Kathryn had been separated from her guards for a mere 24 hours, and already she had found herself in trouble. There had been a time, she reflected unhappily, that she had drifted through Connlaoth virtually unnoticed. She had lived for a few days on her wits and bravado...but, in those days, her life had never truly depended on it, much less the life of her unborn child.
Five years ago, if this had happened to her, she would have been fine.
Now, she was alternatively cold, starving, and exhausted. Neither her pregnancy nor the poison the had nearly killed her only days ago had helped her condition, but she thought she would soon be home...
...And, so, the attack had come as a surprise.
Kathryn leaned against the doorway, trying to suppress a shiver as she wrapped her plain cloak more tightly around her frame. The borrowed clothing she wore was plain, but it was warm, and her guards had told her it would help her remain unidentified...though, clearly, not well enough.
It was hard to say what would claim her first: the cold, the hunger, or the rebels that had killed her confidant and servant, her guards, and Angsar knew who else. If one church hadn't already betrayed her, she would have tried her luck there, but could she trust them?
Whatever she did, she would have to do it soon... Perhaps a little food would clear her mind, if only she had the coin. She eyed the street, unsure of what, exactly, she was meant to be looking for as she rubbed her hands together to try to generate some warmth. Her fingers felt cold and stiff, and they would have to be nimble for this to work. After all, she was out of practice...by some number of years, although, she liked to think she had shown some skill in pick-pocketing once upon a time... Perhaps she would have done better if her teacher hadn't always gotten so distracted...
Thinking of Dekka made her smile a moment, although her smile was quick to fade as she turned her attention to the matter at hand. Silently, she stepped out into the crowd and began stalking her victim...
---
"Let me go!" Kathryn snapped at the guard. He seemed amused by her fury, more than anything, and he tightened his grip on her wrist.
"Perhaps you should have thought of your objections to prison before trying to steal from Master Chantier," he chuckled as he dragged her along.
"I wasn't!" Kathryn protested. That much was true; her eye had actually been on the purse of the gentleman ahead of Chantier. Somehow, by poor fortune, Chantier had turned just in time to see her reaching a hand out, and...
The guard stopped suddenly -- so suddenly that Kathryn would have walked into him had he not used her own momentum to throw her, hard, against a brick wall. Kathryn felt the impact against her shoulder, and it made her cringe slightly as she huddled against the unforgiving building. "Look, we understand. Don't we, boys?" the guard asked, although he didn't even glance at his colleagues, who were nodding. "You're cold. You're hungry. Times are hard, what with the war and all. We can give you a break, just this once."
There was just enough sympathy in his voice to make Kathryn wonder, for a second, if he truly meant to let her go...but then the other shoe dropped.
"For a price."
Kathryn's lower lip trembled slightly, and she shrank against the building all the more. "No."
"Then you'll go to prison. Look, you're a pretty girl." He reached a grubby hand out to catch her chin, and he turned her head this way and that to eyeball her. "You and I could have a little arrangement."
A tear worked its way from her eye. It began to move slowly down her face, leaving a wet trail in its wake...and, suddenly, her knee shot out and landed in his groin. She didn't waste any time in pushing him aside and fleeing -- or trying to flee, anyway. The man reached out, lightning-quick, with more speed than a man his size should have, to grab her ankle, and Kathryn went down hard a few feet away.
"You're going to pay for that," he growled, only to have Kathryn's foot make contact with his face. Blood burst from his nose, but it wasn't enough to make him let her go. "Boys, grab onto her. She's a fighter, this one. You know how I like fighters..." (It came out sounding a little funny, thanks to repeated blows to the man's face with Kathryn's shoe. Angsar, what kind of a monster was this man?)
One of the men hauled her to her feet by her hair, and he pushed her, face-first, against the brick of the building. She slammed the back of her head into his nose for his trouble and turned, plucking the dagger from the man's belt as she did so. She held it out in front of her defensively as she glared at the trio of men, two, now, with broken noses.
"Girly," the head guard said with a laugh. "What do you think you're going to do with that little pig-sticker, eh?" He reached for her, and she slashed him quickly across his outstretched hand. He withdrew slightly, then laughed out loud again. "Oh, I like you. I really like you. You and I are going to have fun tonight. And tomorrow night. And every night until I get bored with you."
Both of his lackeys moved, suddenly. With only one knife, she couldn't fend both off, and she was soon, once again, on the ground. This time, however, the big man was standing over her with a triumphant look in his eye as her only weapon was wrestled away from her by one of the other men.