28. The Price of Hospitality (5)

Nyeander slowly descended the stairs. Although her footsteps made as much sound as that of a tiny ant’s, she heard each boom like bellowing bells. The torchlight wavered. The sobbing downstairs grew louder. Finally, she set foot on the last step and peeked into the basement room.

Nyeander’s heart skipped a beat. Her eyes widened, though her vision remained blurry from shock. The sight made her nauseous, and the blood draining from her face nearly made her pass out.

Cells, much like those in the bandit camp, holding severely disfigured people chained to the walls, limbs and body parts missing from the young and old bound naked against the cold, wet walls. Amongst them were men with bellies cut open and intestines poured on the ground, an old barbarian with all his limbs severed, his body drowning on the floor like a meat-filled pillow, and one young adventurer, barely old enough to leave his village, disfigured in the vilest, sinister fashion imaginable.

On the far side of the basement was a workbench littered with various knives and tools sufficient for working meat. Gren’s mother stood in front of it, sharpening one knife with another. The tools and her clothes were stained by blood, yet she bore an innocent smile, playfully humming an unfamiliar tune.

Gren walked by her, reaching into her pocket to grab something. “Here,” she said and handed her mother a small black stone. “Daddy found this in the Neko’s travel bag. He said this is meant for sharpening tools.”

Gren’s mother was slightly surprised. Accepting the stone, she tried it on her knife, then stumbled back when a small sparkle escaped the stone. She froze down, clenching her teeth as if waiting for something bad to happen. Nothing. Gren tried to hide her chuckle, but her mother took notice and gently patted her head.

“Thank you,” she said before returning to her workbench. However, Gren did not leave her side.

“Is he an assassin?” she asked, stopping her mother. “That Neko needed to sharpen something. I think they were his knives! Assassins need sharp knives to hurt people.”

Her mother watched her quietly. She waited patiently for Gren to finish.

“So… if he is an assassin who hurts people, it means he is a bad person. Mother, bad people don’t deserve others’ remorse!” She yelled her last words, as if desperate to stop somebody, to win an argument. Yet her mother seemed the least bit phased, let alone feeling remorse. With a gentle smile, she patted her daughter’s head and returned to sharpening her knives.

“That’s right, sweetheart.”

With her mother’s confirmation, Gren did not need to hear another word. Reaching into her pocket again, she pulled out her rusty cleaver, and with the grace of a midnight ghost, she hovered over to another cell.

Nyeander could not look away. She breathed as quietly as it was humanly possible and lay low. Her eyes followed Gren as she approached a cell until now out of her sight, and when she saw who was within, Nyeander had to hold back her scream.

His hands chained to the wall; Sebastian sat naked with his back against the wall. He was exhausted, or rather light-headed. Fresh blood leaked out the side of his head.

As Gren’s footsteps drew closer, he looked up, and seeing the childlike smile on Gren’s face, he began to wail, fighting to escape his chains, all to no avail.

“Don’t come any closer!” He begged frantically. “Please... please!”

“You are a bad person. Why should I listen to you?”

“Please! I don’t know what this is about, but please, let me go! Do you want money? I can give you everything I’ve got!”

“Where did you get your money from? Did you steal it? The Neko have a reputation for it.”

“No, please! I’m a battle dancer! My money comes from missions I’ve done! It’s not blood money!”

“Blood money?” Gren raised her chin. “How do you know what blood money means? Because, I think, you cannot possibly be aware of an expression, unless you have lived through a memory deserving such an emotional response that you would remember. You could not possibly possess knowledge of this lesser-known criminal expression unless you have experienced a high emotional response by it. Shame? Guilt? Which one have you felt to warrant a piece of your vocabulary?”

Sebastian clenched his teeth and groaned by the throbbing pain in his head. “Please...” Tears broke forth from his eyes. “Please, just let me go!”

Gren nodded with satisfaction.

“Thank you for confirming my suspicion,” she said, before grabbing a needle and thread from the workbench and crouching down in front of Sebastian.

Nyeander could not see what happened next, for Gren blocked her view of the events. However, she did suffer the ear-piercing cries of Sebastian and the disturbing fleshy sounds of Gren’s actions.

She hid in the safety of a shadow. Panting. She found herself being out of breath, despite doing nothing but observing from afar.

Sebastian’s cries echoed. Nyeander covered her ears with her hands, but the Neko’s screaming was too loud.

“I have to do something about this,” she thought. Turning to ascend the stairs, she found something dire; the secret door connecting the basement to the kitchen was now locked, trapping her underground.

Before she could have even questioned how that happened, Sebastian’s final muffled cry shook her awake from her thoughts.

“Finally,” said Gren with the same childlike smile, “We can begin.”

Stepping aside, Sebastian’s sown together mouth was revealed. No matter how hard he screamed, barely any sound came out of his orifice.

Gren walked back to the workbench, her mother still working on meat. She grabbed an axe bent against the table, and as soon as she did, Sebastian’s struggle stopped. His eyes widened in pure terror, and when Gren faced him again and slowly began to approach him, his struggle turned even wilder.

Like a lamb in the slaughterhouse, slowly being approached by the butcher, Sebastian fought violently; but it was all pointless. Gren grabbed his leg as he kicked, quickly locked it under her arm, and with the axe in the other, she slashed off half of Sebastian’s feet.

Screaming even louder, Sebastian stumbled back against the wall, and fell back to the ground, blood spraying from his leg. Gren grabbed the severed lower leg and tossed it over to her mom.

Approaching Sebastian again, she crouched down and put a hand on his wound. A green aura engulfed the exposed meat, a healing mist. The rusty cleaver in Gren’s hand gained light with the same colour. Suddenly, where once was an exposed wound, bones and meat began to grow, and in a matter of few seconds, Sebastian’s leg was completely healed back to normal.

He too has regained his full consciousness from this process.

Watching his regrown leg in disbelief, Sebastian’s words were muffled by his sown-together lips. “What... Why did you heal me? What are you doing?!”

Gren chuckled. “Oh, silly! What do you think I’m doing? I’m being mindful of my resources. You can only harvest so much meat from an animal. Unlike the fruit of trees, meat does not regrow. I find that rather silly. Maybe that is why my magic is realized in healing others. I can make lost limbs regrow, so they can be harvested again. Much like apples or oranges. I’m just being mindful.”

Leaving no time for Sebastian to respond, she raised her axe again, and with much the same decisive strike, cut off his leg again. The same violent crying echoed. A hellish circle of repeating misery.

Nyeander could not bear it any longer. She looked around for any makeshift weapons and saw an opportunity. Be it, one that required all her bravery and luck.

Gren’s mother had her back turned on her. There were a pair of scissors tucked under her skirt. If she could sneak up on her and snatch the scissors, she could easily stab Gren’s mother in the back, then take a better weapon to fight Gren.

The question remained, can she do it?

Collecting her thoughts, she took a deep breath. Quiet as a cat, she stepped out of the shadow and made her way toward Gren’s mother.

Her footsteps were uncanny. A stroke of wind on the other side of the mountain would have made more sound than her delicate steps.

Yet, the threads of fate connecting the world had different plans for her. For her hand was not connected to those scissors, but rather one of the men, belly gutted, hanging by chains from the wall.

As that barely conscious man looked up and saw Nyeander’s outline, he saw a saviour in her. His suffering’s end finally so close, he leaned forward and let out an unearthly cry.

Like a bear’s roar. Nyeander froze up as the two women turned around and looked directly into her eye.

Acting by instinct, Nyeander broke forth into a charge to try and snatch the scissors, but Gren’s mother swiftly blocked her attempt with a forceful kick in the face. Nyeander flew into the air, then landed a few feet apart. Immediately, she tried to get up, but was met by the other side of a crossbow in her face.

Gren’s mother, holding the loaded crossbow, smiled like her child. Although, Nyeander was finally seeing something more, something evil behind those eyes. They were not innocent, but hungry.

“What do we have here?” Gren’s mother chuckled.