Blood-Feud

Chapter IV - Part 2

The two soldiers most recently stationed at Fort William of Penn's badly aged and worn military prison barracks with the particular odious misfortune to have been posted over night as watch had come to have openly disliked with less than furtive passion what little protection that their poorly maintained but well within regulation security hut had failed ever so eloquently to have allowed them in consideration against such bitter weather that lurked in wait to assault them at most every turn just outside the paper thin walls that did as little as they could to otherwise have protected them accordingly.

What sparse traffic that their gate actually received only further served to have irritated them along with the ever calculated and unflinching glare of the lone woman who patiently leaned back in wait against a large rear wheel of a rather high class private coach opposite them on the far side of the entry road to the prison.

Dark golden blond hair tightly woven in strict age-old Norse fashion lay in even measured streaks of light and dark along her scalp with delicate braids that rested just over the front of either shoulder covered as much of her upper body was with a long black cloak tied neat which matched the rest of her dark outfit, yet further completed by lips painted pitch black of night to match riding boots crossed at the ankle in wait while her intensely crisp arctic blue eyes studied them from afar while they considered one another which had become far too unsettling to have endured in addition to everything else of the matter at hand.

Clearly this particular woman appeared far more trained as security wench of some sort or soldier much like themselves given that even her driver had remained still and alert upon his perch above while he studiously kept their paired horses calm and in proper check.

The lone gentrified and well dressed passenger of the coach who had been the only one to have disembarked and approach the fort on foot passed back through with a dismissive wave while the woman herself pointedly ignored him as he neared the coach and spoke to her before having moved around to the other side and out of sight not long before she pushed off to follow in short order as well.

Had this been her choice and her choice alone, Nichoelia Niku Danubi Radu would have taken great care to have slain the two men who had relentlessly continued to pay far too much attention for her liking if only to have removed any chance of eye witnesses, however she had been overruled and denied what she had considered to have been a rather singular and yet intricate part of such a venture as this.

Just high enough in the frigid night air to have remained out of sight in the darkness Baku the owl circled to provide early warning if anyone were to have approached from most any direction.

Given that this entire area was an official base of the army, she had prepared for most any intrusion that might have come up to have been dealt with where and as needed.

Shared thoughts of the men in the booth as prey while her pet silently flowed over and around the gate forced Niku to have applied her will to ignore them and move on to continue a much larger and extended orbit.

Owls like most birds of prey did not have to deal with emotion and her charge changed course without argument or displeasure offered as her often more human employees might have otherwise done in Baku's place.

Their link, not unlike those of her other pets had never been verbal but rather more of a shared rudimentary thought stream with a far more intricate and blended sensual understanding between their minds as if they were together as one being when Niku found it most useful.

What one saw the other would sense as well or willingly share in passing to be further analyzed or studied as necessary to determine whether the target was friend, foe or prey.