Slave Girl: Chapter 67 (Patreon)

My howl of agony is still echoing off of the stones around me when…in the split second window between hearty gusts…I catch a tiny distant voice.  “Quin?”

My head snaps up again, eyes darting about.  Had I imagined that?  Wiping the tears and rain from my face I listen hard, turning my head this way and that.  “ROSA!”

“Quin.”  I hear her voice again, no louder than the squeak of a mouse and sounding as if it were coming inside a clay pot.

I zero in on the source of the sound.  It had come from behind me.  But there is nothing there?  I squint against the rain as I step down from the boulder and slowly walk forward.  “ROSA?”

“I’m…here baby.  I’m here.”  She says back.  I could hear the tremor of distress in her voice.  Was she injured?  It is a strange sensation of elation mixed with concern and fear hearing her voice again, along with a whole lot of confusion.

“Rosa…I can’t see you.”

I hear my Lady cry.  My eyes settle on a scrawny twisted shrub growing up at the border of one of the embedded boulders.  I stare at the frail yet hearty plant, baffled, as I notice the tender pale pink flowers at the ends of the spindly branches.  It is an alpine rose.  

“Rosa?”

Approaching the shrub I can hear more clearly the sounds of Rosa weeping and breathing heavily.  What I am seeing and what I am hearing do not go together.  Kneeling down I scan about then, there among the thorny branches, I see a familiar ring of silver.  I reach into the bush, disregarding the thorns scrapping my skin, and pull one half of the magical bracelet from it.  

I turn it around and look through the portal.  At first all I see is a circle of darkness, though the dry fetid smell wafting through told me the magic was working.  After a moment I can start to see the texture of stone illuminated by very dim light.  I bring it closer to my face.

“Rosa?”

All at once a magenta eye glides in from the side to peer through the hoop in my hand.  In the little bit I could see I can see her cheek is streaked with tears.

“Baby.”  She whispers, scared out of her wits.

Blood stained fingers reach through and I touch them with my own and kiss them.

“Rosa, where are you?”

Her cold trembling fingers stroke my cheek.

“Baby, I’m so sorry.  I never…I never wanted to h-hurt you.”

“Never mind that Rosa.  Please, tell me where you are.”

“I love you baby.  I love you so much.”  She weeps.  “I’m sorry…I’m so sorry.  Forgive…meee.”

“I love you too!”  I say, nearly breaking down myself as the words I had longed to hear fill my heart and soul.  I keep focused though, I hadn’t the time nor luxury to succumb to tears.  “Rosa.”  I say firmly and with a calm that surprised even me.  “You have to tell me where you are.  I lost you in the chase.”

“…krrrreekk…”  I hear an inhuman growling chirp echo off of rock walls.

“Mmmmm!”  Rosa’s eye shuts tights as she whimpers in sheer terror.  Rosa disappears and the view spins wildly.  I squint to make out any detail I could.  I see stone walls.  I see a floor littered with feathers, crunching dry branches, and cracked bones.  I see a snatch of pale light shining into the area from an opening in the rock.  Rosa’s hand reaches through and grabs mine as hard as she could.  I hold her wrist tight, wishing I could pull her through to me.  It was such a helpless feeling.  Seeing, hearing, and touching her without actually being able to help her.

“I love you.”  She whispers, her lips right up next to her wrist.  “I love you Quin!”

“Please!”  I urge, trying to keep my voice down so as not to alert the monster.  “Tell me where you are Rosa.  You need to tell me now.”

Her hand disappears back through the portal.  She pulls back so that her full face could look through to me.  A couple of our fingers interlock along the bottom of the ring just to keep that physical connection.

“Baby…my boy…”  She says between shallow panting breaths.  “…you…you need to listen to me now.  You need to listen to your Lady.  You…you need to run.  You need to run baby.”  She lets out a little squeal of fear as the sound of scraping can be heard behind her.  “Live.  Go…live.”

“Rosa, I can’t…”

“Thank you Quin.  Thank you for the happiest days of my life.”  She says as her tone shifts to an eerie calm.  I could see and hear the hope draining from my Lady as a grim acceptance of her fate grows.  “I should have died back in Rome.  But…you gave me more.  So much more.  You gave me love, you gave me hope, you gave me a dream.  Thank you Quin.”  She takes a long breath, tears flowing freely down her cheeks.  “Don’t…forget…me.  Now.  Run.  Run my boy.  Run and do not look back.”

Before he left my father had taken me aside and told me that he joined the military not for the glory of the Emperor but for the security and well-being of his family.  He told me that if he were to die on the field of battle it would be a sacrifice done in our name, not the Empire’s.  He told me that when I was a man, a full fledged man with something truly of my own to love and to lose, that I would understand.  I had never forgotten the expression on his face.  His eyes steeled yet tender, focused off to the distance as if seeing something that I couldn’t.  I see that same haunting look now in the eyes of my beloved Rosa, only this time I understood.  I understood because I felt it myself.  Seeing that embrace of self-sacrifice come over my Lady brings love yet also sparks my anger.  I might be her boy but I was no longer a child.

“Enough!”  I fume.  “We do not have time for this.”

“Baby.”  She pleads.  “You have to…get away.  I can’t…”

“Rosa!”  I look her dead in the eyes.  “In all that you’ve come to know about me…do you honestly think I can leave you?”

Her barely held brave face cracks as she sobs openly.  “No.”

“Would you have left Danae?  Would you give up on me?”

She cringes with worry and fear as she realizes what I was saying.  “No.  But…”

“Then let me help.”

“Quin…it will kill you.”

“I will find that creature now or later.  You know I will.  You are right Rosa…I need you.  I need you in my life.  My dreams are nothing without you there beside me.”  I say with all of my heart.  “Give me a chance to find you Rosa, before it’s too late.”

With rekindled hope comes renewed fear.  “I’m scared!”  She mewls.  “I’m s-so scared!”

“I know Rosa.  I’m coming.”  I kiss her fingers, the iron taste of her blood finding my tongue.  “Tell me, quickly.”

She takes a breath and swallows, before slowly nodding.  “We…we circled back.  Back toward the peak.  A cave near the peak.  It’s…”  She turns her head then back quickly.  “…it’s near the mouth of the cave.  I think it’s looking for you.”

My head turn up and to the right.  Though I could not see the peak through the rainy mist I knew it was there.  My energies renewed I am running again, my long strides eating up the distance as fast I could make them.

“Stay alive.”  I say.  “Do whatever you must.  Hide, fight, run.  Just stay alive.”  I say as dash up the boulder strewn slope.  “Shout if anything changes.  I am coming!”

She says something softly which I cannot make out.  Had I wings I would have lifted into the air such was the speed with which I loped over and between boulders.  It barely enters my mind what I was setting off to do.  That I was running toward an encounter with a mythical beast.  What chance had a farmer with a dagger against a harpy?  It didn’t matter.  Love had left no room in my spirit for fear or doubt.  Rosa was alive!  Rosa was in danger!  Rosa needed me!

Slowly revealing itself through the mist I see green of the slope turn into a towering gray granite peak.  This HAD to be where they were, even at full flight the harpy would not have had the time to get to another peak.  Knowing where they were and getting there however were two very different things.  Between me and the peak is a steep grade of loose stone that I already knew would be hell to climb.  In the time it takes to reach it I had plotted out what I felt was my best path up.   As I start to make my way along the edge of the scree I start looking for caves along the nearly sheer cliff face.

Just then I hear a gasp emanate from the hand in which I held my half of the bracelet.  “OH!  Oh gods!  It’s coming!”

Chapter 68