“Don’t even think about running. Even in my armor, I promise I’ll catch you, and if I can’t, my arrow can, and you know I can hit from a distance.” Speranzi reminded the woman at her side.
“I won’t run.” Skana promised as they trudged through the fortress commons area, it was larger than she expected, neat and orderly, and her captor seemed to know the area well. ‘Of course she would.’ She thought, and closed her eyes, listening to the woman’s steps beside her, ‘She’s everything I remember.’
For her part, Speranzi eyed the woman up and down, Skana was taller than her, almost as tall as a man, slender of body, but her legs and arms were of lean muscle, more notably her hands were calloused from sword use.
“That’s smart.” Speranzi answered back.
“What happens next?” Skana asked, “After I deliver…” she jostled the sacks a little, “this? Do you kill me and add my ears to the pile, or let me go?”
“Why don’t you sound afraid… Skana, wasn’t it?” Speranzi asked, she looked at the bandit with growing curiosity. “For that matter… look at me.” The mercenary stopped and turned to face her captive, and to her surprise, Skana obeyed.
The sylvan slender woman turned and faced her captor and looked Speranzi in the face, staring straight into the icy blue.
“Because we’ve met before… sort of. And you made me who I am today. I’m standing here right now, entirely because of you, Speranzi Jadara.” Skana said the words she’d rehearsed more times than she could count, and she breathed them out like a prayer to a god.
In her dreams, fantasies, Speranzi would look at her, recognize her, and everything would unfold like it did in the stories of minstrels and on the stage plays she loved to watch. In reality, the ice blue-eyed woman only grunted.
“You’re a strange one. And that bears some questioning… but maybe standing in the middle of the public roadway with a rotting head and a sack full of ears isn’t the best thing to do. I promise I won’t kill you when we get there. But I want a full explanation when I get to my quarters.”
“Yes… ma’am.” Skana replied, and they resumed their walk to the House of Law.
The House of Law itself was not as formidable as its name. Like any public building or any building built by men of means, it did have a slightly elevated foundation, with stone slabs at the base and a series of steps that led up, but that is where its artistry stopped. The same whole log construction was used on it, and ‘it’ was not much larger than a house. The only thing other than the foundation to truly set it apart, was the presence of a gallows outside and just off to the side. Set up to hold three people, it was still holding three people when the pair approached.
The bodies were shirtless men, and swayed back and forth in the breeze, their eyes were gone, ravens were pecking steadily at the flesh, and it was obvious at even a glance that they were recently deceased. Around their necks hung signs naming their crimes scrawled on wooden boards in cheap white chalk. ‘Murder’, ‘Highway Robbery’, ‘Horse Thieving’ the mouths hung open and flies flew into the dark cavern of the husks of what were once men.
“Idiots.” Speranzi muttered.
At first Skana thought her captor was speaking of the thieves, but after a moment she realized that Speranzi was grumbling in the direction of the House of Law itself. “My Lady?” She asked.
“Just keep your mouth shut and don’t say anything if you want to live.” Speranzi answered her, and Skana’s jaw snapped shut, though she had her own thoughts despite the order.
‘That’s the third time you’ve said something like that to me.’ It was not an unpleasant thought.
Speranzi looked toward the swaying corpses with their buzzing flies and pecking birds one more time as they ascended the steps, and then she opened it with confidence and didn’t wait a moment to be spoken to as she stepped within.
“I have bounties to claim.” She said and waved Skana forward, she barely looked at the attendant, a middle aged woman with a white cloth that hung down over her head to tie just beneath her jaw, the loose strands hanging down almost like an old man’s pale white beard. Her clothing was of a pale blue, faded with time but clean and serviceable.
“How many?” The woman asked and pointed to a table off to one side.
“About two hundred and fifty… ish. And one head that might be worth something.” Speranzi gestured to Skana and said, “Take it out.”
Skana dropped the sack of ears and it tumbled over, spilling the lumps of bloody flesh onto the floor in a little pile. The clerk seemed to take no notice, and given the spatters of blood that lay here and there, Skana concluded that this was a normal occurrence.
She then brought the other bag in front of her and drew it out by the hair.
“So, he was the one leading all these.” Speranzi nudged the sack that was now half full of ears, “I thought he’d have some value at least. Maybe a special bounty?”
The woman, nonplussed by the sight of the head Skana held by the hair, pointed to a far wall. “Bodger.” She spat onto the floor, “Brute of a man, used to be a knight actually. I didn’t think he’d go down for a while.”
“Well, my people caught him with his pants down, so here he is.” Speranzi said and Skana extended the head toward the middle aged woman who grabbed it by the cheeks and tossed it into a nearby bin.
“Twenty gold coins for him. Five coppers each for bandit ears.” The matronly woman said and reaching under the counter where she sat.
“Fine.” Speranzi answered with a flippant wave of her hand, “Skana, gather them up and count them out for her.”
Skana made no complaint, she only crouched down at her captor’s feet and scooped the soft fleshy masses of cartilage back into the bag and then got back up, approached the counter, and began laying them out. “I can’t count that high, My Lady.”
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“How high can you go?” The woman behind the counter asked.
“Just to my age. Twenty-two.” Skana admitted, and the woman looked past what she seemed to conclude was a servant, and Speranzi approached the counter.
“I’ll help.” She said, and the woman behind the counter got her first clear look at Speranzi’s face.
Until then, Skana had been in the way, and the woman reacted as Speranzi expected. Sweat sprang to her brow and her fingers started trembling.
“No, no My Lady, I’ll do it, I’m sure she won’t try to cheat you, she looks honest.” Skana said and flashed a toothy smile at the woman, stepping in between the mercenary commander and the woman on the other side.
“Fine.” Speranzi remarked, “I’m going to wait outside.” She left the room without another word, leaving her prisoner behind.
Skana counted out the ears fairly quickly, twelve sets of twenty ears, with five left over. “Here.” The woman said and shivered, staring not at Skana, but at the door. “Take it and go.” She said, “It’s all there, I swear to the forty-one gods, known and unknown alike.”
She then placed on the counter one gold coin, twenty-two silver coins, and five copper coins, they clinked together and, seeing that Skana had no coin pouch, she drew a knife, cut a square from the sack of ears, and bundled them all together before wrapping it in twine. “There, now you can go.”
“Thank you.” Skana replied with a practiced half smile and a half bow to go with it.
She exited the room and found her captor standing outside, as soon as Skana was outside, she found Speranzi standing at the foot of the steps staring up.
Skana hastened down the steps at a scurrying pace and held the improvised pouch out to her captor. “One gold, twenty-two silver and five copper, My Lady.”
Speranzi snatched the coins away and shoved them in her own pouch and then raised her eyes up at the tall slender prisoner. Skana stared back at her, waiting, saying nothing.
“Well, come on then!” Speranzi barked, and Skana fell in at her side, “I might as well feed you before I decide whether or not to let you go.” She added, and the pair walked in relative quiet.
While they walked, Skana took in the sights. It was busier than she expected, ‘Being around this many people again is strange… there have to be at least a thousand people here.’
After passing a wagon with a dozen people riding past and seeing a carriage heading down a road going south, her curiosity got the better of her. “My Lady… ah, how many people are here?”
Speranzi scratched her head, “A few thousand at any given time. I don’t know, I’ve been here only a handful of times. I don’t really like coming to places like this.”
“A thousand is a lot, thousands and thousands?” Skana shook her head, ‘I didn’t like that last time… but this… this isn’t so bad.’ At her side she kept one eye on the woman who held her life in hand like a child with a toy.
It was hard not to keep her heart from pounding in her breast, or would have been. The truth was, she didn’t want to restrain her excitement, the thrill of being near Speranzi was the kind of thrill that Skana lived for. ‘I just have to make her see. That’s all. You convinced yourself to stay alive before, you can convince her to see why you survived this long!’
She made a determined fist and gritted her teeth as she tried to mentally prepare herself for the discussion ahead.
“If you don’t plan on using that fist, relax it.” Speranzi whispered just loud enough for Skana to hear, then as the digits uncurled, the mercenary officer pointed toward a building three floors high.
The admonition was a very clear threat, and yet despite obeying Speranzi’s order, Skana felt no fear, instead she focused her mind on the things she would have to say, and the memories of what felt like a lifetime before.
She was so focused on this that she noticed nothing else until the door clicked shut behind them both and she found herself in a single room
“Now, talk… Skana” Speranzi snapped and crossed her arms in front of her chest.
Skana whirled on her captor and went down to her knees, she turned her face up to her captor, her rescuer and gushed out words as fast as she could form them, “Eight years ago. The Siege of Prioche. You saved my life!”
“I was at Prioche. But I don’t remember you.” Speranzi retorted, “Were you a soldier?”
Skana violently shook her head, tossing her auburn hair back and forth, “By the gods no! I was useless trash! Just a brainless idiot who thought of nothing! Good for farming and dying and nothing else! A nameless fool! Just peasant garbage on the way to being some demihuman creature’s food!”
Tears she’d held back for over half a decade pooled in her eyes, her arms hugged against herself as her body began to shake.
“You were one of the prisoners…” Speranzi guessed, and Skana nodded her head up and down, her eyes shut tight as if against the memories of a nightmare.
“Yes! I saw you arrive with the liberators… our salvation, right before the demihuman army arrived to take back the city before we could flee…” Skana swallowed as she ran out of breath, gasped, and tried to catch up to herself and her own thoughts.
“So you’re telling me you developed some kind of hero worship thing or-” Speranzi guessed, but to her surprise, Skana shook her head.
“I saw you there with the others… the others… and I hated you… I hated you until I saw the moment on the wall…” Skana sniffled and wiped her nose. “I’d never seen such relentless will before… never seen anyone make those things so fearful before! You made them afraid… you bled for us… for this worthless stain…” Skana closed her hand into a fist, then opened it and slapped it against her breast.
Speranzi’s mind whirled as the woman spoke, and as if to drive the point home, Skana’s eyes flew open and looked Speranzi dead in the icy blue. “That’s why! That’s why I can look at you this way! I’m not afraid of you! I’ll never be afraid of you! Even if you kill me for joining those bandits… you avenged my family, my mother, m-my father, my village… I’m the last survivor! All that’s left and the only one who remembers that we ever even lived at all! You gave me a new lease on life! So… so if I have to die, do like you did with Bodger. Let me look at you while I bleed out! You can get a few coppers for my ear… and that’s more than I was ever worth before!” Her breasts heaved as she poured out words like a river overflowing its banks, and she was breathing hard when she was finally done.
“If-If you want it… I accept your judgment.” Skana promised and dropped her hands at her sides. “I’d appreciate it if you could make it painless, though.”
Speranzi did her best to absorb all that, and was at a loss for words after the woman on her knees was reduced to just breathing hard. She grasped for something to say and couldn’t help but think, ‘If I had more comrades growing up, I think I’d have probably known what to say here… but I just don’t. I may as well wish for the gods to whisper wisdom into my ears.’ Unsure of what else to do, she went to the nearby table, yanked a chair out from under it and slammed herself down in the seat.
“So then, how’d you end up with the bandits… Bodger, I think that was the name?” Speranzi asked, it was the only thing she could think to ask, or to say at all.
“I wanted someone to teach me the sword!” Skana exclaimed, “Nobody would teach me! I’m a peasant! Nobody would teach a peasant girl the things I wanted to know! So I stole a sword, helmet, and that armor-”
“From where.” Speranzi demanded.
“A battlefield! There was a skirmish, both sides killed each other! I took them from the dead!” Skana cried, “I-I took it and ran off! I used the helmet and armor to pretend to be a young boy! I joined a bandit group and began to study the sword!” Skana swallowed a lump in her throat.
“I did it all… hid everything about myself… I even killed a few who found out my secret… all so I could… so I could… could…” Skana bit her lower lip and stopped speaking.
“So you could what, exactly?” Speranzi asked as the bizarre rambling words came to a halt.
“So I could join you at your side! I never imagined I’d see you again like this… I thought I could hide my past. That I could come present myself to you as a skilled sword dancer but now? So much for that.” Skana let out a heavy, frustrated sigh.
“You’re right about that one.” Speranzi’s voice dripped with sarcasm and she rubbed her hand through her straw colored hair, “But what in the Demon God’s name am I supposed to do with you now?”