Chapter 2

Murderer

 

“Woah now sweet thing. It’s not nice to leave town without saying goodbye.”

The man on horseback blocked the road ahead of Lynn. She heard the hooves of two more horses catching up behind her. They stopped at a respectful distance but the horse in front of Lynn was so close to her that its nose was almost touching her hood. She could feel its breath through the cloth.

The man on horseback swung his mount around and had it rear up in front of her. The horse whinnied and snorted. Lynn took a step back. Inside she was terrified but she knew that it was too late to run. She knew that she had to stand her ground. So there she stood, shaking underneath her long robe. The young man made his horse rear up again, this time even closer to Lynn. Again she took only a single step back. She wouldn’t run and the young man was getting more and more frustrated.

“You’re gonna say goodbye to me and my friends nice and proper.”

So this was it. Lynn knew what was about to happen. She was going to get beaten and raped and robbed. She’d always felt that it was going to happen sometime. A pretty young woman traveling down the road all alone was bound to attract the wrong kind of attention. That was one of the reasons why she dressed how she did and up to now it had worked. But these men knew who she was. They must have come from the town that she had just left.

Lynn knew that she could handle being beaten. Wounds healed. She knew that she could handle being raped. It would mean nothing to her. She knew that she could handle being robbed. She didn’t have much and could always earn more money in the next town. But she feared what they would do to her after they had done all that. She’d heard stories about women who’d been tortured to death, or sold into slavery, or had even worse things happen to them. She knew that she couldn’t let them do what they wanted to do to her.

The two men behind her dismounted and walked towards her, stopping a few feet away. The young man on the horse let out a cry of excitement and laughed.

“Show me that pretty face you whore.”

Lynn’s hands were trembling as she reached up under her hood and pulled off her blindfold. Then she slowly pulled the hood back. She kept her eyes down but she lifted her head so that he could see her face. The young man let out another cry and spun his horse around in a circle.

“Now show me the rest!”

The warmth was draining out of Lynn’s hands and feet as she did what she was told. She felt sick inside. She reached down and untied the rope around her waist. Then she pulled each arm out of the sleeves but kept her robe on over her shoulders. She brought one hand up and pushed the robe off one shoulder while the other hand reached for her katana still hidden underneath.

The voice in Lynn’s head spoke up, venomously, “You screwed up and now you’re going to kill them for your mistake!”

“No. I didn’t screw up”, she told herself. “No. I’m not going to kill them.”

Lynn tried to convince herself that none of this was her fault but doubts were growing in her mind. Everything had gone so well in the town that she had just left. At least at first they did. For three days she sang and danced for everyone at the local tavern. Those were three wonderful days. Everyone laughed and cried and sang along, and she had danced with some of them too. She had felt as free as she had ever been, and her worries had faded far away. Each day more and more people had gathered to hear her sing, some of them from miles away. It was like a festival, and the days and nights were filled with joy. Lynn never wanted it to end.

But things started to go wrong on the fourth day. The awful feelings had started that morning and they got worse all day long. She spent most of the day hiding in her room but the feelings just wouldn’t go away. Finally evening came and she had to face the crowd. She wore her angelic white gown once again, but she thought about wearing her red dress. That was the one that she wore when she wanted special attention, from one lover, or from many. She even thought about giving herself to the whole town. She imagined them embracing her as one of their own, loving her with all of their hearts, and celebrating every day with joy and music. But she knew that it wouldn’t work out that way. Something would go wrong. It always did.

She put on another show that night. She sang more of her sad songs than before and instead of ending with one of her upbeat sing-alongs she ended with one about a tragic love affair. There was a young man in the audience that her heart had gone out to. He was quiet and timid and got picked on a lot. She usually fell for men like that. He couldn’t take his eyes off of her and she couldn’t resist looking at him. When their eyes met she knew that she had to have him. The awful feelings inside her were getting worse and she knew that they wouldn’t go away until she had felt his touch. Lynn walked through the crowd singing that final song finally ending up in front of him. She sang the last line to him with her face inches from his. Then she whispered an invitation into his ear and retired to her room. In time he worked up the courage to knock on her door and he was rewarded for his bravery. That night he and Lynn made love with passion and desire. But she hadn’t been discrete enough,  the people in the town found out the next day. And they didn’t approve of what she had done.

The next night the crowd that gathered wasn’t even half the size of the crowd the first day, and Lynn’s young lover was nowhere to be seen. She tried to earn the crowd’s affection again but it was no use. The magic was gone. And at the end of her show the innkeeper suggested that she leave the next morning. She did, heartbroken.

“C’mon you skanky whore! Take it off! Take it all off!”, the young man on horseback was getting more and more excited by the moment.

Lynn hesitated. She knew that she should have hid when she heard them coming. She hadn’t and now there was no way out. She thought that maybe she could talk them into not killing her when they were done raping and robbing her. That would be fine with her. She didn’t want to have to fight them. She’d never fought anyone for real. Until now it had all been sparring. She knew that she was good enough to defend herself. But she didn’t know if she could beat three men. And she didn’t want to have to kill any of them. Just thinking about that made her queasy.

“Do it! Do it or I’ll feed you to my horse!”, the young man was becoming angry.

Lynn stopped moving. Her hand grasped her sword. She felt different now. She was relaxed and confident. Her fear was gone. She stopped shaking. Now she felt the urge to draw her sword feel its weight. She wanted to hear it whistle as she swung it through the air.

“It will be just like sparring”, she thought to herself, “Just like sparring with the men the school.”

“Oh, so you’d let David fuck you, the biggest nothing in town. But you aren’t going to let us fuck you, is that it?!”, the young man’s jealousy was bursting out of him, “Well, we’re going to fuck you and fuck you and fuck you like you’ve never been fucked before you fucking whore!”

Lynn dropped her head and listened closely to what was going on behind her. If she heard one of the men take one more step she knew that she would have to act.

“I’m even going to make my horse fuck you. I’d bet that you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”, the young man was starting to get angry. “Grab that bitch and rip her fucking clothes off!”

Lynn heard one of the men take that fateful step. She pushed her robe off of her other shoulder and let it fall to the ground. Then in one motion she turned around, drew her sword, and swung it at the man’s neck.

At first Lynn didn’t know what had happened. She thought that she’d missed him. She was used to her swings striking something solid, like another sword or a tree or something. But this time it just kept going. She lost her balance, but she quickly recovered and shifted into her fighting stance, facing the other man who had been behind her. But he wasn’t a man, he was just a boy, and no more than 13 years old. The boy opened his mouth as if to say something or scream but nothing came out. He took a look a Lynn, poised and ready to strike with the body of his uncle lying at her feet. His fear overwhelmed him and he nearly tripped as he backed away.

“Fuck! Fuck!”, the young man on the horse exclaimed in shock.

Lynn had her back to him but she heard him dismount. Then she heard the sound of a sword being drawn. She turned away from the boy and turned to face the young man.

“You killed my best friend you fucking cunt! I’m going to make you wish that you’d never been born!”

Lynn watched his sword as he waved it in the air. She held hers firmly in front of her. Each move that he made she countered, just like she had in all her months of training.

The young man charged at her and swung his sword. Lynn parried it and struck back. The young man parried her sword and swung again. Back and forth they went, their blades clanging off of one another. Then Lynn saw that the young man had left his middle open. She stuck her foot in it.

“Oww!”, he hollered as Lynn’s kick knocked him backward.

Lynn hoped that he would stop fighting, but he just got more angry. He pointed at the boy.

“Hey you fucking coward! Get over here and help me kill this fucking bitch!”

Lynn listened closely. She didn’t know if she could fight them both at once. And she didn’t know if she could bring herself to hurting that poor little boy. She breathed a sigh of relief as she heard the boy climb onto his horse and ride away.

“Fuck you! Fuck you, you fuck!”, the young man loved to yell his favorite word. “I don’t need you, I can take this bitch all by myself.”

With renewed strength the young man attacked Lynn again. The force of his swings were stronger and Lynn had to fight hard to parry them. Their swords clanged over and over. The young man knocked Lynn off balance and pressed his attack, but he made the same mistake as before. He left his middle open. This time Lynn put her sword in it.

The young man stopped in his tracks. He dropped his sword and grabbed hers, trying to pull it out of him. Lynn wouldn’t budge, she was too startled by what she was seeing. The blood was oozing out of his wound and the pained expression on the young man’s face was agonizing to look at. He slid backwards off of Lynn’s blade and collapsed to the ground holding his stomach. He writhed on the ground, grunting, groaning, and cursing.

Lynn stared at him. She was overcome with the desire to help him but she knew that the wound was too deep. He was going to die, and he was going to die slowly and painfully. Lynn began to go into shock as she realized what she had done. The reality of it was setting in. She had taken someone’s life. She had stolen from him what he held most dear. No more would he laugh or love or ride his horse as fast as he could. That was all going away. Soon he would be no more. Just a body in a grave at the foot of a grieving family. She looked back at the other man. His head lay in the middle of the road, his face frozen in an expression of horror. She had done this. She had ruined these two men’s lives, and all because she had feared for hers. She felt ashamed. She wished that she could take back what she had done. If only she had just let them rape her and rob her everything would have been ok. Now she’d done the worst thing that a person could ever do. She had committed murder.

She looked down at the blood on her sword. It sickened her. She couldn’t stand the sight of it. Quickly she opened up her backpack and pulled out a handkerchief. She wiped all the blood off of her sword and put it back in its sheath. Then she turned back to the young man, still writhing in pain. He turned to look at her but she quickly looked away. She had to leave. She had to run. She had to hide.

Lynn pulled on her robe and ran into a field. She ran and ran until she couldn’t run any longer and then she spent the night hiding in a grove of trees. For days she lived like a hunted animal, afraid that the people of the town would chase her down and hang her or burn her. But Lynn was good at hiding and the ones who looked for her never found any trace of her.

But although she could hide from the townspeople, Lynn couldn’t hide from everything. She couldn’t hide from the horrid visions, the looks of shock and horror on the two men’s faces, and the sight of blood on her sword. She couldn’t hide from the awful memories, the screams of pain and suffering, and the awful smell of death. And she couldn’t hide from the voice, that hateful voice, that now called her a murderer.