(Heavy violence)

Day 46

Niala was being forced to drag the cart by a rope tied to a yoke.

“I HATE ALL OF THIS.” She yells, ignored by the merchants.

“I HATE ALL OF YOU!” [Niala]

They don't understand her and they really don't care.

“ONE DAY SOON I'LL KILL ALL OF YOU!” [Niala]

“Shut up or we'll beat and gag you again!” [Former Slave Girl]

The bitch that caused all of this walks over and threatens to slap her if she doesn't shut her mouth.

Niala pretended to continue for a moment, luring the bitch in to get the opportunity to spit in her face. It increased the beating she received but the female rat didn't care. She could heal her bruises in moments with a self-hug.

Her feet kept getting hurt, cut on the stones. She could heal, the little rat tied next to her couldn't.

The smaller rat beside her stumbled. She helped him up, secretly palming a sharp stone he passes to her and giving him a small hug to help his bleeding feet.

The other slaves don't speak her language but the little rat understands the words of the captors enough to inform Niala. He hears their plans. Three days until they reach their home and all hope of freedom is lost.

For the first time she is placed in the position of responsibility.

Her only way to process it is to ask herself what would brother Chirrik do in her place.

That answer is simple. Plan, prepare, strike her enemies and take that freedom. The plan is almost ready. When they rest... when the guards mostly sleep...

The manacles of copper are solid enough for most people, they do not suffice against a rat's teeth. After half an hour chewing at them Little Rat was free he removed Niala's gag and together they gnawed off her bonds. There were five guards, one who regularly patrolled the slaves. As he passed the rock tore into his throat. He was quite surprised but the rock wasn't sharp enough for a fatal injury.

Before he could shout the rock smashed his jaw and he went down, caught by the smaller rat to muffle the sound. Niala bit his throat out with her teeth, finishing him.

Panting and equally afraid and furious she crawled onto the nearest cart. She searched and found among the varied weapons something she remembered, a bracer that launched darts. Poison darts. She took all of the darts that had only been lightly poisoned and deliberately added a second, greater dose of spider venom. She wanted them dead for what they did to Chirrik, twice. Then she strapped it where her ring had been.

She pulled out the arbelest and loaded it. She took out a dagger with a curved design. She passed a short sword to the little rat and the battlefork. As an after thought she envenomed the dagger too. The supply of venom was getting low, but who cared what happened after this.

The room itself was bare rock and lifeless.

No where to hide, they would be spotted running. So the guards on watch needed to die. Everyone after that was gravy.

The other four were scattered around, three watching each cave entrance and the last the sleeping merchants.

Change of guard was due in an hour or so. So with ample time she crawled out, around the cart and sighted the closest with the crossbow. She slid closer, so as not to miss as she shot him through the skull.

She hauled his corpse behind the cart and then crept up on the one watching the hostile cave entrance to the west. He barely noticed the sting of the dart behind his ear. He slapped at it like a bug bite. He whirled as he felt the strange thing in him. He stumbled and reeled as his balance was affected by the deadly venom. He saw the wide, gleeful smile of the rat-woman as he began to foam at the mouth, his tongue swell and his body convulse. She chuckled softly as he bit off his own tongue in his spasms and died there slowly and painfully.

The third watchman startled her by appearing as the second died.

“We were going to have a round of...” He said casually, until he noticed his friend dead on the ground. The would have shouted an alarm but the little rat drove a twin-forked spear into his ribcage from the side, piercing his lungs. He strained and clawed at the weapon tossing the rat around, spilling a deck of cards from his hand.

Niala ran over, silencing the struggles with her dagger. Bathing in the spray of blood.

Since her plan was going so well, Niala decided to simply do the job, completely.

The sleeping quarters of the camp were quiet except for the crackling of the campfire.

The noise was sufficient to allow Niala to creep close enough undetected to ram the dagger into his spine.

She smiled as she looked at all of her victims as they slept there.

Spoing!

Spoing!

Spoing!

Spoing!

Spoing!

Five more guards were now dying, each with a venom dart in the chest. Their gurgles sounding like a melody to her hate.

Splat. A crossbow bolt from point blank spilled the brains of one that beat her severely.

She smiled as she slit the throat of a merchant. The bastard had felt her up like how one tests a piece of fruit. Disgusting.

The next felt her blade as it pierced his eardrum and beyond.

She smeared more venom on the blade and then simply nicked the remaining thirteen guardsmen. It had ceased being lethal somewhere around number twelve but the blade itself still sufficed to end them as they lay paralyzed by the weaker dose.

She entered the hospital area and left behind eight corpses that Rick hadn't finished off. They hadn't been able to force her healing skill to work on the injured, but how they tried. Beatings, whips and chains. A hug has to have affection or it is just an embrace. She could chose who she healed. She chose not to heal them. They couldn't make their beatings stick after all.

The little rat had done away with the remaining merchants. He gave a thumbs up.

One left.

Separate sleeping area. A borrowed tent.

A former slave girl woke up with a start. A smiling blood splattered rat-girl hovering over her.

The woman screamed in terror and reached desperately for the knife hidden beneath her pillow.

Niala smiled wider and waved the stolen steel knife above her face.

The woman panicked and tried to struggle.

She tried to push Niala away. A set of claws tightened on the ape-woman's scalp. Yelping the woman was dragged to her feet, the edge of the blade poking her cheek.

Niala took her out and into the campsite.

The woman screamed as she saw the massacre.

A cold piece of metal snapped shut around her neck. Manacles were shut on her wrists and the three were chained together, behind her back.

“What are you going to do to me?!” [Past and Present slave girl]

“Niala says... like Chirrik, you shall fall off a cliff.” [Little Rat] “Uh... also you will be... what is the word? Gutted?”

The woman began to scream as she broke into a run, trying to run away.

Niala tackled her neatly, making her fall face first onto the sharp rocks. She shoved the same gag used on her into the woman's mouth. Then she brutally kicked the woman, until she curled up sobbing.

“No, mustn't kill her yet. Just two days and she flies.” Niala murmured to herself. “But still, two days... haha... as long as she doesn't die, it's fine...”

Niala released the other slaves, under the aim of her arbalest. She could not afford betrayal. The others didn't know her language, most were from a third species. Very like the ape-men but taller, with sharp ears, long fangs, claws and a long tail. Niala didn't know what they were.

As for the other ape-men slaves Niala killed them, with her eyes fixed on the traitor. She trusted no one, but Little Rat. He winced away as she killed the slaves, but he knew why she did it and he couldn't fault her for it.

There was no way to take the goods, the weapons. So she let the others take what they wanted. Food, water, trinkets and weapons. She didn't understand why they snatched a soccer-ball sized sapphire each. Or why they took round pieces of yellow metal.

She took the weapons she had used, retrieving her ammunition. The darts were reduced to non-lethal now but a bolt to the brain is always lethal.

With a leash in hand she lead the slave-girl back the way they came, her bruised and grazed face covered in dried tears.

It took only one day to reach the ravine. But when they entered they were forced back into the passage. As they tried to understand this phenomena Rick skidded to a stop inside the room, holding a strange intricately carved stone cube the size of a Rubik's cube.

He noticed them standing there in the cavern mouth.

“Oh, you got away already? Thank goodness. I was worried they'd have already sold you off or something!” [Rick]

What we learned:

WTF?!

Niala: Psycho killer.

Nekomimi exist and Rick missed 'em!

Considering all the shit she goes through, Slave Girl must be cursed.

I never said the caravan's final destination would be a city, did I?

As for Slave Girl, I'll be doing the remainder of her short story next, then we learn how the flipping heck Rick ended up there again!