They wove their way through three horse lengths of stiff branches and heavy trunks with deeply rutted bark. Finally, Tucker halted the procession of fragment. A filthy specimen sidled up to Tucker and said, “This is a good spot, it's deep enough for camouflage but the moonlight can still get through the trees,” he said, jerking his jaw upward, littered with unsightly stubble, at the dense canopy. It offered filtered moonlight, speckling the ground around them like a dirty egg.
Tucker nodded, turning to Caesar. “How'd you get her? How come she wasn't in the Band's care... three deep with guards?” Tucker planted his hands on strong hips.
The filthy fragment who was kept as a servant to Tucker, scurried back and forth, gathering old burlap sacks. After procuring a sufficient amount, he laid them at Caesar's feet. Before Caesar answered Tucker, he rolled Clara's body onto his opposing arm. In this way, she was cradled against his chest. He gazed at her for the briefest of moments and had a disconcerting feeling of guilt stab him when he beheld the ugly bruise that he had put upon her face.
A face of great beauty. A fragile beauty that made his heart race in his chest. If she would but cooperate with his plan, this violence would be unnecessary, regardless of how it pulled at him. Caesar did fancy the abuse of others. It was a corruption of nature inside him.
A familial nature shared by many of his kindred.
He put his face in the grim lines the fragment expected, an expression that was both easy to maintain and afforded him protection from their scrutiny.
Tucker looked down at the unconscious queen and thought how everything was again right within his world. The arrogant female was now within his sights again and he would never trade her. It didn't matter that she was half-savage. She was his. He would enjoy her degradation by subjecting her to every depraved thing he could come up with.
There were many.
He smiled, clenching his fists to keep from touching her, allowing only his eyes to roam her body. He thought it was interesting how vital and large she loomed when awake. Yet... in this vulnerable state, her real stature was so small and still. He smiled, he knew the fight the girl possessed.
The savage, what the sphere-dwellers called Band, that was the flavor of their temperament. He ought to know.
He was part-savage after all.
He smiled, knowing the secret he guarded was paramount to his leadership. They must never know. He had only a drop or two. But it was enough. When he was a lad he'd swum in a river which had salt at its mouth. It ran parallel to the camp they lived in during the hot season. His gills burst from his throat like burning whips of fire.
He had never swum there again. He knew what would've happened if the other fragment had discovered he was Band enough to manifest gills.
Enslavement.
Ridicule.
Torture.
No. Tucker had honed the skills of the Band. The ones he possessed he used in battle: additional strength, barely within the upper norms of the fragment. He had an uncanny ability for knowing the right place to be at the right time. When a Band member lay dying during a siege, Tucker gutted him like a pig, slow-like. There were many answers that day.
It was a day of revelations. Tucker learned he was a rarity amongst the Band, an intuitive. However, he had not inherited their protectiveness for females. Obviously.
He ruminated on his past exploits. After he had thought on them to his satisfaction, he gazed down at Clara again.
The queen.
She'd be his.
Caesar watched Tucker as he looked upon Queen Clara, palming his chin in reflection. He could not ascertain Tucker's thoughts but he did not like whatever it was. Tucker was of an ilk that bore watching.
Tucker sighed. He twirled his finger in a loose circle above his head and three of the fragment came and hauled Clara away. He turned to Caesar, thinking he was slightly more clever than the jackass of a prince. But Tucker was a sincere believer in genetics, their presence rose to the surface like oil and water. Combative and vital.
The blood never lied.
“Did you have to cuff her so hard? She is still out like a light!” Tucker hissed at Caesar.
Caesar's brows rose in question and Tucker huffed. “She remains unconscious, sphere-dweller. You can't strike a woman of that size that hard and expect wakefulness soon.”
Caesar wondered how Tucker would know how hard to strike a woman? Caesar had actually never hit a female before this occasion. He had others that had meted punishment of that sort for him. He had enjoyed the sport of watching.
Very much.
Many of the poor of his sphere would remain quiet if money and food were exchanged for... such things.
Tucker smiled. “I see by your expression that you understand I have some first hand knowledge of abusing with precision.”
Caesar nodded. He did understand: this cretin was of the lowest sort. He would know how to execute many things. How to execute many things of dubious motivation. He thought on Prince Frederic. He had enjoyed the doing of it. As a point-of-fact, Caesar had come very close to mentioning his dalliances to their king. In that way, he could very well be in line for the throne instead of Frederic. In the end, it had mattered not. The prince, with his twisted urges, had been killed for them and here Caesar stood, the future king. Future king of anything he wished.
Tucker said, “Let's go. She'll wake up soon and be a spitfire. We need to contain her and make her see reason.”
Caesar paused, trying to translate Tucker's speech into something resembling sense. “She may be too injured yet to be of any use for interaction, Tucker.”
Tucker shook his head, swiping low branches as he made his way quietly through the forest toward where the fragment had set up a small fire, Clara a still lump beside it.
Her hair shimmered as a flame that glowed, low and dark, a shining beacon of red.
The pair walked toward Queen Clara.
Their goal the same, neither knowing about the other.
****
Matthew interrupted the melee to ascertain why it was taking so long for Clara to alter her attire. She was usually quick about it. It had been one half hour past since last he gauged the time. He strode to her closed door where Clarence and Edwin stood discussing the insurgence by the fragment. He put his hand on the hammered brass knob, a buttery gold dot in the middle of a door that looked bronze but had lightly peppered divots on its copper surface.
Edwin's gaze swung to Matthew. “Do not enter, she is about dressing.” His eyebrow was cocked to his hairline, thinking Matthew absurd. Of course, Matthew cared not what Edwin thought about him.
About anything.
“It has been overly long,” Matthew stated by way of explanation.
Just then, Maddoc charged up, Bracus, Rowenna and Philip at his heel.
“What say you?” Matthew asked Maddoc, his disquiet suddenly a bottomless crater.
Maddoc put his fist to his chest. “My mother is well... however, this ache in my chest continues. We must check on Clara!”
Matthew swiveled and jerked the knob, it rattled, then gave under his hand, its loose seat barely working as he nearly jerked it out of its metal housing. The door fell open and Matthew's eyes landed on the jeweled hook contraption that Clara used when she used whilst traveling. He thought of the clothing she needed to wear to present herself as royal and clenched his teeth together.
The tool lay on the floor, a deep gouge on the vanity that held the looking glass telling Matthew the story of what had transpired in her chamber.
Violence.
And Maddoc had felt it.
Matthew's mind raced even as Bracus came to stand before him. He touched on several possibilities before the gears of his finely tuned mind touched on the one he thought most likely.
Caesar.
The one who showed amusement instead of righteous resentment upon hearing Clara's dismissal of a future betrothal between them.
He understood all now. It had never mattered to Caesar.
For he knew all along that he would have her, through consent or no.
His gaze met Bracus'.
Rowenna came forward and gripped Bracus' huge forearm, his dominant one, bulging through use of weaponry aplenty.
“Where is she?” Rowenna asked, never so close to tears as she was at that moment. The reuniting with her daughter was a recent thing. Too new by far.
Maddoc looked at Matthew. “Is she... injured?” Matthew asked Maddoc in a voice gone low with fury.
Maddoc never answered. His eyes did.
Matthew raged and Bracus held him so he would not take out his murderous wrath on the innocent items that were in the room.
His eyes met Rowenna's. Standing water lined the violet within but the tears did not fall.
Her anger at the one who had stolen her daughter away froze them in place like icy daggers.
CHAPTER SIX
Calia had tracked the fragment to just outside the large sphere which ran alongside the Great Forest Outside. They had taken a woman.
She clenched her teeth together, hating them even more than she already did. Calia was the one who dogged their steps, sabotaged their camps, and stole their preserves, sundries and skins. A smile curled lips that were full and deeply berry red. They had taken a woman of the sphere. She would recognize one anywhere. Their foolish attire was an unique identifier. This woman, even from a distance, looked slightly different. Calia was not sure how. She rolled her lip into her teeth, thinking.
How many of the fragment need be dispatched to rescue this one? Would she be weak like so many of the others? Calia stood and began the tiresome reconnaissance necessary to infiltrate, kill the abductors, then acquire the woman.
Adrenaline leaked through her bloodstream, readying her for the run between the trees of the forest. Her hands roamed her body, executing a routine weapons check. It was an unconscious habit. Weapons hung off a body that was lean and muscled from years in the wilderness. Calia counted five knives. Two were hip dirks that hung low and wide, holstered at the point where her hip dove toward a narrow waist. The quiver with arrows she had customized for close range shooting dangled the length of her spine between her shoulder blades. Her thick gold hair was plaited to keep it away from a hand that needed to recover an arrow necessary to kill.
Or, in the manner of the fragment, maim. Calia did not find it disagreeable to torture, if it proved advantageous.
It often did.
She strapped her long sword against her thigh so when she ran it would not abuse her leg with bruises. The hidden dirk at her waistband offered a cold comfort even as the metal from the hilt warmed against her flesh that ran hot.
Calia began jogging, warming her body for sprinting. She ran the perimeter of their loose camp, counting three sentries. They were sensory-blind, as was typical of the fragment. Calia had learned temperance in battle, for some had a dose of the blood of the Band. If there was kinship recognition, they would feel her presence. It had happened only once and she had avoided the one for which that dull, bell-like chime had sounded. She slowed her gait to a jog, catching her breath against a tree that was five people deep in its girth, so close to the conversation of the fragment she could have listened had she cared to.
Calia did not care.
Instead, she remembered that near-collision with one of the fragment that had enough blood of the Band to recognize her for what she was.
*
There were three females before her. Calia recognized them.
Clan-dwellers, all.
The fragment had the women bound and gagged, as was their typical method. They would be breeding stock to be traded to another fragment. Calia shaded her eyes as the sun beat a path through the trees, heating the forest interior like a tortuous sauna. A bead of sweat ran between her breasts as she stilled her body, crouched and ready. The heat diminished her stealth, causing her to work harder with things that had become automatic.
Like being as still as the tomb when readying a rescue of hapless females.
Calia could see that one was but ten and two. She scowled. It would be her express pleasure to bleed the fragment out like pigs. She grinned and moved forward.
The women's eyes bulged at the vision of contained violence so equally mixed with loveliness that they gasped into their gags as Calia approached them. The oldest of the three made a mumbled noise of warning. She wished to trust but the beautiful female which drew closer was unlike any she had ever seen. She had hair the color of the sun and eyes that were the exact shade. Their very matching was not the most striking thing about her.
It was the weapons that she held in practiced hands, swinging at her sides in a semi-loose pivot as she stalked toward them, all feline suppleness and grace that caused the oldest woman's breath to quicken. The wee one between them, stolen from a neighboring clan while picking berries, tried for a scream, the binding against her tongue muffling the shout even as she uttered it.
“Quiet,” the woman that was a warrior hissed. Her eyes traveled restlessly, their golden depths missing nothing. The women knew she searched for the fragment guards. But they were deep in their cups, complacent that their trussed prizes lay vulnerable and captive until trading one day hence.
Calia had stumbled upon their sloppy tracks and recognized the shallowness of her quarry’s footsteps as the females they were. The lighter and shorter strides were easily identified by one such as she.
Calia had followed them like a silent shadow; easily anticipating their choice of camp. The fragment were always indolent, laying their weapons down to feed their vociferous appetites and quench their need for the nectar of the vine. That is always when Calia struck, using her superior speed, strength and senses, set against them with vicious intent.
As she did now.
She looked down at the women. Glancing once more around herself and feeling the silence of the forest swell about her, she sheathed one dirk, keeping the other one in her dominant hand, naked and ready for use.
The women sat up, tears running down their faces in streams, every extremity tingling after they had been released from the foul-smelling bindings of the fragment. They were grateful beyond measure.
“Thank you,” the oldest female said. “We had been beyond even a slim measure of hope.”
Calia nodded but in answer she said, “We must go.” She looked into the woman's eyes, chocolate meeting spun gold. “And I ask that you retell this tale as an escape you made of your own capabilities. I do not wish to be discovered... known.”
That was utterly confusing to the female. “But... you could be free of this existence.” Her eyes stayed steady on the lovely female, fierce like the rumored lions of her childhood stories, golden, true and deadly.
“Aye, 'tis true. But I am neither fragment nor Band; I do not claim kinship to either.”
The female of the clan had never seen a truer specimen of a woman of the Band. Aye, she had never seen a female of the Band. It had been her grandmother's generation who had seen the last. She was rare. The female looked around, realizing that she had remained untouched in the wilderness, no protection from fellow males of the Band, amongst the fragment. A true rarity, she was horribly vulnerable with the filth that ran between the spheres and the clans.
“Nay, you be Band. Come with us, circle yourself with the protection of the Clan, find a mate. You would be welcome.”
The young woman added, “Most welcome. I have never seen such as you.”
Calia scoffed, “I need the protection of no one.” Her gold eyes darkened to amber, blazing out of a face that had the kiss of the sun upon it, bronzed lightly.
The young female cringed at her anger and Calia tried to soften her tone. “Time grows short. Soon the fragment will return to check on you, deep in their cups or no.” She shot a brow up and the women stood.
Reluctantly, the eldest stuck a palm forward and said, “I give my most solemn vow, we will not betray you in our speech, manner or implication. For you have been our savior this day
. An unlikely goddess, coming forth to give us a second chance of liberty.”
Calia could feel the heat rise into her face. She was embarrassed at the praise and looked away.
She had grossly underestimated her ability for distraction. The women had engrossed her with their loquaciousness and when she turned, she met the gaze of a fragment but five feet from her back, a gasp sounding behind her alerted Calia to the encroachment of others.
Calia was sickened that her loneliness had bolstered her sloth. It had softened her readiness.
These thoughts traveled through her mind in the time her heart beat thrice.
Calia sprung from the balls of her feet, her muscled legs propelling her in a smooth arc, full of grace. Her non-dominant hand wrapped and pulled the dirk out in a nimble blur as she brought both hands together in a downward vee, the neck the object of puncture as the blades sunk deep into the throat of the fragment as he stumbled backward.
They fell together on the cool moss of the forest floor, Calia's blades buried in the thick flesh of his neck, the arterial spray coating her to the elbows, making the weapons slick to hold. As she straddled him, she sat up, her hips upon his belly and crossing her hands she crosshatched his throat with the blades, removing them as she did.
The fragment's head hung on a string of tendon and sinew, a gaping second mouth having blossomed underneath his face.
Calia had no time to consider cleaning her blades. She rose, feeling the weight of another at her back and swung the dirk behind her as she fell to her side to prevent the strike of the blade as it made its way toward her vulnerable back.
Daniel came upon a scene which would burn in his memory forever.
The restlessness of the evening made him pace. Finally, he could stand his itching skin and the ache in his chest no longer. He walked.
He thought it would be fantastic to steal away, sneaking the latest women kidnapped by the fragment some water or food. At the very least he'd love to remove the merciless bindings.
savage 04 - the savage vengeance Page 4