"As you wish, Sir," he said, glad they had something on board. "May I have my musket and pistols returned to me as well? I could probably hit a closing-in ship with a few shots, at least."
A nod. "Aye. They'd be in the steward's store cupboards. Ye'd find the pitch and flint and tinder there as well," he added as Lares headed to the hatch. Lares turned to look at Merry, who smiled chillingly. "Wouldnae want their boats ta be without tha Fire Lord's blessing, now would we?" He laughed then, a deep, disturbing chuckle.
Lares found himself laughing with the man.
Molly
Jourd'Aradia, 1st Primera
4020, Third Age
Chaos ruled the streets. Fires burned on houses and gunshots rang out as the rebels attacked with their Second Age weapons. There was the high-pitched whine and blue fire from one of the lightning guns, and a building exploded into shards of wood. All around the sounds of New Year's celebrations gone sour, rioting, the clash of rebel on non-rebel rang true, turning the status quo on its ear and stepping on it.
None of that mattered to Molly-Aradia. Her rebels had the city. They would win that fight. She was after Danika, and that was the only thought in her mind as she and her core team stormed the hacienda. For a relative value of "storming," she thought as she thunk-stepped, thunk-stepped in the lead.
Most of the guards had already cleared the premises, reacting to the emergency on the streets, where they were dealt with by the rebel force. Molly, Lucy, Ewan and Jester ran inside, swords and guns brandished, looking for the Lady. She had to die or the revolution would be for nothing. And she wasn't at the celebrations, that uncooperative bitch.
Servants scattered in fright but Molly ignored them while Jester and Ewan shouted words of reassurance. Any guards who resisted bore the pain Lucy's steel caused. Any guards who surrendered were let live and rounded up by Jester and her lightning gun. She disappeared with her clutch of captives, taking them to the dungeons. They'd deal with them later. None of the guards was well trained, making their job incredibly easy. They'd banked on bad training but it was still a surprise. They cut through the hacienda like butter.
Soon they gained the third floor, where Danika's suites were. Through a waiting room, an anteroom, and a receiving room they stormed until they reached the bedroom door. Molly shoved her shoulder against it. It did not budge, barred from the inside. She jerked her head towards it. "Ewan," she said, a command in one word. The behemoth of a man came up and with one kick from him, the door was down in splinters. She knew she'd done well in taking him on. He was their brute squad.
Within the room Duchess Danika was...Molly nearly retched. A boy, no more than twelve, lay in the Lady's bed, glassy-eyed with the vicious drug ailina, and Danika was....
"Get off!" Molly shouted, her voice raw with rage.
The Lady gave her a glare. "I would if you wouldn't interrupt me."
Molly made a sound of disgust and Ewan reached forward and pulled Danika up by her hair. She flailed, naked, in his grasp, kicking and screaming in a bid for freedom. He flung her to the floor and she lay there, stunned.
The boy in bed did not move, did not register anything in his blank eyes. Tenderly Ewan covered him with a blanket to afford him some modesty and gathered his unprotesting, rigid body up. "I'll find the others," he said to Molly, and then was gone.
Lucy and Molly moved to stand in front of Danika, who had dissolved into a snivelling mess on the marble floor. "Please," she said, raising her hands in supplication and sniffling, "please let me live. I'll give you anything you want!"
"You already have," Molly said. "This rebellion was pathetically easy."
The Lady let out a shrill, mad laugh, and Molly thunk-stepped back in surprise. "But you haven't seen my final play!" the woman screamed, and giggled hysterically.
Molly frowned. "What do you mean?" she asked, and got no response except more giggles. Frustrated, she and Lucy both tried to get an answer out of the deposed tyrant, but they got no more from Danika than alternate mad giggling or hysterical sobbing. Molly threw her hands up in disgust. "Kill her," she said, and Lucy was only too happy to oblige.
"Now what?" her lover asked, cleaning the blood from her sword tenderly. While others had jumped at the chance to use firearms, Lucy had opted for a more personal touch. Molly loved her more for it. Her lover would have made a fine bellica.
The rebel leader sighed now. "Ewan's probably found the Seraglio at this point. Now we free the boys." And Luis, she didn't say out loud, but she did not need to. Lucy knew.
She headed in the direction Ewan had gone -- another doorway -- but the man emerged from the door, the catatonic boy still in his arms. The look on Ewan's face made Molly's heart skip a beat, but she forced herself to speak, unwilling to speculate. "Where are the boys?"
Ewan looked at the ground.
"Ewan?"
He set the boy down by the door. Hastily Lucy came forward to take the child. Ewan stayed silent, still.
Molly thunk-stepped over to him. "Ewan, where's my brother?" she asked, her voice a hoarse whisper.
Finally he looked at her, pain in his gray eyes. "Aradia, I'm sorry." He stopped, and Molly felt sudden fury grip her.
"Just tell me where my brother is!" she screamed at him.
Ewan flinched. "He's...he's with Muerta. They all are. I'm...I'm sorry, Aradia."
But you haven't seen my final play.
"No."
But you haven't seen my final play. The lady's words bounced around in Molly's skull until she shook her head violently to get rid of them. "No."
"I'm sorry, Ma'am. He's gone."
"NO!" Molly screamed, and somehow she pushed him aside and ripped the door open, thunk-stepping through room after room, searching. "Luis!" Another room, empty. "LUIS!" Another room, another, another, another...the last.
She threw up. Doubled over, she heaved at the sight, the smell....
Easily a hundred. Mayhap more. None of their parts where they should be. It was a carpet of bodies, and it was fresh, for the blood still glistened on the walls, in the crimson pools on the floor.
In the middle -- a grand centerpiece to this masterpiece of carnage. Luis' body -- what was left of it, what whole parts remained, arranged grotesquely, next to Damien's final form, the rictus of death on their young faces.
But you haven't seen my final play.
She retched again, and then forced herself to look upon her beloved brother's face, frozen in an expression she never wished to see again.
But you haven't seen my final play.
From somewhere deep, deep inside her a scream of anguish bubbled up and rose through her body, her throat, to escape past her lips and reach the heavens and wherever Goddesses laughed upon her from above. She stood screaming until she could make no sound, until her throat collapsed from the effort, and then sweet blackness took her and she fell back, back, back, into the waiting arms of who she hoped was death.
Aro
They came upon Mudflat in mid-afternoon, much to Aro's relief. Hard riding was not his choice of activities following a sevenday of heavy drinking. Though he was sure it was the last time he'd be doing any drinking in the first place, for which he was grateful, too. More specifically grateful to Ghia, even if the girl was a meddling know-it-all. He smiled at the thought, and glanced over to where the young healer slept in the saddle, leaning against Jules. The CMO looked incredibly uncomfortable, as he had the whole ride, and Aro didn't blame him one bit. It would be a trial for any red-blooded woman to keep her control, having the object of her affection on her lap for two days straight.
It hadn't escaped his notice that Jules was besotted with Ghia, and she with him. Just as Yarrow and Caelum had not escaped his notice, despite whatever little tiff they'd been having since Midwinter. They'd get over it eventually. If they didn't, it wasn't really his concern. He had other things to worry about.
Like Anala's safety, which the part-Magi Ghia seemed to be worried about as well. Ghia's...powers had fri
ghtened him, and still did, but Anala had trusted the healer, and that had been enough for him. She'd had closer contact with Ghia, after all, and Anala was not one to base decisions on emotions.
Whatever Ghia had done for his bellica, might it keep her safe, as much as for his own selfish reasons as for Athering's sake. Anala was the contact for Aeril's budding rebellious faction, and would be invaluable to whoever led the fight against Zardria and Zanny. Assuming there would be one.
He hoped so. Seeing his hometown of Aeril so dilapidated had awakened some burning passion within him, and now he knew he would give everything to see the Empress and Empreena dead. And Duchess Danika, for all that she was his sister.
He'd not told Anala, nor anyone else, of his past and family ties. He'd been worried about recognition, when they'd visited Aeril, but none remembered the six-year-old he'd been. He'd been sent to Atton for fostering then. There he'd lived till adolescence and his subsequent joining of the military. He'd been a sometime playmate of a young Jules, who had left for the military before he did. Their early friendship had been forgotten in the years of basic training, as they were in different sections from the beginning. The childhood bond they'd forged had not been substantial. Aro was glad he was making the effort to be Jules' friend now, for he was sure it would be more meaningful now they were adults, though how he could be sure, he couldn't say.
He shrugged. He was happier being just Major Aro, Anala's faithful second-in-command. He had no wish to be Duchess Nia's son, and especially not Duchess Danika's older brother. Not that being Athering royalty mattered much if you were second or third in line for ascension, and not at all if you were male. It was just the way things were. That was why people like him, and like Yarrow, joined the military. It was something to do that still gave pride.
He wondered how Yarrow would feel about being Empress. Or would she take the title of Queen? Would she be worth the effort he and Anala were willing to put into capturing for her the Sceptre?
Glancing ahead to where the bellica and her major rode, he decided she would. But his decisions were based on his emotions, his hunches, his feelings. not logic. He'd need Anala's agreement for the decision to be a sound, well-rounded one.
That, he knew, was the reason both he and Athering needed her. She rounded him out, providing that balance that he lacked. Any decisions Aro might make, any conclusions he might come to, were naught without Anala's cool logic to cut through his delusions and denials. In return, his emotions lent her choices the passion she rarely showed herself.
He was only half, without her. He wondered if she felt the same about him.
Yarrow
The bellica had been completely taken off-guard by Ghia's request to ride all night long. Maybe the girl wasn't so soft, after all.
Maybe, she thought, glancing at where the healer slept in the saddle, almost sliding off before Jules caught her. It was a miracle she was still mounted at all. She probably just wanted to get to Mudflat sooner so she wouldn't have to sleep on the ground that night.
Mudflat, coincidentally, was exactly as Yarrow remembered it. She wasn't sure if that was a good or a bad thing, as the last time she'd been here was for Caelum and Isidora's engagement and joint bachelors' party. There had been much drinking, dancing, and wenching. By everyone, even Yarrow. She'd waked between both the woman and the man she'd been flirting with the night before, plus a splitting headache and no doubts as to what had transpired upon falling into bed with the other two, as their clothing was all over the room. Caelum, on the other hand, had gone to bed with Isidora and only Isidora, though even his fiancée had not been so virtuous. The major had not been upset, however, for it had been quite a gorgeous woman Isidora had latched onto. He'd gotten quite a show. Yarrow knew, for he'd told her all about it the next day.
She smiled a little as she slowed the party to a walk, coming into town proper (could that word ever be used to describe Mudflat?). That had been a good few days.
Letting her gaze slide sidelong to look at Caelum, she could see from his facial expression that he remembered, too, now with less sadness than any other time he thought of Isidora.
She'd shone that night like a brilliant star. Nothing could taint that memory -- not even her untimely death naught a year later.
"Where to?" came the voice of Jules as he pulled up beside her.
She shrugged. "The Sword and the Sceptre looks good," she said, gesturing to the sign, and Caelum guffawed loudly.
She arched an eyebrow at him. He was unrepentant as he said "Sounded good in 'fourteen, too."
She snorted. "Was good."
Jules regarded them with consternation for a moment, and then his face cleared abruptly and he shrugged. "Lead on, then. Anywhere where I can get a drink."
Yarrow chuckled as she led them through town towards the tavern and inn. "Oh, you can get so much more than a drink there," she said, only loud enough for Caelum to hear.
Ghia was awake by the time they reached the inn, and after she dismounted stiffly and recovered her bearings, Yarrow sent the girl in to book two rooms for the group. Blearily the healer nodded and stumbled wearily into the building, hardly able to move after her long ride. Yarrow breathed a discreet sigh of relief.
Not discreet enough, apparently. "What was that for?" asked Jules.
She shook her head and regarded the medic coolly. "I must have been crazy to take her along. She's a fine healer, I know, but the girl's not cut out for the road. Too much of a tomboy." Ghia didn't even own pants, from what Yarrow could tell.
Jules glanced at the inn door and back at her, and Yarrow was surprised to see defiance and anger in his eyes. "Strength comes in many forms, Yarrow," he said quietly. "Yours is in the ability to wield a sword, the ability to ride for so long, your ability as a bellica. Ghia's is in her spirit, which has never flagged that I've seen, her courage when she's scared stiff, and her ability to spend a tredicem healing with less sleep than most of us get in a night before she picks up on a trip across country."
She looked at him and saw he was completely serious. Loath to admit that Jules, her CMO, had shamed her, she murmured, "I didn't know," rethinking her harsh assessment of the young healer.
"I didn't think you did," Jules said with asperity and a small smile.
Before she could answer he turned back to Suki, ministering to his horse with the greatest care.
Maybe, she sighed, she was too quick to judge...Yeah, and maybe you shouldn't do your job right, Yarrow? Quick judgment is what makes a bellica a bellica. Your harshness saves your life, and those of your troops.
Their horses tied and fed, the four officers grabbed their saddlebags (Mudflat was not the place to trust to peoples' good nature) and headed into the inn.
Quite a scene awaited them.
"Just give me the rooms, old man," Ghia was snarling at the innkeeper.
The man calmly cleaned mugs as he answered her. "Tyvian, no. How do I know you're really with whom you say you're with?"
"Why would I lie?" she exclaimed, throwing her arms wide.
"Why wouldn't you?" he responded equably.
Ghia's lip curled and she growled in frustration. "Look, my gold is good, so just take it and give me the rooms."
The innkeeper eyed her suspiciously. "And where'd you get that gold, eh? You're too young to have earned it yourself."
That did it. Yarrow could see something snap in Ghia. The girl reached across the counter and grabbed the man's collar, pulling him down until he was at eye level with her. "Look, you stubborn old bastard, I may be young, and I may look soft, but I am someone you don't want to feck with. And neither are my friends, who ARE who I say they are. Get the damned rooms."
The man did not flinch, simply glared at her. "Do you want me to call my bouncer on you, girl?"
"Do you want your bouncer to die?" Yarrow asked, finally cutting in. She'd seen enough.
Instantly the man's demeanour changed. "Bellica Yarrow!" he exclaimed, the image of obsequiousness. "It's been
too long! My apologies, Ma'am -- this girl claims to be your escort." His arm indicated Ghia and his face showed his disbelief.
"Yeah, well, that would be because she is," Yarrow said, watching his face fall. "Now, are you going to get us those two rooms, or am I going to have to go elsewhere?"
He stood, agape for a moment, before bowing deeply. "Yes, yes, Bellica, as you wish."
"It better be," Yarrow said with a bit of a growl, and was gratified to see the man jump. "Three beds to one room, two to the other. And get me a pint of ale," she said.
"One for me, too!" came Jules' voice from behind her, and she stifled her smile.
The man was still staring at them, terrified. "Now, Xavier," she barked, and he scurried to obey. "I've been on the damned road all damned night and I expect to get some damned service when I show up at your inn." The pint appeared like magek before her, and Jules' pint came a second later. He didn't get a chance to enjoy it, however, for as Xavier disappeared to get the rooms ready Yarrow told the boys to follow with their bags.
She took a seat at the bar, nodded at Ghia, and lifted her mug in salute. "Cheers," she said, taking a swig.
Ghia stared between the bellica and the stairway the boys were disappearing up, and shook her head. "Thank you," she said softly, with a gesture to indicate Yarrow's interference between Ghia and Xavier. "Here's your gold back," she added, moving to give it to Yarrow.
Yarrow waved her hand, indicating the girl could keep it. "Consider it payment for having to put up with that curmudgeon, and for acting as my escort -- I am taking you away from your job, am I not?"
Ghia smiled shyly and pocketed the coins. "Jobs. And thank you, again." A small pause, then she said hesitantly: "That was pretty impressive." She inclined her head towards the bar, referring to Xavier's obeisance to the bellica.
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