The Warrior

Chapter one

         Chapter one

         Damn, he hurt. He tried to locate the exact source of the pain, but found he couldn’t do it. His entire body throbbed painfully, yet he schooled his face to show nothing of his discomfort as he faced his four opponents.
         At least his odds had improved, five minutes earlier there had been six men facing him. The only problem was that he had lost his sword in the process of dispatching the two now lying immobile in the dust behind their still very much mobile friends. They had they were fully armed, one of them with his own sword, and he had nothing but his fists.
         He noted with satisfaction that the man now wielding his sword had trouble lifting it, the weight causing his arms to tremble under the strain. Pathetic.
         The man came at him, swinging the sword wildly over his head, sacrificing technique for brute force. It could have worked, but Kay Hir was an experienced warrior who had seen more brutality than these men could imagine, and who had faced opponents that made these men seem like a pitiful threat.
         He waited patiently as the charging man approached, and when the sword was a hair’s width from his head, he lazily stepped sideways, his arm reaching out in a fluid motion and gripped the man’s hand over the sword hilt. His other hand delivered a swift and brutal punch to the man’s face, the crunching sound and gushing blood as his fist connected signaling that he had broken his opponent’s nose.
         The man went down with a howl of pain, and frantically clutched his face while desperately trying to crawl away from Kay. Three down, three to go.


         The men still standing looked a lot less sure of themselves now, their friends’ bodies scattered around them, and Kay once again armed with a sword almost as long as they were high. He wielded it with an effortless grace and casual skill that seemed to mock their own futile attempts at swordplay.
         He stood completely still, awaiting their next move without a flicker of movement to betray his emotions or intentions. He didn’t look like a mere man, but rather like a giant of old. They no longer walked the earth, but looking at the warrior facing them, the three men would not have been surprised to discover that he was the last of this long dead race.
         He really was a giant of a man, well over 6 feet tall. His long blonde hair had come loose from the leather strap that usually kept it tied back, so it framed his face, giving him a wild, barbaric look. His blue eyes never blinked, the stare fixed on them with an unerring concentration that seemed inhuman. Yet it wasn’t his size, his obvious skill or even his reputation that finally convinced them to back down. Later, when pressed by their friends, they would say it was nothing substantial they could put their fingers on, but a feeling of cold dread in their very bones. There were three of them, against him alone, yet they knew without a shadow of a doubt that they had already lost.


         Kay breathed a sigh of relief when the remaining three men lay down their weapons, and knelt before him. He was getting too old for this shit. He was only 32, and would continue to fight for many more years before allowing the Dark One to take his body into the Underworld, but he was tired. It was not so much his body as his soul that cried out for rest. He had seen too much. He didn’t know what the four men kneeling before him saw when they looked at him, but he suspected it was death. After so many wars, so many fights, so many kills, he was sure it must radiate off him like a stench he could never wash away.
         His hand throbbed after the impact with the last man’s face, he suspected he had at least one fractured finger, and several bruised ribs from earlier. At least one knife had hit its mark, and the wound would take a long time to heal, but the men facing him could not tell if the blood on his clothes was his or theirs, and he had no intention of enlightening them.
         Careful not to let either his pain or his relief at their surrender show, he approached them, drew a line in the dirt in front of them, then turned his back and waited. After counting quietly to three hundred, he turned towards the still kneeling men, nodded and put up his sword. The fight was over, he had won.


         He took the time to check on the condition of the fallen men, and after assuring himself that they would live he turned and walked off the training ground, towards his tent. He was careful to display no sign of urgency, though he longed for a hot bath and some privacy.
         The spectators of the training match parted to make way for him. Nobody tried to stop him or even talk to him.
         He heard money changing hands, and was vaguely surprised. Nobody usually bet on his matches. Not because he would make an issue of a little innocent gambling, but because he never lost, so the outcome was too predictable to make good entertainment. The knowledge that someone doubted his skills was almost encouraging. Perhaps he did not reek of death after all. More likely though, it was a newcomer who thought the stories of him exaggerations, and had found the odds too tempting to resist.
         He squared his shoulders and walked on with deliberately casual movements, telling himself he didn’t care. It was good if the men thought of him as invincible. He had nursed his reputation as a killing machine for so many years, he had become one. His loyalty lay with the King, his soul in the dark clutches of Ignar. It was as it should be. No point getting weepy about it now.


         There were no guards in front of his tent, none were needed, only a very nervous looking page. He tried to remember the boy’s name, but in truth he didn’t care what it was. The boy had been with him for a year, and still jumped every time Kay addressed him. That alone indicated a certain level of intelligence.
         The boy seemed to be gathering his courage to speak, but Kay wasn’t in the mood for the sniveling grovel the boy normally spewed, so he interrupted before the boy could speak. “I need hot water for a bath, right away.” The order was given with a finality of tone followed by a piercing glare, and the boy immediately forgot what he was about to say and hurried off to fulfill his master’s order.
         Satisfied that he would soon be able to soak his sore body, Kay entered the tent.


         The sight that met him stopped him in his track.
         A woman was in his tent, asleep on his bed pallet! The sight was completely unexpected, and for a few minutes he stood frozen, unable to decide how to react. He slowly approached the sleeping figure and tried to see what color clothes she wore, if any, but she had pulled his warm wool blankets around her, covering her completely. He couldn’t even make out her face, as it was partly covered by the blanket, and partly by a mop of blonde, curly hair.
         He had heard of this kind of thing happening at Court, where eligible bachelors could come upon hopeful girls wanting to make a good match in their bed chambers, but women were usually too frightened of him to approach him in such a shameless manner, so this was definitely a first. Besides, they were a long way from King Richard’s Court, though that’s where they were going.
         His army had hunted pirate raiders along the southeast coast of Albion for the past 5 months, and had crushed several well-organized smuggling bands. Now they were heading back to the capitol to report their findings to the King. Still, they were almost three weeks march away, and no woman with any sense in her head would enter an encampment full of men alone. He hurriedly looked around, in case he had missed an angry father lurking in the shadows of his tent, but no. There was nobody there except the woman.
         He had a strong urge to touch her hair, smooth it away from her face to see if it was as soft as it looked, and to find out what she looked like. The situation was so unexpected, so unreal, he briefly wondered if she was a nymph come to tempt him, but then quickly shook off such a fanciful notion. He needed to talk to his page. Clearly the boy knew something about this, it must have been what he wanted to say when Kay interrupted him outside the tent. He should be back with the bathwater soon, so there was no need to go chasing after him.
         Shortly after there was a commotion outside the tent, and two soldiers entered carrying a large barrel filled with hot water. The page was nowhere to be seen, probably afraid to face Kay after letting a stranger into his tent, female or not.
         The soldiers cast surreptitious glances towards the bed pallet, but after a look at his face they carried out their task of preparing the bath without comment. They produced bath salts and towels, and placed two buckets next to the barrel, one with hot water and one with cold, should he want to regulate the temperature later on. When finally their task was done they almost ran from the tent, eager to escape his glowering presence.
         Pain always put him in a foul mood.
         He turned his attention to the still sleeping woman, and briefly considered taking his bath in another tent, but decided against it. The woman had invaded his privacy, and would simply have to live with the consequences if she woke to find him naked in the tent with her. No doubt she would run screaming at the sight of him, he thought with a wry smirk.


         Marissa woke slowly, dragging herself out of a sleepy fog, her body heavy and resisting the disturbance of this much needed rest. For several minutes all she could do was blink her eyes towards the ceiling and try to remember where she was.
         The ceiling she was looking at was made of a thick, brown fabric. A tent it would seem. Her neck began to cooperate, so she stiffly turned her head and looked around. Then tent was circular, dimly lit by the torches outside, shining light through the walls of the tent, and practically empty apart from the pallet she was laying on. There was a large chest on the floor, partly hidden under a pile of clothes, another smaller chest next to it, and of course a huge barrel with a naked man sitting in it. The man was wet, so she assumed the barrel was filled with water, and really she only guessed that the man was naked since all she could see of him was his shoulders, arms, and the back of his head, leaned against the edge of the barrel.
         He had nice hair, long and blonde, darker than her own and without her curls, but what really caught her attention was his arms. They were enormous! His hands were hidden from her view inside the barrel, his elbows resting on the edge. His forearms were covered in a mat of hair, slightly darker than that on his head, and she could make out the delicate veins running under his skin, tempting her eyes to follow them up his arms to his shoulders. She was mesmerized by the shadows playing around his muscles as he shifted slightly, and a contented sigh escaped him. Drops of water covered his skin, and she had a sudden urge to lick them off, one by one, tasting his warm skin to see if it was as delicate as it looked. She had never had such a reaction to anyone before, and it both excited and frightened her. Determined to shake off the fear, she turned fully towards him to get a better look.
         The slight rustling of the blanket covering her had a startling effect on the man. He practically exploded out of the barrel, a geyser of water following his abrupt movements, and before she could blink he was facing her, a sword in his hand pointed directly at her heart.










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