Chapter 19
Iave
I settled in for the fight, marking out my kill square with my eyes.
Anyone who crossed that line was going to find the sharp end of my ax.
Nobody was going to get close to the tree that had my mate in it.
It felt strange to enter a battlefield and not be the most powerful weapon on it but Kalani was right, the weapon from the Ancestors could turn the tide, even in a battle as big as this one.
From our vantage point on a hill, at the edge of the woods, I could see far and wide.
I could count the numerous warriors that swarmed around the palisade that protected the village.
I could see the many warriors and hunters that lined those walls and realized that I didn’t like seeing former friends fighting Bitter Storm.
This wasn’t just about protecting the younglings, this was about friends that didn’t have a say in my status as an outcast. Like Khawla, or Imvru, even brash Reshar who was a much younger brother to Zathar.
There were many signs along the palisade that indicated they’d shored up their defenses.
If I looked more closely, the whole village looked abandoned except for those on the walls and I shuddered in relief.
They had been warned; the young and elderly were hidden, probably in the caves some hours from here that we used as cold storage in the hot summer months.
Glancing up, I noticed that Kalani was still ascending the tall Darspine. She was trying to get as high as possible so she had the best view of the entire battlefield. While everything in combat always felt rushed, it was wise that she took her time to do this.
Then my mind flickered back to the words she’d said just before she’d started her climb.
I love you. Love wasn’t a word I knew to associate with a mate, that’s why I’d always called what my parents shared devotion.
But I knew the word love in relation to younglings.
My parents had said that to me each night they tucked me into bed.
My sisters had whispered it in my ear when they thought I was being cute.
I tried to wrap my head around what Kalani meant when she said it.
I love you; it meant she cared very much, it meant devotion.
It meant… So much more than that. It was unconditional.
It felt right, and I was shocked at how strange it was that mates never said that to one another.
Yes, love. That’s what all these feelings were.
That was as good a descriptor as any but above all, it was good to have a word and to use it!
Any day could be the last, and I never wanted to leave my mate without her knowing how much she meant to me.
When I felt her eyes on me, I glanced up and smiled.
She was just so insanely beautiful, my little warrior mate.
A creature of myth that rose like a vengeful Goddess from the woods.
That was Kalani, ready to protect and fight for my people just because she knew that’s what I needed. Protecting my heart.
She shifted her glance from me to the rifle and then sighted down it to the battlefield below us.
I could tell from the tension in her body that she was ready to squeeze off her first shot so I refocused.
As soon as she fired, chaos would ensue.
We were at the back of the army, effectively pinning them between us and the palisade.
As soon as they figured out where we were, they would advance on us, and we had no walls to protect us.
So I would be Kalani’s wall for as long as she needed it.
Her first shot wasn’t like I expected, aimed at one of the figures at the back of the army.
She fired it at the structure Bitter Storm was setting up.
Instantly I recognized how smart that was.
It was a catapult of some kind, and if they got it to work, they would destroy the palisade in minutes.
Her shot crackled into the swinging arm of the catapult, severing the mechanism with its force.
She whooped with exhilaration. “Got it in one, did you see that?” All I could think was that that simple tube might actually pay for the acceptance of my friends back into the Clan.
It was that powerful and now I knew that they absolutely shouldn’t have it.
The Queen would get power-hungry if she had something like that.
I started pointing out figures on the battlefield that looked like important targets, and Kalani squeezed off shot after shot with deadly precision.
It was then that I realized something was extremely off about the entire invading force.
Where was their Warlord? I expected to see a Naga as big as myself, a commander who stood out.
Soon I realized that the force was a disorganized mess, and it took them far too long to discover where Kalani was shooting from. When warriors finally advanced to our position, they looked uncertain and fearful. This wasn’t a victorious, well-prepared army, this was chaos.
I grinned, very well. Chaos worked for me. I loved the chaos of a battle, and this battle seemed more chaotic than most. Bursting into action, I danced with my opponents, grinning with each slash and twist of my weapon. I would let nothing reach my mate’s tree.
Lost to the frenzy now, I only fought and waited.
Waited for my mate’s signal that her rifle was empty and her arrows gone.
Once they rallied to our position, desperate to take us out and end the chaos Kalani caused to their forces, I was swarmed with opponents eager to meet my ax.
The boom of Kalani’s rifle at intervals punctuated my fight.
One particularly vicious set of warriors advanced, grinning their blackened teeth at me.
I dodged and swung, nearly catching a blade across the ribs.
Then one caught me by surprise and I was forced to roll or lose my head.
I ended at the base of the tail of another warrior and he raised a sword over his head, ready to impale me.
Above him, the Darspine in which Kalani perched rose tall and proud.
I caught sight of my mate as she spun around on her perch, her eyes huge in her face as she caught my predicament.
Then the barrel of the rifle tilted down toward me, flashing white-blue at the end of the tube, and the warrior above me collapsed.
With a battle yell, Kalani leaped from the Darspine, a knife, and a red light blade flashing in her hands.
Then it was the two of us back to back, dancing around the warriors, fending them off until we could find our opening to retreat.
Only, that opening didn’t come. Not before horns echoed across the battlefield that called the Bitter Storm warriors to turn tail and run.
***
Kalani
The thick scent of smoke and blood hung heavily in the air and my battle high made way for sadness as I surveyed the damage. This was so pointless, so horrible. Why did everyone in the galaxy insist on fighting these meaningless wars?
On the walls of the village, male and female voices alike were shouting in victory but I didn’t feel the same.
They had won, our presence had turned the tide when we’d destroyed their catapult and ended the lives of several of their leaders.
But I had a feeling something else had been at play here too, this whole battle seemed strange to me now that I replayed it in my head.
“Their Warlord wasn’t there. They didn’t have a single leader calling the shots, there were several…
” Iave said thoughtfully. So he’d seen it too.
An army with no clear chain of command was chaos, no wonder some well-placed shots had caused as much disarray as they had.
I didn’t know how to feel about this, mostly because from what I’d heard, it had been the Warlord that had executed Naomi and now he wasn’t here.
I really would have liked to take a shot at him.
We would have simply picked up our vastly dwindled supplies and left but when Naga exited the village and started calling Iave’s name, we waited.
I was surprised at the large variations in blue that the Thunder Rock Naga managed.
But the one that stood out the most was a slightly older male with the dullest scales.
He had to be one hell of a scout, with how well he blended against the terrain.
“That’s Khawla, the Master Scout,” Iave said quietly under his before they had reached us. I wanted to muffle a laugh at hearing my own thought confirmed but then it really was impossible not to make that connection. The male looked like your eyes could skim right passed him if he froze in place.
Iave crossed his arms over his chest and waited, but he slung the tip of his tail to curl it around my ankle.
His mating marks didn’t light up, the ones he’d called sigils when he’d finally explained it all to me.
Because we’d mated? How had I not noticed it earlier? Now it seemed glaringly obvious to me.
When a handful of Naga males reached us, the scoutmaster in the lead, another thing became obvious as well; Iave’s towering build compared to the rest of them.
He was a giant among giants, a little wider in the shoulder, a little taller, his chest bigger, his arms just…
more. That wasn’t to say that any of the other Naga were small.
They easily outsized any human male, even the bulkiest weight fanatics I’d known in the Marines.
Iave was just even bigger than they were.
“Your timing couldn’t have been better!” another male exclaimed as he moved to line up next to the scoutmaster. This male darted his eyes from Iave with a hint of admiration to look at me with surprise and confusion. “Another hu-man? Where did you find this one?”