Nazurek nodded at her and pointed at Grendy on the tree with his chin who was shivering in agony now. "Look at his face! Witness his suffering! Feed!"
Aeile looked at Grendy's face and felt the delicious sensation caress her again. Something inside her needed to hear, see, taste his torment. It filled her with rapturous ecstasy she could not tear away from. She watched her hand reach out with the knife and open his stomach vertically from the rib cage down to his opened wound.
He screamed.
She moaned. "Yes!" She opened her eyes wide and watched intently.
Nazurek cackled and said, "Welcome to the darkness, Aeile de Nekros."
Even as she finished, filling her body with what it needed to extinguish the pain, removing his organs one by one until at last, she plucked out the heart, something seemed caged in her mind that could not escape until she had finished. It was the absolute certainty that she could not bear this kind of existence and that one name that never left her thoughts, the once beautiful face that never left her mind.
Sheile
16
EMMANORA
"Fucking hell!" Emmanora yelled through her teeth as she hit the ground hard and flat on her back. She kick-vaulted herself to her feet and brushed the muck off her leathers.
"You did better this time, just left yourself wide open at the end," said Marlamba, one of the better unarmed fighters in the Spiders on the Wind, and someone Emmanora had always enjoyed talking to, and that was a feat in itself because she hated talking to most people.
"Go fuck yourself! This was a bad idea." She kicked a cattail and watched it explode in a cloud of tendrils. "I've been knocked into the mud so many times now, I'm covered in it, and I've got swamp ass. I literally mean there is swamp water in the crack of my ass. I'm just shit at close combat. I've never had a problem doing my job without it, and I don't think its necessary now."
Marlamba glared at her vacantly for a moment, then shrugged, "You're the one who asked for it." He stood typical height for a milg man, just a half a foot taller than her. He sported a manicured red goatee and short hair shaved on the sides of his head. His face was chiseled and full of strong angles. His body had grown slender and cut through the few years he had been working as a Spider. His indigo leathers clung to his muscular form in banded layers. "I only want you to get better, Emm. Protect yourself and all that."
"Don't call me Emm!" she snapped. "I hate that."
"Oh yeah! Why don't you do something about it, Emm? Emmy, Emm, Emm?" He got into a fighting stance and pranced back and forth in the tall grass.
Emmanora couldn't stop herself from smiling. He looked so ridiculous. She clenched her teeth and charged at him.
He jumped aside in a fraction of the time her outstretched hands were about to touch his throat, but she grabbed the lapel of his jacket just as she slid past him, jerking him in a spin with her. He swept at her legs, and she jumped clear of the blow. When she landed, she jumped again but higher this time and threw her heel at his chest to knock him down and unwind him. Instead, her foot landed on his shoulder and though she did shove him back off his footing, Marlamba dive rolled backward and came up with his arms in a guarding position.
"That's what I'm talking about!" he said, smiling. "Now focus! You must detach yourself from your anger to make precise attacks. Your rage can make you brave, but it hinders you once in face to face combat. Come at me again but try to put yourself outside your feelings first. Cleanse your mind of all thoughts. I know it sounds silly, but it really is where the magic of graceful combat is born."
Emmanora let out a long breath. She felt the place between her eyebrows making that crease when she was angry. She closed her eyes and tried to let the crease smooth out, her face relaxed. She still bit down on her lip inside her mouth, but she was trying to be calm, to understand this mind-clearing notion. She opened her eyes and got back into a defensive water stance, arms high, weight on her back leg.
"Come at me," Marlamba said, bouncing his head slightly.
"No," she said, raising her chin. She narrowed her eyes. "You come at me."
Marlamba scoffed. "Very well. If you're desperate for another bruise." He scissors walked sideways towards her, his eyes on hers.
They circled one another twice, ready for a flinch, a read of anticipation to react to.
"Well, what are you waiting for?" she asked. "Do something!"
Marlamba said, "You should train with Pyramus Hectus! He's the real master of melee. I'm just a street scrapper compared to him."
"I don't want to learn from him," she said. "And I don't like classes full of people, most of which I don't like. Are you gonna come at me or--"
He faked a backfist to her head and moved his arm down to thrust into her rib cage which she blocked but fell on her face anyways due to him sweeping her legs simultaneously. Both arm attacks had been fakeouts.
"Fuck oww! Shit!" She grabbed her elbow and rubbed it.
He smiled smugly at first but then offered, "Are you well?" He leaned down with his hand to pat her on the back, and she sprang up suddenly, grabbing his wrist and flipping him over her knee onto his back.
Marlamba's eyes opened wide. She could tell he'd had the wind knocked out of him.
"I'm fine," she said calmly. "Are you well?"
Marlamba stared at her, his mouth agape. Then he giggled. "Now that's what I'm talking about! Subversion! There's hope for you, yet!"
Emmanora smiled with her hands on her hips. "I can fake too, ya know. I just do it differently than you."
"Ha! See?" Marlamba stood up. "You just need more training. I'm not a master. I can't teach you everything. You need to spar in class with several kinds of fighting personalities. Pyramus can help you so much more than I can."
"Nope," she said simply, walking away to find where Bandit had run off to. She's lost sight of him frolicking in the tall grass by the riverbank just before Marlamba had swept her to the ground.
"If you change your mi--,"
"I won't." She cut him off. She looked back at him. "Thanks for the lesson. Maybe I'll try again later."
He grinned. "Anytime. Maybe we'll try sticks next time."
She turned away and walked through the grass before she added, "I wouldn't want you to get another bruise."
She looked up and down the bayou and made several strolls through the mud, her feet sinking into the muck. It wasn't long before her heart fluttered with worry. She thought about Ruby. She knew rationally, seeing the blood on the ground, Liobe had surely killed him. Emmanora wanted to believe he still lived and Liobe had just nicked him in trying to steal him. It was a possibility. Liobe would save anything valuable if she thought there was profit to be made, and dwarf camels were extremely rare. Only rich lords and Kings kept such rare creatures for their amusement. That's how Liobe had come into adopting him. Lord Briggs, a cruel elderly man who kept himself locked high in a watchtower in the outer walls of Hunter's Keep had the little camel chained to his bedpost where he'd kept him tramping in his own camel shit and hardly fed him. He'd been starved to the point where his ribs showed. She had spent two days with the milg up in the Vylket, hardly coming out during the day, but catching up with some of her cousins whose homes were there. No one had asked about Liobe, they knew it to be a touchy topic with her. Liobe had also left the Spiders on the Wind and betrayed them by leaking several targets on their lists for marks. The targets had paid her off handsomely, and she had bought a ship and sailed off into the Dividing Sea after earning her loyalty to the Pirate King Edvard by selling their parents to slavers.
Two nights had gone by with only restless sleep at best, hearing Liobe's voice in her head. "Eradicate all competitor rogue lords and renegades in The East Realm." Liobe would do it or die trying.
Emmanora made her way across the cypress knees and back up the grandmother tree to Uncle Lomah's hut to smoke some moon moth. When she got up there and sat on the cot and pulled out her moon moth, she was happy to find Bandit snoring beneath on
the floor. He had collected a few treasures for her and left them on her cot, a long leather thong, two wine skin corks, and an old hollowed out turtle shell not much bigger than a gold piece. She picked up the thong and the turtle shell and studied it for a minute. She threaded the thong through the front leg holes of the shell and tied it around her neck and leaned over the cot to show Bandit. "Thanks for the necklace! I shall wear it always!"
Two eyes glowed in the shadow under the cot for a few seconds, blinked twice and closed again.
She lit her pipe with a piece of reed from Uncle Lomah's hearth and puffed away. Uncle Lomah stepped inside then and laid a basket of freshly caught crayfish on the table. They clattered and clicked steadily. "Looks like you caught about fifty or so?" she said.
Lomah put his hands on his lower back. "Yes, yes! That's probably a good guess. Shit, my back is getting to me in old age trying to pull them up old grandmother tree, though. I sometimes wonder how I still work the shadows. And I still gotta mark tomorrow with a few of the Spiders. You should come with us and see if you remember what it was like, might feel good to you?"
"Are you fucking joking? I'm going if you're going no matter what. Liobe could show up at any time and knife you in the back. She's good at finding people, even the Spiders. I still haven't figured out how she found my redwood tree." Emmanora fidgeted with the turtle shell. It was bone white as if it had been bleached in the sun.
"I doubt your sister cares about me that much. Do you think she would really do it? I mean, I taught her nearly every damn thing she knows about working the shadows."
"She sold mother, your sister and my father to slavers," Emmanora said, her voice sharp. "Which ultimately got them fucking killed when they tried to escape. I know our parents weren't the best people and I understand why Liobe resented them but still. They were our fucking mum and dad."
"I know, my dear," he relented. "I'm the one who had to tell you that story, and I'm sorry." He sighed and stared at the crayfish clamping the reeds of the basket catcher with their pincers. He poked their pincers pushing them back. "Because it's not the truth."
"What!" Emmanora stood up, glaring at him.
"The slavers whom your sister turned them over to sold them to King Ingul of Red Wolf. He bought them to keep his scribes entertained. They were not the usual scholarly gentleman type. King Ingul employs different sorts of record keepers than the noble sorts of kings. They were vicious criminals he pardoned from execution for unspeakable acts. They had a fetish for milg. They kept my sister Annora, your mother chained to the floor in a closet in the Red Wolf Archives Cellar, raping her repeatedly daily until she died of infection from the wounds. Honestly, I don't know what became of Roon. I cared deeply for your father and searched for him for years before I gave up, and I still go out hunting for clues now and then. I only knew about your mother because I was tipped off by a slaver client who hired me to kill the slaver who bought your mother and father. Of course, I obliged and took the money with a smile on my face. His name was Harok Storg. I hadn't known the whereabouts of him until the tipoff. I took care of him and, of unsavory persuasion, got him to tell me everything. I traveled to Red Wolf Keep seeing if it was true and possibly get inside to deliver justice to the scribes, but it was impenetrable even for a rogue like myself. People in that proximity to a king are not easy marks, otherwise, kings, queens, and dukes would be dropping like flies at the hands of assassins."
Emmanora's color went pale and her mouth fell open. "Why didn't you tell me?" she asked.
"You were too young and too spiteful. You would've stormed away and tried to take on all the slavers and the entirety of the Red Wolf Army to have your vengeance, and you would have gotten killed. You were only ten."
"You're right. I most certainly would have. What makes you think I won't do it now?"
"Because your older and smarter I'd hoped, and wiser. If I, being the Lord of the Spiders, know better than to try to assassinate a king in his castle, I would think you would certainly know your limits."
"Kings do get assassinated. It happens. Maybe not often but--"
"Those are Delvamich cutthroats, elite assassins from across the Dividing Sea who care not if they lose their heads." Uncle Lomah put his arm around her. "I'm so sorry, Emma. I wanted you to know the truth. Nasty as it is."
"I'm going to kill the cunt. He's already on my list. It won't be pretty."
"Emmanora you can't do this. The Red Wolf Knights are brutal fighters. If you're discovered, you will be killed or worse suffer a similar fate as your mother did."
17
IVANOS
Ivanos rode into the Red Wolf Army war camp just after sunset trailing the reinforcement knights from Red Wolf Keep. Sir Haggis rode in front of him. Ivanos felt he owed a lot to the man for allowing him this opportunity and giving him a chance to enter the Red Wolf Army as a fully ranked knight with no initiate pledging. This was definitely a swifter way to reassert himself into a place where he could redeem past failings and prove to himself, he hadn't wasted his life training to be a protector and an honorable guardian of a people. It would give him a sense of purpose, bringing an end to sleepless nights wandering from cities and towns trying to sell his sword for petty tasks and playing bodyguard to swindling merchants and cruel slavers.
Forty-nine horses and thirty-nine Red Wolf Knights clopped along languidly after traveling for two days on the road and only stopping to camp and to take three short breaks each day for pissing, shitting and letting the horses rest. They would've made it in a day had they rode a bit faster, but Sir Wilmath, Captain of the unit, had them all ride at a slow trot the entire way to keep the horses fresh for battle. The air here carried fragrances of cedar, pine and campfires mingled with the sour sweat and coppery blood steaming off the battle-weary army. Gray tents stretched out for acres dotted with flagpoles billowing with the Red Wolf skull painted in red over a black triangular strip of silk.
Ivanos had said little the entire way. No one had asked him any questions or seemed interested in his presence in the caravan aside from the occasional, "Faring well?" from Sir Haggis with a nod. He'd heard nothing else from the others. He'd decided that it suited him to be quiet for s stretch. Nor had he heard the dark voice of the King of Scion in his head since the night of the House of the Dead festival. He had been afraid of retaliation or punishment for his disobedience, but there had been silence. He wanted to believe this King of Scion was something he had hallucinated due to his anxiety and old age, but he couldn't deny the tree he'd cut clean in half with one swipe that had been very real with the scorch marks to show the next morning.
The spectral king had first appeared to him just after Jesper had been violently killed right in front of him. This occurred as his thoughts digested someone else had died horribly in his protection. Jesper had been bothersome often, but the youth had given Ivanos the feeling of honorable purpose. When it came right down to it, warriors or knights attained glory doing for a populace what a father did for his family. He remembered his favorite bit of wisdom his father, who was also a knight used to say, A father is a knight to his children and wife just as a knight is a father to his people and the king or queen. He liked that philosophy. Having only married once and never having fathered children, he could only seek a new place and people to protect. He smiled broader than he had in a long time as he dismounted when all the horses came into a clearing in the war camp. He knew his expression seemed out of place amongst the men and some women here with faces weary of battle, but he knew he would welcome that weary face when it came to him.
"Ivanos!" said Sir Haggis as he approached. "You wanted to speak with Squire Phillip and his Knight Sir Kellumvor? That's them right over there sitting by the farrier shoeing Sir Kellumvor's horse."
Ivanos raised his eyebrows. "Thank you, Sir Haggis! I've been waiting some time to fulfill his request." Ivanos removed the two Caribou hides from behind Velvet's saddle and headed over to greet the two.
The fully armored knight
had a grim look on his face and seemed to be in a bit of a debate with the farrier. Sir Kellumvor had curly black hair and kept his face clean-shaven for all to see his deep dimples and thin lips. He had narrow, brown, deep-set eyes. "Well, it looks like you did it wrong again!" he said to the farrier.
"Apologies, my lord! I'm trying my best to make a correction, but his hoof is cracked up to the crown band. I don't think it's a good idea to keep riding him into battle like this. Might go lame in a short time if not given a rest."
Squire Phillip scoffed. "Sir Kellumvor will ride him lame then. This is war, and we've not the time or resources for horse sitting." He wore padded red leathers with black trimmings. He glanced to Ivanos standing with the Red Caribou hides in hand a few feet away from him. "Can I help you with something?"
Sir Kellumvor put his hands on his hips, staring skeptically at Ivanos.
Ivanos bowed, then knelt and laid the folded hides in the soft grass before him. "My Lords. I've brought you the Red Caribou hide you requested and a second to show my gratitude and sincerity for Sir Kellumvor."
Squire Phillip removed his leather gloves, walked over and retrieved the hides. The shaggy maroon fur swallowed up the squire's slender fingers as he ran them through it, sampling the texture. "Eh, Sir Kellumvor's got lots of these." He smirked. "I never thought you'd be back. To be honest, I hardly remember your face. Thanks though. Not many men would be crazy enough to hike all the way up to the Red Forest for a couple of Red Caribou hides, and then come all this way to the war camp to deliver them to a squire." He laughed, shaking his head, and turned back to the others with the hides under his arm.
"Hold up!" It was Sir Kellumvor. He motioned for Ivanos to approach.
Ivanos said, "Yes, Sir Kellumvor?"
"What's your name?"
"Ivanos Jorganaut. I'm to fight with you on the field against the trogs to help Red Wolf take back Nodet. For this, I am to be knighted by King Ingul if it be that I live to swear the oath."
The Vanguards of Scion Page 10