Chapter 4: Grit and Bare It
Rumbling.
Breathing slowly, my stomach rises up, tension building beneath my lungs, a sensation like a latch opens to allow the cool flow of air up my throat, and out comes a heaved expulsion of all I drank and ate.
"That's right, let it all out... Yuck," Calibri consoles me with both words and a pat on the back of my hunched over frame. Down on my hands and knees, I keep throwing up everything that I've had. What amazes me is that I don't recall eating or drinking nearly as much to produce this amount of waste. At least we were outside, a warm air and cool wind, and the rain only just arriving. It would help me chill out after that incident with that smiling harpy. Thinking about her gives me another round of gagging out the next wave.
That woman happened to be doing well in the hall. After I had returned to Calibri, had time to retell what happened upstairs, a bit later she came walking down with that great bear of a man. I felt thankful that guy helped me, but the emotions boiling inside balanced whatever positive thoughts I had for him. Smiling behind that black bush on his face, he seemed to be glowing as much as the woman. There is no second guessing what those two had done. Likely it is for her to gain that beast's favor. Not wanting to give her the opportunity to resume my painful encounter, I jerk a nod towards the door before getting out of my seat and the both of us make our way out.
There is no way to express how glad I had been that Calibri followed me after what happened next. Waddling out, the woman caught sight of me and my ice-blues glimpsed at her big white smile framed around those sweet pink lips. Her hand lifted limply to lazily wave at me, those fingers dancing in the air as I shooed away, but before I did I noted how black her nails were. They were not painted black or coated in anything. It was like each nail had dried blood beneath the hard carapace. As if she smashed each finger tip without bruising the incredible smooth skin. That was a sensation I had difficulty forgetting. How her silky palms sensually glided to their desitinations before the attack commenced sent a shiver down my spine.
Outside, that shiver didn't disappear. It enhanced and added a coiling pain in my abdomen. My stomach turned in a flip. Digging my palms down into the dirt, clenching clumps of grass and scrapping the tiny sand pebbles free from their earthy blanket, I shoved my temple down into the ground with a gurgling groan. Calibri quickly yanked my head back by the pull of my fair-blonde hair in time for me to jet out the jug of wine I consumed...
After that episode, the former Captain had to brace me back to the ship and down to the hold where a fresh cot awaited. Slipping my arm from his bulk, I dropped in on my side, feeling incredibly light headed and nausiated beyond belief. I couldn't keep throwing up, but it felt like there was more of me to gag out.
"What in the name of God did she do to you?" There was a surprised concern on his face. I guess he could tell, just as much as I, that whatever was going on had nothing to do with the food or drink.
"Guh- I told yo- Ugh..." I hold a hand up, waving him off, not wanting to open my mouth again and give reason for my stomach to purge more of nothing out of me.
"Alright, let me see it." I had no idea what he was talking about and told him that silently by gazing bewildered at him. "Drop'em," he points down at my pants, "and let me look."
Oh fuck no, I remember him telling me about his eagerness to get a hold of boys and I quickly shake my head. That was a big mistake to do and I turn away, but having nowhere to throw up, I swallow. This only made it worse and caused me to roll out of the cot at his feet to wash the planks with more of my bubbly stomach fluid.
"Jesus Man!" Calibri didn't balk at my fall or flinch at the next torrent coming up my throat. Instead, he knelt down to me and held my hair over my shoulders while also bracing me from laying my face into the mess I am making.
Beyond my noisy sickness, there is the sound like the shaking quake of the earth. I couldn't hear it beyond the drone sound in my ears. Calibri did and took a peek over his shoulder. "Storm is here. Pray we don't find more bad company in this weather."
"Ueh- Yeeaaah..." I roll onto my side and brace the back of my shoulders at the cot.
I'm lifted, rolled onto my back and pushed onto my other side onto the cot, and barely am I registering being undressed. Calibri removed the tunic marking my disgusting ordeal down the front and tosses it away. After he wipes his hands on a few beams, he works on my belt and removes the pants slow and in care before it bunches around my booted ankles.
"Oh Dear God... Snake Bite."
"Wha-?" I am confused. There was no snake, a clawing harpy of a woman, but she didn't bite me.
"It's harmless on the skin- Actually, it is good for the skin, smooths out wrinkles and defies that old enemy called Aging, but get it in the bloodstream and you can kiss your pretty ass goodbye. Literally, it will thicken the blood until it stops the flow and she... She got you good." His last remark fills me with a roll of both anger and turmoil as well thoughts.
Had I deserved this for what we had done to Varna? Why me, when I had only a small part in that play? Had others been inflicted the same way by that woman?
"Wi- Will I die?" Simple and to the point.
"Depends on the venom. This one coagulates while another would thin the blood until you bled to death. Who knows until it passes." He gives me a shrug while I blindly nod in acknowledgement to his response. "But... I've never heard of a venom that causes you to become this violently sick. That would be a poison- Venom and Poison do not mix."
He crosses his arms over that broad chest and continues to stare down at my very senstive and damaged anatomy. I really don't want to look and probably no longer have the strength to do so.
After a minute, he takes a step to the side and helps remove my boots and the hose off each leg. Snatching a couple of linen blankets, he throws it over me, and I could hear above that buzzing in my ear of the cot across from me creaking under Calibri's weight. "This is working too fast, but that might be a good thing. It might mean it will pass quickly," I can't tell, with my back to him, if he is speaking to me or reassuring himself.
At the moment, I don't think I care anymore. The pain has become numb and my head so light that it feels like I'm floating off my shoulders. Soon, in the rolls of the thunder lulling me away, I fall asleep...
I'm sweating and grunting like a stuck pig, yanking on the next rung up the ladder, pulling all my steel and iron weighted body higher; All rising to meet our foe on the walls. An irregular falls over me, nearly sending the both of us toppling into the next man below me and increasing the pile that would surely end at the base of our ladder. Somehow, I manage to throw his ass out of my face when I had reached up for the next rung, the shield held over my head helping greatly, and he bounced upside down off of my shoulders. A cry is heard below, but I don't bother to look and see how the line-up dealt with the fallen man. If I am the only one now climbing this ladder, at least I know my neighboring besiegers were following beside me.
Bricks, rocks, buckets, pots, and furniture are thrown over the walls on top of our shields and helms. It was a chaotic rhythm of -THUNK- and -PLING- from those solid and shattered objects. Each irregular was fitted with a shield on their arm, but they still made the mistake to climb hastily with both of their hands rather than crawling at a pace up the rungs. It would only tire themselves out beyond use once they leap over.
Finally, I manage by grabbing a hold of the woodwork and yanking myself the rest of the way onto the wall. A helmed youth grips a hold of a large rock with every intent to use it as a bludgeon or projectile. I don't give him the chance by swinging the span of my armshield into him. Lucky for him, the help of his helm stopped the rock from cracking his skull once dropped over his head. How much time passed? A second or two?
"Oomph!" Off to my right, where I had hoped one of my brothers or a member of the host's army had came up with me, a body collided and sent me reeling close to the edge. Almost having been hurdled over, I force back the individual. They have a tight grip around my chainlinked waist and are making stabbing motions madly along the back of my ribs and hip. Their cuts are too quick and small for it to do more than scrap along my metal hide. Towering over this person, I use all my strength to fumble each other to the other side of the wall.
I had completely forgotten the youth.
With me occupied in this grapple, there is a great weight bashed into the middle of my shoulders. Again, then again, and again until I fall to my knee. This is it. I'm low enough for this head of mine to get crushed like a ripe melon. I won't die alone. Both of my fists rise up, the rim of my shield raised, and I smash the edge down on the grappler around my waist.
As one, I hear the cry of the youth yelling, the painful scream of a woman below me, and the sweet sound of a large object crunching onto the wood-floor top. The woman, as she apparently is now that I see, let goes of me while writhing on the ground reaching to that nasty center of her back that always is out of reach to itch. Instantly after confirming her gender, I swing my shield around to knock the teeth out of the boy. He, like I did before, reels far back, but unlike me he topples over with a wet scream.
A moment of silence is heard before the woman below me cries out in anguish. A strength I never knew in a woman had bolted in front of me. Tears, a madness in her watering eyes, the wrinkle in her chin and horrific gasping sobs brings out an emotion in me. Then comes a pain I never knew could be possible through my armor. Her bare little fists were bloodied by the blows, smashing into me again and again, before I could turn back my swung arm to shield myself. She hurled herself at me while as a howl, like a banshee, came ripping out of her throat. All her frantic surge of power pushes me until my back is close to the wall's edge.
Her head jerks up and a moment of shock seemed to pass over her face. Another jerk of her head. A clot of hair falls off the keen edge of an axe, biten from one of my fellow Rus brothers dislodging his weapon from the back of her painted and ruined skull, spitting. She had not fallen dead yet. Instead, a calmness curtained her pain from us. The woman, the mother, wandered to her lost child over the wall behind me...
The world shook me awake.
I woke, without recalling all the pieces of my dream. Such pieces a simple like where had that battle been or who were we fighting and how did I know those two were mother and child. At the time, I might have wanted to know these things. Now, awake, I cared a bit more about why the whole world was rocking beneath me.
Slowly, I push myself up onto my elbows and look around at the cots and see no one. My back feels the sensation of linen sliding off of me as I get up. I find the pair of pants on the floor and quickly tug them up my legs, hips, and waist. There is a slight shift of the belt strapping tightly around me before I pause in wonder. I take note that the worn mark on my belt is further out and the leather strap is much tighter around my abdomen. Had I become that sickly to lose weight?
The world, this ship, rocked once more and I nearly slip on my Damned messy shirt on the planks. I guess Calibri used it to clean up, but had neglected to tend to the ruined article of clothing. Not like it bothered him to go shirtless, so I guess he thought the same for me. Thinking about myself, I should have noticed that the shooting pain, the numbness, my illness had bettered. It was not totally gone. There was certainly a sting between my legs and my gut still felt like snakes were making a nest in there. In any case, I could manage far greater than before I slept.
Taking to the stairs quickly, I made my way up on the deck and found myself looking up at a clear and bright sky. I stutter an inaudible prayer to God.
"Ho- How is this possible? The storm? Wait... What was rocking the shi-," I turn to see the bank on one side, then on the other, and realize we are traveling up a river. The sail had been pulled up and the oars pushing and manuevering the ship around the shallow's bedrocks. The men on deck look over at me and gap. Had they thought I was dead or something? What were they looking at? I should be the one in shock. We are so far up north that it should have taken much more than a week, maybe even weeks to a month, to reach where we are now. They had to have thought me lost. I give them my best smile, to assure them, and ask a silly question, "Where are we?"
I see Calibri stomping, looking very frustrated, towards me. Quickly and firmly, he grabs a tight grip on my arm and rushes to push and force me back down into the cabin. "GET DOWN FOOL!" A wince passes over my face before the confusion mounts on top of it. There isn't much reason for me to listen to this demand. I had made a promise to myself long ago.
"Stop! STOP!" My arms struggle to push his bulk back up, bracing him away from me, and giving him a stern look. "What is going on he-" I don't get a chance to finish before his push turns into a shove and I fall, swinging out one arm to grab something while sliding my other hand along the descending wall. A hard fall is felt fully along the length of my bare back that evokes an angry and painful grunt from me. Pushing myself up to sit, sliding my feet back until my knees are level with my chest, I yell out at the top of my lungs at Calibri, "WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU!"
That anger, in moments, turns into fear. The former Captain shook his head, the frustration on his face resigning to a sad one, gazing down at me like I trully am lost, and he shuts the door to the cabin. The shifting sound of the bolt and lock put into place sends me into a panic. Something is really wrong with me. I can tell now, I'm being quarantined. Scrambling up and climbing the stairs in a leap or two, I pound my fists on the door, screaming so that Calibri, the Captain, anyone could answer me, "WHAT IS WRONG!!?"
The voice of Calibri passes, almost like a whisper, but the response shuts me up, "Be thankful I am Captain now or else you would have been thrown overboard... You're cursed."
