Daughter of the Witcher Ch. 07

Nadya hugged Gunnar tightly, "I come to have a dream that one fine day, I might meet your other child."

"I have a hope that I might live to see her once again." he said quietly.

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They walked through the dirty streets on the poorer and shadier side of the little village. The day was dull, dark, and cold, yet not cold enough for what fell from the sky to be dry. Mostly it was cold rain, though what it felt like, more often than not when it raked across one's cheek, was a touch harder than rain.

"Where do we need to be?" Natan asked. He was there in the guise of a young man and was dressed appropriately, looking like a careworn traveler. He didn't like it, since the apparel wasn't as warm as his fur would have been.

Koten strode with them. He had been a bit more of an undertaking to try to disguise.

Neither of them were known in the place, but Nadya judged it best not to appear as anything other than a person who would have preferred to be someplace warmer and in better clothing. Koten thought that it must be working for them, since only a look at Natan showed that he appeared to be as quietly pissed off only to have to be there as anyone else that he saw.

"Not far now," Nadya said as she pulled her cloak around her a little more.

They rounded a corner and Koten saw by the way that Nadya held her body that their quarry was in her sight. All that he saw was an old vampire speaking with a large and heavy-set man who was wearing the same rain-sodden sort of clothing as all of the others who they'd passed in the street.

"Well, "the vampire remarked with a suddenly-pleased smile, not caring who saw his teeth in this part of town, "My master does not need your services after all. The one I want stands --"

Koten's hand was near his waist, fingers outward and tensed while his lips moved. The bloodsucker stood transfixed and bound, rooted in place. Koten closed his fingers slightly and as though there were strings on him like a puppet, the other one seemed to crumple a little, still standing, though now in some form of pain and unable to speak.

The man turned around.

After a moment, he grinned and then he began to laugh. "The little red bitch comes home!" He bowed, though not very far, "Welcome home, Red Nadya."

His eyes flicked to her companions and back in an instant, "And you bring me fresh ones! Many women will pay me well for the large one with the palsied hand there and this young thing," he smiled slowly, "very nice, my furry little whore."

Luca was crafty and very opportunistic, but other than street smarts, he was as thick as a post, mistaking the position of Koten's hand as some sort of deformity, rather than the instrument which held the vampire who he'd been negotiating with.

"Do you bring them to buy your own freedom? It may work -- for a time, since these ones will earn me a fair pile of coin."

He drew a long and cruel-looking dagger from under his cloak, "But one day soon, I'll have you on your back again and working for me once more."

Nadya didn't stop.

She strode on, walking right up to the man with a cold gleam in her eyes, reflected from the light of the lamp across the way.

"Not today, Luca. I have business with you, but today will be the last time that I speak to you."

He began to laugh, but it was cut short as Nadya's sword emerged from under her dark cloak. Her first glittering strike knocked the dagger off into space, tumbling as the broken blade separated from the haft in flight.

Luca turned to run, all humor gone from his unshaven face, replaced by his wide-eyed fear as he tried to take a step. His head snapped back with a grimace as Nadya raked the length of his back with one stroke. Her next one caused him to stand stock still in pain.

But his knee buckled in the next instant because his severed Achilles tendon on that side caused that leg to collapse.

Nadya knew the old snake well and she'd made sure that he wouldn't ever run away from his deeds again by crippling him. He landed on his face in the ice-cold mud and horse dung in the street.

She was on him the next instant, her knee in the small of his back as she pulled him backward by the neck.

"I meant what was said," she hissed into his ear, "I will not speak to you after this -- because you will be wrapped in a shroud and stacked behind a barn with the other frozen corpses, waiting for spring to thaw the ground enough for a grave to be dug. In the meantime, the street dogs will feast."

She began to stand up and Koten saw it from the corner of his eye, though he dared not shift his gaze or the vampire would be able to slip away.

Nadya had filled out in the past fortnight and was no longer the weak and pitiful stick-girl that she'd been. As well, the Kurtadam are stronger than they appear.

Add Nadya's barely- restrained fury and her adrenaline to that, he thought, and ...

She pulled Luca onto his back like a landed fish.

"For the way that you offered a poor girl friendship and then hurt her again and again, whenever you weren't fucking me with your swine friends or keeping me locked in a cage and starving - as my punishment for trusting someone like you" she seethed.

The angle was difficult, given the length of her blade, but the keen edge of it near the tip rippled over his chest and the jerkin fell partly away, revealing the pasty white flesh underneath -- already bleeding, a foot wide cascade of red which ran from him in a long line.

The blade was gone as she snapped her wrist around, but it returned to lie under his nose.

"For the way that you have hounded me, never giving me a moment to catch my breath, and beating me while I had no strength EVERY TIME that you dragged me back to whore for you.

Only because I could not scratch enough food together so that I could get the strength to run far enough away out of this hole."

His nose was gone then and his face began to be washed in more of his blood.

She looked down and she kicked him in the ribs so that he'd open his eyes and look at her.

He tried to crawl backward away from her as he saw the very point of her sword begin to glow.

She turned the blade over and rapped his uninjured knee with the spine of it hard.

"Do not move, Luca. I would hate to get this wrong and have to do it again until I had it right"

The glowing tip gradually became over a foot of hot metal, which Luca could feel the heat from and he saw the pale yellow light of it reflected in everyone else's faces, most especially Nadya's.

"And we need for it to be hot now, don't we?

You know what for?

Oh yes, Luca," she smiled coldly, "I hope that you did not think that I would forget -- or that I ever could."

The point of the blade touched him below the navel, glowing almost white-hot now as the clothing there smoked and began to burn while Nadya made her third pronouncement through her long teeth.

"For my little Nicolai, who died in the firetrap which you set for us, playing with the trigger as you told him to."

She almost lost the edge of her fury for a moment as she sniffled, but it returned in the next instant.

"You told him it was a toy for him!

Here is my gift for you, you murdering BASTARD!

Her smoking blade slid deep into his guts and he screamed piteously.

"Feel how it burns, Luca. Try to pull it out, old friend."

He reached for the blade and then shrieked as the heat of it burned his hands while he lay there, the pain seeming to remove his ability to pull them away for a few seconds. The skin that he left on it burned to ashes which flaked off and blew away.

Nadya slowly pushed the blade upwards on him until the steaming edge of the sword stopped just under the cartilage of his breastbone. His screams turned to quivering sobs as it stopped.

"For Nicolai," she whispered with a nod as she looked down on him.

The smell and the warm steam from his insides hung in the air around him, there not being enough of a breeze of any sort to move it.

He arched his back in agony, trying to get up. It only caused his guts to begin their slow slide out of him into the mud.

Nadya smiled as she withdrew her blade, "I think that I will leave you there for the dogs to fight over. Surely someone ought to be pleased at their good fortune."

She turned, looking over at the suspended vampire, who stood bent at an unnatural angle as though he was being folded in two where there were no joints to allow it.

She opened her mouth to speak, but changed her mind and she drove the sword down with a two-handed stroke into his shoulder and on down until it cleared his now-flaming body.

There were the beginnings of an echoed scream, but her cross-stroke severed the head through his open mouth.

Nadya looked back at Luca as he writhed in the mud and she spat on him before she took his head as well.

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They walked away in silence, retracing their steps to the place where they'd tied up their horses.

Natan spent most of the trip getting over what he'd seen.

"Nicolai," he began a little uncertainly, not knowing how to ask the rest of it.

Nadya glared at the street, her expression still the same as when they'd begun to walk.

"My son," she said, "a human's baby which I bore working for Luca. I never knew which one his father was.

I had to leave him at times while I found us food. I had no one to leave him with. I knew no one. I had him all alone in the small house that my father built. I lived there alone after they died, my parents.

Luca found out about it somehow and I was given a message by being beaten that if I did not return to work for him, then my child would die."

She looked down, "He told me later that I was late, but,... It was not noon yet."

A heavy sob escaped her, but she bit it back right afterward, "I was there, hurrying from behind Luca and his pigs. I heard that fat greasy boar say to Nicolai that what he held was a toy - a present.

Before I could do anything, the whole house was burning, all at once. I - "

She groaned, "I fell on my face. I could not even breathe. Luca saw me and had me by my hair."

She rubbed her eyes with the heel of her hand as she fought to keep walking.

She wanted to be gone then, she didn't know where, just gone ... somewhere. It hadn't been her plan, but her cold front was crumbling.

Natan's innocent question brought her images which tormented her as she walked.

"Only three," she said, "and very bright and happy. ..."

She sobbed once and her words came out of her as a croak, "He trusted anyone."

She felt Koten's arm as it went around her shoulders and without her knowing it, he drew her against his side over the next twenty steps. She leaned her head against him, trusting him to guide her as she walked, her eyes flooded.

Natan's arm went around her waist and they continued walking. He fought back tears of his own.

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Nadya slowed her horse as she approached the gates, wondering who it was who stood there and why.

The day had been one of those winter days which looked to hold some sort of magic over the countryside, the murderously cold temperatures leaving tiny little frost sculptures everywhere, if one took the time to bend down and look for them on the stalks of grass, dead and yet frozen hard into place by it.

But the other side of that crystalline beauty was the cold which had caused it all; the sort which anyone might feel as it frosted the small hairs in their nose and caused mustached men to slightly regret having the adornments.

Yet she saw a Kurtadam female standing before the gates looking at her.

She stopped the horse and dismounted, taking the reins in her hand to lead him inside to the warm stable.

"Have you a moment?" the black-furred female asked politely.

"A moment I have, surely," Nadya replied, "though if you think that you need more than that, I think that we ought to go inside. It is cold out here, even for us, no?"

The other one nodded, though she looked a little uncomfortable for it, "Do you know who I am?"

Nadya looked at her face and shrugged, "No, but I might guess," she said, "You are one of the princesses of this place?"

The female nodded, "I am Petra. I came -- "

She looked down and sighed, "I came to meet you and, ... I wish to ask about my brother. He has not been seen in our part of the fortress for over a week now. A sister grows worried."

"A sister does not need to worry," Nadya replied, "Natan, ... I mean to say, Prince Natan of course, was sleeping soundly when I left him in the bed this morning. I wanted to ride out today and I left them before breakfast."

"Then, ..." she began, "Koten is well also?"

"Princess," Nadya said, "Koten is well, do not fear on that account.

Look, you are royal here. Surely if there was something amiss or anything which might cause you to worry, I am certain that a princess only needs to send someone to find out what she wishes to know.

Yet you come here? Outside the walls and alone on a day which can freeze one's blood?

To wait for me?"

She shook her head in a little disbelief.

"Can we not speak a little plainly here? I know that Koten was with you and your sister before he met me. What is your worry, truly?

That he is well?" She laughed for a moment, "I have only seen him not well once - when he saved my life with your brother. Since then, he is like an ox, though much smarter.

I have heard of you," Nadya said with a nod, "and the one before me lives up to her legendary beauty and even more, so I know who it is who waits for me. I am not used to meeting one such as you in any circumstance, so here? Like this?

There is something wrong. There must be. Surely a princess does not walk about looking in on the lives of her past lovers. I would think that it would be a very wasteful use of a princess's time."

She smiled a little, "And of course, I do not know you or your habits, but I imagine that in the case of some princesses somewhere, looking in on the lives of past lovers could consume a lot of one's time.

Is there something that I might do for you?"

Petra shifted uncomfortably, "I do not know if Koten said anything of it to you, but we were together and thinking of being wed, my sister, myself, Koten and Natan in the way of our kind, and --"

Nadya nodded, "I was told by them. Koten learned of the risks and the slim chance of success and it fell in then. He told me that he has seldom heard such epithets as he did that night."

Petra looked ashamed, "My fault," she said, "My fault for my part of it. I accept it. I have missed him so, though," she smiled a little sadly, "I would imagine that you might not care much over it."

Nadya looked over for a moment and she shook her head, "You do not know me well. I am not the sort who takes her laughter from the sadness of others, Princess.

If you knew of me at all, you might see that I am one who has spent most of her life with her hands full of her own troubles. I surely have had no time to enjoy the troubles of anyone else. I am no princess. I am only who I am, the half-breed daughter of a dead Kurtadam and her equally-dead Rus husband. But I learned from them both, and I can say that it is my one treasure.

I am not even supposed to be here and alive, am I?

We stand here and both my horse and I freeze while you still have not told me much of your worry -- or anything else, as far as that goes.

I have answered what was asked," she said, "If there is nothing else, your Highness, I will go on my way, by your leave, of course."

Petra had been looking fairly humble and crestfallen and though Nadya didn't know her, she had heard that this one had always been the tough older sister. She thought it was a little odd, since the girl before her didn't look as though she had much of any will in her at all.

"You are mocking me," Petra said.

Nadya shook her head, "I mock no one, least of all you. I can see that you are not over Koten even yet, and I do not fault you for it."

She leaned a little closer, "But I will tell you a thing, Princess Petra, and I will tell it to you for nothing.

I am not one of your subjects.

Other than my thanks to your mother for allowing that I stay here for a time, ...

I owe none of you for anything.

My mother was a guard to yours when the people came here. She suffered just as the rest did during the confinement. When she found one who loved her, she was scorned because he was a human. They had to leave this place here like thieves, running from shadow to shadow and hoping that they were not seen by anyone.

No one cared for them, neither side. They lived in a little home and I was born. My father caught the sickness and he died, and then my mother and I had to live as beasts, eating from hand to mouth. I heard no condolences from out of this place when my mother passed. No one cared.

She leaned forward a little more, "Least of all, your fine mother. Her eyes were full with the joy of looking at her little whelps as they scampered around playing.

Well I scampered also. I scampered up trees to run from bears and I scampered up them again to steal the eggs of birds when I could. I have eaten things which would make you ill to even hear of and I thought myself lucky to have found something."

She nodded, "You cannot imagine living with the shadow of your own hunger always there, always waiting and ready to cause you pain if you do not find something and soon.

So I do not take my joy to know that the males who love me were once yours. I only take joy to know that they love me, and I make sure that they know who it is who loves them. I never let them forget it.

You might have tried that a time or -"

Nadya looked down for a moment and then she looked over at Petra, "I am sorry. It is none of my affair and I can see how you still hurt. I think that pain in that way is among the worst that a girl can know, so I do not want to sound cruel and I am sorry.

If it means anything, I knew nothing of what passed between you all beforehand. I was living in a hole in the dirt and starving then. I did not know, and I did not set out to take them from you. It had already happened long before.

So if there is nothing else, I wi-"

Nadya pushed Petra away from her as she drew her sword and swung it in an upward stroke just in time to deflect the arrow which came to them. She stared off along the wall as she crouched waiting for the next one for a moment.

Petra stood up in shock, "What -?"

Nadya grabbed her by the arm and moved her over a little as she pointed, "There. See her?"

A lone wolfish figure ran away along the wall on all fours, a quiver on her back and a bow slung over her head.

Nadya looked around in the dazzling whiteness of the snow and she saw the arrow. She walked over and picked it up.

"See the way that the snow sticks to it," she said quietly. She sniffed then and even in the cold air, she smelled what she sought as Petra extended her hand to look at it.

"Do not touch it," Nadya said, "There is fresh and strong wolfsbane here, the queen of poisons. Nothing for forest warriors, but deadly to humans and Kurtadams both.

If you are alright," Nadya said, "then please come inside with me. It is not safe for you here."

"Me?" Petra asked, astonished and Nadya nodded.

"I still have no idea what it is that you want from me, unless it was your idea to see which of us died from the cold first, but now, whether we like each other or not, I think that you need me, Princess."

Petra blinked, not comprehending it yet, so Nadya said it.

"She was trying to kill you."