Five Black Nights

[Slayer of the Rot]

"The pipe...just...give me the pipe."

The outstretched hand shook in the air as though it had been beaten by time and fatigue. The knuckles were thick and gnarled, the bones standing out prevalently against the worn, scarred skin. It hung there for a few moments in the dark, reaching to a little table in the dim light of the root cellar, before it fell back into the fur covered lap. It barely made even the slightest sound as it bounced off the skinny thigh beneath, and the skeletal man looked up with his tired, blackened eyes at the two villagers sitting uneasy in their creaky chairs across the cellar.

He was an unimpressive sight; this man looked sick, his stringy, faded brown hair hanging in his face. His skin felt as brittle as aged paper stretched over his bones and the hollow of his stomach. A white fur coat was bundled around him so that only his head shown. He was crumpled in one of the far corners of the dank root cellar. A single small candle burned, casting dark pitted shadows across the face that stared for a few more moments before falling again against his chest, as though asleep. Bits of dirt fell from the straggly roots that hung from above, and the candle continued to burn, and the cold still made his bones ache.

"Where....is the sun?" Through the curtain of his dingy hair, the only threatening thing about him glared at the villagers, who were trying to contain their fear. His body looked as though it had been ravaged with starvation and illness, but his eyes held a terrible edge to them, one that cut a man down just as easy as a soldier's sword. Even if his eyes did not have that arresting quality, they still would have been wary of him; a superstitious lot, they still did not understand what ailed him, what he was, or what his presence in their home meant.

"Um...we call this the Festival of Five Black Nights. We think this is the time that our world is closest to the Antifirmanent; when, if we are lucky, we may catch glimpses of departed loved ones. We have a feast on the last night, and leading up to it, many other things we'd rather not share with a stranger...but we're not going to be able to do any of it this year. The blizzard was our first set back..."

The thin man grumbled and did what he could to nod in his moment of weakness. The candle flickered and sputtered as a draft sliced through the root cellar and cut into him like a knife. He groaned, and quietly cursed his foolishness. It would have been a simple thing to have simply flown away from this damnable village, but he hadn't felt like bothering with the snow. Like a child stubbornly refusing something beneficial, he had decided to remain grounded.

More trickles of dirt sifted down from the ceiling as boots thumped the floor above. Several somethings were drug noisily across the floor, and above, he heard glass shatter and cruel laughter. "And the other thing was of course that." The villager's posture seemed to straighten and anger briefly hardened his face, driving the cowardice away. A moment later, he shrank again into his chair, looking away from the thin man, folding his hands in his lap.

"We'd always had trouble from the mountain bandits, but we always seemed fortunate against them. We have a few people who had retired from the army who trained some of the younger men and able women, some simple swords and armor. But they did something smart, used the blizzard and the days of night to come down and catch us by surprise. I heard they got a new leader. Must be a smart guy, or something." The thumping feet above quieted, and down the stairs, beneath the glowing silhouette of the door came another cutting gust of polar wind.

'Not smart enough, the thin man thought furiously as he slumped further into the warmth of the fur coat, trying to escape the pressing cold at his back from the floor, and the cold on his face from the air. 'I didn't even shift my appearance at all. I looked like I always did. They should have recognized me, if they had a brain in their head. Those three waltzed on up and knocked my spoon on the floor. Now the bastards are sore that I killed those three. They had what was coming to them.'

He struggled to do the math in his head, trying to connect thoughts in his addled mind. He needed the sunlight to return his strength. Three of the nights had passed, as far as he could tell without the sun. He knew that much at least, because on the morning of the fourth night, he had withered and wilted and lost all of his power.

Now he looked like a leper.

"Two nights left," he rasped.

"Say, sir, we never did get your name." The thin man glanced up at him with his cutting gaze, and the villager hesitated. "What was it?"

"Dan Lagh'ratham."

[Slavegirl]

Blizzards didn’t bother her. The sun disappearing below the horizon and leaving her with nothing brighter than twilight didn’t bother her. What bothered Natalya was being so close to home, and realizing that it was fear which kept her from continuing across the land bridge that was only a couple of miles beyond the next hill. That realization was kept tightly under wraps though, shoved rather violently to the very back of her mind and covered under reminders that there was a blizzard outside, and there would be no sun to guide her travels for nearly a week.

With this excuse firmly embedded in her mind, Natalya found a little town with warm lights glowing in the windows and a fairly clean looking inn with an empty room for the week, and made herself at home. In fact, she might have made herself a little too at home. The people at first hadn’t seemed to mind her being there. They recognized her as being from the North Country, and smiled warmly at her, and when she reminisced with them over the traditions of the Five Black Nights, they invited her to join their festivities. The lighting of the fire from the candles of each home and business the night of the last sunset, the feast of sugared fruits and roasted fowl and an overly large portion of the stored winter roots and vegetables, it lacked only the dancing and whirling skirts through the flying snow.

It was like being home again, except there was no foreboding sense of what the end of the night would bring – a slave’s nights were worse than her days. Hard work was easy compared to what a girl’s master might force her to do. Natalya refused to think of such thoughts, and simply enjoyed herself among her newfound friends.

Nobody was expecting the bandits.

Torches blazing, swords glinting in the firelight, shouting and hooting and throwing people aside like they were nothing more than the straw-filled effigies they had made to represent their gods, dozens of brigands had flooded into the town square. Natalya made herself scarce, darting down alleyways, using the darkness and the snow to her advantage. With all the grace and perfection of a master, she reached the long tendrils of her psyche out toward the brigands, feeling and knowing what they wanted. Gently she sifted through the thoughts of the townsfolk to find the bandits, taking one out here with her dagger in his gut behind a barn, finding another with a crossbow bolt in his throat as he bent a girl over a barrel and pushed her skirts up around her waist to rape her.

Perhaps she wasn’t careful enough. One of the townsfolk snatched at her vest as she snuck up to her room using the back stairs. It didn’t take a mind reader to know what the woman was thinking.

“You’re a psion. I’d know your type anywhere,” the crone whispered coyly, as though she were a young woman still and trying to entice her lover, “Your master must be looking for you…”

Natalya straightened, raising her chin defiantly, her eyebrows arching as her hand flicked to the dagger at her hip. One slice across the withered skin of the woman’s belly and there would be silence – the townsfolk would blame the bandits and Natalya would be safe. Instead she leaned closer to the woman who eyed her knife nervously.

“He must be,” Natalya nodded with a knowing smile, “What is it you want in exchange for your silence old woman?”

“Come with me.”

The woman moved more quickly than she should have been able to. Natalya only just managed to keep up with her as she descended the stairs and out the back door towards a small home that belonged to the village tanner. Through the side of the house and into a darkened hallway Natalya was led until the crone paused and knelt painfully to pull at a random board in the middle of a small bedroom.

It led to a dimly lit root cellar, and a face, which Natalya only just barely recognized.

“I thought I had imagined seeing you,” the former slave purred to the frail man who lay crumpled against the wall before her, turning to the old woman she pursed her lips, “What exactly do you want me to do with this sack of shit?”

[Slayer of the Rot]

A blade of invading white light carved through the heavy gloom of the root cellar and fell upon his shrunken body. Squinting, his lips drew back from his teeth; the canines glinted long and sharp in the light. Then, two shadows brought relief to his stinging eyes as two forms appeared in the door. They stood there for a moment, one a hunched and bundled thing, the other slender and curved, and for an instant, irrationality set in and he thought that the vengeful bandits had found him. He had heard them earlier, though muffled, ordering the people above to tell them where the warrior had gone. They were hot for his blood, but in his condition the most damage he could was to breathe on them.

The stooped one shut the door as the taller one began to descend the stairs; its feet falling softly on the boards. 'There's no man or woman in this village that can sum up the grace and cautiousness to walk that softly or carefully...' The withered Saraelian pressed farther into the voluminous fur coat, until only his eyes, as severe and piercing as ever, only showed. They acted slowly to adjust again to the dim light of the candle in the cellar, and he felt anger rise up in him; anger at the woman's condescending words, and anger that he could not stand up and punish her for the insult.

Blinking, Dan finally stared upon the toned and rounded curves no woman in this spit water little insignificant village could have been able to attain in their entire life. Though most of her jet black hair was bound in a braid, a good number of the locks had managed to slip out to frame her lovely, pale face. His own eyes, ringed with dark circles as though from insomnia, traveled down her body, lingering at her chest. He felt the pressing shortness of lust rising up from his groin to try and derail his thoughts, but he drove it away.

"Natalya Tichenyanchova of the Former Shadow Division of the Brotherhood. I hadn't noticed you. Then again...my business was finished on the first day I was here. I would have normally avoided such a rotten place, but I had thought something I've been searching for...might have been here." His back had gone rigid; his cheeks flush with a growing, if small, strength. Perhaps it was just simple primal hunger that let him do so, but his thin form rose on trembling, sickly thin legs, the white fur coat hanging drably from his knobby shoulders. For a moment, he stood at his full height, towering over all of the others in the room.

He looked like a man suffering from the plague.

He looked like a Holocaust survivor.

The old woman backed up, fear flashing in her eyes. She was bent, crooked from the weight of her age, trembling from the pain that tore through her body from her arthritis, amplified terribly by the bitter Salvar cold. She looked a great deal better than the Saraelian, however. The crone twisted her knotted hands into a symbol of apparent religious importance, for the other two village men watching over him repeated the action from their spot far across the cellar. Dan's bony grip grabbed the handle of his combat knife from the sheath tied around his thin thigh, and he brandished the weapon, grinning widely. The old woman retreated again, now mumbling under her breath.

"They don't know what to make of me, Natalya. They don't know if I'm a vengeful spirit in flesh or a beast. A demon or a monster.” He took a tentative step forward, and his leg buckled, spilling him on to the floor. The knife blade sunk deep into the ground, and growling, he pulled himself back to his corner.

"Leave us," he said in barely a whisper, but the village men sprang from their seats and began to move across the cellar's dirt floor.

"And give me the pipe...the pipe, damn it..." He gritted his teeth as the terrified men and the old woman ignored him, still holding their hands up in effigy, retreating slowly up the stairs. He shut his eyes briefly as the door opened, then looked at Natalya when he heard it shut.

"I was trying to enjoy at least some of their holiday food when the bandits came into town, three of them in the little inn and pub I'd checked into. The bastards knocked my spoon on the floor and refused to pick it up, so I did what sounded rational; I ripped them into pieces. But a little into this morning, the very beginning of the fifth night, I started to get sick...then I wasted away. I don't know what it is. Whatever has struck me has crippled me. I don't have the strength to move by myself. Maybe I'm dying." He sighed, head falling against his chest. It stayed there for several minutes, and then finally, he looked up.

"To answer your question, I don't know why they brought you to me. They've expressed their certainty that I can save them from the brigands, though I have no reason to bother, aside from the fact that those three sloppy mannerless fucks bothered me, so they should all die."

[Slavegirl]

"A name is a powerful thing to speak before strangers," Natalya hissed warningly, "But I suppose we're trading insult for injury."

She glanced at the bent old woman hovering at her elbow, and at the two men who watched fearfully from the corner, pale blue eyes pausing on each as she memorized their faces for later. She let her mind brush against theirs, more lightly than a cobweb against the dew, her stomach turning at the dreadful combination of disgust and desire that they felt. As her eyes slid back to the familiar but emaciated figure of Dan Lagh'ratham, a slow smile curved the corners of her mouth.

Although the others stepped back when he stood, Natalya only raised her chin to the skeleton that towered over her. Her eyes searched the creases and hollows of a face that was barely familiar, even as her mind reached secretly into a consciousness she recognized much more easily. Whatever affected him now, it had changed him from something she could have wanted into something that only piqued her curiousity. Get him talking and you can delve deeper into that part of his thoughts with him knowing... a certain more pragmatic part of the slave's psyche reminded her dryly.

"All of the things they think of you are probably right," the former slave laughed throatily, her fingers toying with the serated dagger at her hip, "But then, from the stares I've been getting, it seems they might have the same ideas about me."

As he fell to one knee, Natalya was at his side in less than the space between two heartbeats. There was no thought for why or how he would react, it was instinct to catch one of the Brotherhood even now that they were no longer family. Sinuous arms closed around withered flesh on bone near ready to splinter. Before, the man would likely have crushed Natalya in his fall, twice her size and not likely to care if he caused harm to another. On this dark night though, she easily slowed his fall, sitting down beside him in the corner as he tersely urged their guardians from the room.

He told his story, revealing the real reason why the brigands were attacking the townsfolk, why they seemed to be searching so avidly for something they could not seem to find. The psion cunningly used this distraction to weave her thoughts into his, each tenuous thread strengthening the bond between them, each imperceptible link lighting the truth like stars blinking on at twilight. It would not be long before she knew everything he did of this town and this dark cellar, not long at all before she knew why the man she had once had trouble resisting was now little more than a hollow shell, cracked and beginning to blow away with the wind.

And as he finally told her what was wrong with him she fought the urge to look up at him - he was lying! The bastard knew why he was crippled, why he was so emaciated he could barely move, and yet he lied to her about it. Of course they were no longer family, and he surely felt the need to hide such a weakness, but there, in the very back of his mind was the truth. He knew what had happened to him, because it had happened before.

"I suppose they think that maybe I have some way of healing you - most of my people have that ability," Natalya forced herself to appear to ponder why the villagers had brought her to this place, "But I never learned that. Of course, they wouldn't know that."

The former slave wasn't sure what to do with him at this point. She knew Dan's secret, she knew that if the bandits found him he'd be dead in less than a breath, and she knew that if she didn't do something about him the townsfolk would have her in shackles on her way to Berevar in two shakes of a lamb's tail. And this time she would have no friends to lie for her or play lawyer for her - there would be no chance for freedom.

"We'll figure something out," Natalya promised the man who she had once called brother, placing a slender hand against his dangerously thin chest, "I'll figure something out. Until then I'll just keep the bandits out of here if they come looking."

[Slayer of the Rot]

"Oh? It hadn't crossed my mind that they knew what you were." His trembling hand reached up and rested on her wrist for a moment, then squeezed with what strength he could muster. In the fake warmth that the candlelight tried to instill in the bitter damp cold of the Salvarian root cellar, the eyes of the closing shark, of the starved wolf arrested her azure gaze.

Voice dipped low, he said, "Former Yorani slave. I've been all over these lands. I know the lore of almost every continent in my advancing age. It's difficult to hide racial traits, unless you're me..." Not pausing in breathe to explain, he continued. "Restoring me to my former vitality could be beneficial to you, too. These country bumpkins most likely only saw a reward when they noticed you were a psion. Normally I would just pass with a blind eye, but even I would repay a form of kindness." With the seeds sown and the cards on the table, Dan released Natalya's arm, with a bit of reluctance. Her skin was soft, and warm, a welcome refuge from the aching cold of the land. Caught up in his relic seeking and search for his family, it had been a while since he had so much as glanced at a woman without a blade lined up with her stomach. For a moment, his eyes softened upon her.

'That's how men die.'

His sigh came in a thin cloud of white vapor and he leaned farther into the corner, it the coat, trying to bury himself into it all for the wait. This night, then the next was all that was keeping him from decimating the idiot bandit bandits and leaving the stinking town.

And for each night that passed, his daughter drew farther away. The Saraelian winced at the pain that the thought brought him. The withered muscles that had been drawn tight against the thin bones relaxed in that moment of grief and his gaunt arms rose out of the coat and covered his head. The emotion was replaced as fast as it had been installed by anger. If he had still been the slightest bit human, he wouldn't have been affected by the sun's five night rest. His crutch, the anger, blossomed like a growing pool of blood to draw in not only the bandits, but the villagers as well. 'When I can hold my blade again,' he thought, bitterly, clenching tufts of his faded brown hair in slight fists, 'I am going to destroy this entire town.'

From above, something struck a wall with a heavy crash and a pair of heavy armored boots thumped the floor boards as the dirt trickled from the hanging roots. Dan turned his face to the ceiling, squinting as the soil rained down on him. A voice, boisterous and guffawing, called for everything the people had. The Saraelian's stone gray eyes turned to Natalya, and like smoke, like wind, like a ghost; she was moving with terrible grace and snuffing the candle.

For some time, he sat in darkness. Without the psion close by, the cold crept in again and seized him by the joints, sinking its stinging rimy claws into his body.

Then, the cellar door flew open and thudded against the wall, and framed in the light was a tall man in a white wolf pelt. At his side, a large double bladed axe hung from his gloved hand.

"Oh! A creak-ity old man, dying in the dark!" The bandit guffawed again, and Dan scowled as he drew closer and his details became easier to see. The brigand didn't exactly fit well with the common filthy brute thief image most people had of mountain bandits. His black hair hung from the wolf's remaining upper teeth, an eye patch across his left eye, chin slightly stubbled, but not as horrid and haggard as one would imagine. His skin was the typical Salvar pallor but clean, not smudged with dirt from moving across stones and debris in the mountainside. 'The new leader must run a disciplined ship,' he thought with a small measure of respect for the unseen man or woman.

"Well, if this ain't a shame, I don't know what is! Want some help, off to the Antifirmanent?" The brigand raised his axe, hefting it into his other palm with a slap. Dan looked up at him and smiled the smile of the seasoned executioner.

"Hm? No. But after you're done with him Natalya, there's a tunnel to a nearby farmhouse in the far east of the cellar. Let's move there, where we'll be a little more comfortable. They should have a fireplace and some scotch."

[Slavegirl]

The chill fingerprints stayed even after Dan released her wrist, the warmth she normally radiated stolen away with his grip. Natalya supressed a shudder, pulling the coarse blue wool of her cloak tighter around her. She held her silence for several moments as her gaze locked with his - dead and cold like a starved wolverine, ready to devour whatever came across his path. He could easily use her and toss her away - at this moment in time though, she had the upper hand.

"Seeing that you're lying to me, about more than just repaying any kindness I might show you, I'm not sure why I should trust you," Natalya breathed in a low voice, occupying her trembling hands with tucking stray curls into the normally tidy braid at the nape of her neck, "I do know that you keep a promise though. If I am to help you, I'll require one from you - beyond just keeping me away from these people who see a pocketful of gold when they look at me."

She would have pressed him into agreeing, made him swear to what she had in mind, an oath to follow her across the land bridge after his strength returned and kill every last Yorani master if they had to - her people would be free. Her thoughts were cut short though as the cellar door slammed open, greasy yellow torchlight insinuating itself through the dank basement, revealing knotted roots and suprised rats.

Fortunately the light didn't reach her, and only barely showed Dan, who huddled beneath his furs in pain and anger. Pain and anger that tangled itself in Natalya's thoughts through the bond she had secretly forged with him. She couldn't afford to sever the bond yet though - she'd have to deal with Dan's emotions and work with them, use them to her advantage.

The condescending prattle of a predator with cornered prey was this hunter's worst enemy, his gruff voice loudly laughing out threats and covering the sound of the former slave's crossbow as a bolt clicked into place. With a chill smile, Natalya leaned forward into the light, resting her forearm against her leg. As Dan spoke her name, the bandit's eyes widened and rested on the frighteningly serene face of his death - those pale blue eyes and over ripe curves the last thing he saw before the arrow struck him in his one good eye, blinding him for the last brief second before it ripped noisily through his brain.

He never made a sound.

"Looks like the rats are hungry," Natalya noted as a handful of the mangy creatures skittered over to the fallen bandit and began sniff and nip at the dead man's flesh. Standing, the former slave put her crossbow back in its sling across her back.

"You're right of course, we should be leaving this place," she said finally, eyeing Dan carefully before turning away. The bandit's body had tumbled to the bottom of the steps and lay crumpled at the base of them - Natalya stepped gingerly over it, not wanting to bloody her boots, and reached up with a grunt to pull the cellar door back shut, immersing them in an all too pervasive darkness once more, "I can only carry you so far, Dan. I hope you can at least drag yourself part of the way."

Using her link with the former Brotherhood member, Natalya borrowed the memory of where the passage was and sighed disgustedly as she realized its entrance was mostly blocked by fieldstone fallen from the ceiling and stray treeroots. Her knives could make short work of the roots, but the stones were the size of her head in some cases and would leave her too exhausted to carry her fellow prisoner out of the cellar even if she managed to move them all on her own.

"As you already know, you're handy little passage is more than a little blocked. Any ideas?"

[Slayer of the Rot]

How many men had he seen die? He'd lost the count for what seemed like a hundred years ago, but he added another to the tally as the bandit's head jerked, a crossbow bolt protruding rudely from his eyeball. His face went slack, and if he could see his gaze, he would have assumed it was lucid, as though entering a dream. Then the dead man collapsed and rolled down the steps, without even having the privilege of a death cry.

"Beautiful. Like art. Like poetry. That was swell, as the kids would say. I'd marry you for that killing, if I gave a damn." Dan laughed raspily, watching as, for a moment, the gruesome scene of the pierced body became even more grisly; its head was lost in a carpet of matted grey fur, and the smell of the blood grew to join the fungal wet smell of the cellar. Then, Natalya had closed the door, shutting away the light, and moved with a cat's grace and incredible memory through the dark and to the candle, lighting it with a stray match. The slender pipe shone in the light, and the thin man perked.

"Ah, the pipe, Natalya, the - huh? Oh, that. Well, there's no sense in you dirtying those beautiful killing hands of yours with dirt. And though I can walk, it hurts. Nothing I can't press through, but it becomes grating. No, it's best to let the fodder do the work..." Almost on cue, two curious faces appeared as the cellar door creaked open, one atop the other like a short living totem pole. The bottom's mouth began to move but stopped as he saw the fur clad body at the foot of the steps; it was obvious what his question had been.

Squinting up into the stinging torchlight, Dan frowned. "He was the only one, correct? As I guessed?" The top face nodded.

"Good. Then get back down here, and one of you bring an axe or a knife. That passage you mentioned; we all need it cleared. And hurry," he snapped, and the two faces were gone as though his last word had dismissed them. A moment later, the door creaked open wider, and the two men that had been watching over him earlier descended into the cellar, hopping over the corpse carefully. In one of their hands was a chipped sickle, and Dan scowled, though it was perhaps better than nothing. Grunting, he struggled to rise to his feet as the two men walked across the dirt floor, long shadows sweeping over the walls as the candlelight washed over them. By the time he was standing again, almost gasping for air, they were already upon the blocked tunnel, one hacking at the invading tree roots, the other tugging out and lugging away the fieldstone. Sweating, they toiled. Faster, Dan hissed, and in their fear and awe of the skeletal monster, they began to move quicker until they shucked their coats, shirts damp with sweat, their skin gleaming in the flickering light.

The Saraelian bent, catching the glow of silver on the corpse. Bending over with regret and pain, he snatched the glowing thing away. It was something like a cloak's brooch, though it had been fastened to the shoulder of the brigand's wolf pelt. The face of a jut-tooth demon looked up at him in hammer worked silver, and he slipped it into his pocket as he hobbled, panting, to Natalya.

The mean moved away from the cleared tunnel by the time he'd gotten there. It had a clearance of perhaps five feet, so he was going to have to crouch more than she. Breathing hard, he grabbed her shoulder for support, and he imagined with would almost feel like nothing more than a bird had lit upon her side. Settling his head against her shoulder too, hating every moment of exhaustion and weakness, he struggled to catch his wind.

"I am going to need you, at least, for a crutch. A bit of support. You two," A bony hand raised and jabbed a finger at the villager's, and they recoiled immediately. "Take the bandit's body and stuff him into the tunnel’s entrance after we've gone down it. Make sure he's covered with stone and debris. If anyone comes for him...say he decided to bend the rules and drink a bit, and went off on his rowdy way." The two men looked confused, but if the Saraelian's assumption about the bandit's leader was correct, no questions would be raised immediately. Natalya left him briefly to grab the candle, and when she returned, he cast a reed thin arm over her shoulders, his hand just above her left breast. Without another word, she was moving, at a pace he struggled to match.

Memory struck him as they passed the table and his hand swooped out, fingers clutching nothing. The long pipe remained there, and Dan cursed under his breath as he stooped to enter the tunnel. Dirt caked roots combed through his short brown hair, crumbling into his eyes, and the comforting smell of the earth strong around them. The icy cold radiated up from the hard packed dirt floor under their fleeing feet, and each step sent another draft of a cold gust up his pant legs. By now, he had forgotten what it was like to be warm.

When it seemed the tunnel would stretch farther than promised, and bring them out in Alerar, one of Dan's feet struck a chipped and worn stone step. In the candlelight, above them, was a set of angled gray wooden doors, banded with brown and rusted iron.

Natalya threw one of them open and Dan struggled to climb up into the basement of the farmhouse. The dwelling was completely silent; devoid of the crackle of a fire, the whisper of a voice, or the thump of a boot. The candle flame shone off the sides of a score of dusty glass jars to the far left wall, all holding different colored preserves. To the immediate right was a workbench cluttered with chinks of wood and old tools.

The house above was cold and vacant except for the blue glow of the moonlight spilling in from the curtains. Once Natalya had drawn most of them shut, Dan found his way to the living room of the home; assumably so, since it held the fireplace, a couch, and two high backed chairs facing the mantle. A textured square glass bottle sat atop the fireplace, and with a sniff, Dan frowned and sighed as he poured a glass. "Not scotch. Just brandy..."

He fell into one of the high backed chairs, heels digging into the beige and blue patterned rug at his feet. The chair barely made a protesting squeak or groan, and he again found himself sinking into the folds of the fur coat. It was at least warmer in the farmhouse, though marginally so. Some of his body heat was beginning to return, and his mood began to improve.

"Why are you in Salvar, anyway, and this far north? A little foolish for an escaped Yorani slave." He took a drink of the brandy, and moaned quietly in contentment. The heat of it quickly spread into the rest of his body.

[Slavegirl]

This was beyond just fear. They reacted to Dan's words as if he were some sort of fallen demi-god, a creature that there was no option but to obey. Natalya watched in something akin to awe as the men made quick work of the rubble that blocked their way. There wasn't time to ask questions though, or even to pick her way back into their minds to try to figure out what it was about Dan that had them cringing like stray dogs expecting to be kicked.

The tunnel was narrow - and just small enough that even Natalya, tiny as she was, had to stoop. Dan's weight added to the stress only made the excruciating trek to their new location that much more unbearable. She fought back the urge to cringe everytime a spiderweb clung to her hair, and managed only to gag quietly when a cockroach skittered over the back of her neck. Blood didn't bother her a bit - bugs did. It didn't matter though, she had to get Dan to somewhere less easily detected by the bandits, and unless she was hallucinating, her candle was reflecting off of rusted metal and wood instead of dirt and cobwebs somewhere only a few yards ahead.

She left Dan only barely inside the house, snuffing the candle and bringing her crossbow to the ready in her right hand and a nasty serated knife thirsting for blood in her left. Crouching near the half rotten front door of the abandoned house, Natalya let her senses filter out, unfurling her mind like a sail in a steady wind, allowing it to billow out and pull her notice quickly to any danger there might be.

Nobody in the town even wanted to remember this house was here. A few months ago it had been lived in by some crazy old woman everyone thought was a witch, but now that she was dead they just avoided it on principle. The bandits didn't know about it, and it seemed fairly free of vermin - an ideal place to hide for the moment, especially if any of her stores remained.

With a catlike stealth, Natalya pulled all the shutters closed on the few windows. Most buildings this far north had a minimal number of windows - none on the north side of the house - because every opening was a place for cold to sneak in. The windows in this house had been covered by oiled leather, and the shutters kept out any stray light or wind that might enter. Satisfied that their presence wouldn't be noticed, Natalya found a match after searching through the drawers of a cabinet near the hearth and lit the candle once more. If she had more confidence in their solitude, Natalya might have been brave enough to kindle a fire to warm them, but for now the brandy Dan found would be a welcome subsititute.

"Good catch on the brandy," Natalya smiled, the hollows in her face shadowed like a carved alabaster statue of some ancient Northern goddess, "Later I might risk a fire if we're left undisturbed long enough."

With a glass of her own, and the bottle in hand, Natalya took a seat in the chair across from Dan, setting the bottle on the floor and leaning her head against the back for just a moment as her eyes closed. Once more she assured they were alone, and when he spoke it took her an extra moment to process what he said, forcing her mind back into her body.

"How do you know anything about Yorani and their slaves?" Natalya countered his question with another, one blue eye opening to glare at him warily. Through the bond she'd forced onto him, the former slave knew immediately that whatever he knew wasn't going to be used against her, "Whatever you know, I'll assume you know how the Yorani treat their slaves. And if you know that much, then you should be able to guess why a runaway would be this far north. My family is still there, all but my sister, and I intend to end their slavery. I intend to end the Yorani and their trade all together. Fifteen generations is much too long a time for one race to be slaves to another."

Ranting had let her accent slip, the neutral tones of a Radasanthian import being shed for the strangely intoxicating speech of the North, the lilt between guttural and sibilant becoming pronounced as she continued. With something akin to a gasp the former slave bit her tongue, and looked down and away from the man across from her that may as well be a stranger but for the link between their minds.

It was a long while before she looked back up at him, her pale cheeks flushed, both with the two glasses of brandy she'd gulped down in the meantime and with embarassment at letting her tongue wag so loosely.

"That's the promise I need from you," Natalya finally spoke, her speech almost returned to it's "normal" accent, only the slightest sound of velvet rubbed the wrong direction to be heard if one listened carefully, "If I help you, you help me to stop what's happening in Berevar."

[Slayer of the Rot]

Dan didn't seem to be listening very carefully at all to the ranting of the former Yorani slave as the candle light flickered in the sickly hollows of his own face. He looked like a haunt, phantasmal sunken eyes looking off into another corner of the room, off towards the blocked window, where the oilskin hung motionless. Despite its hindrance, he could see the cold and relentless Salvarian winter outside. The snow blanketed the ground in thicker sheets than in any other season; glimmering like gems cast away in the full blue moonlight. The branches of pines hung heavy under their white burdens, and down the path, close to the outskirts of the little village, the snow, though sparse now, the fury of the storm all but spent, did what it could to cover a prone form. Bringing the glass up to his lips, shaking into his bony hand, Dan wondered how much of the body had been taken back to the Salvar ice and permafrost...

"After the death of the Brotherhood, I traveled. I didn't have anything else to do. I picked up many things that even the libraries of the world don't know. The Yorani, well, I'd been to Salvar before. I knew. I just didn't see any point in helping, because it was just...a way of life. Slavery exists in Fallien too, you know. And a bit in Alerar too." His glass was empty and in his current, withered condition, without the more powerful and supernatural effects of his body, he was already feeling the effects of the alcohol in his thin blood. Still, he was no more compliant, still as stubborn as ever, and he scowled deeply when he realized the rest of the brandy was in Natalya's possession, too far to bother trying to get yet.

Shaking his head, he said, "Foolishness. You'll just end up throwing away your life trying, no matter how versed you are in the art of assassination. And then your family will be no better off, just with a dead daughter." He wondered if his words had managed to penetrate her resolve; Natalya looked away, color rushing into her face. Dan's expression remained stoic, and his eyes stayed upon her, not moving an inch. In the back of his mind, somehow, he knew what was coming next.

Despite himself, laughter welled up in his reed thin chest, but only managed to laugh for a moment or two before degenerating into a coughing fit that shook his entire pathetic form. He sank a little farther into the seat, until almost the entirety of his back was lounging on the set of the chair.

"That's not going to change anything. People will die and maybe your people will be free, but there will always be another set of tyrants for a people like yours. You just want this out of a personal vendetta. It's unfair to drag me into it; do you think I don't have anything that I must tend to? I've problems of my own. Family problems. I will make sure you are not sold back to the Yorani, you will make sure I do not die, be it from illness or blade."

Face twisting in pain, knees shuddering, Dan forced himself to his feet and hunched over immediately at the very effort of it. Then, he moved forward, stumbled, and fell to the ground. With shaking hands, he pulled himself across the carpet and pulled the brandy bottle down to himself, taking a short pull from it.

"Nothing...nothing more."

[Slavegirl]

Natalya tightened her grip on Dan's mind, sliding her thoughts even more deeply into the midst of his, and even as she did so she smiled. At first it was just a slight tug at the corners of those beestung lips, a barely noticeable twinkle in the frost blue of her eyes, but it curved her lips until her teeth were bared, and she shook her head at the stupid man before her, laughing until he could not breathe.

His secret was simple, pathetic, and something that she might have pitied him for under different circumstances. But tonight, in the chill darkness of the Salvarian black time, she was only disgusted by him. He was completely at her mercy, but she knew that she was not at his. With an ambivalent shrug, Natalya stood, smirking down at Dan who drank from the bottle like a half-dead hobo.

"I can keep myself from being taken back into slavery," Natalya reminded the withered pile of shit at her feet, stepping back toward the door, "You are in no position to deny me what I require. Not with a secret like the one you so carefully hide in the corners of your thoughts."

A low laugh bubbled from her chest like icy water from a spring, and the former slave stepped over Dan and walked toward the door, pausing as she placed her hand against the latch. The only thing he would see of her was a tumble of dark hair, curling loose from her braid and down her back nearly to her waist, the moonlight glinting silver off the shine of the black leather pants which hugged her curves, the heavy surety of the crossbow which hung diagonally across her back. But not her face, waiting patiently for the emotions that would soon overwhelm the man whose mind she inhabited.

"You enjoy hiding here, weak, until the sun returns, my old friend," Natalya purred as she opened the door, "I hope the brandy gives you enough strength to fight off the rats when they come to feast on your bones."

[Slayer of the Rot]

Dan had propped his back against one of the legs of the small table sitting near the chairs, moments before she responded. He seemed to be rather quite pleased with himself; Dan Lagh'ratham had never been the sort to simply agree to matters that didn't affect him in the slightest. He'd come north, into the snow and wind to look for his daughter, not free a gaggle of slaves. Taking another swallow, the brandy sloshing in the bottle, he put it up on the table and settled into the coat again, almost becoming lost in the white fur as he sank against the floor, the foot of the table leg digging painfully into his back. When Natalya began to talk, he stared straight ahead, seeming to ignore her again - but as the words came, his brows drew closer and closer together until his body shook not with the cold, but anger.

The rage filled him with a greater heat than what the brandy or the fur had been able to. It was undeniable that his anger was his power, and it was never more apparent when the trembling, pitiful form shot to its feet, knocking the table to the floor. The brandy glass broke, and stained the beige carpet as it spread, and Natalya was at the door, and all he could think was get the stupid bitch. His wasted muscles screamed in protest and they buckled a few times as a wave of jet curls teased his fury and lust, but he ignored the pain, drawing red and muffled in the back of his mind, grunting as he threw the chair she had sat in to the floor. He moved into the next room and fell, his chin smashing into a table, and he tumbled to the floor and his anger escalated at his clumsiness and the pain and the woman.

He could remember now why he had not bothered with a woman in so long. The sex wasn't worth moments like this. His knees knocked as he hauled his bones to a standing position on one hand, the other over his bleeding mouth, a growl working its way up from the back of his throat. Rational thought pressed through the veil of blood and fire that had drawn itself over him. 'It wouldn't take long. Just do what she says, we could sweep in and kill the masters like insects. She forged a mental bond to know the secret, appeal to her through thought!' But then the beast raging in him swallowed up the thought in it's dripping fang mouth and he up-ended the table that had bloodied his mouth to the floor, dusty ceramics shattering against the hardwood.

The agony was blinding now, and white light flashed over his eyes, his senses lost in a prickling electric hum that made his mouth feel like it was full of cotton. He clenched his bloody teeth and sucked in a deep breath with a great greedy gasp, slumping just slightly again, his rage spent. Fleetingly, it occurred to him he had nearly let the thought of that kill slip, and he drew another deep breath, stinking of copper, and finally brought himself under control. He settled a shaking hand against his forehead and gathered his thoughts, pushing his own further into lock and key, placing them under memories such as how a human eyeball tasted when it burst in your teeth, and a child's face that had split first, like an overripe tomato, then crumpled under his hand.

'I am telling the truth.'

As he stood, slowly folding in on himself, the thought became his mantra, repeated again and again. Soon, it was a droning thought, blotting out anything else that he could have drawn up. A moment later, even he believed it to be a truth.

"Come back," he announced in a startlingly clear voice, taking a moment to spit a dark red gob onto the carpet over his shoulder. He knew with the bond, she would hear him. For three days, none of his blades had tasted blood, and even killing some lowly slug-blooded slave master was beginning to sound good. His head lolled back on his shoulders as the smile split his lips, laughter shaking his body.

"I'll kill all the Yorani for you, if you understand the devil you are making the deal with. And then you and your family can celebrate this awful holiday together again."

[Slavegirl]

"I've made deals with the devil," Natalya finally replied after several long moments of silence filled with the ragged sounds of Dan's breath and the wind sighing through the trees as yet another squall of blizzard ripped its way toward them in the night, "And you most certainly are not him."

Turning slowly, Natalya knelt at Dan's side and helped the poor skeletal form to his feet, sighing as she settled him in the chair with almost motherly concern. Crouching before the hearth, the former slave managed to find the means to start a small fire, both for light and warmth. She wouldn't admit it, and she hoped he couldn't read her thoughts through their shared bond, but in her whole life she'd only once felt fear before. A moment ago, though, she'd honestly feared for her life, and actually cared whether or not it was ripped from her throat, hot and flowing over Dan's murderous hands.

"The Devil's a bit more forgiving than you - and has a bit nicer thoughts," she laughed with false lightness as she turned back to Dan, loosing the hold on his thoughts and making it obvious enough that even he would notice, "I'll take your deal - there's only one more day until the sun returns. I figure we can leave at the end of the week."

Natalya finally got a small tongue of flame to take its time nibbling at the kindling she provided rather than devouring it and extinguishing itself. Rather distractedly she added more fuel until a cheerful glow and a promising warmth rose from the cavernous fireplace. Standing and brushing her hands off against her pants, she looked at Dan pensively before turning and righting her chair that he'd upended.

"You getting a little warmer now?" she asked, flopping rather gracelessly into the chair, her legs dangling over the arm, her hand propping up the side of her head, "I know I am."