Ash. The Legends of the Nameless World. Progression Gamelit Story, Kirill Klevanski [great reads .TXT] 📗

by her hair. She was screaming and kicking, scratching his hand with her nails but couldn’t break free. Ash still didn’t understand what was it about women that made his men lose themselves. What was so good about them?

“Wake me up when you’re done,” he said and closed his eyes.

Screams, groans, the clanging of steel, the crackling of the fire... these sounds had been his lullaby for quite some time now.

***

“General!” someone shouted.

Startled, Ash opened his eyes and jumped to his feet. Rays of new dawn were breaking through the thick layer of snowflakes. His men had gathered around him, Racker at their head.

Ash yawned and stretched, looking around. Corpses lay strewn everywhere; blackened ruins of the houses and crimson rivers tarnished the whiteness of the snow. The assault was finally over. They had won.

A muffled cry came from somewhere behind him. Turning around, Ash froze, perplexed. Surrounded by soldiers was a group of about thirty tied-up women. They were all beaten and bruised, bloodied clothes tattered, and hair ripped out of carefully tied buns and braids. It was an ugly sight.

“What’s going on there?” he asked, pointing at the group with his staff.

“Loot.” Racker smiled a predatory grin. “If we get bored with them, we’ll kill them.”

“We’re running out of food, Racker...”

“We lost a lot of people, almost three hundred...”

“You know a lot of Words, how about you learn what ‘economy’ means, hm?”

“Ah, but general,” Racker replied with a smile and winked. “We thought of you, too, don’t you worry.”

Racker whistled sharply. The soldiers parted and someone pushed forth a young woman. Her clothes were intact and relatively clean. She seemed all right, save for her bruised lip. No older than fifteen, she radiated youthful beauty. Her pale skin was slightly red from the frost, and her eyes, framed by lush hair, glared at him.

“We’ve saved the best for you!” someone laughed. Others joined him, nudging each other, and cracking jokes. The girl tried to break free from her bonds but to no avail. Hatred in her glare only grew.

“Racker,” Ash whispered.

“What?” he asked, beckoning the solider to bring the girl closer. “If you don’t like her, you can pick any other. But that’d be rude to the boys. They wanted to touch your gift so badly, but they restrained themselves because they respect you.”

Ash looked at him.

“Come on! Everyone knows that the prettiest woman goes to the leader.”

“That’s not the problem!” Ash hissed. “What am I supposed to do? Kill her on my own?”

Racker choked. If he could’ve rolled his eyes any further back, he was sure that he would’ve been able to see into his own skull.

“What do you mean you don’t know what to do? Use her!”

“Use... her?”

“Well, yes... Use her,” he whispered, wiggling his eyebrows and shaking his hips.

Ash looked at him in confusion. He had seen those motions before, but he had no clue what Racker was on about.

“Rape her,” he whispered at last.

“...so, kill her?” Ash said, lifting his staff, but Racker stopped him.

“Were you hit on the head as a child?”

“Not that I know.”

Racker was silent for a moment.

“Have you ever been with a woman?” he finally asked.

“I’ve talked to them before, yes.”

“Did you ever sleep with a woman?”

“Sleep? In the same bed?”

“Yes?”

“Why would’ve I done that?”

Racker stepped back and covered his face with his hands, trying to contain his laughter. Ash scratched the top of his head, not understanding what was being asked of him.

“Seems to me that they taught you to shit in the palace,” Racker muttered. “Time for a new lesson, general. One about how to become a real man.”

“Is this really necessary? I’m tired.” Ash didn’t like learning. Never did and never would.

Racker gave him a stern look.

“All right, all right... What should I do?”

The girl hissed, threatening to bite off something if he so much as dared undo his belt buckle. The full threat was, luckily for Ash, drowned in the laughter of the soldiers.

“You use what only a man has got on her,” Racker said, barely able to contain his laughter.

“Scum!” Ash shouted, realizing what was going on. “Who has got the most tongues?!”

Five minutes later, seven men were standing in front of him. Each had five bloodied tongues attached to their straps. Ash wagered that there were about the maximum one could get; there was three and a half thousand of them against a handful of villagers after all.

“The woman is all yours,” he said.

The men looked at each other and smiled, licking their lips.

“But if you’re not back in time for the departure, I won’t hesitate to blow your heads off!”

“Yes, sir!”

“No! No!” the girl screamed. “Please! Please, don’t!”

But her pleas fell on deaf ears.

Grabbing her by the arms, the soldiers dragged her to one of the few houses that remained standing. The silence that fell was soon disturbed by her cries and screams. Ash looked at the sky, wondering just what was it that Racker wanted to teach him.

But he’d leave that for later. Right now, he had to focus on the next step of his plan.

“Scum! Our enemies litter the ground! Take their heads and place them on our banners! Let everyone know that we’re a force to be reckoned with!”

Even the flags of the Legion were made of wood and rags. They truly had nothing other than that what nature had given them.

Turning his gaze toward the sky, Ash ignored the sounds of bodies being decapitated, Racker cracking jokes, women screaming, and his men laughing.

Snowflakes danced in the air, whirling around his head and hands.

Ash had always admired the snowfall.

The young man liked everything that was beautiful.

Chapter  23