Tara Ch. 04

Tara's laughter rang out as she waded forward. She was in full battle fury now, exulting in every swing of her sword and every enemy that fell beneath its pitiless edge.

And then there were no more enemies, and the field was hers. Tara darted to the cart that held the gold, leaped onto its roof with one spring, and thrust her sword into the air with a roar of triumph. The cry was echoed by the other mercenaries. Slowly, the red miasma of battle faded from her vision. Panting with exertion and fierce joy, Tara slowly lowered her sword and looked around.

All of their enemies lay dead except one; two raiders were busily engaged in binding him with ropes. One of the mercenaries had fallen near the cart. One look was enough to tell Tara that he wouldn't be rising again. Wonder where Epona is? The warrior looked around until her eye found the slim form of her slave. Her heart nearly stopped.

The camp followers were bent over the crumpled body of a mercenary. Tara's dark eyes took in the familiar limbs with a sudden shock of fear. "Drea!" In an instant, the Gael was back on the ground and dashing to the woman's side. She impatiently shouldered a camp follower aside. "Move! Let me look at her."

Drea's brown eyes were glazed with pain, but she grinned weakly at the redhead. "Hey, Terror. Relax, all right? It's not fatal."

"Where are you hurt?" Tara was already removing Drea's armor with swift, sure movements. Blood was gushing from the warrior's side; more seeped from a nasty cut that ran across her upper arm. Tara quickly pinched the wound closed and looked up into Epona's wide, green eyes. "Hold this shut," she ordered. "Put pressure on it. That'll keep her from bleeding out." The slave obeyed with trembling hands. "Someone sew it up," Tara snapped, turning her attention to Drea's side.

The woman's tunic was plastered to her skin with blood and earth. Tara drew her dagger and cut the cloth to expose the wound. It was ugly – a deep, three-cornered gash that revealed the white bone of Drea's ribs. Tara heard Epona gasp in horror. Calmly, the warrior looked at one of the hovering field medics. "Water," she said tersely. A skin of it appeared, and Tara washed the wound thoroughly, taking care to flush out every speck of dirt. Then she pulled the cut closed with her fingers. "Give me a threaded needle," she snapped. Someone pressed the implement into her hand, and Tara began to stitch the wound closed, one layer at a time.

Drea's face was white with pain and loss of blood, but she managed a wavering smile as Tara worked. "Just like old times, huh?"

Tara did not return the smile. "I'd rather not relive this particular memory, Drea," she said coldly. "What happened?"

"I got my sword stuck between a guy's armor plates for a second," the wounded woman said. "One of those soldiers got me in the side. I killed him, but he stung my arm pretty good first."

"Bloody Hades," Tara muttered. She finished the stitching, leaving a bit of the cut open so it could drain. Then she flushed it with water, dusted it with healing herbs, and bound up the wound with one of the field medic's linen bandages. "There. All patched up."

"Thanks." Drea slowly sat up, grimacing with the effort, and rubbed her eyes. "Damn. Maybe I'm getting too bloody old for this nonsense, Terror."

"I'm sure the gold will ease your pain." Tara's lips quirked just a little as she rose to her feet. "You need to be carried back?"

Drea glared at her. "Rot in Tartarus," she growled. "Do I look like some kind of a cream puff to you? Give me your damn hand." Tara extended her arm. Drea grasped it and pulled herself up. For a moment she paled, and her grip on Tara's forearm tightened. Then she released her grasp and strode toward the other mercenaries, barking orders.

Tara turned to look at the silent camp followers. "Bring her armor back to camp," she instructed. "Have medical supplies ready for when we get back." The servants obeyed, and Tara followed after Drea.

It took a couple of hours to pack the gold and the rest of their loot back to the campsite. By the time the last of it was done, it was already dark out. The money and things were stacked nearly up near the fire, to be doled out the next day.

Tara looked at Drea. The woman was standing by the pile of loot with her arms folded, the very picture of stoic strength. The redhead could see the telltale pallor, however, and the faint twitching of Drea's lips. Tara calmly gestured. "Sit down, Captain. I want another look at your wounds." Drea gave her a dour look. It seemed for a moment as if she would refuse. Then, with a reluctant sigh, Drea seated herself on a section of log.

The gash on Drea's side looked angry and red. Tara quietly washed it again and changed the bandage. Then she carefully removed the bandages that hid the cut on Drea's right arm.

It was worse than Tara had initially thought. The cut wasn't very long, but it was deep. It had, in fact, come perilously close to severing the muscle completely. Tara's eyes blazed as she cleaned and bandaged the wound. Those bastards almost crippled her. They're bloody lucky they're all in Hades already, because if they weren't, I'd damn well send them there now!

She got up. Her eyes suddenly darkened as they alighted on the young man they'd taken prisoner. He was sitting about twenty feet from the campfire, his hands tied behind his back. Tara snarled, and felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up. Before she'd really had time to think, her sword was naked in her hand, and she was striding purposefully across the expanse that separated them. Startled camp followers scattered out of her way.

When she reached him, Tara stopped for a moment to drink in his reactions. She saw his eyes widen, his face grow pale, and beads of cold sweat begin to form on his cheeks. Tara's inner predator rejoiced. She knew there was death in her face – she gave a feral smile as she pulled back her blade.

"No!" And suddenly small hands were clutching at Tara's sword arm. The shock of it made the warrior freeze for a moment. Her dark eyes flicked down to see Epona standing before her; the girl was weeping softly and clinging to her. "Don't! Please don't, ma'am. He's tied up, he can't even fight you..."

Rage flared up in Tara's belly. With a snarl, she swung hard! The hilt of her sword caught the slave full in the mouth, snapping her head back and throwing her to the ground. Tara plunged her blade to the hilt in the young man's body, almost as an afterthought. Then she turned on Epona. The slave was crumpled into a sobbing heap on the grass. Without one word, Tara reached down, caught Epona by the wrist, and dragged her bodily to the edge of the camp.

By the time Tara let Epona fall again, the slave was almost hysterical with fear. "D-don't kill me," she sobbed out. "Please, don't kill me!"

"Shut up!" The furious warrior brought the back of her hand viciously across Epona's bloodied mouth. The slave cried in pain and terror. "You defied me in front of the entire camp. You've disgraced me!" Tara's eyes darted around until they came to rest on a nearby tree. With one hard jerk, she wrenched off a branch, and quickly stripped off the smaller twigs until she held a long switch; it was as thin and supple as a steel rod. "Take off your tunic."

As panic-stricken as Epona was, she didn't dare to disobey. Tara snatched at the slave's forearm then, jerked Epona toward herself, and began to strike. Temper drove her on. She lashed the squealing girl mercilessly until her switch broke. Then, her rage still unappeased, Tara began to beat her with her fist. Not until Epona's screams had faded into pitiful whimpers did Tara stop. Then, panting with exertion, she let the slave drop. Her brown eyes coldly surveyed her handiwork.

Even in the dim light, Tara could see the livid stripes that marked the girl's naked back and sides. Epona's face was covered with blood. She lay, twitching and choking with sobs, at the warrior's feet.

Tara's eyes were like ice. "Don't you dare show your face by the campfire until I give you leave," she hissed. "If you so much as twitch, I swear I'll whip you until your bones show through your skin!" With that, she spun on her heel and headed toward her tent.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

The dawn was beginning to soften the dead black of the night sky. The raiders' camp was stirring. A few of the camp followers were just starting breakfast, and some early-rising mercenaries were chatting somewhere near where the horses were tethered. Tara sat by the campfire with her armor in her lap, glowering as she cleaned and repaired it. She had gone and taken a cold bath already that morning to cleanse the gore and war paint from her skin, but she still looked dangerous. Every now and then, she put a large bottle to her lips and drank deeply. Everyone was careful to give her a wide berth.

There was a stirring, and footsteps approached. Tara looked up to see Drea standing near her. She scowled and looked away, impatiently thrusting a fringe of red hair out of her eyes. There was a pause. Then Drea sat down beside her. "Morning."

Tara glared at the fire and took a long, determined swig from her bottle. "Go away."

Drea shot her a quiet smile. Tara could see it out of the corner of her eye. "What's up?"

The larger woman turned abruptly to glare at her, setting aside the tool she'd been using to repair her armor. "Why in Hades should anything be up? I'm not in the mood to chat. Bugger off."

"Come on, Tara. I've known you for a long time, so give me some credit. I know the signs – you're chugging your bottle of sherry at six in the morning." Drea tapped the offending container with one callused finger. "Kick my ass if you want, but I'm still gonna ask. Now, you stubborn old warhorse, what's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong," Tara growled. "Now go away, or I will kick your ass."

The dark-skinned woman raised one brow. "Mm-hmm." She leaned back and folded her arms across her chest. There was silence for a while. "Look," Drea said at length, "I get it. I'm as hard-bitten as they come. I'm a tough old bitch, and so are you, and we don't do the hug-around-the-campfire thing. But we're still human." Her brown eyes caught Tara's. "That's nothing to be ashamed of."

The redhead scowled and looked away. "Just because we used to warm each others' bedrolls doesn't mean I won't bloody your nose, Drea."

"So bloody it. Wouldn't be the first time," Drea said cheerfully. "In the meantime, spill – you're feeling bad about beating up Epona, aren't you?"

"Excuse me?" Tara's voice dropped dangerously.

"Come on, Terror. It's not like it's some big secret, you know." Drea smiled. Tara's eyes met hers coldly; she took another long drink from her rapidly-emptying bottle. "So you've got a soft spot for Pony. What's so bad about that? She's a cute little thing. She's sweet and innocent – makes you want to protect her. Nothing wrong with that."

Tara deliberately set down her sherry. "She is my slave," she said through gritted teeth. "She defied me in front of the camp, and she deserved every lash I gave her for it."

"Who's arguing?" Drea shrugged, looking up at the sky. "Like you said, she's your slave. What you do with her is technically your business. All I'm saying is, it's fine if you feel bad about it, too. You don't always have to be channeling Ares, you know."

The dangerous glint vanished abruptly from Tara's eyes. She took another halfhearted drink from her bottle. "It's the Morrigan, not Ares," she corrected quietly. Her hand rubbed tiredly through her mussed hair. "I'm a Gael, not an Argonian."

"I doubt that matters much. The two of 'em are about the same, seems to me," Drea said dryly. In the silence that followed, the olive-skinned warrior absently drew a dagger and began to polish the blade on a corner of her tunic. "Listen, I wanted to talk to you about what happened," she said. "You do have the right to do what you want with Epona, so don't think I'm questioning that. But the way things went down..." Tara stared silently into the flames. "One of the things I have to do as the leader of this group is keep the fellows happy," Drea went on. "We're all glad if we can get a good fighter with us, and you're definitely that. You killed nearly half of those guards by yourself yesterday. The boys notice things like that. But they really don't like you."

The redhead shrugged. "So? I'm not here to make friends."

"Maybe not," Drea agreed quietly, "but if you're going to be my second – and I want you to be, Tara – the boys at least need to not hate you, all right? All they've seen of you so far is violence, and the fact that you don't drink or game with them. And whether you like this or not, people here kind of like Pony, and the fact that you beat her in front of everyone didn't really endear you to them, whether she deserved it or not." Tara scowled, but said nothing. "I'm not exactly rebuking you yet, all right? Just...well, maybe think about things a little more. Okay?"

"Fine," Tara muttered. "Whatever."

"All right." The dark-skinned woman seemed relieved. She stopped her idle playing with her knife and sheathed it. "Listen, a couple of the camp girls wondered if they could give Pony some food and patch her up some. She's had a miserable night."

Tara shook her head firmly. "No," she said. "She's still being punished. I'll take care of her in a bit, but I'll do it myself."

Drea hesitated. She seemed about to argue the point, but then sighed and shrugged. "All right. I'll pass it on." She clapped Tara on the shoulder. "Try to leave some booze for the rest of us, all right?"

"Sure." Tara's dark eyes followed the woman as she left, and then dropped pensively back to the fire.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Epona was huddled on the ground, shivering. Tara could see her there – she was still on the spot where the warrior had dropped her the night before. Probably too scared to move, Tara thought wryly. She sighed and glanced up at the sky. It was getting close to noon. It was probably time. The redhead got up, grabbed a bundle and flask that lay nearby, and headed toward the quivering form of her slave.

The wide green eyes noted Tara's approach. Epona struggled up to her knees and hunched there, trembling visibly, with her head down. Tara thought she was probably crying. The warrior moved to stand over her. She was silent for a moment, running her dark eyes over Epona's form. The girl was still naked to the waist, having not even dared to put her tunic back on; the wicked cuts and welts stood out in stark relief against the white skin. There might be infection, Tara mused. I'll have to get her over by the fire to treat her, in case I need to boil water. "Come on," she said shortly. "Bring your shirt." And she strode back toward the flickering flames.

Conversations flagged as curious eyes fell on Tara. She swept the raiders with a cold glare, and all eyes were suddenly averted. She knew, though, that she and her slave were still being watched. Tara sighed and turned to the cringing girl. "Kneel down," she ordered. Epona obeyed in silence. Tara went down on one knee to assess the damage.

The whipping had been pretty brutal, Tara thought grimly, her fingers gently probing at the torn back. There were countless blue-black welts, and at least twelve long cuts. Five of the gashes were puffy and red with infection, although none of them looked ready to drain yet. Without comment, Tara added a handful of herbs to a pot of water and let it sit for a few minutes. Then she strained it and dipped out some of the liquid. "Don't move," she said quietly. "This will sting, but it'll help keep your back from getting too infected." Epona nodded miserably, and Tara began to wash her wounds.

When the cleansing was done, Tara turned her slave so she could examine her face. It was still caked with dirt and dried blood. Gravely, Tara dipped a clean rag in water and bathed away the filth. The left side of Epona's face, from eye to chin, was covered in an ugly purple bruise. Her lip was badly cut. That'll be where I hit her with my sword hilt, Tara thought, probing the wound gently. "That lip's going to need stitches," she said with a shake of her head. "Hold on a minute." And she held the tip of a needle in a flame for a moment or two.

Epona flinched as Tara approached with the wickedly-sharp little implement. The warrior paused. "This will pinch a bit," she said quietly. "You need to hold still and take deep breaths. I'll work as fast as I can."

"Yes, ma'am." Epona's voice shook, but she bravely screwed her eyes shut. Tara hesitated. Then she gently pinched the sides of the cut together. She skillfully placed two stitches to hold the gaping wound closed. The slave didn't move, but a whimper passed her trembling lips.

"Good girl," Tara murmured. "That should heal cleanly now."

"Ma'am?" The warrior paused in the act of packing away her healer's kit. The slave's green eyes were full of pain and fear, but she bravely met her owner's gaze. "My...my arm...," she whispered timidly, holding out her left wrist. Tara looked at it. The forearm was grossly swollen, and the skin was a deep, livid purple. What...how did... The warrior gently took the poor little limb in her hands and examined it, her brow creased. Did I actually break her arm? How did...oh. The memory of holding the shrieking slave by her wrist flashed before Tara's eyes. Ye gods. Sometimes I don't know my own strength.

"Your arm's broken," Tara said shortly. She reached over, caught up her flask, and thrust it at the wide-eyed slave. "Drink this. Drink all of it. It'll make this easier to bear." Epona tasted the whiskey cautiously, shuddered, and hesitated. Tara scowled. "Drink!" The slave obeyed.

Even with the poor girl half-drunk, the setting of her arm was an ugly affair. Tara had to pull and twist the shattered limb four times before the bones were finally aligned properly. By the time she finished splinting and bandaging the arm, Tara's face was slick with sweat. She wiped her brow and took a deep breath. Then, wearily, she gathered the sobbing girl into her arms and rose to her feet. "Come on, beag luch," she said quietly. "You've had a long morning. Let's get you lying down."

It felt good to prop herself up against a fallen log and draw Epona down into her arms. Tara sighed and pulled the curly head up against her shoulder. The slave was still sobbing weakly. Her slender body felt tense in Tara's arms. "Shh," Tara murmured. "You're all right. It's over now. Rest."

"Please," Epona whimpered, "I..."

"It's all right," the warrior said. "You've been punished. You're forgiven. It's over."

Epona shuddered. Tara laid a hand against her unbruised cheek and held her quietly. She heard the slave gulp a couple of times. "Ma'am?" The voice was tiny. "Did...did you have to kill that boy?"

"That wasn't your decision, and it wasn't your affair," Tara said coldly. She felt the slave girl flinch. Calmly, she ran her fingers through the dark curls that lay against her chest. Epona's body still felt tense; Tara drew her head up a little and kissed her brow. "Sleep now." Normally, Epona would probably have been in too much pain to rest, but she had swallowed a lot of whiskey. Tara felt the slender form slowly relax in her arms. A few minutes later, the dark head rolled heavily against the side of the warrior's neck. Epona was unconscious.

There was movement nearby, and Drea appeared. She regarded the sleeping girl gravely. "She doing better?" she grunted.

"Yep." Tara jerked her head curtly.

"Good." With a stiff nod of her own, Drea turned and headed back toward their tent.