by B. H. Young
"Then you shouldn't have lost your temper," she said and smirked with mocking eyes.
"Why couldn't you have just stayed on the fucking boat?" Lestat sheathed his sword and pulled a bottle of phoenix oil from his coat. "Dressing like that and parading in front of him drawing vulgar comments and taunting him into a bickering. Why must you tease every man that dares make the mistake of throwing eyes at you?"
Lucinda could feel her eyes swelling. It was not her fault. The Elf wasn't going to comply regardless, yet her brother scolded her for his actions, blaming her. She glared into Lestat's rueful eyes with intent to reply with anger, but the low whimpers carried from the corner of the room to her. The two whore's curled together cowering; she had almost forgotten them. She walked from Lestat with a hard step, over to the women. Her hands squeezed the sturdy wooden club as she looked down at the soaked faces of the women clenched to one another like terrified children. Stock is all they were for the quick pleasures of men and stock was for slaughtering she thought.
"Sorry ladies," she said.
Gripping the club with both hands Lucinda put her all into every downward swing, trading hits from one woman to the next pulverizing them as blood splashed against the wall. The painted club hammered down from one head to the next, crushing their skulls like glass, and shifting their cries to mere oddly tuned grunts before falling silent. The two women still clung to each other, now tenderized and unrecognizable. Lucinda tossed the club onto the bloody mess and walked from the room slicing a narrow glance to Lestat as she passed him.
Lestat flung Phoenix Oil over Gayleon's body and across the walls in decorative fashion, then pulled a small candle from the side shelf and tossed it. The large chair exploded in flames and Lestat chased after his sister.
They made their way back to the ship as the brothel consumed with flame at their backs. It had only taken a moment before a soak of fire commanded the building and lit the east end of town as a new day. Lucinda could hear Vette stirring from its slumber by the time they reached the docks.
Wasting no time to quell her needs, Lucinda stepped onto the boat ordering her guardsmen to follow her below deck. She gave them two small vials of Lover's Chagrin. "Drink this, wait in my cabin and be removed of your armor by the time I get there," she said. Her breath was heavy and her eyes trembled. The two guards nodded and made their way down the small hallway, and entered her quarters at the end.
Lestat shuffled in behind her with a pleading mask on his face. "Lucinda, I'm sorry," he said.
"Whatever," came the reply. She grabbed a bottle of wine from the counter pulling the Cork and took a few big gulps. The apology was too late; maybe by morning, she'd be willing to accept it but not now.
"Dear sister am I to suffer sounds of your wild moans of release all the way home?" Lestat asked with a concern in his voice, but a playful shine in his eyes. "I told you I'm sorry."
The ship was not big and the wall between their rooms was as thin as a sheet. But Lucinda did not care. She turned the bottle back up to her plump lips once more, finishing it off. "You can watch, ride up top with the captain or stuff your fucking ears for all I care," she said and stormed off to her quarters.
Her guards stood naked under the faint glow of the lantern. The Lover's Chagrin had not failed in firming their damaged parts. Aged scaring, of gashes and bite marks, flecked the two Renkosh slave's pale skin. They gazed lost beyond her awaiting orders. She'd have to choreograph the entire act with the two empty vessels, but this was nothing new to her. Orchestrated sex-plays were commonplace between her and her two guardsmen by the time she entered young woman hood. She had bled first and only for them, a violent gift neither man would ever know grace in receiving. She would not waste the night away with sleep, not when so much anger cried for violent release. If she were honest, the flesh peddler's carnal threats simmered like a slow gentle steam within her, adding to her overall mood.
Lucinda stepped back, undressed, and stood with her hands on her hips. It was a low thing to have to direct mindless brutes in such an act, but she did not care. She had done it for so long that the shame she felt the first time seemed like a nasty little lie she'd never give truth to. They never talked, never complained, never questioned, and never teased. There might be a bit of sadness in admitting they were the best friends she'd ever have, but if there was, she'd not look for it. It was better this way with those who do not share in the bliss, those not weakened by their brief frenzies, she told herself, and she aimed to keep busy the entire ride home.
Chapter 17.
In the wet darkness, the sparks in the sky gave brief light and Sylo threw the knife, punching the thief in the back causing his legs to buckle sending him crashing to the ground and sliding through the mud. His face pushed up a mound of dirt before his body stopped slipping along the ground. The man struggled to catch wind to his lungs as he reached to his back to pull the knife. Panicked, he scraped the muck from his face and began to crawl towards the distant light, but he could not win over the slush of the ground. Every pull and reach, though, wild in nature, did little to move him any further away.
The thief gasped cries of apology as he rolled to face Sylo while shielding behind his hand. A brave soul now reduced to a coward when a potential mark showed restraint against the efforts of thieves. Sylo's chainmail vest sat flushed against boiled leather and glistened in the rain under his coat as he danced fingers at the ensemble of weapons hanging from his belt. The glow of his eyes distorted in the downpour and did not blink.
Sylo walked closer ignoring the stuttered begging of the wounded thief. The Gods were late in the hour with their torment. Along Slivreth Road, the four men sprang forth from out of the night-curtained forest with intent to line their pockets. With this brave act to seek fortune, the thieves were met with something worse than an apprehensive victim, and as soon as this donned their drenched faces the killing started. Marlo took two, Jelkin got the other, and Sylo chased the God's rabbit. Sylo did not know these woods, but the man's soaked stitched leather and furs were rank and guiding. He could have run a hundred miles and a hundred miles he'd have left that trailing stench. He may as well have been holding a torch in the middle of the night.
Sylo raised his eyes from the begging man to the shine in the distance. Their attempted torment was not done it would seem, he thought, their meddling at the road was just the beginning to grander schemes. Was that cabin where the rabbit was to lead him? And what waited beyond its door? Without peeling his eyes away from the hovel dwellings in the distance, Sylo pressed his muddied boot to the gasping man's throat and pushed. Sporadic hands clawed, grabbed, pushed, and hit before slowing and then going limp. Marlo and Jelkin stepped up behind him out of the rain, and Sylo moved toward the light.
The den of thieves was well nestled in the thick of the forest on a small clearing. A lantern hung on the side of a tumbledown cabin and a large barn roof sprouted behind it. The rotted wood sagged to the weight of the rain and the home looked heavy at one side. Candlelight flicked with muted effort through the muck-covered windows. The place looked to struggle its standing to the storm.
Sylo stepped onto the porch surrounded by wind chimes made of bone, singing a daunting choir to the storms wind, and kicked in the door startling the two young women who sat warming their hands in front of the fire. The cabin was fat with plunder. Piles of items cluttered to the walls and corners and the floor sat with trailing mounds like a maze. A woman emerged from the side room and Sylo grabbed her hair, threw her over to the sobbing girls, and approached all three of them gawking. They clenched tighter to one another under the gaze of his eyes.
The haggard looking woman pulled her girls close. "My husband and sons will be back any time now," she proclaimed. The effort in her voice to scare them off was lazy.
"They're not coming back," Sylo said.
Her chin trembled and she winced pulling her daughters in closer. "What are you going to do with us?" she asked in a shaken voice.
He
ignored her and looked back to his men rummaging through the cabin. "Check the grounds." He cut his eyes back to the woman, approached her again, and said, "Sit down."
She wrapped her arms around her daughters assuring them it would be okay and pulled them down at her side onto to the sullied couch. "We'll give you no trouble," she said but Sylo did not respond.
Sylo made his way to the table and sat placing both hands flat to the rough wood. He found himself in a sullen state of confusion. A family of thieves used by his tormentors but had they expected him to fail. Were the women not part of their trickery? What was the joke he wondered?
Marlo slipped back outside while Jelkin swept the interior like a rodent. The rain rolled down his face and Sylo had no thought to wipe it away as he waited for decisions to rear. The storm was a brutal one that pressed down on them quick like an orchestra of violent calamity. The Terongard storms were monsters compared to those of Northanos. He was familiar with the kingdom but not its rainy winter months. They had walked for an eternity along the road it seemed after leaving the mines of Belenos. Before the thunder cracked, his map had showed them to be out of the forest soon. But the Gods felt differently.
Jelkin emerged from the far room sweeping his head as he walked to the table and sat down. "No one else here," he said.
The place was heavy with many odors but the women's were different, and stood out. A brush of stale and smoke like unkempt fabric. The thieving men were of the same but hardened pressed by the rain. Sylo could identify or, at least, gauge a good guess at most of the smells clogging his senses. He studied the aroma from the nearby caldron, stewing and bubbling not wanting to let go of the heat in the failing fire pit. Not hungry but curious, the smell was familiar but would not give way to the clear thought of remembrance. Certain that he had smelled such an odor before, but could not place it. There were others lingering out trails of faint teases that perplexed his lost memory as well. It was no surprise really the entire cabin looked as if it were an ill forgotten stock house on a mangy port somewhere.
Jelkin ran his hand along his matted locks and then rested his arms to the table. "What are we to do with them?" He looked back to the women.
One of the young girls sniffed aloud, they looked no more than sixteen to Sylo's eyes, and they would not lift their heads from their mother's chest to look at him. She stared though, the den mother, beaming with sadness at him. A run down and ran hard woman, a little heavy with weight, wide hips, and narrow shoulders. Life had taken its toll on her and was not afraid to show the world that it had not been favorable.
"They have horses," Marlo said as he entered back into the cabin shaking off the rain. "Also found a bone pit with a few dozen dead, probably others that resisted this lot's endeavors," he said and gave a grin to the frightened women as he walked to the hearth and took a seat in the chair.
The girls sobbed more to the words of Marlo's discovery Sylo noticed. The woman shushed them and whispered to them before standing. Marlo raised a brow at her but she paid him no mind.
"May I please approach?" she asked. Sylo did not reciprocate only stared and after a moment the woman decided to take her chances.
Jelkin stood and walked over to a chair in the far corner near the door. The woman came to the table staring at Sylo with worn eyes. She wiped her hands along her dress, pulled it tight to the backs of her legs, and then sat. The emptiness in her eyes was very telling. She dressed in poor fabric attire just as her daughters; long hair of straw rested on her shoulders, and dark wear circled her eyes. She looked hard and beaten but not horrid. Sylo did not feel sadness but he understood it and recognized it. Sadness was a punishing burden enough for some even more so than death. Well aware of what he had taken from her but unremorseful in doing so.
"I don't know what you plan to do with us but I assure you we are of no threat, we have not even tried to get away." She brushed her hair back, keeping the sorrow in her eyes apparent. "My name is Joanna," she said.
Sylo studied her face of a dim innocence long time passed in her younger days. She did not look to be a willing thief and the aura of concern for the safety of her daughters was more apparent than the loss of her family.
"I do beg forgiveness for what my boys done. They have been doing it for years. Our only means of survival my husband said. We never agreed with it," she said and looked back to her girls. "The robbing and murdering of innocent travelers along the road, but Harold, my husband, was a cruel man who insisted it was the only way. I would never dare stand up to him for he was quick to lay hand to me and the girls. My sons," her eyes glimmered and her chin shook, "I loved them as any mother should but they were as cruel as their father. We simply needed to know our place... prisoners in a sense I guess." She turned back to her girls with a mope. "He'd order them to rape their sisters while he did the same to me." She began to cry softly.
He listened, studying the calm and steady thumping of her heart. Those that lie or try to trick are more telling in their rapid beating. The hearts of the two girls holding to one another at the far wall fluttered with fear. The woman, Joanna's flowed a softer beat. One tormented by a higher power, be it of Gods or man should rise to the challenge, but life looked taxing enough in her eyes. Sylo was not sympathetic to her words, merely observant. Shameful secrets spoken aloud brought more tears to her eyes and sob's from her daughters. A family enslaved by a bastard herald of tormenting Gods, perhaps, or lazy victims. Was he not supposed to be here, Sylo wondered? Had the Gods hoped him not to find their private stock of self-amusement?
Joanna stared him drained and then lowered her head. "As much as I feel grief I know I shouldn't, but I do." She grimaced and covered her face.
He did not respond, instead, he looked beyond her to the two girls. The Gods knew no shame to trouble ones so early in life. These women were battered jokes, never to find peace. He had intervened though and the Gods had angered, clouding his thoughts and his senses.
She squinted to his drifting stare and turned to face her girls. She threw eyes back to him and grabbed his hand gentle. "I will do whatever you ask I will not cause you any grief. But please spare my daughters they are all I have," she said with a shriek of concern in her voice.
Sylo slid his hand from hers, but she persisted grasping to his hands once more. "You have freed us please allow me to show gratitude. We have no money... but I can pay... other ways," she said and pulled at his hand.
And there it was, the trick. Did they think to mock him, what he'd done at Pyne, with such a worn woman? To tout a lesser woman than Teyah in front of him, laughing as they did. Such concerns of what the woman feared were beneath him, but in her eyes, he could see this offering was not without meddling fingers. The careworn woman was just a besieged soul to be used as a means for entertainment to divine beings. A joke, but Teyah was a joke as well he thought as he searched her pleading eyes.
The woman had been too long under the ruling fist. "I'll tend the big man," she had whispered to her girls Sylo heard. It would have gone unheard to most, but not him. He did not fault her for it as one racked for so long does what they can to get by. Her eyes glared with determination and willingness to pay a final price for the closure of a life torment and play pawn in the game of Gods and men it seemed.
Joanna pulled her hands back to her lap and stared with worry as Sylo pushed up from the table covering her in his shadow. "What do you mean to do?" she squealed.
Sylo stepped up to her side, looking down to her, and said, "Anger them further."
Joanna sniffled, stood, and gave another wipe at her hair. "This way," she said and led him to the side room patting her hand calmly to her girls as they sat clenched and crying.
The room was dark and musty with a poor bed gracing its center. Joanna stepped to the side and he walked in. She shut the door, walked to the footing of the bed and then turned to him and took a modest stance. She was no Teyah, but she was still a mockery of theirs.
Joanna kissed him, moving her lips with ligh
t halts around his and then trailed to his neck but he did not give in return. "Please," she stuttered hoping his mind had not changed.
He grabbed her shoulders and pushed her back, turned her and leaned her down onto the bed. She panted yelps as he did and pushed up from the dank fur covers looking back to him. There was a glimmer of uncertainty in her eyes now. And it belonged there. Teyah was pure and to be handled soft and gentle. Joanna was not. She was rugged and hard and could handle his savagery, and would. Sylo's eyes shone through the dark as he pulled her dress up. She bowed her head to the covers and braced with fear.
Morning dawned cold and damp and Marlo and Jelkin had saddled three of the horses and led them around to the front of the cabin. Joanna stood more worn then when they arrived with her daughters under each arm. In a shroud of distress, her face rose slowly to meet him as he approached. The two girls would still not look upon him. The cries of agony from their mother carried the night and dried them out of any more tears to shed.
Sylo did not say a word as he looked at her. The subject of his rage against the Gods, she had paid a hard price but now was free. There was no regret or sympathy in him only acknowledgment that he had won, again.
The bone chimes dinged a hollow melody in the morning gust and he paused just outside the door looking to his waiting men. The wet earth smell of the new daybreak pinched at his senses bringing a recollection he had not expected. Had it taken all this time to come to him? The bastards, he thought, they kept his mind fogged hoping he would be far from this place by the time their trick became obvious. That familiar stench that rotted the air from the caldron, she had drawn his attention from it. Offered self-sacrifice to spare those he had no intention of harming and lead him away under a fallacy. No man should be able to forget that smell once having whiffed of its metallic, burnt pork stench. But the Gods had made him forget, though.
They had led him to this foul den of the worst kind of filth this world had to offer. Tricked him into believing he was to ruin their joke, like in Pyne. Sylo turned back to Joanna. She stood, ragged and trodden, just inside the cabin with her girls clenched at her sides. It would have been miles of land traveled before he would have remembered, they wished. He stood without expression and pulled his cattle mace from his belt and Joanna's face grew pale.