As an afterthought, he fished out a second groat and pitched it after the first, adding a plea for stamina and luck in the endeavours he had planned for the dog watches. He left the half-noble safely in place. He was going to need every last coin he had earned on this last commission, if past experience at Ruttik's house was any guide.
Whistling happily, thoroughly enjoying his good fortune, the tranquil beauty of the elven city, and the cool, pleasant winds tumbling off the forests and fields, the man turned west on Blackbanners Ride, following the slope of the hill downwards towards the high street. He cast a casual, appraising eye over the shops; the good weather, unusual for this time of year, had enticed the merchants out onto the street, and all manner of wares were displayed for the benefit of passers-by.
He saw nothing unexpected; decades of travel, trade and occasional buccaneering along the southern coasts of the elf-realm had given him a thorough knowledge of what sorts of things were produced, and where. In Novaposticum, for example, he expected to find colourful silks, fine crystal, elaborately detailed jewellery (often incorporating the shells of molluscs that made it up the Lymphus delta and into the harbour), rare scented woods, and rustic country fashions. Nothing coarse or unrefined, and nothing particularly special. Nothing out of the ordinary. No surprises.
He didn't mind. He hadn't come to the southeast quarter of the city looking for surprises. Nor for jewellery, nor silks. Not empty ones, at any rate.
At the base of the hill he drew up sharply. At his feet, running north and south, was
Glancing casually up and down the
street, he turned the corner and strode north along Winterwood. A few paces beyond the end of the stone fence
he turned to the right, ducking between two of the morbannons and following a
half-hidden path of silver-gray flagstones.
This wound dizzyingly between tree trunks and around dense bushes,
eventually depositing him at the rear of the stone manor. Three steps led up to a heavy door of
brassbound oak, and he leapt up them, driven by anticipation.
He laid his right palm flat against
the door, choosing a spot where the rough finish of the wood had been worn
smooth by repeated pressure. Leaning
close, he cleared his throat, and said, "Vita brevis, amor lunga."
For a moment he was worried that the
password had been changed. His heart
leapt into his throat...and he relaxed again when he heard a muted
clacking. An instant later, the door
swung inward, and a cloud of warm air wafted outward, heavy with the smell of
wine and wood-smoke and spice. And something
more; something primal.
"Introire,dominus. Exceptum Nymphasaltus."
He stepped through the portal,
remembering to duck his head; though arched in the centre to accommodate the
sons of Esu, the doors in this house were lower than he was used to back
home. Indeed, it was like being aboard
ship - in this one way, if in no other.
The lighting in the vestibule was as
dim as he remembered it, and when the door was closed behind him, he was
temporarily blinded. He kept a hand on
his cutlass hilt while his eyes adjusted.
He had never been mishandled here before; but he hadn't lived a long and
delightful life by being careless.
"Morusa! It is good to see you in my house again, my
friend!"
The man blinked rapidly, willing his
vision to adapt more rapidly to the low light.
"I know that voice," he replied, his own at least an octave
lower than that which had addressed him.
"Ave, ears! It's good to be back."
Morusa felt arms around his ribs. He let fall his sword-hilt and returned the
embrace. By the time the other had
released him and stepped back, his sun-blinded orbs were able to make out
features: an elf, tall and slender, perhaps three-quarters his own height, with
the characteristic black hair and green eyes of the Third House. The elf - his old friend, Ruttik - was
dressed in stylish comfort, sporting a vest of heavy brocade over a long silk
gown and what appeared to be slippers. A
silk and velvet cloak was slung casually over one shoulder. He looked like a man caught half-way between
the theatre and the bath.
Morusa took a step back, looking the
fellow up and down. "Damn
you!" he exclaimed. "You
haven't aged a day! Aren't you ever
going to wrinkle up? Even if only to
keep me company?"
The elf shrugged. "How much wrinkling do you expect? You were here only a few months ago."
Morusa burst out laughing. "Have you lost your mind, you fool? It's been three years since I last set foot
in this city!"
"Really?" Ruttik affected an air of puzzlement. "How odd. I'd've sworn you were here during the
Penance."
"It was during the Penance," Morusa chuckled, shaking his head in
disbelief, "but three years ago. By
the balls of Bardan! You folk drive me
mad!"
"Your grandsire introduced
us," Ruttik reminded his visitor.
"Remember? He brought you
here as a stripling lad. First-timer! You can't blame me if I take the longer
view." Eyeing his guest's dusty
visage, he asked, "Drink?"
"Of course."
A few moments later they were seated
in an opulent drawing room, the sailor smacking his lips with
appreciation. The wine in this
house...well, Ruttik had always kept a peerless cellar.
"Adequate?" the elf
smiled.
"Are you joking? It's excellent. As always.
Although to be perfectly frank," Morusa scowled, "I don't have
much of a palate left after six months of dried sausage, hard-tack and
grog."
"Six months?" Ruttik
raised an eyebrow. "That's rather a
lengthy cruise, isn't it?"
"Pa shaka," the sailor snorted.
"Can't complain though. It
was my idea. Paid off nicely, too."
He lost the thread of the
conversation for a moment as a very pretty red-head undulated through the room,
clad in a thin shift of scarlet silk that concealed everything, while leaving
nothing to the imagination.
His eyes followed her until she left
the room. When she was gone, he glanced
back at Ruttik. "Heya! Hîarsk, ka?"
The elf shook his head. "Third House. Bleach, cochineal for dye, and high
heels," he replied with a wink.
"A great trick for the more robust and less comely of our native
lasses. Makes the most of girls with
broad shoulders, irregular features, off-colour hair, odd eyes, or bad
skin. Customers looking for a walk on
the wild side think they're getting something unusual."
"Looks pretty real to me,"
Morusa murmured, leaning back to keep the girl under his eyes.
Ruttik shrugged. "We're good at what we do, and we aim to
please."
“Hiarsk hardly qualifies as ‘wild’,
though,” the sailor snorted.
“Not for you or for me, maybe,” the
elf shrugged. “But for one of my folk
with a taste for some forbidden fruit…”
He kissed his fingers ostentatiously.
“Just the thing.”
"Still, faking it seems a
little...I dunno. Dishonest?"
Morusa said, pursing his lips.
" 'Dishonest'?" Ruttik
grinned. "Perductoris est! I’m a
pimp, old friend. You want honesty, find
a priest.” He took a sip of wine, then
added, “Come to think of it, better make it a paladin. They never seem to show, whereas I’ve had
more than a few priests in here over the years."
"No paladins?" Morusa
asked, surprised. "What,
never?"
"Not my sort of trade,"
the elf grinned. "The holy-rollers
- the true ones, at least - they like things above-board. Straight-up transaction: drop by after vespers,
in-and-out, and back in time for matins.
The odd Champion shows his face at the Starling every now and then, or
so I've heard. Thymbra caters to that
sort of taste. But never in
here." He took another pull at his
glass and dropped a salacious wink.
"Must be my unsavoury reputation."
“Here’s to priests, then. At least they've got good taste.” The sailor tipped his glass toward his host
in a salute, but his eyes wandered to the doorway where the redhead had disappeared. "I didn't recognize her. She's new?"
"If it's really been three
years since your last visit, old friend," the elf replied, sniffing his
glass with an air of contentment, "then they're almost all new. There's a high turnover rate in this
business, you know."
Morusa nodded. "I'd heard you’d rotated your
stock. Word gets 'round. So...you got anything special right
now?"
Ruttik grinned narrowly, showing his
teeth. One of the canines gleamed dully;
Morusa knew that it was a gold tooth. It
was reputed to be poison-filled.
"Depends on what you mean by 'special'."
"Third House?"
The elf shrugged. "Nothing special about that,
sailor-boy. I've always got a few
blackhairs. Low caste, of course. Tradesfolk.
Weavers, dyers and what-not.
Farmers, drovers, soap-boilers' daughters. Nothing especially interesting."
"Not to you, maybe,"
Morusa huffed. "Different for me
and my boys. Not too many sons of Esu
ever get to taste a genuine piece of Third-House tail." He smiled.
“You wouldn’t need bleach and dye to get my lads to take a run at one of
your kind, ears. Don't matter how broad
their shoulders are!”
"We can set something up, if
you like," Ruttik offered.
"I’ve got a few right now, and I can get more." He grinned.
"I can always get
more. But I thought you were here on
your own account."
"Gotta think of the lads
first," the sailor replied with a shrug.
"Morale’s my lookout, and they did well by me this past
six-month. But you’re right, we can talk
about it later. What else have you
got?"
“Third House? Or the others?”
“Yes,” Morusa grinned.
Ruttik scratched a cheek and took
another pull at his wine glass. “If it’s
black’n’green blue-bloods you’re after, there’s a local lady – upper caste –
who comes in from time to time. Always
in disguise. Stays for a few days, and
takes on all comers.”
The sailor’s eyebrows rose. “Really?
Upper caste, you say? Not
Twelve-blood, surely?”
“I should be so lucky,” Ruttik
rolled his eyes. “No, but still, she’s
something special. Beautiful, and tough
as a hobgoblin's hangnails. No limits,
either. Hard keeping up with her.”
“You’ve tried her out, then?”
“Me?” the elf snorted. “Not hardly.
But I’ve watched. Instructive,
that. She should give lessons.” He winked.
“Wouldn’t touch her myself, though.
She’s a risk-taker. One of these
days her lifemate’s going to find out.
When he does, I’ll be in enough trouble for having having hosted her
little liaisons without having to fight a duel, or talk my way out of a
violation of the Codex in the Margrave's court.”
“Why does she do it?” Morusa asked,
curious. “If she's high-born then it
can’t be the coin, surely?”
“Dunno,” Ruttik shrugged. Morusa smiled to himself; the elf tended to
mimic his customers' idioms. It was, he
knew, a sales technique. “Bored with
manor life, I think. That’s the
problem. No telling when she’ll get the
yen for some action; she comes in at her own good pleasure. Might not be the thing for you. I take it you’re on a schedule, as usual?”
Morusa nodded unhappily. “Gotta sail tomorrow, on the evening
flood. It’s tonight or nothing. What’ve you got in-house?”
“Spicy?”
“The spicier, the better,” the
sailor winked.
Ruttik pursed his lips, regarding
his old friend candidly. “How much did
you feel like spending?”
Morusa smiled widely and patted his
purse. It looked heavy, and gave off a
deep, comforting clink. “Sky’s the
limit, ears. That’s what the last
six-month was about. Spent most of it
cruising off Asheilagr, waiting for the right prize, and found it: a courier
sloop carrying coin and arms from the churchmen to their turncoat lickspittles
in the Imperium. Sold the arms in
Vejborg, and kept the coin.”
"And did the Vendicar a
service, too," Ruttik muttered snidely.
"Altid Ekhan!" Morus laughed, raising his glass.
“How much did you take in?” Ruttik
asked, feigning mild disinterest.
“Enough to buy your little palace
here,” Morusa replied, “knock it down, and rebuild it out of marble. I shit in a gold pot, ears. So don’t worry about the price.”
“Congratulations,” the elf
murmured. He scratched his cheek
again. “You’re looking to celebrate,
then? With something special?”
“Exactly.”
“You still have a thing for the torvae?”
The sailor’s eyes widened. “You’ve got one?”
“Nope. I’ve got three. Follow me.”
He put his wine glass down and levered himself out of his chair. Morusa, an anticipatory grin spreading across
his grizzled cheeks, followed.
♦♦♦
“I don’t know,” he said moments
later, sounding dubious. “They don’t
seem…well…like torvae, if you know
what I mean. They look the part, sure,
but...”
The sailor was glancing through a
barred window set into a heavy oak door.
Beyond the door lay a lavishly-decorated room. The walls were hung with tapestries, the
floor covered in thick, exquisite carpets.
The centrepiece was a stragulum
– a broad, densely-stuffed mattress strewn with light blankets and linens that
looked like they could do with a wash.
Kneeling on the mattress, empty-eyed
and no cleaner than the bed-linens, was a pair of elf-women. They were definitely not of the Third
House. Neither came close to five feet
in height, and each had hazel-coloured eyes and mousy brown-blonde hair
gathered into complex braids.
A breath of air wafted through the
small port, bringing with it the smell of incense, sweat, candle wax...and
something animal. Morusa’s nostrils
flared involuntarily.
Ruttik's eyes missed nothing. “What do you think?” he asked.
The sailor frowned. “Not as...as tasty as I remembered. Hey, you two!” he called through the window. “Stand up!”
“They don’t speak the traveling
tongue,” Ruttik observed. “Just our
speech - a bit of it, anyway - and their
own.” Turning toward the window, he
snapped, “Adsurgo!”
The women climbed immediately to
their feet and stood shoulder-to-shoulder, facing the door. They were clad in elaborate sleeping robes,
well-worn and inadequately laundered.
Both kept their eyes down, staring at their feet.
Morusa regarded them for a long
moment.
Ruttik waited patiently. At length, though, he asked, “So?”
The sailor tugged at an ear. “How much?”
“Twenty-five.”
“Argentae?”
“Aureae.”
Morusa turned incredulous eyes on
his host. “Are you serious? Twenty-five sovereigns, for that ratty pair?”
“Twenty-five each,” Ruttik specified.
“Fifty? You’re mad!”
The elf shrugged. “You’re the one with the heavy purse and an
itch to scratch.”
“I could buy a girl back in Norkhan for that!”
“Not a torva,” Ruttik said smoothly.
“How about forty, then? For the
pair?”
Morusa shot another glance through
the window, and sighed again. “They’re
not…damn it!”
“What’s wrong, my friend?” the elf
asked.
The sailor threw up his hands. “The last time you had one of these, she
was…oh, I don’t know. Feistier!”
“You mean Diam Kabut,” the elf
smiled.
“Exactly!” Morusa exclaimed. “Diam!
I remember her. By the Seven, she
was something special. Loads of spirit. You charged me fifty sovereigns, and I paid
happily!”
“That’s because she was vero torva,” Ruttik explained. “A true daughter of the forest. A woman of one of the Wilder tribes, from the
north. Rusa Rakut, the Red Deer Tribe, as I recall. Vero. Not citified, like these two here.”
“I remember you telling me
that.” He still had no idea what 'vero torva' meant...but he remembered
Diam Kabut. He felt himself warming at
the thought of the diminutive, graceful creature. “Whatever happened to her?”
“Bought by a nobleman, a year or so
ago,” Ruttik replied. “From the capital,
actually. As a gift for his
lifemate.” He smiled broadly. “A hundred-score aureae. Gods, that was a
good day!”
Morusa frowned. “That’s a lot of money for a ladies’ maid.”
Ruttik shook his head. “The vero
torvae make poor domestics, old friend.
Can’t make a bed or fold a sheet, and like to knife you in your
sleep. Low caste Third House're a lot
safer. Anyway, that’s not what his
lifemate wanted her for.” He dropped an
elaborate wink.
"Heya!" The sailor expostulated. “Well, lucky him, I suppose.” He glanced into the room again, thinking
hard.
“Pity the little rusa’s gone,” he added after a
moment. “I’d’ve paid fifty aureae for another run at her. No question.”
“I have another one,” Ruttik said
easily.
Morusa rounded on him. “Another torva? From the tribes? Really?”
"Not tribal. This one's a clanswoman."
"Clans, tribes," Morusa
shrugged. "What's the
difference?"
Ruttik pursed his lips. "Not much difference, really, I
suppose." He eyed his guest
narrowly for a long moment. Then he
added, “She's pretty fresh, too. Only
got her in a month ago.”
The sailor found himself grinning
uncontrollably. “A fresh one? I madh! Where's she from?”
“No idea,” the elf replied. “Not around here. Most of the clans spend their time outside
the Homeland anyway. According to the sania who brought her in, she was
alone."
"An outcast?"
Ruttik shrugged. "Could be. But believe me, she's something special.”
Morusa tugged at an earring. "Expensive?"
"Oh, yes." Ruttik smiled thinly; his guest’s interest
was manifestly obvious. “So…you want to
go take a look?”
“She’s not here?”
Ruttik shook his head. “Downstairs, with the other exotics. Good reason for that, as you'll see. Shall we?
You’ll have to leave your sword and dagger here,” he warned. “Security, you know.”
Morusa grinned. “No problem.
Let’s go!”
The sailor felt his heart thudding
with anticipation. If the new one was
anything like that little rusa had
been…
♦♦♦
The exotic section of Ruttik's house
was reached via a hidden staircase that led down into the cellar. Despite being no less opulently furnished
than the rest of the manor, the cellar felt closer, more confined. The heavy stone walls, wood-clad and draped
with tapestries and hangings, deadened sound.
The smell of incense and perfume was heavier here, due in part to the
poor air circulation, and in part to the need to mask the odour of mildew and
other, less pleasant things.
The stairwell debouched onto a long
hallway of dark, carved wood, lit by smokeless torches. Morusa’s feet sank into thick, expensive
carpeting. “Where away?” he asked.
Ruttik pointed. “End of the hall.”
As they walked, the sailor cast an
appraising eye at each of the half-dozen doors opening to left and right. “What else’ve you got down here?”
Ruttik shrugged. “Half of them are empty right now. Not much call for the exotic stuff, except
when the quality's in town. I usually
bring in a few extras when a princely party's out on chevauchée. Never know what
they'll want, so it's best to be prepared.
Costs me a little extra, but the pay-off...” He whistled for emphasis.
"I can just imagine."
Ruttik nodded toward the first of
the doors. “I keep that one empty, for
that high-caste lady I told you about before.
All dollied up and pretty, like a castle bower. It’s worth holding it for her; she doesn't
drop in often, but she earns me a fortune when she does. All profit, you see.”
“What d’ye mean?”
“She doesn’t charge,” Ruttik grinned
nastily. “Doesn't care about the
coin. But I do.”
Morusa laughed. “Good deal for you, I guess. How about that one?” He pointed at another door.
“Goblin triplets.”
The sailor shuddered. “Gah.
You’re joking, right?”
“You know what they say,” the elf
shrugged. “ ‘It’s only unnatural if it’s impossible’. And you’d be amazed at what’s possible.”
“I suppose,” Morusa said
dubiously. He gave the door a wide
berth. “Anything else you want to tell
me?”
Ruttik grinned. “See the shiny frame around that door?”
The sailor nodded. "What is it?"
"Silver paint."
“Really? What’s in there?”
“Lamiata.”
“Gods!” Morusa nearly leapt out of
his boots. “A vampire? Are you mad?”
“What can I say? Some like it cold.” The elf patted his friend on the
shoulder. “Relax. Silver-rimmed door, silver-laced furnishings
and a silver collar around her pretty throat.
It’s perfectly safe. Except for
the biting, but some of my customers see that as one of the attractions, so
long as things don't go too far.” He
tapped a tooth with a fingernail, waggling his eyebrows suggestively. “After all, what’re priests for, right?”
"Still...it seems a little
dangerous," Morusa muttered, eyeing the door nervously.
The elf shrugged. “Not so long as you’re reasonably robust and
you take precautions. Actually," he
added in a clinical tone, "she’s only partially transformed. What the priests call semilamiata. Not as deadly
as the true beast. Her condition’s
curable.”
“So why don’t you cure her?” Morusa
asked, astonished.
“Who’d want her then? " Ruttick asked coldly. "I might, though, someday. Once she’s earned enough.
“What?" the elf chuckled.
"She’s got time. It’s not like
she’s getting any older.”
Morusa shook his head. “I suppose I ought to be shocked, but I guess
I’m not. Nothing about you folk shocks
me anymore.” A sudden thought struck him. “You still got a nymph?”
The elf nodded. “Have to.
Couldn’t very well keep calling it ‘The Dancing Nymph’ if I didn’t,
could I?” He shook his head. “Should've picked a different name for the
place. Too late now."
"Is it as bad as all
that?" the sailor asked, surprised.
"I thought that nymphs were supposed to be the cream of the fey
folk."
"In the woods, maybe. Here she’s a loss-leader. Most customers come in because of the name,
then take one look at her and pass on to something else.”
“What?” Morusa had never tried the nymph out during
his previous visits. Despite the
reputation of the fey as consummately sensual beings, non-Kindred had never
interested him. “What’s the problem with
her?”
“They don’t do well in captivity,”
the elf sighed. “I suppose that’s the
kindest way to put it.”
Morusa’s nose wrinkled at that. “Can I see?”
Ruttik pursed his lips, looking
distressed. “Do you really want to? Away from the forest, they sort of…waste
away. It's a little pathetic,
really. I have to have'em tattooed with
cold iron to damp down their powers, and it's like a slow poison to them. I need to find a new one every six-month or
so. This one's just about due
for...er...replacement. Trust me, she’d be
a big disappointment.”
Morusa frowned. “Why keep her, then, if they go bad like
that?”
"I just explained that, didn't
I? Besides," he added clinically, "some of my regulars like the fey,
and don’t especially mind how rough they look.
Got a half-orc that comes in once a month to take a run at her. Personal thing, I guess.” He shivered slightly. “Always gotta have a few healing potions
handy for those days.”
“Ugh,” the sailor grunted. “That’s a little disgusting, isn’t it?”
“Worse than goblin triplets?” Ruttik
asked with raised eyebrows. “You don’t
last long in this business without a strong stomach, my friend.”
They reached the last door on the
hall. It looked even stronger than the
others, bound about with heavy iron plaques, and studded with pointed
nails. The hinge-pins were as thick as
Morusa’s thumb. In addition to the keyed
lock, the door was secured by a heavy iron bar sunk into the stone on either
side of the frame.
"Here we are," Ruttik said.
Unlike the other doors, this one had
a metal device of some sort built into the wall next to it. “What’s that?” the sailor asked.
“You’ll see.
You ready?” the elf asked with a wink.
Morusa shrugged a little too
nonchalantly. “Sure.”
His host nodded and opened the
portal in the wooden door. Morusa peered
through it.
The room that lay behind the door
was nothing like the others. For all
intents and purposes, it was a cell. The
walls were bare stone, and the ceiling, a good twelve feet overhead, consisted
of planks over oak beams thicker than the sailor’s thigh.
The room held a single
occupant. A woman, by all appearances a
Wilder Elf, lay sprawled on the floor.
Apart from her garb, she looked not dissimilar to the two torvae Ruttik had shown Morusa
upstairs. She had the same tangled,
brown-blonde hair, although hers was more heavily braided, with beads of bone,
stone, silver, gold and glass worked into the mess. There were no silks here; the prisoner was
clad only in what appeared to be tribal garb.
A collection of feathered and beaded necklaces, decorated with what
looked like teeth, depended from her neck, and a simple loincloth of soft
leather hung from her hips. Both were
worn and filthy. Her arms and legs were
bare. From the sailor’s vantage point,
he could see that her limbs were covered with a network of intricate tattoos
depicting all manner of fluid, mottled shapes.
Apart from the prisoner's tribal
regalia, her only adornment, so far as he could tell, was a collar of heavy
steel fixed around her neck, attached to a chain leading up to a pulley set
into the centre of the ceiling. “What’s
with the anchor cable?” the sailor asked, surprised.
“She’s a tough one,” Ruttik replied,
smiling. “A lot easier to handle if we
keep her restrained. For feeding,
cleaning and so forth.”
Morusa shot the elf a disbelieving
glance. “Are you serious?” he
asked. “She’s not even a
hundredweight. What, do you hire nothing
but panty-waists and schoolchildren to do your chores?”
Ruttik pursed his lips. “I’m not joking. She’s vero
torva, my friend. Straight from the
wild. A true daughter of
Istravenya. You sure you want to tackle
that?”
"Someday you'll have to tell me
what the hells 'vero torva'
means," Morusa said absently.
"It -"
"Not today. Some other time." Morusa turned back to the window. “Let me take a look at her.”
Ruttik nodded. He touched part of the mechanism on the wall,
and a lever folded out. This he spun
dextrously. There was a muted clanking,
and the chain began to retract toward the ceiling.
The woman had been observing the two
men silently through slitted eyelids. At
the first hint of noise from the chain mechanism, her eyes opened. Morusa could see that they were deep brown,
like those of her distant cousins upstairs.
He could also see a stark difference in what lay behind them – something
bright and animated. The movement
revealed something else, too; unlike those cousins, the woman’s body, though
noticeably feminine, rippled with corded muscles.
She was striking.
He could see it, now. Her cheeks
and forehead bore echoes of the tattoos that covered her limbs. They enhanced her beauty, lending a feline
elegance to her features, rather than diminishing or concealing them.
As the chain retracted, she sat up with a fluid grace
that made him swallow hard. She climbed
to her feet and stretched, rolling her shoulders and wrists as if trying to
work the kinks out of them. Glancing
toward the door, she caught his eye…and smiled.
Teeth glittered in the darkness.
“She’s fresh, you say?” Morusa asked without taking
his gaze off her.
There was a telltale quaver in his voice. Ruttik smirked. “Yes.
As I said, I only got her a month since.
Only five customers so far.”
“Why so few?” the sailor asked, surprised.
“She’s expensive,” the elf replied. “Very expensive. Not many feel like paying my price.”
Down to it at
last, Morusa thought. “What is
your price?”
“Five hundred.”
Morusa turned to stare at his host. “Five hundred aureae? Are you insane? I could buy a whole harem for that!”
“Of Norkhan dockyard whores, maybe. Not vero
torvae,” Ruttik snorted. “Anyway,
that’s the figure. You don’t want to pay
it, you can always pick a different girl.”
The sailor turned back to the window, studying the
creature beyond it. She was on her toes
now, holding tightly on to the collar, and grimacing as it pressed against her
throat. “I don’t want a different girl,”
he muttered. "How much to buy her
outright?"
"Not for sale," the elf laughed.
"Everything's for sale in this country," the
sailor growled. "Name a
price."
"Very well.
Two-score thousand."
Morusa hawked and spat. "She's worth more than my ship, is
she?"
"That's what she's worth to me, old friend," Ruttik replied, grinning. "You need to decide what she's worth to you." Is it
possible? he wondered. Could the human have that kind of coin?
His palms started to itch. He decided to push a little. "You had a profitable cruise, my friend;
you said so yourself," Ruttik crooned.
"A long time at sea. You
deserve a treat. Yes?"
The sailor stared at the girl. "I didn't have that good a six-month.
Hells, the Imperium didn't
have that good a sixmonth! But...I
suppose an hour or so..."
Ruttik smiled broadly.
He’d won, and he knew it. “Then,”
he said reasonably, “open that bulging purse and dig out the coin.”
The sailor hesitated.
“What’s her name?” he asked, playing for time, trying to decide.
“No idea,” the elf shrugged. “She won't say. But the two upstairs…I put her in with them,
when I first got her, and they called her ‘pemburu’."
" 'Pemburu'?"
"Pemburu
Pertana, actually," Ruttik said.
"So that’s what I call her.”
“What's it mean?”
“ ‘First Hunter’.”
The elf frowned. “The other two
girls…when they saw her, they knelt and put their foreheads on her feet. Looked terrified when they were doing
it."
"Why?" Morusa asked.
"Again, no idea.
Some sort of torva tradition,
I suppose.”
“Maybe she’s royalty,” Morusa snorted.
“Wilder elf royalty?” Ruttik laughed aloud. “I wish.
I'd charge more. No, there's no
such thing, my friend. They’re animals.”
There was something in host’s tone that made Morusa
look at him sharply. “That’s a little
harsh, isn’t it? I mean, they’re elves
too, aren’t they? Like you?”
“They’re nothing
like me,” Ruttik snapped, showing a flash of irritation for the first
time. “The Third House is descended of
Tîor and Dîor. The blood of the Holy
Mother, and of Hara the Wise, flows in our veins. These…creatures…” he nodded toward the
cell. “They’re savages. They haven’t grown or changed since the Age
of Making. An inferior breed. Below even humans in the tabulae.”
“The what?”
Ruttik bit his tongue.
He hadn’t meant to broach so sensitive and delicate a subject. Not to a non-elf. Certainly not to a son of Esu. “The tabulae
condignae,” he said slowly.
“ ‘Lists of the worthy’?” Morusa translated, frowning. “What the hells is that supposed to mean?”
Ruttik sighed. Especially not to a son of Esu with so
ready a command of the fair speech.
“They’re the master lists, maintained by some of the clergy in
Astrapratum,” he replied uneasily, “that rank all living things in the world,
from greatest to least, most noble to most base, in order of how they stand in
our estimation.”
Some of the
clergy was a deliberate
misstatement. While Ruttik felt strongly
sympathetic towards the philosophy and the goals of the Lustroares Lustrum, he did not feel like trying to explain them to
an Ekhani corsair. Not when there was a
deal potentially worth hundreds of aureae
mouldering on the table.
The sailor grinned.
“Lists must be pretty long.”
“Well,” Ruttik replied, relieved that his guest was
treating his indiscretion as a joke, “yes, I suppose they are.” Time to
change the subject, he thought.
“Day’s wearing on, old friend.
So, do you want her? Or do we go
back upstairs?”
Morusa looked back at the girl and sighed heavily. “No chance of a discount, I suppose?”
The elf regarded him evenly, then glanced at the
bulging bag hanging at the man’s side.
He opened his mouth as if to speak, then closed it again.
The sailor was not so besotted with the girl that he
missed that clue. “What?” he asked. “What were you going to say?”
Ruttik pursed his lips. “I was going to suggest that, if you want to
save a few coins,” he said slowly, “and you’re feeling adventurous, you
could…well, you could forego protection.”
Morusa blinked. “What do you mean by that?”
The elf sighed.
“As I said, she’s vero torva. She’s a clanswoman, and she’s a
little...well, wild. She did quite a
number on the first customer that tried her out. He’s a local noble, and it caused me no end
of trouble. Didn’t want that to become a
regular problem, so I struck a deal with a skald I know in town. Fellow after my own heart. Whenever somebody wants to take a run at her,
and has the coin to spare, I offer to call him over so he can subdue her
first.”
“Subdue her?
How?” Morusa asked, curious.
“Hallitsevat
Sukulaiskansojemme. It’s a
spell. He uses the enchantment to make
her more…well, compliant, I suppose, is the best word. More tractable.” The elf shrugged. “Best thing is, he works the spell for only
half price."
"Generous of him,” the sailor grunted. “Why?"
"He likes to watch.”
“Figures," Morusa grunted.
"Freak." His eyebrows drew
together. "How much do I save, if I
pass on your friend’s kind offices?”
“Half,” the elf shrugged.
"So...two hundred and fifty aureae?"
“Yes. But I
don’t recommend it," Ruttik added, looking serious. "Last four clients all paid the extra
two-fifty for the spell, once I told them what happened to the first fellow.”
The sailor whistled appreciatively. “That feisty, is she?”
“She is. That
chain's not there for decoration, you know.”
“But,” Morusa grinned, “they was all Third House,
right?”
“What’s that got to do with it?” Ruttik bristled.
“Cowards and limp-wrists,” the sailor chuckled. “No guts, you lot. Maybe she’d give a scrawny lad like you some
trouble. Big, strapping buck like me,
though...I think I can handle her.”
Ruttik blinked.
When he spoke again, his tone was warmer, more unctuous. “Well and good, then, old friend,” he said,
nodding. “One last time - shall I summon
my musical friend? Or do you want to
roll the dice?”
“Pfft. You heard me.
Day I can’t handle a little chit like that, you can have my cod, ‘cause
I won’t be needing it anymore.”
“Done,” Ruttik replied. He held out his hand, and the sailor gripped
it perfunctorily, without taking his eyes off the elf-woman behind the
door. “But don’t say I didn’t warn
you.”
The elf fished a heavy iron key out
of his pouch, unlocked both latches, and slid the iron bar back.
“You don’t want payment in advance?”
Morusa asked, surprised.
“We can settle up afterwards,” his
host replied with a narrow grin.
"We're old mates, you and I.
I trust you won't leave me...ah...hanging."
“How about a nicer room?” Morusa
asked.
“Without the spell, she stays here,”
Ruttik said firmly. “Take it or leave
it.”
The door opened with a squeal of
rusty hinges. Inside, the wooden planks,
and even the plaques of iron covering them, were festooned with deep
scratches. Eyeing the damage, Morusa
swore. “By the Holy Mother's honey-pot!
What’d you keep in here before? A
tiger?”
"Something like
that." Ruttik laughed
uneasily. “You won’t mind if I lock up
behind you, will you?”
“Whatever.” He turned back to the Wilder Elf woman. She was eyeing him narrowly, balanced on the
balls of her feet, fingers still clenched on the chain. “And lose that collar, would you? I can’t very well take her standing up.”
“Not a chance,” the elf
replied. “It’s there for a reason, like
I said. But don’t worry, I’ll let out
plenty of slack.”
“Not very conducive to romance,”
Morusa groused. “But all
right." Glancing around the bare
room, he added, “You couldn’t manage a blanket, I suppose? Those stones look cold.”
Ruttik sighed. Then he unclasped the silk and velvet cloak
draped around his shoulders and handed it to his guest. “Take this.
No charge for cleaning.”
“Much obliged." Morusa half-bowed. "Better lock me in, now, little
man. Don’t come back until things’re
quiet again. And no peeking!”
Nodding, the elf closed the door,
turned the latches and secured the bolt.
Then he spun the windlass crank, letting out a dozen paces of chain.
He took a quick glance through the
door-window. Morusa was walking slowly
toward his prize, the cloak over one arm, rubbing his palms together in
anticipation. “Get ready, my dove,” he
crooned, loosening the laces of his tunic.
“It’s you and me, now, for the next few sticks.”
The Wilder Elf girl, lithe and graceful, eased her
neck and shoulders, and flexed her fingers and toes. There was no expression on her face as her
would-be paramour approached.
No; that wasn’t entirely true, Ruttik thought. Her lips were curved in a slight smile.
Ruttik shook his head as he closed and latched the
window-gate. While he had a great many
vices, to be sure, voyeurism wasn’t one of them. In his opinion, everyone was entitled to a
modicum of privacy while indulging their appetites. Especially at so intimate a moment.
The high-pitched, desperately agonized screaming began
almost immediately. Ruttik drew a small,
razor-sharp knife from his pouch, leaned against the wall, and began trimming
his fingernails.
♦♦♦
After the shrieking, the howls and
the moans had died away - a matter of no more than a few minutes - the elf
began counting slowly. When he reached
ten-score, he spun the windlass handle a dozen turns to the right, unlocked the
latches, withdrew the bar, and opened the door.
The girl was back in the centre of
the room, standing a-tiptoe, breathing heavily and holding tightly to the
collar to keep the pressure off her windpipe.
Her face, throat and torso were smeared with gore, and her hands were
blood-drenched to the elbows. Blood
soaked her braids, stained her loincloth, ran down her legs, and puddled at her
feet.
Ruttik waved happily at her; she
snarled back at him. Her tattoos seemed
preternaturally bright in the dim light from the hallway. As always, he looked askance at her
pronounced incisors, her long, lethal-looking claws. And as always, he avoided looking at her
eyes. The glaring yellow slits with
their black, vertical pupils seemed to glow in the darkness. The twin points of light were fixed on him,
tracking him like a target. He had no
doubt what would happen if she ever managed to escape her bonds.
He looked the girl over quickly to ensure that she was
uninjured – she was – and still secure.
Then he bent to examine his guest’s remains. It was an unpleasant but necessary task;
there was always the possibility that she had left Morusa alive, as she had
done with her first gentleman caller, and that Ruttik would be forced to finish
the job himself.
No danger of
that today, he thought, gulping back
a sudden mouthful of bile. The girl had
been especially thorough this time. The
man's throat, and most of his viscera, had been torn out. The blood pooled an inch deep near the body.
He hurried through the rest of his inspection,
ensuring that the man’s eyes – well, the one eye that was left, anyway – was
closed. Morusa, after all, had been a
loyal customer, if not precisely a friend.
Ruttik didn’t have
friends. In his business, he couldn’t
afford them.
His cloak, he noted without any
sense of surprise, had absorbed the massive pool of blood like a sponge, and
was thoroughly ruined. He shrugged
mentally; had it been one of his favourites, he would never have offered it to
the human in the first place. With the
bounty from this afternoon’s work, he could buy a better cloak. Or a hundred.
That thought reminded him of the money. He bent to the corpse again, retrieved
Morusa’s bulging purse, wiped it on one of the less gory corners of his ruined
garment, and opened it. He prodded the
contents with a finger and grinned; in addition to hundreds of aureae, Zaran crowns, and Ekhani
sovereigns, the pouch contained dozens of Dwarven hardsilver
doubleweights. There were even a few
rings, a necklace of sorts, and other oddments mixed in with the loot.
Morusa hadn’t lied; he’d clearly had a run of good
luck. Up until today, at least.
Out of habit, Ruttik patted the corpse down
professionally, retrieving a long, narrow stiletto from the right
boot-top. Then he stood, brushed the
dust from his robe and tucked the cords of the pouch under his belt.
He smiled pleasantly at the Wilder Elf girl, noting
that her eyes were brown again, and her teeth and fingernails had returned to
their normal proportions. “Well done, my
dear,” he said, applauding lightly.
“You’re one of the best investments I’ve ever made.”
“Kaupunkia rota,
olet seuraava” the girl hissed, glaring at him. “Sina olet liha olla tuhlattu!”
Ruttik grinned.
“Threaten me all you like, little darling. If you could’ve broken that chain, you’d’ve
done it already.
“For this,” he added, nodding at the corpse, “I think
I owe you some decent provender, and maybe a bath." He sniffed fastidiously, and the girl
snarled. "Definitely a bath,"
he amended. "You're a little
fragrant for my taste."
He favoured her with a sneer. "I’d offer you some civilized clothing,
too, if I didn’t think you’d wipe your backside with it.”
The girl was still hissing under her breath. Ruttik let the smile drop. “Or,” he continued frostily, “I could just
leave you bloody, give the lever out there another spin, and let you dangle
until your manners improve. What do you
prefer?”
The girl snarled and spat at him. The bloody sputum struck the breast of his
robe, and he cursed in irritation. Animals!
He thought briefly about giving her a slap, but then reconsidered. He didn’t want to get within arms’ reach of
her. Not just now. Later, perhaps.
I’ll leave
her some company instead, he
thought. Turning on his heel, he left
the room, secured the door behind him, and spun the windlass lever half a turn
to the right. He smiled sourly as
choking noises issued from the window.
As an afterthought, he closed the observation portal in the door,
cutting off the light from the hallway, and leaving the girl alone in the dark
with Morusa’s eviscerated, stiffening corpse.
That'll teach
her. Maybe I’ll just let the miserable
chit hang there all night.
He thought about sending a servant down to drag the
man's body out of the cell in a few hours, then decided that he didn't really
care all that much. For all he knew
about torvae habits, they might well
consider humans a delicacy. Maybe if she
were hungry enough, it would keep her happy for the next few days.
♦♦♦
The woman locked her fingers into
the collar, taking her weight on her arms, struggling to keep the pressure on
her throat from strangling her. She
could do so for a while, but not for very long. Her jailer had retracted the chain until only
the very tips of her toes touched the floor.
There was a remedy for that; she had used it before. But while she could sustain it for a lot
longer than she could hang from her biceps, she couldn't do so forever. If she lost consciousness while employing it,
she would fall and be finished.
That, oddly, was her worst fear in
this horrible place. She could not touch
the green here; could neither see, nor smell, nor feel the pulse of kesatuan. It was like losing a limb, or even her
heart. She could not draw strength from
the great river of life that sustained all things, not when she was cut off
from it like this.
She was alone, with only the
darkness, her own strength and skill, and the barest hints of the flux to aid
her. These had not sufficed to preserve
her from the dishonourable intentions of the men whom her blackhair captor had
allowed into her cell. The first she had
dealt with appropriately; he might have lived, had her captor not cut his
throat. The others, though...some foul
magic had been used to subvert her will.
Another mind had grappled with and overcome her own, a violation of the
self as violently intimate and profoundly soiling as the violation of her flesh
that had followed.
Her one consolation was that, when
she had recovered from the arcane domination to which she had been subjected,
she could still smell the stink of her attackers on her body. She knew them, now, knew their scents as
intimately as she knew the scents of oak trees and roe-deer. She knew that she could find them, all of
them, if only she could escape from this horrid place. That was what she lived for now; that single,
blazing thought.
Her arms were weakening, and her
breath was coming in gasps now. Despite
the darkness, enough light seeped into the cell from beneath the door to inform
her that her vision was greying.
Coloured spots began to dance before her eyes. She had to move.
Taking a tighter grip on the collar,
she brought her knees up to her chest; then, flexing her biceps and tightening
the muscles of her midriff, she flipped upside down. Head towards the floor, she wrapped her legs
around the chain and slowly loosened her grip on the collar.
The pain as the metal pressed
against her clavicle and cut into her shoulders was tremendous, but at least it
was not life-threatening. She wrapped
her arms around the chain, too, steadying the inevitable pendular swinging
induced by her acrobatics. She could not
afford to lose her grip and fall; the sudden jerk would snap her neck as surely
as a lictor’s noose.
Her head began to throb viciously from the sudden rush
of blood, but she ignored it. She knew
that she could tolerate that sort of pain for a long time. Was she not Pemburu Pertana of the Suku
Macan? The hunter who, when her
woman's blood had come upon her, had been given the name Mata Elang, ‘Eyes of the Hawk’, in honour of her far vision, and
her skill with the tombak luas? Had she not met all of the challenges ever
demanded of a chieftess of the Leopard Clan, and surpassed them all? She stood first among the warriors of her
people. She was strong, and she was
patient. She would endure.
The blackhair had no idea what he had caught. In time, if fortune and the Forest Mother
smiled upon her, she would show him.
Hanging there in the darkness,
consumed by thoughts of vengeance, she began to lose track of time. In an attempt to distract herself from the
precarious discomfort of her situation, she concentrated on replaying in her
mind the memories of the clan’s winter migration: south out of the iron
mountains in the land of men, where the Companion of her younger sister
Apstrasys had fallen to a great bear that had succumbed to madness; south along
the Star-River, then west through the great plains and the man-lands of Red
River; across the broken foothills to the great wasteland, and the hardest part
of the biannual journey: twenty terrible suns, sleeping through the day and
riding through the night, eschewing the coastline for fear of encountering the
tall horses of the white-coat humans and their terrible, elf-hating
riders. There had been no white-coats
when she was a girl; she would have remembered them. But they lived there, now, in the grim,
white-walled city by the sea.
Years before, some of the hunters of
the people had approached that city.
None had ever returned. The Suku Macan - and the other clans that
followed similar routes - gave it a wide berth now.
After the white city, they had
ridden out of the wastes and into the Homelands at last, passing inland of the
bustling city of Starport; through the mountain passes, and down along the
south coast; comfortable now, happy to be back among the lush grasses, the
great trees, basking in the intimate caress of kesatuan. It was still stronger here, in the Homelands, than
anywhere else on earth, even if the blackhairs no longer seemed to feel
it.
Riding, riding day and night, to the
southernmost coasts near the blackhair city known as ‘Water Bearer’, where the
pipe-trees grew tall and strong.
She should have been with them. The new hunters, who had proven themselves on
the southwards journey, would pause there, taking - reverently, always
reverently - the youngest, strongest and straightest of the trees to make their
first tombak. There, too, the people would have used
driftwood to repair the rafts they had abandoned the previous spring. They would launch them on a calm evening,
and, setting sails woven of beaten long-grass, and navigating by the stars that
had guided their ancestors for scores of generations, sail across the straits
to their wintering grounds - the sweetest of the sweet lands, Manis Madu. The place where the Dolphin Folk live. The place that the blackhairs called ‘Eldisle’.
I
should have been with them. For the first time in nearly a century, she
had missed the last leg of her clan’s journey.
As the folk had trekked southwards, passing through the neck of the
peninsula between the great port-cities of Sinaustrinus and Novaposticum, the
woman and her companion, Perkasa Macan,
had left the migration for a day and a night.
They had been a-hunt, and their path had taken them toward the latter
place, following the trail of an enormous elk, hoping to bring it down and return
with a vast bounty of meat. Instead of
the elk, she had fallen afoul of a party of blackhairs. They had used their foul magic against her,
and she had been lost in darkness.
She had awoken in an iron cage, her
companion nowhere to be found. She had
sent her thoughts wandering, seeking for Perkasa,
but had been able to touch nothing. Her
jailers had tried to assail her, too; as a woman of the clans, she knew of the
blackhairs' liking for her kind both from stories, and from her captors' lewd
comments. But they ceased trying after
the first of their number entered the cage.
She had loosed the jiwa macan,
tearing out his throat and disembowelling him before his horrified companions
could intervene.
Was she not Pemburu Pertana? No man had
ever touched her without her consent - certainly not one of the craven,
corrupted blackhairs, stinking of perfume and lust and the muck of the
cities. That act of defiance had earned
her a vicious beating, and another dose of whatever foul magic had been used to
subdue her in the first place. It had
been worth it.
When next she awoke, she was in one
of those cities; she could feel it, pressing in around her like a shroud; like
a blanket of clay and poison, cutting off the wind, the sun; severing the
precious, life-giving link to the green that sustained her. It was suffocating. She had begun to perspire immediately. Terror leached from her pores like sin.
The room had been made of stone,
cold and dead; full of ridiculous furnishings, and stinking of burning wood,
sweat, scent, lust and fear. There had
been two others in the room with her: two of the bersaudara, the lost sisters, children of the Tribes torn from
their parents by slavers; removed from kesatuan
at so youthful an age that they resembled the wilder folk only physically. She had demanded that they name themselves,
and they had given her only the names assigned them by their blackhair
captors. They had not even known their
tribe! She thought they might have been
born Tanduk, maybe Jerapah, but she could not be
certain. They had been so debased by
their long association with the blackhairs!
It was sad, and more than sad. It
was infuriating.
In any case, neither had had any of
the Blood about them. They were truly
pathetic specimens. But at least they
had remembered enough of their origin to recognize her for what she was, and
had shown her proper deference. Even as
children, they must have been taught what Pemburu
Pertana meant. Perhaps there was
hope for them yet.
The bersaudara had been kneeling at her feet, appropriately begging her
blessing and her protection, when her jailer had arrived to view his new
acquisition. She had acted without
thinking; the jiwa had arisen
instantly within her, and she had surrendered to its furious outrage in a
frenzy of fangs and bloodletting. But
this blackhair had been prepared; he had brought along a companion, one who
used magic on her again, and the blackness fell and took her. When she had recovered from this third
encounter with the arcane arts, she was chained.
Thus had begun her month-long
nightmare of captivity, pain, filth, and dishonour. It had led to her bloody dispatch of the
first of her assailants, and to the revolting, mind-numbed touch of those who
followed him. The third of these – a
comely, well-made blackhair - had reeked of musk, attar and civilization. But he had been tall and strong, a
magnificent example of his race. In
other circumstances, she might have been able to put aside her distaste. But appearances were deceiving; he had been
the worst, interspersing his frenzied, brutal coupling with blows and shouted
imprecations. By the time his lusts had
been sated, she had been bruised, bloody and all but unconscious. Her jailer had been furious at being forced
to summon a priest to heal her wounds.
But very quietly furious, she had noted; her tormentor, it seemed, was
an important man. And he had paid well.
In response to her captor's
recriminations, the handsome blackhair had merely laughed, and had offered to
buy her outright. She remembered
feeling, even through the deadening press of the volition-stealing magic, a
rush of relief when her captor refused the sale.
The handsome blackhair had left, and she had not seen
him since. But she remembered his
scent. She swore that before her body
returned to the green and her spirit to the unity of the forest, she would find
him. And when she found him, she would
open his throat with her teeth, spill his blood, and leave his meat to rot by
the wayside.
Now, hanging upside-down in her
bonds, she shook with fatigue and rage.
How much longer would she have to endure this? She did not fear death, for death was the
constant companion of every member of the folk, the hunters especially. Death was an old and intimate friend. No, what she feared was dying in this horrid
place - apart from kesatuan, where
her body would not return to the Forest Mother's bosom or her jiwa to the unity; where she would be
trapped by cut stones and dead wood, a grey, moaning spirit forever banished
from her folk, unable to join with, nourish and guide her clan. The horror of such an ending consumed her
thoughts.
Perversely, it also helped her to
endure.
♦♦♦
She was roused from her reverie by a
sudden scraping noise – soft, almost imperceptible. Her eyes flew open, and she twisted her chain
so that she could see the door. A
shadow, then a whiskered visage, appeared against the light from the hallway,
and she bared her teeth in a savage grin.
She had been prepared for this moment for a ten-day, at least. Gathering her wits and feeling for the few
strands of the flux that she could touch in that dark place, she waited.
The rat poked its nose under the
door, drawn by the overwhelming, fantastic scent of fresh blood. The cell reeked of it, and the tiny creature
gloried in the magnificent stink. It was
intoxicating, but it was not enough to entice her to throw caution to the
winds. A previous occupant of this
chamber had been left to starve by the building’s owner, to the point that rats
had seemed a delicacy. The rat had only
just won that race.
Curiosity was fine, particularly
when things smelled so good. Just so
long as curiosity was leavened with a hefty dose of caution. The cell seemed silent, save for the harsh, rasping
breaths of the two-leg hanging from the ceiling. The rat ventured forward.
<Good evening, little sister.>
The rat froze and looked
around. The words had sounded in its
mind as clear and white-hot as skyfire.
<Who speaks?> the tiny
creature asked.
The rapid, high-pitched chittering
wafted upwards, resolving into clear words in the woman's mind. <Look
up,> she replied, trying to send calming, friendly sentiments along with
the words.
The diminutive rodent did so. Its beady, black-spot eyes widened. <Why
do you hang from the sky, two-leg?> it asked.
The woman – head-down, gasping for
breath, and barely conscious – grinned at the astonishment in the animal’s
voice. It was the first time in more
than two months that she had smiled.
<I am a prisoner, little sister,>
she replied.
The rat skittered closer. It placed its forepaws on the sailor's
body. <Is this your kill, First Hunter?> it asked.
<Yes,> she replied, astonished.
<But how did you know who...>
<...who you are?> the rat sounded amused. <What
child of Hutanibu would not know the First Hunter of the Leopard Clan?>
To her further amazement, the rat
seemed to duck its head in what could only be a bow. <How
can I assist you, hunter?> it
said.
<I beg your aid in seeking my freedom,>
she replied.
<Your bonds are made of coldstone,> the creature replied,
sounding dubious. <I can smell it. It would take my whole family a season to
gnaw through them.>
The woman snorted in amusement,
impressed by the creature’s understanding of her plight. <I
thank you for your offer, but that is not what I ask,> she said. <The
dead two-leg near you…he may have something in his clothing that I can use to
free myself. A knife, perhaps, or an
awl. A long, slender piece of coldstone,
of any sort. Would you try to find it
for me?>
<What is ‘clothing’?> the creature asked, sounding puzzled.
She rolled her eyes. <The
extra hides it wears outside of its own.>
<Ah. And if I do,> the rat
replied, sounding for all the world like a calculating merchant, <may I beg two boons?>
<Ask,>
she said immediately.
<First, swear that neither you, nor the Clan that you lead, will ever
again hunt my kind.>
The woman smiled. Rats were definitely not one of the prey
preferred by the Suku Macan. <Done,>
she swore. <And second?>
The rat sounded more hesitant now. <Hunter,
my litter is hungry. May I keep a small
part of your kill?>
<Little sister,> she said firmly, <you may keep all of it. Please hurry.>
The rat immediately attacked the
human’s corpse, burrowing into the blood-drenched garments with happy
enthusiasm. If she didn't know better,
she would have thought that the tiny creature was elated at having
out-negotiated a woman of the Clans.
Spots flaring behind her eyelids, she held grimly to
the chain, trying to maintain her precarious balance as her newfound friend
scampered and searched. She tried to
distract herself by counting, but without success. She was consumed by the fear that the rat
might find something useful, but that her captor would return to loosen the
chain before she could free herself. Or
that the tiny creature’s search would take too long; the enchantment that
allowed her to converse with the rat lasted only a short while, and she could
not use it again until the morrow.
Time stretched out into a hazy, copper-stinking
eternity. At last though, the rat
emerged from the human’s sticky, blood-soaked tunic with something in its
jaws. It scampered towards her and
deposited the object on the floor. <Will this serve?> it asked.
Gritting her teeth, she stared downwards, but couldn’t
make the object out. <I do not know, little sister. But I thank you. We shall try it.> Moving cautiously, she took a tight grip on
the collar, unbent her cramped knees from the chain, and flipped right-side-up
again. The shock nearly overwhelmed her
strained muscles. Her head whirled as
the blood rushed away from it, and she gasped as the collar dug into the flesh
beneath her jaw; but at least her neck was safe.
The rat, taking the initiative, retrieved its find and
scampered up her leg, digging its tiny claws into her mottled skin for
purchase. The woman, blinded by pain and
lack of air, barely noticed the discomfort.
Reaching her neck, the creature nuzzled her hand. Carefully, so as not to dislodge either her
benefactor or its potentially precious cargo, she groped with her fingers,
sighing in relief as she wrapped them around what felt like a long, slender
iron nail.
Sliding it back and forth between her fingers, she
felt for its size and shape. It was long,
narrow as a needle, with some sort of eye on one end, and a back-curved
double-point on the other. A fishing hook? she wondered. No matter.
Perhaps it would do.
She could not know, for she had never seen one, that
fate had at last granted her a dram of fortune.
The object was a twine-hook – a device used by seine-fishermen to repair
their nets, or to splice ropes together.
Morusa had carried one his entire life.
All the woman knew or cared was that, after a long minute of careful
manoeuvring, the thing fit into the key-hole at the back of her neck.
Time stretched out as she fumbled with the
mechanism. She was not an expert; she
was not even proficient. But she was
clever and nimble, and had at least some experience with locks. Time and again she twitched and fumbled at
the tumblers, taking extra care not to drop the precious iron needle. The rat clambered up her braids and sat atop
her head, courteously staying out of her way.
When the lock opened at last, she was so surprised
that she fell heavily to the floor. The
needle tinkled away into the darkness, and the rat scampered for safety. When she had recovered her breath, she
whispered, “Farewell, and thank you, little sister.”
The words came in normal speech; the spell had ended.
Kneeling on the cold, blood-slicked stone, she chafed
life and warmth back into her limbs. Her
neck was stiff and badly scraped, and she knew that the bruising would be
terrific; but other than that, she was whole and well. Crawling over to the human’s body, she
searched it thoroughly, hoping for some sort of weapon, but finding only
miscellaneous odds and ends about the dead man’s person. No matter.
It was not as if she really needed weapons, after all.
She patted her palms against the floor, ignoring the
tacky blood until she had located the iron needle again. Leaping to the door, she tried it on the
locks. It proved to be too small to
reach the heavier door tumblers. Even if
it had been large enough, it would not have enabled her to move the heavy iron
bolt that, she knew, lay on the other side of the stone.
Escape was impossible.
The only alternative was ambush.
She would have to wait until…
She froze, listening.
Footsteps.
The woman smiled, baring her teeth. After so very long, it seemed that fortune
had decided to smile upon her once again.
♦♦♦
Ruttik was enjoying a moment of
post-coital reflection, idly contemplating the elaborate cut-glass chandelier
depending from the peaked roof of his second-story bedchamber, and running
through plans for spending the contents of his late friend’s purse, when the
creak of an ill-tended hinge and the tinkle of silver bells informed him that
someone had opened his door. His maid,
no doubt, coming in with hot towels and chilled wine, per his standing
instructions.
He was too spent to bother with
either at present. “Not now, Alasta,” he
groaned.
There was no response.
“Alasta?”
Still nothing. Wondering if the wind had blown the door
open, he clambered over the supine, snoring forms of the two torvae upon whose supple flesh he had
only recently been exercising himself.
Seeing the girl in the cellar had whetted his appetite, and upon
repairing to his study, he had decided to take a run at Pemburu's less wild
cousins. He’d passed the subsequent hour
most enjoyably. Presumably the girls,
both of whom were now asleep (or at least feigning it reasonably convincingly),
felt the same. But he didn't really
care.
Before parting the thin curtains surrounding
his enormous, thickly-stuffed stragulum,
Ruttik shouldered his way into his robe.
Spring was about to begin in the south, and the stingflies had begun to
make their presence known again. Secure
beneath the embroidered, scented silk, he parted the curtains and stood up,
calling for his maid again. “Alast -”
Something struck him in the chest
like a blow from a giant’s sledge, driving the breath from his lungs and
slamming him back onto the bed. The
attacker followed, flowing after him like liquid midnight, landing atop him and
crushing him into the blanket-strewn mess.
Blood spurted from long gashes in his skin, staining his gown with
scarlet runnels.
Roused by the tumult, the two girls
woke shrieking. The newcomer whirled at
them, growling “Diminta diam!”
The girls clamped their mouths shut. Eyes downcast, they scuttled to the foot of
the bed…and, as one, put their heads to the floorboards. “Pemburu
Pertana,” said one of them in a quivering voice, “kasihanilah. Silakahn!”
The shadowed shape of Ruttik’s attacker regarded the
pair in silence for a long moment while they quivered in fear. Then it nodded. “Kembali
ke hutan, putiri. Dan, belajar siapa
anda!”
“Kami akan,”
the girl whispered. The pair bowed
again. Then they fled, out the door and
down the hall.
The shadowy figure then turned its bright yellow eyes
to Ruttik, gasping beneath its weight.
“Now, blackhair,” the woman hissed.
She spoke in the elven tongue, her accent thick and liquid. “Now. Only you, and me.”
“I have money,” Ruttik said quickly, coughing. “A great deal of money.” Struggling weakly, he reached toward his
pillows, beneath which he had secreted Morusa’s purse. As well as something else.
“Money I not care, pig. Money is not honour,” the woman
whispered. “Hunter honour is blood. Only blood.”
“I quite agree,” Ruttik replied. His fingers had found what they sought. Faster than thought, he pulled the dagger
from beneath his pillow and buried it in his assailant’s side.
Or at least, he tried to. With a hissing growl, the woman jerked back
out of his way, receiving a shallow cut across her midriff rather than the
disembowelling strike he had intended.
The sudden lunge brought his assailant into a shaft of moonlight, and he
drew back in sudden alarm. It was her, the
one called Pemburu, as he had heard the two torva
girls greet her. But it was Pemburu as
he had seen her after Morusa's death: fanged, clawed, her tattoos dark and
menacing, her eyes glowing points of yellow fire.
The woman snarled at the stinging pain of the cut
across her belly, but did not deign to glance at the wound. Instead, she stalked her quarry, baring her
fangs in a rictus of rage, sidling to her left, circling the blackhair kneeling
amid the tangle of bedding, clutching his tiny dagger as though it were a
lifeline.
He lunged forward, stabbing at her with the
blade. Instead of rearing back again,
she leapt to the side, lashing out with her claws and feeling them tear into
his forearm. He screamed again. The dagger spun away, clattering on the
floor.
Ruttik, for all his faults, was no coward; he jumped
clumsily after it. The instant he
presented his flank, the woman leapt.
She aimed for his throat, but only managed to sink her fangs into his
shoulder. The sharp, needle-pointed
incisors sheared through the flimsy material of his robe and tore into his
skin. Ruttik yelled in pain; and the
yell turned into a shriek of agony as the woman, anchored by her teeth, dug her
fore- and hind-claws into his flesh and raked them downward, peeling long
ribbons of shredded silk and flesh from his spine.
The pain was excruciating. The elf collapsed to the floor of his
bedchamber, screaming and thrashing feebly.
Blood spurted; scarlet stains spread across his robe, the costly carpets,
the polished wood. He threw himself away
from her, rolling to his wounded back, drawing his knees up to protect his
vitals.
Low and feline, the woman slunk toward her quarry,
eyeing him from head to foot as if trying to decide where to strike next. Her claws shot towards his throat and dug
into the soft flesh beneath his jaw.
Ruttik wailed in fear, throwing up his hands in
surrender. "Misericordia, domina!" he moaned.
"Tak kenal
belas kasihan," she snarled, "menerima
apa!"
"I don't understand!" he shrieked.
The woman's fangs gleamed white in the lamplight. "Show no mercy," she hissed,
"taste none."
"I surrender!"
"No, blackhair.
No surrender. I tell you before, sina olet liha olla tuhlattu! Your meat, I waste!"
Ruttik was not done; he had not lived so long in a
lethal trade without being prepared for every eventuality. With a last, desperate heave, he shoved her
hand away from his throat, grasped it in his own, and to her astonishment, sank
his teeth into her wrist.
Almost contemptuously, she yanked her arm out of his
feeble grasp. "Small bite,
blackhair. City rat, with rat
teeth," she laughed harshly.
"You -"
She staggered and almost fell. Something was wrong; her vision blurred
suddenly, and she felt weak and sick. Worst of all, her vision had dimmed, and her
claws and teeth, to her horror, had shrunk back to their normal
proportions.
As she staggered unsteadily about the room, Ruttik
climbed to his feet, feeling under his jaw to see how badly she had wounded
him. "Surprised?" he
asked. He pried his lip back and tapped
a gilt tooth set into his upper jaw.
"Poison. One of the little
tricks we 'city rats' like to keep handy."
He pulled the spent toothcap out and tossed it away,
spitting to clear his mouth. Grimacing
at the pain of his wounds, he stepped lightly off the bed and went to retrieve
his dagger. The woman lunged after him,
but stumbled and had to catch herself against a bedpost as the room whirled
around her.
"You might consider running," the elf said
conversationally, picking the long knife up and testing the point with a
fingertip. "The venom doesn't kill
you, you see; it just drains the life from your limbs, and leaves you limp and
gasping on the ground. I only have to
wait for you to fall.
"And then..." he held the knife up
"...it’s play time."
He grinned nastily.
"You can't imagine all
the things I'm going to do to you."
She staggered again and fell to her knees. Ruttik laughed and stood over her. "See?
Not such a wild animal after all.
Maybe I should have tried this after you slaughtered poor Morusa like a
Twelve-Day hog. Payment in kind, as it
were, for killing one of my cust -"
Without warning, the woman launched a kick, feeling
the shock as her heel struck home against the elf's kneecap. Ruttik shrieked anew as the bone cracked and
his leg crumpled beneath him. His dagger
clattered to the floor once again.
This time it was the woman who snatched it up. With all of her remaining strength, she drove
it through his chest. The only sound he
made was a surprised gasp as the sharp point bit into the wood beneath him,
pinning him to the floorboards.
She couldn't wait to make certain of him; his screams
had been loud enough to be heard a long way off. Others would be coming, and she was failing
rapidly. Time was against her; already
her cheeks were numb, her arms and legs growing cold. There were others...others, who must feel her
fangs...
Summoning the last remaining fragments of her will,
she stumbled toward a blessedly open window, hurled herself through it, and
plummeted senseless into the night.
♦♦♦
