“Huh,” Scarlet grunted, a thoughtful expression playing across her face as she stood with hands on hips. “You actually sound like you mean it.”
“Well, to be perfectly honest,” Elissa said, climbing a little unsteadily to her feet, “there is one other thing I’d like.”
“Oooh!” Scarlet beamed, clapping her hands. “Is this where you spring the clever trap?”
“Can we maybe just call it a ‘mad gambit to hedge in case you weren’t in a listening mood’?” Elissa asked. “’Clever trap’ makes it sounds like I was doing more than grabbing any dice I could reach and rolling them, in the desperate hope that something would change the game.”
“Fair enough.” Scarlet shrugged. “Tell me your punch line.”
“Not that the ‘mad gambit’ seems to have panned out, mind you. But I still want to know what’s lurking in the bone pits.”
Scarlet blinked. “That’s rather a disappointing punchline. Anyway, I thought I already told you. It’s the vengeful dead.”
“Like from your story?” Elissa asked. “I wasn’t sure how much credit to give any of that.”
“Oh, it’s all absolutely true,” Scarlet assured her. “Excepting the bits I made up, of course.”
“Certainly.” Elissa nodded.
“They can’t kill me, either,” Scarlet said matter-of-factly. “Mother knows they’ve tried.”
Elissa answered with a “fair enough” shrug. “So what do you say? Shall we dismantle the Inquisition together?”
Scarlet stood for a few moments, rolling her eyes thoughtfully while tapping a foot and drumming her fingers on her folded arms. “Still not convinced I need you for that.”
“Obviously, you’re at the advantage in a skirmish with them,” Elissa said. “But you’ve been fighting skirmishes with them for…how long? They just keep coming back for more. And, if I may make an observation, you don’t actually have to decide right this moment, do you? Nothing’s to stop you from going back to finish this skirmish with them, then seeing how you feel. I’m clearly going nowhere.” She gestured expansively to the cave around them, and to the only exit, high overhead. “All the same for you whether you kill me now or leave me to stew for a day or two before you come back to kill me.”
“You have a point,” Scarlet conceded. “All very reasonable.”
“Thank you.”
“I don’t do reasonable,” Scarlet hissed abruptly, crossing the remaining distance between them in a blur and lifting Elissa off the ground by her already abused throat. “And I’m not keen on this whole ‘delayed gratification’ business, either. I’m more your basic spoiled brat type.”
Elissa’s composure cracked. The only thing that stopped her from letting loose a piercing shriek as she kicked and struggled uselessly was the hand around her neck.
“I am a storyteller, girl. I know how these things work,” Scarlet went on, completely unperturbed by Elissa’s struggles. “Plucky young nobody cleverly leads powerful adversary into underestimating her—granting said nobody time to rally, learn from her mistakes, and come back with a plan to exploit her opponent’s fatal flaw. I tell that story over and over and over and over and over…”
Scarlet’s eyes rolled, then they went out of focus as her voice fell into a monotone loop that seemed like it would persist longer than Elissa’s breath would. Then as Elissa thought she was going to black out, Scarlet abruptly released her to crumple on the rocky floor of the cave.
“And do you know why I tell it that way all the time?” Scarlet asked, dropping down beside Elissa and pulling her head into her lap. “Not because it happens all the time. That would be nonsense.” Scarlet began stroking Elissa’s hair in a manner that might have been soothing, had she not also been effortlessly pinning Elissa’s shoulder in a way that actually hampered her desperate attempts to get her lungs working properly again.
“It’s because a head without proper stories is like a body without bread, and because a wolf who tried to deny food to the deer would soon find herself an ex-wolf. There’s only three ways to tell a story, and two of them don’t work. One’s like gorging yourself on honey ‘til you’re sick, the other’s like trying to live on a diet of rocks. Proper stories are important. They tell you how to live your life. They tell you why to live your life. The trick is to keep from confusing them with your actual life.
“In actual life, for every plucky little girl who overcomes impossible odds, you could build a mountain out of the little girls who tried and failed. I’m the little girl who managed the impossible. That makes you just one more body on the heap. Because no matter how much I enjoy playing with my food, I never let it crawl away alive. When I do leave this cave, it will be after removing your pretty little head,” Scarlet said, grinning and laying a finger to Elissa’s nose like a mother telling her child a silly story, “from your pretty little shoulders. Won’t that be nice?”
Scarlet suddenly blinked and her eyes widened as a stone collided with the back of her head, then bounced harmlessly away. Relinquishing her grip on Elissa, Scarlet slowly turned to see Addie glaring down at her from atop of pile of rubble. “Leave her alone,” the girl demanded, her body shaking in rage and terror, her face stained with tears.
“See?” Scarlet grinned at Elissa, who was laboring to rise. “I knew you were lying about something.” Then Scarlet turned her grin on Addie. “Hello, little girl. Were you wanting to play? I could show you what big teeth I have.” As Scarlet’s grin widened, it did indeed bare a rather nasty-looking set of fangs.
Still disoriented, Elissa took a blind swing toward Scarlet’s ankle, but all she connected with was trailing end of the woman’s billowing cape. Scarlet had already begun stalking toward Addie. With a shriek, the girl turned and ran, dancing downstream along the top of the ridge of rocks. Elissa attempted to hiss out a threat at the retreating Scarlet, but the attempt only devolved into a painful coughing fit.
“Come now,” Scarlet chided the girl as she strolled unhurriedly after her along the less-treacherous ground on the banks of the swollen stream. “You started this. Well, okay, I started this first, but then you came back and started it some more. What did you think would—”
Scarlet’s question died unfinished when all at once a great muddy black mass lurched up out of the stream and came crashing down on top of her. There was no way of properly saying what size the thing was, given how it undulated and oozed, and how it seemed to extend back into the water like a gigantic worm, but to liken its girth to that of an elephant or a small cottage would give some account of its scale. Whether or not it was truly made of mud was hard to say. It might have been glistening black mud. It might have been tar or dark, coagulating blood. It might have been all of them mixed together, or something else entirely. Whatever that core component of the nauseating, viscous mass might have been, it smelled of decay and bristled with bones of all sizes and kinds—with the possible exception of jawbones and skulls. The thing made no sound beyond the splat of it hitting the cave floor, then it squirmed back into the water, leaving no trace of Scarlet behind.
“Oh dear,” Elissa breathed. “I hope—”
About ten yards downstream, the floodwaters exploded with such violence that they knocked Elissa off her feet and spattered her with black ooze. There was no way to catch a glimpse of Scarlet in the midst of that, but her head must have broken the surface, judging from the deafening, primal scream that echoed off the cavern walls. Then the scream died as quickly as it had come, leaving behind just the background roar of the flood.
“Addie!” Elissa screamed, beckoning to the girl who remained frozen, staring at the spectacle. Then Elissa pointed toward the thorny vine Scarlet had rode in on, still dangling there, unmoving.
It took the girl a moment to get her brain working again, then she was running back the way she’d come, heading for the vine. Before they reached it, a series of smaller explosions broke the surface of the stream. Here, a blackened hand clawed its way momentarily above the surfac
e. There, chunks of bone and ooze went flying out of the water.
“But how do we…?” Addie asked, arriving at the vine only to stare up at the nasty array of thorns spiking its whole length.
“You didn’t ask ‘how’ before, did you?” Elissa asked, gripping the vine firmly with one borrowed gauntlet. It failed to react. “I’ll handle the thinking. You handle the praying. Don’t stop. And hold onto me.”
While Elissa fiddled with the vine, Addie cast a sideways glance in the direction where Tobias lay hidden in the mud. “Pray for him, too,” Elissa said. “We’ll be back, girl. Faith.” Elissa stabbed the dagger about half an inch into the stout vine. It shuddered, but no more. “Come on,” she muttered as another scream erupted farther down the stream. “You’ve got to have some sense of self-preservation left in that skull.”
She stabbed again. And again. The vine jerked and danced, nearly pulling her off her feet. It did not, despite Addie’s fervent prayers, rise.
Something came staggering out of the darkness downstream, making its way laboriously along the banks, dripping water and mud and slime as it came. What hair remained on its tattered scalp hung in limp, auburn strands. What flesh hadn’t been flayed from its bone had been blackened and burned. Its clothing had fared no better than its flesh, but the ragged remnant of a red cape and hood still hung tenaciously to its bony shoulders. The thing cast about blindly, for no trace of eyes remained in the sockets of its skull.
Perhaps its lungs and throat remained intact, though, for it screamed out in an unmistakable semblance of Scarlet’s voice. “Kill her!”
Addie yelped and held on for life as the vine wrapped firmly around Elissa’s arm and yanked the two of them upward. They hung for a moment, dangling over the mouth of the cave, staring at the permanent grin of Scarlet’s macabre servitor. Then it let go.
Elissa grabbed desperately with both hands, doing her best to ignore Addie’s continued shrieking. Somehow the girl held onto her, and she held onto the vine, but when simply letting go didn’t finish the job of killing them, the deadling brought its other vines to bear, tangling Elissa’s limbs and throat.
In the midst of all that chaos, Addie blinked, abruptly aware that the deadling and its entire pack of compatriots were paying her no mind whatever. With an exultant surge of hope and a reaffirmed belief in the power of prayer, she leapt straight at the skull. The thing let out an unearthly shriek as she locked her arms around it and it tumbled through the air with her. Just clearing the edge of the crevice, they landed and rolled together across a muddy slab of rock. Then Addie was on her feet again, bruised and battered and feeling thorns tear into her flesh, but ignoring it all. No monster was going to eat her today, and no monster would eat Sister Elissa, either.
With the skull tucked under her arm, Addie scrambled up the slippery stone, putting distance between herself and the cave mouth. Between trying to anchor itself and keeping Elissa entangled, the captive skull seemed to lack either the vines or the mental faculties to foil Addie.
After a few moments, she looked back to find that Elissa—having been dragged along with them—had come clear of the cave mouth as well, and Addie smashed the skull down on the rock underfoot with all the strength she could muster. The skull shattered. The lights in its eyes winked out. It vines went limp, and Elissa fell to the ground, gasping for breath.
The the rest of the pack of the deadlings resumed their insane laughter and converged, single-mindedly intent on carrying out the orders of their mistress.
Addie charged to Elissa’s aid, only to find herself drawn up short. In shocked disbelief, she realized too late that the things had been ignoring her not because of divine protection, but because they’d considered her irrelevant. She’d made herself relevant by directly interfering with their mission, and now they had her tangled as thoroughly as they’d tangled Elissa.
By whatever grace remained, none of them was throttling her, but still she struggled and screamed in pain and in helpless frustration, unable to do anything but watch as the vines twined once more about Elissa’s neck.
Then all at once there was a giantess at Addie’s side, slashing about her maniacally with the short blade in one hand, smashing skulls into whatever rocky surface came to hand with the other. Then Ulric, of the Earl’s own guard, appeared as out of nowhere, laying about him no less viciously as he fought to reach Elissa with the aid of the young man who’d seemed to be Tobias’s squire.
Soon Addie and Elissa were both free, grabbing whatever stones they could find and joining in the desperate fight. When the chaos died down, the five of them were all well bloodied by the thorns, but still standing amid the fragments of skull and the lifeless vines. It might almost have been peaceful for a moment, were it not for the enraged and incoherent howling of Bloody Scarlet still coming from below.
“Everyone catch your breath,” Elissa commanded as she started gathering up vines and tying them together. “This isn’t over. Ulric, I know we’re nearly to a gate in the hedge. Can you point us at it?” When he nodded, she passed him one end of a vine. “Find a tree to tie this to. Secure it like a life depended on it.”
“You’re not seriously going down there?” he asked.
“No.” Elissa shook her head. “But if Scarlet doesn’t come out, Tobias is dead. She’ll find him down there eventually if she’s cooped up for long.”
“Right.” Ulric nodded and headed toward the nearest likely looking tree.
“Conrad, I know where your duty lies,” Elissa said as she finished tying off her knots, “but we’re not getting him out of there without something better than thorny vines. As soon as we’re clear of the forest, the best thing you can do for him is to round up help and equipment. He’s in bad shape, so send someone for a healer, too.”
“Don’t say I never did anything for you!” Elissa called down the sinkhole as they finished up. She tossed the free end of the vine down the hole, then turned to limp away as quickly as she could manage, with Ulric and Conrad on either side to support her.
Addie ran ahead with Evadne, babbling excitedly to her about what a hero Sister Elissa was, and how she’d pulled one over on Bloody Scarlet.
“What happened down there, Sister?” Conrad asked, somewhat awed by the account even after making allowances for its source.
“I forgot to simper,” Elissa said grimly.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Dealing with the Devil
They wasted no more breath on talking, and only ran as best they could until they reached the gate Elissa had come through with Nolan, which—by a stroke of luck—now stood unlocked, and no one had to clamber over anything. They simply ran on through, and they kept running until they reached the gate in the hedge at the far side of the pasture. It was there they finally stopped, breathing with varying degrees of difficulty as they all kept an eye on the forest hedge from the nagging fear that pursuit would come exploding out of it at any moment.
It was also there that Elissa, after spending some minutes staring at the forest with a lost expression on her face, abruptly collapsed onto the ground and began to cry, quietly but uncontrollably. When it became clear this wasn’t just a passing moment, Evadne settled down beside Elissa and silently laid a hand on her shoulder, while Ulric pulled Addie to the side and reiterated Conrad’s earlier question. “What happened down there?”
“I think Sister Elissa’s going to be a miraculata,” Addie managed, though she was clearly having trouble processing her own collection of deferred emotions. “Everything happened so fast. But Scarlet…got Lady Doryne, and she must’ve got the sister’s postulant. There was a nobleman with them who rescued us, but then we all fell into the cave. That nearly killed him, and it killed the sister’s cat. Then Scarlet came down after us, but Elissa kept her talking until the Oobly Yech came, and we got away.” Her halting explanation trailed off, and that seemed to be the end of what she was going to offer.
“Keely’s, dead…?” Ulric asked, suddenly going a little numb h
imself. When Addie nodded, Ulric found himself sinking down beside Evadne and Elissa and pulling the little girl into his lap.
“I need to go find help for Prince Tobias,” Conrad insisted.
Ulric pointed through the gate and down the lane toward the right. “Nearest farmhouse will be that way,” he said. “Tell them I sent you. Just remember, no matter how much you want to rush back, we need to give plenty of time for Scarlet to get clear.”
Conrad nodded and took off, leaving Ulric with the two women, the little girl, and his thoughts.
The foremost, overwhelming thought was that he’d failed miserably. He could make all sorts of excuses about having been handed an impossible challenge to begin with, but to what end? His whole life had been about protecting Haywoodshire in general and the house of Haywood in particular. Now half the county lay in ash while the Inquisition terrorized it without restraint.
They might lack the political authority to choose the successors to the Haywoods, but they could destroy the family by excommunication, turning them outlaw—and apparently already had. From the sound of things, they’d declared a holy war on the entire county. The earl and the countess must already be dead or worse. Their girls, though likely alive for the moment, had been effectively cut off from the carefully planned escape routes by a homicidal nursery bogey.
And now that the only woman presumptuous enough to claim she could set everything right lay dead in a sinkhole full of monsters, he discovered that despite all his protestations of cynicism, some small part of him had been waiting for Keely to make good on her promises.
Without noticing when it had happened, Ulric found that Addie had her face buried against his neck, the tears flowing freely as he rocked her in what had probably started as much as an effort to sooth himself as one to sooth her.
Time ceased to matter as they remained like that, aware of nothing much except that nothing had yet come bursting out of the forest looking for their blood. Then Elissa left off her crying to let out a blood-curdling shriek.
Lethal Red Riding Hood (Dark Goddess Chronicles Book 1) Page 43