HSASWT Short

[sabremeister]

It's a bit dark, this one

These are the sun-baked plains of the west of Doronatha. They extend hundreds of miles inland, almost from the coast to the foothills of the Ridgeback Mountains. They are a harsh place, sparse and barren, fit only for growing thin crops of fruit and light grazing. There are few trees, hills are low and gentle, and the people are used to getting by against the harsh conditions. But sometimes, the harsh conditions are not all environmental.



Kitta the Cutter and Nicholai the Orphan watched the procession from the cover of some bushes. The two red-clad priests at the head were escorted by half a dozen white-robed disciples, as they shepherded twice their number of shackled and chained peasants along the wadi. The two adventurers were currently not being paid by anyone to do anything, but this scene had made them stop their travels to hide and watch. They knew the area well, for they had both grown up nearby, and they knew that the procession would not have much further to travel.

"The Cult of Degoh," Nicholai muttered.

"I thought they had been eliminated years ago," Kitta replied.

"We hoped they had, you mean."

"Hoped, thought," Kitta shrugged, "we're the ones who cut off the head of the snake."

"Cut off the head, and another grows from the body," Nicholai told her. "We should have killed them all."

"There are only two of us, there were thirty of them. Even we could not hope to have prevailed."

Nicholai grunted in response. They remained silent, watching the procession pass. They were both remembering the day, many years before, that the Cultists had come to their village in the night, and in the eerie light before dawn, had broken down doors and seized people from their beds - children mostly - shackled and chained them like the ones they saw in front of them now, and led them through the countryside to their sacrificial altar, a bare two miles away up the wadi. Nicholai and Kitta had been among the prisoners then, and it had only been good luck that a passing mercenary band had spotted them and attacked, killing the Cultists and freeing the villagers.

Six years later, now fully grown and experienced with weapons, they had returned. They had sought out the sacrificial altar, smashed it, and killed half a dozen of the priests, including their leader, the Exiarch of Degoh. But the priests were all magic users, and the two of them had been lucky to get out alive.

"You'd have thought," Kitta began, "that with so many of their priesthood dead, they would abandon their profane worship."

"Six out of seven dead, but twenty-five disciples remained," Nicholai reminded her. "Be thankful it was raining, and we could escape in the waters of the wadi."

"That was four years ago, and it is not raining now," Kitta pointed out.

"There are only eight of them now," Nicholai added.

"You have your sword?"

"You have your axes?"

"Let us begin."

The two adventurers emerged from the brown foliage, drawing their weapons - Kitta a pair of throwing axes from her belt, Nicholai a pair of slender knives from his sleeves. Kitta had a larger axe slung across her back, and she checked it was loose on the sling before looking at the procession again.

"Can you take out the priests before they cast?"

"If you can keep the disciples off my back," Nicholai replied.

Kitta nodded. They slid down into the wadi, and began stalking the procession. Nicholai melted towards the side as Kitta began to speed up. She drew her arm back and let fly, the axe whirling away through the air. She transferred her other throwing axe to her right hand before the first hit, and hurled it as the first slammed into a Cultist's spine. The second split the back of another's head, and half of the rearguard was down.

Kitta continued running, readying her axe as she advanced, The other two rearguard disciples turned in response to the sounds of their companions collapsing, saw the advancing adventurer, and shouted a warning. Kitta screamed.

The three met, Kitta moving and whirling in a blur of motion, never where the disciples were swinging their light maces. The first went down when Kitta hacked his foot off just above the ankle, the second died a moment later when she sliced open his neck.

By then the other two disciples had left their positions midway along the procession and were on her. A dark shape flashed past behind them, heading for the priests at the far end of the procession. Kitta turned and dodged and swung, and the two Cultists never even got close to hitting her. She kicked one in the balls, spun and disembowelled the other, then turned again to bring her axe down through the other's head.

There were two agonised screams from the head of the procession as Nicholai's poisoned blades sunk into the flesh of the priests, killing them by swift inches from the inside. Barely twenty seconds had passed since Kitta had begun running.

The peasants, realising that they had been saved from a fate worse than death, began cheering, and many tried to personally congratulate the two adventurers. Kitta and Nicholai separated themselves from the crowd and drew together at the head of the procession.

"So - keys?"

"Found them," Nicholai grinned, holding up the keys to the shackles that had been on one of the bodies.

"How far to the nearest town?"

"With this lot, three days.

"Will they take them, do you know?"

"I know someone who knows someone, if you know what I mean."

"How much do you think we'll get?"

"Twenty gold a head, easily."

Kitta smiled back at Nicholai. "Let's hope we don't meet any patrols." She turned to face the prisoners as Nicholai pocketed the keys. "Listen up you lot! We're taking you to the nearest town!"

"But you have the keys!" one of them protested. "You can set us free here!"

"Who said anything about setting you free?" she replied. "We're going to sell you as slaves!" There were shocked gasps and shouted protests from the prisoners. Kitta brandished her axe and Nicholai drew a knife. "What? You didn't think we were doing this for fun did you? We come from hereabouts, and we've dealt with these Cultist scum before, but that doesn't mean we'd rescue you for free, from the goodness of our hearts, does it? Everyone's got to make a living! Now shut your yaps and get moving, unless you want to end up like them!"

"But why?" one man asked. "Set us free, we can reward you when we get home!"

"A peasant village, run down and penniless?" asked Nicholai, rhetorically. "Or we could take you to a town and get more money for each of you than your whole village is worth. Which would you pick?"

"The village!" came the answering cry from a dozen mouths.

"Which would you pick, if you were us?" asked Kitta.

"Who are you, that it would make a difference?" the spokesman asked.

"I'm Kitta the Cutter," she told them, "and this is Nicholai the Orphan."

The prisoners recoiled in horrified silence. They knew who they were dealing with now.

"Welcome to slavery," Nicholai growled, untying the whip from around his waist.