Prompt
The three barbarians stood in a row a few feet beyond the bush on the lonely country road that overlooked a the valley of a mountain.
“Are you going to come out?” One of them shouted from where he stood into the trees. “Or are we going to have to come in and find you?”
“Yeah, there’s no use in hiding.” Another chimed in, laughing under his breath. “We know you’re in there.”
The barbarians cackled together, the noise sounding like a distant, menacing rumble.
The boy turned his head to the woman as they squatted behind a bush, watching as she closed her eyes and shook her head just slightly. Her body was balanced on the balls of her feet, ready to spring into action at a second’s notice.
“Men,” she whispered to herself, blowing a piece of her long black hair out of her face. As if that was the only thing that needed to be moved right then. “You,” She motioned to him. “Do not move, understand?.” She hissed. Her storm-blue eyes were severe, portraying just how serious she was.
The boy silently nodded and looked at her again as she began to move out from behind their spot. The blood red war paint that covered her body in streaks, thick across her pale skin. He could imagine in his mind, her fighting a battle and earning that war paint, moving up the ranks to a higher position to earn some of the more intricate designs that were painted. He noticed, too, that she wore no armour, he silently told himself that she probably would not need it. Pushing off with her one leg, she swung into the shadows fluidly, climbing through bushes and past trees, barely making any noise but the random snap of a twig. She was fast enough for the men not to be able to see which direction the noise had come from.
The men glanced at each other, still standing in a row. They looked to each other for an answer, one brute lifted his shoulders as an explanation to the others. When no answer immediately presented itself, they drew their swords and stood comfortably side-by-side, ready to cut down whatever crawled out of the trees.
“Come out!” One of them shouted, raising his sword higher.
He watched as the woman slid from the shadows, silently drawing her two swords from the sheaths on her waist.
“You three boys are standing in my way.” Her voice was confident as her eyes held theirs, scanning each of them from head-to-toe. A wolf amongst sheep.
The three barbarians stood a small distance away in front of her, confused at the sight before them. A woman dressed in darkness, hair the colour of night, eyes of a storm and red streaks like battle scars that marked her skin.
One of them chuckled. “This woman can’t be serious!”
“This woman is very serious,” she said, pointing the tip of her blade and dragging it through the air across the line of men before her. “I am asking you, boys, politely to move out of my way so I can go get what I need.”
“’Fraid we can’t do that, sweetheart.” One of them called, laughing to himself. Another barbarian shifted his sword so it’s tip dug into the earth before him and stood up straighter. They thought there was no threat in her at all, but obviously, they misunderstood the situation completely. “There is nothing down that mountainside.”
“Then there should be nothing to protect. You can let me pass without getting hurt.”
All the men looked at each other and laughed. One grabbed the other’s arm for support. “Are you listening to this?”
The barbarian turned his back to wipe his eyes.
The woman moved faster than the eye could blink and shoved her sword through the man’s chest without so much as a grunt of effort. She pulled the sword out again harshly and watched him fall to his knees before raising her foot and kicking him over.
Before the first man had even hit the ground the attacks started to come fast and angry.
The woman parried every attack. Forcing the steel down and around, causing one man to lose his balance while dragging her blade across another’s skin. Blood flowed from the men’s skin like lava, the boy watched as he grabbed at the wound as it bled, feeling the warmth as it leaked between his fingertips. The man swung his sword around just as she raised hers. His sword dragged across her arm before finally hitting her steel.
Her face registered no pain as she swung her other sword down, forcing the man to his knees before she stabbed him through the chest as well, blood spraying from the wound, out his mouth and down his neck before he fell to the left.
The last barbarian watched in horror as his last friend was cut down. He strode around her, trapping her in a circle.
Both were vultures sizing up their dying prey. Watching from a distance, but feeling that pull from death, knowing it wasn't far away.
They had faced each other only both were now lacking something. Him, his comrades, standing alone against the enemy. She had lost the element of surprise.
He charged toward her, his steps large and clunky, his voice ringing out in anger as their blades met. The force of his caused her to stumble backward.
He swung his sword again, the metal hit the ground where she had stood seconds before.
She swiped up with her own sword and caused him to lose his grip on his own blade, watching as he dropped it, she kicked it over the cliff before he had a chance to scramble for it.
Now it was just her standing as the man fell to his knees, knowing his fate.
It wasn't the etiquette of swordplay to defeat another who had lost his sword, but he got the impression she didn't care too much for the rules at this point.
She walked up behind him, grabbed his blonde hair and raised her arm---
The boy covered his eyes, seeing the scene play out in his mind from behind that bush. He felt suddenly nauseous, knowing the scene that awaited him on that lonely road.
Seconds grew into minutes as he fought the need to throw up and stood on unsteady feet, the bile rising in his throat as he neared the battleground. He could smell the metallic pang of blood as it gently coated the air.
He took his hands away from his face as he came onto that road and saw the woman as she stood on the edge of that cliff with both swords in her hand, dripping blood The mountains on either side of her could not hide the growing sun, painting the sky a bloody haze.
It’s going to rain today. He thought to himself as he stood amongst the corpses.
He looked at her again as she looked down at the three mangled bodies. He watched as she drew a deep breath and began to scream.
He closed his eyes with the sound of it. It wasn't a victorious or triumphant scream. It didn't even sound like a mournful cry. To him, it sounded as if it were a battle-cry. As if she were expecting more foot-soldiers to be lacing the bushes and she was inviting them to join.
After a few moments, she swallowed the sound and glided toward the fallen men. She knelt before them and stuck her fingers in the blood that coated the floor beneath him.
She drew three more thick red lines across her thigh before sheathing her swords, turning to him and saying “I thought I told you to wait in the bushes.”