A day of Rust - Revised introduction
#2 of Rust
I tilted my head up to the rain, it felt good coursing down my back, through my spines. I resumed my walk, doing my usual wander to 'the next bar', it was a nice night for a walk.
"No, please, I-" A woman's voice pleaded from the alley just ahead and to my left, followed by gasping sounds.
"Shut up bitch, if I wanted you to talk I wouldn't have kicked you." A cultured voice replied to her, the sound of a paw connecting open handed with someone's face, one of my least favourite sounds, the quick follow up.
I turned the corner and looked in, at the far end of the alley a buggy was parked, what caught my attention was about fifteen paces down from my end though. A girl, young looking Sable, was pinned to the ground by one well dressed young man while another was on top of her, making her day a terrible one.
I started to move down toward them, "Get offa her, this little bit is MINE" I said, advancing on them.
The guy pinning the girl down leapt up, a Fox, and pulled out a knife, "Back off vermin, your not invited to our little party." He said, snarling at me and moving to meet me.
He swiped at me with his blade, it was truly a tiny thing, I reached out and wrapped my left hand around the blade, the handle and his hand almost to the wrist. The bite of the metal into my hand was mild, the pain barely registering.
The pain for the fox, when the hunk of rusting iron prosthetic, all that remains of my right hand, connected with his stomach folded him in half. He released his grip on the blades handle, but I still had hold of him and threw him away behind me. The knife, as I followed through with the throw, stuck into the wall almost to the hilt.
I took a heavy step just before the pair on the ground and brought my right foot hard into the remaining man's side, he cried out in sudden pain and rolled over. Another fox.
I reached down to him with my bleeding left hand and lifted him up, letting got just before he reached his feet, and while he was suspended mid air, I drove my left fist into his face, making sure the jaw would need setting.
I turned back to the girl, she was whimpering in the mud.
"Please, stop, please goddess why won't they stop..." She continued on while I grabbed her by the hands. So very tiny in my big paw. I lifted her over my right arm and started off toward the aristocrats buggy. I put the unresisting girl on one side and climbed up into the other seat, half sitting out of the thing so as not to crush her or injure her with my spines.
The ride to the other side of town was smooth, the suspension of the buggy was putting up an amazing struggle against the weight of me, soon we were pulling down another quiet ally, this one a little wider, thankfully, since it could take the buggy and get it out of sight.
I lifted and carried the almost comatose girl to the back landing of the building in front of me, it was originally a black of flats, but had been converted to a shop with apartments above and was, from all I had heard, a very up market seamstress business.
I reached the back door and knocked using my forehead so as not to jostle the young lady in my arms.
The door opened to a pair of women, dressed impeccably, wielding swords in a very business-like manner.
"Ahh shit Rust, another one?" They lowered their blades and held the door wide to let me in.
"Couldn't let continue, no one deserves this." I muttered.
"Well put her over there on the bed and we will see to her. Close the door Meredith." The door was closed behind me and I put the girl down. More women came bustling out with different things, one of them even reached out to the girl with a glowing hand and began praying. "Yes Rust, we have a priestess here now, she was one of those you took from that whore house, the one kidnapping people off the street?" At my nod she continued, "Well, turns out the goddess looks out for us more than we thought, the girl can heal Rust. Its amazing."
We both sat in awe, watching the cuts and bruises on the poor girls body close. Once done they covered her in blankets and carried her to another room, the young priestess walked over to me.
"You were the big man, you took us from that nasty place. Your hand!" She said, exclaiming at the last, she reached for the rusted block on the end of my right wrist.
I reached out, gently, as gently as I could I held her glowing hand from touching my ruined right limb. "No little one, I need that to remind me whats really wrong in this world."
Her eyes rounded, then she broke into a huge grin that spread across the young ferrets face, "I can fix the other things though!"
For the first time in a long long time, a single person managed to set me unconscious and on my back. But hey, at least no one outside saw it happen.
Despite the difficulty and obvious risk from my spines, they had lifted me onto a bed, I shook my head to clear it and something inside me felt a lot more full than it had for a long time.
"My Goddess." I said slowly, in reverent awe.
As my eyes refocussed, I saw the grinning young priestess laying draped over my chest still with a smile on her sleeping face. I looked over at the master seamstress, sitting on a stool in the corner, sewing something in her hand, she just nodded and looked back down to her work.
Very quietly I said, "Guess I can rest a little longer."
-
I left the building, mounted back into the buggy, the a few of the women standing on the wide rear-porch behind me.
"Stay here Rust, we can hide you in this place, you don't have to keep doing this..."
"Nah" I replied, "If I don't do it, who will? Besides, I now know that She hasn't abandoned me." Very softly, I murmured, "Thank you Goddess, thank you." And shook the reins.
It was a lovely day just starting, the sun was back up, but not overly hot, the merchants were just setting up for the day of trade ahead.
When I reached my destination, I pulled the buggy up and hitched the reins to a post. Climbing those long stairs to the solid looking building ahead of me.
"Hey Rust, what you do this time?" One of the guardsmen said as he marched down the stairs from the main guardhouse of Doen.
I grinned at him and with my left hand used a 'thumb pointing over the shoulder' motion to indicate the buggy. "Got in bit of scrap last night Sarg, thought I could do with a bit of a rest for a day, you know, to maintain some peace."
The man laughed, "Yeah yeah, just go in and tell ol' George that you need a cell for the day, I will find its owner and tell them we found it."
"But, you did find it Sarg, you found it just now! Damn good guadsmanning there boss." I told him, the slurred speech came so naturally to me now. "I think I need a nap and some quiet, I gonna go in now."
The guardsman really was an ok sort, at first he wasn't too keen on me, but after that one time, when some bastard thought he wasn't going to get away with his crime and tried to show the guardsman a permanent end, well, I stepped in and straightened things up, it appears that even rich people can walk into doors and die of head injuries.
"Rust, you want your usual?" George asked as I walked in the front door.
"Yeah, somewhere nice n quiet like, thanks boss." I said, following the gaoler down into the bowls of the guardhouse. Some quiet time to pray would be just thing thing right now. Well, that and keeping my ugly mug off the streets till those two foxes had worked out their anger on a few of their servants.
-
"... and I told the sarg, 'screw that, I am fine here with all the whores I can buy, I don't want to go to no mystical city to bring peace to the world' and turned him down flat." A voice interrupted my morning prayers.
"Yeah, 'volunteers' indeed!" Another piped in.
Interested, I kept silent, hoping to hear more but the two guardsmen had passed.
Rising I reached out and opened the unlocked door and made for the main part of the guardhouse.
"Hey Rust, you may want to keep your head down a little longer, apparently two nobles were assaulted last night and their buggy stolen, they are pretty pissed and have some contacts in the clergy putting pressure on us to 'find the miscreant and teach them a lesson'" Sergeant Herso commented as I entered the mess room for the guard.
"Huh? Hope ya find da guy den, these streets need some law n orda" I went to the food line, emptying my pockets to the person dolling it out. I returned to sit beside the Sergeant with my meal. "I hear yas going to sion or sumfin, worth a few coins that job?" I asked, sounding out the man.
"Yeah, I am trying to get enough soldiers together to make a solid escort for our delegation to the peace talks. I wasn't told I could recruit just anyone though... ah hell Rust, it would get you out of the way of those damn aristos for a few weeks and put some more coin in your pockets." He reasoned out. Its amazing how a few gestures, a few turns of phrase, can influence a person to do exactly what you want. My turned out pockets from paying for my meal for instance. "Hey, Captain Rennard, any chance we can have Rust here on the books as a recruit for this run to Zion?"
The captain in question wandered over, "Well, its not a hundred percent correct, but I know if I was going I would want your fists at my back Rust. It will be done by tonight. Just for this one run though, the record of you being a guard and attending will conveniently disappear after that, along with say, five percent of your pay?"
"Hells no, you only get one tenf!" I replied, suppressing a grin, a bribe is a bribe is a bribe.
"Uh, oh... Done then I guess." The captain finished and we shook left hands.
"You can pick up a sword and gear tomorrow." He parted with and left.
"Hey sarg, why would I need a sword?" I asked the man across from me with a grin.