Lowborn Ch. 03

Having apparently heard Delly’s name, Kayleen walked over and said, “He had a mark on his hand. A knife.”

Raven turned to the blonde prostitute and pointed at the back of her hand, near the wrist. “Right here?”

“Yes, the point down,” Kayleen answered.

Raven nodded toward the collapsed tent and said, “Think we found him.” She took Kayleen’s hand, and when the woman hesitated, she said, “It will only take a second — I promise.”

Kayleen took a deep breath before offering a determined nod.

Too absorbed in dealing with the possibility that the man he wanted to see dead might already be, Mindblind completely missed the uncharacteristic softness in Raven’s voice.

The three walked over to the contorted body, and Raven lifted his hand. “Is that it?”

“Yes,” Kayleen answered, her face already ashen, and looking worse by the moment.

“Go on,” Raven told her, and the blonde hurried away. She then looked at Mindblind and said, “Sorry. At least he went slow and bad.”

“Not slow enough,” Mindblind growled. He then shook his head and said, “Doesn’t matter.”

Raven stood up, and kicked the dead man in the face. “None of this makes any sense. These three were killers. Maybe not the best, but they killed for a living. Someone paid some good gold for them, on top of whatever coppers they tossed to the drunks.”

Gasps and yelps from the prostitutes drew Mindblind’s attention to the third captive, who had apparently awakened to struggle against his bonds.

“Let’s go squeeze him a bit,” Raven said as she walked past.

The murderer continued to struggle against his bonds, though he surely understood the futility. Unlike the other two captives, he was literally hogtied, with his hands and wrists bound together. When Mindblind’s shadow fell upon him, he froze and stared with a defiant look on his face.

“Who paid the blood price?” Raven demanded.

“I will tell you nothing, pujata.”

Even if he hadn’t known that the word was Draxnian for whore, Mindblind could have easily guessed the general meaning. Raven rolled her eyes, and promptly launched a kick.

Mindblind winced, and instinctively cupped a hand between his legs. Hogtied and naked, the man’s testicles made an easy target, and Raven’s aim was true. The breath blasted from the murderer’s lungs, followed by a cough that left spittle — and probably bile — running from the corner of his mouth.

Remarkably, the man croaked, “Nothing.”

“Told you he was a killer,” Raven said in a conversational tone of voice as the man at her feet coughed and gagged again. “Probably a guild initiate. He took an oath, and he’s not taking any chances that the Lord of Murder isn’t really dead to exact the price of breaking it in the hells.”

“Kill me. Tell you nothing.”

Mindblind was just about to say that they were wasting their time when Raven reached into the pouch at her belt. Rather than remove anything, she shook her head as if changing her mind, and then turned to walk toward the fire. She returned with a branch, red hot coals glowing on its tip. “Kill you? Where’s the fun in that?”

The man’s previously hard eyes went wide when Raven knelt down and pointed the stick at his balls.

“Who paid the blood price?”

She gave him a few seconds to answer, and then moved the stick closer. The murderer wriggled, desperately trying to move away. Mindblind could smell the acrid stench of burning hair.

“Who paid the blood price?”

His face a mask of horror, the murderer screamed, “The Lakeshore Man! The Lakeshore Man!”

“Fuck!” Raven cursed, and then tossed the branch back toward the fire.

Confused, Mindblind asked, “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means that this job came from the guild. He doesn’t know who hired him. Only the guildmaster does. That’s just a fake name he was supposed to use with contacts.”

Mindblind snorted in resignation. The man who had killed Delly was dead. Raven had recovered her sister. There was no reason for them to pursue this any farther, and plenty of reasons not to. “Let’s just get the hell out of... The fuck?!”

Mindblind jumped back as an ear-piercing screech split the night. Before his brain could register what was happening, Yani had stabbed her borrowed knife into the assassin’s chest. The blade ripped into his flesh three more times before Raven managed to grab her sister’s hand and wrench the dagger away.

“Yani, it’s not him. It’s not him.”

As quickly as it had arisen, the murderous rage in Raven’s sister simply vanished from her face. “It isn’t?” She looked down and giggled at the now dead man. “Oh, it isn’t, is it? Oops.”

Yani’s eyes rolled up in her head, and she fell into a dead faint in her sister’s arms.

“Raven?” Mindblind said, at a loss for words, and in complete disbelief of what he’d just witnessed.

“She... She needs her tea. If we come across a stream, the stuff grows everywhere. The barbarians chew the leaves to have visions. For some reason, it keeps her from having them. She’s fine as long as she has it.”

Yani stirred and mumbled, “My head hurts.” A second later, she noticed her bloody hands. “What?”

“Just go wash up.”

“Okay,” Yani answered, her voice monotone.

The other prostitutes gave her a wide berth as she shambled toward the wagon where everyone had washed earlier.

Mindblind asked, “What do we do if...”

“I’ll keep an eye on her until we find some of the leaves,” Raven cut him off to answer. “I promise that I’ll explain later. Let’s just get the fuck out of here.”

“Right,” he responded, and then set to the task of getting them all moving as quickly as possible.

****

Raven’s guess proved far too optimistic. Everyone was exhausted, most were wearing shoes that didn’t fit properly — or none at all — and the prostitutes were hardly accustomed to walking anywhere. The sun had already slipped past its high point before the ragtag troupe could see the farming village.

Mindblind adjusted the bow slung over his shoulder, unused to the encumbrance. The weapons were fine, and he wasn’t about to leave any of them behind. A pair of prostitutes carried the others. The various daggers and knives that the dead men no longer needed provided weapons for all of the women — save Yani.

As had happened numerous times on the journey, she was the first to collapse next to the glorified animal trail they followed, panting for breath. Raven had forced her sister to chew some of the leaves along the way, and the change in the prostitute was like night and day. Yani certainly seemed to notice and react to her surroundings now — complaining bitterly the whole time.

“Come on, Yani. We’re almost there,” Raven encouraged while tugging on her sister’s shoulder.

Everyone else was on the verge of collapse as well, so Mindblind said, “Let’s just give ‘em a rest.”

Raven blew out a sharp, irritated breath. “Okay.”

A look back the way they’d come revealed the plains stretching off into the horizon — an ocean of grass dotted with islands of trees. He had no doubt that the two captives he’d released were making far better time. After what they’d been through, it was hardly surprising that they fled as though every demon in the hells pursued them.

When he noticed Kayleen trembling as she tried to raise a canteen to her lips, Mindblind walked over to her. She’d offered to carry one of the small packs that he’d put together with supplies, and thus bore a more difficult burden than most of the women. “You holdin’ up okay?”

“I suppose that this is what I get for dreaming of seeing new places,” she responded with a wan smile. After pushing a sweat-soaked lock of hair back from her face, she said, “I haven’t thanked you, or apologized. When I first saw you, I thought... I said...”

He cut her off, “No need. You’re doing your part.”

A nasally snore made Mindblind’s nerves itch as Kayleen nodded her understanding and took another drink. Pompeil had a knack for falling asleep instantly, and had done so at each and every stop.

“Hey, I think there’s a lake over there,” one of the prostitutes remarked.

“Oh, that would feel so good,” another of the women groaned.

Mindblind spotted the cattails a short distance away, and thought that lake was a rather grandiose term for what was likely there. It was a pond at best.

A still irritated Raven walked over and began, “Oh for fucking...”

Though more than ready to return to civilization as well, Mindblind could see life popping into the eyes of the other women at the prospect of the cool water. “We look bad enough. If that bunch are old bluebloods, we’re gonna have a hard enough time getting in without them smelling us a mile away too.”

Raven grinned at him, though he knew that the expression was pure sarcasm. “Fine then. You can keep the watch first.”

With that, she waded through the grass toward the cattails. The other women followed hot on her heels. Soon enough, the sound of splashing, content sighs, and laughter reached Mindblind on the breeze. He stayed alert, though nothing seemed remotely threatening.

After a few minutes, the merchant started awake with a snort. He looked around to find himself alone with Mindblind. “What?” he muttered as he sat up.

“Pond down there. If you want to wash the stink off, you’d best go now,” Mindblind explained.

“Pond? What? Where?”

Fuckin’ pampered pretty-boy, Mindblind thought. “C’mon — it’s this way.”

As soon as the water came into view, the merchant stumbled, his mouth agape. Mindblind chuckled, fully understanding the reaction. It was hard to ignore all the nude women with the sunlight sparkling on their bare, wet skin as they washed in the shallow pond. Even though he’d seen all of them unclad before, it was a far different picture in the light of day, when they weren’t sick with fear.

Raven strode out of the water, carrying the shirt and panties she wore beneath her protective dark clothing. She let out a content sigh, completely unashamed of her nudity, and smoothed back her dark hair with her free hand. “Okay, this was a good idea,” she admitted. “Give me a minute, and you can have a dip.”

“Tryin’ to catch flies, Pomp?” Mindblind asked the still-stunned merchant.

Pompeil snapped his mouth shut and walked toward the edge of the pond.

“Not much point in keeping watch,” Mindblind remarked as Raven pulled on her underthings.

“Yeah — still,” she said, selecting two of her daggers.

Whistles and catcalls greeted the merchant stripping to his breeches and Mindblind removing his armor. Pompeil knelt on the shore to wash his clothing first, but Mindblind simply tossed the garments he wore beneath his armor into the pond ahead of him. Women floated together to whisper when he dropped his pants. He was hard as a rock — hardly a surprise considering the scenery.

Almost all of the prostitutes had shunned him on visits to the Cat, and a few had openly refused to accept him in their beds before he’d fallen in with Delly. It was a far different story in the pond, with all the women staring at him, making suggestive comments, and even wading over to touch him as he washed.

Whenever he glanced back at Raven, she always seemed to be rolling her eyes.

Though Pompeil was doing his best to ignore similar treatment and a few playful splashes, his face remained bright red the whole time.

It was a damp, refreshed, and far better smelling group that set out a short while later on the final leg of the journey to the town.

“Trouble,” Raven grumbled, upon seeing several men assembling near the first buildings ahead. A few held weapons, and others wielded farm implements pressed into the duty.

The scene was almost surreal. Though the clothing the men wore was made of wool, linen, and other materials that he would expect in a farming village, it was all cut to approximate fashions similar to what Pompeil wore. The place was likewise constructed with facades to disguise the barns and log structures. It looked like a mockery of descriptions that Mindblind had heard of larger cities.

“What is your business here?” One of the men shouted as Raven and Mindblind approached at the head of their group.

Mindblind tapped Raven on the shoulder, and then waved Pompeil forward. Raven grinned, guessing his sudden flash of inspiration, and agreeing with it.

“Okay, Pomp, go tell them who you are,” Mindblind said.

The merchant puffed out his chest, straightened his shoulders, and strode forward confidently.

“I am Pompeil Harrold, of the Freeland Harrolds, and I stand before you, escaped from kidnapping and murder most foul...”

Raven and Mindblind shared a chuckle when the merchant finished his soaring rhetoric some time later, and he gestured for them to follow him into the village, having received a warm invitation of hospitality.

Civilization at last — strange as the place was.

****

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