Anarra approached the mossy stone bridge cautiously. Only a day had passed since she had escaped the burning ruins of the Monastery of the Sacred Eye. The taste of freedom was still fresh on her lips, but it was not a comforting freedom—it was a freedom full of fears and apprehensions, despite its limitless potential. Each step took her further from the only home she had ever known. The only prison she had ever known, too.
Already, she had run into danger. The massive fire had attracted looters and scavengers, eager to make good use of the chaos. It had also attracted travelers and the adventurous sort, too. She needed to be careful—needed to get away, unseen. She could trust no one. The clergy at the monastery had kept her oblivious of much of the goings-on beyond those impenetrable walls, but she had heard inklings, enough to know the lands beyond were dangerous. Towns had been told to keep their eyes open for a cursed woman with red hair, and they would know for certain to be on the watch once word got out that the monastery had burned to the ground.
The stone bridge was only large enough to fit a single horse-drawn wagon, and it passed over a small river. The forest was strange to her—the sounds distracted her, from the chirps and trills of the birds, to the occasional sound of a broken branch or a scurrying animal. Sunlight filtered in between the leaves of the trees, spotting the flower-marked forest floor in regions of light.
She had gotten just to the center of the bridge when a voice called out: “Halt there, girlie.”
Anarra wrinkled her nose. She had kept an eye out, yet she had seen no one. She should have figured the bridge would be watched.
Two men came out from behind her, emerging from the forest on either side of the bridge, and another approached from in front of her. The forward man wore ruddy, worn leather armor, with a sheathed knife on a bandoleer. He rested a flanged mace on his shoulder. The two behind had no weapons drawn, but wore similar: ruddy, rough leather, sewn together from scraps and hides. She could feel their eyes heavy upon her, and she shivered from the baleful attention.
“I’ve no business with you. Let me pass and speak no more,” Anarra snapped. The man in front flashed a crooked smile. He was prominently missing a front tooth. “Now now, lady. This be our bridge, and we’ve an interest in those crossing it.”
“You should make an exception,” she continued, setting a hand on her hip.
He shook his head. “We don’t make exceptions.”
Anarra walked forward, almost reaching the end of the bridge, but the man at front came in close, blocking her off.
“Don’t be doing anything stupid, girl,” he said, his eyes traveling down her body, resting at the swell of her breasts for a long moment. He smiled.
An angry glare broke along Anarra’s brow. “Let me pass.”
The frontman smirked. “Don’t make me break that pretty mouth of yours with my mace.”
Anarra’s blue eyes darted between the flanged mace and the man himself. She glanced behind her. Both of the other men—one of them a tall, burly fellow, the other shorter and more muscle than fat—had closed in behind her, blocking off the rear of the bridge. The burly man met her eyes, but the shorter, stockier man’s eyes were downward, a smile on his lips. She knew he was staring at her leather-clad ass. She turned back to face the man in front, grimacing.
Her anger was mounting by the moment. “Out of my way, you ugly bastards.”
“Better got some good coin, with an attitude like that,” the burly fellow said.
The short, muscled bandit laughed. “Pompous bitch think she’s too good to pay any toll. Ought to make her pay with that big ass of ‘ers.”
Anarra flashed an angry smile. “I certainly am too good to pay a toll to slurring, inbred morons.”
The man at front struck Anarra across the face with the back of his gloved hand, with such force she fell down onto her knees, dizzy from the blow.
“I’m tiring of you, girlie,” he said, grabbing a handful of red hair. He jerked it hard, forcing her to stare up at him. Anarra winced, blood trickling from her mouth down across her jaw. “We know how you’re gonna pay us. You’ll be our slut tonight,” the frontman finished.
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“Ignorant pig,” she snapped.
As his flanged mace came up high, a sparkle of shimmering magic erupted along her arm, rapidly coalescing. Before he could bring the mace down, a bolt of eldritch might rocketed into his gut. With a hoarse groan, he stumbled back.
At once, Anarra rose, braced for battle.
“Shoulda made this easy, witch,” the tall, burly bandit shouted, lunging at her.
Anarra was too slow to get out of the way—the man grappled her, one of his hands grabbing her jaw from behind and covering her mouth and most of her face, while the other arm looped under one of her arms. He drew her back against him. Suddenly, she was pinned. She struggled, trying to jerk away, or tug at his arms, to no avail.
“Now yer gonna get it,” the stocky, muscular bandit said, coming in close. Anarra glared at him, and he smiled. The first blow came hard and fast, his balled fist striking her stomach. Then, came another, and another: punch after punch struck her vulnerable body, knocking her around with each blow, punishing her abdomen.
The front man rose up again, a smoking hole in the side of his chest-armor, his skin visible and charred. He clutched his side tightly. “She dies,” he snapped, skin slick with sweat, the pain evident in his eyes.
“Aww, but I wanted to fuck ‘er in the ass,” the stocky bandit said.
Anarra loosed muffled groans from each blow as the short, muscled bandit continued to work her over, landing punishing blows. Her arms grew weak, her vision turned cloudy and then blackened from the pain and lack of air. She wondered if this was her end, to die on some bridge, beaten to death.
But she dug inside herself, found that resolve, and translated that pain into her spellcraft. Both her arms quickened with magic. She focused; she was lucky, her body had started to numb over—the bandit had bruised her so badly she barely felt it any longer. Both blasts of magic came fast: one firing into the stocky bandit’s face, the other blasting into the burly thigh of the man holding her.
The short, muscular bandit flew back, smashing into his wounded companion, the two men toppling over. The burly man holding her loosed a savage scream as her energy bolt went clean through his thigh and out the other side, a grisly explosion of torn muscle and fresh blood celebrating his loss of a leg. He collapsed onto the bridge, moaning and screaming.
“You should… have bowed down to me, like the motherless dogs you are,” she hoarsely shouted.
“Get… off me, fool,” the bandit with the mace yelled, his eyes white with fear, trying to shove the stocky one off him. Instead of a face, the short, muscled fellow had a burnt mess of open sores and bleeding wounds.
Both of her arms quickened again with magic, and this time, her eyes glowed bright purple from the sheer rush of eldritch energy. She called deep and harshly on her well of magic, and fired a twin set of bolts.
The man with the flanged mace was cruel and wise enough to thrust his companion forward, forcing the stocky bandit to stumble into her path of fire: the first bolt struck his face cleanly, his mangled features imploding, cratering his head in a gush of blood. The second bolt struck his chest and snapped his body back hard enough that his head broke apart in a gout of gore as he slammed into the stone bridge
“Gonna make you beg, whore,” the remaining bandit yelled, swinging his flanged mace at her. “Gonna make you nice and obedient.”
Anarra stepped back, the mace swinging before her, narrowly missing her face. Magic quickened along her arm, but it was not enough to fire a proper bolt.
“I’ll make you beg, dog,” she yelled back. She continued to walk backwards, avoiding his deadly swings, maneuvering around them, and then she finally thrust her arm forward, firing a blazing bolt of magic.
The bandit swung his mace, blocking the bolt, and both the disrupted magic and the mace careened off the side of the bridge. The bandit charged forward and grabbed at Anarra, his burly hands grasping her throat.
The bandit grinned, that missing tooth catching her eyes. “That’s no more from you, cunt. Shoulda just sucked our cocks, like a good girl.”
His hands sealed tight and lifted her off the ground. Her long legs kicked and flailed. She gripped his wrists, to try and pry him loose, to no avail. He held her up in the air, strangling her slowly, a satisfied smile on his lips.
Her nails clawed down the backs of his hands, leaving bright red grooves. Her vision once more began to blacken. She stared at his ugly grimace, the lines of his face tense and strained, veins bulging.
Then, she noticed it: just south of his jaw, on a bandoleer, there was a sheathed knife. She let go of his hand and pawed for it, fighting to grasp it, fingers touching the handle.
He tried to pull away, but he was too stupid to let go of her, and so she came with. Anarra fought for the knife, reaching and reaching, and he snarled, and then she pulled free the knife and twisted it up and into his throat.
The bandit abruptly let go, and Anarra landed hard, stumbling about until she caught herself on the edge of the stone bridge. The bandit shuddered, grabbing at his neck, blood oozing from his shanked throat, his bright eyes wide and panicked until he sunk down onto his knees.
She walked to him, slowly, gritting her teeth. She hurt, head to toe, the muscles of her abdomen twisted and screaming. But she was better than the pain these fools could inflict on her. She buried the agony and forced herself to walk upright and poised, as if unbothered. Now standing before the bandit, she shoved him onto his back. His wild, dying eyes remained fixed on her.
“Die like the dog you are,” she said, staring, and staring, watching the light in his eyes fade into empty pools. When he was finally dead, she sighed contently, the rush of having killed these men filling her with a satisfaction so great she felt her pain ebb away.