The black rose chapter 50

The air reeked of blood and sweat. Johana´s breaths felt heavy as dust started clogging her helm´s grill. She´d given up on trying to squirm free. All it did was send a stab of pain through her legs, and then the images were quick to attack. The tingle was still there, and it kept the images at bay but only when she laid still and let it wash over her senses. Her arm was only thing she could afford to move.

She slammed her palm against the floor. It stung, but the tingle was quick to rush to cover it. It made it almost pleasurable. Her strikes were weak, more like soft paddings as oppose to the strikes she managed to before. She wanted to hit it harder. But her body refused.

Johana let her head fall to the ground. The eye lenses had been slowly fading for some time. The change was so gradual and subtle that Johana hadn´t noticed. Not until now. The image on her right eye became black. In a twitch, Johana blinked, hoping that she had just closed her eyes. But then the darkness became.

How long will it take? How much longer will I endure? I only have a single death, and this is all I can do with it?

The images attacked, and Johana could feel them coming on stronger than before. But just as Johana was preparing for them, the tingle grew stronger.

More… Johana begged. Give me more.

As if something could hear her plea, the tingle festered. It did not take long for it to feel like a thousand soft hands where gently caressing her body. With skin as soft as Emma´s they slowed her breath while the beat of her heart raced. She closed her eyes. The hands traveled across her body in waves. Starting from the tip of her fingers and toes, they climbed along each limb. Sinking down only to rise again. Each time another wave came, they climbed a little higher and fell a little shorter. After a few minutes, they reached her torso and started caressing her shoulders and hips. Johana bit her lip in anticipation as they started going between her legs.

Suddenly, the metal groaned, and the hands scurried away like uncovered rats.

No.

A harsh ray of light cut through a fresh-born crack. At first it was a narrow thing, no thicker than a leaf. But with a loud creak, the crack grew larger. Just a few seconds after it appearing, the crack grew taller than a man and the silhouette of an armored giant stood in its maw.

"Hurry and drag her out!" The giant said with a thick, loud voice. "I can´t hold this bloody thing forever!"

Two more giants stepped forward. Despite her eyes still struggling to fight the light, making the shapes of them just blurred and grey, the sound of their voices and the smell of them told Johana who they were. The wolves reached out and took her with their armored hands.

Don´t. Johana was about to protest when the wolves stopped themselves.

"She´s stuck." One of them said.

"Oh bloody…" Hjalmar grunted. "Aigor! Jurgen! Get over here and lift this!"

Two more wolves came running and grabbed the piece of armor pinning Johana to the ground. The release was sudden and send a tide of ice through Johana´s body from her legs. She tried to speak but her lips were numb and dry.

Come back… Johana begged. Come back…

Once she was free, Hjalmar tossed the flattened hull to his side. "Can you hear me?" He asked while his brothers spread her over the ground.

Johana smacked her lips and blinked to no vail. Her helmet covered her face and hid it all.

Carefully, the old wolf lifted her head and removed her helmet.

"Johana." Hjalmar said with a smile. "You´ve got some mad luck." He turned to his brothers. "Help the sisters and guardsmen with their wounded. I´ll bring her back to the camp."

His brothers left, and Hjalmar lifted Johana in his arms. Her muscles managed to fell numb and sore at the same time. Trying as he might to be gentle, even the slightest movement by the old wolf was painful. While it hurt, it was also strangely welcoming.

"Did…" Johana managed to push a word through her lips.

"Did we win?" Hjalmar filled in the question. "Aye. We won. Wouldn´t be talking otherwise. But it wasn´t easy." He looked grim for a moment before his face shifted to one of amusement. "At least you got lucky, managed to sit most of it out."

Johana didn´t have the energy to laugh. If she did she would have spat Hjalmar in the face. Stop your dumb jokes.

"I´ll take you to the Hospitaler." Hjalmar said. "And let Emma know you´re alive."


The treatment was simple. Simple but painful. In spite of sedatives that the Hospitaler injected, the sensation of the servitor prodding its needles into the base of her spine would have sent her screaming if every single muscle in her body hadn´t turned into an unresponsive lump of gel. Instead she just hung still while the machine-slave remade and stitched together fiber-nerves. Just the feeling of one of the threads being remade made it feel as if a thunder strike was charging through her body. And the servitor was making ten of them every minute.

She couldn´t tell how long it took. She could not remember when it started. She only knew it was done because the servitor stitched her skin together and left her on a gurney with the sedatives still running through her blood.

She was in room with other sisters. Wounded or dead, they were all gathered in the same tent. Some were on the brink of death, and once they slipped of the edge, a servitor was quick to remove them from the gurney and put the body in a bag.

Her dry lips parted, the skin broke in a few places but least she could let the air pass through her mouth. Blinking, Johana looked over her sisters.

I am alive. The thought weighed on her mind. And I will live. Her eyes closed at the realization.

There was some argument outside the tent. Johana looked over and saw the Hospitaler arguing with a sister. She was trying to enter the tent but the Hospitaler stepped in front of her.

"Do I need to remind you of my rank a second time?"

The Hospitaler stepped slowly aside and Emma entered the tent. Her armor was scratched. Her robes were scorched and her hand was wrapped in bandages. Her hair was unwashed and unkempt, left in wild and messy. But the radiance and golden color still shined through in places. She rushed up to Johana and put her wounded hand on hers while gently tracing Johana´s cheek with her other hand.

Johana tried to smile, but the corners of her mouth barely raised.

"She can´t talk yet." The Hospitaler said. "The sedatives will keep her like this for some time. There is no point in trying to talk to her."

Emma turned to the Hospitaler. "Leave us." She said.

The Hospitaler answered with a frown before she turned to look after the other sisters.

"We won." Emma said once the Hospitaler was gone. "The war is over. The heretics have nothing left to fight us with."

Johana tried to raise her hand but only managed to get a twitch at the end of her fingers.

"Once the fortress has been completely destroyed, we will march for the capital. And then…" Emma paused. Her blue eyes looked down, to the side. "And then we will have to deal with the Inquisitor, and his plans." She looked back at Johana and traced her fingers down the line of her jaw.

An urge spread through Johana. A furious, mad urge. She knew where it came from but couldn´t explain its sudden strength. If her body wasn´t slack with tranquilizing chemicals, she would have thrown herself into Emma´s arms and kissed her again.

The soft hands returned as whispers started tracing through Johana´s mind. The whispers sang in tunes that bathed her body in sensation. She closed her eyes and saw the images again. She opened them, and there was Emma. Her golden hair, her blue eyes, her kind smile.

"I will release you of your oath." Emma reached to her belt and untied the sheathed sword of its strap. She put the weapon at Johana´s side. "I will expect my own sword back." Emma´s eyes grew somber. "You are now free to seek your redemption in death."

Both those oaths mean nothing to me anymore. Johana´s eyes sank to a close, and the images returned but the song grew louder and stronger. My only duty is to you, my love.