'Does she have hair up to her armpits?'
They called her Red Lynx, after the colour of her hair. She preferred the name to Little Cat. It suited her new mood. She no longer wanted to be loved. That belonged to the past. Life in the marshes had taught her to place her trust in other things. Now, more than anything else, she wanted to be feared.
The men made obscene gestures but stayed well clear of her. They had seen her handle her sword and knew what she could do with it. She moved the sword closer. It was her best friend now.
'Did yer sister teach yer how to do it?'
One of the men prodded Fury in the stomach.
'Nah, it would've been his mother. All the Catti are mother fuckers ... didn't yer know that?'
They burst into maniacal laughter, which subsided when they saw Adrina looking at them. She was sitting under a tree, cradling Alvero in her arms while Miralda tended his wounds. Fury's sister was still very sick but one look from her was enough to hold the men in check.
'It wasn't you what we was talking about, Princess.'
They were frightened of Adrina. She had told Alison what would happen if her mother's people caught them. They were murderers and rapists who had fled to the marshes to escape justice. Simple execution was not good enough for them because it would set their soul lights free.
Instead of the sword, they would receive the loop, the sticks and the stones. They would be taken into the marshes when the moon was full and the Holy Mother cast her radiance upon the land. There they would be garrotted with a loop of raw cowhide. It would be slowly tightened about their necks until their eyes bulged in their sockets, showing that their soul lights were trapped. After that their useless bodies would be laid in the mire. Sticks would be placed upon them and stones laid on top. The bodies would sink into the mire where they would not decay.
Alison savoured the thought. Dimly, she heard her mother's voice talking about compassion. She erased it from her mind. Compassion had no relevance now. All that mattered was to get rid of such people and prevent them from returning. That meant you had to stop their soul lights from going back into the void. Miralda had lectured her on it. She glanced at the old woman and the leather bag that hung about her neck.
The bag contained Balduur's mummified head and Miralda always had it with her. She'd told Alison it was their sacred mission to dispose of the head in such a way that the old War Lord would never again return to the mortal plane. Alison hung on Miralda's every word. She felt that her own future and that of the old woman were bound together. Miralda had talked about rebirth and how it could only be achieved by self-sacrifice. Alison knew what that meant. It meant growing wise and becoming a new person.