by Jesse Teller
Magna stared at her as if she had lost her mind. She looked back out at the floor and nodded. “I will take it to the chief. But if he orders me to whip you for suggesting it…” The woman pointed a crooked finger at her.
“…I will get the whip myself,” Helena said.
Magna came back with Erick, who snarled but said nothing. Since his branding, he had gone to Tergor for a month every year. This last year, after he came back, he had been sullen and dark. He snapped at everyone and refused to say a word to her. She stared at him for a while, then shook her head.
“Chief Cochran said to try it. Have water ready to put things in hand if they go wrong, and he commanded Erick to watch over us and make sure no one gets hurt,” Magna said.
“Can it be anyone else?” Erick said. He glanced at Helena and looked away.
The words hit Helena in the chest. She suddenly couldn’t breathe. She turned away and stubbornly locked her face in a mask.
“Can what be anyone else?” Magna asked.
“How about Tess? Can she set the building on fire? Does it have to be Helena?” Erick said.
Helena grabbed her towel and twisted it in her hand as she turned back to the crowd.
“I don’t care what you think of me, Erick Flurryfist,” Helena said. “The men are thirsty. I will get a tray. I can carry more mugs than Tess anyway.”
“No, your idea,” Magna said. “You want to set the hall on fire, you do it. Erick dear, if you can’t work with Helena for some reason, then go get your brother.”
He nodded and turned to go.
“Go tell your grandfather that you won’t do a chore he chose you for,” Magna said. She turned and winked at Helena, and Helena frowned. She grabbed the old woman by the arm, feeling solid power in Magna’s small frame, and whispered in her ear.
“Just let Tess do this,” Helena said.
“No, little girl, you work this out with Erick.” The old woman smiled at her, and Helena suddenly realized this was the same she was getting from everyone. They were all shoving her toward Erick these last years. She huffed and stomped her foot but could do nothing about it. She turned to Erick.
“Well, let’s get it done,” she snapped. He grunted, and they went to the oil.
She pulled a finger of flint from her apron; Magna made all the girls carry one. Helena pulled her knife. She sparked the oil and it broke into blue flame.
“There, you have set the hall on fire now. You happy?” Erick said.
“Yes, a lifelong dream of mine has been fulfilled. I set the hall on fire,” Helena snapped. “You make no sense.”
A man stumbled toward them, and Erick led him away. Helena heard a pail of water being set at her feet, and she turned, seeing Malsha bringing her buckets. “Here, you stay. I’ll get more water,” Helena said to her friend, desperate for her to stand in her place, but Malsha shook her head, looking at Erick.
“I can’t,” she said. “I’ll get more.”
“She can’t what?” Erick said.
“Stand in for me,” Helena said.
“Well, it can be done, I guess,” Erick said.
“What?” Helena said. “What are you rattling on about? Did I do something to you I don’t remember? Has your head been hit too many times by your brother and you are prone to babbling now?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Erick said.
“Talk about what? I still don’t know what I have done to you. I don’t know why you’re mad at me and everyone else. What happened in that city that has ruined you so?”
“Never mind. You would never understand,” he snapped. “It is not your problem.”
“You’re damn right it’s not my problem. That city is not my problem—at all.” Tears came to her eyes for no reason. She cursed all Flurryfist men.
Two men walked right past them, and Erick directed them left and around the fire. Helena looked at the fire, nowhere near going down. If she poured the water on it now, the fire would be doused, but the floor would be slicker for their trouble. She wiped tears from her eyes and looked at his sour face.
“You would hate that city anyway,” he said. “You would be miserable there.”
“Because you would be there, no doubt.” She didn’t mean it, but things were being said now that she did not understand. Why was she crying? Why was he the only one she wanted to soothe her? She looked at his thick bull head and growled.
“I wish this hall still had torches so I could whack you upside the head with one,” she said.
“You do like hurting things, don’t you, Helena?” He looked down at the fire, now dying with no fuel to feed it, and scowled. “Good. It’s almost out. It’s dying as we stand here.”
“I guess it is.” She stared at the fire, and wished it wouldn’t go out.
“What happened in that city last time you were there?” It was almost a whisper, almost a sob. She didn’t want to know, but as she watched the sputtering fire, she knew she had to.
“Flak Redfist did me a favor,” Erick said. “He is a generous man, and very helpful.” His voice was trailing now, but she heard it over the sound of the next song they sang and the cheering being done.
“What did this generous man give you?” Helena said.
“He arranged a marriage for me,” Erick said. “Next time I go to that city, I am to be wed.” He shook his head and growled.
He spoke. She did not hear him. She looked at the man she had spent so long disliking, even occasionally hating, and she thought of him with another woman. She thought of his hands on that waist, thought of his eyes staring into the eyes of a bride who was not her, and she thought she would be sick.
He spoke again. She saw his lips moving, unable to understand what he was saying. The world was blurring now into soft spirals of light and subtle myriad of colors.
“Are we done here?” he said. She heard him then, and she looked at the floor at her feet. Their fire had died. She nodded as her tears fell. He stomped away.
Helena turned to go, tripping over a bucket. She hit the ground, the bucket overturned and spread slowly across the floor. Her dress was wet. Her hands and legs were wet, and she shoved her way to her feet, flailing to get her legs under her. She ran, with soggy slippers, out of the hall and into the night air.
The door slammed closed behind her, shutting out the sounds of men and their happiness. She stumbled out into the village and saw a man passed out at the top of the stairs. She wanted to leave him where he lay, take the long walk to the north that led to a steep descent and would get her to the lower levels. She had done enough for men that night. But the wind was cold, and the man might have hit his head when he fell, so she went to check on him.
She wiped her eyes of tears and rearranged her dress. When she got to the man, she rolled him over. His throat had been cut.
She pulled back in horror, her hand covered in blood simply from touching his shoulder. She looked around, another body dead on the stairs below her, this one with a massive arrow embedded in his back, a massive exaggeration of an arrow.
“Furies,” she whispered. She stood and spun, headed for the hall. An impossible blow detonated across her stomach, and she was thrown back. She landed on the ground, staring up at the sky. She fought to get up but could only sit before another hit, this one a fist, slammed her in the face, and she felt the world tremble. Her hands were being bound. She was pulled up by her wrists and thrown across a woman’s back.
“You are being liberated,” the woman said. “If you fight me, I will hurt one of the other women we are liberating tonight.” The woman’s sharp shoulder dug Helena’s gut. “If you understand what I am saying, say yes.”
“I don’t want to be liberated,” Helena said. She had never felt fear like this before, did not know the terrible power of naked panic.
“You will when we have delivered you from your pigs. For now, you will come, or I will hurt the ones you care for. Do you understand?”
Helena struggled, and the woman broug
ht her down on the ground like a wet towel being slapped across a table. Her back, her shoulders, and her head slammed the ground. She saw a brilliant white light, then blacked out.
Helena woke to the sounds of a woman being beaten. She fought to get to her feet, but she had been bound and could not move. Darkness surrounded her, but she saw a hulking figure above her. “Stop, stop it now. What has she done?” Helena asked.
The figure above her snatched her up by the hair and snarled in her face, dragging her to her knees and pointing her in the direction of the woman being beaten. “What is her name?” growled the Fury.
Helena looked at the woman and burst into tears. “Her name is Terala, and I love her. Please, if you are going to hurt her, please turn your wrath to me.”
A fist, hard, and faster than a crack of lightning, rocked across Helena’s face and rattled her teeth. She drooled blood and heard Terala call out.
“Please, why? Why are you doing this?” Helena sobbed.
“She is getting what she deserves,” the woman above her snapped.
The beating continued until Terala cried out in utter agony, and they pulled back. “Say it again and get more. We dare you, wife! Say it again!”
Terala pulled herself onto her knees and spit blood. In that one act of defiance, Helena felt power, raw and true, run through her. “What is your name, warrior?” Terala asked with poise and clarity.
“I am Kaalalor, freer of the oppressed.”
“I am Terala Flurryfist. I was given that name by my husband. His name is Ruggamon Flurryfist, and he is going to ram his fist up your tight, muscled ass.”
The warrior gasped.
Terala continued. “When he is done with you, you are going to wish your father had beaten you to death when you were born.”
Kaalalor pulled back her dagger, when another voice yelled out for her. “Hold that blade and do it now! We have no time. Deal with that insolent wife when we get back to the Nyst. Until then, pick her up and carry her. We have to move.”
Kaalalor spit on Terala and gripped her by the hair, lifting her off the ground as Terala groaned out in pain. She threw her over her shoulder then off they ran. They ran all night, until by the light of the morning they reached a great pass that led to Fury land.
“Take off your slippers and shoes,” a woman snapped at Helena as they were all dropped to the ground. Helena groaned when she hit, and Terala was dropped beside her.
“Do as you’re told,” Terala whispered. “Stay alive. If we can stay alive, our men will find us.”
Helena slipped her slippers off, and a pair of Fury boots were dropped before her. “Put them on,” Kaalalor snapped. “Please, bitch, give me a reason to beat you.”
Helena glared at her but did as she was told.
Fury warrior women put the Ragoth slippers on and stood. They turned and headed into Fury territory at a slow walk.
“Where are they going?” Helena asked.
“They are wearing your shoes now. Your men will think they are you and follow them into Fury territory. We will run you along to the west in our boots, and it will appear to your men as if we took you into our home, where two hundred archers wait in an ambush to cut your men to ribbons of flesh and blood.”
“That will not work on our men,” Terala said, but Helena knew better. The men would be frantic to find them. They would not take long to look at the tracks before rushing headlong into Fury land. “Our men are smarter than you and yours,” Terala said.
“It always works,” Kaalalor said. “Every time.”
Helena closed her eyes and spoke to the only entity she could think of. “Leeven, mighty progenitor of Erick’s clan, please tell him to leave me. Tell him to turn back. Tell him I am dead. Do not let him chase me into Fury land. Do not let him fall to their arrows. If you will do this, I will be a beacon of pride for you. I will not let them break me. I will survive. Please, just stop him from following me to his death. Send him to his love in Tergor. Save Erick. I cannot live knowing him dead.”
She was pulled to her feet and shoved into a run. When she slowed, she was beaten. As she ran, she thought back on every time she had seen his face, realizing only then that Erick was the one she loved, realizing only then she had been in love with him all her life.
“Why are you taking us from our families, from our home?” a girl asked. She was no more than thirteen, and from her voice, Helena could tell she was terrified.
“We are liberating you from your oppressive lives. Your men are pigs, and they abuse you. In our land, in Fury land, you will live like queens. The males there know their place and serve as a male should. You will be taught to fight, when you have seen and embraced our ways, and you will live as a woman ought to live. Free and empowered.”
The warrior’s voice dripped with zeal. She was insane. They were all insane up in the peaks of the mountain where the Furies lived.
Helena kept running. There were other women from her village who had not worked the hall for two years. They were not as toned and in shape as Helena, and they were lagging behind. The sound of their beatings tore at Helena’s mind. She was about to turn to fight, to vie against these cruel women, when something flew past her head, and the warrior before her whipped suddenly left, flying and broken. Furies were being cut down by arrows. The Fury warriors grunted and closed ranks around the women they had captured.
Helena dropped to her knees and looked in the direction of a powerful roar that issued as if from a beast, off to her right. From the brush came the god of men, the wrath of the Flurryfist clan. From her right came Cochran. A Fury arrow hit his chest, driving him back. The arrow was three times larger than any arrow Helena had seen, but Cochran did not fall or even slow. He redoubled his roar and rushed the line.
Erick was suddenly above her. He grabbed two Fury warriors and with a grunt, brought their heads together. The result was a violent spray of blood and bone that drenched everything. She saw him take a dagger thrust to the stomach, but it did not stop him. His rage was too great to stem, his power too horrible to withstand. He punched every Fury face that came within reach, and everything died or exploded on the end of his fist.
She looked up at the Fury warriors regrouping, and Kaalalor snarled at her. The horrible woman mouthed something that looked like “bitch” before lifting her bow and firing directly at Helena. Erick spun, as if he could feel the danger, and within less than a blink, his hand flashed. The tip of the arrow vibrated a breath away from her forehead as Erick snatched it out of the air. He dropped it and spun, scooping up a rock and throwing. The rock flipped through the air and slammed into Kaalalor’s thigh, shattering the leg. She dropped to her other knee, and Ruggamon stood above her. With a twist of his torso and a drop of his fist, she hit the ground, her jaw a ragged mess hanging from her face.
A Fury launched herself from the brush, and with both legs slammed Rugga in the chest. She was atop him in a breath, then gripped his leg. She was moving faster than air, and in a moment, she would have his leg tangled.
Helena remembered as much as she could from tales told to her of Furies, and she realized they were remarkable grapplers. The woman had his leg and was bending it when a shield slammed the Fury warrior in the back of the neck, and she dropped. Helena saw her father reach down and pull up Ruggamon from the ground as an arrow slammed into her father’s body, and he dropped to a knee. Six Fury warriors converged on him, and Rugga stood over her daddy.
“Come, mighty warriors. Bring your lessons and your mothers with you,” Ruggamon said. “I will meet you with Leeven, and we will see what comes of our teachings.”
The six women were a flurry of movement, and Rugga met it all.
Before she could see the result of the battle, warrior women were all around her, then Erick shoved Helena to the ground and roared.
He gripped and snapped. He punched and growled. He broke everything he hit, and everything he touched was bent or shattered. Erick was the definition of speed, the definition of anger
and hate. He broke upon the Furies around him like a storm breaking upon the world. He was elemental. He was terrible. He was a thing of myth, the reckoning of a nightmare, and before him there was no surviving. Before him, there was nothing but death and blood.
When the fighting died, Ruggamon stood over Helena’s father, wiping blood from his face. Erick looked around her, seeking any sign of trouble, then Cochran lifted his gore-drenched fists into the air and shouted, “Flurryfist!”
The men around him shouted the name back, except Erick. He dropped to his knees and grabbed Helena with both hands gently. He looked into her eyes, tears in his own.
“I thought you lost to me.” His sob hitched in his chest, and she threw her arms around him. He held her, his embrace gentle, his need great, as he kissed her with the passion of a fire to engulf her, to overtake her. She felt as if she would pass out, but her need for him rose up around her.
She felt his mouth, large and desperate, take in her tongue, beckon it in, and his tongue filled her mouth. His arms wrapped around her, warm and drenched in blood, his body trembling as he held her gently, lovingly. He lifted her to his lap and wrapped his hands under her. She entangled her legs around him and felt herself moisten. She suddenly needed him. She had to have him in her and around her, needed to stare up at him as he entered her. She felt his erection, terrifyingly big, raging under her, and she shoved away her fear. She ran her fingers through his wet hair, and she pulled back from him. She needed to see him, needed to remind herself who she had around her. She looked into his green eyes and felt herself go wet.
She gasped as she fought to make words work, seemed out of breath with the words she couldn’t say. She felt her chest closing, and he looked at her.
“I love you, Helena, have loved you all my life,” he said.
She knew he was another’s. Pain radiated through her as she knew this moment could not go on forever. She would lose him. She wanted to say so much, say sorry for not knowing, for not realizing everything she was belonged to him. But words would not come to her. She knew nothing to say. There was nothing to say. She gripped him so tight her arms shook, and he lifted her into the air, swept his arms under her. He stood as she lay her head against his solid chest. She saw women standing all around her, men embracing them and helping them to their feet. Helena saw her father being helped to his feet by Cochran. Her father was brought to her, and she reached for him, gripping his hand and kissing it.
