The decay of the ancient Roseti empire was a slow affair, only truly noticed by those who had the time and resources to pay attention to the past. Its final death struggles, however, came as a sudden start.

  As ignored provinces rebelled and barbarian tribes seized the moment, the old giant’s sickness ushered in a chaotic age, as would a dying king with no heir. It was an age of the sword and the spear, of the wickedness that blossoms during turmoil. Those who could plunder, did, seizing whatever they could and holding it by any means. Imperial province governors were no exception, and that was how Placus Colias found himself lord of his own little realm, with no senate nor emperor to rein him in.

  The walled village of Trifa was his home and seat of power, and it was late in an unremarkable day that he heard a sudden commotion.

  It started with a scream of rage, muffled only slightly by coming from within a house. A breath later, there was a cry of agony. Placus had never been a legionary, but he had commanded enough violence to recognise the sound of a deadly wounding.

  “And what is this?” he asked Servius, the captain of his bodyguards, and raised an eyebrow. “Has someone forgotten who decides-”

  But it was no isolated murder. There was fighting. A whole group, by the sound of things. And it was coming from the tavern.

  “Well, this will not do!” Placus said sternly, and sped his steps up a little as he pointed to the corner that hid the tavern from view. He left the running and shouting to his lessers.

  “Guards!” Servius belted out as he hurried past his master, both as a rallying cry and as a warning to the populace. “Guards!”

  He was a veteran of the frontier, and well-suited to his role, with quick feet, an intimidating face and a potent voice. The other two soldiers who had been out walking with Placus went with Servius, and several more men joined them from various directions. Placus’s realm was small, but it was his, and he knew that only discipline would keep it that way.

  He was neither too old nor fat to run; not yet, anyway, but he never hurried when out in the streets. He considered it a sign of being bothered, and that was something he would never allow his public to see.

  No. Here he was emperor, as far as these half-barbaric provincials were concerned, and he moseyed along on his fine, embroidered sandals, wrapped in his fine, sky-blue cloak. Problems could await his leisure, and so could the people.

  The tavern was of Roseti design, as was every other building in the village. Built of bricks, covered with white plaster and topped with perfectly even red roof tiles, it was an example of what civilisation could bring to a savage frontier, even to a place of such base purpose.

  A few nearby villagers had stopped, or approached, to witness the scene. Each one looked away the moment they noticed him. As it should be. He had tamed this area well. But now, evidently, there was a little more taming to do.

  A total of seven guards stood outside of the tavern, each one equipped with a light cuirass, a round shield and an infantry spear. From within came more shouts, the sounds of steel on steel, steel getting caught on wooden pillars and on tables, and of chairs being thrown about by fighting.

  “OPEN!” Servius shouted in that bull voice of his. “Open in the name of-”

  The door did swing open, but it seemed to be mere chance. Out staggered a man who was clearly not local, with not even the veneer of civilisation worn by the locals who called Trifa and its immediate surroundings home. He was clad in undyed wool clothes, dirty from travel, and his messy hair had not seen soap in some time.

  A big knife dropped from his right hand. His left one clutched weakly at a wound in his abdomen, and he only made it three steps out onto the street before landing on his face.

  After him came another man, dressed much the same way, with the addition of a short fur cloak. This one had a sword, and had taken two minor slashes in the fighting. He paid the gathered warriors no heed; all his attention was on the person who came out after him.

  It was a woman. A young woman of the northern barbarians. She was as tall as many a man, clad in breeches and a vest made of dark, shaggy goatskin. Her bare arms were hard with lean muscle, and marked by many battle scars. Her head was topped by a glorious, poofy mane of hair, of a golden hue Placus hadn’t seen before. Her eyes were as fierce as a hungry wolf’s, her grin was no less feral, and her sword was soaked in blood.

  The man in the cloak spoke in the northern tongue, of which Placus knew not a word, but the tone was equal parts rage and terror. The woman responded calmly, with a faint mocking tone, and the cloaked man darted at her with a desperate cry.

  Placus had thought of her as a wolf, but she reacted more like a cat. The man’s sword struck at nothing, as she danced nimbly out of his way, and her sword fell on the back of his neck. It didn’t quite decapitate him; rather, he collapsed like a dropped doll, and came to a stop with his head forward in an unnaturally deep nod.

  The soldiers had formed a semicircle before the tavern entrance, out of immediate lunging range, and only now did the woman pay her new company any heed.

  “Greetings, men of the south,” she said, with a flippant air. She spoke the Roseti tongue, but with that awful accent that hurt Placus’s ears, and confirmed that she was a northerner. “Did our arguing trouble you?”

  “Dead vermin do not trouble me, no,” Placus said amiably. “Though-”

  She turned to face the door, and backed a few steps away from it, as a third man emerged. He was clad much like the other two, though he also wore a sash of some kind, dyed a dull red. He had a bleeding wound on his head, and a seemingly shallow cut down his left arm. His other arm held a short sword, the kind favoured by the tribes of the west, and the blade shook with rage and shock.

  He spared the men on the ground, one dead, the other dying, a quick glance, before focusing on the northern woman with burning hatred. He spat something in his barbaric tongue, his voice shaking with vicious emotion.

  “That is quite enough of all this,” Placus announced. “No more fighting in my domain.”

  “This…”

  The man gave Placus a quick look before focusing back on the woman.

  “This Varusian!” he shouted. “This hell-wolf! She has slain my friends! I am owed a blood-debt!”

  “There is only one thing to do when one is set upon by greater numbers,” the woman said, still calm, still with a hint of mockery in her tone, “and that is to strike the first blow.”

  “That sounds fair enough to me,” Placus said, though in truth their reasons made no difference to him. “Westerner: You are owed no blood here. Here I am the law, and I tell you to put away your blade.”

  The man shifted his gaze rapidly between Placus and the woman, outraged at the words, but seemingly wary of a sudden attack from her.

  “A blood debt…” he went on, angry but sounding on the verge of defeat, “... is sacred. The gods-”

  “Your gods, not mine,” Placus told him dismissively. “I care not about your barbarian gods. “But you may show them your devotion by dying upon our spears. The choice is yours.”

  The westerner audibly ground his teeth, but his shoulders slumped. He backed further away from the woman, and eventually sheathed his blade. Placus gestured to the guards to let him pass. The man had some parting words for his foe, who dismissed him with a single word.

  “Now, we can all relax, I believe,” Placus said, as the last of these westerners slunk out of sight. “Who are you, woman? And what brings you to Trifa?”

  “I am-” she began, but was interrupted by a groan from the dying man, prone in a growing pool of his own blood.

  “I am but a traveller-”

  He let out another rather loud groan. Placus was unsure if there was any consciousness at all in it, or if his body was simply reacting in blind pain. The woman stepped up to her fallen foe, pulled his head up by his hair, and dragged her sword across his throat. That silenced him.

  “I am but a traveller,” she told him, now undisturbed. “Riding from elsewhere to elsewhere, and I stopped for warm food and cool wine.”

  “And these men?” Placus asked.

  “You can probably guess their type.”

  “I can,” he told her, and smiled disarmingly. It was a talent he took some pride in. It had served him well as he carefully climbed ranks and earned favours enough to rise to governor. “He called you a Varusian. Was he correct?”

  “I am of the northern tribes, yes,” she replied.

  She gave her wet blade a quick cleaning, by dragging the flat sides along her cheeks, leaving the blood there like macabre face paint. A couple of Placus’s guards seemed taken aback by the display, which had perhaps been the point. There was a perpetually mischievous gleam in the Varusian’s eyes. It made her all the more alluring.

  “Well. Whatever the history of our two peoples, I regret that you travelled so far only to find trouble within my walls.”

  “Trouble? No, no,” she assured him. “This was refreshing.”

  “All the same, let me extend to you a more fitting welcome. I invite you to lodge in my villa tonight. Not only that, but I shall have you tended to by my own slave. Trust me when I say you will enjoy a wonderful massage, followed by a luscious roast.”

  “Indeed?” she replied. “That is quite some offer.”

  “Consider it my apology.”

  She cleaned the blade some more, now on the palm of her hand. Then she smeared the blood on her forehead. Some of it stuck to her hair, and her eyebrows. She looked like some dreadful demon. A beautiful, savage demon from a savage land. A creature of vicious passions.

  Placus wanted those passions for himself.

  “Well…” the barbarian said, and finally sheathed her blade. “I would be a fool to turn down an evening of comforts. I accept your invitation, Governor. And thank you.”

  “You are quite welcome. Oh, and forgive me: I have yet to ask your name.”

  “I shall tell you in the evening,” the Varusian replied.

  It was impertinence Placus would normally not have put up with. But in light of everything, and his plans, he could find amusement in it.

  “Very well. I am Governor Placus Colias. Be welcome to my home. Come.”

  He walked ahead of everyone, and Servius and the two bodyguards followed him. The barbarian woman did as well. Placus glanced to his left and saw a disapproving look on Servius’s face. He knew his master’s plans. They had played out before, after all.

  Well, he could disapprove all he wanted. Placus was master here, and he divided responsibility between many captains, so none dared rise against him. Power was an interesting thing.

  Placus continued on, trailing his guards and the savage woman, through streets whose people feared him. The villa beckoned.

  # # #

  Avidia had been a slave in the capital before being purchased and brought all the way to this dangerous frontier. Her master’s villa reflected its ancient grandeur on a small scale. Every comfort and indulgence one could find in the home of a capital aristocrat was to be had here. It was an oasis of sorts, built first by means streaming from the imperial coffers, and now upkept by strenuously squeezing the surrounding countryside for trade goods.

  The familiarity had brought no comfort to her. Her lot remained poor, and in some ways worse. Still, her task for the evening was bearable, and that was all she could hope for, in the bleak life of a slave.

  The barbarian woman, whose name no one had yet spoken, kept her hands to herself and had yet to utter an unkind word. Perhaps she was simply busy enjoying the marvels of a heated tub for the first time. A cleverly-built furnace in a small room beneath the tub kept the water hot, filling the air with steam and the scent of the oils Avidia had added to it.

  This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  “You are quite good at that,” the barbarian purred as Avidia massaged her shoulders.

  “Thank you,” Avidia said, softly and reflexively. “I have a lot of experience.”

  “Mm. Do you ever enjoy this for yourself?”

  “No, Varusian. My master reserves the tub for himself, and special guests.”

  The barbarian turned her head, just enough for Avidia to see one mischievous eye around that huge mane of hair.

  “I will not tell him, if you wish to join me. There is room for two, if I pull my knees in.”

  There was indeed, and Avidia was tempted. But…

  “He would be able to tell. Or his men would tell him. He is strict about such things.”

  “And many others, I am told.”

  “Please, speak cautiously,” Avidia warned, and started rubbing those little muscles at the base of the woman’s skull. “Please.”

  “We will not be heard,” the barbarian told her. “Not in this weather.”

  The weather was indeed loud. It had begun with an odd suddenness, in defiance of the clear sky that had dominated the daytime. Clouds had gathered, and were still gathering, turning the evening gloom into near-night already. Avidia thought she heard the odd bang of distant thunder, and the wind…

  It could not rattle a house of solid brick and plaster. But it kept hitting the roof and the walls, like a blow. Even protected inside as she was, Avidia always felt uneasy when the weather got this harsh. Some higher power was angry.

  She opted to say nothing. It was often a slave’s safest option. Once it became clear no further replies were coming, the barbarian simply reached up and gave Avidia’s hand a gentle pat.

  “I understand. What do you wish to speak of?”

  “Do… I?” Avidia replied, confused.

  “Yes. Come now, silence bores me.”

  It felt awkward at first. Avidia was unaccustomed to speaking freely with any free person. But at a bit more gentle urging, she found herself chatting away. She stayed away from the topics that brought her so much misery, and mused about stories, food, her youth, news she’d heard from the wider world, and such. The barbarian woman mostly listened, but threw in occasional questions. Sometimes they were about Avidia’s own topics. Sometimes she was curious about the village, or simply the villa. About the layout, the guards, and local customs.

  “I should wash and comb your hair,” Avidia eventually said. “It is too beautiful to leave in such a state. I have… never seen its like before.”

  “My grandfather was a slave from a distant land,” the woman told her. “I inherited the colour through his line.”

  “I see. I-”

  So focused was Avidia on her task, and so loud had the wind gotten, that she noticed nothing at all until suddenly her subject bolted upright with a great splash of scented water.

  A shadow emerged from behind a door curtain, and the light of the lamps shone on a short sword. Avidia shrieked and bolted back, as a man in crude wool clothing and a red sash stabbed at the barbarian woman.

  The Varusian leapt out of the water, sending it all over, and landed on her feet with a wet thud. The attacker struck at her again, and the woman evaded it. In her right hand was a large knife she’d apparently brought into the water with her without Avidia noticing. But it was her left hand that struck back.

  It seized one of the bowls of massage oils and, after another nimble dodge saved her from a stab, she flung it. The salty oils hit him in the face, and his fourth strike was a blind swing at nothing. The woman stepped into his reach before he could swing again, and buried her knife in his shoulder. He screamed and dropped his weapon, which opened him up to a furious flurry of stabs, all into his upper chest, that drove him backwards into a wall. There he slid down to the floor, and the barbarian gripped her knife with both hands and drove it down through his breastbone, right into his heart.

  That did it. And Avidia suddenly remembered how to breathe.

  Three of Placus’s men entered the room at a run, their blades drawn. They stopped at the sight of the grisly scene.

  “And I was so relaxed,” the barbarian said with a sigh, though in truth she did not look troubled. Not by the violence, and not by her nudity.

  She stood up straight and faced the three.

  “I suppose he used the weather as cover to sneak in. Could you men remove him? Avidia was going to tend to my hair. And we had some talking left to do.”

  # # #

  The villa had two dining rooms. The main one was communal, and for when Placus needed to host a large number of guests. The smaller one was for his own use, when he wanted to dine in peace or meet with a more modest number of people. Such as now.

  The two main windows were shuttered against the growing storm, and rattled slightly on their hinges with each blow from the elements. There was a third window, set in the ceiling, and covered by actual glass, but the last of the light had vanished behind the storm clouds. The only illumination came from the four candles that were divided among the table’s corners. It all cast the tapestries in an eerie light, Placus felt: Scenes of famous battles of conquest, and of bloody-handed tales of the gods.

  The storm blasted out the occasional lightning, and in the overall din he did not hear his guest approach until the door was opened. There she stood, flanked by two of his guards and backlit by the nearest lamp sconce.

  The change the barbarian had undergone was an interesting one: Gone was the blood and the dirt of the road, and the stink of battle-sweat. Now she smelled like a garden, and had traded out her goatskins for an elegant tunic she’d been lent, as well as a pair of soft slippers. Her hair had been washed and combed, and tied back with a ribbon, but had dried into another big, poofy mane. It just grew that way, it seemed.

  And there was still that ferocity. The soaps and oils had not washed that away. It was a subtle quality he’d seen in veteran warriors. And now it shone out of beautiful blue eyes, at Placus as he rested up against the far wall.

  The guards closed the door behind her, and they were alone.

  “I must say,” Placus began. “That I was most angry to hear of that incident in the bath room. At that wretch for defying my orders, violating the sanctity of my home, and at my own guards for not catching him.”

  “I dealt him his punishment,” the Varusian told him, as if they were speaking of a puppy who had peed on the floor.

  “Indeed. Though I would have preferred to make a display out of it. That is how I punish such things.”

  “I have heard.”

  She pointed at the table, completely empty save for the four candles.

  “Have your servants not brought the food yet? I was told things were ready.”

  Placus smiled. It was not the mask he’d learned to wear as needed. It was his true grin. A grin of power, and cruelty.

  “You are not here to eat, woman,” he told her, slowly and darkly.

  “I see,” she replied, and put her hands on her hips.

  Her sword belt was gone, of course. She’d had it explained to her that among the Roseti it was a grave insult to attend dinner armed. She did not even have her dining knife.

  Rather than cringe, however, she took a deep breath and craned her neck.

  “That bath did me a world of good. I am as limber as I ever get.”

  “Do not be foolish, barbarian,” he told her, and still did not bother stepping away from the wall. She would come to him, or pay the price. “I saw what you can do with a blade, but you do not have one.”

  “Neither do you.”

  He let out a sharp whistle, and the doors opened again. The two guards now joined them. He’d picked them specially for the evening, for being the sort to witness anything without it troubling them. They stood before the doors, clad in plain tunics and unhelmeted, but with their swords at their hips and mean scowls on their faces.

  “I have two other armed men at the ready,” he said. “Depending on your defiance.”

  Placus came to suspect that this would be a messy affair; that she would claw and fight and kick even if it was hopeless. But he was ready for that.

  Rather than spring into action, however, she focused that fierce gaze on him again.

  “You violate hospitality, Placus of the South.”

  He chuckled.

  “I do. But it was not a god of tenderness and good will that carved out the greatest realm the world has ever seen. It was the vicious spirit of battle. Of taking what one can. The empire may have lost power, but its truths remain. And I am now lord of my own realm. What rules should I heed?”

  “We Varusians have our own god of battle,” she told him. “Gorlok the War Father. The King of Blood. His black wolves devour the wicked, and the battle-slain. And indeed he is the lord of our gods. But we have others. Such as the Storm Lord, whose true name brings calamity. He is a strong god.”

  A flash of lightning shone through the roof window, and the narrow gaps in the shutters, and a deafening boom sounded almost immediately after.

  “It is his wrath that splits the sky and shakes the world.”

  She was silent for a moment, through another cacophony.

  “That floods the rivers and breaks the trees.”

  Once again, whatever force commanded the sky bellowed.

  “He is a vicious god, and it is dangerous to call upon him, even if one knows all the ancient rites and spirits.”

  She again held her tongue and let the thunder speak. It was a lengthy chorus of blasts, and she stepped over to the table and pinched out one of the candles.

  “One must promise an offering, a difficult offering, and one must honour it.”

  She pinched out another candle, and another. Placus tolerated it, though it wasn’t patience that held him back. Something in her easy manner suddenly had him ill at ease.

  By the light of the one remaining candle, and the quick flashes of lightning, she stepped over to one of the larger tapestries. This one showed the battle of Kalt, where an entire army had been trapped against a river and cut down over a period of hours.

  The barbarian stopped there, brushing her fingers lightly along the woven threads, and turned to look at Placus.

  “I promised him your blood, Governor. That is why he gives me cover on this night. And Avidia? Your slave? In exchange for a favour, I promised her that you would suffer.”

  She brought her sword out from behind the tapestry. Then she sprang into action.

  Placus shouted out, but his voice was drowned out by the storm. His two guards had heard and seen her just as well as he had, but their swords were sheathed and the distance was short. With her free hand she knocked over the final candle, and in the last of its light Placus saw her strike one of them down.

  Placus shouted for his other guards again, and this time he hit upon a moment in between thunder strikes. The flashes of lightning through the roof window gave him teasing glimpses of the fight taking place by the door; static images with nothing in between them, like the sequences on his tapestries. Except this was playing out right before him, like some bizarre nightmare.

  During a moment of no lightning but plenty of thunder, he was left both blind and deaf. The next flash showed him a spray of blood on the wall, and the barbarian woman standing alone. The following flash showed her turn to him, her eyes ablaze with that murderous passion he’d witnessed by the tavern, and Placus touched his hips in search of a weapon he knew wasn’t there.

  Then the door was flung open, and the additional guards burst in with their swords drawn. The woman reacted, and as Placus heard a masculine scream in the darkness, he reacted as well.

  He began frantically patting the nearest window shutter. He had never bothered opening or closing them himself, had only the lightning flashes to guide him, and sheer terror made his hands clumsy. Still, through desperate speed, he eventually happened upon a latch and opened the shutter.

  “SERVIUS!” he shouted out into the darkness and the rain, but the storm was far louder than he.

  He hopped out into the garden he spent his mornings in, looking out over his village with a goblet of wine in hand. He had worn his most comfortable slippers for the evening, and found that they were poorly suited to running. In moments they each flew off his feet, and he was left barefoot.

  He shouted again, and again his voice was blocked by the storm. He had to find more of his guards. He had to have that barbarian she-wolf slain. He had to run. But he discovered, to his horror, just how unaccustomed his body was to exertion. And he hadn’t gotten far, not picked a direction to set as a goal, when the woman caught up with him.

  She came in the form of a burst of agony from his calf. His scream was lost to the storm, and he toppled forward onto his face. He looked up, and for a moment, in the cold blast of yet more lightning, he saw the Varusian barbarian. The thin veneer of civilisation coated onto her by Avidia was washed away by a feral grin of battle.

  Placus held his hand out imploringly, and opened his mouth to say he knew not what. She sliced his palm before any words escaped, then as he recoiled from another terrible pain, the woman brought the pommel of her blade down on his head.

  This time the thunder and lightning happened within his own brain, and a second blow had him limp and gurgling on the grass.

  Wasting no time at all, the woman flipped him over, bound his hands with quick efficiency, and then stuffed a rag into his mouth. This she then held in place with a leather thong, tied with brutal tightness at the base of his neck.

  Then she began dragging him by the ankle of his injured leg. The unspeakable pain returned enough awareness to him for screaming into the choking rag that pushed against the back of his throat.

  The journey was short. At the edge of the garden stood a horse, fully saddled and packed for travel. It was clearly frightened of the storm, but Avidia held its reins with one hand and gave it soothing strokes with the other.

  If the two women exchanged words, they were swallowed up by the thunder. The horse was made to sit down, and with some effort the barbarian draped Placus over the saddle. Then she mounted, slid her blade into a sheathe tied to the saddle, and threw Avidia a coin-bag.

  “There!” the blond barbarian shouted. “Enough for manumission, I think!”

  For an instant, Placus’s eyes met Avidia’s, and saw the triumphant hatred there. Then the barbarian kicked her horse’s flanks, and sent it off, towards the gate.

  # # #

  The ride was an awful, seemingly endless gauntlet of different pains. The rain was cold, his wrists ached from their bonds, he could barely breathe through the gag, his sliced calf and palm never ceased to torment him, his position on the horse compressed and battered his lungs, and whenever he did try to move or shout out, the barbarian would give him another hard blow.

  He could not count time or distance, and thought he might have lost consciousness a few times. When finally there was change, when the blows stopped and he was released from the horse, he noticed the din of a river. He could think of two within ready riding distance, but the knowledge did him little good. If a chase had been started at all, his men had nothing to direct them. He was alone with her.

  He was then dragged into the river. It was shallow; perhaps a little above her knees, but growing more violent than it usually was, in this torrential storm. He had no strength at all left in him, and could only play the part of a sack, as the woman placed him on a rock that stood out of the riverbed. It left him half out of the water, at an angle.

  “It is rare to make offerings to the Storm Lord, but when it happens, it is done in the rivers he bloats with his rains.”

  She stood up straight, looming over him like a spectre of death itself. Her mane was soaked, making her seem even more like some beast of the mysterious wilderness.

  “Governor Placus Colias. You have given many evil orders, and one of them led directly to the torment and death of a friend of mine. I sought you out to settle the score.”

  She had tied the sword belt back around herself, and now drew from it a long, wicked fighting dagger.

  “I said I would give you my name in the evening. I am a daughter of the deep forests, of its darkness and its witches. Manhunter, ogre-slayer, duellist, a legend among my people before I saw twenty winters. Subject of song, lust, and fear. I am Heva the Golden, and I honour my promises, be they to a slave or to a god. Or both.”

  She slipped the knife under the thong in his mouth, and cut it apart. A flash of lightning bathed her in cold light, and Placus stared into a terrible grin on a pretty face.

  “You can scream now. As loudly as you want.”