Rolling Thunder

The ghostly aberration of an empty ship floated the black waters of a desolate sea. Firelight flashed in a distant copse, a sentinel of men guarding a ringing, ambient glow.

Misery runs off the bodies of women, be it tears, sweat or blood. Emotions collide in a series of inescapable events where pain trumps all, where sorrow spins an enticing masterpiece, weaving it into a tapestry of lies and deceit.

A Fire Dancer tethered in tight bonds, surrounded by a twitching crew, the last hopes of life spilling from speared bodies and onto the crab strewn shores.

I was lost. I was found. I was lost again.

Only in my agony am I in my element, an exquisite creature, one of fever flushed flesh, a discernable deity, destiny’s doll who dines on debauchery and desire.

I had been stripped down to my chemise, once white, which now clung to me in ragged tatters, sticky and stained in blood, though not all the blood was mine. I had been whipped with a skilled hand, angry welts having already risen over ghostly alabaster skin, a crisscross effect of old and new, some of which were already starting to fade. A man stepped forward, behind me, one of fifteen or twenty, I had lost count, his hand curling around the hilt of his dagger, the razor sharp tip easily slicing away the remaining catch of fabric, my back exposed to him.

I bucked beneath my bonds when I felt the kiss of blade rupture and part smooth skin. Each man had marked me, making me their own through a calling of bloodlust, and though none of the cuts were deep or life threatening, several still bled freely, if not profusely, I appearing as some ritualized sacrifice who refused to die.

Another man stepped in front of me, his rough calloused hand pushing between my legs, two sausage digits pumping inside of me. He leaned in to whisper, and I, made move to return it. But instead of the husky sound that was most expected, my teeth clamped around his earlobe and I pulled, until the bloody bit was torn away, only to be spit on the ground at his feet. An angered God often offers a quick death, instead of the torturous ecstasy I was wrapped within. At last I would be able to sleep forever in the depths of demonic darkness.

Silence drummed through my ears as the first of many fleeting pains began, my body shuddering in the cool sea air, cloaked in sweat and forced to endure his carnal appetites.

"You're breath holds the stench of death, your blood the precious pestilence of evil. I condemn you to forever walk outside the City of Dust and to never know peace again."

I learned long ago to use what I had around me to my advantage and that was currently, my environment. There was a storm coming, one that birthed more rage than a merely lightening and wind.

The Captain's bravado returned, his hips pushing forward "And I condemn you to ride me, whore. Ride me well and I might let you live through the night." He growled the words, one hand focused on ramming into me, the other hand fisting at the back of my hair and pulling down and back, so that my neck was easily lengthened and partaken of, leaving his bruised and bloody mark upon an otherwise blank canvas.

At times my legs strained, the binding ropes that were tethered around my ankles burning red rings into my skin, and bringing my feet off the ground. Insanity bristled along the surface of my flesh, a writhing monster erupting into life. My head had lolled to the side like a broken rag doll, but I was anything but broken. I was staring, pale green gaze set on the fringe of foliage that yet surrounded the camp. I could see nothing with a mortal eye, but I knew that someone.. or something, was there. Blood smeared against my rapist, some of the wounds of earlier annihilation reopening as if to baptize us both for our sins. The howling of the wind rose to a crescendo, the loud voice of the Captain crying out in carnal repletion as his body stilled, the seed of evil spewing inside of me.

It was only with the screaming of the word Kur that I turned my head to behold him.

He was magnificent, a frenzied beast bathed in blood, a formidable foe that brought the promise of ice to still, warm waters. Three heads hung by twisted strands of hair from his hand, his eyes furious within rivulets of red.

"He comes for you."

And I knew it was true. My words further set the men into unease, and madness was already starting to sweep through the camp, a mass confusion of bodies, unsure as to where safety lay.

There was no place to hide.

One man screamed, right before an arrow pledged its place in his skull through his eye. Another was felled with an ax as he tried to run away. Hysteria began to flood around me like a diseased river, contaminating all in its path. A trick of flickering firelight and growling wind created terror touched imagery that threatened to swallow whole any who dared rally against it.

 The Captain drew back, grabbed up his sword from the ground near his feet, eyes wild and bright with anticipation. My fingers opened and closed into my bloodied palms, as if I could command the weather, my head tilted back, hair tangled and wet and stuck to my face.

A sullen flash of forked lightening dragged across the black velvet sky in long, luminous arcs, blinding in its intensity of a wrathful God. Thunderclouds of crippling fingers reached up to drag the moons down into an inky, watery grave. I knew this was my storm and I reigned as Tatrix.

I saw him not as a real man, but as darkness come to life. My darkness. Perhaps even my death, which was still a salvation of sorts. Another scalpel of light stabbed into the belly of the storm, sheets of rain stinging over me like a hive of angry bees.

The fire was dying quickly and the Captain looked as if he was about to bolt. He looked like a wounded sleen who was trying to gauge how he stood in the arena of survival. Given the gravity of the situation, I would not have bet on him.

The Darkness skewered and consumed an eye from one of the heads while I watched not in horror, but benign blankness as he found feast in cannibalistic concoction. Then he tossed the three heads, each rolling to lay directly in front of me.

Flashes gave credence to ordinary objects, rocks and trees and wind touched grasses, momentarily mutating them into hideous, looming apparitions. The roar of the rain escalated from a cataclysmic chorus until it became the very voice of Armageddon, lightening continuing to crackle across the sky, dancing nimbly on jagged legs. It passed over me, around me and through me, all powerful. All knowing. All mine.

I was born again.

The Captain expressed terror at both Darkness’s words as well as his actions, almost tripping as he tried to step back, away from the crimson decapitations. He hoisted his sword upwards and thrust forward, before parrying back and holding the razored steel to my throat, so close it was already willing a new wound to take form. I didn't move, still staring at the heads through half shuttered lids.

He was a storm lord of ice and iron, dangerous, deep and boundless as the great north itself, and I was a woman touched by winter, if not by birth, than of body and soul, each of us with a single wing dipped in blood. It was not that I trusted him with my life, it was that I had no other avenue of escape. When the captain realized he was about to die, the blade sank deeper into the softness of my flesh, creating a red ribboned choker that quickly turned pink with the melding of rain. The Captain was parted down the middle in an explosion of gore, and I, ragged and exhausted and limp beneath his falling body slumped forward, the shrinking bindings biting with tenacity into my wrists with the extra weight, until the lifeless form of my abductor slid to the ground at my feet.

Chaos collided with men of the north and those who had not to foresight or the common sense to get out in time were ripped asunder, the last thing they heard, their own screams.

I, oiled in blood was a living wick surrounded by the ashes of dying men. The skies opened torrents flowed freely, the mud running crimson under my feet. A rift of worlds crashed together, a sound of thunder and the clashing maelstrom echoing metallic through the night. The Darkness’ ax moved as fluidly as a supernatural familiar, I watching in awestruck silence. Despair loomed as heavy as the falling rain, an unforgettable epitaph to those who were brave enough, or lucky enough to survive.

All color was burned from the night, and what was left was the shifting of shadows, the texture and details of nightmares. It wasn't long before a collateral collection of bodies lay motionless, the Master of Darkness standing over them with his ax held in stasis. The rain had lessoned to a low roar, though a chilled wind still blew, and I was prickled with goose skin, a pale entity whose wounds went far deeper than mortal flesh.

Only one remained to tell the tale. He stood, coped in the leaves of a low hanging branch, a demonic sentinel against the storm. He was at least as big as Darkness, and when he moved forward, the ground seemed to shake, a leviathan wet and recent from the angry seas. He held no ax, but he did have a sword, one as long as I was tall, and with a two handed grasp he stepped forward, ready for battle and assured of his win.

The Darkness stepped forward as well, crushing a skull beneath his boot, before he charged. A curse of steel on steel rang in a melodious waves, a battle of monsters securing their lairs. The darkest hour had come upon them, and only he who was worthy would reclaim what was his.

The sword had been met with disastrous distinction, and too late he realized he was out weaponed. He tried to turn, drawing blade over blade, in a half circle around the Jarl, catching his shoulder, but the Gods who watched had other plans. The Darkness drew his dagger and plunged it into the belly of the beast, the blade sinking inward with unnatural ease. The giant slumped forward, one hand loosening its hold on his sword, to push against this newest wound. Blood ran through spread fingers like a leaking bota of wine, but this seemed to only incite the beast into further action. One handed, the sword was hefted again in a fortuitous fabrication that he could still win. "I will not die!"  he screamed. But of course he would. Death was inevitable, and it was obvious that he was declining quickly. The point of sword lunged forward, with half the strength of before, but all the skill of a true born warrior.

The Beast sunk to his knees. But the Darkness was not finished with him, still sieged by bloodlust. He took the Beast’s head in his hands, his thumbs pressing over his eyes and thrust.

Forever blind and wandering outside the City of Dust.

The storm started to roll away, lightening flashing behind me, silhouetting me against a gray, midnight sky. All the men who had tortured me were dead, but I was still unsure about this new threat that loomed so close. I found myself testing my bonds, which had tightened dangerously around wrists and ankles, threatening to cut off my circulation.

Because now the Darkness was coming for me.

I was a multi headed hydra, morally bankrupt and spiritually starved, a soul stuffed with sin, an aberration of unsettled need. I paid no head to his men, only the Darkness that stood before me. His hand reached out, palm against my belly, which slowly moved up until his fingers encroached upon my throat, while his other hand severed the bonds that held my ankles.

Apocalyptic passion cared little for positioning, and it seemed only fitting that the Captain be in place to witness true carnal affliction. Sex on the bodies of the damned and dead.

Satiation.

He would have me. I would not resist.

“Who are you?”

I was a woman who awaited unraveling.

“I am Fate.”

Whether his, or mine, or any who came to bow at my feet, was left to interpretation.

“And now you belong to me.”