He was eying the children and reaching for
his still sheathed sword when the other soldier on the path called
out from where Erris’ mother lay.
‘Ey, Daegon, this one’s knocked out.’ He
shouted, lifting Omah’s head by the hair and letting it fall limply
back to the ground. Her face was already purpling from the blow
Daegon had dealt.
‘So?’ Daegon called back over his shoulder,
not taking his eyes off the children or his hand off his sword
hilt.
‘Well, I can’t hardly have no fun if she’s
not awake, can I?’ The soldier said as he shoved Omah’s limp form
with a booted foot.
The soldier called Daegon stared at the
children for a moment as they lay on the ground crying, trying
slowly to rise. Then he shrugged and turned away, his hand leaving
his sword.
‘Fine, Caer, Take these kids to the forest
and deal with ‘em. Their whining’s distracting me’ he said as he
turned to stare at Erris. ‘Maybe the old one’ll be awake when you
get back.’ Erris still lay, curled in a ball on the ground, trying
to catch her breath.
‘Iunno Daegon,’ Caer started, looking more
confused than concerned, ‘I don’t feel right killin’ kids,
quite’
‘Fine, fine’ Daegon said as he shook his head
slightly, clearly exasperated, ‘Just take ‘em into the forest and
knock ‘em out, they’ll live or die on their own, and you won’t ‘ave
to feel bad.’
‘Ey, thas a great idea!’ the soldier Caer
grinned as he walked to the children, and Erris tried to scream, to
stand, to do anything as he effortlessly lifted Joahn and Boll,
both kicking and screaming, and walked into the forest. He laughed
all the way there, and Erris could still hear him laughing when
Daegon grabbed her by her hair again, and dragged her, crying once
more, to Marmot’s side.
Marmot was still tied to the low tree branch,
and Erris struggled vainly against Daegon as he lifted her and tied
her hands tightly to Marmot’s pommel.
‘You’re not gonna enjoy this’ he whispered in
her ear, and Erris felt something start cutting off her dress,
stripping her slowly, piece by piece.
He cut first along her left shoulder, a sharp
knife cutting through the hem of her dress like a knife cuts
through butter, meeting almost no resistance. In seconds the left
sleeve of her dress was cut along the top. In no time, Erris’ dress
fell softly to the dirt floor, and she was left standing in naught
but her shift.
Had she been able to think, she might have
noticed that she was shivering in the warm, windless evening. Had
she been able to think, she might have noticed all she could hear
were her sobs, and the heavy, disturbed breathing of the man behind
her. But she couldn’t think. She couldn’t understand what was
happening. All Erris could do was lean her head against Marmot’s
flank and cry into the horses rough coat.
She heard, or maybe felt, Daegon put away his
knife, or sword, or whatever it was he had stripped her with, as he
too noticed. The only sounds came from Erris, Marmot and himself.
From the forest came nothing. Where there had been laughter,
cursing and screams before, now there was only silence.
She could hear the sounds of a belt being
unbuckled behind her, and she jumped slightly as a hairy, muscled
arm snaked around her head to hang a sword and sheathe from
Marmot’s saddle. The arm snaked back again, but it stopped at
Erris’ neck, and she cringed as the hand grabbed her chin, one
thumb rubbing forcefully against her cheek. She couldn’t tell if
Daegon was trying to caress her or choke her as his hand moved
slowly, sickeningly down the side of her neck. She wasn’t sure
which she hoped for. The hand left her when it reached her
shoulder, and Erris couldn’t decide if she felt more relief at its
removal or fear for what it might touch next.
The moments of waiting, painfully tensing
against wherever Daegon might touch her next were long, and
painful, and they grew more painful the longer they went, as Erris
wound herself up more and more, trying to anticipate what might
happen next, trying to prepare herself for it, to prepare herself
for being unable to stop whatever it was. The moments dragged and
dragged as so many that evening, until finally the soldier
spoke.
‘Something’s wrong’ Daegon muttered to
himself as he looked around slowly. She felt one rough hand grab
her bottom over her shift, and another grab her hair and roughly
pull her head to the side. ‘Don’t be running away on me now, whore’
he said to Erris, who winced as he tugged once more on her hair
before letting go. Erris stood, tied to Marmot and feeling more
helpless than she ever thought possible, as he began walking around
the horse and wagon towards the woods, moving with practiced
caution.
He approached the spot where the soldier
called Caer had taken the children in, and slowly made his way into
the thick underbrush, step by cautious step.
‘Ey you lot, what’re you all doin?’ he yelled
as he went, but there was no answer, only silence.
Erris held her breath, hoping he would
disappear into the dark forest, and she started struggling with her
ropes silently. Maybe she could get herself free. If she could, she
could grab the sword that hung on Marmot’s saddle, and do…
something. What came after getting the sword could come later. For
now all she could do was free herself.
She was wriggling fiercely, the thick ropes
chafing her when Daegon screamed and turned at the very edge of the
forest, tripping over himself as he tried to run out of the low
underbrush that came up to his knees.
‘No no no no no’ was all he said, over and
over again as he tried to claw his way out. He was halfway out, and
Erris was struggling harder and harder with her ropes, when she saw
it. Attached to the lower half of his body, slowly inching over the
legs that he was dragging along the ground, hands digging
frantically at the moist soil to pull himself along, was a thick,
grey fog. It slowly covered him as he pulled, inching up his body
inexorably, and he shouted the same word over and over as he
crawled.
‘No no no’ he cried, tears now streaming down
his face as he reached forward and dug his hands into the soft
dirt, digging thick streaks in the earth as he tried to haul
himself to safety. He had barely made it out of the forest, the fog
connected to his body reaching all the way back into the darkness,
when the fog reached his neck. Erris watched as it slowly flowed
over his screaming face, cutting off his desperate protests
suddenly as it flowed into his stretched, pleading mouth. And then
his body was still.
The fog was not though. It crept slowly from
his body, thickening as more and more tendrils poked out through
the forest’s leaves. Marmot began to snort, his eyes wide and his
nostrils flaring in fear as he tried to break free from the reins
that held him. Erris continued her struggle, continued trying to
set herself free, but she made no progress in loosening the tight
knots that dug into her skin, she succeeded only in rubbing her
wrists more raw. She watched in abject horror as the entire forest
transformed into a wall of fog, billowing slowly, inexorably
towards the wagon.
It was Marmot that saved her in the end,
saved them both in the end. As the fog inched ever closer, his
thrashing became more and more frantic, until finally he reared up
a
nd snapped the low branch he was tied
to.
Erris fell to her knees as he turned, her
arms stretched above her, her wrists still bound to Marmot’s
saddle. The wagon bounced behind Marmot slowly, barely avoiding the
reaching tendrils of fog, as he turned. Then Marmot took off at a
run, slowly picking up speed along the path back to Oortain’s
Copse. Erris, clad only in her shift and still tied to his side,
bounced painfully alongside as he ran, her knees and feet scraping
along the dirt road as she stumbled alongside Marmot, half dragged.
Her feet started to bruise and bleed almost immediately. She cried
out in pain as they cracked against rocks and caught in the dirt,
but there was no-one to hear her. She was alone with Marmot in the
dark, cold, brutal night, with only the moon and stars above her
for company.
She would never remember Marmot finally
slowing, would never remember the pain of slowly throwing a
bleeding leg over his heaving back. She would not remember laying,
cold, bruised and bleeding, as he trod slowly and unnoticed over
the cobblestone road of the virtually empty Oortain’s Copse, the
wagon bouncing slowly over the road behind them. She would never
know that the only thing that kept her from falling off were the
ropes that bound her hands. She would never recall her slow,
unconscious trip into the heart of Rognia as Marmot took the long
road to the south. But she would never forget the beginning of that
long, painful night.
III
Gel woke with a start, blinking his eyes in
the low grey light of the pre-dawn. Sometime in the night he must
have fallen asleep. Cursing himself, he picked up his lute again
and continued to play, ignoring the dark storm clouds that swept in
over the plains and began to empty themselves over the smoldering
village, slowly putting out the last embers of its fires. Gel and
his lute were safe under the Oak’s broad, sheltering leaves, and so
he continued to play, on and on, carrying on his dark, black
song.
IV
The noise in the tavern was loud, its
occupants boisterous. Filled with street toughs, guards, and
soldiers, the atmosphere, the air of machismo and barely contained
hostility, was comforting. People came here to drink, fight, and
forget. It was not a particularly nice tavern. There were no women,
no families enjoying a nice stew in the corner. The floor was
dirty, the beer weak and inexpensive, the food barely edible. The
two serving maids were more concerned with getting to and from
tables unmolested than anything else, and they tended to get tips
and gropes in equal amounts. Not that they were attractive, but the
patrons of the Rusty Nail tavern were not picky.
Most of the men in the tavern, and all of the
men at the table, were large, either in muscle or girth, and Dan’r
was no different. You had to be able to fight in a tavern like the
Rusty Nail, it was why he enjoyed them so much. There were one or
two in almost every city, and Dan’r found himself in them
frequently. You had to fight to survive in these taverns, had to be
strong. You generally had to be strong to fight anywhere, Dan’r
thought to himself absently, scratching at the back of his head.
Here though, with low ceilings, sturdy tables and chairs, and a
very few lanterns hung out of the way in heavy glass and metal
cages to reduce the likelihood of a fire during a brawl; here the
fighting was expected. It wasn’t a matter of if but when, Dan’r
thought as he caught a glimpse of something small and dark
scurrying over the half rotted and beer-soaked straw that sparsely
covered the floor. Rat or mouse, it didn’t matter; he quickly
pulled his attention back to the table, and the game.
He sighed to himself as he glanced briefly at
the cards in his hand, and those on the table in front of him. They
hadn’t changed since the last time he had looked, they never did,
so he took another long drink from the mug at his right hand
instead.
‘I’m in for three copper’ the man to his left
said, angrily throwing the coin into the center of the round wooden
table. The others at the table had passed it around, seeing who
would bet first, and how much. Three coppers was the price of a
drink at the tavern, the cheapest drink anyway, and entrance price
to a new round was always the cost of a drink. It was one of those
standard, unspoken rules that could be found everywhere working men
drank; part of that sacred, unwritten code of men. Bet a beer.
Don’t touch another man’s beer, coat, or woman.
There were more, of course, more rules, but
Dan’r lost interest in that train of thought quickly. The other
four men at the table had paid in, and none had raised, so Dan’r
matched them wordlessly, drinking once more from his mug as he
tossed three dull copper coins from the small pile in front of him
into the center, the coins clinking cheaply as they landed.
The man across from him, a short, stocky, man
with a shaved head who had the look of an ex-soldier about him,
played a fourth card onto the table, and the betting went around
again, more copper pennies flashing through the air in the dim
torchlight.
There were five of them at the table,
including Dan’r and the short, balding dealer; a good number for a
game of Rush. Neither he nor the current dealer were winning, but
neither were they so badly off as the man to Dan’r’s left. The
man’s thin, balding head held a grimace as he looked at his hand,
and felt at his dwindling coin, and his last few moves seemed to be
made in rash anger. He had already lost a good three or four copper
marks on the game, more than most men would lose and continue
playing.
The two men on Dan’r’s right, however, were
enjoying the balding man’s bad luck. One, who had long, shaggy hair
that came in tangles to his shoulders, and several missing teeth,
kept grinning, showing off the empty holes in his mouth as he
chuckled absently to himself. He would not have been out of place
begging in one of the larger cities, but he seemed to have both
money and a good knowledge of how to play. Not that this excluded
him from being a beggar, just that it made him more interesting
than other beggars Dan’r had met.
The other man, the one closest to him on the
right, had the best Rush face Dan’r had ever seen. He was tall,
tanned, wide, and silent. Almost as well muscled as the two
bouncers that stood by the door, watching over the tavern floor
with crossed arms; the large man to Dan’r’s right was easily the
most intimidating man in the tavern.