by Billy Wong
She giggled then. "No, I'm still terrible! It's getting easier now that they're bigger, though. Other lucky thing for me is, my milk production's back to normal. I was afraid my left breast was failing for a while."
Though she'd been careless in joking about damage to her body, Lise too laughed, perhaps forgetting her worry at the sight of her daughter's mirth. As Rose swallowed the last of her mom's great homemade stew in her bowl, she yearned never to leave here again.
#
That night, Lise let Rose help prepare dinner. "I see you haven't cooked in a while," she commented as Rose seasoned the meat.
Rose grinned at her. "No, I cook all the time at home."
"You do, do you? You don't balance the spices very well anymore."
She shrugged. "I've gotten used to cooking in a hurry since I'm busy. So I usually just throw on a few different spices in random amounts and hope for the best."
"What are you talking about?" Finn asked from the kitchen door. "Her cooking's good. Whatever she does, works for me."
Lise gave him a doubtful look. "Ah, but you have to say that. You're her husband."
"No... I criticize Rose about whatever things I want, but cooking isn't one of them."
A knock on the door interrupted the conversation, and Rose went to greet the visitor. She almost gasped when she saw who it was. "Justin?"
The muscular curly-haired soldier who she'd fought alongside against Sevria had parted ways with her holding her responsible for the deaths of his uncle and brother. While she hadn't meant for them to die, she could never help but feel guilty about failing to save them. Seeing him now with a small squad behind him, she could tell he hadn't forgotten his grudge, and had to strain to keep his voice professionally polite. "Prince Victor, Lord of the South, requests your presence. Come peacefully, or we will be forced to take further action."
She figured she could beat all of them with little trouble, and that he knew it too. He was probably just taking advantage of the authority behind him to speak aggressively towards her. "What does he want with me?"
Justin's reply sounded honest enough. "I don't know. We were only told to bring you in." But she wondered if he'd volunteered for this particular mission just for an opportunity to feel a measure of power over her.
"All right, I'm coming. Let me get my things, and tell my family."
"The Prince requires your husband's presence as well."
Finn wouldn't enjoy being bossed around, but at least she'd be glad for his company. At that moment, he walked up to see what was going on and spotted Justin. "What do you want with Rose? Are you here to bother her again, you whining fool?"
She put a calming hand on his shoulder. "No, Finn, it's okay. They're here on Prince Victor's orders."
"Victor, who practically gets to be co-regent after letting his brother be killed by standing aside like a coward? I'll respect him... when pigs fly, that is."
While Rose had no real opinion about the prince one way or another, she knew Finn held him in contempt for the cowardice he strangely enough attributed to him. Victor was a famed warrior, who'd battled raiders along Kayland's southern border for many years even though his bloodline precluded him from having to do so. Rose didn't think his one pragmatic choice of not singlehandedly battling the three greatest enemy warriors during the Sevrian invasion negated all that. Then again, Finn might also look down upon his insistence on careful planning with regard to anything important. Rose could certainly sympathize with Victor about that—often, she wished she could be sure of what she was doing before she did it. Of course, plans rarely worked out perfectly for her, and as a result she'd become good indeed at improvising.
"Pigs do fly," she reminded Finn humorously, "when they get shot out of catapults. Let's just go, there's no need to make trouble for its own sake."
He grunted, stared a warning into Justin's eyes and went to get his pack. "I heard you beat a god," Justin said, and Rose wondered where he was going with this. He wasn't one to compliment her. "And yet you couldn't save my uncle."
"I might not have made the best choice, but it was an honest mistake. I certainly didn't mean for him to die. I just screwed up, I admit it. I'm human, aren't I? Besides, Deathend wasn't a real god." Just an archmage who'd supposedly killed gods...
The soldiers under him stared as he spat, "If you're being honest, you're still a fool!"
Sometimes she was. But she tried her best, and had the scars to prove it. Still, it wasn't as if she would convince Justin to start liking her again anytime soon, and she stood in awkward silence with him for a moment before joining Finn. He could've gotten their things himself, but she didn't want to bear Justin's harsh gaze any more than she had to.
"Sorry, Mom," Rose said sadly before they departed with their escort, leaving Lise to take care of the children for now. The couple walked quietly towards Victor's new residence to the south of Hullel, neither able to find their standard cheer while in sight of the man whose bitterness seemed almost a palpable entity. The only thing Rose could be thankful for was that Justin didn't stop them from staying behind him; she wouldn't like to have him burning a hole in her back with his disdainful glare.
#
The uneasy party had begun to set up camp for the second night when Rose's sharp ears picked up what she thought to be distant screams somewhere to the west. Poking Finn, she asked, "Hey, do you hear something?"
The second best warrior in Kayland was no slouch himself when it came to hearing. Now that he listened for it, he nodded. "Yeah, I think so—screaming?"
She said for their companions, "We're going to check something out. Be right back, okay?"
Nobody challenged her, and they started away. Then Justin came back from gathering firewood and demanded, "What, trying to escape already?"
"Don't you hear the damn screaming?" Finn asked.
"I don't think so... wait, I think I hear some kind of sounds. But are those really human screams, or just the cries of animals?" They were barely audible, even to Rose.
"Only one way to find out."
Justin sighed, apparently still doubtful about their intentions. "If you go, I'm coming with you. We'll see if these sounds really mean anything together."
Rose was fairly exasperated by his stubbornness in accompanying them—if they really meant to flee, he wouldn't be able to stop them. Besides, they didn't. Running towards the noise, she heard him breathing hard to keep up with her and Finn. Hopefully their uninvited companion could at least make himself useful once they reached whatever it was they heard.
Continuing through the dense wintry forest, they smelled smoke, and Justin admitted, "I guess you weren't lying." They could clearly hear screams of agony and terror now and further hastened their pace, Justin lagging behind by the time they reached the source. They entered a small clearing, where they beheld a sight which made even strong-stomached Finn hiss in disgust.
What looked to be a sort of human tree had been created from the mutilated bodies of numerous men, women, and even children, all bonded together by metal rods pierced through various body parts. The wider "canopy" of the ghastly setup was supported by longer rods connected to the ground which impaled the victims closer to the edge and held them up. Some of the unfortunate souls still lived, if not likely for long as a horrible slow fire ate its way up from the tree's well-dead base, gradually consuming trapped, tormented flesh. It smelled like a hearty roast, but knowing better Rose had to swallow down vomit.
She had no idea if any of them could be saved, but knew she had to try though it revulsed her to even look. She walked forward with shaking hands to try and figure out how to dismantle the structure while minimizing further damage to the people within. Realizing the fire had to be put out first, she unsteadily chanted magic words to summon a small raincloud which doused the not-so-strong flames. Her attempt to decide what to do next was interrupted by an unfamiliar voice.
"How dare you interrupt our sacrifice?!" the loud, raspy words came.
&nbs
p; Looking around, she realized they were being surrounded by at least a score of blue-armored and helmeted men emerging from the trees and groaned. Of course this would happen, with her luck...
"Who the hell are you?" Finn snapped.
One of the figures, middling in size but easily distinguishable by the plume of red feathers protruding from his helm, said in his distinctive rasp, "What does it matter to mere sacrifices like yourselves who we are? Maybe you'll find out in the afterlife, when your souls belong to our master!"
Whoever they were, they were serious. But so was Rose, infuriated by what they'd done to those poor souls and their intention of doing the same to her and Finn. She drew the huge broadsword most men couldn't have wielded with two hands to point it at the speaker. And though she wasn't particularly eager to kill under most circumstances, in this case she made an exception and promised, "You're dead."
Battle erupted then, the ring of butchers closing on in the trio who defiantly stood against their charge. There was no escape, but Rose didn't seek escape, instead striding forward to fell one man with a cut through his upper arm into his ribs and another with a shield-rim blow to the temple that crushed helm and skull. Finn knocked two down with his giant mace, pinning one under the corpse of his accomplice, and stilled the trapped warrior with a stomp which caved in his face.
Justin had considerable trouble with his first opponents, and backpedaled as he tried to parry heavy swings of a greatsword and halberd that soon knocked his sword away. Stepping in, Rose deflected a sword slash at his chest with a backhanded one of her own. Continuing her rotation, she broke the man's neck with her shield, cleaved through the halberd wielder's leg, and swept her sword up into the crotch of a third foe.
"Sacrifice us, monsters?! Who's the sacrifice now?" she found herself screaming with tears in her eyes, not even caring that Justin showed no gratitude at her save.
She saw Finn shatter a man's breastbone with his mace and leave another twitching in his death throes with a broken skull from a punch. Justin took his first kill, sword finding a hulk's armpit as he attempted to aim an overhead chop at Rose. Three more fighters pressed her at once, but she flicked blood from her blade into one's eyes, tripped another to the ground after blocking his slash. She met the third with a thrust that ran him through, easily piercing both sides of his armor. A cut down through the shoulder killed the second as he tried to rise, and Justin finished the blinded one with a slice into the armored neck.
Finn grabbed a man by the throat, lifted him one-handed into the air, and snapped his neck with a twist before throwing his body into two of his companions. Justin dove in, driving his sword through one's groin. Rose rendered a man limp as he tried to tackle her by slamming her hilt onto the back of his neck, and Finn finished off his second downed opponent with a simple whack to the head. Rose decapitated someone with a blow which glanced off the next enemy's helm, but stunned him nonetheless. Her twisting followup slash tore him in half at the waist, and now there was one. The red-plumed man stood alone against Rose and Finn, no fear in his eyes.
"You want this one, love?" Finn asked.
"I think we better keep one alive for questioning, and I'm not sure I spared any."
"I'll never be a traitor!" red-plume cried, raising his huge scimitar high. At least that confirmed, however depressingly, Rose's suspicions of the murderers being part of a larger organization. Ducking a telegraphed running slash at her head, Rose slammed an elbow into the back of his skull, and he fell to his knees. His head snapped to the side from the heel she landed on his chin as he turned, and he crumpled motionless.
"I think he isn't dead," she said as she wiped blood from her face, breathing surprisingly heavy. Seeing what the fiends had done had gotten her blood up, and perhaps that was what made the fight more tiring than it should have been.
"You're not wounded for once," Finn remarked happily as he noticed how undamaged her plate armor was.
She shrugged, feeling the fatigue in her shoulders while she did. "They weren't that good, though they looked scarier than most. They were fearless, though... none of them even thought to run."
Justin knelt and began trying to remove the unconscious prisoner's helm, having some difficulty with the straps though Rose knew him an experienced warrior. Finn sighed contemptuously and gave him reluctant help, only to find the helm difficult himself. "What's with you men today?" Rose asked jokingly before she too gave it a try.
She discovered as they had that a complicated network of straps attached the helmet to the man's head. Finally they got it off, Rose half expecting to find a hideously disfigured self-mutilator underneath. Instead, she saw a nondescript lean, middle aged face, the most notable thing about him the tattoo of a lumpy, monstrous dark blue visage covering the back of his shaved head. But though neither Rose nor Finn knew what to make of this other than that it might be his "god," Justin gasped in shock.
"Do you know what that creature is?" Rose asked.
"No, but I know him. He's my former tutor!"
Chapter 2
"Your tutor? Are you sure?" Rose asked in surprise as Justin gaped at the fallen—in more ways than one—Leland Gallard. He hadn't known him well as he'd been the head of the college's tutoring program rather than Justin's personal instructor, but still, to find such a well-learned and once prestigious individual doing this...
"Yes, I'm sure," he breathed, hardly able to believe it himself. "I would hope I could recognize my own teacher." Removing the helmet of another enemy, he breathed a sigh of relief that it was no one he knew—and then wondered at their identities. Who were these men who would do such a vile deed, and what did they "sacrifice" to?
"It figures that your teacher would be a devil like him," Finn growled. The giant warrior's attitude was expected considering Justin's enmity towards his wife, but then, Justin thought his attitude towards Rose well justified. She had let his family die.
Setting aside his feud with the scar-covered woman for the moment, he asked, "You sure neither of you know anything about this? You're both so well traveled, maybe you've heard..."
Rose wasn't even looking at the tree of bodies anymore, instead vomiting on the ground with her back turned from the sight. For all he disliked her, Justin could empathize with her disgust; his own body shivered uncontrollably though he couldn't bring himself to look away.
"I don't think so," Finn said, "but I'll think on it some more." Though pale himself with horror, he forced him forward, and hearing him do so Rose joined him.
There were only four people out of two dozen they decided stood a chance of surviving, and Finn slit the throats of the others clinging pitifully to life while Rose cried. They left the clearing after Justin agreed to have his soldiers bury the bodies, Finn carrying two victims while Rose and Justin each took one despite the former's strength being equal to that of her gigantic husband. Though Rose maintained a desperate optimism about the survivors' recovery, Justin doubted they would ever come out of the unblinking state of shock their ordeal had put them in. Still, they brought the two men, one woman, and one teenage girl back to camp, where Justin told his men what had happened.
"Leland?" one of them said. "He was my father's tutor! Why would he..?" Anxious muttering arose among the soldiers, who sounded about as unnerved as Justin felt. This certainly warranted a thorough investigation, and he longed to get to the bottom of this madness himself.
"I don't think this one's going to make it," Finn said as he examined a wound on the abdomen of the teenage victim. "Turns out she has a punctured liver."
It was obvious what he asked permission for, and Rose shook her head. "I've survived a punctured liver..."
"You've survived a punctured heart, brain, and throat too. But I don't think she's got your vital-"
"Leave her be," Rose said firmly. "I've seen enough death today. Let her live or die by her own merit."
Justin felt inclined to think the girl should be given a chance to live, but couldn't help growing angry at himse
lf for agreeing with Rose so often. She was his enemy! Even if that was only by his own choice, he couldn't let it go after all the heartache he'd suffered because of her. "So what do we do, take them home?"
"We have no idea where they came from, and they're in no condition to tell us now." Rose hung her head. "Considering how many were there, though, it's likely some whole families were taken and they might not have anyone to go home to... Let's just take them to town, where they can rest until they recover."
If they did. But other than that doubt, Justin found himself agreeing again, and after burying the dead they took the four rescuees along. On the way, the teenager died despite all of Rose's efforts, and even Justin felt a little guilty for hating her seeing the heartfelt sorrow she expressed in her sobs over the deceased young stranger.
#
Her heart heavy in her chest, Rose walked into the eloquent dining hall of the manor Prince Victor had taken residence in. She hesitantly looked at the regent's brother, wondering if he knew about the tragic slaughter she'd wreaked upon decent men of their own country during her dispute with his sibling. Lawrence had helped them cover it up, but if it got out, so might the details of the prophecy, and in that case, it would become unsafe for their family to stay in their homeland.
Victor stood a little taller than her own six feet with a powerful build, and though his hair grew close to being totally gray, his fit, narrow-waisted figure and mostly unlined face hinted he was less than forty as she knew him to be. He looked somewhat annoyed as he regarded her and Finn, and his first words after heartily congratulating Justin on a task well done told her why. "Trying to hide from me, were you? Good job not telling anyone where you were going, though I managed to figure it out easily enough."
"What do you want?" Finn asked, frustration of his own showing in his tone. Rose nudged him in a gesture to calm down, not wanting to get off on the wrong foot with the person who now held the second most authority in the nation.
