Cat Toy
By: Richard Rodriguez
Chapter 1
Slipping quietly from shadow to shadow in the residential district of bastok, Nbu Latteh used her keen sight to scout for potential prey. Adventurers were known to have more money than they knew what to do with, and drink far more than their fair share. Over the last month she had found she could make very good money just lightening their loads, far more in fact than she could working houses in even the wealthy markets district.
The racket was made all the better by the marks not even knowing how much money they had most of the time, and being too drunk to recall if they had bought another round for the house last night or not, meaning there was very little heat on Nbu.
Passing over a trio of tarutaru supporting each other down the street, probably trying to make it to the home of one of them to continue their drinking, Nbu kept her eyes peeled for more acceptable prey. Alone prey. Leaping to the top of a stack of boxes in a single fluid motion, she scanned down the street towards the Mines district, and grinned at what she saw.
Outlined in the light of the half moon was the towering silhouette of a galka. Too large and with too thick of a skin to even feel her cut their purse strings, usually, and usually unwilling to turn to the hume officials to press charges, they made an excellent target; especially when they were intoxicated, as this one appeared to be, as he struggled to stand again after falling flat on his face.
Making the lunge from boxes to rooftop, Nbu sped along the edge of the roves, down and in a near crouch, occasionally using her hands for balance, she made her way to the edge of the road near her intended mark. At this distance, so close, she could hear him slurring the words of Battle Anthem of the Republic, recognizing it was a feat in itself, because most of the words were unrecognizable.
Waiting, watching ever so closely, the man walked right under her place, never expecting her presence. Hopping down, Nbu catches herself on the ground on all fours, her strong and supple arms and legs bracing the impact expertly, with no sound audible to the human ear.
Masking her breathing to a silent whisper, and stepping in time with her target, she moves forward until she is a mere arm's length away from the jangling purse hanging from his belt. Drawing her knife from its cleverly oiled sheath, she moved both hands in unison, slicing the leather thong that held it to the belt, and snatching it from the air on the upswing of the great, thudding man's steps.
Spinning to run, she never noticed her danger until the massive hand was latched onto the back of her neck, a meaty thumb at the base of her skull, the fingers on the opposite side. Both clamped like a steel vise, and though she muffled her urge to scream in fright and shock, she could not have if she tried, for they prevented her jawbone from moving downward enough to open her mouth, a fact that was, for the moment, lost on her.
Panic moved through the mithra's mind, followed closely by the cool demeanor that had helped her survive for all of these years. Several explanations sped through her mind, each dismissed in turn.
"Here! You dropped this." No, too corny, no one would buy that.
"You left this back at the tavern, sir!" No, She couldn't even know which tavern the man had been in, or he might have even been at the homes of friends.
"Oh my! Your grip is so strong, and your hands so big! What else do you have of such strength and size…" Yes, tried and true, if said with the proper purr, this should work. She could even manage to get him in a compromising situation, and knock him unconscious, managing to flee not only with life and limb intact, but his money as well.
It was to no avail, however. A second hand grasped her wrist, of the hand holding the knife, not the money pouch. Sighing inwardly, she cursed herself for forgetting the blade until now, this would be much harder to explain. But before she had a chance to ponder the matter further, her thinking was obscured by the burst of pain that moved up the arm as the powerful hand holding it twisted. Around until the hand grew numb, the fingers losing control and going limp, letting the knife clatter to the ground.
The fingers of her other hand dug tightly into the leather pouch, and had she been stronger might have bent the gold coins within. Her other arm, she felt was twisted up behind her, at an uncomfortable, though no longer painful angle, and the strong arms began to push her down the street. Her eyes widened further as the towering head bent down to beside her large ears, and whispered into them.
"I'm taking you for punishment, thief," the voice grated. And though her face was washed with his hot breath, and there were wine fumes upon it, there were nowhere near as many as she had guessed. Cursing herself inwardly, she realized she had been tricked. And punished? For sure this was a sting, and she was being dragged before the city guard at this very moment.
A much stronger sense of panic moved through her body. With no real defense against her thievery this time, she was sure to be found guilty. She tried briefly to break free of the iron grip at her neck and arm, but though her feet strained against the cobblestones, they were just dragged forward by the implacable strength of her captor.
Again, the calm inner voice that had kept her alive spoke. She forced her breathing to slow again, and told herself everything would work out. It always had. She could tell the tribunal she stole only to feed her daughter. Surely even in Hume dominated bastok, where judgement was fast, punishment harsh, and non humes were rarely given a totally fair trial, surely one on the tribunal had children, and she could work them over to her side. Perhaps, even, there was another mother there, one she could get to sympathize with her.
All this and more went through Nbu's head as she tried to keep her feet up with the longer strides of her captor. However after a few more moments passed, she saw they were moving farther away from the large and billowing smokestacks of the Metalworks, Bastok's center of government, and headquarters of the guard.
Confusion set in this time, and only deepened when the man holding her dragged her to the doorway of an apartment, the windows of all the other on the street were dark, where they were not boarded up, and many of the doors sported large iron locks, barring them closed from the outside and showing they were vacant.
The huge three fingered hand released her wrist, which was rather numb from the grip, and fumbled for a mere moment at the man's belt for the ring with a single key upon it. Deftly he inserts it into the door lock, a large darksteel affair beneath a sturdy latch, set into the massive oaken door. And he opens it.
Expecting to see an undercover hideout of the guard within, her confusion only deepens, along with the undercurrent of panic, as the muscles of the arm on her neck flex, and the other hand grasps the top of her trousers, and she is physically lifted from the floor, and thrown into the room.
Dazed for a moment, she makes no sound, and the sack of coins in her hand falls from now limp fingers to the floor, clinking slightly. The moment is quickly over, as the sounds of the door being slammed shut, bolted, and finally the ominous clicking of the key in the lock jars her back to her senses. She leaps to her feet in a crouch, her frantic eyes scanning the room, and not liking what they see. A single small window near the top of the wall, some seven feet above the floor lets in most of the light, the rest comes in from a lamp set in a nook in the far wall.
The room is sparsely furnished, with only a simple wooden table, a large chair, and a few crates and boxes. However, most disturbingly, she sees behind her a wall of metal bars, more than an inch thick, spaced barely a handspan apart and set floor to ceiling, and sunk into the masonry of both. A door made similiarly is set into the bars, and hangs open.
Looking up to the face of the galka standing in front of the door, and closest exit, she sees the corners of his mouth turned up in a smirk. She slowly rises nearly to her feet, but still hunched over a bit, ready to spring, and he speaks.
"No, I don't think you'll be going out that way any time soon," he chuckles, "You haven't even been into your cage, much less had your punishment." Placing both arms out to either side, as though to catch her no matter which way she ran, he began to slowly advance, and just as he made a lunge forward, added. "You've been a bad, bad girl, so you will be punished!"
Springing to her right, Nbu rolled and came up, using her legs like coiled springs to propel her self forward and towards the man. The sharp nails of her hands cut through the white cotton cloth of the man's shirt, digging into the skin beneath, and managing to draw blood. Gripping the belt as she goes by, she uses it as a pivot, swings behind him and kicks with both legs into the back of his knee, bringing forth a startled groan, and taking the leg out from under him. As he topples to the side of his wounded knee, she swiftly steps with him, and grasps the long black hair of his head in her hands, and brings the head onto her own knee as hard as she is able.
She tears the keyring from his belt, and spins to the door, inserting it into the keyhole, turning it, and grasps the bar to throw it back. As she struggles to lift the heavy steel bar, grunting with the exertion, she never hears the steps behind her, or the swish of air of the oncoming backhand slap that slams into the side of her head, knocking her body to the floor, where her face cracks against the stones.
Looking up, her vision begins to fog, the edges turning white, leaving only a tunnel like path of sight straight to her captor's face. Fighting to stay conscious, she tries to speak, but tastes only the coppery flavor of her own blood, and feels it running from her nose down her face. Unable to speak, her face too numb and her head to groggy, she spits towards the galka's face, missing by far, and spattering flecks of blood onto his trouser legs.
"You'll pay for that" he grimly intones, and his hand striking like a snake grasps her red hair in it's powerful grip, and tosses her bodily through the cell door, and into the cage. Her back crashes painfully against the stone wall, followed close by her skull, and her world becomes darkness.
Slamming shut the cell door, and locking it, he grips his cut side in his hand, and takes a few slightly limping steps towards the table, adding to her unconscious form over his shoulder, "And these too."