by Belugnir on October 27th, 2018, 6:49 pm
Einar hadn't had a chance to so much as utter a word to the guards who'd abandoned their posts and stormed in at the ruckus Trevor kicked up in his dying moments... when the roof came crashing down. And a kelvic lad came down with it, yet he too stood in the company of the fellow whom Ein recalled shoving off into the lake and who now stormed in through the door.
The odd, brief paralysis of confusion that came to hug the entire warehouse for an instant was broken by the wolf boy of all people, doing something that reminded Einar of his younger self an awful lot, digging tooth and dagger into another man’s flesh, albeit between the woman pulling by the collar of his shirt and yelling bloody murder in recognition, digging him further into a hole, and Kylar overwhelming a guard and shoving them to the side before baring a sword at him, Ein hardly had much time to dwell on things.
Shoving the woman off, as if in a trance, he had just barely come out of the cage before having to nearly dive to the side, barely containing himself to a hasty sidestep, to avoid being skewered by Kylar. It felt as if the isolation of Sahova came back to press upon him, making the chance involvement with this many people seem… surreal.
Thankfully, as Kylar brought his momentum to a stop, Ein had the wits and the opening to grab the man by his wrists, abandoning Trevor’s bloodied dagger, and pulling to slam the swordsman’s knuckles into the bars of iron behind himself, hoping it would be enough to force the sword out of his hands. At that point he could only spare the edge of his sight to notice the woman bolting out of her cage after the kelvic boy who may as well have had met his death by the time.
In the brief chaos that ensued, Ein found himself wholly occupied with trading blow for blow with Kylar whom he’d just barely managed to disarm after bashing the fellow’s hands against the cage some good four times. Though when he’d attempted to pull the slave’s bodyguard in and dash his head against the iron bars, he found himself on the receiving end of a kick that struck the back of his knee, making him buckle, and introducing the two to a messy exchange of close range elbow and knee jabs… then came Hollister’s introduction. And the lot within the room turned their heads toward him, holding a knife to the woman’s throat.
Shiress’ bondmate would be at the very least saved from receiving a stab wound, if not by fate or the slave girl, then by the bone-scraping bite that he’d delivered to the thug’s shoulder, which would have loosened the man’s grip, and, along with the fact that he’d just pulled a dagger from his own thigh, ruined most of his sensible coordination.
With the other thug getting up, having been briefly put out of commission after being jumped and receiving a pommel strike to the side of the head from Kylar as he’d barged in, the odds certainly took a grim turn for the pair of saviors.
Especially once Einar decided to exploit the tense interruption to deliver his knee to Kylar’s loins and his elbow to the back of the man’s head afterward, before Kylar himself could have decided to do the same. From there he’d shoved the man off to the floor, and soon enough Rook and Kylar would be thoroughly trashed, bound up and hauled to be seated by a stack of crates opposite of where Hollister stood holding a knife to the girl’s throat.
Then the two thugs and the man who employed them would turn their attention to their newest kidnapper. Van Carstein glanced over to where Trevor’s still body laid, before giving Einar a gloomy look, jerking the girl he held back to emphasize just how easily he could do as he pleased with her.
‘’Explain.’’, the plain request came before any of his colleague’s accusations could have been groveled out.
‘’Explain what?’’, Einar snorted. ‘’I brought your bitch like you asked, and the moment I turned my head, that impotent twat was in her cage, getting himself smacked across the head. Then he pulled a knife to gut your ransom, I try to stop him, he does like a rabid petching hound and tries to gut me in return. So he got a knife under his ugly gob.’’
‘’That so?’’, Hollister mused.
‘’Bloody rat was cutting the woman’s bonds when we came in! Bastard was squaring up to fight us too!’’, one of the thugs protested.
‘’I was cutting her bonds to put shackles on her, ye daft twat.’’, Einar retorted with barely a moment’s hesitation. ‘’And I squared up for a fight ‘cause I know you dense nordlings will jump at any excuse to gut me just ‘cause I’ve not crawled out of me ma’s cunt under the same ounce of sky as you did.’’
A moment of silence ensued, before Kylar, furious, jerking at his bonds, growled through grit teeth at the man who apparently stood at trial, trying to prove himself loyal.
‘’Filthy bastard. It wasn’t a month ago we saved your li—‘’, he was interrupted ahead of finishing what he had to say. Receiving a knee to the cheek from Einar.
This drew a peculiar look from Hollister, to which the other thug, the one who’d just finished binding his wounded thigh, went to give his due of words.
‘’Aye, sir, the woman hollered something about saving this bastard’s life too… and the runt over there called him by name.’’
‘’You know these people?’’, Hollister inquired, doubt renewed in him.
At this point Ein’s jaw could be seen clenching, mouth thinning sideways and his eyes narrowing into a frowned, squinting glare toward all of the three men whom he was meant to work with tonight.
‘’And what if I do fuckin’ know them? You’ve still got your bitch and you’ve got one impossibly incompetent bastard less to pay, two if that twat over there gets a fester and dies off.’’
‘’I will bloody gut you, southern whoreson… They followed you here!’’, the wounded thug pointed toward Rook and Kylar after raising a threatening fist toward Einar.
‘’Nobody cockin’ followed me, you numb-skull. I double checked every corner behind me coming here.’’, he stopped to draw in an annoyed breath. ‘’If you cockwits had done your job properly and guarded the bleedin’ entrance, gods forbid, had you picked some place that wasn’t as bloody obvious as the first abandoned warehouse by the dockside, they wouldn’t have figured a way here and we wouldn’t have an extra two bodies on our hands.’’, the glare he’d given Rook and Kylar would be horrifying on the best of days.
‘’You’re awful talkative for a bugger who’s nothing to hide.’’, the first thug pointed out. ‘’Sweatin’ an awful lot too.’’
‘’I’m sweating an awful lot ‘cause I’ve had to do both yours and that twat Trevor’s work for you.’’, Ein mocked. ‘’Only thing you’ve accomplished tonight is being bashed in the head by this twit over here.’’, he gave Kylar a kick to the thigh. ‘’And you’’, he’d turned to the wounded whoreson. ‘’You almost managed to get yesself killed by a bloody child, barely got the better of the little bugger, too. So stop shyking on the end of me prick and sod off. I’ve done my sodding job and most of yours.’’
Silence settled into the room.
‘’The man seems to have a point.’’, Hollister finally spoke, giving a meaningful, rebuking look to the two thugs who were meant to guard the warehouse. ‘’Frankly, I am tempted to start liking him over the two of you.’’
‘’You don’t like men like me. You pay men like me to get your shyke done.’’, Ein retorted, feisty, yet at this point visibly winded from the evening’s trials. ‘’Speaking of.’’, he presented a hand, beckoning for coin.
''All in due time.'',Hollister paused, giving a glance over to his two fuming, brooding henchmen, before pulling the girl’s head back an ounce again. ‘’Are we certain he got us the right gal?’’
The thugs exchanged a glance, taking a moment to inspect the woman their boss held at knife’s point.
‘’Aye. That’s Caldera’s bitch.’’, the wounded thug confirmed before giving Kylar a closer look as well. ‘’This prick looks mighty like Trevor described too.’’
''Good.''
Hollister said nothing more, frankly, outright forgetting Einar’s request for payment. A wicked smile flashed across his features, abandoning whatever composure he held onto previously. And then in place of the knife he held to Shiress’ neck came the choking grasp of his hand, lifting her off her feet, letting her linger in the air for but a moment, before slamming her into a stack of crates and letting her fall to her side. Then he would present a ferocious kick to the soft of the girl’s belly, and once she’d come to curl up in response, he would step onto the side of her head, digging the heel of his boot into her cheek, ever so slowly rubbing it into her teeth.
‘’I am not going to kill you.’’, he mused with horrid, repressed wickedness rearing its ugly head. His foot would leave the woman’s cheek to shove at her previously injured shoulder, rolling her over onto her back, before pressing the sole of his boot upon the girl’s lips. ‘’No… what I want is for Caldera’s spawn to taste the dirt off my feet the next time he slides his tongue into your cunt mouth.’’
For a moment he turned to the thug closest to the bound pair and instructed him to unsheathe a knife.
''Want me to off them, boss?'', the man was almost gleeful at a chance to reestablish his own claim to usefulness, if by killing one of the captives.
''Oh, no, no. They'll get to watch.'', Hollister's eyes settled back down on Shiress. ‘’Now you be a good girl, open up, and clean my boots to a shine with your own tongue... Or we’ll slice out one of your friends' for me to use as a handkerchief.’’, toward the end, the man was practically hissing his words out, seething with hatred.
WC:1728
