by Mark Eller
Though he claimed to love her, Pol had left her alone with Belsac rather than risk the king’s ire. Though he did not love her, Calto had dared Vere’s wrath. He had cast his protections, had called on Anothosia, and because of his courage in casting those protections when he knew it didn’t follow his king’s wishes, five flying snakes lay dead while Elise remained alive.
“I’m sorry, Pol,” she said. “I value you greatly, but I cannot love you. I wish it were different.”
Sighing, Pol gave her a sad smile. Bending over, he picked up her discarded weapons. Elise reached out to accept them, but he shook his head.
“I’m sorry too. Politically, it would have been much easier if you had broken your vows like Belsac wanted. Instead, you will just have to be killed by a spurned lover. They’ll hang me for it, of course, but Zorce promised to repair my body afterward. Apparently, easy deaths can be reversed without having to go through the whole installing a soul into a new body thing.”
Cold chills swept through Elise when the full realization of Pol’s betrayal and her stupidity struck her, leaving her focused and hard. She backed slowly toward the barred door. “You work for Belsac?”
“Of course, I obey my uncle,” Pol admitted, sliding his feet forward. Tossing her useless practice sword aside, he drew the blade at his hip. It seemed, Elise noted, to be very sharp and to possess a usable point.
“Your uncle?” she asked, trying for time.
“He’s one of Zorce’s head devils while I’m nothing more than a minor chameleon. I’m afraid the nano curse didn’t take especially well with me.” Pol’s left cheek shifted, flowed, and a rakish scar appeared. “I’ve been wanting to ask, do you think a scar like this makes me look more daring? I thought for a long time before deciding not to use it.”
“It’s stunning,” Elise snapped, and she leaped to the side when his sword jabbed forward. A knife strike sliced into the folds of her dress and caught there. Elise spun, ripping the trapped knife from his hand, and she darted away. Pulling the knife free from her dress, she instantly set to cutting away the bottom portion. Relief washed through her when she finished. In battle, dresses were only a hindrance. She could move much more quickly with a good portion of the drapery removed.
Smiling sardonically, Pol leaned his weight on his sword and watched. “I hate to be rude, but your legs are unsightly. Far too long and they have no womanly shape because of the excess muscle. It’s no wonder Vere threw you aside.”
“You can’t harm me,” Elise reminded him, sidling toward the armory door. “I’m protected by Anothosia as long as I carry the baby.”
“You trusted me after the protection was cast,” Pol said. “That makes me immune. Now, darling, it’s no use looking at the door. You’ll never get it unbarred in time, and you might as well forget trying to stab me with a sword. The enjoyable thing about my kind of chameleon is we aren’t bothered by steal.” Straightening, he lifted the sword. “I wish I could say I’m sorry, but I can’t. I like you well enough, but I’ve a pleasant job to do and no conscience at all. I can’t even promise this will be quick since I like playing with my toys.”
“Me, too,” Elise said when she felt the door’s bar press into her back. Reaching up, she grasped Wynderfyte and pulled the war hammer down from its supports. She dropped the knife from her left hand and reached up to grasp a shield. Shifting her fingers, she adjusted her grip on the hammer’s shaft and wished she had leisure to slide her arm through the shield’s arm strap. As it was, she could only grasp the shield by its center handle, making her hold of it awkward.
“We never practiced with a hammer,” Pol pointed out. His eyes laughed at her naivety, mocked her, and then he lunged in for an attack. He struck high, low, and then tried to slice the artery under her arm. Frightened, Elise ducked and dodged. She twisted free of one blow, caught one on the shield, and another struck Wynderfyte’s metal shaft, sending up a rather unimpressive shower of sparks.
“I know,” Elise replied, and she swung Wynderfyte with all the fear she possessed. The hammer struck Pol’s sword, almost sweeping it from his hand. “You should have found yourself a shield,” she added helpfully. “This hammer might be a tad bit slow, but your pointed stick is far too light to block me.”
Nervous sweat ran into her eyes, blurring her vision and making her eyes sting. Risking a quick swipe with her shield arm’s sleeve, she wished she had a rag to tie around her head.
“I’m still immune to steel,” Pol pointed out. His hooded eyes appeared amused and contemptuous. Laughter bubbled lightly on his lips, “Still, you are right. Your hammer is very slow.”
His arm flickered and fire ran along Elise’s ribs. She gasped, stumbled, and prayed to Anothosia for her child’s life. Pol struck again and yet once more. He moved with a speed and flexibility he had never shown her before. Elise caught two strikes on her shield, twisted to avoid another, and then the thin steel blade slashed into her left thigh before she could leap away. She cursed, glanced down, and saw she bled from a gash.
“Pity you won‘t live,” Pol observed. “The cut would have made a wonderfully ugly scar.”
“It won’t be my first,” Elise panted. She hurt in more places than she should, which meant she bore more wounds than she knew. It was only a matter of time before she became too weak to defend herself. Already, her leg trembled and threatened to give way.
“Oh?” Pol raised an inquisitive eyebrow.
“My father,” Elise said, “insists all his children have some taste of war.”
Stepping forward, she swung Wynderfyte with all her might. Pol moved to block, but Elise slammed her wooden shield into him, and the hammer cracked into Pol’s left shoulder. Pol cursed, stumbled, and fell back, his shoulder a ruin. Feeling grim satisfaction, Elise followed.
“There’s a difference between iron and steel,” she said with a grin. “Olnac made himself king with this weapon because he was too poor to afford a sword.”
She swung again and cursed her weak arm. The hammer was heavy, and she had already lost too much blood. Pol’s sword deflected her slow strike, but she slammed into him with her shield once more. The shield shivered in her hand when it hit his defending arm, almost falling from her weak grip, but Elise maintained control. She struck once and then twice with shorter and weaker war hammer blows. The heavy iron glanced off Pol’s head to crack into his injured shoulder once more. Crying out, he staggered back, stopped, and lunged forward just in time to meet the hammer once again. Wynderfyte crushed flesh and bone beneath its unforgiving weight. Sweat streaming down his face and blood running from a tear in his scalp. Pol swayed before her, unsteady, broken, one eye fallen free from a crushed socket. Realization and despair bled from his remaining eye as Pol opened his fingers, the sword falling from his slack grip.
“I was right when I said you have a warrior’s heart,” Pol whispered, and then Elise swung Wynderfyte with all the remaining strength she possessed, using her legs and back to amplify its force. Wynderfyte crashed into his face, breaking his jaw, sending jagged shards of broken teeth flying through a mist of blood. He fell, but Elise did not stop swinging. The hammer cracked into Pol again and again, breaking his body beneath its weight until, exhausted, Elise fell to her knees and the hammer slipped from her hand. She stayed there, swaying while she searched within herself for some promise the king’s unborn heir still lived.
Peace settled over her and warmth. Her mind wandered, opened, and Anothosia’s grace momentarily filled her soul. Dripping blood slowed, stopped, and Elise’s ripped flesh healed. New strength filled her.
A muted and insistent pounding sounded on the thick oak door. Rising, Elise felt no surprise at finding her shredded dress was clean and whole. Not a drop of blood stained it, not a wrinkle showed, but she still had blood on her hands.
“Why?” Elise asked the air.
“Calto,” Anothosia answered within her mind.
The pounding stopped and the ring of axes on wood started. Elise listened
while watching Pol’s features shift. The remnants of his handsome mien became coarse and disjointed. Below the ruin of his inhuman face lay a misshapen body with almost no unbroken bones. Looking down on her work, Elise smiled. Not even the gods of Hell could reform this body. She had made sure of it. If Pol were to live once more, Zorce would have to form him a new body, a spawn’s body, for Pol’s spirit was not strong enough to claim anything more. Though he had played her for a fool, he had been a fool to believe the gods of Hell would grant him strong life and great strength for dying while failing to fulfill their will.
Finally, the crack of weapons and tools on the door ceased when the door broke open. Men bearing weapons poured in, but their weapons lowered among a united sound of startled gasps. King Vere stepped past the gathered guards, stared first with unbelieving eyes at Pol before he turned those eyes on her.
“How? How could you do this?” he demanded. “This is murder.”
“This is justice,” Elise lied. “He tried to rape me, and I became angry.” She gave her husband a long, studying stare before allowing one corner of her lips to form a partial smile. “I’ve decided on a name for your heir. We’ll call him Olnac, after your grandfather, because he knew iron sometimes has more worth than steel.”
“Murder,” her husband whispered, but his voice shook.
They both knew the charge could not stand. Pol Swordbreaker was obviously hellkind. No court in all of Yernden would convict any of its citizens for killing one of Zorce’s followers. Not now. Not yet.
Knowing this, Queen Elise allowed her smile to become full, bright, and without concern. She leaned over to grasp Wynderfyte’s handle, straightened, and lightly rested her other blood smeared hand on her husband’s corpulent cheek.
“Try to divorce me,” she whispered, gently patting him, “and watch me really get mad.”
Fastening her eyes on Belsac’s scowling face, she narrowed her eyes. Then she laughed.
Chapter 11—A Matter of Forgiveness
Anithia straightened her tunic and grasped Missa's hand tighter while quickstepping her way home from brood-mother Kali’s, the only safe place she had found to leave her daughter while she worked. Looking around, she tried to wear her ‘don’t fuck with me’ attitude, but with her feet thudding dully on the cracked boardwalk and her mouth twitching nervously, she knew she failed.
They passed a young pickpocket who made a laughing comment to two friends before he leered at her breasts and made an obscene gesture, indicating exactly what he would like to do to her. Mouth dry, Anithia touched her knife’s comforting handle before narrowing her eyes and staring back, letting him know she was nobody's easy victim. Larson, gods bless the sorry bastard who had died and left her alone, had spent a good deal of time making sure she knew how to handle herself when threatened. She might not be able to beat most of the toughs in the Downs, but she was fierce and determined enough to hurt them badly, making the price they paid for her rape very high. Most of the ones in the area knew this. Some still did not.
"He has pretty eyes," Missa said once they were safely past. "Don't you think they were pretty, Momma?"
"They were beautiful." Anithia absently agreed, though all she had seen was emotionless calculation. She looked at Missa, wondering if strangeness looked out of her daughter’s eyes again, but Missa’s perfect orbs were still clear and blue and far too innocent.
Innocent. Ani didn’t understand how Missa lived in the armpit of Yylse and was unable to see the horror around her. The only thing outweighing her astounding inability to see danger and evil was an incredible intelligence which made the child seem unnatural.
Sometimes, Ani despaired of what would happen to the girl when she got older. Missa was too smart not to escape the Downs, only she was so naive she might not live long enough to do so. Maybe Missa would get incredibly lucky and catch the eye of a rich man, or as quick as she was at learning things, Ani might be able to apprentice Missa to a baker or a seamstress. Almost anything would be better than what the girl claimed she wanted. Missa once told Ani she wanted to be a demon slayer for the goddess Anothosia just like her father. It would never happen. If Ani had her way, Missa would never go near that particular goddess’s temple no matter what the cause. She had already lost a husband to the bitch’s service. She would not lose another to a goddess who cared nothing for her faithful. As proof of Anothosia’s indifference, none of Larson’s fellow knights had bothered attending his funeral. Only she and Missa and a priest of Omitan had been there.
"I want to play with Scone." Missa said. "Today's Thursday, and you told me last week we'd go to the baker's for fresh bread on Thursday. You said I could play with Scone."
Barely hearing her daughter, Ani frowned at a dirty figure hunched near the opening of the alley ahead of them. The figure didn’t look like a thief or a thug, but it was very unlikely it was a beggar either. Anyone looking for castoffs in the Downs would starve on what they found.
Ani’s stomach churned with sudden fear, and she gripped her knife harder. The still fresh bruises on her arm, cheek, and throat from her last attempted rape and beating throbbed. She could not take a second beating this week. She just couldn’t, especially not with Missa looking on. It wasn’t right for a young girl to watch her momma cut someone while getting Athos’s hell kicked out of her. A thought for later. At the moment she had other problems, one of which was the stranger ahead of them.
Feeling nervous, Ani paused to study the figure a little more closely. Man? Woman? She didn’t know, but she did know the stranger made her uneasy. The— thing— might not look like trouble, but it would be easier if they crossed the road, just to be safe.
"Momma," Missa prompted, "you did promise."
Anithia eyed the street for a crossing place which was not littered with horse droppings or crushed rat carcasses. She held Missa’s hand tighter to be sure the girl didn’t take it into her head to wander away.
"We don't have the money to buy a fresh loaf, Missa. Maybe next week."
"But momma, you promised! You promised. You promised. You promised." Missa stamped her foot. Small tears trailed down her cheeks.
"Missa Markie!" Ani snapped. "Enough!" She didn’t need this right now. She didn’t. Despite her misgivings, expediency had forced her to accept a job she didn’t want. Most days at the Hellhole were bad enough, but this day had been worse than usual, and now there were people on the street she didn’t know. Her nerves were shot. The last thing she needed was for Missa to start crying. "I didn't promise you anything. We might go there tomorrow if my tips are good, but I'm not promising that, either."
Frowning unhappily, Ani glanced across the street again to see three unsavory men watching her. More strangers. Their dirty, unshaven faces were hard. Hungry. She looked back to her daughter and groaned. Missa's expression said her feelings had been hurt. Missa’s wet wounded eyes, her quivering bottom lip, and the way she blinked and looked away made Ani feel like a heartless bitch.
"I'm sorry, sweetie." Releasing her grip on her daughter’s hand, Ani leaned low to cup Missa's face, gently tilting it upwards while smiling an apology. Ani did not mean to be so gruff. This neighborhood and the new people in it made her irritable and uncivil to the one bright spot in her life. It wasn’t Missa she was angry at, but the rest of the world, especially Larson.
"You hurt my feelings," Missa sulked.
"Mommy's just tired," Ani gently explained while keeping an eye on the three young toughs watching from across the street. Behind her was the pickpocket and his friends. Ahead was the strange figure. She would not cross the street. She couldn’t take the risk, not when Missa was with her. Going back toward the pickpocket might risk another attempt at rape, so she had little choice in the matter. She would have to risk the unknown.
When she looked again the figure in the alley was gone. Fighting uneasiness, Ani grabbed Missa’s hand and pulled her along.
"It stinks." Missa pinched her nose and waved a hand in front of her face as they
passed the alley.
"I know," Anithia said. A quick glance showed the alley held piled filth and old crates. A couple of those crates stood taller than she was. Nothing else was there. Nobody. Drawing a deep breath, she hurried past.
Missa abruptly stopped. She tugged on Ani’s hand with a force far too strong for a mere child’s.
"What!" Ani snapped. She didn’t have time for Missa’s strangeness now. Not here. A quick glance showed that the three toughs still watched her.
"He’s trapped." Missa’s voice sounded hollow, as if she were speaking inside a tunnel. "He climbed inside one of the large crates to get at a scrap of rotting food. A beam fell against the lid, trapping him.
“What?” Ani began, but those strange eyes were back, looking at her from her daughter's face again, eyes that swirled like ice-hard, blue mist. Missa’s orbs shimmered, turned blank, and then Missa's innocent blue eyes again gazed back at Ani.
"He's trapped, Mommy."
Ani stared at her a moment while a shiver traveled along her spine. She had first seen those eyes a month after Larson’s death. Soon afterward Ani heard quiet whispering from her daughter’s bedroom late at night, almost as if Missa spoke to an invisible friend. Sometimes, when Missa turned strange like this, Ani felt as if someone else, someone different, watched her through Missa’s steady gaze, using her daughter as their portal. The thought of some other creature sometimes inhabiting her daughter frightened Ani, but she didn’t know what to do.
Closing her eyes, Ani took a deep breath. She wanted to get home safely, but she could not stop herself. She had to go back and look. This once she had to know whether her daughter was right or not. If Larson were alive, he would have expected it of her.
Missa’s stance was expectant, demanding. Trembling, Ani fought back the sensation of having no choice but to give in to her daughter’s will.
