Chapter 18 #2
I saw in her eyes, so similar to her mother’s, the moment she made her decision.
“No!” I roared, throwing myself into her path without care for my own safety.
“Nomy!” Jesrifa’s swords spun, one soaring through the air as she threw it, the other I caught with my sword.
I knocked it away, sending it flying into the crowd where it struck a watching warrior.
I never saw the dagger coming, but worse, I never saw where Jesrifa’s first blade landed.
***
Naomi
I was on the edge of my seat, quite literally, as I watched Krashe battle with his ten.
Ten opponents seemed extremely unfair at first, but when half of them were out in less than a minute I realized it wasn’t.
Krashe was magnificent and his body moved in ways I hadn’t even imagined were possible.
Spinning, curling, rolling. His tail was a deadly weapon on its own, knocking warriors over, crushing, trapping, even killing.
To me, it looked as though Krashe had eyes in the back of his head, he seemed to know exactly where everyone was at all times.
I was trying to do the same, following the fight but keeping an eye on the crowd around us, and on the Queen too.
My fingers clutched around the hilt of one of my throwing knives, my other hand holding onto Kiwi who was bristling with tension, ready to join the fight himself.
Oh shit, when the spear struck Krashe it was like I could feel it myself.
Blood dripped from the deep wound, but it didn’t slow him down.
I had my hand raised, the knife spinning from my fingers before I could think about it.
They’d tried to include me in this fight, so here I was.
I didn’t truly expect the knife to strike true, but it did, and the male fell back and didn’t move again.
Everything went so fast after that, I had only moments to react. I thought the single remaining warrior, that female with the human head on her belt, was going to go after Krashe. When she spun for me I felt frozen in place.
Krashe shouted, his body lighting up all over with his mating sigils.
They weren’t just on his chest and shoulders now, they were all along the front of his tail, right down to the very tip.
He threw himself between me and the spinning blades but one sailed past him anyway.
In that split second, as I saw it happen, the hand on the controls of my chair twitched and with a lurch, I shot to the side.
Kiwi leaped away with a screech and with horror I saw two things happen at once. The sword that had been flying my way was caught by my loyal little friend, and Krashe caught a dagger in his back, stuck there by the tip of the warrior female’s tail.
Someone screamed really loudly. Me, I realized.
It was like the crowd of watching Naga all seemed to surge forward as one, closing the circle.
When Krashe swept out his sword and his opponent dodged, I saw how she raised her tail again for another strike.
My mate wasn’t moving fast enough now, blood was gushing from his wound, far too much of it.
I didn’t even think about it. My fingers were already pressing on the buttons, my hover chair stuttering and then shooting forward.
At the last moment, I spun it sideways and I rammed the last Naga standing with the side and back of the thing.
I flew from the seat from the momentum but I didn’t feel any pain when I landed on the ground and rolled.
Unable to rise, I still fumbled for a knife and yanked it out.
When the female shoved my crashed chair off her body and started to rise, I threw.
It sailed through the air, a black spinning whirl that seemed to fly in slow motion.
The female moved at the last moment and my knife skimmed over her bicep, leaving a long gash.
I saw how her eyes started to glow in victory, saw how she swung her tail up to send it flying at Krashe.
He was near her, one fist on the ground to hold himself up, the other pressed against the blood flowing from the wound on his back.
He flung up the tip of his tail to block the blow of her dagger-tipped tail, their long limbs tangling.
“Chirp kee kee!” Kiwi announced from above.
All eyes swung up when he dive-bombed toward the Naga female, from his tiny paws hung a glittering black blade.
He dropped it above the female warrior and though her eyes grew wide in shock, she had no time to dodge.
It impaled her through her shoulder, straight into her chest.
Complete silence fell over the battlefield in the seconds after.
Everyone was staring as they tried to process what had just happened.
I only looked long enough to be certain that my flying pet was unharmed and the female was truly dead.
Then I pulled myself across the dirt as fast as I could go to reach Krashe’s side.
“How bad is it? What do you need?” I said, frantically yanking a fur out from beneath the edge of the crashed hover chair. I reached up to press it against Krashe’s bleeding wound as hard as I could. “Krashe?”
He let me replace his hand with the fur and didn’t even wince when I pressed down hard.
His attention was completely on the Queen some distance away.
She had her cowl back over her head and had retaken her seat on her carrier platform.
Shaded by the trees, it still looked like she wasn’t comfortable being outside, but I could only see the glow of her eyes, not her expression.
“We won. As per our customs, you must now grant the victor his wish, and we wish to pass through Bitter Storm territory one final time, never to return.” Krashe spoke calmly, his deep voice its usual growly self.
If not for the blood seeping through the fur between my fingers, I would have never realized how badly he was hurt.
I had been fearless, mostly, during the fight, but fear was definitely coursing through me now.
My heart pounded with worry. What were our options to stop the bleeding?
Cauterize the wound? Sew it shut? Or just pack it really tightly and hope for the best?
I wished I’d read more books on first aid right that instant.
The Queen started to laugh, “And let a traitor go?” Her words interrupted my frantic thoughts and I raised my head to stare at her in shock.
Was she serious right now? Of course she was.
I should have known she wouldn’t let us go even after we’d won her challenge fair and square.
This bitch had no qualms about bending the rules to suit her own needs.
“I’m not the traitor here, you are,” Krashe snarled.
And then he turned to stare at the warriors that remained.
“Did she not send your brethren to a war you lost when you did not follow my plans? Did you not get deprived of some of the best on the battlefront because she could not let me go? Did she not gorge herself on the food of our younglings while they starved? Look at her!”
And then he finally glanced down to where I sat at his hip, pressing my soaked fur against his wound.
His tail curled around me, and his sigils started to glow, chest and shoulders, and then even more along his tail.
“Do we not remember the stories of true mates? Do we not hold those sacred? Think! Why did our Clan lose their blessing? When the other Clans did not?” He swung his arm up and pointed at the fat Naga on her pillowed throne.
“Enough!” she roared. “Fine, you have passage. Get me out of this blasted sun!” Those nearest her scrambled to pick up the poles on the contraption that raised her off the ground so they could carry her away.
Some of the warriors that circled us were not nearly so fast. They stared at Krashe’s glowing body, at me, and at their Queen before they picked up their wounded and followed her into the woods.
It felt like it took an hour for them to fade from sight, sweat beading along the back of my neck and trickling down my spine.
Fear curling through my belly, painful and absolute.
Krashe was hurt and bleeding and all he did was stand there, raised on the base of his tail, tip of his sword in the ground which he only casually seemed to hold.
He was the picture of strength and resilience, a blood-streaked, battle-worn Warlord victorious after a battle.
When they were finally gone, his shoulders lowered and the glow on his body winked out. “Good job, Nah-omi. We did it.” And then he sagged down onto the blood-soaked dirt.