"That's sad. I'm sorry for you."
"Blackened suns! B... b... b-been the usual for my life. The Worldmaker has never given me a smooth road."
"I can relate to that," Vendronia said, her voice going somber. "I've never had many friends, myself, being... . strange as I am, having skin the color of blood. And because I'm not trog. They've never let me forget it. Yet, things were going well for me, for a short time, after I met. . . well, that's what I wanted to talk to you about."
Ivanos sat up. He furrowed his brow and felt a pinch there. His fingers found three stitches of horsehair in his forehead. "W... w... w... w-what do you mean talk to me about? You don't know me at all. I should be dead. I thought I was dead when the arrow went into my helmet. Why did you save me?"
"Because I saw you when you were sleeping the night before. You spoke to me."
"H... h... h... h-how? Could that be? I slept in the Red Wolf Camp. You would've been captured and executed."
"It's not easy to explain. I was there... but not in this form. I have dreams. For now, let's just say I saw you in a dream, and you spoke to me."
"W... w... w-what did I say?"
"You said to prepare for you, to remember your face. And I did. I saw you before you started killing your own knights. I recognized your face from the dream. You looked out of place. Uncertain. You weren't charging forward at the trog."
"I was so worried about Velvet. S... s... s-she was giving Sir Kellumvor hell as he tried to charge her into battle. She hadn't been a warhorse in many years, and she did not like that man. He took her from me!" Ivanos heard his voice turning bitter. "I realized I was not one of them. Then, in my a... a... a-anger as I watched this man murder my friend, I heard the voice of the dark king in my head. He taunted me to unleash my rage on them all. I could not resist. Now, I'm not a knight. I never will be again. I'm something else. I don't know what I am."
She put a gentle hand on his knee. "You're Ivanos. And that is all you must be for now. You mentioned the dark king? The King of Scion?" Vendronia asked.
A surge of panic engulfed his chest. Ivanos gazed hard at her, trying to get her into focus. "You're a witch! I should not be telling you these things. Did you heal me so you could torment me?"
"No! Wait! I mean, yes. I serve the Witch God, but," she paused and diverted her eyes to the two trog guards with spears who stood a few feet away from their cage. She moved closer to him and whispered, "I'm not sure if I believe in the Witch God anymore. I saw the King of Scion, too. He came to me. He gave me the power to summon spiders and hornets."
Ivanos paused. His vision was getting better. The witch woman was shaking and rocking back and forth. He focused on her eyes. He scooted away inches. Her eyes had an unworldly appearance: black orbs like two polished marbles of onyx. Her pupils were faint and blacker still inside spheres of darkness. He couldn't help but let out a sigh of discomfort. This was the woman who saved his life. She had seen the King of Scion. He had come to her. This meant the voice in his head wasn't madness. The King of Scion was real. If the power demonstrated from his sword was not enough, this confirmed it for sure. "You s... s... s-saw him?" he said finally, not really a question. He wanted to hear her say it again.
She nodded. "But he hasn't spoke to me since. I only see things and know his intent."
"I had thought I was going mad, hallucinating and hearing voices in my old age. That years on the road doing odd m... m... m... m-mercenary work had taken its toll on me. So, he's real then. You've seen him, and he granted you power as well. This is profound but also terrifying. W... w-why... why us?"
"Good question," she said, her gaze turning away to the waves crashing against the crags. "I've wondered at this often. He is a powerful being for certain. He said we were to prepare the world for the coming of his people. He's from another world. Much like the Otherworld where the Witch God and his minions walk. I'm uncertain, but this King of Scion seems to be as powerful as the Witch God, more so... his world must be much more powerful, and this King is able to open doors to our world. He lets things through from his own. This is frightening to think about. I'm worried that I should not have consented to his oath. I was vulnerable and in need of validation from somewhere."
Ivanos kept silent for a moment. He wasn't altogether sure if the King of Scion could hear his conversations. Finally, he said, "I will not say I regret it. Have you not considered that it is his intent we have met here in this cage? He told me to kill the Red Wolf knights. He did not speak to me about killing trogs. It did not make sense to me when he said it, but I was in a rage, and I hated the Red Wolf knights. I still do. I no longer feel the need to prove myself honorable. That has done little for me. I would that we unite and serve the King of Scion, making the trog his first army in this world."
"That is something to think over. I may be in a cage, but I'm still Crone Mother. The trog have a religious respect for their Crone Mother. It is a curse to go against her advice."
"You! Crone Mother!" It was one of the trog guards, his voice with same trog accent but much deeper and resonate. He was a younger man with darker blond hair and a thick silver ring in the septum of his nose. He had high chiseled cheekbones and an intricate lattice face tattoo in place of a beard. "Why do you talk to this cuck? He is not worthy of the Crone Mother's wisdom." He tapped his steel spearhead on the sapling bars of the cage for emphasis. "Be silent, or I will have to tell the Varl."
"Tell him," said Vendronia. "Tell him it is time to let us out. The cuck has awoken and he is our ally. He is not a threat. This is my word as Crone Mother."
The guard with the face tattoo frowned, lifting one brow. "It is near lunchtime for Varl Borlin and Yurka. I should not interrupt them. I will tell him later today."
Ivanos lunged forward and grabbed hold of the sapling bars of the cage with both hands. "T... t... t-tell him the cuck wishes to challenge him in hand-to-hand combat! If the cuck wins, he must no longer be referred to as a cuck. The Varl must tell the trogs to call him Ivanos!"
The guard with the tattooed face pushed his spear through the cage bars up to Ivanos's throat.
The second guard approached. He wore nothing but a leather chest harness on his thick, muscled torso. His spear held at ready. He had a platinum rooster's crest of hair and a full platinum beard.
The guard with the face tattoo pressed in on Ivanos's throat with his spear, then pulled it away and exploded in mocking laughter. "The cuck is a joker! You are only a withered old man! You make a death wish! You only live because the Crone Mother wishes it. Varl Borlin would kill you and not even keep your head for a trophy. It would disgrace him to make glory of killing an old man. If you want to live, you should sit down and let the Crone Mother speak for you. Your common tongue is poor like a slow and deaf person." The guard raised his voice to a mocking tone to say, "T... t... t-tell him the cuck wishes to challenge him! Borlin may keep you alive for his amusement."
Both guards bellowed out fits of laughter.
Defeated, Ivanos eased back down into the sand. He glanced at Vendronia the witch and found her convulsing on her back. Her head craned back with neck tendons tight. She flailed her arms and rocked from side to side. She began to vomit clear fluids.
Ivanos didn't know what to do for her. He only associated these kinds of seizures with those who were either mad or poisoned. This was a witch. It could be a trick or a spell.
He cried out to the guards, "Do something! Your Crone Mother is ill! She needs medical attention!"
27
EMMANORA
They walked southeast through the Blackbird Pines Forest headed for the coastal city of Kilawon. Pine needles covered the forest floor, keeping most briers and vine thickets from growing. It made hiking between the many pine trees less burdensome.
Fresh pine, oak, and cedar permeated the air. Emmanora had been through the area many times on her way to Hearth. It was a small town where she shopped for supplies and borrowed things from residents without asking their permission.
Fireflies flitted all around. She'd spotted deer six times so far. She liked to count her deer sightings when traveling. Milg never hunted deer. They had no religion, but their culture held sacred traditions. Somebody in ages past had decided that seeing a deer was good luck. So, when you saw one, that meant the forces of nature were with you. It seemed true most times she paid attention.
Emmanora walked ten paces to the right of Uncle Lomah. Marlamba, Willotora, and Gelladimmi walked to his left all ten paces abreast. Dynamira, ever the difficult one, walked about five paces to Emmanora's right.
"I just don't think that's right," said Emmanora. "You shouldn't give slimy rich lords a dignified end. More often than not, they've shown no dignity or respect to their servants and whores. Piss on them! I do every time!" She laughed.
"It's an awful thing, leaving a body disgraced like that for their children or wives to find them," Dynamira said in her nasally, matter-of-fact voice. She kept her stiff pink hair in an upward swirl. She had a birdlike face with a large angular nose and small lips. "I've never done such a thing. I hardly leave a mark on the corpse and rarely do I give my marks a fatal injury that gives them time to squeal. The Spiders are professionals. We dip in and dip out with hardly a trace!"
Emmanora scoffed. "That's boarshit! I've been on runs with you before. You've been quite messy on occasion. I've seen it myself."
Dynamira had slowly closed the distance between them. She rolled her eyes. "That was when I was still a novice, dear. You've been out of the circle way too long. This mission will be good for you. You might learn a few things if you take some notes from me. I don't like to brag, but there's a reason I'm always on the top tier missions. No mark is earned cleaner than mine." She manicured her fingernails with a thin file from her lock-picks as she walked. She kept holding out her hand and reviewing her nails to see if she had them all even.
"Boarshit, boarshit, and more boarshit! I'll believe it when I see it, but really, it makes no fucking difference. You kill, you get paid, and that's all that ever matters to me," Emmanora said. "I don't give a fuck about fuck all else! Except for some things in their jewelry boxes they won't be needing anymore. Those are complementary items."
"Oh, so you steal from them, too. Real classy there." Dynamira smirked at her index fingernail. She went back to filing it.
"Are we not trained as thieves?"
"The Spiders are for certain, but that's a different thing. We steal professionally. We don't loot the dead. That's for peasant hoodlums. A Spider you're not, by the way, not anymore. You can't just show up once every few months and never go on runs with us and expect to be our equal. Your uncle is only trying to help you improve by inviting you along."
"You were always a pompous cunt, Dynamira," Emmanora sneered. "Good to know you haven't changed."
Dynamira smacked her lips with a sigh, shaking her head. "Same. You still live in delusion."
"Both of you need to get quiet," Uncle Lomah snapped. He strolled over near them and whispered, pointing his index finger at them both, "We are nearing the big rock where we turn west to our usual campsite. There could be strangers there making use of our fire-pit and the lean-to rock. We don't need to announce ourselves."
Emmanora shrugged and pointed an upturned thumb back at Dynamira.
"I said both of you," he whispered.
Emmanora raised both brows high mouthed "very well". She crossed her arms and stood still for a moment, then pointed off to the east. She waved over the ground, wiggling her fingers, the Spiders' silent gesture for going to take a piss.
Uncle Lomah nodded at her and called back to the others in a low tone, "Let's keep moving. She'll catch up."
Emmanora headed off to the east a good way and found a place to unbuckle her leathers and squat. As she began to relieve herself on the carpet of pine needles, she caught a glimpse of a man watching her from behind a tree about fifty feet away. His head popped out from behind the tree trunk and jerked back a couple of times.
She let herself finish, not showing any sign of reaction. Let him think she hadn't noticed him. She took three deep breaths and casually stood up, buckling her leathers back up. She started to walk back to the east where she was supposed to catch up with the others. She knew the rock that led to the campsite. She would find it soon enough. She wanted to let this man follow her, so she could get a look at him.
She held a steady walking speed. She rested her right hand on the pommel of Heartnail. Did he have a crossbow? She hadn't seen one. If he did, why didn't he take the opportunity to shoot when she had her trousers down? She didn't get a good enough look at him to know if he was the crossbowman who got away. Evasive diversion would be the best option. She needed him to lose sight of her, and then maybe she could loop back around behind him.
When she made it back to the area where she had separated from the Spiders, she saw a dense patch of cedar trees that would be the perfect place for her to disappear. Plenty of lower hanging branches created just enough shade in the morning sun. It occurred to her then. She had so many new alternative sneak attack considerations with this new ability. She didn't need to do anything but disappear, if indeed it did work that way. She didn't know what triggered it. She hadn't disappeared at all throughout the entire trip since the encounter with the Pirate King's men. She'd passed through plenty of dark shadows throughout the night. Maybe it only worked when she was in danger? It was too risky to chance. She decided to use the tried and true methods of stealth and physical prowess. Slip from his view and climb a tree. That seemed like the best idea.
She entered the thicket of cedars and began to dip from side to side across and between them until she was certain there was no way anyone following her could've marked on her position. She leaped up the side of a large cedar tree and made her way up through the branches until she was fifteen feet above the ground. There she waited and watched.
Tiny red insects crawled in and out from the marbled bark of the tree. She picked a couple of the small green berries growing from the thin branches. She palmed them for now. A few moments went by before the man came into view through the cedar branches. She bit her upper lip. What if Uncle Lomah had sent somebody to look for her? It had been a few minutes longer than the time it would've taken her to piss and walk back to the camp.
It was the crossbowman who got away. He had his crossbow loaded and swept it back and forth as he peered through the trees ahead of him.
Look up, dumbfuck! She thought.
He craned his neck searching the forest before him. He walked with a trained stealthy gait rolling his feet from his heel to his toe on the outer edges for silence. He had long black hair tied in the back with braids.
She waited until he was only a few feet from walking right beneath her and tossed one of the cedar berries out far ahead of him. It landed about twenty feet away in front of him. He froze in his tracks, aiming his crossbow as if he'd seen her out there somewhere.
She had to hold her hand over her mouth to contain her laughter.
The man took one step forward, easing his foot down slow.
Come on, stupid. A little closer. She was ready to drop down with Heartnail and jam it right threw his head.
He held the crossbow perfectly still and stared hard out into the place where the berry had bounced across the forest floor. The chitter of a small bird came from the west, and he tilted his head slightly to investigate. He widened his eyes then and turned the crossbow to the west and released the bolt.
Someone yelped. It sounded like Marlamba.
Emmanora furrowed her brows. "No!" she gasped.
The crossbowman looked right at her then and started fumbling for another bolt in the quiver on his belt.
Emmanora jumped down from the cedar tree, landing hard on the ground. She groaned from the twinge of pain it caused in her knees.
The man sprinted off to the west, dashing through the trees like a frightened deer. He'd seen her before and watched her take out most of his band. He s
hould be worried.
She ran after him with the hilt of Heartnail tight in her grip. After she'd ran a short distance, she passed a body lay sprawled on the forest floor. She stopped in her tracks and turned around. Her face went slack. Her mouth fell open. She began to shake her head. "No, no, no!" She went over to him. It was Marlamba. The Pirate King's man had put a bolt through his eye and out the back of his head. It had killed him instantly. She felt her knees give. Her body collapsed onto the ground, pine needles pricking her ankles. She hunched over his body cradling his head. "No, no!" She kept saying it. "No, no!" She was breathing rapidly. She took two deep breaths collecting herself. "I'm sorry," she said to him. "It's my fault. I didn't know you were there. I was gonna get him. I was. I am. I promise you I will find that shitbag and I will gut him! And Liobe too!"
She heard footsteps in the pine needles behind her. She sprung up with her rapier in her hand at the ready, but it was Dynamira.
The bitch stood there giving her an icy stare, brown eyes narrowing. Dynamira crossed her arms then and sighed, shaking her head. "See what I mean?"
Emmanora walked right up to her and pressed the tip of Heartnail at the small cavity between Dynamira's collarbones.
Dynamira made no move to defend herself. She kept her arms crossed and smirked. She snorted. "Do it! I dare you!"
Emmanora grit her teeth and lunged forward threateningly. "All I would need to do is scratch you with the tip and you'd be dead."
"Why? Poison? You know all Spiders on the Wind are immune to most indigenous poisons, especially the purple spider venom. Or maybe you've lost your immunity because you've been going it alone for so long. Have you been keeping up with your small doses in your lonely treehouse?"
Emmanora pulled the blade away from her lower neck and sheathed it. Uncle Lomah would be even more upset if he lost two members in one night, and she wouldn't be able to explain murdering Dynamira, though she would've enjoyed it very much. She looked over at Marlamba's lifeless body and said, "It's my fault he's gone."
The Vanguards of Scion Page 18