by my_shadow_half
Halkorr wiped the frost and snow from his beard as he came in and sat next to the fire. Before the entrance was closed again, a small taste of what the wind was like out there presented its credentials.
"It's getting colder out there, too fast," he said with tired strength. He looked at the two women to gauge their reaction. The youngest, and to Halkorr's mind the prettiest, seemed unafraid. She looked at her mistress, who was fighting to keep up a façade of calmness.
"We can just stay here until the bad weather passes," began the mistress, but Halkorr interrupted her with a broad gesture of his strong arm. Her expression showed how much she detested his behaviour, but she had learned to live with it.
"No we can't," he stated flatly. "The weather will not clear for at least a week. I can wait that out here without food, but you two can't. And you two can't walk to Ghrost."
"You could carry milady," suggested the Wench,"and I could wait here." Milady noticed with a wince how Halkorr didn't interrupt the servant girl.
"Very generous of you, but it wouldn't work either," said Halkorr. "Without food, either of you would die from cold on the trip. You'd get further trying to walk. And anyone waiting here would perish before aid could come." Milady frowned.
"Well, what do you suggest then, my good man?" Although it sounded polite, she managed to impart that she didn't mean it.
"It's simple. One of you gets to live. The other gets eaten." Milady stared, opened her mouth, and then her eyes rolled back into her head. The servant girl quickly rushed to aid her. Halkorr ignored them both at first, and he took off his gloves to warm his hands at the fire. When the Wench had tried for a little while to revive Milady, Halkorr turned to them.
"Put her to bed. She may as well sleep." The Wench obeyed quietly, then came and sat across from Halkorr. They sat quietly for a little while, before the Wench spoke, with a slightly shaking voice:
"Have you ever eaten a human before?" Halkorr nodded absentmindedly.
"When?" He looked up at her with his grim wilderness face and his piercing eyes.
"In the dead of winter there is very little food to be found out here. It's gotten worse since your people came. So, we have had no compunctions about eating those of you who had encroached on our territory." The Wench sat thinking for a while.
"So you've attacked villages?" she asked, remarkably successful at keeping the fear and disgust out of her voice. His brow furrowed.
"No. Those who encroached. Soldiers mostly, looking for slaves. They became slaves themselves. When it got cold, we ate them." The Wench looked down, and they sat in silence for a while longer.
"How will you slaughter me?" asked the Wench suddenly, her voice breaking at the end. Halkorr lifted his head in genuine surprise.
"You? I'm not going to slaughter you!"
"B-but you said... that... No! No, that would be wrong!"
"Killing humans for food is wrong to begin with..." began Halkorr, as the Wench suddenly moved over next to him. She put her small face up to Halkorr's and hissed:
"No! You won't touch Milady, or I'll... I'll..." Halkorr sat waiting patiently and let her threat ring idle. Then he grabbed her by the shoulder with one big hand, squeezing her collarbone painfully with his thumb. He shoved her back to her place with ease.
"No threats, Wench. What keeps me from leaving you both to your fate out here? I don't know why you are so loyal to her, but all your loyalty will be spent dying with her in your arms if I leave you." Halkorr grabbed his fur-bag and opened it. From its depths he took an elongated case, from which he produced a small flute, carved from some very dark kind of wood.
The Wench lost track of what he was doing. She felt tears rising to her eyes. It was true, she had little love for Milady. But she had loyalty. How could she watch this man kill her mistress? And the thought of eating another woman, let alone Milady, was just too much to think of. She sobbed and began to cry, unrestrained, terrified, disgusted and hopeless.
She had no idea how long she had been crying, when she realized music had been in her ears for some time. And it was no ordinary music. It had a slow, elegant rhythm, with many subtle tones and notes. Her mind was filled with this music, and she realized with little alarm that Halkorr was once again using his magic. She felt the music surround her and penetrate her, and then leave her, carrying her soul with it. She saw herself sitting in the shelter, listening to Halkorr's music. And then Milady stirred.
"I'm coming," she murmured sleepily. She moved in a stupor, not seeing where she was or who was with her. She moved her head as if listening to an invisible speaker, and then she smiled. For the first time, the Wench saw Milady with a genuine smile on her face.
Milady suddenly rose to her feet and removed her outer garments. Then she grabbed her shirt and tore it down the front. She had a look of beginning ecstasy, a look of freedom and youth and life that had never before touched her face. The music seemed to dance in and out with its slow, strong rhythm, and she danced with it. She danced and danced, the blood rolling in her veins, and tears of joy on her cheek. She continued to tear her clothes off until she was finally naked. She danced on, carried by the magical music, until her body was spent, and she dropped to her knees right in front of the fire. She was blushing all over, and a thin sheen of sweat covered her body.
The music seemed to fade, but its effect lingered. The Wench was still looking at this from above, outside her body, and Milady was still kneeling naked and satisfied next to the fire. Halkorr put the flute away, carefully putting it back in its case, and then he walked behind Milady. His hands were huge compared to her frail neck and shoulders as he touched her skin with one finger. She closed her eyes and turned, humming as best she could little bits of the music now gone. She sat relaxed and lifted her chin, exposing her slender, flushed neck. Halkorr put his hands around it and squeezed.
His fingers sank deep into her neck. Her humming was destroyed, but she didn't fight him. She sat there quietly, eventually only held up by Halkorr's grip, until the air in her lungs were spent, and she lost consciousness. Even then he did not let go. He waited. A small spasm ran through her body. He held on, and even seemed to squeeze harder. His mighty hands pushed her delicate neck inwards from all directions, crushing her windpipe and finally squeezing with such force that her vertebrae snapped.
The Wench sat quietly, still ensorcelled, but now her spirit had returned to its vessel. Halkorr began preparing Milady's body for cooking. He moved with a hunter's swift grace, and very soon he had Milady's thigh-meat roasting on a wooden spit over the embers of the fire. The smell of meat getting prepared insinuated itself in her nose, making her feel delirious with hunger. She had not eaten for more than a day. The part of her that was fighting was getting tired. Other urges were beginning to grow in her.
It seemed like Halkorr could tell what was going on inside her. He worked with the meat until it no longer bore any resemblance to a woman. Carefully, he packed away what was not to be prepared now, and he threw the offal into the pit outside. He regularly tested the meat on the spit with one of his daggers, and both he and the Wench watched with growing hunger how the juices escaped from the meat and dripped into the embers, where it caused small flames to rise. It seemed that Milady's spirit was finally driven from the meat, and consumed in the flames. Her spirit had never been happy until her final minutes, and the Wench could imagine that it embraced oblivion.
Just then, Halkorr let the Wench loose from the spell. She came forward, unsteadily, under his watchful gaze. He cut off a large piece of the meat and drove the dagger into it. He held it out to her, and she grabbed it eagerly. She burned her mouth and lips on the meat many times, but her deep, deep hunger drove her to eat anyway.
She felt a part of her awaken, as if it was nourished only by this human meat. It was not an evil part of her, but a primal one. The presence of Milady's freed spirit, Halkor's magic, the hunger fulfilled, the cold outside and the heat within, it all combined. Her clothes seemed to chafe, and the simple necklace she had on became repulsive. She pulled until it snapped, and then she threw it away. Her mind was not paying much attention, and she quickly returned to savouring the meat. When she had eaten it all, she went to the spit and cut herself more. She noticed Halkorr watching her with the flint-hard eyes in the grim face, but she didn't feel self-conscious. She didn't feel angry with him, either. She felt some gratitude at the food he gave her, but more at his presence. She saw, in a part of her mind that had never seen a city, a glimpse of a pregnant female wolf waiting in a cave, and its mate coming with the daily hunt and shared it with her. She ate the meat and slurped the juice that ran down her face.
Finally, they both rested. The Wench moved to lie in Halkorr's mighty embrace, never before feeling so content. Her belly was full of meat, her heart was full of life, and her mind was empty like she had never enjoyed before. The cold from the outside only served to accentuate her own bodily warmth, and that of Halkorr's lying next to her.