The Tattooed Woman Pt. 20

Dana laughed, "Deal! Though if you get drunk and make a pass at me," she waggled her eyebrows, "well, you never know."

Magda opened one of the flasks and took a long draught before wiping her mouth with her sleeve, "And what happens if I get drunk enough to make a pass, tell me that wench?"

For a while, the cell rang to the sounds of merry laughter and when Magda started singing even the passing guards paused on their rounds to listen.

They were still laughing and singing when a deafening peal of thunder shook the castle, and a brilliant flash of lightning lit the city.

Gorsini was the first to speak in the ringing silence that followed, "What the fuck was that?!"

...

The body of Narissa lay on the bloodstained floor of the inn like a broken doll, her torn and slashed clothing gruesome evidence of the cruel wounds she had sustained. Varoona knelt by her side, careless of the pool of blood, as she gently stroked the dead woman's hair and wept.

Ashunara had arrived only moments earlier and she stood silently to one side, looking cold and alone, as she stared bleakly at the body of her goddaughter. Nearby Tallis had collapsed sobbing into a chair as Lily did her best to comfort her.

When Nyx saw her murdered child, she staggered, and could only utter such a low mournful wail that it sounded as though her heart had been ripped open. Elsadore wrapped her strong arms around her old friend and her shoulders shook as she held her.

Adair watched. She saw the expression on Nyx's face and recognised it, for she knew it all too well. She had that same shattered look when she gazed down upon the slaughtered body of her husband all those long, long years ago, and she knew the torment the woman would face. A lifetime of suffering, and of hatred and self-loathing for the sin of being absent when the one she loved had needed her most.

Nyx turned to her in desperate hope, and pleaded, "Can you help her, mayhap like... Syros?"

Tears glittered in Adair's eyes and she shuddered, "Syros is dead. I bound his ghost to a fragment of his corpse so he would know torment, but he is still dead," she shook her head, "you would not want this for her."

Nyx nodded and tears slid down her face, and for once she looked... old, "I understand, I... just hoped."

Adair looked to the woman and drawing herself up she took a long, deep breath, "Nevertheless, she died for my kin. It is forbidden, but I do not care. This will not stand. If they wanted to stop me then the bastards should not have left me here alone when they fled!"

Nyx swallowed, "What can be done? I'll do anything if you save her, give you all that I have and more! I'll swear to serve you all of my days and beyond! Whatever the price I'll pay, and gladly!"

The tattooed woman staggered back, "Do not bargain with me! Do NOT! I cannot help myself, it's in my blood and I am unworthy of such a bargain. I... I will do what I can, but I utterly reject your offer."

Mastering herself she looked down at the body and licked her lips nervously, "She has not been gone long. If she has not wandered far in the realm of the dead, she might still hear me if I call to her. If she comes, I might, just, be able to hold the door open long enough for her to slip back through, but it will be... hard."

She turned to Nyx, "I am no necromancer, I cannot compel the dead back to life with a wave of my hand, nor would I if I could. But if she chooses to return... then I promise, I will do what I must to see her home."

Ashunara had stalked silently closer, and Adair turned to her and leaning close she whispered, "If... If something... else comes through from the realm of the dead, and not Narissa, you will have to restrain Nyx while I destroy it, "she swallowed, "assuming I can."

The Captain said nothing, just stared into her eyes, and nodded once.

Crouching low next to the body Adair cupped her chin and tilted her head to lean very close as if in some lover's embrace and she whispered into her ear. Even with the keen ears of the Dark Elves those nearest could not make out what it was she murmured, but it sounded as though she spoke a name over and over.

Overhead angry clouds gathered, and it grew very dark as one by one the flames of the witchlamps flickered and went out.

In the ominous rumbling of the growing storm, Ashunara watched as Adair's fingers closed so tightly that the bones in her hands creaked with the effort. Her muscles bunched and quivered in extremis as her breathing shuddered and the Dark Elf almost recoiled as she saw the copper of the strange woman's hair darken with black strands even as the skin of her face grew pale.

With a howling unearthly shriek, the witchlamps exploded, showering the room in ethereal flames, the mirror on the back wall violently shattered into a thousand shards and with a staggering detonation of thunder that shook the city, and a flash of lightning so brilliant that it must have been seen all the way to the coast, Narissa opened her eyes wide with a desperate gasp, "Drow!"

Adair slumped to one side and would have crumpled had not Ashunara grabbed her. The woman's head lolled backwards as she stared unseeing at the ceiling and the Captain saw that her eyes, which had once been green, or burning gold, were now as black and cold as the night sky. Ashunara almost dropped her as she realised just how similar she looked to the tall, dark figure painted on the walls within the shrine at Morrigan's Stone.

The tattooed woman shuddered in the Dark Elf's grip and after a moment roused herself with a soft, moan of misery before pushing herself away. Rising, she limped to a darkened nook where she slumped into a chair and wept.

Nyx all but threw Elsadore aside and lunging forward she wrapped her arms around Narissa, who looked about with a strange, bemused expression of complete bewilderment on her face before complaining, "Ow! You'll crush me if you squeeze any harder woman!"

She looked about and tears appeared in her eyes, "W-where's Cassie?"

...

The crone sat silently on the steps of the shrine with her black cloak wrapped around her, and anyone watching might have thought her eyes were wet, but it was not in her nature to weep, and no tears came.

...

In a darkened corner of the Raven's Nest Adair sat slumped, with her head in her arms and ignored the babbling noise and exclamations of joy from the throng. She only roused when a timid hand touched her shoulder and she looked up into the miserable eyes of Narissa, "I... I'm sorry... I tried; I really did. But... they took her."

Drawing a breath the tattooed woman shook her head, "T'was not your fault child," she gave the girl a broken smile, "you gave your life to protect her, it would be churlish to ask for more."

Narissa swallowed and sniffed back tears, "I-I feared you would be... angry with me."

Adair looked up and the inn shook, "Angry! When I was a child Narissa I played with the Furies, and they knew well to fear my temper. When I find who took my sister, they will see just how angry I am, but my rage is not for you girl."

She looked beyond the woman and gave a weary sigh as she rose to limp slowly across the room. Bending to pick up the gnarled old broomstick lying discarded and forgotten on the floor, she muttered, "I do not think I'll be needing that sword after all Nyx."

The Dark Elf shook her head, "You'll need more than an old broom to hunt Dro... Holy fuck!"

The Gáe Bulg the woman held had an elegant leaf-shaped head of cold shining steel fixed by rivets of blackened iron to a long smooth shaft of carved bone or horn. Both shaft and blade were engraved with many runes and the thing all but hummed with dreadful purpose.

Adair nodded her head in weary acknowledgement, "T'is my mother's spear. They say she once killed a God with the thing. I suspect it will be sufficient for our purposes."

Ashunara slid forward and leaning close she whispered, "What is it that ails you Adair? Is it the magick, did it harm you? Is there anything I can do to help?"

The tall woman sniffed miserably before looking down into the eyes of the Dark Elf and smiling, "I will be fine Captain, the weariness will pass, I am just saddened for what I have gained, and what I have lost is all."

"I don't understand."

Adair toyed with the Captain's hair absentmindedly, "T'is my mother Captain, each time I use such power I become, more like her I suppose, and less like you. And I find that I enjoy this mortal life, I will regret losing it."

Ashunara gripped the woman's hands tightly, "Are you saying you will die?"

"No Captain, I fear it will be my fate to... exist I think, for a very long time," she drew herself up and stepped back, "but not yet Ashunara of the Dark Elves, for I am still Adair, and I shall vex you awhile yet."

Ashunara looked at the woman directly and recalling earlier conversations she smiled, "Well, we wouldn't want things to become less... 'tolerable' after all, would we? But first, there is a matter that requires addressing."

Reaching up with the stiletto that had stealthily appeared in her hand she deftly cut away the collar around the woman's neck and tossed it aside.

Adair looked down at the thing, "I thought I needed that to go abroad among your people Captain?"

"Fuck them. I'm not in the mood to put up with their shit any longer. If anyone questions my decision, I'll call them out onto a field of honour and kill the bastards where they stand," she smiled grimly, "I doubt I'd have to slaughter more than a handful before they learned to stop being cunts, in the open at least."

The tall woman grinned, "Your sister is right, you really do have a temper."

Nyx approached and stood before the woman, "I owe you. I don't give a fuck about your opinion on bargains. I say I owe you," she looked across the room at her daughter, "and it's a debt I'll like as not never be able to repay for there is nothing I own, or could ever do that would be of equal value to what you just gave back to me..."

Adair interrupted and shook her head in resignation, "I see you are resolute in this, and I begin to wonder which of you two is the more stubborn, for it is clearly a close-run thing. Very well I accept. Here then is what I want. When I am gone you and yours will look after Cassie as if she were kin. You do this for me, and I will consider all debts between us repaid in full," she held out her hand, "will that suffice? Do we have a bargain?"

Nyx stared at the hand, "I... I would do such anyway you know..."

"I do know, and that is why I am asking it of you, for despite your pretence at being an ill-tempered curmudgeon you have a kind heart Anyxia Mal."

The Dark Elf grinned, "Pretence? Now you're just being personal, you can't go around spreading such foul rumours about me, what if the girls find out?"

Ashunara rolled her eyes, "Seriously? Like they don't already know? I mean how long has it been woman? Now shake the lady's hand for fuck's sake."

"Yes, ma'am."

Elsadore grinned and called across the common room, "Is this a bar or a graveyard? Who do I have to fuck to get a drink around here? Let's have a beer, then go find whomever it is has Cassie, and fucking murder them to death."

Adair turned to the woman, eyes gleamed with feral hunger and the wicked smile on her lips raised the hackles upon the Dark Elf's neck and sent a shiver down her spine, "We do not need to hunt them Elsadore, for they will surely come to us. All we need do is wait."

Nyx moved closer, her eyes roved from Narissa to the bloodstain still marring the floor, and her voice was red with violence, "And then?"

Adair looked into the woman's eyes and grinned, "And then we shall have a reckoning."