Reaper's Nox (Chapter 7)

7

As soon as the door clicked closed, Ronie hopped off the edge of the bed she was perched on and padded to the door. She strained to listen to what they were saying on the other side. Pressing her ear against the wood of the door, she absently placed her hand on the latch and found it wouldn’t budge. Realizing that it wouldn’t move, she focused her attention on it. She pushed, pulled, lifted, and tugged downward without any luck. The door was sealed closed as if by magic. That thought gave her pause. She backed away from the door slowly and looked for any other means of exit. Her breaths came in short bursts as her heart raced in panic. She was only just realizing that there were no windows to the hut. Beads of sweat started to spring up on her forehead. A shiver ran down her spine. She dashed toward the nearest wall and attempted to wedge her fingers between the boards. Wood slivers broke off under her fingernails as she dug at the planks. She cried out in pain and surprise after her second attempt. She looked at her finger and saw a splinter of wood buried in her skin. Her finger throbbed in pain as she looked around for something to use to pry at the planks. She saw nothing suitable except the wooden spoon Magpie had used to stir the pot on the hearth. Reaching for it in desperation, she fumbled with it as she used it to dig at the planks. She jabbed the wood with the spoon furiously, her hands sliding down the wooden shaft. She dropped the spoon and cried out again. Looking at her hands, she felt rather than saw that she now had splinters in her palms.
She felt her thoughts starting to spiral into a dark place; her head pounded with her rapid breathing. Despite the throbbing pain in her hands, she clenched her fists, using the pain to clear her mind. She forced herself to slow her breathing. Her head was still reeling, but she had managed to calm herself a bit. She resumed her search for another exit, looking behind what little furniture that lined the walls. It was useless. She suspected that the same thing that kept the door from opening was also sealing the rest of the hut. Her throat felt like it was trying close on her at that thought. Without realizing it, she had started pacing the floor, clenching, and unclenching her fists as she focused on the throbbing in her hands that kept time with her heartbeat.
Ronie wasn’t certain how long she had been pacing, but the door swinging open suddenly caught her by surprise. Still, it only took seconds for her to register it and she rushed forward. She held her hand up over her eyes to shield them. After being in the dim light of the hut, the outdoors was blinding. She had only taken a few steps out the door when she felt hands grip her upper arms like vices. She tried to break free, but the grips just tightened causing her to cry out in pain. When her eyes had adjusted enough, she took in the appearance of her captors. On her left was a tall person. At first, she thought she was just not seeing a head, but she realized that it held something at its side opposite her that resembled a head. While seeing something like that was disconcerting, she wasn’t afraid of it. That didn’t stop it from having an iron grip on her arm, though. To her right, she another tall person of sorts. It looked to be wearing a tattered leather trench coat and mask making it look like it had a beak. It was hard to tell for certain as its long, dark, stringy hair covered its face. She looked down at its hand on her arm and felt a shock of disgust go through her. The hand looked skeletal. She jerked away from it, but it tightened its grip more. Her knees nearly buckled with the pain as a silent cry opened her mouth.
“Don’t break her, birdbrain,” instructed someone Ronie had yet to notice.
A bird-like caw came from the creature on her right. It sounded angry. “Why not,” it crowed.
If Ronie had sensed little to no malevolence from the creature on her left, she sensed it in abundance from the one on her right. She decided that she wasn’t going to focus on that one. Instead, she wanted to know where Magpie was and who was the third stranger. The grip on her right arm loosened a bit. She glanced around in search for the one who had ordered the birdman to “not break her.” She listened to her surroundings and heard what sounded like someone else struggling. Footsteps crunched in the snow approaching her. It wasn’t long before the source of the sound came into her line of sight.
A shapely woman with curly, long, red hair pulled back in a ponytail strode before her. She was wearing a metal chest piece, a leather skirt that covered her legs to mid-thigh. Her legs, Ronie noticed, were furry and reminded her of a goat.
“Something to say, mortal,” asked the woman before her.
Ronie’s eyes widened slightly, but she shook her head. She searched for Magpie again, finding her a few paces behind the other woman with her hands bound behind her back. There was another strange creature behind Magpie. It was taller than all the others, had one eye, one leg, and one arm protruding from its chest. The sheer strangeness of the situation seemed surreal. With all that she was seeing, she had forgotten about the pain she felt in her arms. Her head whipped to the side. Confusion set in as she found her gaze had been adjusted to her feet and the snow below it. Her vision blurred and her head spun momentarily. The cheek where she had been struck throbbed and stung. It took her a few seconds to raise her head and seek out the source. The armored woman was standing directly in front of her.
Another blow landed, knocking the wind out of her. Her legs buckled underneath her and only the grip of her captors kept her standing. She coughed violently and vomited onto the snow before her, silent tears streaming down her face. Managing to lift her head to glance at Magpie blearily, she noticed that the woman looked on without sympathy.
“I thought you were his friend,” Ronie managed to choke out between her ragged breaths.
Magpie laughed dryly, “We Unseelie don’t have friends. There are only associates who have aligning agendas and nothing more.”
Ronie closed her eyes and recalled the last time she saw Maddox. She suddenly seethed with anger. The cold she felt disappeared along with the pain. She watched as the woman before her reared back to hit her once again. This time, she thrust her hands toward the woman, palms out. The armored woman flew backward several feet and was only stopped because she hit a wooden post on the stable where Magpie’s cattle were housed. Without questioning how she had gotten free of her captors, she started running as fast as she could in the snow. As she struggled pushing forward in the deep snow, she was intercepted by the headless man with his head under his arm. She changed direction and found that the tall man with the long, stringy, dark hair landed before her. The sight was so upsetting that she just stopped running. What she had thought was a long leather coat were large, tattered, leathery wings. The body of the creature was so emaciated it appeared to be a walking skeleton. She took a step backward and bumped into the headless man. He took hold of her arm once more, but no where near as tightly as he had before.
The armored woman had gathered herself and strode toward Ronie with fierce vigor. The skeleton stepped over and took hold of Ronie’s arm tightly again. Before she could struggle against them, her vision went dark.

****

Maddox had stopped Aodh on a snowcapped ridge. The palace lay approximately a football fields distance before them. It was as he remembered it: hauntingly beautiful and just as deadly to those who didn’t know any better. He rubbed his wrist as a phantom pain seared through it. This was not a visit he was looking forward to having. Still, he wasn’t about to leave Ronie in that place one second more than they could bear.
Before the expansive palace, a dead garden with withered trees stood as silent sentinels. They lined the icy road leading up to a wide staircase. The staircase led to a set of French doors that had been quite lavishly designed but left to the elements. What might have once been smoothly polished wood was now dull and rough with patches of lacquer still clinging to it. The doors were accented by a stone awning. It was amazing how much detail he still recalled about his former home. Then again, it had left an impression on him in so many ways. The rest of the palace was in the same state. Instead of going up, the building went out. It spread like a blight upon the land covering a large chunk of the Winterlands. The carved stone bricks had their corners eroded away or there were cracks in the bricks themselves in places. Towers stood at the four corners of the grounds.
Maddox hopped down from Aodh’s shoulders into the deepening snow. He placed a hand on his companion’s upper front leg.
“You don’t have to come with me, Aodh,” Maddox stated.
“That is not what we agreed upon, my lord,” came the reply.
Maddox looked up into his eyes and found him as unreadable as he always had been. What was different, though, was that Aodh’s one firey red eye seemed to be glowing brighter than he had ever seen. The knots that had been plaguing his stomach ever since he found out that Ronie was in danger eased ever so slightly. Taking a deep breath of the frozen air, he took his first step toward the palace from the ridge. He could hear Aodh padding in the snow behind him. His head swiveled back and forth as he tensed his body for an attack from other Unseelie at any moment. They had managed to make it halfway down the frozen road leading to the wide staircase before they were stopped by Mab’s guards. Semi-surrounding them were a Sluagh Sidhe, Dullahan, and a Gean Cánach. The gean canach wore black finery with a raven stitched onto the chest in silver. He pointed a rapier at Maddox’s throat.
“I must say that I never thought you’d be foolish enough to return, Morfin,” stated the gean canach with glee, a wicked smirk on his face.
“Saladin.”