The Tattooed Woman Pt. 06

Ashunara called out to Lashelle, "Go fetch that wizard to me quick as you can lass," before turning back to the Sergeant, "what do you mean, "you think?"

"Well, t'is that tattooed freak, and the Sunkissed girl, there's no sign of either of them."

The Captain shifted and winced in pain, "Is Cassie alive?"

"Aye, she's hurt but alive. Has a bad burn to her arm but it'll heal. Look captain, we cannot stay here. We must have killed two score of them at least but there's no way of knowing how many more of those bastards there are, and we're in no state for another fight like that. If we stand, we likely die here. We have got to move."

"I know, but..."

Her words were interrupted as Lashelle arrived with the still bound and gagged wizard.

"Get that off of him."

The man coughed and thankfully accepted the wineskin the Captain passed to him.

The Dark Elf waited as he drank, "Quintus isn't it?"

The man nodded, looking fearful but the Captain only stared at him, "I have a wounded woman Quintus. It's a bad wound, I'm told it's likely mortal. If you save her, I'll free you here and now."

Nyx looked between the man and his Captain but said nothing.

Quintus frowned and licked his lips, "Don't think me ungrateful for the offer, but..."

Ashunara snarled, "I have no time for fucking games wizard! Save her and you walk, I swear it."

The wizard shook his head, "It's not that Captain. It's not a matter of motivation, truly. It's not even about power, it's about skill. I'd save her if I could, but I'm not a real healer. My spell is little more than a cantrip for broken bones and the like. I like as not don't have the craft to treat a wound as serious as you describe."

"Will you try at least?"

"Of course! I have no desire to see her hurt, I'm an adventurer, not some mad zealot. But... er Captain?"

"What?"

"I... I don't want my freedom."

Nyx blurted out, "What!?"

"I have nothing to go back for, and I... I want to see those libraries, that is... if they're real. It wasn't a trick was it?"

Nyx grabbed the man and turned him back to Lashelle. "It was no trick. You save that woman and I'll fucking take you to them myself and spit in the eye of anyone who gets in your way!"

"I... I'll do my best, I promise, but..."

Ashunara nodded, "Just do what you can, please. I'll not hold it against you if you fail."

Nyx turned back to the Captain, "Lucky we didn't cut that bastard's throat back at the inn. This could be twice he's come in handy."

"I'm going to the human camp. I'll offer myself in exchange for Tallis and Varoona..."

Nyx swore, "Oh, for fucks sake!"

...

Lord Marshall Eardwulf backhanded Varoona across the face hard enough to send the woman sprawling. He was in a thoroughly foul mood. He'd lost more than a score of his footmen, and a dozen of his best mounted warriors. That worthless red sorceress, who had fucking sworn to him it would be an easy victory, had gotten herself killed and along with her, he lost another twenty spearmen and a company of archers. And virtually all for nothing! All they had captured was this one Dark Elven whore! He kicked the bound woman viciously in the gut and she doubled over coughing as she struggled for breath.

"Dunstan! Fetch me wine!"

The squire responded immediately, "At once my Lord!"

Eardwulf was a large, bearded man, with a ruddy complexion and fatty jowls. He had not personally led the attack against the Darkling fiends but had dispatched his best banneret, an experienced and trusted warrior, with what he supposed was an overwhelming force, while he himself remained in the encampment with his squires, a handful of servants, and his bodyguard of a dozen huscarls. His banner was yellow with a stylised dragon's head emblem, and he wore it on his surcoat with some pride.

When the survivors had trickled back into the encampment bearing news of the utterly disastrous engagement he went into a frothing rage. He would have personally gouged out his banneret's eyes had the man not had the good sense to at least die in battle. He battered the warrior who made the report to him about the face with his goblet and would have killed the fool had not his squires interposed themselves.

At least when a learned of the prisoner his mood had lightened fractionally and when the bound woman had been shoved from the back of a horse and sent sprawling to the ground before him he had watched with malicious glee as she had been beaten and stripped.

The three huscarls had punched and kicked the wounded Dark Elf until she could no longer move and then roughly stripped her of her mail, leaving her dressed in a torn and bloodied silk shift.

The dark-skinned creature was comely enough he thought, in that disgusting inhuman way these Fae monsters had about them. He could make out the shape of her hips and breasts through the thin material of her shift and he gestured to a huscarl who ripped the front of it open before grabbing a handful of her silver hair and dragging her bodily to where the Lord Marshal was seated.

The man looked at his prisoner as he drank. "One worthless slut, for the cost of fifty good men. What a fucking disaster!"

"So, whore! What are you called?"

Varoona raised her head and peered at the man. One of her eyes was already swollen and blood dribbled from her lip, but she grinned nonetheless, "Eat shit human."

Eardwulf snarled and hurled the contents of his goblet in her face and backhanded her again. Grabbing her hair, he hauled her face towards him. The wine spilt down her chin and she licked her lips, "Wh... Why do you drink this garbage?"

The Lord Marshal drew a breath as he struggled to control his temper. If he killed her there would be no fucking ransom! But at least he could make her suffer.

"The hot irons will loosen your tongue in time whore. I can promise you that!"

"F... fuck you... h... human."

He raised his hand to strike her again but stopped and instead gripped her chin tightly, "Oh no whore. It is we who will fuck you! First, we will whip you, then when you've been whipped enough you will beg, and then we will fuck you. And once every man among us has had his turn, we'll whip you again. When we're done with you, we'll sell you to the red nuns, and they will burn your miserable, used-up, body at the stake."

The man leaned back, "But if you beg now, if you show real skill when you part your legs for each and every one of us, I might be merciful, and instead sell you to a brothel. What say you whore?"

Varoona glared her hatred back at the man, "I'd rather fucking burn!"

Eardwulf laughed, "Then burn you shall, but afterwards. Edmond, my whip!"

"Here my lord!"

Two of the huscarls gripped her and stripped the tattered remains of her shift from her body as the Lord Marshall uncoiled his whip. This was no slavers whip, however, but a bullwhip, tipped with a bead of lead that could effortlessly strip the woman's soft skin from her body, or cut her to the bone if he wished.

A commotion at the edge of camp distracted him as a naked woman walked into the firelight followed by a sentry. She was tall, well-proportioned, with decent breasts and good hips, and her skin was covered in the most peculiar markings he thought.

"What price this? Did one of the slaves escape after all? Good news I say, if too little and too late. Tell me, woman, how is it you come to be here? Did you make off during the battle?"

The tattooed woman looked about the encampment, before gazing back at the Lord Marshall's standard curiously, "Do you worship dragons?"

The man drew himself up, "I am of the noble Order of the Dragon wench, sworn protectors of the realm."

She sighed and pointed to the Dark Elf, "I've come for her."

Eardwulf frowned, for her tone was peculiar, and insolent, he thought. "What is she to you? You're not friends with this whore surely, are you lovers perhaps?"

A few of the men nearby chuckled and grinned at the question.

The strange woman shook her head, "No, not lovers, indeed I was flogged because of her."

Veroona sagged in the huscarl's grip at the words and Eardwulf guffawed, "Well now! Let me help you seek recompense. It's the least we can do."

The portly man rose from his seat and approached her, pushing his whip into her hand and gesturing expansively.

"Here! Use this, take some skin off her back in payment," he laughed, "but try not to mark her face and tits. We have a use for those."

The woman looked at the whip in her hand blankly before turning to the Dark Elf, "Veroona, would you come and serve me? Or stay, and serve him?"

Eardwul looked perplexed, "What?"

Varoona gazed into those strange golden green eyes, and shuddering she whispered, "You..."

The tattooed woman stepped closer, "This will not do. Varoona of the Dark Elves. Who. Do. You. Serve?"

The Dark Elf swallowed, "You, Mistress."

"So be it."

Looking back at the fat human the woman carelessly dropped the whip and spoke, "She is mine. Give her to me."

Eardwulf shook his head as he regarded the scene with a mixture of anger and confusion, "Enough of this. Dunstan! Take this moon-mad cunt out of my sight. Put a few stripes on her arse with your belt for her impudence and then turf her from the camp."

Shaking his head in bemusement the squire walked to the tattooed woman and took hold of her arm, "Best come with me wench before you get yourself in more trouble. Don't fear, I won't be too hard on you. You can't stay here, but I'll at least give you a bit of bread and cheese for the road," he leered, "course, you might have to pay for it on your knees, but it's better than going hungry, no?"

The man tugged at her arm, and for all the effect it had, he may as well have tried to pull over an oak tree, for the woman did not budge in the slightest.

She tilted her head as she regarded the Lord Marshall mildly, "You mistake me, dragon warrior. I said she is mine. Give her to me or I shall take her by force."

Eardwulf looked at the woman and snarled, "Kill her!"

She smiled, "So be it."

...

Nyx stared at the Captain, "You cannot be fucking serious!"

Ashunara grinned at her friend, "I'm a Captain, they are but sellswords. I am worth much more of a ransom than they. It's a worthy exchange, one to their advantage. The humans would be sensible to accept."

"SENSIBLE! There's nothing fucking sensible about this! Have you gone completely mad? They will rape and torture you and then like as not sell you to the red nuns who will fucking torch you! It's insane!"

"Nyx! Everything you say is likely true. But would you have me leave Varoona and Tallis to that fate?"

"YES! Those two poor girls are fucked. I wish it were not so, but they are, and if you go they'll have the three of you."

Ashunara slumped and her voice was bleak, "Nyx, I cannot leave them! I just don't have it in me, and there's a chance isn't there? If you swear to me there is no hope at all for them, I'll leave it, I swear, but otherwise, I'm going. Well?"

The Sergeant gave a scream of rage and kicked the small chart table across the tent, "I cannot swear, and you fucking know it! But I beg you. Don't do this."

Ashunara smiled and gripped the woman's shoulders, "Nyx, you are the best Sergeant I've ever served with and my oldest and truest friend. Like as not I'll not see you again this side of Hell. Please, let not our last words be a quarrel."

Nyx slumped, there were tears in her eyes and her voice was hoarse, "No quarrel Ash, you're not the worst Captain I've served with, but you may be the most stubborn," she glanced down at the silver flask of Elven mead that had rolled to the floor and sniffed, "a last drink together then, before we part?"

Ashunara smiled and picked up the flask, "I'd like that."

Turning she offered it to Nyx, just as the Sergeant's fist smashed into her jaw.

In the romantic tales the fair maiden is but cuffed lightly and swoons prettily into the arms of the heroine, but not this time, for these women were hardened by long years of combat and Nyx's punch hammered against her jaw and sent the Captain smashing down. She literally crashed bodily through her cot and flopped to the hard floor in an unconscious and drooling lump.

Nyx bent over her and gently stroked the unconscious woman's hair, "I'm sorry Ash, but you've got so much more to live for than a battered old cunt like me. I'll buy you a drink when we meet in Hell, I promise."

Rising, she took a last look at her friend and strode from the tent. Spying Azure stalking towards her from the edge of camp she called, "Azure! A word."

The scout approached and was about to speak when Nyx interrupted her, "I'm heading out for a bit. I may be some time. Go tend to the Captain, she's, erm... unwell."

The scout looked back at the tent, "I was just bringing news about Varoona. What's wrong with the Captain?"

Nyx blinked, "News? What fucking news?"

Azure smiled broadly, "She's back! Came in with that mad woman just a minute ago. But she's hurt and babbling. Wants to put a slave collar on or something. I sent her to those nuns to see if they could help, but she did say those bastard humans don't have Tallis! And that woman, she's covered in blood. I mean literally, almost head to foot, like she's gone wading in a slaughterhouse or somesuch, I sent her to wash before she started a panic. I was just coming to deliver the news."

The scout paused, "You didn't say, what's wrong with the Captain?"

Nyx groaned, "I am in soo much fucking trouble."