Chapter 23 #5
Meanwhile, Yasaman’s scorpions scamper to the banner, fortified against rocks and dirt and guarded by a soldier.
Quickly, their claws tear it away during Squadron Three’s hasty retreat.
Sohrab moves between them and replaces it with another ruse of a banner, takes the real flag and flees to Territory Five, where Sharra and Yasaman await.
‘Arezu, using the left flank as cover, bring a small handful of students to me. When Fayez charges, they will close the gap,’ I command them.
As Aina leads Firat and the remaining pazktab students around as my reinforcements, Fayez and his soldiers enter the chaotic battlefield, a sheer force of numbers.
The captain shoves through his squadron lines, clutching his left eye, shot red from sand-shroom fumes.
I study his formations. I might as well be nipping at his squadron’s skin instead of inflicting bodily harm.
Like any adept general, he’s adapted to form three flanks – two wings and one at the tail to pull from.
I didn’t see it before because Fayez used Madj’s troops as a buffer, rather than using his own soldiers to weaken my numbers.
Fayez raises two fingers in command code. An enraged Negar – tunic damp with piss yellow – flattens her hands against the sediment, a tremor shooting through. With little preamble, the ground beneath me gapes open, obliterating Arezu’s flora and any way for my underlings to hide.
‘Fall back,’ I bellow to Sohrab, yanking Yahya against me as the entire south-east is uprooted.
Fayez begins calmly but the strength of his voice carries. ‘You are cornered by two squadrons. Surrender now to prove that even an Azadnian is capable of an ounce of dignity.’
I rub dirt from my cheek. ‘I’ve thought about it. No thank you.’
His jaw clenches before his fingers raise again. A line of twelve warriors charges, aiming for us.
Leaving a gap wide open in the back, the banner exposed. Fayez’s tail soldiers rush forward, slightly delayed.
With Aina leading, our subordinates close on the rear while the captain fixates on my presence.
I flicker nūr to bait him toward me. My eyes blur as Fayez’s affinity ripples through him.
It’s the Three-Feathered affinity, allowing him to take on forms of one of the three a?i sky creatures.
His skin morphs into luminous amber scales, pupils forking white: he has the strength and muscles of an azhdahak serpent.
In a blink, I shove Yahya away just as Fayez smacks me against the dirt. My left leg twists beneath me and I hiss from the old injury. From beside me, Sohrab foolishly charges the captain.
‘Get back,’ I yell, but there is no need because Yabghu is suddenly there, twisting Sohrab’s injured arm, dragging him away.
Straddling my hips, Fayez uses the spikes along the azhdahak to crush my torso; my organs clench, even as I thrust my arm out to lessen the pressure.
He cocks his head, almost curious at the sight of my helplessness.
But the curiosity must be a tangle of darkness because he lets me struggle, enjoying it. His taloned iron-fist rears back.
Instinctively, my head turns as it slams into my jaw, nails raking three bloodied lines. White spots dance across my vision.
‘You hardly resist me; how can you be a Za’skar warrior?’ Fayez asks quietly before slamming my head once, then twice, against the clay, causing me to see stars.
‘Using children is cowardice.’ Overseer Negar looms above me, watching Fayez slam my head again.
‘Enough!’ Cemil runs to the captain, yanking him off me. ‘She could die.’
‘N-no. Please continue,’ I wheeze out, drawing to my knees.
Around me, the remaining pazktab students are attacking both squadrons.
With no defences to conceal our positioning, we are cattle.
Still, through sheer bravery, the children flirt with the remainder of Madj’s and Fayez’s troops, who toss them around easily until the last of the students are subdued, a laughable melee.
A cry rebounds through the fields and I watch Negar retaliate against Firat, clenching the student with an arm around his neck.
I cough out blood. Fayez straightens and turns, hunting for our banner as Katayoun – ahead of him – runs in the opposite direction.
‘Even your subordinates abandon you in the face of their opponent,’ Fayez says, leering before nodding to Cemil, who summons his affinity to eat the distance to Katayoun, marked from trifecta training.
Before he reaches her, she stumbles and drops the flag, then flees.
Cemil turns to snatch the banner she left behind, but any triumph slides off his face when it disintegrates beneath his fingers into white beetles.
‘What the Hells?’
‘The fool is you, Captain Fayez. I was your bait.’ I wipe blood from my lips and grin.
The realisation dawns upon them. Fayez assumed the flag would be protected at his rear, but instead of making the pazktab children my bait as he predicted, I chose to sacrifice myself along with them. A hard lesson learnt but realised at the right moment.
As Yahya had collected the branches at my order, to plant this final deceitful banner, Yasaman, from the southern flank, supported the deception by summoning beetles to cover the branches, making them appear as ours.
Relying on our pazktab forces to charge Fayez, Aina and Arezu used the opportunity to retrieve Fayez’s banner.
None of Fayez’s soldiers had noticed, for they had no choice but to hold back my other roving students as one would swat stubborn flies. They may be flies but, in a swarm, they are an acknowledged presence.
Horror plays across Fayez’s features before, in a mad dash of desperation, his azhdahak body swoops across the territory.
‘Now!’ cries a young voice as three pazktab students tackle Fayez – the very pazktab students from the sinkhole that no one had bothered to account for, who Katayoun had freed at my order.
Cemil lunges forward but he cannot manifest his affinity so soon, with the time and geographic limitation.
‘Run!’ Katayoun’s voice rends the dusty air, as Aina passes the banner to Arezu, who scrambles up the salty ridges of Territory Five, to join Yasaman and Sharra at the top.
I limp to Katayoun, vision bleary. We watch Arezu climb with her bloodied hands, holding the fourth banner as if it’s an emanation of hope.
Yasaman pulls her to the top, clutching three other banners.
Scrawny and underestimated by their enemies, the two children slam the banners into the cliffside before Za’skar City.
The warriors gawk in horror at the four banners in my squadron’s grasp.
The Keeper dissolves the Veil and declares Squadron Six the victor.
I stagger into Katayoun and collapse.