Let me first start off by saying...I'M SORRY! I've been gone for so long and I have a perfectly good reason for it. . .I've been sick with the flu. It hit hard. But I have returned and will be writing regularly again, like the chapter below.
Troll Guest- Whatever man, I don't care anymore. You're just as stupid to me (and ALL these who people like it) as this story is to you.
To other-other guest- Thank you for your input, but! :p If you had waited for the rest of the story you would have known that I already thought of those. Originally, Nadia was Russian and at some point my notes show I decided to switch to French, but I liked the name though so I kept it. As for the Marchioness' name, she wasn't supposed to even have one, neither was the Marquis. This story takes place from 1446 when Nadia is kidnapped until a year before Ramirez finds Connor in what I believe is 1559. That is all I can say without any future spoilers.
Enjoy. . .
The aftermath of the war had taken its toll on the castle. Its master sat on the steps of his fallen fortress but didn't appear to care. He only looked up at the overcast sky and grinned, his castle may have been destroyed but the enemy was gone and he was having his remaining people burn their burn, he was also waiting for a particular body to be found. He looked out over the courtyard he tried to remember where she had fallen, of course with so many other dead bodies piled up everywhere it was easy to miss such a creature.
One of his men drew close with his fallen brother dragging behind him. "Has she been found?" The Kurgan asked loudly for him to hear.
The man instantly let his comrade fall and turned to salute and address his master. "Not of yet my lord, we're still searching." He said. There had been many women in the castle but the soldier knew who his master meant, they all knew the horrors he put that girl through.
His blue eyes narrowed and he cast the human a fearsome glare. "I want her found before nightfall." He growled.
The man nodded and bowed his head to him before picking his friend up again and dragging him along to the pile of bodies to be burned. The Kurgan scanned the ground once more but his quick glance didn't find anything. No matter, he sat back and took care of his precious blade while he waited, she would be found in due time.
She didn't feel pain, only the cold. A solid chill throughout her body. She didn't dare move because through her haze she knew she had been shot, she could feel something in her back and from the pain she wouldn't move. She heard his voice rumbled across the courtyard, he said he wanted her found by the end of the day. Her eyes opened and saw rubble all around her without even moving her head.
She took a small breath in and felt the jabbing pain in her back, she controlled the pain through years of practice. She had to go, had to run, this was her moment and if she didn't take it now she would die here. How she wasn't dead baffled and scared her. Slowly, very slowly and carefully, she turned her head around to get a better look at her surroundings and saw that large chunks of wall everywhere, she had narrow been crushed by a piece herself.
She looked back towards where she knew he was but her line of sight was blocked by a massive piece of what used to be the gates over the draw bridge. With her line of sight blocked she knew his was too and with that knowledge she began to move. She grabbed the ground on front of her and quietly dragged her self forward. She crawled towards the gates and when another chunk of stone blocked her path she closed her eyes and leveled her ragged breathing. She squeezed them shut and knew it was now or never.
The Kurgan felt her. She was awake he knew that much, and she was now a fully fledged Immortal after her first death. He stood up.
She opened her eyes and looked over her shoulder. The only sound being made was the sound of people lamenting over fallen friends and dragging them through the courtyard to be burned. She saw The Kurgan stand and his gaze rise above the rubble.
That was her moment.
She scrambled to her feet and flew out of the gates! She jumped over a piece of stone and ran across the broken draw bridge, the end fell into the river and by all accounts she looked trapped!
The Kurgan saw her and his eyes went big like an excited cat. He lurched forward and began to quickly stalk forward to her knowing what she had found.
She reached back and gritted her teeth as she broke off the main shaft of the arrow, leaving the head and a small piece of the shaft left. She yelped and threw it to the ground before jumping into the river that flowed under the fallen drawbridge.
He stopped and his glare darkened when she disappeared into the water. Just as he did a man lunged from the side of him, from a hidden spot, and began attacking him. The Kurgan effortlessly gut him, blood spilling down the front of the man, and threw him to the side, he was in no mood to deal with left over fighters. He went to where he had seen the girl last and growled as he looked into the water. He knew that if she couldn't swim it wouldn't matter; the current would take her far away to the west.
He grinned and decided that it didn't matter if she got away or not, she would most likely want to go back to France. Which is why he had purposely dragged her all the way to Croatia without telling her and making sure she wouldn't understand the language. His low pitched chuckled turned into bellows of laughter as he turned and stalked away. If he didn't kill her first some other Immortal would but he doubted any of them would have the heart to kill one as pathetic as she. Besides he also doubted that she would ever come across any other Immortal besides him at all, she was probably scared witless by the fact that she was even alive.
She could stay under water and yet breath? Well she wouldn't call it breathing, just more like she could live without air. It had been some time since she washed up on shore and wandered into the surrounding forest. Still without any idea as to where she was, still as lost as she was back at the castle. She found a dying clearing and sat a rock as she basked in the breezy, early day of fall.
"The castle," she said to herself.
She smiled and looked up at the cloudy sky. Finally able to stare at free sky, with no monster taking her whenever he wanted, she could live now. She had no idea where she was, and when she looked down she realized she needed to change clothes as soon as possible. Yet, when she looked back up she knew those things were small. She would walk until she found the nearest home and when she did she would, regretfully, resort to thievery. It had to be done and afterwards she would go live in the mountains until the day she could go back to her home.
But for now she basked in the scattered sun light that was breaking through the clouds
She was free.
