We Solemn Few

Chapter Twenty-Two : New Wounds and New Ideas

With unnatural strength did Thelladon practically tear Rhiss from Marrow's grip, heaving him up over his broad shoulder as his other hand took Marrow by the scruff of the gray leathers he bore, yanking him along beside him with not but a word. He would have fought out of the man's grasp had he thought it possible but if the man's face was stone, his grip with steel. So he marched, dread rooted in his stomach and his hand tight on his ax, his thoughts wandering as he fought to focus on Rhiss. Not on the rakes of wounds, though. He would not look at those again, not when they bore into his brain regardless. He tried not to blink; he could see them too clearly in the darkness.

Perhaps wandering thoughts were stronger that his ambition to focus, or perhaps part of him knew if he indulged them the streeks of red inside his head would fade, for they dug to the forefront of his mind with ease. What was that creature? It seemed impossible but if Samson could be brought back from death, nothing was impossible. Yet it seemed so human, yet so tainted. It had looked too close to a woman, too close yet too twisted and no matter what his father claimed against women none could slaughter a dozen or so men and women wielding blades. But this... thing had. He had seen the bodies. He wondered only briefly on why their deaths felt so numb alongside the thought of Rhiss dying. Perhaps it was because he was not yet dead. He will not die! That thought felt hollow.

"Darkness taints and twists..." Marrow muttered aloud, but the words were not his own. Mjunik had said so moments before that thing had screamed, moments before the slaughter. Had he known? Shaking his head, he marked that off as assuredly impossible. Mjunik claimed to see the future - "tellings," as Veyha would always correct him - but they had only ever been half-right, and only that half the time. He surely could not have known. He was simply a crazy man who indulged crazy ideas... who somehow knew Veyha and Zenrin were alive. Let him not be crazy enough to lie about that! One question hung silently within his head, though. What had he to speak with Lady Vyri about? That question bundled beneath it a thousand more, but he lost grasp on the train of thought and Thelladon shoved him into a small, stone building well out of the way of the main streets.

Marrow was quick to speak as the door slammed shut behind them. "Where are we? Why have you taken us here? We need Mrs. Helia-"

"Shut it." But two words commanded absolute silence and despite himself, Marrow gave it. He watched as the silver-wing breasted man threw Rhiss down upon a much too uncomfortable seeming cot, stripping off what rags remained of the boy-soldiers shirt before dousing the wounds in an abundance of water, all poured from lukewarm waterskins. Yanking a cloth off of a nearby table, he wiped away what blood remained rather forcefully, grunts echoing from Rhiss' gritted teeth even through the furrows of unconsciousness. Marrow nearly winced himself at that; he had seen his town's doctor treat someone so carelessly in their sleep once and he had woken sorer than if he had taken twice the wounds. But he would not question the stone-faced man before him; his eyes were cold enough, but that steel grip could snap his mouth shut if it so wished.

"What you see, axe-bearer..." Sir Thelladon grated, shoving off his dove-winged breastplate and half-shrugging off his leather shirt, "Is something you will never speak of. Not even to me. Declare you won't or I will taken your tongue to assure you can't." There was a certain grimness in those words, but the statement was as strong as his hands.

"I won't." It was a truthful promise if not one born of fear. "Will Rhiss be-?"

"I do not make promises. Be quiet." Letting leathers fall to the ground, Sir Thelladon undid his topknot, long locks of black cascading down a scarred landscape of muscle that made up his back, obscuring a large, briefly bore tattoo of two ravens, one of which was beaten and broken, feeding greedily on the all too well seeming other who accepted it instead of fluttering off. An odd, foreboding tattoo. And as the grim-faced soldier placed his hands to the sides of the blond-haired boy's head, that very tattoo began to flutter with black-gray smoke as if it were burning deeper into his back. Smoke that drifted up to his shoulders and down his arms, curled around his fingers and encompassed Rhiss' eyes. And then, in a wave it swept down his body, drifting and sinking into all manners of wounds with no care for size or shape. Thelladon winced, then, and an awful symphony of ripping flesh, too similar to what he had heard but minutes earlier, began.