Chapter 5

Deep night, dark of moon, an ideal time for... mischief.

Elga crouched on the edge of the city's tallest building and pushed out with her senses, scanning for the trouble she just knew was lurking. The black-clad woman caught the faintest flavour of something dark and turned her head to follow the scent. It was by the river... Elga stood up, scowling. Typical, it was miles away from where she wanted to be.
       She sprung into the air, easily launching herself across the gulf, to land lightly on the roof of the building opposite. Elga darted across the flat, concreted space, barely pausing at the low, bricked edge before leaping over to the next building. She passed unseen over the city's rooftops, travelling swiftly, the scent of her quarry growing stronger the closer she got to the waterside.
       It wasn't a particularly big river that formed a natural boundary for the city, but it was well-used. Overused, some might say, the water quality was not good, especially in the area Elga found herself, a lifeless, boggy marsh caught in the space between two factories. Elga stood on the roof of one of the building's overlooking the noisome area. She peered down into the dank darkness, nose wrinkling against the smell of putrid water and decaying matter, all overlaid with the acrid tang of discarded chemicals. She did not want to go down into that!
       The muck stirred into a sluggish vortex as Elga watched, and something slowly twisted upwards from it's centre. The woman gritted her teeth and stepped off the edge, angling towards the disturbance: no point waiting for whatever it was to fully form. The bright blade appeared in her left hand as she control-fell, slicing deeply into the creature as she passed by. She twisted in mid-air, agilely flipping herself over before landing to sink knee-deep in smelly mud. Now facing her target, braced as best she could, Elga assessed the situation. She snarled an oath – the bloody thing was still growing, her cut hadn't appeared to have any effect! Given the boggy ground, her leap into the air was less effective than she would've liked but it still gave her height enough to slam down a killing blow on the creature's head. Or what would have been a killing blow on something that had a skull. Elga's weapon sank into the animated ooze, the force of the attack blunted and slowed by the cloying material. Oh shit.
       She yanked out her sword and stumbled backwards a pace, quickly recovering to assume a battle-ready stance. Elga glared narrowly at her opponent, blade held firm and unswerving in front of her. Twin columns of thick matter peeled off from the central torso with a disturbing sucking noise, forming primitive arms; tiny, twin pits filled with a dull red glare appeared in what was shaping up to be a face, the lower half of which was now split by a grotesque, dripping smile.
       "Orst."
       One word belched forth.
       "I don't think so," Elga replied grimly, springing forwards again, aiming a blow for the creature's indistinct neck.
       Elga landed roughly, facing the wrong way. She looked back over her shoulder and swore. Despite the effort and strength she'd channelled into that attack the creature was unharmed. No, not entirely... Elga's grin was feral; she could just make out a deep cut in the thing's body... Her triumph was momentary, the wound was healing - or at least filling back up - before her eyes. Dammit! How much effort would she have to expend here?
       Something moved in her peripheral vision. Elga risked a quick look, taking her eyes off her opponent for just a second but before she could make sense of what she was seeing, the muck-creature moved with terrifying speed and she found herself surrounded by stinking, restrictive mud.
       "No!" she growled, pushing against the filth only to find herself becoming more entangled.
       The voice rumbled around her.
       "Take you to Orst."
       "No!" Elga's struggles increased even though the rational part of her mind understood the futility. "I will die first!"
      The creature oozed around her, the cold, wet matter crawling up her neck to smother her face. Her control hanging by the barest thread, moments away from outright panic, the woman cast around desperately for some way of escape. She was choking, her mouth and nostrils sealed with putrid mud – away to the side there was movement again... A tall figure, spare, almost skeletal, and shining from the centre of it's body was a glowing blue sigil... Elga's silver eyes widened and she was filled with a desperate hope. Using the last of her energy she abruptly plunged forward, into the creature restraining her, fingers clawing through the filth as she groped blindly for –
      There!
      Elga's hand closed around a smooth, cold sphere - with the last of her failing strength she wrenched the object towards her. A guttural cry shook her to the marrow as the mud exploded away.
      Panting, dripping with malodorous ooze, silver hair plastered down to her skull, Elga glared malevolently at the second figure. She held the sphere up and grinned wolfishly.
      "Nice try."
      "Lord Orst will see you." The voice was rich, lilting and melodious, alive, and jarringly at odds with the cadaverous appearance of the speaker.
      "Over my dead body."
      "If you insist," the figure stepped towards her, smiling through it's wasted lips, "Though death won't be an escape, not with the necromancers available to our Lord."
      "Your Lord," Elga snarled, covering her shudder of horror with defiance, "not mine."
      The walking corpse laughed merrily.
      "Your Lord, as well, little hunter, always your Lord."
      "Never!" The woman leapt towards her tormentor, blade high and ready to strike.
      "Ah, none of that," it grinned and flowed sideways, easily avoiding Elga's blow. "It will be so much easier if you simply accept your fate."
      "No!" Elga spun around, immediately launching into another attack. The magic-weaver avoided this blow as well but it's expression had changed to something close to irritation.
      "Why do you continue to resist, child?"
      "My fate is my own!"
      "That's what you think." It sighed, annoyed, as it evaded yet another blow. "I grow tired of this, child."
      "Then hold still so I can finish you off!" Elga snarled, silver eyes blazing.
      The figure raised skeletal hands, positioning it's fingers in an intricate pattern in front of the sigil.
      "Now why would I want to let you do that?"
      A bolt of intense blue streaked towards Elga. The woman threw herself to one side, just in time; the burst scraping along the outside of her ribs, singeing flesh and material alike. Elga landed face first in the muck, grimacing with pain. She clutched her side and stifled a moan. God that hurt.
      "Come now, little hunter – " the mage stood over her: she hadn't seen or heard it move, " – I don't want to hurt you any more than necessary."
      "Fuck you." Elga grated and flung her free arm back. The sword in her hand sank several inches into desiccated flesh, just clipping the sigil. The animated corpse stared down at it and sighed.
      "This is not helping."
      And then it vaporised into a thin stream of greasy grey smoke, twisting and curling upwards into the night sky. Breathing shallowly, Elga watched the smoke dissipate, not convinced the blasted thing wouldn't reanimate itself.

Ow ow ow.
      Elga wearily hauled herself out of the bog. She was exhausted, she stank and she hurt all over. On her feet at last she looked up to the factory rooftops, seriously doubting she had strength to jump that far. Looked like it was going to be the old-fashioned mode of travel until she'd recovered some of her strength – she glanced away to the river - at least she could try and wash the worst of the muck off first. Grimacing at the effort needed to pull herself through the fetid ooze, Elga slowly slogged her way down to the water.
      The river wasn't the cleanest but it was moving and it carried most of the filth away. Elga was tempted to simply wallow where she was until she'd recovered but a vigilant part of her consciousness kept nagging at her to move. Judging by tonight's efforts, Orst was more determined than ever to have her. There was no guarantee the bastard wouldn't send someone else along and if that happened Elga wanted to fight somewhere other than a bloody bog.

The industrial area was quiet and dark. Elga padded silently between the warehouses and factories, easily avoiding the random security patrols. She felt claustrophobic on the ground though, hemmed in by walls of brick and metal, and as soon as she could she found and climbed an external fire-escape. The rickety metal staircase ended several metres below the roof-line but by then the woman had enough strength to jump the remaining distance. She landed lightly on the pressed tin and breathed a sigh of relief. Elga had always felt vulnerable and insecure on the ground, something to do with her heritage, she assumed. She felt more confident being high up, on top of a building, in a tree, it didn't matter as long as she was off the ground and had the freedom to see further than just across the street.
      Elga rested for a moment, slumped back against a short, grimy chimney stack. Her ribs were aching fiercely and for the first time had a good look at the damage that'd been inflicted. The mage's blow had burned through the thick black cotton of her shirt - by some miracle it had completely missed her long leather coat – to gouge a blackened furrow into her skin. She prodded gently at the hand-sized wound; it was red and swollen around the edges of broken skin, and weeping a yellowish, sticky fluid. Not that infection was likely to be a complication, despite rolling around in the filthy mud, but it was still going to be damn uncomfortable until it healed. Elga frowned, even if she'd caught the full-force of the attack it wouldn't have killed her but it would have been enough to take her out of the fight. She shuddered – she'd come too close tonight to letting Orst win. If she valued her life, her soul, that must never happen again.
      Elga reached into the pocket of her coat and pulled out the smooth sphere she'd taken from the muck-creature. She held it up, seeing herself reflected in it's mirror surface. Such artefacts were generally old and immeasurably valuable, it took a lot of energy to create them, lives were often sacrificed to power them. Unsmiling, Elga carefully placed the sphere on a loose brick then swiftly, forcefully brought the hilt of her sword down onto it, shattering the gem. Something unknowable and indefinable burst out of the fragments with a silent scream, and streaked away into the sky. The woman scattered the shards with a sharp puff of breath: this at least was something that couldn't now be used against her...

Rani jerked awake, instinctively reaching across for the security of her lover.
      Tink wasn't there and her side of the bed was cold. The small woman scrabbled to sit upright, suddenly anxious with no clear reason why. It wasn't unusual, after all, for Katinka to get up and out of bed when she couldn't sleep.
      The flat was pitch black but – Rani squinted – there was a slight glow coming from under the bathroom door. Hugely relieved, she contemplated going back to sleep but then in a fit of mischievousness decided to see what the blonde artist was doing. Rani flicked on the bedside lamp – stealth was one thing but she was damned if she was going to break her toes, again, trying to navigate around this place in the dark – slid out of bed and crept towards the bathroom. Knowing 'tink, she was probably in the bath, or reading by candlelight...
       Smirking broadly, Rani eased the door open a crack and peeped into the bathroom. 'tinka was standing naked in front of their old, crackled mirror, a single candle flickering softly on the edge of the bath. Rani grinned - astonishingly Katinka hadn't realised she was there, she was too engrossed in examining... something... on her body...
       "What the hell happened?!" Rani flung the door open.
      Katinka jumped then glowered at her lover.
      "It's nothing."
      "Nothing?!" Rani pointed at the big, viciously-red mark splashed over the artist's ribs. It looked like a burn... 'That's nothing?"
       "Leave it, Rani, it's not important." Katinka reached for one of the t-shirts inevitably left lying around.
       'Not important?" the little Hindustani woman gaped at the stupidity, "You've been hurt, of course it's important!" She took step towards her lover. "Let me see – "
       "I said leave it!"
       Rani, shocked at the anger behind the outburst, found herself staring into fierce silver eyes.
       Wait - silver?
       Run, you idiot!
       She stumbled backwards, colliding with the doorframe, brown eyes huge above her hand clapped over her mouth.
       "Oh god it was you!"
       "Rani – " Katinka, her eyes a more familiar shade of grey-purple, shoved a hand through her short blonde locks.
       "It was you – fighting that – that monster!"
      "Rani – "
       "Why couldn't you be honest with me? I thought I'd gone mad!" the small woman raged. Katinka reached for her, entreating.
       "Please. Rani, I couldn't – "
       "Don't touch me!" Rani stifled a sob, backing out of the room.
       Katinka stood frozen, desperately wanting to go to her lover to try and explain, somehow, but completely unable to move. She listened to Rani struggling into her clothes, and then with resignation and a sinking heart, heard the front door slam shut as the person she cared about the most ran away from her, from the truth.
       Shit...


© 2004 April 4th Lutra

Onto chapter 6




© 2004 WordWrights