by B. H. Young
"Dethal," she said, slurring her words. Her bottom lip began to tremble and her eyes glistened. "Lestat... he's dead." Tears slithered down her cheeks and it twisted like a rusted dagger in her chest to say it aloud.
Dethal rolled off his horse and walked to meet her with a kind shimmer above curled in lips. Did he already know? Maybe he could not find the words she thought.
"Dethal?"
Pulling his gloves from his hands, he released a deep sigh and then his face shriveled in anger. The hardened shock rocked her to the ground disorienting her. It was no slap but a punch by a closed hand like fathers. Dizzy and hurt, a stinging pain rained over her head as he knotted her hair of raven into his hand and pulled her from the ground.
"Dethal, please," she stuttered.
"Stupid little bitch!" he spat in her face. "I should chop your fucking head off right here and tell your father you could not be found." He threw another punch across her face and she yelped crashing into the dirt once more. Lucinda murmured in pain and tried to push from the ground. "No, that would be too swift of a punishment for your crimes, too easy. Instead, I will take you back to Lord Willem as he has commanded so that he may deal with you personally," he hissed and then disarmed her and ripped the carry bag from her shoulder. He looked in the satchel to confirm the blacphisk was there. "It's too late in the day to head back to Riverton Hold. We'll hold here for the night and break at dawn," he said back to his men still straddled in their saddles. "And you, you little drunken whore you will get to live a little bit longer."
Lying curled in the soil, dust clumped itself to the wet blood running from the corner of her mouth, and tears flowed from her eyes under a sad whimpering song. It hurt so badly but she was too faint to defend against him. The whole village spun in a fury looking as shades of smudged brush strokes. Dethal seemed not to have a problem touching a woman so long as he was hurting them. Lucinda spat a wad of blood from her mouth and sniveled, as the townsfolk looked on with little concern. Bastards, all of them she thought.
Dethal's clenched fist brought light, though, knocking sobering sense back into her. There would be no condolences given by blood over the death of Lestat, as she believed in drunken mind. Only chastisement and not slow, father never gave a quick sentence.
Dethal flung his boot into Lucinda's stomach as she tried to raise herself from the ground with trembling arms. "Get the fuck up," he roared and then gave her another kick. Gritting his teeth and slurring, he jerked her from the ground again. "If she tries to leave her room, break her legs," he said looking back at his soldiers as she hung under his grasp.
Night had fallen bringing colder air with a chilling rain in its coming. She could hear Dethal's posh chiding of the innkeeper to fix a proper buttermilk fennel dish. His fear of having to eat like a peasant shook the walls in the small room he had confined her to and tested the throbbing in her head. Lucinda pressed her hand tight to her head and squeezed her eyes shut. She remembered now why she did not drink often. Empty stomachs do not harbor the ale with ease once it stops rushing in. A nice sleep was normal before such drying out to somber but she'd not find such a luxury here.
The two guards stationed outside her door and the one outside her window remained silent, but she knew they were there and would be until morning. Such a fool she was to think anything would be different and she hated herself for that, for allowing fear to mix with the drink and weaken her. Sorrow makes one lose train of thought and blinds them to well-established realities and so too does alcohol.
"Proper little Dethal, lover of men and despiser of women, growing sick at their mere fingers upon him," she muttered to herself as if singing a sullied song of intolerance. Many times father had scolded her as a curse from the Gods, but Dethal was the true curse with his unnatural ways, not her.
Lord Willem would no doubt groom him to be the patriarch of House Mathayus now, if he had not been doing so already. He favored Dethal even above his own son, but poor Lestat was too loyal to see it. Doubtless, Dethal would march her back to Riverton Hold, to father who would sing him praise for his success. No, she would not go quietly into the arms of death by a man who detested her very existence. Dethal had disarmed her of her wrist daggers and her sword but he did not know about her boot knife. She smiled and pulled it from its inward sewn sheath.
Lucinda ran the dagger blade across her chest grinning at the ceiling, as sobering mind took hold. They will all fall. Sleep would take Dethal soon, and then she would get the ledger back and flee once again. Lestat's death would be in vain if she were to allow Dethal to take her and the Blackphisk back to Lord Willem. She loved her brother too much to allow that. Lestat would not reap the benefits of her plan but she would. The thick parchment bound in leather and metal would fetch a hefty price from the right buyer. She could sell it off and then board a ship destined to anywhere but here, maybe Vildeheim, she thought. The Eldafienden's reach does not extend there, but more importantly neither does Lord Willem's grasp.
Dethal was an admirable warrior and deadly with his blade, but she was sly and quiet. There are many ways to judge one's skill in combat and she would not deny hers. Taking him head on would be futile. She had seen him cut down Sir Franz Ayer in a dispute at the Crow's Perch. The knight was a well-established sword fighter whose skills were something to behold and it was the longest fight she had ever witnessed. Dethal toyed with the man before lopping off his arm and then disemboweling him.
But sneakiness was her skill and Dethal was a heavy sleeper. Waiting until the sounds of the inn fell silent and when she was certain, she acted. Her mind was clear of fallacies and back to dwelling in the dark corners where it belonged.
Darling Dethal looked so peaceful with his wrist and ankles bound tight to the bed's wooden frame while the moon rays bleeding through the window set his puny naked body aglow. Someone who can sleep through that does not deserve to wake. Gagged and bound, if father could see him now, pitiful. Lucinda knelt to him, placed her blade to his throat, and slapped his face to pull him from his slumber. He did not stir and continued to sleep, the rock. She gave another slap, heavier than the last and he awoke groggily at first before he realized his situation. Bursting with force, he tried to free himself throwing enraged eyes and gagged slanderers at her. Twisting and turning his body the little that he could. She greeted him with a smile and rubbed her hand along his chest.
He roared muffled cries for his guards and she pressed the blade tighter to his throat taming his wild stirring but not his angered look. Reveling in his weakened position, Lucinda leaned in and kissed him on the head. Darling Dethal would know her wrath before the night was over. Years of his tormenting and belittling her fueled the anger and it would not be quick or pleasant.
"Your guards can't hear you," she said with a delicate voice. "They can no longer hear anything, anymore." She grinned and he grunted and frowned behind covered mouth.
She wiped the blood from the blade on his throat and drew a circle on his chest with her free hand. "Darling Dethal, father's favorite, even above his own children." He began sweating and heaving from her touch. "Oh that's right you don't like to be touched by girls. Prefer the callous touch of a man's hand instead." She leaned into him closer, stroked her wet tongue across his cheek, and then said, "Father's favorite soldier, a lover of men, how pathetic."
Sliding her hand down to his crotch, she began fondling him much to his displeasuring cries. His head jerked from side to side shifting his grunts to pleading whimpers as he was now drenched in sweat. A slow rising began to push against her palm, as she rubbed and stroked him, until she grasped an unexpected stiffness. With a mocking glare of disbelief and surprise, she looked to her hand and then back to him.
"Well, well darling Dethal, you may not like the touch of a woman but it appears parts of you disagree with your taste." Lucinda started fondling him faster and the more his eyes shone of misery the faster she went, under a malevolent chuckle.
His throat clenched up and he began to vomi
t into the rag tied around his mouth. The foul proper fennel dish seeped at the edge of the cloth, his cries gurgled, tears flowed out of the sides of his eyes, and the sheet of sweat lit him with a fiery glow under the luminescence of the bleeding night.
Lucinda's vindictive eyes scorched like dragon fire over his arching body and the reaction to the groping gave way for a maddening thought. With no desire or intent, she had only wanted to torment him with what he hated most before killing him, but now something sinister stirred within her. A devious idea if there ever was one. What could he hate worse than the mere touch of a woman she wondered? With anxious motion, Lucinda jumped to her feet and stretched an evil smirk down at him, then strolled eyes to his firmness. His body glistened and his face gleamed in moist vomit as he met her with bulging eyes.
"Oh my darling Dethal, you are going to hate this very much," she said with a twisted expression and with violent anticipation, kicked her boots off and began pulling her trousers from her legs.
Dethal squeezed his eyes shut under saddening pleas and his whimpers rose louder. Her face beamed in an aura of lunacy at him as she pulled one leg and then another from her trousers. Naked from the waist down, standing in the moonlight flowing into the room, she crossed her arms and sneered at him. Proper little Dethal will know a personal hell before he leaves this world.
"Oh you are going to hate this so much," Lucinda said and slapped her backside and chuckled.
Ignoring his desperate grunts and trembling motion she climbed on top of him. He glared her like a saddened dog. Leaning down, she put her lips to his ear and softly whispered, "How does it feel to be so helpless and humiliated." She straightened up, stared him cold, and with her hand guided his stiffness inside of her.
Dethal banged his head against the pillow in defiance like a maddening fiend as more buttermilk fennel squished out from under the rag. Lucinda squeezed her thighs tighter and began grinding against him with hard struts. It was a painful at first she had to force the wetness to try to make it easier. With rigid breath and clenched teeth, she gave thrust like a grasped weapon sawing at flesh. Eventually the dry burning slipped away to a mellower stride. It was a hard sight but Dethal's squirming face made it worth the effort. Lucinda held the blade at his throat, sinisterly grinning like a deviant soul cast out of hell for perversions too unfitting even for its derelict halls.
Darling Dethal was so pitiful, she thought, so very pitif--oh. Oh. OHHH. Unexpectedly a chaos of prickles began to sting in her groin, reluctantly dancing up to tap on her breast, now, to the torturing of her cousin. Her bottom lip began to quiver; she buried an angry look to Dethal before her trembling eyes began to fight to roll back into her head. "Ooh... ooh... oooh," she gaspingly growled, sliding her hips atop him faster, back and forth. Dethal's cheeks inflated and deflated and he began to choke on his vomit. The flushing sensation throbbed at her, stinging and tickling and burning and aching all at once. She gasped steadily as if not sure she'd want her breath to escape. With glowing excitement, Lucinda began punching the blade into Dethal's quaking head in sync with her motioning struts. The piercing rumbles of the blade popping his skull carried under her maddening grunts. Oh vengeance, vengeance can be so good, she thought, as she climbed feverishly to a peak.
Dethal's frail body stuttered to a stop and his muffled agony fell deaf. Lucinda lowered her head panting, saliva dribbling from the corners of her mouth. Darling Dethal lay strapped and lifeless with his head mutilated from a dozen knife wounds, his body washed in blood and an expression of perpetual humiliation frozen on his face. Any other man would have begged the Gods to leave this world in such a way but not him. He hated it and she knew it, and that made the wetness easier. His, equally, frail prick remained stiff as a sword inside of her, appreciative to the act, though, not enough to fill her with his warmth. The silly bastard truly did detest women. Biting her bottom lip with a slight smile, she then grimaced, gave one final hard thrust of her hips atop him with a grunt, and then spat in his mortified face.
"Rather preferred the stillness of my guardsmen," Lucinda said with exasperated breath. "If father could see you now it would be the perfect ending."
She climbed off him, slipped back into her trousers, and pulled her boots on. She grabbed her weapons and the carry bag with the Blackphisk from the table and looked one final time to Dethal, pitiful Dethal. "Oh, I'll be taking your horse darling Dethal," she said, giggled and then darted from the room with a heavy step of a long overdue triumph.
Chapter 34
Witch, they called her mother for not worshipping their Gods. The family's name was never far from the slanderous tongues of the petty zealots who stood in judgment. She was a noble and sure, of herself, no, her mother was no witch. But their religion was not one to practice in a chapel hall that stood open to the world, free and caring. Dark and musky basements were where Maven spent her childhood days in prayer amid her mother's small congregation. The ceremonies were a secret not fit for followers of other Gods, with individuals coming in the late hours under the cover of darkness to avoid persecution she remembered. Fewer were the members of the Eldafienden in those times that held true to the order's history.
Her mother was a beautiful hard-chested woman who used any means necessary to preserve standing within the Order after her father had passed. Means that Maven knew her father would have never agreed with. Broken to a fault, it was not beneath her mother to lower herself and climb the ladder one raunch rung after another, even subjecting herself to the bondage desires of the then harbinger, Caspar Stratham. They had said her father was slain by a thief, but Maven knew that fat bastard of a Harbinger had a hand in it. And in time she feared her mother knew as well.
The Eldafienden eat their own for self-advantage her sister, Tia, two years older than she, would tell her often. Tia never cared for belief of the Old Ones or any God for that matter. The fights her and mother would have over such intolerances rivaled wars. Maven was not too young or naive not to see the way the Harbinger gawked at her mother, her sister, and even her. It was a hefty price to pay in debauchery for a high standing to the illusion of gained respect, but they never truly respected her mother.
The Harbinger came to the manor many nights, telling her mother she was to be his priestess, humoring her magic and readings before she would lead him to her chambers. All Maven could remember after those brief pleasantries were the cries flowing through the walls endless in their agony, sometimes not yielding until the new morn. As a mere child, she dare not try to imagine what that fat man was doing to her beloved mother, while she laid curled to the pillow.
Every morning, her battered mother would read the bones telling her of the greatness she would bring in the service of the Old Ones in time. Her mother would preach for hours to her young ears that the Aleid lineage was blessed to be whisperers and emissaries for the true Gods, the Leviathan Kings. And place in the Eldafienden was their birthright. Her mother's loyalty to the Order was unshaken even though it had long evolved from its roots of faith before her time. Devotion must be held in the face of the sacrilegious and ones must succumb to things they wish not do, she would say.
A misplaced loyalty, Maven thought, as she sat with her hands placed on her thighs bathing in the shimmer of candlelight. Her mother was weak; giving herself in such low behavior thinking it returned respect. Where was their respect the day a group of crusaders for the clergy stormed their manor and pulled her mother from her bed? Dragging her into the street under a fog of eyes and ripping her gown from her before beating her into a bloody mess.
One of the men had backhanded Maven as she lunged for her mother, it was a pain she had never forgotten, but she could not remember any tears that day as she gazed into her mother's broken eyes. There was a fire in them but it had dimmed by the time they wrapped the saddle noose around her neck and she watched the tattered body of her mother be drug away.
By then she had grown numb under the hurting cries through the walls in the night and the witnessing o
f her mother's mistakes. It was a cruel way for a woman, whose only crime was trying with great extent to hold some bit of relevance, to leave this world. That day Maven told herself she would be different with ambition to rise beyond the ash and bring formal glory back into the fold. She did not make her place in this world through the offering of self to sweaty hands. Cruelty was her guide and the Old Ones her shepherds to the top.
Hundreds of candles cluttered in a melted orgy lining the small chapel, flicking light and shadow over the displayed treasures of belief. The pitted stone sockets of the statue gazed Maven vacantly as she sat naked and kneeled below its base. The chapel of Cradenmill was not as grand as the one in Vinreer Keep but it kept her close with the Old Ones when far away from her city. This was her place of solace to seek counsel in prayer beneath the carved depiction of the Red King, a shrine to surround herself with storied remnants The March.
The most valued of the relics she kept here, away from the prying eyes of those wishing to unseat her of her stewardship. Artifacts that should be on display in the Archyl Museum of Sage City for all to admire, but the world had no use for them. They chose long ago to forget, but soon would not have the luxury of ignoring. The time of the true Ancient Enemy was upon them and she would be at the Red Kings side to usher them into the lands.
Two relics of his generals guarded at her side. The remnants of an onyx saber of unknown craftsmanship, sat propped on a column, said to belong to Elderaleth's legion the Oskeg Houndsmen. Writings told that Elderaleth stood seven feet with a massive form and could crush the head of a grown man with one hand. At her right, another podium sat crowned and an ebony stand at its center, dried parchment braced with oxidation and cracked edgings displayed neatly below the glass. It was an arcane physic formula written in a dead language thought to be evidence of Siirist, the Sage Mother of the Devils. All treasures of immeasurable wealth and knowledge of The March that Maven had spent her life acquiring. But the statue of Lytho, the Red King, carved a thousand years ago or more by an unidentified artisan was the centerpiece. The mind could not conceive of such appearances to allow hands to shape such a form without witnessing it. Maven saw his grace and his generals in dreams and knew the renditions before her to be faithful.