New Story: Part 1

warning: contains some violence

She stood with her back pressed to the abrasive bark of the Eldridge tree, her chest burning with each breath she drew. For a moment she found refuge behind the wide girth of the trunk, but it couldn’t last for long. She took a moment to examine the damage – a few cuts and bruises here and there; nothing she wouldn’t recover from by the morning light…that was, if she survived until then. Her biggest concern was the shaft protruding from her left shoulder. Her armor hadn’t held against the blazing arrow, and it had spiraled deep into the tissue beneath her collar bone. She ripped it out and held a scream between her teeth, knowing she would start to bleed significantly. No matter, she would deal with it when, gods willing, she made it to the Inn. She touched a wet spot on the right side of her face, unaffected by the sight of her own blood dripping from her fingertips.

The air was chilled and quiet, save for the rustling of foliage a stone’s throw from her feet. It was surely a brush rat, and it was of no concern to her now. She focused her ear to the north, listening, waiting, hoping.

At first no sounds approached, and her stomach sank with disappointment. Had her pursuers given up so quickly? She listened intently, and felt her insides leap with anticipation at the sound of two men approaching carelessly, with no regard for the World around them. They bumbled through the brush, hacking away at the shrubbery, shouting and raising all shades of Hell. She stifled a chuckle. This would be simple – so blessedly simple. A man was approaching to her left. She crouched, drawing her dagger from its ankle holster and waited with perfectly honed patience.

“Oy, Gord, did you see where she went?”

“How the bloody hell would I?”

“Check up in the branches, but keep your ears low to the ground, aye?”

The first man – she didn’t catch his name – was almost within her reach to her left. His companion, Gord, was still a ways north of her, a safe distance for her to do what needed to be done. She closed her eyes, took a silent, cleansing breath. He was inches away. From the inside out, she thrust upward into his thigh, reaching up to silence him before he could scream.

“Shh, shh, mate. Don’t worry. It will be over soon,” she crooned, whispering to the man with tears streaming down his cheeks. 

Her good hand was clamped over his mouth, and with the other she pulled a cloth from her pack, transferred hands, secured it over his nose and lips. It was soaked in a sleeping draught, and his lids fluttered shut as the seconds ticked by. When she felt confident he wouldn’t wake, she eased his dead weight to the ground and bound his wrists and ankles. Gord was still poking around the underbrush, and she used the opportunity to spring from behind the tree, bow drawn and aimed.

He was nowhere in sight.

She focused on her peripheral, whipping the bow around, scouring the forest for any sign of Gord. She took a gentle step back, and was hardly surprised when she knocked straight into his large, fleshy frame. In an instant his thick, sweaty arm was around her neck, and he yanked her up off of the ground as if he expected no fight from her. He was wrong. She slammed her head backward, feeling the crunch of his nose shattering back into his skull. He let out an ear-splitting wail. She threw her good elbow back and clubbed him in the ear with it, disorienting him just enough to loosen his grip on her throat. She wheeled around, dagger re-drawn with the tip pointed directly at his jugular. He froze, but was chuckling arrogantly.

“Well played, lass. Well played.” He nudged the dagger aside with the tip of his middle finger, but she repositioned quickly, carefully. “It’s over; you fought the good fight. Now hand it over.”

“You haven’t won, you know.” She pressed the hilt of the dagger, a drop of Gord’s blood now staining the tip. “It’s useless to you. I’d wager He’s not even paying you half its worth.”

“I never second guess a bounty, lass, and I never miss an opportunity for a good quest. Especially when the end-prize is so…tantalizing.” On his last word he yanked her dagger-wielding hand up over her head, pulled her close, and fused his mouth to hers. She fought the urge to vomit in that one moment of gut-wrenching fear and hatred, the taste of his blood on her lips. Before it turned into a real struggle, she ran her spare dagger up through his lung, twisting it vindictively. His breath wheezed out in a sickening hiss, and she lowered him to the ground quietly, stood erect for a moment to catch her breath.

One, she mentally tallied.

The wound in her shoulder interrupted her thoughts, throbbing relentlessly, but she couldn’t see to it yet. There was still work to be done here. Acting quickly, diligently, she buried Gord’s body beneath the loose underbrush, only after she searched him for coin and weapon. She disarmed the sleeping man, covered him with her cloak only after she secured a tourniquet around his bleeding thigh. She picked up the bow and arrow she’d dropped and started back toward the pack she’d left resting against the Eldridge tree, and retrieved it quickly. It bothered her to be away from her pack for very long anymore. She suspected it had everything to do with the Item she’d been entrusted to deliver to the headquarters of Morghana, the province’s central city. That was often the way of the bounty, no doubt to ensure the keeper’s faithfulness to the job. She felt as if shallow hooks had ensnared her, ever drawing her to the pack, convicting her to keep it safe, enticing her to explore its contents. She knelt beside it, fastening the leather drawstrings.

Leigh…

She straightened, honing her ears to where the whisper had come from, knowing she’d never find its source.

Leigh…

 
The Voice had been following her – plaguing her – for a little over two weeks now. She knew not who called her, nor what they wanted. Only that it beckoned her by her given name, not the name she was known for, feared for. It irritated her greatly, left an ugly brown stain on what had been a victorious and exciting afternoon. She sighed and got to her feet. Knowing she could spare no more time, she headed south on foot, praying she could reach the inn by nightfall.