"Kuri, why don't you go and pick some flowers on the brae?"
Kuri looked at her stepmother curiously. There was a strange atmosphere in their small single room cottage this morning. She couldn't put her finger on it.
Normally her stepmother told her to go to the dock and help with the filleting of the fish. And the shellfish.
Kuri hated that.
The fish were horrible to fillet and their insides smelt horrible. The shellfish were even worse. The shells ripped painfully into the flesh of her hands.
The other girls earned coppers for their days graft, but Kuri never saw any of hers. Even though she often asked for the coppers as they were handed out to the other girls, Canval always shook his head.
"Sorry lass. Your mother said to pay her directly."
When she asked her stepmother, there was always some excuse as to why she couldn't have any of her coins at the end of the week.
Maybe this week would be different.
Still, a day by herself on the hill and not wrist deep in smelly fish guts was not to be argued with.
The sun was pleasantly warm on her back as she sat on the grass and finished the daisy chain that she slipped over her head. She knew where some plants grew that had nice flowers with a pleasing scent. Singing as she skipped and danced through the grass of the meadow, she crested the rise.
Down below, was the object of her journey. She would pick some, have a rest in the sun. Daydream a bit before heading home.
No doubt her stepmother would have a list of chores for her. Though, the time to herself would be worth it. So lost in her own little world, she didn't hear the footsteps behind.
An arm appeared in front and she was dragged back against a man, she opened her mouth to scream and another hand appeared, this one holding a rag, which was put across her nose and mouth. The smell was sharp, bitter on her tongue as she fought futily against the arm around her stomach.
Her vision darkened and her limbs felt so heavy and....
***
There was a bitter taste in her mouth, like she had sucked on a lemon. Her eyes were gritty and she was moving in a strange way. Her head was pounding and opening her eyes made the pain worse.
Ground flashed by beneath her face. Bushes whipped by so close to her nose, that she could smell them. Strange things flashed rhythmically in front of her eyes. Hooves. She had only ever seen a horse from afar.
She was travelling so fast!
Kuri screamed. Tried to kick out with her feet, lash out with her hands, but both were bound. The rag was roughly placed over her mouth and nose again.
***
When she next surfaced, she was being carried up a winding stone staircase the lantern in her abductor's hand making the walls dance and twist. She struggled against his grip, which, after he had placed the lantern on a step, earned her a blow to the side of the head that dazed her.
The man carrying her, was wearing the same clothes as the man who had abducted her on the hill, so she was certain they were the same, stopped at a solid oak door reinforced with iron. He pulled a heavy looking bolt back and pushed the door open. The room beyond was in darkness and the smell coming from within was foul.
He entered, the swinging light showing her a sight she didn't want to see.
Two other young girls were chained up against the wall, both naked. He placed the lantern on the stone floor and dropped her from his shoulder next a spare set of chains hanging loose from rings anchored into the wall.
She screamed and tried to flee.
The man casually slammed her head against the rough stone and darkness enveloped her.
Kuri wasn't sure at first that she had regained consciousness. Opening and shutting her eyes made not the slightest difference to the darkness.
She was naked, the air chill against her skin.
"Help!" Kuri shouted.
"Don't!" whispered one of the other girls frantically in the darkness. "If you shout or make noise, he will come back and beat us all into silence. He doesn't care which of us made the noise. He will beat us all."
In the dark, time became uncertain. She didn't know if it was day or night. Her stomach rumbled. The only sounds in the darkness was the breathing of the other two girls and the scurrying claws and squeaks of rats.
The sound of a bolt sliding back and a faint lantern light pierced blindingly into the darkness. Kuri closed her eyes against the light, opening them slightly. She couldn't see past the light to whoever was holding the lantern, but the gait was similar to the man who had taken her there.
There was a chink of metal.
"No! Please No!" The voice was hoarse, weak, "I'll do anything! Please don't take me up there!"
Kuri opened her eyes a bit more, now that they had adjusted to the weak light better. The other girl's wrists were released and she made an attempt to fight back. It was short lived as he casually slammed her head against the stone wall. His face was disinterested and unmoved at his brutal actions. The girl quietened immediately and dropped to the floor. Kuri had quickly learned that was his favourite move, slamming their heads against the rough cold granite and he used any excuse to do so.
He easily lifted the stunned girl onto his shoulder and carried her from the room, darkness falling once again.
There wasn't much to do, other than wallow in her despair. The other girl never came back.
Hunger and thirst stopped being torment and her wrists had more movement in her shackles, but not enough to wriggle free. She hadn't pissed or shit herself for days and the waking nightmares became indistinguishable from the fitful sleep ones.
The door opened. Light blinded her. He stopped in front of her. The other girl sobbed softly. He paid her no heed as he released Kuri's ankles.
There was a pause and then she was drowning. Her befuddled brain could not comprehend where the water had come from. She coughed, spluttered, struggled for air. The man moved to the doorway, sat the now empty bucket down outside. He came back in and released her wrists.
There was no fight left in her, and she flopped over his shoulder as he walked back out, shutting and bolting the door on the sobs inside. The light was so bright, she was forced to squeeze her eyes tightly shut.
His steps were measured, steady as he climbed the circular stairs in the tower. Kuri was dumped unceremoniously on the floor and she managed to tighten into a foetal position briefly before rope was tied to each of her wrists and she was hoisted onto the tips of her toes.
Her throat was too dry to speak or scream. She hung there, twisting, slightly one way and then the other. Her shoulders screaming into the darkness of her numbness.
A voice was chanting softly.
Kuri cracked her eyes open slightly. Her vision swum as she continued to slightly rotate back and forth. Her captor and the focus of her vengeful thoughts was stood in the corner, near a solid, stout looking door.
The one doing the monotonous mumbling, was considerably older. In his sixties, at least as he read from some old looking tome. His mumbling was somewhat soothing. She felt her eye lids drop.
He stopped and she peered back out between her mostly closed eyes. She watched him pick up a knife and step around the lectern. Fear cursed through her and she experienced a clarity of thought she had not felt since she had arrived here.
The scream that crawled from her throat was barely a croak as he stopped directly in front of her.
Casually, with an almost bored look, he slashed her wrists and she felt warmth run down her arms. Down her torso. Down her legs. Her head fell forward and she looked numbly down at the expanding red on the floor.
A floor that was carefully marked out in chalk circles.
The candles around the room flickered and the man started to chant louder. The blood at her feet was obscured by mist.
Where had that come from...
Her captor at the door looked surprised, even a little scared. The older man was becoming very fervent in his shouting. Kuri felt a cold breeze against her back. A whiff of something foul. Something rotten that she was certain did not emanate from herself. She didn't know how, or why, but she was certain there was someone behind her.
A figure stepped forward to stand beside her. She couldn't distinguish much because the figure was wearing an old, musty smelling cloak.
"Obey me spirit! Become my vassal. Accept my offering and do my biding."
"I am no-one's vassal." The voice was cold, sibilant. "The only bidding I will be doing, will be my own."
Detached, Kuri watched the old man's imperious look turn to fear and she took a small measure of pleasure in that. The man at the door turned, pulled open the heavy oak door and made to flee.
There was a loud 'twang' and something shot past her ear on the opposite side to the cloaked man. Whatever it was, embedded itself in the man's leg and he collapsed to the floor, screaming in agony as he clutched at the feathered shaft.
She would have laughed but she felt so tired, so cold. Another figure walked past her, following the trajectory of the arrow, placing her between the two new arrivals. The second cloaked form ignored the old man who was now shouting incoherently to Kuri's fogged ears, and purposefully walked to her original captor.
The cloaked figure bent over, an arm reached out.
"You cannot break the circles. You cannot disobey me! I summoned you!" shouted the old man at the figure heading for his fellow.
"Where is the fun if you cannot break the rules." said the hood of the figure stood next to her as the second figure grabbed hold of the younger mans ankle, lifted up the leg and turned round.
If there had been anything left within her, it would have been running down her legs to join her blood on the floor.
A face that was more bone skull than flesh looked out from within the hood as it dragged the screaming man towards her. The tenuous frail strand of hope, that was all she had left, snapped and fled her body. She could only watch, resigned to her own impending demise, as the skeletal corpse dragged the now flailing man across the stone flagstones, destroying the carefully chalked out marks and symbols on the floor.
Her abductor was dragged past her still gently twisting form as she dangled from a roof beam.
The old man pulled objects out of his food stained robes and either held them up or threw them at the first new arrival, who was calmly approaching, and who didn't seem bothered in the slightest, though Kuri couldn't be sure since she could only see the back of his, it's, cloak.
An arm raised, the sleeve sliding back to reveal a decaying hand, glimpses of bone visible.
The old man screamed and fought, seemingly without effect as he was grabbed. Her view was somewhat obscured by the cloaked figure.
"You really should not have played with forces beyond your control. But I think you are starting to understand that now, aren't you? Hindsight is such a delightful punishment. What were you after? Untold riches? Eternal life? Youth? Not that it matters as I don't really care." The figure turned round.
The face matched the hand.
The skeletal form dragged the old man into his broken circles and close to Kuri.
The... Thing... held out the mage and an another cloaked arm appeared from behind Kuri and took the begging, snivelling mage and pulled him behind her. She stared into the partly fleshed skull.
"Kill me. Kill me please." Kuri wasn't sure that the thing heard her, her voice was so weak.
The figure opened his cloak, revealing armour beneath. His arms crossed over. Right hand went to its left hip and left hand to right hip. It grasped something on its belt, pulling out two long knives. It didn't appear to have eyes, just a darkness.
Kuri looked into it, beyond terror.
Its hands lashed out, a blur. The act completed before she could even comprehend the movement. Kuri dropped to the floor. Her legs could not hold even her slim weight and she collapsed like a marionette with her strings cut. Her head bounced off the granite floor slabs, her matted hair falling into the pool of her own blood. The blow rattled her loose teeth and yet again she was swamped by darkness. This time she welcomed it with open arms.