To run. To feel the wind whipping against your face and body. To feel your feet beating your rhythm against the ground. To feel the comfortable stinging in your legs from the effort. To feel your muscles working under your skin to propel you forward. To feel the heat of the sun against your skin. To have the silver light of the moon show you your path when darkness threatens to obscure it. To run was to be free. And sure as they where chasing, her Feral Darkside was running. Her lean mean body cutting through wind like a ship through water. Her wiry muscles, deceptively strong and hard in her thin body pushing her forward. Her bare feet, hard as nails, pounding mercilessly against the ground. The sun of the Bad Lands was hot on her neck and arms and it felt good. She could run for miles without getting tired and for miles she would run if it meant that she would be free. That she would never have to call another man master and obey his whims. Four times since she was a child she had been called slave and done what another would have her do. Four times she had suffered immeasurably, each time worst than the last. Three times, sixteen years, she had been no better than a dog lying at its master’s feet. But then she had run. Run through the desert and met all manner of people running for reasons of their own. She had run from them for two years and in those two years she had made seven companions and dug seven graves. Those people had not been good people, but they were good to her and the closest thing she had ever had to family. Each had taught her how to survive. They had taught her how to run and hide and hunt and kill. How to fight with her hands and how to fight with blade and bow. They had taught her how to be sneaky and set traps. She felt a lump in her throat and swallowed it down. If there was one person she would miss most of all it was Sable. She had met him last but she had leaned more from than she had learnt from any other. He had taught her how to open locks without the key. How to be charming and win wars with words instead of weapons. He had taught her how to walk like a lady and have tea with the queen. He taught her how to track and pick pockets and cross a busy road in a city. He had shown her how to sense danger and taught her how to make her senses keener. He had taught her how to know the land and what to eat and not to eat. He had shown her how to make poisons and how to make it look as if someone had died by accident. He was wonderful and silly and smart and brave and dangerous and sneaky as hell. She remembered the day well. They had finally caught up and she had told Sable to leave but he would not. He ran with her and showed her a place to hide. He had given her his crooked smile. He had said that it would all be alright and that no matter what happened that she should never again bow to anyone and that she should always be free like the birds in the sky. He left her then and they killed him. One of the seven had told her that she should dig graves for her comrades that died. No mater how long she had known them, that was what she ought to do. His grave was the last she had dug and burying him was the last thing she had done as a free woman. They had taken her back, the slavers, and sold her to her fourth master. The better part of her had died in those sixteen years and the rest had gone with Sable. She was sold to her fourth master a broken woman. She had nothing to live for but to avenge Sable. And so, she had slit the throat of her master while he slept and ran. She ran because she knew they would chase her. The men who had killed Sable followed her, and she knew it, for each of their faces was burnt into her mind. She would lead them out onto her turf. Into the Bad Lands of the great Empire and there she would kill them. And so she ran and so they chased. She slowed her pace until she could hear horse hooves beating against the ground. She smiled to herself as she ducked behind a rocky outcrop and prepared the trap. The trap had been prepared a long time ago by her and one of the seven. The man had died before it could be used, but she would put it to good work yet. She watched as the horses came down the path and she loosed the rocks causing a rock fall. She felt good, even though she knew she shouldn’t have, looking at the corpses of four of the seven men. The other three where off their mounts and had their weapons drawn. Great big clumsy slaver’s swords that would not aid them in fighting her. She was much too fast. She scratched at the dirt with one hand while her eyes followed the men as they cautiously moved towards her position. She still had some cover so the element of surprise would still be hers. She smiled as her fingers met with cold steel. She drew out the two long knives. They where good knives; good for killing. They had been given to her by the man who had set up the trap. It had been in the early days of her freedom and in her youthful ignorance she had buried them because she didn’t feel that it was right carrying them after he was dead. She held no such delusions now and the cold steel felt good in her hands. She would use them just as Sable had taught her to and in doing so avenge him.
“Come out come out wherever you are, you stupid murdering whore!” One of them called.
“If you come out now we won’t hurt you, much,” a second one called and the others snickered.
“No one will buy you now that you’ve killed your master,” the first one said, “But if you come out nice and quiet like I’ll let you share my bed and lick my boots. How does that sound, eh?”
The others laughed at this and Feral clenched her jaw angrily but she would not let them goad her into overhasty action. One of the seven once told her that if you attack in anger that you become clumsy. Best thing to do is to keep your head and they’ll pay for whatever they said, sure as the sun will rise. When the first man was close enough, she leaped from behind the rocks and slashed his throat before he even knew what hit him. Blood splattered across Feral’s face with a cruel but satisfying heat. The next man came at her with a clumsy blow but she easily dodged and sunk the blade into his lungs between two ribs. While she was preoccupied, one last came from behind but she saw him and lashed out with her free blade. It slit cleanly across his throat and splattered gore across the hot ground. She stood up, tore a piece of cloth from one of their shirts and bound the daggers to her outer thighs. She felt as if a weight was lifted from her and with a smile on her face, she began to run. She had nothing left to live for, but Sable had said that she should be free and so she would run for as long as her legs would carry her. To run. To run was to be free. To run was to keep a promise. To run was something to do while she waited to die.
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