Banishment: Chapter 2 - A Friend?
** Notes from the author **
I am not trying to turn anybody on here, but instead to make a realistic story. I'm afraid that some parts of what follows will be disturbing to some individuals, and for that I am sorry. However, realistic fantasy is what I do (isn't that a great oxymoron?). Yes, there will be yiff later on in this story, but instead of people seemingly randomly deciding to have sex, realistic thoughts and emotions go into my characters.
This part of the story took a very long time to write because I currently have no aim and spent the last couple of months thinking over every scene. The total writing time may only be a few hours, but the total thinking time is probably over 100 hours. Seems I really need a battle plan after all...
** End Notes **
Total Writing Time: 6:30
Before long, Dena begins to think that these sewers were designed by mad men. No single channel of sludge seems to run for more than a couple blocks before branching off to either side. The widths and even the layout of each section seems to be different, as if several years passed between each minor expansion. There are arbitrary seeming crevices on the walls, often times with dilapidated doors that lead to spaces so small they could only be considered closets. There are also the occasional series of rooms that seem to be normal, except for the barren, stone feel and the lack of any furniture. Random pieces of metal and stone are piled up in some of these rooms, as if further expansion was planned and even the materials brought to the scene before someone decided to abandon them.
The end result of this is that she quickly becomes lost, sometimes thinking she is making progress before she finds out she's gone through a loop again. Without being able to see the sun she cannot even tell what direction she is going, though she does see occasional sunlight through openings to the city above. The constant smell of the place causes her to breathe carefully and seems to be causing her eyes to water.
Feeling more tired than expected, she decides to rest for a little. Finding a fairly clean spot, if it could be called clean, she sits down and eventually starts to day dream...
***
"So, is the bet still on?" Erik asks his friend as they turned north onto Merchants' Way, which is crowded as usual around dusk. Neither of them considered the crowds when they decided to head out early. For a moment they just both look around at all the expensive shops and rich folk walking about.
"O' course it is," replies Nerren as he scratches the back of his thick neck and looks side to side at the people wandering seemingly aimlessly ahead. "Five coins says he ain't there no more. At this rate, I'ma be a rich man, like these here people since you keep losin'. An' how are we gonna get through this crowd, eh?"
Erik stops, remembering how difficult it was getting his large friend around the open market last week, and walks back over to him. "I know. Why don' you just shove people outta the way, right? They can'ts really push ya back cause you's is so big, right? Then I jus' walks behind ya."
"Tha's just crazy 'nough to work!" Biting his upper lip and pulling his pants up, Nerren grins and starts traveling like a rolling boulder towards the crowd ahead. Erik quickly follows behind him, glad that he doesn't have to be the one doing the pushing.
A moment later, he crashes into Nerren, who seems to have stopped dead in his tracks. "What now, man?"
Nerren turns his head and says, "Do ya smell tha'?"
Erik sniffs the air, noticing a pleasant, spicy scent that can only barely be detected over the sweaty, floury scent of his companion. Since they had head out just after Nerren got done with work for the day, he still has his baker's clothing on. "Yeah, so why are we stoppin'?"
"Just stoppin' to appreciate the smell of good cookin' is all!" He turns and starts walking again, immediately bumping into someone. After hearing a brief grunt, Nerren says, "Sorry 'bout tha'. Just comin' through!" Erik smirks imagining what it looks like to all these posh people having a couple working class people shoving through their streets like this.
Suddenly becoming self-conscientious, he wonders what these people thought of someone like him, wearing his well-worn patchwork clothing. At least his shoes were in great shape, a benefit of being an artisan in his trade. When he passes a clothing shop and sees that even a simple jerkin here costs ten tells, he no longer cares how poor he might look; only a crazy person would spend tells on clothing.
"This the place?" the baker asks, gesturing towards a side street with the name of Wembley Lane. Erik responds by starting to walk down the street and nodding with his head. How Nerren could forget the route they had taken four times previously was beyond Erik, but they had never come here this early so maybe it just looked different to the big guy in the waning daylight.
***
Her mother fussed over her, as she started dressing her for the festival. Dena saw herself in the small wooden house she lived in from the time she was born until shortly after twelve years old. The air smelled sweet with a trace of cinnamon, just the way her mother's wonderful pies always smelled. A tiny red velvet dress, complete with a big white bow on the back, was pulled over her head. After adjusting it on Dena's petite form, her mother said, "When we're done here, don't forget your shoes dear."
In her high pitched voice, from back when she was five years old, she replied, "I won't momma."
"And don't go using the horsies' drinking water for a bath again."
"But momma, what do I do if I get dirty again?"
Her mother quirked an eyebrow and looked right into Dena's eyes. "Little girls like you shouldn't worry so much about being clean. You don't need several baths a day to stay pretty."
"But... but..."
"Honestly, how are you ever going to play with the other kids if you're afraid of a little dirt?"
"Princesses don't NEED to play with other kids. We're special." Dena nodded, more to herself than anybody else.
A silly frown covered her mother's face, which usually happened when she brought up princesses or dragons or anything else fanciful. "Princesses don't take their clothes off outside with a crowd of people all around, then bathe in a horse trough either."
"But..."
"And remember, no pie until after the contest."
"Yes momma."
Nodding, her mother walked around behind her and started brushing her hair. Dena looked up at the table ahead of her and could just make out the steaming pies on top that they were going to bring for the contest. She licked her lips in anticipation of tasting her favorite, the apple cinnamon pie, when her mother gave her a hand mirror. "How do you like your hair?"
When she looked into the mirror, she screamed and dropped it. A disgusting, brown and white rat stared back at her through the mirror...
***
Though several people are also traveling through this smaller street, they both can maneuver without difficulty and instead only have to bear the shrivel-nosed, quirked eyebrow looks the well-to-do folks give them off and on. Neither man says a word until they reach their destination, a small side alleyway. At the back is a bend to the left, though they are only concerned with the man hole near the entrance of it.
"So, do I get ta eat 'is pie if he ain't there?" Erik asks, rubbing his hands together before squatting to open the hole. Just before he grabs onto the latch, something out of the corner of his eye catches his attention and he freezes in position then slowly looks back at the bend in the alley.
"O' course not. Ya know 'swell as I do, I'm a hungry man! Now le's get this over with." When Nerren reaches down to open the hole, his arms is caught suddenly by his friend. "What man?!" he says, his normally red face getting even more flushed, before he notices Erik's stare and slowly follows it.
Poking around the corner in the bend, a hand is visible lying on the ground, it's fingers slightly curled upward. The baker stands back upright, groaning from the effort. "Could jus' be a bum sleepin', eh?" After waiting for Erik to budge, he sucks in his lips, pulls up his pants, and starts walking towards the bend. As he reaches it and looks around the corner, he starts paling almost immediately.
Realizing his friend is disturbed, Erik chooses to get up and take a look at the scene. Rounding the corner, he sees two dead guards lying on the ground in puddles of blood. He's seen his fair share of dead bodies, and these look fairly fresh, causing him to feel prickles run down his spine.
The owner of the hand Erik had seen earlier is on the left side, one hand raised over his head, the other still holding a short sword. His chest, possibly his heart even, has a hole in it and is obviously the source of red pool around him. The bottom of his tabard has an out of place red smear on it. The man on the right, further in, has a deep gouge in his throat. Not being covered by any clothing, it is a far more disturbing sight than the previous man's wound. His legs are tucked under him and he has a baton still loosely clutched in his right hand. A stray sword also lies on the ground nearby.
"Oh my..." the baker starts stammering. "Oh my... oh my... dead guards ain' good! Oh my..." His breathing becomes very heavy and he starts raising and lowering his legs for no good reason. "Oh my... oh my..."
Getting mad, Erik slaps the big man's face. "Nerry, man. Don' lose your mind. Get some guards! LIVING guards!"
"What if... what if they blame us?" Nerren asks while rubbing his cheek.
"Do we look the sort ta kill guards like tha'? Even if we wan'ed to? Just get goin', call for help!"
"Right... yeah..." After a moment of just standing around, staring, Nerren starts shuffling out of the alley before stopping again. "What 'bout Tanner?"
Erik opens his eyes wide as he realizes he totally forgot about his friend in the sewers. A quick look down the end of the alleyway shows that there's pretty much no way the assailant could have escaped by climbing without a rope. And Wembley Lane would have been even more crowded earlier. "Ya don' think he's..." Quickly he runs past the baker, grabs ahold of the lid to the man hole, opens it as fast as his scrawny arms allow, and shouts down the moment there's an opening. "Hey Tanner! Ya there, man?"
After a moment without a reply, he glances over at his friend. "Get goin'! I'm goin' down ta check on 'im." Without waiting for a response, he starts climbing down. He doesn't even care if he loses another five coins this time; he certainly doesn't want to win his bet today.
***
Another distant scream snaps Dena from her day dream. She jumps to her feet, weapon already in hand and glances around the gloom, expecting an attack. Immediately she detects the stench again and only then does she remember where she is and why she is here. She looks down at her fur covered arms in disgust; already they are beginning to collect filth from her surroundings, and she has found no clean water to drink or cleanse herself with. Not that it matters much since no amount of water is going to wash away the rat in her and magically turn her back into a human. While trying to wipe her arms clean, yet another shout that is cut short causes her to stop thinking about herself and decide to search for the source of the yelling.
After following in the direction of the sound for a few minutes, she almost gives up hope finding anybody when she hears voices down a side passage. Slowing her pace, she starts creeping towards the sounds. Laughter, followed by hissing for silence, alerts her to their location.
Through a small side passage is another room containing four Athrati, one gagged and held down by two of the others. The last one appears to be taking advantage of the gagged one, though from her angle, Dena cannot make out any details, especially since a fifth Athrati is standing in the doorway entering the room. He too is watching the inside of the room. The gagged rat seems to be struggling a lot and possibly trying to scream, but only quiet muffled sounds are audible. The stench of urine is permeating from the room, though whether from an unseen source or from the Athrati inside, she cannot tell. She is briefly surprised by the fact that not a single one of them has any clothing on.
Already deciding to take action to help, she starts walking straight for the one guarding the doorway. Somehow he detects her and turns to look in her direction, adding a short, "Hmm?" before her sword is thrust completely through his neck, sending a brief spray of blood towards the others. Drawing her weapon back and kicking his body towards the room, she then stands ready for the others to retaliate.
The others all quickly jump away from the bound Athrati on the floor and look over at their assailant. Instead of the expected charge, they instead speak to her. "What'd 'e ever do ta you?" asks the tan rat to her left as he slowly edges his way to a pile of loose metal in the far corner.
"Who i' zat?" asks the small brown rat who had previously been abusing the bound Athrati on the floor. "'ow come she 'as a zword?"
"Who cares, Mendel?" asks the first again as he picks up a few metal rods. He tosses one to the third Athrati, a brown and white rat, then one to Mendel, keeping two to himself which marks him as the leader of the bunch in her mind. "She's a WOMAN!"
At that, the other two stare at her, half in awe and half in the lustful craze she had seen plenty of times before. They all raise their bars, poised to attack. She simply smiles at her opponents and steps over the dead body, carefully avoiding the pooling blood around it's head. Immediately afterward they all take a step back, apparently not expecting a woman to want to fight.
***
Hentar gazes for a moment at the woman before him and wonders if she might be worth losing his best man over. When she steps over Tom's dead body, he can catch her scent in the air, the sweet scent of a freshly turned rat. It begins to intoxicate him, causing him to forget about the dull room around him. His focus is simply on her beautiful face, the angles, the way it catches the dimly reflected twilight, the way the skin and fur bunch up under her eye as she smiles at him. Perhaps he's been a rat too long, or maybe he just hasn't seen many women in the last few years, but this one looks like a dream come to life.
There is no doubt in his mind that he shouldn't lose this one. He must have her for himself. Almost as if she could read his thoughts, she quirks an eye at him, slowly says, "Well?" and brandishes her sword vaguely in his direction.
Mendel then darts out towards her. Hentar quickly shouts, "Stop!" just in time to see Mendel's weapon deflected by her sword. She takes a quick stab in Mendel's direction, but the little weasel is already out of her reach. He looks over at Hentar with an expression of curiosity.
Whoever she used to be must have been terrifying, as there are not many crimes a woman can commit that would cause her to be cursed. This one obviously is here for the same reason Hentar was here: murder. Judging by the way she moves, she might have been a soldier in another nation where women were permitted to do such things. The thought causes him to spit off to the side before he starts slowly striding forward. A beautiful lady should never have been forced to do such things.
"She seems ta be the fightin' type, Poker. That means you need ta leave 'er ta me."
Mendel nods and backs away into the corner. "What eve' ya say, boss." Glancing over at Jad, he sees him moving over to Mendel's side of the room. When they make eye contact, Jad nods as well. He shakes his head for a moment, wondering if that guy will ever decide to talk again.
Turning back to the woman, he calculates the moves he'll make, where he'll strike. He certainly doesn't want to damage her in the wrong places, no that wouldn't do. But she doesn't need her arms or her legs, and especially not her weapon, now does she? Certainly not for what he has in mind.
First he's going to break that little sword of hers. Holding his arms out to feign being open, he closes in on his target. Then he's going to break her legs so she can't get away. He watches every motion she make, which, aside from breathing, hasn't been much. Lastly her arms, so she can't even flail at all and only then will this beauty be his.
She lunges at his face with so much speed, he practically stumbles to get out of the way and by the time he brings his rods up to deflect the attack, she has already recoiled. Again, she stabs at him, towards his belly this time, but he manages to get out of the way in the nick of time.
He hears a splatter sound as she steps back into the blood around Tom's head. She then looks distressed and glances down at her foot, giving him the perfect opportunity to strike. Aiming for her sword arm, he swings both weapons. She starts to spin out of the way and slips on the blood, sending her into a roll off to the side and causing him to only graze her shoulder. Her roll stops short when her tail apparently gets in the way. He quickly turns and swings downward at her arm again and is taken by surprise when she rolls back towards him, stabbing her sword upward at him. It took all of the effort he could muster to dodge out of the way in time, leaping to the ground to his right.
After regaining his posture and seeing that she was now out of range, he felt moisture on his left inner thigh. When he looks down, he sees the most frightening image imaginable. She had somehow managed to slice most of the way through the base of his penis, which was now leaking blood out so quickly he could see it shrinking. It is just dangling there, barely even attached, and now completely useless to him. Rage quickly began to replace lust, and when he looks up at her, her legs also covered in blood, he can feel the adrenaline burning it's way through his veins. And she's smiling at him! She will die for this!
Screaming, he charges at her, now targeting her brains which he visualizes being spread all around him. As he swings towards her head, she swerves around him quickly and grabs his left wrist firmly. Whipping his arm downward, she causes him to lose his balance, spin around, and fall to his knees before she stabs him in his left shoulder, near the base of his neck.
The pain is too much for him and he falls on his elbows, now practically bowing to her. The trickling feeling running down his back, coupled with the numbness he feels tells him that the wound is serious. He can't let it end this way, defeated by a woman!
Again he darts at her, trying to ignore the pain and wanting only to draw her blood. This time he's prepared for her to dodge, and swings only feebly in her direction and then jumps at her the moment she starts moving out of the way. He plows directly into her, knocking her onto the pile of steel rods he had grabbed his weapons from. Then she smashes her forehead into his, causing him to see sparks before she shoves him off to the side.
She stands up over him and he can see she is covered with blood now, even some on her neck and face. He realizes that it is his and Tom's blood, not hers. She no longer is a dream come true, but a bringer of death. Bloody, full of anger and power, and unaffected by his best efforts to stop her.
He tries to pull himself together for another attack, but his strength has greatly waned; he can't even begin to stand. The air around him is beginning to chill, and the room is getting dark. He does manage to roll over and crawl away from her, towards the corner, but even moving begins to become laborious. He hears a yell, a clang of metal on metal as one of his comrades decides to take her on. "Stop..." he mutters softly, even speaking seems to be difficult anymore. "Stop... sssstop..."
***
After defeating their leader, the other two just stare at her for a moment. The little brown one starts edging his way to the exit, the way she had come in, while the other one runs at her. Using both hands, he swings his bar downward at her. She side steps at the last moment and as he brings it around to counter, she deflects his attack with her blade. Grabbing and pulling on his weapon with her empty hand, she stabs at him. Unexpectedly he just lets go of the weapon and she only manages to barely puncture his arm. He then breaks for the doorway, leaps over the dead Athrati, and runs away into the passage beyond.
She glances around for the last one, Mendel, but he must have taken flight while she was distracted with the other one. The leader is slowly crawling into the corner, but judging from the amount of blood around him, it's only a matter of time before he is no longer a threat. She can barely make out him saying, "stop..." over and over before he finally stops and collapses down onto the filthy floor.
Looking at her robes, she can see she is now coated in his blood. The smell of it is thankfully drowning out the rest of the scents around her. Feeling the side of her neck, then up to her cheek, she realizes that it's going to cake into her fur. The thought of walking around with a dead man's blood all over her, and not a bath anywhere to be found, is almost enough to make her want to cry.
Movement out of the corner of her eye causes her to spin around. She stops herself short of stabbing this one in the face when she notices the gag. The rat's eyes are open wider than seems possible, and she could hear his muffled screaming. Only then does she realize that she had just rescued a man.