First part in a series.
(Teresa/Clare, Miria/Galatea, Irene/Flora, Helen/Deneve and hints at a het pairing)
Read Paths of Silver pt1
Disclaimer: Claymore belongs to Yagi Norihiro as far as I know, and certainly not this little dragon.
As I have never read the manga this is based solely on the anime and the odd spoilery thing I picked up off Wikipedia, but as I change around the official story to suit mine anyway, not to mention completely make things up, hopefully it won’t matter too much.
This has hints of several pairings, though the sequels focus more on them. It also contains some mild gore, and a mention of a potential het coupling.
The order in which to read these stories:
1. Paths of Silver
2. Chasing the Lightning
3. The Healing Touch
4. Awakened Love
5. Apple-Shaped Heart
Paths of Silver pt 1
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by Carola “Ryûchan” Eriksson
It began with a pair of trembling young arms and one perfectly severed head.
The Organization, intrigued by the possibilities of the experiment unwittingly offered them by the grieving child, acted of course not out of any kindness on their parts, and so although the flesh and blood of Teresa of the Faint Smile was indeed painfully inserted within the writhing body of the child, it was not the offered head. Oh no, the Organization was not about to sacrifice one experiment for another, especially not while a pair of equally neatly severed hands would do just fine as a substitute.
The rest of Teresa’s body was quickly retrieved, along with the remains of Sophia and Noel. That all that remained of Irene of the Flash Blade was one solitary arm was a surprise, and initially there was a theory offered that the Awakened Priscilla had returned and for some reason they could not grasp taken the body of her mentor with her. The theory was quickly repudiated once it became clear that Irene’s sword was no longer on the site either, clearly the previous number two had managed to survive the slaughter somehow. Operatives were dispatched to uncover the now one-armed woman’s whereabouts, but nothing was ever discovered. Irene did not return to the Organization.
Although pleased at the prospect of the experiment now referred to simply as ‘Clare’, the Organization was not about to squander the body of such a monstrous potential as Teresa’s on an undertaking with such unsure results. Especially since their original plans had been worked on for years already, merely waiting for a battle such as this one to give them several high-ranking corpses to enact it upon. The one known as Teresa would indeed be ideal.
And so the bodily remains of Teresa of the Faint Smile was gathered together, sans her now missing hands, and through mystical surgery very similar to that used to fuse yoma parts together with young girls training to become warriors in the first place, her flesh was fused back together. The same was done, and successfully so, with the bodily remains of Sophia and Noel, yet when the next step in the experiment was implemented, the long, slow and difficult process by which they meant to restore life into the waiting forms, the bodies of the Organization’s previous number four and five proved to be too weak to undergo the process. Acknowledged as failures, Sophia and Noel’s bodies were disposed of.
Teresa however was deemed a success.
Life had indeed been returned to the pale figure, the heart was once again beating and the still form breathed evenly as if in sleep. No other movement was made for many years to come still, but that too was within the expectations of the Organization. The body’s regenerative powers were stimulated, and slowly new hands grew out to replace the ones lost, yet Teresa did not otherwise respond to outside stimulus. She did not wake.
While waiting to discover that one method that would manage to awaken the body they had so painstakingly brought back, the Organization took the opportunity to continue old breeding experiments on the alive yet inert form. Attempts to breed the half-breed warriors common people referred to as ‘Claymores’ was something the Organization returned to from time to time, arguing that second generation warriors could very well be what they were after; beings of great power yet completely under their control. It was the true reason why the Organization had made sure that no warrior was allowed to defend herself against rape, should any man out there be so desperate as to mate with the tortured and hideous flesh of a half-breed, rather than just a perverse desire to torment their creations. Few such violations were ever carried out however, and none of those few that were came to create any offspring. Not even early experiments to breed the women to the male warriors of the Organization’s making had ever manage the feat of bearing offspring, although it was theorized that as Awakened beings, the males and females might still be able to breed naturally.
Long years of experimenting with Teresa’s inert body taught the Organization that the warriors’ bodies were simply incapable of impregnation, no matter how it came about. They did discover however that artificially breeding the females to one another was successful in creating viable embryos, it was just the bodies that could not and would not accept pregnancy. Insidiously the experiments continued, while the body of Teresa of the Faint Smile slumbered on.
Many years passed, and the experiment named ‘Clare’ came to fruition, for good and bad in the Organization’s eyes. The young woman became a warrior working for them true enough, but the weakest of all the active operatives at that. The disappointment in the girl was great, and she was written off as a failure, slated to be exterminated at earliest convenience, but before her execution could be set in motion something unexpected happened. Clare, weakest of all operatives, pushed past her limits and began Awakening... yet each time she controlled it and turned back, each time more powerful than before.
At about the same time Teresa opened her eyes.
Although awake at long last, Teresa appeared to be a blank slate. She had speech and understood what she was told, and even her combat abilities seemed largely intact, but it was obvious that her memories were gone. In place of the personality and the memories of the one called Teresa of the Faint Smile, the Organization now had what amounted to not much more than a docile and blindly obedient automaton, and they could not be more pleased.
As Clare was sent on missions of increasing impossibility with the intention of either causing her to Awaken fully or to end her life, Teresa was being trained to return to field duty. Teresa would never be a regular operative again, and that was fine with the Organization, they wanted her for special assignments anyway. A special handler was assigned to her and her alone, and finally Teresa would be let out into the world on a small and brief first assignment. It was a simple one.
After all those years of staying out of sight and, frankly, out of mind for the Organization, Irene of the Flash Blade suddenly appeared again. Rafaela was dispatched to execute the former number two, and the obedient one-eyed warrior did just that. A deep slash to the chest and Irene’s lifeless body tumbled from a high cliff and into the churning river far below.
It was not enough. Irene had escaped an equally certain death once before, and the Organization craved to have her body in their custody. Retrieving it, either already dead or if alive then just barely at that, was to be Teresa’s first assignment.
The Organization underestimated Irene, and more importantly underestimated the impact that training Clare had upon the reclusive warrior. Armed with the knowledge that unlike what they had been led to believe during her time as an operative for the Organization it was indeed possible to turn back from Awakening, Irene took Rafaela’s killing slash without hesitation, and let her body fall into the river. With the iron will that was her trademark Irene held out until the very last moment, allowing the river to carry her as far away from Rafaela’s yoki-sensing abilities as possible, before she forced her own Awakening. The torturous process not only healed the slash that otherwise would have ended her life but also regenerated Irene’s missing limbs before that iron will managed to beat back the transformation.
Successful but terribly weak by the ordeal Irene fell unconscious, and her body continued to drift with the river for a long while before she was washed ashore. It was there that Teresa and her handler found her, alive and intact but still unconscious.
Following her handler’s orders Teresa carried Irene up a hill to lay her down where he could examine her. Irene began to stir, and Teresa was ordered to take her head off before she could fully wake. A pair of hands faster than eyes could follow caught the sword mid-swing and wrested it out of Teresa’s grip, grabbing onto her assailant and throwing them both into a tumble.
It took but a moment before the wrestling women came to an abrupt halt, and a strangled cry tore from Irene’s lips as she finally recognized the blank face of her opponent. Upon hearing her name spoken by Irene a change came over Teresa, the blank expression resettled into confusion, and a spark of recognition was lit in her eyes. Finally she whispered Irene’s name, sounding disoriented as if she had just woken up from a long sleep.
The handler screamed orders for Teresa from nearby, missing the whispered name but still realizing the danger in having Teresa interact with her old comrade while Irene was both alive and awake, but Teresa showed no sign of hearing him. She merely continued to stare at Irene.
Irene shook off her stupor just as the handler, having realized that Teresa was lost to them, made to disappear into the woods with the intention of reporting what had happened to the Organization. A swift lunge for Teresa’s blade and one slash of the blade technique for which she was so famous, Irene ended both his flight and his life.
For a long moment the master of the Flash Blade could do nothing but stare wordlessly at the familiar face before her. Eventually, haltingly, Irene began to ask Teresa questions about how, why and when, but from Teresa’s struggle to answer it quickly became apparent that she might just not know the answers, and even if she did whatever had been done to her was so crippling that she needed time just to become herself again.
Knowing that they had precious little time before the Organization would start to send operatives after them, most likely Rafaela again, Irene took Teresa with her back to her little cottage to retrieve her own sword and whatever else they could carry. Then she took the still strangely confused yet trusting Teresa by the hand and led her away from there at as fast a pace that they could both manage.
Irene steered their flight towards the frozen north.
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In a matter of days the city of Pieta had become a ghost town. All surviving humans had long since fled the town, abandoning what possessions they could not bring along, never to return there. In the almost perpetual darkness of the northern lands the stone buildings and streets that had once been filled with life now seemed more a broken monument to despair. Aside from those days that the wind howled in lonely hunger through the paths and passages filling up with snow, Pieta had become silent. Even the sounds made by the not entirely human warriors as they moved around in their tense wait were muffled by the endlessly falling snow.
The first strike of Easley’s troops had gone well, although there were injuries no woman had fallen in battle against the male Awakened beings, and ultimately victory had been theirs. It weighed heavily on the minds of all present though that as hard as the battle had been, their opponents had been but three. While the number was unknown to them, it was a fair assumption to make that Easley’s troops numbered far more than this; far more perhaps than the women assembled. The chances of survival if they remained in Pieta were nearly nonexistent.
The assigned leader of these women, Phantom Miria, could not help but feel a certain bitterness about the situation. Had she not been the highest ranking number present, had the Organization opted to send the four remaining women ranked above her as well, the outcome of the impending battle would not have looked as bleak. With warriors like Galatea, Rafaela and the feared number one and two by their side there would have been a fair chance that Easley’s forces could be defeated, perhaps even while sparing lives among their comrades, and there could be no doubt that the Organization was aware of this. Miria, feeling the responsibility for her sisters’ lives heavily on her shoulders, swallowed the bile and the bitterness as best she could, keeping her face as stoic and confident as she could manage.
If the Organization had at all been serious about taking on the Abyssal One they would not have sent a mere twenty-four women to go against Easley, and while as number six and an acknowledged skilful leader Miria would under such circumstances still have been one of the women in charge, a higher ranking warrior would have been the ultimate leader. It was obvious. The ones present in Pieta were merely the problem children, the ones like Miria herself, that the Organization either desired dead or fully Awakened, and the poor unfortunate ones whose abilities were found uninteresting and unlikely to advance beyond their low ranks, the ones that were perfectly expendable.
Had the Organization ever had any interest in stopping or even fighting against the Awakened beings, much less the Abyssal Ones, they would not have released them into the wild in the first place, and they would have used all warriors at their disposal, every single one, in a joint operation to wipe them out. Twenty-four against an army of Awakened beings and one Abyssal One was nothing more than a mass execution of their own forces.
Miria found herself unexpectedly wishing Ophelia could have been there. The woman had been both homicidal and frightfully insane, but she was quite capable of taking out Awakened beings on her own, and her hatred for their kind had been unmatchable. As things stood there were but a few women among them with strength enough to really go against Awakened beings, Miria among them. She knew that when the battle really started the women under her command would die by the scores, and strangely she put her faith in those she had come to think of as her three. Clare especially. Clare would find a way to survive, one way or the other, and perhaps, if luck was with them, she would drag a few of her sisters along with her.
Hunkering down together against the cold that they were not supposed to feel yet somehow did anyway, senses taut and alert past snowy silence and howling winds, the warrior women in Pieta waited for morning and for the battle that was looming just on the horizon. Each of them carrying the belief deep within that this battle would be their last.
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Several days ride north of the city of Pieta a small group of riders made slow progress through the snow. Despite the young boy’s quite palpable impatience, the man in the front kept their pace an easy one, with many stops for the young girl with them to get down off her horse and rest. Swallowing most of his protests the boy acquiesced with the pace, knowing that he could not find his way on his own.
More and more however, increasing with every stop they made, the boy found his eyes drawn from the distant and hidden horizon and more to the girl by his side. He found himself contemplating how lovely she was, with her dark hair and even darker eyes, and how very different she looked from the woman he was hasting towards.
She was weak and needed him, clung to him, wanted him, something else which he, although reluctantly, had to admit differed vastly from the silver-eyed woman he was making this journey for. It was a bitter truth but finally he had to face it; no matter how strong he became, no matter how well he learned to wield the sword given him, Clare would never need him. He had known all along, hadn’t he, that there was no humanly way that he could ever become her equal. That was the reason he had begun having those fantasies that Clare would become weak if he became strong, and more and more he began to realize just how childish and unreasonable these fantasies had been. If Clare somehow changed in all the ways that he envisioned, becoming weak and fragile and needy of him, then what was she? Certainly not Clare, not any longer, merely another woman wearing Clare’s face. Was that the love he had for her? The gratitude and loyalty that she deserved for saving him?
No. It was not, and he felt grateful that he was finally growing up enough to realize this before meeting her again. He would have stained the friendship and even familial bond they shared with his foolishness, and he never wanted to do that.
Priscilla was different though, and he could be different with her. She was not normal, that much was obvious, but that did not bother him. Human or Claymore or even a young girl whose mind had clearly been somewhat damaged from the evil she had endured, it was all the same to him. She needed him and he wanted to help.
There was also that growing and strange feeling he could not quite place, that tiny voice inside that made him notice how very warm and nice it felt when she fell asleep in his arms at night, that noticed in wonder how soft she felt, and that after his recent growth spurt she was actually slightly smaller than him. Torn between the urge to hurry, to find Clare, and the sense of contentment he felt holding Priscilla, Raki watched the falling snow and wondered what he should do.
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The first light of morning crept upon the forest while the falling snow eased from pelting down to a soft trickle. The tall silver-haired man calmly walked back to the makeshift campsite despite his keen hearing having picked up the sounds of the sobbing girl for quite a while by then. It was as he had thought.
The wailing girl sat slumped on a blanket next to the already dead fire, clutching messy and blood-soaked hands to her face as she wept as if her heart was breaking. Next to her on the blanket lay the boy, his pale and unstained face strangely peaceful, as if he was just sleeping, while from chest to hip his body had been ripped open, what little remained of his insides spilling out and his blood soaking the ground and the girl a dark red in the winter landscape.
Easley shrugged and set about preparing for them to continue their journey, perhaps a small bit relieved that he no longer needed to keep up any pretence of humanity and that their trip could now go faster. He did not disturb the girl in her helpless regret, having long since decided that her indulgence in near-human emotions and, at times, shadows of a conscience, was both well deserved and entertained him. He envied her at times, as he himself felt nothing.
It was no more than could be expected, after all. Travelling often made one hungry in the morning.
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Morning in Pieta was a solemn affair. The wind and the snowfall had stilled to next to nothing in the grey half-light that signified a new day there, but the bleak landscape of still and silent black and white did nothing to lift any spirits. The warriors could feel the immense yoki amassed just on the edge of their sensing range, still and waiting like a giant and ominous wave about to break down upon them at any moment.
Clare’s senses felt dulled with all the yoki that surrounded her, both close by the women quietly going about their business in small ways while waiting, and Easley’s army gathered in the distance. Even with this clouding her senses and making her feel dulled Clare still caught her breath and turned to stare intently in the direction of the southern entrance to the city.
Her reaction did not go unnoticed by the women around her, all of them already wound up nearly to the point of breaking with battle-readiness. Several of them drew their swords and scanned their surroundings with bleak intent.
“What? What do you sense?” Miria’s voice cut sharply through the air with almost jarring loudness despite the woman using no more than her usual tone. While they had all come to realize to some fashion that the lowest ranking number of the Organization’s warriors was far more that she seemed, far more than she should be, it was Miria that had believed in her the longest and knew to read her best. Her hand strayed to the hilt of her sword but unlike the others she did not draw it, watching Clare with intense eyes.
“Something is coming.” Clare stared into the distance with a troubled expression. “Something strong... something familiar.” Unconsciously she grasped her right arm. “This yoki...”
“Is it one of Easley’s?” Helen cut in, positioning herself near Clare and Miria. “Are they coming?”
“No, it is fellow warriors, like us.” Clare’s words released the tension in many of the younger or lower ranked warriors present, while in the higher ranked it had the opposite effect. Undine spat into the snow and drew both her swords while Flora made a small gesture to get the women around her to draw back slightly and give her some room. By now those with better ears could hear something moving towards them, animal gusts of air and the sound of hooves occasionally cutting through the snow to meet the stone underneath.
Out of the grey they materialized, two figures in dark cloaks atop pale horses, moving towards them with no apparent haste. Their cowls were drawn down to hide their faces, and despite the handles of claymores rising over their shoulders nothing gave their identities away.
This time Clare gasped in recognition.
“Irene!” She exclaimed and took several steps forward, just as one of the riders threw back her cowl and released a startling amount of long, silver hair. The name was repeated in mutters around her, most of the women present had never heard of Irene of the Flash Blade, while those that had mostly had believed her to be dead.
The silver-haired woman jumped down from her horse and hurried on ahead on foot, approaching Clare with an expression on her serious face that, while not exactly smiling, still appeared something akin to friendly. The women met and clasped arms in an enthusiastic warriors’ greeting.
“Hello there, Spare...” A faint smile twitched at Irene’s lips as she grasped the arm that had originally been her own. “I see that you have managed to survive so far. Well done.”
Even the otherwise so stoic and unflappable Irene of the Flash Blade could not hide her startled surprise when Clare impulsively grasped the taller woman and drew her in for an awkward hug.
A rapid-fire conversation, truly uncharacteristic of either woman, followed while Clare’s comrades drew closer to listen in and in some cases even stare at the legendary silver-hued warrior. Irene managed to inform Clare in the briefest way possible of how Rafaela had come to execute her shortly after they parted ways, and of how she, inspired by Clare’s stories, had managed to save her life by pushing an Awakening. She allowed Clare a moment to inspect the replaced arms, and then it was Clare’s turn to explain in as few words as possible just what had happened to her since they met last, and the how and why of so many of their sisters being gathered in Pieta. No-one paid much attention to the figure that remained on horseback and at a distance from the rest of them.
Irene turned up the palm of Clare’s right hand and nodded with some satisfaction while inspecting it. “You are making it your own.” There was approval in her voice, and perhaps a touch of amusement as she met Clare’s gaze. “It will always appear stronger than the rest of your body, but it will not take long at all before it is otherwise undistinguishable from it.”
Even in appearance this would seem to be true, as now that Irene held the hand she had given Clare with the two she herself sported the differences were quite visible. The arm was now the same pale pink as the rest of Clare, unlike the flawless white of Irene’s skin, and where Irene’s hands were slender and finely chiselled, Clare’s right hand had become wider, stronger in appearance as if to match her left.
Forestalling the protest she could tell was about to leave Clare’s lips with a small gesture, Irene indicated her arms with a look and a raised brow. “No, I have no need to have it returned to me Clare. You keep it.” Another approving nod. “You even combined techniques to improve your Flash Blade yourself. Clearly it suits you.”
The amused twitch at the corner of her lips became a small smile as Irene noticed that although the uniform Clare wore was a new and unscratched one, the right arm had been neatly cut away and in its place Clare still wore the buckled leather sheath that Irene had fashioned for herself. There was a surge of something that to Irene’s surprise appeared to be pride as she looked at the younger woman. She shook her head in wry amusement.
“For a legacy...” She said soft as a whisper, the smile still present on her lips. “you are not so bad, junior.”
The smile disappeared instantly as Irene took a small step back and glanced over her shoulder at the figure still seated atop one of the horses. She waved at the cloaked warrior to join them, and then turned very serious eyes back to Clare.
“Clare...” Irene began carefully, but the person she had intended to explain to did not hear her. Instead Clare clutched at her chest, staring at the approaching figure with wide and apprehensive eyes.
“What is this feeling...” Clare’s voice was strained, causing more than one of her friends to take an involuntary step towards her. “This pain, this sadness... it is so familiar...”
A handful more steps and the cloak was carelessly abandoned, merely dropped in the snow without a thought, revealing for the first time to the women assembled in Pieta the resurrected form of Teresa of the Faint Smile.
Teresa was not smiling this time however, her eyes round and staring unwaveringly at Clare whom had gone so pale it seemed she was fast approaching Irene’s colouring.
“Are... are you really...” Teresa’s voice trembled but the hand that reached towards Clare’s face once close enough did not. “...my Clare?”
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Easley spared a brief look for his troops before ignoring them, opting instead to turn his gaze out towards Pieta where it lay not too far away. They had finally arrived there, and Priscilla had fallen asleep at long last, still sobbing occasionally in her sleep. The journey had been a trying one for Easley, as the girl had gone from sobbing over her deeds to calling for the boy, searching for him, apparently already forgetting that she had killed him herself.
He promised himself that once this small matter of eradicating these women at Pieta was over and done with, when he turned his army towards the south and the far more important war waiting for them there, he would put some effort into finding one or even several young southern lads to be Priscilla’s playthings. Surely he or one of his men would be able to find a few that could amuse the girl and distract her from this... Raki.
After all, Priscilla was not just another one of his many followers. Oh no, the girl had been a number two in her day, young, inexperienced and untapped at her moment of Awakening, the vast potential stored within her easily marking her for a number one slot in the Organization. In other words, Priscilla was not really an Awakened being like the rest of his warriors... Priscilla was an Abyssal One in her own right, only her madness prevented her from becoming the fourth great power of their world.
She was not aware of it now, naturally, and Easley intended to take as much time as needed to make sure things went exactly as he planned, but Priscilla was to be his bride, his mate. His Queen once he ruled all.
Spoiling her with little gifts of young playthings to ease her mind was a small task for him, and one he enjoyed. Her emotions entertained and pleased him, though naturally he preferred for her not to suffer the loss of one insignificant human quite this long, and one day she would accept him and he would taste all those emotions from her own lips. Easley smiled, content at the thought.
Rigardo stepped up next to him to give his report. Easley listened, gave his orders, and sent the man away. He was enjoying this moment of stillness right before the bloodshed, and desired no company at the moment, at least not while Priscilla was asleep.
So, his three scouts had been slaughtered, much as he had expected them to. And the twenty-four women in the city had been joined by two extremely powerful ones, with another strong presence hovering in the distance, really just out of sensing range. No doubt the latter was an observer for the Organization, they wanted to know exactly what became of their little sacrificial lambs after all, those perverted old men.
Easley snorted. First Pieta, then the war to the south... and once he had killed or subjugated the other two Abyssal Ones to his will, he would take great pleasure in rooting out the accursed Organization which had spawned them all. In a moment of twisted amusement he thought that the guts and dying screams of the bastards that lived for the torment of his kin would make an appropriate banquet for his wedding.
With a bored sigh he turned his thoughts away from the future and to the battle at hand. He gave the signal and Rigardo had the troops set out with a deafening roar. Uninterested in watching the carnage Easley moved over to where Priscilla was sleeping and sat down next to her, one hand lightly touching her hair as he watched her sleep with rapt fascination.
Sleeping was another thing he could no longer do, and as so many other things, he enjoyed watching Priscilla do it for him.
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The reunion taking place before them was at first something that merely inspired a sense of weary wonder and perhaps a tinkle of hope to the women that found themselves spectators to Teresa and Clare’s reunion. For a few, those that considered Clare a friend, it inspired a sense of happiness on her behalf, and intrigue as they all knew that Teresa of the Faint Smile had supposedly met her end years ago.
It all turned into embarrassment as Teresa and Clare did not cease their sudden and fierce embrace, but rather they clung to one another far longer and far more closely than felt entirely appropriate to watch. The whole thing very soon felt far too intimate for the others, and eyes began casting about in awkward attempts to fasten on something, anything, other than the two women that had clearly forgotten about rest of the world.
Irene alone remained unaffected and so the silver woman explained as much as she was able about the particulars of Teresa’s return. Miria had questions, and soon the two of them and Flora were involved in a conversation regarding Irene and Teresa’s defecting from the Organization, and the impending battle with Easley’s forces.
“We just came for Clare.” Irene confirmed what Miria had already realized. “We have no intention of joining in on this war for the Organization which wants nothing more than to see us all dead.”
Even as she spoke Irene watched the glimmer of hope be extinguished in the eyes of the younger and less experienced warriors at her words, and it made her want to grimace. They were but children most of them, of little experience and less power, and by now they were beginning to understand how overwhelming the odds were against them. If she and Teresa left, taking Clare with them of course since there was no way Teresa would willingly part with the girl again, and to be honest Irene would not leave her behind to this either, well, most of these young faces would belong to corpses before the day was done.
“But we are your seniors.” Seeing several heads rise, clinging to her words with renewed hope, Irene wondered when she had gone so soft. “I will discuss it with Teresa.” She already knew what they would do. They could not leave these girls to die.
Miria nodded, carefully keeping the immense relief and gratitude she felt from showing on her face, and waved a pair of girls forward. “Tabitha, Yuma, there is a stable around the back of our supply building, take the horses there. Remove their saddles and let them loose inside as quickly as you can before returning.”
Turning to get Teresa’s opinion Irene was faced with something that made her blink in surprise. “Honestly Teresa...” She sighed. “You are scandalizing the children.”
To be fair the strong intimacy and sensuality of the gesture as Teresa in a slow caress moved her hand from Clare’s chest down to rest on her lower abdomen was very likely unintentional, but many of the women standing around them found themselves blushing slightly at the sight. Neither Teresa nor Clare seemed aware of their spectators, although Teresa spoke up, presumably in reply to Irene.
“My Clare carries a part of me with her wherever she goes.” This was spoken with a touch of wonder in her voice, although when the other hand reached up to touch pale blond hair the voice carried a sense of regret. “Your hair... your beautiful hair...”
“I... am sorry Teresa.” Clare spoke with such a naked earnestness that for a moment there was an echo of the child she had once been. “I am sorry I was not strong enough to continue, to live on... as a human... without you.”
In response Teresa cupped Clare’s face in both hands and brought their lips together in a soft kiss.
Irene whipped her head around and stared intently into the once more increasing snowfall. “They’re coming!”
As one the assembled women drew their swords and took up battle-ready stances, even Teresa and Clare who broke apart finally at Irene’s cry.
“To your formations!” Miria cried out the instructions to her troops. “Assemble around your leaders! Remember your battle approach!”
“I guess this means we will stay and help out.” Teresa said quietly to Irene, a strange kind of dry amusement in her voice. In a louder voice intended for the other women to hear she continued “Remember, when the bulk of their troops have overtaken the city, take your battles in close to them and drive them together! Use their size and number against them; you are smaller and move with more ease than they when they are packed in close to one another!”
“Don’t look at me, you are the one that could not be without Junior’s embrace for long enough to get out of this place.” Irene answered in kind, a smile twitching at the corner of her lips. In a louder voice she added some advice of her own to the younger warriors. “Remember to be aware of your surroundings! Trust not to the ground or stone or walls to keep you safe; they can be torn down or broken quickly enough!”
“Work as teams! Stay alert and aware!” Miria gave her final battle orders, and then, in a rallying cry: “SURVIVE!”
The roar went up around her just as the first hulking forms stepped out of the darkening grey of the snow-torn landscape, and then the battle was upon them.
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Easley’s enjoyment of Priscilla’s sleep was disturbed almost immediately after the battle began in the city of Pieta. Death after death rolled in through his keen senses, its flavour as familiar as it was exquisite... but it was not the deaths of Claymore women that he sensed.
Frowning the silver-haired man left the sleeping form to instead watch the battle from his high vantage point. The falling snow and dying light both obscured the distant city from even the eyes of Awakened beings by now, but Easley was no mere Awakened being. He had many senses at his disposal, all of them finely-honed and strong, and it was only too easy to tell what was going on in the city below.
He certainly did not need to have the frustrated Rigardo come to give his report to him, and it irritated him slightly that Rigardo seemed to think Easley could not sense things as well as he. Perhaps it was time to put the Silver-eyed Lion-king back in his place soon.
Twenty-six of the silver swordswomen in the city of Pieta, twenty-six and one other a small distance outside the city, taking out any stragglers. And they were winning.
Easley could tell why they were so successful. The women worked in teams, each team led by a powerful warrior and leader, and to add to that there were two extremely powerful and skilled women moving completely at their own will. His forces numbered more and were stronger than their opponents, save those few warriors whose power shone brightly even from this distance; this battle should already have been theirs. But no.
His soldiers moved without a unified purpose, without anything resembling the teamwork of the tiny warrior women they were facing, and it was their undoing. United the Claymores swarmed around his forces like ants, cutting wide swaths through his troops while few of their own number were lost. How truly inconceivable.
At this rate he might actually have to join the fighting himself. Perhaps Riful and Luciela were right, perhaps gathering male Awakened beings to him had been a mistake. Perhaps he should have followed their example and focused on the females instead. An expensive lesson to learn at this point indeed.
He sensed Rigardo charging into battle while calling the rest of his surviving troops to retreat, and frowned. Retreat? He would allow no such thing. Either those serving him would wrest a victory for themselves now or they would die; they were of no use to him if they could not even handle twenty-six Claymores in battle. Quickly he countermanded the order to retreat and, despite Rigardo’s angry howl in protest, made sure his soldiers knew that retreat was equal to desertion to him.
So the Lion-king thought to defy him, did he? Easley would deal with him later, should Rigardo survive the battle. For now he was welcome to go and wreak havoc to his fullest content in Pieta, as long as he did not presume to counter his master’s orders further.
On her bed of blankets a small distance behind him Priscilla stirred in her sleep.
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Despite injury and even a few losses the women in Pieta had grown emboldened by their success so far, courage replacing the bleak despair that had plagued them before. Although the battle was hard, things were going well for them, the teams gaining in confidence and skill for each hulking opponent brought down.
Teresa and Irene worked separately, appearing as little more than graceful white blurs as they swiftly dispatched Awakened beings one after another. They needed no help, rarely even fighting the same opponent, and still managed to occasionally fall back to lend a helping hand to any team that seemed to falter. The monstrous corpses were beginning to pile up in the narrow streets and alleyways of Pieta.
Rigardo’s attack was swift and claimed two lives even as he made his appearance. He managed to take the women by surprise, and the death toll would have been much higher had he not indulged himself in a long moment of roaring mightily as he released his yoki to full effect before targeting the team leaders.
The extra moment was all that was needed. Teresa and Irene drew back from their opponents whom for a moment appeared to be retreating, recognizing the Silver-eyed Lion-king and knowing him to be the more serious threat. When he struck out in attack against Veronica, Irene appeared out of nowhere, lifting the woman to safety, while Teresa sliced Rigardo deep into his shoulder.
Howling in pain this time Rigardo lashed out, but Teresa had already side-stepped his blow when it landed. A second strike and Irene, Miria and Jean joined in, each delivering strikes that cut deep.
A second exchange and then Miria and Irene came in from high above, aiming for the Lion-king’s neck, while Teresa and Jean each sliced off a clawed hand. Blades slashed down and the head of the once legendary warrior Rigardo came off his shoulders in a cascade of purple blood.
With his dying roar the Lion-king aimed to take the weakest of his killers with him, opened his massive jaw and aimed his falling head at her. With a sickening crunch the jaws came together and locked in his final act, catching Jean’s entire torso in their deadly trap.
Red blood quickly pooled around them where they landed, the unmoving warrior still caught in the lion’s jaw.
“JEAN!” Even as others hastened forward to help, Clare lost some of her control at the sight of her fallen friend. The yoki raged around her and her face began distorting with her fury. No longer able to direct her anger at Rigardo himself, Clare gripped her sword and with a wordless cry directed it towards the now increasingly frightened Awakened beings that remained.
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