LJ F&R 16: You expect me to do what? Now?
Apr. 1st, 2016 05:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexpgpThe story so far:
Part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11| 12 | Part 13
Whenever my master Lascaux recited ballads that told of great combats, he took great care to dwell as long as possible on the parts that described the actual fighting, and when he and I acted out martial scenes from famous plays for local townsfolk, he took care that we milked the swordplay aspect as much as possible. "People love the battles," he used to say, "and expect their money's worth." In my private training sessions with him, however, the old man did all he could to drum the reality of combat into my head.
“Real life is not like the stories people entertain themselves with, Feather,” he would say. “When foes cross paths in the real world, it’s rare for a fight to last more than half a minute, and a fair share of fights—using fists, or clubs, or steel—are decided even sooner, within a handful of seconds.”
So when the mechanism to the secret panel was activated by whoever it was in the cellar that had silenced Fremd, and the door between us finally began to swing open, I took the initiative, flung it wide, and launched myself across the threshold. My opponent was the man I had spied earlier through a peephole, sitting on a chair near the door to a room on the second floor of the inn. Here, standing in front of me, he was a lot bigger than he appeared to be when I viewed him through that peephole.
No matter.
The thing about big men? They almost always underestimate the threat posed by smaller men such as myself, falsely secure in the knowledge that they are bigger and stronger than their opponent. This is the only way I can explain why the man sought to open the panel without first drawing a weapon to defend himself against whatever might lurk on the other side. Me, for example.
I was on him before he could move or even start to comprehend what was happening, and I had neatly cut his throat before I bounced off his torso onto the floor, where I lost my footing and fell onto a wool blanket that covered a pile of sacks containing onions. Not elegant, to be sure, but there were no points for elegance in a knife fight.
The man stood for a moment, his life’s blood spurting rhythmically from his neck, and then he collapsed against the shelf that stood next to the panel, pulling it down on top of himself and causing some of the jars that had been on the shelf to fall to the floor and break open as as he came to rest there, in the packed dirt, the blood flow now a trickle. By some miracle, the candle that had been on the shelf had fallen through the air and landed on its side on the man’s now-still chest, and it still burned.
By now, Usha had crossed the threshold from the secret passage into the cellar and I saw her reach for the candle just as I sensed the aroma of naphtha--apparently, from one of the jars under or near the body. Before I could do anything, I heard a whoosh! and the newly dead stranger and Usha were enveloped in a fireball.
The sudden light blinded me, but I retained enough of a sense of where Usha was with respect to where I had landed to step forward and clasp her to my chest. I staggered free of the burning body, half-carrying and half-dragging her, over to where I had last seen Fremd, whereupon I put Usha down. On Fremd's legs, as it turned out.
As my sight quickly recovered, I saw and gave thanks that Usha had merely been singed, not burned—though most of her beautiful red hair was gone—but a heaviness in the air told me that unless I took quick action, the fire would soon suffocate us, so I flung myself in the direction of the cellar door.
I ignored the lock that held the doors secure. Instead, I grasped the handles on the pins holding the hinges together on one of the doors, withdrew them, and applied my back to swing both door panels open together.
A gust of fresh air hit me in the face and entered the cellar. Thus fed, the fire leapt to life, and a pang swept my chest as I feared the flames would engulf Usha, but instead of reaching out to consume Usha and Fremd, the flames darted into the depths of the secret passage, as if probing the interior of the space under the inn.
I returned to Usha's side. Smoke still rose from her hair and she was tending to Fremd.
“He’s still alive,” shouted Usha over the growing noise of the moving air. I took her word for it, for to my eye, the man looked well and truly dead. “Help me get him out of here,” she yelled.
You expect me to do what? Now? I thought to myself. “I do not know that we can,” I shouted in return. “He is unconscious and heavy—not to mention wounded—and you want us to somehow get him up the cellar stairs?”
“We are getting Fremd out of here,” yelled Usha, emphasizing each individual word in a tone that brooked no argument.
And yet I argued. “Are his wounds fatal?” I yelled back.
“I don’t know,” said Usha and moved so that her mouth was next to my ear. “And what if they are? If it was me lying there instead of Fremd, would you leave me here to burn? Kill me as a mercy?” There were tears in Usha’s eyes when she pulled away to look at me.
I felt shame at what had indeed been my implied suggestion, but facts were facts. The inn was going to burn, and if we were to avoid the same fate, we needed to leave, and soon. By now, the door frame of the secret panel was entirely alight and the walls of the passage beyond were glowing bright orange, like the inside of a blacksmith’s furnace. I could feel the heat on my skin, and the air howled with a weird echo as it rushed in through the cellar door and out into the inferno in the passage.
Lascaux's voice intruded. You know, Feather, when you decide you're going to live for someone, you're prepared to die for them... or with them, if it comes to it.
So be it, I concluded, and in the depths of my being, I finally understood what the old man had really meant.
But I was not going to simply roll over and die. No, sir. Lascaux had not taught me to do that. Not by a long shot.
I rushed to the stairs and stuck my head out to look into the street. What I saw there made me think we might, indeed, save Fremd from a fiery death, and then make good our escape.
Part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11| 12 | Part 13
Whenever my master Lascaux recited ballads that told of great combats, he took great care to dwell as long as possible on the parts that described the actual fighting, and when he and I acted out martial scenes from famous plays for local townsfolk, he took care that we milked the swordplay aspect as much as possible. "People love the battles," he used to say, "and expect their money's worth." In my private training sessions with him, however, the old man did all he could to drum the reality of combat into my head.
“Real life is not like the stories people entertain themselves with, Feather,” he would say. “When foes cross paths in the real world, it’s rare for a fight to last more than half a minute, and a fair share of fights—using fists, or clubs, or steel—are decided even sooner, within a handful of seconds.”
So when the mechanism to the secret panel was activated by whoever it was in the cellar that had silenced Fremd, and the door between us finally began to swing open, I took the initiative, flung it wide, and launched myself across the threshold. My opponent was the man I had spied earlier through a peephole, sitting on a chair near the door to a room on the second floor of the inn. Here, standing in front of me, he was a lot bigger than he appeared to be when I viewed him through that peephole.
No matter.
The thing about big men? They almost always underestimate the threat posed by smaller men such as myself, falsely secure in the knowledge that they are bigger and stronger than their opponent. This is the only way I can explain why the man sought to open the panel without first drawing a weapon to defend himself against whatever might lurk on the other side. Me, for example.
I was on him before he could move or even start to comprehend what was happening, and I had neatly cut his throat before I bounced off his torso onto the floor, where I lost my footing and fell onto a wool blanket that covered a pile of sacks containing onions. Not elegant, to be sure, but there were no points for elegance in a knife fight.
The man stood for a moment, his life’s blood spurting rhythmically from his neck, and then he collapsed against the shelf that stood next to the panel, pulling it down on top of himself and causing some of the jars that had been on the shelf to fall to the floor and break open as as he came to rest there, in the packed dirt, the blood flow now a trickle. By some miracle, the candle that had been on the shelf had fallen through the air and landed on its side on the man’s now-still chest, and it still burned.
By now, Usha had crossed the threshold from the secret passage into the cellar and I saw her reach for the candle just as I sensed the aroma of naphtha--apparently, from one of the jars under or near the body. Before I could do anything, I heard a whoosh! and the newly dead stranger and Usha were enveloped in a fireball.
The sudden light blinded me, but I retained enough of a sense of where Usha was with respect to where I had landed to step forward and clasp her to my chest. I staggered free of the burning body, half-carrying and half-dragging her, over to where I had last seen Fremd, whereupon I put Usha down. On Fremd's legs, as it turned out.
As my sight quickly recovered, I saw and gave thanks that Usha had merely been singed, not burned—though most of her beautiful red hair was gone—but a heaviness in the air told me that unless I took quick action, the fire would soon suffocate us, so I flung myself in the direction of the cellar door.
I ignored the lock that held the doors secure. Instead, I grasped the handles on the pins holding the hinges together on one of the doors, withdrew them, and applied my back to swing both door panels open together.
A gust of fresh air hit me in the face and entered the cellar. Thus fed, the fire leapt to life, and a pang swept my chest as I feared the flames would engulf Usha, but instead of reaching out to consume Usha and Fremd, the flames darted into the depths of the secret passage, as if probing the interior of the space under the inn.
I returned to Usha's side. Smoke still rose from her hair and she was tending to Fremd.
“He’s still alive,” shouted Usha over the growing noise of the moving air. I took her word for it, for to my eye, the man looked well and truly dead. “Help me get him out of here,” she yelled.
You expect me to do what? Now? I thought to myself. “I do not know that we can,” I shouted in return. “He is unconscious and heavy—not to mention wounded—and you want us to somehow get him up the cellar stairs?”
“We are getting Fremd out of here,” yelled Usha, emphasizing each individual word in a tone that brooked no argument.
And yet I argued. “Are his wounds fatal?” I yelled back.
“I don’t know,” said Usha and moved so that her mouth was next to my ear. “And what if they are? If it was me lying there instead of Fremd, would you leave me here to burn? Kill me as a mercy?” There were tears in Usha’s eyes when she pulled away to look at me.
I felt shame at what had indeed been my implied suggestion, but facts were facts. The inn was going to burn, and if we were to avoid the same fate, we needed to leave, and soon. By now, the door frame of the secret panel was entirely alight and the walls of the passage beyond were glowing bright orange, like the inside of a blacksmith’s furnace. I could feel the heat on my skin, and the air howled with a weird echo as it rushed in through the cellar door and out into the inferno in the passage.
Lascaux's voice intruded. You know, Feather, when you decide you're going to live for someone, you're prepared to die for them... or with them, if it comes to it.
So be it, I concluded, and in the depths of my being, I finally understood what the old man had really meant.
But I was not going to simply roll over and die. No, sir. Lascaux had not taught me to do that. Not by a long shot.
I rushed to the stairs and stuck my head out to look into the street. What I saw there made me think we might, indeed, save Fremd from a fiery death, and then make good our escape.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2016-04-02 08:23 am (UTC)Can't wait for the next chapter!
no subject
Date: 2016-04-04 02:32 am (UTC)Cheers...
no subject
Date: 2016-04-02 03:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-04-04 02:32 am (UTC):)
Cheers...
no subject
Date: 2016-04-03 06:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-04-04 02:33 am (UTC)Cheers...
no subject
Date: 2016-04-03 03:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-04-04 02:34 am (UTC)This week, it was easy. :)
Cheers...
no subject
Date: 2016-04-03 10:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-04-04 02:34 am (UTC)Cheers...