The Fates (Book I) - 2014 Watty Award Winner!

2.4 - The Faults of Men

And yet there was a struggle taking place among the men—one voice, the softest of them all, did not join in their laughter. Cried out against it. She felt a pair of hands softer than all the others on her skin, a tender touch that was not horrible. Human, yet somehow not horrible. She hadn't thought that such a thing was possible...

The voice was silenced, rather swiftly. The soft hands fell away, almost as soon as they had stretched out to protect her. The short struggle was over. Her doom was ensured.

But then the rough hands, too, began to fall away. A scuffle of frantic movements. Something thick and wet seeping across her side. The shuffle of footfalls, fleeing the scene.

And suddenly she was alone beneath the sun again, no longer blocked by brutal shadows hovering above.

Shuddering deeply, she slowly sat up from where she lay, at the foot of a towering stone. Shielded her eyes from the sun with one tremulous hand, and looked out on the landscape ahead.

She could see figures in the near distance, running fast and far away, some hobbling and limping on limbs that could not carry them quite right. The sight was sad. Lachesis almost felt a pang of sympathy for these poor souls, these hapless cads who'd just attacked her.

For wasn't it her fault that they'd turned out this way? The fact that they'd been plagued with such deformities—moral and physical alike—wasn't she to blame for that, to some extent? She was the one who set the mortal threads on their paths, after all. She determined the course of each life on this earth. This was her fault.

Then again, perhaps it was Clotho's, for spinning them that way. Or Atropos's, for not cutting their cursed threads sooner. Perhaps.

Lachesis had to think that this was possible, for she could not shoulder the blame alone, for all the faults of men. She had to share it with her sisters. Now that she'd seen these faults in the flesh, she couldn't handle full responsibility for human vice.

She snapped out of these thoughts, as she noticed the one man remaining behind in the circle of stones. Man or boy? Something in between. He had been facedown on the grass just a few feet away. He was now rising onto his elbows, coughing up bursts of blood and dirt.

Just from the sound of his weak coughs, she knew straightaway that this was the one with the soft voice. The soft hands that had striven to help her. Her heart went out to him, for that—it was a foreign feeling, this connection to a human. It frightened her a bit.

His coughs abated; he hoisted himself upright, raised his anxious eyes toward the altar stone. She met his gaze. A gentle grey with hints of blue, a sky that wanted to be sunny but was overcast with cloud. It seemed to brighten at the sight of her. She must have just imagined it.

Lachesis looked away to see another man approaching them, a bow in hand and quiver of arrows at his back. He was sturdily built, with big bones and broad shoulders. But his stride could not match his stalwart frame—his left kneecap was visibly shattered, lending him a painfully lopsided gait. Yet still, he looked formidable.

Probably thanks to the weapon in his hands, wielded with palpable prowess. Even when he was simply carrying it at his side.

He reached the center of the ring of stones, walking up to the boy. "That was foolish, Donal," he admonished. "Dangerous."

Donal bowed his head, ashamed.

"You know I do not like to shoot at men," the man continued. "Never give me cause to do so again."

"I'm sorry, Father," Donal mumbled, "but—"

"But you were trying to protect her?" the archer interjected, looking sternly at Lachesis, then back down upon his son. "That was plain to see. A maiden's honor is a fine thing to defend—but not against a crew of men with muscles bigger than your head."

Donal coughed. "They were about to do terrible things..."

"That is what men do."

The archer squatted down beside his boy. Lachesis noticed that there was a lump along his jawbone. She also noticed two gold ornaments in his greying hair, a copper knife tucked in a sheath upon his chest, a finely crafted red stone armlet fastened at his wrist. These were the trappings of a wealthy man. And wealth was power, among men. Especially when armed with weapons.

He examined his son's cuts and bruises; they were minor. "You are not strong enough to stop it, Donal," he advised him. "No one is."

Donal braved a timid smile. "You are."

His father's grim glare did not lighten one bit. "You think I scared those men away from ever doing terrible things? One woman saved, just once today. That's all it was. They will come back, to seek a cure amidst these stones. And if they find her here again—"

"They won't," Donal cut in, a newborn hardness entering his tone.

Lachesis swallowed. The archer scowled down at his son.

"We cannot let them, Father."

"Have you heard nothing? You can't stop them."

"I just have to keep her safe, somehow. Keep her far away from those men and their kind."

The archer laughed. "You think she'd have you as her keeper?"

Donal lowered his grey-blue eyes.

"You think a lass who looks like that would ever take you as her champion?" his father scoffed. "A thousand other men would battle for the honor, if she's not already spoken for. You would be crushed in the contest. And she'll just run off with the handsomest who comes."

A fire flared up in Donal's heart, at these disheartening words. He couldn't hold his tongue—he hit his father where it hurt. "Not all women are like my mother."

The archer promptly rose. Sneered down at his callow young son, the spitting image of his former self. A sight that made him sick.

"Fine, then. Follow your heart," he muttered as he turned upon his heel. "See for yourself the hell to which it leads."

Lachesis watched him shamble away. Her gaze was then drawn to the dampness at her side, which she had felt during the scuffle just before the rough men fled. It was a stain of darkest red.

"Are you all right?" Donal inquired, moving carefully toward her, kneeling by her side.

She blinked at him, then brought herself to speak. "I think so..."

"I hope you weren't hurt too badly. I couldn't see what happened, after I was beaten down..."

She had shifted slightly, such that the bloodstain came into his view. His eyes widened, as if he'd just witnessed the end of the world.

"It isn't mine," she reassured him. "The blood... it's not my own."

He calmed down instantly, realizing that it was the blood of one of her assailants, non-fatally wounded by an arrow from the archer. His eyes then wandered from the stain, up toward her breast...

She wrapped her arms around her chest.

Donal cleared his throat, gazed down into the dirt. He had not meant to look. He had not meant to violate her with his eyes, as his foes had intended to do with their hands. And with worse.

He wore only a simple tunic, for the summer day was hot. He had no other garb to share. Were he to give her his, then he himself would be disrobed... which might be even more offensive to her virtue...

He had to get her somewhere safe, and clothed and sheltered.

If she would have him as her keeper.

"Would you come with me?" he asked, a shred of hope lifting his timorous voice. "There is a hamlet, not too far, where I could keep you safe awhile... have you fed, cleaned and clothed... if you would like..."

Her lips curved up into a graceful, grateful smile. "I would."

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Does Donal remind you of anyone from modern Lacey's life? ;)

Next scene takes us back to the Veriton campus, with Cloe and Tom... and if you liked this one, please don't forget to vote! :)