Without Rhythm (The Lament) (2 page)

So, liking it or not, and she really didn't, she started looking for a collection of people that might indicate some drinking or carousing going on. Drunk people meant possible work now, so she'd just have to do it and hope for the best.

Not that she knew what to do.

Again it was the part about being a good student that foiled her unfairly. When the other kids were meeting up in the stairwells at night to experiment with sex, she'd either been sleeping or working on something. A new song, an instrumental piece, or work of art. She'd kissed a boy, one time, but that had been less her trying to do it and more an ambush as she came around a corner. It hadn't even been meant for her, which kind of meant it didn't count. It had been an older boy, Ben, who'd blushed and looked away when he realized who was standing there.

The streets were made of old stone, rounded by time, or possibly by river water, no two matching exactly and held in place by simple concrete. From the color it looked to be made of sand and lime, with some larger rocks mixed in as filler. They'd used too much stone, so the whole thing was flaking out of the seams. That was kind of shoddy work. They'd need to redo it all in a few years and that would cost more than doing it right the first time. Shaking her head she made a point of smiling, trying not to carry herself like a reject. After all, no one would want to... use her, if she seemed terrified and downcast, would they? Her brown hair was already too short, cut like a boy's almost, and her flat chest wouldn't do a lot for most men. At least it hadn't at any point in her life yet.

The sound of singing drew her in, toward a place that was dimly lit on the outside, but had real electric lights inside. That or some kind of arc lighting. She'd had a class on how to make such things, for decorative purposes, but they were expensive to have around. Most people didn't bother unless it was for business reasons. Doctors that had to work at night for instance, or mid-wives. It looked like taverns counted too. At least this one had them. It seemed wasteful to her, but so did drinking, which wasn't prohibited, or even frowned on too much.

Technically she was too young to drink herself, at least until the next day, but sixteen was coming soon for her and no one in the world would care what she did now. She didn't have a time piece, but figured it would be about three hours or so. The air was getting chilly, since it was October, and the dark had closed around her, nearly hiding her from everyone. It didn't seem like her decision to try standing outside the place was a good one, because no one came out for a long time. There was noise though and some people singing loudly along with an instrumental piece. They were drowning it out fairly well, if off key. Whoever was playing was decent enough. Not great, not even as good as she was, but probably better than this place needed if they wanted to keep screaming like that.

"Bend over and let me do it, or I'll cut you,
bitch
." The voice was slurred, drunken and surly, but also a ways off. "I said bend over!"

Loud though, so Pran didn't have to guess very hard as to where it was coming from.

"No! I'm...Don't hurt me, please!" The woman sounded panicked, and it was either real or she was a full Bard herself, since no one else would have the acting skills to pull that off. "I...I have a family, a husband and children, please don't do this to me!"

"Shut up and get against the wall! If you want to get home to your man and kids don't make me wait. I tend to get impatient... and you don't want that to happen, now do you?"

There was a gasp of pain, a sudden intake of breath and the sound of tearing cloth.

Pran froze. Someone, a woman, was about to be raped and... she was the only one there. The logical thing was what she did, which was to start screaming while running toward the tavern door.

"Help! Help! Rape! Help! Out on the street! A woman..." She kept at it for a while, even opening the door. No one came out.

One patron even glared at her angrily.

"Shut up or I'll give you rape, you dumb snipe!" He was an older man, bald and poorly dressed, holding a metal mug in his fist, glaring at her with a surly expression.

For the second time in a minute, she froze again. No one had even stood up to see what was happening. Only a few looked over and after a bit she realized from the stillness in the room those not looking were actively trying not to see or hear her. They knew it was happening, they were just too afraid to do anything about it. That was something she could understand, but if they all helped it wouldn't be too dangerous, would it?

Running back a few steps she could hear it still happening, there in the alley, right next to the building. A man grunting and a woman alternating between crying and pleading.

"Here, none of that!" There was a sound of a single blow and another cry of pain then.

That decided Pran. She didn't know what to do, but she wasn't letting this happen. Not if she could stop it. She wasn't a fighter, of course. Not other than the bit she'd learned as a child to protect her supper from the larger children. She did the only thing that came to mind then and yelled at the top of her lungs, trying to seem older and bigger than she really was. She might not be a Bard now, but she'd done well in her classes.

"Halt! Guardians. Cease all activity and move to the wall.
Now
!" It was all acting, her voice as large and loud as she could make it. The grunting barely altered at all.

The woman cried out though.

"Help!"

This time there were several blows and curses that followed.

Pran ran into the dark space between buildings, wondering if it was just her time to die. That kind of made sense, what with the day she was having already. Well, she didn't have anything to live for anyway and this woman had her husband and kids. She couldn't see anything at all, but found them quickly enough, the sound of meat slapping against meat clear. Conveniently she nearly tripped on them, her right hand grasping something coarse and thick, a man's work jacket most likely. It was too dark to make out even a hint of where he was, but Pran growled at him anyway, giving the man a solid blow that landed on his head. A slap really, but then all her fighting experience had been against other children. They weren't exactly professionals at the Grange.

"I said, 'halt, Guardians', is some part of that too hard for you to understand? Now get against the wall or I'll have to take measures."

The man did actually stop for about half a second, then bellowed and swung at her with a blow that left a line of ice cold pain on her right arm, just under the elbow. He had a knife. The shadow tried it again, but didn't connect as she scurried backwards, searching around for something to use as a weapon. There wasn't anything there, so she called out again.

"In here! Guardians! We have the man here! He has a knife, use lethal force if he doesn't drop it!" That sounded like something from a play she'd learned once a few years before. So hopefully the man would be scared enough to quit his attempted murder of her.

Pran hit the wall and ran into a trash bin that smelled like it was the tavern's compost heap. It had a solid wooden lid on it which would have been a great shield, but when she tried to take it off, it turned out to be hinged. She couldn't get it off in time to use it as a weapon. She didn't know for a fact, but she kind of thought the man was working his way toward her, limping for some reason. The woman on the ground whimpered, but at least she was alive. For now. She got ready to fight. If the woman was smart, or even frightened enough, she'd run.

For some reason there was no fear then. She couldn't beat a man with a knife in a fight. There was simply no way. He was too big and strong. The truth was that she just didn't care at the moment. Holding up her hands like she'd been taught for her stage fighting classes, Pran got ready to die. It was a matter of simple pride that she at least look decent while she did it. Hence the fact that she was going down fighting just as hard as she could.

Then there was a flash of light from behind her, a hand beam from down the alley, not bright, but enough to see the man slowly coming at her, pants around his knees, male parts out and aimed roughly toward her. It was shocking, because she'd never seen a man like that before, so it was an unknown thing to her. What she did know though, was a thing every orphan girl learned young. Boys hurt a lot when you kicked them between the legs. She leaped in, kicking with her leg straight, like she used to when playing kick the rock as a child. It worked pretty well. True, the man did slash her leg a bit with the knife he had as he fell. That probably wasn't on purpose, he'd kind of been falling at the time and tried to grab her with his knife hand, she thought. Could happen to anyone.

At the mouth of the space between buildings a flare went off, it was bright blue and cold, but made the whole thing look like it was daytime suddenly, the man standing there had a Kinetic pistol in his right hand and a beam light in the other.

"Halt."

The tone of command got Pran to go still, but the man on the ground tried to stand, which made the man step closer, to about ten feet away.

"You...
Apprentice
. Secure that man. Use my restraints." He tossed the metal band toward her, which Pran caught as it slapped her in the face. It wasn't a great throw, which was forgivable, since the fellow had done it with a heavy weapon in the same hand, but her catch wasn't perfect either.

The problem however was that she had no clue how to make the things work. She knew that such things existed, from reading she'd done, but had never even seen them used before. The rapist stood up again, knife still in hand. He was bent over clearly still in pain, so she jumped in and kicked him in the nethers again, hoping it would work twice in that short of time. It did, thankfully, but she still couldn't work the restraints out. As she was about to ask how to do it, more people came to the mouth of the alley.

One had another beam light and the other wore a white robe that nearly glowed.

"What do we have here then? More work? This town is proving to be all kinds of entertainment." This came from the direction of the new beam light. There was no sound from either of the other people. "Clark, who's that? With your restraints?"

There was no response for a moment, then a low, deep voice answered, form black against the bright flare behind him.

"New apprentice. Subduing a rapist."

"Oh. Good then, we can always use the help." The second voice was female, and seemed to be the one in white. It was too hard to make out the faces in the dark, since they were behind the flare.

The male voice, the low one, spoke again.

"Tell him to drop the knife. If he refuses, remove it from him. I'd recommend kicking it from his hand, given your relative positions. If that fails, jump back and Mara and I will shoot him." The words were soft and slow, almost gentle.

Pran went with something harder, trying to mask the fear she felt, the terror that made it feel like she might pass out at any moment.

"You heard the man. Drop the knife. Do it now!" Then she kicked the man in the hand several times before he dropped the thing, just as the woman that had been being raped found her feet and finally ran toward the light.

The woman in white moved to her, catching her carefully as the man on the ground tried to stand again.

"It's alright dear, the Guardians have him now. He won't escape or be allowed to harm you anymore." There was some sobbing then, but it wasn't that loud.

The other voice, which wasn't exactly girly, but was probably a woman, shone her beam on the downed man as he struggled up.

"You
don't
want to do that. Your best course of action is to lie down and allow the restraints to be placed around your wrists. Be a good fellow and do that now, will you?"

It didn't sound mean or even harsh, but the man acted like it was a mortal insult. He tried to run toward the voice, tripping on his own trousers, landing flat on his face. There was a thud to it and a slick crunching sound that had probably involved teeth on stone. Pran winced but moved in anyway, holding the restraints up.

"Um, not a clue how these work."

The larger one grunted a little.

"Good. That means you probably aren't a criminal. Wrap the end around one wrist and then slide the other end around the other arm and back through the cinch-lock, keep them behind his back, always do that. Then tighten it until he can't get away. Not too tight, or his hands will fall off from blood loss. Even if he seems to deserve it now, that isn't our job. It's important for a good apprentice to know that kind of thing." The man, it was clear, was kind of laughing at her, the whole apprentice thing being a big joke to him.

Did they know who she was then? If so, was this really the time to mock her like that? There was this... animal, right there. They had to do something with him. Maybe take him to the Judge?

It took time to work the man around enough to secure his hands, but the people holding their lights didn't offer more than mild encouragement. When she had the man tied securely, hands behind his back as instructed, the larger of the other people walked over to her, and smiled. His face was scary in the light he was carrying. Shaved and fresh looking, but scarred, one of them running across his lips on the left side.

 If Pran had been trying to carve a figure to instill fear, this man would do very well for the model.