The Poison Princess (15 page)

The purple poison began to drip from her
lips, already staining the brand new dress. Due to the color of the
fabric, however, it was far less noticeable than it had been on the
bright yellow dress she’d worn all those years ago. She held both
her hands under the venom’s flow, covering both entirely in the
toxic sludge.

The princess began a little pace, but this
was different from what she usually engaged in. The path was short
and quick, allowing her to move back and forth every couple feet or
so. She examined what she knew would soon become her opponents,
deciding how best to deal with their threat.

The leader of the Underlaw did not step
forward to attack her. Instead, he nodded to a pair of his men to
his side. One carried a lit torch, while the other had a bow and
arrows. He retrieved from his quiver an arrow with a tip that was
wrapped in a white cloth, and he held it in the fire of the torch.
Once it was lit, he notched the arrow in his bow, and rather than
targeting Ruby, he aimed at the tailor’s shop behind her.

“No!” she shouted.

Before the princess could take any further
action, the arrow had been loosed. She turned, only able to watch,
as the metal tip lodged in the roof of the shop, and the fire
quickly spread over the surface. Ruby couldn’t stand by and let
these people’s home burn. She spit a glob of venom in her hands and
hurled it up to the roof. The ball of poisonous spit landed with a
splat and suppressed the flames for the moment.

When Ruby turned back to face the Underlaw,
she saw that Scarlett had returned to her. The demon had managed to
conjure a scythe from thin air, and she swung it behind the line of
gang members. Her swipe connected with the necks of three separate
men, and each of their heads came tumbling to the ground, soon
followed by their decapitated bodies. Scarlett moved forward past
their line and joined the princess at her side.

They had no time for a reunion, however, as
the remaining members of the Underlaw moved into action. More
flaming arrows were fired at the tailor shop, while those with
melee weapons rushed Ruby and Scarlett. The princess had nothing to
use against such weaponry, but her demon servant lurched forward
and seemed quite comfortable using the magically manifested scythe
in combat.

Ruby, instead, let her poison continue to be
her weapon. One of the Underlaw approached her, so the princess
ratcheted the lever in her chest like she had only done once
before. The stream of toxins from her mouth increased into a
spewing torrent, as it poured over the man, covering his flesh from
head to toe. The man flopped to the ground, dead before he landed,
but Ruby knew that she could not keep that pace up. She needed to
control the poison, or she would run into the same problem as
before, not having the strength to function.

She stopped the flow of poison entirely and
looked for an alternative. The man she just showered had been one
of the few carrying a war hammer, and the weapon looked light
enough for Ruby to wield effectively. The hammer consisted of a
long, thin, metal rod with a head about the size of her fist. It
had been coated in her poison already, and she believed she could
manage such a weapon. Ruby picked up the hammer, and though it was
heavier than it looked, she was indeed able to wield it.

Another member of the Underlaw approached her
and ferocity unknown to the princess found itself unleashed.
Swinging the poisoned hammer wildly, Ruby brought the head of the
weapon against the man’s jaw. She could hear the crunch of bone and
teeth, and when the venomous sludge connected with his skin, the
flesh of his face began to rot and fester. Despite her notable lack
of combat training or experience, Ruby discovered that she was a
competent warrior thanks to the dark poison at her core that was
driving her actions.

Even though she found herself able to fight
back, the princess and her demon servant were heavily outnumbered.
Ruby realized this and backed up toward the tailor’s shop that was
now burning more than she could hope to extinguish. To give them an
advantage, she spewed forth a stream of her poison in an arc around
her and Scarlett to prevent any more attackers from getting
close.

“Scarlett!” Ruby yelled, deflecting the
strike of a sword with her war hammer. “Get Clare and Luther! Take
them out the back.”

The demon dodged a blow and then swung back
with her scythe, opening the man’s guts. “What? What about
you?”

The princess spit in the face of her
attacker, blinding him and causing him to drop his weapon. She
followed it up with a downward bash of the hammer, crushing his
skull into his brains. “I’m fine! Go!”

Scarlett gave her a displeased look, but she
started that way regardless. She folded the magically manifested
scythe back into whatever space she had retrieved it from and
stepped onto the tailor’s porch. Before she entered the shop
though, the horned demon turned back to Ruby. “Here!” She tossed
the flask full of a green poison and then entered the flaming
shop.

The princess caught the flask, and she now
understood where her demon servant had gone - to get her a poison
potion. She wasn’t sure how she had acquired such a thing, but she
appreciated the gesture. Whatever resentment she had felt for
Scarlett’s temporary abandonment washed away, as she looked down at
what now constituted a gift of life for the princess. Looking back
up, Ruby surveyed her enemies arced around her. They dared not
cross the line of poison, having seen what it could do, so they
stood hesitant on the other side, just watching from a distance.
Their leader, however, was not so willing to simply observe. He
dropped his pair of axes and grabbed the bow from a nearby
underling. Drawing an arrow as well, he notched it, lining it up at
Ruby and unleashed the projectile.

Somehow, the princess thought herself capable
of deflecting such an attack. As you can likely imagine, she was
not. The head of the arrow stuck in her abdomen, and Ruby looked
down to examine it. The pain was intense, but it also served to
further enrage her. She looked back up, her anger boiling over.
Another arrow launched toward her. This one landed in her thigh and
made her fall to one knee. She dropped the war hammer with a thud
to the dark dirt below, and the Underlaw leader grabbed another
arrow to fire yet again.

Ruby would not allow it to go on. She had
lost the tailor’s shop, of that there was no doubt, but she would
not let him beat her entirely. Inside her chest, the princess found
that lever that she was becoming quite familiar with. With an inner
strength that felt like she was going to break the lever entirely,
Ruby flung it open. Poison was unleashed everywhere and from every
part of her body. On both knees, she arched back, her head aiming
to the roof of the cavernous city, as the venom shot out from her
mouth like a malevolent fountain.

The arrow was fired upon her, but it was lost
and utterly devoured by the explosion of toxins. The princess could
see nothing but black, though she did hear the screams of some of
the members of the Underlaw. Unleashing the full strength of her
poison had saved her, but it was too painful. The liquid ripped and
tore at her, clawing its way from her body in whatever way it
could. She thought she might be killed by the poison’s intensity,
its strength matched by her rage in the moment. She wanted to turn
it off, but the lever inside her felt as though it had broken. She
was lost in her fury, as the black venom began to swirl around her
like a terrible storm.

Ruby managed to tilt her head back down, and
she could see that she was in the center of a toxic maelstrom. The
venom rushed around her accompanied by a terrible howling sound,
ripping away at and poisoning anything it came in contact with. It
wasn’t just the gang members. The princess could hear it lapping
against the nearby buildings as well. The poison even got into the
city’s water, flooding it with toxins. It scraped past the rocky
streets, burning and melting them as it swirled violently
around.

Fearing it would never end, Ruby felt a
gentle touch on her shoulder. She recognized the hand as
Scarlett’s. The demon knelt down behind the princess, having
somehow penetrated the spiraling liquid and found her at the
epicenter of the poison maelstrom. Her hands crept around the
princess’ body, embracing her tightly.

“I’ve got you, Ruby,” Scarlett whispered in
her ear.

The touch and her words had a soothing
presence on the princess, and with her demon’s help, Ruby felt like
she could bring the chaotic powers back under her control. Like a
tide pulling the water back, the princess sucked the poisons inside
her body. The black fluid seethed through her skin, flooded her
choking throat, and violently penetrated any orifice it found. She
thought she might drown from so much liquid, but she persevered.
Pulling the poison back inside herself rivaled the pain of letting
it out, but the storm of toxins began to fade. Ruby gasped for air
and wished for it to just end, while her demon continued to hold
her in her arms.

When the poison finally cleared and swept
back inside her, she could see that some of the members of the
Underlaw had died, but whatever others remained had fled her
terrible eruption. Though the tailor’s shop had burned, the poison
had extinguished all flames. This didn’t matter, as the waves of
sludge completely destroyed what remained of the shop. The tailor
and his daughter, however, were not the only ones to have suffered
at her hands. The extent of the damage was much greater. The
maelstrom that Ruby had unleashed had gotten wildly out of her
control. Areas of the entire street much further than she would
have expected were covered in the purple ooze. Many of the
buildings had been demolished by the crashing, swirling waves. All
she’d sought to do was save a girl from a monstrous act. How did
things get so out of hand?

“We need to go,” her demon said, still
hugging her toxic frame.

“I… look what I did…”

“I see it, my princess. That’s why we need to
go. We have to find a way out of Gloomport. I fear these Underlaw
men aren’t the only ones who have an issue with you now.”

Scarlett stood up and helped the princess to
try and stand. The arrows and their injuries washed away with the
maelstrom, but she felt weak after unleashing the roiling storm of
poison, so she dropped back to a squatting position.

“Where is the flask?” her demon asked.

Ruby realized that she must have dropped it.
She looked around in vain. The slimy green fluid that Scarlett had
given her before going into the house was gone, having washed away
somewhere with the waves.

“I don’t know.” Her breaths were heavy, and
she had little energy. She needed the poison. She needed its
sustenance. Her chest felt dry, and every time she swallowed, it
tore at her throat a little more than the last.

“I’ll find it,” Scarlett said. “Just wait
here.”

There was little else she could do, but Ruby
nodded all the same. Her demon servant went down an alleyway where
a large amount of the poison had washed into, while the princess
attempted to catch her breath. Every inhale of air felt like too
little coming too late. She needed more than she was getting. She
spent too much of the poison to drive the men of the Underlaw back.
Looking back up, she realized that it hadn’t been completely
effective. The leader of the gang had braved the toxic liquid
washed all across the street, brandishing his pair of axes and
walking toward Ruby. He was alone, having lost many of his men from
her toxic maelstrom, but that made him no less dangerous.

“You killed my men!” he shouted. “I’ll have
your head, you little whore!”

The princess looked around in an attempt to
find the war hammer that she’d previously used. The weapon too had
been washed away from her and was some distance out of her reach.
Feeling around inside herself, she tried to find any last pocket of
poison that she could use to fight this vicious man. There was
nothing. She was quite simply tapped.

He was on her. The gang leader swung down
with one of the axes. Ruby raised her hands defensively while
simultaneously shifting away from the attack. The blade of the axe
swiped cleanly across the fingers on her left hand, cutting off all
four but leaving the thumb in place. The dismembered digits fell
and landed in the shallow pool of poison beneath her.

She was too much in shock to have screamed
out from the pain. Before, her injuries had led to bleeding, but
now it seemed there was nothing but the noxious venoms dwelling
within her. No red blood trickled from the wounds, just more of the
dark purple liquid. She had none to spare, and as she saw it
dripping from her stumps of fingers, her vision became blurry. It
was only a matter of time before she passed out.

The gang leader snarled at her and raised the
other axe in the air, preparing to strike once more. Before he
could, he was tackled by Scarlett and knocked into the remnants of
poison covering the city street. Though clearly harmed by the
toxins, he still managed to kick the demon off him and stand. Half
of his body was covered by the sludge, and the tumble had dislodged
the dirty rag covering his scarred eye. It too was now layered in
the poison.

The gang leader grimaced from the pain, as
the toxins ate away the flesh of his face. He ignored what was
happening to him and rushed forward, still wielding one of the
axes. Scarlett, meanwhile, had found the poison flask and slid it
through the sludge toward the princess. She picked up the glass,
uncorked the stopper with her teeth, spitting it out to the ground,
and then drank a healthy portion of the poison.

The effect was instantaneous. Her power was
restored, and along with it, Ruby could feel a connection to the
toxins eating away at the gang leader. She found herself hating
him, and rather than simply killing him with the venom, the
princess opted for another direction. Ruby communicated with the
poison sinking into his skin, and she forced it to push deeper. The
semi-sentient fluid delved toward the man’s brain with incredible
alacrity and precision.