37/100 The blacksmith's wife [41]

Who?’  

‘Who is she?’ 

‘Who has done this?’  

‘Who will tell her blacksmith man?’

Owl, slow howling, insufficient strength to say his name.  

Me?   Me.  

He?

Bursts in, bruised, raven-shraak, scattering the what-who-whooed concern around me.  

‘One dead?  Two?’    

Anguished acceptance, seeing blood-smeared thighs akimbo, fleshy shreds, grey-lilac limbs drowned in a crimson pool.

‘Gabriel’ barely-breathed.   

‘She lives!’

Kneels, lifts my hips to slow the scarlet trickle, wraps me to his heart, calloused hand caressing cold-sweat cheek.

Eyes question mine, pledge overdue revenge, frantic for my survival.

Too late. 

Too much blood.

Chorus:  ‘She’ll surely not survive such loss!’

No.

 


This is part 41 of 'The blacksmith's wife'.   The whole is a prompt-led serial  which began on the Friday Prediction, in March  and continued, one hundred words at a time, for forty-one episodes.   One of my aims in this 100 days project is to complete the illustrations for each episode and publish the tale in book form.    The  story can be read in its entirety here.