Hi everyone, I feel your love, it inspires, me like this comment..... "Please, PLEASE make it stop, PLEEEEEEEEEASE! (crying, sobbing)" or this gem.... "For the love of God, please stop writing. Look I'll give you 200 SBD's to just stop!"
I could not let you lovely folks down, so here is --->
Chapter 3
Dusk starts settling around him before he decides to look back and see if she is still following him. He had walked a good twenty miles from the town at a pace that younger men had difficulty keeping with him. Yet there she was, fifteen yards behind and looking straight at him. She was not puffed and still looked strong for more miles but he had had enough walking for the day and pulled his gear from his back and set it down.
He turned again to see what she would do, but baring her pouch on the ground, she was nowhere to be seen. This startled him, put him on edge. She was gone and so swiftly that even he did not notice it. He was the best at being an assassin, killing and not being killed, there had been many that sent other assassins to kill him but all failed because of his honed senses. But this woman had disappeared without a trace and so fast.
He pulls his knife for safety sake and looks to see if he can spot her in the underbrush of the forest but has little success. He walks over to her pouch and picks it up to examine its contents. A Magi Huk greets him atop some cloth wrap, the other half of the Bond. Two are held by female slaves, inserted in the her womanly orifice. One is swapped out for the other once every menstrual cycle. He has to almost stop himself from ripping it from her pouch and pounding it to dust and throwing it to the 4 winds. A Hagg binding spell is attached to it and if he did destroy it, before their own natural deaths, he and the woman would be dead within an hour. He also finds a roll of bread half eaten and a cloth wrapped around an elaborate bone hair comb, other than that there was nothing more inside the pouch.
He turns to make his way back to his own gear and stops dead in his tracks. The woman has returned with firewood and in the process of getting it lit without him hearing a thing. Sweat beads down his forehead, he realises he is shaking and holding his knife ready to kill. Never had someone got past him like this, never had someone unnerved him like she had just done. She has got the fire going good before standing up, as she looks at him, fear washes over her face then a calm resolve. She closes her eyes and stands ready, expecting him to lunch at her and slit her throat.
He is dumbed for words when he realises what she sees, and walks briskly to her. He sees her body tense yet dose not open her eyes. He stops a mere foot from her and looks deep into her face, knife still in his hand. She is terrified yet hides it, her mouth twitches from a scream hidden beneath her lips, she dose not want to show weakness and frailty. Even the bravest men have screamed when they knew their life was about to end, yet she was not going to give in to it as her life flashed by. He finally puts the knife away and brings her hand up from her side and shoves her pouch into it. She jumps at the touch and flings her eyes open to watch what he is doing.
“I'm not angry with you and I'm sure as hell not going to kill you, at least not intentionally. Just stop sneaking around like your doing and I won't accidentally shove a knife in your throat!.”
“I am sorry master, I don't mean to, I try not to, I try to move like normal people, please do not hurt me.” Tears well and she bursts into tears, shaking like a leaf.
He stands watching her, undecided whether to slap or kick her, each would feel good to do but the five men that he spots out of the corner of his eye, trying to stealthily approach behind them had grabbed his attention. No doubt they were common bandits that saw he and her as easy targets.
They stopped 30 paces away behind bush and two split from the group, each going a separate way. One going behind him and the other behind her. The remaining three readied bows. He stayed steady, not giving away that he knew of their presence, watching her cry uncontrollably. As the two bandits got to their positions they pulled long knives from their belts, He places a hand around her neck to fain that he was about to scold her, but was in fact ready to push her out of harms way.
Their leader nods for the attack to begin. In that second he shoves at the woman, but his hand is empty, she has already spun around to avoid the arrow meant for her. He is taken by this and only just avoids the two meant for him. They slice the air where his head and chest should have been a moment ago. His dagger has already left his hand, on its way to find the heart of a bandit archer, as he speeds towards the bandit that was awaiting behind him.
The bandit was rooted to the spot, Dumbfounded at the speedy attack of his pray, as the assassin brings his short sword up and through the man's chest. The assassin has no time to savour the kill as he spins away, now racing to dispatch the two remaining bandit archers. The bandits nock their arrows and aim at the moving assassin but neither will have a chance until he rounds on them and comes straight on.
The assassin prepares to dodge the soon to fly arrows, when a blur bursts from the bushes beside the furthest bandit and tackles him to the ground. This causes the other to release his arrow far wide of the assassin, as he turns to look to his fallen comrade. The assassin speeds himself to the confused bandit and before the man can put a hand to his knife, the assassin's sword slides quickly through his heart. The bandit looks at him, then down to the sword and falls silently to the ground.
The assassin wants to enjoy the bandit's death but hastens himself to help his saviour. To his astonishment it is the slave, she had already ended the other bandit and is hastily re-fixing her bonnet over her head. Blood covers her face and clothing and her right hand drips of the red fluid. He is fixed, staring at her. She walks over to the fire and tears a piece of her skirt to use as a rage to wipe her face and hands clean of blood, her eyes still puffy from crying. She is not phased by the killing she has done and readies a rabbit for their dinner.
The Assassin turns to the bandit that fell to her hand. It is but a headless body, his head smashed and mashed into a thick red and white past on the ground. Her instrument of death was a rock of a fist size, red gore covered it completely, accept where her fingers held it.
Disbelief filled the assassin.
'A man of greater size and strength could not have done this with so little a rock and so few blows, the bandit's head must have been soft!'
He marches over to the fire and questions her.
“How did you do that?!”
she answer with hesitation and a little fear in her voice. “I found a rock and I beat him with it.”
The assassin looks from her, to the body and back to her, lost in puzzlement then it strikes him, the other bandit swordsman, she had ran in his direction.
“The other bandit, where is he.” he snaps at her.
“He, he is over there, against a tree.” she points with a shaking hand, her voice in fear now.
The Assassin storms off in the direction, he smashes through thicket and bush till he comes to the site. As harden a veteran of violence and gore as he was, nothing could prepare him for what he saw. The Bandit laid on the ground, his upper torso had been split in half to his bellybutton, around a small tree of two hands width. The horror on the bandits face was of pain beyond belief. No sword blade had done this but was by brute force and this turned the assassin white at the thought.
He wondered back to the camp and as he entered the clearing he stood looking at her, thoughts flashed so fast through him he could grasp none of them.
'Did this young woman really tear a man in half and beset another's head to mush in four foul blows?! Gods keep me! And she moved like the wind, faster in fact! Hells bells. And she knew, she too knew they were there and went as I went. She knew. Shit, she's a witch!'
He races over to her and in rage grabs her by the throat, drags her into the air and slams her against the nearest tree. Her choking screams of fear fill his ears. His dagger is at the ready to piece her breast and make its way to her vile heart.
“WHAT ARE YOU BITCH? A WITCH, A WAR-HAGG, WHAT MANNER OF FOUL BEAST ARE YOU? ANSWER ME!”
Her bowls release, piss and shit runs down her legs, but she gives no fight to free herself from his grip but only struggles to breath and plead her answers.
“Please, please Master, don't end me, what have I done?” she gasps and chokes.
“You know what you did, I want to know how? How did you know they were there, how do you move so fast, how did you get the strength to kill so easily?”
He throws her to the ground and marches up behind her. As he grabs for some hair under the bonnet to pull her up, she is swift and grabs his wrist. He feels Her true strength upon his wrist and feels bone cracking and splintering. His dagger is to her throat and he lets it bit into her flesh, enough to let some blood. She softens her grip but still holds his wrist in firm place.
“Please Master, don't take my bonnet off, please and I will tell you.”
He releases her and steps some paces way from her. As she recovers he wonders if he is far enough as her speed would leave him no time to react. She sits up and he can see that she want to do nothing but cry. She starts to blubber but then catches herself and look up at him with wet, redden eyes.
“I know not what I was born Master but know I am a freak. I was found by a merchant and was his slave for some time till he passed beyond, then was sold to another.
I do and move as I naturally do, but it scares people and they beat me or accuse me of being a monster, so I try and try so hard to move and do what looks to be acceptable to people to not hurt them or scare them.” she stops and whimpers a little. Her hand clutched around her throat to stop the cut from bleeding.
The Assassin softens little of his tone as he knows that she in not lying and now asks.
“Have you no memories of your past?”
She looks to the ground with a sad face.
“Nothing Master but that I was a child of 10 summers, found washed ashore by a cruel merchant who beat me when I did as I did now. I know even not of the name my parents gave me at my birth.”
He walks closer to her and sits on the ground beside her. She flinches away from him but stays seated. He assures her that he will not harm her again and makes no other attempt to touch her.
“And what of the bonnet, what is under there?”
“I am deformed Master, it is hideous, I have been made to hide it.”
“May I see it”
In a snapped and unnatural voice “NO!”, she scurries across the ground away from him.
He decides to leave the subject alone and rises from the ground.
“I'm going to see what I can pick from the bodies of our uninvited guest, I might also see if any of their cloths with fit you, seeing as yours are now dirty and torn.” He points to her dress, now soiled, blood splattered and ripped in places that showed much of her breasts and womanhood. He turns and then stops to look back at her. She huddles near the fire and starts to put the rabbit to roast, stopping only to wrap a torn cloth around her cut neck.
“My name is Ruff Hay, not Master.”
She looks at him, unsure of this and how to answer.
“Do you have a name or should I just call you Whore.”
She looks into the fire with a hurt expression, lost in her past.
“Many a time that has been my name, and many other times it has been other bad names, so if it is what you wish to use Mas.., Ruff Hay, then so be it.”
He sighs and gives a moment to pass.
“Was there a name you did like!”
Her eyes shuffled through memories, till they brightened upon one.
“Butterfly Whisper. It was given to me by the son of a Master. We played many games together and because I moved so quietly he called me Butterfly Whisper.”
Sadness regains her face as she finishes the memory.
“Till his mother caught us. She had me whipped for days and sent him away. I never saw him again after that.”
“Butterfly is hardly a first name, I’ll call you… Motyl. Soptit sounds good for a last name.”
Ruff trudges off into the bush to their kills, while she sits quietly, still looking into the fire, cooking the rabbit and reliving her memories.