The Blood Hour (Ulric)

[Naama]

It felt like fresh injuries, the pain she felt as she lay there, biting back the tears. The cramps became stronger, igniting the agony in her raw wound, so it was all she could do to clutch the rag and futily try to mop the blood that seeped from her. Until Ulric intervened. No, She had pleaded with silent words, Don't, Ulric. Don't. But she had no voice, and the cloaks were peeled off her until she was exposed, and despite the pain, Naama wanted nothing more than to sprint away, to hide herself from his gaze and everything else in this gods-forsaken land. You're a failure, Naama, only a failure, what good are you now? The whispers came, clawing at her mind, and although she was silent for a time, she found it in her to explain. "I didn't know," She croaked, clenching her bloody fingers on the cloth. Liar, it wailed, You knew. She winced, searching for better words, "It's nothing... It'll pass..." The myrian managed to pull herself up, tearing off another ragged chunk of fabric while the flames devoured the bloody rag. The wolves' frenzy had begun, and the sound of torn flesh and feral growls drew her away from her guilt, if only for a time. There was the copper taste of blood on her tongue, and her bones trembled under strain but Naama knew that if she slept, waking would become that much harder, so she became relentless, casting her clamoring hands over the fire so that the warmth would revive her faltering limbs. "They were here for you, weren't they?" She finally asked, attempting to divert the issue, "How did they find you?" Her black eyes scoured the shadows while the trees wailed against the breeze, and the bones of men were crunched to fodder.

[Ulric]

I didn’t know.

Ulric just ground his jaws together, so tightly that his face shook. There wasn’t a whisper. The clenching took all of his power, as though he was holding back a feral scream, a tragedy that he couldn’t bear. Though he barely moved, his spine jerked, stiff as a spear. The rigidity of his body as if he was graven from rock. Arshaz, you demon, he nearly growled. He’d lost to that bastard after all, and comprehension’s sour tang dulled the patina of his eyes. He felt empty, as if his insides had been scraped out. His heart dropping, nearly ceasing as he gazed at her, his hands receding limply. Weeper. The insult surged up in his chest, harshly accusing in the ferocity of its scorn.

But even then, he couldn’t deny it. He wept inside, for her, for anemic dreams of the child they’d lost.

Naama.

I’m sorry.

Though he’d fled, and fought to sunder their discordant prophecy, they kept trying to take everything away from him. The venom of those grey eyes had nearly broken his resolve, crashed down over house of cards. The insinuations were like molten glass under a blower’s pipe, taking on a grotesquery of forms, plunging from infinite vagary. There was no saying what could be, nor what could’ve been. There was only what was.

Their grief to be held in chests banded by iron, never to slip from a tongue in furtive whisper. The watery dread, the terrors that grated on nerves already crying out from the frigid gusts. To love was, inevitably, to grasp the utter veracity of loss. Though he thrashed, and raged in the throes of cynical incredulity, he couldn’t escape from those shackles.

Ulric knelt, cradling her shoulder, trying to infuse her with whatever heat sprang from the discord of his chest. “Forget it,” he urged softly, plucking at her hair as he cupped her jaw. “Forget everything, but for the beat of my heart.” The whisper was jumbled by raw, constrained emotions that threatened to flood through him in a perfidious deluge. He doubted they be very consoling, but he was grasping at straws. He’d used up so much, all he’d left was the ache of his heart. He didn’t blame her, couldn’t blame her.

But he’d answer for his part.

“They were,” he grimaced. “There are fragments of my life that are missing, pieces that won’t come back, no matter how hard I try to remember. They’re coming back, but slowly, as if against my wishes, to reveal the entire, sordid scrawl of the deceit. They did that to me, him, and her lackeys. They have a way of finding you, of lurking in shadowy corners. They’re the cancer acidly eating away at you, trying to consume what they’ve forsaken, always betraying their hearts.” For an instant, a frown tugged at his face, and he rubbed splayed fingers over his scalp. “I – I don’t think she dispatched him to take my life, just yours. It’s a game to her. If she takes everything away, there’ll be no reason for me to defy her psychotic vanity.”

And after that, a veil of silence.

Hung over by strings of pearls, they pressed close as the owls croaked an elegy for that blooming of life, so harshly departed. Hushing, before the feast.

[Bedlam]

Thread Completed!

Naama

Experience:
2 Unarmed Combat
1 Tracking
2 Hook Swords
2 Dual Wield
1 Seduction

Lores:
A Child, Gone
The Mind Turned On Itself

Ulric

Experience:
1 Subterfuge
1 Bearded Axe
2 Shield
1 Unarmed Combat
1 Wilderness Survival
1 Cooking
1 Medicine

Lores:
A Child, Gone
The Mind Turned On Itself

Notes:

Ulric, you might want to consider being a little more careful with the passive voice in action sequences. I had to go back and reread to figure out whose axe exactly was swinging around near the beginning. Who exactly was using it wasn’t clear with so many other warriors on the field, especially since there was more than one axe involved. Honestly, I’m still not entirely sure what was going on in that first action sequence. Things to think about.

On the same note, it’s not always easy to tell what’s going on for another reason—you like to string pronouns after pronouns. There were paragraphs where no subject was ever mentioned, only ‘he.’

Of course, this thread flowed along real well in spite of all that. Good job! I’m interested in reading more Ulric adventures.

Now that you’ve done hearing me whining, there are your spoils; all the weapons you found are steel, except the sword of the hypnotist’s. His was forged of cold iron. There are seven bone rings and three silver. The armband is silver-forged.