Brutal Passions
Ruki’s on her first adventure of her very own, seeking out greatness and tales worthy of song.
She thirsts for glory, and when she stumbles upon a pretty young man in the wreckage of a caravan, it’s the beginning of the biggest challenge in her life. Can she save him? Or will she instead be tempted by the muscle-bound dragon-warrior that’s in pursuit of him?
Chapter 1
From far across the lands, the call to glory had drawn her onwards through valleys and across mountain ranges. She had left behind her people and the life of a tribeswoman in search of grander things for herself, yet never had she met a true challenge, a tremendous battle worthy of noble deed and glorious songs that might be sung.
From atop the hillock she could see the wide rolling hills, plains and forests before her. The new land she’d come to was foreign to her, but such things she craved. The new. The exotic. The exciting.
It was colder there than she was used to, though the lush green before her attested to the fact Spring was still as yet ripe. Not that she would let it bother her. Cold would be no challenge to shake Ruki, and the chill winds from out of the mountains could only be answered by haughty defiance.
The furs she had draped around her shoulders and loins would be enough to protect her from the cold, and her nose tilted up a little in the air as if to snub Mother Nature itself. The silver band around her forehead was cold, a constant reminder as she journeyed so far.
Ruki’s white hair was a shocking contrast against her dark brown flesh, and her equally dark eyes glanced around at the exotic location. A smile came to her lips unbidden, and a rush of excitement flooded her.
The weeklong trek through the mountains had not diminished her. Where men feared to tread, she had climbed her way through single-handedly, hunted the wily mountain lions and goats for food and her new furs. By any normal standards that crossing alone was something worthy of tale, and she had made it in record time.
It would never be enough for Ruki, though.
As she set off through the new land, the lush greenery was a stark contrast to the barren passage she’d just completed. Food would not be scarce nor hard to come by here. A part of her lamented that fact, but she knew greater things awaited her.
She had only been in that new, northern land for but a day when her first signs of civilization were spotted. The forest was criss-crossed with roadways, she presumed, and at the heart of it, near a lake, sat the brown and grey of a town.
Her people did not make such dwellings, but she knew them well enough. One could hardly venture as far as she had without dealing with ‘civilization’, after all. Though as she sighted that first point of note, she also saw a curious trail of smoke. Thin and wispy, it curled upwards from one of the roadways. Both points lay roughly equal distance from her by her measure.
She started towards the small fire, uncomfortable enough in a town that she avoided it unless she had to. Her long hair was tied back and poked out beneath a white rabbit skin cap, for she cared little for camouflage. With her spear firmly in hand and her two knives along her belt, she didn’t feel the need to appear so weak.
Besides, she thought, with any luck fire on the road in the broad of day could likely mean trouble. And trouble was what she craved. And caused.
The trip would have taken most travelers the whole of the day, but with Ruki’s long, Amazonian stride she made the journey in but a few hours.
The smell of what she encountered struck her first, for the trees blocked sight of all but that thin wispy curl in the air. It was the stench of burning wood and flesh. Though not that of animal, for she knew that well. No, it was something else altogether. Something human, or very close to it.
She was wary as she approached, but then, she was always cautious. To let down one’s guard was to invite death in. And as her people would say: do not invite death; take death by its jaws.
The roadway was a mess. As she came to it she could see the area littered with broken wooden planks, seared by fire. Even the dirt and gravel that marked the roadway were scorched in places that she saw.
It took no special tracking skills to trace it all back to its source down the road. There, the hulk of what was once some human caravan lay derelict and still smoking. Though now it was little more than ash and charred wood.
She sniffed the air, her keen, dark eyes scanning the scene with an insatiable curiosity that had always gotten her into the right types of trouble growing up. Her hands wrapped about the spear as she looked to see if the cause of it all still lingered.
From a distance she had smelled burning flesh, but so far all she saw was wood and a couple of dead horses. As she approached the burnt wagon cautiously the smell of death grew thicker. She moved on to investigate and found at last what she was looking for.
Beneath the overturned and burnt wagon lay a corpse. Burned beyond recognition, whatever had happened was many hours done.
She saw no signs of recent activity, though the mighty tracks she found were something immensely curious. Massive feet had to have made them, and she reckoned the owner must have been bigger than her even, a towering giant. The clawed toes, however, suggested something stranger than she anticipated. Stranger and more fearsome.
As she arose from her crouched position, ready to set off in search of that beast a sound stirred behind her. The creak of burnt wood and then that of coughing.
She spun about reflexively and saw the most curious sight. From beneath a pyre of black, burnt wood and charred corpses rose a long, raven haired human of milky skin, hacking and coughing. She’d not sighted him at first, and she cursed herself for that. His pure midnight hair and dark overcoat had hidden him amongst the ruins perfectly, she realized.
Besides, she assured herself, she was looking for threats, not half dead humans.
She knelt down in front of him, her legs splayed as she crouched. The fur slipped between her dark thighs, and her spear rested atop them. “You live?” she asked, her brow lifting.
The face that gazed up at her was nothing like that of the people she knew from her journeys past. Oh, he was a man alright. A human – or she deemed him so to the best of her knowledge – but he was altogether different than any other man she’d ever seen.
Fae would’ve been the word, had she known it. Beautiful, far more so than any woman of her tribe could’ve hoped to be. Delicate looking, yet somehow he’d survived for hours beneath a burning and smoldering husk with nary a scratch on him.
With long, ovaline eyes, the colour of shimmering emeralds he looked to her wide-eyed and innocent seeming. Though when his plush lips parted to speak he said in the voice of angels, “Do they have a different name for it where you come from?” Then spat up some phlegm onto the roadway, she could see the saucy male was struggling though, despite his boldness, and the weight of charred wood was likely to be too much for him.
“I figured if you answered, you were really just telling me you weren’t dead. Yet. Who did this?” she asked, figuring that if he’d lived this long under the wreckage that another minute or two couldn’t hurt as she warmed up to him.
Even though her exterior was icy, however, her eyes had hardened with interest and desire.
The black over cloak he wore seemed to have been made that way, and not merely smeared in the ash of the wagon. Though the same could not be said for his milky pale skin, which had more than a few smudges of the dark coal. “Who?” he responded with a furrow of his lovely brow. “More like what,” and as he spoke more she could see his voice was even lovelier the more he shook off the hoarseness. “How about a little help here,” and his eyes travelled over her, hesitating a bit at her generous assets, “ma’am?” The title seeming a sudden change in tact as he noted just how large she was.
“You got any weapons with you under there?” she asked, her head tilting to the side as she observed him, the fur of her cloak and hat rippling in the wind.
“Not unless you count my nails,” he retorted a bit snarkily, rolling those glimmering eyes of his. “C’mon,” he whined a bit, and looked up over her with a troubled expression, “are you gonna tell me a big gal like you is afraid of a guy like me?” He had her there. Pouty lips, wide-eyes and all.
She laughed, a boisterous noise as she stood up and stuck the blunt end of her spear into the road. “That would be amusing,” she agreed. She was far larger than him, her body hard and strong beneath those generous, feminine assets, and she knew that as she worked to free him that the bareness of her under bust would be reward enough for living.
No man could tell her otherwise.
Ruki had no trouble lifting the heavy load up off him, despite it weighing as much as a small house. The pale young man climbed out from beneath and as his waifish form broke free, she truly wondered at how he survived beneath a flaming wreck for hours on end unscarred.
“Thanks,” he said, and he stood a bit wobbly at first. She saw then beneath his black over cloak that he wore a curious garb. His top little more than leather straps that left his flat tummy bare, a thick belt from which dangled many pouches and oddments. Leather hoops descended about his legs clad in tight, black leather. Altogether he made a curiously exotic sight to her. A slender male with the looks of an angel, and the fashion sense of a vagabond shaman. “Thought I’d be there for a week,” he said as he ran a hand through his straight, raven hair, fishing out some of the ash and splinters as he eyed her curiously – and not just a little interested in her titanic form.
“Hah! An optimist, then,” she grinned as she grabbed for her spear. “So. Tell me more about this inhuman assailant.” Her eyes flashed wide and there was a thrill of excitement that ran through her. “There’s a town not far. I’ll even buy you a drink in exchange!”
The dainty man’s eyes went wide with surprise. “Well aren’t you as generous as you are large?” he remarked with no small amount of astonishment. He only gave it a moment’s thought though before he nodded, “Alright. A deal.” He scuffed his tall boot in the dirt and grimaced at the sight of the burnt caravan husk. “Not as if I’ll be going anywhere with them anymore.”
“Horses are usually slower once burned,” she agreed, her arm going around his shoulder.
He couldn’t help but laugh at that despite the large woman’s forward nature with him.
“It’s a pretty long walk. I don’t need to carry you, right?” she asked, one of her eyes squinting slightly as if testing him. She was a good head and shoulders above him, her dark skin contrasting with his fair.
With his stride as it was, he’d have to make double time in any hopes to keep up with her. “We’ll see,” he remarked wryly, his gaze on her from the corner of his view. The spunky little man not shy of eying her dark flesh any longer, it seemed, as they set off down the road towards town.
“The name’s Evarin,” he said, holding out one of his smaller hands to her. “Figure I owe my saviour the courtesy of a name at least, huh?”
She looked down at the hand, scrutinizing it curiously. It was a moment before she looked back to his face, “Ruki,” she answered, though she hadn’t a clue what he wanted her to do with his hand. “Are you more injured then you look?”
He looked down at his dejected hand then back at her and raised a brow. “Just a thing we do around here… this side of the world,” he said, then reached over and gave her stone-hard abs a pat with his smooth touch. “Y’know, a kind way of greeting someone,” and he gave a cheeky, pristinely white-toothed grin.
“Ah, well that’s strange,” she grinned. “We often have food in one hand and drink in another. No time to grab hands!” Her eyes flashed with good humour, her skin exciting at his forward touch.
“Mistaken priorities, madam,” he said confidently, the waifish young man coming to life the further they walked. “There’s only a few things one should care most to have in hand. Food and drink rank down low!”
“But then I’d have to keep you around to always carry them!” she replied.
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