by A L Issett
“I will do no such thing,” Mary said defiantly as she started gathering up the bed spreads and throwing them out of the window.
“You leave me no choice Mary,” the Regent sighed as he walked out of the room. Mary took the time to destroy or toss everything in her room, she would let Tanner know exactly what happened. Mary tired soon and took out some parchment and began writing a note, a note she hoped Tanner would see before the Regent spread any lies. Mary had just finished when the Regent walked back in, this time with two of the guards who normally watched her.
“Mary this is the last time I am going to ask you to drink this,” the Regent said slowly, not unlike a father to one of his children. “I don’t trust you not to knock it out my hand so your guards are going to grab your arms and head. They will be gentle as long as you don’t struggle, I am going to pour the cure down your throat a little at a time okay Mary?”
Mary looked at the three men closing in on her and made towards the window, it was way too high to jump, not that she could since the window wasn’t wide enough for an adult. Still there was an easily graspable ledge outside that would be hard to dislodge her from if she grabbed it while still in the room. Mary had just stuck her hand out side and grabbed it as strong hands began pulling her inside. She wanted them to try harder, she wanted her delicate legs to bruise horribly as they yanked. Mary kicked out once or twice and was sure she caught one of the guards in the bollocks from the way he screamed out. Finally with a great yank they dislodged her as she hit her nose on the window frame. A red fountain erupted from her nose as it began getting everywhere, down her clothing and even on the guards.
“Can’t you two do anything right, just look at her now. It will be wonder if it is not broken,” the Regent sighed. “And your fumbling around is bound to leave some bruising tomorrow, just hold her down so I can get this down her throat.”
Mary bit the first finger good and hard as her mouth was trying to be forced open. The Regent was angry and a little absent minded as he didn’t realize how close Mary’s legs were to him. She kicked out and caught the cup perfectly, spilling the contents everywhere. The Regent lost his cool then, the first time she had ever seen the man angry.
“Mary if you want to play then we are going to play,” the Regent said shaking. “You are trying to look your worse for a man you claim to love just to get back at me for your treatment. None of it would have happened had you went along with my wishes, you and Tanner would have been thinking about making babies but you force my hand. We will see who has the last laugh.”
The Regent stormed out of her room with the guards in tow. Mary made no move to fix her gushing nose but instead picked up her note and put it in her bosom. She quickly began writing another note to Tanner, the Regent probably would try to use magic to brainwash her or something but she had to make sure the truth got out. Mary folded the note and gripped it in her hand as she moved her nose around to continue the flow, unfortunately for her it was not broke. If it was, Tanner looking at the nose everyday would remind him of what happened. Mary continued throwing things out of window until the Regent came back, this time with Todd Greenley. Todd wasted no time in cutting off her air supply until she was about to pass out then relieved it just enough for her to catch a breath before doing it again. Mary was on the floor now, trying to scream but it was silent as no air came out.
“This is your fault Mary,” the Regent said as if it were him going through the pain Mary thought. “You have wasted enough time, Tanner has entered the city and will be here soon, now drink the damn cure so Maude and the other girls can fix you and this place up a bit before your husband gets here.”
Mary nodded as she could take no more, the sensation was worse than the effects of the Green. Todd stopped briefly as Mary walked over and downed the cure as quick as possible.
“Finally Mary,” the Regent said relieved. “I don’t trust you to do the right thing until Tanner gets here. Right now men, women and children are lining the streets to welcome back their hero. He will feel like he really accomplished something because he did and will need to relax with his wife. I am going to leave Todd here with you while you are fixed up and your room put back in order, do you understand?”
Mary nodded and started crying a little until the Regent’s harsh voice stopped her. “And no crying, you better have the biggest smile on your face at all times until you leave this place.” Mary nodded again as Todd laughed.
“Thank you Todd,” the Regent said as he let out a deep breath. “I might need Tanner again and him seeing his wife mistreated is no way to gain trust. I want you here while they get her dressed, while they fix her nose and apply makeup and when this place is cleaned. I want you to stay here and make sure she stays safe until Tanner is in this room.”
“I live to serve Your Majesty,” Todd said smoothly as he watched the Regent leave. “Now Mary, I should thank you. The Regent tried everything and had to rely on me. That will be a nice feather in my cap in the future. You will be a good girl won’t you Mary?”
Mary nodded and stared at the small boot knife he kept in his left boot. Todd laughed some more as a healer came in to fix her nose. The woman didn’t think it was broke and just cleaned her up a bit. Another servant, this one named Sarah who wanted to start up a friendship but Mary had kept the woman at arm’s length since she only talked about how good the Regent was to her. Sarah objected over Todd watching Mary get dressed but relented when she heard it was the Regent’s orders. Mary was soon dressed and was getting her hair done as six of seven servants came in and scrubbed all the blood away and began piecing the place back together. Sarah was finishing her makeup as Maude burst in the room with a big smile on her face.
“Child your husband is here, in the palace, he walks to you now,” Maude said as Sarah stopped what she was doing and followed her out of the door. Mary took this moment to walk over to a bored looking Todd and dropped to her knees. Todd looked a bit startled at first until Mary took out his boot knife and stabbed him in the leg with it. Todd screamed as Mary’s two guards came piling in the room as she held the small weapon out in front of her.
“And what is that going to do bitch?” Todd screamed. “You are lucky your husband is coming up and I gave my word to the Regent or I would make you eat that knife.”
“For the longest time you have tortured me Todd, while you two sat at the door and did nothing. When I was vomiting and in pain, no one did anything. There is only way I know of to pay you back, to make sure you won’t use your status to weasel out of anything Todd. And to make sure you two don’t use the excuse you were following orders.”
“And what big plan could a stupid girl with a boot knife come up with?” Todd said as he pointed his wand menacingly at Mary.
“This plan,” Mary said as she grabbed the note tightly in one hand then slit her throat with the knife cutting as deep as possible. Mary tossed the knife out of the window as her head rolled forward, Todd and the two guards seemingly looked both frozen and shocked as the door to her room began to open, Mary saw no more after that.
CHAPTER 9
Tanner
“I am letting you lot know if I ever see anyone of you again I’ll kill you,” Tanner said matter of factly. “You took my Mary Nance and saw to it I was punished because I was not gobsmacked about it. I will kill you, Gerty and Jennifer on sight if I ever catch you and her in the same room area again. I don’t care about the situation.” Tanner eyed his companions after the damn parade he had to endure when he reached the city. The Regent must have been trying to butter him up, Tanner thought. He could get pissed later, he would grab his Mary and head back to Kol as fast as his horse would take him after meeting up with Stephen. Tanner walked into the palace where the Regent greeted him along with the Queen, Princess Caroline and Golden.
“Here is our champion, I heard if it wasn’t for you everyone on the mission would have died,” the Regent said smiling. “We will have the ceremony later but I want to give you thi,s” the
Regent said as he slapped a rolled up piece of parchment in Tanner’s hand. “It is a title giving you my former lands. I never had a son so everything is yours outright Tanner. Or should I call you the Earl of Tox now?”
“You must have lost the plot,” Tanner said as he threw his papers down. “I don’t give one rat’s ass about some title. I want my Mary and then I am getting as far away from you as possible.”
“Of course you can see Mary, Tanner,” the Regent said somewhat less happily as he picked up the paperwork. “However don’t be a fool, your children’s children might need a hand up. Being nobles could make sure they wouldn’t struggle. Take the papers and I’ll lead you to your wife.”
Tanner reluctantly took the papers and followed the Regent up to the west tower on the third story. They had Mary high up like some fairy princess Tanner thought. He wouldn’t tease her about it, he just wanted to hold her. The Regent stopped at her door as Tanner heard a gasp followed by shuffling feet.
“If this is some kind of set up you’re a dead man,” Tanner said as he drew his sword and grabbed the Regent by the back of his neck and pushed him through the door. Tanner walked inside and saw a sight that would live with him for as long as he drew breath. Lying on the floor with blood leaking out of her neck was his Mary, her eyes were closed as Todd stood over her with two guards. Tanner let the Regent go then, too shocked to move or even breathe.
“What has happened here?” the Regent screamed as he pushed the men out of the way and went to Mary. “Did any of you call the healers? Give me something to stop the bleeding and fucking answer my damn question, what happened to her?”
“She, she slit her own throat” Todd said meekly as Tanner snapped out of it.
Why would Mary do such a thing? Why would she take her own life? What did they do to her that she would think that is her only release? Did she think Tanner could not protect her? Well Tanner admitted he failed once, but once looked like enough. Tanner looked at his Mary as her hand opened, in it was a note.
Tanner if you are reading this then I am sorry. I never wanted to hurt you, if I still lived powerful men like the Regent would continue to use me or even worse our kids against you until you died like your birth father. I cannot let that happen, I love you too much and you deserve to live your life without fear. During my time here, I was tortured by Todd repeatedly. No one helped me, not even the two guards who were supposed to be looking out for me. My own brother and I are strangers now, he eats from the hand of the Regent and let him know I had nothing but contempt for him until my dying day.
There was more to the letter, a lot more but Tanner had read enough. Todd Greenley would not live past this day and would be joining Mary in death. Tanner dropped his sword and instead pulled out his dagger, if the Black Hand had showed him anything it was how to make them sing in close quarters. Tanner caught one of the guards in the throat, opening the man up and almost decapitating him as he turned to the other. The other guard was in the process of pulling out his sword as Tanner buried his dagger hilt deep in the man’s eye socket, that only left Todd and the Regent.
“T-Tanner I did not kill her” Todd stammered.
“You fucking tortured her until she killed herself,” Tanner said as he kicked Todd in his soft round belly sending the man flat against the wall. Tanner lifted Todd up to his feet by grabbing on to his double chin and heaving, leaving Todd to cry out. Tanner dragged the fat mage over to the skinny window a pushed his head through. Todd tried to wiggle back as Tanner kicked him hard in the arse. The sound of Todd’s clavicle breaking was audible as he slid further through the small window. Tanner kicked even harder now, each blow causing bones to break and collapse as Todd’s own blood acted as lubricant as Tanner kicked him further through the window until the screams finally stooped. The fat man had probably suffocated or his injuries got to him, either way he would not rise again as Tanner gave him one final kick which sent the jelly like body crashing to the ground below. Tanner turned around and grabbed his sword as he faced the Regent. Guards started piling in as Tanner picked up his wife, he body seeming lighter than she ever had.
“If I see you again I will kill you,” Tanner said as he brushed past the guards and the Regent. “The only reason you are not dead is because I have a wife to bury thanks to you and your death would mean even more war. Who knows how many people you have out there fighting for their loved ones only to come home and find them tortured to death in their absence. You stay the fuck away from me, if any of your people even breathe word they were sent by you I will slaughter them and then come looking for you. If you ever send anyone to come after me, I’ll burn your world down around you.”
The Regent said nothing as Tanner left, the servants in the hall cried out and screamed as Tanner walked by, causing his own tears to flow. He would wash his wife then get her buried properly before he left Ket forever. Where he would go Tanner did not know but he wouldn’t see this land for a long time. Tanner carried his wife’s body all the way to the house they shared together, outside was a guard who saw him coming and bolted. Apparently the man was not a fool. Tanner walked into his home and saw his servant Helena there, she gasped when she saw Mary then him. Jennifer had told him the way she knew where to find him, Helena was in the Regent’s employ. Tanner sat his wife down on the couch and grabbed the old woman by her hair.
“You helped do this, why don’t you run to the fucking Regent and stay the hell out of my house,” Tanner said as he drug the struggling old woman by her hair towards the door. The old woman screamed and dug her nails into Tanner’s arms but the time for chivalry had died. Tanner violently rammed the woman face first in the wall several times, breaking her nose before he threw her out by the hair, his grip hard enough that he had a fistful of hair remaining as the old woman went crashing down in front of his house. Before she could get up Tanner kicked her pretty good, not enough to kill but he definitely broke a rib or two as he made sure she was away from the front of his property. Tanner walked back into his home and closed the door. He checked his bath room and could see the old woman had expected him home and already had a bath drawn up. Tanner stripped his wife out of the bloody clothes and found another letter, this one identical to the one he already had read. Tanner tucked it away and began washing the blood off of Mary’s body. He was somewhat detached while he did it and became mechanical right down to the linen and rough hide he tied and wrapped her body in. Her body would be too decomposed by the time he rode to her parents; she would have to be buried along the way. Tanner was getting ready to leave his home when his door flew open, standing there was Golden.
“Is it true?” Golden asked with tears in her eyes.
“She wrote me a note, wanted me to let you know were a coward. You stood by and let her get tortured while you played kissy face with Caroline. So much for all your big talk about doing the right thing and looking out for your sister, the only one you care about is yourself. Now sod off and let me grieve.”
“I would have known if she was tortured, she was so distant to me while you were gone. Praise the Gods, did I stand by and let my sister get the worse of it while I turned a blind eye? I only wanted what was best for everyone.”
“I told you to sod off and you are here trying to rationalize. You can ask your sister for forgiveness, you will be meeting her shortly,” Tanner said as he drew his blade. Before Golden could answer he was upon him quickly. Golden backed up as Tanner barely missed cutting him in twain. Golden pulled his own blade which Tanner cut right through. Golden backed through the door as Tanner was still on him up until he moved away from Tanner’s home. Tanner went back inside and grabbed his Mary and took his horse. Stephen had left it for him and he felt bad about lying her down over the saddle like a dead carcass but that is exactly what she was now, dead.
EPILOUGE
Tanner could see his foe was nervous, what started out as an easy battle had begun to get harder until the Ketians were not only giving up ground they thought they had gained but so
me of their homeland as the barbarian horde had already pushed deep into Ket. The barbarian shamans stood unopposed on the battlefield as the famed Ketian mages magic dried up. Tanner knew the reason though, he was the Mage Breaker and capable of projecting his anti-magic field in a certain direction now. That direction was at the Ketian forces. Tanner had risen in the barbarian ranks until he was the second in the tribe of Bone, the largest of the thirty tribes. Tanner’s chief and blood brother, Gelrix had started uniting the tribes as the threat from the Ketian mages came. Ket had already conquered Tavor finally and even the Torrenors whom the barbarians normally feuded with, now they wanted the free lands. Tanner was the battlemaster for the horde and had knowledge beyond most generals. Tanner quickly taught the barbarian hordes all of the advanced weapon making techniques he knew and instead of fighting force on force, the horde fought from the shadows, steadily harassing the Ketians until six weeks ago when the horde attacked in mass.
The Ketians not only advanced further than their supply lines after gaining easy victory after easy victory, they advanced further than their reserves could keep up right into a trap. Suddenly they were surrounded and their magic wouldn’t work when they needed it to. Tanner had killed many of them with the Sword of Ages, but only after placing the Helm of Time atop their heads to get any information they knew, like where were their relief forces. The Ketians were chased through the kingdom of Torrenor and into Ket and was still being hounded mercilessly while losing men by the hundreds trying to get away. Tanner had planned brilliantly and did the ultimate act of defeating an enemy, he made them friends.
