Kat had abandoned her—her mother. Abandoned her for the blood tinged arm of the Champion who cut the beastly woman down.
A shiver ricocheted up her spine at the sudden flash of dingy memory. At the flash of her mother's tormented face twisting into a gnarled snarl as Kat turned her back to the crawling ghoul and set her eyes elsewhere. With a thought of remembrance, she brought her gaze over her shoulder in the hopes of catching her mother's beautiful face one last time.
What she saw was horrid.
Oily black exploded upon the mismatched stones of the wall as the woman's pace slowed. A line of doors were embossed into the wall at Kat's right, the rounded slabs of brown wood acting as an ongoing line of quiet observers as Kat trudged towards the unknown. Towards this woman's “higher”, which Kat assumed would be her doom. Or something like it. Whatever this woman believed about Kat—it was bad enough to mention the noose. Which meant—which meant this woman believed Kat had murdered someone. Someone important to her.
Of the other doors of the corridor that were shut, barred, or locked; the one the woman stalled at fluttered open. This one had been cracked open and left to hang there as stale air whispered from the inside. The woman behind Kat stopped. Cursing under her breath, she shoved Kat forward and slammed a leather encased boot into the brown face of the rickety door with a splintering boom that fizzled out as the door wheezed. That died.
The woman stuck her head in and hissed heavily before pulling her head out. Wild green eyes bore a hole into Kat's cheek as Kat refused to return her glare. “Turn your head, cur.” the woman snarled as the single hand curved around Kat's bony wrists tightened and clenched. Kat felt a bone pop, the sound splitting the silence as she winced. “I said,” her fingers clamped harder, began displacing Kat's fingers from their knuckles as Kat bucked her head. “turn your head.”
Kat turned, having no choice. She turned as the woman sidestepped her. Shoving Kat towards the wide open door, Kat blanched. Raised her chin as if that would stop the fetid stench of death and decay.
“My brother.” the woman whispered behind her, tightening her grasp upon Kat's wrists as she breathed. “Your people did this...”
The room was barren. Tiny. Thick wooden beams held its ceiling of dripping stone up, as a single square window let in an aura of white light. The light widened, acting like a beam as it bowed its gossamer veil upon a figure slumped against a wide leather-bound chest. He sat as if something should be jutting out of him—a sword, a spear—something. But no weapon marred the gold-tinged surcoat upon his lanky chest. No arrows or knife cuts blackened his bare throat or sliced the skin of his disheveled hands. Though his skin was ashen and bloodless as if he had been drained dry by mortal wounds, nothing assailed his corpse. Nothing opened a hole upon him.
The woman swallowed. Finished her sentence with a thick voice, “...to my brother.”
From his eyes crept trails of hollow black. From his nose sprang a stygian blackness that slid down the expanse of his long and narrow features. Black dribbled from every pore, from every orifice. It dribbled down his chin, staining his cracked lips. Face assailed by none other than the sun itself, draping a veil upon his mottled corpse.
Kat fought the urge to retch as the stench haunted her, flooding her nostrils with a mixture of spoiled egg and fly spattered manure. It was a stench she couldn't completely describe, not with her stomach doing cartwheels and her whole body trembling as if knee deep and naked in a howling blizzard. She wanted to vomit, but found the contents of her stomach wanting as she heaved and spat up biting bile over the soiled cloth of her slippers.
Still heaving, the woman yanked her out of the room and gently pulled the door to. The fingers that curved around Kat's wrist softened as the woman shoved her forward, pressuring her to walk briskly as they neared the end of the bright hallway.
“There are hundreds littering the fortress that look just like him.” the woman hissed behind Kat, every word a stab to the chest. Every word ending in a sharp blade. “You look at him and vomit—yet there are hundreds, hundreds slumped upon the grounds of Labassette that look just like him—if not worse!”
“Labassette?” Kat croaked.
“Silence, cur.” the woman spat, clenching her fingers into a choke hold upon Kat's wrists as a large bronze door came into view some ways away. Spire tipped windows stood on either sides of the walls ending at the door, letting in a flood of white light that curled up the hallway. “Are you a straggler? A cowed elf that bent beneath the guilt of harming so many innocents in the most brutal way possible?”
Kat's lips thinned as the doors came ever closer. This was it. Behind those doors lie her fate, she assumed. Praying that there would be someone behind those heavy gilded doors with mind enough to listen to her before they strung a noose around her neck, Kat's pace slowed as she closed her eyes and listened to her final footsteps.
Her mouth still tasted of stomach churning bile that soured her tongue and twisted her face into a disgusted grimace. Ignoring the taste and the stench—attempting to push the flash of that man's oil strewn face and hollow black holes that displaced his eyes—she listened to the cloth of her slippers shuffle along the square stones of the corridor, slowing. Halting as they came to a complete stop before the wide bronze door.
Kat opened her eyes to see a dull copper cast slate of bronze engraved with swirling curves of golden steel that glittered in the bright midday light shining from tall, elaborate, windows on either sides of her. “Answer me, dog, before my mistress cuts out your tongue and sees your pathetic body to the bottom of the river. Answer me.”
Kat pressed her lips together, thoughts buzzing inside her head like angry hornets ready to strike. Fire roared between her ears, giving her a headache she chose to ignore. A headache that stemmed from her hot anger. “Think what you will,” she hissed, head hanging. “but I know what I am.”
“Speak then.”
Kat cast her gaze backwards, meeting the wild green eyes of a weathered face set in smooth stone. “I am a shieldmaiden sworn to the Montbereau Guard,” she replied, eyes glazed, “and a traitor to all of humankind.”
EIGHTEEN
It was a room like none other.
Oil swept paintings mounted upon wide smooth walls stole Kat's attention as she was shoved into an extravagant study. Paintings of sweeping divine tragedies that divided thick gold gilded walls into a contrasting medley of saintly paintings; men and women sailing upon clouds of flowing alabaster wrapped in vibrant silks of gold or cobalt. The everblue sky of the painting's background split at its lowest point, divulging into a thick wall of diminished gold painted metal that wound round the room, blending with the slick wood of a floor made rotten by a high domed roof which wept sour water from its gaudy walls. The water vandalizing the oil paintings with its slick trails of watery gray grime.
The room had a sour stench to it, a watery stench of a creature drowned and swept from its resting place. Only for the waterlogged corpse to bake in the sun. Eventually decomposing beneath its heated rays.
The stench was godawful. Terrifying, even. Yet, the woman behind Kat made no move to gag at the smell as she shoved Kat forward upon the waterlogged wood-rot of the floor.
Kat gawked. At one point in time, this must have been a room meant for receiving noble guests, a room meant for intelligent study and prolonged thought. This was not a room meant for women like Kat, a disheveled urchin thrown into soiled rags with a mind to keep her privates warm, decorum be damned.
Kat brought her gaze to a heavyset desk before her, the wood bright and keen. The desk made from bright brown lumber indigenous to forests well beyond Montbereau's reach. Behind it, sat a woman as lithe as a sapling. One milky eye gazed well past Kat, the other eye—blue as the low hanging lights of a daytime sky—fixed itself upon the bedraggled urchin girl. Drinking her up. Searching her eyes for some sort of leverage, for some sort of explanation as to why she has broken the silence of this water soured study and disrupted her chain of thou
ght.
Kat winced. Felt the sharp talons of a ghostly hand scuttle like a spider across the expanse of her head—of her mind. She shuddered, arms braced behind her as the woman seated behind the large desk brought her elbows to its bright brown face and steepled her fingers before her.
“Vanguard Dechamps...” she nodded towards the woman, making no move to complete her whispered sentence.
Kat felt the vise-grip around her wrists relax. “Madam?” Dechamps responded, her voice piqued with confusion. “This woman has confessed to being a traitor to her own kind.” Dechamps recanted. “Are you quite sure that...”
The woman nodded, fingers still steepled before her face as another spider-like scuttle of fingers crept their way across Kat's head.
Letting go of Kat's wrists, Dechamps approached the woman's desk with her hands clasped tightly behind her back. The gauntlets of her forearm guards brushed against the leather buckles of her breastplate's back as she puffed up her chest. “Very well, madam. Allow me to report—,”
The madam held up a swift hand, dark as stygian tree bark. “Katell Maeva. Shieldmaiden—proposedly. Trekked through the black forest with the Montbereau Chaperon, and your knowledge of all things notable ends there. Peculiar, that.”
Dechamps brought wide verdant eyes to Kat's sneering face. “Answer the Archmage, cur.” she snapped.
The fingers in her head disappeared, shivering down her spine until they darted out of existence. Kat felt as though spiders had infested her body, specifically the space between her ears as she shivered the feeling away. “That much is true, lady.” Kat replied, hands clenching and unfurling at her sides. “I was with the Montbereau Chaperon for a time.”
“And why did you leave?” her fingertips danced in their steeple, tapping against each other. “Better yet, why are you here?”
“She mentioned she was a prisoner, madam.” Dechamps reported, gaze shifting towards the archmage. “And a traitor to the race. Perhaps the Scyllah...”
The madam made a move to smile, lips twitching, but settled for narrowing her eyes and tightening her dark face. “A greenwitch, perhaps? Non. Half-elf, hm? Non—,” the madam shook her head of sharp black hair, the tendrils escaping the loose chignon coiffed at the back of her head. “your thoughts slip through my fingers like warm water. I can cup it, look and see my reflection splayed back at me—but once I delve deeper...once I...”
Kat felt the spider legs again, gingerly creeping across the expanse of her mind—her brain.
“...delve deeper...”
The spider legs pressed, boring down upon her brain like an ax driving pressure upon a thick log of wood. It slices slowly, placing all of its weight upon the log until the wood begins to splinter, begins to crack.
Kat held her head, felt the spider sink its fangs into her brain.
“...do not drive me out.”
The fangs sank deeper, their sharp points twisting round the tissue of her brain like a needle twisting silk around its sharp tip. Kat let out a groan—a high-pitched shriek—as the fangs dove deeper, forcing her to relive her journey here. Forcing her to relive the brutal memory of her bones reshaping, of her body resetting and reviving itself as the callous laughter of foreign-born women assailed Kat's chamber of shadows as showers of skin slicing hail.
The madam threw back her head and howled a clipped scream, her spiders fleeing from Kat's mind as Kat placed her palm upon her thighs and heaved.
A sword whispered within its sheath, metal screeching upon metal as Dechamps slid her sharp gaze towards Kat. Her large hand choked the leather grip of the wide blade shoved into the sheath at her hip.
But she froze when the madam fixed an open palm towards the heavily armored woman, “She does not do it of her own accord, Vanguard.” hissed the madam as she brought her head down. “I sense a presence...something sinister.”
“Are you saying that the Scyllah...planted her with something?”
“The Scyllah have nothing to do with this.” the madam snapped, steepling her fingers once more. She kept her fingers rigid and fixed, boring her one-eyed gaze into Kat's temple. “Do you know what black blood is, child? Ater sanguis?”
Kat shook her head, thoughts flying to the man Dechamps showed her. The hollow black pooling within his eye sockets.
“Speak.” the madam commanded.
“No,” Kat murmured, gaze focusing on the madam. “I've never heard of the Scyllah or this black blood. I come from the Southern Reaches.”
Dechamp's thin lips twitched into a smirk at that, as she brought a knowing gaze to the archmage.
“A presence within your mind murmurs the contrary. Perhaps you are the source?”
Kat gawked. “I've been held prisoner here by a man named Elisedd! I know nothing of what has happened to your people!—”
“—watch your tongue, cur—” Dechamps' eyes widened before narrowing, before twisting up the skin of her long forehead and sliding her gaze back to the archmage. “Elisedd?”
The archmage stood, exploding from her chair, “Fetch my tools, Dechamps. Go on, en vitesse, Dechamps!
“Child.” the archmage barked as Dechamps spun on her heel and sprinted from the room. “Come, do not falter. You may not know who this man is, but know that what I am about to do will protect you,”
Kat stalled. Crossed halfway across the room and froze. “What are you going to do to me?”
“...the Montbereau Chaperon, child, marches it's way here to trade with the capital for necessities, and to give over folk who can no longer brave the harsh winters of the Reaches. But it also exists for a more vital purpose, come.”
Kat took a step, searching the older woman's frantic eye as she heard Dechamps' heavy footsteps echo down the hallway outside. “What purpose?”
“It whisks away girls blessed with magical talents, those born to die by the Sonants' purging flame. The Montbereau Chaperon also plays peacekeeper for the south, reinforcing the Monarchy's ties to the Southern Reaches, which is steadily dimming. Steadily dying out. Child, come—,”
Kat set her jaw. “Tell me why you fear him—Elisedd. Tell me why his name brings panic.”
The archmage blinked, her hand outstretched. Beckoning for the demanding urchin who stood her ground at the center of the room. Amidst paintings of cloud swathed gods and goddesses, Kat's stance became stone as she stood her ground and waited.
“Envoys come from the capital to sit with Montbereau's intermediary, do you not know this? Not comprehend this?” the woman hissed, her outstretched hand turning to become a splayed palm. Fingers dancing. “Now, come.”
The fingers clenched—stiff and immobile—as a soul sucking air howled from the archmage's side of the room and ripped Kat's body towards the desk. The gale scratched at her clothing, ripping at her tunic and belt as her pelvis slammed into the wide indent of the thick desk's face. Kat braced herself, the wind still howling as it began to somber. As the archmage slapped two bony hands to Kat's shoulders and pulled her across the desk. Made her lay prostrate.
“The right hand of the Monarchy comes to stake the Rose's claim for the Southern Reaches.” the woman breathed, hovering over Kat as the study's door softly wheezed open, “Think of this; a handful of notable people caught up in one space, the Chateau, all milling about. Politicking until the sun gasps in red death upon the horizon.
“Think of this; rats in a wine cellar led into a single hole. A single space.” the archmage's single-eyed gaze lingered before she rose her head and brought her eyes towards the sound of a soft clink of metal. “Killing a swarm of rats this way is vastly easier.” she muttered. Leaving Kat's side as Kat brought her gaze to Dechamp's form, her bowed back to the prostrate girl. “Humans, even more so.”
NINETEEN
Kat felt her limbs grow heavy and weighted, as if her arms and legs had suddenly become stone.
“What are you going to do to me?” she barked, throwing her voice across the room. “Lift your cursed magic from me, witch—,”
&
nbsp; The archmage turned on her heel, spun around so fast that Kat had to blink to track her movement. “Sorceress.” the madam sneered, her dark face twisting. “Witch is not in our vocabulary.”
“What are you going to—,”
With an agile flick of her thin wrist, the madam silenced Kat. Enlarging Kat's tongue, the spell also seemed to place sticky sap between her lips. “Bring the claven here, Dechamps. Set it near her breast at a forty-five.”
Kat blanched as the heavily armored woman turned, a large silver implement shaped like a warped pantograph sitting upon a thick stand of silverite balanced between Dechamps' large hands.
The device had two thin arms, both intertwining like a decompressed pantograph. But, where a pantograph's arms ended in blunt silver lines, one arm of this instrument bent at an inverted ninety-degree angle and ended in a sharp silver needle that glistened in the light of the room's hanging chandelier.
Kat watched, her eyes buggy, as the instrument was slapped to the desk. The pointed end of the claven's bent arm weaving towards her chest, bobbing up and down like the sinister prod of an accusatory finger. Words lingered on the tip of her tongue as the archmage came to stand near Dechamps, pressing her finger upon the bent edge of the instrument's wobbling needle-arm.
“A claven. My own invention.” the archmage spoke matter-of-factly, her voice a dull drip of information. “The presence pervading your thoughts may offer us a cure for the curse dear Elisedd has placed upon the men formerly occupying the chateau.”
Winterskin: A Dark Fantasy (Kindred Souls Book 1) Page 9