The Chronicles: Three Sisters 10

I was proud of Guenna, for her initiative. Without her, we wouldn't be here. I marvelled again at the luck that had brought Nameless and Giedra - and the others - to us. But mainly those two.

And I was proud of Yevna - even as I wondered what was going through her mind at this very moment.

I studied the men around the fire, especially those dark shapes with their backs to me. I could see a few faces, lit by the firelight, but I didn't recognize any of them. I chose my target, hoping that it was not the same man chosen by one of the women.

Then I saw Nameless stand, and draw her bow. And I heard the deep Twung! sound as Yevna loosed an arrow.

I stood, drew back, and let fly. Guenna and Giedra did the same.

My arrow struck home - I knew it, instantly. And there was a shriek from the right side. Yevna or Nameless had hit, too.

I drew a second arrow, nocked it, pulled and loosed. There was no need for commands, or communication. We could see men around the fire, beginning to come to their feet, slowly - so slowly. Plenty of targets.

I missed. But there was another cry, off to the right, again.

- "Forward!" shouted Guenna.

According to her plan, we all took three paces towards the fire, and shot again.

Three more steps. Draw, and loose. Nock, and let fly. I hit something - someone. And my next arrow made contact, as well.

Giedra let loose an unearthly howl.

Nameless surged forward, drawing her long knife. I did the same, tugging at my sword.

And then I saw him.

Kestutis, with his arm around the shoulders of one his men. I recognized him by his long blonde hair, and by his size. They were headed for their boats.

Bacho's son screamed as an arrow sprouted from his asscheek. He staggered, almost pulling down the man helping him.

Nameless reached them first. As Kestutis sank to the ground, his comrade straightened up, and reached for his weapon.

Too late. Nameless stabbed him in the stomach, then whipped her arm back, and stabbed him in the throat.

She dropped, with both knees, on Kestutis' back. Seizing his long hair, she pulled his head back ...

- "NO!!" screamed Yevna.

Nameless did not deliver the killing blow. There was no hurry.

There were seven men down, around the fire. Three were only seriously wounded - one had three arrows in him. Giedra slit the throat of one of the wounded.

- "Wait." I told her.

Both boats were still on the point. No one had escaped. We had time, then, to enjoy our moment of victory - and our revenge.

I looked at Guenna. She shook her head. Nameless, also, did not seem interested in finishing off the wounded. We left them to Giedra.

Kestutis had a bloody bandage wrapped around his lower leg, where Hedyn had cut him. And he had an arrow protruding from his buttock.

Nameless climbed off. Yevna flipped him over, with the toe of her boot. The arrow in his ass caught on the ground, and Kestutis cried out again.

- "Don't ... don't." he said. "My father ... we can pay ransom."

He was crying. There was a great gob of snot on his mustache. The massive, powerful warrior I had faced on the Hill was reduced to a pathetic, snivelling coward. Had he won, he would have showed us no mercy - but now he begged for it.

- "Wait." I said, again.

- "He's mine." said Yevna. "I claim him."

Kestutis moaned.

- "He's all of ours, Yevna." I said. "You, most of all - maybe." I looked my daughter in the eye. "But we all have a claim on him."

We all pulled back a few steps. He wasn't going anywhere.

What ensued was one of the strangest conversations I have ever been part of. The end result of it was even stranger.

Yevna would not concede at all. "He's mine." she insisted.

I took my daughter a few steps away, just out of hearing of the others.

- "I love you, Yevna." I said. "I've never known how to thank you, for saving me, that night. For saving all of us." She knew very well what night I was referring to. Every time Yevna stuck her tongue into the gap where her front teeth should have been, she was reminded of it.

"But this is important to Guenna, and to Giedra. I'm not sure what it means to Nameless. But you know what it means to me."

- "I have to do this, Father." she said.

- "It doesn't have to be one or the other, sweetheart." I said. "This can be for Inisian .. for your Mother ... for Iarn. For Dengelle. And for everyone else this bastard has hurt."

I explained what I was thinking about. It was hard work, persuading my eldest to see it my way. Finally, though, she gave in. Then I had to repeat much of what I'd said to the others. Guenna frowned a bit, but they all agreed.

Then each of us, in turn, told the others what we wanted. It was the most gruesome, most chilling conversation I had ever been part of. And it was my idea.

Once we had all spoken, it was obvious to everyone how we would proceed, and in what order. We stood around Kestutis, in a rough circle. Nameless finished tying his hands behind him, and then rolled our captive onto his back.

Guenna went first. She stood over him, and spat in his face.

- "My mother did you no harm - ever." she said. "And my brother tried to be your friend - despite everything you did to him."

Guenna did nothing more, except to let Kestutis see her scorn.

Giedra was more direct. She sat on Kestutis' chest, pretty much immobilizing him.

- "You probably won't remember," she said, "but you raped my friend, and another girl. It was near Nareven."

Giedra stuffed a shirt, taken from one of the dead men, into Kestutis' mouth. She rolled him on to his stomach, and cut away his kilt with her knife. Then she sat on his legs.

I can't describe what Giedra did next, with the handle of an axe, except to say that she took revenge for Eliv - and maybe for some of Kestutis' other victims.

Bacho's son screamed into his makeshift gag, and try to crawl away - but Giedra was too heavy, and too strong. Truth be told, we didn't really care if his screams could be heard across the lake. No one would be coming to help him, at this point.

Nameless was next. She flipped Kestutis onto his back again. She didn't say a word to him. But she was extremely patient, waiting until my nephew stopped thrashing about. She removed his rough gag, allowing Kestutis to whimper quietly.

Then he took a deep breath, and screamed "Help!" as loud as he could.

Nameless only chuckled.

- "Giedra? Would you sit on his legs again?" she asked. "And Yevna? Hold his head, please." Nameless sat on Kestutis' chest. Strong as he was, in his present condition, Bacho's son could not resist these three determined women.

Nameless carved his eye out.

I knew she was going to do that. That didn't make it any easier to watch. Kestutis bucked, and tried to fling off the two women sitting on him. He shrieked, in agony - pain that I remembered. I didn't know what it felt like to have an axe handle ... but I was very familiar with the sensation of having an eye gouged out.

Kestutis screamed, and screamed - until he ran out of breath.

Yevna was the cruelest. She left him alone, until the agony had subsided to a barely tolerable screaming pain. She let her cousin think - for a moment - that we were done with him.

We were not.

Guenna kept watch - unnecessarily, in my opinion. But I couldn't fault her caution.

Giedra and Nameless helped Yevna take her revenge. My daughter crouched over Kestutis for a long time, whispering to him. I have no idea what she said - I didn't need to know.

Then my daughter castrated Kestutis - and emasculated him as well.

I wasn't sure if my nephew could scream anymore; I thought he might be too exhausted. But Kestutis must have been heard, across the lake. His shrieks were frighteningly high-pitched. They cut to the bone, like an icy wind across a frozen pond.

Nameless gathered a burning log from their fire, and jammed it between his legs, to burn the wound, and seal it. Kestutis howled, then, unable to scream any more.

I had no quarrel with anything my daughters and our friends had done. Kestutis deserved that, and more. My only regret was that Meonwe and Iarn - and scores of others, who I would never know - could not be here to witness our vengeance.

Yevna wiped her long knife on the body of a corpse, and then came to stand next to me.

- "I'm sorry, Yevna." I said.

- "For what?"

- "For everything. That I couldn't save Inisian. Or your mother. Or ... your brother."

My eldest daughter reached out, and put her hand on my shoulder. I turned, and reached for her. She came into my arms.

We cried, together. Guenna came to join us, and all three of us cried together. We had never been able to bury Meonwe, my wife, and their mother - or Iarn, my son and their brother. But we laid them to rest, that night.

I don't mean that we would forget them, hereafter. That was not going to happen. But we were on the verge of a sense of ... completion. A feeling, somehow, that we had done what we could.

- "Now?" I asked them.

Guenna nodded, and stepped away. Yevna followed me.

I bound Kestutis' ankles, and checked the bindings on his hands. Nameless had done her work well. He might bleed to death, from the ghastly wounds Yevna had inflicted on him - but probably not before I was done with him.

I tied Kestutis' ankles to the anchor cable on their largest boat - the six-seater. Finally, I tied their big boat to their smaller vessel, a four-man boat.

Giedra and Nameless helped me bundle Kestutis into the boat. Yevna helped me push off, and the two of us climbed aboard the larger boat as it slid onto the lake.

The night was bright, and relatively clear. We could see thousand of stars, and the looming bulk of the Three Sisters: Brana, Beska, and Myeva. In the opposite direction, I thought I could discern the line of the southern shore of the lake - perhaps even a pinpoint of light at Nadestis.

I rowed, calmly, deliberately. There was no rush. Kestutis was moaning. Yevna was silent. We towed the second boat behind us, as we glided quietly across the surface of the lake, which I knew so well.

I rowed past Piran's Point, the spot where my girls and I had fled, in our escape, the night their mother died.

It would have been fitting, to go all the way to Red Point, and beyond - to Bentwood - but we could not risk so much. This was far enough. I reached for Kestutis.

- "Don't you want to say anything, first?" asked Yevna.

- "No." I said. "This is for your mother, and your brother. And for Inisian. And for everyone he ... hurt. One way or another. He won't rape anyone else, Yevna. And he won't kill anyone, either."

My daughter helped me, as we lifted Kestutis over the side, and dropped him in the water. He sank quickly, with both his wrists and his ankles tied together.

They say we are cruel, in the Uplands.

***

Yevna and I transferred to the second boat. We left the larger one, with Kestutis as its anchor, just opposite Asphodels, the little hamlet where I had been born. The sky was beginning to lighten, as dawn approached. They would find the boat - and Bacho's son - but only after we were long gone.

Though ten years had passed, I could still pick out the houses of my home. I knew every one of them - even if the owners and occupants had changed.

Yevna heard something, a moment before I did. Neither of us recognized the sound. Nor did we understand why the people in Asphodel would light a bonfire - a large bonfire - just before the dawn. Did they somehow know that we were here?

That made no sense.

- "That's no bonfire." said Yevna.

She was right. It was the thatched roof of a house.

And then, a second. Asphodels was burning. Someone was setting fire to the houses.

*****