Chapter 36
I do not own Claymore
It was after the tolling of the midnight hour when Sheila crept into their hideaway.
She slipped into the bedroom and silently undressed for bed.
Lying down alongside the sleeping form of Riful of the west, she closed her eyes and relived in her mind the feeling of Rogar lying between her legs, his hips thrusting and thrusting.
She smiled to herself and was about to slip away to the land of nod when Riful murmured, "You could've stayed the night y'know, you're a big girl now!"
Jolted awake, Sheila spluttered and stammered for a reply while Riful sat up and smiled at her with a knowing look in her lovely brown eyes.
Finding her wits and her voice at last, Sheila replied, "I had to leave because he had to go fetch his master."
Riful grinned at her and asked, "Well, how was he?"
Sheila blushed and mumbled, "It was my first time voluntarily, I can't compare him to any other man except Lord Dae, and he, was a horrible experience!"
Calming down a bit, Sheila said wistfully,"It was warm and wonderful. I was scared it would hurt like before but he was so gentle, it just felt sooo good."
Riful smiled and said, "If it makes you feel any better, you're not the only one who was out tonight, you're just the one who came home tonight."
Sheila sat up and looked around, several of the beds were devoid of their occupants.
Helen's empty bed was no surprise, doubtless she was giving Sid one hell of a memory.
Cynthia's empty bed did not surprise either, her cheerful and upbeat disposition had made her quite popular among the guardsmen.
Yuma's empty bed was a surprise, she was very shy and battled it continually.
She could fight very well, she was just quite shy.
Teresa's and Clare's beds were also empty.
At Sheila's inquiring look, Riful commented,"They wanted a little mother-daughter time. Clare will be leading another scouting party and Teresa will be out of touch until her return."
The next morning, Teresa, Sheila and Riful left Rabona for Alphons in the north.
This time, their horses were not branded ones from the city guard stables, something Teresa had insisted on to the stable master.
They rode at an easy pace and kept in mind Miria's last words, "Look around, gather information and above all, don't attract attention! Keep the organization in the dark."
Sheila had waved goodbye to Rogar as they left Rabona, to Teresa's raised eyebrows and when she looked to Riful, she merely shrugged and remarked, "The girl is of age now, did you think she'd never notice boys?"
Teresa muttered, "Why do I suddenly feel old?"
Riful's snickering did not help the situation.
Their plan was to ride to the town of Torilo first, then head westerly towards Lido town and further west to the ruins of Gonahl and the castle where Clare and Raki had met Ophelia and were later separated while fleeing Ophelia's pursuit.
From Gonahl they would ride to Pieta and ultimately to Dabi village, the northern most settlement, which lay south of the semi active volcano in the north.
Privately, Sheila wondered if that was near where she was born, as she remembered seeing a fiery mountain in her early childhood.
Crossing the open lands, they played tag with a rainstorm by either slowing down to let the rain cell pass by or speeding up to dodge the rain cell as it went behind them.
Riful chuckled and commented, "In my warrior days, all I could do was get wet and endure it. Traveling this way does give me the option of staying dry."
The wind shifted and Riful ended up eating those words as they were overtaken by a large rain cell and soaked to the skin.
Riful could be heard muttering to herself while Teresa merely smiled.
Approaching the town of Torilo, Riful remarked drily, "I'm sensing a warrior there and not a very strong one. In fact she seems kinda young, are they robbing cradles again?"
Teresa smiled as usual and commented, "I'm counting three yoma auras and you?"
Riful grinned, "Yes, and they're strong ones, she won't stand a chance."
Sheila looked at the two older women and asked, "We are going to help her aren't we?"
Teresa smiled at her and replied cooly, "Of course you're going to help her, Riful and I will watch your back."
"Is this a part of that keeping a low profile thingy?" asked Sheila with a raised eyebrow.
"You guessed it. The organization thinks Riful is dead and my whereabouts are unknown and they're not willing to send any trackers after me, they know I can defeat anyone they send after me. You, on the other hand, were sighted near Rabona. Helping that girl will relocate you to this region and draw their attention away from Rabona." Replied Teresa with faint smile in place, "Besides, you're a lot stronger than you were, you can handle three yomas."
"Yeah, yeah." Muttered Sheila as she spurred her horse into a mile eating canter while Teresa and Riful hung back to stay out of sight.
A few minutes later, a sudden flare up of yoma energy urged Sheila to spur the horse into a headlong gallop.
Tearing into town, Sheila saw the warrior was down and two of the yoma were tearing at her prostrate form while the third hung back, and watched.
Sheila swung her great sword and struck the head off the standing yoma, then she leapt off her horse while it was still at a dead run.
Hitting the ground and quickly regaining her feet, Sheila charged the two remaining yoma.
She sworded one through his belly and ripped her heavy blade sideways, effectively cutting him in twain.
He fell in a bloody heap, howling and spitting in rage as Sheila went after the remaining yoma.
The last yoma rose from the warrior's ravaged body and thrust his left hand forwards, his fingers extending like spears in an attempt to impale Sheila.
She blocked this with her left arm guard and slashed off his left arm.
He shrieked in rage and extended his right hand, intending to connect this time.
With a heroic effort, the downed warrior managed to thrust her heavy blade upwards, spitting him very neatly, his momentary hesitation cost him his life, as Sheila's backstroke neatly clipped off his hideous head.
A second later, Sheila had silenced the badly wounded yoma by decapitating him.
Dropping her great sword, Sheila saw to the fallen warrior.
The young warrior was truly a mess.
Her torso had been pierced numerous times by the yoma's extending fingers and the right side of her head had the skull and jaw bone exposed.
The flap of flesh was lying along her shoulder while her right arm hung on only by shreds of muscle and tendons.
Her broken left arm had maneuvered the heavy blade to spit the last yoma.
The girl's eyes were glazed with pain as Sheila lifted the flap of skin back into place, and drew on her memories of seeing Yuma harmonizing her youki to heal a wounded warrior.
Sheila synchronized with the fallen warrior and to her joy, she saw it working.
When she had finished with her head and neck injuries, Sheila held the mangled limb in place while she focused her yoma energies into knitting the warrior's arm and shoulder back together again.
Finally, she focused on the young warrior's torso, healing her internal injuries and closing the deep wounds.
Sweat from her exertions blurred her vision, and when she was able to break the youki synchronization.
Sheila wiped her eyes and saw that the young warrior was healed and still very weak from her ordeal, but she would recover.
Sheila retrieved her claymore and stood looking down at the young warrior, she seemed vaguely familiar as if she had seen her somewhere before.
The girl lay still, her chest rising and falling steadily as she breathed normally.
A throat cleared behind her and Sheila turned to see a townsman standing there with a leather bag full of coins.
He looked nervously between Sheila and the sleeping warrior, "Which one of you collects the fee?" he asked, then he squinted at Sheila and remarked, "You don't look like one o'them claymores, yet you have silver eyes and you fight like one."
He glanced at the now stirring warrior and asked, "Do I give you the money or do I give it to her?"
Sheila smiled at the townsman and replied,"No sir, a man dressed in black will come to collect the money. We do not collect any fees, the men in black do that part, we do the fighting."
As the young warrior slowly regained her feet, she retrieved her sword, gave it a quick sweep of the blade to clean it and rehung it across her back.
The girl looked at her savior for a long moment before she said, "Thank you for saving me, I owe you my life, Sheila."
Sheila's eyes narrowed briefly and she muttered, "Now I know why you seemed familiar, you were one of those deserter hunters I bumped into a few weeks ago...Sorry about thumping you the way I did, but I had no intention of submitting to being executed like a common criminal."
There was an awkward moment of silence until it was broken by Sheila's question, "You're not still after me, are you?"
The young warrior's chuckle was genuine and she replied, "Even if I was, I wouldn't try it now. One, you saved my life. Those yoma were far stronger than I had been led to believe and they would've killed me if you hadn't come along. And two, you're far stronger than I am. I know when I'm outclassed. Besides, they disbanded us after that failure and demoted our leader by two rankings. She is now a number 15 when she had been a number 13. Me, I'm Maria and I'm number 42, hard to get much weaker than that!"
She grinned and extended her right hand, Sheila grinned back and as they clasped hands, she replied," I'm Sheila and I was a number 47, but I've learned a few things since then."
Maria glanced around and said quietly,"You might wanna scram, one of the men in black should be along fairly soon."
Sheila sked, "Are you going to be alright? Those three yoma might be hard to explain, considering your ranking."
Maria grinned, "I've killed several yomas before, these were just tougher than I'd been told about. I'll just play dumb and act like a dimbulb with a big ass sword."
Sheila grinned back, "Just be careful and keep your eyes and ears open and trust no one. You'll be okay Maria."
Sheila retrieved her horse and rode out of town with her cloak's hood pulled down over her silver eyes.
Continuing on towards Lido, she caught up with Teresa and Riful on the far side of Torilo town.
As she caught up to them, Teresa asked, "How bad off was she?"
Sheila replied quietly, "They had her down and were bent on finishing her off when I arrived. Another minute and she would've been a goner."
Sheila looked at Teresa and commented,"The yoma were far stronger than she had been told...I think she may have been set up for a fall at the hands of yomas by the organization. It turns out that she was one of the deserter squad that I'd bumped into a few weeks ago. They demoted the leader from number 13 to number 15 and who knows what they did with the other girl? Probably something like what happened here."
Teresa sighed and looked grim, "The organization doesn't like failures. That was why I never mentioned my fight with Riful and Dauf. I knew I'd be punished with even more dangerous missions to make an example of me. The message being, if a number one could get punished, why would a lower number escape punishment?"
Riful had a little smile on her adorable face during all this and Teresa finally asked,"Alright, out with it! What's with the smiley face?"
Riful said happily, "Oh, it's nothing important really, I'm just enjoying being right, that's all."
At Teresa's mystified look, Riful cheerfully elaborated,"What Sheila said just now confirmed my suspicions. She took out an execution squad led by a number 13, a pretty formidable warrior by her ranking. I've sparred with Sheila and felt she was strong enough to face a high ranking double digit or even a low ranking single digit in a fight."
Riful smiled and said gaily, "And that! My dear friends, is why the smiley face!"
Teresa just rolled her silver eyes and they continued on towards the town of Lido, their next stop.