The Island of Narid
Chapter 9: Captive
Drip. Drip. Drip.
She slowly came back into consciousness.
Drip…
Her arms were bound together, hung above her head. Her near naked body was pressed against the cold, damp wall with only a light, papery dress clothing her skin.
Drip. Drip.
She shivered, but moved no more. Her head was hung; a curtain of thick, mussed hair hung heavily about her face, brushing against her chilled flesh.
"Rawse!" Hierra screamed, kicking furiously against the strong, hard arms that held her to a tawny young woman.
Rose couldn't cry out the small girl's name. She could only try and scramble towards her, avoiding another capturer. The raiders leapt out of the woods when she and Hierra dozed off by the water's edge.
The capturer, a tall woman with dark tan skin and long, brown hair stood above Rose, coming closer with slow, steady steps.
"Niu pahaa stväkh?" The lady asked smugly, in the language Hierra spoke. She suddenly jerked forward, wrenching a hold on Rose's hair and hoisted her up. She brushed roughly aside the loose silk strands of hair and gazed at the homunculi mark set into her dusky skin. Then a horrible dry laugh escaped the woman's throat and she dropped Rose to the ground.
Rose immediately stumbled to her feet. She started towards Hierra with tears of fear dampening the corners of her eyes. Her movement was harshly halted by an iron grip on her arm. She looked up, and saw the curly-haired boy, who in a flash became the man with wild black hair and revealing black clothing from her dream: a homunculus. He grinned at her—his eyes narrowed and dangerous.
"Remember me?"
Then Rose saw the others follow, more hollow bodies; the two women, the boy, the heavy-set man. The first woman, with hair wavy and the color of ebony, stepped forward suddenly with a look of mild surprise.
"What is it, Lust?" The large man inquired. It was the first time Rose had heard his voice. It was hoarse and high—nearly inhuman.
Lust, as the lady was called, recovered the calm look to her face. Her lips spread into a slight grin. "You were that whiny follower of Cornello, some time ago, weren't you?"
Rose flinched, breaking into a cold, clammy sweat.
The ivory-skinned woman continued, "She was the one Fullmetal and his brother hung on."
The face of the shape changer abruptly soured. Through clenched, gritted teeth he growled with a hateful smile, "That makes this oh-so-much sweeter."
Rose held her arms tight to her chest, cringing away, but the homunculus before her reached out and held her still. Freely flowing down her cheeks were salty, colorless tears.
The one called Lust lifted one dainty gloved hand, but as her fingers rose they stretched abnormally. Rose opened her mouth in a silent shriek and fought the wild-haired man frantically. The woman's fingers slit to a stop underneath Rose's chin. She could feel the sharp point of her nails threateningly rub against the shuddering flesh of her neck. Tears cascaded over the dark glove.
Lust's face was devoid of any glum humor now. It was stern, suspicious. In her low, pulsing voice she said, contemplating, "I think she has even specified for this wench. How lucky."
"You mean…" The large man began, his pupilless blank eyes staring up at Lust with a kind of drawn-up apprehensive expression.
"Vatnak Tébusht Kap a Bloch treena?" The islander questioned, her voice strained in annoyance.
The one holding Rose turned his head toward her. "Twestkin pore käp a tvé hokunav."
The woman nodded.
Rose suddenly started, noticing a silence that should not be. Whipping her head around, as far as she was able in a man's hold, she saw Hierra hanging limp in another woman's arms. This one was still a native, but seemed no older than Rose herself.
Rose flailed against the shape shifter's arms, but he only strengthened his grip, and slapped her hard across the face.
The tall and older local walked over to Hierra, who stood with her head drooped.
"Putokma vash?" She asked the one who held Hierra.
"Kuonesti. Ta voho." She lifted the head of Hierra. Her eyes were closed contently, and she rested completely on the hand of her capturer, as if asleep.
The older woman wiped Hierra's thick bangs from her eyes, saw the dark, charred brand and laughed, that dry, heartless cackle.
"Pwi karazh tomoné."
"Vernutske…"
"So do we wait for them to finish with the child?" Lust inquired, ripping Rose's attention back the homunculi.
"Ask her yourself." The wild-haired man replied flatly.
Lust turned toward the two islanders and asked, in their tongue.
Rose quaked where she stood, felt her knees get suddenly weak and numb. Choked with tears and fear, Rose's breath grew short and strained. When she was very young, she had always thought that when a person was truly terrified, they would see their life flicker before their very eyes, and that they would pine for those moments that would soon be robbed from their memory. She thought then, that those with the sudden realization that they had to live, would find some supernatural, concealed strength and desire that would burst through their veins and spread through their mind and muscles, compelling some heroic, prowess-filled action.
But as she stood there, Rose did not see memories of her past. She was not caught in a fit of longing. She had no strength—her mind was an empty vortex, devoid of any breadth of thought.
"Wrath, get the drug from Solkéra."
The small boy with the wild edge to his eye shrugged, waltzing over toward the tall woman from the island. In her foreign tongue he spoke some, and in return she handed him a small wooden vial. It was given to the one who held Rose.
Rose, still struck petrified with white horror, found she couldn't make her body move. She stood with her mouth half-open and her eyes wide and unseeing. However, she felt the fingers touch over her eye with a powdery salve, then the other.
Her eyes felt heavy as lead then, and without her mind's consent, her eyelids drooped and covered her sight. The tears stopped, and her breath eased. The words the homunculi spoke faded and she felt herself slowly tip forward and fall slumped into another's arms.
Drip. Drip.
She still felt tired and heavy. Her head hung numb and she found that just opening and closing her eyes took a painful effort.
The click of a door resounded in the empty chamber. She could not lift her head, but she heard the door squeak as it swung open, and she heard the click of shoes as a figure slowly made its way toward her.
The footsteps stopped. Then, on her cheek, she felt a hand strike. Rose gasped, but could not move.
"Bilinaw." Came a murmur.
Another set of footsteps.
Rose felt hands clasp her own and fondle with her chains. A click, and then her seemingly lead-filled hands dropped to her sides and onto the floor. The visitors wrapped an arm each under her shoulders and heaved her roughly to her feet. They pushed her forward. Rose tried her best to put a foot ahead, but she was still to weary. They shoved her again and she stumbled, sending shocks of pain through her legs. She winced, and then set her jaw, concentrating on only the task of walking. Stone floor passed beneath her feet—it was all her eyes could grasp. She often tripped over her shift, though it was light and thin, and was wrenched forward. She felt as if their fingers were bruising her arms.
Then suddenly the floor beneath Rose's eyes stopped blurring together. They had stopped. Feeling had returned mostly to her legs and she could feel her limbs grow lighter. She was able to lift her head; they were before a large, stone door.
When the door was pushed open Rose felt her messy hair blow away from her face in an immense wave of heat. There was a gigantic fire blazing in the corner of the austere room. The hands holding her arms were suddenly slick. The two people who held her heaved her in and sat her in a hard stone chair. Chains were fastened around her chest to make sure her body would not slump forward. Her arms were bound again behind its back. One of the island men who brought her to this room moved away from her and toward the magnificent fire. His lean muscled arm pulled a rod of bright crimson. At its end, the rod twisted into a shape—the shape of a churning, convulsing vine. The same mark that charred Hierra's forehead.
She was to be branded.
Rose began lashing her head back and forth when her mind digested the information. She was making herself sick and dizzy, but she did not care. The other man next to her lashed his hands out and held her head still. The man with the hot iron brand came closer. Her bangs were held back from her forehead.
Then came the searing pain. Rose's eyes clenched shut tightly and her mouth stretched open in a soundless scream of agony. The brand pressed into her skin, burning. In a flash, the hot iron was taken away and back into the red glowing coals, but the pain did not subside. Once the man took his hands from her face she rocked in the chair, whipping her head round in attempt to relieve the pain, not realizing the sides of her face were hitting the stone with painful force.
When her spasms ceased, her chest and hands were unbound and she was plucked from the chair like a dead weight and dragged back into her cold, damp, dark room that dripped, dripped….
Bwaha! I made it in my two week schedule! squee!
Sorry if the italics hurt your eyes…………….