Authors preamble,
This draft contains; wound description, implied intercourse,
Thank you Beverly, for editing.
Moulder
/ˈməʊldə//ˈməʊldərɪŋ/
verb: moulder/mouldering
the power to take in or soak up the belief-given strength of an animal's flesh
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“Balsam Hossain, and you’d do well to remember that name,” he said, rapping the trapped man's knuckles with his ale horn, waving his arms about as he swaggered; he breathed in, paused for effect, then kicked.
His captive skidded backwards in a bundle onto the inn’s stairs, stumbled fearfully on the first two steps. Balsam watched, grinning drunkenly as the pantomime unfolded.
His packaged captive slipping on the third step, unable to balance himself with his hands bound like they were, he knocked himself out against the stair bannister. And rolling down the last flight, with a wet slap slammed face first into a fragrant cowpat.
“Ough. Bullseye” Balsam snorted, the jeering crowd blocking the door. “He’ll sort himself right, let's get back to it lads.”
Turning back to the crowd of ruddy faces pressed against the Inns window, Balsam hoisted his horn to his horde. “Hahahaha, fucking cheers!” Eager, and absolutely pissed they stared at him as they raised their mugs in response, the orange light of the fire and inconsistently lit candle chandeliers glimmered, set off against the soot stained fixtures lining the Inns walls.
Antler decorations with coats and random bits of armour hung off them gave off a musty smell that no-one noticed. And ale and mead could be heard splashing into mugs, the rest flowing into the floorboards cracks, each cask was replaced as drink flowed, dousing the rest of the merry night into uproarious vivacity.
The hearth was stoked to a splutter and as the bellowing roar of voices rose. Laughter at slips and falls lit up the evening, merry fights breaking out, all which could be heard well into pink cotton mouthed morning.
Jerico on the other hand, was having a much less pleasant evening. Wiping the last traces of cowshit off his face, he growled, slamming the grease wet, stinking washcloth back into the shallow river he was cleaning himself from. His blood boiled and his head felt like it had been caved in.
“Fucking barbarians! Bastards the lot of them, not a diplomatic bone in their tiny, tin-headed, rat-faced, loathy bodies!” He screamed, a few nearby animals stirred to scurrying in response.
“Calm yourself, love.” Curie said, leaning over to fish out the washcloth before it was washed away by the river’s current. “You’re disturbing the animals.” Pulling off her own gauntlets, she rangout the filth and presented it to him again.
“Blast the damn animals.” Jerico said, glowering. He sat down, however, taking the washcloth again to polish his breastplate.
“Oh shush, animals are the only thing that allowed us to keep out here this long.” Curie spoke placidly as she watched Jerico’s fervent efforts to pass on his rage into cleaning his armour.
His dark locks had fallen down in front of his usually genial well kept face, the months of travelling hadn’t given them much time to care for themselves, with Jerico giving up on shaving almost entirely after the third week. He looked ruggedly handsome, though she had to hold back a snort of laughter as he looked up.
“What?” he said, smiling despite himself at Curie’s expression, his dark almond eyes creasing.
“You just look, like a wild mountain man.” Curie squeaked, unable to hold back a giggle. He didn’t really, his features too aristocratic to look truly wild, but it was as close to wild he’d managed to get so far.
Jerico pouted, “Is the beard that bad?” he brushed his hair back with his fingers and tied it back into the bun he usually held his hair in.
“No it’s fine dear, don’t worry you look lovely. I’ve grown fond of the beard.” Curie replied sweetly.
“Such a charmer aren’t you” Jerico said grinning, “well I’ll have to shave soon, looking like a mountain man sure didn’t help when I was talking to those bastards”
Curie scoffed, “I don’t think walking up to them coiffed to the gills like you usually are would have helped, you probably got off easy.” she raised a hand before Jerico could start yelling again.
“Tell you what, why don’t we try to sneak through the toll once daybreak comes to pass? From the amount of noise they were making, they’ll probably be too drunk to cause us any trouble”.
Jerico glanced towards the inn, his face grew lighter as he mulled over the prospect. “What of any watchmen though, Curie? I didn’t manage to case the place when I was there,”
“Well,” she said pulling out two dead rabbits from her traveller's satchel, “suppose, if we’re fast enough. they won’t have a chance to alert the others.”
“Rabbits! Here? How in the hell’s did you manage that?” Jerico gaped, pausing his polishing for the moment as he eyed the two specimens.
“I managed to find a burrow, near the cliffs we passed on our way up.” Curie said, smiling smugly as she flopped them near the fire.
“Our luck’s finally turning around! I could kiss you.” he said, putting his breastplate to the side as he leaned forward.”
Aha, ah-no, not until you take a bath, with soap and a good scrubbing around your whiskers I'd add” Curie scrunched up her nose in partially mock disgust as she said so, leaning out of his reach.
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“Oh right, right sorry, I’d mostly gotten used to it by the time I got back.” Jerico looked down at the washcloth a moment before deciding it was a lost cause, “We don’t need all the meat off these do we? I’m rather peckish,” Jerico asked, eyeing the rabbits, “I’m afraid to chance it dear, we’ll have to do with normal rations”. Curie pulled out the trail bag she'd packed and shook out a few tasty, if meagre, morsels. “But anyway. how about you rest now, I’ll keep first watch”.
Jerico nodded. Yawning surreptitiously, he stood unwrapping and laying out his bedroll as Curie stoked the fire and sorted their rations for the night; hard cheese, various nuts, and some dried fruit were served for the evening, and they both ate in a comfortable silence, Jerico’s previous burst of anger forgotten as twilight faded into full dark.
As he laid down onto his bedroll, pulling his pack under his neck to serve as an extra cushion, Jerico sighed. “One more night darling, we’ll be alright.” He said looking over at her, her beautiful black face flame licked in orange.
“Sleep well” Curie replied, blowing him a kiss from across the fire.
Curie woke before dawn, Jerico snuffing out the remnants of the fire and gathering the two rabbits from a smoker Curie had made while he'd slept. “I’ll check the outpost,” Jerico croaked, packing away everything he’d laid out for the night.
Curie nodded, her eyes watering slightly from the cold morning air, “I’ll come with you, just give me a moment”.
Jerico watched as she tended to herself. She sat as she combed her hair back into shape, her tight black frizzy hair was braided tightly over her scalp and left loose at the ends, each braid ending in a sort of cloudlike spray around her ears. Just short enough to not reach her shoulders to make her head look like a sort of bell, a rim of dark curls framing her face. She pulled out a small stick of beeswax and pursed her lips gliding the stick over them as she eyed Jerico.
“Want some?” she proffered the stick.
“Thank you, gorgeous.” Jerico said, applying a thin film to his lips.
She took it back with a smile batting her eyes at him, the usual green of them a vivid jade under the morning light.
They trudged up the narrow forest path up to the Inn together, pausing outside the entrance of the gorge. Curie waited as Jerico walked down the shale path towards the structure. Poking out of the cliff face with clay walls lining the entrance through the crack in the mountain. the inn’s sign waved and creaked ominously in the wind as he approached. “Catmint Inn” in embossed bronze stood out faintly above an artistic rendition of a green cat twirling around a cask. The letters were also green now, Jerico noted, plastering himself against the rock wall of the gulf as he peered in at the makeshift barricade strung up a few metres in from the clay walling in front of the outpost.
It seemed to be quiet, the only sound coming from the sign and the rather sad looking collection of mud brown cows and ponies strung up near the inn’s abandoned pig trough.
On walking back, Jerico nodded at Curie, “Are you ready?” he said, pulling his pack tightly around his shoulders until it was almost painful. Curie nodded, holding out one of the rabbits, it's night of curing had turned it brown and faintly mummified. She separated a few chunks off the corpse with a thin gutting knife, placing a few more rabbit bits in Jerico’s handful as he was a might bit less lean than her. Jerico watched as she wrapped each bundle in the rabbit’s skins, tightening the straps of her pack as she did so.
“We each might be a bit flushed after this,” Curie said as she handed Jerico his bundle.
“I’m sure, jumping and bounding through all that.” Jerico nodded towards the barricade as she said so, “There were multiple fortifications lining almost half the gorge that I saw, one after the-”
Curie put up a finger, blushing, “That’s not what I mean, you know, what rabbit’s are known for other than the usual speed and agility.” Jerico stopped, then grinned,
“Oh” he said simply.
“Well, we’ll be able to take care of that little problem when we get to the city, can’t we?” He added, weighing the bundle of flesh in his hand. “If we survive,” Curie rebutted lightly, early morning rays breaking through the root knotted cracks in the gorge's canopy.
Jerico turned towards the morning light, patting Curie’s shoulder. “I’ll count down from three,” he said, stretching and hopping from one foot to the other. Getting down into a runner’s pose against the gully's rocky bottom, his right hand curled around the bundle of rabbit parts. “Three…” With what felt like a cough, and a start both of their packages started to smoke, black tendrils oozing slowly out between their fingers as each drew the magic into themselves. “Two,” The black smoke poured out oozing and streaming until it started to jet out from under each knuckle in gouts, sending ripples out over the marshy dewdrop shale of the mountaintop, emanating outwards in pulsing as each waxy cured chunk of rabbit flesh was consumed under their weight, each of them drinking up the magic at a rapid pace.
“One.”
Jerico and Curie both jetted forward, the smoke flung out behind them as they skitted over the gorge’s thin stream. Jerico aimed towards the side of the gully, trying to get his footing off the stream and onto the rocky embankment he’d walked down, aiming to jump over both the wall and the barricade in one, he aimed where the wall joined into the nearby rock.
Curie didn't aim at all, sprinting down the centre of the gully she jumped forward, as if she was going to dive into the water, and flipped herself with her hands, vaulting into the air as the rabbit’s influence increased her jump’s height to supernatural proportions, her view pinioned and she fell.
Landing lightly on the second barricading wall, she pushed off and twirled, landing on the roof next to a struggling Jerico. He'd jumped off the rocky outcropping next to the barricade and just barely managed to launch his way onto the roof, the straw thatching crunching under the weight of his plate armour.
Curie was more lightly armoured sporting a pale burgundy gambeson, the colour bleached by the sun. She rose a few centimetres from her landing, the thatching regaining its form.
"What the hell was that?!" The two of them heard, Jerico cringing, scrambled upwards and pranced back slightly from the noticeable dent he'd left in the roof reeds, "Shhh, go go," Jerico eased out. Glancing back up at Curie, she stepped back slowly, finger pointing to the wooden ridge that marked the center of the angled roof, another pressed against her lips.
She leaned her whole body backwards, edging off the reeds of the roof and onto the lacquered length of the roof's top. Jerico started to follow before the sharp unpleasant snapping of wood was heard and he jumped back, the roof falling inwards behind him.
Another loud ringing announcement was heard, "Somebody find out what's going on up there!" The couple bolted as they heard the rushed shuffle of footsteps padding out onto the top floor balcony.
Jerico launched himself off the roof, landing behind Curie. They both rushed forward to the roofs edge, Jerico made a great bounding leap, clearing a good 12 metres in front of him, the remaining visible sections of roof and balcony dropped out below him.
The heads of two men peered up from leaning against the balconies railing, shocked expressions broke their faces as they trailed the arch of his jump downwards, a loud splash erupting from the ground below.
He turned to look back at the men, made a rude gesture and backed up a few feet as Curie came flying down from above.
Jerico drifted backward as Curie almost landed on top of him. His eyes narrowed, still locked on the two men. He stumbled towards her, the two men above being pushed aside as Balsam rushed onto the balcony, a crossbow in hand.
"You!" Balsam roared as he slammed his crossbow onto the balcony railing. Jerico, managing to reach Curie as he let loose a bolt, Curie felt a jolt, and a strong pull as Jerico tugged her forward. A thin, slivering of wood passing at the edge of her vision, stumbling through the mist of water vapour, the only thing she heard was blood pumping in her ears and the break neck patter of Jerico's footsteps as she rushed forward.
They both Jetted forward, almost impossible to keep a track of they moved so quickly, gone in a matter of seconds.
Balsam loosed a few more shots at the quicksilver after images seen glittering in the watery mist that still floated down from their jumps, his body coursing with adrenaline and rage as he stood up.
Ramming the crossbow into the left man's arms, Balsam paused for a breath through his gritted teeth, brushed back his wet hair and headed back inside.