it brings up something unbidden. Some dark, dread idea I’m so scared to admit, realising I might never get to see him again. That something horrible might already have happened to him and I wouldn’t know anything about it. But … no, wouldn’t I? Somehow I don’t think that would be so simple …
“You like him, too. The bakaneko. You haven’t written about him as much, but … I think there might be a reason for that.”
“What? I don’t …” I stop myself, just giving him a close look now, but he’s still smiling that sad little smile of his. There’s a wistfulness in his eye now, it’s a strange thing to see under present circumstances. I have no idea what that’s even about.
He doesn’t press, though, and after I remain silent for another moment he looks down again. He coughs a little, and I wish they’d actually left the water jug in here, or at least the cup, with some more water in it. For him, for later. Instead all I can do is just watch him suffer, and it hurts me deeply. “”Are you … oh shit … I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can –”
“No … I’m all right … enough, at least.” He clears his throat, taking a good long time doing it, and finally sits forward as much as he can before spitting onto the floor in front of him. The results are not pretty, it’s a thick, phlegmy wad that splatters onto the thin carpet, and there’s some blood in it too which distresses me even more, my throat tightening just seeing it. But he coughs again, a little wetter, and somehow it manages to sound almost relieved. “Oh … no, don’t worry about me. I’ve lived through …” He chuckles again, grim as before. “Fuck … no, I really can’t say I have actually been through worse than this, this would be my lowest point to date.”
“No, surely …” I sit forward now as I give him a sharp sidelong look, dr9opping my voice to a whisper. “I heard you died. Twice. This can’t be worse than that.”
His smile fades now, replaced with a much more curious look, and he studies me for a long beat. “But who could have … no-one at the Citadel would know about that, except perhaps Arrhetel. But she would never have told you about that …”
“There’s someone else with us now. Someone you know. Someone powerful.” Suddenly I’m uncomfortably aware that we’re in a hostile place, and I can’t put it past Tavarrat to have put some means of listening in on our conversations into operation in here. I don’t want to reveal anything that I haven’t already potentially let slip to Mallys.
“Another wizard? Or not …” He frowns, looking down as he must ponder the possibilities. The fact it takes him so long makes me think there must be a lot of acquaintances to go through. Finally when he looks up he just looks confused. “No, I can’t think who that might even be …”
“Someone close. You know her extremely well, and have done for a long time, I think. She’s … well, she’s very unusual. Perhaps unique. I’ve certainly never met anyone like her.”
Again he just watches me, still pondering, then something seems to dawn on him, and he looks away quickly, a very complicated expression crossing his face. I have no idea what to make of it, it seems almost … quilty? “Su? You met … is she here? In Untermer?”
I almost don’t answer him, I’m still desperately trying to work out what he could possibly actually mean by that look, the way he asked that question. It seems like I’ve shaken him to his core with this revelation, but I don’t understand why. “I don’t … I thought you were friends. She said you are. Very good friends.”
“We are. Of course we are. She’s one of my very best.” He lets a particularly heavy sigh go as he looks up at me again, and his face seems softer now, at least as much as it can in its current state. “I’m glad she’s here, that she’s helping. She’s … she’s like your friend Kesla, in some very particular ways. Certainly she’s every bit as stubborn. She won’t back down either.”
“She’s kind of amazing, actually.” I feel my face immediately start to flush as soon as I say it, I really didn’t intend to just blurt it out like that. But he just smiles, incredibly fondly, I realise.
“Minerva, yes. She is that …” He looks down, sighing, and doesn’t speak again for a while. Then, when he looks up again the smile’s gone, and suddenly he’s so serious I’m almost alarmed. “Yes, of course. Gael, there’s something I need to tell you, about her. About who she really is. She’s –”
That ratchetting sound in the lock stops him dead, his eyes instantly going wide as I feel my heart jump in my chest and my stomach clench, every inch of me going icy cold while my throat almost seems to close. The instant fear that grips me must hit him as hard as he also visibly stiffens, his twisted fingers twitching ineffectually as I’m sure he wishes he could curl them around the chains to pull himself a little more upright. Then the key finally turns in the lock, and again the door sticks for a moment before it’s roughly shoved open, and I’m sure that bad hinge must give just a little more in the process …
And she walks in. Hell, not even a walk, she’s stalking in, fast and powerful and dangerous, driven by dread purpose now as she makes a beeline right for me. She looks … oh fuck, I don’t think I’ve seen her looking this angry before. Her eyes are on fire now, I realise, the green genuinely glowing now, actually lighting the room a little brighter with an uncomfortably baleful flickering glow. I catch a glimpse of Tavarrat slipping into the room after her and pushing the door to, but not closing it entirely this time, and for just a second I wonder if maybe I could risk trying to run past Vandryss before she reaches me, if I could get past the rogue wizard too. Somehow escape while there’s just that tiniest sliver of a chance.
Except there’s no chance of that actually really working, I’ve seen how fast this … woman is, as well as how strong she is. I know I wouldn’t make it past her, and she might kill me right there, might not be able to stop herself. She feels like just the type who would chase down and murder someone just because they were running away.
But the look on her face … gods help me, she looks ready to kill right now. Maybe I should run anyway, maybe it wouldn’t actually make any real difference but this feels like death bearing right down on me.
Da certainly picks up on it, I hear him straining against the chains again as he snarls: “No! Stop it! I fucking told you! You leave them alone!”
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Vandryss doesn’t even acknowledge him as she takes the last big, striding steps up to me, it’s like she doesn’t even hear him, she’s so focused on me. And she doesn’t stop once she’s close either, she comes right up to me, so I’ve already started to get up, actually falling a little over the chair in my haste as she reaches me.
Her expression doesn’t change at all as she shoots both hands out at once and clamps them around my throat, instantly starting to choke me as she lifts me up at least as much as our height difference can actually manage. In the end my toes are dangling bare inches above the floor, I think, and as I strangle they start kicking mostly of their own accord while my hands immediately go to her wrists, desperately grasping as I try to pull free. It's no more successful than trying to pry away the cold enchanted steel of my collar …
I can hear my father screaming at her now, and just about make out the words, but my head’s already filling with that white noise as I choke and twitch and claw for breath that just can’t come, the heat rising fast as I feel my brain starting to cook. Like before, I’m already losing focus on much of anything besides the woman strangling me and her baleful hot stare, but I can just make out Tavarrat walking up behind her, although she’s taking her damn time about it now. Like she’s not particularly bothered by what’s happening now. When I do finally get enough of a look at her face to actually see her expression it’s worrying enough, she seems almost as angry as Vandryss, I think, and I realise there won’t be any help there, not this time. She doesn’t care what this monstrous bitch does to me right now.
As it gets worse, I start thrashing more, my body burning more energy even as it’s starving for air, reacting largely on its own now as my survival instinct truly kicks in. I stop trying to pry her hands from my throat and just start battering at her arms, desperately trying to break her hold, but this doesn’t work so I become more wild with my swings, some just flailing wide as I start to lose focus but a few hitting home. One fist cracks her across the face but she barely even twitches, certainly it’s like she didn’t even notice I hit her, she just narrows her eyes a little more and tightens her grip even more, and I feel something start to crack a little, deep in my neck, I think. I let out a gasping shriek but it doesn’t reach my mouth because there’s no air left in my lungs, all I manage to get out is a wretched rattling gurgle. And now my vision’s narrowed to little more than a tight tunnel of thick, grasping lines of inky darkness, and all I can see in the light at the end of it is her face, seeming so far away now. Worse, it's been long indeed since I actually heard anything beside the great heavy throb of rushing noise in my head …
It's possible I genuinely black out for a moment or two, I can’t really be sure, but I think there must be a beat or more of empty darkness and nothing else before I crash down on the floor in a sprawling tangle of watery noodle limbs. There’s a beat where I just lie in something of a semi-twilit daze, but then the urge to breathe again becomes too great and I start coughing, great stabbing cold knives in my horribly tortured throat while I use ever inward breath to drag in any air at all. I go on like this for a long time, curling up into myself like a wilting flower while I just cough and gulp, over and over again, each breath coming with a painful whooping sound and a great spasm of my curling back. It takes me a long time to muster enough strength to just move my arms enough to bring my hands to my throat, and when I finally touch the skin above the collar it stings, the flesh is so sore, telling me she wrung me out like a wet towel.
After another minute or two I’m finally able to blink the tears out of my eyes enough to look up at her, hunched with her arms now hanging slack as she towers over me, her whole upper body seeming to roll as she breathes heavily, and she still looks completely furious. Still very ready to kill me, which makes it all the more unfathomable that she actually let go.
“Fuck …” I just barely manage to spit out, my voice even worse than it was when I finally got that bloody gag out of my mouth, just a dry, broken gravelly whisper now, and every word produces another stab of ice cold, razor sharp steel in my larynx. “What is it … with you … that you … have to keep … strangling me? Some kind of … kinky thing?”
Her whole face tightens into a snarl of pure rage now as she steps forward and, without any preamble at all, kicks me in the stomach. Fuck, it’s like I’ve just taken a broadside hit from a swinging battering ram in my midsection, it’s instant agony and I double over into full foetal position even as I feel myself slide a few feet across the floor from the force of it. Da starts screaming at her as loud as he can, but mostly I just hear her now, even though she’s speaking in a low, primed growl as she starts to approach me again.
“That’s it, make fucking jokes, it’s all so fucking funny. Your friends thing they’re so bloody special, don’t they? That they’re masters of their world, that they can do anything they please. It’s fucking hilarious, it really is.”
“What …” I cough immediately, losing the thread of my words as I spit up blood, a great dark glob of it right on the floor in front of me, while I’m gripping my stomach as tight as I dare even though it feels like it’s on fire, it feels like she’s burst my guts wide open. “What did … what did they do?”
“Your friends raided Orric’s tavern.” Tavarrat speaks up at last, her voice a low, bitter hiss now, as full of hatred as her face. “They just busted in and killed half of his people that were in there, took a few prisoners and chased the rest away. And they killed …” Her voice breaks now, a touch of grief reaching her face as her lip wobbles. “They killed Gran. Fucking murdered him, on the spot.”
Gran? I have to scramble for a long moment to remember, it’s all I can do to keep one thought in my head now with the pain blazing in the middle of me, even worse than my torn, splinter-filled throat now, so it takes me a good while to recall who that name even belongs to. The orc, the bloody huge one, I saw him last week, in the alley. That was his name, Granzun. He used to be Art’s friend, once upon a time. Before things went terribly wrong for him and he lost his way, ended up with these people. I remember now, he damn near killed me.
He got what was coming to him, surely. I know my friends better than that, there’s no way they would really have just killed him in cold blood, it had to have been in battle. He must have been quite the threat, I don’t doubt it took several of my friends to kill him. I wonder who did it, Kesla? Shay? Maybe Art? Gods … honestly, I hope it wasn’t him, that would surely have been a terrible thing for him to have to do, I can’t imagine what he’d be feeling after taking the life of his one-time friend …
But I can’t say any of this, they really would murder me on the spot. As it is I’m very scared they’re both going to kill me anyway, the way they’re looking at me right now. Tavarrat looks as fervent about it as Vandryss.
The only reason they haven’t is because there’s that slim little thing that’s keeping them both in check, the fact that they need me alive, just like da. They can’t kill me, at least not right now, not while there’s even the slightest chance I might still be useful to them. The moment that changes they’ll slit both our throats and make sure our bodies are never found, just to make damn sure it never gets back to the Silver Order how it happened, or by whose hands. Until then they have to keep me alive, and my father to. But that doesn’t mean they can’t still hurt me, and that fact gives me a cold, fearful feeling deep down just above where that horrible ruptured pain is settled in my stomach.
Before I could say anything anyway in my defence another spasming cough comes up and I spit out more fresh blood, and this time it scares me even more, there’s so much of it. The room gets very quiet after that, even da stops his tirade, I can’t even hear Vandryss’ angry panting any more as she stares at the splash of blood just short of her feet. Suddenly her face is a whole lot more complicated, much more wary, as if the realisation of what she’s just done finally hits, just a little too late. And then, just for a second, there’s something even more strange. She almost looks hungry, and that scares me worse than anything.
“What the fuck … oh you fucking BITCH!!!”
Vandryss has barely turned around to face the speaker when she’s actually picked bodily up off the floor in two powerfully strong, lithe arms and slammed hard into the wall with enough force to drive the air clean out of her in a bellow’s wheeze. Tavarrat’s so completely taken by surprise she just stands by, struck dumb, as Dramrath Mallys pins her colleague a clear two feet up off the floor.
“I fucking told you to cut that shit out! Leave her be, you’ve already half killed her, what the fuck is wrong with you?”
All Vandryss can do for the first few moments is stare back down at her, she’s as surprised as the wizard was. Her eyes are wide now, her face almost comically open, and perhaps there’s just the slightest trace of actual fear in her, at least for a split second, before she starts to claw her composure back. Her eyes narrow quick, her lips drawing back in a snarl, but while her fingers start to curl into claws she really can’t do much of anything given the way she’s been pinned by her outstretched upper arms. She may be a hell of a lot more powerful than she looks, but right now she’s weak as a kitten at the mercy of the much larger, far stronger dragonhalf.
“You best put me down now, before you make things much worse for yourself.” Her voice is almost indecently calm and level as she purrs her response.
Tavarrat finally gathers herself to start approaching Mallys now, but she freezes instantly when a very long blade indeed is put to her throat. Perhaps it was simply the pain still burning through me, or maybe just some pitifully small thrill from finally getting to see Vandryss made to look so very pathetic, but I entirely missed the arrival of the second person who must have followed the mercenary into the room. I don’t recognise her, but she’s striking enough I can’t help looking at her now.
The sword she’s holding out in one hand with unwavering steadiness is so ridiculously oversized I’m a little amazed she’s able to actually wield it so deftly, altogether it might be as long as she is tall. She’s a hobgoblin, I realise, but only half of one, like Shul Mivzida, of Minerva’s temple, although in truth they couldn’t be any more different. She’s a good deal younger, for one thing, from the look of her I doubt she’s any older than I am, and very pretty in a slightly feral way. She’s quite diminutive, but there seems to be some steel in her all the same, something about the ease of her stance tells me she’s as much of a warrior as her friend and can clearly handle herself.
In truth, now I’m looking at her I’m sure she’s a cleric, although a very different one from Krakka. She’s dressed all in black, and the mantle of her cloak, clearly made of black raven feathers, is all the indicator I need of her patron – she serves Corvina, the Raven Queen, the goddess of death. Honestly, she seems just the kind of holy woman I would have expected to find in the company of Dramrath Mallys, although in most every other way she’s not at all what I would have expected of one of the Queen’s clerics.
“Please, don’t. That would be most foolish.” Her accent is rich and thick, very exotic to my ears, but also alarmingly familiar, and almost immediately I recognise that it’s much the same as Thel’s. She’s from Abharet, probably the very same region.
“Stay out of this, Mallys. Both of you.” Vandryss continues to purr in her unsettlingly gentle tone, very much at odds with the cold, lethal look she’s giving the woman holding her up. “This is not your business, it’s between us and this little … wretch. Her friends have stirred up even more fucking trouble for us, and now one of ours is dead because of it. I promise you I won’t kill her, but once I’m through she’ll fucking well wish I had. Even her own father wouldn’t recognise her after, and he’ll see what I do to her.”
Mallys’ eyes narrow too, but she’s just cold now, her own fury very much under her control too. “I don’t care if her friends did do whatever has you so hot, this child has been here all this time, very much at your mercy, so they have had no hand at all in the death of your friend. You have no right to brutalise them, and I swear if you raise one finger to further harm them over this I will fucking end you right here and now. The pair of you.”
The demon woman’s eyes narrow further, barely slits now, and they almost seem brighter because of it. For the first time the anger returns to her voice as she growls, slow and steady: “Put … me … down.”
“Just get out of here, Vandryss. Right fucking now. I don’t care what arrangement there is between us, your employers, mine, any of it. I am not fucking playing right now.” Mallys stares her down for another long beat, then steps back and, before her captive quite realises what’s happening, tosses her roughly over her head to land hard and go sprawling. The surprise is so complete that she doesn’t catch herself until she stops rolling, only then finally managing to regain her feet.
She comes back right away, starting a charge while her hands go to her sword, one bracing the scabbard while the other grasps the hilt and starts to draw. But the dragonhalf’s already ahead of her, her blade out in a flash I don’t even see, it’s so swift, and Vandryss barely manages to stop herself in time to keep from getting impaled on the bastard sword’s point. Again her eyes are wide, but with quiet rage this time as she holds very still barely short of that wicked blade.
“Just give me a fucking excuse.” When the mercenary growls these words, little wisps of smoke spill out of her mouth, dancing with tiny hot embers. “Please.”
Vandryss watches her for a very long time with her face still boiling with hot rage even though there’s not so much as a smudge of colour in it. Mallys, meanwhile, just holds her perfect guard, her own sword not wavering any more than her companion’s, and every inch of her is a promise of brutal violence should she be tested. Finally her intended opponent just takes a long step back and takes both hands off her sword, backing towards the door now so she can keep her fixed in sight the whole way. When she speaks her voice is nothing but a feral hiss, full of such potent venom that it would kill if mere words could wound.
“Gran’s dead because you keep failing to do the job you and your band of useless idiots have been hired for. Just pull your fist out of this little bitch’s arse and get it done. I won’t remind you again.”
She’s gone without another word, and now, finally, the half-hob lets her sword relax, just an inch. Enough to let Tavarrat relax, and she follows her compatriot’s example now, backing away with big, exaggerated steps as she mostly feels her way to the door so she can keep close track of that unnervingly large blade. The cleric watches her go without moving, only relaxing when the door finally closes behind her without the lock turning this time, and turns to look at Mallys. “Are we good?”
Sheathing her sword, the dragonhalf just growls low under her breath. She’s still watching the door, a bitter frown on her face as she curls her now free hands into tight fists, but I can’t stop the new cough I’ve been fighting to hold in any longer, and as I vomit even more blood she finally turns to me. Her face changes instantly, and it surprises me. Honestly, I definitely got the impressive she was starting to like me when we talked before, but even so I’m a little taken aback to see her so alarmed and genuinely worried now as she drops into a low crouch beside me now. “Shit … get over here! Now!”
The cleric sheathes her sword with a scabbard she’s scraped up from where she must have tossed it onto the floor when she came in, and she comes immediately as she’s summoned. She has a much calmer look on her face, I notice, a cool businesslike expression I instantly recognise from Krakka and Shul both, which is no surprise at all to see as she reaches me in three big strides and immediately settles onto her knees. She keeps her sword tightly gripped in one hand as she reaches out for me, the other going straight to my belly as I shake and shudder on the floor.
“Help them …” I hear da croaking with his ruined voice, tired from yelling but desperate all the same. “Minerva, please … help them!”
“How is it?” Mallys asks the cleric, her tone similarly urgent.
The half-hob just gently probes, clearly mindful as I wince at the very careful contact she makes, and frowns a little now as she mutters something under her breath that I can’t catch. I doubt it was intended for anyone, anyway, more likely it was an entreaty to her own goddess, using her imbued sight as much as her training to inspect my wounds. Finally she sucks in a tight breath through her teeth, her frown darkening somewhat. “It’s not good. She hurt them very much. I don’t think her stomach’s quite ruptured, but there’s some very serious damage all the same. This will take some work.”
“Well do it. I won’t have this poor kid die because of that evil bitch.” Mallys sighs heavily as she grimaces, looking up over me now as I realise she must be regarding my father, but she looks down again quickly. Unable to meet his eyes, I think. She tries with me, and manages a little better this time, but still looks pretty guilty all the same. “I’m so sorry for that. This was entirely uncalled for. I swear, this was not my intention when …”
“When what …” I really have to fight to spit the words out, every one of them hurts now. “When you … gave me up to … her? You should have … thought about that … before.”
She rocks back onto her heels, looking away from me again, and brushes both her hands up through her loose hair in a gesture that reminds me very much of Kesla. She just looks so frustrated right now, I almost regret being so short with her. “Yes, well there’s nothing that can be done about that now, the damage is done. I’m just trying to make the best of a very bad situation here, I have my own people to look out for now.”
The cleric’s removed her hand from my stomach, now slipping off her fine kid leather gloves and carefully folding them up before stuffing them into her robe. Taking a deep breath, she starts to rub her now bare hands together in a gesture I immediately recognise from Krakka as she begins to mutter low under her breath just as I would have expected, calling on Corvina to grant her the power to heal me. I wonder how this magic will feel compared to that of Serena, or my own patron, Minerva. Each has its own flavour, I’ve found, so as much as this hurts I find myself somewhat curious to find out.
But right now … aside from the pain, mostly I’m just tired, I think. Fed up of all of this nonsense. I’m still in deep shit, whether I’ve suddenly found myself under the dubious protection of this strangely principled killer and her exceedingly odd friend or not. The beating Vandryss just gave me is indication enough that regardless of what she says right now, I’m clearly living on borrowed time.
So I just spit again, more purposeful this time, but it’s still bloody, and let my head settle on the floor, looking away from her now. “To hell with it, I say. Do what you will … it doesn’t really matter. You’re going to do … what you were hired to do … go back out and try to … hunt down and kill … my friends. Whether you succeed or not … I’m still stuck here … waiting on a … pretty fucking ugly fate. So If you don’t mind … I’d rather you just … left me alone.”
The silence that follows, with the exception of the cleric’s continued low prayer, is very loaded, Mallys surely troubled by my words, but I’m fully prepared to let them stand. I won’t let her off for this, not after what they’ve already done. Especially not for Thel.
Then she stands up again, grunting a little as she does so, but more from resigned frustration, I think, than any real effort. She starts to move off, but stops, and I can certainly feel her pondering long as she decides whether to speak after all or not. Finally she lets another heavy sigh go as she mutters: “For what little it’s worth, it turns out we were wrong before after all. Trouble didn’t kill your friend after all. From what we saw earlier she’s up and about again after all.” She takes a couple of steps away, then I hear her take one of the chairs down and walk some more before finally settling down.
When I finally raise my head enough to look I see she’s planted the chair near to the door, sitting so she’s mostly looking towards it now, almost as if she’s guarding it. That being said, I think she’s doing this as much so she doesn’t have to look at me right now.
I hold my tongue, even though I’m tempted to speak now, this news is … gods, it’s a small relief perhaps, but I’m bloody glad to hear it all the same. It’s a weight off my mind, at least. But even so, I’m still too angry to let this make me forget what has been done to me and mine since this started, so I stay silent, letting my head settle again as I wait for whatever’s next.
Finally the cleric finishes her litany and sits forward, placing one hand on my stomach while she rests the other one very gently on my throat. At first the contact of both stings as bad as ever, but almost immediately I feel something much stronger, radiating from her hands. Not a great, spreading warmth, like I would have expected from Krakka, this is more of a strangely soothing chill, like ice that somehow doesn’t freeze with its touch. It’s oddly comforting, but if it is working it’s doing it slowly, the pain still persisting strong enough for now.
Then again, she did say this would probably take a little while …