A Prelude to Penemue

A Prelude to
Penemue

By Sara M. Harvey

Sara M. Harvey made her fiction debut in 2006 with the romantic urban fantasy
A Year and a Day
. In 2008, she turns her attention to horror with
The Convent of the Pure
, the first in a novella trilogy set in a
Steampunk
universe. Sara is also a costumer and works as an assistant costume designer, an instructor in costume and fashion design, as well as a contributor to costume history textbooks. She lives in
Nashville
,
TN
with her husband and fellow author, Matt, and their dogs, Guinevere and
Eowyn
.

This short story is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in these stories are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.

This short story is a prequel to THE CONVENT OF THE PURE.

A PRELUDE TO PENEMUE

Copyright © 2009 by Sara M. Harvey

Cover Art “A Prelude to
Penemue
” by Melissa Gay

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce the book, or portions thereof, in any form.

Published by Apex Publications, LLC

PO Box
24323

Lexington
,
KY
40524

www.apexbookcompany.com

www.saramharvey.com

www.melissagay.com

First Edition: June 2009

Their height in heaven comforts not
,
Their glory
nought
to me;
’T was best imperfect, as it was;
I’m finite, I can’t see.
The house of supposition
,
The glimmering frontier
That skirts the acres of perhaps,
To me shows insecure.
The wealth I had contented me;
If ’t was a meaner size,
Then I had counted it until
It pleased my narrow eyes
Better than larger values,
However true their show;
This timid life of evidence
Keeps pleading, “I don’t know.”
“Their Height in Heaven Comforts Not,”

Emily Dickinson

T
he air reeked of burnt flesh and
sulphur
. A cluster of
Grigori
crouched beside the manor’s stone wall, taking a moment to breathe. The stones were still warm, and Mrs. Hester Sloane, Lady
Regalii
, could still smell sweet wine and roast boar from the dinner party so rudely disrupted. She pulled the gilt hairpins from her summer blonde hair and quickly braided it to keep it out of way.

“My love—” her husband’s shadow fell across her shoulder.

“
Marius,
now is not the time. I have a duty. Please, stay with the others.”

“The other
humans
.”

Hester turned, rising to her feet. “Yes.
The other humans.
This is no place for you, husband dear. I fear for your safety and that of our sweet
Charlotte
. Find her and Mary in the nursery and get home. You will be safer there than here.” A shudder passed through the ground. “Go, while you are still able.”

“Hester, you are not a fighter. Come with me!”

“All of us are fighters, whether we are born to be warriors or not. I have a duty, my heart. Please understand. We of the Order of the
Grigori
are bound to protect the humans in our charge, even the
Regalii
. Just please, take our daughter and our servants home, I will follow when I can.” She kissed him softly on the lips and turned away, savoring the familiar brush of his moustache against her flesh.

“I love you,” he called.

Hester caught up with her fellows as they pressed back into the battle. Cadmus
Gyony
, a tall and imposing figure, led the formation. He was one of the few warriors who had been asked to the noble banquet.
Regalii
,
Vedma
, and
Aldias
, the sects powerful in the political structure of the Order, were not bred for the battlefield, and it made them an easy target.

“
Spellcasters
,” Cadmus bellowed, “fall back. Be prepared on my mark. Healers, behind the casters—you will have a dedicated guard. Anna, protect the healers.”

Anna wore a servant’s livery but was quickly yanking off her lacy cap and assembling a staff from several lengths of tempered wood bound in brass fittings she had pulled from the pockets of her long coat.
“Aye, sir.”
She took her position among them, Hester and the two
Vedma
.

There were but four other
Gyony
taking up places at the fore, facing down the creature that hunched in the darkness. The broken bodies of
stablehands
and horses lay among the shattered carriages. An
Insinori
youth dashed out and laid down a tripod emblazoned with the intricate sigil of the engineer’s sect. She dropped the heavy knapsack she carried and made quick work of building the largest field cannon Hester had ever seen,
then
began intently loading it. Purple-black bolts of light hailed down around her.

“Hurry up with that, forger!”

“Get me some cover,” she growled. A lanky young man also dressed in livery came up beside her, drawing his longbow and sending a volley of arrows into the dark. The creature howled with displeasure.

It turned toward the torchlit square and Hester saw it for the first time. The hulking, lumbering demon towered over them all. It sat up on two well-muscled haunches and shifted its massive weight toward them. The wide mouth was a tooth-filled slash that occupied the whole of what might have been a face. One large, faceted eye bulged out at them as the beast roared with dank,
sulphurous
breath.

Hester quailed.

“Step up, little noble caster. Do you heal or can you use your magic for offense?”

She blinked up at an imposing woman who stood above her, silver streaking her thick black hair. “Pardon me,
madame
?”

“I will ask again, and I will use small words. Can you fight?
Yes or no?”

“I…I have never...”

She sighed.
“Liability, then.
Learn to do something useful, or keep your pretty face out of the way, got that, princess? I have no time for spoiled
Regalii
brats.” She turned on her booted heel and whispered to a handful of others. They cast suspicious glances back, and one even snickered.

“Pay them no mind; those
Aldias
are trouble.” Anna
Gyony
leaned on her quarterstaff. “Stay with the
Vedma
healers, they will show you how it’s done.” She winked. “But look sharp
now,
we are in for some trouble. That beastie, he’s not alone.”

From across the wide courtyard, a steady procession of torches approached them. Hester squinted into the darkness.

“Are those…
people
? What are we supposed to do, then? We cannot lay a finger on them!”

“No worries, my dear princess. They have sold their souls and we cannot worry about that particular oath when it comes to them.”

The field cannon cracked the darkness with a plume of smoke, and the demonic giant flinched, nearly toppling backward. It regained its balance by wrapping its four spindly long-fingered arms around the well in the center of the paving stones, breaking the decorative tile roof off as it righted itself. It belched forth a hazy miasma from its mouth, shaking its
lumberous
head from side to side, the
sepentile
tongue lolling like a dog’s.

The
Aldias
spellcasters
were busy picking off the groundlings. They were easily severed body from soul and dropped to the ground, motionless and dead. It was a quick and bloodless killing, but it turned Hester’s stomach nonetheless.

A ragged arrow buried itself between two cobblestones, and Anna stepped in front of Hester. “Those are poisoned,” she warned, swinging her staff like a club and battering the arrow to pieces. “Do not touch them.
At all.”
She kicked the shards into a neat pile some feet away and resumed her position.

A few
Gyony
front-liners and the little
Insinori
were making their way back to their positions. The
Vedma
descended upon them, laying their hands on the wounds. The
Insinori
girl all but fell into Hester’s lap. Her hands were blistered and raw, and she bled from a deep shoulder wound. Hester put her arms around the girl; the
Insinori
was hardly more than a child, well short of her age of majority.

“What do I do?” said Hester.

“Whatever you can.
I will try to get you some help.” Anna made a graceful leap across a feverish
Gyony
and tapped one of the
Vedma
on the shoulder. The dark-skinned woman rose and glanced toward Hester. She scowled and shook her head.

“Please,” Hester shouted, “I think she’s dying.”

“Go back inside with the other royals, girl. There is no place for you here. You will do more harm than good!”

The
Insinori
shuddered, and Hester put her hands on the girl as she saw the others doing. “I have no idea what I am doing, but I am going to try my best to help you.”

The girl blinked up at her with violet eyes narrowed in pain. “I lost my cover,” she hissed. “He died protecting me. The
cannon’s
been hit. I can fix it, but—” she coughed wetly, “I need to get back out there. I am the only one who can.
Got me one last charge.
I was packing it full of
Blessedwood
splinters when I went down. If we take down the beastie, we all go home. If not...” Her voice died in a convulsion of coughing and she spat up a mouthful of blood.

Hester gripped her hands. “Stay with me, sweet girl. Just stay with me.” Behind them, she heard her husband shouting.

“Marius, go home!” she called back to him.

“Everything is blocked. I came to see how I could help.”

“By staying out of the way!”
She turned her attention back to the young girl in her lap.

Hester closed her eyes and blotted out all sound save for the labored breathing of the engineer. In her mind’s eye, she could see the broken ribs digging into the girl’s lungs. She could feel the sting of blisters forming across not only her hands but up both forearms as well. Carefully, she lifted the injuries away one by one until the girl seemed whole. The
Insinori
girl’s eyes flashed open, focused and alert. She hopped up and dashed back into the fray, leaving Hester reeling.

“I thought you said you had never healed before,” Anna said, almost playfully.

Hester shrugged.

“Well done.”

She smiled, but the weight of the engineer’s injuries plagued her. She mentally shifted them from hand to hand, but she did not know what to do with them. She could not put them
down,
she could not throw them aside. So, she swallowed them.

For a moment, it seemed like the right thing to have done. The report of the cannon echoed through her still-quiet mental space, followed by the roar of the beast.

She smiled and made to stand, but pain wrapped around her and her knees gave way. Each breath came with a rending of her lungs; blood began to bubble up into her throat. She staggered, and her husband elbowed his way to her, catching her in his arms.

“
Charlotte
,” she whispered, “where is she?”