Bleeding Love
With his lungs burning, Finn finally collapsed before the trunk of a mighty oak tree. His legs felt like they were lacking bones to keep them solid, the muscles having melted away from all the exertion. His chest heaved in rapid, awkward breaths as the air seemed to burn his throat with every single intake. And his head, still aching from where he had hit it during his failed escape from Rorick's men was alive with pain. Liquid anguish swam around his skull, blinding his vision and dulling his senses.
Groaning with the collective agony, Finn feebly tried to curl himself up into a ball and shrink into the void of pain. He couldn't tell how long he had run for. He couldn't even remember what he had been running from, the pain was so great. Exhaling shakily, he tried to use that lack of knowledge as a focus to block out the pain. Step by step, the events leading to his fleeing fell into place. After releasing the girl and whispering for her to wait for someone to come and get her, he'd run into the trees. Finn had known the villagers would ignore his command to stay put. They were good, hard working people who would rescue one of their own. He was glad of that, knowing that the little girl wouldn't be hurt. If only he could have said the same thing for himself.
Countless trees and outcroppings of bush and shrub had passed by in a blur. Finn didn't know where he was going, not even the direction, he just had to get away. Escaping from Rorick's men was the main objective, but the mistrustful gaze of Kahlan forced his feet to put themselves one in front of the other.
Everything had gone wrong. The Mother Confessor hadn't been meant to meet him in this way. Finn had rehearsed it for almost four years, how he would approach her and gain her trust before explaining who and what he was. He would have time to show her that he presented no danger to her, or to anyone else for that matter. All he wanted was her guidance, but it seemed he'd simply earned her wrath. She said herself what she would have done had she known what he was. How could Finn compete with that?
Centuries of knowledge and training guided Kahlan. Everything she knew told her Finn was easily the most relevant danger to her and everyone else. Why should she have reacted any differently? Why should she see him as anything other than a danger?
With the fog of pain lifting slightly, Finn cracked open his eyes. Sunlight filtered through the branches above, sparkling in dots across him and the floor. Stretching out his arm, he pressed it against the bark of the tree. It was solid and cool to the touch, the perfect thing he needed to ground himself. He was losing himself to physical and emotional pain, a loss that was dangerous to allow. Despite the throb in his skull, Finn dragged himself up enough so that his shoulders and neck rested against the trunk of the tree.
Finn knew he couldn't blame Kahlan for being so horrified. He'd assured himself for years that he would be able to cope with her rejection, and that if he could just explain himself she'd see. Now that they'd come into contact however, he couldn't help feeling the sense of betrayal. She hadn't even given him the chance to explain to her before she'd determined to end his life. The Mother Confessor was the only person who could understand, the only person who could help him. If even she was repulsed by his very existence, how could Finn hope to convince anyone else?
Suddenly, the male confessor brought his eyes all the way open, a look of sheer panic on his face. He'd allowed himself to wallow too long. The powerful concoction of betrayal and anger and hurt had burrowed deep inside, and now he could feel the liquid thrill of his power inside. It uncoiled like a snake in the pit of his stomach, disturbed from slumber by the prospect of a meal. Finn sucked in a deep breath, doing his level best to clear his mind of negative emotions and to return to the balance he fought so hard to maintain. His gift wasn't dissuaded. The seductive chill trickled further and further up his body, new possibilities blooming in his mind and causing his skin to tingle with anticipation.
No! Finn roared in his own mind. Using the trunk as support, he slid himself up it to be standing. Turning around to face the tree, he placed the flats of his palms against it, along with his forehead. Closing his eyes, Finn separated his conscious from everything around him. He blocked out the sounds and sights and smells of the trees. He boxed away the throbbing pain in his skull, keeping it safe for a later time. He let go of the physical world and tried his hardest to summon the low, melodic teachings he'd started to learn almost eleven winters ago.
Just as the echo of the old words reached him, so did Finn's mind open to it. In his mind's eyes, he pictured the river his master had trained him to see. The waters were dark and churning, the river swollen and pulsing as though it were caught in the storm. This river represented his conscious thoughts, his entire emotional state of being. He was completely lost to turmoil.
Finn pictured himself standing in front of the river. His master's long dead voice whispered to him that only through seeing himself as an integral part of the inner world could he hope to control his troubled heart.
On the opposite side of the river was the thing that Finn feared most. It looked like a puddle of darkness, floating on the other side. Shapeless and surreal, the surface was a glittering, oily black that rippled every now and again and shifted constantly. It was the manifestation of his confessor power, or at least how Finn chose to picture it. Much to his alarm, Finn watched as the darkness slithered toward the river, sludgy dark tendrils inching toward the flow of his conscious thought. It was a battle of wills now, his own control against the seduction of his power. It had taken years to separate the two, but now that Finn wasn't governed by his power, he refused to allow it a way back in. Allowing his emotions to get the better of him fed the confessor magic, weakening the barriers he'd put to keep himself and it apart. Getting upset over what had transpired was the perfect opening his power needed to resume control.
Taking his eyes of it, Finn focused on the river. It was still rushing, pulsing wider and wider. Soon it would overflow its banks, and that would be disastrous. Finn concentrated, clawing his way to serenity. He imagined his breath to be the wind in the world, each exhalation a gust of wind working in perfect opposition to the rush of the water. The waters raged, and he exhaled deeply to calm them. It took him a few moments, but finally he felt his breath slow down in periodic exhalations. In response, the river seemed to shrink, the flow of the water easing off. On the other side of the river, the darkness pulsated, clearly agitated.
It took a few more breaths, but finally the river ebbed and flowed back to normal. The waters calmed themselves to a gentle flow, gently travelling along with a surface that resembled glass it was so smooth. Finn looked up to the manifestation of his power, and it too had shrunk. It was a small patch of darkness on the other side now, a constant but weak pulse that could be ignored.
Satisfied he had achieved the balance he needed, Finn slowly withdrew from inside. The image of the river faded, and one by one his senses detected the woods again. His eyes were last to open, and there before him was the mottled brown bark of the tree. Sighing gently, Finn let himself relax slightly. The danger had passed.
Or maybe not. The sound of rustling branches forced Finn into action. Pushing away from the trunk of a tree, he was confronted with a pitiful sight. The woman, only slightly older than him, had obviously been through an ordeal. Her plain blue dress had clearly been worn more than once given the way the colour had faded and the hem had started to fray. But that didn't explain the rips and tears pulling the garment and the white undershirt to pieces. The right shoulder was completely split in two and wrenched down to the upper arm. The collar had been ripped in half, exposing more than was considered daring for a neckline. Worst of all were the bruises and scratches on her arms. Not from an animal, Finn surmised, but by human hands. Male hands. Her eyes were wide with fear, and tears streaked her smooth cheeks like faded scars from a blade.
She hadn't noticed him yet, her eyes too wild to focus on anything at all. Finn considered stepping out and wondered if she would run in the opposite direction. She was clearly hurt and probably needed to calm herself before she carried on. The confessor knew it was dangerous to tarry, but could not leave an innocent soul alone to harm.
As slowly as possible, Finn pushed himself away from the tree, holding up his hands to show his non aggressive intent. His subtle movement stole her attention however, and her voice made an odd strangling sound in the pit of her throat.
"It's alright," Finn said softly. "I won't hurt you. You're safe."
He kept his words deliberately short and uncomplicated. From the look of distress, he doubted she could process anymore than that. She still didn't look quite convinced, and her head whirled from side to side looking for something Finn couldn't see. Her thick mane of blonde hair danced around her head in a delicate arc, finally settling on her shoulders as she looked at him again as she tried to work out if was a threat or not.
Finn took her staying put as a positive sign, and took a measure step toward her. She didn't flee, and so he took another until there was barely but a stride between them. "My name is Finn." The tone of his voice was deliberately calm, in an effort to settle her agitated features. "What's yours?"
The last traces of her defences finally fell. "Alana." Her voice was raw, probably from crying, but Finn could tell she had a beautiful tone.
"Alana," he said with a half smile. "I had a friend called Alana. Farmer's daughter." She nodded mutely, taking in the information but losing grip of it almost as quickly. "What happened to you?"
It was a simple question, but it broke her. Her face dissolved into flurries of tears at the same time as her legs crumbled beneath her. If it hadn't been for Finn lunging toward her, she would have hit the ground. Instead he steadied her descent, gently bringing her to the woodland floor in the safety of his arms. She didn't try to escape him, probably seeing the face of a seventeen year old boy and not anything resembling a threat. For one bitter moment, Finn wished everyone saw him as person rather than the mantle he carried, but quickly dismissed the thought for fear of it turning into something else.
They remained there for a moment, Alana desperately clinging for Finn with her hands as he held her against him, smoothing back her hair as she cried.
"It's alright Alana," he soothed. "You'll be alright, I promise." She only cried all the more, her breath coming in ragged gasps between each new onslaught of tears. Something terrible had happened to her, he could tell. There were terrors in this world even greater than those he had faced, and it hurt him that innocent people had to face them with no choice in the matter.
"Tell me what happened." Finn said finally. Alana's sorrow had reduced to the occasional sob. It took her a long time to speak, but when she did her voice came out like an unstoppable whispered rush.
"Walking...I was walking home from my cousin's cottage." She sniffed loudly. "It's only over the fields, and I've walked the road a hundred times before and never had a problem. But they came behind me. Lots of them, with horses and swords. I've never seen anything like them before."
Finn felt his brow crease into a frown of confusion and anger. "Who Alana? Who were they?"
"Men. Wicked men. Dressed in leather and carrying weapons. They looked so awful, and were so terrible. I don't know what I did, but they grabbed me because I couldn't run fast enough. One of them pulled me up onto his horse and tied back my hands." She started trembling now and Finn held her tighter, stroking her bare arms with his hands as she clutched at her wrists which bore the angry red rings of restraint. "They stopped later, when the sun had set and made camp. They said that I would do as a distraction for a while, something for them to play with whilst they hunted. They took me into the tent and they...they..."
Finn squeezed his eyes closed as Alana detailed the horrors of what had happened to her. For all the evils the Keeper himself could unleash, there was nothing as foul as a man forcing himself on an innocent woman. And in this case, there had been more than one. Finn hushed Alana, stroking her hair as he told her it would be alright.
Deep down he knew that it wouldn't. This immediate reaction was more out of instinct to survive than anything else. Finn knew that once Alana had returned somewhere safe, the reality of her ordeal would be brought home and she would be consumed by grief.
Part of him wanted to spare her that pain, the memory that she would carry around with her forever. He knew it would be easy to just caress her throat and relax his control for a moment and give to her the serenity only a confessor could. It would so simple to just wipe away her fears and hurt and leave her with simple, clear-headed purpose. The revulsion her ordeal had triggered in him made that desire to save her from her pain all the more potent. The reaction gnawed away at his balance, threatening to make that internal river run free again.
Only Finn wouldn't allow it. For one thing, he couldn't lose control. He'd been closer to it than he had in a long time and that frightened him. If he took Alana, he knew the temptation to have more and more would destroy him. It was that knowledge that kept Finn steady. He just hoped she'd come out the other side of it okay.
"Did they let you go?" He asked softly, as much to divert his attention away from thoughts of confession as well as find out what happened. "Or did you escape?"
"I escaped," she stammered, shaking as though she were freezing in the warm air. "They stopped at the river and I ran when they weren't looking."
The first niggle of warning twisted in the back of his mind. Finn could hear the faint gush of water through the trees and knew that the river wasn't all that far away. If she'd left them at the river, they probably weren't all that far away. And if she'd broken through the trees, they could very well be mere steps behind her. Finn glanced uneasily the way she had come, looking for any sign of Alana being followed.
"These men," Finn continued, trying to keep his voice even. This was farming country. A party of brutes like Alana had described had no business being out this far. It begged the question exactly what they had come for. "You said they were hunting. Did they happen to mention what they were looking for?"
"Not what," she replied, "who. They said they were following 'him', like he had run away from them." Alana paused, her bottom lip disappearing beneath the top as she chewed on it thoughtfully. "They said something about Rorick, like Rorick was someone important and that whoever they were after was because Rorick wanted him. The way they said it, made it sound like he belonged to Rorick."
If Finn could have wailed out loud, he would have. How could it have been anyone other than Rorick's men? They were the perfect type of lowlife scum to attack and assault an innocent woman for their own pleasure. Just how many of his enforcers had he sent out? Rorick didn't care much for the calibre of men that he employed. As long as they worked for a fair wage and were loyal to him, he was more than happy to turn a blind eye to their sinister pursuits. Finn had felt firsthand what those men could do, and knew only too well what they would do if they got their hands on him again. As long as he was delivered in one, working piece they could do what they liked to him.
Fear forced him to act, and the male confessor got back to his feet, pulling Alana up with him. She looked confused, and he did his best to assure as he brushed her wild hair back from her face. "We should get moving Alana. If you left those men behind at the river, it won't be long before they figure out you're gone and I have no doubt they'll come after you and follow you here."
He turned and gripped Alana's hand in his own. He pulled her gently, but stopped almost as quickly as he heard the sickening muted thud of an arrow connecting to and penetrating the flesh of another. Finn whirled around to see Alana's expression, her features a tortured mask of surprise, disappointment and agony. The head of arrow protruded from between her breasts, the wound oozing blood freely. Her voice escaped in a gurgled whisper before the light left her eyes and Alana fell to the ground, dead.
Now that she was no longer blocking his sight, Finn could see past to the trees where a handful of mercenaries stood, theirs faces grinning in victory. The closest was already loading up his bow with another arrow, and Finn knew he couldn't get into the thick of the trees before the arrow was fired. He had no choice but to stand his ground and fight for the time being. If these brutes thought they were going to take him easily, he was going to teach them the error of their ways.
Reaching to his back and beneath his cloak, Finn gripped the handles of his swords in either hand, the painful throb in his head all but forgotten. In one swift movement, he released the blades from the scabbards crossed over his back, spinning the swords in his hands so they were crossed before him. The gathering of men hesitated for a moment, eyeing the ivory handles Finn gripped along with the curved blades that protruded from them. They knew Finn alone was deadly, but watching him wield the swords so expertly they found themselves faced with a new danger and flinched accordingly.
They all knew Finn's touch would be the end of them, but nobody had said anything about a runaway who could wield a sword like he could. Finn had spent years training on how to fight with blades. The curved twin swords were his favourite weapons, and when armed with them he became an instrument of death.
Subtly, the male confessor let his weight rest on the ball of his left foot, leaning ever so slightly closer to the mercenaries. The bow wielding thug reacted first, unthinking as he released the arrow from the weapon and it flew toward Finn. He was ready for it though, and slashed across himself in downward cutting motions. The oncoming arrow as topped and tailed in one strike, leaving it as just a harmless length of wood that fell to the ground.
Finn didn't wait for another projectile to be sent his way, instead he dashed forward, and his eyes filled with a blood lust that would make even his confessor power shrink away in terror. He would defend himself from them, and avenge the innocence of Alana. He would make them pay for what they did to her, and for what they would allow to happen to him if they had the chance. Finn even refused to give them luxury of confession, instead he vowed to send them to the Keeper on the painful edge of his sword.
The male confessor began his dance of death, twisting in and out of his opponents as his arms slashed left and right, back and forth, around and through. Each perfectly aimed strike brought a fresh howl of pain, each blow either killing outright or mortally wounding the mercenaries too greedy to realise what they were doing was wrong. Finn cut them down, one by one, dodging beneath the slash of a sword and the lunge of another, plunging both blades into the gut of one that strayed too close. They tried to avoid the swing of his swords, but Finn never stopped moving, launching himself from one man to the next. He parried blows and slashed at exposed flesh with abandon, cutting across the back of one's knees and criss-crossing the blades across the throat of the next, all the while letting himself melt into the murderous rage.
Bodies fell all around him, only they weren't the bodies of Rorick's men to Finn. All around him he saw the black and yellow robes of the monks that he had grown up with. He saw the face of friends and the closest thing he ever had to family left forever twisted in the grimace of an agonising death. He saw the blood stains of his teachers coating the carpet of grass and the severed limbs of the mentors that had helped him overcome his darkness. Worst of all, his guide and best friend stared up from the ground before him as his life blood slowly pooled around him. He had brought death upon those he loved, and to those that would do him harm, he brought the same.
It had come down to Finn and a final victim. He had been reduced to his knees, with one hand clamped around his upper arm as he tried to stop the blood flow from his gaping wound. He mumbled incoherently about forgiveness and his life being spared. His pleas for mercy fell on deaf ears, and Finn lifted his weapons high so that they hovered over his head. The condemned squeezed his eyes closed as he awaited the death blow, only it never came. He felt the rush of air passed his face as the curved blades were brought down. But they weren't plunged into his chest as he suspected, instead they were stabbed into the ground before his knees. He cracked open his eyes to see if he was still alive, and started to scream in terror as he saw the hand reaching for him.
His cry did him no good, as Finn's hand clamped around his throat. His emotions were a hurricane within him, and the guard keeping his confessor power locked safely inside was already eroded when he released it. He felt his power explode out of him and completely consume the one he had by the throat. The rumble of distant thunder cemented the act, and Finn lowered his hand, now face to face with the confessed.
"Command me, Confessor."
The tone of his voice was almost desperate, tempered by the serenity of being completely devoted to Finn. The Confessor dropped to one knee, and pulled his swords out of the ground. His voice was emotionless as he cleaned the blades on the grass, his eyes cold and devoid of life.
"You will go to Rorick and deliver this message to him." Finn lifted the blade and inspected it, seeing that it was clean of all traces of the mercenaries' blood. "I will not return to his employ under any circumstances. If he sends anymore of his men to come after me, I will confess every single one of them and send them back to him with my own orders to slit his throat. Do you have all that?"
"Yes Confessor."
"Good." Finn replaced his swords in the scabbards across his back. "One more thing. Take your sword and cut off the heads of every single one of your party. Put them in a sack and throw them at Rorick's feet as you deliver the message."
"Yes Confessor."
He was so willing, unquestioning and above all prepared to do anything commanded of him. A spark of emotion lit behind Finn's eyes. "You realise I'm sending you to your death, don't you? If you walk into Rorick's stronghold confessed, carrying the heads of the men that were sent to capture me, he will probably kill you where you stand."
The man nodded. "I know confessor, but I will do anything that you ask of me. I live to please you."
"Go and complete your mission as I have instructed you. Maybe by doing this deed for me you will work off some small part of the horrors you have inflicted upon others." Finn rose to his feet, not noticing the look of hurt on the man's features as he thought himself a disappointment to his master. "What's your name?"
"Alrick, master." He replied with the exuberance of an eager to please puppy.
"May the spirits see you there safely." A hint of sadness crept into Finn's voice. He half turned over his shoulder, but couldn't quite meet Alrick's eyes. "If by some grace of the Creator you should survive this mission, come and find me. I'll be somewhere in the Midlands, hiding probably."
"I will return to you master."
Alrick's certainty almost brought Finn to his knees. Deep down he knew the man deserved a fate worse than that he was being sent on for the crimes he had committed, but Finn still couldn't reconcile his part in it. It was a suicide mission, plain and simple and Finn was not just allowing it to happen he was physically orchestrating it. Alrick's devotion to him meant that he would do his utmost to make it back, even if it was impossible. There were times Finn wished he could be confessed rather than be the Confessor. A life of clear purpose and devotion seemed an awful lot simpler than the one he led.
"Go then Alrick. And do your best to return to your master." Finn smiled sadly as he turned and walked away, pretending the sound of the confessed withdrawing his sword and hacking at dead bodies was a far off woodsman cutting at trees.
Finn wanted nothing more than to disappear in that moment, to be as far away from his life and this place as he could possibly be. He pretended to himself as he stepped into the shielding of the trees that he was in fact fading into nothingness as the branches swallowed him into their embrace. At least this way he couldn't do any more harm. There were no lives for him to destroy in this place.
Reaching for his hood, he pulled it down over his eyes as he trudged purposefully through the undergrowth. He was covered in blood, some of it his own but most of it from his victims. The sound of the running river directed his feet, and he found himself walking toward it. It would do to wash himself off and try and clean up the wound on his head. He decided that he would have to visit a healer worth their price in the next town, just to make sure the throbbing wound at his temple didn't require something more than being cleaned.
The ground sloped downwards beneath his feet, and Finn inhaled the scent of fresh water. He broke through the final branches and stepped onto the pebbles and rocks that lined the edge of the river. Pulling his hood back, he knelt down and scooped his hand into the water. Bringing it to his lips, he sipped it and sighed with contentment at the cool, fresh taste. He was about to remove his cloak entirely when a movement up ahead stopped him.
Lifting his head, Finn glanced up to see a Mord'Sith kneeling at the edge of the river a little further away from him. He recognised the leather uniform, not to mention the Agiel strapped at her waist. Her face was partly obscured by her blonde hair as she focused on filling the water skins she held beneath the surface. Instantly Finn saw the same seen again, the black and yellow clad monks covered in a sea of blood. Finn wasn't sure if she'd noticed him, but she certainly did as he withdrew his swords, growling at her.
"Mord'Sith."
She looked up in time to see Finn striding toward her, wielding his swords in a wide arc to slash across her arms. At the last second she ducked beneath the path of the swords, reaching for her Agiels which she pulled loose. She stabbed them forward, aiming to catch Finn directly on the sternum, but he bent out of the way too quickly.
Instinctively they both half stepped back out of the other's reach, bringing their weapons up for a second lunge. Finn was a half second faster, lunging forward with his arm extended toward her chest. The Mord'Sith twisted at the waist, turning so that the curve of the blade whistled past her. However it left her in an awkward position, and as such was caught by the path of the second sword. Finn brought it down in a cross over his extended arm, and the curve of his blade slashed through her leather to the flesh beneath her upper left arm. Hissing in pain, she struck out with her Agiel but again missed her mark.
They circled one another warily now, Finn holding his swords slightly forward in his bent arms as the Mord'Sith held her Agiels in a defensive guard. Blood oozed from her wound, but she made no effort to stop it, understating a loss of concentration would leave her firmly at the mercy of her attacker.
When Finn lunged a final time, she realised she was moments away from the meeting the Keeper. She tried to pivot on her back foot, to spin out of the way and bring her Agiels down over his back, and would have been successful if it weren't for the loose pebbles beneath her foot. The small mound cascaded downwards with the turn of her foot, drastically altering her balance and sending her sprawling to the ground.
Finn sensed his victory and span his swords in his hands so that the blades were facing down. He started to bring them toward her chest for the final death strike when a voice startled him.
"Cara!"
The confessor glanced up to see Kahlan and who he assumed to be the Seeker bounding through the trees toward them. Both had their weapons out, the Sword of Truth catching the sunlight as Richard prepared to slay him with it.
It wasn't Richard or Kahlan that struck Finn however. Taking his eyes off Cara had been a mistake, and Finn was rewarded with both Agiels being rammed into his gut. His eyes bulged with pain, and Finn's voice exploded in a scream of pain. The agony was all consuming, and Finn wasn't sure he would live a second longer in its grasp.
Mercifully, Cara pulled the weapons away scrabbling back to her feet as Finn gulped in air as the agony finally broke. The striding figure of the wizard crashed through the trees behind Kahlan and Richard, his eyes narrowed on the male confessor. Finn pathetically attempted to draw his swords across himself in an effort to provide some kind of defence, but he needn't have bothered. The motion of the wizard's hands was the last thing Finn saw clearly before his world was sent into a spin.
There was a sound like an explosion in his ears, and Finn felt the awesome force of Zedd's magic against him. He felt as though he'd been struck by a runaway cart, and the resulting impact sent Finn flying wildly through the air and away from the Seeker and his companions. His arms wheeled around him as he tried to steady his fall, and still he plunged into the river, smacking against the hard rocks beneath the surface.
Finn was vaguely aware of the water swirling above his head and he willingly gave himself over to the dark, chilling embrace of the river.