by Philip Blood
“Maybe I have the wrong toughs, I was look’in fer fight’in men,” she said and stood to go.
“And maybe ya found them, why don’t we talk a little longer and find out?” Scar said speaking up for the first time in his low gravelly voice.
“I’m look’in fer a certain man,” she said, retaking her seat.
“Aren’t all you women do’in that?” Toothless said with a leer.
“Wernok,” she said simply.
“Word said ya had a message ya wanted delivered, you just tell us and we’ll make sure he gets it,” Scar said suspiciously, fingering a knife under the table.
“Word’s wrong, I want te see him, I’ll deliver my message,” she answered and added, “And if ya touch that knife again I’ll stick this one up yer ugly nose.” She flicked her wrist and a thin stiletto appeared briefly, then she flicked it again making it disappear.
“Tough wench, huh,” Toothless said, “I like them that way. One left me with this sweet reminder.” He smiled showing his missing front teeth.
“Wernok don’t like to have his time wasted, what is it ya have te say?” Scar asked and his dislike for Poison was obvious in his tone.
“Whether his time is wasted is fer him te decide, don’t ya think?” she replied.
“If ya waste his time he’ll just kill and rape ya, in that order,” Scar said with a grin to show he liked the thought.
“Let’s find out what he decides. Take me te see him tomorrow,” she prompted.
“All right we’ll take you to see him, but we’re leaving now while it’s still dark, we don’t like te have people watch’in which direction we head out. Then we’ll see what there is te see,” Toothless decided.
They made camp six leagues ride out of Myrnvale so that they could wait for dawn to light the way up the difficult canyon ahead.
Scar and Toothless eyed the sleek female body as she lay down, but neither of them tried anything after they watched her lay three wicked looking daggers within easy reach while holding a forth in her hand as she went to sleep.
During the night Toothless stirred and crept quietly toward the sleeping woman, however, he froze in his tracks when he heard her quiet voice say, “I wouldn’t try it, the poison on this blade freezes yer muscles, but you can still feel pain. That way you’ll feel each cut as I slowly peel off every scrap of skin from yer entire body.”
“Just stretch’in out,” he muttered, and then went back to his blanket.
At dawn the next day they continued on their way and began to ascend the switch back canyon trail that began the climb into the mountains.
Twice along the way Scar stopped his horse and stood on a large rock swinging his left arm in a wide circle.
“Sentries,” he said simply.
Eventually, the canyon widened out revealing a valley floor where a small stream wandered through an area of thick oak trees. Log cabins and semi-permanent structures littered the flat region around and through the trees.
About the time the valley floor came into view the three travelers came upon a lounging group of bandit warriors sitting just off the trail. They were a rag-tag group, their weapons, and armor of every conceivable type and shape. Nothing but the diversity itself identified them as a unified force.
The way they sat around lounging in the shade of trees and boulders it was obvious the bandits knew the three riders were coming and that they were well acquainted with the two escorts.
“What’s this, you bring’in in a new woman? Ya know the rules, you have te share her or defend her. I likes the look ‘o this one, I think I’ll have her right now unless ya think you can take me, Toothless,” a large man said while slowly drawing a dagger and stepping into the sunlight. “Or, does she belong to you Scar?”
“This one isn’t here fer yer pleasure yet Nostrils, she has a message te deliver to Wernok. ‘O course ya could take her and then answer te Wernok himself, if ya had a mind to,” Toothless answered the man who was appropriately named Nostrils. He had a large nose that someone had smashed flat; it spread out and seemed to cover half his face.
“Yer just afraid, Toothless,” Nostrils replied.
“Her name’s Poison and if’n she comes available I’ll be in the bidd’in,” Toothless said, eyeing her with a leer.
Scar looked bored as he sat slouched over the pommel of his saddle. He shook his head sadly at this banter and said, “This is futile, we need te take her te Wernok. He’ll do the dicid’in on what is to be done. Now stand aside, Nostrils,” he finished in his low gravelly voice.
With a glance that took in all the new woman’s virtues and promised she would get a chance to sample his, Nostrils bowed ungracefully out of the way. As the black leather clad woman went by on her horse Nostrils leered at her suggestively.
“If you even try to touch me, I’ll kill you,” she said in simple warning.
“Sounds like a challenge te me,” Nostrils said with a grin.
She didn’t respond.
Nostrils and two of the other guards mounted up and followed them into the valley.
A quarter bell later they reached the bottom and walked their horses toward a structure near the river. People began to gather as they sensed something interesting about to happen.
The people in the gathering crowd were distinctly different from the bandits, they were still tough looking, but they had that refugee look of hopelessness in their eyes. There were some women in the group, but most were men. They were dressed in various types of clothing and there were even some tattered uniforms from Autrany’s defeated army. Almost all of those who were armed were men.
"Welcome to our camp, Poison," the bandit known as Scar said with a grin.
She ignored him and concentrated on the people she could see around them. There were two groups of people living in this valley, the true bandits and the refugees that had turned to living the life of bandits as their only means of survival in their devastated, war-torn country. By joining the bandit group they turned their loyalty over to the current leader, the man named Wernok. He was the one she needed to meet.
A fairly fit man standing six foot two and weighing a lean 195 pounds stepped out of a small log building. He wore reddish-brown leather pants coupled with a light tan colored soft leather jerkin that left his muscular arms bare. He sported a wide grin as his eyes took in the lithe form of their new arrival.
The man looked to be about thirty years old and obviously sure of his authority. When he spoke she realized that he had a highborn accent.
“What do we have here, boys?” Wernok asked, stepping forward and placing his hands on his hips. He eyed her curving form boldly.
Scar answered him from two paces back. “Her name’s Poison, an’ she claimed te have a message te deliver to you.”
“A message?” he asked, lifting his gaze from the curve of her hips and up to her striking face and steel gray eyes.
“Be you the man known as Wernok, leader of the Riond Mountain Bandits?” She asked.
“I am Wernok,” he replied simply, and gave her a half bow.
“Then this is my say, I wish te join yer group as one of yer lieutenants,” she said boldly.
A moment of silence greeted her bold statement.
Wernok smiled, though his eyes remained hard, “Assuming you check out and aren’t one of the Usurper’s spies, then you can live under our protection as a camp woman, but you will have to follow the rules of the band, which means you belong to any man who is willing to defend you against one challenger a week. If there isn’t a man willing to defend you, then you must submit to anyone who wants you, understood?”
“I didn’t ask fer protection, I asked te become one ‘o yer lieutenants. I will not submit te any man,” she responded, her chin held high.
“One of my bandits and a lieutenant no less!” Wernok chuckled, rubbing his chin in thought.
“This is ridiculous,” Nostrils called out from the group of people watching, “she’s a woman, so she can’t be a warrio
r!” He had followed them down to see what happened when this feisty woman met Wernok.
An extremely ugly woman wearing leather armor and a short sword stepped forward. She was short, but very wide and well muscled, her arms and face scarred from battle wounds.
“I’m a woman,” she said simply.
“No yer not, Gertha, yer a souldead,” a man out of the gathering mob called out.
Laughter rippled through the crowd.
“Gertha brings up a good point,” Wernok agreed, taking control of the conversation again, “if she passes the test she can be a warrior, with warrior privileges.”
The crowd murmured at this statement.
The leader turned back to the black-clad woman and said, “So, are you willing to fight for your privileges?”
“And what does this test consist of?” she asked in a bored tone, placing a hand on her hip near one of her daggers.
“You must fight every warrior in the band that wants to challenge you. You get one hour of rest between each bout,” Wernok said, “If after one hour no one wishes to test you further, you’re in.”
“What are the rules o’ the bout?” she asked.
“One dagger, and a breechcloth,” he answered and smirked.
“First blood?” She asked to get clarification.
“To death or surrender, but if you choose to surrender you become the victor’s slave for life. I suggest you reconsider, a woman with looks like yours needn’t worry about attracting a defender, a very high placed defender,” he answered, checking out her body.
“I accept the challenge!” She replied in a loud voice. “So, who’s first?” she said, turning to face the crowd. She had already decided that she better take on one of the tougher men so that others would not decide to challenge her after the first bout, so she purposely caught the eye of the big man named Nostrils who had leered at her earlier.
“I will be,” Nostrils said, stepping forward and sporting a huge grin. He began to strip off his clothes.
“Fine, I was tired of your face anyway,” she responded and started to remove her leather armor.
Gertha, the stocky female warrior who had spoken out came over to her and spoke in a low voice. “Listen to me, Poison, he’s a wrestler, so don’t let him grapple with ya. With a body like yer about te display te these scum, every man here will want te win ya, so if’n ya don’t want te fight them all beat this’in real nasty. If’n ya show him mercy the rest will line up te try you.”
“Thanks, Gertha, I’ll mind yer words,” she whispered back.
Then she stripped down to her skin, standing proudly naked in front of the crowd.
The crowd hooted and hollered at the sight of the perfect body standing unfettered before them. Her tight muscles, flat stomach and medium breasts that jutted firmly out in the chill morning air made many of the men’s mouths water.
A refugee handed her a breechcloth to put on and she unhurriedly strapped it around her waist.
Wernok walked over to her and his eyes took in her naked chest, with a smirk appearing on his face he handed her a dagger. “This is the only weapon you are allowed.” Then in a lower voice, he said, “And, Poison, if you’re not scarred too badly I may choose to win you from Nostrils, but only after he has had a chance to, ah, savor his victory."
Wernok stepped back and looked at Nostrils, who was grinning so broadly that he threatened to display every rotten tooth in his mouth. He stood in his breechcloth and was fingering the sharp edge of his dagger with a thumb. “Let the challenge begin!” Wernok commanded without preamble.
Nostrils walked forward carelessly until he was five feet from the crouched form of his beautiful opponent. “So, Poison, ya said you would kill me if I touch ya, come on here’s yer chance,” and he stuck his dagger in the top of his breechcloth facing her with bare hands. “I don’t want te scar up my slave’s body, she’s go’in te need it tonight,” he said in explanation to the crowd.
Many men in the crowd cheered.
“I don’t think I’ll wait fer tonight, how about we have our first session right here in the dirt? We'll do it in front of all yer admirers. Then I’ll make them pay while I rent ya out, what do ya think, honey?” he said, and before she could retort he sprang forward grabbing at her knife hand wrist with his left hand while reaching for her waist with his opposite hand.
She slashed his grasping left hand and danced lightly away from his groping right.
It was only a shallow cut on his hand, so he stuck it in his mouth and sucked. “Oh, ye’ll pay fer that, my lovely. I’ll give ya te every man in the camp once fer free.”
There was an even louder cheer from some of the men in the crowd.
“First, you have te live through this, scum,” she replied, and gave him a ghost of a smile, before starting to circle her opponent.
“Ya know what I did te my last slave girl? I killed her one night when I had her a little too rough. I didn’t even know she was dead until after I was done. I’m gonna enjoy you, even more, Poison,” he promised.
She didn’t respond because she knew he spoke the truth about his capacity for brutality, which helped her make a decision.
Nostrils approached her carefully and pulled out the dagger from his waist; this time, he was serious. He stalked her in a closing circle as he carefully approached in a fighting stance. When he leaped forward he used his favorite move, one that always worked for him against an opponent who had not seen him fight. He lunged forward slashing wildly to force her to step back in defense. During that confusion, he switched knife hands and faked a thrust with his empty right hand, then slashed at her with the knife in his left. He aimed where she would have to move when she dodged his right-handed feint.
For the first and last time in his life, his opponent wasn’t where she was supposed to be. When he finished the swipe through the empty air he was puzzled, it was impossible for her to have escaped, he had performed the move perfectly. Suddenly he felt something wet on his legs and looked down. There was a slice through his breechcloth and blood pouring down from underneath. He felt weak and staggered slightly.
“That’s for your slave girl and this is for me,” his opponent said and then her body blurred into motion as she threw her dagger in a fluid underhanded toss that angled up to strike him under the jaw and into his throat.
He gagged horribly on blood gushing out from his slit gullet and then collapsed dead on the dirt.
The half naked woman walked over and placed her foot on his still chest before tugging out the bloody dagger from his throat and casually wiping it clean on his breechcloth.
No one was making purclaw calls anymore.
She straightened up with the dagger held in her fist and turned to the crowd. She stood proudly with her shoulders straight, arms at her side, unashamed of her half naked body and said, “I waive the rest period, who’s the next fool who wants to die?”
She watched, but no one seemed to want to take up the challenge, there was utter silence. Some eyes turned to Wernok, but he wore a simple look of appraisal. So she turned and went back to her clothes. When she had her black leather armor in place again Lady Elizabeth Ember Ardellen walked up to Wernok and said, “I take it that means I’m in?”
The necromancer SCorcH was still three days ride from the Kirnath School when the necromancer RIveK’s search found a possible trace of Elizabeth’s passage.
RIveK had started her search by listing the closest destinations from the Kirnath School and then ignoring the most obvious havens. RIveK knew that Lady Elizabeth was on the run and would be smart enough to avoid any normal traps. That left a few cities and towns that could be reached within the correct time span.
She concentrated on the ones nearest to SCorcH’s path of travel, hoping for a bit of luck. The first town she tried held no traces, but on the second night of her search, she tried a different town. It was a good prospect for someone on the run, a bandit haven, fairly lawless and off the main trade routes. The town lay near the
Operhelm border and was named Roper.
Lying in her chamber at Shadow Fortress, RIveK separated her spirit from her sleeping body by applying some of the dark powers she commanded. She opened a bridge from this world into the Dark Plane and slipped her spirit into the alien darkness.
The necromancer traveled through the nether world swiftly. She didn't bother to look at the strange colors and shapes of the alien landscape, or more accurately, the lack of it, much of the strange place was a void. She moved swiftly toward the point where she could exit back into her world. The less time she spent in the nether world the less chance she had of confronting a Darknull here in its own dimension.
RIveK hoped that her skill as a traveler of the nether paths would keep any Darknull from noting her passage. Avoiding detection would keep her from wasting one of the three chances she had to call on her patron Darknull to save her from consumption. Once the three times were used up she would have to re-challenge a ranked Darknull and the challenge always carried a heavy toll. She knew from her first experience that she could win such a battle, but the missing piece of skull that marked her from that initiation convinced her to postpone another such maiming. As a necromancer, she knew she must continue to travel the nether paths and inevitably the day would come when she had to fight that battle. She shuddered as she pondered what form her new maiming would take on her body and soul.
But luck was with her this time; she felt her desired exit point nearby and RIveK opened the rift so that her spirit form could emerge out onto a dark street near the center of the town called Roper.
She proceeded down the street with purpose. To an observer, she looked real enough if they didn’t look too closely. An almost imperceptible thread of purple energy connected back to her real body in SKartaQ’s Shadow Fortress. Her image mirrored the body she had left, but if her image was inspected under a strong light it would look slightly translucent.
She entered the seedy part of town and waited outside a likely tavern for the proper victim. In this part of town, it didn’t take long. The fourth man to approach the tavern fit her criteria perfectly.
