Vol.4, Ch.4, P.5
Despite Frieda’s threatening advance, Tallien yet hung his jaw at my words for who knows why. But snapping to his senses, the lord riled himself, baring the blade at Ina’s neck more fully for us all to see.
“B-begone…! Begone!” he barked. “Any nearer, and it be your hands her blood shall stain!”
Afore us all was no mareschal, sitting or former—not in conduct, not in character. Preposterously, however, the man himself saw no absurdity in this scene of his making. For it was his King- and Deiva-given right, his prerogative as a person of unmatched eminence. All others were but board pieces to be played, subjects to be savoured and slain at pleasure. Such did Bartt Tallien adamantly believe.
Frieda, for her part, would have none of it. Sighing with distaste, the freelance yielded not a step in her slow approach.
“Begone, I say!! If you wish no wound upon this wench!!” Tallien repeated, spitting with every word. A clear threat his desperate appeal might’ve seemed, that Ina’s life was at his absolute mercy, but such could not be any further from the truth.
For he had not the means.
Were it a knife in his hand, sure. But the blade he bore was a bull in reach and heft by comparison, a lavish length of metal more fit to hang over the hearth than hew a foe’s head. Indeed, it very well seemed plucked from some display along his miserable way here, and altogether, to have it slit a throat so close at hand would require far more finesse than was in the lord to muster or even imagine—and certainly not in the slice of a second as the situation demanded. Thus had Tallien tried, Frieda would’ve severed off his sword arm long before the lordly edge could let a single bead of Ina’s blood.
But as it happened, such was not necessary.
“Ngahh!!” Tallien yelped, writhing asudden and releasing his sword. As it clamoured to the carpet, so did Ina twist herself free and fly to our side. Carola followed suit, scurrying from her corner and joining us as we watched Tallien trembling whence he stood. There the lord was, clasping one hand tight over the other… for the latter was ablood. Scrawled upon its skin: a bite wound, fresh and deep—a token of Ina’s courage.
Tallien scowled back, beholding his two hostages taking shelter behind the rebel he so abhorred.
“Who’s the ‘wounded wench’ now, o Lord?” Frieda coldly mocked him. “A right nasty mark that’ll leave—on flesh an’ dignity both.” Tallien furrowed his face further as it reddened with rage and humiliation. “Come. Fetch that sword o’ yours,” the freelance goaded the lord. “Or what? Babe’s li’l boo-boo hurts too much for battle, now?”
And there, Frieda halted afore Tallien, waiting for him to do exactly as she bade. Not the soundest course of action on the battlefield, her mercy. Only, mercy this was not, but indignance—a time to torment the tormentor. Not for the wrongs wrought upon Frieda herself, no, but rather, upon the two maidens trembling at my back.
In her letter to me had Frieda revealed herself a close acquaintance of Ina and company, a connection formed even before the Albeck incident. And it was after that tragedy that the three women had nursed one another, to mend the wounds inflicted by so marring a memory; and in the course of the companions’ counselling had their bonds deepened to an unbreakable sisterhood.
Thus did their lives brighten slowly thereafter: days lived earnestly, one at a time, healing hand-in-hand. And what did this viscount think to do but break it all to pieces. To seize them, to gaol them, to repeat upon them the wretched things that had so polluted their lives mere moons ago, all in service to his insatiable lust. All, whilst fully apprised of their pains, their scars.
What, then, could be left to Frieda in this moment? To the woman whose heart sooner wept for others than herself?
Indeed: indignance.
Undammable indignance for the damnable dog afore her.
“Quit your whimp’ring,” she pressed him. “The sword—now.”
“Gh…! Blasted brigand, you!” Tallien seethed back. “To think: you were but a bedfellow to that rebel! All along!” Flustered as a boiled beet, the former mareschal groped for his sword, and with bloody hands that shuddered from his own indignance, raised it ready.
“Frettin’ an’ fumin’ on the field o’ battle—a sorry sight, if I’ve ever seen one,” Frieda uttered. Words from the woman, for whom but the woman herself, a fencer reflecting aloud the folly of her fury. But Tallien, misconstruing it an insult instead upon his noble person, erupted with wrath.
“Off with your head!! Houndling harlot, yee───eu!!”
Brandishing sword and scream both, the viscount broke forth. Frieda met him headlong, her own blade held low. This was no fair match. Scarce espying his opponent’s sheer speed, Tallien brought his blade bearing down with all recklessness. But as he did, Frieda was already in his face.
“Ouh!?” he gasped, glimpsing her pressing close against his breast, as though to hide herself in his swinging arms. But the sight of her disappeared from him as quickly as it had come; Frieda’s form flashed away in a half-circle, only to be seen again right behind her mark. All the while—sheeng!—the hiss of her swift sword rang in our ears.
“Oh?” Sig muttered from the side, his breath deep with an awe most seldom of him.
Next came a sound heard here once before: a blade falling unto the carpet.
“Khah…?” Tallien coughed. “Hhk… khaauh…?”
A sanguine plume spewed from his lips. He lowered his eyes to see the gorge newly gashed into his bosom, never knowing how it got there, but losing asudden all strength, he sooner tottered to his knees and crumpled flat on the floor. There, he gurgled and gulped his own blood, and after clawing away at the carpet, fell to an absolute silence.
Bartt Tallien.
Former mareschal to the 5th, lord to this viscounty of Londosius…
…and now, a corpse.
“Ina, Carola—my lambkins,” said Frieda, turning our way. “You’ve no hurt on ya, I hope?”
“Frieda!” the two captives cried as they left my shadow and flew into the freelance’s arms. And there, the three women embraced, safe and sound again from another ordeal. A moment as lovesome to see as it was long-expected, unmarred not in the least by the lifeless body at their feet.
With lord slain and captives secured, what was left to us was escape. Nary a knight ought remain to harry us, but not so with the guards. Another gauntlet of them seemed in order… Still, I worried little. After all, whether knight or guard, few are they who can re-muster under the banner of a dead and rotting lord. Indeed, our light at the end of this tunnel was shining yet.
“Pardon, Ser Rolf…” said Ina, looking to me, “…but, it seems too much a miracle to meet you again… not least here and now.”
“Frieda’s writ to me of your plight. The deal, kidnapping, the ransoming—all of it,” I explained. “But other business has also bidden my coming. Sig here and myself—we stand now with the Nafílim, you see. And the battle at the border—it well-expects us.”
“With th… the Nafílim?” Ina almost gasped. “The tallest of tales, that.”
And of twists, I’m sure. Ina’s eyes were wide with awe at the revelation, and rightfully so. What was peculiar, however, was that mine espied in them not a wisp of scorn or suspicion. No; surprise was all it was, one echoed to exactness in Carola’s own countenance.
Only…
“S-Ser Rolf…” she called to me, sounding uncertain. “If… if such truly be your situation, then there is something you must needs know.”
“What is it, Carola?” I asked.
“The details ought come later, but… just this evening, I overheard the knight-guards at the door muttering a strangeness. Something about… ‘splitting the legion’,” Carola recalled. “I know little of martial matters, but… might this bode ill for you, Ser Rolf?”
…Split?
Split, and face us where else? It was upon the border plains where battle was to break. The Víly-Gorka alliance against the 3rd’s knightly legion…
Alliance?
Had our foes formed one of their own? To flank us at unawares? Nay… Too far away the other Orders were, and even so, I’d heard no word of such movement.
The 3rd themselves, then?
Juholt and his knights, scheming some pincer attack?
If so, then there was little cause for concern. After all, Volker himself had taken leave from Arbel to lead our forces. Against a commander’s eye as keen as his, and upon so flat and open a battlefield, such deceit was dead in the water, a fact the Order themselves ought be aware of, not least in light of Londosius’ recent defeats.
But if not that, then what…?
“Those knights…” Carola continued, “…they seemed dreadfully hushed about it. ‘Don’t tell the others,’ one said. And another: ‘The… north… is ours’…”
…“Don’t tell the others”?
Had some disagreement, some discord arisen amongst Order command?
And… the north…?
…Wait.
No!
A chill ran down my spine. And for a moment, I sensed afore my eyes a motive in motion, a secret flow bearing poison into our waters. Our forces, our alliance… our wills…
…might have all been outwitted.
“They wouldn’t dare…!” I muttered, and snapping to Sig, gasped out our next destination: “Balasthea…!”
∵
Untended grasses swayed in the wind. Empty houses sagged, silent.
Home this once was. And to the little girl, a memory, sweet… and bitterly burnt. This day found her returned to the village of her birth, an abode once brimming with life, now left to ruin. But in the time she had been away, sheltering by house and hearth of Hensen, a monument had been erected here in memoriam.
There in the old and empty square it stood: a stone grim and grey, tall in the sunlight and utterly still upon the verdure. All due care had been given to its construction, that the dearly departed remembered here would know in their troubled slumber some semblance of solace. And for them did graven words, too, wish a peaceful repose: a simple elegy, inscribed into the stone and penned after the manner of the Nafílim spirituality. And though she recited them rather clumsily, being so young, the girl minded full their every meaning.
But one thing was unwrit, and that was the stone’s first memory here. A memory of Hensen’s new war-chief, his callused hands giving the stone its final push into its eternal post, as behind him grieved the Vílungen braves. Indeed, it was by the begging from this greenhorn war-chief that the monument was realised. Or so the girl had heard, despite the grown-ups’ efforts to steer from her ear any hearsay of the war and its woes. And from their sombre gossip, the girl had got wind, too, of this war-chief’s name.
“Rolf”.
How warm it was to whisper, how enheartening to hear. Qualities most square with the warrior himself, if the carrytales were to be believed. Ask them, and readily would they relate his unearthing of the vain victims at Arbel’s concentration camp, and his seeing to their homeward procession.
Would that their every bone and belonging were buried in their rightful places. But the sad truth was, so confused, so decayed, so countless, and altogether so lamentable were the remains that it was simply impossible to put any name or memory to them. Whence they hailed, to whom they belonged, for whom they once yearned—threads, all long-severed… or frayed beyond recall. What lingered was only the loss in Nafílim hearts, a void gaping greatest here in this village, whereupon a tragedy moons ago had seen nigh on every soul put to the sword or upon the slavers’ waggons. Thus had the new war-chief seen fit to gather and enshrine them in this place, so that at the very, very least, the Vílungen lost could be found again, here under beds of Vílungen soil.
The little girl looked up at the solemn stone, and after a quiet moment, cast her eyes down upon the earth.
There they were.
Slumbering.
Her mother, her father, her brother—even her elder sister, who had met her ailing end at the camp—they were all of them there under her feet. Her family, finally together again, dreaming the longest dream.
Bending down to her knees, the little girl pressed hand and head to the stone, and slowly closed her eyes.
There.
There they all were.
Smiling.
Mama. Papa.
Brother. Sister.
You have this good grave to keep you now.
May you rest at last. May you sleep well.
I wish… I wish we were together for longer…
…for many more springs… for many more summers…
…but… not yet.
Someday.
But not yet.
Cold was the stone against her brow and palms. But in that moment, the girl could very nearly feel from it a familiar heat, like the warmth of an embrace, a tickle at the pits, a pat on the back, a caress upon the crown… a holding of hands.
Everyone…
Yes. I’m here. I’m back. I’m home.
It was hard…
…but I’m here now, home again.
Home with Eva.
So please, don’t worry for me.
I’m not lonely anymore.
It may be hard…
…but I can try now, I think.
Try, and live again.
A prayer given. A story told.
Of survival, of reunion, of enduring in this wintry world.
And…
I gave up.
Yes…
Once upon a time… I gave up.
But then, someone saved me.
From the dark, from the cold…
…he saved me.
And helped me.
And healed me.
And taught me.
And…
…and…
“…gave me… a new heart…”
The girl opened her eyes.
Pit. Pat. Pit. Pat.
And saw herself in tears.
His hands, large and callused; his back, tall and staunch; his heart, wide and warm as the summer plains—all these she remembered as though he were there right beside her. As though they were yet in their little home, living out their little days.
And in that moment, very barely, and beyond all the tears sodding her sight, the girl saw him again.
“…”
Or so she thought. What laid in her vision instead was an offering of flowers. At the foot of the stone: bouquets brilliant and brimming. And nestled amongst them were four bottles, porcelain and petit.
‘…there’s lemonade…
made only in Hensen…
…my family…
we all loved it…’
‘…Let’s have some, then…
…Together… in Hensen…’
Words once exchanged in the woods.
Upon a coldening night. Upon an uncertain quest.
Afore the little girl, however, there was one certainty: the bottles were as she remembered them, sold in Hensen and filled with her beloved lemonade.
Four bottles. Four deceased. Yet, none other save her surviving sister could have known.
Had he been here? Was he here?
Sure enough, the girl had tried very hard to search him out during her stay in Hensen. But it had been for naught. Many thoughts haunted her thereafter. That beasts upon the plains might have overmastered him; that somewhere, the pyres of war might have swallowed him up—thoughts she had wrestled against every day and every night; thoughts that ever left her dour and defeated.
But such worries were now as wind.
For he yet drew breath.
Just as he once had upon this spot, anear this very stone.
The girl shivered, shoulders and all. Tears once seeping now surged. A heart once a sombre moon was now a searing sun. Languor turned to longing, a tide into a torrent, crashing unto every corner of her bosom.
Come back…!
Please, come back…!
Please…!
So yelled her yearning, with every beat of her heart, with every breath from her lips.
Still in tears, the little girl looked up to the towering blue and set her eyes southwards. In Hensen he once was, but not anymore. Here amidst the husks of her home he once was, but not anymore. And if neither here nor there he was, then perhaps farther south, where stood fort and fiefdom. So thought the little girl.
It all sorted squarely enough. From here onwards spanned Nafílim country, and only south would spare a Man any sense of security, albeit Arbel and its surroundings were no land of Londosius any longer—such, too, the girl had heard.
Southwards had he gone, then. Southwards it must be. To where they had once lived. To the stronghold where he had strained and strived on the daily—an occupation perhaps continuing to this moment.
Let us go, then.
Let us set out.
And there, meet him once more.
The little girl clasped her hands tight against her bosom. The decision was made. What was left was to broach it to her sister Eva, and tell her:
…I miss him…
…I miss him so very much…
Please… let me… let me meet him…!
The tiny candle in her breast was there set ablaze, bright with a new resolve.
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