Author's Notes- I think I can answer all the reviews in here as well; I'm
trying to get something done before my brother comes down and I'm too
embarrassed to let him see. AND he doesn't even wake up until 1 in the
afternoon, or even later, I am attending a computer programming camp, from
7 in the morning to 6 in the afternoon, quite a lot of time to not be
writing. If you knew me, you'd understand. So in case you're wondering I
postponed continuing the Will and Lyra chapters to build some suspense, but
no matter what happens in the next chapters please stick with me. So in my
waiting period I have had time to let the plot evolve, and its pretty nice
now, but you'll have to wait and see what I do : ). But as I was playing
with one of those bungee ball things, it hit me in the head, I fell over
and I hatched a character, he slowly evolved into two characters, and so on
and so forth, until he and his partner become quite interwoven in the plot.
Which I'm quite pleased with. So continuing the plot into the next
chapter... I hope you enjoy it.
Chapter 7
Of Bounties and Hunters
Arhen tapped his toe impatiently as he sat against a wide oak located on the fringes of a great forest. He scanned the military compound on the east horizon every few minutes waiting for a sign of his returning partner.
The two were of a race called the Mabari, strong folk, who usually lived for over one hundred years, the Mabari kept no record of their age, but the two in human years would be around sixteen years of age. Their skin was usually a shade of light blue, and Arhen was no exception. Females of their kind were found distinctly beautiful by humans, and they were usually enlisted as prostitutes, their hair would change colors according to their moods, but the most skilled of the revolting profession could hold the color to pink, generally a sign of love.
Arhen stopped scanning the horizon and held his attention on a single figure walking away from the installation, he drew his sword out of instinct but as the figure came nearer, he sheathed the naked blade. As the lone figure came out of sight from the installation it caught sight of Arhen and began running toward him.
Arhen recognized his partner as she came up to him. She ran up the final hill to him, and fell onto her knees within talking distance, she was breathing heavily and Arhen was hoping against everything that it was from the run over to him.
She was a distinct beauty, perfect in every form, and even her fellow Malbaris were amazed at her loveliness. Her name was Mabelyrian, females of her traditionally had long names meaning something, and ending with a family name. She was tall, slender, and tried to hide her muscularity without much success. Her face was round. But Arhen could tell that she was disturbed. She wore a semi-transparent, revealing, tight shirt. But the eyes that observed her were not of love, but of concern.
Her hair was a dull pink, and as she relaxed it turned back into the muddy brown of disgust.
She grumbled, but even in her anger her voice was melodic, and wonderful, "Filthy bastards..."
Arhen nodded in agreement and pointed out a bundle of armor hidden behind the tree he was resting his back on, she walked over while stripping off her clothing. As she reached the tree she took out a small bag and shoved her garb into it with disgust, after taking out a few hard earned coins and tossing them into a concealed packet tied to her waist. She would never keep the filthy money, she gave it away to homeless Mabaris, and Arhen had never argued against it, he knew it was important to her. She straightened out her battle scarred armor and looked over it with love.
Arhen was turned away from her while she was standing naked, but he knew she wouldn't have minded, she understood he was not like the other Mabaris that had tried to get her drunk and take advantage of her, who had not been expecting a young woman to carry a knife around in her boot.
The armor the two partners wore was of a special kind of light- weight, turquoise, metal that could be woven into loose fitting and nearly invulnerable clothing, or made into a bullet proof plate mail, obviously, very expensive. The two had blown all of their money before they began their career just to pay for it. The armor was made of two pieces and a lining: the top was a light breast plate with wide shoulder plates, and the bottom was a long woven skirt, the set was worn by both of them and almost identical, with obvious different customizations for Mabelyrian. The lining wasn't attached to the armor itself but was arranged to slide on with the armor.
"Hey, you ok?"
"It's just a job, Arhen..."
"Well, yeh, but c'mon you hate this stuff, Mabes..."
She walked over in front of him looking inattentively in the direction of the compound, her shirt was still off, and the wind was loosely blowing her teal hair across her face, she was still flipping around the switches on her armor to open it up far enough to get it on.
"It's a way to get money... that's all..."
Arhen could see how her part of their partnership was affecting her horribly, she seemed distant, angry and sad all at once. Her hair didn't have a color to match those feelings and when she was like this it went to a glimmering grey, not an older woman's shriveled grey, more full, but it was still less attractive then a bright yellow of happiness or the rarest of all, a dark shade of pink, not forced but naturally. Before he had time to comfort her she spoke again.
"It's life as we know it, Arhen, and I despise every moment of it, even when I'm sleeping, I wish life would just end, and leave me alone." She spoke coldly.
Arhen was taken aback by her comment.
"C'mon you know you don't mean it... you don't, do you?"
She turned around, her armor was fully on now and she was strapping her sword onto a belt at her waist. Her face was set, and she shook her head, "I mean it, Arhen, but who knows," she shrugged, "if there's as much money in balloon travel as you seem to think, maybe I'll never need to do it again. She shivered when she said 'it', and Arhen instantly knew that she didn't mean killing, she did that without hesitation, and was merciless in a fight, he didn't want to sound arrogant, but he was much swifter with a blade than she was.
The world they lived in had three primary periods of time, the ages of peace, civil war, and the age of the hunters. At once their world lived in peace, humans and Mabaris living together to prosper, but there was a group of rogue humans who believed that the Mabaris were not created by the almighty God, and were in fact satanic, and they broke themselves apart from the main continents to begin plans to slaughter ever Mabari women, man and child. At first these renegades were no more than an annoying fly, but they eventually gained more supporters, and began their planetary inquisition. And the peaceful Mabaris were the first ones to die, including almost the entire Mabari village where Arhen and Mabelyrian had grown, killing their families and friends, they were of the lucky few to escape. When all seemed to be going to hell, the humans not siding with the rebels joined forces with the Mabaris to fight the revolt and then all seemed to be peaceful once again, but their seemed to be an infinite supply of fresh soldiers to the battlefronts on the side of the rogues. They were different from the others, they had more advanced weapons, tougher skins, and braver than the average human. The Mabaris expected that they were from the other worlds but the other humans on their side had no idea. As the wars raged on, the two armies were shattered into more and more separate cells of soldiers, until finally when the Mabari haters could no longer tell friend from foe the wars vanished and the individual cells fought amongst each other, forming and breaking loose alliances as quickly as they could. So began the age of the hunters, Mabaris wishing to have no part in these conflicts tried to hide among populous cities and towns, but they soon became aware that they were to have a large part in the resolution. They created the first bounty hunter's guild.
Arhen shook his head to clear his world's history from his mind, he had no idea why he was thinking about it. Mabelyrian was sitting next to him by the tree trunk sleeping lightly with her head against the cold metal of his shoulder plates. The heat her body radiated warmed his side even through the thick metal. He didn't want to wake her se he sat there keeping watch for scouts from the outpost or any other renegade soldiers. And without realizing it, he sank back into his recitation of his history.
The bounty hunter's guild allowed anyone, human or Mabari to post a bounty on the head of any person they had issues with. The guild had terminals and outposts set up around the world and brought the Mabari culture together. The terminals showed bounties to a user's filters, to post vital information on a target for a small sum of money or to post targets that you wanted eliminated, it allowed anyone to make an earning. Of course, if you lied about anything in the terminal you would likely have a price on your own head shortly.
But Arhen had broken the system; he ran a secret triple job, working for three warring cells at a time. His partner and him shared the payments fifty-fifty. She first used her... skills... to infiltrate the base, and she walked around the base, taking mental notes on defensive structures, enemy soldiers, and the location of anything valuable or rare. If she was caught she would act in a flirty, seductive manor, which she found repulsive. Giving subtle hints how when she came back, she would make it 'worth his while' if he let her go. But when she came back, he would only see her for a minute standing in front of him with her sword drawn and eyes blazing. But after she had vital information on the location of their bounties she'd go back to meat with Arhen and together they'd go in and secretly kill all their objectives, however they were often seen and the alarm raised, in which case they'd not hesitate to slaughter everyone in the building. After this they collected their payment from their employers, generally Mabelyrian collected the money after going back to the emplacement clad in the hated semi-transparent shirt, then Arhen would jump out of hiding and first of all kill their leader, then the rest later, gaining the bounty from the third party that they worked for. After that, if they had more bounties for that group they'd kill even more. The triple- play jobs paid off, but resulted in a brutal blood bath within a time frame of only two days to over a week.
And that was punishing for Mabaris, they were a hardy folk but without a meditation rest every week or so for a full day or two they'd grow weaker and weaker until they couldn't even move. And the two were due for a long rest, and luckily they were in the third part of their job, after already collecting their pay.
Arhen hadn't realized it, but he had fallen into a deep slumber and when he woke up realizing this he jumped up and ripped out his sword, waking Mabelyrian who was still resting on the slightly sharp edge of his armor. Arhen was surprised to see that there was actually a man leaning over him with a gun pointed at Mabelyrian, whom he recognized as a soldier from the cell that he was hunting, by his camouflage slacks, and white shirt. Arhen jumped into the man's gun shot range and a small metal shell bounced without denting into his chest plate, he took a step back from the collision, and ran forward and with a quick slash the man's head rolled face down into a muddy pool, and his severed stump of a neck was spouting blood, Arhen kicked the body back so as not to bleed on him and Mabelyrian and kneeled down to look at her face.
When he shot up, his armor's edge had ripped her face and she was trying to stifle the bleeding with her transparent shirt. The rip had barely missed her eyes, and if it hadn't she would've been permanently blinded. Blood was dripping down her face and Arhen jumped to her bag and pulled out a small flask of a clear blueish liquid. He took her shirt and dripped a substantial amount of the concoction onto it, the liquid seeped into the cloth mixing with blood and stained it a deep purple. He held it to her face and she let out a muffled gasp, Arhen knew that the liquid stung horribly and was surprised that she withstood the pain with only a gasp.
"I'm sorry, Mabes, I shouldn't have..."
"No. I'd be far worse if you hadn't."
Arhen knew that she was right, and let her take hold of the rags before going off to take a shining rag from a bag similar to Mabelyrian's own one, and with it he cleaned off his armor looking with concern at Mabelyrian's bloodied face, she was still beautiful, but those foul humans would see her as ugly with her face distorted. Ugly! Hah!, He spat out on the ground, Their own women are ugly, they even fool their wives, and go off with other more appealing women. He spat again with disgust. "I'd never abandon Mabes..." Arhen was shocked when he made this comparison, it was the first part of a revelation that would turn his life around forever. He turned around to look at Mabelyrian again, and the feeling came back twice as vivid. He watched her fluid motions as she stood up still holding the cloth to her face, and the feeling strengthened. He watched her go off into the woods in search for a stream, and only when she was finally out of his vision did the feeling only slightly abate. He had seen her through new eyes, and he enjoyed what he saw.
Ending Author's Notes- I've never had this section before and I decided to make one. I hope you all enjoyed this chapter, it was the longest I've had so far, and I could've continued for an additional few pages on history, religion, culture that I had all formulated on long car rides. But I might make a companion book later on that will have everything : P. I enjoyed writing this chapter: prostitutes, history, violence, love... it went by quickly (only about two hours) but its my favorite chapter so far (chapter 6 isn't too far behind though : P), but I had to keep switching from this to Blades of Avernum that's minimized at the bottom of my screen in case someone walks down. It's funny that I can let complete strangers read this and not my friends, but, whatever, I'm a freaky kind of person. It took me awhile, and I'm sorry for the lack of updates, but from this Saturday the 17th to... well the next Saturday I'll write a lot, I'm not gonna be able to use my computer during the week after next, (lousy furnishing my basement), but the week AFTER that I'll be back with you. But the week AFTER that one I'll be gone again (camp again). So it'll be on and off updates over the next month or so. I might be able to get a pad of paper and write when I can't use my computer, maybe, but I donno. 2,763 words, right... now.
Chapter 7
Of Bounties and Hunters
Arhen tapped his toe impatiently as he sat against a wide oak located on the fringes of a great forest. He scanned the military compound on the east horizon every few minutes waiting for a sign of his returning partner.
The two were of a race called the Mabari, strong folk, who usually lived for over one hundred years, the Mabari kept no record of their age, but the two in human years would be around sixteen years of age. Their skin was usually a shade of light blue, and Arhen was no exception. Females of their kind were found distinctly beautiful by humans, and they were usually enlisted as prostitutes, their hair would change colors according to their moods, but the most skilled of the revolting profession could hold the color to pink, generally a sign of love.
Arhen stopped scanning the horizon and held his attention on a single figure walking away from the installation, he drew his sword out of instinct but as the figure came nearer, he sheathed the naked blade. As the lone figure came out of sight from the installation it caught sight of Arhen and began running toward him.
Arhen recognized his partner as she came up to him. She ran up the final hill to him, and fell onto her knees within talking distance, she was breathing heavily and Arhen was hoping against everything that it was from the run over to him.
She was a distinct beauty, perfect in every form, and even her fellow Malbaris were amazed at her loveliness. Her name was Mabelyrian, females of her traditionally had long names meaning something, and ending with a family name. She was tall, slender, and tried to hide her muscularity without much success. Her face was round. But Arhen could tell that she was disturbed. She wore a semi-transparent, revealing, tight shirt. But the eyes that observed her were not of love, but of concern.
Her hair was a dull pink, and as she relaxed it turned back into the muddy brown of disgust.
She grumbled, but even in her anger her voice was melodic, and wonderful, "Filthy bastards..."
Arhen nodded in agreement and pointed out a bundle of armor hidden behind the tree he was resting his back on, she walked over while stripping off her clothing. As she reached the tree she took out a small bag and shoved her garb into it with disgust, after taking out a few hard earned coins and tossing them into a concealed packet tied to her waist. She would never keep the filthy money, she gave it away to homeless Mabaris, and Arhen had never argued against it, he knew it was important to her. She straightened out her battle scarred armor and looked over it with love.
Arhen was turned away from her while she was standing naked, but he knew she wouldn't have minded, she understood he was not like the other Mabaris that had tried to get her drunk and take advantage of her, who had not been expecting a young woman to carry a knife around in her boot.
The armor the two partners wore was of a special kind of light- weight, turquoise, metal that could be woven into loose fitting and nearly invulnerable clothing, or made into a bullet proof plate mail, obviously, very expensive. The two had blown all of their money before they began their career just to pay for it. The armor was made of two pieces and a lining: the top was a light breast plate with wide shoulder plates, and the bottom was a long woven skirt, the set was worn by both of them and almost identical, with obvious different customizations for Mabelyrian. The lining wasn't attached to the armor itself but was arranged to slide on with the armor.
"Hey, you ok?"
"It's just a job, Arhen..."
"Well, yeh, but c'mon you hate this stuff, Mabes..."
She walked over in front of him looking inattentively in the direction of the compound, her shirt was still off, and the wind was loosely blowing her teal hair across her face, she was still flipping around the switches on her armor to open it up far enough to get it on.
"It's a way to get money... that's all..."
Arhen could see how her part of their partnership was affecting her horribly, she seemed distant, angry and sad all at once. Her hair didn't have a color to match those feelings and when she was like this it went to a glimmering grey, not an older woman's shriveled grey, more full, but it was still less attractive then a bright yellow of happiness or the rarest of all, a dark shade of pink, not forced but naturally. Before he had time to comfort her she spoke again.
"It's life as we know it, Arhen, and I despise every moment of it, even when I'm sleeping, I wish life would just end, and leave me alone." She spoke coldly.
Arhen was taken aback by her comment.
"C'mon you know you don't mean it... you don't, do you?"
She turned around, her armor was fully on now and she was strapping her sword onto a belt at her waist. Her face was set, and she shook her head, "I mean it, Arhen, but who knows," she shrugged, "if there's as much money in balloon travel as you seem to think, maybe I'll never need to do it again. She shivered when she said 'it', and Arhen instantly knew that she didn't mean killing, she did that without hesitation, and was merciless in a fight, he didn't want to sound arrogant, but he was much swifter with a blade than she was.
The world they lived in had three primary periods of time, the ages of peace, civil war, and the age of the hunters. At once their world lived in peace, humans and Mabaris living together to prosper, but there was a group of rogue humans who believed that the Mabaris were not created by the almighty God, and were in fact satanic, and they broke themselves apart from the main continents to begin plans to slaughter ever Mabari women, man and child. At first these renegades were no more than an annoying fly, but they eventually gained more supporters, and began their planetary inquisition. And the peaceful Mabaris were the first ones to die, including almost the entire Mabari village where Arhen and Mabelyrian had grown, killing their families and friends, they were of the lucky few to escape. When all seemed to be going to hell, the humans not siding with the rebels joined forces with the Mabaris to fight the revolt and then all seemed to be peaceful once again, but their seemed to be an infinite supply of fresh soldiers to the battlefronts on the side of the rogues. They were different from the others, they had more advanced weapons, tougher skins, and braver than the average human. The Mabaris expected that they were from the other worlds but the other humans on their side had no idea. As the wars raged on, the two armies were shattered into more and more separate cells of soldiers, until finally when the Mabari haters could no longer tell friend from foe the wars vanished and the individual cells fought amongst each other, forming and breaking loose alliances as quickly as they could. So began the age of the hunters, Mabaris wishing to have no part in these conflicts tried to hide among populous cities and towns, but they soon became aware that they were to have a large part in the resolution. They created the first bounty hunter's guild.
Arhen shook his head to clear his world's history from his mind, he had no idea why he was thinking about it. Mabelyrian was sitting next to him by the tree trunk sleeping lightly with her head against the cold metal of his shoulder plates. The heat her body radiated warmed his side even through the thick metal. He didn't want to wake her se he sat there keeping watch for scouts from the outpost or any other renegade soldiers. And without realizing it, he sank back into his recitation of his history.
The bounty hunter's guild allowed anyone, human or Mabari to post a bounty on the head of any person they had issues with. The guild had terminals and outposts set up around the world and brought the Mabari culture together. The terminals showed bounties to a user's filters, to post vital information on a target for a small sum of money or to post targets that you wanted eliminated, it allowed anyone to make an earning. Of course, if you lied about anything in the terminal you would likely have a price on your own head shortly.
But Arhen had broken the system; he ran a secret triple job, working for three warring cells at a time. His partner and him shared the payments fifty-fifty. She first used her... skills... to infiltrate the base, and she walked around the base, taking mental notes on defensive structures, enemy soldiers, and the location of anything valuable or rare. If she was caught she would act in a flirty, seductive manor, which she found repulsive. Giving subtle hints how when she came back, she would make it 'worth his while' if he let her go. But when she came back, he would only see her for a minute standing in front of him with her sword drawn and eyes blazing. But after she had vital information on the location of their bounties she'd go back to meat with Arhen and together they'd go in and secretly kill all their objectives, however they were often seen and the alarm raised, in which case they'd not hesitate to slaughter everyone in the building. After this they collected their payment from their employers, generally Mabelyrian collected the money after going back to the emplacement clad in the hated semi-transparent shirt, then Arhen would jump out of hiding and first of all kill their leader, then the rest later, gaining the bounty from the third party that they worked for. After that, if they had more bounties for that group they'd kill even more. The triple- play jobs paid off, but resulted in a brutal blood bath within a time frame of only two days to over a week.
And that was punishing for Mabaris, they were a hardy folk but without a meditation rest every week or so for a full day or two they'd grow weaker and weaker until they couldn't even move. And the two were due for a long rest, and luckily they were in the third part of their job, after already collecting their pay.
Arhen hadn't realized it, but he had fallen into a deep slumber and when he woke up realizing this he jumped up and ripped out his sword, waking Mabelyrian who was still resting on the slightly sharp edge of his armor. Arhen was surprised to see that there was actually a man leaning over him with a gun pointed at Mabelyrian, whom he recognized as a soldier from the cell that he was hunting, by his camouflage slacks, and white shirt. Arhen jumped into the man's gun shot range and a small metal shell bounced without denting into his chest plate, he took a step back from the collision, and ran forward and with a quick slash the man's head rolled face down into a muddy pool, and his severed stump of a neck was spouting blood, Arhen kicked the body back so as not to bleed on him and Mabelyrian and kneeled down to look at her face.
When he shot up, his armor's edge had ripped her face and she was trying to stifle the bleeding with her transparent shirt. The rip had barely missed her eyes, and if it hadn't she would've been permanently blinded. Blood was dripping down her face and Arhen jumped to her bag and pulled out a small flask of a clear blueish liquid. He took her shirt and dripped a substantial amount of the concoction onto it, the liquid seeped into the cloth mixing with blood and stained it a deep purple. He held it to her face and she let out a muffled gasp, Arhen knew that the liquid stung horribly and was surprised that she withstood the pain with only a gasp.
"I'm sorry, Mabes, I shouldn't have..."
"No. I'd be far worse if you hadn't."
Arhen knew that she was right, and let her take hold of the rags before going off to take a shining rag from a bag similar to Mabelyrian's own one, and with it he cleaned off his armor looking with concern at Mabelyrian's bloodied face, she was still beautiful, but those foul humans would see her as ugly with her face distorted. Ugly! Hah!, He spat out on the ground, Their own women are ugly, they even fool their wives, and go off with other more appealing women. He spat again with disgust. "I'd never abandon Mabes..." Arhen was shocked when he made this comparison, it was the first part of a revelation that would turn his life around forever. He turned around to look at Mabelyrian again, and the feeling came back twice as vivid. He watched her fluid motions as she stood up still holding the cloth to her face, and the feeling strengthened. He watched her go off into the woods in search for a stream, and only when she was finally out of his vision did the feeling only slightly abate. He had seen her through new eyes, and he enjoyed what he saw.
Ending Author's Notes- I've never had this section before and I decided to make one. I hope you all enjoyed this chapter, it was the longest I've had so far, and I could've continued for an additional few pages on history, religion, culture that I had all formulated on long car rides. But I might make a companion book later on that will have everything : P. I enjoyed writing this chapter: prostitutes, history, violence, love... it went by quickly (only about two hours) but its my favorite chapter so far (chapter 6 isn't too far behind though : P), but I had to keep switching from this to Blades of Avernum that's minimized at the bottom of my screen in case someone walks down. It's funny that I can let complete strangers read this and not my friends, but, whatever, I'm a freaky kind of person. It took me awhile, and I'm sorry for the lack of updates, but from this Saturday the 17th to... well the next Saturday I'll write a lot, I'm not gonna be able to use my computer during the week after next, (lousy furnishing my basement), but the week AFTER that I'll be back with you. But the week AFTER that one I'll be gone again (camp again). So it'll be on and off updates over the next month or so. I might be able to get a pad of paper and write when I can't use my computer, maybe, but I donno. 2,763 words, right... now.