The almost overwhelming flood of sorrow and pity in Aine's heart froze as she heard the cawing sound. Jessie was crouching next to the slumped figure of the Dusk Lord, trying to support him under an arm, make him stand. She lifted her head, ponytail falling over a shoulder, and hissed,
"Come on, Aine, help me...we can't stay like this..."
Aine hurried to the Lord's side and tried to support his other arm as he stood, armour creaking, cracking, from years of disuse. The fae healed with speed, but nowhere near fast enough, surely...
And then in a whirl of rage she was there, shrieking, her cloak of feathers and gristle thrown back to reveal sleek fitted battle armour and a pair of swords, curved like the beaks of crows.
"Intruders!" she screamed, and her voice was the shriek of battle, waves of bloodlust and war pouring from her like perfume. "Traitors, filth...now, die!" Her clawed hands tore the swords from their sheaths at her waist and held them with deadly precision towards the three of them.
Aine saw Jessie stagger back, clutching at her heart, as the wave of magic washed over them. A snarl was starting from her throat, and Aine shook her head to try and clear the mist that was threatening to pull her under too.
"No," she whispered. The crow woman was moving forward, slowly, warily, eyes on the Dusk Lord, almost dancing as the heat of battle began to take her over. She was a thing of battle and destruction, and her eyes held nothing that could be reached by plea or empathy.
"Use...the iron..." whispered the Dusk Lord, half-kneeling at her feet. "Nothing else can stop her in the flow of battle..."
Aine glanced around and remembered – the whip, the daggers. She ran for the cell, but even as she moved, Badb Catha was there, swooping down on her,
swords flashing, and Aine screamed as she was flung by the force of the arc aside. The crow woman's wild laugh rang out as Aine grasped helplessly, terrified, at her left arm to find it limp, blood pouring from a long wound down her forearm. She fell back, cowering as the faerie raised her swords again, her crow screaming above her, preparing to dive. She covered her head with her arms, preparing for the strike.
"Never!" came a screaming roar from behind her, a half-mad cry, and the battle crow, lips pulling back in a smile as she fed off the searing rage from behind her, spun, swords raised, as Jessie, her eyes burning with blind fury, leapt at the warrior with nothing more than balled fists.
"No!" screamed Aine, her pain forgotten, grabbing with her good arm at Badb Catha's legs, but the scald-crow simply sprung over her, twirling past Jessie, bringing the flat of her sword down on her unprotected back as she staggered past, not even getting close to the faerie.
"Ahhh, human," she breathed in her harsh cawing voice. "Delicious. Your rage...you are capable of such fine fury..." She brought a sword round in an easy arc, pinning Jessie against the wall by her throat. The human's fragile body slammed back against the filth, eyes rolling white in their sockets. She didn't even seem to notice the sword-whip wound on her back, blood spreading into her shirt at an alarming rate. Badb Catha pressed the sword just a little further into Jessie's dark skin, watching her pant with rage and helplessness, even as she brought the other sword down to point at the Dusk Lord, not even turning to look at him.
"Don't think we don't see you crawling, Lord," she breathed with contempt. "You cannot touch me. I could have your head, now, and you would be too weak to stop me." Aine only now noticed he had been pulling his iron-weakened body towards the warrior, his face even now without expression, but as the tip of the sword pressed towards him, with the pained growl of a lion at bay, he held back.
She's stronger than I am, and she's quicker. What can I do? Aine forced herself not to give in to the panic and rage that was beginning to swallow her, and glanced around. Its attention diverted from her for a moment, the crow was watching the struggling human as she fought her conflicting emotions both to press forward towards the enemy and back, away from the weapon pressing into her skin. What can I do? The bird cawed. Maybe...
She let a faint trill out of her throat, the sound she always made when she spoke to the birds back on Dartmoor, the sharp sound that meant 'stay away'. The bird hopped around to face her, and cawed back a questioning tone. She cackled a more threatening tone, and the bird hopped closer, its beady black eye fixing on hers. Just for a moment, Aine saw Badb Catha's head turn a fraction of an inch, distracted by the conversation.
She leapt sideways into the cell and grabbed one of the iron daggers from the rack on the wall, holding it helplessly in front of her. The crow screeched and fluttered up into the air, before taking off like a bullet down the corridor. The faerie dropped Jessie to the ground and sprang at Aine in one fluid movement, a crowing call tearing from her throat, and Aine struck out in front of her, blindly, with the dagger. It wasn't an accurate strike, but with the iron blade, it didn't need to be. The warrior fae shrieked at the burning contact, her eyes alive with hatred and the shock of pain, but the pause was enough for the Dusk Lord to grasp her ankle and with all the strength Aine imagined he could muster, hauled her over. She screamed again and lashed at him with her sword, but he lifted an armoured arm to cover his battered face and clung on grimly – for all his weakness, he was still an elemental lord, a thing of impersonal nature and not mutating emotion, and one could never stop the shadows.
"The cuffs," he whispered at Aine, who blanched, but hurried to obey him. Jessie's face was clearing a little as the faerie's attentions were otherwise directed, and paling as she felt up her back with a hand, pulling it away smeared with blood.
"Forgive me," Aine whispered as she returned pulling the iron cuff and chain, which had thankfully for her injured arm fallen free of whatever had held it to the wall – will, perhaps. She hooked it as lightly as she could around the shrieking Badb Catha's ankle and, tugging with all her strength, bound the chain end around the bars of the cell, scurrying out of reach of the flailing swords and clutching her cut arm to her chest.
"Forgive me," she whispered, trying to meet Badb Catha's raging eyes, and to her astonishment, the faerie laughed.
"Out of practise, swan wench," she snickered. "That's what I am. Too many years without, alone...but the battle never ends, you know." She glanced behind her, trying not to disturb the iron against her skin. "You were a joy to feel through. That one," she nodded at Jessie, "She knows anger. There's a warrior in her."
Jessie's face was gray with dawning horror. "Aine..." she whispered, clearly trying to keep her voice calm. Aine hurried to her side, and leaned her forward with her good arm, lifting the back of her shirt up to try and assess the injury. To her great relief it didn't look deep, just wide, which accounted for the pour of blood – surface area rather than depth. Badb Catha snickered again.
"Not a killing wound in the slightest," she told them, winking, as if it had all been a bit of light fun. "My crow will be back, with company, with help," she glanced meaningfully at the iron, "With gloves, so if I were you, I would leave."
"Where's the exit?" Jessie groused out, wincing as she stood, agitating the cuts.
"Oh, come now," said the scald-crow, rolling her eyes. "I'm hardly going to tell you that, am I? How would you know I was telling the truth, anyway? I spread dissonance and confusion. You couldn't trust a word I said." Jessie snarled, but Aine clutched her arm.
"Let it go," she whispered.
"Badb Catha rarely gives help of any kind," the Dusk Lord sighed, kneeling up again, testing his limbs. "This is a mark of high honour, that she just lets you go." He glanced at her smirking face. "Or she is very, very bored. I believe every day I've spent here, you have also, Crow Lady?" She inclined her head at that, a hint of bitterness crossing her face.
"He promised I should feed again," she hissed. "So far, this has not been so." She rolled her eyes. "Get out of here, before my aid comes. They won't let you past."
Aine nodded, letting her gratefulness show on her face, and letting the Dusk Lord again lean on her uninjured side, the three of them limped uncomfortably back under the arches, and through the ravaged landscape towards the incongruous marbled door, sitting in the middle of nowhere, glimmering in the reddish half-light.
Aine slumped against it, the weight of the armoured Lord beginning to ache.
"What are we meant to do now?" she whispered, helplessly. Her arm wasn't bleeding any more and the pain had subsided to a low throbbing, but her pale dress was soaked in red. Jessie's shirt was ruined, her face contorted with pain and the after-aches of a fight. The Dusk Lord himself, even, was only just beginning to recover any real strength. Aine couldn't even conceive of years in torment. She was amazed he was even moving at all, really, magical speed of recovery or otherwise. "You've got to have someone look at that," she added, staring at Jessie. The woman had torn the bottom of her shirt off and wadded it up, holding it unhappily to her back.
"Likewise," Jessie said, slightly wry.
"I think the only place that might be in any way safe for any of us..." the Dusk Lord breathed, sibilant, "Is the History Chambers."
"I can't...I can't let anyone know I'm here," Aine whispered, tears of sheer frustration and fear starting in her eyes. The Lord simply shook his head.
"For all our sakes, you must. The Singers of History are true neutrals, even now, I believe. They have not changed for a thousand years, for king, nor queen – what they serve is the continuation of Faerie, the Sithen itself. In many ways they are more the heart of Faerie than the royals."
"They'll betray us," Aine whispered. "I can't...Jessie..."
"If they do," the Lord said, impassive, "Then I shall take the responsibility and the punishment. I give you my word that while you are with me, nothing shall happen to you. I shall do all in my power to stop that. And therefore, I trust only the Singers of History, and since the shadows do not lie, I would not lead you into danger." He fixed his red eyes on Aine's. "My word, swan maiden. If you know aught of me, know that it is true." Aine studied him for an agonised moment, then nodded assent.
He did not change expression once, merely began to stand, slowly, and inch his limbs out, stretching. "I feel something like strength return to me. No magic - not after the touch of iron for so long – but some of my self. If I but had my swords..." he shook his head.
"Where are they?" Jessie said, eyes flickering to Aine, giving her a silent message. Can we trust him?
Aine blinked a yes, I think so, back at her. Jessie shrugged almost imperceptibly, the minute movement causing her injury to flare and ache again. The Dusk Lord glanced at her.
"It can wait. There are more pressing matters at hand. Come, let us leave this place before the scald-crow's people arrive."
Aine's eyes flickered left and right as if a murder of crows might spring on her from out of the dust, and shook herself. "Do you know the way?"
"Well enough," the Lord replied, and Aine wedged the fingers of her good hand around the rock blocking the door, pulling it back and placing her foot in the way instead for a moment to curl her hand awkwardly around the door and hold it properly open. She glared at her injured arm, the pain still throbbing at the edges of her consciousness in a dull, aching way. She supposed it was better than the stabbing pain from earlier but still...it was useless to bear weight and gentle prodding just made blood well up in the tear again. She feared for Jessie's poor back just as much.
"Let's go," she muttered, not looking back as they pushed through the gap and she let the door swing shut.