Going Feet First Ch. 06

"No, he won't," Fretheim declared, finishing his glass. "I have the money and manpower to send a wall of troops and bounty hunters against any threat."

"You may as well pull every stop because he kills you, too!" Val snapped.

Silence hung in the air as the men stared at the Elf who simply rested her head against her master's chest, trying not to weep. A dark cloud hung over Pretayus as he hugged onto his pet. His hand clenching around his empty glass, Fretheim let out his lungs and set it on the table.

"I'm not a man of faith," he declared correcting his posture. "Nor am I one to be bound by fate or destiny."

He leaned forward and gazed at the map on the table before him. "I will send my men out to secure the Neko. I want her, and I will have her. If I am unable to claim her, they'll kill her so that demon can't. Then, we will move to my new home. It's far enough into the mountains that he will never find us. Anyone who may know of it is either already there or dead."

"He will follow," Pretayus warned. "If he is determined enough to pursue me still, he'll follow."

Fretheim chuckled. "Let me worry about that."

..............

Claws skittered across stone as two men dragged Petra down a stone hallway with their arms hooked under her shoulders. Her hands were locked in solid casts of iron that encased her appendages completely. Even her feet were bound together with rope from ankle to knee. What they didn't cover however, were her eyes and ears.

The guards brought her to a room three floors underground into the bowels of Redding's castle. As impressed as she had been with the stone work of the castle exterior, with the towers, spires, and massive constructions of stone and wood, she was careful take every mental note possible about every nook, cranny, corner, and loose timber she saw inside. Nothing escaped her nor slipped her memory. She wanted every detail for her escape.

Nineteen full paces she counted from the open stairwell to a door, eighth in the lineup down the sparsely lit hallway. Past the door was nothing but a round table with two chairs on opposing sides. Five candles hung in a makeshift chandelier above, with a strong scent of dust clinging to the air.

This place looks to have been empty for quite some time... Disuse means few are brought down here... she scowled. Great.

From the door the guards dragged Petra to one of the chairs and forcibly sat her down. All the Neko did in protest was cock an eyebrow as though asking "Is that all?" Even in the low light this look did not escape her escorts and other than a disappointed grunt, they left without a word.

The door shut and the lock clacking into place, the assassin waited for their footsteps to fade, then she stood up and reseated herself on the tabletop. With relative ease she brought her feet up and rested them to her side while bending her body over toward them. After adjusting her legs twice to avoid a cramp, she managed to arch her head down far enough to get her mouth to the knot binding the rope around her feet.

Using her tongue to feel the path of the rope, she eventually tugged the lead string backward through the main knot and let the binds loosen up enough for her to wiggle her feet around enough for the cord to fall off.

Next she stood back up and blew out four of the candles in the chandelier above. It left just enough light for her to see, though not enough for a human to spot her as she backed up into a dark corner, shrouding herself in shadow.

She stood there for what could easily have been a half zetran without so much as twitching her ears. Nobody came to her room. Nobody knocked. Nobody even walked by from what she could hear.

No matter. Her patience was far from running out.

When the boots finally did come marching down the hall some time later, she tensed, though quickly forced her breathing into a pattern to drop her heart rate.

Calm, focused, prepared, she thought, settling her nerves and clearing her thoughts.

Every muscle in her body ready to spring into attack, the assassin let her ears take the point of her senses. Only one person was approaching her cell that she could hear. That meant either there were some very quiet men already posted outside, or they were too confident in their binds.

The metal boots stopped outside her door. Petra bent her legs to pounce. With a soft thunk, the lock opened, then the door. In an instant she recognized the knight captain in the doorway and paused. He hadn't changed out of his full plate armor from when he had arrested her, its silver trimming glittering in the candle light though his purple kilt looked almost grey. Aside from trying to snap his neck, she couldn't see a way to kill him quickly and quietly while still slipping away before anyone noticed.

Rak. You men and your armor.

A sigh escaped the human as he walked into the room carrying a pitcher of water and two mugs in his hands. He set them down and took a seat in the chair opposite of the one Petra had been placed in. Then he just leaned back and got comfortable; his expression hidden under his helm.

"I understand you are a patient woman, and a trained killer," he announced. "But the mages that overlook the stairwell would kill you long before you make any escape. And if you intend to still dig your claws into Fretheim's chest, I suggest you take a seat."

In the shadows, the Stalker's eyes narrowed.

"Or take your chances, it doesn't matter. Dee wouldn't be happy if you were killed. Afterall, she doesn't have much for friends or family left in this world."

The Captain leaned forward to grab the pitcher and fill both mugs with water. There were no weapons on his person that Petra could see, only the keys he carried. Still, with a degree of caution the Neko stepped forward from her corner, the Captain's head instantly turning toward her.

"Your fur truly is darker than the night. I wasn't sure if I was talking to an empty room."

"What has Dee told you?" Petra growled.

The captain leaned back and joined his hands over his stomach, his head tipping back to reveal the mail that protected his neck below the chin. "A bit, actually. You're name is Petra, family name unknown. You come from Atzla, a Shadow Stalker of the Ra'zorlichs, got caught in the service of a powerful being and are working to free an Elf from the hands of that cretin Cael Fretheim for your master. Aside from your heritage, you are in trouble for overstaying your temporary registration papers, breaking the curfew ordered on those papers, attacking Redding guards, assaulting private militia, espionage, and intimidating Redding citizens."

I will slit your throat, Dee, Petra cursed.

The knight captain kicked one foot up and rested it on his knee. "It's a long list of crimes, but I'll admit only your clan ties and the espionage is worth hanging one over, but that'd have to be on the crown's judgement."

A low growl escaped the assassin's throat. The captain touched the tips of his fingers together in front of his helm and she could have sworn she sensed a grin under that layer of steel.

"But, all of that isn't on your record. Not even the arrest that brought you here tonight. It sort of got lost in the paperwork and records I am tasked to keep. My office is so very messy with that horseshit. I might find the time to log it, I might not. If the guardsmen check and they don't know why you're in the cell, they won't waste time feeding you and just toss you outside the city gates. Or send you on your way inside the city if you had proper paperwork. The kind I have the authority to have printed."

Everything that spewed from his mouth rubbed Petra the wrong way. Twice did prickles trace over her back and press her nerves. Both her ears suddenly twitched as padded feet shifted on the other side of the door.

So he wasn't alone, that was why he came unarmed. A game was being played here, but she didn't know what.

"What are you trying for?" she asked, scowling.

"To help you avoid the headsman's axe," he answered with all seriousness.

There was a stifled chuckle outside then, and Petra turned her head toward it.

"Obviously something is funny about you desiring that," she said in a voice loud enough to travel.

The Captain paused, interlocked hands shifting to below his chin with his index fingers tapping against one another. His chair flew back when he erupted to his feet. Armor squeaking and boots storming down onto the stone floor with a terrible racket, he rushed to the door. The wooden frame nearly came out of the wall when he threw it open. Behind it two men in guardsmen armor were waiting on the other side. Without delay the Captain rammed his steel-plated fist into the face of the first, sending him across the hall before he backhanded the other.

"GET OUT OF HERE, YOU WEASLES! Tell Rigor to keep his fucking nose away from my duties or I will slice it off!"

He stood in the door way, an imposing mass of muscle and metal as the two men whined and scrambled off. Petra couldn't help but giggle.

Then the captain turned to the right. "You as well. She is my responsibility and you fucks are interrupting!"

"But we were ordered-"

The captain's fist swung again at the man Petra could not see, but could hear hit the floor.

His voice low, and quiet, with a tone threatening enough to invite a sadistic grin to the Assassin's face, he ordered again, "Leave. Now. Or you will find my blade so far up your ass, I could put the tip on one stick, the pommel on another, and spit roast you like the pig you are. Am. I. Clear?"

Leather and mail scratched on stone as the guard scrambled to his feet and bolted off down the hall. The captain stood and waited, ensuring the hallway was clear before he shut the door and stormed back to his chair. Petra chuckled.

"They've been outside since the start of our conversation," he said, collapsing into his seat. "I had to make it sound good for when they return to the other Knight-Captain. I'm under enough suspicion as it is."

"Oh?" Petra asked, cocking an eyebrow.

"Long story, that. Back to business, Dee said you wanted to kill Fretheim and a slaver that he's sheltering. After what happened to her mother, I'm not surprised she was eager to help you. And now that we've met, I am as well."

Petra frowned. "What interest of yours is this affair?"

The Captain gave a stiff hmph, then reached up to undo the chin strap of his helmet and pull it off. He set the armor piece on the table in front of him and set his eyes on Petra. He had messy black hair long enough to reach his brow, eyes of a color impossible to identify in the low light. But he had a familiar look about him... A streak of blond along his trimmed sideburns... a natural radiance to a not-overly-handsome face.

But then his scent hit her. She did not spend an eve rutting with him in a bed, but the scent coming off of him was recognizable in an instant. From there, everything clicked into place. It brought a chuckle to the Neko before she shook her head and leaned back.

"You're related to Dee," she accused. "Half-brother? Same father?"

An impressed look came over the Captain. "You are still fresh from the forest, and I'd guess the tribe as well, so you wouldn't know the degrees different races mix and pass their traits on to their children. How broadly it varies."

"I have observed that when a human fucks a Neko, she births a human with Neko ears and tail."

His eye twitched as he lost his amused look. "Or sometimes she would birth a seemingly full blood human, only with a few Nekonian strengths... It's all about whose traits prove stronger in the womb."

Both of Petra's eyebrows rose at this. She carefully eyed him up and down, taking an extra whiff with her nose. She leaned forward and tried inhaling more deeply a second time, but her mouth quirked and she frowned shaking her head.

"I do not see nor scent Neko in or on you. You lie."

At once his nostrils flared and he slowly breathed out.

"You've been sleeping in my sister's bed. Recently, and after she finished, ahem, 'working' as her more... intimate scent clings to your fur. That or you were the one she was working with, but I know her well, and she wouldn't with another woman."

Petra fought with every ounce of strength she had to keep from grinning at that, it was something she had to hide behind an impressed look as he added, "You haven't bathed in at least two days, no more than four, and give it two or three moons and you'll be going into heat. Do not doubt what I know about myself, Petra. Dee got the appearance, I got the rest."

"And while she has to take a cock every night to survive, you live in a comfortable position once held by your father?" the Assassin questioned, crossing her arms and provoking a sigh from the apparent hybrid across from her.

She could see his teeth grind in his mouth, his eyes narrow slightly before he reclaimed his composure from these subtle tells or irritation. He leaned in, resting his elbows on the table and joining his hands.

"There are reasons why she is in that position. And while I can take blame for much of her hardships, it all traces back to Fretheim and Dee's own choice to stay where she is."

Brows arching down, Petra leaned back with her tail lightly lashing the air behind her, "Hmm, I wondered why she hated him so much, care to enlighten me upon the reason?"

Dee's brother, whose name was still unknown to Petra, quirked his mouth and rubbed his forehead. "It's a wonder she hadn't told you... considering you were going to kill him for her."

Petra shrugged. "I hadn't pried, though I did ask. That answer I was given was 'reasons.'"

He nodded slowly. "That's fair. It can be a sensitive issue for her."

"But now that it's brought up, care to share?"

He sighed, his gaze drifting downward. "I guess that it isn't exactly a secret. You already know our mother was Neko..."

"And an escapee from my tribe," Petra added.

"Escapee," he repeated. "makes her sound like a criminal."

"Tyrants do that to the innocent," the Assassin retorted.

"Indeed. She was living in the city in secret with our father, and despite what my sister thinks, the two were in love. Madly, one could say. But due to the laws our current king imposed in regards to the Ra'zorlichs, he had to create false papers for her for registration. It worked for several years, but... a few months after I turned seven, one young brat named Cael Fretheim somehow laid his eyes upon her. He had a following of maids back then, who all waited on him hand and foot, and when he saw our mother... He decided he wanted her to be a 'maid' as well."

"He kidnapped her," Petra surmised, getting a nod in response.

"The Fretheim family is a line of nobles, with a lot of connections. When Mother never came home that night, Father went out looking. But with her history, and their relationship a secret, he couldn't openly hunt her." Dee's brother bit his lip while taking a deep breath to steady himself. "Two weeks later, Father got a request from the elder Fretheim to register an apparent assassin for slavery after she tried to kill him in the night."

Her claws poking out against the steel encasements around her hands, Petra growled, "Your mother."

Staring coldly at the table, the Captain muttered, "She was tortured, bound, and broken. Father said she was still alive, her body mostly untouched, but if he looked in her eyes... all he saw was just..."

"Nothing. A corpse that still drew breath."

"She may as well have been. Father knew of a brand she had on her shoulder... of the Ra'zorlich symbol and after he 'found' it, he acted under the authority of the king's decree, at the protest of a young Fretheim, to put her out of her misery..."

Petra's eye twitched as he pursed his lips and let out his lungs.

"There was no way to free her without risking his life and yours and Dee's lives," she said in a low voice. "He ended her suffering, done by Fretheim after he stole her from you."

Once again, he nodded. "I knew that, but Dee was only three. She had cried for weeks before she stopped. Then Fretheim started acting on the grudge he held for the killing of his potential slave. His men began poking around our home, watching it from the street, working to get father removed from his position as guard captain. Eventually Father got scared of us getting connected to our mother. Since she was executed for being a Ra'zorlich, we would've suffered a fate no different. Child half-bloods or not, we were just more Red Talons in the eyes of the King."

A dark scowl drew down over the Assassin's eyes. "This city is disgusting."

"Don't I know it," he agreed with a grumble.

"Doesn't explain why Dee hates your father, however, or why she takes a cock or three a night to get by."

His face soured at that comment, his lips pursed as he stared angrily at the table in front of him. "Lies were told to keep her from seeking father out, and she's in her position by her own accord. Believe me when I say that was something I tried to change."

It was Petra's turn to scowl again, though she left the questions on her mind unasked.

"I have a feeling you do not plan to keep me shackled forever," she surmised instead. "We both want Fretheim dead."

He shook his head and looked to her. "There is a plan already, and I'll get you out when the time is right. But for now I have to put you in the stocks below. It won't be long, I assure you."

Grumbling mentally at the thought of some cold, stone-floored cell, the Neko gritted her teeth and nodded.

"I understand, Captain..." she hummed off the last syllable, eyeing him questioningly until his eyes widened in realization.

"I never did a proper introduction, did I?"

She shook her head and he stood up and bowed at the waist, sweeping his right arm under him and bringing his fist to his heart. "Fourth Knight-Captain Devon Sactau, at your service. If you would follow me, I'll show you to your temporary placement. I hope you don't mind the company."

...

Three floors below the interrogation rooms, standing before the steel bars of a prison cell, Petra idly stood as the escorting guards removed the casements from her hands. The men had to fumble with at least two keys trying to find the correct one for the cell door before they dealt with the lock that spent a few too many years without getting properly greased.

In all honesty, she could have easily killed them both even if her hands had still been bound. She may even have been able to escape. But Devon had requested her to accept this "terrible inconvenience" until the next night, a time that obviously held some significance as he had an anxious scent to him when he spoke of it. And the only explanation Petra got was that if he didn't release her by the morning following, she was on her own.

A comforting thought, she commented mentally as the lock gave a solid clank.

"Got it," a guard murmured as he pulled the iron-bar door open.

Moving with the arm pushing on her back, the Neko stepped into her new "quarters" and stared into the shadows cast from the single torch outside her cell.

"Get comfy, could be up to a week before we get around to lobbing off your head."

With narrowed eyes she glared over her shoulder at the guard who'd made the comment as he and his partner closed the cell and turned for the exit door out of the larger room on the outside of the bars. After the solid thud and clack of the lock to her only way out closing and locking, she listened as the guards turned right in the hallway outside toward the stairwell, and recounted their paces by habit.