Torchlight filled the room. Four shadows of armed guards stood awaiting them.
“Calimay will see you now.” Arturus recognized the man as Dakota.
The guards moved past Dakota, eager to grab them. Arturus let himself be dragged out of his cell with his father and into a hallway full of Calimay’s guards. One group of Carrion soldiers was working on the next door. A Carrion born grunted as the other lock gave way with a metallic thud. The door opened on shrieking hinges.
The soldiers marched in and then came out pulling Aaron and Johnny with them. The pair were pushed towards Arturus and Galen.
“Did you hear the screaming last night?” Aaron asked.
Galen nodded. “Turi slept through it.”
“Is Avery okay?” Johnny asked.
Galen’s eyes gauged the guards around them. “He was angry with Kelly.”
Johnny looked down to the ground. “She must have done something bad to him. He sounded like she’d stabbed him. I heard the guards that came in say he was bleeding badly.”
Johnny pointed to the stone floor.
A bloody trail streaked across the floor which Arturus doubted was there the night before.
“He might be dead,” Aaron said.
“The priestesses of Maab are trained to break a male’s member during intercourse,” Galen told them. “If something tears, there can be a lot of blood.”
Aaron’s jaw dropped. “You don’t think . . .”
Galen nodded.
Johnny let out a deep breath.
“I thought this would go without saying,” Galen told them, “but I’ll say it anyway. No raping the priestess.”
The Carrion soldiers were working in the third chamber. When that door opened, none of them dared go in. Kelly walked out, a sneer and a smirk somehow sharing her lips. Her robe had been returned to her at some point during the night. It was covered in dried blood which stood out in the torchlight. She walked forward, like Maab might, with no switch to her hips. Johnny avoided her gaze.
Her sneer faded into a smile for a second as she met Arturus’ eyes.
Arturus felt his heart beat faster.
“Alright!” Dakota shouted. “Tamara, we’re ready.”
From this side, Arturus could see the giant pair of square stones lower as the gate rose. Tamara, flanked by two other priestesses, a Little Lady and another score of soldiers, awaited them on the far side.
Tamara motioned to the Little Lady, who walked forward with four sets of clothes.
Arturus tried to swallow his horror.
“Put these on,” the Little Lady said.
The clothes she offered them were the grey robes, pants and shirts of slaves.
“Sorry I had to boil that water,” Rick said. “It’s just that the river is chock full of corpsedust. I wouldn’t want to get any in your blood.”
Ellen lay back across the cool stone of the chamber, her head resting upon her pack, her wounded left ankle on Rick’s lap.
Rick readied the still steaming water. “This is going to hurt.”
“I don’t care,” Ellen said. “I’m too tired to care.”
He began to clean her wounds, starting with the teeth marks in her calf.
She was wrong—she did care. Gritting her teeth, Ellen managed to hold in the scream which welled up in her throat, but a small whimper escaped.
Rick wrapped her calf quickly and tightly. “Hush girl. Here, bite down on this.” Rick handed her an unused bandage.
The cloth barely fit in her mouth and tasted salty when she bit into it. Rick then moved down to inspect her missing toes.
Ellen noticed that Molly was watching.
“I’m really sorry about your toes, babe,” Molly said.
Ellen smiled, taking the cloth out of her mouth for a second. “It’s better that way. The corpse could have killed me.”
Molly nodded and left to help Alice with something.
“Here it comes again.” Rick warned.
For some reason the toes didn’t hurt as badly as the bite on her calf had. Again, Rick bandaged her wound with great skill.
“You doing good, dear?” he asked.
Ellen nodded as best she could, her head rising and falling back onto the pack. She tried to hand him back the bandage in her mouth, but he stopped her.
“Not yet.” Rick inspected her ankle critically. “I’m going to work your ankle around, okay. Feel free to let me know if it hurts.”
He touched her foot.
“It hurts,” Ellen said suddenly around the cloth.
He moved it around anyway. Bending it forward, back, to the left, and most painfully, to the right.
Her voice was muffled by the bandage. “I said it hurt!”
“I don’t think anything is broken,” Rick said. “Sprain, I bet. We’re going to try and keep your foot elevated to minimize the swelling. I’m going to wrap your ankle in a bit, too. Should help support you in case we need to run again. We didn’t make it any better, dragging you through that cypress grove and shooting off two of your toes, but we’ll see what we can do.”
Massan leaned over her. She could see up his nose, or rather, she could see the mass of hairs which stopped her from seeing up his nose. He passed her an oar which had cloth wrapped around the top.
“Should work as a crutch,” Massan said.
Ellen took the cloth out of her mouth.
“Thank you, Massan.” Ellen responded, smiling.
“No,” Massan said. “Thank you.”
Ellen felt confused. “Why would you thank me?”
“Rick can’t make me row now, that was my paddle!”
Ellen laughed.
“Rest for a minute,” Rick said, taking the bandage out of her hand. “We’ll get the gondola ready for you.”
Rick stood up to walk away, but Massan put a hand on his shoulder.
“What’s up?” Rick asked.
Massan whispered to him, perhaps hoping for privacy, but Ellen could hear him anyway. “I’m sorry about my behavior back there.”
“You did fine,” Rick whispered back.
“No, I didn’t. You asked me to help you with the canoe, and I was trying to run. I was thinking only about myself.”
Ellen could see the back of Rick’s head from where she lay as he shook it from side to side. “No, Massan. I guarantee you, you weren’t.”
“I put my survival over yours.”
“Don’t be foolish, Massan, you were thinking of Kara. Of how, if you died, she would be left all alone in Harpsborough. Of whatever promise you made her before you left.”
Massan was quiet for a second. “It was still wrong of me.” Ellen was surprised by how much emotion was in the man’s voice.
He must really love her.
“Trust needs to be built. You just didn’t understand the strategy, is all.”
“I’m going to say something to you,” Massan warned, “and it’s going to hurt you. But it is something that needs to be said.”
“What?”
“When we were there, and the corpses were all after us . . . well, you were just like Galen, my friend. Just like Galen.”
Ellen could see Rick’s posture slump, but only for a moment—then the man straightened again.
“Don’t give up hope, Rick,” Massan begged him. “I was missing for nearly a year. No one believed I was alive. No one. Not even Kara. But I came back.”
“Galen doesn’t get lost, Massan. Not even in the Carrion. He had Turi with him. It’s time I mourned my friend and my son.”
“Turi was special, wasn’t he?”
“He was. Very special. He was supposed to do something very important. Something that only he could do.”
Massan’s whisper got even softer, but Ellen could still hear him. “Well, you’ve got someone else now, Rick. And I think she’s special, too. As special as Turi.”
Rick nodded and turned back to look at her. Ellen closed her eyes and did her best to pretend she hadn’t heard them.
> Strangely, with her eyes closed and her head tilted back, she thought she heard something. A whistle? No, a voice. A distant singing voice. It seemed so far away, so faint, that even the whispers of Massan and Rick were drowning it out. She tried her best to ignore them and the rush of the river. She began to succeed.
There was a voice and it was singing.
It is I that ye hear in the calling wind
I have stared through the dark till my soul is blind
O lover of mine, ye swore,
Lover of mine, ye swore.
“Rick!” Ellen said suddenly, sitting up. “I hear someone. Someone singing.”
Rick cocked his head to one side. So did Massan.
“That’s hellsong, Ellen,” Massan said.
“No, it’s a person singing. She’s singing the words of a poem I know.”
Massan knelt beside her. He scratched his unibrow with one finger. “It’s not what you think. Hellsong, it sings to you the words that are in your heart. It sings to you your hopes and dreams.”
“But why?” Ellen asked. “Why would Hell sing you your hopes and dreams?”
“Because,” Rick said, “it knows you’ll never get them.”
Arturus was led with Galen, Johnny and Aaron down the long red carpet which lay between Calimay’s two huge fountains. It was difficult to shake the idea that the water above their heads was somehow defying gravity. Arturus looked up, trying to see what might be above the oscillating blue lake which hung over him, but he could see nothing.
He froze when he heard Avery’s screams.
Dakota walked ahead and held open the red curtain. “Don’t worry about your man, he’s getting stitches. He’ll be returned to you.’
Beyond the curtain was a well lit hallway made out of a black marble stones with purple veins running through them.
Damn, if only I had been able to make my chess set out of that.
The three lavender robed priestesses and their Little Lady walked through first. Tamara wasn’t the most important, Arturus noted, but he didn’t know the name of the one who seemed to be in charge.
The hallway had many corridors leading off of it, some ending in rooms, and others turning off into the darkness. This portion of the complex showed none of the dilapidation that was so obvious around the exterior. The construction seemed impeccable too, as if these corridors had been laid out and designed by some people who’d possessed greater skill than even Hell’s architect.
Calimay’s people can’t be this good.
The more he thought about it, the more Arturus became convinced that the builders of this complex were a different group than those who had designed the false walls that hid it. If they’d had enough rustrock to do all this work, then surely they would have used it on the outer walls, too.
The corridor ended in Calimay’s throne room. Its walls and ceiling were made of the same black and purple marble. Ceremonial columns, four to the left and four to the right, flanked them, rising up towards the ceiling without touching it. A set of eight guards, dressed the same as the others but with purple trim on their black pants and grey shirts, stood at attention, one to a pillar. In between each pillar was a raised light orb, suspended nearly eight feet high in the air.
The floor was covered in hound hide carpets, which were more worn down in the center of the room, their hair stripped away, revealing the skin beneath. It was to the worn spot that they were dragged.
In front of them was Calimay’s throne. It was made of the same marble as the rest of the inner complex, and was placed on a four foot raised stage. Two more thrones, raised only three feet high, flanked her.
Calimay herself was an imposing figure. Her hair, long and black, hung down around her face in a mass of shiny curls, spilling over her shoulders. The purple robe she wore was decorated from hood to hem with golden runes. It was open in the center, revealing an enticing patch of pale cleavage. Her fingernails, long and red, rapped slowly and repetitively on the stone arm of her throne.
Her lips, also crimson, broke into a smile. Her face was broad, reminding Arturus of the other priestesses here, but her square features suited her particularly well. Arturus dared to look her in the eye, for she was staring at him intently. Those eyes caught him off guard. They were pale green, shining with the reflected light of the orbs.
Vanity. She placed those orbs there so they’d make her eyes more beautiful.
Perhaps that vanity explained why her priestesses were so different than Maab’s. It was entirely possible that Calimay killed the ones she felt outshone her own beauty. Then again, because of the similarity of all the girls’ features, they could all be related.
Arturus looked away from Calimay as the purple robed priestesses moved to stand together in a line near the front of the room.
The throne to Calimay’s right was empty, but a man was seated to her left. At first Arturus thought that he must be Calimay’s favored mate, but the man’s body language seemed somewhat antagonistic towards the priestess. His curiosity piqued, Arturus let his gaze linger on the man. He had short cropped black hair and blue eyes. His shoulders were more slender than Aaron’s, but Arturus would not be surprised if the man’s strength were more similar to Galen’s. The man’s fingernails were trimmed and his face clean shaven. He was well armed, a double-barreled coach gun, sawed off, sheathed at his calf, and an M-16 slung across his back. There was a sword slung across his back as well, next to the assault rifle. Its gilded hilt had a decorated crosspiece. Arturus focused on it to see if he could guess the design.
A hound and a bird of some sort. A vulture.
That’s the symbol of Ares. This man is an Infidel Friend.
The Infidel Friend’s gaze met Arturus’ before roving amongst the rest of them. When he saw Galen, the Infidel Friend shot up into a standing position.
Arturus stepped back into one of the guards that still held him. Calimay herself started, leaning to one side. The infidel came down the steps from his throne and walked up to Galen, standing only inches away from Arturus’ father, his expression almost unreadable.
A cruel smile formed on the Infidel Friend’s lips. “You.”
Galen’s chin rose and his nostrils flared.
“Calimay,” the Infidel Friend addressed her in an even voice, his eyes never straying from Galen, “you should not have such vermin in your court.”
Galen’s gaze did not waver either.
“I,” Calimay’s husky voice responded, “don’t give a fuck who you think should have my audience. Malkravyan, you should sit down now.”
Malkravyan, his eyes staying with Galen, ascended the steps to his throne.
Calimay grinned, her white teeth glaring out from behind her blood red lips. “I’d been told that I’d been brought a couple of horses and a filly.” She paused as her assembled priestesses laughed. “But I know you, warrior.” She leaned forward, looking straight at Galen. “I know you very well.” More laughter. “Carlisle, Benson, Charlie, Klein, Pyle. They were all sent out to look for the angel’s get . . . but you, apparently you were the one who got him. The one who stole him out from the Infidel’s arms. Maab’s scouts never knew it either. They reported you had failed. That you had joined Charlie’s rebellion, childless. How did you do it? How did you trick so many?”
Galen stood silently.
“No matter. You have delivered, in looking for my help, little red riding hood to the big bad wolf. I shall enjoy mixing my bloodline with the angels’.”
Kelly took a step forward, perhaps about to protest, but stopped when Calimay looked her way. Kelly lowered her head demurely, stepping back, but from this angle Arturus could see the anger on her face.
She won’t be able to fulfill her promise. I’m helpless. I’m Calimay’s.
But then he looked at his father. He had seen Galen horrified once, while Maab’s men were dragging him away in her vile ritual. Judging from Galen’s expression, things weren’t quite that bad.
“And you, thief of childre
n,” Calimay said, turning back to Galen, “and the men who travel with you . . . what should I do with you?”
Aaron stepped forward. “Calimay—”
“Speak not my name!” Calimay’s husky voice turned into a roar. “I am a Queen.”
“Queen,” Aaron continued, slightly shaken. “I represent the village of Harpsborough. Resisting both Hell and Maab can’t be easy. The resources of Harpsborough could help you greatly—”
Calimay’s laughter interrupted him. “You think I don’t know of your little village? Many years ago, Maab’s spies, under my direction, took stock of your Harpsborough. And Macon’s Bend and the Landing. We in the Carrion need nothing from your pathetic village. I’m surprised you’ve even survived this dark time.”
She doesn’t know. Maab may not know. They may not realize that the devils are only thickening in the Carrion.
Calimay’s fingers tapped a few more times against the stone of the armchair. “Take them to the pits. You’ll make good slaves. Leave the angel’s get and the priestess.”
The soldiers moved towards them again, but Galen’s voice stopped them. “How long till your outer wall collapses?”
Calimay frowned, ordering her soldiers to move again with a flick of her wrist. “Don’t stop, take them away.”
Rough hands grabbed Arturus’ arms, pulling at him, trying to separate him from his father.
“That’s right,” Malkravyan agreed. “Take him away.”
The corners of Calimay’s lips curved downward for a second.
Doesn’t he know she doesn’t want to agree with him?
Arturus was surprised the Infidel Friend could be so ignorant of just how much the Queen despised him.
“Would certainly be nice if you had some rustrock,” Galen said loudly.
Calimay stood up. “Stop,” she ordered her soldiers.
The hands released Arturus’ arms.
“What are you saying, Galen, stealer of children? I also know where rustrock can be found.”
Galen folded his arms. “If you’re talking about where Maab’s mines are, yes. I am familiar with them as well. But that is not the only place in the Carrion where it can be found.”
“You’re lying,” Calimay said. “If there were, my men would have found it.”
Knight of Gehenna (Hellsong Book 2) Page 19