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 Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2007 6:13 pm
Jeddeth was silent for a while. When it spoke again, its voice was reassuring.
"You and Master are linked. I'm sworn to protect him. And so I'll protect you, too," it said reasonably. "And I'm very good at it."
---
The rest of the trip through the Ambreveii borderlands took two days, with a marked upswing in quality. They'd all even been given new clothes, since Crow had traded her much-abused copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray for favor with the Ularna. By the time they emerged from the maddening fog, the stench of old blood, iron and salt hit her like a knife to the face. The caravan was unnervingly quiet; even Ezmaia had fallen silent. The border to the territory of Haderka was marked with a long ancient fence of spears, and the bodies of the unclaimed dead were spitted on them in warning.
Cloak hood slung low over his head, Julian covered his face with a hand and tried to keep the head Ularna from seeing him cry at the sight.
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Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2007 7:23 pm
Liam took a few stuttering steps forward, eyes wide. Rabid stopped him with her free hand.
"Have some respect," she whispered.
Liam hissed something completely unintelligeble and filtered back to Jeddeth.
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Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2007 7:36 pm
"Liam, take nothing!" Jeddeth said, voice sharp. "These people come to collect bodies. Nahedathal has stolen everything else and the slain suffer still. I trust you to not dishonor them further."
Ezmaia wept vividly purple gaseous tears as she caught sight of an empty Ularna shell, burying her face against Rabid's arm. Crow, sickened by the smell of rot combined with iron and salt, pressed a hand to her mouth and tried hard not to vomit.
"Abesht," the caravan leader said, head bowing. The group went past the fence warily, into Haderka's territory. A ruined black mass was visible in the distance, surrounded for miles by a very large mob of people from all over Azuhmn. The ground seemed to shake ever so slightly, and the vibrations grew stronger the closer they approached. By the time they reached the ruins, the sound of singing, shouting, cursing and weeping was deafening. Funeral processions of all kinds surrounded the caravan, every race mourning their dead. Gigantic birdlike creatures wheeled with wings outspread and stomping the ground, heads thrown back in grief and rage. Ularna sang and burned their claims, fires luminous as they tindered gas. There were others, so many others...it was dizzying, trying to encompass everything.
As they passed a gigantic sunken crater a half-mile from the ruins, Jeddeth murmured a low grieving sound. Crow was rocked with the memory of 'the pit', and dared to look into it. The sight of the terrible mass grave very nearly made her pass out, before Julian caught her and steadied her.
"So it is," Jeddeth said behind her. "Welcome home."
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Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2007 4:47 pm
Liam hissed back at Jeddeth, meaning to say words that simply didn't form. He followed the group, including a very, very morbidly astounded Rabid, turning on his heel every so often, trying to take it all in.
Good god, they were all going to die.
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Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2007 4:54 pm
It was next to impossible to move faster than a stately crawl through the crowds. More than once Crow stopped to watch crazed funeral processions, mourners wailing and hoisting their dead, the bonfires, the excavations around the pit... but it was the sound of cheering that held her attention longest. A large patch of ground had been cleared, piled high with shrouded bodies. At first she wondered if it was another funeral, but as she saw a long line of black-clad people in chains, steadily moving forward, pushed ahead by spear and sword-point, her heart jolted and stopped.
Executions.
She watched a woman kneel, her head resting on a block of stone. There was a tense silence, and Crow looked away at the sound of something smashing wetly. The file of black moved forward another step, and she shuddered as the black-wearing people with their mutilated faces smiled and leered at the crowd, laughing at them all.
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Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2007 4:56 pm
Rabid gagged suddenly and looked away. wanting desperately to hug the glassy girl beside her but knowing that would probably not be wise. Liam, however, had a quite different reaction. His eyes went wide and wet.
"But...but..."
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Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2007 5:04 pm
Ezmaia, shaking like a leaf, clung back and buried her face again. The rest of the Ularna weren't even half as phased. The lead man, hand running over the hilt of his scimitar, voiced his opinion to Julian how badly he'd like to join in. Julian said nothing, though he nodded politely.
"Jeddeth," Crow said, voice hoarse. "Why...who are those..."
"Nahadathal had servants who joined him willingly," Jeddeth said in distaste, regarding the waiting line. The smashing sound came again as if on cue. "You see their faces? They do it to themselves. They glory in foulness, mindless cruelty, the worst excesses. Don't waste your pity."
As they left the execution ground behind, the Ularna split off from the others. The lead man spoke at length to Julian and shunted a heavy scimitar into his hands, grinning. Julian stumbled slightly under the unexpected weight, thanking the man awkwardly. The Ularna said nothing more, but whistled and waved his caravan in another direction.
Ezmaia left regretfully, hugging Rabid and Crow goodbye and chattering incessantly even as she walked away, until she had to shout for them to hear her.
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Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2007 5:06 pm
Rabid waved and coughed, her own special form of gagging.
"Oh really?" Liam whined, "Then why can't I have one?" He glared at Jeddeth as if he'd just been denied a puppy.
A headless, undead puppy.
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Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2007 5:18 pm
It was the clanking of armor and the heavy sound of booted feet marching towards them that silenced Jeddeth's irritated reply. Julian, who'd been struggling to heft the scimitar, froze at the sound. Harsh voices sounded off, and two neat rows of soldiers in full armor pushed their way through, heading towards the ruins.
Jeddeth hissed wildly, ducking through the crowd and shielding Julian frantically from view. He staggered, looking at Jeddeth dazedly, a hand wrapped firmly around his throat as his oddly glazed eyes flickered, burning in his paled face.
Crow, shrinking back as a soldier caught her eye, held it nonetheless as he marched past. And then the squadron was gone, leaving Julian to frantically pull the hood of his cloak further down his face and tremble with paralyzed fear.
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Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2007 5:20 pm
"So. Um..."
"What in God's name?"
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Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2007 5:24 pm
Julian's hand was still clamped tightly around his throat, eyes wide and staring into the seething crowd, trying to will memories that weren't his, couldn't be his, into the back of his mind.
They stayed.
At a distance the sound of a skull being smashed in came again, and Julian collapsed onto his knees with a choked-off cry, the sound triggering memories of bloodsoaked battlefields, remembering the feeling of burning iron slicing clean through his neck.
But it hadn't happened. Not to him. No matter how vividly he remembered it hadn't happened to him.
Jeddeth clung to him, murmuring and heaving him up.
"Soldiers," it said, rather unecessarily. "From Curithi. The city where Nahedathal fell. They've taken it upon themselves to guard the ruins."
Julian took a heaving breath, willing himself to calm. It half-worked.
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Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2007 5:26 pm
And so Rabid came to her senses and rushed to him, embracing teh poor, tortured thing that was Julian. Again. Did it ever stop?
"Huh. I know how he feels, then," Liam mused.
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Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2007 5:34 pm
"If they see him," Jeddeth said, shuddering slightly, "They will not be so kind in their execution as they are with the priests."
Crow, the sound of wet crunching ringing in her ears, bristled.
"It isn't his fault!" she snarled. "It isn't fair!"
She knew she sounded childish but she couldn't curb herself. She was aimlessly angry, hating blindly and guilty for it. She glared up at the looming black mess of the ruins, and her lips pulled back from her teeth in a formidable snarl. Julian, shaking off the last scraps of shock, rested his head against Rabid's shoulder for a moment, breathing endearments and loving words before he shook her off and stood. He weaved forward a step before forcing calm. His face was still pale and his eyes were wild.
"I've had enough," he said, voice very quiet. "I'm sick of death, I'm sick of fear, and I am so ******** sick of him. We're going in tonight. Crow, give me the knife."
"But-"
"Give. Me. The knife."
Crow withdrew the Dhev-Anak from intangibility, handing it over. Julian, who'd never quite mastered the trick of intangibility himself, shoved it into his belt. He picked up the scimitar and slung it over his shoulder, eyes blazing by now as he took off towards the ruins.
"C'mon," he called.
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Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2007 5:36 pm
Rabid swallowed hard and followed Julian, mumbling some kind of prayer she'd learned from Björn, tongue burning. Liam simply shrugged and began to hum the funeral march.
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Posted: Sat Jun 16, 2007 9:12 pm
__Part 41
Ethan was aware he was dying. He wasn't sure how he was supposed to feel about it - if he were younger by a year or two, he was certain he'd be terrified, grasping his rosary and praying. If he were still a slave in the Piper's household, he knew he'd welcome death.
But now, he didn't know what to do. There was fear, oh yes. And regrets that weighed so heavily he thought he would choke on them. But mostly, he was just...simply...aware. He was smothered with blankets on what he now regarded as his eventual deathbed, waiting and wondering what it would feel like to simply stop existing, when the Nahenna was finished with him. He drifted in and out of sleep, time passing fluidly between day and night and leaving him disoriented and isolated.
Lenore was watching. She could feel the cold sick presence of the Nahenna in Ethan, and looking at him made her heart break and her guts wrench. He wasn't in pain, but he was still suffering. The Nahenna was destroying him piece by piece, undoing everything that made Ethan himself, awake and alive. It hurt to watch him, but she couldn't bear to leave.
The idea came suddenly, while Ethan slept.
Jeddeth had said that to kill the boy would save him. It would keep his spirit from being obliterated. She was a walking weapon - she'd carved up over a dozen Zheh Hakin without any trouble at all.
Lenore started to shiver and cry, tears slicking her face. She could kill him. She could save him.
Standing up, going to his bedside, she watched as though she was outside herself as a wing extended. The feathers on her wrist were adept at quick clean slashing movements. All she would have to do was press down and twitch. He wouldn't even feel a thing.
"Ethan," she breathed, lowering her hand to his throat. Her eyes blurred again. "Ethan, I love you."
All she had to do was make one quick motion. She could save him.
The feathers touched his throat, resting lightly on the skin.
All she had to do was twitch.
"Oh, Ethan, I'm sorry," Lenore said, drawing away, hating her own cowardice. It was a good plan. Pity she was too weak to carry it out. She turned away and flinched as Ethan coughed, rolling over and murmuring in his sleep. She bowed her head, and buried her face in her hands, shaking with silent sobbing.
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