Ethel
07-18-08, 01:19 PM
Closed!
It is not the brief rain that wakes her, nor is it the universally sweet essence of rainwater draining in the earth.
A low animal sound, a moan like a dying man. For a few moments she lies there and lets it in her brain, wondering if she is imagining things again. Is it her? No, it can't be - it's too far away. Ethel's fingers curl in the dust, cool and clumping from the recent shower. When she lifts her head, there's a small cheek-shaped impression in the ground. She forgets about the peculiar moan.
The sky is dark. It's a boiled ash colour with strands of navy cloud skirting so close she can see them swirl before her very eyes. This is strange, because she remembers that it used to be morning, and clear, and rather warm - for the mountains, anyway. Ethel pushes herself to her knees, straightening her bonnet which has gone askew. She is...surrounded by sagebrush, scores of silver-green lace, everywhere, and a few black pines. She seems to be at the bottom of a slope, and automatically her gaze lifts to what must be the road above.
How'd she get down here?
The woman stands, shakily at first, then determinedly pushes her way past the sage which tangles in her dress and rips it in places. She doesn't bother to lift it up away from harm, though. Soon her sandals scrape against dirt. It's the road, narrow and pale and edged with a wall of flesh-coloured sandstone on one side, and the shallow dip into a dry riverbed on the other, where she awoke. There's a steep rise to her left, directing the road between two mounds of jagged stone and ill-looking trees standing sentinel. Steep enough so she can't see what's on the other side.
It's quiet here.
She turns in a circle, breathing harder now, the crisp breeze blowing lines of her hair in her face. She brushes them away without much thought.
She doesn't know why she didn't see him before, but the man's body is quite obvious because it is laying directly across from her, pushed against the sandstone wall. The soil around the midsection is darker than it should be, even with the rain. Ethel walks over very, very slowly. Her eyes burn but she won't blink.
Closer. The man is on his stomach, wearing a sharp blue uniform. His trousers are white, and the feint yellow stain marking his pant leg is all the more clear. There is a heavy, pungent coppery odour, filtering through the freshness left by the rain. She coughs, leans and places a light hand on his shoulder. The muscle underneath is firm, but she can't feel anything else through the coarse fabric. She increases the pressure of her hand. Still, nothing. Ethel holds her breath and pulls.
When she sees the teeth, molars actually, all perfectly white and fringed in red, exposed, wet, tendrils of muscle delicate as spider silk and the tongue black and engorged, she has to let the body go. Ethel stumbles backward; bile fills her mouth and she gags, tries to hold it in, but her lungs spasm and it comes pouring out, splattering and pooling on the moistened road. She trips and lands hard on her knee.
It is then, gazing stupidly at the murky puddle of mostly-digested chicken stew mingling with the man's bloodstains in the dirt, that she notices the unmistakable rifts of wheel tracks tracing past her. Boot prints and horseshoes.
"Oh god."
The words leak, her voice crackles and she swallows, strings of vomit burning her throat. It all rushes back to her.
They had taken the two-horse carriage. Driven by the tawny Chauffeur, Sean, large enough for the Lady and Lord of the house, their young son, the Lady's stately companion Sara. Some luggage. The dogs tailed behind with John the butler on his roan mare; Ethel, along with the housekeeper Marle, the two between-maids Claire and Renee, and George the footman, were made to walk. A relatively small percentage of the staff, the loyalist perhaps, had chosen to follow their employers to Alerar. Ethel had never been out of Eluriand personally, but with Xem'zûnd's dark army frothing just beyond the outskirts of their property in the countryside and her parents having long since moved from the city, she had nowhere else to go.
Lord and Lady Szabo refused to shut themselves deeper inside Eluriand as their neighbors the MacTeffs had done. When the outer pear orchards became a battleground for the undead hordes and those seeking to protect the Raiaeran capitol, the family realised their stubborn refusal to abandon the generations-old dwelling was not such a wise idea, and they gathered what few precious commodities and keepsakes they could and fled, fled to the land of the Dark Elves. Good friends dwelt there. They could forge a life for themselves, start anew, away from the madness embroiling their homeland.
The first days since making Niadath Pass went by without significant event. They were joined by many others in an escape from Raiaera, from familiarity - refugees from all walks of life. Well-dressed doctors toting small bags, their glossy, expensive shoes smeared in manure; sun-burnt farmers and sunburnt farmers' wives, who tended to coagulate together in softly chattering groups like hens debating over the best pecking spot; leather workers who smelt strongly of oil; limping, shifty-eyed business men; filthy street rats impossibly young, darting in front of you when you least expected it, oft whining for bread and coin. Entire families, some with servants and valuable livestock in tow. Ethel kept to her own in the weary fray, chatting only with the between-maids, sometimes with Marle, once accepting a knife from John who said she should carry it for her protection. It was just a regular steel steak knife; she recognised it from their kitchen. Regardless, it was the first present he had ever given her.
She watched the lanky, golden-haired butler lead his horse ahead, and sighed, pressing the flat of the blade close to her bosom and causing more than a few interested looks from people passing her by. Then her toe caught on a stone and she nearly stabbed herself, so she decided to keep it in her apron pocket snuggled in a shred of leather Renee mysteriously acquired and handed her.
They were attacked on the fourth day of travel. She didn't know who the raiders were - she couldn't tell. She hadn't been conscious long enough to tell anything. There was screaming, gunshots, a woman crying. She panicked and ran for John, who was grappling with a darkly-clad figure. Shouted his name.
For an instant, his eyes met hers.
It is the last thing she remembers.
It is not the brief rain that wakes her, nor is it the universally sweet essence of rainwater draining in the earth.
A low animal sound, a moan like a dying man. For a few moments she lies there and lets it in her brain, wondering if she is imagining things again. Is it her? No, it can't be - it's too far away. Ethel's fingers curl in the dust, cool and clumping from the recent shower. When she lifts her head, there's a small cheek-shaped impression in the ground. She forgets about the peculiar moan.
The sky is dark. It's a boiled ash colour with strands of navy cloud skirting so close she can see them swirl before her very eyes. This is strange, because she remembers that it used to be morning, and clear, and rather warm - for the mountains, anyway. Ethel pushes herself to her knees, straightening her bonnet which has gone askew. She is...surrounded by sagebrush, scores of silver-green lace, everywhere, and a few black pines. She seems to be at the bottom of a slope, and automatically her gaze lifts to what must be the road above.
How'd she get down here?
The woman stands, shakily at first, then determinedly pushes her way past the sage which tangles in her dress and rips it in places. She doesn't bother to lift it up away from harm, though. Soon her sandals scrape against dirt. It's the road, narrow and pale and edged with a wall of flesh-coloured sandstone on one side, and the shallow dip into a dry riverbed on the other, where she awoke. There's a steep rise to her left, directing the road between two mounds of jagged stone and ill-looking trees standing sentinel. Steep enough so she can't see what's on the other side.
It's quiet here.
She turns in a circle, breathing harder now, the crisp breeze blowing lines of her hair in her face. She brushes them away without much thought.
She doesn't know why she didn't see him before, but the man's body is quite obvious because it is laying directly across from her, pushed against the sandstone wall. The soil around the midsection is darker than it should be, even with the rain. Ethel walks over very, very slowly. Her eyes burn but she won't blink.
Closer. The man is on his stomach, wearing a sharp blue uniform. His trousers are white, and the feint yellow stain marking his pant leg is all the more clear. There is a heavy, pungent coppery odour, filtering through the freshness left by the rain. She coughs, leans and places a light hand on his shoulder. The muscle underneath is firm, but she can't feel anything else through the coarse fabric. She increases the pressure of her hand. Still, nothing. Ethel holds her breath and pulls.
When she sees the teeth, molars actually, all perfectly white and fringed in red, exposed, wet, tendrils of muscle delicate as spider silk and the tongue black and engorged, she has to let the body go. Ethel stumbles backward; bile fills her mouth and she gags, tries to hold it in, but her lungs spasm and it comes pouring out, splattering and pooling on the moistened road. She trips and lands hard on her knee.
It is then, gazing stupidly at the murky puddle of mostly-digested chicken stew mingling with the man's bloodstains in the dirt, that she notices the unmistakable rifts of wheel tracks tracing past her. Boot prints and horseshoes.
"Oh god."
The words leak, her voice crackles and she swallows, strings of vomit burning her throat. It all rushes back to her.
They had taken the two-horse carriage. Driven by the tawny Chauffeur, Sean, large enough for the Lady and Lord of the house, their young son, the Lady's stately companion Sara. Some luggage. The dogs tailed behind with John the butler on his roan mare; Ethel, along with the housekeeper Marle, the two between-maids Claire and Renee, and George the footman, were made to walk. A relatively small percentage of the staff, the loyalist perhaps, had chosen to follow their employers to Alerar. Ethel had never been out of Eluriand personally, but with Xem'zûnd's dark army frothing just beyond the outskirts of their property in the countryside and her parents having long since moved from the city, she had nowhere else to go.
Lord and Lady Szabo refused to shut themselves deeper inside Eluriand as their neighbors the MacTeffs had done. When the outer pear orchards became a battleground for the undead hordes and those seeking to protect the Raiaeran capitol, the family realised their stubborn refusal to abandon the generations-old dwelling was not such a wise idea, and they gathered what few precious commodities and keepsakes they could and fled, fled to the land of the Dark Elves. Good friends dwelt there. They could forge a life for themselves, start anew, away from the madness embroiling their homeland.
The first days since making Niadath Pass went by without significant event. They were joined by many others in an escape from Raiaera, from familiarity - refugees from all walks of life. Well-dressed doctors toting small bags, their glossy, expensive shoes smeared in manure; sun-burnt farmers and sunburnt farmers' wives, who tended to coagulate together in softly chattering groups like hens debating over the best pecking spot; leather workers who smelt strongly of oil; limping, shifty-eyed business men; filthy street rats impossibly young, darting in front of you when you least expected it, oft whining for bread and coin. Entire families, some with servants and valuable livestock in tow. Ethel kept to her own in the weary fray, chatting only with the between-maids, sometimes with Marle, once accepting a knife from John who said she should carry it for her protection. It was just a regular steel steak knife; she recognised it from their kitchen. Regardless, it was the first present he had ever given her.
She watched the lanky, golden-haired butler lead his horse ahead, and sighed, pressing the flat of the blade close to her bosom and causing more than a few interested looks from people passing her by. Then her toe caught on a stone and she nearly stabbed herself, so she decided to keep it in her apron pocket snuggled in a shred of leather Renee mysteriously acquired and handed her.
They were attacked on the fourth day of travel. She didn't know who the raiders were - she couldn't tell. She hadn't been conscious long enough to tell anything. There was screaming, gunshots, a woman crying. She panicked and ran for John, who was grappling with a darkly-clad figure. Shouted his name.
For an instant, his eyes met hers.
It is the last thing she remembers.