bone by starlight **NEW**

Story by ANDERS, 2011

Warning: Content is only suitable for mature adults, contains explicit language and adult themes, including violence, blood and gore, graphic sexual content and nudity.

Disclaimer: All stories are a work of fiction. The characters do not exist, except in the mind of the author. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

Tags: ff, adult, friends, fantasy

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Story foreword is found at http://betting-on-the-muse.com/2011/12/20/1154/

This is the companion story to (2) blood hawks, (3) rider on a dark horse , (4) end game and (5) storm gathering.

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I hear the secrets that you keep. When you’re talking in your sleep

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Sela looks out onto the horizon and starts counting the stars. It is beautiful out in the Plain of Winds at night, where there is nothing but space and sky and the stars themselves as far as the eye can see.

“How many days before we reach the village?” Cress asks quietly, rousing Sela out of the privacy of her thoughts.

It is most unlikely you not to hear her coming. You must be tired.

Sela turns and greets her Woman-at-Arms with a worn, tired smile.

“If we can keep up this pace, 2 days at most, the traders at the last outpost place the Hawk village in the western range of the Nameless Hills overlooking the Plain of Winds. It is the last known tribal settlement left.”

Such a shame, they were a great people. Once.

Sela can see the worry reflected in Cress’s light brown eyes. She knows the warriors and their mounts are exhausted. Cress would not have allowed them to stop and rest otherwise, if not for the risk of the horses going lame, a fatal proposition in this lonely forsaken place where nothing but bitter sage grass can thrive. They have been pressing north for 9 straight days now, a lightly armoured band of women and horses thundering across the frozen tundra, travelling by starlight and resting by day.

“Will there be anyone to meet us?”

More a frighten whisper less a question. If they keep a sentry out in the hills, they will see you coming.

Sela turns away and looks back out into the night sky. It is something she wonders herself.

“Its beautiful isn’t it, out here in the night. You can see forever. The Witch Clans have a story about the stars. They say that the stars are jewels from a precious necklace, hundreds if not thousands of sparkling gems thrown out in a sea of black by the Queen of the Sky in a fit of rage. I was 5 the first time, I saw this sky. The guards carried me away with them on foot when the undead hordes over ran the Shinning City. We were among the last to get out, before the City fell. Years later I was to learn that we were among the lucky few, most of those that fled were hunted down like animals and butchered.”

Cress nods. Like all those born during the exile, she knows the story of the last stand, the siege of the City of Dawn, by the wraith armies of the risen King. Out here in the quiet of the night, the carnage seems so long ago, but Cress knows that appearances deceive.

“Do you remember what it was like in the City before the fall?”

Do you remember? You were so very young. Huddled like a frightened meowing babe in a corner of the throne room.

“I remember being frightened, and hungry. I was very young, but I understood that there was something bad outside, people being killed. There were always warriors in the Scarlet Chamber speaking in hushed voices, bringing reports of the fighting at the front.”

“Scarlet? That was the colour standard of the last Queen of Dawn, your grandmother.”

That witch, that wild, beautiful, mad woman.

“We would not have been prepared for the horror if not for her, yet at the same time she terrified all of us. Her own mother cursed her on her death bed and none of her siblings survived beyond infancy. Her blood was strange. Her sire was Witch Clan, said to be a cambion fathered by the Dreaming Gods. She used to speak for hours to the ravens that roosted in the high towers.”

She called them her sisters. The Dreaming Gods spawned many offspring in the mortal world, not all of whom were human. They had no faith in poor, fragile humanity.

“Speak? She spoke to birds?”

Sela nods reluctantly. Like the others in her lineage, she does not like to speak of the old one.

“It started with chilling stories the ravens brought her on the wind. Vague tales about lone traders attacked and murdered by dead men on the road east. Stories that rural magistrates found fit to dismiss as nothing more than the delirious babbling of mad men. Stories only good to frighten wayward children, but she knew better. The road east wound past the old, abandon mountain strongholds of the Forgotten Kings. They were spell casters, powerful sorcerers, the likes of which our world has never seen.

The news grew grimmer as the days grew shorter. Reports came from the frontiers of armed legions dispatched to guard the passes disappearing into the mists. Watch towers abandon in haste, bread and meat left half eaten on tables and boots still drying on the heath. Barbarian scouts were sent out to investigate, but returned none the wiser. The ravens said the mountain had opened its hungry mouth and swallowed the men, so that no hide or hair of them was ever seen again.

Then groups of half crazed peasants from the isolated villages that dot the eastern ranges started streaming into the provincial towns. There were more stories, only bloodier and told in the first person from eye witnesses that described the army that was massing in the hills.”

An army of the immortal dead, the broken remnants of men, women and children assembled and melded by the foulest magicks to the carcasses of horses, oxen, bear and wolf. Legions fit for a Lich Lord. It is a shame that the world has forgotten how to appreciate the sight of such beauty, such art.

Sela pauses for a moment to gather her scattered thoughts and then continues. Her voice low almost inaudible in the screech of the wind as it lashes the hard, frozen ground.

“Wraiths, she called them, foul supernatural beings given form and purpose in the mortal world by the dark necromantic arts. They are constructed from the corrupted souls of men and women consumed by violence in death and imprisoned in rotting hunks to become the walking dead. Corpses, sometimes human, often not, often a hideous mixture of both, animated by an unholy hatred of all things living. A hatred that blazes through their empty eye sockets as a cold, eerie green light.”

Sela stops. She knows she does not need to continue. Cress must know how the story ends.

That winter, in the darkness of the longest night, the dead came forth from their mountain hideouts like a swarm of locusts to proclaim the joyous news to the world. Their risen Lord, the Prince of Dust, had finally returned from the primal darkness where he was casted out a 1,000 eons ago by the Dreaming Ones. Returned to seed the world and remake all creation in his image. By his hand, the world would die by sword and fire and so cleansed, be reborn to serve the eternal master.

In the weeks, months and years to come, sporadic news would arrive with travellers and the trade caravans until they too were no more.

The great cities of the East fell burning to the undead hordes as they swept west, annihilating every living thing in their path. Rivers rich in fish and otter now ran thick with blood. Air once perfumed with the smell of cedars, now stank of rank and rot. Springs and wells corrupted and poisoned. Woods rich in deer and fowl lay silenced. Yet the dead continued their ceaseless march. From Ur at the River Volga, they moved southwards, slashing and burning the sweet fertile plains into cinders and ash. With steel and fire, they altered the very face of creation until Famine greeted the morning sun with a grin, and Destruction dance in the cities of the dead and dying.

Finally the walking dead stood at the gates of the last human stronghold, the City of Dawn.

Long ruled by a dynasty of barbarian Queens, the city stood guard at the cross roads between the frozen Plain of Winds and the fertile southern lands. With her impenetrable stone walls and watch towers clad in steel that reached up to the sky itself, no man had ever taken the Shinning City by force, and if the Queens of Dawn had their way, no man would ever succeed.

But the Prince of Dust was no mortal man.

The City of Dawn held out bravely for 3 years against the armies of the living dead before finally falling to their infernal war machines. Stone and steel in the end were no match for the endless fire that rained death and destruction from the sky.

Abandoning the burning husk, the last Queen led the survivors across the Plain of Winds to flee the pursing hordes. With an uncanny animal cunning, she charted their path by the stars, westwards to the Nameless Hills and beyond. Finally reaching a settlement hidden deep in the silent forest, where they were given sanctuary by her father’s people, the fabled Witch Clans of the North. Cress herself was born in the forgotten northern lands, her fair hair a testimony to her paternal inheritance.

Sela in contrast is a study of shades, standing a head taller with dusty olive skin and long, black lanky hair. Unlike her mixed breed Captain, the blood of ages flows in her veins. She is one of the last of the pure bloods, those born when the Shinning City still stood proud and tall.

“My mother used to tell me and my sisters stories of the siege. The stories made our blood run cold. She told us she would not have had the heart to survive without the leadership shown by your mother. My mother served under her in defence of the Beautiful City. She is a great leader.”

Your mother, the whore. The nights you went to her, tired and hungry, only to find her in bed with a yet another man or two. You could never compete with her lovers. Unlike your sisters, you were the child she never wanted, the pure blood heir she had to produce to secure her right to the throne.

Sela is quiet, her eyes misty and far away. When she finally speaks, her voice is brittle and cold.

“That woman gave birth to me, she was never my mother. I grew up among the tribes of the Witch Clans, a wild child, a thief. Until one day the Mountain King took pity on me. He had a motherless child, and I reminded him of her. He took me into his hut, gave me a place by the fire, fed me, clothed me and when I was old enough to hold a spear, she came and took me away. I was 15, a whelp. She put an axe in my hands and taught me to kill.”

And you have done nothing but that your entire life. Kill. Maim. Cripple. All to keep that whore sitting on a throne of gold.

Sela pauses unable to continue. She feels the bile pulsing at the back of her throat. The tears dried up years ago; she knows better then to cry for her mother’s imperial ambitions.

Cress is embarrassed by this sudden show of emotion by her companion, the woman whose destiny is to wear the triple crown of the Resurrected City, the City of the Sun, upon her brow. That is if she would have it.

“You will be Queen after her. Your crimson colour standard flies alongside her gold above the city ramparts. She has made her wish known. None of your sisters are fit to rule.”

None of them are your equal in battle or wit. You know that very well. You know how easy it is to reach out and crush them and their sires underfoot; repay them for your years of humiliation.

“Those dammed bitches can fight amongst themselves to wear that cursed crown. I will have no part of that nest of vipers or that dammed City. She knows that very well.”

Cress watches silently as Sela spits hard into the ground, her face a hard mask of anger.

Such bitterness even after so many years, how long will you continue to punish yourself and alienate those that care for your interest? The crown is yours for the taking. Only you will not have it, because it pleases you to see the discord this causes in your mother’s court. The politics, the plotting, the betrayals, they are all enacted for your amusement are they not?

They stand together for a long while, listening to the low howl of the restless wind, each deep in the swirl of their own thoughts. It is Cress who speaks first, her voice breaking the awkward silence.

“You could hardly call the great ‘Soul Breaker’ an axe. If you could, you might as well call all this someone’s potato field.”

Sela smiles at the rough chiding tone in Cress’s voice. With his woman at her side, she has ridden through walls of arrows thick as hail, fought waist up in a river of rotting human guts and faced off nightmares from the very pit of Hell. There is nothing within reason or otherwise that Sela will not do for Cress, and she knows that there is nothing that Cress will not do for her.

“I believe the scrolls describe it as a large, crude bone axe of unknown origin. Although there is speculation that it’s Witch Clan. “

“Well, I’ve seen you single handedly smash your way through a cordon of armed wraiths, 5 bodies thick, like they were made of nothing but fog and mist to reach a group of stragglers cut off from the main body. I’ve heard the way that ‘axe’ of yours seems to sing before it slices a wraith in half. There is an ungodly power there that you weld, and many would gladly kill to possess it.”

“Power has a cost. You know that, Cress. The bloody axe feeds off the souls of the slain.”

“As it will feed off the blacken soul of the risen King, when you cleave his bony head into two and end his nihilistic existence once and for all.”

“I doubt that a single soul, no matter how old or powerful, makes any difference to its hunger. The axe is cursed. It needs to feed and often, otherwise it will drive its welder mad with its whisperings. The axe speaks, Cress. I hear it. It tells me things. Things I would never have known otherwise.”

Cress turns and she sees the dark circles around the taller woman’s eyes and wonders how long it has been since Sela last slept.

Do you ever sleep? That must be very tiring for you. Are you afraid to sleep?

“I remember the first time I marched south against the living horror at the River Volga, that was the first victory of the summer campaign. We were joined by allies from the West and the East, ragtag armies of mercenaries spoiling for a fight. They only fought because they believed in the power of the Witch Clans to cleanse the filth from the land. You saved my life on that river. I was the last of my unit left standing. A lone warrior surrounded on all sides. The wraiths would have me joined their ranks, if you hadn’t charged them down. You and that bloody ‘axe’ of yours.”

Sela nods slowly as though in a daze. She remembers that battle and all the others before and after. The half rotten faces frozen in a voiceless scream, the loud crack of dry bones and tendons snapping, and always the song as the demon axe flashed in the sun and came down again and again and again.

Singing. Cutting. Slashing. The joy of two merging to become one.

Over the years, she’s leant to focus her thoughts, guard the gateways in her mind that make her vulnerable to the axe’s malicious talk. But, it is still a struggle to fight a constant battle of wits against an enemy that never tires. Sela does not kid herself that she is the one in control. She has learnt the hard way, that the only one she can control is herself.

“That was a long time ago. I wonder now if the means justify the ends. We were wrong to ask the Witch Clans to sacrifice so much.”

After all this time, you still think of her, the motherless witch girl with the runes of power tattooed into her soft, pale skin. The girl whose bed you shared. You fell in love with her when you were nothing but a pup, and you are still in love with her. How pathetic.

“It was their decision to make and they understood the price. They are a brave, proud people, without them we could never have defeated the risen King and imprisoned him back in the Tomb of Eyes.”

Lies. All Lies. There was another way. You know that. Do you remember how the witch girl used to allow you to take her on her hands and knees? Her legs wide open to your touch. Moaning. Whimpering. You liked that, didn’t you? The things you did to her.

Sela shakes her head to clear it. She never agreed with the decision to allow the Witch Clans to sacrifice themselves. There had to have been a better way, so many good men and women gone.

Ask Cress about her father. He was Witch Clan. Bear. Like the witch girl.

“The man your mother was with… the man who sired her litter. He was Witch Clan was he not? “

“My mother had many lovers, but yes, my sire was Witch Clan. He hailed from the tribe of the Bear. He was lost along with the rest of his tribe fighting in the Tomb of Eyes. He was a good man. He cared for us and taught me and my sisters how to hunt and fish.”

Cress’s voice is wistful, without a trace of bitterness. They had said their farewells before he left. He knew he wasn’t coming back. It was a suicide mission at best. The human cost of waging the endless war was sickening. The Witch Clans felt the brunt of it. Their already thin ranks dissipated by the constant fighting, still they hung on until their Shamans found a way to seal the risen King back into his tomb.

The witch girl, what was her name? Do you remember? Her father was the Mountain King. He gave you your first fish spear and taught you how to use it. Do you remember? He’s long dead now. Why didn’t you stand with them in the Tomb of Eyes? You are the welder of the Great Bone Axe. You could have saved them if you won’t such a miserable coward.

“I should have stood with them in the inner sanctum, fought with them in the Tomb of Eyes. They didn’t stand a chance with their bone spears and wooden shields against the wraith lords. They were brave, but bravery is no match for horn, tooth and claw.”

In her mind’s eye, Sela could see the men desperately fighting, each trying to postpone their own eventual death. The sounds of bone clashing repeatedly against horn, fading into screams as flesh tired and fell to savage tooth and claw. It is a fate she would not wish upon her worst enemy. She herself faced off a wraith lord once and if she was not the welder of a demon axe, she would not have survived the encounter.

Coward. Incompetent. Fool. To be nearly bested in battle by a wraith lord like a shivering dog.

“You were a child. You knew they could not permit you to go with them. They would take none of us. It was their fight.”

“I never knew my… father, if you could call him that. That woman never speaks of him.”

That rankles you doesn’t it? Not to know where you come from. While your sisters are secure in the knowledge that their sires will support them in their bid for the throne.

“There are things that trouble us. Things that we cannot speak even to those we care about.”

Cress is careful, diplomatic. There are dark places in her own heart she does not care to trend, and Sela is strange tonight, distant, and dreamy like she was caught in the world of dreams unable to find her way out to the waking world.

“We never speak of the Witch Clans. They were once 5 large tribal settlements; Bear, Hawk, Wolf, Hare and Deer. Now all that’s left is one small isolated hunting village. They took us in when we were nothing and fought for us. In the end, we forgot them.”

When will you forgive yourself? The witch girl left you. She went home with what was left of her people to forge her own destiny. With the death of her father, she was now the Mountain Queen. It was a choice she made. She knew you would not understand. You never understood.

“They wanted to return to the northern forests to perform the last rites for their dead. The war had broken them. The great tribes were no more. They had no heart to stay and we could not go. We had to stay to rebuild the fallen City. Was that wrong?”

The witch girl wanted to spare you the decision. Can you not see that? She loved you. She knew you would not return with her. Did you love her? Or did you just use her? Was she a toy to you, some plaything to while away the hours? The things you did to her would have shamed a tavern wench. You really are your mother’s daughter.

“We were wrong. We used them and when they were no longer of any use to us, we threw them away.”

Ask her about her sister, Ari, her twin. The sister she does not speak of. The sister she threw away.

 Sela turns. Her eyes are vast black, empty holes that eat the light. Cress is transfixed in their brutal splendour. There is a savage beauty in Sela’s cruelty, a cruelty Cress knows very well.

“Your sister, your twin, she returned with them.”

Cress is shaken. Sela cannot have known that. Cress never speaks of Ari, her other half.

“It was her decision. She wanted to bring my father’s body back to the north lands. She was close to him.”

Ari wanted to go home. She was sick of all the killing and the dying. She wanted Cress to go with her.

“Do you dream about him, your father?”

She dreams about Ari. She wonders if she is safe, if she is hungry, if she is alive, if Ari has forgiven her.

“I honour his memory, as you should honour their sacrifice.”

Honour? She lies through her teeth? There is no honour among traitors. Ask her about her sealed orders.

Cress knows the conversation will end with a blade in her chest if she’s not careful. Sela has that haunted look on her face, which says she knows that treachery is in the air. She can smell the stink of it rolling off her best friend.

“What’s wrong is us coming to ask them to make the same sacrifice for us again.”

It is a statement plainly spoken and devoid of emotion. Cress takes a deep breathe and slowly lets it out.

“We have no choice, Sela. We have reports from the East that the runes that bind the risen King are beginning to weaken. The signs that foretell his reawakening and return to this world are coming to past; rain turning to blood, the still births among the woman in the villages that ring the Tomb of Eyes, and the plague of slugs. We need the Shamans to perform the ritual that will lay him back to rest. He cannot be allowed to rise again.”

She was called to the throne in secret before your departure. Ask her, her orders.

“At what cost? What did that woman tell you to do? What are your orders? Cress, you wear my colours not hers, dammed you.”

“My orders are to escort the Shamans back to the City of the Sun by force if necessary. The horror cannot be allowed to pass again, no matter what the cost.”

Cress closes her eyes, and hopes in her heart that in time she will be forgiven. She has her orders. She will fight the woman before her if she must.

She has betrayed you. You cannot trust her. She is not your friend, never your friend.

“If you would allow it, I would have us turn round and ride back the way we came. Let this world rot and burn. What does it matter? We are all equally dammed.”

Do it. Take the traitor’s head off and kill the rest of the party. You cannot trust them.

Cress shakes her head sadly and does not reply. She has no words left to carry her shame. The day after tomorrow they will reach the village and that is all that matters.

Do it. Kill them all while they sleep. No one would ever know and you’ll be free of that whore. Free to do whatever you wish. That’s what you want isn’t it?

Do it. Kill them and ride on to the village, the witch girl will be there waiting for you. She still loves you.

Do it now and you will be with her again.

Do it. Kill them, you miserable coward.

KILL THEM.

“Cress, she never said good bye. I woke up in our bed and she was gone. I never told her I loved her.”

“‘I know. I never told Ari I loved her too.”

Sela falls quiet, lost again in the maze of her thoughts. Her hands hang loose by her side, balled tight into white knuckled fists. The worn handle of a great ivory battle axe lies shimmering untouched at her feet.

Cress quietly wishes her friend a good night and leaves her still staring at the brilliant stars.

***END