A Tale of Revenge Ch. 02

She was a killer now, just like them. Suddenly her blood roared in her ears and she felt like she might faint. A small hand touched her shoulder and she leapt back from the contact. Anna had forgotten about the woman from the alley. She held her tattered dress against her chest and stares up at Anna with wide eyes. Her other hand was held up in front of her in a gesture one might use when approaching an animal that one wasn't sure of.

"Thank you," the woman said in a small voice. Anna didn't reply at first, still trying to make sense of what had just happened. She looked down at the man again, feeling bile rise in her throat before looking away. The woman seemed to understand Anna was not in the habit of stabbing would-be rapists in the street. "You saved me from him. He deserved what he got. Thank you."

Anna shook her head, finding the lump in her throat hard to speak around. She looked down, noticing for the first time that her dress was splashed with blood and her entire arm was soaked in it.

"Come with me," the woman spoke again, "I live just over there. The bastard caught me coming back from a birth. I'll fix you up so you don't go trailing this all over town."

Anna allowed herself to be steered towards the woman's home by her un-bloodied arm. She still felt numb and unresponsive; allowing this woman to take charge for a minute would have been a relief if she could feel anything at the moment. Before she knew it the woman was sitting her down at a table and bringing a large bucket of water and a basin over. She moved with the studied movement of a woman accustomed to blood, though Anna was sure there was a difference between a woman in labor and one who had just stabbed a man in the street. The woman spoke in a soothing tone; her name was Mirabelle, a local midwife. Her good for nothing husband had given up waiting for the birth to finish and headed to a pub instead of staying to accompany his wife home.

Anna let the woman's voice flow over her, feeling bits of warmth seep back into her rigid body. The woman began undoing the bodice of her dress, which was completely soaked. Anna's hands flew to stop her.

"Lovely, you can't expect to wear this again. I'll get you a change of clothes. We need to get you cleaned and changed."

Anna nodded dumbly at Mirabelle, allowing her to remove her cloak and dress. Her undergarments had been miraculously spared the copious amounts of blood from her thicker outer layers. Mirabelle gently washed Anna's skin until the basin was bright red. Once she was satisfied, Mirabelle bustled over to the far side of the room to look for clothing that might fit her.

"I think I only have some men's clothes from a boarder a while back. If you stay overnight I have some wash that might be dry by morning."

Anna shook her head. "Pants are fine," she rasped, realizing her throat was paper dry. Mirabelle went to get her some mead she had stored away from where her husband could find it and Anna worked her way into a pair of leather breeches that she could tuck into her boots and a coarse men's shirt. It dipped low in the front to where her breast band started with a tie to keep the neck together. She kept her father's belt with his daggers. She placed the knife she had just used back with the others after wiping it clean with the wet cloth. Mirabelle had also supplied a hooded cloak. As long as Anna kept her hood up and changed her gait she could probably pass as a boy.

Mirabelle pushed a cup in front of Anna. "Drink up, it'll help the shakes." Anna held out a trembling hand and took the cup. Mirabelle gave her an apprising look. "Seems you aren't just a spirit of vengeance coming to those of us in distress. You look like I did after my first breech birth."

Anna could only nod, feeling numb again. She drank the sour liquid quickly, making her limbs tingle with the feel of alcohol. She looked up at Mirabelle's face, straight into the woman's searching gaze. Suddenly the room felt stifling and small. Anna lurched from her seat and backed her way towards the door.

"I have to go," she stammered. Mirabelle only nodded slightly. Anna turned to go, but paused at the door, her hand gripping the handle. "He raped my sister." She said quietly, almost more to herself than to the other woman.

"He deserved what he got," Mirabelle said from behind her. "You saved me and countless others he would have done this to. Remember that."

Anna couldn't bear facing the woman again. Part of her just didn't believe her. She nodded at the door and slipped back into the night. She fled in the other direction from the body that surely hadn't been discovered yet. She didn't remember finding her way back to the inn or clambering up the roof back into her room.

She fell to her knees in the center of the room, looking down at her hands. A terrible fear began to grow inside her. What had she done? She had killed a man. The feeling of the blade slicing through his chest was hideously easy to recall. Her muscles still remembered the jarring feeling of blade on bone and the final resistance of his heart muscle as her knife sliced deep into his chest. He had been kneeling, injured and unarmed at her feet. She hadn't needed to kill him. She could have cursed him, maimed him, blinded him, anything but take his life. Instead she had cut into his chest like he was a pig for the slaughter.

He is a pig! She shouted to herself. He raped all those woman! He raped June, and probably so many more. He deserved what he got. Even Mirabelle said so.

You're a killer, another voice said in her mind. You have the power to enact your vengeance without taking a life and you didn't even try. Just ran him through like an animal.

Hot tear streamed down her face. She had killed a man, even one as evil as him, and a piece of her soul felt torn. She suddenly felt this overwhelming urge to purge herself somehow. But how? How can you take back something so irreparable as taking a life?

Without fully considering her actions, Anna reached into her belt, withdrawing another of her father's knives. The sick feeling inside her would not be satisfied with self-loathing. No, she realized, she would have to suffer for her actions.

With no hesitation, Anna raised the knife in her right hand and brought it down swiftly in her left palm, which was lying against the floor. The blade traveled between the small bones of her hands, through muscle and skin, and lodged itself in the floorboards pinning her hand in place. She let out a small cry of pain, willing herself not to wake the others in the inn with the loud scream she wished to release.

The pain was immense, the flesh of her hand burned, the muscles inside screamed as the blade scraped against the tear it had made. Anna closed her eyes, tears still spilling from underneath her lashes. She gripped the handle and yanked the blade out, cradling her injured hand in her lap and dropping the knife with a clatter. She whimpered as the pain shot up her arm. But this was only a tiny fraction of what he had felt. How was this small injury meant to make up for what she had done?

Anna sobbed again, forcing her injured hand into a fist, causing the searing pain to double as the muscles strained and her fingernails dug into the open flesh. She felt light-headed with pain, blood dripped out of the back of her hand onto the floor between her legs. Her other hand grasped for the knife; the pain would purge her of her deed.

"I think that's quite enough."

Anna's eyes flew open. Once again she found herself on her knees in front of the god. He stood by the door to her room, glowing softly in the darkness. The sight of him jolted Anna from her shock. She looked into his face and followed his eyes to her mangled hand that was still clutched on the floor.

"I killed a man," she said, not knowing what else to say by way of explanation.

"I am well aware. While I can't say I'm surprised I must express some disappointment. Twice in less than an hour you've managed to damage my property."

He was referring to her. The way he said it made Anna cringe. She felt powerful when he was not there but as soon as he was present, the façade was removed. She was just some tortured soul with no control. The sickening realization hit her hard. He was right. She was damaging his property.

"I had to purge myself," she muttered hastily. "I feel wrong from his death. I just needed to..." she trailed off. He looked almost amused at her explanations.

"I know what you feel you need to do. You want to be punished for taking a life, even one as filthy and useless as that man's. That's fine. You will be punished. But you are too bold. You do not choose the punishment. I do. You do not damage this body, I do. It is not yours to maim. Just as your soul is not yours to begin to tear apart." His voice sounded almost bored, like he wasn't ripping apart her sense of self, reinforcing his dominance and the necessity of her complete capitulation to him.

Anna warred again with her new reality. Part of her was desperate to submit, to relinquish control to someone else, be free from the weight of carrying her thoughts. But this was a small part. The headstrong girl who had defied her mother's weaving lessons for her father's bow and her grandparents' letters, cursed the god's ownership.

Anna squeezed her hand again, the pain shot up her arm and she felt faint again. It had been her choice and action that caused this pain. It was a small act of rebellion to be sure, but it filled her with some twisted satisfaction to continue her self-made injury.

The god chuckled. The pain in her arm evaporated. Anna gaped as she looked into her intact palm which seconds before had been dripping blood all over the floor. The pool below it had also disappeared as if the injury had never happened. She raised her blazing eyes to his, once again her anger getting the better of her.

She was about to snap at him when he laughed again. "You do know you don't actually have to say anything out loud? You are practically shouting in your head."

Anna got up slowly. He had access to her mind of course. He could stifle any rebellion before it started. She was again confronted with a dizzying loss of self. Her mind, which she had so foolishly traded to him, meant that she was trapped whenever he was there. There could be no fighting him.

"Clever girl." His tone was condescending, making her anger flare again but she bit her tongue. She had nothing to say to him. She met his gaze, willing him to leave her so she could gather her thoughts without the added weight of his presence. He simply shook his head at her. "It seems that you have a hard road ahead of you. You will learn to accept this. Most put up less of a fight after they had gone so far in with me on a deal. Perhaps you need a bit more oversight than most. We can't have you forgetting again can we?"

"I'm sorry to have damaged your property," Anna said, sounding terribly unconvincing. "I will work harder to control myself next time." That part was true. She still felt sick over the death of that man.

All at once the sensations that had run through her arm as she stabbed him, the feeling of his hot blood on her arm, came rushing back with horrifying precision. Her stomach rolled with Mirabelle's mead. She turned, finding the empty chamber pot at the end of the bed just in time to empty the contents of her stomach.

The god waited for her heaving to subside. "I have my doubts." He sounded decidedly unsympathetic. Anna didn't know what else to say. She pushed the pot under the bed and sat on the thin mattress, clasping her hands in front of her. Her face felt hot from embarrassment. She wished he would leave so she could pull herself together. Once again she felt at the mercy of the roiling emotions in her mind. She had wanted to kill them all, feel their lives end in her hands, but now she wasn't sure. The sickening feeling came back.

"Well there is that at least," the god spoke again. She dared look up at him. His blue eyes glowed subtly in the darkness. His facial expression was hard to make out but his tone sounded vaguely resigned. "But it can't be that easy. It's important to consider your punishment."

Anna was incredibly uneasy. Somehow stabbing herself in the hand had been much more palatable than uncertainty of a punishment from the god. What would he do to her?

She didn't hear him approach but suddenly he was right in front of her, holding out his hand expectantly. Anna gulped. It was so much worse than just being taken. She had to submit herself to this, to take his hand of her own accord. Of course he knew that. It took an enormous amount of will to force her hand to his. Her fingers had barely touched his skin when the feeling of power rippled across her skin. She couldn't quite place the sensation though it felt as if dry water was flowing over her skin leaving a prickling sensation all over her.

No sooner had his hand closed around hers, she felt a jolt, and once again she was flying through the darkness. She landed on her knees on a forest floor. The ground beneath her was covered in dry leaves. The god stood in front of her, his arms crossed, his face impossible to see.

"Disrobe," he ordered. Anna glared at him but moved to comply. She shed her boots and breeches. The man's shirt she had adopted fell well below her waist. She took a moment to enjoy the last shred of modesty before removing it as well. When she stood bare before him the god approached her slowly. She felt fear and revulsion rise in her throat. When his fingertips came to rest on her collarbone she actually shuddered. Every fiber screamed 'run' and yet she stood stock-still.

He continued unhurried, guiding her long, dark curls behind her ear with his other hand. The intimacy of the motion made her want to jerk away. It took all of her power to stay still as his other fingers began tracing the outside of one breast, down her side. "Perhaps you will learn faster than I give you credit for. I do love to be surprised."

His hand continued to wander over her body. Unlike last time, when she had sold herself to him, his touch didn't soothe her the way it had before. Now she felt distinctly vulnerable and, in turn, anger and fear fought for the top slot. Before she had been so near the brink that any sign of kindness had seemed infinite. This time the anticipation of his punishment made her wish for solitude again. The god sighed and stepped away from her. She tried to hold back on feeling grateful for the reprieve. Something about his sigh bothered her; it seemed far too human to come from his implacable self.

The god snapped his fingers and suddenly thick rope wound its way around both of her wrists, pulling them together and upward in front of her. The other end wrapped itself around a low branch of a tree so she was hanging, barely able to stand on the balls of her feet, her back to him as she faced the bark of the trunk. Fear took over immediately. She couldn't see his movements behind her, she couldn't even hear him to gauge his distance. She struggled against the rope that bit into her wrists. Her feet slipped on the soft forest floor beneath them. She stilled, her head fell forward with her hair, covering her front but leaving her back bare and vulnerable.

For a moment nothing happened. The clearing held only the sounds of her fast, anxious breathing. Anna's anxiety rose as he delayed whatever it was he had in store for her. Would he leave her here to hang like this? Already her arms were cramping. Was this her punishment? Was he even still there?

Anna heard the sound of something moving fast through the air a fraction of a second before searing pain lit up across her back. Her breath abandoned her scream before she could form it. Again the sound came and fire burned her skin, this time from her other shoulder downwards. Her body jerked but she hadn't had time to find her voice again. She felt like the pain was forcing the air from her lungs. She gasped, gulping air just before the third stroke hit her back, lower, the pain spreading along the top of her bottom. Finally, the fourth time he hit her she managed a small scream of pain.

Sweat broke out across her body as the beating continued. Each time the whip fell, a line of fire erupted under her skin. Each time a lash crossed another, the pain felt triply worse. It soon became impossible to tell the difference as her back became a crisscross of welts. Her voice grew hoarse and her muscles shook with exhaustion. The blows still struck her back, legs and behind as he systematically punished her. The light of early dawn spread through the clearing and the sound of birds mocked the burning pain radiating across her back.

Finally he stopped. The only sound from the pair was her whimpering pant. This pain was somehow much worse than the wound she had inflicted on herself. Under the physical pain was a deeper, shameful feeling of having been punished by another. The unpredictability of his strikes had added an anxiety to the punishment that she could never manage in herself. The fight was gone from her. She accepted his punishment of her body for the piece of her soul she had forever destroyed in the alley. She let her eyes close. In her exhaustion and pain she felt a strange sense of peace as the ache in her back began to throb deeply.

The ropes around her wrists disappeared and her body crumpled to the ground. She struggled to lift her upper body from the damp leaves beneath her. Her arms shook with the effort; her back, buttocks and legs burned anew with the multitude of welts.

"Try to keep this in mind the next time you confront one of these men. If you cannot learn to control yourself then there will be further punishment. If you take this too far, I will collect on our bargain before you are done." His voice betrayed no emotion and no sign of his physical exertion from the beating. Anna felt small, human and weak in his presence. The hurt in her body was spreading as her muscles protested her movements.

She felt his hand on her shoulder, a familiar jolt of power, darkness, and then she was back on the floor of her room at the inn and he was gone. She struggled to move to the bed. The entire back of her body screamed in protest when the skin contacted the sheets. She finally settled on her stomach above the bedding. She was dimly aware of a sticky dampness between her thighs, but when she moved to discover the source, the pain was too much. She registered the sensation and fell into a deep sleep as the city woke up around her.

Her dream was different this time, more of a memory. She was younger, maybe eleven. The children were playing in a deep bathing pool created by the spring thaw, yelping as they pushed each other in the frigid water on the unseasonably hot spring day. She stood apart, feeling for the first time like she was too old to strip down and join the others. Over the winter her chest had started to grow, leaving painful bumps below her once flat nipples. Her mother had seen her grimace when she was face down on the floor, fetching something that had rolled underneath a low wall and explained that she was beginning the process of becoming a woman. All of it made her feel both above the frolicking children, and horribly self-conscious.

The older boys had no problem stripping down and joining the younger ones. She sighed as she watched them cool themselves in the clear water. Geoff, a boy a bit older than she, spotted her sitting above them and motioned for her to join. She simply shook her head, burying the embarrassment she felt under a bored mask.

"You too good to share the water with us now miss priss?" Geoff called, drawing the others' attention to her presence.

"Just you Geoff. I don't need to bath in there now that you've pissed in it," she called back, her temper getting the better of her. He had always been a bit of a bully. She thought her posturing would cover for her insecurity. It didn't help that she and her sister were always the target of cruel jokes, their coloring was decidedly different than most of the other families and different meant wrong.