Cathexis: Necromancer's Dagger (48 page)

An untamed jungle purclaw was Elizabeth’s
first impression of the woman. Then Elizabeth’s eyes narrowed as
she noticed something oddly familiar about the woman’s features
that Hetark missed. It was hard to see beyond the eye patch, yet
the sorceress recognized something in her features, and it
surprised her greatly. Elizabeth's plans changed as she
contemplated a new possibility and the ghost of a smile crossed her
face.

The
black-clad
woman had a sensuous look and movement that
caught everyone’s eye, but it was overlaid by a lethality that
brought any ideas of casual approach to an instant halt.

The conversation faltered for a moment, but
many patrons already knew her and they continued talking as soon as
she stalked toward the bar.

The woman stalked forward in a casual sway
that looked more natural than contrived, a symphony of graceful
muscle movement giving a
hint
to
her capabilities.

A man who didn’t know her, and was too drunk
to see past the femininity to the danger beneath, stepped up to her
side and reached for the smooth curve of her tight leather pants
with one hand. “Hey honey, how about a kiss?”

She turned to face him immediately with an
inviting smile while bringing her hand up in a slow fluid motion,
the fingers relaxed in an almost careless attitude. The hand
reached his face and the back of her fingers caressed the side of
his cheek, moving toward the side of his head. He started to lean
forward toward her softly pouting lips when her hand completed its
trip and reached his ear. She took hold with her nails and yanked,
hard.

He yelled and leaned toward the painful
yanking as he tried to keep his ear from being pulled off his head.
His other arm came up for balance and the still smiling woman took
hold of it and spun
underneath
while releasing his ear with her other hand. She was now behind him
with his arm twisted up behind his back. She pushed hard upwards
and he bent at the waist. She kept lifting the arm until he started
to move forward to keep the bone from breaking. The graceful woman
followed and accelerated his awkward run straight into a wooden
beam that supported the ceiling.

When she released him he fell to the floor
and moaned in pain.

“No thanks,” she finally replied to his
original question. She turned her back and resumed her walk to the
bar. The crowd recovered from their astonishment at the sudden
maneuver by howling with laughter, and she acknowledged their
approval with a sly grin. A few of her acquaintances greeted her
when she reached the bar and conversation resumed as if nothing had
happened. The drunken man sat on the floor rubbing his head and
grinning stupidly.

Elizabeth leaned toward Hetark and spoke
quietly into his ear.

“Find out that girl’s name and what she
does. She is just what I’m looking for, definitely the one!”

“Her?” Hetark said incredulously.

Elizabeth just waited silently while staring
into Hetark’s eyes by way of response, knowing he had heard her
request.

The Knight Protector shook his head
slightly
but rose to do his Lady’s
bidding. He went to the bar and ordered a drink. While waiting he
turned to a bearded man next to him and spoke with a commoner’s
accent, “Nice bit of work there, hey?”

“Choke up,” the bearded man barked, then
stood and left the bar.

Nonplussed at the man’s response, Hetark
moved down the bar to a skinny older man who was looking into the
bottom of his mug and dreaming. Hetark tried it again, “Nice bit of
work there, hey?” He said, and nodded toward the still sprawled out
drunk sitting on the floor rubbing his head.

The skinny man next to him came out of his
far away thoughts and looked up
from
his empty mug with a puzzled expression. He wasn’t
sure it was to him that Hetark had been speaking.

“Her, over there, the one who just put down
Sir Romance… nice bit of work, hey?” Hetark repeated for the third
time, wondering if the old man’s brains were addled.

“Yeah, tough one, she is,” the man finally
wheezed.

“Who is she anyway?” Hetark asked him, now
that he had the man talking.

The skinny man gave Hetark a suspicious
look
as if realizing for the first
time that Hetark was a stranger, but he replied, “Poison’s her name
and her game. I’d stay away from that one if you know what’s good
fer
ya. She
don’t
put up with no man’s crap and she would
cut them off as soon as look at them, if you
knows
what I mean.”

“Good advice, but
I’m look
’in te hire a shield
fer
my boss, does this Poison play both sides?”

“You’ll have
te
ask her, mind you, but I hear she mostly wants to keep
her parts,” he replied, and held up his right arm, which ended in a
stump. Then he added, “She ain’t cheap, but if yer boss is will’in
te pay, she’s good,” then he turned back to his drink, his body
language showing that the conversation was over.

Thanks
fer
the tip,” Hetark said as he stood up to go, and he tossed the
bartender two coppers, calling out, “A drink for my friend,” before
he went back to Elizabeth’s table.

“So what did you find out?” she asked when
he got back.

“That old thief over there told me her
name’s Poison, she probably isn’t a local bandit, though that would
be hard to confirm. According to
him,
she makes her living legitimately as a bodyguard.
She has a tough reputation, I was warned not to mess with her,”
Hetark added as if amused by the concept of this woman being
dangerous.

“How did you know he was a thief?” Elizabeth
asked.

“He’s missing a hand; it’s common practice
around here to cut off parts of the body as punishment if you catch
a thief. Hands are best, it’s hard to steal without hands,” he
replied.

“Or do anything for that matter,” Elizabeth
added, “Poison is even better than what I hoped for, tough, stylish
and
streetwise
, someone that other
people would naturally follow. Even more importantly, she is even
closer to what I was looking for than I could possibly have hoped.
G’lan was smiling on us this day, Hetark. There is something
special about her, no I’ll tell you later, just go hire her, and
don’t take ‘no’ for an answer,” Elizabeth said with conviction.

“If you say so, what story do you want me to
give her?” Hetark asked.

“Hire her to guard a wealthy merchant’s wife
traveling on her way to Myrnvale, that’s close enough to where
we’re actually going, eventually,” Elizabeth answered.

“How much are we willing to pay?” he
asked.

“Whatever it takes, I need this girl, badly,
but don’t let her know that or she might not believe we’re just
normal clients.”

He stood to go and said, “Don’t worry,
milady, I can handle a street thug.” He then headed for the tough
leather clad woman named ‘Poison’.

He approached her at the bar from behind,
but before he reached her she turned as her instincts sensed
someone approaching. In one glance of her
eye,
she appraised Hetark from feet to head, but her
conclusions weren’t given away by her expression.

Since it was obvious he was approaching her
directly she just waited until he arrived and raised her right
eyebrow in a questioning expression that said: ‘All right, I see
you, and I’ll listen to your pitch, but don’t waste my time.’

“The name is Hetark and my employer likes
your style and wants to know if you’re available for hire?” Hetark
said as an opening line.

“What’s the line o’ work, baby-
sitt
’in?” Poison asked in return.

“In a way, yes, you keep her safe to
Myrnvale and she’ll pay you in shine, five and sixteen,” Hetark
said, offering her five silver pieces at the start and sixteen when
they reached the town of Myrnvale safely.

“Five and sixteen, shine! I’ll taste my
blade before I stoop that low, one and four, dull,” she countered,
asking for gold.

“Ten in shine now and two dull in Myrnvale,
it’s my final offer,” Hetark stated for the record.

"With provisions and horses provided and I
start when we leave,” Poison offered up.

“With provisions, you supply the horse and
you start now,” Hetark counter offered.

“With the horse and I’ll start now,” Poison
finished with an expectant look in her eye.

“Done,” Hetark agreed.

“Give me the shine now, I’ll pay my tab and
join you at the table,” Poison told the Knight Protector.

Hetark gave her the coins to seal the
agreement and then started to turn and point out Elizabeth, “She’s
right, over... ”

“I know where she is,” Poison interrupted,
and turned to pay her overdue tab.

Hetark didn’t like being interrupted, or
being spotted when he thought he was blending in, so he angrily
turned her back around by the shoulder. “Another thing, don’t risk
losing a hand, I’ll be watching you the whole trip.”

She stared down at his hand until he
released her shoulder, and then her steel eye rose slowly to lock
onto his gaze, her scarred face serious. “Two things: First, you
can admire me all you want, but I’ll cut off any part of you that
touches me again. Second, what makes you even dream you could catch
me if I did want to lift
someth’in
?”

Hetark started to
reply
but bit off his angry response. He knew that this
was not the place to argue, so he turned his back and headed for
Elizabeth’s table. As far as Hetark was concerned they could not
reach Myrnvale soon enough and get rid of this pesky woman.

“Well, what was that all about?” Elizabeth
asked him once he was back at the table.

“I don’t like this woman, she’s arrogant,
obstinate and willful,” Hetark said petulantly.

“You mean she acts like she’s a man?”
Elizabeth asked, prodding Hetark.

“Exactly, she shows no respect, as if she
doesn’t understand her position in life,” Hetark complained.

“And what position is that?” Elizabeth asked
in a dangerous tone.

“Women are supposed to be quiet and polite,
supportive and respectful to men... ” Hetark trailed off, finally
noticing the angry expression starting to shine within Elizabeth’s
eyes. He cleared his throat and said, “Well, I mean normal women
are supposed to... ”

“Normal women?” Elizabeth asked in a quiet,
cold voice, ice starting to form in her expression.

“Not to say you aren’t a normal woman, but
a, I... uh... ”

“I suggest you let it go before you jump off
the cliff you have so blindly approached. You may know a lot about
combat Hetark, but you have a lot to learn about women. I suggest
you start unlearning what you think you know and start learning the
truth.”

“Yes, milady,” Hetark replied with his face
flushing red behind his tight cropped blonde beard.

“Did you hire her as I asked, or did you
just enrage her?” the irked Elizabeth asked.

“I hired her, and then we sort of had a few
words... but here she comes now,” Hetark pointed out, trying to
escape from Elizabeth’s piercing gaze.

Poison walked up to their table, but looked
past Hetark’s shoulder to the table behind him as she said, “Give
it back.”

She spoke to the two men seated behind
Hetark. One of them immediately bolted for the front door; the
other just waited at the table.

Poison flicked her arm up to her collar and
her body rolled forward in a fluid throw that launched a dagger
through the air to ‘thunk’ loudly into a thick wooden beam three
feet in front of the fleeing man.

Silence fell once again at the patrons of
the bar once again became spectators to Poison’s antics.

“I didn’t miss,” she said conversationally
in the now quiet room.

The short darkly cloaked man froze at the
sight of the quivering dagger. It was stuck at eye level in front
of him; he waited without moving.

Poison walked over slowly, another dagger
had appeared in her hand from somewhere on her body. The cloaked
man’s eyes tracked the pointy blade as she approached; he could see
it was covered along the edge with a dark stain. “Fingers,” Poison
began, “I asked you nicely
te
give
it back, now
I’m ask
’in one more
time
before I become peeved.”

A squeaky voice with a heavy accent replied
from within his hood. “He ain’t local, he’s
feer
game. Why’s you stick’in your nose in?”

“They’re my new employers,” Poison responded
simply.

“Start’in
temorrow
, check?” he asked

“Start’in before you lifted that purse,” she
replied.

From behind her Poison heard Hetark cry out,
“G’lan, he stole my coin purse!”

Elizabeth grabbed Hetark’s arm to quiet him,
she wanted to observe Poison.

“I need
this’in
Poison, besides you wouldn’t kill a friend,”
Fingers reasoned and started to move slowly toward the door.

“Ever heard of
tarslin
sap, Fingers? It has no effects on women at all,
but certain things on men don’t work anymore once the sap gets
them
if you catch my
mean’in
,” Poison said raising the stained blade
for Fingers to see. “If I have
te
use this the ladies work’in Holly street will be disappointed with
you, forever. Give the purse back Fingers.”

With a convulsive
yank,
Fingers tossed Hetark’s coin purse in an arc across
the room to land with a thud on the table in front of Elizabeth and
her knight. Then the thief ran out of the bar.

Poison retrieved her dagger from the post
and then walked back over to their table with a knife held casually
in each of her hands. She faced the other man sitting behind
Elizabeth and Hetark and said, “You too Broker.”