Tales of Thuria 1: Red Sonja in Chains - Chapter 6 - Part 1

Chapter 6: Vengeance Obtained

Sonja limped toward the creek that ran by the pirate's camp. Just before it reached the beach it plunged down a steep cliff and into deep pool. It was used by everyone in the camp as a place to bathe; or at least by those who chose to bathe. A number of the pirates avoided water as if it was the deadliest of poisons as it had been her misfortune to learn.

Last night she had been the reluctant guest of several of the unwashed and now it was early morning, pre-dawn in fact, but there was enough light for her to find her way to the pool. She couldn't move very quickly as she was still shackled hand and foot. The chains allowed her to move her arms enough to feed herself, but wielding a weapon was out of the question. She could, however, walk well enough to make her way to the pool; a daily ritual to wash off the stink and filth of the men she had been forced to serve that night.

This was the fourth day of her life as camp whore, a position she shared with several other women including Ambria and Vanda. Fortunately, if fortunate was the word for being raped by up to five men each night, the pirates had taken to gambling to determine who received her favours otherwise it might have been much worse. Last night she had entertained three, an ordeal that was bad enough considering that two of the men had taken her twice and the other three times. She had fought of course, even though she knew it would simply lead to a few more bruises and the fact that the men assaulting her clearly enjoyed the struggle. She wasn't certain how long she could keep on resisting. Sooner or later she feared she would be worn down and simply allow the pirates to have their way. When that happened she would be little more than any other whore.

She reached the pool and lowered herself into its merciful coolness. She was alone and would be for most of the day. It was at night that her services were required and due to the fact that the pirates were working on building a new ship they were too busy to bother with her during the day and she was allowed to rest up. As Juruk put it after their first session, "Rest up ye redheaded whore. I'll need ye on yer back again tonight, and the night after that, and the night after that, until yer so used to being on yer back and knees that it comes natural."

This can't continue, she thought. I'll kill myself before I let it continue. I've got to get away.

But how? She certainly couldn't run given the amount of iron she was carrying. And the smithy was fully occupied during the day now that the pirates were forging materials for the ship so she couldn't remove the shackles. She couldn't hide in the forest; she'd starve to death; and if she headed to the south end of the island she'd run into the tribe of savages who had sold her to the pirates for a handful of iron.

A handful of iron. Mitra! Why didn't I think of that?

It was more than a desperate gamble, but it was all that she had. Without waiting to properly finish her bath she headed toward the village of the savages.

The sun rose before she was a quarter way there, but by then she had left the beach and was into the forest. It was hard going with the weight of chain she wore and she was still painfully sore from what the pirates had done to her the previous three nights. She also kept on tripping whenever the ankle chain snagged on a root or stone, but she kept on moving closer and closer to where the savages had captured her until she reached the exact spot. This time there was no one to throw a net over her, but she knew the way. She moved steadily down the path toward the village wondering how long it would take the savages to hear the clanking of her chains,

She got her answer within a hundred heartbeats. One moment she was alone, the next she was inside a circle of a dozen spearpoints. This time, however, Sonja made no attempt to escape; not that it would have mattered much considering the weight of chain that she was carrying and the fact that she was weaponless. Instead she faced her captors squarely and held up her chained wrists. It was probably an unnecessary action; the savages could not fail to see that she carried an amazing amount of the metal they coveted, but it seemed to convey the message that she wanted. They seized her by the arms and marched her toward the village, but she noted that she was not dragged roughly and she was allowed to take as long a step as she could manage.

Her arrival at the village was greeted as before. The women and children surged forward with torment on their minds, but this time she did not flinch. Instead she raised her arms again and shouted the magic word: "Iron, iron."

Her meaning could not have been clearer and to her relief she was escorted to the village's equivalent of a smithy. The savages still might eat her, but they intended to remove the chains first. It gave her the opportunity she needed. While the village smithy used a stone hammer and wooden wedge to open her shackles she did her best to communicate with the savages, pointing continually toward the pirate's lair and repeating the word iron over and over again.

The removal of her shackles took some time was not without some pain and a little blood. The crude tools the savage smith used to open the irons drove the manacles and leg irons into her flesh, but she endured stoically all the while continuing her attempts to communicate. When the last shackle fell away one of the savages, a man who had said nothing but only watched intently while her chains were removed, stepped forward. He was wearing an impressive headdress of bird feathers and as well as several elaborate necklaces made of beads and shells. "More iron," he said. "You get us more iron."

"I'll get you all the iron you want," Sonja answered moving her arms in a wide sweeping motion. "Much, much iron."

The savage headman, for that is what he seemed to be, nodded and then moved away. In short order he was engaged in animated discussion with several other savages. The conversation went on for quite some time and then he returned. "More iron, how get?" he asked.

That was a question Sonja had an easy answer for. Before the savage standing next to her could react she seized his spear turned in the direction of the pirate camp and gestured with the point aggressively. "We take," she shouted. "We take more iron."

The headman looked toward her and grinned, revealing a mouthful of filed teeth. "We take," he said. "We take."

Juruk looked down from his hilltop position overlooking the harbour. Work on the new ship was progressing as well as might be expected considering the work ethic of the pirate crew. Still there was not a man who wanted to remain on the island forever and their supply of drink was getting low. When that ran out there would be real dissatisfaction. The ship they were building wouldn't be up to much, none of the pirates had the know-how to build a proper ship, but with any luck they'd have a ship big enough to venture out onto the Vilayet and with a little more luck they might find an unsuspecting merchant vessel that would better serve as a replacement for the ship that redheaded bitch had burned.

Speaking of the redheaded whore, he hadn't seen her today, but that was not particularly surprising considering the way the crew was working her over each night. It usually left her so exhausted that she spent most of the day sleeping, which was fine by him. He didn't want her too tired to perform and she was the most desirable of the women on the island. He turned toward the courtyard of the ruined palace with the intention of telling one of the women working there to check on her when a movement farther down the beach caught his eye. "What the name of Mitra...? Heading down the beach was horde of savages and if he could believe his eyes the redheaded bitch was leading them.

"Alarm," he shouted. "Alarm! We're under attack." Then he headed down the hill as fast as he could.

Sonja trotted swiftly along the beach. Behind her the warriors of the Latuma, as she had learned the savages were called, followed in a disorganized mob. Given time she might had instilled some sort of order and discipline into them, but she was more concerned with getting her savage allies to the pirates' camp before they changed their mind and decided to make her part of the daily meal.

She was a bit better equipped now. She was armed with a stone spear and had acquired a kilt to wear about her loins. She was till nude from the waist up, but so were all of the warriors she was leading, a number of which were women.

The warriors behind her were probably the least disciplined she had ever led, but they had the strength of numbers on their side, and she hoped, the element of surprise. That hope was immediately dashed, however, by shouts from the pirate camp. That was followed by the appearance of a number or pirates in the opening of the broken palace wall. That hardly mattered to Sonja. Instead of stopping she broke into full run, hoping to hit the defenders before they had a chance to properly prepare. It was a bold plan and one that might have worked if she had suddenly not found herself running alone.

Still moving toward the gap in the wall she flashed a glance back over her shoulder and was startled to see that the savage warriors had come to a complete halt. It took her a moment to figure out why and then realized that they were in the motion of throwing their spears. It would probably have been a brilliant tactic had the warriors been equipped with more than one spear. But for the moment they were weaponless.

"Idiots," Sonja muttered. But one good thing had come from the Latuma's salvo. The shower of spears cleared the break in the wall of pirates, leaving any of them unlucky to be in the way either dead or wounded. Sonja vaulted into the gap using her spear to kill two pirates who moved to meet her. She took out the first by using her shaft to knock aside the blade of his sword and then thrust the stone tip of her spear into his throat. Almost in the same motion she wrenched her weapon free, drove the butt of the shaft into the chest of another and then quickly reversed her crude weapon to skewer him. She didn't bother to retrieve her spear from his chest instead she picked up his sword and dagger and charged toward another group of pirates who were rushing to the defence of their stronghold.

"The redheaded cunt, cut her down," one of them yelled. They were the last words he uttered as Sonja took off his head with a swipe of her sword, killed another with a knife thrust to the heart, spun away from a blow that would have gutted her, kicked the attacker in the stomach and cut off the hand of still a fourth attacker.

All of this mayhem would have amounted to nothing given the arrival of several more pirates, had not the Latuma flooded into the compound. A number of them were carrying wooden clubs, but they dropped these as they gleefully pounced on the weapons of the fallen pirates. The other retrieved their spears and charged into the fray behind Sonja.

The battle deteriorated into bloody hand-to-hand combat, a martial style with which she was more than familiar. The pirates too excelled at this form of combat and they were fighting for their lives, a factor that gave them extra incentive. But they were outnumbered more than two to one and the Latuma had Red Sonja on their side. One by one each of the pirate defenders fell until only a handful remained. And then the last of them broke, fleeing the ruined palace and heading for the forest and the beach.

The triumphant Latuma swarmed into the pirates' lair intent on taking everything of value. And now another problem arose, because part of what they considered rightful plunder were the women and children the pirates had abandoned. A few of these had fled as well, but many of the others had sought refuge on the upper floors of the ruined palace, trapping themselves.

It didn't take long for the Latuma to find them. Their screams and shouts as the savage warriors burst into the room sounded throughout the entire palace. Sonja took the stairs to the upper floor three steps at a time and arrived just in time to find three warriors dragging Ambria and Vanda along with another girl out of the room. What there intentions were Sonja had no idea. Probably they simply wanted them as ingredients in a victory feast, but whatever their motive she had no intention of allowing any of the pirates' women or children to suffer a worse fate than the ordeal already they'd already endured as part of the pirates' brothel.

"No," she shouted, brandishing her sword and stepping between the Latuma warrior who was attempting to force Ambria to go with him. When he attempted to push past her he suddenly found her sword at his throat. "No," she repeated moving her sword to the other warriors. A few days ago the Latuma warriors might have defied her, but now there was not one of them who had not witnessed her in battle. They stepped away from their captives and went off in search of safer booty.

If Sonja expected gratitude from those she had rescued, however, she was disappointed. "What are we to do?" Ambra whined. "You have destroyed everything."

"Perhaps I should have let the Latuma have you," Sonja retorted. "I have no time for this. Stay here and I will make sure no one else comes for you."

It took her some time to convince the Latuma that they could not include any of the women or children as part of their loot. If it had not been for the fear she now instilled in the Latuma and the fact that most of them were more intent on looting the camp for beads, metals, cloth and anything else they could get their hands on the women and children would certainly not have been spared. That, and the fact that despite their victory, over half the Latuma had been killed or wounded. Finally, loaded down with all that they could carry they returned to their village. They would almost certainly return, but for now the survivors of the attack were safe.

There was one disappointment in her victory. Juruk's body was not among the slain, which meant that he was hiding somewhere in the thick forest and jungle surrounding the ruined palace. There was a possibility he might return along with a few of the other pirates who had fled and as she could not trust any of the women or children whose lives she had saved she looked for a secure location in the ruined palace where she could spend the night.

She found it in a small room behind the throne room. What its original purpose was she had no idea, as it was empty except for a few wooden crates stacked against the wall. Its walls were decorated with scenes from some ancient culture, possibly Turanian, but most importantly it had a heavy door that could be secured by means of an iron bolt that fortunately the Latumas had not had the tools to remove. She dragged a straw pallet into the room, set a partially shuttered lantern on the floor, closed and bolted the door, and was quickly asleep.

Continued in Chapter 6 - Part 2