The Stone Heart's Lament
A well orchestrated kidnapping

The instant MadameChimera bolted out of the hut Rashari knew what was going on. He didn’t wastebreath calling after her again. Instead he struggled into the clothes MadameChimera had given him, his left arm awkward and stiff right up to the shoulderjoint. The effort cost him dearly. He was panting by the time he was fully clothed,a light sheen of sweat covering his brow. Outside he could hear the sounds of fightingand the hiss-shriek of magical projectiles. The draft coming in through the clothflap covering the door to the hut carried with it the acrid stench of smoke andburning. He picked up his coat, reached into the pocket and closed his righthand around the solid weight of the scion stone. The urge to crush the damnthing into powder was as overwhelming as it was impossible. Gods but he wishedhe’d never hit on the stupid idea to steal the thing. A twinge through his jawlet him know that he’d started grinding his teeth and he stopped, took a deepbreath, squared his shoulders, and walked out of the hut into the neat littletrap laid out and waiting for him.

The scene outside wasas bad as he’d imagined. A number of the ogdegre huts were on fire, the flamesgreen like burning copper, moving with a surreal, liquid grace. Most of thefighting seemed to be taking place near a hole in the outer fence to his left.A number of ogdegre had gathered there, armed with spears and bows. Rasharicouldn’t see who had started this attack, the ogdegre were too tall and groupedtoo thickly. He couldn’t see Madame Chimera either. He would just have to hopethat she could handle whatever the djinn (and it had to be him, didn’t it?)could throw her way.

Edging close to therounded wall of the hut he slipped away from the fight, keeping clear of theogdegre forming a bucket chain from the well to the burning buildings. He’dhelp them if he could, but he knew that he’d do more good by giving himself upquickly and quietly. This attack was only a distraction after all. Typicalraider tactics, but he wouldn’t put it past Ruthy to escalate matters if hetried to run or fight back. As he moved, shoulder-blades pressed against thesmooth hut wall, he stretched out his thoughts, trying to replace Smith. He justhoped wherever he’d run off to he was well hidden. It wouldn’t do if both ofthem were taken.

Slipping around theback of the hut into a narrow passage running behind a series of smaller hutsand the wall Rashari broke into an awkward run. His left arm was still stiff asa board, dangling from his shoulder socket like a dead weight. There was astructure in front of him, a walled pit in the ground a good distance from thenearest of the huts and close to a section of wall mostly in shadow. A rancidstink rose from the pit and he guessed this must be the ogdegre’s midden – itcertainly stank badly enough for sewage. This was as good a place as any. Infact, given the problems the Heart of Anoush had caused him already, the bottomof pit full of shit might be the very best place for it. Trying not to breathein Rashari ran to the pit and managed, with some difficulty and rough bruteforce that he’d pay for later, to pry open the lid. The wave of noxious fumesand wet ammonia laced heat that assailed his nostrils made his eyes water. Turninghis face away, he reached into his right pocket, clasped the Heart of Anoushand...

...Felt theunmistakable weight and pressure of a gun pressed into the back of hishead.

“Take your hand outof pocket, slowly.” Ruthy hissed into his ear. Against the reek of the ogdegreseptic pit the scent of gun smoke and leather clinging to Ruthy’s form was strangelycomforting, if only for a second. The sensation of the gun pressed to the baseof his skull and the quick flash of her hand into his coat pocket as shesnatched away the Heart of Anoush, was not however.

“Good,” She saidsounding like she meant it. “Now step away from that shithole and turn around –slowly - both hands in the air.”

He did as he wastold. He was out of any other options. He came face to face with Ruthy for thefirst time in over a year. The woman hadn’t changed. Somewhere in the region often years his senior in another time and place Ruthy’s face might have beenconsidered pretty. Heart shaped with delicate, clean features, vivid blue eyes,a sharp, pert little chin and rounded cheeks that dimpled when she smiled Ruthylooked like she should be gracing some manner of Imperial propagandaadvertisement wearing a frilled apron and beaming proudly over a fresh bakedpie. She was several inches shorter than him, with a narrow waist, nicelyrounded hips and breasts that were neither too big nor too small and she woresturdy, hardy travelling gear, a rifle slung across her back and holster on herright thigh for the handgun she was still pointing at his head. He softlycurling black hair was tied back at the nape of her neck in a serviceable,sensible tail. She looked him over with cool, quick eyes and a slight smilethat bordered on arrogant.

“Hello Rashari,” hervoice, usually crisp and cool, Adran accept clear but not belaboured, nowcarried a hint of a satisfied purr. Oh yes, she was very pleased with herself.Rashari found that he couldn’t quite manage to be happy for her in turn. Butmanners were still manners.

“Hello Ruthy, I’d sayit was a pleasure...but,” he couldn’t shrug with his hands in the air (and yesindeed the effort of keeping his left hand aloft was setting his teeth onedge), but he hoped his tone adequately expressed his feelings. The flash ofdimples as her smile widened suggested that Ruthy did know what he was feelingand it only added to her sense of triumph. Still she was nothing if notefficient. She wouldn’t waste time gloating until she was sure she had him trulyin hand.

“Come on,” She saidgesturing with a tilt of her head toward the wall behind them, the gun in herhand still pointed steadily at his forehead. “Turn around and start walking,nice and steady, towards the wall. Keep your hands in the air.”

Once again he did ashe was told. Ruthy was unlikely to kill him – if she’d meant to do that he’d bedead already – but he had nothing to gain from calling her bluff. He didn’tknow if the gun was necromantic but ghost lead or not he didn’t want any morebullet-holes. He had a feeling he’d already exhausted even his unlikely abilityto survive physical mishaps that really ought to kill him.

He was about six feetfrom the neatly cut hole in the fence, which Ruthy must have made when shesnuck in, when an arrow zinged past his shoulder and embedded itself into oneof the solid wooden fence struts. The thunkof the arrow biting into the wood was accented by a strident shout frombehind in a language he did not understand. They’d been spotted. Things wereabout to go very badly. Rashari spun around. He made a grab for Ruthy’s gun armas she pivoted smoothly, turned the gun on the ogdegre who had fired the arrowand pulled the trigger.

“No.”

His clumsy lunge wasenough to queer her aim, just barely. The bullet went wide, missing theogdegre’s head. Ruthy hissed, twisted, and backhanded him across the face withher hand. He tasted blood as his teeth cut his inner cheek and he deliberatelydropped down onto the ground, making it clear with every move that he was not partof this hostile incursion into the ogdegre’s territory. Ruthy already had thegun up and back on the ogdegre -a woman. The odgegre woman was covered intattoos and had a mane of long black hair, pulled sharply back from her face. Shefroze in the process of rushing them. Ruthy pointed the gun at her head andsqueezed off another shot without blinking. The ogdegre woman dropped to theground in a roll, moving with surprising speed considering her height andmuscular build. The bullet missed her by a hairsbreadth. Rashari twisted on theground and kicked Ruthy in the knee, grappling for the gun when she stumbled,bearing down on her arm so that the next shot punched into the ground.

“Stop it.” He hissedas she used her free hand to dig her nails into the skin of his good hand. “Youcan’t fight off the entire settlement. You’ve got me already. No one needs todie.” He had no clue what Ruthy’s plans were for him once they were shot of theogdegre (and, he had to assume, Madame Chimera as well) but he was damn sureher plans hadn’t included fighting off a bunch of hostile natives. Ruthy wasbrilliant (she’d played him for a merry tune after all) and getting into aprotracted fight while heavily out-numbered was not a brilliant plan.

By this time theogdegre woman had been joined by four others, two more women and two men. Theyhadn’t attacked yet, either wary of stepping in front of a stray bullet orbecause they weren’t sure which of them was the real threat, but it was clearthat their patience was up. The female ogdegre held her bow again, arrownotched and string pulled taut. Rashari released Ruthy and threw himself to theside as one of the men charged forward, head bowed like a bull in a rage.

On the ground in thedust Ruthy lifted her head, saw the ogedgre rushing straight at her and coollyshot him right between the horns. The man collapsed in a heap almost on top ofher and rather than moving away as a spray of blood spattered her face shegrabbed the man’s upper body and hauled him up as much as she could one handed,using his still twitching body as a shield so that when the ogdegre womanreleased her arrow it logged in the body of her fallen clan-member. Ruthy retunedfire, hitting one of the other women in the upper thigh. Rashari, momentarilydismissed as a threat by all parties, crab-walked backwards across the groundtoward the hole in the fence. He’d really hoped to avoid this, but it waspretty bloody apparent that stupid plan or not Ruthy was entirely prepared(committed even) to getting into a fight to the death with the ogdegre. Hewasn’t happy about the loss of ogdegre life, but if it allowed him to escape(and left Ruthy dead) he was willing to work with this scenario.

Except that he’dunderestimated Ruthy yet again. The ogdegre charged her as a group, but Ruthywas waiting for them. Flinging the corpse of the warrior off her she whippedout a phantom grenade, pin already out, and flung it onto the ground betweenher and the ogdegre. The clay bottle smashed on the ground, spitting out trailsof rust-red phantasma vapour into the air. Immediately the vapour quickenedinto a nearly humanoid form. The revenant stretched out to a height of sixfeet, opened a huge ghoulish and gaping maw and swallowed the nearest of theogdegre whole. The woman froze, enveloped completely inside the phantom’sgaseous form. She twitched once, twice, thrice and dropped like her strings hadbeen cut. There was a flash of bright sunshine yellow light inside the dull redbody of the revenant as the woman’s soul was devoured. The revenant increasedin mass sprouting three probing tentacle appendages that whipped out at theremaining ogdegre, forcing them back.

Rashari swore,something deep inside his chest clenching in response to the familiar feel ofdeath magic. Ruthy hurled another grenade for good measure and jumped to herfeet, backing up and grabbing a fistful of his hair as she came level with him.She wrenched on his head until he was moving backward with her toward thefence. She kept her gun up and pointed at the ogdegre, who, at this point, hadtheir hands full dealing with the two revenants. Just before Ruthy shoved himahead of her through the hole he saw the ogdegre woman with the bow fire anarrow at the first of the grenade shells, correctly identifying it as thesource of the revenant’s power. Then he was through the fence and Ruthy wasjamming the barrel of the gun into his shoulder blades, hissing at him to getup and run. After that it was a matter of being herded, like a particularlyrecalcitrant sheep by an especially vicious sheepdog, through the woods andaway from the ogdegre settlement. All in all, he had to hand it to Ruthy. Thathad been a spectacularly well orchestrated kidnapping. He just wished he wasn’tthe one cast in the role of victim.