Chapter Twelve: Sweetly Promised Death
Bane, closely flanked by his trusted clutch of men headed up the icy face of the daunting mountain with The Devil's Children bringing up the rear.
Their bodies and brains had become acclimatized over the ascent, in between base camps and impromptu breaks in shelters from the snow they'd carved with their own cold hands, their brains wouldn't swell, press against the inside of the cranial walls.
Doctor Cain Adamson had packed chalky tablets of Dexamethasone in case ego wasn't enough to account for compressing grey matter.
Inside the fortress of the League of Shadows, behind reinforced walls and steel doors, Anja rubbed a hand on her swollen belly, gently murmuring to the growing life inside of her.
Babagorl slumped against Anja's side, sleeping.
"Your father already loves you; you will meet him in the home he has built for us, you'll meet your brother and sister there as well," Anja whispered to the growing fetus within her.
Anja looked down when she felt Babagorl stir, found the little girl with sadness openly painted on her face.
"Your other sister is here with you now," Anja said aloud to her belly while she simultaneously signed the words to Babagorl.
There was much to learn amongst the vast library of books, including volumes on communication.
Babagorl dropped her eyes to Anja's belly and then back up top meet her eyes.
"He is my brother?" she signed.
Anja reached out and grasped Babagorl's wrist, bringing her small hand to rest on her belly.
"Yes," Anja whispered as she nodded.
"His home is my home?"
"It is a home for us all."
Babagorl stared at the top of her hand as it rested on Anja's extended belly, the stretched flesh was drum tight under her small palm.
"Will his father love me?"
Anja pressed her lips together, wordlessly returning Babagorl's searching gaze as she considered her answer.
She didn't know if Bane would accept the young child.
She didn't know how Bane would view the daughter of the man who abducted her and their unborn child.
Anja closed her eyes, a deep frown appeared in her forehead as she was suddenly lost in memory, certain she had been transported to the damp concrete room where Talia held her and her father at gunpoint.
Bane had been a violent blossom on the wall, the petals ragged around the edges, a poisoned center.
Anja shivered as she recalled watching Bane break her father's neck, how he'd effortlessly picked her up, carried her away from her dead father, his words melodically mechanical as he whispered to her.
"Time to do your work."
"His father will be your father," Anja signed and murmured.
"Tell me of my father," Babagorl signed.
Anja patted the spot next to her, urging her to settle closer to her side as she dropped an arm around her small form.
"Your father was born in darkness," Anja began, continuing to describe The Pit, the place where the shadows gnashed their teeth. "He's a hard man."
Babagorl nestled into Anja's side, closing her eyes as Anja pulled the heavy linen around their bodies, resting the side of her face over her swollen belly as Anja continued.
"Your father is tortured. Even though he now walks under the sun, he suffered greatly in the darkness. Your father honed his vision in a place devoid of warmth and light. His first steps were over the dead and dying." Babagorl craned her neck back, seeking Anja's warm eyes. "He had no one to sing to him?" she signed, having grown accustomed to the songs that Anja would sing to her and the growing fetus when the temperature dropped, and it grew dark outside. Anja smiled down at Babagorl, "no, he had no one to comfort him, he's burdened," she murmured as she smoothed her hand in small circles on the little girl's back.
She found herself transported back to the spacious bed with its bountiful, thick comforter she shared with Bane. She'd sing to him in the dead of night when his dreams were plagued with terror, he'd moan in his sleep as he was forced to return to The Pit.
Anja would smooth her small palm in circles on his broad back, gently sing to him in her father's language.
As Anja continued to tell Babagorl about the man that would become her father, outside the fortress amidst the barren, snowy vastness, Bane and his group of mercenaries drew closer.
The Devil's Children were leading the pack, Bane didn't want the bloodthirsty animals at his back, he recognized the danger they held perverting their usefulness.
Locusts were a delicacy with honey in the region.
Some of Hess's locust's loyalty were swayed by the sweet promises that dripped from between Bane's scarred lips.
A fistful of locusts had been lured away, infiltrated the Devil's Children, reported any and all buzzing back to Bane.
Doctor Cain Adamson had drafted a plan for getting in and out of The League's fortress with some of the locust's help.
Cain Adamson didn't want the extra attention.
Cain didn't want The Devil's Children anywhere within his breathing space.
Bane wanted them for their theatricality, they'd keep the League occupied.
Bane dug his crampons into the hard, cold earth.
The light flashed off the bright teal carabiners as he adjusted his facemask, the weight on his face was familiar, not suffocating like many of the others experienced.
The caravan was wordless for the most part, relying on hand signals. Trekking poles of every variety bit into the icy earth, accompanied by the deep melody of the dull sound of axe heads being driven into the rocky face of the mountain. As the group continued to methodically draw closer, inside the deeply reinforced room of the League of Shadows, Anja and Babagorl both flinched when the reinforced steel door creaked open.
They both looked over to see a masked, heavily armored man walk in with a wooden tray and settled it on the floor in front of their feet, exiting without a word.
They tray had two of everything, there were two bowls of sad looking raspberries accompanying the thin gruel.
"Raspberries were my father's favorite," Anja murmured softly, the berries also native to the country of his birth.
"Where is your father?" Babagorl signed before picking up a carved cup of bitter tea.
Babagorl had asked a very simple question, but the words caught Anja dead in her tracks.
She closed her eyes and lapsed into silence.
She was still and quiet for so long that Babagorl reached over and patted her forearm, finding Anja's expression unreadable.
Anja's voice caught in her throat; she wasn't going to outright tell the little girl that Bane murdered her own father.
She wasn't going to tell the little girl who she considered her daughter about Bane's history of violence, that the man she was sure would rescue them had so deeply wounded her.
While Anja struggled to find her words, she was startled back to the present by a harsh, barking laugh, whipping her face towards the doorway where Hess's lanky figure was leaning.
"Tell her dear girl," Hess remarked, his lips twisting into a snarl as he added. "Tell her what your beloved has done."