Eleanor Ch. 11

Curled on her side on the damp cold floor, Eleanor shivered in the light of the moon shining through the barred opening high on the tower. How many hours had it been? Ten? Fifteen? It seemed like time was grinding by so slowly. The moon had only moved the smallest amount, a span of four or five hours at the most, yet forever had passed in those moments. From her curled position on the floor, Eleanor watched the thin strip of light beneath the heavy door frame as movement after movement caused shadow in the glow.

Guarded, locked, surrounded by water and rock of the building, she saw no way out. The men that had captured them had separated her and Bruni, they were not within earshot of each other; Eleanor had tested that, shouting his name into the gloom of her cell.

Not usually scared of the dark, she began to resent the lack of light, the feeling that anything could be lurking in the ominous shadows that cloaked the uneven surface of the walls, the constant drip of moisture falling from the jutting stones into the pool below.

Watching a rat scurry from her line of sight, she knew someone was coming, and forced herself to remain still. She wanted nothing more than to hurl herself at her guards, beat them with her fists, even if she caused them no harm at all. She wanted to do it, needed to; she wanted to scream angry words, she wanted to make them bleed. But rationally, what was the point? She had heard the guards, their morbid excitement over the orders.

To be hung at dawn.

What a way to die. Only hours ago she had been on the Auden's boats, only hours ago she and Kate had been bathing in the cool water. Seemed a lifetime now since she had ran to beg Ragnar to return to Kate. It was time for her life to end soon.

The shadows always moved past the door, Eleanor thought, they never stop there, Oh God, they never stop there.

They are here.

******

Sitting high above the water and cold stone floor, she watches the shivering girl straighten out of her protective ball, and crouch on her knees, the long layers of her tunic covering her defensive position.

She plans to defend herself. She thought. Interesting, very interesting.

Tucking the wisps of loose hair behind her ear, she watched the fire burn in this child, so much anger in such a creature. Far too much like herself. Leaning back against the wall, she remembered her capture. So many months ago, or was it a year now? No, she was still 28 so it was still only months since she had been found in the outskirts of the village; her family, her friends, trying desperately to escape the Gaul. As part of a large group of travelling entertainers, she traversed the East and now the West amusing and shocking the various villages with their magic, her own famed fortune telling, and the masterful acrobatics.

Yet when they had reached this far North, the absolute glee and wonder at their entertainments, had become twisted, now the villagers gave furtive glances at the moving carts and foreign people; the whispers and suspicion of the magic wielding people. One night, something had snapped, the tension had become too much, and the villagers had descended on their travelling troupe, her family. Shivering with the memory of that night, silent tears threatened. Memories of the burning carts, some still with the families sleeping inside, the brutal murders of people she had grown up with, harmless people. Rape, butchery, burnings. Most of her beloved friends and family had been left massacred.

Her own child had been chased down by their King himself on horseback, something Stephan had taken great delight in telling her of as he saw her cradling her dead son's body. The handful that had remained alive, had been rounded up, dragged to the cells and chambers within the tower building, and tortured.

Clearing her eyes of her tears, she clutched her growling belly, urging the noise to silence. She needed to get out of here, before she starved, or before they realised she was still here. Stephan had thought her drowned at the bottom of the pool beneath the castle, the depth of the natural clear water unknown, the walls of the natural stone around it closing it off from escape. She should know. Many hours she had spent diving deeper and deeper, combing every possible inch for a route of escape. And finding none.

Seeing the crouching girl's body stiffen, she looked over the ledge. The shadows on the floor halting with scuffing feet, and the loud grate of the deadbolt sliding free of the lock, before the heavy wooden door opened flooding pale candle light over the crouched girl. The chains in their hands are bad, very bad.

Oh sweet Christ, they are taking her for questioning.

The heavy clank of the links connecting with the stone floor even had her flinching, memories she bade rest desperately clawing to the surface. Yet the girl on the floor did not move, she did not shiver, she did not flinch, nor did she raise her eyes to her captives as their angry French drawl spilled into the room. Motionless. Ready to pounce. Sucking in a breath, and refusing to blink, she decided she would commit this to memory for as long as she lived.

******

Pounding against the wooden door, Bruni bellowed into the darkness of the stone cell, only a small break in the cell wall allowed him any light into the compression of the black of the room. A faint streak of moonlight lit the wall to his left as he banged relentlessly against the door. Sinking to the ground, he held his head in his hands. He had failed her, the look of fear on her face as the Gaul men had attacked him on masse, pinning him to the ground, the look of violence on the faces of the two guards that advances upon Eleanor, his muscles had strained against his restraints as they were dragging him away, anything to get away from them, anything to get to Eleanor, to free her from these men with no morals, indiscriminate killers, every single one of them. The only calming thought that pulsed through him was that they had not taken her to the ground the second they had him restrained, they had bound her arms and dragged her through the same entrance to the tower as he, pulled along two opposite corridors once inside, screaming and tearing against their captors, anything to not be separated.

They dragged him for what seemed miles, before depositing him in this dank room, and no one had come back since. The silence, the guilt and the anger tore at him, his fist clenching and unclenching with each push of adrenaline around his body. He had to get her out of here. They were to be hung at dawn.

He had to tell her he loved her. ******

Eleanor steadied her breathing, watching the two guards move into her cell from beneath lowered lids. Do not draw attention to yourself, make yourself small. They will think you are insignificant, they will suspect you of nothing. Yet as the advancing guard touched her, the clank of the links hitting the floor in front of her knees, her time was up. Grabbing the sheathed dagger from the man's boot, Eleanor leapt to her full height, pressing the sharp blade against his throat while the other looked on, rather amused instead of alarmed.

"And what do you think to be doing child?" The smug guard asked in perfect Norse.

"I plan to escape ignorant pig" Eleanor stifled a smile as she responded in perfect French. And received the look of shock she had wanted, and been denied.

"I demand you free me, and my husband," Eleanor shocked herself with the lie, and wondered where the hell that had come from, "or I will cut his throat."

"I refuse." The guard looked smug once more. "Kill him."

As Eleanor dragged the blade deep across the man's throat, she swore she watched the blood drain from the other guard's face quicker than it poured from his friend, before she advanced on him. Letting the dead body slump to a pool of its own blood on the floor of her cell, Eleanor steadied her breathing once more. Anger just did not cover it. Fury, deep, proud, and verily throbbing throughout her entire being was urging her on, it was fuelling every step she made towards the now unsure remaining guard as backed away, and began franticly searching himself for a weapon.

Smiling at her fortune, Eleanor advanced, aiming straight for the stricken looking man's heart, her movements quick; held force behind them as she brought the dagger forward.

Eleanor felt the breath catch in her throat as her attack was abruptly halted by the point of a long sword through the entrance of the door.

******

She watched in awe as the girl killed the guard with ease, watched with pride when she lined her attack for the second, and froze in terrified fascination as the point of a gleaming and carved sword came into her view, pointed directly at the brave woman. That was his sword.

******

Both Eleanor and the frightened guard exhaled very slowly, their gazes flickered away from one another and towards the heavily armed menace in the candle light.

The man was huge, Eleanor thought, all elation from her small victory evading her heart at the sight of this towering brute before her. Bathed in leather and metal armour, the giant stood more than a head taller than Bruni, his black hair spilling from his head down his back, the blackest eyes she had ever seen glowered down at her, glowered over her shoulder at the dead guard, and at the dagger in her hand. Eleanor thought she would perish into flames just from his intense stare, the anger, dear Lord no, the sheer malevolence burned her to her soul.

Eleanor didn't see him move, she did not perceive it, it just happened. Plunging his sword through the remaining guard, it embedded in the heavy door behind him. Not moving, couldn't move, Eleanor's eyes wandered down the length of the sword, the gleaming silver in the candle light near the hilt, the gushing red at the end. Returning her gaze silently to the barbarian, Eleanor wished she had not, his intense anger filled eyes bore down on her, bristling her own anger, stoking flames of her desire to live through this somehow.

"Where you going somewhere?"

Eleanor nearly died of shock. His voice showed restraint his expression did not. So calm, so serene, the brute may as well have been asking her of the weather. She had never been scared more.

*****

She watched as the girl repositioned her stolen dagger downwards for her best attack for his height, completely enthralled with appreciation of the female who was much like herself. A fighter until the end. There was no feminine shock, screams, gasps as she had slit the man's throat, or as the Gaul Leader slaughtered the failed guard. Just her eyes boring straight back into his, with just as much intensity and vicious intent as he was returning to her. She watched as the girl readied the weapon for her new threat, watched as she positioned it for an upward thrust.

She knew these moves well, knew these positions, being as small as she was, she was always in need of defending herself from villagers while travelling, it was almost a weekly event in her life. With a quiet snort, she figured she had been safer in here than on the outside!! Imprisoned for one week, with the guards biding their time before killing her, they used her to screw. Used for their own gratification. But then Stephan had come back to the tower, the guards panicked knowing he would see her battered, raped body. Something Stephan would not tolerate. Throwing her into the freezing water, the bastards had waited for her last bubbles of air to escape.

And told him she had killed herself. Drowned.

She would get this girl out of here. At least she knew Stephan would not be despicable, knew he would not rape the girl. But if she stayed, by his honour, she would hang in the morning. After all, she was one of them. *****

Eleanor forced herself to still, bringing her entire being into focus, even as the giant lifted his sword to her, his strong hand steady as the point became level with her chest. Closing her eyes, Eleanor lunged forward as his sword lunged at her.

******

"BRUNI" The quietened shout sounded high above him. Squinting his eyes in the overwhelming darkness to the small strip of light high in the wall, Bruni saw the face of one of his boatmen.

"Eown, how the..." Bruni stammered, unable to comprehend how his shortest boatman was now at the window a vast fifteen feet above him. "Eleanor is here somewhere too Eown, I do not know where, she was taken down an opposite corridor."

"We think she is in the tower itself Bruni, apparently that is where they take the women captives. Do not worry yourself, we will find her. Nikolai is here."

"Bruni, its Nikolai, Brother, I am sorry all this has happened." Nikolai wobbled at the wall from the force of his brother's roar.

"YOU BASTARD, None of this would have happened if you had not been in that bloody tavern!!! YOU, by Odin, when I get out of here I am going to END YOU!" Bruni was pacing now, not caring that his voice was carrying as a distinct boom off the echoing walls, "you spend your life drinking, and sleeping with women Nikolai, meanwhile we are joining in the war, attempting to stop the invaders!! You know Nikolai, the ones that kill our people!!" Hammering his fist against the wall, Bruni sank down to the floor once more, glaring at the face of his older brother in the window.

"Nikolai, you were meant to stay away from the Gaul lands." Bruni continued, much quieter now, his anger ebbing abruptly as he remembered the contract. "You need to get me out of here, and you need to do it now. The contract needs to be fulfilled. We need to get ..."

"Bruni, what are you talking about, what con...shit, tell me Mother has not entered into another of those blasted contracts with the Haur!! What the hell possessed her?? She knows how we felt about it. I thought that was how she felt about it too!!" Nikolai boomed this time, his own anger shaking against the cold stone.

"No, it is the old contract. Bjorn had a daughter with Criostiona, and then she hid her in Lean. She has the necklace, she looks just like Bjorn's mother, and her name is even Eleanor." Bruni spat the words out as if they were venom, wishing he could take them back, wishing he could never tell anyone that she was the Haur child. Wishing he could keep her for himself. But he never could. She would have no family, Ragnar would not be able to acknowledge her as his Cousin, but she would have had him, if she desired him. Hell he would have thrown himself at her feet. Damn his honour.

"I can't believe this Bruni, why are you telling me this now?"

"Because she is the woman in the tower."

********************************

When Eleanor opened her eyes, she was still staring into hell. Her back against the wooden door, the devil's eyes still boring into her soul. Searing pain roused from her shoulder caused her to flinch in pain, only to find she was stuck to the door. The Bastard!! Eleanor screamed in her mind. He skewered me!! Twisting her own hand; resulted in a similar flinch from the bastard himself, and a further searing pain from her shoulder.

"Stop that!" Eleanor finally squeaked through her determined silence as she watched red rivulets seep through the thin material of her tunic.

"You. Stop. First." Each word punctuated through gritted teeth, anger flashing in the deep black swirls of his eyes.

Glancing down to her hand, her dagger deeply imbedded in the giant's side, Eleanor gripped tighter on the handle and pulled hard, with barely a movement from the piece of granite in front of her.

"It is not normally that I meet someone who can not only best one of my guards, advance on the other, and wound me," he smirked, the action almost making the monster look human, "and with nawt but a stolen dagger."

With a sharp yank, the giant pulled the sword from her shoulder, Eleanor gasped and pitched forward right into his arms, her breath knocked from her as she hit the solid armoured mass of his chest, his hands tight around her ribs as he caught her against him.

"Get used to it." She managed, before looking up at him, amusement warring with his anger as he caught her words.

Backing her into the entrance of the cell, he pushed her from his arms so hard; she stumbled and fell over the dead body, landing in the pooling blood.

"I know you bastards are invading, your kind is always scouting here, spying on us, invading us."

Slamming the door shut, darkness enveloped the large room once more, the echo of the closure reverberating over the water's surface, making the moonlight ripple.

"...and you're not getting out of here. Tomorrow, you and the other will hang. You two will stand as a warning. We will not tolerate your kind here."

Hearing his storming footsteps move from the door, Eleanor allowed herself to breath. The deep, ragged breaths that rushed into her lungs were however, far from comforting, the smell of the guard's blood making her gag. Rising quickly, Eleanor moved to the cool, clear water, rinsing her hands free of the red stain, checking her tunic for such too, and thankfully only finding a trace.

Oh god, my dagger!!

Running back to the door, Eleanor peers through the small barred box at the top of the door, balanced on the stones of the building, in perfect alignment with the barred window in the door, was her stolen dagger. Taunting her. He was taunting her.

"Bastard"

Rage filling her once more, Eleanor moved back to the cool water to wash away the tension she felt on her face and neck, sighing as the cool drops made a twisting path under her tunic, reminding her of a morning that seemed so many miles away now, when she had ran from Bruni and Ragnar, remembering the heavenly feel of cool soothing water against flushed skin.

Dropping her arm, she scooped water up to her shoulder, rinsing the wound. Not jagged, not too deep, clean cut, she hopefully would not require being stitched again. Taking a deep breath, Eleanor took stock of the room she was contained in, the high ragged walls, the one door, the barred window high above her, allowing the moonlight in to play with the glint of water across the walls, and a deep pool of water. Gazing down at her ragged reflection, Eleanor smoothed her wayward hair from her face, and found two extra eyes staring back at her. Losing her balance, she fell headfirst into the cold water.

Coughing and spluttering her way back to the surface, Eleanor stayed away from the edge, and the newcomer, eyeing the small shadowed creature with suspicion.

"I am Kailara. And we are getting the hell out of here."