Red Tsonia & The Witch In The Dark

By Blind_Justice & LoquiSordidaAdMe

Author's Note: This will be this year's entry into Literotica's Geek Pride Day Event, a shared tale written together with LoquiSordidaAdMe. My utmost thanks to him, because without his urging, I would have skipped this year's event in favor of staring at the closest wall, too busy wrestling with my problems. So, thank you for dragging my sorry ass outta there and thank you for a highly enjoyable collaboration.

As always, thanks to my lady love for inspiration and criticism and honored Patron Fireball for his insights after a quick beta-read.

We wanted to write a grim, brutal sword-and-sandal adventure in the style of Robert E. Howard, creator of characters like Conan the Barbarian, Soloman Kane, and Red Sonya (whom we pay homage to in this tale). We both took it in turns to develop the plot and characters and passed the story back and forth as we saw fit. The section breaks do not necessarily indicate a change of author. Loqui was kind enough to let me post this under my name. I hope we managed to piece together a tale of high adventure worthy of your praise. Enjoy!

***

Brogan felt the clang of steel reverberate up his arm. It made the old wound in his shoulder throb causing a moment of distraction when he could least afford it. The short sword he clutched swung back around in a high arc, giving the she-devil with the fiery red hair ample time to catch his wrist in a grip like the jaws of a wild boar. Her nails dug gouges in his thick leather gauntlet.

"No!" Brogan screamed in vain protest, desperately trying to wrench his aching arm out of her grip.

Her blade found the broken seam of his cuirass and a searing white pain pierced his side. He felt the razor-edged steel dig into his abdomen, up behind his ribs into his chest. Brogan was surprised to notice how cold the sword felt, buried deep in his hot guts. He had only a moment to appreciate the numbing chill before the blade was ripped free, trailed by a gout of viscera. The vomit that filled his throat tasted of blood.

He fell to the ground then, released from her grip as the she-devil turned her attention towards his men—the men he had failed.

Brogan was the most experienced warrior in the band of outcasts and vagabonds that scrabbled a hard living out of the wastelands. Often that meant taking what they needed by force, raiding caravans and villages for tolls and tribute. Eventually that life catches up with you. Eventually some warlord or princeling gets it into their head to raise an army and rid their lands of brigands and ravager scum. But an army is easy to avoid. Brogan had always been able to keep his band a step ahead of pursuit.

This was different.

Someone had found a champion, a warrior-witch with the cunning of a puma and the strength of a bear and the fury of a wolf. Half his band had fallen like wheat to the scythe before Brogan himself had caught her blade. The other half would quickly follow. Brogan and his men must have pillaged the wrong caravan, slaughtered the wrong villagers, raped the wrong daughter. And now they would pay the price in blood. Which of their crimes had brought this fell wrath upon them? Who of their victims had set this terror on their scent? Could they have bargained with her for their lives or was their doom sealed from the moment she stepped from the shadows into the glow of their campfire?

Brogan pondered these last questions, unable to lift his face from the loam made hot and muddy by his own blood. The ring of steel and the cries of agony faded in his ears.

And then there was nothing.

* * * *

Tsonia stalked the flickering shadows of fire light, the soles of her sandals sure and steady in the mud and the slop. The will of the brigands had broken when their leader fell, just as she had known it would. They beat a hasty and disorganized retreat, but every man who lived the night would be a knife in the dark some future tomorrow. She well knew how the hunger for vengeance gnawed in the belly.

Her sword flashed in an arc slicing through the back of a man's knee as he fled stumbling between the scattered plunder of the brigand camp. He staggered as his maimed leg failed and he fell backwards screaming. She caught his neck in the crook of her elbow and, using her hips and legs to assist, wrenched the brigand's spine apart. Hearing the vibrato twang of a crossbow string snapping tight over his strangled cry, she let the momentum carry the dead weight of the man around her and the bolt impacted in the battered brigandine hung on his chest.

Tsonia let the corpse slump to the ground and sprinted across the brigand's camp counting the seconds it would take a competent crossbowman to reload. Vaulting an overturned barrel of beer, she followed her shoulder towards the ground, another deadly bolt flitting harmlessly through her flowing hair, and rolled to her feet at close quarters to the rocks that concealed the crouching sniper.

The warrior thrust her sword point into the exposed throat of the crossbowman as he fumbled to reload his weapon. Steel scraped bone with a satisfying rasp as she withdrew the weapon and the man fell with a choked gurgle.

In the darkness, panicked footfalls scrambled for safety. Tsonia hooked a toe under the haft of a discarded spear. She sheathed her sword in the ribs of the fallen crossbowman and kicked the spear up to her hand. Tracking her fleeing quarry, the warrior cocked her arm and let fly the javelin into the night. A wet thunk and an agonized scream rewarded her ears.

She had counted fourteen men in the brigand's company and fourteen broken bodies now littered the encampment. The night's bloody work was done.

"If any man here yet draws breath," she called into the corpse-strewn night, "cry out, and I will end your suffering with mercy."

There was a low groan from a man sprawled over a rock next to the campfire. His eyes gazed vacantly at the night sky; his entrails lay spilled in a pile by his side. Gripping her sword pommel-up with both hands, she stood astride the dying man and plunged the blade deep into his chest. He wheezed a final, wet gasp and then breathed no more.

"Stop right there!" a familiar voice shouted from the darkness. "Do not move."

Joras emerged from the shadows, a tablet braced against his forearm as he sketched frantically with a bit of charcoal. "I want to remember exactly how the firelight plays on your face as you stand triumphant over your fallen foe... push your hip out just a little more."

"Now is not the time for sketching," Tsonia admonished. Nevertheless she cocked her hip to the left and gave her hair a quick toss. "We should make sure the camp is truly secure--"

The thrum of a fired crossbow cut short her words. Tsonia stumbled a half step forward as a bolt slammed into her shoulder blade, pierced her flesh, and protruded through the tattered chainmail covering her breast.

Using the momentum of the impact, she spun around and stared down her assailant. In front of one of the tents, eyes wide like a terrified deer's, stood a boy, twelve or thirteen summers old. He fumbled with a crossbow, torn between tossing the bulky weapon or readying it for another shot.

Snarling, Tsonia bore down on him, tearing the gore-covered bolt from her shoulder as she went. Drops of hissing black blood were flung from the shaft as she tossed the smoking projectile into the sand. The boy yelped as she came close, dropped the crossbow and ran. He made it three steps before Tsonia was on him, clawing his shoulder and spinning him around. Her hand dug into his threadbare jerkin and lifted him clean off his feet.

"That was most unwise," she snarled. "If you try to murder someone from behind, at least aim for something vital."

"Please, don't kill me," the boy whimpered, a shaking reed in her grasp. He spoke in the pidgin trade tongue that most who traversed the wastelands picked up eventually.

"Give me one good reason not to," Tsonia growled in the same tongue, tightening her grip.

Painful throbs shot through Tsonia's shoulder in time with her heartbeat and the cold night air gnawed at the open wound like a barbed icicle. It had been years since any wound had troubled her so. Also, the boy was getting heavier by the second.

"I'll never tell anyone what happened here tonight," he babbled. "Just don't-"

"You're lucky I'm not getting paid to murder children," she said, slamming her good fist into his temple. The boy spilled into the sand at her feet, out cold. She knelt down and checked his limp body. His skin was unblemished, no signs of the garish tattoos the other brigands wore to mark their allegiances and exploits. No signs of him being used as entertainment either.

Tsonia sighed and rose, wincing as another sharp stab of pain lanced through her shoulder. Black ichor ran down her ribs and bare thigh, threatening the laces of her sandals. With the crossbow bolt removed, its path through her shoulder should have nearly healed by now. Instead her blood continued to flow, and Tsonia didn't understand why.

"See if you can find some clean fabric and strong spirits," Tsonia snapped in the general direction of the artist. "I think I need a bandage for this wound."

"That's new," Joras mused, rummaging in a box of ill-gotten goods. "Normally, you shrug off injuries as if they happened to somebody else."

"Normally, they do."

Tsonia left the artist and skulked through the camp, sword held in her off-hand, checking the insides of tents and hovels for other hidden strays. The only thing of note she found was an expensive pitcher full of Thelyrian brandy the leader had stored in his hut. Taking a long swig of the fiery spirits, she returned to the artist's side.

"Found anything?"

His eyes lit up. "Oh yes. They were sitting on bales of Salathian cotton and silks, sacks of anis and peppercorn, and from the barrels of ochre, they must have looted every north-bound shipment of pigment in the last six months. I bet my brushes they were looking for gold and didn't realize the fortune they had."

Tsonia grabbed the seam of her cropped hauberk, pulled it over her head, and grimaced at the agony piercing her shoulder. "Do make yourself useful for once, won't you?" she suggested.

Joras looked up, unfazed by her ample breasts. "You know Kaela, this could have been avoided if you'd wear proper armor," he said, taking the pitcher and soaking a wad of cotton.

"How often do I have to tell you—call me--" Her words turned into a gutteral snarl as the brandy-soaked wad touched the wound.

"-Tsonia, like the legendary warrior-queen of old. I know, I know," the artist said, gently swabbing black blood away. "To me, you'll always be Kaela, the Thelyrian alley cat. No amount of henna in your hair can change that." He used a dagger to cut some cotton strips to size and wrapped her shoulder. "What are we going to do with the waif?"

"I'm of half a mind to leave him here, rotting in the sun," she grumbled, taking another swig from the pitcher. "I'd call that fair punishment for trying to kill me."

"He just got your shoulder. Cut the boy some slack." The artist grunted softly as he tied the last knot. "How does it feel?"

"Hurts worse than that giant scorpion's stinger to my gut a few months ago." Tsonia said, caressing a faint scar on her naked abdomen.

"Which could also have been avoided by wearing proper armor," the artist said. "Your tattered chain vest and kilt might dazzle most men, but the protection they offer is most questionable."

Tsonia chuckled softly. "In case you've missed it—the wasteland beyond the Green Cities is a scorching desert. I'll not stew alive in cuirass, greaves, and helm. Not getting hit is the best protection."

She reclaimed her discarded armor and pulled it back over her shoulders and chest leaving her ribs and belly bare along with a deep swath of cleavage.

"Most men indeed pause for that one fatal second when they see me coming at them. I don't need more than that." Another painful stab from her shoulder made her wince. "Usually... And don't pretend that your paintings would sell just as well if I was covered from head to toe in armor."

"I'm not saying pose in full armor, just fight in it."

"I'll not be portrayed as other than I am," Tsonia scowled. "You paint me as I fight and I'll fight as you paint me."

Joras relented, as he always did. "As you wish, my muse."

Tsonia's gaze drifted to the unconscious shape not far away. "As for him, I think we can drop him off at The Cairn. They're always looking for fresh meat."

"Why would we visit that ungodly place?" Joras asked, not even trying to mask the disapproval lacing his voice. "It's the dumping ground for everything the Green Cities despise."

Tsonia shot him a vicious grin. "Our riding beasts will be grateful they don't have to drag our well-deserved loot all the way back to Thelyria. The Cairn is just a few dozen miles east of here and the traders there will give us a good price for all of it." She paused, slowly moving her injured shoulder. "And while we're there, I'd like to see if there are any demon-kissers hiding in the tunnels below. I have questions and they better have answers."

* * * *

Joras upended his canteen and shook it. It was well and truly empty and the scorching sun above only promised to torment them with more heat. They had refilled their water skins and canteens at the brigands' lair, but two days dragging crude cargo sleds through the wasteland had drained their supplies to a meager rest, especially with one extra mouth to feed and water. The riding lizards had gorged themselves on the brigands' remains before they departed and were docile and agreeable for the time being, tirelessly pulling their haul ever towards the east.

"Here, have mine," Tsonia said, pressing a canteen into his hand. "Not much longer now. See?" She pointed towards the east.

Joras shaded his eyes with the canteen and stared into the distance. The cracked and broken land baking under the relentless sun ahead seemed endless, but on the horizon, he spotted what looked like a lone mountain peak jabbing through the haze. Tsonia clapped his shoulder and took up her post at the front of their small group again. He took a sip from the tepid water she had given him and trudged onwards, checking the horizon for beasts or brigands. Even deep in the wasteland, death came swift to the unwary, a lesson he learned first-hand while in the employ of a minor noble from Xhastria.

The mercenaries tasked with guarding their lives had been bribed by a rival Thelyrian family and turned upon their wards when they least expected it. Joras smiled grimly. Spending his nights with the mercenary commander had saved him, but only just. After the massacre, they chased him into the desert only wearing a loincloth and carrying food and water for a day. He had made it back to Thelyria somehow, parched dry and half mad with sun fever. Compared to that ordeal, Tsonia's request to capture her beauty for eternity seemed trivial in comparison.

"I should've known better," Joras muttered. Five years had passed since their first meeting and he had not been able to fulfill her request. Not for lack of trying though. He had done stacks of sketches, detailing every facet of Tsonia's remarkably toned body.

She was a dichotomy in the flesh—sensuously curved, yet still incredibly strong and blessed with endurance which would put all their riding beasts combined to shame. Her flaming red hair—achieved through copious use of henna—cascaded down her shoulders, held from her face with a cheap brass tiara. Her eyes were of a stormy gray and often narrowed in anger or impatience, at odds with full lips made for smiling. Despite all the battles she had survived, her tanned skin was remarkably flawless, with only faint pale lines showing injuries she had sustained recently.

For all his efforts sketching, painting, and sculpting her, Joras had yet to produce the masterpiece that would endure forever. Parchment and papyrus were too flimsy and flammable; canvas, too pusillanimous; even clay was too delicate. Tsonia was a demanding muse and would see her likeness captured only in a medium as sturdy as she was herself. Joras needed to work in marble, granite, or bronze, but such materials were expensive, heavy, and unforgiving.

He had once tried to chisel her from a life-sized block of marble, only for the horribly expensive stone to crack at a hitherto unseen fault. He had cast a mold only to have it destroyed along with the bronze smelter when Feth had been overrun by the marauding Vizangian horde. And his mural on the walls of Thelyria, seven men high, was still unfinished after he'd exhausted all of the red ochre in the city for his paint. When the caravans from the south had stopped arriving with new dyes and pigments, he and Tsonia had set out to discover why.

At least his more modest paintings and sketches and sculptures sold well, keeping them in coin when loot and treasure were scarce. The brigands' treasure stores had yielded pigments and dyes aplenty, and enough trade goods to see them back to Thelyria and then some. But it wouldn't last. For all her skill at arms and for all his talent, neither of them was at all adept with their money and coins wafted from their fingers like a fickle summer wind. Tsonia's appetite for drink and men was voracious, equaled only by Joras's desire for the most exotic colors, precious minerals, and well, yes, men too.

Joras gazed towards the east, past the boy stubbornly riding the middle lizard. He hadn't spoken to either of them since he'd recovered his consciousness shortly before their departure. They hadn't gotten so much as a name out of him and as far as Joras could see, he had barely used his canteen. He looked parched and swayed precariously on his mount's back, probably racked with sun fever.

Joras picked up the pace until he was level with the boy. "You know, if you want to die this badly, just speak up. Tsonia will be more than happy to reunite you with your ancestors."

The boy turned his head, his eyes red and swollen, his lips cracked from the heat and his hair a sand-caked mess. "Do you expect gratitude?" he croaked. "You killed everyone I knew."

Joras sighed and held out his uncorked canteen. "Was your father among them?"

The boy took the canteen, raised it towards his lips—and upended it into the sand. "Yes. And without water, you will follow them soon."

Tsonia joined them. "Are you not the same whelp who begged me to spare his life only last night?" she asked, eyes piercing the boy. "Do not squander my mercy so arrogantly, boy. It's a scarce commodity, much like water in this land."

The boy said nothing.

"I can easily make due until nightfall," Tsonia continued. "And Joras will too, thanks to your generous contribution." Her hand shot out, plucking the canteen off the boy's saddle faster than a striking Iron Cobra. Smiling viciously, she added: "The only one suffering will be you." She tossed the canteen to Joras. "You are proving to be more trouble than you're worth."

"Can't sell me into slavery when I'm dead," the boy growled, longingly staring at the canteen.

"Would you prefer being sold to the demon-kissers, a nice and tender offering to the Lords from Beyond?" Tsonia asked sweetly. "That can be arranged."

The boy paled under the crust of sand on his cheeks and forehead.

"Are you serious?" Joras asked quietly.

"I was entertaining the idea, yes," Tsonia said, returning to the front of the pack. "The kind of services I might require don't come cheap. So, it's either most of the loot or our sand-caked delicacy here." She fixed the boy with a stormy gaze over her shoulder. "Choose wisely."