Chapter 50
“We need to go to the beach!” I mounted Sima and pointed to the trumpeter. “You, come with me!”
Thevan and Parushi stood in front of my horse.
“You are the rani.” Thevan gripped the rakhi. “Even your uncle stayed back in battle after becoming the raja. This battle isn’t more important than the war. Please, stay.”
He wasn’t telling me; he was asking. So I tapped down the indignation that was creeping up my throat.
“I intend to win the battle and the war.” I threw my hand out toward the beach. “I can understand them! Let’s go!”
Thevan looked from me toward the wall between us and the beach, as if he could see the attacking Porcugi on the other side, and Parushi gave me the sort of face that she usually saved for Vishwajeet.
“Fall back to the general!” The Porcugi’s cries hissed up from the beach, but I couldn’t understand many of the voices that were muffled by distance.
I threw up my hands. “Something must have happened when I went to see Matanta. I don’t know why or how, but I do know I need to get out there so I can hear what the Porcugi are saying.”
With a silent nod, Thevan mounted his horse and gestured for the horn bearer to do the same.
Parushi stood her ground, though, searching my face. “I don’t know what that idiot of a raja or his snake of an adviser said to you while you were there, but promise me that you are not trying to get yourself killed.”
Then I saw it. The worry behind Parushi’s piercing eyes. The fear behind her incredulity.
“Promise!” she insisted.
“I promise,” I said.
“Then I’ll be at your side.” She mounted her horse, and we stormed out of the gardens, throwing mud and trampled flowers behind us in our wake.
We burst through the wall’s gates and rode toward the beach, descending into its chaos as our horses contended with the sand slipping beneath their feet.
The sea that once sparkled was obscured by smoke, and the beach that once shimmered was coated in ash.
Bodies lay scattered along the shore, their last threads of life claimed by the bloodstained sands.
Thevan organized a group of archers around me, and they brought a stack of coconut torches to our sides. The soldiers kept sneaking glances at me, so I sat tall and proud, as if the raging flames on the beach gave me strength.
“The Porcugi are splitting into two groups so they can attack from both sides,” I told Thevan.
“They’re in the water!” Parushi pointed to an area where lumps in the sea fought the tide and moved to our right.
The horn bearers signaled the warning, and our soldiers rearranged themselves in time to meet the Porcugi attack with a volley of coconut leaf torches.
They lit the sky in streams—like shooting stars cutting through the ash with their light—and the Porcugi screamed as they were struck.
But there were screams from our soldiers too.
Their cries clawed at my heart, leaving its walls in shreds.
How many would need to die to make the sea turn red?
“Draw them away from it! Draw them away!” The strange Porcugi command rang out over the chaotic din of battle.
On both sides of us, the Porcugi pushed toward the periphery, leaving the middle of the beach—the part directly in front of us—wide open.
“Now!”
The hiss-like scream came from straight ahead, and a group of six Porcugi slithered up the gap in the middle. One of them had six rings decorating its hood—three on each side. It was in the back, but it gave the commands.
“They’re coming for the rani!” Thevan spurred his horse toward them.
I wanted to grab him, to stop him and hold him there with me, but he jumped ahead.
He looked back only long enough to unsheathe his sword and kiss the medallion on its hilt before charging forward.
The archers followed their leader on foot.
They lit their fire arrows and created a stream of flames as they unflinchingly faced the enemies that dwarfed them.
“It makes no sense,” I protested. “They don’t even know I’m here!”
Parushi was the only one that could hear me, but she just nocked an arrow and placed herself between me and the oncoming Porcugi.
Our soldiers slung their fire arrows, and a few Porcugi were struck, but only one fell.
The rest pressed forward to meet Thevan and his group, slicing through sands with their hoods outstretched.
Their eyes were as cold as their silver scales, and their shining arms reached toward our soldiers, eager to claim them for the waves.
One of the Porcugi leaned forward and surged in front of the rest, then it cut in front of our soldiers, flicking its tail and sending sand flying all over them. The men and women of Ullal fell into disarray as those who didn’t protect their eyes screamed and desperately rubbed their faces.
“Shoot!” Thevan called out. “Aim for the heads!”
Arrows flew into the air, but the Porcugi hardly slowed their attack, and they reached our soldiers before they could release another volley.
A leading Porcugi picked up Thevan and lifted him off his horse.
Thevan turned back toward me, and our eyes connected through the haze of smoke.
My fingers extended out to the man I could never reach, but he turned to face the Porcugi, raised his sword, and screamed, “Ullal!”
The Porcugi laughed, and Thevan’s scream faded into nothing as the Porcugi carried him back toward the waves.
“No!” I yelled. But it was lost in Parushi’s cry and the sounds of the battle that raged all around me.
I spurred Sima forward, but Parushi cut us off and pushed us back.
She glared at me with bloodshot eyes. “Don’t be a fool.”
Sima stomped and flicked his mane, impatient to join the fighting, but Parushi was right. Rushing there now would do us no good.
“It’s by the torches! Get to the torches!” The six-ringed Porcugi hissed as they fought.
What were they looking for? No matter what Parushi and Thevan thought, I was certain they weren’t coming for me. None of the Porcugi had said anything about me. They must have come for something else. Something important enough for a Porcugi of high rank to come after it himself.
A Porcugi of high rank.
A general.
A general who would come for the body of his fallen child. A father who wouldn’t leave his son on dry shores.
“He’s coming for his son!” I screamed, but nobody heard me in the din of the battle.
There was a roar in front of us. Bodies flew through the air like dolls being tossed aside, and the six-ringed Porcugi—their general—cut straight toward us.
I looked for the nearest fire pit and urged Sima toward it as Parushi went to meet the Porcugi head on.
She nocked an arrow and loosed it as she rode, striking the Porcugi—by some miracle—in one of his eyes.
Parushi punched the air in victory as the Porcugi reared back and screamed, but her joy was cut short when he grabbed the arrow with one of its scaley hands and pulled it out.
“No!” Parushi nocked another arrow, but the Porcugi flicked her with his tail as he passed, knocking her off her horse and launching her into the air. Her shadow disappeared into the smoke.
Without Parushi, I had nobody left to defend me.
Except myself. I grabbed a coconut torch and lit it as the Porcugi cut toward me.
My heart pounded against my ribs, and I prepared to launch the torch, but the monster stopped short of me.
It bent over the body of a Porcugi that lay between us.
The gold rings in their hoods caught the flame’s warm light, creating flickering reflections.
The Porcugi general completely ignored me—had he even seen me?
—as he bent down and heaved with all his strength to roll over the fallen Porcugi and look at its face.
Upon seeing it, the Porcugi general arched his back and screamed into the skies—the kind of scream that steals your voice but refuses to steal your soul, leaving you with no choice but to remain on this earth even though a piece of you is gone forever.
I knew that scream too well.
The heat from the fire arrow’s flame bit my fingertips. Now was not the time to hesitate. This was their general. Their leader. I needed to strike him down, even if he was mourning the death of his son.
I took a deep breath, took aim, and slung the fire arrow at the general, striking him squarely in the chest. He collapsed on himself, clutching his burning scales as his scream morphed into one of rage.
He turned his face to look at me with his one good eye and hissed, “I will make you pay for that, worm!”
He kept his head near his son but lashed out at me with his tail.
Sima tripped and fell, rolling to his back, and I was barely able to jump off him in time.
I somersaulted in the sand and scrambled to stand close to the fire again.
The heat from the flames made waves in the air as I stared at the Porcugi.
“Having a hood makes you no less a worm,” I snapped back.
“You can understand me.” The Porcugi’s eyes were wide. He looked at me more intently. “I know your face. I’ve seen your portrait. You’re the little rani that is causing my raja so much trouble.”
I reached for my sword, but my scabbard was empty. I grabbed my bow instead and tried to get an arrow from the quill on my back, but no feathers met my fingertips.
The general laughed. “Poor little worm. Before you die, I want you to know this: I will never forgive your people for killing my son. I will not stop until your nation is flooded with their blood. We are stronger than you, and there are more of us than you can ever imagine. We will send more and more until there is nobody left here to scream. We will run you into the ground, and all that will be left of you will be the memory of the last cries of your people, cursing your name as they beg me for mercy.”
I locked my knees as they threatened to buckle beneath me. The beach was unrecognizable. It was littered with abandoned flames and bodies from their side and ours. Ash coated my tongue, making it taste like death. So much death.
But for what?
For what?
For Ullal. For our freedom. For the right to see the sun without a shadow looming over our heads.
I straightened my back and faced the Porcugi, imagining that I was tall, even though the monster had to crane its body down to see me.
“Send your soldiers.” I gestured to the sands sculpted by corpses and painted in streams of blood.
“Keep sending them. We will fight you with every breath, until your bodies litter our shore. Our beaches may be filled with mourners tomorrow, but I will burn the sea with our pyres before I bow to you!”
“Fool,” the Porcugi whispered. He opened his jaws wide, and his fangs unhinged.
I reached for my dagger, desperate for anything, and a feather brushed against my fingertips. The quiver at my waist.
A turmeric arrow.
The Porcugi swayed, and the light of the fires shone on the Porcugi’s other eye, where Parushi had shot him.
It had turned into a crusty, dark hollow, filled with collapsed and clumped tissue.
Parushi hadn’t hit him with just any arrow—she’d used a turmeric arrow.
No wonder the general was so slow to move.
There might have been enough poison in that arrow alone to kill him with enough time.
But there was no point in taking that chance.
I nocked my arrow and drew my bow. Sparks spat out of the fire and dragged through the air while I took aim, exhaled deeply, and let the arrow loose with a twang that vibrated through my fingertips.
The Porcugi’s good eye widened, but he didn’t have time to react before my arrow plunged deep into his mouth, burying itself in his palate.
He reared back, flapping his hood as he swung side to side, and then collapsed into the sand, face first. The Porcugi pushed himself up with his arms, and I backed away, but he made no attempt to approach me.
Instead, he dragged himself through the sand, toward his fallen son.
He slowed with every passing moment, and soon the general couldn’t push his own weight any farther.
He stretched out his hand, reaching as far as he could, but he was unable to touch his son, no matter how hard he pulled at the air that separated them.
From beneath his hood, I heard a desperate whisper. “Please.”
Their scaled fingers were so close that if I just moved the son’s hand, the general would be able to touch his child one last time. It would only take a few steps—a few moments of mercy to grant an eternity of peace.
“Please.”
But I did not move. I let them lay there, separated by countless grains of sand as the general’s body began to twitch.
His last exhale was a scream.