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Slave Girl 2: Chapter 125
🕑 Added 2024-03-25 19:03:29 +0000 UTCAristocles’ lifeless body crashes to the platform and for one terrible moment we all stare in disbelief at his eerily still form.
“Mathter?” Colly peeps. “M-Mathter!?” Scrambling to her dead master’s corpse she kneels, her amber eyes wide and her hands shaking as she takes in the horror of his smashed head. “MATHTER!” The weeping wail that follows breaks my damn heart. “Noooooo.”
Looming over the huddled, sobbing, and distracted goblin the gleaming minotaur still moves. And it had a new target in its sight.
“Colly!” I shout, my legs already in motion.
Moving with unnerving silence the metal monster’s other fist comes hurtling down and just an instant before Colly could join her deceased owner in the afterlife Toke springs from where he was kneeling to push her out of the way. As Colly rolls off of the platform the minotaur’s punch crunches into Aristocles’ body instead. Without even a pause it lifts the limp corpse in one hand to hold it up high as if in a display of grisly victory.
With Colly out of danger I skitter to a stop and frantically try to take stock of what was happening. An arrow from behind me streaks through the air to carom harmlessly off of the moving statue’s horned head followed swiftly by another.
“Damn!” Cassie swears.
“Aristocles.” Says a hushed Lucas.
“Wh-What do we do?” Quique’s voice quavers with the shock and fear we were all feeling. His head turns to look at me. Around the platform other eyes were casting my way in search of direction.
I look at the thing still standing with my friend’s body held aloft as the rain spatters down over it. The reflection of the two fires that flanked the platform reflected off of the smooth copper portions between the tarnished segments made the already fearsome creature appear as living fire.
“I…I don’t know if it has done what it has come to do.” I say in a loud voice. “But we cannot let this thing wander the countryside. It does not leave this clearing!”
“RAH!” Toke brings a hammering double fist down over the shoulder of the beast only to be swatted aside by its free hand. “Gngh!” The northman lands heavily on his side just beyond the stone.
The seemingly effortless display of strength against our teacher shakes my men’s resolve. Their weapons were still held at the ready but they begin to glance back and forth at each other with rising doubts.
“Master.” Rosa squeals. “The blood. The blood!”
The long, dark streaks of Aristocles’ blood running down the thing’s thick arm were moving with that same eerie way Toke’s had upon the plaque. It wasn’t simply oozing down to drip off the elbow and glide down the thing’s flank as one would expect but instead snaking over the shoulder and up the wide neck to make toward the mouth and nose. It was after more blood! I didn’t know what that meant exactly but after what it had done with just a bit of Toke’s I knew in my gut that it was not a good thing.
Looking back at her over my shoulder I say. “Can you slow it?”
My slave’s eyes are wide with terror. “Monster! It’s a monster!” She shudders and staggers back a step. “They found me again, Quin.”
“No. No, no, no.” I hurry to her side and take her slender hand in mine. “The monster’s not here for you, Rosa.”
Grabbing onto me around my neck she tries to crawl up into my arms. “Run away, Master! We must run!”
“No Rosa. We cannot.”
“Mmmm! Pleeease!” Her voice is high and small, like that of a child’s. “I wanna run away, Master! Please, Master! We need to hide!”
“Rosa. Rosa.” I speak quickly but purposefully, doing what I can to assuage the childhood fears that had gripped my Lady. A monster had claimed the lives of her parents and sent her life on a course that would see her and her sister drawn into a life of the meretrix. A life that would see her commit murder in the name of revenge for that sister then thrown into the life of inescapable slavery. A monster had nearly killed her man and her boy and had ultimately cost her her sight. There were good reasons for anybody to be afraid of monsters, but for Rosa the trauma went so much deeper. “Shhhh. Listen to me, okay. Can you hear me, Rosa?”
“Mmm.” She nods. I hear another arrow twang off of copper and the unsteady muttering of my crew but I stay focused on Rosa.
“Good girl.” I kiss her cheek. “Good girl. I need you to be brave for me now, okay.”
“Mmm.” She nods as tears well in her eyes.
“I know you can. I know you can Rosa.” I say, somehow in a tone that remained calm even as I panic on the inside. “Now listen to me. Do you think you can slow the blood? Like you did before?”
“Um…yeah.” She says as she presses herself into my body. “But I’m scared!”
“Shhh, shhh.” I hug her and stroke her trembling back. “We’re all scared, Rosa. All of us. But we gotta stick together now, okay?”
“Okay.” She nods. “I-I’ll try to slow it, Master.”
“Good. Good girl.” I soothe her as best I can. Another idea strikes me. “Rosa. Can you get the blood out of it once it’s inside?”
“Uh…I’m not sure.” Her brows furrow. “I can…I can try, Master.”
“Well try, Rosa. Try your best.” I say. “I’ll do what I can to distract it.”
“No!” She clutches onto my arms. Not far away I spot Danae prowling in toward us, her teeth bared as she sensed her master’s distress. “NOOOO!”
“Yes.” I say firmly. “I’ll keep it busy but I need you to pull that blood out, okay?”
“Mmmm!”
“Okay?”
“Okay.” She peeps.
“Cassie will be right here at your side.” I assure her. “You’ll be safe. We will keep you safe.”
“But what about you!”
“I’ll be okay.” I tell her the gentle lie, knowing I had no way to guarantee that.
“NO! Mama! Papa!” She screams. “Quin! I WON’T LOSE YOU TOO!”
“ROSA!” I bark back.
My hard tone startles her out of her regression. She shakes her head, blinks her eyes, and looked herself again. Afraid, but herself.
“Sorry.” She whispers. “I am sorry, Quin.”
I stroke her smooth cheek. “We must be brave now my Lady.”
She nods. “Tell me what I must do.”
“Just what I said.” I say. “Do whatever you can to stop the blood and stop whatever magic the beast is using.”
“I will.” She swallows hard as she summons every ounce of courage in her petite body then grips my arm. “You are not allowed to die here, Quin.”
Bowing my head I reply. “Yes, my Lady.”
“Quin!” Cassie steps back to join us. “I can’t hurt this thing.”
“She can.” I say with a nod to our Lady. “Protect her.”
“I will not leave her side.” As I go to step away she stops me. “Quin.” Into my hand is thrust the handle of my father’s pugio. I’d had Cassie tuck it into her tunic as a charm for the big fight night. Not only had I wanted my father’s presence near as I fought Toke it was also the weapon with which I had killed the harpy so I considered it good luck in martial affairs. She’d barely let it go before she had another arrow nocked in her bow. Our eyes meet for a second. “Be safe.”
“You too.”
Rosa takes a bold stride out from behind us, her growling fox friend bristling at her side. Her blind eyes were locked on the magical monster who stood supping on the blood of our fallen friend. Her fine lips pull back to bare her fangs, her slender fingers curl like talons, her demon tail slithers back and forth, and as she reaches out toward the minotaur her fair features turn fierce.
“You may be a terror. But I am a helpless girl no longer.” She says as green power flickers to life in her eyes. “And I can SEE your power, monster!”
The effect on the gleaming magical construct was immediate and dramatic. As the movement of blood ceases its crawl toward the flared nostrils the great bull hurls the body to the earth and rises to its full height. A second later its great horned head slow turns until its unblinking eyes, the twin fires burning inside of them, were centered squarely on Rosa!
Comments
Del
Few potential typos: "as takes in the horror of his smashed head." -> "as she takes in" "and small, like that that" -> extra that "life in here eyes." -> "in her eyes" "I tru to push" -> "try to push"
