The cityscape pooled out below the two ragged witches like the splatter of wax on a sealed envelope, tendrils of buildings trailing away into lumps from the city's thick knotted centre.
Breathless minutes after their escape, they shimmied hand in hand down the path exiting from the gorge. The entrance widened and the path down was mostly lost amidst weeds and overgrowth. "The powers draining, I can feel it." Jerico gasped, leaning against the trunk of a nearby tree, his hands clasped to his chest one over the other.
"Are you okay? You look pale" Curie said, a worried tone in her voice she pulled off her pack and rifled through it, "I think I have some smelling salts somewhere."
"It's not the magic" Jerico said, "I'll need a bandage." He lifted his hand, blood dripped from his fingers as he revealed his other. The gauntlet was punched clean through, a bolt stuck half way through his palm, barbed hooks from the bolts tip shearing through the metal backing of his hand like a bloody metal yule tree.
Curie, dropping her pack, rushed forward to inspect the injured hand. "I snatched the bolt straight out of the air," Jerico said proudly, the whites of his eyes shrinking and coming back from the vivid orange of the rabbits to his normal woody brown as more of the magic drained out of him.
"The rest of the bolt needs to be pushed through. Curie said gravely "Oh god's, am I going to have to announce myself to the city?" Jerico said weakly, losing the strength of his legs and sliding down onto the trunk's roots.
Curie pulled off Jerico's Pauldron. "I need to tourniquet your arm, so I can tend to wound dear." Curie said in soothing tones, pulling her pack towards her as she fished out some cloth, ripping it into a strip she wound around his arm.
Jerico grunted as Curie jerked the cloth tight, grabbing the rest of the cloth and stuffing it between his teeth, kissing him on the cheek as she did so.
"I'll be as gentle as I can." her voice barely registering for Jerico he was too focused on the intermingling sensation of pain and leaking magic. The bolts wiggling shocking his hand with every little movement.
"Can you still feel your fingers?" Curie said, taking it and pulling it over her lap as gently as possible. Jerico nodded, teeth clenching in anticipation.
The back half of the bolt was already in smithereens. Curie grabbed the stump of what was left of the shaft and pushed, hard. The bolt screeched against the metal as it popped through the hole it punched, and Curie pulled it out the rest of the way.
As she pulled the gauntlet off quickly, the vambrace and elbow couter falling to the ground with the sound of clattering coins.
Jerico, hyperventilating, spat out the bundle of torn cloth. "Can you try and twitch your fingers?" Curie asked in a low voice. His fingers spasmed in response, four moved, his ring finger staying limp.
Curie couldn't wash the wound immediately, so she dressed it instead, as cleanly as she could. Slowly loosening the tourniquet after the hand was properly bandaged,She said, “Well it looks like you're not bleeding much, at least.”
"I think we should hire a room for the night, doctor." Jerico smiled weakly, looking at the slowly spreading bloodstain on his bandaged hand. "You won't be dying, but I agree," he heard her say, "Your finger might be lost to you for a while, until we can heal you properly. That hand needs to be washed and wrapped in something more sanitary ,and-"
"Let's go then," Jerico interrupted.
“The power’s still alive for me” Curie said, fixing Jerico with an orange stare, the bright gleam of the mountain rabbit’s eyes stared back at her. “Orange doesn’t suit you,” he sniffed, “We could hide our gear here, walk into town as two wounded serfs.” he paused, pulling the tourniquet up with his good hand, “Just wrap this around your eyes”
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Their precaution for the most part was a meek one, such a size was the crowd that swept into the city gates along the central road, Jerico and Curie were borne along with the tide of people. Jerico affecting a bum knee, his bandaged hand over his partially blind aid. Curie was cautiously pulling down the blindfold every now and again, casting surreptitious glances whenever she wasn’t fully surrounded.
The city’s name and insignia was emblazoned on every large gate along the road into the city. Curie took a peek, “Khisset Ridge” the door symbol said, a round oblong button of dimpled iron below the name with a deer mid jump presented itself. Curie pulled the blindfold down as a portly man waded next to her, his gaze focused on the oxen he herded forward.
It wasn’t a wonder why such an influx of people were interested in the ridge city. Being the trade capital of Bellemarque, it served as the node to which the four closest nations gathered. Ensuring a largely friendly attitude was fostered from everyone that visited, it was the perfect place to dissolve into.
Curie and Jerico passed the Nightjar bazaar, a massive collection of street vendors crisscrossed with single apartment buildings that stuck up like needles through the centre of the city. Large arches connecting each building formed a layered sandwich of commerce and residential buildings, each woven through by the fabric of bustling voices. Criers announcing pricing, the passing of folk sampling the various delicacies, it all mostly blended together, but something did stand out against the hum and that was the smell of food.
The essence of Khisset Ridge was captured here, in microcosm, underneath the sprawling canopy of brightly coloured animal skins that marked it out from the rest of the city. A dazzling array of wares shared stock with an equal unending list of fatty seaside street-foods, golden-brown breads lined up next to pastries filled with sweet creams, fresh seasonal fruit and vegetables in large circular baskets, shining with misted water droplets next to rich and exotic smelling pools of golden ragwine, the bazaars specialty drink.
Drifting through the bazaar, Jerico bought a bottle of port, some spare cloth, and thick-cut slicings of ham. A few of the men at the stalls were eyeing up Curie as Jerico browsed, and as they wandered deeper into the less reputable parts of the city, Jerico snatched up some vegetables and a few good spices, as they shopped around for a place to stay.
They found a rest stop placed above a dyer’s shop. The open vats of dye fermenting in the sun, dying salts, urns of vinegar and glue layed about near each dye pool left quite a haze in the air that most other folks avoided. Jerico and Curie both had to hold their breath as they paid for their room.
Jerico flopped onto the small bed at the back of the room, raising his hand as he fell in an attempt to absorb the shock. Curie walked to the window overlooking the vats. Pallid pools of yellow, brown and lavender stretched out in front of her in various shades.
She pulled off the blindfold and rested their shopping on the small counter next to the left of the room, the paper bag’s contents listed to the side- a few white onions falling out between the ribs of the stove as Curie leaned into the windowsill.
Jerico admired the view for a moment, before he got back to the much more important problem of his hand, unwinding the bandage he ran it under the sink. Grabbing a fresh one from the shopping he watched with a morbid curiosity as the water from the tap dripped through the hole in his hand, mixing with his own blood as it ran down the sides of the sink in a gruesome collage of pinkish hues.
Wrapping his hand back up as gently as he could, he called Curie over to tie two ends together. “What a shame,” she sighed, running her finger gently over his palm. “I never was a good cook, that pork is as good as burnt.” Jerico snorted. “I can cook with one hand, just chop some things for me. I’ve got enough blood in my body for that at least.”
Curie’s eyes flashed in response, “The rabbit’s wearing off dear; We'll have to put that blood to better use.” She reached upwards, hooking her hand around Jerico’s neck and pulled, melting into him with a deep kiss.
‘The two things rabbits are known for,’ Jerico thought, his mind drifting thought back to before the gorge, ‘What was it that she'd said about rabbits? “Rabbit’s are known for other than the usual speed and agility” they most certainly are…’
He cradled her as they inched towards the bed, “I’ll admit, I’m already a little light headed.” Jerico whispered, reaching the bed he sat and pulled Curie on top of him, her legs crossing behind his back.
“I’ll do all the work this time,” Curie purred, her eyes wavering on the brink between rabbit and human, her iris warbling in response.
He traced his hand down her face. The warmth from her skin was palpable, the pink of her cheeks melding down to the hotter peach pink of her neck. He stopped there a moment, his hand resting gently against her throat, watching as Curie warred with the rabbit’s influence, the magic of it affecting her all the more as it wore off.
“Can we?” Curie keened, biting her lower lip.