A Girl and Her Monster (Rune Breaker) (20 page)

Taylin thought she knew everything about fishing, having been on more than her share of foraging expeditions while on the ships, but the
nir-lumos
didn't use boats and nets. Instead they broke out slim poles of prepared bamboo, tied lines with delicate hooks to the ends, and after attaching grubs or slivers of meat, proceeded to use them to catch fish one at a time.

It seemed that fishing wasn't primarily for sustenance, as the hunters largely ignored their lines. Instead, they turned to idle banter and boasting about their feats in battle, both recent and past. They were eager enough to include Taylin, but she stuck to the battle of two days prior; the only one she was proud of.

After returning with two full barrels of fish, the hunters brought Taylin to what would be her wagon; a garish green and yellow thing with lacquered, orange window frames and shutters. It was normally reserved for travelers who would pay the clan for their hospitality along their routes, but the Taunaun leg of their travels rarely attracted many passengers. Some of the wagons belonging to the deceased would eventually be converted to the same task now that they served no other purpose.

There weren't many furnishings; all of Kaiel's were purchased with his own coin; but there was a bed with a new, if cheap mattress, some shelves, and a chest, which upon closer inspection, were all actually outgrowths of the wagon's gretharian walls. It was enough for Taylin, who was too delighted with a bed of her own to complain about how she still needed to borrow things like plates or cups from Kaiel or 'Rai' as her sister preferred to be called.

Now, on the third day, Taylin was sitting on her bed – her
own
bed, listening to the wagon masters outside, working to get everything shored up and the ponies hitched up in preparation for the journey that Grandfather insisted should start by noon.

She wasn't alone. Grandmother was there, as well as a halfling woman named Signateria, an acolyte studying the ways in which Grandmother channeled the power of the Goddess Sylph. The difference between them was that Signateria intended not only to serve and receive the blessing of Sylph, but Pandemos as well. A wood carved rendition of the One Dice hung from her neck alongside the paw and garland icon of Sylph.

Kaiel had taken Ru and left a short while earlier, when it became necessary for Taylin to remove her shirt so Grandmother could observe the masses of scar tissue that were all that remained of her wings. Ru protested that a dead man could not be lecherous, but Kaiel insisted and Ru didn't care enough to argue, having some techniques he still wanted to apply to the earthworks.

Rai was there in their place, sitting with her as Grandmother poked and prodded the scars and occasionally said 'hmm'.

Eventually, Signateria stood up from where she'd been working with a mortar and pestle and, at Grandmother's nod, began slathering the sickly green mush from the stone bowl all over Taylin's back. A strong, bitter scent filled her nostrils, making her cringe. “It smells like poison.”

“And it would be if you ate it.” Said Grandmother. “But you will be glad of it in a moment. The salve numbs the skin.”

“Why would my skin need to be numb? I thought this was healing magic?” Taylin asked, unsure in all matters magical.

“Aye, it is. But in order to regenerate what has been lost, we will first need to cut away the scars so new growth may return.” She was silent for a pregnant second. “Even with the numbing, it will be most painful. If you don't wish to go through with it...”

“No.” Taylin said quickly and more bluntly than was strictly wise to use with the Winter Willow's matriarch. “Please. I can handle it. I've been in pain before; this is worth it.”

Grandmother's face remained an emotionless mask. “Then we will begin. Lie down.”

Raiteria hopped off the bed to give her room, but Taylin still had to fold her legs up against the wall to properly fit. That part was easy enough; learning how to get comfortable while crammed into crowded space that was cramped even without a few dozen fellow slaves packed in around her was second nature. She was uncomfortable lying there, on her stomach, stripped to the waist, however. The only people she'd seen in that position aboard the ships were corpses, on their way to becoming one, or wishing they were one.

The same restless surge of adrenaline she felt when the hounds were bearing down on her, or during the battle tried to reassert itself, but she forced herself to breathe and forced it down. The three woman with her were family now, and they were doing their best to help her.

Grandmother producing an obsidian knife from among the supplies she brought with her wasn't helping matters. The first cut, less so. It wasn't like a slash in battle, where chaos and exhilaration distracted from the pain and the blow came swiftly and with little warning. No, she felt it and had time to think about it; every terrible inch.

Something tensed in the back of the link. Ru. He could feel it to, courtesy of the link's forced empathy.

Empathy, but not sympathy. Instead of concern or possibly horror, all she felt being directed toward her was curiosity.

Forcing her breath to stay even and the urge to bolt, or worse, fight back taxed her, but Taylin clenched her jaw, screwed her eyes shut, and did it anyway. She tried to get her mind off it, thinking about what life would be like once she could fly again. Maybe she could serve as a scout like Rai, or use her vantage to aid the hunters. Maybe...

It wasn't working. Her imagination could be vivid at times, but it could conjure no distraction great enough to take her mind off the black blade and what it was doing. At this point, she wished that she would just pass out from the pain, but the numbing agent worked just well enough that blessed unconsciousness lingered on the edge of her mind, but never rushed in.

She was close enough to it though that she glimpsed odd images here and there; fever dreams she'd had before on the occasion that a lax captain would let a minor illness grow into a ship-wide contagion. She saw a city of stone towers, emerging from dense jungle that lay across the foothills of burning mountains like cats upon their master's lap. She saw a very different jungle, this one inside a room whose walls were made of glass with sky all around. She saw a woman, a hailene like her former masters, but instead of a scowl, or self-important smirk, she smiled warmly and adjusted her spectacles before reading aloud from a book. And then there was a man, speaking with the women from before; another hailene, but even for them, impossibly tall and angular. His eyes glinted with cruelty as he turned to look directly at Taylin...

Shameful.
Ru's mental voice broke through the pain and odd images.

Taylin was so surprised, she couldn't think in words, instead sending him the telepathic equivalent of '?!'.

This is the mettle of warriors?
Ru continued.
Hallucinating
after only a mere bit of surgical flaying? It tears at my mind, this mystery of how the sword and the fist became the symbol of conquest when it takes only a bit of pain to make both useless. In my time, a wizard who couldn't conjure while half dead was deemed a failure.

She wished she could say it came as a surprise, but Ru seldom had anything to say that wasn't mocking in some way unless it pertained to combat or magic. It was possible that this too was his way of rebelling against the link. After the first time, it hadn't punish him again for rudeness. She was still trying to figure out what triggered it that time.

Nothing to say in your defense?
He taunted.

It's different when you're fighting.
She tried to explain.

Heh.
Even mentally, he found a way to specifically make that noise.
Pain is pain, Miss Taylin. If you can conquer it in one context, you have no excuses being unable to in another.

Taylin frowned at this. It made a
kind
of sense, and yet it didn't. Handling pain when she was fighting was simple; it was simply a matter of distraction. But she didn't have any distractions, just lying there in the wagon as she was.

That's not it at all.
She said.
It isn't as if I can have this done while I'm dueling someone. I can only just lay still and let her work.

Another reason mages are superior.
Said Ru, smugly,
We can engage in more duels than simple brute combat. Granted, brute combat is an enjoyable pastime, Miss Taylin, but the correct tool is always superior to the one that merely fits better in the hand.

The tone in the link grew slightly wistful, though it was his general pride in himself that was dominant.
When I was a man, I often succeeded in my best feints, most diabolical flanking maneuvers and most crushing victories, all using merely the art of debate.

Taylin couldn't help but laugh inwardly.
Is that why you always start arguments with Kaiel?

He brooded for a bit before answering.
Just because I neither like, nor trust the chronicler doesn't mean I don't find his own philosophical and diplomatic training formidable. Trading verbal assaults is a worthy form of recreation.

It caught her marginally off guard that he admitted to that. She half expected him to simply reaffirm his hatred of Kaiel and be done with it. Which brought another question to mind:
Is that why you're so rude to me? I thought it was because of the link.

Another long pause, then:
Heh. To be enjoyable sport, the target must deliver blows of their own. And the link cares not if I am rude as long as I follow orders and do no psychological harm.

Why then? If I'm not fun to argue with and you aren't spiting the link, then what's the point? I've never done anything to make you hate me...
Guilt wafted into the link,
On purpose.

There was incongruous amusement in the link as Ru felt he'd scored a point against her in revenge for outsmarting him in the cavern.
You will notice, Miss Taylin, that I have not mocked you since the day of the battle, when it became clear that you would make bad sport in arguments.

That's not true. You did it today, just a moment ago!

Indeed. And not for sport, nor out of rebellion.
His tone became that of a master speaking to his apprentice.
Tell me, Miss Taylin, have you ever used a spear as a walking stick, or cleared brush with a sword?
He waited for her to reply in the affirmative.

Some weapons are more versatile than others. But none has ever been as versatile as the Rune Breaker.

Realization hit her almost immediately once she knew what to look for. She hadn't taken notice of the pain the entire time they talked. The whole thing had been a distraction. Guilt started to well up anew when she realized that even if he'd tricked her into doing it, she had used him. But then the smugness spiked and her guilt was subsumed by embarrassment. He had tricked her! His entire talk about feints and crushing defeats... it had all been part of an even larger misdirection.

Ru read her mind before she could think of what to say.
The phrase you are looking for, Miss Taylin, is 'well played'.

I can't believe you!

And yet I've never made a secret that I am a manipulative monster. We are now even, I believe.

As the embarrassment and shock started to wear off Taylin became aware of the room around her once more. None of the three halfling women even noticed the argument or her reaction to Ru's triumph. The numbing salve had mixed into her reopened wounds, causing them to feel more like heavy weights on her back than painful cuts.

The cutting itself was done. Had been done for some time, it seemed. Grandmother was speaking in the halfling language, a prayer to Sylph. It was only when she felt the first touches of healing magic, pleasurable and warm, did she understand that it wasn't just a prayer, but a spell.
The
spell. She was getting her wings back.

Unlike other healing spells, it wasn't a swiftly passing sensation followed by the tingle of knitting skin. Nor was it the mind-addling rush that was the full healing spell Ru used on her in the Rune Breaker chamber. It settled into the wounds on her back, into the wing stumps, and then began to seep outward, suffusing the muscles around the stumps and then down into her pectorals and the thin, but strong band of muscles that controlled the hinged ribs of all hailene. Atrophy was cured in a glittering cascade of humming energy.

And then the itching started. Her scars never itched and it was a shock to feel sensation there. That feeling only grew and expanded as the area itself followed suit. Weight she hardly knew she'd missed, muscles she only felt as a memory; Taylin became increasingly aware of all of them through the fog of the healing magic and the numbing agent.

On a reflex she once thought lost forever, she flexed and felt wet feathers ruffling against her bare back before lifting up against gravity until their tips dragged the ceiling. The itching continued for several minutes longer, as feathers continued to fill out and nerve networks finished linking together.

As if predicting the precise moment that the regrowth ceased, Grandmother said. “You can sit up now.”

Taylin did, and flared her wings fully. Wingtip to wingtip, they stretched the length of the wagon, at which point she had to curve them to fit. For the first time in years, she saw them; feathers as red as her hair. They marked her as ang'hailene. The masters hated them and tried their level best to make her hate them too.

They were beautiful.

***

More than a week went past since the clan of the Winter Willow rolled out of the village and disappeared across the flood plain, an eye toward the nation of Novrom and better markets for peddling their wares and services. Another night had fallen some time ago.

Upon a large boulder jutting out into the river, a lone figure stood beside his extinguished lantern and uttered silent prayers to the gathering of stars. They were the only ones left to him now, for the gods would not forgive, and the demons would not forget.

“Elder Partha.” A voice as smooth and content as a cat's purr emerged from the darkness behind him. “You disappoint me.”