A Fall of Ashes: Chapter I, Mistakes

One day, Ashes would be the most powerful evil sorceress to exist. Today she is just a selfish, ignorant, 15-year-old farm girl looking for a husband when things go horribly wrong.

“Enough Ashes!” Her mother’s voice peaked. “This is not enough thread to finish this. I will be out by midday,” she said, waving the remnants of her skein. “You will go to Cold Fork and get more, so I can finish it tomorrow.”

“But Mom, that waste a whole day just for thread.”

“You don’t bargain well enough to send you for more than that, and Bella knows better than to overcharge you.”

Ashes flinched at that. That wasn’t fair! They hadn’t explained to her the difference between winter prices and spring prices when they sent her for cheese.

She looked out the door. It was just like her mother to wait until her father had left before deciding to send her. He would have told her mother it was silly to send Ashes just for yellow embroidery thread. A sigh escaped her. There was no way she could palm off this job on any of her siblings, either. At fifteen and oldest, she was the only one her parents would send that far, and they only started doing that this summer.

“Get dressed and go.”

It wasn’t quite yelling. But Ashes saw the signs. If she tried arguing more, that was next. Her father would beat them both if it turned into a yelling match again. Defeated, she answered, “Yes, mam.”

Taking the two copper coins her mother held out, she climbed up the ladder to the loft shared with her sisters. After dumping her clothes box on the floor, she spied the dress she was supposed to have passed to her next sister in age.

Ashes couldn’t help but let an evil grinned cross her face.

Letting her sleeping-shift fall to the floor, she pulled the too small dress over her shoulders. She had to use care to get it over her ample breast and hips since those were even larger than the last time she had it on, but it wasn’t so tight she would rip it moving. The pale blue dress only came to her knees and not down to her calf as it had when her mother made it.

Perfect. It would exasperate her mother when she saw her leave wearing that.

She dug out the tiny mirror and comb she and her sister shared and started removing all the sleep tangles in her blond hair. Since she hadn’t bothered braiding it before sleep as she was supposed to, combing it out took more time than it should. But to her surprise, no scream to hurry and get going came up the ladder.

She considered a bit of rouge from where she kept the comb for her lips and cheeks. She still had some.

No, it was too expensive and would fade too much by the time she got to Cold Fork.

Grabbing her sandals from their nook, she climbed back down the ladder.

Her sister Pepper sat watching her youngest two siblings. Those three were the only ones present. A glance at the corner showed her mother’s needlework basket gone.

No wonder she hadn’t yelled at her to hurry up and get on the road.

Nor would she see what her daughter was going to wear to Cold Fork. Undoubtedly, she was at Miss Tam’s again.

“You were supposed to give me that dress after you washed it,” Pepper whined.

“I haven’t washed it yet, so it is still mine. Tell you what, I will wash it tonight and you can have it then.”

“If you don’t rip it fatty.”

Ashes let the fatty comment go. She was proud of her figure. Pepper was only just starting to develop breasts and was still bone-thin most places it was good to have curves.

“I won’t.”

She pushed open the curtain they used in lieu of a door and was outside.

Corin Hammer sat outside his dad smith on the outskirts of town, and she gave him the smile she reserved for her three suitors.

He smiled back, but his sly smile differed from his usual one.

Something was up.

At fifteen, Hammer was the youngest guy trying to make her, but because of his father being the smith, he was also the richest. That smile spelled trouble.

“So, you have to go to Cold Fork too.”

Damn her mother’s big mouth.

Playing the game, “You have to go to Cold Fork?”

“Dad wants me to pick up nails. He doesn’t want to use up his iron making any. Also, Case, who runs the Lazy Stallion, owes me money. I want to get it.”

Damn him. She knew, if his dad really wanted nails, Hammer would have been gone more than an hour by now. He almost certainly suggested the errand to his father after hearing her mother screaming at her.

“Maybe I will see you there.”

His grin broadened. “And maybe I can meet you at the broken tree and we can go together taking the shortcut.”

He had her and knew it. She could refuse, and he would know she had no intention of going all the way.

Not only would he drop courting her, so would the other two that had been after her. At different times, she let all three see her body; and touch her, too. She had touched each of them a time or two also, but never for long. It was always in a place where they could get away with nothing more than a brief peek and a little touching.

It was how most village girls got proposals for marriage. The guy gets too frustrated with not being able to get the girl alone to do more, so he proposes to her.

She knew it had risks. It often backfired. Like now.

To keep a guy interested, a girl needed to convince him it was only the lack of a good opportunity that she didn’t go further. Otherwise, she was just a tease. Teases didn’t deserve any respect. In this village, as in most places, a guy could get away with raping a tease, if others testified she was a tease.

That explained that knowing smiled.

She went with him, and when all the way, or she was a tease. If she was a tease, he could stalk her, and somewhere along the road, rape her, with no repercussions. He would have her one way or another today. Knowing him, he would get both the other guys who were trying for her and make it into a gang rape if she made him rape her to get what he wanted.

She could get out of it. She could go tell her father. The number of lashes he gave her for going as far as she had with them would be bad, but she wouldn’t get raped.

If only it was just the lashes. But they would never permit her out of mom’s sight until they married her to some old fart.

Ashes sighed. Hammer had won. “Meet you at the broken tree, then.”

Grinning, he went behind his dad’s shop to take a different route there than hers.

Hammer must have run his whole route. She found him already waiting at the broken tree that marked where to leave the road to take the shortcut across the gorge. She glanced about, but no one was around as an excuse not to take the shortcut alone with him.

“Feel up to running?”

The question confused her. She expected to be pulling up her dress for him as soon as they got off the road. “Why?”

“If you are up to a run, we can get our errands out of the way first and really enjoy our trip back, not having to hurry anything,”

Hell yes, she felt like running. If she played things right, maybe they would not be coming back together, and she would get to stay a virgin. “Sure. But you lead. I don’t really know the shortcut. Do you?”

“Sure, I use it to Cold Fork a couple of times a week. Follow me.”

He set a stiff pace, but Ashes had little trouble keeping up. Some places you couldn’t run, the gorge was just too steep and rough, but you could run a lot of it. Doing that, and the five-hour trip by road they covered in an hour.

The shortcut trail ended right behind the Lazy Stallion in Cold Fork.

“I need to stop here. Wait for me here on this bench, then we can get my nails and your thread and start back.”

He knocked on the back door, and a naked tavern wench with a leather slave collar riveted around her neck opened the door. The blond woman was older than her mother, so likely worked the kitchen only.

“Spice, I need to see Case,” Ashes heard Hammer tell the woman.

The woman stepped aside and let him in.

So, Hammer came here often enough to know a kitchen slut by name, and be let in the back did he? She would remember that.

Leaving, getting her thread and running home sounded like a good idea. Standing to do that, the back door opened, and she sat back down.

It wasn’t Corin. A fat man in a leather apron with a scarred face looked out at her. Then he closed the door.

What was that about?

A minute later, the door opened, and Hammer came out.

She cursed herself under her breath. Hammer wouldn’t give her a better chance of leaving him behind than she just missed.

“What was him looking out at me about?”

“Case didn’t believe me that I didn’t have time for a game of bones. I told him I needed to escort someone back to Oak Well, so he looked out to see if I was telling the truth.”

“Did you get your money?”

“Only part of it. He’ll pay more next week. My nails, then your thread.” His grin split his face. “Then we head back into the gorge for privacy.”

She couldn’t help but return that grin. The guys weren’t the only ones getting frustrated by the limited touching they had been doing. Now that she knew it was going to happen today, she found herself nearly as eager to begin as Hammer was.

Ashes reached her hand to him, and he took it, drawing her close. Their touch was full of promise of more to come, and she flushed with eager anticipation. Usually, if she started getting this excited, it was time to look for a way to cool things down. Not this time. Holding his hand she pulled him into a run to get his nails, then to the shop to get her, her thread.

Not worrying about losing control and going too far felt wonderful. She reveled in it.

As they made their way behind the Lazy Stallion and the trail there, she asked, “How far do we need to go?”

“Remember that flat mossy spot on this side of the creek near the bottom. That is probably the most romantic place we are going to find. We can rinse off a bit upstream from there after if we need.”

She had been hoping for some place closer, but that would work. Arm and arm they walked down the path.

The place was better than she remembered it, with a thick, soft bed of moss softer than her bed in the loft. Laying down, she hiked up her dress and spread her legs, and giving him her most evil smile exposed herself for him far more than she dared in the past.

Hammer grinned down at her. “No, take the dress off. I want to see and touch every bit of you.”

The roaring rapids just yards away made hearing him difficult, but she caught it and her grin matched his.

Her grin growing, she took his extended hand and let him pull her to her feet. It was easier to stand and get the dress off than it was to remove it sitting down. The dress was still over her head when heat exploded through her as Hammer started fondling her breast. She gasps and let the dress fall to the ground, her arms wrapping around him as he lowered his head to her breast.

He chewed lightly on her nipple, and she moaned. By the god’s this felt great.

But he was in a rush. It wasn’t long before he was guiding her down onto the moss, his hands working down her legs.

She let him push her onto her back and legs apart; her breath now coming in ragged pants.

He pulled her sandals from her feet and tossed them onto her dress as he pulled her legs further apart and up into the air. Only then did he undo his own trews, his manhood fully erect, and now fully exposed. He dropped to his knees between her spread leg.

Hammer was rough pushing in, and it hurt. Ashes gasp.

Just as she began getting over the pain, Hammer finished and pulled out. She knew he would want to go again soon. That was why they had made sure they had time, so wasn’t too disappointed. The other girls all said the second was always better.

He refastened his trews, picked up Ashes dress and sandals, and dash back up the trail.

“No!” she screamed in terror and tried to scramble to her feet.

Hammer dodged between two men that had been on the trail watching them.

Betrayed! Tricked! She had removed her own dress. This counted as stripping in public, so these men could now not only rape her, but make her a slave. They even carried manacles. The larger one stepped forward, holding them up.

Ashes turned and ran.

But there was no place to run.

She hadn’t meant to jump. She just forgot she had no place to go.

Going off the ledge, she screamed in a new kind of terror. A rib cracked, hitting the ledge going over. Then she was underwater, trying to find the surface.

The water slammed her into rocks, breaking her arm as it carried her along.

It slammed her into rocks again and everything went dark.

***

It felt like someone was tearing her arm off and Ashes screamed.

“Hush, I have to set this bone before I heal it, or your other broken bones.”

Her eyes would not focus on the old woman.

Then she screamed again.

The old woman spoke, “Hilcol.”

Ashes fell instantly asleep.

Chapter 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14