Chapter 7

The sun had set, so Rhishandri was able to leave off the heavy cloak and veil, much to her relief. Her nervousness grew during the short, uneventful walk, though, and she glanced at Adara anxiously several times, only to be met with a calm, almost anticipatory smile. Conor was no more reassuring, as he kept raising his hand to brush the hilts of the pair of longswords he wore crossed on his back.

Approaching the stable, Adara stopped, her nostrils flaring. She cocked her head, considering, and turned to whisper, "Men in the stable. Large. At least four. Conor, do you care if they live? You're known here."

Rhi grabbed her wrist, her green eyes wide and edged in gold. "There are eight of them," she whispered, and Conor frowned and shook his head firmly.

"Not with those odds," he said, looking at Adara. "Let's not handicap ourselves by tryin' ta keep em all alive, eh? Though one to question might be nice."

Adara looked down at Rhi curiously. "Eight? How do you know?"

The girl licked her lips. "I ... I can feel them. Feel their heat. And I can hear their hearts beating."

"Useful," Adara said, smiling down at her. "Feed on them, if you need to."

Rhishandri shivered, and looked for a moment like she wanted to protest, but her eyes were starting to glow and her growing hunger was almost a tangible force in the air.

Adara squeezed her shoulder. The girl would have to come to terms with her nature sooner or later. Now was as good of a time as any. It wouldn't get any easier, later on, and at least these men weren't innocents. "Let's walk in like we aren't expecting anything," she suggested. "Surprise them."

Conor nodded and moved around to the other side of Rhishandri, casually tucking his cloak back over one shoulder and fixing a sociable smile on his face. The three of them strolled leisurely into the stable, making it about five feet before the door was firmly closed behind them, the heavy bar falling into place with a thud.

Large burly thugs faded from the surrounding shadows, clearly having no intention of talking.

Adara swung her staff in a practiced motion, intercepting the nearest attacker, and stepped in front of Rhishandri. The girl was frozen with fear and indecision-- it was probably the first violent confrontation she'd ever witnessed-- and while Adara had no intention of shielding the girl from the realities of life, she saw no harm in protecting her for the short time it might take for her to recover from her shock and her new nature to take over.

Besides, she thought, as the man she'd struck staggered and fell, the metal-shod staff having crushed the side of his skull, she loved this sort of thing. No ethical quandaries, just pure adrenaline-fueled carnage. Three other men moved in to attack her, and three went for Conor, whose drawn swords flickered through the dim light with a slight glow of their own.

The trio facing Adara moved to surround her, forcing her to step away from Rhishandri or risk her getting caught by an accidental blow. A fourth man ran up from the side, a rope slung over his shoulder, and reached for the girl, but froze when she looked up at him. He seemed to be totally paralyzed, though beads of sweat started to roll down his brow.

Adara had no time to contemplate the tableau, however. Two of the men facing her had long daggers in hand, and the other had a wicked looking spiked club. She ducked the club and dodged one of the daggers, but the other man darted under her guard and his dagger raked along her side. He seemed very unhappy when that did nothing to slow her down, and she laughed, lashing out with her foot and catching him in the stomach.

The men facing Conor, meanwhile, were discovering two important facts. First, the red-headed rogue was quite, quite ambidextrous. And second ... longswords have a much better reach than shortswords and daggers.

Rhishandri moved suddenly, in a blur too fast to follow, and the man who'd been facing her ended up on his back, several feet away, with her on top of him. Further details were obscured by a shower of blood.

Adara ducked another dagger swipe, and swung her staff hard against the pelvis of the club-wielder. The force of her inhuman strength caused the blow to split the skin and crush the bone beneath, sending him backwards into the wall with a piercing scream.

As Adara turned her full attention to the two men holding daggers, one of them disappeared backwards, his throat torn out, leaving her with only one opponent. She blocked his desperate, clumsy jab easily, and glanced over to see if Conor needed help.

He still faced all three of his original opponents, but one of them had turned to look for his companions as well, and he suddenly went deathly pale, his eyes wide with horror. The man dropped his sword, not even seeming to notice that he'd done so, and screamed, running for the door. Conor let him go, being rather occupied with removing one sword from the chest of one of the men and using the second to block the attack of the other.

Making a quick decision, Adara lashed out with her staff, catching the fleeing man across the thighs, and he screamed and fell, and kept on screaming as he rolled around on the ground. Her opponent took advantage of her apparent distraction to lunge at her exposed thigh, but he tripped over the flailing legs of his fallen comrade and ended up on the ground as well. She reached for his hair and looked up, just in time to see Conor neatly dispatch his last challenger with a blow to the head with the flat of his sword. Then all was still and quiet except for the moans and sobs of the conquered, and a wet, sucking sound from the shadows.

Adara wrapped her hand tightly in the man's hair, yanking him up and twisting his head around so that he was forced to look at the rather impressive carnage.

The middle of the stable was a mess. The first corpse was in the worst shape; it had been nearly decapitated, the head left hanging by just a bit of skin. He'd been eviscerated, as well, and not neatly. Ropes and pieces of round, pink and red intestine were scattered about, and the man's chest cavity had been violently cracked open, the shattered ribs gaping on either side of the open, empty torso.

Rhi was still attending to the second body. She straddled it, every inch of her covered with blood and flesh. The only part of her not dripping red as she looked up was her glowing gold eyes. She growled, letting the mangled heart in her hand drop to the ground, and flowed with liquid, boneless grace to her feet.

The man Adara held screamed, loud and piteous, and she shook him. "Tell us what his is about, and I won't let her have you."

Rhishandri stalked towards them, licking the blood from her fingers, and the man struggled frantically to get away. "No! No no no! Oh gods, please!" he screamed.

"Well?" Adara asked coldly, but the man seemed suddenly paralyzed in horror as the blood-soaked girl growled again and moved towards him. Her foot caught against the man with the crushed pelvis and she stopped, looking down, then knelt. Blood dripped from her hair and clothes, making a red puddle around her.

"I'll tell you whatever you want!" Adara's captive screamed. "Please! What do you want? We didn't know, we didn't know you were magic, I swear!"

"You aren't helping your case," Adara said. "I assume the merchant hired you?"

Rhishandri rolled the wounded man over, almost gently. He moaned and opened his eyes, looking up at her. She smiled, and reached out to pet the man's cheek with one blood-coated little hand, and he started to cry.

The man Adara held watched, unable to look away, his face a study in horror. "Yes, yes! The merchant, the horse and dala dealer! Said he wanted the girl, and you were too infatuated with your piece of tail to sell her. I swear, he said she was just a girl!"

Adara snarled, twisting her hand savagely in his hair. "And you took him up on his offer. What did he pay you?"

Rhishandri bent, tilting the helpless man's head backwards as he screamed. He reached up to try to stop her, and she did stop. Briefly. Just long enough to snap his arms like twigs. Adara's prisoner groaned miserably. "Ten gold ... that's all ... a lot for a normal kidnapping. Gods! Please, please don't let her have me! How can you just watch?"

Conor, standing nearby and watching, looked a bit green himself, but made no move to stop her. He was apparently operating on a 'better them than me' principle.

"Where were you supposed to deliver her, and when?" Adara asked, but the man just whimpered.

Rhishandri tilted her victim's head back, then struck. He screamed, as did the man Adara was holding. Rhi's toy's scream, however, broke off in a sudden gurgle as blood sprayed from his throat, part of it splashing across the face of the captive.

"Well?" Adara asked softly.

"FUCK! The village, lady! The village outside the tower. The inn there. I swear! Oh gods I swear, please!"

Adara smiled. "When?"

Rhi dropped the corpse, leaving it seeping blood onto the floor, and resumed her walk towards Adara and her captive. There was a sudden scent of urine in the air as the man lost control of his bladder and started to sob helplessly. "As soon as we could get her there. He's waiting. Oh gods, please, please..."

The girl stopped about a foot away from the man, and just knelt there, looking at him.

Adara looked at her. "I promised I wouldn't let you have him if he cooperated," she said, slowly, and waited for any sign of understanding.

Rhishandri turned her head slowly to look up at her, her eyes a solid, glowing gold and completely unreadable. Slowly, very slowly, she turned back to the man and leaned forward. She reached out to stroke his hair, barely touching him as he sobbed with fear. Then she looked back at Adara and nodded, withdrawing her hands.

He sagged in relief, but Adara looked down at him. "I didn't say I'd let you live." She reached out and rested her fingertips against his throat, and Rhi smiled happily at her, and then bent and started licking the blood from the man's face.

He screamed, but the screams dissolved into weak whimpers as visible streams of black energy, dark but yet somehow seeming to glow nonetheless, flowed from his skin to Adara's hand. Rhishandri drew back to watch, her eyes locked on his as Adara drained the life from his body.

"Please," he whispered hoarsely. "Please don't. I'll do anything..."

"Why should I care?" Adara asked.

"I didn't know, gods, what are you people? Please! Whatever you want, I'll do it!"

Adara shook her head. "What could you do that would be worth the energy it would take me to keep you from dying?"

"Oh gods ... please ... I'll give you everything I own. I'll kill the bastard that tricked me into this job. Whatever you want, please!"

She tilted her head. "What do you own?"

"Weapons, armor. A horse, I've got a horse! Some coin. And ... and ... a bag of stuff I got out of one of those false temples. I haven't even gone through it yet. Please, gods..."

"I guess another horse would be useful, wouldn't it, Conor?"

Conor shrugged, not entirely able to conceal his discomfort. "We could sell it, anyway," he said.

Adara was about to withdraw her hand from the man's throat when Rhi whimpered. "Please ... please kill him." She rubbed her cheek against Adara's wrist like a kitten. "Please..."

The woman froze, looking down at her. Those gold eyes were strangely compelling, but ... something disturbed her. Some odd feeling, a tension she hadn't realized was there. She knew she should say 'no'; the girl would have a hard enough time dealing with what she'd already done, once she came down from the state she was in. But something held her back, made her wonder... "Why do you want me to kill him?" she asked, softly.