Brutal Women (9 page)

He glanced over at me where I
stood, deep into the shadows next to the gate, the heavy tarp of burden in my
arms, headband dangling from bruised, bloody fingers, the blood smearing
crimson between my thighs.

“Come in, friend Banan,” he said,
voice soft, compassionate. I hated it. He made me feel like a flimsy, ill-bred
woman; like a Lady.

I spat at his feet. “Curse you,
Madden,” I barked, and walked - and, I admit, painfully - into the hold at
Inveress.

If I would have known then what I
was doing when I gave him my boy, when he accepted my plea, I would never have
done it; but a woman goes half-mad when she has just birthed, and I did not
think about his Lady. That was my greatest mistake. I did not consider his
Lady.

And she was one to be reckoned
with.

I named my son Flanin, after a
popular man who came into power just after the first socerorous clouds of the
cataclysm settled. I did not visit Inveress often, and when I did, I did not
pay much attention to Madden’s Lady; not many of us real women did. Madden and
the other Thanes and several warrior nobles from Skall visited Inveress on many
occasions, and I made fast companions of the Thane of Ross. I knew Ross from
many a campaign in the north, and she and I soon banded together in our taunts
of Madden’s Lady.

Lady Madden was a slight,
ever-smiling young woman who looked to be of no more than thirteen years at a
glance. Only her revealing dress - red and often transparent, impractical even
for a Lady - gave away her age as something other than that of a maturing young
child. When Ross and I told tales of the oddities we had encountered on various
campaigns, whispering that they were unhappy ghosts, the Lady scoffed at our
words, insisting that there were no such things as spirits or demons now that
magic had been bled from the earth by the cataclysm.

We won battle after battle, Madden
and I, commanders of King Dunwan of New Skalland’s vast army. More land joined
New Skalland with every victory, so much land that rebellion was inevitable.
Where there are conquered, there is unrest.

The rebellion came, and with it,
the beginning of my nightmares. The Thane of Cawdor grabbed a hold of a vast
portion of northern New Skalland and rallied the rebels and townsfolk there
together. He grabbed up mercenaries from a loose clan known as the Old Illand,
adding strength and experience to his numbers. When the rebels moved to overrun
Skall, Madden and I were waiting with an army at our backs. The battle was
short-lived and bloody, as many are. The rebel Thane of Cawdor was hauled off
to Skall to be tried for treason. As for Madden and I, we camped that night
near a twisted tree on a slight rise several miles from the battle sight to
tend to our wounds. We were just half a day’s walk from Skall.

“Mallen, King Dunwan’s son, is
looking after our troops,” Madden said, spitting on a tattered, filthy bit of
linen that he had pulled from his leather vest’s pocket. He began wiping the
blood from his brow with the wetted rag. “I told him to take them back to Skall
and we would follow within a day.”

Madden took the first watch as the
bitter cold of evening came upon us. I watched my battle companion as I fell
into a fitful half-sleep. He stood outlined beneath the pinkish-red glow of the
crescent moon, eyebrows furrowed in thought. Madden had slain the New Illand’s
leader, Mydrenar, who attacked Dunwan’s oldest son, Mallen, early on in the
conflict. For us, only another body to be gutted, but for Dunwan, a kill
deserving reward.

At dawn, I stood watch and
witnessed the rise of a bloody, crimson sun. Light blazed across the horizon. Madden
rose soon after, and we began in the direction of Skall. Orange-red dust
swirled about our ankles, coating our already filthy legs, arms and faces in a
thin, grimy coating. The sun grew high and hot, and we both drew our hoods down
over our faces. Daylight is not the best time to travel, but then, neither is
the darkness.

By the third hour, we came upon the
High Way. Madden jumped about the ancient, rusted vehicles lining the cracked,
dirt strewn Way, just as we had always been told not to do as children. I was
in good spirits, happy to be returning to Skall where my son awaited my
arrival. With a grin, I leapt up onto the nearest vehicle and trotted after
Madden. He drew his blade while astride the back end of a dilapidated carriage.
I drew mine as well, and we sparred throughout the make-shift training ground,
making our way ever closer to Skall. Before we realized it, we were out of
breath underneath a dusky sky mottled in frills of orange, violet, pink and
rose.

No more time to waste. Darkness
means death. We sheathed our blades and began trotting through the path cleared
down the middle of the High Way, stopping for nothing as we leapt over
unrecognizable bits of rusted metal and plastic. A cool wind came out of the
north, and I shivered involuntarily. Darkness touched the sky.

I ran only a short distance when I
heard something carried to my ears with the wind. A chanting, cackling sound.
My throat abruptly went dry.

Spirits
.

I shook the thought from my head. I
did not believe in such things at that time. I considered, and still do, that
people are the most frightening, unpredictable beings that have ever existed.
But that day, I would rather have fought a thousand unpredictable warriors than
witness the wretches we encountered on the High Way.

Madden disappeared just in front of
me as he vaulted over a vehicle frame. He gave a shout of alarm, and I drew my
blade before following. As I scrambled over the frame, I choked on the stench
that assailed me. A thousand horrible things I have smelled, and a thousand
more I could describe, but none were like that reek of death and rot and gore;
of garbage and feces.

The figures, the things that exuded
this stench, were almost as jarring to the senses. They were three apparitions
standing about a low burning barrel. They did not huddled about it for warmth,
but hunkered down near the flickering wisps of flame as if to listen to their
secrets. Thick strips of leather and tarp and linen - so many kinds of fabrics
that I could not tell one from the other - draped them from their cavernous,
blistered faces to their scabbed, callused feet.

Madden kept his sword in one hand,
rag to cover his nose in the other. I breathed through my mouth. Madden stood
several paces across from them, and I sprang to his side, sword free.

“What are they?” he muttered, more
for his ears than mine.

I grinned, trying to ignore those
wilted faces outlined in tendrils of orange firelight and sooty smoke.

“I would say they are women,
friend,” I said. I raised my dull, battered blade toward their sickly forms.
“Can you speak, spirits?”

They muttered something, whether to
the two of us or to the air I could not tell. One, a large, rotund figure
slightly shorter than the others, put a finger to her lips as she gazed into
the fire, as if contemplating a serious question.

“Speak up or move out of the way,
hags! Our business is in Skall, and you bar the path.” In truth, Madden and I
could most likely have squeezed past them and continued along the Way, but the
thought of brushing so close to those reeking, apparitional bodies made me
shiver. I would do it, but not if a better solution presented itself.

“Can you speak, witches?” Madden
shouted.

“Hail!”

I jumped into a defensive stance
when the rotund witch shouted into the night. Her sickly, croaking voice filled
the sky.

“Hail to the Thane of Glen,” the
witch continued, wretched voice dipping into a paper-thin rasp.

“Hail to Madden, the Thane of
Cawdor,” a second witch piped up, hair a tangle of filthy dreadlocks. She
sounded young beneath all that muck, though I couldn’t put an age to her.

“Hail to Madden, for he will be
King of New Skalland,” hissed the last. She was thin and willowy, the second
eldest of the witches, if age could be determined by voice.

My eyes met Madden’s. He had grown
deathly pale despite the dirt and blood on his face. His eyes were wide, almost
frightened. I did not realize why at the time. I should have known better.

“King,” I muttered. “You will be
king.” I turned my attention back to the witches, who were cackling silently,
shoulders trembling in soundless mirth. “You speak of great things for my
companion. Tell me then, the fate of my boy. What will become of him?”

One does not see apparitions often.
One must question them whenever they appear. They see a world we cannot.

“Your son will be King, Banan, and
all those thereafter,” the youngest said.

I did not even notice the women
begin to fade into the night.

“Wait!” Madden shouted, raising a
hand into the air as if to grab hold of their misty forms. “How do you know
these things? Who told you? Are you spirits?” He took a step toward the three
sisters.

The fire went out.

The three mysterious women vanished
with it.

We did not speak the rest of the
way to Skall. Madden brooded, encased in his own thoughts, and any attempt on
my part to bring up the strange encounter was met with silence.

The gate at Skall was guarded by
over forty warriors and twelve sentries, every last one of them with sharp wits
and sharper eyes, so it came as no surprise than a small party came out to
greet us, fully armed. It was a common enough occurrence, but the faces of the
party weren’t common at all. Nor was what they had to say.

“Who comes to greet us?” Madden
called.

I could barely make out the dim
outlines of two figures jogging quickly toward us, chains and swords clanking.
A party of just two? Wasn’t five the usual assembly?

“The Thanes of Ross and Annil,”
came a familiar voice, so full of triumphant joy and pride that it took me a
moment to recognize the voice of Ross.

I waited until the two of them were
close enough to make out their faces before letting my hand stray from the hilt
of my blade. The moon hung low, but it was enough to make out Ross’s
continence. Annil grinned as well. Her cropped yellow hair was a mass of sticky
dred-locks. Ross had taken down her own waist length hair and divided it into a
festive array of tiny braids.

Ross grinned like a fool. “The
King,” she managed to sputter, and Annil laughed. “The King has heard all about
the battle, Madden, and when the couriers began coming in, each one baring your
name and praises on their lips, he actually began wondering whether the crown
should be yours or his!”

I started, and Madden and I
exchanged guarded looks.

“No money, no, but not only his
thanks.” Ross reached into her long leather coat. “He also commanded me to dub
you the Thane of Cawdor.”She pulled the heavy gold chain of office bearing the
Thane of Cawdor’s symbol and held it out in front of my companion.

“I can’t be the Thane of Cawdor,”
Madden said, voice deep, angry. “He still lives in-”

“Aye, he lives,” Annil said,
spitting on the ground at her feet. “But with all that rippin’ an tearin’
`scribed in his death sentence, who knows how many more hours he’ll live?
Certain not `til morning. So take yer title, young bastard, and let us
celebrate.”

I glanced over at Madden as he held
the chain in his hand, eyes never leaving the Thane of Cawdor’s symbol. “They
say I will be King as well, Banan. But your boy will be King thereafter. This
they promised, friend. This they promised.”

There was something in his voice,
something so dark and sinister that I felt as if I were standing next to a
stranger. I was suddenly very anxious to get back to my boy.

King Dunwan, his great mass filling
the raised and tattered recliner that made up his throne, rose to meet us with
open arms as we were ushered into his chamber. He praised both Madden and I on
our success, and I had to bear through an overwhelmingly unpleasant embrace
that I could have easily done without. I would have smelled better the rest of
the night if he had refrained.

All of the Thanes were present, and
they flanked King Dunwan in a small, neat half circle which Madden and I
joined. Ross winked at me as I took my place, and I grinned back. Madden, I
knew, received the Thane’s title because of his blood lineage, not his valor.
The King knew of my endeavors as well. I may not be duly rewarded, but my son,
perhaps... I shook the thought from my head.

“I have gathered you here for a
purpose, my Thanes and kinspeople,” King Dunwan began after the small crowd
quieted. His sons, Mallen and Donal, flanked either side of him, and two of his
Ladies stood behind him, both looking young enough to be his grandchildren.

I glanced about for my wild-eyed
boy, knowing that he would find a way to listen in on this gathering. Sure
enough, I caught sight of his honey-colored head peeking down at me from a
loose ceiling tile. The ducts and vents in these old pre-cataclysm holds did
not offer any sort of secured privacy. For once, I was glad. I grinned up at my
boy, and he grinned back, smiling a foppish adolescent smile.

“I have summoned you as witnesses
to the descent of my lands and title. I have decided to name my heir,” Dunwan
announced. “My lands, Thanes and all other resources of New Skalland, will,
upon my death, be granted to…,” he paused for effect, beady little eyes staring
out at each and every one of us through thick wrinkles of fat, “my eldest son,
Mallen.” He finished with a flourish of his hand.

My heart jumped. The other Thanes
looked a bit confused as well, but rushed to congratulate the named heir. I
looked to Madden. He wore an expression like the hard rocky face of Dunsinane
hill, stable and never-changing. I had never seen him in such a state - except
before battle.

“You will hold us a celebration at
Inveress in three days time?” Dunwan called to Madden.