Blood.
Clinging to her chin. Her cheeks. Her neck. Her lips. Splattered on the top of her blackened armor and covering the brooch of the crow adorning it.
Curls of white breath from her mouth. Wisps in the air. She sat with her back to a large rock in the snowy mountains. Arms spread and laid across the rock. Head back. Panting.
Her eyes closed. Arms quaking. Hands shivering.
From delight.
* * * * *
She tried to stand. Slid back down against the rock. Tried again and pushed herself up with all the strength she could muster and laughed as the pain in her right leg shot up her spine and looped around her heart and daggers pierced through her veins.
And she limped forward, holding her right leg. Limped toward the two bodies in the snow before her. A dwarf. And a man. The axe fallen from the dwarf's hand; his skull caved in. And the man. His mace in the snow, his hand still clutching his dagger in death.
Half the man's neck had been torn out. Ragged strips of flesh.
She dropped down beside the man's body. Collapsed onto him. All his warmth gone now.
"You are not alone,
Vincent..." she said. Her voice tired. Weak. "And you are carried now, aren't you?"
And she fainted again.
* * * * *
Voices.
Anima awoke.
Voices. Around the trees. Back on the path. The path to
Kal Palthras.
She grit her teeth and pushed herself up and her right leg gave out and she fell back down to the snow next to the dwarf. A fit of laughter. Spurred on by the stabbing pain in her leg.
Again. She pushed herself up to her feet. No feeling in her hands. Numbness. Cold. Icy talons reaching across her body toward her heart.
And she limped. Limped toward the mountain path and held her right leg and limped and stumbled and limped some more. Toward the voices. The warmth of others. Their presences.
She fell. Down to her hands and knees. White snow. Exclaiming voices.
Her arms buckled.
* * * * *
The first thing she noticed was the warmth. The softness of the blankets. The pillow her head rested on.
Anima opened her eyes. Saw a wooden ceiling. A lantern hanging from it and a light haze lingering about it. Her body felt sore and tired but the pain in her leg had gone. She wasn't wearing her armor. Just her black shirt and pants. She could feel the lack of it.
And as soon as she blinked her eyes and wet her lips and moved her head she heard a voice across the small room. Deep and gruff. "Ah, there you are, lass."
She sat up in the bed, which she now noticed her feet dangled off the edge of. Propped herself up with her arms. Saw him then. The dwarf sitting across the room from the bed in a chair with a lit pipe in his mouth. There was a muffled commotion. On the other side of the bedroom door and a little distant, but a commotion. Joy. Laughter. The muted clinking of glasses.
"Name's Ongarr," the dwarf said. "And I ought to apologize to ya up front. For I meant to kill ya when I first saw ya, lass."
"Hello Ongarr," she said. A weak smile.
The dwarf perked an eyebrow. "That's it? Yer not mad or nothin'?"
"No."
"Huh. More forgivin' soul than I'd imagined."
"Perhaps."
Ongarr let out a single laugh. "I take it ya knew Indomm, aye? Well, insofar as a client can know their guide up the mountain pass to Kal Palthras here. Oh, welcome to Kal Palthras, I oughta say."
Anima tilted her head. "Yes. You knew Indomm. But you knew Vincent more." Another smile. "And he is with you now, isn't he?"
Ongarr scratched his chin. Visibly pondered her words and how she said them. "That's...a way to put it, I s'pose. Seems that thievin' bastard worked ya over well before, ah...before you ah...well, when yer fightin' for yer life, ya gotta do what ya gotta do, of course."
Anima brought a hand to her chin. To her lips.
"Aye. That. We cleaned ya up. You've been out for days," Ongarr said. "And like I said, before the rest of me party made me see the light o' reason, I aimed to kill ya alright. Thought it was you who killed me old friend Indomm. But...yer damn lucky one of them
humans I was guidin' up the path recognized that snake Vincent. Thievin', robbin' goatfuck that he is. Was. Heh."
Anima glanced around the room. Personal items of all sorts. Well-crafted, dwarven furniture. Said, "May you say where you are?"
Ongarr laughed again, a deep sound from his belly. "You've a funny way of phrasing things, lass. Uhh...you...as in you and I...we're both in the Goat's Delight Tavern. The barkeep is me brother. 'Bout as torn up about Indomm's passing as I was. We figured it was the least we could do to patch ya up. How's that leg feelin'?"
"Better."
"How better? Walkin' better?"
Anima tossed the blanket off of herself and turned her body around to sit on the side of the bed and placed both her feet to the floor and tentatively stood up. No pain. Good balance. She grinned and spread her arms.
"You are appreciated, Ongarr."
The dwarf blew some pipesmoke out of his nose. "Ah. Nothin' to it. I know a few little homebrewed remedies meself." He pointed to the corner of the room. "There's yer armor and yer
weapon there. I, uh...well, I s'pose I must say that we had to take it off ya to look for and treat wounds. A bit improper, I know, that we should do that to a young lady without her permission and in such a state as you were, but ah...well, I guess you'll just have to forgive the rudeness and the intrusion. Apologies, miss."
She walked across the room and gently ran the tips of her fingers across the hairs of his beard. Said, "That's alright...there is no rudeness nor intrusion in being seen. And you are grateful, aren't you?"
Ongarr chuckled. "Awfully friendly lass, ain'tcha?"
"You are permissive. Of many things. And you do not judge. No. You don't."
Ongarr stood. Walked to the door. Put his hand on the knob. "Well, call me an old fashioned dwarf, lass, but me mum taught me well, she did. Give a lady her privacy and all. You get dressed there and maybe come on out to the tavern proper, eh? Get a meal and a drink in ya. I won't keep ya if ya don't wanna be kept and all, but it'd do ya some good to get outta this room--well,
my room, heh--and get a true Kal Palthras welcome here at the Goat's Delight. Aye yes, do ya some real good after the sorry hell ya been through."
And Ongarr opened the door and the flood of the commotion came in and he stepped out and closed it after himself and the commotion became muffled once more.
Anima just smiled to herself. Stood there by Ongarr's chair for a moment. But the sound of the commotion called to her. Like a
siren. An ambrosia on offer compared to the scraps and starvation of the cold mountain trek, and Vincent's increasing standoffishness. So she walked to the corner of Ongarr's room and began to put on all of her armor.
She noticed then that Vincent's dried blood still stained her leather cuirass. She touched it. Let her fingers slide over the rough and cracking and chipping flecks stuck to the armor and the brooch of the crow attached to it.
Ongarr and his brother must have forgotten about it. And still, it was a gift. A tiny remnant of him. One of the last specks of dust, withering away in the grasp of time and chaos. A final farewell to the body. Before there would only be the carrying of the spirit.
He was with her now. Yes. His darkness manifest within his heart well before the hour of his death.
They would not be separated for long.
Arethil claimed all. In time.
And the maw of the infinite was ever-hungry.
For those who had given in.
Together. They would be gnashed.
* * * * *
Anima stepped out of Ongarr's room. Armed and armored now. Walked down the short hallway and rounded the corner and saw the whole of the Goat's Delight tavern before her.
And she stood at the entrance to the hallway. Arms folded over her stomach. Eyes slowly drifting from the counter with the barkeep talking to a dark-skinned man to a waitress walking by to a table where patrons played with dice and to other tables where friends drank and laughed and to the hearthfire and all the way back again.
She had made the journey to Kal Palthras on Vincent's whim.
But now Vincent was dead.
The thing he so coveted to remain unstolen.
A pity. His betrayal.
His confidence had tasted so sweet.
