GENESIS - THE BEGINNING. Book 1

CHAPTER 10 ... The Month Of Reckoning ... Katya Berotivich ... PLanet Chicago

She sat with head bowed, arms resting on uplifted knees. She breathed in huge droughts of air. She was filthy and covered in muck and grime. Sweat carved runnels down her face, chest and back. Black, shoulder length hair lay in filth encrusted lifeless locks.

Her attire was wet with her sweat and blood. Her opponent's sword cut has nicked and sliced her from neck to thighs. He had played with her the bastard. Too captivated with the novel idea of standing up against a skimpy leather clad woman. Leather clad was hardly the correct term to apply in this case for the woman wore only a short soft buckskin skirt, which hardly succeeded in covering her under-clothes. The skirt did not leave much to the imagination. That and the insufficient leather halter that kept her small, yet firm breasts from impeding her sword strokes, was the third part of her so called clothing. Being poor had its ups and downs. Mostly down.

There had not been enough credits to buy clothing suitable for the Month of Reckoning. Everything she had that was worth a credit had gone into purchasing her three swords and longbow. Hunger notwithstanding, it was the best buy she had ever made. Their superiority was unmatched according to the man who had sold her the blades. So far he had been right. There was the short sword, thirty odd centimeters. The medium sword, double the short sword's length paired with a smaller blade tied around her hips. The long sword was three times the length of the medium sword and she carried it across her back. It was her 'field sword'. An effective killing weapon.

These weapons were designed more for cutting than for stabbing, and had a deep, graceful curve to the blade. The swords, especially the two longer ones, were used for fighting horseback.

From Katya's point of view, anybody fighting horseback didn't know a horse's ass about sword fighting. Just what the hell a horse was in the first place, was up for discussion. Nobody had ever seen one.

She lay in the dirt and rested. Sweat burnt her eyes. She squeezed them tight. Tears washed away the burn and sweat, and eventually slipped passed the corners of her tightly shut eyelids. Drowsiness descended and she slept.

***

Should Katya have been awake and in full possession of her wits, her instincts would have alerted her to the approaching wind that rustled the leaves. She would have been concerned had she seen that the wind's path was slightly wider than two feet. She would really have been alarmed had she seen and felt the wind die down as it reached her to become a gentle breeze that played over her body until it too, died down to nothing.

What she did not know, would not hurt her. The wind was inquisitive. It entered her twenty three year old body as easy as the air she drew into her lungs. It was easier. It went deeper into her body. Studied it. Noted the exhaustion. The blood loss. It was careful, so it only infused the system with life-giving oxygen and stopped the leaking blood.

It regenerated torn and weary muscles. It healed a cut close to the jugular. It healed the deep wound to her left bicep. It healed the sign of flu she had developed during the last few days. It found many old wounds with much damage and scar tissue in her reproductive organs and for some unknown rationale it knew that to repair this damage would be detrimental. It was fascinated. Why? It did not know. There was much it did not know, yet it was learning, in leaps and bounds knowledge came.

It entered her brain and in moments knew her thoughts, her hurt, pain, loves and hates. Her suffering and dreams of the future, her pride and her faults. Her strengths and her weaknesses. Her drive for vengeance. It gleaned every article of knowledge that her body and essence could supply. It changed a strand of her DNA, first one and then in moments billions more, all in a matter of seconds. When its task was complete, Vigrior withdrew, and, with a rustle of wind, faded away.