Chapter 25 #2
Otekah dismounted and used columns and walls for concealment as she delivered deadly shots one by one.
Her oxbeast leapt the two stories into the snow, causing a massive cloud of white to erupt, all but making her invisible, then appeared as if from nowhere before the line of soldiers.
Her enormous horns swiped in great swaths through the formation, sending bodies flying.
“Shields!”
Kai laughed at the male’s order from below. His men were too frozen to hold the weight of their only defense against the arrows. He never should have brought them up to this stronghold so ill-prepared.
“Stormguard!” Kai shouted. “With me!”
The oxbeasts jumped—
Kai’s stomach bottomed out in the fall. She bent into the rush of icy wind, blind in the snow’s dust cloud. Dryja’s hooves pounded forward, and the beast loosed a howling cry meant to draw fear.
The broken phalanx formation of men appeared, and they began staggering back.
Dryja reared back with a roar, her barbed horns catching a man mid-charge and hurtling him into a pillar.
Kai swept her leg up and around, then slid down Dryja’s massive side. She landed in a crouch, vibrations shooting up her bones, her sword already arcing up and around. Her steel slid up a soldier’s short sword—
She hooked it down hard, slashing deep into his side. His body resisted the extraction of her blade, spraying blood. The man dropped hard—knee, hip, shoulder—then lay splayed and still. Eyes staring into the sky.
Nearby, Tiponi bit into a man’s jugular—
His scream cut short as she came back with his throat between her teeth.
Pamuy buried an axe in a man’s collarbone. It struck with a wet, cracking thud. When she yanked it free, she painted the snow red.
Kai, sword and obsidian knife in hand, gave over to her training. She was her blade. She was death as much as she could be life. Her Stormguard was relentless in their assault, splitting the line of enemy forces.
Poloma moved like a deadly wind, her poisoned spear dancing forward, up in a spin, and back. Her spear darted left, pierced leather. Right, caught a throat. Spin. Stab. Spin. Stab.
Niabi and her oxbeast circled the males and cast a deadly net from behind, picking off men one by one with her bow and arrow. Otekah, standing atop her beast, intersected paths with Niabi and laughed like thunder on a cliffside, loosing arrows with every breath.
The invaders stumbled through their fight, tripping across the frozen terrain. Ice and snow thickened around their shields, and their movements turned slow and laborious.
As their numbers thinned, Silver Wolf warriors joined the Stormguard on the ground to take out their would-be invaders by hand.
All the while, the commander of these men watched from horseback near the tree line, a hulking figure in bronze armor. Almost begging to taste her blade.
Kai whistled a single, sharp signal, eyes locked on her target.
Dryja bounded up, blood dripping from her horns and barbs.
Kai climbed atop and dug in her heels, aiming her sword.
The blond male caught sight of her inbound sprint and unsheathed his sword. From atop his mount, out of the snow, his movements were much smoother than those of his men. He hopped down and swung off his thick himation.
Kai slid from Dryja’s back to meet the man on the ground. He swung his sword in a wide arc—
Kai ducked beneath. Turned. Thrust toward his exposed side—
He deflected her blow, and their swords gave a sharp clang.
Kai circled him, sword and knife poised. “You don’t look like a soldier. You look like a butcher playing dress-up.”
“Should I look more like you?” The commander bared his teeth. “A child swinging tiny blades like toys?”
He struck from up high and came down on her with a flurry of strikes, each one heavier than the last.
She blocked the third—barely—her arms shuddering beneath the impact. “I’ve killed better men than you in dark rooms.”
He grunted.
Kai ducked the next blow. Slashed for his thigh—
He twisted, metal singing as their blades scraped—
Her boot slipped on a patch of ice.
He kicked out and sent her sprawling.
Kai hit the frozen ground, and pain erupted across her ribs. Snow exploded around her in a blinding cloud. She rolled before his next strike could land, the sword biting into nothing but her trailing braid.
She rolled to her feet, hair coming loose from her shortened braid. She stared across the feet separating them, through loose tendrils of brown hair. Circling him, chest heaving.
“Where’s your husband, girl?” he asked. “Shouldn’t he be out here fighting your battles? Or are you too proud to kneel to anyone?”
Atsadi’s face flashed through her mind. His smile. His sadness. His longing.
Her refusal to let him in.
The man laughed. “Did I hit a nerve?”
Kai crossed her knife and sword. “I only kneel to bury the dead. You’re next, foreigner.”
Their blades clashed. He pressed forward with brutal force, driving her back.
She swept a leg at his knees—
He jumped it, sword slicing down in reply.
She twisted sideways just in time. Arced her knife, catching his shoulder.
He leapt back—
His hand came away from his shoulder coated in blood. “Your blades are sharp.” He met her eyes. “But you bleed like everyone else.”
“Then pray I never bleed for you. It means your gods have run.”
His next blows came fast. Calculated. Each one meant to break her guard.
Kai gritted her teeth, matching him beat for beat until their hilts locked between them. Their faces hovered inches apart. Breath steaming.
He feinted left—
His blade sliced up along her side, carving a shallow line.
Pain seared through Kai’s flank. She hissed, stumbled. The sounds of the distant battle gave way to the rapid heartbeat in her ears. Her breath caught in a sharp rasp. Blood seeped warm down her hip, sticky in the cold.
Every instinct screamed at her to drop, to stop.
But she wasn't raised to fall.
The commander advanced, sword raised—
Kai parried his blow with her knife, and the clash reverberated up her arm. She spun through it and slammed the knife upward into his belly. There was a give as cloth and muscle tore.
She drove him to the ground, her knee against his chest.
His fingers clutched at her, scrabbling, trembling.
She pressed the blade to his throat—
And froze.
His men may have answers to her questions, but this man would have more. Under the right circumstances, he may even name his ally inside the mountain.
“Kai.” Otekah’s tone came from just behind, filled with questions and concerns.
Kai rose, her ribs throbbing, her gash creating a red wash over her leather and soaking her furs. She looked down at him—bloodied, broken, and glaring up like she hadn’t won.
Her breath shook once in her throat. “Bind this man.”