Seeds of Revenge: Chapter 1

SNIP

Forty-Five Years Before The Escape

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The blade of her instructor was quick. Her father told her this man was the greatest field medic in his army, and though her instructor was well over sixty, and Cat heard that was old for a human, his hands never shook and he was not infirmed at all. His blade opened the arm quick and blood ran like water off the rocks. It was suddenly everywhere. Cat looked up at the slave her instructor had just cut and could see the pain clear on his face.

“What now?” her instructor said.

“Blood. I have to stop the blood,” Cat said. She fumbled for the bandages and her instructor stopped her.

“It’s staunched. You have to staunch the blood. You do have to hurry, but if you fumble around and knock your supplies down, you will only slow your progress more. With quick smooth movements, I want you to staunch the blood.”

Cat took a very slow breath. She swiped her bandages up in her hands and blew her hair out of her face. She asked her instructor if she could tie her long black hair back but he told her no. She would not have time to prepare herself when an emergency arose. She needed burdens to overcome. She placed the bandage on the man’s bloody arm and looked her patient in the eye.

“Press hard. Keep pressure or you will not be able to staunch the blood. Now what?”

“I can’t do anything until the blood stops. There is no way to see how deep the cut is or if I need to stitch it at all.”

“What can you do?”

She looked at her kit. She saw her needles already threaded. She saw her root neatly stacked but not cut.

“I need to cut my root,” Cat said.

“Good. We will not be wasting any on this man, he is a slave, but you better have it ready.”

She pulled her knife and began. Shallow cuts, smooth and long. All the way from the tip of the root to the end. She set the root down and it began to drip.

“What did you do wrong?” her instructor said.

“I cut too early. I’m not ready to milk it yet.”

“Better get ready.”

She grabbed her canteen and a small tin cup and poured the water. She grabbed her dust and dropped a pinch in.

“Why the powder?”

“Because it helps diffuse the root juice in the water.”

“Very good,” her instructor said. “Now at this point you would milk the root and make the solution and give it to the patient. But we are not going to—”

She grabbed the root and squeezed it over the tin cup.

“What are you doing?” her instructor snapped.

“He is cut, he is hurt, and you can’t hit me because my father would gut you,” Cat said. “I’m giving him the root.”

“I saved your father’s life on the field more times than you have hairs of fur on your body.”

“And he could gut you and string you up if you hit me,” Cat grimaced. “It is nasty business, pain. It is not to be given lightly. Now he is teaching me to mend warriors,” she said pointing at her patient. “The least we could do is take the edge off his pain.”

She sloshed the water in the tin cup then handed it to the slave. She turned to look at her instructor. “There is nothing left to do except wait until the blood stops.”

Her instructor looked at her then nodded, and she saw the faintest whiff of a smile. He patted her head.

“He is your patient. I have no right to tell you you can’t treat him. But if he dies, then that is on you. Do you want him to die?”

She looked at the slave pressing on the cut and shook her head. “I do not want him to die.” The slave smiled at her.

“Then what are you forgetting?”

And she was forgetting something. He would die. She could bandage him up. She could treat his pain. She could wrap him and advise him to be easy with his wound, but he might still die. What was she missing?

She closed her eyes. Her instructor tapped his boot. She hated it when he did that.

“Herbs!” she shouted. She rushed to the cabinet on the other side of the room. “We need an herb to keep the wound clean or he might get a fever.”

“Hurry. But do not rush.”

She ran back, tossed the herb in her mouth, and began to chew it.

“What did you choose?”

“Baraban leaves,” she said with a mouth full of weed. The tips of the leaves were sharp and they cut into her five-year-old mouth, but that was not what was important.

“Let me see,” she said to the patient. Calm voice. Do not let her patient fear for his life. When patients looked at her, they needed to feel safe. Even if they weren’t.

The slave pulled the bandage away and Cat could see the bleeding had stopped. She dipped her sponge in water and washed away the blood.

It was not deep but her instructor had whipped the cut into a half circle. She had never sewn a wound that was not straight.

She took her needle and began to sew. Wound closed, she coated it with the herb and bandaged it up. She bent, gave it a little kiss, and the slave smiled at her.

With a flick of the wrist the smile exploded and blood sprayed in a fount. The slave started screaming a gurgling scream and grabbed his face.

“What did you do?”

Her instructor’s knife was not even bloody. The cut was so fast it was as if the field medic had willed it.

“Fix him or lose him.”

Cat started to cry.

Outside the window she heard a ruckus. The gate was being opened to her father’s castle. She knew her daddy was home. She looked at the window, wishing she could run to see him ride in victorious. Daddy had gone to a field exercise to fight Prince Drowned in mock combat. The battle was to see who would run a campaign in the far reaches of the sea.

Cat did not wish her father failure ever, but deep in a secret place, she hoped he would lose. If he did, her father would not be sent away. Dregs, the warlord of Drine, would stay home with his three daughters. And his new baby.

Everyone said it was going to be a girl, but her mother had sworn it was going to be a boy. Cat didn’t want any brothers.

The cracks between the cobblestones were filling with blood. She could not get distracted.

“Blood. I have to stop the blood,” Cat said.

“Yes, but this time his mouth is filling with blood. He is drinking it whether he wants to or not. What do you do?”

Battle outside. Her father was not home. His men would not be fighting if they were. Another warlord was trying to take her father’s castle.

From within the castle she heard screaming. Begging.

She grabbed her bandages and rushed for her patient. Her instructor grabbed her and she struggled.

“Forget him. We need to find out what is happening outside.” Her instructor sounded scared. “Stay close to me. We need to find your sisters.”

He opened the door and peeked out. Cat wept silently. Her father taught her that the sounds of children crying drove Drine warriors into a fury. If danger ever came, don’t cry. Don’t beg. And never scream.

Her instructor grabbed his sword at the door and they stepped out into a growing din. From down here, Cat could see nothing. All she could see were shadows. The infirmary was just short of the dungeons. She had to go upstairs to get out.

Her instructor stepped out of the door and into the hall. He came to a doorway into a tunnel and bent over. He grunted and dropped to his knees. He was hugging a stick that came in from the side. He was bleeding. It was not a stick. Her instructor had been hit in the gut with an axe. From around the corner came Bonal. And he grinned at her.

She turned to run as her instructor fought to get to his feet. Bonal stepped right over him.

“Come here, Prize. I have a promise to keep.” The man came at her and she knew to run. She knew she had to get away. Not Bonal, never Bonal. She could almost feel his fingers stroking and petting her as he whispered to her. She screamed as she felt his hard, lean hands close around her shoulders. Then one clasped her neck. He picked her up and she sputtered.

“I have a promise to keep to you, don’t I?”

She could feel his mouth against the side of her face, and she wept.

“How many times did I tell you? How many times did we laugh and laugh about it?”

“My father will—”

Bonal slammed her hard against the wall holding her up by the throat. “Rot, your father will rot. He was struck down by Drowned. Your mother is a whore. Drowned has a new son, not Dregs, and I have a new Prize.”

She kicked but he wrapped an arm around her and carried her away. All Cat could do was scream. She knew she shouldn’t, but it was all she could do.

When they reached the foyer of the castle, he stopped and pointed at the ceiling and the desiccated corpses hanging from it. Twelve men, all organs ripped out. Skin dried. Mummies. “Why are they hanging there, Prize?”

“I am not a Prize. My daddy called me Cat.”

“No, you little bitch. You are a Prize. All daughters of warlords are Prizes to be won by the best warrior. If you were a Prize, you would have a dedicated guardian I would have to fight. But you are not. So I will claim you. Those men, why are they dead?”

“They called me and my sisters Prize.”

Bonal licked her face and spat. “Your fur is disgusting. But I can shave it. Remember I promised you I would, Prize?”

“My name is Cat.”

“Shut your whore mouth,” Bonal snapped.

“I’m not a whore.”

He laughed. It was a depraved laugh and it scared her to her very core. “You are a whore, Prize, you just don’t know it yet.” He stabbed his finger at the ceiling. “Now those men died because your father would not let them call you Prize. They hang there as a testament to your father’s love. Well, he is dead now. Killed by the prince. And you are a Prize. So you owe those men an apology, don’t you?”

Two men rushed into the foyer, both bleeding, both staring at Bonal.

“Take anything you want but she is mine. She is all I want. I will give her to you when I am finished. But I get to claim this Prize for myself.”

The men stared at him and looked to Cat. “Sorry, Cat. We don’t have time to make this right,” one of the men said. He could not look at her.

Cat had never cursed a day in her life. Her father had taught her not to lower herself to a curse word. Float above the foul, he said. Don’t let them soil you with rage.

She did not curse them. And Bonal grabbed her by the wrist and jerked her up the stairs.

“We are going to make a whore out of you today, Prize. But we have some work to do first, don’t we?” Bonal said.

“Yes,” she said.

“What did I promise you we would do?”

“You’re going to shave me.”

“Yes, you little whore, we are going to shave all that disgusting half garq fur off of you, and when I have you pink and weeping, then we will get to know each other in ways you will never forget.”

Up the stairs he jerked her, and every man she passed either had a wound or a treasure. None of them stopped to help her. She passed a window and grabbed the sill to look out.

She saw her sister Ribbon on a cart being carried away by her weapons teacher. Cat was never taught to fight with weapons. If she had been, she might have a chance. But she had nothing to fight against Bonal’s promises. He jerked her arm painfully, and she lost her footing. He dragged her by her arm as she screamed.

Up to her mother’s room, and she was tossed in. She rolled and landed on her back, gasping for air. He kicked the door closed and locked it, grabbed the key and tossed it in the corner. He kicked off his boots and grinned.

“Your mother’s vanity. It will have a razor on it. Go there. Do it or I will make you hate it all the more and I will take days with you. Do it now or I will make it worse.”

She sat up and dropped her head as he pulled his pants off and started to stroke himself.

She reached the vanity as he stalked her with desperation on his face. She looked at the vanity, at all the powders and pastes her human mother decorated herself with to make herself beautiful. After he shaved her, would he put her mother’s makeup on her? Something about that made her gag. She noticed the razor as he drew closer. Then saw, out the corner of her eyes, her mother’s scissors.

They were big and heavy. A gift from her grandmother, who was a garq. This was not a human’s pair of scissors. She grabbed them and spun. The handle was too big for her but she opened them anyway and snapped them shut. They made a deep scraping sound like a sword being sharpened and they clicked when they closed.

“Prize, what do you think you are going to do with those? Give them—” He reached for her.

She snapped the scissors out and clamped them shut with a snip.

She heard it plop to the floor before she saw that she had chopped off his thumb. The blood paused. It did not flow. He looked at her as his face paused. His mouth hung open and she seized her chance. She whipped out with another snip. Two fingers off the same hand flew, and he screamed.

He reached out with his other hand and she snipped twice. Thumb and pinky. She dropped to the ground as he cursed and spat, and she crawled between his bare legs. She saw the tendon on the back of his knee and snipped.

Bonal screamed. He howled and dropped to his knee.

“I am no man’s Prize. My daddy named me Cat.”

Bonal reached behind him and she grabbed his wrist. He struggled but she was faster.

Snip.

Snip.

Snip.

Snip. Every finger gone. Blood everywhere. She felt it splash on her face. Felt it in her hair. But she had been sewing wounds all of her short life. Blood did not scare her. Blood flipped over a rock in her. When Cat saw blood, she knew it was time to work.

Snip, tendon at the ankle.

Snip, tendon on the other.

He flailed and she grabbed his other hand.

Snip.

Snip.

No more grasping fingers. No more running his fingers through her hair. She heard his promise again in her mind.

“Well you know, if you were mine, I would shave you up and make a pretty girl out of you.”

She heard it in her mind, looked down at her gore-drenched scissors, and snapped them closed before her eyes.

He dropped to his belly and started to crawl.

Snips and toes flew.

Snips and the other foot as well.

She followed behind him as he screamed and begged. She turned and dropped on him. She sat on the small of his back and reached under for his penis.

He screamed when her fingers found his testicles and she brought her scissors down for a snip. She tossed them aside. And he stopped crawling. She reached under him again and heard him whimpering. Snip and his penis was gone.

Just for symmetry she snipped the second knee tendon as well.

Cat stood and looked at her room.

Random body parts lay everywhere. She grabbed her scissors with both hands.

“Roll over,” she said. “Roll over or I will make it longer and worse for you.”

He rolled over and she saw fear in his face. Real fear. Naked and panicked fear. She had never seen this much fear before in her life.

“Open your mouth,” she said as she stood over him.

He clamped his mouth closed and shook his head.

“Open your promise maker or I will leave you alive.” She heard men pounding on the door. “What do you think they will do when they get in here? What kind of sport will they make of you?”

Bonal slowly parted his lips. “Please kill me, please.”

She dropped her scissors in his mouth and snipped. She snipped over and over again. She felt him patting her head. She felt his breath on her fur when he whispered in her ear. And she just snipped. Over and over again. She felt the meat of his tongue snipped over and over again, but she had his promises now and she was not letting up. She wept as she snipped. She snipped until she could not feel meat any more.

He looked up at her, gurgling. She reached down and with her delicate, five-year-old fingers pinched his upper lip. She stretched it and snip. She took his other lip, too.

And she went to her mother’s vanity. Her face, her neck, her hair and her dress. She saw nothing but blood. The blood coated her face and she stared at her eyes for comfort.

But Cat saw blood there, too. Her eyes had always been red.

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