((Disclaimer: I do not own the Tamora Pierce Tortall world, but I do own every character mentioned thus far in the story (yea!) and I do not own the quote that just became my summary and is part of my title! that is by Henry Van Dyke!))

Woot Woot! Longest chapter yet!! I even went back and re-read this chapter! I NEVER do that! (granted I really just needed some way to destress).

Anyway. I did not get three reviews for the last chapter, which was rather sad. But I still do not care for some twisted reason, thus I shall update again. Though I must warn all 7 people who read this (pitiful, i know! I really need to change the summary or something!) that this almost certainly will be the last update until the weekend due to an excessively busy week. And by busy I mean up till FAR past midnight every night doing homework/studying.

So you had better feel special that I am taking away precious study time/sleep to give this all to you. Hahahaha.

Now for my bright bold italicized and underlined thankees!!!: STARFIRE54 and KATEOFCARLAY thank you both sooo much for reviewing this pitiful story! hm... maybe i just love pitiful things. School is pitiful, yet i love that. Latin is pitiful, yet i love that. XC is pitiful, yet i love that. Life is pitiful. And I am pretty sure I love that. baha. I will stop ranting/procrastinating now. Enjoy!:

Too Swift for Those who Fear

Chapter Six

Trix gasped softly and continued evading as many of the attacks as she could.

The battle was on.

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There was no end to the torrent of blades that sliced down upon her, the majority of them scraping her skin, carving into her skin cuts of all sizes. None of the blows were meant to kill, just harm her, just enough to slow her down, make her weak. To render her helpless against whatever they were planning on doing next.

Trix had lost sight of her sister as soon as the gang began attacking in full force. Every once in a while she swore she saw her father's dagger tear through the air, swiping and slicing at the men; but she had no time to concentrate on Tani's welfare. Her entire being was focused on futilely staying away from the cold steel that threatened to rip her open.

For a short time she managed to get a wall to her back, giving her a small sensation of reassurance. But the comfort was dreadfully short lived. The youths were attacking swifter than ever, leaving no break in the struggle. With no way to block the weapon's path, Trix could only dodge the blows for so long. Sweat was forming in beads around her brows and dripped down her face, stinging in her eyes.

It was becoming painful for her to breath, each intake coming in shallow gasps. The many cuts forming on her skin were stinging worse than anything she had ever felt before. She could not remember a time where her body had been tortured as it was being now. But she could not stop; she simply could not give up. She could not let herself. She would not let herself.

Over and over again her body twisted and turned this way and that. Trix simply could not keep up. In her mind she was more resolute than ever to not quit, but sometimes the mind and body do not agree with one another. And one's body can only be pushed so far over the edge, before all comes crashing down.

As if her body subconsciously resigned, her movements were becoming slower, less controlled. She noticed vaguely that the attacks that had been assailing her to no end, previously, were thinning. Her concentration slipped and a dagger found its way to her back, and sliced across, forcing her to cry out in anguish. For the first time during the encounter, she admitted to the pain.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw a hand come at her from the side, but her jaded body could not react in time to avoid the iron grip that clamped down upon her shoulder. Trix gasped as she was spun around forcefully so that both of her arms were pinned securely to her sides.

She jerked her head to see Tani still fighting a large portion of the gang in rapid combat, while the rest hung back as if they were watching a troupe of players during an act.

Tani only lasted a minute longer than her sister until she was forced to her knees. Her dagger seemed to have been lost earlier on in the battle, leaving her as defenseless as Trix had been for nearly the entire fray.

She had fared better than her sister, though only just. There were fewer cuts on her body, but Trix could see her older sister was as exhausted as she.

The blond girl was hauled to her feet and brought over to where her brunette sister was held. Tani looked into Trix's eyes and gave a small smirk, jerking her head slightly to the side, signaling for her sister to look over.

Trix glanced over and saw a youth with a large laceration cutting across his face, making his already ugly appearance all the more grotesque. She grinned back at her sister, silently congratulating her on that one small victory. The boy would wear that scar for the rest of his days, and Tani could not be more proud of herself for giving him that memento.

With the girls wearing almost identical smirks, they could only tell what the other was thinking by their eyes. They each had fear flashing through them, with touches of defiance. They may have lost that battle, and they may have no chance of escaping, but as sure as the Black God's domain they were not going give the gang any satisfaction from their defeat.

The young man who seemed to lead the group stepped in front of the sisters, his rapier tucked into his belt once more.

Tani licked her lips and spit blood onto the ground before his feet before speaking. "Well?" She demanded angrily, showing no sign of the fear that Trix had seen. "What do you want? Speak up already; we don't have all day you know!"

Tani, even when she was at another's mercy, always had a way to seem as if she was in charge. It was a trait that Trix adored about her sibling, and envied her for it as well.

The man's ice blue eyes blazed dangerously at the elder sister.

The two were locked into a battle of wits, until Tani was forced to look away from his cold stare. He directed a vicious grin towards her, and then turned towards Trix. Her legs nearly gave way beneath her as he looked her up and down. It was as if his very gaze held some sort of power beneath it; forcing the victim of his stare to comply with his wishes.

She shivered as the blue ice bore into her own forest green eyes. The boys around her laughed briefly at her dread of what could come. The look he had, the look they all wore, was one she had seen before—desire.

Trix felt her sister tense up beside her and knew she had seen the same as she on the youths' faces. Her heart began pounding against her chest as the leader stepped forward and lifted her chin up. She could feel a look of panic shoot across her features; unfortunately he noticed it as well. It was all a struggle of power; what they were doing, what they were surely going to do to the girls; everything coming from human's thirst for control.

The man let go of Trix and turned to his gang, opening his mouth to bark an order, when he grunted and slumped to the ground unconscious.

The half a dozen youths immediately looked around for the perpetrator and saw a black shape dash across a rooftop above them.

Two of the men clambered up to the top and disappeared from view, only to be seen tossed haphazardly over the edge into the alley a moment later.

The two men not holding the sisters glanced at one another and unsheathed their daggers as they went to the wall, climbing up it as their gang members had previously, but with greater care. When they were gone from view, Trix unexpectedly felt her captor release her from his viselike grip as he collapsed to the ground.

The girl whirled around to see a boy about her age with sandy blond hair helping her sister up from the ground.

Tani looked at her sister quizzically and Trix shrugged her shoulders, wincing at the discomfort. Neither knew who their savior was, nor why he even got involved. All they knew was that he could be just as much of a danger to them as the gang was.

He cocked his head and smiled warmly, his deep brown eyes twinkling mysteriously, as if he had some deep secret that only a select few were privy to.

"Wesley Tucker." He said nodding in their direction. He did not bother holding out his hand for them to shake, as it was obvious their distrust for them. Of course, that was if they could even manage to lift their arms.

Tani eyed him warily, but eventually decided he must be alright. After all, he did just save them from what was sure to have been a nightmare.

"Tani Johnson." She said, and then pointed to her sister. "This is Trix Horatius-Johnson, my sister. Trix usually would have been annoyed that Tani had introduced her, though she could have done it fine herself, but at the moment she was far to weary to care even a bit.

Tucker's eyes widened slightly at the mention of Trix's original last name, but the look of shock was instantly extinguished, replaced with a kind smile.

Tani apparently did not see his odd look, but it did not escape Trix's scrutiny. Not feeling like worrying about it, she shrugged it off as astonishment at how peculiar her name was. It was not a usual name to hear of, in fact, she could not think of anyone whose last name was even similar to her own.

Trix was shaken out of her thoughts by her sister's voice.

"Why'd you help us?" She asked curtly. It was obvious she just wanted to get home and cleaned up, as her normally affable personality was gone.

Wesley either did not notice her brusque tone of voice, or chose to ignore it.

"Looked like ya needed some help." He shrugged. "I don't think I could'a lived with myself if I just walked away." The boy looked past them at the entrance to the alley where the market was still in full swing, ignorant of the terrors that had almost occurred so near to them.

"I should probably get going now…Oh!" Wesley exclaimed. "Here's yer purse, that boy who took it was paid by those bums to lure ya here. I've seen them do it before, but they don't usually do it during the day, unusual for them." And with that he sauntered out of the alley like a cat. Not even bothering to say goodbye, or deliver further explanation for his abrupt appearance, and departure.

"That was interesting." Trix said. "Come on, let's get out of here. Those other two idiots might come back from their little rooftop excursion soon."

The girls took mostly side roads on their way home, trying to avoid where the heavy foot traffic would be. Their disheveled appearance was sure to attract attention if too many people saw them.

They moved slower than they usually would, and it took almost twice the normal amount of time to exit the city gates and go up the path to their neighborhood.

At long last they tramped through their gate and into the house, where they heard their mother humming to herself from the garden in the back.

"Ma!" Tani called out, her voice calm despite that her body was shaking.

They heard their mother stop humming abruptly. "Tani is that you?" She responded. "What are you doing home so…" Her voice broke off as she saw her two exhausted daughters, standing in the kitchen with dried blood from their countless cuts horribly visible to their mother.

"Ma, we're okay, we just need some cleaning up." Trix told her mom who was slowly getting her 'mother bear' look on her face.

"Cleaning up! I think you need more than just a cleaning up. Who did this to you! Tell me! Now!" Their mother demanded as she hurried them to a small room off the kitchen, where she kept her healing herbs and poultices.

The sisters explained what happened as their mother patched them up with a drawn look on her face.

After half a bell, the two sisters were sure she had applied something to all of their wounds, over and over again the girls told their mom that they were fine, but each time she found more wounds that needed tending to.

Trix barely heard her mother as she began ranting about street rats and 'what she will tell their father when he gets home', as the sweet oblivion of sleep overtook her senses at long last.

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Please review with a cherry on top!

hmm...I have decided I am going to spend my geometry class tomorrow brainstorming a new summary, i really stink at making those....

I will try to update this weekend! But do not expect anything until then!

Oh. And If you have any critiquing for my writing please tell me, after all, that is the purpose of that ugly little lavenderish bluish button!

::five minutes later::

oh! scratch out everything i have said so far about a new summary! I just thought of something that might be better than me trying to be creative! You guys probably already noticed, of course, when you clicked the link...

oh. and I do not own the quote....::remembers:: DISCLAIMER! I NEED ONE!!!

well what do you know? I have changed something again.

I was thinking about how much the story has kind of changed from my original plan, so i have renamed it simply "Time" because that will fit in better when the main plot comes into play later on. (p.s. here is a hint. Wesley has a HUGE part to play later on!!!)