Rhapsody: Child of Blood tsoa-1

by Elizabeth Haydon

  Rhapsody shook her head, attacking the two worms that were clinging to the root above her. "I don't know how to use anything but a dagger," she said, slashing off their heads and pushing their bodies off the taproot with two swipes of the knife. A third larva sank its teeth into her upper arm, causing her to cry out in surprise. She shook her arm violently, trying to dislodge it.

  "Turn," Grunthor ordered. Rhapsody obeyed. The giant Bolg leaned back and stretched his arm down, skewering the larva on the tip of his sword. He wrenched it off her with a twist of the weapon and she cried out in pain again as it took a small piece of flesh with it into the tunnel below. "We'll 'ave to give you some lessons after all this, miss," he said as he turned back to the larvae on him.

  "If I live through this," she muttered, striking the next batch of vermin off the root.

  "All mine are dead," called Achmed from above, turning and rappelling down the root to where Grunthor was perched.

  "Oionly got this patch o' little buggers; 'elp 'er Ladyship," said Grunthor, stabbing at the last mass above him.

  "Lie flat," Achmed ordered. Rhapsody complied, pressing herself against the root, squashing a larva beneath her chest in the process. She closed her eyes as the cwellan disks whizzed by her, slicing through the vermin around her.

  "You can open them now," the voice, thin and sandy as river silt, said from above. She did, and drew in a breath at the face staring at her in the dark.

  It had been a very long time since she had seen Achmed's face. He generally traveled in the lead, while she took up the rear, and so she had forgotten how startling his visage was, especially in the dark.

  "Thank you," she whispered, her voice coming out like the croak of a crone. Then she noticed his forearm. "You're bleeding," she said.

  Achmed didn't look at the wound. "I suppose." He looked up at Grunthor. The Sergeant nodded. Achmed started to climb back up into his position at the lead.

  "Well, let me dress it before you go. Who knows if they have some sort of venom." She spoke steadily, her voice belying the pounding of her heart as the reality of the attack caught up with her. Rhapsody had always found that in situations of great danger she was able to function calmly, almost detachedly, until the danger had passed. It was afterward that the symptoms of panic set in.

  "I'll live," the robed man responded. Grunthor shook his head.

  "She might be right, Sir. 'Oo knows where them worms came from. They might be servants of our lit'le friend."

  Achmed seemed to consider for a moment, then slid back down the root until he was positioned across from her in the outcropping. "All right, but don't take forever about it."

  "You're late for an appointment?" Rhapsody retorted as she opened her pack and drew forth her waterskin. She took Achmed's forearm and turned it over in her hand. The wound was deep and bloody. Gently she poured some water onto it, feeling him tense but observing no reaction on his face.

  Grunthor moved closer to watch as she opened a phial with a pungent smell of spice and vinegar. Rhapsody soaked a clean linen handkerchief with the witch-hazel-and-thyme mixture and applied it directly to the wound, wrapping it in filmy wool. Achmed twisted away.

  "Hold still; I've never done this before," she chided.

  "Well, that's reassuring." He winced as the spice-soaked bandage began to drench the wound with its vile-smelling liquid, a dismal burning sensation beginning under the skin. "I hope you realize I don't need both hands to kill you, if it was your intent to deprive me of one."

  Rhapsody looked up at him and smiled. Her face was bruised and bloody from the fight, but her eyes sparkled in the darkness. She was beginning to take to his sense of humor, and against his will Achmed felt an inner tug. Grunthor was right; she had a powerful smile. He made note of it for future reference.

  She returned to her work, humming a tune that made his ears buzz. He imagined that the slight vibrating sensation was mirrored on his wounded wrist, which no longer stung.

  "Stop that noise," he instructed harshly. "You're making my ears ring."

  She laughed. "It won't work if I stop the noise, that's the most important part. It's a song of healing."

  Achmed looked her over as she continued to hum, and after a moment the wordless tune grew into a song. She sang in words he didn't recognize.

  "Oh, 'ow pretty," said Grunthor from behind her. "Well, sir, if we can't find work when we get out o' this stinkin' 'ole, maybe 'Er Ladyship 'ere will teach us some tunes and we can go on the road as a team of wanderin' troubadours. Oi can see it now: Doctor Uchmed's Travelin' Snake Show."

  "Great idea," Rhapsody said as the song came to the end. "Let me guess: you sing tenor, Achmed." She received a surly look in response. Slowly she began unwrapping his wrist. "You know, you both really ought to have more respect for music. It can be a very powerful weapon, as well as whatever else you need it to be."

  "That's true; my singin' voice can be quite good at inflictin' pain. At least that's what the troops use ta tell me."

  Rhapsody's smile grew a little brighter. "Go ahead, scoff if you want to. But music of one form or another will probably be what gets us out of this place."

  "Only if you annoy me so much with your singing that I use your body as an auger and drill us out of here."

  She laughed. "Music is nothing more than the maps through the vibrations that make up all the world. If you have the right map, it will take you wherever you want to go. Here." She stopped unwrapping Achmed's arm and opened her pack, pulling out a dried blossom.

  "Remember this? You thought it was a parlor trick, but that was because you don't understand how it works. Even now, after all this time, it can be made new again." She ignored the sarcastic glance that passed between them, and put the flower into Achmed's palm. Quietly she sang its name, and went back to unwrapping his bandage as she waited for his reaction with amusement.

  Grunthor leaned over her shoulder and watched as the petals began to swell with moisture and uncurl, stretching to their full length again. Even in the acrid tunnel, the faint fragrance of the primrose was discernible over the stench of stagnant water and the sweat of their bodies.

  "But it only works with flowers?"

  "No, it works with anything." She pulled the bandage away, and surveyed her handiwork. The wound was closed, and almost gone. What had a moment before been a deep, jagged gash was now a thin line of raised pink skin, and after a moment even that had vanished, leaving the forearm as it had been before the combat.

  Even Achmed seemed somewhat impressed. "How does it work?"

  "It's part of what a Namer can do. There is no thing, no concept, no law as strong as the power of a given thing's name. Our identities are bound to it. It is the essence of what we are, our own individual story, and sometimes it can even make us what we are again, no matter how much we have been altered."

  Achmed gave her a sour look. "That must be profitable in your line of work—how many times have you sold your own virginity? Does it bring a better price each time?" He watched her wince, and felt a twinge of regret. He didn't like his own reaction, and so filled his voice with sarcasm. "Oh, I'm terribly sorry. Have I offended you?"

  "No," she said shortly. "There is very little you could say that I haven't heard before. I'm used to men making jackasses out of themselves."

  "'Ey!" said Grunthor in mock offense. "Watch it, sweet'eart, I haven't 'ad a good meal in a good long time."

  "Another example," she said patiently. "You see, men have the upper hand in size and strength, and many of them have little compunction about using it when they can't win with their wits. Who do you think came up with the idea of prostitution in the first place—women? Do you think we enjoy being degraded on a daily basis? I find it incredibly ironic; it is a service in great demand, and one that I can assure you few women go into unless they have to." She dabbed a little of the healing tonic onto her own cuts and vermin bites, then offered the phial to Grunthor, who shook his head.

  "Men are the ones who want it,"
she continued. "They often go to great lengths and great expense to obtain it, and then turn around and insult the women who provide the salve for this overwhelming, insistent need of theirs. Then the men act as though such women are somehow to be ashamed for their actions, when it was the man's idea in the first place; that's what I cannot fathom."

  "Anyone can understand a starving person resorting to stealing in order to feed his family, but somehow a woman who is forced into that life by the same threat, or that of violence, is less than a person. Never mind the man who is making use of the service. He has nothing to regret, and in fact it is usually he who expects her to accept the scorn and derision as something she deserves. I say all of you can blow in the wind. I'm going to remain celibate."

  "Right," Grunthor chuckled, "sell a bit here, sell a bit there—"

  Rhapsody spoke another word, and the giant's leering commentary was choked off in midword. The giant continued to move his mouth, but no sound emerged for a moment. His eyes widened with surprise, and he looked over at Achmed.

  Achmed reached over and roughly took hold of her collar. "What did you do to him? Whatever spell you cast, take it off now."

  Rhapsody didn't blink. "He's under no spell; he can speak if he wants."

  "Oi doubt it—oh, Oi guess Oi can at that, now. Sorry, miss. Oi didn't mean to be offensif."

  "No offense taken. As I told you, there's very little you can say to insult me that I haven't heard before."

  "Well, no one here will sit in judgment of you. We have sort of a 'live and let live' philosophy, wouldn't you say, Grunthor?"

  Grunthor snickered, then nodded. "Oh, yes, miss. Live and let live. Or, pe'raps 'kill and eat' might be more like it. You got to remember, Oi'm a Sergeant Major by trade; Oi kills and eats folks as part of my job. Well, actually, just kills 'em; the eatin' part is actually what you might call a side benefit. Countin' coo, as it were." Rhapsody just nodded and went back to rewrapping the bandages.

  "So how did you take away his voice, then, if it wasn't a spell?"

  "I spoke the name of silence," she said, "and it came, for a moment, anyway. It was the most powerful thing in this, well, this space, because it was in the presence of its name. How's your wrist feeling?"

  "Fine. Thank you."

  "You're more than welcome."

  "Oi 'ate to break up this lit'le love festival, but we ought to get movin', eh?"

  "You're right," said Achmed, rising from the taproot and brushing off the dead vermin that remained around them. "I'm running out of disks. We'll have to make the best use we can of them from here on out if the vermin return."

  Rhapsody shuddered as the carcasses fell around her, covering her head to keep the pieces out of her hair. She repacked the flower and healing herbs, and followed Achmed back off of the outcropping and onto the root, to begin once more the seemingly endless climb to nowhere.

  "You're the dirt of the ground Oi walk on.

  You're pond scum under my heel.

  Just try disobeyin' my orders,

  Oi'll feed ya three feet o' black steel.

  It's a crime to despise the Sergeant.

  No matter what 'e thinks o' you be sure

  not to spread your opinion or

  you'll wind up for sure in the stew."

  Rhapsody smiled to herself as Grunthor's ringing bass died away below her. The Bolg Sergeant clearly missed the troops that had been under his command, though he had not elaborated much about who they were, or what had happened to them. His marching cadences helped him pass the time, and gave her an interesting window into Bolg military life. More than anything, it made her appreciate that she had not yet become part of the menu.

  A small thicket of rootlets offered a moment's respite from the climb, and she took the opportunity to stop, trying to find warmth. As she rubbed her hands furiously up and down her arms, Rhapsody endeavored to stop her heart from pounding in the anticipation she could not control. The sickening feeling in her stomach from too many disappointments did little to quash the hope that was now lodged in her throat.

  Finally, after an interminable amount of time, they were almost to the tunnel's break. Above them in the darkness stretched a vast ceiling, too far to see the top, where Rhapsody hoped they might soon see sky. Perhaps it's dark outside, she thought, but in the pit of her stomach she knew they had been traveling for far more than the span of a single night since the opening had come into view.

  "Wait there," Achmed called down to them as he approached the opening. Grunthor came to a halt as well and waited as the dark figure climbed the rest of the distance up the thickening root tower.

  As the taproot grew closer to the opening of the tunnel it widened dramatically, and seeing the outside edges became impossible. Grunthor and Rhapsody watched as Achmed faded from view, scaling the enormous root trunk above them and disappearing over its edge.

  While they waited, Rhapsody looked over at Grunthor. During their interminable journey she had grown quite fond of him, and grudgingly friendly with his comrade as well, though she still had not forgiven him or determined his motives. Now that it seemed as if they might be near the end, she had come to realize how the giant Bolg was more a man than many she had met, not at all the monster she had been told of in childhood horror stories.

  "Grunthor?"

  The amber-eyed Sergeant looked over at her. "Yes, miss?"

  "In case I don't get a chance to thank you after we get out, I want you to know how much I've appreciated your kindness, in spite of, well, the way we ended up together."

  Grunthor looked up to where Achmed had disappeared and smiled. "Don't mention it, Duchess."

  "And I apologize if I hurt your feelings in any way, back in the meadows when we first met, by my comments about thinking of Firbolg as monsters."

  Grunthor's smile brightened noticeably. "Well, that's awful nice o' you, Yer Ladyship, but Oi got a pretty thick 'ide; Oi didn't take no offense by it. And you're not so bad yourself, you know, for one o' them glass-Lirin. They're the worst-tastin' o' the lot."

  Rhapsody laughed. "What kinds of Lirin have you known, besides Liringlas?"

  "Oh, all kinds. Oi've seen Lirin from the cities, and Lirin that live in the dark 'ills, and Lirin from the sea. They all look somethin' the same, you know, all angles, skinny lit'le buggers with pointy faces and big wide eyes. Come in all different colors, mind you. You're not a full-blood, are ya?"

  She shook her head. "No, half. I guess I'm a mongrel among Lirin."

  "Aw, well, mutts make the best dogs, they say, miss. Don't feel bad. It makes for a nicer appearance, Oi think. You're a pretty lit'le thing, as Lirin go, not so sharp-lookin' and fragile."

  "Thank you." She smiled at the odd compliment. "You're the nicest Firbolg I've ever met, but, as you noted, I've only ever met one."

  "Two." The voice from the root above her caused her to jump a little. Achmed had returned.

  "No, I've never met any but Grunthor."

  Achmed's expression turned into something more resembling a sneer than a smile. "Well, far be it from me to correct the facts of the All-Knowledgeable, but you've met two."

  Rhapsody looked puzzled. "Are you saying you are also Firbolg?"

  "Perhaps we shouldn't use her for food, Grunthor; she shows a glimmer of intelligence." The giant made a mock sound of disappointment.

  She looked from one to the other, vastly different in appearance. Grunthor was at least a foot taller than Achmed, and where the giant was broad and muscular, with massive arms and hands that ended in claws, Achmed, from what she could see beneath the covering of robes, was wiry and of thinner build, with bony human hands. She turned to the giant.

  "Are you a full-blooded Firbolg?"

  "Naw."

  The robed man snorted. "Did you think you're the only half-breed in the world?"

  Color flooded Rhapsody's face, visible even in the dark light. "Of course not. I just thought Grunthor was Firbolg."

  "Grunthor is half Bengard"

&nb
sp; The Bengardian race was a little-known one, reputedly from a distant desert. They were said [Garbled]

  the size of the taproot luscule in contrast to this Grunthor whistled. The endless glowing ground that [Garbled]

  [here comes the piece of Russian text in replacement of missing English piece]

  Бенгарды были малоизвестным народом. Их племена обитали где-то в далеких пустынях. Про них говорили, что они ужасно высокие, а их тела покрыты шкурой, похожей на змеиную. Она немного знала их фольклор и несколько песен.

  — А ты?

  Ее спутники переглянулись, прежде чем Акмед ответил:

  — Я наполовину дракианин. Так что мы все тут дворняжки… Ну что, в путь?

  Рапсодия уже достаточно хорошо изучила своих спутников, чтобы знать, когда следует задавать вопросы, а когда лучше помолчать.

  — Разумеется, — ответила она. — Я совсем не хочу здесь задерживаться.

  Она встала и потянулась, чтобы немного размять затекшие ноги, а потом последовала за двумя друзьями вверх по огромному корню.

  — Сюда, мисси, давай ручку, и Ой тебя вытащит.

  Рапсодия с благодарностью вцепилась в протянутую лапищу Грунтора. Он легко поднял ее с уступа, на котором она остановилась, и поставил у выхода из туннеля. Не в силах справиться с собой, она опустила ресницы, моля всех святых, чтобы черное пятно у них над головой оказалось ночным небом, усыпанным звездами. Но когда она вновь открыла глаза, черное пятно осталось черным пятном, уходящим в бесконечность.