The Tattooed Woman Pt. 36

Apologies! Many, many apologies for the delay in submitting this. I’ve been lazy as Hell, but after my R ruthlessly wiping out any competing gangs that opposed her. She brokered in stolen whispers as much as stolen goods. Local brothels, flesh pots and drug dens paid their dues and for a while life was almost bearable.

But in the warrens of the Drow undercity, there were eyes and ears everywhere, all hungry, all out for themselves, and inevitably she was marked, and the justicars came for her.

They were garbed in black mail, silver hair ruthlessly cropped short, and concealed by glamours and enchantments that tricked both eye and blade. In a single night of blood and fire, her crew were slaughtered where they stood, with the few survivors scattered only to be later ruthlessly hunted to extinction. Such was what passed for justice among the Drow.

She was the last.

They fired her safehouse and pursued her through tunnel and shaft before running her to ground. Trapped, exhausted and wounded she stood at bay and fought, gritting her teeth in a wild snarl, determined to make her hunters pay the full blood-price before she fell.

The struggle was brief, vicious and utterly hopeless. She gutted one, at the cost of a blade sliding deep into her side. A dart took her leg, but her hurled knife plunged unerringly into the hunter’s eye. A third kicked her to the ground and she spat blood as she reared up and plunged her knife into the woman’s knee causing her to stagger back with a curse. Another blade plunged into her shoulder and with an enraged scream she launched herself at the assailant, grappling them to the ground and furiously bashing their head against the hard rock of the cave tuzla escort floor until blood, bone and brain splashed across the stone.

She was still staggering to her feet when a livid thunderbolt lit the cavern and brought her struggles to a brutal halt.

Darkness took her a while, but the soothing balm of unconsciousness typically didn’t last and charred, burned and bleeding she awoke in a sea of pain; lying on her back on the hard stone in a pool of already drying blood. With a sound half whimper and half snarl, she battered against the weakness that would see her curl up and die and instead she pushed herself against the cave wall. Breathing heavily, she sat a while before wiping snot and blood from her face and razing her head to look about.

Across from her the woman in dark armour calmy sat upon a stone and watched her struggles with mild disinterest. Her eyes were crimson, and her cloak was plain. No insignia or heraldry marked her garb and her hands remained hidden beneath the folds of her outfit. Casually, she produced a flask from some hidden pocket and took a sip before sighing in apparent satisfaction at the taste and deftly concealing the thing.

Eyeing the fallen Drow, the woman’s lips parted in a semblance of a cheerful smile, but Sura saw how whatever merriment it was that she felt, it didn’t reach her eyes. No, they showed nothing but a cold and ruthless intent, mixed with little more than mild curiosity.

With an offhand gesture she indicated to the bodies lying scattered about.

“That was quite the fight. I think you did passably well for such an untutored creature. Of course, the one who’s knee you pendik escort punctured has crawled off, doubtless in search of reinforcements. I suspect if she’s successful they will be here presently. If I were you, I would not linger.”

Sura grinned and pushed herself back against the cave wall before struggling to pull a dagger from her boot. Weak as she was with blood loss, and with vision blurred, she struggled a while before finally retrieving the blade and slumping back with a satisfied grunt. Spitting blood on the floor she panted, “Nowhere to go. I think maybe I’ll just bide here a while and see what happens.”

“Indeed?”

“You’re no justicar are you?”

The woman ginned, “Well, that depends on your point of view I suppose.”

“You’re an assassin.”

“Quite so.”

“Here for the bounty?”

“Oh, goodness no. If I were I can assure you, you would have never awoken and even now I’d be tossing your severed head onto the desk of some witless Inquisitor in exchange for whatever pittance of a value they placed upon your otherwise worthless life.”

Sura tried to push herself onto her knees but the venom in the dart still robbed her leg of any strength and she slumped back, “So?”

The woman smiled, “So what?”

“So, what the fuck do you want?”

“Oh, just passing the time of night. Heard the din and came to see what the ruckus was all about. It was all very amusing, and soo dramatic, quite thrilling really,” she paused, and her eyes narrowed slightly, “tell me though, why have you not begged me for help?”

“Why bother? We’re Drow. We don’t do “help” and I can’t be arsed wasting my time with worthless maltepe escort pleading.”

“Fair point.”

The woman nimbly slid from her perch and stood in a fluid, catlike motion, “Tell you what though. Just over yonder, perhaps a few hundred paces or so down that tunnel is the Guild-House. If you’d care to crawl that way, and should you make it without bleeding to death, then I might consider putting in a word for you, in payment for the night’s entertainment. We could always use a suitable apprentice, or live target, depending on aptitude I suppose.”

“Justicars?”

She grinned, it was an unnerving sight, “Oh, I doubt they’d care to trouble my chapter, but it might be best to avoid them until you get there. Anyway,” she dusted herself down, “must be off, things to do, people to kill and all that. I’ll mayhap leave word at the gate should I pass that way. Good fortune to you.”

The long slow crawl to the guild house was a nightmare of pain and weakness, with bouts of vomiting and unconsciousness, as blood loss and venom had their way with her.

Eventually though, she made it to the black door and the wardens came forth in response to her feeble banging upon the armoured portal. With barely a whisper they slid forward and thoroughly searched her, stripping away hidden blade and cosh alike. One chuckled quietly and almost playfully ruffled her hair when she found the garotte concealed in the lining of her jerkin and another nodded in grudging satisfaction as she took stock of the weight and balance of her last throwing dirk. Leaving her lying there face down in the dirt with clothes pulled apart and in disarray from the thoroughness of the search they withdrew as quietly as they had come.

The toe of a plain black boot slid under her side and careless of her pain it casually tipped her onto her back. With a groan, she blearily gazed up into the crimson eyes of the woman standing above her, “Took your time did you not? I was beginning to wonder if you’d decided to decline my gracious invitation.”