I'm posting this because I feel like all I've written for you all to see is my comedy bits. This is my more serious faire, and ab excerpt from Of Earth. In any case, this is the first introduction of Jade Cutter. Everyone that's read it enjoyed it, so I'm hoping you all do, as well.
/Quadrant One/
/The Grim Mercantile/
The Grim Mercantile had made a name for itself because of it's sole owner. Many called him the Merchant of Death. It was an apt name for the man. He made a show to keep his dealings with mercenaries and assassins away from public view, but it was hard to not plainly see what his main source of income was. In general, the public tolerated it because he gave back in funding artistic projects and scientific research into all manner of things, but rare was the person that wished to work for him. Most of the people that took his hospitality and made no progress found themselves inexplicably deceased in the following month.
So it was that Jade Cutter found herself standing before the creaking, half detached, saloon style doors. She had her cloak pulled tightly about her; not because of any chill outside, but against the chill gnawing at her bones from fear of entry into the foreboding building. Sounds of raucous laughter and an inordinate amount of crashes rang quietly behind the creaking.
Taking a deep breath of the mid-Spring air, Jade clutched the crumpled piece of paper that had her father's name and picture on it, along with the bounty tag and date effective underneath. Then she pushed her way through into the dimly lit antechamber.
As she stood in the darkness, allowing her eyes to adjust from the glare of the afternoon sun outside, she heard a squeak that did not come from the doors behind her. She turned her head in the direction of the counter that blocked a straight path into the room directly behind it. Faded red curtains, with stringy gold thread that might once have been tassels, were pulled together to block her view inside. At least half a dozen melted and flickering candles sat on and around the desk, some on decorative candle holders, others simply mashed between cracks in the boards.
The man behind the desk made a deep guttural sound not unlike that of a dying dog, and spit at a gold leaf pot next to the rickety chair he was leaning forward in. "This be no place for a fine young lass such as yourself, gurl." He spoke with a slight slur, and his breath smelled as rotten as the teeth in his head. Jade was half sure he was balding because the smell had burned off his hair.
Her nose curled at the rancid odor, but she managed to find her breath. "A place like this, maybe not." She strode forward and slapped the crumpled piece of paper she had been clutching on the countertop. "But this place, specifically, is exactly where I want to be."
The balding man made a deep snorting sound, like one would when cleaning years of filth from their nostrils. "If ya done killed him, and you dunt mine me saying you dunt look like one o' them," he jerked his head toward the faded curtains behind him to accentuate his statement. "Then you done did it a day early." His grubby finger nearly smacked onto the date. The grease and dirt immediately soiled the already dirty paper enough that the rest of it suddenly seemed clean.
"I didn't kill him if that's what you're trying to say." Jade tilted her head fractionally to the side, an unspoken thought at the intelligence level of this pig man coming to her head. "I'm his daughter, Jade Cutter."
The man grunted and scratched at one of the many fat rolls hanging from his stomach. She could swear the spot was cleaner when he was done scratching. "Tha so? Then what you want here for? Come beggin daddies life?" He guffawed, and spit on the image of her father.
Jade bristled, but took a deep breath and steeled her nerves. "I'm invoking the right of Family Barter." An errant wind blew through the loose saloon doors, making the candle light flicker about the desktop. There was a moment of silence, followed by a slow creak as the soiled man leaned forward precariously in his chair.
"Family." The man smacked his lips, running a cracked tongue over them. "Barter. Yeh know wut that means. Donchu, gurl? Iffin yer gunna invoke the Right, yeh hafta get hiz tention. And once that be havin on yeh, yeh gotsa be more value than that there bounty." His beady eyes fell to the large sum under Gem's portrait. "And the massar Shua don't much take to likin on wee gurls, much lessin pleasure of the fleshy bits. Know wut I mean? Yeh thinkin yu gots the kinda barterin chips Jo be afer, knowin that?"
Jade swallowed hard, then stood a little straighter and unfastened her cloak, draping it across the counter. She didn't come dressed as a mercenary, just in her favorite white shirt and jeans. Her boots went a good way up her ankle, with a pistol tucked in the side, plain as day. "You worry about your affairs, you disgusting pig. I'll worry about mine."
The keeper glanced at the weapon concealed in her boot, then grinned his stomach churning grin and waved behind him for her to enter. Jade strode purposefully by him, head held high. She paused at the musty curtain, took a deep breath that she immediately regretted, and shoved through the curtains.
The keeper leaned back in his chair, burped, and let his eyes slide half closed. "Massar Shua gonna take might fine to you, gurl. Da wunt be too proud, dough. Not at all."
The curtains fell closed again behind her. She had a few moments to look around before people began noticing her appearance, and she took full advantage of it.
The interior was what she expected it to be like, though there were more patrons than she had been thinking there would be. Perhaps this was a poorly thought out plan; but no sense in going back on it now. There was a sign above the bar, warped and faded, that read "Cantina." The man behind the counter had monkey-like features, his brow ridge sticking out from beneath a gaudy turban adorning his head. His colorful wardrobe matched his turban only in their garish colors. He was busy wiping off a dinged tin cup and gave her a mere glance before resuming his duties.
There was more cigar and cigarette smoke than she was used to, but that she could handle. Eyes started to turn toward her and size her up. It was this she was afraid she wouldn't be able to handle. She cleared her throat loudly enough to receive the stares of the rest of the patronage and shouted. "Jo Shua! I know you're listening! I'm here to invoke the right of Family Barter for my father, Gem Cutter. Every minute I am forced to wait, you will pay for in blood. My name is Jade Cutter, and this I swear to." She grit her teeth after her speech. She knew it was cheesy, poorly thought out. But she thought it had the ring of an official oath, and Jo was known for his meticulous record keeping. This had better work.
The entire mercantile was silent as she shook imperceptibly from fear; or was it adrenaline? She was in it now. Now she just needed to follow through, pick a target. From the middle of the cantina, one of five men playing Rat's Tail at a card table broke the silence. "You can start paying the barter price over here, Cutter! Got a few men wouldn't mind vouching you sucked a few mouthfuls of payback for the master." The men chortled as the one who spoke slapped his companion on the back. More of the men, even a couple more man-like women, started making crude comments in the same vein.
Jade smiled to herself as she tied back her hair. So picking a target wouldn't be difficult after all. Without a second thought, she strode purposefully toward the table that started the cat calls.
"Oh, looks like she's gonna take us up on it, boys!" The table turned to watch her coming toward them, disgusting grins plastered on their faces. Grins she intended on wiping right off. A well placed blow to the chin of the man turned halfway toward her sent his head snapping back around. Without a pause, she grabbed a fistful of his hair, lifted her right leg, and planted her knee on the back of his chair. Yanking as hard as she could to expose and tighten his neck, her free hand gripped a concealed dagger from it's sheath inside the waistline of her pants and withdrew it. As fast as the sudden punch and violent yanking, she drove her dagger into the side of his neck and jerked it across his jugular, a gout of blood spraying across the unfinished game of Rat Tail and into his companions' faces.
Post Merge: March 11, 2016, 10:00:03 AM
She could hear screams of outrage and horror from everywhere. Everywhere but the shock stricken people that just got bathed in their fellow's blood. Shoving the limp body to the side and out of the chair, she pulled the gun from it's place in her boot, the bloody dagger sliding into her waistband.
As the others began to get their wits about themselves, she trained the gun on one. Don't pull the trigger. Squeeze. That will ensure a kill. A bullet was placed directly in his forehead. The remaining three got the same treatment in rapid succession, one after the other. Blood pounded in her ears, but she breathed as easy as if this were a dance at Fletcher's barn.
Another attacker behind her made the mistake of warning her by screaming. "**censor** you, bitch!" A blind attack of rage, then. Jade hooked her foot around the recently vacant chair and spun on a heel, both moving her out of the way of the potential threat and sending the chair crashing into the legs of her attacker. The woman, who had been brandishing a sword to impale Jade on, fell head first over the chair. The sword she had been holding clattered to the ground at Jade's feet as the wielder crashed into the blood soaked table.
The bodies of the ones she had shot had fallen forward onto the card table; with that support gone, they slumped off their chairs and onto the woman, pinning her under them. As she struggled to get them off so she could get up, Jade lifted the sword in her left hand, right still clutching her gun. Brandishing it like a woman possessed, she turned it as the last attacker pled and wailed. Her screams were cut off as the sword slammed between her eyes, killing her instantly and spraying Jade's nice white shirt with more blood. Taking a deep breath, the sword swaying back and forth from the impact, Jade turned and looked around the bar. Blood began to creep its way around her feet. The entire bar was silent, staring at the grisly scene in front of them. "Anyone else want to be a hero?" She waved the gun around the room, pointing it at one thin man with a waxed mustache. "You? Want to try your luck?" The man shook his head at her and stepped back involuntarily. Jade nodded, and sat herself in one of the chairs. One of the ones she had shot still sat in the chair next to her, with his head lolled back over the headrest. A quiet pat of blood leaking from his head wound to the floor was the only sound until she leaned over and pulled the cigar from the dead man's front pocket. Putting her gun on her lap, she wiped her dagger on the back of the man's shirt and used it to cut the bloodier portion of the tobacco off the end. Then she used a lighter from one of the bodies in the table remains to light it, and raised her hand. The crowd gasped and backed away, obviously expecting fire or some nonsense to erupt from her upraised palm.
But the signal was universal in all bars, and soon a waiter was picking his way over to her. He stood in silence with a notepad out, his eyes occasionally flicking to the body sitting next to her. But one does not work at the Grim Mercantile and expect a quiet, easy job. "Miss?" He asked her in a calm, level tone.
"Get me a Demonspawn. Flay the flesh, and give it bruises." The waiter nodded, writing her order down. As he started to walk away, Jade stopped him. "You know what? Make them twins." As the waiter nodded and returned to the bar, she took a big pull on the cigar and let the smoke out slowly, looking around. She raised her head and yelled at the ceiling.
"Way I figure it, Jo, that took me two minutes. Six dead means you bought yourself four minutes. I'd hurry with that decision if I were you - don't want to wait thirty five minutes, but if I have to. Well, I honor my contracts." She gave a pointed look around the room with that. The looks on the patrons' faces told her they knew perfectly well what she meant.
The waiter came back with a lone drink on a tray, a brackish looking thing. It consisted of tequila, and jäger. At her request, they had flayed the flesh by adding grenadine and gave it bruises with ice cubes. As the waiter held her drink out, she took it in her left hand, taking a good long drink of it. She shook her head in disgust at the first taste, but the second went down easier. She raised her glass and tilted it to the waiter, indicating he could go. After a puff on her cigar, eyes flickering around the room, constantly alert, she stood and swirled her drink around.
She started pacing, making the room shift repeatedly, people staying back from her. Only one person remained seated, leaning back in his chair - a towering, ebony skinned man with muscles that looked about to burst from his skin. In contrast, a tiny girl sat across from him, throwing a handful of toothpicks onto the table over and over. The man's eyes followed Jade, intense and scrutinizing. She heard the girl say something she didn't understand, saw her point at the fallen toothpicks, to which the man only nodded and waved like he were shooing her.
Jade tilted her head a bit, ceasing her pacing. The eerie silence in the room grew to the edge of snapping, before she shouted "Barkeep!" The sudden outburst sent the crowd scattering or reaching for weapons. She pretended not to notice or care, and walked up to the vacated bar, setting her drink down on a coaster. She never took her eyes off the black man, staring him down in turn. "How long since I declared the contract?"
The primate-like man, one of the tahli'bahn that Jo frequently hired, grunted and kept wrapping silverware. "I tell you, you pay." He pointed at the broken table with bodies piled on top. "Life. Pah." He brushed at his shoulder as if wiping away dust from his Summer home. "Table not cheap, Cootah." It was not a slang term; he simply pronounced her last name strangely.
Jade stared at him a while, drumming her fingers on the countertop. She raised an eyebrow, stifling a small smile. The man had balls, and that meant she liked him. She would remind him this was potentially costing someone their life, but he already made clear what he thought of that. "Fine. I'm sure once Jo gets his ass down here, we can come to some kind of agreement."
The man put a finger in her face. "Before you leave cantina." When Jade nodded, he set aside the silverware he'd just wrapped and started on the next. "Five minutes and mid half again before next."
She turned and leaned back on the bar, dropping the cigar at her foot and slowly crunching it underfoot. "Five and a half minutes. Guess that means we pick another challenger." She said loudly, over-exaggerating her eye movements for the benefit of the people waiting tensely.
Before she could say anything, there was a slow scraping of a chair on the ground. The tall, dark man from before pushed patrons aside and out of his way like chafe on the wind. His voice boomed with a deep baritone through the empty silence, every word heavily pronounced. "I will take that challenge, Jade Cutter." The man stepped into the cleared space around her, arms crossed. The only hair on his head, a pony tail like hers, hung over his right shoulder. Now that he was closer, she could make out more minute details, such as the human teeth braided into the knot, and the white scar marring the dark skin over his left eye.
For the first time since arriving, Jade was given pause, and the others could sense it. Well enough that one even sneered at her and patted the tall man on the back. "Get her, man. She killed our brothers." The black man turned, stared down at the other, and punched him hard enough to knock teeth loose. Guess that explains the teeth, Jade thought.
His deep voice boomed out over the gathered people, who once more stepped back. "I would make one thing clear to everyone. I am not doing this to spare your chicken shit lives." He turned slowly, eyeing each person in the front individually with the same steady gaze he had given her. "You all are not worth the ferrefly piss in the stalls. Not once did you stand your ground." He gestured to the pile of bodies. "The only person worth spit is dead with steel through her face. At the hands of this woman, who took out six of you with the most brutal tactics I have ever seen. Cold. Calculated. I would match my prowess to hers."
The crowd promptly forgotten, he turned back to Jade and placed a balled fist in the palm of his left hand, bowing to her. "My name is Kaalin. I would be honored if you permitted me this fight, Jade Cutter."
Jade eyed him skeptically, expecting some kind of trick. "You realize I don't hold back? After this minute, I owe blood." She stepped forward and stood relaxed, preparing herself mentally. This was a fight to the death, not a joke with her younger sister.
"I am fully understanding of the price that is to be paid." He jerked his head toward the other bodies as he stood straight, swinging his arms back and forth to limber up. Loud cracks could be heard as his back popped, and the disconcerting jangle of teeth knocking like beads in his hair. "As they say, blood for blood, tigren."
"Come on then. Let's get it over with before I have to kill another after you."
Kaalin gave her no time to prepare. As soon as the acceptance was uttered, he charged forward and swung a fist like a battering ram. She had only enough time to move her head, but his fist connected with her shoulder, spinning her violently into the bar. The bartender lifted her drink off the counter without looking up before she collided, then set it back down as she slumped to the floor.
From the ground, she could feel Kaa's thundering footsteps near her, then she felt a foot slam into her rib cage. The kick was hard enough to break one rib and send her flying again. Patrons dove out of the way as she slammed into a wooden pillar holding the second floor up. She dropped again to the ground. From hands and knees, she spat blood onto the wood beneath her, then took a deep rattling breath.
No time for the pain, for it would cause her death if she let it, she stood, one hand on her rib cage. But she knew how this worked. Her hand clasped the side that wasn't broken, as that would make the man think that was her wounded side. In battle, one didn't have time to think. Just to act. Kaa was striding toward her at a relaxed pace, disappointment shining in his eyes. "Where is the tigren from minutes ago?" He thundered at her.
Post Merge: March 11, 2016, 10:11:29 AM
(( it won't let me post more yet. You just tell me if you want the end of the chapter.
))
