Banshee

Leaf hunts down Mordric's assassins.

9.

Banshee

 

Though she was covered in mud and blood, Leaf went immediately back to the monastery, thinking of the leader of the monks as she moved through the In-Between spaces.

She materialized in a dining room, where six of the monks sat around the baby Prince that she had left with them only an hour before.  

Her appearance made all of them scream in horror, but she held up her hands to calm them.

“Peace, I am not a ghost, nor am I dead.” She told them, holding her tattered sleeve to her broken nose to stop the flow of blood.

“Lady, what happened to you?”  The head monk asked, slowly approaching her.

“I had to perform a dangerous ruse to lead Mordric and his men away from the baby.    Listen to what I have to say to you, for time is important.”   She glanced at the leader of the monks, “Tell me, what is your name?”

“Michael.”  He quickly responded, possessing no fear of sharing his name.   She smiled, but it appeared rather gruesome in her beat-up condition.

“Michael, I was known to Queen Finola as Leaf.    I have made Mordric believe that I have died… I hope.     But he may not believe my tale that I took his baby brother back to the land of Faerie with me.     So I want you to get him away from here for a few weeks - find a wet nurse somewhere in a different village.    I believe the baby will be safe after that.”

Michael nodded, as if he had already made plans in that direction, “We know of a new mother - a sister of one of our monks-who will nurse the baby.     We will take him to her tonight when it is dark and the rain stops.   She lives in a village perhaps ten miles from here.    We will bring him back after a time and raise him here as we promised you.”

“Good.   You will not see me for a while, but you will hear of my acts.”

The monk looked alarmed, “What are you going to do, Lady Leaf?”

“I am going to kill, one by one, all the men who murdered King Cedric and Queen Finola.    I will leave Mordric for his brother to kill.”

The monk shrank back in disgust and fear, “Lady, vengeance is wrong.”

“Murder is wrong, Michael, and those who murdered today shall meet their ends.    Tonight I shall be an angel of death to them, but only to those who have killed.”

“Lady Leaf, do not put blood on your hands.”   Michael begged as she began to fade away again.

“I am covered in blood already, Monk.   Pray for me, for I feel I am justified in this.    Above all, hide the baby; I will visit again, but it may be a long time, even years.   Do not fear; I will never be far.”

Her voice trailed off as she disappeared from the monastery, leaving the monks quite troubled and afraid.

 

***

Llaiannileaf dreaded the task before her.    All life was precious to the Sidhe, but those who took lives for selfishness or greed had forfeited their right to live.     This, her father had told her, and she kept repeating his words to her as she set about on her gruesome task.

She visualized the face of one of the five murderers and she was pulled to his location in the world.    He was on horseback, riding in the cold rain of the dreary afternoon, at the head of other horsemen.     She could see ahead the ‘Banshee Hill’ as they called it, and the little monastery where Finola’s baby was still being hidden.

They drew their swords as they rode past the building and began winding up the wooded trail to the summit.

Mordric had sent them in search of her.    Leaf knew this at once, and so she thought of herself on the back of the murderer’s horse, seated behind him.    She faded slowly into form, but had her hands around his neck before he ever felt it.    As his horse suddenly became aware of her slight weight, she had already summoned up the life-robbing power.

The man flinched and screamed as the blue flame danced around his form.     The energy held him on top of his horse, but the horse was terrified and reared up in desperation.

Leaf allowed herself to slide off, already fading back into the In-Between space.      His companions rushed to his aid as he fell onto the ground, a dried-up husk of a man.    Smoke escaped from his mouth and eye-sockets.    For a moment, the horsemen stared at his corpse, then leaped on their horses and raced in a panic from the scene, going back to their master in the gloom.

 

Sickened at what she had done, Llaiannileaf faded out completely, but thought of another of the five killers.     She appeared, not long after she’d killed the first man, in a mess hall, where seven or eight guards ate dinner after the end of their guard duty.    The rain continued to fall, and Leaf thought she could faintly make out the thundering hooves of the horsemen returning with the news of her attack.

But they did not hear it yet and sat in the dim, smoky light, eating like pigs.     The second murderer sat at the end of a table, with no-one near him, spilling as much of his ale or beer as he poured into his drunken mouth.    She wasted no time, but appeared behind him as he sat at the table, her hands touching his shoulders.

Several of his fellow guards screamed in alarm, but by the time they had leaped to their feet to come to his aid, he was sprawled face down in his plate of slop, his limbs jerking and twitching as the magic pulled the life out of him.

One of the men in the room threw his dinner knife at her, but the blade went through her ghostly form and stuck into a wooden roof support.    She glared at the knife-thrower, knowing as she disappeared from view that her blood covered face would be an image he would never forget.

 

Grimly, Llaiannileaf continued, envisioning the third man involved in the killings.     To her surprise, she was transported to a small chapel in the palace.    Inside the empty room at an altar, knelt the murderer, his head bowed in prayer.   He kept looking over his shoulders to the entrance of the chapel.   He had apparently used a long piece of wood to bar the double doors from the inside.    Sweat covered his head and hands as he knelt, and he rocked back and forth on his knees, silently mouthing a fearful prayer.   She wondered if this was his first time in the chapel.    Leaf sensed that he had not been in any religious building at all.

 

Was he repentant or just terrified of her legend?    Perhaps he was scared of her reputation and had fled here in desperation.  She saw no piety in seeking God now and certainly he wouldn’t have come here if he was not scared of dying.     He had probably heard of the other two executions and knew he would be next.     He thought the holiness of the chapel would protect him from her retribution.  

 

Leaf was reluctant to defile the sanctity of the place, but this man had helped kill the King and Queen.     She materialized behind him as he knelt in the empty chapel and the rain battered the wood shingles of the roof.    He did not see her or sense her in the darkness of the rainy day.   

“Prayer does not erase your guilt.”   She spoke to him as she placed her hands on either side of his head.    Blue flame covered the man and he screamed as it consumed him.     She had shifted out of the chapel before anyone that heard his scream could smash into the sanctuary.

 

Llaiannileaf forced her mind to see the face of the fourth murderer.    She found him sprawled out in the palace barracks, a spilt wine bottle beside him.    The barracks had been alarmed by the scream coming from the chapel, so when she materialized beside him, covered in mud and clotted blood, the men in the room fled in a blind panic.

She was glad of this, and to reinforce their terror, she bellowed out a piercing scream that reverberated off the walls.   

For a few moments she was left in the room with the drunken man.    She knew she had only a brief moment before the guards gained courage from their superior numbers and came rushing back to confront her.

Without any emotion she touched the man on the leg and let the blue flames consume him.   He never stirred as his body shriveled.

 

Leaf again faded into the In-Between space and paused for a few moments as she attempted to clear her head of the four lives she had just taken.

Was she a murderer as they were?    They had killed innocent people and she was punishing them.   A life for the lives they had taken.    Death for betraying their King.   Death for causing the death of their pregnant Queen, seeking to kill the baby, as well as taking the lives of three of the midwives. 

This is just, she told herself, picturing the face of the last of the murderers, who had led the assault.

Her momentary pause had amounted to several hours in the flow of time in the world, so the panic her appearances had caused had faded.   It was now early night and she found herself looking at the last murderer as he sat alert in his quarters.    Apparently he was a captain of the guard or held some sort of position that allowed him to have a private room of his own.

He sat with his back against the stone wall, in a chair facing the door, with a sword and dagger in his hands.    He wore armor and the room was brightly lit from a large candelabrum that sat on the table in the middle of the room.

Leaf knew it had to be some sort of trap, so she moved around in the In-Between space, unseen by the murderer.    The room was empty except for the killer, but she noticed the heavy wooden door was slightly ajar and the thick wood crosspiece had been removed and was resting against the wall.    

Curious, Llaiannileaf moved through the wall into the hallway outside and found a dozen guards standing silently, but alertly, with swords drawn, waiting to rush into the room at a moment’s notice.

Leaf knew she probably could still kill the man before they rushed in to assist him, but she did not want to risk injury.    She needed a diversion.

Thinking of Mordric, she found herself in the King’s chambers.   He sat at a feasting table with twenty men all around him, all of them armed.    None of the men spoke above a whisper, yet all seemed very uneasy.   Leaf walked through the wall into the adjoining, but empty, throne room.    Lightning briefly flashed through the arrow slit windows, revealing shields and swords hung on the wall.  

Llaiannileaf quietly pulled down a heavy wooden shield, shod with iron, as well as the pair of crossed swords hanging with it.

Again she thought of Mordric and once more she was in his grand chamber.    Looking above her, she could see the thick beams of rafters, so she thought of herself sitting on the beam that was about 20 feet above Mordric and his men.     Immediately she materialized on the beam, yet none below her noticed anything.    Taking the shield and one of the two swords, she positioned it directly above the head of the evil prince and dropped them, while fading back into the In-Between space to watch the effect.

The shield hit Mordric squarely on the top of his head, while the sword crashed onto the table.    The Prince was knocked out of his chair by the impact, though not seriously injured.    But the suddenness of it all sent the guards leaping to their feet, shouting in alarm.     Mordric was stunned and jumped up with a wild panicked expression on his face.    Yet she was unseen.  

The palace was now alive with action, so she again thought of the last murderer and at once was in his chamber.    The commotion in another part of the palace had caused him to jump up in alarm, but he still stood warily by the wall, nervously gripping his weapons.   

Yet she had a plan now, so Leaf positioned herself across the room from the man, in front of the slightly ajar door.    As soon as she materialized, she pushed the door shut and slid the second sword that she had taken from the throne room into the brackets for the door’s cross member.    The hilt of the sword locked it in place, sealing the room off from the guards in the hall.

The leader of the murderers shouted in alarm, rushing toward her with weapons  ready.    But before he had crossed the room, she had vanished, only to reappear next to the table.   With a swipe of her hand, she knocked over the candelabrum.    It fell to the floor with a crash, dousing all light in the room.

The murderer cried out, retreating backwards in the dark until his back was against the stone wall, next to his bed.    Only an occasional flash of lightning gave him a glance of his surroundings.

Llaiannileaf, however, had no trouble seeing in the pitch blackness.    With her keen Sidhe eyesight, she moved slowly toward him, purposely moving her feet so he would be able to track the approach of her footsteps.

She could see him tense up, ready to lash out in the dark as soon as she was within range of his sword.

But she stopped before she got that close and simply faded out again, moving to his right in the In-Between space.    The man was like a tight bow-string standing, wide-eyed, trying to see anything in the dark room.

Outside, his men pounded and hammered at the door, but the sword that she had used to bolt the door held fast.

She hoped to instill fear of her this night, so in the dark she scooped up a blanket from the man’s bed, dematerialized with it, only to reform to his left.    He sensed she was near, but had no idea where she was.    She could see him almost as clearly as if the room were brightly lit.    She tossed the blanket over his head at the same time she let out the loudest, ear-piercing wail she could muster.  

The murderers’ captain screamed as the ghost-like blanket enveloped his head.    Hysterically he slashed at it with sword and dagger, but in the dark he could not be sure what it was and so he got his legs tangled up with it and fell.

He swung wildly from his prone position, but Leaf was not done haunting him yet.    She shifted out and then back next to the table in the center of the room.    A couple of stools had been placed on either side of the table and Leaf grabbed one, and then walked across the room toward the terrified man.     When she was near enough to him, she simply tossed the stool at him.

It hit him in the shoulder, causing him to scream like a woman, and scurry backwards on hands and knees.   

She shifted out and then reformed directly behind him as he was still crawling backwards.     She positioned herself so she could grab each shoulder, and then she reached out and grabbed him, screaming as loudly as she could, near his ear.

The blue fire only flickered for a moment before he broke free of her grasp, bolting forward in a half-tumble, half-crawl movement until he crashed head-first into the leg of the table.

He still clutched his sword, but the blue flame had wasted his other arm and it hung limp and shriveled.   Like a stampeding animal, he desperately tried to move past the barrier of the table leg, but only managed to knock the table over, directly in his path of escape.

The man wailed and howled like a wildman, chopping at the table with his sword as if it were a brier patch.

 

It was time to end it.    She came behind him and slapped him on each side of the head with her hands, while again giving her moaning scream.    The blue fire danced around his head.   He managed to deliver a wicked slash to the top of her leg before the wasting of the arcane fire consumed him.     His shriveled husk curled up onto the floor moments before his men finally managed to break down the door and charge inside.

They only caught a nightmare glimpse of a dirty, bloody woman screaming terribly over his corpse as she faded away like a ghost at dawn.

Reviews

[Elina]

"The palace now was alive with action..." You'll want to switch "now" and "was."
"...rushing forward toward her with weapons at ready." This should either be "...rushing forward, with weapons ready." or "...rushing toward her, with weapons ready."
"The man was like a tight bow-string as he stood there frozen, wide-eyed, as he tried to see anything in the dark room." This is a bit of a run-on and odd-sounding. It could use a little re-working.

[Eddie Davis]

Thanks, Elina

[Daisie Vergara (Dhaye)]

Makes me remember of a movie about a vigilante.
Every criminal has to be punished....

[Eddie Davis]

Yes, and sometimes it is the vigilante who suffers the most.