All A Hero Needs Is A Quest 5 (Patreon)

The inn, built of easily assembled wood left rotting on the ground by a heavy storm, had not seen upgrade or much in the way of repair since its construction. There were many drafts in the haphazardly built structure, and it allowed in the stray orange cat as it allowed in many pests and peeping eyes.

The cat made its way through environs that were cramped, yet sprawling to the average man—the inn had been built with many winding corridors and small rooms for let, but not much headroom, little space to stretch out except at the downstairs bar. The bar boasted windows so fulsome, and so unfettered by glass, that just one of them sufficed to stir the air of its various unpleasant scents and allow in a moderation of light from the evening sun.

This increased by the braziers near each occupied table, or rather which were lit at those tables that even the drunkest were willing to take. The swill the barkeeper served was too watered down to properly warm a man, so the raging braziers were needed, even at the cost of an oily film of smoke that hung in the air and was only made tolerable by the occasional chilling breeze. That pollution did much to hide the unkemptness of the room and the similar, though far less mollifiable, ugliness of the patrons.

Slinking its way through sparks fleeing from the brazier fires and clodding boots and puddles of spilled drink—and less wholesome fluids—the cat came to a character that was like a ray of warm sunlight in the dank surroundings. Not in personability, but in health, verve, and vigor. The cat was drawn to her, perhaps as one predator to another, and was quick to rub against her booted leg.

That met with no censure and, indeed, a hum of admiration for the sleek feline’s glossy coat and the undulations of its winding tail. The cat clawed at the boot, rubbed its head against its rough leather, then leapt up into the lap of the woman sitting upon the bar stool. There, it received the fawning scratches that it considered its due and happily settled into a loafing fixture upon the well-hewn thighs it had found to home itself.

“Mangy creature!” the barkeeper cursed, groping about for a length of cudgel that he used to disperse rowdy patrons and which would serve for chasing off a varmint, if not furnishing a bit of meat for the stew. “Begging your pardon, ma’am, I’ll have it off ye in a moment…”

“Why?” the redhead asked, freezing the barkeeper with a frosty glance that belied her casual, sardonic words. “It’s not the first in this room that’s thought to rub against me. Though it seems to be the only one with the manhood to act upon its wish!”

The cat contentedly purred from where it hammocked across Red Sonja’s slightly parted thighs, its fat belly dipping between her legs, its tail brushing her knees with each approving swish it gave.

The barkeeper wisely set aside his weapon. “Another ale, then, m’lady?”

“Aye,” Sonja agreed. “I have no place needing my presence… and much to attend to here.” So saying, she scratched the cat behind its ears. The cat’s tail swept over her kneecaps like a feather duster.

But Sonja was not being completely honest—she was little inclined to be with any man who inquired after her business, much less such a scruffy personage as the barkeeper.

In truth, Sonja tingled. It had been weeks since she’d last had a quest to make her money-satchel heavy and her sword-arm tire. The modest wounds she’d acquired in that violence had long since healed and though she remained flush with funding, she began to weary of drink and companionship, especially with the dire examples of either available here.

Though still a young woman, Sonja was not so callow as to not have developed an ideal of moderation—at least, one which fit her ebbs and flows, her moods and drives. It would not do to grow fat and lazy, even if such a thing were to satisfy her, which she knew from experience it would not.

The cat was a momentary diversion, of which there were many for her to peruse in the world, but she was born to be a warrior. She needs must return to her calling and Sonja prayed to whatever god would have her errant wish that her boots would soon find the soil of a battlefield. The loam of farmland and the stone of cities offered little appeal to her journeying feet.

The cat in her lap stiffened. Haltering footsteps were moving through the smoke-ridden room, creaking on poorly aligned floorboards, diverting nervously about obstacles. Sonja sighed: the cat had been a welcome reprieve from her lonely vigil in wait of fresh adventure, but she doubted the next interruption would have as much to offer as soft fur and a pleasing purr.

Some well-wisher or lothario or scribe—a gnat seeking the blood of her reputation. It was to be expected, as she made no small spectacle of herself, but it made for an annoyance nonetheless.

Sonja turned around in her seat, assuaging the rearranged cat with a rub of its fluffy head, and looked upon her visitors. They looked to be lowly farmers, of a social strata below even the ruffians that populated this waystation. Their clothes were well-washed, soiled from travel but not lack of care. Crude, lacking in finery, with plain, flat colors and little in the way of embroidery.

But boots and belts were both well-made, sturdy and of good material, meant to last and be repaired ad nauseum. It was possible they had not originated with these two, but had been passed down from a forebear, or an elder of similar physique who had no more need.

Their bodies spoke of hard work and hard reward. The man was toned and tall, girl buxom and tan. None of the softness of cityfolk or the hard-worn deprivation of slaves. They were bred and fitted to work a living from the land and raise a family to inherit whatever their parcel was.

Neither of them had more than twenty winters under their belt. She looked like a May Queen, obviously the prettiest their small village had to offer. With her upturned nose, her shoulder length strawberry hair, and her well-developed hips and bust… almost too developed for her modest height… she could have been a fertility goddess.

Sonja thought, though, that the girl could do better. The man was nothing special—above the average, but that wasn’t saying much in a room like this inn, where the scoundrels and scum of surrounding empires floated to shore like jetsam to await a chance at looting, being pressed into conscription, or formed a raiding band around a particularly ambitious specimen.

The girl looked at her male counterpart, as though prompting him to speak, but he was too taken aback by Sonja for that. His owlish, unhooded eyes traveled swiftly over her body. And why shouldn’t they? Only the cat—not her cloak, not her high boots, certainly not the few scraps of chainmail she wore at bust and groin—served to much obscure her.

The woman spoke herself. She wore a brisk skirt, supple sandals, and a small bodice that barely concealed her large breasts. A tattered shift, exposed at her belly and around the shoulder straps of her bodice, gave her most of her modesty. “Sonja? You are Red Sonja, the She-Devil of Hyrkania?”

“You think there are many other people who wear this get-up?”

“I am Vicca,” the woman said, then came to the realization that her companion hadn’t introduced himself. “This is Karne.”

“How do you do?” Karne asked her, bending himself slightly at the waist in a charming, if unconvincing, display of well-heeled manners.

The cat in Sonja’s lap came to life, digging its claws into her thigh. Sonja plucked her cloak from behind her and held it under the cat’s stretching paws, letting it take its mild sadism out on the rugged cloth instead.

“You want something from me?”

“Yes, yes, we do,” Vicca nodded. And she began buttering Sonja up: “Far and wide, legend tells of your bravery, your great beauty, your courageousness in the face of certain—”

“Skip to the point,” Sonja told her. “Don’t give my patience a chance to run out before you’ve even started your story.”

Vicca cleared her throat, blushing with embarrassment, while Karne finally found his voice. “We’re simple farmers, Lady Sonja. Our crops are decent, but the weather comes and goes… sometimes, we barely have enough harvest to feed ourselves… other seasons, we have enough grain for taxes and to trade for a few essentials, but little left over…”

These really were simple farmers—even after calling them on their bullshit, they still persisted in going for her sympathy. “If I do agree to whatever you’re proposing, no doubt we’ll spend a fair span on the road together. Time enough to regale me with your chronicles then.”