You could count the number of female marauders on one hand.
Not many had the strength, toughness, fortitude nor endurance needed to hunt down and capture bounties, rogue sorcerers and renegade creatures.
Stepenny of Sowers was one of them who did.
She'd grown up tough.
It was hard enough on the streets of Sowers as a female, nevermind if you looked like Stepenny.
Always tall for her age, she had grown into her beauty early.
She had blessed with the crimson hair and the bronzed olive skin of the people of the summer isles.
It was assumed her parents had travelled from there, maybe as sailors, or, judging by her inmate ability with a weapon, maybe as sell swords.
Though she would never know, having no memory of them growing up in the slums.
The scum of Sowers soon learnt that this particular rose wasn't for plucking tho.
She had killed her first man at 12 years old, driving a shard of glass through his lecherous eye.
That had been 13 years ago and she had killed many men since.
Men, women, sorcerers, goblins, elves, chimaeras, and many other magical folk all fell dead at her feet.
She carried the scars across her muscled body.
Slashes and stabs, all long healed, decorated her body, some disguised with intricate swirling tattoos, some not.
There was no disguising the distinctive scar that ran diagonally away from her deep green left eye, across her cheek.
The only flaw in her otherwise perfect face.
She always made sure to wear her long red hair plaited and braided high on her head, refusing to be shamed by her, albeit, slight disfigurement.
She had readied herself for her next hunt by packing her leather satchel with flasks, ointments, food, and maps, dressing in her custom made battle armour, what little there was of it.
Leather fur lined boots ended at her knee, silver steel chainmail hung in drops from her waist, covering a shiny steel, what on a man she supposed would be called, a codpiece.
Around the middle of her waist, covering her defined ab muscles was a fauld. If it were made of lace it would be called a suspender belt, but as it was made of hardened steel, it was called a fauld.
A sleeveless chainmail bodice did its best to flatten and immobilise her ample bosom and completed what she considered her armour.
She had forgone the protection offered by heavier plate, preferring to rely on her speed and reflexes.
Stepenny's latest bounty had taken her high into the Gorker mountains. A place where travellers had to be constantly on guard as it was the home of the Ogres.
Sage old men of Alchemy had been sure the Ogre's ancestors were originally human,for they retained the features and proportions, only on a much larger scale.
It was surmised their lineage had been cursed to wander in monstrous form about the seclusion of the Gorkers.
The smallest of the adults were at least 8 feet tall, wild and aggressive.
If one looked closely they'd see a human face behind their only differentiating feature, their long bottom incisors that protruded out and over their top lips.
Stepenny, hired by the hill clans to rid them of a menace, had tracked her quarry for days through the mountains, but finally felt she had closed it down.
She has been charged with hunting and killing a Wolfbeast that had been terrorising the mountain clans for years. A seven foot tall, hairy killing machine, full of teeth, claws and fury.
Steppany had climbed for hours. She used her long, bronzed legs to propel herself up and over the latest ridge, rolling to a stop in the dirt of a wide plateau.
She lay, breathing heavily staring up into the cloudless sky.
The screech of a wind hawk bounced around the high mountains
Sweat highlighted every curve of her body and pooled in her deep cleavage as her chainmail bodice struggled to contain her large breasts as they heaved up and down due to her efforts.
She'd hated it when her breasts had not stopped growing in her teens.
Once adept with a bow, it had become harder and harder to fire straight, and they slowed her down when every microsecond could be the difference between life and death.
But now in her experience what she'd lost as a marksman she had gained as a seductress.
They had their uses above allowing her to trap men to satisfy her own needs.
Many scoundrel's last sight in this world had been her heavy bobbing breasts, before a dagger had slipped between their ribs.
She rolled to her knees and half rose.
With no warning she was hit hard and knocked powerfully to the side, skidding in the dirt she came to a stop banging her head against a huge boulder.
She had no clue what had happened as her thoughts buzzed in her head, unable to be brought to focus.
She heard the low rumbling growl of the Wolfbeast and turned her head to face it.
It stood on two legs, huge and backlit by the sun. It had obviously just eaten, blood stained its muzzle and large pools matted the fur on its chest.
It attacked, rushing forward all teeth and claws, snarling and spitting it's intent.
This was it.
Of all the stupid ways to die, ambushed by a fucking Wolfbeast.
A blur suddenly screamed out from behind the boulder she was leaning on.
It moved so fast! An equally large, maybe even larger, mass of power.
It tackled the Wolfbeast bodily, sending them both crashing off course.
She was able to see the beast gnashing on the man shaped things shoulder as they wrestled on the floor, each searching for the upper hand.
Two titanic beasts struggling in a life and death embrace.
She watched the bare backed giant untangle himself and rise to his feet first, the wolf beast unleashed a one two of fast swipes of its claws, the first tearing up diagonally from the huge man's thigh shredding his crude sackcloth covering, and across his midriff,.
The second across his bare chest.
In a rage the impossibly large man threw kick after kick into the yelping beast, Stepenny thought he'd succeed in stamping the monster to death.
But in a final survival instinct surge the wolf beast flung itself forward knocking the man onto his back and pinning him to the ground.
It snarled into the colossus's struggling face, drooling spit from its maw.
Stepenny finally gathered her wits, it had been only a minute or two since the fight started but she had been stunned into inaction by the spectacle.
She sprung to her feet and with supernatural grace, unsheathed her sword as she covered the distance between her and the combatants in a twirling roundhouse arc, building up the momentum needed to send her sword through the Beasts neck, severing it's ugly head from its body.
It's carcass tumbled backward and fell, spurting its life force into the dirt.
She held her form, sword outstretched,and looked from under her straggled fringe at the Wolfbeast's rolling head.
She'd need that to collect her bounty.
She turned and for the first time saw her rescuer's face.
He had dragged himself the few feet to the mountain wall, under a shaded overhang, and looked close to death.
His eyes cast down, pooling his features in shadow, but she saw the unmistakable teeth protruding from its bottom jaw.
Her life has been saved by an Ogre.
Stepenny had learnt of Ogres in the taverns of Sowers, at the knee of the drunken rougues that propped up the bar.
She'd heard tales of their fearsome strength.
She remembered particularly the tale of Matilda of Hearthside, a storied marauder of the olden times.
It was said she had saved the life of an Ogre, and in return it had become her loyal servant, protecting and aiding her in her adventures.
Stepenny allowed herself to wonder if this could be true?
She went to her satchel that had been dropped in the melee, and retrieved her flask, ointments, rags and stitches that she'd used on herself countless times.
" Hey...hey...big boy?" She called gently as she crept toward him "Big boy, I am here to help you."
The man thing raised his head at the sound of her voice.
As she got closer she realized how big he actually was, even slumped down, she wasn't much taller than him standing.
"Ok big boy, I'm going to wash those cuts ok?"
He flinched as she started but the scrams across his chest were deep, and he'd lost a lot of blood.
She began the slow job of cleaning and tending to his wounds, dabbing and wiping at his massive torso using the water from her flask and the healing ointments from her satchel.
She noticed his eyes never left her face, his large head turning to follow her as she moved.
He flinched as she began stitching the slashes across his tanned chest, but let her carry on her work knowing she was aiding him.
She allowed herself to look him in the eyes for the first time.
He was actually quite handsome.
His face was square and long, a plait of facial hair dropping from his chin, big shapely lips, a widish nose and intense narrow eyes the colour of the mountain lakes.
Deep lines carved his face, the corner of his eyes and down both cheeks, around his mouth.
She judged him to be around forty, or would be if fully human, who knew how long these people lived?
