Post by Rowenna on Apr 11, 2009 23:50:20 GMT -5
String.
The bow pressed against the thread, the single, whining stretch of sheep intestine, dried and twisted into cord, it shuttered upon itself, the string shivered and sputtered vibrations on the bow.
Strings. One string, two strings, two notes quivered together, three strings, four; the harmony.
The musician palely shrunk in the corner of the tavern-inn, his shaking hands continuing to play the dead-cat tune. It was the only sound inside the inn, the barman wiping down the bark-gray bar completely quiet, as the guest crossing the room, as the flame a’top the long, narrow sickle of wax melted the candle to the splintering counterboards—as the man in uniform sipped his ale at a table, as the old woman, huddled, reptile-backed and shawled, over the clay mug of hot-spiced cider at the table right of the door.
The tavern, all of them, went about their business. A man could see his breath, and the tavern went on, everything gray and rickety and falling apart, the guest tossed a penny into the capsized hat on the floor by the fiddler who played with bone-dry hands.
The door opened. It opened, and the wood hit the wall, and for the split second that it did, most eyes rose to the newcomer, standing with the night on the cloak the cold frost fringing the folds of the black, the fog of every breathing and not-breathing thing billowing and collapsing on the outside street.
The fiddle never stopped playing, its player the one of two who didn’t look up And when the split second was over, the silent motion resumed as though the disturbance never were.
And then the interloper entered.
And then the door closed behind.
One string, one string, one string.
Her skin was cold, but her blood was warm, this woman with the noire cloak that entered, her fair skin, her fiery eyes—silver eyes. Silver eyes. Bright, shining silver, the sheen of the moon reflected in the eyes of twenty, fire reflected in the eyes of passionate youth. Her hair ruffled in a violent red, red like blood, short like a man’s and swept to the side. She was, at once, the warm center of the room, the hearth to the inn, and her heartbeat fluttered with intension; she, with the frostbitten cheeks, her red hair cut like a man’s, fingers and boot worked with frozen mud like a man’s, and she could still curl a smile through white, cracked lips, a smile that looked like fire and devil’s tongue. She slid into a seat, graceful power, one leg coming in over the other as she surveyed the room.
She watched them all… a fledgling from the nest, a sheep from the fold, a snake from the litter of other snakes. Viper, viper, baby snake whose venom loosed more potent than the full snake. She watched; she calculated; she beamed, she though… she needed someone, some thing, some task, before she could embrace the future ahead of her, and with her head held high, she glanced them all down her nose with arrogant eyes, dexterous snakelike slits of cunning and charm.
She fast registered she was being watched. A man—the one in uniform to the left of the door—the one alone with his ale. Young, strong, and that winning smile of young men looking at younger women. She saw his leather armor first, and then she saw his dirty face.
When she slid in the chair opposite to him, his back straightened, smile never waning, eyes never breaking.
“What are you looking at?’ the c*cky lilt rolled from her tongue, that amiable size-up accent like a subtle flirt from a sexless mind.
“Just a pretty lady with argentine eyes,” he offered, indecisive if he was surprised at her approach, or simply magnetic to pleasurable company.
For a sixtieth of a second, there was a pang in the back of her mind, a bad taste, a foulness, but he did not see. He reached out his hands to gather a lock of hair.
“Such pretty tresses, yet such a strange cut—like a man’s, almost. Is that the style in this country?”
Her eyes narrowed with her convincing smile—convincing enough for him, at least.
“Isaac Ramshead!” he let her go and pounded himself on the chest proudly. “And you, milady?” Here, he seized her hands inside his own—and even though he wore leather gauntlets of his own—perhaps he could skin the rough of her skin even then, “So cold, milady!” as if he noticed the crack of her lips and the pallor of her cheeks just then. “Some spiced cider for you, lady? Or mulled wine, perhaps?”
“Ale is fine,” she pronounced to him.
He looked at her in jocular surprise.
“A strong woman of strong tastes—tender! Another ale!—I like that.”
The barman delivered the pint, and she shuffled away with a mutter, “Git it yerself next time,” and the woman warmed herself with the dry stout that went cold in her mouth and warm to her belly and face. At once, like blood, her face warmed, and the frost melted from her cheeks, and her lips warmed to the color of red. She cradled the pint in her hands like it were the object itself that warmed her, and she loosed her neck like a snake as she felt some feeling come back to her. Her eyes narrowed to his cuirass, the red kerchief around his neck.
“Why are you dressed like that?” she said, holding her eyes to the objects of question.
“Well, you see,” Isaac leaned over and arched his back, “my old man was a soldier… and his father was a soldier… but since the end of the Ancient War, there hasn’t been much use for men like me. For years, people have been saying ‘the dark ones are coming back, the dark ones are coming back’, and for years—nothing! So I went up to the general and I said, General! I’m leaving. Now, if the dark ones rise from the grave, if Gondor falls apart… you call on me.”
“And he let you go, just like that?”
“Well, he shamed my family and dishonorably discharged me from the army.”
“Oh, quaint.”
“But I know,” he waved a finger with a narrowed eye, “that if anything happens, if Gondor does begin to crumble… they will call on me.”
A pause. The woman leaned up on her elbows.
“And what are you doing all the way out in the unclaimed lands?”
“See the world!” Isaac stretched back his arms with a grin.
Red’s smile cut through like a blade through soft skin.
“So, you’re a soldier. You’re liable to call yourself a man of honor, yes?”
“Well, yes,” Isaac replied, perplexed.
“I’m looking for a man to do a job for me.” She nodded once, “you would be compensated.”
“Depends what kind,” his face was neutral.
“We have Wolves here, Sir Isaac,” Red said clearly, he could tell by her voice she didn’t mean the dumb kind, he knew exactly what kind. “There, in Kegluneq Wood. My poor uncle made a deal with the Wolves.”
“Aye, one should never deal with that sort,” Isaac interjected, but understood her every word. “Conniving beasts. I’ve heard stories from your people in this land—even the demons look like wolves,” he added grimly. “’Mother Wolf and her Cubs’, the wolf-on-your-back and the like.”
“My poor uncle thought he could deal with them,” Red continued with a twisted sadness that seemed not like true sadness, the coil to her head, the beat of her eyes. “They would guard his miniscule treasures and, in exchange, he would give them meat. In the end, they decided it was his meat they wanted.”
“Your poor uncle,” Isaac’s eyes drew to space, he saw her not, her head low, her eyes drawing skyward to his expression.
“Will you help me seek revenge?” she lulled, her eyes, her smile, they were to excited, so impassioned for what words came out of her gullet, but he couldn’t read her, couldn’t see. “He was all I ever had for family, and that cottage there I’ve left behind has every material thing I possess. I’ve never even been to this town before; and now I cannot consider going back alone.”
He thought but a moment, he mightn’t have thought a tall with the haste with which the gallant smile spread over his strong features.
“By Gondor’s seal, you have my word!” his fist pressed against the table, she eyed him, calculating through the windows of her sleek, silver eyes. “Just point me the way, and I’ll have your Wolf-heads by morning.”
“I can fight,” her turned up in her smile, her sleek smile, her clever smile—the child-being-clever grin. He looked at her comically.
“Now, I really don’t think-“
“I can fight,” her face didn’t change, but her heart fluttered with excitement. She pulled back her cloak to expose the dagger on her side. “But it is more advantageous to have a soldier at my side.”
“You need my help, then?” he clarified his purpose.
“It would be more advantageous,” she clarified.
Their ales were done. Isaac stood, his chair squeaked against the floorboards, the coins of payment spun upon the table until they fell flat on their faces. He bore her a warm, encouraging look, though a strange pit formed in his stomach as he took off out the doors and into the night.
Red took to follow. One step, two, her body a slink, a lynx, she leaned her walk in her hip like a woman, a perfect curve under the hide of her cloak, her eyes intent, focused, the door, the out—
The viper snatched her hand.
“Fire,” the woman slithered her fat tongue through ancient lips, Red’s muscle shook, the crone never saw her face. “A great life… a great pain, a great love, a great hate; a great life with many great and terrible, terrible, many great and terrible things.”
Red grit her teeth, their linked arms were linked wires of steel, shaking under the stress of the shaking earth.
One string, one string, one string.
“The Contrition Wolf will eat your heart.”
Red tore her hand away. She pressed her arm against her chest, the old woman’s eyes never moved, they sat in place, spaced forward under her shawl; the old crone’s eyes never saw Red. And Red glared daggers at the offending old hag, and with a single fluid motion, the door was open, the dead-cat tune played, and she was gone.
Crystals of ice bombarded her neck, miniscule shards that formed there from the fog, she tore her hood over her head, the fog consumed all, rolled over the town with its suffocating belly, the ice-cold belly of death.
And Isaac was there, standing as though he never missed her, standing, as though she were always right there behind.
“Show me the way, dear lady!” the soldier announced, and Red sidled by his side.
The words were cold, and the billow of smoke hovered, frozen, close to the ground, and froze up their boot buckles and lace. Red guided and trailed at once, leading from behind. The conifers towered on either side, the owl cooed, the frostbitten twigs and leaves beneath their foot cackled at the sight of them.
“I see nothing, lady,” the soldier started.
“Just a little further,” the woman led from behind. And then, “There, that clearing.”
And in the brief of distance, one could see the conifers open up to the land, the circle, the earth, the rise and fall of uneven ground, the burrow on the far side.
“I don’t see anything,” Isaac said, easing his eyes further into the place.
“Then go closer,” said she.
He edged in, ever conscious, even of the sounds of the whooping bird close by. He couldn’t shake that strange feeling in his stomach, he didn’t know why. His sword drawn, he stood on the brink, watching, waiting.
And then he saw… it. Him. The stretched out limbs of bone, ivory red, with strings of arteries lining the strips , with tendons, cartilage and scraps.
He leaned on the pads of his feet, he leaned but did not walk, with troubled eyes, to see what was once a man.
Thump. Her boot connected with his back, he fell forward at the force but did not hit ground. Twisting, the wolf pounced his side, Isaac cut across his sword and the beast fell away with a snarl.
Red strode into the clearing and drew a dagger from each side, staring down the pack that accumulated around the first—larger than dumb wolves by one hundred compact pounds of muscle and meat, fiercer than dumb wolves, their large tongues hung out as their muzzle shrunk back to reveal their line of teeth.
“So you did mean to fight then, did you?” Isaac’s sword was at the ready, he counted, one, two, three, four, five six.
“Always,” she replied.
The first Wolf, the largest, black of fur and old scars crossing over its face, the alpha male, if it were anyone’s guess, drawled in its throaty voice, “so the usurper has returned?”
And then she pulled back her arm and struck hellward, her arm a bow of muscle coming down, arrow-strike, into the muzzle of the wolf.
Her heart beat. Her heart beat fast and high, her reason took her soul, her mind moved from beast to beast, dodge, stab, parry, NOW! Her mind was electric, some chemical reaction sent ecstasy done the lines of her muscle, she moved.
Blood on her hands. The Wolf yelped, crimson-matted jowl and fur, the thin line pouring buckets of the red stuff, the lap of his tongue caught some but not all, like lapping the free-flowing leak of a keg. Its jowls widened, its eyes round in fury, it clamped on her leg.
Red bit her tongue; she grimaced, and then she laughed, she laughed as the pain shot up her leg, from the beast that could tear off her limb without thinking, she laughed at the pain that seared the flesh from ivory fangs of a monster. She punched out her blade, and the hilt stuck out the Wolf’s head. She grit her smile, and her silver eyes glistened.
“Hey!”
A dead beast lay before Isaac, and he turned to see another at Red’s back. His blade came down like a battle axe, and the thing was no more.
“Are you in pain?” he asked her, seeing the wound and the thing still, in death, locked around her leg.
Red spun on her side and her hand shot out, and the Wolf by his back tasted metal before its last breath, the woman explained in a cool, sane voice,
“Pain is trivial. Watch your back and I’ll watch mine.”
And the dance commenced. One, two three, one two—war, muscle, lunge, splurts, juicy. Circling, circling, lunge—energy, fire, she was fire, she raged with a smile, he fought along side.
As he ran his blade through the last Wolf, forehead streaming, burning and cold at once, Red fell by the burrow, past the heap of suckled bone. Her arms stretched out, she reached the length of her arm in it, her eyes wild with searching. The tips of her fingers… she scratched a surface… almost… almost…
Isaac slid the sword from the belly of the beast and hunched by its corpse.
Behind him, there, Red slid the thing out of the burrow, silver hilt, steel blade, the sleek sword glistened in moonlight. The phoenix rose up upon the blade, embossed in its steel, twisting in feathers and fire, its head meeting the tip of the blade. Her fingers gathered the flat, touching it greedily, and the stains of her hands tainted the gray steel red.
The blood on her fingers painted the bird alive.
“Xakaryas,” she whispered to the sword, as though it were a living thing, her silver eyes wide and burning. “We meet again. My dear uncle had you forged for me… but his life can keep my inheritance no longer.”
“What did the Wolf mean,” Isaac started, tracing the Wolf corpse with his fingers, “When he said—“
Slick. Xakaryas was seated within the soldier’s back, she stayed there, close by his ear.
“My name is Rowen Blackhawk,” she said, “thief and vagabond. And whomever hears my name from my own tongue will never live to tell about it.”
The bow pressed against the thread, the single, whining stretch of sheep intestine, dried and twisted into cord, it shuttered upon itself, the string shivered and sputtered vibrations on the bow.
Strings. One string, two strings, two notes quivered together, three strings, four; the harmony.
The musician palely shrunk in the corner of the tavern-inn, his shaking hands continuing to play the dead-cat tune. It was the only sound inside the inn, the barman wiping down the bark-gray bar completely quiet, as the guest crossing the room, as the flame a’top the long, narrow sickle of wax melted the candle to the splintering counterboards—as the man in uniform sipped his ale at a table, as the old woman, huddled, reptile-backed and shawled, over the clay mug of hot-spiced cider at the table right of the door.
The tavern, all of them, went about their business. A man could see his breath, and the tavern went on, everything gray and rickety and falling apart, the guest tossed a penny into the capsized hat on the floor by the fiddler who played with bone-dry hands.
The door opened. It opened, and the wood hit the wall, and for the split second that it did, most eyes rose to the newcomer, standing with the night on the cloak the cold frost fringing the folds of the black, the fog of every breathing and not-breathing thing billowing and collapsing on the outside street.
The fiddle never stopped playing, its player the one of two who didn’t look up And when the split second was over, the silent motion resumed as though the disturbance never were.
And then the interloper entered.
And then the door closed behind.
One string, one string, one string.
Her skin was cold, but her blood was warm, this woman with the noire cloak that entered, her fair skin, her fiery eyes—silver eyes. Silver eyes. Bright, shining silver, the sheen of the moon reflected in the eyes of twenty, fire reflected in the eyes of passionate youth. Her hair ruffled in a violent red, red like blood, short like a man’s and swept to the side. She was, at once, the warm center of the room, the hearth to the inn, and her heartbeat fluttered with intension; she, with the frostbitten cheeks, her red hair cut like a man’s, fingers and boot worked with frozen mud like a man’s, and she could still curl a smile through white, cracked lips, a smile that looked like fire and devil’s tongue. She slid into a seat, graceful power, one leg coming in over the other as she surveyed the room.
She watched them all… a fledgling from the nest, a sheep from the fold, a snake from the litter of other snakes. Viper, viper, baby snake whose venom loosed more potent than the full snake. She watched; she calculated; she beamed, she though… she needed someone, some thing, some task, before she could embrace the future ahead of her, and with her head held high, she glanced them all down her nose with arrogant eyes, dexterous snakelike slits of cunning and charm.
She fast registered she was being watched. A man—the one in uniform to the left of the door—the one alone with his ale. Young, strong, and that winning smile of young men looking at younger women. She saw his leather armor first, and then she saw his dirty face.
When she slid in the chair opposite to him, his back straightened, smile never waning, eyes never breaking.
“What are you looking at?’ the c*cky lilt rolled from her tongue, that amiable size-up accent like a subtle flirt from a sexless mind.
“Just a pretty lady with argentine eyes,” he offered, indecisive if he was surprised at her approach, or simply magnetic to pleasurable company.
For a sixtieth of a second, there was a pang in the back of her mind, a bad taste, a foulness, but he did not see. He reached out his hands to gather a lock of hair.
“Such pretty tresses, yet such a strange cut—like a man’s, almost. Is that the style in this country?”
Her eyes narrowed with her convincing smile—convincing enough for him, at least.
“Isaac Ramshead!” he let her go and pounded himself on the chest proudly. “And you, milady?” Here, he seized her hands inside his own—and even though he wore leather gauntlets of his own—perhaps he could skin the rough of her skin even then, “So cold, milady!” as if he noticed the crack of her lips and the pallor of her cheeks just then. “Some spiced cider for you, lady? Or mulled wine, perhaps?”
“Ale is fine,” she pronounced to him.
He looked at her in jocular surprise.
“A strong woman of strong tastes—tender! Another ale!—I like that.”
The barman delivered the pint, and she shuffled away with a mutter, “Git it yerself next time,” and the woman warmed herself with the dry stout that went cold in her mouth and warm to her belly and face. At once, like blood, her face warmed, and the frost melted from her cheeks, and her lips warmed to the color of red. She cradled the pint in her hands like it were the object itself that warmed her, and she loosed her neck like a snake as she felt some feeling come back to her. Her eyes narrowed to his cuirass, the red kerchief around his neck.
“Why are you dressed like that?” she said, holding her eyes to the objects of question.
“Well, you see,” Isaac leaned over and arched his back, “my old man was a soldier… and his father was a soldier… but since the end of the Ancient War, there hasn’t been much use for men like me. For years, people have been saying ‘the dark ones are coming back, the dark ones are coming back’, and for years—nothing! So I went up to the general and I said, General! I’m leaving. Now, if the dark ones rise from the grave, if Gondor falls apart… you call on me.”
“And he let you go, just like that?”
“Well, he shamed my family and dishonorably discharged me from the army.”
“Oh, quaint.”
“But I know,” he waved a finger with a narrowed eye, “that if anything happens, if Gondor does begin to crumble… they will call on me.”
A pause. The woman leaned up on her elbows.
“And what are you doing all the way out in the unclaimed lands?”
“See the world!” Isaac stretched back his arms with a grin.
Red’s smile cut through like a blade through soft skin.
“So, you’re a soldier. You’re liable to call yourself a man of honor, yes?”
“Well, yes,” Isaac replied, perplexed.
“I’m looking for a man to do a job for me.” She nodded once, “you would be compensated.”
“Depends what kind,” his face was neutral.
“We have Wolves here, Sir Isaac,” Red said clearly, he could tell by her voice she didn’t mean the dumb kind, he knew exactly what kind. “There, in Kegluneq Wood. My poor uncle made a deal with the Wolves.”
“Aye, one should never deal with that sort,” Isaac interjected, but understood her every word. “Conniving beasts. I’ve heard stories from your people in this land—even the demons look like wolves,” he added grimly. “’Mother Wolf and her Cubs’, the wolf-on-your-back and the like.”
“My poor uncle thought he could deal with them,” Red continued with a twisted sadness that seemed not like true sadness, the coil to her head, the beat of her eyes. “They would guard his miniscule treasures and, in exchange, he would give them meat. In the end, they decided it was his meat they wanted.”
“Your poor uncle,” Isaac’s eyes drew to space, he saw her not, her head low, her eyes drawing skyward to his expression.
“Will you help me seek revenge?” she lulled, her eyes, her smile, they were to excited, so impassioned for what words came out of her gullet, but he couldn’t read her, couldn’t see. “He was all I ever had for family, and that cottage there I’ve left behind has every material thing I possess. I’ve never even been to this town before; and now I cannot consider going back alone.”
He thought but a moment, he mightn’t have thought a tall with the haste with which the gallant smile spread over his strong features.
“By Gondor’s seal, you have my word!” his fist pressed against the table, she eyed him, calculating through the windows of her sleek, silver eyes. “Just point me the way, and I’ll have your Wolf-heads by morning.”
“I can fight,” her turned up in her smile, her sleek smile, her clever smile—the child-being-clever grin. He looked at her comically.
“Now, I really don’t think-“
“I can fight,” her face didn’t change, but her heart fluttered with excitement. She pulled back her cloak to expose the dagger on her side. “But it is more advantageous to have a soldier at my side.”
“You need my help, then?” he clarified his purpose.
“It would be more advantageous,” she clarified.
Their ales were done. Isaac stood, his chair squeaked against the floorboards, the coins of payment spun upon the table until they fell flat on their faces. He bore her a warm, encouraging look, though a strange pit formed in his stomach as he took off out the doors and into the night.
Red took to follow. One step, two, her body a slink, a lynx, she leaned her walk in her hip like a woman, a perfect curve under the hide of her cloak, her eyes intent, focused, the door, the out—
The viper snatched her hand.
“Fire,” the woman slithered her fat tongue through ancient lips, Red’s muscle shook, the crone never saw her face. “A great life… a great pain, a great love, a great hate; a great life with many great and terrible, terrible, many great and terrible things.”
Red grit her teeth, their linked arms were linked wires of steel, shaking under the stress of the shaking earth.
One string, one string, one string.
“The Contrition Wolf will eat your heart.”
Red tore her hand away. She pressed her arm against her chest, the old woman’s eyes never moved, they sat in place, spaced forward under her shawl; the old crone’s eyes never saw Red. And Red glared daggers at the offending old hag, and with a single fluid motion, the door was open, the dead-cat tune played, and she was gone.
Crystals of ice bombarded her neck, miniscule shards that formed there from the fog, she tore her hood over her head, the fog consumed all, rolled over the town with its suffocating belly, the ice-cold belly of death.
And Isaac was there, standing as though he never missed her, standing, as though she were always right there behind.
“Show me the way, dear lady!” the soldier announced, and Red sidled by his side.
The words were cold, and the billow of smoke hovered, frozen, close to the ground, and froze up their boot buckles and lace. Red guided and trailed at once, leading from behind. The conifers towered on either side, the owl cooed, the frostbitten twigs and leaves beneath their foot cackled at the sight of them.
“I see nothing, lady,” the soldier started.
“Just a little further,” the woman led from behind. And then, “There, that clearing.”
And in the brief of distance, one could see the conifers open up to the land, the circle, the earth, the rise and fall of uneven ground, the burrow on the far side.
“I don’t see anything,” Isaac said, easing his eyes further into the place.
“Then go closer,” said she.
He edged in, ever conscious, even of the sounds of the whooping bird close by. He couldn’t shake that strange feeling in his stomach, he didn’t know why. His sword drawn, he stood on the brink, watching, waiting.
And then he saw… it. Him. The stretched out limbs of bone, ivory red, with strings of arteries lining the strips , with tendons, cartilage and scraps.
He leaned on the pads of his feet, he leaned but did not walk, with troubled eyes, to see what was once a man.
Thump. Her boot connected with his back, he fell forward at the force but did not hit ground. Twisting, the wolf pounced his side, Isaac cut across his sword and the beast fell away with a snarl.
Red strode into the clearing and drew a dagger from each side, staring down the pack that accumulated around the first—larger than dumb wolves by one hundred compact pounds of muscle and meat, fiercer than dumb wolves, their large tongues hung out as their muzzle shrunk back to reveal their line of teeth.
“So you did mean to fight then, did you?” Isaac’s sword was at the ready, he counted, one, two, three, four, five six.
“Always,” she replied.
The first Wolf, the largest, black of fur and old scars crossing over its face, the alpha male, if it were anyone’s guess, drawled in its throaty voice, “so the usurper has returned?”
And then she pulled back her arm and struck hellward, her arm a bow of muscle coming down, arrow-strike, into the muzzle of the wolf.
Her heart beat. Her heart beat fast and high, her reason took her soul, her mind moved from beast to beast, dodge, stab, parry, NOW! Her mind was electric, some chemical reaction sent ecstasy done the lines of her muscle, she moved.
Blood on her hands. The Wolf yelped, crimson-matted jowl and fur, the thin line pouring buckets of the red stuff, the lap of his tongue caught some but not all, like lapping the free-flowing leak of a keg. Its jowls widened, its eyes round in fury, it clamped on her leg.
Red bit her tongue; she grimaced, and then she laughed, she laughed as the pain shot up her leg, from the beast that could tear off her limb without thinking, she laughed at the pain that seared the flesh from ivory fangs of a monster. She punched out her blade, and the hilt stuck out the Wolf’s head. She grit her smile, and her silver eyes glistened.
“Hey!”
A dead beast lay before Isaac, and he turned to see another at Red’s back. His blade came down like a battle axe, and the thing was no more.
“Are you in pain?” he asked her, seeing the wound and the thing still, in death, locked around her leg.
Red spun on her side and her hand shot out, and the Wolf by his back tasted metal before its last breath, the woman explained in a cool, sane voice,
“Pain is trivial. Watch your back and I’ll watch mine.”
And the dance commenced. One, two three, one two—war, muscle, lunge, splurts, juicy. Circling, circling, lunge—energy, fire, she was fire, she raged with a smile, he fought along side.
As he ran his blade through the last Wolf, forehead streaming, burning and cold at once, Red fell by the burrow, past the heap of suckled bone. Her arms stretched out, she reached the length of her arm in it, her eyes wild with searching. The tips of her fingers… she scratched a surface… almost… almost…
Isaac slid the sword from the belly of the beast and hunched by its corpse.
Behind him, there, Red slid the thing out of the burrow, silver hilt, steel blade, the sleek sword glistened in moonlight. The phoenix rose up upon the blade, embossed in its steel, twisting in feathers and fire, its head meeting the tip of the blade. Her fingers gathered the flat, touching it greedily, and the stains of her hands tainted the gray steel red.
The blood on her fingers painted the bird alive.
“Xakaryas,” she whispered to the sword, as though it were a living thing, her silver eyes wide and burning. “We meet again. My dear uncle had you forged for me… but his life can keep my inheritance no longer.”
“What did the Wolf mean,” Isaac started, tracing the Wolf corpse with his fingers, “When he said—“
Slick. Xakaryas was seated within the soldier’s back, she stayed there, close by his ear.
“My name is Rowen Blackhawk,” she said, “thief and vagabond. And whomever hears my name from my own tongue will never live to tell about it.”