What the hell do I do now? Julienne's eyes skimmed the chamber. She could see they numbered maybe a dozen to her one. They were a ragged bunch, barely eking out survival; she thought she detected a glint of sympathy in their eyes. What were they thinking, looking at a woman with a torn face and clothed in remnants taken from dead men?
To show she would do them no harm, she lowered her knife, careful to make no move they could not clearly see.
"I mean you no harm," she said and made a gesture of appeasement by sheathing it. God, how lame did that sound? Not only was it the standby line for every grade Z movie committed to film, the words were meaningless. These women could not understand English, much less speak it. Even so, they seemed to relax a little.
Minutes ticked by in silence, each wondering who would make the first move. Finally, one of the women by the hearth picked up a wooden bowl. Ladling some broth from the huge kettle, she nervously spilled some and seemed embarrassed. She stood up and, taking tentative steps, offered the bowl to the newcomer.
Her manner was careful, as though she didn't want to be seen. Her hands shook when she held the bowl out. She moved like a small sparrow, wounded, afraid the cat might pounce again.
Julienne's gaze swept the woman's tiny, thin form--at five feet ten inches, she thought she must seem a giant. She was very fair, her skin peach-hued, and her short hair was the color of rich wild honey. Perfectly etched gray eyes peered out from under level brows, swept over by long, lovely lashes. Those eyes told of sorrow and sympathy. She understood fright. She had not been spared its ravages.
Go easy, don't scare her. She's trying to help, I think. She felt drained but relieved. These women would not harm her nor give away her presence.
Smiling shyly, the woman half-bowed and offered the bowl a second time.
"You eat," she said. Her voice was low, soft, as if seldom used. Her gestures were slow, lacking any animation.
Though she could not understand the words, Julienne correctly interpreted the meaning of the offering. She took the bowl, careful not to spill any of its contents. She could see what appeared to be small pieces of carrot and potato swimming in a yellowish broth, maybe chicken fat. She lifted it and took a sniff, breathing in the curling steam. Whatever it was, it was at least hot.
"It smells good." She offered a smile to show she was pleased and took a small sip. Though not enhanced by any seasonings, the bland concoction was palatable and warmed her insides. Thankfully, her stomach accepted the soup.
The woman nodded and replied with words Julienne thought likely meant she didn't understand her. She had the strong feeling the woman wanted to communicate as much as she did.
I guess I had better feed myself, so that thing inside me will have something to nosh on. If I lose my strength, I won't get very far. She took a second sip and then a third. Deciding the soup was acceptable, she drained the bowl.
"That was good," she said when the last drops were gone. Her stomach rumbled, far from satisfied, appetite only whetted.
The woman bowed her head then looked expectantly at her, awaiting some signal.
"I know you can't understand me," she said tentatively. "But thank you. Thank you for helping me." She had been trying to think of some way to communicate, begin to learn their words. How do children learn? Imitation and repeating what they hear. Though she felt supremely silly, she pointed to herself and said, "My name is Julienne."
The woman's eyes opened wide, a glint of understanding coming into her otherwise dull expression.
"Joo-lee-un," she repeated. She had an odd accent. Julienne had heard a lot of languages, but none had the quality of the way these women spoke. Still, at this point, it was close enough.
She nodded. "Right. Julienne." She pointed to the woman. "Your name?"
The woman leaned forward expectantly. "Joo-lee-un."
Julienne shook her head. "No." She pointed to herself again, saying her name slower. "Me, Julienne. You?"
"Joo-lee-un." She touched herself. "Kira."
Julienne nodded approval and smiled. What the woman said sounded like keel-rah. Well, whatever. At least she had a name to work with.
"Kira," she repeated, accenting the first half and letting the second drop in a light ah sound. Kira's mouth turned up at the corners, a wide delighted grin. Spurred on by her success, she held out her empty bowl.
"Soup," she said, making a drinking motion. "More soup."
Kira immediately understood. "Awree."
Smiling, she took the empty vessel. She laid a light hand on Julienne's arm and indicated in a semblance of sign language that she should follow.
Going to the hearth, Kira dropped to her knees and patted a straw mat before refilling the bowl. This time she didn't spill a drop.
Although unsure if it was safe to remain long, Julienne sat, crossing her legs. As she settled down and sipped her second bowl, the rest of the women came to life, whispering in low voices as they gathered around, offering bits and pieces of their meal. Though dubious about the freshness of the food, she crammed it into her mouth like a starving woman.
I am a starving woman, she reminded herself as she bit down into a piece of bread. It tasted faintly of sourdough, crusty and chewy. Hunger made the food acceptable; and in a very few moments, she had eaten everything the women had to offer.
More than food, she wished for a cigarette. She'd relish the burn of the smoke on the back of her throat, the rush of nicotine into her lungs. Hell, smoke enough and she might be able to flush the little booger out. The thought brought a lopsided grin to her face, one the women around her interpreted as pleasure.
Half-frightened, half-curious, they spoke in whispers. Some boldly reached out to touch Julienne's long hair. Their own had been shorn short. Except for Kira, they made no attempt to exchange words. Perhaps the less they knew the safer they felt. They talked among themselves in their strange language. Julienne could hardly tell where one word ended and another begun, much like Morgan when he spoke his hybrid Gaelic.
Kira hushed the group. Indicating Julienne's face, she chattered a string of instructions. One woman rose, walked to the back of the chamber, then returned with a large bowl and a few rags. Kira took up one of the rags, wet it, then made a motion of face washing.
Realizing what she wanted, Julienne dipped back her head. Kira cleansed her wounds with the soft cloth dipped in what appeared to be marigold petals. It felt astringent as well as antiseptic. She wiped gently, flushing sweat, pus and dried blood away. Julienne winced, gritting her teeth. The wounds were still painful to touch, but she realized she couldn't leave them untended. She could only hope this would help them heal cleanly.
Next, Kira sprinkled a whitish powder liberally onto the cuts. It had an immediate soothing effect.
The sound of harsh male voices interrupted the women's meal. The men were coming to be fed; and by the sound they made, there were a lot of them. Grabbing Julienne's hand, Kira pulled her to her feet and began to drag her toward the rear of the chamber. There were about a dozen tiny rooms, hardly more than cubicles. Each was made up with a thin pallet on the stone floor, a few pieces of clothing and other personal possessions.
These austere and unwelcoming stone cells were the sole bit of privacy the women had. Pushing Julienne ahead, Kira quickly pulled together two thin curtains. She pressed her hand to her mouth.
"No sound," she whispered.
Julienne nodded to show she understood. She watched Kira cross her small cubicle and begin to pat the walls, ignoring the soot that coated her fingers, the huge mutated spiders scurrying into dark crevices.
Finding what she sought, Kira stopped. She placed her palms flat to the wall. There was nothing unusual about the stone--it seemed as the others. But it was a special one; and she pressed harder, laying the full weight of her body against it. It moved, sliding back into the wall to release the lock holding the concealed door closed. Julienne heard a low grating sound, music to her ears. A section moved aside as the door opened i
n a grating arc.
Kira made a hurry-up gesture, one Julienne understood. It was her way out of this place. She ducked under the low edge. Darkness enveloped her as the door slid shut behind her. Until it was too late, it didn't occur to her to wonder if it was a way out or a trap.
Light, she thought. There's no damn light!
Turning round and round in confusion, she gradually became aware that a slight greenish glow emanated from the walls. Reaching out a tentative hand, she touched the wall. She encountered a wet, mushy substance, the rot invading the sanctuary. She immediately pulled her hand away, wiping it down the front of her shirt. The slime was a phosphorescent goo in puddles on the ground and climbing the walls, disintegrating the stone beneath it.
"God, that's disgusting!" Around her, the air smelled of moss and wet stone.
Still, it was light. And once her eyes adjusted, she discovered she could see rather well.
"This tunnel has to go somewhere. Let's just hope it's not a dead end. I'd hate to be walled in here alive."
Guided by the glow, she followed the tunnel, picking her way along. There were a few twists and turns, but no other chambers or tunnels leading to unknown places. There was only one way to go.
As she walked, she thought about the ragged bunch she'd left behind. Did those women even think to question who she was or where she had come from? Had they, at one time, had normal lives themselves, homes and families? Or were they born into slavery and knew nothing else? She imagined it was a little of both. Perhaps, in helping her, the women felt in a small way they were finding freedom themselves.
I'll go back and help them, she vowed. Somehow, some way, I will help them get away from Xavier. They're afraid because they know nothing else, but I do. There's a place for them, even if it's in the Raider camps. Raider men valued women, especially pretty ones.
It occurred to her that if she could not find Morgan, reaching the camps of the wild people was probably her best chance of survival. My face isn't pretty, but I'm still a woman. The attempted rape by the Jansi proved she still possessed valuable assets. In the dark, it didn't matter to a man. Spread legs were spread legs.
An unexpected whip of cold wind struck her in the face, bringing her out of her thoughts with its crisp scent.
A way out!
Following the breeze, she found the crack in the foundation, a crevice large enough to squeeze through, a glimpse of sky above. Freedom. Blessed freedom. The general shape of the crack was roughly triangular, the apex just high enough to allow a large dog through, or one thin woman. Without consciously thinking about what could be outside, she climbed the rocks and struggled to shove her body through the narrow gap.
"Where am I?" she asked in a hushed whisper, overcome. Fear trumpeted through her guts, charging into her awareness. She stood silent and awestruck at the sight of the remains of crucified bodies nailed up on the wall. Scattered across the hard-packed ground at her feet were the remnants of many more corpses, the stark white bones picked clean by carrion animals.
It was inconceivable that any ruins anywhere else in Sclyd could match these in the wild, rugged yet somehow breathtakingly beautiful desolation. There were mounds of scattered stone twenty feet high, great ruined pillars that had supported the arches that seemed to reach even higher. Beyond the great wall, which had never really been intended to keep people out but to put fear into them, lay the actual settlement--a city that had literally been carved into the face of low lying mountains. There were strange paths made into the rock, some natural, some not. Though crippled by war, the city still functioned, the sole purpose of its inhabitants to serve and protect Xavier. By the cold moonlight and surrounded by a blanket of mist, it was a most chilling and awe-inspiring sight.
Since the last war had wound down to its unsatisfactory conclusion, it had fallen into partial ruin. Great portions of it had been knocked down by invading forces. But their efforts had not succeeded in destroying it completely. Still, the wall stood, hulking and immobile, as fierce and defiant as the sorcerer who had commissioned it.
The wind blew with such force it swept her against the wall. As soon as she left its shelter she would be out in the open, exposed to the elements. It was not an appealing thought.
Across from the wall, a low bluff guarded the rear flank of the sorcerer's sanctuary. As much as she didn't want to be out in the harsh wind, neither did she want to stay near this unholy place of death. She saw the twisted, bare branches of trees, maybe birches or willows, sculpted by the wind into odd skeletal shapes. Strange night mists shimmered over the ground like the hand of a giant. It swirled in a heaving swell, stretching far as the eye could see.
The sky was luminous, a mixture of purples and grays that danced to the orchestration of the wind. But it was not good to linger around this place of death. The images were too bloody.
Following the wall until it ended, eager to leave this place behind, Julienne passed under the last arch. She forced herself to ignore the numbness in her legs, the ache in her chest.
Don't think about the pain, she warned herself. Just go! At least, she was departing this hellish place, and that gave her the strength to go on.
Pulling her shirt up to cover her head, she knotted the sleeves under her chin. She would lose warmth through her head. Best to cover it, at the expense of her body. Her fingers were unsteady as she fumbled to make a knot.
She paused for a moment, wondering where this journey would take her. She began to climb a steep incline. Jagged rocks tore her fingertips as she pulled herself higher. For one vast second she was sure she would lose her nerve.
Julienne walked until her body grew numb and she could not feel her arms or legs in the cold. How far she had progressed she didn't know until a new sound broke through the moan of the wind. She stopped dead in her tracks and cocked her head. The noise was the rush of water over jagged rocks. Ahead, she could make out the shape of a river.
The river bubbled, flowing south. Beside it, the wall of a low gorge veered away, its slope decreasing in a gradual incline that blended into the lush vales that were the oases of Sclyd. Located in a more temperate climate, these microcosms of lavish abundance flourished amid the great gaps of the ravished, famine-ridden lands. Only the Northlands were so desolate as to be barely habitable.
One look at the churning blue-gray water told her it would not be wise to try to cross at night. There was no telling how deep it might be nor where the other shore was located. She had no choice but to follow it if she wanted to go on. Water usually meant some kind of civilization was nearby. She knew many Raider camps were established in the ruins of the cities. Right now any sign of humanity would be welcome.
She turned this way and that, wondering which direction she should go, dreading the idea of more grueling days of travel. Shivering violently, she realized she would have to find shelter soon. It belatedly occurred to her that she had no food and, other than her dagger, no way to hunt for and kill any. Even if she found some kind of vegetation, she had no clue what would be poisonous and what edible.
Cold gusts of wind carried tiny bits of sleet that blistered her face raw when it struck. She bowed her head and walked into the lashing gale. Her thoughts wandered as she walked. She believed she saw lights twinkling in the distance, but that was impossible. There was no electricity. The idea of a world lit only by fire didn't occur to her benumbed mind at this point. Her skin was cracked, painful. Her lips were chapped, eyes sore, nose pinched. Her throat ached as her breath was snatched away by the bitter air.
A violent blast nearly knocked her down. Losing her strength, she crumpled to her knees. She felt her tears freeze on her face, felt the cold begin to seep into her bones. Welcoming the icy touch, she suddenly wished it would carry her away to a place where she would feel no hurt, no grief. Trembling, she squeezed her eyes shut and began to pray for death. Faith was lost, fear turning her journey into an endless, fruitless void.
"Just let me die here," she mumbled. "I can't go on a
ny longer."
Oblivious to her warm tears and the cold shards of ice splattering her face, she shivered again, more from fear than the penetrating cold. She wished she had not left home and followed Morgan into this godforsaken land. He knew it. He could survive. She didn't, and she couldn't. It was as simple as that.
Crawling toward a small embankment of rock, wanting desperately to get out of the wind and the cold, she lay on her side. Knees drawn to her chest, she fought to bring some semblance of warmth into her body. Face and hands blue with cold, she was once again close to perishing from hypothermia. In a very few hours, she would freeze to death. Misery needs no company. I'll die alone here…
She thought about death, about her hopes and dreams, about things she had done…and left undone. About how fruitless her life had been--directionless, useless, the flotsam of humanity, a waste of space and air until she had received that letter from grandmother, the letter she had never read. What did the letter say? Would she ever know? Would reading it have changed her direction in life? Taken her to a better place? Or one even worse than here?
There was a poem, she couldn't recall who wrote it, about the path not taken. She thought about all the paths she had taken in her life, some of them chosen by other people, some of them chosen by herself. What of Morgan? Did he really need her? Love her? More importantly, had he really wanted her or were they both manipulated by Anlese's spell to join them?
A little bit of both, maybe.
She once believed she loved him, believed so strongly that the thought of being parted from him pained her deeply. Now, she wasn't so sure. She was mated to him in blood. She carried a powerful legacy. What was inside her was part of her, part of her heritage. Her grandmother had chosen her to carry it when Morgan would prefer it to die. She was the last of the sentinels who had served him.
Not for the first time, she began to wonder about her origins, wonder whom the first Blackthorne woman was and how she'd come to Morgan. What of her father, the man her mother Cassandra had always refused to name? And her grandfather? Men were oddly absent in a Blackthorne woman's life. What of the men and how had they fit into the equation?
Descent of Demons Page 13
