The Cursewright's Vow

Chapter 11: Blood on the Old Godsway, Part 1

 Barthim did not want to leave Lena. Ammas had been muttering to him, kneeling by the big man's side, for what felt like hours, though it could not have been more than a few minutes. The pain in his shoulder, the exhaustion opening the doors always left him with, and most of all the sight of poor Lena laying slaughtered on the Old Godsway had warped his sense of time altogether.

"Barthim, please, listen to me. There's at least one more of those things out there. We have to protect Carala, and Casimir, and all the other girls at the Lioness. Your man over there, get him, let us use him. At least he has a club." Ammas's fingers were pressed to the Beast's huge shoulder, heedless of the blood flowing from the jagged claw marks.

Barthim only shook, weeping still more clamorously. The girls on the Lioness's porch -- not all of them, but a good number, Ammas thought, and of course the patrons had all fled up the street, the cowardly little whoring shits -- shrank together, perhaps more unnerved by Barthim the Beast being consumed with grief than they were by the violent death of one of their own. 

"Barthim, if Carala had so much as a sword, I could use her. She's tough and stubborn. But she doesn't, and these things might know how to rouse something in her she can't control. Casimir is brave but he's still a child. Help me. Help me so we can put a stop to this."

Distantly, hoofbeats began to thrum along the road. Ammas swore violently. But Barthim at least seemed to be pulling himself together, wiping his face on the bloodied rags of his vest. "All right, Ammas. I will break as many necks as you need me to break, and with pleasure."

That was as good as anything Ammas could hope to hear from Barthim, and so he sprang up and raced to the Lioness's porch. Madame Laurette was there in her dark red velvet dressing robe, but it was to Selene Ammas spoke. He had always gotten along with her almost as well as he had Lena. "Selene, listen to me -- "

The red-haired Lioness girl bent forward and grabbed Ammas's hand in hers, which were cold and shaking. The smell of perfume and wine hung about her in a cloud, but through it all was a red pulse of terror. "Ammas, what is that thing, what did that to Lena, oh gods, it's not a werewolf, are they? How many, Ammas, is it a pack, is it -- "

"Selene," he hissed. "I don't have time. The city guard is on its way -- "

"Yes, yes, Yula ran up to catch one -- "

"Fine. We need the guard. The more swords the better. But I'm going to be arrested. I can reason with some of them, but not all, and I have no idea who's on their way. Lena died trying to help that girl. I can't lose her to the guard, or Casimir either. Please. Hide them here. As far as you know Casimir never came to work for me, and my client is just a new girl named -- named Mari. Can you do that for me?" He spoke rapidly, trying not to give Selene time to come up with an excuse not to do it.

But he needn't have worried. Selene looked up from Ammas to Lena, Barthim still kneeling over her though his weeping seemed to have given way to prayers. "Lena was trying to help her?"

"Yes."

"All right. They can come here. We'll be glad to have Cass back anyway."

Madame Laurette sprang forward. "Now you both hold on here, this is my business and I get a say in this, and I don't want anyone associated with you in my house when the guard comes to haul you to Titansgrave, Ammas! You just march right back -- "

Selene rounded on Madame Laurette and seized her by the robes, slamming her against the cheerfully painted wall of the Prideful Lioness. Her tastefully sculpted gray hair flew askew. Even Ammas was shocked. "You just listen here, you hateful cunt. Lena was just murdered. Her blood is still warm. She died for something other than fucking the drunks you give us to every night. So you're going to make sure it wasn't for nothing."