The Girl with No Name Ch. 22

Danka froze, her feet firmly anchored to the ground. Her world went completely dark. A pair of bright yellow eyes appeared in the distance. They were tiny at first, because they were so far away. They slowly approached and grew much larger. The Destroyer's face filled Danka's vision as her knees shook with terror.

"Danka... Danka Síluckt... I've been waiting for you. I knew you'd come. I knew you'd return to me. I knew that, because I gave you no choice."

"Wh...what do you...what do you want from me?"

"I want you to know me. I want you to know me well. You will have to learn my ways...if you want to remain in the Realm of the Living...and if you want your little slave to remain in the Realm of the Living. To know me. That is all I ask of you."

"I don't want to know you. I serve the Ancients. I don't serve you."

"The Ancients are not here, Danka Síluckt. Do not concern yourself with the Ancients, because they are not here. This is my realm, not theirs. If you don't wish to believe me, try praying to them. They will answer you with their silence."

"But...what do you want from me?"

"I've already told you what I want, Danka Síluckt. You will learn my ways. And as you come to know me, I will act through you. You will prosper, and your slave's safety is assured."

"And...you did this? Everything around me...this is your doing?"

"Mine...or the Lord of the Red Moon, if you prefer...this was a Blue Moon village, you know...the Lord of the Red Moon paid these subjects a visit...on my behalf, as you might guess."

"Why?"

"Yes indeed...why? Why? Why? Why?"

The eyes vanished and the ground released Danka's feet. Danka realized that Isauria was holding onto her arm, with her small body badly shaking.

"Mistress Danka...Mistress Danka...the owl..."

Sure enough...a large owl was sitting on a nearby ruined wall...its unblinking eyes staring at the woman and the girl in the cold moonlight. The bird took off and silently vanished.

"Mistress Danka...you were talking..."

"That doesn't concern you, Servant Isauria. You don't want to know..."

"Yes Mistress."

"Come along. It's getting light outside. We need to search around...see what we can find."

"I...I'm scared, Mistress."

"Of course you're scared. And perhaps...you think I'm not? It doesn't matter, because fear won't fill our stomachs. We can be scared all we want, but we still have to see what's here."

So, as the sky lightened, they searched the town. It was a cool dreary overcast morning. The forlorn weather seemed perfectly suited for the bleak ruins and their endless supply of skeletons. Each skeleton had its own depressing story, from being the remains of a once-living person who died a horrible death. The woman and the girl were reluctant to go anywhere close to the corpses, but they needed to closely examine each one. Occasionally there would be a ring or a coin next to a set of bones, something that was overlooked when the Lord of the Red Moon's troops massacred and looted the town. They spent the entire day going through the destroyed houses, finding metal items such as cutlery, tools, and a few porcelain cups and dishes that had miraculously survived the fires and building collapses.

By mid-afternoon Danka had collected enough objects to fill three sacks. She was surprised the town had not been more thoroughly scavenged. She did not know that priests from the Lord of the Red Moon's army had officially cursed the area, which made it off-limits for anyone in the Red Moon faction. All of the Lord of the Blue Moon's supporters had been killed or had long since fled, so the only people who would consider coming in were wandering Danubians, who were rightly concerned about being captured and tortured by foreign soldiers who were still bitter about the defeat in Hórkustk Ris.

The woman and the girl returned to the Duchy after dark, carefully fording the river with multiple sacks of loot. Most of the items were metal that she would trade to a blacksmith for additional crossbow bolts. However, some of the tools she would keep in case she had to set up a shelter to pass the upcoming winter. Some items, such as a few rings and a necklace, would be very valuable if she could find an honest buyer and negotiate a good price.

The wanderer and her slave stashed everything in a small cave along with Danka's bucket. They foraged the next day's meal and rested in preparation to cross back over and look for anything they might have missed on the first trip. Danka already had enough for a very nice day of trading, but she became greedy. She wanted more. So, there would be at least one more dangerous day across the border foraging among the ruins.

Isauria continued to be scared out of her wits, but Danka's emotions had changed. Instead of raw fear, she felt hostility, determination, and cold anger. She wasn't sure who to be angry at, but finally vented her emotions against the Ancients, who had forsaken her and forced her into her current situation. So...the Destroyer was right. The Ancients were indeed silent and no longer watching over her. Maybe the Ancients had departed, or maybe they were never watching over her in the first place. What mattered was that they currently were not part of her life. Her only reality was the Destroyer.

Danka and Isauria ventured more into the remaining houses and poked around in the rubble. The skeletons of people who obviously had died while being tortured were all around them. Depravity and atrocities were the only reality the residents had faced on their final day in the Realm of the Living. In one ruined room, the partially mummified remains of three children hung on hooks, facing another decomposed body that had been chained to a post. Probably the corpses were of children impaled in front of a parent who was forced to watch. Danka took a deep breath and continued searching.

Two coins...an axe head...a bayonet...some lead musket balls...a buckle...another coin...some metal buttons...a pair of shears...hooks...a piece of chain...

They moved on to a house that still had its walls, but was missing its roof. It seemed to be a good place to seek shelter, because it had a commanding view of the surrounding collapsed ruins. As Danka pried open a burnt strong-box, she felt a silent tap on her arm. Isauria pointed at the window and held up two fingers. Danka armed her crossbow and crept to a break in the wall. Two armed men were outside, suspiciously looking around. One of the men was wearing a bloody Danubian tunic and carrying a crossbow, but because of his long hair it was obvious he was not Danubian. The other man looked like a deserter from one of the Kingdom's armed factions.

Crossbows were not commonly used in the Kingdom of the Moon, so Danka hoped that perhaps the bowman's companion would not be able to operate it. Anyhow, she decided that she wanted the weapon for Isauria. She knew that her life was in grave danger and that she should have been scared, but her thoughts focused on seizing the crossbow and whatever else those men had on them. She calculated how best to kill the strangers. Using sign language, she ordered Isauria to be ready to take and re-arm her crossbow as soon as she fired it. Isauria held onto her sword, trembling as Danka took aim. At the last second Danka decided to switch targets. She'd not kill the man with the crossbow, but instead target his companion. She calculated the man with the crossbow probably did not have much practice and would miss when he fired. A missed shot would give her precious time to reload and kill her second victim.

Danka released her bolt with deadly accuracy. Her target spun around screaming, so his companion did not immediately know where the shot had come from. The man frantically looked around and took cover. Danka tightened her lips: she had not expected the bowman to hide and save his bolt. She handed the crossbow to Isauria and took the sword. The girl gasped and grunted as she struggled to reload the weapon. Danka ignored her and peered through the window, only to see the bowman's head facing in her direction...she swallowed and tried to suppress her fear. He had figured out her position. She took the crossbow from Isauria and passed back the sword. She motioned Isauria to move back against the wall and guard the back door. The girl was shaking so badly that she could barely hold her sword. Danka figured she'd be useless...and that she would have to fight on her own.

Danka heard a frightened gasp and a crash behind her. As she spun around, she saw that a third man had burst into the room and Isauria had brought her sword down upon his neck. The enemy was injured with a painful cut , but not incapacitated. He screamed, grabbed the girl, and rolled on top of her. Fortunately his injury gave Danka time to react before he could kill the girl. With every bit of her strength, Danka kicked him squarely in the face. Stunned, he fell off Isauria, giving her time to recover the sword.

"Finish him!"

Isauria hacked at the intruder while Danka turned back to the window, just in time to see the first opponent charging towards her, armed with a musket equipped with a bayonet. Her crossbow misfired, but she hit him in the leg, causing him to miss when he lunged with his weapon. The musket tumbled to the floor, but the man hit Danka in the stomach with his fist, knocking the wind out of her. He straddled her and clenched his hands around her throat. Danka was about to pass out when she heard a high-pitched scream. The grip on her throat loosened as Danka's assailant turned to attack the girl who had just tried to stab him in the back. He grabbed both the sword and the girl. Danka recovered and grabbed her dagger and plunged it into the man's thigh. She clenched her teeth and stabbed again, digging the blade into his hip. Isauria pulled free, grabbed a stone block, and hurled it at the man's head. Danka stabbed again, but the blow was ineffective. The man grabbed Danka's wrist and tried to force the dagger from her hand.

Isauria was the one who killed the assailant. She picked up another block, and instead of throwing at the man's head, held on to it and brought it down on his skull with a tremendous blow that cracked the bone. She screamed with her high-pitched voice as the rock found its target. The man's bloody body went into convulsions as Danka held her throat and tried to recover her breath. Isauria was on her knees, crying.

For a moment neither the woman nor the girl could react to what had just happened. They were winded and bruised, but fortunately neither was injured. The enemy's convulsions stopped as both men's blood stained the ruined floor. Finally Danka recovered enough to stand up. She stripped the bodies of their belts, holsters, and boots. She cut off the buttons and retrieved a coin-purse and some beef jerky, which she gave to Isauria. She retrieved the musket and a packet of gunpowder. The musket would not be of much use to her in the forest, but would certainly fetch a nice price in the market.

Finally, Danka led her servant outside, to search the third body and recover the foreigner's crossbow. It was not in the best shape, but could easily be fixed. A sword, more boots, another dagger, and some crossbow bolts were added to their sack of loot.

The mistress and her shaken servant made their way back to the river, weighted down with sacks of metal and tools. Much more important were the new weapons. Danka now felt that they both were adequately armed for whatever awaited them in their Paths in Life.

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Danka and Isauria spent several days moving their items to a safer location away from the border. They returned to the village where they had previously traded, sold the musket, and exchanged most of the metal objects for more bolts and supplies needed to get them through the winter. Danka decided to purchase a donkey from a young farmer to carry the supplies, which she paid with her collection of scavenged jewelry.

When they left the town, Danka formally presented Isauria with the captured crossbow, a satchel of bolts, a canteen, and a fine dagger. The girl quietly accepted the weapons. Her Path in Life, like that of Danka, would include violence. She was barely twelve years old, but already had killed two men.

They retrieved their remaining tools and supplies and traveled well to the east of their first incursion into the Kingdom of the Moon. As they moved through the backcountry, Danka intensified Isauria's training and education. There were enough crossbow bolts for Isauria to use on target practice, there was mock sword fighting, and practices with close combat. Danka produced some parchment and ink for Isauria to practice writing, and ordered the girl to keep a journal of their travels and observations. Isauria's life was hard and the learning was frustrating, but she did as she was told and never complained. She did not understand what type of life her mistress was preparing her for, but obviously it was not to be a house servant or a sex slave.

Throughout the trip, the donkey turned out to be a bothersome necessity. Yes, they needed help carrying their supplies, but having a large animal slowed their progress and made them much more visible in the forest. Danka had to give up the idea of traveling to Rika Chorna that year: she announced that she and Isauria would winter in the mountains and go east the following spring. They'd build a comfortable shelter, sell or butcher the donkey in the fall, and continue their journey on foot after the snow melted in the higher elevations.

Meanwhile, Danka calculated they would continue to scavenge the ruins of the Kingdom of the Moon for valuable items. The Danubian outcast and her servant kept close to the edge of the forest, leaving behind the donkey and crossing the river at night to search the ruins for items that might be useful. However, when they returned south, nothing awaited them but disappointment. They continued looking for anything they could scavenge, but apart from some rusted metal, they found very little in the ruins. No...from the villages to the east, nothing remained.

As Danka and Isauria wandered the edges of the Kingdom of the Moon, all they could see was the work of the Destroyer. It was true that two years before Danka had witnessed plenty of cruelty and devastation on the Grand Duke's campaign, but what she had seen in 1754 came nowhere close to the absolute desolation that had swept across the southern kingdom. It was all the same, everywhere they went. It seemed that both the Lord of the Red Moon and the Lord of the Blue Moon had completely lost their sanity. As a result, the Kingdom of the Moon was dying.

The civil war had been going on for just two years. At that time Danka and Isauria had no way of knowing there would be eight more years of war to go.

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At the end of August, the journey of Danka and Isauria paralleled territory that was more firmly under the control of the Lord of the Blue Moon. The villages had not yet been invaded and that section of the Kingdom seemed intact, at least for the time-being. As a lone Danubian, Danka was much more at risk if she attempted to cross into the hostile territory, so the explorations would have to cease. She considered moving well to the north of the border, to avoid risk of running into bands of Blue Moon troops that might want to cross and forage in the Duchy's territory.

She changed her mind when she came across a group of foreign woodcutters who had crossed the river to exploit the Danubian forest. The lumberjacks had cleared a sizable area, leaving it exposed to the south. As anyone from the Duchy would have viewed it, the men were invaders who were stealing Danubian resources and usurping Danubian land.

Danka decided to take it upon herself to "defend the Duchy", as she put it. In reality what she wanted was the foreigners' equipment and camping supplies, after having spent a month wandering ruined villages searching for items to scavenge in vain. "Defending the Duchy" was pure fiction, but it justified the fact she was about to attack the woodcutters so she could take their belongings.

The Danubian wanderer directed her servant to lead their donkey to a watering hole, secure him with some food so he would not be tempted to wander off, and to off-load and hide their supplies. Meanwhile, Danka scouted the logging camp. It seemed there were about 20 men working in the area, some were cutting down trees, some preparing charcoal, and four others were cutting boards. When she saw all of their equipment and supplies, Danka's mouth watered. Axes, saws, hammers, nails, a small forge, weapons, four oxen, chickens, leather, finished boards, ale, glassware...all for the taking. The only thing that stood between her and all that loot was 20 men, who she'd have to figure out how to kill.

The loggers posted a guard throughout the night, but otherwise their security was completely deficient. Danka figured the most difficult task would be killing the sentry in silence. She had plenty of training and experience moving through a hostile area in silence and killing with a dagger, so the other men she could kill in their sleep. There would be some danger, because she'd have to move among the loggers. A single mistake, or a chance awakening, would ruin her plan and most likely end her life.

As she observed the foreigners, Danka realized it would be better to go after them at dusk, after they finished working but before they went to bed. Towards the end of every afternoon several wagon teams arrived from the south, loaded boards and charcoal, and left behind a supply of fresh meat and ale. The men feasted and usually became obscenely drunk. One-by-one they wandered into the bushes to urinate, often becoming lost as they tried to get back to the camp in their drunken stupor. As they stumbled into the woods, they could be killed individually, without their companions knowing anything was wrong.

Danka and Isauria put on their boots and leather peasant skirts. Like the legendary nymphs, the female guerrilla archers from two centuries before, they carried nothing but their weapons and were completely naked from the waist up.

Isauria slept curled up at the base of a large tree while Danka crept forward to watch the final hours of the loggers' routine. As always, the wagons from the south arrived to take away boards and leave behind a supply of ale and fresh meat. The smell of the cooking tormented the Danubian, who was used to the Spartan diet provided by the forest. The tree cutters and charcoal burners drifted in from the edges of the encampment towards a large fire. They took their first portion of strong ale, one full bottle per man.

As she crouched in the darkness, Danka counted 22 foreigners altogether. She felt the Destroyer's presence, like a hand on her shoulder. Greed and hatred filled her soul as she watched her future victims finish their first round of ale and take a second round. They consumed vast quantities of meat as they became drunk. Danka slipped back to the tree to summon Isauria, who was sitting in the darkness and cradling her crossbow with a terrified expression. Danka explained what was about to happen as they returned to the camp. She would pick each target and have Isauria accompany her as backup, knowing that she was proficient enough with the crossbow that she could rely on her to fire the second bolt at each enemy.

When they returned, they heard bushes rustling and the distinct sound of a man relieving himself. Danka tapped her servant's arm and aimed her weapon at the silhouette. They fired silently and killed silently, as befitting of Followers, woods-women, and Danubian nymphs. The man fell to the ground without making a sound. Isauria performed with her crossbow as Danka expected, but she was terrified at the turn of events and her mistress's merciless behavior.