Chapter 7:
Dark Thoughts
After a few weeks of recovery Adrian was more than capable of hobbling around the Amazon village unaided, though he wasn’t fit to travel yet, especially with winter having long since set in.
Besides, where would he go?
The Amazons had lost the trail of his team’s killers as the blizzard that began when he first arrived was followed by another, and then yet one more after that.
Drifts of snow were thick between the trees and even thicker between the huts of the village, though the powerful girls easily cleared numerous paths through the snow.
Olena had joined them the day after he arrived, though how she made it through the falling snow wearing nothing but her short sarong and knitted shawl was anyone’s guess.
But after meeting with the elders of the village and stopping to ensure that he was still alive away from her care, she had quickly returned home again, promising to return once they actually had a lead to follow.
For their part, the Amazons cast out a net of scouts to the north and south, Alcaia having reasoned that the false Aegis team would give the Saenga territory a wide berth on their return trip.
All they could do was hurry up and wait, which left the recovering Aegis technician at something of a loss.
With no orders to speak of he had simply taken to wandering the woods at the edge of the village for the last few days.
He found that if he sat still too long, emotions he would rather not dwell on rose to the surface, so instead he stayed as active as he could and thereby grew stronger by the day.
Though he felt hollow inside with the lose of his bond-mate, he couldn’t help but appreciate the quiet beauty of the place. The sky was clear and blue, while the massive trees standing against it were covered with white from the frequent snowfalls.
A familiar voice called out to him, breaking his mind free of its reverie.
With his crutch tucked under his arm he looked up expectantly as Alcaia drew near, a grim look on her face.
“We found your people.” She said without preamble.
His breathing was steady; when the snow had stopped she had sent yet more scouts to the west specifically to find his team, so he knew this was coming.
It still took him a moment to formulate a reply though.
“Are they, I mean, can I... see her?” His eyes stung as treacherous burning tears sought to fall.
Alcaia shook her head slowly, uncertainly.
“The cold and snow have preserved their remains, but-” She paused as she examined his face, her concern for his wellbeing plain in her eyes; “I did not know your wife but I do not believe that she would want you to see her as she is now.”
Her words were gentle, and her point well made, but Adrian had to see her, had to see his Cheri.
His expression communicated that to the Saenga warleader clearer than words.
“As you wish.” She murmured; “Follow me.”
She walked slowly, both to match his pace with the crutch, and to allow him time to prepare himself for what he was about to see.
The Amazons had laid out the remains of his team in two neat rows in the wide opening in the middle of their village, each body resting on a litter and respectfully covered with a blanket.
All of the Saenga that remained were surrounding them in a half-circle, adults and children alike. The Amazons had laid their weapons on the ground out of respect, while their assorted lovers and bond-mates were lighting simple candles and placing them alongside dried flowers around each litter, honouring the dead according to their own customs.
Seeing his team lined up and still, their faces hidden from his view, Adrian nearly collapsed.
Cheri was under one of those blankets.
Alcaia placed her hand on his shoulder and squeezed reassuringly, a point of strength for him to draw on.
“Take your time, Aegis. Today we honour the dead. Later we see about avenging them.”
“Which-” his voice broke and he had to clear his throat before continuing; “Where is she?”
The Amazon chieftess stared at the side of his head for a long time, his own gaze trailing over the bodies.
“The Truffles are there.” She directed his attention towards a cluster of bodies with a slow swipe of her finger; “We would have preferred to set them alongside their bond-mates, but we did not know...”
She trailed off as Adrian jerked his head in understanding, his eyes now locked on the six litters she had indicated.
If she wasn’t propping him up, he would have long since collapsed to the frozen ground.
Drawing strength from deep within himself to honour his fallen comrades, he took a long breath through his nose to marshal his courage, before letting it out through his mouth.
“I can help with that.”
__________
The surface of the bunker’s walls were stone, but impossibly smooth, the simple metal table in the center of the low ceilinged room sat level without any hint of a wobble, just as it had done for centuries before.
In the deep darkness of the ancient man-made tunnel system, Evadne the Chimera was sitting up in bed, still recovering from her defeat at the hands of Nameless’s bond-mates.
It had been slow going.
Her body had been under constant strain for over a thousand years as it fought off the cold taint of entropy, so numerous broken ribs and a spear-wound through her belly did nothing to make that easier.
Jonathan was in the process of changing her bandages while she hissed in pain.
“I’ve converted the last of the girls you brought in before... this.” He remarked with a vague nod at her wounded abdomen; “That leaves us with fifteen Tenebrae, all sitting around and getting fat off the last of our provisions while we wait on you to-”
Her glare silenced him and he swallowed nervously.
Being an Empath, he could normally sense just how much she hated him, all tangled together with her love for him, but right now she was leaning rather heavily towards hate.
“Eve, we can still do this. First we get you well, then start up again, no one knows where we are-”
“Do I look like I need your words of encouragement?” She demanded; “I will be well, and when I am, I will find those cunts and tear them apart. I will rip off the angel’s wings and make her watch while I feast on the Minotaur’s heart and the giant’s tongue.”
She meant every word, and the violent images that they invoked were horrifying, made doubly so as he experienced them through his gift.
Jonathan shuddered, but continued in his work, no stranger to her rampant bloodlust.
He had known Evadne for almost his entire life; she had basically raised him after his parents were killed in a freak accident.
At least, she told him it was an accident.
Once he came into his powers he soon learned that she was the one who killed them, she was the one who tore out his mother’s throat right in front of her infant son.
They never spoke of it, because he didn’t blame her.
He knew why she did it, why she hunted the Empaths to near extinction: They were the greatest success of the Valkyrie, the greatest chance for peace between man and monster.
And the forces of entropy that held a piece of Evadne’s soul could not allow peace.
Jonathan had always been convinced that once their task was complete his love for her could break the hold the demons had over her.
But that was tomorrow’s battle.
“Okay fine. You’re going to slaughter and eat them. For now though, you need a meal that isn’t dripping with the blood of our enemies.”
In the dark chaos of her mind she felt the faintest twinge of affection at his concern for her well-being and the same constant guilt for her treatment of him welled to the surface.
But though it gave him hope, it was quickly crushed by her darker thoughts as he turned to the cabinet where their provisions were stored.
Because in a part of the Chimera’s mind that he could not feel, another voice sounded.
“I have not forgotten.” She spoke low to answer the silent question.
“What was that?” Jonathan called.
“Nothing.”
“Right. Oh, before I forget.” His head turned and his hand paused in slicing meat for her; “I heard more noises in the east tunnels.”
She hissed at the irritating news.
“Are we discovered?”
He frowned and waggled the knife back and forth.
“Maybe, but I don’t believe so. Something is digging over there. I suspect whoever it is will break through in the next few days if that is their intention.”
“And then?”
Her words were flat, but her meaning was clear.
She just needed to hear him say it.
He sighed as he turned to face her again, a plate of bloody meat in hand.
“And then I sick the Tenebrae on them.”
__________
Back in the Saenga village, Adrian stared at nothing, dearly wishing he had taken Alcaia’s warning to heart.
He was sitting by one of the Amazons’ many fires with a blanket over his shoulders, but all he could see, whenever he blinked or his mind wandered, was Cheri’s face.
Due to the cold, the Amazons had been unable to close her eyelids.
Instead they had placed a cloth over her vacant eyes, but he had pulled it off in his urgent desire to see her again.
He could practically hear his gentle Truffle scolding him for being such an idiot.
“Hello again, Aegis.”
An oddly accented voice cut through his haunted musings and he turned to see that Olena had returned.
“Alcaia sent word to me.” She said by way of explaining her presence.
“Oh... kay.” The words felt foreign and hollow on his lips as he acknowledged her.
She stared at him for a long time, measuring his non-response.
The feel of her eyes on him drew him out of his reverie, but that only made him remember the bodies of his friends, all lined up in the village.
The grief that he had barely been holding at bay suddenly overwhelmed him and he slumped in place, gasping and sobbing as the faces of his friends filled his mind.
“I just ran!” He said bitterly; “I should have, I should have died with them!”
Olena said nothing at first, then gave an almost nonchalant shrug.
“That’s pretty selfish. If you had died with them, then the world would be so much worse off for not knowing the truth.”
As she spoke she drew a large needle made of bone from the folds of her shawl.
Then stabbed him deep in his uninjured shoulder.
He yelped and pulled back, the pain sending a rush of energy through him even as he flinched away from it, but he lost his balance and his crutch fell to one side as he landed on his ass on the cold ground.
“Ow! Hey! What the-”
“I am helping. Don’t be such a man about it.”
She drew her fingers down the length of the needle to collect his blood and began to work it between them, muttering an odd chant under her breath. Eldritch light seeped out of her eyes like green mist and quickly turning the blood a similar colour.
“Grief and regret. No joy at all. You really are dim hmmm?”
He opened his mouth to protest, the shock and pain he felt at being stabbed had turned into indignation as he held one hand to his still-bleeding shoulder.
Though he thought better of voicing his complaints when she began to chant again.
She leaned over him, her shawl spilling open and leaving her full breasts naked to his eyes, though they were the last thing on his mind as her bloody fingers reached for his face.
He flinched back even farther, but she stepped closer, now standing over him with a leg on either side so that he had nowhere to go.
With a couple of deft movements she sketched a rough oval below each of his eyes then drew a vertical lines through them, her voice rising and falling in cadence all the while.
Abruptly, her chanting stopped and she stood to her full height, licking his blood from her fingers before spitting it onto the ground.
“It is done.”
His own fingers reached up to his cheek, stopping short of touching the slightly tingling shapes she had drawn on his face.
“What did you do to me?”
She put her needle away and wrapped her shawl tighter around herself before warming her hands at the fire.
“I cursed you.” She said casually.
“Wh-what?!”
Anyone with any sense feared the curse of a Witch.
Painfully, he recovered his crutch and scrambled to his feet to took a few unsteady steps back from her.
“I cursed you.” She repeated, and then turned to face him, her dark eyes mysterious; “Close your eyes and open your mind to the memories of your Truffle. You will see.”
Despite his apprehension, Adrian did as she asked, closing his eyes and conjuring the memories of Cheri.
He drew in a sharp gasp.
Her smiling face, flush from a bout of recent love-making, filled his vision.
He could almost reach out and touch her.
“What, but- I don’t understand.” He said as his eyes opened and found Olena expectantly watching him.
“Try to picture her, as you saw her today.”
He swallowed his nerves, and, bolstered by the flood of bittersweet joy he felt at seeing Cheri so full of life again, did as the elder Witch asked.
Only to discover nothing but a grey fog.
He couldn’t picture her frozen features anymore, couldn’t even imagine what her body looked like all crumpled like it was.
No matter how hard he focused on his Cheri, all that would pop into his mind were pleasant memories of her laughing or telling stupid jokes.
He let out a sobbing gasp and buried his face in his hands, a bit of life having returned to him.
“How is this even a curse?” He asked rhetorically, a shaky chuckle following his words.
“It is. make no mistake.” Her response was solemn, mirthless; “I took something from you, something you can never get back. The fact that it was something you did not want does not change that.”
“I... thank-”
But she darted forwards and placed her hand over his mouth, her expression severe.
“Do not!” Her eyes were narrow and angry as she pressed her hand tighter to his lips, shaking her head vehemently; “To give thanks for a curse is to invite more of the same! You must smother the urge to voice your gratitude, for if you ever speak the words the curse will spread, taking away all memories of your love!”
She held her position until he earnestly nodded his understanding; only once she was certain he would heed her words did she pull away.
In her rush to silence him Olena’s shawl had fallen off her shoulder, once again exposing one of her breasts to his gaze.
He looked away until she had righted the knitted garment.
“Okay, so I won’t say... that. Any other things I should know about?”
She turned back to warming her hands by the fire.
“Yes. But far too many to speak of before the fire dies.”
They stayed in silence for a brief while, until Adrian couldn’t stand it anymore.
“Are you staying in the village now or…”
“I am. My home is not far away, but if the Amazons find a lead it wouldn’t do for them to have to come find me first, so I stay here until this is over.”
“Right.” Adrian sighed.
Her answer had brought them full circle back to the people who killed his team.
The people who killed Cheri.
While she was smiling in the only memories he could summon of her, she was still dead, and her absence left a hollow ache inside him.
There was no curse that could help with that.