I'm quite new to writing, so please do take the time to comment and vote! :)
This quick story takes place in the same universe as my mini-novella, The Thief of Virtue, which is also on Literotica.
The text below is original content which belongs to the author. This work must not be reproduced either in part or in full without the permission of the author.
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Captain Lorn Maarson of the Red Crusade cursed as he stumbled through the dark, spiny thickets of Daymone's Wood. He and his troops had been camping nearby last night, and had awoken to find an anonymous note. The paper smelled of smoke and was slightly charred, but the message was clear enough. There was an Alchemist living secretly in the nearby forest, spreading her filth amongst the people. Lorn had sent his troops onwards to the next patrol town. This shouldn't take long and he'd meet them there once he was done.
Lorn rubbed an irritation on his cheek, feeling a raised scratch over the old, familiar scar tissue, and looked around wearily for signs of habitation. He'd spent most of his life outside the borders of Radminia, fighting one country and another for the King's Red Crusade. Barely forty now, he was a decorated officer and a Captain. He was proud of his country, proud that his King took a stance against the Alchemists. The power they held in their potions - to kill, to alter the mind or the body, or even to detach the spirit - was too great. They were too dangerous.
He knew what the foreigners called the Radminian soldiers- the Red Slaughters, the Dragonhorde Massacrers, and other such names. Well, he'd followed orders, he'd taken knocks a plenty and he'd secured those territories against the scourge of the Alchemists, not that they were grateful. The army would look after him now. The Red Crusade had claimed many new lands for Radminia; the country was thrice the size it had been when the Crusade had begun, and there was new land for high-up soldiers who'd grown weary of fighting. He'd been promised a tidy plot close to the new border, near the foothills of the Needle Peaks. That had been the territory of the nomad tribes, but when they'd refused to eschew Alchemy and turn over their power-blooded, the Red Crusade had wiped them out. Lorn was counting off the days until he could begin his life there. Meanwhile he was restricted to 'house cleaning', as the Commander called it - the domestic duties of patrolling the Crusade within the borders of Old Radminia. He was rediscovering the country he had left to protect as a 12-year-old drummer boy.
Head spinning with past and future, Lorn pushed on through the dense vegetation of the wood. Finally, he fell out of a close-grown thicket almost on top of a little, wooden building. A large and neatly-tended herb garden round the back made Lorn instantly certain that this must be the right place. Alchemists and their bloody herbs - and that was the best of it; he'd heard of those who'd use human organs to make their foul potions more potent. He pulled some rope from his pack and moved carefully, looking for life.
After searching the sunny clearing and finding no one outside Lorn tried the door, which swung open soundlessly. The single room was sparse and tidy - a bed, a shelf of books, and a work table and chair. There was someone still asleep, a tuft of yellow hair visible from his vantage-point by the door. He walked over to the bed and yanked the blankets back, exposing the night-gowned figure of a girl. She was much younger than he had expected, barely in her 20s if he had to guess, and he couldn't help noticing that she had a rather voluptuous figure, just the kind he liked. She looked up at him, disoriented, and he grabbed her by the arm and dragged her onto the wooden chair, tying her there with deft, practised movements. The girl was alert and afraid now, and she screamed as she saw his face. His years of fighting had not been kind to him and he was heavily scarred - scary-looking, he supposed. He slapped her firmly, and she abruptly stopped screaming.
He had her secure now, and though she struggled against the bonds of the rope she couldn't get free. Her movement had pulled open the neck of her nightshirt and he could see her large breasts splaying to either side against her chest, shaking slightly with her rapid breathing. He tried to keep his mind on the task at hand. Normally they were older - throwbacks from the start of the Crusade - it looked like someone was training new Alchemists, keeping the tradition alive, and he would have to pass that intel on.
"Anyone else live here?" he growled. The girl looked up at him with large, frightened eyes. Her lips were red and very full, the lower trembling slightly as she stared at him. He wrapped his fingers into her golden hair and tugged, and she squealed.
"I said, does anyone else live here." His face was inches from hers. She shook her head slightly, her green eyes tearstained and mesmerised with fear. Lorn looked around the cottage. There was a single bed, a single chair - she was probably telling the truth.
"What's your name, girl?" he asked, softer.
"Xaedria, sir."
"You've been accused of Alchemy, Xaedria. Is that true?"
"No, sir, no! I never would do that," she started, the frightened words babbling out from her lips. He sighed, walked over to the bookcase and tugged a book from the shelf, opening a page a random. The girl fell silent, looking at him apprehensively.
"... and be ye certayn that the Root Wart be ever so fresh and fayr, not two or three days fromm the plant, or thee poition will fail and will ynstead becume right poision to ye bloode..." he read aloud. He closed the book sharply and looked at her with a raised eyebrow. "I suppose that's what happened to the Queen, right? She was accidentally poisoned? Bad ingredients, perhaps?"