This will be a bit different from what one might be used to from me. The first chapter is rather harsh and brutal, but that would have been basically the reality for my Geneve.
Reena is much different then her fragile, gentle birthed mother.
The past three weeks had been hell.
It seemed that the meeting of Bane had opened upon Reena the very floodgates of chaos and allowed all manner of confusion to rush in.
Firstly, Markus, the fat, sweating, red faced tavern owner of the flea favored dung heap Ciara danced in had tried to forbid Reena entrance to his little piss hole, claiming she only caused trouble.
It had done little good to remind Markus that it was that hell spawned Warrior bastard who had started the fracas.
Markus knew Reena's temper, and had horribly vivid images in his head of her murdering the man within his tavern. Disaster for all within those rude walls, as the man's sword mates would then surely raze the building to the ground.
In the end he allowed that she could come in as long as she stayed in the very darkest corners, where not even the sharpest eyes could discern the shape of a wandering pig from that of an always smoldering hellion half bit. And she had to surrender her vicious little knife to the seven foot bouncer Grund the moment she stepped over the threshold.
After all, Markus assured himself, how much damage could one tall, skinny, barely into womanhood wolf's whelp of a bitch do with her bare hands?
Markus was as stupid as a brick wall.
Reena signaled her friend Ciara that all was settled, then walked out still cursing under her breath, at Marcus but mostly in favor of that fucking no brained dick driven barbarian Warrior.
She turned a corner into a rancid little squalid alley…and right into the malevolent plot of three lack luster lame brained cut throats who didn't realize she wasn't a fat, richly dressed merchant in time to pull their attack.
"Bloody fucking hell!" She snarled.
And kneed the first one with all her pent up frustration. He dropped immediately, crawling frantically fast as he could away from the scene, clutching his throbbing jewels and whimpering.
The second had time enough to realize and think "Oh sh…." before Reena was taking a half step spin and driving one long leg viciously into a flabby belly.
And as the hooligan's head came down when he folded in half to clutch his belly, Reena's two hands, clutched together, came up fast as a summer storm, caught the thief under the chin and sent him flying backwards to slam the length of his body against the brick wall behind him.
The third lack wit, with plenty of time to know who their "victim" was, got nailed to the back of the head and knocked out cold as he ran like hell, with an abandoned ale bottle that Reena snatched up and flung without even looking.
"Morons!" Reena spat. "Imbeciles!"
And strode on to be lost in the dark gloom of the fetid alley.
When the luckless cut throats reconvened, they all agreed that it was terrible luck that Reena had to go and beat the fat old merchant in entering the alley. The worst insult was that when the damned merchant did arrive as usual, all three were still sprawled about unable to do more then whine and whimper.
The underbelly of that city did know Reena.
Reena, that almost still a child. A skinny embryonic woman of above average intelligence, "sight" and guts.
An always skittish, mistrustful never really was a child who had been on her own since her mother; frail, fallen Geneve, had been brutally raped unto death by the four men she had serviced to buy food and shelter for her child.
The fragile, gentle Geneve had been of privileged, high birth-whipped from the family estate when it was discovered that she was with child. Of the man who had beguiled her with pretty lies and worthless promises, nothing was ever known.
Geneve had danced and whored in the taverns for a few years, but Tavern dancing was for the young and fresh of pretty face.
When the strain of caring for a sickly, fragile infant started to show on that uncomplicated face, the simple Geneve was sent packing.
The only way open for her to care for her daughter, the only thing that mattered to her anymore, was whoring on the brutal streets, where there was no one to step in, even if it was just an indifferent Tavern Master who kept a whore from being beaten to death only because having to bury one would cost coin. And a live whore earned coin.
Kiara was 13 when her mother died.
But before the woman died…she taught her daughter how to survive in a world where women were nothing.
Geneve was a pampered daughter of wealth. A woman physically weak, and not very smart. But as she staggered bloody and bruised away from her home, she knew the child in her womb would have to finish growing up alone, and her planning started even before her blood stopped flowing.
And so, begging, pleading, sweetly complimenting, she cajoled all the men she was mistress to into teaching Reena what they knew.
And all obliged, because it amused them. And Geneve fucked so much better when they did as she softly begged.
Mostly, these were men not much beyond mediocre in regards to fighting skill. But, in a violent, brutal, bloody age, they were men still alive. And that meant something.
And every last one of them had at least one little talent, that few if any others had. It might be an unbreakable hold, or a certain lunge with a sword that was unstoppable . Maybe a way of weaving about the man meaning to spill your life blood. Just one little thing, different with each, that these men used and depended on. That certain something their counter parts could not meet.
And Reena was not a slow witted child. What ever else her father might have been, was a good bet that simpleminded he wasn't.
She never once thought about her mother dying, but…
Reena knew from her first thoughts, she was a female. She had no money, no place or presence…no power.
She was an alley baby, and her mother was a whore.
Reena loved Geneve. Almost all the mothers where Geneve and Reena lived were whores. Being a whore wasn't anything. But being a whore to shoddy mercenaries and drunk, horny petty merchants…that meant even the offal and pure shit that was collected off the streets to fertilize the farmer's crops had more value.
So Reena saw, and knew.
And she watched, practiced, and learned.
She took all that these nothing men knew, and made the few worthy parts better.
When she was five, she took in hotly fierce hand her first wooden practice sword.
At ten, she was given a real sword. The men her mother slept with had joined their coins and had one crafted suitable for a young, still rather weak arm.
Reena was young, healthy and fierce by now.
By the time she was 12, and inches taller then the squat, stocky men of her village, she could dance their steps, and get the better of all.
She was purely untouchable. You could not kill what your weapon could not find.
Even if that was just a scrawny 12 year old girl with eyes that spat out fire…
Reena was strong for her thin build. But mostly, she was almost unnaturally fast.
She fought by darting in and out.
In a real battle, she'd have bled her opponent out, dancing in like quick silver to open a dozen cuts.
One of her trainers, half way to unconscious with drink, slurred that she reminded him of a wolf, leaping in to cause a grievous wound, then gone like a nightmare, only to lunge back in again and give another..
Reena learned to be that most deadly of opponents.
One who thought.
It was just a game though. Even if Reena did know Geneve expected her to learn it well and use it as needed.
But it only a nebulous game…and then Reena was 13, and she killed for the first time.
They were traveling with a raggedy band of baseborn mercenaries, little better then thieves and killers for hire really. But this band actually had a written contract-not that any among the group could read-with a minor land owner to help him settle a dispute about boundaries lines with his neighbor. That of course meant the two sides would skirmish about and mainly just cause trouble for the common people until one side got lucky and managed to kill the other side's leader.
Geneve could actually read, which wasn't at all common for a woman, even among the nobility, but her father had wanted to save on the cost of hiring a woman to manage the house after Geneve's mother died in childbirth. He was also a very suspicious, untrusting man, and he wanted to be sure that if a merchant charged him a certain price, the man wasn't fiddling with the accounts.
So she knew enough to at least earn a few pennies by reading the contract to assure the mercenaries that they were to be paid a certain amount each day. And yes it was there in writing that they could eat as much as their bellies could hold.
Normally Geneve wouldn't have even entertained the thought of traveling as a camp follower.
It was a sure fire way to end up dead. Even if you did survive, more times then not you'd find yourself abandoned miles from home with no food or shelter, and likely nothing but a few pennies to your name.
But in this particular case, Geneve knew two of the mercenaries. They had been customers of hers whenever they came through the village for almost ten years. And for men she knew to be thieves and most likely murders, they had been decent to her. They didn't slap her around…or even bite overly much when they rutted away on top of her.
The deciding factor was that they always paid her well.
She knew it would be a hard few months, she'd spent most of her time on her back. Or her knees while some smelly brute with a hard on and ten minutes to spare rammed her. But each man who used her would pay her something, and Rashu and Malkar promised her that they'd make sure the men DID pay her, and also that none of them would rob her either. They were big men both, and not just simply hired swords.
