Author's Cruel Note: here we go. The first definite touch of drama. Just read, and judge. Personally, I love this chapter—one of my best, even though if not the best. Anyway, that's your problem. Just read and review—or else I'll give you the Minotaur (combined with Trice, I think: a threat enough to make any Caid of the mafia give me all his money-niark niark niark…)
Chapter Twelve
Snake's Poison
Arach was exhausted, and when she woke up, the night had already fallen, even thought she couldn't believe she had slept so long. She hadn't time to think anymore about it; the door flung open and Drymarchon stormed in, looking in a foul mood, yey his face suddenly calmed up when he saw the girl on the floor, staring helplessly up at him. He grinned to her, and said, gesturing towards the tray on the floor:
'So you are not hungry.'
She didn't reply.
'Well, you'd better keep me company like a true friend, girl, for you will soon be more than a prisoner, or even a friend, to me,' he said, studying the effect of his words on her face.
She started to tremble, helplessly, and it pleased him she feared him. He came toward her, but she jumped on her feet, and backed away, her back to the window.
'Don't touch me, or else I'll hurt you!' she cried, 'Don't come near me, keep away…'
He didn't take any notice, and she was so paralyzed by his coming toward her so slowly, so irresistibly, that she had a crazy idea. She flung her elbow in the window, smashing the glasses, and bent to seize a splinter of the sharp glass, cutting open her own palm as she clutched it, and flinching under the thundering avalanche of glass. He stared at her calmly, and she did nothing, just stood there shivering.
He suddenly jumped on her, and at the same time she raised her hand: the sharp edge of the splinter left a long red line on his pale cheek, but thin, and that certainly didn't hurt him much. She raised her hand again, but he seized her wrist, twisted it until she dropped her weapon, and then threw in her face a great cuff. The blow was so powerful she was hurled aside, right on the large bed. She lay there, dazed, panting, as he crushed over her, and grabbed both her hands, tying them with a rope he had picked up from his belt. He then raised her arms above her head, and tied the other side firmly at one of the beds pillars, so that she was lying with her head against one of his pillows.
'You'll pay…' she said, her voice trembling, 'You'll pay…'
He said nothing, but bent to her and pressed a cruel kiss to her dry red lips. The kiss left her breathless and gasping, and she closed her eyes against the tears; when she re-opened them, he was gone.
She started to weep, cursing him, cursing Hawkke and his mistress, cursing her parents, cursing gold, cursing everything, even the pirates, who weren't able to keep her their prisoner. And then she thought of Snaketeeth, his olive face, his greasy black hair, his wicked grin, and she smiled in her tears. She remembered his words about cursed and loved gold, his words about hate, about success and murder. It was him who had made of her what she was, and he was the only man she had ever loved, the only man she had agreed as her father and brother. He had been all her life before she fled her home.
She fell asleep eventually, but woke a few hours later, when she heard the chamber's door open and close. She couldn't see anything because of the darkness, but the splinters of glass on the floor were gone, and Drymarchon was back. He was pulling his keys out of the door, in a pocket, and he lifted his eyes behind his uncombed strands when he saw her raising her head to see what he was doing. She bit her lip and laid still. He went toward the bed, and after a brief glance to her pale face he stripped off his clothes, threw them in a corner, and slipped under the blankets. She was shivering so much her teeth were chattering, even as she was still dressed. She heard him breathe, but as he didn't move toward her, she relaxed a little bit, and finally fell asleep again.
She awaked another couple of hours later, when she felt his cold hand caressing her jaw and her neck, slowly slipping to her throat, the neck of her shirt. She gave a pitiful sob, and he took his hand away, chuckling quietly, and turned around; his breathing steadied and slowed a few minutes later, showing he'd fallen asleep. She couldn't close her eyes of all the night.
In his glorious black and gold castle, Hawkke was pacing up and down in his chamber, smashing everything he could see. He was in a foul mood; he couldn't stop thinking about Arach, to whom he had spoiled the life. The girl was not sweet and loving, and Drymarchon would probably have a hard time, but he couldn't help thinking about the pressure of her firm young breasts against his back, the soft feel of her ruby lips when he had stolen a kiss from them, the warmth of her body when she had slept in his arms, and her white face and black hair and skinny body…He sobbed with rage when he thought about what the snake Lord was probably doing to her now, and suppressed an urgent desire to go and slit his head off, and then take Arach back in his arms and crush her his forever with a kiss.
He thought about Frostrosé's pink, soft graceful body waiting for him in a chamber further in the corridor, and again he saw in his mind Arach, whom he wanted so much he had to stuff his fists in his mouth not to howl with desire. His gaze suddenly fell on the two, great bags of gold on the table next to the bed, and he thought that he would give ten times this amount of gold to have her back, just for him. He then thought about going and taking her back by force, or provoking Drymarchon in dual with her as a prize…He finally collapsed on his bed, and bit his pillow, crying and sobbing in fury, feeling desperately alone in his large cold bed, longing for the little assassin to be in his arms. He fell asleep, and dreamt of her, while Frostrosé's eyes were wide open, glittering with bitter pain in the darkness of her room.
When Arach woke up the next morning, Drymarchon was gone, and she was still tied to the bed. She felt cold, and understood why; the smashed window was now letting all the freshness of the early morning in the bedroom, and at the same time the cold warmness of the sun and the dim singing of the birds down below, in the trees of the stone courtyard. Arach told herself that this day she would have to do something, and that even if she would not be able to kill the Lord right now, she would fly and killed him later. She started to turn and wriggle her wrists to see if the rope would let her hands slip, but as it was useless; she hauled herself higher on the pillows, and pulled her head back, so that she could bit the ropes. She stayed for one hour biting and nibbling at it, and finally, her arms and neck aching, she could free herself from them, and jump away from the bed. She first went to the door, and tried to open it; it was locked. At least, she thought, he wasn't underestimating her. She sighed and went to the window, her last hope. The room was really very high, and she looked for somewhere to climb for a long time, until she had the same thought every single prisoner had for centuries: the inevitable, eternal sheets-technique. She flung to the bed, and tossed the blankets away. Then she seized the sheets, white and still warm from her body, and started to rip them into long bands. She made the same things for two other sheets she found under the mattress, and when she had some twenty five bands, she tied them together, until it formed a huge, long, rather solid line. Quickly, because she was afraid Drymarchon might come back, Arach tied one end of her tool at one of the bed's posts, and seized the other side, going toward the window and bending to look outside. Under her was the empty back-courtyard, in which a few pigs and hens were eating dry straw. She bit her lip, and with all the heedlessness of her youth, she threw herself out.
She seemed to fly at an astonishing speed down the tower, the floor closer and closer of her face every second. Her fall stopped about four or six arms from the floor, and she sighed softly, peering down at the animals that were looking up looking bored and stupid. At one point higher above her the sheet was starting to break, and soon she would crush on the floor. Quickly, like a spider on her web, she climbed higher on the line, until she reached the wall. The she sat on it, and flung about the sheets on the other side. She then heard something above her head, and she lifted her eyes; Drymarchon was standing at the window, looking astonished. She didn't wait, she knew what was coming next, she jumped.
She crushed heavily in the grass, and soon after, the sheet-rope came to fell limply beside her. Shaking so much she could barely breathe, her whole body aching, she started running with one of her legs lame. The pain was terrible, but also was Drymarchon's avidity to get her. She knew soon enough she would have a flight of knights running after her, so she suddenly turned on her heels, and instead of running away, she went to flatten against the wall. She just thought about the trouble now: the ditch, she would not be able to cross it in her state. The hell with this, she thought, and when the bridge opened, and when six or seven knights in leather armor galloped out, she threw herself on the last one to come out, grabbing his leg so that he was trailing her behind him.
He lowered his gaze and his mouth fell open with surprise, but he had no time to do any thing else; she climbed on the horse behind him, caught hold of his sword, and pulled it away from its sheath, as the same time as pushing the men off his steed. The man screamed as he fell heavily on the floor, but Arach now possessed both the horse, and the sword, and she was galloping behind the other knights, who hadn't notice anything.
From the top of his tower, however, Drymarchon had noticed. Quick as a snake, he took hold of the arrow he always carried at his flank. It was a poison arrow, a deadly poison arrow, and it had just to shot; it would enter its goal's heart even if it had to cross the whole world. The Snake House had always carried one in their life, and it was their custom, and it was that day that Drymarchon, one of the greatest heirs, was tossing it to a girl next to which he had slept. He took a bow from behind his bed, nocked drew the arrow, and let loose the string; and watched with marvel as he saw it, weightless and infinitely graceful, plunge down, and then speed toward the galloping girl. It was one of the knights that saved the girls live. It was a tall, thin man, looking anxious and miserable. He turned his head toward Arach, apparently to tell to his comrade to do something, and saw her. With a yell, he stopped his steed dead. Arach's one crashed in it, and she was tossed forward, at the moment when the arrow was going to plunge in her back. The arrow missed its goal, but not so much, as it pushed in her shoulder. She groaned, and fell, unconscious, on top of the other knight, who had felt the blade of the arrow in his own shoulder.
At the top of his tower, Drymarchon smiled, and disappeared.
Author's Austere After-Note: here we go. Next chapter is the death of Arach, and this is the end—all right, did you believe it? I hope not. I'm not that evil—not like J.K.Rowling, I mean evil enough to kill one of my best characters, (no offense meant Jo.)
Anyway; I hope you loved this chapter, I think it's splendid. Please Review—I mean, not please. I mean review, and that's an order. I mean you must do it, or else something singularly nasty's gonna happen-something troll nasty (no, I'm kidding. Talking of troll nasty, I've just finished reading the Opal Deception—perfectly wicked!) Never mind, just one word: REVIEW! (and e-mail me! This is an S.O.S., you could get in jail for non-assistance to person in danger if you don't, niark niark niark.)