Chapter III
Threads to the Future
By Breaeden Swordwind
The black orb hovered silently over the empty ground. Nothing grew on the dirt and there was no sun even though the place was illuminated. The light seemed to come from nowhere and possessed no heat or feeling. There was no wind to play about the layers of standing dust that were one of only two remnants of the battle that had almost taken place her. This was a dead land. This was where the first battle should have taken place and the where, according to legend, the last battle would be fought. He that was untrue though, there would be no end to war and battle they would always exist. Unless the plan worked. Then there would be no more battles.
The consciousness within the black, glowing orb hated being here. It brought back memories. Memories that made him angry. The blood of the man he had stabbed here still lay on the ground where he had died and was the only other monument bearing a muted testimony to the almost battle. A man who had come back and who he would have to deal with before he got even more dangerous. The orb sighed, though one could not tell as it had no features and gave no sound, his plan had succeeded but proved to be more work then he had anticipated.
The blood was a pool on the ground and it glowed with a certain heavenly radiance that burned into him. The blood was sacred and had been dropped by the most powerful force in existence save God himself.
Another black orb flew appeared in the sky moving at high speeds. When the ball appeared at the larger orbs side the smaller one reported, "Sir, we're having more and more trouble picking at him. When he's not with women he has a great amount of self-control. If we could inflame his arrogance I think we could-".
"No!" interrupted the larger orb its black glow surging larger and enveloping the smaller, "If we touch his arrogance too much I fear he may regain some of his old power. With his sword now out of reach for the time being I think we need not worry overly. Just keep harassing him."
"But, sir! He got Camal!" the subordinate protested.
"I don't care!" he said and a blast of energy sent the smaller ball flying away into the distance.
"Do you always treat your slaves like that?" a voice from behind him said. The orb turned and saw a white glow descending from the clouds, which had split to allow him in. The consciousness in the black orb felt a deep-seated hatred well up within him.
"To what do I owe the pleasure." The black one said with barely contained malice. Even though they had no physical form, he could feel their haughty arrogance. It almost made him regret that he killed his even more arrogant former master before the two towers of pride could fight each other. That would have been amusing.
"Shut up fool." Said the white orb, "We both saw the recent battle, what I need to know is what you know about how to stop this bastard before he thinks of a way to retrieve the sword."
"I don't see what the problem is. You know what will happen; you have the Muses. What do you need my information." The black orb said, hopefully that would cause them to spill a little information. These bastards wouldn't give him the slightest clue on what was happening if the decision was left to them.
"Theirs a war brewing in Europe. According to the Muses from twenty years ago there isn't supposed to be a war for another 36 years. 17 years ago, on the very day he was born, the Muses went silent! His very existence is tampering with the threads of history. As long as he is alive we have no idea what is happening! The only other time that the Muses were silent was back when he had first been alive!" the white orb yelled with a lack of control that had rarely been seen among his ilk. Normally, they stuck to a snotty aloofness.
"But I thought you said the Platonist Origen was empty? What's the worst he could do without people?" jet sphere spoke with off-balance curiosity. This might be serious…The Muses, silent!
"He doesn't need them. If you hadn't killed him before the First Battle he would have won." When the alabaster glow said that the black cursed in his mind. He knew he should never have cut that deal, but that bastard had made him so mad! The consciousness that inhabited the dark sphere had never been able to control himself when brought to wrath "This time he will have his brother with him. Even if he finds only a handful of moderately skilled warriors he could effectively launch an invasion through the Platonist Origen! All he would need to do is break the defenses on the Temple-Mount and he would have access to…" the white orb trailed off not wanting to say what both were thinking.
"Both he and his brother would need to retrieve their swords in order for that to happen! Then they would need to charge through the entire city! They could not possibly win if we faced them with our Hosts." The obsidian orb yelled frantically.
"He may be arrogant but his arrogance is based solidly on power. Do not underestimate him. As for his sword, it would be only too easy for him to remove it but…I think we can come up with a way to voluntarily get rid of both…" the white orb did not elaborate further, as they had a tendency to do, but instead decided to ask the other what he knew, "What have your servants learned about him?"
The black orb gave up the information up grudgingly, "First off all he has the ability to cross into the spiritual plain almost without thinking and has killed one of my best underlings as well as assaulting others. Also, he is able to rearrange his own psyche in bouts of near insanity. He cannot change the composition of it but he can change the structures of it. He has acute problems dealing with females and his guilt and self-loathing are both close to matching his arrogance."
"Fascinating. I want you to continue poking at him. I have already reveled his location to certain orders that would find his death…concurrent with their dogma. Also, I have another of the Tribunal resurrecting the Beast, which will cause his brother some consternation. Even though many of the destined souls that would have taken their parts on the stage of history have relinquished them because of that bastard's existence, I think that with a nudge here and there we can get a few to go after him." The white orb said somewhat musingly.
"Humph"
Nothing left to discuss the white orb began to ascend leaving the black orb to fume alone. When he got back something was going to die.
He was cleaving his way through her partners and comrades, just like she remember from what must have been the better part of a year and a half ago. They tried to fight but he was two quick. Cleaving through them like a scythe through wheat. She broke into a run and abandoned her friends to his thirsty blade. They would have to forgive her. There was nothing she could do.
She dashed through the woods, under trees that groaned in their attempted to support the slate gray sky that weighed down from above. She could hear behind her that the yellow-eyed boy was following her…and gaining. He was too fast. The obstacles she scrambled over, he leapt in an easy bound, ice patches that tripped her up only made him go faster. Finally he caught up to her and, grabbing her wrist in the one hand he seemed able to move, pinned her to a tree. He smiled viciously at her, but with a slight tenderness. He pressed his body against her and whispered, with Death's own voice "You can run from me no more". She felt comfort tingle through her and she wrapped her free around his waist and let his presence ease her to sleep. He let go of her arm and held her back. Slowly she began to feel her life siphoning away from her, but she didn't care. He would be with her for eternity whether he wanted to or not.
Her eyes shot open but she did not launch her torso up so that she was sitting erect drenched in sweat. People only did that in stories. The dream she had just had was part nightmare, part fantasy and disturbing the whole way through. She didn't know what to make of it as she twisted her head to the smoldering remains of the campfire, which sent small tendrils of smoke heavenward.
What did she feel towards him? Whatever it was it was strong and it was destroying her ability to get a good night's sleep. She would at least give that kid a piece of her mind when she saw him next in addition to whatever other actions that she deemed necessary at the time. And to think that the kid was accusing her of running from him when it was clear she was going after him! Whatever it was she couldn't possibly care about him at all. It was some mix of angst and rancor that was causing her to feel this way.
The castle was had an unearthly calm as the man garbed in white fire walked calmly through it. According to the Muses from many years ago there was another, a scythe bearer, who was to have done what the flame-covered man had been sent to do. Trivial, he thought. All that matter was success no matter how it was achieved. That was how they could finish and perfect the creation their master had left half done.
The bent and broken bits of armor lay upon the ground. However, the blood of innocent that had been shed upon it still gave it a dark malicious consciousness that merely required the power to be set from. If one listened closely one could hear the thousand infernal screams like a fly's quite hum in the background.
The man out stretched his arms and a light radiated out from him. He granted the armor a fake body and let it reform as it had been intended. Its right arm and back were covered by a fleshy growth that throbbed with think ropes of arteries and veins. It possessed a sharp conical horn on its helmet that gave the sense of being based on some demonic unicorn. The suit of armor collapsed to its knees and slight bits of dust kicked into the air giving the area an evil aroma that inflamed the lungs to cough. The man standing there might have coughed himself had he been of the physical realm.
Two red eyes opened with the blackness that the helmet contained and a scream pierced the surrounding lands for miles. No one heard it though. The castle and the lands around had been scourged clean of life many years ago in one of the reborn consciousness' former lives. It continued to scream as the light coming from the standing figure that had resurrected it pained the larval creature that had taken up dwelling within the empty shell of the armor. It finally stopped when the man disappeared in a flash of agonizing light.
The beast-armor stood and felt incomplete. Most of its consciousness had been sealed away. With what remained of its power, it created a sword that appeared in the gauntlet of the non-mutated hand. The blade was massive, demonic, and bore in its middle a large eye, lidless and hungry. The consciousness felt an instinctual desire to find the one who had previous born this armor so that it might once again have a host. However, it could not feel the energy of that previous bearer. All that the consciousness could feel was the signal of its master and the feeling was dwindling. The trail was like a faint thread that led away into the distance, like the golden thread that Theseus had taken with him into the depths of the labyrinth. So the beast, that would come, once more, to call itself Nightmare, followed the pathway.
As it journeyed it obeyed its primal instincts to slaughter and absorb the souls of the slain to strengthen the sword that it had made. Each time it did the eye silently screamed in orgasmic ecstasy. Its pupil expanding and causing the hackles of all within a five-mile radius to rise erect on their necks. The sun would seem to grow dimmer and the skin would become a mountain range of goosebumps. The mouth would go dry and dark thoughts of various kinds, dependent of the sin the afflicted had the greatest leaning towards, would pervade the mind, sometimes causing bouts of hysteria that led to the commission that person's sin of choice.
The beast would find its way to battlefields and undefended towns, slaughter everyone and in the chaos escape once more. It was during the massacre of a small village that he noticed someone clad in green come from the horizon. She asked the beast if she could serve under him and the beast let her become his slave. The strangest thing about her was she did feel a lust for sin when Nightmare devoured a soul. For she was one of the few truly innocent people in the world.
Abelard was listening quietly at a bar. There was an aura of smoke and sweat that gave the air a bitter taste as men released their scent into the unmoving air. The sounds of mewling drunkards and laughing lechers burned the ears of Abelard. Every time he heard a man utter some new profanity Abelard felt himself get a new gray hair. He hated being here but he needed to be in order to get the information he was looking for.
His thoughts turned lightly to what might be happening back home. He had run away from his responsibilities as a worker underneath the Landgraf of Leuchtenberg, and he felt sum what guilty. His church always told him it was his responsibility as a member of the third estate to work loyal under his master and if he did that he would have eternal joy in the afterlife. Though it pained him to think that he might loose heaven because of his actions he knew that pursuing a servant of the Black One was more important. He hoped his wife would be alright, he hadn't told her where he was going and had only left her note saying he was going to slay the demon that had killed their daughter, their only child. He wasn't going to be stopped till he had sent that demon back to the hellfire that had spawned it.
He was leaning over the counter, and was alone in that he had no metal mug will with frothing alcoholic liquid. His faith would not grant him that reprieve. He was beginning to think this yet another fruitless night when, upon the misty air, he heard what he had been searching for. "You shoulds haves seens this bastard." The man said with a drunken accent that seemed to add an "s" to everything he said, " He and this knight comes walkins' ups tos mes. Is was lookings ats hims ands hes gots this massive swords on his backs alls triangle-shapeds and s. His eyes ares closeds and I stare at his arms which is alls ins this slings and hes opens his and hes hads these balefuls yellows eyes and stares at mes alls demons-like."
Another inebriated fool add his two cents to the conversation, also in a drunken drawl, " Ah yes, Ah know thaht bahstahrd. Cahme up to mah house sahyin' thaht he needed directions to thah next town ovah. I pointed it ahut tah 'im and later ah woman cahme lookin' for him and Ah pointed hah to where he went. Pretty gahl thaht. Blahnd hahr ahnd ah pretty fahce. Wouldn't trahst hah with mah moneh thahgh. Hahd ah theifah look ahbout hah. Anahwah Ah sent hah south with thah othah men."(1)
A third voice began to speak, a newcomer who had not yet gotten as drunk as the others, " I wonder if that girl was chasing that yellow-eyed boy because he didn't want to marry her or something like that?"
" Ah don't know ahbout thaht but if Ah was in his shoes Ah wouldn't be runnin' instead Ah would be…" Abelard stopped listening before they started delving into such bawdy subjects, as drunkards of his sex were liable to do. So the demon-boy was heading south with a knight that had sold his soul to the devil, no doubt. He pondered the girl for a minute, though. Another whose life had been ravaged by the demon-host? Or maybe another devil-worshipper who desired to cavort with the Dark Lord's servants?
Abelard stepped out into the cold night and was relived to finally have fresh air filling his nostrils. The thin film of sweat that had appeared over his time that sauna of debauchery bit into his skin. He began to stride into the darkening distance. At any rate he wasn't going to catch up with either the demon or the girl if he stood still.
The smells of yeasty bread baking wafted to her nose as they did everyday at this time. As they would everyday for the rest of her life it seemed. She had always thought that after you had gone on journeys to save the world from an evil sword that your life would never be the same. But after two journeys out into the world she had returned home, had a scuffle with her parents and returned to life as usual. She sighed. At least she had her peace and a small bakery in a tucked away little town. Stability, she had, indeed. Her only woe was perhaps how her parents scoffed that her youthful journeys had scared away all potential suitors who feared that their newly gained wife might walk out on them without a moments notice. That thought always brought up this nagging feeling that some how she should be married or at least engaged by now. It was like she was part of a life that should not have come to pass. Alas, it was an empty feeling and had no merit to it.
Her stomach still had that faint queasiness it always had since the shards from Soul Edge had briefly made a home in her belly. They had been removed from her but they left this nagging sense in her gut that never went away. A tender little reminder that there was always evil in the world and not even Hephaestus could stop it all. But then Hephaestus had his own problems these days, in addition to an evil sword that was draining souls from the world. With the ending of warfare and conflict in Germany and the death of Martin Luther the church had been coming down hard on "heretics" and "pagans". It had grown less and less tolerant of those Greeks who still worshiped the old gods, along with or in place, of the Christian god. Hephaestus was one of the many gods whose temples were coming under their greatest threat in centuries. She supposed he was so concerned with his own survival he couldn't take the time to communicate with every little Athenian baker's daughter he had sent out to defeat the greatest evil in the world.
Sophitia sighed again. This was going to be another slow day. She idly wondered when her father was going to show up. He came in a bit later then her every morning as he gradually weaned her into doing all the responsibilities that the bakery entailed by herself. He said in a few more months she could take over full time. The thought of finally gainning some responsibility held a mild excitement for her. To think one day she might raise this little hole-in-the-wall bakery in to a-
The feeling in her stomach was gone. She noticed as soon as she could not feel it and her entire train of though cut off. She had grown so used to the presence that its lack was like loosing a color in her vision. It just made the world seem…off.
She needed to think of what this meant. What could have caused the feeling to vanish? She stood up quickly, knocking over the stool she had been sitting on. The bakery was empty in moments of Sophitia as she dash towards the nearby shrine to Hephaestus. All that remained was the smell of bread baking slowly changing to the acrid scent of bread burning.
The shrine to Hephaestus was a predominately marble structure with large columns that, to the surprise of none, were sculpted in the classical style that the Greeks had made many of their structures in. It overlooked the land around it from its perch in the mountains and was filled with the calming sound of water that came bubbling from a nearby string in preparation for its decent down the mountain face. In the center of the shrine was a statue of Hephaestus that scraped the marble roof and peered down upon the mortals that came to pray, with iron apathy. Its face was one that was of a man who bore wisdom and its jaw had a beard that only increased that impression. Its hands were a sword and buckler. The sword was a single-handed and the blade, if set tip to earth, would come up to his knee. In the way of many other gladii it was short for thrusting. The edges of the blade were both curved concavely and at the end it bore a diamond tip. The shield was a circle, which curved outwards in the center so that strikes would deflect easily. Emblazoned upon the shield was an ornate omega.
In front of this armed statue was a marble altar and upon it was an exact duplicate of both the sword and shield. Sophitia was familiar with these weapons, as she had used them in her journeys out into the world in pursuit of Soul Edge. The cold nipped at her flesh and she could see her breath making wisps in front of her as she ran into the empty shrine. No one was around, either having lost faith in the old gods or in fear that they would be found and accused of heresy or the performing of pagan rituals. Sophitia knelt down in front of the statue and began to pray to Hephaestus that he would reveal to her why the tingling in her gut was no longer there.
She must have knelt there in silence for hours, her mind working furiously in its demands for divine assistance. For a very long time there was silence, suddenly a stress began to build in her mind. It was exhaustion from the constant thinking that she was doing as she prayed. The tension built and finally broke causing her to loose consciousness
The world around her was pure black. She bucked to her feet, not knowing what she was standing on. The world was quiet and empty, but a light began to pierce the darkness and Sophitia had to cover her eye in order to avoid being blinded by the radiance. When her eyes had adjusted to the illumination she looked up at the man. He looked almost exactly like the statue of Hephaestus except slightly younger looking and he had no beard. He was garbed in loose white silk robe and across his chest were folded sheets of ivory flame. His eyes were an agonizingly vibrant green that whispered of the life that comes from the trees, old and wise. His hair was black as onyx and his comforting smile sheltered all those who stood in its presence from life's rain.
"Sophitia, the answer to your question is that Soul Edge is being protected," Hephaestus said to her, dripping knowledge and conceit with every word. "Being protected by two fallen warriors, one is a former demon host and the other is a demonic boy, you must seek them out, kill them, and destroy Soul Edge." She was about to ask where her opponents were but Hephaestus cut her off, "They are currently traveling in Germany. Now go there is no time for hesitation."
With those words in her mind she regained consciousness. She was in a slight daze for a few moments but recovered and got to her feet. She stood tall and stoic, she knew it was her duty to her people and to her god to destroy the evil sword that had brought about the Evil Seed. She shuddered at the mere memory of the dark abomination that had appeared in the sky.
Walking up to the altar and clasping the sacred weapons of Hephaestus, Sophitia muttered a silent prayer to all those she was leaving behind, once again.
Siegfried was backing up trying to get a little more room to react to his opponent's movements, but the boy was to fast. Not only was he keeping pace but while doing it he was sidestepping, feigning, and dodging blows from Siegfried's weapon. Siegfried had managed to avoid being hit but it had taken a little more creativity then he was used to. Luzifer was good, he had to give the boy that much. They were dueling with wooden rods that Luzifer had made on night while Siegfried was sleeping. He remembered that the boy had felled a middling sized tree and had hewed from it two five foot lengths of wood. Siegfried had finished setting camp for the night when Luzifer dragged the two lengths from the half-light, one dragging behind each shoulder as he held the end over his shoulder with his arms wrapped along the log's circumference. Siegfried had asked what he was doing but Luzifer had just shrugged and sat down. Siegfried decided not to press the subject. When he awoke he found two well-made practice swords with a slight covering of ash. It looked as though someone had made them by burning away all the wood and thus revealing the rods that Siegfried held in his hand. Siegfried Luzifer how he had made them and Luzifer shrugged, "It's something I do."
In addition, to, apparently, being skill with fire, the boy had taken rather quickly to the Glam. It had taken a few hours for him to get used to the weight and size difference but once he had Luzifer had become a potent mix of foot speed and raw power. That's how Siegfried had fond himself defending against the blows from Luzifer's training sword. The boy moved in blur of motion and deftly moved in and out of Siegfried's ideal range. Almost all of the yellowed-eye bugger's attacks had a movement as part of their motion. Either allowing Luzifer to get too close or to get away or sometimes both in the same string. However, the boy had a fair bit a wind up with most of his attacks and their was a large gap between each of his strikes, though the fact he was normally during both these opportunities to away from their impact. If Siegfried held the boy at bay he could often get off some blows of his own, the key was making them count, which Luzifer made difficult.
Siegfried played a different game. He moved from blow and shifted easily stance to stance and used a variety of similar looking moves to deceive his opponent. Even though Luzifer used a few different stances (even one that involved him sheath his sword and using his had as a third leg, which was disconcerting to say the least) they were all very different from his main stance and had little deception. While using a sword as large as Siegfried's cause a far bit of wind up and recovery time between blows it was nowhere near as bad a Luzifer's. Siegfried used his momentum to try get ahead of his opponent and used power and range to punish his foe for any mistakes that he made.
All in all though they were pretty close to even, Siegfried keep his blade or body in motion to keep momentum from blow to blow and hold off his opponent and Luzifer using feigns and speed to create openings that he could exploit.
Siegfried had just launched a risky low sweep at the very edge of his range, Luzifer noticed it coming and leaped with his blade over his head in an overly exaggerated over hand strike. It was at the moment that a memory, from a time that Siegfried didn't want to remember, bubbled to the surface of his consciousness like bubbles of methane from a log that is rotting underneath the surface of a lake.
Nightmare- No! I cannot blame this on the Soul Edge, that's me- Siegfried walked down the streets of the town. Blood baptized everything with the cluster of homes including Siegfried's azure armor. Corpse lay in the middle of the street and souls swirled around in a whirlpool with the eye of Soul Edge at its vortex.
Siegfried let out a laugh that twisted in his inhuman throat to come up as a disgusting wheeze and his armor shook with the tremors of his euphoria as he felt each soul enter into the eye. A voice came over his shoulder and turned him from his revelries, "You sick bastard! I'll kill you!" Siegfried looked slantwise out his eye and saw the man running at him, leaping, and bringing his sword behind him and a vertical slash. The attack was too obvious, too easy to predict. Siegfried easily sidestepped it and slashed the man clean through and watched as his soul joined the ever growing whirlwind around him.
As the memory flashed through his mind Siegfried was briefly distracted. He was unable to dodge the looming vertical and thus had to bring his blade up to parry, not think that the attack might have been a trick. As soon as Luzifer saw the parry he brought the blade down but diverted it slightly so that it went around the parry and came down for a low sweep.
Siegfried did not wear most of his armor. He left the more encumbering parts off as it made it much easier to move. He still had the main breast plate, the vambraces, and the greaves on at all times, and before the practice duel he had put on his gauntlets. But he took off the shoulder guards, elbow guards, the tabard and most importantly all the leg armor above the shin. This is a long way to say that when Luzifer he his thigh it hurt like the five flames of hell.
Siegfried's legs gave underneath and he fell to his knees. Luzifer stood above him, " You lost your concentration." He said blandly. Luzifer yellow eyes were slowly boring a hole through Siegfried's skull with their sharp apathy.
"Sorry I just had a memory of my time as Nightmare." Siegfried sighed and began to stand up. Once he was erect, he told Luzifer of the memory.
Luzifer didn't react in any meaningful way; he just stood their absorbing it as though he knew thousands of people who had massacred entire villages in order to absorb the souls of the inhabitants. Siegfried finished his story and Luzifer nodded slightly with a pondering intellectualism. He seemed out of touch with reality for a few moments then came back, "Just don't blame your problems on the sword. It's your fault. All the problems people have are there own fault, they just don't like to take the blame for it. To pin your problems on others is the fast road to weakness. If something unexpected happens; you didn't prepare enough. If you were beaten; you weren't strong enough."
Siegfried felt a forlorn, depressive smile spread across his face and as he stood on his shaky leg, "You don't have to remind me. I already know that I am to blame for all those deaths." The two of them walked back to were they had set up camp as the last light of the sun gave out in the west. "According to the man who gave us directions we're going to be passing through a town at the end of the day. We should probably stop to rest there and plan our next move." Siegfried sat down on the trunk of a tree that must have fallen sometime ago as it was in an advance state of decomposition. "However, what are we going to do about your name? You might not mind being called that but I am sure someone will take offense."
"What if you just contract my name? Call me Luz in public. No one will take offense at that."
Siegfried nodded, "But what about a surname? You will need something to that effect."
Luzifer seemed to think about for a moment but eventually he though of something that would work, "I'll use your last name. We look similar enough to be related; cousins or, maybe, brothers by different mothers."
"All right I suppose that will have to do." Siegfried stood up, walked to the opposite side of the fire from Luzifer, and lay down to go to sleep.
He was running from something. He didn't know what because he knew if he took the time to look it would catch up to him. Whatever it was it cast a light from behind him and it illuminate the sprawling woods that Luzifer was running through. Luzifer steps landed softly on his own shadow as he covered the last legs of the forest. His hands were bound by threads and upon them were the faces of people. Some he recognize (Siegfried, Blasa, his mother) and some he did not (A blond haired girl, a brown haired man, and a strange looking girl with cerulean hair and lavender eye).
He arrived at stark foreboding cliff and the only way to go was up. He bit into the ropes of souls that bound his hands and as he tore them off they release screams that overlapped and reverberated through his being. Putting a hand on the cliff he began to scale it. He could her whatever was following begin to climb right behind him and he picked up the pass. When he got to the top he threw his body over the brink and rolled along the ground before getting up. He saw a sword that stood half impaled in the ground. It watched him calmly with its singular eye and he grasped the beast-blade's hilt. Twisting it from the earth he brought it around in slash at the light that was following him.
Luzifer sat bolt upright as he woke up covered in sweat. And here he always that people only lunged awake in books. He held his head and leaned back against a tree trunk. The sun was about peak from beneath the horizon and Luzifer decided not to bother going back to sleep.
1) Incase you could not understand the accent he said "Ah yes, I know that bastard. Came up to my house saying that he needed directions to the next town over. I point it out to him and later a woman came looking for him and I pointed her to where he went. Pretty girl that. Blond hair and a pretty face. Wouldn't trust her with my money though. Had a theify look about her. Anyway I sent her south with the other men"