By Moonlight Wrought (Bt Moonlight Wrought) (52 page)

         Alanna had been waiting for thirty
minutes, though it seemed much longer, when the wagon returned, pulling slowly
up.  Dirk was at the reigns, Fiona by his side.  Alanna and the two head
servants ran to the foot of the stairs as several guards came from the
Stormweather barracks to bear Mendric and Melissa into the house in a flurry of
excited and urgent activity; everyone doing all they could for the heir.

         “Where’s Selric?” Alanna asked with
concern amidst the turmoil and bustle.  Fiona turned to her.

         “He’s seeing to Mendric’s horse.  He’s
fine,” she said, forcing a brief smile as she gently moved Alanna aside.  “We
should get them out of the cold.”  Soon, all had gone inside and the wagon
pulled away leaving Alanna alone in the courtyard, the wind picking up and
blowing the snow all about her and stinging her pretty face.  She thought of
Mendric and turned, running up the stairs and pushing the heavy door open. 

         When she reached Mendric’s room, his
attendants were leaving:  only Fiona remained.  “He needs rest,” Fiona said.

         “Can I wait with him?” she stuttered, “I
mean, until Selric comes back.”  Fiona nodded then hurried to where they had
taken Melissa, closing Mendric’s door quietly behind her.  It was several
minutes before Mendric opened his eyes.  He gazed sleepily up and saw Alanna’s
worried face as she stroked his sweating brow.  At his stirring, she bent
deftly forward and kissed his head.  Mendric closed his eyes and was pulled
heavily back into unwilling slumber.

         Dirk was waiting next to Melissa when
Fiona entered.  “I think we’ll let her sleep here tonight,” Fiona announced,
“and take her home in the morning.”

         “Are you sure she’ll be all right?”

         “Yes,” she said, patting Dirk’s cheek. 
“Just fine.  She’ll be sick and weak for a few days, but there’ll be no lasting
effects.  I assume that the Fiend did it, like Selric said, to eliminate one of
our numbers so we’d be easier to defeat, or maybe he planned on doing it to all
of us.  Mendric must have surprised him and foiled his plan.”  Both then
wondered what might have happened if Mendric had not charged to their rescue.

         “Well, I’d better get home,” Dirk said. 
He rose and hugged Fiona warmly farewell.

         “Is it safe?  You should stay…here or
with us.  Strength in numbers,” Fiona said with a weak grin.

         “I will be fine,” Dirk said with a deal
of preoccupation.

         “Ah.  You go for
her
,” Fiona
surmised, turning bitter.  Dirk, weary and heart-broken still, did not have the
will to fight her nor wonder how she knew concretely about Tallow, so he nodded
solemnly, looked at the floor and made his exit.

         Dirk rode a Stormweather horse home, in
hopes of avoiding the Fiend, or outrunning It if encountered.  The trip,
however, was uneventful, and he put the horse into the warehouse with the other
Bessemer stock, checked the guards to make sure all was well and that they were
still on vigilant watch, then went up to his room.  He trudged his way up the
stairs and climbed the ladder into his room.  Tallow raised her head, her eyes
filled with sleep, when she heard the trapdoor open.  Dirk let the door slam
into place and kicked the bolt closed.  When he saw her, he felt his heat
rise.  He did not consciously know why, but he wanted her.

         “I must have fallen asleep,” she said,
rubbing her eyes and stretching.  She lay there amongst a mound of books,
ledgers and scrolls, many of them open, and she watched him:  he hung his cloak
on the rack and laid his sword, as always, within reach of the bed, then he sat
down heavily next to her and pulled off his boots.  He sat momentarily still
then snapped at her when she failed to move.

         “Get those books off!” he said.  She
hurriedly rose and stacked them up neatly, then placed them on the floor at the
foot of the bed and set the scrolls atop the tall pile.

         “What’s the matter?” Tallow asked,
timidly touching his broad back.

         “Nothing.  I’m tired.”  It seemed that
every time Dirk saw Tallow, he could not help but think of Cinder, and thinking
of Cinder gone made him angry.  Thinking of Tallow being gone made him more
angry, anger, not fear, the emotion he preferred to let overtake him.  “Get
ready for bed,” he said.  She removed her dress and lay down, waiting for him.

         Dirk turned out the lamp and rolled over
to face her, leaning up on his elbow.  He put his arm around her waist, pulling
her over to him and he kissed her slowly, deeply, and rather roughly.  She
looked at him questioningly in the dim light, barely able to make out his
face.  They had not made love since Cinder’s death.  He lay there not moving,
simply breathing; softly, slowly.  She reached over and gently unbuttoned his
shirt, then his pants.  She pulled his shirt down over his shoulders and he
took it off the rest of the way, as well as his pants.  

         “Is everything all right?” she whispered
timidly.

         “How could everything be all right?” he
retorted angrily.  He rolled on top of her and started fondling and kissing her
wildly, blindly.  Tallow was uncomfortable with his behavior, but returned his
affections.  He did not seem to care about her apprehension and kept going. 
Though painful, Tallow accommodated his lust.  She tried shifting positions to
ease her pain, but Dirk became enraged and held her tightly.

         “Ouch!” she cried.  “Dirk, you’re hurting
me.”  Tallow lifted her knees in an involuntary reaction.  Dirk pulled away and
landed heavily on the bed beside her, facing away.  Suddenly he leapt up,
causing Tallow to flinch out of fear, but he simply loaded more wood into the
stove.  Then, from below, he heard something fall.  For a moment thoughts of
the Fiend seized him with fear, but then he heard the knocking of the Bessemer
Boggle, as Dirk had grown to call the mysterious creature he had yet to even
lay solid sight upon.  In a rage, Dirk threw on his pants and hurried down into
the frigid store.  He began throwing items the direction of the knocking,
cursing and yelling in a rage.  Soon the noise stopped.  Leaving the mess for
morning, Dirk stormed back to his room and got back beside Tallow where she
laid with her back to him.

         Dirk wondered how he could be so cruel
and dismissive to someone he cared so deeply for:  someone he was so afraid to
lose.  He had brought her there, gave her a job, made her quit prostituting,
and she had done it all without question.  He forced himself to swallow his
pride and he rolled to his side to hug her.  As he brushed the hair from her
face, he felt a tear upon Tallow’s cheek and his heart melted.  With each
growing day, everyone Dirk knew grew more and more on edge.  Selric,
certainly.  Fiona; definitely.  Even the average person met on the street was
short tempered and edgy, wanting to look constantly over their shoulder.  Was
it the rumor of the Fiend, or was it something more sinister; maybe some
fellness exuded from the creature itself?

         Never before had Dirk thought of Tallow
as a real woman; only a child, or worse yet, a thing:  a possession.  He
realized that his resentment stemmed from his lack of respect for her.  She was
something for him to use, someone to hide him from his friends when he was mad
at them:  someone to do what he said when no one else would listen.  She was someone
who needed him more than he needed her; someone who did not merit respect.  But
her tears showed her differently.  Her devotion, he realized, came not from her
desire for an easy life or for money, but for her love for him.  She did not
argue.  She did not strike him or tell him what she thought, and Dirk knew it
was not out of weakness.  She was truly one of the strongest people he knew. 
She hid her pain well and drove on, not allowing her sadness or fear or
anything else cloud her judgment or darken her days.  If only Dirk could be so
valiant.

         Since Cinder’s death, Dirk viewed no one
else as being worth his affection.  Nobody could compare with Cinder, and her
loss made him bitter.  Of all the people that he knew, Cinder, and the role she
played in his life, would be the hardest to replace.  Only Melissa came even
close in his heart to the dependency he felt toward another person.  Though
Dirk realized all this, he could not completely control himself and sometimes,
often, his callousness showed painfully through.  But tonight, he held onto
Tallow and kissed the back of her neck and shoulders gently as he whispered
soft words of love to her, words of understanding, appreciation, and
affection.  Soon, the girl fell asleep, a smile on her gentle face.  Dirk hoped
that when the Fiend was finally killed, he could let go of the pain and the
anger of Cinder’s death, and he could feel as whole and complete as he had
prior to her leaving him.  This girl, this woman, beside him deserved better. 
He hated the Fiend that grew inside him; the Fiend he saw in Fiona, Selric and
everyone else.  Everyone it seemed, but Melissa.

         Selric walked into Mendric’s room.  His
brother’s ear was heavily bandaged and his cheek, swollen and bruised.  Alanna
lay sleeping in a chair next to the bed, leaning forward, her head resting upon
his chest, Mendric’s arm around her shoulder.  Selric did not want her to be
uncomfortable, but he decided to let her wake on her own, so he turned and
left, checking on Melissa and Will, who both now slept in his room, along with
Fiona who lay propped in a chair.  Not finding Dirk anywhere, Selric went up to
sleep in Alanna’s bed, more accurately Brandon’s bed, and felt Alanna come in
several hours later.

         In the morning, Fiona, Selric, and Alanna
had breakfast at the great table and decided that afterward they should take
Melissa home.  So, they carried her down and laid her in the prepared wagon. 
Fiona ordered her to lie still at least until she got home, “Then we’ll see,”
she told her with a smile.  Selric and Alanna waved goodbye as Fiona drove out
the gate.

         “I guess he got away,” Alanna said as she
went back inside, holding onto Selric’s arm, “or someone would have told me.  I
was worried about you.  Why didn’t you wake me last night?”

         “You were sleeping peacefully.  Both of
you.  I knew if you stirred, you’d come up to bed.”

         “What happened?” she asked, squeezing his
hand tightly.

         “Nothing.  We were ambushed and he shot
Melissa.  When he moved around behind us, Mendric found him and they fought until
we arrived.  Then he fled, the Fiend I mean.”

         “So Mendric fought him, or It?” she
asked, wondering why the knight had not killed the murderer.

         “Yes, let’s go see him,” Selric said. 
Alanna agreed, eager to check on him.  When they walked in, Mendric opened his
eyes.

         “Well, Selric, did I get him, or was it a
dream?”

         “When I got there, you were out and he
was nowhere to be found,” said Selric.

         “I stabbed him.  I got him good with my
dagger, several times.”

         “I know.  I saw the blood on it.  But I
wasn’t sure whose it was.  But no, he was gone.”  Mendric looked at Alanna, at
her eager face, as if she had been in a dream of his and he smiled.

         “Hello, dear,” he said.

         “Hi, Mendric.  Do you feel better?” she
asked, coming from behind Selric to take Mendric’s hand into both her trembling
ones, her face red with blush.  He brought his other one around and patted
hers, then raised them to his lips and kissed them briefly, his great strength
and fortitude giving him the power to quickly fight off the effects of the
poison.

         “Let’s give him some peace,” Selric said.

         “No, please.  Don’t leave me here staring
at the ceiling,” Mendric pleaded.  “Stay and talk.”  He patted the bed on his
other side, in hopes that Selric would sit.  Then, in Stormweather flair, he
began his story of the previous night’s battle, as well as he could recall.

         Later that day, Will went for a walk.  He
still had not gotten the full story, and he didn’t like being left out of anything,
everything, especially the previous night.  “I thought I was part of the
group.  I loved Cinder, too,” he thought.  He went into a doorway and sat on
the dry, clean step, and began to sob, rubbing his eyes.  “I’ll kill that old
Fiend.  Cinder was pretty and nice, and now everybody’s sad and no one even wants
to see me.  I hate him for making everyone like this.”  Just then, Will felt
his sadness leave, pushed out by feelings of great anxiety, and he looked up. 
Through the haze of tears, he could barely make out a large dark shape that
loomed before him:  The Fiend!

         Will bolted like a rabbit, this way and
that, crawling on all fours rather than taking the time to rise and run, but It
grabbed him by the waist and lifted him up.  Will kicked frantically, but to no
avail and he began sobbing in fear.  The Fiend raised a great boot and kicked
the door ahead of him, knocking it off its hinges and onto the floor with a
“boom.”  Then It stepped inside.

         “Help!” Will screamed.  “Help!”  The
Fiend slammed Will to the floor, knocking the wind from his lungs, then drew
Its hooded face close to the trembling boy’s, nothing visible within the hood
but two sickening green orbs.