“We are hardly backwater,” the male said. Perhaps he was insulted by my statement but I never cared to understand tonal changes in someone’s voice when their body gave off perfect scents that told the truth about their emotion. That was, if I didn’t have bundles of incense burning. “We have hundreds of miles of rich riding plain, game hunting, archery, and sword games. You will find plenty to do.”
“I am already bored.” I sighed. Mother’s territory lay in the central hub of the spice trade. It was a nexus of art, sex, and political espionage. The most interesting thing to do here in my father’s land was get breakfast.
“I will be happy to show you around the area once you have made yourself comfortable,” he said.
“Of course you would.” I almost laughed at him but remembered that I would probably need allies there. I hadn’t yet met a male that didn’t start sweating out mating pheromones as soon as they stood within a hundred yards of me. This peon was no different than the others.
An interruption in the flow of grass distracted me from my meal. There was a slight break in the emerald waves, like a fish popping a head above water. I slid my tongue out to see if I could capture a new scent but the motion was downwind of me and the incense too potent. Then I spotted another quick movement a few feet to the side of the first. It too vanished before I laid eyes on it.
I still comprehended what was about to happen.
“Fuck,” I muttered and gathered the World to me. It came quickly, like an eager lover, and my body filled with its power. I released part of it as a windstorm that flew out of my tent like a hunting falcon. The magic threw aside the flying arrows these assassins shot toward my pavilion as if they were thrown flowers.
Confusion erupted in my tent as servants screamed and took cover from the attack. I used another blast of magic to throw a bolt of Fire at one of the standing assassins. It was orange, angry, and when it collided with his body the flame turned to red and feasted on his flesh and bones like a hungry vulture. Blood turned into vapor and it almost seemed as if the archer was blessed with my hair color for half a second.
“Get down!” Corlintha moved between me and the other archers, eight of them I counted, with her broad blade drawn. She was a skilled warrior but there wasn’t much a sword could do against a well shot arrow. Two pierced her chest below her breasts and exited out her back with a surprising swiftness.
“Ahh shit.” I fumbled with her slumping body, lowering it to the ground while I looked up at the combat situation.
Four of my servants were dead, stuck full of arrows like macabre cacti. The rest lay on the floor of the tent and stunk up the place with their fear. Gerleita and her male counterpart had upturned the banquet table and crouched behind its thick wood. Unfortunately, neither of them had brought a bow, so I doubted the cover would be a long term solution. Sure enough, a few of the archers had begun to flank the pavilion from upwind. They circled both to the east and west, crawling low in the grass so I couldn’t get more than a quick glimpse of them through the ocean of green.
Unlike an arrow, my magic didn’t need to be exact.
I pulled more of the World to me. Willing it to fill and then empty my blood and bones as soon as possible. One assassin exploded into vermillion flames, a second did at a wave of my hands, and finally a third managed to scream when she saw the flaming projectile dart toward her. Her cry cut off with a puff of blood, steam, and agony.
More had circled around and rushed the tent from the slope on the south side. I guessed their number now to be eight if they didn’t have any sacking the caravan. Two of them popped up from the grass and ran at me with clubs raised. Their choice of weapons indicated that they were going to attempt to subdue and capture me.
Their idiocy brought a smile to my face.
My boot hooked under Corlintha’s sword and the blade sprang into my hand in time to cut the closest attacker in half. The second slowed his sprint toward me but the movement only allowed me to ready myself for his charge. His weapon came in high, aiming for the shoulder of my sword arm, but it was sloppy and slow. I flicked the attack to his outside and brought Corlintha’s sword up to sever his arm off at the elbow. Then I sliced sideways to cleave his head in two at his mouth.
I would have liked to carve his body up a bit more but there were other attackers I needed to address. Gerleita and the male were still crouching behind the table, completely useless. Well, perhaps not entirely useless. They both had arrows coming out of their shoulders. At least they served as distractions.
The remaining six attackers had split into a group of four and two; they circled the table with arrows notched. I pulled more of the World into me and tried to fight back a grunt of pain. Being a Singleborn meant I had exponentially more magic than anyone else of my kind. But I was beginning to test the limits of what I could do without any recuperation. I was thankful none of the attackers were inclined to pull power from the World since combating one at the moment would have exhausted me even further.
The group of four launched their salvo of arrows. Their targets were my escorts but a quick blast of Air scattered the missiles wide enough to sink into the table and the surrounding ground. Almost instantly afterward my vision began to yellow and I smelled copper. Fuck. I should have let them die instead of wasting energy.
I ignored the group of two on my left and sprinted toward the group of four circling to the right of the table. Just in case the pair of archers decided that they really didn’t need me alive I threw some Air behind me to distract any potential arrows. I did hear a dual twang of bow strings but no arrows ripped through me.
The four saw me approach and pulled short swords from their belts. I was outside of the smoke of incense from my pavilion and their scent confirmed the fear that their eyes also betrayed. They had expected this to go much smoother than it was. I took a brief comfort from their mood and didn’t bother with a feint for my first broad swing.
The woman tried to block and I was too fast or she was too stupid to get her weapon up in time. Either way my blade cut through her thin leather armor, chest, and spine to separate her torso from the rest of her lower body. The next attacker jumped to my unguarded left and aimed a kick at my stomach. My foot placement was parallel to his and weighted too much on the front. I couldn’t parry the attack but I did manage to flick the blade back after he struck me and slice off everything below his kneecap. He fell with a startled scream and I hardly felt the kick to the stomach.
I had to retreat a few steps when the remaining two attackers pressed toward me in unison, pairing their strikes with nervous energy. I parried the first dozen of their swings until I got my footing again. Then I dove forward when they both accidently swung horizontally and had to halt their attack so they wouldn’t hit each other.
By the Dead Gods these country bumpkins were terrible.
I cut the arm off of the one to my right and drew a smile along this throat with the tip of the blade. While he gurgled I stepped past the last assassin and drove my knee into his groin. He screamed in pain and I smashed the pommel of Corlintha’s sword into the back of his skull.
“Drop your weapon.” The other two archers had closed the distance from the pavilion and now stood twenty feet from me. They had their arrows drawn and aimed at my chest. I glanced over their shoulders to my tent and saw that my escorts and slaves were dead. At least they had bought me a bit of killing time.
“What if I say no?” I licked my lips and realized I was covered in blood. I reached up with my left hand and wiped at part of my mouth and then licked the tips of my fingers. It tasted a little more metallic than I guessed. Iron, copper, too much salt.
“Then we will put you down,” one of the archers said. Their eyes flickered up over my shoulder and I looked back over to the caravan. There were another dozen of these assassins murdering the rest of my guards and servants.
“If you drop your weapons I will let you live.” I sighed with annoyance.
“We have arrows pointed at your chest bitch. We give the commands,” one said.
“Do you know who I am?” I almost laughed. This was beyond ridiculous.
“Of course, that is why we are here. Drop your sword.”
I debated my options. I might be able to kill these two but I’d probably black out from the magic use. Then I’d be captured by the rest of their gang. If I went with them I was certain of what would happen. They wanted me for breeding and would have their strongest males take turns with me until I begot them scores of children. Perhaps my father’s tribe would rescue me, or perhaps I would escape, either way my fate wouldn’t be entirely under my own control.
Eventually I was going to have to breed. There was no way around it. My powers were too vast to not gift to our race’s evolution. I did want a choice in the matter though. I didn’t choose to be a Singleborn but I would decide everything else in my life.
Even when I would die.
I pulled the World into me again. My stomach began to cramp, but I ignored the pain. The problem my kidnappers had was that they couldn’t really attack me. If an arrow penetrated my womb I would become infertile and useless to them. They would have preferred me dead if not in their custody but I doubt their orders were that detailed. They were probably told to capture me unharmed at all costs.
“Die.” I choked out the word as flame erupted from both of their skulls like torches. They didn’t even scream, or move, they just did as I instructed before their ash filled husks fell over onto the green plains. It was extremely hard to use Fire without a path from the creator to the intended target. It was much harder to do it twice at the same time.
I felt the grass caress my face and I startled awake. Every muscle in my body ached and I wanted to retch. I knew my horse was tied up to a tree about fifty yards from the pavilion. If I could get to the animal I might be able to make an escape to my father’s estate. I inhaled and smelled the stallion to my southwest. Now I was thankful that the grass was tall since it concealed my own crawl toward my steed.
Shouts rang from the south of me. They had noticed the fire burst and were rushing from the covered wagons to the spot I had last been seen. I gritted my teeth, fought against the pain that ripped through my body, and tried to crawl faster through the grasslands. I wondered if the layers of blood and grass on me would cover my actual scent or if they would easily find me once they reached the burnt out husks. My senses were more acute than my kin but they could still use their noses to track game.
“Shhh.” I tried to sooth my horse when I got to the animal’s feet. It didn’t seem to mind my presence. If anything, the beast seemed highly amused by my predicament. I reached up to the ties by the juniper tree and loosened the knot. There were a few other horses in the campsite that these assassins could use, but my steed was the fastest of the bunch.
They only consequence I didn’t like about my plan was that I would leave several of my attackers alive. It was a poor precedent to set in my new lands. First impressions were important and I guessed that this tribe was either a supposed ally or enemy of my father’s.
I really needed to murder all of them.
“Run fast you fucker.” I had only trained this horse for a few years but he knew that when I said those words he better move or receive a severe beating from my riding crop. He didn’t care that I wasn’t on his saddle, fear and memories overtook the animal and I almost couldn’t roll out of his path when he sprinted northward like his tail was on fire.
“She is escaping!” Several voices shouted out from the east and south.
“Get the horses from the wagons!” A woman’s voice screamed. Commotion sounded as the group ran back to the caravan and mounted their steeds. My horse was long gone by the time I counted nine other riders chase after him.
“Fools.” I lay on the grass and sighed. My problems weren’t over but at least I had a few minutes to breathe.
There probably weren’t any more kidnappers lurking about, but if there were I didn’t want to risk another confrontation without a weapon, preferably a bow, in my hand. I began the long crawl back to the caravan. By the time I made it I had recovered from using my magic enough to stand and search through the weapons without gasping in pain.
I found a long bow and a quiver of arrows a servant had used for hunting. The pull was a bit light, but I was stronger than most. I saddled one of the remaining horses, checked to see if anyone by the caravans was still alive, and then rode up toward the pavilion.
Corlintha’s sword lay next to the bodies of the two kidnappers I had immolated. I leaned out of the saddle, picked it up, and then continued the rest of the short journey to the tent. I confirmed that Corlintha was dead before I pulled her sword belt off of her body and buckled it across my waist. She had been my private guard for the last eight years and I hadn’t expected her to meet her end out here in the wilderness. It was slightly ironic since the silver-haired woman had been more excited about making this trip to my father’s lands than I.
Everyone else in the pavilion was dead as well. There were a few plates of food and assorted bottles of mead that lay untouched by the attack. I grabbed one of the jugs and took a long drink from it. Then I looked down at Corlintha’s body and took another drink. Did the mead taste better because I was still alive? Did it taste better because I was about to kill more? Perhaps it wasn’t important.