Bodyguard Chapter 3 (Patreon)

Ana’s consciousness flickered. One moment she was watching the bastard who’d ambushed them drop to the ground, then next she was lying on something soft and warm. She hurt. Her face, her wrist, her side… Oh god, her side was on fire. With a hiss she carefully got up on one elbow – that worked. So far, so good –  and looked down, but she couldn’t see anything obviously wrong there. Must have taken a blow that she didn’t notice. Sloppy.

But they were both alive, and likely to stay that way. And that 'Danger Sense' was really something! She hadn't heard a thing as their assailant approached, but as soon as he got close she'd just known that he was there, and that she had to get Nicola out of the way. She could have used something like that ten or fifteen years ago, she thought bitterly.

Nicola was sitting not two yards away, rummaging through a pack that she didn’t recognise. Oh, yeah. Right. It had belonged to the guy, the ‘ranger.’ Nicola must have gotten her off the road, put her down here to rest. He’d washed the blood off her hands, too, she noticed. All in all she was surprised. A little bit impressed, even. He’d handled the aftermath of the situation much better than she’d feared.

Nicola looked up when she hissed in pain and scampered over. She couldn’t describe it any other way, with how he kind of walked on all fours, and in her pain-addled state it actually made her smile a little.

“Ana! Oh, thank God,” he said as he knelt by her.

“How long?” she asked.

“Five minutes, maybe,” he said. “I was so worried. I couldn’t see what was wrong, except…” he gestured to her face bashfully. “But you’d… protest when I touched your side. I don’t think you got cut, though.”

She looked down again. No obvious damage to the robe, or the dress, so he was probably right. Besides all the blood, but the blood wasn’t hers. “You should have checked,” she said.

“I couldn't! You’ve only got your dress on!” Nicola protested.

“You’ve seen me in a bikini, Nicola.”

“I suppose, yeah, but… I’d have to take your dress off. It’s different, isn’t it?”

Ana pushed down her annoyance and tried to put some softness into her voice. “Nicola. Thank you for getting me off the road, and for worrying about me. If I get hurt, and you need to check for injuries, you are allowed to undress me as much as is necessary. In fact, I ask that you please do. Alright?”

“Alright,” he said, unable to meet her eyes.

“Now help me pull my dress down. I need to see how bad it is.” She saw his face turn crimson. “I have a bra on. You won’t see anything new.”

As they painfully peeled her dress down to her waist, Ana could see a large bruise forming along her side. It was mostly centred around her short ribs, but she had a long, thin, and almost black line running down the side of her ribcage, with more bruising spreading out along it. To her complete lack of surprise, Nic had a long cut in his jacket and shirt in the same area. That figured. It was one of the other abilities she'd gotten.

“Did you get hurt?” Ana asked him.

“I thought I did,” he said, not looking at her. That annoyed her. Skin was skin, and he hadn’t minded when they were on the beach or by the pool. “But I guess I got lucky,” he continued. “I mean, it hurt a bit, but it only cut my clothes. Didn’t get through the skin.”

“It?” she asked pointedly.

“Um… the guy’s sword. He tried to stab me.”

“I told you," she said flatly, "to run.” She saw his shoulders twitch in a flinch. “Why didn’t you?”

“The guy. The ranger,” he said after hesitating for a moment. “You had your back to him. He was going to stab you.”

“So you decided to play hero?” she said angrily, and saw his shoulders slump. Ugh. No. That was the pain talking. She was supposed to be trying to be friendly with him, and she understood why he’d done what he had. “Sorry,” she said, and that actually made him turn and look at her in surprise. “I know you meant well. You may have saved my life. Thank you. But please be more careful in the future.” She looked at him until he nodded.

“Yeah,” he said. “Sorry, Ana.”

“Don’t be sorry. I’m happy to be alive. Just be more careful.”

“Okay. Yeah.” He paused. “Ana… why do you have a gun?”

“Why do I have a gun?” Ana repeated. The answer was so obvious that the question caught her by surprise. “Because sometimes a baton or pepper spray isn’t enough.”

“Those three men you ‘defeated’, whose stuff we took. You killed them too, didn’t you?”

“I did.”

Nicola was silent for a long time after that. “Did you kill anyone before that?” he asked quietly. “Back home, I mean.”

Ana looked at him. He might as well know. “Not in London,” she said. “But yes.”

“Does my father know?”

“Nicola…” Ana said, not sure how to put this. “Nicola, your father is in the business of protecting people, and he takes that very seriously. He does not recruit soft or kind people to protect his clients. Do you think he has any more important client than you?”

“Right.” Nic said. He looked sad, more than anything. “How many?” he asked softly.

“Not many. Two, in fact, until we came here,” she said. “Both were absolutely necessary, and neither of them was while I’ve worked for you father. If that helps.”

“A little, I guess,” Nicola said.

“Look, can we talk about something else?” Ana said. They were getting dangerously close to talking about why she’d killed two men before she started working for Mr. Stamper, and she didn’t think Nicola was ready for that conversation. “Did you find anything in that bag?”

“No,” he said. “I mean, lots of stuff, but not what I was looking for. I was hoping that there’d be a potion, or something.”

“Potion?”

“Yeah, these stories, and games too, always have healing potions, right?”

She just looked at him blankly, waiting for an actual explanation.

“Um…” he said. “Like really quick acting medicine that helps heal wounds and fix injuries.”

“Oh,” she said. That would be extremely useful. “But you didn’t find any?”

“Unfortunately not,” he said. “Don’t even know if it’s a thing, in this world. Found some booze, though!” He smiled weakly.

That figured. She must have shown her annoyance on her face, because Nicola quickly added, “I mean, if the pain is bad, alcohol would numb it some, right?”

“We were just attacked by… bandits, I guess. Highwaymen?” Ana told him. “I’ve had to kill five men in less than 24 hours. If that’s the kind of place we’ve been dropped into, I hardly think I can afford to get drunk. Do you?”

“You’re right,” Nicola said, looking away.

“So. Anything useful?”

“Spare clothes, food, some stuff for taking care of the sword, I think,” Nicola said. “Bolts for the crossbow. Stuff like that. If they had any camping gear I guess it must be with the other guy’s pack, wherever that is.”

“Spare clothes is good. I’ll need something to wear. This is ruined,” Ana said, indicating the dress that a man had half bled out onto. Couldn’t wear that around people, even if she wanted to. “And on the bodies?”

Nicola blanched. “I didn’t… I mean…”

“Okay,” Ana said. “I figured. Just had to ask. I’ll take care of it.” She winced as she got to her feet. “Do you need a while? I know this is… a lot. And I'll probably need your help for any heavy lifting.”

It took some time for Nicola to steel himself, and stripping and putting away the bodies took even longer. Any amount of effort left Ana exhausted. She was worried she might have a cracked or broken rib, which really held her back. Still, they got some money and weapons off the dead men, as well as the ranger's leather armour.

It wasn't even blood stained, but she'd still expected to need to do a lot more coaxing to get Nicola to put it on.

"Don't look so pleased about it, you massive nerd," she told him as she tightened the final strap. "It's for your protection. You shouldn't be happy about needing to wear it."

"Looks good though, doesn't it?" he said with a smirk.

She stood back and looked at him critically, and suppressed a smile at how boyishly excited he looked. He needed this, after everything that had happened.

"Fine," she said. "You look very… adventurous. Dead 'ard," she added in her worst British accent.

"Hell, Ana, was that a joke out of you?"

"Don't get used to it," she said, turning to consider the clothes they'd dug out if the ranger's pack.

"Can I have a sword?"

"Absolutely not. Now help me strip and get these clothes on," she told him. That shut him up. With her face turned away, she allowed herself a smirk.

~~~~~~~~

By the time the forest gave way to fields, Nic was much less smug about his new armour. It didn't breathe at all, and though the weight of it was well distributed, it still weighed a fair bit. Together with his heavy pack he was truly suffering.

Ana wasn't doing any better. She had, of course, tried to take the heavier load, and it had taken a very long five minutes to convince the proud, stubborn woman otherwise. It didn't matter how much stronger or in better shape she was than him. She was hurt, properly hurt, and while Nic knew that she wouldn't admit it he was sure that she was relieved to have the lighter pack. She was having enough trouble as it was. She stumbled and staggered, and he could see her jaw clenching against the pain.

He'd offered to take her pack, too. He could have carried it on his chest. But he would probably have passed out by now, so it was for the best that she'd quite angrily refused.

Thus it was a great relief to them both when they came into sight of the part town, part armed camp that was the outpost.

It was certainly large enough to be called a town. The place must be at least a mile wide! Surrounding it was a rather impressive palisade, and at the foot of that were several rows of stakes. There were some fields and farm houses outside the walls, but they had their own walls, and there was nowhere near enough farmland here to feed the settlement as far as Nic could tell.

For all that it looked like they were ready for trouble, the gate that their road led to was wide open. There was no one going in or out at the moment, but as they got closer Nic could see two bored guards standing in the shade of the gatehouse.

Ana had clearly spotted them, too.

"Let me…" she said with a wince. "Do the talking."

"Not hardly!" he replied. "Ana, you're hurt and exhausted. Let me talk to them. The mood you're in, you'll have us in jail!"

"Please. I'm a wounded female. They'll want to know what happened but they won't stop us."

Nic looked at her. No one would take a proper look at her face and think that she was a bloke, but with her wrapped feet and too-loose clothes he wouldn't blame anyone who did. "Still…" he said.

Ana sighed tiredly. "Fine. Just don't be suspicious. If they ask, I fell and landed bad on a log, alright?"

The guards watched Nic and Ana with the smallest bit of interest until they stopped just outside the gatehouse. They didn't wear anything like a uniform, just an orange armband. Nic hoped that marked them as guards. Otherwise these might just be two bored men, and this might get embarrassing.

"Hello," one of the guards said. He was a tall young man, but he didn't bother to leave the shade so it was hard to tell much else. His label said Human Fighter (12). "Haven't seen you two before. You accidentals?"

"What?" Nic said, immediately off balance. Ana sighed behind him.

"Accidentals. Dropped in by accident. Not much else you could be, with your classes and levels," the guard said with some sympathy.

"Right," Nic said. "Yeah. Woke up in the forest." He was about to stop, but something nudged him to add, "Hell of a way to wake up, tell you that much."

"I can imagine," the guard said with a chuckle. He turned to his shorter partner, saying, "You stay here, Draver. I'll take them to the Captain."

"Sounds good, Tar. Take your time," the other guard said, leaning back against the wall.

"Names?" Tar asked, coming out into the sunlight. He wasn't a bad looking bloke, Nicola could admit that much. Short, curly hair. Bit ruddy, but he had a rugged look to him. Strong jaw and all that.

"Nicola," he said. "This is Anastasia." He heard Ana groan softly behind him.

"Is your Companion alright there?" Tar said, looking at Ana.

"Well, no," Nic said. "She's hurt. Might have broken a rib."

"Really shouldn't be carrying a pack then, should she?" Tar said reproachfully.

"Try taking it off her," Nic said. "Maybe you'll have better luck than me."

Tar gave him a dubious look and approached Ana, reaching out a hand. "May I?" he said.

Ana took a moment before answering, as sweet as Nic had ever heard her, "Oh, alright. Thank you."

Tar gave Nic a meaningful look as he helped Ana off with her pack.

"Alright, Ana, Nic," Tar said, throwing the pack easily over one shoulder. “First of all: do you intend to cause any trouble in our settlement?”

“Not at all,” Nic said.

After a moment’s silence Tar turned to Ana and said, “You too, miss.”

“I certainly don’t want any more trouble,” Ana said, all pained innocence.

"Good enough. Come with me. Captain Falk wants to see all new arrivals," Tar said, and led the way into the outpost.