by Billy Wong
"Of course."
She chuckled at his typical reaction. "Maybe later. But I think we'd be better off for now just following him once he finishes gambling to see where he goes."
He agreed, and they waited together enjoying many an overpriced drink at the bar. Eventually, they began to grow surprised by how long Silk continued to lose at cards and dice. By the time he dragged himself cursing out of the establishment, it was nearly morning. Rose groaned. "Nice, I got to miss another night of sleep."
Finn finished his last mug of ale and patted her back. "Ah well, we're both used to it. At least this way, he probably won't be too alert to us following him."
Not getting proper rest had long been a common experience for Rose, but it was still annoying to lose it because some gambling addict refused to call it a night even when he was making himself broke. They followed Silk out of the building and through the alleys of downtown Seil, Rose fuming over her sleep deprivation while they tailed him to the fourth floor of a decrepit tenement. He fumbled open the thin sheet of wood that served for his door and all but fell inside. They crept closer and listened in, really only expecting to hear a man flop down in bed and maybe begin to snore.
Instead, they heard the beginning of a conversation. "You've been staying here for weeks now," Silk's slurred voice said. "When are you going to start paying me?"
"I don't exactly have money to pay with," a low, powerful voice answered, "considering I lost my fortune with the rest of my possessions."
"And yet, even after how far you've fallen, you're still ordering me around like a slave," Silk replied in a resentful tone.
"I am still leader of The Lost. Besides, it's not like you have a job yourself—you should be thankful I gave you something to do in looking for the Devil's Horn."
It was him! The silver one... at least, Rose assumed he led The Lost. The other man shot back, "Since when don't I have a job? I bring home money, don't I? Your task is what doesn't pay."
"Robbing people isn't much of a job." The silver one laughed. "Though I could still do it better than you, if I could be bothered."
"Should we get in there or what?" Finn asked.
Rose scowled. "This would be kind of entertaining to keep listening in on if they weren't Lost. But since one or both of them are, let's go."
They drew their weapons, and Rose easily kicked the flimsy door off its hinges. Stepping inside, she saw John Silk glaring at his enormous roommate as if to kill him. Maybe they should have waited a little longer, after all, but it was just as well. She grew furious while she laid eyes on the hated leader of The Lost, a great bald man who stood to reveal him an inch or two taller than Finn and thick with it. A veritable giant, but she felt too angry to be the slightest bit intimidated.
"Monster!" she shouted. "It's long overdue, but today's the day you meet your end."
"Now look what you've done, you idiot," the man she assumed to be the silver Lost said. "You've led the unkillable cow and her bull right into our home!"
"My home," Silk corrected him, and drew a surprisingly well-polished rapier. Finn grunted his contempt at the thin blade. "Don't worry Irv, they're no match for us. Today we kill them."
Irv looked none too confident even as he hefted a huge axe and flail from beside the bed on which he'd sat. "You moron, do you even know who they are?"
"Rose and Finn, yes—and?"
The couple exchanged incredulous glances as their enemies bickered. "Looks like John Silk is still drunk from his long night," Finn said.
"I'm not drunk, you're just dead!" Silk rushed, flexible blade wriggling before him, and Irv hesitated a moment before joining his "friend" in the attack. Rose struck at Silk with her huge broadsword, and when he attempted to parry with his rapier, the blade bent sharply around to pierce into his own bicep. He stumbled back with a scream, tripped and fell on his rump, dropping his sword to clutch his wounded arm.
"Idiot," Irv spat. He looked from Rose to Finn and back as they closed in. "This isn't fair."
"And bringing your army against us was?" Rose demanded, touching a hand to her side where The Lost had skewered her. "But I'll fight you alone. I'll savor your death like few others." She motioned Finn back and advanced.
Irv threw the axe with all his strength at Rose's head, and she leaned back and aside so that it flew past to embed itself deep in the wall behind her. He stepped in gripping his flail with both hands, whipped it towards her in a mighty blow. It glanced off her shield, impact making her forearm ache. She slashed at his belly, opening a shallow cut while he jumped back.
"Why are you looking at me like that, like you're so righteous?" he asked, swinging at her again. "You've killed thousands, and you act like you deserve to live so much more than me? The world gave you so much, you should consider yourself lucky even to have lived as well and long as you have!"
She batted a swipe of his flail aside, making splinters fly as its head crashed into a nearby cabinet. "I know I'm fortunate compared to many, and maybe I don't 'deserve' more than others. All I'm good for is killing, eating and lifting heavy things, after all." Tears welled up in her eyes, threatening to hamper her vision. "But you killed my third child, who was innocent and deserved a chance to live!"
He backpedaled under her increasingly frenetic assault, grabbed up a chair and hurled it only for her to cleave it apart. "What? What child? You only had two with you, and we never ki—wait, you were pregnant?"
"Yes."
"I never knew... but ha, do you think I'd care if I did? What does it matter if your babe dies a little early, or never lives? It should burn, as should we all, and the world itself!"
They continued to exchange blows, tearing apart the small apartment around them. Sawdust filled the air, and moreso when Rose kicked Irv through a wall into the kitchen of another couple. The middle-aged man and younger woman within yelled and bolted into the hall, down which their rapid footsteps faded. "No, the world shouldn't be punished just because your warped mind says so," Rose said while Irv jumped up into a crouch. "Only The Lost should."
He swung at her knee, making her hop back. Standing up, he took a hanging pan from the wall and threw it hard. It hit her shield and ricocheted off with such force, it buried itself in the floor. "Fine, punish me then. I don't care if I die. The Lost will carry on without me, and I'll just wait for you all to join me in hell."
Rose's rage heightened further at his taunts, and the realization she couldn't make him feel fear like she wished. She pressed her attack, drove him into the neighbors' bedroom and caught the head of his flail with a downward chop, slamming it into the ground. Another strike separated the head from the chain, making it useless. Kicking him in the belly, she knocked him onto the bed. He rolled backwards to fall behind it, grabbed its edge, and lifted to try and bury her under the heavy furniture. Impressive strength, but she easily matched it and then some. She punched the falling bed back at him, forcing him to throw himself sideways to avoid it. Rose slashed at his head; he ducked and grabbed at her leg, no doubt thinking to pull her feet out from under her.
She raised that leg to knee him in the face, dropping him on his back, and tried to pin him to the floor with a stab. He caught the blade between his hands, holding it at bay for a moment, but then she turned it sideways, cutting his palm open. At that instant, she could have pushed the point down through his chest, killing him—but instead, she turned the sword at an angle and thrust so that it brutally, but non-lethally, sliced his groin.
Irv shrieked, turning over to his side with his hands between his legs. Seeing him in agony excited Rose, and an urge coursed through her to hurt him more. She hooked two fingers into his nostrils and pulled him up to his knees by them, his jaw quivering uncontrollably, drool dripping from his mouth. With her other hand, she gouged into his right eye and ripped it out. She pushed the eyeball in front of his other eye so he could see, the bloody nerve still attached to it.
"You don't care if you die?" she screamed, popping the displaced orb bef
ore his terrified working one. "How about I tear out both your eyes, explode your eardrums, rip off your nose, cut out your tongue, break all your limbs, shatter your spine... and let you live, so you can enjoy another thirty or forty years this way?"
"Puh-please, no," Irv gasped. "Kill me..."
"So you do have limits then, at least when it comes to what's done to you? Too bad! It's too late, you don't get to decide when to draw the line anymore!" She gripped his head to hold it in place and pulled up on his nose, feeling the flesh begin to tear, blood wetting her fingers. He howled, somehow found the wherewithal to reach for a dagger at his belt. Whether he meant to stab her or finish himself, she didn't know or care. She stopped in the middle of ripping off his nose, leaving it half attached, slammed his head down into the floorboards to stun him and then snapped his arm.
She was about to go for the nose again when a huge mace came down on the back of his head, bursting his skull to instantly kill him. Rose looked up to see Finn, who had followed after her and still stared. "Why'd you do that?" she asked. "I had him... I finally got through to him, and could have made him understand... how we felt..."
"No, Rose," he said softly, "this isn't you. I might've done something like this if I wasn't married to you, but because I am, I wouldn't even have. You're such a gentle soul at heart. If you had done all that in rage, you'd have nightmares about it for the rest of your life."
Now that she calmed down, she recalled what she had already done to Irv and shuddered. That would already haunt her dreams, she knew. She'd been so cruel, and was reminded that she, like anyone, had the potential to be as evil as the darkest of souls. It was a good thing Finn had been there to bring her back from the edge.
"You're right. Thank you, for saving me from myself and everything else."
"Don't sweat it, it's natural. Behind every strong woman is an equally strong man."
She laughed tearily and shoved him. "Oh, you! I hope you just mean actual strength and aren't trying to sneak in a favorable assertion of your warrior prowess again!"
Finn winked as if to say, You know I am. But of course he did it in jest, striving to make her forget her episode of berserk fury just now, as they both knew who was the more formidable overall combatant among them. "That was sort of anticlimatic, don't you think?" he said. "He was no match for you."
She shook her head. "This isn't over, though. He may have been the leader, but I doubt he was the last of The Lost, and there is still the spike."
They returned to the first apartment, where Rose saw that Finn had securely bound the still-whimpering John Silk with rope about the wrists and ankles. "Should we kill him too?" he asked. "He was associated with The Lost, if not necessarily one himself."
Though her anger at her miscarriage flared up a bit again, she said, "No, let's leave him be for now. He might know more about the spike that he hasn't told us."
"That's true. So John, you have anything to say?"
He closed his eyes for a moment, sighed and opened them. "Fine, I'll tell you everything I know. Now that my friend's dead, I suppose there's no need to protect his fanatical group."
Though the prisoner seemed honest in his account of the origin and history of the Devil's Horn, as he called the spike, the information he gave the couple seemed like it would be no help in finding it. Anyone could have snatched the object from Irv's house after Justin's escape, and Rose and Finn didn't know where to start looking. But somehow, Rose had a gut feeling it might not be so far away.
#
The ancient king stirred, his form tossing violently within the womb of earth where he slumbered. The presence of a certain dark energy returning to the world had driven him from his already uneasy sleep, disturbed prior by the reemergence of another great arcane power. An eyelid the size of a door slowly opened, smothering with resigned anger at his awakening. He'd always known he would be called back someday to battle some threat or another, but so soon? It had only been eight hundred years... Of course, this was why he'd kept himself alive—to protect the world against others of his ilk, contemporaries of his that would not stay dead or otherwise.
With great claws capable of overturning the foundations of castles, he began to dig up towards the surface. First, he would nip the revival of the demon lord in the bud before it could regain the power it possessed in his day, when it had taken ten of his equals pooling their efforts to defeat. He had to stop it now, when it was weak... and then? The changed world might have little room for such a creature as himself, but he'd find his place. By meddling with powers they never should've touched, the humans of today had awakened him, and thus ought to accept the consequence of him taking his place as their master. He would, after all, be easily the most knowledgeable and wisest being in this age, and it should honor them just to serve him. Of all things living now only he could enlighten them, and it would be their blessing to live in the peace and awe of his worthy rule.
#
Finn laughed at the actors who fought clumsily on stage with obviously inadequate training, almost falling several times as they tried to imitate skilled warriors locked in combat. Of particular interest was the panting female "warrior" trying to do battle in a cumbersome high heels and a dress drenched with sweat. "Looks like that girl could use some advice from you, Rose."
"First I'd say to lose that oversized battleaxe," she replied somewhat surprisingly. "She doesn't have the muscle for it. The next thing would be to get some real boots."
Not knowing for sure if John Silk was one of The Lost, they had decided against killing him and dropped him off for the constables to do whatever they saw fit. Now, having no other leads as to where to find the other Lost or the spike, they took a break to watch a nighttime theater performance in Seil.
"You ever fight in heels?" Finn asked.
Rose gave a mock shudder as if at a bad memory. "Yes, once, and what a nightmare! I got stabbed in the groin for it."
He realized he'd heard the story before, and hugged her close. "Now I remember. Lord Terror, right?"
"Yeah, Terrence Hiller also known as Lord Terror the bandit warlord. He wasn't that skilled, but got pretty lucky—or rather, my shoes made him lucky."
"Is that why you never wear high heels?"
"They aren't comfortable anyway."
Finn squeezed her big arm appreciatively as the girl onstage "killed" her opponent, a large but soft man in a horned helm. "I've noticed female fighters are getting more and more popular in tales nowadays. Think maybe it's because of your deeds that we're seeing a push for more ladies of war?"
"I'm not the only skilled warrioress in the world." She grinned. "But it does seem like at least in Kayland, half of the popular stories are actually about me, from what I've seen. Damn, that makes me feel old."
"Twenty-four's old? I must be one hell of an old geezer to you, then." Finn was eight years older.
"Hey, I know we're not that old. It's just that knowing I have so many scars and legends about me, makes me feel like I'm twice my age."
He patted her head. "There, there. Maybe the time you really are forty-eight, you'll be worshiped as a god like Deathend."
"I wouldn't go that far. Even he had to actually work to get himself deified, after all."
Noticing the archvillain sneak up on her lover from behind, the warrior maiden onstage threw herself into the path of a sword thrust, gave a loud gasp, and sank slowly to the floor. After a brief yet hilariously slow fight, the hero killed his nemesis and knelt at his love's side to hold her. As she began to give her last words, Rose muttered, "I hate these scenes."
"Yeah, they're sad." Finn hoped such a thing never happened to him and Rose. Sure, she'd lain bleeding in his arms from bad stab wounds many times, but always survived, and never given him a real death speech...
"That, and the fact they like killing off the female warriors so much in the made up stories! Why?"
"It's a tragedy, I guess."
"Well, why can't they ever have the man die and the woman liv
e? It's always either the woman dies, or they both do..."
Finn shrugged. "I don't know, I don't write these things. But I know if you were in there, you'd survive."
Rose giggled and agreed, "Yeah, I've probably taken more pointy things in my body than twenty tragic heroines combined!"
"Only twenty?"
"I lost count." Growing more serious as the play ended, she asked, "What now? There may still be Lost out there, but I bet they'll be laying low, and we won't have an easy time tracking them down."
"It'd probably be almost impossible if we don't get another lucky break, which I doubt. But there's a decent chance the ones left will seek vengeance again."
She looked curiously at him. "What are you suggesting?"
"Let's pretend we're satisfied with killing Irv and move on with our lives. Then when The Lost come after us, we can pick up where we left off."
"But that'll be dangerous for our family," she whispered.
He bowed his head in acknowledgment. "Yeah, it might be. But we probably don't have much of a choice considering the difficulty of finding them. We'll just have to be careful."
"All right. Tomorrow morning, we head home."
Finn kissed her, trying to banish the anxiety from her tight features. "So how are you enjoying tonight?"
She leaned against him, taking comfort in his embrace, and her voice grew warm. "It's been good. Pretty funny!"
"Badness can be amusing." Funny wasn't what'd been advertised on the sign outside the playhouse, but then, they could always find humor in things together. Making Rose happy was all Finn wanted out of a show, and he never failed to share her joy. "You're the best, Rose."
"Random, but thanks. Ten gold she dies again this play!" The second show of the night began and the same actress who had played the previous heroine walked on stage in what appeared to be chain undergarments.
Finn frowned. "I thought all our finances were jointly owned?" She urged him to play along with an elbow, and he said, "You're on. Say, have you worn anything like that before?"
