'I will. We may need his skill if we meet any of those albino bastards. With just two of us, it would be foolhardy indeed.' Myriam nodded, and watched Jex lope off through the woods.
'Dawn is coming,' she said, and moved to the fire, throwing on a few more logs. Sparks danced. 'Come and sit.'
Nienna moved to Myriam, and as the tall woman sat, stretching her legs out, lifting her head with a groan, Nienna moved behind her, and placed hands on shoulders. 'My grandfather taught me this,' she said. She began to squeeze Myriam's muscles, and felt knots of tension there. Myriam might look cool and relaxed, but she was a tense mess of taut muscle and rigid fear. Nienna closed her eyes, and allowed her hands to follow the flow, to kneed Myriam's neck and shoulders easing away tension. For a while she rubbed, and probed, and stroked, and when she opened her eyes Myriam groaned, a low ululation of almost ecstasy.
'Is it helping?' asked Nienna.
'It is wonderful,' said Myriam, and turned, looking back at the girl. 'It's been too long since I was touched.' Then she laughed, and shook her head, her short black hair laced with sweat. 'Forgive me. Ignore me. I am foolish.'
Nienna saw the tears in Myriam's eyes, but wisely decided not to comment. Instead, she analysed the harsh, gaunt features, the sunken eyes, the thin white scars, the brutality of ravaged flesh. Here was a woman close to death, realised Nienna. And yet, she was a killer. She had poisoned Nienna, and Kell; did she not deserve to die? And Nienna realised. Myriam simply wanted what everybody in the world wanted. Life. A simple basic necessity, the one thing so many seemed to take for granted, the one primal commodity so many pissed against the wall with their pointlessness, their pettiness, their crime and greed and self-pity. Life. So huge, and yet so undervalued at the same time. 'What are you thinking?' whispered Myriam, her eyes locked on Nienna and there were tears in her eyes. She grinned, a young, girlish grin, and tilted her head and for a moment Nienna saw sunshine, saw youth and vitality and beauty and it all faded, crumbled into a pan of disintegration leaving Myriam's savaged face as an encore.
'I am thinking you were once pretty,' said Nienna.
'And I'm thinking she'll soon be dead,' snarled Styx, who'd staggered forward, blood soaking his hair, covering his face, to lean against a tree. In one hand he held a Widowmaker. Behind him, Jex stood, sword drawn, eyes unforgiving.
'So you both turn against me?' said Myriam.
'You've taken it too far with the girl,' said Jex. 'She's just another plaything; just like all the others. And they never bothered you before, woman. They never got to you before. You should have let Styx fuck her, have his fun. We would have dealt with Kell when he arrived. You are wrong about this situation, Myriam. You have changed.'
'What?' she laughed, easily, fluid, eyes never leaving the Widowmaker. 'I have not changed! This is about ownership, or leadership; I've got both of you bastards out of many a tight situation. Without me, you'd still be in jail. Rotting.'
'Aye,' nodded Styx, 'that is correct. But now we're going to kill you. And take the girl. Rape her, and peel her skin from her screaming, twitching limbs. We'll have such fun, such sweet fun; she'll dance a jig a'right. Then kill her, as well, and bury her for the worms to feast. And you know something else, Myriam?'
'Surprise me,' said Myriam, voice low.
'I might just fuck you. Aye. Give you one last farewell going over, before the cancer – or my knife – steals that which you think is so precious. You want to live, Myriam my sweet?' He grinned, showing stubs of teeth through black stained lips which glistened with spit. 'Do you want to live, bitch?'
'Life is precious,' whispered Myriam.
'So is death,' snarled Styx, and lurched forward, fresh blood pumping down his bruised face, free hand flexing, the Widowmaker held high and pointed at Myriam's face. His eye was narrowed and filled with death. Behind Myriam, Nienna cowered in abject fear.
There came a slam, and the top of Styx's head exploded, his entire upper cranium removed in the blink of an eye by a steel-tipped black bolt. A shower of skull and brains rained down. Blood washed down Styx's face, the expression stunned for a moment, then he slammed down on the frozen soil of the woodland carpet.
Myriam lifted her own Widowmaker from between her legs, where it was concealed by her loose cotton shirt. She pointed it at Jex, and the tattooed man had gone pale despite his ink; he dropped his sword, and lifted both hands, palms outwards, showing submission.
'He was right,' said Myriam, her voice a bitter epitaph. 'Death is also precious. All death. Why did you do it, Jex? Why did you turn on me? We had something… special, here.'
'He offered me more,' came the short man's reply. He shrugged, eyes glittering, and smiled. 'But now the odds have turned against him. Put down the 'Maker, Mirry. You know you don't want to do this, we've been through way too much.' He looked at Styx's exploded head, which glistened crimson in a pool of blood. 'Just like I know you didn't want to do that.'
'Take your shit, and leave,' said Myriam.
Jex eyed her for a while, then stooped, lifting his sword and sheathing the weapon. He shrugged again, turned, and drifted through the trees. Myriam released a long, shuddering breath, and sat back down, the Widowmaker loose between trembling fingers.
'He would have killed you,' said Nienna, touching Myriam's shoulder.
'I know that! It's just – we go back. Way back. We went through some hellish times together, child. A world you would never understand.' She turned and stared at Nienna. 'It's not the killing that bothers me. I've killed priests with their baubled knickers round their ankles. No. It's the loss. The betrayal. I don't understand it.' She laughed then, and climbed wearily to her feet, rubbing at her eyes. She stared off through the woods, which grew light with the approach of dawn. 'It shouldn't have ended like this,' she whispered. 'We should have been stronger.'
'Myriam?' Nienna reached out, touching her arm.
Myriam whirled, her face a mask of snarling animal hatred. The Widowmaker was high, pointing at Nienna's face. 'Don't touch me!' she snarled. 'If you touch me again, I'll remove your damn face!' With that, she stalked off through the woods leaving a shocked and chalk-white Nienna staring at the slowly cooling corpse of Styx.
Nienna sat for a long time. She watched Styx stiffen. She had never seen death like this before, close up, casual; she had never before been the spiritual prisoner of a corpse.
I should like this, she thought.
I should be filled with joy.
She pictured Katrina's face. Styx had murdered her; cut short the young woman's blossoming life. This was her revenge! This was her moment! A time for Nienna to internalise emotions and find some kind of closure.
It should have been wonderful! thought Nienna.
However, if this is revenge, why does it feel so wrong?
Eventually, she stood and stretched and moved to the packs the group had carried. Nearby, a horse whinnied. Nienna rummaged around until she found some small, hard oatcakes. She sat back on a log and ate, slowly, with small rabbit bites. As she ate, her gaze dropped, lower and lower, past Styx's shocked and destroyed face, past his narcotic-stained lips, to the Widowmaker lying on the frozen ground with his fingers still curled around the stock. Nienna continued to eat. Would it be hard to use? she thought. How hard could it be?
She stood, finishing the food. Myriam's voice cut through Nienna's thoughts of escape.
'Don't be fooled,' came her softly spoken words. 'It takes weeks of practice. And against somebody like me, with a deadly eye, the steady hand and eye of the hunter, and a killing edge you could never possess?' Myriam stepped forward from the shadow of the trees. 'Well girl, you'd die real quick.'
'I wasn't thinking…'
'Shh.' Myriam held up a single finger. 'Sort through Styx's pack. Save anything you think you can use, dump the rest here. We're riding out.'
'I thought we were waiting for Kell?' said Nienna, her voice small.
'We will. At the Cailleach Fortress.'
'I thought you said it was haunted?'
Myriam grinned, her face skeletal, and gaunt with the cancer. 'We'd better make a pact with the ghosts, child; for if Jex comes back, we'll need a fortress to fend him off. He's a warrior of great skill.'
