The light from the lantern flickered across the etching on the scale’s surface. At first Quinn could not discern the pattern of the lines, but after a moment, the image became clear; he stepped back in horror.
It was the crude rendering of a gallows, a body hanging limp from the noose.
“Me?” Quinn squealed, recoiling. “Are you saying that is for me?”
Faron’s eyes gleamed triumphantly, and a hideous grimace that might have been, on a human, a smile, spread across the wrinkled face.
The sight of the arrogant look in the monster’s eyes made the panic in Quinn change to anger.
“Bugger you, Faron,” he said nastily. “Sit in your shit and rot, you floating freak.”
The creature’s smile only grew brighter.
Quinn shoved the pail over to the edge of the pool and scurried back up the steps, trying to ignore the hideous popping and rending sounds behind him.
Shoot me now,” Rhapsody said to the crossbowmen, without taking her eyes off the seneschal. “Until my last breath, I will kill whoever approaches me.”
The seneschal crowed with laughter, his fingers working at the laces of his breeches.
“Oh, Rhapsody, how I’ve missed you these many centuries,” he said, fondling himself as he struggled with the lacings in his excitement. “You always know how to make the event all the more thrilling.”
For only the second time, the Lady Cymrian addressed the seneschal directly.
“So do you, Michael. I’m sure your men would appreciate the entertainment.”
The light in the blue eyes grew more excited. “Indeed. You recall how I used to take you before the eyes of my men in the old land, don’t you, Rhapsody? My favorite was having you on the breakfast table, or on horseback while giving morning orders. What fun it will be to do it again now, here, in the forest, surrounded by the dead bodies of your guards.”
Rhapsody smirked. “Well, for them, at least,” she said haughtily, nodding at the seven men. “I’m sure these ruffians are no different than your other lackeys, and would derive sincere enjoyment out of seeing their leader so compromised, so unable to sustain the act for more than a few seconds, so pathetic, so—so small. I have no doubt they would get as much amusement as the others did privately at your expense in the old world.”
The seneschal stopped, his hand in his trousers, his skeletal face slack with shock.
“Amusement?” he demanded. “Lies. My men would never have dared to joke at my expense.”
The Lady Cymrian laughed harshly. “Perhaps not to your face, Michael, ‘the Wind of Death.’ But it was your own soldiers who coined your nickname—Michael, the Waste of Breath. Not your adversaries, though of course they made copious use of it, and coined many of their own.”
“You are a liar,” he said coldly.
Rhapsody smiled with equal frost in her expression. “You don’t remember me as well as you think, Michael,” she said. “I don’t lie. Not even when forced anymore.”
The expression on his face blackened, and when he spoke, the harsh tone of the demon was in his voice.
“You lied to me” he said, the words resonating palpable hatred. “You pledged your faith to me. And how did you live up to that oath?”
“I swore to love ‘no other man until this world comes to an end,’” Rhapsody said quietly. “I never said that I loved you, only that I would love no other than the man who had my heart then, and still does. And in case you do not know, that world did come to an end, a rather horrifying one, in volcanic fire. I misled you, because you would have raped and murdered a tiny child if I didn’t. But I did not lie to you. Your injured feelings will earn no remorse from me.”
Like a storm building, the seneschal’s body tensed, and his face hardened into a terrifying aspect.
“Hold her down,” he said again to his guards. “We will see who is injured, and whether or not you feel remorse.”
Fergus looked uncomfortably at the fire spreading to the outer canopy of the forest.
“M’lord, we must get back to the ship,” he said quietly, casting a glance through the tree line as the flames leapt skyward, filling the air above with thick smoke. “Most of our guards are dead, and Quinn said this was a holy wood. There must be foresters or nature priests who will respond when they see the smoke.”
More flame, the demon urged. More flame. Take the girl on your own time.
The seneschal rested a hand on his forehand, trying to press the voice into silence, but the F’dor spirit was too excited by the building inferno to be quelled.
More burnings! More flame!
“Disarm her, then,” he said viciously to Fergus. “Bind her hands and I will drag her by the hair to the promontory.”
Slowly Fergus and the other three swordsman began to circle Rhapsody.
“Lay the weapon down, lady,” the reeve said soothingly. “It’s far too big a sword for you, anyway. You will only succeed in hurting yourself. We mean you no harm.”
In response, Rhapsody raised the sword a slight bit higher, her grip unwavering. In her mind she remembered Achmed’s advice long ago, deep within the Earth, as Grunthor trained her for the first time in the weapon’s use.
First, however you initially grasp the sword, change your grip a little, so that you focus on how you’re holding it. Don’t take your weapon for granted. Second, and far more important: tuck your chin. You’re going to get hurt, so expect it and be ready. You may as well see it coming.
She inhaled deeply, trying to keep her distorted vision from being apparent to her captors, as she turned the grip of the sword ever so slightly.
You’re spending too much time trying to avoid the pain instead of minimizing it and taking out the source of what will injure you further or kill you. If Grunthor weren’t holding back you would have been dead in the first exchange of blows. You should accept that you will be injured and decide to pay him back in spades. Learn to hate; it will keep you alive.
Rhapsody could hear her own voice, naive, innocent, in the darkness of the tunnel that ran along the roots of the World Tree.
I’d rather not live at all than live that way.
Well, if that’s your attitude, you won’t have to worry long.
No, she thought, her will steeling like ore tempered in the forges of Ylorc. No. I have too much to fight for. Too much to protect. Her eyes narrowed as hatred rose up in her soul, the righteous loathing of a woman long abused, a mother whose unborn child was in danger, a queen whose friend and protector lay comatose on the burning forest floor.
I am going to get hurt now, she thought; the realization did not terrify her. And I am about to die here. I have to protect my abdomen, bide my time, and wait for the right moment.
Slowly the swordsman stepped closer.
But I will take as many of you with me as I can, she thought, glancing from the swordsmen to Michael, who was watching her in a state of agitation clear even through her hazy eyes. And I will not let you have me again, you piece of demonic filth. Not while I live.
The voice of Oelendra, her Lirin mentor and the last one to bear Daystar Clarion before her, echoed in her brain.
You’ve got a good start, but now we’re going to train you to fight like our people do.
Do you think that the Lirin way of fighting is better than that of the Firbolg?
Aye, at least for Lirin. The Bolg are big, strong, and clumsy, the Lirin are small, fast, and weak. You rely too much on your strength, not enough on agility and cunning; you just don’t have the body mass to fight like a brute.