The Tattooed Woman Pt. 36

Apologies! Many, many apologies for the delay in submitting this. I've been lazy as Hell, but after my R&R I hope I'm back in the groove. I guess we'll just have to see what you guys think.

I'm glad folks appear to be enjoying my yarn. as always please leave comments, as criticism, both positive and constructive, is inherently useful. Plus, I really like reading comments, so that's cool.

Once more, a shout out goes to Avicia for their suggestions and much-needed help with editing this.

The Tattooed Woman Volume 3 - Chapter 36: All That We See or Seem.

It was snowing when Ashunara and her company returned to the column. A light fall that lay crisp and white upon the ground and as she cast her eyes from the heavy clouds above to the landscape before her, she had to wonder what manner of sins such a virginal blanket might eventually hide.

Standing upon a hillock, she cast back the hood of her weather-cloak and drew a breath, savouring the clean crisp air. Her fighting braid had fallen loose during the day's hard march and the breeze stirred her hair, causing the mischievous silver strands to dance about her features. Impervious to such distraction, her dark eyes carefully surveyed the surround as she took in the terrain and features, like some canny predatory thing, ever watchful and wary of hunters and ambush.

Before her was the column, snaking along the glen like a great armoured serpent. Its pace was still woefully glacial, but it was no longer the disorganised rabble she had left behind only a few days previously. With a quiet grunt of grudging approval, she noted that it at least now looked like a military force, with orderly Companies marching in rank and file, skirmishers at the ready and scouting parties warily patrolling the flanks. At her side Nyx cut herself a slice of apple and sniffed, "Don't look so much like a dog's dinner now."

Ashunara pursed her lips thoughtfully as she nodded, "Doubtless some Warmaiden has managed to take charge," she snorted, "I wonder how much intemperate blood was spilt in the process."

The veteran passed her half an apple with an evil grin, "A fair portion no doubt, but given most of the clowns down there couldn't pour piss from a boot if the instructions were writ on the heel, and what with that mess actually now having something of a martial aspect to it, I'm guessing it weren't nobody we care about that got filleted."

The Captain bit into the fruit and chewed as she eyed the marching host carefully. After a few moments more she nodded again, "Doubtless you're right enough," she shook herself, "anyway needs must, and we have Company matters that requires attending to."

Suddenly all business, she turned to her standard bearer, "Muriah, I have a job for you."

The younger woman eyed her cagily, "Captain?"

"Oh, don't look at me so girl, 'tis a worthwhile errand and a needed one at that. I want you to go down to the column and speak to the quartermaster or vittler, if they have such a thing, and arrange for our resupply. And while you're there find out who's in charge. I'll need to pay respects, so make the needed arrangements, there's a good lass."

Muriah blinked, "Me? But I'm just..."

"You're my standard bearer and a member of my Company are you not? Now hop to it!"

"Yes, Captain, but, um... what supplies do we need?"

Turning slowly Ashunara gave the woman a flat gaze, and Nyx had to stifle a grin as she caught the Captain's lips momentarily curling ever so slightly, "Now were you not the one bemoaning about being used as a drudge? Well, here's me giving you a task requiring some responsibility and still you whine. I suggest you use your initiative and figure it out. Get it wrong and it's your arse. Dismissed!"

Turning back to the column Ashunara deliberately took no notice when Nyx caught Muriah's eye and gave a slight nod towards Lashelle, who was down by the campfire rummaging through her packs. The younger woman nodded her thanks and loped off. Sighing the veteran turned back to her Captain, "Were we ever that young?"

Ashunara chuckled, "Well, I might have been, but you? No chance. You were a grumpy curmudgeon when you marched from the womb, probably with shortsword in hand and scowling at the world."

"Hey! I resemble that remark. Besides," she grinned, "I've mellowed. Like a fine wine."

"More like a cheese."

"Oi!"

Stifling her grin, the Captain pointed off towards the flanks, "Send Varoona down to yonder Orcish camp and have her negotiate replacements for our losses. Mayhap have her take Adair with her. They both speak the Orcish tongue well enough. She knows my likes but remind her I favour good archers, all well blooded mind, no cubs out on their first raid."

"Will do, Captain."

"Very good, let's be about it then. I want to be done with this and away from here by tomorrow."

"And then, Captain?"

"Then we head out. If I have it aright there's a Drow army somewhere out there. Someplace between us and Miosgan Meadhba, just... waiting, waiting to swing in behind us or, more likely, cut in and divide the column, likely make attempt at seizing the baggage train. It's what I would do."

"And?"

"And we're going to find it."

Nyx grinned and deftly slid her dagger back into its scabbard, "Oh, is that all? And here was me thinking you were planning something daft."

The sly look Ash gave her was thoroughly vulpine, "As if."

...

The gardens of House Varro were a wondrous marvel of tall hedges and dark vines, flower beds and hidden ponds. During the day, many strange birds would nest in the trees and their melody was pleasing to the ear and spirit of those who listened. But after the sun set, during the hours of darkness when the gardens were all but still, it was the delicate and haunting scent of the night blooms that sometimes drew the Dark Elves from their chambers, to walk and even dance among the groves. Young lovers would take delight in the quiet nooks while poets and dreamers walked the paths or took their ease upon benches as they sought their muse in moonlight and shadow.

But not tonight. For this night Lady Aventine had issued command for the gardens to remain clear, and with good reason. For tonight it was no bird that landed in the flower beds, but a Dragon.

Cassie wiped a tear from her eye as she stood among the orchids and looked up into the night sky. The flight back from the tower had been more leisurely than the pell-mell madness of the initial journey and the insanity of violence that had engulfed them on their arrival but still she felt both sad and cold.

The previous eve Ellén had explained the necessity of their parting, "It is an errand, and I am loath to refuse, for the one who set my hand to the task has offered favour for my efforts, and I suspect that might come in handy in the days to come. But I'm told there is like to be some peril in the doing," she swallowed and gripped Cassie's hands tightly in her own, "should it come to pass that, well, you know..."

Cassie pulled away, "Do not say such things!"

Ellén sniffed, "No, I want you to hear this. I... I am what my mother made me, and, well, my kind are not well known for sentiment and... feelings, but," Cassie felt her trembling, "but I want you to know that you mean something to me, truly. And, as much as my kind can I..."

"Shhh, speak no more of it Ellén. We can talk when you return to my side," she grinned, "and I warn you, Dragon, you had best be quick about it, or I shall come to yours. And if you go getting yourself hurt, I'll be vexed."

Ellén grinned at the little human who had almost effortlessly wormed her way into her heart, "Well now, we wouldn't want that."

"I mean it Ellén! You go doing something daft and I'll have my sister box your ears for you."

Gazing at Cassie's intense expression the Dragon shook her head with a wry chuckle, "You know, my mother schemed it so I would fall to you and not your sister. In her mind she saw that as a Dragon I would endure for ages uncounted while you, as a mortal child would live your brief life and then, upon your death, I would be free. She thought it a calculated kindness would you believe. Oh, how wrong she was! I think, after you are gone that I shall not enjoy my long years."

The little human snorted, "Surely that's the most morbid compliment I've ever heard, 'I'll miss you when you're dead?' Well thanks! Truly, Dragons are shit at romance."

"That's not what you said last night."

"Oh, shut up and hold me a while, and mayhap I'll give you the chance to prove me wrong, if you're lucky that is."

Ellén smiled as she pulled the girl close and wrapped her cloak about them both, "Oh, I think I've been lucky enough for even a Dragon's lifetime."

Cassie looked up into the brilliant blue eyes of the woman who held her and just as their lips met, she whispered, "Better."

The flight back to the city had been a quiet one, with both Dragon and girl lost in their own thoughts and it took Cassie a moment to realise that that they had not returned to the inn as she expected. Casting her gaze around at the gardens she turned to Ellén with a questioning look.

The Dragon had shifted to human form and Cassie smiled as she saw the strange cloak of glittering scales had appeared, well, as if by magick about her shoulders after the transformation.

"A rare gift, that shawl," tracing her fingers through the weave she admired the fine artistry of the shimmering garb, "and a fetching look I think."

Ellén smiled as she stepped closer, "Well, if it stops me flaunting my bare posterior for the entire world to see after I make the change then I'm all for it."

With a mischievous grin, Cassie tilted her head as her hands slithered past the iridescent folds to wrap around the enticing form within, "Oh, I don't know. I think there are those who might miss seeing such a sight." Pausing, she looked about at the surroundings, "'the garden is a beautiful setting, but I do not know this place. What brings us here and not the inn?"

Ellén held her tightly for a long moment before stepping back with a resigned sigh, "'Tis the place I was urged to bring you... For safekeeping."

"But the inn," Cassie's eyes went wide, "is Narissa and Maggie... Are they in danger?!"

"We are all in danger these days, I think. But for the moment at least they are safe inside," she sniffed and looked away, "now, I must be off. You... well, you know what I want to say."

"Ellén?"

The blonde woman had stepped back a ways but halted at the word to look back at the girl.

"Come back to me."

"I will."

"Ellén?"

She looked back again, and Cassie smiled, "I love you."

The blonde creature drew a breath, her sparkling eyes flared a brilliant blue, and her lips parted in a wondrous smile that to Cassie all but lit the gardens, "Of course you do Little Cassie. I am your Dragon after all. How could you not."

A sibilant shudder ran through her as the creature made the change. Flesh became scale, hair became horn, and that brilliant smile took on new dimensions as teeth became fangs, set in jaws large enough to swallow a carthorse.

The great head swung close to the girl and Cassie reached out to run a gentle hand across the scales. Burning blue eyes bigger than dinner plates closed, and a shiver ran through the enormous, armoured form, smoke trickled from the corners of its mouth and Cassie could feel the preternatural heat upon her skin.

"Be careful."

The Dragon's playful nudge was enough to send the girl sprawling back to land on her posterior on the soft grass and a rumbling chuckle emanated from the great creature.

"Oi!"

Ellén eyed her for a moment longer, then, with a beating of mighty wings, the Dragon took to the sky! An instant later there was a roar from far above and a brilliant flash of Dragonfire lit the clouds, and she was gone.

For a long time, Cassie stood in that lonely garden and stared after her as the snowflakes fell on her face.

...

Sura was a lowborn Drow.

With no family or clan, she had been discarded as unwanted detritus at an early age and thrown into the fighting pits with all the other outcasts. There to survive, or perish, as the dark fates allowed.

Survive she did. In that harshest of environments, she struggled, fought and bled for every morsel, every scrap of clothing, every rag, every coin. Taking what she needed from those who were weaker, as those who were stronger took from her, without mercy, or regret.

She grew hard, and she grew cunning, by age twelve she was running with a gang of cutthroats and thieves, all vagabonds like herself. By sixteen she was an enforcer and trusted lieutenant. And on her twentieth birthday she deposed the previous Captain in typical Drow fashion, challenging her to personal combat and killing her in a vicious knife-fight. She had rather liked the previous Captain, in fact they had become almost close, but she still slammed her blade into the woman's heart without hesitation, and she walked over her cooling corpse without a second glance.

Over the next twelve years, she ran her outfit with a velvet fist, expanding her operation through guile, seduction and violence; ruthlessly wiping out any competing gangs that opposed her. She brokered in stolen whispers as much as stolen goods. Local brothels, flesh pots and drug dens paid their dues and for a while life was almost bearable.

But in the warrens of the Drow undercity, there were eyes and ears everywhere, all hungry, all out for themselves, and inevitably she was marked, and the justicars came for her.

They were garbed in black mail, silver hair ruthlessly cropped short, and concealed by glamours and enchantments that tricked both eye and blade. In a single night of blood and fire, her crew were slaughtered where they stood, with the few survivors scattered only to be later ruthlessly hunted to extinction. Such was what passed for justice among the Drow.

She was the last.

They fired her safehouse and pursued her through tunnel and shaft before running her to ground. Trapped, exhausted and wounded she stood at bay and fought, gritting her teeth in a wild snarl, determined to make her hunters pay the full blood-price before she fell.

The struggle was brief, vicious and utterly hopeless. She gutted one, at the cost of a blade sliding deep into her side. A dart took her leg, but her hurled knife plunged unerringly into the hunter's eye. A third kicked her to the ground and she spat blood as she reared up and plunged her knife into the woman's knee causing her to stagger back with a curse. Another blade plunged into her shoulder and with an enraged scream she launched herself at the assailant, grappling them to the ground and furiously bashing their head against the hard rock of the cave floor until blood, bone and brain splashed across the stone.

She was still staggering to her feet when a livid thunderbolt lit the cavern and brought her struggles to a brutal halt.

Darkness took her a while, but the soothing balm of unconsciousness typically didn't last and charred, burned and bleeding she awoke in a sea of pain; lying on her back on the hard stone in a pool of already drying blood. With a sound half whimper and half snarl, she battered against the weakness that would see her curl up and die and instead she pushed herself against the cave wall. Breathing heavily, she sat a while before wiping snot and blood from her face and razing her head to look about.

Across from her the woman in dark armour calmy sat upon a stone and watched her struggles with mild disinterest. Her eyes were crimson, and her cloak was plain. No insignia or heraldry marked her garb and her hands remained hidden beneath the folds of her outfit. Casually, she produced a flask from some hidden pocket and took a sip before sighing in apparent satisfaction at the taste and deftly concealing the thing.

Eyeing the fallen Drow, the woman's lips parted in a semblance of a cheerful smile, but Sura saw how whatever merriment it was that she felt, it didn't reach her eyes. No, they showed nothing but a cold and ruthless intent, mixed with little more than mild curiosity.

With an offhand gesture she indicated to the bodies lying scattered about.

"That was quite the fight. I think you did passably well for such an untutored creature. Of course, the one who's knee you punctured has crawled off, doubtless in search of reinforcements. I suspect if she's successful they will be here presently. If I were you, I would not linger."

Sura grinned and pushed herself back against the cave wall before struggling to pull a dagger from her boot. Weak as she was with blood loss, and with vision blurred, she struggled a while before finally retrieving the blade and slumping back with a satisfied grunt. Spitting blood on the floor she panted, "Nowhere to go. I think maybe I'll just bide here a while and see what happens."

"Indeed?"

"You're no justicar are you?"

The woman ginned, "Well, that depends on your point of view I suppose."

"You're an assassin."

"Quite so."

"Here for the bounty?"

"Oh, goodness no. If I were I can assure you, you would have never awoken and even now I'd be tossing your severed head onto the desk of some witless Inquisitor in exchange for whatever pittance of a value they placed upon your otherwise worthless life."

Sura tried to push herself onto her knees but the venom in the dart still robbed her leg of any strength and she slumped back, "So?"

The woman smiled, "So what?"

"So, what the fuck do you want?"

"Oh, just passing the time of night. Heard the din and came to see what the ruckus was all about. It was all very amusing, and soo dramatic, quite thrilling really," she paused, and her eyes narrowed slightly, "tell me though, why have you not begged me for help?"

"Why bother? We're Drow. We don't do "help" and I can't be arsed wasting my time with worthless pleading."

"Fair point."

The woman nimbly slid from her perch and stood in a fluid, catlike motion, "Tell you what though. Just over yonder, perhaps a few hundred paces or so down that tunnel is the Guild-House. If you'd care to crawl that way, and should you make it without bleeding to death, then I might consider putting in a word for you, in payment for the night's entertainment. We could always use a suitable apprentice, or live target, depending on aptitude I suppose."

"Justicars?"

She grinned, it was an unnerving sight, "Oh, I doubt they'd care to trouble my chapter, but it might be best to avoid them until you get there. Anyway," she dusted herself down, "must be off, things to do, people to kill and all that. I'll mayhap leave word at the gate should I pass that way. Good fortune to you."

The long slow crawl to the guild house was a nightmare of pain and weakness, with bouts of vomiting and unconsciousness, as blood loss and venom had their way with her.

Eventually though, she made it to the black door and the wardens came forth in response to her feeble banging upon the armoured portal. With barely a whisper they slid forward and thoroughly searched her, stripping away hidden blade and cosh alike. One chuckled quietly and almost playfully ruffled her hair when she found the garotte concealed in the lining of her jerkin and another nodded in grudging satisfaction as she took stock of the weight and balance of her last throwing dirk. Leaving her lying there face down in the dirt with clothes pulled apart and in disarray from the thoroughness of the search they withdrew as quietly as they had come.

The toe of a plain black boot slid under her side and careless of her pain it casually tipped her onto her back. With a groan, she blearily gazed up into the crimson eyes of the woman standing above her, "Took your time did you not? I was beginning to wonder if you'd decided to decline my gracious invitation."