Sixteen Feet of Steel Chapter 2

Chapter 2

*Before…

I see breasts…and trousers?
Women aren’t rangers?
And the Squire….it had chest mounded details.
Again breasts.
Women are neither knights nor Squires?
The Squire’s rig pops open in the chest and sure enough is a girl in there…older than me, young but where she should be married off at a close fifteen years at least and she looks at me.
“Sorceress are you hurt, did they strike you?”
Sorceress?
I turn and look around.
I hear the ranger a girl of an age close to this squire chuckle. “She’s more like an apprentice Nik.”
She…Me?
They think I’m a woman?

*And Now…

My brain goes into this blurred state for a moment…you know when the mind’s so overloaded everything slows done and they’re sounding in slow motion.

She…me…woman.

And once that’s said, heard it’s just this very instant conclusion happens that’s conformation. That always there feeling, that feeling you just take for granted that it’s there it isn’t there.

No bulgey bits, no stones of manhood remaining.

Just an almost unconscious twitching going on in my nethers and I just know.

Gone.

Gone by all the gods and goddesses.

What in all of the hells am I going to do!?

Unmanned…and…and…

How can I get satisfaction! free my people…lead?

Oh I’m going to be ill…

Then I’m being jostled by the ranger girl woman and I’m back in real time. She doesn’t look that old but at the same time she looks like a ranger?

Brown hair pulled a tied back from her face, Brown eyes that are large and liquid like a doe’s and her skin tanned like a peasant’s. Freckles are there too in a few places and she has this look there…like a mixed blood unlike those that I’ve seen.

Most folk I know are whitelings, summer comes you burn get fire kissed and then tan not get darker.

My sisters would be horrified at the scandal of this girls color, too dark to be noble blooded but dusky like that of the southlander traders with their strange pack beasts and robes and such.

I know how I sound even thinking of these differences but I’m a noble and from the Mid-lands and that means wealthy and that means spoiled and it also means white, whiter than even the peasants in our lands even.

It’s hard to look from her eyes though, I mean she’s a hard girl and very hard girl I mean her friend/companion the squire slayed many of the Wargs and Goblins but she had killed at least four that I had seen with my own eyes and that means she’s a killer.

“Are you all right? Snap out of it girl and speak.”

“I…I’m fine…I’m not…I…”

Funny, well odd funny I should be bawling right?

The cold though maybe the cold is doing it. I’m freezing.

The Squire…Squiress? I don’t know what to call her since she’s an impossibility. “I think she’s in shock Hawk, she’s shaking pretty badly.”

The ranger nods. “And she’s hurt and covered in blood.”

Everything whites out as I feel the sticky slow ooze of it on me and I see father die all over again that huge axe from The Gorgon’s battleknight crashing down and the explosion of blood from his rig-cage.

Then the battle in the attic, men tore up and blasted and dying in ways I’ve never seen before and the blood and the screams and the cries for family…

Lady Blackhand…dying her blood spraying the “Ball” as she was shot over and over with crossbow bolts.

Then the squire and that Warg and Goblin that was right on me and it exploding almost as she chopped down on it.

I don’t know when I started screaming and crying but I was all of a sudden and I have my hands to my face and they hurt so badly!

Then Hawk…this girl, this girl actually hauls back and she strikes me…Hells, it wasn’t really a striking blow as she hauled her fist back and she snuffed out my lamp.

***………… I wake up and my hands are throbbing and my face hurts a lot and I’m wrapped in a blanket and the squire this Nik? She’s looking at me and I flinch. “Don’t hit me.”

It’s the first thought out of my mouth.

She chuckles. “No, I don’t hit people unless I have need to.”

The Ranger...Hawk. “There was need to she was screaming her head off.”

The Squire…Nik. “She was in shock.”

There it is again.

She.

They’re talking about me and using she and again there’s me thinking about it that brings it, not being there into awareness.

Hawk… “We’re very close to dangerous places.”

Nik… “Not that close. She ran a good dozen miles.”

I did?

Hawk… “Sound travels.”

Nik… “Then they heard the battle.”

How? I mean I’ve heard of desperation leading to people doing feats of strength and such but me?

I can’t help but to look at my feet, they actually feel okay, they don’t hurt.

Hawk looks at Nik and vice versa and that’s when I notice that Hawk’s pulling claws from the Wargs with pliers and all of the Goblins are missing their right hands.

“You’re taking bounty?”

Hawk looks at me. “Aye, King Wayland pays a bounty on both and we’d be neglecting our duties to our liege if we didn’t bring the bounties in off of our kills here.”

“King Wayland?” I’ve never heard of him but that’s not surprising because some places I have heard have had their own kings for ages on ages and this far out they’d not be part of any trade routes that I’d have known.

I’ll be honest as far out as I think I’ve been sent… my father would have likely had to have had this king looked up in the library really outside of a hundred leagues most people in the Midlands didn’t really know too much about the “foreigners.”

Nik looks at me. “Aye he’s king here abouts Rules out from The Deep.”

“The Deep?”

“Aye Delving Deep.” She points north and further west but I can’t really see much more than what I’ve seen.

“Far?” I ask.

“Aye, a fortnight’s march in good weather to his mountain.”

“His mountain what is he a Dwarf?”

Both give me this look like but of course he is.

I’ve only see Dwarven works and those rarely. I know that a lot of things come from these lands in theory. Like I said they’re rarities even home, No one I know of had even seen a Dwarf really.

“So you’re bonded to him then?”

“Nay, you’re in The Free Kingdoms you’re close to Whitehall lands.”

Okay…The Free Kingdoms…These I’ve been taught of at least somewhat. I’m in the northwest of the continent and over the great mountain range simply called The Westmounts that stretch from The Great Northern Wall…another mountain chain all the way until they get smaller into the mesa’s that lead to the southern deserts.

These kingdoms are colonies more or less…age’s past the mountains were too hard to colonize with the beings that live there and too hard and wild so those that did make it over them or came to the shores of there by boats and such settled.

They’re considered mercenaries and raiders and small ports of call and trumped up nobles that only hold their lands because it’d be too much trouble to take them. No one in The Realms really thinks much of them.

And that’s all I know…so consequently I know as much about this Whitehall person as I know of this Wayland person.

“So is Whitehall sworn to Wayland?”

“Aye, everyone is. The Deep mints the strongest coin; it makes the best goods and steel. For good or for bad everyone here is at least respectfully allied to the Dwarves.”

“So is it for bad then…?”

Nik shakes her head… And I take her in this time. Blonde, golden haired but chopped short like a man’s and not a lot of curve but a lot of muscle and these very grey eyes…Not a beauty but she’s sort of striking looking though likely to be made fun of in a court back home.

“Nay not for us, for some of the more bent realms and houses perhaps but not here. King Wayland lets us pretty much rule as we will amongst ourselves unless we make mayhem and start whipping up troubles.”

“That sounds fair but I’d hardly know I’m a midlander.”

Hawk comes over and plonks down. “I’d have said that you’d be an Easterner myself.”

“I’ve never been east.”

“You’re marked an easterner.”

“I am?”

She looks at my bandages, they must have done these. “Aye, you’re a Blackhand.”

“I…no, no I’m not.”

“Aye, the name comes from the burns. I’ve seen yer ma here before at Serenity.”

“My mother is Deidre Lyonnes.”

They’re looking at each other.

Nik looks at me. “You’re a Lion?”

I draw myself up and it feels odd to do that when I’m not a man…boy…whatever anymore.

“Yes…” And now I’m not sure if I’m in friendly hands anymore.

Nik suddenly just nods like she made a decision. “We should leave now; we can meet up with Taylor just after dark if we hurry.”

They both get up and Hawk extends her hand to help me up and I take it which is odd in itself being on the receiving end of manners to a lady.

“Thank you.”

She nods but is getting gear and Nik’s getting ready with her squire-rig and it’s Nik that looks at me.

“How you came here…”

“Lady Blackhand spelled me away; she was killed in doing so.”

“So Lyonnes has fallen then?”

I nod and there tears welling up as well as a slow ache.

She steps away from her rig and over to me and she takes my hand. “I’m Nicole McKinnon squire to Lady Tatiana, Knight Marshal of The West and I swear to you Lady Lyonnes I will see you safely to Serenity.”

It’s a handshake and my mouth’s dry again and she said it with utter seriousness and real conviction.

It’s time…I guess, time for me to face this.

“Christian, Christian Lyonnes… Last son of The House of Lions.”

Hawk does this stop-look-stare mid packing and she huffs out a chuckle that kind of makes me angry and Nicole looks at me and she holds my eyes. There’s a look in her eyes that actually seems compassionate.

“We had better then get you to Lady Tatiana and The Fortress.”

I nod and swallow… “Can I help?”

Hawk’s the one that responds first. “Aye Ladyship, get to the fire and snuff it well before we leave.”

Ladyship…